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Posted on Sep 21, 2010

Fight choreography by William Finlay;
Finlay, chair of theater and dance, and director of the Yulman Theater, recently served as fight choreographer for “Filo al Fuego (Blade to the Heat)” at Teatro Prometeo, the largest Hispanic theater company in Miam

William Finlay, chair of theater and dance, and director of the Yulman Theater, recently served as fight choreographer for “Filo al Fuego (Blade to the Heat)” at Teatro Prometeo, the largest Hispanic theater company in Miami, based at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson campus. The play, about professional boxing in 1960s Miami, was part of the International Hispanic Theater Festival this summer.

Pilar Moyano, professor of Spanish, presented a paper at the XVII Conference of the International Association of Hispanists held in July at the Sapienza Universitá di Roma. The paper was titled “Representaciones literarias de los niños del exilio republicano en México.”

“Boxed Sets, Charles Steckler Dioramas and Stage Designs” will be on view at the Perella Gallery at Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown, N.Y. Sept. 24- Dec. 10. A reception is set for Sept. 24, 7-9 p.m. Charles Steckler is professor of theater and resident scenic designer. “Boxed Sets” is a career survey of his perspective boxes, or dioramas, and his stage settings for theater presented in production photographs.  

Maritza Osuna, senior lecturer of Spanish, presented a paper at the XIV World Congress of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) in Istanbul, Turkey in June. The paper was titled “Rethinking Boundaries in Development within a Systematic Framework." The theme for the congress was “Bordering, Re-Bordering and New Possibilities in Education and Society.”

Christopher Chabris, assistant professor of psychology, and his co-author, Daniel Simons, professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, recently appeared on the “Today Show” to discuss their book, “The Invisible Gorilla” (Crown, 2010), and research into the science of attention. To see the video clip, click here.  Their work was also featured on NPR’s Science Friday.  

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College welcomes new faculty members

Posted on Sep 16, 2010

Union welcomes the following faculty members to campus this year:

CHEMISTRY
Jesse Carrick, visiting assistant professor, receivedhis Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Alabama and worked as a senior research scientist for Albany Molecular Research, Inc. His research involves using applied pharmaceutical research on the process development and kilogram synthesis of an API selected for scale up.

Margot Paulick, assistant professor (effective Jan. 1), received her Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. She has been working on proteins involved in cancer and in asthma pathology.
 

CLASSICS
Tommaso Gazzarri,
visiting assistant professor, received his Ph.D. from Yale University. His research interests include Silver Latin literature, Roman comedy, Roman stoicism, ancient rhetoric and ancient medicine. He has taught courses at Johns Hopkins University and Yale.
 

ENGLISH
Jill Murphy,
assistant professor (formerly a visiting professor) received her Ph.D. in English and American Literature from the University of Albany. Her teaching and research concentrations include colonial through early 20th century American literature, trauma studies, psychoanalysis and literature, and women’s studies. She has taught at the State University of New York and College of St. Rose.

Patricia Wareh, assistant professor, received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Her teaching interests are Renaissance poetry, prose and drama; subjectivity, virtue and rhetoric; women in Renaissance literature; and classical literature and the Renaissance. She has taught at Carleton College, Indiana University and UC, Berkeley.
 

FILM STUDIES
James de Sève,
visiting instructor, is in the M.F.A. program in integrated electronic arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has taught at Union, Rensselaer, the Sanctuary for Independent Media, and Film/ Video Arts in New York City. He has extensive knowledge of Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, AVID and Premiere.


GEOLOGY
David Gillikin,
assistant professor, received his Ph.D. from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. He has taught at Vassar College, SUNY New Paltz and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His recent research involves the validation of bivalve shell geochemistry as a proxy of climate change. Other interests include biogeochemistry and ecophysiology.

Matthew Manon, visiting assistant professor, received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His research interests include: combining PT-Pseudosections with traditional thermobarometry; experimental determination of the thermodynamic properties of minerals; tectonic implications of high-pressure metamorphism; and thermobarometry of accessory minerals assemblages.


MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Glenn Sanders,
visiting assistant professor, received his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has taught there and has worked in many labs in New York state.


MODERN LANGUAGES
Zhen Zhang,
assistant professor of Chinese (formerly a visiting professor), received his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Irvine. He has taught there as well as at SUNY Stony Brook and Beijing University. His primary areas of interests are modern Chinese language, literature and film; critical theory and cultural studies; social ecology, urban and rural studies; and modernity, subjectivity, and the everyday.


POLITICAL SCIENCE
Mark Dallas,
instructor, is working on his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley in political science. His primary areas of interest include comparative politics, methodology and East Asian politics.

Christina Xydias, visiting assistant professor, received her Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University. She specializes in comparative politics, contemporary political theory, and women and politics.


PSYCHOLOGY
Tina Sutton,
visiting assistant professor, received her Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from the University at Albany. Her research interests include the psychology of language, cognition and emotion; emotion word representation within and across languages; and bilingualism. She has taught at the University at Albany and the College of St. Rose.


RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Olga Solovieva,
visiting assistant professor, received her Ph.D. in religion from Syracuse University. She has taught at Skidmore College, Ithaca College, Syracuse University and Omske State University in Russia. Her teaching areas include world religions, religion and culture, Christianity, Islam, and Ancient Greek and Graeco-Roman religions. Her research areas are Christianity in late antiquity; Graeco-Roman religions; asceticism; and biblical exegesis.


THEATER & DANCE
Brittney Belz,
visiting assistant professor, holds an MFA in costume design/technology from the University of Virginia. She has extensive experience in the field, having worked on productions with UVA; Glimmerglass Opera; Williams College Theatre; Capital Repertory Theatre, Albany; Weston Playhouse, Vermont; the Connecticut Repertory Theatre; Miss Hall’s School, Pittsfield, Mass.; and Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. She has taught courses and workshops in costume design, costume technology, the history of dress and basics of corsetry building.  

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Campus Safety Day set for Oct. 1

Posted on Sep 16, 2010

Union’s 3rd Annual Safety Day will be held Friday Oct. 1, 9 a.m.- 1 p.m. in front of  Reamer Campus Center.

Lesson in fire safety – students watch firefightser out out exhibition fire during educational event Thursday, Sept. 25

Local fire departments, law enforcement and other agencies join Campus Safety, Health Services, Emergency Medical Services and other campus groups in providing information on fire and personal safety. 

Agencies that will be present include: New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control; Schenectady fire and police departments; Schenectady County Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney’s Office, Rape Crisis and Office of Emergency Management; New York State Police; and Life Net Helicopter, Fatal Vision DWI Simulator and K-9 Team.

Also participating are Union College Life Safety, Campus Safety, RESIST Training, EMS, Health Services and Counseling Services.

A live mock dorm room burn is scheduled for 12:45 p.m. There will be a raffle for prizes at the Life Safety Booth, thanks to the event’s sponsors, Lowe’s Home Improvement of Glenville, Marty’s True Value of Schenectady and Scott’s Quality Care Auto Service. Refreshments are provided.

 

 

 

 

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Tenure committees formed

Posted on Sep 16, 2010

Ad hoc committees are reviewing the tenure of four professors: Shane Cotter, Lewis Davis, Stacie Raucci, and Lisa Warenski. Members of the Union Community may submit written comments on their teaching, service or scholarship to committee members. Committees (with chairs listed first) are:

Shane Cotter (Electrical & Computer Engineering):

Steven Sargent (History – sargents@union.edu); Ekram Hassib (Electrical & Computer Engineering); Aaron Cass (Computer Science); and Davide Cervone (Mathematics)

Lewis Davis (Economics):

Suzanne Benack (Psychology – benacks@union.edu); Fuat Sener (Economics); Robert Hislope (Political Science); and Charles Steckler (Theatre & Dance)

Stacie Raucci (Classics):

Julius Barbanel (Mathematics – barbanej@union.edu); Hans Mueller (Classics); Pilar Moyano (Modern Languages); and Younghwan Song (Economics)

Lisa Warenski (Philosophy):

Linda Cool (Anthropology – cooll@union.edu); Charles Batson (Modern Languages); Leonardo Zaibert (Philosophy); and William Zwicker (Mathematics)

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People in the news

Posted on Sep 16, 2010

Michael F. Vineyard, the Frank & Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics, presented a poster titled "The Upper-Level Laboratory at Union College" at the 2010 Gordon Research Conference on Physics Research and Education at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass. in June, and at the 2010 Summer Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Portland, Oregon, in July. The poster, co-authored by physics senior lecturer Scott LaBrake, professor Seyffie Maleki and associate professor Chad Orzel, highlighted some of the development work they did on experiments in an advanced laboratory course.

“Institutional Flexibility and Economic Growth,” by Lewis Davis, assistant professor of Economics, appears in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics. The article develops a formal model that addresses the interdependence between a society’s economic and institutional evolution. Davis argues that a society’s long run rate of growth depends less on the quality of its economic institutions – the laws and regulations that govern economic interactions – than on the legal and political structures that determine its capacity to develop new institutions in response to changing economic conditions. 

Daniel Mosquera, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, was invited over the summer to the graduate seminar “Transmisión de Saberes y Cultura Letrada y no Letrada en el siglo XIX Mexicano” at UNAM’s Instituto de Investigaciones sobre la Universidad y la Educación in Mexico City. There, he gave a presentation and led a discussion on marketplaces and religious devotions as cultural spaces of popular cultural resilience and socialization in Mexico and Colombia during colonial times. He also co-organized the recent bi-yearly ALARA (Afro Latin American Research Association) Conference, which took place in Lima, Peru in August.

In addition, Mosquera is joining the editorial board of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (JLACS), an international publication based in England that is concerned with fostering interdisciplinary work on Latin American culture and cultural history and with encouraging debate on the teaching and reception of Latin American Cultural materials.

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