The Times Union published a story about people from the area headed to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Among those interviewed was Nadia Alexis ’09, a co-chair of the Black Student Union, which organized a campus trip to the historic event. The article also included a photo of Alexis and other members of the group who will make the trip.
To read the story, click here (registration may be required).
Read MoreBoston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham wrote a piece on the Posse Foundation Inc., which trains promising students from public high schools to form multicultural teams for enrollment at top colleges.
Abraham spoke with the mother of a high school student who will be part of Union's Class of 2013. Union’s Posse Scholars are recruited from the Posse Foundation’s student leadership program in the Boston area.
To read the column, click here (registration may be required).
An ethnically diverse group, the Posse Scholars are high-achieving, highly motivated students who enhance the breadth and depth of Union’s rich educational experience.
The Boston branch of the foundation works with selective schools like Union, Hamilton College and Bryn Mawr College to recruit ethnically diverse groups of potential student leaders. The Posse Foundation runs programs based in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.
The foundation’s name was inspired by a conversation with an inner city New York City dropout who never would have left college “if I had my posse with me.”
Read MoreThe machine resembles one of those instant photo booths at the mall, but instead of taking your picture and printing out copies, it displays your face on someone of another race. You can be Asian, black, Middle Eastern, white, Hispanic.
The Human Race Machine, invented in 2000, has appeared at colleges like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Penn State University. It's at Union all this week, adding something different to this year's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Series.
“We thought, ‘What can we do that’s never been down before?’” said Karen Ferrer-Muniz, director of Multicultural Affairs and Campus Diversity. “We wanted something that would really match our generation of students, students who are so visually-driven and technology-based when it comes to learning.”
The Human Race Machine fit the bill perfectly. Using a computerized morphing program, the machine captures your image and then subtly changes your features to fit those of another race. In short, it shows you what you would look like as someone else.
On Monday, the first day the machine was open to the Union community, students like Mayleen Rivera ’11 enjoyed a unique experience.
“When you saw yourself as a different race, it was like, wow,” she said. “I really looked like a real person, a different person.”
During discussion sessions held Monday with Ferrer-Muniz, Senior Director of Campus Diversity Gretchel Tyson, and Director of Counseling Services Marcus Hotaling, people were also asked to talk about their perceptions of race. Individuals were simultaneously engaged in an interactive quiz to convey pertinent information, like the fact that there’s 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-Muniz agrees.
“This is a way of people seeing themselves as someone else, which 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 available for use downstairs in the Reamer Campus Center all week. For more information on the machine, click here.
Read MoreAs a chemistry student at Union, Joseph James ’69 set his sights on a career in the sciences. But a national tragedy changed those plans.
"In my junior year, Martin Luther King was killed, at a time when he was working on the economics of being a free person,” James recalled recently. “It became very clear to me that I didn’t want to spend my life in a lab. I wanted to be involved with the community, particularly on the economic side.”
The passion that grew from this decision fueled a lifelong career in economic development. It also earned James a 2008 Purpose Prize worth $100,000.
The national award recognizes one of his latest initiatives, “The Greening of Black America – A Rural Development Opportunity.” The project, like much of his other work, creates economic practices that maintain equity for disadvantaged people and communities.
Purpose Prizes, given to those over 60 who are taking on society’s biggest challenges, are part of the Encore Careers campaign, which engages baby boomers to work in jobs that combine social impact and personal meaning.
For James, participating in the South’s growing green economy is a way to stabilize the declining number of black farmers and reduce rural poverty. One of its key components is creating opportunities for black farmers in South Carolina in the growing biomass industry. The effort, for instance, encourages production of oil seed crops like sunflower, sesame and canola seeds.
“The Greening of Black America” also strives to help farmers increase their earnings and reduce “food-miles” by selling produce directly to local consumers. Next spring, the Corporation for Economic Opportunity hopes to launch a farmers’ market at a 6,000-member church in South Carolina.
James, 61, launched the non-profit Corporation for Economic Opportunity in 2004 after leaving his job with the South Carolina Commerce Department. He lives in Columbia, S.C., and has held top-level economic development positions in Austin, Chicago, Philadelphia and Richmond.
To view a video about James’s project, click here.
Read MoreThursday, Jan. 22, 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. / Schaffer Library, Phi Beta Kappa Room /
Philosophy Speakers Series presents Tom Kasulis of The Ohio State University, on “Zen Buddhism and Creativity”; co-sponsored with Religious Studies
Thursday, Jan. 22, 7- 8 p.m. / Breazzano House / Memorial and candlelight vigil for Mumbai; co-sponsored with Hillel
Friday, Jan. 23, 7 p.m. / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women’s hockey vs. St. Lawrence (ECAC contest)
Friday, Jan. 23- Jan. 26, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: “Zack and Miri”
Saturday, Jan. 24, 4 p.m. / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women’s hockey vs. Clarkson (ECAC contest)
Saturday, Jan. 24, 6 p.m. -10 p.m. / Old Chapel / Lunar New Year/ Sponsored by ASU and UProgram, celebrating the year of the ox
Sunday, Jan. 25, 8 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Chamber Concert Series presents: Emanuel Ax, piano
Tuesday, Jan. 27, 6-7:30 p.m. / Blue House / Lambda Pi Chi presidential discussion: “Is America Ready?”
Thursday, Jan. 29, 4:30 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Lecture: “Mexican Art Today: Enrique Chagoya and Nahum Zenil” by Guisela Latore, assistant professor at The Ohio State University; part of a series of events connected with the Mandeville Gallery’s “Parabolas Mexicanas – Paintings, Prints and Drawings by Bernardo González and Francisco Verástegui”
Friday, Jan. 30, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: “Role Models”
Saturday, Jan. 31, 4 p.m. / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women’s hockey vs. Dartmouth (ECAC contest)
Thursday, Jan. 29, 7 p.m. / Yulman Theater / Department of English presents a staged reading of "Election Day," a play by Schenectady native Josh Tobiessen. Tobiessen holds a master’s degree in theatre and drama from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and an MFA in playwriting from the University of California, San Diego. "Election Day" was a finalist in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and received its professional premiere in 2007 with Second Stage Theatre’s Uptown Series in New York, where the New York Times called it “an outrageous comedy.” Josh is the son of Peter Tobiessen, professor of biology emeritus, and Joanne Tobiessen, retired director of Becker Career Center.
Friday, Jan. 30, 7 p.m. / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women’s hockey vs. Harvard (ECAC contest)
Sunday, Feb. 1, 3 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Chamber Concert Series presents: Emerson String Quartet
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