October 2015 Union in the Media Archive

Publication Date

People in the news- October 30, 2015

Kiana Miller '16 received the Leadership in Diversity Award from the Greater Albany Leadership Council on Inclusion. Miller was one of three local college students to receive the award in recognition of her leadership on diversity and inclusion at Union.

Eric Rose ’16 and Nicholas Webb, visiting assistant professor of computer science, attended the Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Social Robots for Public Settings at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and System in Hamburg, Germany. They presented a paper, “Determining appropriate first contact distance: trade-offs in human-robot interaction experiment design," in the Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Social Robots for Public Settings. Computer science faculty Aaron Cass and Kristina Striegnitz were also involved in the research. Funding to participate in this conference came from a Faculty Research Travel Grant and a Student Conference Travel Grant.

A short story by Kimmo Rosenthal, professor of mathematics, was recently published in volume 9 of the literary journal EDGE. The title and epigraph of Dancing the Quadrille come from Franz Kafka's posthumously published “Blue Octavo Notebooks.”

Submit your news to gowanc@union.edu.

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Elizabeth Minkin '96: Making a difference in Baltimore

Elizabeth Minkin '96 recently became president of the Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds. A fourth generation Meyerhoff family member, she has played an integral role in developing and guiding the organization’s impact and efforts to improve the quality of life in Baltimore.

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Taylor Time presents distinguished violinist

Taylor Time! is delighted to welcome distinguished violinist, Madeleine Mitchell, as the featured performer, Monday October 26.

Accompanied by Prof. Palma Catravas, Mitchell will present a winning program of British music, including works by Delius and Elgar. These short Taylor Time! concerts, designed to fit your schedule, take place in Emerson Auditorium from 5 to 5:50 p.m. each Monday.

Madeleine Mitchell is a Professor of Music at the Royal College of Music in London and has performed in some 50 countries. Her discography contains many widely acclaimed recordings. She is a concerto soloist and 2015/16 engagements include China, Vienna, the Elgar Violin Concerto in Russia, and a new violin concerto written especially for her with the National Orchestra of Wales. She has been described by The Times as "one of Britain's liveliest musical forces (and) foremost violinists".

Publication Date

People in the news - October 23, 2015

Lori Marso, professor of political science, has been awarded the Contemporary Political Theory Annual Prize for her article, “Solidarity sans identity: Richard Wright and Simone de Beauvoir theorize political subjectivity”, in Contemporary Political Theory, Volume 13, Number 3 (2014), pp. 242-262. The judges said this about the article: "In this article Lori Marso weaves rich theoretical insight into a gripping and moving narrative of the historical and intellectual encounter between Richard Wright and Simone de Beauvoir. Moving between France, Africa and the USA, Marso charts the intellectual journeys of both thinkers and their eventual rejection of the constraints of identity in favor of an existential freedom anchored in solidarity that crosses identities and borders. Not only does the reader get a wonderfully deep sense of the real intellectual struggles both figures experienced in thinking through what freedom might mean for the black and female subject but the narrative also forces the reader to think in general terms about what this might mean for us today."

Katherine Pouliot '16 and Carol Weisse, professor of psychology, had their paper "First year analysis of a new, home-based palliative care program offered jointly by a community hospital and local visiting nurse service" accepted to the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care. The research is the result of a community based learning research project with Ellis Medicine and the Visiting Nurse Service of Northeastern New York. Co-authors are Dr. David Pratt and Phil DiSorbo '71.

Submit your news to gowanc@union.edu.

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Union College students spruce up Schenectady

WNYT-13

Hundreds of members of the Union community, including Greek organizations and student clubs, helped spruce up the city and surrounding area Saturday, Oct. 17, for the 21st annual John Calvin Toll Day.

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Haiku fans flock to Union College in Schenectady

Times Union

Union recently hosted the 2015 Haiku North America Conference.

The event featured workshops and performances from over 100 haiku poets, editors and publishers. Hilary Tann, the John Howard Payne Professor of Music and chair of the department, was instrumental in bringing the conference to the College.

To read a front page story in the Times Union, click here.

Publication Date

People in the news - October 20, 2015

Valerie Barr, professor of computer science, gave two talks last week. The first was at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on “Disciplinary Thinking, Computational Doing: Promoting Interdisciplinary Computing While Transforming Computer Science Enrollments.” The talk was jointly sponsored by the STEM Education Institute and the university’s Computer Science Department. Her second talk was at Hofstra University titled, “The Toy Aisle Still Matters: The State of Women in STEM.” The talk was organized by Hofstra’s Women’s Studies Program.

An article by Christine Henseler, professor of Spanish and chair of the Modern Languages Department, was published by CCTV, a news media outlet in China. The piece is titled “Chinese Should Recognize True Value of Liberal Arts Education.”

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People in the news- October 8, 2015

Lewis Davis, professor of economics, presented a paper on "Political Economy of Growth with a Taste for Status" at the Liberal Arts Colleges Development Economics Conference at Lafayette College on Sept. 10. The paper shows that concerns over social status may lead to the adoption of growth-retarding policies in societies with oligarchic or populist political systems.

Joseph Johnson, director of Writing Programs, gave a lecture, "Thoreau and the Liberal Arts: Transcendental Higher Learning for the Twenty-First Century," at St. Michael’s College. His talk was part of the college’s Humanities Center Lecture Series.

Stephen Romero, associate professor of psychology, was a featured speaker this summer for students in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Summer Internship Program at the National Institute of Health. Romero, an alumnus of the program, spoke on his experience with the NIH and also gave a talk, “Career Plasticity Leads to Studying Neuronal Plasticity.”

Submit your news to gowanc@union.edu

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David Merkel '06: Porsche engineering team

After relentlessly pursuing his interest in auto racing and German engineering, David Merkel ’06 is now a member of the Porsche Motorsport North America track support team.

The group of engineers provides comprehensive technical assistance to Porsche customer teams in a variety of North American sports car racing series, including the International Motor Sports Association-sanctioned Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama and Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin.

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Humanities Majors' Salaries

Inside Higher Ed

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences released a series of studies on the employability and earnings of those who majored in the humanities.

The Academy also included an essay by Christine Henseler, professor of Spanish and chair of the Modern Languages Department.

To read an article on Inside Higher Ed, click here.