A Newsletter for The City University of New York • Summer 1996 How Welfare Recipients Bipartisan Workfare Bills Offered enator John J. Marchi (R-Staten Island) tances from campus or home. In May 1996 a Sand Assemblyman Roberto Ramirez (D- similar workfare program was instituted that Succeed at CUNY Bronx) have introduced legislation that would will negatively impact student recipients of oblige social service officials in New York to Aid to Families with Dependent Children. By Dr. Marilyn Gittell, 27,000 students were on welfare or in fami- allow CUNY and SUNY students receiving Co-sponsors of the Senate bill include public assistance to meet their "workfare" Senators Catharine M. Abate; Pedro Espada, Director of the Howard Samuels State lies that receive welfare. obligations on or near their own campuses. Jr.; Efrain Gonzalez, Jr.; Seymour Lachman; Management and Policy Center, GSUC The notion of extending the college oppor- "This bipartisan ef- Serphin R. Maltese; Marty Markwitz; David tunity to welfare recipients as a reliable fort is especially heart- Paterson; Ada L. Smith; Leonard P. Stavisky; ince its founding, The City Univer- route to financial independence is supported ening, because it will Guy Velella; and Dale M. Volker. sity has been a major provider of encourage thousands of Two SUNY campuses are already desig- by social research into the development of students to persevere nated as worksites, noted Sen. Marchi. "We S post-secondary education for the human capital. Even short spells at college need such designations across the state," he metropolitan area’s low- and middle-income and complete their col- make a difference in earning potential. In a lege education, enter added. "It makes sense from the taxpayer residents. CUNY addressed the needs of new national study of community college students the work force, and and the welfare student points of view." mmigrant populations at the turn of the cen- that appeared last year, “Labor Market Re- leave the welfare rolls As Assemblyman Ramirez pointed out, permanently," said "This legislation recog- tury, and through the Depression it educated turns to Two- and Four-Year College,” Tho- poor and working-class students. After Senator Marchi Chancellor W. Ann nizes that students on mas Kane and Cecilia Rouse reported that Reynolds. "We are very public assistance are World War II, it lowered its admission stan- earning college credits had a positive impact grateful to both legislators for introducing working hard to gain the dards to meet the needs of large numbers of on income, even without graduation and re- bills on behalf of these aspiring and deserv- skills they need for gainful ing students." employment and are will- veterans eligible for the G.I. Bill of Rights, gardless of the quality of the institution. which sustained their college education. Since Fall 1995, recipients of Home Relief ing to work for their ben- Education is particularly important for efits. We must have The tradition continues. Following the have been obliged to perform workfare for 20 women, because the wage gap between gen- hours a week under the city's Work Experi- workfare programs that passage of the Family Support Act in 1988, ders is most extreme among those with the ence Program. These assignments have been are not additional impedi- which officially made higher education an least education. Women with masters de- in conflict with CUNY students' class sched- ments to getting people option for welfare recipients, CUNY and New ules and often require traveling long dis- off welfare." grees earn 69% of the average male salary Assemblyman Ramirez York City and State officials developed a ($2,614 compared to $3,748 a month), number of special programs to assist welfare whereas those with only high school or less recipients in their pursuit of a college de- earn about half as much as men in similar FACES AND PROGRAMS BEHIND gree. There was a clear need for such pro- positions ($579 compared to $1,116). grams at CUNY, where by 1993 a total of GSUC’S HIGH NATIONAL RANKINGS Continued on next page CUNY’s Doctoral Consortium Scholars Reunite regorian chant is very big these College, an ethnomusicologist who ranges days, its haunting, ethereal sim- in his research from the popular music of G plicity being for many new India to the highly various musical cultures for Symposium devotées the ideal antidote for fin de siècle of the Caribbean. Atlas himself has just fretfulness. Explosive CD sales have made published a comparative essay on the La ourteen years after graduating summa chant the undisputed crossover phenom- Bohèmes of Leoncavallo and Puccini. Fcum laude from Queens College and enon of the 1990s in the classical recording The Program’s composition faculty in- heading off to Oxford, Rhodes Scholarship industry. Less well known: the fact that cludes John Corigliano (Lehman), David Del n hand, Raymond Paretzky recently re- CUNY is a major force in research on Tredici (City), and Thea Musgrave (Queens). turned to CUNY. Flanked by a stellar panel Gregorian chant, largely due to the pres- Among teachers of performance are pianist of other CUNY winners of major fellow- ence of Distinguished Professor Leo Treitler Abbey Simon at Hunter and renowned jazz ships—the Mellon, Ford, NSF, Fulbright, in the doctoral Music Program at City bassist Ron Carter at City, to name just two. and Truman—Paretzky, CUNY’s first Rhodes Martine Amerson, left, City College history major, University’s Graduate School and University “We draw on the entire CUNY system,” Atlas Scholar and now an international trade at- and Joanna Redding, Hunter College Italian Studies Center (GSUC). points out, “and so we have at least one torney in Washington, led a discussion on major, right, were coached by Chancellor W. Ann Treitler has established a towering pres- leading specialist in every area.” May 13 that opened the third CUNY Schol- Reynolds at the third Scholars Symposium. ence in the field with his studies of early This spectrum of intradisciplinary offer- ars Symposium. The Symposium is the cen- chant notation. His exploration of how ings and faculty depth typifies the CUNY terpiece of a University-wide initiative to time off from studies at Columbia and Yale, chant may have been transmitted orally doctoral programs and results from a con- dentify and prepare CUNY’s top students where they are completing doctoral work, before written manuscripts became com- sortium that is unique among the country’s or the rigors of high-stakes fellowship to share their experiences and support as- monplace has opened up a new field of mu- institutions of higher learning. The foun- competition. piring CUNY undergraduates. sical historiography. Though medieval mu- dation for this consortium lies in its distin- Two of the six panelists were student After a lively session, students were sic is Treitler’s domain, he has also shaped guished core faculty, which is comprised of participants in the 1994 Symposium who joined by Chancellor Reynolds and eight the entire field of American musicology. slightly more than 100 GSUC-based ap- went on to win major awards. Leota Lone CUNY faculty who are involved in honors Praised as “a giant in the field” and “an pointments. But a very large majority of Dog just graduated from Hunter College in programs in small group discussions focus- intellectual ambassador between music and GSUC’s 1,500-strong doctoral faculty— art history and women’s studies and will ing on various aspects of the process of the other humanities” by his colleagues, about 93%—also teach at CUNY’s senior assume a 1996 Ford Foundation applying for national graduate awards. In Treitler is one of the reasons the faculty of and community colleges. Predoctoral Minority Fellowship to pursue mock-interview sessions, the Chancellor the CUNY Doctoral Program in Music is, study on New York City’s Native American interviewed several high-ranking students. according to the National Research Council, his consortium has produced impres- history. Rosemarie Roberts, who graduated The students also heard from those who among the very best in the nation. Tsive results. Last September, the Na- summa cum laude in 1995 from Hunter in serve on the selection committees: Will- But there are 50 other reasons, most of tional Research Council ranked the Gradu- psychology, has garnered no fewer than iam Holland for the Rhodes, Prof. Abraham them drawn from across the CUNY cam- ate School’s doctoral Music Program fourth three awards: the Ford Pre-doctoral, NSF, Ascher for the Mellon, Dr. Ray Raymond for puses. Among them is Queens College’s nationally among 65 colleges and universi- and American Psychiatric Association fel- the Marshall, and Chris Coons for the Harry Carl Schachter, according to the Program’s ties surveyed. But Music was hardly alone owships. S. Truman Scholarships. Executive Officer, Allan Atlas, “the planet’s One-third of CUNY’s rated doctoral pro- Two Andrew W. Mellon scholars—Carlyle –Virginia Slaughter, Director, reigning exponent of Schenkerian musical grams were in the top 20 in their fields na- Thompson and Patrice Paul Rankine—took Scholarship Enhancement Program analysis,” and Peter Manuel of John Jay tionwide for scholarly excellence. Continued on page 3 1 Welfare, continued from previous page helped her enroll in the pre-med program at A PASSIONATE ADVOCATE AND TEACHER For welfare recipients raising a family NYCTC. Another cousin wants to study so- alone, a college degree can make the differ- cial work and I helped her enroll in a pro- ence between financial security and continu- gram too.” REMEMBERING DEAN BURNS ng poverty. Only women with a bachelors earn enough ($19,404 a year) to raise them ince 1988 CUNY has established a range well above the Federal poverty threshold for Sof programs designed to help welfare By Kristin Booth Glen a family of three, which in 1993 was recipients acquire skills that prepare them Dean of the CUNY Law School at Queens College $11,890.