cuny.edu/news • C ITY U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK FOUNDED 1847 • March 2003 Chancellor Proposes New Academic Initiatives

t the core of any college n a keynote speech to the Center for Underscoring the strides or university is a Educational Innovation — Public made in the last three years, Education Association at the Harvard when freshmen enrollment vigorous, productive I A Club, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein set increased 10.5% as higher and committed faculty. As forth an ambitious array of proposals for admissions standards were the City University works to enhancing both City University academic implemented, Goldstein strengthen its faculty amid offerings and financial support, while noted that “the University economically difficult times, meeting new fiscal challenges and build- now systematically reaches ing on past successes. into high school,” notably CUNY Matters spotlights “Our challenge now is to maintain with the College Now pro- throughout this issue several momentum — and it’s a very big gram and competitive high remarkable examples of challenge,” said Goldstein to a large schools sited on several our faculty in innovative, audience of educators, business, civic, CUNY campuses. This, and community leaders. “The City and Goldstein said, “gives students inspiring and award-winning State of New York are facing the most a running jump to clear the action. Three of them are serious financial crisis in recent memory.” University’s higher academic featured below. Among the proposals were: bar.” College Now, which per- • Strengthening CUNY’s academic mits high school seniors to environment by renewing and rebuild- take college courses, has almost Biomedical Program ing full time faculty. quadrupled its enrollment, Opens Research Horizon from 11,000 students in 1999 • Indexing tuition to economic indicators to 40,000 in 2002. 1for Minorities in Bronx while protecting financial aid to help “Prospective CUNY stu- John Davis and the University and its students plan dents are well aware that we his colleagues intelligently to meet the costs of higher now expect more from them,” at Bronx education. Goldstein said. “They also Community • Integrating University-wide resources to know we have more to give.” College have create new schools of journalism and He cited the Honors College, Lehman College, seen above, is collaborating with Hostos worked with professional studies, a new scientific now entering its third year, as and Bronx Community Colleges to coordinate purchasing, nearly 300 research facility and a computer simula- an example: This year 2,500 human resources administration, and contracting functions students like tion center on Governors Island. applied for admission to its in the Bronx. The resulting savings are being redirected to Balori Paulino • Centralizing administrative functions 340 spots, compared to 1,400 these colleges’ core businesses of teaching and learning. to nurture such as purchasing, contracting and last year. He noted also that A similar collaboration has been established between careers in research under the human resources, while generating rev- the average SAT score for suc- Queens College and the CUNY Law School. Minorities Biomedical Research enue through entrepreneurial activities cessful applicants was 1340. Program. See page 10. and fund-raising. The Chancellor invoked both the old with the New York City Central Labor and the new in speaking of the Univer- Council, which helps tailor CUNY pro- Hunter Anthropologist • Leveraging capital funds by working, sity’s relationships with the private sector. grams for working students.” Goldstein Returns to South Africa where appropriate, with private Referring to a long-standing collaboration, developers to create mixed academic- he pointed to CUNY’s “close relationship 2to Fight Against AIDS commercial facilities. Continued on page 9 Anthropologist Ida Susser, also based at the Graduate Center, has Highlights from Analysis of State, City Budgets won several n January 30, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein present- Preliminary Budget for fiscal year 2003 rises by $1.3 million awards and ed a preliminary analysis of the 2003-2004 proposed because of pension costs, but the fiscal year 2004 budget major grants, O State and City budgets to the Board of Trustees and recommends a net decrease of $5.6 million, mainly with the notably a college presidents. As widely expected, the proposed budgets loss of $5.5 million in funding for Vallone Scholarships. City MacArthur, to call for reduced funding in several areas. On February 11, the support remains the same as last year, at $124 million. continue her studies of women and Chancellor testified in Albany on the impact of the State Capital Budget. The State’s capital budget calls for a total AIDS in Namibia and Botswana. Budget before a joint hearing of the Senate Finance Committee multi-year capital investment program of $1.03 billion for See page 6. and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. CUNY. Reappropriation of $172 million for prior years’ fund- Senior Colleges. For the University’s senior colleges, the State ing, not yet bonded, brings the capital budget to a total of City College Physicist Executive Budget recommends a total of $1.12 billion, an increase $1.203 billion.When the City matches State support for the Applies String Theory of $31 million over the current year. However, this figure includes community colleges and Medgar Evers College, the total five- 3to Mysteries of Universe a reduction in State aid from $663 million to $581 million year capital plan will reach a record sum of $1.328 billion. As the University proceeds with initiatives to monetize the real Appointed (a decrease of more than 12%) and a proposed rise in revenue estate values of its portfolio through public-private collabora- also to the from student tuition, from $392 million to $505 million (a rise of tion (realizing the entire construction costs of some projects), Graduate nearly 29%). The Executive Budget also proposes a $7.3 million the total five-year capital plan increases to $1.58 billion. Center, Michio decrease in SEEK student financial aid and a $1 million decrease Financial Aid. The Executive Budget allocates $568 million Kaku is apply- in funding for new faculty. for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP). It also recommends ing “string The Executive Budget also recommends amending the State significant restructuring of TAP, notably separating TAP awards theory” to the Education Law to allow the University to impose differential into two components — a “base” award equal to two-thirds of study of the tuition rates for graduate and professional programs. The the current award and a “performance” award of one-third, universe, Budget will also permit the University’s Board of Trustees payable upon attainment of a degree. Students will be expected hoping to unite to adopt annual incremental adjustments to tuition. to finance study prior to receiving the performance award relativity and quantum theories, Community Colleges. State funding for CUNY’s community through Federal loan programs, to be administered by the a goal that eluded Albert Einstein. colleges will be subjected to a $23 million reduction (nearly Higher Education Services Corporation. See page 10. 18%) in several areas (enrollment calculations are being reviewed by the State, which may decrease the size of this For an array of budget data, testimony, and analysis visit reduction). Child care funding remains unchanged. The City’s www.cuny.edu and click on News or CUNY Budget Watch. Emcee for Economic Development & CCNY Alumnus

Adapted and expanded here is a story from mentary and high school education,” neering profes- in giving something a new second-season edition of “Study With Catell recalls, “and I was fortunate to be sors impressed back. Everything I The Best,” a regularly scheduled 30- minute able to get into City College. That educa- on me the have achieved has TV news magazine highlighting CUNY’s tional foundation was really what gave me importance of been due to a won- wide array of outstanding faculty, remark- the ability to achieve what I have in the working hard derful education, and able students and alumni, and major business world.” and learning the I think young people University academic initiatives. The lively, Catell’s experience at a public college fundamentals, today should have the fast-paced series (CUNY-TV clearly gave him a taste for which really same resources I had. Channel 75, Sundays at 8) is vigorous and wide-ranging provided the It’s a more complicat- aimed particularly at prospec- public service. He is not only basis for every- ed, more competitive tive CUNY students in local the former chairman of the thing I accom- world today, so it’s high schools. New York City Partnership plished later on probably even more and Chamber of Commerce, in my career.” important for them.” but is now chairman of the Catell adds, Summing up, f you live in Brooklyn, Business Council of New “From a business Robert Catell, KeySpan Chairman and CEO Catell alludes to the Queens or Staten Island, York State. He has also served standpoint, it’s post-Enron crisis of Iyou’re doubtlessly famil- as a director of the NYC Investment Fund really important to support City College confidence in corporate America: “I think iar with the KeySpan Corporation. and is a founding member of the NYC and the City University, because this is the most important message I would con- The company is the largest distributor of Public Private Partnership. the major educational institution in which vey to young people entering college natural gas in the Northeast, serving 2.5 Catell received his our city’s young peo- today is that there are many, many more million customers in those boroughs, on bachelor’s and master’s ple can get the kind people in the business community who do Long Island, in Massachusetts and New degrees in mechanical “From a business standpoint, of education that I have integrity, high ethical standards and Hampshire. Robert Catell is the chairman engineering from City it’s really important to support think will be essential values. That has made them successful. and chief executive officer of KeySpan, to their future. If we And I attribute much of my success to College. How did he get City College and the City formerly Brooklyn Union. In addition, from City to the top of alumni can be helpful having those attributes.” Catell’s enormous palette of extracorpo- the corporate ladder? University, because this in moving them for- Assuming his own strong commitment rate activities could well qualify him as a Catell stresses the is the major educational ward, then I for one to education prevails, Catell admits to master of ceremonies for economic devel- importance of his edu- am very grateful to be optimism. “I am a person who looks at the opment in New York City. cation at CUNY. institution in which our city’s a part of the effort.” glass as half full. I see young people who He is also one of the most active and The City University’s young people can get the kind Public education are growing up today and the educational supportive CUNY alumni. As the Class of recent initiatives to raise of education that I think will and community serv- opportunities we afford them, and I think 1958 yearbook Microcosm shows, Catell academic standards ice has been a theme that’s going to be the answer. I think fine- was in the same City College class as accords with Catell’s be essential to their future.” of Catell’s tenure at ly educated graduates who can contribute Secretary of State Colin Powell, and he CCNY experience. “I — Robert Catell KeySpan. “Much of to society are the future of this country joined Brooklyn Union the same year he remember it as a very what Brooklyn — and the world.” If we keep our eye on received his Bachelor’s in Mechanical demanding place to go Union, then KeySpan, this particular prize, Catell (the father of Engineering. He subsequently earned an to school. They had very high standards,” has been able to achieve is due to the fact five) predicts, the city will be “a wonder- M.M.E. at CCNY as well. “A Brooklyn he recalls. “I had to work really hard to that we get a lot of support from the ful place for my grandchildren to grow kid, I had the benefit of an excellent ele- achieve my goals. A number of my engi- community we serve. So we truly believe up in.”

FROM THE CHANCELLOR’S DESK Spreading the Knowledge about Paying for College n New York State and across the University sponsored free financial aid site on the CUNY home page career services offices at specific colleges, nation, we are facing the most serious seminars in every borough, open to the (www.cuny.edu) where current and opportunities for employment as a poll- Ifinancial crisis in recent memory. public (including students deciding prospective students can obtain a worker in City elections, valuable intern- During this time of whether to apply to college). comprehensive description of jobs and ship programs such as the Edward T. personal and collec- Current and prospective internships available at individual campus- Rogowsky Internship Program in tive belt-tightening, students were able to learn es and elsewhere in the University. Government and Public Affairs, and serv- it is more important about and take advantage of The web site will feature links to ices for students with disabilities. than ever to ensure the wide range of city, state, information on State Department of I urge students enrolled at one of our continued access to federal and private financial Labor offices throughout the City, colleges, or just interested in pursuing a top-quality higher assistance programs and College Work-Study, and CUNY job fairs higher education opportunities, to find education. Colleges scholarships available to them. (including the CUNY Big Apple Job Fair, out what programs and opportunities are and universities offer Parents and students and on-campus Career Days). Students available. The time and effort they invest opportunities for obtained advice and assistance will be able to access information on can pay valuable dividends in meeting the education, job training from experts in the CUNY programs for public assistance recipients, cost of a college education. and retraining that Office of Financial Aid, on make students com- topics ranging from completing petitive. In return, financial aid applications to Board of Trustees students become monitoring the status of their The City University of New York Chancellor wage-earners and taxpayers who application after submission. Many semi- Matthew Goldstein contribute to the economic vitality of our nars were offered in Spanish, Chinese and Benno C. Schmidt Jr. Vice Chairman Vice Chancellor for communities. Russian, in addition to English. Students University Relations We in the City University are more unable to attend who would like further Jay Hershenson committed than ever to help our current information may visit the CUNY web Valerie L. Beal Randy M. University Director of and prospective students find out how site at www.cuny.edu/financialaid or call Mastro Media Relations Michael Arena they can afford to pay for college. 1-800-CUNY-YES. John S. Bonnici Hugo M. Morales Editor: Gary Schmidgall Financial aid and student jobs are two key Student employment is another impor- John J. Calandra Kathleen M. Pesile Writers: Drew Fetherston, Rita Rodin resources for students and families who tant strategy in paying for college tuition. Wellington Z. Chen Carol Robles-Román Photographer: André Beckles Kenneth Cook Nilda Soto Ruiz are seeking to meet the costs of a college CUNY is putting technology to work as Graphic Design: Gotham Design Alfred B. Curtis, Jr. Marc V. Shaw education. part of our ongoing effort to alert our Joseph J. Lhota Jeffrey Wiesenfeld Articles in this and previous issues are available February was Financial Aid Awareness students about employment opportuni- at cuny.edu/cunymatters. Letters or suggestions ’ for future stories may be sent to the Editor by email to Month at the campuses of the City ties. As the centerpiece of this effort, we Shamsul Haque Susan Gushee OMalley [email protected]. Changes of address Chairperson, Chairperson, should be made through your campus personnel office. University. Throughout the month, the are establishing a central, one-stop web Student Senate Faculty Senate

2 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 April–the Kindest Month for City Poetry Lovers

.S. Eliot famously observed in the pride of poetic lions at a festive reading at opening line of The Waste Land the Bowery Poetry Club on April 1 (308 REBUILDING that “April is the cruellest month,” Bowery). The nine CUNY poets who T God but in 2003 this month is shaping up to have promised to read their poems are be extraordinarily kind, at Julie Agoos (Brooklyn College), make a green path least for New Yorkers Louis Asekoff (Brooklyn), Elena through the debris of memories who are into metaphors Georgiu (Hunter), Isaac that pulls the blanket over my head and similes, vers libre and Goldemberg (Hostos), Kimiko every night after. villanelles, caesuras and Hahn (Queens), Donna Masini slant rhymes. April, after (Hunter), Grace Schulman Resoften all, is National Poetry (Baruch), Tracy Smith (Medgar my pillow Month. Evers), and Barry Wallenstein that now feels like it’s filled with cinder blocks. Poets and poems will (City). Given the day, with any be as ubiquitous as the luck the audience will hear some Let me taste yellow and white daffodils of spring, to poems on the theme announced by the sweetness of butter pecan ice cream judge from plans being made by Shakespeare’s Puck: “Lord, what fools Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic these mortals be!” on my tongue Affairs Louise Mirrer and her colleagues Later in the month, a unique special while enjoying the South Street Seaport. as part of the year-long CUNY is event will capture the poetical attention Reading… initiative. It was kicked off in of the entire city, “A Poem in Your Let me help to make New York’s heart start pumping again. the fall with a reading by the nation’s — Pocket.” The idea for this city-wide initia- of April will not be settled and CUNY’s — Poet Laureate Billy tive, in which Mayor Michael Bloomberg — Amnah Bashier, P.S.11, 5th grade for long, either. On May 13 Collins at Grace Rainey Rogers auditori- has agreed to be a leading participant, was From Poetry in Performance 30 comes the 31st annual um in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. sparked last fall when, in an October Spring Poetry Festival at The choice of literary genre for the review of Nine Horses, Billy Collins’s lat- City College, masterminded inaugural year of “CUNY is Reading…” est collection, in the New York Times, by CCNY’s panjandrum of was auspicious, for poetry has been on an Mary Jo Salter remarked that “Thousands bags or briefcases, a poem that carries spe- cial meaning or gives unique pleasure for poetry, Barry Wallenstein. Seen here is the extraordinary roll lately. Def Poetry Jam of Americans are walking around right cover of Poetry in Performance, which con- enjoyed a rousing premiere on Broadway, now with Billy Collins poems in their them. They will then be asked, at some time during the day, to take it out and share tains a hefty 225 pages of poems per- pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly prom- heads.” Planners in the CUNY Office of formed at last year’s gala ised the venerable journal Poetry $100 Academic Affairs wondered: Why not put it with another — someone in the office, 30th-anniversary Festival million, and the poet Dana Gioia was those poems in our pockets, so that we by public school students recently tapped by the President to be the can take them out and read them to in the home, on a school playground, from ages 6 to 18, CUNY new Chair of the National Endowment someone with whom we want to share a students, faculty and alum- for the Arts. special moment? perhaps a stranger on the street or in the ni, and Featured Guests Seeking to emphasize the importance Why not take the advice of John Marilyn Hacker and Philip of poetry in the life of the city, “CUNY is Adams, who wrote in 1781 to his 14-year- subway. You might get lucky and hear the Levine. Lest there be Reading…” will say goodbye to March old son John Quincy, “You will never be doubt about the keen with a alone, with a Poet in your Pocket. You Mayor recite his poem on his subway com- interest in poetry in the will never have an idle Hour.” city, there were 3,000 And why not expand the possibilities mute to City Hall. When word of “A entries in the competition to all poets writing now or who have to be chosen to read at the ever written? After all, there is the same Poem in Your Pocket” began to spread, the Festival’s full day of poetry breadth of choice in Poet Laureate reading. Collins’s Library of Congress “Poetry City’s Department of Education eagerly For more information 180” web site, which offers a new poem on the April 1 reading, for every day of the school year. joined the initiative with plans for formal contact Brenda Vercesi, Inspired by Collins’s assertion that 212-794- 5481; for more “poetry belongs to everybody,” the City participation by students in the public information on CCNY’s University community of poets and Spring Poetry Festival, schools. Kimiko Hahn will be among the poetry-lovers will join Mayor Bloomberg contact Prof. Wallenstein, All the iambs, participants in the April 1 reading on April 14 to encourage New Yorkers 212-650-6343. to carry in their pockets or purses, book trochees, and dactyls at the Bowery Poetry Club.

SHARKS AT THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM A Spanish Crossroads at 34th and Fifth Suddenly drawn through the thick glass plate ecently, Lia Schwartz came upon a remarkable acronym in a leading scholarly journal: LOTS. And swimming among them, I imagine R It stood for Languages Other Than Spanish, and it signaled to the Distinguished Professor Myself as, briefly, part of the pattern of Spanish and Comparative Literature how much the linguistic landscape has changed since Traced in the water as they circulate she arrived in the U.S. more than 30 years ago from her native Argentina. “Things have Incessantly obeying the few laws changed radically from that time,” she said on a recent afternoon in her office in the Graduate Center. “Then French was strong, and Hispanic was just beginning to move.” That thread the needle of their simple lives: Now, she says, “Everybody wants to study Spanish,” the language spoken by 400 million souls around the world. One moment in a cabinet of knives, “Interest in the language is growing all over the world. In the United States, in addition, we have this tremendous Old-fashioned razors and electric saws. number of people who come from Hispanic backgrounds.” All of which means that Schwartz, the executive officer of And then the sudden, steep, sidewinding pass: CUNY’s Ph.D. Program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures, is riding the crest of an academic and social wave. No sound at all. The waters turning pink, She joined CUNY in 2000, after 11 years at Dartmouth University, where she held an endowed chair and was Then rose, then red, after a long while clear. chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Before that, she taught Spanish literature at Fordham University; and she has also been a visiting professor at Princeton University. And here I am again, outside the tank, One measure of the growing interest in Spanish and Portuguese studies of both the Old World and the New is to Uneasily wrapped in our atmosphere! be found on the shelves in Schwartz’s office. There are about 200 bound theses there, the output of the doctoral pro- Children almost never tap on the glass. gram since 1972. At the moment, there are about 80 candidates in the program, enough to fill several new shelves. Schwartz hopes to expand and deepen the program in important ways. She wants to make it truly international, — Charles Martin,Queensborough with strong contacts in the countries where the literature and language are Spanish. “I want to make a department Community College. From his Starting that is a real crossroads for international studies,” she declares. from Sleep (2002).

CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 3 Business Leadership Council Looks to the Future he business of education and the effects of a weak economy and fiscal education of business was on the crises at the state and city level. The prin- T agenda when CUNY’s Business cipal focus, however, was on opportunities Leadership Council met on January 15. for campus-driven economic development The Council, established by Chancellor in the metropolitan area. Among the ideas Matthew Goldstein, brings together cap- considered was the establishment of tains of commerce and top executives of campus training programs to help private- the University. sector managers work with diverse work- Under discussion were the possible forces, the development of a database to help firms tap into CUNY’s richly diverse student body, and the creation of corpo- rate internships for soon-to-be-graduating Honors College students. Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Louise Mirrer noted that some such internships have already been set up, adding that CUNY might also provide focus groups from the student body to assist the private sector in evaluating new products and marketing campaigns. Vice Chancellor for Facilities, Construction and Planning Emma Macari addressed the possibilities of public- private development on sites in the University’s real estate portfolio. The Council’s committee on business incubators also reported progress in set- Above left: Chair of the Council Seymour ting up space for new businesses at three Sternberg, chairman & CEO, NY Life community colleges — Borough of Insurance, left, and Robert Catell, chairman & Manhattan, Hostos, and LaGuardia. CEO of KeySpan. Business members of the Council are working to assist in identifying worthy Above: Janet Bramwell Norman, of Bedford companies for the incubators, and are Street Ventures and Joseph Grano, Jr., chair- establishing a network of experts to advise man & CEO of UBS PaineWebber. and guide these start-up ventures. At left: Richard Silverman, left, vice chairman Chancellor Goldstein indicated the of Fleet Bank and Bert Mitchell,chair and next Council meeting would focus on the founder of Mitchell & Titus. development of Governors Island. Business Leaders with CUNY Degrees Rank First in Standard and Poor’s

he City University continues to be degrees who now hold business leadership utives listed in the Register did not specify politan area: Frank Borelli, Senior VP, the leading producer of undergrad- posts. This compares with totals of 724 their CUNY alma mater. CFO and Director at Marsh & McLennan; Tuates whose success in business has for Harvard, 667 for Yale, 560 for The most striking revelation of the analy- Leonard Yablon, Executive VP and CFO brought them into the executive suites of Princeton, and 490 for Stanford. sis, in terms of local economic impact, is the at Forbes Inc.; Roseanne Klein, VP and the nation’s major corporations. In addition to the 917 CUNY under- fact that, though they have risen high, these Chief Counsel at TIAA-CREF; William A recent analysis of the October 2002 graduate alumni, there are 170 holders of CUNY grads have not traveled far. An over- Feraudo, Executive VP at Keyspan; Karen Standard and Poor’s Register of CUNY graduate degrees listed in Standard whelming majority of them — 71% — can Figilis, West Coast Manager at Condé Corporations, Executives and Directors, and Poor’s. Among this cohort are 72 be found in corporate headquarters in the Nast; Donald Marron, Chairman at UBS which is published quarterly, has revealed “two-fers”— executives who earned both tri-state area. Almost half of them work in PaineWebber Inc.; Matthew Blank, that well over 1,000 CUNY graduates their undergraduate and graduate degrees the five boroughs or Nassau and Suffolk Chairman and CEO at Showtime; currently hold top-level corporate posi- at colleges within the University. The most Counties. Thirty-one percent are located in Richard Kassar, COO at Chock Full tions, including numerous CEO’s, COO’s, productive campus has been City College Manhattan. Their contribution to the work- O’Nuts Corp.; Linda Livornese, Managing Chairmen, Presidents, CFO’s, Senior and (276 undergraduates; 30 graduates; 16 force and the tax base is direct and very Director at N.Y. Life Investment Mgt. Co.; Executive and Group Vice Presidents, two-fers), followed by Brooklyn College strong within close proximity to the city. Richard Randall, CFO at Coach, Inc. Directors, Treasurers, and Controllers. (206; 18; 6), Baruch College (138; 84; 34), A tiny sampling gives a sense of the And oh yes, Arnold Kaufman, VP and Ranking first in the nation, CUNY Queens College (129; 5; 3), and Hunter influence CUNY graduates have on the Publisher (of Outlook) at Standard and Poor’s. boasts 917 holders of undergraduate College (62; 4; 4). About 10% of the exec- business and corporate life in the metro-

Physics Up Close and Personal – From a Distance nexpectedly asked to take over a SUNY-Stony Brook physics class of 70 upperclass- interferometry, Fabry Perot interferometry, Professor David Umen, David Lieberman almost instantly learned something: “teaching is fun.” The an experiment on polarization, and one on Lieberman. Photo, Queensborough Community College professor of physics was a mere 20 years old when electro-optic modulation. Work is in progress Christopher Novela. he experienced that pedagogical epiphany. Since then, he has achieved renown for mak- on optical time domain reflectometry. ing sure the fun rolls on even when teacher and students are not in the same room. Lieberman particularly enjoys the reward of teaching communi- Students from anywhere in the world are now able to conduct experiments in laser and ty college students. “It is a wonderful thing to be able to teach fiber-optic technology through remote control, thanks to Lieberman’s pioneering develop- Physics 201 to students who don’t think they have a chance to succeed,” he says, adding ment of virtual and distance learning laboratories. His expertise in the field has garnered more that success in physics also gives students “tremendous self-confidence.” than $800,000 in National Science Foundation grants for the College, one for “Advanced The QCC Laser and Fiber Optics program, with $1 million in state-of-the-art Technological Education” and three for “Improvements in Laboratory Instrumentation.” equipment at the students’ disposal, prepares graduates for jobs in such diverse The Queensborough physics department is now nationally recognized as a pioneer in industries as telecommunications, computer networking, laser manufacturing, medical distance laboratory instruction, which allows students to perform experiments from technology, aerospace, and optics manufacturing. Each course includes a laboratory remote sites. Students from all over the world also have access to the College’s labs. In component in which students, in small groups, learn to build and operate optical remote experiments, apparatus is controlled and data are collected and interpreted via instruments, lasers, and fiber-optic networks. Lieberman and his colleagues also reach phone-linked computers. Among experiments already in operation are Michaelson out to local high schools with a Laser Academy.

4 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 MATTERS IN BRIEF

University Counsel LaGuardia CC Honored by PILA Governors Island: Signs on for rederick P. Schaffer, CUNY general Sign Language Fcounsel and vice chancellor for legal affairs, will receive the Public Interest In a New York State of Mind aGuardia Community College recently Achievement Award given by the Public “Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have shared with me their vision of L arrived at an articulation agreement Interest Law Association (PILA) at the a Governors Island dedicated to public and civic purposes. New York’s with SUNY/Empire State to establish the Association’s 10th annual auction, to be stewardship of the island, combined with the National Park Service’s tri-state area’s first-ever Bachelor of Arts held March 6 at management of the National Monument, will lead to development of an in Cultural Studies ASL/English Inter- Baruch College. outstanding resource for the people of New York.” pretation. The award The program will train those already honors Schaffer ith those words, spoken on January 31, President George W. Bush formal- fluent in ASL who desire to gain expertise for his “commit- ly returned the 172-acre island — for about 200 years accessible only to in the art and science of interpretation, ment to public Wmilitary or government personnel — to the public domain. In addition to filling a long-standing need. Jo Ann service and the the 22-acre National Kranis, project director of LaGuardia’s CUNY communi- Monument, notably includ- nationally recognized Interpreter ty.” Prior recipi- ing Castle Williams and Fort Education Program, observes that “the ents include for- Jay, Mayor Bloomberg said city’s large deaf community has had to mer Mayor David in his acceptance remarks in deal with a shortage of qualified inter- Dinkins and Ira the Oval Office that there preters for too long.” Glasser, former would be about “40 acres Kranis adds, “Since legislation has codi- executive director of the ACLU. Schaffer of public parkland with fied the rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing was elected a year ago to a two-year term spectacular views of the city, people to qualified interpreters, and deaf as chairman of the Legal Aid Society. He the Statue of Liberty, and people have moved into all fields of endeav- is a former chief litigating assistant corpo- the harbor.” or, the demands for more highly educated ration counsel of New York City and a But the Mayor’s main interpreters has increased exponentially.” former partner of the law firm of Schulte emphasis was on the educa- And the field is also becoming more Roth & Zabel LLP. tional future of the island, in and more sophisticated. The field is CUNY’s PILA, based at the School of which the City University recognizing, and research shows, that Law at Queens College, is a chapter of will play a major role. “Presi- interpreters “need to have a keen under- Governor Pataki and President Bush make official the Equal Justice Works, a national group dent Bush…has changed the standing of interpretation theory and the turnover of Governors Island to New York State. founded in 1986 by law students “dedicat- future of our city’s youth. cultural and linguistic dynamics between ed to surmounting barriers to equal jus- Our plan will include turning English and ASL,” says Kranis. tice that affect millions of low-income Governors Island into a thriving campus, a place where our city’s youth can study Students wishing to gain entry into the individuals and families.” the sciences or the arts in an environment usually out of reach to them.” program must pass a rigorous admission Underscoring the significance of education in Governors Island’s future, process. At LaGuardia, their 37-credit Governor Pataki said, “With our City University, one of the finest urban systems concentration will consist of courses in ASL Schomburg Trove in the nation, we will train the next generation of teachers for the 21st century. discourse, how languages function, personal This will be the nation’s premier urban teacher-training center,” he predicted. and professional ethics, and five levels of Honors Hostos Teacher Under the terms of transfer, responsibility for developing and managing the interpreting theory and practice. This will nglish professor Vermell Blanding, island will lie in a new State-City public entity, the Governors Island Preservation be followed by fieldwork internships. Ea specialist in reading at Hostos and Education Corporation (GIPEC). The initial chair of its 12-member board will Planning for the program and creation Community College, has good reason to be N.Y. Secretary of State Randy Daniels; the vice chair will be Daniel Doctoroff, of a state-of-the-art, 12-station interpret- smile when the NYPL’s Schomburg N.Y. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. ing lab has taken eight years, this gestation Center for Research in Black Culture is In addition to a core educational mission, the economic viability of Governors period being supported by nearly $1 mentioned. This fall John Scarry, her Island will involve a mix of public-benefit uses. These may include entertainment, million from the U.S. and N.Y. Depart- colleague of more than 25 years, donated cultural and arts facilities, hospitality venues such as hotels, conference and banquet ments of Education. to the Harlem research facility in her centers, and an array of retail, service, dining, or health care facilities. honor several remarkable items associated It is expected that limited sponsored tours and special events on the island will with giants of 20th-century African- begin this summer. Greater access will follow the next summer; ultimately, ferry Then (as seen American literature — James Baldwin, service will provide regular access. here) he cycled Lorraine Hansberry, and Langston Hughes. through the lava Notable among these treasures new to fields of the big the Center’s holdings was an autographed Hawaiian island copy of Baldwin’s Just Above My Head,a Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry), a rare arti- in weather that postcard obtained in Austria of cle by Hughes that appeared in Woman’s Lehman Provost – reached into the Home Companion in 1934, and an auto- and Ironman 90s. Then came the graphed program for a production of marathon. Garro’s f your notion of recreation doesn’t Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie. times (1:22, 6:34, extend to 2.4-mile swims, 112-mile Particularly striking are some publicity I 5:17) gave him a bike rides, and 26-mile marathons—all on stills for Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, top-10 the same day—hanging out with Anthony the first play by an African American showing Garro would not be a good idea. The produced on Broadway. The one seen of the 40 Lehman College microbiologist, who is here carries the autographs of two mem- early- also the College’s provost, has been bers of the memorable first cast, Claudia sixtyish competing as a triathlete for 20 years, McNeil, top, and Ruby Dee. com- and last fall he faced one of the ultimate Professor Scarry, whose specialty is petitors. James Joyce and Irish literature, is also a challenges in extreme sport, the Ironman particular admirer of Baldwin, always World Triathlon Championships. Triathlete including him in his syllabus. Of his Having made the cut in his age group Garro esteemed colleague, Scarry says: “I have (60-64) at a preliminary competition at learned much from Vermell Blanding, Lake Placid, Garro headed for the and this is my way of thanking her for October 19 final round at Kona, on sharing her deep understanding of the Hawaii’s big island. Gorra faced a swim African-American experience. By course that, according to observers, was extension, my donation is also a trib- made the toughest in the Ironman’s 25- ute to the other black faculty at year history by torrential rain and wave Hostos who have been so helpful to swells. “The swells were so high that with me over so many years.” every stroke you took, you faced a wall of water,” he recalls.

CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 5 Ramzi Khuri, A Cornucopia Baruch College/ Graduate Center Mayor’s Award for of Faculty Excellence in Science Honors and Technology Engineering the Talent cells that live in bone, osteocytes, sense A good number of those are Asian Leslie Lewis, and Awards when a bone is being subjected to strain,” women from cultures where, Weinbaum York College/Graduate Center Weinbaum explains. said, “women’s liberation has not been NIH Research Grant for study of isted on the facing page is a Weinbaum reasons that osteocytes are very strong.” With such students, he said. mechanistics aspects of the two- step transposition pathway of IS2 selection from among the for Biomedical Research held in position by filaments, as cables “I do try to give them confidence, and I L hold the roadway of a suspension bridge, have usually arranged for them to talk to Yi-Chun T. Lin, Borough of numerous prizes, grants, lifetime and that the filaments play a role in women faculty, with women who are fur- Manhattan Community College achievement awards, fellowships, his Ph.D. students,” Wein- Mia Mia Thi, seated, with her detecting the slight bone deformations ther along on the career path.” NEH Faculty Research Award, by Drew Fetherston for Extending the Reach program and other professional honors and baum said. “I’d go to chemi- mentor Sheldon Weinbaum. caused by strain. Thi’s research is examin- He is proud and pleased that his own recognitions garnered by the City he keenest professional pleasure cal engineering meetings and Photo, Randy Fader-Smith. ing how shear stress is communicated field has shown a powerful shift away Setha M. Low, for Sheldon Weinbaum, Distin- Graduate Center University’s distinguished faculty I would see entire rooms between cells. from the old all-male, no-minority model. guished Professor of Mechanical Getty Conservation Institute T filled with his graduate students, his chose CUNY, When Weinbaum did his undergradu- “One of the most appealing aspects of Scholar since 2001. and Biomedical Engineering at City former Ph.D. students or his post-docs.” spending a ate work at Rensselaer Polytechnic biomedical engineering is that it’s really Cecilia Macheski, Andreas Acrivos, College, comes from the successes of his But none of these honors and accom- semester at Institute in Troy, New York, there was one traveling a course of its own,” Weinbaum students. “You know you’re in the right LaGuardia Community College City College/Graduate Center plishments pleases him more than good Hunter College woman in his class of 870 students, a ratio says. “It is the first engineering discipline NEH Research Seminar in cities Presidential Medal of Science in profession if you find the greatest satisfac- opinion of his own former teachers, before City that remained common across science for in which the percentage of women stu- and public spaces in comparative Engineering tion in seeing a student achieve,” he says. expressed in brief notes that arrive from College’s dis- years afterwards. “I’m embarrassed to tell dents is approaching that of men.” cultural contexts Rosemarie Haag Bletter, “Not while they’re with you, but after time to time, and the successes of his tinguished you that for my first 20 years here, I did As Thi nears the end of her doctoral Patricia Mainardi, Graduate Center they’ve left — for me, that has become former students, such as Mia Mia Thi. engineering not have a woman or a minority doctoral work this spring, she is considering several Brooklyn College/Graduate Center Philip Johnson Award, Society of more and more important.” The two met in an undergraduate course, faculty lured Mellon Art History Fellowship Architectural Historians student. It was very hard to find women career choices. “I’ll definitely go on for post- Weinbaum has a refined professional Cell and Tissue Transport, that Weinbaum her north. Like working in these fields.” doctoral work. I’m still debating whether to Herman Makse, City College Marvin Carlson, palate; he has tasted most of the satisfac- was teaching. “I just intuitively sensed that many newly- Petroleum Research Fund Grant Graduate Center As the husband and father of profes- go into academia or a biotech company. tions that academia offers: a Guggenheim this was a gifted person,” he recalls. “She immigrated sional women, Weinbaum has worked Either way, I will still be doing research.” for study of avalanche segregation Joseph A. Callaway Prize, Fellowship, a string of distinguished in granular flows in petroleum for best book on theater was the top student in my class, and I CUNY stu- hard to change that balance, with consid- Either way, Mia Mia Thi’s career will awards and grants, membership in a trio told her she should really think about dents, Thi erable success. “I have, you know, a very have at least one thoroughly riveted spec- Hiroshi Matsui, Enrique Chavez-Arvizo, of National Academies — Science, Engin- Hunter College/Graduate Center John Jay College going on for a Ph.D.” arrived with special sensitivity toward minority stu- tator — one poised, if need be, to shoot eering and Medicine (a rare honor cur- NSF Early Career Development NEH Faculty Research Award, At the time, Thi was far off the path imperfect dents and women,” he said. “For the last off notes of praise to her for major scien- Grant for study of quantum dot rently held by just seven living persons). for Extending the Reach program that would lead to a biomedical doctorate. English. Hospital for Special Surgery, where she 15 years, I have just seen to it that half tific breakthroughs. electronics Bronislaw Czarnocha, He’s a founding director of the New She was well along in training to be an “I could read it and watch movies, but I worked for two years,” Weinbaum said. my Ph.D. students are women.” York Center for Biomedical Engineering Georgia Salvitti McGill, Hostos Community College electrical engineer, a result of an interest couldn’t speak it well at all,” she recalls. This hospital is one of six major metro- Queensborough Community College NSF Research in Mathematics and soon-to-be chair of City College’s in circuitry awakened in a high school “I found that watching television was politan medical research facilities com- Kennedy Center Gold Medallion Grant for research on introducing new Department of Biomedical physics class. “I’m originally from Burma,” good for understanding.” prising the New York Center for of Excellence indivisibles into calculus instruction Engineering, the first new City College she says. “I started there as a pre- In 1994, Thi learned the then-new Biomedical Engineering consortium, Fighting AIDS/HIV in South Africa Louis Menand, Graduate Center Annette Renee Danto, engineering department since 1937. engineering student, but I really wanted Center for Biomedical Engineering was which is linked with City College and the Pulitzer Prize for History for Brooklyn College Several of his insights have led to to go to medical school over there. recruiting students. “From the beginning, I Graduate Center. The others are Albert nly recently have The Metaphysical Club Fulbright Scholar Award scientific breakthroughs. Because of my grades, I couldn’t get in, was interested in medicine and biology, but Einstein, Mt. Sinai, Cornell’s Weill leaders of the John Mollenkopf, Graduate Center Eric Delson, O Weinbaum is also proud of his success so I went into engineering.” I had had no exposure to it,” she recalls. “I Medical College, Sloan-Kettering, and world’s developed Mellon Foundation Sawyer Lehman College/Graduate Center as a recruiter. He points in particular to Thi came to the U.S. in 1990 when stopped by the Center, and they said, N.Y.U.’s School of Medicine. nations begun to Seminar on new immigrants National Geographic Society Andreas Acrivos, now the Albert Einstein and American society Research Grant for study of the political troubles in her homeland dis- ‘Right now we have five courses, and if you About Thi’s lab skills Weinbaum notes, acknowledge how short biogeochronology of Seneze, Professor of Science and Engineering at rupted the universities. She was sponsored take them you can earn a biomedical engi- “She was very gifted with her hands, a the fuse now is on the Jill Norgren, John Jay College/Graduate Center a key Pliocene site City College, whom he recruited from by her aunt and uncle, a professor at neering minor.’” Her decision to do that natural experimentalist, working with time bomb that is Stanford. “The reason I recruited him was very small-scale preparations. To be able Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for Joyce Gelb, Columbia University. Because her father brought her into Weinbaum’s class. HIV/AIDS in Africa, study of Belva Lockwood’s life in that he made a tremendous impression on City College/Graduate Center would have to pay for her education, she “I first recommended her to the to look through a microscope and move especially the sub- law and politics NSF/Japan Society Fellowship, me in the close relationship he had with specimens is a gift, and she’s got it.” The Saharan nations of for research in Japan Alfonso Quiroz, mentor’s support was also appreciated. Namibia and Botswana. Baruch College/Graduate Center Saverio Giovacchini, “From the beginning he seemed like a President Bush high- Fulbright Scholarship for educa- Bronx Community College very generous person,” says Thi. “He’s lighted this new resolve tional exchange Program with Peru Warren Center Fellowship, always concerned about the student.” in his State of the Union Harvard Discovering a Snake, Honoring a Mentor Roger Sanjek, Queens College In switching from electrical engineering speech. J.I. Staley Book Prize for The Marilyn Gittell, ittle did College of Staten Island biologist Frank Burbrink know that, on to the new field of biomedical engineer- But strategies for Future of Us All: Race and Neigh- Brooklyn College/Graduate Center the morning of 9/11, a personal calamity was transpiring half-way ing, Thi was paralleling Weinbaum’s own borhood Politics in New York City Norton Long Career Achieve- L responding to the threat Ida Susser in 2001, interviewing Ju/’hoansi residents of the around the world. In the mountains of Myanmar, formerly Burma, his good ment Award, American Political career. Though trained as an engineer — of massive decimation of village of Dobe in Botswana’s Kalahari Desert. Photo, R.B. Lee Myriam Sarachik, Science Association friend and renowned herpetological mentor Joseph Slowinksi had been bit- his advanced degrees from Harvard peoples across the sub- City College/Graduate Center NSF Research Grant for study ten by a krait, one of the world’s most venemous snakes. The next day the University are in applied physics and engi- continent have been on Isaac Goldemberg, of high spin molecular magnets Hostos Community College curator of the California Academy of Sciences and editor of Contemporary neering — much of his ground-breaking the research radar of Ida Susser for a good 10 years. The Hunter College and Graduate Premio Nacional de Narrativa Herpetology was dead at 38. work has been in biology, working on Center anthropologist and native of South Africa, a leading student of urban issues and Heather Sloan, Lehman College Award for Excellence in Breve (Peru) Burbrink fondly recalls his association with Slowinski at Louisiana State such puzzles as the mechanics by which cultural diversity in the U.S., was last year awarded a research and writing grant from the An example of Geophysical Education, Natasha Maria Gordon, University, where he earned his Ph.D. in zoology — especially their noctur- cholesterol molecules enter arterial walls, MacArthur Foundation as part of its program in Global Security and Sustainability. Slowinski’s American Geophysical Union Medgar Evers College nal expeditions in Louisiana and Mississippi, listening to the music of how heat is transferred in the body, and Susser’s project is titled “Spaces for Autonomy: Defining Sustainable Strategies to corn snake. Gillian Small, Pen American Open Book Chuck Berry and now and then having to convince suspicious rural sheriffs the processes of bone growth and red Combat HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa,” and the grant will allow her to document how Committee Texaco Grant City College/Graduate Center they were on official herpetological business. Brandishing a bag of rattlers blood cell circulation. the women of Namibia — where she has been observing since the 1980s — negotiate NIH Research Grant for study of Steven Greenbaum, from the bed of their truck, however, usually did the trick. In fact, Weinbaum has no formal train- strategies for safer sex; she will also study the effectiveness of various modes of dissemi- peroxisome biogenesis and regula- Hunter College/Graduate Center Recently, when Burbrink achieved a zoologist’s dream of discovering a ing in biology. “I’m sort of professionally nating information about the disease and its treatment regimens. Susser will share the tion in yeast Roosevelt Gold Medal for Science new species, he exercised his right to name it and honored his teacher, who himself had dis- like a person without a home,” he says of the New York Council/ Navy MacArthur grant with Hunter College film and media studies professor Peter Parisi (who Tracy K. Smith, Medgar Evers College covered 18 species of snakes and amphibians. With Elaphe slowinkskii, or Slowinski’s corn League of the U.S., N.Y. Council with a laugh. He often relies on collab- is also Susser’s husband). Cave Canem Poetry Prize snake, the number of known snake species in the U.S. jumped from 140 to 141. Burbrink dis- orators, whom he carefully credits, to Barry Gross, Susser was raised mainly in Britain, after her parents (both doctors) were driven from Jenna Spevack, covered the unique species of corn snake (there had been two others) by examining its DNA City College/Graduate Center perform the biology-based research to South Africa because of their anti-apartheid activism. N.Y.C. College of Technology NASA Research Grant for study and estimating the evolutionary patterns of corn snakes as a group. Its range is eastern Texas prove his intuitive solutions. The importance of Susser’s work in exploring the interconnections of global economic Longwood Arts Project Cyber Residency/Fellowship of active and passive optical and western Louisiana. His Ph.D. students, too, carry his ideas shifts and cultural strategies is underlined by a fellowship she has also been awarded by remote sensing techniques Burbrink’s research involves molecular phylogenetics and the evolution of vertebrates. He into the lab. Thi is currently working with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Institutes of Health. This Michael K. Weisberg, Samuel Heilman, is planning a vertebrate zoology course at CSI this year that will look into the evolutionary Albert Einstein professor of neuroscience will allow her to complete a related project, “From the Cosmopolitan to the Personal: Kingsborough Community College/ Frank Burbrink in his CSI lab, holding Graduate Center Queens College/Graduate Center history of Staten Island’s reptiles and amphibians. Who knows? Maybe a salamander burbrinkii Dr. David Spray on experiments that Cultural Conceptions of Gender and Sexuality in the Battle Against HIV/AIDS.” some snake-hunting music, a 78 shellac NASA Research Grant for petro- Jewish Book Award in Philosophy lurks in the borough. Islands, after all, are noted for their remarkable biological diversity. spring from Weinbaum’s ideas about the The Society for the Anthropology of North America has awarded Susser its prestigious and Thought, Koret Foundation disk of “Wee Wee Hours” by Chuck Berry logic geochemical studies of prim- A frequent denizen of Manhattan music venues, Burbrink is also a serious student of early mechanics of bone growth. Bones sense Prize for Distinguished Achievement, in part for her landmark ethnographic study of a itive solar system (his very first recording). Photo, Ken Bach. Philip Kasinitz, 20th-century popular music. In fact, he is planning a book, its working title aptly Darwinian: and react to strain, even though the Williamsburg neighborhood, Norman Street: Poverty and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood Hunter College/Graduate Center The complete list of CUNY faculty “The Evolution of American Music.” It will call on his expertise in spotting the organic diver- movement is minute. Without strain, (1982). The book, which documented the experience of New Yorkers during the fiscal Russell Sage Foundation Visiting honorees can be found on the gence and convergence of musical species. He won’t have to go far to do his research: his per- bones deteriorate — weightlessness can Scholar crisis of 1975-78, may become all too pertinent amid the current downturn. Susser is also University’s web site sonal collection has about 8,000 albums, many rare and almost all recorded before 1965. cost an astronaut as much as a 20% loss in the editor of an anthology, Cultural Diversity in the U.S. (www.cuny.edu) bone mass. “The real mystery is how the

6 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 7 BOOK TALK OF THE CITY “Max Beerbohm by Max Beerbohm” by N. John Hall

interest only to himself. N. John Hall, rary biographers, to judge from the many duces Virginia Woolf to drive the point Distinguished Professor of English at staggering tomes one sees in the Biography home: “What Mr. Beerbohm gave us was, Bronx Community College and the section at Barnes & Noble: of course, himself…He was affected by Graduate Center, begs to differ. He has “I shall keep this book rela- private joys and sorrows, just published Max Beerbohm: A Kind of a tively short, and I shall not and had no gospel to Life (Yale) to prove his subject wrong. attempt to ferret out the preach, and no learn- Beerbohm died at the age of 84 in 1956, inner man.” ing to impart. He was having spent his last 45 years sequestered Hall explains, “The himself, simply and in a villa in Rapallo, Italy, and Hall’s is the ‘inner man of Max directly, and himself first Max biography to appear in 40 years. Beerbohm’ sounds oxy- he has remained… If its title seems to mimic Beerbohm’s moronic. He was very The triumph is the characteristic witty diffidence, it is self-aware, but he was triumph of style.” because Hall — also renowned as a lead- not given to introspec- The real challenge ing Trollope scholar — knows him well. tion or soul-searching. of a “Max” life lies else- This is the fifth Beerbohm-related title of If he did look deeply where, as Hall acknowl- his from Yale University Press, most into himself — and I edges: “He had the most notably his Max Beerbohm’s Caricatures, don’t think he did so amusing mind of his which gathers more than 200 of the dead- very often — he did generation, and how is on skewerings, and the recently reissued not tell us about it. one to keep his biography Illustrated Zuleika Dobson, Beerbohm’s Instead, he points us amusing? I shall adopt the claim to novelistic fame. to his art, his writings obvious and safest strategy, Beerbohm’s Clearly, what attracted Wilde then and and caricatures, all of it that of quoting him when- 1894 view of Oscar Wilde o man who succeeded in amusing Hall now is Beerbohm’s delicious “cheek.” highly personal, unmis- ever possible, either in small bits Oscar Wilde as much as Oscar It was on full display when, as Hall writes, takably his own. For or fairly large chunks… What Namused himself could be called “in May 1898 Max embarked on the only ‘Max’ — as he is always called — peers out should emerge here is a biography, not uninteresting, and Max Beerbohm certain- regular job he ever held. He did so with at us from everything he wrote or drew.” quite ‘Max Beerbohm by Max Beerbohm,’ ly was in the same witty league. Perhaps trepidation, telling [his close friend] Will Then, for good measure, Hall intro- but close to it.” this was because they were both intensely Rothenstein that he was going ‘on the private men who loved to play with streets of journalism…an intellectual pros- masks — hence the famous wisecrack titute.’” Beerbohm was getting ready to Oscar made about Beerbohm one day to a succeed George Bernard Shaw as the Lehman the Man (125th) and mutual friend: “Tell me, when you are drama reviewer for the Saturday Review, alone with Max, does he take off his face and he wrote its editor asking for a raise College (35th) Celebrated and reveal his mask?” beyond the £6 a week Shaw had been On the other hand, it was Wilde who receiving. With breathtaking effrontery, he e was elected governor of New noted for serving immigrants. As encouraged the very young Beerbohm to explained, “I have less experience of the York four times; he supervised the Fernandez noted, Lehman “voted in 1950 publish in 1893 his very first piece of theatre and so will find the work more Hlargest international relief effort in against the McCarran Walter Act, which journalism. It was a hilariously wicked difficult.” As Hall tells us, “The Saturday, history during and after WWII; next he raised barriers not only against immigrants send-up of Wilde himself, an anonymous understandably, did not see it this way served for seven years in the U.S. Senate. but also against writers, scientists, and essay titled “Oscar Wilde by an and paid Max £5 a week. Disinclined to rest on his laurels in retire- students from abroad who might have American.” Hall also reveals an appropriately sub- ment, he then worked with Eleanor expressed liberal thoughts or ideas.” And yet…the brilliant caricaturist versive flair in his introduction, titled “A Roosevelt and others to drive the bosses He also was one of few in the Senate (whether with words or an artist’s pencil) Little Book.” He promises he will do two of Tammany Hall out of the state’s Demo- who, at the risk of his office, stood up spoke of his life as “uneventful” and of things almost unheard-of among contempo- cratic party. A decade later, in 1968, to McCarthy’s anti-Communist zealotry. Herbert H. Lehman became a college. “I will not compromise with my con- Thirty-five years ago, when the Bronx science. I will vote to protect the liberties campus of Hunter College became an of our people.” New York’s voters returned independent senior college within the him to office at the next election. City University, several names were sug- The man captured by President Offering an Islamic Perspective gested for the new campus. As Lehman Fernandez personifies not only the spirit College’s current president, Ricardo of the Bronx campus but all of CUNY: on the Great African Diaspora Fernandez, has written in an op-ed piece “Herbert H. Lehman believed the role he first plane to strike the World Trade Center flew over that appeared in several Bronx and and responsibility of government is to look TAmir Al-Islam’s Greenwich Village apartment. “I heard it Westchester County papers, “Herbert after those who desperately need help and fly over,” said Al-Islam, a recent addition to the Medgar Evers Lehman was chosen because of what he cannot help themselves: the poor, the College faculty. “I saw people running. It was really a trau- represented: integrity in public service, handicapped, children, the elderly and matic experience” — particularly traumatic for an orthodox international idealism, love of country, victims of discrimination and oppression. Muslim like Al-Islam, who has spent years working for peace commitment to equal opportunity for all He was a humble, uncharismatic leader as an administrator in various non-governmental organiza- Amir Al-Islam Americans and a willingness to work who knew how to define and approach tions, many under U. N. auspices. He recalled a Vatican peace hard. Citizens of the world — including problems in all their complexity.” the 10,000 students of Lehman College meeting three years ago. “I had a chance to say a few words and I observed, ‘If we For more information on the who include immigrants from 90 coun- can just get the religious community to stop killing each other in the name of the anniversary celebrations on the Bronx tries — are inspired by the Lehman legacy.” Lord, I think half the world’s problems would be solved.’” He added, “The people campus, visit the Lehman web site This spring the College is mounting a who purport to be sincere followers of their religion often are the people who create (www.lehman.cuny.edu). the most conflict. That’s a paradox, but it is also a reality.” semester-long series of events celebrat- Al-Islam, whose research focuses on the African diaspora, sees the University as a ing the 125th anniversary of its name- place to build bridges and understanding through scholarship. “We’re looking at the sake’s birth and its own 35th anniver- role that people of African ancestry played in the making of the modern world,” he sary. A highlight will be a stellar sym- said. “This is what I’m bringing to the classroom at Medgar Evers.” posium, “Herbert Lehman: A Historical Understanding the diaspora requires knowledge spanning all cultural boundaries. “I Perspective,” on February 25. The want to include Western, Islamic, and African philosophy.” Islam, the native of speakers on Lehman the Family Man, Chattanooga pointed out, “is one of the fastest-growing religions in the country. It’s here Senator, Humanitarian, Governor, and to stay. If we are going to build a society in America, we’ve got to accept the reality that Reformer will be June Bingham Birge, we live in a multi-religious, multi-ethnic time. We really need to grapple with that.” Julius C.C. Edelstein, William vanden Preparing for the 21st century requires academic and intellectual rigor, honed to a Heuvel, Henry Morgenthau III, and competitive edge. This, Al-Islam noted, is a heavy demand on most students, who must Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Everyone on work to support their education. “I tell them, ‘Wear your struggle as a badge of honor.’” the panel personally knew Lehman, But Al-Islam also emphasized that education is not merely a tool for carving out a who died in 1963. Herbert Lehman with FDR, who appointed him to career niche. “We often have students who are so ensconced in mapping their educa- One of Lehman’s political stands head the State Department’s new Office of Foreign tion around a career that they really miss the richness of the intellectual experience.” as a U.S. senator made him a perfect Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, which led to choice for a campus of a University Lehman’s supervision of history’s largest relief effort.

8 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 down their options. “It’s very informative,” said Raul Reyes of Riverdale. “You can see John Jay Hosts Criminal Justice Job Fair what the same job offers in different states.” After looking into police departments in n the hurly-burly of Graduate and Two For recruiters, several states and into several federal agen- Professional Day, as recruiters and job- scenes the career days cies, Reyes thought that the Fort Lauder- Ihunting students filled the North Hall from the offered a chance dale police force looked like a good fit. lobby and cafeteria at John Jay College of John Jay to fish in a teem- Sometimes an interview turns into John Criminal Justice to bursting, Carina Job Fair. ing pool of quali- Jay family business. Steven Burdier, a May Quintian greeted an old acquaintance fied candidates. 2002 graduate, says he was greeted by from the U.S. Navy’s criminal investiga- “My human recruiter Gregory Tranchina, a 1992 gradu- tive service. “You’re getting a little grey,” resources person ate now in IRS criminal investigation. she said with a smile. was here yester- John Jay alumnus Carlos Ramirez, of the “I ought to day and she was U.S. Pretrial Services, the bail agency for be,” was the stunned,” said New York’s Southern District federal court, reply. “This is Rafael J. Heredia said, “I push John Jay every chance I get. the thirteenth of the U.S. I want to make sure students who graduate year I’ve been Department of from CUNY get jobs in the courts.” here for The Veterans Affairs police. “We’ve taken over this fair.” 26 police a hundred applications and resumes.” Quintian, depart- Although some agencies are operating associate director ments at under temporary job freezes, others were of career advise- the Decem- ready to hire. Barbara Bertorelli, assistant ment and pre- ber fair district manager of the Social Security Everybody law adviser at were only Administration’s Manhattan office, noted Loves John Jay, has one part of that she was expecting a wave of retire- Riemann been running the picture. ments. “We’ll be doing a tremendous these job fairs They were amount of hiring of people with manage- specially for 19 years. The joined by ment potential,” she predicted. ECollege of two-day career 37 federal Recruiters and school officials stressed Staten Island’s and professional agencies, that the fair wasn’t only about hiring. professor of gathering takes place in December; a job 35 graduate schools, 30 law schools, “The agencies here may not only be seek- mathematics fair follows in April. 33 private companies and organizations, ing applications, but also explaining their Rafael Herrera, Rafael Herrera The December gathering is casual and 14 New York City agencies and 13 New job requirements,” said Richard Saulnier, a native of open to all; several East Coast colleges Jersey and New York State agencies. Dean for Admissions and Registration at Mexico, where he won a prize for the brought busloads of their students to the Five police departments — two from John Jay. “Students get some timely reality highest GPA among 130,000 students fair and many CUNY campuses were rep- Maryland and one each from North checks — like, for example, the specific at the National University of Mexico. resented in the crowd. The April fair is for Carolina, Delaware and Virginia — requirements to be an FBI agent.” Dr. Herrera was awarded a Guggen- John Jay students and alumni only, and offered applicants the chance to take Some students knew exactly what they heim Fellowship in 2002 for the study jobseekers must wear business attire and admission tests at John Jay the day after needed to reach what they wanted in a of a classification problem in bring copies of a professional resume. the fair closed. “The U.S. Capitol Police career. “My plan is to study forensic psy- Riemannian geometry. “They’ve grown a lot, by word of rented a spot in a hotel to do their test- chology,” said Uniquik Bostic, who lives in Flat or plane geometry came first, mouth among the police departments,” ing, because there was no room left on East New York, as she filled out an appli- with Euclid. The study of curved Quintian said of the job fairs. “They’ve campus,” Quintian said. “The U.S. Bureau cation for the Suffolk County, NY police surfaces (like those of a sphere or a found out this is a good place to recruit. of Engraving decided there was so much department. “I want to join a police doughnut) flowered in the late 19th We have recruiters here from as far away competiton that they’d come back in department and continue my studies.” century, thanks notably to the German as Los Angeles and Las Vegas.” January to give their test.” Other students use the day to winnow mathematicians Johann Gauss and Georg Riemann. Their revolutionary ideas created the field of differential geometry and led to the study of abstract multi-dimensional spaces, Chancellor Proposes Academic Initiatives a.k.a. n-dimensional Riemannian manifolds. (Riemann’s advances also Continued from page 1 said, resolved some years ago to limit buildings and bridges.” Teacher training helped lay the foundation for Einstein’s tuition hikes to changes in the Consumer and related activities are envisioned as the development of the theory of relativi- then praised a more recently established Price Index. The state university systems uses of the facility are explored. ty.) Herrera’s Guggenheim project organization chaired by New York Life’s in Florida, California, and North Carolina Finally, the Chancellor revealed that, will involve classifying a family of Chair and CEO, Seymour Steinberg: have similar “since New York is a media Riemannian manifolds, which are “The businessmen and women of CUNY’s indexing policies. capital,” CUNY is beginning spaces that appear in models of Business Leadership Council identify Goldstein also to plan a new School of theoretical physics. workforce trends and opportunities for noted that Journalism “with a special After earning his Ph.D. on a full the University.” (For more on the Council CUNY is devel- focus on urban studies.” scholarship at Oxford University, see story on page 4.) oping plans for a This, Goldstein believes, will Herrera was appointed to a Junior CUNY is also adopting new business New York “utilize the extraordinary Research Fellowship at Oxford’s practices to “work smarter and use shared Simulation resource of CUNY-TV Worcester College. Later, he taught and strategies to reduce administrative costs,” Center on and the University’s other performed research at Yale and at U.C. Goldstein said, adding that such measures Governors Island, Internet-based technologies.” Riverside in the areas of integral and are already “achieving millions of dollars where mathe- Concluding his speech, differential calculus, linear algebra, in savings” on several campuses. Further, maticians and Goldstein said, “we are differential equations, and differential “CUNY should be working, where appro- computer scien- changing the conversation geometry. priate, with private developers to more tists from CUNY about CUNY. Today, this Herrera has also descended from high effectively use our existing physical assets, and other leading University is rightly perceived theoretical altitudes to address issues of and seek to build new mixed-use facilities, local universities by stakeholders as being in elementary school mathematics educa- as we leverage up the capital budget the would create a the mainstream of higher tion. While at Riverside, he directed a state provides.” This could turn the $1.3 cutting-edge education practice…Our Mathematics Institute in the Coachella billion allocated by the state for building research facility. Chancellor Goldstein speaking at challenge now is to maintain the Harvard Club. Valley Unified School District, a state- in the next five years into $1.6 billion, the “Computer simu- our momentum here in New funded K- 12 project aimed at raising Chancellor said. lation is a power- York City through these times the educational standards among public Noting that SUNY’s trustees recently ful analytical tool,” Goldstein said. “It of extraordinary financial crisis. I pledge school math teachers. proposed a 41% increase in undergraduate enables us to investigate and experiment you…we will meet the challenge. We will His work was part of a larger state- tuition, Goldstein said state leaders should with potential scenarios in fields ranging stay the course.” wide initiative to involve university strive for a rational tuition policy, perhaps from changing traffic patterns to prevent- The Chancellor’s full speech can be educators in improving elementary by linking increases to changes in econom- ing bio-terrorism, from the longevity of accessed on the University web site, mathematics curricula. ic indicators. Michigan State University, he pension plans to stresses on the city’s www.cuny.edu.

CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 9 CUNY Q&A Brooklyn College’s From Flinging Pizza to Neuroscience, Thanks to a BCC Biomedical Program Man of “The Hours”

t is hard for Michael Cunningham, Distinguished Professor of Creative n the seven years Under the MBRS program, “faculty These students eventually attend a lot of remedial classes.” assistant professor of neurology at Mt. Writing at Brooklyn College, to rest on his laurels. They keep piling up. In since he arrived in members who applied were expected to national scientific meetings, at first as He had vague thoughts of going into Sinai School of Medicine, an associate I 1999 he won the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours,a New York from his establish a research project on campus or observers and later as participants medicine, but in his first days at BCC it professor of chemistry at BCC, and an I brilliant novelistic riff on Virginia Woolf, and now the former NEA and native Dominican at a research institution nearby that the presenting their own research findings. seemed an impossible dream. “I had no attending neurologist at the U.S. Veterans Guggenheim Fellow is enjoying the ultimate cinemat- Republic, Leonardo students could collaborate on,” Davis About ten years ago, the scientists at experience in science, no idea of laborato- Affairs Hospital in the Bronx. His research ic accolade, a rapturously received film version of the Santana has flung pizza, said. “You were expected to bring BCC realized their students had to over- ry procedures,” he remembers. “When I work at the hospital has been examining novel. Cunningham, who taught for six years in attended a parking lot, students — minority students — into come an additional barrier: inadequate was a freshman, I had a lot of difficulty how the death of brain cells contributes to Columbia’s M.F.A. program, turned down offers from sold food from a street your lab and train them.” communication skills. Some students from with the language. I was kind of lost, had the development of degenerative condi- Princeton and NYU to accept a position at Brooklyn cart, and toiled in a gro- Africa and the Caribbean were well- no hope of going to a four-year college.” tions such as Parkinson’s Disease. College. Just days before the Academy Awards nomi- cery. Now he can be prepared in mathematics and science, He pauses. “And, of course, before I got “I’ve had six or seven students from nations were announced (“The Hours” received nine found in a laboratory, Professor but had trouble with the language. into the [MBRS] program, I had to work the program,” Dr. Gluck said. “They were nominations, including best adaptation of an original conducting research in John Davis “So we developed an enrichment full-time to go to school.” excellent — very motivated and very work), CUNY Matters’ Rita Rodin talked with him neuroscience. with program, which we call REAP,” Davis Santana found his way into the REAP dedicated. They tend not to just come in about his writing and teaching. This remarkable segue BCC said. “The Research Enrichment program. “It put me in contact with peo- for the summer and then leave; these are was made possible by student Activities Project offers students two ple who could guide me. It also taught me people who are basically part of my lab Q: In The Hours, both Virginia Woolf and the poet Bronx Community Balori extra courses in scientific communi- how to think like a researcher, how to and get paid for it, at a student rate.” He Richard Brown talk about the craft of writing and College’s long-standing Paulino. cation and laboratory research. understand a scientific paper, then how to added that Santana “presented our lab the fear that they won’t be able to capture on the Minority Biomedical REAP students get 300 hours of write one.” work at a Society for Neuroscience meet- page the vision in their heads. Do your charac- Research Support paid summer work, assisting in After their work in the Bronx program, ing in Florida last fall. This is the major ters’ fears reflect your own? Program (MBRS), which lab research off-campus. most students continue their studies international meeting for neuroscience, has served about 300 Dr.Vincent Kissel, the toward a Bachelor’s degree, often at the and it was a very prestigious achievement Cunningham: You always have a greater book in BCC students like Soon-to-be Lehman graduate Leonardo Santana. College’s REAP coordi- other CUNY campuses with MBRS or to have presented there.” your mind than what you try to get down on Santana. The program is nator, has set up a net- related government programs for minori- Santana, now 24, sees his goal within paper, even if what you get down on paper turns one of several sponsored work of scientists who ties. (There are MBRS programs at City, reach. “I want to be in medical research. out pretty well. It’s part of the human dilemma — we can imagine greater focus was instructional. by the National Institutes of Health to are willing to work York, Hunter, and Lehman Colleges and I want to apply to the M.D./Ph.D. pro- things than we can accomplish. And one of the difficulties to me in being a But there were a lot increase the participation of minorities in with our students.” NYC College of Technology.) “The four- grams at Albert Einstein, Mt. Sinai, and writer is living in some kind of peace with the gap between what I felt I was of individuals in the medical and scientific research. There are Leonardo Santana is year schools are always calling and asking Rutgers University. Since I’ve been work- going to do and what I was actually able to do. Some people can’t stand it. sciences, back in the close to 100 MBRS programs on campuses an example of what about our graduating students,” Davis ing with Dr. Gluck, I meet people from 1970s and 1980s, who Q: Do you think of the reader when you write? across the country — including five at four- the REAP/MBRS pro- said. “Our students have a good reputa- these places and work with them. So the got Ph.D’s and were year CUNY colleges — but the Bronx pro- gram can accomplish. tion, and one reason is their special program has been a great networking Cunningham: I do, I do. I think there is a subtle but important difference looking for teaching gram is one of only a handful in the nation He came to the communication skills.” opportunity too.” But first things first: a between working with the reader and trying to please the reader, which leads positions.” Many wound at two-year community colleges. United States at age Leonardo Santana worked under Dr. Lehman College Bachelor’s. “This semes- to pandering. And that leads to the terrible desire to be loved at all costs, up taking jobs with Professor John Davis — the chairman 17, just after complet- Martin Gluck, an M.D./Ph.D., who is an ter, thank God!” he says with a laugh. which is not a good thing for a writer. I think of any writing as something that community colleges. of BCC’s biology and medical laboratory ing high school. actually transpires between a writer and a reader. One of the things I love “They were eager to technology departments and the director “I didn’t speak about Virginia Woolf—and something that doesn’t seem to get talked about all do research.” for the last decade — said the program was English…I couldn’t go that much—is this: as far as I can tell, she was one of the first writers, certainly They were encour- one of only four community college to college,” Santana one of the first great writers, to rethink the relationship between a novelist and aged in this by a climate endeavors in the nation when MBRS began recalls. “I spent a a reader. at CUNY that treated funding nearly a quarter century ago. whole year out of Picture This: Q: Can you recall the moment “the light went on” about presenting your special community college The reason, Davis explained, is that school studying take on her Mrs. Dalloway? faculty “as equivalent to MBRS, which then required faculty to be English on my own. four-year college Fuel Cells Cunningham: A whole row of maybe seven light bulbs went on! This book was conducting research in which students I learned a little… faculty,” Davis added. especially difficult to write just because it’s unconventionally structured. It was would participate, came along at a time enough to take the “Faculty have to publish hard to keep my faith in it, it was hard to believe every single day that it was when academic jobs were hard to find. entrance exam. I got in, Driven by Algae if they’re going to get actually shaping up and turning into anything. I’ve never worked on a book “Historically, community colleges did not but I didn’t do well. I reappointed and get that felt so continually close to just falling apart and disappearing on me. have a research focus,” Davis said. “The had to take uergen Polle, a new assistant professor in tenure here.” JBrooklyn College’s biology department, began his Q: What qualities of Woolf lured you into the project? career as a tax-law expert for the German equivalent Cunningham: Her insistence on writing about the outwardly ordinary. Her char- of the IRS. A year working in that field inspired a acters are always very regular people. They are wealthy; she was upper-class remarkable educational U-turn. “I decided to go into and she wrote about the upper class. We may doubt whether you can be rich the field of biology,” Polle said. “In Germany, you and regular, but we will just have to give it to her that she succeeded. Stringing Along the Universe have to study all over again. So I did another five years of undergrad work.” Juergen Polle in his Brooklyn Q: Why do you think The Hours has struck such a chord at this historic moment? College laboratory. obody can accuse Michio Kaku of thinking inside the box. Four-dimensional space- sellers in several He finished his doctoral work in 1997 and began Cunningham: I honestly couldn’t tell you. Everything about the life of the book, Ntime is not capacious enough for his ideas. Ten dimensions might do—why not eleven? languages. An postdoctoral work at the University of California at including its extended life as a movie, has been a huge surprise. I thought, Kaku, who holds the Henry Semat Professorship in Theoretical Physics at City College executive at Berkeley with Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a humble alga that may one day change the when I was writing it, “Well, this is going to be my arty little book, and it will and the Graduate Center, nonetheless has an ambition to create something very small: “My Miramax told world in significant ways. sell a few thousand copies.” And I think my agent and my editor were right goal,” he said, “is to find an equation—one inch long, perhaps—that summarizes everything.” Kaku that the for- Why work with algae? “I was always interested in biochemistry,” Polle said. “But I there with me, thinking the same thought! By everything, mind you, he means every thing. The universe, with all its history, con- mer—which deals didn’t want to do experimental work with animals, fascinating though it is.” Some key Q: You turned down Princeton to come to Brooklyn. tents, laws, and destiny. Kaku thinks he has co-invented a tool to bring everything that in part with the retirements in that research program left Polle looking for another position, preferably was, is and shall be into that single short equation. This is what is called “string theory,” concept of time in this country. “I heard about Brooklyn College,” he said. “I like teaching, and I heard Cunningham: I love Brooklyn College. Ellen Tremper, chair of the English an arcane but elegant construct that one observer has described as “21st-century physics travel—is that it had a high teaching load. And I heard from colleagues that the students were department, approached me about the job a couple of years ago, and I went that fell into the 20th century by accident.” “required reading very good.” out and did a reading at the College, met some of the students, and just felt String theorists, Kaku among them, postulate that the universe is made up of vibrating among a lot of Brooklyn College’s Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center — immediately like this was a place I wanted to be. The students were among the strings. As he explains, “When these little strings vibrate they create notes, and we believe screenwriters” at AREAC — “was a major factor in my decision to come here,” Polle said. “I work with most diverse, interesting, and interestingly talented people I had seen in one that these notes are in fact the subatomic particles that we see around us. The melodies the film studio. marine algae, so I can very conveniently use their facilities.” place. I loved the idea that these people were getting M.F.A. degrees without these notes play out is called matter, and when these melodies create symphonies, that’s He has sharply His research may one day help light the world or provide to the multitudes beta having to go into debt for the rest of their lives. And I just had a great feeling called the universe.” criticized what he carotene (which the human body processes into vitamin A): certain Chlamydomonas about the place — and continue to. It is a universe of ten or more dimensions, most of which are concealed (well, for now) sees as the excess- reinhardtii Kaku contemplates the projector in the CCNY planetarium. may one day be able to create enough hydrogen to operate fuel cells big Q: And enrollment has increased in the MFA writing program since you arrived? from creatures like us. But they are threatening to be revealed through the mathematics es and failures of enough to power a household; some mutant algae of the genus Dunaliella already pro- of string theorists. Kaku and his colleagues believe that string theory can unite relativity science, such as duce harvestable quantities of beta carotene. Cunningham: I hound them! And if they don’t come I call them, I write to and quantum theories, a goal that eluded Albert Einstein. At the moment, Kaku said, putting nuclear power plants in orbiting spacecraft and the inability to address global Polle has begun research in the well-equipped laboratory the College provided him, them. I won’t take no for an answer! “These two theories don’t talk to each other.” warming. But he retains a vision of an improved human civilization that can appreciate and expects to start teaching in the fall. He has nonetheless had enough contact with For much more from this conversation visit cuny.edu/news. Kaku, a Harvard summa cum laude in 1968, received his Ph.D. from the U.C. Berkeley’s and understand the universe. “I make my students one promise,” Kaku says; “they will students to form a favorable impression. “The students, too,” he said, “are above my Radiation Lab in 1972. Two of his nine books, Hyperspace and Visions, have become best- never again see the universe in the same way.” expectations.”

10 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 CUNY MATTERS — March 2003 11 Bronx CC Designer Wins 9/11 Web Site Contest

isa Amowitz remembers September emerged the following spring to honor said. “It seemed obvious to use technol- 11, 2001. She had just begun teach- lost students, faculty, and alumni of the ogy to link all of our campuses in this.” L ing a new course at Bronx University — more than 100 from John The competition drew about 50 Community College and felt the class Jay College alone. Damage to Fiterman entries from CUNY faculty, students was coming together nicely. “I remem- Hall — which housed 250 classes at the and staff. The panel of judges included ber the blue sky of that Borough of Manhattan prominent artists, web and graphics day,” she recalled. “I just Community College as designers, civic leaders and relatives of looked up at it and well as the CUNY those at CUNY who died in the attack. thought: What a beautiful Research Foundation and Amowitz’s site will allow visitors to post day. I was in the best the TeleMedia or view written or multimedia notices possible mood.” Accelerator (the core of honoring them. Within moments, that the University’s Business The memorial site is viewable at sunny mood was crushed Incubator Network) — cuny.edu/911memorial. It opens with a by first word of the World was so severe that sky-blue background upon which a pair Trade Center atrocity. repairs will take years of blood-red towers appear. The towers Amowitz, an assistant to complete. descend into place in a Manhattan sky- professor of advertising art In the days following line as the sky turns dark, then black. and computer graphics, the attack, the Trustees, The time elapsing between the two turned to her métier to at the suggestion of Vice moments of impact is counted down in deal with the horror. “I was Chairman Benno G. a corner of the screen. freaked out, frozen, numb,” Schmidt, resolved to Moving from the home page, visitors she said. “The only way to establish an appropriate can read about CUNY’s losses and its get the juices flowing again memorial to the lost. role in the aftermath. They can also was to do something. So I An advisory committee append either written or multimedia Lisa Amowitz did a poster.” set up a competition to memorials of their own. Amowitz found That poster, with an “create a unique and last- music for the site on the web and pur- image of the Statue of Liberty as a ing tribute to those who were lost and chased the rights; it is called “Ethereal” “silent witness” to the attack, will to the spirit of renewal that sustains and is, she said, “hopeful but solemn.” shortly become part of a more elaborate those who survive.” Indeed, after the somber introduction, Amowitz project, a web site that has A web site seemed appropriate, said the site leads into “a more hopeful open- just won a $10,000 design competition Louise Mirrer, executive vice chancellor ing page which highlights the spirit of for a memorial to those in the CUNY for academic affairs. “The University giving and patriotism that followed the community who were victims of wanted something that would transcend attack,” Amowitz explains. “Never did I September 11. college boundaries, but that would allow more clearly understand what this coun- Plans for the memorial website each college to do what it wished,” she try is about and what CUNY represents.” Two Architects with CUNY Ties on WTC Finalist THINK Team

hen the Lower Manhattan ning with Haaren Hall at John Jay a major multiple-use structure at Development Corporation College, a major multiple-use edifice Brooklyn College. Wwinnowed design proposals that opened in 1988. Often referred to Focusing on the landscape architec- down to just two in early February, on campus as the Tenth Avenue ture component of the THINK plan is one was the Building, it houses administrative Ken Smith, since 1992 a full-time and, “World offices, the College library, a performing most recently, an adjunct professor in Culture” arts theater, classrooms, and a complete the CUNY School of Architecture. His center con- physical education/sports facility. stake in the project is not only profes- ceived by the Also by Viñoly is the soaring stain- sional but personal: both his home and THINK team, less-steel Apex sports complex at his landscape architecture firm are with- which includes Lehman College, which New York Times in six blocks of Ground Zero. two architects architecture critic Herbert Muschamp Smith, whose graduate training was with City hailed as “exhilarating.” Its façade, at Harvard, has previously worked on University ties. Muschamp observed, “recedes toward the reconstruction of the Harlem Rafael the horizon with the graceful curve of a Gateway project on 110th Street and Viñoly,of discus—or better yet, a Frisbee—hurled designed its Malcolm X. Plaza. Smith Rafael Vinoly through space.” The Apex opened in finds the public’s interest in the design Architects PC, 1994. challenges impressive. At the display of Ken Smith, left, conferring has designed Viñoly has also devised the transfor- all the design proposals at the Winter with Rafael Viñoly. several major mation of City College’s former library Garden, he recalls, “I saw a whole troop At left: projects on building into the new home for CUNY’s of firemen debating about urban The THINK team’s CUNY cam- School of Architecture, and he is also at design.” He adds that his email from proposal for Ground Zero. puses, begin- work planning the West Quad Building, kibitzers has seriously increased.

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