Following Pulitzer's Advice

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A Newsletter for The City UniversityMatters of New York • Spring 1999 NURTURING THE CREATIVE TRANSCRIPT Art + Anthropology = CUNY BA/BS Trustees Psychology + Math Lead CUNY Frances Madeson profiles two award- sors in shaping their Bachelor’s degree cur- Delegation winning students who exemplify the mission riculum to their unique professional or aca- and modus operandi of the CUNY Baccalau- demic goals. This may entail an unusually to Albany reate Program headquartered at the Gradu- penetrating focus within a discipline, a create School and University Center. ative combination of multiple disciplines, or even thoughtful probing for the opening ey, CUNY BA! This exceedingly to new disciplines altogether. In other short poem serves as the support- words, good-bye Botany, hello “The Anthro- Hive cry of a special group of peripa- pology of Medical Plants.” Farewell Mu- he Board of Trustees visited legislators and representatives of the tetic undergraduates as they greet each sic, hail “Musical Performing Arts in Medi- TGovernor’s office in Albany on March 9 and 10 to discuss the pro- other with hugs on the far-flung campuses eval Europe.” Adieu English and ¡hola! posed State Budget and major University initiatives. The delegation of CUNY’s 17 colleges and at the University “Bilingual Creative Writing.” included college presidents and representatives from the chancellery Center. For a strong bond has developed Among other remarkable Areas of Con- who, together with the Trustees, met with key leaders such as Assem- among these students as they maneuver centration of present and past CUNY BA/BS blyman Edward Sullivan, Chairman of the State Assembly Committee through the educational adventure that is students are Media Arts in Education, Food on Higher Education, the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. in a Cultural Context, Human Movement seen here with Board Increasing enrollments in the CUNY Bac- Studies for the Disabled, Public Relations Chairwoman Anne calaureate Program are in fact promising to By and For Women, and Eastern Religions: A. Paolucci, and ruin its “best kept secret” status. This year The Discipline of Body and Spirit. Senator Kenneth P. 150 savvy students have joined 550 others This singular program makes the ex- LaValle, Chairman of already in the Program to take advantage of traordinary resources at all CUNY facilities the State Senate the expansive freedom of choice, flexibility, available to its students, and, upon suc- Committee on Higher individualized attention, and opportunities cessful completion of the Program’s rigor- Education, pictured for specialization uniquely available to ous academic requirements, a University here with Interim them. These self-selecting students, from degree is conferred. Chancellor Christoph remarkably diverse backgrounds, almost M. Kimmich. uniformly become forceful and passionate his year the Director of the Program, advocates of the Program, often referring to TProfessor Nan Bauer-Maglin, points Photos, Colleen Brescia. their participation as “life-changing.” with pride to the fact that two CUNY BA The Program permits these highly moti- June graduates are among the fourteen vated students to work innovatively with CUNY-wide winners of coveted Belle Zeller faculty mentors and graduate student advi- Scholarships (awarded for high GPA and PRIZE TO TWO CUNY HISTORIANS outstanding community service). In addition, these two have been awarded Thomas Following Pulitzer’s Advice W. Smith Academic Fellowships, which are available only to CUNY BA/BS enrollees. ondense, condense!” was the con- Board Chairwoman Anne Born in Jamaica, 22-year-old Julia Wil- stant admonition of Joseph Pulitzer Paolucci responded happily, son learned about the Program from her to the reporters on his New York “It is a superb work, and we academic counselor at Medgar Evers Col- C lege during her freshman year. A senior World. One learns about this pioneering at CUNY are delighted to have newspaper—with its snappy stories, multi- its authors teaching in our now, she prizes the moment she became column banners, numerous illustrations Colleges.” “It seems fitting,” aware the Program would allow her to pur- (the first half-tones ever in a City paper), added Interim Chancellor sue equally and fully her two loves, psy- and “breezy and colloquial style”—in a Christoph Kimmich, that Bur- chology and mathematics. In particular, section of Gotham: A History of New York rows and Wallace “have writ- Wilson was eager to explore the psycho- City to 1898 (Oxford, 1999) titled ten a seminal historical work logical reasons for math phobia, as well as “Pulitzer’s World.” on New York City while teach- the mental characteristics which generate extraordinary math aptitude. She knew she Ironically, Gotham’s authors, history pro- ing at CUNY—itself a vital Tellers of New York's "mammoth story" Edwin G. Burrows, left, and had to master both disciplines. fessors Edwin G. Burrows of Brooklyn Col- force in our city’s history Mike Wallace at the South Street Seaport. Photo, Bruce Davidson. lege and Mike Wallace of John Jay College, and success.” Continued on page 9 are now themselves residents of Pulitzer’s Burrows and Wallace note, with pun in- world. On April 12, the Pulitzer Board, tended, that Pulitzer’s New York World was which convenes at Columbia University, a “prize example of the new order” of mass announced that Burrows and Wallace will commercial culture. Their massive study receive the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for history. now becomes a prize example of the City IN CUNY•Matters readers will recall their pre- University’s contribution to knowledge of view of Gotham’s pleasures last summer, a Gotham, which (you will learn on page xii THIS guided tour of early Coney Island. of the book) originally meant “Goats’ Town” The real irony, however, is that, even in Anglo-Saxon and was first applied to ISSUE though Gotham is a very large a book—69 New York City by Washington Irving in his chapters and 1,382 pages—Pulitzer would Salmagundi papers of 1807. This recent CUNY Baccalaureate Program grad began taking college have been pleased. For Burrows and The Pulitzer Prize for music this year courses in 1934; read about him on page12 and about the Program in the Wallace achieve a real feat of condensa- was presented to former Hunter College story above. To the right is a 1921 charcoal portrait of America's greatest tion, embracing nearly three centuries of assistant professor of music Melinda early 20th-century dramatist; a major conference on him will take place in what the authors justly call “New York’s Wagner for her “Concerto for Flute, May at Baruch College (see page11). mammoth story.” Strings, and Percussion.”

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RECORD PRESIDENTIAL TENURE LAGUARDIA LEADER TEN YEARS President Schmeller to Retire President Bowen to Step Down ictured below, early in his astonish- Also established on his watch have been aGuardia Community College the University of Connecticut then. After ing tenure as President of Queens- the model External Education Program for President Raymond C. Bowen three years of military service, he stud- borough Community College, is Dr. the Homebound and the Holocaust Re- P th recently announced that he would ied at the University of New Mexico, Kurt R. Schmeller. The 12 Annual Partners source Center and Archives, which serves L retire on Sept. 30 after 10 for Progress Awards Dinner on April 22, as the headquarters for the International years’ service. Bowen saw sponsored by the QCC Fund, served as the Association of Holocaust Organizations. enrollment rise to 9,000 formal celebration of Schmeller’s retire- Schmeller also founded and has served as full-time and 26,000 part- ment, which he has announced will take chair of the QCC Fund, the College’s main time students (in 1971 it place this August. fund-raising entity. was only 566 students). Currently the longest-tenured president of Working closely with campus architects, While on the Long Is- any public college or university in the nation, Schmeller oversaw the completion of the land City campus, Bowen Schmeller assumed the leadership of Queens- College’s Master Plan with the construction oversaw the establishment borough in August 1969 at the age of 29. Be- of nine buildings on the 34-acre campus. of a Division of Informa- fore arriving at the Bayside, Queens, campus, Since 1969, enrollment has increased from tion Technology, the he taught history and assisted the President 5,000 to nearly 10,500 matriculated stu- LaGuardia Urban Center of the University of Wisconsin. dents and an additional 5,000 students for Economic Development Among the highlights of three decades at enrolled in non-credit continuing educa- (including its Preparing for the campus in Bayside, Queens, was the de- tion classes. Profit Program), and the velopment of the Laser and Fiber nation’s first-ever commu- Optics Technology Program (one nity college collaboration President Bowen with LaGuardia student body President Elvis of the few in the country and the with a foreign campus, the Bramble, at the dedication ceremony for the E-Building in 1993. only one in New York with State Universidad Autonoma de Photo, Randy Fader-Smith. Education Department approval), Santo Domingo in the Do- the largest Clinical Nursing Pro- minican Republic. eventually obtaining his doctorate in gram in the metropolitan area, He presided over the opening of the parasitology and biochemistry. and the largest and finest Elec- E-building on Thomson Avenue and the “It is with mixed emotions that I have trical and Computer Engineer- purchase last summer of the C-Building, submitted my letter of retirement,” said ing Technology programs in the which will add 600,000 sq. ft. for a vari- Bowen in words to his faculty. “I have region. ety of uses. decided that after 37 years of service in Born amid the projects of New Haven President Schmeller with Queens- higher education, including 17 as presi- borough students shortly after his during the Depression, Bowen was one dent, I want to move on to pursue other arrival in 1969. Photo, Bayside Studio. of few African Americans who attended interests.”

MACY GRANT FOR UNIQUE BS/MD DEGREE plete the final two years of medical training ethnically diverse community members to at one of six cooperating New York State use its services,” Gaibi explained. “We dis- medical schools. The Sophie Davis mission cussed why showing an awareness and ap- Sophie Davis Program Enriches is to increase accessibility to careers in preciation of different alternative medi- medicine for inner-city youths of New York cines—acupuncture, for instance—can Community-Based Health Care City—especially minorities under-repre- lessen the fear some community members sented in the medical profession—and to may have of accepting our services.” train primary-care physicians who commit Gaibi, a resident of Jackson Heights and his semester 51 fourth-year stu- oped by Marthe Gold, MD, MPH, Chair of themselves to practice in medically under- Hillcrest H. S. grad, participated in his high dents of the Sophie Davis School of the School’s Department of Community served communities. school’s pre-med program and in the Biomedical Education/CUNY Medical Health and Social Medicine. Tanya Pagan T Sophie Davis School’s Bridge to Medicine School donned white jackets and joined Raggio, MD, MPH, an Associate Medical Program at York College. This is a rigor- teams of health professionals at eight com- Professor, is the Course Director of the anveer Gaibi is one of five students ous, year-long course in chemistry, math munity-based health centers in the Bronx, Introduction to Primary Care Practice, T(pictured here) who were assigned to and English for high school seniors inter- Brooklyn, and Manhattan. These students which includes this field experience for the the William F. Ryan Community Health Cen- th ested in pursuing medical careers. Gaibi are participating in a unique five-year BS/ Sophie Davis students. ter on West 97 Street, which serves pa- plans to complete his final two years of MD program located at City College, where, The School’s Dean, Stanford A. Roman, tients in Manhattan Valley, West Harlem, medical school at the SUNY Health Science during their fourth year, they are getting an Jr., MD, applauds the new program as one and other sections of the Upper West Side. Center at Syracuse after graduating from early exposure to the varieties of primary which reinforces the School’s mission to He enthusiastically described how the in- Sophie Davis in June, 2000. care offered in ambulatory, clinical settings. train physicians for New York’s under- teractions with the medical staff at the cen- This new clinical program, funded by a served communities and to give students an ter and a chance to meet patients has put a any of the 1,100 Sophie Davis gradu- three-year grant of $1.05 million grant from earlier introduction to clinical medicine. real face on a career he has pursued over the past eight years only in classrooms and ates are now general or geriatric the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, was devel- Now in its 26th year, the Sophie Davis M labs. “Our teacher at the Ryan Center internists, pediatricians, obstetricians/gy- School offers helped us understand the importance of necologists, or family physicians, most of 350 students being culturally sensitive in providing whom are now practicing in New York a unique pro- health care in the community. We had a State. Its 40% enrollment of under-repre- gram that chance to talk to some patients and learn sented minorities represents a diversity integrates an the appropriate way to take a medical his- unparalleled at other State medical undergradu- tory,” Gaibi says, referring to Daniel Baxter, schools. ate education MD, the Center’s Director of Adult Medicine The Macy Foundation grant has allowed with the first and HIV Services. the School to work with community-based two years of “Dr. Baxter talked to us about how com- health centers to develop a unique clinical medical munity-based health centers play a really “campus” system where students can gain school. Stu- important role, by using the right language firsthand experience of the particular dents com- and images, to reach out to and encourage needs of medically under-served populations, notably those that often suffer hyper- tension, diabetes, and asthma. Sophie Davis School students Margaret Goni (left), Tanveer Gaibi, In addition to the Ryan Center, the pro- Fabreena Fowler, and their preceptor, Dr. Daniel Baxter, look on as gram has collaborating centers in the Melissa Morris practices the administration of a PPD (TB) test to Cynthia Aly during a training session at a community health center on the Upper Bedford-Stuyvesant and Sunset Park neigh- West Side. The students also practiced on Dr. Baxter—and he still lives. Photo André Beckles. Continued on page 12

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SOME INDIVIDUAL CUNY BENEFACTORS He has endowed the Milton Fisher Second Harvest Award, which allows From Generoso to General Brooklyn College alums, long after they’ve repaid their student loans and made their careers, to compete for a To Just Plain Generous special privilege. The winner earns the By Peter S. Taback of its faculty research interests, this is right to direct a $5,000 check from hardly a surprise. Fisher to the College program of his or her choice. “I was inspired at my 50th hen Eva Bobrow gives gifts, she Still, it is always interesting, even in- reunion that there was so much more left doesn’t bother with wrapping triguing, when a gift is extended to a Uni- in life,” Fisher said. “I wanted to do paper—at least when she is versity campus with a real live hand and W something to remind people that ‘we’re mulling a little something for her alma when there is an actual face behind it. not dead yet,’ when we’re 75, 85, 90 mater. Make that almae matres. For Ms. Some individual gifts may be of jaw-drop- years old.” Bobrow is a graduate of Queensborough ping magnitude—think of $30 million That’s why the Fisher Second Harvest Community College and the CUNY Bacca- Fiterman Hall at the Borough of Manhattan Award only honors the accomplish- laureate Program (most of her classes Community College or the $18 million ments achieved after the 50th-reunion were at Queens College), and she sees her Zicklin gift for Baruch’s School of Business year: contenders may mention only cur- educational largesse as the repayment of —but no gift to the University is unimpor- rent activities on their application. For one kindness with another. tant or fails to be gratefully received. A instance, 1998’s Second Harvest recipi- “When I got through with my first de- remarkable range of individuals, including ent was a retired physician, Dr. Nathan gree, my studies were cost-free. I told my- local residents, alumni, and completely Cedars, Class of ‘39. He won for devis- self, ‘I can’t take this for nothing . . . what- unaffiliated partisans of public education Eva Bobrow at her Queensborough Community ing a program to bring medical support ever I got for nothing, I’m returning to the in New York City, also donate to CUNY col- College graduation in 1972. to low-income families in Texas. Upon College.’ So now I contribute upwards of leges, often with an idiosyncratic stamp winning the Award, Dr. Cedars handed $10,000 a year to Queensborough.” that marks a particular gift according to Fisher’s check over to the Brooklyn College New York,” said Renée Greene, CUNY’s Di- Bobrow has earned the affection of ev- the donor’s wishes—and sometimes even Chemistry Department to support scholar- rector of Development. “While there is eryone at Queensborough. She enrolled their dreams. ships for Chemistry majors attending never a shortage of worthwhile causes in there in 1966, 44 years after dropping out Bobrow’s ardent exposure to Queens- evening classes, as he himself did more New York City, the quality of the University’s of high school, and she completed her first borough’s students alerted her to the than 60 years ago. The Women’s Center and academic and community opportunities has Associate in Applied Science degree in College’s acute need for programming and Gideonse Library have also been designated endeared it to many different funding 1972 while working as a legal secretary. academic support. That’s where her check- by previous Second Harvest Award winners. sources. Chief among them are those individu- She then went on to earn two more Associ- book came in. And she likes to see her Why not award money himself, directly als who recognize the deserving—and often ates (in Liberal Arts and Science) before dividends first-hand: still a presence on to Brooklyn College? “Well,” Fisher consid- disadvantaged—students who come through going on to graduate summa cum laude in campus, Bobrow has helped to stymy the ered, “money is not such a big thing at this our doors. In an aggressive funding-raising Business/Accounting in 1983. effects of fiscal neglect across the Queens- stage in life. But the right to designate climate, the University competes favorably.” Her financial generosity alone would borough campus—from the Holocaust Re- money to the College we all love, that’s distinguish this Queensborough triple-de- source Center, the Art Gallery, and the something else.” peaking of competition, the Louis gree holder, but Bobrow gives her time campus Learning Center (now emblazoned Perhaps the best-known recent alumni Leibowitz Charitable Trust established with equal zeal. Now well into her 90’s, with her name) to many student scholar- S donor is the former Chairman of the Joint a new competition for CUNY—a Chopin she has been a volunteer tutor in account- ship funds. Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, Class of ‘58. competition. As part of the South Florida ing, participated in the College’s 65-Plus Explaining how she targets her giving, Together with his sister Marilyn P. Berns, Council of the Chopin Foundation of the Club, and has served as President and Sec- she says, “There are certain monies that Powell endowed the Maude and Luther United States, the Leibowitz Charitable retary of the Queensborough chapter of don’t come from the City or the State, and Powell America’s Promise Scholarship Trust endowed a scholarship in its name for Alpha Beta Gamma, the National Business somebody has to provide them.” To support Fund at City College to Honor Society for junior colleges. (The would-be orphaned programs and initiatives, honor their parents. An- chapter has established the Eva Bobrow Bobrow adds, “I feel that this money should other gift to City College Medallion of Excellence in her honor.) come from people like myself.” “I applied to New York University and The City has come from Lois University. . .NYU cost $750 a year; CCNY cost Pope, widow of the late donor with Eva Bobrow’s special his- ther recent examples of carefully $10. That was the end of that.” publisher Generoso tory cracks the gift-giving mold at the deliberated giving to CUNY deserve —General Colin Powell A O Pope, and the LIFE Foun- City University. Far more typical, and per- note. Consider, for example, Milton Fisher, dation to create a schol- haps higher-profile, is the support CUNY a lawyer still in practice in Manhattan. He arship under the America’s Promise rubric. the winner of this University-wide competi- receives from nearly every prominent phi- is a 1938 graduate of Brooklyn College Both of these awards will reflect Powell’s tion. Each year’s winner is eligible to enter lanthropy, foundation, and governmental who found a way to honor his alma mater commitment to community service, what he the national Chopin competition, to be held funding agency in New York State and the and his fellow Old Guard classmates simul- has termed “America’s Promise.” The LIFE in the Spring of 2000, where further sup- nation. Given CUNY’s size and the diversity taneously. Foundation scholarship will honor New port from the Council’s Keyboard Scholar- York City high school seniors who plan to ship Fund will greet the winner. attend CCNY’s Sophie Davis School of Bio- Family ties frequently motivate gifts to medical Education and are outstanding in the University, as was the case for an en- studies and community service. General dowment to the Graduate School and Uni- Powell and Mrs. Pope will award both of versity Center from the Cairns Family Foun- these scholarships annually. dation. This will make possible disserta- Because it is recognized as a local re- tion awards in the Ph.D. Program in Lin- source with a hand in countless success guistics. Charles Cairns is a Professor in stories such as General Powell’s, CUNY has the Program and at Queens College, and he always received its share of disposable established the endowment in honor of his income from grateful alumni. But growing father, Stewart Scott Cairns, whose first awareness of the debilitating shrinkage of academic position was at Queens College. government funding for CUNY’s outstanding Thomas W. Smith, on the other hand, academic programming has stimulated had no prior affiliation with CUNY when he increased giving. appeared with a desire to support the CUNY This has even encouraged individuals Baccalaureate Program. He expressed pro- with no prior CUNY connection to give. “In found respect for the enterprise of CUNY’s the last several years, many of our colleges students and found a way to reach a core have received funding from alumni and oth- group of the University’s best for support. ers who value the service CUNY provides in “They’re an interesting polyglot,” Smith said of the academic fellows he supports Thomas W. Smith and Julia Wilson, one of the 34 Smith Academic through the CUNY BA/BS. “All kinds of Fellowship awardees announced this last January. Photo, Jerald Cyrus. Wilson in an earlier life can be seen on page 9. Continued on page 7

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CUNY’S ONLY OVERSEAS M.A. PROGRAM On our second evening we began our discussion of literature by discuss- Confronting Prejudice ing what we know about ourselves as readers. Then we focused on a pre- assigned text, Vito Perrone’s A Letter On Austrian Soil to Teachers. Perrone invites readers to consider the meaning and purpose Sondra Perl, Professor of English at teaching of literature. As I often do, I be- of teaching, asking “What do we most Lehman College and the Graduate School gan in a relaxed and informal way by asking want our students to come to under- and winner of the Carnegie Foundation’s the teachers to write and recite a bit about stand as a result of their schooling?” New York State Teacher of the Year Award their experiences with writing. The room He then articulates a clear and hopeful in 1996, is currently working on a memoir was soon filled with memories of early at- vision of what is possible in the class- about how her classes in City College’s M.A. tempts to write. room: “If we saw the development of program in Education for Austrian English Max, who taught business at the Univer- active inquirers as a major goal, much and Mathematics teachers brought her stu- sity of Innsbruck, vividly recounted the that now exists— workbooks and text- dents—and herself—face to face with harsh criticism he received at the hands of books, predetermined curriculum, re- prejudice. A preview from her work in a professor. Margret, an English teacher in ductionism, teaching to tests—would, I progress follows here. a local high school, recalled how the cor- believe, begin to fade. Teachers would rection of papers at the university was fre- be free to address the world, to make n a Monday morning in January quently a pretext for professorial one- living in the world a larger part of the 1996, I received a phone call from upmanship. Very few memories were curriculum.” O out of the blue. It came from Pro- happy ones. Most of the teachers admitted I had hoped to explore these state- fessor Susan Weil, who, along with City Col- they associated writing with struggle and ments with the Austrian teachers, but lege Dean Alfred Posamentier, was coordi- pain and did not do it very often. Their they were struck by something Perrone Sondra Perl, left, and her student Margret Fessler in the nating a cross-cultural literacy program at most common memory: being judged and summer of 1996, taking time off from exploring difficult writes on his very first page: “Education Austrian historical terrain. Photo, Gert Fessler. City College. Weil wondered if I would con- falling short. I was pleased to hear them at its best is first and foremost a moral sider spending a few summer weeks in Aus- speak so honestly but not with their pal- and intellectual endeavor.” Tentatively, at tria teaching two Americans and nine Aus- pable sense of defeat. first, someone asked, “What does this these served only to reinforce their as- trians, all but one of whom would be prac- “Isn’t there another way?” pleaded Alex, mean? Do you honestly think education is sumptions. What they said repeatedly to ticing teachers of English. Though enrolled an American whose parents were German. connected to morality?” “Of course I do!” me and to one another were versions of the in a CUNY Master’s program in Language “There is,” I promised. “There are ways was my silent answer. “How could educa- following: “Teachers here are taught not to and Literacy, these students would never to make writing come alive so that each tion not be connected to morality?” But I speak about what they believe. . . . We can’t attend class in New York. Instead, the pro- person’s voice counts—so that writing be- sensed a need to move slowly here: I deal with morality in the classroom.” gram allowed for City University faculty to comes much more than what students do needed to understand why these teachers “This is not our way,” said Gerlinde, a teach in Austria in three- to four-week wrong. Tonight was just a start, but can you were asking this question. teacher-trainer at a local teachers’ insti- blocks. I would be working with a group in already begin to see what’s different here?” I did not recognize then that we had just tute. “We have been trained to keep our- Innsbruck. No one answered. Instead, the teachers struck a chord that would resonate among selves and our values outside of the cur- It sounded fascinating. “Interested?” I rapped their knuckles on the seminar table, us for the next few years. That knowledge riculum.” Before I could even attempt a was initially elated and responded, barely which made me flinch. “Did I say some- would come later. At the time, I only knew response, the teachers reasserted their able to conceal my excitement, “You have thing wrong?” I wondered aloud. It was a that I was truly surprised by their surprise. collective commitment to what they called no idea how often I’ve dreamed of working relief to learn that this is how Austrian stu- “Do most of you have this question?” I “moral neutrality.” with teachers in a foreign country. If the dents express their pleasure. But would asked, noticing several affirmative nods. dates work and my family agrees to do they have rapped the table so enthusiasti- The teachers then accepted my suggestion found myself faced with a dilemma. If I without me, sure, I’d love to!” cally, I puzzled, if they knew I was Jewish. to break into small discussion groups, but Iaccepted their claim, I would collude in I had no inkling the invitation I was perpetuating their unexamined views. If I about to accept would change my life. challenged them, I would become one more professor imposing an unwelcome or nly after I put the phone down did The Austrian M.A. Program threatening point of view. Ultimately, I saw Odoubts begin to creep in. only one solution: to raise the question of Austria. I asked myself, “What have I what it means to be “moral” and “neutral.” done?” It’s not the teaching that troubled The Austrian M.A. program’s inaugural teacher and now its New York And then to inquire what such words mean, me; it’s the place. For what I did not say to coordinator, Dr. Susan Weil, describes the program briefly: not only for them and their history but also Susan Weil was this: although I yearned to for me as their professor and as someone combine teaching with travel, my imagined he English/Mathematics M.A. in Education was initially developed by Dean who finds being on Austrian soil an unset- trips always took me to France or Spain, TAlfred S. Posamentier, Marilyn Sternglass, now English Professor Emerita of tling experience. India or Japan. Germany was the last City College, and Prof. Hans Matzenauer, former head of the Vienna School System And this is what I did, slowly at first, in place on earth I wanted to go, Austria a and member of the Austrian Parliament. Our challenge has been to develop a co- this course and then, seven months later, close second. It was a journey into alien herent curriculum that meets City College requirements while serving the pedagogi- when I returned to guide them in methods territory—Hitler’s birthplace—and a jour- cal needs of a diverse group of teachers from another country. These teachers, by of classroom research, and again when I ney into the territory of my own prejudice. the way, teach not only Austrians but also Serbs, Turks, Czechs, and others for returned in my role as mentor for their M.A. But soon I was in Innsbruck. Sitting be- whom German is a second language and English a third. theses. What began as a curriculum fo- fore me in a classroom were teachers Among the program’s benefits are richer experience of American English, greater cused on the teaching of literature and whose parents or grandparents might have experience in selecting appropriate American literary texts, exposure to current re- writing became an inquiry into the philoso- cheered for Hitler. Many of them served in search and pedagogical theory of leading American educators, and (for mathematics phy of teaching. Should teachers bring an his army, and some must have been ardent teachers) greater competence in technical English. ethical stance into the classroom? To do supporters. Were their children any differ- The program has expanded to include not only Hauptschule (junior high) but also so, mustn’t one inquire into the nature of ent, I wondered. If they knew I was Jewish, Gymnasium (college preparatory), polytechnic, adult, and primary school teachers. one’s own values and how they were con- would it affect our work together? Could I Five years and 100 participants later, the flourishing program is planning its third structed? Can we, as a group, discover the even raise such questions with them? And Vienna-group graduation this July, the graduation next year of a group at Feldkirch roots of prejudice in our own lives? Ulti- even more to the point, did I want to? in Austria’s westernmost state, and recruitment of a second Innsbruck and fourth mately, we found ourselves interrogating For, as liberal as my background was, I Vienna cohort. In addition, the program graduated its only mathematics education our own ethics and moral convictions. was raised to believe Germans are evil and M.A. group of 17 students supervised by Dr. Posamentier. Such inquiry is risky. Not everyone wel- Austrians no different. Underneath their Since I, too, received a serendipitous phone call like the one I made to Sondra comed it. At first, only one teacher, culture and politics, underneath their ac- Perl (it was a summer morning five years ago!), I have had the pleasure of working Margret, embraced my questions and added complishments in science, art and phi- closely with the current Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Elisabeth Gehrer, her own: “How can we not answer our losophy, I was taught, lies an unsurpassed and many local Austrian administrators, not to mention a wide range of committed professor’s questions? How can we avoid capacity for cruelty. Hidden beneath the CUNY faculty members. talking about the fascism in our land, our surface of their lives, I had been told, lie The experience has had a profound impact on me personally and professionally, country, our blood? How can we not teach Nazis in disguise. challenging me to embrace different peoples and pedagogies, foster cross-cultural our children who they are and be willing to Such thoughts haunted me as my two understanding, contest misconceptions about teaching and learning, and, above all, take the beating of the world? We are the classes began in Innsbruck, one on the grow personally in surprising ways. generation that must respond. Our parents teaching of writing and the other on the Continued on page 11

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BROOKLYN COLLEGE’S MODEL CURRICULUM of public hearings, in which 400 faculty members—and not just those expecting to teach Core courses—discussed and de- “How Now, Thou Core of Envy!” bated the objectives and reading list, the gaps and interconnections of one particular Flora Kimmich offers an overview of decidedly with the third model. Core course each evening. Thus, the entire a pioneering—and thriving—CUNY core The committee had begun its delibera- faculty joined once more in constructing curriculum as it nears its 20th anniversary. tions—in the words of Classics professor what would become the foundational learn- Ethyle Wolfe, a member of the committee, ing experience of every Brooklyn College hus says Achilles in Troilus and former Dean of Humanities, and one of the undergraduate. Cressida, and it is not kindly meant! great Core proponents—by “hammering That nearly 20 years later the Core lives T He is doing what Shakespeare’s char- out a consensus on what we believed all on robustly may be attributed in acters do with greater panache than any holders of the Brooklyn College bac- large measure to mecha- other playwright’s: hurling an insult. (This calaureate degree should have in nisms for constant revi- one, richly deserved, is aimed at “deformed common by the time of gradua- sion and renewal built and scurrilous” Thersites.) One can be par- tion.” This exercise estab- into the program. The doned for deliberately misreading the line— lished an intellectual goal that most dramatically effective the Bard has suffered this before—and turn- already implied the content of of these is the College-Wide ing it into a compliment. For the phrasing the projected curriculum. Faculty Seminar, which con- neatly captures the pride Brooklyn College The committee then under- venes each summer to discuss takes in its Core Curriculum, the oldest such took to design a program inte- texts, teaching techniques, and baccalaureate program in the CUNY system grated both horizontally by purposes of Core courses. Since and a Core deserving of envy. cross-references (for example, the first Seminar—which lives in The Core amazes for at least three rea- from Homer’s Achilles to the memory of some as a moment sons: because putting in place a fixed and Shakespeare’s, 2000 years Achilleus, above, of being born again—faculty, includ- universal 10-course requirement is, in it- later) and vertically by pro- the hero of Homer’s Iliad and, a little later, of ing those who do not teach Core self, an enormous feat; because, nearly 20 gressively more challenging Shakespeare’s Troilus and courses, have discovered one another years after its founding, the Core still com- content and complexity. The Cressida (coin circa 297-272 B.C.), an and (perhaps more important) one mands the loyalty of faculty and students program envisioned would illustration from a Brooklyn College Core another’s disciplines here. . .and some- alike; and (most triumphantly) because it address both the contempo- Curriculum textbook, The Classical Origins of times have even rediscovered their own has transformed campus life by rejuvenat- rary world and that world’s Western Culture. disciplines and the joys of teaching. ing and uniting a long-serving tenured fac- cumulative antecedent heri- the project and property of the College ulty as fractious as any at CUNY, linking tage, striking a judicious balance between he Core thrives, finally, because it has faculty. “I cannot recapture for you,” Wolfe separate disciplines and departments, and western and non-western traditions. Fi- transformed Brooklyn College. It has recalls with pleasure, “the excitement . . .of T bringing 12,000 undergraduates together nally, this core would be disciplinary, inter- brought new youth to the faculty and a re- our meetings with faculty and department around a common body of reading. or multi-disciplinary, and modular. naissance of teaching and learning, chairs, as decisions were forged about the Like so many educational innovations, The committee agreed on a core of ten prompting more than one full professor to content and structure of the courses in a the Core Curriculum, which dates from courses arranged in a two-tier sequence, rethink and reshape his area of specializa- core embracing different modes.” 1981, was made possible by a concatena- the latter drawing upon and extending be- tion to better fit the shape of the Core. Interim Chancellor Christoph Kimmich, tion of events. First, the College responded yond the former (see sidebar). The two- Ten courses taken by all students and then chair of the History Department, re- to ballooning enrollments in the early tier arrangement intended both order and taught by half the faculty have produced a calls that Sherman Van Solkema, profes- 1970s by dividing into six schools: Humani- flexibility: it would guide students in the pedagogical coherence that changes stu- sor of music and chair of the Core commit- ties, Science, Social Science, Education, timing of their Core courses without, how- dent lives and sets in motion whole waves tee, came to visit him twice. Van Solkema Performing Arts, and the New School of ever, requiring that certain courses be of institutional change. Students who read spoke about the possibility of a course, Liberal Arts. taken within a designated time period. the same texts become allies and col- not on Europe or America between one Then, beginning about five years later, “One of our most provident decisions,” ob- leagues. They find refuge in one another as date and another, but on The West. Ut- deep cuts in enrollment, funding, and per- serves Wolfe, “was to label the new they move beyond their own families and terly tired of History 1 through 4, Depart- sonnel disoriented the College and demor- courses Core Studies 1 through 10, so that ethnic communities, where attending col- ment members sat up and listened: before alized the community. Beset by fragmenta- they are by birthright considered College lege is often unheard of, and toward full their eyes, Van Solkema was opening the tion and longing for greater unity of pur- offerings, not an individual department’s integration into the American mainstream. prospect of a new, tight, mandated se- pose and a restored sense of direction, the ‘property.’” The reform that produced the Core has quence of courses on main issues of the joint faculties of the six schools resolved to necessarily entailed reform of elective of- liberal arts. institute a single college-wide core curricu- aving drafted the core program of its ferings and of prescriptions for particular Kimmich also recalls that, at a crucial lum and uniform baccalaureate require- dreams, the committee then enlisted academic majors. Block programming, H meeting of Faculty Council, as the College ments. An elected faculty panel set out on the entire campus community in develop- which first appeared in the Core, has ap- stood poised before a decision of great what would become a three-year labor of ing syllabi for its work-in-progress. From peared again in Brooklyn’s award-winning consequence, President Hess, who had coursework design. that moment, the Core Curriculum became Freshman Year Program and in its revived, prudently held Meanwhile, still demoralized and now in reconstituted, and extended honors pro- back and left crisis, the College passed in 1979 to an grams, now gathered under the aegis of an discussion of energetic new president, Robert Hess, Core of the Big Apple Honors Academy. curricular re- whose mandate and avowed purpose were A program in Writing Across the Core, form to the fac- to rebuild the institution. Sensing long- FIRST TIER integrated into every Core course, focuses ulty, said in ef- awaited renewal, the faculty voted to abol- Core Studies 1 Classical Origins of Western Culture the entire campus on writing skills, and its fect, “We can do ish the six separate schools and return to a Core Studies 2 Introduction to Art (2.1) and good effects reach into elective courses and better.” He car- unified administrative structure. Introduction to Music (2.2) departmental courses. From Writing ried the day. The Core Studies 3 People, Power, Politics Across the Core and the honors programs Faculty Council ut when the core committee reported Core Studies 4 The Shaping of the Modern World has sprung a veritable peer-tutoring indus- adopted the back and proposed a compromise Core Studies 5 Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning try, located in the Learning Center. Here B committee’s third package of distribution requirements and & Computer Programming undergraduates sit down one-on-one with and most rigor- some existing courses, the faculty, after writing tutors or gather in groups of seven ous model, the acrimonious debate, soundly rejected the SECOND TIER to ten for sessions that supplement eight of mandatory ten- proposal and elected a new committee, Core Studies 6 Landmarks of Literature the ten Core courses. course core ar- which it instructed to present at least two Core Studies 7 Science in Modern Life: Chemistry (7.1) The Core has also produced a crop of ranged in articu- models for a core, with full rationale. That and Physics (7.2) specially tailored textbooks, composed by lated sequence. committee returned, in short order, with Core Studies 8 Science in Modern Life: Biology (8.1) Core faculty for Core courses, some of There fol- three models: (1) a conventional distribution and Geology (8.2) which are nationally recognized. Among lowed, as the core of existing courses; (2) a mandatory set Core Studies 9 Studies in African, Asian, and Latin them are People, Power and Politics final step in es- of existing courses; and (3) an articulated American Cultures (Simon & Schuster), a monumental two- tablishing the set of ten new courses to be required of ev- Core Studies 10 Knowledge, Existence, and Values volume collection by the Department of ery student. The committee’s sympathies lay Core, two weeks Continued on page 8

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A MATHEMATICS ACTIVIST Marcus Garvey’s Son The Fabulous Past In a LaGuardia Classroom Of a Grande Dame

By Bryant Mason whole new meaning,” says Garvey, who rel- ishes the challenge of linking mathematics arcus Garvey, Jr.—son of one of to the wider world. the early 20th century’s most out- The 68-year-old Garvey, who graduated Mspoken proponents of black eco- from City College in 1977 with Master’s de- nomic self-reliance and the “back to Africa” grees in physics and electrical engineering, return of skilled people to initiate nation- sometimes focuses on the architectural building—declares mathematics is the achievements of ancient Egyptian, Greek, mother of all the sciences. And he strives to and Roman civilizations. Sometimes he awaken this awareness in students in every alludes to what early builders knew—the class he teaches at LaGuardia Community Egyptians with their pyramids, the Greeks College, where he is an adjunct professor of with their columns, lintels, and sloping mathematics and statistics. rafters, the Romans’ expertise at construct- In fact, Garvey is so focused on math ing arches over columns—and sometimes theory and problems that many students pass to what they did not yet know. The concept through his class without ever hearing about of “minus” for example: “The concept of their prof’s famous dad. That story, he be- minus is employed everywhere today... we use it when referring to ambient tempera- lieves, does not have an obvious place on a To order a copy of this math syllabus. ture, cash flow, or, metaphorically, to a booklet ($10 plus postage), Garvey, who has retired from a career of simple slacking of effort,” Garvey says. phone 212-650-8766. advanced research as an electrical engineer Garvey believes his appreciation of sci- in the defense industry, says he teaches be- ence and technology was passed on to him by his famed fa- hen does an alma mater become a with the College’s recent sesquicentennial. ther, who has a Wgrande dame? Perhaps when she The 36-page booklet contains 36 illustra- park named for gets to be 150 years old and can boast tions and a concise summary of the history him in Harlem and of having enjoyed a fabulous architec- not only of the planning and construction of a street in tural past for almost a century. The the St. Nicholas Heights campus (ground Bedford-Stuy- grande dame among City University was broken there on March 10, 1903) and vesant. Marcus campuses is surely the one up on St. subsequent new buildings but also of the Garvey Sr. (1887- Nicholas Heights, and now the collec- previous sites and buildings of the precur- 1940) was a Ja- tion of grand soaring Gothic towers, sor Free Academy. maican immigrant steep gables, and richly fenestrated Featured on the cover is George Brown who galvanized the halls that is City College has a hand- Post’s original watercolor perspective of some new “memoir” all her own. Shepard Hall (circa 1902); inset is a very Her amanuensis is Professor of Archi- possessive grotesque (thought by some to tecture Paul David Pearson, Ph.D., AIA, be Post himself) on the Main Building, who has been teaching at City College sculpted by G. Grandellis in 1905 (photo, since 1969. He is both the author and Martin Sacks). There are about 600 such designer of The City College of New York: grotesques, illustrating the many profes- 150 Years of Academic Architecture, sions and careers pursued by City College Marcus Garvey Jr. in his which has just appeared in conjunction graduates. LaGuardia classroom with student Hua Cai, a native of China who came to the U.S. via Canada was a key to empowerment. The UNIA cre- ‘You first have to be able to feed, house, (photo, Randy Fader-Smith); ated the Negro Factories Corporation in and clothe yourself. When you have detail of a flyer announcing a 1918 to nurture black-owned businesses, taken charge of your own problems, then memorial service for Garvey’s among them a factory that made black dolls you can join productively with other father in 1940. and employed 1,000 African Americans. The people.’ My father encouraged building cause he understands and UNIA also published the weekly Negro all forms of African American organiza- likes students: “If you look at World, which became the most widely dis- tions—economic, political, social, and people and see nothing in tributed African diasporic periodical. cultural—in order to be self-reliant.” common with them, it’s ex- thinking The son, who manifestly enjoys being in a tremely difficult to relate to of black Americans ith obvious pride, the younger Garvey classroom, says his father considered him- them,” adding “and you certainly more than 80 years ago. Among Wasserts, “Of all the black leaders self a teacher. “He was always trying to in- can’t teach them!” his central tenets was the need for politi- we’ve had, no one so forcefully stated the still a message of improvement. He wanted cal self-determination and for the develop- need for African Americans to be in the African Americans to have their own col- arvey’s strongly partisan opinion about ment of an exemplary, independent African forefront of science and technology as my leges and universities.” Gmathematics derives logically enough nation. Garvey’s charismatic style notably father.” He notes, also, that his father was This message is echoed by LaGuardia from his many years of witnessing the infu- produced the pioneering Universal Negro a voracious reader of African military his- President Raymond C. Bowen: “I agree with sion of science into everybody’s life. “Stu- Improvement Organization (UNIA), whose tory and concluded that “whenever Afri- Marcus Garvey (Senior and Junior). In order dents use all kinds of marvelous devices— parades of uniformed divisions, corps, and cans suffered defeats it was because of a for African Americans to succeed in the new earphone radios, camcorders, cellular legions celebrated Africa and racial pride. ‘technological gap’ in weaponry.” Perhaps millennium, they should aggressively pursue phones, beepers, and digital TV—and they Criss-crossing America organizing the this view helped to shape Garvey, Jr.’s ca- careers in science and technology. With sci- don’t think about the math that makes these UNIA between 1916 and 1925, the elder reer of work on military projects. ence skills, minorities will be able to capital- products work.” Garvey urged, “There shall be no solution to In 1925, the political activist became em- ize on the research and entrepreneurial op- “I try to get students to make mathemati- this race problem until you yourselves strike broiled in litigation on trumped-up charges portunities of the 21st century.” cal connections,” Garvey says, and then he the blow for liberty.” The UNIA won broad of misusing the mail to sell stock in his Professor Garvey has had a taste of presi- offers an example. “A few years ago, before support in New York’s black community, and Black Star Steamship Line (black competi- dency too—of his father’s Universal Negro all these useful machines were invented, we Garvey quickly gained national and interna- tors were not wanted in the shipping indus- Improvement Association from 1992—but, had Boolean algebra and no idea of the ap- tional prominence. Within a year, chapters try). Found guilty, he served two years of a when in Long Island City, he prefers to keep plications that would come from it. Then, all were created throughout the U.S., in Central five-year sentence, was deported, and died his students’ eyes on the subject at hand: “In of a sudden, we had digital circuits which and South America, the West Indies, West in ignominy at 53 years of age in London. day-to-day relations with my students, I’m are based on Boolean algebra—mathemat- Africa—even in England and Canada. Garvey Jr. was only nine at the time. here to teach mathematics and statistics ics which utilizes only two digits, 1 and 0. Garvey widely encouraged entrepreneur- I believe my father was essentially . . .I’m not here to teach political ideology. The concept of Boolean algebra took on a ship 80 years ago, before blacks thought it correct,” Garvey says, “when he said, That’s not my function!”

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DAUGHTER OF A FAMOUS RUSSIAN POET Lehman Prof Assumes Role of Stage Character

e’ve always known Pat was a Mayakovsky’s daughter, and her father’s character—but in a play?” poems are woven into the play. One of WLehman College Provost Rosanne these poems is “Le pont Wille is speaking of the College’s professor de Brooklyn” from 1925. of women’s studies and education Patricia Thompson is also the Jones Thompson, and Thompson has indeed play’s dedicatee. “It’s a become a character in a play. And thereby blend of fact and fiction,” hangs a typical New York tale—or, to be she says, “I’m honored to more specific, one of those amazingly coin- have a play by such a tal- cidental Apartment Building Neighbor tales. ented creative artist dedi- It begins with the French playwright cated to me.” Daniel Besnehard coming to live in a large complex in Washington Heights overlooking he play’s premiere Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Hudson River. He had long considered Ttook place at the the playbill for the Russian poet and playwright Vladimir Nouveau Thèâtre in the Besnehard’s play, and Professor Thompson Mayakovsky (1893-1930) a kind of muse, medieval Loire Valley city appropriately playing and he was stunned to find the poet’s pres- of Angers on March 4, be- the grande dame at ence looming large in the apartment of his ginning a four-month re- the Hotel D’Anjou in neighbor, Professor Thompson. Imagine gional tour that ends in Angers, where she revolutionize everyday life.” his stupefaction at learning that she was Paris, and Thompson’s was interviewed by One other connection between Professor also Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya— presence created a sensa- the press. Thompson’s academic career and the life of Photo, Kate Potter. the poet’s daughter! Mayakovsky met her tion. While in Angers, a father she saw again only once—briefly in mother, Elizaveta Petrovna, a beautiful 20- Thompson spoke at the Nice, when she was three—is poignant. In a year-old Russian emigré married to an En- American (i.e. Carnegie) “suicide” note (among artists, there were glishman named Jones, when he visited Library on her specialty, many forced suicides under Stalin at the America for several months in 1925. Hestian feminist theory. time), Mayakovsky wrote of his “love boat” Playwright and professor became close, She also presented to the Library copies of found out. For in the play the character of being “smashed on the daily grind [byt].” and in time Besnehard wrote a play, three of her nearly dozen books: Pat explains, “Hestian Feminism [is] Byt is a Russian word that can also be trans- Hudson River: Un désir d’exil (“A Longing Mayakovsky in Manhattan: A Love Story, named after the goddess Hestia. She em- lated as “the established way of life” or for Exile”), about a gay Frenchman who Bringing Feminism Home, and Environmen- bodies the domestic values of the home as “middle-class values,” but in his life and lives in Manhattan with his African Ameri- tal Issues for the 21st Century. opposed to Hermes, who symbolizes public writing byt represented the conflict between can lover and is visited by his family. A What might Hestian theory be? The and social space. . . .Hestian feminism is personal needs and the demands of society. neighbor in his building is featured in the audience at a dramatic reading of Hudson helping me to understand the contradic- This conflict has been the very focus of his action. Her name is Pat, she is identified River in English, which took place at New tions between private and public life. Our daughter’s research. Thompson has even as a university professor and as York’s Alliance Française on April 19, aspiration—mine and my father’s —was to described herself as “a theorist of byt.”

Gifts, continued from page 3 LATEST “PERCENT FOR ART” DIVIDEND dane walkway into a dynamic icon and give ages, intellectual interests with one thing in people a sense of participating in that common—a determination to succeed. transformation.” He is currently a visiting These students haven’t been given anything, Sonic Bloom Unfolds professor at Cooper Union, where he they’ve earned it.” A businessman, Smith teaches an Advanced Concepts course on established the Thomas W. Smith Academic At New Lehman Center Sound as a Visual Medium. Fellowships at the CUNY BA/BS Program in “Christopher Janney’s walkway is creat- 1994. His largesse has enabled 207 full- eaders may recall when Surround- CUNY’s “Percent for Art” program, which ing a real buzz,” says President Ricardo R. and part-time students to attend school on Sound was the cutting edge in mandates public art as an integral part of Fernández. “It’s a high-tech sensory expe- $2,000 and $1,000 scholarships, renewable R movie theaters. Now artist Chris- the University’s major new construction rience that fits in very nicely with our ultra- for their full undergraduate career. Smith topher Janney has brought the concept to projects. “Sonic Pass Blue” consists of a modern new Technology Center.” Formal Fellows are among CUNY’s brightest stu- the new Information Technology Center on series of eight photo-electric sensors, dedication of the $13.5 million Center and dents, meeting both the high GPA require- the Lehman College campus, but with eight speakers, and a polyphonic sound “Sonic Pass Blue” took place on April 22. ment of the CUNY BA/BS program and the some remarkable and innovative twists. sampler. Together, these elements create stiff competition for the awards. Indeed, pedestrians traversing the 100- an ever-changing series of “sound images” Katinka Haber, a Sociology major, saw foot walkway at the Center will find them- as people pass through the walkway. The glass-enclosed walkway of Carman Hall on the everything differently when she received a selves part of the dramatis personae for Lehman campus, site of a new Information Smith Fellowship. “My entire academic life an antic and exhilarating theater piece he actual score is composed of me- Technology Center and sound artist Christopher Janney’s “Sonic Pass Blue.” Photo, Zbig Jedrus. has changed since I became a Smith Fellow.” that joins acoustics and architecture to Tlodic and environmental sounds, cre- Mr. Smith says, “These students are go- create art. ating a sonic “por- ing to succeed without my help—they’re Janney has created in Lehman’s trait” of the natural high achievers, but I’m delighted to make it Carman Hall one of the “synaesthetic envi- landscape of the easier for them.” ronments” for which he has become fa- area and the neigh- America’s leading funding institutions, mous by utilizing natural light, sound, and boring New York from the Rockefeller Foundation and Pew pedestrian interaction. Composed of col- Zoological Society. Charitable Trust to the National Science ored glass and an interactive sound score, As in jazz improvi- Foundation and the National Endowment for the “piece” is an extension of his “Urban sation, the sounds the Humanities, could all take a lesson from Musical Instrument” series. Among his maintain a conso- Thomas W. Smith. Or Milton Fisher. Or any previous installations is “Harmonic Run- nant relationship, of CUNY’s devoted individual donors. While way” at Miami International Airport (its but where and Queensborough’s Eva Bobrow may not be film debut was in 8MM starring Nicolas when they emanate the only example, her outlook on giving is Cage), “Heartbeat:mb” (in which Mikhail depends on the the most succinct. Well into her 93rd year, Baryshnikov dances to his own heartbeat), time of day and the she expresses a philosophy that sounds as and an interactive sound/light hanging number of people reasonable as any elaborate set of founda- glass sculpture titled “Chromatic Oasis” at within the space. tion guidelines. That philosophy? the Sacramento Airport. Says, Janney, “As soon as I have any spare cash, I turn Janney’s work is titled “Sonic Pass “My goal was to it over to the College.” Blue” and was commissioned through transform a mun-

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JAPANESE THEATER HISTORY ON A THUMBNAIL in the 1850s—a process in which CUNY’s founder Of Bugaku, Bunraku, and Butô Townsend Harris played a signifi- cant part—West- rom October 1997 to February 1998, the Japan Foundation and Japan Society co- ern influence be- presented an exhibition, “Japanese Theater in the World,” at the Society’s Gallery F came irresistible. near Dag Hammerskjold Plaza. This constituted the most comprehensive exhibit ever Yet Japan man- seen in the West of the accomplishments of Japanese theater. It ranged over fifteen cen- aged to maintain turies, focusing principally on the international cross-fertilization of Japanese and non- many of its clas- Japanese theater arts. A spectacularly illustrated catalogue, with the same title, was sical theater published in conjunction with the show (The Japan Society et al., 1997); its editor was forms while add- Samuel Leiter, Professor of Theater at Brooklyn College. Among nearly a dozen essays ing new ones re- on the major genres of Japanese theater are two contributed by another professor and flective of a chair of theater at the College, Benito Ortolani. Professor Leiter offers here a brief de- changing world. scription of some striking images from Japanese Theater in the World that capture as- For example, pects of three less well-known genres in Japanese stage history. plays in the West- ern vein were he Japanese theater, much as it work called Ra-Ryô-ô. An accompanying produced by spe- might seem otherwise, has a long poem on the scroll charmingly expresses cialists in modern history of interrelationships with the hoped-for effect of bugaku on its audi- drama (shingeki), T allowing Japa- world theater. The earliest important form ence: “As a flower trembles to a shining of Japanese theater—gigaku, which was light, the dancer’s sleeves shimmer; lost in nese actors to present Ibsen, Chekhov, and “dance of darkness.” Butô stylists aban- essentially a masked dance—seems to his own movement, we feel our spirits re- Brecht, as well as indigenous dramatists doned conventional aesthetic expectations have been imported from China during the freshed.” like Kinoshita Junji and Mishima Yukio. as they expressed their horror at the post- 6th century, although the earliest record of No one is certain about the precise the- These were mainly spoken dramas, and atom bomb world. All the old standards of they relinquished traditional Japanese ar- beauty were discarded in what Carol Fisher performance in Japan dates from 612 A.D., atrical ancestry of Ra-Ryô-ô—possibly a when it was danced by a Korean named Chinese legend about a handsome prince tistic techniques in favor of realism or Sorgenfrei calls the search for “a pre-civi- Mimashi. Gigaku, which exists now only in who chose to make himself look as scary as other modern “isms.” But, as elsewhere, lized world, a world of romantic, mythic the form of much-altered lion dances, es- possible in battle by wearing a fright mask, postwar artists grew disaffected with or- purity. . .Whatever is human, no matter how tablished dance as the foundation of all or a Chinese tale about the ghost of a king thodox drama, and there arose a radical disgusting, is embraced.” traditional Japanese theater. Even when who helps his son in battle by wearing a fringe theater called angura (from “under- The artist best representing butô is the relatively realistic dialogue drama, like that dragon’s head, or even an Indian tale. The ground”) that expressed the traumatic internationally renowned Ôno Kazuo, whose of the bugaku puppet theater and kabuki, most popular of bugaku dances, it dates socio-political concerns of the younger career has lasted into his nineties. He is appeared later, movement was informed by from the 8th century. generation. pictured below in The Old Man and the Sea rhythmical musical accompaniment. Bugaku is more ceremonious than dra- of 1990. With butô, Japanese theater, The earliest classical dance form extant matic, but the nô theater, which arose in lso springing up in the wake of what which moved away from dance in the mod- is bugaku (literally meaning “dance mu- the 14th century, introduced powerful dra- Awas for Japan the apocalyptic end of ern era, has returned to its origins. Like- sic”), which has long been preserved as the matic elements to create one of the world’s World War II was a form of dance theater wise, the Japanese theater has never been performing art of Japan’s imperial house- greatest theatrical forms. Alongside it de- called butô, which is often termed the more international. hold. The scroll painting shown below is by veloped the comic kyôgen theater, where Tsuruzawa Moriyuki (17??-1816) and ceremony took second place to humorous shows a masked gigaku character from a situations. Nô and kyôgen, originally popular arts, were appropriated by the samurai class, but the townsmen supplied their own urban commercial theater when they invented the remarkable puppet theater now known as bunraku and kabuki —both of them appearing around the turn of the 17th century, when Shakespeare was flourishing in London.

unraku and kabuki vied for Bpopular favor until the late 18th century, influencing each other until kabuki finally triumphed and its rival went into commercial decline. In the bunraku performance shown top right, we see a famous history play, Chronicle of the Battle of Ichinotani. A general, faced with the opportunity to slay a youthful enemy, chooses—because of a secret obligation— to spare the boy and substitute his own son’s head for the eventual inspection by his lord. The general—seen at center on the platform—must control the situation when the head is shown simultaneously to his wife and the mother of the supposedly slain boy (they are seen to the left). The lord is on the right, with a fan. Each pup- Core Curriculum, continued from page 5 pet is manipulated by three men, one for Political Science and the Department of Scholars Program and known for his the right hand and head, one for the legs, Sociology that has been widely adopted, thoughtful work on collaborative learning. and one for the left arm. Two of the three and The Classical Origins of Western Cul- “That’s what this interdisciplinary stuff puppeteers are hidden under black gauze ture (Brooklyn College Press), which is does. Then the Core tosses into the hop- headpieces. noted for relating the ancient world to per the notion that things connect. People During the Edo period ( 1603-1868), contemporary experience. think by making unexpected connections. when kabuki and bunraku were at their Finally, the Core has—in the healthy To students who are ready—and to some peak, Japan was largely closed to the rest sense of the word—destabilized thinking who aren’t!—this gives the necessary im- of the world. Outside influence was mini- at Brooklyn College. “It moves you off- petus. And they push off and do something mal. With the opening of Japan to the West center,” says Kenneth Bruffee, head of the they never thought possible.”

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CUNY BA, continued from page 1 gram, where, she says, “students must be society committed to community service, The Program “allowed me to carve out self-reliant, even have a certain doggedness Fognell led distribution of Toys for Tots, my area and detail it the way I wanted to,” to negotiate the landscape.” literacy tutoring in homeless shelters, par- Wilson recalls. “I always envisioned follow- Fognell became fascinated by the study ticipation in March of Dimes and New York ing a course of study where I lay out the of art and the makers of art, the ways art is Cares campaigns, and volunteer income ground-rules, where I am fundamentally received by society, and the meanings art tax assistance to low-income individuals involved, and where I can’t procrastinate possesses for specific cultures. Inevitably, and families. because I’ve set the goals!” she was equally drawn to the disciplines of Now in her undergraduate home stretch, Working closely with her MEC mentors, both Art History and Anthropology and her Fognell is absorbed in an Honors Project Professors Thomas Edwards (Social and faculty mentors—Baruch Professors Virgil that involves linking major Renaissance Behavioral Science) and Henry Ricardo Bird (Fine and Performing Arts), David authors with particular works of Renais- (Mathematics), Wilson combined the most Maynard (Anthropology), Glenn Peterson sance art. Fate has smiled on her research apt courses at her home college with more (Anthropology/Sociology)—have encour- in the form of a major exhibition of works advanced math courses available at Brook- aged this interdisciplinary work. by the Ferrarese court painter Dosso lyn College. She speaks glowingly of her “In non-Western art,” Fognell explains, Dossi at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. mentors’ help in strategically suggesting “the links between art history and anthro- “Ariosto’s poetry was a major source for challenging courses, assuring she satisfies pology are more evident, as the art histo- Dossi and both artists worked with no- all the requirements, coaching her on the rian must necessarily be more dependent tions of play and parody,” she happily best choices for graduate study in her field. on the research of the anthropologist.” explained. Looking beyond commence- They also observed Wilson in class to make Her study projects have included learning ment, Fognell has been accepted into sure she extracted the utmost from her how to read medieval visual artifacts as the Graduate Program in Museum Stud- classroom time, sometimes staying after historical texts, an independent study ies at SUNY Cooperstown and has ap- class to reinforce the more difficult lessons. course on how women were portrayed in plied to several other schools. And with graduation looming, they regularly Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the tracking monitor the progress of her graduate school of Kwakiutl Indian artifacts over a 100-year esponses to Fognell’s explanations of applications. period. Fognell appreciates that Anthropol- Rthe Baccalaureate Program to gradu- In her almost daily contact with Edwards ogy can take her around the world investi- ate schools and prospective employers and Ricardo, whom Wilson has come to view Julia Wilson, center right, pictured with the Ashe gating religious issues; while looking have been uniformly positive, especially, as “guides in an academic treasure hunt,” Caribbean Performing Arts Ensemble of Kingston, through the Art History lens, she can see she says, when the Program’s concept and Jamaica, with which she toured Europe and North she is reassured that she is on the right America while a high school student. For a “how religiosity is visually realized in differ- mission are “placed in the context of re- track. “They have assisted me in an abso- picture of Wilson in more ebullient mood, see p.3. ent cultures.” cent budget cuts. It’s easy to make people lute quest for excellence,” she says, warm- In addition to the Zeller and Smith hon- see the point of it, increased focus and ing to the subject, “I’m reaching for the ulti- Wilson’s career aspirations are, not sur- ors, Fognell has also received a merit- specialization on individual campuses.” mate star, my star.” prisingly, dual. She hopes to work both in a based Provost’s Scholarship at Baruch for This insight is not lost on Director hospital and have a private therapeutic the last three years. Last Spring she was Bauer-Maglin, who noted, “It is fascinat- his is not mere rhetoric. Wilson has practice. She’s been studying for her one of four women students over 35 years ing, if not a little ironic, that a program— Treached a very long way already. In GRE’s, and she’s applied to CUNY’s Gradu- addition to the Zeller and Smith honors, she ate School, New York University, and Penn has homesteaded on the Dean’s List and State (which has a Math-and-Psychology won the University Student Senate Award graduate program). Excited about gradua- and the Medgar Evers Community Award for tion, she plans to take part in the CUNY Academic Excellence. As well as taking a Baccalaureate Commencement on June 7th. full course load, she volunteers as Peer “I’m graduating,” she says with a blissful Counselor, functioning as a sounding-board smile. “It all went by so fast!” during the registration process, passing on her particular expertise in shaping a course 20-year-old Eva Fognell arrived from of study. Where appropriate, she boosts the ASweden in 1980 intent on exploring the Program— though she knows it is not for whole of the United States. She traveled everybody. “Procrastinators need not apply!” widely, living in California, New Orleans, Wilson is also refining her knowledge on and Florida before arriving in New York the psychological side by working as an in- City. One day, in her mid-30’s, she woke up tern at the Hetrick-Martin Institute on Astor feeling for the first time, as she tells it, Place, a safe space for teenagers struggling “like I was missing something important by with issues of homosexual, bisexual, and not having had a formal education.” transgender identity. Wilson’s mission there She applied to CUNY, leaving the choice Eva Fognell in the research library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she is is to “totally inform myself about sexuality.” of school blank on the application form, working on her CUNY Baccalaureate Program honors project. Photo, Frances Madeson. She has served as President of three math- and was assigned by chance to Baruch Col- ematics classes (each class at Medgar lege. Fognell declares, “It was the best old honored by the Women’s Forum for aca- whose genesis occurred during the liberal Evers elects one), working as an unofficial thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. demic excellence. She has also received and progressive alternative education liaison between students and professors: School is now the main thing for me. It has the Tourbin Memorial Scholarship, whose movement of the 1970’s—is so useful to “Sometimes students are nervous about become quite easy to say no to social en- awardees are nominated and selected by students negotiating the downsized univer- admitting directly to the professor that gagements and other demands in order to Baruch’s faculty. She has used some of the sity and austerity budgets of the 1990’s.” they don’t understand a particular math- stay home and study.” proceeds from these awards for travel to The Program is moving to the new B. ematical concept.” Coming to school from jobs in the fash- Central America and the Yucatan to study Altman campus of the Graduate School Speaking out perhaps comes more easily ion industry and in catering, Fognell ex- Mayan art and artifacts. Last summer she and University Center, where Bauer-Maglin for Wilson because—the reader will now plains, “I was determined to spend my edu- toured extensively though Greece and Tur- hopes “there will be even more opportuni- begin to wonder when she finds time to cational dollars wisely and with care.” She key “visiting every broken column in the ties for community and collaboration.” sleep—she is also on the Medgar Evers de- has never taken a course without first re- Classical tradition.” “And I know,” she continues, “there are bate team. Recently she traveled to Morgan searching a professor’s publications and many more exceptional students like Julia State University in Maryland for a forum on professional associations, at times arrang- ognell also supports herself by tu- Wilson and Eva Fognell who will use the affirmative action. During the sleepless ing face-to-face meetings, observing Ftoring at Baruch in Art History and Program equally wisely and well. I want to nights of preparation for the forum, Wilson classes and getting student and faculty rec- History. Besides reviewing lessons and find them and bring them home to the became convinced that a wealth of data on ommendations. She began to notice that student essays, some students need spe- CUNY Baccalaureate Program.” affirmative action was not being dissemi- Liberal Arts classes were smaller at cial help in understanding specific his- Author and collumnist Jimmy Breslin nated, and she seized the opportunity to Baruch than at colleges with a Liberal Arts torical concepts. She explained, “A stu- will be the keynoter at the Program's challenge the forum audience, which in- focus, and she enjoyed receiving more at- dent from China, for instance, is unlikely commencement on June 7 at Borough of cluded Capitol Hill policy-makers, to “pass tention from her professors. to know what the Renaissance renewed Manhattan Community College. For vital information on to the people who need This self-starter’s commitment to plan- or what the Reformation reformed.” more information on the Program, visit it. This is the only way people will be able to ning her studies carefully made Fognell an As President in 1997-98 of Baruch’s its website (www.cunyba.cuny.edu) or elevate to higher socio-economic standing.” ideal candidate for the Baccalaureate Pro- chapter of Golden Key, a national honors call 212-642-2905.

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and clothing, teach some social graces, supervised and vulnerable to peer pres- OTHER LIVES* and open the cultural horizons (with the sure, drugs, and the fast money of crime. occasional Broadway show) of 14 boys “They have no other options . . . and no from some very tough, in some cases hope. They are desperately in need of help. Making Sure the Hoops Dream downright horrific, home environments: I’ll continue trying to make a difference in Doesn’t Become an Oops Dream poverty, drugs, guns, prostitution, do- these kids’ lives, but we need more people mestic violence . . . the gamut. like the Bob Hurleys and Gary t’s Monday afternoon, March 29th, and But what Creange says it is crucial to intervene Greenbergs—and I could add some others in about six hours Duke and Connecti- also ani- “when they are young, 10 to 12 . . . then like Maurice Hicks, a coach in Harlem, and Icut will thrash out the NCAA basket- mated Cron- you still have a chance to point them in the Kevin Boyle, a coach in Elizabeth.” ball championship down in St. Petersburg. holm’s ap- right direction.” And he has become adept This lull before the final paroxysm of March pointment at the threshold task of getting the boys’ earn a bit about his past, and you be- Madness is the perfect moment for the Edi- was her respect, making his motives clear, and Lgin to see why being a surrogate father tor of CUNY•Matters to pull together his awareness of then, later, evading the dangers of being for boys from the city’s toughest streets is story on Dan Creange. Creange’s taken advantage of as a mere soft touch. his current game plan. He was raised in For, though Creange is the Treasurer and “other life” “The tuition payments go directly to the West New York by a single mother; he did Special Assistant to the President at and his dedi- parochial schools’ scholarship fund, and I not make the acquaintance of his father Baruch College, it quickly becomes clear, cation to the almost never give cash out. They need until he was 18 years old. “Even then, I over lunch at a diner on Third Avenue, that hand-in-glove something to wear—I see the jeans go on never called him Dad or Pop.” And he his heart palpitates more over the free- relationship in the store.” knew poverty all too well, recalling with throw line than the bottom line. Hoops are between And education is made a constant issue. bemusement the time he wore three or four everywhere, though to look at Creange— sports and education it reveals. “I buy them books, and I demand they read pieces of cardboard in his holey shoes to he’s taut, compact, and has a silver-haired them! And vocabulary: I want five new school one day and being praised by his crewcut—you’d think a brisk game of hand- hile other CUNY employees might at words a week.” Many of Creange’s charges teacher, “how you’ve grown!” ball would be more his metier. Whis age be contemplating the plea- are making their way up the educational The numerous objects of his philan- He’s of course a dedicated sports fan, sures of basking in the accomplishments of ladder: two are now sophomores at thropy, however, do sometimes cause him and one of his three grown daughters his three daughters, the responsibilities of Baruch, and others are in NCAA Division I exquisite “conflict of interest” discomfort. played basketball all four years she was single-parenting the 12-year-old daughter basketball programs. He gives many hours Who does he root for, for example, when studying at Princeton. still in the nest, and nurturing his retire- over weekly to mentoring, advising, even St. Anthony’s H. S. in Jersey City (where he Around Baruch, which Creange began ment portfolio, Creange has taken a accompanying students on campus recruit- has seven students, four on varsity) plays serving “a long time ago” as Chief Ac- busman’s holiday from parenting to become ing visits. And sometimes dealing with cri- against St. Patrick’s H.S. from Elizabeth countant, he has come to be known as the mentor and father-figure to dozens of ses: for instance, the boy who mysteriously (three on varsity)? And how does he cel- Mr. Fix-it, a full-court prestidigitator young minority boys from some of the called to say he would have to “miss prac- ebrate when Brooklyn’s Adelphi Academy skilled at turning “this can’t be done” toughest neighborhoods of New York and tice for a while.” Creange learned he had (where the star player is one of his) ends into “this is what could work.” Aware of New Jersey. Most all of them are basket- cut his hands disarming his drunken, knife- St. Anthony’s 66-game winning streak—and his interest in sports and facilitator’s ball players “recruited” for the Creange wielding father. where does he sit at these games? talent, former Provost and now Interim team by two high school basketball He calls them “his kids,” but mind you “Right in the middle—between the President at Baruch, Lois Cronholm, ap- coaches, Bob Hurley and Gary Greenberg, they are basketball players. Some have benches!” Creange laughs. pointed him to supervise the Baruch ath- the Director of the Boys and Girls Club of arm-spans vaguely reminiscent of a B-52. But the diminutive Creange clearly has letics program. Ask Creange how the Hudson County. A phone call and a voice *Know of a CUNY faculty member, little trouble seeing eye to eye on the im- basketball is and you will get (as I did) a saying, “Dan, I’ve got a boy here who could staff person, or student with an inter- portant issues, notably the need to have big smile—22-and-5 and Baruch’s first really use your help. . .” esting “other” vocation or avocation more than hoop dreams in their future. national ranking in the NCAA Division III, Currently that stock portfolio— who might be featured in OTHER Creange knows that inner-city youths thank you—and an x-large College T-shirt Creange says he is a pretty savvy inves- LIVES? Send your suggestion to the spend much of their time out of school un- that will make a nice one-piece pajama. tor—is helping to pay tuition, buy books Editor of CUNY•Matters.

HUNTER’S PROFESSOR OF SLAVIC STAND-UP law and moral codes of behavior:

In a church a Georgian prays for HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE money to buy a car. Next to him, a Russian prays for half a liter of ABOUT vodka. Finally, the Georgian gets annoyed and gives the Russian ten hen Professor Emil A. Draitser lectures on Russian at Hunter College, one as- rubles: “Listen, get yourself a Wsumes, he does not need a laugh-track. As a member of the Executive Board of the bottle and don’t bother God with International Society for Humor Studies and a well-published satirist and student of Soviet trifles!” and Russian humor, Draitser must know a lot about delivering a punchline. His Forbidden Laughter: Soviet Underground Jokes appeared in 1980, Techniques of Satire in 1994, and he Russians’ need to vent their sense of his Making Love, Not War: Gender and Sexuality in Russian Humor is forthcoming from St. Tfailure has made them hide their “dis- Martin’s this July. Draitser has kindly adapted the following from the conclusion to his grace” by inventing Chukchi jokes. Appear- Taking Penguins to the Movies: Ethnic Humor in Russia (Wayne State University Press), ing at the time of growing Russian national- which appeared last year. ism, with its claim that Russians are the most disadvantaged ethnic group in the lthough ethnic humor exists in hand, it was (and, by and large, still is) a former Soviet Union, Chukchi jokes portray a many multinational societies—and nation with a low standard of living, and small and remote minority as intellectually A it has existed in Russia for a long now this standard is rapidly worsening. inferior to Russians. However, the Chukchis time—contemporary Russian ethnic humor Such discrepancies had existed before note is then passed to the podium of these jokes are not the real target. Used is primarily the result of the gradual stag- Brezhnev’s time, but Russians did not feel which read, “Comrade Stalin, why as a vehicle for political satire of the Soviet nation of the Soviet system in the post- singled out for misery when compared with drag things out? Give it all at regime, they became a metaphor for under- Stalin period and the tension this created other groups in the Soviet empire. All once!” dogs who are abused and fooled by fate, i.e. in the mainstream of Russian culture. ethnicities were perceived as sharing a the Russians themselves. Here a Soviet Over the last 30 years, on the one hand, common fate. Popular laughter of that Not until the 1960s—when this feeling of journalist interviews a Chukchi man: Russians enjoyed the status of a great na- time targeted primarily members of the common misfortune was violated by the con- tion—as a military superpower possessing ruling elite in numerous political jokes that spicuous consumption of super-achievers “Could you tell us briefly how nuclear weapons and capable of impressive made it to the West. For example: among Georgians (and other ethnic groups) you lived before the October Revo- technological accomplishments like —did the Russian folk mind respond with lution?” manned space flights, and as a nation that During one of his speeches Stalin humor to the vanished “things are tough all “Hungry and cold.” produced world-class literature, theater, remarked, “I am prepared to give over” premise. Jokes about Georgians ex- “And how do you live now?” music, and ballet, as well as first-rank ath- my blood for the cause of the pressed not only envy but a sense of injus- “Hungry, cold, and with a feeling letes in numerous sports. On the other working class drop by drop? A tice, their alleged violation of both written of deep gratitude.” Continued on page 12

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BELLIES UP TO THE BAR—& A GSUC CONFERENCE

ugene O’Neill deliberately chose 1912 as the play’s era because it O’Neill’s Iceman Cometh Again Ewas a year personally depressing and at the same time politically exhilarat- ugene O’Neill, explaining to a friend why World War II was delaying produc- ing. It was the year in which he attempted Etion of his new play The Iceman Cometh, wrote, “a New York audience could suicide in a New York flophouse, but also neither see nor hear its meaning. The pity and tragedy of defensive pipe dreams the year of American socialism’s most ex- would be deemed downright unpatriotic.” With the opening on April 8 of a major citing moment—when Presidential candi- revival on Broadway, New Yorkers will get another chance to embrace O’Neill’s date Eugene Debs obtained close to a mil- pipe dream parable. Here are a few thoughts on the play’s premiere in 1946 by lion votes and dozens of Socialists were the Graduate School’s Distinguished Professor John Patrick Diggins, who has serving in Congress and state legislatures. been studying O’Neill’s place in American history. They are adapted from an essay The year in which the play was that will appear in Raritan this summer. performed, 1946, was also a year of On May 14-15 a major conference, titled “Eugene O’Neill’s America” and lead- radical hope. sponsored by Baruch College, will take place in the College’s Newman Library. . . . “It’s 1919 all over again!” Partisan Among the speakers will be keynoter Barbara Gelb, an O’Neill biographer, Profes- Review editor Philip Rahv exulted, just be- sor Diggins, Eric Bentley, Donald Lyons, Thomas Flanagan, Julian Moynahan, and fore the brutal realities of the cold war sur- Stanley Crouch. A performance of O’Neill’s Bound East for Cardiff will also be fea- faced. Yet The Iceman Cometh presciently tured at 4 p.m. on the 15th. William Zorach’s charcoal portrait of the playwright hinted that not only revolution but even in 1921, when he was 33, is from the Museum of the City of New York. radical politics itself must be seen as a misplaced dream, especially when activ- ists themselves cannot tell the sometimes horrible truth about their own political from radicalism. . . .The relationship of O’Neill once confessed that Nietzsche’s American playwright elevated pain into a motives. democracy to authentic freedom troubled Thus Spake Zarathustra “has influenced noble emotion, quite a feat in a country O’Neill as much as it did his heroes me more than any book I’ve ever read.” dedicated to pleasure and the pursuit of h Emerson, Thoreau, and Nietzsche. And O’Neill, too, understood that the will can- happiness. With O’Neill we are, at last, like the New England Transcendentalists, not will backwards and hence the past can- aware that truth—today an idea so ridi- he could hardly see the American people not be changed. Happiness may be impos- culed that it appears within inverted com- The Iceman Cometh was a decade ahead behaving as though they “were free al- sible when we cannot completely unburden mas—bears precisely on what actually oc- of its times. Written in 1939, it captures ready” and could act with reflective self- ourselves of our own history, but the ca- curred in the past, and the more the hurt exactly much of the reasoning that would knowledge rather than “quiet desperation.” pacity to live historically gives life its the more the truth. The challenge of be used by many writers and intellectuals tragic justification. “Life is good because O’Neill’s mind was to master what it could not in the McCarthy era to explain their retreat h it is painful,” wrote Nietzsche, and the grasp and to forgive what it could not forget.

Austrian M.A., continued from page 4 explore with them how their Nazi values and about how difficult it is to can’t and won’t. We must own our dark their views of the world were constructed. face their history, their side.” When Margret read this reflection to parents’ and grandpar- the class one evening, it was met by silence. hree years have passed now. I look ents’ actions, and their It took many months for the teachers to Tback on these trips to Austria and see countrymen’s oft-re- glimpse the value in such questioning. But that they have forced me to peer behind peated claim to have this inquiry, it turned out, was to have far- simplistic labels. They have also given me been victims rather than reaching implications. Eventually, the class- the opportunity to examine the roots of perpetrators of Nazi room could not contain it. For each time I prejudice in my own life. And they have led genocide. Together, we returned to Innsbruck my questions became me to explore the way the ground of a continue to explore not larger; the issues more challenging. I dis- classroom allows students and teachers to what it means to be re- covered, too, that when on historic ground engage in dialogue with those they may sponsible for the past, one must address history. The teachers have considered their enemies. when none of us was came face-to-face with the issue of their own Most remarkably, though, I am not pur- alive, but what it means silence regarding the past. suing this exploration alone. The Austrian to be responsible for car- And I came face-to-face with two former teachers, so fearful of writing in the sum- rying this heritage—and Nazis. They were Margret’s in-laws, and she mer of 1996, now write frequently. They its lessons—into the fu- took me to meet them, dine with them, and write to me about their shame; they write ture. It is now clear that, in order to carry on such work, one must bring The first English M.A. group takes a time out from studies in Vienna in 1995. ethical stances into the LESSON FROM INNSBRUCK classroom. Nothing illustrates this recogni- religious differences that so often divide tion so eloquently as a passage that ap- entire populations. Far-From-Rhetorical Questions pears at the end of one Innsbruck student’s M.A. thesis (see sidebar). his journey which began in Austria has The Innsbruck teachers I began working t is so easy to pretend to be on safe ground—today at the turn of the millen- Talso followed me home. The lessons I with in 1996 have now completed their nium—in the middle of Europe—in one of the wealthiest countries of the world— learned in Austria are with me when I stand I M.A. degrees. They are continuing to revise in a democratic republic. But what makes us so sure we are safe or that all doubts in my CUNY classroom: whenever I teach their teaching, to offer their students a can be brushed away? Are 60 years long enough a time to feel safe on Austrian those whose histories, backgrounds, ages, range of choices in what they read and ground? Have we learned to speak our hearts and minds? Not to follow leaders ethnicities, and religions differ from mine write, and some are even exploring Holo- blindly when things get tough? Do I help my students to learn their lesson from and whenever these students turn to each caust issues in the classroom. One teacher Austrian history in my classroom? . . . other in dialogue. They are with me every has initiated an e-mail exchange with Jew- Whatever the answers may be for me personally, it is the questions that matter. . . time I pick up the paper and read about a ish students in America in which responses Looking closely at this writing project has not only led me to raise these questions. It new slaughter, another racial schism, a to a Holocaust memoir are shared. has also paved the way toward a deeper understanding of pedagogy. This understand- new ethnic cleansing. I am currently working with a new ing does not mean only contentment with who I am in the classroom and with what I am I know then that hatred is rooted deeply group of teachers in the westernmost Aus- doing there. It also includes anxieties and worries, insecurity and doubt. However, in the soil on which we stand and in the trian province of Vorarlberg, close to the might teaching in Austria be an easier task if Hitler’s executioners had been willing to families and cultures into which we are site of recent avalanches. The questions confront themselves with their doubts and insecurities, their worries and anxieties? born. And I become even more convinced that initially haunted me have been re- Wouldn’t it be easier today to be proud of an Austrian heritage had there been room for that the classroom is a place where preju- placed by new ones. Now I am less inter- questioning? Might we feel less desperate when we listen to our grandparents say “We dice can wither and understanding and em- ested in their nation’s dark past and more did not know” and to our parents admit “We did not ask”? pathy can be nourished. That simple invita- concerned with how my teaching journey —from the Master of Arts thesis of Margret Fessler tion to teach I received on a winter’s day in in Innsbruck can serve as a model for en- 1996 has become a new and life-long chal- gaging in dialogue across ethnic, racial or lenge to learn.

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Carpentering a Mortarboard: 65 Years Later

n 1934 Charles Kravet started taking courses at Brooklyn College; Iground for the present campus had not even been broken then. But then he was sidetracked: he completed a teacher training certificate and taught industrial arts and carpentry at Alexander Hamilton High School for 20 years. After retiring in 1980, Kravet returned to Brooklyn College, taking numerous non-degree courses. Finally, he enrolled in the CUNY Bacca- laureate Program and designed a concentration called “Religious Dilem- mas” that combined Judaic Studies, History, Religion, Classics, English, and Anthropology (his mentor was professor of Judaic studies Jonathan Helfand). At his graduation last Janu- ary, Kravet, a Dean’s List student and a More Fame for BCC’s Landmark Hall Thomas W. Smith he Hall of Fame for Great Americans status, was designed by Stanford White Academic Fellow, re- Ton the Bronx Community College cam- in the neoclassical style and completed ceived Certificates for pus, pictured here, received the Lucy G. in 1901. It consists of a 630-foot open Academic Excellence Moses Award of the New York Landmarks colonnade built in a sweeping arc with and Special Merit. Conservancy at ceremonies on April 5 at wings at both ends. Charles Kravet's daughter the New York Public Library. Designed to accommodate 103 sculp- Anne, left, confronted this The Conservancy bestows the Moses tured works, the Hall now contains 98 January an unusual Award annually in recognition of excel- bronze busts and memorial plaques by dis- problem: what to get your lence in historic preservation. (It was tinguished American sculptors that honor father for graduation. won last year by City College for its artists, authors, statesmen, educators, renovation of Shepard Hall.) The Hall of military leaders, and other celebrities. It is Fame, which has National Landmark open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

Russian Humor, continued from page 10 situations, and sharpen existing conflicts Sophie Davis, continued from page 2 “Fear of disgrace” may account for the inside the ethnic group. An example: “Why borhoods of Brooklyn, as well as in Board of Trustees appearance of new Russian jokes targeted are Jewish babies prettier than Russian Chinatown, Castle Hill and Morris Heights at Ukrainians as well. Although age-old ones?” “Because they are made for export.” in the Bronx, East Harlem, and the Lower The City University tension between these groups produced And another, in which the master of cer- East Side. Clinical and administrative anti-Ukrainian jokes in the past, an explo- emonies at a public concert makes this an- staff of these community health care of New York sion of especially fierce humor was caused nouncement: “The Peoples’ Friendship Quar- sites are partners in designing and by the high anxiety evoked by the Ukrainian tet is going to perform for us tonight. Let us teaching the Introduction to Primary Anne A. Paolucci threat to take its “bread basket” and leave welcome Comrade Prokopenko, Ukraine; Care curriculum to complement the bio- Chairwoman the Union. The pervasive portrayal of Comrade Karapetian, Armenia; Comrade medical science courses students take at Herman Badillo Ukrainians as greedy and as insatiable lov- Abdurashidov, Uzbekistan; and Comrade the City College campus of Sophie Davis. Vice-Chairman ers of salo (salt pork) suggests this under- Rabinovich, violin.” For his part, Dr. Baxter is pleased to Satish K. Babbar lying fear. Thus, this tongue-in-cheek ad in Russia is hardly an exceptional example be working with Sophie Davis, not only John J. Calandra a Ukrainian newspaper: “Will exchange a of the world-wide tendency to develop because the students are “dedicated and Kenneth Cook hand-made carpet, two by three meters, for prejudices and preconceived notions based bright,” but also because the “curriculum Michael C. Crimmins salt pork of the same size.” on folklore, but it offers a striking example is one of the few designed by front-line Alfred B. Curtis, Jr. of the pervasiveness of the influence of clinicians” after a year-long collabora- Edith B. Everett hile ethnic jokes and nicknames are folklore intended to elicit laughter. tion with medical educators. Such ini- Ronald J. Marino Wfor in-group consumption, they pro- Oh, yes, about that movie-going penguin tiatives are one of the reasons Baxter John Morning duce a mirror response in the target group. in my title. . .A Chukchi drives a pickup thinks “community-based health centers James P. Murphy Many minorities also tell anti-Russian jokes. truck full of penguins into the city and asks are like ugly ducklings now becoming Kathleen M. Pesile The phenomenon of “protest” humor is espe- a traffic cop, “Hey, do you know where I swans. Major hospital-based medical George J. Rios cially developed among Russian Jews. Their can take these penguins?” “Take them to schools are realizing we are the primary Nilda Soto Ruiz Richard B. Stone humor performs the functions of a formal the zoo.” “Good idea,” and the Chukchi focus of urban health care.” Bernard Sohmer community, replacing many vehicles of self- drives off. After a while the cop sees him “The relationship with the Sophie Davis Chairperson, University Faculty Senate again, his truck still full of penguins. “Hey, expression unavailable to Jews under the School is a natural,” Baxter adds, “given its Mizanoor Biswas former regime’s unofficial anti-Semitic poli- what happened? Didn’t you take them to long-standing commitment to primary care Chairperson, University Student Senate cies. Jewish in-group jokes help increase the zoo?” “Yes—and now I’m taking them and its understanding of our center’s role in

cohesiveness, provide moral support in dire to the movies.” [Rimshot.] the community.”

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Managing Editor: CUNY Matters is available Rita Rodin on the CUNY home page at http://www.cuny.edu.

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