Union in the Media

Morgan Clark ’17 is the Kenney Community Center’s Volunteer of the Week.

As the co-philanthropy chair for Alpha Delta Lambda sorority, Clark is responsible for planning all of the organization’s philanthropy work. For example, she has helped organize the campus-wide Random Acts of Kindness Week, as well as help raise money for cancer research and international charities.

Originally from Webster, N.Y., Clark is a member of the volleyball team and is majoring in physics, with minors in studio arts and astrophysics. She is also a Union Scholar, and in her free time volunteers regularly at the Kenney Center, planning programs and tutoring local children.

A new study suggests that people who are generally insecure in their relationships are more actively engaged on the social media site – frequently posting on walls, commenting, updating their status or “liking” something - in hopes of getting attention.

Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the study was conducted by Joshua Hart, associate professor of psychology, along with George Bizer, professor of psychology, and former students Elizabeth Nailling '14 and Caitlyn Collins '14.

Dozens of media outlets both national and international have reported on the study.

Read a story in the U.K.'s Daily Mail

Associate Psychology Professor Christopher Chabris and Daniel J. Simons, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois, wrote a piece for Slate about the recent controversy involving NBC News anchor Brian Williams.

Chabris and Simons are co-authors of The Invisible Gorilla, And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us.

To read the piece, click here.

Christopher Chabris, associate professor of psychology, is quoted in the Well column of the New York Times about the recent controversy surrounding NBC News anchor Brian Williams.

Williams has come under fire for claiming he was in a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during a reporting assignment in Iraq.

To read the column, click here.

An 87-year-old film unspooled with 600-year-old music will open the Union College Concert Series' 44th season, underscoring the freshness of old artworks brought to life in new ways, in new settings with new juxtapositions.

Read more on the Times Union website. [subscription may be required]

The Student Diversity Leadership Award is given each year to a senior who demonstrates an active dedication to activities on campus that support multicultural enrichment. Students must be nominated by a current faculty or staff member, administrator or student.

The Community-Building Award goes to a student, administrator, faculty or staff member who best demonstrates outstanding leadership by creating events that bring together as many segments as possible of the campus community or maintaining an organization dedicated to bringing together many campus segments in some common cause.

Nominations for both awards much be received by March 8 (end of the day). Email your nominations, with supporting reasons, to David Gerhan at gerhand@union.edu.

Derek Delaney, artistic director of the Union College Concert Series, was featured on WAMC's The Roundtable.

Northeast Public Radio is a member of National Public Radio, serving parts of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

Manson Publishing recently released a book by Kurt Hollocher, professor of geology. “A Pictorial Guide to Metamorphic Rocks in the Field” is an illustrative introduction to metamorphic rocks as seen in the field, designed for advanced high school to graduate-level earth science and geology students. The book includes photographs from the field, line diagrams and examples to help students jump start their observational skills.

A book review by Kristin Bidoshi, associate professor of Russian and director of the Russian and East European Studies program, was published in Slavic and East European Journal. Her piece focused on “The Sacrificed Body: Balkan Community Building and the Fear of Freedom” by Tatjana Aleksić. She also presented “Re-fashioning Dracula: Psychic Vampires in Postwar American Culture” at the New England Region of the American Conference for Irish Studies in December. She recently presented “The Wind Horse: Tradition and Practice in Contemporary Buryatia” at the American Association for Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures Conference in Vancouver, Canada. That paper is based on research she conducted while directing Union’s term abroad in Irkutsk, Russia.

Carol Weisse, professor of psychology and director of the Health Professions program, Kathryn Martin ’16, and Dr. Geri Aitken ’88 co-authored a piece, “Cultivating a Community of Compassionate Caregivers: A Community Based Learning Curriculum on Palliative Care.” The document outlines a summer program for eight Union students to explore palliative care as they conduct end-of-life care at the Joan Nicole Prince Home in Glenville.

Submit your items to People in the news by emailing gowanc@union.edu.

Chad Orzel, associate professor of physics and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, experimentally tested the physics of "deflate-gate."

Read what he found here on The Conversation, an international academic blog.

The members of the College’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students are this week’s Volunteers of the Week from the Kenney Community Center.

The students provide hands-on workshops to middle and high school students to help popularize physics and show its applications in everyday life, including liquid nitrogen ice cream and other fun science demonstrations. Recently, the group did a workshop for students on campus for the Kenney Community Center’s Martin Luther King Day program. They shared several science demonstrations and talked about what its like to be a physics major.

The students are: Shauna LeFebvre ’16; Stephen DiIorio ’15; Harry Hausner ’16; Andrew McCalmont ’16; Andrew Laugharn ’16; and Caleb Novins ’17.