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Peter Bonventre ’11 is Union’s latest Goldwater Scholar

Posted on Apr 5, 2010

For Union’s latest Goldwater Scholar, the best work comes from a group.

Peter Bonventre ’11 is a math and physics major who loves to meet friends in the common areas of the physics department and Bailey Hall late at night. They scribble equations on a white board or chalk board and hash out the results.

 “The camaraderie of sharing ideas and working together to solve a common problem has been a foundation of my experience with mathematicians and physicists,” he said. “There is nothing quite like working with your fellow classmates until the small hours of the morning, filling boards with diagrams, equations and potential solutions.

Peter Bonventre '11 Goldwater Scholar

“It is not only the way in which you can attack and dissect these problems … but also the mutual gain for all involved, and the joy and pride of finding the perfect solution to the problem,” he said.

The Goldwater Scholarship, the premiere undergraduate award for students pursuing careers in mathematics, natural sciences and engineering, honors the memory of U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater.

Bonventre is the eighth Union student to win the award since 2002. He will receive $7,500 per year to cover tuition, fees, books, and room and board.

“The Goldwater is a nice recognition for me, the departments and the College,” he said. “And it’s an important credential for further study.”

Bonventre, who took a minor in classics to learn more about the ancient Greek at the foundation of math and science, is active outside the classroom. He is a member of the Ballroom Dancing Club and Rugby Club. He is a classical pianist who has performed a number of recitals. He plays tenor saxophone in the Jazz Ensemble.

He is the co-author, with professor Samuel Amanuel and other students, of a paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry that addresses the question of how physical confinement (to nano scale) and interfaces influence melting and freezing behaviors of molecules. He also has conducted research with professor Michael Vineyard.

Last year, he earned the James Henry Turnbull Prize as the outstanding sophomore in physics. He is a member of Eta Sigma Phi, the national classics honor society. As a member of the College’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students, he has done a number of science outreach programs for local children.

Bonventre is a 2007 graduate of Bethlehem Central High School, with a strong connection to Union. As a high school student, he did research on Union’s particle accelerator with professor Scott LaBrake and Byron Dieterle, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico.

His father, Vincent M. Bonventre ’70 is a professor at Albany Law School. His mother, Karen Bonner Bonventre, who earned her master of arts in teaching from Union Graduate College in 1999, teaches history at Shenendehowa High School. His brother, Richie Bonventre ’08, is pursuing a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pennsylvania. His eldest brother, Martin, is a student at Albany Law School.

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Union’s latest peace scholars headed to Kenya

Posted on Mar 24, 2010

Their summer is for the birds – chickens to be precise – and sophomores Jonathan Chew and Mcolisi Dlamini couldn’t be happier about it. To fight famine and promote self-sustainability, the two mechanical engineering students will spend their vacation building a poultry farm in Kenya.

It’s an expensive proposition, what with the cost of travel, construction material, labor, training and chickens. But thanks to their recent Kathryn Wasserman Davis Projects for Peace award, Chew and Dlamini will have the funds to farm. With the $10,000 prize, they’ll build the operation at Koimbi Orphanage in Kenya’s Muranga District.

“The goal is to develop a source of food and income for the orphanage that will make it more independent and less reliant on donors,” Dlamini said.

He speaks from experience, with personal knowledge of their need for agricultural, financial and economic self-reliance. In July 2007, Dlamini visited Koimbi with Kumbuka Universal Learning Experience (KULE).

Mcolisi Dlamini '12 stands with Samuel, one of the children at Koimbi, during his 2007 trip with Kumbuka Universal Learning Experience.

“Most the children at Koimbi have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS,” he said. “My own country, Swaziland, has the highest rate of HIV infection at about 26 percent, and also has a growing number of orphans. So hearing their stories was very moving.”

It was also galvanizing.

“When I visited Koimbi, KULE brought a few bags of corn and beans,” Dlamini said. “I can recall Grace, one of the caretakers, saying, ‘You saved us, we were just running out.’ We hope this project will improve the orphans’ health.”

Chew and Dlamini also hope it will serve as a model for the rest of the country, which still bears the scars of horrible violence that occurred after a fraudulent, Kenyan presidential election in 2007. The unprecedented turbulence resulted in hundreds of deaths and the internal displacement of a quarter-million people.

“The construction process and daily operation of this farm are chances to cultivate self-empowerment, financial independence and a spark for progress in children and adults,” said Chew, who is from Malaysia. “Our vision is for this community to be an example of a peaceful, stable, progressive and involved society – we want it to inspire the nation.”

The pair will be aided by KULE, which has a strong working relationship with the community and has successfully launched a similar poultry project for women.

Davis Projects for Peace, designed to encourage motivated youth to create and implement ideas that promote peace, is now in its fourth year. It’s also the fourth year Union students have been named recipients.

Last year’s scholars, Jared Iacolucci ‘09, Erin Schumaker ‘09 and Kaitlyn Evans ‘09, raised awareness of the plight of immigrants in the border town of Naco, Mexico. In 2008, Kara Lightman ‘09 strove to help Cambodian women escape lives of poverty through education, and in 2007, Karyn Amira ‘08 worked to curb landmines in the same country.

To learn more about the program, which supports 100 projects annually, click here.

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At Union, a different kind of test

Posted on Jul 10, 2009

Larry Rulison of the Times Union recently visited Beuth House for a closer look at a new residential fuel cell being tested by Plug Power Inc.

The Latham, N.Y. company selected Beuth House as the host site for the new cell, which will convert natural gas into electricity and high-quality heat for students living in the residence hall.

To read the story, click here (registration may be required).

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Union takes its place among top SAE Baja contestants

Posted on Jun 3, 2009

Matt Beenen 09 talks with a Honda tech inspector during the 2009 SAE Baja Competition

 

Baja building and battling aren’t for the weak-willed. It takes serious dedication – and a willingness to give up multiple Saturday nights – to do what Union’s Baja Team did this year.

In a field of 98 teams, the College placed 15th in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Western Regional Baja Competition last month. This improves on a 17th place finish last year and a 21st place finish two years ago.

“Time-wise, Baja is a huge part of any team member’s college career,” said the team’s captain, Matt Beenen ’09. “In the weeks leading up to competition, particularly my sophomore year, we spent 40 to 60 hours a week in the machine shop.”

Union's car races in the 2009 SAE Baja Competition in Oregon

Baja isn’t part of a class, Beenen explained. “It’s built on free time. On a Friday or Saturday night when most other students are socializing, playing video games or sleeping, we’ll be in the shop.”

The yearly SAE competition asks schools from across the country to design and build a small single seat off-road vehicle and compete for awards in a variety of categories. The Union team consists of some 15 mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, biology and other students.

Joining Beenen at Oregon State University for the recent contest were seniors Jon Wilson and Ned Lincoln; juniors Joe Polcari, Forrest Clifton, Ryan Skeuse, Aaron Levine and Collin Doyle; sophomores Nick Oren, Emmet O’Connell and Elias Samia; and freshman Michael Holm.

“Our performance improved this year because we were working on our third iteration of a vehicle that had already raced in two previous contests,” Beenen said. “We were able to strengthen its weaknesses and make sure it wouldn’t break down.”

“Having Professor Brad Bruno as our adviser also helped tremendously over the past two years,” said Wilson. “This year, he and John Skumurski (director of budgeting) made it possible for us to get the right insurance and actually test the car before competition.”

Wilson and Beenen also credit their sponsors with making their success possible.

Union's Baja Team inspects the rock crawling course at the 2009 SAE Baja Competition in Oregon this May.

Robert Wilson, Jon’s father, of Pheasant Hill Society, and Jim Taylor '66 of Taylor Made “have enabled the team to overcome many of the financial struggles we’ve faced,” Beenen said. “We can now compete confidently, knowing it’s our engineering ability and not our funding that sets us apart from the competition.”

“The 15th place finish is really quite strong, especially given the small size of our program in comparison with other schools,” said Bruno, associate professor of mechanical engineering.

“Our students compete through brains, hard work and dedication. Union really fights above its weight class.”

For more information on Union’s Baja Team, visit http://www.vu.union.edu/~baja/

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Union’s latest peace scholars headed south for the summer

Posted on May 13, 2009

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.

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A time of protest

Posted on Feb 12, 2009

In the spring of 1970 a group of about 300 students marched from campus through the streets of Schenectady to protest the Vietnam War. George S. Bain ’73 recounts the march and two alumni reflect on that transformational period. 

Someone had a TV in his room on the fourth floor of West College, a freshman floor, and that’s where we watched President Nixon’s speech that Thursday evening, April 30, 1970. He announced the “incursion” into Cambodia. We viewed it as an expansion of the Vietnam War. Was it someone in the room, or some TV commentator who said it first? “It’s Nixon’s war now.”

Union College magazine. Winter 2009. At a May 1, 1970 Vietnam
War protest in downtown
Schenectady, Jim Murphy, then
a Catholic priest and College
chaplain, uses a bullhorn to
address Union students. (Photo
by Dr. Lester Kritzer ’73)

That was one of the slogans we chanted Friday morning as we marched into downtown Schenectady to protest. “It’s Nixon’s war now.” We started with a rally at Library Plaza on campus. Several people spoke against the war. President Harold Martin announced classes had been canceled for Friday and issued his own condemnation of Nixon for risking “a deeper and more horrible involvement in Indochina.”

The Concordiensis and The Schenectady Gazette agreed our numbers were between 300 and 400. We formed our march in front of campus at Nott Terrace and Union Street. “All we are saying is give peace a chance” was another of our chants as we marched down Nott Terrace and then State Street. We stood outside the Schenectady County Community College building, the former Van Curler Hotel on Washington Avenue (a campus that had opened the previous September, so those students were as new to the college experience as we freshmen were in the spring of 1970). “Join us! Join us!” we exhorted the community college, trying to drum up support for our next stop, the nearby General Electric plant. Few, if any, SCCC students joined us.

So we marched to GE and sat down, very orderly, at the entrance. I remember no desire to force my way past any guards and storm into the GE grounds. We were demonstrating against what was called the second-largest U.S. Defense Department contractor of the time. A student spokesman, quoted in Concordiensis, said, “We have no gripe with the workers but with the stockholders and managers who make profits from the murder of Asians.” And after all, if we were pleading to “give peace a chance,” our method of protest should be nonviolent. Our message was simple: War was wrong. We wouldn’t fight.

One picture shows a clean-cut, docile crowd of students—no one threatening or gesticulating at the Schenectady police, who weren’t dressed in any riot gear. We waved some signs and chanted in unison.

Another picture shows us all with our right hands raised in the peace sign (what our parents’ generation had known as the V for victory sign). During an open-air debate that lasted half an hour—what should we do next?—Father Jim Murphy argued we should not enter and occupy the property. The conviction of his words carried the day.

Thirty-five years later, Murphy remembers telling us, “It’s not going to be won just by demonstrating today. It’s the long-term effort that matters. It’s organizing. It’s campaigning for candidates like Ed Fox,” a professor at RPI and the anti-war opponent to the longtime Schenectady Congressman, U.S. Rep. Sam Stratton. Murphy, the Catholic chaplain at Union and a parish priest in Schenectady, was Fox’s campaign manager and the leader of the local Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam. Murphy resigned from the priesthood in 1983 to get married.

A May 1970 Vietnam war protest by Union students in downtown Schenectady. Union College magazine spring 2008.

“A march doesn’t go very far. It’s organizing that matters,” Murphy recalled. “I always thought the most powerful expression was saying no. Those decisions were symbolic and extremely dramatic.”

Murphy led some students from the GE plant back downtown to demonstrate at the local Selective Service office on Wall Street, where one protester tried to climb in through a window. The police seized him but let him go after others chanted for his release.

The rest of us marched back to State Street and Erie Boulevard, the heart of downtown, and occupied the intersection. We sat down on the pavement in the hot noonday sun, blocking all traffic. Soon, we were surprised and refreshed, when Saga Foods, the dining hall contractor, sent down sandwiches and water for us from the campus dining hall. The police—not overdressed nor striking any intimidating poses—stood on the fringe and didn’t take any action. I was sitting near the fringe. Some bystander told a cop they should go in and bust some heads, clear out the punks. The cop demurred. After all, he said, they’re not harming anyone. He implied Schenectady was lucky we weren’t being destructive. The bystander didn’t pursue his point.

“We were sandwiched by several police cars and some officers on foot. I was a bit nervous concerning a possible confrontation, but all remained quite peaceful and respectful between both groups,” said Peter Kircher ’73.

Looking back from 40 years what impresses me as much as our youthful idealism— that our demonstrations would have some affect on public policy, or at least would help turn more opinion against the war—was the careful decision-making by city officials on how to respond to our behavior.

All available police officers were on duty, and those whose overnight shift would have ended at 7 a.m. had been ordered to stay at work. City Manager John L. Scott, in the crowd watching us in the intersection, told the Schenectady Gazette, “We thought the best way to handle this is to permit them to demonstrate. The preservation of the public peace, to prevent injuries and damage to property, is of prime concern.”

The Gazette noted his statement was similar to one he had made several months earlier when striking GE workers had blocked entrances to the plant. I wonder how many students that Friday noon remembered, or even had been aware of, the strike that previous fall. We benefited from the experience Schenectady police had gained from controlling rowdier, more hostile crowds of striking electrical workers.

When the International Union of Electrical Workers went on strike against GE Oct. 28, 1969, 12,500 members of Local 301 in Schenectady walked off their jobs. On the first day, more than 20 arrests were reported in Schenectady after eggs were thrown amid pushing and shoving along the picket line, portrayed in a “Strike Scuffle” photograph on the front page of The New York Times. For two weeks, strikers prevented white-collar workers from entering the Schenectady plant, until a federal judge ordered the union workers to clear a path. The strike, with devastating economic impact on Schenectady, lasted 101 days. 

Union College magazine. Students march through downtown Schenectady to protest the Vietname War on May 1, 1970. (Photo by Dr. Lester S. Kritzer '73)

The contrast of our placid demonstration that Friday morning in May was clear, and surely a relief to the local authorities. Our nonviolent protest lasted three hours, offering little challenge and no provocations.

“I found the walk liberating. We were a community drawn together to take a stand on something we felt needed to change in America,” said Mark Shugoll ’73.

City Manager Scott said our demonstration “didn’t do anything other than inconvenience people.’’ It was as if, he said to the Gazette, an automobile accident at State Street and Erie Boulevard had blocked traffic.

In Police Chief John Murphy’s view, if police had taken more forceful action it might have resulted “in an all-out riot.” “We tried our best. I think it worked out,” he said.

As smart as the civic leaders were, the Schenectady Gazette had revealed another point of view Friday morning in a two-sentence news brief buried in its local section— below a court report and above a one-sentence announcement of an upcoming meeting of the Hudson Valley Dietetic Association.

“Nixon Sparks/Union Protest,” read the headline. The Gazette reported, “President Nixon caused a protest at Union College last night against sending troops into Cambodia. The students, whose favorite book is How to Avoid the Draft, rallied ’round the flag[pole] and burned Nixon in effigy.”

The worst imaginable outcome happened three days later. Late Monday afternoon on the radio came the news of four dead in Ohio—four Kent State University students shot and killed by National Guard troops during an antiwar demonstration on their campus.

Classes were suspended the next day, May 5, for a series of seminars and a mass rally in the library plaza. But unlike many schools, Union, with six weeks remaining on the academic calendar, did not cancel classes for the rest of the year.

The increased student and faculty activism led to profound changes in College governance. In June 1971, the Board of Trustees voted to add the College president, ex officio, and two faculty members to the board as voting members and two students, elected by the student body, as nonvoting members.

“It was a time when students were willing to assert their own rights and responsibilities. We wanted to be more involved in the governance of the country and the College,” said Mark S. Coven ’72.

George S. Bain ’73 is a copy editor at The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y., treasurer of the Skaneateles chamber music festival, and a longtime Union volunteer

 

A view from the nation’s capital

By Dick Tito ’69

I didn’t witness the Vietnam War protests in Schenectady in late April and early May of 1970, but I do have some first-hand knowledge of them.

I graduated from Union in 1969, and since my history degree created no opportunities for a draft deferral, I enlisted in the U.S. Army. I was in Officer Candidate School at Ft. Belvoir, Va. in the spring of 1970 and we were very aware of the growing unrest on college campuses, Union included. I had some sporadic contact with my fraternity brothers at Beta Theta Pi and learned that some of them were planning on coming to Washington, D.C., for a protest at the Pentagon.

This was interesting, since all military personnel in the D.C. area were on alert in case additional troops were needed to protect the Pentagon. My fellow officer candidates and I actually drilled to be reserve replacements at the Pentagon. The entire time we were going through that ridiculous preparation, I wondered how I was going to avoid laughing if I saw any of my fraternity brothers across the “battle” lines.

Long story short, the OCS brigade was never called up. I think this was the time when the famous photograph was taken of a young girl putting a flower in the barrel of a soldier’s rifle as they stood across from one another at the Pentagon. It was the most interesting of times, but to the protesters credit, they kept enough of a spotlight on Vietnam that the country finally realized it was time to leave there.

Dick Tito ’69 is a former senior executive for a Pittsburgh-based investment firm in Sewickley, Pa.

 

Lasting lessons

By Mark S. Coven ’72

In the spring of 1970, I was one of many protesting and showing a willingness to challenge institutions; to do what we believed was morally just and correct. I have carried that basic philosophy forward to a judgeship in Massachusetts, where I am constantly asking the questions, “What is fair? What is just? What is the morally correct approach and decision to be making for the people who come before me?”

The people who appear in my court need of all types of services, whether they are poor or substance abusers or victims of domestic violence. I am still interested in the same issues of how society should be responding to people in need and challenging institutions to respond, much in the same way we did back in 1970.

I worked with College Chaplain Jim Murphy, who was involved in community outreach and anti-war protests. As College chaplain, he was a remarkable person who brought what he thought were the appropriate Judeo-Christian values and ethics in anti-war issues and in issues of poverty and discrimination. He helped us formulate our approaches to war and how best to reach into the community. He helped me formulate my own value system in terms of being able to raise issues of morality and fairness and justice.

It was a time when students were willing to stand up for what they believed was the right thing to do and to challenge rigid institutional practices. We were trying to intervene and take some affirmative actions to help people change their lives and take responsibility for their actions, which is not much different than what I have been trying to do since graduating from Union College.

Mark S. Coven ’72 is a judge in a Massachusetts district court based in Quincy and has served in that role since 1989, and before that served for two years as a deputy attorney in general.

 

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Matthew Malatesta to head Union Admissions

Posted on Mar 10, 2008

Matthew Malatesta, vice president for Admissions, Financial Aid and Enrollment

Matthew J. Malatesta ’91, who holds a bachelor of arts in Managerial Economics and a master of arts in Teaching from Union Graduate College, has been appointed vice president for Admissions, Financial Aid and Enrollment following a national search.

He begins at Union in July.

“My Union education was a transformative experience for me, so I consider it a blessing to help others learn about the tremendous opportunities that Union offers,” Malatesta said.

Malatesta, who grew up in Pittsfield, Mass., has been at Hamilton College for eight years, the last three as director of Financial Aid. He also served as associate dean of Admissions and director of Admissions Information Systems, as well as assistant dean of Admissions and director of WAVE Program, an alumni admissions program, at the Clinton, N.Y., school.

“We are excited to have Matt rejoin the Union family,” said President Stephen C. Ainlay. “Matt comes with a great deal of experience in the field of admissions and financial aid, and we look forward to his leadership in his new role.”

Malatesta has also held positions at Holy Ghost Preparatory School in Bensalem, Pa., and Darrow School in New Lebanon, N.Y. His wife, Mary Agnes, also graduated in the Class of 1991 and his brother, Paul, is a member of Union’s Class of 1987. Malatesta, 39, and his wife have two children, Allison, 5, and Daniel, 3.

“Maggie and I are tremendously excited to return to Union and the Capital Region,” Malatesta said. “I am honored to be a member of the team representing such a fine college to prospective students and their parents.”

Ann Fleming Brown has been interim vice president since Dan Lundquist stepped down last June. The Office of Admissions is selecting the 565 students for the Class of 2012 from a record 5,263 applicants. Regular decision letters will be mailed by the end of March.

“Ann has done a remarkable job in this role and we are all indebted to her,” Ainlay said. “Similarly, we should all recognize the exceptional work of Admissions and Financial aid during this period of transition. We are all the beneficiaries of what they have accomplished.”

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Matthew J. Malatesta named Vice President for Admissions, Financial Aid and Enrollment

Posted on Mar 7, 2008

Matthew J. Malatesta has been appointed vice president for Admissions, Financial Aid and Enrollment at Union College following a national search.

Matthew J. Malatesta has been appointed vice president for Admissions, Financial Aid and Enrollment at Union College following a national search.

Malatesta grew up in Pittsfield, Mass., graduating from Union in 1991 with a bachelor of arts in Managerial Economics. He has been at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. for eight years, including the last three as director of Financial Aid. At Hamilton, he also served as associate dean of Admissions and director of Admissions Information Systems, and assistant dean of Admissions and director of WAVE Program, an alumni admissions program.

“We are excited to have Matt rejoin the Union family,” said President Stephen C. Ainlay. “Matt comes with a great deal of experience in the field of admissions and financial aid, and we look forward to his leadership in his new role.”

Malatesta has a master of arts in Teaching from Union Graduate College. Before joining Hamilton, he held positions at Holy Ghost Preparatory School in Bensalem, Pa. and Darrow School in New Lebanon, N.Y.

Malatesta’s ties to Union extend to his wife, Mary Agnes, also a member of the Class of 1991 and his brother, Paul, a member of Union’s Class of 1987.

Malatesta and his wife have two children, Allison, 5, and Daniel, 3.

“Maggie and I are tremendously excited to return to Union and the Capital Region,” Malatesta said. “I am honored to be a member of the team representing such a fine college to prospective students and their parents. My Union education was a transformative experience for me, so I consider it a blessing to help others learn about the tremendous opportunities that Union offers.”

Malatesta, 39, begins at Union in July. Ann Fleming Brown has been interim vice president since Dan Lundquist stepped down last June. The department is selecting the 565 students for the Class of 2012 from a record 5,263 applicants. Regular decision letters will be mailed by the end of March.

“Ann has done a remarkable job in this role and we are all indebted to her,” Ainlay said. “Similarly, we should all recognize the exceptional work of Admissions and Financial Aid during this period of transition. We are all the beneficiaries of what they have accomplished.”

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Casting call: Union alum to showcase latest film at Sundance

Posted on Jan 16, 2008

Thurber with Siena Miller

Sundance, the glitzy winter marketplace for independent movies, opens today in Park City, Utah, and one filmmaker who will be front and center is Rawson Marshall Thurber ’97.

Thurber, who wrote and directed the 2004 hit comedy, “Dodgeball,” is getting considerable buzz for his new movie, “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.” The film, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, stars Jon Foster, Siena Miller, Nick Nolte, Peter Sarsgaard and Mena Suvari.

It chronicles the post-college exploits of Foster’s Art Bechstein, the son of a gangster, played by Nolte. Saarsgard is a drug-addled thief named Cleveland, and Miller plays his girlfriend, Jane. Suvari is Foster’s sometime girlfriend, a beautiful librarian named Phlox.

“Some people might be intrigued by the idea that the guy who did ‘Dodgeball’ is doing this film,” Thurber told Hollywood Reporter this week. ‘But I don’t think it’s necessarily that there are indie directors or studio directors anymore but that there’s subject and subject matter, and some are aligned to indies and some to studios.”

Thurber fell in love with Chabon’s novel when he read it in 1995: “I kind of knew I wanted to make the movie of the book pretty much before I knew I wanted to make movies,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

"There’s a sense of beauty to the novel, a sense of fun, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia at play, of memory, and it’s a great summertime novel in the same way that “The Great Gatsby’ was a great summertime novel,” he said. “So I think it’s a classic American story, it’s a coming-of-age story, it’s the story about that last true summer of your life.”

Rawson Thurber '97, Mysteries of Pittsburgh

On Wednesday, the film was named one of “10 Movies to Check Out at Sundance” by USA Today.

One of the producers of Thurber’s latest project is another Union graduate, Thor Benander ’95. And while in the Beehive State, if Thurber wants to reminisce about his alma mater, he can chat up Jackson’s Garden and the Nott Memorial with Sundance chief Robert Redford. The iconic actor/director spent several weeks on campus back in the fall and winter of 1972-73 filming scenes for “The Way We Were,” co-starring Barbra Streisand.

Thurber holds bachelor's degrees in English and Theater Arts from Union and an MFA in producing from the University of Southern California. He credits his liberal arts background at Union with giving him a good foundation for his Hollywood career.

His next planned big-screen project is an adaptation of the hit television series, “Magnum PI.”

And while Union’s at the movies, “The Bucket List,” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, debuted at number one last weekend. What’s the connection? Director Rob Reiner, in a recent New York Times interview, said he tried to get the film made for several years, but had no luck until Alan Horn ’64, the president of Warner Bros. Entertainment, finally gave the project the go-ahead. Horn, Reiner and others co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment in 1987.

Thurber and Horn both live in California.

 

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English Professor Harry Marten to discuss latest book Saturday

Posted on Oct 18, 2007

Harry MArten book cover, But That Didn't Happen to You, fall 2007

Harry Marten, the Edward E. Hale Jr. Professor of English and chair of the English Department, will sign his new book, “But That Didn't Happen to You: Recollections and Inventions” (XOXOX Press), at the Open Door Bookstore and Gift Gallery on Jay Street, Saturday, Oct. 20, 1-2:30 p.m.

Marten has called his memoir “a conversation across generations.” Set in New York City neighborhoods of 50-100 years ago, it offers reflections on the nature of memory, the immigrant experience, storytelling, old age and family relationships.

Harry MArten, English chair

Marten, who was raised in the Bronx, holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His teaching interests include modern British and American literature. He has published in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, The Gettysburg Review, The Ohio Review, New England Review, ELH, The Centennial Review, Contemporary Literature and others.

 

He has written books on poets Conrad Aiken and Denise Levertov, and he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Huntington Library.

Marten’s memoir has been called “heartwarming and sharply funny” and “deeply moving.” Anita Diamant, author of “The Red Tent ,” wrote, “I felt blessed reading ‘But That Didn't Happen To You.’ Not in any metaphysical woo-woo angel/heaven way. But blessed in the way of being surprised by a yellow sunset, or of seeing a 2-year-old waddling around in a tulle skirt, or of being in the presence of profound tenderness. Blessed. Wow.”

Marten, who has two grown sons, lives in Niskayuna with his wife, Ginit.

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