BROOKLYN COLLEGE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2013 1 B Brooklyn College Magazine Volume 2 | Number 2 | Spring 2013 Brooklyn College Editor-in-Chief Art Director Advisory Committee 2900 Bedford Avenue Keisha-Gaye Anderson Lisa Panazzolo Nicole Hosten-Haas, Chief of Staff to the President Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889 Steven Schechter, Managing Editor Production Assistant Executive Director of Government and External Affairs [email protected] Audrey Peterson Mammen P. Thomas Ron Schweiger ’70, President of the Brooklyn College Alumni Association © 2013 Brooklyn College Andrew Sillen ’74, Vice President for Institutional Advancement Staff Writers Staff Photographers Jeremy A. Thompson, Executive Director of Marketing, Communications, Ernesto Mora David Rozenblyum President and Public Relations Richard Sheridan Craig Stokle Karen L. Gould Colette Wagner, Assistant Provost for Planning and Special Projects Jamilah Simmons Editorial Assistants Provost Contributing Writers Dominique Carson ‘12 William A. Tramontano James Anderson Mark Zhuravsky ‘10 Matt Fleischer-Black Joe Fodor Katti Gray Alex Lang Anthony Ramos Julie Revelant Ron Schweiger ’70 On the Scene Award-winning alumni and a new graduate school of cinema in the works make Brooklyn College a 9 prime destination for the next generation of entertainment industry game changers. Forward Momentum Leading-edge scientific research at Brooklyn College continues to 14 attract national attention, as well as prestigious awards. The Brooklyn Connection Alumni mentors with top-flight careers and talented business students form 20 professional and personal bonds that endure well past graduation. 2 From the President’s Desk 3 Snapshots 5 Notables 7 Features He’s not an 23 College News alumnus, so why is Kevin 27 Career Corner Bacon in our 28 Athletics magazine? 30 Alumni Profile Turn to page 31 Class Notes ten to find out. 36 Out and About 38 In Memoriam 40 Photo Album Karen L. Gould, President rooklyn College grant to support innovative ways has long been recognized for the of teaching math, in collaboration from Bbeauty of its campus. Our alumni with the Center for Urban often share fond memories of Pedagogy and the Massachusetts talking with friends on the Quad Institute of Technology, while the or spending quiet evenings by Professor Jennifer Adams in the lily pond with that special the Department of Secondary someone. Little has changed in Education has received a Faculty PRESIDENT’S DESK this regard over the past seventy- Early Career Development Award five years. Today, in good weather, from the NSF. We are, in fact, among the Diversity is not merely a data point; our students still relax in the Our alumni also continue nation’s top seventy-five most it is something we live. sun between classes and enjoy a to inspire us with impressive diverse universities and colleges. With diversity of background peaceful oasis in the midst of our achievements. Lucy Shapiro The number of Latino students in comes diversity of perspective. bustling city. ‘62, director of the Beckman our entering class has more than Oftentimes, it leads to insight While each season offers its Center for Molecular and Genetic doubled over the last decade. We and inspiration—moments of own special beauty, spring is my Medicine at Stanford University, are proud as well to be among the discovery that enhance the personal favorite. With it comes a was awarded the National Medal top forty schools in the country unique and lasting impact of sense of celebration and renewal of Science in a White House from which Latinos earn bachelor’s the collegiate experience. At as we turn our thoughts to the ceremony this February. Upon degrees in education and other times, living our diversity joys of commencement and the granting the awards, President master’s degrees in psychology; can present challenges. It is at opportunity to acknowledge the Obama noted that the recipients we are as well among the top such times, however, that our tremendous accomplishments “…represent the ingenuity and five institutions nationwide students are encouraged to bring of our alumni, our faculty, and— imagination that has long made from which black students earn their own analyses and values to most of all—our students. this nation great.” bachelor’s degrees in accounting bear as they wrestle individually This spring, there is once And, this year, our students and master’s degrees in social and collectively with issues of again much to celebrate. have once again been honored sciences. In fact, for the past consequence in our time. Members of our faculty with Fulbright Fellowships, Watson several years more black students At Brooklyn College, we have received national and Fellowships, Salk Fellowships, and have graduated annually from believe that diversity in all its international recognition other noteworthy awards. More for their work, which is a information about our students, testament to the strength of faculty, and alumni award-winners Members of our faculty have received national our academic programs and the is available in this edition of the and international recognition for their work, strong scholarly profile of our magazine. which is a testament to the strength of our faculty. Of particular note, three Another cause for celebration academic programs and the strong scholarly professors from our Department is the ever-increasing diversity of of English were recently awarded our college community. Our 16,500 profile of our faculty. Guggenheim Fellowships, one students, ninety-eight percent of the most prestigious awards of whom are from New York Brooklyn College than any other forms enriches our college granted to scholars in the United state, were born in 150 different college in our state. community, and that ultimately States and Canada. With only 175 countries and speak more We have attained a level of we grow stronger and more Guggenheims awarded in 2013, than one hundred languages. diversity to which many universities resilient because of it. This we are fortunate indeed to count They come from a variety of across the country can only aspire. spring, as the trees begin to bud, them among our ranks. socioeconomic, racial, religious, Yet, while quantitative measures another generation of students The National Science and cultural backgrounds, and help us track student diversity is preparing to graduate on our Foundation (NSF) has also they participate in clubs for numbers over time, they ignore the magnificent Quad, knowing that recognized the scholarship of our students from West Africa, Turkey, single most important aspect of they can stand proudly on the faculty. Professor Laurie Rubel Russia, Panama, Korea, and more diversity: the students themselves shoulders of the remarkable in the Department of Secondary than a dozen other locations and their learning experience. alumni who have come before Education has received an NSF around the world. them. 2 BROOKLYN COLLEGE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2013 (Clockwise from left) A photo of student Rachell Evangelista’s grandmother taken at age thirteen in the Dominican Republic; Penelope Terry, director of undergraduate admissions and recruitment, holds a photo of her mother from her family photo collection; Jahongir (John) Usmanov, a Brooklyn College graduate student in archival studies, displays an image of his ancestors. SNAPSHOTS Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Celebrates the Diversity of Brooklyn College Brooklyn College’s history is one “This is the first time we her on the campus when she was filled with intriguing stories about have come to a college campus,” little. Her mother had worked at its multifaceted and far-reaching says Harris. “Brooklyn College the college from the 1950s until community, from the Trinidadian was perfect because there is such the late 1980s. immigrant turned aspiring great diversity here, yet when “The stories made us talk historian and Ph.D. candidate, to people shared their stories, there about pieces of our lives, and I think the college administrator who was often a common narrative. I many of us came to understand spent many of her formative years found that intriguing.” each other better,” she says. on campus. So did Dane Peters ‘09. “For those who participated, These are exactly the The aforementioned historian- we saw how parallel our lives kinds of stories that convinced in-training, who works for the have been,” adds Peters. “Many of documentary filmmaker Thomas Brooklyn College Community us came to New York, struggled Allen Harris to bring his Digital Partnership, understands well the to assimilate, struggled to find Diaspora Family Reunion to importance of documenting the work, and ended up here because Brooklyn College last fall. The lives of everyday people. it’s why most of us came to this three-year multimedia project When he started digging country: to get an education. It’s a brings people together to through his own family’s history, strong tie that binds us all.” assemble family photos and he found out that a relative of Harris has been doing the transforms those images into his was the first to make a studio road show since 2009. It started richly historical video albums. recording of calypso music in in Atlanta and has since made Harris then publishes these virtual Trinidad and that he has a cousin appearances in a handful of albums to his website. who represented the West Indian states across the country. Harris More than sixty students, team in international cricket is an Emmy-nominated television alumni, faculty, and staff members competitions. producer who grew up in the Bronx participated in the weeklong “Usually, historical actors are and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is event during which they donned significant, and everyone else is currently working on a documentary plastic gloves and scanned in insignificant,” says Peters, who about black photographers called old photographs, sharing the earned his bachelor’s degree in Through a Lens Darkly: Black stories behind the pictures. Africana studies and political Photographers and the Emergence There were six “photo-sharing science.