October 20, 1995: Volume 35, Number 4

For The Record

Harry Marten, Edward E. Hale Jr. Professor of English, has been awarded a grant of $62,300 from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of a seminar for teachers on the novels of Joseph Conrad. Marten will direct the seminar at Union in July 1996. Marten's essay on contemporary poet Charles Tomlinson -- "Charles Tomlinson and the Experience of Place" -- appeared in the British journal Agenda, regarded as Britain's "most important literary magazine over the past 30 years."

Howard Billings, energy management coordinator, and the College's lighting upgrade project were profiled in a recent issue of Green Lights Update published by the EPA. The article also describes projects like Union's at other campuses including MIT and the University of Minnesota that save money and energy and improve the quality of lighting.

George Butterstein, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of Life Sciences, authored an article in a spring edition of Endocrine News, in which he reminisces about his decision to forego a post at a major university: "Union was attractive to me because of its commitment to excellent teaching and the strong science program," he writes. Describing research opportunities for Union students, he adds, "Our students enjoy the benefits of a liberal arts course of study combined with a strong, research-oriented exploration of endocrinology." Butterstein also recently presented two papers with Union undergraduate co-authors: "Human Follicle Stimulating Hormone Binding to hFSH Receptor is Inhibited by Extracellular Domain Sequence hFSHR-R265-S296" with student Julia Lee and James Dias of the state Department of Health; and "Peri-implantation changes in Plasma Fibrinogen in Woman and Rats" with student Charles Doering and others.

Donald Rodbell, assistant professor of geology, has received a grant of $173,000 from the National Science Foundation to study the geologic record of climate change in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador and Peru. He recently returned from six weeks of summer field work in Ecuador with students Jeffrey Nebolini '96 and Adam Goodman '96. Rodbell's study is focusing on whether the last "ice age" in the North Atlantic region was felt in the tropics.

Walter Hatke, professor of visual arts, was included in an article titled "The Ups and Downs of Apprenticeship" in a recent issue of American Artist. Hatke describes his apprenticeship with New York City painter Jack Beal: "It was the watershed period of my life," he said. "I was around other artists such as Red Grooms, Al Held, Lee Bontecou. Jack and his wife, Sondra, were such gregarious personalities and were always being visited by artists whom I had only read about in art magazines."

Charles Steckler, associate professor of performing arts, received a merit award at the 17th annual Photography Regional at the Rensselaer County Council on the Arts recently. His work, "Replica of Lost Original," includes gold tracings on a gold-toned photograph of ancient ruins.

Dan Lundquist, vice president for admissions and financial aid, is chair-elect of the U.S. College Committee of the European Council of International Schools (ECIS), the oldest and largest association of international schools. The College Committee serves as liaison between U.S. colleges and universities and the over 250 ECIS schools worldwide.

Teresa Meade, associate professor of history, was a member of the National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, "Re-thinking Europe/Rethinking World History, 1500-1750" at the University of California at Santa Cruz recently. She also read a paper, "Marriage and Identity on the Alta California Frontier, 1770-1850" at the American Historical Association, Pacific Coastal Branch's annual meeting in Maui, Hawaii.

James C. Adrian Jr., assistant professor of chemistry, published a paper titled "Convenient Synthesis of Bifunctional Metal Chelates" in the Journal of Organic Chemistry. Co-authors include Matthew Hayward of Harvard University and Alanna Schepartz of Yale. The paper describes the easy preparation of four reagents useful for the conjugation of the metal chelator ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) to either proteins or nucleic acids. These types of molecules have found use in protein and nucleic acid cleavage experiments to probe biomolecule tertiary structure, drug binding sites and to investigate interactions with other biomolecules.

Jay Newman, the R. Gordon Gould Professor of Physics, and Rick Scharf '95 have published an article titled "Mg- and Ca-Actin Filaments Appear Virtually Identical in Steady-State as Determined by Dynamic Light Scattering." The article was selected for publication as a "Rapid Report" in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, based on its general interest and timeliness. The work is supported by a National Science Foundation grant. their paper describes a series of measurements designed to distinguish between the two differently prepared filaments of actin. The results are significant because there have been very few definitive comparison studies.

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