Faculty advisor: Gary Reich, physics Searching for a Random Number Generator in Simulating Lattices
On a steamy August day, Luther Vucic stays cool in the air-conditioned physics lab as X's dance around his monitor in seemingly random patterns. Vucic has learned to make sense out of the chaos.
His summer project isn't easy to render in layman's terms. He is studying a branch of statistical mechanics known as percolation theory. He uses a computer program to study the phase transitions of materials at the quantum level, simulating levels of magnetism, conduction and temperature.
Explored by Professor Gary Reich for the past five years, the field is a fit for Vucic, who was drawn to physics because it provides “the ability to describe, in minute detail, the physical properties of life,” he said. To Vucic's credit, Reich says, “It is no small task to learn programming, and Luther has been industrious and successful.”
Vucic is sincerely intrigued with tackling academics and life. He believes the mysteries he can solve with physics-how chalk sticks to a chalkboard or why the life-giving sunlight is no different from the glow of fireflies-are so broad they can provide a lifetime of inquiry.
A self-proclaimed “extremist” with his own diverse array of interests-he has rowed on the College crew team and belongs to Union's Motorcycle and Astronomy clubs-Vucic aspires to the title “mad scientist.” He dreams of owning his own lab to explore everything his curiosity dictates.
He admits his dreams change daily, however. “Maybe tomorrow I'll want to be out at sea on a research boat or in space as an astronaut or in the rainforest as a doctor.”
A native of Angola, N.Y., Vucic is a member of Green House. He transferred to Union as a sophomore, drawn by the College's reputation for undergraduate research, he said.
A summer stroll across campus is an ideal time to catch up on quiet thoughts. Save for the hum of a lawnmower or the occasional distant wail of a siren, Union seems a tranquil place that awaits the arrival of fall.
Open the door to nearly any building, however, and you find a buzz of activity as dozens of students participate in one of Union's most distinctive programs-undergraduate research.
Campus labs, libraries, classrooms and offices bustle with an array of thought-provoking, mind-stretching research and other scholarly pursuits.
While many projects are scientific in nature-consider “Laser Scattering from Beta Amyloid” or “Synthesis and Luminescence Properties of Platinum Complexes,” respective physics and chemistry efforts-students and their faculty sponsors also immerse themselves in a range of research across disciplines.
Herewith, a glimpse at some of this last summer's student research. Most students have continued their work throughout the academic year, work that began on an otherwise serene summer campus.
On a cool morning in early April, three months before he is to start his job as Union's 18th president, Stephen Ainlay answers the door at the President's House.
Wearing a charcoal suit, crisp blue shirt and tie, he looks a little out of place in a building that clearly is in the hands of contractors. The air is thick with the smell of fresh paint. There are drop cloths and tool boxes sitting in a corner. And a brief tour Ainlay gives to a pair of visitors is punctuated by the thrum of saws and drills from somewhere in the kitchen.
Eager to jump in at Union, Ainlay couldn't wait to get started, even if it meant moving in while the house was full of noise and dust. He quickly finished up his duties as dean of faculty at Holy Cross, made a brief visit to see his son, Jonathan, in Arizona, and took a short vacation to London with his wife, Judy, who is finishing her job as director of the Gerontology Studies Program at Holy Cross in Worcester.
Now, he is filling his days with meetings on- and off-campus to get up to speed when he officially starts June 15. He meets regularly with Interim President Jim Underwood and other members of the administration to learn day-to-day operations. He meets with trustee and campus groups to develop a strategic plan (an effort launched by Underwood). And he's a popular guest at student and alumni events, where he is happy to share what he has already learned about the College or its history.
He took some time to discuss his background, his research, his family and what brought him to Union.
Thanks, Jim
“As a new president, I couldn't ask for a more ideal situation,” he says. “Jim [Underwood] and his wife, Jean, have been just so warm and welcoming to Judy and me. Jim is handling the day-to-day operations and meeting with me, which has been enormously helpful in the transition. What he has done is extraordinary, basically coming out of retirement to take on such responsibility. He's doing some important things…his work [to promote] civility is very important. And he is so well known, and knows Union and its history so well, he has been enormously helpful.”
Learning Union history
Ainlay's current reading list is skewed toward Union's historical characters. In Doris Kearns Goodwin's A Team of Rivals, about members of Lincoln's administration, he is especially fascinated with one member, William Henry Seward (Union Class of 1820). A political rival of Lincoln, Seward would overcome the bitter disappointment of losing the party's nomination to become the president's secretary of state and architect of the anti-slavery agenda. “Seward was the hands-down favorite [for the nomination] …they even set up cannons around his house to celebrate. But he was able to manage that disappointment, and then rise to the common good. If you're looking for a role model…someone who was able to put themselves and their own aspirations into context of something much greater than themselves, you'll find no better example than William Seward.”
Another name, Franklin Giddings (Union Class of 1877), is well known to a sociologist like Ainlay. Giddings was generally regarded as one of the founding members of American academic sociology, holding the country's first chair at Columbia University. “What intrigues me about Giddings was that he was trained at Union as an engineer,” Ainlay says. “And then he goes on to start this whole new field, which is not only a mainstay in the modern college curriculum, but an important discipline in its own right. Giddings has become emblematic of a Union grad rooted in tradition but at the same time thinking outside the box [to create] this whole new endeavor.”
‘You're President Ainlay'
One evening recently, Ainlay was holding a pound of coffee in a checkout line at Price Chopper when he was approached by a trio of Union students, their cart brimming with the makings of a barbecue. “President Ainlay,” they said, “we're having a cookout tonight at Beuth House. Any chance you'd want to come?” He did. “They had hundreds of kids there and the smoke from the grill was drawing students up to the patio. The students would sort of do a double-take and then introduce themselves. I'm looking forward to being a presence in the students' lives, and I think that's beginning to happen.” Ainlay was invited to another cookout, this one at Golub House. He politely declined, explaining that the 1 a.m. starting time did not fit his schedule.
Ainlay also has found his way into the classroom, a psychology class where students and administrators were discussing the Minerva housing system. “The students right away engaged all of us,” he said. “They could have been intimidated, but they certainly weren't.”
Research- People part of greater whole
Ainlay's own research seems eclectic-blindness, aging, spirituality and Mennonite life. But the thread that connects it all, he says, is “the human need for people to see themselves as part of a greater whole.”
It's a theme Ainlay will revisit often during the course of conversation.
“There is a lesson here for leadership generally, that people want to believe they're part of something bigger than themselves,” he says. “I think the great thing about being a college president is that you get to remind people of that greater project.”
His first book, Day Brought Back My Night, explores how people cope with blindness late in life. His most recent book, Mennonite Entrepreneurs, examines how people balance their drive for personal gain with commitments to a community that frowns on material acquisition. He is working on a book-The Drift Toward Modernity-about the development of seminary education for Mennonite clergy in the 1940's, the start of a somewhat uneasy 20-year transition toward a professionalization of church leadership. Before 1940, members of the Anabaptist farming sect chose their non-paid, lifetime clergy by lot. “It was one thing to have authority given to you by God,” he says. “It was another thing to have authority by credential.”
Although not a member of the Mennonites, a largely agrarian Protestant group that advocates baptism of adult believers only and rejects military service, Ainlay grew up with a close connection that would inspire much of his scholarly research.
Growing up in Goshen
Goshen, Indiana, Ainlay's hometown, sits halfway across the state and eight miles south of the Michigan border. It is home to a large Mennonite and Amish population, an industrial sector that produces boats and RVs, and Goshen College, from which Ainlay and his father graduated.
The Maple City has changed some since Ainlay was a kid. It has doubled its population to 30,000, and there is the ubiquitous Wal-Mart. But it still has a downtown parking lot for Amish buggies. And a native son makes front-page news for being appointed president of a college 700 miles to the east.
Ainlay was raised in a Methodist family, the second of Charles and Dorothy Ainlay's five children. His father, who died in 2004, was a prominent attorney and a fixture in local politics and civic organizations. As young Stephen Ainlay rode his bike down the street, shopkeepers called him by name.
The Ainlay kids grew up well grounded. When Ainlay's mother read a glowing press release announcing her son's appointment at Union, she wryly remarked that she didn't know who it was about. His siblings have noted that at about the same time, Ainlay's younger brother, Chuck, a renowned Nashville recording engineer, was winning a Grammy award as producer for the 20th anniversary Surround Sound version of the Dire Straits classic album, Brothers in Arms. (His oldest brother, John, is a vice president for Allied Van Lines in Chicago; a younger sister, Susan, is an art therapist; and his youngest sister, Ann, teaches Arabic at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.)
Ainlay was a legacy at Goshen College. (His father, who lost his own father at the start of the Depression, found a mentor in a Mennonite teacher with a family connection to Goshen. He received a full scholarship, graduated in 1941 and served as an alumni advisor.) All but one of the Ainlay children took courses at Goshen, but Stephen was the only one to get a degree there.
Ainlay was a minority at the college. Its charter at the time required that 65 percent of the students be Mennonite, and there was mandatory chapel. “It was not completely new,” he recalls. “I had many Mennonite friends, but I certainly got to know Mennonite life better there than I had when I was growing up.”
To Rutgers
When Ainlay, a senior sociology major, read Peter Berger's influential The Social Construction of Reality, he decided to pursue graduate study with the author at Rutgers University. When he arrived in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he marched into Berger's office-rather naively, he now recalls-to announce that he would be working with him. Berger gladly took on the promising young man for a master's and Ph.D.
Ainlay and his wife, Judy, were high school sweethearts who met when he offered her a ride home after a student government meeting. She followed him to Goshen College; they both spent a term in England and then went on to Rutgers, where they were married. Judy earned her M.S.W. at Rutgers and then worked for agencies serving seniors while her husband was finishing his doctorate and doing post-doc work at Princeton.
When Ainlay took a teaching position at Holy Cross in 1982, Judy took a job doing PR for a senior services center. For the past 12 years, she has directed the Gerontology Studies Program of the Colleges of Worcester consortium, which includes Holy Cross, Clark University, Assumption College, Worcester State College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Though the next chapter of Judy's career is still taking shape, Ainlay says the couple looks forward to working together at Union. “This is a partnership of sorts that we're working on,” he says. “And we look forward to working together. I think we need to figure out over the next six months what exactly that means. We have two boys, both of whom are out of the house, so we're excited about having 2,200 students around. We just enjoy working with young adults at that age.”
Jesse, their oldest boy, graduated from Holy Cross. He is working as a legal assistant in a New York law firm and plans to go to law school. Jonathan will be a junior this fall at the University of Arizona.
Why Union?
To the recurring question, Ainlay says, “It felt very much like home.”
“It was immediately striking to me just how much the students, alumni and people who work here are attached to this institution,” he says. “The kind of care that people take of the campus, for example, seems to be emblematic of the care that people take in the classroom and in doing their work here.
“When you have a place that people care about so deeply, when you have a history like Union's, it's very easy to get caught up. I'm certainly well on my way to being caught up in Union.”
Stephen C. Ainlay
Hometown: Goshen, Indiana Age: 54 Family: wife, the former Judith Gardner; two sons, Jesse and Jonathan Last position: former vice president for academic affairs and professor of sociology at College of the Holy Cross Field: sociologist, with research covering aging, blindness, spirituality, and Mennonite life Education: master's and Ph.D., Rutgers University; bachelor's degree, Goshen College Selected books:Day Brought Back My Night, Mennonite Entrepreneurs and The Drift Toward Modernity (in preparation)
I have played many parts in almost 43 years at Union-25-year-old untenured and overwhelmed instructor, department chair, dean of the faculty, retired Chauncey Winters research chair teaching one course a year-all of which have allowed me to indulge part-time my obsession with the College and its well-being.
From day one in the President's seat, admissions forced itself onto my agenda. It became clear that we needed to focus on three goals-control financial aid costs, increase the pool of applicants and increase diversity. We have succeeded in controlling the rate of increase in financial aid. We have also taken important steps to increase diversity. As a new partner with the POSSE Foundation, starting this fall we will welcome 10 inner-city students into each class. Finally, we are putting more resources into admissions and will cast our net into areas with fast-growing numbers of high school graduates.
Budget questions also forced their way onto my agenda. Facing the same challenges as other colleges with similar-sized endowments, we have taken the first step in lowering our rate of tuition increases and our draw from our endowment. Despite this, I can report that with the hard work of our staff and members of the Planning and Priorities Committee, we were able to meet this year's substantial challenge of a $1.6 million spike in energy costs as well as cope with continuing high energy costs by committing more resources to conserving use.
It quickly became apparent to me that we needed to do more to build both satisfaction with, and pride in, Union among both students and alumni. As a representative of one of the most prestigious scholarship foundations in the nation said to me, “You at Union don't fully realize how good you are.” That sentiment is one reason I appointed two committees that have made a series of recommendations that could increase both satisfaction with, and pride in, the College. As my contribution to increasing pride in the College, I am working on developing a lecture series that will help all of us, especially students, better appreciate that history.
As President I have come to know far more about student life than I did as a faculty member. It is clear to me that we need to continue to enrich both intellectual and social life. The Minerva system is a good first step, but that system alone cannot carry the entire burden. As accomplished as our student body is, we still face some of the problems faced by all colleges in America, including the problem of excessive levels of alcohol consumption on the part of some students along with associated harmful acts. As a response, we are creating a President's Commission on Building a Better Community. Made up of representatives of all College constituencies, the commission has been charged with making recommendations that will enable Union to become what I have called “an oasis of civility in an uncivil world.” Stephen Ainlay is enthusiastic in his support of the Commission and I have the greatest confidence that the campaign that Steve Ciesinski, Steve Leavitt, student leaders and I have begun for a higher level of civility will be brought to fruition under our new president's leadership.
Finally, the Board of Trustees, Faculty Executive Committee, our new President, Stephen Ainlay, the President's staff and I all recognize the importance of developing a strategic plan. By next February, we will have a strategic plan that will identify ways to respond to challenges and opportunities, provide criteria for making budgetary and programmatic decisions, provide a clear direction for the future, and help energize and mobilize all members of the community in the task of moving Union forward.
About two months ago, a faculty colleague asked me whether Union could once again reach the heights in reputation that it reached in the first half of Nott's tenure and in the Richmond/Steinmetz era in the early 20th century. I answered that I would not have been sure of my answer, had he asked me before I stepped into the President's role, but that after about eight months in the job I had no doubts that Union would indeed reach the very loftiest heights in reputation and be seen as the best of the best. The fact is that being President has enabled me to see that our problems and challenges, while real, are indeed manageable. And being President has made very clear to me that we now have the resources in leadership, programs and people to take advantage of the opportunities we at Union have at this critical moment in the history of higher education. I am confident that the alumni body and other supporters will provide the generous support necessary for the College to move forward.
Union's Geology Department has been accepted to the Keck Geology Consortium, an elite multi-college collaboration which focuses on innovative undergraduate research.
The College was selected over a number of competitive applications from peer institutions.
Since it was created 20 years ago, the Consortium has sponsored 116 projects involving 970 undergraduate students from 90 schools across the country. In addition, over 115 faculty representing 50 colleges, universities, governmental agencies and businesses have participated in programs through the Consortium.
''This is a well-deserved honor for the College and for the Department,'' said Therese McCarty, interim dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs. ''This acceptance is largely in recognition of the Department's successful integration of research and teaching.''
Since 2004, the Consortium has been based at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio.
Other schools in the Consortium include Amherst, Beloit, Carleton, Colgate, Colorado College, Franklin and Marshall, Macalester, Mt. Holyoke, Oberlin, Pomona, Smith, Trinity University, Washington and Lee, Wesleyan, Whitman and Williams.
Stephen Ainlay says managing the finances of a nonprofit school like Union College is not unlike the successful businesses built by members of the Mennonite religious sect he is an authority on.
While private colleges do not frown on material success like the Mennonites, colleges have a deep social responsibility and an obligation to give back to the communities they call home, Ainlay said. One of the ways Union can do that is by helping to recruit new companies and economic activity to Schenectady, he said.
“Union is a cultural gem for the city of Schenectady and we do have an obligation to provide ways of making it known to potential businesses that we're here, we're going to work with them, we are going to create opportunities for their employees and that this is a good place to be, in part, because Union is located here,” Ainlay said.
Ainlay became Union's 18th president July 1. His formal inauguration will be Sept. 16.
Ainlay said he will continue the policies of former President Roger Hull (1990-2005) of building close ties between Union and the city of Schenectady. He said he would like to infuse the Union campus with more of a spirit of entrepreneurship and would be pleased to see more students create businesses and jobs in Schenectady after they get their diplomas.
Ainlay does not believe Union's obligation to give back to Schenectady extends to the payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, that Mayor Brian Stratton and some vocal property taxpayers have sought from the college.
Except for a few exceptions, Union does not pay property taxes for its 100-acre campus. It would face an estimated $6 million a year in payments if all of its property was taxed.
“PILOTs, I can see why people look at that as a way of trying to solve the community economic problems, but I don't think, in my mind, they are the most effective way,” he said. “At the end of the day, there are a lot more things that a college or a university can bring.”
Union is already a significant employer which generates more than $200 million a year for the local economy, he said.
“That's not just the direct money that comes from employees who have residences and pay taxes and so forth,” he said. “But it's also through all the indirect revenues that are brought into the city with people in hotels and restaurants, with parents visiting, the various conferences and so forth. Union is already a major economic player by way of the revenue that goes into Schenectady and into New York.”
Money matters Ainlay, 54, is a Lutheran who attended the Mennonite Goshen College in Indiana as an undergraduate. He was a professor of anthropology and sociology and a vice president for academic affairs at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., when he was selected as Union's president.
He said he wants to maintain a high profile on the Schenectady campus, even though he also expects to spend considerable time raising money. The college is currently in the middle of a $200 million donation campaign.
“You can't simply be on the road raising money all the time,” he said.
He said he will probably have to set aside his own scholarly pursuits–he is working on a book on Mennonite seminary education–while he settles into his new job at Union.
An earlier Ainlay book did profile the successful Mennonite businessmen, despite the sect's emphasis on living a simple lifestyle unadorned by most of the conviences of modern life.
The founders of the Smucker's food company and the Sauder furniture company were Mennonites.
Milton S. Hershey, founder of the Hershey chocolate empire, was descended from Mennonites.
“I was interested in what it was like to be a businessperson in a community that disapproves of worldly success of that sort,” he said. “Not to keep you from reading the book, but the answer is what they do is they give a lot of money back to the church and to society at large. The church is able to tolerate worldly success as long as it's being used for the service of others.”
