September 2011 Union in the Media Archive

Milton Schwebel '34, recently penned an op-ed for the Sunday Gazette, on the challenges faced by his generation and how it relates to today's students.

To read his piece, click here.

A group of Union students pitched in to help victims of recent flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene. The students were participating in Service Saturday, a new monthly volunteer program.

To read about the cleanup in Sunday's Gazette, click here.

Gretchel Hathaway, senior director of Campus Diversity and Affirmative Action, was the guest speaker at a ceremony in Denton, Md. to honor Moses Viney, a runaway slave from Maryland who escaped to Schenectady on the Underground Railroad. Viney was a coachman, messenger and constant companion of Eliphalet Nott, the longtime president of Union who eventually secured Viney’s freedom. A portrait of Viney commissioned by the College and completed by Simmie Knox, a renowned African-American artist, hangs in the President's Office.

To learn more about the Denton ceremony, click here.

In an article on Forbes.com about how to develop future technical leaders, Tom Gillis cites Union’s “Symposium on Engineering & Liberal Education.”

Last spring, leaders from nearly two dozen schools attended the fourth annual conference. Among the participants: Princeton, Dartmouth, Binghamton, Lafayette, Smith, Trinity and MIT. The symposium explored the impact of integration on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Past symposia have focused on how engineering contributes to a liberal education, the importance of a liberal education for engineers and exploration of the intellectual relationship between engineering and the liberal arts. The annual symposium has attracted national media attention, including The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In 1845, Union became the first liberal arts college to offer engineering. With the addition of projects such as the recently opened $22 million Peter Irving Wold Center, with its emphasis on interdisciplinary study, the College is reshaping what it means to liberally educate students in the 21st century.

To read the article on Forbes.com, click here.

The campus community paused to reflect Sunday on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with a day of remembrance, “Building Bridges toward Better Understanding.”

More than 100 faculty, staff and students gathered in the Nott Memorial for the 30-minute event. Students were barely older than nine or 10 at the time of the attacks, but a handful shared their thoughts on the horrible tragedy and the lessons that could be learned.

Sunday’s event was organized by Viki Brooks, director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and campus Protestant minister, and Gretchel Hathaway, senior director of Campus Diversity and Affirmative Action.

To read about the event in the Daily Gazette, click here.

Kate White '72, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, was recently featured in Daily Front Row. White discussed juggling the job of running a magazine with her other passion - writing mystery novels.

John Garver, professor of geology, was recently quoted in the Daily Gazette about local flooding concerns after Hurricane Irene.

For the last three years, Garver has helped organize an annual conference on the physical aspects of the Mohawk River watershed at Union. The daylong features nearly two dozen presentations on topics including flooding, ecosystem analysis, water quality, and the management and future of the watershed.

To read the Gazette story, click here.

A study by Cay Anderson-Hanley, assistant professor of psychology, on the cognitive benefits of low-intensity strengthening exercise for older adults, was recently published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology.

The study was mentioned in an article in Real Simple magazine.