A review essay by Raymond Martin, research professor of philosophy, appeared in a recent issue of the journal History and Theory. The piece, “Let Many Flowers Bloom,” is on historian Allan Megill’s “Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: A Contemporary Guide to Practice.”
Laurie Tyler, professor of chemistry, recently published a paper with student co-authors Lauren Carlson ’07,Jenna Welby ’07,Kelly Zebrowski ’11 and Matthew Wilk ’12. The paper was accepted by Inorganica Chimica Acta, an Elsevier journal dedicated to publishing inorganic research. The title of the paper is ‘Spectroscopic differences between heterocyclic benzothiazoline, -thiazole and imine containing ligands and comparison of the Co and Cu pyridine benzothiazole and imine complexes.”
Tina Lincer, associate director of Communications, will give a memoir reading at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, Monday, Dec. 12 as part of Bookmarks, a series of public group readings across literary genres. Lincer joins numerous other area writers in an evening devoted to the theme of siblings. Bookmarks is a program of the center’s Memoir Project.
Gordon Brown ’12 graduated from the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Leader’s training Course at Fort Knox, Ky. During the four-week course, Brown received training in fundamental military skills, Army values, ethics, warrior ethos, basic rifle marksmanship, small arms tactics, weapons training, drill and ceremony, communications, combat water survival training, rappelling, land navigation and squad-level operations.
Sixty-four students showed off their work at the Nott Memorial Tuesday, the culmination of their Sophomore Research Seminars.
“I was at first apprehensive about taking part in a large research project,” said Keven Donohue ’13, who is interested in pursuing an interdepartmental major in math and economics. “But the research process was broken down into several steps that allowed me to gather information and organize it in a logical manner.”
Donohue studied “Drugs and Cultures” with professor Joyce Madancy this term. His project addressed how certain wars, particularly the Civil War and Vietnam War, altered the nature of opiate use and perceptions of opiate use in the United States.
Union’s Sophomore Research Seminars, small, content-rich classes, are designed by instructors from throughout the College to help students learn research and writing skills. The SRS is a key required component of Union’s General Education.
In addition to Madancy’s course on “Drugs and Cultures,” Tuesday’s poster session featured students from “The Automobile in American Culture,” with Brad Lewis; “Cuba and the Cuban Revolution,” with Teresa Meade; and “Race, Gender and Class in the American Civil War Era,” with Andrea Foroughi.
“The SRS allows students to dive into a research project and learn about the construction of an argument, the critical analysis of sources and the compilation of valid evidence,” Madancy said.
Christine Wong '13
The poster session, she noted, comes between the rough draft of the research paper and the final version. “It allows students to present their work verbally and to think of visual means of organizing their evidence. They can also see what other students are working on.”
Christine Wong ’13, a pre-med physics major in Madancy’s course, researched the legalization of caffeine and the illegal status of amphetamines.
“I wanted to know if caffeine and amphetamines were similar when it came to how they affected the body and why one was legal and the other was not. I found they were very similar in their effect on the brain. I concluded that caffeine was legal due to social and economic issues, not merely because it was safer to use.
“Doing the work was difficult at times, but it was completely worth it,” Wong said. “I got to research what I was interested in, which made it enjoyable.”
Melanny Dominguez ’13, Cuba research
For Melanny Dominguez ’13, who is leaning toward a major in political science and a minor in Spanish, the research seminar opened a window on a new world, that of racism in post-revolutonary Cuba.
“It all started with a book assignment,” said Dominguez, citing “Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century,” a biography of Maria de los Reyes Castillo Bueno by her daughter, Daisy Rubiera Castillo. “This book was amazing. It talks about the struggles Reyita faced because of her Afro-Cuban descent.”
Dominguez also was taken with a second book, “Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro’s Cuba,” a 2008 memoir by Carlos Moore.
“Everything about Cuba was new to me,” she said. “I really enjoyed reading these primary sources. Their stories were intriguing and powerful.”
To see video highlights of some of the Sophomore Research Seminar presentations, click here.
The College’s veterans and members of the Armed Forces will be honored during a special Veterans Day ceremony Thursday, Nov. 11.
During the ceremony, which begins at 5:30 p.m. in Memorial Chapel, Frank Taormina ’50 will tell the story of “Taps,” the bugle call composed by Daniel Butterfield, Class of 1849, who rose to the rank of major general in the Union Army. Butterfield composed the haunting call while in camp at Harrison's Landing, Va., in 1862.
General Daniel Adams Butterfield, composer of “Taps”
Unhappy with the call for “Extinguish Lights,” Butterfield, with the help of the brigade bugler, Oliver Willcox Norton (1839-1920), wrote a new call.
The call became known as “Taps” because it was often tapped out on a drum in the absence of a bugle call. It was officially adopted by the U.S. Army in 1874.
Rachel Finkelstein ’12 will play the bugle call during the ceremony, the first formal Veterans Day observance on campus in recent memory.
The Dutch Pipers and the Schenectady Pipe Band also will perform.
Dick Killeen ’51, chairman of the Garnet Guard, one of the organizers of the service, will give remarks.
In addition, miniature American flags will be placed along the route from the President’s House to Memorial Chapel.
“This ceremony is just one way we can honor Union College’s veterans,” said Tammy Messercola, director of Alumni Relations. “They gave their service to our country, and this is our way of saying thank you.”
The ceremony is open to all members of the campus community. The public is also invited.
John Harnden Jr. ’50, center, shows a bank of fluorescent lighting at the Edison Tech Center. From left are engineering students Isabel McRae, Junior Rivas, Kirk Seaman and Nick Brenn.
The back of the textbook that professor Frank Wicks uses for “Exploring Engineering,” a course for first-year students, lists the 20th century’s most important innovations.
At the top of the list: electricity.
So it makes sense to bring students to where it all began – Schenectady – with a field trip to the Edison Tech Center, “a hands-on workshop to introduce students to the wonders of electricity,” as Wicks describes it. “We’re trying to give them a sense of what happened here.”
The center at 136 Broadway, the former press building for the Schenectady Gazette, is filled with the entire history of electrical innovation, much of it born in Schenectady. On display are the 1914 Detroit Electric Car that belonged to Charles Proteus Steinmetz; dozens of light bulbs, from the earliest versions by Edison, to compact fluorescents used today; and household appliances ranging from irons to microwaves.
In 1894, J. Pierpont Morgan, who considered competition the enemy of profitability in the electrical industry, began a consolidation of manufacturers – including Edison Electric – that would become General Electric.
In 1926, Christian Steenstrup developed a sealed motor and compressor that would be integral to an appliance that would be in half of American households by the end of World War II: the refrigerator.
In the 1940s, Irving Langmuir, a GE scientist and frequent Union lecturer, predicted that the magnetron – the core of radar used in the war – would have another application: the microwave oven.
Guiding the way was John Harnden Jr. ’50, a retired GE engineer with a number of patents to his credit. Harnden, a founder of the center, received an Outstanding Alumni Engineering Award from the College at ReUnion in May.
“GE is the biggest player in the region,” said student Kirk Seaman. “The Global Research Center is the most technologically advanced place in the region.”
“Why do they call it the Electric City?” asked professor Abe Tchako. “It’s not just the light bulb. It’s pioneers like Charles Steinmetz and Thomas Edison.”
Have you been browsing for books or Union gear lately? Perhaps you’ve noticed that the official Bookstore website is now easier to navigate.
The Office of Communications and Marketing recently partnered with the Bookstore to redesign the site. It now sports a cleaner look, simpler navigation and clearer focus on “gifts, products, technology, textbooks.” The new site blends well with the new www.union.edu to support a unified identify for Union that visitors will instantly recognize.
“Many alumni and parents visit the site, and improving their experience and ability to locate merchandise as well as featuring products on various pages should keep our store more robust,” said Tim Porter, Bookstore manager.
Jason Slater, Web manager, worked on the site with Roubina Morgan, Bookstore administrative assistant. To view the new site, click here.
Mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn and pianist Joseph Breinl will perform "Dream Works," a program of Grieg, Brahms, R. Strauss, Tschaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov Saturday, Nov. 27 at 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel as part of the College’s Chamber Concert Series.
The Delft-born Stotijn and Munich native Breinl work together regularly and have performed in top recital venues and with leading orchestras throughout the world. Both are impeccably trained and have received numerous honors.
Born in 1977, Stotijn studied violin and voice at the Amsterdam Conservatoire, gaining her solo diploma in 2000. She continued her vocal studies with Udo Reinemann at the Conservatoires of Amsterdam and Metz, where she graduated in 2003 with the highest distinction in song recital and opera. She also studied with Jard van Nes and Dame Janet Baker, with whom she has been compared.
She has performed at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and at Lincoln Center with the London Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink. She is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the 2005/06 ECHO Rising Stars Award, the 2005 Borletti Buitoni Award, the prestigious Dutch Music Prize and, in April of this year, the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award for her Tchaikovsky Romances CD.
Joseph Breinl
An impassioned performer of lieder, she has appeared in recitals and concerts at the world’s premier concert halls, including London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels. She has performed in top roles at the Paris Opera, Netherlands Opera, the Monnaie and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Breinl’s international career includes performances at prestigious festivals and venues in Europe, North America and Asia, including the Munich Opera Festival, Austria’s Schubertiade, Wigmore Hall, Symphony Hall in Osaka, Stockholm Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall and Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center. Born in 1977, he is the son of Gerhard Breinl, a violist in the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Boston Camerata, directed by Anne Azema
Boston Camerata, under the direction of Anne Azema, will perform Sunday, Dec. 13 at 3 p.m. Founded in 1954, the group plays historically informed compositions from European medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras is one of the world’s oldest continually functioning early music ensembles.
At Union, Boston Camerata’s distinguished singers and specialists in early instruments will present “An American Christmas,” featuring American music from a wide range of early tune books and manuscripts. The performance will include many carols, New England anthems, hymns and religious ballads for the season.
Both shows are free to members of the Union community. Sotijn and Breinl are $20 for the general public; Boston Camarata is $25. For more information call 388-6080, or visit http://www.union.edu/ConcertSeries
