IN THIS ISSUE College Now@Kingsborough

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PART OF THE LEON M. GOLDSTEIN LEGACY State Budget Announced College Now@Kingsborough he 1999-2000 New York State Executive Budget was released on Janu- Tary 27 and is under review by University officials. The proposed budget By Rachelle Goldsmith, standards, and structure into the class- recommends no tuition increases. Operating funds for senior colleges would Director, Office of Collaborative Programs, room. Lerman does this, he says, “by plac- be reduced by $5 million from the 1998-1999 budget, reflecting a transfer Kingsborough Community College ing more emphasis on thinking across the of the monies to the New York City Board of Education for collaborative various science disciplines, encouraging programs with CUNY. Community College support is virtually unchanged. independent research projects, giving col- enioritis, a pathology frequently ob- Substantial changes in the Tuition Assistance Plan (TAP) are proposed, lege-level reading and writing assignments, served among high school students, including an increase in the number of credits required for full-time study and following college testing, homework, hasn’t affected Kingsborough High (from 12 to 15 credits); a 15% reduction (from 90% to 75%) in the maximum S and grading guidelines.” TAP awards available to CUNY students, with reimbursement available for School students Maria Pak and Eric Radezky. Three mornings a week they ar- students who graduate after four years in baccalaureate programs and ollege Now is a program designed to rive at school 50 minutes earlier than re- two years in Associate Degree programs; and other restrictions on the num- facilitate the transition from high quired to participate in a three-credit, C ber of semesters students would be eligible for TAP assistance. Aid to part- school to college. It was conceived in 1983 freshman-level science course that incorpo- time student programs (APTS) is funded at last year's level. by Kingsborough Community College Presi- rates the latest aspects of physical sci- Interim Chancellor Christoph M. Kimmich indicated that "the University dent Leon M. Goldstein in response to pub- ences, health sciences, biology, chemistry, will work with both the Office of the Governor and the State legislature on lications like A Nation at Risk (1983), possible improvements during budget deliberations." and neuroscience. This A comprehensive analysis of the proposed budget is course is offered through available through the Office of University Relations (212- the auspices of College 794-5650) or on the CUNY website (www.CUNY.edu). Now, a partnership between Kingsborough Community College and the New York City Board of Education. Leon M. Goldstein Explaining her reasons for participating in College t is fitting, following his death on Now, Pak says, “I wanted to January 8, to present Leon M. see what college is actually I Goldstein quite literally standing be- like. . .I feel more assured hind Kingsborough Community College. now of my ability to suc- For throughout the 27 years of his presi- ceed there.” Mr. Radezky dency at the College, he was the animated says that he enrolled in the and animating force behind its growth into program to challenge him- a thoroughly modern campus serving self academically, to take College Now science teacher Matthew Lerman with students 15,000 students and offering degree pro- what he has learned in high Maria Pak and Eric Radezky. Photo, Randy Fader-Smith. grams in 29 areas. school “to a higher level.” which criticized the lack of collaboration With President Goldstein, who was 66 Both students praise the experience. “It between institutions of higher education at his death, is Vice President Al Gore, gives you an independence you don’t feel in and K-12 systems, and began operation in who visited Kingsborough on December 3 high school. It teaches you responsibility.” the fall of 1984. Its growth from its first to speak at a town hall meeting that fo- Radezky says he has “learned a lot in the cohort of about 450 students has been cused on a wide range of educational is- science class—about the ‘greenhouse’ effect, spectacular. College Now is currently of- sues. While on the Manhattan Beach cam- for example, and the formation of Brooklyn fered in 24 public high schools located in pus, the Vice President announced a fed- and Rockaway during the Ice Age, and the four boroughs, and it enrolls more than eral grant of $871,000 to the borough of plant life around the Kingsborough campus.” Brooklyn for one of Goldstein’s many inno- 5,000 annually. More than 40,000 stu- Photo, Jon Simon. He also likes being “treated (a) like an dents have participated in this highly suc- vative programs of outreach in the bor- adult and (b) like a college student.” Goldstein was deeply committed to access cessful consortial initiative. ough: after-school programs. Their College Now teacher, Matthew and excellence in higher education. Among In 1992, College Now was cited by the “Leon Goldstein was an outstanding Lerman, has taught the science course for the many initiatives he was instrumental in U.S. Department of Education as one of six nationally-renowned educator and admin- 13 years, first at Beach Channel High creating at Kingsborough are College Now, model high school/college partnerships in istrator,” said Chairwoman of the CUNY School in Queens, and now at Kingsborough Family College (the first of its kind in the the nation that deserved replication, and Board of Trustees Anne A. Paolucci, and High School. The challenge for him is cal- nation), the Kingsborough High School of many visiting educators have come to study Interim Chancellor Christoph M. Kimmich culating how to bring collegiate content, in a joint statement. the Sciences, the My Turn program for se- Continued on page 11 Goldstein also served as Acting Chan- niors, the New Start program to help in- cellor in 1982 and as Acting Deputy Chan- crease retention within CUNY, and the cellor from 1981 to 1983. A national Teacher’s Academy, which provides profes- leader in higher education, he was Vice sional development courses to public IN President of the Middle States Association school teachers on sabbatical. in 1994 and Chair of its Commission on Throughout his presidency, he took a per- THIS Higher Education from 1991 to 1993. sonal interest in the community near the beautifully-sited, 36-year-old campus on the champion of the state’s community eastern end of Coney Island, maintaining ISSUE Acollege movement, he was honored close dialogue with Brooklyn’s neighbor- for “outstanding academic leadership” in a hood social and civic groups. Among his 1981 joint resolution of the New York many awards was the Puerto Rican Brother- Youth will be served. Who is this child captured in pensive pose by one of the State Legislature—and by a similar State hood Award, the Academic Leadership 19th century's finest photographers of children? Hint: her name is Alice. See Senate resolution in 1988. Award of the New York Civic Council, and the story on page 9. The10-year-old Brooklynite on the right grew up to be A product of CUNY himself (a B.A. from his induction, in 1988, into the Brooklyn one of the major American literary critics of the 20th century. A former CUNY City College, M.A. from Brooklyn College), Hall of Fame. Distinguished Professor, he is fondly remembered on page 11.

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15,000 STUDENTS CAN’T BE WRONG LAGUARDIA’S BUSY TAXI DRIVERS INSTITUTE Summer Programs, an Overview Hail and Fare Well

“The journey of a thousand miles begins area in which they took summer classes. By Steve Brauch, Director, During the first half of the course, the with a single step.” —Lao-tzu All programs are tuition-free, and many New York City Taxi Driver Institute, emphasis is on sensitizing drivers to their provide students with either book money or LaGuardia Community College wide variety of customers. Because taxi- books and supplies. Participants are intro- cab service is customized, we impress By Dolores Straker duced to collegiate ways in a supportive, ost traveling New Yorkers have upon our students that they really are not Interim Associate Dean creative environment, often interacting passed through LaGuardia Air- in a transportation business but in a cus- for Academic Affairs, CUNY with staff and faculty they will meet in the Mport at one time or another, and tomer service profession. Unlike fixed- fall. The summer faculty are focused on most of them have likely taken a cab to route transport alternatives such as sub- or almost 20 years, the City undergraduate teaching, and they use this catch their flights. But it is a certainty that ways, buses, and trains, whose stops are University’s Coordinated Freshman opportunity to create or refine their cur- every single cabby currently licensed by determined by the operator, taxicabs must FProgram (CFP) has offered the an- ricula while exposing students to the rig- New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Com- efficiently respond to the unique requests cient Chinese philosopher’s critical first ors of college work. mission will, when renewing his or her li- of their riders. step to students on their challenging jour- cense, pass through a very different Before a class of some 20 drivers, An- ney to earning baccalaureate and advanced ummer programs, in fact, have pro- LaGuardia—CUNY’s community college in drew Vollo, the instructor and Assistant degrees. The CFP—a unified initiative join- Sduced pedagogical and curricular inno- Long Island City. Director of the Institute, will rattle off a ing the Pre-freshman Summer Immersion vations. One successful program, for ex- They were all enroute to the College, not number of obvious ways his students can Program, the Intersession Basic Skills Im- ample, is a mid-level ESL course aimed at to catch a fare but to take a four-hour cus- better meet the needs of commuters who mersion Program, and the Freshman Year science students. Its focus was on the im- tomer-service course designed to help them opt to take a yellow cab over a subway or Initiative—has provided students with a pact of science and technology on society. better serve taxi passengers, particularly a bus: keep your cab clean, exchange cohesive array of academic and support Students read intensively, explored library those with disabilities. Since October 1, pleasantries, drive with care. Then he services, and in the summer of 1998 more resources, conducted research at the Mu- 1997, when the Taxi and Limousine Com- adds some suggestions that take the ser- than 15,000 students attended the seum of Natural History, wrote 10-page mission ordered all licensed medallion taxi- vice to the next level: identify points of in- University’s Summer Program. papers, and gave oral presentations. cab drivers in the city to complete the terest to tourists, have the morning papers It has become increasingly clear that Also innovative is an intensive, 75-hour course in order to renew their license, on hand for the passenger’s perusal, help a students are more likely to cope success- course on literature developed for students more than 38,000 drivers have learned passenger with his or her luggage, and, fully with college-level work—and remain in needing remedial work in writing and read- how to deal with a difficult passenger, upon leaving a fare off, especially late at school—when they are provided with three ing. It focused on critical thinking and how to make a patron’s trip a more night, watch to make sure he or she forms of assistance: curricula carefully reading strategies and encouraged students pleasant one, and how to assist a wheel- safely enters the building. planned with their needs in mind, intensive to respond critically to college-level texts chair-user in and out of the cab. support of their academic progress, and the and to use computers in editing and revis- “The required course fullest possible counseling and advising ing essays. Such work prepared students teaches the superior customer- resources. This basic CFP philosophy, well- for a fall-semester block program which services techniques that are grounded in the research literature on includes a core course, a speech course, critical in providing the level of freshman year study, focuses on retention and freshman composition. A special sec- service New York City taxi pas- data, which has become a barometer of in- tion of writing, reading, and conversation sengers have come to expect, stitutional effectiveness and a measure of was also developed for ESL students. This but on occasion do not re- commitment to the student population. To course was linked with native-speaker sec- ceive,” a TLC spokesperson the surprise of few, research has demon- tions to promote cultural exchange and as- has said. “The course builds strated that the quality of freshman-year sist in the social mainstreaming of ESL stu- experience is critical to achieving high re- dents. Students who need remediation in tention rates. math have had an opportunity to register for computer-assisted instruction developed ence the University Summer Immer- by the mathematics faculty. H sion Program (USIP), which is for The summer program has also provided a Driver Ronald Frederique, above center, thousands the first CUNY experience. Stu- testing ground for some of our award-win- assists Manuel Junot from a wheelchair in dents who fail one or more Freshman Skills ning freshman year initiatives. Freshman a role-playing exercise; instructor Irick Kerr looks on. Photo, Randy Fader-Smith. Assessment Test and therefore need reme- Year programs at both Brooklyn and Queens Shown at left is the 1984 inauguration dial help may participate in this Program. Colleges have been awarded the Hesburgh ceremony for the Taxi Drivers Institute. Introduced in 1985 on a pilot basis for a Award for faculty development, and the With former LaGuardia President Joseph cross-section of 500 senior college fresh- SEEK Program at Brooklyn College was Shenker and Mayor Edward Koch was men, USIP has grown to its current 15,000- awarded a three-year grant from the Fund Reuben Cohen, then believed to be New enrollee level and is sited on every commu- for the Improvement of Post-Secondary York City's oldest working cabbie. nity and senior college campus. Education for a program that incorporates Even prior to 1985, the University had both faculty and curriculum development. provided summer help to admitted students on the knowledge and experience pos- “An important part of the class is getting through such opportunity programs as the wo special-opportunity programs given sessed by each taxicab driver, balancing drivers to understand what they are doing Search for Education Elevation and Knowl- Tin 1998 illustrate the creativity which this against passenger issues and then out there and to start treating the passen- edge (SEEK ) and College Discovery (CD). seems to flourish in the summer programs. bridging the gap.” ger like their guests,” said Vollo. The Pre-freshman Summer Program was The College Discovery Program at Borough The discussion will then shift to serving developed to help bridge the gap between a of Manhattan Community College and the eedless to say, for hackies, especially passengers with disabilities. “How many student’s previous academic experience and SEEK Program at City College conducted a Nveterans who have been on the streets passengers with disabilities have you the realities of college study. CUNY’s cur- program entitled Gateway to Engineering. for years, this course was not an easy sell. picked up in the past year?” Vollo asks. “I rent summer offerings share the same basic Students participated in basic skills When first instituted the TLC received a don’t know why the TLC is making such a goal of this forerunner program: to accom- courses in the mornings at their home cam- flood of calls from drivers who questioned big fuss,” said one driver. “In seven years plish in six weeks (1) improvement of basic puses and, in the afternoon, in counseling what “the College could teach them about I’ve picked up only two or three.” skills in order to pass Skills Assessment and a science laboratory or a math course. their job.” One driver admitted afterward, “I “People with disabilities are prime cus- Tests, (2) reduction of the time spent in Weekly field trips introduced students to went in with a chip on my shoulder the size tomers for you simply because other modes remedial course work, and (3) preparation professional engineers. of Mt. Rushmore. How dare the TLC tell me of transportation are not as accessible,” the for successful transition to the college envi- In another area, the SEEK Program at what to do after all these years of driving?” instructor responds. “So why don’t they take ronment. John Jay College and the Higher Educa- My colleagues and I at the Taxi Driver cabs? —because cabs have a reputation for Instruction is offered in reading, writing, tional Opportunity Program at Fordham Institute, which offers the course, answer not picking up people with disabilities. It is mathematics, and English as a Second Lan- University conducted a joint, thematic sum- that fair question with this reply: “Even good your responsibility to win them back.” guage. Typically, some 95% of students at- mer pre-freshman program on Social Jus- drivers can become better ones.” In those To reverse this way of thinking, the tending the summer programs either com- tice in a Diverse Society. This enrichment four hours, the Institute strives to prove that Institute’s students first learn the different plete their remedial work or move to the next program included achievement of computer even the most seasoned cabby can take types of disabilities they can encounter—a higher level of remedial work in the subject literacy, seminars on crime in New York away improved customer-service skills. blind or visually-impaired person with a Continued on page 9 Continued on page 10

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TENFOLD ($13.7 BILLION) CONTRIBUTION TO NEW YORK SERVING UP CEO’S, SERVING A LOOK AT CUNY’S UNION LABEL FIRST-TIME COLLEGIANS City Council Explores I am a native New Yorker and a CUNY gradu- According to Standard & Poor’s 1996 Execu- CUNY Economic Impact ate—Queens College, Class of 1970. tive/College Survey, “The City University of New You have learned that more top corporate ex- York, since 1980, has led all other colleges and umerous aspects of the City University’s far-reaching and ecutives have earned CUNY degrees than at any universities in bestowing undergraduate degrees N massive impact on the economies of New York City and other school, public or private. on alumni who are now top executives.” New York State were the subject of testimony on November 18 So did many of the people who work for Of course, it is not news that CUNY provides a in the historic Chambers of the City Council. them. I want to tell you today about some path of upward economic mobility for its stu- Educational, governmental, labor, and business leaders other, less famous CUNY graduates, the mem- dents, but S&P’s findings are especially remark- offered testimony before the Council’s Committee on Higher bers of Local 1180, a union of the City’s admin- able in the light of the nature of CUNY’s student Education, which was convened for the occasion by its chair, istrative employees. Most are minority women body, most of whom are the first generation of Councilwoman Helen Marshall. with family responsibilities who want a college their family to attend college. Their success is Notable among the findings cited at the hearing was the education for themselves and their children. not due to the corporate connections of their conclusion that, according to U.S. Department of Commerce Like hundreds of City workers, Local 1180 families or inherited wealth, but solely to their methods of calculation, CUNY’s total economic impact on the members have gotten their Bachelor’s and own determination. . .Enabling both newcomers New York economy and tax base is approximately $13.7 billion Master’s degrees from CUNY through the Urban to our shores and U.S.-born minority students to annually—more than 10 times its annual budget. CUNY Partnership Program. Hundreds of 1180 mem- achieve their personal ambitions remains one of campuses spend $122 million annually for supplies, equipment, bers participate in this program, which is one the most important ways CUNY contributes to and services, nearly all of which is provided by New York-based of the proudest parts of our union. the City’s economy. Last year, for example, 69% vendors. Ten years after graduation, 80% of CUNY alumni live, Working with the Labor Education and Ad- of CUNY’s entering freshmen were either born work, and pay taxes in New York. vancement program (LEAP), Local 1180 and the outside the U.S. mainland or had one or both CUNY Trustee and Former Board Chair James P. Murphy, a University designed a program especially for parents born abroad. prominent member of the local banking and legal community, government workers that brings together aca- In terms of doctoral degrees, CUNY produces elaborated on what he called “the CUNY dividend.” He noted demics, work experience, and real-life issues almost one-and-a-half times the earned Ph.D.s that nearly one in every 20 New Yorkers attends the University: facing workers and citizens of New York. We annually than Columbia, New York, and Chicago “the math is simple: 200,000 are enrolled in degree programs, have been actively involved in the City College Universities combined, and a recent National 160,000 in continuing education = 360,000 x 20 = 7,200,000, which Center for Worker Education in Lower Manhat- Research Council report rates more than a third is just below the census count.” tan. In fact, an 1180 member from the CWE of the GSUC’s doctoral programs as among the Interim Chancellor Christoph M. Kimmich observed, in his graduated a few years ago as the City College nation’s top 20. . . comments about the subject, that “for every student turned away valedictorian. from CUNY because of inadequate resources, we put at risk a The Queens College Labor Resource center in —Dr. Louise Mirrer, CUNY Vice Chancellor stream of dollars spent in New York, a career-long stream of taxes Midtown provides classrooms, a library, counsel- for Academic Affairs paid by our graduates.” Here are excerpts from four testimonies ing services, and computer labs to assure our Photo, André Beckles. members’ academic success. Another example of CUNY making education available to New York’s workers is the Consor- THE EXAMPLE OF tium for Worker Education, a union-led, non- CUNY entity. It receives $4 million in state funds NEW YORK CITY TECH for tuition-assistance vouchers, and half this sum is channeled by about a thousand workers The Technical College at City University into CUNY classes and programs. . . offers 25 associate and 11 baccalaureate The labor education programs I have men- degree programs that prepare students for tioned are exactly the kind of thoughtful, work- specific careers that contribute to the vital- place-oriented programs we need to build a ity of the region’s economy. strong economic future for our city. Studies Examples from arts and communications have shown that 86% of welfare recipients who fields are Art and Advertising Design, graduate with a Bachelor’s degree never return Graphic Arts, and the state’s only Stage to welfare. Hardworking New Yorkers who need Technology program. In engineering, the a job need CUNY: it is that simple. College offers Architectural Construction and Environmental Control, so vital to the —Arthur Cheliotes, President, Local 1180, construction trades in New York, as well as Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Electrical, Electromechanical, and Me- chanical Engineering technologies that support the region’s telecommunications, computer services, and manufacturing in- training in building maintenance and re- ENGINEERING SUCCESS dustries. . .The world-renowned Hospitality pair to TANF recipients (Temporary Aid to Management program is a mainstay of the Needy Families). The City University School of Engineering most distinguished journal in fluid dynam- city’s restaurant and lodging industry. Few issues are of greater importance (SOE) at City College is the only engineering ics. The Center for Biomedical Engineering City Tech’s award-winning Tech Prep pro- to our future than ensuring that city resi- school within CUNY and the only public one is a leader and educational innovator in an gram, the High School Transitions Intensive dents enjoy economic self-sufficiency, that in the metropolitan area. It has an 80-year area that overlaps both engineering and English Language Program, and the Ex- new businesses are started every day, and tradition of educating technical profession- medicine, and that will be key to maintaining panding Options program provide opportu- that all business and industry in this city als and now has 18,000 living alumni, two- the City’s preeminence in health care. nities for our future workforce to develop thrive. All indicators show that this hap- thirds of whom live in the City. . . The University Transportation Research skills essential to scholastic achievement pens when you have a highly literate, We are proud of our role in educating dis- Center is the lead institution of a consor- . . . Among initiatives at City Tech that suc- well-trained workforce and high-perfor- advantaged minorities. . .At the undergradu- tium of New York and New Jersey institu- cessfully contribute to economic develop- mance workplaces utilizing the most ad- ate level, 57% of our students are African- tions funded by the U.S. Department of ment are the Next Step Program, an indus- vanced technologies. American or Hispanic. This represents 42% Transportation to oversee the Department’s try/education partnership with Bell Atlantic New York City Technical College is a of such enrollments in all public and private local Region IV. The Center for Environ- and its Communications Workers union that major contributor to this workforce devel- institutions in New York State. Our graduate mental Research is developing laser-based produces “Super Tech” workers able to ad- opment. As a prominent player in eco- programs have recently become among the remote sensing techniques for monitoring dress the sophisticated and intricate needs nomic development, its knowledge of top five producers in the nation of African- the environment. It is also the leading of the telecommunications industry. business and industry trends, employment American Ph.D.s in engineering. CUNY participant in a partnership with the Another unique and highly successful patterns, needs and challenges is quintes- The SOE is at the forefront of research in Goddard Institute for Space Studies and program is MADE-IT, or Mother and Daugh- sential. many areas. The Levich Institute is interna- NASA. Finally, the Photonics Engineering ter Entrepreneur Teams, which is supported —Jacqueline Cook, Dean of Continu- tionally renowned for its physico-chemical Laboratory is an important component of by the Kauffman Foundation. Gaining Ac- ing Education and External Partnerships, hydrodynamic research. Led by Einstein CUNY’s State-funded Center for Advanced cess is a program that delivers vocational New York City Technical College Professor Andreas Acrivos, it also hosts the Technology in Ultrafast Lasers, where Continued on page 9

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Research Matters A CAT Trick: Cunyite Professor Vladimir Petricevic, City College, a CUNY Institute Explores CUNY/CAT faculty member, inspects a laser crystal growth station. Cunyite, a new, near- Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers infrared-tunable, solid-state laser material, was developed and invented in CUNY laboratories. From The Office of Research Develop- Cunyite and a related crystal, forsterite, have ment, CUNY Research Foundation CUNY•Matters inaugurates here facilitated the development of lasers with higher efficiency, longer life-spans, stable operation, an occasional feature that will he cat—Felix domesticus—is a very compactness, and portability. These focus on some of the more promi- agile and clever creature, on occa- developments have been directly put into use in nent interdisciplinary and inter- products built and marketed by Long Island-based sion curious to a fault, seemingly T campus teams operating at Quantronix, Inc., a specialty laser manufacturer contemplative, and it has served the emo- CUNY on noteworthy research and CAT affiliate. Photos, Kestutis Sutkes. tional needs of human beings for millennia. projects. Future articles will As a companion to human endeavor, sci- highlight additional CAT re- ence is a late-comer, but it is an agile, Department of Energy in 1997. Collabora- search activities, as well as the clever, and contemplative creature too. As tions with other CUNY researchers—and a Applied Science Coordinating practiced by a distinguished team at sev- shared vision to create a focused, Univer- Institute, and other promising eral CUNY campuses, including City Col- sity-wide photonics effort—led to the estab- collaboratives. lege, science has in fact yielded a new spe- lishment of the CAT. the human body in search of lesions. cies of feline: the New York State Center Its research projects focus strongly on The photonic technologies under de- for Advanced Technology, or CAT, in the commercially viable outcomes. Scientists velopment at City College, partially sup- high-technology field of photonics, which is pus effort building on the laser and optical work with industry partners by helping ported by Mediscience Technology Cor- the advanced study of light. imaging aspects of the CAT was the NASA with technical problems, performing criti- poration, are designed to be safe, non- Substantial credit for this CAT’s ability to Institutional Research program established cal measurements, and seeking third-party invasive, and more affordable. Alfano pounce on the latest developments in in 1992 and directed by Professor Alfano. investment capital. Since start-up they explains, “We pursue a strategic photonics goes to CUNY’s Institute for A significant advance in ultrafast spec- have worked with more than two dozen roadmap that starts with basic discover- Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL), a troscopy was achieved in 1970, with the companies, like General Electric, Quantum ies, and proceeds to novel and practical program that has just celebrated its 15th discovery of the "super-continuum" by Pro- Electronics Technology, and Boston Scien- applications and prototype development, year of pursuing research that matters to fessor Alfano and the late Dr. Stanley tific Corporation. all using light,” CUNY, to the scientific community at large, Shapiro. This type of light enabled scien- One example of CAT’s commercial suc- Light interacts with biological tissues and to the technology industry in New York tists to generate light pulses of five femto- cesses is the specialized optical character- through a variety of processes that include State and beyond. seconds (5/1,000,000,000,000,000ths of a ization equipment developed by Professor reflection, refraction, absorption, emis- Since 1983, major research universities second)—the shortest attained as of that Pollak. His instruments have been success- sion, as well as elastic and inelastic scat- throughout New York State have worked, date. This breakthrough led, for example, ful in providing important processing data tering. Light is a less-damaging and non- through the highly competitive CAT Program, to practical applications in semiconduc- to the semiconductor device manufacturing ionizing radiation than X-rays; thus, rou- with industry partners on problems of mu- tor and optical material properties, opti- industry. Demand for these instruments tine screening with light reduces health tual interest and benefit to the state’s cal imaging, and medical diagnostics. has resulted in the formation of a spin-off risk. Optical biopsy techniques use the economy. Each of the present 14 CATs, lo- Today, ultrafast technology is an estab- company, Semiconductor Characterization “color” of light, that is, the spectroscopic cated at major research institutions, sup- lished, exciting, and rapidly growing field Instruments, Inc. With increasing yearly differences between normal and cancerous ports a different area of specialization, but that is yielding spectacular results in sales generated by word-of-mouth, SCI’s tissues to diagnose the disease. The dif- they share a common goal: the transfer and basic information, communications, and success epitomizes the fundamental CAT ference in light transmission through nor- commercialization of technology. The CAT commercial products. goal of generating growth in New York’s mal and infected tissues provides the program provides industry access to innova- technology sector. physical basis for optical imaging. tive technology through facilities available at n 1982, prior to the evolution of the CAT, A combination of these two major ap- the participating research institutions. Ithe Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy n addition to the work of Alfano, IUSL proaches, optical biopsy and optical imag- and Lasers (IUSL) was created at City Col- Iscientists Ping Pei Ho, Vladimir ing, is expected to provide simpler and more he CUNY CAT operates under the lead- lege to oversee ongoing research studies in Petricevic, and Feng Liu have been focusing cost-efficient medical diagnostic imaging Tership of Distinguished Professor of several fields. Since then, it has served as on lasers, non-linear optics, optical imag- modalities. This work has led to the devel- Science and Engineering Robert Alfano of the home for several programs, such as the ing, and medical applications. Other CAT opment, in collaboration with the City College. His Deputy Director for Sci- Mediphotonics Laboratory, established in scientists are on the prowl for discoveries Mediscience Technology Corporation, of two entific Affairs is Distinguished Professor 1986, and the Center for Laser Imaging and in several other fields: the growth of semi- instruments, the CD (i.e. cancer detection) Fred Pollak of Brooklyn College. Their Cancer Diagnostics, awarded by the U.S. conductor crystals and novel optical semi- Scanner and the CD Ratiometer. At photonics researchers include a team of conductor materials and struc- present, prototype instruments developed about 50 physicists, chemists, electrical tures (Prof. Maria Tamargo, City for fluorescence-based cancer diagnosis are engineers, computer scientists, materials College); compact solid state la- undergoing FDA testing. Patents have been specialists, and support staff located at sers (Prof. Ying-Chih Chen, secured to protect intellectual property five CUNY campuses—Brooklyn, CCNY, Hunter College); optical proper- rights, and researchers are continually Hunter, Queens, and Staten Island. Logis- ties of glasses (Prof. Harry striving to make novel photonic technolo- tic support is provided by a Business Devel- Gafney, Queens College); wave gies available to medical practitioners. opment and Operations Center located in propagation in random media the Research Foundation; it is led by (Prof. Azriel Genack, Queens he interaction of IUSL and CAT-spon- Deputy Director Dr. Vincent Tomaselli. College); and optical properties Tsored research at City College nur- The State awarded CUNY the Photonics of organic compounds (Prof. tures the promotion of related projects. CAT in 1993. A wide range of analytical Nan-Loh Yang, College of Following a highly competitive application equipment and test facilities has been as- Staten Island). process, the U.S. Office of Energy Re- sembled for use by CAT researchers, who One powerful example of CAT’s search awarded funds to City College for a have collectively published about 2,000 service to the State’s photonics Center for Laser Imaging and Cancer Di- papers, been awarded more than 100 pat- industry is the development of agnostics. Research at this IUSL Center ents, currently generate $3 million a year CAT SPRAY advanced medical technology at builds on existing technologies and part- in external research support, and use al- the IUSL over the last decade. Pierre Galland, a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at City nerships with major medical research cen- most $5 million worth of equipment in College, uses optical imaging methods to study jet sprays in an IUSL Since 1984 medical diagnostic ters in New York. Partners in this new their studies. laboratory. He is also part of NASA’s Institutional Research Award research has been focused on the Center include Memorial Sloan-Kettering While stretching the frontiers in the program at CUNY, which supports 46 undergraduate and 26 graduate characterization of tissue to dis- Cancer Center, New York Hospital-Cornell ultrafast phenomena of light, the CAT sup- student assistantships. Information on the fuel spray, droplets, and tinguish normal, benign, and can- Medical School, and Hackensack Univer- ports innovative research in such advanced turbulence in liquid rocket engines can help to predict and improve cerous samples (see the Fall sity Medical Center, as well as the areas as semiconductor structures and in- the cooling and combustion stability of combustion chambers. Using 1998 CUNY•Matters). Optical picosecond, time-resolved, and spatial gated optical imaging Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. An indus- terfaces, optical storage, nonlinear optics, biopsy and optical imaging are two techniques, the project seeks to obtain information from a sequence trial advisory board, consisting of repre- novel optical materials, thin films, commu- of images on how fuel droplets change in time. This will increase emerging complementary photonic sentatives from major medical instrument nications, lasers, optical imaging, and knowledge of fuel/oxidizer jet geometry and dynamics, droplet technologies that use light to diag- manufacturers, is an integral part of the medical diagnostics. A further multi-cam- information, size, shape, velocity, and interaction with other droplets. nose disease and to peer inside Center’s structure.

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CCNY’S COMMUNITY HEALTH INNOVATOR five grades and went on to Townsend Har- PT: But you returned? ris, which did high school’s four years in JG: I completed my internship and resi- three. I graduated, God help me, when I dencies in Boston, training for international A Mover, Shaker—and Builder was 14! I also won a Regent’s scholarship, health work. Then, in 1964, I went to Mis- but no university would let me in. When I sissippi with the Medical Committee for For Health Care and Civil Rights turned 15, the University of Wisconsin re- Human Rights—part of that summer’s civil lented. I wanted to be a journalist and rights campaign. I took a long look around or decades H. Jack Geiger, the worked at night for Madison’s Capital Times and realized I didn’t have to go to Africa, Arthur C. Logan Professor of Community (half its staff had gone to war). Then, in Southeast Asia, or Latin America: we had F Medicine Emeritus at CUNY’s Sophie 1943, I enlisted in the only branch of the the same health care injustice and inequity Davis School of Biomedical Education, has military that was not segregated, the Mer- here. Maybe community health centers stormed society’s ramparts in the battle for chant Marine. After almost four years in were appropriate for the U.S. And so my equitable delivery of health care. His “Emeri- the Marine, I went to the University of Chi- colleagues and I started two community tus” appellation is worth a good chuckle: Gei- cago and discovered that the Medical health centers, one in inner-city Boston and ger is still constantly on the professional move, School was lily white and its hospitals re- the other in the Mississippi Delta. I worked helping a Harvard search committee one fused to admit black patients. The minutes at them for the next eight years, mostly in day, for example, conferring in New York on of the School’s admissions committee had Mississippi’s Bolivar County, then the National Medical Fellowships the next. The things about black applicants like, “Quali- nation’s third poorest. Any indicator you recipient of the Sedgwick Medal of the fied, but we’re not ready to have any black looked at there—in education, employment, American Public Health Association and the students here yet.” Perfectly legal in 1947! housing, income, disease—was about as Lienhard Award (the highest) of the Institution And so we organized a long campaign, bad as it could get. of Medicine in the National Academy of Sci- somewhat ahead of its time, that included a In addition to our clinical and public ences last fall, Geiger has been in the fore- strike of students and faculty. health work, we offered GED and college- front of virtually every movement attuned to PT: What were you studying then? prep programs. Our center produced from the world’s health and safety. JG: Essentially pre-med. Like many a this county, in the first decade, seven M.D.s, He has raised awareness of environmental CUNY student, I had to support myself by five Ph.D.s, about 25 registered nurses, half debilitation, human rights violations, and the The former and present H. Jack Geiger. working at night—for Chicago’s Daily News, a dozen social workers, two environmental stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction. Photos, André Beckles. then the International News Service (Mer- engineers, and Mississippi’s first 10 black A founding member of Physicians for Social chant seamen got no GI benefits). I also registered sanitarians. I still visit this Responsibility in 1961, Geiger has argued long and passionately in favor of global helped run major civil rights campaigns. health center, and now more than 100 disarmament. If you don’t classify these as public health issues, you have not Eventually, with my good education in sci- people are in one branch or another of the been in Geiger’s classroom. As he tells his medical students, “the determinants ence, the obvious thing to do was cover sci- health professions. So I have been very of the health of a population are not just in health care, but in the public policy ence and medicine. I was the science editor aware of the lesson we learned there: un- issues, the physical environment, the social environment, the biological environ- for INS the next five years. tapped human resources in underserved ment.” But, Geiger admits, health care still remains an excellent point of interven- PT: Then, in 1954, you enrolled at West- populations. tion because, “people still listen to their doctors.” ern Reserve Medical School to become a PT: How did you find your way to the Geiger very presciently attended the New York City high school named after primary-care physician? Sophie Davis? Townsend Harris, the architect of local public higher education. He did not re- JG: I really wanted to do nucleic acid JG: I recruited myself. turn to New York, however, until 1978, when he joined the Sophie Davis Faculty. research—what I’d been covering as a sci- PT: Don’t tell me—chance was involved Ironically, short hours before the recent bombing of Iraq, CUNY•Matters writer ence reporter. I knew an M.D. would be again? Peter Taback met with Geiger at Sophie Davis to talk about war and the few easier than a Ph.D. in a field like biochem- JG: Yes, in the New York Times in 1977, philosophical constants in Geiger’s multilateral career in public health. istry, which is very rigorous. Soon I discov- I happened to see an advertisement for the ered I didn’t have the patience to sit with Logan Professorship at this school noted PT: Your vita is daunting: travel, teach- was 1943, and the conflict was glaring be- one enzyme system for five years. I also for its commitment to recruiting minorities ing, field work, publication, and many years tween our purpose in fighting World War II wasn’t so good in the lab! of what must be called activism. Where to and what was actually going on in the One day I was standing on begin? country: segregation in the armed forces, the steps of the school and JG: Let’s begin with the whole question the rampant segregation north and south, gazing at the Cleveland sky- of human and civil rights, which I see as differing only in character. CORE was in- line. It suddenly occurred to part of the health care scene. We’re hear- teresting, compared to the NAACP and me that who got sick out ing more and more statements—including, other older mainline advocacy groups, be- there, who did not, and all most recently, those from the new head of cause it was explicitly interracial and their interactions with the the World Health Organization, Gro worked through direct action. It was per- health care system were so- Brundtland defining health, not merely ac- fectly legal in those days for a restaurant in cial as well as biological cess to health care, as a human right. Madison or Chicago to refuse to serve a phenomena. All my previous At Harvard’s Kennedy School last De- black customer. An interracial team of experiences with civil rights, cember, for a celebration of the 50th anni- CORE members would arrive in a restau- I realized then, had rel- versary of the Universal Declaration of Hu- rant, sit down and occupy tables—whites evance to medicine. I was man Rights, I described a problem posed by at one table, blacks at another. When the very excited. the unqualified assertion of a right to blacks were refused service, the whites PT: The dawn of social health. If a child is born with Tay-Sachs would respond, “We won’t be served until medicine? Disease or some other ailment that con- that person is served, and we’re not leaving.” JG: I ran to the library H. Jack Geiger, left, in 1966 on the construction site of the Delta demns it to die in its first year, who has Then the dialogue with other patrons: “This and discovered the British deprived that child of its rights? There is a and the Germans had Health Center on the outskirts of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. With is what’s happening—we think you have a him on what was formerly a cotton field is Dr. John W. Hatch, then better pathway to that right. Certain other moral responsibility to join us in this.” beaten me to it. Also by the director of community organization and health education for articles in the Universal Declaration sug- PT: And this interracial version of civil chance, I then came upon the center. Photo, Dan Bernstein. gest people are entitled to a standard of disobedience was years before Greensbor- word of a Department of living that implies, in broad paraphrase, a ough, Selma, Montgomery? Social Medicine that was operating a and training for practice in underserved reasonable shot at health. In the United JG: It was Gandhi. It was the first time strange new thing called “community health areas. I jumped at it. States, and certainly in the developing that, as a matter of deliberate principle, an centers” in, of all places, South Africa. It PT: The School arguably leads the nation world, are millions whose social and bio- advocacy group in the U.S. widely employed was in the one medical school for non- in attracting students committed to logical environments determine they will non-violent, direct-action techniques. We, whites in that apartheid nation, Durban’s underserved populations. How does this have shortened life spans. This is a UDHR more than anyone else, were precursors of University of Natal Medical School. Pooling play out in the classroom? rights violation. the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Com- electives, I wangled five months of my se- JG: They look different, compared to PT: More than a half-century ago you mittee. nior year to go there. Doctors Sidney and most medical school classes, though until founded a chapter of CORE, the Congress PT: By SNCC’s time, though, you were Emily Kark, who invented community-ori- California Prop. 187 and the Hopwood case on Racial Equality in Madison, Wisconsin, already a member of the faculty, not a stu- ented primary care, led the program. I was in Texas and other attacks on affirmative years before the national civil rights move- dent. very lucky to have, with them, that experi- action, many medical schools were doing ment of the ‘60s. Were you drawn to CORE JG: When I was in the public schools ence of teaching the use of epidemiology in better at multicultural recruitment. A lot of because of health care concerns? here, they didn’t know about enrichment medicine and thinking about the health of these kids are also from working-class JG: Simply the manifest injustice. It and just “skipped” kids. I skipped about populations. backgrounds, some from a poverty of means Continued on page 8

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PERIPATETIC QUEENSBOROUGH SLEUTH Salutations on a 600th Library Visit DANCING AT LUGHNASA–AND NOW Dancing at Hortobágy on Adriano de Armado is the instructed to leave them on the hilariously feckless Spanish social table and close the door firmly The Feminist Press at the City University has just Dclimber at the court of the King of behind him. In the town library published The Defiant Muse: Dutch and Flemish Navarre in Shakespeare’s great early com- of Noto, Sicily, he was forced to Feminist Poems, a bilingual anthology of more than edy Love’s Labour’s Lost. He knows that cut the leaves of its 1889 a hundred poems from the 13th to the 20th centu- when you address a letter to a king you manuscript catalogue in order ries edited by Maaike Meijer. From the collection is better pull out all the salutatory stops. to read the pages. this poem by Giza Ritschl (1869-1942), who arrived And so he does, beginning “Great deputy, And in Modigliana he had to in The Netherlands in the 1890s from Hungary. the welkin’s vicegerent, and sole domina- convince the town librarian Called the “Hungarian Nightingale,” her main theme tor of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s God, and that the library did indeed pos- was love (translation by Myra Scholz). body’s fostering patron. . .” sess at least 93 codices (a co- Don Armado has obviously done some dex is a bound volume with To Sebestyén homework on letter-writing—“vicegerent,” contents written by hand). The whatever that might be, is no everyday debate brought them to a Once I danced in a Csárda, word. This is a subject about which Dr. former library building dating On the Puszta in Hortobágy. Emil J. Polak, a professor of history at from the 17th century, an Queensborough Community College, knows abandoned near-ruin. A care- The music was wild, my feelings caught fire, more than just about anyone in the world. ful search revealed a dust-cov- In the Csárda on the Puszta in Hortobágy. Since 1978 Polak has been visiting librar- ered heap on the floor: the ies throughout the world, locating and manuscripts, some of them 500 The glasses rang out, passion and wine made me drunk, making a census of Medieval and Renais- years old. Today they are, if not sound, at least safe. In the Csárda on the Puszta in Hortobágy. sance manuals on letter-writing, a branch Such discoveries make the drudgery of detective work all worthwhile, of rhetoric that flourished most spectacu- Polak says. “It’s exciting when a relevant manuscript is identified for And oh, a thousand songs must have echoed, larly during these periods. Nearly every which there is no written record. And to do so it is essential to consult In the Csárda on the Puszta in Hortobágy, winter and summer recess over two de- the manuscripts firsthand.” cades has found him haunting libraries worldwide, scrutinizing how-to volumes Now I sit here and dream that address proper salutations and letter Of the Puszta in Hortobágy. etiquette. Recently, Polak was captured standing Again and again all the beauty floods back at the threshold of the municipal library of Of Epistles Monitory, Amatory, Invective Of the Puszta in Hortobágy. Charleville-Mézières in northeastern France. The occasion marked his 600th In a Fata Morgana my thoughts float over To you, my Puszta in Hortobágy. library visitation. o give readers a flavor of letter-writing manuals from Shakespeare’s Polak’s work has produced—in addition, time,T CUNY•Matters offers here some samples from The English And to the Csárda I love, that I danced in, laughing, one hopes, to an entry in Guinness—the Secretarie, Or Methods of Writing Epistles and Letters by Angel Day On the Puszta in Hortobágy. first two of a projected four volumes of his (1599). Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters (1993-94), one focused • The author advises a wife whose traveling hus- on Eastern Europe and the former band has belatedly thought to write to begin thus: U.S.S.R., the other on Western Europe, Good husbande, I am glad that you have at the last A Musicologist’s Prank Japan, and the U.S. remembred your selfe, by this bearer, to write unto me, who In 1980, the massive, 20-volume New Grove Dic- is findings have exceeded all his have thought it verie long to heare from you. tionary of Music and Musicians appeared. One original expectations. “The two pub- of its more puckish contributors felt there H • Here is how to end a “pleasantly written epistle lished volumes cite about 2,500 works. . . should be at least one completely fictitious en- concerning Medieval and Renaissance so- invective” addressed to “a vaineglorious person”: try amid all the scrupulous, often arcane schol- ciety from the Pope, emperors and mon- Onely doubting lest, overswolen with your humours, you arship. Here it is: archs down to bishops, nobles, priests, should consume in your follies, I have done, leaving the nuns, monks, townspeople, and fathers rest to your correction, if at least you have any wit at all Esrum-Hellerup, Dag Henrik (b Århus, 19 and sons—these last usually seeking aid whereby to amend them. July 1803; d Graested, 8 Sept 1891). Danish from home while away at college.” The flautist, conductor and composer. His father Johann Henrik (1773-1843) served in the census, Polak explains, offers a guide to a • Here is how to begin an “epistle monitory” to “very important rhetorical genre in the Schwerin court orchestra before becoming the father of a bad seed: Though it seeme an ap- chamber flautist to King Christian IX; he was Middle Ages and Renaissance, letter-writ- proved folly to cast pearles before swine, or to offer a ing or epistolography, which was a major subsequently honoured as Hofkammer- root of humanism and Latin culture that golden saddle to an ass's back, yet I have written unto you musicus. Dag Henrik studied with his father spread from Italy throughout Europe.” to manifest the vile and bad parts of your sonne, whereof and with Kuhlau and rapidly acquired a repu- After majoring in Latin at what is now you will take no notice. tation as an accomplished flautist. His rise SUNY-Albany and earning a Columbia to fame in the 1850s was as rapid as his de- Ph.D. in Medieval and Ancient History (his • It is a shame this style for an “epistle amatory” cline into obscurity; his opera Alys og Elvertøj dissertation was on a 13th-century Latin has vanished completely: The long and considerate (now lost) was much admired by Smetana, textbook on letter-writing), Polak became regarde, by which in deep contemplation I have eyed your who is said to have conducted a performance one of the first recipients of a Rome Prize during his time in Göteborg. Besides being a most rare and singular vertues, joyned with so admirable keen folksong collector (he made many Fellowship in post-classical humanistic beauty, and much pleasing condition grafted in your per- studies at the American Academy. folksong arrangements), Esrum-Hellerup also Since then he has sought to visit all son, hath moved me good Mistresse ______to championed his Scandinavian contemporar- state, city, university, episcopal, monastic, favour you, earnestlie to love you, and therewith to offer ies Hägg, Almquist, Berwald, and others, and and private libraries or archives contain- my selfe unto you. in later years Wagner and Draeseke; he ing Latin books and manuscripts. Nine- planned performances of Parsifal in both teen awards have supported Polak’s work, Esbjerg and Göteborg but died before accom- including grants from the NEH, the Delmas Regrettably, The English Secretarie offers no assistance whatever to plishing this. Some flute quartets showing Foundation, and PSC-CUNY. the correspondent desiring to address an epistle abusive to a dither- the influence of Kuhlau are among his few In most cases, of course, library secu- ing department chair or an epistle querulous to a university chan- surviving works. He published a transla- rity is strict, but Polak has encountered cellor—interim or otherwise. tion of Quantz’s treatise and a two-volume some unusual protocols. He has been left set of memoirs (Musicaliske intryck, alone with precious codices and simply Copenhagen, 1883-6).

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JUSTICE GINSBERG APPLAUDS QUEENS COLLEGE FIRST—TWICE Public Interest Lawyers Honor Dean Glen Math/Philosophy,

t a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on and tireless advancement of pub- History Majors November 6, Dean Kristin Booth lic interest law.” Plan Marshall Studies A Glen of the CUNY School of Law re- “At the school Dean Glen nur- ceived the Law School Dean of the Year tures, deployment of law in the public Award conferred by the National Association interest is not a ‘sometime thing.’ It ver the last 26 years, more than a of Public Interest Law (NAPIL). is fundamental to the legal education thousand American college gradu- Dean Glen was selected notably for her CUNY offers. Collaborative student, Oates have pursued post-graduate work on establishing the Haywood Burns faculty, and staff endeavors to ‘pro- degrees in Great Britain on Marshall Schol- Chair in Civil Rights, the School’s Emma mote the general welfare’ are CUNY’s arships— established by the British Gov- Lazarus Immigrants Program, and the Com- hallmarks and pride. . .” ernment as a thank-you for Marshall Plan munity Legal Resource Network, a consor- “Law and lawyers, you know, assistance after World War II. None had tium of four law schools funded by an Open have fared rather badly in many a come from Queens College, however, un- Society Institute grant to create innovative song and story,” Ginsberg observed. Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg, left, with til it was announced in December that public interest practice models to support “Writers from Shakespeare to Sandburg Dean Glen. Photo, Richard Zeitler. not one but two of the College’s gradu- small law firms. have now and then revealed a certain dis- ates would be sceptered isle-bound as Currently celebrating its 15th anniver- taste for the lawyers’ trade. Charles practitioners brave men and women who Marshall Scholars this fall. sary, CUNY Law at Queens College was Dickens, in Bleak House, put it this way: strive to change this perception, and law Tara Helfman, of Flushing plans to the first public interest law school ac- The one great principle of the En- students like those assembled here, already pursue a doctorate in history at Cam- credited by the American Bar Associa- glish law is to make business for it- devoted to, and at work for, the public bridge, with a specialization in constitu- tion. Last year the Law Student Division self. There is no other principle so good—people who are the best of lawyers tional law. Economics Professor Eliza- of the ABA named the School the top pub- distinctly, certainly, and consistently and lawyers-to-be, the most dedicated, the beth Roistacher, who advised Helfman lic interest school in the nation. maintained through all its narrow least selfish.” and the other winner, Joseph Stern, turnings. “Kristin Booth Glen,” Ginsberg con- called her student “a brilliant historian . he featured speaker at the award cer- Viewed by this light it becomes cluded, “is just such a lawyer. She leads a . . who seems to have discovered the 48- Temony was Associate Justice of the a coherent scheme and not the faculty outstanding in the endeavor to hour day. She carries a demanding aca- Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. “I monstrous maze the laity are apt shape fine legal education to the challeng- demic load and is recognized as stellar had vowed to copy Poe's Raven and say to to think it. Let them but once ing needs of public interest practice. For not only in history but also in philosophy all mid-sitting period invitations: ‘Never- clearly perceive that its grand all she has done and will continue to do and music.” more,’” Ginsberg explained. But when principle is to make business for throughout her work and days, and for the she received news of Glen’s NAPIL award, itself at their expense, and surely inspiration she gives to others who will fol- she said she “could not resist the oppor- they will cease to grumble. low in her way, may I invite all of you to join tunity to cheer her for her innovations But the legal profession has among its me in applause and a rousing ‘Brava!’”

TWO RECENT COMMUNITY COLLEGE GRADS odor that permeated the air. “The professor never received a poem on this subject from a Triumphing over Dysphonia, student before,” Gross recalls. She was the 15-year-old. Recently Memories of the Holocaust graduated from LaGuardia, Gross is now telling her story to a much larger audi- ysphonia is a rare neurological ease in New York City. Davis will receive ence as a spokesperson for Holocaust disorder that typically manifests $2500 a year to pursue her studies. survivors who are suing German corpo- D itself in loss of voice, severe weak- rations that used slave labor during ness, muscle tremors, and asthma. Sharon hen 69-year-old Elly Gross was at- World War II. She has appeared on “60 Davis of the Bronx suffers from it, but she Wtending LaGuardia Community College Minutes” and is one of the 50,000 survi- did not let that—or being a black woman in a while back, she submitted a somber poem vors filmed by Stephen Spielberg’s Survi- her late forties—stop her from deciding to that recalled the memories of a 15-year-old vors of the Shoah Foundation. go to college. She gradu- “Every time I look back, I ask myself, ‘how ated with an Associate’s was I able to cope with all the tragedies that Degree last spring from Happy Queensborough happened to me?’” says Gross. “My destiny Queensborough Commu- graduate Sharon Davis, left. was to keep going and living, so that today I nity College’s External Elly Gross, below, with can share some of my memories.” Marshall Scholars designate Tara Helfman Education Program for mementos of her life before And terrible they were, including the de- and Joseph Stern. Photo, Daniel Reilly. the Homebound with a the Holocaust. Photo, portation of her father from her native Ro- major in psychology. Randy Fader-Smith. mania to the vicinity of Moscow for forced Davis not only main- labor. On May 27, 1944, Gross was sepa- In addition to her scholarly pursuits, tained a 3.5 GPA but also rated from her 37-year-old mother and five- Helfman, the daughter of two CUNY received one of CUNY’s year-old brother at Birkenau, and was sent alumni (her mother is a City public Vera Douthit Awards for to Germany to work in a factory owned by school teacher), has volunteered in the scholarship and service. Volkswagen, painting metal cylinders and Jamaica Hospital ER and was founding “It has been said that developing a severe cough and bleeding editor of the College’s Scholar’s Sentinel when one door closes, gums from the fumes. newsletter. Her recreations include another opens,” Davis But misery did not end with liberation, as cooking (vegetarian) and swing-dancing. observed, looking back on Gross learned when she returned to her Stern came to Queens College with her QCC career. “Many home town. “There I found strangers living painting and sculpting in mind—he is doors have opened for in our home and I learned that my mother also a jazz guitarist and vocalist with a me, and many wonderful and brother were gassed at Birkenau and my local group called Trio Mio—but was people have entered my life since that day father was burned alive on the Russian front soon lured into philosophy, mathematics, when I received my diagnosis for dysphonia.” in 1943.” and quantum theory. He will pursue a And “euphonious” is certainly the word for Now a wife, mother, and grandmother, Master’s in pure mathematics at Imperial Davis’s current academic career. She is en- Gross resides in Jamaica, Queens, and College, London. rolled in Queens College’s Homebound Pro- girl who was transported to the concentra- among the pieces of life she has put back Stern, who hopes eventually to earn a gram and learned last fall that she had won a tion camp at Birkenau in World War II. together is her associate’s degree. “The de- doctorate in the States and teach on the scholarship from the Stony-Wold Herbert Burnt into her memory are the bright skies gree provides me with a personal satisfac- college level, has worked in construction Fund, a privately endowed organization dedi- blackened by bellowing smoke, the five chim- tion because I did not have a chance to pur- and volunteered as an art therapist for cated to fighting all forms of pulmonary dis- neys that spewed ashes, and the pungent sue higher education when I was younger.” low-functioning adults.

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great variety of opinions of all the separate hatreds.” AIDS, you added, was not only FROM HIS PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHER task forces wasn’t reflected well in the final an epidemic: “it is a mirror, revealing us product. Finally, and perhaps biggest, was to ourselves.” Ten years on, what does Final Images of Martin Luther King, Jr. the blunder of not anticipating the huge the mirror say? media assault mounted by the powerful JG: This is another example of the n January 14, the eve of Martin enemies of regulation. profound connections between the way a OLuther King Jr. Holiday, LaGuardia PT: Is the industry’s disarray affecting society is organized and its people’s Community College opened a six-month- medical school applicant pools? health and health care. It is noble and long exhibition of 50 black and white im- JG: Although many applicants tell you appropriate for medicine to be trying to ages taken during the last year of the civil they have been advised by every doctor in deal clinically with the disastrous conse- rights leader’s life by his personal photog- their ken not to go, applications have contin- quences of AIDS, but it’s insufficient if rapher, Benedict J. Fernandez. ued to rise, until very recently. This is some- we are not simultaneously advocating the During 1967 Fernandez worked with thing people want to pursue for other moti- kinds of social change that will reduce or King—who was assassinated on April 4, vations. Just reflecting as we talk, I see that eliminate those problems at their source. 1968—on two important projects, his these issues of health care, of civil rights PT: You pursued that preventive-medi- book Trumpets of Freedom and the Poor and human rights, equity and justice, the cine agenda, as well, in your association People’s Campaign at Resurrection City. distribution of resources in a population, are with Physicians for Social Responsibility. Included are images of King speaking at all part of a seamless whole. They are JG: Don’t use the past tense! Somewhere the United Nations, private moments with deeply connected with each other. between 30,000 and 50,000 nuclear war- his family, and the funeral. It goes back to the father of modern so- heads are still floating around in the world. The photojournalist, currently an ad- cial medicine, the great German pathologist Perhaps the most notable thing we did was junct professor in LaGuardia’s Commercial Rudolph Virchow we always end up quoting. seriously analyze the consequences of a Photography program, has extracted the He said (and I never can remember which nuclear war. We published our pessimistic works on view from his book Countdown to Eternity. They can be found on the second way it runs!) “Medicine is just politics writ conclusions in what became a whole issue of floor atrium of the College’s E Building at 31- 10 Thompson Avenue, Long Island City. large” or “Politics is just medicine writ the New England Journal of Medicine. We large.” He was famous for having been sent provided a model for any city; you could go by the Kaiser to investigate an epidemic of on New Orleans or St. Louis and say, “This is Geiger Interview, continued from page 5 school are falling and the pipeline that typhus among poor peasants in Silesia. And what a one-megaton burst will do here.” leads there is narrowing substantially. I he said the real answer to this problem is Viewers could find their home on the map. and, to some extent, of aspiration. These have editorialized in the American Journal that these people ought to have decent in- PT: And all the old civil defense homilies kids have much more variegated experi- of Public Health on “Ethnic Cleansing in the comes, better housing, better food, a regular and recommendations were just a public ence; most of them have worked or are Groves of Academe,” where I deal with the job, safer environments, and some dignity. relations maneuver to quell public anxiety? working while they’re here. whole of the remediation issue and cite the PT: Did the Kaiser welcome that response? JG: And most everyone believed it! PT: So they don’t need to be told of dis- data on medical school and college admis- JG: No, certainly not. But in a way it PT: Have the planet’s hopes shifted now parities in U.S. health care? sions. This is the pipeline that leads to an was the beginning of the struggle I've been that the nuclear threat is no longer two- JG: No—nor about another American application to medical school. Minority talking about. In the middle of the Indus- sided and developing nations are adding affliction: the problem of racism in health populations that are already overburdened trial Revolution, a man named John Simon, their names to the nuclear club? care. But, like most other Americans, with morbidity and mortality, living in envi- who counts as London’s first public health JG: I wrote a long review in The Nation they’re uncomfortable talking about race. I ronments that put them at higher risk are officer, in about 1849 called for a revolu- just after India and Pakistan did, its thrust think some of them feel, “these are social simultaneously faced with this impending tion in the status of the poor on the being: We are in a hell of a position to point issues...what do they have to do with medi- crisis in health care. grounds that this was simultaneously a ma- a finger at them for acquiring what we cine or medical school?” Like most medical PT: How will the growth of managed jor issue of health and of justice. So there refuse to divest. students, they’re not well-informed about care affect this scenario? PT: But is it possible, or wise, for race as a social, not biological, construct. JG: Nobody wants to go back to the old the U.S. to divest completely? So, for example, I explain that 90-or-so fee-for-service system, which was headed JG: There is a campaign for aboli- percent of genetic difference occurs not toward chewing up 18-20% of the GNP. And tion—the total elimination of nuclear between ethnic groups but within them. I much about managed care has been salu- weapons, just as we are attempting have two African-American students and tary: standardization of treatment, greater by treaty to destroy chemical and bio- two white students stand up and I point out emphasis on preventive care, computer logical weapons of mass destruction. that there is more variation between the tracking of individuals and populations— This is vulnerable to all the obvious two African-American students than there much of which we teach in community-ori- criticisms. How do you know is between them and the white students, ented primary care syllabus. somebody’s not sneaking—the person and vice versa. They’re astonished. PT: I had thought the national consensus who has one when everybody else has PT: Also by their experience in the Commu- on managed care was: “fear and loathing.” none is in a position of power. nity Health and Social Medicine programs? JG: The real problem has been the intro- I’ve been putting more of my en- JG: All of them, even those from middle- duction of venture capital into managed ergy into human rights work in the class homes, end up with much more direct care organizations—care of the stockholder last few years. Those inequities are experience. Any student who, as part of his superseding care of the patient. The distri- getting worse. The world’s 225 rich- or her assignment, accompanies a welfare bution of income and the motivation for est individuals, of whom 60 are mother trying to make an application for restriction of services are an outrage. Dis- Geiger in the office of his Brooklyn home. American, have a combined wealth of foods stamps or Medicaid eligibility comes content, I think, is going to boil over. more than $1 billion—equal to the away better educated. PT: What is the big lesson the students is a long radical tradition of the kind of annual income of the poorest 47% of the PT: And better prepared for work in the in your “U.S. Health Care” class at Sophie medicine I have been describing. entire world’s population. You see such fig- volatile health care sector? Davis take away? PT: Is such a fight still perceived as ures all the time. JG: Yes. In fact, there is now more in- JG: That the determinants of the health “radical” in the America of 1998? PT: You started civil rights demonstra- terest in and contentment with the idea of of a population are not in health care. JG: It is so labeled by The Wall Street Jour- tions in the ‘40s, trained in South Africa in primary care as compared to specialty and Health care contributes, but the determi- nal and other conservative organizations. They the ‘50s, studied nuclear catastrophe and subspecialty training because much more nants are all of these public policy issues, tout only personal responsibility, individual led in the development of a national net- emphasis is being placed on primary care the physical environment, the social envi- choice, life style, and so forth. This narrowness work of 850 community health centers from today—and because the income of primary ronment, the biological environment. This is nonsense, given what we know about the the ‘60s to the ‘80s, and have advocated the care physicians is rising. They’re almost is what we learned in Mississippi. factors that create ill health. involvement of the medical/academic com- the only segment of the profession in which PT: You testified for the White House in PT: This brings to mind your 1987 re- munity in global human rights initiatives. that’s the case. Our students are also 1993. Was the nation just not ready? view in the Times of Randy Shilts’s study of Would it be fair to say you’ve been a pio- keenly aware that 43 million Americans are What happened? the nation’s response to AIDS, And the neer in every step of your career? now without any health insurance. JG: A series of political blunders. First Band Played On. You wrote “great and le- JG: Pioneer is the wrong word. What I PT: And the system they will was the preliminary secrecy, which natu- thal epidemics are never merely biological said before about the invention of social enter...what is your current prognosis? rally aroused suspicion. Second was trans- events and never elicit merely biological or medicine is true of civil rights or protests JG: We are facing a crisis in this coun- lating an essentially sound plan into such scientific responses. They become social against social inequities. Nor would I ever try. In 30 years or so, more than half of the complicated detail that it made a 1000- forces in their own right, carving up deep claim I was the first to see the connections population will be “minority.” Simulta- page piece of legislation—a real non- new fissures in the political and cultural with the practice of medicine. There are neously, minority applications to medical starter. The third blunder was internal: the landscape, thrusting up buried fears and always people who precede you.

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CUNY EMERITUS CELEBRATES A CENTENNIAL Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832- 1898). Photograph from the A Famed Mathematician collection of Morton Cohen. Adventures into the Dark Room

He preferred giving un-birthday presents because he could give when he took it up in 1856. He was often paired with them so many more times in a year. In the course of his work as Julia Margaret Cameron as the century’s finest photogra- a professional mathematician-logician, he invented witty syllo- phers of children. In honor of the centenary of Carroll’s gisms like this one: death on January 14, 1898, Morton Cohen—emeritus No Professors are ignorant; professor of English at City College and the CUNY Graduate All ignorant people are vain. School and the world’s leading Carroll expert—has just pub- Conclusion: No Professors are vain. lished Reflections in a Looking Glass: A Centennial Celebra- He was also a most unusual university teacher. He noted in tion of Lewis Carroll, Photographer (Aperture). The vol- his diary one day in 1880, “I propose to the Staff Salaries ume offers the most extensive selection ever from the more Board that, as my work is lighter than it used to be, I should than 3,000 images he captured (some hitherto unpublished). have £200 instead of £300 a year.” A few weeks later he re- Following is an excerpt from Cohen’s introductory corded, “Offer was accepted.” And, oh yes, he wrote Alice’s essay describing Carroll’s methods of capturing his young Adventures in Wonderland under the pen name Lewis Carroll. sitters, who were obliged to be motionless for about 45 What is not so well known about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson seconds for a successful “take.” The Alice Liddell referred is that he was one of the most distinguished 19th-century pio- to below, of course, gave her name to history’s most fa- neers of the photographic art form, which was only 16 years old mous children’s tale.

e did not photograph anyone and everyone, only elaborate backdrops and favored a stone or brick wall, a “well-made children who have a taste for being simple blanket, a cloth, or a plain curtain, a flight of stairs, H taken. . . .I should decline the offer of others,” he a classical pillar, a Gothic arch. wrote, “as I think such pictures would be unpleasant.” He Although he did not invent any photographic material or was also especially careful to insure that the children felt procedures, he did experiment with different techniques comfortable with him and wanted to be photographed. He and sought innovations. He created story photography: a invited one mother to bring her daughters round for a visit, child portrayed in a nightdress, mouth set grim, hair di- “not to be photographed then and there (I never succeed sheveled, a brush and a mirror in her hands—with the title with strangers), but to make acquaintance with the place “It Won’t Come Smooth”; Alice Liddell and her two sisters, and the artist, and to see how they relished the idea of one holding a cherry out for another to reach with her lips, coming, another day, to be photographed. . .” titled “Open Your Mouth and Shut Your Eyes.” Others de- When he knew that the children felt at ease with him, he pict characters from literature and lore: the Beggar Maid, went to work, gently and carefully, using all his natural Little Red Riding Hood, a tableau vivant entitled “St. George charm and wit to achieve a pleasant air. He strove to cap- and the Dragon,” a youngster as Viola in Twelfth Night. He ture his subjects as they appeared in real life. “He could intentionally double-exposed a group of children in one en- not bear dressed-up children,” one observer later wrote, titled “The Dream,” with a lad appearing as a ghost. “but liked them to be as natural as possible. He never let “On one occasion,” a friend recalled, “he was anxious to them pose . . . and it did not matter a bit if their hair was obtain a photograph of me as a child sitting up in bed in a untidy; in fact, it pleased him better.” His experience with fright, with her hair standing on end as if she had seen a the theater led him to value stage props, and he used them ghost. He tried to get this effect with the aid of my father’s liberally: a book, a lens, a croquet mallet. . .He disliked electrical machine, but it failed, chiefly I fear because I was too young quite to appreciate the current of electricity that had to be passed through me.” Lewis Carroll’s photograph of Alice Liddell in profile. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Houghton Collection Photos are fine, but . . . Testimony, continued from page 3 Summer Programs, continued from page 2 In 1891 Dodgson wrote from Christ Church College, widely acknowledged cutting-edge experi- City, exploration of career opportunities in Oxford, to a young acquaintance, Mary Mallalieu: ments in photonics materials are under way. Criminal Justice, field trips to relevant his- In discussing the institutional aspect of toric and cultural sites in New York City, “Photographs are very pleasant things to have, but love is the best thing in the world. . . .Of technology transfer, however, it is important mentoring and tutoring in reading, composi- course I don’t mean it in the sense meant when people talk about ‘falling in love’; that’s only to note that the institutional support net- tion, economics, mathematics, science, as one meaning of the word and only applies to a few people. I mean in the sense in which we work for high-technology small business is well as leadership and diversity training. underdeveloped in our region. While New Student evaluations of this program, say that everybody in the world ought to ‘love everybody else.’ But we don’t always do what York is the financial capital of the world and recorded in journals, were particularly we ought. I think you children do it more than we grown-up people do: we find so many is a deep source of financial capital for high- gratifying. Regarding the program Seminar faults in one another.” technology venture capital investments, only on Social Justice one student wrote, “ This 3% of that national total of such investments session gave me an opportunity to ask my- went to New York enterprises (31% went to self how I can contribute to life in a decent the community colleges. students who were underprepared but did Silicon Valley, 11% to New England, ). society.” Referring to the Seminar on Student outcomes were impressive as not participate in the program. To address the above shortcomings, the Leadership another student wrote of one well. Dramatic gains were made by senior Overall, the evidence seems to show that City Council may wish to look into tax incen- lecture, “it was great because it made me college students who retook the Writing we are making headway not only in improv- tives for private technological investments in realize some things I hadn’t thought of be- Assessment Test. After the summer pro- ing the preparation of our incoming fresh- the City and measures to nurture pilot fore. For example, it is education that programs, approximately 85% of senior col- men, but also in communicating the wis- projects designed to enhance the transfer of vides you with the freedom to succeed; lege students either passed the Writing dom of participating in a summer immer- technology from City University units to en- education will set you free; this society Assessment Test or moved ahead with their sion program. The Office of Academic Af- trepreneurial businesses. I think that, short must move from me to we; and education remediation. About 76% of community fairs remains committed to working closely of proactive steps such as these, coopera- is a tool” for moving in that direction. college students did the same. Substantial with the faculty and student services staffs tion between the City’s business and educa- gains were also registered in the Math and of the colleges to insure the continued re- tional sectors will remain sub-optimal and his year a major effort, including addi- Reading Assessment Tests. finement of these programs. deprive our city of a major economic benefit Ttional funding, was made to expand A study of the most recent class to com- We are convinced they will help future that would result from a more fully symbiotic the University Summer Immersion Pro- plete one full year since CUNY’s Trustees students complete their long journeys—if relationship. gram. Participation of prospective first- decided in 1995 to limit remediation at se- not the thousand miles specified by Lao- —Professor of Electrical Engineering time freshmen more than tripled from nior colleges indicates that students who tzu, certainly the educational distance to Jamal T. Manassah, Chair, Faculty Commit- 1997 at one senior college, doubled at two participated in the USIP performed better graduation and productive, fulfilling careers tee, CUNY School of Engineering others, and rose substantially at several of and were retained at a higher rate than beyond.

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Taxi Institute, continued from page 2 forming, often under very trying conditions, rule requiring the professional education ter to one-half percent of the city’s approxi- white cane or a guide dog, a mobility-im- a job that is far more difficult than the pub- workshop, the Commission solicited pro- mately 40,000 cabbies—who persistently paired passenger with crutches or in a lic can readily imagine. posals from different potential educational violate TLC rules. And the Institute serves wheelchair, or a person with a hearing or To help eradicate these negative stereo- providers. The College, which was one of several hundred taxi and “for hire” vehicle speech impairment—and how to more ef- types we stress that drivers improve their two founding schools that developed the drivers each month with a New York State- fectively communicate with them. public image “one passenger at a time.” first required training course for new driv- certified defensive driver course tailored to In a series of role-playing exercises, the One driver said he ers in 1984, ex- the challenges of urban driving. drivers quickly get a sense of what the dis- took that advice pressed its interest abled person may face when traveling by and got a positive ETYMOLOGY IN YELLOW and made the case s we tell drivers in the course, more cab. In one scenario a driver plays a wheel- result. He noted that a single school Apeople seem to like to talk about their chair user, while another student is the that, two days after training all drivers bad experiences, so the 99.5% who are driver. As the driver carefully maneuvers the taking the course, According to most sources, the word could provide a good drivers have to become even better. chair toward a mock cab “parked” in the he encountered a "hack" probably derived from the hack- more consistent pro- We also tell them they get back what they classroom, the students observe the right passenger who ney carriage, which was a four-wheeled gram. LaGuardia give out; they should not wait for the pas- and wrong way to assist the passenger, how asked where he carriage drawn by two horses, common Community College’s senger to make the first move. This advice to fold the chair and place it in the cab or was from. “Instead in 17th-century London. ''Cab" may also Taxi Driver Institute, is for riders, too. Those who tell us they trunk, and how to reverse the procedure. of getting defen- have come down from a horse-drawn along with its Office consistently get good drivers are the ones sive, I simply an- carriage, the cabriolet, used in 18th- for Students with who seem to respect drivers and appreciate he majority of drivers agree they swered the ques- century France. The cabriolet was two- Disabilities, was the difficulty of their job. Tshould go the extra mile to make the tion. To my sur- wheeled and operated on one horse instrumental in re- The response to our work is often, we ride a bit more pleasant, but they are also prise, the passen- power. The term "taxi" is derived, less fining the course’s hope, like that of Peter Franklin, the driver encouraged to explore the negative—not to ger had a relative colorfully, from taximeter, the instru- agenda. The TLC with the Mt. Rushmore-size chip on his say insulting!—attitudes passengers typically who lived not far ment devised by Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891 was looking for an shoulder. He said after “graduating,” “I express about cab drivers. . .attitudes fre- from the small to measure automatically the distance institution with ex- saw immediately that the instructor was quently aggravated by the kinds of anti-cabby town where I grew traveled and/or time elapsed, enabling perience serving dealing with a very hostile audience, but jokes David Letterman likes to offer up. up. We shared accurate calculation of a fare. this population and I’ve got to tell you he won us over in only a Passengers, I believe, should understand some reminis- the ability to deliver few minutes.” that most drivers do not fit either of the two cences. I felt big- a highly specialized Franklin noted, too, one important added prevalent and contradictory stereotypes ger and happier curriculum effec- advantage of the TLC requirement: “The about drivers that New Yorkers love to the rest of the day. And the fact that I tively to a large audience. The Institute met main reason I’m in favor of such classes is gripe about: the crusty, heart-of-gold, received my largest tip ever was not the these criteria. they give drivers an opportunity, in a fairly “toidy-toid and toid,” cigar-chomper (be- only reason!” The Institute’s customer service course, relaxed atmosphere, to discuss the good, loved by makers of TV commercials) or the This continuing education course grew conducted through the College’s Division of the bad, and the ugly parts of taxi driving— easily lost, illiterate, dishonest, yet aggres- out of a recommendation by the TLC’s Task Adult and Continuing Education, is offered they make us feel like we’re doing a real sively insulting foreigner. The overwhelm- Force on Disabilities that all drivers par- to 400-500 drivers a month. It also offers a professional job. . .I’ve always felt like a ing majority of drivers are well-intentioned, ticipate in a workshop to accustom them to refresher course to a much smaller number professional; that course at LaGuardia hardworking men and women who are per- the needs of the disabled. After passing a of drivers—100 to 200 a year, or one-quar- proved to me that I am!”

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Concluding that college remediation comes too late for some stu- he family, friends, colleagues, and curmudgeon’s characteristically blunt advice: dents and must be extensive for those with in a striking coincidence, chose to read the admirers of former CUNY Distin- “Never underestimate the power of ego.” the greatest needs, the University has same passage at the private family funeral T guished Professor Alfred Kazin—the Leon Wieseltier, author and literary edi- service.) turned to the College Now model in a big eminent critic of American literature, of life tor at The New Republic, spoke particularly way: this last summer, plans were devel- Also among the speakers was Marybeth in New York City, and of himself—gathered eloquently of Kazin as “a man so illimitably oped to expand College Now to the five McMahon, who first encountered Kazin in a at the 92nd Street YMHA on October 24th in love with his subjects” and one who other CUNY community colleges. seminar on Herman Melville at the Gradu- to celebrate his life and accomplishments. “made enthusiasm intellectually respect- The program’s philosophy is that high ate Center and went on to become the last Kazin, who was born on June 5, 1915, died able.” Just prior to poignant closing remi- school students need (1) help in determin- of his dissertation advisees. At his death, on the same day in 1998. niscences by Kazin’s son Michael, a profes- ing whether college is a viable option, (2) McMahon was completing her doctoral Among the dozen speakers were the attor- sor of history at American University, GSUC assurance that they can improve their basic study of Willa Cather. It is particularly ap- ney Martin Garbus, who sat in on a Kazin Professor Louis Menand closed his homage skills levels to meet the needs for college- propriate that the accompanying short ex- class at City College and later became his by quoting a powerful passage from Kazin’s level success, and (3) assistance in actually cerpt adapted from her eulogy appears friend, and GSUC Professor Morris late memoir A Lifetime Burning in Every making the transition to a college campus. here, for while serving as a writer in the Dickstein, who recalled a Kazin interview Moment. Its final paragraphs are repro- To achieve the first task, College Now CUNY Chancellor’s Office she became a that aired on CUNY-TV and the sometime duced here. (Kazin’s wife, Judith Dunford, administers the CUNY Freshman Skills As- founding co-editor of CUNY•Matters. sessment Test (FSAT) in the junior year, and our counselors meet with students to dis- Of Loneliness and the Writer manages now to make his reader feel like an accomplice. He cuss the results and advise appropriate proved that whatever his withdrawals as a man, his valor as a imone Weil said that the only real question to be asked of an writer was enough—and overreaching. The mere spectator tran- course work in the senior year. Those who Sother is “What are you going through?” And another even need to improve can take non-credit devel- scended himself by plowing to the depths, in a hundred European more fiercely independent Jew: “The Kingdom of God cometh not hotels, the exceptionality of his own condition. He never read opmental courses in writing, reading, and with observation.” No, it doth not. I know this as a critic of other math, after which they can retake the FSAT. Moby-Dick, but he would have understood Ahab saying, “How can people’s books, as a tiresome moralist even to myself of other the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?” people’s habits and choices, as a spectator, merely, wandering James himself, in old age: “The starting point of my life has been tudents who pass the screening tests New York all my life in constant amazement at the number of Smay then enroll in one of five three- loneliness.” people walking briskly alone talking to themselves, glowering as –From A Lifetime Burning in Every Moment credit, freshman-level courses offered each they sit fiercely alone on park benches, fiercely adopting attitudes semester in Business Administration, Be- as they talk to make a point, then just as surely drooping away havioral and Social Sciences, Humanities, from this make-believe height as soon as the others are gone. Mass Communications, or Science. These Science, seeking confirmation, proof, objective testing and “‘Notice things. . .just notice things,’ courses, jointly created by college and high proof, cannot avail itself of this cardinal human loneliness, but school faculty, provide a rigorous interdisci- literature can. And this with language that is always failing and he practically pleaded.” plinary core curriculum that does not dupli- stumbling, breaking the writer’s nce a student timidly asked, “Professor Kazin, are we going cate any Kingsborough offerings. heart by its mere approximate- O to do an explication de texte?” Alfred didn’t pause to reflect, Each course is designed to engage stu- ness to the thing in his mind. simply bellowed, “yes, yes, we’re doing it right now—it’s called dents actively in forms of intellectual in- Besides, language is always reading a poem!” quiry of typical college freshman courses. asserting its primitive author- The offense of sloppy writing Alfred took personally, and I sus- They are taught by high school teachers ity, is a halting servant but can pect that there was no greater crime for him than somehow doing who have competed for and won adjunct be a terrible master. Science harm to the English language. Bill Potter, a truly fine student, appointment in an appropriate progresses all the time, litera- recalled how Alfred had once angrily circled a typo on the title Kingsborough department. They receive ture never. How should it “im- page of one of his papers. Next to it was written, “Potter, your special and on-going training to sharpen prove” over the centuries when lack of care makes me suffer!” their pedagogical skills and update their its very subject is the enigma, . . .There was really no such thing as being prepared for a class professional knowledge. the inaccessibility of the hu- led by Alfred Kazin. And underpreparation meant you were in seri- It should be emphasized that these man condition? The beast in ous danger of being thought not to care enough or, worse, you could classes do not replace high school degree the jungle only seems to be the cause of outrage. Once Alfred became totally frustrated by a courses. Each course is an elective “extra” threaten us, being outside in its student’s ignorance about the Book of that must be attended for 14 weeks, either “jungle.” The final act, when it Job. He picked up the Bible and hurled it before or after the regular school day. comes, will be to show us to—and, I will admit, at—the offending Two one-credit courses offered through where the failure of our expec- student. A friend reminded me of this College Now address the fact that success tation lay. The fall of man is Alfred Kazin at about the age occasion and said he would always re- in college requires a refined ability to de- only too real when it comes to of ten in the mid-1920s, with member it as classic Alfred, vividly illus- fine, set, and pursue academic goals. We ourselves. his sister Pearl. A convales- trating “literary canon as cannon.” encourage students to enroll in a pre-col- But that is a marvelous cent Kazin caught in mid-soft These were not easy moments with lege orientation course that focuses on col- fable, isn’t it, coming from a shoe by his wife Judith our uneasy professor, but they shook us Dunford in 1977, when he lege selection, collegiate remediation proce- writer virgin, who acted in life was at the Center for in ways we needed shaking. They made dures, and techniques for survival on cam- only by writing, writing, who us look twice, engage more deeply, and pus (study habits, time management, finan- Advanced Study in the had left his own country behind Behavioral Sciences in understand —sometimes profoundly un- cial planning). Another course, on choosing while hardly finding one in Stanford, California. derstand—what we didn’t and don’t a career, examines in depth the prospective England’s upper classes, who know. These were great lessons, hum- job markets for various professions and became part of England only by changing his citizenship bling and indelible. explores how college can facilitate specific when England went to war in 1914? Yet Henry James —Marybeth McMahon career paths. Our College Now participants receive a KCC photo ID that entitles them to use the first academic year: 95% of the students faster toward their degrees: by the end of hile conceptually a simple program, many campus facilities, notably the library, remained enrolled in the CUNY system, com- their junior year, they were found to have Wthis success has not been accidental. computer labs, College center, and cafete- pared to 81.6% of non-College Now stu- taken a striking 19.5 more credits than Several key factors have played a part. ria. They also earn a transcript reflecting dents. At the end of the sophomore year, non-College Now students. In a 1998 Foremost has been a strong institutional their courses, credits, and grades. the figures were 76.5% and 58.1% study, University researchers again con- and staff commitment. On the As one would expect, data also indicate firmed that alumni significantly outper- Kingsborough campus and at each high ollege Now has established a secure alumni of the program required less formed non-College Now students in both school, support “starts at the top” with the Cniche in its participating schools serv- remediation. In the freshman year they retention and graduation. The six-year hands-on support of president, principal, ing more than 60% of the senior class. It took 5.2 credits of remediation, compared graduation rate for baccalaureate students and superintendent which extends to the has been extensively evaluated since its with 7.1 for non-College Now students. was 44.6% for participants compared to directors and classroom teachers. inception, both intra- and extramurally. The This result was sustained throughout the 33.5% for non-participants. This difference Second, the quality of the teaching is data have consistently shown higher perfor- second year, during which College Now was substantially higher for College Now high. College Now goes to great lengths to mance by College Now graduates. In 1990, students earned a total of 2.8 fewer reme- associate degree students, whose six-year insure adherence to the most advanced and CUNY researchers reported, for example, dial credits. graduation rate was 41.7%, compared to rigorous standards, notably by employing these higher persistence rates at the end of Our students also appear to progress 29.2% for non-participants. Continued on next page

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HUNTER’S MILLENNIUM LECTURER Secretary Shalala pare the leaders of the next millennium to embracing one of many use knowledge as a guide, not a substitute, A Look Back to the Future CUNY friends from her for judgment and morality. How, for ex- years as Hunter ample, do we make sure that our science President, Senior Vice never gets ahead of our ethics . . .or that From Health Secretary Shalala Chancellor Emeritus Julius C.C. Edelstein, our belief in progress never gets ahead of just before delivering our belief in good citizenship? he U.S. Secretary of Health and Human the Millennium Address. The problem is not intellectual advance- TServices Donna E. Shalala returned Photo, Saul Robbins ment. No one believes in supporting re- to Hunter College, where she was President search and discovery—the creation of from 1980 to 1987, to deliver the annual Mil- study of Tolstoy, with its big-idea Hedge- knowledge—more than I do. I have long lennium Lecture on October 15. hog and many-idea Fox, Shalala turned advocated greater scientific literacy for all She begin amusingly with a précis of her to these remarks. Americans. In particular, we need a Con- life since arriving in Washington: “When you h gress literate in science. Still, all knowl- become a Cabinet Secretary, you’re suddenly give ordinary Americans greater control edge and discovery must be tempered with being driven around in a big ugly car that gets You may recall a line from Tennyson’s poem over our nation’s future than even Tolstoy human values, restraint, tolerance, honest, lousy gas mileage. Your every waking hour is Ulysses: “Come, my friends, ‘tis not too late could have imagined. and plain decency. scheduled by people young enough to be your to seek a newer world.” It’s the perfect line What does this kind of change imply for This Leo Tolstoy believed to the bone, children. Every decision wins you new for today because that is what the next mil- great universities like Hunter? In 1980 I and so do I. After all, we’re only three friends—and costs you an equal number of lennium must really be about—seeking a said, “Hunter must be uniquely sensitive to years away from 2001. . .the year another old ones. The press wants your opinion on newer world. the world it is part of. That implies predict- author, Arthur C. Clarke, turned into a every conceivable matter, whether you know No matter how far we’ve come, what we ing change and responding to it in such a metaphor for technology run amuck. That anything about the subject or not...And most take on faith today has a way of fading into way that we are enriched, rather than im- must not be our destiny. And it won’t be if important: if you’re not careful, you can fall memory tomorrow. To take just one whim- poverished, by whatever the future holds.” we make the next millennium a shining mo- into the dangerous habit of looking down at sical example, music that was considered That is even truer today. The primary re- ment of morality and service to humanity. your feet and thinking, ‘Hmmmm, I have pretty cutting-edge around the time I gave my in- sponsibility of Hunter is to prepare its stu- I want to return one last time to my big shoes to fill.’” augural address at Hunter in 1980 might dents to face change—and make change— 1980 inaugural address. I said then, “I This led Shalala to recall the shoes she was today be used to sell mini-vans or retire- in the next century. look at a profile of our students and am filling, for the preceding Millennium Lecturer ment cruises. reminded that Hunter is New York.” Well, had been Bella Abzug, who died last year: The important question is: What will go h two decades later I can say, Hunter is “Bella not only had the heart of a New Yorker, from revolutionary to routine—and from more than New York. Hunter is America, she had a New York-size heart. Big, coura- unimaginable to indispensable—in the 21st Frankly, increasing the knowledge base and America at the millennium: multi-cultural, geous, salty, and brimming with wit and wis- century? I’m no Nostradamus, but this adaptability of students is not the biggest pro-women, inspired, robust, intellectually dom. She was a Hunter alum and proud of it.” much seems certain: changes in communi- challenge facing universities—or our nation curious. Leading, changing, ascending. After speaking of Isaiah Berlin's famed cation, technology, and life expectancy will as a whole. The bigger challenge is to pre- Striving to do right. Doing right . . .

College Now, continued from previous page sus is necessary to resolve the countless schools this spring. This will increase coordinators (usually senior professors) issues involved in implementing a program the number of City high schools with this Board of Trustees from appropriate College departments who that students have made clear they want free program to 51, more than double the continually monitor the curriculum, text- of charge and on the high school site. current number. If all goes well, every The City University books, and support materials. They also Here, the spirit of accommodation is vital. public high school student may soon be conduct the hiring and training of faculty. Principals must give College Now recruiters able to take classes like those taught by of New York permission to visit classes, just as the Uni- College Now behavioral and social sci- Once in place, these teachers earn the sal- Anne A. Paolucci versity must allow the FSAT to be adminis- ary of CUNY adjuncts and regularly attend ences instructor Jeffrey Ladman. Chairwoman developmental workshops. tered by University staff at times convenient Ladman has worked in the program for Herman Badillo A third factor is, simply, that College and to the high schools. The scheduling of class 11 years, first at George Wingate High Vice-Chairman high school partners share the same goal: meetings around the regular curriculum, School and now at Kingsborough High Satish K. Babbar facilitating collegiate success. Such consen- obviously, requires much give-and-take. School. Echoing the College Now philoso- John J. Calandra And, finally, the College’s, phy that kindergarten through college Kenneth Cook University’s, and Board of should be a minimal requirement, he be- Michael C. Crimmins Education’s leaders must col- lieves the program should be replicated Alfred B. Curtis, Jr. laborate vigorously every everywhere because of “its unique ability to Edith B. Everett year to assure government straddle the very different worlds of school Ronald J. Marino funding of College Now. and college.” John Morning Each of the five new Col- He says his students “benefit from James P. Murphy lege Now sites will begin having the security of a familiar class- Kathleen M. Pesile start-up programs at high room and instructor blended with the George J. Rios higher expectations and academic rigor Nilda Soto Ruiz of college classwork.” Then Ladman Richard B. Stone Jeffrey Ladman with students in his adds, “And I get a chance to teach a sub- Bernard Sohmer College Now behavioral and social ject I love to students willing to put forth Chairperson, University Faculty Senate science class at Kingsborough High the extra effort necessary to participate Mizanoor Biswas

School. Photo, Randy Fader-Smith. in College Now.” Chairperson, University Student Senate

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

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