Posted on Aug 14, 2007

 

THE MANAGEMENT LEARNING CURVE 

Devin Wenig ’88 admits to not doing much but is nonetheless busy all the time. Reuters, the well-known international news and financial information provider, announced in May that after the completion of a $35 billion merger with the Thomson Corporation Wenig would be promoted from chief operating officer to chief executive officer. Wenig’s rise as a top executive at Reuters has made evident an elemental truth of management. 

“What you learn is that the priority moves from you getting things done yourself to being able to enable great teams to get things done. The scale of the tasks gets such that you cannot do things yourself,” Wenig said. “In fact, you get paid to set a strategy, to set priorities and to create great teams.

Wenig joined Reuters in 1993 as a corporate lawyer after a short stint at the high-profile New York City law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Wenig held a number of senior management positions before being appointed president of Reuters Information in January 2001 and by 2003 was named president of the Reuters Business Divisions. Reuters, best known as a news service, was founded in 1861 and has expanded services in the Internet era and now employs about 16,800 people in 89 countries. On the news side, Reuters employs 2,400 journalists, photographers and camera operators based in bureaus around the globe. The company also manages a constantly updated financial information network that monitors millions of stocks, bonds, currency and other financial instruments. The Reuters Group reported $5.2 billion in revenue in 2006.

The leadership skills and creative thinking that Wenig employs are partially rooted in his term in the early 1990s as CEO of a pharmaceutical company, Nastech Pharmaceutical, which was founded in 1983 by his father, Jeffrey Wenig, a Ph.D. and scientist. In 1991, his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 54, leaving the younger Wenig, then a 22-year-old recent Columbia Law School graduate, to take over. Under his leadership, the company restructured its finances, and marketed a number of products that boosted revenue and stabilized the company. Today Nastech is based in Bothell, Wash., employs 140 people and has a market capitalization of approximately $350 million dollars. 

“You learn courage, in a professional sense. Very little can scare you after you go through something like that,” Wenig said of his time at Nastech. “You also learn how capable people are. And how important it is to forge bonds and teams. It was a big growth experience but not one that I would wish on anybody else.”

That courage may prove valuable during the planned merger of the Canadian publishing company, Thomson Corp. and Reuters. The merger’s goal is to form one of the world’s leading news and financial information providers.

“Reuters sits at the middle of media, financial services and the Internet. That makes it complicated and confusing but its also what makes it fun,” Wenig said.

At Reuters, Wenig has helped usher in a group of about 30 Union graduates into company internships. He speaks with each group of young people and shares advice on navigating the early stages of a career. Wenig was a political science major at Union and took classes in a variety of academic disciplines. As an upperclassman, Wenig won the Samuel M. Hesson Prize for a student of high promise and character interested in a law career.

“Students are sometimes very worried about: ‘What job should I have? What school should I go to? Exactly how do I map out my whole career?’ No one I know has been able to map out their whole career. I sure haven’t. I never would have dreamed that I’d be here when I was sitting in Schenectady all those years ago,” Wenig said.

Wenig’s advice for young professionals is simple: experiment. Meet different people, experience different cultures and try to find your passion, Wenig said. Graduates should be prepared for a professional world made more intimately connected by new information technology.

For Wenig, former Union Professor Joe Board provided worldly guidance.

“I thought he was a great guy. He was worldly and he was articulate and I know there are a lot of alumni that feel that Joe made a positive impact on them,” Wenig said. “Joe would often say, ‘The way you learn and grow is witnessing other people behaving in a professional context.’”

A SCHOLAR AND ACTIVIST 

Maureen Hsia graduated a year early, but Union won’t soon forget her.

Hsia, a history major and political science minor from Shanghai, was back home in the People’s Republic of China helping prepare for the Special Olympics World Summer Games when her name was announced at Commencement. Despite her absence she created the annual Maureen Hsia ’07 Prize for Excellence in Middle Eastern Studies, set to begin in 2008.

Hsia’s unusual step of creating a senior gift before she’s officially an alumna embodies her passion for Middle Eastern culture while underscoring her appreciation for Union’s small, personal liberal arts community.

Hsia, 21, is the daughter of Eric Li-Chyun Hsia and Dah-Wei Hsia. She pinpoints her interest in Middle Eastern history to her high school reading of The Chosen, Chaim Potok’s novel about the friendship between two Jewish teens from different worlds set against the backdrop of World War II and the Holocaust.

That spurred her to study Israel-U.S. relations, “and from there my interest grew, to the entire Middle East.” She created her own concentration in Middle Eastern history and, working with Professor Stephen Berk, did her senior thesis on the history of Judeo-Persian relations.

Hsia traveled to Turkey and Israel this winter for research and subsequently exhibited her photos of people and marketplaces in the exhibit, “Wandering the Souk,” at the Nott Memorial. More than the beauty of those two countries, she said in her artist’s statement, “I hope to share some insight on my perception of social and cultural realities in the Middle East.”

This fall Hsia will have an opportunity to expand those insights when she travels throughout the Mideast.

“My goal is to learn Arabic and immerse myself in the culture,” she said. “There’s so much going on there that needs to be fixed. Finding a solution is something I want to do. I’m ready to go out into the world and do extraordinary things.”

Hsia missed Commencement to work at the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai as they prepare for their October opening. Some 7,500 athletes will compete in 25 different sports, from aquatics to volleyball.

A graduate of the American Shanghai School and member of the Union Scholars Program, Hsia said leaving a metropolis of more than 20 million people for a city of 61,000 “was a shock at first, but it was good. I really like Schenectady, especially with the new developments changing State Street and events like Art Night. I love Proctors and I like the Schenectady Public Library a lot; it has such a great movie collection.”

She has been on Dean’s List each of her three years and is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society. She served as captain of the ultimate Frisbee team, co-chaired the Student Alumni Association, tutored at the Writing Center and was a member of the Ballroom Dancing Club. She worked at the Rathskeller, was an orientation advisor and volunteered at Habitat for Humanity.

As Breazzano House Council chair, student representative and a house resident for two years, Hsia worked closely with Professor Byron Nichols, a mentor. Last year, she served as house representative to the presidential inauguration of Stephen C. Ainlay.

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Posted on Aug 14, 2007

 

A growing field becomes a nexus joining engineering, biology and the liberal arts 

Union is unique. We hear that about many aspects of Union College such as the Minerva House System and the strong undergraduate research programs. But it is Union’s noted liberal arts curriculum in concert with the strong engineering program that may be the College’s defining feature, according to Cherrice A. Traver, dean of engineering.

“The combination of a liberal arts education and an engineering degree puts Union in a league of its own,” Traver said. “There are just not that many small, selective colleges with accredited engineering programs.”

Union currently has 260 students in electrical, computer and mechanical engineering and is seeking to boost bioengineering from a minor to an academic major. That process began with help from a $1.6 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and has been fueled by a growing demand among students and college-bound high school students. The College has created new bioengineering labs and hired faculty with hopes of establishing an accredited bioengineering major as soon as 2010. The degree would prepare students for careers in the medical industry, research fields and government regulatory agencies.

“We need to broaden our program offerings,” Traver said. “The three that we have are successful and we would love for bioengineering to be the next program we offer. It’s a small field but is growing rapidly.”

In early February The Center for Bioengineering and Computational Biology, located in Butterfield Hall, was christened during a formal ceremony. Professor Leo J. Fleishman, chairman of the Biology Department, cut the ceremonial ribbon to mark the opening. Fleishman was instrumental in securing the $1.6 million grant in 2003 to renovate Butterfield Hall.

“The program is well funded, we have a lot of faculty interest in the field, and several student projects are underway. It’s rewarding to see faculty members from different departments working together,” Fleishman said.

There is a tradition of interaction between engineers and biologists at Union College, according to Steven K. Rice, associate professor of biology. Professors in biology and electrical and computer engineering have worked on collaborative projects that predate the bioengineering program, and several past mechanical engineering senior thesis projects have had a biology component.  

In December 2000 Robert Balmer, who was then dean of Engineering, developed the Converging Technologies Initiative. That initiative has developed interdisciplinary programs between engineering and liberal arts. The plan for Converging Technologies was presented to the Union community early in 2001, and through the next year faculty from biology, engineering and liberal arts departments met to develop courses and programs to support the initiative. Four areas were initially chosen for development: bioengineering, mechatronics, nanotechnology and pervasive computing. In September 2002 Doug Klein was appointed director of the Center for Converging Technologies.

“It’s been very exciting,” Klein said. “We have a great group of people working in these areas and they’re all so enthusiastic. I’m not an engineer, I’m an economist, but one of the things I found attractive about Union when I first came here was the combination of liberal arts and engineering. The Converging Technologies initiative was Union’s first high-level commitment to putting those pieces together, and it’s great to be part of that.”

The interest in bioengineering at Union can also be traced back to Dick Shanebrook, professor of mechanical engineering, who retired in 2001. Shanebrook had taught a biomechanics course and had a long history of working in cardiovascular biomechanics. Rice co-taught the biomechanics course with Shanebrook for one term, and then Rice and Professor Mohammad Mafi turned that course into what is now called Introduction to Bioengineering.

FUNDING FOR BIOENGINEERING

Faculty and students were enthusiastic, but money was – and still is – needed to help support the bioengineering effort. The College secured a grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund interdisciplinary education and in 2002 Klein allocated money from that grant to support each of the four areas covered by the Converging Technologies Initiative.

“This was seed money meant to help develop the initial courses in each area,” Klein explained. “The course Introduction to Bioengineering was developed with this money.”

But more money was needed if the bioengineering program was going to really take off.

In 2003 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, commonly called HHMI, announced a call for grant proposals that was a perfect fit with Union’s bioengineering effort. At the same time, the National Academies Press published a national report on the future of the biological sciences, entitled BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists.

“Our interest in converging technologies, our intention to bring more quantitative lab exercises into biology courses, and our efforts to form interdisciplinary relationships between departments at Union all matched closely with what the national report suggested as important in biology education,” Fleishman said. “So we tailored our HHMI grant application in that direction, and it turned out to be just what was needed.”

The faculty will submit a second HHMI grant application this fall. 

"It’s very exciting – we have so many good ideas that we hope to keep funded and staffed,” Rice said.

Perhaps the most exciting – and most costly – outcome of this effort was the development of The Center for Bioengineering and Computational Biology, located on the first floor of Butterfield Hall. The Center comprises a teaching studio and lab; a smaller lab that will house the Virtual Bioengineering Center; a research lab for Professor Scott Kirkton, a new faculty member who was hired with grant money; an administrative office; and a design lab. Several other bioengineering faculty, Professors Andy Rapoff (mechanical engineering) and Shane Cotter (electrical and computer engineering) have labs on the second floor of Butterfield that are part of the bioengineering center.

The Bioengineering Design Lab is available to faculty at Union and also to researchers and faculty at other colleges and universities. “One of the goals of the HHMI grant was to develop relationships with other institutions,” Rice said. “One way to do that is to assist other researchers and faculty in implementing engineering approaches to biological problems. With our design lab we can provide that assistance.”

A bioengineering minor was introduced in 2005, and is an option for students majoring in biology, engineering, and some other fields, with slightly different requirements for each group. Students are required to take a minimum of six core courses outside of their major and have a choice of upper-level courses. Rice and Rapoff are co-directors of the program. Bioengineering minors also must do an independent research project during their senior year.

“There are two ways to be interdisciplinary,” Fleishman said. “One is to carve out a narrow area at the intersection of the two disciplines, which is the way most bioengineering programs operate. The other is to draw on the breadth and depth of both fields, to really bridge the two disciplines. That’s where Union is heading.”

Helen Hanson, faculty member who will begin work in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in fall 2007, works on computer modeling of human speech, which will add to the bioengineering effort. Hanson’s research involves links between speech-producing organs, the speech signal and the cognitive representation of an utterance.

“To understand these relationships, we model things such as the way vocal folds vibrate and the properties of the vocal tract tissues, and we can use electric circuit and transmission line theory to do that,” Hanson explained. “I’m a Union alum – class of 1983 – so joining the faculty is kind of a homecoming for me.”

Electrical and mechanical engineering programs are generally made up of about 10 to 12 percent women, while bioengineering programs have close to 50 percent, according to Ron Bucinell, associate professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department. Bucinell is optimistic about the future of bioengineering at Union.

“Bioengineering is becoming a bona fide discipline within engineering,” Bucinell said. “Before it was a mix of biology and engineering, but we are now really getting engineers involved in working on biological problems. This is particularly important in dealing with the medical issues around an aging population. And it’s a discipline that attracts women. Studies have shown that women are attracted to fields in which the work product benefits people, bioengineering is clearly that type of field.”

SUPPORTING STUDENT RESEARCH

A large part of the bioengineering effort is encouraging students to participate in research projects, an area in which Union’s relationships with other institutions has paid off. Using the HMMI grant, Union sent seven students to labs at other institutions in 2006 for summer research projects and four more were set to go this summer.

"In the original HHMI grant application we had agreements with RPI, Syracuse University, and the Wadsworth Center at the University of Albany to take on summer research students,” Fleishman said. “The students we’ve sent to those places have had great experiences and we have students lined up for summer research at all three again. We’re also branching out, looking for labs at other institutions where students with particular interests might be able to do research. This year we have a student going to the University of Pennsylvania.”

The grant also supports student research at Union, through a team research approach. Faculty teams made up of  professors of biology, engineering, physics, mathematics, or another quantitative field, write a proposal to be submitted to our internal review committee. Their proposal must include two students to work on a project over the summer and through the next school year.

Fleishman has an ongoing project with Professor Mike Rudko in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, which has involved several students over the years. Biology Lecturer Brian Cohen collaborated with Associate Professor Seyffie Maleki in the Physics Department on a project that included two students.

“Several of our students have presented their research at national meetings,” says Cohen. “That’s a great benefit of being at a school like Union.”

Biology Professor Robert Olberg used some HHMI money to have Zohny S. Zohny ’06 work with him during the summer of 2006. The goal of Olberg’s ongoing project is to use what is known about the nervous system of a cockroach to develop an effective means for remote control of locomotion.

“The overall goal of this project is to outfit a cockroach with a small backpack with a transceiver and electrical stimulation circuitry,” explained Olberg. “Then we can remotely control individual cockroaches and use them as ‘intelligent robots.’ For example, we could send a cockroach with the appropriate remote sensors into places that humans, or even small robots, are unable to go – they could be used to locate victims under the rubble of buildings destroyed in earthquakes.” 

Another exciting aspect of the HHMI funding is the newly created position of post-baccalaureate scholar, designed to give a recent Union graduate experience while they plan their next career move. Adam Pallus ’05 was the first scholar.

“We had a very productive year together and got some interesting results. Adam and I traveled to Russia to present the results at an international meeting. It was quite an accomplishment for a recent graduate,” Fleishman said.  

COURSE DEVELOPMENT

Introduction to Bioengineering was the first course in the bioengineering program, and in the winter term of 2007 the second course in Bioinformatics was created. That course was taught by Biology Professor Steve Horton and Computer Science Professor Chris Fernandes. Half of the students in this course were biology majors; the other half were computer science majors.

“I think the course went well for its first term. We didn’t know how it would go teaching students with different backgrounds, but we made it work, and I think it worked well,” Horton said. “During the first few weeks, I met with the engineering students and gave them a mini-course on molecular biology, and Chris met with the biologists for an introduction to computer science, then we joined together for the last half of the term. We also had some guest speakers come in to talk about applications of bioinformatics in the real world.”

This kind of real-world science will help the students after graduation as they further their education or enter the workforce. Bioinformatics in particular is an expanding field, with job openings across the country.

Other lab modules developed to introduce quantitative methods in biology courses include one that introduces students to the basic concepts of geographic information systems, mathematical modeling and landscape ecology; one exploring aquatic ecology and demonstrating computer modeling of complex systems; a module that demonstrates the mathematics associated with the kinetics of biochemical systems; and one looking at the effects of flow on vascular endothelial cells. The flow module was used in Introduction to Bioengineering during the winter 2007 term and students, particularly engineering students, enjoyed the hands-on aspect of learning techniques used in biology research.

All of the lab modules are available on the bioengineering website (http://bioengineering.union.edu) and can be downloaded by teachers at other institutions for use in their classroom.

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Posted on Aug 14, 2007

 

Phil Di Sorbo ’71 helps to set up hospice care for AIDS patients in sub-Saharan Africa

Phil Di Sorbo will long remember his 1999 visit to Africa, where he saw scores of people without pain medication suffering through the late-stage symptoms of AIDS.

“Nobody should be in that condition on this planet today,” he recalled thinking.

So Di Sorbo, who over the past 25 years had turned the fledgling Schenectady Hospice and related organizations into national models of palliative care, decided to answer another calling: Bringing hospice care to AIDS-ravaged Africa.

As a co-founder and executive director of the Foundation for Hospices in sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA), he oversees the daunting challenges of partnering with local hospice organizations to provide care in the far reaches of a land where AIDS claims roughly 7,000 lives a day.

“The global AIDS pandemic and other international tragedies are opportunities to forge our global connectedness,” Di Sorbo said. “And FHSSA is well positioned to make a difference by supporting so many of Africa’s growing hospice programs.”

Di Sorbo co-founded FHSSA with the organization’s first board chair, Dr. Bernice Catherine Harper and hospice directors Peter Sarver and Paul Brenner. The African organization is also part of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, based in Alexandria, Va.

The organization’s top priority, of course, is fundraising from American citizens and organizations. “We have a chance, consistent with our basic hospice work in every community, to engage that community in the global war on AIDS,” Di Sorbo said. “There is no greater challenge and all of us … can take great pride in sharing in the overall response. We can raise millions for palliative care in Africa, where U.S. dollars can go far."

Di Sorbo emphasizes that FHSSA’s mission is in partnering with hospice organizations in Africa, not in imposing a first-world model to solve problems. “We may have the technical expertise and the talent level, but we must rely on our African colleagues to identify needs so that we can mobilize and develop the projects collaboratively.”

Most projects are short term, a week or less, for things like pediatric palliative care training, bereavement care of orphans and care-for-the-caregiver support, Web site development, quality improvement, and strategic planning.

Among the rewards of partnering with the African organizations, Di Sorbo said, is the growing recognition of hospice as a “community service agency” and “social change agent.” Partnering also has taught his organization to “really listen with respect.”

And hospice, though it deals mainly with those at the end of life, can help stop the spread of AIDS. “Prevention requires behavior change,” he said. “We have a teachable moment with every death.”

With his wife, Cynthia, a nurse and hospice caseworker, Di Sorbo spends a bit more than four months per year in Africa. They also spend time in Washington D.C., where FHSSA is based, and their home in Ghent, N.Y.

Last fall at Union’s Homecoming, DiSorbo received the Eliphalet Nott Medal, presented to distinguished alumni who have achieved success in their professional lives. Throughout his career, he has maintained close ties with Union, calling on faculty, staff and students as hospice volunteers.

 

Hospice milestones:

1975    Katherine Woodford, a student in a women in management graduate course offered by Union, begins a feasibility study for Hospice of Schenectady.

1978    Union College, the first hospice board and Katherine Woodford develop New York state legislation creating a hospice demonstration project, which becomes the first hospice legislation in the United States.

1979   New York State Hospice Association incorporated at Union College.

1980    Phil Di Sorbo ’71 hired as first CEO of Hospice of Schenectady.

1983    Hospice of Schenectady becomes the first hospice in the nation to be certified by Medicare and to receive federal reimbursement payments. 

1999    A visit to Africa leads to incorporation (with two other New York hospices) of the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa.

2006    Di Sorbo named executive director of the sub-Saharan organization.

2007    Di Sorbo helps to launch the Diana Legacy Fund, aimed at supporting hospice care in Africa.

 

The roots of hospice care at Union

The international success of the hospice program that began at Union College in 1975 can be attributed to three key factors:

 

• A motivated team of faculty, students and community members who had been touched by “bad deaths.”

 

• The arrival of a young and ambitious executive director.

 

• Help from inside the federal government during the creation of new laws.

 

Hospice had its beginnings at Union in 1975, a few years after psychiatrist and author Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had popularized the idea of dying with dignity in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. Katherine Woodford, then a graduate student and nurse, undertook a hospice feasibility study with Adelaide Oppenheim, an adjunct professor who taught a course titled Women in Management in what would become the Union Graduate College. Woodford was in part motivated by her father’s death, which happened at home after weeks of relative comfort.

At the time, Woodford knew of only three hospice programs: one at St. Christopher’s Hospital in her native England and one each in New Haven, Conn. and Buffalo. By the end of her project at Union, she had gathered a team of people that would become a steering committee for the nascent hospice organization. One of them was Rudy Nydegger, professor of psychology at Union.

“Hospice was an idea whose time had come,” said Nydegger, who served as the first president of the organization. “Everyone and their families are touched by death. Everyone has a horror story about people who have died badly and did not need to. One of interesting things I found about Union and Schenectady was the talent pool of highly motivated people who were interested in the hospice movement, knew how to raise money and get things done.”

In 1978, coincidentally the same year Kubler-Ross spoke at Union’s Commencement, Hospice of Schenectady was incorporated. It had a board and an office on the second floor above Old Chapel. A year later, the New York State Hospice Association was incorporated at Union, thanks to the volunteer services of attorney Thomas Hayner.

In 1980, the board decided it was time to hire an executive director. Enter Phil Di Sorbo, a Phi Beta Kappa who had graduated Union in 1971 summa cum laude. After earning a master’s degree in counseling, he took a job at Schenectady Catholic Family and Community Services. He answered the hospice ad, he recalled, because he was intrigued by the write-up about the new program.

“When we hired Phil, we had $5,000 in the bank,” Nydegger says. “His first job was to raise enough money to pay his salary.”

Di Sorbo worked closely with state legislators to introduce hospice legislation in New York. That laid the groundwork for a watershed moment in November of 1983 when Hospice of Schenectady became the first hospice to receive federal Medicare certification and funding. He worked closely with officials in the federal government to negotiate the certification process, and even had input into the initial regulations.

When DiSorbo left to join the Foundation for Hospices in sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA) in 2007, he was executive director of the largest hospice north of Washington, D.C. Today, Community Hospice is a network of six regional programs covering eight counties that serves over 600 patients each day and has an annual budget of more than $40 million. Employees number about 400.

“Hospice of Schenectady, and later Community Hospice, became a leader in the state and country largely because of Phil’s leadership,” Nydegger said.

The Union connection

Union volunteers have had a strong presence in Community Hospice since it began, with dozens of volunteers serving for long periods. Today, dozens of students, faculty and staff take the 25-hour volunteer training program and in-service training sessions. Most years, Union provides between five and 10 volunteers, according to Sue Conlin, volunteer service coordinator for Community Hospice.

“I trained as a hospice volunteer seven years ago and can honestly say it has been a life-altering experience,” said Carol Weisse, director of Union’s Health Professions Program. “Spending time with people during their last few months, days, and even hours makes you think deeply about your own life and how to live life more fully.”

Karen Williams, research associate professor of biology, a hospice volunteer for 10 years, has worked with Weisse to recruit student hospice volunteers. The experience, she said, is especially valuable to those going into the health care field. “I admire the pre-health students who get involved in hospice,” she said. “What a wonderful opportunity for them to be involved in [end of life issues]. This is something the medical community has not always done well.”

The Williams family used hospice last fall when Karen’s father died, an experience that made her a better volunteer, she said. She kept copious notes in a diary on everything from her father’s condition to a list of therapists – information that comes in handy in answering questions from patients and families.

Williams last year recruited her husband, George, professor of computer science emeritus, as a hospice volunteer for what he called “part of the retirement thing.” Besides visiting patients, the couple delivers medications to homebound patients. “We call ourselves the drug runners,” Karen said. George set up the computers in the hospice’s first office at Union.

Amanda Carpenter ’07, an Obenzinger Scholar (given to promising pre-med students), has taken on some of the hospice’s most challenging cases, including the past year with a 17-year-old boy, Weisse said. Another alumnus, Adam Howe ’05, volunteered for two years at Union before heading off to Albany Medical College.

Jean Underwood (wife of Jim Underwood, professor emeritus) has been an active volunteer for years too, well known at hospice for her ability to deal with the most difficult cases like a family dealing with drug and alcohol abuse.

Among hospice collaborations under way, College officials have met with Di Sorbo to arrange the placement of Union students in FHSSA partner hospices, and plans call for two students to travel to Africa next year. Also, Minerva Houses and other student organizations are planning to raise funds for the Diana Legacy Fund.

“Hospice is a nice organization to work for and they treat their volunteers well,” Karen Williams said. Especially valuable, she said, are the in-service training sessions that cover topics ranging from dementia to massage therapy. Hospice also hosts regular memorial services, a chance for families and caregivers to reconnect, she added.

For Karen Williams, the most rewarding part of hospice is the connection she makes with patients. She recalled visiting a woman at Schenectady’s Kingsway Nursing Home and showing her photos of a recent trip to Alaska. “When I was leaving, she had a smile on her face and said, ‘Thanks for the tour.’ You never know what is going to touch some of these people.”

 

Supporting hospice care in Africa

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged the support of hospice programs across Africa when he spoke at the recent launch of the Diana Legacy Fund, which in part supports the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Hospice and palliative care are desperately needed,” Tutu said. “I know we throw figures and statistics at you [but] put the face of someone you know, someone you love, on those statistics.”

The fund is named in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, whose 1987 visits with African AIDS patients stirred worldwide awareness of the crisis. The summer of 2007 marked the 10^th anniversary of Diana’s death. Di Sorbo encourages individuals, churches and businesses to donate to the Diana Legacy Fund, the only charity solely dedicated to hospice and palliative care in Africa. 

For more information, or to give to the Diana Legacy Fund, please visit www.dianalegacyfund.org.

To learn about the work of the Foundation for Hospices in sub-Saharan Africa, please visit www.fhssa.org. 

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Posted on Aug 14, 2007

Mark your calendar: ReUnion 2008: May 29 to June 1

On the Web: Visit http://www.union.edu/reunion/index_flash.php to see more photos from ReUnion weekend

More than 1,750 alumni and guests celebrate at ReUnion 

A record 1,750-plus people converged on campus for the annual celebration of Union alumni in early June. It was a time to reminisce, reacquaint and explore the campus anew.

It was also a time for giving. Graduates from all ReUnion class years donated more than $1.7 million to the College in the run up to ReUnion weekend. Additional bequests, gift annuities and other long-term gift commitments raised that total to $2.9 million in the days after ReUnion. 

By all measures, the annual celebration of Union alumni was an unqualified success.

The weekend kicked off when President Stephen C. Ainlay and the Board of Trustees dedicated Breazzano House, honoring David J. Breazzano ’78. In March, College officials announced that Breazzano, co-founder and principal of an investment management firm, made a $2 million gift to his alma mater. In honor of the gift, the College decided to rename Orange House, one of seven in the Minerva House System, the Breazzano House.

A 35th anniversary luncheon brought together the pioneering women graduates of the Class of 1972 on Friday, June 1, the official opening day of ReUnion 2007. (See sidebar)

An Engineering awards reception honored outstanding individuals at Beuth House. The awards recipients were Jonathan Comeau ’97, electrical engineering, principal electrical engineer for Tyco Electronics; Richard Fateman ’66, computer science, professor of computer science at University of California at Berkeley; Lisa Freed ’86, civil engineering, a civil engineer and landscape architect for Brown & Brown; Lawrence Hollander, dean of engineering emeritus at Union College; Ivan Kaminow ’52, electrical engineering, retired scientist with Bell Labs; and Samuel Tolkoff ’96, civil engineering, director of business development for Foster-Miller, an advanced robotics and health sciences firm.

A lecture and conversation with mystery crime writer Kerrie Ticknor Droban ’87 was held at Emerson Auditorium in the Taylor Music Center as the culmination of the Alumni Writers Series. Droban also led an informal discussion about her work in Wold House.

On Friday evening more the 80 members of the Delta Phi frtaternity returned to campus to dedicate a new monument featuring a fraternity medallion. The monument marks the site if of the fraternity’s former house on Lenox Avenue, where the medallion hung on the front of the house.

On Saturday, the College honored four alumni and one faculty member at the Alumni Convocation. The Alumni Council presented the Alumni Gold Medal to Lee Davenport ’37, Joseph Hinchey ’47 and John Temple ’67, all former Trustees of the College. New York City Attorney Mark Zauderer ’67 received the Eliphalet Nott Medal, which recognizes the perseverance of alumni who have attained distinction in their field. Hilary Tann, the John Howard Payne Professor of Music and internationally recognized composer, received the Faculty Meritorious Service Award.

Also on Saturday, Aaron Feingold ’72, a cardiologist in Edison, N.J., and collector of historical artifacts, presented two historical treasures to the College at the Terrace Council and Ramée Circle Society Reception. Feingold gave President Ainlay a first edition of Albert Einstein’s book about the Theory of Relativity and an original manuscript that was part of a four-part lecture that Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Union professor of engineering and renowned scientist, gave on Einstein’s theory. The Steinmetz manuscript, dated November 1921, corresponds with Einstein’s trip to America in 1921. Einstein visited Steinmetz in Schenectady that year, the same year he won the Nobel Prize in physics.

“Union allowed me to engage in intellectual pursuits that I wasn’t previously able to discover,” Feingold said. “Union gave me the freedom to be well-rounded, the intellectual background to appreciate, explore and enjoy all these different areas of life.”

Other highlights of ReUnion included a get-together with an award-winning brewer; a chemistry symposium; a seminar on the politics of war; the dedication of Becker Library; a production of Aristophenes’ great comedy, The Birds; soccer and rugby games; and the traditional Minerva footrace, alumni parade and Saturday night fireworks.

Throughout the weekend, four of the College's most prized possessions, plates from the "Elephant Folio" edition of The Birds of America collection of engravings by John James Audubon, were on display on the first floor of Schaffer Library.

 

Across the generations

Erika Schnitzer '08 speaks with the Women of '72

In 1970 Union became co-educational. About 150 women, including about two dozen transfer students, entered Union that year. While the first-year students were certainly brave, I believe the women who transferred to Union and graduated in 1972 were boldest of all.

To kick off ReUnion weekend, five of the first women graduates, known as the Women of ’72, celebrated their 35th ReUnion at a special luncheon. In speaking with these women at the lunch and for a Concordiensis story, I came to see that they were truly pioneers.

Susan Mullaney Maycock ’72, a fine art photographer from Santa Fe, N.M., told me: “I truly believe that our generation changed the course of history for women. We opened up many careers to women, we went into the workforce in much greater numbers than any other generation, and we were pioneers in creating meaningful ways to have both careers and family. The decision at Union to create a co-educational institution was one of the building blocks that supported these other changes.”

Before transferring the Women of ’72 had carved out niches for themselves at women’s colleges. They took classes with women, lived with women and socialized with women. Their schools knew what women did for fun.

At Union, this all changed. Though Richmond Hall was designated as a women’s dorm, there were little renovations made. There were no athletics available and an extremely limited number of activities. Many women felt they were virtually ignored by upperclassmen who continued to socialize with women at Skidmore College, then a women’s college.

The women of ’72 showed valor at a time their world was literally changing around them. They not only embraced these changes, but they succeeded in what was a man’s world.

“The second year was much better than the first. The girls and the guys made more of an effort to join activities to meet each other. There weren't quite as many guys trekking to Skidmore every weekend. The guys I met in class were more friendly and curious about the girls on campus,” said Andrea Flagg Bolz ’72.

The College’s decision to go co-ed stemmed from a committee recommendation made in 1967. In 1968, then-President Harold Martin appointed a committee of faculty, chaired by English Professor Carl Niemeyer, to vote on the issue. A survey mailed out in November 1968 indicated that roughly 60 percent of alumni were in favor of the switch. But the committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of co-education, with only one dissenting vote.

Other schools were making, or in the process of making, a similar transition. Colgate University and Wesleyan University had recently become co-ed, and Bowdoin College, Williams College and Amherst College were all considering the change.

As I spoke with the women of ’72, I recognized that Union has come a long way in 35 years. Whereas women studying sciences was a rare sight in 1970, the science departments at Union are now filled with women. Professor Tom Werner told me the chemistry department may soon be composed of mostly women. Countless other changes have occurred over the past 35 years, and I am sure that when I return for my 35th ReUnion, there will be countless more changes on campus and in society that have roots in the advent of equal-opportunity higher education. 

 

 

               

 

 

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Posted on Aug 14, 2007

 

 

A Q&A session with new Board of Trustees Chairman Frank Messa

Frank Messa ’73 was elected chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees at their meeting during ReUnion weekend.

Messa retired in 2005 as senior vice president for International Strategies of Ayco Co., a financial services and planning firm based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. that was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2003.

He succeeds Stephen J. Ciesinski ’70, who has served as chairman since 2002 and has been a board member since 1993. Ciesinski, a Schenectady native who now lives in California, is founder and executive of a number of technology firms. He will remain on the board. Also at the June 2 meeting, Mark Walsh ’76 was elected vice chairman; Dr. Estelle Cooke Sampson ’74, secretary; and Lawrence Pedowitz ’69, general counsel.

"It is certainly a great honor to have been elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Union College,” Messa said. “I look forward to working with President Stephen Ainlay to continue to implement the many strategic planning initiatives adopted by the Board of Trustees under the leadership of Steve Ciesinski.”

Messa earned a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in political science. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a finalist for the Albert C. Ingham Prize, given to the student in social sciences judged to have done the most outstanding scholarly work.

As an alumnus, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 1994, and served as general counsel to the board. He serves as co-chair of the You are Union campaign, and was national chair of the Annual Fund. He served as chair of the Trustee Board of Advisors, Terrace Council and 2003 ReUnion. He also chaired the Presidential Selection Committee for Union’s 18th president, Stephen C. Ainlay, and was a member of the Inauguration Planning Committee. In 2003, the College’s Alumni Council recognized his outstanding service by presenting him with the Alumni Gold Medal.

A generous benefactor to Union, Messa and his family have provided funds for the renovation of Frank L. Messa Rink at Achilles Center, the renovation of Schaffer Library, the establishment of the Frank Messa ’73 Endowed Scholarship, and the Steinway Piano Fund for the new Taylor Music Center. He and his wife, the former Colleen Ann Koetzner, have three children, Christopher, Peter and Keri (a senior at Union).

To mark the start of term as chairman, this magazine conducted an extended interview with Messa.

Q: What is your top priority as the new chairman?

A: Without question, the implementation of the new Strategic Plan adopted by the Board of Trustees this spring is the number one priority. It has been quite some time since the College has engaged in serious strategic planning. The process of developing the plan was extremely important. All member groups of the Union College community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni and board members were had input into the process and the final document was collaborative in nature.

With that as a background, I think the final product that emerged is a very representative and important document. The three key components, or the three differentiators, are what make Union unique. The College is small, global and diverse. Secondly, it is committed to the liberal arts and engineering. And third, we inspire innovation and use our history for inspiration. I encourage everyone to read the Strategic Plan. It lays out a broad plan for the future of the College and its many components will be implemented by the community over the next several years.

Q: What did the search for a new president show you about Union’s reputation?

A: The job candidates themselves said a lot about Union College. We were very pleased to have such a large number of applicants from the very top colleges and universities in the country. That tells me a lot. Candidates with credentials such as these would not have applied for the position unless they were convinced of the great prestige and potential of Union. Our search consultant and all members of our committee felt good about that. We all left saying, “Wow, look at the quality of people who are interested in coming to Union College.”

Q: President Ainlay is finishing his first year at the helm of the College. What are his top strengths?

A: He is uniquely skilled. The one thing that came across during the presidential search was that he possesses extraordinary interpersonal and communication skills. You can place him in front of a group of parents, students, alumni, trustees and he’s equally at home and he talks from the heart. You can just tell he’s a natural. He genuinely loves the school and believes in its mission.

One of the difficulties in running a college is that it’s composed of a wide variety of constituency groups that are very diverse: The interests of students, faculty, trustees, alumni, and parents can be very different. It’s a diverse group and very difficult to manage. To find somebody to connect with all those groups is pretty rare. We think we found the best person.

Q: The College’s endowment is at $360 million. What is your assessment of the financial state of Union College?

A: Finances, for better or for worse, are the key driver for almost all of the Strategic Plan initiatives. If you look at the top 50 schools in the U.S. News and World Report rankings and plot their ranking next to their endowment, it’s not a perfect correlation but it’s very close. Money drives an institution. Financial resources are very, very important to the success of the Union College.

We have been extremely fortunate in recent years to have been blessed with exceptional talent on our investment committee. If you look at Union College’s performance compared with our peers over the last one, three, and five year periods, we are in the top quartile of a very prestigious group of schools. The investment committee, chaired by David Henle ’75, has been able to make the most out of an endowment that a few years ago was in danger of falling below $200 million. We’re now at $360 million.

Again, we think that’s a small endowment because we’re comparing ourselves to Hamilton College: $600 million; Middlebury College: $800 million; and Wellesley College: $1.2 billion. Having said that, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of colleges that would love to have our endowment.

There is a strong correlation between the size of endowment and the quality of the educational experience. I don’t care if its terms abroad, scholarships and financial aid, faculty salaries, buildings, maintenance of the campus. All of these things cost money. We are doing our best and we’re confident that we will hit our campaign goal of $200 million while continuing to grow the endowment.

Q: How has your career helped you be a better alumnus?

A: Being in the business world and understanding how organizations work provides a different perspective in terms of how a college runs beyond the classroom: the infrastructure of a school and how important it is to raise money. Colleges also need good governance and policies that take care of the safety, education and health of students.

Also, part of the emphasis, at least with the companies I worked with, is on being a good corporate citizen, and giving back. Underpinning all of the people that volunteer for the Annual Fund is the notion that you are giving back what Union College gave you: a great education, and in almost all cases at a significant discount. All alumni must understand that giving back is an obligation that we owe to the next generation of students.

There are many ways to give back. People can obviously give money; but they can also participate in clubs and other College or alumni organizations. In the business world, we were always encouraged to find ways to give back to the community and this translates perfectly to the Union College experience.

Q: You are obviously going to spend a lot of time on campus, because you live nearby. Are you looking forward to that?

A: I’ve spent a lot of time on campus but in many different roles. I’m here as a parent. I’m here as an alumnus. I am here as a board member. I plan to be on campus a lot but I don’t want it to be intrusive. I’m not here because I am going to try to run the school. We have some very talented people here to do that.

I love being part of the fabric of the Union College community and participating in as many campus activities as possible.

Also, there are a lot of people on campus that don’t know who the trustees are. I think there are many misconceptions about who the trustees are and what they do. The people on the board are very involved, not some detached group. They are dynamic people. They are people like Mark Walsh ’76 and Jason Oshins ’87 and Steve Ciesinski ’70. I think it’s important that the students know who the board members are and what they do. They are really interested, committed people who devote a great deal of time and energy to improving Union College.

Steve Ciesinski had a great idea by having the trustees here during Homecoming and ReUnion to let them interact with the campus community. I hope that by being local I can do that as well.

The irony is that we probably have the most open board and one of the most participatory boards I know of. Very few schools have students on the board, or faculty on the board, or parents on the board. We have a very inclusive board and so I find it somewhat ironic that some people know so little about it.

Q: Let’s talk about fraternities and sororities and civil engineering. Do you get a lot of questions about those topics?

A: Absolutely. As a result of a number of decisions that have been made, many Greeks and civil engineers have been outspoken in their criticism. While the decision relating to civil engineering is unique to Union College, every college in the country has struggled with Greek life issues. A number of prestigious colleges just cut the cord and decided to eliminate their system of Greek life. They bit the bullet; they took a hit on their alumni giving and moved on.

We have a more difficult problem at Union because Greeks are so integral to the culture of this institution. We are the mother of fraternities. The three oldest fraternities in the country were founded here. The majority of people on the board are Greeks and so we struggled with that issue mightily and we like to think we came up with a solution that was the best possible solution for Union College.

Fraternities and sororities are welcomed and encouraged to stay as members of the community with the active support of the administration and the board. On the other hand, we felt that the Minerva House System bridged the gap between having no Greek system and having a Greek system that totally dominated residential and social life on campus. The Minerva House System allows fraternities and sororities to continue to function and to be part of the community without having them dominate the campus. Everyone is a member of a Minerva House. Many people are members of a Minerva House and a Greek house. I think that many colleges have come to realize that the integration of academic and social experiences is one of the key issues facing college campuses. We think the Minerva House System is the right answer.

We’ll find out. They’re still in very early stages we’re very encouraged by what we’ve seen thus far. Time will tell.

Q: Tell us about your memories as a student?

A: Like most alumni, I have vivid and pleasant memories of my time as a student. I was part of the last all-male class to be admitted to Union and so the experience was quite different than it is today. The relationships I developed here are, to this day, the most important relationships of my life. I remember getting up at 5 a.m. to deliver the campus mail, as well as, playing touch football, and going to classes, concerts and parties. I still have great relationships with faculty members who taught me the skills that helped me throughout my life.

Of course, the campus has remained beautiful but has undergone many changes. When I attended Union, the theater and the bookstore were in the Nott. There was no campus center, hockey rink, or Olin Building. Despite all of these changes, the character of the school has not changed. After all these years, I still get goose bumps every time I walk onto the campus.

Q: What did you write your thesis on?

A: My thesis analyzed on the impact of social factors on voting behavior. I did a comprehensive study of voting patterns of U.S. senators during the 20^th century. The essence of my thesis was that a number of social factors, including, occupation, age, regional affiliation and demographic background, influenced voting in different ways depending upon the nature of the bill. We were in the very early stages of computer analysis and much of the work had to be done using methodology that would be considered archaic by today’s standards. My thesis advisor, Fred Hartwig, was at the forefront of statistical analysis and we worked together for hours to develop a workable model. I am genuinely proud of my thesis and still have a bound copy in my library at home.

Q: As a senior, did you know you were headed to law school?

A: I did but when I went to law school I knew that I didn’t want to practice law.

When I graduated from Albany Law School I took a job with a start-up firm nobody ever heard of. There were 10 employees at the time. It was a financial consulting firm but they only hired people with law backgrounds because they did a lot of estate planning and tax work. I took a job at this firm and spent my entire 29-year working life there. The American Express Company bought our firm in the early 1980s and about 10 years later, a group of senior partners (including me) bought the company back. After ten more years as a private firm, Goldman Sachs bought the firm in 2003. I stayed on for several more years as a senior vice president of international strategies and then retired.

Q: Your daughter Keri will graduate this year. What is Keri’s major?

A: She is a history major who coincidentally has the same faculty advisor, Bob Wells, I had when I entered Union as a history major nearly 38 years ago. She has enjoyed the study of other cultures but it is unlikely that she will pursue a career in the field. As a fellow social sciences major, one of the pieces of advice that I passed along to all of my children was to select and pursue a major in which they had an academic interest even though it did not necessarily translate into a career. Although students in the sciences and engineering typically have a better focus on career direction because of the nature of their course of study, relatively few students know their career direction when they are 20 years old. Schools such as Union excel at teaching skills such as critical analysis, writing and communication. These are skills that translate easily into careers in almost any field. The answer to the question, “Why attend a liberal arts college” is plastered all over businesses and boardrooms around the country.

Q: You are an avid reader. What have you read lately?

A: I love to read and during my entire life I have always been able to stay close to my goal of reading one book per week. I primarily read non-fiction and love history. Recently, I have read biographies of Dante and Albert Einstein as well as a treatise on Italian wine. I am currently reading a fascinating book called The Black Swan about the historical impact of highly improbable events. I am particularly fascinated by books about gifted and passionate people and their ability to use the combination of their intellect and passion to accomplish extraordinary things.

Q: Do you have sort of a favorite Union hero?

A: The recent attention brought to William Henry Seward (Class of 1820) by the book Team of Rivals has highlighted the great accomplishments of one of our most famous alumni and a hero to many not only because of his well-documented political successes, but also because of his opposition to slavery, which ultimately cost him the presidency.

It strikes me that on our own campus, we are surrounded by names of modern-day Union College heroes that should be known to students. The names Reamer, Yulman, Taylor, Beuth, Breazzano and Viniar,among others, are more than just names on buildings. They are the names of some of our most successful alumni who have generously given back to the school they love. Every chance I get, I tell the stories of these alumni and as board chairman, one of the initiatives I will support is to encourage the understanding and celebration of the accomplishments of Union alumni across the generations. It should be a source of enormous pride for the entire Union community.

Q: Do you travel internationally a lot?

A: I have traveled quite a bit internationally but my first love is Italy. As the grandson of Italian immigrants, I am enormously proud of my Italian roots. Like many other second-generation Italians, I never learned how to speak Italian. When my grandparents came over to the United States they wanted to become Americans and they didn’t want their children to speak Italian. They wanted them to learn English.

I’m the first person from my family to graduate from college, so I always wanted to learn Italian. The very first day of my retirement, I enrolled in Italian classes at Skidmore College – not the adult education classes but the standard language classes offered by the college. Most of the students did not quite know what to make of me, but I have now completed four semesters of Italian. I am not quite fluent but I continue to improve every day. I am sure my grandparents would be proud. I travel to Italy at least once per year and I am currently looking to buy a home in Firenze. Culturally and educationally, I feel as if I have come full circle.  

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Posted on Aug 14, 2007

Let us know: The Union College magazine is seeking alumni who have served in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Send us a message at magazine@union.edu and include basic details about your service in the Middle East.

During an evening foot patrol on Oct. 22, 2006 in Anah, Iraq, shrapnel from a roadside bomb ripped through the lower right leg of U.S. Marine Lt. Brent Filson ’03. A second Marine under Filson’s command suffered a similar leg wound and two others sustained minor injuries in the attack. The patrol was aborted and the injured soldiers were rescued by Humvee and later flown by helicopter to a military hospital. That marked the start of a long road to recovery.

Shortly before dawn about eight months after being wounded, Filson stands, with the help of a halo cast, near the confluence of the Hoosic and Green rivers in his hometown, Williamstown, Mass. He is fly fishing with his longtime girlfriend, Rebecca Joffe-Halpern, and childhood friend, Rufus Wyer. He casts the line and drags it over the mingling current of the two small rivers that cut through the Taconic Mountains. Fly fishing has been a kind of therapy in Filson’s long recovery from a wound that, without recent surgical advances, would have led to an amputation.

“I have been forced to sit on my butt for the last seven months. It is a huge change going from being 100 percent engaged to just doing nothing in a small little town in Massachusetts,” Filson said. “Fly fishing is something that can be relaxing. It is something to do, something to keep me occupied, something to look forward to.”

Filson is one of a group of Union College graduates who have served, often as officers, in the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq during the last six years. Among them are former U.S. Navy Lt. Thomas “Toby” Proctor ’98, who served as a tactical coordinator aboard surveillance planes flying over Iraq in 2002 and aboard combat missions in 2003. U.S. Navy Lt. Zac King ’00 served aboard the USS Bataan and USS Gettysburg during three deployments to support military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Army Cpt. James Bascom ’96 has served as a civil affairs officer in Egypt and as an intelligence officer in two separate stints in Iraq. Mike Gifford ’97 was a military police platoon leader from May 2003 to July 2004. U.S. Army Spc. Caleb Bower served in a food and water supply yard for a year before graduating in 2006. 

That’s a partial snapshot of a group of soldiers that make up another link in a chain of alumni service in U.S. wars that dates back to the War of 1812 and continues through World War II and the Vietnam War. Filson is also one of more than 12,000 soldiers who – as of early July – had been wounded and unable to return to duty since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

During his recuperation in Williamstown, the Union College magazine conducted several interviews with Filson, who will turn 27 in November. He gave a matter-of-fact account of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack and subsequent recovery. It happened on the last day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which in 2006 was a violent period in Anah, a city in the Al Anbar province along the Euphrates River located to the northwest of Baghdad. Filson’s platoon, part of Echo Company, 2^nd Battalion, 8^th Marine Regiment, had in previous weeks led two operations aimed at finding insurgent hideouts and weapons caches but was on a routine patrol on Oct. 22.

“We tried to stay in the middle of the street as much as possible because the IEDs are on the side of the road. As a matter of fact, if I was on the sidewalk, I probably would have been dead. The IED was embedded in a wall so there was no way anyone could have seen it. It was about 15 meters away from me when it went off. The exit wound was pretty large from the shrapnel going in and coming out again. I was losing a lot of blood. My bones were shattered. What I didn’t know at the time was that the veins were actually destroyed.”

Filson was flown by helicopter from Anah to a U.S. military hospital in the Iraqi city of Balad, just north of Baghdad. After undergoing emergency surgery including a vein graft to re-establish circulation, he was transported to a U.S. military hospital in Germany and a few weeks later flown to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. near Washington, D.C. He remained there until early December, when he returned to western Massachusetts. On Aug. 30 Filson was set to travel to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. to have the halo cast, which looks like scaffolding attached to his lower leg, removed. Then, he begins six to eight weeks of physical therapy followed by a new military assignment. If possible, he’d like to return to Iraq and lead Marines.

While in the Bethesda facility last November, Filson was visited by a group of friends from Union including Dennis Quandt ’03, Will Howe '02, Brian Demichele ’03 and Adam Malinowski ’03.

“It brought [the war] home. It made it a lot closer. It definitely makes you think about why we are over there and what we are doing,” Quandt said.

Filson’s father, Brent F. Filson, is a U.S. Marine veteran and well-known speaker and author on effective on leadership communication. He has written 23 books including Executive Speeches: 51 CEOs Tell You How To Do Yours and The Leadership Talk: The Great Leadership Tool. His father and mother, Magalis, live in Willamstown, home to Williams College. Filson’s two older brothers, Sean Rush Filson and Adam Filson, are a U.S. Marine officer and Army National Guard major respectively. Sean Rush Filson is a 1992 graduate of Bates College and was featured in that college’s magazine for his voluntary service in Afghanistan in 2004.

At Union, Filson was a psychology major. He transferred to the College after two years at Dean College in Franklin, Mass. He credited Union’s psychology courses with helping him manage relationships among his platoon in Iraq. Filson completed his first tour of duty in Iraq from March 2005 to September 2005 and was four months into his second tour when he was wounded.

The leading-edge surgical techniques employed to save Filson’s leg have left him with an uncertain future. Doctors simply don’t know how well he will recover, because most soldiers with his wounds lose their legs to amputation. The other Marine wounded by the IED explosion on Oct. 22, 2006, Lance Cpl. Thomas "Cody" Surber, of Martinsville, Va., had his lower right leg amputated.  

“I definitely consider myself one of the lucky ones,” Filson said. “I have much more respect for Vietnam veterans now. They had nowhere near the same medical care and had a different welcome home.” 

 

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