Laura MacManus-Spencer, assistant professor of chemistry, recently received a Single Investigator Cottrell College Science Award in the amount of $43,036 from Research Corporation. The title of her proposal is “A mechanistic investigation of the role of suspended particles on the photochemical degradation of emerging contaminants in surface waters.”
Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, is co-author of a recent article in Physical Review Letters, titled “Precise Measurement of the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor GMn in the Few-GeV2 Region.” This paper reports on the results of an experiment performed with the Large Acceptance Spectrometer in Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va., that provides important information about the motion of quarks inside the neutron. The experiment was proposed to the Program Advisory Committee at Jefferson Lab by Professor Vineyard and Will Brooks, a research professor at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile and formerly a Jefferson Lab staff scientist.
Photo by Marty Benjamin – thoroughbred horse
A photograph by Martin Benjamin, professor of visual arts, was published on the cover of Thoroughbred Times’ Jan. 31 issue. The photo was of 2008 and 2009 Horse of the Year (annual Eclipse Awards) Curlin with his owner after an early morning workout at Saratoga Racetrack’s Okalahoma Training Center. In addition, a three-column wide Benjamin photo of former Senate Majority leader Joseph Bruno was published in the Jan. 24 issue of The New York Daily News. Two of Benjamin’s photographs from the permanent collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz were included in an exhibition “All Hot and Bothered,” curated by Ariel Shanberg of the Center for Photography at Woodstock and Brian Wallace, curator at the Dorsky Museum. The exhibition of 35 photographs was held in the museum’s Howard Greenberg Family Gallery.
Seniors Erin Schumaker and Jared Iacolucci weren’t completely prepared for what they saw during their recent mini-term at the Mexican-American border. But that hasn’t prevented them from helping people living in limbo between the two countries.
“We’d talked about everything on the way there,” said Schumaker, an English literature and Spanish student. “But going there, you get perspectives you can’t get in a book or classroom.”
Learning about the fate of some immigrants who are deported from the United States was particularly eye-opening.
2009 Davis Projects for Peace scholars are, from left, seniors Jared Iacolucci, Erin Schumaker and Kaitlyn Evans.
Schumaker and Iacolucci explained that once detained by border patrol, undocumented immigrants can spend lengthy periods of time in ill-equipped centers without enough food or water. Others are dropped off in border towns where, lacking the means to return home, they become stranded.
“This is not something you think happens in the U.S.,” said Iacolucci, a history major. “Seeing it first-hand makes you want to do something to help.”
Iacolucci, Schumaker and another classmate, Kaitlyn Evans ’09, are recent winners of the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Projects for Peace award. The $10,000-prize will support the team’s efforts to research life in border towns and raise awareness of the plight of people there.
In July, the three will fly to Phoenix, where they’ll purchase a used car that will take them to the Migrant Resource Center in Naco, Mexico. The car will be donated to the center, located just south of Tucson, when they return home in September.
During their stay, the students will live at the facility with the migrants. They hope to forge relationships that will make the second part of their project possible.
“We’re going to compile a book of personal stories printed along side the migrants’ own art, photographs and poetry,” said Evans, an English major with a photography background.
“We want to show what the reality of deportation can be like and put a face on this important issue,” Schumaker added.
Evans didn’t participate in the borderlands mini-term, but she’s had similarly powerful international experiences that have prepared her to work there.
“I spent my mini-term in South Africa, where we interviewed prisoners and spent time learning how to get oral histories and how to ask questions,” Evans said. “This, and tutoring children here, has really helped me learn how to relate to people.”
Iacolucci, Evans and Schumaker plan to pursue publication of their book once it’s finished. With a little guidance from Professor Victoria Martinez, who specializes in border studies and inspired the students to work there, they plan to shed new light on the complex immigration situation.
Naco, a border town Erin Schumaker '09 and Jared Iacolucci '09 visited during a recent mini-term
“This is so close to home, but it’s an issue people are not as aware of as they should be,” Iacolucci said. “We really hope our work changes that.”
Davis Projects for Peace, designed to encourage motivated youth to create and implement ideas that promote peace, is now in its third year. It’s also the third year Union students have been named recipients.
Last year, Kara Lightman ’09 received support for her work with women in Cambodia, and in 2007, Karyn Amira ’08 was aided in her efforts to curb landmines in the same country.
To learn more about the program, which supports 100 projects annually, click here.
The Kenney Community Center will host its 13th annual U-Care Day Carnival at Memorial Field House on Sunday, May 17, from noon until 3 p.m. The free event is open to the public and features a variety of fun activities for children, including spin art and other crafts, games and prizes, a puck shoot, a bouncy bounce castle and more.
U-care day
The Union Community Action Reaching Everyone (U-Care) program helps connect undergraduates with community organizations and volunteer services. U-Care Day allows student groups and local families to celebrate their accomplishments.
“Different fraternities, sororities, clubs, teams and organizations get together to provide local children with a day of fun and excitement at the carnival,” said Cybil Tribie ’11, one of the event’s student organizers. “Last year, we had the highest attendance ever with over 300 children from the community and more than 150 volunteers from all over campus.”
Free lunch, ice cream and snacks will be provided for all who attend.
For more information, call 388-6777 or click here.
Thursday, May 14, 4:30 p.m. / Schaffer Library, Phi Beta Kappa Room / Philosophy Speaker Series presents Rachel Cohon of the University at Albany on “Hume’s Indirect Passions and the Motives of Virtuous Actions”
Thursday, May 14, 5-7 p.m. / Blue House / Asian Awareness and Pacific Islander Awareness discussion series
Art Night Schenectady
Thursday, May 14, 7-9 p.m. / Beuth (outside) / Film: "Darfur Now," presented by Campus Action in conjunction with Darfur Awareness Week
Friday, May 15, 5–9 p.m. / Mandeville Gallery and various downtown Schenectady establishments / Art Night Schenectady
Friday, May 15, 5-8 p.m. / The Nott / Golub and Sigma Phi present "Art for Progress"
Friday, May 15 – Monday, May 18, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: “He’s Just Not That into You”
Friday, May 15-Saturday, May 16, 7 p.m.-7 a.m. / Bailey Field and track / Relay for Life
Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m. / Octopus’s Garden (between Wells and McKean houses) / Garden planting: set plants in soil, install watering system, and add signage and stakes; food to be donated to Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and used at campus eateries, including Ozone Café and 03 Marketplace. Contact: Connie Schmitz at octopusgarden@union.edu
Saturday, May 16, 6:30-8:30 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Shakti Spring Show
Sunday, May 17, noon / Memorial Field House / U-Care Day Carnival
Monday, May 18, 7:30 p.m. / Visual Arts Building, Room 215 / Matthew Bondurant reads from "The Wettest County in the World, " his novel about bootlegging and general misbehavior in rural Virginia in the early part of the last century, with main characters based on members of his family. Green House will host a dinner with him for Green House faculty and students.
The Newark Community Union Project (NCUP) Police Brutality March across Broad and Market Street in Newark, NJ, 1965.
Credit:
Doug Eldridge Collection
Monday May 18, 3-4:30 p.m. / Golub House / Informal conversation with filmmakers Marylou and Jerome Bongiorno of Bongiorno Productions, about their award-winning film, “Revolution ’67,” depicting the summer 1967 Newark, N.J., race riots
Monday, May 18, 7 p.m. / F.W.Olin Auditorium / Film screening: “Revolution ’67,” which has won a number of international film festival awards; Marylou and Jerome Bongiorno of Bongiorno Productions will screen the film
Tuesday, May 19, 12:45 p.m. / Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum Luncheon Workshop with Rosamond Rhodes, professor of philosophy, CUYNY, and director of Bioethics Education,Mount Sinai School of Medicine; RSVP to Marianne Snowden (snowdenm@union.edu)
Tuesday, May 19, 6 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Emerson Auditorium / “A Celebration of Spring” concert featuring the Taiko Ensemble; sponsored by Department of Music and East Asian Studies program
Wednesday, May 20, 5 p.m. / Becker Career Center / “Graduating Without a Job, Now What?”
Thursday, May 21, 7:30 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Emerson Auditorium / Tim Olsen Trio + 1, final program in the Department of Music’s “A Trio of Trios.” Features Professor Olsen on piano, Eric Walentowicz on sax, John Menegon on bass and Dave Ratajczak on drums performing originals and jazz standards; free and open to the public
Friday, May 22, 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. / Hale House /Faculty forum on "Improving Student Outcomes in Gateway Introductory Courses," addressing why talented students of color struggle with introductory courses, especially in the sciences and engineering. Features speakers from Barnard, Carleton, Grinnell, Hamilton, Mt. Holyoke, Olin and Wellesley colleges and Columbia University, and Union Dean of Engineering Cherrice Traver, the David Falk and Elynor Rudnick-Falk Professor of Computer Engineering. Sponsored by Consortium on High Achievement and Success (CHAS); free for Union faculty and staff. To register, click here.
Friday, May 22, 3:30-5:30 p.m. / AUM Hindu Association and the Kenney Community Center 's annual Holi event
Friday, May 22 – Monday, May 25, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: “Coraline”
Dozens of people packed the Nott Monday afternoon, listening as Union’s first class of Minerva Fellows shared the successes, embarrassments, hardships and happiness they experienced helping the poor in developing countries.
The Minerva Fellows
The eight members of the Class of 2008 participated in a panel discussion and presented a multimedia show of the last 11 months they spent in Southern Uganda, Cambodia, India, South Africa or Southern Malawi. The event was part of their commitment to spend the month of May on campus, giving guest lectures in classes, hosting public discussions and raising awareness of the situations they encountered abroad.
The fellows – Rebecca Broadwin, Stephen Po-Chedley, Jonathan Hill, Robert Flick, Alex Butts, Emily Laing, David Shulman, and Lara Levine – learned about more than just the enormous need for education, food, shelter and medical services, though. They said they also discovered how resilient and wonderful human beings can be.
Minerva Fellow Lara Levine '08 chats with her family and Tom McEvoy, associate dean of students and director of Minerva Progams, before the panel discussion.
“There were these children living on the streets with no parents, who had basically nothing, and they still got up everyday for class,” said Flick, who worked in Cambodia. “You do learn a lot about the strength of the human spirit from something like this.”
All eight fellows will present a similar program in the Nott Friday, May 29 at 7:30 p.m. during ReUnion weekend. This event will also feature food from the regions each student visited.
