Posted on Oct 11, 2005

Union College students will once again spruce up the city of Schenectady from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15, for the 11th annual John Calvin Toll Day. A variety of beautification projects await them throughout the city.

Tasks will include weeding, hedge trimming, reshaping bushes and planting flowers. Daffodils and tulip bulbs will be planted between State Street and Nott Terrace.

The annual event is coordinated by the Kenney Community Center at Union College, The Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation (DSIC) and local volunteers.

The DSIC will be loaning the necessary equipment for the day, while the College will provide transportation for its members (campus community should meet at Old Chapel circle at 9:45 a.m.) and local volunteers will assist with the organization at various locations. Union staff and faculty, city leaders and residents will participate as well.

“I'm excited to see that the entire Union community, including Minerva Houses, various student clubs, faculty and staff, fraternities, sororities and athletic associations, will actively participate in John Calvin Toll Day,” said Gretchel Tyson, director of community outreach and affirmative action at Union College. “Our goal is to recognize National Community Service Day (Oct. 23) by providing the opportunity for all campus members to participate in the commitment to the city of Schenectady.”

Each volunteer will receive a $5 coupon, valid at participating stores and restaurants in Schenectady.

A number of parks, municipal buildings and city-owned properties will be on the list for a face-lift. Locations include Vale Park, Center City Sportsplex, outdoor areas in front of the police station and the public library on Liberty Street, and the Schenectady Museum and Amtrak station parking lots.

This annual community service day is named for one of Union's first graduates in 1799. John Calvin Toll Day is supported by Al Hill, a 1946 Union graduate and his wife, Perrie. Toll was the great-great-grandfather of Hill, a retired attorney from Buffalo. The Hills created the fund to encourage Union students to undertake volunteer service.

Former College President Roger H. Hull was a champion of community service during his 15-year tenure. He wanted first-year students to become more active in the community, be good neighbors and be civic-minded. Toll Day originally was part of new student orientation, but upper-class students also wanted to participate. The College now invites all students, faculty and staff to participate and be a part of National Community Service Day.

In his last address to the college during the 2005 commencement ceremony, Hull said, “Make a pact with yourself to serve your community, state, and nation and tackle the next stage of your journey with passion, accountability, compassion and truthfulness.”

Union's Kenney Community Center coordinates 11 community service programs, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Girls Inc., America Reads, Homework Center and Skills Development Program, Rotaract Club, Union Community Action Reaching Everyone (U-CARE), and Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP).

For further information, please call (518) 388-6609.

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Posted on Oct 11, 2005

The Center for Bioethics and Clinical Leadership has joined with its sister institution, the Center for Medical Ethics at Albany Medical College, to form the Alden March Bioethics Institute, or AMBI.  

Based at the medical college, the institute conducts comprehensive and innovative research, teaching and outreach concerning ethical issues in the health sciences.

The two centers have been collaborating closely for half a decade, sponsoring conferences and speakers and offering a master's program, graduate certificates in bioethics, and dual degree programs in law, medicine, pastoral care, public health and social work. The master's program enrolls students from throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.

“AMBI provides a basis for closer integration and collaboration with Albany Law School, the philosophy department at the University at Albany, the Ordway Research Institute, the SUNY schools of Social Work and Public Health, Union College and the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health,” said AMBI Chair Robert Baker, professor of bioethics at the Graduate College of Union University and professor of Philosophy at Union College.

Glenn McGee, the John A. Balint Endowed Chair of Medical Ethics at the medical college, is director of AMBI.

With the support of more than $3 million in federal and foundation grants, AMBI faculty produce widely-cited first-rate scholarship in medical, legal, philosophical and scientific journals and books. AMBI is also home to The American Journal of Bioethics, the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field, and to http://bioethics.net.

AMBI is named for Alden March, M.D., co-founder of the American Medical Association, leading 19th century surgeon and professor of anatomy. He founded the Albany Medical College in 1839.

For more on AMBI, visit http://bioethics.org.

 

 

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Posted on Oct 10, 2005

Skidmore College has entered into a contract with Time Warner Cable for computer Internet service instead of upgrading its aging, in-house system that once provided the Internet to all college dorm rooms.

College officials say it would have cost more than $2 million over five years to rewire Skidmore's dorms for the faster Internet access today's students expect.

The Time Warner-Skidmore contract is the only one of its kind at a college in the Capital Region.

“We try to provide our students with the best access possible,” said Justin D. Sipher, the college's chief technology officer.

The Time Warner Cable agreement, which started in September, comes with the faster Road Runner cable Internet service as well as the basic 81-channel cable package in all dorm rooms.

College officials say students are not charged individually for the Internet and cable television service. The service is included in the general room charge, they say.

Sipher said rewiring dorms with faster, plug-in computer modem hookups would have cost the college an estimated $500,000 a year for five years.

“We are able to get this contract for substantially less,” Sipher said. He said a confidentiality agreement he signed with Time Warner prevented him disclosing the cost of the five-year contract.

In addition, the Time Warner agreement comes with 24-hour-per-day technical service from Time Warner.

Time Warner Cable officials say that Skidmore – a private, liberal arts college of 2,200 students on North Broadway in Saratoga Springs – is the first college in the company's Albany Division to opt for the cable-Internet service.

Some local colleges, including Siena College in Loudonville and the University at Albany, have Time Warner cable television service but not combined with the Road Runner Internet service, said Peter Taubkin, a spokesman for Time Warner with local headquarters in Rotterdam.

When the semester started there was a rumor around campus that the cable-Internet service for each room was increasing room costs. Josh Kron, a reporter for the Skidmore News, looked into this and determined the rumor was unfounded.

“The students are happy. The [Time Warner] service is much faster,” said Kron, a Skidmore senior.

Over the summer Time Warner technicians ran fiber-optic cable underground to all residential buildings on campus for the new computer system.

LAPTOP ACCESS

In addition to the new Time Warner contract, the college is also providing more wireless computer Internet service on campus, Sipher said.

Wireless access allows students and faculty with properly equipped laptop computers to get Internet access without being plugged into cable or a wall connection.

There were 17 wireless access points last spring. Since then, the college technology office has increased access to 65 points, including the Scribner Library and the Case student center.

By the end of the semester the college expects to have 100 access points where students with laptop computers with the correct antenna can connect to the Internet. The cost to the college for the wireless upgrades is $50,000.

“All schools are looking to expand wireless access,” Sipher said about other colleges in the Capital Region and Northeast.

Students have a password or number they use to access the wireless system, preventing the general public from using the campus system.

ACCESS AT UNION

Union College in Schenectady has been expanding its wireless Internet access on campus for a number of years, said college spokesman Bill Schwarz.

Students expect wireless access on campus, he said. “We are ahead of the game, making many of our facilities wireless,” Schwarz said.

None of the dorm rooms at Skidmore College currently has wireless access because they have the Time Warner cable connection.

Sipher said the college can use its existing in-wall computer system – considered state of the art a decade ago – for the new wireless antenna connections.

“I would like to see more wireless [access],” said Dore Murphy, a sophomore from Cold Spring, who was using a college computer in Skidmore's Case Center on Tuesday.

She said her dorm cable connection seems to work fine and “seems to be pretty fast.” She also likes the cable television connection. But Murphy added she heard talk that students' room costs have increased because of the new cable Internet system. Sipher said this is not the case.

Nina Glatt, a junior from Vermont, was using her wireless laptop computer in Scribner Library on Tuesday afternoon. She said the college's library wireless computer access works “really well.”

Glatt, who lives in an apartment off campus, said she and her four roommates share the cost for a combination of wireless Internet service, phone service and television service. Her share is about $50 per month.

UPGRADES OFFERED

The basic cable and Internet connection package comes with each dorm room. But Time Warner also offers “upgrades” to this basic service at Skidmore. For example, for an additional $9.95 per month the student can get a digital converter and remote and 40 additional digital channels and 45 commercial-free music channels, plus more movie and on-demand channels. The most costly college cable upgrade is $29.95 per month.

Sipher said there were some minor “bumps in the road” when the new Time Warner system was introduced at the semester's start. Students were used to the former college-based computer “help desk” and had to learn to call the Time Warner's 24-hour help service.

Sipher said Time Warner had people on campus the first week of the semester to help students with the new system.

The new Time Warner contract has also taken the pressure off Skidmore's in-house computer network, freeing up user capacity on this 30 megabyte system.

The Time Warner cable Internet connection brings considerable computer capacity to each individual student connection. This means the college will no longer have to regulate the amount of computer use and data downloading by students as in past years.

“It's been a very positive experience for us,” said Taubkin of Time Warner about the contract with Skidmore College.

Sipher and other members of his staff will be speaking about its computer systems, including the Time Warner contract, at a national conference this fall and early next year “just to share our findings.”

“The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, surprisingly positive,” Sipher said about the new cable and Internet service.

 

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Posted on Oct 7, 2005

The Admissions Office will welcome some 500 prospective students and their parents to the Open House on Columbus Day, Monday, Oct. 10.

“Visits to campus are a very important way for people to get to know Union better,” said Dan Lundquist, vice president for admissions. “As one alumnus who recently visited Union wrote, 'The tour of campus provided a terrific window into the life of an incredibly vital college. Kids seemed smart and engaged, and the facilities were to die for!'”

A prelude to the Open House will be Multicultural Weekend, with events scheduled for Saturday afternoon through Monday, including a Hale House dinner, social activities and discussions about academic life at Union. More than 100 student guests are expected, with more 50 faculty volunteering their help.

With hundreds of prospects, students, staff and volunteers on campus this weekend, it's a given that parking will be tight – so Admissions is asking members of the Union community to park in peripheral lots to leave on-campus spaces for the guests.

The next Open House is set for Veteran's Day, Monday, Nov. 11.

 

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Posted on Oct 7, 2005

Colorado Springs, CO (Oct. 7, 2005)- With summer workouts, preseason practices, and intrasquad scrimmages out of the way, the Union College men's hockey team will open up its 2005-06 campaign at the Ice Breaker Invitational in Colorado Springs, CO this evening. The Dutchmen, who begin their 15th season at the Division I level, will play tournament host and 2005 NCAA Frozen Four participant Colorado College for their season-opener at 8:07 p.m. MT.

Colorado College comes in with a No. 6 ranking in the USCHO.com preseason poll and is No. 7 in the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine rankings. For the second straight season Union will open its season against the Tigers at World Arena. It marks the first time in the team's Division I tenure that the Dutchmen have begun back-to-back seasons against the same opponent at the same arena. In 1992 they hosted Army before playing at Army to start the 1993-94 season. In the second game Union will play Air Force on October 8th at 5:07 p.m. MT. This will be the first meeting between these two teams since January 27, 1996 when Union defeated the Falcons at home, 10-0.

Nate Leaman begins his third season as head coach of the Dutchmen, who finished with a 13-22-2 overall record last season and were eighth in the ECACHL with an 8-13-1 mark. They won their first six league games, to set a Division I school record for longest winning streak in league play, and compiled a seven-game unbeaten streak early in the season. Union earned home ice advantage in the playoffs for the third straight time in 2005. The series featured three overtime games, marking the first time in league playoff history that has occurred.

Union returns 19 players to its roster, including three of its top four scorers from a year ago. Leading the Dutchmen is senior co-captain Scott Seney (Silver Spring, MD) who paced the team with 18 assists and tied for second on the team with 27 points. He put up nine goals and has led the team for the past two seasons in game-winners. Also up front is senior Jonathan Poirier (St. Jerome, QUE) and junior Olivier Bouchard (Quebec City, QUE). Both players notched 11 goals last season to finish tied for second. Poirier added 16 assists for 27 points while Bouchard had 13 helpers and 24 points. Bouchard's numbers have only gotten better from year-to-year. As a sophomore he had 11 goals and 13 assists for 24 points, besting his freshman numbers by four goals, two assists, and six points. Sophomore Josh Coyle (Brooklyn, OH) put up balanced numbers for Union in his first season after finishing second among freshman in scoring with 11 points on five goals and six assists.

Defensively junior co-captain Sean Streich (Kimberley, BC) anchors the Dutchmen blue line. He is the first junior to wear the “C” for Union since Jay Varady was named captain for the 1999-00 season. Streich has played in every game for Union since his freshman campaign. Last season he finished third among defensemen in scoring with five points on one goal and four assists. Also returning for the Dutchmen defense is sophomore Michael Beynon (Nepean, ONT) who led all defenders as a freshman with 11 assists and 12 points. Senior Bryan Campbell (Hannon, ONT) returns to the team after taking a year off to help bolster Union's D-core. As a sophomore Campbell finished second among defenders with 10 assists.

Union's greatest attribute should be between the pipes with two proven goaltenders returning for the Garnet. Senior Kris Mayotte (Pittsburgh, PA) made 25 or more saves in 12 games last season and finished with a 3.34 goals against average and a .891 save percentage. Sophomore Justin Mrazek (Regina, SASK), who was drafted by the Washington Capitals in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, had a solid effort in the playoffs last season to finish with a 2.17 goals against average and a .912 save percentage.

Union will welcome eight newcomers to its roster this season. Offensively freshman T.J. Fox (Oswego, NY), Augie DiMarzo (West Haven, CT), Matt Cook (Belle Mead, NJ), and Chris Potts (Phillipsburg, NJ) are all hard workers and proven offensive threats with their previous teams. Fox led the Chicago Steel of the U.S. Hockey League in scoring last season with 21 goals and 29 assists, and was the team's top scorer in the playoffs. Fox played in the USHL All-Star game. DiMarzo was the New England Prep League Division I scoring champion last season with 28 goals and 38 assists and helped lead Avon Old Farms to its second straight NEPL Division I title. Cook and Potts were co-captains at Tabor Academy. Cook was in the top 20 in prep school scoring with 19 goals and 25 assists while Potts was in the top 25 with 21 goals and 19 assists.

Defensively Leaman has enlisted the talent of newcomers Lane Caffaro (Slave Lake, ALB), Rory Farrell (Westfield, MA), Mike Harr (Norwood, MA), and Brendan Milnamow (Wilton, CT). Caffaro was one of the top-scoring defensemen in the Alberta Junior Hockey League last season with 11 goals and 33 assists. He was a first-team AJHL All-Star. Farrell, the 6-3, 210-pounder served as a team captain for Des Moines of the USHL. Harr had five goals and 12 assists for the Boston Junior Bruins of the Eastern Junior Hockey League, who won the regular-season title and league championship last season. Milnamow, a 6-3, 195-pounder was team captain for Taft School.

This season's success will hinge on the leadership of the Dutchmen returnees and the adaptability of its newcomers. Union will look to increase it's scoring and do a better job of keeping the opposition away from the net. With its opener against one of the top teams in college hockey, this team will find out right away how they stack up and how well the preseason preparation has paid off.

 

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