Posted on Jul 28, 2006

From ‘Amazing Grace' to ‘Blowin' in the Wind,'” says historian-folksinger Bob Wells, “Americans have composed and sung songs about what mattered in their lives.”

Robert V. Wells, Chauncey H. Winters Professor of History, has taken his interest and expertise in American social and demographic history and filtered it through the prism of American folk music. The result is his course, American Folk Music. Wells's goal for the course? “I hope the students will never listen to folk music the same way again.”

He loves to talk about the origins of familiar songs. Some are particularly surprising. Did you know, for example, that:

• “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” was originally from the Gullah district of coastal South Carolina-a song slaves sang as they rowed? Singers kept the verses going for as long as they could.

• An entire book has been devoted to several songs titled “Stagolee”-aka, Stagger Lee, Stack O'Lee, and numerous other variations-based on the life of Stack Lee Shelton, who on Christmas Eve of 1895 murdered William Lyons, and died in prison in 1912 of tuberculosis?

• “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton, an 18th-century slave trader who saw the error of his ways during a storm at sea, on his way from Africa to America?

• Frankie Baker, of “Frankie and Johnny” legend, was a real person who shot a man in St. Louis in 1899?

• “Invitation to Lubberland,” a 17th-century English song describing Utopia, may have served as a model for “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”?

• “Tom Dooley,” the Kingston Trio's smash hit of 1958, was only a rather recent incarnation of an older song? Tom Dula, in fact, was a Confederate war veteran, involved with three women-not just Laura Foster, whom he murdered.

• “Charlie and the MTA” was a parody revolving around the 1948 mayoral election in Boston? It had its roots in a song called “The Wreck of Old 97,” which in turn was based on “The Ship That Never Returned”-a song dating back to the 1850s. The parody took a new twist when Rod MacDonald wrote new lyrics, about Palm Beach County, Florida, and the 2000 presidential elections.

Wells's course had its origins on campus in occasional single lectures, “for a change of pace.” These lectures were popular. “It began to dawn on me that this actually connected to my professional life.”

Then, when Wells was awarded a Fulbright to go to Denmark in 1997, he began teaching the course itself. He's offered it every year at Union since 1999. “I have always capped the class at 30, and it fills every time.”

This sunny April morning, it's 9 a.m., and students shuffle sleepily into the classroom. A low-key but energetic Bob Wells is ready for them, seated in a red chair at the front of the classroom, tuning his steel-stringed acoustic guitar. He begins strumming a progression of major chords and then launches into children's songs, some going back to the 15th and 16th centuries.

The context today is childhood and child-rearing practices. For example, he says, “In the 17th and 18th centuries, demographic patterns included high death rates. Children didn't stand a good chance of making it past their first, or fifth, birthdays. Only half would make it to marriageable age. So reminders about mortality are common in old folk songs.

“In the mid-19th century, attitudes toward children changed. Childhood became seen as more innocent, romantic. Childhood begins to stretch out. Play is encouraged. Parents might withhold affection rather than property as the preferred control. Childrearing became more women's responsibility as more men began to work outside the home. With more emphasis on the individual, community begins to become less important-so you have to internalize control.”

“Hush Little Baby” is a song of reassurance, showing that parental affection remains no matter what. It also tells us that the material world is not very reliable, it's ephemeral, things break.

Wells sings and plays “Go Tell Aunt Rhody”-“the first folk song I ever knew-my grandmother sang it to me.” Originating in the 18th century, it's a song of sad resignation, telling the listener not to get too attached to animals. “When Woody Guthrie and Cisco and Sonny Terry got hold of it, however, they took the message and converted it just by the way they played it -it becomes more up tempo -as if they're making fun of the original song. It becomes something to dance to.”

Wells invites the class to sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” which they do, hesitantly, although every student remembers the hand gestures that go along with the song. (It's a song that teaches gross and small motor development, coordination. The moral message, of course, is about the importance of perseverance.) “I once sang this at a commencement,” he says, “to honor kindergarten teachers.”

“The Fox,” which he sings and plays, turns out to be a message of social class distinction, a kind of Robin Hood song-implying stealing from the rich, landed aristocracy to feed the poor at home.

And “Froggy Went A-Courting” has pretty deep roots, with the earliest version copyrighted in 1580. The full name of the original song was “A Most Strange Wedding of a Frog and Mouse”; some have suggested the song was poking fun at Queen Elizabeth's tendency to give people nicknames, and at the attempted courtship of the Duc d'Anjou. There are many versions, along with many messages about the social order.

Says Emily Laing '08, a sophomore American history major and French minor who is taking the class, “Last term I took Origins of American Society with Professor Wells, and he dedicated one of our classes to colonial folk music to show how it can teach us about history. He brought in his guitar and had us sing along. I loved the feeling of connection to the past which folk songs give. The people who wrote these were expressing emotions or telling stories which are still relevant. That one class was the perfect overview of his American Folk Music course. I was excited to see American Folk Music on the course listing for this term so I could learn more in depth about what folk music can teach us.

“My favorite moment so far was the day we learned about children's songs. He had the entire class snorting along to the pig verse in “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” and this, during a 9 a.m. class. It's my fourth class this term and definitely my favorite.”

History major Alex Dacey '07 adds, “Studying music from a historical perspective has been awesome. Personally, I find the chance to study and sing the music in class to be one of the course highlights. I never thought of folk music as something that could be studied from a historical perspective. As I near my thesis assignment for senior year, this class has me considering ways to use music as a primary source for whatever I plan to study. I would recommend this course to anyone who is not shy and loves history. Believe me, at 9 in the morning, this class is the only one in my three years at Union that I know will keep me fully awake, alert and interested.”

Bob Wells owns six guitars, one of which he keeps in his office and plays during classes, as well as during breaks and at folk song jams every Friday at the noon hour in Green House. (You may have seen their photo in the February 24, 2006, edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education, as part of its article on the Minervas.) At these sessions, Wells is joined by fellow faculty members Hugh Jenkins (English) on mandolin, Harry Marten (English) on drum, Dave Gehren (Library) on piano, Jordan Smith (English) on fiddle and flute, Kara Doyle (English), Maggie Tongue (Academic Affairs), as well as a couple of students. It's a free-floating event, says Wells. Anyone's welcome to join in.

Posted on Jul 28, 2006

Sarah Sparks '06

Faculty advisor: Joanne Kehlbeck, chemistry Synthesis and Luminescence Properties of Platinum Complexes

For Sarah Sparks '06, a two-time recipient of a Summer Research Fellowship, the opportunity to explore her field of chemistry in the summertime has been an exciting endeavor. Having dabbled in every area of Union's liberal arts, Sparks decided on chemistry for the same reason many shy away: the rigorous workload.

“It's like a puzzle that just makes sense,” says Sparks with a broad smile while working in the lab on a July afternoon. “This summer, we've had trouble getting results, but this week it all came together.”

Sparks, the Chemistry Club president, is preparing her senior project for publication. Her team, the summer residents of the “Kehlbeck Lab” run by Assistant Professor Joanne Kehlbeck, creates new ligands (from Latin, “to tie or bind”) or electron donators. They are collaborating with a lab at Bard College.

The Kehlbeck crew checks the compound for light emission with a flourometer, one of the many gadgets Sparks enjoys. The practical implications of this all? If the crew can maximize the emissions by finding the perfect ligands, the compounds could be used in applications such as televisions, solar energy converters and chemical sensors.

A Ballston Spa native, Sparks played soccer at Union and coaches a local soccer team. She also coaches Union's women's rugby. The student representative for Green House, she speaks enthusiastically of the sense of community she has found there.

Part of the draw to chemistry, she says, is the faculty. “My professors are the best on campus,” she enthuses, noting the many times she's socialized with faculty and their families outside of lab.

Kehlbeck, meanwhile, says Sparks lives up to her name: “She exudes sheer joy with the process of lab work and shares that joy with the people around her.”

Posted on Jul 28, 2006

Geology students are masters of balance when it comes to work and play. Take the summer research of Chris Kassel '06 and Patrick Canniff '06.

Last August, they are “chained to the lab,” analyzing rock and organic matter from glacial lakes. A droning beep signals a malfunction in the carbon analyzer, after only 8 of 480 samples have run.

But their eyes are bright as they recall their adventure a month earlier, when they did fieldwork at breathtaking altitudes in the Peruvian Andes. Not everyone's cup of tea, perhaps. But for two students with a passion for the outdoors, it was a dream come true.

They camped in local villages at an elevation of 15,000 to 20,000 feet, taking breaks to play the universal game of soccer with the locals, a “humbling, heartwarming and just plain fun” experience, says Kassel.

Canniff, a fieldwork first-timer, and Kassel, who has made the trek twice, say they are fortunate to be part of a 10-year tradition of expeditions into the majestic peaks.

Since coming to Union in 1994, Prof. Don Rodbell has received a series of grants to study the cycle of climate change in the tropics. He says a great majority of his students go on to study tropical climate change in graduate school, and one hardly needs to guess why.

“The constant presence of peaks, the descending glaciers and lakes below…from when we woke and crawled out of our tents to when we went to bed, was incredibly relaxing and awe-inspiring,” Kassel recalls. “And we were studying what happened to those areas over thousands of years.”

An avid hiker, Kassel was a member of Union's Outing Club and treasurer (and interim president) of the Geology Club. His love for geology came from a curiosity about how the earth and environment works. Though he never anticipated the travel opportunities his undergraduate experience has afforded him, he says, “Being able to work outdoors was a major factor in deciding to study geology.”

In the field of climate research, there is both academic and humanitarian interest. Archeologists have evidenced the cyclic rise and fall of pre-Incan societies that populated the region of the Andes known as the altiplano, one of the world's largest high-elevation plateaus. Currently, the altiplano undergoes a protracted dry season from June through September, an increasingly fearful fact as the tropics experience global warming and glaciers dwindle in size.

By tracking the pace of glacial retreat, scientists can unearth the climate change timetable. This would be extremely helpful for high-altitude populations already on the margin of survivability, whose only source of water is the shrinking glacial off-flow, used for agriculture and hydroelectric power. To study this, they measured the flow of glacial streams, drew cores from lakebeds (which are roughly 30 ft. long and striated with different layers of organic and glacial matter), and collected samples of boulders that harness glacial material.

As Rodbell points out, the fieldwork is not only a study of science, but inevitably becomes a venue for studying cultural and geographic differences. Kassel concurs, citing not only the benefit of learning how to interpret findings in the field, but also the rewarding pleasure of “interacting with Peruvians-who were so friendly and open to our differences-and learning a lot about how people live in different areas of Peru, from the cities to the mountains.”

Posted on Jul 28, 2006

Erica Gierke '06

Faculty advisor: Stephen J. Schmidt, economics
The Vaporware Game

Are tech companies playing games with the market? That's what Erica Gierke wants to know, and she spent countless hours analyzing data, news releases and other information to get an overview of the problem of vaporware.

The term vaporware refers to software, hardware and all those other products that are as thin as air-products that have been designed, developed, demo-ed and hyped but that tend to evaporate as their release dates approach.

“When a company announces a product that's still under development, they're marketing something that doesn't exist,” Gierke says. “This is very common in the technology market, especially in software, but also in hardware and with video games.”

Over-promising and under-delivering is more than a nuisance for consumers, Gierke says. “It can be considered a marketing tactic to deter competition and a manipulation of the market. If companies are using a lot of vaporware and pushing others out of the market, they are artificially creating a monopoly for themselves. It forces out the competition before the product is ready to go.”

A computer science and economics interdepartmental major who is head of the USTAR Tech Team (which assists with IT), Gierke says her research is particularly engaging because it combines her dual major.

“In computer science, we learn about strategies and formulas for product development, like software engineering, in which we go through the entire product's life cycle,” she says. “I'm also interested in looking at the business end of it. As a business marketing tactic, vaporware is fairly new.”

Posted on Jul 28, 2006

Filip Holub

Exchange student
Faculty advisor: Bradley G. Lewis, Professor of Economics measuring stock market behavior

Six weeks into his 10-week research project, Filip Holub’s laptop goes kaput. The week before, his advisor, Bradley G. Lewis, had the same problem.

“Maybe they don’t want us to do the research,” Holub jokes about the coincidence.

Holub, a 22-year-old exchange student from the Czech Republic who used to play stock games, was practically destined to do the research. He has a broad knowledge of mathematics, statistics, finance and computer modeling, rounded out by reading the Wall Street Journal and part-time work as a financial advisor in his native Prague.

“Filip combines the strengths of an engineer and an economist,” Lewis says. “He’s ideally suited for this project.”

For 20 hours each week, Holub has been delving into a theoretical economic universe familiar mostly to those who take exception to the efficient markets theory that has dominated academic finance over the years. New literature suggests it’s time for economic and mathematical paradigms that are broader and more accurate.

“I’m analyzing how stock markets are changing, how they are interdependent and how changes are influenced by the past. So far, I’ve studied four different markets and almost a whole century,” Holub says of his work with fractal finance, which measures the uneven nature of markets.

He and Lewis are attuned to the work of maverick mathematician Benoit Mandlelbrot, the guru of fractals, who teamed up with Wall Street Journal reporter Richard Hudson to write The (Mis) Behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward.

“My research has unveiled what Mandelbrot is saying,” Holub notes. “He wrote that today’s market returns positively correlate with returns that have occurred in the last 1,500 days. I have studied data for 19,200 days and Japanese, German, U.S. and Swiss markets all show similar patterns.”

When not immersed in fractal finance, Holub keeps busy as a member of the College Investment Club and by playing volleyball and soccer.

Meanwhile, developing his investment skills and broadening his knowledge by working with Lewis have added up to what he calls an unparalleled experience.

“This summer research can boost my career (management consulting in civil engineering). This was a very attractive opportunity since there are no other programs such as this offered in the Czech Republic. You never meet with a professor on a daily basis. I can do my own research, yes, but meeting with a professor would be like asking for a favor.”

Holub returned last fall to Czech Technical University, where he studies micro and macro economics and leads the International Students Club.

Posted on Jul 28, 2006

Mary Olushoga '06

Faculty sponsor: Deidre Hill Butler, sociology Other Mothering in Motion: Parenting Styles of African American Stepmothers

Mary Olushoga stands outside Wold House, greeting the 94-degree day with a generous smile. “I love this weather,” says the 20-year-old who moved from Nigeria to the Bronx when she was 14.

With a major in sociology and a minor in Africana studies, Olushoga gravitates toward the study of social structures and human interaction. “I like to view people in the context of their environment…If someone thinks, ‘Mary is Mary because she is from Nigeria and lives in the Bronx and goes to Union College,' they will have a better idea of who I am.”

Last summer Olushoga assisted Prof. Deidre Hill Butler in researching the parenting styles of African American stepmothers.

“There hasn't been a lot written on this,” Olushoga says. “The divorce rates are very high among working- class African Americans because of economic stress, social stress, and husbands who feel they can't live up to the role of provider.” The rates are equally high, she noted, among African American women who are college-educated.

Olushoga unearthed her senior thesis topic: why a high number of college-educated black women are single and choose adoption.”

Olushoga's scholarly pursuits provide only a glimpse into her many talents. Last summer she was a counselor and tutor for STEP, the Science and Technology Entry Program for high school students. A natural performer, she was the recipient of the Edward Villella Fellowship for dance and gave daily lessons in African cultural dance at the Hamilton Hill Arts Center in Schenectady.

She also sings with the College jazz band, leads the gospel choir, Heavenly Voices, and has performed in every dance program since setting foot on campus. She inspired the song, “Smile,” in The Black Tulip by Kit Goldstein '05, and sang the number in the musical.

Her involvement on campus doesn't end there, however. As Prof. Hill-Butler describes, “Mary has been an active community builder at Union and has brought both vision and enthusiasm to her leadership roles on campus.” She is also an admissions interviewer and was elected vice president of campus life for Student Forum.