AT A GLANCE

cuny.edu/news • C I T Y U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K F O U N D E D 1 8 4 7 • June 2004

The New York State Public Employ-ment Relations Board has upheldpolicies adopted by the City

University in 2002 that govern theownership of intellectual property at the19-campus public college system in NewYork City. A three-member appeals panelin Albany issued the ruling on March26th.

The revised policy, which was adoptedby CUNY’s Boardof Trustees inNovember 2002,was challengedduring its draftingin 2001 by theProfessional StaffCongress, the union representing faculty,which asserted that the matter was sub-ject to collective bargaining.

“I’m very gratified by the decision,” saidFrederick Schaffer, general counsel andvice chancellor for legal affairs to theBoard of Trustees. “The revised policy ismore favorable to the faculty than theUniversity’s earlier policies. It greatly

increases the royalties faculty membersreceive on work they create during theiremployment.”

The March 26 decision ruled that,under the CUNY-PSC contract, the unionwaived its right to collective bargaining onthis issue. The University’s prior copyrightand patent policies, which had been ineffect since 1972, were adopted andamended by the Board of Trustees with-

out collectivebargaining.

CUNY beganworking on therevised intellec-tual propertypolicy in the fall

of 2000 when Chancellor Goldstein con-vened a committee to review and updateCUNY’s copyright and patent policies.The committee received comments fromseveral CUNY groups, including theUniversity Faculty Senate, the ProfessionalStaff Congress and individual facultymembers, and held two public forums onthe issue before the policy was adopted.

CUNY Intellectual Property Policy is Approved

1John Oliver KillensCelebrated at MedgarEvers ConferenceThe multi-talented Blackauthor JohnOliver Killenswas honoredat MedgarEvers College,where hetaught, at the7th NationalBlack Writers Conference, of whichhe was a co-founder. See page 8.

2 Explorers Club of N.Y.Honors CUNY Teamon Colorado PeakA CCNY-BCC team offaculty andstudentresearchersstudyingclouds in theColoradoRockies hasbeen awardedthe Explorers Club Flag Award.See page 5.

3New Edition of 17CPamphlets on Womenfrom Trustee O’MalleyKingsboroughCommunityCollegeProfessor ofEnglish andChair of theUniversityFaculty SenateSusanO’Malley hasjust published an edition of early17th-century pamphlets on suchtopics as gossip, spousal abuse, andcross-dressing. See page 9.

4Three PerformersLeave Mark in Circus,Dance, Met OperaDanette Sheppard is one of threenotable debutantes in the perform-ing arts who remind us that CUNYis the “Arts & Entertainment” uni-versity. Seen here with ringmasterKevin Venardos, she recentlybecame the first featured vocalist inRingling Brothers Circus’s 134-yearhistory. See page 12.

through this special outreach program.”Last November, CUNY initiated a

series of special seminars in immigrationlaw for staff from district offices of state,city and federal officials; more than 50staffers signed up for the first series.According to Hershenson, the intent is todevelop a series of seminars to equip localstaff to give precise, correct, currentanswers to immigration questions.

The need for such services in a citywhere about 40 percent of the residentsare immigrants is nowhere more clearthan at Hostos Community College’sImmigration Clinic.

“Today I’ve seen more than 25 people,”Myriam Rodriguez, the clinic’s assistantdirector, said on a recent afternoon.“Every day I see more people than theday before, and now they’re coming fromdifferent countries. It’s not just Hispanicpeople, it’s people from Pakistan, Trinidad,Morocco, Russia — everywhere.”

Most of the people Rodriguez sees havealready been to a lawyer, paid their money,and received nothing in return. “Not thepro bono lawyers,” she stresses, not theones who offer their expertise withoutcharge. “The only problem with the probono lawyers is that they sometimes havetoo many cases to help anyone else.”

Rodriguez said most people who con-tact the Hostos clinic want to become cit-izens, or to secure admission for a relative,or to get green cards. The volume of visi-tors has been up recently because “rightnow the INS is being a little bit tougher,and people are more aware. They’re look-ing for more information.”

Those worries don’t affect Rodriguez,who was born in Puerto Rico, but, as shesaid after a recent full day of work, “I liketo help people with these problems. Ibelieve everyone has the right to comehere and look for what we call theAmerican Dream.’”

Wernick urged immigrants to notbecome discouraged in their quest for cit-izenship. “The benefits are too great, therights too precious,” he said.

staff, faculty and students from the LawSchool. They were joined by lawyers andparalegals who specialize in immigrationand naturalization matters for the LegalAid Society, the city and county bar asso-ciations, and several nonprofit legal serviceproviders. Telephones were staffed from 9am to 7 pm daily from April 26 throughApril 30.

“CUNY has historically welcomedmany generations of immigrants who havelooked to higher education opportunityas their ladder to upward social and eco-nomic mobility,” Chancellor MatthewGoldstein wrote, inviting colleges to lendtheir experts and expertise to the pro-gram. “Every day, your college helpsimmigrants realize their dreams in numer-ous ways. I believe we can build on ourlongstanding record of contributions

The torrent of phone calls to“Citizenship Now!,” the immigra-tion hotline set up jointly by the

City University of New York and the NewYork Daily News, began a full half-hourbefore the five-day program officiallybegan on April 26.

Before that Monday morning was over,the volume of calls had overwhelmed theDaily News phone system, causing it tocrash briefly. By Friday evening, the 80volunteer experts assembled to providehelp and advice to almost 6,000 callers—a rate of about 120 per hour, two perminute.

“It just goes to show you the lack ofinformation out there,” said HostosCommunity College Professor AllanWernick, who coordinated the hotlineinitiative. Wernick, an attorney, is chair-man of the CUNY Citizenship andImmigration Project, and also writes acolumn on immigration for the DailyNews.

“We knew there was a demand for aservice like this,” said Martin Dunn,deputy publisher and editorial directorof the News. “But even we have beensurprised by the overwhelming response.”Citizenship Now! added phone lines andadditional CUNY volunteers for thesecond and succeeding days to meet thedemand.

“The response to the call-in proves onceand for all that immigrant New Yorkerswant desperately to become citizens,”Wernick said. “But the process isn’t easy.Complicated rules, the inefficiency of thegovernment’s immigration offices and thelack of information keep many from get-ting naturalized.”

Vice Chancellor and board secretary JayHershenson proposed the citizenship call-in to Dunn, who enthusiasticallyembraced the idea. Volunteers included

The full decision of the PublicRelations Board can be found at

(cuny.edu/news).

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, rear at right, visited the hotline at the Daily News as volun-teers helped almost 6,000 callers.

Callers Flood‘Citizenship Now!’ Hotline

By Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

Each year at this time mymind turns to the upcomingCommencements across our

campuses, and what Commence-ment really means to us atCUNY—collectively and to ourmore than 32,800 students poisedto graduate this year. It is a timefilled with hope and promise,marked by a sense of accomplish-ment and personal pride. It is thelong-anticipated outcome of years of hardwork, balancing jobs, families, and com-munity obligations with classes andassignments, while overcoming difficultobstacles to forge a path to personal suc-cess or a better life.

As I reflect on what a defining momentthis is in the lives of our students, I pauseover the word “commencement” itself. Sooften we think of Commencement as anending, a culmination of achievementafter two, four or more years in school.But Webster’s defines commencementthus: not only finishing a course of aca-demic study, but also “to have or make abeginning.” Graduation in turn is definednot only as receiving an academic degreebut also as passing “from one stage ofexperience, proficiency, or prestige to ausually higher one.”

Naturally, then, Commencement atCUNY carries with it not only excitement

but also trepidation.What will become ofour graduates? What“new beginning” are theyembarking upon? Forinsight, I turn to previ-ous graduating classesand their experiences.

According to onesurvey of past gradu-ates, 80 percent of asso-ciate’s degree recipients

and more than 90 percent of bachelor’sdegree recipients from CUNY wereemployed within a year and a half ofgraduating. Of those employed graduates,90 percent of associate’s degree holdersand 80 percent of bachelor’s degree hold-ers are working right here in New YorkCity. Further, CUNY degree holdersworking in New York City are likely to beworking in the area they were trainedin—for example, nearly 72 percent ofbachelor’s degree holders work in jobsthey specifically trained for at CUNY.Even in today’s economy, half our four-year grads are earning $35,000 or more ayear and a half after graduation.

And what are those students doing?We know that through initiatives like theCUNY Big Apple Job Fair alone, our grad-uates find jobs at companies like MetLife,Bear Stearns, Memorial Sloan-Kettering,and UPS. And looking at two majors as

and/or night jobs, parental responsibili-ties—it is nearly impossible to choosefrom the many stories we have to tell. Icould fill pages with inspiring stories offabulous grads, and I encourage you towatch for the Summer issue of CUNYMatters, with its annual feature on someof the most remarkable members of theClass of 2004. All their stories point notonly to how hard they have worked butwhat promise they hold.

In keeping with that promise, I willrefer to the Greek philosopher Plato topoint us in the right direction for thinkingabout Commencement. In The Republic,he wrote, “The direction in which educa-tion starts a man, will determine his futurelife.” I take this to mean that educationsets a person on a path of future learning,opening doors for them—literally andimaginatively. I believe that is doubly trueof the men and women graduating fromCUNY, who have truly “made their begin-ning” and determined their future.

Twenty years from now, many CUNYgrads won’t necessarily find themselves inthe place they imagined on thisCommencement Day. But they will findthemselves in a good place nonetheless,with the skills, talent, and imagination ittakes to press even further forward. In thelifelong pursuit that is education, I wishall of our upcoming graduates the best ofluck on a fantastic new start.

examples bodes well for future grads. Inthe student survey, 80 percent of studentsin the health sciences—both associate’sand bachelor’s degree recipients—found ajob in their field. The numbers are evenhigher for earners of a bachelor’s degreein education, over 90 percent. (This leadsto particularly satisfying projections foreducation majors when we consider thatthis year CUNY education studentsachieved the highest pass rates ever ontheir state license exams.)

Of course, not all students immediatelypursue employment. Many who com-mence will continue their education,whether by transferring from a two-year toa four-year program or by going to gradu-ate school. In fact, 50 percent of associate’sdegree recipients and 27 percent of bache-lor’s degree recipients go on to furthereducation within six months of earningtheir degrees. The University sends four-year graduates not only to its own excel-lent Graduate Center but to other fineschools; this year we have students going toHarvard, Columbia University, and theUniversity of Michigan, just to name a few.

As our dedicated faculty know, CUNYhas more than its share of truly astound-ing students. Considering that most ofthem reach the dais on CommencementDay in the face of great odds—immigra-tion complications, language barriers,financial difficulties, long hours at day

Walking throughthe model in his imag-ination, Maldonadosays, is quite emotion-al, and he makes noeffort to hide his satis-faction. “Our studentshave become veryhumanitarian.”

“One thing I learnedfrom my grandpa is not toforget where you’ve comefrom. It’s always good togive back,” says Valdez.“You have only onechance sometimes, andyou take it or leave it. Idecided to take it not justbecause of my country,but for the thousands ofpeople that we will helpwith this medical center.”

Adapted and expanded here is a story from“Study With the Best,” the 30-minute TVmagazine, now in its third season, that high-lights CUNY’s wide array of outstandingfaculty, remarkable students and alumni,and major University academic initiatives.The lively, fast-paced series (CUNY-TVChannel 75, Sundays at 8) is aimed partic-ularly at prospective CUNY students.

About a year and a half ago New YorkCity College of Technology’s

Agustin (Tim) Maldonado, aprofessor of architectural technology, got acall from Florida “from a very close friend,a 79-year-old gentleman who happens to bea philanthropist. His name is David King.”

A Long Islander, King was calling froma Tampa hospital where 15 doctors and 10nurses were about to drive down to ElSalvador to perform surgery in the coun-try, still reeling from the devastation of an11-year-long civil war. The war took about75,000 lives and left the local healthcaresystem in ruins. (A series of big earth-quakes caused further damage.)

King told Maldonado he wanted tobuild a new medical center for such goodsamaritans, who eventually treated 5,000Salvadorans for everything from cleftpalates to blindness. King soon calledagain: “Tim, I would like you to donateyour services and design this project forus.” Maldonado was delighted to sign on,but he told King, “I want to get theCollege involved. City Tech has tremen-dous assets, wonderful people who arereally caring.”

Soon the professor’s students werebusy conceptualizing their designs for the20-acre site, which boasted several 100-

Board of TrusteesThe City University of New York

Benno C. Schmidt Jr.Chairman

Valerie L. Beal Randy M. MastroJohn S. Bonnici Hugo M. MoralesJohn J. Calandra Kathleen M. PesileWellington Z. Chen Carol Robles-RománKenneth Cook Nilda Soto RuizRita DiMartino Marc V. ShawJoseph J. Lhota Jeffrey Wiesenfeld

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

Vice Chancellor for UniversityRelations and Secretary of the

Board of Trustees Jay Hershenson

University Director of Media Relations: Michael Arena

Editor: Gary SchmidgallWriters: Drew Fetherston, Rita Rodin

Photographer: André BecklesGraphic Design: Gotham Design, NYC

Articles in this and previous issues are availableat cuny.edu/news. Letters or suggestions for futurestories may be sent to the Editor by email toMediarelations@mail.cuny.edu. Changes of addressshould be made through your campus personnel office.

foot-tall trees that had to be preserved.“They spent weeks developing the shapesthrough preliminary models.” The final, orpresentation, models were submitted to ajury, which included “a number of archi-tects, experts in their field, who judgedthe different solutions.”

One of the student competitors hadgood reason to be swept up in the proj-ect. As a Salvadoran seven-year-old,William Valdez loved to draw and paint,so both his grandparents suggested hethink about architecture. Later, however,in 1995, Valdez fled to the U.S. from thecivil war to join his father, a florist in NewYork City.

After some employment as a florist andlandscaper, Valdez was encouraged by hiswife, a teacher, to go for an architecturaldegree. He came to City Tech and foundstudents “were happy here.” Now a sopho-more, Valdez says he was “very lucky” toland in Maldonado’s class. “I love the wayhe visualizes everything as an architect.He encouraged me to be better, little bylittle, and challenged me.”

And the winner was…William Valdez!“The fact that William was from ElSalvador made it a dream come true,” saysMaldonado. “He was able to take nativeelements, native colors…and incorporatethem into his design.” He adds, “WhenDavid King saw William’s model, he fellin love with it. ‘That’s what we’re goingto build!’”

“I was very excited,” Valdez recalls ofhis victory. “The first thing I did was sendan email to my grandparents with a pic-ture of the model. They were jumpingand crying; my grandmother was so excit-ed she couldn’t talk over the phone.”

2 CUNY MATTERS — June 2004

Reflections on the Season of Caps and GownsFROM THECHANCELLOR’S DESK

Susan O’MalleyChairperson,Faculty Senate

Agnes M. AbrahamChairperson,Student Senate

William Valdez and his design for a Salvadoran medical center,for which ground will be broken this year. Photo, A. Maldonado.

Fleeing Civil War, Sending Back a Medical Center

CUNY MATTERS — June 2004 3

Nonprofit services in New York Cityare marked by “service gaps in rapid-ly changing, low-income communi-

ties and outlying residential neighborhoods,and an over-concentration of facilities indowntown commercial sites,” according tothe New York City Nonprofits Project’s sec-ond report. Data revealed gross imbalancesbetween “affluent/upper-income” neighbor-hoods and those characterized as “concen-trated poverty/lower-income.”

The Nonprofit Project, which has beencollecting and analyzing data since 1999,is based at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Itsdirectors are John E. Seley, professor ofgeography and urban planning at QueensCollege and the Graduate Center, andJulian Wolpert of the Woodrow WilsonSchool of Public and International Affairsat Princeton.

Nonprofits located in high-end neighbor-hoods, it was found, account for almost 62

By any measure, nonprofits are animportant sector of the metropolitaneconomy. They employ more than528,000 workers, which is more thandouble the number of jobs in manufactur-ing, slightly more than all employed infinance, insurance and real estate com-bined, and just 5 percent below the num-ber working for all levels of government.

Over the past decade, employment innonprofits rose by about 25 percent, com-pared with about 4 percent overallemployment growth. The sector is also animportant employer of women: 68 per-cent of its workers are women, who makeup 53 percent of the city population.Blacks, who make up a quarter of thepopulation, account for 35 percent of thenonprofit workforce. Hispanics, however,were found to be under-represented, with17 percent of the workers and 27 percentof the population.

percent of the $50 billion annual expendi-tures by nonprofits in the city, althoughonly 11 percent of the city’s populationresides in those neighborhoods. Low-endneighborhoods hold 63 percent of the pop-ulation, but nonprofits there account foronly 23 percent of expenditures.

However, certain nonprofit services—immigration help, social services, commu-nity development, crisis intervention andreligion-based agencies—were found to bebetter represented in low-end neighbor-hoods. More than 44 percent of immigra-tion services were located in those neigh-borhoods. More than 45 percent of thecity’s social service nonprofits were locat-ed there, as were more than half of thecommunity-development agencies.However, the affluent neighborhoods inthe city, with just 3 percent of the popu-lation, were home to from 7 to 12 per-cent of agencies in these categories.

The Board of Trustees looked toCUNY’s own faculty when it ele-vated six eminent and productive

scholars and teachers to the rank ofDistinguished Professorat its February meeting.

Congratulating aworld-renowned histori-an of mathematics, awell-known LatinAmerican author, anacclaimed philosopher,a widely publishedgeometer, a leadingauthority on such toxicsubstances as lead paintand silicosis, and thefounder of a new schoolof thought in criminolo-gy, Chancellor MatthewGoldstein said, “Theyexemplify the high-caliber faculty theUniversity is committedto hiring in all academic areas.”

Joseph Dauben, who arrived atLehman College from Harvard in 1972,has become a leading scholar of the histo-ry of mathematics, notably with his twoclassic biographies, George Cantor: HisMathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite(Harvard) and Abraham Robinson: TheCreation of Nonstandard Analysis(Princeton).

His international scholarly ties areextensive. As reported in CUNY Matterslast fall, Dauben’s 15 years of explorationof Chinese mathematics led to the rarehonor, for a non-Chinese, of an HonoraryProfessorship in China’s Institute for theHistory of Natural Science. His editorialleadership of Historia Mathematica in the1980s helped to make it the leading jour-nal in its field. Dauben, who received aLehman Teacher of the Year award in1986, is also the Executive Officer of theM.A. Program in Liberal Studies andDirector of Interdisciplinary Studies atthe Graduate Center.

The poet, playwright, novelist, and crit-ic Isaac Goldemberg has risen rapidlyfrom instructor to professor of humanitiesat Hostos Community College since hisarrival in 1999 (he previously taught at a

dozen other institutions, includingColumbia, Queens, and Lehman Colleges,in previous years). A major contributor tothe fields of Hispanic, Latin American,

and Jewish literature through 22 booksand more than 650 articles and reviews,Goldemberg is perhaps best known for hisground-breaking novel, La vida a plazosde don Jacobo Lerner (1977), which hasenjoyed multiple printings and transla-tions (in English as The Fragmented Life ofDon Jacobo Lerner).

Goldemberg, who is Founder andDirector of the Latin American WritersInstitute, which is based at Hostos, hasbeen described by Professor Julio Ortegaof Brown University as “the most impor-tant Latin American writer in New York.”The subject of several biographical andbibliographical volumes, Goldemberg’smore recent novel El nombre del padre(2001) was a Latino bestseller in the U.S.

A relative newcomer, philosopher SaulKripke came to the Graduate Center lastyear after retiring from his endowed chairat Princeton. The jewel in the crown ofhis career—which commenced at the ripeage of 14—is the Schock Prize he won in2001. Awarded by the Swedish Academyof Sciences, it is the humanities equivalentof a Nobel. While a high school student inNebraska, Kripke wrote a series of papersthat transformed modal logic, then wenton to lecture MIT graduate students while

a Harvard undergraduate. A Ph.D.obviously being beside the point,he never got one.

Describing Kripke’s eminence,the Graduate Center’s ExecutiveOfficer for Philosophy, JohnGreenwood, has said, “His namewill be remembered when othercontemporary philosophical lumi-naries are long forgotten, and hispresent reputation outshineseveryone in the New York area,which is itself now recognized as aworld center (if not the world cen-ter) in philosophy.”

John Jay College and GraduateCenter historian GeraldMarkowitz has established his pre-eminence with research on the his-tory and sociology of environmental tox-ins. A leading figure in the field of the his-tory of public health and environmentalpollution, Markowitz’s most recent book,Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics ofIndustrial Pollution (California), was wide-ly acclaimed. It examines the lead paintindustry’s knowing exposure ofAmericans, particularly children, to toxicsubstances. In the same vein is his DeadlyDust: Silicosis and the Politics of IndustrialDisease in 20th-Century America(Princeton, co-authored with DavidRosner).

In recommending Markowitz, PresidentGerald Lynch notedhis years of serviceat John Jay — hearrived in 1970 —notably as chair ofthe College’sThematic StudiesProgram, whichuses team-teachingand interdisciplinaryinitiatives to pro-mote critical think-ing. Lynch alsopraised Markowitz’shistory of theCollege, Educatingfor Justice, publishedin 1990 and comingout in a new editionthis year.

The Hungarian-born and educatedJanos Pach, professor of computer scienceat City College and the Graduate Center,is one of the world’s foremost experts incombinatorial and computational geome-try. His book Combinatorial Geometry(Wiley, co-authored with P.K. Agarwal) isthe standard in its field. Notable amongthe areas in which he has made outstand-ing contributions is geometric graph theo-ry, an emerging new discipline at the bor-derline of computer science and discretemathematics.

Pach is the author of more than 170papers, is on the editorial board of sixtechnical journals, and has taught and

performedresearch inCanada,France,Germany,Great Britain,Hungary, andIsrael. “In addi-tion to Prof.Pach’s incredi-ble profess-ional output,”says CCNYPresidentGregoryWilliams, “hehas been atireless anddedicatedteacher.”

Professor ofSociology Jock Young, from John JayCollege and the Graduate Center, is thenewest comer to CUNY, having beenuntil last year head of the Centre forCriminology at Middlesex University inGreat Britain. Young, who earned all threeof his degrees at the London School ofEconomics, is the author of more than175 books, refereed articles, and bookchapters.

His best-known work is The NewCriminology (1973, co-authored with IanTaylor and Paul Walton), which sparked anew school of thought now called “new-realist criminology,” which holds thatmore importance should be placed on thesuffering of crime victims and that moreemphasis should be placed on commu-nity-based crime-prevention strategies.A more recent book by Young, TheExclusive Society (1999), critiques recentdevelopments in public policy, especiallythe growth of penal systems during aperiod of reduced public support for thedisadvantaged.

“

Isaac Goldemberg

Jock Young

Janos Pach

Ranks of Distinguished Professors Grow by Six

Report Cites High-Rent Homes of City Nonprofits

4 CUNY MATTERS — June 2004

piece of paper,” he said. “Plan your life sixmonths, a year, two years, five years, tenyears, up to that target.”

Executive Vice Chancellor LouiseMirrer presented a special achievementaward to Pitts, the keynote speaker at theFebruary 20th conference, which featuredpanel discussions, seminars and a job fairwith recruiters from more than 40 mediaoutlets. It was co-sponsored by CBS Newsand the Office of University Relations.

Pitts overcame not only poverty buttwo early problems that should have kepthim out of television journalism: stutteringand illiteracy. The first was solved at age12 in a Baltimore special education pro-gram, the second was solved by the time

Pitts began studying at Ohio WesleyanUniversity, where he earned a B.A.

He nonetheless thought big and aimedhigh—for a national correspondent’s job,in part so that his grandmother, who lived

T hink big. Plan small.That, in its briefest form, was theadvice CBS correspondent ByronPitts offered to the more than 650 atten-dees at CUNY’s Fourth Annual StudentMedia Conference, held in February atthe Graduate Center. Pitts—who has cov-ered such major stories as the September11 attack on the World Trade Center, thewars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ElianGonzalez case and Florida’s presidentialelection recount—spoke with feelingabout his rise from poverty to mediaprominence.

“I was born and raised in EastBaltimore,” Pitts told the audience. “I’mthe youngest child of a single parent. Mymother had her firstchild at 16. She hadme before she fin-ished high school. Iam proud of where Icome from, I amproud of who Iam…I am a witnessthat all things arepossible.”

Possible, that is, with hard work and alot of planning. Pitts recommended thathis student listeners immediately decidewhere they wanted to be in their careersat age 30, age 40, age 50. “Write it on a

in a small town with cable TV, wouldbe able to see him at work. Planningalone couldn’t accomplish everythinghe hoped for, he said; a dedication tohard work also was necessary.

“Talent is over-rated,” Pitts said. “Itisn’t enough to be good…I work with ahost of people who are far more talent-ed than I, far more attractive—and inmy business, looks matter—certainlybetter educated. But I have not workedwith many who have worked harder, orwho have been clearer about whattheir plan was.”

Pitts encouraged students whomight have suffered from the samemisfortunes that had beset him. “These

things toughen,” he said.“I’m of the belief thatyou have a tremendousadvantage over anyoneyou’ll face in graduateschool, anyone you willface in your professionallife, because there is a levelof mental toughness thatyou have to have to survive

those kinds of life experiences.”He also urged future members of the

Fourth Estate not to get discouragedwhen the job does not go well. “Say,‘Today was indeed a bad day, but I’ve had

good days along the way. I’m not where Iwant to be, but I’ve come a long wayfrom where I started.’”

Summing up his own career and thehopes of his listeners, Pitts said, “You canbe successful if you are focused, if you aredisciplined, if you are willing to invest thetime.” Then he concluded, “I’m gratefulfor my professional experience, and let mebe a witness that if Byron Pitts of EastBaltimore can make it, anyone—every-one—in this room can make it.”

Think Big but Plan Small, CBS ProTells Students at Media Conference

Byron Pitts speaking at the fourth annualStudent Media Conference.

New CUNY School for the Fourth Estate Approval of a new CUNY graduate school of journalism was expected at theMay Board of Trustees meeting, and a search for its founding dean is alreadyunder way. The new school, which was proposed by Chancellor Matthew

Goldstein, is expected to open in the summer of 2005 in Midtown Manhattan,accept 50 students in the inaugural class, and eventually serve 200 students.

National Black Writers Conference atMedgar Evers in 1986.

That conference also marked themoment when Percy Sutton conceived ofthe John Oliver Killens Chair. Since then,the Chair has supported a writers’ work-shop and is currently supporting a work-shop for elder African Americans whocame of age during World War II.

The seventh National Black WritersConference devoted its attention to thelegendary Black literary eminence himselfon March 25-27. This represented acoming full circle, a collegiate celebrationof one’s own. The Conference openedwith a keynote speech on Killens byaward-winning journalist Gil Noble.

Sponsored by the Center for BlackLiterature at Medgar Evers, theConference opened at the SchomburgCenter for Research in Black Culture inHarlem and continued at the College,with readings, a cultural program andpanel discussions on the role of cultureand politics in Black literature, the literaryworks of John Oliver Killens, and his roleas writer and activist. He helped to organ-ize Black and Caucasian workers for theCongress of Industrial Organizations inthe late 1940s.

Among the participants were a diverseroster of writers, poets, scholars and actorswho had been friends, colleagues, menteesand devotees of Killens. Among them wereQuincy Troupe, Tony Medina, WoodieKing, Elizabeth Nunez, Ossie Davis, ArthurFlowers, Nelly Rosario, Kenjii Jasper, OberyHendricks, Brenda Wilkinson, Ruby Dee,Staceyann Chin, Louis Reyes Rivera,Abiodun Oyewole, Farai Chideya, Elombe

Brath and Richard Wesley.Collaborative support came from

Medgar Evers College, CUNY’s Office ofAcademic Affairs, the Schomburg Center,and The New York Times.

Killens advocated the depiction of theBlack family in a positive light, and heinsisted that artists and writers acceptsocial responsibilities. Although a writer inmany genres, he is best known for his nov-els Youngblood and And Then We Heard theThunder (1962), which became a Pulitzernominee. Both are partly autobiographical.Youngblood, Killens’ landmark novel ofsocial protest, follows the Youngbloodfamily of Crossroads, Georgia, from theturn of the century to the GreatDepression. And Then We Heard theThunder concerned racism in the militaryand was based on his service in the SouthPacific. Killens’ other novels include Sippiand The Cotillion: or One Good Bull Is Halfthe Herd (1971) also nominated for aPulitzer. Great Black Russian: A Novel onthe Life and Times of Alexander Pushkinwas published posthumously in 1989.

Killens was also an essayist—notablywith his acclaimed 1965 collection, BlackMan’s Burden—and a playwright andscreenwriter. He co-authored the screen-play for the 1960 film Odds AgainstTomorrow and wrote the screenplay forthe 1969 Slaves. His papers are nowhoused at Emerson University in Atlanta.

He also collaborated with and/or men-tored a legendary list of authors includingJohn Henry Clarke, Maya Angelou, AmiriBaraka, Alice Childress, Sarah E. Wright,Nikki Giovanni, Louise Meriwether,Walter Dean Myers, Audre Lorde, Terry

Macmillan and Elizabeth Nunez.In preparation for the Conference,

many Medgar Evers faculty used eitherYoungblood or The Cotillion (the onlyKillens novels now in print) as requirednovels in their English courses. Essaysfrom Black Man’s Burden were used aspart of the required readings for depart-mental exams. Two MEC faculty,Professors Carlyle V. Thompson andSteven Nardi, and one English major,Bianca Jacobs, presented papers at theConference. A former Medgar Evers pro-fessor (now at Penn State) and author ofLiberation Memories: the Rhetoric andPoetics of John Oliver Killens, KeithGilyard, came to speak about why Killenshas not been anthologized.

The Center for Black Literature, estab-lished at Medgar Evers in 2003, builds onthe strength of previous National BlackWriters Conferences and was developedto increase the public’s knowledge andappreciation for Black literature. It con-venes conferences, symposia, workshops,and seminars related to the study, teach-ing and discussion of Black literature.

Upcoming events include a multiculturalbookfair on June 19 at Medgar Evers, andthe North Country Institute and Retreatfor Writers of Color, from July 18 to 22 inupstate New York. The public is alsoencouraged to listen to the National BlackWriters Radio Series, “Writers on Writing,”which airs Sundays, 7-7:30 P.M. on 91.5FM in the studios of Medgar Evers College.

For more information about Centerevents, contact its director, ProfessorBrenda M. Greene at 718 270-6976 orbgreene@mec.cuny.edu.

John Oliver Killens was a legendarynovelist, playwright, essayist, teacher,mentor and activist, as well the found-

ing chairman of the Harlem Writers Guildand vice-president of the Black Academyof Arts and Letters. He was also writer-in-residence at Medgar Evers College forseveral years until he died in 1987 (he wasborn in Macon, Georgia in 1916). Whilethere, he led a writer’s workshop and co-founded, with Distinguished Professor ofEnglish Elizabeth Nunez, the first

John Oliver Killens in the office in his home,where he wrote all his books. The photo wastaken by his wife, Grace Killens, a residentof Brooklyn.

7th Black Writers Conference Honors John Oliver Killens

MATTERSIN BRIEF

CUNY MATTERS — June 2004 5

Two Major AlumniGifts to Queens College

There was no money for education,”says Virginia Frese Palmer of herchildhood, “so college wasn’t an optionuntil Queens College came along.” Shegrabbed that option, earned a 1942 B.A.in media studies, then a Columbia M.A.,and went on to a long career as a speechpathologist-therapist. Along the way shemarried Gordon Palmer Jr., co-founderof a company that produced precision-engineered electronic components.

Now widowed, Frese Palmer says she isintent on making it “possible for other

students to get thehigh-quality edu-cation I received.”She started with a$1 million gift in2001 to her almamater’s Speechand HearingCenter andWomen and WorkProgram. Now,with another $2.5million gift ear-

marked for the “B” Building (one of thecampus’s original, Spanish-style struc-tures), she sets a Queens College recordfor alumni giving.

At a festive dedication ceremony onApril 16, the building—which oncehoused the New York Parental School forBoys and now is home to the Dean ofStudents and many student services—offi-cially became Virginia Frese Hall.

The day before, April 15, ceremonieswere held to mark the naming of a plazaadjacent to Rosenthal Library in honor ofEdwin M. and Judith Cooperman (bothClass of ‘64), who have donated $1 mil-lion to the College. Welcoming thesemajor gifts, Queens President JamesMuyskens said of Frese Palmer and theCoopermans, “Their gifts build a bridgebetween the past and future of theCollege and reinforce the impact of thisunique institution.”

Brainy City Tech StudentWins Poster Competition

C ity Tech junior Manpreet Singh,seen here with his mentor ProfessorLaina Karthikeyan, recently won anational neuroscience research postercompetition at a conference in SanDiego. Singh has been exploring a neuro-logical disorder called dystonia, whichcauses sufferers to make involuntaryabnormal muscle contractions that causetwisting and repetitive movements.

“A mutation has been found in a geneof most people diagnosed with dystoniain childhood,” says Singh, who came to

Banner Year for CUNYGuggenheim Fellows

The John Simon GuggenheimFoundation’s announcement of newfellows in April gave the City Universitymore than the usual reason to celebrate.Seven of its teachers—ranging fromadjunct to emeritus—were given 2004fellowships, among the most prestigious,and highly competitive, in the nation.

Susan Choi, an adjunct assistantprofessor of English at BrooklynCollege, was appointed for work infiction. Born in Indiana and raisedin Texas, Choi has been a staffwriter for The New Yorker. Herdebut novel, The Foreign Student(1998), was widely acclaimed.

Distinguished Professor Emeritusof English and ComparativeLiterature Angus S.J. Fletcher,who taught at the GraduateCenter, will be using his fellowshipto study temporal representationsin poems of the environment.

Ernesto Mestre, who is an assis-tant professor of fiction at BrooklynCollege, was born in Guantánamo,Cuba, and was raised mainly inMiami. The author of The LazarusRumba, his latest novel, The SecondDeath of Unica Aveyano, has just

CUNY Team Honored for CloudResearch in Colorado Rockies

The venerable Explorers Club of New York recently presented its Flag Awardto a CCNY-BCC team of faculty and students for their study of clouds atthe 10,525-foot-high Storm Peak Laboratory in northern Colorado last

January.For 14 years the eminent weather expert Edward Hindman, a professor of earth

and atmospheric science at City College and the Graduate Center, has been leadingteams of CUNY students and colleagues on expeditions to the Laboratory to studywinter-time atmospheric phenomena and cloud pollution.

This year’s expedition included his CCNY colleagues Teresa Bandosz (chem-istry) and Beth Witt (civil engineering), as well as his former student and CCNYalumnus Neal Phillip, who is a professor of chemistry and Bronx CommunityCollege. Four BCC students and five from CCNY rounded out the team, whichwas on Storm Peak for two weeks.

Why go to Colorado? “If you want to study clouds and whether they are dirty,”says Phillip, it helps to be able to “step outside the lab and be in a cloud. If wewanted to do this kind of work in New York, we would have to use an aircraft,which would be very expensive.”

This kind of research environment would leave anyone with a taste for skiing on,well, cloud nine. During the first three days of the team’s stay, students were pro-vided with ski equipment and taught basic techniques so they could ski down fromthe lab to their base camp at 6,000 feet.

“The field experience enhances self-reliance,” says Hindman, “since the around-the-clock measurements require on-time shift work, because the mountain-top andvalley measurement sites require them to learn to ski, and because their observationskills can be severely tested by the sometimes hostile weather.”

On their return, the students and teachers worked on preparing reports on theirfinds for delivery at scientific conferences.

the U.S. at age ten from the Indian stateof Punjab.

He came to City Tech with computerscience in mind, but in his first semesterwas lured to biology awards by a class ofKarthikeyan’s focused on cell biology (thefocus of her research is the molecularbasis of inherited diseases). “What I likeabout doing research is that you can workby yourself, which is relaxing. I hope tomake a real contribution in the future tocancer or AIDS research,” says Singh.

Karthikeyan and Singh recently estab-lished the Biology Seminar Club oncampus, which they hope will exposestudents to the work of health-relatedresearchers and facilitate the presentationof their work to their peers.

City Tech offers qualified studentsopportunities to assist faculty members inresearch. Two NIH-funded programs inwhich Singh participated—ResearchInitiative for Scientific Enhancement andDual Bridges to the Baccalaureate—aredesigned to increase under-representedminorities in biomedical research.

“Quite recently I turned down a verygood job offer from a leading biotechcompany in California,” says Karthikeyan.“Teaching is instant gratification. . .Withresearch, it can be years before you knowthe results. I feel lucky to have made acareer doing both.”

Storm Peak Laboratory expedition leader Edward Hindman helps his student col-leagues show the Explorers Club flag.

Student on air in the new studio at Brooklyn College.

Virginia Frese Palmer

appeared. He will continue writing fictionon his Guggenheim.

The multi-media artist Sol’Sax, a lec-turer in art at Medgar Evers College, iswell known for his complex and richlysymbolic sculptural installations that joincontemporary African-American cultureand Yoruban traditions of West Africa.

Distinguished Professor of EnglishGrace Schulman, of Baruch College, is awell-known figure among the poets ofGotham and will use her fellowship toadd to her already considerable oeuvre.

Leo Treitler emigrated to the U.S. in 1938and became an eminence in music history,teaching at several top-rank institutions,Chicago, Berkeley, and Brandeis amongthem. At the Graduate Center he rose toDistinguished Professor of Music. The topicof his Guggenheim proposal is not narrow:“A Study of Discourse about Music.”

The seventh Guggenheim, the choreog-rapher Yin Mei of Queens College, is fea-tured on page 12.

New Radio Studio Opensat Brooklyn College

Thanks to the generosity of an old grad,Himan Brown (‘34), and a young one,Al Tanger (‘01), Brooklyn College wasable to inaugurate a brand-new state-of-the-art radio studio on April 14.

Brooklyn College Radio (BCR, 1090AM), which has been broadcasting to thecampus for 35 years, is now ensconced inWhitehead Hall in three fully sound-proofed studios, each sporting industry-standard Wheatstone Radio Arts R-90mixing consoles.

Brown produced and directed some ofthe most famous radio dramas in history(Dick Tracy, Grand Central Station,Inner Sanctum Mysteries, and others),and Tanger is chairman of Marlin Broad-casting. Their gifts, said Brooklyn College’sPresident Christoph Kimmich, will allowstudents to “gain real-world experienceusing the best equipment…I look forwardto hearing the results.”

“Brooklyn College now has one of thenicest college radio stations in the NewYork City metro area, a facility that rivalssome of the professional radio stationsI’ve worked in,” said Assistant ProfessorMartin Spinelli of the Department ofTelevision and Radio, where he headsradio studies. BCR’s programming canalso be heard on the World Wide Web.Visit the station’s Web site at www.brook-lyncollegeradio.org.

Prof. Laina Karthikeyan and Manpreet Singh

“

the foundation for Cuban culture. Theywere and are the ones who are primarilyconcerned with family issues. Now theseconcerns have expanded outside theirhomes, into the streets of Havana, intothe classrooms, onto the driver’s seatsof forklifts.” Haydee Santamaria’s life,Everline adds, helped her grasp that“womanhood and its struggles are univer-sal. This bond is being empowered by thewomen of the revolution.”

The Flashy,Vulgar Timba

Being from a typical Colombian family,Erricka Arroyave says “music has beena huge part of my life.” She remembersher mother singing and dancing salsa asshe cooked sancocho in the kitchen andthe constant sounds of Eddie Palmieri,Ruben Blades, and Willie Colon.

A junior at Queens College, Arroyave’slove of salsa encouraged her travel toCuba. She was, in particular, “eager tolearn more about timba, a new style ofAfro-Cuban music that is a cross betweenCuban son and salsa.” Luckily, the veryfirst day she met a musicologist at LaCasa, Yey Diaz de Villalvilla, who wasmore than happy to direct her to thosewise in the ways of timba and to clubswhere it was on full display.

“Timba is a mixture of son, rumba, rap,jazz and rock,” Arroyave says, “and itemerged in the 1970s, while Hispanics inNew York were creating salsa. Los VanVan and Irakere were the pioneers, andthe leader of Irakere, Chucho Valdes,coined the term in the late 1980s.” Errickaalso learned about timba star José LuisCortès, aka “El Tosco,” whose coarse lyrics

6 CUNY MATTERS — June 2004

Model Student EnjoysClassic Models

Katelyn Mikuliak’s postcards northbegan, “I’m not in Cuba; I’m inHeaven.” It wasn’t the lively club life ofHavana, resounding with salsa, timba,and son, of surf resounding off thesea-walls of the Malecón, or its atmos-pheric historic architecture that lefther in bliss. It was the cars.

Mikuliak, a Hunter College studentwho just returned from a modeling stintin Paris, adores classic American cars, apassion first sparked by an affair with anolder man, then deepened by a stintworking in an automotive restorationgarage in her native Philadelphia. Sheeven turned down a fashion modeling jobin Japan one summer to work on old cars.“Chipping rust and plunging parts in tubsof kerosene might not be glamorous, but Iloved it,” she says.

Mikuliak explains that she was in whitewalls-and-chrome heaven because, thanksto a four-decades-old economic embargoimposed by the U.S., “50,000 to 60,000classic cars are kept roaming the island bya resourceful population.” With her fineeye for details on and under the hood, shesoon learned what geniuses at mix-and-match Cuban repairmen have become.“A carb from a ‘57 Chevy, for instance,

After a visit to Cuba in 1986, arranged by the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños,

City University’s then Chancellor Joe Murphy asked Dr. Frank Bonilla, the foundingdirector of the Centro, to begin an exchange program with the University of

Havana and other cultural, academic and research institutions in Cuba. The program wasexpanded in the early nineties to include other parts of the Caribbean, and three yearsago it was combined with our exchange program in Puerto Rico, Intercambio.

Up until two years ago this exchange was between faculty and graduate studentsundertaking research projects or some type of collaboration. On occasion the exchangewas among writers, painters, film directors, musicians or other intellectuals. Fortunately,about four years ago travel regulations to Cuba were expanded to allow academicexchanges by undergraduates. As a result, two years ago the Centro joined with HunterCollege’s Education Abroad Program to create a January intersession course open to stu-dents throughout CUNY.

This course was created in collabora-tion with Cuba’s premier cultural insti-tution, La Casa de las Americas, inHavana, and offered an intense threeweeks of immersion in Cuban cultural,social and political history in January2003. The principal writing assignmentwas to focus on a particular aspect ofCuban life and culture, and the essaysthat resulted explored a wide range oftopics—from baseball, classic car culture,prostitution, culinary history, and thecommercialization of Ernest Hemingway

to the music of timba and salsa, the post-revolutionary educational system, and the Jews andthe Chinese of Cuban descent.

The students, who represented the tremendous cultural and human diversity that isthe City University, learned as much from each other, living together at La Casa, as theydid from Cuba itself. A get-together on their return led to the idea of sharing their expe-riences on a web site. With grants from the Centro and the Puffin Foundation, adjunctprofessor Maria Finn, who taught part of the intersession course, produced the site, titled“The Crocodile, Letters from Cuba” with the assistance of one of the students, ScottLarson. Visit it at www.centropr.org/exchange/cuba/. The essays generated by the 2003trip can be read in full on the site. [CUNY Matters has drawn from these colorful, prob-ing and perceptive “Letters from Cuba” in the features presented here. — Ed.]

This past January the course was again conducted with La Casa, but on the Hunterside a new partner has joined the collaboration, with the Latin American/CaribbeanStudies Program providing the academic credit. It is our hope, and that of Program direc-

tor Dr. Michael Turner, that these courses become a fixtureat CUNY, for it puts our students on par with those fromU.C. Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and NYU, who are currentlyalso participating in Casa courses.

We are now organizing a summer course there on Cubanmusic; the deadline for applications/matriculation has beenextended to June 11th. For further information, or questions,contact Rachell Arteaga at rarteaga@hunter.cuny.edu.

By Pedro Pedraza, Centro Researcher & Exchange Programs Director

CUNY’s student delegation is gathered in La Casa’s HaydeeSantamaria Art Gallery. In front, from left: Amena Black,Elizabeth Lee; middle row: Dawn Everline, Ericka Arroyave,Nga Lee, Scott Larson, Nadira Narine; back row: Michael Dox,Casa professor Yey Villalvilla, Alana Weston, Jesús Hernández-Garcia, Centro Exchange Programs Director Pedro Pedraza,Kate Mikuliak, Brooke Greene, Rachell Arteaga, Casa employee“Chino,” and Hunter resident director Mary Bitterauf.

For “Letters from Cuba” on the Jews of Cuba,the Martha Stewart of Cuban Cuisine,

Black Market Birthday Cakes, and CubanBaseball,visit www.cuny.edu/news.

Of Timba, Classic Bel Airs &“Papa’s” Finca —

A classy model, Kate Mikuliak (from an adin Jane Magazine, photo Mark Alesky) anda classic Buick shot by her in Havana.

runs about $107,” Mikuliak says, “whileone from a Polish Lada is $15-$20.”

The remarkable Cuban ethnic mix ofHispanic, African, and CaribbeanMikuliak found reflected in the island’sautomotive life, producing not a few visu-al enigmas. “I never saw a Packard,” sherecalls, but “I noticed its signature swanhood ornaments attached to almost everytype of car.” Mainly, she was awestruck bythe “sheer numbers, variety and condition”of “these incredible ‘maquinas’: ‘57 ChevyBel Airs, the classic American car…’50-‘54 Chevys with their great windshieldvisors and cute tire skirts… magnificentold Buicks sporting huge engines anddistinctive ‘ventiports.’”

Two things saddened Mikuliak, though.“I noticed that no women are involved” inthe car culture. “Cars in Cuba are passedfrom fathers to sons.” And her weakSpanish made it hard to get into profoundcar talk with proud owners. Still, Mikuliak,who counts her intersession trip “the bestschool-travel experience” she’s ever had,says it “re-energized my love of cars.

Just thinking of the conversations Icould have had makes me want to

jump a flight to Havana with aSpanish language book, some

brand new vintage spark plugsand a gallon of car wax.”

Probing aHeroine’s Suicide

Dawn Everline’s letter, titled “Womenof the Revolution,” was sparked dur-ing a visit to the Museum of the Revolutionled by La Casa Professor Gerardo Hernan-dez. “I began to focus on a picture of Hay-dee Santamaria, the founder of La Casa de

las Americas,” Everline recalls. “There shestood with blank look, almost emotionless.I wondered what she was feeling.”

When Everline, a Lehman CollegeLatin American-Caribbean studies major,heard Hernandez remark, “She committedsuicide in 1980, around the anniversary ofthe Moncada invasion,” she was bowledover. “‘What!’ my soul screamed.…Then Ibegan to wonder if her life was any differ-ent from that of Maria, our cook, or myown. I knew that I must change my[paper] topic to Womanhood and theRevolutionary Spirit.”

Soon Everline was immersed in theCasa archives, getting to know moreabout Haydee’s place as one of the hero-ines of the anti-Batista revolution.Santamaria was praised by Castro in hisfamous “History Will Absolve Me” for hercourage after she was captured and tor-tured during the ill-fated attack on apolice barracks at Moncada on July 27,1959. Also at Moncada, both her brotherAbel and her fiancé were killed.

Everline’s first informant was the direc-tor of La Casa’s Women’s Studies depart-ment. “Why did she commit suicide?” sheasked, and Luisa Campuzano cited adivorce, a severely handicapped son, andthe memories of the murders. “Isn’t thatreason enough?…But no one knows forsure why.”

Seeking possible answers in the chang-ing “place” of women in Cuban society,Everline focused on interviews with twoolder women, a librarian and her cook,and, for a different generational perspec-tive, the cook’s grand-daughter.

Concluding her letter, Everline writes,“Everyday life is a revolution.…It hasbeen women who have traditionally been

work in the glitzy, Las Vegas-style post-colonial period, when Cuba was a touristplayland for Americans.

Pedro Pedraza, the Center’s director ofexchange programs, put Lee in touch with

Alphonso Lam (cousin of WilfredoLam, Cuba’s Picasso), whose familytree is part Chinese. Also a mem-ber of one of the old ChineseAssocations, Lam took her on asurprising tour: “I was flabbergastedat the sight of ‘El Barrio Chino’ inHavana,” she recalls.

Soon she was conversing witha Cuban-born but pure Chinesein Cantonese, then meeting withthe member of the Lee familyAssociation, Li San, who’d emi-grated more than 50 years ago.Four hours examining dozens oftin ossuaries in a Chinese mau-soleum turned up nothing, butthen success came as documentsabout her grandfather, ChungLap Lee, were found under thefalse identity he had purchased,Manuel Fong. Such subterfuge

was necessary because Chinese immi-grants did not have legal status.

On her return home with copies of thedocuments, Lee was a little disappointedthat her own huge emotions over the dis-covery were not shared by her dad. “Hisreaction was calm, with a smile on hisface.” For her, though, the escape fromwinter may have turned into somethingmore: “An immense history about theChinese in Cuba has yet to be told andperhapssome day Iwill returnand com-plete what Ifeel is myduty.”

Tough field work on the subject inHavana included a rumba session in Plazade Armas. “It was an amazing experi-ence…I still have the rhythm stuck in myhead: tun bum bum tun.” “You may even

be lucky and catch a bacunao ceremonyon the Plaza…Even walking down theMalecón, you will bump into two or threeguys chilling on the seawall playing son.”

Cuba is a musician’s paradise. “Cubanslove music,” Hernández says. He inter-views a street musician named Justo (seenat left), who explained: “When a child isborn, we dance; after church, we dance;after dinner, we dance, at weddings andeven at funerals, we dance; salsa goeseverywhere a Cuban does.”

Tropic Escape—Family Discovery

Hunter College geography major NgaLee admits her foremost desire inheading for Cuba was “to be in a tropicalisland in January and to see the beautyand culture of an island forbidden to usby our government.” But when shearrived, a melancholy fact in her familyhistory began to nag in the back of hermind: her grandfather had long ago aban-doned his wife and son, Nga’s dad, andemigrated from China to Cuba. CouldLee, who was raised in New York’sChinatown, find any traces of his exis-tence on the island?

Research led her to learn about twomajor waves of immigration from China,one in the 19th century to work in thesugar fields after the abolition of slavery,then another in the early 20th century to

CUNY MATTERS — June 2004 7

—“tosco” means coarse in Spanish —about Cuban social problems, Arroyavesays, “brought timba to a new level.”

Arroyave interviewed a musicologist atCuba’s Center for Investigation andDevelopment of Cuban Music, NerisGonzales, who “described timba as flashy,complex, sophisticated and vulgar all atthe same time.” Gonzales laughed “when Iasked her if race, social class or genderwere problems when dancing to timba.”Neris replied, “Cubans don’t care if youare poor or rich, male or female, black orwhite; they only care if you know how todance.” No surprise, then, that whenArroyave walked into her first timba club,the Tropical, the first words of “a reallycute Cuban” were “Quieres bailar?”Instantly she felt she was among friends.

The music, she recalls, “was intenselyrhythmic, very aggressive and boisterous. Itwas as if all the instruments were challeng-ing each other on which could play theloudest.” She says “timba plays a huge rolein Cuban society,” and she is convinced “itis more than a mere new style that in timewill be forgotten.” This not least becausetimba’s lyrics contain “subtle references tothe problems of Cuban society… [Timba]is serious, and offers food for thought.”

Hemingway’s Legacy(For a Price)

Cuba’s charm is hard to resist,” saysAndrew Coverdale, whose letterfocuses on how one of the most famousU.S. authors, Ernest Hemingway, fellunder its spell. Coverdale, a May 2003Hunter grad in media studies, tells ofHemingway first stopping in Havana in1928 with his pregnant wife en route toKey West, then of his frequent trips backfor marlin fishing and “the Cuban lifestyleand warm inhabitants.”

A favorite hangout for “Papa” was LaFloridita. “He liked to sit at this bar in thecity’s old town and eat seafood, drinkdaiquiris (which were invented there)”and people-watch American tourists.

Most ofCoverdale’sletter (its fulltitle: “Hem-ingway, aCommodity”),in fact, isdevoted to wryobservations onhow “Heming-way’s mystiquepersists inCuba.” Sellingthe writer’slegacy, heobserves, “is away to make aliving.” His oldroom at theAmbosMundos hotel,where he oftenbunked, is nowa museum.“For years visi-tors could payan extra $10and sit andspeak to a mannamed

Gregorio, who had been Hemingway’sboat hand. Gregorio, however, died lastyear at the age of 104.”

A visit to Hemingway’s former estateoutside Havana, Finca Vigia, is equallydispiriting. Tourist buses arrive in a crum-bling neighborhood at “a tall, worn, whitesecurity wall.” The entrance fee (plus $5 fortaking still pictures, $10 for video) does noteven include entry into the finca. “Visitorsare left to poke around the home’s exterior,looking in doors and windows.” The finca’sgift shop, Coverdale notes, is “devoid of hisworks…just more pages on Che Guevara,Fidel Castro and socialism.”

Coverdale’s visit to the famous sitethat inspired The Old Man and the Sealeaves him bemused and cynical. “It’sstrange that one can visit a place so cen-tral to Hemingway’s life and find so littleof Hemingway. Cubans don’t study hiswriting in school, and to many his name isobscure: ‘He’s a writer, right?’”

Coverdale sensibly concludes, “the onlyway for me, or anyone, to findErnest’s, or any artist’s, spirit afterthey have passed is through hisimmortal items: his works, his art.”

Searching for theRoots of Salsa

The letter from Jesús Hernández-Garcia should be accompanied bya CD. For the Hunter College honorsprogram student, who also plays per-cussion for salsa bands in the city,headed south to answer the questions,“What is salsa? Where did it comefrom?” And he also wanted to plungeinto the old debate: is salsa PuertoRican or is it Cuban?

“Spending three weeks in LaHabana was an edifying and fantasticexperience,” he says. The history ofsalsa, he concludes, does begin “here, inthe island known to many as The Pearl ofthe Antilles.” It emerged from the son, afolkloric music whose beat is maintainedby the clavé, two sticks tapping together,

and the rumba, an African-based music known forsuch dances as the bacunao,yamb˙ and guaguanco.“Guanguanco is a dancewhere the whole bodymoves; it is the predecessorof the popular salsa dance.”

Hernández explains thatmodern salsa is in fact theresult of a very complexfusion of styles that beganwhen Cuban music came tothe U.S. in the 1940s with awave of immigrants. “Salsa isthe commercial name givento this music as it developedin the barrios of New YorkCity in the mid-1960s. It isa fusion of Cuban son andrumba, American jazz andPuerto Rican bomba, plenaand música jíbara.” A majorcontribution to his Babel ofmusical tongues came withan influx of Puerto Ricans inthe 1950s. Hernández cred-its Tito Puente largely forthe “salsa explosion” of the1960s.

Billboards with political messages are a common sight in Cuba. Hunter student NadiraNarine poses in front of one that says, “Imperialists, we have absolutely no fear!”

Hunteradjunctteacher forthe Cubantrip, MariaFinn Dom-inguez,has editeda new lit-erary anthology offamed writers who have written about whatColumbus called “the most beautiful countrythat human eyes have ever seen.”

Hunter Centro Students’ “Letters from Cuba”

Andrew Coverdale, at Hemingway’sfamed Finca Vigia; he’s mimicking the pose“Papa” struck in one of his last photosbefore he left Cuba.

Justo, at left, and his back-up men, are among many streetmusicians who keep pedestrians in Havana swaying to a beat.

8 CUNY MATTERS — June 2004

and the myriad ways that it currentlyensures computer access to students withdisabilities and on plans for offering evenmore services in the near future.

Queens College’s contribution was aLegislative Breakfast on April 23 attendedby local state legislators, City Councilmembers, and other borough, city andstate officials. It focused attention on avariety of disability-related issues and onsome of the legislative work done togeth-er. The event also honored those CUNYleaders who help to empower more than9,000 CUNY students with disabilities.

LaGuardia Community College pre-sented a panel on “The Deaf Immigrant’sExperience” that featured four deafCUNY grads from Ukraine, Pakistan,China and Brazil. Author Rose Pizzocame to campus to discuss her bookGrowing Up Deaf: Issues of Communi-cation in a Hearing World, and the Collegealso arranged a bus trip to the AmericanSign Language Festival at Union CountyCollege in New Jersey.

Efforts to improve University servicesin this area began well before April. InDecember 2003, Executive ViceChancellor Louise Mirrer requested thatthe University Faculty Senate hold a focusgroup on disabilities issues to identifyproblems and recommend solutions. TheUFS Committee on Disabilities Issues, co-

chaired by Don Davidson(LaGuardia) and Syd Lefkoe(Queens), did so, and it produced areport with recommendations insuch areas as facilities, curricula,technology and employment.

The complete report and links toother CUNY and external resourcesare available on the Committee’sdeveloping web site, access.cuny.edu.This site also links to the mainCUNY portal’s “Statement onAccessibility” and describes theongoing partnership with UniversityDean Mike Ribaudo and CUNY/CISrelated to technology and webaccess for people with disabilities.

In talking about the Focus GroupReport, Mirrer summed up theUniversity’s commitment, which isso necessary to the success of thefaculty, staff and student efforts:“We are pleased to celebrate theconsiderable talents and abilities ofCUNY students with disabilities, theaccomplishments of CUNY’s world-class faculty and staff with disabili-ties, the leadership of the University’sdistinguished alumni with disabili-ties, and CUNY’s cutting-edgeresearch that is dramaticallyimproving the quality of life forNew Yorkers with disabilities.”

Astrong commitment to enabling

students, faculty, and staff withdisabilities to excel in their stud-

ies, research, and work was displayed onall college campuses, following ChancellorMatthew Goldstein’s announcement thatApril would be CUNY DisabilitiesAwareness Month.

Many events highlighted some of theUniversity’s talented students, faculty andstaff with disabilities, as well as those whosearea of research is in the disability field.Notable among these gatherings was aDisabilities Awareness celebration atBaruch College led by its Computer Centerfor Visually Impaired People.The Center’sdirector, Dr. Karen Gourgey, joined withDouglas Sussman, Deputy Director forGovernment and Community Relationsfor the Metropolitan Transit Authority,to unveil a new advertising campaign,“Working Together for Visually ImpairedPeople,” which will promote programs andservices for those with disabilities.

At the same event John Jay Professorof Government Ruth O’Brien, author ofthe recent book Voices from the Edge:Narratives on the Americans withDisabilities Act (Oxford University Press),spoke of real-life experiences of thosewith disabilities since the act became law.Information was also given on CUNYAssistive Technology Services (CATS)

Pip, Dr. Karen Gourgey’s guide dog, calmly reflectson the new campaign poster unveiled by the MTA’sDouglass Sussman. Photo, MTA.

Highlights from CUNY Disabilities-Awareness Month

To every CUNY student themoment comes, sooner or later:finally deciding what career path

to follow. For students with disabilities—arapidly growing student community—thedecision can be affected by many addi-tional factors—knowing which modes oftechnology for serving particular disabili-ties are available on a given campus or inprospective work sites, for example, orwhich professions and good corporate citi-zens have a history of hiring the disabled.

In an effort to respond to the chal-lenges facing students with disabilities—and all other CUNY students—theStudent Support Services Program atNew York City College of Technology, theoffice which assists its disabled students,

has just produceda career-selectionmanual,IdentifyingOptions that cannow be accessedon the CUNYwebsite.

This manualhighlights everyCUNY associateand certificateprogram. Eachprogram is iden-tified on a sepa-rate page andincludes itscurriculum, thecolleges thatoffer the major,prerequisite skillsand abilities,potential jobsawaiting its grad-uates and other

information. Other sections in IdentifyingOptions offer students with disabilitiesvaluable information on campus accom-modations and resources (listed by typeof disability) and lists of organizationswith a history of hiring individuals withdisabilities.

Identifying Options will be periodicallyrevised to reflect the most current data.“The manual will soon be available inalternate formats such as tape and Braille,”says Director of Student Support ServicesFaith Fogelman, who supervised the com-pilation of the manual. “It will be a valu-able resource for all students, potentialstudents, career/guidance counselors andparents.” In the near future the site will becompatible with voice activated software,

like JAWS (Job Access With Speech).The need for an all-CUNY compilation

was recognized when a similar manualdevoted solely to City Tech degree pro-grams (compiled by Soudabeh Shayestehand Charlotte Rubin and including infor-mation aimed at students with disabili-ties) was well received by College stu-dents, faculty, and counselors. Shayestehand Rubin also researched and designedIdentifying Options.

One of the parties who applauded theoriginal City Tech manual was the distin-guished educator Dr. Sylvia Walker, whobegan her college studies at City Tech.Long legally blind and for several yearscompletely without sight, Walker went onto earn degrees from Hunter and QueensColleges, then a doctorate from ColumbiaUniversity.

Now the director of the Center forDisability and Socioeconomic Policy

Student Support participant Gary Hutchinson peruses IdentifyingOptions with assistive technology and the help of TechnologyCoordinator Charlotte Rubin.

John Jay Report to Bishops on Abuse

More than two-thirds of the 4,392 Catholic priests accused of sexually abusingminors between 1950 and 2002 were pastors or assistant pastors, according to anational study recently conducted by faculty at John Jay College of Criminal

Justice. The study, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, came fromsurveys in 195 dioceses (representing more than 97% of the nation’s diocesan priests) and142 religious communities with about 83% of all priests in religious orders.

Based on estimates of the number of active priests, the study concluded that about 4%of priests had been accused. In all, 10,667 individuals—80% of whom were male—allegedthat they had been abused by priests. More than a quarter of all complaints, involvingalmost 3,000 victims, were lodged against just 149 priests.

John Jay was selected to conduct the study by a review board created in 2002 by theBishops’ Conference. The mandate was to examine the number and nature of sexualabuse allegations against priests from 1950 to 2002, to collect information about thealleged abusers and their victims and to assess the financial impact on the Church.

The entire study is available online at the John Jay College website:www.jjay.cuny.edu/churchstudy.

Studies in Howard University’s School ofEducation in Washington, D.C., Walker isa renowned authority in the field of dis-ability rights. She encouraged City Tech toenlarge the reach of its campus manual,and through funds at her disposal sheoffered to partially support the new andexpanded Identifying Options.

“Students should have a portable toolto assess where they fit in when selectinga career,” Walker said. “Students with dis-abilities need to be aware of all the feasi-bilities, but simultaneously they need tobe aware of all their options.”

To access Identifying Options go towww.citytech.cuny.edu, click on Students,then on Student Support. Access from theCUNY website (www.cuny.edu) is byclicking on Current Students. For furtherinformation about Identifying Options,contact Faith Fogelman at 718-260-5143or ffogelman@citytech.cuny.edu.

City Tech Unveils Career Manual for Students with Disabilities

womenand the attitudestoward them in early modernEngland. Susan O’Malley’s six texts makea valuable contribution to such a project.”

wife beating, which waslegal and fairly common inearly modern England.Among proverbs of thetime revealing acceptanceof it that O’Malley cites isthis: “A spaniel, a woman,and a walnut tree, the morethey’re beaten the better they be.”

Accompanying the texts are extensivenotes setting them in context; the 1609Apologie alone evokes 339 of them! In anAfterword to the volume, which was sup-ported by several PSC CUNY grants anda CUNY Collaborative Grant, ProfessorEsther Cloudman Dunn of SmithCollege writes, “Thanks to O’Malley’sappreciative introductions and richexplanatory material, today’s readersof both sexes can read these novel,entertaining, and serious pamphletswith the understanding and pleasurethey deserve.”

The distinguished scholar of EnglishRenaissance literature, Arthur F. Kinney,has also welcomed the edition: “We stillhave much to learn about the lives of

tion and emigration were creating mobile,racially hybrid populations.” Each writer,she argues, blended themes from explo-ration literature and various autobiograph-ical genres to reconfigure racial andnational identities and issue a call forsocial action.

Fish’s study of Nancy Prince and her ANarrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs.Nancy Prince, which enjoyed three edi-

tions (1850, 1853, 1856), left her admir-ing the author as a “survivor” who dis-played “outspoken defiance” in “the faceof all kinds of dangers.” Fish examineshow Prince drew on the Bible and mis-sionary discourse in her attempt tochange emigration policy and the livesof former slaves.

Mary Seacole, half-Creole and halfScottish, published her WonderfulAdventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Landsin London in 1857. Fish sees her “as a

P rior to the 20th century, domestici-ty was in countless ways a women’sprison. In many parts of the worldit still is. It took considerable courage for awoman back then to choose simply to beperipatetic. When Walt Whitman beganhis “Song of the Open Road” with “Afootand light-hearted I take to the open road,/Healthy, free, the world before me,” youdefinitely sense it was a guy thing.

Borough of ManhattanCommunity College Professor ofEnglish Cheryl J. Fish has justpublished a study of three 19th-century women who boldly tres-passed on the world beyond thekitchen dooryard: Black andWhite Women’s TravelNarratives: AntebellumExplorations (University ofFlorida Press). All three not onlytraveled widely but alsodescribed their travels in cultur-ally and politically significantpublications: Nancy Prince, aBoston-born African-Americanwho would travel to Jamaicaand later live for nine years inRussia; Mary Seacole, a freebornwoman of color from Jamaica,whose travels ranged fromPanama to the Crimea (where she wasrefused as a nurse by Florence Nightingale);and Margaret Fuller, the white NewEnglander and Transcendentalist, whoreported on her travels to the Great Lakes.

“To participate meaningfully in thepublic sphere and to articulate more justpublic policies, these women journeyed tooutposts of conflict and imperial expan-sion,” Fish says. “They trespassed at sites ofempire and war, and they showed up atnationalistic crossroads where emancipa-

Merry When Gossips Meet and A WholeCrew of Kind Gossips. In both, a group ofwomen are chatting away in the Jacobeanequivalent of a wine bar and reminiscingabout courtship, pregnancy, husbands,and good times had. Think “Sex in theCity,” circa 1609. “The language of TisMerry is marvelously bawdy,” O’Malleywrites.

Falling in the category of “pamphletsthat praise women while undercuttingthem,” says O’Malley, is the 1620 Apologyfor Women; or, Women’s Defence. Its mainargument is that women are superior tomen because they are more virtuous, eventhough they are “the weaker vessels” andtheir bodies are “an Asia, full of delights.”Along the way, however, the author,Christopher Newstead, does make the for-ward-thinking observation that women’s“want of employment corrupts the bravestspirits.” In other words, O’Malley writes,“women would be fit rulers if only theywere permitted to rule.”

The other pamphlet included is thesimilarly titled An Apologie for Women,which appeared in 1609 to argue against

I t was 1620, and King James was furi-ous about a serious social problem. Heleaned on the Bishop of London tomake his preachers thump the pulpits ofthe city vehemently and bitterly on thesubject. The outrage? — all these womenwho were going about dressed like men.

After all, did not his estimable“Version” of the Bible specifically state,“The woman shall not wear that whichpertaineth unto a man”? (As to whatDeuteronomy 22:5 says next — “neithershall a man put on a woman’s garment”— James was apparently not exercised.But then, his intimacies with prominentyoung male courtiers were by 1620 anotorious subject of court gossip.)

In due course, to please the King apamphlet titled Hic Mulier; or, The Man-Woman appeared from an anonymousauthor of puritanical mind, the joke ofthe title being that the Latin masculine“hic” (instead of the feminine “haec”)modifies “mulier” (Latin for “woman”).Hic Mulier is a diatribe attacking cross-dressing, calling women who do so “Apesof the City.” Such women, who were “ofall degrees, all deserts, and all ages,” com-mit “grosse adultery with theirGewgawes,” and fathers and husbandswere urged to “close your liberall hands”and stop funding these “deformities.”

A week later the same publisher—publishers have always flourished duringculture wars—brought out a rebuttalpamphlet, possibly by an erudite, cheekylaw student at the Inns of Court: Haec-Vir; or, The Womanish-Man. This pam-phlet proceeds to offer a lively debatebetween Hic Mulier and Haec Vir overwhether custom or reason should prevailon the cross-dressing issue. Hic Mulierasserts that “Custome is an Idiot; andwhosoever dependeth wholely upon him,without the discourse of Reason, will…become a slave indeed to contempt andcensure.”

“When is custom warranted and whendoes it obscure reason?” That, writesKingsborough Community CollegeProfessor of English Susan GusheeO’Malley, is the time-honored questionposed by these two pamphlets, whichappear in her new edition, “Custome isan Idiot”: Jacobean Pamphlet Literatureon Women (University of Illinois Press).We are considerably more relaxed thanKing James was about cross-dressing,but the Hic Mulier v. Haec Vir contestbetween custom and cool-mindedcost/benefit analysis is still very muchwith us—most obviously as Americans goabout deciding whether the custom ofdenying marriage to couples of the samesex is idiotic or reasonable.

O’Malley, who is also Chair of theUniversity Faculty Senate and an ex officiomember of the CUNY Board of Trustees,has gathered six pamphlets publishedbetween 1609 and 1620 that shed lighton the sometimes fierce early 17th-century debate that raged over the role ofwomen in early modern British society.

Included in the collection are Tis

CUNY MATTERS — June 2004 9

BOOK TALKOF THE CITY

transatlantic traveler of the Americas,important for her interventions andreconfigurations of the discourses of war,medicine, and imperialism.” She clearlywas a woman with no problems of lowself-esteem: “I do not deny…that I ampleased and gratified when I look backupon my past life.…I am not ashamed toconfess…that I love to be of service tothose who need a woman’s help.”

Margaret Fuller, whose Summer on theLakes, in 1843 (1844) draws Fish’s atten-tion, shares with Prince and Seacole “adesire for reform, anger at injustice, andactivism grounded in cross-cultural analysis.”Fish particularly emphasizes Fuller’s “analy-sis of the hardships faced by frontier womenand a concern for the Native Americanswho had already been driven away.”

In a closing coda, titled (with a bow toHuck Finn) “Lighting Out for OtherTerritories,” Fish writes that “through theirmobile subjectivity and activism all threewomen offered significant revisions in thearenas of education, religion, medicine,citizenship, and human and women’srights.” She closes by asking the reader topicture Prince, Seacole, and Fuller onboard ships: “Ships conveyed each ofthem to live and work productively interritories far from home, and in the caseof Fuller, a shipwreck on her return fromItaly to New York in 1850 brought her toher final resting place at sea.”

Fish, by the way, wryly chooses as theepigraph for her coda the vow of HuckFinn’s which exhausted authors oftenmake and, not infrequently, later break:“There ain’t nothing more to write about,and I’m rotten glad of it, because if I’d aknowed what trouble it was to make abook, I wouldn’t a tackled it and ain’tagoing to no more.”

Now, Voyager: Three 19th-century Women Travelers

“Colored Immigrants Seeking Homes in the North,” byW.L. Sheppard, illustration for Harper’s Weekly in 1867(courtesy The Library Company of Philadelphia).

Convening in a wine barfor serious gossip was notinvented by “Sex in theCity.” One of severaloriginal title pages repro-

duced in Custome Isan Idiot.

Women’s Place in Society —Two New Historical Retrospects

Idiot Custom v. Sweet Reason in Jacobean England

Kossar’s; then, finally, standing on StraussSquare, looking at the shrouded JewishDaily Forward building and Wing ShoonRestaurant, once The Garden Cafeteria.The following Sunday I took a differentgroup around the Lower East Side.

In the ensuing weeks, I returned severaltimes with groups of three or four students;more often they headed for the Lower EastSide on their own. Some students broughtdigital cameras or point-and-shoot cameras;others were provided disposable cameras.Initially, the intention was to have eachstudent select an image from MCNY’scollection and to recreate that image.

But that did not prove to be the bestway to have them learn about the LowerEast Side. So each student was assigned astreet and a particular site, and each wasasked to both read about and photographthe site. They also were asked to photo-graph what most interested them.

As the students were creating theirLower East Side images, they were alsowriting about their experiences doing so.Alex Neustein provides a view shared bymany of his fellow students: “My firstimpression of the Lower East Side wasthat the historical artifacts—the ForwardBuilding, Seward Park High School, theEldridge Street Synagogue and Guss’s

Last April, 150 people crowded intothe ballroom in Gracie Mansion to

hear Mayor Michael Bloombergproclaim “Immigrant History Week.”Among those present were CommissionerSayu Bhojwani of the city’s Office ofImmigrant Affairs, Kathleen Benson,Curator of Community Projects for theMuseum of the City of New York, andseveral representatives of Hunter College,including President Jennifer Raab, DeanJudith Friedlander, History Chair BarbaraWelter and myself.

Mayor Bloomberg also drew attention to“Global New York: The Lower East Side,”an exhibition just about to open at theMuseum of the City of New York. Thirty-five of its 37 images and captions werecreated by CUNY Honors College stu-dents--21 in the Hunter Honors College,14 from those at the other senior colleges.

Three months earlier, the six of uspresent at Gracie Mansion, joined bySusan Henshaw Jones, President andDirector of the Museum of the City ofNew York, had met to discuss whatHunter College, indeed all of CUNY,might do for “Immigrant History Week.”By the time the meeting was over, we had

agreed to put together an exhibition thatwould open in April at the Museum ofthe City of New York (MCNY).

As we left the meeting, I recall mum-bling to Barbara Welter something like, “Imust be out of my mind! How am I goingto get this done?” She responded with awry smile that said all that needed to besaid: “You asked for it, you got it, now doit.” But what was “it”? I wasn’t even sure.The only thing I knew for sure was that Ihad about three months to organize anexhibit that would be appropriate for“Immigrant History Week.” Although allof us were interested in looking at theneighborhoods of the newest NewYorkers, it was obvious that there was nosingle neighborhood that might representall the others. For April 2004, we decided,we would focus on the Lower East Side.

It was a story worth thinking about andtrying to tell on MCNY’s walls. Moreover,the Museum was the right place to tell thisstory: its renowned holdings of photographsby Jacob Riis and the Byron Company,taken at the end of the 19th century and inthe early 20th century, would provide anessential opening to the story. All we need-ed, of course, were contemporary counter-parts to those of Riis and the Byrons tobring the story up to 2004.

10 CUNY MATTERS — June 2004

By Jack SalzmanProfessor of History, Hunter College

‘Global New York: The Lower East Side’: Museum ExhibitFortunately, the Hunter History

Department had been engaged in discus-sions about ways to better engage our stu-dents’ interest in the study of history. Herewas an opportunity to have them not onlythink about what history is, but to activelyengage in a consideration of the past—tobecome historians themselves.

The question became: which studentsand how many? Then I got lucky. I hadbeen asked to teach an Honors Collegeseminar, “The Peopling of New York,” fora colleague on leave. I thus had access notonly to students in my Hunter seminar,but to Honors College students in itsCross Campus Project. Joined by a stu-dent in my 300-level course and a HunterMFA student, these students became myown Riises and Byrons.

About half the students began oneovercast Sunday afternoon with a tour ledby a dynamic young professional guide,Michelle Nevius. We started on the cornerof Essex and Delancey Streets and slowlymade our way from street to street—pastthe Essex Market and the new P.S. 20,with the statue of Lenin atop the apart-ments known as Red Square in the back-ground; down Orchard and Hester Streets;past Guss’s Pickles, Seward Park HighSchool, and a quick stop for a bialy at

Blumenthal’s Judaica Shop

At one point, Zelig Blumenthal’s store, 13 Essex Street, was one of many Judaica shopsthat lined Essex Street between Grand Street and East Broadway. Today it is one of thefew stores of this kind. It maintains a collection of dusty, but artfully displayed, prayer shawls(talaitim), prayer books (siddorim), and religious texts (sefarim) in the front window. Becauseof the many changes in the types of businesses that now line Essex Street, such as the Chinesenoodle and dumpling shop presently next door to Blumenthal’s, the remaining Judaica shopsare often referenced as relics from a past when the Lower East Side was a flourishing andvibrant Jewish neighborhood… —Bracha Feit, Queens College

Graffiti on Doorway,Suffolk Street

Graffiti artists are the urban shamansof our day. Like cave walls of ancienttimes, the street walls are where the spir-its of our time are put on public display.From the smallest patch to block-sizemurals, politics, love, curses and verses,you can find it all; just read the writing onthe wall. — Gad Zehavi, Hunter College

PublicPrivacy

Adistinct minorityof objects radi-ate a sharp emptinessof presence. Glasseslost or broken vibratewith micro-melodra-ma—their singularlytailored, perfect indi-vidual usability mak-ing the accidentaltragedy of theirestrangement and

subsequent downfall all the more heartbreaking. Abandoned makeshift beds conveya stab at scraping together a momentary claim to a few square feet of public privacyfor what snatches of time can be had. I always feel invasive in their presence, somekind of patronizing observer who can’t help but clumsily re-objectify the disengagedpersonalities caught in the remains.— Lisa Deutsch, Hunter College

Young Woman onEast Broadway

This young woman interested mebecause of her style. I had been ableto discern a particular style among theyounger people in the crowds I was walk-ing through, and she perfectly exempli-fied this look. The brightly colored furs onthe leather coat stood out. She allowedme to take her picture, but would notgive any further information, such as hername or what she was doing. She wasvery shy about the whole process.— Rosa Squillacote, Hunter College

Williamsburg Bridge

This view of the Williamsburg Bridgewas taken from the corner ofDelancey and Essex Streets. The magnifi-cent structure was opened on December19, 1903, and immediately had a pro-found effect on the demographics of theLower East Side,