“Intellect is great. I have no compunctions about having studied it.But ultimately what’s needed here and abroad are people of good character.” —HOWARD GARDNER, EDUCATIONAL THEORIST AND VISITING PROFESSOR, DELIVERING THE INAUGURAL JACOB K. JAVITS LECTURE “FROM MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES TO FUTURE MINDS” HEARD ON CAMPUS
“The number of times that “I’m not claiming for a totally my reviews made a decisive open border, I’m claiming for difference in the fortunes of an orderly flow of immigrants a movie is a very small one. to this land, for full respect of But on the other hand, it is a human and labor rights.Who very loud bullhorn that I have… would crop the vegetable if you say something mean in fields in San Joaquin Valley? The New York Times, it’s like Who would serve the hotels 100 times as mean as it was in Vegas,the restaurants here meant to have been.” in New York?”
—NEW YORK TIMES CO-CHIEF FILM CRITIC A. O. SCOTT VISITING A MEDIA —VICENTE FOX QUESADA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF MEXICO, AT THE VOICES ETHICS CLASS AT THE JOURNALISM DEPARTMENT OF LATIN AMERICAN LEADERS SPEAKER SERIES, HOSTED BY THE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES “The reach of the universities may be far greater than [that of] the United Nations.”
—SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS BAN KI-MOON ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLICY DURING THE THIRD-ANNUAL GLOBAL COLLOQUIUM OF UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS, HOSTED AT NYU
NYU / SPRING 2008 / 1 ISSUE #10 / SPRING 2008 C
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A CRITICAL {EYE ON } AID T AS FOREIGN AID REACHES RECORD LEVELS, ACADEMICS ASK U HOW—AND IF—IT CAN HELP THE WORLD’S MOST DESPERATE R
O PEOPLE / BY NICOLE PEZOLD / GSAS ’04 E S
N 48 THE POET CONSIDERS PULITZER PRIZE—WINNER CHARLES SIMIC (WSC ’67) DELIVERS INTEGRITY AND WIT TO HIS POST AS U.S. POET LAUREATE / BY MICHAEL SCHARF T
DEPARTMENTS THE SQUARE
8 / FOREIGN AFFAIRS 14 / ACADEMIC TREND
EN ISRAEL TURNS 60 AND FACES HOSPITALS—AND AN UNENDING STREAM OF UNIVERSITIES—CONFRONT T CHALLENGES THE NURSING CRUNCH
11 / IN BRIEF 16 / WHAT THEY’RE LEARNING NYU AND POLYTECHNIC STUDENTS CHANNEL COMBINE FORCES, THE SCHOOL MICHELANGELO OF SOCIAL WORK LANDS A BIG S GIFT, BRANCHING OUT TO ABU 18 / CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH DHABI, AND MORE TESTING THE POLITICAL SUBCONSCIOUS, POWERFUL 12 / LETTERS PERSPECTIVES, AND PHONE A HOME FOR POETS AND CALLS FROM YOUR PLANTS WRITERS
NYU ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN: 1938-4823) IS PUBLISHED TWICE YEARLY IN FALL AND SPRING BY NYU OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS, 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, FOURTH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10012; 212-998-6912.CONTENTS COPYRIGHT © 2008. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLEASE ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO: EDITORS/NYU ALUMNI MAGAZINE AT 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, FOURTH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10012, OR E-MAIL TO: [email protected]. NO RESPONSIBILITY WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS AND ARTWORK. BYLINED ARTICLES REFLECT THE VIEWPOINTS OF INDIVIDUAL WRITERS AND ARE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS EXPRESSION OF OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY POLICY. MAILED THIRD-CLASS NONPROFIT AT BURLINGTON, VT. 52 62 ANXIETY ON THE BRAIN CLASS NOTES JOSEPH LEDOUX, THE NEUROSCIENTIST WHO PINPOINTED THE SEAT OF FEAR, AIMS TO SOOTHE A NATION ON EDGE / BY CARLIN FLORA ALUMNI PROFILES ALUMNI ART 64 / KHALID LATIF / CAS ’04 76 / NATHAN SAWAYA RELIGIOUS SERVICE / CAS ’95, LAW ’98 LEGOS FOR GROWN-UPS 68 / KAREN WOLFF / SSSW ’06 RESTORING INNOCENCE PLUS ALUMNI NEWS, BENEFITS, AND UPDATES ALUMNI Q&A 72 / JEREMY LEBEWOHL 56 / CAS ’05 MEET THE DELI GUY THE NEW YORK SCHOOL A NEW EXHIBIT AT THE GREY ART GALLERY REEXAMINES THE VILLAGE ARTISTS WHO PROPELLED POP ART / BY CARLY BERWICK
IN NYC CULTURE IN PRINT EVERY ISSUE
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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
P Issue #10 / Spring 2008 ince 1831, the idea of This is not to say that we have H O T O
NYU being in and of in any way forgotten our beloved © JASON HOLLANDER (GAL ’07)
M A
the city has guided us city. In addition to the endlessly T Editor-in-Chief T H E
as scholars and citizens. popular “Best of New York”(page W NICOLE PEZOLD (GSAS ’04)
S
E Associate Editor P
S T But more and more, 22), you’ll also find in these pages a I ´ M RENEE ALFUSO (CAS ’06) U we have also realized that we are an review of a galvanizing art move- S Editorial Assistant institution in and of the world—sit- ment spawned in our own back- JOHN KLOTNIA / OPTO DESIGN ting as we do in the heart of the yard, which is now the subject of Creative Director ANDREA CRAWFORD most cosmopolitan, polyglot city a Grey Art Gallery show (“The Contributing Editor on Earth. NYU thrives on ideas New York School,” page 56), as and talents from nearly every na- well as a profile of alumnus Charles Articles tion, and as a result, however far- Simic,who once sharpened his wry JOSEPH MANGHISE Copy Chief flung some places may be from this wit on the city’s sidewalks and this DAVID COHEN (CHIEF) metropolis, we cannot ignore the year added U.S. Poet Laureate to MICHAEL MATASSA most clawing questions they face. his list of distinctions (“The Poet Researchers SUZANNE KRAUSE (GSAS ’08) For many that question is what to Considers,”page 48). Editorial Intern do about poverty, an abhorrent re- Finally,we look at the one thing ality for almost half the world pop- that far too often these days plagues Art / Opto Design ulation. In this, our 10th issue, we us, in New York City and beyond: We hope that despite the gravity of RON LOUIE Art Director uncover the roots of this inequality fear—and the astonishing work that some of these topics, you’ll find NEAL BANTENS and the range of ideas and research NYU neuroscientist Joseph there is much to be hopeful for this BRIAN MAGNER on how it might be rectified (“Crit- LeDoux is doing to counter it spring. Associate Art Directors ical {Eye On} Aid,”page 40). (“Anxiety on the Brain,” page 52). JOHN SEXTON SUE PARK Designer MARGARET LANZONI Photo Research Director
Advertising DEBORAH BRODERICK CONTRIBUTORS Associate Vice President of Marketing Communications, NYU CARLY BERWICK writes about art whose work has appeared in Sports MICHAEL SCHARF is a reviews Alumni News Editor and culture for Bloomberg News, Illustrated, Esquire,Time, and Enter- editor at Publishers Weekly whose JENNIFER BOSCIA SMITH (SCPS ’04) New York magazine, and Condé Nast tainment Weekly. third book of poems, For Kid Director of Development and Traveler. She is also a contributing Rock/Total Freedom, was released Alumni Communications, NYU LARS LEETARU editor at ARTnews and The Next has illustrated last year. New York University American City magazines. for The Wall Street Journal, Es- MARTIN LIPTON (LAW ’55) quire, ESPN The Magazine, MATTHEW SEPTIMUS (STERN Board of Trustees, Chairman BEN BIRNBAUM is the editor of Forbes, Inc., and The New York ’83) is a commercial photographer JOHN SEXTON President Boston College Magazine and the Times. He also enjoys painting based in Brooklyn. His clients in- LYNNE P. BROWN book Take Heart: Catholic Writers on and playing the banjo. clude the French Culinary Institute, Senior Vice President for University Hope in Our Time. Fashion Institute of Technology,The Relations and Public Affairs ROBERT POLNER is a press offi- New York Times, and the Museum of DEBRA A. LAMORTE Senior Vice President for University TED BOSCIA lives in Madison,New cer for NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Modern Art. Development and Alumni Relations Jersey,and works for Google News. Graduate School of Public Ser- REGINA L. SYQUIA (WAG ’01) He has written for the San Francisco vice. He is a former reporter and ADELLE WALDMAN is a freelance Deputy Director for Strategic Initiatives Chronicle, Stanford Magazine, and editor for Newsday and edited the writer living in Brooklyn. She has New York University Baseball America. book America’s Mayor, America’s contributed to The Wall Street Jour- Alumni Association President? nal, Slate,The New York Observer, and JONATHAN HERMAN (ARTS ’69, LAW ’73) CARLIN FLORA is a senior editor The Village Voice. President STEVEN S. MILLER (LAW ’70) BETH SAULNIER at Psychology Today who has written is associate edi- JOHN CALVO (STERN ’91, LAW ’95) for The Scientist and Weekly Reader. tor of Cornell Alumni Magazine and LEIGH WELLS is an illustrator in MICHAEL DENKENSOHN (STERN ’73) She lives in New York City. editor of Weill Cornell Medicine. A San Francisco who has worked with BEVERLY HYMAN (STEINHARDT ’80) GERALD KLACZANY (DEN ’86) film critic for the Ithaca Journal, she Converse, Starbucks, and American Vice Presidents PETER GREGOIRE is an Emmy has published seven murder myster- Express. MELANIE SMITH (WAG ’99) Award–winning photographer ies with Warner Books. Secretary
4 / SPRING 2008 / NYU P C O U N T E
R FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ADDS URGENCY TO THE CLIMATE CHANGE DISCUSSION AT THE GLOBAL COLLOQUIUM OF UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS, HOSTED BY NYU. C L O C K W I S E
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R C R E I G H T O SN TAR TOP-DRAW ALUMNI AND FRIENDS PUT ON THE GLITZ FOR NYU
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, THE WOMAN BEHIND THE SNARKY POLITICAL BLOG THE HUFFINGTON POST, DIS- CUSSES HER RISE AT AN SCPS EVENT.
HIP-HOP MOGUL RUSSELL SIMMONS JACKIE CHAN, WITH TSOA DEAN MARY SCHMIDT CAMPBELL, IS ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST NATALIE PORTMAN MODERATES A PANEL ON MUSLIM- HONORED FOR HIS FILMS AND PUBLIC SERVICE AT A RED-CARPET STUMPS FOR MICROFINANCE AT A PUBLIC JEWISH RELATIONS ON CAMPUS. CELEBRATION OF TISCH’S NEW SINGAPORE CAMPUS. DIALOGUE CO-SPONSORED BY AFRICA HOUSE.
NYU / SPRING 2008 / 5 mailbag We Hear FromYou
Thanks to all the alumni who responded to our ninth issue (Fall 2007). We are thrilled that NYU Alumni Magazine continues to stir so many of you to write and share your thoughts. Please keep the letters coming!
snowboarders all over the world. the Empire State Building to be lit research that various NYU scien- Although we’ve never met, Burton up blue and white honoring tists are doing on climate change has definitely had a huge impact Hanukkah—the Festival of Lights— and other environmental topics. upon my life, and now I can proudly in 1997,when she was just nine years However, there appear to be very add another factor we share: our old. few environmental scientists on the bond with NYU. Manny H. Greitzer, OD faculty these days, no actual depart- Chicki Rosenberg NYU parent ment of earth science or geology, GSAS ’66 Greenwich, Connecticut and a biology department devoid of Killington,Vermont ecologists. After reading about the Empire State Judith S.Weis, PhD THE LIGHTER SIDE Building lighting 1,336 lights on GSAS ’64 In your fall 2007 issue, you had an many occasions,I have but one ques- Rutgers University article about the illumination of the tion:Why don’t they go back to the Newark, New Jersey BOARDERS, UNITE Empire State Building for the past single beacon? It’s time to conserve, You can’t imagine my tremendous three years (“Violet City”) honor- as “The Green Issue” says. I was disappointed, but certainly not pleasure to read a profile of Jake ing NYU’s commencement cere- Harriet (Levy) Klein surprised, to learn that my alma Burton Carpenter (“King of the monies. You briefly review the STEINHARDT ’40 mater has jumped on the global- Mountain”) in the fall issue! Yes, historical inception of lighting first Palm Springs, California warming bandwagon. What really Burton’s story is one of commercial celebrating Roosevelt’s 1932 presi- galls me, however, is the way you success, but his creativity and deter- dential victory. For the record, my GREEN, AT ISSUE smugly engage in psychobabble to mination have also delivered a prod- daughter, Mallory Blair Greitzer, a I enjoyed “The Green Issue,” but it discredit global-warming skeptics uct that offers unbounded excitement second-year student at Gallatin, sin- would have been so much better if who are so audacious as to declare and a profound experience for gle-handedly was able to convince there had been discussion of the that the emperor has no clothes
THE FOLLOWING ARE ABBREVIATIONS FOR NYU SCHOOLS YOUR GUIDE TO THE SCHOOL CODES AND COLLEGES, PAST AND PRESENT
ARTS - University College of formerly Gallatin Division SCPS - School of Continuing TSOA - Tisch School of the Arts, Arts and Science (“The Heights”); and Professional Studies formerly School of the Arts used for alumni through 1974 GSAS - Graduate School of Arts and Science SSSW - Silver School of Social WAG - Robert F.Wagner Graduate CAS - College of Arts and Work School of Public Service, formerly Science (“The College”); refers GSP - The General Studies Program Graduate School of Public Admin- to the undergraduate school in STEINHARDT - The Steinhardt istration arts and science, from 1994 on HON - Honorary Degree School of Culture, Education, and Human Development WSC - Washington Square College, CIMS - Courant Institute of IFA - Institute of Fine Arts now College of Arts and Science; Mathematical Sciences STERN - Leonard N. Stern refers to arts and science under- ISAW - Institute for the Study of School of Business Graduate graduates who studied at Washing- DEN - College of Dentistry the Ancient World Division, formerly the Graduate ton Square Campus through 1974 School of Business Administra- ENG - School of Engineering and LAW - School of Law tion; Leonard N. Stern School WSUC - Washington Square Science (“The Heights”); no of Business Undergraduate University College, now College longer exists but is used to refer MED - School of Medicine, College, formerly School of of Arts and Science; refers to to its alumni through 1974 formerly College of Medicine Commerce; and College of Busi- alumni of the undergraduate ness and Public Administration school in arts and science from GAL - Gallatin School of NUR - College of Nursing, 1974 to 1994 Individualized Study, now part of College of Dentistry
6 / SPRING 2008 / NYU we need to look at and assess all of Editors’note: Indeed the issue of climate the evidence. change has become politicized and, for Former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz that reason, we received a number of STERN ’51, LAW ’53 letters from displeased alumni. However, Minneapolis, Minnesota NYU,this magazine,and the balance of scientists and nations feel there is If global warming is occurring, it now compelling evidence that the is cyclical and due to natural forces climate is changing, in large part because completely beyond the ability of of human carbon emissions.What we do man to control. Instead of the ob- not know is when and exactly how this session with a disputed, unproven will alter our lives. It could wreak far theory, we should be concerned greater havoc on the global economy with the very real threat to our than any attempts to regulate green- existence that would occur with house gases. This is why NYU has (“The Denial Justification”). In consequences to national economies the acquisition of atomic weapons committed to greening our campus and essence, you claim that we are in will dwarf any alleged harm from by North Korea, Iran, or Islamic investing in research and new faculty— denial because we don’t want to be human carbon emissions. terrorists. including the creation of an Environ- inconvenienced by higher taxes and Lance Lamberton George E. Rubin mental Studies program—so that we prices. On the contrary, there are GSAS ’79 WSC ’55 don’t just sound the alarm but large numbers of highly credible and Austell, Georgia New York, New York contribute to resolving this problem. well-credentialed scientists pro- viding powerful evidence that the Your piece “Global Harming: Facts notion of human activity being re- and Forecasts” presents an extreme- Please send your comments and opinions to: Readers’ Letters, NYU Alumni sponsible for climate change is ly one-sided view.The science is Magazine, 25 West Fourth Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY, 10012; or fraught with error and dubious not settled and the debate is not e-mail us at [email protected]. Please include your mailing science. If we act upon the agenda over. Unfortunately, this issue has address, phone number, and school and year. Letters become the property of global-warming alarmists, the become politicized at a time when of NYU and may be edited for length and clarity.