NYU Alumni Magazine Issue 10

PORTRAIT OF AN ISSUE #10 / SPRING 2008 NYC ART SCENE

CHARLES SIMIC: AMERICA’S HESITANT POET LAUREATE

SOLVING THE FEAR RIDDLE

www.nyu.edu/alumnimagazine 0607_A012_Final_SCPSNYUMagLaPeitra.qxd 8/14/06 2:37 PM Page 1

Job: 0607_A012 Issue Date: 10/1/06 Publication: NYU Alumni Magazin Closing Date: 7/3/06 Size: 9” x 10.875” Trim Proof: Final 9.25” x 11.125” Bleed Date: 8/14/06 8.25” x 10.125” Live Designer: NMC Color(s): 4/Colors Material Type: PDF Line Screen: NA Delivery: 7/3/06 “Intellect is great. I have no compunctions about having studied it.But ultimately what’s needed here and abroad are people of good character.” —HOWARD GARDNER, EDUCATIONAL THEORIST AND VISITING PROFESSOR, DELIVERING THE INAUGURAL JACOB K. JAVITS LECTURE “FROM MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES TO FUTURE MINDS” HEARD ON CAMPUS

“The number of times that “I’m not claiming for a totally my reviews made a decisive open border, I’m claiming for difference in the fortunes of an orderly flow of immigrants a movie is a very small one. to this land, for full respect of But on the other hand, it is a human and labor rights.Who very loud bullhorn that I have… would crop the vegetable if you say something mean in fields in San Joaquin Valley? The New York Times, it’s like Who would serve the hotels 100 times as mean as it was in Vegas,the restaurants here meant to have been.” in New York?”

—NEW YORK TIMES CO-CHIEF FILM CRITIC A. O. SCOTT VISITING A MEDIA —VICENTE FOX QUESADA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF MEXICO, AT THE VOICES ETHICS CLASS AT THE JOURNALISM DEPARTMENT OF LATIN AMERICAN LEADERS SPEAKER SERIES, HOSTED BY THE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES “The reach of the universities may be far greater than [that of] the United Nations.”

—SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS BAN KI-MOON ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLICY DURING THE THIRD-ANNUAL GLOBAL COLLOQUIUM OF UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS, HOSTED AT NYU

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 1 ISSUE #10 / SPRING 2008 C

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A CRITICAL {EYE ON } AID T AS FOREIGN AID REACHES RECORD LEVELS, ACADEMICS ASK U HOW—AND IF—IT CAN HELP THE WORLD’S MOST DESPERATE R

O PEOPLE / BY NICOLE PEZOLD / GSAS ’04 E S

N 48 THE POET CONSIDERS PULITZER PRIZE—WINNER CHARLES SIMIC (WSC ’67) DELIVERS INTEGRITY AND WIT TO HIS POST AS U.S. POET LAUREATE / BY MICHAEL SCHARF T

DEPARTMENTS THE SQUARE

8 / FOREIGN AFFAIRS 14 / ACADEMIC TREND

EN ISRAEL TURNS 60 AND FACES HOSPITALS—AND AN UNENDING STREAM OF UNIVERSITIES—CONFRONT T CHALLENGES THE NURSING CRUNCH

11 / IN BRIEF 16 / WHAT THEY’RE LEARNING NYU AND POLYTECHNIC STUDENTS CHANNEL COMBINE FORCES, THE SCHOOL MICHELANGELO OF SOCIAL WORK LANDS A BIG S GIFT, BRANCHING OUT TO ABU 18 / CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH DHABI, AND MORE TESTING THE POLITICAL SUBCONSCIOUS, POWERFUL 12 / LETTERS PERSPECTIVES, AND PHONE A HOME FOR POETS AND CALLS FROM YOUR PLANTS WRITERS

NYU ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN: 1938-4823) IS PUBLISHED TWICE YEARLY IN FALL AND SPRING BY NYU OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS, 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, FOURTH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10012; 212-998-6912.CONTENTS COPYRIGHT © 2008. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLEASE ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO: EDITORS/NYU ALUMNI MAGAZINE AT 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, FOURTH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10012, OR E-MAIL TO: [email protected]. NO RESPONSIBILITY WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS AND ARTWORK. BYLINED ARTICLES REFLECT THE VIEWPOINTS OF INDIVIDUAL WRITERS AND ARE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS EXPRESSION OF OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY POLICY. MAILED THIRD-CLASS NONPROFIT AT BURLINGTON, VT. 52 62 ANXIETY ON THE BRAIN CLASS NOTES JOSEPH LEDOUX, THE NEUROSCIENTIST WHO PINPOINTED THE SEAT OF FEAR, AIMS TO SOOTHE A NATION ON EDGE / BY CARLIN FLORA ALUMNI PROFILES ALUMNI ART 64 / KHALID LATIF / CAS ’04 76 / NATHAN SAWAYA RELIGIOUS SERVICE / CAS ’95, LAW ’98 LEGOS FOR GROWN-UPS 68 / KAREN WOLFF / SSSW ’06 RESTORING INNOCENCE PLUS ALUMNI NEWS, BENEFITS, AND UPDATES ALUMNI Q&A 72 / JEREMY LEBEWOHL 56 / CAS ’05 MEET THE DELI GUY THE NEW YORK SCHOOL A NEW EXHIBIT AT THE GREY ART GALLERY REEXAMINES THE VILLAGE ARTISTS WHO PROPELLED POP ART / BY CARLY BERWICK

IN NYC CULTURE IN PRINT EVERY ISSUE

20 / CONSERVATION 24 / TELEVISION 30 / POLITICS 1 / HEARD ON CAMPUS A NEW LIFE CYCLE FOR THREE DECADES OF NYU TWO PROFESSORS TELL THE OLD BIKES ON SNL HISTORY OF BUYING INTO WAR 4 / PRESIDENT’S LETTER

21 / ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN 28 / MARKETING 32 / NONFICTION 4 / CONTRIBUTORS PRESCRIPTIONS FOR A CONSUMERS SHOW THEIR THE TURBULENT JOURNEY OF HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT TRUE COLORS FLIGHT ATTENDANTS 5 / STAR POWER

22 / THE INSIDER 29 / CREDITS 34 / HISTORY 6 / MAILBAG EXPLORE THE BEST OF THE ALUMNI WIN BIG AT THE OSCARS PULITZER PRIZE—WINNER BIG APPLE—FROM HIDDEN AND SUNDANCE DAVID LEVERING LEWIS ON 80 / STUDENT LENS HISTORY TO A HOT HOTEL ISLAM AND EUROPE

23 / ECONOMY 36 / JOURNALISM CITY FINDS THAT THE ARTS PAY NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER DAN BARRY FOLLOWS THE ELEPHANTS ON 34TH STREET

38 / MEMOIR MIXED SOURCES: PRODUCT GROUP FROM WELL-MANAGED FOREST, CONTROLLED SOURCES, AND RECYCLED WOOD OR FIBER. CERT. NO. SW-COC-002556. WWW.FSC.ORG. © 1996 FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL. ALAN GREENSPAN REMEMBERS GROWING UP IN NEW YORK CITY NOW VISIT US ONLINE! IN KEEPING WITH NYU’S COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY, THIS PUBLICATION IS PRINTED ON FSC-CERTIFIED PAPER THAT INCLUDES A MINIMUM OF 10 PERCENT POST-CONSUMER FIBER. (THE FSC TRADEMARK IDENTIFIES PRODUCTS THAT www.nyu.edu/alumnimagazine CONTAIN FIBER FROM WELL-MANAGED FORESTS CERTIFIED BY SMARTWOOD IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE RULES OF THE FORESTS STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL.) FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT NYU’S GREEN ACTION PLAN, GO TO PLUS MORE BOOKS BY NYU WWW.NYU.EDU/SUSTAINABILITY. ALUMNI AND PROFESSORS COVER PHOTO JACOB SILBERBERG

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

P Issue #10 / Spring 2008 ince 1831, the idea of This is not to say that we have H O T O

NYU being in and of in any way forgotten our beloved © JASON HOLLANDER (GAL ’07)

M A

the city has guided us city. In addition to the endlessly T Editor-in-Chief T H E

as scholars and citizens. popular “Best of New York”(page W NICOLE PEZOLD (GSAS ’04)

E Associate Editor P

S T But more and more, 22), you’ll also find in these pages a I ´ M RENEE ALFUSO (CAS ’06) U we have also realized that we are an review of a galvanizing art move- S Editorial Assistant institution in and of the world—sit- ment spawned in our own back- JOHN KLOTNIA / OPTO DESIGN ting as we do in the heart of the yard, which is now the subject of Creative Director ANDREA CRAWFORD most cosmopolitan, polyglot city a Grey Art Gallery show (“The Contributing Editor on Earth. NYU thrives on ideas New York School,” page 56), as and talents from nearly every na- well as a profile of alumnus Charles Articles tion, and as a result, however far- Simic,who once sharpened his wry JOSEPH MANGHISE Copy Chief flung some places may be from this wit on the city’s sidewalks and this DAVID COHEN (CHIEF) metropolis, we cannot ignore the year added U.S. Poet Laureate to MICHAEL MATASSA most clawing questions they face. his list of distinctions (“The Poet Researchers SUZANNE KRAUSE (GSAS ’08) For many that question is what to Considers,”page 48). Editorial Intern do about poverty, an abhorrent re- Finally,we look at the one thing ality for almost half the world pop- that far too often these days plagues Art / Opto Design ulation. In this, our 10th issue, we us, in New York City and beyond: We hope that despite the gravity of RON LOUIE Art Director uncover the roots of this inequality fear—and the astonishing work that some of these topics, you’ll find NEAL BANTENS and the range of ideas and research NYU neuroscientist Joseph there is much to be hopeful for this BRIAN MAGNER on how it might be rectified (“Crit- LeDoux is doing to counter it spring. Associate Art Directors ical {Eye On} Aid,”page 40). (“Anxiety on the Brain,” page 52). JOHN SEXTON SUE PARK Designer MARGARET LANZONI Photo Research Director

Advertising DEBORAH BRODERICK CONTRIBUTORS Associate Vice President of Marketing Communications, NYU CARLY BERWICK writes about art whose work has appeared in Sports MICHAEL SCHARF is a reviews Alumni News Editor and culture for Bloomberg News, Illustrated, Esquire,Time, and Enter- editor at Publishers Weekly whose JENNIFER BOSCIA SMITH (SCPS ’04) New York magazine, and Condé Nast tainment Weekly. third book of poems, For Kid Director of Development and Traveler. She is also a contributing Rock/Total Freedom, was released Alumni Communications, NYU LARS LEETARU editor at ARTnews and The Next has illustrated last year. New York University American City magazines. for The Wall Street Journal, Es- MARTIN LIPTON (LAW ’55) quire, ESPN The Magazine, MATTHEW SEPTIMUS (STERN Board of Trustees, Chairman BEN BIRNBAUM is the editor of Forbes, Inc., and The New York ’83) is a commercial photographer JOHN SEXTON President Boston College Magazine and the Times. He also enjoys painting based in Brooklyn. His clients in- LYNNE P. BROWN book Take Heart: Catholic Writers on and playing the banjo. clude the French Culinary Institute, Senior Vice President for University Hope in Our Time. Fashion Institute of Technology,The Relations and Public Affairs ROBERT POLNER is a press offi- New York Times, and the Museum of DEBRA A. LAMORTE Senior Vice President for University TED BOSCIA lives in Madison,New cer for NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Modern Art. Development and Alumni Relations Jersey,and works for Google News. Graduate School of Public Ser- REGINA L. SYQUIA (WAG ’01) He has written for the San Francisco vice. He is a former reporter and ADELLE WALDMAN is a freelance Deputy Director for Strategic Initiatives Chronicle, Stanford Magazine, and editor for Newsday and edited the writer living in Brooklyn. She has New York University Baseball America. book America’s Mayor, America’s contributed to The Wall Street Jour- Alumni Association President? nal, Slate,The New York Observer, and JONATHAN HERMAN (ARTS ’69, LAW ’73) CARLIN FLORA is a senior editor The Village Voice. President STEVEN S. MILLER (LAW ’70) BETH SAULNIER at Psychology Today who has written is associate edi- JOHN CALVO (STERN ’91, LAW ’95) for The Scientist and Weekly Reader. tor of Cornell Alumni Magazine and LEIGH WELLS is an illustrator in MICHAEL DENKENSOHN (STERN ’73) She lives in New York City. editor of Weill Cornell Medicine. A San Francisco who has worked with BEVERLY HYMAN (STEINHARDT ’80) GERALD KLACZANY (DEN ’86) film critic for the Ithaca Journal, she Converse, Starbucks, and American Vice Presidents PETER GREGOIRE is an Emmy has published seven murder myster- Express. MELANIE SMITH (WAG ’99) Award–winning photographer ies with Warner Books. Secretary

4 / SPRING 2008 / NYU P C O U N T E

R FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ADDS URGENCY TO THE CLIMATE CHANGE DISCUSSION AT THE GLOBAL COLLOQUIUM OF UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS, HOSTED BY NYU. C L O C K W I S E

F R O M

O T O P :

D A N

C R E I G H T O N ;

P H I W L

G A L L O ;

A N N E M A R I E

P O Y O

F U R L O N E G ;

P H I L I P

D E R I S E ;

D A N

R C R E I G H T O SN TAR TOP-DRAW ALUMNI AND FRIENDS PUT ON THE GLITZ FOR NYU

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, THE WOMAN BEHIND THE SNARKY POLITICAL BLOG THE HUFFINGTON POST, DIS- CUSSES HER RISE AT AN SCPS EVENT.

HIP-HOP MOGUL RUSSELL SIMMONS JACKIE CHAN, WITH TSOA DEAN MARY SCHMIDT CAMPBELL, IS ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST NATALIE PORTMAN MODERATES A PANEL ON MUSLIM- HONORED FOR HIS FILMS AND PUBLIC SERVICE AT A RED-CARPET STUMPS FOR MICROFINANCE AT A PUBLIC JEWISH RELATIONS ON CAMPUS. CELEBRATION OF TISCH’S NEW SINGAPORE CAMPUS. DIALOGUE CO-SPONSORED BY AFRICA HOUSE.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 5 mailbag We Hear FromYou

Thanks to all the alumni who responded to our ninth issue (Fall 2007). We are thrilled that NYU Alumni Magazine continues to stir so many of you to write and share your thoughts. Please keep the letters coming!

snowboarders all over the world. the Empire State Building to be lit research that various NYU scien- Although we’ve never met, Burton up blue and white honoring tists are doing on climate change has definitely had a huge impact Hanukkah—the Festival of Lights— and other environmental topics. upon my life, and now I can proudly in 1997,when she was just nine years However, there appear to be very add another factor we share: our old. few environmental scientists on the bond with NYU. Manny H. Greitzer, OD faculty these days, no actual depart- Chicki Rosenberg NYU parent ment of earth science or geology, GSAS ’66 Greenwich, Connecticut and a biology department devoid of Killington,Vermont ecologists. After reading about the Empire State Judith S.Weis, PhD THE LIGHTER SIDE Building lighting 1,336 lights on GSAS ’64 In your fall 2007 issue, you had an many occasions,I have but one ques- Rutgers University article about the illumination of the tion:Why don’t they go back to the Newark, New Jersey BOARDERS, UNITE Empire State Building for the past single beacon? It’s time to conserve, You can’t imagine my tremendous three years (“Violet City”) honor- as “The Green Issue” says. I was disappointed, but certainly not pleasure to read a profile of Jake ing NYU’s commencement cere- Harriet (Levy) Klein surprised, to learn that my alma Burton Carpenter (“King of the monies. You briefly review the STEINHARDT ’40 mater has jumped on the global- Mountain”) in the fall issue! Yes, historical inception of lighting first Palm Springs, California warming bandwagon. What really Burton’s story is one of commercial celebrating Roosevelt’s 1932 presi- galls me, however, is the way you success, but his creativity and deter- dential victory. For the record, my GREEN, AT ISSUE smugly engage in psychobabble to mination have also delivered a prod- daughter, Mallory Blair Greitzer, a I enjoyed “The Green Issue,” but it discredit global-warming skeptics uct that offers unbounded excitement second-year student at Gallatin, sin- would have been so much better if who are so audacious as to declare and a profound experience for gle-handedly was able to convince there had been discussion of the that the emperor has no clothes

THE FOLLOWING ARE ABBREVIATIONS FOR NYU SCHOOLS YOUR GUIDE TO THE SCHOOL CODES AND COLLEGES, PAST AND PRESENT

ARTS - University College of formerly Gallatin Division SCPS - School of Continuing TSOA - Tisch School of the Arts, Arts and Science (“The Heights”); and Professional Studies formerly School of the Arts used for alumni through 1974 GSAS - Graduate School of Arts and Science SSSW - Silver School of Social WAG - Robert F.Wagner Graduate CAS - College of Arts and Work School of Public Service, formerly Science (“The College”); refers GSP - The General Studies Program Graduate School of Public Admin- to the undergraduate school in STEINHARDT - The Steinhardt istration arts and science, from 1994 on HON - Honorary Degree School of Culture, Education, and Human Development WSC - Washington Square College, CIMS - Courant Institute of IFA - Institute of Fine Arts now College of Arts and Science; Mathematical Sciences STERN - Leonard N. Stern refers to arts and science under- ISAW - Institute for the Study of School of Business Graduate graduates who studied at Washing- DEN - College of Dentistry the Ancient World Division, formerly the Graduate ton Square Campus through 1974 School of Business Administra- ENG - School of Engineering and LAW - School of Law tion; Leonard N. Stern School WSUC - Washington Square Science (“The Heights”); no of Business Undergraduate University College, now College longer exists but is used to refer MED - School of Medicine, College, formerly School of of Arts and Science; refers to to its alumni through 1974 formerly College of Medicine Commerce; and College of Busi- alumni of the undergraduate ness and Public Administration school in arts and science from GAL - Gallatin School of NUR - College of Nursing, 1974 to 1994 Individualized Study, now part of College of Dentistry

6 / SPRING 2008 / NYU we need to look at and assess all of Editors’note: Indeed the issue of climate the evidence. change has become politicized and, for Former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz that reason, we received a number of STERN ’51, LAW ’53 letters from displeased alumni. However, Minneapolis, Minnesota NYU,this magazine,and the balance of scientists and nations feel there is If global warming is occurring, it now compelling evidence that the is cyclical and due to natural forces climate is changing, in large part because completely beyond the ability of of human carbon emissions.What we do man to control. Instead of the ob- not know is when and exactly how this session with a disputed, unproven will alter our lives. It could wreak far theory, we should be concerned greater havoc on the global economy with the very real threat to our than any attempts to regulate green- existence that would occur with house gases. This is why NYU has (“The Denial Justification”). In consequences to national economies the acquisition of atomic weapons committed to greening our campus and essence, you claim that we are in will dwarf any alleged harm from by North Korea, Iran, or Islamic investing in research and new faculty— denial because we don’t want to be human carbon emissions. terrorists. including the creation of an Environ- inconvenienced by higher taxes and Lance Lamberton George E. Rubin mental Studies program—so that we prices. On the contrary, there are GSAS ’79 WSC ’55 don’t just sound the alarm but large numbers of highly credible and Austell, Georgia New York, New York contribute to resolving this problem. well-credentialed scientists pro- viding powerful evidence that the Your piece “Global Harming: Facts notion of human activity being re- and Forecasts” presents an extreme- Please send your comments and opinions to: Readers’ Letters, NYU Alumni sponsible for climate change is ly one-sided view.The science is Magazine, 25 West Fourth Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY, 10012; or fraught with error and dubious not settled and the debate is not e-mail us at [email protected]. Please include your mailing science. If we act upon the agenda over. Unfortunately, this issue has address, phone number, and school and year. Letters become the property of global-warming alarmists, the become politicized at a time when of NYU and may be edited for length and clarity. I L L U S T R A T I O N

O P S T O

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foreign affairs by the same name last December. Since 1948, when a United Na- tions General Assembly resolution wrote it into existence, the Jewish state of seven million people, oc- HAPPY cupying a slice of desert the size of E New Jersey,has continued to invite debate, desire, and derision—but never disinterest. BIRTHDAY? “The birth of Israel is one of those epoch-making events in his- AS ISRAEL TURNS 60, NYU tory, something that has an effect EXAMINES THE THRIVING on the rest of the world dispropor- YET DIVISIVE NATION’S PAST, tionate to the size of the land, the size of the people, and the conse- PRESENT, AND FUTURE quences of which we’ve been living with ever since,” said Suarez t’s safe to bet that NYU did stones were significant for those (WSUC ’85), a senior correspon- not make an occasion of the two countries, but they failed to dent at The NewsHour With Jim 60th anniversary of Greece’s grab the world’s attention. Not so Lehrer and author of The Holy Vote: Istatehood in 1892 and Yu- with “Israel at 60,” noted journal- The Politics of Faith in America (Rayo). goslavia’s in 1978.The mile- ist Ray Suarez during a dialogue To elucidate some of those consequences and the tangled history Arab countries at that same peri- GOLDBERG: Remember that I think what we have to be fo- that preceded them, NYU Alumni od, and have been absorbed, more much of the Zionist movement did cused on is the Palestinians and Magazine, along with the universi- or less, into Israel. not want statehood necessarily un- how they decide what they are. ty’s Taub Center for Israel Studies The Palestinian narrative is that til pretty late in the game.They just Are they represented by a secular, and Edgar M. Bronfman Center an injustice so cosmic was com- wanted a Jewish homeland, a place nationalist movement or by a for Jewish Student Life, invited mitted against us that we can’t help for Jewish refugees. And if the pan–Islamist, Muslim Brother- two experts to take up the discus- but fight for what is ours, and fur- Palestinian Arab community had hood–influenced movement? And sion: historian Ronald Zweig, di- thermore we’re Palestinian. It’s an rector of the Taub Center and act of hubris or callousness on the author of several works, including part of Israelis, Palestinians believe, “What we’re living in now is Britain and Palestine During the Sec- to say,“Well, just go live in Egypt, ond World War (Royal Historical or Syria, or Saudi Arabia.” the ’48 War. It just never ended.” Society); and Jeffrey Goldberg, na- So what we’re living in now is —JEFFREY GOLDBERG tional correspondent for The At- the ’48 War. I mean it hasn’t end- lantic, whose recent book Prisoners: ed. It just never ended. A Muslim & a Jew Across the Middle been led by more moderate types, until that’s settled, it’s pretty hard East Divide (Knopf) was hailed as SUAREZ: What are some of the maybe you wouldn’t have had the to figure out a permanent status one of the year’s best by both The ways it could have been otherwise? problems that you have today. agreement. NewYork Times andWashington Post. During the two-hour conversa- RONALD ZWEIG: Israel did not SUAREZ: Does the Road Map or SUAREZ: But it looked like it was tion, which was moderated by prevent the creation of a Palestin- the Quartet [the process of media- on its way to being settled when Suarez, Zweig and Goldberg of- ian state, as the United Nations tion started by the United States, Hamas thumped Fatah in the elec- fered clarity,but no easy solutions, partition resolution originally Russia, the European Union, and tions in 2006. It looked like this is for Israel’s enduring quest to se- called for. Had, in 1948, the Arab the UN in 2002] hold any hope? who you’re going to have to deal

cure a peaceful future.The follow- P H O T ing is an excerpt of the discussion: O S

D A N

RAY SUAREZ: If you look back over C R E I G the past couple of millennia, there H T O are countless people who have N fought over pieces of land. What makes Israel’s story different?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: If Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem had been located in Burkina Faso, and if Jesus had been born [there], we’d be talking about Burkina Faso. It’s a sliver of land, but in- credible events have taken place, or are believed to have taken place there. Just as pure story, it’s compelling in a way that very few other stories are. The Israeli narrative, or the FROM LEFT: JOURNALIST RAY SUAREZ QUESTIONED HISTORIAN RONALD ZWEIG AND AUTHOR JEFFREY GOLDBERG ON THE Zionist narrative, is: “Why is [the STATE OF ISRAEL AT 60 AND THE QUEST FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE. conflict] going on today? It’s because the Arabs chose cynically not world decided to create a Palestin- GOLDBERG: No.You have a situa- with, and yet nobody wanted to to resettle their fellow brothers ian state next to Israel, we would tion where the Israeli Prime Min- talk to [Hamas]. from Palestine into their own have had a two-state solution 60 ister is at 5 or 6 percent popularity. lands.”Most of the time when peo- years ago.And had the Palestinians And then you have a president of GOLDBERG: Well,how can you talk ple lose a war, the refugees melt accepted the partition as the UN Palestine who doesn’t control to somebody who doesn’t see you? away into whatever population proposed it in November 1947, Gaza, doesn’t control [the West I mean,there’s a metaphysical prob- they happen to be living in. And they would have had more territo- Bank city of] Nablus. So you have lem: How do you negotiate with the Israelis argue that this holds be- ry at their disposal [than they do an incredibly unpopular leader somebody who doesn’t acknowl- cause 800,000 or 900,000 Jews now]. So their state would have negotiating with a powerless edge that you exist? were expelled or departed from been even more viable. leader. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 9 (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9) there were Palestinian suicide GOLDBERG: But it’s true.As long as the Palestinians were to go away ZWEIG: [Hamas was] not prepared bombers inside Israel proper, no- the Iranian threat is there, you’ll see tomorrow, Israel will definitely to enter into final-status negotia- body really cared about Palestinian a Sunni-Jewish alliance,which is es- have to facilitate the integration tions, which is what we’re talking rights on the West Bank,which al- sentially what you had at Annapo- of the Israeli Arab minority, who about.That’s what the Quartet, the lowed the settlement movement lis. But this is going to have to flow prefer now to see themselves as an Road Map, is supposed to lead us to reach a certain critical thresh- through the Palestinians. Much is Israeli Palestinian minority. Fif- to.So it’s not just that Israel refused old. And the leaders of the settle- depending on what the Palestinians teen years from now,50 percent of to talk to Hamas;Hamas refused to ment movement that grew out of signal to the rest of the Arab world. Israeli society will belong to sec- talk about the thing they’re sup- the moderate religious Zionist tors that see themselves con- posed to talk about. movement are now becoming ir- SUAREZ: Something apparently sciously as non-Zionist: the Arab relevant and are being taken over happened between the early 1990s and the Ultra-Orthodox [Jew]. GOLDBERG: There’s a deeper by a younger generation that is far and now. [Palestinian Authority They see themselves as separate. problem, which is that if you read more confrontational. leaders] had been ready to scratch This is a challenge to Israeli soci- Hamas’s covenant, much of it is out those parts of their charter ety that will have to be addressed. based on the [forged book] Proto- SUAREZ: Can a prime minister with that were forever opposed to the If we held this discussion, and cols of the Elders of Zion, and I think a 5 percent approval rating tell existence of Israel. But now you’re this gloomy prognosis of the atti- you’re asking a bit much of the them to cut it out? talking about rejectionists, elimi- tudes of the Arab world, say 10 Jewish people to negotiate with nationists, ready to hang in for the years after Israel was created, I someone who believes…that the GOLDBERG: It’s very,very hard to long haul. What happened? would be worried. But Israel has Jews are a cosmologically malevo- do. There’s no denying that the gone from strength to strength,and lent force. spine of the West Bank going up GOLDBERG: The pathological re- continues to do so. And for all of Road 60 is the heartland of Jewish jection of Jewish civil equality by the domestic problems, we must SUAREZ: Is there a growing sense history.We’re talking about settle- an ascendant Islamist movement, remember that Israel is an extreme- that holding on to the territories ments from Hebron to Nablus; combined with a series of mis- ly dynamic society; it’s constantly also has a cost that becomes over changing, and does address issues. time so corrosive, so large, that you may lose more than you gain? “Israel can work with any country GOLDBERG:Yes,there are contradictions inside contradictions —RONALD ZWEIG ZWEIG: Being an occupying force that sees Iran as a threat.” here.You have a state that’s under now for 40 years, confronting the pressure,that has these social prob- Palestinian masses in a violent con- that’s where it all happened. So I takes by the Israeli government, lems. But it also attracts more frontation for 20 years, this has a don’t see how Ehud Olmert is go- led to the empowerment of high-tech venture capital than any cumulative corrosive effect. [Is- ing to reverse the growth. Hamas. And the more that al- other country in the world, ex- raelis] should by now be much far- Qaeda can create a civilizational cept for China.You have an econ- ther down the road on friendly SUAREZ: Both of you gave less struggle that really didn’t exist be- omy that’s growing like relations with the Arab states;they’ll than glowing reviews to [the No- fore 9/11, the better off the rejec- gangbusters; you have a vibrant never get there as long as they are vember 2007 Middle East summit tionists are. place where Judaism is flourishing fighting the Palestinians. in] Annapolis, but it did gather a lot A key moment for me was late in a way that it’s never flourished of the people who are going to have 2000.I was in Ramallah at a Fatah before. GOLDBERG: Most Israelis want to something to say about whatever funeral.There were 10,000 people I can be pessimistic and opti- get out but don’t know how to get happens, which hadn’t been done in and they started chanting, “Oh, mistic in the same minute. Be- out.That’s the essential dilemma. a long time. Who on the Arab side Jews of Haibar, the army of cause of Israel,the Jews as a people Most Israelis know in their hearts can be worked with? Muhammad is returning.”This worldwide are in better shape what we’re talking about here.But if was a secular, nationalist Fatah than they’ve been since the Ro- you were looking at the situation as ZWEIG: Israel can work with any crowd and they were referring to man destruction of the Temple a Palestinian, you’re saying, “Okay, country that sees Iran as a threat. the defeat by the prophet Muham- 2,000 years ago. But you’re left at they want to negotiate,they want to Traveling recently in the Gulf area, mad and his armies of the Jews of the end of the day with imperfec- get out of the West Bank, but the and reading the Arab press in Jor- the oasis of Haibar 1,400 years tion. Israel is a place that’s safe for settlement movement gets more and dan, in the Emirates, I read the ago. I thought to myself, “Wow, Judaism,but it’s not safe for Jews— more ingrained each and every day.” same sort of Op-Eds openly call- we’re really not talking about the yet. America is safe for Jews, but ing for an alliance between Turkey, ’67 borders; we’re talking about it’s not really safe for Judaism.And ZWEIG: We have to look at when the Gulf States, and Israel against the whole idea.” so you have two, right now, im- the settlement movement really be- the Iranian threat. perfect promised lands. came large and significant, and that SUAREZ: Let’s talk about Israel in was parallel to the time that Pales- GOLDBERG: There’s nothing like a the next 10 to 20 years. For more information on the Taub tinian terror became large and sig- Persian to make an Arab like a Jew. Center conference on Israel’s 60th, nificant inside of Israel.As long as [Laughter] ZWEIG: Even if the problems with visit www.taub.as.nyu.edu.

10 / SPRING 2008 / NYU IN BRIEF P H O T O

G E N

A Gift to Help Others Give E

S C H I A V

Growing up in rural Maine, Constance McCatherin-Silver (SSSW O N ’78, ’79) observed a good deal of poverty and got her first tastes of E public service as a brownie and Girl Scout. But it wasn’t until Mc- Catherin-Silver was in her mid-thirties that she realized—urged on by a neighbor—that her true passion was in social work.Now,she and her husband,Martin Silver (STERN ’58),have given the ultimate gift to students who also strive to help others:The couple recently donated $50 million to the School of Social Work—the largest private nomics and Systems Biology will BALLET MASTERS donation ever given to a school of social work in the United States. soon occupy fresh digs on Waver- NewYork has always been the place In honor of this landmark in philanthropy, the school has been ly Place. “Modern science de- for high-powered artistic teams— renamed the Silver School of Social Work. mands modern laboratory space,” from Stephen Sondheim’s epic col- The funds will largely be dedicated to fighting poverty through an says Provost David McLaughlin laboration with Leonard Bernstein endowed professorship for a junior faculty member and a foundation on the decision to convert the for- and Jerome Robbins on West Side for the planned McSilver (a combination of McCatherin and Silver) mer campus administrative offices Story to George Balanchine and Institute for Poverty Policy and Practice.The money will also provide into a 70,000-square-foot state- Robbins’s classic restaging of financial aid for master’s degree students dedicated to aiding minori- of-the-art facility designed by EYP Stravinsky’s Firebird.American Bal- ty populations,especially those “very poor students who happen to be Architecture & Engineering P.C. let Theatre and the Steinhardt very, very smart,” McCatherin-Silver says. But she ultimately hopes and Polshek Partnership Archi- School of Culture, Education, and the gift will inspire new solutions for ongoing challenges in the field. tects. It will feature new labs, a Human Development continue this “We have to have new ways to teach our social workers,”she explains. greenhouse, and full glass store- tradition with their new venture: “You can’t just throw money at a problem.You have to figure out why fronts to create ground-floor trans- the first-ever master of arts in dance [other] policies didn’t work.” –Andrew Flynn parency. Scheduled to be education with a concentration in P H

O completed in 2010,the redevelop- ballet pedagogy.This innovative T O

D ment is being supported in part by program, which starts in fall 2008, O N

P NYU’s Partners Plan, which is aims to give students a complete O L L A

R working to expand the university’s understanding of ballet technique D arts and science faculty. and prepare them for positions as highly skilled instructors or in fur- A PRINCIPAL MAN OF PRINCIPLES ther doctoral work. Ronald Dworkin has long been a champion of acknowledging hu- MARRYING MINDS: NYU & POLY man dignity and individual worth For several decades, New York within the legal system. Recent- City has sought to establish itself ly,the Frank Henry Sommer Pro- as an East Coast answer to Silicon fessor of Law was recognized for Valley.The city will move a step his theories on valuing principles, closer to that goal with the re- as much as rules, in jurisprudence cently announced merger of Poly- AN ABU DHABI ARCH? operate with the same standards as with Norway’s 2007 Ludvig technic University in Brooklyn The streets of Paris will always those prevailing at Washington Holberg International Memori- and NYU, which is expected to have their lure, but in the spirit of Square, including adherence to ac- al Prize, an honor accompanied open streams of new investment going global, NYU is exploring ademic freedom. The campus an- by $750,000. From among the and research. The proposed plan new terrain—literally. Soon to be ticipates a student body of at least world’s best scholars in the arts would gradually fold Poly,the sec- under construction in the sands of 2,000, particularly drawing appli- and humanities, social sciences, ond-oldest private engineering Abu Dhabi, capital of the United cants from the Middle East, South law and theology, the Holberg school in the nation, into NYU as Arab Emirates, is one of the first Asia, Central Asia, and Europe. committee singled out Dworkin a school of engineering and tech- full-scale, residential foreign liberal for his “unique ability to tie to- nology—something the universi- arts campus established by a major SCIENCE—IN STYLE gether abstract philosophical ideas ty has lacked since it sold its U.S. research university in the re- It’s been nearly 40 years since and arguments with concrete University Heights campus and gion.NYU Abu Dhabi,which will NYU opened a new science everyday concerns in law,morals, disbanded the College of Engi- enroll its first class in 2010, will building, but the Center for Ge- and politics.” neering in 1973. Stay tuned....

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 11 S Q

THE U A R E

letters HOUSE OF WORDS

A NEW HOME FOR CREATIVE WRITERS REVIVES THE VILLAGE’S SALON TRADITION

by James Jung P H

HIS FEELS LIKE I’M READING IN Alexander S. Onassis Center for important, by relocating the uni- O T O S

“ Hellenic Studies, first opened its versity’s more than 90 full-time ©

MY OWN LIVING ROOM…EXCEPT P E T

doors in January 2007, following MFA students from a small wing E R

T I’M NOT TALKING TO MYSELF AND G R

a gift by trustee Lillian Vernon of the English department, the E G O I other people are actually listen- the house’s back room for wine, and a $2 million renovation that house has given the creative-writ- R E ing,” remarked poet Brenda hors d’oeuvres, and, of course, left the aging brick building’s in- ing program a home base and, Shaughnessy last November, ig- more spirited book talk. terior sufficiently modern with- with that, a sense of identity.“The niting a roar of laughter in the While this bohemian scene out sacrificing any of its colonial house has utterly juiced up the packed front parlor of NYU’s Lil- might seem befitting of downtown charm. Today, it provides offices program,”Strauss says.“What had lian Vernon Creative Writers New York’s literary culture, it’s for such renowned faculty mem- been a fairly loose confederation House. Framed by a large, multi- more unusual than some may bers as E.L. Doctorow, Sharon of writers has turned into a tight- paned front window, Shaughnessy think. For small fees, places such as Olds,and Darin Strauss.But more ly united community with the cut a figure of a lively houseguest, Poets House and the New School regaling a living room full of book- have long offered reading series, drunk students and literary enthu- but there wasn’t a downtown es- “The idea is that we have this siasts with anecdotes and verse. By tablishment showcasing both fic- evening’s end, late arrivals shot tion and poetry readings, all free of elegant house with all these writers questions from their perches along charge to the public. The newly living in the neighborhood, so the staircase banister and im- opened Lillian Vernon Creative promptu conversations bubbled up Writers House, however, has why not invite them over?” amongst rows of audience mem- quickly filled that void. —DEBORAH LANDAU, POET AND DIRECTOR OF bers, all before the crowd spilled Located at 58 West 10th Street, THE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM through the French doors and into the house, formerly NYU’s

12 / SPRING 2008 / NYU scorecard

CLIMBING THE ENDOWMENT STAIRCASE Endowment size is one source of modern-day bragging rights for universities because the investment earnings from them are vital to budgeting for incidental, extracurricular expenses not covered by tuition. The current Campaign for NYU has helped to raise the university’s endowment to more than $2 billion—the largest total in campus history—nearly double that of five years ago. And while NYU manages to do a lot with a little, we’re still a long way from measuring up to our peers.

ENDOWMENT PER FTE* STUDENT

HARVARD $1,774,875 $1,774,875 ($34,634,906,000 / 19,514)

{ $ 34,634,906,000 ENDOWMENT 19,514 STUDENTS}

STANFORD $1,152,776 $1,152,776 ($17,1 64,836,000 / 14,890)

{$17,164,836,000 ENDOWMENT 14,890 STUDENTS }

THIS RENOVATED VILLAGE TOWN HOUSE WELCOMES ANYONE JONESING FOR SERIOUS BOOK TALK IN A CASUAL SETTING. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY house at the center of that social “The result is both charming universe.”On any given day,stu- and nourishing,”Quinn says,and $473,738 $473,738 ($5,567,843,000 / 11,753) dents lounge with their laptops the inviting atmosphere has or chat across the sofas about drawn fans such as musician Lou { $5,567,843,000 ENDOWMENT 11,753 STUDENTS} their reading.“Our graduate stu- Reed and performance artist dents are here all the time,”agrees Laurie Anderson. poet and program director Deb- Landau and staff are currently COLUMBIA orah Landau. “I wish we had cooking up more events to en- laundry machines and showers!” sure that lines between the house $337,398 $337,398 ($7,149,803,000 / 21,191) But the house looks outward and the city continue to blur. as much as it does inward, offer- Matinee readings have started, { $7,149,803,000 ENDOWMENT 21,191 STUDENTS} ing the greater New York liter- while “Writers in New York,” a ary community a homey forum, craft-intensive program modeled thanks to the popular weekly after Middlebury College’s pres- NYU “Reading & Conversation” se- tigious Bread Loaf School of Eng- $62,053 ($2,161,800,000 / 34,838) ries curated by Landau.The publish, and a Paris Review–curated $62,053 lic can drop by to hear the likes salon series are both planned for of novelist A.M. Homes, author the summer. Landau explains, { $2,161,800,000 ENDOWMENT 34,838 STUDENTS} and scholar André Aciman, and “The idea is that we have this el- former New Yorker poetry editor egant house with all these writers Alice Quinn read, field ques- living in the neighborhood, so *FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT, INCORPORATING BOTH FULL- AND PART-TIME STUDENTS tions, and stir up lively debates. why not invite them over?” SOURCE: 2007 NACUBO ENDOWMENT STUDY

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 13 academic trend educators. The Johns Hopkins nursing or a related field. NYU, S University School of Nursing which has one of the oldest nurs-

Q offers nurse administrators and ing PhD programs, has stepped advanced practice nurses dis- up its efforts by elevating what THE U counts on tuition,while the Uni- was once the nursing division to

A versity of Chicago Medical its own school in 2005. Since HELP Center offers 100 percent tu- then the new College of Nurs- R E “If we put the same dollars that WANTED go into physician education into UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER AGENCIES nursing, we’d be in a much SCRAMBLE TO FILL THE EVER-WIDENING better place.” NURSING GAP –CHERYL A. PETERSON, AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION by Renée Alfuso / CAS ’06 / and Samme Chittum

ition reimbursement for nurse ing, under its first dean, Terry VERYONE HAS A HOSPITAL HOR- employees who want to earn a Fulmer, has doubled faculty and ROR STORY. “[YOU] HAVE TO GO bachelor’s or master’s degree and nearly tripled student enrollment ETO THE BATHROOM, YOU BUZZ 75 percent reimbursement for from 400 to 1,150. In addition, those who pursue a doctorate in staff nurses at NYU Medical for the nurse, and [they] don’t Association of Colleges of Nurs- Center can now qualify for tu- come,” recites nursing professor ing (AACN).“We don’t have the ition reimbursement if they pur- Christine Kovner. “That’s the faculty or the clinical sites to sue a graduate or doctoral nursing standard.” Unfortunately, that quickly increase the number of degree. standard isn’t likely to improve nurses we’re graduating,”explains But luring more students and anytime soon. The demand for Cheryl A. Peterson, a veteran faculty only fixes part of the nurses—who make up the largest nurse and senior policy analyst problem; there will never be workforce in the U.S. health-care for the American Nurses Associ- enough nurses until hospitals fig- system—now far outpaces their ation (ANA). In fact, the AACN ure out how to retain those al- supply.The American Hospital found almost three-fourths of ready on staff.Some 41.5 percent Association reported 118,000 programs suffer from a dearth of of registered nurses in their first nursing job vacancies nationwide in 2006, and a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association says the number could nearly triple by 2020 as the baby boomers gray and require in- I L

creasing care. L U S T

The issue is more complicated R A T I O

than most imagine. While rising N

salaries and job opportunities are P T O

actually attracting an unprece- E S I G dented number of would-be N nurses,admission bottlenecks and faculty shortages at universities, along with a staggeringly high teachers,and this shortage is like- year and half on the job serious- attrition rate among nurses on ly to grow because about half of ly consider changing careers, ac- the floor, are emptying hospitals all nursing faculty in the United cording to a national study—the of their most indispensable re- States are baby boomers them- first of its kind—of 3,226 regis- source. The crisis at nursing selves and plan to retire within tered nurses in 35 states and the schools has gotten so dire that 10 years. District of Columbia. “We sim- more than 42,000 qualified ap- In response, schools are ex- ply didn’t know a lot about these plicants were turned away last ploring a range of creative meas- nurses and why they leave,” says

year, according to the American ures to recruit both students and (CONTINUED ON PAGE 16)

14 / SPRING 2008 / NYU NYU’S SCHOOL OF An education in the city. CONTINUING AND PROFESSIONAL e experience of the world. STUDIES For New York University alumni who never want to stop learning, growing, and achieving, there’s the School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS). It’s a great opportunity to advance in your current career, branch out in a new eld, or rediscover the joy of learning. The range of oerings is of the highest caliber—from workshops and seminars, to thousands of up-to-the-minute courses that shape the leaders of tomorrow, today. Visit our website or call for a Bulletin. PROGRAM AREAS INCLUDE: PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATES: • Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Our certicate programs will sharpen your existing professional skills, so you will stay ahead • Arts, Humanities, and Performing Arts in New York’s competitive climate. These courses maintain the highest academic and industry • Business Management standards. And, to keep pace with technology’s integral role in business, we are oering a • Career Management and Education Planning number of new timely certicates including: Digital Media Marketing, IT Auditing, and • Coaching and Corporate Training Information Systems Security, in addition to our existing oerings. • Design and Digital Arts • Film, Video, and Broadcasting OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE: • English as a Second Language A unique and innovative educational and social opportunity developed especially for mature • Finance and Accounting • Food and Wine adults, NYU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) oers a stimulating array of educational • Foreign Languages, Translation, and Interpreting opportunities—lectures and courses, special programs, and community events. Come join a • Global Aairs welcoming community as we discuss the arts, politics, science, and all that is relevant about • Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management our ever-changing world. OLLI’s faculty of distinguished scholars and renowned practitioners • Human Capital Management will lead you through the workshops, teach the courses, and cultivate a learning environment • Information Technology sure to energize your mind and enrich your life. • Law and Corporate Governance • Marketing, Advertising, and Sales • Philanthropy and Fundraising • Public Relations and Investor Relations • Publishing • Real Estate • Writing and Speech

Seiter&Miller PNY-7064 Pub. Alum Mag-Non Credit Size 8.25 x 10.125 Issue Fall 2007 Art Director: sd/db/nc Copywriter: ms Account Executive: wt Date 7/18/07 (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14) what they’re learning The Syllabus: Kovner, who co-authored the article published last fall in the The Renaissance American Journal of Nursing with The Class: Following Carol Brewer of the School of Apprentice Nursing at the University at Buf- falo. Much of the nurses’ frustra- in Michelangelo’s tion, they discovered, is the result WEEK 1: Introductions / Trip of poor management and stress- Footsteps to Zecchi rare Renaissance art ful working conditions: 25 per- supply store to buy materials: natural charcoal, black chalk, cent found it “difficult or by Renée Alfuso / CAS ’06 impossible” to do their job at natural white chalk, red chalk least once a week because of in- (or sanguigna), silver, feather adequate supplies, 62 percent ex- n the first day of under his own teacher. By copy- pens, ink, pigments, boars-hair perienced verbal abuse by either his apprentice- ing the classics, students learn to brushes, paper, drawing board, patients or doctors, and 25 per- ship, the young mimic the old masters’ individual small portfolio, fake gold leaf, cent were accidentally stuck by artist strolls along styles—just as apprentices did in red bole, and crushed bird O bone and gum arabic at least one needle in their first the narrow cob- order to help out on big projects. 18 months. blestone streets of Florence, Italy, They use only period tools— To reduce this turnover, Kov- on his way to buy tools for his many of which can be found sole- WEEK 2: In-class lecture on how ner’s husband, Anthony R. Kov- craft. He chooses crushed bird ly in Florence where the ancient to use materials and techniques / ner, professor of health policy bone and gum arabic to make sil- methods have survived—as they Make a silverpoint stylus by at- and management, spearheaded a verpoint paper and, as his eyes attempt difficult Renaissance taching a piece of silver to a bal- new master of science for nurse scan the rows of feather pens, his techniques, such as fresco, egg sa stick with metal wire / Create leaders at the Robert F.Wagner cell phone rings—bringing him tempera, and silverpoint, where pen and ink / Explanation of sil- Graduate School of Public Ser- back to 2008. the artists draw precise, perma- verpoint mirror technique used vice. Working with 28 nurse The arts may have changed nent lines with silver on specially to check drawings in reverse / As- managers from the New York- since the 15th century,but study- prepared paper.“We can literally signment: Copy two Ghirlandaio Presbyterian Healthcare System abroad students can revisit that use Florence as a classroom—not drawings of draped figures in sil- and NYU Medical Center, the world via The Renaissance Ap- just study it like a museum, but verpoint program offers evening classes prentice, a class offered each se- interact with it—because all these for those who want to become mester at NYU’s La Pietra campus artists are dead, but they can still WEEK 3: Prepare and tint pa- better managers and improve in Florence. The course follows teach us something,” says Pas- per for silverpoint sketching working conditions for their step-by-step a treatise written by cuzzi, who followed Cennini’s using crushed bird bone and peers, and expects to double en- Italian painter Cennino Cennini treatise, called Il libro dell’arte, gum arabic / In-class lecture rollment in fall 2008. in the late 14th century that guid- while finishing his dissertation in on drawing faces and figures / In the meantime, many na- ed apprentices such as Leonardo Florence and later used his expe- Assignment: Copy Granacci tional nursing organizations,such and Michelangelo in the 15th rience to create the course. drawing of male figure in sil- as the AACN and the ANA, are and 16th centuries. “It’s still a Training that took the Re- verpoint pressing the government and var- modern class, so we’re not all naissance greats five or six years ious foundations for help. Last dancing around Florence in to complete, Pascuzzi must now WEEK 4: Meet in the Tornabuoni December, the Robert Wood tights,”explains art historian Alan teach in only four months. But Chapel in the Santa Maria Novel- Johnson Foundation joined the Pascuzzi, who has taught the despite this,the course,which re- la church to draw from Ghir- American Association of Retired course for five years.“But every- quires no prerequisites, immedi- landaio frescoes, scenes from Persons to create the Center to thing’s based on a regular Renais- ately fills up each semester with a the life of Mary or the life of John Champion Nursing in America, sance apprenticeship, so each potpourri of art majors, amateur the Baptist, which Michelangelo which will lobby for state and week it’s like we’re stepping back enthusiasts, and those who have worked on as an apprentice (pre- federal dollars to expand nursing into time.” never before held a paintbrush. liminary drawing done in char- education. ANA’s Peterson says Mixing fine arts with art his- And each student walks away with coal then brushed away with that such efforts should help curb tory, students spend half the a portfolio of their Renaissance feather and fixed in black chalk) the crisis for now but warns that course working in the studio and works, including one original / Assignment: Copy Ghirlandaio a long-term solution will only the rest in Florence’s hallowed painting. “The class goes against drawing of male figure in silver- come with a shift in priorities:“If museums and churches, where any art instruction students would point we put the same dollars that go they sketch everything from get in America,” Pascuzzi says, into physician education into sculptures in the Duomo to fres- “but the whole concept of com- WEEK 5: Meet at the Opera nursing, we’d be in a much better coes a young Michelangelo once ing overseas is to get something del Duomo to draw from relief place.” worked on as he honed his skills totally new and different.” sculptures to learn volume,

16 / SPRING 2008 / NYU light, and shadow / Students WEEK 9: In-class lec-

draw from either Luca della ture on fresco painting S

Robbia’s choir loft or from Do- / Paint small copies of Q natello’s sculptures of Mary a Giotto fresco from THE Magdalene using the charcoal Santa Croce church, U and black chalk technique / As- copying the head of St. A signment: Copy Filippo Lippi Francis on small ma-

drawing in silverpoint and pen sonite panels / Assign- R

and ink ment: Copy Michel- E angelo figure study in WEEK 6: Meet at the Bargello red chalk National Museum to draw from Michelangelo’s Bacchus and his WEEK 10: In class, copy from Apollo-David using the charcoal Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and black chalk technique / Also frescoes, choosing either the draw from Giambologna’s head of the Delphic Sibyl or one bronze Bacchus and his Mer- of the ceiling nudes / Assign- cury, as well as Tribolo’s terra- ment: Self-portrait done in the cotta copies of Michelangelo’s Renaissance technique of their sculptures Day, Dawn, Dusk, and choice Night / Assignment: Copy Leonardo anatomy study in pen WEEK 11: In-class lecture on egg and ink tempera with demonstration of how to separate the yolk from WEEK 7: In-class lecture on the white / Create a small copy anatomy, including muscle and of Masaccio egg tempera paint- skeletal systems / Students an- ing and use to test how to apply alyze their drawings from the gold leaf, mix pigments, and ap- previous week and do an exorchè ply paint / Choose a Florentine drawing over it by dissecting painting to visit and analyze for the figure’s muscles in red chalk final project on tracing paper / Assignment: Copy Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man WEEK 12: Begin work on final proj- in pen and ink ects / Assignment: One-page research essay on a particular WEEK 8: Meet at the natural Renaissance medium or technique, science museum La Specola to using Cennino Cennini’s Crafts- draw from wax sculptures of man’s Handbook and Giorgio humans in various states of Vasari’s On Technique as sources / dissection once used by 18th- In-class preparation for final stu- century doctors to study anato- dent exhibition my / Also draw from large stuffed animals, such as rhi- WEEK 13: Continue work on fi- nos, gazelles, birds, and tor- nal projects, 30-x-40-cm egg toises, comparing their anatomy tempera paintings with gold leaf to humans / Assignment: Copy / Set up final show in La Pietra’s Michelangelo figure study in Villa Ulivi conference room black chalk WEEK 14: In-class final presen- tations and critique of students’ TOP AND BOTTOM LEFT: A STUDENT APPLIES EGG TEMPERA TO HER COPY five favorite works and final es- OF VERMEER’S GIRL WITH A PEARL P say / Students receive a copy of H

O EARRING; FAKE GOLD LEAF IS PRE- T O the revised Renaissance Ap- S

PARED FOR A PANEL DRAWING OF THE ©

E MADONNA. BOTTOM RIGHT: ALAN prentice manual produced from S A

R PASCUZZI DEMONSTRATES THE

E class essays and paintings

A SPOLVERO, A METHOD OF DUSTING POW- G L

I DERED PIGMENT WITH A POUNCE BAG TO A N

A TRANSFER A PATTERN ONTO A FRESCO.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 17 S Q

CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH THE U A ond to respond.The result? Liberals R more often resisted pressing the

E keyboard when faced with an unexpected W.(In case anyone thinks the loaded W—our conservative president’s middle initial—had something to do with it,researchers repeated the experiment with the letters reversed.) “I didn’t design the study to pan- der to politics,” says Amodio, who describes it as a side project to his larger research on how personality I L L

U and brain function relate to self- S T R

A regulation.Nevertheless,some took T I O N

offense at the notion that conserva- ©

L A

R tives are less equipped to respond to S

L E

E conflicts, while others delighted in T A R

U the possibility. An article in the Concord Monitor titled “DNA May Determine One’s Political Des- tiny” theorized that Dick Ch- eney shot his longtime hunting buddy because “[his] genes apparently let him down.” Amodio dismisses much of the press coverage as “junk journalism,” choice—when confronted with a because the study made no conclu- neuroscience sudden decision that goes against sions about genetic predisposition. habit. Liberals, on the other hand, Other critics considered the are more likely to adapt—and re- study itself junk.The online maga- POLITICAL WIRING spond accurately—because their zine Slate condemned its “sweep- anterior cingulate cortex, a region ing terms.”“Tapping a keyboard is by Sabine Heinlein / GSAS ’07 in the frontal brain, appears to host a way of thinking?”William Sale- more brain activity. tan mockingly asked. “One letter, Amodio asked 43 college stu- one-tenth of a second.This is ‘in- OR YEARS, “STAY THE COURSE” dents to rate their degrees of liber- formation’?” HAS SERVED AS A REPUBLICAN alism and conservatism, among But Amodio explains that his ap- FMANTRA FOR THE IRAQ WAR, other personality traits. He then proach, the so-called Go/No-Go hooked them up to an electroen- task,has long been used by scientists even amid the conflict’s increasing While psychologists and politi- cephalograph, which records elec- as a simplified model of everyday unpopularity. Meanwhile, some cal scientists have long found con- tric activity from the brain, and behavior. And he believes future high-profile Democrats have been servatives more constant in instructed them to look at a com- studies might reveal cognitive ad- accused of “flip-flopping” on their decision-making and liberals more puter screen and tap a keyboard vantages that conservatives have support for it, among other things. open to ambiguity and change, when the letter M appeared but re- over political rivals, such as an im- Now,a new study by department of Amodio’s research is the first to link frain when confronted with a W. proved ability to tune out distrac- psychology assistant professor David brain activity to political attitude. The M showed four times as often tions. “Some balance between Amodio suggests these reactions The study,published in Nature Neu- as the W, conditioning students to neurocognitive styles is probably could reflect a deeper cognitive dif- roscience, concludes that conserva- habitually press the button. Each optimal,” he laughs, “which could ference between partisans—not tives are more likely to stick to their letter occurred for a tenth of a sec- make your case for being a political merely politics as usual. guns—and possibly make a wrong ond and participants had half a sec- moderate.”

18 / SPRING 2008 / NYU E RESEARCH P H O T O

IS THIS E J E N

management psychology BACKWARD? N I F E

THAT DEPENDS R

W H

ON YOUR POWER I T S

PERSPECTIVE. O Putting the E N in Empathy

by Suzanne Krause / GSAS ’08

ower may not corrupt, results offer insight into everything but there is new evi- from corporate decision-making to dence that it can blind spousal harmony. “Power is sort of sider other people’s perspective, jects were asked to write an E on people in top posi- like the gas pedal in a car, and ‘per- you are going to drive the car into their own foreheads. Those individ- Ptions. According to a spective taking’ is essentially the a brick wall, basically.” uals primed with high power were study published in the journal Psy- steering wheel that guides you Study participants completed nearly three times more likely to chological Science, one’s ability to through the world,” says Joe several tasks that indicated high- write an E that appeared backward consider another perspective de- Magee, study co-author and assis- powered people are less accurate at to onlookers. But, Magee cautions, creases proportionately to the lev- tant professor of management at detecting others’ emotions, make power holders are as capable as el of power—defined as control of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate egocentric presumptions, and are anyone to judge other’s needs and information or resources—one School of Public Service. “If you less inclined to consider another’s ideas fairly—they just often have wields in a given relationship. The don’t have the awareness to con- visual perspective. In one test, sub- much less incentive to do so.

small sensor to monitor soil mois- interspecies communication, the green-thumb technology ture and light exposure.When the Botanicalls team recorded human plant needs something, a micro- voices that reflect each variety’s YOUR FICUS controller sends a wireless signal characteristics and imagined per- that connects via the Internet to sonality: The Spider Plant calls an open-source phone system with a bubbly voice that suggests ON LINE ONE called Asterisk, which launches a its prolific nature, while the call based on the particular plant’s Scotch Moss greets with a burly by Renée Alfuso / CAS ’06 information. brogue.“I feel much more guilty The group created the system when I fail them now because n the 1986 film Little Shop But a group of postgraduate stu- when they decided to add green they’ve developed these personal- of Horrors (pictured below), dents at the Tisch School of the life to soften up the sterile, tech- ities,” Hartman says. when Seymour’s plant or- Arts are working to make such de- heavy student lounge at NYU’s Beyond the student lounge, Iders him to,“Feed me!”,it’s a mands a less terrifying reality with Interactive Telecommunications Botanicalls has exhibited as an in- classic sci-fi horror moment. Botanicalls, a system that allows Program but feared the new flora teractive art installation, and the P

H your house plants to might be neglected. Rather than group hopes to launch the system O T O

W A

R phone when they’re tem and risk that the plants be- buildings where it can gather even N E R

B parched or wanting come background shrubbery, the more people around their plants. R O S .

/ a bit of sunshine. team aimed to cultivate a daily re- While the system isn’t available for P H O

T The brainchild of lationship between the plants and retail just yet, the team is design- O F E S

T Rebecca Bray, Rob people.“We really wanted the ITP ing a simpler, less expensive do-it- Faludi, Kate Hart- students to make a connection yourself model for homes, which man, and Kati Lon- with the plants rather than just turns potted plants into rather don (all TSOA ’07), being stuck at their laptops and pleasant housemates: They don’t Botanicalls equips soldering irons,”Faludi says. just call when they need some- each plant with a To strike the right tone for thing, but also to say thanks.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 19 - - ask T she adds, Plus, s a good mode oject adminis ” reening, educa- vince students of g iding techniques— s pr cycling habits and vings, and it works ce’ tation. eshmen was to create eshmen was Allen hopes early ex t, tation, predicts her effortpredicts in- will cost sa e will con , se of New York streets,York says se of New or phase two,Allen is survey- is or phase two,Allen y move away from campus from away y move y’ll still think it’ F While government surveys es- surveys While government ing students’ preferences, other researching programs, bike city and university recommendations and will make on parking,storage,and safe- road ty to the Sustainability TWO DOZEN LUCKY FRESHMEN GOT FRESHMEN LUCKY DOZEN TWO LESSONS AND BIKES REFURBISHED ON UP! WITH TIME’S CARE PROPER PHOENIX DRAGO. MECHANIC Sustainability NYU’s from award Force,Allen,formerTask classmate ’07),and (CAS Mark Simpson others, 50 abandoned bikes harvested facilities in campus stored and do- Up!,Time’s a non- nated them to on East cycling collective profit Allen both at which Houston Street volunteered. and Simpson have Up! staff and NYU stu- Time’s 25 of them— dents refurbished stripping for usable the rest them to interest- parts—and gave Welcome duringed freshmen last fall.Week Receipients were to learnrequired maintenance skills and safe urban r the obstacle for navigating a must cour Allen, a California native. posur economic,cycling’s time, and health benefits. we of why “Part targeted fr an NYU rider for four years,”she says. get someone ridingyou “If year,then freshman their when in the the of transpor a brisk morning ride always one up for classes. wakes Force’s transportation commit- Force’s tee. Friedman (GAL ’07), Jeremy the task for trator within the community,”says. he of the timate that just 5 percent bicycle riders for bike nation’s transpor spire a new campus bike recycling campus bike a new spire policy.“It targets: hits so many transpor tion,

PHOTO © SERGE CASHMAN e es ar y with oth- a w , a $5,000 aided by Last summer entually tossed a v her such neglected bik e er garbage, inspiring the ardent peddler, four bikes whose own part room, of her living occupy to apply for a grant to collect and cycles the wasted refurbish haunting her on almost every rack. campus bike Emi- e / GSAS ’08 e / GSAS aus all 2006, T RESCUES ABANDONED T RESCUES ation Allen (GAL ’10) ly noticed the slick bicycle chained outside her freshman dorm sad grew but arly in f erv ervation anne Kr CLIS Y uz ons ons The building manager told The building c c y S A C FATE FROM A GRIM BIKES b ON THE AGAIN ROAD as she watched the seemingly as she watched deteriorateabandoned vehicle in the cold and after week week rain.

NYC E IN

environmental design Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006–07. For all their high design, Jere- mijenko’s prescriptions are much Avant-Garde Rx more than fleeting eye candy. NoParks are an “engineered micro-landscape optimized for envi- A NEW CLINIC OFFERS ACTIVISM AND ART ronmental problems,” she says. A verdant island on the side of the by Sabine Heinlein / GSAS ’07 road, a NoPark can capture the oily runoff from the road before it flows into the river and help re- fter spending a se- impatient’s concern and, upon di- inaccessible and abstract, Jeremi- duce standing puddles that serve as mester in Berlin, agnosis, issues a prescription for jenko plans to design a whole breeding grounds for mosquitoes, where big trees action.In Sohn’s case,the “doctor” repertoire of such empowering which might eliminate the need A line nearly every directed her to create “NoParks” actions.To folks who want to re- for hazardous fumigation. street and abun- in two of New York’s many no- claim pedestrian power in a city While Sohn’s NoParks were tem- dant parks feature thick woods parking zones, such as in front of known for heavy traffic,she might porary, the Environmental Health and wildflowers, Moo Kyung fire hydrants. One sunny day last prescribe a unique pair of shoes Clinic hopes to get permission from Sohn (STEINHARDT ’08) September,passersby and local res- that, through a spring in the heel, the Department of Transportation dreaded returning to New York’s idents came to admire Sohn’s increase the wearers’ stride by 20 to permanently install them.The concrete jungle. “The nature we micro-swamp with ferns, mosses, to 40 percent.“It’s a sensible shoe, real thing will require the impatient see in the city is not real,”the un- and rocks on East Ninth Street and but it’s [also] about putting a spring to dig up asphalt and plant specific dergrad says about Manhattan’s her wildflower garden on Stuyvesant in your step [and] treating gender flora to filter out cadmium and hy- carefully planted plots. “It’s an Street in the East Village. Her differences,” says Jeremijenko, drocarbon runoff.We might soon idea of nature that we made for favorite visitors were a group of whose artwork–cum–science see NoParks sprout up all over New ourselves.” So Sohn turned to butterflies that made the wildflower projects have been exhibited at York,with Sohn leading the charge. NYU’s Environmental Health garden their temporary home. the Whitney Biennial in 1997 and “The clinic is not about giving you Clinic to assuage her green dep- To help people tackle environ- 2006, the MoMA, the Guggen- answers,”she says.“It’s about having rivation. The clinic, which offi- mental issues often perceived as heim, and the Cooper-Hewitt you create your own.”

cially opened last October at the P H O T O

Steinhardt School of Culture,Ed- ©

W I

ucation, and Human Develop- L L I A ment,marries conceptual art with M

M E Y

social and environmental ac- E R tivism. It welcomes appointments from “impatients,” individuals such as Sohn who are too anxious to wait for protracted legislative changes. “Coming to the clinic doesn’t require that you are an environmental activist or a community organizer,” explains founder Na- talie Jeremijenko. “It’s a way of coordinating diverse,local actions and making them amount to something significant.” The goal is to create environmentalism that is mediagenic, publicly legible and, most of all, approachable and manageable by anyone. “People can actually do something,” says Jeremijenko, who joined Stein- hardt last semester as an assistant professor of visual art. Jeremijenko first evaluates an THIS TEMPORARY “MICROSWAMP” OFFERS A LUSH ALTERNATIVE TO AN EAST VILLAGE NO-PARKING ZONE.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 21 I S A M L A A I F L

L E I F W F

A R C E G O

IN R

N L E T Y O H C K R A P

E T

the insider A T S

K N A B R E V I R NYU FACULTY AND STAFF BEST OFFER UP THEIR FAVORITES OF NEW YORK by Renée Alfuso / CAS ’06

TAKE A DIP OR DISCOVER THE CITY’S RICH BLUE-COLLAR HISTORY THIS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK,a agrees, “but the front is just an- SPRING IN SEVERAL VENUES THAT LIE JUST OFF THE BEATEN PATH. favorite of Daniel J. Walkowitz, other old building on the block.” professor of history and acting di- 20 WEST 44TH STREET, 212-840- A STYLISH STAY scribes itself as “more fashionable rector of metropolitan studies. 1840; WWW.GENERALSOCIETY.ORG You can stay at a Holiday Inn any- apartment than hotel.”And forget Founded in 1785, the society was where, but for a true New York waking up to miniature boxes of established to provide education- SPEEDY EATERY experience, Donna Quadri-Felitti, cereal—the Help Yourself Break- al and cultural services for work- Quick eats are a must for most clinical assistant professor in the fast Pantry is virtually its own café ing people and their families NewYorkers,but fast food should- Preston Robert Tisch Center for with heaps of frittatas, European before there was even a public n’t mean sacrificing quality, ac- Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports meats and cheeses, and local deli- school system. And that legacy cording to Rogan Kersh, who Management, recommends visi- cacies such as croissants from Balt- has endured—the library is the studies the politics of obesity and tors try a boutique hotel for the hazar and smoked salmon from second oldest in the city and the the fast-food industry and is asso- personal service and unusual de- Petrossian. Not your average ho- school they started in 1820 con- ciate dean and professor of public tails. On the west side, she goes tel, but as Quadri-Felitti puts it, tinues today.Walkowitz says the service at the Robert F.Wagner for the European luxury of the “Isn’t that why you come to New building is a testimony to the Graduate School of Public Ser- Iroquois, and on the east side, it’s York—for the unique things you city’s forgotten craftsmen. “We vice. “We have been trained the intimate bed-and-breakfast- can’t get anywhere else?” somehow think that the builders through advertising to think of like Roger Smith. But the HOTEL 131 MADISON AVENUE, 212-448- of New York are simply the great McDonald’s as the purveyor of ROGER WILLIAMS in Midtown’s 7000; WWW.HOTELROGER men who provide the money,the the fast food we need right now,” Murray Hill really stands out for WILLIAMS.COM Donald Trumps—but Donald he says.“But an apple doesn’t take being hip yet unintimidating.“It’s Trump’s never laid a brick in his any longer to eat than a Big Mac.” not so trendy that it’s off the scale,” WORKINGMAN’S PALACE life,”he says. One doesn’t have to For a full meal that’s quick but Quadri-Felitti says. “Mom can Tucked in a row of buildings be a society member or history also fresh and inventive, Kersh still go there and be cool.” With amidst the bustle of Times Square buff to appreciate the library’s hits up CAFFE FALAI. He recom- books, scented candles, and flat- and Fifth Avenue is a little-known soaring three-floor-high grand mends the veal meatballs in toma- screen plasma TVs in each room— gem of city history: headquarters atrium topped by a breathtaking to sauce or fried mozzarella and some with private garden of the GENERAL SOCIETY OF skylight. “The architecture is beet salad, but his favorite is the terraces—the Roger Williams de- MECHANICS AND TRADESMEN quite magnificent,” Walkowitz honeydew melon juice. Chef

22 / SPRING 2008 / NYU F R O M

economy L E F T :

H O T E L

O THE ARTS—A GREEN G E R

W I L L I

A GIANT FOR NEW YORK CITY M S ;

A N N E M A

R hen a stage- 2005—double the 1982 figure— I E

P O

Y hands strike to the city’s economy.While this O

F U extinguished sector is top-heavy—42 organi- R N L O E N

G Broadway’s zations have yearly budgets M ;

E W lights for 19 greater than $10 million—the Y S D

P A A days last fall, it was a mere blip in city is also home to thousands of R R K S T ,

an increasingly robust arts indus- smaller nonprofits.Scanlon cred- R E D C R N

E try, a financial juggernaut that its lawmakers’ steadfast support, A A T

I O S contributed $21.2 billion to the primarily through tax credits and N

C & I

H NewYork City economy in 2005. grants, for the growth: “Even N I S T A O R

H The findings, detailed in “Arts when the city was struggling I C C

P R E

E as an Industry:Their Economic with its budget,it kept up its sup- S M E

R V F Impact on New York City and port for the arts.” A O T

I O

N New York State,”chart the steady To measure the arts’ econom- Y ;

T ©

E S growth of the sector—defined as ic impact, Scanlon and other re- I T E C V E O film and TV production, com- searchers considered the direct A M S

I A L G mercial theater, art galleries and expenditures of the city and state’s A A

R auction houses, nonprofit culture cultural institutions, as well as E

N such as museums,zoos,and dance dollars generated by wages, taxes, E

G troupes, and arts-related tourism and other indirect spending, in- —during the past two decades. cluding outlays by contractors Iacopo Falai—who learned how ly in the water around Manhattan,” Since 1982, after adjusting for in- and agencies for hire and money to cook in his hometown of Flo- she says.Some swims are organized flation,the arts’financial footprint reinvested by employees living in rence and was later pastry chef at by the Manhattan Island Founda- has increased 86 percent in New the city.She estimates the annual Le Cirque—provides a take-out tion, which raises awareness of just York City. “The arts are an eco- output of the arts rivals that of or sit-down menu, and lures cus- how clean the waters are.For more nomic boon for the city and state,” the construction trade, another tomers with an elaborate dessert traditional lap swimming, Nagle says Rosemary Scanlon, a clinical prodigious city industry. More case up front. Just a block away heads upstream to RIVERBANK associate professor at the NYU important, she says, the arts have from the crowds of Soho, the café STATE PARK with its spectacular Real Estate Institute, who led the resiliently weathered work stop- offers a great break from work or views of the Palisades, George study for the Alliance for the Arts. pages, recessions, and even the shopping. As Kersh says, “On a Washington Bridge,and,of course, Most notable, according to 9/11 attacks, which many ana- rough day, tottering down there the Hudson. The 28-acre, multi- Scanlon, has been the expansion lysts feared would precipitate a around four o’clock is always a level recreation facility—which is of cultural nonprofits, which protracted slump.“All the curves rewarding experience.” Manhattan’s only state park and contributed $5.8 billion in are pointing up,”Scanlon says. 265 LAFAYETTE STREET, 917- boasts a football/soccer field, ten- 338-6207 nis and basketball courts, ice skat- ARTS IMPACT BY SECTOR ing rink in winter, and a COMMERCIAL SWIMMING HOLE restaurant—has public outdoor lap 9% THEATER When Robin Nagle tells people and wading pools (open from July she’s been swimming in the Hud- 4 through Labor Day). And just MOTION PICTURE 31% AND TELEVISION son River for seven years now, two bucks gains you entry to the they’re never eager to shake her indoor Olympic-size pool. Nagle NONPROFIT hand. But Nagle, director of the says,“It’s a joy to go for 50 meters 27% CULTURE

John W. Draper Interdisciplinary without having to turn around be- ARTS-MOTIVATED Master’s Program in Humanities cause it feels like you’re swimming 26% VISITORS and Social Thought, swears it’s one in something more substantial than of the best places to take a plunge. just a pool.” ART GALLERIES AND 7% AUCTION HOUSES “It’s such an extraordinary feeling 679 RIVERSIDE DRIVE, 212-694- to be not on the water, but actual- 3600 SOURCE: ALLIANCE FOR THE ARTS

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 23

L E F T :

P H O T O

K O B A L

C O L L E C T I O N ;

R I G H T

C L O U C K W I S E F R O M T O P :

P H O T O

T A R S C H E S

television / R T E T N A

L T D . ;

P H O T O

I M

LIVE FROM NEW A G E S ;

P H O T O

YORK, ITIT’S…’S… R

M C B

UR R E I D E

AFTER MORE THAN THREE DECADES, ALUMNI / R E T N A ;

CONTINUE MAKING SATURDAY NIGHT FUNNY P H O T O

by Jason Hollander / GAL ’07 E T T Y

I M A G E

ince the first show edy in contemporary culture.” ’92), cartoonist Robert Smigel S ;

P H

aired on October One famous training ground (WSUC ’83), musical director O T O

11, 1975, millions for this talent has been Chicago’s Lenny Pickett (adjunct professor N B C /

of Americans have Second City improv comedy at Steinhardt), as well as Alec P H O T

S O tuned in each week- group. Another has been our Baldwin (TSOA ’94), who is one F E S end to Saturday Night Live to neighbor to the north: Canada behind Steve Martin’s record 14 T watch the likes of Bill Murray, natives include executive pro- appearances as host, NYU has John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and ducer Lorne Michaels and for- left a legacy on SNL that contin- Eddie Murphy embody some of mer cast members Dan Aykroyd, ues today with Andy Samberg the most absurdly memorable Martin Short, Phil Hartman, (TSOA ’00), and numerous oth- characters in television history. Mike Myers, and others. But dig ers behind the scenes. Even Defying age by winning 22 a little deeper into the archives Michaels, the show’s original and Emmy Awards over 32 seasons, and another common thread is enduring architect, has an NYU ABOVE: BILLY CRYSTAL’S (TSOA ’70) CHARACTER FERNANDO the show’s biting pop culture and revealed. connection as a member of the MADE THE CATCH PHRASES political commentary lives up to With Billy Crystal (TSOA TSOA Dean’s Council. “YOU LOOK MAHVELOUS” AND The New York Times declaration ’70),Molly Shannon (TSOA ’87), The following is a pictorial histo- “IT’S BETTER TO LOOK GOOD THAN TO FEEL GOOD” that it remains “the most perva- Adam Sandler (TSOA ’88),writer ry of some of the SNL characters and POPULAR IN THE 1980S. sive influence on the art of com- Tim Herlihy (STERN ’88, LAW works brought to life by alumni… < ANDY SAMBERG (TSOA ’00) When Andy Samberg (pictured with Tisch Dean’s Council co-chair Alec Baldwin) was a kid in the late 1980s, he would flip on the TV most Sat- urday nights at 11:30, hoping to catch his favorite show: the World Wrestling Federation’s Saturday Night’s Main Event. But that program aired only occasionally and, though dejected, he’d often watch NBC’s alternative—a silly sketch comedy show that made him laugh despite jokes that went over his head. As the years went by, he un- derstood more and more of the gags, and eventually started looking forward to the satire instead of the staged wrestling. “What appealed to me is what still appeals to me,” says the 29-year-old cast member. “You could just tell the people there were having fun.” A California native, Samberg picked up an Emmy Award in 2007 for writing the SNL Digital Short “Dick in a Box” (which he performed with host Justin Timberlake), and has made a name for himself with other shorts—including the mock- rap “Lazy Sunday”—that have attracted millions of additional viewers online. While his film career is blooming, Samberg, who wrote about his dream to be on SNL in his application to NYU, intends to keep honing his skills in Studio 8H. “I’m just happy to be there,” Samberg says, “and just trying to be funny enough not to get fired.”

FAR LEFT: SNL EXECUTIVE PRODUCER LORNE MICHAELS (FAR RIGHT), PIC- TURED IN MID-1970S WITH CAST MEM- BERS CHEVY CHASE, JOHN BELUSHI, AND GARRETT MORRIS, IS A MEMBER OF THE TISCH SCHOOL DEAN’S COUNCIL.

LEFT, FROM TOP: PRODUCER HAL WILLNER (GAL ’77) HAS BEEN THE SHOW’S MUSIC SUPERVISOR SINCE 1981; ROBERT SMIGEL (WSUC ’83) CREATES SNL’S “TV FUNHOUSE” SEGMENTS, INCLUDING “THE AMBIGUOUSLY GAY DUO” AND “FUN WITH REAL AUDIO”; TIM HERLIHY (STERN ’88, LAW ’92) WROTE FOR SNL FROM 1994–99 AND PENNED THE ADAM SANDLER VEHICLES HAPPY GILMORE AND THE WEDDING SINGER, AMONG OTHER FILMS; HUGH FINK (TSOA ’83) WROTE FOR SNL FROM 1995–2002 AND HAS PERFORMED STANDUP ON THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 25 t t e —from y Pick SNL yed behind yed enn or L t has pla er aspired to work to er aspired t v st because we’re the we’re because st e , INCLUDING “THE , INCLUDING “a musician’s dream,” musician’s “a ect , Pickett calls his experi- calls , Pickett SNL , Pick SNL wer of Power in the 1970s Power of wer aturday night. “We get the get “We night. aturday o ays had an interest in theater, had an interest ays al dir f the be s sure his band keeps the keeps his band s sure ADAM SANDLER (TSOA ’88) (TSOA SANDLER ADAM e omedy t o A member of the R&B/funk horn the R&B/funk A member of s LENNY PICKETT hough he ne and T ach S o the set designers—experience o the set CHANUKAH SONG” AND “RED HOODED SONG” CHANUKAH SWEATSHIRT.” GAINED FAME FOR PLAYING ORIGINAL PLAYING FOR FAME GAINED ON TUNES LEFT: < in c Music mak on ence crowd’s feet tapping between com- between tapping feet crowd’s the show. and before mercials T Elton John, David Bowie, and Talk- Bowie, John, David Elton hav- But among others. ing Heads, ing alw the unique collabora- he respects on those tion that all of allowing him to pick some of the of pick some him to allowing the group. for players best world’s b and ’80s the costumers to the makeup artists the makeup to the costumers t e be television,” variety of vestige last making a piece “We’re says. Pickett week.” every theater of (ADJUNCT PROFESSOR) (ADJUNCT

TOP AND BOTTOM: © NBC/PHOTOFEST (2); RIGHT: © MARY ELLEN MATTHEWS ’s earli- ’s es, she es, t OA ’87) ays. Eight ays. elling me I S Year of the of Year ed from the ed from v ed t t y bone while re- ” she s isch Follies as an Follies isch , ar .” Soon after the after Soon .” t o the nigh t ee 008 / NYU SNL s in y to write sketches write y to or the T eople s , quickly mo ally fr Y SHANNON (T t remembered for such for t remembered e s . “P ed big with audienc s t off-the-wall characters t off-the-wall sing f e / SPRING 2 e dramatic, “intense” roles in roles “intense” e dramatic, . “But once I was in character, I was once . “But e chances. While some of her of some While e chances. t tch roles as superstar Mary as superstar roles tch s B ar or e

CULT E elt r UR 26 c should be on years and lots of hard work later, work hard of and lots years hers. gig was the coveted Molly Shannon tended toward Molly Shannon tended mor and only stum- in Ohio, high school bled upon her funn he thought “I had never undergrad. the actress, says about comedy,” in 2007’s who starred Dog > MOLL I f follies, Shannon discovered her Shannon discovered follies, stu- with fellow humor resonated den sk Gallagher and the high- Katherine O’Mal- Sally kicking 50-year-old find to stunned Shannon was ley, cast as a rookie ascend herself member quickly, she endured six years of six years she endured quickly, and camp” boot the “comedy cre- taking on the risk of thrived ativ mo er, more prominent slots. Though slots. prominent more er, which hindered type, she couldn’t her abilit ending skit s the chance always there’s says try and “you that sometimes crickets.” just there’s D53922nyua.indd 1 3/7/08 5:19:32 AM ROWS OF DESIGNER FLIP-FLOPS SUG- GEST TO WOULD-BE BUYERS THAT SUMMER IS A TIME FOR FUN.

can summon different but equally powerful images—such as fire and blood—and evoke emotions from anger to passion.She notes that patients suffering from mental illness sometimes shy away from strong colors, which offers an opportunity for art therapists.“By introduc- ing colors little by little, it’s a metaphorical way to connect with emotions that might be buried,” she says. Predicting this emotional response is both a science and an art, made more difficult by lengthy manufacturing turnaround times marketing that require forecasters like Har- rington to look two years into the shifts toward individual self- future to divine hot colors in in- COMMERCIAL expression and manufacturing ad- dustries ranging from bedding vances allowed products to be made plants to vinyl siding.“You have to in a wider variety of hues.Then,for be on trend with a lot of different KALEIDOSCOPE example,a palette of 800 colors was things,” she says. “A really impor- the norm in the paint industry tant movie could influence color, whereas today systems with 3,000 the summer Olympics in China, AN EMOTIONAL APPEAL TO colors exist.By the 1990s,increased the election.”This year, Harring- CONSUMER CHOICE BECOMES global competition had prompted ton has her eye on a yellow-based AN ART AND SCIENCE companies to exploit every possi- green,which reflects the growth of ble edge.As Apple had proved, col- the environmental movement and or could not be left to whim. “signals new birth, resurgence, by Beth Saulnier Manufacturers are mindful of young saplings in the spring. It has what individual colors communi- a renewedness that we are looking o you care what col- that tripled sales of its memory cate,which moves well beyond the for in our society.” or your living room sticks solely by offering them in stereotypes that say blue inspires In general, during tough times is painted? Of course. four colors as opposed to the famil- calm or black indicates depression. like today’s—with the housing D But how about your iar gray.And Apple turned the per- Ikuko Acosta (STEINHARDT slump, talk of recession, and the mixer? Your laptop? sonal-computing industry on its ’81), director of Steinhardt’s grad- war in Iraq—people tend to favor Or the pill you take for a headache? head a decade ago when it offered All these and more are the purview its iMac in a rainbow of jellybean of the burgeoning color industry, hues. “Many computer companies Apple turned the personal- which seeks not only to predict to- touted their size and speed and all morrow’s trends but to influence their technical capabilities,and very computing industry on its head consumer choices by appealing to few attended to aesthetics,” says when it offered its iMac in a what color consultant Leslie Har- Harrington, a former director of rington (STERN ’02) calls our most color for Benjamin Moore paints rainbow of jellybean hues. potent visual stimulus. “Color is a whose Connecticut-based firm,LH nonverbal language,” Harrington Color, has worked for such clients uate art therapy program, likens neutral shades, to buy a beige, says, “and it probably is one of the as Avon, Crayola, and Pottery Barn. color to music.“It elicits immedi- brown, or navy sofa, for example. fastest ways to communicate.” “Apple was one of the first who ate emotional reactions,” she says. But, Harrington says,“If things are In the marketplace, color has said,‘The way it looks and the way “It’s far more complicated than looking up and everybody’s hap- emerged as a quick-track way to it operates are equal.’” saying, ‘a certain color means py-go-lucky, the citron, melon, or connect with consumers’ wallets. Today’s color boom traces its death.’ ” For example, she notes, chartreuse sofa could land in some- Harrington cites the case of a firm roots to the 1960s, when societal there are many shades of red; each one’s living room.”

28 / SPRING 2008 / NYU CREDITS

ETHAN (LEFT) AND JOEL COEN L E F

NYU STARS SHINE FROM THE T :

P H O T

SLOPES OF SUNDANCE TO O

B Y

M A

AWARDS SHOW STAGES T T

P E T I T / JOEL COEN © (TSOA ’78) and directed The Savages, which A . M . P .

brother Ethan took home the Best earned two nominations at the A . S . ;

Picture Academy Award for their Oscars and four at the Film Inde- B E L O

violent crime thriller No Country pendent’s Spirit Awards where she W :

R I C

for Old Men,which nabbed four of won for Best Screenplay. The H A R D

its eight nominations including tragicomedy stars Laura Linney F O R

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN E Best Director. Next up for the and M A N /

brothers is their dark-as-usual (TSOA ’89) as siblings struggling C O U R

comedy Burn After Reading star- with their father’s mental decline. T E S Y

ring George Clooney and Brad Hoffman, who picked up Best M I R A Pitt… Novel-turned-film Beaufort, Male Lead at the Spirit Awards, M A X

JOSEPH I

adapted and directed by next stars in Synecdoche, New York, L M S CEDAR (TSOA ’95) about a group which will be screenwriter CHAR- (TSOA ’85) of ABC’s NO COUNTRY of soldiers during the last days of LIE KAUFMAN’s (TSOA ’80) first Pushing Daisies, nominated FOR OLD MEN Israel’s 18-year occupation of turn as a director… At this year’s in its first season for a Lebanon, scored an Oscar nomi- Golden Globes,KAKI KING (GAL Golden Globe for Best nation for Best Foreign Language ’01) and MICHAEL BROOK TV Comedy… At the Film… JENNIFER FOX (GAL ’94) (TSOA ’91) were nominated for People’s Choice Awards, was nominated for the Best Pic- Best Original Score for their work executive producer KATIE ture award as a producer of the on Sean Penn’s Indie hit Into the JACOBS’ (TSOA ’87) film Michael Clayton… TAMARA Wild… Bee Movie, co-directed by House won Favorite TV JENKINS (TSOA ’94) wrote and STEPHEN HICKNER (TSOA ’79) Drama while Grey’s R I

G and starring Jerry Sein- CHANDRA WILSON

H Anatomy’s mer, starring Mark Wahlberg as a T :

P feld as a curious bee in the

H (TSOA ’91), as Dr. Miranda Bai- science teacher on the run from a O T

O Big Apple,was up for Best

0 Animated Feature… Men 0 ing Star… At this year’s Sundance ple to commit suicide… This win- 7

2 BARRY 0 in Black director JUSTIN BARTHA T Film Festival, writer and director ter, (TSOA ’00) H

C SONNENFELD E (ARTS ANDREW FLEMING N (TSOA ’85) revived his role as Nicolas Cage’s T U

R ’74,TSOA ’78) is co-ex- Y premiered his comedy Hamlet 2 treasure-hunting sidekick in the

F O

X ecutive producer with ;

about a high school drama teacher blockbuster sequel National Trea- B E

L fellow alum DAN JINKS O THE SAVAGES who pens a sequel to Shakespeare’s sure:Book of Secrets… JULIE BENZ W :

P H tragedy in order to save the school’s (TSOA ’94) starred alongside O T

O CHOKE

F O

X ARIELLE

picked up by Focus Features for stallment of Rambo… S E A

R JACOBS

C $10 million—one of the biggest (STEINHARDT ’05) H L I G deals in the festival’s history… currently tours the country in the H T

P CLARK GREGG I

C ’s (TSOA ’86) dark first theatrical production of Dis- T U R

E comedy Choke, which he adapted ney’s wildly popular TV movie S and directed from the Chuck High School Musical as super-smart Palahniuk novel, was also one of transfer student Gabriella Mon- the biggest hits at Sundance, and tez… JUSTIN ZACKHAM (TSOA features Sam Rockwell and Anjel- ’94) wrote the screenplay for The ica Huston as a sex-addicted con- Bucket List, which pairs Jack man and his insane mother… Nicholson and Morgan Freeman Director M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN’s as cancer patients who set out on (TSOA ’92) next sci-fi thriller an adventurous road trip. The Happening is due out this sum- —Renée Alfuso

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 29

politics da may appear hollow in retrospect, it typically works in the moment, write the authors,both professors at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Develop- ment.Since the dawn of advertising and modern communications, Americans have shown that they BUYER would buy whatever war their president was selling. Moran, a retired U.S. Marine who still recruits for the corps, and Secunda, an Army veteran who was a senior executive at J.Walter Thompson advertising, BEWARE felt compelled to tell this story because, Moran says, “[People] buy a A NEW BOOK CONSIDERS HOW war with less attention than they PRESIDENTS USE ADVERTISING buy an automobile.”We are, after STRATEGIES TO SELL WAR all, they argue, “gunfighters” at heart—John Wayne’s DNA strands seem woven deep into our cultural by Robert Polner character.“[A]ny president selling a war has a customer base that is al- hink of war as a break- technologies and techniques of ready half sold,”they write.“A few fast cereal, a skin salesmanship. Many a White House well-chosen slogans and images will cream,or the iPhone. has used branding, media manage- complete the deal.” T Far-fetched? Not ment, and pop culture to ensure a Even the biggest skeptics have really, say Terence P. patriotic response to their military had trouble resisting the hard sell, Moran and Eugene Secunda in their adventures. McKinley transmitted say the authors, given the tools of comprehensive and timely new his messages about the war-hungry persuasion in the hands of a presi- book, Selling War to America: From penny press’s “Splendid Little War” dent.Woodrow Wilson appointed the Spanish American War to via a newfangled invention,the tele- George Creel,an investigative jour- the Global War on Terror graph; Franklin Delano Roosevelt nalist, to head the Committee on (Praeger Security Interna- had his “fireside chats”; and George Public Information, and Creel en- tional),in which they ar- W. Bush declared premature victo- listed artists to create paintings, gue that a president’s case ry on an aircraft carrier in front of a posters, popular songs, and sculp- for military intervention “Mission Accomplished” banner. tures to help make the case for the often resembles the mar- Though a president’s propagan- “Crusade for Democracy.” His keting of any product. FROM LEFT: THE GOVERNMENT ENLISTED ARTISTS TO STOKE AMERICANS’ HATRED From 1898, when William OF THE KAISER, AS SEEN IN THIS WWI POSTER; AS THE CRISIS IN INDOCHINA McKinley unleashed American sea ESCALATED, KENNEDY USED MAPS OF COMMUNIST INFILTRATION IN LAOS TO power and imperial ambition upon JUSTIFY PROSPECTIVE ACTION IN THAT COUNTRY. the islands of the Caribbean and Philippines, to the present war in Iraq, U.S. government and military leaders have turned to the latest committee organized choirs, civic Harbor, he created the Office of War protracted conflict provoked the “classic example of good marketing clubs, religious institutions, and re- Information, which influenced the antipathies of the baby boomers, killing a weak product.”While Pres- cruited 75,000 volunteers to give tone and content of hundreds of who denounced its underlying ident Bush’s persuasive arguments four-minute speeches in 5,200 Hollywood comedies, dramas, and rationale and turned against it, as for toppling Hussein marshaled communities.Though the Allies musicals to boost civilian and mili- did much of the mainstream me- strong public support,his claims that won the war, the example of the tary morale if not provide a few hours dia. It was a war characterized by the Iraqi strongman had weapons of danger of overselling a war’s poten- of escape from the realities of war. tial is evident in the failure of Wil- Patriotic songs filled the airwaves son to achieve his sweeping (“Praise the Lord and Pass the Am- “People buy a war with less “Fourteen Points” in the Versailles munition”) and even comic book attention than they buy an auto- Treaty negotiations.The unmet ob- heroes like Batman stepped up to en- jectives to spread democracy list. Meanwhile, press censorship and mobile,” says Terence P.Moran. through the crumbling empires of government regulation curbed con- old Europe led to more than two tradictory messages in the media. political manipulations and mass destruction and something to decades of public disillusionment The Korean War, say Moran and promises unfulfilled. Even the do with the terror attacks of Sep- and isolationism at home. Secunda, was by contrast the for- triggering event for the escala- tember 11, 2001, have not been The successful rallying of Ameri- gotten war, despite the fact that it tion of U.S. military actions borne out—nor have proclamations can support for entry into the First was the first major national event proved flimsy—according to of quick success. “The question is World War nonetheless became a covered by all the U.S. television many historians, two alleged at- whether Americans can act like the primer for the marketing of World networks, reaching nearly 30 mil- tacks by North Vietnamese tor- informed, enlightened, and War II, which, from a selling per- lion Americans. Harry Truman pedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin thoughtful citizens necessary for spective, was the most successful downplayed its importance, not were but invented provocations any democracy to flourish, or will American war of all time,say the au- even calling it a war (it was a “po- to win Congressional authoriza- they continue to be willing buyers thors. Initially Roosevelt had a lot of lice action”) and waited more than tion. “The Vietnam War,” they of whatever war an administration is persuading to do to reverse public three weeks after the North Kore- write, “was a textbook example selling,”the authors write.“We hope suspicion of U.S. military engage- ans invaded South Korea to go to of a war that was badly sold.” that the former is true, but fear that ments abroad. He skillfully leveraged the American people about his de- The war in Iraq, in contrast, is a the latter is more likely.” F

radio, however, bringing his reassur- cision to commit troops. Holly- R O M ing, stoic attitude and faith in the wood, too, took little notice. L E F T :

cause of democracy and liberty to Those years planted the seeds ©

L I B

living-room listeners across America. for Vietnam, a war the authors R A R Y

Six months after the attack on Pearl view as a marketing fiasco. The O F

C O N

BELOW: MILITARY OFFICIALS IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR DAZZLED AMERICANS G R E

WITH “SMART BOMBS,” WHOSE HIGH-TECH PRECISION, BROADCAST REPEATEDLY S S ;

IN SATELLITE PHOTOS, PROMISED FEWER CIVILIAN CASUALTIES. RIGHT: IN A ©

B E

MISGUIDED MEDIA STUNT, PRESIDENT BUSH APPEARED IN A FLIGHT SUIT BEFORE T T M

A “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” BANNER ONLY SIX WEEKS INTO THE IRAQ WAR. A N N / C O R B I S ;

A P / S K Y

N E W S ;

A P

P H O T O / D E N I S

P O R O Y

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 31 P H O T O

B E T T M A N N / C

IN O P R B I S R I N T

nonfiction Sky Girls

A LOOK AT THE GLAMOROUS— even breakfast in bed—were on the transformed into “I’m Going to Fly AND ACTIVIST—HISTORY OF FLIGHT forefront of labor history. Among You LikeY ou’ve Never Been Flown the first to use the Civil Rights Act Before”).Barry ends her study with ATTENDANTS of 1964 to fight sexual discrimina- weight-restriction battles that car- tion, for example, they were pio- ried into the 1990s and an aviation by Andrea Crawford neers in the air and in the courts. bill that finally, in 2003, legislated Barry’s story travels a rich histo- safety requirements for flight atten- n February 1930, a young presence would reassure passen- ry: from the first adventurous dants, certification for which they woman named Ellen Church gers—with “great psychological women flying during the Depres- had been lobbying for decades. walked into a meeting at Boe- punch,” he noted—that this new sion to the mid-century “Golden From the time Barry began re- Iing Air Transport.Trained as a mode of travel was both safe and re- Era” of flight when searching the topic nurse and a pilot, Church spectable. It would also, he predict- “well-heeled air trav- while a graduate stu- pitched an unusual idea: She sug- ed, earn his airline enormous elers enjoyed leisurely dent in history at gested that the airline hire nurses national publicity.Three months flights on roomy,well- NYU, the activism to serve passengers.At a time when later,on a 10-passenger plane flying appointed planes,” and angle intrigued her: flights were rough, air-sickness the Oakland-Cheyenne-Chicago flight attendants,as she “Just the idea that rampant, and emergency landings route, the world’s first “stewardess- writes, “could borrow these women who are far too commonplace, her medical es” took to the air. plenty of prestige from seen as genteel and expertise, she argued, would be an The great success of Church’s both customer and set- glamorous actually set asset in the air. idea is chronicled in Kathleen M. ting.”The history con- up a union in the Airlines had been ferrying pas- Barry’s Femininity in Flight:A Histo- tinues through the 1940s—it flies in the sengers along with mail and cargo ry of Flight Attendants (Duke Uni- hypersexualized late face of the stereo- since the early 1920s,and many had versity Press). In the account, Barry 1960s and early ’70s, describing type.”The book details, for exam- experimented with male stewards, (GSAS ’02) argues that those stylish how National Airlines, for example, the fight to overturn in vogue on trains and ocean liners. attendants who pampered elegant ple, ran an infamous advertising outrageous rules that for decades The Boeing manager, however, im- passengers with seven-course meals, campaign featuring a beautiful forced “retirement”upon marriage mediately grasped the power that cigars,cocktails,fresh flowers—and, flight attendant and the headline, and age limits as young as 32. In women would have on board.Their in old sleeper accommodations, “I’m Cheryl—Fly Me”(which soon 1965, when several stewardesses

32 / SPRING 2008 / NYU P H O T O

bibliofile ©

H U L T O

N SHOOTING WAR It’s 2011, and the world’s gone to

A R C

H (GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING) hell. The United States is still mired I V E /

G ANTHONY LAPPÉ in Iraq, terrorism is ravaging the E T T

Y WSUC ’93 globe, and splinter reactionaries

I M A

G AND DAN GOLDMAN are goading President John Mc- E S Cain to nuke Iran back to the Stone Age. Wise guy lefty video blogger Jimmy Burns suddenly becomes the media wunderkind when he catches the bombing of a Williams- burg, Brooklyn, Starbucks on tape. Hired by Global News on the merits of his serendipitous break, he gets more than his ego’s worth of griz- zly footage in the guerrilla-war- fare-wracked wasteland of Iraq. New York magazine hailed this graphic novel, written by Lappé and illustrated by Goldman, as “fierce, shocking, over-the-top, and wickedly smart.” Employing an innovative blend of digital painting and photographs alongside crisp, witty dialogue, it is a pointed, up- to-the-minute commentary on America’s affairs abroad. —Andrew Flynn

LEARNING A NEW LAND: From the schoolyard brawls in IMMIGRANT STUDENTS IN northern California between Asian AMERICAN SOCIETY and Mexican immigrants—dubbed (HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS) “Rice and Beans” by other stu- CAROLA SUÁREZ-OROZCO AND dents—to the Chinese children with MARCELO M. SUÁREZ-OROZCO Ivy League dreams in a small Mass- CO-DIRECTORS OF IMMIGRATION achusetts town, Learning a New

LEFT: THE FIRST FLIGHT ATTENDANTS TOOK TO THE SKY TO SOOTHE THE DANGER STUDIES AT NYU AND Land examines the effect of the AND DISCOMFORT OF EARLY AIR TRAVEL. ABOVE: AS FLYING BECAME SAFER, AIR- CO-AUTHOR IRINA TODOROVA American education system on the LINES BANKED ON THE SEX APPEAL OF ATTENDANTS IN THE 1960S AND EARLY ’70S. youngest of the nation’s 37.5 mil- appeared before a House Labor days, and even as their jobs grow lion immigrants. The authors fol- Subcommittee to fight industry more difficult, flight attendants lowed 400 children from China, age discrimination, New York have become a potent symbol of Central America, the Caribbean, Representative James H. Scheuer a lost time when air travel was and Mexico through their first five asked them to stand so he and his both elegant and pleasurable.Due years in the United States. The colleagues could “visualize the in part to the downgrading of probing and socially consequential dimensions of the problem.”To services since deregulation, it is book, which won Harvard’s 2007 the Congressmen, Barry writes, also certainly a psychological re- Virginia and Warren Stone Prize, “the more interesting matter was sponse to the fact that flying has combines detailed statistical analy- not stewardesses’ function in become so scary.“We can look sis with lively student interviews commercial aviation but the age back to this golden age,” Barry and descriptions of the classrooms, at which women ceased to be says, “and think, Oh, wasn’t that homes, and neighborhoods that attractive.” nice? Everyone behaved them- shape the strugglers, the strag- Nevertheless,recent years have selves and wore white gloves, and glers, and their high-achieving seen a strong sense of nostalgia you didn’t have to worry about fellow travelers. for the so-called glamour of those terrorism.” —Suzanne Krause

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 33 history must be seen as greatly contribut- had every expectation of renew- ing to the creation of an economi- ing their efforts to expand into cally retarded,balkanized,fratricidal France and the rest of Europe,but IN Europe that, in defining itself in civil strife back in the Maghreb P opposition to Islam, made virtues and Iranian Khurasan prevented

R out of religious persecution, cul- them. Not only would they

I A CIVILIZING tural particularism, and hereditary forego another serious attempt to N aristocracy,”he writes. push deeper into Europe, but ul-

T Al-Andalus,as Muslim Spain and timately the cosmopolitan spirit Portugal was known, boasted a vi- that illuminated al-Andalus for FORCE? brant and diverse civilization where several hundred years would fall religious minorities and heterodox victim to Muslim fundamental- PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING ideas flourished. “The conveyor ism.And that,Lewis argues in this HISTORIAN DAVID LEVERING belt at Toledo transmitted most of impressive account packed with LEWIS NARRATES HOW what Paris, Cologne, Padua, and personal drama and battlefield ISLAM HELPED CREATE EUROPE Rome knew of Aristotle and Plato, detail, developed in large part as a Euclid and Galen,”Lewis writes. It response to the very Christian was far more cosmopolitan than fundamentalism it had helped by Adelle Waldman the rest of Europe—then a stew create in the first place. pot of frequently warring tribes— “At the end of the day,” Lewis he way we talk about founding the new religion in 610, would be until the Enlightenment, says,“tolerance was squeezed out of globalization fre- Muslim power stretched from centuries later. the picture. There are here in- quently implies that Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbek- After the setback at Poitiers, escapable inferences about the con- it’s a new phenome- istan,to Tangier.In 711,Islamic war- the militarily mighty Muslims temporary situation.” P

T H non,one ushered into riors made their first advance into O T O

being by the Internet and ease of what we now know as Spain,which ©

F R A

air travel. David Levering Lewis they would occupy until the end of N K

S T

dismantles that notion in his the 15th century.“Islamic Iberia’s E W A R

sweeping and informative new his- importance to Europe proper has T tory, God’s Crucible: Islam and the never been made as clear and con- Making of Europe,570–1215 (W.W. nected as I’ve tried to do,”Lewis said Norton). Lewis, a two-time in an interview.“The emergence of Pulitzer winner and professor of a militant and intolerant Christiani- history at NYU, argues that me- ty was a response to Islam.” dieval Europe was profoundly in- Interactions with Islam gave Eu- fluenced by its interactions rope its very name. In 732, when with—and opposition to—Islam. the Muslims attempted to cross the The great Islamic Empire, he de- Pyrenees and occupy France, they clares,“made Europe Europe.” were defeated by Charles the Ham- Lewis begins his story with the mer, the grandfather of Charle- rise of Islam, which itself flour- magne, in the famous Battle of ished in the geopolitical vacuum Poitiers. Not long thereafter, a created by the collapse of the Ro- Spanish priest dubbed the victors man and Persian empires. “The “Europenses,”from the ancient Se- world’s newest revealed religion mitic word ereb,which means “land seemed to roar out of the Arabian of sunset or darkness.”For the first Peninsula like a cyclone, a force so time,the people who inhabited the irrepressible that nothing with- continent had a common name stood the advancing faithful,” he and,along with it,a common iden- writes. While much of its power tity as Christians, distinct from the has long been attributed to mili- Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula. tary prowess, avarice for the spoils The Western attitude about this of war,and religious zeal,Lewis ar- battle has long been that Euro- gues that the Islamic Empire peans—thankfully—stopped the spread, too, simply because its “en- “barbarians” at the gate. But Lewis PROFESSOR DAVID LEVERING LEWIS ARGUES THAT THE MUSLIM INVASION OF emies had exhausted themselves.” turns that attitude on its head:“The MODERN-DAY SPAIN NOT ONLY BROUGHT ARABIC NUMERALS TO EUROPE BUT Within a century of Muhammad victory of Charles the Hammer SEALED ITS IDENTITY AS A CHRISTIAN CONTINENT.

34 / SPRING 2008 / NYU bibliofile

FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE In this unconventional memoir, MY DAUGHTER’S EYES Annecy Báez weaves poetry into COUCH: REFLECTIONS OF A the writer’s troubled relationship AND OTHER STORIES her fiction in this beautifully writ- PSYCHOANALYST, DAUGHTER, with her father, renowned federal (CURBSTONE PRESS) ten first book, My Daughter’s TENNIS PLAYER AND OTHER judge Edward Weinfeld, illustrates ANNECY BÁEZ Eyes and Other Stories. Centered SELVES (BOOKSURGE) how the unconscious can possess SSSW ’95 around a large Dominican family FERN W. COHEN us but also set us free when un- in the Bronx across three STEINHARDT ’75, GSAS ’93 raveled through psychoanalysis. decades, 14 short stories laced Known for his uncompromising with Spanglish highlight the standards and ethics, the late ju- struggles the young daughters rist had one outlet for relaxation: face as they grow up caught be- tennis; for Cohen, the game between two cultures. “The world came a source of both self-worth— out there is not the world of this as the strongest link to her distant, family,” the precocious Mia in- difficult-to-impress father—and sists to her strict father. Báez inadequacy. With candor and hu- draws in the reader with vivid de- mor, Cohen demystifies psycho- scriptions that make the smell of analysis as she relates how it rancid New York subways as pun- helped her reckon with her fa- gent as the homemade garban- ther’s ghost and realize her own zos criolles. At times unnerving talents as a psychotherapist—and and heartbreaking, the stories tennis player. come full circle as the girls grow —Nicole Pezold into women with daughters of their own and learn to see things through their parents’ eyes. —Renée Alfuso

INHERITANCE Olivia Bonocchio doesn’t know (ST. MARTIN’S PRESS) much about her father Luigi’s life NATALIE DANFORD before he emigrated to America GSAS ’98 from Italy during World War II. But after his death, she discovers the deed to a house in Urbino and travels for the first time to his hometown. There, while struggling over whom to trust—a newfound cousin or a lawyer she’s growing smitten with—she uncovers a horrible se- cret about her father’s past. As the story shifts perspective from Luigi’s life to Olivia’s adventure, Natalie Danford creates a heart- felt portrait of father and daughter and an intricate exploration of memory and truth in this debut novel that Booklist calls “a sweet and tender tale.” —R.A.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 35 TOO BIG TO PARADE THROUGH PENN STATION, ELEPHANTS TRUDGE UNDER THE EAST RIVER EACH YEAR IN A IN LATE-NIGHT CIRCUS RITUAL. P party of the enchanted and the less

R so stared into the Manhattan maw

I of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, N waiting for the improbable.

T Elephants. Normally, only creatures of the genus Vehicular Traffic inhabit this small asphalt plain on the East Side. They leave the savanna of Queens, emerge from the tunnel, and follow their behavioral instincts: uptown, downtown, crosstown. But this was a once-a-year night,when the traveling circus of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey tries again to compete with the everyday circus of New York. It parades the elephants through the tunnel and along Thirty- fourth Street to Madison Square Garden, where they live and perform for three weeks. journalism A rube might ask why the elephants must come through the tunnel, requiring the closing of one of its two tubes. The circus UNDER THE has its own mile-long train, after all.Instead of parking in a rail yard P H O T

O in Queens, couldn’t that train pull

H into Penn Station, directly below

COVER OF NIGHT R I S

H the Garden? O N D

R Well, let’s break it down. O S / G First, commuters on the 7:04 ELEPHANTS TAKE MANHATTAN AND MORE IN DAN E T T Y

out of Ronkonkoma are rarely in I BARRY’S COMPILATION OF NEW YORK STORIES M A G

E a good mood to begin with;imag- S ine how they’d feel about board- ho feeds the penguins in Central Park Zoo? Where do dis- OBLIGED TO ing an escalator behind Juliette carded Christmas trees go? Who exactly is Dr. Zizmor of PAUSE IN ITS the elephant. Second, the best subway advertisement fame? publicity comes wrapped in the Under the care of New York Times reporter Dan Barry’s TRACKS, gauze of tradition, and this tradi- W observant eye and poignant pen, the city has yielded its MANHATTAN tion dates back to 1981, when secrets. For three and a half years, from 2003 to 2006, he wrote his week- development overtook the West ly “About New York” column, reveling in the magic of city life and reveal- TAKES NOTE Side rail yards that once accom- ing many of its wonders. Last fall, the best of these columns were collected OF THE modated the circus train. into a book, City Lights: Stories About New York (St. Martin’s Press). All of which explains why In it, Barry (GSAS ’83) uncovers the rich tales of the masses, introduc- MANHATTAN overtired children and childlike ing readers, for example, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art security OF BEASTS. adults, anxious circus employees guard—a painter with a master’s degree in fine arts—who learns from the and angry animal-rights activists, paintings he guards all day while directing visitors to the restrooms. Or the along with various police officers elderly pair who once graced the best ballrooms of Hollywood and now Word had come from the other and photographers, now gathered dance twice weekly in a rented studio in the theater district just for the side of the East River by police ra- on this asphalt plain, freezing, love of it. These short, incisive narratives inspire, surprise, and sometimes dio crackle:They’re in.Now,in the fussing, facing Queens. sadden, but always delight—as in the following, from March 22, 2006: midnight freeze, a welcoming Among them was Michael

36 / SPRING 2008 / NYU Shea, a veteran bridge-and-tun- various trainers and assistants. bibliofile nel officer assigned to the Cheers rose to warm a cold and Queens-Midtown, like his fa- cheerless city corner. ther before him. He had worked The elephants seemed dimin- ELLERY’S PROTEST: HOW ONE Ellery Schempp was only a 16-year- the three-to-midnight shift, but ished at first by their urban sur- YOUNG MAN DEFIED TRADITION old student in 1956, but his under- when he heard the elephants roundings. But as they drew AND SPARKED THE BATTLE standing of the First Amendment were coming through again, he closer they became larger, larger, OVER SCHOOL PRAYER led him to question the mandatory seized the offer of overtime.“It’s until at last they somehow be- (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN) Bible readings that his Abington, a good thing,”he said of the ele- longed—so much so that their STEPHEN D. SOLOMON Pennsylvania, high school imposed phants, and perhaps of the over- grayish skin blended like cam- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND DI- each morning. In a bid to test the time as well. ouflage into the asphalt and con- RECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES, rules one day, he instead read silent- His police radio’s chatter told crete around them. DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM ly from a copy of the Koran, sparking the tale of the elephants. How In a few minutes they would a battle that got him ejected from Jewell was being taken by truck be hustled west along Thirty- class and had him sitting, seven over the 59th Street Bridge;“not fourth Street, across Lexington, years later, in front of the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. In this gripping historical account, Stephen “Come on, ya freaking animals,” D. Solomon charts how this case proved to be one of the nation’s said a freezing photographer. most important decisions on religious freedom, what factors led even a big fan of the tunnel,” a circus Park, and Madison, past Macy’s conservative judges to take Ellery’s spokesman later explained. How and at least three Duane Reade side, and how a backlash against the the other elephants were mus- drugstores, while cabs and cars ruling—in the form of debates on tering at an elephantine pace in paused in deference. Their mas- school prayer and teaching cre- Queens. How, nearly an hour sive ears would snare the hoorays ationism—continues today. later than planned, they were of the enchanted and the boos of —Jason Hollander lumbering toward the entrance those who believe the circus mis- and—they’re in. treats its elephants and other an- Imagine what these natural imals—a charge the circus denies. THE CHINATOWN DEATH It’s 1937, the golden age of pulp miracles experienced as they And beginning tomorrow, CLOUD PERIL fiction, and Walter Gibson and walked more than a mile through they would star in the Big Top of (SIMON & SCHUSTER) Lester Dent—authors of The this man-made miracle snaking cities, repeatedly performing a PAUL MALMONT Shadow and Doc Savage series, under the East River.The echo- hip-hop act called “Wave That TSOA ’88 respectively—are hunting for the ing clop of their massive feet. Trunk,”while children of all ages ending of a classic Chinatown The sleek walls of off-white De- marveled at creatures never seen tale. With prose that invokes the pression-era tile. The soft light- through the scratched windows pulp magazines he celebrates, ing befitting a strange dream of the D train, or on the sands of Paul Malmont reimagines the about a journey. Jones Beach. world of Gibson and Dent, two of At 12:46, the police radio How the elephants feel about the genre’s real-life storytellers, said the elephants had reached all this, no one can tell for sure, and their cohorts at the White Marker 21. though their eyes, small marbles Horse Tavern, including Scien- “Almost halfway through,”said set in massive skulls,always man- tology creator L. Ron Hubbard, Officer Shea. age to convey a mood short of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and At 12:54, Marker 49. happiness. others. In pursuit of the story, “Come on,ya freaking animals,” But they are veteran perform- the group’s gumshoeing leads said a freezing photographer. ers by now, professionals—even them on a perilous trail, replete Then,at 1:03,a grayish smudge Sara, the baby. Fresh from the with “Chinamen” villains (and emerged to blot the light at the tunnel, they paused, took their good guys), stunning physical distant tunnel’s mouth. Elephants cues, and greeted Manhattan feats, and sensational twists, in Manhattan. with a little dance. prompting U.S. News & World Karen and Juliette, Nichole Report to call this debut novel and Minyak, Bonnie and Kelly From City Lights: Stories About “a genuine page-turner.” Ann—and Sara,at four, the baby. New York by Dan Barry. Copy- —N.P. They ambled up the road,trailed right © 2007 by the author and by a pair of zedonks—half zebra, reprinted by permission of St. Mar- half donkey—some horses, and tin’s Press.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 37 memoir mostly Jewish middle-class who would later join Greenspan strivers, Greenspan (STERN ’48, in the Nixon White House. Dur- GSAS ’50, STERN ’77) was part ing stage breaks, while most band IN of a large, raucous family whose members enjoyed tobacco or mar- P members worked on Wall Street ijuana, Greenspan read library

R The Scene and on Broadway, and part of a books about business and finance

I public school system that chal- and wondered if he could possibly N lenged the brightest city kids make a life on Wall Street.In 1945,

T Makes (Henry Kissinger was a high he followed that question to the school classmate). School of Commerce, Accounts, Music was his primary obses- and Finance—at the time,“possi- the Man sion, however, and he studied at bly the least prestigious part of Juilliard until he fell in love with NYU,” writes Greenspan, who jazz.At 15,standing in front of the was not a distinguished high ALAN GREENSPAN REMEMBERS Glenn Miller bandstand at the school student. Hotel Pennsylvania, he inadver- At NYU, he began to believe TALES OF JAZZ, BASEBALL, AND tently yelled out,“That’s the Pathé- he had an intellectual calling and WASHINGTON SQUARE tique!” when the band struck up developed an interest in econo- an arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s metrics. “I was enthralled by by Ben Birnbaum Sixth Symphony. Miller turned supply-and-demand curves, the toward him and said, “That’s ter- idea of market equilibrium, and n life—as in real estate— an original scorekeeping system rific, kid.”A few years later, sitting the evolution of international location is destiny, and Alan that allowed him to compile and in a student saxophone ensemble trade,”he remembers. By his jun- Greenspan’s memoir,The Age analyze data from the 1936 World beside a boy named Stanley Getz, ior year, recommended by his sta- Iof Turbulence: Adventures in a Series between the New York he awoke to the fact that he’d tistics professor, he and his slide New World (Penguin), makes Giants and Yankees. He was 10. never be a great jazz musician.But rule landed a job on Wall Street the case for location in time as Much of the charm of this he was good enough that when devising better ways to measure well as place. Close proximity to memoir—even The Economist the World War II draft board re- the Fed’s seasonal adjustments for the Polo Grounds—where “kids called it “an unexpectedly enjoy- jected him (a spot on his lung department store sales. He would from the neighborhood could of- able read”—lies in such moments portended tuberculosis), he was later expand his education by join- ten get in free”—led the future that reveal how a great city shaped able to land a job playing saxo- ing author Ayn Rand’s objectivist Federal Reserve Board chairman a great man. Raised by his di- phone in a respectable big band. salon, which met regularly in her to his earliest use of mathematics vorced mother in Washington The young man playing sax apartment on East 34th Street to to tame chaos:the development of Heights, then a neighborhood of beside him was Lenny Garment, talk and argue the nights away. Joining together an autobiogra- phy and a set of lectures on economics, the memoir (written with the eminent ghost Peter Petre) un- folds with offhand grace. And as much as readers might have enjoyed some self-investigation as sharp as the author’s dissections of others (Nixon, he explains, was not “exclusively anti-Semitic”but “hat- ed everybody”), the man in the dark suit—whom Rand nicknamed “the Undertaker”—just isn’t a con- fessional kind of guy.“Not having a dad left a big hole in my life,” he writes of his childhood—leaving it at that. But as demonstrated by this spare, rather old-fashioned “life and work”of the most influential Amer- ican financial planner since the New Deal, the gifts of a valiant mother

ALAN GREENSPAN, ONCE AN ASPIRING JAZZ MUSICIAN WHO PLAYED WITH STAN GETZ, CO-FOUNDED THE SYMPHONIC and city were more than sufficient SOCIETY, PICTURED HERE, AS AN NYU UNDERGRAD. to fill the void.

38 / SPRING 2008 / NYU

Critical C rit Aicaid l Aid

40 / SPRING 2008 / NYU Now more than ever, researchers are asking what it will take to fight global poverty. So far there are more questions than answers… P H

O by Nicole Pezold / GSAS ’04 T O

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n the eve of the new millen- Uganda with more money to buttress the nium, young Ugandans were campaign. savvier about safe sex than Then it all came crashing down. Critical Oany generation before.They In 2005, a whistleblower revealed that the had better access to con- Ugandan government unit assigned to distrib- doms,and thanks to a broad effort in the 1990s ute money from a primary donor, the Global to educate the public about sexually transmit- Fund to Fight AIDS,Tuberculosis, and Malaria, ted infections, they knew how to use them.At had misappropriated or embezzled more than the local store, they could even buy affordable $45 million. Over the next two years, after an self-treatment kits for common STIs. Only a outside audit and a judicial probe, Ugandans decade or so earlier, their country had been learned of a vast network of graft, of how mon- one of the first in sub–Saharan Africa marked ey had been diverted to cover personal phone by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has or- bills and buy luxury cars, and how $500,000 phaned more than 1.5 million Ugandan chil- worth of antiretroviral drugs had expired on Aid dren. But in just five years, from 1993 to 1998, government clinic shelves. Blacklisted by the according to the World Health Organization, Global Fund, Uganda now stood to lose more the HIV infection rate among pregnant women than $200 million in medical aid.To add insult in some areas had dropped by more than half. to injury, HIV infection was on the rise again. International donors, in response, flooded The history of foreign aid is pockmarked

LEFT: THIS GROUP OF TAILORS, FOOD VENDORS, AND USED-CLOTHING DEALERS IN KENYA WOULD NEVER HAVE QUALIFIED FOR A TRADITIONAL BANK LOAN. BUT THEY AND MILLIONS OF OTHERS HAVE BENEFITED FROM THE RISE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS, WHICH GRANT LOANS AS SMALL AS $50 FOR INVESTMENT IN BUSINESS, HEALTH, AND EDUCATION.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 41 with such stories. Almost every success is miti- tunes—has set off a war of words,sparked in part ease research and public health initiatives are sav- gated by examples of mismanagement, corrup- by NewYork Times columnist Nicholas D.Kristof, ing untold lives, the debate over aid appears des- tion, or incompetence—by foreign donors, on the function of foreign aid, and its uncom- tined to run on.“People are skeptical of all these recipients, or both. And yet, a growing army of fortable relationship to colonialism. There is a ideas,”says Jonathan Morduch,professor of pub- governments, nonprofit agencies, and philan- flurry of new—but largely untested—proposals, lic policy and economics at the Robert F.Wag- thropists are marshaling massive sums.The ques- from ambitious programs to alleviate all the ner Graduate School of Public Service, who tion is: Can this make a difference? There is no stressors of poverty at once to more piecemeal notes that while new medications are scrupu- consensus on how exactly to “end” poverty, or innovations that reimagine how technology lously tested, most aid programs are left to what role wealthy countries should assume in might be employed to improve the lives of the chance. “Not to be too dramatic—but we’re the endeavor.The great stake—in lives and for- poor. And while clear advances in tropical dis- talking about people’s well-being here.” Aid agencies “got away with being bureaucratic, lazy, and ineffective, when they were supposed to be dealing with the world’s most tragic problems.” – economist William Easterly

BELOW: ALMOST HALF THE GLOBAL POPULATION, INCLUDING THE KASSOGUE FAMILY IN NORTHERN MALI, LIVE ON $2 A DAY OR LESS. RIGHT: ATA 2005 SUMMIT IN SCOTLAND, G8 LEADERS VOWED TO DOUBLE AID TO AFRICA BY 2010. L E F T :

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42 / SPRING 2008 / NYU n an April day in 2000, then next meal is coming from,” he admonished in 2002. Meanwhile, in 2004, U.S. private United Nations Secretary- members.Answering his call, the UN declared donations soared to $71 billion. General Kofi Annan appealed a “Millennium Pledge” to “eradicate extreme The need for this assistance is achingly real: Oto member states to take poverty” by 2015 (as well as extend primary An estimated 2.7 billion people—40 percent stock of an unsettling reality. schooling to more boys and girls, halt the of the planet’s population—live in poverty. “Some of us are worrying about whether the march of malaria and HIV/AIDS, and van- This means they somehow scramble to feed, stock market will crash, or struggling to mas- quish the shanty towns that ring most cities). clothe, and shelter themselves on $2 a day or ter our latest computer, while more than half This set off a wave of donor enthusiasm.Twen- less.Within this group, 20,000 people die each our fellow men and women have much more ty-two nations gave a collective $104 billion in day from preventable diseases and hunger. But basic worries, such as where their children’s foreign aid in 2006, nearly double that given the toll of poverty is greater: It can wreck economies and breed corruption, extremism, and violence.

oreign aid operates in the long shadow of 19th-century colonialism, when European na- F tions took up a mission to “civilize” what they assumed were backward cultures around the world.They sliced nations in two or refashioned them with age-old enemies, excising traditional political and economic systems.This set a rickety stage for many developing countries, most of which only won independence after WWII. Many new states—despite a brief euphoria for their newfound freedom—floundered over the next few decades as they dealt with homegrown despots and corruption on one hand, and inef- fectual Western aid programs on the other. Unwittingly, many aid agencies today suffer from a lingering pretension that their “experts,”armed with money and a grand plan,can resolve the problems of the poor, says William Easterly, a development economist and co- director of NYU’s Development Research In- stitute. His own education on this topic un- folded during a 16-year tenure as a researcher at the World Bank, where he noted repeatedly—and to his employer’s chagrin—how aid has failed to incite growth. He details his criti- cisms in The White Man’s Burden:Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin). Aid agencies, he argues, are crippled by a lack of accountability to those they serve.The poor, for example, cannot vote an International Monetary Fund director out of office when a policy misses the mark. “They got away with being bureaucratic, lazy, and ineffective,when they were supposed to be dealing with the world’s most tragic problems,” Easterly says. He heralds instead smaller interventions that evolve organically, rely on the poor’s own ingenuity and ambition, and chip away at individual problems. One well-known example is microfinance, the practice of giving incredibly small business loans—sometimes as little as $50—to poor people, which they can

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 43 parlay into improving their livelihood, health, technology and resources, such as seed and fer- and has visited the experimental communities and education. tilizer to improve crop yield, insecticide-treated in Ethiopia and Malawi.“What happens does- At the other end of the idea spectrum is the bed nets to ward off malaria infection, and n’t come from a person in the West saying,‘This Millennium Villages.The program aims to re- school lunch programs to both counter malnu- is what you have to do.’ It’s almost entirely make entire communities and is the flagship en- trition and improve student performance. Since staffed by Africans,and not just people from that terprise of Millennium Promise, the nonprofit its start in 2004, the program has expanded to particular country, but from that geographic co-founded by famed economist Jeffrey D. 80 villages in 10 countries across sub–Saharan area. That’s why it’s sustainable.” Rosen now Sachs to help Africa in particular rapidly de- Africa, and plans to transfer reins to local coun- directs online fund-raising and organizing at crease poverty by the Millennium Pledge’s 2015 cils and government after five years. Malaria No More, Millennium Promise’s sister deadline. Sachs, who directs the Earth Institute Sachs and company are hoping that by sys- organization, whose name bespeaks its single- at Columbia University and has advised every- tematically intervening, they may be better able minded mission. one from Annan to Bono, argues in his own to prescribe what it takes—in sweat and dol- The academic debate spilled into public book,The End of Poverty:Economic Possibilities for lars—to turn a destitute village around.“Every view in The New York Review of Books when Our Time (Penguin), that the extreme poor are Millennium Village starts with fact-finding and Nicholas D.Kristof considered whether foreign caught in a “poverty trap.” But, he insists, the listening,” says Seth Rosen (WAG ’05), who aid can work, highlighting White Man’s Burden. West can free them with a concerted push in raised funds for Millennium Promise for a year He noted how Easterly skewers Sachs and Mil-

44 / SPRING 2008 / NYU lennium Promise’s brand of development. economist Muhammad Yunus and Grameen the nonprofit research group Innovations for Sachs quickly responded with a letter charac- Bank in Bangladesh—for which they jointly Poverty Action, is currently running 32 ran- terizing Easterly’s book as a “Bah,Humbug at- won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006—these domized, controlled trials in Latin America, tack on foreign aid.”In reply,Easterly chastised small savings-and-loan institutions have gener- Africa, and Asia. Sachs for his “breathtaking hubris to assert that ally been graded by their own advocates,and of- this mess can be fixed for [a] tidy sum.”This ten through anecdote rather than any controlled esearchers are also unravel- claim, he asserted, “bears stronger intellectual study,says economist Morduch.To improve the ing the complexities of kinship to late-night TV commercials than to quality of microfinance operations, the Bill & poverty by studying the African reality.” Kristof, for his part, conclud- Melinda Gates Foundation granted $5 million R poor themselves, whom we ed,“The evidence is murky: If you take the aid in 2006 for the Financial Access Initiative, a know surprisingly little data and try to correlate it to data measuring consortium of development economists housed about.With a grant from the Ford Foundation, economic growth, you end up with…an at Wagner, to tease out, for example, how in- Morduch and doctoral candidate Daryl Collins, unending argument.” centive mechanisms work or what happens if with colleagues from Oxford and Manchester So far,there is an incomplete picture of what you couple financial services with health coun- universities, are collecting the financial diaries interventions work and why.In the case of mi- seling.The group,directed by Morduch with re- of 250 individuals recorded over a year in South crofinance, a movement started in 1983 by searchers from Yale and Harvard universities and Africa, India, and Bangladesh.The results, to be

“Ours is a more fundamental mission to understand the nature of what it means to be disadvantaged.” – economist Jonathan Morduch

LEFT: COMPANIES ARE TARGETING INDIA AND OTHER EMERGING MARKETS WITH LOW-COST CELL PHONES. BELOW: JUICING MOBILE PHONES IS A NEW NICHE BUSINESS IN PLACES PLAGUED BY UNRELIABLE POWER. L E F T :

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NYU / SPRING 2008 / 45 published in the forthcoming 2009 book Port- folios of the Poor, show just how dynamic the financial lives of the poor really are: Even the most meager households save a portion of their earnings, which can waver from $5 one day to 50 cents the next; many rely on part-time or temporary work and a mix of formal and in- formal credit; some even lend to others. “It’s not just about evaluating an intervention,” Morduch explains. “It’s a more fundamental mission to understand the nature of what it means to be disadvantaged.” One lesson that might seem self-evident is that poor people suffer from a lack of services most of us take for granted—fast cash from ATMs, a credit card for emergencies, or near- by doctors. For these issues, information technology, if reimagined, can make a difference, says Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, an assistant professor in computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and founder of the research group CATER (Cost-Effective Appropriate Technologies for Emerging Regions), with colleagues from Courant, Wagner, and the NYU School of Medicine. “You should not be thinking from the traditional mentality of having a personal computer,”he says.Instead he sees cell phones— nearly ubiquitous in the developing world—as small but powerful tools for linking people in ways we’re only beginning to explore.With a grant from Microsoft, Subramanian and colleagues are working with health field workers in Ghana to network BlackBerry-like smart- phones to track the flow and consumption of antiretroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS. They also recently reworked a satellite dish and a wireless card to send a Wi-Fi Internet signal more than 250 miles in Venezuela—much measles as a cause of childhood death in seven ly mutate in response to treatments as it volleys farther than any service in the United States.It’s African countries. A regional control program between humans and mosquitoes. National easily 50 times broadband and at a fraction of in West Africa has rescued 18 million children Geographic reported that some scientists believe the cost, Subramanian says. Last year, the from the risk of river blindness since its launch that of every human being who has ever lived, renowned Aravind Eye Hospitals in India used in 1974, and a national campaign on the use of half of them have died from malaria. Scientists this network to remotely examine and diagnose oral rehydration therapy in Egypt in the 1980s expect it is only a matter of years before the dis- 25,000 patients in nine rural clinics through reduced infant deaths due to diarrhea, a com- ease once again develops resistance to the cur- high-quality video-conferencing. Over the mon killer in many poor areas, by 82 percent. rent cocktail of antimalarial drugs. next few years, the hospital will scale up to 50 One of the biggest winners from the recent Until a few decades ago, creating a malaria clinics to “tele-treat” some 500,000 people. injection of aid is the quest for a malaria vac- vaccine was an unlikely prospect.“People thought cine. Karen Day, who directs the parasitology it was too complex a problem; we didn’t have ll critics, including Easterly, department at the NYU medical school, re- enough money to deal with it;we didn’t have the agree that health care has un- members a time not long ago when scientists tools,”Day explains.Then in 1967,Ruth Nussen- deniably benefited from more had to scrounge together scant grants to re- zweig, C.V.Starr Professor of Medical and Mol- Aaid dollars; literally millions of search the disease, which infects more than 500 ecular Parasitology at the medical school, proved lives have been saved, accord- million people each year—causing at least 1 it was possible to immunize mice with irradiat- ing to a report by the nonprofit Center for million deaths, mostly among children. As one ed malarial parasites, and in the 1980s, she, along Global Development.Since 1996,routine child- of the most ancient diseases—at least 50,000 with other NYU researchers, showed that the hood immunization has nearly eradicated years old,Day says—it has the capacity to quick- protein that coats the parasite could generate

46 / SPRING 2008 / NYU NYU researchers have designed a vaccine that in early clinical trials has protected 65 percent of children against malaria attacks.

LEFT: IN MALI, A MOTHER AND CHILD POSE UNDER THEIR FREE INSECTICIDE-TREATED BED NET—A CHEAP,EFFECTIVE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST MALARIA—COURTESY OF THE UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION’S NOTHING BUT NETS CAMPAIGN. BELOW: ORBIS’S FLYING EYE HOSPITAL, A CONVERTED DC-10 WITH AN OPERATING ROOM, IS ONE CREATIVE WAY DOCTORS ARE TREATING PATIENTS AND TRAINING HEALTH WORKERS AROUND THE GLOBE. L E F T :

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F A V I L A immunity that prevented infection. Building on completely focused on global public health, ex- Here the Global Fund scandal in Uganda of- Nussenzweig’s work, researchers have designed a amining everything from cervical cancer treat- fers lessons to public health workers and anyone vaccine that in early clinical trials in Mozam- ment in El Salvador to Iraq’s mental health concerned about foreign aid.While the stain of bique has protected 65 percent of children against policies, or lack thereof. “Almost nothing— corruption and mismanagement will not be malaria attacks. “That’s pretty significant,” Day chronic diseases, infectious diseases, population quickly washed away, Uganda has turned a cor- says.“But it doesn’t look to be long-lasting,so we control, nutrition—is purely local anymore,” ner.The public,aided by the local press,forced the have to keep boosting and boosting. And that notes Robert Berne, senior vice president for government to take the incident seriously—an may logistically be very expensive and difficult.” health and professor of public policy and finan- unlikely prospect just 30 years ago under Idi If and when researchers finally produce a cial management at Wagner.“A worldwide con- Amin’s bloody autocracy. Some officials have viable vaccine, the next hurdle will be how to text gives you a different perspective, which is been sacked and others are under criminal inves- efficiently negotiate the complex maze of na- what the health issues require.”Berne and others tigation.More than $550,000 has already been re- tional health-care systems, NGOs, and aid agen- developed the two-year Global MPH as a coop- covered. “Money was lost. Careers and personal cies,to get it to those who need it.One response erative of the medical school,Wagner, the Col- reputations may be lost,” mused Justice James has been a proliferation of the master of public lege of Dentistry, the Silver School of Social Ogoola as he handed his 400-page report on the health. Since 1996, applications to schools of Work,and the Steinhardt School of Culture,Ed- scandal to the president in 2006.“But the great- public health have increased by more than 50 ucation, and Human Development.The first est losers in this sordid story have been the peo- percent, reports the Association of Schools of class, who themselves offer a worldly perspective ple of Uganda.”With their vigilant demand for Public Health. NYU has carved a special niche with more than one-third foreign born,enter the accountability and action, however, they’ve also among universities by offering the first MPH fray when they graduate this May. shown they are the greatest hope for the future.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 47

Charles Simic grapples with an unexpected national title

by Michael Scharf Photograph by Peter Gregoire The ConsidersPoet WHEN CHARLES SIMIC WAS NAMED thing is very far away, and we just came was melting. He has never been directly the 15th U.S. Poet Laureate this past sum- home from the market. We’re unloading a confrontational in the manner of Amiri mer,he was,at nearly 70,an eminent Amer- week’s worth of groceries.The phone rings Baraka, whose poem “Somebody Blew Up ican poet: the winner of a MacArthur out of the blue—and they tell you.” America” (2002) condemns a long list of Foundation “genius” grant and of the A sudden call where a mysterious “American terrorists,” or Allen Ginsberg, Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his 1989 “they” make a possibly life-changing pro- who asked outright “America when will collection The World Doesn’t End (Harvest). nouncement in the midst of a mundane you be angelic?” (in America, 1956) and ref- Still, he was surprised when the phone call task is characteristic of the “dark illumina- erenced everyone from Walt Whitman to came one morning to his New Hampshire tions and acrid comedy,” as New York Sun Richard Nixon. Yet Simic has, he says, home. “Early August, nothing is happen- critic Adam Kirsch has written, that won “pretty much endorsed that sense of the ing,”Simic (WSC ’67) recounts in a cadence Simic national recognition. The call gave poet who speaks truth to power.” not unlike his verse.“In the boonies, every- Simic pause not only because his ice cream In “The Lights Are On Everywhere,”

48 / SPRING 2008 / NYU etrs

POET LAUREATE CHARLES SIMIC, NOTED FOR HIS CUTTING WIT, VISITED FLORENCE PRIME MEATS IN THE VILLAGE DURING A RECENT TRIP TO HIS OLD NEIGHBORHOOD. from his forthcoming collection That Little poetic approach to the Laureateship, which Once in America, Simic spent a year in Something (Harcourt), he writes: The he sees as more about how one comports Queens before moving with his family to Emperor must not be told night is coming. / His himself than any specific criticism or praise Chicago. After a brief time at the armies are chasing shadows, / Arresting whip- for the powers that be. “The thing about University of Chicago, he moved to poor-wills and hermit thrushes /And setting the role of the Poet Laureate so far, if you Greenwich Village in 1958 with the idea towns and villages on fire. // In the capital, they look back, is that everyone has behaved of being an artist. Although Simic was go around confiscating / Clocks and watches, very well as a figure of integrity,” Simic accepted at Columbia University,he could burning heretics / And painting the sunrise above says. “And right now we’re in a historical not make tuition. Instead, he painted in his the rooftops / So we can wish each other good moment where there’s not much integrity apartment while working at NYU Press. morning. around in government and other places.” “I basically took care of the mailing list,” The poem addresses power indirectly— Like his poetry, which is suggestive but he says, but the simple job inaugurated a the capital and the rooftops could be any- doesn’t name names, Simic implies that his longer relationship with the university.He where—but such lines are typical of a own manner of “speaking truth to power” soon moved to the payroll office, and after career-long concern with the ways individu- might be challenge enough. a stint in the U.S.Army,returned to it and als get blown about by the currents of histo- But it is also possible, looking at his life enrolled at NYU to complete his under- ry.For a poet like Simic,an honor tied to one and work, to read Simic’s Laureateship graduate degree in Russian literature. of the most muscular institutions on earth symbolically as the Library of Congress’s It was affordable, with his employee dis- required that he think about the nature of way of endorsing a certain vision of count, and classes were just a couple doors the post, and what it would down from his office. demand of him, and then call Simic has never been directly By 1970, after stints in an early them back. computer banking division and at The Laureateship has always confrontational...but he has, he says, Aperture magazine, Simic had been something of an ambigu- published two books and married ous post. It began in 1937 as “pretty much endorsed that sense of Helen Dubin,a clothing designer. “Consultant in Poetry to the the poet who speaks truth to power.” They had no intention of leaving Library of Congress”—when New York—until his work Robert Lowell (1947-48) and gained greater recognition and later Elizabeth Bishop (1949-50) held it— America—one that celebrates heterogene- invitations to teach at colleges and universities and supposed little official function. The ity and an open view on the world. As flooded in from across the country.“The idea current name was decreed by an act of only the second Laureate not born in the of teaching had never crossed my mind, since Congress in 1985, possibly as a way United States, United Kingdom, or I only have a B.A.,” He recalls.“But we had a of bringing the post into line with that of Canada, Simic’s tenure defies a time of kid,and life had become really complicated in Britain, which has had a Laureate at least closing borders. As he continues in “The the city.So we decided,‘what the hell.’”After since Ben Jonson in 1616. But it wasn’t Lights Are On Everywhere,” The rooster three years at California State University at until Robert Pinsky’s unprecedented three brought in chains is crowing, / The flowers in Hayward, Simic took a job at the University consecutive one-year terms in the 1990s the garden have been forced to stay open, / And of New Hampshire in 1973, where he’s now that the position gained prominence in still, dark stains spread over the palace floors / a professor emeritus. Accolades slowly built the United States. Pinsky’s “Favorite Poem Which no amount of scrubbing will wipe away. up, with the MacArthur fellowship—today Project”—a book and video anthology of Like Joseph Brodsky—the Russian- worth $500,000—coming in 1984. It was a ordinary Americans selecting and reading born Laureate who served in the early breakthrough financially, and also in terms of their favorite poems—became synony- 1990s—Simic has witnessed “dark stains” notoriety. mous with the post, and with the feel- firsthand. Born in 1938 in Belgrade, he While the Laureateship might be seen good side of the Clinton administration. arrived in the United States in 1954, at the as the most prominent of accolades, a title No Laureate since has really entered the age of 16, having emigrated with his par- effectively declaring the poet a national national consciousness in the same way. ents and younger brother from a war- treasure, there’s no danger that the atten- Those at the Library of Congress were scarred homeland via Paris. While WWII tion will affect the sense of place and per- quick to assure Simic that “it’s an honor, and its aftermath play a mostly back- spective Simic developed as a boy in the not a job,” and he has decided, like ground role in his verse, he treats that tumultuous years following the war.As he Laureates before him, to define his year in period of his life directly in a 2000 mem- writes in A Fly in the Soup—of his child- his own way.One of his goals is to endorse oir, A Fly in the Soup (University of hood self watching citizens of Paris with books that make finding and reading poet- Michigan Press), in which he writes, not proper papers walk past his refugee fami- ry easier, including Poems of New York without humor, of his family’s nightmar- ly—“I knew something they didn’t, some- (Everyman’s Library), a celebrated antholo- ish experience during the bombing of thing hard to come by unless history gives gy of known and unknown poets from the Belgrade, of the murderous factions that you a good kick in the ass: how superflu- 19th century to the present. Otherwise, the followed in its wake, and of their displace- ous and insignificant in any grand scheme writer seems to have transferred his oblique ment after the war. mere individuals are!”

50 / SPRING 2008 / NYU ST. THOMAS AQUINAS THAT LITTLE (from The Book of Gods and Devils, 1990) SOMETHING I left parts of myself everywhere (from That Little Something, 2008) The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas for Li-Young Lee Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck. The likelihood of ever finding it is small. I was on a park bench asleep. It’s like being accosted by a woman It was like the Art of Ancient Egypt. And asked to help her look for a pearl I didn’t wish to bestir myself. She lost right here in the street. I made my long shadow take the evening train. She could be making it all up, “We give death to a child when we give it a doll,” Even her tears, you say to yourself, Said the woman who had read Djuna Barnes. As you search under your feet, We whispered all night. She had traveled to darkest Africa. Thinking, Not in a million years. She had many stories to tell about the jungle. It’s one of those summer afternoons I was already in New York looking for work. When one needs a good excuse It was raining as in the days of Noah. To step out of a cool shade. I stood in many doorways of that great city. In the meantime, what ever became of her? Once I asked a man in a tuxedo for a cigarette. He gave me a frightened look and stepped out into the rain. And why, years later, do you still, Off and on, cast your eyes to the ground Since “man naturally desires happiness” As you hurry to some appointment According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Where you are now certain to arrive late. Who gave irrefutable proof of God’s existence and purpose, I loaded trucks in the Garment Center. A black man and I stole a woman’s red dress. It was of silk; it shimmered. Upon a gloomy night with all our loving ardors on fire, We carried it down the long empty avenue, Each holding one sleeve. The heat was intolerable causing many terrifying human faces To come out of hiding. BUTCHER SHOP In the Public Library Reading Room (from Dismantling the Silence, 1971) There was a single ceiling fan barely turning. I had the travels of Herman Melville to serve me as a pillow. Sometimes walking late at night I was on a ghost ship with its sails fully raised. I stop before a closed butcher shop. I could see no land anywhere. There is a single light in the store The sea and its monsters could not cool me. Like the light in which the convict digs his tunnel. I followed a saintly looking nurse into a doctor’s office. An apron hangs on the hook: We edged past people with eyes and ears bandaged. The blood on it smeared into a map “I am a medieval philosopher in exile,” Of the great continents of blood, I explained to my landlady that night. The great rivers and oceans of blood. And, truly, I no longer looked like myself. There are knives that glitter like altars I wore glasses with a nasty spider crack over one eye. In a dark church I stayed in the movies all day long. Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile A woman on the screen walked through a bombed city To be healed. Again and again. She wore army boots. There’s a wooden block where bones are broken, Her legs were long and bare. It was cold wherever she was. Scraped clean—a river dried to its bed She had her back turned to me, but I was in love with her. Where I am fed, I expected to find wartime Europe at the exit. Where deep in the night I hear a voice. It wasn’t even snowing! Everyone I met Wore a part of my destiny like a carnival mask. “I’m Bartleby the Scrivener,” I told the Italian waiter. “Me, too” he replied. And I could see nothing but overflowing ashtrays The human-faced flies were busy examining.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 51

Neuroscientist AnxietJoseph LeDoux y takes aim at our onmost tfuhendamenta l BrBrainemotionemotiona —in

by Carlin Flora fear Illustration by Leigh Wells

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 53 research already under way is an effort to teach n the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of stress reduction and emotion regulation skills the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey’s to kindergartners in New York City public schools. LeDoux insists that controlling fear character, Joel Barish, undergoes early is the key to producing well-adjusted a medical procedure to erase some adults.“We’re not going to eliminate fear—it’s aching memories after a breakup always going to be waiting for another trig- ger,” he cautions.“But we can develop strate- Iwith his girlfriend. Though the scenario gies to overcome it.” intrigued many—the movie won an Oscar As a kid in the small Cajun town of Eunice, Louisiana, LeDoux, a good-but-not-great stu- for Best Original Screenplay—most dent, never pursued scientific hobbies or con- assumed it was merely the stuff of sidered research as a career. But he did get some early anatomy lessons in his father’s cinematic fantasy. But director Michel butcher shop.“Since I was 8 or 9, my job was Gondry acknowledges the story was to take the bullets out of the cow brains,” he says.“I used to think about what had been go- inspired, in part, by neuroscientist Joseph ing through the cow’s mind when…bam!” E. LeDoux’s 2000 paper on the prospect LeDoux moved to the (relatively) big city of Baton Rouge to go to college at Louisiana of memory erasure for those with post- State University,where he majored in business traumatic stress disorder. And while and went on to get a master’s degree in marketing. Inspired by Ralph Nader, he intended LeDoux’s real world progress is still far to enter the field of consumer protection. But behind the film’s fictional technology, his in the final year of his graduate program, he therapeutic goals are no less ambitious. took a course with a professor who was inter- ested in memory formation.“I had no idea you could study the brain,” LeDoux remembers. LeDoux has become a crusader for alleviat- which LeDoux heads, as well as the universi- He worked in the professor’s lab, published a ing all sorts of anxieties,a scientist who aims to ty’s Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and few papers, and after applying to 12 PhD psy- literally transform the mood of the American Anxiety, which he directs, and which is fund- chology programs, just barely got accepted to public. Author of the acclaimed books, The ed by the National Institute of Mental Health the State University of New York at Stony Emotional Brain (Simon & Schuster) and Synap- and includes research teams from Rockefeller Brook, where his LSU professor had a friend. tic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are University, the Mount Sinai School of Medi- It was a passing comment by his mentor at (Viking), LeDoux says a “tyranny of anxiety” cine, Weill Medical College of Cornell Uni- Stony Brook, Michael S. Gazzaniga, that led now wreaks havoc on our society, with more versity, and Columbia University College of LeDoux on a decades-long quest: “Michael than 40 million people in the United States Physicians and Surgeons. He’s also working happened to say to me one day,‘Gee, there’s suffering from disorders at an economic cost of with Harold S.Koplewicz,chairman of the de- not much research on emotion out there.’ ” $50 billion per year. And with 24-hour TV partment of child and adolescent psychiatry at Coming from a cognitive science back- news channels and Internet sites barraging us NYU Medical Center, on a long-term plan to ground, LeDoux wanted to understand emo- with a daily dose of panic and high drama, the study the development of fear and anxiety in tion as information processing rather than as national level of fear is only expected to rise. animals and children. One application of this subjective feeling—to know why we choose But LeDoux, the Henry and Lucy Moses Pro- emotions instead of simply how we experi- fessor of Science and winner of the Fyssen ence them.At that time, emotion was assumed Foundation’s 2005 International Prize for his to be a function of the limbic system, which work on the neural basis of emotion, believes includes the amygdala, a small almond-shaped he’s close to understanding how to prevent and structure in the brain’s temporal lobe. But at- treat fear-based disorders, which are affected tached to the theory as scientists were, no one by our experiences and genetic influences. had honed in on the fact that there was no “Anxiety is the low-hanging fruit of psychia- clear evidence linking emotion to most other try,”he says. Unlike depression or schizophre- limbic areas besides the amygdala. LeDoux be- nia, which, he notes, are far more complex, gan conducting simple fear-conditioning ex- LeDoux claims that fear is “a problem that periments in rats (pairing a tone with a mild could be solved with a focused research effort.” shock, for example) to map out the effects of This mission to move fear off of the emo- emotional stimuli on the brain and, in the WHEN TRIGGERED BY FEARFUL SOUNDS OR SIGHTS, tional forefront is the focus of NYU’s new THE AMYGDALA RAPIDLY SIGNALS TO OUR BODIES TO process, discovered that the amygdala itself is Emotional Brain Institute, founded in 2007, FREEZE WHILE THE BRAIN PROCESSES THE THREAT. the brain’s virtual seat of fear. “What I found

54 / SPRING 2008 / NYU P H

O NEUROSCIENTIST JOE LEDOUX HAS T O

A FEARS: THE AMYGDALA, A TINY, M E

S PRIMITIVE PART OF THE BRAIN.

P R I N C E

H and leads to an emotional O T O

G response, functioned almost R A P

H twice as fast as the “high Y

2 0

0 road” of processing, which 8 involves conscious thought. Because the fear system in humans developed so long ago, it’s analogous to that of rats, LeDoux says; when we hear a loud noise, we freeze until our brain decodes whether the noise is threatening. In rats and humans,the fear of threatening stimuli is triggered by emotionally potent memories, which is why the study of memory formation has been key to LeDoux’s research. His lab team is working to figure out how to chemically interrupt the con- solidation of traumatic memories so they won’t have such a debilitating hold over people. So far, the team has been able to erase specific memories in rats by injecting a chemical into their brains,dis- rupting the protein synthesis that normally occurs when a memory is recalled. “We’ve had great success in the animal models,”LeDoux says,but notes that “the human work is very slow.”Because many vic- tims of post-traumatic stress LeDoux says a “tyranny of anxiety” now wreaks disorder suffer from drug and alcohol addic- tion, it’s difficult to find the necessary sub- havoc on our society, with more than 40 million stance-free subjects for the study. people in the United States suffering from disorders In the meantime, LeDoux has found a less at an economic cost of $50 billion per year. conventional method of spreading his understanding of the emotional brain to the masses: music.At Madison Square Garden last May,he led the Amygdaloids—his rock band com- exhilarating was how [Joe] launched into a LeDoux’s true eureka moment came af- prised of fellow NYU scientists—in front of new field alone,” says Gazzaniga, currently ter he traced the nerves connecting the rats’ thousands of students and family members af- a professor of psychology at the University of auditory sensations to areas in their brain ter delivering the College of Arts and Sci- California, Santa Barbara. “His training with and found that their emotional, rather than ence’s graduation keynote speech.During one me was in testing patients,so he had to go back rational, responses to fearful stimuli were song, from the group’s CD titled Heavy Men- and learn basic neuroscience, learn how to processed more quickly.Reacting to a scary tal, he crooned, “Why do we feel so afraid? make lesions in the brain. It was like getting sound, a rat brain’s “low road” of sensory Don’t have to look very far. It’s all in a nut— another PhD.” processing, which centers in the amygdala in your brain.”

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 55 ts cool” cool” “ ork artis ement and York artists York Y v w w CARLY BERWICK CARLY Y BERWICK CARLY Y B Bound by a neighbor- Bound by hood, Ne built a movement and built a movement a city based on built a mo a city based on “cool” B the a neighbor- Bound by hood, Ne newyork school

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, IN HIS STUDIO IN 1967, LAYERED SILK SCREEN IMAGES OF JOHN F. KENNEDY WITH SWEEPS OF PAINT TO CREATE THIS SEMINAL POP ART WORK. P H O T O

T I M E

L I F E

P I C T U R E S / G E T T Y

I M A G E S flinging paint on canvases he had laid on the many may suspect.Far from being a time of lock- floor. Critic Harold Rosenberg called it action step conformity, the 1950s were full of contra- painting, and the new style helped New York dictions. Scrawling gestures that made fun of artists see themselves as, for the first time, supe- dramatic emotions—in paintings such as Bluhm’s rior to their European counterparts. or even in the shtick of borscht belt comedians— The other titan of the time,and Pollock’s rival, signaled an avant-garde that now defined itself was de Kooning, a Dutch immigrant who com- outside the growing middle class, while depend- bined loose figuration with colorful abstract ing on it to inspire work.High-culture art thrived shapes for a new kind of abstract expressionism. on mass-culture products, like comics and cars. Pollock’s and de Kooning’s New York peers in- In addition to “Ars Memoriae” and “Sculp- cluded their wives, Lee Krasner and Elaine de ture: Idols and Shrines,”the exhibition has sec- Kooning, as well as Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, tions on artists such as James Lee Byars and inin and Robert Motherwell.They weren’t all “action Charmion von Weigand, who infused their 1953, a young artist called on Willem de Koon- painters” or “abstract expressionists,” but they work with mystical circles and orbs, and on ing,then the star of the New York art world.The lived near one another, clustered mostly around artists such as Frank Stella and Agnes Martin, visitor wanted one of his drawings, he told 10th Street,and Greenwich Village came to be the who used grids as a way to structure abstract the painter,in order to erase it as an artistic state- epicenter of the New York School. paintings and drawings. ment.To the young man’s surprise, de Kooning But, as the story goes, young artists such as With all these disparate styles, it becomes agreed and, after much deliberation over the Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns began to reject clear that the New York School was a move- right piece, gave him a drawing to destroy. expressionism, believing it to be overheated ment linked mainly by geography.But while the The now-famous story of Robert and self-absorbed.These artists started crafting New York artists pioneered neighborhoods to- Rauschenberg’s erased de Kooning, a key early more hard-edged, analytical objects that incor- gether,they also quickly left them as young pro- work of “pop” art, seems like a parable of gen- porated pieces of the growing commercial cul- fessionals flocked in,driving up rents.As early as erational change, fueled by Oedipal desires to ture of magazine and television advertising.The the 1950s,artists moved down to the then-bleak do away with close influences. It also appears injection of “low culture” into painting and area just south of Houston Street, which they to neatly symbolize the dramatic shift in mid- sculpture defined the new genre of pop art,and would remake into a bustling culture hub called century American art from heated,emotive ab- this generation’s fascination with the role of the Soho.“In Soho, as in Greenwich Village before, stract expressionism to cooler pop art, which viewer would also lead them to explore mini- and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, since, artists have put popular culture—ads,newspaper items,and malism, conceptualism, and performance art. added ‘imagination, effort, and ingenuity’ to comics—right into paintings and collages. In the process of distancing themselves from cities,”writes “New York Cool”catalog essayist But an exhibition at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery the old aesthetic, Karmel says, ideas on the art of Alexandra Lange,“seeing possibilities for art and this spring makes the case that the traditional memory also emerged.A collaboration between habitation where others didn’t, and through story line of the radical shift from expressionism poet Frank O’Hara and painter Norman Bluhm sweat equity, scavenging, and bartering, created to pop is too simple and excludes too many is part of a section of the exhibition called “Ars a new aesthetic that others with deeper pockets good artists of the period. Drawing on Grey’s Memoriae,” a title Karmel invented to identify adopted and aped.” own collection—with many pieces donated by this fusion of pop art and its embrace of “low In the early 1960s, many of the artists in the artists who worked, lived, argued, and drank culture” with genuine emotion. Inky abstract “New York Cool,”including de Kooning, He- among the streets surrounding the gallery—the lines on gouache paintings are punctuated by len Frankenthaler,and Robert Motherwell,be- exhibit is an all-inclusive snapshot of the work O’Hara’s scrawled short poems that read:“This came members of the Artist Tenants Association, produced at the time,rather than an idealized vi- is the first person I ever went to bed with” or a group that fired off letters to the city and me- sion of art history.“Normally, these changes are “Reaping and sowing, sowing and reaping.” dia demanding that artist live-work lofts should seen as parental rebellion,”says Pepe Karmel,the Karmel says,“It was a celebration of everyday life be legal, Lange notes. Many other downtown chair of NYU’s art history department and cu- as a way of shattering pious platitudes about artists immediately applied for a new “artist-in- rator of “New York Cool.”“But it didn’t happen what aesthetic experience should be.” residence” status for their Soho lofts.These like that;it was an evolution.”In fact,many artists For all its rejection of things past,pop art en- eclectic figures undoubtedly changed art histo- in the show, such as Conrad Marca- compassed feelings, too, despite seeming to ry, but one of the more fascinating aspects of Relli,Philip Pearlstein,Louise Bourgeois (HON bury them. Rauschenberg’s collages, for in- the exhibit is its reflection on how they also ’05),Louise Nevelson,and Norman Bluhm,did- stance, are generally seen as seminal pop art, changed the city itself.Today, with skyrocket- n’t neatly fit into any categorization. Living in combining commercially made objects such as ing rents and artists dispersed across five bor- New York mid-century, they helped form what tires or taxidermied animals with paint streaks oughs, the ideal of a true Bohemian is known simply as the New York School,which and newsprint. “New York Cool,” however, neighborhood that inspires a generation— Karmel, in his catalog essay, calls the “first pro- frames its untitled 1957 Rauschenberg collage the Greenwich Village of the ’50s—is mostly foundly original movement in American art.” as a sentimental journey,just as filled with per- reserved for nostalgia. The legend of the period goes like this: sonal significance as any expressionist painting. Around 1930, Jackson Pollock arrived in New The exhibition fits in with Karmel’s long- “New York Cool” runs from April 22 to July 19. York from California, drank with fellow artists term investigation of how art and culture in the For details, visit the Grey Art Gallery Web site at at the Cedar Tavern, and eventually started late 1950s and early ’60s was more complex than www.nyu.edu/greyart.

58 / SPRING 2008 / NYU TOP: BEFORE ILYA BOLOTOWSKY GREW INTO HIS OWN BRAND OF GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION IN THE 1960S, MANY OF HIS WORKS, SUCH AS LARGE ARCHITECTURAL, OIL ON CANVAS (1951), NODDED HEAVILY TO HIS DUTCH MENTOR PIET MONDRIAN. LEFT: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG BRIDGED ABSTRACT EXPRESSION- ISM AND POP ART WITH COLLAGES SUCH AS THIS 1957 UNTITLED PIECE MADE FROM OIL, PAPERS, WOOD, AND FABRIC ON CANVAS TO BECOME THE FIRST AMERICAN TO WIN THE GRAND PRIZE AT THE VENICE BIENNALE IN 1964. ABOVE: PEGGED AS AN ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST IN THE 1950S AND THEN AS A MINIMALIST IN THE ’60S, KENNETH NOLAND IS NOW CONSIDERED ONE OF THE PREEMINENT AMERICAN COLOR FIELD PAINTERS, AS SEEN IN SPREAD, OIL ON CANVAS (1958).

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 59 60 / SPRING 2008 / NYU OPPOSITE PAGE: WOMAN WITH A GREEN AND BEIGE BACKGROUND, OIL ON PAPER MOUNTED ON MASONITE (1966), IS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE FLUID FIGURATION THAT MADE WILLEM DE KOONING A STAR AMONG ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS. THIS PAGE, TOP LEFT: ALEX KATZ’S FIGURAL PAINTINGS, SUCH AS ADA SEATED, OIL ON CANVAS (1963), ONE OF MANY OF THE ARTIST’S WIFE, HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED AS A CROSS BETWEEN EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PAINTER GIOTTO AND THE KRAZY KAT COMIC STRIP. TOP RIGHT: POET FRANK O’HARA SCRIBBLED PITHY, EMOTIVE LINES AMID PAINTER NORMAN BLUHM’S ABSTRACT BLOTS TO CREATE A SERIES OF COLLABO- RATIVE WORKS, INCLUDING MEET ME IN THE PARK, GOUACHE ON PAPER (1960). LEFT: DISCARDED SCRAP-IRON WAS RICHARD STANKIEWICZ’S PRE- FERRED MEDIUM, AS IN THE DELICATELY BALANCED WE TWO ARE SO ALIKE (1958), ALTHOUGH, NOTED ART CRITIC HILTON KRAMER, “THERE’S NOTHING AT ALL JUNKIE ABOUT THE SCULPTURE ITSELF.” FROM LEFT: WILLIAM DE KOONING XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX. RIGHT: ROBERT RAUCHENBERG XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX. BELOW: KENNETH NOLAND XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXNYU / SPRING XXXXXXXXX. 2008 / 61

IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME OLD GOOD IN THE AND EDUCATION, OF CULTURE, SCHOOL STEINHARDT THE 1966, 1919 TO FROM SUMMER OFF TO STUDENTS MORE THAN 10,000 SENT HUMAN DEVELOPMENT BE AND TO YOUNGSTERS WITH EXPERIENCE WORKING GAIN TO CAMP C IN THE OUT OF PLACE TAKES THAT EDUCATION THE “NATURAL TO EXPOSED LIFE- PRACTICE TEACHERS-IN-TRAINING PHOTOGRAPH, THIS 1943 IN DOORS.” SLOATSBURG, IN LAKE SEBAGO OF THE BANKS ALONG TECHNIQUES SAVING SQUARE. OF WASHINGTON NORTH 40 MILES YORK—ABOUT NEW LASS NOTES NYU / SPRING 2008 / 63 alumni profile

KHALID LATIF / CAS ’04 AN IMAM, ON THE BEAT by Ted Boscia

t first Muslim chaplain, he does- them non-Muslims. Last morning. “I don’t see my- at NYPD and far beyond. glance, in n’t carry a gun and, in year, for example, he re- self as the ‘Muslim chap- At 25, and although still his blue place of a police hat, he sponded to an emergency lain,’ so to speak,” Latif studying at the Hartford A inspec- wears a skullcap. “There’s call after a Russian offi- says. “I’m just there to Seminary—the nation’s tor’s uni- really nobody else in the cer had been shot during help individuals regard- first accredited Muslim form with brass eagles on department who looks a traffic stop. The offi- less of their faith.” chaplaincy program—he the shoulders, Khalid like me,” concedes Latif, cer’s family was Russian It’s this mind-set of is one of the New York Latif resembles a typical who provides counsel to Orthodox and spoke little compassion and respect metro area’s leading voic- cop on the beat. But as the NYPD’s 53,000 uni- English, but Latif kept that has allowed Latif to es for mainstream Islam the New York Police De- formed and civilian em- vigil with them until the dissolve many religious and the face of major ef- partment’s second-ever ployees—the majority of man died the following and ideological barriers forts to refute negative

64 / SPRING 2008 / NYU LATIF, AT 25, IS THE NYPD’S MUSLIM CHAPLAIN AND A RISING C STAR AMONG A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN IMAMS. L

P 1940s H

O “We must collectively take precedence over T O A

engage the outside other things for me,” he M A

T VERA MATTLIN JIJI / Trafford.com. S T world—by no means says. “I didn’t see it as H E

W STEINHARDT ’49, GSAS It comes with

S proselytize the masses— my calling then.” His S E P

T ’65 / served as a professor a play-along I

M but combat the fringe faith emerged as an U

S NOTES elements that have NYU freshman once he in the department of Eng- CD by Erik dominated the conver- interacted with other lish at Brooklyn College Friedlander sation for too long.” Muslims. Even so, he for more than 20 years and a self- And he is spreading remains mindful of the and has just published a teaching this message however lessons of his youth, book called Cello Playing “how to” for he can. Latif podcasts when he was estranged for Music Lovers, available adult learners. his Friday sermons on from religion by the re- at Amazon.com and his NYU Web site, strictive orthodoxy that www.icnyu.org, which re- pervaded his local “I don’t see myself as 1950s the ‘Muslim chaplain.’ CECILY BARTH ANN CHERNOW / FIRESTEIN / STEIN- STEINHARDT ’57 / I’m just there to help HARDT ’55 / was recently exhibited her paintings, individuals regardless blessed with another drawings, and prints at granddaughter. An artist, the Uptown Gallery in –KHALID LATIF of their faith.” she recently exhibited her New York in a show titled paintings at the Joseph “Situations.” ceives 10,000 hits per mosques. By contrast, Wahl Arts Gallery in Wood- month, and blogged his he describes his faith land Hills, CA. Last month, MARTIN SELTZER / ENG hajj to Mecca in 2005. today as “inclusive the Maryland Federation of ’58 / is an attorney in the Newsweek put him on its without compromising Art awarded Firestein an Columbus, OH, office of cover last summer for established traditions honorable mention for her Porter Wright Morris & its “Islam in America” of the religion.” In that works on paper. Firestein Arthur LLP and was re- feature. He has spoken way, he’s become a has had more than 40 one- cently selected by peers at national interfaith bridge for young Mus- person exhibitions in the for inclusion in Ohio Su- conferences with hip- lims reconciling their U.S. and abroad. Her per Lawyers® 2008. He hop mogul Russell American upbringings work can be viewed at practices in the area of Simmons and other and their personal de- cecilybarthfirestein.com. environmental law. luminaries. votions to Islam. Latif’s understated A college campus can sermons and conciliato- be the ultimate battle- ry nature may be part ground for these two of his appeal, but equal- identities—a place where 1960s ly important is his own lax attitudes about alco- history. The son of Pak- hol and premarital sex OTTO A. BERLINER / WSC MARIA MAZZIOTTI istani immigrants, he collide with the tenets ’61 / is a researcher for GILLIAN / GSAS ’63 / grew up in a Muslim en- of Islam. But where Allied Intelligence Missions published her third work, perceptions of the faith. clave of Edison, New more traditional of World War II and a sur- a book of poetry, titled “What 9/11 taught me is Jersey, captained his mosques might ostra- vivor of the war. He is also All That Lies Between Us that Muslims can’t be so high school football cize someone who professor emeritus at State (Guernica Editions), which passive when we see in- team, and drove a strays from the flock, University of New York, focuses on her life and accuracies in the por- Lexus that his friends Latif sees opportunity— Alfred State College, where home experiences. trayal of Islam,” says labeled the babe mo- with limits. “I wouldn’t he taught psychology for Latif, who took his bile. He was into the rap push away a Muslim who 38 years. His first novel, STEPHEN AIELLO / WSC NYPD post last April group Bone Thugs-N- drinks,” he says, “but I The Cobbler of Normandy ’64 / is the senior coun- and has served as Harmony and working also wouldn’t hold a (BookSurge), is based selor for public affairs at NYU’s inaugural Muslim out. “When I was young, prayer service with an on his personal experience Hill & Knowlton and has chaplain since 2005. religion didn’t really open bar.” of war. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 66)

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 65 C proved the Initial Environ- ROBERT S. BRESSLER / ly associate professor of (CONTINUED the World Confederation FROM PAGE 65) mental Examination for GSAS ’67, ’70 / recently be- mathematics at North-

L for Physical Therapy dur- been appoint- ing its recent congress in the USAID-funded confer- came a professor and chair- wood University. He and A ed to serve as Vancouver. She is current- ence, Crossing Jordan: man of the department of his wife, Cheryl, recently

S chair of NYC’s ly a distinguished faculty 10th International Confer- biology at the Lander Col- celebrated their 32nd ence on the History and lege of Arts and Sciences of wedding anniversary. They S new Commis- member of the depart- sion on School ment of physical therapy Archaeology of Jordan, Touro College, Flatbush divi- have two children, Keith NOTES Governance. at the Steinhardt School at George Washington Uni- sion. He remains a lecturer and Tara. of Culture, Education, and versity last May. There, in the anatomy department MARILYN Human Development. he participated with others of the Mount Sinai School JAMES R. MILLER / WSC MOFFAT / on the issues challenging of Medicine and an adjunct ’69 / is president, CEO, and STEINHARDT ’64, ’73 / BARNEY POPKIN / WSC archaeologists working professor at the New York chairman of the board of was elected president of ’64 / reviewed and ap- in Jordan. College of Podiatric Medi- the Pittsburgh-based law cine. He lives in Brooklyn firm Dickie, McCamey & FELISSA R. LASHLEY / with his wife, Erma. Chilcote. He is one of just STEINHARDT ’65 / is 5 percent of Pennsylvania alumni leadership dean and professor at TOM O’BRIEN / STEIN- lawyers to receive recogni- Rutgers College of Nurs- HARDT ’67 / is well known tion as a “Pennsylvania Su- ing. She is co-editor of for his children’s software per Lawyer,” in the category the award-winning book from Sunburst Communica- of civil litigation defense. He EXPAND YOUR Emerging Infectious Dis- tions, and had a late May was also included in a “Best eases: Trends and Issues rollout of his latest work, Lawyers in America” list in A NG LUM (Springer), now out in a Spy Wear, on the the category of personal CIRCLE U N O I Y second edition, which pro- games Web site Shock- injury litigation. vides new information on wave. The games are logi- You’re out, a fresh emerging, reemerging, and cal challenges ranging RICHAHD POCH / ENG graduate on the career antibiotic-resistant infec- from easy to complex ’69 / is a master certified tious diseases that contin- and can be found at flight instructor at TAS Inc. scene—oh, but would- L E A E ue to increase at alarming spywear.shockwave.com. Flight School, a Cessna pi- n’t it be nice to have more D L E RC friends in high places? And RSHIP CI rates. lot center at West Chester, maybe see some old faces? Such MELVIN BILLIK / WSC ’68 PA’s Brandywine Airport. was the thinking when, in 2003, Brett Rochkind RICHARD C. BERKE / / completed his graduate A retired Air Force officer, (STERN ’98),Vishal Garg (STERN ’98), and Bryan STERN ’66, ’74 / was work at Michigan State he also serves as the Air- Sloane (STERN ’02) founded the Young Alumni appointed vice president University and has worked craft Owners and Pilots Leadership Circle (YALC), NYU’s all-university for human resources for for NASA at the Dryden Association Airport Sup- networking and donor society. Broadridge Financial Solu- Flight Research Center in port Network volunteer “We wanted to build a group of recent graduates tions, Inc. Edwards, CA. He is current- at Brandywine. who were progressing in their careers and wanted to give back to the university,” Rochkind says. “We wanted the group to be a cross-section of young alumni and open up opportunities for them to meet 1970s other alumni leaders from the Alumni Association and the Board of Trustees.” Now 360 strong, the circle has a goal of 1,000 LEWIS ALTFEST / STERN ty engagement demon- nized in Chambers and in members.Alumni from the past 15 years (from 1993 ’70 / is president of the strates the value of inde- The Best Lawyers in Amer- to 2007) can join by simply donating annually to The wealth-management firm pendent investment advice. ica. He and his wife, Linda, Fund for NYU.YALC members receive exclusive ac- L.J. Altfest & Co., and the live in Arlington, VA. cess to special events that bring them face-to-face recipient of the 2007 LOUIS T. MAZAWEY / with prominent leaders from the university,business, Charles R. Schwab IMPACT WSC ’71 / chairs Groom SHARAN (LEVY) and civic communities. By creating an opportunity Award. This honor, which is Law Group, the largest SCHWARTZBERG / for young alumni from the entire university to net- determined by a panel of U.S. law firm specializing STEINHARDT ’71 / co- work, socialize, and build relationships with other judges from across the fi- in employee benefits, authored two recent NYU leaders,the group continues to cultivate future nancial-services industry, which was named top in its books: Groups: Applying leaders beyond their formal education. recognizes an individual field by Chambers USA the Functional Group Mod- whose sustained vision, out- 2007. Mazawey holds a el (F.A. Davis) and Envy, For more information, visit standing leadership, client law degree from George- Competition, and Gender: alumni.nyu.edu/giving/donors/yalc.shtml. commitment, and communi- town and has been recog- (CONTINUED ON PAGE 69)

66 / SPRING 2008 / NYU D53924nyua.indd 1 3/7/08 5:27:11 AM alumni profile

KAREN WOLFF / SSSW ’06 Helping to Right Great Wrongs

by Ted Boscia

N 1990, 17-YEAR-OLD JEFFREY DESKOVIC WAS IMPRISONED FOR 15-YEARS-TO-LIFE FOR A IRAPE AND MURDER HE DID NOT COMMIT. ON September 20, 2006, he that has assisted in liberat- get back on their feet, they exited the Westchester ing, along with Deskovic, need assistance,” says County Courthouse un- more than 200 wrongfully Wolff, 45, who joined the shackled, his conviction convicted inmates—includ- Innocence Project in Sep- overturned by DNA evi- ing 15 on death row—using tember 2006. “It’s a moral dence that linked the DNA evidence. Armed with question: Do we treat crime to another man. both a social work and law these people with the dig- Still, he faced daunting degree, Wolff directs the nity and humanity that’s obstacles on the outside: extensive efforts required been taken away from finding an apartment, ap- to care for clients’ post- them for so many years?” plying for a job, using new prison needs and has cam- As its first lone social technologies such as cell paigned to highlight the worker, Wolff assists Deskovic, and some 30 other exonorees across the “Exonorees have had country, to sidestep the pit- something stripped from falls that can lead to twice- ruined lives by lobbying for them—their dignity, private and government re- time, family connections, sources, such as Medicaid funds, subsidized housing, themselves from such wrongfully convicted defi- experiences, and skills,” food stamps, job training, associations. nitely fit all of those cate- Wolff says. mental health treatment, Wolff, who holds a JD gories,” she explains. and disability payments. from Boston College and “Our clients are generally phones and the Internet, alarming dearth of servic- Many of the exonerated re- practiced employment poor and of color, and and overcoming more es currently available for ceive little recompense, law in Northern California what happened to them than 15 years of arrested this population. “Ex- and they usually don’t qual- for eight years, backing probably wouldn’t have development. onorees have had some- ify for support offered to women who had been ha- happened if they were For help reassembling thing stripped from parolees, such as halfway rassed or discriminated wealthy and white.” his life, Deskovic leaned on them—their dignity, their houses, because of narrow against, has consistently At the Innocence Pro- Karen Wolff, of the Inno- time, their family connec- funding mandates. In any sought to work with those ject, which was founded in cence Project, the nonprof- tions, their experiences, case, their needs differ who have been similarly 1992, Wolff immediately it organization affiliated their skills—and in order to from ex-cons, and they marginalized or treated alleviated some of the with Yeshiva University recover these things and usually try to distance unjustly by society. “The strain on her colleagues,

68 / SPRING 2008 / NYU P C H (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 66) to the Roster O T O

D U

D tions and Group Work the Commer- L E A Y

R (Routledge). Schwartzberg cial Division E E D is professor of occupation- of the New S al therapy and adjunct York State S professor of psychiatry Supreme NOTES at Tufts University. Court as a mediator. JOANNE GILLIS- DONOVAN / STEIN- BURT WOLD- HARDT ’72 / celebrated ER / ARTS ’74 / is senior her 10th anniversary in vice president and chief 2007 as president and marketing officer of Hoop- CEO of Melmark, the er Holmes, Inc., in Basking Berwyn, PA–based non- Ridge, NJ. profit provider of services for people with disabilities. RICHARD C. MCPHER- SON / SCPS ’75 / is the ROBERT J. HANNEMANN president and creative / ENG ’72 / was recently director of McPherson appointed to lead the Tufts Associates, Inc., a mar- Gordon Institute, which ed- keting, development, and ucates engineering leaders. Internet services compa- As the new director, Hanne- ny. His recent book, mann will continue to push Digital Giving: How Tech- TGI’s boundaries to produce nology Is Changing Chari- top-notch engineering lead- ty (iUniverse), discusses ers who have far-reaching technology’s intersection entrepreneurial vision. with traditional fundraising practices. DONNA PUCCIANI / STEINHARDT ’72, ’79 / SANDRA HOLTZMAN / has published a new book WSUC ’76 / co-wrote Lies of poetry, Jumping Off the Startups Tell Themselves Train (Windstorm), which to Avoid Marketing: A No is available through the Bullsh*t Guide for Ph.D.s, publisher, www.windstorm Lab Rats, Suits and Entre- creative.com/orders, and preneurs (SelectBooks). Amazon.com. She is president of Holtz- man Communications, LLC JANE E. SALMON / WSC (www.holtzmancom.com), ’72 / is the Collette Kean an advertising, marketing, KAREN WOLFF IS THE INNOCENCE PROJECT’S FIRST AND ONLY SOCIAL WORKER, AND HAS Research Chair and co- and public relations firm ALREADY HELPED MORE THAN 30 EXONEREES RECONSTRUCT THEIR LIVES OUTSIDE PRISON. director of the Mary Kirk- that works with the who credit her vast House of Representa- resurrect his life and now land Center for Lupus Re- gaming, technology, life sci- knowledge and empathy. tives passed the Second earns a meager living search at the Hospital for ences, and food industries. “[She] knows how to bat- Chance Act, a measure giving speeches and writ- Special Surgery in Man- She is also lead co-chair of tle for them,” notes staff to bolster support for ing essays about his or- hattan. She is also the the NY Chapter of the Li- attorney Nina Morrison both parolees and ex- deal. “Karen recognizes co-winner of the 2007 censing Executives Society. (LAW ’98). But Wolff also onerees, and The New that our clients have a Carol-Nachman Prize for hopes to empower her York Times and other pa- really strong desire to be her two decades of out- MAXINE FEINBERG / clients to use their tales pers have shone a light leaders themselves,” standing research in WSUC ’77, DEN ’80 / has to lobby for criminal jus- on the plight of the Morrison says. “That’s rheumatology. been elected to a one- tice reform. And there wrongfully convicted. hard to do if their only year term as president are some signs of With Wolff’s support, focus is getting their car STEVEN LEADER / WAG of the New Jersey State change: Last fall the Deskovic has begun to fixed or their rent paid.” ’73 / has been appointed (CONTINUED ON PAGE 70)

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 69 (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 69) ings are based on a rigor- Board of Dentistry. ous peer-review survey in which attorneys na- 1980s JAMES PROSCIA / tionwide are asked to WSUC ’78 / was recently rate the top practitioners MEG D. GOLDSTEIN / KEVIN J. BRENNAN / senior vice president of ac- appointed as a sharehold- in their jurisdictions. LAW ’80 / is an attorney STERN ’82, SCPS ’92 / ademics for Concordia Uni- er of the firm Brooks with Poyner & Spruill LLP was appointed a manager in versity. He has been with Kushman PC, a national NOEMI FIGUEROA in Raleigh, NC, and was re- Ernst & Young’s New York Concordia for 17 years and leader in intellectual prop- SOULET / STEINHARDT cently selected by her office, for the firm’s trans- is also a member of the erty law. He has an active ’79 / premiered her lat- peers for inclusion in action real estate practice. Organization of American practice focusing on est film, The Borinque- The Best Lawyers in Amer- Historians Omohundro In- chemistry, biotechnology, neers, in Newark, NJ, last ica 2008. LINA LIBERATORE / stitute of Early American and computer science. summer and it was subse- WSUC ’82, LAW ’85 / re- History & Culture. Cario quently picked up by PBS HARLEY JANE KOZAK / cently started her own law lives in Mequon, WI, with his LEMUEL H. GIBBONS / stations nationwide. The TSOA ’80 / recently pub- practice, concentrating on wife, Cheryl, and two sons. WSUC ’79 / is an attor- one-hour documentary lished her third novel, Dead commercial litigation, secu- ney with Poyner & Spruill follows the 65th Puerto Ex (Doubleday). rities arbitration, and real EDWARD W. EICHEL / LLP in Raleigh, NC, and Rican Infantry Regiment, estate matters. She previ- STEINHARDT ’84 / is a was recently selected by the only all-Hispanic unit ROBERT PERSHES / ously served as vice presi- leader in sex research. His his peers for inclusion in in the history of the U.S. LAW ’80 / has been dent and associate counsel landmark study, based on The Best Lawyers in Army, from their founding recognized as a 2007 for Fidelity National Title his thesis at NYU, was pub- America 2008. The list- through the Korean War. Florida “Super Lawyer” Group. lished in the Journal of Sex by Law & Politics. He is a & Marital Therapy (1988). shareholder in the Buck- HARRIET CORNELL / He has also written a book, ingham, Doolittle & Bur- WAG ’83 / was recognized The Perfect Fit (1992), alumni bargain roughs, LLP, Boca Raton, in The Nyack Villager as the based on his findings. FL, office and a member of first woman to chair the the Litigation and Intellec- Rockland County Legisla- LINDSEY CLARE ANDER- BUY YOUR NEXT tual Property Practice ture, a position she has held SON / SCPS ’85, WSUC Groups. since January 2005. ’87, STERN ’92 / just released her second full- GADGET AT NYU LENORE REICH ARGEN / MARIA IMPERIAL / WAG length CD with her band STEINHARDT ’81 / has be- ’83 / has been named chief Kitty & the Kowalskis, titled AND $AVE come a member of the executive officer of the Chinese Democracy!!!, Board of Trustees of YWCA of White Plains and which is available on iTunes. the New Jersey Associa-A Central Westchester (NY). She also started a new job NG LUM Alumni can pay less for U N tion for GiftedO Children, I at OgilvyAction, a division Y first-rate electronics— a nonprofit organization BRUCE MCBARNETTE / of Ogilvy & Mather, after liv- desktops, laptops, iPods, that advocates for the LAW ’83 / recently turned ing in Stockholm, Sweden, and more—when they needs of gifted children 50 and broke the American for 14 months. shop at the NYU and works to ensure that Indoor High Jump record Computer Store. Located theyL have appropriate for 50+ year olds—four M. MELISSE LEWIS / GAL E E in the heart of campus on servicesA in their school L times in two months—set- ’85 / recently joined Brain- D C the corner of Greene E IR 1 environmenRts.SHIP C ting it at 6 feet, 3 ⁄2 inches box Enterprises, Inc., the Street and Washington in January 2008. A four- parent company for the Place, the store boasts a wide ROBIN BLAETZ / TSOA time world champion for his Brainbox media group cov- selection of academically priced hardware and soft- ’81, ’89 / edited the new age group, he will represent ering film, television, Inter- ware from well-known brands such as Apple, IBM, book Women’s Experimen- the U.S. in the World Mas- net entertainment, and new Dell, Epson, and HP. tal Cinema (Duke Universi- ters Athletics Champi- media concerns, as its chief Those who show a valid NYU Alumni Card can ty Press). onships Indoor in France legal officer, chief adminis- shop in store and take advantage of the academically this month. McBarnette is trative officer, and corpo- priced items.A more limited selection of discounted JANET GOLDNER’s / president of Summit Con- rate secretary. products is available online, with exclusive links to STEINHARDT ’81 / art- nection, LLC, a real estate special offers on Dell desktops and IBM ThinkPads. work was recently featured investment firm in Virginia. LT. COL. JAMES J. in the Brooklyn College Li- MCDONNELL / WSUC ’85 For more information, call 212-998-4672 or visit brary’s exhibition “Singular WILLIAM CARIO / GSAS / retires from the U.S. http://www.bookstores.nyu.edu/computer.store. Object.” ’84, ’94 / has been named Army in April 2008 after a

70 / SPRING 2008 / NYU 20-year career. His re- lengthening a one-act play C cent assignments includ- about homelessness. L ed the 1st Brigade 1990s Combat Team of the 10th PAUL KAZEE / TSOA ’87 A

Mountain Division (Light), / founded the New York TIM FOLGER / GSAS ’90 / ’91 / released the 2007 This honor is a S where he was deployed to Asian Film Festival in won the 2007 American In- dramatic feature film, result of her S Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2002 and continues to stitute of Physics Science Susan Hero, an “indie work at Stern NOTES support of Operation En- serve as a festival pro- Writing Award, in the jour- cloning thriller,” featuring College for during Freedom, and to grammer. He also works nalist category, for his Dis- Latino and Native Ameri- Women at Baghdad, Iraq, for Opera- as house manager for cover magazine cover can talent. Rosette also Yeshiva Uni- tion Iraqi Freedom. In Proctors, the 2,700-seat story, “If an Electron Can completed Hurricane, versity, where both instances, he re- grand historic theater in Be in Two Places at Once, an accompanying produc- she taught ballet, jazz ceived the Bronze Star. Schenectady, NY, which he Why Can’t You?” See: tion diary that follows the dance, and choreography. He is currently the execu- has helped to expand into http://discovermagazine filmmaker from New York Cogane also teaches ballet tive officer at the Center the Capital Region’s first .com/2005/jun/cover. to New Mexico to Cambo- privately and choreographs of Military History at full-fledged arts, enter- dia and beyond. More in New York City. Fort McNair in Washing- tainment, and education JEFFREY LESSER / GSAS information about his ton, DC. complex. ’90 / is the author of A Dis- work can be found at BEN GOLDMAN / WAG ’93 contented Diaspora: Japan- www.camerado.com. / serves as executive direc- JORDAN LAGE / TSOA JOSEPH KUHR / TSOA ese Brazilians and the tor of City Without Walls, ’86 / appears in the up- ’88 / was nominated for a Meanings of Ethnic Militan- TAMARA RUBIN / TSOA a nonprofit Newark art coming films Choke, di- 2007 Daytime Emmy for cy, 1960–1980 (Duke Uni- ’91 / is a prominent gallery for emerging rected by CLARK GREGG his writing on the Kids’ versity Press). advocate of lead hazard artists. He created Defeye / TSOA ’86 /, and Ridley WB! series The Batman. awareness after two of her Productions and was fea- Scott’s Body of Lies, JUDITH MALINOWSKI / children were poisoned tured in The Star-Ledger with Russell Crowe and LISA SEWELL / GSAS STEINHARDT ’90 / has when a painter used im- of Newark. Leonardo DiCaprio. He will ’88, ’90 / has co-edited been appointed to the proper methods to remove also be in the off-Broad- an anthology titled Ameri- Board of Health in Harri- lead-based paint from the STEPHEN A. HAMMACK way production of Almost can Poets in the 21st Cen- son, NJ. exterior of her home. Her / GAL ’93 / is an archae- an Evening, written by tury (Wesleyan University story has been mentioned ologist at Robins Air Ethan Coen, at the At- Press). CATHERINE COPELAND in USA Today and other Force Base in Georgia, lantic Theater Company. CASATI / WSUC ’91 / is media outlets. where he manages 57 ar- MARYLIZ GEFFERT / the president of Green chaeological sites, 15 of MICHELE PISTONE / LAW ’89 / left in-house Modern Kits, a company SAMANTHA H. GILBERT / which are eligible for the STERN ’86 / co-authored corporate legal life in Sep- that promotes sustainabili- WAG ’92 / was appointed National Register. The the book Stepping Out of tember 2007 and joined ty, preservation, and cele- director of human re- sites range from the end the Brain Drain: Applying the Manchester, NH, law brates gorgeous, green, sources at the Rockefeller of the Paleo-Indian to the Catholic Social Teaching in firm of McLane, Graf, modern design. Learn Foundation. Antebellum and Postbel- a New Era of Migration Raulerson & Middleton. more at www.greenmodern lum periods. Hammack, (Lexington Books). She kits.com. NINA MARTIN / TSOA ’92 his wife Donna, and their is a professor of law and TERRI JO GINSBERG / / has been appointed assis- sons, James and Thomas, director of the clinical pro- GAL ’89, TSOA ’97 / MONICA MARTINEZ / tant professor of film stud- live near Macon, GA. gram at Villanova has published her mono- STEINHARDT ’91, ’04 / ies in the department of University School of Law. graph, Holocaust Film: is a national expert on theater at Connecticut Col- MARCIEN JENCKES / She lives in Villanova, PA, The Political Aesthetics issues related to education- lege in New London, CT. WSUC ’93 / has been ap- with her husband and of Ideology (Cambridge al access and achievement Her areas of research cen- pointed CEO at Voxant, one their 3-year-old daughter, Scholars), based on the for low-income and minori- ter on feminist film, cultur- of the country’s largest on- Julia Rose. dissertation she ty students. She was named al studies, and the impact line syndication networks. completed in 1997 as vice president for education of particular film and tele- NATASHA THOMSEN / a student in the NYU strategy by Knowledge- vision texts on contempo- RONALD REINERTSON / TSOA ’86 / wrote department of cinema Works Foundation in Cincin- rary feminist discourse. WAG ’93 / is a senior plan- Women’s Rights (Facts on studies. The monograph nati, where she guides the ner in Pennoni Associates’ File). Her latest project can be seen at www.c-s-p philanthropy’s work to KAREN-CHERIE Cedar Knolls, NJ, office. is to travel to Greece to .org/Flyers/Holocaust-Film transform the national COGANE / STEINHARDT Pennoni is an award-winning reclaim an apartment --The-Political-Aesthetics- education landscape. ’93 / was elected to Who's consulting engineering in her grandmother’s of-Ideology.htm. Who Among American firm, and Reinertson pro- name while she works on JASON ROSETTE / TSOA Teachers in July 2007. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 72)

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 71 C (CONTINUED FROM ’94 / is professor of politi- PAGE 71)

L cal science and director of vides compre- women’s and gender stud- A hensive plan- ies at Union College. Her

S ning services newest book, co-written in land use S with Michaele L. Ferguson, regulations is called W Stands for NOTES and zoning Women: How the George W. ordinances for Bush Presidency Shaped municipal and a New Politics of Gender private clients. (Duke University Press).

CHRISTOPHER J. DAVID SUAREZ / TSOA SPATARO / WSUC ’93 / ’95 / is the president and is a Baker & Daniels LLP CEO of Interactive Training partner and received one of Solutions, LLC, a South the Michiana (northern Indi- Florida–based corporate ana and southwestern lower training, team building, and Michigan) Region’s “Forty executive coaching firm. Under 40 Awards” for his Utilizing improvisation and work as an active volunteer creativity, the firm ad- in a number of community dresses issues facing events. Last year, Spataro both companies and was honorary chairman of employees. the Compassion Walk, which supports cancer patients’ DAN TRUMAN / TSOA ’95 alumni q&a medical needs, in memory / and KIRK MCGEE / TSOA of his wife. ’94 / are two founding JEREMY LEBEWOHL / CAS ’05 members of the filmmaking RENA GORDONSON / collective www.uneven SSSW ’94 / is director of distribution.com. They re- Corned Beef, volunteers for Hospice of cently launched the Web New York. At the request of site with a film festival, fea- pre-med students, she and turing 12 shorts, and a par- Revisited a team conducted two 15- ty at Manhattan Theatre hour hospice volunteer Source. trainings at NYU last fall. TWO YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS Gordonson was especially DAVID VALENTINE / REVIVE A NEW YORK INSTITUTION pleased to return as an GSAS ’95, ’96, ’00 / is as- alumna to train future sistant professor of anthro- physicians in the special- pology at the University of by Jason Hollander / GAL ’07 ized care of people with Minnesota and recently life-limiting illness. wrote Imagining Transgen- der: An Ethnography of a n the who “maybe could go for business until a 38 per- JEREMY LIPKIN / TSOA Category (Duke University morning a nosh”—was no more. cent rent spike at the ’94 / is a writer and pro- Press). of Janu- The troubles had started original East Village lo- ducer with the Howard ary 1, 10 years earlier, when cation forced it to fold. Stern Series & Specials O2006, beloved founder Abe A Chase bank soon ANDREA MEYER / GSAS team at Sirius Satellite Ra- ’96 / authored her debut many New Yorkers woke Lebewohl, a Holocaust opened in its place, dio. He wrote and produced novel, Room for Love (St. with a heavy heart. It survivor and ultimate shiny enough to erase the 15-part radio documen- Martin’s Griffin), a classic was the first day in 51 “mensch” to generations any memory of what Za- tary, The History of Howard New York love story about years that the 2nd Ave of customers, was shot gat had called “the best Stern, which premiered in a woman who realizes a Deli—the legendary Jew- and killed while making kosher deli in New York.” December 2007 on the Sir- sense of place can be as ish eatery that had fed a bank deposit in 1996. Fortunately for knish ius channel Howard 100. important as finding love. the likes of Ed Koch, Joe His brother Jack fans, Jack’s sons Jeremy DiMaggio, John Gotti, stepped in, giving up his and Joshua (LAW ’06)

LORI JO MARSO / GSAS (CONTINUED ON PAGE 74) and countless others law practice to run the Lebewohl, who spent

72 / SPRING 2008 / NYU LEFT: HAVING SPENT NEARLY TWO YEARS IN THE ISRAELI ARMY, JEREMY LEBEWOHL IS USED TO INTENSE SCENES. BELOW: CUSTOMERS STILL LINE UP, AS THEY DID AT THE ORIGINAL 2ND AVE DELI IN THE EAST VILLAGE. F A R L E F T

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“A lot of people would staff has to understand rather have the calories their needs. One rabbi than the chemicals.” told me that coming here is a “religious experience.” NYU Alumni Magazine recently spoke with Jere- WHAT MAKES THIS DELI my during one of his few UNIQUE? moments of quiet: A consistent product. There’s a reason why my WHAT’S IT LIKE RUN- food tastes different than NING A RESTAURANT other delis—we make THAT NEVER CLOSES? everything here. Our seat- It’s a love/hate relation- ing is about half the size ship. When it runs 100 of our total kitchen space. percent smoothly, it’s the We also make sure our most enjoyable thing to staff goes through a thor- watch, seeing happy cus- ough training. Our manag- tomers. On the flip side, er is Chinese, and he that doesn’t happen too speaks both Yiddish and often. It’s usually beyond Spanish. years helping their “Uncle and tending to a stream of was slow. “As a rule, I still stressful. Abie” at 2nd Ave, refused phone orders and salivat- try not to.” HOW DOES IT FEEL TO to let the deli die. The ing customers. The only The new spot, which is DESCRIBE 2ND AVE’S SEE THE NAME 2ND AVE brothers bought a space place you won’t find him is open 24/7, is right up the CLIENTELE. DELI UP IN LIGHTS at 162 E. 33rd Street, in front of the meat slicer. block from NYU Medical Our customers are defi- AGAIN? eliminating any danger of “When I was a little kid, Center and, at lunch, plen- nitely in a league of their It took me a while to being priced out again, my uncle never let me go ty of white coats happily own. Part of the experi- process the loss after the and launched the new 2nd near that machine,” ex- feast on corned beef ence of coming to a Jew- old [restaurant] closed. It Ave Deli last December. plains Jeremy, who cut his sandwiches, stuffed cab- ish deli is complaining, was hard to think that it Joshua helps out behind entrepreneurial teeth bage, and potato blintzes. kvetching to the waiter. no longer existed. New the scenes while Jeremy when he opened a bagel Jeremy reasons that di- They complain, but they York showed they’re hap- works the floor, ensuring store his senior year in etary or not, food made come back again and py we returned. And busi- the brisket is tender and college, catching up on from simple ingredients again. Many have reli- ness, thank God, has been the matzo balls are firm, homework when business will always have a market: gious restrictions, so the very good.

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 73 C department of physical RENE SNUGGS FRANCIS Columbia University. fers services in wealth and (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 72) therapy at Thomas Jeffer- / SCPS ’97 / has started asset protection and plan- L JOSEPH son University in Philadel- Ramp Up, Inc., a corpora- CLARE OH / STEIN- ning, business planning, A STEINBERG / phia. Barr, who previously tion dedicated to retro- HARDT ’97 / received her partnerships and LLCs,

S GSAS ’96 / taught at Temple Universi- fitting real estate to master of arts in interna- charitable giving and tax- has been ty, has informed the under- accommodate wheelchairs. tional affairs from the New exemption organizations. S named one of standing of common School in May 2007. She is NOTES New Jersey’s repetitive stress injuries, JENNIE GETSIN / CAS ’97 working as the assistant di- GEORGE ARAU / STERN top “Forty Un- such as carpal tunnel syn- / is an associate in the New rector of strategic commu- ’98 / and his wife, der 40” by drome and tendonitis, York City office of Reed nications for Columbia BIANCA NOICI ARAU / NJBIZ, New through her research on er- Smith LLP, one of the 15 University. STERN ’98, ’03 / , Jersey’s premier business gonomics and biomechanics. largest law firms in the announce the birth of their magazine. Steinberg is the world. She is a member of MATTHEW SUMMY / WAG second daughter, Kaylee CEO of Green Armor Solu- JOSEPH J. CICALA / the American Bar Associa- ’97 / is the deputy chief of Addison, born June 4, 2007. tions, a leading provider of STEINHARDT ’97 / was se- tion’s Subcommittee on staff for policy in the office information security soft- lected to receive the Ameri- NASD Corporate Financing of Illinois Governor Rod CARTER CRAFT / WAG ware, which under his lead- can College Personnel Rules and Committee on Blagojevich. In this role, he ’98 / was recently featured ership has established a Association’s Senior Practi- State Regulations and Se- directs the development in The New York Times City significant portfolio of in- tioner Award, following curities. Getsin is licensed and implementation of ma- Room’s “Ask the Water- tellectual property, nomination by colleagues at to practice in New York and jor policy and legislative front Expert” blog. As the achieved profitability, and La Salle University, where New Jersey. initiatives on behalf of the director of programs and won recognition as a tech- Cicala has served as dean governor. policy and a co-founder of nology leader. of students since 1998. He JOSEPH O. LEGASPI / the Metropolitan Water- was also named a Diamond GSAS ’97 / debuted a col- STEVEN WYATT / LAW front Alliance, Craft an- ANN BARR / GSAS ’97 / Honoree of the associa- lection of poetry, Imago ’97 / is a partner in the law swered questions and has been named chair and tion’s Educational Leader- (CavanKerry Press). He lives firm of Tanner & Guin, LLC, discussed waterfront is- tenured professor of the ship Foundation. in Manhattan and works at in Tuscaloosa, AL. Wyatt of- sues in New York City.

BEA LURIE / WAG ’98 / has been named the new Want to Hear More About Alumni president and CEO of Girls Activities? Contact Us! Inc. of Chattanooga. GABRIEL BELLMAN / COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SCHOOL OF LAW GSAS ’99 / directed the HEIGHTS COLLEGES ARTS AND SCIENCE 212-998-6400 film Duffy’s Irish Circus, 212-998-4639 212-998-4639 [email protected] now out on DVD and avail- [email protected] [email protected] able through Netflix.com. SCHOOL OF MEDICINE Bellman also co-founded COLLEGE OF DENTISTRY INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS 212-263-5390 the Frozen Film Festival in 212-998-9824 212-992-5804 [email protected] San Francisco. [email protected] [email protected] SILVER SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK RICHARD L. DENAPOLI / COLLEGE OF NURSING LEONARD N. STERN 212-998-9189 CAS ’99 / is an attorney in 212-992-8580 SCHOOL OF BUSINESS [email protected] the law offices of Richard [email protected] 212-998-4040 L. DeNapoli, P.A., and was [email protected] THE STEINHARDT SCHOOL appointed by Governor COURANT INSTITUTE OF OF CULTURE, EDUCATION, Charlie Crist to the Florida MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES ROBERT F. WAGNER GRADUATE AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Real Estate Commission. 212-998-3321 SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE 212-998-6942 [email protected] 212-998-7537 [email protected] LORI MCMILLAN / LAW [email protected] ’99 / has been appointed GALLATIN SCHOOL OF TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS associate professor at INDIVIDUALIZED STUDY SCHOOL OF CONTINUING 212-998-6954 Washburn University’s 212-992-9825 AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES [email protected] School of Law in Kansas. [email protected] 212-998-7003 She was previously a visit-

[email protected] (CONTINUED ON PAGE 76)

74 / SPRING 2008 / NYU

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 74) alumni art ing professor at Queen’s University in Canada.

TERENCE NESBIT / SCPS NO CHILD’S PLAY ’99 / published his first fiction novel, Heaven Help Me A male figure peels apart his crumbling yellow chest; yearning arms extend Talk to Strangers, which is from a torso moored in a red puddle. These are not images from Goya’s final available at www.Publish years, but the fanciful work of NATHAN SAWAYA (CAS ’95, LAW ’98), who America.com. sculpted Yellow (2006) and Red (2005), respectively, from the unlikely medium of Lego bricks. The sculptures KEN SCHNECK / CAS ’99, STEINHARDT ’01 / has joined a five-year span of increasingly sophisticated served as the dean of stu- work in Sawaya’s first solo show, “The Art of the dents at Marlboro College in Brick,” at the Lancaster Museum of Art, which Vermont since August 2007. opened in April 2007 as the first stop on a museum tour that runs at least through 2010. As the first HEBRON SIMCKES-JOFFE American museum exhibition devoted to Lego art, it / TSOA ’99, GAL ’07 / cre- offers a rare public view of mostly privately held pieces ated a short version of Hit and attracted an overwhelming 25,000 people during and Run, which is now a top-10 finalist for the Wild- its 45-day Lancaster run. “I don’t think there’s any- sound screenplay reading thing I can’t build with Legos,” says Sawaya, whom the series in Toronto. U.K.’s Daily Star referred to as the “Picasso of Lego.”

Only a few years ago, the 34-year-old self- CAROLE L. STEPHENS / taught, New York–based artist was building legal cas- SCPS ’99, ’01 / received es as a corporate attorney. But the lifelong Lego her MS in human resource hobbyist has been a full-time artist since 2004 and management in 2004 joins a short list of just six worldwide Lego Certified from Milano, the New Professionals, a distinction that bestows credibility and School for Management and Urban Policy, and has allows him to make bulk purchases of the bricks. But been accepted into the or- Sawaya’s murals and conceptual sculptures far exceed ganizational psychology their humble plastic origins. He meticulously crafts doctoral program at curves from tiny right angles, magically turning the Walden University’s School children’s toy into serious art. of Psychology. She lives in Until recently, much of Sawaya’s work has been Virginia and works at the commercial commissions—such as a set of billiard law firm of Paul, Hastings, balls, 3-D corporate logos, and video game— and Star Janofsky & Walker LLP in Washington, DC. Wars–inspired figures—which can fetch up to $60,000 for a large sculpture. “I put my heart and soul into a SHEREEN WILLIAMS / lot of these pieces,” he says. One of Sawaya’s favorite WAG ’99 / is working on creations was inspired by schoolchildren from all over the transition team for the country who wrote in to say how they imag- Michelle Rhee, the new ined New Orleans in the wake of Katri- chancellor of public schools na: a colorful, jagged, 120,000-brick in Washington, DC. permanent installation called Re- TIMOTHY WU / CAS ’99 / birth of New Orleans is set to finish his chief res- (2006) now housed in idency in general surgery in the city’s main library. New York and will begin a —Suzanne Krause fellowship in vascular surgery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of LIKE THE ARTIST’S OTHER LEGO WORKS, RED (2005) FEATURES PLASTIC BRICKS IN FORMS JUST AS EMOTIVE AND VISCERAL AS CLAY. Medicine in July 2008. C

2000s L A

VALON L. BEASLEY / MA / TSOA ’00 / were JENNIFER LINDBOM / 2007 World Series Cham- are having a S STEINHARDT ’00 / is a both nominated for 2007 WAG ’01 / accepted a po- pion Boston Red Sox. paranormal S certified New York and Drama Desk Awards for sition as senior urban experience to NOTES New Jersey 7th–12th- their work on HMS planner with the Abu AMY GIBSON GRANT / screen for grade English teacher Pinafore at the Vortex Dhabi Ports Company and STEINHARDT ’02 / was mental illness. who was featured in Theater. Randall was the relocated to the United married to Ian Grant on newspapers and on PBS lead producer and Cimma Arab Emirates. In Abu August 3, 2007. She lives CARLOS with New York State was the choreographer Dhabi, she works on the in Virginia and works as MANZANO / WAG ’03 / Commissioner of Educa- on this production, which Al Khalifa Port and an account supervisor at was recently appointed tion Richard Mills for was nominated for Out- Industrial Zone, a 450- the Washington, DC, of- executive director for the helping to raise test standing Revival of square-kilometer project fice of the advertising Latin Media and Enter- scores and for starting a Musical. that will include a port, agency Arnold Worldwide, tainment Commission in a school magazine. industrial zone, and a where she oversees New York City. Beasley has since found- JEREMY W. SZETO / brand-new city. advertising efforts for ed an educational servic- STERN ’00 / is starting Amtrak. KATHLEEN SHEEHY / es company, You Need To a private practice in ALICIA POLAK / WAG STEINHARDT ’03 / was Succeed Inc. (www Sugar Land, TX. His ’01 / and her social enter- HEATHER F. MCMEEKIN selected as the 2008 .uneed2succeed.com). specialty is family medi- prise, the Khaya Cookie / STERN ’02 / has been District of Columbia cine and he will be work- Co., received an honor- appointed by Turner In- Teacher of the Year. She MARK E. KOLTKO- ing with his father, Kin able mention as one of vestment Partners to co- will represent Washing- RIVERA / STEINHARDT Szeto, a pediatrician. Social Venture Network’s manager of Growth Equity. ton, DC, teachers at the ’00 / was awarded the Szeto also plans to pur- “Imagine What’s Next: National Teacher of the 2007 George A. Miller sue an MBA. Ideas That Will Change ALISSA CARDONE / Year Program and will Award by Division 1 of the the Way the World Does GSAS ’03 / was a fea- work as an advocate American Psychological After graduation, ZANE Business” contest. tured dancer in the Japan within the district’s Association for the sec- ASHMAN / CAS ’01 / re- Society’s centennial com- public schools. ond time. He is the first mained in New York City, BRIAN SEIDMAN / CAS mission of Butoh America person to have received working as a bicycle mes- ’01 / has written a short by Akira Kasai. The pro- JENNY SHIEH / CAS ’03 the Miller Award twice. senger while a member of story that appears in the duction was part of the / wrote Meiling’s a local punk-rock band. Star Trek: Strange New New York Butoh Festival. Dumplings, a finalist in MERON LANGSNER / He has now switched Worlds 10 anthology the ABC’s Children’s Pic- TSOA ’00 / was selected gears and is enrolled in (Pocket Books). Seidman JAMIE HERNANDEZ / ture Book Competition, to be playwright-in-resi- the Columbia University works as the managing GSAS ’03, STEINHARDT which tells the tale of an dence at New Repertory Post-Baccalaureate Pre- editor for a civil rights– ’06 / is using her MA in immigrant Taiwanese girl Theatre for the 2007–08 medical Program. focused book publisher, applied psychology, coun- who is teased for bringing season through a grant NewSouth Books, in seling, and guidance, to dumplings to school for by the National New Play RHIANNA BASORE / Montgomery, AL. work on an A&E television lunch. The book honors Network. TSOA ’01 / starred in The show, Paranormal State, Shieh’s mother and the Terrible Girls at the 2007 ROCK SHUM / STERN which airs on Mondays. fresh dumplings the au- JOSH RANDALL / TSOA New York International ’01 / worked as a videog- Hernandez works with thor made with her.

’00 / and CARRIE CIM- Fringe Festival. rapher and editor for the families who believe they (CONTINUED ON PAGE 79)

We want to hear from you! Let us know what is happening in your career and life. Submit your news items, personal milestones, or an obituary of a loved one to: NYU Class Notes, 25 West Fourth Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY, 10012 or via e-mail to [email protected].

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 77

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 77) working on his first ing water, which 1 billion graduated from Harvard opment Corp. C RUSSELL BAILYN / feature film. people currently lack University, the Divinity in St. Louis L STEINHARDT ’04 / is worldwide. The run took School, in June 2007 with as a project the author of the new JULIE HARBEY / CAS place from June to Sep- a master of theological management A

book, Navigating the ’04 / rang the closing tember 2007, covered studies. In fall 2007, he associate in S Financial Blogosphere bell at the NASDAQ on 15,200 miles across 16 began a PhD in theology its historic S (Wiley), which details how December 28 on behalf of countries, and began and at Boston College on a full and new mar- NOTES to benefit from free infor- the executive board of ended in New York City. university fellowship. kets tax cred- mation on the Internet. the Women’s Syndicate it group. The forward is written by Association, which has KATHRYN MAUGHAN / NATHAN SILVER / TSOA NYU Trustee Michael created a vast and en- TSOA ’05 / published her ’05 / wrote, produced, JENNIFER K. Steinhardt, Bailyn’s idol riching network for first novel, Did I Expect and directed the short MESSINA / CAS ’07 / is since his freshman year. women syndicate profes- Angels? (iUniverse), avail- film, Anecdote, which pursing a juris doctor de- Bailyn is a wealth manag- sionals nationwide. able on Amazon.com. Her is an official selection gree at the University of er with Premier Financial Web site is www.kathryn of the 2008 Slamdance Chicago (class of 2010). Advisors, a boutique JUAN HIDALGO / SCPS maughan.com, and she in- Film Festival. She is active in the Amer- financial planning and ’04 / spent the past two vites fellow alumni to also ican Constitution Society, investment advisory firm years as vice president of visit www.myunexpected AVI WISNIA / GAL ’05 / the Law Women’s Caucus, in New York City. His news operations at VMS. angel.com, where they and his talented ensem- the American Civil Liber- Web site is www.russell He is now applying to can upload tributes to ble performed their ties Union, and plays on bailyn.com. business schools. their own “angels,” peo- Brazilian-influenced folk the university’s Wiffle ple who have given and jazz at the Bitter ball team. NATHAN BARRALL / SHIRI LEVENTHAL / much-needed help at End last fall in New York STEINHARDT ’04 / has STERN ’05 / was one of unexpected times. City. The event was in SELENA SIMMONS / moved from commercial 20 runners in the Blue celebration of Wisnia’s SCPS ’07 / is proud to be casting and talent man- Planet Run (www.blue ROBERT JAY RIVERA / debut album, Avi Wisnia a network graphic design- agement to an associate planetrun.org), the first- SCPS ’05 / and his wife, Presents. er and animator for CBS producer position at ever around-the-world Catherine-Mary, are News, where she has Arnold Worldwide. In running relay. Its mission pleased to announce ANA DA SILVA / WAG worked on nationally 2007, he co-produced was to raise awareness of the birth of their son, ’07 / joined U.S. Ban- televised projects and his first play and is now the need for clean drink- Matthew Robert. Rivera corp’s Community Devel- made great friends. Obituaries New York University mourns the recent passing of our alumni, staff, and friends, including:

RUDOLPH E. DROSD / ARTS ’34, MED ’38 HAZEL KEARNEY OTTO / STEINHARDT ’52 DEBORAH C. SEARS / WSC ’71 SYLVIA SCHMELZER MALCOW / STERN ’34 ANTHONY J. ACCARDI / ARTS ’53 WENCESLAO R. DE LA PAZ / LAW ’72 SYLVIA ROSENBLUM TAPPER / ELIZABETH SHUYER FREIDUS / JOHN YUN-JYN MAU / STERN ’72, ’76 STEINHARDT ’34 STEINHARDT ’54 BEVERLY SILLS / HON ’73 JULIAN HIRSCHFELD / STERN ’36 ALBERT I. MEYERS / WSC ’54, GSAS ’58 NANCY BRADY / STEINHARDT ’74 ARTHUR BLAYNE / DEN ’39 GLADYS ORETHIA INGRAM / THERESE L. MACKINNON / STEINHARDT ’74 MARY C. HILL / STERN ’42 STEINHARDT ’56 RICHARD P. IMMERMAN / GSAS ’77 JEROME FLEISHMAN / STERN ’43 LAURENCE WILSON / GSAS ’56, ’61 JANET K. O’NEAL / SSSW ’77 KENNETH LEVINE / WSC ’44, LAW ’46 FRANCIS J. ALBERTS / STERN ’57 DEANNA M. D’APICE / SCPS ’80, TSOA ’86 CHARLOTTE HELEN NORTHCOTE SKLADAL LENA P. DE CONDO / STEINHARDT ’62 BRIAN E. KRIGER / LAW ’80 / ENG ’46 MICHAEL D. SHAGAN / WSC ’63, LAW ’67 LOUELLA SUDE SMITHEIMER / IGNATIUS J. STEIN / MED ’46 WILLIAM E. TARRANTS / STEINHARDT ’63 STEINHARDT ’80 WESTIN A. O’RORKE / ENG ’47 RONI E. HARED / WSC ’64 EVELYN K. SAMUEL / STEINHARDT ’85 FRANK S. DODIN / WSC ’48 LOUIS MARTIN DESTEFANO / STERN ’67 NANCY G. ORLAND / STERN ’91 CHARLOTTE KLEPPER SCHOEN / NUR ’48 TAUBE G. GREENSPAN / IFA ’67 KITTY CARLISLE HART / HON ’95 MANUEL RIKLAN / WSC ’49, MARY E. CERBONE / LAW ’68 CORDELIA M. HOUTON / NUR ’95 STEINHARDT ’56 H. RICHARD LEHNEIS / WSC ’70, SIBONGILE P. NKOMO / TSOA ’96 ISIDORE R. TUCKER / LAW ’49, ’52 STEINHARDT ’75 PATTY NOONAN / WAG ’99 GEORGE L. AJJAN / WSC ’52, MED ’58 JOSEPH V. CHUBA / GSAS ’71 VI LANDRY / GSAS ’06

NYU / SPRING 2008 / 79 P H O T O

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student lens

WHAT LET FREEDOM SWING! A 1950S BASH

WHERE PALLADIUM RESIDENCE HALL

WHY STUDENTS CELEBRATED THE HISTORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS WITH A ’50S-THEMED DANCE AS PART OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WEEK AT NYU. THE SWING DANCE SOCIETY WAS ON HAND TO DEMONSTRATE SOME TECHNIQUES WHEN PHOTOGRAPHER ANTONIO DELGADO (TSOA ’10) CAPTURED THIS SHOT. “THEY WERE REALLY FEEDING OFF EACH OTHER,” HE SAYS OF THE SWINGIN’ DUO. “OTHER PEOPLE WERE WATCHING THEM CLOSELY AND THEN PICKED UP THEIR MOVES.”

—Renée Alfuso

80 / SPRING 2008 / NYU D53921nyua.indd 1 3/7/08 5:02:37 AM MASTER ACHIEVER

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