Union in the Media

Karen Bertasso '06, winner of the annual CDPHP Workforce Team Challenge in Albany, N.Y., was recently featured in the Times Union newspaper.

This was the second time in three years she won the women's race. As a student, Bertasso was involved with Pre-Health Society and Big Brothers Big Sisters, and played soccer.

An article by Lewis Davis and Stephen Schmidt, professors of economics, and Jack Mara ‘10 was accepted for publication in Contemporary Economic Policy. "Social Animal House: The Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership," which uses data from a survey of Union College alumni, finds that fraternity membership decreases student grade point averages by 0.25 points on a traditional four-point scale, but simultaneously increases future income by roughly one-third. This research project began as Mara's senior thesis.

Christopher Chabris, associate professor of psychology, recently spoke at the annual meeting for the Association for Psychological Science in Boston. "The Invisible Gorilla: From the classroom to the real world, and back again” included two studies he conducted at Union with undergraduate research students. He also spoke at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France, and the Michigan Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference.

Submit your news to gowanc@union.edu.

Union is partnering with Schenectady schools to provide mentoring and other services as part of My Brother's Keeper, a national program started under President Barack Obama.

The Daily Gazette visited campus to learn about the program.

Joanna Rudolph '98 is the executive producer of indie film, “Burning Annie,” which was released internationally on major HD platforms via the Sundance Creative Distribution Initiative on May 15. To read more about the movie and the story of its creation, check out this moviemaker.com.

At Union, Joanna was involved in Film Committee, participated in Steinmetz Symposium and studied abroad in France.

The Kenney Center's annual UCARE Day is set for Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. in Memorial Fieldhouse.

UCARE Day is the annual free carnival for local kids and their families. The first UCARE Day was in 1998. Student leaders planning the event are Alexa Steriti '17 and Jacqueline Sharry '18 (both were leaders last year, too).

Greek organizations involved include Sigma Delta Tau, Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Delta Lambda, Alpha Phi Omega, Kappa Alpha and Phi Iota Alpha. Union Pride, Campus Kitchens, Fencing Club, Society of Women’s Engineers, and African Student Association are also participating, as well as athletic teams like men's hockey, men’s soccer, football, and men’s and women's basketball.

There will be tables with activities such as face painting, games, and arts and crafts. Athletics team members will be playing various games with the kids in addition to bounce houses, a photo booth, cotton candy and pizza. Stewart's Shops has also donated ice cream for the event.

The College recently hosted a backwards pitch competition for students in the Innovation, Creativity and the Entrepreneurial Mindset course.

Students were asked to come up with the worst, most bizarre or most ridiculous idea. Pitches must be between 150 seconds and 180 seconds and delivered without notes.

Each year the College offers an interdisciplinary course open to all students that focuses on a single topic and is taught by a variety of professors. Known as the Minerva Course, the class also includes lectures by accomplished guests. Past topics have included presidential elections, income inequality, oil, food, technology and society, and globalization.

This year’s course, which enrolls 91 students across a broad range of majors, is unique and unconventional from past Minerva classes. Working with faculty since last spring, the College’s University Innovation Fellows helped design the curriculum.

Learn more about the course.

As part of the 27th annual Steinmetz Symposium, more than 80 performers took to the stage in the Nott Memorial for the Lothridge Festival of Dance.

Featured were works from the Winter Dance Concert, “Beyond Steps,” by dance minors Emily Alston ’19, Ayanah Dowdye ’18, Lily Herout ’17, Grace Kernohan ’17, J’Kela Smith ’17 and Maddison Stemple-Piatt ’17.

In addition, students from the Bhangra, Hip-Hop, Step and African Dance clubs, Terra Dance, the Dance Team and Just Queenin performed.

The 27th annual Steinmetz Symposium kicked off with a corporate breakfast featuring remarks by Victor (Vic) Abate, chief technology officer and senior vice president for General Electric.

Abate discussed accelerating breakthrough technologies for competitive advantage. Bianca Mielke ’18, an electrical engineering major with a minor in dance and mathematics, talked of her Union experience. Joining invited faculty, students and staff were a host of local business leaders representing GE, GlobalFoundries, Naval Nuclear Laboratory, Capital Region Chamber and others.

Click here to read more in the Daily Gazette (subscription may be required).

At ReUnion this year, photographer Nancy Borowick ’07 will sign and discuss her new book, "The Family Imprint (The Cancer Family Book)." An intimate portrait of the author’s family as her parents underwent parallel treatments for stage-four cancer, it enriches the larger story Borowick has been telling for years in Cancer Family Ongoing. This photography project has been published nationally and internationally, receiving awards and recognition on both stages.

Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), often a precursor to Alzheimer’s, showed significant improvement with certain complex thinking and memory skills after exergaming, according to a new study.

The results could encourage seniors, caregivers and health care providers to pursue or prescribe exergames (video games that also require physical exercise) in hopes of slowing the debilitating effects of those with MCI, sometimes a stage between normal brain aging and dementia.

The study was led by Cay Anderson-Hanley, associate professor of psychology.

It appears in the current issue of Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

The Times Union featured the study on the front page.