Posted on Sep 1, 1995

The College received four new endowed scholarships over the summer:

-Lee M. Landes '45 established the Rear Admiral Lee M. Landes Scholarship with a gift of $25,262. The scholarship has no restrictions.

-Randolph W. (“Wally”) Meyer '57 established the John Wells Meyer and Kevin Michael Meyer Scholarship in memory of his two sons. The scholarship, begun with a gift of $25,000, will assist non-traditional students. Meyer previously donated the Susan Davis Lloyd Scholarship endowment.

-Scott M. Siegler '69 and his father, Dr. Edward Siegler, established the Scott M. Sieglar '69 Scholarship with a gift of $25,000. The scholarship will support students majoring in English.

-Alumnae from Delta Delta Delta are establishing an endowed scholarship in memory of Randi S. Bell '85, who died in an accident during the summer of 1994. Those interested in helping should contact Kara J. Miller '85 at (212) 787-5151.

Other recent gifts, grants, and bequests include:

John E. Dreier, Jr. '64 made a gift of $64,479 for the Geology Field Study Endowment, which provides support for undergraduate work in geology.

-An anonymous donor has added $25,000 to the Roland D. Ciaranello '65, M.D., Memorial Scholarship endowment fund. This brings the total received for the Ciaranello scholarship to more than $50,000.

-Five individuals and one estate have made life income
gifts totalling $139,976. Gifts from Norman N. Bergen '43 and Morris Marshall Cohn '24 were for the charitable gift annuity program; a gift from Dr. Edwin A. Brown, a former parent, was for a charitable remainder unitrust; and gifts from William C. Bachtel '70G and the estate of George F. Cox '26 were for the pooled life income fund.

-The College received more than $24,000 in distributions from trusts and estates. These include distributions from the estates of Gladys Thompson Geurard, Lemuel Boulware '57H, Ruth F. Cowell, David J. Parker '33, and Frederick and Frances Feuer '32, and from the trusts of Marshall W. Quandt '33 and Franklyn Millham '32.

Posted on Sep 1, 1995

Near the end of the ReUnion Weekend alumni concert, the Glee Club and Choir alumni provided a surprise for Professor of Music Hugh Allen Wilson-a $22,000 endowment bearing his name.

The endowment will support the choral music program at the College. Principal donors are Peter R. Brayton '72, Donald E. Foley '73, and Glenn C. Wolfson '77. Also contributing are Eugene A. Greco '72, Christopher P. O'Connor '76, and Kenneth L. Wyse '72.

Director of Development Bruce Downsbrough '75-a former Glee Club manager-said, “Music aside, Hugh is what
Union College has always been all about -a great teacher.

“Music is Hugh's medium but his lesson goes to the essence of a liberal arts education,” Downsbrough said. “Whether in the classroom, the concert hall, or his office, Hugh has always set the highest expectations for his students. He is supportive and he provides encouragement, but he also dares his students to take chances, to ask difficult questions, and, above all, to challenge themselves in demanding new ways.”

Wilson has announced his retirement after the 1995-96 academic year, his thirty-fourth at the College. More than 140 Glee Club and Choir alumni returned to campus for the ReUnion Concert.

Posted on Sep 1, 1995

Thanks to the generosity of thousands of alumni and friends, the Bicentennial Campaign set several records in 1994-95 and has received a national honor recognizing sustained improvement in fundraising results.

Total cash receipts for the year exceeded $15 million, breaking the previous record (set last year) by $2.5 million. The Annual Fund brought in more than $4 million, an increase of more than $500,000. Of the total, almost $2.7 million was unrestricted.

Percent participation-the number of alumni who gave to the College-increased to more than fifty-two percent, a number that puts Union among the top two dozen or so colleges in the country. Union is one of the few colleges and universities that reversed a nationwide decline in percent participation.

More detailed information about the records will appear in the annual Report of Gifts in the November issue of Union College.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education recognized the College with a 1995 Circle of Excellence
Award for Educational Fund Raising. Union was cited for significant overall improvement over the past three years.

The award is based on a detailed analysis of the data supplied by hundreds of colleges and universities to the
Council for Aid to Education.

“This award speaks volumes about the dedication of our hard-working alumni volunteers who have done so much to raise the level of giving among their peers,” said Dan West, vice president for college relations.

Posted on Sep 1, 1995

How Union attained one of its defining characteristics-liberal arts with engineering-can be traced to Eliphalet Nott, president of the College from 1804 to 1866.

Nott brought William M. Gillespie to campus in 1845 as lecturer and head of the Civil Engineering Department. To understand that decision, we must go back to Nott's relationship with the Rensselaer Institute – later to become Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Rensselaer Institute was founded in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer,
a wealthy landowner who rose to high military and political positions in New York. Van Rensselaer wanted to encourage farmers and
improve agriculture. Thus his school would produce teachers who would instruct in the basics of the “business of living”-everything from experimental chemistry to the “arts and manufactures.”

He hired Amos Eaton as senior professor. Eaton, the son of a wealthy farmer from Chatham, N.Y., began his professional life as a lawyer but decided to follow his true love of science. He conducted several geological surveys, studied botany, published several pieces of work, and became
well known for his scientific accomplishments.

In 1835, state legislation authorized the Rensselaer Institute to establish a department specifically for engineering and technology.

The president of the institute during these early years was Eliphalet Nott (who continued, of course, his remarkable presidency at Union). Nott's role seems to have been mainly advisory, although he developed close ties with Eaton and supported his quest to encourage and teach engineering, science, and technology. It was a quest that interested many Union students, including Nott's own grandson, who journeyed to Troy to take classes.

Eaton died in 1842. Three years later, Nott-who never let an opportunity pass
resigned his presidency at the institute and hired Gillespie to begin engineering at Union. Juniors and seniors could take courses in civil engineering. As written in the 1845 catalog, “those who regularly go through it and evince due proficiency, will receive a special diploma or certificate to that effect.”

Those first classes in geometrical drawing, isometrical projection, and leveling have evolved into such classes as
computer-aided graphics and drafting, audio and image digital signal processing, and the mechanics of material failure. And from that one department with one professor have come three departments with more than thirty faculty members.

Posted on Sep 1, 1995

In my opinion, young women joining engineering has been the second best thing to happen to the field,” says Richard Kenyon, professor of mechanical engineering and dean of engineering at Union.

And what's the first?

“When we stopped thinking of engineering as applied science and started thinking of it as a social endeavor to make things better for people.”

Both changes are part of the new engineering curriculum being designed with major support from a
grant from the General Electric Foundation. A goal of the new program is to encourage us to think about engineering as a social enterprise-a profession that solves problems and works towards the betterment of society.

“If engineering is seen as offering one route to solving the world's travails, it might be appealing to those who might not ordinarily be captured by it,” he says.

According to Kenyon, women were never consciously excluded from the field of engineering.

“It was just assumed that they were uninterested,” he says. “It was very much a cultural thing. We just didn't recruit young girls into engineering.”

But in the mid-1960s, he says, someone realized that half the population was being excluded from a profession that was in no way gender bound. A large “latent pool” of women enrolled in engineering programs, and it was thought that before long the number of men and women in engineering would be equal.

But that has yet to happen, and in fact the number of women in engineering has decreased since its peak in the mid-1980s.

Kenyon says increasing the numbers is important for two reasons:

• “The more we make all disciplines gender blind, the sooner we will erase stereotypes and professions will be enriched. 
• “We must try to reach a point where no one is denied access to a discipline or profession simply because of a societal belief that it's inappropriate. No one should be inhibited from pursuing a profession because of sex, race, religion, or ethnicity.”

The aim of the new engineering curriculum is to create professionals who are prepared for all aspects of the world they live in.

“Liberal arts, the social sciences, becoming well-rounded are not the frosting on the cake,” Kenyon says. “They are the cake, and engineering is the frosting.”