Posted on May 1, 2005

News of special interest to Union families

Over the course of our past two years as Parents Association co-chairs, we have received an enormous amount of feedback from “our” parents. This has helped us to know what is on the minds of both the parents and their students. One item we want to address is the issue of students getting involved. We can tell you-as parents of a very active junior-that there are plenty of opportunities for students to get involved if they decide this is what they want to do. First, take a look at the Student Activities web page at http://union.edu/campus/. Please read comments on the next page from Tom McEvoy, dean of residential and campus life.

We thought you might be interested in an update on the presidential search. At press time, both the College's search committee was fully engaged in finding the right candidate. People wishing to pass suggestions and nominations to the search committee can do so via the search site at http://www.unionsearch.org. For the most up-to-date information on the search, please visit http://www.union.edu/ presidentialsearch/.

As we approach the end of the school year, we would like to join Bill Gottdenker, Parents Fund chair, in a request for participation in this year's Fund. We understand that giving a gift in addition to paying tuition is not easy. However, simply participating is a gesture that tells Union and other parents how much we appreciate the overall experience our children are receiving. And, if the responses to the Parents Questionnaires are an indication, most parents feel-even if they have a certain issue-that Union is overall a quality institution providing a very special experience for their children. You may designate your gift to whatever program or area you wish, but please participate. We thank you in advance for considering this.

Finally, as the 2004-05 year draws to its close, we would like to thank our outgoing chairs:

Sue and Ed Young '72 have helped coordinate Parent Events and Programs. Their daughter, Jacqueline, graduates this year. We would like to thank them for all they have done including hosting numerous Freshman Sendoffs, recruiting volunteers for events, and staffing events like Spring Family Weekend and Parents Orientation.

We thank Charlotte Floyd for her leadership of the Welcome Wagon Callers this year. Char's daughter Allison, graduates in June, moving the Floyds into

the ranks of “parents of alumni.” Char took care of sending out lists of incoming freshmen families to eager volunteers who welcomed them with a phone call and an offer to answer questions. This is a very well-received program, and we thank Char for helping to move it forward.

Finally, special thanks to Bill Gottdenker who after three years will step away as chair of the Parents Fund as his daughter, Suzanne, graduates. Bill has headed up the team of Parents Fund volunteers who have the sometimes-thankless job of asking fellow parents to support Union (the

Parents Fund is part of the annual fund). He has always done so with a smile and a firm belief in the importance of parent support. We thank him for his leadership and wish him a well-deserved rest.

Many thanks to all of these families for their involvement.

We continue to work with the Parents Program Office as we wrap up the year and look forward to connecting with you in the fall. Enjoy your summer.

Tom McEvoy: What's there to do at Union?

At the beginning of the fall term '02, two freshmen wandered into my office. I can't remember their exact words, but the conversation started off with them asking me what there was to do at Union. They had the look of two guys who had just unpacked, said “adios” to their families, sized up their residence hall, and were looking to get out and see what this campus was all about. “Yeah, yeah, we know about the classes,” they seemed to be saying, “but what else have you got for us?” I sensed impatience. After all, they had been thinking all summer about coming to a school that promised an exciting experience. I steered them right next door, to the Office of Student Activities, and I don't think they have looked back since. Two-and-a-half years later, I see each of them a couple of times a week. Both have full plates, and I am sure I don't know half of what they do.

One is vice president of the Inter-Fraternity Council and a key student worker for the Office of Admissions, planning events for accepted students. The other is student rep for Wold House on the Minerva Council. He is also very active in his fraternity, Sig Phi. They go on ski trips, plan social events, and they are very plugged in to what is happening on campus. At least one is an orientation advisor.

They seem happy. And I think they sensed-from their very first days-that what they would get out of Union would be directly linked to their degree of involvement.

In his book, Making the Most of College, Richard J. Light, writes: “Even at a college as academically focused and intense as Harvard, most graduates have far clearer memories of their singing, or writing, or volunteer tutoring of recent immigrants, than of the details of the class on American History they took sophomore year.”

I think Light makes a good point. If you asked me what I remember from a college class, it'd be hard to say. What I do remember very clearly is sitting in a psychiatric ward as part of an internship, trying to be of some use to some very disturbed elderly people, one of whom kept repeating the words “Jimmy Tripp.” That I still remember her words and could probably pick her out of a lineup seems to prove Light's point.

So the message to students is: do something in your spare time. How do they find out what that something is and not spend most of their time playing on an X Box or Playstation 2? I think some students (my own sons in college would fall into this category) expect that someone will knock on their door and ask them to grace the college with their participation. That's not how it works.

The opportunities at Union are endless, but students themselves must take that first step. The Student Affairs staff is armed and ready to set the backdrop, advise and listen. However, it is up to the student to seek out an area of interest or two that will help make their Union experience truly complete.

The menu of opportunity at Union is staggering and there is something for everyone: A cappella singing with the Garnet Minstrelles or Dutch Pipers, student government, Greek leadership, the student newspaper, literary magazines, the environmental club, Theme Houses (Ozone House, Cooking House are examples), community service through the Kenney Center, Ultimate Frisbee, sports-intercollegiate or intramural, Minerva Houses, ALAS, CELA, Student Affairs Committee, Committee for Planning and Priorities, student trustees (with voting power on our Board of Trustees), search committees, resident assistant, orientation advisor, tour guide, admissions intern or ambassador, Intellectual Enrichment Grant Committee, Social Enrichment Grant Committee, U-Program with the Office of Student Activities, working with the alumni and development office or Becker Career Center, Christian Fellowship, Hillel, Newman Council, Outing Club. The list goes on.

There is plenty going on at Union, and the door is open for students to shake things up and learn something about themselves, their classmates, and their world. Students can have a direct and significant impact by stretching themselves and exploring options outside the classroom.

Like getting into a cold lake, some students will dive right in and others will want to test the waters with their big toe. That's OK. The point is to get in and swim. It's good for the soul.

Tom McEvoy is dean of residential life at Union.

Posted on May 1, 2005

Over five days this spring, with hundreds looking over their shoulders and watching live on the web, 12 Tibetan monks from the Gaden Jangtse Monastery in India worked grain-by-grain to craft the colorful “Sand Mandala of Wisdom” in the Nott Memorial.

The mandala was the centerpiece of the monk's weeklong visit that also included the construction of a butter sculpture, talks on politics in Tibet, a philosophical debate, meditation lessons and a multi-tonal chanting concert.

Their visit ended with the dismantling of the mandala, a colorful closing ceremony with chanting, music, elaborate costumes and a walk to Union's boathouse pier on the Mohawk River, where they released the sand.

The original Gaden Jangtse Monastery was established in 1409, and at one point was India's second largest monastery with 7,000 monks. Little of the original monastery remains after the 1959 Communist invasion of Tibet. The monastery was re-established in South India, and now serves about 3,000 monks.

The monks' visit to Union was funded through a Freeman Foundation grant supporting the East Asian Studies program.

Posted on May 1, 2005

When art historian Louisa Matthew finished the only economics class she ever took in college, she thought she was done with things like supply and demand. “If you had told me I'd be studying economics after that,” she said, “I would have fainted.”

But Matthew finds herself immersed in the business of art for her research on paints used by Venetian Renaissance artists.

Her research is chronicled in a recent issue of Science News.

Renaissance paintings from 15th- and 16th-century Venice have long been known for their vivid and glowing colors. But what makes them so?

Matthew had been trying to answer that question in the dusty state archives of Venice, where she pores over nearly-illegible documents handwritten in archaic Italian. One piece of paper, a store inventory from 1534, confirmed her long-held suspicion that the color vendors of the day sold painting supplies to a wide variety of craftspeople who used colorants and related supplies -not just to easel painters but to anonymous painters of furniture, masks, textiles and even the inside and outside walls of houses.

The discovered document spurred Matthew's colleague Barbara Berrie, a conservation scientist at the National Gallery in Washington, to take another look at some paint samples from works by Venetian artists. She discovered glass particles mixed with the paint, which seem to have been used for a variety of purposes: as paint extender, dryer and perhaps to add luster to paint colors.

“I hypothesized from the beginning that shops were patronized by all sorts of craftspeople-glassmakers, dyers, masons and gondola painters,” Matthew said. “Now we can talk about Venice as a nexus for sharing ideas and teaching across professions.”

Teaching across professions is nothing new to Matthew. She has long called on colleagues from across campus to help in her work. “I understand how exciting these connections are,” she said. “That's what's great about teaching here.”

Matthew has team taught a course-and hike-on the Camino de Santiago, a 1,000-year-old pilgrimage route in Spain, with Prof. Victoria Martinez of modern languages; and a course on Renaissance Florence with Prof. Steve Sargent of history. She is planning a new GenEd course on the science of art conservation with colleagues in the chemistry department.

The Science News article on Matthew's research is online here.

Students take honors at ASME meeting, again

The College's mechanical engineers continued their winning ways at the regional student conference of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at the University of Maryland.

Bob Dunton '05, also majoring in computer science, took first in the design competition of a bulk transporter. He will represent Union at the national ASME conference competition in November. He was advised by Prof. Bill Keat. Dunton also took second in the poster competition for “A Computational Study of Axisymmetric Droplet Breakup in Time Varying Flows Using Parallel Processing” (Profs. Brad Bruno and David Hemmendinger).

Shira Mandel '05, who also majors in chemistry, placed first in the poster competition for her poster on “Aerogels: Effects of Chemical Precursors on Physical Properties.” (Profs. Ann Anderson and Mary Carroll).

Dan Archibald '05 won best technical presentation in the oral competition for “The Aerodynamics of a Modern Sports Car.” (Prof. Anderson)       

Nathan Stodola '05 placed fourth in the oral competition with “An Organ of Fire and Ice.” (Prof. Bruno)

David Korim '06 won a student award for “outstanding efforts and accomplishments on behalf of the ASME student section at Union College.”

These students continue the trend of Union successes at ASME. Each of the previous three years, a Union student has won for best oral presentation.

The ASME Region III Student Conference included 44 schools from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.

For more, click here.

Posted on May 1, 2005

Works in progress

Frank Wicks, professor of mechanical engineering, spoke on “Some Remarkable Engineers and the Marvels They Created” at the Engineers' Week celebration of the Hudson Mohawk Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, hosted by Union. Wicks spoke about Eliphalet Nott's invention of a revolutionary technique for burning newly available anthracite coal instead of wood. He also reviewed the work of other notable scientists and inventors with Union College and local connections including Joseph Henry, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison and Charles Steinmetz. He concluded with the futuristic possibilities of using computer transplants to repair damaged portions of the brain, as described by Theodore Berger '72 at the recent Founders Day convocation.

Anupama Jain, assistant professor of English, has received a 2005-2006 Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the fellowship provides a one-year sabbatical stipend, a research or publication stipend, and a fall retreat. The fellowship seeks to increase the presence of faculty members committed to eradicating racial disparities in core fields in the arts and sciences. An interdisciplinary committee of noted scholars reviews all applications and selects the fellowship winners based on scholarship, teaching skills and future contributions to the academic community.

Mark Toher, professor of classics, has received a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship from Harvard University in support of his work on an edition with text, translation, and commentary of the life of the first Roman emperor Augustus by a contemporary Greek writer, Nicolaus of Damascus. He will also be a visiting scholar of Wolfson College in Oxford next year.

Gretchel H. Tyson, director of community outreach and affirmative action, was selected to attend the 2005 Social Work Congress in March in Washington, D.C. The meeting brings together 500 leaders in the social work profession to produce an agenda to improve the quality of care provided by social workers. The Congress, cosponsored by the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research and the N.Y. Academy of Medicine, was convened by the National Association of Social Workers (http://www.socialworkers.org) in partnership with the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work.

John Garver, professor of geology, is co-author (with P.R. Reiners, Lydia Walker '04, former Union colleague Joan Ramage, and Stephanie Perry '04) of a paper, “Implications for timing of Andean uplift based on thermal resetting of radiation-damaged zircon in the Cordillera Huayhuash, northern Perú” in Journal of Geology. The paper details how the Andes have been uplifted and grown in the last 10 million years. The main implication is that the uplift and high topography in this part of the Andes is less than 6 million years old, which is young geologically. The paper was based largely on the senior thesis work of Walker and Perry. Walker has joined the Peace Corps to work on reforestation and conservation projects in Guatemala. Perry is pursuing her master's degree at the University at Albany with a thesis, in collaboration with Garver, about the timing of the formation of the St. Elias Mountains in Alaska.

Walter Hatke, May I. Baker Professor of Fine Arts, restored a 10- by 12-foot relief map of the Adirondacks created between 1945 and 1952 by noted naturalist Paul Schaefer. The map is a central element of the education program at the Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna. Hatke found paints to match the original colors, and used topographic maps to redraw streams and other features lost when plaster had chipped. Hatke, who donated his time, was asked to take on the project by Carl George, professor of biology emeritus and a trustee at the Center. The Center is operated by the Association for the Preservation of the Adirondacks. A copy of the map is at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake.

Hilary Tann, professor of music, premiered a piano piece, “Light from The Cliffs,” at the University at Albany. The Empire State Youth Orchestra performed her composition, “From the Feather to the Mountain,” in March. The piece, commissioned for the ESYO 25th anniversary, refers to a statement by artist and former Union colleague Arnie Bittleman (“I found a feather while walking down a road. The feather, if you look closely, has a landscape, a cloudscape in it.”). WAMC's Paul Elisha interviewed Tann for the show “Roundtable,” and she was featured in the May 15 issue of the Times Union. The Trinity Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh recently hosted the premiere of Tann's organ piece, “Pinnae Ventorum.”

Tim Olsen, associate professor of music, has been awarded an artist grant from the 2005 Saratoga County Program for Arts Funding. Olsen, a composer and performer, will write a jazz-flavored piece for wind ensemble which will be performed by school and community groups throughout Saratoga County in Fall 2005.

Ashraf Ghaly, professor of civil engineering, was quoted in a recent Times Union article about the challenges architects face in transferring their designs to different climates and cultures. Climate, customs and materials are the three factors that need to affect designs to the greatest extent, he said. Get any one wrong and the building may be uninhabitable. Ghaly teaches a course called Construction for Humanity, on building designs through history and across the globe.

Robert L. Fleischer, research professor of geology, wrote an article on ancient impact cratering in the December 2004 issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science, the journal of the Meteoritical Society. Under the shock of an incoming meteorite arriving at a planetary surface, crystals in rocks can be converted into glass, a distinct, disordered material. For the 250-million-year-old Bedout crater near Australia, such glass (from a feldspar mineral) has been cited as evidence that impact produced the crater. Fleischer notes, however, that feldspar glass can also be produced by ordinary heating and cooling -one evidence being a two-pound feldspar glass, produced at General Electric, that he has been using as a paperweight.

John Sowa, professor emeritus of chemistry, was elected vice chair of the Schenectady International Inc. Community Advisory Panel (SII-CAP). The group is charged with communicating with the public and SII about concerns for safety of employees, the public and the environment.

Mary K. Carroll, associate professor of chemistry, has been appointed to a two-year term as a full voting member of the American Chemical Society Committee on Education (SOCED). Carroll, the only member of SOCED on a liberal arts college faculty, served as committee associate to the organization from 2001 to 2004. SOCED supports programs that bring the excitement of chemical science to students of all ages, improve science literacy, recruit students and retain them as contributors, and strengthen the science education infrastructure.

Charles Batson, assistant professor of French, was guest artist at the University of Illinois-Champaign, performing at Festival Dance at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. He worked with choreographer Cynthia Pipkin-Doyle in “L'Apparence,” a piece involving Baroque and modern movement and French declamation. While in Champaign, he gave a talk titled “Panique celtique, or Fest-noz in Paname: Manau, Celtic Rap, and Breton Cultural Expression,” sponsored by the Department of French, the Department of Comparative Literatures, and the School of Music.

Deidre Hill Butler, assistant professor of sociology, presented a paper, “Fictive Family Relationships and Women's Leadership Roles: An Analysis of African American Community Mothering” at the Association for Research on Mothering conference at York University in Toronto, Canada last October.

Karin Hamm-Ehsani, assistant professor of German, presented a paper titled “Cross-Se(x)ions: Issues of National, Cultural and Sexual Identities in Kutlug Ataman's Berlin-Film Lola and Bilidikid” at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in January.

Daniel O. Mosquera, assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, has had an article, “Consecrated Transactions: Of Marketplaces, Passion Plays, and Nahua Christian Devotions,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. By examining the confiscation of passion plays in the historical context of colonial marketplaces, he explores how they became spaces of cultural resilience and socialization.

Andrew Rapoff, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and colleagues Ruxandra Marinescu and David Daegling of the University of Florida, recently published a paper, “Finite Element Modeling of the Anthropoid Mandible: The Effects of Altered Boundary Conditions,” in the April issue of The Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology. This was a special issue on computational modeling in vertebrate biomechanics.

Kenneth G. DeBono, Gilbert R. Livingston Professor of the Behavioral Sciences, Department of Psychology, recently presented two papers at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, held in Boston. The first was with Elena Baror '05, titled “Self-monitoring and product familiarity as predictors of ad effectiveness.” The second was with Lindsay Miarmi '04, titled “The impact of distractions on heuristic processing: Internet pop-ups ads and stereotype use.”

M. Fuat Sener, assistant professor of economics, presented a paper, “Intellectual Property Rights and Rent Protection in a North-South Product Cycle Model,” at the American Economics Association Meetings in Philadelphia. He also served as a discussant at “Globalization: Prospects and Problems,” a conference organized in honor of Jagdish Bhagwati, one of the most important trade economists of the past few decades.

Posted on May 1, 2005

There is no set of instructions for how to build a community, said Barbara Danowski at the dedication of Golub House recently. “But we have in our namesake a shining example of what it means to be part of a community.”

“Neil Golub knows the importance of community,” she said. “He knows the value of investing in community and he knows how to build a sense of community.”

Danowski, the Golub House faculty representative to the Minerva Council, went on to describe how a student new to the area might notice the Golub name in a number of places including Ellis Hospital, Bellevue Woman's Hospital or the Jewish Community Center.

Named in honor of William Golub '26, the renovation of the former Chi Psi building was made possible by a gift from trustee Neil Golub (William's son), his wife, Jane, and their daughter, Mona.

Steve Ciesinski '70, chair of the board of trustees and a Chi Psi brother who lived in the building as a student, remarked that “the building has never looked better.”

Brooke Lamparello '06, Golub House student representative to the Minerva Council, said “when you enter our house, it immediately instills a sense of allegiance, ownership, familiarity and pride. The house provides us the ability to form a unique integration of living and learning that extends beyond the classroom.”

President Roger Hull, who has worked closely with Neil Golub on revitalization efforts in the city, cited the Golub family's commitment to dozens of regional organizations. Hull recalled the advice of a mentor, William Pearson Tolley, the late chancellor emeritus of Syracuse University, who told him about fundraising, “you have to remember that most people never learn to give.

“Neil learned well the lesson of giving from his father,” Hull said.

Golub House is the third named building of the College's seven Minerva Houses. Beuth House and Wold House were dedicated last fall.