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FROM A HENRY ROTH MEMOIR Call It Writing: “Streetwise” in the City: A City College Epiphany Language and Culture on the Beat en years before publishing his By Leslee Oppenheim tal theme of this initiative, developed by classic novel Call It Sleep in 1934 Director of Curriculum and Instruction, CUNY for the NYPD, from Police Commis- T to mixed reviews, Henry Roth (pic- Adult and Continuing Education, Office of sioner Howard Safir’s opening remarks: tured right at about that time) began his Academic Affairs police officers who know about the lan- freshman year at the City College of New guage and culture of the communities they York. In one of several volumes of mem- leven hundred new NYPD officers, serve, equip themselves with powerful oirs Roth wrote late in life under the um- day-old graduates of the Police tools for ensuring the safety and well-being brella title Mercy of a Rude Stream, he EAcademy, file into darkened audito- of themselves, their colleagues, and the devoted more than 150 pages to his colle- riums at four CUNY campuses on July 2. public at large. giate days. This volume, A Diving Rock on The crackle of a police radio can be heard. the Hudson, was published by St. Martin’s As the lights dim, the volume rises. In total he newly-assigned officers in the audi- in 1995 (Picador paperback, 1996), which darkness now, the graduates hear a Tence that day are about to plunge into was also the year he died at the age of 89. woman’s voice screaming rapid-fire Spanish their first command, where they will en- His college days began on an exultant at two police officers seated in a radio car. counter the unique sights and sounds of note: “How beautiful, how glorious, the Extremely agitated, she warns the officers the community and the atmosphere and first hour or two spent in the environs of her assailant is armed with a gun. A chase personalities of their precinct house. Im- CCNY was! An academic cornucopia it ensues; the situation rapidly escalates; mersed in this flood of impressions, they seemed, so bountiful and promising from shots are fired. will begin to form ideas about local ethnic the outside” that Roth said he was con- A dangerous situation—and it is made groups and develop personal ways of inter- vinced he had “made the right choice after even more perilous because, unfortunately, acting with the public. all” (he had turned down Cornell in favor to a C-minus average in [my] scholastic work,” the police officers do not speak Spanish. The Streetwise training was designed to of the City on a hill). But depression soon Roth wryly remarks in A Diving Rock.) Having truly secured the attention of the give new officers strategies for rejecting followed when—’twas ever thus on regis- Though his academic performance at rookie officers, a CUNY-led instructional ethnic stereotypes and bias by encouraging tration day—Roth found most of the City College was less than nondescript, team then proceeded to unfold unique, si- them to seek the guidance of culturally and classes he had planned to take were al- Roth learned the most important lesson of multaneous, day-long training sessions. linguistically knowledgeable colleagues and ready full. his life there. The events leading up to it Titled “Streetwise: Language, Culture and local residents, and by studying the lan- Roth graduated in the Class of 1928 are recalled from two poignant angles in the Police Work in New York City,” this program guage and culture of the community they (Emanuel Streisand, Barbra’s father, was closing pages of A Diving Rock. Here Roth is a first-time collaboration between CUNY serve. Each campus focused on one of a classmate), married and fathered two mingles a recreation of his debut as a pub- and the NYPD, and was based on the cam- three linguistic and cultural communities— children, and then spent many decades, lished writer (Part I) with a retrospect on puses of Bronx Community, Baruch, Mandarin Chinese, Haitian Creole, and (at first in Boston and then in Maine, working the moment from the end of his life, sixty LaGuardia Community, and Medgar Evers two campuses) Spanish speakers—and in various jobs such as woodsman, school- years later (Part II). Colleges. (A simultaneous training session drew on reality-based experiences of sea- teacher, attendant in a mental hospital, The scene is the classroom of a young focused on the African-American commu- soned police officers. and waterfowl farmer while suffering from Composition 1 teacher, Arthur Dickson, a nity and developed by John Jay College was Among the day’s sessions was one called one of American letters’ most famous Columbia Ph.D. student who went on to a offered at York College.) “Word of Mouth.” Officers were introduced long career in the CCNY English Depart- writer’s blocks. Enormous acclaim, how- The officers soon learned the fundamen- Continued on page 5 ever, came to Roth with the paperback ment. At a memorial service in 1962 he reprinting of Call It Sleep in 1964. The was recalled as a “stern professor” and one One Streetwise training video featured next year CCNY honored him with a grand impatient with such “educationist flimflam” as the newfangled notion of a “survey Officer Anthony Parisi in voiceover for presidential fête and bestowal of its this shot of him talking to a woman in course.” “No one was late twice” in his Townsend Harris Medal for “Notable Chinatown: “First I ask if they speak Achievement.” (“Notable achievement equal classroom. Roth’s impression was a bit English. If they don’t, I ask in Cantonese Continued on page 11 if they speak Cantonese. If not, I repeat the question in Mandarin. At least if I know what dialect they’re speaking, I can sort of work within my small 1999-2000 Budget Request framework of that language. I can also request a Mandarin-speaking officer. If you just say ‘Chinese-speaking’ and a Calls for Five-year Funding Cantonese speaker shows up, he’s no better off than I am!” he University's 1999-2000 Operating Budget Request of $1.4 billion, or 8.4% Tmore than the 1998-1999 appropriated level, was scheduled to be voted on by the Board of Trustees on Oct. 26, 1998. The Request was recommended by the Board's Committee on Fiscal Affairs following discussions at joint meetings of the IN THIS ISSUE Board's Academic and Fiscal Committees. The Request was proposed by Interim Chancellor Christoph Kimmich within the Ponder the accomplishments framework of a five-year budget plan and emphasizes standards, opportunity, ser- of this eminent political activist vice, and accountability. Last year, Governor George Pataki and the State Legisla- in an interview with her ture adopted a five-year capital plan for CUNY and SUNY. The operating Request biographer on page 7; learn this year includes mandatory increases for fixed costs (collective bargaining, infla- about the CUNY connections of tion) and a yearly 5% increase above these required costs. A public hearing on the this 20th-century master of the Request was held by the Trustees on Oct. 19. blue note and his brother on The University's budget is submitted to the Governor, the Mayor, the State Legis- page 5. lature, and the City Council for review and approval, as appropriate to the funding source. The full Request can be viewed at the CUNY website (www.CUNY.edu).

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BREAST CANCER PIONEERS AT CCNY Imaging the Enemy

emarkable strides are currently sue to form images of its interior. Light being made by researchers at the transiting through tissues undergoes mul- RCity College Institute for Ultrafast tiple scattering that results in a loss of in- Spectroscopy and Lasers in the develop- formation. The team employs several tech- ment of optical mammography and tomogra- niques to sort out image-bearing photons phy methods for breast cancer screening. and discriminate against image-bearing, Tomography is a technique for imaging a multiple-scattered photons. cross-sectional slice of an object, like the Light also takes different amounts of human body, to reveal its internal structure; time to transit through different types of combining these slices produces a three- tissue (normal or cancerous, fatty or fi- dimensional image of the object. brous), even though the thickness may be This research uses light to image and the same. Alfano’s group exploits this dif- diagnose tumors in the human breast, a ference in transit times to highlight normal much less invasive and far less expensive and cancerous breast tissues, as shown in approach than x-ray mammography, cur- the accompanying figure. rently the most common screening method. X-ray mammography employs harmful ioniz- olor of light provides another key ad- ing radiation, cannot distinguish between Cvantage. The interaction of light with benign and malignant tumors, and is not tissues depends on the color of light and sufficiently effective in detecting tumors type of tissue. This now makes it possible, within dense, young breasts. Optical meth- for example, to highlight fatty tissue in the ods such as those being used at City College middle of an excised breast tissue speci- have the potential to overcome these limita- men from fibrous tissues adjacent to it. tions and provide diagnostic information This technique has the potential for use in Normal and cancerous breast tissues are compared above, imaged by pulses of near-infrared light pulses of utilizing the color of light. mapping out the distribution of fat, water, 150 femtosecond duration from a titanium/ sapphire laser. An ultrafast camera, capable of opening its Ultrashort pulse duration (a billionth to a hemoglobin, and cancerous lesions once “shutter” for 80 trillionths of a second, formed two snapshots of the tissue. The corresponding graphs show trillionth of a second) and wavelength the wavelengths of light that resonate with light emerging from two tissues at different times; in the two frames, light emerges sooner from the cancerous tunability (from 1150 to 1300 billionths of a these constituents of tissue are identified. tissue. The distinction will become a tool of diagnosis. meter) are two key properties of light used If successful, this research will also make by the CCNY researchers. The team—di- it possible to make cancer diagnoses with- rected by Dr. Robert Alfano, Distinguished out taking biopsies. Professor of Science and Engineering, and The research team is working to identify Labour in the New Millennium including Dr. Swapan Gayen, Manuel the “fingerprint” wavelengths and optimal Zevallos, and Mohammed Alrubaiee—makes “slices” of time that will help determine he Monthly Review Press use of light transmitted through breast tis- whether a tissue is cancerous or normal. Thas just published a col- lection of essays compiled by the Labor Resource Center at Queens College, A New Labor Kilo + Leaders Movement for the New Century. This anthology, edited by the Director of the Office of Worker Education at Queens College, Dr. Gregory Mantsios, explores a variety of topics related to the values, goals, structure, and strategies of the labor movement in the U.S. Among the questions ad- dressed in the nearly two dozen essays are: Has labor broken sufficiently from the policies of the past to reverse its long de- cline in membership? How is labor responding to a workforce increasingly made up n mid-August, University Trustees Mizanoor Biswas, of women and people of color? I Kenneth Cook, Kathleen Pesile, John Morning, What political alliances and Interim Chancellor Christoph Kimmich, and other international policies should University officials convened at a Huntington, Long labor pursue? Island, hotel with 80 CUNY student leaders and a The idea of the volume grew dog named Kilo for the annual University Student out of a conference held on the Senate Leadership Conference. Trustee Biswas (with tie) and Chancellor Kimmich are seen at center with Queens College campus on the some of the participants. The student leaders eve of the historic first con- attended two days of workshops covering such tested election of top AFL-CIO topics as parliamentary procedure, State and City leadership at its 1995 conven- budget processes, legislative processes, child care, tion. John J. Sweeney, the win- services for students with disabilities, voter ner of that election, provides an afterword education/ registration, and opportunities for to the volume. graduate study. “They were a wonderful group— Well?? articulate, alive with questions about the quality of All royalties from the book will be de- teaching, support services, and the improvement voted to scholarships for students enrolled “Why are simple shapes art?” of campus life, and, above all, willing to listen,” in the Queens College Bachelor of Applied Chancellor Kimmich said afterward. “Our student Social Science, a special degree program —child’s question in a guestbook, body is well served by this group.” designed to prepare students for advocacy Santa Fe Museum of Art work with unions, community organiza- tions, and government.

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CUNY Helps A CITY COLLEGE EXHIBIT Satisfy a Crave Tracks More than a hundred years ago, Jane Addams observed, “It will be With impossible to establish a higher political life than the people them- Tenure selves crave.” CUNY’s award-win- ning graphic designer Bill Freeland hen the first Chancellor found many different type fonts W of the newly created City and student faces for this wisdom University of New York took in preparing the focal image for office in 1961, Time magazine the 1998-99 CUNY Voter Registra- billed him as head of “Subway tion Project. University” and made particu- Since the Board of Trustees re- lar reference to City College. solved to establish a University- Taking this phrase as a badge of honor rather than a snide remark, the sponsored system of voter registra- Archives of City College has just opened an exhibit of more than 70 images tion in May of 1987, CUNY cam- that reveal how the building of the New York City rapid transit system af- puses have collaborated with the fected the College, first at its original location at Lexington Avenue and City and State Boards of Elections, 23rd Street and then at the St. Nicholas Heights campus. student government leaders, and “Subway University: Making Tracks to City,” which will be on view faculty organizations to encour- through January 14, age and facilitate the craving to features horse- vote. Among the initiatives spon- drawn street cars, sored by the Project trolleys, and el- have been a me- evated railroad dia campaign routes that have (funded by Barnes & served the College. Noble) featuring such Particular attention authors as Alice Walker is paid to the con- and Stephen King and the struction of the IRT establishment, in 1996, of a Broadway Line (now voter registration site on the the 1 and 9 trains) CUNY homepage on the and the opening of Internet. For further information on the 137th Street sta- the current Project, contact Voter tion, which was Registration Coordinator, Eileen named for the Col- Doherty at 212-794-5325. lege in 1922. The station is pictured top right as it looked until the mid-1980s, when remodeling took place. The name and terra cotta plaque of the College seal are still in use. Images from the New York Transit Museum also document construction of the IND A line, which took place within view of the towers of Shepard Hall. City College alumni who helped develop the system are included, as is a photograph of the College student who was “Miss Subways” in 1949 and Italo-Americans Honor Trustee Paolucci images showing use of the subway to publicize college programs, as well as for sleeping and studying. Also highlighted are outstanding graduates who he glittering Waldorf-Astoria Grand Ballroom Nobel Laureate. Paolucci was also a found- have written about riding the subway to City, among them Lewis Mumford Tprovided a dramatic backdrop recently when ing member of the 16-year-old CIAA. and General Colin Powell. CUNY Board of Trustees Chairwoman Anne Paolucci shared the dais with Mayor Rudolph Pictured above is an example of the extensive advertising campaign for Paolucci joined distinguished Italian-American Giuliani and fellow honorees, the actors Danny City College’s first general adult education program, begun in 1944 in col- artists, businessmen, and political figures to re- Aiello (Oustanding Achievement in Film, Televi- laboration with the New York Public Library. ceive Leadership Awards from the Coalition of sion, and Theater) and Susan Lucci (Leadership Author Vivian Gornick (Class of 1957), who has written eloquently on Italo-American Associations (CIAA) at its 15th in Entertainment); Andrew Spano, Westchester traveling between her immigrant neighborhood and the world of intellectual annual dinner. County Executive (Leadership in Government); discourse, will be the guest speaker at the opening of the exhibit on Nov. 9 More than 1,000 guests looked on at the Franco Mistretta, Consul General of Italy (Lead- at 4 p.m. in the Atrium of the College’s Cohen Library in the North Academic black-tie gala as Dr. Paolucci received the ership in International Affairs); and Francis La Center. The exhibit will be on view during regular Library hours (for which Leadership in Education Award, the accompa- Maini, President and CEO of Dick Clark Produc- call 650-7292). For more information, call 212-650-7609. tions (Leadership in Business). nying citation singling out her accomplishments —Barbara Dunlap, City College Archives & Special Collections as a playwright and noted scholar of Luigi In her remarks following the Sept. 18 presen- Pirandello, the great Sicilian playwright and tation, Paolucci spoke passionately of the Italo- American experience, and the common threads it shares with so many races and groups who have NICKLE ODE found both continuity and renewal When a fare reduction for students was instituted on the elevated rail- in America. "We all come to know way that went to the old Free Academy Building, the College Mercury, who we are through an ever-chang- ing awareness of what we have a student newspaper, waxed poetic in 1880: been historically and biologically O happy student, who can be as Asians, Africans, Europeans, whatever–coming from diverse re- In happiness compared to thee. gions, languages, dialects, and The only mortal who can dare ways of life that remain deeply To ride the el for a five cent fare. rooted in us." Long did thy noble, suff’ring soul William Fugazy, left, and New York State Contend ere it could reach its goal; Senator Serphin Maltese presenting a Long did thy pocket-book so bare CIAA Leadership Award to Trustee Chairwoman Paolucci. Photo, André Submit to pay a ten cent fare. Beckles

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legantly tailoring his tennis com- winning memoirist Frank McCourt. cooperative educa- mentary to the Big Apple during The second issue, which appeared Oc- tion program. “The Ethe U.S. Open final, John McEnroe tober 1, presents a story by Ethan Coen magazine is part of observed that Mark Philippoussis was trying (film-maker best known for Fargo and the educational pro- not to “bagel out”—lose a set 6-0—at the Raising Arizona) and an excerpt from cess,” says Blaine. end of his match with Patrick Rafter John Updike’s new novel Bech at Bay. “Students partici- (he did, though). The full magazine-size format is replete pate in many cru- One is tempted to coin the phrase “bagel with striking black and white photogra- cial aspects of our in”—to produce a lot of “Oh!s”—for the new phy that relates to each story, and it will day-to-day function- nationally-distributed LaGuardia Community be available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, ing and we are al- College literary magazine, New York Stories. Tower, and other chains in the U.S., ways explaining why In the inaugural Spring 1998 issue, Prof. Canada, and Australia. we are making deci- Michael Blaine, editor in chief of NYS, de- Aiding NYS editors are LaGuardia stu- sions about whether scribes it as “a fiction magazine for an inter- dent interns chosen from the College’s or not to buy a par- national city” but hastily adds, “we gravitate ticular piece.” toward work set in the five boroughs, but we ALL IN THE TIMING Oh. . .one other are by no means a regional review. . .A New Q: Do you ever wonder why you thing. Also in the York story can take place anywhere.” didn’t write Angela’s Ashes earlier in your October issue is a The seven-story first issue featured life? non-fiction account short fiction from such prominent writers A: Well, if I had written anything so by Tom Beller, a as Teresa Svoboda, author of the novel successful, I’d be dead of whiskey and former New Yorker Cannibal and frequent New Yorker con- fornication. Came to me at the right staff writer, of life tributor; Carolyn Cooke, whose short sto- time. God is good. in—you guessed ries have made the Best American Sto- —End of an interview with Frank McCourt it—a New York ries and O’Henry Award series. Also in in the inaugural issue of New York Stories bagel factory. this issue was an interview with Pulitzer-

Student Media Conference Draws Praise, Pros

ore than 120 CUNY student jour- room to the Newsroom: What’s Available at sentatives of news organizations, who were a journalist needed in order to recover from nalists, advisers, and faculty re- CUNY and Beyond.” on hand to offer a variety of professional a mistake in print, Dwyer, after a pause, re- Mcently shared a spirited day- “The conference provided a wonderful newsgathering opportunities to CUNY stu- sponded succinctly: “amnesia.” That riposte long program of strong opinions, amus- opportunity for CUNY’s student journalists dents. They included the Wall Street Jour- captured the dual themes of humor and seri- ing anecdotes, and no-nonsense advice to meet one another and also have a dia- nal, the New York Times, Newsday, el diario ousness that animated the conference. with a “who’s who“ group of professional logue with some of the giants of the profes- La Prensa, the Staten Island Advance, journalists at the first annual City Uni- sion,” said Mizanoor B. Biswas, Chair of WNBC- TV, New York 1 News, WCBS uring the lunch break, CUNY journal- versity Student Media Conference, held the University Student Senate and a Univer- Newsradio88, WADO, WBLS, and Bronxnet. D ists mingled with their professional at the Borough of Manhattan Community sity Trustee, after extending greetings to It was, however, the speakers and panel- counterparts, lobbed questions at several College on October 2. ists with their messages of hope, internship representatives, explained their Joining CUNY’s conferees was optimism and pride in the oft- own campus programs, and exchanged pub- an all-star cast of professional criticized craft of journalism that lications and opinions. journalists, all of whom appeared the student media responded to Enthusiasm grew more intense when the gratis. The professionals included with greatest gusto. afternoon’s keynote speaker, Pete Hamill, Michel Marriott (New York In a stirring speech, the gave an impassioned and inspirational ad- Times), novelist and journalist morning’s keynote speaker, the dress. Hamill, a former editor-in-chief of Pete Hamill, Pulitzer Prize win- Times’ Michel Marriott exhorted both the Daily News and New York Post, ners Jim Dwyer (Daily News) and the students to “reject cynicism, repeatedly emphasized that, in ethnically Jimmy Breslin (Newsday), Elinor to live every minute, to cherish diverse New York City, it is important to Tatum (Editor-in-chief of The every conversation, to ask ques- remember “there are so many more things Amsterdam News), Terry Golway tions, to always ask questions!” that bind us together than separate us.” (New York Observer), WCBS Marriott—who reports for his Himself the son of Irish immigrants, NewsRadio88 co-anchors Harley paper’s hi-tech Circuits sec- Hamill suggested that, as journalists, it was Carnes and Deborah Rodriguez, tion and also teaches journal- the job of those at the conference to “help columnist Gerson Borrero (el ism at City College’s Depart- explain each other to each other, and to try diario La Prensa, radio WADO), ment of Communications, and make chaos manageable.” From left, Jim Dwyer, CUNY Director of Media Relations John Hamill, Carol Anne Riddell (WNBC-TV), Jimmy Breslin, and Deborah Rodriguez on a Media Conference panel. Film and Video—challenged Gesturing toward the glassy majesty of and Patrick Healy (Chronicle of Photo André Beckles. students to “be the ones who New York harbor visible through the win- Higher Education). write the history.” dow behind him, Hamill challenged the The conference, titled “Campus Coverage the conference. Impetus for holding the In the kick-off panel, “News and Opinion: group to incorporate his mother’s dic- Today, Career Opportunities Tomorrow,” conference came in part from student jour- The Important Difference,” Dwyer, Breslin, tum—“never look down on anybody un- saw student editors, journalists, radio sta- nalists, and Biswas saw the exchange with Borrero, Carnes, and Rodriguez enjoyed a less you’re giving them a hand to get tion personnel, and educators gather on the their professional counterparts as mutually lively Q&A with the student journalists that up”—into their approach to journalism. College’s Richard Harris Terrace. Following beneficial. “It allowed members of the me- ranged from the need to cover more good The conference responded with a pro- welcoming remarks by Interim Chancellor dia to better identify with the concerns of news to the growth and viability of the city’s longed standing ovation. Christoph M. Kimmich, the day’s events in- CUNY students, to the benefit of both the ethnic press. When asked what importance “The conference was just terrific, and is cluded a series of panels on such subjects students and the University.” accurate reporting had in making a something that we have needed at the City as “Student Newspaper Survival Strategies: The event was organized by CUNY’s Of- columnist’s opinions more viable, Breslin University for a long time,” said Greg Adam Funding and Running A Student Newspa- fices of University Relations and Student answered that good reporting necessitated of WSIA radio, College of Staten Island in per,” “Campus Radio: Getting on the Air, Affairs. “climbing a lot of stairs”—which in turn reference to the conference. “I believe the Staying on the Air,” “News And Opinion: produces “the legs of steel on which any student media conference is the start of The Important Difference,” “Covering ne of those ”immediate benefits” was column must be built.” something extremely significant for our stu- Higher Education,” and “From the Class- Othe participation of internship repre- When the panel was asked what qualities dent media, and for the entire University.”

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certo in F,” and “An American in Paris,” are duct at Lewisohn Stadium. On Lincoln’s mainstays of the repertoire. Porgy and Birthday of 1924 he premiered his legend- Bess, his opera composed in collaboration ary “Rhapsody” at the Aeolian Concert Hall, with his brother Ira, and numerous songs— a prominent music venue of the day located among them “I Got Rhythm,” “It Ain’t Nec- on the site of the present CUNY Graduate essarily So,” and “Embraceable You”—have School on 42nd Street. entered the American consciousness. Highlights of the festival included a con- The Gershwins’ story includes several ference of prominent Gershwin scholars, a notable CUNY connections. In 1914, Ira screening of the controversial 1959 Otto enrolled at City College as an English ma- Preminger film version of Porgy with Dor- jor. During his two years there he contrib- othy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier (not pub- uted humorous vignettes to three campus licly screened in nearly 40 years), a perfor- publications: Cap and Bells, The College mance focusing on Gershwin’s “Jazz Con- t the centennial of his birth, Brooklyn- Mercury, and The Campus. Although nection” led by CUNY’s Distinguished Bass- CUNY Symphonic Jazz Orchestra of the Aborn composer George Gershwin pre- George never attended CCNY (he dropped ist Ron Carter, a staged outing for “Rhapsody” on the site of its birth, and a sides as one of America’s most intriguing out of high school to enroll in Tin Pan Al- Gershwin’s short “chamber opera” Blue special multimedia exhibition of Gershwin cultural figures. His best-known orches- ley), he visited the campus regularly in the Monday by the Brooklyn College Conserva- materials at the Brooklyn College Art Gal- tral works, the “Rhapsody in Blue,” “Con- late 20s and early 30s to perform and con- tory Opera Company, a performance by the lery (Oct. 28 to mid-December).

Streetwise, continued from page 1 Spanish-speaking neighborhood to do into a scuffle with a “perp” who suddenly months at the Police Academy. On all four here, via videotape, to the precinct locker whatever is necessary to interact with the pulled a gun. Because he had earned the CUNY campuses, there was an especially room conversations of three experienced people in the community, then you need to respect of the community, a bystander enthusiastic response to the language train- officers who described actual situations in find another job.” called 911 for back-up, and the situation ing. Officers readily appreciated the impor- which knowing, or not knowing, something was resolved safely. tance of knowing at least some crucial vo- about the language and culture of the com- fficers who have became seasoned The remainder of the session included cabulary words and phrases in language munity either threatened their safety or Oveterans in ethnically unfamiliar role-playing and a problem-solving exercise spoken, and the cultural do’s and don’ts, on impacted their effectiveness. One veteran neighborhoods were then assigned as men- based on a real case. This scenario begins their beat. (in this case an actor), portrayed as dis- tors to small groups. They described their in a Chinese community as two officers gruntled and isolated from the community initial impressions and spoke of how they respond to a radio call about a traffic acci- learly, neither Streetwise planners nor provided a different perspective: “The City learned about the community—whom they dent. An ensuing dispute involving two Cparticipants believe one day of training and the PD bend over backwards for immi- sought out for advice, how they learned to Asians. Soon dozens of other residents join is sufficient to introduce the language and grants. People come here from all over the tell good information from bad, how they in, taking sides. Not only are the officers culture of a community. But all agreed it is world because we have the best system— learned to ask questions on the street and unable to make themselves understood, but an important beginning. Increasing the and then we try to change our ways to meet in the precinct house without looking like they also misread numerous cultural cues, cross-cultural sophistication and linguistic their culture? It doesn’t make sense.” In a insensitive novices. overlook opportunities to use a volunteer skills of police officers—to enhance com- precinct house filled with differing perspec- They also shared stories and advice translator, and, finally, inadvertently munity/police cooperation—will require a tives, a new officer’s choice of who to listen about language and culturally sensitive cause the incident to escalate dangerously. variety of ongoing learning opportunities for to and emulate is critical. The videotape situations they encountered on the job. Drawing upon suggestions from the group, police officers, coupled with substantial served as a springboard for the probing One highlighted a person with a machete as well as their own professional experi- incentives within the NYPD for officers to discussion that followed. running down the hallway toward a police ence, the mentor officers mapped out a take advantage of them. A session called “Word from the Wise” officer. He was shot because the officer— “better way” to defuse the situation. The positive response to Streetwise sug- featured videos shot from the back seat of a understandably fearing for his life—could gests that, if semester-length, specially- patrol car, which provided a tightly focused not make his “drop it!” command under- n afternoon session, “Say the Word,” tailored language courses were offered, virtual view of the three ethnic communities stood in English. Another cop shared how Afeatured interactive language instruc- many officers would enroll. A multidimen- through the eyes of a veteran cop. The his life was very likely saved when he got tion provided primarily by CUNY experts in sional approach is required. Distance rookie officers got a Mandarin, Haitian Creole, and Spanish. learning technology would make it possible chance to see the Officers were introduced to linguistic and for officers to learn in the precinct houses; streets of the commu- cultural “tactics”—both verbal and non- websites containing culture-specific infor- nity, how members of verbal—useful in greeting members of the mation could be rapidly developed; foreign- the community interact community, expressing courtesy and re- language film listings and novels about spe- with one another and spect, and issuing common police-related cific cultures (already included in the par- the police, and how sea- warnings and commands, such as “Don’t ticipant handout package) could be made soned, highly respected move” or “Drop it.” available at precinct houses; CD-ROMs of officers use knowledge The new officers learned how to ask police-specific phrases could be developed of language and culture simple questions that require easily under- and distributed for language practice. on the job. One example stood answers, such as “What’s your Discussions are now under way between of shrewd advice: “You name?” and “Is everything OK?” Key CUNY and the NYPD to begin at least some may see people waving phrases which allow the officers to use ba- of this work in the spring semester. As an swords around in a park sic language knowledge strategically in outgrowth of the Streetwise collaboration, in Chinatown early in police encounters were taught and rein- arrangements are being made for CUNY the morning. This forced through a scripted scenario about faculty members to provide a series of doesn’t mean that two police officers responding to a domes- guest lectures at the Police Academy as they’re attacking some- tic violence report. Phrase card inserts for part of the training of the Spring 1999 one; they’re practicing t’ai chi.” In one of the training videos, Officer Joseph police memo-books and audiotapes were graduating class. Yet another officer advised avoiding re- François from the 71st Precinct (above) offered this created and included in the Streetwise ma- The Streetwise initiative, led by John peating your commands or questions in locker-room advice: “When you say ‘sa k pase’— terials to encourage further practice. Mogulescu, CUNY Dean for Adult and Con- English: “Yelling the same thing, only which means ‘what’s up?’ or ‘what’s happening?’— people listen to you more carefully. They think, ‘Oh, At day’s end the officers were asked for tinuing Education, was developed by Greg louder, doesn’t do it. Get somebody on the this cop knows some words in my language! Maybe a written evaluation of Streetwise, and for Donaldson, Assistant Professor of Develop- street to translate.” he wants to know more—maybe he’s interested in comment on its value. The response was mental Skills at New York City Technical Another veteran bluntly expressed the knowing more about my culture.” Videos by Second positive, and many officers voiced the need College; Ellen Marson, Professor of Span- bottom line: “If you’re not going into a Sun/Vision Craft, stills by BMCC Media Center. for more such training during their six ish, John Jay College; Douglas Muzzio, Continued on next page

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on my face and suggested I look into Intel Chair, Honored by City College, City College: “They have a pretty good Reminisces About Grove of Academe engineering program there.” y noon I was in the registrar’s of- n 1956 Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of Intel Corporation, fled Hungary in the af- Bfice of Shepard Hall. I asked how I termath of the uprising in that country. Four years later, he graduated first in his City much the tuition was and was told College class with a degree in chemical engineering and subsequently earned his doctor- “there is none, just a $39 fee or so.” I ate at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Grove is also the author of the widely concluded I was in the right place. used text, Physics and Technology of Semiconductor Devices, and his take on successful But then I was asked for my tran- corporate culture, Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Chal- script, which I had not thought to pack lenge Every Company and Career. when I left Hungary. My heart sank, Not to be outdone by Time Magazine, which named him Man of the Year for 1997, his but the official said, “That’s OK—just alma mater honored Grove with a special program at the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf- tell me what you took and what your Astoria on Sept. 23 for his contributions to the digital revolution. In remarks made at the grades were, so we can get you into the gala black-tie event, Grove admitted he was “a guy in a hurry,” even missing his graduation right courses.” That became my “tran- ceremony because “I was high-tailing it to California at the time.” The result of that exo- script.” Coming from such a different dus is an amazing chapter in American corporate history. Following is an excerpt from society, that level of trust really im- Grove’s eloquent reminiscences about his City College years. pressed me, shocked me. That’s how I entered City College, arrived in America from Hungary in to explain my situation to an official. He and it has been a love affair from the January 1957 on a horrible winter leaned back with a big sigh and said, word go. It was “tough love”—it was Iday, and I found myself surrounded by “Andy—may I call you Andy?—if you not an easy journey, but it was warm, it the grey marshes of New Jersey. I was want more technical courses, maybe you was interactive, it was caring. Among the y way of concluding, I want to recall one having serious second thoughts about should go to an engineering school.” Yes people who left an enormous impression Bcultural element at City College then—I coming here, but I was soon bailed out by to “Andy”—it’s been Andy ever since— on me was Professor Morris Kolodney, my have no idea whether it prevails today or my uncle. He worked at Brooklyn College and yes to engineering school! “But faculty adviser. not—which was that, whenever a professor for 27 years before retiring, but lived in Brooklyn College doesn’t have one.” I remember his asking me once, “Andy, handed back exams, if you didn’t like your the Bronx. I didn’t realize it then, but he how do you like New grade you went on the attack and tried to had, so to speak, laid the tracks for my York?” And I said, with- show the professor the error of his ways. acceptance into Brooklyn College in record out thinking much about Like a pack of dogs, it usually worked better time. My uncle and I made the 1-1/2-hour "A lot of what is good in America it, “I hate it.” This was if ten of us ganged up on the professor and subway ride down to the campus to regis- I learned at City College. . .My time mainly because the argued with all the facts at our disposal. ter in time for the new semester. weather was god-awful Well, that method was not very gentle- I was stamped and approved, and got all there was for me the quintessential that winter. He was manly, but it was a very effective way of kinds of credit for courses I had taken in shocked, but when I exchanging knowledge, information, and Hungary. But then I rapidly figured out American experience." explained, he said “If assessments. It made a lasting impression that, though I had left very early in my –Andrew Grove it’s weather you want, on me, and perhaps Intel’s confrontational sophomore year, I was matriculating on you should go to Califor- culture and decision-making processes owe the other side of the ocean as a beginning nia.” Ladies and gentle- something to my City College years! senior. I was happy at first, but as the day men, that was it! When Let me add, more seriously, a lot of what wore on, I began to see there was some- Where is one? He gave me directions to I was asked later about my plans for life, I is good in America I learned at City College. thing wrong with this picture. They will Brooklyn Polytechnic. always said, “Move to California.” I learned the skills of my trade, and I give me a degree in nine months’ time, I The next day I went there and an- Another life-forming experience was learned self-confidence. My time there, in thought, and somebody will actually think nounced I was a Hungarian refugee and with Professor Alois X. Schmidt, the fact, was for me the quintessential Ameri- I’m a chemist! wanted to become a chemical engineer. epitome of a tough teacher and a caring can experience, and for that I will be for- I knew how little I knew to be a proper But they said the two scholarships they teacher. He helped me to develop as a ever grateful. I just hope that it remains chemist, and when I calculated that I had in that field were already given away, young man, an engineer, and a manager. I this for future generations of immigrants to only needed two more courses to gradu- and the tuition was $2,000. Well, that am very sorry he never saw what hap- this country. And I hope the experience ate in chemistry, I really panicked. My might as well have been $200 million! The pened to me subsequently in life, since he will be as positive and provocative for them English wasn’t very good, and I struggled two gentlemen saw “unthinkable” written had a lot to do with it. as it was for me.

Streetwise, continued from page 5 TEACHER OF THE YEAR Carnegie Foundation Professor of Public Policy, Baruch College; Honors Queens Professor Sandra Poster, Professor of Speech, Com- munication and Theater Arts, Borough of Manhattan Community College; and myself. For Work on FYI Rebecca Katechis of the Office of Academic Affairs, was the Administrative Coordina- The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of tor. Funding for the project was provided Teaching annually honors as Professor of the Year out- by the New York State Regional Policing standing undergraduate teachers in each of the states, Institute, with additional support from the as well as a national winner. It was recently announced New York City Police Foundation. that this year’s New York State Professor of the Streetwise was not easy to either de- Year is Judith Summerfield, Professor of English velop or plan. Imagine arranging four si- at Queens College. multaneous weddings or satellite launches. Notable among the achievements for which she was But we came away with a great deal of re- saluted was being instrumental in creating the campus’s spect for the work of police officers, the Freshman Year Initiative—a response to what had been veteran officers whose stories inspired and a high dropout rate of 30% in Queens College fresh- informed the new graduates, and the man classes. The program has grown from an initial Department’s administrative and training 32 students and five faculty members to more than 600 “brass.” Some of us, to be perfectly hon- freshmen and 60 faculty members. est, were almost tempted to change ca- Judith Summerfield engaged with her students at Queens College. reers and become a cop. Being waved past Photo, Nancy Bareis. a long line of drivers waiting to enter the Municipal Parking Garage due to “official police business” was very nice indeed.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH HER JOHN JAY COLLEGE BIOGRAPHER such housing for every American; now we volume, which will cover ER’s work on the have three to seven million homeless and Declaration of Human Rights and her last no one talking ER’s kind of language. Imag- years, will not take too many more! Eleanor Roosevelt: ine her insisting, 60 years ago, that every- GS: Can you recall a specific moment one have indoor plumbing! And remember, when this enormous labor of what is quite First Lady Activist and Agitator this was when 80% of rural Americans obviously love was born? didn’t have that. Some of FDR’s Secretar- BC: Yes, when I read a dreadful book ntil she died in 1962, Eleanor ies, like Harold Ickes, were aghast at her that purported to be a biography of Lorena Roosevelt consistently made boldness. “If she has her way,” he said, Hickock— U herself available for advice to “how will we be able to tell the rich from GS: The distinguished and very color- students, often inviting them to meet the poor?” To which ER characteristically ful journalist with whom ER had a long with civil rights and peace activists at responded, “Well, in matters of simple dig- and profound relationship from 1932 to Sara Delano Roosevelt House, her nity and decency we should not have to tell ER’s death. mother-in-law’s house on 65th Street, the rich from the poor.” BC: Yes—an important, intense, and which was eventually donated to Another reason I’ve been writing curled passionate relationship that was dimin- Hunter College. Distinguished Professor up in a ball of agony is the present plight of ished by this mean-spirited, woman-hating of History at John Jay College of refugee populations around the world and book that caricatured “fat, ugly Hick” and Criminal Justice Blanche Wiesen the widespread need for missions of rescue “buck-toothed, ugly Eleanor” as “two, Cook—a Hunter undergrad and from ethnic, racial, and religious violence. lonely women” so unhappy that they be- Student Council President in 1960-61— ER was among the first to move on this came friends. But not lovers, because could hardly have known, when she front. She was among the first to “read” Eleanor would never do that. The author’s met ER on several of these occasions, such impending crises as fascism and ra- denial was so perverse that I wrote a very that she would end up devoting more cial segregation, and she passed her views angry and blunt review for Women’s Stud- than two decades of her life to writing along to government officials. Indeed, she ies. It was widely reprinted, and everyone what promises to be the premier created a kind of parallel administration to started saying, “You have to write Eleanor’s biography of the woman many consider our greatest First Lady. “She lit up the pursue issues she cared about—notably biography.” room and was very charismatic,” Cook recalls. Volume 1 of Eleanor Roosevelt issues FDR was cautious about or even But my field was diplomacy and foreign 1884-1933 (Penguin) appeared in 1992; Volume 2, covering the pre-war White sidestepped, particularly issues of race. economic policy. My dissertation had been House years 1933-38, will appear this spring; and Volume 3, which will explore the GS: And the source of your anguish here? on Woodrow Wilson and militarism vs. the war years and ER’s pivotal role in creating the Declaration of Human Rights (“the BC: Well, it’s amazing how the situation American Union (parent body of the ACLU), Magna Carta for the 21st century,” says Cook), will appear in the near future. is replicated today, with the current anti- and I had just published my Declassified After receiving her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, Cook taught briefly democratic, anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti- Eisenhower in 1981. Still, I was in the at the historically black Hampton Institute (now University) in Virginia, then for refugee backlash—and these theocrats market for a new project, so I went to the three years at Stern College of New York’s Yeshiva University. In 1967 she came to working to take over the nation. Roosevelt archives at Hyde Park. I soon John Jay and has taught there ever since (with occasional appearances in GS: Your remark about Volume 2 being discovered that ER had a completely inde- classrooms at Rikers Island). Among her previous works are The Declassified painful to write in the 1990s leads me to pendent political life in the 1920s—had Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy of Peace and Political Warfare (Doubleday, 1981) wonder whether this extends to the Presi- written wonderful political and feminist and Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution (Oxford, 1978). She is also a dency, or at least the First Ladyship, amid articles that no one had paid much atten- senior editor of the Garland Library of War and Peace. the recent events in Washington. Have we tion to. And her letters to every member of Cook considers her work as a student assistant for two of the greatest women lost ground in the decades separating ER FDR’s cabinet revealed the extent to which in City University history—Mina Rees, then Dean of the Faculty at Hunter, and Ruth from Hillary Rodham Clinton? she was an activist First Lady, something Weintraub, Dean of Graduate Studies—as her most important formative BC: ER set a crusading style for the First largely ignored previously. experience. “From Ruth, who died just this year at 95, I learned about politics Lady that no other presidential wife has GS: Are all her papers at Hyde Park? and power. From Mina, who also died recently at 95, I learned about diplomacy emulated, though Hillary at first said she BC: Yes, and the nice thing is that she and determination.” intended to do so. In an unprecedented way, donated them to the public, so they are CUNY•Matters editor Gary Schmidgall, also a biographer, met with Cook Eleanor said, “This is what you can do with “available.” Thus, a very useful collection recently on the Upper West Side to discuss her project, life-writing, and some very power and influence. Watch me work!” of the Hickock-ER correspondence has just timely contrasts between the White House then and now. When quoting Eleanor, GS: Speaking of work, how long have appeared. Though, unfortunately, it does Cook dropping charmingly into a perfect imitation of the former First Lady’s you been scrutinizing her life? not give us “full” letters as advertised. sweetly dignified voice. BC: About 18 years, and I hope the third Large chunks are missing—the editor seems not to have heard of ellipses! I em- GS: Toward the end of Volume 1, you reveal a wonderful detail about perhaps the phasize the Hickock materials because she quote ER’s remark, the day after her hus- most memorable moment of FDR’s early was a very political person; her pungent, band was elected President, when she presidency. It was ER who gave her hus- peppery observations were very important turned down uniformed protection: band a book of Thoreau’s that had in it the in the creation of ER as a public figure. It “Nobody’s going to hurt me, I’m not impor- line, “nothing is so much to be feared as was her idea that ER hold women-only tant enough.” She also said, “I’m just going fear.” FDR’s variation will probably be his press conferences, for instance, and her to be plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt.” What one line that lives in whatever the opposite idea that ER’s long letters to her become catapulted her into becoming perhaps the of infamy is. the enormously popular newspaper column most extraordinary of all our First Ladies? BC: And she really did represent the “My Day.” Hick, as ER called her, was like BC: Well, it was not sudden—she had best of the New Deal. I must say, by the Louis Howe to FDR—one of the most signifi- been head of the Women’s Democratic Com- way, that Volume 2 was a very painful book cant political mentors of her life. The others mittee, a major fund-raiser for many to be writing now, when all the hopeful vi- in ER’s life were Howe and Marie Souvestre, causes, owned a school and a monthly sions of that Deal are being destroyed. Just her great teacher. A native of France, women’s newspaper, and wrote a monthly consider housing, which was ER’s real pas- learned linguist, and deeply concerned about column since 1925, even had her own radio sion. She created Arthurdale, a model com- social issues, Souvestre was the first to rec- program. And finally she was a very munity down in West Virginia, which I dis- ognize ER’s spirit and talents. skilled organizer...a real activist. cuss at length. It was built in 1934 in a GS: And, as you clearly show, much GS: So she was being a bit falsely modest? mining region where workers had been out more. Hickock comes across as quite a BC: Her modesty was very real. Even in of work for years, they lived in caves and mold-breaker in her own right—the first the 1950s, near the end of her life, when culverts. The project was mocked and ridi- woman sports reporter and an extremely she was called the First Lady of the world, culed, but my partner Clare Coss and I vis- prominent journalist. she flew into a Midwestern city with a U.N. ited it two years ago and were astonished BC: She was, in the late ‘20s and early official, saw a red carpet on the tarmac, at what a splendid community it was—and ‘30s the outstanding woman journalist in and said: “Oh, there must be somebody it is still thriving. America, a high-paid AP writer who was important on the plane.” There’s something GS: This sounds strangely like the Habi- widely admired. painful—as well as marvelous—in how she tat sites up in the Bronx. GS: Sounds like she’d have been right at never really appreciated how important she BC: Yes, it’s exactly what Jimmy Carter home on a Front Page set. had been to so many as a galvanizer of po- has been doing. But that is totally private A favorite portrait of Roosevelt's, taken in 1933; this BC: Yes. But lately there’s been a litical action. and voluntary; the government has walked copy is inscribed to her friend Lorena ("Hick") shocking effort to degrade, make fun of her. GS: Speaking of her galvanizing gift, you away from public housing. ER’s goal was Hickock. Photo from Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 1. In fact she was a very powerful woman. Continued on next page

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GS: No proper biography a foundling and remain a bachelor.” Did place—and ER treated her with great re- has been done? ER ever express such plausible bitterness? spect and consideration...much as the sec- BC: Oh, no. And it would GS: She hated to be “behind the ond “wife” has routinely been treated in make a great but bitter and sad scenes.” And she always hated to lose on aristocratic homes through history. By the story, because she eventually political issues. “If you have to compro- White House years, the couple essentially sacrificed her professional emi- mise,” she advised, “always compromise had separate quarters and courts—ER’s nence for ER, gave up her job— up.” Her most bitter and depressed letters included, quite openly, her circle of tie- and the way so many women in love were written when FDR refused to do knickerbocker-wearing, heavy-smoking les- have always done. something she felt right. The one thing she bian friends. This scandalized her mother- GS: Were they the was very vocal on and for which she never in-law and aunts! same age? forgave FDR to the end of her life, in fact, ER’s attitude on other women was best BC: No, Lorena was about was her conviction that he had been wrong captured in an article she wrote in 1923 10 years younger. She left on the Spanish Civil War. called “The Women of Tibet” in which she her big bylines for various Her FBI file, one of the wonders of the observed, “It has been brought to my atten- low-profile positions in FDR’s world and the largest single file compiled, tion that the women of Tibet have many hus- administration. She got very shows on how many fronts she was pushing bands, which seems to me a very good thing, depressed in these go-fer for changes that J. Edgar Hoover thought since so many husbands have many wives.” jobs, like doing PR for the suspect. He began the file in 1924, when GS: The constant challenge of biography World’s Fair. War she urged that the U.S. join the World Court. is monitoring or negotiating the “distance” correspondency was what GS: You’ve just touched on Eleanor and between author and subject. In my own bi- she really wanted, but ER Franklin’s marito-political tensions. Is it mere ographies, though, I found myself coming discouraged this, wanting her nostalgia for us to think that life for a First down on the side of Ann Douglas, the author to stay in the U.S. Couple was easier in the 1930s than it is today, of Terrible Honesty, a study of New York in GS: Your revelations given all the recent (pseudo)scandal? the 1920s. She said, “I can’t see doing a raised a furor? BC: It is arguable that we are in the book that isn’t all tied up with who you are.” BC: I have been fascinated meanest moment in American politics. Where do you stand on this issue? by the reaction of so many who There has been such a breakdown of re- BC: I really tried very hard to let ER claim to love ER: they do not Blanche Wiesen Cook and Gary Schmidgall pay their respects to Anna spect by the players themselves, notably speak in her voice. But insofar as what Eleanor Roosevelt in Riverside Park at 72nd Street. The superb want to know anything about memorial to “The First Lady of the World,” created by sculptor Kenneth Starr, who has mocked the grand concerns me is reflected in the book, well, Hick—or love in ER’s life. But Penelope Jencks, was dedicated by Hillary Rodham Clinton on jury system. All the leaks...and threatening a while back I wrote an essay on your ques- this was absolutely one of her October 5, 1996. Photos, André Beckles. Monica Lewinsky with 27 years in jail! And tion titled “Biographer and Subject: The most important and absorbing exposing her psychotherapy records—this Critical Connection.” I said there that biog- relationships. And it was one that went through There was a man named Varian Fry, a is torture. All through the Cold War there raphers are always writing their autobiog- many painful times, especially after the idyllic Harvard-trained classicist and journalist, was something called bipartisan Presiden- raphy because we are always writing about summer of 1933. The summer of 1934 proved who was running an illegal operation in tial politics, but this is not the case now; what we care about. difficult because ER’s face had become so famil- Marseille in 1940 to save fleeing artists, this is brutal—our own private Taliban. We GS: Another Whitman connection! One iar that privacy was impossible. intellectuals, writers. ER initially got him have gone from the imperial presidency to of his friends observed once, “autobiogra- GS: Yes, you quote some poignant dia- his visa and safe passage. Later, in fact, he the captive presidency. phy is the only real biography.” And Walt logue in which ER insists on her privacy to wrote that he could not have succeeded Now, Eleanor and Franklin really suffered heartily agreed. a reporter (see box). It speaks volumes on without her help. About 2,000 were saved over their marital troubles. One true thing is BC: I must say this is the first book that the decline of Presidential privacy! by Fry’s covert activities, among them Marc that ER always loved FDR, which is why he allowed me to pursue everything I am inter- BC: In 1934, on vacation with Hick in Chagall, Pablo Casals, Hannah Arendt, was in a position to hurt her. California, there was even a rather Diana- Franz and Alma Mahler Werfel (and many Her correspondence makes it WHITE HOUSE PRIVACY THEN like high speed chase that got up to 70-80 Mahler manuscripts). To celebrate Fry’s clear he frequently did hurt miles an hour. Finally, ER told the state work, the Holocaust Museum sponsored an her. But it was between ER PUTS HER FOOT DOWN trooper at the wheel to stop and invited the exhibition at the New York Jewish Museum; them. No one used their dif- Shortly after the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the reporters into a diner. She told them to it’s now on tour. ferences or independent White House, Eleanor Roosevelt traveled from Albany to New call their editors and make them desist; ER, to her great credit, made the con- friendships to destroy the York to dine privately with Lorena Hickock in her apartment. otherwise, she would stay put and not meet nection: racism and fascism there = rac- country as part of a political This conversation, reported by Hickock and included in Volume FDR on schedule: the fault would be theirs. ism, segregation, and lynching here. A agenda. We are in very 1 of Eleanor Roosevelt, transpired in Grand Central Station: The bluff worked, but it was the last time week after the horror of Kristallnacht in frightening times. ER tried it. Germany, she went to Birmingham, Ala- GS: If ER were alive, what Girl reporter: “Where are you going, Mrs. Roosevelt? GS: Concerning privacy, what is the dif- bama, and put her chair in the middle of advice do you think she Mrs. Roosevelt: “I’m dining with a friend.” ference now? two segregated sections in a public demon- would give to Hillary? Girl reporter: “Who is your friend?” BC: The main one is television. You stration at the meeting which launched the BC: My favorite ER ad- Mrs. Roosevelt: “I’m sorry, but I cannot tell you. It’s a can’t jog without having a camera snapping Southern Conference on Human Welfare. vice, which I quote on page 5 purely private and personal engagement.” at your heels and in your face. We don’t That was the beginning of a radical civil of Volume 1, is that “every Girl reporter: “May I follow you and wait outside?” think of ER as a horsewoman, because no rights movement in the South. woman in political life needs Mrs. Roosevelt, emphatically: “You may not! I told one thought to take pictures of her daily GS: Is it fair to say that, in all these ar- to develop skin as tough as you it’s a private, personal dinner engagement. There will be morning rides through Rock Creek Park. I eas, ER was ahead of FDR? rhinoceros hide.” no story about it.” just sent Hillary Clinton a letter with a col- BC: Way ahead. He could have done GS: That reminds me of Girl reporter: “But I have to follow you Mrs. Roosevelt.” umn ER wrote when somebody sent her a more. He never made one speech to sup- Walt Whitman, who figures so Mrs. Roosevelt, beginning to get really goldfish bowl in 1936. ER offered this com- port an anti-lynching bill, and when it was charmingly in the Lewinsky annoyed: “I’m sorry, but you cannot follow me. If you forting advice: remember that, though ev- filibustered to death, Hitler was actually affair. Reminiscing about all insist, I shall spend the rest of the evening right here in the eryone knows what you wear and eat and emboldened, convinced he had no signifi- the criticism of his early station. But I am not going to be followed—by you or where you go when you live in a goldfish cant opponents here. ER’s consistent hu- Leaves of Grass editions, he anybody else.” [reporter retires] bowl, they cannot know what is in your manitarian pressure within the White said, “I have the hide of the heart or mind. We all need privacy. House is a big part of my second volume. rhinoceros, morally and in GS: Have any of your views of ER under- GS: Such consummate “givers” are very other ways—can stand almost anything.” ested in—to explore a woman’s life in gone a change over the last 18 years? Has rare. How do you explain it in ER’s case? BC: ER loved Whitman, and loved to struggle, love relations that I care pro- she become a different person? BC: Her ability to empathize with every- read poetry aloud—did that with Hick a lot. foundly about, political issues that I care BC: She only got better. I was initially one in need, I think, started with her father, GS: What a wonderful image: Eleanor profoundly about. Just think, for example, very disturbed because I could not find one an embattled alcoholic who died at 34. Or- reading Whitman to Lorena Hickock. of the Holocaust and all the places in the single word by ER from 1933 to 1938 about phaned at ten, ER spent the rest of her life BC: Regarding Hillary’s situation now, world where ethnic cleansing is now a seri- what was happening in Nazi Germany. I wanting to “make it better” for everybody— ER also had to deal with—and did with ous problem. wrote a chapter called “A Silence Beyond her family, her friends, the world. grace several times—“other women.” GS: Now that you are poised for ER’s Repair,” which explores the devastating GS: The thought of such a truly good From the 1920s Missy LeHand was a resi- final years, would you agree with Gore implications of that silence. Until I discov- woman in Washington boggles the mind— dent in the Roosevelt households and was Vidal’s observation, “The best years of ered her activist work on behalf of refugees and reminds me of Lady Bird Johnson’s acid really the “junior wife.” Everyone close to Eleanor’s life were the widowhood”? and rescue after 1938, I contemplated not remark, after a lifetime spent among male the family knew she was his companion— BC: Well, it wasn’t “the widowhood,” but even finishing the book. politicos, that “a politician should be born the house at Warm Springs was Missy’s rather her opportunity to travel the world Continued on page 12

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ENTER MICROCHIP, PURSUED BY CITY TECH tions at both campuses. Brooklyn Professor Richard Kearney, for example, last spring Unique B.T. Degree Consortium asked me to design lighting for a studio production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I Commands the Stage was delighted—and took twelve City Tech students with me to work on Professor Charles E. Scott, Director of the introduction of a baccalaureate pro- the design. The students from both the Stage Technology Program and Lighting gram in stage technology at City Tech. With schools were very excited to share Designer at New York City Technical Col- 75 majors enrolled during its first three their expertise and experiences. lege, reports on the Bachelor’s in Technol- years, this state-of-the-art degree program Automated color scrollers and mov- ogy for entertainment technicians at the is off to a solid start and enjoys one of the ing lights were a hot topic of con- College and an interdisciplinary collabora- highest student retention rates among the versation. tion with the Brooklyn College Theatre College’s 41 baccalaureate, associate and The Stage Technology major is a Department. specialized certificate programs. model of cross-curricular instruc- All ten of City Tech’s baccalaureate pro- tion. We draw regularly from City allulah Bankhead used to say that grams are unique to CUNY and several are Tech’s rich array of faculty and the only person in show business unique to the region. Stage Technology’s modern labs in the fields of archi- T who could count on steady work curriculum, depth of training and location tecture, construction, electrome- was the night watchman. Much has in one of the world’s major entertainment chanical, and machine tool technol- changed behind entertainment industry cur- centers, however, make it unique to the ogy. These engineering programs tains since her time: the solitary watchman nation. On its doorstep are the Broadway, provide training in architectural of old has been replaced by well-paid spe- Off-, and Off Off- theater circuits—in addi- Computer Aided Design and Draft- cialists and sophisticated security systems tion to the city’s role as a major center for ing (CADD) and model making, digi- responsible for around-the-clock safeguard- television and music production. New York tal control, electronics and electri- ing of costly sets and high-tech production City is also experiencing a resurgence in cal circuits, structural analysis, Final scene, City Tech Theatreworks Gathering Stones, with equipment the likes of which stage crews of film-making, as evidenced by recently an- welding, and the physical, opera- director/dancer Craig North as the Shaman. Photo, Charles Scott. yesteryear could not have imagined. nounced plans to construct one of the tional and performance characteris- stage technology students since the Today, the ranks of the entertainment nation’s largest film and television produc- tics of a wide range of industrial hardware. program’s inception. A case in point was business who can anticipate steady employ- tion facilities on a 15-acre Brooklyn Navy The College’s Humanities and Art & Adver- last spring’s presentation of Gathering ment have swelled—thanks to a technologi- Yard site (about a mile from the City Tech tising Design departments also enhance Stones: dances for endangered species, an cal revolution far beyond the boundaries of campus). All of which means a cornucopia our syllabus. original dance theater event by award-win- film and theater production. Advances in of internship and career opportunities for Specialized courses are required in light- ning director/choreographer Craig North. electronics, optics, high-power propulsion Stage Technology degree holders. ing and sound technology, show control, His inspiration for this elegantly poetic systems, and other technologies have pro- theatrical drafting, scene painting, rigging work was the spiritual practices of indig- duced High Definition Television, interac- collaborative agreement with Brooklyn and mechanics, shop operations, and ad- enous American peoples, and it employs tive cable, and live satellite transmission. ACollege’s acclaimed Theatre Department vanced construction techniques, as well as music, dance, and the spoken word to re- The development of robotics and computer- also allows City Tech students to enrich their the repair and maintenance of equipment flect on humanity’s delicate stewardship of ized control systems has made possible the technical studies with core courses in stage used in scenic processes. Additional study the earth. fantastic worlds of event simulations at design. In fact, they are required to take at in the history and aesthetics of the theater I had worked with the gifted dancer for theme parks. Such new technologies are least one such course in scenic design, stage provides a more complete perspective on more than a decade, when he informed me also playing a big part in the growing ca- makeup, stage management, or costume the place of entertainment arts in society. last year of his interest in expanding a sino industry’s reliance on show business to design. The consortium also permits Brook- In the final year of the program, our first short dance piece into a full-length show. attract guests that keep hotels and gaming lyn College design students to take special- seniors will be completing an internship as He was looking for a design and technical rooms humming. ized stage technology courses at City Tech. well as a culminating senior-year project. team to help bring the new work together. The same technologies produce the This collaboration extends beyond the class- I saw this as a rare opportunity to present spectacular light shows that have trans- room, enabling all students to test their ur resident company, City Tech our students with a full-scale technical formed the rock concert into an event that training as designers and crew on produc- OTheatreworks, has honed the skills of challenge and employ the expertise of can rival the grandest Fourth of July py- Brooklyn College’s design students and fac- rotechnic extravaganza. Even the nation’s ulty. The result was an unusually beautiful trade show industry employs live entertain- Kill the Baby? Shoot the Martini? production. ment and spectacle as never before to pro- (A brief lighting technician’s glossary) Brooklyn MFA design candidate Yong- mote attendance and increase sales. Seok Choi, advised by scenic design profes- Thanks to the computer microchip, our the- Abby Singer: The next-to-the-last shot of the day on a set, named sor John Scheffler, produced a magical set atrical revels are just beginning. after the cinematographer who always asked for “just one more based on the elements of Earth, Air, Fire shot and it’s a wrap!” (martini: the last shot of the day) and Water for the 90-minute production. his explosive growth has over the years baby: a small spotlight My lighting technology students subtly illu- Tcreated huge demand for a new cadre ballyhoo: a wild and colorful pattern created by multiple moving minated its many moods, and Prof. David of trained technicians knowledgeable and light fixtures Smith’s sound technology students ably skilled in the operation of control systems. barndoors and tophats: black metal accessories placed on the front conveyed the original musical soundtrack. Necessity, that stage mother of invention, is of a light to shape or hide its beam This was created by Smith himself, an ac- the dynamic that was surely at work more bellylugger: a stagehand who does heavy lifting complished composer, utilizing the process than a decade ago when a City Tech Hu- boom: an iron pipe on the side of a stage on which lighting instru- of computer disk-based recording and auto- manities Department speech and theater ments can be hung mated control to produce a well-mixed instructor, Dr. Emilie A. Cozzi, initiated the dumb/smart repeaters: digital control modules that operate indi- blend of decidedly modern sounds, yet still research that ultimately led to the most vidual lights: smart ones give feedback on a light’s position; dumb evocative of the traditional rhythms of Na- comprehensive college entertainment tech- ones don’t tive American cultures. nology program in the country. gaffer: the head of an electrical crew Students also benefited from working Cozzi, who is now City Tech’s Acting ghostlight: the light left on stage for safety when the theater is closed alongside two other stage professionals: President, recognized that, while many col- hammer: a grip or stagehand costume designer Therese Bruck and stage lege programs were producing talented the- kill: to remove or store a piece of equipment manager Cindy Knight. The production’s pro- ater craftsmen in lighting, sound, and sce- limelight: antiquated illumination created by an oxy-hydrogen gas motional materials were fashioned by City nic design, a program specifically tailored bag with a flame at the end directed at lime powder; the operator Tech art and advertising design students, to produce graduates able to transform de- sat on the bag to create pressure to burn the lime and was advised under Prof. Maria Giuliani’s supervision. signers’ technological fantasies into reality not to stand up too quickly lest he disappear in, well, a flash Under the overall technical direction of was much needed. Surveys were conducted scosh: a small amount Prof. James Packard and with stage man- of the industry, collegiate offerings, enter- spark: an electrician (alternatively, juicer) agement deftly executed by student Rashid tainment consultants, technical directors, wiggy: noun, an electrical circuit tester Sharif, the Theatreworks production en- and designers, culminating in 1996 with woof: to stop or say “that’s enough!” Continued on next page

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DEJA VU??? FACILITIES FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH Teaching English at City— A Perspective from 1916 Largest LaGuardia Expansion Following is an editorial that appeared in The Campus, the City College of New York student newspaper, on February 24, 1916: On 25th Anniversary n the largest expansion of its 25-year tions among the College, the University, the ity College men are handicapped in one respect—the majority are Ihistory, LaGuardia Community College State’s Dormitory Authority, and the sellers Cof foreign-born parents. One of the greatest advances in our curriculum was the estab- has just acquired a nine-story building and of the three properties. Financing for the lishment of a four-year requirement in Public Speaking. The various improvements that it has adjacent properties near its main campus acquisition was provided through 30-year wrought are of inestimable benefit. But the success of this department has been far below building on Thomson Avenue in Long Island bonds issued by the Authority. what it might and should be. And there is but one reason for this deficiency—the lack of a City. These facilities, amounting to about When funds for complete renovation sufficient English requirement. The vocabulary to supply words and the facility to use them— 600,000 square feet, will increase campus are secured and work is completed, the the foundation upon which the Public Speaking courses build—is lacking. size by 70% and allow the College to boost College will be situated on two cam- The present English requirements presuppose a knowledge and training which the average its enrollment from the present 9,500 full- puses: the East Campus with the Main/E Freshman has not received. Course One is a course admirable in all ways, except that it is not time students to more than 12,400 by the complex and the L-building, which an English course. It is a course in the History and Appreciation of English Literature. The year 2004. houses one of LaGuardia’s high schools, old Course Two, in a desperate attempt to remove in six months a deficiency which four years The $54 million project includes an in- and the West Campus with the Center III of high school training had failed to wipe out, became too general to be of any value. And an dustrial loft building that occupies an entire and Center IV buildings. upper class man is discouraged by his conceit from electing Course Three, a really practical block between Thomson and Skillman Av- “This exciting acquisition,” said a very course, when he reads in the register that the course is “primarily for Sophomores” enues, a two-story parking garage (to be pleased LaGuardia President Raymond C. The present English Two is a step in the right direction. It is a course in spelling, punctua- known as the Center III building), and an Bowen, “will enable the College to provide tion and composition. It lays particular stress on letter-writing, especially the business letter. additional parking lot (to be the Center IV a new generation of students with a spa- But it has not sufficient time to accomplish its aim. It can hold the student for but two terms site). This new complex will allow the cious, state-of-the-art campus.” and then loses him for the rest of his college course. And it is useless to deny that those who space-starved College to are especially weak in a subject are the first to avoid it. occupy additional class- Make English, that is, practical English, a four-year requirement. Devote at least two rooms and faculty offices, hours a week to a practical training along the lines of the present English Two. And the results establish high-tech com- will justify the change. puter labs, distance learning classrooms, as well as student lounges rom agnollotti to 300 BREAK BREAD, RAISE MONEY and an athletic field atop Fzabaglione, the a multi-level garage. mouth-watering world of AT CSI ALUMNI EVENT The transfer of owner- Italian cuisine was theirs ship took place after for the taking when 300 three years of negotia- fortunate diners feasted on the donated special- LaGuardia Community ties of nearly 50 Italian College's Center 3; the signs restaurants, bakeries, are envisioned in a master plan prepared by Mayers & and caterers recently at Schiff Associates PC. the Campus Center of the College of Staten Island. Titled “A Taste 16 stations equipped with sound control, ing mind about the stage technicians we of Italy IV,” the perenni- drafting, and lighting software. An addi- are training. More and more attention is ally sold-out scholar- tional $120,000 in audio mixing consoles being paid to them. During this period of ship fund-raising gala donated by New York City industries will clearly happy marriage between stage was hosted by CSI’s further enhance our capabilities. A sepa- spectacle and technology, their skills in Alumni Association. rate, fully-equipped technical design and lighting, sound, and scenic design, show “The dinner was a Trustee Kathleen Pesile, left, State Senator John Marchi, past board president construction workshop is also under con- control, robotics, and computer imaging are huge success, and the of the CSI Foundation Sally Williams, and CSI President Marlene Springer at struction, and on the immediate horizon is the subject of popular comment, critical long hours put in by our "Taste of Italy IV." Photo, André Beckles. a new building to house a scenic motion review, and innumerable awards. 75 volunteers certainly and computerized show control facility. Stage technicians are getting in front of paid off,” said Francine Raggi, Director of Also in the dream works is conversion of the curtain and taking well-deserved bows. the Association. Raggi praised the efforts of Stage Technology, continued from page 9 the College’s Voorhees Auditorium into a Their photos are beginning to grace the event chair Patricia McLaughlin and the state-of-the-art performance space and covers of show business magazines, and a three honorary co-chairs—Brian hanced an already solid reputation, but, as I teleconferencing center. fascinated public is enthusiastically revel- Michaelson, Angelina Malerba, and Ed had hoped, Gathering Stones also provided ing in their illusions. In this era of such Salek—for making the October 6 event a students with a challenging, full-scale veryone, surely, remembers when the sophisticated spectacle as The Lion King, success. Raggi also explained that the first learning opportunity. Efrazzled Wizard of Oz suddenly bellows we hope our graduates of the City Tech/ “A Taste of Italy” fund-raiser was the brain- And the show is going on the road. The at Dorothy, “Pay no attention to that man Brooklyn College consortium will enjoy a child of CUNY Trustee Kathleen M. Pesile, a entire technical production of Gathering behind the curtain!” lion’s share of the profession. board member of the Association who also Stones is tentatively slated to appear in That little old man in teaches economics at the College. Virginia next spring at the Mill Mountain the classic film fantasy of The roster of food service companies par- Playhouse, with technical services provided 1939 was arguably a pro- ticipating in “Taste of Italy IV” doubles that by our majors. totype of today’s entertain- of “Taste of Italy I.” “We cannot say enough ment technician: creating about the commitment and generosity of n addition to recent high school gradu- through various sound, these companies,” Raggi said, “which says Iates, entertainment industry profession- lighting and special effects something extremely positive about CSI.” als interested in keeping their skills current the allegedly “Great and Trustee Pesile, who will chair “A Taste of or acquiring new ones will find the program Powerful Oz,” believed by Italy V,” suggested that lovers of Italian cui- immensely valuable. Edward R. Murrow all in the Emerald City to sine interested in attending that event on High School teacher Scott Peritz is even co- be quite authentic. Oz, of October 2, 1999, contact the Alumni Asso- ordinating his theater technology curriculum course, was a powerful ciation sooner rather than later (Francine with ours to enable his students to enter the illusionist—the premiere Raggi, at 718-982-2290). “It’s gratifying City Tech program with advanced standing. show control specialist of that such a well-attended event does so Funded by a $180,000 Sloan Foundation his realm. much good,” Pesile said, referring to the grant awarded this summer, the program Today, however, the CSI Alumni Scholarship fund. will soon house a new sound, lighting and entertainment industry is Stage Technology majors being introduced to an ETC Express 48/96 computer show control MacIntosh computer lab with not of the Wizard’s grudg- lighting control board, which can control up to 96 lighting channels.

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Albricias damn habit of screwing up his face into a “Yes, sir.” No. That, and all he envisaged—and for the inner discovery. quizzical gnarl, at the same time reaching “Then you’ll have to be satisfied with the which was realized too, for the most part— Moribund from then on became the sub- over the top of his head with his long arm low mark you’ll receive for your term paper. seemed, at this remove, anticlimax. The true ject of biology, the career of zoologist. So in order to scratch the opposite ear.” And, I’m afraid, in the course as well.” climax. . .was of a twofold nature, one being this was what he had been groping toward The scene Roth describes is the last class, But no reproach, no matter what the Larry’s [aloof and perfunctory] reaction. . . all these years? Ever since leaving the at which Dickson is to return six-to-eight magnitude, or potential penalty, could di- The other result, to which everything else Lower East Side, surly and bewildered by page term papers on the assigned topic of minish the swell of exultation Ira felt. He became peripheral, external, became subsid- what the years were making of him—or un- describing the construction or operation of a was going to be in The Lavender! He! A iary, was the impetus to an internal change, making. Unmaking and making him this, and fairly complicated mechanism. Roth has nobody! Wow! What an exoneration of his an internal change wrought in him as a con- he never knew it. This was all they could chosen to ignore the assignment and write nonentity! The years, the hours, the days sequence of the publication of something he have formed or fashioned out of what was “Impressions of a Plumber,” and he frets enduring the sullen shlemiel [Yiddish for had written. undone. So it seemed. When the core of about the consequences (NOTE: throughout bungler, fool] who was himself. And worse Difficult to formulate, other than badly, decency, his self-esteem, was wrecked, what his memoirs, which are billed as novels, than that: a shlemiel perpetrator. Re- and perhaps there was no need to formulate else could have arisen to win positive, ap- Roth writes of himself in the third person prieve. A rift of reprieve. Ah, wait till he it at all, but he now realized that if there was proved fulfillment? Writing was all that under the pseudonym Ira Stigman): “Doubt told Mom, told the family—Mom’s bosom anything he could do in his life, there was could in some way gain rehabilitation—with- still gnawed at Ira. But if he made the pro- would heave with joy. And what would Pop only one thing he had a chance of do- out his seeking pardon or absolution, but by cess interesting, colorful, if he awoke in Mr. say? He’d have to admit that there was ing well. If Ira was to employing what he was. Jesus. Because he Dickson the same kind of—of verve that he something more to his son than the have a career, had destroyed, or undermined irrevers- himself felt when he recalled being a kalyikeh [cripple] he appeared to be. And a future, if he ibly, the central strength of plumber’s helper, Mr. Dickson would over- Larry [Roth’s best college buddy, a transfer had a definite who he was, writing was look small deviations from instructions. . . from NYU]? And Edith and Iola? The maga- bent, he now all there was left to him as Sure he would. Hope so.” zine was due to appear during exam week, had only justification for being what Roth refers at one point to an “Edith.” but he couldn’t wait to tell them! Wow! one: it was he now was. God, it was a This is his pseudonym for Eda Lou Walton, Minnie would beam: my marvelous brother! in the art of strange thing to have to dis- a famed NYU instructor whose circle in- Exploit that adulation for what it was letters, in cover for oneself. . . cluded Louise Bogan, Hart Crane, and Mar- worth, of course. Oh, boy! And [his first the craft So writing became a hope garet Mead. She would become the first cousin] Stella—she was too dumb, mal- of writing. toward a career, not a true love of Roth’s life, and he lived with her for leable, to require extra incitement. Admire, commitment, but an inchoate, nearly a decade (Call It Sleep was dedi- go ahead and admire. And with vast, cyni- befuddled aspiration. Never- cated to her). cal gratitude, accept [his aunt] Mamie’s theless, however flimsy the Picture, then, the stern lecturer coming aspiration, it afforded a kind of into class with a sheaf of papers and a temporary haven for the somewhat languid Roth fearing the worst. maimed psyche, a holding pen (what a bilious pun!), until such I time as opportunity for marshal- ing his inner turbulence into some hey were surprisingly order presented itself. good, Mr. Dickson com- T The literary path became thus mented—and commended: his “choice,” and as a murky and some were exceptionally good. confused a one as it was possible to And one was of such unusual be, not for any goal of material suc- quality that in his capacity as cess, which certainly was a legitimate faculty adviser to the staff of the incentive, and a mark of professional- magazine, he had recommended ism, but out of that same blind intuition the inclusion of the piece, at the upon which he had come to depend as a last minute, in the City College quar- better guide to survival than his intellect. terly, The Lavender. Who was that And fortunate he was too that there al- whiz? Ira wondered idly at first, and Photo, Harvey Wang. ready existed a road, a well-traveled then for some reason, listlessness gave highway in his psyche, one that he way to an abrupt sharpening of atten- The publication of his sketch disclosed, at should have abandoned at a far earlier tion. Was there, could there have been least to him, that in spite of the booby age than he did, but not having done so any substance to that zest he had felt, negligence of its author to follow clear proved a boon: it was a road paved with that lift, when he was writing the piece instructions, which had yielded instead ten thousand myths and legends, and the apart from Minnie’s extravagant, though by to an inner urge, he had nonetheless fairy tales he loved so well. her brother patronizingly discounted, written something that compelled rec- And the old man suddenly recalled praise of how “wonderful” it was when he ognition. The piece had evidenced a na- Henley’s lines from high school, so clearly accorded her the privilege of reading the scent literary ability. The accolade, the across a fault line that seemed wider than typescript at breakfast in the morning? seal of approval, was bestowed on a piece the sixty years that sundered him from his The term paper Mr. Dickson had recom- of prose written not in accordance with Mr. boyhood— mended for inclusion in The Lavender was Dickson’s directives, but on his own im- And yet the menace of the years entitled “Impressions of a Plumber,” and pulses. What was it those Spanish mari- Finds and shall find me unafraid. the author was Ira Stigman. proffered reward of a dollar afterward: ners shouted from the crow’s nest high on “Wow!” Ira had exclaimed. “Here. Indigent collitch bhoy. Take.” Classmates turned to locate the recipi- Jesus, wasn’t the world wonderful! ent of the distinction. “Is that you?” someone nearby asked, II Thanks for Record Giving with gratifying incredulity. “He means riginally when Ira would tell the story you?” And another fellow student, “You Oof “The Impressions of a Plumber,” he The CUNY Campaign extends grateful appreciation to all those do- mean to say you wrote it?” always treated the sequel as the climax. nors who participated in the University’s 1997-98 voluntary charitable Ira grinned, elated: he had fooled these And what was the sequel? He received a D giving initiative. More than $266,000 was raised—a CUNY Campaign wiseguys. . . in the course. What a delicious contrast, record. Your generous and caring spirit will provide vital funding to Mr. Dickson manifested his displeasure he felt, between having won inclusion of his more than 900 agencies serving the diverse needs of the people of at this ruffling of classroom decorum. He term paper in the college Lavender, re- New York City, the nation, and the world. grimaced in disapproval, and lest the gri- ceived inclusion in the college literary quar- —Stella Cortijo mace go unnoticed, he framed it by arch- terly because of its literary merits, or, at University-wide CUNY Campaign Liaison ing an arm over his leaf-brown poll and least, because of its narrative merit, and scratching the opposite ear. “You realize, the ignominious D he received for the

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CUNY’S 1998 SALK AWARDS THE USUAL STELLAR ROSTER A Miniature U.N. Delegation to Medicine 23rd Season of Queens Evening Readings

rofessor Joe Cuomo, Director of the Queens Evening Readings since Ptheir founding 23 years ago, lays down the literary equivalent of a royal flush for his 1998-99 series opener on Nov. 10: two Pulitzer Prize winners (play- wright Edward Albee, novelist William Styron) and one Nobel Laureate (poet Derek Walcott) in a roundtable discussion of the writing process. On Dec. 8, the Readings will feature Roxana Robinson, author of short stories and the novel This is My Daughter, in a reading and an interview by Leonard Lopate. In the spring semester a trio of major American novelists will appear at the Queens College Music Building: John Updike (March 9), Edna O’Brien (March 23), and E.L. Doctorow (May 4). On April 20, Cuomo will host a Photo, André Beckles. reading and conversation with Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish poet and 1980 Nobel Laureate. n ceremonies on June 25 at Hunter Col- interest in immunology to the University of All Readings events take place on Tuesday nights at 7 p.m. in the Music Ilege, CUNY Trustee Edith Everett and Connecticut School of Medicine. Building on the Queens College Campus. Individual admission is $6 ($10 for Interim Chancellor Christoph Kimmich of- In the center is the event’s keynote the roundtable); season tickets permitting priority seating ($40 for two, $25 for fered well-earned kudos to six Jonas E. speaker, Dr. Ian Smith, the health and one) can be purchased through the Colden Center Box Office, 718-793-8080. Salk Scholarship winners and seven run- science reporter for WNBC-TV and an or- All events are open to the public and free to holders of a CUNY student ID. ner-up Salk Honorees. Included among the thopedic surgion at Albert Einstein College Salk awardees were immigrants from of Medicine. In his address he urged that China, Guyana, India, Nigeria, Poland, Rus- “the sole motivation of medicine should be sia, and Surinam. The Salk awards have from the heart, providing care equally to the Roosevelt, continued from page 8 been made since 1955, when Salk turned ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’” for peace and human rights that made GS: Was there, by chance, a witty per- down a ticker tape parade to honor him for these years her best, most creative and son behind the image of gracious earnest- discovering a polio vaccine in favor of fund- directly politically responsible years. She ness that will go down in history? ing a scholarship program in medicine. Board of Trustees was advocating for justice with her own BC: ER had a great sense of fun. She Pictured, from far left, are three Salk power and position, for the causes she worked at having fun. She and Howe did Scholars, who garnered $1,000 stipends The City University most cared about. And her greatest contri- hilarious skits for FDR’s birthday each year. per year toward tuition: Nigerian native bution: the Declaration of Human Rights. She arranged a Gridiron party each year for Eyuiche Okeke, who worked 30 hours a of New York Fulfilling its spirit remains the challenge women, and spent a lot of time preparing week at a KFC restaurant while earning a for the future. funny skits. Once she dressed up in rags as math degree at York College (she’s destined Anne A. Paolucci GS: I think you have some surprises in Old Apple Mary and was almost refused for Harvard to prepare for research in en- Chairwoman store, too. I remarked on how the simple entry! She also loved to party, and that re- docrinology and AIDS); Steve Braunstein, Herman Badillo cloth coat she wears in the fabulous River- minds me of another quality that may not fit a Brooklyn College chemistry major with a Vice-Chairman side Park statue fits her image as being ut- with her gracious public image: her ex- 4.00 GPA and prizes in chemistry, sociology terly without vanity, and you begged to differ! treme competitiveness. She would write and classics, who will attend NYU; and City Satish K. Babbar BC: A “woman without style.” Yes, that is afterward, “my party went on longer than College biology major Bianca Van-Kust, John J. Calandra pure myth. She cared profoundly about style, Franklin’s; he was asleep in bed when I a native of Suriname in South America who appreciated that style is everything. Every came upstairs.” will attend the University of Pennsylvania Kenneth Cook year she bought an entirely new wardrobe. Her competitive streak was driven home Medical School. Michael C. Crimmins And the pictures in Volume 1 also explode to me when I read a book she wrote at the From the far right are three Salk Honor- Alfred B. Curtis, Jr. the notion that ER was ugly. She was really age of 76, shortly before she died. In it she ees: David Khaski, a Brooklyn College Edith B. Everett rather attractive and, what is more, stun- recalled the happiest day of her life was the biology major on his way to New York Medi- Ronald J. Marino ning. She was six feet tall and very thin; she day she made the first field hockey team at cal College, who has already performed John Morning was an athlete. Those of us who ride horses Allenswood, the fashionable school she at- research at Beth Israel and the NYU Medi- James P. Murphy know that is how you keep your thighs firm, tended in England. That competitive, team cal Center ; Tchaiko Parrish, a Guyanese Kathleen M. Pesile and she rode daily after seven a.m., and sport is the essence of ER to me. And she native who is a Hunter College biology ma- swam and had good muscle tone. She did was competitive—with Franklin, with ev- George J. Rios jor, already a published scholar, and a re- Nilda Soto Ruiz exercises each morning to the radio; she eryone. She vowed, for example, to earn as searcher in virology at Mt. Sinai Medical Richard B. Stone studied yoga, stood on her head! much as a broadcaster and journalist as he School, and who will be attending the Besides, this was the Depression. did as President, and she wrote a letter to a Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Bernard Sohmer People sniffed at $5 dresses she bought off friend at the end of the first White House Adebowale Adeyemi’s interest in inter- Chairperson, University Faculty Senate the rack, but that is what she wanted to year, triumphant: “I’ve done it!” nal physiology began with ritual slaughter Mizanoor Biswas Chairperson, University Student Senate wear when she went into a mining commu- GS: We hope and trust you will in the on holidays in his African village, and he nity. She dressed elegantly for elegant not too distant future be saying that about will take his CCNY biology degree and an

evening events. Eleanor Roosevelt!

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

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