FEATURES

     Edward O. Wilson travels light. When I met him at the bus station in Albany on Saturday afternoon (the day before the University's May 23 commencement), he stepped out with a small cloth bag in each hand. For balance, he said. One, the size of a small gym bag, contained his academic regalia and overnight items. The other larger bag contained several of his manuscripts to work on and things to read. He wore a suit and tie, topped off by a tan trenchcoat. World traveling has taught him how to go without fuss. He spends his time productively and perhaps this is one of the reasons for his phenomenal success as an ecologist, sociobiologist and writer (winner of the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the National Medal of Science and two Pulitzer Prizes). When I suggested that he might like to make a brief visit to the Albany Pine Bush in the morning, before the late morning meetings and the afternoon commencement/honorary degree ceremony, he readily agreed. Visions of the possibility of finding a new ant, witnessing the recently burned part of the Pine Bush, and the possibility of seeing Karner Blue butterflies hovering over lupine intrigued him.
     Next morning at 8 a.m. he was ready, wearing the same suit and trenchcoat, when George Robinson, Ingrid Peters and I picked him up at the Desmond. After a short drive we arrived at the Route 155 entrance to the Pine Bush, where we met Chris Hawver, Nature Conservancy steward, and Willie Janeway, director of the Albany Pine Bush Commission.
     This section of the Pine Bush had recently been burned, and as we walked in it was surprising to see how quickly the bracken ferns and sedges were growing up and adding greenery to the charred ground. We explored for ants by digging about and soon Ed (he prefers the familiar) in his unrestrained enthusiasm was beginning to collect sooty streaks on his coat and pants. Not to worry, what matters to him is substance not appearance. His boyish curiosity brought him to his knees to probe for ants at every opportunity. George and I began to wonder how we would be able to explain his appearance to the President, if he showed up at commencement in a soot-covered suit.
     Then came the special treat of the morning: the Karner Blue adults on the wing! We went across the way into an unburned area. There before us was a low sandy hillside carpeted with green, sprinkled profusely with the purple and blue of lupine flowers. In the morning sun it was a phenomenal sight with Karner Blues by the dozen fluttering above the lupine. Bright blue males with bordered wings interacted vigorously with the paler females. Too soon we had to leave.
     Somehow Ed's know-how made his suit clean and respectable when I picked him up at the Desmond, after his brief refresher, to begin the day's ceremonies. He was clearly enthused about his morning experience in the Pine Bush and even told his audience so during his commencement address. In late morning some faculty and students met with him briefly. He responded eloquently to a variety of questions concerning: the evolution of social systems, the future of science education, the consilience of academic disciplines, and the need for children to explore nature and develop a sense of inquiry on their own. He is a delight. His wit and charm pleased everyone he met. We will long remember his visit with great pleasure and I would like to think that a little bit of Pine Bush soot still clings to the underside of his coat.

     Williamstown, Mass., will be a special exhibit feature. Complete with countless flea market finds, art objects, colored lights, seashells, and hand-crafted furniture, The Happy Room is a celebration of throwaway culture and is typical of Schade's idiosyncratic approach to art and life.
     Schade's books, prints, and mixed-media installations are filled with fanciful animals that come to life against a ground of gold leaf scrawled with incongruous spellings (a product of Schade's dyslexia). Schade's exquisite attention to detail, his strong command of printmaking technique, and his sometimes edifying but usually satirical text, form a contemporary response to an art historical tradition that extends from medieval illuminated manuscripts to Krazy Kat comics. Schade is best known for his menagerie of hens, crows and other feathered creatures, but in one of his most rollicking series (based on Noah's ark) dozens of prints and hand-made paper objects are dedicated to beasts throughout the animal kingdom. Schade's Noha series is a mixed-media morality tale in which the humblest of animals are invested with penetrating human characteristics. Here, as in all his efforts, Schade demonstrates his penchant for locating common humanity in the most unlikely subjects.
     James Kettlewell (professor emeritus from the art history department at Skidmore College) wrote in the exhibit catalog: “By simply doing what comes naturally to him, William Schade has created an art which is in fact quite radical. It is like nothing encountered in the museums, or in the galleries of New York. Even more risky than his caricatured animal subject matter is the utterly unserious nature of his very serious art, an art to which he dedicates his life.”
     Schade's extensive exhibition history includes recent one-person exhibits at Mt. Holyoke College of South Hadley, Mass. (1997), and Mareau Galleries at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Ind. (1997). National and international group exhibitions include Beautiful Beasts, Center for Book Arts, New York, N.Y. (1997), I.A.C.K., Kyoto, Japan (1995), and American Artist Books, Studio Galleria, Budapest, Hungary (1992).
     A full-color catalog with essays by Linda Weintraub (author of Art on the Edge and Over) and Kettlewell will accompany the exhibit.
     Museum hours are Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. The museum is closed to the public on Mondays.

     Visitors to the Administration building will find a large plaque to the right of AD 125 honoring 18 State Normal School graduates who died in the Civil War. One might ordinarily walk past this plaque, which is a bit dusty on top, without stopping to read it. Yet it's worth a second look.
     The story behind it is a dramatic one about undergraduate men leaving college to go to war, joining up with alumni volunteers, and heading into battle with three weeks of military training under their belts, led by two math teachers from the State Normal School, predecessor to the University.
     In historian Allen Ballard's May 30 Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, “The Demons of Gettysburg,” he refers to a particular spot on the battlefield called Little Round Top. At that site at Gettysburg, a crucial battle of the Civil War, “Col. Joshua Chamberlain made his now famous stand with the sturdy men of Maine,” Ballard wrote. 
     Professor Ballard, who earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, explained recently that fighting near Chamberlain's men were the soldiers of the Normal School Company, known as New Company E of the 44th New York Volunteers. At Little Round Top there is a monument to the 44th, which mentions the Normal School Company. Ballard taught a graduate research seminar in spring '99 on the 44th Regiment, particularly New Company E. More information about the 44th can be found at http://nystatehistory.org/
     The Civil War had a great impact on the school and its students. “Nearly one out of five men (106 of 583) who graduated before 1863 served in the conflict. Eighteen of them died,” noted Kendall Birr in A Tradition of Excellence. 
     The Normal School Company was founded by two of the school's math teachers, Albert N. Husted '55 (for whom Husted Hall is named) and Rodney G. Kimball. The company numbered about 100 men, including 25 undergraduates and alumni. Kimball was the captain and Husted a lieutenant. 
     “When, in July, 1862, the Union forces were defeated in the 'seven days' battle' before Richmond, and there came up from the Capital of the nation a new call for men - soldiers to drive back the rebellious invaders - the young men of the State Normal School felt that it was time for them to shoulder their muskets and do what they could to save the land they loved, and preserve the institutions for which their fathers fought.” (A Historical Sketch of the State Normal School at Albany, N.Y. and a History of Its Graduates for Forty Years, 1884).
     Husted and Kimball left the State Normal School to join the Union army. They recruited and drilled the recruits in September, 1862, and joined the regiment the following month at Antietam Ford, Md. Graduates and friends gave each of the two professors a revolver as a gift, and raised funds to donate a rubber blanket to each soldier.
     “The company saw much severe service, participating in the great battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Petersburg, and numerous smaller engagements,” noted the school's student, literary, news and alumni publication, The Echo, on April 27, 1905. Company E fought in 17 battles.
By the Battle of Gettysburg, Husted had taken over command from Prof. Kimball, who was honorably discharged and had returned to the Normal School.
     The head of the committee that raised money for the plaque that hangs near the Student Affairs office today was Husted, who returned to the Normal School after the Civil War and was promoted to professor in July 1869. He taught math until 1912, and gave a lecture on the Civil War to history students once a year.
     The first plaque for which Husted raised funds was destroyed in a fire that ripped through the school's former building on Willett Street. It was preceded by a framed document listing the names of the war dead.
      Included on the current plaque is the name of one graduate, Elbert Traver, Class of '62, from Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, who died at Gettysburg. 
     Undergraduates who left school to fight were not mentioned. Private George B. Wolcott of Milan, Yates County, for example, was killed at Gettysburg, but because he was an undergraduate his named is not listed on the plaque.
      In a wartime letter from the front, reprinted later in The Echo, Husted mentioned Wolcott:
“I will now tell you of the Normals and others who have left us recently. First the killed: Wolcott, L. Burnham, and S. Munson, all shot through the head, I believe, and died almost instantly. We buried them side by side beneath a black walnut tree and placed a board marked with their names and the order of interment. They fought bravely and well.”
     After the war, Husted went on to be named acting principal at one point, when the school was seeking a new president. The Science Hall was renamed Husted Hall in 1928. The first school scholarship, known as the Husted Fellowship, was named for him.

Top of Page