Nobel- Prize- Winning-Alumnus Returns to Campus
to Dedicate Academic Center

A pair of distinguished alumni are returning to Union to dedicate the building that bears their name.

Dr. Phillip and Ann Sharp, both graduates from the class of 1966, will help cut the ribbon at the Sharp Academic Center on Saturday, October 14. The ceremony, to which the public is invited, begins at 10 a.m.

The dedication falls on Homecoming Saturday, and will be followed by a parade down College and Manchester Streets. Conversations with Phillip Sharp begins at 11 a.m. in the Sharp Academic Center, with Dr. Sharp discussing science and research with alumni, college and high school students, and community members. The discussion will take place in rooms 3125 and 3127.

"We are pleased to name this new facility in honor of Dr. and Mrs. Sharp," said Union's President David Joyce. "It is not simply recognition of their generous financial support, it is recognition of the deep personal commitment both of them share for higher education."

Dr. Sharp's path to a leadership role in the global medical community began when he graduated from Union with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics. That path has since led him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where in March he was named director of MIT's new McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Sharp joined MIT in 1974 as associate professor in the Center for Cancer Research and the department of biology. In 1979, he was named professor; in 1982, he was appointed associate director of the Center for Cancer Research, and became its director in 1985. He has served as head of MIT's department of biology since 1991.

In 1999, Sharp received the University of Kentucky Libraries Medallion for Intellectual Excellence, awarded to a Kentuckian who has demonstrated outstanding and constructive use of the mind in scientific, artistic, literary or social creativity. His contributions to the medical field resulted in his winning the 1993 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology. Discoveries by Sharp and his colleague, Dr. Richard J. Roberts of Derby, England, dramatically changed the field of molecular genetics and helped launch the field of biotechnology.

Dr. Sharp is a member of the Union College Hall of Fame; a trustee and member of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; chairman of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Awards Assembly, and a member of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Mrs. Sharp has been a nursery school teacher for over 20 years and is interested in all aspects of the development of young children. The mother of three daughters and a homemaker, she is an active member and participant in the activities of The Eliot Church of Newton.

The centerpiece of Union's learning environment, the $2.6 million Sharp Academic Center is a careful combination of renovation and new construction. Located at the heart of campus next to Centennial Hall and the Weeks-Townsend Memorial Library, it includes space for classrooms, teaching laboratories, seminar rooms, meeting spaces and offices for faculty.

October 1, 2000

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