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CITY UNIVERSITY
OF
N E W YO R K
FOUNDED
18 4 7
November 2004
A Month-Long Celebration of CUNY Offerings; AT A GLANCE
Prospective Students and Public Welcome
Using ePortfolio,
Students Showcase Their
Achievements
V
iew works by some of the 20th
Century's most important artists, tour
state-of-the-art science laboratories, learn
how women influenced jazz great Louis
Armstrong and take a fresh look at Mary
Shelley and her classic novel Frankenstein.
Those are just a few of the events during CUNY Month, the annual smorgasbord of educational, cultural,
artistic and career-oriented
activities beginning on
November 1st at the 19
colleges throughout New
York City.
This year’s edition of what has
become the largest
outreach program
in CUNY's history
will also celebrate
the exemplary alumni
who have devoted their time and resources
to students through scholarships, mentoring, internships and other support. A special highlight of this year's CUNY Month
will be the launch of the new Fundraising
Campaign for the CUNY Colleges on
November 9th.
“The CUNY Month celebration at our
colleges has become a celebration of the
great city and state we proudly serve,” said
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. “We invite
prospective students to visit all CUNY
campuses and participate in educational
and cultural events and activities.”
Governor George E. Pataki and Mayor
Michael Bloomberg are each officially proclaiming November CUNY Month in New
York.
CUNY Month’s outreach to prospective
students, their parents and New Yorkers of
all ages and interests includes college open
houses showcasing academic offerings,
facilities and cultural riches. There will be
concerts and recitals, poetry readings, theater, art exhibits, sports events,
faculty lectures, financial aid
workshops, campus tours
and career information.
CUNY Month will
include information about the
acclaimed
Honors College,
College Now,
affordable tuition,
and more than
1,400 degree
programs. There will be programs and workshops targeted to special
audiences, such as adults, returning students, freshmen, transfers and students
with disabilities. Some activities will be
offered in languages other than English.
Among the CUNY Month highlights is
an exhibit entitled “An American Odyssey:
1945-1980,” at Queensborough
Community College's beautiful new
Oakland Art Gallery, showcasing works by
Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, George Segal and
other major 20th century artists. Meanwhile, the relationship between politics,
media and film in American life is the sub-
ject of a screening and discussion at New
York City College of Technology (Nov. 2).
City College will showcase “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature,” an
exhibit accompanied by films based on the
Frankenstein story, along with a lecture and
panel discussion (Nov. 1 - 30). Hunter
College will offer job seekers instruction on
how to write effective resumes (Nov. 1),
together with advice about “What's Hot and
What's Not” (Nov. 2).
A searchable listing of the month’s activities can be found at www.cuny.edu/cunymonth. Visitors can also choose to receive
their own e-mail alerts about open house
dates or other activities of special interest.
Trained counselors at 1-800-CUNY-YES
can also answer questions about the colleges’ highly ranked undergraduate and
graduate degree programs.
To help spread the word about CUNY
Month, Con Edison will include information about it in bills being sent to 3.1 million customers, including 500,000 copies
in Spanish. A special CUNY Month message has been included in municipal workers’ pay stubs. And a DVD about CUNY
Month, produced by CUNY-TV/75, along
with a 24-page brochure, has been mailed
to over 100,000 public and private high
school students in the five boroughs and
surrounding suburbs. Filled with information about the University's programs and
featuring segments from CUNY-TV’s
acclaimed “Study With the Best” newsmagazine, the DVD introduces college
seekers to student success stories.
Alumni Invest Money and Time in Students
W
hen novelist Susan Isaacs went to
Queens College, it was during the heady
days of civil rights marches and the
Kennedy era. Civil rights activist Andrew
Goodman, a member of her class of 1965,
was murdered in Mississippi.
Like others in that era, Isaacs was captivated by what was going on around the
country. But while excited by the political
turmoil outside the classroom, Isaacs
appreciated the value of what was inside.
“I had a wonderful education,” she says.
The author of nine novels, including
the just-published Any Place I Hang My
Hat, Isaacs is investing in the future of
the CUNY, giving time and money to her
alma mater. She is one of several prominent alumni donors to be featured along
with students in an upcoming informational program publicizing outstanding
alumni and students.
The program is called “Investing in
Futures @ City University.”
Isaacs likes what is happening at
Queens. “The college is getting fantastic
students,” she said.
Isaacs laments that many students have
a hard time meeting tuition costs. But in
her own very significant way she is playing a role in offsetting the burden.
CUNY is grateful for such involve-
ment. In
November, the
University will
launch its first university-wide capital
campaign to raise
funds for its array
of academic initiatives, scholarships,
and for special programs like the
Honors College.
In the upcoming
information proNovelist Susan
gram, Isaacs is paired Isaacs is
with scholarship
supporting her
recipient Sofiya
alma mater,
Akilova, a Queens
Queens College.
College/Honors
College scholar and
theater and English
major. Akilova came to this country at age
7. A graduate of Performing Arts High
School, she wavered between a career in
the theater and one in medicine. “I realized
I am more passionate about the humanities,” says Akilova, who expects to graduate
in 2006 and work towards a Ph.D.
Other alumni-student pairs to be featured include:
• Steve Weitzner, Executive VP and COO
of CMP Media LLC, a 1972 York College
graduate; and Cherice
Walker, a York
English/journalism
major, who is business
manager and news editor of the campus
paper, Pandora’s Box.
• Daniel Donnelly, a
1987 graduate of
Queensborough
Community College,
president of the
Executives Association
of Greater New York
Queens College/
and a principal of
Honors College
Donnelly Mechanical, a
scholar Sofiya
commercial air condiAkilova is paired
tioner contractor. He is
with Isaacs in
paired with Monika
new campaign.
Kaur, a Queensborough
freshman scholarship recipient and nursing major, who immigrated from India
three years ago.
• Lowell Hawthorne, a member of Bronx
Community College class of 1984 and
president and CEO of Golden Krust
Caribbean Bakery and Grill, Inc., a multimillion-dollar business. He is paired with
Evelyn Cardona, a third year paralegal
student at BCC and the recipient of an
Outstanding Student Scholarship and a
University Student Senate Scholarship.
New York City
College of
Technology student Javed K.
Ellis is one of
hundreds of students putting
examples of their
work, as well as
audio and video related to their professional development, onto the
Internet. Students say employers are
impressed. See page 12.
Dominicans are a
Growing Force in the
City and at the University
The Dominican
community has
become a political and cultural
powerhouse in
the city, with an
explosive population growth.
City College’s
Dominican Studies Insitute, where Dr.
Ramona Hernandez is director, is the
nation’s principal research body studying this important ethnic group. See
page 10.
Professors Donate
Six Figures to a College
They Love
Medgar Evers
College received a
$100,000 donation from one of
its professors, Dr.
Umesh P. Nagarkatte, who teaches
mathematics, and
his wife Dr.
Shailaja U. Nagarkatte, who teaches
mathematics at Queensborough
Community College. Why? Because
we love the college, the Nagarkattes
say. See page 5.
Continuing Education
Programs Expand and
Improve
Across the
University,
increasing
numbers of
students are
picking up skills
and sharpening
their minds in
Continuing Ed programs. Edita
Gialanella gets hands-on training as
she takes the blood pressure of a
patient, in one of Kingsborough
Community College’s Continuing Ed
classes. See page 2.
THECHANCELLOR’S DESK
Our Buildings Are Much More
Than Halls and Classrooms
As MoMA Leaves Queens,
library at
Brooklyn
ome years ago, when I was taking a
College.
tour of the just-finished Newman Library
The project
at Baruch College, a group of students
combines a
stopped me to give their assessment of this
respectful
new center for learning that had once
restoration
served a powerhouse for streetcars. I
of this neosteeled myself. Then one of the students
Georgian-colonial gem, additional space to
said, “This building is so beautiful. It’s
house the collections amassed over the
more beautiful than where any of us live.”
decades, and new technology that is withI replied, “You know what? It’s more beauout peer. A second project for the college
tiful than where I live, too.”
will expand the quadrangle to the proporI have always believed that our students
tions contemplated by its original designers.
and faculty need campuses that are beautiIn these and many other projects, the
ful, spaces that inspire learning, places for
architectural teams have responded crereflection, companionship and community.
atively, emphasizing through visual detail
The need for fostering community is espeand scale that these are places of inspiration
cially great at CUNY where nearly all of
and import, not merely pass-through points.
our students commute to class, often from
Attending college is much more than
the workplace.
dashing
into a building, sitting at a desk for
New York City presents the ultimate
an
hour,
and then leaving. Just as good
challenge for those who seek to create
design has many inspiexcellent spaces for learning.
rations and influences,
Available land is at a premium,
a good education
and the rules that govern its
doesn’t happen simply
use are complex. Employing
by sitting in a classinspiring architectural
room. It happens when
designs that are at ease in
a
student
feels the sense of ownan urban environment is
ership,
confidence,
and ease an
no simple task. These
inspired setting can offer.
obstacles present a dauntSpaces of light and connecing challenge, one with
tion and purpose—when
great risks, and great
designed well—
rewards.
inspire us to
This chalbelieve in
lenge has
the
power of
taken on a new
Sketch of Baruch College’s
our
own
creativity.
urgency as the
award-winning “vertical campus” Educational environments
University’s enrollment is
should stir the imaginaat its highest level in 30
tion,
communicating
to students that they
years, and as we move forward with a capiare
capable
of
being
the
“architects” of
tal construction program that will provide
their future, through whatever field they
to our campuses over the next five years
have chosen.
the largest infusion of dollars for facilities
With its 19 colleges and professional
in the University’s history.
schools
spread throughout the five borThe scope of recent efforts at CUNY
oughs of New York City, CUNY is truly
demonstrates that inspiring destinations can
part of the fabric of the City. Its distinbe created throughout New York City:
guished alumni have helped shape the city;
from Baruch College’s “vertical campus,” a
its students reflect the city’s racial and eth17-story building that covers almost an
nic diversity; and its campuses reflect the
entire city block; to the academic building
physical diversity of the city’s neighborunder construction at Medgar Evers
hoods.
College to support its growing programs in
That’s why we at CUNY are such
Brooklyn; to the restoration of the Great
believers in creating strong civic and acaHall and the landmark exterior at City
demic spaces. Our students, the future of
College. John Jay College of Criminal
New York City, deserve them.
Justice will in a few years have a space that
opened at the prestigious Circulo de Bellas
Artes in Madrid, Spain, examines the midhe works of some of America’s greatest
century avant-garde art movements in the
20th century artists—iincluding Andy
United States after WWII, when the center
Warhol, Jim Dine, Mark Rothko, Roy
of the art world shifted from Paris to New
Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Willem de
York. “This is an exhibition that respectfulKooning, Larry Rivers, Sol Le Witt and
ly rubs against the grain,” Foster says.
Robert Motherwell—are on display at the
“Instead of representing the works in a
exquisitely renovated Queensborough
time-period continuum, it takes a more
Community College Art Gallery.
critical approach by illustrating how these
The gallery is showing off its expanded
American artists who inherited the mantle
space, which includes a theater and a
of European 20th cenresearch library, with a
tury modernism quesgroundbreaking exhibit
tioned the validity and
titled “An American
politics of that tradition
Odyssey, 1945-1980
and moved away from
[Debating
it. This period was a
Modernism].”
very important turning
Many of the works in
point in the history of
the show, which fea20th century art.”
tures more than 100
The great divide
pieces by some 65
between
America and
artists, have never been
Europe
and
old and
publicly exhibited
new is best represented
before. “It’s a fresh
by Jim Dine’s “Hatchet
show,” says curator
With Two Palettes, No.
Stephen Foster. “And
2,” a painting that
this is its only U.S.
depicts an artist’s
stop.”
palette brutally bisected
“This is the first time
by a bar of wood in
that we have ever had
which a chained hatchan exhibit of this level,”
et is buried. “It is quite
says Queens borough
Jim Dine’s “Hatchet With Two
a powerful image,”
Community College
Palettes, No.2,” a painting that is a
Foster says. “And it’s an
President Eduardo
“direct attack on conventional modallusion to a direct
Marti. “I see the gallery
ernism,” curator Stephen Foster says.
attack on conventional
as a laboratory for our
modernism. This paintart department and the
ing
is
incredibly
famous
but is almost
exhibits as a textbook for students to expenever
seen.
It’s
like
hauling
out the Mona
rience world-class art. Forty-five percent of
Lisa. It’s an icon of 20th century modour students are immigrants and I’m a
ernism.”
Cuban immigrant, and I believe that stuArtist Audrey Flack adds feminist perdents deserve high-quality educational
spective
to the American Odyssey with
opportunities. We want to create an acces“Wheel of Fortune,” from her vanitas or
sible resource for our students and inspire
“vanity” series of the 1970s. In this large
them with the power of art.”
painting, a fetching skull, virtually overThe critically acclaimed show, which
shadowed by a lipstick-red necklace of
S
will be in keeping with its position as the
nation’s pre-eminent college for the study
of criminal justice and related disciplines.
Consider, also, the newly expanded
EDITOR’S NOTE: Chancellor Goldstein was
the recipient in October of the New York
Foundation for Architecture’s Presidents
Award.
Board of Trustees
The City University of New York
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein
Benno C. Schmidt Jr.
Chairman
Valerie L. Beal
John S. Bonnici
John J. Calandra
Wellington Z. Chen
Kenneth Cook
Rita DiMartino
Joseph J. Lhota
Randy M. Mastro
Hugo M. Morales
Kathleen M. Pesile
Carol Robles-Román
Nilda Soto Ruiz
Marc V. Shaw
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld
Agnes M. Abraham
Chairperson,
Student Senate
2
Susan O’Malley
Chairperson,
Faculty Senate
Vice Chancellor for University
Relations and Secretary of the
Board of Trustees Jay Hershenson
University Director of Media Relations
Michael Arena
Editor: Ron Howell
Writers: Rita Rodin, Gary Schmidgall
Photographer: André Beckles
Design & Layout: Gotham Design, NYC
Articles in this and previous issues are available at
cuny.edu/news. Letters or suggestions for future stories
may be sent to the Editor by email to Mediarelations@
mail.cuny.edu. Changes of address should be made
through your campus personnel office.
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
T
Continuing Education Looks
C
all it the “dream team” of speakers: In
September 2002, Bill Clinton, Vaclav
Havel, and Elie Wiesel joined a CUNY
panel exploring political second acts—as
well as what these wildly popular ex-presidents and respected philosopher planned
to do next. It was a stellar evening, to be
sure, and it happened on the watch of the
Graduate Center’s Continuing Education
program.
Yet the event was hardly unique. The
Graduate Center this year has had an
impressive lineup for its Continuing Ed
public programs, including former UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Mary Robinson, Up the Down Staircase
author Bell Kaufman, physicist Brian
Greene and spiritual guru Ram Dass.
The Graduate Center of course offers
many smaller-scale intellectual and handson education courses, as do 16 other
CUNY campuses. Students can train as
paralegals at Medgar Evers, as medical
records technicians at Bronx Community,
or as web designers at City University, or
they can immerse themselves in esoterica
ranging from Kabbalah at the College of
Staten Island to comedy writing at Hunter
Student finishes sculpture in art class at
Kingsborough’s Continuing Ed program.
College, to Qi Gong at Kingsborough.
But, now, a sea change is on the way. A
quarter century in, CUNY’s continuing
education system is experiencing growing
pains, the good kind, due to growth: In ten
Queensborough Begins to Fill the Void
Queens College Museum
Holds Art Treasures,
Ancient and Modern
R
Audrey Flack’s “Wheel of Fortune,” which
adds a feminist perspective to the exhibit.
Her vanitas, or “vanity,” series of the
1970s is “saturated in cultural politics.”
grape-like beads, admires itself in a
fancy gilded mirror as the blood-red
Queensborough President Eduardo Martin and gallery director Faustino Quintanilla, in the
sands of time, captured in a curvaceous
Queensborough Community College Art Gallery.
hourglass, quickly run their course. “The
work is saturated in cultural politics,”
such a show, he says, adding that “the exhiin its wake.
Foster says, “and is committed to critiquing
bition hasn’t been duplicated in the United
In addition to Andy Warhol’s iconic
the issues of modernism and gender.”
States in decades or in Europe ever.”
“Jackie” and “Marilyn” portraits, which
Other pieces take a more whimsical
Queensborough Community College is
merge pop culture and art, “An American
approach to reproach. Charles Bell’s “The
committed to holding other exhibits of the
Odyssey” also includes George Segal’s
Judgment of Paris,” which takes its cue
same caliber, Marti adds, because with the
“Man Stepping Off a Bus,” Kenneth
from Greek mythology, turns the golden
Museum of Modern Art leaving Queens,
Noland’s “Summer Plain,” a signature
apple tale into an Atlantic City-like beauty
“it is important that there be a place in the
assemblage by Louise Nevelson and Larry
contest, where a buffed-up Ken has to
borough where our students can practice
Rivers’ “Dutch Masters and Cigars,” which
choose between two scantily draped
teaching high school and elementary
is from a series inspired by the cigar boxes
Barbies (one brunette, one blond) and a
school students about art and where the
that hawked the smokes. Several younger
sexy Marilyn Monroe.
whole community can enjoy a world-class
artists, including Carole Feuerman and
Mel Ramos, on the other hand, aims
exhibit.”
Carol Ross, as well as lesser-known masters
straight for the heart of American democFor more information on “An American
of the period, including Knox Martin and
racy with “Miss Liberty—Frontier
Odyssey, 1945-1980 [Debating
Richard Anuskiewicz, also are represented.
Heroine,” which gives our country’s spirit a
Modernism],” which runs Oct. 24-Jan. 15,
“There are so many great works in this
ruby-red Superman cape, a Tonto mask, a
call 718-631-6396 or visit www.qccartexhibit that I don’t know where to stop,”
stars-and-stripes form-fitting pantsuit and
gallery.org.
Foster says.
takes her on a midnight ride on a snorting,
It is an honor for the college to have
snow-white steed, which kicks up red dust
ecent acquisitions, including works
by such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Max
Ernst, Romare Bearden and Georges
Braque, will be exhibited through
December 15 at Queens College’s
Godwin-Ternbach Museum.
The more than 100 works were
selected from over 500 donated to the
museum since 1998. Other works in the
show include a 15th-Century gothic
head of the Virgin Mary, textiles from
Pre-Hispanic Peru and two totem poles
from New Guinea depicting ancestral
bird spirits. Paintings, drawings and prints
from Spain and Latin America, selected
from a group of 53 artworks donated in
1998 by the Lannan Foundation, are also
featured in the exhibition.
A series of seven lectures, beginning
October 27 and running through
December 8, accompanies the show.
Amy Winter, the museum’s director
and curator, will give a director's tour
to open the series, and will follow on
November 17 with a lecture on Max
Ernst’s 1926 portfolio, Histoire
Naturelle, which is represented in the
exhibition by several prints.
The Godwin-Ternbach is the only
museum in Queens with a comprehensive collection of art and artifacts from
ancient to modern times. Its permanent
collection of over 3,500 works includes
ancient Egyptian amulets, Greek and
Roman sculpture and hand-blown
glass, paintings from the workshop of
Peter Paul Rubens, court-inspired
objects from all parts of Asia and the
Near East, masks and carvings from
Africa, and drawings and prints by such
old masters as Dürer and Rembrandt,
and modern virtuosos such as Whistler,
Miro, Picasso, Matisse, and Andy
Warhol.
to a Bright Future of Strong Growth and Public Service
another factor prompting change is the
years, system-wide enrollment has nearly
university’s unique relationship with its
doubled, from 148,500 in 1994-95 to
urban environs: “Continuing Ed serves a
247,700 last year. And the number of nonreally important role...as a bridge to the
credit courses and certificate clusters across
University…the first entry point,” Levine
18 campuses has skyrocketed. As a result,
says.
CUNY’s system is impaHe is echoed by John
tient to jump to the next
“Continuing Ed serves Mogulescu, senior universilevel. For Continuing
ty dean for academic
Education, that’s going to
a really important
affairs, who himself came
mean educational collaborole…as a bridge to the out of CUNY Continuing
rations among campuses,
aggressive marketing of
University…the first Ed. Mogulescu is particularly proud of the role
programs, a centralized
entry point.”
these programs fill as
web site, and more.
grantees and government
Continuing Ed directors
— David Levine,
contractors responsible for
and their deans have been
Continuing Education
reaching low income and
discussing these changes
Director at the CUNY
immigrant New Yorkers
for over three years. “The
Graduate Center
with free adult literacy,
idea was we needed to eleGED, and ESL classes; provate [the system’s] status
grams for youth; technical education prowithin the university in order to elevate its
grams and classes for the deaf and hard of
status within the city,” explains David
hearing. “We serve children through
Levine, continuing education director at
seniors; and unlike some of the private
the Graduate Center. “We’re at a new
schools, while we do a lot of the same
moment for continuing education within
things they do, we are very responsive to
CUNY, in terms of its recognition, accepthe educational needs of New York City
tance and embrace by the University as an
and low income New Yorkers,” Mogulescu
integrated unit”—meaning integrated with
says. “You wouldn’t think of a university
CUNY’s academic side. Levine adds that
Students at Kingsborough Community College’s Continuing Ed program are absorbed in their
books, under instructor’s supervision.
being heavily involved in adult literacy, for
example; but we probably have 20,000
students enrolled in classes in that area.”
For New Yorkers who want to start
climbing the ladder of learning, there is
The Summer Intensive English Language
Program, annually taught at City College,
LaGuardia Community, Bronx
Community and the New York City
College of Technology. Each summer, 400
to 500 young immigrants entering ninth
grade study English five days a week for
six weeks—and do it with incredible zeal.
“You can’t get them out of the computer
lab,” says coordinator Leslee Oppenheim.
Also unique to CUNY is its emergency
medical technician/paramedic training,
Continued on page 10 ➞
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
3
Students and Experts Share Goal: Restoring Life to Canal
sters, seals, jellyfish and a variety of fish.
But decades of environmental neglect—
nvironmentalists have been trying for
caused by unlawful disposal of raw sewage
years to restore life to the Gowanus Canal.
and industrial spills from the surrounding
Although there has been some progress, a
coal yards, tanneries, and paint factories—
recent expedition yielded little reason to
slowly took a toll and transformed the area
rejoice. Two weeks of searching for living
into a biological desert.
things resulted in a slew of worms and one
The experts who met at Brooklyn
tiny fish floating in the murkiness of the
College presented data from their research
Brooklyn waterway.
and, together with
Where oxygen
community leadshould have been,
ers, they issued
mercury, nickel,
calls for more
arsenic and lead
public and private
abounded.
funding to revitalBut significant
ize the canal.
progress may be on
“There is a
the way. More than
sense of opti250 environmentalmism,” because
ists from around the
people at last are
country met at the
coming together
Brooklyn College
to discuss what
Student Center this
the problems are,
summer, assessing
said Martin
the situation and
Schreibman,
coming up with
director of
plans to rescue the
Brooklyn
legendary channel.
College’s Aquatic
The ultimate goal
Research and
of those who attendEnvironmental
ed the daylong gathAssessment
ering was to restore
BROOKLYN COLLEGE
Center.
clear water and
Martin Schreibman (Right), director of
The center,
wildlife to the hisBrooklyn College’s Aquatic Research and
along with the
torically industrial
Environmen-tal Assessment Center, in the lab
U.S. Army Corps
and thus heavily polwith student Chester Zarnoch, doing research
of Engineers and
luted canal, which
using oysters as living water filters.
the Gowanus
extends through the
Canal
neighborhoods of
Community
Development
Corporation,
Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and Red
sponsored
the
June
conference.
Hook.
Schreibman’s optimism is shared by
At its most glorious, when it first
others who say there has been a renaisopened in the 1860s, the two-mile-long
sance of sorts taking place along the
stretch of water was home to giant lob-
E
shores. A planned 56room hotel is about to rise
on an empty lot on Union
Street, Lowe’s Home
Center has opened a store,
and owners are converting
properties into apartments
to make way for new residents.
The effort to return the
Gowanus to a semblance
of its remote past goes
The Gowanus Canal, courtesy of the Gowanus Canal
back a century. In 1911
Community Development Corporation.
the Flushing Tunnel was
constructed with a huge
propeller that pulled clean
Jamaica Bay, where he had proposed
water from the neighboring Buttermilk
restoring oysters that would serve as living
Channel into the canal.
filters. Oysters—the “filter feeders,” as he
In the 1960s, however, the propeller
called them—have the ability to take in
stopped working due to mechanical failure
water and remove plankton and algae,
and the canal recaptured its fetid odor and
thereby cleaning the surrounding water.
returned to its polluted condition.
Zarnoch discussed the potential applicaCommunity activists and environmention of his plan to the Gowanus, although
talists have been demanding that somehe warned the canal is currently too dirty
thing be done; and in 1999 the relentless
to support an oyster population.
advocacy prompted the Department of
This, however, does not mean that there
Environmental Protection to reactivate the
is no hope.
flushing system. In addition to that, 2,000
“There are a lot of people committed to
tons of contaminated sediments were
immediate changes…People are not thinkdredged from the bottom of the waters.
ing of the canal as a dumping ground anyAs a result the water quality improved
more,” Zarnoch observed.
notably and realtors began to show a
While residents are skeptical about the
stronger interest in nearby properties.
commercial boom that may intensify as
Conference participants made it clear
the canal becomes more alive, Brooklyn
that much more needs to be done.
College’s Schreibman believes there will
Among the interested environmentalists
ultimately be a healthy balance of industry
with sound ideas about what to do were a
and nature.
number of CUNY students.
“The kind of unmonitored heavy indusOne student, Chester Zarnoch, 25, reptrial activity won’t happen here again, with
resenting both the Graduate Center and
the pollution and illegal spills,” Schreibman
Brooklyn College, presented his thoughts on
said. “This is a mixed community with a
how best to clean the waters of the canal.
good balance of industrial and residential
His plans were based on research about
elements, and it’s a healthy mix.”
Who Would Have Thought It? My Book about Frida Became a Movie
Adapted here is a segment from “Study With
the Best,” the 30-minute TV
magazine, now entering its
fourth season, that highlights
CUNY’s wide array of outstanding faculty, remarkable
students and alumni, and
major University academic
initiatives. The lively, fast-paced series
(CUNY-TV Channel 75) is aimed particularly at prospective CUNY students.
W
hen the award-winning film “Frida”
was released in 2002, it turned the littleknown Mexican painter Frida Kahlo into
a pop icon.
And it’s all because of the biography
written by CUNY Graduate Center alum
Hayden Herrera.
Herrera’s book, “Frida Kahlo,” which
was published some two decades before
the movie was filmed and which was listed
in its credits, was her dissertation. “I was
completely surprised” by all the attention
the film brought to the book, she says,
adding that in the 1980s, when she wrote
it, she didn’t think many people would
read it because her subject was so obscure.
“I thought, no one’s heard of Frida, so
maybe a few people will read it in the art
world, especially the feminists and my
friends.”
When Herrera began researching Frida’s
4
Hayden Herrera, CUNY Grad Center
alumna and author of book on Frida Kahlo.
life, she became so fascinated with the
story of this forgotten political and sexual
revolutionary that “I began to feel as
though I had gotten inside her head.”
The story of the feminist Kahlo, whose
haunting self-portraits were overshadowed
by the celebrated work of her philandering
husband, Rockefeller Center muralist
Diego Rivera, and whose personal life was
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
filled with physical and emotional pain,
took on new meaning when Herrera visited her Blue House in the suburbs of
Mexico City. It was at the house museum
that Herrera was able to put Kahlo’s life
into perspective and then onto paper.
At 6, Kahlo had polio, and at 18, a bus
accident left her with injuries so numerous
and severe that her body was encased in a
cast for a month. It was while she was confined to bed with the injuries
that would plague her the rest
of her life that she began
painting, and it was her painting that would sustain her
through some 30 more operations. In 1953, her work was
finally exhibited in Mexico
City for the first time, and in
1954, suffering after her
right leg was amputated
below the knee because of
gangrene, she committed
suicide at age 47.
“The house had such
an atmosphere, it was as
though Frida had just
left,” Herrera says. “And
there were all her things,
all her dolls, all her
clothes, her bedside
with her plaster cast on
the bed with the thumbtacks in
it. It was extremely vivid. And one did feel
her presence quite strongly there. And I
think a lot of people come away feeling
that she’s there, you know.”
The tequila-chugging Kahlo, who
dressed in traditional Mexican costume,
expressed herself in four-letter words and
entertained guests at her wild parties by
singing off-color songs, cut a colorful figure. When Rivera had an affair with her
sister, for instance, Kahlo, who was bisexual, countered with
relationships with
a number of
women and men,
including communist leader Leon
Trotsky.
Herrera says that
Kahlo’s life and her
paintings, which detail
her pain brushstroke
by brushstroke, are an
inspiration to all.
“It’s the strength
and that insistence on
allegria – joy – that is
what makes people
love Frida and why
she’s been turned into
sort of Santa Frida,”
Herrera says.
NOTED AND QUOTED
Employees Can Save as They
Use Public Transportation
C
ity University employees who commute by city trains or buses may be able to
save more than $200 a year by participating in CUNY’s TransitBenefit program.
The program doesn’t offer a direct discount on subway or bus fares. Instead, it
allows workers to pay for MetroCards with
pre-tax earnings – meaning that the
amounts paid for commuting costs never
show up as part of gross earnings, and thus
aren’t taxed.
Participants choose how much to contribute from each paycheck to a
Transportation Spending Account based on
how often they use city public transportation. Each is issued a TSA debit card that
can only be used at MetroCard vending
machines to purchase rides with funds
from the spending account.
Contributions can be suspended during
the summer, while employees are on leave,
or anytime an employee decides to suspend participation. In the latter case, however, the normal administrative fee of
$1.80 a month charged by JPMorgan
Chase, who oversees the plan, will continue to be deducted from the employee’s
paycheck.
The TransitBenefit program can’t be
used to buy tickets on Metro North, the
Long Island Railroad or New Jersey
Transit, nor can it be used to pay for parking costs. It can be used on express buses
in the city.
The savings are greatest for higher-paid
employees who use public transportation
often. For a “frequent rider” (10 or more
trips per week) making about $55,500 a
year, annual savings would amount to
between $283 and $300. Riders using
more expensive express buses could save
more, but there is an upper limit on contributions of $100 per month; additional
amounts can come from post-tax earnings.
New Hostos Review Features
Latin American Writers
T
he Hostos Review, a compilation of
articles, stories and poetry, is out in print
and ready to be devoured by lovers of
Latin-American literature. Its editor says
the publication is an attempt to “build
bridges” between Latino writers around
the hemisphere and the world.
The current 353-page issue is in
Spanish, but the next one will be devoted
to Puerto Rican literature and many of
those pieces will be published in English,
the editor Dr. Isaac Goldemberg said.
Dr. Isaac Goldemberg, editor of the new Hostos
Review of Latin American literature.
CUNY Professors Donate $100,000 For
Scholarships at Medgar Evers College
Scientists Get to the
Heart of Trans Fatty Acids
T
eachers have been known to speak of “giving back” as a motivation for choosing
their profession, but few have used the phrase as literally as Drs. Umesh P. and
Shailaja U. Nagarkatte.
Umesh Nagarkatte, a mathematics professor at Medgar Evers College, and his
wife Shailaja, a professor in mathematics and computer science at Queensborough
Community College, recently gave $100,000 to Medgar Evers for scholarships to be
awarded to two students each
year, beginning with the fall
of 2005.
“It’s a good use of money,”
the soft-spoken Nagarkatte
said of the gift. “It’s from our
hearts. There are a number of
students who do not have any
other (financial) help and this
will be quite useful for them.”
An immigrant from India,
Nagarkatte said he loves being
at Medgar Evers College,
where the student body is
largely black and President
Edison O. Jackson has been
Dr. Umesh P. Nagarkatte of Medgar Evers and his
struggling to boost donations
wife Dr. Shailaja U. Nagarkatte of Queensborough
from all corners of the borCommunity College, as the Nagarkattes give
ough of Brooklyn. He has been
$100,000 to Medgar Evers College. With them, on
teaching there since 1978.
far left, is Dr. Edison O. Jackson, president of Medgar
Another $100,000 gift
Evers College, and behind them is Fred Gilbert, execcame to Medgar Evers recentutive director of corporate relations for Medgar Evers.
ly in the name of the late
Brooklyn Councilwoman
Mary Pinkett, whose husband William gave the school $50,000 this past summer
with a promise of another $50,000 early next year.
Pinkett said he hoped his donation would inspire other middle-class Brooklyn residents to do the same. “I hoped that maybe other people as well will start doing
this,” said Pinkett, who works with an association of retired school supervisors and
administrators in downtown Brooklyn.
Medgar Evers has been struggling over the decades against political and social
odds to educate a population that is at risk in society, Pinkett said. “These are the
things that inspired me as an individual to support it,” he said. “When people do
something like this, maybe it can focus attention on the need…Other institutions
have people to support them, but to my knowledge, although Medgar Evers does
get some donations, they do not get a large number of substantial donations.”
But at the college’s Fourth Annual Legacy Awards Gala held in early October at
the Marriott Hotel in downtown Brooklyn, college president Jackson boasted of the
support, financial and otherwise, he’s been receiving from some high-powered people, including John Esposito, president and chief executive officer of Schieffelin and
Company, and Frank Comerford, president and general manager of WNBC.
Jackson presented distinguished alumni awards to several graduates, including Dr.
Carol DeCosta, a physician who offered strong words of thanks to the Medgar Evers
faculty.
A current student, April Mojica, spoke of her experiences at the college, saying
she took heart from words that Jackson repeats often when he’s speaking to students: “If your mind can conceive it, and your heart can believe it, then surely, surely
you can achieve it.”
“Our mission is to establish links to
build bridges between Latin American
writers living in the United States
with their Latino counterparts” in
other parts of the world, said
Goldemberg, who is a
Distinguished Professor of
Humanities at Hostos Community
College and is the general editor of
the Review.
With plans to publish several
issues a year, the Hostos Review, or
Revista Hostosiana, will present
some of the finest writers and
scholars in Latin America as well as
here in the United States. For
example, one of the authors in the
current issue is Julio Ortega, a professor at Brown University and a
“foremost” scholar on Latin
American literature today,
Goldemberg said.
City College Biochemistry Professor Horst
Schulz and post-graduate student Dr.
Wenfeng Yu have done critical research on
trans fatty acids. Photo, Bill Summers.
C
ountless news articles and TV ads
have bellowed a seeming truism: that solid
fats found in margarine, microwave popcorn, fast-food French fries and cookies
have been linked to high cholesterol and
heart disease. But so far no study has
established that they do, indeed, cause
these health problems.
Research by City College Biochemistry
Prof. Horst Schulz and post-graduate student Wenfeng Yu may eventually answer
this vitally important question.
“There’s still no definite answer, but this
research opens up new possibilities for
exploration,” said Schulz, who has been
researching fatty acids for 35 years. Yu, who
just earned his doctorate in biochemistry
from CUNY with research done at CCNY, is
now doing post-graduate work at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
Schulz and Yu isolated mitochondria,
sub-cellular power plants that manufacture
energy, from rat livers and added a dietary
trans-fatty acid to see how rapidly it broke
down. They discovered that the trans-fatty
acid is metabolized so slowly that it leaks
out into other parts of the cell.
“This slow metabolizing may contribute
to the negative health effects attributed to
the acids,” Schulz said. He cautioned, however, that what occurs in rats may not necessarily hold true for humans.
Although Schulz and Yu studied only one
trans-fatty acid, they expect others to behave
similarly.
City Tech Windsurfer Is Sixth in Olympics
this fall working on a
degree in architectural
hen people ask
technology. Previously,
City Tech architecshe studied furniture
tural technology studesign in California
dent Jessica Crisp
before relocating to
what she did on her
New York City in
summer vacation, she
August 2001.
can regale them with
In the process of
stories from Athens,
Jessica Crisp, City Tech student and
searching the Internet
where she competed
Olympic windsurfer.
looking for furniturein windsurfing in the
design training oppor2004 Summer Olympics.
tunities
in
New
York,
Crisp came across
The 35-year-old, an Australian national
information about City Tech’s architectural
who now lives in Brooklyn Heights, comtechnology program. “I was impressed by
peted with the Australian Olympic team
what I read and the opportunities the proin the Mistral class of the sailing event, fingram provides to do hands-on design proishing sixth in a field of 26. “The competijects, both in the classroom and through
tion was very tough,” she admits.
internships,” she says.
Crisp, a sophomore, took a leave of
She adds, “I’m so happy to be back on
absence from City Tech for a year and a
campus.”
half to prepare for the games, but is back
W
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
5
Hamilton Grange,
Alexander Hamilton’s
country estate near City
College’s campus. Hamilton
was a leader at 1787’s
Constitutional Convention,
which established the way
Congress and the President are
elected. Under the convention’s
“Three-Fifths Compromise,”
five slaves counted as three
people to determine a state’s
representation in Congress.
1787
Thomas Nast’s cartoon
(circa 1870) attacks ballot-box
corruption by William Marcy
“Boss” Tweed’s Tammany Hall.
Boss Tweed and Tammany
symbolized corrupt big-city
“political machines” of the
19th century. Party organizations offered immigrants help
— patronage jobs, money or
food in times of distress — in
exchange for political support.
A suffragist parade on New
York City’s Fifth Avenue in 1912.
An 1848 women’s rights convention declared that “all men and
women are created equal.” In
1878 a women’s suffrage amendment was debated nationally and
such suffragists as Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
used civil disobedience —
attempting to vote — to gain
attention for their cause.
Judge Samuel Seabury (left)
interrogates New York City
Mayor Jimmy Walker during
an investigation into municipal
corruption that eventually forced
Walker to resign. Reforms
weakened big-city political
organizations, but few reformers
won elections. It took the New
Deal’s welfare state — and the
services it provided — to wreck
the political machines.
Mississippi native and civil
rights champion Medgar
Evers established local chapters of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) throughout
the Mississippi Delta. Evers’s
accused killer stood trial twice
in the 1960s, but all-white juries
didn’t reach a verdict. He was
convicted and sentenced to
life in prison in 1994.
Student No
Coordinat
activists a
worth lunch
Carolina in 1
Freedom Sum
volunteers w
help Black v
Chaney of M
Yorkers And
Michael Sch
dered by Ku
1870
1912
1931
1954
19
CUNY Voting Rights and Citizenship Calendar,
laration of more than 200 years ago: That
its people have a right to life, liberty and
here was perhaps no more appropriate
the pursuit of happiness.
setting in which to hold the unveiling of
“The calendar, website, and curricula will
the CUNY Voting Rights and Citizenship
reach millions of people in New York City,
Calendar than the New-York Historical
across the country and around the world,”
Society, where New Yorkers lately have
said Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. “It will
been learning about the life and times of
create a common thread for readers to
Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
understand how suffrage began as a priviThe calendar, a one-of-a-kind document
lege for the few and then became a right
that will be used around the country and
for all citizens. Most importantly, we hope
in New York City public
to emphasize the importance
schools as an valuable
of the exercise of those rights
tool in curriculum develthrough the electoral process
opment, spans 17 months
"The calendar…
so that voices can be heard
between September of
will
reach
millions
of
and every vote can be countthis year and January of
people in New York ed.”
2006, but it is far more
Speaking at the unveiling
than just a document for
City,
across
the
on
a weekday evening in
marking important future
October,
Louise Mirrer, prescountry
and
around
dates, CUNY officials say.
ident and chief executive
The CUNY Voting
the world.”
officer of the Historical
Rights and Citizenship
—
Chancellor
Society, noted that the calenCalendar is a tangible
Matthew
Goldstein
dar came about because of a
reminder of the struggles
“visionary leader” who
that went into the evolushowed singular energy in
tion of the democracy
spreading
it
far
beyond the boundaries of
that is called the United States of America,
CUNY.
That
person
was Jay Hershenson,
and of men and women who fought
CUNY Vice Chancellor for University
racism, sexism and xenophobia so the
Relations and Secretary of the Board of
U.S.A. could honestly lay claim to its decTrustees. Vice
Chancellor
Hershenson
asked the New
York Times
through its
Knowledge
Network to be
CUNY’s partner
and obtain support from TIAACREF and
JPMorgan Chase,
who agreed to be
the founding
sponsors.
But if
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein with Dr. Richard K. Lieberman, director
Hershenson conof the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, who did the massive research
ceived the calenfor the calendar. With them is Dr. Gail O. Mellow, President of
dar and oversaw
LaGuardia Community College.
T
6
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
era of more open participation in the
its development, the implementation fell
nation’s electoral system and an old era
to Richard K. Lieberman, Director of the
when Americans of dark hue, and their
LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at
white sympathizers as well, were harassed,
LaGuardia Community College.
beaten and even killed for demanding that
Lieberman had the massive task of locating
everyone have the right to vote.
and acquiring hundreds of old photos,
Full copies of all LBJ telephone recordsketches and tapes, and of putting history
ings are available from the LBJ Presidential
into readable snippets to go along with
Library and the Miller Center for Public
archival material.
Affairs, but neiAt the
ther site allows lisOctober 6th
teners to select
unveiling cerecalls about specific
mony,
topics. The calenChancellor
dar contains the
Goldstein and
most significant
President Gail
excerpts of the
Mellow prePresident’s conversented
sations on this
Lieberman
matter, framed
with an award
with scholarly
recognizing his
commentary to
work on the
provide context
calendar and
for the issues at
his “32 years of
hand. In this
exemplary sersense, someone
vice” to the
Three suffragists voting in New York City (circa 1917). with no backUniversity.
ground other than
For his part,
a desire to learn more about this critical
Lieberman said the calendar will achieve
piece of legislation can use the Voting
its goal of a more perfect democracy over
Rights Calendar recordings to gain insight
time. “The battle continues,” he said, notinto the origins, progress, and passage of
ing that controversies over the alleged
the act—as it appeared at the time in the
denial of voting rights appear in the
Oval Office.
nation’s news pages even in 2004.
The calendar has a companion website
The Calendar: An Overview
(www.cuny. edu/votingcalendar) that
The Voting Rights and Citizenship
makes use of audio, video and links to furCalendar highlights critical events and
ther information, which together will
themes that shaped America’s voting histohopefully inspire greater civic participation
ry: civil rights, big city voting in the mid
and a deeper appreciation of the American
20th century, the Constitution, suffrage,
way of life.
contested elections and the electoral college.
The calendar is the only easily accessible
Specially illustrated sections explore
location on the web to hear President
how Native Americans, ChineseLyndon B. Johnson and the era’s key govAmericans and women obtained the right
ernment and civil rights figures discuss the
to vote. The rich companion website offers
1965 Voting Rights Act. Many young sturare streaming videos of civil rights leader
dents are simply not aware of the great sigMedgar Evers, the Johnson audio tapes,
nificance of that act, which was a watershed
and more.
moment in the development of American
Curricular and lesson plans, drawn from
democracy, a dividing line between a new
the calendar’s scholarship and research
Violent
ng Committee
a sit-in at a Woolunter in North
60. During 1964’s
mer, three young
o were working to
ers — James
sissippi and New
w Goodman and
erner — were murux Klan members.
The Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr. with President
Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1965
lawmen using tear gas and nightsticks stopped the first Selma-toMontgomery voting rights march.
Dr. King led a second march, but
turned the marchers around to
prevent a confrontation. Over
32,000 marchers made a third
march safely under a court order
of protection.
60
1965
Representatives Bella Abzug,
left, and Edward I. Koch listen
to an address by Shirley
Chisholm, the first AfricanAmerican woman elected to
Congress. A Brooklyn College
graduate, she was an author of
legislation establishing SEEK
(Search for Education, Elevation and
Knowledge), provides disadvantaged
youths the chance to attend college.
1974
Herman Badillo, a pathbreaking Puerto Rican politician and CCNY alumnus, has
been Bronx borough president,
a congressman, deputy mayor
and chairman of the CUNY
Board of Trustees. The Jones
Act of 1917 made Puerto
Ricans U.S. citizens, allowing
them to migrate freely to the
mainland – and to vote upon
arrival here.
A voter registration
drive in New York City’s
Chinatown. The Hart-Celler
Immigration Act of 1965
opened the door to immigrants
from Asia, Latin America and
the Caribbean. These new
voices would transform the
political landscape in the U.S.,
especially in New York City,
which was 36 percent foreignborn by 2002.
1977
2004
A Blueprint for the Learning of History
rights workers in the south, events that led
to the Voting Rights Act of 1965; Puerto
Rican Voters; and Mexican-Americans.
(Respectively, October 2005, November
2005, and January 2006)
underpinnings, are in development for elementary, middle and high school students
and teachers in the New York City public
schools and throughout the New York
metropolitan area and beyond.
The calendar is distributed free of
charge by CUNY and The New York
Times Knowledge Network. It is sponsored
by JPMorgan Chase and TIAA-CREF.
Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos at
Hunter College/CUNY is preparing a
Spanish translation of the printed calendar,
and the University is planning translations
in other formats and languages also. More
than 170 CUNY faculty, staff and students
helped with research, editing and the identification of resources and links. University
Director of Media Relations Michael
Arena and Daniel Shure, managing editor
of cuny.edu, worked closely with Dr.
Lieberman and his colleagues to establish
the calendar website.
A Month by Month Journey to Democracy
Below are listed some of the important
historical topics dealt with in the Calendar.
At the end of each section printed here, in
parentheses, the reader will find the month
and year of the calendar discussing that
particular topic. Please note that the below
list is not all-inclusive.
• The Civil War, which resulted in Abraham
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, passage of the 13th Amendment to the
Constitution abolishing slavery, and the
Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to former slaves. (January 2005)
• Reconstruction, which was the period
after the Civil War including the ratification
in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which enfranchised former
slaves. A combination of enduring racism
eventually stripped African-Americans of
political, social, and economic power and
resulted in racial segregation in the former
Confederacy. (February 2005)
• Women’s Suffrage and Women Get the
Vote, which are the sections recounting
the struggle for women’s voting rights. The
Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention
Cover page of the CUNY Voting Rights and Citizenship Calendar.
in 1848 issued a Declaration of Sentiments
stating, “All men and women are created
equal.” (March and April 2005)
• The “Jim Crow” era, when Southern
white supremacists used poll taxes, literacy
tests and violence to prevent AfricanAmericans from voting. The U.S. Supreme
Court upheld segregation in Plessy v.
Ferguson (1896) and endorsed state laws
disenfranchising African-Americans in
Williams v. Mississippi (1898). (May 2005)
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New
Deal, which was put into place during the
Great Depression as the country suffered
through a painful and sustained economic
downturn that cut across racial lines. The
importance of the vote took on a new
immediate meaning. The National Labor
Relations Act in 1935 spurred millions of
workers to organized into unions, which
used their strength to elect candidates sympathetic to labor’s interests. (June 2005)
• Big-city political machines, which wield-
ed enormous power over the lives of residents in New York and other large cities
that grew rapidly in the mid-19th century,
fueled by immigration and an increase in
manufacturing. Party organizations—known
as political machines—offered immigrants
help in exchange for political support.
They sometimes fixed elections by stuffing
or destroying ballot boxes. (July 2005)
• The Civil Rights movement, including
the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board
of Education ruling, which outlawed racially segregated schools. This calendar month
also deals with the Montgomery, Alabama,
bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr. The use of attack dogs, tear gas,
and clubs against nonviolent demonstrators
horrified millions of Americans and led to
the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr.
King delivered his famed “I Have a Dream”
speech. (September 2005)
• Additional calendar months are devoted
to: The murders of Medgar Evers and civil
Shining History’s Light into Classrooms
Voting Rights and Citizenship curricula
are in development for the fourth, eighth
and eleventh grades. Students using those
materials will survey American history
beginning with the construction of the
Constitution, taking an educational journey through the Civil War and on to the
struggles for women’s suffrage. They will
also learn about civil rights and the labor
movement. Finally, students will examine
the struggles of today’s immigrants for voting rights and political empowerment.
The Archives has amassed a collection
of primary source documents that will
assist CUNY professors in preparing
lessons. The LaGuardia and Wagner
Archives and CUNY faculty are collaborating with teachers from the New York City
Department of Education and the City
Hall Academy, who will bring their pedagogical skills to the project.
Document-based learning, a requirement of the New York State Department
of Education, will help students prepare for
standardized tests, broaden their knowledge
of U.S. history and government, and build
their critical thinking skills. This material
will be presented using a combination of
printed materials and the computer.
The LaGuardia and Wagner Archives
has produced curricula for the New York
City public schools for more than fifteen
years. Earlier topics have included public
housing, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, public
health and the Erie Canal. Since 2003 the
Archives has focused on civics, including
its most recent curriculum “Keeping New
York City Streets Clean Since the 1800s,”
which dealt with waste management.
Voting rights will build upon the Archives’
efforts, educating students about this fundamental right as they march through the
major moments of American history.
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
7
Recalling a Hunter Grad Who Waged a Battle for Peace
Eileen Egan was
active in the theater
group and wrote for
the college paper
while at Hunter.
She went on to
become a world
traveling human
rights worker and
wrote the definitive
biography of Mother
Teresa, with whom
Egan is pictured
below in the Bronx
about ten years ago.
T
he late Eileen Egan’s
name would not trip easily
from the tongue of a typical American history student. But the 1933 Hunter
College grad was a prolific
author and human rights
activist who was passionately involved in the burning moral issues and events
of the twentieth century.
A radical pacifist, she
was honored by the postWorld War II governments
of France and Germany
for her work with
European refugees. She
later marched with the
Rev. Martin Luther King,
Jr. and was arrested with MexicanAmerican farm workers in
California. She authored the first
definitive biography of the late
Catholic missionary Mother Teresa.
Egan comes to our attention by
way of Dr. Susan Kopp, director of
the veterinary technology program
at LaGuardia Community College.
Earlier this year, Kopp was honored
by the Catholic Press Association
for articles she wrote for a small
Catholic monthly magazine, Living
City. The articles were about the
AIDS crisis in Uganda and the
award was called the Eileen Egan
rowed for the stage,” recalls Eileen’s sister,
Journalism Award, a name that at first
Kathleen Egan, a nun who lives in Kansas.
meant nothing to Kopp.
Like other immigrants the Egan family
“But right away… I went and looked
had it rough in the 1930s, the era of the
her up and I realized that she was this
Great Depression. Each evening the Egans’
amazing person and that her life had been
mother would set a bowl of fruit on the
for others,” Kopp told CUNY Matters.
table for the next day’s
Born in Wales to Irish parbreakfast, one piece for
ents, Egan immigrated as a
each child. Worse hardteenager to New York City
"[W]e
are
here
either
ship followed: Within
with her parents and siblings
seven years of the famito heal or to hurt,
in 1926. She enrolled a few
ly’s arrival in New York,
years later at Hunter College and for me people who
both parents died, leaving
where, according to college
Eileen as the head of the
hurt
others
spokesperson Meredith
household.
Halpern, she was president
are the most tragic,”
But her years at
of the “Make-Up Box”—the
—
Eileen
Egan,
Hunter
were halcyon
theater club—and was a feaspeaking
to
the
New
York
ones
for
Eileen, her surture writer for The Bulletin.
Times in January, 1993
viving siblings said.
Egan’s commitment to
“What an extraordinary
the theater group foreshadeducation they got at
owed the manner in which
Hunter,”
said
her
sister Mabel Egan Gil,
she would later relate to the wider world.
82, who lives in the Albany area in upstate
“Sometimes we would come home and
New York.
our living room furniture had been borAfter Hunter College ,
Egan attended the
University of London on a
scholarship and returned to
New York to teach at Curtis
High School in Staten
Island. In the early 1940s, as
Germany began to exterminate the Jewish populations
of Europe and unleashed
war over the whole continent, Egan embarked on a
human rights career that
would span the rest of her
life. She worked to resettle
Polish survivors of the
Siberian exile and expelled
ethnic Germans. She did so
through Catholic Relief
In an undated photo, Eileen Egan is in the Mother Teresa House
Services, the agency that
of the Dying in India.
was to become her long-
8
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
family,” said Gartlan.
term employer. Over the coming decades
In January, 1993, the New York Times
she would travel through Latin America,
published a feature article on Egan, based
Asia and Europe, aiding victims of violence
on an interview with her in her third-floor
and natural disaster.
walk-up apartment, as she was still
In 1955, while on assignment in India,
wheelchair-bound.
Egan met a then-obscure Albanian-born
“It was totally anonymous violence,” she
nun whose days and nights were spent
told the reporter Michael T. Kaufman, “the
with destitute and dying men, women and
kind of violence that comes in a war, when
children. Egan would come to know
your house is bombed and you don’t know
Mother Teresa as a friend and traveling
who did it or why.” She continued, “When
companion. Her 1986 biography of
I was in the hospital and they told me that
Mother Teresa, who died in 1997, was
Richard had been caught and that he was a
titled Such a Vision of the Street.
poor white drifter who had done this sort
“She wrote what I would call the definiof thing before, what could I feel? I feel
tive biography (of Mother Teresa). It is the
compassion for all people who live by viobasis from which all others have been taklence or act in violence. To me we are here
ing quotes, in some cases witheither to heal or to hurt, and for me peoout attributing, but that’s okay,”
ple who hurt others are the most tragic.”
her sister Kathleen said.
At the time of the interview, according
As a committed pacifist,
to the Times article, Egan was working on a
Eileen Egan had strong ties to
book “arguing that with contemporary milU.S. labor and anti-war activists
itary technology it is no longer possible to
with whom she sometimes parcling to notions of a just war.” The book,
ticipated in acts of civil disobetitled Peace Be With You, was published in
dience. “She was arrested maybe
1999.
four times, with Dorothy Day
In October of 2000, at the age of 88,
(founder of the Catholic Worker
Eileen Egan died. She is buried in Calvary
newspaper), and with the farm
Cemetery in Queens.
workers striking in California”
In the western corner of Queens, in
during the United Farm Workers
Long Island City, veterinary professor
boycotts of the late ’60s and
Kopp said she has been inspired by Egan’s
early ’70s, her brother Jerome
life. Kopp has accomplished quite a bit
said.
herself as a veterinarian. Back in the 1990s
For all her world travels,
when she was chief veterinarian at New
Eileen Egan remained a New
York City’s Animal Care and Control, she
Yorker in fact and in heart. In
was interviewed by national radio comAugust of 1992, at the age of
mentator Charles Osgood about the diffi72, she was the victim of a brutal mugging
culties of placing
after attending mass at
pit bulls in adopSt. Monica’s Church
tive homes. The
on East 79th Street
Amsterdam News
near her home.
wrote about her
“She was near a
after one of her
restaurant and looking
students was
at the menu, her back
accepted to
was to the street, when
Cornell
this crazed person
University’s
came up behind her.
College of
He went to grab her
Veterinary
shoulder bag and
Medicine. Kopp
couldn’t get it” and so
said she is proud of
he got rough with her,
the training her
said Jean Gartlan, who
students get at
was a personal friend
LaGuardia and of
of Egan’s and now
their track record
lives in Baltimore.
in finding meaningEgan suffered a broken
ful work in the vethip, broken ribs and
erinary field.
had to spend two
Diligence and
weeks at Lenox Hill
pride in one’s craft,
Hospital.
as well as an ability
“Everyone wonDr. Susan Kopp, director of LaGuardia
to work with othdered when the mugCommunity College’s veterinary technology
ers, are qualities
ging happened how
program, recently won the Eileen Egan
Kopp hopes she is
she would react, now
Journalism Award for articles that she wrote
passing on to her
that she was finally
about AIDS in Uganda. Kopp then began to
students. “I really
confronted with vioresearch Egan’s life. Below, Dr. Kopp with
like it when somelence herself,” Gartlan
students enrolled in LaGuardia’s veterinary
body uses her talsaid. But according to
technology program.
ents for others,”
Egan’s family and
Kopp said. “How I
friends, she never
live my life ties
uttered a word of
into my teaching,
anger about the man,
the way I treat the
31-year-old Richard
students. I teach
Raimonde, who was
them that if you
eventually caught and
don’t learn to work
sentenced in the crime.
together with othIn fact, “she forgave
ers, with other stuhim and wrote to him
dents, it’s the aniwhen he was in jail
mals who suffer.”
and got to know his
BOOK TALK OF THE CITY
Corruption in China,18th-Century Women Who Tally and Tell
China’s Gamble on the Market Economy
Heroines with Figures—and ‘Personality’
B
R
y fortunate coincidence, Yan Sun happened to be traveling in several Chinese
cities during the summer of the bloody
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The foreign media had for years been
reporting on budding pro-democracy
movements in China, and the world might
have been
pardoned for
assuming
that, at long
last, democracy was finally
bursting forth
in the world’s
most populous
nation. Sun,
now a professor of political
science at
Queens College
and the
Graduate
Center, quickly
discovered the
real reason for
the protests.
“I learned firsthand that most
public grievances
were directed at
the rise of official
corruption since
urban reforms in
1984.” Two years
after the protests
Sun recorded her
views in her first professional article, “The
Tiananmen Protests of 1989: The Key
Issue of Corruption,” in the journal Asian
Survey. At that time “corruption” referred
mainly to profiteering by the children of
powerful party and government officials.
Such corruption largely ended with the
dismantling of central planning structures
in the early 1990s.
When Sun returned for another extended summer visit in 1995, she was taken
aback by how corruption was “returning
with a vengeance” as China began to
launch its full transition to a market economy. Contemplating research on the subject, Sun found a “rich reservoir” of materials in Chinese book stores, party offices,
libraries, and law schools. “My experiences
with the corruption and anti-corruption
realities of China,” she writes, have resulted in her new book from Cornell
University Press, Corruption and Market
in Contemporary China.
Sun begins her study, for very good reasons, in Las Vegas, whither high-rolling
Chinese fat-cats have been flocking in everincreasing numbers over the last decade.
These, she asserts, are often “government
officials and CEOs of state firms who have
embezzled public funds and taken huge
bribes, or business people who have
acquired huge wealth through smuggling,
tax evasion, or other dubious activities.”
Sun quotes a Washington Post report
that “high rollers from China and the
amount they are willing to gamble have
captured the imaginations of Vegas’s gambling industry” and is off and running,
exploring the various kinds of corruption—
which she defines as “the abuse of public
power (gonggong quanli) by occupants of
public office (gongzhi renyuan)”—in China.
Three of her appendices depressingly list
“Worst Construction Failures,” “Worst
Office Sellers,” and “Fallen Gamblers” in
the last decade.
Drawing from a wealth of Chinese-language studies, journals, and casebooks,
as well as Englishlanguage materials,
Sun devotes chapters to: “transactional” corruption
(involving two
parties, officials
and citizens, usually in the form
of bribery); “nontransactional”
corruption
(embezzlement,
misappropriation, accounting
crimes, or negligence); the
regional
dynamics of
corruption;
and the
decline of disincentives
against corruption.
Among
the problems
Sun identifies is the
shifting of over-concentrated power merely
from one class of officials (Communist
Party secretaries) to another (chief executives and elite managers), as well as the
failure to replace or re-create the formerly
strict regulatory mechanisms of the old
central-planning hierarchy.
Sun is particularly harsh on the Chinese
leadership: “Ideologically and morally, the
state has retreated even more sorrowfully… Despite occasional exhortations to
remember the party’s tradition of jianku
fendou (dilgence and frugality), the party
has not articulated an alternative value
platform to balance the onslaught of commercialism and consumerism, the aggrandizement of individual desires and wants,
and the legitimization of private ‘lifestyles.’”
Not surprisingly, in her conclusion Sun
suggests the answer may ultimately lie in
pro-democracy efforts. “The democratic
alternative offers promising anti-corruption
potential, especially in two areas: media
exposure and periodic removal of corrupt
officials through democratic processes.”
Though, she warns, striking the cautionary
note: “Even democracy—especially at its
fledgling stage—may not be sufficient to
constrain corruption.”
Then, she takes us back, if not to Las
Vegas, then to Washington D.C. with a
glum reminder that the Chinese “media
and the electoral process have been influenced by monetary contributions, corrupt
operators, intimidation… Already in
China, vote buying has emerged as a new
form of corruption.” The Chinese, Sun’s
book shows, are proving themselves very
bright students of the nation that has perfected the gladiatorial combat between
capitalism and democracy.
eading about capitalism run amuck
causes one to think immediately of the
collapse of Enron, made possible by several
forms of corporate corruption and government lassitude. Remember, too, that just
about the only high-up Enron executives
who emerged from that fetid accounting
swamp smelling like a rose were women.
Maureen Castaneda revealed the
widespread shredding of documents, and
Sherron Watkins was the Cassandra who
wrote the famous email to her boss
Kenneth Lay warning that Enron was
about to “implode in a wave of accounting
scandals.”
No CUNY scholar is better poised to
enjoy the irony of this than Hunter
College Professor of English Rebecca
Connor, who has just published Women,
Accounting, and Narrative: Keeping
Books in 18th-century England, the latest
title in Routledge’s Research in Gender
and History series. For she has chosen to
focus on a century that saw the first extensive attempts by the patriarchy to introduce the joys—and responsibilities—of
accounting to women. “Account, accounting, accountable: the words are found
everywhere from tutelary texts to novels,”
Connor writes in her introduction, particularly “in literature about and directed
toward women.”
Connor has discovered a remarkable
nexus between the ubiquitous ladies’
almanacs and pocket-size account books
and English fiction during the 18th century. The heroines conceived by male authors
like Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson,
Connor writes, “seem to be fictional versions of the owners of such almanacs” as
The Ladies’ Compleat
Pocket Book (1753),
The Young Ladies’
Accountant, and Best
Accomplisher (1771),
or The Ladies’ Own
Memorandum Book
(1775).
Conversely, Connor
notes how a woman,
the late-17th-century
author Aphra Behn,
“deliberately omits precise financial
records” because in her fiction accounting
“symbolizes an encroaching, and corrupting, capitalistic world.”
Connor has the knack for chapter and
sub-chapter titles. In her first chapter,
“Diary of a not-so-mad housewife,” she
surveys the vast ladies’ accounting literature and explains its popularity. One was
the rarity of banks: there were none in
England before 1694 and relatively few
even by 1750. “The domestic documenting
of finances was often a necessity rather
than a choice.” Blank pages in these yearly
almanacs, Connor points out, were invitations to record much more than trivial
sums; women began to “tell” their lives.
She also has fun with the eagerness of the
(male) authors of these almanacs to prevent women from the “fatal Precipitancy”
of lavish spending.
It was in the 18th century, Connor
shows, that the serious work began which
led to a Sherron Watkins. “Arithmetick, or
casting Accounts, as it is called, are very
necessary Accomplishments,” opines The
Lady’s Preceptor in 1743. That is doubtless
why old Samuel Johnson wrote gently to
his seven-year-old godchild in 1784,
“When you are a little older, I hope you
will be very diligent in learning arithmetick.”
Defoe’s novels, Connor concludes,
reveal his “confidence in the financial capabilities of women.” His female characters
“possess elaborate financial ‘portfolios’
and manipulate their funds with skill and
acuity.” If Defoe wrote feelingly about
accounting, it is perhaps because he was
no stranger to debtor’s prison himself.
In her last chapter, Connor focuses on
four fictional heroines—Defoe’s Moll
Flanders and Roxana
and Richardson’s
Clarissa and Pamela—
with personality, but
not in the sense of the
old James Van Heusen
song. Connor notes
that “a common 18thcentury synonym for
moveable, or personal
property” was “personalty” or “personality.”
Here she explores
“the intricate connection between those
women accountants
who keep track of both
narrative and finance,
and their respective
‘personalities’ of property and individuality.”
Connor’s exploration
tantalizingly leaves the
reader at the doorstep of the CPA-inchief of all English novelists, Jane
Austen, but she was only 15 years old
when Connor’s chosen century ended.
— Gary Schmidgall
Personal almanacs for women were
ubiquitous in 18th-century England;
this one included the tax rates, currency valuations, as well as current taxi
(that is, hackney) fares and the latest
dance steps. Reproduced from
Women, Accounting, and Narrative.
— Gary Schmidgall
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
9
Dominicans Grow in Numbers and Influence, Across
speaking in Spanish.
University Chancellor Matthew
Goldstein was one of the featured speakers
at the mid-day luncheon event held in the
majestic Great Hall, where he delivered
the message that salvation, in the form of
education, has in fact arrived and is already
commencing its healing work.
“This university is proud of the more
than 23,000 students of Dominican descent
enrolled in degree programs at CUNY,”
Goldstein said, as the audience broke into
applause. “In fact, CUNY has graduated
more Dominicans than any other academic
institution in these United States.”
The Chancellor furthermore noted that
the Dominican Studies Institute, which is
based at City College and served as the
organizational host for the weekend gathering, “is the only research initiative at any
university devoted to the Dominican experience.”
The director of the Dominican Studies
Institute, Dr. Ramona Hernandez, when
speaking earlier in the day at a panel, had
presented results of a survey showing the
effects of Americanization on growing
numbers of Dominicans in New York.
Dominicans hold on to their culture even
into the second generation, but display the
effects of acculturation to the U.S. and to
New York particularly
in the way they view
themselves and in
their aspirations.
324.9%
The midSeptember gathering
at which all this
occurred was organized by the
Dominican American
165.4%
National Roundtable,
a Washington, D.C.based organization
that advocates for the
60.1%
53.7%
empowerment of
26.8%
Dominicans in the
13.2%
9.4% 21.2%
3.6%
United States. “Our
main focus is in the
areas of education,
This chart shows explosive growth of city’s Dominican community
health, economic
in percentage terms, compared to overall population and the broad
development, and
Latino population. Credit: based on data supplied by Queens
political empowerCollege’s Department of Sociology
O
n a recent Saturday, up on the hill
that is City College’s Hamilton Heights
campus, several hundred DominicanAmericans gathered to share thoughts on
the progress they have made politically
and otherwise in recent years.
At one of several morning panels, Daisy
Coco DeFilippis, provost of Hostos
Community College, recalled a time not
long ago when she was always the only
Dominican at the various CUNY meetings
she attended.
But throughout the day, it was clear the
Dominican community had made substantial gains, in the city generally and at
CUNY.
Politicians, businesspeople and scholars—many announcing proudly that they
were themselves CUNY graduates—spent
the day strategizing about ways they could
share their own success with tens of thousands of other Dominicans reaching after
the American dream.
During the course of her presentation
touching upon obstacles facing Dominican
New Yorkers, of relative poverty and discrimination, Coco DeFilippis summed up
her feeling in words that were echoed in
various permutations throughout the day.
“Only education will save us,” she said,
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein talks with Leonel Fernandez, President of the Dominican
Republic, with whom the Chancellor signed a cooperative agreement earlier this year.
ment,” the group says in a 69-page publication it distributed that day.
Among the Dominican political stalwarts at the conference was Manhattan
Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, who
earned his B.S. degree in political science
from Queens College in 1978. At the luncheon event with Chancellor Goldstein,
Espaillat spoke about the evident achievements of Dominicans and said that striving
members of an ethnic group beset with
relatively high poverty rates must be selfless even as they display ambition in reaching their personal and professional goals.
“There is much more work to be done,” he
said. “We cannot just say we’re going to
make a lot of money and not be thinking
of the man” who has almost nothing.
Another Dominican official present,
Guillermo Linares, recently was appointed
by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant
Affairs. Linares received his B.A. in 1973
and his M.S. in 1979, both from City
College. In 1991, he became the first
Dominican-American to hold public office
in the United States when he was elected
to the New York City Council. Over the
past several years he has held varied posts
addressing the broad needs of Latino and
other immigrants in the United States.
Linares could be seen chatting that
Saturday with Allan Wernick, the chairman of CUNY’s Citizenship and
Immigration Project. Wernick participated
in the morning panel on legal problems
experienced by Dominican immigrants.
The day’s emphasis on education had
special resonance for young scholars who
attended the panels and other presentations. City College sophomore Daniel
Guillen took part in a folkloric presentation of music and dance given that evening
for conference participants. The Sunday
session included welcoming remarks by
Trustee Hugo Morales, the first Trustee of
Dominican descent to be appointed to the
CUNY Board.
Continuing Education Looks to a Bright Future of Strong
is one that will promote training in sustainable construction skills. Another is
which has drawn a stream of young people
what Kingsborough’s Linda Nahum calls
from the Caribbean nations Trinidad and
an allied-health
Tobago and Anguilla
consortium. “For,
to LaGuardia. In sevsay, sonogram techeral cases, those stunicians, we didn’t
dents have returned
want each of the
to their homelands to
campuses to develbe their countries’
op its own curricufirst certified EMTs.
lum—which might
And to train a
not be standardcadre of New Yorkers
ized,” explains
to combat homeNahum, Associate
grown problems like
Dean for
drug addiction,
Continuing Ed. For
Hostos is offering the
eight months,
state’s first bilingual
Nahum says, repreprogram to train alcosentatives from 11
holism and substance
campuses have
abuse counselors.
shared ideas on
Barriers are breakhow “not to reining down fast with
President Bill Clinton, on a CUNY Continuing Ed panel with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
Continued from page 3
10
respect to CUNY’s Continuing Ed programs, and collaboration is on the rise: One
multi-campus model in the planning stages
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
vent the wheel.” The colleges are trying “to
look at the program so [courses] complement, not compete,” Nahum says.
Another major accomplishment for
CUNY’s Continuing Ed system will be a
centralized, searchable website, up and
working within two years. “We have a huge
portfolio of products, much more than any
of our competitors around town,” explains
Paul Russo, associate dean of continuing
education and professional studies at
Baruch, who is coordinating this ambitious
project. “But if you’re someone on the outside trying to figure out what, where, how
much, it can be unwieldy; and we recognize this.”
Accordingly, Russo and project partner
Hugo Kijne of The College of Staten
Island are working to streamline multiplecampus databases. “Our ultimate hope is
to have a database-driven website which is
searchable,” Russo says.
the Nation and at CUNY
Guillen, 20, is the
president of the
Dominican Students
Association at City
College and said he wants
someday to earn a doctorate in music and teach at
a college. More immediately, he is working with
students at other campuses to create a CUNY-wide
Dominican Students
organization, so they can
more effectively absorb
and disseminate their history and culture, as they
work to improve conditions in their community.
To plan for a CUNYwide organization,
Guillen said, he had
recently met with Mirta
Dr. Ramona Hernandez is director of City College’s Dominican
Santana, president of
Studies Institute, which Chancellor Goldstein says is “the only
ASEDOM, the Spanish
research initiative at any university devoted to the Dominican
acronym for the Associaexperience.”
tion of Dominican
Students at Baruch
the caliber of people who attended the
College. Further meetings are planned
Dominican American National Roundtable
with student leaders at Bronx and Hostos
Conference.
Community Colleges, and John Jay and
“Who would ever think that we’d have
Lehman Colleges, Guillen said.
Dominicans on Wall Street and high in
“In recent years there has been an
politics? Dominican culture is becoming
increase in Dominican students coming to
part of this city and influencing it in posithe college and registering. I know that,”
tive ways.”
said Guillen, adding that he marveled at
CUNY and Dominican Republic Foundation Agree to Exchanges
Ties between CUNY and the Dominican Republic grew stronger this summer
when Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and Dominican President Dr. Leonel Fernandez
signed an agreement vowing cooperation in a number of academic areas.
The pact puts CUNY in an alliance with the Dominican Republic-based Fundación
Global Democracia y Desarrollo and its sister organization, Wash., D.C.-based Global
Foundation for Democracy and Development.
The Dominican organizations and CUNY “will foster technical cooperation on topics that will be jointly established as complementary… ” the agreement says. “This
collaboration will encompass the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and
technology.”
The document specifically mentions the setting up of visiting scholar programs and
opens the door for exchanges among students and faculty in a wide variety of fields.
Officials at CUNY will hold annual meetings with Dominican counterparts to assess
progress, the document stipulates.
Growth and Public Service
Of course bumps are likely along the
way to redefining Continuing Education.
Former LaGuardia Continuing Education
Vice President Judith McGaughey
describes “mixed feelings” among CUNY
educators about the credit/noncredit
divide. Because CUNY’s academic departments alone have traditionally granted
credit, Continuing Ed administrators at
times have felt like “second-class citizens,”
McGaughey explains. And so now some
campuses offer a hybrid approach, allowing selective Continuing Ed programs to
grant credit through academic partnerships. The new School of Professional
Studies, meanwhile, has “reinvigorated” the
discussion, McGaughey says, by offering
credit-bearing, customized programs.
Overall, however, “It is difficult to say
whether or when the structural barriers of
the various colleges will diminish, allowing
Continuing Education to offer certain
types of intensive, quickly mounted, academically viable credit courses.”
Perhaps, in the end, that’s Continuing
Education’s primary contribution to
CUNY—its dynamism. As Mogulescu says,
“We can take an idea and run with it; and,
within three, six, nine months, we can have
a fully-blown program that will meet the
needs of literally any population that is
needy in this city, at the same time that we
are doing high-end things for lawyers and
middle class folks as well.”
As for funding these ambitious plans,
Mogulescu estimates $75 million a year, from
all campuses, in tuition, grants, and contracts.
McGaughey, Levine, and other directors
think the effort to redefine and re-orient
Continuing Ed will bear considerable fruit.
Continuing Education leads to stronger
résumés and better paychecks. And in very
positive ways, says Mogulescu, “It changes
lives.”
Grants to Improve Instruction of
Science and Math in City High Schools
T
wo grants totaling $21.5 million will fund City University research to help highschool students from poor districts succeed in science and mathematics and to create
biomedical research opportunities for minorities.
The larger grant, $12.5 million from the
National Science Foundation, will fund the
Mathematics Science Partnership in New York
City, a program that will involve six CUNY
colleges in a campaign to improve science and
math instruction in 12 city high schools in Queens,
the South Bronx and Manhattan over the next five years.
Hunter College will lead the group, which also comprises Lehman and Queens
Colleges and Bronx, Hostos and Queensborough Community Colleges. The partnership will build on a successful Hunter pilot program that has helped students who
failed state Regents exams in science and math. In 2004, 80 percent of the failed
students who participated in that program passed their exams.
The other grant, $9 million from the National Institutes of Health to researchers
at Hunter College, is aimed at creating research opportunities for minorities in such
areas as molecular neuroscience, nanotechnology and cell regulation and proliferation.
Work on the Mathematics Science Partnership began last year, when Nicholas
Michelli, the University’s dean for teacher education, convened a working group of
CUNY faculty and representatives from the city’s school system.
The group, which expanded its meetings at times to include top state and city
education officials, found “widespread problems…that impact negatively on the
effective teaching and learning of mathematics and science.”
Leading the effort to correct those problems, along with Michelli, will be Pamela
Mills, chemistry professor at Hunter, along with Hunter chemist William Sweeney,
Bronx Community College mathematician Vrunda Prabhu and Hunter mathematics
educator Frank Gardella.
Among other reforms, the program will create a dozen math-and-science “hub”
schools, undertake professional development for 84 teachers, organize partnerships
between college faculty and high school teachers, start summer camps for students
who fail science or math exams and work to make all these changes permanent parts
of academic-year programs.
Students at hub schools who demonstrate aptitude will be tapped for a “cadet
corps” to encourage them to prepare for careers teaching math and science. Many of
these students will receive scholarships for teacher education programs at CUNY,
Michelli said.
Under supervision from CUNY faculty, high school teachers will be encouraged to
embrace a “teacher-researcher” role to broaden their teaching skills while deepening
their understanding of method and content.
The grants were among scores awarded to CUNY researchers recently. Among the
others were:
BRONX COMMUNITY COLLEGE
• Ford Foundation to Pedro Pedraza,
• U.S. Department of Energy to the col“National Latino Education Research
lege’s Center for Sustainable Energy, for
Agenda Project.” ($150,000)
study of alternative energy sources.
• PHS/NIH/National Institute of General
($966,000)
Medical Sciences to David Mootoo,
BROOKLYN COLLEGE
• National Institutes of Health to Louise
“Synthesis of Stable Galacto Disaccharide
Mimetics.” ($296,974)
Hainline, “Biomedical Research Training
for Minority Honor Students.”
($475,381)
• National Institutes of Health to Zahra
GRADUATE SCHOOL AND
UNIVERSITY CENTER
• National Science Foundation to
Kenneth Tobin, “Use of Research to
Improve the Quality of Science
Education in Urban High Schools.”
($304,963)
• New York State Education Department
• Better World Fund to Thomas Weiss,
“U.N. Intellectual History Project – Phase
III.” ($267,165)
• National Science Foundation to the
CUNY Institute for Software Design and
Development, in partnership with the
New York Software Industry Association,
to develop advanced software technologies and engineering methods.
($600,000)
HUNTER COLLEGE
• PHS/NIH/National Institute on Drug
Abuse to Nicholas Freudenberg, “Impact
of HIV Intervention on Adolescent Males
Leaving Jail.” ($602,184)
• PHS/NIH/Institute of General Medical
Sciences to Peter Lipke, “Minority Access
to Research Careeers.” ($523,014)
QUEENS COLLEGE
Zakeri for “Establishment of a Minority
Access to Research Centers Program.”
($244,377)
QUEENSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE
to Mary Anne Meyer, “Tech Prep
Consortium of Queens.” ($160,000)
• National Science Foundation to David
Lieberman and Tak Cheung, “Remote
Laboratories and Distance Learning for
Technical Training.” ($296,051)
YORK COLLEGE
• National Institutes of Health to Beth
Rosenthal, “Exposure to Chronic
Community Violence and its
Consequences.” ($295,053)
NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF
TECHNOLOGY
• New York State Department of Education to Elaine Maldonado, “Math, Writing
and Critical Thinking.” ($425,369)
MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE
• National Aeronautics and Space
Administration to Leon Johnson,
“New York City Research Initiative.”
($148,417)
CUNY MATTERS — November 2004
11
ePortfolio Helps Students Showcase Skills to Prospective Employers
I
magine a virtual interview that allows
students to showcase their work and present themselves to prospective employers
anywhere in the world without leaving
home. Well, that’s the reality of ePortfolio,
an innovative web-based program that is
helping students at New York City College
of Technology and LaGuardia Community
College.
For example, Antonio Calixto, who
recently earned his bachelor of technology
degree in communication from City Tech,
utilized ePortfolio to help land his current
position as a graphics designer at the newspaper Hoy. Calixto, who arrived from
Mexico 10 years ago at age 15, says proudly: “My website let me advertise myself:
‘Here’s talent, come and get it!’”
Calixto and others are benefiting from a
five-year $3.1 million U.S. Department of
Education Title V collaborative grant to
the two schools that aims to improve educational outcomes. The program is in its
third year.
ePortfolio enables students to create
online electronic portfolios in multimedia,
state-of-the-art computer labs. Using photography, sound, movement, links, 3-D animation, multi-colored graphics and other technologies, they are able to design their own
websites and create portfolios that include
research papers, accounts of internship experiences and multimedia presentations.
“A student with an ePortfolio can, in a
sense, interview virtually without leaving
home,” said City Tech program director
Antonio Calixto, who came from Mexico 10
years ago at age 15 and earned his bachelor’s
degree from City Tech in June, advertised
himself with ePortfolio.
Karen Bonsignore. “With a click of the
mouse an ePortfolio can be sent to potential employers anywhere in the world, who
can see evidence of the student’s creativity,
work and academic success.”
Dr. Bret Eynon is director of LaGuardia’s
Center for Teaching and Learning and also
heads its ePortfolio program. “Approximately 1200 students were involved in the project last year,” he said, “and we expect an
additional 2000 during the current academic year.” Seventy-five faculty participate
in eProfile at LaGuardia.
According to Provost Joann La Perla of
City Tech, the program has surpassed all
expectations. “This fall, 400 more students
will begin creating ePortolios, bringing the
total to 1,600, which is over 10 percent of
our student body.” In addition, 18 more
faculty will join 40 colleagues who have
incorporated ePortolios into their curricula.
The beauty of ePortfolio is that even
students who haven’t studied web design
or have little or no computer training can
create an effective electronic portfolio.
Expert staff is available, either in person or
via an e-mail help desk. In addition, there
are self-guided tutorials, a template to take
the guesswork out of website design, and
technological tools including scanners, digital cameras, zip drives and CD burners.
According to Dr. Eynon, “ePortfolio allows
students to prepare a self-selected multimedia presentation that reflects the full scope of
their learning and development.” The program places a premium on connecting academic achievement to creative expression as
students showcase their accomplishments, he
noted, ranging from text, such as research
papers and essays, to projects that incorporate images, audio, and video.
City Tech student Javed K. Ellis, 21,
who arrived from Trinidad & Tobago in
2000, says his website shows not only
what he can create, but also how he has
sharpened his skills.
“A design company executive saw my
work online and contacted me to discuss
what sounds like a very promising internship,” he said.
Another user who showed the upward
trajectory of her skills is Cheryl St. JohnBroomes, who emigrated from Barbados in
1998 and this past June completed her
bachelor of science degree in technology
teacher education, with a 3.90 GPA. “My
website showed samples of my work from
four semesters, so prospective employers
could see how my later lesson plans were
more professional and polished than when
I began,” she said. She shared her
ePortfolio with potential employers during
job interviews and landed a full-time
teaching position with the New York City
Department of Education.
Kurt McDonald, originally from Jamaica,
is a senior majoring in architectural technology. “Since I am a night student, it’s a great
help that the lab is open on Saturdays, and
that I can communicate with faculty 24/7
via e-mail,” he said. “Having my own website, sponsored by my college, also says that
my college is really behind me.”
City Tech faculty cite many reasons for
ePortfolio’s success. “Creating an ePortfolio
requires students to develop specific sets of
skills related to critical thinking, writing and
self-assessment,” said Professor Aida Mysan,
who has been incorporating ePortfolio technologies in her advertising design and
graphic arts curriculum since Fall 2002.
Students also gain valuable skills in
information technologies, Mysan added,
which are transferable beyond their academic careers.
For Professor Tanya Mayulta of the
Computer Information Systems
Department, ePortfolio offers a personal
dimension that “takes student presentations to an absolutely new level.” Viewing
and discussing portfolios that encompass
her students’ biographies, goals and dreams
“is very moving and allows us to learn
more about one another,” she said.
Baruch Alumni Donate Millions to Their ‘Downtown City’
B
aruch College’s new president,
Kathleen Waldron, announced that six
alumni—one of whom chose to remain
anonymous—have contributed a total of
$53.5 million to the college.
Included in the total is one of the
largest donations in history to a public college in New York State: $25 million given
by William and Anita Newman in support
of Baruch’s award-winning Vertical
Campus facility, which will be renamed in
their honor.
Newman, a 1947 graduate, has funded
graduate and undergraduate programs at
Baruch. He is the founder-chairman of New
Plan Excel Realty Trust, one of the nation’s
largest real estate companies, which concentrates on shopping centers in a portfolio
that comprises more than 400 properties.
His wife attended Hunter College.
He noted that his immigrant parents
and his late brother also attended the
school, known familiarly at the time as
Downtown City, “earning degrees and setting the stage for productive careers in
business. I’m grateful for what this school,
now Baruch, has given me, and I welcome
the opportunity to do the same for a new
generation of young people.”
Another son of immigrants who has distinguished himself in the real estate field,
Lawrence N. Field, made another of the
major gifts to Baruch with his wife, Eris
Field. The Fields donated $10 million
toward future renovation of Baruch’s original academic building at 17 Lexington Ave.
They are also giving $2 million to fund the
Larry and Eris Fields Family Chair of
Entrepreneurship, expanding the scope of
Baruch’s Field Center in Entrepreneurship,
which they endowed in 1999.
The founder and principal of NSB
Associates, Field has more than three
decades of experience in real estate development and investment in New York and
Southern California. “For me, this opportunity to give back to Baruch College is both
a privilege and an obligation,” he said.
Lawrence and Carol Zicklin, who
endowed the Zicklin School of Business in
1997 with an $18 million gift, donated an
additional $2 million to fund Baruch’s
Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate
Integrity. He graduated from Baruch in
1957, and was a managing principal and
chairman of Neuberger Berman, an investment management firm.
Zicklin said the inspiration for his support was his cousin, Robert Zicklin, “a
stickler for ethics and the law…For me he
was the model of integrity.”
Marvin Antonowski, a 1947 graduate
whose long career in entertainment marketing involved him in such successful
films as “Gandhi,” “Tootsie,” “Steel
Magnolias,” “Prince of Tides” and “The Big
Chill,” donated $2.5 million to support the
performing arts center in the Vertical
Campus, which will be named the Martin
Antonowski Performing Arts Complex.
“I’m delighted to lend my name to a
first-rate arts center at a college that’s
home to the nation’s largest business
school,” Antonowski said.
William F. Aldinger III, a 1969 Baruch
graduate who is chairman and CEO of
HSBC North America Holdings Inc.,
donated $2 million to endow a chair in his
name in banking and finance.
“My professional life has been profoundly impacted by the excellent education I received at Baruch,” Aldinger said.
“And I want to make sure the same holds
true for today’s students.”
Waldron said the
final gift was $10 million “from an alumnus
who wishes to remain
anonymous.” She credited this “extraordinarily
generous gift,” and the
amounts pledged by the
other alumni, with
helping to elevate
Baruch’s status and to
enhance the outlook for
the college’s future
graduates.
Noting Baruch’s
Alumni William Newman (left) and Larry Field (right) are here
high standings in
with a very happy Baruch President Kathleen Waldron. Both gave
national college rankmillions to their alma mater.
ings by such magazines
as U.S. News and World
Report and Money, Waldron said that “the support of our alumni and donors is the driving
force behind this explosion of excellence.”
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