Two Queens public high schools are joining city’s ‘Community Schools’ reform program

Flushing and John Bowne High Schools are among 69 public academic institutions across the city that will be joining the Department of Education’s (DOE) “Community Schools” initiative when the new school year starts this September.

Each of the new “Community Schools” will partner with various community based organizations (CBO) to better address the needs of its students through expanded learning programs and other initiatives designed to boost family engagement and promote students’ social and emotional development.

The designation comes with a major funding commitment through the 21st Century Community Learning Center, as the 69 schools will receive a combined $25.5 million in annual grants for up to five years.

On Thursday, May 11, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña stressed that the Community Schools program is an investment designed to bring a more equal and higher quality of education for all students while also going beyond the classroom to ensure that every student and their families have what they need to live full and healthy lives. “Equity and Excellence is about evening the playing field for our students, and Community Schools help to do just that,” said de Blasio. “To reach success in their classes, our students often require some extra support outside the classroom. This expansion allows us to provide additional after school activities, mental health counseling, enhanced family engagement, and so much more.”

“It’s essential that we invest in the whole child, and through the Community School model, we are bringing additional social emotional supports, mental health services, and deepening family ties,” Fariña added. “Schools are anchors for the entire community, and by embedding high quality community based organizations into schools, we can meet the needs of students and families. With this expansion, these game-changing resources will benefit more than 108,000 students in all five boroughs.”

Flushing and John Bowne High Schools are perhaps the most prominent — and most crowded — Queens academic institutions slated to become Community Schools.

With 3,566 students, John Bowne currently has a four-year graduation rate of 74%, but is struggling to have its students ready for college and the workforce, according to the DOE’s School Quality Snapshot for 2015-16. Just 33% of graduates met CUNY college-readiness standards, and 54% of all of its high school graduates enrolled in a college or got a job within 6 months of receiving their diplomas.

John Bowne has come under fire in recent months for a number of violent incidents, including the stabbing of a student and an assault on a school safety agent monitoring a metal detector.

The situation is slightly worse at Flushing High School, which has 1,812 students and a four-year graduation rate of 63%. Its School Quality Snapshot for 2015-16 found that only 18% of graduates met CUNY college-readiness standards and 44% of all graduates enrolled in college or got a job shortly after graduation.

Borough-wide, 43% of Queens public high school graduates meet college-readiness standards, and 58% of high school graduates enrolled in college or got a job within 6 months of graduating.

As Community Schools, John Bowne and Flushing would have “expanded learning time, health and wellness services, enhanced family and community engagement and targeted attendance improvement strategies,” according to the Mayor’s office. Each Community School will have a dedicated director, shared leadership and greater data tracking abilities to combat negative school trends such as truancy. Community Schools may also offer services including health centers, vision screenings, food pantries and adult education.

One local lawmaker, state Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, said she’s excited to see what kind of improvements the Community Schools program will bring to both high schools as well as J.H.S. 189 in Flushing, which was also added to the program.

“Supporting our schools is essential in providing a well-rounded education for our children,” Stavisky said. “The Community Schools program operates with the understanding that improving struggling schools requires a holistic approach. It is more than just throwing money into equipment. It is also about engaging the community, health and wellness services and partnering with parents.”

CUNY professor named 2017 Fellow of the International Carotenoid Society THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

Professor Eleanore Wurtzel of the Department of Biological Sciences at Lehman College and a doctoral faculty member of the PhD Program in Biology (Plant Sciences and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental subprograms) and PhD Program in Biochemistry of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) has been named a 2017 Fellow of the International Carotenoid Society (ICS) during this inaugural year for Fellow selection.

The ICS recognizes members whose consistent contributions to the Society, the scientific community, and the general public demonstrate a commitment to excellence, leadership, and sound ethics.

The 2017 ICS Fellows will be formally announced at the 18th International Symposium on Carotenoids to be held in Lucerne, Switzerland from July 9 - 14, 2017. Dr. Wurtzel will also present a plenary lecture on "A novel gate-keeper of carotenoid biosynthesis in plants" on Wednesday, July 12 at 9:15 a.m. in Lucerne Hall.

Dr. Wurtzel was elected as an ICS Fellow for significant career-long contributions to research on provitamin A carotenoid biosynthesis, which is enabling sustainable solutions to global vitamin A deficiency. Her interdisciplinary research integrates molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, bioinformatics, and systems biology. For example, Dr. Wurtzel and her team took advantage of natural genetic diversity to elucidate pathway control points and to develop molecular markers for breeding high-provitamin A maize, identifying gene families and their roles in controlling carotenoid accumulation. Most recently, the Wurtzel laboratory discovered Z-ISO, a new carotenoid enzyme, which is essential for biosynthesis of all plant carotenoids, including provitamin A carotenoids. This breakthrough led to the discovery of a new prototype function for heme proteins, uncovered a novel means for regulating carotenoid biosynthesis in plants, and redefined the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway in plants.

Upon learning of this honor, Dr. Wurtzel described herself as very much surprised. "My career has been devoted to making a difference in global health which was its own reward," Dr. Wurtzel said. "I am humbled and grateful for this unexpected recognition."

Since its establishment in 1996 at the 11th International Symposium on Carotenoids in Leiden, The Netherlands, the ICS has supported and encouraged all areas of carotenoid science--pure and applied, academic and commercial, research and educational. The ICS endeavors to facilitate contacts and multi-disciplinary cooperation between carotenoid workers in different parts of the world and different areas of the carotenoid field; to promote education, communication, and the exchange of ideas and expertise; and to provide help and advice to new and younger researchers entering the carotenoid field and to those in poorer countries. As a truly international and independent organization, the ICS seeks to increase public awareness of the carotenoid field and of exciting new advances, and to provide reasoned, authoritative statements on controversial matters.

The City University of New York is the nation's leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University comprises 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, and additional professional schools. The University serves nearly 275,000 degree-credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.

Scientist identify key locations for spread of pin-tailed whydahs May 11, 2017 Invasive parasites are a biological oxymoron. And yet, they are in our backyards! This study analyzes the case of a brood parasitic bird, the pin-tailed whydah (Vidua macroura) and its recent spread into the Americas! Biodiversity hotspots—or places with large numbers of species found nowhere else on earth—also tend to make suitable habitats for invasive species that can, in turn, destabilize ecosystems and supplant indigenous biota. A new study in The Condor: Ornithological Applications predicts where the pin-tailed whydah, a songbird native to sub-Saharan Africa that has expanded its natural range thanks to the pet trade, may next spread in North America and Hawaii. The pin-tailed whydah is a brood parasitic bird that lays its eggs in other bird species, typically small African finches, and has been introduced from Africa to Puerto Rico and southern California. In this study, researchers used species distribution models to predict where the whydah may continue to spread in the continental U.S., Hawaii, and the Antilles. To determine the whydah's potential distribution, they used sightings of this species reported to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The investigators then identified suitable whydah habitat by finding correlations between locations where these finches have been seen and global climate data. As brood parasites, whydahs need hosts to complete their life cycle, so the researchers also used the presence of six known host species that have been co-introduced in the whydah's new range to predict suitable habitat. Their species distribution model indicated high habitat suitability in areas of high biodiversity where whydahs do not currently live, including the West Coast of the U.S., Hawaii, and most islands of the Antilles. Robert Crystal-Ornelas, lead author and PhD student in Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said, "We identified key areas in the continental U.S., Hawaii, and the Antilles, that have not yet experienced pin-tailed whydah invasion, but which contain suitable climate and host species for this parasitic bird to potentially spread." Dr. Mark Hauber, the senior author of the study and Professor in Animal Behavior and Conservation at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), said, "our work has now shown how parasitic birds, including common cuckoos from Eurasia and pin-tailed whydahs from Africa are likely to invade increasingly novel and expansive regions in the Western Hemisphere." The pin-tailed whydah is a host generalist—it can parasitize novel species that share no co-evolutionary history with it and that, therefore, have developed no defenses to mitigate the reproductive costs of parasitism. To create their model, the researchers took into consideration five known historical hosts and one known novel host—all exotic species to North America and Hawaii. The presence of these hosts in a suitable habitat could enable introduced whydahs to establish a bridgehead population, providing an opportunity for the birds to utilize indigenous hosts and to increase their population and range. "This study shows how humans are not just transplanting individual species but entire ecological networks, where here an invasive bird species will likely be able to expand in the Americas due to a previous introduction of its host species," said Dr. James Russell, a conservation biologist at the University of Auckland, who was not affiliated with the study. "Worryingly, the study predicts the introduced species will most strongly invade already vulnerable island ecosystems, where it could potentially begin parasitizing native bird species, which would be a very novel form of invasive species impact." The map that Rob Crystal-Ornelas and his colleagues have created will help scientist to prioritize monitoring and research efforts, which fully gauge the risk of additional whydah populations in North America.

Best of the Bronx: Bronx Community College marks 60th anniversary (News 12) Bronx Community College marks 60th anniversary May 11, 2017

Students at Bronx Community College took a break in between final exams Thursday for a special celebration marking the school's 60th anniversary.

Cheers and African drums kicked off the day full of festivities, and students were eager to show off their school spirit.

The college president says the goal is to help educate a new generation of students over the next 60 years.

"I see the institution playing more of a role in the community in the city and the borough. We are coming up with new programs," says President Thomas Isekenegbe.

The university is also marking the launch of a new app that aims to help students navigate campus life and their daily workload.

Teacher-Prep for High School Science and Social Studies Found to Fall Short By Brenda Iasevoli on May 12, 2017 9:40 AM

Too many teacher prep programs are doing a poor job of covering content that future science and social studies teachers need to master, according to a new report on the programs preparing high school teachers.

Only 57 percent of education programs are providing high school teacher candidates a strong enough foundation in the science and social studies subject matter they will need to do their job, claims the report released Thursday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington group that tracks teacher policies. The report evaluates 717 undergraduate programs that train high school teachers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their coverage of subject-specific content, admissions requirements, and other topics.

Included in NCTQ's list of top-ranked education programs are Arizona State University in Phoenix, Hunter College in New York, and the University of Minnesota in Duluth. Here is a list of the ed programs by ranking. NCTQ's president Kate Walsh said in a press call that the report looks for the very basics of what a teacher needs in order to be prepared to lead a classroom, so the schools at the bottom of the list should set off alarm bells. She said that the lowest-ranked schools "are not making sure teachers know their content or how to teach it. It's very disturbing."

While 81 percent of programs preparing future science teachers earned a grade of A, as measured by sufficient coursework and a passing grade on what NCTQ deems "sufficient" state licensure tests, only 65 percent of programs qualified for that grade when it came to preparing social studies teachers. The deficiency in the lower- performing programs in both subjects, the report's authors say, can be attributed to the needs of states and districts that clamor for teachers certified in more than one subject. Programs trying to prepare candidates to teach in more than one science or social studies subject—for example, not just biology but also chemistry, earth science, and/or physics—demonstrated a huge drop in quality.

Yet most states, 37, allow education programs to prepare teachers of subjects like chemistry and biology to earn certification in general science. "You can imagine how much coursework you would need to major in physics, chemistry, earth science, and biology," Walsh said. "You would be in college for 10 years. Programs struggle with the right balance, but there are many schools of ed that have figured that out and they are at the top of our list."

The study also found that only 42 percent of programs provide courses combining content knowledge with teaching method, and less than half of programs (47 percent) require "high-quality" experience doing practice teaching as part of their methods courses. Only 44 percent of programs evaluated their candidates' teaching and classroom management, while the rest taught management skills but never observed candidates under real conditions.

Criticism of the Study's Methodology

NCTQ's education school grades are based on evaluations of program materials including course catalogues, degree plans, course syllabi, and student-teaching agreements with districts, not on in-class observations. This method of judging education schools based on a review of documents and procedures has long been criticized.

Benjamin Riley, the founder and executive director of Deans for Impact, a coalition of education school directors that aims to overhaul teacher training, argues that document review doesn't warrant the judgements in the study. He said he's learned from visits to education schools that descriptions don't always capture what's actually going on in any given program. "The reality is I don't look at these reports as being able to say very much about programs that are truly strong or truly falling behind," Riley told Education Week. "More interesting to me is the higher-level data on which states are doing certification tests in which areas versus which states aren't. That's helpful. But when they get to specific claims about programs, that's where I think they're on thinner ice." The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education also took issue with the study's methodology in this blog post. AACTE represents colleges and universities that have teacher-prep programs.

For her part, Walsh argues that visits to ed programs would be impractical for NCTQ's purposes. "Our lens is not to comment on the quality of instruction," she said. "Our lens is to make sure teachers are getting the fundamentals of what they need."

Riley admits schools of education have work to do, but he doesn't see grading them as useful. "People have been saying for a long time that colleges of education are hopeless, retrograde, choose whichever negative adjective you want to use, but the reality is there are outstanding folks out there working hard," he said. "This is not to say that there isn't tremendous room for improvement, but the notion that they're going to be shamed into improvement? I think that hypothesis has been tested, and I think we know what the evidence says."

This new study on education schools preparing high school teachers follows the December 2016 release of a report on education programs that prepare elementary teachers. You can read our breakdown of that earlier report here. Walsh said the studies show that programs preparing high school teachers are doing a better job than those preparing elementary teachers. Only 6 percent of programs adequately prepare elementary school teachers for their role in the classroom, according to Walsh. "That is not the case at the high school level, which is comforting," said Walsh. "The road is not as long to fix some of these problems."

NCTQ's next review of teacher prep programs, due in fall 2017, will focus on graduate and alternative-route elementary programs.

Excavating an African American Family’s Past in a Townhouse in Harlem By ELIZABETH DOWLING TAYLOR MAY 11, 2017

DOWN THE UP STAIRCASE Three Generations of a Harlem Family By Bruce D. Haynes and Syma Solovitch Illustrated. 200 pp. Columbia University Press. $30.

“Take the A Train to go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem,” runs Duke Ellington’s signature song. That prestigious neighborhood in Harlem, its moniker evoking the sweet life, was home to Ellington and other prominent artists, intellectuals and politicos of the Harlem Renaissance. Among them was the sociologist George Edmund Haynes, who in the early 1930s purchased a spacious townhouse at 411 Convent Avenue, where his mentor and close friend, W. E. B. Du Bois, was a frequent guest. George Haynes contributed mightily to African-American advancement as co-founder and first executive secretary of the National Urban League, but his achievements have been conspicuously absent from the history books.

Not even Haynes’s grandson Bruce D. Haynes knew the extent of these accomplishments when his father, George Jr. (known as Edmund), presented him with the patriarch’s oil portrait that had been included in a 1944 Smithsonian exhibition, “Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin,” and stored in the attic ever since. In “Down the Up Staircase,” a memoir co-written with his wife, Syma Solovitch, a writer and former Harlem public school teacher, Haynes excavates his family’s past, tracing the changes wrought by the vicissitudes of time on three generations of his family as well as on their neighborhood.

The chapters detailing the marriage of Haynes’s parents, Edmund and Daisy, are the most fascinating for pure voyeurism. The authors pull back heavy curtains to reveal the repercussions of a dead marriage, and the writing is sharp and vivid. When their youngest son, the author, was 6, Daisy discovered that her husband had kept a secret: He had been married before (he had actually been married twice before but she never learned of the other marriage). The couple never worked through the betrayal. Instead, they allowed their home to become a physical manifestation of their crumbling union. The well-appointed townhouse that had earlier welcomed members of the “talented tenth” fell victim to calculated neglect. Edmund, Daisy and their sons lived “like squatters in their own house. The pipes were frozen and busted, the roof was beyond repair.… Nothing had been dusted, cleared, discarded or repaired in more than two decades.”

Notwithstanding the utter disarray of their home, Edmund and Daisy spared no expense to school and clothe their three boys. Glamorous Daisy, who lavished a mink coat on herself, outfitted her 4-year-old son in a cashmere suit. But by the late 1960s, Harlem was plagued by crime and urban decay. Sugar Hill was not exempt. It became too dangerous to play outside. One of Haynes’s brothers was killed in an act of senseless gun violence, while the other struggled with manic depression and looked for relief in religion and drugs.

Yet Haynes himself rose. He earned a Ph.D. at the City University of New York, and landed a teaching position at Yale and then the University of California at Davis.

One might wonder if the book’s title, “Down the Up Staircase,” best describes its flow. The motion of waves seems more apt, the oscillations all families experience over generations, often without understanding how the same wave can pull one swimmer under while allowing another to ride above. In this thoughtfully conceived and crafted memoir, the authors offer evocative, relentlessly honest portrayals without judgment. In doing so, they encourage the reader to ponder the variables in her own life, the tides and forces that help or hinder her pursuit of the sweet life.

Commuter School On East 25th Street Sticking It To Ivy League Snobs

By JON SHAZAR

There are a couple of things a business school can do if it finds itself outside of the magic circle of top programs. It can whine about how unfairly underappreciated it is by the standard metrics. It can give up the ghost and shut its doors. Or it can find something in which to kick the ass of its higher-ranked competitors, and go out and do that.

This is the approach taken by Baruch College (#57 in this year’s U.S. NewsMBA rankings), which has been cleaning up at trading competitions.

Students in the Baruch Traders Club crushed rivals at several competitions this year, claiming first, second and third place at MIT’s ninth annual trading face-off in the fall— an unprecedented feat—and beating Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon to rank first at the Rotman International Trading Competition in February….

“In theory, you think Baruch College students have some kind of inferiority complex regarding Harvard. We don’t. Here, you don’t have to convince the students that [the trading club] is something they want to do,” said Dan Stefanica, a Baruch College professor who helped coach the Traders Club.

Lehman study breaks stereotypes about age

Posted May 12, 2017

By Tiffany Moustakas Age is nothing but a number. At least that’s what a collaborative study between two Lehman College professors has revealed.

“Through the Lens of Age” is the name of a research project exploring the lives of older adults over the age of 65 involved in some form of art and creative expression. The project features residents from the Riverdale and Kingsbridge area.

It all started when Justine McGovern, a professor of social work, found out the City University of New York was looking for proposals for interdisciplinary research ideas. With an idea in mind about ageism and how to increase a student’s interest in working with older adults, she teamed up with Dave Schwittek, a professor in the art department, to marry two concepts: art and older adults.

During the 2016 fall semester, McGovern paired 25 undergraduate students with 25 senior citizens to sit down for an interview, spend time together, and take photographs of one another.

At first, McGovern said many of the students resisted the concept of the project, and even told her they considered dropping the class.

“This is a huge leap for the students at Lehman College,” she said.

But by the time the end of the semester rolled around and they were gearing up to present their work, McGovern’s conversations with her students changed. They came up to her to tell her that they were happy with the outcome and didn’t know they were capable of completing this kind of work. One student even said the project made them feel smarter.

For McGovern, the best part of teaching the course was giving her students the autonomy to learn to do academic research. Many of these students happened to be immigrants or first-generation college students. “The real discovery was how empowering this project could be for students who are not usually given this kind of opportunity,” she said. “It blew my mind, and I’m getting goose bumps just talking about it. It was really moving.”

In Schwittek’s eyes, he saw how the students’ relationships with the adults were making progress toward negative perceptions of age.

“I think they learned to value the elderly a little bit more,” he said. “They learned to see age as more of a social construct.”

With a partnership from The Riverdale Y and CUNY, and inspired by what he saw from the undergraduates, Schwittek set out to extend “Through the Lens of Age” with a portrait series of older adults he observed and spoke to at The Riverdale Y.

In observing them, Schwittek found that he was covering a spectrum of artists. Some had spent their whole lives building a career around this particular passion, while others had just picked it up recently and were learning how to immerse themselves in their work.

“Age and aging is really a time-based thing,” he said. “But being an artist, you transcend all that, and it’s incredibly valuable for any human who’s aging, as we all are.

“I think it could benefit everybody to be able to think more creative in regards to aging.”

While doing this, he also learned how being bored or having limited capabilities are two misconceptions as to why older adults pick up new hobbies later in life.

“It’s a lot more complex than that,” Schwittek said. “The reasons for doing it are not so monolithic. They’re doing it to challenge themselves, to be around other people. But not necessarily have to talk, which I find very interesting and very atypical. Definitely very different than what I was thinking.”

Looking ahead to what’s in store for “Through the Lens of Age,” Schwittek will take part in a virtual presentation during the International Conference on the Arts in Society at The American University of Paris in June and is looking to exhibit his photos in the future.

And when it comes to the pedagogical side of things, McGovern hopes to work with Schwittek again. But in her eyes, nothing will compare to the experience she had this past year.

“No matter what the rest of my career at Lehman holds for me, this will have been a transformative event in terms of how I think about what’s possible in this environment and with these students,” she said. “And you don’t often get that experience. So I’m very grateful for it.”

Attorney Mona Jha Named Chief Diversity Officer at Baruch College

• India-West Staff Reporter

Mitchel B. Wallerstein, Baruch College of the City University of New York president, May 5 announced that Indian American attorney Mona Jha has been named the permanent chief diversity officer at the college.

Jha had been serving as the interim CDO since January.

“I am delighted that Mona has accepted my offer to become permanent Chief Diversity Officer, and I am confident that she will do an outstanding job in this role,” Wallerstein said in a statement. “I also want to take this opportunity to underscore the college’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity in both faculty and staff employment at Baruch.”

In her role as CDO, Jha will serve as the head of the Office of Diversity, Compliance and Equity Initiatives.

She is responsible for overseeing the collection and analysis of data, monitoring and reviewing affirmative action policy, compliance and/or procedures, submitting written reports to the president and other college officials, providing counseling and information on diversity and affirmative action issues, serving as liaison between the college community and campus interest groups, and working with deans, chairs and directors of administrative units in the development of innovative recruitment efforts.

Additionally, the CDO investigates claims brought under the university's non- discrimination policies, serves as Title IX coordinator and is the Section 504/ADA coordinator. The CDO is the liaison to the university office of diversity and recruitment.

Jha was the substitute affirmative action officer from March 2012 through August 2013 and worked in the Office of Diversity, Compliance and Equity Initiatives since the start of fall in 2016 as a part-time deputy Title IX coordinator.

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s from the University of Pennsylvania and her juris doctorate from Hofstra University School of Law.

In addition to her time at Baruch College, Jha served as an assistant attorney general in the state attorney general’s office, where she defended New York agencies and employees in employment discrimination and other cases brought in state and federal courts.

Meet the critic who panned ‘Sgt. Pepper’ then discovered his speaker was busted. He’s still not sorry.

By Geoff Edgers May 11 at 12:23 PM

That day in the summer of 1967, Richard Goldstein walked into the New York Times offices in midtown Manhattan wearing a dark blue cape. He was 22, a hippie and a freelancer. And he was about to deliver a scathing review of the most important album of the year, perhaps the most important album in rock history.

Goldstein had been thrilled when Sy Peck, a veteran Times editor who wore a tie, handed him the band’s new record, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Growing up in the gritty Bronx, Goldstein identified with the lads from working-class Liverpool. Those red-hot early Beatles sides were a natural link to the driving rock of the 1950s. And the Fab Four were true artists. Approaching “Sgt. Pepper,” they had branched out into the baroque pop of “Eleanor Rigby” and psychedelic tape loops of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” They had quit touring so they could concentrate on the studio. “Sgt. Pepper” would be their masterpiece. Goldstein rushed home to the Upper West Side apartment he shared with his wife, Judith. He slipped the vinyl onto his turntable. He took his customary listening position, head back on the rug with a floor speaker aimed on each ear. He turned up the volume as the chugging guitar of the album’s opener kicked in. That’s when the trouble started.

Goldstein hated “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

“Busy, hip and cluttered,” he called the record in a review that ran in the Times on June 18, 1967.

He blasted the Beatles for “a surprising shoddiness in composition” and declared the album, ultimately, “fraudulent.”

“Sgt. Pepper,” of course, was an immediate hit, No. 1 on the Billboard charts for months. It also was critically acclaimed, eventually topping Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. This month, the Beatles’ eighth studio album will get the anniversary treatment with a six-disc box set that includes dozens of demos and alternative mixes of songs now considered part of the pop canon, including “With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the group’s greatest pocket symphony, “A Day in the Life.” But at least one person still remembers Goldstein’s slashing review. Paul McCartney.

A few months ago, McCartney, in an interview with The Washington Post, was asked about dealing with criticism during his post-Beatles career. In answering, he referenced Goldstein’s take. “What I do with that, as distressing as it is, I try to rationalize what’s going on,” McCartney said of being panned in the 1980s. “Well, wait a minute, the music critic of the New York Times hated ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ And we had to sit through that.”

Deeply driven, deeply tortured You may not have heard of Richard Goldstein, but at one time, he was almost famous. He interviewed a paranoid Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys leader’s smoke-filled living room, sadly watched Jim Morrison slur through an aborted recording session and shared an awkward kiss with Janis Joplin.

He was the original rock critic as misfit. Actually, he was the original rock critic.

Back in 1966, when Goldstein began writing for the Village Voice, there was no Rolling Stone, no Spin, no full-time music critic at the Times.

So it made perfect sense for Peck to assign “Sgt. Pepper” to this 22- year-old freelancer.

“Richard Goldstein invented rock criticism,” says Robert Christgau, the legendary Village Voice writer who became friendly with him in those days. “He was the first rock critic. I mean, it turns out Paul Williams was publishing his zine [Crawdaddy] and there were other things happening, but without question, he was the most visible.”

He may have looked confident enough to let his freak flag fly, but Goldstein was also driven by a deep sense that he didn’t quite fit in.

As an overweight kid growing up in the projects, he would walk down the streets of the Bronx with a transistor to his ear, blasting Little Richard. Later, he had his cape to codify his outsider status. He was a hippie in Straightville, a kid from the projects in Uptown Manhattan. In photos from that time, he looks happy-go-lucky. He was anything but.

“One of the most deeply tortured people I knew,” remembers Judith Hibbard-Mipaas, who married Goldstein in 1967 and, despite their eventual split, remains friends with him. “He has a very Eastern European, Slavic face, and it’s very round, and very, very dark eyes. Plus, he was short and people would yell at him. And this is even in Manhattan. On the one hand, you were forced to flaunt this long hair and hippie clothes and satin lace. But on the other hand, he was being challenged: ‘You don’t look like a guy. You don’t look macho.’ ”

Goldstein agrees. “You know, I just saw ‘The Hairy Ape’ by Eugene O’Neill, and the line that keeps recurring in this lumpenproletariat protagonist in the play is ‘I don’t belong,’ ” he says. “When he goes to Fifth Avenue, he keeps saying, ‘I don’t belong here.’ That’s what I felt like in Manhattan.” There was one place where, even if he still didn’t feel at ease, Goldstein could at least rub elbows with other angst-ridden eccentrics. The music world was filled with brash, talented, insecure, confused and doomed figures. He felt duty-bound to define what they did as art. His approach was both egalitarian and egomaniacal. He believed his reviews were speaking directly to his musical heroes, offering them direction, but he also wanted to be viewed as less an authority, more a fan.

“America’s single greatest contribution to the world has been her Pop (music, cinema, painting, even merchandising),” he wrote in the forward to his 1969 anthology, “The Poetry of Rock.” “It is with this sense of America, as clown-guru to the world, that I offer the premise of rock poetry. I am aware that certain aspects of pop walk a delicate line between camp and revelation. But I set out to edit this book as a participant, not an authority. So, I welcome your derision — and your heads.” By “Sgt. Pepper,” things were changing, and no more so than in the Beatles camp.

The days of the mischievous mop tops slapsticking their way through the streets were over. Screaming girls weren’t just a drag — they kept the Beatles from hearing their instruments at gigs. So on Aug. 29, 1966, the Beatles played their final concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In November, they headed back into the studio.

“John came into the control room and said, ‘You know, we’re never going to perform live again,’” recalls Geoff Emerick, the famed engineer who worked with producer George Martin on “Sgt. Pepper.” “We’re going to create something that’s never been heard before, a new kind of record with new sounds.”

The record they delivered did that and more, from the tamboura opening on “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and George Harrison’s Hindustani-inspired “Within You Without You” to the largely improvised, orchestral crescendo in “A Day in the Life.” It was a concept record, with the songs presented as the work of the mysterious, satin-uniformed Lonely Hearts Club Band. When “Pepper” came out, Time magazine declared it “a historic departure in the progress of music — any music,” while the London Times called the release “a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization.” The critics also took on Goldstein. The Village Voice, his own paper, ran a retort from another critic. Pete Johnson, the rock critic at the Los Angeles Times, remembers also being annoyed. “No question the guy could write, but I thought it was bad-tempered grandstanding,” he says today.

Emerick recently read the review again. He has a theory as to what led Goldstein to attack “Pepper.”

“There was nothing to compare it to,” Emerick says. “I know that was the feeling when we’d finished it. It was a piece of art, and he was challenged and he wanted to win.”

You don’t review a record on a stereo that isn’t working’ This may be as a good a time as any to offer Richard Goldstein’s confession. It isn’t anything he has tried to hide, and, in fact, he mentioned it briefly in his 2015 memoir, “Another Little Piece of My Heart.” But the revelation may be startling to Beatles fans, who have devoted their lives to interpreting every lyric, recording flourish and photograph presented by their band. The stereo Goldstein used for his review was broken.

Repeat. The guy who slammed “Sgt. Pepper” in the New York Times had a busted speaker.

Christgau has never heard that.

“That’s f---ed up,” he says. “You don’t review a record on a stereo that isn’t working, certainly not a record of that consequence.”

Giles Martin, son of producer George and the man overseeing the new “Pepper” reissue, first questions whether Goldstein was making that up as an excuse for his review. The original stereo mix of “Pepper” was quite lopsided. “You’d know if your stereo was broken,” Martin says. “ ‘Lovely Rita’ has bass and vocals on one side, all the band’s on the left-hand speaker. On ‘A Little Help From My Friends,” you’d have no bass. And I think Ringo’s in the center but the band’s on one side, the backing vocals.” Fair enough. This is where the critic speaks up. He’s not defensive. He doesn’t raise his voice. He just doesn’t agree.

“So, yeah, I f---ed up, but these people who will now say, ‘Oh, you know why that guy gave a bad review in the New York Times? He didn’t have a left speaker.’ Okay. That’s their problem, though. Because they’re wrong.”

He is 72, with a thin beard and easy laugh, and lives with his husband, Tony Ward, in a 14th-floor apartment Greenwich Village. He stopped writing about music in the late ’60s, but he never left journalism. For decades, Goldstein covered the arts and gender identity issues at the Village Voice, where he eventually served as executive editor. These days, he teaches “Pepper” in a course on the ’60s at his alma mater, Hunter College. Now comfortable in his own skin, Goldstein can explain why he feels he rejected “Pepper” all those years ago. The broken stereo, he says, had nothing to do with it.

The rejection boils down to two reasons. He didn’t understand “Pepper” musically when it was released, and he found his turmoil over his sexuality — he wouldn’t come out until the 1970s — didn’t allow him to embrace the attitude of the record, which he says defied the aggressive, masculine approach of so much rock.

“I remember being sort of horrified by the album,” he says, “being determined with that sort of narcissistic frenzy that young men can have. To, you know, shake them up and force them to actually make rock and roll again. Like they would be listening. That the Times was all powerful and therefore they would say oh we’ve made a mistake, we’re going to go back to singing “Long Tall Sally” or “now I’ll never dance with another.” I wasn’t really interested in the prophetic aspect of ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ I was interested in the violation of the rules and I didn’t like it, and that’s what I look back on with a lot of reflection.”

Another listen to ‘Sgt. Pepper’ On a recent weekday, Goldstein agreed to revisit his review in the most direct terms.

He would listen to the record with the speakers adjusted to provide the full mix, and also with the left channel turned off to try to re-create what he experienced on his broken system.

Goldstein doesn’t have a turntable anymore, so The Post had a Crosley turntable sent to his apartment. We provided the 2009 reissue of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” on vinyl.

The listening session began with “Getting Better” because it’s one of the most rock-driven on “Sgt. Pepper” and also a song ignored in Goldstein’s review. With the left speaker disconnected, the jagged guitar can be heard but McCartney’s bass — which drives the song — is gone. “True, it’s different,” Goldstein says. “This is not a song I would have paid a lot of attention to, and maybe this is why.”

Other moments lead to confusion. “When I’m Sixty-Four,” with one speaker out, completely loses McCartney’s lead vocal and becomes an instrumental. But Goldstein clearly knew the vocal when he wrote his review, which makes him wonder whether the speaker on his system wasn’t completely blown, just damaged.

He listens to “Within You Without You.” Back then, he dismissed Harrison’s lyrics as “dismal and dull.” Today, he considers the song one of his favorites on “Sgt. Pepper.”

When it’s over, Goldstein agrees that the broken stereo changed his listening experience. But he’s not sorry. He says that even the best system wouldn’t have changed his review back in 1967.

Goldstein laughs and relates another take from the ’60s:

“I was the first critic to review the Doors’ first album. And I gave it a rave review. I said great album. One bad cut on this album — ‘Light My Fire.’ What can I say? If you’re not embarrassed by your youth, what good are you?”

This Politician Keeps Saying Linda Sarsour Supports Terror. But He Was In A Terror Group. Dov Hikind told HuffPost he’s “proud” of his time with the Jewish Defense League, and doesn’t deny once tossing a smoke bomb into a U.N. office.

NEW YORK ― Dozens of activists, including some city lawmakers, gathered Monday outside City Hall in Manhattan to show support for Linda Sarsour, the Muslim activist and Palestinian-American best known as an organizer of the massive Women’s March on Washington.

The activists said Sarsour is the victim of a slanderous and Islamophobic smear campaign that started late last month, when the New York Daily News published a vicious op-ed by Democratic New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind.

Hikind, who called on the City University of New York to rescind its invitation for Sarsour to deliver the commencement speech at its School of Public Health, argued that Sarsour is anti-Semitic, as well as an “apologist for terror” who has “no lack of affection for dead Jews.”

Sarsour’s supporters, many of whom are Jewish, refuted these claims in the strongest terms, accusing Hikind of conflating Sarsour’s criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They pointed to her interfaith work in the Jewish community and her long history of condemning terrorism.

Hikind’s piece marked the beginning of a full-throated crusade against Sarsour, which was soon joined by members of Congress, conservative pundits and anti-Muslim hate sites. This has precipitated an online harassment campaign directed at Sarsour, who showed HuffPost multiple death threats she has received in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Hikind is promoting a video in which he points to evidence he says proves Sarsour is a terror sympathizer. And on May 1, he tweeted: “Social justice activist or terrorist advocate? @lsarsour has some questions to answer.”

But if there’s anyone who has questions to answer regarding terrorism, it’s Hikind.

The powerful, taxpayer-paid elected official ― who has represented Brooklyn’s Borough Park and its large Orthodox population in the state assembly since 1982 ― spent years as a leader of an actual terror group.

Starting in the early 1970s, Hikind was a high-ranking member of the Jewish Defense League, a group described in a 2001 FBI report as a “right-wing terrorist group” and a “violent extremist Jewish organization.”

The JDL has been responsible for a slew of bombings, shootings, assaults, break-ins, threats and acts of vandalism since its founding in 1968, including when Hikind was a member.

Because there has been little public accounting of Hikind’s role in the organization, HuffPost sent the assemblyman a detailed list of questions this week about his relationship to the JDL. In response, Hikind gave HuffPost an exclusive statement ― a full copy of which can be read at the bottom of this article ― in which he states that he “couldn’t recall with greater fondness” his time with the group.

“Over 43 years ago, I was very proud to be part of the Jewish Defense League,” Hikind wrote.

Although Hikind claims his role in the JDL was “non-violent,” his statement did not address specific HuffPost questions regarding whether he once called for the assassination of pro-Palestinian Arab-Americans; whether he was a close friend of a man convicted of carrying out 20 bombings in New York and Washington, D.C.; or regarding why the FBI suspected him in plotting six bombings of Arab targets across the U.S.

He did not answer a question regarding whether he had knowledge of, or involvement in, other JDL plots that involved violence or were otherwise illegal. He also did not deny that in 1976 he tossed a smoke bomb into the Ugandan mission at the United Nations in New York, saying in his statement that he did a “few pranks” at the Ugandan mission, “for which I was never charged.”

JDL’s founder, Rabbi Meir Kahane, “consistently preached a radical form of Jewish nationalism which reflected racism, violence and political extremism,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish organization that fights anti-Semitism.

Kahane publicly called Arabs “dogs” and was once part of a crowd in Israel that chanted “Kill the Arabs!” and attempted to lynch two Arab passersby. He called for the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories and was convicted in the U.S. for making a bomb. He also formed the Kach political party in Israel, which was later deemed a violent terrorist organization by both Israel and the U.S.

Hikind speaks admiringly of Kahane in his statement. He said he was “no longer involved” with Kahane when the rabbi moved to Israel in the early 1970s, but noted that “the truth is I continued to watch and admire Rabbi Kahane from afar.”

“Did I agree with him on everything?” Hikind said. “Alas, I don’t even agree with my own wife Shani on everything. Almost everything.”

Four days after the Daily News published Hikind’s op-ed, the paper published another by Dr. Barat Ellman and Ellen Lippman, two rabbis who defended Sarsour against all of the assemblyman’s allegations. They wrote that Hikind’s “sloppy attempt to demonize her reeks of anti-Muslim bias.” Hikind addressed the two rabbis toward the end of his statement to HuffPost, appearing to take umbrage that “two women rabbis” challenged him.

“How would Rabbi Kahane respond today hearing that two women rabbis attempted to kosher someone as transparently dangerous and anti-Semitic as Linda Sarsour? ‘I warned you!’” he wrote.

CUNY Embraces/Honors Israel- Hating, Terror-Supporting Sarsour

Despite mounting criticism, The City University of New York has refused to rescind its selection of Linda Sarsour, an Israel-bashing, terror supporter as the keynote speaker at CUNY’s School of Public Health & Health Policy’s June 1st commencement ceremony. According to a statement issued by CUNY Chancellor James Milliken, CUNY wrongly claims that rescinding the invitation “would conflict with the First Amendment and the principles of academic freedom.”

Sarsour does not have a right – under the First Amendment or elsewhere – to be a CUNY commencement speaker, nor is CUNY legally obligated to provide her with that prestigious podium. CUNY can invite whomever it wishes. Commencement is a once-in-a-lifetime event, to celebrate a major milestone in people’s lives. It holds everlasting significance not only for graduating students, but also for their families and friends. A commencement speaker should thus be memorable and inspiring. It goes without saying that the speaker should be a positive role model for graduating students and reflect the university’s values and highest ideals.

Sarsour doesn’t come close. She opposes the existence of the Jewish State, supports the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement whose goal is to harm and destroy Israel, and has tweeted that “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu is a waste of a human being.” Even Sarsour’s feminism is bigoted: She claims that Zionists cannot be feminists. She has condemned and insulted a genuine feminist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was subjected to genital cutting as a Muslim girl and opposed her family’s efforts to force her to marry someone against her wishes. In the face of death threats, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has courageously spoken out against the role that Islam plays in tolerating the abuse of girls and women. Yet Sarsour is contemptuous rather than respectful of her, tweeting that Ms. Hirsi Ali’s “vagina should be taken away” and that she doesn’t “deserve” to be a woman.

Frighteningly, Sarsour does have positive things to say about terrorism and violence against Israelis and Jews. She praised a photo of an Arab child walking toward Israeli soldiers, holding rocks in both hands, as “the definition of courage.” When Sarsour was criticized for this tweet, she responded, “The Zionist trolls are out to play. Bring it.” Sarsour also praised the intifada – the term for the Palestinian Arab terror war against Jews in Israel – calling it “invaluable on many fronts.” Last month, she shared a stage with a convicted terrorist, Rasmea Odeh, who served time in an Israeli prison for her role in a murder of two college students. Odeh will soon be deported from the U.S. for concealing her terrorist crimes on her immigration forms. Yet Sarsour publicly praised Odeh, stating that she was “honored and privileged to be there in this space, and honored to be on this stage with Rasmea.”

Given Sarsour’s horrific record, it’s hard to fathom how everyone with power and authority at CUNY – including Chancellor Milliken, the Board of Trustees, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Mayor Bill de Blasio – has failed to take any steps to stop a documented bigot and hater from being honored and given a prestigious podium at their university. Indeed, Mayor de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, is receiving an honorary degree from the School of Public Health and will be sharing a podium with Sarsour, giving Sarsour added legitimacy and credibility that she doesn’t deserve. CUNY would never tolerate a commencement speaker with a history of bigotry toward African Americans, Hispanics or the LGBTQ community – nor should it. It’s appalling and shocking that CUNY in particular would be so deaf to anti-Semitism, when little more than a year ago, the ZOA documented the anti-Semitic harassment and intimidation that students were enduring on four CUNY campuses. At a Hunter College rally, for example, protesters were screaming that Jews are “racist sons of bitches,” shouting “Go back home, and get the f—k out of my country,” and chanting, “Jews out of CUNY” and “Death to Jews.” CUNY, of all places, should be showing zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.

A diverse community, CUNY says it values mutual respect, tolerance and civility. Yet Jewish and non-Jewish graduating students who love and support Israel, who are justly concerned about Islamic terrorism, as well as their friends and families, are surely feeling betrayed by their university for failing to honor these values and concerns. These graduating students, and their families and friends, will be denied the absolute joy they are entitled to feel, when they see Linda Sarsour on the stage delivering the keynote address at commencement. CUNY is not only letting them down but also sending a terrible message to the entire university community – of legitimizing and mainstreaming anti-Semitism and terrorism.

It’s not too late for CUNY to do the right thing. Sarsour’s speaking invitation should be rescinded immediately. Someone who is truly inspiring, and exemplifies the values of mutual respect, tolerance and civility that CUNY claims to stand for, should deliver the keynote address instead.

Morton A. Klein is the National President of the Zionist Organization of America and Susan B. Tuchman, Esq. is the Director of the Center for Law and Justice.

OSLO Stars, DEAR EVAN HANSEN Team to Appear on THEATER TALK This Week by BWW News Desk May. 11, 2017

This week THEATER TALK features the lead actors, playwright and director of the acclaimed play Oslo at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater - Jennifer Ehle, Jefferson Mays, writer J.T. Rogers, and director Bartlett Sher - and continues with Part 2 of an interview with the creators of the hit musical Dear Evan Hansen - librettist Steven Levenson and composer/lyricists Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, who perform songs from Dear Evan Hansen, Dogfight, and La La Land. Co- hosts for Oslo are Michael Riedel of the New York Post and Susan Haskins; Haskins and guest co-host Jesse Green of The New York Times continue with Dear Evan Hansen. Oslo is the true story of a married Norwegian couple, Mona Juul (Ehle) and Terje Rød- Larsen (Mays), who HATCHED the idea of attempting to bring peace between the state of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1990s. The top- secret meetings culminated in the signing of the historic 1993 Oslo Accords. The couple's untold story was dramatized by Rogers after a meeting between he and Rød-Larsen, engineered by Sher. (The latter two both had children in the same New York City school - and Sher had heard amazing stories in the course of soccer games and other parental events.) Oslo opened to acclaim at Lincoln Center's smaller Newhouse Theater last year and re-opened in the larger space in April. In the second half of the program, focus returns to the new musical Dear Evan Hansen, continuing the previous week's episode with the writers of the show. Composer/lyricists Pasek & Paul perform "Sincerely, Me" from Dear Evan Hansen, "Some Kinda Time" from their earlier Off-Broadway musical, Dogfight, and "City of Stars" (music by Justin Hurwitz) from the film La La Land, for which they won an Academy Award. This week's Oslo / Dear Evan Hansen, Pt. 2 episode of THEATER TALK premieres Friday, May 12 (2017) on PBS station Thirteen/WNET at 1:30 AM (Saturday morning) and repeats there on Sunday 5/14 at 11:30 AM; it re-airs on CUNY TV* Saturday 5/13 at 8:30 PM, Sunday 5/14 at 12:30 PM, and Monday 5/15 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 7:30 PM; and also airs on WLIW/21 on Monday 5/15 at 5:30 PM and on NYCLife/25 on Thursday 5/18 at 11 PM. Emmy Award-winning THEATER TALK is jointly produced by the not-for-profits Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV. The program is taped in the Himan Brown TV & Radio Studios at The City University of New York (CUNY) TV in Manhattan, and is distributed to 100+ participating public television stations nationwide. THEATER TALK is made possible in part by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The CUNY TV Foundation, and The Friends of Theater Talk. *CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is broadcast in the NYC metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Spectrum & Optimum/Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes.

Free SUNY tuition may reverse enrollment drop

ALBANY -- Enrollment in the State University of New York system hit its lowest point in recent years, but the free tuition plan passed last month may very well reverse that trend.

SUNY enrollment fell 7.4 percent between 2010 and 2016 -- to 436,138 students at its 64- campus system.

The Excelsior Scholarship, unveiled in January by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and approved by the state Legislature last month, is expected to boost enrollment by enticing students with free tuition if they are income eligible, get good grades and stay in the state after graduation.

"No child will be denied college because they can’t afford it, and the dream of opportunity is for everyone," Cuomo said in a speech April 12 with Hillary Clinton at his side.

Will it be popular?

SUNY is bracing for the impact of the program, which will start this fall for students whose household income is less than $100,000 a year. It will grow to an income eligibility of $125,000 by 2019.

For those above the income threshold, tuition may increase by up to $200 a year. Tuition is currently $6,470 a year.

Some state lawmakers said the free tuition may overwhelm SUNY campuses with more students, but a lack of new staff and facilities to accommodate them.

"I think what you are going to see is that the institutions are going to require a lot of money, and the governor is going to have to provide that in future budgets," said Senate Higher Education Committee chairman Kenneth Lavalle, R-Suffolk County.

SUNY officials said it's too soon to know how the free tuition will impact enrollment. But SUNY did calculate how many students would be eligible based on its current enrollment, finding just 31,300 students in its system would qualify the program in its first year -- only about 5 percent of the students who take at least one class at SUNY or CUNY schools.

In addition to the income eligibility, students need to complete 30 credits per year and remain in the state after graduation for the equal number of years the scholarship was received.

Asked if the program could lead to an enrollment spike, SUNY spokeswoman Holly Liapis said, "It is too early to answer.”

Changing enrollment

SUNY enrollment, particularly at its community colleges, increased during the recession in 2009 and then again 2010, but has fallen off since, records show.

Enrollment peaked at 471,184 students in fall 2010, SUNY records show. Since then, enrollment dropped, but tuition rose $300 a year over five years -- up $1,500 or 30 percent between 2011 and 2015.

Over the past five years, enrollment in community colleges declined 13 percent, while enrollment dropped 1 percent at the state’s four-year colleges.

“The decrease is primarily due to declines in community college enrollment, which had been elevated after the recession,” Liapis said.

Community colleges said they have seen enrollment level off over the past year and are now bracing for the impact of the free tuition.

At Westchester’s Purchase College, “things are steady,” spokeswoman Betsey Aldredge said.

Last fall, the campus had 4,156 students, about the same as the previous year after enrollment peaked at 4,353 in fall 2013.

Growing interest

Monroe Community College is seeing a slight uptick in enrollment and “a great deal of interest” in the Excelsior Scholarship program, said MCC president Ann Kress.

The increase is marginal but reverses a downward trend. Kress is yet unsure whether that is attributable to Excelsior or what she calls "the halo effect" of increased discussion about higher education and affordability. “It’s surprising, but you never know,” she said, adding that the true impact won’t be seen until August.

SUNY New Paltz said it too has had an increase in applications recently. Students generally had to select their SUNY college for the fall by May 1.

New Paltz recently received 508 first-year and transfer applications -- three times as many as it last year, school officials said.

“This is unusual because it is very late in the cycle,” L. David Eaton, the college's vice president for enrollment management, said in a statement.

“The announcement of the Excelsior Scholarship program is the single external variable that could begin to explain this phenomenon.”

Bracing for impact

For some SUNY schools, enrollment has continued to grow, and the Excelsior program could mean even more interest from prospective students.

At Binghamton University, enrollment has been on the rise since 2011 -- peaking this year at 17,292 students, a 2 percent increase from two years ago.

Binghamton also received almost 1,500 more applications last fall than it did in 2015, fueled in part by a joint admission program with Broome Community College.

The free SUNY tuition program “opened up endless opportunity for our middle-class families," Harvey Stenger, the university president, said in a statement.

"By removing the burden of tuition for families making $125,000 or less, we can attract more talented, qualified students to our campuses who may have been discouraged by the rising costs of attending college.”

Student react

There still has not been a set date for when the scholarship application will be released by the Higher Education Services Corporation, which is overseeing the program. But it is expected to become available by mid-May or early June.

Natalie Turner, 21, from LaGrangeville, Dutchess County, thinks the residency requirement is reasonable, but can see why some students may not like it. “Some students would be extraordinarily frustrated like if you got a job in Boston, then what are you supposed to tell that student? ‘You can't take that job?’” the SUNY University at Albany student, said.

A similar concern was shared from Binghamton University student David Zatyko.

The 22-year-old from Pittsford, Monroe County, thinks it’s a great opportunity for students to achieve a higher level of education who may not have otherwise gotten one, but believes it may be too restrictive when it comes to the residency requirement post-graduation.

The program includes a hardship provision that could cover some students' residency changes, but it's unclear who would be eligible.

“What if kids want to do Fulbright (scholarship) or Peace Corps or other programs in other parts of the world? It’s not really fair that those options are only for people who have enough money to not get the scholarship,” Zatyko said.

Includes reporting by Albany Bureau Chief Joseph Spector and Democrat and Chronicle staff writer Brian Sharp.

Recognition for Lawyers New York Law Journal

The Legal Aid Society has promoted Tamara Steckler to chief administrative officer effective July 1. She currently is attorney-in-charge of Legal Aid's juvenile rights practice. • CUNY has appointed former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason as the fifth president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. • Jeanine Conley, a shareholder at Littler, has been appointed chair of the New York Urban League board of directors. • Cullen and Dykman is pleased to announce that partner Michael J. Lane has been named 2017 Adjunct Teacher of the Year by Fordham Law School. A partner in the firm's commercial litigation department, Lane has been teaching at Fordham since 1993. • Stroock & Stroock & Lavan partner James Bernard and of counsel Joel Cohen were awarded the 2017 Burton Award for Legal Writing for their article, "The Movie Spotlight and Legal Ethics," published in the New York Law Journal. The article notes that 'Spotlight' presents the challenge many lawyers face at some point in their careers: "whether and how to report your client's confidences." • Duane Morris partner Kimball Ann Lane has been elected to the board of trustees of the United States Army War College Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises funds to benefit the U.S. Army War College. • Blank Rome was honored with the 2017 Community Vision Award in honor of the firm's "distinguished record of service to the LGBT community." Blank Rome partners Caroline Krauss- Browne and Meg Canby accepted the award on behalf of the firm and in recognition of their commitment to the LGBT community through their pro bono work. • Legal Services of the Hudson Valley has added two new members to its board of directors. Frances Pantaleo, a partner at Bleakley, Platt & Schmidt and Vanessa Kaye Watson, vice president, senior managing counsel at Mastercard International. Legal Services of the Hudson Valley works to provide free civil legal services to residents in the lower and mid-Hudson Valley. • American Friends of the Hebrew University recently honored David Pitofsky and Lawrence Zweifach the George A. Katz Torch of Learning Award. David Pitofsky is general counsel and chief compliance officer of News Corp. and Lawrence Zweifach is a partner at Gibson, Dunne & Crutcher. The award is presented annually to notable members of the legal community in recognition of their leadership, scholarship and dedication to the betterment of humanity.

BANKING AND REAL ESTATE LEADERS, AS WELL AS OSCAR WINNING SONGWRITERS TO BE HONORED AT “INVEST IN A FUTURE” GALA, MAY 18

HONOREES: Carol Britton, Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Services, BNY Mellon Jeffrey Gural, Chairman, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank GUEST STAR HONOREES: Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

New York, May 11, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) and the BMCC Foundation will host the 2017 Gala, “Invest in a Future,” with proceeds benefiting the BMCC Scholarship Fund. The evening's Honorees are Carol Britton, Chief Operating Officer for Corporate Services at BNY Mellon, and Jeffrey Gural, Chairman of Newmark Knight Frank. Special Guest Star Honorees are Oscar® and Grammy® winning songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.

This annual event, scheduled for Thursday, May 18, will be held at Cipriani at 25 Broadway. A cocktail reception will begin at 5:45 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:45 p.m.

“The annual BMCC Foundation Scholarship Gala is an important tradition at our college that brings together members of the BMCC community, business leaders and others who share a commitment to providing scholarships to our deserving students, most of whom are the first in their families to attend college,” said Doris Holz, BMCC’s Vice President of Development. “Each year, proceeds from the Gala provide scholarships to hundreds of high- achieving students facing economic challenges to staying in school. These scholarship recipients then go on to begin their careers and contribute to the growth of our City and nation.”

Honoree: Carol Britton Carol Britton is Chief Operating Officer for Corporate Services at BNY Mellon. In that role, she leads all BNY Mellon’s global real estate, procurement and finance support operations activities. Ms. Britton also develops strategies and leverages technology to strengthen processes and drive efficiencies for expenditures across areas including a global real estate portfolio of over 200 locations. She is a member of the Corporate Operating Committee and serves on the Executive Board of the Women's Initiate Network. Ms. Britton also sits on the University of Pittsburgh Advisory Board for The Center for Supply Chain Management, and on the Sourcing Executive Council for HFS Research. Prior board roles include having served as Treasurer of the Women’s Bond Club, Vice Chair of the Michigan Parkinson’s Foundation and Board Member of Leading Edge Institute.

Honoree: Jeffrey Gural

Jeffrey Gural is Chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, a commercial and industrial real estate management firm that manages approximately 150 buildings in the NYC metropolitan area. Along with Barry M. Gosin, CEO of Newmark Knight Frank, Mr. Gural is responsible for all acquisitions, as well as the managing and leasing of 8,000,000 square feet of properties. He is also responsible for the overall supervision of the company's non-institutional portfolio.Mr. Gural has overseen the growth of the Manhattan brokerage firm Newmark Grubb since 1978. In 2006, Newmark Grubb formed a strategic partnership with London-based real estate firm Knight Frank and in October 2011, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank was acquired by BGC Partners. Mr. Gural also runs the harness racing track Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey, as well as the racinos Tioga Downs in Nichols, New York, and Vernon Downs in Vernon, New York.

Special Guest Star Honorees

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez — the Oscar® and Grammy® winning, married songwriting team behind the Disney animated film, Frozen — are the Gala's Special Guest Star Honorees.

Robert co-conceived and co-wrote the smash-hit musicals Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon, both earning him Tony® Awards. Kristen’s show In Transit, made history as the first all a capella musical to run on Broadway, after earning recognition at the Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel awards for its 2010 Off-Broadway run.

Lopez and Anderson-Lopez have written for television, film and stage, including Finding Nemo: The Musical, songs for The Wonder Pets (two Emmy® award wins) and the Winnie the Pooh animated film. Their original musical, Up Here, premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2015. Their current projects include the Disney animated film Gigantic, and the stage adaptation of Frozen for Broadway. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez live in Brooklyn with their two daughters.

Emcee Cindy Hsu

Cindy Hsu is an Emmy Award-winning anchor and reporter who has been at CBS 2 News in New York City since 1993. Recently, Hsu was awarded “Reporter of the Year” from the NY and NJ Asian-American Law Enforcement Organization. Her personal adoption story, “Bringing Rosie Home,” was nominated for an Emmy Award and won the New York AP Broadcasters Award for Best Feature. She received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Single Hard News Story for “Smuggled from China,” which exposed the horrific plights of Chinese refugees, and for her live coverage of the snowstorm of 1994. American Women in Radio and Television honored her with the Golden Apple Award, and she also received the Friends of Adoption Award from the Adoptive Parents Committee. Prior to joining WCBS-TV, Hsu worked as a reporter and anchor in Wisconsin and Ohio. She began her broadcasting career as an associate producer for WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia. Hsu lives in New York City with her daughter.

Past Gala Honorees

In recent years, the Gala has honored many friends and supporters. In 2016, the Gala Honorees were Don Callahan, Head of Operations & Technology, Citi; Garrett Moran, President, Year Up, andSpecial Guest Star Honoree Edie Falco. In 2015, the Gala honored Marianne Brown, COO, SunGard Financial Services; Marc Holliday, CEO, SL Green Realty Corporation and Special Guest Star Honoree Billy Crystal. In 2014, the Honorees were Kurt D. Woetzel, CEO, Global Collateral Services, BNY Mellon; Elizabeth Margaritis Butson, former publisher and owner of The Villager and Downtown Express, and Special Guest Star Honoree Robert De Niro.

For more information, to purchase a ticket or reserve a table, please contact the BMCC Office of Development at (212) 220-8020 or click HERE.

Special thanks to Gala Underwriter/Benefactor Santander Bank, N.A., and to Gala Guardians Jack Resnick & Sons, Inc., Jeffrey Gural, Stephen J. Meringoff/Meringoff Family Foundation and BNY Mellon.

Loretta Lynch, George Church among seven to receive honorary degrees this weekend By Bre Bradham | Friday, May 12

Duke students will not be the only people receiving degrees at commencement this weekend— they will be joined on stage by seven honorary degree recipients.

This year’s recipients represent a wide range of disciplines—from novel-writing to computer science—and three of the seven are Duke alumni. They follow in the footsteps of other recent Duke honorary degree recipients like Oprah Winfrey, Melinda Gates—Trinity '86 and Fuqua '87—and William Foege.

Announced in April, the recipients are geneticist George Church, Trinity '74, business administration professor Clayton Christensen, novelist Marilynne Robinson, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, documentarian Stanley Nelson, computer scientist Luis von Ahn— Trinity '00—and Deborah Lee James, Trinity '79 and former secretary of the Air Force.

George Church

For Church, May’s commencement will be a particularly special one.

“Oddly, this is the first commencement ceremony that I've ever attended, having missed my high school, college and Ph.D. events due to lab work priorities,” he wrote in an email.

Church, Robert Winthrop professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, received his degree at Duke in chemistry and has appeared on Stephen Colbert’s late night comedy show to discuss the future of gene therapy. He is well-known for his work on “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” commonly known as CRISPR.

Additionally, he was a “founding core member” of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Church credits Duke with being a starting point in his academic career.

“Duke is very special, since it is where I did the research for my first five scientific publications—thanks to my Duke mentor, Sung Hou Kim—on tRNA-translation and DNA- protein interaction codes, about which I am still passionately engaged 42 years later,” he wrote. Clayton Christensen

Like Church, Christensen is a professor at Harvard. The Kim B. Clark professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School is a New York Times bestselling author with more than a handful of books to his credit. A 2011 Forbes cover story about Christensen called him “one of the most influential business theorists of the last 50 years” and discussed his ideas for the healthcare system, as well as how he overcame a heart attack, cancer and a stroke within three years.

Christensen earned an M.Phil. of econometrics at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and worked as a missionary in the Republic of Korea for two years. His daughter Ann graduated from Duke in 2001 and his son Matt graduated from Duke in 2002.

Marilynne Robinson

Robinson has written four works of fiction and nonfiction each throughout her career, but her inclusion in the Time Magazine’s 2016 list of the 100 most influential people was not in the list of artists, but rather as an "icon"—sandwiched between the profiles of Usain Bolt and Karlie Kloss.

In a 2015 conversation with former President Barack Obama, the then-president told Robinson that he loved her books and that he started reading her 2004 work Gilead while campaigning in Iowa. Robinson, who has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington, received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a 2012 National Humanities Medal.

Loretta Lynch

As Attorney General, Lynch was the second woman and second African American—and the first African American woman—to hold the post. Lynch served in that role from 2015 to 2017 after being appointed by President Obama.

Although Lynch is not a Duke alum—having earned her undergraduate and law degree from Harvard—her brother Leonzo Lynch earned a masters degree from Duke Divinity School. Lynch earned her undergraduate and law degree from Harvard. She is also scheduled to speak at Duke Law School’s hooding ceremony during her commencement weekend visit.

Deborah Lee James

Like Lynch, James was the second woman to hold her high-ranking position in government when she was secretary of the Air Force from 2013 to 2017. She earned a bachelor's degree in comparative studies at Duke before going on to receive a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. James has previously served as president of the Fortune 500 company Technical and Engineering Sector of Science Applications International Corporation.

“I am thrilled to return to Duke and even more thrilled to receive an honorary degree,” she wrote in an email. “Looking back, Duke taught me so much that I have used throughout my 35-year career in national security: how to think and investigate critically; how to communicate effectively and how to respect and value different types of people and points of view. I will forever be indebted to Duke.”

Stanley Nelson

Nelson has earned five Primetime Emmy Awards for his career in documentary filmmaking that has spanned more than two decades. He has produced pieces such as "The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords"—which documents the role of black journalists in American history—and "Climbing Jacob’s Ladder," a historical look at African-American churches.

Nelson was a member of the 2002 class of MacArthur Fellows. In 2013 he was awarded a National Medal of the Humanities by President Obama. He earned his undergraduate degree from the City University of New York’s Leonard Davis Film School in 1976.

Luis von Ahn

Von Ahn, associate professor in the school of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, is the creator of the field of human computation, also known as crowdsourcing. He created two projects that were acquired by Google, including reCAPTCHA. The MacArthur fellow is currently working on the popular language app Duolingo. Von Ahn earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics, but he never received a degree in computer science.

“I'm incredibly excited to receive an honorary degree from my alma mater. It's really quite a unique honor that I never thought I'd receive,” he wrote in an email. “It's also a sweet revenge against professor Owen Astrachan, who wouldn't let me get a computer science degree there because I was missing a single class!”

Astrachan, professor of computer science, taught von Ahn in two classes and recalled that from the start, von Ahn showed that “he was intellectually curious and very capable and that he was going to do great things.” As for withholding a computer science degree from the man who has since created a new subfield of the discipline, Astrachan stands by his decision, but noted that it would not be an issue today because of interdisciplinary majors.

“We held firm to our rules, knowing that Luis was brilliant, but we kept to the requirements,” Astrachan wrote in an email. “He and I had a friendly banter about this on Facebook when the honorary degrees were announced.”

WPI’s first female grad returns 60 years later By Scott O’Connell Telegram & Gazette Staff

WORCESTER – Even today, Audrey Carlan is a stickler for details, whether she’s prescribing the right mix of vitamins to ward off a heart attack or recalling the latest political developments related to women’s rights.

So it’s a little ironic that 63 years ago, when she and her husband ended up making one of the most “vital” decisions of their lives by attending Worcester Technical Institute’s graduate school, she missed a pretty big detail: The program was for men only at the time.

“It never dawned on me,” said the 86-year-old, who now lives in California, adding that it apparently didn’t bother WPI, either, which ended up awarding her its first-ever degree to a woman three years later when she earned her master’s in physics from the university.

On Thursday, Ms. Carlan returned to “Worcester Tech,” as she still calls it, to receive an honorary doctorate recognizing that milestone at the institution’s graduate commencement. The occasion also afforded Ms. Carlan the opportunity to finally enjoy the graduation ceremony she opted to skip back in 1957 because of the impending birth of her first son.

“She is a pioneer in every sense of the word,” said WPI President Laurie Leshin, who recalled learning about Ms. Carlan’s unique place in the institution’s history in a letter Ms. Carlan herself had written to Ms. Leshin. The only thing missing, Ms. Leshin added Thursday, was a proper ending. “We’re going to remedy that tonight.”

A native of Brooklyn, and a graduate of Brooklyn College along with her husband, Alan, Ms. Carlan first landed in Central Massachusetts when the couple both got jobs at American Optical in Southbridge. They eventually realized, however, that “we weren’t going anywhere” with their level of education, she said. “We had to do something to get a better degree.”

They ended up enrolling in classes offered by WPI at their workplace. And when the opportunity arose to continue their studies in the university’s fledgling physics master’s program on campus, she recalled, they simply did it. No questions of gender ever came up. In effect, she accidentally became the school’s first female student.

When she arrived at her first class with her husband, she said, “The teacher must have thought it was a little different” to see a woman show up, “but he didn’t say anything.” Just about the only way she was treated different from her male colleagues, she remembered, was that she was given a sign labeled “women” that she could stick on the bathroom door when she had to use it.

“I didn’t think anybody was going to discriminate against me, and they didn’t,” Ms. Carlan said. “Nobody thought it was a problem. I got good grades; I paid my bills.”

Still, the unique challenges of being a woman in what at the time was a man’s field couldn’t be completely avoided. Faced with the prospect of going to her graduation heavily pregnant in June 1957, she said, she and Allen decided to stay home together, mostly for the sake of her fellow students, she claims. “Ordinarily I could have faked half the stuff” that would have been demanded of her at the ceremony, she said, “but I didn’t want to get anyone embarrassed, or for the guys to worry about me.”

A month later, in July, she gave birth to the first of her three children, Steve. The new family, now armed with two master’s degrees from WPI – the first awarded by the graduate school’s physics program – eventually resettled in Illinois, and then Pennsylvania, as Mr. Carlan took on new jobs and Ms. Carlan found work of her own. Despite the rarity of women working in her field at the time, she said, her particular skill set – programming with the then-cutting edge IBM 650 computer – always swayed hiring managers.

Ms. Carlan went on to work as a professor at Southwest Community College in Los Angeles, write algebra textbooks, and serve as CEO of her husband’s consulting company. She also dabbled in pursuits outside of her education. She enthusiastically recalled, for instance, how she discovered through her own investigation the proper regimen of vitamins for her husband after he suffered a heart attack in his mid-30s.

But their WPI degrees, she said, were the key to their success. “Without our Worcester Tech backgrounds, we wouldn’t have done anything, we couldn’t have gone anywhere.” She also recognizes women like her still face roadblocks in the math and science fields.

“It’s a problem,” she said, citing as an example a recent decision by a federal appeals court that women can be paid less than men based on their prior salaries. “I’m out of it now. But if I were to do work today, they better give me equal pay.”

After all, if her experience shows anything, it’s that if you just look past gender labels – or in the case of WPI more than 60 years ago, simply miss them on the application – it’s that women and men can do the same work, she said. Ms. Carlan, in fact, was the first person of any sex to conduct a computer science project at WPI, according to the university – an investigation of the electromagnetic scattering properties of spheroids.

“Were there problems (at WPI)? No,” she said. “There weren’t any problems.”

George Plafker wins top honor in seismology SEISMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Seismological Society of America (SSA) will present its highest honor, the 2017 Harry Fielding Reid Medal, to U.S. Geological Survey emeritus geologist George Plafker, for his transformative work on megathrust earthquakes in subduction zones, places where two tectonic plates meet, with one riding over the top of the other.

Plafker will receive the Reid Medal at Seismology of the Americas, a joint meeting of the SSA and the Latin American and Caribbean Seismological Commission (LACSC), to be held 23-26 April 2018 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Plafker and his colleagues did painstaking fieldwork after the magnitude 9.2 Alaskan earthquake in 1964, covering hundreds of kilometers of Alaskan shoreline in small boats, helicopters, and float- equipped aircraft. His research after the 1964 quake helped to launch a new field of megathrust earthquake geology, which used observations of the placement of intertidal organisms such as acorn barnacles, mussels and rockweed to determine the amounts of vertical change in land relative to sea level near subduction zones.

Plafker and his colleagues determined that the massive Alaskan quake was caused by rupture along a deeply buried fault in a subduction zone where the Pacific tectonic plate thrusts below the North American plate. Earlier accounts of the Alaskan earthquake had suggested that the quake took place as slip along a vertical fault, as the Pacific plate rotated counter-clockwise against the North American plate.

Plafker's work on the Alaska earthquake led to a re-examination of the 1960 magnitude 9.5 Chilean earthquake, the largest in recorded history, eight years later. After studying more than 1000 kilometers of mainland coast and islands of the Archipiélago de los Chonos in southern Chile, he and his colleagues concluded that the 1960 earthquake was also caused by megathrust faulting at a subduction zone, rather than slip along a vertical fault as previously thought. Megathrust earthquakes include the largest magnitude earthquakes seen on Earth, and often have devastating effects on coastal communities around the globe.

"He is the one field geologist whose fieldwork contributed to the essence of plate tectonics, and specifically to subduction," said Peter Molnar, a professor of geological sciences at University of Colorado Boulder, in his commendation of Plafker. In his explorations, Plafker moved beyond his primary geological mapping research in southern Alaska to search for other geological evidence of tectonic deformation, including mapping active faults and studying ancient peat deposits that extended the megathrust record back in time.

These paleoseismic studies within the 1964 rupture zone identified a total of nine giant seismic events in Alaska within the past 6500 years. His study of historic active faults and paleoseismicity in Alaska remains the basis for all seismic hazard maps in the state today.

In his nomination for the Medal, Plafker's colleagues noted that his thorough and imaginative research has had an impact from earthquake engineering to popular writing about earthquakes and tsunamis. His work on the Alaskan and Chilean earthquakes transformed ideas about the long history of massive earthquakes at subduction zones, highlighting the potential seismic risk of key regions such as the Cascadia subduction zone off the west coast of the United States and Canada.

Plafker received his B.S. in geology from Brooklyn College in 1949, his master's degree in geology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1956 and his Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from Stanford University in 1972. He has worked as an engineering geologist from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a geologist for the USGS, and a petroleum geologist for Chevron. In 1979 Plafker received the U.S. Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award, the highest award that can be granted to a career employee within the Department of the Interior.

First awarded in 1975, the Medal recognizes outstanding contributions in seismology and earthquake engineering. Harry Fielding Reid, a pioneering American seismologist, was in 1906 the first to propose the elastic-rebound theory, concerning the buildup and release of stress and strain around faults as a cause of earthquakes.

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The call for nominations for next year's Medal, along with a list of past winners, is available at the Seismological Society of America's website.

The Seismological Society of America is a scientific society devoted to the advancement of earthquake science. Founded in 1906 in San Francisco, the Society now has members throughout the world representing a variety of technical interests: seismologists and other geophysicists, geologists, engineers, insurers, and policy-makers in preparedness and safety.

Thinking back to better times

Posted May 12, 2017 To the editor:

Sorin Keirkagard said, “We live life forward, and experience it backward.”

I would like to share some of my experience with you, some of which may be part of your experience also. Only if you are old enough.

When youngsters called adults by their surnames. When 18-year-olds polished their own nails, and kids worse a dress to their first day of school. Their teachers wore dresses and suits, and Miss Flynn — the principal of P.S. 95 — actually signed my diploma as though she actually knew me as a person, which she did.

When we said the non-denominational Regents prayer every morning, and the Sunday evening television news aired President Eisenhower leaving a church each week.

A time when we were dealing with “juvenile delinquency” and opiates were nowhere in our vocabulary. A candy bar was a nickel, as was a Coke, and a McDonald’s hamburger was 15 cents.

You could write Sen. Jacob Davits about a constitutional issue and get a detailed response. When the seemingly endless campaign for the presidential party nomination was settled by the “bosses” in the “smoke-filled room.”

The political parties were not locked in extreme positions, and each part actually had “moderates” capable of compromise. Oh, there was corruption in government (and there always will be), but it was kept within some reason. Conspiracy theories were not common.

When retail “regular price” actually had integrity, and Brooks Brothers had only two one- week sales a year (as did Bloomingdale’s). When you concluded a transaction in a store, the sales associate actually said, “Thank you.”

When a high school graduate could get a decent job with a career path, and a bachelor’s degree did not have to be followed up by a master’s to have meaning in a career. When Hunter College cost $24 a semester, and textbooks were reasonable. It was thought a holder of a liberal arts degree could do most anything, and college was less vocational training.

I could go on, but I have to answer a friend’s email.

HOWARD RING

Tracing the Waterways Beneath the Sidewalks of New York About New York By JIM DWYER MAY 11, 2017

When a vein is hard to find beneath a patient’s skin, doctors and nurses will sometimes tap on an arm, making the vessel visible.

On Friday afternoon, using blue chalk paint, Stacy Levy plans to palpate a few sidewalks on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to visualize the path of a stream, now out of sight, that has been running since ancient times.

Water doesn’t stop flowing because subways, shops and towers are built over streams and ponds. Much of New York before European settlement was a rich, wet archipelago. “Nature is not kicked out of the city,” said Ms. Levy, an environmental artist.

Searching for the city’s vanished waterways has become a form of specialized detective work, much of which begins with the Viele Map.

In 1865, Col. Egbert L. Viele, a West Point graduate who served as the chief engineer for Central and Prospect Parks, charted every existing waterway in Manhattan, and laid the map across the street grid. It records a city that had not yet been topographically reshaped to make room for its explosive growth in the second half of the 19th century; today, very little of those waterways can be seen without intrepid exploration in sewer lines.

But the map is digitally rendered online in the collection of David Rumsey at davidrumsey.com. It is still used by developers in Manhattan.

In pursuit of one stream, Ms. Levy is running a sidewalk workshop at 4:30 that begins at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, followed by a lecture under the sponsorship of NYC H2O, a nonprofit that provides education on city water and ecology.

“We are going to meet at Hunter College and walk the path of a tributary,” Ms. Levy said. “Actually, roughly the path. It would be winding through lobbies and entryways of buildings, but we will be on the sidewalk. We are going to be painting with blue chalk paint, iterating its passages.”

The stream being traced made its way along the east side of Manhattan, with some of it captured in a pond in the southeast corner of Central Park, and other branches eventually flowing into the East River at 47th Street. Historical texts show that a “kissing bridge” crossed it around 50th Street, and the name of the waterway appears to have been De Voor’s Mill Stream, said Steve Duncan, who has explored and documented the city’s watercourses, past and present.

“In New York, we were blessed with plentiful natural streams,” Mr. Duncan said. “Clear lines with an origin and endpoint, that is not how they work in real life. Water is feeding in all along the path.” Engineers in the 19th century followed those old watercourses in building sewer lines, he said.

Today, an especially large sewer line runs east along 47th Street, where the stream ran to the river. When the weather is dry or not very rainy, the combined storm-water runoff and domestic sewage is captured before it gets to the river and sent south to a treatment plant in Brooklyn. When there’s too much flow, both untreated sewage and storm-water go through the large sewer line, beneath the United Nations, and discharge into the East River, Mr. Duncan said.

Noting that the pond in Central Park, fed by the same stream system, is relatively clean, Mr. Duncan said it didn’t stay that way after heavy rain: “As soon as it comes out of the park, we mix it with the combined sewage.”

Tickets for Ms. Levy’s workshop and lecture are free, but should be reserved at eventbrite.com, said Matthew Malina, the executive director of NYC H2O. Most of the group’s talks tend to be more technical, he said, and he appreciates that Ms. Levy will provide another perspective. She will supply brushes and the chalk paint (“It washes away in the next rain,” she said), and talk about ways people can render the water.

Water that runs into turbulence, hitting a rock, takes on forms that are seen throughout nature, she said.

“You get these wonderful swirling vortices,” she said. “It’s like the spiral shape that hurricanes make at the beginning. It’s the way blood pumps through your heart. Da Vinci cast a glass heart and found that out. When you stir cream into your coffee, those forms are the exact same as a hurricane or in blood flowing through the heart.”

People in the workshop can figure out how to represent that turbulence, she said. Whether through brushstrokes or by gaining fresh knowledge of what is hidden, the connection will have power.

“You’re walking down a city street and get a sense that it is connected to another time,” Ms. Levy said. “It makes you feel more at home when you know what was there.”

Dresched to the nines

Emmy-nominated actress, author, cancer awareness advocate and Queens College alumna Fran Drescher, top center, was recognized with the school’s Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual gala on May 3 at Guastavino’s in Manhattan. The gala raised over $1 million in scholarship funds.

At the top, joining Drescher in a celebration that coincides with the college’s 80th anniversary year, were her longtime friends, actors Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon-Aykroyd.

Above with Drescher are Queens College President Felix Matos Rodriguez, left, Muriel Sapir Greenblatt — who was honored with the Alumni Award — and foreign language educator Evelyn Strauch, the recipient of the President’s Award.

Pakistani super star plays mystical music in Flushing on Sunday

He’s a triple threat – singer, actor, musician – and he does it in Urdu.

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (RFAK), who has been delighting standing-room-only audiences around the world lately, will offer a concert at Queens College’s Colden Auditorium on Sunday, May 14, at 7 p.m. (He’s actually on a tribute tour honoring his famous triple threat uncle, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (NFAK.)

This Pakistani megastar specializes in Qawwali, a devotional music of the Sufis, a mystical branch of Islam. He usually does sit-down performances on a stool with saxophone, guitar, tabla, keyboard, drums, and base guitar in the background. He prefers the unplugged sound to showcase his melodic vocals.

Tickets run from $39 to $259.

A household name throughout South Asia, RFAK comes from a family that has performed traditional Qawwali music for an estimated 600 years. His uncle chose him as a purveyor of the culture and starting tutoring him in the genre when he was three years old. He made his first public appearance at age nine, before joining NFAK’s traveling band. The 43-year-old native of Pakistan’s Faisalabad also works on Bollywood and Hollywood movies. For example, he contributed to the soundtracks for the films “Dead Man Walking” (1995) and Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” (2006). He also makes regular appearances on Pakistani TV, once being a judge on a show similar to “America’s Got Talent.”

Though sung primarily in Urdu (the national language of Pakistan), Qawwali is a fusion of musical traditions from India, Iran, Turkey, and the Arab World. The Arabic word “Qual” roughly translates as “utterance of the prophet.”

Songs are usually poems or odes to devotion and longing for the Divine and they can be 75-minutes long. Some praise Mohammed. Some lament a death. Others expound on love. An accompanying group, called a “party,” usually consists of at least eight male musicians who play instruments and hand-clap. Women were excluded from playing traditional Muslim music for centuries, but there are a few female artists who have gained acceptance recently.

DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AFTER GRADUATION? THESE CITIES HAVE TONS OF ENTRY- LEVEL JOB OPENINGS BY JULIA GLUM ON 5/11/17 AT 2:29 PM

You've finished your finals, snapped your last campus selfies and moved your tassel from right to left. Now what?

Well, you may want to consider moving to New York City, San Francisco or Washington, D.C., which are three of the top 10 regions hiring new graduates, according to a LinkedIn study released Thursday. Or becoming a software engineer, pilot or physical therapist, which are among the top-earning jobs with lots of open entry-level roles.

LinkedIn, the company behind all those emails you get, produced reassurances that graduates will, indeed, survive after college. Using information from thousands of profiles of people in the classes of 2015, 2016 and 2017, as well as salary data, it determined where you should go and who you should work for.

LinkedIn found that in New York City, for example, companies like Macy's, Citi and Goldman Sachs are hiring new grads in hot fields include marketing, advertising and financial services. But in Boston, another top city, places like Boston University, Wayfair and Massachusetts General Hospital need people in the health care, finance and higher education fields. Still, in Houston, companies like Deloitte and alliantgroup need information technology experts and energy buffs. "This isn't the time to sit back and be casual in your approach," Emily Bennington, who co-wrote Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out and Move Up at Your First Real Job, told Monster. "Create a hit list of five to 10 target companies, and really utilize your network to locate an 'in' at each."

You can also check out the most in-demand fields based on what level of education you have. If you've got a bachelor's degree, for example, some of the areas with the most job openings include elementary education, computer systems analysis and accounting, according to the College Board. If you have a graduate degree, there are lots of positions available in pharmacies and law firms.

As with all studies and surveys, these results should be taken with a grain of salt.

But you can almost always trust data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which in March found that the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metropolitan area in Colorado had the nation's lowest unemployment rate. Salt Lake City came in second, and Boston and Indianapolis followed.

Maybe it's time to pack your bags?

District 43 City Council forum combines both party candidates By John Alexander Brooklyn Daily Eagle The Brooklyn Board of Realtors and AARP hosted a forum to introduce the Democratic and Republican candidates for the 43rd Council District open seat (Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-Bensonhurst). The forum was open to the public and took place at the Shore Hill Community Center in Bay Ridge.

The candidates are running to succeed Vincent Gentile, a Democrat who has held the seat since 2003 but who is term-limited and cannot run for re-election this year. This event marked the first time that all seven declared candidates appeared together.

The Democrats running for their party’s nomination, which will be decided in a primary set for Sept. 12, are Justin Brannan, Gentile’s chief of staff; Kevin Peter Carroll, an aide to Councilmember Stephen Levin (D- DUMBO-Brooklyn Heights-Downtown Brooklyn); Rev. Khader El-Yateem, the pastor of Salam Arabic Lutheran Church in Bay Ridge; and Nancy Tong, the Democratic district leader in the 47th Assembly District.

The three Republican candidates hoping to be their party’s nominee (in a primary also set for Sept. 12) are Bob Capano, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and manager at a Gristedes supermarket in Manhattan; Liam McCabe, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Dan Donovan (R-C-Southwest Brooklyn-Staten Island); and John Quaglione, deputy chief of staff to state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Bay Ridge-Southwest Brooklyn).

AARP President Peter Killen and his wife Patricia organized what he called “an educational forum” to allow the candidates an opportunity to address the audience made up mainly of senior citizens. The candidates were introduced in alphabetical order and allowed seven minutes each to speak to the audience.

Brannan spoke first, emphasizing his deep roots in the Bay Ridge community, having grown up and gone to school in the neighborhood and having started groups like the Bay Ridge Democrats and Bay Ridge Cares, which delivers meals to seniors. Brannan said that he took the day off from working for Gentile to be at this event, and that he learned a lot from Gentile about “listening to and paying attention to our seniors.”

He referred to his audience as members of the greatest generation and “the ones who really helped build this city and build this community.” He said he wanted to protect seniors from scams by imposing more severe penalties for those who commit crimes against the elderly.

Second to speak was Capano, who also mentioned his roots in the community and the awards and accolades he’s received through the years. He spoke about lifting the caps on charter schools so that parents can afford to send their kids there. He said his experience in the private sector separated him from the other candidates, having had to deal with the issues that come from running a small business.

He said that he’s the only candidate who can say that he’s worked for Brooklyn’s top Democratic elected officials, having served as senior aide to former Borough Presidents Marty Markowitz and Howard Golden and Republican elected officials including U.S. Rep. Vito Fossella.

Carroll emphasized his community board experience, and his work as a district leader and community activist. He said he served on Community Board 10 for 12 years, and dealt with a variety of issues facing Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, including “adding a pedestrian walkway onto the Verrazano bridge and illegal home conversions.”

He said his community board experience allowed him to view the issues from a different perspective. Carroll also said that one of the most important issues facing the community is more affordable senior housing such as the Shore Hill Community Center and finding the space needed to build them.

El-Yateem, who also served on Community Board 10 for 12 years, described himself as an Arab-American immigrant born and raised in Bethlehem, adding, “I’m not talking about Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I’m talking about Bethlehem where Jesus was born.” He said that he came to the community 22 years ago to serve as pastor and fell in love with what he termed a “civic-minded community, a community that is engaged and organized, a community that likes to be involved and part of the process in decision making.”

He quickly became a community organizer who was civically engaged and founded the Bay Ridge Unity Task Force in order to bring Christians, Muslims and Jews, elected officials and the police department together, around the table so that we could identify issues of concern in the community and address them collectively.

El-Yateem said he has always strived to build bridges between people and work across party lines. He concluded by saying that his win would be a historic one because he would be the first Arab-American elected to the city council.

McCabe elicited laughter when he opened his remarks by saying, “It’s tough to follow a guy who was born in Bethlehem and is a priest.” Senior housing affordability was a primary goal for McCabe. He said that he was born and raised in the neighborhood and is now looking at the possibility of not being able to afford to buy a house, raise a family and live here anymore. He spoke about New York state’s $84 billion budget and how little of it is allocated for senior citizens.

He also vowed to fight for transportation for seniors by spending more on Access-A-Ride and having them work with Uber to provide better transportation options for seniors. Lastly, he expressed his desire to get some of the younger people moving into the neighborhood to volunteer to work on programs with seniors, “so that we can connect the past with the future.”

Quaglione referred to his 20 years working with Marty Golden and all the initiatives he’s helped put through, including cleaning up Shore Road Park and successfully petitioning the MTA to reinstate weekend service on the x27 and x28 bus lines. He spoke about his involvement with a number of community organizations including the Guild for Exceptional Children, being chairperson of the board of directors of St. Anselm Catholic Academy and helping to create a Brooklyn chapter of the March of Dimes.

He called the city budget a runaway train and chastised Mayor de Blasio and New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for improper spending and offering Pre-K 3 for free, saying “there’s a point where parents have to take responsibility for their children and not the city.”

Quaglione was sponsoring a petition calling on the Mayor to assign more police to the 68th and 62nd precincts, saying, “we are at an all-time low for police officers assigned to both precincts under the current administration.”

He concluded by addressing the issue of crimes against seniors, and his desire to increase the penalties for those who take advantage of the elderly, recalling the “Granny’s Law” bill that he and Golden helped pass.

Last to speak was Tong, who said she spent the majority of her life as a volunteer, working in schools and with seniors. As a result of her volunteer work, she met Assemblymember William Colton, who offered her a part- time job in his office. She said that over her eight years there she has worked with 10,000 constituents on a variety of issues.

She said no matter where you live the issues are all the same, such as train problems for example. She also addressed the issue of senior housing, calling senior centers a very good idea that allows seniors to engage with each other rather than sit at home watching television. She said she was a big supporter of universal Pre-K, which she called “the foundation in order to succeed.” She said her hope was not to build walls, but to build bridges in order to get things done.

A master’s in boasting: Cuomo scholarship program comes up short for beneficiaries

PUBLISHED: FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2017 AT 12:30 AM

After kicking the tires of the state’s much-vaunted Excelsior Scholarship, some SUNY trustees appeared less than enthused. They discussed the details of the program May 2 during a Finance and Administration Committee meeting. After reviewing the scholarship’s eligibility requirements, they found that just 5 percent of students enrolled at CUNY and SUNY schools this year would qualify. “It seems very low,” said SUNY Trustee Cary Staller. “I just can’t imagine what’s going to happen when Joe and Jane taxpayer, who have heard all this publicity about free college, and 5 percent of our SUNY students are eligible,” Trustee Nina Tamrowski said. “I’m thinking, wow, that’s going to be so disappointing.” Ms. Tamrowski is correct. Many New Yorkers who have planned on taking advantage of this tuition-free program are bound to feel let down once they realize it doesn’t live up to its billing. Introduced as part of the state budget earlier this year, the Excelsior Scholarship was hailed as a way to provide tuition-free college to more than 940,000 families. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who campaigned for president last year promoting free college education, appeared with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Jan. 3 to laud the program. While announcing the plan that day, Mr. Cuomo said that if “you come from any family earning $125,000 or less, the state will provide free tuition” — a statement that is patently false. Once all the requirements are factored in, the eligibility list shrinks considerably. The program will be offered first to families making less than $100,000 per year. This income limit will increase to $125,000 per year by 2019. But other stipulations will reduce the number of those considered eligible. Students must have lived in New York for at least 12 consecutive months prior to the term for which they’ll begin receiving the scholarship, and they must remain state residents following graduation for the same number of years that they took the funding. In addition, they need to be enrolled full time and take at least 30 credit hours per year. They also must graduate on time, although there is some leeway for students facing hardships. To arrive at their estimated number of students who would be eligible for the program, SUNY trustees subtracted all students whose families make an adjusted gross income of less than $100,000 from the 605,000 students who are enrolled students at CUNY and SUNY schools this year. They reduced this amount further by subtracting the number of students who aren’t enrolled full time and don’t take at least 30 credit hours per year. This leaves 31,300 eligible people: 21,800 students at four-year schools and 9,500 students at two-year schools. That’s a paltry 5 percent of the system’s current student population. While heralding the Excelsior Scholarship, Mr. Cuomo has wasted no opportunity to pat himself for this wonderful idea. This is nothing new for the governor, of course, as he has a very favorable opinion of his performance in office. But this shameful self-promotion isn’t warranted in this instance. The free-tuition program has severe flaws, which have ignited legitimate concerns from stakeholders. Some of them believe the better route for helping students with educational expenses would be to expand the state Tuition Assistance Program. There seems to have been little input from those outside Mr. Cuomo’s very tight circle of advisers on this issue. So what we’re left with is an overhyped program designed to allow the governor to boast about his public service credentials for future election cycles. Does this sound like a good process for implementing effective public policies?

At SUNY Poly, resistance to procurement changes (FYI Politico) By Jimmy Vielkind 05/11/17

The new leader of two arms of SUNY Polytechnic Institute implicated in a bid-rigging scheme last year said a legislative push to pre-audit its economic development activities would just slow it down.

Bob Megna, a longtime state government hand, told reporters that the Fort Schuyler and Fuller Road management corporations have already been sufficiently reorganized after last year’s criminal charges against former SUNY Poly President Alain Kaloyeros and executives at several construction companies.

“We have put into place a lot [of policies] and … have essentially reconstituted both boards with many new members. We’ve put new guidelines and procedures in place,” Megna said. “So we’re going to be following much more closely to what state operating procedure is on anything we do, anyway.”

His comments echo those of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other administration officials who have resisted additional, independent oversight in the wake of the indictments, which also snared Cuomo adviser Joe Percoco. Percoco, Kaloyeros and the developers have pleaded not guilty.

Kaloyeros was accused of rigging the bids on high-tech projects in Albany, Buffalo and Syracuse that were contracted through FRMC and FSMC, two non-profit entities controlled by SUNY Poly that it used for contracting.

Good-government groups and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli had criticized the arrangement, noting the non-profits were not subject to oversight and transparency requirements applied to governmental agencies and authorities.

DiNapoli unveiled legislation last year that would prevent FRMC and FSMC from entering contracts on behalf of the government. It would also restore his ability to pre-audit more SUNY contracts — power he had until 2011, when it was taken away from his office while Megna was Cuomo’s budget director.

“It’s not that they can’t question, it’s that they often want to be involved in the process before the process has even gotten started. And that usually lengthens the process quite a bit — I’m not being critical, that’s a fact,” Megna said. “They have their opinion about that and the process, but they can certainly ask questions and can certainly look in to any spending before it actually goes out the door.”

There is support among rank-and-file lawmakers for advancing the bill, but legislative leaders say they are loath to act without negotiating with the governor. Cuomo and Megna both noted that FSMC and FRMC are now effectively being managed by Empire State Development, and have re-jiggered their holdings and operations to clear what Megna has called “the Kaloyeros hangover.”

And Megna said the state may use the entities less frequently. ESD recently approved $200 million for a pharmaceutical factory in Dunkirk that was to be built by FSMC, but it gave the money directly to the expected tenant, Athenex. FSMC is still handling the funds related to a chip fab and laboratory in Utica.

ESD chief operating officer Kevin Younis said the decision about Athenex was made because of its experience dealing with the federal Food and Drug Administration, and was not a sign of a blanket policy shift. But Megna said FSMC and FRMC would not automatically be involved in SUNY Poly projects going forward.

“I think it really depends on the situation and the project,” Megna said. “On some of these … where it’s pure grant money going for a very specific purpose that doesn’t require any of the Fort Schuyler expertise or access to information — I think that’s going to be a case-by-case basis.”

Long Island hires and promotions: Gary Jendras, RotaCare (Newsday) May 11, 2017 8:58 PM By Diane Daniels

BOARDS

RotaCare, a medical clinic in Uniondale, has two new board members.

Gary Jendras of Garden City is a retired vice president and internal auditor of Bethpage Federal Credit Union in Bethpage.

Adam Karol of Garden City owns a State Farm Insurance office in Garden City.

BANKING

Tom Rose of Flushing, Queens, a vice president and branch manager at Apple Bank for Savings in Forest Hills, Queens, has been appointed branch manager in the Plainview office.

Bank of America has three new hires.

Stuart Chaplin of Old Westbury has been hired as wealth management lending officer in Garden City. He was senior wealth management lending officer at Citibank in Great Neck.

Paul A. Durante of Commack has been hired as vice president/wealth management lending officer in Melville. He was a private client mortgage banker at JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan.

Jonathan Lee Kanders of Great Neck has been hired as financial center lending officer in Garden City. He was a mortgage lending officer at Guardhill Financial Corp. in Manhattan.

ARCHITECTURE

H2M architects + engineers in Melville has five new hires.

Stanley Mui of Great Neck has been hired as a graphic designer and was a web designer at Software Engineering of America in Manhattan.

Diana O’Brien of Huntington has been hired as a graphic designer and was a graphic designer/proposal and presentation specialist at NFP (National Financial Partners) in Plainview.

Stefan Reiss of Holbrook has been hired as a construction administrator and was a project manager at the Lee Michaels Group in Bohemia.

Jeremy Cirillo of Melville has been hired as a staff data analyst and is a recent geography- sustainable studies graduate of Hunter College in Manhattan.

Joseph Aviles of Rockaway Park, Queens, has been hired as a coatings inspector and was a journeyman painter for Ahern Painting contractors in Brooklyn.

REAL ESTATE

Emily Cunha of Mineola has been hired as a licensed sales associate at Laffey Real Estate in Brookville. She was with Weich ert Realtors in Mineola.

Medgar Evers College, PEN Festival Offers Voices to African Luminaries Medgar Evers College (MEC) hosted a forum last week entitled “Identity in the Age of Globalization: An African Diaspora Perspective,” as part of the PEN World Voices citywide series of forums with the theme of literature and its relationship with human rights.

The event featured cutting edge African authors at the Edison O. Jackson Auditorium doing readings from their work and having an interactive conversation in panel form.

MEC Executive Director of The Center for Black Literature Brenda Greene began the evening speaking about the powerful legacy of elder griots (traditional storytellers from West Africa). She then introduced the panel, which featured Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian author specializing in gender politics, Maaza Mengiste, an Ethiopian-born Brooklyn resident whose debut novel, “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze,” (W.W. Norton, 2011) received critical embrace, and Peter Kimani, whose contemporary fiction exploring Kenya’s colonial legacy has been critically acclaimed.

“As a woman, feminist, Muslim, and African, I’m tired of white writers coming to Egypt and telling our story,” said Eltahawy (Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution — FSG, 2015), while addressing the idea of the national and ethnic identity of Egypt.

Andy Tepper of Vanity Fair and Ms. magazines, who moderated the free-flowing panel, listened intently as Mengiste recalled growing up in Ethiopia during the Derg Revolution, its Red Terror, and the aggressively shocking behavior of human beings during an ideological conflict – all the while jotting her memories down because her parents refused to discuss how a failed revolution descended into a genocidal civil war. The program, in collaboration with The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, was a landmark event as it celebrated and meditated on the achievements of these literary luminaries.

“As a Kenyan author, my country dealt with 100 years of imperialism so I feel obligated to have to write an authentic, meaningful novel,” said Kimani with a gentleness in his voice (“Dance of the Jacaranda” — Akashic, 2017), one of Africa’s most prominent authors. “And yet, the desire to be loved is a message consistent with any writer in any given part of the world.”

More than 50 students from the college attended the programmatic activity in a relaxed environment. Some bought books, and received handwritten inscriptions in a brisk book signing where they sought to continue discussing the problems and opportunities facing African authors.

“I appreciate African literature giving me a break from the classics,” said MEC undergraduate Jenifer Joseph.“It’s great to be here and celebrate the work of these African writers, with whom I now have more than an on-paper relationship.”

Editor’s Note: This article is affectionately dedicated to Stephen Zarlenga (1941-2017), who passed away on Tuesday, April 25th after a years-long fight with cancer. Truly sad to lose an alternative voice like his. Glad I had the opportunity to see him speak. Hopefully, more young people will continue to become interested in his ideas about the need for monetary reform and the well-being of all.

The top 5 states for working moms in 2017 In honor of Mother’s Day, WalletHub released its annual list of the top locations for the over 70 percent of moms who work According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up almost half of the workforce, but they only made 83 percent of what their male counterparts made — and the gap only grows when other factors, such as race, are considered. The gender pay gap hinders some single women from becoming homeowners despite their strong and consistent interest in buying, and mothers are impacted even more because of the pressure to sacrifice work in favor of taking care of the home — 39 percent of mothers have taken a “significant” amount of time off from work or have reduced their working hours (42 percent) to care for children and family members. Another 27 percent have quit working altogether.

“Such obvious inequality has spawned a great deal of debate about gender roles in a shifting socioeconomic environment,” noted WalletHub writer John Kiernan.

“Workplace inequality is important not only in the spirit of a merit-based economy but also for deeply ingrained social reasons. For instance, should women have to choose between career and family?”

In honor of Mother’s Day, WalletHub released its annual list of the best cities and states where moms can be successful inside and outside of the home.

Top states for working moms:

1. Vermont 2. Minnesota

3. New Jersey

4. Delaware

5. Connecticut

Those rounding out the top 10 were clustered in the Northeast (Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and New York) with the exception of Illinois, which ranked 10th.

States at the bottom of the list included Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana and Alabama, which came in dead last.

WalletHub identified the best and worst states by identifying 13 relevant metrics falling under three key categories: child care (40 points), professional opportunities (30 points) and work-life balance (30 points). Vermont came out on top (for the second year in a row) with a score of 65.45 for its quality child care options (no. 3), plethora of professional opportunities (no. 7) and great work-life balance (no. 5).

Alabama ranked last due to low-quality child care options (no. 44), a lack of professional opportunities (no. 51) and abysmal work-life balance (no. 44).

In addition to the list, WalletHub spoke with a panel of experts to get their opinions on how to best improve the plight of working mothers.

One of those experts, Caitlyn Collins, assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, says companies need to expand the work-family policies they offer to employees and make employees, especially mothers, feel comfortable with actually taking advantage of those benefits.

“Policies like paid parental leave, flexible schedules and telecommuting options are a great place to start,” she said. Collins said higher-ups should serve as role models by using work-family benefits, talking about them and openly supporting employees who use parental leave.

According to the experts, states can most effectively shift more control into the hands of working moms through mandated paid leave, laws for unfair employment practices and improvements to child care, while employers should re-imagine workplace values to better include working parents.

Furthermore, the experts say it’s important to not frame parental leave as a “women’s only” issue, but to include men in the conversation so they feel more comfortable taking leave, which helps moms, too.

“The gender neutral [leave] policies are more appropriate for the contemporary world in which women are educated, and often more educated than men, and just as ready to assume work responsibilities,” said Barbara Katz Rothman, professor of sociology at CUNY.

USA: Return to bigoted anti-Muslim travel ban would cause immeasurable harm

12 May 2017, 04:01 UTC

The Trump administration’s executive order on travel, scheduled for federal appeals court review on Monday, would harm both immigrants and US citizens if allowed to enter into effect, warns Amnesty International in a briefing paperreleased today.

“President Trump’s travel ban order separated families and sent a message of bigotry and intolerance,” said Joanne Mariner, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International. “This harmful and discriminatory ban deserves the most probing judicial scrutiny.”

The briefing paper, a joint initiative of Amnesty International and the CLEAR project (Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility) at CUNY School of Law,describes how the travel ban imposed by President Trump is contrary to international human rights law, violating treaties the US has committed to uphold. Based on interviews with more than 30 people affected by the ban, it includes a dozen case studies of the harms caused to individuals and families from Yemen, Iran, Sudan and elsewhere.

The first executive order was only in effect for a week before it was blocked on a nationwide basis by a federal court in Seattle, a ruling that was upheld on appeal. Even during that brief period, the order succeeded in wreaking havoc on people’s lives. Revisions to the original order have not alleviated the confusion.

“This order was a blatant attempt to write anti-Muslim discrimination into law,” said Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “While court after court rules against it, Congress has the power to stop it now by passing legislation that will nullify it once and for all. The families and individuals thrown into chaos and uncertainty cannot wait.”

The briefing paper describes the human cost of the executive order, which separated families, disrupted people’s carefully laid plans, and caused enormous emotional anguish.

Fearing that his family would be permanently barred from the US because of their Yemeni citizenship led Baraa H. (not his real name) and his wife to leave their baby daughter in Malaysia, in the care of friends. “It was a very cruel choice,” Baraa told Amnesty International, but one that he felt was forced upon him.

A Sudanese doctor doing post-graduate training in internal medicine was separated from his wife and four-month-old baby in Dubai, where he feared they might be stuck for months. “It was a big ordeal for both of us,” he said. “We didn’t know what the end result would be.” A Pakistani research scholar whose Iranian wife was caught up in the ban, and was barred from boarding two flights, recalled the experience as “maybe the most stressful week in my life.”

While the courts acted quickly to overturn the ban, a Syrian woman who was initially prevented from traveling to the US emphasized the hurt and anxiety caused by the executive order.

“What was much bigger,” she explained, “was the emotional turmoil. It makes you feel that no matter who you really are, what you achieve, you’re always going to be labeled something negative.”

Even people who have lived in the US for decades were shaken. A US citizen of Iranian descent, who came to live in the US at age eight, said the executive order hit her very hard.

“It was heartbreaking,” she said, as her voice choked up. “Overnight I went from feeling American to feeling like an invader in my own country.”

She explained: “I felt like my country didn’t want me. I felt like if they could take away my citizenship they would.”

Besides documenting the harms caused by President Trump’s first executive order during the relatively brief period in which it was in effect, the briefing paper describes the situations of people who are still awaiting US visas, some of whom could be irreparably harmed if the US courts were to rule that the second executive order is constitutional.

An Iranian transsexual refugee who has been waiting two years for resettlement to the US lives in a situation of harassment and abuse. “I cannot stand it anymore like this,” she said. “I just want to live in a safe place.”

Amnesty International and the CLEAR project collaborated together on the research for the briefing paper. When the first executive order was in effect, law students and attorneys at CLEAR provided legal advice to scores of immigrants and refugees who were stranded abroad, on their way to the US, or detained at US airports. Its staff referred some of these people for interviews by Amnesty International, and provided information and analysis about the impact of the executive order.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments in a challenge to President Trump’s executive order on Monday, 15 May; four days ago the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard arguments in a parallel challenge. Together with a group of law professors and nongovernmental organizations, Amnesty International filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief with both courts.

“If allowed to go into effect, the travel ban order would inflict terrible suffering on some of the most vulnerable people in the world,” said Joanne Mariner. “To date, the courts have been right to block this shameful policy.”