Union in the Media

Assistant Professor Brad Hays of Political Science was a recent guest on "Congressional Corner" on WAMC, Northeast Public Radio. Northeast Public Radio is a member of National Public Radio serving parts of seven northeastern states. These include New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

Jeff Wilkin - The Daily Gazette

The Daily Gazette recently featured the new exhibit at the Mandeville Gallery, “Pulp Fiction Paintings: Selections from the Robert Lesser Collection.” The show, which runs through Sept. 25, features works made as covers for the pulp fiction genre of the 1930’s and 1940’s, which included adventure, mystery, science fiction, war stories and westerns.

A new survey conducted in part by Assistant Psychology Professor Christopher Chabris reveals that many people in the U.S. – in some cases a substantial majority – think that memory is more powerful, objective and reliable than it actually is. Their ideas are at odds with decades of scientific research.

The results of the survey and a comparison to expert opinion appear in a paper in the journal PLoS ONE.

“This is the first large-scale, nationally representative survey of the U.S. population to measure intuitive beliefs about how memory works,” said University of Illinois psychology professor Daniel Simons, who led the study with Chabris. Simons and Chabris conducted the survey during research for their book, “The Invisible Gorilla,” which explores commonly held (and often incorrect) beliefs about memory and perception.

The survey received extensive national publicity, including U.S News and World Report, ABC News and MSNBC.

Zoe Oxley, associate professor of political science, was recently quoted in the Times Union about the importance of campaign signs, especially in small local races.

To read the story, click here.

Assistant Professor Brad Hays of Political Science was a recent guest on "Congressional Corner" on WAMC, Northeast Public Radio. Northeast Public Radio is a member of National Public Radio serving parts of seven northeastern states. These include New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

Union's Ethics Across the Curriculum program was recently featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education. A reporter and a photographer visited campus to learn about the program.

At many colleges and universities, faculty in the philosophy department typically teach students about ethics. Since 2006, Union’s approach has been to make ethics a staple of classroom discussion across the board in more than 50 courses, from physics to photography. It is modeled after a pilot project that introduced ethics into the economics curriculum.

The article includes comments from Robert Baker, chair of the Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum and the William D. Williams Professor of Philosophy. The program was also featured in the Spring 2009 issue of “Teaching Ethics,” the academic journal of the Society for Ethics across the Curriculum.

The seed for a broad-based ethics module at Union was planted by Michael S. Rapaport ’59, a real estate lawyer in White Plains, N.Y. Distressed at the lack of ethical awareness of those caught up in the Enron scandal and other ethical lapses, Rapaport decided to fund the College’s program.

To read the article in the Chronicle, click here (subscription may be required).

Urban planner Mia Birk was the final speaker in the Minerva oil lecture series. Before her talk, Birk was interviewed by WAMC, Northeast Public Radio. Northeast Public Radio is a member of National Public Radio serving parts of seven northeastern states. These include New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

IBM is donating one of its Intelligent Cluster computing solutions to Union College, providing the school with the greatest computing capability of any undergraduate liberal arts college in the nation.

The announcement was made Saturday at the dedication of the College's new Peter Irving Wold Center. The $22 million, three-story, 35,000-square-foot building housing interdisciplinary research facilities, classroom space and an advanced computing lab is the latest milestone in Union's long history of integrating engineering with the traditional liberal arts and sciences.

The announcement was picked up by dozens of media outlets, including the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and others.

To read the item in the Times Union (including a photo gallery), click here.

In 1961, Schaffer Library opened its doors on the Union campus, the first permanent home for the College’s vast collection of books, periodicals and treasured documents. Before that, the library shared space in the Nott Memorial and other places on campus.

To help celebrate the 50th anniversary, library staff is planning a series of events for the remainder of the year.

Bob Soules, director of the Becker Career Center, was interviewed recently by the Times Union about job prospects for graduates in the semiconductor industry.