Posted on Jan 21, 2009

Lisa Simmons, Union’s crime prevention specialist, is looking forward to her new role ensuring the security of the college community.

“I like knowing that I’m part of maintaining this wonderful campus,” Simmons said. “My job is to assist campus safety in its ongoing efforts to continue providing a safe campus for everyone, whether students or faculty.”

Simmons, who was Albany’s first black female police officer, spent 20 years with the Albany Police Department. She retired from the force in 2007 and took a year off to spend with her young daughter before joining the Union staff in December.

In assisting campus safety with its duties, Simmons is responsible for conducting crime prevention programs, and preparing and sharing crime prevention information. She will also serve on various committees within the college community.

While she’s been here only a short time, Simmons is already actively engaging Union faculty, staff and students in safety discussions. On Tuesday, Jan. 27, she’ll participate in a program called RESIST, or Rape Education, Safety and Instinctive Self-Defense Techniques.

“It’s designed to educate participants in various safety techniques, like being alert and aware of your surroundings,” Simmons said. “The program also provides advice on reducing or eliminating opportunities for victimization, plus there’s a component that teaches basic self-defense tactics.”

Steve Leavitt, dean of students and vice president of Student Affairs, said the newly created position comes after discussions in the fall with sororities and other student groups interested in promoting safety on campus.

“We felt it was important to develop better communication between Campus Safety and students and to educate students about safety,” he said. “It could be something as simple as locking doors.”

Student Government President Jillian Bannister ’09 agrees that communication is important and that the College made a good decision hiring Simmons.

“I think it’s a great move,” she said. “I’m interested to see where it goes. It couldn’t do anything but be a positive thing.”

Simmons’ office is located in College Park Hall. She can be reached at simmonsl@union.edu. For more information on safety-related resources available to the campus community, go to: www.union.edu/safety.   

Posted on Jan 20, 2009

Jill Hungsberg has been named senior director of communications and marketing at Union College following a national search. The job had been vacant since 2006.

Hungsberg will oversee the Office of Communications, whose responsibilities include media and public relations, publications, the alumni magazine, the College’s Web site and the Chronicle, a weekly internal newsletter.

A native of Indiana, Hungsberg joined Union part-time in June as a special projects manager. Before that, she was a marketing manager for SIRVA, a global relocation company based in Chicago.

Hungsberg also has held marketing positions at General Mills and Target. In addition, she has served as a consultant for several Fortune 500 companies, non-profits and educational institutions. She was an adjunct faculty member in the marketing department at Lewis University’s College of Business in Chicago.

“We are pleased to have someone with Jill’s expertise and leadership skills join the College,” said Stephen Dare, vice president for College Relations. “It’s clear to me that ‘communications’ and the ‘marketing of Union’ will have a role for everyone across campus, and we look forward to Jill’s talents in leading that effort.”

Hungsberg has a bachelor’s in English and French from the University of Virginia and a master’s of business administration in marketing and finance from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Posted on Jan 20, 2009

Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve who recently was picked by President Barack Obama to lead a new economic advisory panel, will be the featured speaker at Commencement, College officials announced today.

Approximately 500 students in the Class of 2009 will receive their degrees during the ceremony, scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday, June 14, on Hull Plaza.

In choosing Volcker to help the new administration deal with the ongoing financial crisis, Obama described him as “one of the world’s foremost economic policy experts” with a “long and distinguished record of service to our nation.”

Volcker, 81, will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from Union.

“We are extremely fortunate and honored to have someone of Paul Volcker’s stature as our Commencement speaker,” said President Stephen C. Ainlay. “His remarkable achievements and work as a tireless public servant will serve as an inspiration to our new graduates.”

Volcker was appointed chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and reappointed in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, serving until 1987. He is widely credited with reining in high inflation in the 1980s with a series of courageous, if sometimes unpopular tactics, including raising interest rates.

After leaving the Fed, Volcker was chairman of Wolfensohn and Co., retiring in 1996 when the firm merged with Bankers Trust. From 1996 to 1999, he headed a committee formed to determine existing dormant accounts and other assets in Swiss banks of victims of Nazi persecution. From 2000 to 2005, Volcker served as chairman of the board of trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee, overseeing a renewed effort to develop consistent, high-quality accounting standards acceptable in all countries. In 2003, he headed a private Commission on the Public Service, which recommended sweeping overhauls of the organization and personnel practices of the federal government.

In 2004, Volcker was asked by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to chair the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations Oil for Food Program. In 2007, he was asked by the president of the World Bank to chair a panel of experts to review the operations of the Department of Institutional Integrity.

Educated at Princeton, Harvard and the London School of Economics, Volcker is professor emeritus of International Economic Policy at Princeton. He was the first Henry Kaufman Visiting Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

This year will mark the College’s 215^th Commencement.

Posted on Jan 19, 2009

 Members of the Union community are invited to gather in the Reamer Campus Center auditorium Tuesday, starting at 11:30 a.m., for the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama. The viewing of the broadcast coincides with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Series, and is sponsored by Campus Diversity, Student Activities and Multicultural Affairs.

Posted on Jan 19, 2009

The Human Race Machine resembles an instant photo booth at the mall, but instead of taking your picture, it slightly modifies the characteristics of your face to resemble those of different ethnic groups. You can be Asian, black, Middle Eastern, white, Hispanic.

The machine, invented in 2000, has been at Union all week, adding something different to this year's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Series.

“We wanted something that would match our generation of students, students who are so visually-driven and technology-based when it comes to learning,” said Karen Ferrer-Muñiz, director of Multicultural Affairs and Campus Diversity.

Using a computerized morphing program, the Human Race Machine captures a person’s image and then subtly changes features to fit those of another race.

“It was like, wow,” said Mayleen Rivera ’11, one of the first to try it. “I looked like a real person, a different person.”

During discussion sessions held Monday, Ferrer-Muñiz, Gretchel Tyson, senior director of Campus Diversity, and Marcus Hotaling, director of Counseling Services, asked people to talk about their perceptions of race. Individuals were simultaneously engaged in an interactive quiz to convey pertinent information, like the fact that there is no definitively indentifying trait or gene present in all members of one race and absent in another.

Jessica Strang ’12 found her "facetime" valuable. “I never thought I could see myself as another race,” she said. “It gives you a unique perspective on things.”

Ferrer-Muñiz agrees.

“This way of people seeing themselves as someone else is perfect for Martin Luther King Day,” she said. “That is what he asked us to do – he wanted us to see ourselves in others.”

The Human Race Machine will be at Reamer through Friday, Jan. 23.