1. education
2. graduate school
3. college

New Faces on Campus
2
. . . Aaron Copland Alumna
Reaches Next Stage in Her Training
Tour Middle East in Good Faith
5
4
. . . Students
. . . Washington
Monthly Gives High Rating to QC (Again)
6
A "Genius" Poetry Reading at QC CLICK HERE
Q U E E N S C O L L E G E FAC U LT Y
Meet President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez
On August 28, Félix V. Matos Rodríguez
became Queens College’s tenth president.
He has a resume that spans academia
and the public sector: He is a scholar,
teacher, administrator, and former cabinet
secretary of the Department of Family
Services for the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico. Immediately prior to his appointment
at QC, he spent five years as president of
Hostos Community College/CUNY, where he
significantly increased its student retention
and graduation rates. He has taught at
Northeastern University and Hunter College/
CUNY, where he directed the Center for
Puerto Rican Studies. An expert on the
history of women in the Caribbean, Matos
Rodríguez is the author of Women and
Urban Life in Nineteenth-Century San Juan,
Puerto Rico, 1820–1862 and editor of A
Nation of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks
Out. He holds a BA from Yale University and
two MAs and a doctorate from Columbia
University. (For a more extensive biography,
go to www.qc.cuny.edu/president.)
Could you tell us a little about your life
growing up?
I am the oldest of three brothers in a
traditional middle-class family in Puerto Rico.
My paternal grandparents were of humble
backgrounds, country people with eighth-grade
educations who moved to the city. My maternal
grandmother taught English in a public high
school for 35 years. I was very blessed in that
I grew up knowing all four of my grandparents
and five of my great-grandparents.
My parents have always worked very hard.
They both attended the University of Puerto
Rico—which is the CUNY of the island—and
were part of the generation that saw a social
transformation in Puerto Rico. My Dad became
an engineer and spent most of his career working for a large flour and feed mill processing
plant. He rose from being shift supervisor to
becoming the plant’s chief operating officer.
My Mom was going to be a Spanish teacher,
but then I was born and that was the end of her
professional life. Mom and Dad were hyperinvolved parents, always engaged in volunteer
work and community service.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
Samuel Jaboin ’15 and Alexandra Nicoletti ’15
talk with President Matos Rodríguez.
fyi
| S TA F F N E W S
O C TO B E R 2 0 1 4
Changes Near the Top
QC started the fall semester with new senior
staffers, as well as veterans in new positions.
Glenda Grace has joined the college
as assistant vice president, chief of staff, and
deputy to President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez.
A Long Island native, Grace holds two bachelor’s degrees—in economics and psychology—from the University of Pennsylvania and
a JD from Columbia Law School. She came to
QC from Hostos Community College, where
she served as executive counsel to the president and labor designee.
Claudia Colbert was appointed interim
assistant vice president and chief informa-
Shuttle Bus
Gets in Gear
For commuters from Queens, Long Island,
and even Brooklyn and Manhattan, the trip
to QC has gotten appreciably easier: The
college’s new shuttle bus provides daily
nonstop service between campus and two
major transit hubs, Jamaica Station and
Flushing–Main Street Station. The bus also
provides cross-campus service between
Queens Hall and the Student Union.
Launched on August 28 after a threeday pilot, the shuttle is winning converts
among students, who must display a
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 2
tion officer following 10 months as QC’s
executive director for program management. Colbert has been with CUNY for 10
years. In 2004 she joined the university’s
Computer and Information Service Group,
where she was responsible for establishing the CIS Project Management Office for
CUNYwide system implementation; she
left that office to become AVP and CIO at
Medgar Evers College.
Supporting Colbert at QC’s Office of
Information Technology (formerly called
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
current QCard in order to board. All
students pay for the bus through their
Student Activity fee. (Faculty and staff must
buy a sticker to ride the bus. For rates, go
to http://qc.cuny.edu/?id=VZOJ.)
“It’s very good,” says upper junior
Domisah Purnell, who travels from Brooklyn
and changes at Jamaica. “I get to class faster.”
The trip that used to take her an hour has
shrunk to less than 45 minutes.
For second-semester freshman
Emmanuel Rodriguez, shuttle bus travel
is easier, as well as faster. “I worry less
about my destination,” he notes. “It’s my
last stop.” He isn’t the only passenger who
relaxes in transit. At the end of a recent
run to campus, “One kid was asleep at the
back of the bus,” reports MV Transit driver
Jimmy Fogle. “When I woke him, he said,
‘Oh, I’m here?’”
Ridership is highest at rush hours, adds
Fogle. “It’s a good thing for the kids. They
have their own private space.”
Information about pickup locations,
routes, and hours of operation is available
at www.qc.cuny.edu/shuttle.
Dennehy Appointed Head
of Undergraduate Research
As Queens College’s first director of
undergraduate research, John Dennehy
(Biology) wants to ensure that freshmen know
from the outset everything they should about
research opportunities at the college so that
they can get on the right track and stay on it.
“We’re trying to formalize a system. Up to
now, it’s been rather ad hoc,” he says. “There is
no structure to connect students and professors.
Many undergraduates are unaware of the
opportunities until quite far into their careers.
Some students come to me as seniors and say,
‘I want to apply to med school, so I should get
some research experience.’ But by that point,
it’s really too late.”
The impetus to create the new position came
from Richard Bodnar, the dean of research
and graduate studies. He encouraged Dennehy
to become involved in a CUNY consortium
that participated in workshops offered by the
Dennehy
Council on Undergraduate Research.
When he received his new appointment,
Dennehy says, “I sat down and made a list of
all the things I want to accomplish, because as
ask if we have any positions,” he says. “It
the inaugural director, I wanted to set the tone
would be good if the process were a little
for all the future directors. This is a three-year
more formal: If students feel more like they’re
position. What I do now should define the
applying for a job, when they start working,
responsibility for future years.”
they will treat it more like a job.”
His first priority has been the creation of
Since 2009 Dennehy has run Phage
a web page to serve as a central repository
Hunters, a very successful undergraduate
for information on all undergraduate research
genomics research program that is supported
opportunities at QC.
by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
“There also are a number of successful
“Students go out, collect soil, and isolate
research programs at Queens College I’m going bacterial viruses,” he recounts. Back at the
to become more involved with,” Dennehy says, lab, they characterize the viruses, isolate their
citing the URME program (Undergraduate
DNA, and sequence their genome. In the
Research and Mentoring Education) and
second semester, they take a genomics class in
the MARC program (Maximizing Access to
which they annotate the genome, then compile
Research Careers), specifically.
it into a database with almost 3,000 phages.
“I hope to develop a database where
“We’ve published a number of papers,”
professors can upload research position listings says Dennehy. “I’ve had over 100 students
and students can apply for them. Right now
go through my class and many of them have
students come by and knock on my door to
continued on with research, which is my goal.”
PRESIDENT MATOS – from page 1
How did you become interested in
studying history?
I went to a Jesuit school, Colegio San Ignacio
High School, which was one of the best high
schools in Puerto Rico at the time. And there I
met Puerto Rico’s most prolific and influential
historian, a Jesuit priest named Fernando Picó.
He became a mentor of sorts, a model of what
an intellectual could be. I also think part of the
reason I became a historian is that I grew up in
a house in which I heard so many stories from
my grandparents, stories that became a part
of my life and made me want to know more
about the past.
What was your college experience like?
I came to Yale in 1980. I had been to the U.S.
briefly twice before—once to Disneyland—
but this was my first extended time there by
myself. As soon as I landed in New Haven, I
was told my luggage had been lost. And then,
as I spoke English with a combined Spanish
and Long Island accent—almost all my
English teachers back home came from Long
Island—it was a challenge to find a cabdriver
who understood what I was saying.
But once I found my luggage and the
campus, I had a wonderful time at Yale; it was
a great intellectual experience. Yale had on its
faculty the leading Caribbean anthropologist,
Irving Rouse, a giant in the field, the man
who dug up the most important Caribbean
archaeological sites from Venezuela to Cuba.
Well, with some of the great naiveté you
sometimes have as an undergraduate, I thought
I would just go up to him one day and start
talking. I did, and he turned out to be receptive
and asked me to take a course with him, which
would basically be a one-on-one tutorial.
What a gift it was to study with a man like
Professor Rouse.
To help support myself during my college
years, I would referee soccer, basketball, and
volleyball, which was a great way to expand
my vocabulary, particularly slang, which you
don’t learn in formal English high school
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 3
classes. When a player would get mad and
yell things at me, I would say, “What did you
call me? And can you spell that, please?” And
a yellow or red card usually followed that!
Much of your scholarship centers on
the role of women. What drew you to
this topic?
During my years at Columbia University, most
of the students and scholars who were working
on Latin American topics were women. We
would talk all the time about feminist theory
in literature and in history. When I was
looking for a topic for my doctorate, I realized
that very little work had been done on pretwentieth-century Caribbean women’s history,
and so I chose that. Some people thought I
shouldn’t take on this topic because I was
a man. In fact, many times I would go to a
conference to deliver a paper and I would be
the “token” male on the panel. I think this
gave me a little bit of insight into what it must
be like for women breaking into any field that
is dominated by men.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Douglas Rushkoff
Joins Media Studies
Faculty
Douglas Rushkoff, the cyberculture expert
who originated such concepts as “viral
media” and “social currency,” joined the
college’s Media Studies faculty this fall.
Besides teaching, he will help lead the
development of a master’s degree that
will address the technological and market
forces that dominate our lives.
With four PBS documentaries, three
graphic novels, and more than a dozen
best-selling books to his credit, Rushkoff
knows all about cutting-edge trends. But
his approach to education is surprisingly
old school. “I don’t particularly like digital
tools in the classroom,” says Rushkoff,
whose latest title is Present Shock: When
Everything Happens Now (Current). “If
you’re going to take the time to put 30
bodies in a room together, I don’t want to
have them look at iPad screens. Socrates
said that learning is a kind of conspiracy—
literally, ‘breathing together.’”
A Whitestone native, Rushkoff
attended PS 79 before his family moved
to Larchmont, where he went to public
schools. Thereafter, appropriately enough,
the future public intellectual followed a
multidisciplinary path, completing pre-med
requirements while majoring in English
at Princeton and completing an MFA in
theatre from the California School of the
Arts before earning a PhD in new media
and digital culture from Utrecht University
in the Netherlands.
“Media studies used to be about how
we receive media: books, radio, TV, and
movies,” comments Rushkoff. “Now
we look at all the ways that people act
through media, from the net to software
development. More important, through
Rushkoff
the lens of media studies, you can look
at other systems, such as economics:
Money is an operating system, and the
corporation is software.” One of his
goals as an educator is to help students
analyze—and counteract—corporate
values that have been embedded in our
increasingly synthetic landscapes. “We have
to become aware that they are not natural
environments,” he adds.
“Rushkoff’s contributions to current
thinking in technology, media, and society
are at the forefront of the evolving study of
media,” notes Media Studies Chair Richard
Maxwell. “He’s a great fit for our program
and will complement our existing faculty in
providing a transformative learning experience.”
While Rushkoff has taught at NYU and
the New School, he is especially proud that
his first full-time professorship affiliates
him with QC. This fall he is teaching an
undergraduate course on propaganda and
a graduate seminar on interactive media
theory. “Most schools have to balance the
needs of students against those of their
sponsors,” he notes. “At Queens, I’ll be
able to teach without putting my students
into hundreds of thousands of dollars of
debt. I’m coming to affirm the values of
public education.”
Finding Her Voice at the Copland School
JIN-XIANG "JX" YU ’14 is already a
soprano of note. After only three years
of classical training at the Aaron Copland
School of Music, she gained admission to the
Yale School of Music’s opera department, a
program so exclusive that it accepted just
six singers this year, giving all of them full
scholarships. She also won a 2014 Graduate
Arts Award from the Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation; recipients are eligible for as much
as $50,000 a year for up to three years, to
cover tuition or living expenses. “When I’m
70, I will look back and still be amazed at
this opportunity,” says Yu, overwhelmed. “I’m
going to take it from here and run with it.”
Born in China and raised in Japan,
the future diva grew up in a musical
household; her father plays the erhu,
the two-stringed Chinese violin, and her
mother plays piano and the Chinese dulcimer.
Nonetheless, when Yu came to New York in
2007, she thought of herself as a dancer. She
completed a two-year certificate program at
the American Musical and Dramatic Academy
in 18 months and then hit the road with
regional companies.
A year later, to keep her student
visa, Yu enrolled at Mercy College as a
communications disorders major. She was
then recruited to play volleyball for the QC
Lady Knights. Benched by injury in her first
year here, she took up classical music as a raw
beginner; indeed, she had to audition at Aaron
Copland twice before being accepted as a
vocal performance major. “Queens College
is the kind of place where even if you don’t
come in with all the tools, professors are
able to see your potential and give you a
chance,” she observes.
Yu also completed a major in linguistics.
She’s fluent in Mandarin and Japanese,
studied Spanish at the international schools
she attended at home, and at QC immersed
herself in other European languages. Her
senior recital featured selections in Chinese,
English, French, German, Italian, and Russian.
But when the artistic director of Yale’s
program called Yu to notify her of her
acceptance, she found herself at a loss for
words. “I had slept in that morning, so I was
pretty sure I was dreaming,” she recalls.
“I said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’ The director
answered, ‘I’m not kidding, dear.’”
That’s success, in any language.
Xiang Yu
PRESIDENT MATOS – from page 3
After years of teaching, you accepted
an opportunity to go back to Puerto
Rico with your family. What was behind
this decision?
While I was director of the Center for Puerto
Rican Studies at Hunter, I was approached
by the deputy chief of staff for the governor
of Puerto Rico, who recommended me for a
position with the governor. My wife, Liliana,
is also from Puerto Rico, and we thought this
was an opportunity for us both to go back
home and serve. Our sons were very young at
that time, so this could be a wonderful chance
for them to get to know their family and heritage better. So after a few meetings, the governor offered and I accepted a job as head policy
advisor on health and social welfare.
After a year in this position, the governor
asked if I would serve as cabinet secretary
for the Department of Family Services. I had
a budget of $2.2 billion, 11,000 employees,
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 4
104 regional offices, and a lot of tough cases
to handle.
I traveled all over the island, to
communities where people had never seen
a high-level government official before. I
listened to their issues, and in many cases
helped to make their lives a little better. I
also learned that little things mean a lot to
the people who work with you. So whenever
I could, I would go out in the field with, for
example, the social workers who investigated
child-abuse hotline cases. They were very
grateful that I cared enough to see firsthand
the obstacles they faced in their jobs.
Could you tell us about your years
at Hostos?
Hostos, as you might know, is a beloved
institution in the Bronx because it was created
out of community activism. The main campus
building used to be an abandoned tire factory,
but the community took it over and said they
were not leaving until a college was built there.
We achieved many good things while I
was at Hostos, but good things don’t happen
because the president is good; they happen
because the president has a very good
leadership team and dedicated faculty and
staff on campus. We were able to improve our
graduation and retention rates, develop more
community partnerships, work more closely
with area employers, and create more studentcentered programs.
I am so proud of what we were able to
accomplish. Recently, we started a Student
Success Coach program in which every freshman is assigned a student service professional
who remains with the student until they graduate or transfer. We also received grants from
the Aspen Institute and Citibank, for example,
to encourage students to go to summer classes,
and thus accelerate their time-to-degree.
But most important, our retention rate went
up about ten percent in five years, the highest
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
CHANGES NEAR THE TOP
from page 2
the Office of Converging Technologies) is
Markus Erndl, interim deputy CIO.
To replace Sidney Grimes, who left the
college for a senior managerial position
at Bronx Community College, Denese
Gordon was appointed interim administrator of Campus Plant Operations and
Construction Services. Her connection to
CUNY began at CCNY, where she earned
her BS and BArch in architecture.
She has worked at QC since 1996.
QC’s Director of Procurement,
Property & Fleet Management—a new
title—is Surinder (Sunny) Virk. He
has more than 22 years of procurement
experience within CUNY, the last
14 of them at Lehman College; his
responsibilities at QC include the shuttle
bus launched this semester (see p. 2).
Music Library Receives
Generous Estate Donation
The search for common ground is most
important in the places where it seems elusive.
That’s why the Ibrahim/Queens College
Student Leadership & Dialogue Middle East
Program sent 11 students last summer on a
free three-week trip to Israel, Jordan, Oman,
the United Arab Emirates, and the West Bank.
Participants—a mix of Christians, Jews, and
Muslims drawn from QC, Barnard, Johns
Hopkins, Syracuse, University of California–
Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania,
and Virginia Tech—interacted not only with
each other but also with national leaders,
grassroots activists, and social and economic
entrepreneurs at each destination.
The experience was eye-opening for all.
In Tel Aviv, Fahmida Sarmin, a junior at U.
Penn, got the sense that it wasn’t acceptable
for her to interact in public with a Jew—until
QC’s Daniel Kaplan ’16 invited her to hop on
his bicycle. “I sat behind Daniel as he biked
me down the streets of Tel Aviv,” she says.
“It was a rare sight, an Orthodox Jewish boy
and a hijab-wearing Muslim girl riding a bike
together.” Sarmin was equally surprised to
learn about the wide range of entrepreneurship
The Queens College
Music Library recently
received $386,000 from
the estate of Claude V.
Palisca upon the death of
his wife, Elizabeth Keitel.
This bequest will
facilitate the creation of
an endowment to fund
acquisitions for the Music Library as well
as minor renovations to the circulation
desk. “Renovating our lone service point
will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our public services,” notes Music
Library Head Jennifer Oates. “With
library acquisitions in all subject areas
suffering from repeated budget cuts, this
endowment will significantly improve our
annual acquisitions and allow us to build
the collection and better support the
Copland School’s curricula.”
Claude Palisca (1921–2001) earned
his bachelor’s degree in music from
Queens College in 1943 before earning
his master’s and PhD in musicology from
Harvard in 1948 and 1954. He spent most
of his career on the music faculty at Yale
University, where he chaired the faculty
© Shmuel Magal / Sites & Photos
Looking for Middle Ground
in the Middle East
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 5
occurring in the Middle East, with Arab
women holding prominent positions.
For his part, Kaplan developed a new
perspective on the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict. “I no longer view it as one-sided,
but rather as a multifaceted, complex debate
of narratives,” he observes. “Both sides have
strong emotional ties to parts of the land being
controlled by the other. For example, the
Jews have no access to the Tomb of Joseph in
Nablus, while many Muslims from Ramallah
cannot reach the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. .
. . It is tremendously difficult to acknowledge
and witness how much pain, suffering, and
damage has been caused by the conflict.”
Upon their return to the United States,
Sarmin, Kaplan, and their fellow travelers
were asked to address seven key topics, from
their assumptions before the trip to their
plans for promoting greater cross-cultural and
interfaith understanding in their respective
community or school. “Each individual
has to make a commitment,” says Mark
Rosenblum (History), who as director of the
leadership and dialogue program led this
year’s tour and the three that preceded it. “We
want to multiply
the impact.”
Toward that
end, participants
received training that will enable them to
facilitate communication and serve as “shock
absorbers” if the events in Gaza play out
negatively on their respective campuses.
Sponsored by the Ibrahim Family
Foundation—which aspires to share America
with the world and share the world with
FAR LEFT: Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem;
NEAR LEFT: Nashwa El-Sayed ’13 and Dalya
Arussy ’14 flank Mark Rosenblum.
of music from 1969 to 1975 (and again in
1992) and was named the Henry L. and
Lucy G. Moses Professor Emeritus of Music
upon his retirement. Palisca’s monograph
on Baroque music (originally published
in 1968 and now in its third edition)
remains a standard textbook on the topic;
his translation (with Guy A. Marco) of
Zarlino’s Istitutioni harmoniche (1558) is the
most widely used translation of one of the
most important treatises on music theory.
Shortly after her husband’s death in 2001,
Ms. Keitel donated his rare books to the
college; they are available to researchers in
the Special Collections Department in the
Rosenthal Library. In 2009 she also donated
funds to purchase and install display cases in
the Music Library.
America—and QC, the leadership and
dialogue program grew out of Rosenblum’s
innovative class, “The Middle East and
America: Clash of Civilizations or Meeting
of the Minds.” As part of their assignments,
students research and support positions
opposite to the ones they grew up believing.
The Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious
Understanding (CERRU), which promotes
cross-cultural communication on the QC
campus and elsewhere in New York City, is
another legacy of that course.
More Kudos for
the College
Rodríguez. “I couldn’t be more pleased and
proud that Queens College is being recognized
nationally for the exceptional results of this
longstanding commitment.”
A college’s “value” is now receiving
For the second
extra scrutiny. In August 2013 the Obama
consecutive year,
administration declared that the federal
Queens College has
government would begin to rate colleges to
been recognized by
determine “who’s offering the best value, so
Washington Monthly students and taxpayers get a bigger bang for
as the #2 college in
their buck,” in the president’s words. Because
America for doing
student debt is so high nationwide, colleges
“the best job of
are increasingly being ranked for their
helping non-wealthy affordability and students’ earning power
students attain
after graduation.
marketable degrees
For instance, Forbes magazine recently
at affordable
published a list of the “Top Best Value
prices.” The magazine analyzed 1,540 U.S.
Colleges 2014,” and QC makes the grade,
colleges and selected 386 that delivered the ranking #16. These are “top colleges and
“Best Bang for the Buck.”
universities that deliver the goods without
“Since its founding, Queens College has picking your pocket,” advise the editors, who
been dedicated to providing a high-quality
also state, “While college is always going to
education to deserving students regardless of be a significant financial undertaking, a great
their finances,” says President Félix V. Matos education doesn’t have to break the bank.”
Fourth Year for Teaching
in Vietnam Project
Having just sent their fourth group of
students to Vietnam for the summer
Teaching in Vietnam Project, co-coordinators Donna Gruber (Director, ELI) and
Thomas Szlezak (Project Manager, CTL)
feel they’ve developed a strong partnership with their Vietnamese colleagues,
who do much to facilitate a learning
experience that is unique within CUNY.
“We’re very lucky to have partners
who are so organized and responsible,”
says Gruber of her collaborators at the
Southeast Asian Ministers of Education
Organization Regional Training Center
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 6
(SEAMEO RETRAC) in Vietnam, who
each July host six QC students in Ho
Chi Minh City.
“Our students are really the star
of the show,” notes Gruber. These
students—in coordination with a
native Vietnamese teacher who is
also a skilled teacher of English—use
games, songs, and other activities to
teach speaking, reading, and writing
skills to elementary school children in what’s
called the Summer Fun program.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 8
Along the same lines, in Money
magazine’s new best colleges list, which
focuses on quality, affordability (the cost
of earning a diploma in tuition and loans),
and outcomes (how much the diploma will
be worth in salary after graduation), Queens
College was evaluated among 665 higher
education institutions, ranking in Money’s
top 30 percent.
In the just-released 2015 U.S. News
America’s Best Colleges, Queens College
ranked #8 among “Top Public Schools” in
the Regional Universities–North category.
Colleges in this category are defined as
offering a broad range of undergraduate
degrees and some master’s programs
but few, if any, doctoral programs.
And, as usual, QC is featured in the
Princeton Review’s The Best 379 Colleges
2015 Edition. “Queens College offers
outstanding academics, which is the chief
reason we selected it for the book,” says
Rob Franek, the Princeton Review’s senior
VP and publisher.
PRESIDENT MATOS – from page 4
percentage increase of any CUNY community
college in those five years. And we more than
doubled our fundraising dollars destined for
student scholarships.
Why did you want to become president
of Queens College?
I truly believe that many of the things I have
been able to accomplish in my professional
life I owe to my liberal arts education. So,
when the opportunity came to become a part
of CUNY’s top and quintessential liberal arts
and sciences institution, I knew I had to give
it a try. Also, Queens College’s stellar faculty
and talented students had always impressed
me, so I thought it would be an honor to be
associated with them.
The Queens College motto—We learn so
that we may serve—is something that is very
much a part of my life. I strongly believe that
a good life is a life that is dedicated to service.
I saw what public education did for my grandparents and parents, and I want to be part of
helping to create those same opportunities for
students here.
What do you do to relax?
I try to spend as much time as I can
with my family. My wife and I are
big movie fans, and we recently
saw A Hard Day’s Night on a big
screen in Pelham, where we live.
I play tennis, softball, and golf. I
love to read and just finished a fine
book about World War I, The War
that Ended Peace, and now I’m into
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Ben
Franklin. I have no talent for music,
but I love it. My son Lucas plays the
bass and Juan Carlos plays the cello,
so I spend a lot of time with them at
music lessons and recitals.
But even though I love music, I am one of
the few Latinos who cannot dance.
QC Authors
In his new novel, Song of the Shank
(Graywolf Press), JEFFERY RENARD
ALLEN (English) explores the meaning of
the life of Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins
(1849–1908), a musical
prodigy and perhaps an
autistic savant as well.
Blind Tom lived in the
public eye most of his
life, beginning his career
as a performer while
still an enslaved child
(including a concert
for President James
Buchanan). The novel, however, opens in
1866, when the emancipated Blind Tom
was subjected to new and continued forms
of exploitation as the ward of his former
owners, becoming a world-famous pianist
and composer. A story this big and fantastic
requires a large canvas, and Allen devoted
about ten years to the novel. In it he brings
Blind Tom and the hucksters, admirers,
detractors, and former slave owners around
him to life, in the process exploring such
questions as genius and identity. The novel
has been widely praised for its own musical
prose, virtuosic use of magical realism,
psychological insight, and profound study of
race and freedom in American society.
In a globalizing world, how can we make
sense of the city’s post-industrial, multi-racial,
ever-changing neighborhoods of new and
recent immigrants? TARRY HUM (Urban
Studies) has conducted extensive ethnographic
and action research
among New York’s
Chinese immigrants
and, in Making a
Global Immigrant
Neighborhood:
Brooklyn’s Sunset Park
(Temple University
Press), she questions
the continued use of
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 7
Tamburri Named Distinguished Professor
an ethnic enclave model in understanding
their sense of place, identity, and collective
agency. That model, which projects a path
toward spatial assimilation into the larger
society, begins from a notion of “isolated and
insular enclaves” where internal community
differences are given little weight. In its place,
Hum emphasizes the multi-racial, classed,
and highly contested space of Sunset Park
as a complex neighborhood experiencing
multi-national gentrification and real estate
speculation, much of it led by Chinese
banks and affluent immigrants. She follows
the development of a grassroots Asian and
Latino coalition seeking a sustainable form
of community development that would
not displace working-class residents. In
the process, as Hum shows with passion
and a tremendous knowledge of politics
and everyday life in Brooklyn, these new
immigrants are helping to create new forms of
democratic practice and vision.
ROBERT KAPSIS
(Sociology) is best
known as a scholar
of film, especially of
filmmakers Alfred
Hitchcock, Woody Allen,
and Clint Eastwood.
Recently, though,
with Conversations
with Steve Martin
(University Press of Mississippi), he has
branched out to a figure best known as a
comedian. Why? As Kapsis puts it, “While
those less familiar with his full body of work
may think of Martin as primarily the ‘funny
man’ with an arrow through his head, this
book makes the case that he is in fact one of
our nation’s most accomplished and varied
artists.” In a compilation of profiles and
interviews conducted with Martin over some
forty years, Kapsis foregrounds the artist’s
many achievements as a writer. In fact, his
writing comprises a wide range of award-
Congratulazioni are due ANTHONY
JULIAN TAMBURRI (European
Languages), dean of QC’s John D. Calandra
Italian American Institute:
Over the summer, the CUNY
Board of Trustees named him
a Distinguished Professor,
effective September 1.
Author of 14 books and
editor of 20, Tamburri is
Tamburri
an internationally acclaimed
scholar in the fields of Italian and Italian
American Studies. In his eight years as
dean of the Calandra Institute, he has
dramatically increased its public presence and extended its academic profile
to include faculty exchange and research
winning work, including comedy, plays,
screenplays, essays, novels, memoirs, art
criticism, and songs. Kapsis provides a full
chronology of Martin’s work along with an
engaging collection of interviews in which
Martin reflects on his personal background,
artistic experiences, influences, intentions, and
the back story to particular works. On October
5 Kapsis will be at the Museum of the Moving
Image in NYC to sign copies of his book and
introduce Martin’s film The Jerk. He is also
working with MOMI and the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to develop a
full-scale retrospective on Martin.
With the publication of Enigmas of Health
and Disease: How Epidemiology Helps
Unravel Scientific
Mysteries (Columbia
University Press),
English readers may
now enjoy ALFREDO
MORABIA’S elegant
and accessible exploration
of the medical science
that daily touches our
lives in countless ways.
projects in Italy. Under his leadership, the
institute launched an annual international
conference, two book series, and a peerreviewed social science journal, the Italian
American Review.
“I am both honored and humbled to be
recognized as a Distinguished Professor
by the City University of New York,” said
Tamburri, who is now the fifteenth distinguished professor at the college. “What
makes this truly special is, first of all, that
it has its origins at the level of peer evaluation—my colleagues at Queens College.
That the nomination was then reconsidered and approved by a university-wide
CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Look no further than current headlines to
see epidemiologists tirelessly working to
sort through the common and disparate
elements that, when properly interpreted and
assembled, may explain the unprecedented
scope of the latest outbreak of Ebola on the
African continent. To be sure, there have been
other Ebolas: the Black Death (plague) in the
1400s, the Blue Death (cholera) in the early
1800s, consumption (tuberculosis) in the late
1800s, the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918, and,
more recently, HIV in the 1980s. Morabia
(Prof. of Epidemiology, Barry Commoner
Center), who is board certified in internal
and occupational medicine, explores these
and other medical scourges in recounting the
evolution of what we’ve come to know as
public health. Enigmas of Health and Disease
is an English-language adaptation by Morabia
of a book he published in France in 2011.
He opted to adapt rather than translate, he
explains in the prologue, to frame his ideas in
cultural concepts that would better resonate
for English speakers. The result, he believes,
is a book with a distinctly different character.
Different, but no less fascinating.
TEACHING IN VIETNAM – from page 6
The selection process begins in January
with typically 40–45 applicants for the six
internships. “We try to push for education
students, TESOL, linguistics; they can be
graduate or undergraduate,” says Szlezak,
who is uniquely qualified to work with
the program: As an undergraduate, he was
among the first group from QC to make
the Vietnam trip.
SEAMEO funds much of the cost,
including housing, a daily $20 stipend for
expenses, and complimentary weekend trips
to destinations such as the Mui Ne resort
area and the Mekong Delta. QC partially
subsidizes airfare.
“I believe this is the first international
internship for Queens College that’s a paid
internship,” explains Gruber. “It’s very different from a study abroad program where
you’re paying to go abroad. This program
pays you to go to another country where
you're working and living with the people.
“It’s also a value-added for ELI,” she
continues, “because the interns have
to tutor students in our ELI classes in
preparation for going.” Interns have to
prepare 30 lessons before they go; Gruber
says they are creating a database of the
most successful lessons.
This year, interns were required
to check in with weekly progress
reports. “It’s an email, very informal,
very conversational,” says Szlezak.
“We want to know if they’re
healthy, what are they teaching, did
they go on any weekend trips.”
“Also,” notes Gruber, “there is
a SEAMO requirement that the
interns must visit the museum
devoted to the Vietnam War, as well
as some of the tunnels used by North
Vietnamese troops during the conflict. But
their insistence is very gentle. It’s a very
polite culture.”
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 8
ELI forged another significant cultural
link on the opposite side of the globe this
past summer when Associate ELI Director
Lorraine Smith taught an intensive twoweek professional development workshop
for professors at the National University
of Mongolia (NUM). The groundwork
for this was laid by members of QC’s
administration and faculty in visits to the
region in recent years.
“Donna had the idea of sending
someone to do a workshop as a piece of an
ongoing collaboration,” says Smith.
Approximately 54 teachers were
recruited for the program by NUM from
across a wide variety of disciplines. Another
12 teachers joined during the first few days
of the program.
“The way I set up the program was by
picking college-level content that they had
not taught,” explains Smith. “So it was a
level playing field; everything was new and
hopefully fresh and definitely different from
what they usually teach.”
To further the relationship with NUM,
two professors were awarded a scholarship
by Gruber to enroll in ELI this fall.
“One of the women who’s coming was
my helper, my translator, my assistant, my
everything,” says Smith, who notes that
all the participants
in her program were
reasonably fluent
in English.
QC People
JOSÉ ANADÓN (Biology) participated
in an international study of ecological damage to grasslands, funded by the National
Academies Keck Futures Initiative and the
National Science Foundation. In a comparative study of the United States and
Argentina, Anadón joined researchers from
Arizona State and McGill Universities in
evaluating the impacts of invasive trees and
shrubs on lands used for pasture and other
purposes. The findings were published in August in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences
. . . KATHERINE PICKERING
ANTONOVA (History) was
interviewed August 17 by New
Books in Russia and Eurasia, a
channel of the online New Books
Network. The subject was her
new work, An Ordinary Marriage
(Oxford University Press) . . .
An analysis of census data by
ANDREW BEVERIDGE (Sociology)
became a talking point in the contentious
labor relations of the Long Island Rail
Road, when he found that median earnings
of railroad workers are above those of
the passengers . . . TARRY HUM (Urban
Studies) is profiled in Chinese American:
Exclusion/Inclusion, an exhibition at the NewYork Historical Society on the history of
CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Hum (far left)
In Memoriam
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
ROBERT BITTMAN passed away on
October 1 after a prolonged battle with cancer.
A native of Queens, he grew up in Forest
Hills. Following his graduation from high
school at the age of 16, he came to Queens
College and received his degree in chemistry
in 1962. He went on to the University of
California at Berkeley, where he obtained
his PhD in 1965, and then went to the Max
Planck Institute in Göttingen, Germany, to
work with Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen.
Upon his return to the US in 1966,
Bob became an assistant professor at QC,
rising through the ranks to being named
distinguished professor in 1988. He has
been a member of the doctoral faculty of
the CUNY programs in both chemistry and
biochemistry since coming to Queens.
Bob was other scientists’ ideal collaborator
as it was generally known that his approach
to solving chemistry problems was the best
approach available. His research output
was spectacular, with over 320 papers in
refereed journals, 64 book chapters, and 19
patents (more are currently in preparation and
pending), and continuous external support
for his research from 1967 to the present. He
also served on the editorial board of Organic
Reactions for many years.
In his last days, Bob’s major concern
was not for himself; he was totally realistic
about his situation and the process of life. His
concern was that his students would continue
to be well served. We mourn the passing of a
great scientist, scholar, and colleague.
QC PEOPLE – from page 8
trade and immigration between China and
the United States. It highlights the work
of eight Chinese Americans—including
Hum—whose “visions for the 21st century
influence the arts, academia, journalism,
politics, business, and social and environmental justice.” She also was interviewed
on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on August 6.
The exhibition is scheduled to be up from
September 26 through April 19 . . . CHINA
JUDE’S (Athletics) article on “Service in
the City” in the June/July issue of Athletic
Management describes the
many community service
projects of QC athletes,
how these reflect the college’s values, and what service
means to students . . . FRED
KAPLAN (Emeritus English)
Jude
has resurrected the reputation of one of the lesser known presidents
in John Quincy Adams: American Visionary.
Kaplan draws heavily on Adams’s 50-volume
diary, begun at age 12, in drawing out what
the Miami Herald terms an “almost dizzying
list of achievements” and in telling the story
of the son of one of the country’s most
distinguished founding fathers . . . SCOTT
LARSON (Urban Studies) has been working with State Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder
(D-Rockaway Park) in conducting a study
of Queens transportation needs, consist-
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
from page 7
committee of Distinguished Professors is an
even higher honor. One could not ask for
greater validation of one’s work.”
A native of Stamford, Connecticut,
Tamburri holds a BA in Italian and
Spanish from Southern Connecticut State
University, an MA in Italian from Middlebury
College, and a PhD in Italian and Spanish
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 9
ing of a survey of 5,000 people. It concerns
community preferences related to competing proposals for the Rockaway Beach
Line, a stretch of unused Long Island Rail
Road track between Ozone Park and Rego
Park—the question being whether to redevelop this track for mass transit or convert
it to a park modeled on Manhattan’s High
Line . . . As the LIRR labor dispute heated
up, KENNETH RYESKY (Accounting)
contributed an analysis of workers’ right to
strike under federal and state laws to the
July 10 installment of the American Thinker
blog . . . TOM SANGIORGI (Chemistry)
recently received the New York Daily News’
Hometown Hero in Education Award and
a Math for America 2014 Master Teacher
Fellowship. He earned his BA and MA at
the college, and also teaches at Townsend
Harris HS . . . NATHALIS WAMBA
(ECP) was a Visiting Fulbright
Scholar at University College
Cork in Ireland. There he continued his work with Mzuzu
University in Malawi, especially
with the new Supporting LIFE
Institute, which will train
faculty and community health Wamba
workers in eHealth and the
use of digital tools to improve health care
during maternity and childhood. Wamba
received a commendation from the Irish
Fulbright Commission.
from the University of California, Berkeley.
Before coming to QC, he taught at Smith
College, Middlebury, Auburn University,
Purdue University, and Florida Atlantic
University. The recipient of numerous
grants and honors—such as awards from
the Association of Italian American
Educators and the Italian Language InterCultural Alliance—he received the Order
of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2010,
making him a low-ranked knight.
Using China to Teach about China
The QC community knows William
Daghlian as a former adjunct at
the Aaron Copland School of
Music, where he taught piano.
But he is also an art collector
who specializes in Chinese
ceramics and sculpture spanning
approximately 5,000 years. In
2012, in response to the Year of
China—the inaugural program in
QC’s annual “Year of” series—he
donated 1,650 pieces to the college.
Sixty of those items will go on public
view November 19, when Highlights of
The Daghlian Collection of Chinese Art
opens at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum.
(All are welcome to the opening reception
that night at 6 to 8 pm.)
“Visitors can scarcely gain a better introduction to Chinese culture than by examining
its works of art,” says Distinguished Professor
Morris Rossabi (History). “In addition to their
beauty, they often reveal a great deal about
Chinese values and beliefs.”
Specifically, Highlights of The Daghlian
Collection uses ceramics, jade, pottery,
and wood objects to document Chinese
history and culture from the Stone Age
(ca. 6000–2500 BCE) to the Ming dynasty
(ca. 1368–1644). Like the website (http://
daghlian.qc.cuny.edu/) created for study
of the collection, the show is organized in
chronological sections.
“My hope is that students, faculty, and
the public will learn from it and enjoy the
pieces,” says Daghlian. “If others can learn
from my collection, research further, and
contribute new perspectives, it will be just
wonderful.” As it happens, QC students
have been involved in this project since
its inception; a companion exhibition in
the upstairs gallery presents ceramics that
students, alumni, and faculty created in
response to the collection.
Free public programs will accompany
the show, which closes on January 10,
TOP: Cizhou jar with brown painted design,
from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE).
ABOVE: Miniature acrobat, “a foreigner,”
from the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE).
2015. Daghlian will talk about collecting on
November 19. Rossabi will give a lecture
about the Yuan dynasty and the Mongols on
December 3; at noon a week later, Marleen
Kassel (Chinese history) will discuss the
collection. Sin-ying Ho (Ceramics) and GTM
Director Amy Winter will lead gallery tours.
For more information, please email Marleen.
Kassel@qc.cuny.edu.
IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA
PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA
NANCY AGABIAN (English) was profiled
in the “Local Express” feature of the Queens
Gazette . . . An interview with SALMAN
AHMAD (Music), conducted
as he was about to perform
with his band Junoon at the
first Louis Armstrong Music
Festival, appeared in the New
Yorker . . . MORRIS ALTMAN
(Information Technology)
Ahmad
shared his thoughts on
keeping QC’s network services secure
with the journal HELP NET SECURITY. He
was also quoted at MarketWatch.com in a
feature about the college’s successful use
of ForeScout CounterACT to monitor and
secure network services . . . KATHERINE
ANTONOVA (History) discussed the
everyday lives of the Russian gentry in an
interview with the journal Fair Observer
. . . A study by CLIVE BELFIELD
(Economics) was cited as one of the
sources of data used by a group of Arizona
mayors to determine the economic impact
of students dropping out of high school,
according to azednews.com . . . ANDREW
BEVERIDGE (Sociology)
used a federal survey to
analyze the racial composition
of police departments for
the New York Times, and
determined that nearly 400
Beveridge were 50 percent whiter than
the communities they served.
He also provided statistical data for Times
stories concerning the growing population
of New York’s financial district and the
growth of the city’s non-Hispanic white
population. The Sociology Department
also provided data for Times stories on the
changing demographics of New York’s 13th
congressional district, efforts by city libraries
to meet the demand for English-language
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 10
classes, the effect the Ebola virus outbreak is
having on the city’s West African immigrants,
and plans to give the Bronx Children’s
Museum a permanent home . . . The Forward
reported an event at the Center for Jewish
History chaired by THOMAS BIRD
(European Languages) commemorating the
deaths of Soviet Yiddish writers at the hands
of Stalin . . . A talk by ANNA BOUNDS
(Sociology) at the American Sociological
MacArthur Fellow Makes
Campus Appearance
“Poems are not read only re-read,” says poet and University of Pittsburgh
professor Terrance Hayes, a recipient this year of a MacArthur Foundation
Fellowship (the so-called genius grant). The QC community had the
opportunity to see Hayes, the author of four published collections—
including Lighthead, which won the 2010 National Book Award
for Poetry—when he shared his work at the Godwin-Ternbach
Museum on October 8. The free event, which was co-sponsored
by the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation
and the Poetry Society of America, also featured Hayes’s U. of
Pittsburgh colleague Lynn Emanuel. The poetry re-reading was
followed by a Q-and-A session and book signing.
Hayes
QC Explores the
Rainbow Nation
Bounds
Association’s annual meeting concerning
urban “doomsday” survivalists was reported
at livescience.com, techtimes.com, and the
Myrtle Beach Examiner . . . NICHOLAS
COCH (Earth & Environ. Sci.) was quoted
at maritime-executive.com debunking the
theory that offshore wind
farms could help weaken large
storms . . . A Providence Journal
story concerning stagnant
wages among Rhode Island’s
workers quoted JOSEPH
COHEN (Sociology)
Coch
. . . JOHN COLLINS
(Anthropology) was quoted in a Wall Street
Journal story about the effect gentrification
is having on his neighborhood in Astoria .
. . A story at capitalnewyork.com about the
decision by the New York State Nurses
Association and 1199 SEIU to oppose
the Keystone XL pipeline project quoted
CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
After focusing on countries in Asia and South America, QC’s
signature “Year of” initiative—which presents multidisciplinary
programming about the history, culture, and contributions of
a single nation—is moving to a new continent with the Year
of South Africa. This semester’s events include a soccer match,
a student dance concert featuring choreography by Sduduzo
Ka-Mbili, and a film series. For the latest listings, visit www.qc.cuny.edu/yosa.
New QC Shop Clicks
with Patrons
If you want to purchase official Queens College
apparel and accessories, you’ve got a surprise
in store: The QC Shop is now open for online
business at www.thecunystore.com/queens_
college. As the URL suggests, the shop is part of
a venue that gives virtual shelf space to every school in the CUNY
system. Merchandise ranges from T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies
to key chains, office supplies, and folding chairs, all featuring the
distinctive QC logo. For motorists, there’s a highway safety kit that includes jumper cables,
a siphon, a blanket, a flashlight, and a tire gauge. What could be more appropriate for—or
from—people affiliated with a commuter campus?
IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA
PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA – from page 10
JOSHUA FREEMAN
(History). He was also cited
in a Daily News story on
nonunion workers participating
in the Labor Day Parade for
the first time . . . ANDREW
HACKER’S (Political Science,
Freeman
emeritus) opposition to the
tenure system was mentioned
in a PBS News Hour report on
the backlash against adjuncts.
He was also cited in columns
in the Village Voice and at
Newsmax.com about students
not being sufficiently challenged
to think in some of their
Hacker
classes . . . JESSICA HARRIS
(SEEK) authored a piece for nassaunewslive.
com about author Maya Angelou’s love of
cooking . . . RON HAYDUK’S (Political
Science) article at Quartz.
com advancing the proposal
that noncitizen immigrants be
allowed to vote was the subject
of a column at breitbart.com . . .
A column in the Forward on the
relative value of prayer in times
Hayduk
of crisis quoted from a column
by SAMUEL HEILMAN
(Sociology) that had appeared in Haaretz
. . . TARRY HUM (Urban Studies) was
interviewed for an article in World Journal
and on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show in
connection with her new book, Making a
Global Immigrant Neighborhood (see p. 7)
. . . The New York Times Book Review praised
FRED KAPLAN (English, Emeritus) and his
book John Quincy Adams: American Visionary
(HarperCollins), calling the biography a
“valuable book about an important American
figure” . . . MICHAEL KRASNER (Political
Science) was interviewed by the Queens
Gazette for its “Local Express” feature.
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 11
He was also quoted at
theforumnewsgroup.com in an
article about the difficulties
faced by political newcomers
in Queens . . . A report at
allgov.com concerning a court
of appeals ruling declaring that
FedEx workers be classified as Krasner
employees, not independent
contractors, referred to an article BARRY
LEIBOWICZ (Accounting) wrote in 2011
for CPA Journal . . . A story at newscenter.
berkeley.edu describing a daylong celebration
of the work of UC Berkeley sociologist
Troy Duster quoted another Berkeley PhD,
HARRY LEVINE (Sociology) . . . ALLAN
LUDMAN’S (Earth &
Environ. Sci.) discovery that
a 153-year-old tombstone
dumped in his yard belonged
to a famous abolitionist
generated multiple stories in
the Daily News and on NY1
Ludman
and NBC 4 New York . . . The
announcement that FÉLIX
V. MATOS RODRÍGUEZ would be the
next president of QC was reported by the
Queens Chronicle, Queens Tribune,TimesLedger,
theforumnewsgroup.com, El Diario, Queens
Latino, El Nueva Dia, the Pelhams-PLUS, the
Pelham Daily Voice, and jewishvoiceny.com
. . . A Reuters story concerning a study
linking the use of nicotine patches during
pregnancy with a greater risk of attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder in children
quoted YOKO NOMURA (Psychology)
. . . TIMOTHY PUGH (Anthropology)
was quoted in stories at hyperallergic.com,
livescience.com, and ibtime.co.uk concerning
an ancient Mayan temple in Guatemala
that he helped to discover . . . A story at
theforumnewsgroup.com about QC’s efforts
to help students manage debt quoted
JEFF ROSENSTOCK (External & Govt.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
In Memoriam
Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages
FRANK ROSENGARTEN died on
August 4. Before his retirement in 1992, he
taught Italian at the college and comparative
literature at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Rosengarten, who received his PhD in
Italian from Columbia University in the
1950s, taught in QC’s Romance Languages
Department from 1967 to 1992, following
earlier appointments at Adelphi University
and Case Western. Remarkably, following
his retirement, he obtained a second PhD in
French at the CUNY Graduate Center with a
dissertation on young Marcel Proust.
Rosengarten’s scholarship was at the
intersection of Italian culture and political
thought; indeed, he was deeply concerned
with social justice. To that end, in 1983 he
co-founded the Research Group on Socialism
and Democracy and served as editor of the
group’s journal from 1984 to 1992. His books
include the two-volume edition of Antonio
Gramsci’s Letters from Prison (1994) and
The Writings of the Young Marcel Proust
(1885–1900): An Ideological Critique (2001).
This past June he celebrated with family and
friends the publication of his two most recent
books, The Revolutionary Marxism of Antonio
Gramsci (Brill, 2014) and Through Partisan
Eyes: A Memoir (Firenze University Press,
2014), regaling all with reflections on his life,
career, friendships, and encounters.
Frank is survived by his sister, Jo; his children, Dan and Lydia; and several grandchildren.
QUEENS COLLEGE
HOME
COMING
2O14
S U N D AY
OCTOB E R 26
M E E T F O R M E R C L A S S M AT E S !
T O U R S , E N T E R TA I N M E N T, A N D M O R E !
www.qc.cuny.edu/homecoming
IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA
PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA – from page 11
STUDENTS IN THE MEDIA
Relations) . . . ULDIS ROZE (Biology,
Emeritus) described the ferocity of longtailed carnivores called fishers for a story
at nationalgeographic.com . . . JOSEPH
SCIORRA’S (Calandra Institute) role
in the acquisition by the Fenimore Art
Museum of an ornate work box created by
an Italian bootblack in the 1930s and once
displayed at the Museum of Modern Art was
reported in the New York Times . . . In a story
at scienceworldreport.com, FARAH TAHA
(Psychology) described the study, of which
she is the corresponding author, that reveals
evidence of a strong association between
anxiety disorders and the prevalence and
incidence of ulcers . . . The Queens Gazette
reported ANTHONY TAMBURRI’S
(European Languages) being named QC’s
15th distinguished professor . . . JOHN
WALDMAN (Biology) co-authored a
column in the Providence
Journal about how dams
severely inhibit the ability
of fish to migrate to their
traditional spawning grounds
. . . Southernstar.ie described
the efforts of NATHALIS
WAMBA (Educ. & Comm.
Waldman
Progs.) as a Fulbright Specialist
Scholar at University College Cork in Ireland
to advance an initiative to develop the
knowledge and skills of community healthcare
workers in Malawi . . . A Business News
Network report concerning Amazon’s dispute
with publisher Hachette over the pricing
of e-books quoted DANA
WEINBERG (Sociology) . . .
Huffingtonpost.com published
an interview with MYRA
ZARNOWSKI (Elementary
Ed.) concerning the Common
Core State Standards for
grades K-12.
Weinberg
A current and a recent graduate of the
MFA in Creative Writing and Literary
Translation program have just won awards.
ERIC M. B. BECKER received the PEN/
Heim Grant for his translation of Selected
Stories by Mozambican Mia Couto. RAJIV
MOHABIR ’13 was awarded the Four Way
Books Intro Prize for his poetry manuscript
The Taxidermist's Cut . . . The experience
of NICOLINA DAPILMA, an immigrant
from Togo who was recruited by CUNY to
enroll tuition-free in its Accelerated Study
in Associate Programs, was highlighted in a
story in the Chronicle of Higher
Education . . . A story about
CUNY’s 2014 valedictorians
at jewishvoiceny.com included
PATRYK PERKOWSKI, who
majored in mathematics and
economics . . . Eagletribune.com
reported on junior JESSICA
Perkowski
WIGGINS who, with other
QC students, created a Global Brigades
chapter to send volunteers abroad to assist
medical professionals in countries in need of
assistance. Wiggins and members of the QC
chapter went to Ghana.
FYI OCTOBER 2014 | 12
L–r: Dean of Math & Natural Sciences Robert Engel, Senator Tony Avella, and former
Interim President Evangelos Gizis celebrate the awarding of a $2 million grant to help
renovate the science labs in Remsen Hall.
EVENTS IN THE MEDIA
The inaugural Louis Armstrong International
Music Festival presented by the Kupferberg
Center generated stories in the Daily
News, Queens Chronicle, Queens Gazette,
and at theforumnewsgroup.com. The Queens
Gazette and broadwayworld.com featured
stories about the 20th anniversary of the
Armstrong Archives at QC, and the New
York Times offered a substantial feature
about the archives and the Armstrong
House Museum . . . The study conducted
by the QC Office of Community Studies to
explore redevelopment of the abandoned
Rockaway Beach Rail Line was reported
in the Queens Chronicle, Queens Gazette,
and at theforumnewsgroup.com . . . Sen.
Tony Avella’s securing of a $2 million
grant for the renovation of labs in Remsen
Hall (above) was reported by the Queens
Chronicle and at forumnewsgroup.com . . . The
TimesLedger and Queens Gazette reported
Godwin-Ternbach Museum’s acquisition
of seven color silkscreen prints by Andy
Warhol . . . A report by Riverkeeper in
collaboration with scientists from QC and
Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty
Earth Observatory on the poor quality of
water in the Hudson River was featured at
gothamgazette.com and allmediany.com. The
Poughkeepsie Journal published an editorial
on the report’s findings . . . Jewishvoice.
com reported on Forbes’ release of its list
of America’s Top Colleges that included
Queens College. Crain’s New York Business
reported on Money magazine’s inaugural list
of the 665 colleges that deliver the best
education for the money that ranked
Queens College 194th . . . An initiative
by Calandra Institute to publish works
by high school students in the 10th
annual edition of Il Giornalino was
reported by the Pelham Daily Voice.
Andy Warhol, Sitting Bull,
1986, silkscreen print, on
view through November 1
at the Godwin-Ternbach
Museum exhibit Andy
Warhol’s Photo-Aesthetic
and Beyond.