cuny.edu/news • C ITY U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK FOUNDED 1847 • Winter 2004

said, “will be given the kind of experi- ences that will allow colleges outside the ATAGLANCE Gates Foundation Funds New city system to give credit for the courses.” CUNY and the Department of CUNY Faculty Education already collaborate on similar Join Alliance for “Early College” High Schools programs to help high school students Minority Students prepare to enter and 1 he City University and succeed in college. Hunter the New York City Indeed, Chancellor College com- TDepartment of Goldstein said, “The puter science Education will use a $6.5 City University right major Kamil million grant from the Bill now has a considerable Laminu is one and Melinda Gates amount of experience in of many stu- Foundation to create ten dealing with high dents enjoying “early college” high schools to schools right now.” mentoring encourage students to pre- In fact, CUNY is through a col- pare for college—and to already home to three laboration begin earning credits toward early college high schools. with the Alliance for Minority their undergraduate degrees Project EXCEL was Participation. See page 2. while attending and finishing launched at Middle high school. College High School and QCC Chemist The early college schools International High School Honored for Teaching will have several goals. They at LaGuardia Commu- 2 by Carnegie Foundation will reach out to help under- nity College in Septem- Paris Svoronos served and under-prepared ber of 2002. Hunter and has enjoyed students realize that they can Brooklyn Colleges remarkable go to and graduate from col- Deborah Wilds of the Gates Foundation with Chancellor Matthew Goldstein opened early college high success in lege. They also will cut and schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein. schools this Fall. The down the time—and “College Now” program placing his lenge,” said Deborah Wilds of the Gates money—required for a high school diplo- offers college credit courses to more than community Foundation “They have to be given this ma and two years of college credit or an 40,000 students in high schools and CUNY college stu- support.” associate degree. campuses throughout the five boroughs. dents on the Eight of the schools will be new. Two In announcing the grant and program, The new Gates-funded initiative differs cutting edge will be created by transforming existing it was noted that a recent study by the in focusing on creating special, small of undergrad- schools. Each will enroll no more than Manhattan Institute found that only about schools whose students can earn college uate involvement in chemistry 500 students. The first two schools—one 70 percent of public high school students credit and thereby shorten the process— research. See page 3. a transformed existing school, one entirely graduate, and that fewer than a third leave and cost—of securing a degree. new—will open in the Fall of 2004. Four high school prepared to do college-level “Early college high schools are a key Hunter Linguist more, including one redesigned school, are work. Statistics for minority students are part of our long-term education reform Nurtures Reading to open in 2005, and the final four will bleaker: half of African-American and strategy in New York City,” said Joel I. around the World open in 2006. 3 Hispanic students graduate, and less than Klein, Chancellor of the city school sys- “We must give all students in our city Lately English 20 percent are ready for college. tem. “This represents a terrific opportuni- access to the quality education necessary professor Kate “Once we provide these students with ty….We’re excited. We obviously have a for success in today’s unforgiving econo- Parry,an the opportunities and provide them with lot of work to do to implement this pro- my,” said University Chancellor Matthew expert on the motivations, they will rise to the chal- gram, but we look forward to that as well.” applied lin- Goldstein. Students in the schools, he guistics and the fostering of literacy, has Academic Standing of Entering Students Surges worked to ecent data reveal that the City Retention rates establish a University has improved its academ- and first-year community library for the village ic standing by every measure avail- grade point aver- to which she will one day retire— R able, from the Scholastic Aptitude Test ages also rose: Kitengesa, in Uganda. See page 4. scores and high school grades of entering 84.7 percent of Queens College Archive freshmen to the number of those fresh- the freshmen who men who succeed in their college work. entered a Tier 1 Trumpets the Legacy of SAT scores for entering freshmen at college in Fall 4 a Great Jazz Musician the University’s “Tier 1” senior colleges— 2001 returned the There is plenty of evidence Louis Baruch, City, Brooklyn, Queens and following year, Armstrong was a wordsmith as well Hunter Colleges—rose from 943 in 1995 compared to 78.8 percent of the freshmen in 1999 to 35,700 in 2002. College Now as a great trumpeter in the Louis to 1,111 in 2003. The national mean SAT who entered in Fall 1995. The GPAs at offers college-level courses to high school Armstrong Archives and House in score for all institutions of higher learning Lehman and York Colleges also rose students, as well as preparatory courses Corona, Queens, in was 1026 in 2003. steadily over those years, as did the aver- and workshops for those needing addition- the good care Entering freshmen also improved their age number of credits earned. al support before entering college. of Queens College. Regents’ English and math scores: The The improvements in student achieve- Chancellor Goldstein noted that the near- For an overview mean scores for the class that entered ment and preparedness come at a time ly quadruple increase in enrollment has of this mother lode CUNY in 1995 were 75.1 in English and when remediation has moved outside the made College Now one of the largest pre- of jazz history, 79.2 in math; the latest class to enter regular curriculum. CUNY baccalaureate collegiate intervention programs in the see page 10. scored 85.3 in English and 82.9 in math. programs no longer offer remedial pro- country. “The students are coming in much bet- grams, and enrollment in remedial pro- Pass rates in the senior colleges for the ter prepared,” said University Chancellor grams by those seeking associate degrees Liberal Arts and Sciences Test (LAST) for Matthew Goldstein. He praised the facul- is declining. New York State teaching certification ty and staff for their roles in fostering At the same time, enrollment in have risen from 62 percent in 1996 to 92 high standards and added, “I especially College Now and in CUNY language and percent in 2002. The same trend appears want to praise our students, who continue basic skills immersion courses is growing. in the Assessment of Teaching Skills— to inspire all of us with their talent, per- College Now, a CUNY partnership pro- Written Test (ATS- W): In 1996, 71 per- sistence and ambition to succeed in realiz- gram with public high schools, has seen cent passed the test; in 2002, that had ing their educational goals.” enrollment more than triple, from 11,000 risen to 94 percent. FROM THE DESK CHANCELLOR’S An important feature of the Alliance has been the effort to restructure courses to accommodate multiple learning styles A Well-Forged Alliance for Minority Students and the widely disparate educational backgrounds of students. Emphasis here By Chancellor Matthew Goldstein incorporate lab and research experience in has been on collaborative learning and he pages of CUNY the core science-technology curricula at non-competitive problem solving. Alliance Matters often carry stories the community colleges. Community and learning centers offer tutoring and also T of remarkable students, senior college students take part together convene workshops for students lacking fascinating scholars, and creative in an annual Alliance-sponsored Urban experience in core areas of science, tech- thinkers. A frequent focus of University Series Conference, during nology, engineering, and medicine. attention is the diversity that is which they share their personal research Now entering a third phrase of its one of the essential cornerstones projects with their peers. development, the Alliance program’s lead- of the CUNY experience. The At the center of the Alliance’s efforts ers hope to continue to encourage and University nurtures this diversity are its faculty mentors. More than 400 enroll minority students in graduate pro- by supporting programs that have been involved over the ten years, grams of science, technology, math and extend minority involvement, and upward of 100 are active now. This engineering. It has just won a supplemen- particularly in disciplines and guidance, I am certain, played a significant tal grant from the NSF for a “Bridge to professions where minorities are role in helping close to 7,500 minority the Doctorate” initiative that will help Alliance student Kamil Laminu, a Computer Science under-represented. students earn their degrees during the students pursuing advanced degrees with major at Hunter College, giving a presentation on One such program is the Alliance’s first decade. In fact, in the expenses for books, health insurance, and molecular complexity at an AMP luncheon. Alliance for Minority Participa- 2002-2003 school year, 852 minority stu- activities in professional organizations and tion, created in 1992 and renamed dents graduated in science, technology, conferences. the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority stantially increase minority baccalaureate engineering and mathematics, an increase I cannot over-emphasize the impor- Participation in 1998 to honor the retiring graduates in science, technology, engineer- of over 100 percent from a decade ago. In tance of helping society as a whole to Congressman for his indefatigable support ing and mathematics. Among the initia- addition, more than 300 students from become more scientifically literate. As we for minorities in urban New York. tives aimed at this goal are: curriculum the Alliance’s Research Scholars have seek to grasp the ever-changing meaning of There are now Alliance learning cen- restructuring and articulation across graduated and a significant number have the phrase “global economy,” the experi- ters and mentors on 16 CUNY campuses CUNY; the provision of research assistant- gone on to graduate schools like Cornell, ences these students bring to the table will and at the Graduate Center, and the trend ships and teaching opportunities, as well MIT, Syracuse and, of course, CUNY contribute invaluably to our nation’s wel- in recent years has been one of explosive as research fellowships; and collaborations itself. The offer of released time to pro- fare—and the world’s. The City University growth. In 1998, there were just over with accredited extramural laboratories fessors involved in Alliance-based under- is committed to ensuring that the path- 4,000 Alliance enrollees; today there are and organizations, such as NASA and the graduate research at both senior and com- ways to the four targeted disciplines nearly 7,000 each academic year. Department of Energy. munity colleges has proved an extraordi- remain open, with the help of programs A particular Alliance goal is to sub- Special effort has also been made to narily productive investment. like the Alliance for Minority Participation. And All That Jazz: Annual Festival Ignites the Fire Adapted and expanded here is a story from CCNY is the obvious campus to host motivated, you will “Study With the Best,” the 30-minute TV such an event, since it is the only one at never ever, ever make magazine, now in its third season, that high- CUNY that offers an undergraduate it. A festival like this is lights CUNY’s wide array of outstanding degree in jazz performance. wonderful because it faculty, remarkable students and alumni, Carillo summoned from the back of his ignites the fire.” and major University academic initiatives. mind the long-simmering thought of a Professor Emeritus The lively, fast-paced series (CUNY-TV regular jazz festival. The idea flew, and Ron Carter says of the Channel 75, Sundays at 8) is aimed partic- the first annual CUNY Jazz Festival Festival and the jazz ularly at prospective CUNY students. sounded off in April, 2000. “The response studios of CUNY, “I was really very strong from the colleges in can’t think of a better ay before hip hop there was “ the system, and the second year, in 2001, local music program bebop. Musicians, who played was a lot stronger.” for you to attend, bebop and other types of jazz W The students who take part, Carillo those of you who are are considered the epitome of cool,” says says, “are really dedicated and committed New Yorkers, than the “Study with the Best” host Zyphus to learning about this music. I think CUNY Jazz Festival. Lebrun. “Becoming an accomplished musi- they’re inspired by their teachers, by hear- And if you come to cian requires years of training and dedica- ing their teachers play, and by sharing school here, you’ll not tion, and it helps to study with the best.” their experiences with their peers from only get a great musi- A CUNY TV collage featuring bassist and Distinguished Professor One of the best is the great bassist, other schools. It really is a great opportu- cal education in the emeritus Ron Carter, left, and CCNY professor of jazz, trombonist Ron Carter who, until his retirement last nity for fellowship for jazz field, but you’ll Scott Reeves, at the 2001 Jazz Festival. year, was a mainstay in the students.” Directing meet a lot of people jazz studies and Disting- the Festival, which is from a broad spectrum of society who which will take place next May, with uished Professor of jazz funded by the Rifkind have the same interests in learning this bands from Brooklyn, City, Hunter, at City College. Each year Center with strong music as you do.” Queens, Staten Island, and York Colleges faculty and students moral support from Jazz Director Carillo says plans are well and Queensborough Community College celebrate the music and at Lincoln Center, under way for the next Jazz Festival, participating. the mission epitomized Carillo says, has been by Carter at the annual “very gratifying.” CUNY Jazz Festival, One participant, which is intended to pro- pianist Malik Washington Board of Trustees mote jazz education in New York City’s of the Brooklyn College Jazz Band, agrees. The City University of New York institutions of higher learning. Chancellor “I think it’s really important” to have an Dan Carillo, guitarist and professor of Benno C. Schmidt Jr. Matthew Goldstein event that gathers “large groups of bands,” music and jazz studies at CCNY, is the Chairman Vice Chancellor for University he says. “It’s very important to the survival Festival’s director and explains how its Relations and Secretary of the of any art form.” Valerie L. Beal Randy M. Mastro birth in 2000 came to pass. “Two years Board of Trustees Jay Hershenson The survival of jazz is clearly a family John S. Bonnici Hugo M. Morales ago I had the idea of doing a conference University Director of passion: his father Salim is a professor of John J. Calandra Kathleen M. Pesile on Duke Ellington. I went to the Rifkind Media Relations Michael Arena jazz studies at Brooklyn College and direc- Wellington Z. Chen Carol Robles-Román Center here at City College and asked for Editor: Gary Schmidgall tor of its Jazz Band (he’s also recorded and Kenneth Cook Nilda Soto Ruiz Writers: Drew Fetherston, Rita Rodin some funding.” The folks at Rifkind liked toured widely in the Americas and Rita DiMartino Marc V. Shaw Photographer: André Beckles the idea but asked Carillo if he might Europe). “The future of jazz is healthy pre- Joseph J. Lhota Jeffrey Wiesenfeld Graphic Design: Gotham Design, NYC have any others along these lines. He cisely because young people are interested Articles in this and previous issues are available recalls them saying, “We want more… ’ at cuny.edu/news. Letters or suggestions for future in it,” Professor Washington says. “This is a Agnes M. Abraham Susan OMalley We’ll fund this event if you have some Chairperson, Chairperson, stories may be sent to the Editor by email to music that you have to have your own fire [email protected]. Changes of address other ideas for the future.” Student Senate Faculty Senate should be made through your campus personnel office. for. If you’re not very ambitious and very

2 CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 Good Chemistry with QCC Students So Who Leads to National Teaching Award Cares? his is the question asked by this Tyear’s CUNY’s 20th-anniversary r. Paris Svoronos doesn’t Queensborough was chosen to host the Campaign for Voluntary Charitable make chemistry easy. 2004 symposium, yet another community Giving. D“When he’s in class, he college first. Under its full title—“So Who expects everybody to be alert,” “I want to give credit to the students, Cares? Working Together. Making a recalls Sadiah Anwar, who studied who worked incredibly hard to reach this Difference.”—the Campaign sup- under Svoronos at Queensborough level of success,” Svoronos says, noting ports more than 900 non-profit Community College. “The atmos- that some of his presenters were only partner phere is very similar to that of a sophomores who had entered QCC with agencies in forum. We are expected to come to GEDs. Other colleges brought their jun- health care, the blackboard and defend, in front iors or seniors. human of the class, what we put up there, Svoronos, a native of Greece, earned services braving his tough questioning.” his doctorate in organic chemistry from and educa- Tough, yes, but also inspiring— Professor Svoronos with his student Sadiah Anwar. Georgetown University in 1979 and has tion in and always animated by a desire to been a full-time faculty member at New York see his students succeed. Svoronos’ annual symposium for undergraduate Queensborough since 1981. He also City, as uncommon success in leading students to research offers a yardstick to measure teaches a course at Georgetown—a fact well as worthy causes on every extraordinary achievement was recently Svoronos’ success. In its first 47 years, not that lends authority to his statement that CUNY campus. recognized by the Carnegie Foundation a single community college student par- “I know these students [at QCC] are as Hopes are high that last year’s for the Advancement of Teaching and the ticipated in the symposium. Four years good as Georgetown students, because I record contributions of more than Council for Advancement and Support of ago, two of give them $400,000 will be bettered this year. Education (CASE), which named him Svoronos’ stu- exactly the Another landmark of last year’s Outstanding Community College dents made the same tests I campaign was the establishment of Professor of the Year for 2003. Svoronos, grade, a commu- give there.” a new leadership level for contribu- who chairs the College’s Chemistry nity college first. Sadiah tions of $1,040 or more called the Department and has taught there since That number Anwar, an Chancellor’s Circle. A trophy will 1981, was chosen from a field of about doubled in each immigrant also be awarded to the campus with 400 nominees from the nation’s most of the following from the highest per capita donations. respected institutions of higher education. years, and last Pakistan who Donors may choose to give His students’ success is part of a team year Queens- struggled to through a "continuous" or "annual" effort. “I and the entire department sup- borough sent 11 secure her payroll deduction, and they may port them in their research so they can students to the GED and also designate specific charities or present it at symposiums and eventually symposium. who is the give to a fund shared in equally by get it published,” he said. Graduates are When young first person all the participating charities. often asked back to encourage new stu- chemical research- in her imme- “Now more than ever I am pro- Queensborough's team of chemistry symposium partic- dents “because they know what close ers gathered in diate family foundly moved by the continued ipants on the Princeton University campus. From left, attention did for them,” Svoronos said. May for this to go to col- generosity of the CUNY communi- Carlos Penaloz, Mariana Musheev, Muhammed “The better of our second-year students year’s 51st annual lege, said of ty, especially in these difficult Ahasan, Ezihe Agwu, and Hoda Mirafzal. tutor the freshmen. Our students test on symposium, 14 Svoronos, times,” says Chancellor Matthew average 10 to 15 percent higher than the Queensborough “Our colleges Goldstein. “I thank you in advance national average, and that includes four- students participated—the largest contin- and society need people like him to serve for your donation, and wish you the year colleges.” gent from any participating college. In as second fathers. He has certainly been very best in the year to come.” The American Chemical Society’s recognition of Svoronos’ accomplishment, this to me.” Lost High Schoolers Found by “CUNY Prep” in the Bronx he City University is addressing the a regular or equivalency high school lum is combined with extensive support Jason Rivera, 17, left Jane Addams H.S. in perennial problem of high school diploma. The curriculum emphasizes the services to help assure students success. the Bronx last year after struggling Tdropouts with a new program called critically important skills of reading and “We are saying to these students: ‘If you through his freshman year. He dropped CUNY Prep. Launched in October, the writing in every class, even physical edu- make a commitment to us, we’ll make a out because the school had taken a back program is designed to help locate van- cation classes. Keeping eyes on the col- commitment to you and help you to suc- seat to friends who were more interested ished students and facilitate their return to lege prize is a key component of CUNY ceed,’” says Griffith. in hanging out than going to class. “It was high school, study toward an equivalency Prep, and students have the opportunity Working with curriculum and instruc- the regular stuff that kids do – cutting, degree, and preparation for college. to use the Concourse’s computer center tional experts from the Department of relaxing,” he recalls. “I felt I had to act a Officially designated the CUNY to sharpen their digital skills and com- Education and the CUNY colleges, certain way, but it wasn’t to my advan- Preparatory Transitional High School, plete research projects. CUNY Prep teachers seek to assure that tage.” CUNY Prep has also been dubbed “sec- The rigorous and demanding curricu- students remain interested and engaged in Rivera hopes CUNY Prep will help ond chance high” because it offers “a their studies. him reach his goal of becoming a profes- remarkable opportunity for young people “All students have regu- sional computer technician. “Here, I have who might otherwise be lost to the lar advisory sessions with a better chance at succeeding at what I schools and never have the opportunity to teachers or guidance coun- want to do,” Rivera says. He is also learn- consider college,” says Derrick Griffith, selors to make certain that ing to be less influenced by his peers: “It’s the program’s director. small problems don’t all about education. I’m the only person CUNY Prep is a collaborative effort of become big ones,” says living my life.” the University, the New York City University Dean for Applicants for CUNY Prep must meet Department of Youth and Community Academic Affairs John income eligibility requirements set by the Development, and the City’s Department Mogulescu. He points out federal government’s Workforce of Education. It is housed at “CUNY on that CUNY Prep will also Investment Act, which funds the pro- the Concourse” in the Bronx, a state-of- be developing a partner- gram. Each applicant is interviewed and the-art educational center located at ship with a nonprofit an assessment is made of his or her aca- Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse. group that has experience demic record and skills. Since CUNY The program is now offering courses working with out-of- Prep’s ultimate goal for its students is col- in the humanities, math, science, art and school teens to provide lege, those completing the program will athletics to approximately 200 students support services to both receive an additional year of support in ages 16 to 18. They will be enrolled for students and parents. planning for college admission, obtaining CUNYPrep’s director Derrick Griffith teaching a content-area up to a year and can earn credits toward CUNY Prep student financial aid and career counseling. literacy course focusing on earth sciences.

CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 3 Nurturing Reading Culture in Africa: The Big Picture – and Kitengesa

itengesa is a small rural village of At right, peasant farmers about 80 miles Residents of Ksouthwest of Kampala, the capital Kitengesa on of Uganda. The area is fertile and yields the Library’s food, but the main cash crop, coffee, has inaugural been plagued by low world prices for day. years. Though electricity and running Below, the water are scarce in Kitengesa, on June 22, Kitengesa 2002, the village celebrated with dancing Community and ribbon-cutting the completion of a Library proper new community library. during No one could have been prouder on construction. the festive day than As chair of Kate Parry,a pro- the presentations committee, Parry co-ordi- fessor of English at nated the conference’s academic program, Hunter College and and she also gave one of the keynote for many years a speeches, on “Cultural Differences in dedicated Reading.” She recalls with particular pleas- researcher on and ure several sessions on how to use writing advocate for he had a munities with many different languages, to teach reading in the mother tongue, and improved literacy ‘library’ of six it is of cardinal importance to develop a conference-closing “Inspirations” session, practices around books.” And of means of mediating among them.” in which participants singled out best prac- the world. The course no Convinced of the importance of her tices they were inspired to take home and library was the fruit building. mission, Parry, who defines her primary attempt to replicate. One paper on a “rea- of much labor on Parry’s first field of work as applied linguistics, has dathon” in Namibia, for example, encour- her part, which response was become a leader in efforts to unite and aged a representative from Cameroun to began when she to procure globalize literacy studies, as well as draw try out the concept. arrived in 1997 as about 200 expertise from many disciplines and from “If these conferences don’t generate a visiting professor books to form many parts of the educational system. She actual progress in the Kitengesas around and Fulbright a lending is also the author of From Testing to the world, they just aren’t worth the Scholar at Makerere University in library in the Assessment: English as an International bother,” Parry says. Kampala, one of her three alma maters— school. Then, in 2000, she and Mawanda Language (1994) and Culture, Literacy, The International Linguistic Association Cambridge (M.A. in history) and secured a grant of more than $2,900 from and Learning English: Voices from the has acknowledged Parry’s prominence in Columbia Teachers College (Ed.D.) the U.N. One Percent for Development Chinese Classroom (1998). the international literacy field by asking her being the others. Fund to build a proper library. Parry and If Kitengesa is the small picture, Parry to chair its annual conference next March. The government of Uganda had just Patricia Woodward of the Hunter Library was also deeply involved in the big pic- Titled “Literacy: Linguistic Change and introduced a universal primary education raised almost $2,500 more through a ture in literacy studies that unfolded in Language Development,” it will be hosted plan, and her research on it led her to visit benefit reading at the College. When the Kampala last August at the third “Pan- by Parry and Hunter College. The two a number of rural schools. Her visit to Kitengesa Community Library opened, keynote speakers will be Florian Coulmas Kitengesa was not exactly happenstance, it had about 800 books. of Duisberg University in however. It is the home village of Parry’s “It is cool and comfortable, Germany, speaking on “The husband, A.B.K. Kasozi, and, she says, “no with lockable cupboards to store Future of Writing,” and Columbia self-respecting Ugandan is without a pied à books, and tables and chairs for University’s expert on oral cul- terre in his native village.” Indeed, Parry, a about 30 people,” Parry reports. ture in Africa and reading assess- native of Britain but raised in Jamaica, “We have the library open most ment Clifford Hill, who will speaks of retiring one day to Kitengesa, daylight hours on weekdays and speak on the use of computer where joining a reading club will presum- a half day on Sunday.” Watching technology to assess literacy skills. ably be no problem at all. over the library is Dan Meanwhile, Parry, who will The couple met during their postgrad- Ahimbisibwe, whose salary and soon celebrate her 20th year at uate studies at Makerere College in the living allowance totals 80,000 Hunter College, says she contin- University of East Africa, but then went shillings a month, or about $40. ues to be fascinated “by the their separate ways for many years, Parry “He does it because he loves social contexts that shape lin- teaching in Uganda, Britain, Nigeria, and books,” says Parry. “He’s there all guistic interactions” and by the the U.S., Kasozi in political exile from the the time.” Parry paid Ahimbi- processes “of the early develop- second Obote regime. They reunited in sibwe and another assistant, ment of a literate culture.” The Lucy Namwanje, out of her own overview of literacy in Africa— 1997 and married that year. If education Kate Parry, right, with Loy Tumusiime, Secretary of the Uganda pocket until a Hunter colleague “easily the poorest continent on is a common topic with them, it is no sur- Reading Association, were honored for their contributions to last pledged enough money to pay earth”—that comes from her prise: Kasozi is the executive director of August’s Pan-African Conference on Reading for All. Tumusiime was them for a year. current research, she hopes, will the National Council on Higher the honorary ribbon-cutter when the Kitengesa library opened. Education for Uganda. He is currently provide a better understanding developing a strategic plan for the coun- The Kitengesa library offers a of the relations between literacy try’s higher education system, including highly specific, if modest, Kodak moment African Conference on Reading for All.” and economic development, as well as a establishment of mechanisms for accredi- in the arduous effort to spread the most The conference was sponsored by the greater emphasis on the positive uses of tation. Parry and Kasozi reunite in Uganda advanced practices of literacy in Africa International and Uganda Reading literacy. The most important, Parry thinks, every intersession and summer. and elsewhere. Gratified as Parry is by this Associations, with support from is “nourishment of the imagination.” While in Kitengesa, Parry was gratified poignant local triumph, she clearly will UNESCO and the Uganda Ministry for Amid such weighty and theoretical by how literacy is prized there, even not be satisfied until the best practices in Education and Sports. It took place in concerns, mind you, Parry is also allotting though the economy offers few opportu- literacy make libraries like Kitengesa’s a Kampala last August and was attended by some time to mull over how to get a nities for the educated. “Parents will commonplace. more than 600 literacy specialists from computer for the Kitengesa Community scrimp and save to send their children to The reason is simple. As Parry writes in more than two dozen nations, including Library—and the solar panel needed to school, even though there are no jobs,” her editor’s preface to Language and 18 African ones. supply it with electricity. she says. Eager to employ her expertise at Literacy in Uganda: Towards a Sustainable As with the field in general, the confer- Donations (to “Kitengesa Community the literal grass-roots level, Parry sought Reading Culture (2000), “Language is fun- ence focused on three main areas of con- Library”) may be sent to Parry at the out the headmaster of the only secondary damental to human life; a child without cern: the teaching of literacy, the provi- English Department, Hunter College, school in the neighborhood, Emmanuel language is severely abnormal; a commu- sion and dissemination of reading materi- 695 Park Avenue, NY, NY 10021; Mawanda. “His vision was to have a com- nity without language cannot exist. And als, and the ways and means of instilling for more information contact munity library,” Parry recalls. “He told me where, as in Uganda, there are many com- literacy within the culture. [email protected]

4 CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 MATTERS IN City Tech Vietnamese BRIEF Nurtures His Heritage Philanthropic Hip Hop Pioneers He will also serve as director of the ew York Petrie-funded initiative. Chancellor Joel NCity College Honored by Medgar Evers College Klein of the New York City Department of Technology’s of Education, who will provide the director of ussell and Joseph Simmons, two Hip Hop pioneers who have become lead- released time for this training of assistant evening and sum- ing entrepreneurs and philanthropists, were among the honorees at Medgar principals, said, “I am delighted with the mer sessions, REvers College’s Third Annual Legacy Awards Gala & Dinner, held in continued support of the private sector James Lap, may October at the Brooklyn Marriott for our school system and want to thank have arrived in Hotel. The other honorees were the Petrie Foundation for this generous the U.S. more attorney Willie E. Gary, banking contribution.” than 25 years ago executive Donna Wilson and tele- CCNY President Gregory H. Williams at the end of the vision’s Judge Joe Brown. The praised the Petrie Foundation’s generosity Vietnamese war, program also featured songs per- as a sign that City College remains at the but he is in no James Lap formed by the legendary forefront of mathematics education in danger of losing Broadway actress Melba Moore. New York. “Clearly, we have reached a touch with his native culture. The black-tie event is the crisis point in the way math is taught, not Lap is involved in several organizations College’s principal fundraiser for only in New York but around the nation,” that seek to strengthen U.S.-Asian its scholarship endowment. added President Williams. “Any real American ties, notably the CUNY’s Asian Over the past 25 years, City reform must include not only math teach- American Higher Education Council, the College alumnus Russell Simmons ers, but also those who are responsible for has championed Hip Hop not instructional leadership. This grant allows Vietnamese Association for Computing, Russell and Joseph Simmons with their only as a music form but also as a us to address that crucial area in the most Engineering Technology and Sciences, and Medgar Evers Legacy Awards. Asian American Consulting Services, a lifestyle and culture. His projects comprehensive fashion.” Queens-based organization that helps include HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam” The grant from the Petrie Foundation, immigrants (he chairs its board of direc- and “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry,” and his “Russell Simmons Def Poetry which began operation in 2002, comes on tors). He also advises City Tech’s Jam On Broadway” won a 2002 Tony Award. He is also famed for his popular and the heels of a $2 million donation from Vietnamese students. distinctive clothing lines. Stanley H. Kaplan to train assistant princi- Though Lap had a degree in philoso- The publisher of One World magazine, Simmons believes in giving back to the arts pals in the city’s middle schools who phy, he came to City Tech as an automa- and the African-American community. In 1995 he founded, with his brothers Danny supervise math instruction. tion specialist in 1986, when there were and Joseph, the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which is dedicated to providing 15 PCs on campus. He also served for disadvantaged urban youths with exposure to the arts. Joseph, now an ordained min- Federal Funds Awarded four years on the advisory board that ister, achieved fame as “Run” of Run DMC, the first rap group to receive gold and to CUNY Center for helped the American Museum of Natural platinum albums and the first to be featured on MTV. Run DMC, also considered the History mount the nation’s first compre- first Hip Hop crossover group, was the first rap group to win a Grammy. Regional Transit Study hensive exhibition on Vietnamese culture, Honoree Willie E. Gary, named by Forbes Magazine as one of America’s top 50 “Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind & alling it “an investment in Americans’ attorneys, is known as “The Giant Killer” because of his great success representing Spirit” (it opened last March and runs Cability to travel more safely and effi- little- known clients. He has been profiled by the New York Times, Boston Globe, until March 7, 2004). Visitors are able to ciently in the years to come,” U.S. Black Law Journal, and CBS’s “60 Minutes.” The Chairman and CEO of Major experience the diversity of Vietnam’s 54 Secretary of ethnic groups through numerous artifacts, Broadcasting Cable Network, which features family-oriented programming, he Transportation works of art and photographs, supple- formed the Gary Foundation to provide scholarships, direction and resources for Norman Y. mented by live performances and videos. young people. Mineta recently Lap is seen here with a life-size votive Donna M. Wilson is Northeast President of Washington Mutual’s Community and announced a horse of paper and bamboo from the External Affairs division, which is dedicated to strengthening the company’s commu- $900,000 grant show. Bright red, the horse is burned as an nity- related activities. In 2003 she was named one of the “25 Influential Black to the offering to the 7th Mandarin, who is asso- Women in Business” by The Network Journal, a business magazine for Black profes- University ciated with the red heavenly realm. Only sionals. CUNY’s Feminist Press recently presented her with its Crossing Borders Transportation an Ong Dong,a male spirit medium, can Award for her efforts to forge new opportunities for women in the banking field. Research make the horses, elephants, and dragons Joe Brown served on the Shelby County Criminal Court bench in Memphis Center that are burnt in a Len Dong ritual. from 1990 to 2000. His popular syndicated “Judge Joe Brown” show deals largely (UTRC), based with small-claims cases. Brown’s fairness, wit, humor and common sense have made at City College. Robert E. Paaswell Emerita Celebrates 90th the show a ratings winner. An honors graduate of UCLA, where he also earned his The grant is in law degree, Brown was the first African-American prosecutor in Memphis and has support of advanced with Theatrical Flair also devoted himself to aiding inner city youth. research for the planning and manage- o celebrate her 90th birthday—and ment of regional transportation systems. Tincidentally an almost 50- A consortium of 12 major universities year-long association with announced the chair would carry Roberts’ throughout the region, including CUNY—the renowned scholar of name, adding: “What a way to mark your Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and the American stage Vera Mowry reaching 90 years, an extraordinary life, with Rensselaer Polytechnic, the Transportation Roberts announced in October generosity, with your customary commit- Research Center conducts studies in criti- her gift of $500,000 to endow a ment to the study of theater in America.” cal areas related to transit, infrastructure, chair in the Graduate Center’s Horowitz then conferred on Roberts the and regional funding and pricing. It draws Ph.D. Program in Theatre. Graduate Center’s President’s Medal. regularly on CCNY and CUNY-wide fac- Roberts, a leading off-stage pres- ulty in a variety of disciplines. ence in the realm of Thespis for $3.7M Math Ed Grant Distinguished Professor of Civil much of the 20th century, has Engineering Robert E. Paaswell, who had a knack for founding: she was Breaks CCNY Record directs UTRC, said the grant brings the one of the founders of the Arena amount of money received by the Center he largest foundation grant to City Stage in Washington, D.C. in since its inception in 1988 to more than College in its 156-year history, target- 1950, and she was among the T $20 million dollars. It’s also the latest Vera Mowry Roberts ed at the advancement of mathematics founders of CUNY’s doctoral pro- funding by the DOT, which awards close education, has just come from the Carroll gram in theater in 1968. to a million dollars annually in competi- of Theatre, and, as co-author, Notable and Milton Petrie Foundation. CCNY’s Following a life-long conviction that tive grants to the UTRC, a leading Women in American Theatre. School of Education will use the $3.7 teachers of theater must also practice the resource for the transportation industry Roberts began her academic career in million to train all of the math assistant art, Roberts has been a driving force in in the northeast region. 1955, when she came to Hunter College’s principals in New York City public high the American Theatre Association, and Professor Paaswell has taught and then Department of Speech and Dramatic schools, who will train teachers on their she has served on the boards of several headed transportation centers at SUNY- Arts (now the Department of Theatre and staff in turn. companies, including Playwrights Buffalo and the University of Illinois, and Film); she was chair there from 1970 to This “multiplier effect” model was Horizons. Her publications, many focused is the former CEO of the Chicago Transit 1980. developed by Dean Alfred S. Posamentier on women in the theater, have included Authority, the second largest system in Responding to the gift, Graduate Center of the School of Education and an inter- dozens of articles and three books, On the U.S. Stage, A History of the Theatre, The Nature President Frances Degen Horowitz national leader in mathematics education.

CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 5 By Gary Schmidgall

t’s tough anthropological work, but some one has to do it. This year The “Proper Study of Mankin IMichael Blim—one of the many extraordinarily productive and often far- flung members of the Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in Anthropology—is a Near and Far by Doctoral A Fulbright Senior Research Scholar on sab- batical in a small Italian town, Monte San Giusto, in Italy’s With colleagues at Professor Thomas McGovern Marche region. Let us (since Life can little more supply the University of Lyon, with a group of CUNY “It’s beautiful and exhilarating— Than just to look about us and to die) Delson is also co- students whose field work is funded by a federal just me and 7,300 citizens about Expatiate free o’er all this scene of Man; directing a major exca- 30 miles from Ancona. On a clear vation for fossil mam- “Research Experience for day you can see the Apennines and A mighty maze! but not without a plan. mals at a filled-in vol- Undergraduates” grant. They are on the steps of the Adriatic Sea.” Then there’s the — Alexander Pope, The Essay of Man canic explosion-crater food, notably a tagliatelle al ragu lake at Senèze in south a reconstructed 18th-century and the local lasagna, which Blim central France, which house in Skógar, in says “is called vincis grasis, or ‘the fat win- 50 families in town and is talking with has yielded fossil mam- southern Iceland. ner.’ It involves incredibly diaphanous lay- many others. As for living in such a small mals about two million years ers of pasta and chicken liver in the sauce.” town, he notes, “there is a pervasive sense old. Delson’s team are study- Then there’s the wine. Blim says the best of being in the knowledge of others. ing the geology and fauna of is now Rosso Piceno and Rosso Conero Someone just joked that he knew where I Senèze in order to clarify the Professor Sophia Perdikaris, in (“available in the U.S. at reasonable was at noon. Eyes are everywhere.” evolutionary succession of white, with students, prices”); the area’s famed Verdicchio has European mammals before exposing a 9th- or 10th- gone out of favor, but try to get hold of a nthropology is the discipline that most the arrival of early humans century early human Sanducci Telusiano. Asingle-mindedly accepts Alexander in western Europe. Delson settlement at a site in the inte- Oh, and the art. In one of the town’s Pope’s famous and very down-to-earth himself is hoping to locate rior of Iceland called six churches (check out the remarkably admonition, “Know then thyself, presume additional fossils of a rare Hrísheimar. sophisticated civic web site, www.monte- not God to scan;/ The proper study of terrestrial Old World mon- sangiusto.org) is a magnum opus crucifix- Mankind is Man.” And the study of man’s key, Paradolichopithecus. ion by Lorenzo Lotto that’s traveled only ancestors too. Most of Blim’s colleagues are twice in its existence. currently involved in their own very proper hen Thomas H. studies of man in parts of the world both “I admire it as often as I can,” says McGovern goes dig- far (Iceland, France, Mongolia) and very W Blim, who first came to Monte San ging, he prefers to travel a bit near (a rich trove of artifacts from under Giusto in 1981 to do field work on social north: would you believe the newly rehabilitated City Hall Park). mobility among the Marchigiani, as they Shetland Islands (north of With vastly different time-frames in are called. “They are by their own and by Scotland), the Faroe Islands view—from 2 million- year-old mammals national consensus an extraordinarily (north of the Shetlands), to the civic institutions of Lower Manhat- industrious, non-smiling, hard-nosed lot.” Iceland, and Greenland, tan just 300 years ago, to the “future” for where he spent six summers Blim is back to check on how the town the world’s “wounded cities”—and early in his career. If it isn’t has continued to deal with its emergence employing highly varied research tech- above 60º latitude north, he’s from centuries of poverty into affluence niques and paradigms, these anthropolo- not likely to be interested. in the shoe-making business in the gists are doing their part to understand the A capo for a what he calls a decades after World War II. he eminent geographer and CUNY “plan” of the “mighty maze” which is the “mafia of scholars of the North Atlantic,” His early work resulted in Made in Distinguished Professor David Harvey record of human existence on the planet. McGovern, who also teaches at Hunter T Italy: Small-Scale Industrialization and Its has just published Paris, Capital of No plan is more fundamental than that College, is the director of the NSF-funded Consequences (1990). Blim’s current proj- Modernity (Routledge), which lays out the of evolution, and Eric Delson is involved North Atlantic Biocultural Organization, ect “is one of those rare treats afforded us now celebrating its tenth anniversary. social and economic forces that, in the in several areas of research on the subject. period between the two failed revolutions as anthropologists to revisit the scene of As he has for more than 20 years, His own research, on the evolutionary his- of 1848 and 1871, led to the transforma- the crime and see what was right and McGovern heads north again, this time to tory of higher primates, has led him to the tion of Paris from a sombre, cramped, wrong about past judgments.” Blim knows pursue research in the burgeoning histori- study of fossil monkeys from Europe, moody, still-medieval city into the grandly cal ecology field. He has just received an China, Angola, and South boulevarded “City of Light.” NSF grant to study why the first human Africa. He was the senior The book’s cover features an 1850s settlements on the Faroe Islands and on editor for the recently pub- photograph of the Street of Virtues, a cen- Iceland between 800 and 1100 A.D. had lished second edition of the ter of prostitution, that captures the ethos such different effects on the environment. Encyclopedia of Human of the older Paris that was swept away by The impact on the Faroes was relatively Evolution and Prehistory. the city’s legendary Second Empire pre- minor, while the Vikings caused rapid and Delson has also co-organ- fect, Georges-Eugène Haussmann. profound deterioration, notably soil ero- ized and directs the New Focusing less on the well-known archi- sion, which led to permanent farm aban- York Consortium in tectural consequences of the stunning donment. McGovern’s interdisciplinary Evolutionary Primatology civic transformation, Harvey examines team will include specialists in soil sci- (NYCEP). This is a unique how Paris was transformed by an emerg- ence, zooarchaeology, climatology, and graduate research and train- ing form of capitalism that was dominated archaeobotany. ing program in collaboration by high finance and the rise of modern Sharing McGovern’s longtime interest with Columbia and NYU consumer culture. in Viking anthropology is Sophia that unites more than 45 The intersections between geography Perdikaris, whose “Research Experience scientists to address all and the experience of Parisian popular for Undergraduates” (REU) program was aspects of behavioral and culture are colorfully illustrated with well recently refunded by the NSF through evolutionary biology in pri- over one hundred illustrations, most 2007. REU helps to fund the participa- mates. Established in 1992 notably and frequently the piquant draw- tion of CUNY’s undergraduate anthropol- and recently refunded by ings of Daumier. Individual chapters are ogy students on projects in the North the NSF for the third time, devoted to such topics as the role of Atlantic. “This second three-year support In the NYCEP student research room at the American NYCEP is based at the women and class strictures, urban plan- is virtually unheard of,” McGovern says. Museum of Natural History, Eric Delson and two Grad Graduate Center and oper- ning, public transportation, and con- “It is a unique compliment to a program Center Ph.D. students, Karen Baab, left, and Tara Peburn, ates partly in offices at the sumerism, spectacle and leisure. available only at CUNY.” So far, REU has examine casts of partial crania of Homo erectus from American Museum of made it possible for about three dozen China, Kenya and Indonesia. Looking down on them is a Natural History. Since 1992, he dark side of the increasingly global- CUNY students to sink their trowels into reconstruction, supervised by Delson, of a more than 3-mil- NYCEP has trained 110 stu- Tized economies and cultures of the North Atlantic dirt. lion-year-old African monkey. Photo, courtesy E. Delson. dents, including 63 women. 21st century is on full view in a new

6 CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 nd” Pursued Anthropologists

beginning in 1840 with a line of slaves with loads of cotton on their head and ending in 2001 with an image of actor Danny been something of Glover at a candlelight vigil at the an embarrassment World Conference Against Racism in anthropology.” in Durban, South Africa. To underscore his notion of a The title of the collection is return to the fundamental, taken from Langston Hughes’ Crapanzano cites this statement poem “freedom,” which begins the made by Joseph-Marie de Gérando Introduction: “Freedom will not in an 1800 treatise for the Société des come/ Today, this year/ Nor ever/ Observateurs de l’Homme, a founding Through compromise and fear…” document of French anthropology: “The As one might expect, the pages of imagination is the first faculty that one Freedom offer an emotional roller- must study in the savage because it is the coaster: images of lynchings (one is one that nourishes all the others.” of five men lynched at one time) Another book of his, The Fifth World of juxtaposed with those of Billie Mongolian Forster Bennett: Portrait of a Navajo, has Holiday and her band, Marian Autonomous just been reprinted by the University of Anderson on the Mall, a Region since Nebraska Press. Drawn from his experi- Greyhound “Freedom Riders” bus it emerged ences on a Navajo reservation while a with smoke pouring out its open in 1947. Minzu grad student, the book covers the daily door, and Jackie Robinson crossing tuanjie, Bulag experience of Navajo whom he gave the home plate. says, “means anthology, Wounded Cities: Destruction and pseudonym in the title. “It was written in The authors’ last words: “The achieve- both amity Reconstruction in a Globalized World (Berg), reaction to the often wild and promiscu- between edited by Jane Schneider and Ida Susser, ment of a common humanity that can ous romanticizing of the American nationalities who also teaches at Hunter College. experience freedom—of thought, work, Indian,” Crapanzano recalls. “I wanted to and national Timely given the aftermath of 9/11 spirituality, creativity, and political expres- convey the extraordinary will, which unity,” and it has and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, this sion—has been the real goal of the black Forster displayed, that preserved the been “a ubiquitous collection of 14 essays explores how struggle since our arrival on America’s majority of Indians from their own and dominant urban populations are affected by shore in 1619. That magnificent struggle dispiritedness.” discourse “wounds” that are inflicted through vio- continues.” in 20th- lence, civil wars, overdevelopment, drug hile studying to become a teacher at oon to appear from the University of century China trafficking, and the collapse of infrastruc- Inner Mongolia Normal University Chicago Press is Vincent Crapanzano’s W that aims to ture. Imagining each city as a “body S in the 1980s, Uradyn E. Bulag encoun- new study Imaginative Horizons: An Essay regulate politic,” the authors consider its capacity tered an American anthropologist teach- in Literary-Philosophical Anthropology, ethnic relations both to mediate local conflict and to nur- ing English in Hohhot, the capital of the which urges a more intense focus on “the in the attempt to ture the healing of its wounds. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who problem of cultural creativity—a problem create a seamless In Part 1, “The Degradation of Urban convinced him to pursue the discipline. which American anthropologists, with the Chinese Nation Life,” essays examine the way Siberian Through a series of fortunate alignments possible exception of Alfred Kroeber, have (Zhonghua cities responded to the “great freeze” of of the stars he ended up in Cambridge tended to avoid.” Minzu).” 2001 and the depreciation of life in University, where he earned an M. Phil. Because they tend to speak in determin- The Mongols Mexico City as it fell into crisis. Part 2, and a Ph.D. in social anthropology. As a istic terms of invention, adaptation, syn- at China’s “Crises of Crime and Criminalization,” research fellow of Corpus Christi College cretism, cultural change, development, and Edge provides includes an essay by Donald Robotham, there, he completed his first book, evolution, Crapanzano asserts, “today’s a broad historical acting executive officer of the Anthro-pol- Nationality and Hybridity in Mongolia anthropologists have been less concerned (Oxford), and initiated research that has context for the ogy Program, examining the devastating with imaginative processes than with the just resulted in the publication of The Mongolian attempts to harness cultural consequences of crime on the product of the imagination.” The individ- Mongols at China’s Edge: History and the or resist Chinese political hegemony. Jamaican capital city, Kingston, and an ual,” he wryly adds, “has always Politics of National Unity (Rowman & essay by Leith Mullings on reclaiming Littlefield). Harlem after drugs and the “war on drugs.” Addressing the explosive subject of Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City in the “the Mongol ethnopolitics in China Vietnam are featured in Part 3, “Rapid, and the dilemmas of their articulation or Inconsistent Expansion,” and Belfast, post- The full version of this article, available lack thereof,” Bulag admits that his book war Beirut, and Palermo, Italy are the on the CUNY web site (www.cuny.edu/ was “written with my mind and heart. It focus of the essays on “Reconstruction and news), describes the major research combines cool-minded analysis and emo- Recovery” in Part 4. projects and important recent publica- tional passion,” perhaps in part because tions of these other members of the people in Mongolia who wished him well residential Professor Leith Mullings Graduate Center’s Program in sincerely urged him, “Don’t touch the joined Columbia history professor Anthrolopology: Talal Asad, Arthur P nationality question!” Manning Marable recently to produce a Bankoff, Daniel G. Bates (emeritus), However, Bulag’s last extended trip monumental example of photographic Kate Crehan, Marc Edelman, Gerald anthropology, Freedom: A Photographic back to Inner Mongolia to visit his family, Sider, Arthur K. Spears, Neil Smith, History of the African American Struggle relatives, and friends, in the summer of and Diana Wall. (Phaidon). “My discussions with our stu- 2000, helped to inspire him to go forward dents about public anthropology prompt- with a book that squarely confronts the For more information ed me to take on the project,” she says, nationality question. He is particularly on CUNY’s Doctoral Program “an interesting way of bringing anthropol- interested in the rather oxymoronic con- in Anthropology, visit ogy and history to a larger public.” The cept of minzu tuanjie, which has been a result, 600 photographs with text written central mode of discourse between the www.gc.cuny.edu/Anthropology by Mullings and Marable, is a panorama Chinese Communist Party and the Inner

CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 7 CUNY PRACTICES BEST Surge in Dominican Population Hunter Outlook Assists ominicans are the fastest- were classified as “other growing ethnic group in Hispanics.” The study also con- Employees CUNY-Wide Dthe United States, but pop- cluded that more than one mil- ulation numbers have not yet lion Dominicans are living in the translated into political power or U.S., whereas the Census reported In this new occassional column, CUNY Matters achievements in higher education, only 800,000. The authors believe according to a just-published study, many more remain uncounted; draws attention to programs, policies, publications “Dominicans in the U.S.” One both estimates fail to include and professional practices that may serve as mod- major problem is that the U.S. Dominicans who are illegal resi- els or inspirations throughout the City University. doesn’t recognize how large the dents, said Rivera-Batiz. Dominican population is, the study Only 30 percent of Domini- suggested. Actual figures for cans hold college or higher or 20 years, members of the Hunter College communi- Dominicans in the nation are degrees, with the rest of the pop- ty have had recourse to its Employee Assistance much higher than 2000 federal ulation employed in lowest-paid, Program, which, drawing on the resources of the F Census data suggest. Professor Hernandez of the Domini- mainly manufacturing, jobs. In College’s School of Social Work, offers free, confidential, on- The study—conducted by can Studies Institute. The man pic- addition, the median age for site professional counseling to individuals, groups or families. Dr. Ramona Hernandez, of the tured behind her, Professor Emeritus Dominicans is 30 years old, which Now, thanks to the Internet, all parts of the City CUNY Dominican Studies Frank Bonilla, was her mentor and the places them in the lowest-ranking University have access to Outlook,a twice-yearly Employee Institute at City College, and founder of Hunter College’s Center for earning category with respect to Assistance publication that examines in depth many of the Columbia University’s Dr. Francisco Puerto Rican Studies. work expertise and seniority. problems that bring employees to its suite of offices in Rivera-Batiz—found that immigra- Many officials interpreted the Hunter’s West Building. tion and a high birth rate soon may push Dominicans findings as a proof of political and economic potential Articles range widely over problem areas that may affect past Cubans as the third-largest Hispanic group in the of the Dominican population. Assemblyman Adriano employees—and students—anywhere in the University. country, behind Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Espaillat, the first Dominican-American elected to a Recent issues have addressed such topics as depression and “It is very clear that the numbers released by the state legislature, said the statistics were encouraging, but anger in the workplace, the mind-body connection, new rea- Census represented a very severe undercount,” says there still are many challenges awaiting the community: sons to exercise, schizophrenia, preparing for disasters, and Hernandez, the holder of a Lehman B.A. and a “How do these numbers translate into a greater number physical conditioning for those who spend substantial time Graduate Center Ph. D. She notes that the Census did of Dominicans playing an important role in the socio- at a computer station. not take into ethnic account those Dominicans who economic dynamics of New York City?” “What we wanted was a newsletter that would address mental health issues so that people might recognize they have problems they can get help for,” says Program director Florence Vigilante. Part of the problem, Vigilante adds, is $80,000 Wild Goose Chase at CSI that “You have to be pretty sophisticated to understand that you have feelings that are not welcome. This is simply a way he 204-acre Willowbrook campus of the to get people to tune in to mental health problems that College of Staten Island is known for its beauti- might be troubling them.” Tful expanses of green space. The park-like envi- An example, she said, might be “an employee taking care rons, however, have over the years caught the eye of of an aging relative. It presents tremendous problems, but migratory Canadian geese. More and more began put- the care-giver may perceive it as simply doing his or her ting down their webbed feet wherever they could and duty. They don’t recognize that they’re angry and depressed.” extending their sojourns. EAP staff are ready to help employees deal with such diffi- These tourists who just cult situations. wouldn’t flap on home The Outlook is archived at www.hunter.cuny.edu/~eap/. not only cluttered such Edited segments are included in CUNY Matters Online, the Elysian CSI prospects as electronic newsletter regularly distributed via e-mail to the Great Lawn; they also University faculty and staff. Content may be simple and direct left behind up to two tons in addressing such problems as workplace anger, panic attacks of dung per day. Avoiding and the connection between mental and physical health, but the droppings, students they are hardly unsophisticated. They are produced by trained and faculty found it professionals and are subjected to review by Vigilante, who is almost impossible to walk a DSW who teaches at the School of Social Work, and the a straight line between Bud conferring with President two professional social workers on the EAP staff. classes. As the problem Springer in her CSI office. “Women in jobs with high demands (too much to do in continued, and in fact The photo illustration above, too little time), low control (little say over how they do their worsened, Chief perhaps inspired by Superman's work), and low social support—from co-workers, supervisors, Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds at CSI, and, of course, the dog Krypto, indicates Bud's or both—had the greatest decline in mental and physical Vincent Bono sought to find a humane way to rid the cost of his food have heroic status on campus. functioning over time,” the Outlook reported in its Fall, 2002 campus of its unwelcome feathered guests. resulted in a cost issue. “In fact, the magnitude of decline in overall functioning Enter Bud,a black Labrador/Border Collie mix, avoidance of about due to job strain was about equivalent to that of smoking whom Bono found on the Internet for sale for the $80,000 a year.” That is what CSI would have had to over the four-year period [of the study].” modest sum of $25. Bono’s bright idea was that Bud’s spend on chemicals with goose-repelling effects. The writers are three student social workers nearing grad- genes might be perfect for herding the geese into the Springer adds, though, that “no good deed goes uation; they are usually of mature years with substantial life air an on a flight-path to…well, anywhere else. When unpunished.” About a month after Bud’s arrival at experience. “It’s considered their field placement,” Vigilante President Marlene Springer heard about the proposal CSI, Springer says she received a call from the CUNY says. One of the current group, Lois Nachamie, is the author to sic a dog on the geese, she was a bit skeptical at Central Office saying that someone had floated the of several books, including So Glad We Waited: A Hand- first, joking that “the guys at Buildings and Grounds astounding rumor that the College had paid $40,000 Holding Guide for Over-35 Parents and Big Lessons for Little just wanted a dog to play with.” for a dog for the sole purpose of keeping geese away People: Teaching Our Kids Right from Wrong While Keeping Springer was soon convinced, however, that the from her car. The President quickly explained that them Healthy, Safe and Happy. “It’s a wonderful experience idea was worth a try. The only problem was that Bud Bud came “dirt-cheap” and put everyone’s mind fur- for the students,” Vigilante said. “It teaches them something was in a kennel in Maryland, and someone had to pick ther at ease by circulating a copy of Bud’s bill of sale, about their responsibilities to a larger community.” him up. Bono volunteered to go and get the pup, and his shots, and his non-pedigree. Decisions about what articles will go into the newsletter ornithological malaise on campus has virtually van- Now that Bud has been established as a cost-effec- are taken at staff meetings. “We try to have a theme,” Vigilante ished. tive one-dog goose patrol, and has cleaned up the CSI said. “As the articles get written, they get handed around to Bud barked into tireless action—with Superinten- campus, he has been chosen to perform geese allevia- the other students and to us.” The professional staff carefully dent Bono (one hopes) muttering to the geese, “This tion off-campus. The College has farmed Bud out to edits all of the articles. Outlook also picks up articles from such Bud’s for you!” The College’s grassy areas and side- the Parks Department to help it deal with similarly newsletters as the Harvard Heart Letter and publishes useful walks were soon pleasantly free of feces. Bud is also sedentary geese in Cloves Lake Park. information about current events at Hunter College. quite popular with the B&G staff, who give him the Of his decision to “send CSI to the dogs,” Bono While the articles bear the stamp of their authors, they do love and attention he needs at his home in the emphasizes, “Bud is a great addition to our staff. He’s not carry their names. “We don’t have bylines,” Vigilante said. Maintenance Building. given us a way to put an end to a major nuisance that “That just seemed too competitive.” Bud’s arrival has created a large financial boon for was also a health and safety issue.” And, yes, “he’s just the College. “We estimated that Bud’s $25 price tag a lot of fun.”

8 CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 BOOK TALK OF THE CITY

New York Remembrances of Things Past flashing, canyon-shadowed realness there, and the pink light glowing on its highest Reading a “Huge, Intricate, Unfathomable” City crests as bottomless shadows hung draped in mighty abysms…” he way a book is born can be wildly Unlike Miller, who dropped out of CCNY enough…” (Interestingly, E.B. White and Though Tytell never met Kerouac, serendipitous. Take, for example, when his freshman English instructor his Here is New York, ubiquitous since who died in 1969 at 47, he did interview TReading New York (Knopf), a assigned Edmund Spenser’s Fairie Queene, 9/11, is nowhere to be found in Reading William Burroughs (“the most difficult memoir by John Tytell,a member of the Tytell graduated and went on to earn his New York!) subject, a lean, tense, sinister, nervously Queens College English faculty for three Ph.D. at NYU. The fourth and final part of the mem- twitching man in black”), and he enjoyed decades who is noted particularly for his The Third Part of Reading New York is oir, “New York Beat,” finds Tytell coming a 25-year-association with Allen Ginsberg. ties to and writing on the Beat titled “My Two Henries,” and refers to the into his own personal and professional He recalls several visits to Ginsberg on the Generation. strikingly odd couple of Henry Miller and identity. The Kerouac epigraph on Lower East Side in 1974: “He lived on the Tytell, who was born in Antwerp and Henry James. (Tytell took a course from Gotham is perfect: “It was too much to fourth floor of a funky, walk-up tenement escaped from Europe in 1941 with his Leon Edel, the great believe, and so with no intercom. In a quaint reminder of diamond-merchant family, says he was James biographer, at huge, intricate, Old New York, Ginsberg would toss the inspired to write this memoir of a life- NYU, finding him unfathomable front door key out the window in a sock time’s reading of literature steeped in “mechanical and unin- and beautiful so that I could enter.” New York City life while walking his dog spiring as a teacher.”) in its distant, There is one passage toward the end of about five years ago in the West Village. Though Tytell’s life- smoking, Reading New York that perhaps ties much He happened to notice a large discarded time of reading into the window- of the book together; it concerns Ginsberg’s poster for the Red Star steamship line on fabric of New York City’s most famous poem. “It may not be acciden- the sidewalk, with ANTWERPEN- great writers has been a tal,” Tytell writes, “that ‘Howl’ was AMERIKA in bold letters. “I picked the labor of love, he’s not written exactly a century after poster out of the trash and brought it shy about pointing to Whitman published ‘Song of home,” Tytell recalls. “That afternoon I Gotham’s dark side. Myself.’ Both poets were 30 years realized I should use my own autobio- He quotes, for example, old when they wrote their first graphical experience to tell the story of Henry Miller’s anti- major poems. Just as Kerouac how I became a reader and a writer.” The Whitman description of a identified with Melville, I saw deco-era poster now hangs in his Village walk down Broadway: the photograph of Whitman over apartment. The resulting book, which is “To walk in money Ginsberg’s bed in his apartment subtitled “A Celebration of New York through the night crowd, on 12th Street near Avenue A. Writers, The Essence of the City, and the protected by money, Although Ginsberg, also a Buddhist, Transforming Effects of Reading,” is mer- lulled by money, dulled found it hard to believe in reincarna- curial, given to sudden turns, and studded by money, the crowd tion, he modeled his life on with little surprises. itself a money, the breath Whitman’s magnanimity.” The first of its four parts is titled “My money, no least single Reading New York continues the Little Dutch Boy,” a reference to how object anywhere that is John Tytell with the inspirational literary genealogy of magnanimous Tytell’s father liked to introduce him just not money, money, money poster on the roof of his Greenwich response to Walt Whitman’s “mettle- after the family’s emigration. The central everywhere and still not Village apartment. Photo, Mellon. some, mad, extravagant city.” figure here is Melville, whose mother was also Dutch, a Gansevoort. The author’s rich life of reading began inauspiciously. “Mom” and “Pop” Novels Relive Difficult Bronx Childhood His opening sentence is: “I really started to read in earnest as my sight began to fail ora Eisenberg has been a experiences of the novel’s heroine, Lucy figure in the story. when I was twelve.” LaGuardia Community College Lehman, offers “a map of a dark child- On the verge of finding true love, Confined to bed and darkness as a child Nprofessor of English since 1977 hood” and also “a portrait of postwar however, Betsy runs away with her broth- by a rare eye condition called vernal and was the co-founder and co-editor of America that we don’t often recognize.” er, closely bonded from shared childhood catarrh, Tytell says, “reading was forbid- the CUNY WriteSite (writesite.cuny.edu), The reviewer praised Eisenberg’s “spiky, misery, for a suspenseful cross-country den.” His initiation into literature, with an online writing resource for the entire keening prose” and singled out the recap- search for the truth about her father, long Billy Budd, had to be surreptitious, in his University community. In recent years she ture of the mother’s dissolution as “the on the lam from the FBI and (so she is bedroom with a flashlight. His doctor was has also directed the heart of the story.” (Eisenberg dedi- told) now dead. among the first to use cortisone, which he University Faculty cated the book What makes Just the Way You Want Me Publications Program, administered to young Tytell; the results to her mother.) particularly timely, however, is Eisenberg’s which mentors junior were “miraculous.” Tytell weaves other Now, drop- exploration of the abuses of the faculty at every step in Melville works, as well as the figure of ping the “mem- McCarthy era. The war in Iraq, the the process of seeing Edgar Allan Poe, into the narrative of his oir-novel” rubric, Homeland Security Act and the Patriot their research turned early years. Just the into print. comes Act have all revived concerns about the Walt Whitman is the hero of Part Two Way You Want Several years ago, risks to civil liberties involved in the of Reading New York, which carries this Me Eisenberg decided it , also from increased government powers to investi- epigraph from a newspaper story was time to nurture Leapfrog Press, gate citizens’ lives and finesse long-estab- Whitman wrote for the New York Aurora her own strong urge with a new hero- lished Constitutional safeguards in the in 1842: “New York is a great place.…Here to write—and in the ine, 40-year-old criminal justice system. are people… of every grade, every hue of Hartford Courant process to revisit her Betsy Vogel, but a The noted that the ignorance and learning, morality and vice, early life in the fictional father who novel “reminds us that wars of ideology wealth and want, fashion and coarseness, Bronx as the clearly owes much to incur collateral damage… it’s often inno- breeding and brutality, elevation and daughter of a free- Eisenberg’s own. cent women and children who are caught degradation, impudence and modesty.” spirited but unsta- (Her dedication is: “In in the line of fire.” The parallels between Tytell tells of attending Booker T. ble mother and an memory of my father, the early Cold War of the 1950s and the Washington Junior High (“a very bad enraged, political Alex Eisenberg.”) post-9/11 world make for an alarming neighborhood”), where a teacher, one activist father in The novel is steeped subtext to the novel. Isabelle Gordon, opened his eyes to the Los Angeles Times the McCarthy-era in New York City life A reviewer admired “lush bounty” of “Song of Myself.” Tytell’s 1950s. The result in 1992. Betsy works Eisenberg’s “sharp eye for the ways people embrace of the “Quaker renegade” would Washington was a “memoir-novel,” for a glossy if vacuous deceive themselves,” and the later bear fruit in his own immersion on Big Post The War at Home (Leapfrog Press), that magazine called , thinking that her heroine just might the 1950s and 1960s counterculture. Apple was warmly received in 2002. , and a Staten be worthy of an encore, noted that After graduating from Bronx Science, The New York writer Vivian Gornick Island orphanage, a West Side restaurant, a “Eisenberg wisely refrains from bringing Tytell headed for City College, where his called it “an intelligent evocation of the Long Island City bar, the old Third Avenue the curtain down definitively on…Betsy’s renegade propensities came under the magnificent terrors of family life,” and a El, and Foley Square, scene of long-ago tri- beguilingly messy life in this bruising, influence of Henry Miller’s anarchism. Washington Post reviewer wrote that the als of leftists, and many other local sites all funny and restless novel.”

CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 9 Satchmo’s Legacy Safe and Sound in Corona, Queens –

“When I came out of the waifs’ home, I stayed a while with my father, there as research and ingenuity can Willie, and his other wife and family…. But I got lonesome for my mother, make it. Old wall- Mary Ann—you know, that’s her nickname—and my sister Beatrice, who paper has been replicated, bottles they called Mama Lucy…and before I realized it, I was back living with of aftershave and them again and happy as can be, in that great big room where the three perfume (Lanvin for Men, of us were so happy and we lived there so happily so very long.” Diorissimo) set in Of all my memories that was my choice one…” their accustomed places on bath- room shelves, origi- he speaker is Louis Armstrong, reminiscence comes from the vast store of nal bottles of telling about his difficult early years recordings, documents and memorabilia Drambuie and Tin New Orleans, years before his that make up the Louis Armstrong Tullamore Dew talent, genius, work and will made him Archives, which have been in the placed on the bar one of the greatest jazz musicians. College’s care since 1987. The documents in Armstrong’s sec- His voice—and, often, the sweet tones and recordings offer recollections that ond-floor den. of his trumpet—echo through the quiet range from jokes and small talk to reflec- The den also suite of rooms just off the lobby of tions on the racial prejudice Armstrong contains a framed Queens College’s Rosenthal Library. The faced with only his gleaming trumpet and portrait of courage as a weapon and Armstrong in a dis- shield. Louis with his wife Lucille—or Lil for short—in his den. The Tandberg tinctive style, Open to the public since tape deck produced the hundreds of tapes in the Armstrong collection. signed “Benedetto.” 1994, the Armstrong collection All captions for the historic photos from Michael Cogswell’s Louis The artist is better includes 650 reel-to-reel tapes, Armstrong: The Offstage Story of Satchmo (Collectors Press, known by the 1,600 recordings, 86 scrap- 2003); all historic photos courtesy of the Louis Armstrong Archives. name under which books, 5,000 photographs, 270 he sings, Tony sets of sheet music, 12 shelf Bennett. “Man, feet of personal papers, 5 Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis you’ve out-Rembrandted Rembrandt,” a trumpets, 14 mouthpieces— Armstrong House and Archives, who has delighted Armstrong is reported to have plus concert programs, awards, worked to restore the house and manage said when Bennett gave him the painting. magazine articles, postcards the archives since 1991. “They were from As the opening approached, media and much else. all over the world, of all attention drew some items back to the In recent weeks the ethnicities, all ages, all house. “A couple of days before we archives have levels of interest in opened, the next-door neighbor brought played second horn Louis Armstrong.” back a few things she had—Lucille’s to the house in There is a visitors’ nightgown, a pair of slippers,” Cogswell Corona, Queens, center in the garage said. The nightgown is now draped across where Armstrong and a room of a bedroom chair, as if it had been vacated and his wife, Lucille, exhibits—a suitcase just a moment ago. lived from 1943 until marked SATCHMO, There are, of course, many valuable bits their deaths—he in passports adorned of jazz history that Cogswell, a passionate 1971, she in 1983. On with scores of Armstrong admirer, still hopes will turn October 15 the house, stamps and up and, perhaps, come back home to the restored at a cost of Armstrong’s smil- Archives. “Many years ago, around 1920, $1.6 million, opened to ing headshot, a Louis recorded some trumpet solos on the public as a museum. trumpet and other wax cylinders for a company called “I would say that relics. Otherwise, Melrose,” he said. “Melrose published almost two thousand A solo trumpet the house is as transcripts as, I think, ‘35 Hot Choruses Armstrong found time to write while on tour. Here he is people came through the band part from the library close to the state it for Cornet.’ The publication is rare typing in the kitchen of the Band Box, a night club in house in the first 18 days of the Louis Armstrong was in when the enough, but you can still find it. But the Chicago, in the early 1940s. after we opened,” said Orchestra, circa 1936. Armstrongs lived cylinders have never been found.” They are the Holy Grail for Armstrong Enrico Caruso (Satchmo was a Big Fan) debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, which made him an international Featured in Calandra Institute Exhibit star and a role model for the Italian immi- grants who were then arriving in bout half of the 1,300 hours of taped material in the America. Armstrong archives is recorded music, much of it by In gratitude to his countrymen, A artists whose work Armstrong admired and wished to Caruso often performed for study. One of his particular immigrant workers for free. favorites, well-represented in the This exhibit was featured jazzman’s record collection, was thorough November at the the great Italian “King of Italian American Museum in Tenors,” Enrico Caruso, whose residence at Queens performances Armstrong often College's Calandra Institute replicated on the trumpet. in Manhattan. It draws upon Fittingly, the opening of the collection of the Caruso Armstrong’s house as a museum Museum, established more coincided with “Caruso: The than three decades ago in Life and Work of an Opera Brooklyn as the repository of Legend,” an exhibition spon- memorabilia, including rare family sored in part by the John D. photos of the Caruso family, books, Discovered Calandra Italian American records and letters, clothing, shoes, in Armstrong’s house were Institute of Queens College. ties, pipes, a bust and the death mask of more than 200 pages of unpublished October 2003 marked the Caruso. Portions of the exhibit can be viewed at autobiographical material. He wrote this 100th anniversary of Caruso’s Caruso’s shoes A self-caricature www.ItalianAmericanMuseum.org. manuscript, which he titled “Barber Shops,” very late in life.

10 CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 CUNY Q&A and at Queens College Chemist Ruth Stark, Director

aficionados. of New Macromolecular Institute Yet the house has- n’t stolen all of the r. Ruth E. Stark is Professor of Chemistry at the public’s attention. “A College of Staten Island and on the CUNY surprising number of DGraduate Center’s doctoral faculty in chemistry, people come here, do biochemistry and biology. Her intense interest in current the house tour and and future collaborations, combinations and crossovers they say they want among these disciplines in the field of molecular studies is to visit the archives,” reflected in her work with the new CUNY Institute for Cogswell noted. Macromolecular Assemblies at CSI, which was officially If they do visit the inaugurated at ceremonies on November 18, and her Queens College participation as a Principal Investigator at the New York campus, they are Structural Biology Center on the City College campus. unlikely to be disap- Earlier this year she spoke with Rita Rodin about this pointed. Access to rapidly advancing area of research. the six-room, state- of-the-art archival Rodin: What do those new instruments on the City College Campus do? center is easy. As the Stark: They elucidate the structure and also some of the dynamics or motional Archives web site behavior of large molecular assemblies. These could be DNA in conjunction with (www.satchmo.net) proteins or proteins embedded in biological membranes, for instance. Our prem- notes, “You do not ise is that such knowledge will allow us to form hypotheses about function and, have to be a Queens when disease occurs, malfunction. College student, aca- Q: We are talking about large magnets? demic scholar or working journalist to A: Yes, for our work we need a very large, highly homogeneous (and expensive!) visit the Archives, magnet. We are also working with cryo-electron microscopy, which involves [which are] open to shining a beam of electrons on some of these large molecular assemblies at low everyone to listen to temperatures. This approach allows us to get a picture of membrane proteins Louis’ home-record- or other assemblies that often cannot be dissolved in a solution or crystallized. ed tapes, read his Before the new technology, these were very tough to study. Armstrong being carried through the streets of Leopoldville in Congo personal manu- Q: This sounds revolutionary. by natives in traditional dress, circa 1960. scripts, study sheet A: The facility is unprecedented in this country. Typically a university might have music, view photo- trove of writings, one such instrument in the NMR field, whereas we currently have four or five in graphs, etc.” Visitors recordings and operation, and there will be quite a few more. But the real uniqueness is in the need only schedule an collected papers range of biomedically interesting problems we can attack, the way we can foster appointment by and memorabilia interaction among New York City investigators. phone and present a amassed by Q: The Board of Trustees approved the CSI Institute for Macomolecular Assemblies photo ID on arrival. Armstrong over the last May, and you will be its founding director. What will its missions be? If the home gives course of his life. It A: There will be two main ones: studying molecular assemblies in nature, in the the sense that is varied, extensive, membranes and DNA complexes of animals and plants, particularly parasites, Armstrong has just exhaustive, more and developing ways to engineer assemblies that mimic nature for therapeutic stepped out for a than enough to sat- purposes. Of course, our mission is also educational, reaching not only to the minute, the archives isfy any devotee. graduate and undergraduate level, but perhaps dipping down into the high give a sense that he’s The remarkable schools where we can make appropriate partnerships, for instance with the in the other room, thing about it is that CUNY’s new Discovery Institute at CSI. perhaps playing an Armstrong’s gener- unusually sweet and Q: Clearly you have a strong interest in how to apply your basic research. ous and confident restrained version of A: Yes, we have one eye on the fundamental and the other eye on the applied, the One of the reel-to-reel tape containers, personality shines Muskrat Ramble,per- more practical, long-term implications of our research. I think what we do will decorated in this case by Armstrong through the mass of haps just telling a few be of interest particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. For example, AIDS with a congratulatory telegram from a material pure and jokes with friends. patients often suffer from fungal infections. The molecular basis for the melaniz- collaborator. clear, the way his The Archives’ core ing of a fungus, which makes it virulent, has not been well studied. Melanin is a horn illuminated a holding is the “Louis very tough material to analyze: you have a biopolymer of unknown structure in musical performance. Armstrong Collection,” the trumpeter’s a polysaccharide cell wall of the fungus! With this new technology we are now The other major holding, the “Satchmo vast personal possessions. This is a vast poised to attempt this. Collection,” consists of Armstrong record- ings, photographs, letters, Q: Could you explain what a polymer is? books, art works, videos, mem- A: A giant molecule. Think of a string pearls in a necklace…or of a network like a orabilia, and musical instru- spider’s web. That plastic bag there, it’s made of a polyethylene polymer. The ments that have been pur- simple type of polymer has a single “repeat” in its structure, and then there can be chased or donated by defects which can change the polymer’s properties in marvelous or terrible ways. Armstrong friends, fans, and As faculty mentors, we send out many students of polymer chemistry into the collectors. Two smaller hold- workforce to develop new products, including paint, textiles, and therapeutic drugs. ings, the “Jack Bradley Q: The opportunities for interdisciplinary synergy seem large. Collection” and the “Phoebe A: Yes, take someone like myself, a physical chemist, and team me with someone in Jacobs Collection,” focus on biology or bioengineering, and who knows what might come of it. Our particular Armstrong-related materials hope is that, in all of this, we can begin to train our students to be comfortably collected by his colleagues. and productively cross-disciplinary. “I always listened when Lil told me to always play the Q: And these students will go…? lead,” he says in one record- A: Into academe, if they really have a fire in their belly to design their own research. Or they might prefer being part of an industrial research team. A Ph.D. student The living room in the completely renovated Armstrong ing, speaking of advice his of mine who determines the structure of a protein that, say, chaperones fatty House. The oil portrait at rear was painted by Calvin Bailey wife gave him. “‘Play second acids around the body, might well find a position in the pharmaceutical industry. in 1948, and was based on a photograph that appeared in a trumpet to no one. They don’t One of my undergraduate students, Stephanie Grant, captures our cross- 1935 issue of Vanity Fair. Photo, Lisa Kahane. come great enough.’” Amen. disciplinary spirit: she has a B.A. from John Jay in criminal justice and a second one in chemistry from CSI. The combination will make her an ideal candidate for a job in justice system forensics. The Louis Armstrong House, at 34-56 107th Street, Corona, Queens ([email protected]), For more about the Macromolecular Assemblies Institute, visit www.chem.csi.cuny.edu/mma/ offers hourly house tours, interpretive exhibits, and a gift shop. Hours are Tuesday–Friday, 10 A.M.–5 P.M. and Saturday and Sunday, 12 noon–5 P.M.

CUNY MATTERS — Winter 2004 11 have received denial notices regarding a change of status,” says Bolanos. “Too Guidance Through Immigration Maze at QCC often, immigrant members of the com- arlier this fall, Lizaveta The Center, now completing its second munity are left adrift, dealing with com- Abayeva, a 75-year old year of operation at one of the most ethni- plicated laws and processes without a Eimmigrant from the former cally diverse community colleges in the secure understanding of their rights,” Soviet Union became an American nation, provides a range of service to sev- Bolanos adds. citizen in a “swearing-in” ceremo- eral hundred visitors monthly. More than The Center’s success has been ny held at Queensborough 1,300 clients have been served so far, reflected in recent developments on and Community College, where her Kashimawo notes. A significant portion of off campus. Kashimawo was instrumen- grandson, Alex, is studying busi- the Center’s caseload is assistance with tal in working with the Bureau of ness. The youngest new “change of status” petitions, as individuals Citizenship and Immigration Services to American, Vargan Artashes, age seek to move from one immigration cate- co-host three Naturalization 20, is a student at York College. gory to another: from visitor to student, Ceremonies on campus last year. One Alberto Toribio, from the from student to employee, from legal per- was for 20 children, ranging in age from Dominican Republic and also a manent resident to naturalized citizen. one through 18. Kashimawo is also cur- Queensborough student, was also Kashimawo’s primarily part-time rently working with the CUNY School among the 250 new Americans, staff, comprised of an immigration attor- of Law to open an off-campus Center from Afghanistan through ney, a paralegal, and interns from the for Immigration at the CUNY Center Yugoslavia, celebrated at the The QCC Center’s director Tunde Kashimawo, right, CUNY Law School, provides guidance for Higher Education that opened in event on October 24. greets student Seahan Ewen; paralegal counselor down the confusing, sometimes contra- November in Flushing. “As a college with almost half Raymond Pequero, center. dictory path to citizenship. From pro- To date, close to 12,000 CUNY stu- of its students born outside the cessing of the I-20, that critical docu- dents, staff and faculty have launched U.S., we celebrate the diversity students at Queensborough represent ment authorizing entry for study in the their quest for naturalization through and opportunity of this country—and 135 of those countries. (The majority of U.S., to assisting those petitioning for a the CUNY Citizenship Project, of which Queens County—every day,” says QCC its foreign-born population hold green family member or spouse’s visa, the the QCC Center is an outgrowth. The President Eduardo J. Marti, a naturalized cards as permanent residents.) Center brings the dreams of thousands Project, now in its seventh year, is in citizen himself who arrived in New York “Queens has become an increasingly closer to reality each year. operation at all CUNY campuses. from Cuba. “Hosting of these swearing- immigrant-driven borough,” says Tunde Roddy Bolanos, Paralegal Specialist in Other CUNY Citizenship Project in ceremonies is a natural extension of Kashimawo, director of the Center, who Immigration Law, says the Center’s sites include City College’s Immigrants’ our commitment.” herself arrived as an international stu- work has taken on new urgency with Center, the first program offering Waving the flag for immigration on a dent from Nigeria many years ago. “The the many recent changes in immigration expanded immigration guidance. regular basis is Queensborough’s Center Center for Immigration has filled a very law. “Last year, we did a great deal of Collaborating with the Project is the for Immigration, an arm of the Office of real need for immigrant students and work on special registration issues.” Immigration Clinic at New York City International Student Affairs at the non-students alike,” who come for the The Center does not formally repre- Technical College. For more information, College. Make that “flags”: the colors of free, confidential assistance offered at the sent individuals, educating them instead call the QCC Center for Immigration the United Nations’ 183 member Center. “Those flags represent a growing about INS laws and their rights as immi- (718-631-6611), or the CUNY nations decorate the Center’s office, and face of both Queens and CUNY.” grants. “I often deal with people who Citizenship Project (646-344-7250). New Education Center Will Serve Recent Arrivals in Flushing he Center for Higher Education, mainstay of the Center’s Present for the ribbon-cutting an initiative by several City activities, notably immersion at the Flushing Center were, TUniversity campuses in Queens to courses, as well as citizen- from left, Borough President provide a range of services to immi- ship and immigration guid- Helen Marshall, QCC grants and new residents, opened recent- ance. The Port of Entry pro- President Eduardo Marti, ly in Flushing. Borough President Helen gram, now in its 20th year at Queens President James Marshall cut the ribbon to open the Queensborough, will offer Muyskens, CUNY Trustee Center, in which staff from Queens an intensive program of 200 Wellington Chen, and State College, Queensborough Community hours per semester for inter- Senator Toby Ann Stavisky. College, the CUNY School of Law, and national students and immi- CUNY’s Office of Admissions Services grants planning to continue are collaborating. Marshall was joined by in academic or professional starting or returning to col- State Assemblyman Barry Grodenchik, pursuits. And the Queens lege. Queensborough State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky and Civics Collaboration, funded Communi-ty College’s City Councilman John Liu. by New York State, will pro- Center for Immigration (see The Center’s location is no accident; vide English courses that article above) will operate a Queens is the nation’s most culturally emphasize U.S. history, gov- satellite office at the diverse county. The 2000 U.S. Census ernment and culture. diverse fields as real estate sales, com- Center, and advanced students from the found that more than 46 percent of the Queens College’s Continuing puter programming, food handling, CUNY School of Law will conduct borough’s population was foreign-born Education Program will offer daytime GED preparation, and licensed practical counseling sessions under the supervi- (the national figure was 10 percent); 54 classes in reading, writing and speaking nurse exams. sion of an immigration lawyer. percent of its inhabitants over the age of for part-time ESL students, as well as CUNY’s Office of Admissions Appointments are required for those five speak a language other than English day and evening classes aimed at job Services will provide one-on-one coun- wishing to use the center, which is locat- at home. preparation. Three times a year, the pro- seling on degree programs, admission ed at 39-07 Prince Street, Flushing. For English-language instruction will be a gram will offer courses of study for such and financial aid to visitors considering general information, call 718-762-5580.

CUNY MATTERS Presorted NOW MORE THAN EVER Office of University Relations Standard Mail The City University of New York U.S. Postage PAID 535 East 80th St. New Haven, CT New York, NY 10021 Permit # 1411

available online with news and information delivered via e-mail to sign up, visit cuny.edu/news