The words “brilliant” and “funny” got a workout at a campus memorial service on Wednesday for Jerome Karl Kessler '08.
The 19-year-old known as Karl died Aug. 30 at his Short Hills, N.J., home. He was the eighth member of his family to attend Union College.
About 100 members of the Union community joined Karl's family and friends in Old Chapel to recall the young man who hurdled a pile of burning pizza boxes at Outdoor Orientation, who proudly taught a professor how to make better fried chicken and who would place a pinky finger at the corner of his mouth (a la Austin Powers) to show a professor that he had understood an important point.
Viki Brooks-McDonald, campus interfaith chaplain, collected remembrances from Karl's friends. She said he was universally described as brilliant, funny, friendly and fun-loving. The man who became known as “Crazy Karl” for his antics during freshman orientation went on to add personality to the “Davidson Dungeon,” where he often led conversations that ranged from deep to absurd, she said.
Bonney MacDonald, who advised Karl and taught his preceptorial and American literature classes, recalled the time he advised her to grill chicken and then fry it. The recipe, which her daughter dubbed Karl's Chicken, has become a household favorite. Karl often made comical (though late) entrances to class, and he exchanged high fives with MacDonald after delivering an eloquent thought on Hawthorne. His papers (sometimes also late) were works of brilliance that weaved together his readings from other courses.
“Karl was the face in the audience I used as a barometer to know if I had made a point,” McDonald said.
Donald Kessler described his son as “a supernova who lived life at warp speed. Everything he did was full throttle.” He and Karl's uncle, Stephen Karotkin '73, both spoke of how proud Karl was to be at Union. “Union is a big part of our family life,” his father said.
A 2004 graduate of Millburn High School, Karl was active in the United Way Club, Mock Trial team and a singing group, the Millburnaires. He also volunteered with New Eyes for the Needy and helped rebuild adobe homes at an Indian reservation in Taos, N.M.
Survivors, in addition to his parents (Donald and Betsy) and uncle (Stephen), include his sister, Jillian; aunt, Nancy Kessler Karotkin '74; and cousin, Joshua Karotkin '02. Other members of the Kessler-Karotkin families are Ed '68 and his children, Hallie '92 and Jesse '97.
Memorial donations may be made to the United Way of Milburn-Short Hills, P. O. Box 546, Milburn, NJ 07041.
The College is mourning the death of Gordon Gould '41, the laser pioneer who established a professorship in honor of the College physics professor who sparked his interest in the physics of light. Gould, who passed away in New York City on Sept. 16, was 85.
Gordon Gould '41
“Just as Gordon Gould made an immeasurable difference in the lives of millions worldwide, he made an important difference for Union College,” said James Underwood, interim president. “The College is indeed fortunate to have been associated with – and supported by – one of science's most brilliant stars.”
Gould coined the ubiquitous term “laser” (“light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”) and later fought a three-decade battle to secure patent rights for the invention he began in 1957 as a graduate student at Columbia University. In 1987, the U.S. Patent Office awarded him a patent on optically pumped laser amplifiers. Over the years he won a series of other legal victories that left him in control of patent rights to an estimated 90 percent of the lasers used and sold in the United States.
At Union, Gould was a physics major and member of Sigma Chi. He did graduate research in optics at Yale and was a doctoral student and research assistant at Columbia. He worked on the Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945. He was elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991.
He received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Union in 1978 and the Eliphalet Nott Medal in 1995. He established the R. Gordon Gould Professorship of Physics in 1995 to honor Frank Studer, his former professor.
He was a cofounder, in 1973, of an optical communications company, Optelecom, Inc., where he earned further patents before retiring in 1985. Since then, he advised a gem and precious jewel communications company and six other ventures in which he had invested.
Survivors include his wife, Marilyn Appel, and several nieces and nephews.
Public health researcher Dr. Sue Goldie '84 has been awarded a $500,000 MacArthur grant “for genius and creativity” in applying decision science to find alternative interventions for viruses that are major public health problems.
Goldie is associate professor of Health Decision Science at the Harvard School of Public Health. She develops computer-based models linking the biology of a disease and its epidemiology to outcomes in large populations. Her focus has been on three viruses: HIV, hepatitis, and the human papilloma virus (HPV).
Goldie was one of 25 MacArthur Fellows named this week by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Other winners include a conservationist biologist protecting endangered plants and animals of Madagascar; a pharmacist working to reduce drug errors in the healthcare industry; a violinmaker; a rare book preservationist; and a fisherman responding to threats to the fishery ecosystem. For more, visit http://www.macfound.org/.
Novelist Andrea Barrett '74 received a MacArthur “Genius Award” in 2001.
Gordon Gould, the Union College alumnus who may or may not have invented the laser but played a key role in its development nonetheless, died Friday. He was 85.
Regardless of the controversy in the scientific community over just who invented the powerful device, at the end of the day, Gould captured many of the spoils: After a decades-long court battle, he was given patents that ultimately paid him millions of dollars.
And it was Gould who gave the laser its name, writing it in a notebook after a furious weekend of chain-smoking and brainstorming in 1957. It's short for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”
Gould promptly took the notebook to a Brooklyn candy shop, where it was notarized. What he didn't do, though, was file for a patent, because a lawyer gave him the faulty impression that one needed a working model before the government would recognize it.
In the meantime, Charles H. Townes and Arthur Schawlow, of Bell Labs, published a paper outlining a laser about a year later. The work ultimately garnered a patent, and, for Townes and two others, a Nobel Prize in 1964. Gould, left to stew, embarked on a 30-year legal fight in 1959 that became so expensive he needed to finance it by signing away 80 percent of the royalties he was scrapping for.
“Historically, they got the credit and Gordon didn't, and it took many years for him to win the patent rights and he probably still didn't win the acclamation rights,” said Jay Newman, who is the R. Gordon Gould Professor of Physics at Union.
Gould, who grew up idolizing Thomas Edison and other inventors, wanted to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but Union offered him a better scholarship. He found himself at the Schenectady school — Edison's northern backyard — working on heady projects and talking with skilled scientists. He was one of the few physics students on campus; most science students were engineers. Frank Studer, a physics professor, inspired Gould to further study light and optics.
He graduated from Union in 1941 and went to Yale University, where he got a master's degree, and from there went to Columbia University to work on his doctorate.
But he abandoned that to try building his laser, a decision that his wife at the time did not understand. She wanted him to be an academic.
Gould, though, considered himself “more of an inventor than a real scientist,” said Newman, who once visited Gould at his ranch in Breckenridge , Colo. “He enjoyed thinking about how things worked and coming up with new ideas for creation.”
Nick Taylor, an author who wrote a book about Gould called “Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the 30-Year Patent War,” said he believed Gould could have achieved even more had he not expended so much energy on his court battles.
For a while, his political activity got in the way of his science, too. After leaving Columbia, he joined a Long Island company that received a $1 million Department of Defense grant. But Gould's dalliance with communism meant that he couldn't get security clearance to get near the lab.
Instead, he was given an office with a separate bathroom and no lab access, Taylor said. And while other scientists could ask him questions, they had to be phrased in such a way that Gould wouldn't know what they were working on.
Taylor said he considers Gould the laser's inventor, as he created a pair of basic types of light amplifiers that were crucial to making a laser. “What continues to stand out is the rejection of Gould by the scientific establishment,” Taylor said. He pointed to Townes, who took shots at Gould in his autobiography, as an example. The portion of the Bell Labs Web site that discusses the laser's history doesn't even mention Gould.
The snubs were said to have stung Gould. He was able to invest in new technology with the money, Newman said, and also in Union: Gould gave more than $4 million to the school.
He also had great pride in the laser. In a June 2002 article in the Schenectady Daily Gazette, he talked about having laser eye surgery performed.
“You can imagine how I felt when I looked into that machine and saw that flash,” Gould said. “I was thinking, my God, if I hadn't been around … I wouldn't have an eye.”
Adam Grode '05 practices in the Nott before leaving on his Watson Fellowship
by Adam Grode '05
Baku, Azerbaijan. Beams of morning sunshine pierce through the blinds of my bedroom window as the mullah from the adjacent mosque bellows the first of five daily calls to prayer. In this fleeting moment between dreams and consciousness, the mullah's song, or azan, transports me without fail back to Istanbul, where just a few weeks ago, I first awoke to the same sounds amplified for miles in every direction from the famous Blue Mosque. There is no snooze button on this Islamic alarm clock and I have little choice but to begin the day.
A former republic of Soviet Union, Azerbaijan still retains numerous fixtures of its socialist past. After rolling out of bed, I walk through my nakhalstroi apartment, to the sushabund: an Azeri term for the balcony juxtaposing the main entrance. During Soviet times, obtaining residential building permits was next to impossible. Instead, all the able-bodied neighborhood men for a single night worked together so by daybreak their people could live. Forming a horseshoe of two-storied nakhalstrois, called a hayat evi, I step out onto my sushabund and witness in the communal yard a microcosm of Azeri culture.
At the moment, schools and universities are still on vacation. This quickly becomes apparent as Fatima and Ali, two local eight year-olds, vociferously play with soccer balls and alley cats. On the sidelines, a retired woman, still in her floral sleeping gown, is hand-cleaning two oversized Oriental carpets, rhythmically going back and forth scrubbing soap into one and wringing water out of the other. From my left, Fatima's mother, Nudar, yells at full throttle to return for breakfast- now I see where the child gets it from. Nudar then releases her glare, glances in my general direction and softly asks in Russian if I would care to join them. As a new resident to our hayat evi, I most graciously agree.
Breakfast throughout Azerbaijan is more or less uniform yet indeed a filling meal. After finding my seat on their sushabond table, Nudar fixes me a cup of black chai and adds three hearty spoonfuls of raspberry preservative which is not exactly whole berries or a runny jam, but does lend a delightful taste to the tea. She then places a Frisbee-sized loaf of light-brown bread which bears the euphemistic title of zavod choreyi, or factory bread. Using our hands, we take turns tearing off pieces from the loaf to add to our liking, slices of butter, scoops of honey and crumbly pieces of qoyun pedizi: a white and salty lamb cheese. Noticing the time, I finish my tea and thank my neighbors for another pleasant breakfast. After returning home, I scramble to collect my things and make for the door.
Whenever I leave the house, I routinely take with me the same series of items: my research journal and digital camera, a baseball hat, a pair of sunglasses, and lastly, a small bottle of hand-sanitizer. Yet when I cross this threshold from Monday to Friday, I have hanging from my shoulder by far the most important item of all — the Azeri saz: a long-necked lute featuring nine metallic strings grouped in three sympathetic sets and a hollow, pear-shaped body. Struck vigorously with a thin, wax pick, the saz is synonymous with one of the most fascinating and significant figures in Azeri society: the ashiq.
Literally meaning “a person fallen in love,” an ashiq, documented first in the 11th century, historically has embodied a myriad of cultural functions. More than a mere musician, an ashiq is a bard of epic poetry, a chronicler of national history and a teacher of virtue to the entire community. In recent times, however, the number of ashiqs in Azerbaijan face has decreased dramatically and despite efforts to unionize, their artistic development and performance-practice is bound to private lessons, wedding recitals and concert ensembles.
In Azerbaijan, my sole mission is to become an ashiq within three months, when I must leave for Kazakhstan. After getting situated in my downtown apartment, I walked over to the National Music Conservatory and spoke to the Director of International Relations about my plans in Baku. I passed the Conservatory Director's oral admission interview and almost at once, I was introduced to Ashiq Mubariz Aleyiv.
A native to Kedebek Province, Ashiq Mubariz is trained in the Western Azerbaijani saz styles. In the opening moments of first lessons, Mubariz expressively tells me that the saz is the gift of Allah to the people of Azerbaijan. Our first song, written in the 19th century, is titled Dilgami. Each of its three stanzas follows the same 11-11-11-13 syllable pattern called a goshma. The story describes a talented village boy, Dilgam, who falls in love at the age of 16 with a beautiful girl from his village. The girl's father forbids the marriage and Dilgam is crushed. That night, he dreams that Allah comes and gives him the ability to play heavenly music and celestial poetry. Dilgam awakes, and, resting beside his bed, he finds a saz. Leaving his home, Dilgam wanders the countryside singing of his heartbreak until his death 20 years later.
In the afternoons following my lesson, I head across the street toward the boulevard that lines the Bakuvian coast of the Caspian Sea. Under the shade of a birch tree, I spend the afternoon practicing the newest additions in my repertoire, transcribing the day's events in my journal and people-watching the scores of passersby. When my legs start to cramp, I know it is time to begin the customary “long walk home.” Never taking the same route twice, this seemingly minor exercise not only ameliorates my directional sense around town but reveals a character to Baku not found along the inundated pedestrian promenade.
By dusk, my stomach growls and since Azeri cuisine is as ubiquitous as it is affordable, the dinner selection quickly narrows down to either minced-lamb-meat kebab, whole-lamb-meat kebab or dark-chicken-meat kebab (lula, tika and toyuq kebabi, respectively). No matter which kebab I fancy, the standard compliments include sliced cucumbers and tomatoes with chopped parsley and radish, in addition to a basket brimming with factory bread, of course. A cup of tea is served piping hot and typically doesn't settle until the meal is halfway finished. With no spoon in sight to sweeten the tea, it is customary to place a cube of sugar either between your teeth or under your tongue. Stuffed on kebab, I pay the bill, thank my server and slowly stroll home arriving just in time to hear the evening azan.
Adam Grode '05
It is hard to believe that just over a month has passed since I first began this musical odyssey. No matter where this road will take me, I would not be here today if I didn't take a chance applying for the Watson Fellowship last fall.
To the students even remotely contemplating applying for the Watson, either this year or in the years to come I offer three simple pieces of advice: read everything on the Watson website; plan your proposal down to the last hour and dollar; and, lastly, don't be afraid to go after something that isn't your major or future job. Globetrotter Bruce Northam, affirms, “Traveling isn't going where you want, it's wanting to be where you already are. If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead any where. Life is like photography: We use the negatives to develop.”
Union's 44th Watson Fellow, Adam Grode '05 graduated with an Organizing Theme major in Eurasian Studies, a minor in History and a recipient of the John Iwanik Prize in Russian. To contact him, email grodea@alumni.union.edu.
