Faculty in the News

Andrew Feffer, professor of history, was a recent guest on WAMC, Northeast Public Radio’s program, “The Roundtable.”

When things turn bleak for Emmet and friends in “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” the opening lines of the song “Everything’s Not Awesome” brilliantly capture the mood:

“I finally understand Radiohead.”

Since its formation in the mid-1980s in the English county of Oxfordshire, the rock band’s melancholic aesthetic, grounded in the danger and mystery surrounding hope and death, has made them one of the most popular and critically acclaimed bands in the world.

Theodore “Ted” Davidge Lockwood, former dean, provost and professor of history, passed away Jan. 21, 2019 at his home in Stowe, Vt. He was 94.

At Union from 1964 to 1968, Lockwood is credited with curricular reform, the trimester calendar and expanding the arts program. He served first under President Carter Davidson, then President Harold Martin.

In 1940, as Nazi Germany advanced across Western Europe, the New York State Legislature convened a committee. The goal: to identify and root out those in the state university system suspected of having Communist ties.

Known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee, the body held a series of private and public hearings for nearly two years in which hundreds of educators were interrogated, threatened and in many cases, fired, for their alleged radical connections.

As the robot made of rigid rods and cables crawled across the floor, a series of 21 high-tech cameras peering down from along the edges of the laboratory’s ceiling went to work.

Outfitted with powerful 12-megapixel sensors capable of capturing data at speeds of up to 1,000 frames per second, the cameras begin tracking a dozen points on the robot. The cameras record the position of the markers to a precision below 1mm.

Andrew Morris, associate professor of history, was featured on NPR's program, "All Things Considered."

An expert in federal disaster relief, Morris discussed the rebuilding efforts in Paradise, Calif. after a fire wiped out 90 percent of the town.

Morris joined Union in 2003.

People are looking for ways to think positively, to embrace themselves for who they are.  And Catherine Walker, visiting assistant professor of psychology, wants to help.

“Young women are given many models of how to focus on the body’s appearance, and to criticize it,” Walker said. “Google trends show a three-fold increase in searches for body positivity-related content from 2015 to 2017, and a 17-fold increase since 2010.”

Union College students, faculty and alumni participated in the 256th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, held in Boston.

Michael Hagerman, professor of chemistry, gave an oral presentation, “Morphology and Conductivity Studies of Laponite/Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Nanonetworks,” in the session on Environmental and Energy-Related Inorganic Chemistry.