Posted on Oct 1, 2008

Oct. 9 through Oct. 21

Wikoff Student Gallery

Nott Memorial

Optical Union

Photographs by Meghan Haley-Quigley ’08, Rui Fen Huang ’08, Tobias Leeger ’09, Steven Leung ’08, Lauren Muske ’07, Jonathan Scheff ’11 and Juneui Soh ’08, taken from final portfolios from spring 2008’s Photography 3 class taught by Professor Martin Benjamin. The focus of each student’s portfolio ranges in subject and style, from documentary images to portraits to abstractions.

Through Dec. 1

Visual Arts Building

Burns Atrium Art Gallery

Knackers Yard

Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Arts Anthony Cafritz’s recent installation of seemingly disparate materials that “attempts to describe the current state of things.”

Through Feb. 8

Mandeville Gallery

Nott Memorial

“Parabolas Mexicanas: Paintings, Prints and Drawings by Bernardo González and Francisco Verástegui”

This exhibition features some 50 paintings, prints and drawings by Mexican artists Bernardo González and Francisco Verástegui. The College will be hosting a series of events in connection with the show, including events with the artists, a film series, performances and lectures during fall and winter terms. Artists’ reception and gallery talk with González and Verástegui set for Thursday, Oct. 30, 5-7 p.m. in the Nott; improvisation performance to follow at 7 p.m., with Steven Koenig, poet, and Gustavo Aguilar, percussion.

Posted on Oct 1, 2008

This fall, it's all about UCALL.

The Union College Academy for Lifelong Learning is celebrating two decades of providing lectures, excursions and other events on everything from art to Zionism for local residents of a certain age.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know, for instance, about Leonardo da Vinci, historic battles, Eastern religions, the Roaring '20s, numbers in everyday life or the effects of jealousy in operatic masterpieces is there for the taking. Classes, held in Reamer Campus Center, are nominally priced with the cost of a year-long membership. They are  taught on a volunteer basis by leaders in the academic, business, civic and arts worlds, including many retired and current Union College professors.

“UCALL gives people the opportunity to learn about interests they were too busy to explore while they were pursuing their careers or raising families,” said Director Valerie D’Amario.

The program began in 1988 with 15 members. Now, with nearly 400 members, UCALL has become a staple resource at Union for those who are never too old to celebrate the life of the mind.

“UCALL is the most wonderful experience for people who are retired and are looking to keep learning,” said Joan Bick, a retired legislative assistant who serves on UCALL’s special events committee. “As Mahatma Ghandi said, ‘Live as though today were your last, but learn as if you were going to live forever.’”

Bick cited many memorable courses, including ones focused on poetry, religion and the Silk Road. Perhaps her favorite, though, was a jazz course taught by Music Professor Tim Olsen, which both she and her husband, former Union mathematics professor Ted Bick, enjoyed. Ted Bick serves on UCALL’s steering committee.

“When I was in school, I didn’t have time to take these kinds of extracurricular courses,” Joan Bick said. “When I retired seven years ago, I knew I wanted to stretch my mind.”

Bern Rotman, a former journalist and retired PR executive, has taken numerous UCALL courses with his wife, Elaine, a retired corporate librarian. Rotman especially remembers lectures presented by General Electric scientists who “created the innovations that have made GE’s Research & Development so important.

“It was fun and instructive to learn from this group, which probably couldn’t have happened anywhere else but at Union,” he said. “I still tell stories about such things as how artificial diamonds were created or the invention of LEDs.”

Union professors active in UCALL over the years include Ralph Alpher, Stephen Berk, Clifford Brown, Joseph Finklestein ’47, Carl George, Louisa Matthew, William Murphy (who passed away last week at the age of 92), William Stone and Don Thurston.

College staff members are also involved. The fall 2008 program, for instance, began with a day tour of one of Union’s most beloved spots, Jackson’s Garden. Union College Archivist Ellen Fladger shared nuggets of information about Isaac Jackson, Union Class of 1826 and a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, and Campus Horticulturalist and Landscape Specialist Constance Schmitz led the class along the same paths once walked by the likes of John James Audubon.

The full UCALL lecture series kicks off Tuesday, Oct. 7, with classes on the 2008 presidential election, Judaism in the modern world and the popular exploration of jealousy in the opera. In tandem with the opera class is an optional trip to the Metropolitan Opera, Saturday, Nov. 8, to see “Madama Butterfly.”  

The fall offerings will culminate with a 20th anniversary luncheon featuring William Danko, co-author of best-selling “The Millionaire Next Door,” Thursday, Nov. 13 at College Park Hall. For more information on this and other events, contact UCALL Director D’Amario at damariov@union.edu, or go to www.union.edu/ucall.

“I can’t think of a program more useful for daily living,” said Judge Vincent Cerrito ’32, an original UCALL member and a Union student in the days when yearly tuition was $300 and “they didn’t mow the grass; they had sheep doing it.”

Cerrito, 98, a retired New York State Supreme Court Judge, taught courses in “Law and Society,” "The Many Faces of Law” and “Law in Action.”

“Lifelong learning is good for your intellect and your brain,” he said. “It keeps you able to think. You don’t become rusty. I can’t prove it, but I have a hunch it prolongs life.”

Posted on Sep 29, 2008

Union College freshman Stephen Dusel, a native of northern Massachusetts, visited Proctors Theatre for the first time Saturday and said he liked what he saw.

"It’s cool. I was walking down the hall looking at [things in display cases]. I didn't know what it all was, but it was pretty cool. I definitely think I want to come back here," Dusel said.

Dusel was one of about 200 students who participated in Welcome Back Students Day sponsored by the Union-Schenectady Alliance and the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. The event featured a "Scrabble-ectady" game, in which students obtained Scrabble words based on downtown businesses they visited and then used the words to compete for prizes at the end of the day's activities, which ran from 1 to 6 p.m.

DSIC Executive Director Jim Salengo said the event is the second such effort this year between the DSIC and the Union-Schenectady Alliance to connect undergraduate students at Union College with downtown Schenectady. But it was the first to include students from Schenectady County Community College as well. He said the event attracted a lot of incoming freshmen like Dusel.

"Doing it again in the fall allowed us to show those kids that are coming here now that downtown has a lot more to offer than perhaps [it offered to] the seniors who came here three years ago. The idea is to introduce them early on," Salengo said.

Union-Schenectady Alliance Cochairwoman Ariel Sincoff-Yadid, a senior political science and religious studies major at Union College and a native of San Diego, said her organization has been working to improve the connection between undergrads and the city where they live for four years.

"This event not only will introduce freshmen to downtown Schenectady, but it will also reintroduce our upperclassmen," Sincoff-Yadid said. "Schenectady was really different when I came here three years ago; I didn’t come down[town] into the city very much my first couple of years. When things started changing and I got a little older, I got to know the city better."

Some of the attractions for students at the Welcome Back event included a raffle with prizes like restaurant specials and paid hotel stays as well as bands performing music live. Sincoff-Yadid said downtown Schenectady itself has become an attraction.

"There are a variety of restaurants now, and I think the addition of [Bow-Tie Cinemas' Movieland] has been really big for Union students because Schenectady has a lot to offer. This is a great place to leave campus and get away for a couple of hours," she said. "A few of my friends and I have agreed that every other week we’re going to come and grab dinner at a different place downtown and take in a movie. Good things are coming to Bow-Tie."

In recent years, The Princeton Review of America's best colleges has listed Union College as having particularly poor "town-gown" relations, reflecting a disconnect between Union students and the city of Schenectady.

Dave Brown, a junior and co-chairman of the Union-Schenectady Alliance, said the alliance has been helping to improve the relations, which he believes will be reflected in later rankings. Sincoff-Yadid said the alliance has connected Union College students with all of the major downtown players, including Metroplex, the Schenectady County Chamber of Commerce and Proctors.

"All of those organizations have either agreed to allow Union College students to either become non-voting members or at least attend their organizational meetings so they'd have an idea of what was going on and relay that back to our group," she said. "Then back on campus we have liaisons to all of the Greek life umbrella organizations, the Minerva residential house system, the newspaper, the student forum, athletics and engineering [students]. We all meet every week, and basically we plan events both on and off campus."

Posted on Sep 26, 2008

William M. Murphy, the Thomas Lamont Research Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature, died Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady. He was 92.

Hours before he died, Murphy was welcoming visitors, discussing politics and other news of the day with his characteristic intellect and sharp wit.

Plans were under way on Friday for a memorial service in the spring, according to his wife Harriet “Tottie” Murphy.

A teacher who considered Gulliver’s Travels the greatest book ever written and a scholar who won prominence as biographer of the family of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Murphy taught in Union’s English department from 1946 until his retirement in 1983.

In 1978 he published Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, which the next year was one of five finalists for the National Book Award for a biography. He later published a companion book, Family Secrets: William Butler Yeats and His Relatives, which The New York Times described as one of the finest biographies of the Yeats family.

He had a lifelong passion for politics, and as a close friend of U.S. Rep. Samuel S. Stratton, himself a former Union philosophy professor, Murphy shared his colleague's passion for politics, intellectual discourse and adventure. When the two weren’t discussing Jonathon Swift or Baruch Spinoza, they were surveying opportunities for one or the other’s political ambitions.

Murphy recently recalled the time in 1956 when Stratton, then the mayor of Schenectady, took Murphy along as a partner in a stakeout to bust a gambling ring. Murphy later related that his wife, well aware of the danger of the operation, was relieved to discover that the thump she heard on the porch early the following morning was the Sunday paper being dropped off, not Prof. Murphy.

The Murphy and Stratton families have remained close over the years. Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton, whose father died in 1990, said Friday that Murphy was “the father I haven’t had for the last 18 years.” Last year, the mayor presented the Murphys with Patroon Awards, the highest honor bestowed by the city.

The Spring 2008 issue of Union College featured a story about the close friendship between Murphy and Stratton. It is on the Web at: http://www.union.edu/N/DS/edition_display.php?e=1486&s=7910

Murphy made unsuccessful runs for Congress in 1948, state Senate in 1956, and state Assembly in 1959. He was appointed by Stratton in 1956 to fill an unexpired term on the Schenectady County Board of Supervisors. He was a member and chairman of the Schenectady Municipal Housing Authority, which, with Stratton, had instituted a policy of desegregation in the city’s public housing. Murphy served on the New York State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He was part of the mayor’s “kitchen cabinet,” and later, a part-time staffer in the Congressman’s Schenectady and Washington offices.

Murphy was born Aug. 6, 1916 in Astoria, Queens, and raised in Flushing. He would go on to study at Harvard University, earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees there. He taught for three years at Harvard, then served another three years as secretary of Harvard’s Committee on Educational Relations. He served in the U.S. Navy for three years, specializing in anti-submarine warfare, before he joined Union College.

He began at Union as an assistant professor of English. He was named associate professor in 1948, full professor in 1960, and became the Thomas Lamont Professor in 1978. In 1983 he received the Faculty Meritorious Service Award from the Alumni Council. He and his wife kept homes in Schenectady, Nova Scotia and Florida.  

He married the former Harriet Doane on Sept. 2, 1939. For more than 60 years, they spent their summers at their home in Bear Point, Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia. Survivors also include a son, Christopher; and daughters, Deborah Chase Murphy and Susan Doane Murphy Thompson.

Posted on Sep 25, 2008

The Mandeville Gallery, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, Department of History, and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures are sponsoring a film series in connection with the upcoming “Parabolas Mexicanas,” an exhibition of works by Mexican artists Bernardo González and Francisco Verástegui. The exhibit will run from Oct. 9 through Feb. 8. (The Chronicle will feature more on the exhibit and related events in future issues).

The film series kicks off Wednesday, Oct. 1, with all films shown in Reamer Campus Center at 7 p.m., except where noted. Here’s the fall term schedule:

Oct. 1: “The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista)” (1998); directed by Salvador Carrasco. An historical drama set during the Spanish expedition to conquer the Aztec Empire, this film reflects the continuation of Aztec spirit through the adaptation of Catholicism in Mexico.

Oct. 15: “María Candelaria” (1944); directed by Emilio Fernández. In this Mexican classic, a young girl (Delores del Rio) is mercilessly persecuted by her townspeople because of her mother’s immoral behavior.

Oct. 29: “La Ley de Herodes” (2000); directed by Luis Estrada. A harsh critique of Mexico’s long-ruling PRI party, this dark comedy follows the education of a small-town politician as he is shown how to rule through violence and corruption by a visiting PRI official.

Nov. 12: “Canoa” (1976); directed by Filipe Cazals. This is a true story of a group of students who accidentally fall victim to a town controlled by a paranoid and fanatical priest. Also, at 9 p.m., “Nazarín” (1958); directed by Luis Bunuel. This is the story of a simple priest trying to live by Christian precepts, with horrifying consequences.

Posted on Sep 25, 2008

Friday, Sept. 26, 12:55 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Room 302 / Pizza and Politics presents Doug Henwood, editor of Left Business Observer, on "Neo-Liberalism in Crisis"

Friday, Sept. 26 – Monday, Sept. 29, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull"

Friday, Sept. 26, 1 p.m. / College Park / Field hockey vs. St. Lawrence

Friday, Sept. 26, 4 p.m. / College Park / Men's soccer vs. Vassar (Liberty League contest)

Saturday, Sept. 27, 1-6 p.m. / Downtown Schenectady / Welcome Back Students Day, featuring Union and Schenectady County Community College student activities, specials and promotions

Saturday, Sept. 27, noon / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women's ice hockey vs. Toronto Junior Aeros

Saturday, Sept. 27, 1 p.m. / Frank Bailey Field / Football vs. Rochester

Saturday, Sept. 27, 2 p.m. / College Park / Men's soccer vs. RPI (Liberty League contest)

Saturday, Sept. 27, 2 p.m. / Tennis courts / Women's tennis vs. SUNY Plattsburgh

Saturday, Sept. 27, 10 p.m. / Old Chapel / UProgram presents Psychic Madman Jim Karol

Monday, Sept. 29, 3:05-4:45 p.m. / F.W. Olin Room 115 / Election 2008 course with Prof. Tomas Dvorak on the economy, taxes; open to the campus community and the public

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 4 p.m. / Tennis Courts / Men's tennis vs. Lemoyne

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 5:30-7:30 pm. / Wold House / Death in Film Series presents: The Bucket List," Rob Reiner comedy about two men who embark on an adventurous road trip together after being diagnosed with terminal cancer

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 6 p.m. / Frank Bailey Field / Women's field hockey vs. Castleton

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. / Nott Memorial / Alan Wolfe, political science professor and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, will discuss "Who's Afraid of American Religion? Politics and Religion in the 2008 Elections"; sponsored by the Minerva Programs Office in conjunction with the Office of the Campus Chaplain Dessert will follow the lecture.

Wednesday, Oct. 1, 3:05-4:45 p.m. / F.W. Olin Room 115 /Election 2008 course with Prof. Tomas Dvorak on the economy, international trade; open to the campus community and the public

Wednesday, Oct. 1, 7 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Latin American and Caribbean Studies Film Series presents: "The Other Conquest" by Salvator Carrasco, historical drama about the continuity of the Aztec spirit in Mexican culture.

Thursday, Oct. 2, 4:30 p.m. / Schaffer Library, Phi Beta Kappa Room / Philosophy Speakers Series: Richard Sorabji of the University of London/NYU presents: "Gandhi as a Model for an Ancient Western View of the Ideal Life"; co-sponsored with the Dept. of Classics

Thursday, Oct. 2, 6 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Classic Film: “Annie Hall” by Woody Allen

Thursday, Oct. 2, 8 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Chamber Concert Series presents: "Jupiter String Quartet"

Friday, Oct. 3, 7 p.m. / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women's ice hockey vs. Boston University

Friday, Oct. 3 – Monday, Oct. 6, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: "Wall-E"

Friday, Oct. 3, 10 p.m. / Memorial Chapel/ UProgram presents Hypnotist Steve Taubman

Saturday, Oct. 4, 10 a.m. / Tennis courts / Women's tennis vs. Skidmore (Liberty League contest)

Saturday, Oct. 4, 3 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Classic Film: “Annie Hall” by Woody Allen

Saturday, Oct. 4, 4 p.m. / Messa Rink at Achilles Center / Women's ice hockey vs. Northeastern

Saturday, Oct. 4, 6 p.m. / College Park Field / Men's soccer vs. Babson

Monday, Oct. 6, 12:55 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Room 302 / Women and Gender Studies presents Pizza and Politics speaker Fatemeh Keshavarz of the University of Maryland on "Shaping Perceptions: The Popular Political Discourse on Iran"

Monday, Oct. 6, 3:05-4:45 p.m. / F.W. Olin Room 115 / Election 2008 course, with Paul Sorum on Health Reform; open to the campus community and the public