cuny.edu/news THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK • FOUNDED 1847 AS THE FREE ACADEMY

“Open the doors to all—let the childrenof the rich and the poor take their seats

together and know of no distinctionsave that of industry, good conduct,

and intellect.”Townsend Harris, founder

SUMMER 2008

Dreams ThatCame TrueSeveral students have come tothe University against seeminglyimpossible odds.

Movin’On!Movin’On!So many extraordinary graduates, so manynew milestones—including the University’s

first baccalaureates awarded for study online

For complete,University-widecoverage of the

Class of 2008, visitwww.cuny.edu/news

KOJO WALLACE, a West African immigrant whose fatherdrives a taxi, ended up at Bronx Community College twoyears ago because it was close to home.

“My circumstances at that time made BCC the logical choice,”he said, “I did not want to spend most of the day commuting andBCC was the closest college to where I live—20 minutes by foot.”

It turned out to be a good decision. Wallace heads off to Cornell inthe fall where he will study biochemistry with the help of a $30,000Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, one of 46 winners nationwide—five in

New York State—out of almost 1,000 applicants. Wallace’s story wasjust one of many being told during the last month of spring as thou-sands of City University of New York graduates received degrees atcommencement exercises across the five boroughs.

The University estimates that by the fall of this year, when thefinal tabulations are in, more than 35,000 students will have beenawarded diplomas. As in years past, this group represents all levelsof academic achievement with associate, baccalaureate, masters,

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Revitalizing NursingThe University findsinnovative ways to keep this caring profession off

the critical list.

Swimming IntoFitness A John Jay College professorgives new mobility to localelderly via her innovativeaquatic exercises.

Children of the WorldA new study shows that mostadult children of new immigrantsare doing better than theirparents and often also

outdoing native-bornAmericans.

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First and ForemostCUNYfirst is a new system thatwill streamline everything fromregistering for courses to hiringpersonnel.

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the last five years,CUNY has graduatedhalf of all the new reg-istered nurses thatcome from New YorkCity-based nursing schools. On the 2007National Council Licensure Examination—the national certification exam for nurses—six CUNY colleges, including LaGuardiaCommunity College, QueensboroughCommunity College, and Borough ofManhattan Community College, are amongthe top 10 schools in New York State withboth the highest pass rates and 75 or moretest takers. Thanks to the comprehensivework accomplished as a result of the reportof the Chancellor’s 2002 Nursing TaskForce—including implementation of myaction plan to create new full-time facultylines with competitive salaries—CUNY ismaking a significant contribution to thepressing need for qualified nurses.

Only with strong investment from thestate and city and support from alumni andfriends will our community colleges be able tocontinue to offer a high-quality education tothe future nurses, teachers, accountants, socialworkers, health-care workers, and small busi-ness owners upon which our city depends.New York’s business community—fromneighborhood agencies to internationalfirms—has long recognized the importance ofa strong partnership with our six communitycolleges. They have hosted studentinternships, supported training programs, con-sulted faculty experts, and hired CUNY grad-uates. Our recent CUNY communicationsprogram acknowledged 150 businesses acrossthe city that have collaborated with theUniversity’s community colleges. This “part-nership in success” is indispensable to the eco-nomic health of our city. Earlier this year, areport by the College Board called America’scommunity colleges “the nation’s overlookedasset,” despite the fact that the country’s1,200 accredited two-year colleges are “thelargest single sector of American higher edu-cation.” About half of all baccalaureate degreerecipients attended community collegesbefore earning their degrees. The report notesthat community colleges are the key to thecountry’s economic and social stability, givingstudents “the tools to navigate the modernworld,” and called for increased federal, state,and local support of these critical institutions.

As more and more students strive toinsure themselves against the economicforces that are mounting against them, wemust keep open their pathways to educa-tion, which represent their best insurancepolicy. With serious public investment,CUNY’s community colleges can offer ourstudents and our city the resources theyneed to weather any economic climate.

2 CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008

TODAY, almost half of all undergrad-uates in the United States are attend-ing a community college. Here in

New York City, the six community collegesof The City University of New York—Borough of Manhattan Community College,Bronx Community College, Hostos Commu-nity College, Kingsborough CommunityCollege, LaGuardia Community College,and Queensborough Community College—serve nearly 79,000 degree-credit stu-dents, an increase of 12 percent since2002, and almost 118,000 adult and con-tinuing education students.

This is our highest enrollment in morethan 32 years. These students look to com-munity colleges as pathways to employment,especially as the economic climate worsens.As I have pointed out to state and city offi-cials over the last few months, New York’sstudents need “recession insurance,” andCUNY’s community colleges offer it,through career training programs, workforcedevelopment, career ladders, and a strongacademic foundation for transfer students.

Our students’ success is the city’s success,because our ambitious students are the city’sworkforce—its talent and its taxpayers.CUNY’s community colleges serve a highlymotivated student population: 60 percentwomen, 80 percent students of color, 70percent working full-time or part-time, andmost often adults with family responsibili-ties, including parenting or caring for elderlyrelatives. At every community college com-mencement ceremony this spring, we heardstories of highly accomplished graduateswho found extraordinary educational oppor-tunities and success at CUNY.

The importance of a community-collegeeducation to our workforce has been docu-mented in numerous studies and in Bureauof Labor Statistics data. Associate-degreegraduates or those with some college expe-rience are less likely to be unemployedthan those with only a high school diplo-ma. They earn more, too: nationally, in2006, the median annual earnings of work-ers with an associate’s degree or some col-lege were about $5,000 more than thosewith just a high school diploma, meaningthat these workers contribute more to thenational, state, and local tax base.

CUNY’s community colleges play anindispensable role in the economic devel-opment of New York City. Almost 90 per-cent of our graduates are employed withinsix months of earning the associate degree,and over 94 percent are either employedor enrolled for additional education.CUNY students also stay in New YorkCity: of those who are employed, 93 per-cent work in New York City, contributingto the city’s economy. For example, over

THECHANCELLOR’SDESK

Robert Ramos, Jr. Manfred PhilippChairperson, Chairperson,University Student Senate University Faculty Senate

Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. Philip BerryChairperson Vice Chairperson

Valerie L. Beal Kathleen M. Pesile

John S. Bonnici Carol Robles-Román

Wellington Z. Chen Marc V. Shaw

Rita DiMartino Charles A. Shorter

Freida Foster-Tolbert Solomon A. Sutton

Joseph J. Lhota Jeffrey Wiesenfeld

Hugo M. Morales

Matthew GoldsteinChancellorJay HershensonSecretary of the Board of Trustees andSenior Vice Chancellor for University RelationsMichael ArenaUniversity Director for Communications and MarketingRich Sheinaus Graphic Design DirectorRon Howell, Neill Rosenfeld, Ruth LandaWritersMiriam Smith Issue DesignerAndré Beckles Photographer

Articles in this and previous issues are available at cuny.edu/news.Letters or suggestions for future stories may be sent to the Editorby email to Mediarelations@mail.cuny.edu. Changes of addressshould be made through your campus personnel office.

BOARDOFTRUSTEESThe City University of New York

TEN UNIVERSITY undergraduateshave been awarded 2008 scholar-

ships by the Kaplan Education Founda-tion via its Leadership Program—whichprovides financial assistance plusacademic support and career counselingdesigned to help high-achieving, lower-income students at New York area com-munity collegespursue their profes-sional dreams.

“We hope thesestudents’ successwill serve as a mod-el to organizationsstriving to close theachievement gap and to focus on indi-viduals not typically targeted for scholar-ship opportunities who havedemonstrated great leadership potential,”said Jennifer Benn, director of theKaplan Educational Foundation.

FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS, theuncertainty of the economy has aggra-vated an age-old dilemma: How do I

merge my need for a decent-paying jobwith a desire to do good in the world?

For many, the answer has the resonanceof a healthy heartbeat.

“You see, nurses are in demand,” notesEdilberto Calamanan, a 55-year-old immi-grant from the Philippines who earned hisassociate’s degree in nursing from LaGuardiaCommunity College in December, 2007.Calamanan, an even-tempered man wholoves helping people, began working atElmhurst Hospital while a student at near-by LaGuardia in Queens. Since then, he hasclimbed the ladder and earned significantpay raises along the way. A former highschool teacher in his native Philippines,Calamanan is proud of his college, whichlast year had a pass rate of 97.47 percentfor its 79 graduates who took the licensingexam. It was the highest pass rate in thestate, surpassing that of even four-year col-leges. The combined average pass rate of allUniversity graduates taking the so-calledNCLEX—or National Council LicensureExamination—was 86.3 percent. That wasconsiderably higher than the rate for othercolleges in the region.

The health industry is one of thestrongest sectors in the local and nationaleconomy, with 400,000 jobs in New YorkCity alone; RN’s (Registered Nurses) makeup the largest singlecategory within theindustry, comprising15 percent of thosejobs. But with thatstrength comes aconcern. Accordingto federal estimates,New York City willhave a shortfall ofalmost 37,000 nursesby 2015—andnationally a shortageof a million nurses isanticipated by 2020. New York State legis-lators are calling for action to boost enroll-

ment at collegenursing programs,which theUniversity sees asa challenge and anopportunity.

According toDr. WilliamEbenstein,University Deanfor Health andHuman Service,the University inthe last five yearshas graduatedmore than 3,500nursing studentswho went on topass the NCLEX.And the numberof nursing grads(from LPN, orLicensed PracticalNurse programs, aswell as associate,bachelor's andmaster's programs)jumped from 847in 2002-03 to1,487 in 2006-07.

A key to the University’s plans to furtherboost the number of nursing graduates isthe creation of a new doctoral program innursing, the only such public program in

the region. “Theshortage is prettymuch based on alack of faculty,” saidDr. KevilleFrederickson, direc-tor of the Doctor ofNursing ScienceProgram at theGraduate Center.“The beauty of ourprogram is its twoprimary focuses—one, our concentra-

tion on health disparities, how to identifythem in certain ethnic groups and how to

“ Today 13 colleges offer nursing

programs, with three — College of

Staten Island, Hunter and Lehman —

offering master’s degrees in various

specialties.”Ten New Kaplan Scholars

Reviving the Reviving the

This third cohort of Kaplan Scholars,aged 18 to 32, includes aspiring profes-sors, attorneys, writers andentrepreneurs. Four are students atLaGuardia Community College, two atBorough of Manhattan CommunityCollege and one each at BronxCommunity College, Hostos Community

College, QueensboroughCommunity College and JohnJay College of CriminalJustice’s associate degree pro-gram. The eight previousKaplan Scholars also all havebeen CUNY community col-lege students.

LaGuardia’s newest Kaplan Scholarsare Luis Feliz, a volunteer teacher forEnglish as a Second Language and aspir-ing professor, who launched his school’sliterary magazine; Anastasia Morton, asingle mother who wants to teach young

CUNY’s Community Colleges Provide Recession Insurance

CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008 3

people the importance of education andself-esteem; Don Patterson, whose leader-ship positions include Executive StudentSenator and liaison for the StudentAdvisory Council; Cristina Rodriguez,who wants to work on improving thepublic healthcare system.

correct them—and that we prepare nurseresearchers who will also be educators.”

The University began focusing on thenursing issue in 2002, when a task forceconvened by Chancellor Matthew Goldsteincame up with recommendations. A key fea-ture of the Nursing Task Force Report, DeanEbenstein noted, was the suggestion, laterapproved and carried out, for increases inthe number of faculty to be hired. “Anotherfeature,” he added, “was the embrace oftechnology, including offering more onlinecourses and the creation of nursing simula-tion labs on several of our campuses.”

Today 13 colleges offer nursing programs,with three—College of Staten Island, Hunterand Lehman—offering master’s degrees in

various specialties. Lehman College in theBronx has had nursing students since itsopening in 1968 and is proud of its efforts toturn out nurses who can work easily in thecity's diverse communities. Lehman has aprogram that trains immigrants who havereceived a nursing education overseas, school-ing them in English and other necessary skills.Thanks to a grant from the Robin HoodFoundation, Lehman has been working withabout 20 such immigrants a year. Graduatesare passing the licensing exams at a rate ofabout 80 percent, according to Michael Paull,Dean of Adult and Continuing Education.

The college also has an “MD to RN” pro-gram dealing with “doctors who had beentrained abroad and who were working out

of title in thiscountry, doinganything frommedical technol-ogy to moremenial tasks,”Paull said.Lehman turnsthose doctorsinto nurses withAmerican bache-lor’s degrees.

The problemof finding goodnursing professors is compounded by thefact that the recommended student-facultyratio is so low, 10 to one. This means thatthe average associate-level nursing coursewill cost $6,800 per student, as opposed to$2,400 per student for a non-nursing class.Another costly feature of nursing educationis the laboratory. The simulation labs atQueensborough Community College,Borough of Manhattan CommunityCollege and New York City College ofTechnology are especially outstanding.According to City Tech’s website, its labo-ratory “contains hospital and home healthequipment, training mannequins, and basicmedical supplies that simulate the clini-cal/home setting and help students learn avariety of skills.”

Nursing education has gone throughenormous changes since the mid 20th cen-tury when some of the oldest current prac-titioners were trained. Back then, theteaching and certification came throughhospitals and other so-called diploma insti-tutes. But by the 1960s, a realization devel-oped that nurses—like professionals inother fields—needed a broader intellectualgrounding. So colleges took up the call toprovide skills that went considerablybeyond on-the-job, the-needle-goes-herelessons. Hospitals and other healthcare

institutions now determine placement andpromotion, in large part, on the degreelevel of candidates.

Calamanan, the associate’s degree holderfrom LaGuardia, says he very likely willpursue a master’s degree while he works ina medical-surgery unit at ElmhurstHospital. Having recently passed his regis-tered nurse exam, Calamanan moved froma yearly LPN pay base of about $35,000, toan RN line, where the salary is as much as$70,000 a year in the city.

As a male, Calamanan is among a dis-tinct minority in the nursing field. Of thethree dozen or so students enrolled oraccepted into the University’s doctoral pro-gram, only two are men, program directorFrederickson said. “Men are afraid to gointo nursing because it's seen as a very car-ing, nurturing profession, and those areseen as feminine traits,” he said.

But one would think today, with linesblurring between science and art, that menas well as women would see the beauty ofa profession that a famous practitioner,Florence Nightingale, described this way:

“Nursing is an art; and if it is to be madean art, it requires an exclusive devotion, ashard a preparation, as any painter’s orsculptor’s work…It is one of the Fine Arts;I had almost said the finest of Fine Arts.”

“… financial assistance plus

academic support and career

counseling designed to help high-

achieving, lower-income students at

New York area community colleges

pursue their professional dreams. ”

Announced Borough of Manhattan CommunityCollege scholars are Nolvia Delgado, alegislative assistant for a state assembly-man who is interested in a career in pub-lic service, and Andrew Santiago, anaspiring writer and Phi Theta Kappamember, who works at Prep for Prep.

The University’s other new KaplanScholars are Janet Araya, John JayCollege, an aspiring attorney;Bounyaminou Gbadamassi, a trilingualBronx Commu-nity College student andimmigrant from Togo who hopes to leada global business; Kesha Montgomery, aQueensborough Community Collegestudent hoping to work for the FederalReserve; Norberto Taveras, HostosCommunity College student and aspiringoccupational therapist, who serves as vicepresident of his school’s DisabilityAwareness Club.

The foundation continues to provideservice and financial support to thesestudents through the completion of thebachelor’s program.

University innovations to meet expected futureneeds include retraining medical specialistsand creating new faculty researchers.Heartof Nursing Heartof Nursing

Nursing students at Borough of Manhattan Community College (above) and LaGuardia Community College (atright) are preparing for careers at New York City medical centers, where the need for highly skilled nurses is great.LaGuardia’s graduates scored highest statewide on the 2007 licensing exam.

4 CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008

Honing Future Leaderstheir extra-curricular involvement. The software should be upand running within a year and will be available to students whoare involved in leadership programs, said McManus, who holds adoctoral degree in Educational Leadership from Florida A&MUniversity.

Moore has been laying the foundation for the LeadershipAcademy during the past year. He arranged for more than a half-dozen students—including John Jay’s Gavins—to attend TheNational Conference on Student Leadership, held last year inOrlando, Fla., where they joined other up-and-coming leadersfrom around the country and the world.

“It was an excellent experience,” said Gavins, who said helearned an important, though paradoxical, truth about college life:The more you do, the more time you have. Gavins said he learnedto convincingly tell other students that they will be better orga-nized, better equipped and happier, if they got involved in groupslike student government. “Before the conference, I did not knowhow to attract students to join a student group,” he said, addingthat he is also a member of the Law Society at John Jay.

These days, Gavins’s leadership ambitions know few bounds.When he says he wants to be a leader, he means a leader of mil-lions of people. “I want to be mayor of New York City,” he says.

CUNY is planning to send students to a number of major stu-dent leadership conferences in the coming months, including theparticularly well-regarded International Leadership Institute inJordan. On a monthly basis, the Institute exposes a limited num-ber of students from around the world to the latest thinking inareas such as global governance and environmental justice,McManus said.

Vice Chancellor Moore says that the business world in particu-lar will welcome the University’s new focus on leadership, and heexpects that Wall Street will help in funding programs of theAcademy. “I’ve met these folks who are well respected and finan-cially stable leaders and they’re saying basically, ‘We want to help.’”

Moore would like toreplicate business-orient-ed workshops of the kindnow done at BaruchCollege, which stresspractical knowledge andskills, such as the impor-tance of body languagein social settings, of stay-ing current with thenews, and of doing ade-quate research beforemeeting representativesof a company. Becausehe himself came up thehard way—from a child-hood on a sharecroppingfarm in a tin-roofedhome without electrici-ty—Moore believes thatall CUNY students arecapable of fulfilling theirdreams, no matter howambitious.

At Medgar EversCollege in Brooklyn, that viewpoint is much appreciated. SeniorRahsaan Cummings says the Leadership Academy is very muchneeded, so that students like him can overcome the internal andexternal barriers to their goals. Cummings, who is 30, wants some-day to have his own financial services company and at Medgar Evershe helped start a group—the Minority Investment Association—that teaches students how to invest wisely and profitably.

“In the Association, we learn how to make investments,”through lectures from professors and other professionals, he said.Cummings participated in last year’s National Conference onStudent Leadership, and says it taught him a great deal.

The seminars and lectures “even taught me how to meet peo-ple. That was one of my weak areas, being in the public eye andintroducing myself to people,” Cummings said. He realizes that ifhe’s going to succeed with his own business, he will have toimprove his leadership skills. He is convinced more than ever thatthe University must impart such abilities to all of its students.“We need to understand how important it is to be a leader, andthe traits you need to develop to be a leader—character, courageand charisma,” he said.

STUDENTHONORS2008 Salk Institute Interns

TWO OF THE University’s eight2008 Salk Scholars are heading to

the prestigious Salk Institute forBiological Studies in LaJolla, CA., as summerinterns. Diana Kachan, achemistry/biology majorstudying for the CUNYBaccalaureate Degreewho attends BaruchCollege, and WilliamMak, a biochemistrymajor at the William E.Macaulay HonorsCollege who attends City College, wereinspired by personal experiences tochoose careers in medicine. In her nativeBelarus, Kachan volunteered in an

orphanage filled withchildren affected by theChernobyl disaster; Makwas touched by personaland family medicalproblems. The institutefounded by City Collegealumnus Dr. Jonas E.

Salk, who developedthe first polio vaccine,also welcomed two

CUNY interns last summer: BrooklynCollege biology major and Salk ScholarJewel Liao, and Yi Cai Isaac Tong, a stu-dent at The Sophie Davis School ofBiomedical Education.

Top Prize Winner in Architecture

JEONGHOON PARK, a fifth-yearCity College architecture student

from Seoul, South Korea, was awardedfirst prize in the 2008 Eleanor AllworkScholar Grant program. The awardprovides a $10,000 stipend. It is givenby the Center for ArchitectureScholarship with additional supportfrom the American Institute ofArchitects New York chapter and AIANational. Mr. Park, whose childhoodhobby was making models, came toNew York four years ago to studyarchitecture at CCNY. “Designingspaces really interests me,” he said. Hewas selected for the Allwork awardbased on a portfolio he submitted thatconsisted of a housing project designfrom his fourth year and a design for awater taxi station from his third year.

10 Laurel Awards Winners Named

TEN STUDENTS have received theUniversity's Peter Jennings

Scholarship Laurel Awards, given toexemplary students who have earnedtheir General Equivalency Diploma(GED), have enrolled in CUNY col-leges, have been nominated by theGED program and have written anessay. Winners are: Jacinto Aponte,Patricia Barrett, Silvia Garcia, GadeNiang, Nokeisha Robertson fromBorough of Manhattan CommunityCollege; Adissa Charles from YorkCollege; Lorna Liverpool and PhillipParris from Medgar Evers College;Jenny Payamps from BronxCommunity College; Juan Ruiz fromLaGuardia Community College. TwoCollege Transition Fellowship winnersare Lehman College graduates VeraMatoshi and Jennifer Herrera.

ANTWAUN GAVINS is a young African-American male,child of a single mom, and brother to10 siblings also try-ing to succeed in a sometimes difficult city.

A junior at John Jay College, Gavins, 20, looks forward to earn-ing his bachelor’s degree and then attending law school.

But he wants more than that. He wants to be a leader. Leadership, Gavins and others say, is a quality that colleges must

teach if they are going to be true training grounds for success.Pushing that point of view has been Vice Chancellor Garrie W.

Moore, who is now achieving his long-held goal of setting up aUniversity-wide Leadership Academy. The Academy, Dr. Mooresays, will transform the concept of higher education even as itoffers practical methods for strengthening resumes and climbingorganizational ladders. It will offer—through courses, studentorganizations and international conferences—the experiences andcontacts long associated with those of the most ambitiousstudents at Ivy League colleges.

“The research shows that students are leaving college unpre-pared in leadership training. My goal is for every student enrolledin CUNY to exit with solid leadership skills,” said Vice ChancellorMoore. He added that he wants all campuses to teach basic lead-ership qualities, such as the ability to present oneself competentlyto large or small audiences, and the ability to lead others in pro-fessional undertakings. Moore says that these will one day bewidely known hallmarks of a CUNY-educated woman or man.“The training, experience and research opportunities made avail-able through the Academy will augment the in-classroom andother academic experiences of all of our students regardless oftheir major or academic standing,” Moore said.

Nationally, in recent years, there has been an increasing focuson the development of leadership skills, and the need for suchtraining is being stressed by the business, non-profit and academicspheres.

The colleges have been responding to that call, one by one. “Allthe colleges are doingsomething,” said Dr.Joe-Joe McManus, whobegan working inFebruary as executivedirector of the buddingLeadership Academy.“At the very leastthey’re doing retreatsand, from there, thereare even full-blownleadership academieson the campuses. Andthey’re all doingremarkable leadershipwork. But the idea nowis to bring together thebest practices from thecampuses and takethem to another level.”

The CUNYLeadership Academywill be based at newoffices in the MetroTech business and edu-cational center in downtown Brooklyn and, initially, students willbe chosen from nominations by college presidents and studentaffairs administrators. Later, after the Academy’s web site is func-tioning, hopefully by next semester, there will be a student-gener-ated application process, McManus said.

One key aspect of the new Academy will be a “co-curriculartranscript,” which will be like a resume of a student's outsideactivities. “It will capture what our students learn and what theyotherwise gain as they participate in organizations and inLeadership Academy programs,” Vice Chancellor Moore said. Thetranscripts will be used to demonstrate what she or he has gainedbeyond the classroom and “will serve to add value to the academ-ic degree by demonstrating that our students are graduating fromthe University with experiences that are valuable to an employerand to a graduate school,” he said.

But the University will go beyond just making the co-curricu-lar transcript available to potential employers and graduateschools. It will use a social networking-type platform (“anacademic version of Facebook,” in McManus’s words) that willhelp students build the knowledge and associations that will feed

William Mak

Diane Kachan

Vice Chancellor Garrie W. Moore, right, talks to students in the new CUNYLeadership Academy.

Asian Institute’s New Leader

JOYCE O. MOY, former execu-tive director of business and

community development atLaGuardia Community College, isthe new executive director of theUniversity’s AsianAmerican/AsianResearch Institute. Moy succeedsfounding director Thomas Tam,who died this year. “The appoint-ment of executive director Moy

assures continuedsuccess for theinstitute. We arepleased that shewill be continuingthe great work ofDr. Tam,”Chancellor

Matthew Goldstein said in hisannouncement. Moy said that inbuilding on the foundation laid byher predecessor, she hopes the insti-tute can provide recommendationson issues facing Asian communitiesaround the world, as well as sup-port and strengthen Asian/Americanand Asian studies at CUNY.

A Pioneer Remembered

IRVING ROSENTHAL, thefounding father of CUNY’s

journalism curriculum and a men-tor to hundreds of students whobecame local reporters, foreigncorrespondents, editors and broad-

casters, died atage 95 on May18 at his homein Great Neck.Rosenthal, whograduated fromCity Collegewith a degree inEnglish in 1933,joined the facul-ty that same

year. After creating two journal-ism courses in 1936, he concen-trated on teaching that subjectuntil 1976, when he retired. Healso served as public relationsdirector for the college.

Citizenship Now! Record

THE RECENT fifth annualCUNY/NY Daily News

Citizenship Now! ImmigrationCall-In, a weeklong campaign tohelp local immigrants become U.S.citizens, answered immigrationand naturalization questions frommore than 15,000 callers—doublethe number helped in 2006. Morethan 54,000 people have been

helpedsince thephone-inbegan in2004. Thisyear, 365volunteercounselorsstaffed 48phone

lines, according to Baruch Collegeprofessor Allan Wernick, directorof the University’s Citizenship andNaturalization Project, whoseattorneys and paralegals providefree consultations on immigration-related issues to New York Cityresidents year-round.

Forever Buoyant

EAGER TO EASE achingbacks and strengthen wobbly

legs, West Siders aged 65 to 90head to the John Jay Collegepool each spring for a refreshingprogram that promotes lifetimefitness. The gentle water exercis-es were developed by professorJane Katz, at left in yellowbathing cap, a championshipswimmer and aquatic innovatorwhose non-college students haveranged from at-risk youth topolice and firefighters.Progressing from playful splash-ing to synchronized routines, theelder swimmers marvel at howwater magically eliminates painthat inhibits them on land. Manysay in time they can again doroutine chores and are motivatedby the pool’s jovial camaraderieto keep exercising at home.

AS EXECUTIVE assistant to FirstDeputy Mayor Patricia E.

Harris, Erica Soto is a scheduler parexcellence, deciding who gets anaudience with her boss.

Victoria Rodriguez, a financialanalyst for Lehman Brothers, alsofinds herself in the thick of thingswhether she’s supporting portfoliomanagers in account balancing, tradeexecution and settlement, asset allo-cation or discrepancy research.

And over at Macy’s East, adminis-trative assistant Maria Vasquez wasthe point person for informing storesabout seminars and new-programguidelines until she recently movedon to a new job as an assistant to thechief of the staff at the procurementdepartment at the United Nations.The positions are varied, but thecareers of these three Baruch

College graduates link them in one fundamental way: they all got their start via internships arranged by100 Hispanic Women, a nonprofit organization dedicated to guiding young Latinas toward excellence inleadership.Their inspiring success stories were spotlighted during 100 Hispanic Women’s 2008 YoungLatinas Leadership Institute awards ceremony, where five high-achieving University students were pre-sented with four-year $1,000 annualscholarships. Inductees also get opportuni-ties for corporate scholarships and intern-ships plus other support designed to keepthem on the college track. Newest recipi-ents are Bianca Batista, City College;Stacey Josephine Martinez, BaruchCollege; Katherine Andreina Reyes,Brooklyn College; Jacqueline DeliaSerrano, John Jay College; and Rachel Soto(Erica Soto’s sister), Queens College.

“We never would have had the scholar-ship program without the support ofCUNY, which has helped us identify wor-thy students, donated campus space forworkshops and supplied us with money topay interns like Erica, Maria and Victoria,”said Shirley Rodriguez Remeneski, presi-dent and cofounder of the organization.

Soto, Rodriguez and Vasquez said theprogram changed their lives by teaching them to aim high and to pursue careers, not merely 9-to-5jobs, that they are passionate about. Soto, who assists the Mayor’s Office of Special Projects andCommunity Events as a liaison to the Latino community, can’t wait to help out her sisters. “When Iwas an intern, one of the board members told us to open the door and to hold it open for the nextgeneration,” she said.

It has not gone unnoticed that the door Soto holds opens leads right into Gracie Mansion.

Mentoring Pays Off

THREE CITY high schoolstudents who were men-

tored by two Queens Collegephysics professors won majorhonors at the recent IntelInternational Science &Engineering Fair in Atlanta. Allfinished on top in the prelimi-nary New York City Science &Engineering Fair earlier this year.Tinya Cheng and Nischay

Kumar, whodid researchin professorVinodMenon's lab,won a sec-ond place

award in theoverall team category. ErinZeqja, who worked with profes-sor Igor Kuskovsky, won a thirdplace in the physics category.

Tentative Union Contracts

THE UNIVERSITY and DC37, the union representing

over 10,000 white collar and bluecollar workers, have reached a ten-tative collective bargaining agree-ment.

Key provisions include:• wage increases of 3.15 percenton the first day of the agreement. • 4 percent compounded on the13th month of the agreement.• 4 percent compounded on the25th month of the agreement.• a $50 increase to the WelfareFund rate.

The tentative agreement is subjectto ratification by the membershipand adoption by the Board ofTrustees. CUNY also reached ten-tative agreements under the sameterms with SEIU Local 300 andIATSE Local 306, as well as withthe New York State NursesAssociation.

NOTED&QUOTED

Soto makes appointments for First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris.

Mayor Bloomberg andWernick at the Call-In

Irving Rosenthal

CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008 5

Joyce O. Moy

Guiding Latinas Onto Career Tracks

Analyst Rodriguez juggles many tasks at Lehman Brothers.

6 CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008

doctoral and law degrees bestowed. TheClass of 2008 also marked a special digitalachievement: graduates of the School ofProfessional Studies, which opened itsonline degree program several years ago,became the first in the history of theUniversity to receive a baccalaureate forstudies conducted online.

“Once again, our graduates have com-piled an extraordinary record of accomplish-ment,” said Chancellor Matthew Goldstein.“The class is a source of enormous pride forall New Yorkers. They will invigorate oursociety and make significant contributions toour city, state and the nation.”

Among the commencement speakerswere the Hon. David A. Paterson, thestate’s first African American governor, whospoke at Medgar Evers College; ChrisMatthews, MSNBC political pundit, whoaddressed Hunter graduates, and PeterGelb, general manager of the MetropolitanOpera, who was speaker and honoree atthe William E. Macaulay Honors College atCUNY exercises.

But it was the students who took centerstage, often telling stories of struggle, hardfinancial times and difficulties as immi-grants adjusting to a new country.

“I was no longer just a student back inGhana earning excellent grades,” saidWallace. “When I came here, I had to learnto work, be a full-time student and earnexcellent grades.”

After attending classes at BCC, Wallaceworked the night shift as a security guard. Yethe still graduated in June with a 4.0 averageand as one of three class valedictorians. Hisdream is to become a doctor in developingcountries. I am very proud,” he said. “Almostevery faculty member I have met has encour-aged and mentored me and informed me ofopportunities available for students. BCC hasbeen like a family to me.” His Cooke Awardwill provide up to $30,000 a year until hegets his bachelor’s degree.

At the New York City College of

GRADUATION MARKS MAJOR MILEPOSTS FOR TWO AFRICAN STUDENTS

THEY SURVIVED nearly unspeakable horrors:genocidal massacres in Rwanda, devastatingwar in Liberia, the shooting murders of family

members, hiding and fleeing, fear and hunger.

But the remarkable stories of GeorgesNdabashimiye and Morris Sheriff don’t end withtheir escape from bloodshed in their African home-lands. Pushed by parents and teachers, driven bydreams of making good and giving back,Ndabashimiye and Sheriffmade it to America,enrolled at the University.Now they are moving on,with honors.

Ndabashimiye, 26, grad-uates City College summacum laude with a B.S. inphysics. He received hisdepartment’s Ward Medal,for a graduating physicsmajor with the highest GPAin physics and math cours-es, and the BernardHamermesh Scholarship,given to a physics majorplanning to study graduate-level experimentalphysics. Ndabashimiye’s next stop: StanfordUniversity's Ph.D. program in Applied Physics.

The son of teachers, Ndabashimiye grew up inthe Rwandan village of Runyombyi. He plans tobecome an “entrepreneurial physicist,” and to returnto Rwanda someday to improve conditions there.

He was living in Rwanda in 1994 when a mis-sile attack on the plane carrying the country's pres-ident unleashed 100 days of genocidal massacresamong the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, killing between800,000 and more than 1 million and shocking theworld. Ndabashimiye, a Hutu, went into hiding withhis family. They eventually fled to a refugee campin Katana, Congo. But one morning in 1996,Congolese rebels invaded the camp and “startedshooting,” Ndamashimiye said. “My father andsister ran one way; me, my mother and the rest ofthe family ran another. A boy who saw it said myfather and sister were captured a few days laterand shot to death.” His sister was 17.

Forced back to Rwanda, Ndabashimiye and his

surviving family settled in Kigali, and he entered avocational school. He earned the highest score onhis country's national graduation exam and wasnominated for a William J. Clinton Foundationscholarship, which brought him to CCNY.

At Borough of Manhattan Community College,Morris Sheriff has stood out for his own impressiveacademic achievements, confidence and efforts toreach out to fellow students. The accounting major

has been admitted to GeorgeWashington University, wherehe plans to study economicsand political science.

Just three years agoSheriff was granted asylumhere, after his native Liberiabecame engulfed in violence.“Homes were burning, shotswere being fired, people werebeing murdered,” Sheriff,now 25, said of the turmoil inLiberia. “One of my brotherswas shot while searching forfood; another brother wasabducted by rebels. My father

was shot by firing squad.” Sheriff escaped to Guinea with his mother and

sisters, but was still a target of Liberian dictatorCharles Taylor’s regime due to his past communityorganizing. He managed to flee to the U.S. “My moth-er told me, ‘My heart is broken to be separated fromyou, but you will find family in America’,” saidSheriff, 25.

Sheriff earned his GED and was accepted toBMCC in 2005. He has been president of itsaccounting club and Evening Weekend StudentClub, organizing trips and seminars—all whileworking two jobs. This year he was named a NewCentury Scholar, an award given to outstandingtwo-year college students who are members of theFirst All-USA Academic Team. Sheriff also has agirlfriend and a 1-year-old son.

“I want to inspire children who have come fromwar—whatever country—to realize a person whohas suffered war, crime, violence can always besuccessful if they put their mind to it,” Sheriff said.“Don't let your past hold you down.”

Georges Ndabashimiye, left, and Morris Sheriff escaped bloodshed in their homelandsand now leave CUNY with honors.

‘Don’t let your past hold you down’

“One of my brothers was

shot while searching for food;

another brother was abducted

by rebels. My father was shot

by firing squad.”— Morris Sheriff, describing his life in Liberia

Graduation Day ScenesAround the University:City streets and landscapedcampuses were filled with thesights and sounds of studentscelebrating hard-earned achieve-ments via smiles, cheers, victorysymbols, balloons and countlessother personalized greetings.

Technology, Limor Garfinkle reflected onher journey from Israel with an uncertainfuture to an honored graduate in communi-cation design. “When I first came to theStates at age 20, with just $1,000, I wasalone, I was confused and I didn't have anyconfidence,” she said.

A chance conversation with the registrarat City Tech made the difference. “Heassured me that if I wanted to do it, I wouldbe able to. I’ll never forget those words.With such a heart-warming welcome, I feltlike I couldn’t disappoint this man.”

Now 30, and class salutatorian,Garfinkle is the first in her family to earn adegree. She already has a job lined up asthe New York studio assistant coordinatorat Grey Advertising. And she and her hus-band have a new baby, James.

Joy Marchionni dropped out of high schoolin 10th grade to work in retail. But earning$7.25 an hour made her feel as if she was at adead end, so two years ago, she enrolled inKingsborough Community College's NewStart program. For the first time, she earnedstraight A’s and realized there was a big worldout there. She was elected president of thefledgling Honors Club, and in nine monthsestablished a monthly newsletter andincreased membership from 12 to 218. Shebecame a strong advocate for KCC, lobbyingcity and state legislators to restore budget cutsand appearing before the Governor’sCommission on Higher Education.Marchionni plans to study history and inter-national relations at Smith College in the fall.

Angelo Damanti won’t have to stray farfrom his college for his first job. This sum-mer, he begins work as a chemistry analystat the largest U.S. Federal DrugAdministration lab in the country, which ison York College’s 50-acre campus. The ideafor his future was sparked one day as he leftthe physical education building at York. “Isaw this huge FDA building and I knewwhat I wanted to do…to pursue,” he said.The FDA has only five regional offices andwith the exception of the lab at the agen-

Continued from Page 1

Stepping Into

FOR ASPIRING GRADUATE, FIRST STOP IS LAGUARDIA

For many new immigrants, there are twists and turns and bumps and detours on the road to a collegedegree and the American dream. But there can be no turning back. Lucasz Palatan knows this. He left hisnative Poland for New York City and enrolled in a language immersion program at LaGuardia CommunityCollege. Last fall, he left the program for personal reasons. Now he plans to return this summer. His goal isto become a college graduate and a paramedic. In a recent issue of LaGuardia’s International StudentNewsletter, Palatan explained what spurred him to leave his homeland, and pursue a better life in Queens.

IT WAS EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO when I had tomake a very important decision. Those were veryhard days for me. My mother died and I was

completely depressed. I lived in an empty houseonly with my sister.

I was working andstudying, but when mymother died I quit schooland I got fired from myjob. I started to drink alot and smoke marijuanato get calm. It was goodfor a short time.

One night I had avery strange dreamabout my mother. It wasthe time when I had todecide what I wanted todo with my life. I knewthat I couldn’t drink andsmoke and do nothing else. In my dream my mothergave me an answer for my question: ‘What’s next?’ I

saw her and I talked to her, but I knew she wasdead. She gave me a map. I looked at it andthought that I had seen this map before. It was themap of subways in New York.

Then I woke up and went tomy sister’s room and said whatI was dreaming about. I tookmy dream very seriously andshe did too.

“It was a sign from Mommy,”my sister said. “She showed youwhat you should do and where.”

From that night on, I havedone everything that my motherwanted me to do in my dream.She wanted me to go to NewYork and start a new life. Fourmonths later, I was sitting inthe plane to New York. Therewas no way back. I began a

new life and I made this hard decision because itwas the last will of my mother.

Subway map that appeared in a dream led Lucasz Palatan from Poland to New York.

Mother’s answer to ‘What’s next?’

“ From that night on, I have

done everything that my mother

wanted me to do in my dream.

She wanted me to go to New

York and start a new life.”— Lucasz Palatan

cy’s Maryland headquarters, the one at Yorkis the largest and most modern.

Damanti sought out Angelo Rossi, pro-fessor of chemistry and director of the col-lege's FDA Collaboration. That led tointernships at the lab. “York is a collegewhere professors are very involved,”Damanti said, "Dr. Rossi was there andalways available. He emailed me, hecalled…those are the things that at the endmake you feel special.”

Rebecca Speziale got her bachelor's 20years ago, then worked in sales and market-ing before leaving the work force to raiseher children. Eight years ago, she developedscleroderma, a progressive, sometimes fatalautoimmune disease. Despite the grimprognosis—doctors gave her only threeyears to live, Speziale continued to fight forher dream of becoming a teacher. Sheenrolled in the mas-ter’s program inteaching at QueensCollege and graduatedthis spring with a 3.9GPA. “It’s a badge ofcourage,” said LilaSwell, an Elementaryand Early ChildhoodEducation professor atthe college andSpeziale’s graduateadvisor. “She receivedher degree despitechronic pain, fatigueand severe muscularweakness.”

Speziale is a secondgrade teacher at P.S. 232 in Howard Beach.“My professors in the program, Dr. Swelland Dr. Kimberley Alkins, encouraged meto have confidence in myself,” she said.“Even though I didn't miss any deadlines,they were very understanding about mycircumstances and that took a lot of thepressure off.”

In his application to the Thomas W.Smith Academic Fellowship a few yearsago, Tennessee Jones explained his lifegrowing up in the Appalachian mountainsof East Tennessee. “Our water came from acreek spring and my backyard was uncutwilderness,” he wrote. “Three generations ofmy family lived on top of each other in alittle holler and my parents grew a tobaccocrop to supplement their incomes….Though we lived on the top of the oldest

CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008 7

By Lucasz Palatan

mountains in the world, the horizon ofopportunity was very limited.”

Jones won the fellowship and arrived atHunter College and the CUNY Baccalau-reate Degree after kicking around thecountry figuring out where he wanted tolive and writing fiction. By the time hebegan his studies, Jones had published awell-received book of short stories—Deliver Me From Nowhere—and was aneditor at Soft Skull Press. Under the direc-tion of religion professor Barbara Sproul, atHunter, he took courses in AfricanaStudies, Religion and English. He graduatedwith a B.A. in Religious Dimensions ofSocial Justice in Literature, is working on anovel and has been accepted to the MFAprogram at Hunter.

For Jae Ko, a commitment to public ser-vice started in his early days at John Jay

College in 2004. As afreshman, he volunteeredto work at the DisputeResolution Consortiumbased at John Jay. Twoyears later, he won theJustice Scholarship, estab-lished by PrincetonUniversity to honor thepublic service heroes of theWorld Trade Center bomb-ings. Ko’s volunteer activi-ties that helped him winthe award included youthleadership work at hischurch in Queens, advoca-cy on behalf of the disabledand serving as a patient-

relations assistant at Elmhurst Hospital.Scholarly collaborations with faculty have

enabled him to work on grant-funded initia-tives and present original research on conflictresolution and prison gangs at several nationalconferences. Last year Ko received a$100,000 Korean Honor Fellowship from theEmbassy of the Republic of Korea to helphim pay for law school. He graduated with adegree in criminology and a Certificate inDispute Resolution. He also won theLeonard E. Reisman Medal, the college’shighest honor for scholarship and service.

Ko has deferred entering Columbia's lawschool until 2009 so he can take a year offto pursue public and private sector policywork. “John Jay has taught me to gobeyond being exceptional into becoming anaccepted and necessary maverick,” Ko said.

the Future

8 CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008

American. They are proud of their ability to speak their parents’language and they don’t see any contradiction between being WestIndian, Dominican or Chinese and American.”

At the same time, race still matters. The study found that allsecond generation groups earn more than native African Americanand Puerto Rican New Yorkers their age. And the Russian Jewishand Chinese children of immigrants earn as much as native whitesin their age group. “So we find this contradiction between a cultur-al acceptance and a racial exclusion,” Waters said.

In addition, West Indians, like native African Americans, reporthigh levels of racial discrimination, especially from police. AndDominicans, the largest immigrant group in the city, are the mostdisadvantaged in both the first and second generations.

Among the study’s other findings: Education: All second genera-tion groups fare better on average than their immigrant parents ormembers of native-born minority groups in graduation from highschool and college. Dominicans—the group with the lowest edu-cational attainment—still did better than native AfricanAmericans or Puerto Ricans. And Chinese and Russians did betterthan native whites.

Occupation: The children of immigrants are less occupationallysegregated than their parents and in fact, “the overwhelmingmajority of second generation kids work not only in themainstream economy but in almost exactly the same places thatother young people their age work … retail, clerical work andfinance,” said Kasinitz.

Crime: Members of all second generation groups are less likelyto have been arrested than native African Americans and PuertoRicans. South Americans, Dominicans and West Indians have arrestrates comparable to those of native whites. For Russian Jews andChinese, arrest rates are far lower.

Finally, the extended family networks and cultural traditionsthat play a part in many immigrant lives seems to have had a rolein the success of the second generation. While their parentsworked, they more than likely came home to grandparents, andaunts or uncles who looked after them. They benefited from sup-port groups from their homeland and asthey attended college or transitioned intoadulthood, second generation childrenfind comfort in living at home andaccepting family support.

Which is all part of the “secondgeneration advantage,” say the authorsof the study.

“Being between two worlds is rarelya problem,” said Kasinitz. “And it isoften a very real advantage.”

Sociologists have frettedfor years that childrenof immigrants from

recent generations haven’tassimilated into Americanlife nearly as well as thosein the past. And there weregood reasons for the fear:The quality of publicschools in big cities, whereimmigrant children aremainly educated, is a sourceof apprehension; manufac-turing jobs that once gaveimmigrant children afoothold in the Americaneconomy are in decline; andchildren of color encounterdiscrimination.

Interestingly, a new studyby researchers fromCUNY’s Center for UrbanResearch found that mostadult children of newimmigrants are doing betterthan their parents and oftenbetter than native-bornAmericans. They also havewhat the authors call the“second generation advan-tage,” which for many of them has made assimilation into Americafar easier than it was for their parents.

“One of the things we really see across the board is the way inwhich the second generation actively chooses between things thatmake sense in their parents’ culture and things that make sense inthe cultural around them,” said Philip Kasinitz, professor of sociol-ogy at the Graduate Center and one of the authors of the study.“They draw both on the immigrant community and thoseresources but they also draw on the structure and social services ofNew York that came about in the 1960s and 1970s to aid theinclusion and upward mobility of native African Americans andPuerto Ricans.”

The study, “Inheriting the City: the Children of ImmigrantsCome of Age,” was published in May by Harvard University Pressand the Russell Sage Foundation. In addition to Kasinitz, the authorsare John Mollenkopf, Graduate Center professor of political scienceand sociology and director of the Center for Urban Research;Harvard’s Mary Waters, who has written many books on immigra-tion and ethnic identity; and Jennifer Holdaway, program directorfor the Migration Program at the Social Science Research Council.

Over 10 years, the group studied adults ages 18 to 32 who werethe children of Dominican, West Indian, South American, Chineseand Russian Jewish immigrants growing up in metropolitan NewYork City. They were either born in the United States to at leastone immigrant parent or moved here before they turned 12. Over3,000 telephone surveys and 333 follow-up interviews were con-ducted. The group was compared to New Yorkers who werenative-born white, African Americans and Puerto Ricans.

One surprise, according to Mollenkopf, was that many native-born African Americans and Puerto Ricans are doing worse thanmany children of immigrants. “We need to turn our spotlight backon what is happening to native born African Americans and PuertoRicans,” said Mollenkopf. “The glass half full in our study is thatthe kids of immigrants are doing well … the glass half empty isthat there is a surprising degree of remaining and significant chal-lenges for the others, especially Puerto Ricans, that we hadn’tanticipated finding.”

Another notable finding was that immigrant children generallydon’t feel “torn between two worlds” as their parents may fear.According to the authors, immigrant parents often worry that theirchildren will speak neither English nor their native language withfluency and that they will always feel like outsiders in bothAmerica and their homeland. But the study shows the two worldsare actually part of the “second generation advantage”. “ The sec-ond generation is very much living in a multicultural world," saidWaters. “They are completely at home with each other…they arecompletely at home with their ethnic identity as well as being an

FACULTYHONORS

Today’s young immigrants feel at home as Americans who also enthusiastically embrace ethnic traditions likeNew York City’s annual West Indian Day Parade.

Grant recipients feted at CUNY spring reception

CUNY FACULTY and administra-tors who were awarded major

institutional grants for education andpublic service during the previouscalendar year were honored at theuniversity’s annual spring reception.

The May 15 event, which wasattended by about 150 people, washosted by CUNY Board of TrusteesChairman Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. andChancellor Matthew Goldstein, andwas held at the New-York HistoricalSociety in Manhattan.The grants wereawarded by a number of organizationsranging from the National ScienceFoundation to the New York StateEducation Department. Among thosewho received them were:

Amanda Bernal-Carlo, professor andchairperson, Department of NaturalScience, Hostos Community College.The MetLife Foundation, Pathways toStudent Success Grant, which the col-lege will use for its multi-media labo-ratory/resource center to help studentsgain skills that help them completetheir degrees and secure employment.

George Cunningham, professor andchairperson, Department of Africana

Studies atBrooklyn College;CUNY/Black MaleInitiative,Empowering,Recruiting,Investing andSupporting BlackMales in HigherEducation Grantthat allows thecollege to contin-ue to work to

implement new and more aggressivestrategies to recruit underserved popu-lations.

Andre Lake, vice president, Schoolof Professional and CommunityDevelopment, Medgar Evers College;U.S. Department of Education UpwardBound Program Grant, 2007-2011, toprovide support for low-income highschool students and low-income militaryveterans who are preparing for college.

Elizabeth Payamps, Bronx CommunityCollege, director of the CUNY CatchProgram; a grant from the Robin HoodFoundation to implement the Makingthe Grade College Success Program,which provides extra support to CUNYCatch students who earn their GEDand then transition into BronxCommunity College for their associate’sdegree studies.

Jana Feinman,professor,Department ofMusic and Dance,Hunter College.DanceUSA/NationalEndowment forthe Arts, 2006-2008 grant forStaging andPerformance ofDance by Twyla Tharp.

Inheriting the City'Second generation advantage' may help adult children of immigrants outdo some native-born Americans.

ProfessorJana Feinman

Professor GeorgeCunningham

ForCUNY Radio's

complete coverageof the presentationby the authors of

“Inheriting the City,” go towww.cuny.edu/podcasts

and click “FacultyLecture Series.”

suppose the people who don’t want any-thing to do with me are so inclined to mis-represent my point of view? It’s as if theydidn’t want me to be what they must knowI am.” What was he? I asked him that.

“Oh!” he went on: “I mean my spe-cial interpretation of America, the repub-lic, our experiment in democracy.Certainly I’ve never written or spoken ofit as an achieved thing: never! never!…

“My America is still all in the making:it’s a promise, a possible something: it’s tocome: it’s by no means here. Besides, whatdo I care about the material America?America is to me an idea, a forecast, aprophecy: it may evolve to noble fruitionor end as an incommensurable disaster. Idon’t want to be tied to the little conclu-sions of a petty nationalism. America willextend itself as an idea,never I hope in conquest.I’d rather anything shouldhappen to us than thatwe should add one inchof territory to our domainby conquest.”

…When Walt spoke ofAmerica it was moreabstractly than concretely.America was a dear faithto him. A fact, still. But afact such as a well-fortifiedaspiration may be. I haveeven seen him angry, or atleast annoyed, by the dis-play of cheap American-ism. It was never hisnotion that we should lordit over the world. He was concerned tohave us set an example. Not, however, inpride but in humility. He thought we’d hada better chance. Therefore we should payour bill. Paying our bill was helping Europeto become what Europe had made it possi-ble for us to become.

You couldn’t interest Walt in thewealth of America. He’d always go backto his original question: But what kind ofmen are we raising here?

He wanted America to give the crowdthe best chance it ever had. To give it theonly chance it ever had. You can onlygrasp his highly spiritualized conceptionof America by remembering that. Andthen remember more. Remember that atbottom America was that chance. If someother country having another name gavethe crowd that chance first he’d call thatcountry America. And if our geographicalAmerica, forgetting its high purpose,should deny the crowd that chance, Waltwould cease to think of it as America. Thesteadfast picture in his attitude towardsAmerica was that of a modernized every-day promised land.…It was not to repeatthe old class divisions but inaugurate anera of essential democracy.

Walt would see a picture of somebody,he might be of any race and color, andhe’d exclaim: “How American he looks!”Or he’d see a picture of something andexclaim: “How American that looks!”

What did he have in mind? The naturalthing. Simplicity. No medals. No office. Nocollege decoration. The man who worriesabout a crease in his trousers has a creasein his mind. Walt was always for gettingdown or up to people stripped of all extra-neous paraphernalia. Such people werealways America to him. Do you begin to

DURING OUR excruciating reposeon the rack of a cruelly protracted presiden-tial campaign, we have been constantlyinvited to think about an ideal America,with the candidates, as usual, emphasizingthe rosy: universal health care, tax cutsmade permanent, not even one child leftbehind, victory in Iraq.

Readers of CUNY Matters over the yearsknow I am big on Walt Whitman, and now, Ithink, is the perfect moment to offer a rareglimpse into his private, candid and unversi-fied thoughts on an ideal America. It waswritten 25 years after Whitman's death in1892 by his devoted young friend HoraceTraubel, who recorded nine volumes' worth ofWalt’s conversations during his last four years.

This memoir was evoked by the “dailyquestions” Traubel was asked during WorldWar I about Whitman’s “problematical atti-tude” toward the war (he hated all war).There is, as you might expect, heavy empha-sis here on the “crowd,” by which Traubeland Whitman meant the public, the com-mon citizen. Whitman’s sarcasm about “col-lege decoration” is a swipe at the fancy IvyLeague; Walt would have vigorouslyapproved of CUNY’s mission to New YorkCity’s student crowd.

This article, here slightly abridged,Traubel published in his own monthly mag-azine, The Conservator, in November1917; it is included in my 2006 edition,Conserving Walt Whitman’s Fame:Selections from Horace Traubel’s‘Conservator’ 1890-1919, part of theUniversity of Iowa Press Whitman Series.

Would Whitman approve of a snapshotof the United States anno domini 2008?“Noble fruition” or “incommensurable disas-ter”? You decide. — Gary Schmidgall

Walt Whitman’s America

WALT WAS NEVER as strong intalking about war as he was intalking about America. He had

very high ideas of America. Not of theAmerica that we were but of the Americawe might be. The America of idealisms anddreams. The America of noble mannersand magnificent soul. The welcomer of theoppressed. The asylum of the poor anddowntrodden. He loved to dilate upon thatAmerica. He was often misunderstood. Hewas taken by literalists to be a partisan ofgeographical America. To be a bragger andboaster. To blow about our status. To swellhis chest out and lift his head in the airand tell big stories about ourselves.[Thomas] Carlyle and others thought ofWalt as a man who thought he was a bigman because he lived in a big country.

Well: let’s take a face-to-face look atWalt’s America. I discussed the thing withhim often. I never heard a phrase of blus-ter or vainglory from his lips.

“Horace,” he said to me: “why do you

BOOKTALK

Inside Community Colleges

AMERICA AS WE KNOW IT wouldnot exist without community col-

leges. That is the contention of Gail O.Mellow and Cynthia Heelan in Minding

the Dream: The Processand Practice of theAmerican CommunityCollege. The book pro-vides an overview ofthe inclusive, democrat-ic and meritocraticimpulses of communitycolleges and their trans-

parent boundaries between college,work and social life. Mellow is the presi-dent of LaGuardia Community College;Heelan is the former president ofColorado Mountain College.

Solar Sailing

THE IDEA that sunlight exerts pressurehas been around for more than a cen-

tury. In their book Solar Sails: A NovelApproach to Interplanetary Travel, authorsGregory L. Matloff, Giovanni Vulpetti andLes Johnson describe how solar sail propul-

sion can make spaceexploration more afford-able and provide accessto destinations beyondthe solar system. Theyreview current plans forsolar sails and howadvanced technology,such as nanotechnology,

can enhance solar sail performance. Matloffis assistant professor of physics and 2008Scholar on Campus at CityTech.

Impossible Dreams

IN HIS LATEST BOOK, professorMichio Kaku of City College and The

Graduate Center explores the science ofthe impossible, from death rays to forcefields and cloaks of invisibility. Will thesetechnologies become achievable the way

TV, lasers and the atombomb, which seemedbeyond the realm ofpossibility a century ago,became reality? Physicsof the Impossible: AScientific Exploration intothe World of Phasers,

Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Traveloffers an entertaining and informativejourney into the future.

Schlesinger Diaries

HISTORIAN Arthur M. SchlesingerJr., who died last year, knew many

of the leading public figures of the lasthalf-century. The book Journals 1952 –2000 takes the reader through his diariesstarting with presidential candidate AdlaiStevenson, for whom he was a speech-writer. Schlesinger — who was AlbertSchweitzer Professor of the Humanities

at CUNY's GraduateSchool and UniversityCenter from 1966 to1994, when he becameprofessor emeritus —offers firsthand insightsabout President John F.Kennedy, whom heserved as special advisor,as well as the Vietnam

War, Watergate, Ronald Reagan, the col-lapse of the Soviet Union, the first GulfWar and the current President Bush.

Walt Whitman on the Ideal America

CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008 9

see what his word “American” signified?Walt spoke of loving the “powerful une-

ducated” person. He wanted America tobe the powerful uneducated country. Hedidn’t object to education because it waseducation but because it wasn’t.

If the sun wasn’t light he’d object tothe sun too. If men weren’t brothers he’dobject to men too. If America wasn’t ademocracy he’d object to Americatoo.…[H]e wanted America to be as big asits size. He wanted it to be as big as itspromise. As its words. As its spirit.

“It makes me sick to hear our oratorsand read our writers telling us how mirac-ulously we’ve grown beyond recognition.We’re a vast body without a soul—we’veaccomplished incontrovertible ends by ourmechanical genius, our materialistic con-

centrations, our mad haste,but, after all, that may tellrather for death than life.”

And he’d shake his headover our financial exploits [i.e.capitalism]. “No, no, no: athousand times no: that’s allbeen done over and over againto the detriment of the race: allof it: what we need is the pros-perity of the common man: Ican’t think of America asrepeating the mistakes ofEurope, of Asia, of the past.…”

I heard a Whitmanite oncedefend pan-Americanism [i.e.American imperialism] byquoting a passage from Leavesof Grass in which Walt saw

America in his mind’s eye extending itselfto “the archipelagos of the Pacific.” Thisdisputant asked triumphantly: “Who cansay now that Whitman was opposed toconquest?” I said: “Whitman wasn’t pre-dicting conquest but conviction.” When Itold Walt the story he nodded to me andsaid: “Yes: it’s obvious enough to anybodywho knows the language I talk. ... I’d liketo see America, my America, go round theglobe, gloriously, not with armies but insacrificing humanisms: I’ve no enthusiasmabout any other America.”…

You see he was always looking towardsthe transfigured America. The America ofhis imagination was built upon the masses.Upon the development of the crowd. Uponthe general welfare and vista. Not upon thefortunes or the culture of selected persons.Not upon an exception but a rule. Notbeing made contingent upon what a minor-ity may do but upon what the immensetotal may learn and assert. Not upon theprofessional classes but upon the crowd. ...The ignorant informed crowd. The crowd.The major force of his America. The foun-tainhead of its emancipated life. ...

Walt wanted an America from the peo-ple up and from the people down. Hewanted the crowd superstructure as well asthe crowd foundation. He thoughtAmerica would give the world such anAmerica. He had some fears that it would-n’t, but he had more confidence that itwould. But one thing was above all sure. Ifour America didn’t give the world such anAmerica, some other America would. Andhis American idea, perhaps by some othername, sometime, somehow, would lead ourmuch harassed world of mistaken animosi-ties out of its shadowy tangle into fraternalacknowledgments and recognitions.

“ America is to me

an idea, a forecast, a

prophecy: it may evolve

to noble fruition or end

as an incommensurable

disaster. . . . ”— Walt Whitman

10 CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008

THIS IS THE SUMMER ofCUNYfirst, the launch ofthe new generation of infor-

mation technology that will revolu-tionize the underlying Universitybusiness systems that serve students, facultyand staff. When completed, it will stream-line the way almost everything is done,from registering for courses to hiring per-sonnel and paying bills

Sometime inJuly, aftermonths ofpreparations,training andtesting, something akin to a new University“checkbook” will go live. Managingrevenues and expenditures, this new finan-cial data storehouse will collect and crunchcurrent and new financial information andreport back and forth among theUniversity’s 135 business units. And not amoment too soon: The new checkbookreplaces a system designed and installed inthe post-Watergate era.

Over the next two years, other compatiblesystems will gradually be added, such as pro-curement, budgeting, and cash management.

Similar initiatives will be launched nextyear to manage human resource data, and

eventually,student services.

The goal is to raise a moreefficiently managed University to the

ranks of a national leader in higher educa-tion for delivering core business services.“The CUNYfirst project will provide a new,University-wide suite of policies, processesand information systems in order tostreamline current practices and help us

become moreefficient,” saidChancellorMatthewGoldstein.

Many of the front-line managers andstaff are training on these new systems thissummer at specially designed centers atfour colleges throughout the city. All told,more than 6,000 employees will receivetraining on the new system in the comingyears. By 2012, when the various phases ofCUNYfirst are completed, the changes willaffect the entire community of more than35,000 faculty and staff and the 400,000degree and continuing education studentsat 23 campuses.

“There has never been a University-wideproject that has involved so many front-line people on a decision-making level,”

said Allan Dobrin, executive vice chan-cellor and chief operating officer.

The five-year, $250 millionCUNYfirst project (“first” stands forFully Integrated Resources & ServicesTool) will replace the “legacy”

University-wide com-puter systems— bestknown by the abbrevia-tions such as SIMS, thestudent records system,and CUPS, the humanresouces datahouse.Others that vary fromcampus to campus willbe replaced by OracleCorp.’s PeopleSoft inter-active processes, special-ly configured for CUNYneeds.

CUNYfirst is “thefirst real test” of suchcomputer processesimplemented simultane-ously across a large uni-versity, according toBrian Cohen, associatevice chancellor for tech-nology and Universitychief information offi-cer. “At CUNY, whatev-er we do, it’s for all the university at thesame time,” said Cohen. “We’re not doing itin pockets, except for the studentmodule”— the student administrative ser-vices, which will be rolled out in four sepa-rate waves over four years.Bill Correnti,who has worked 29-plus years at CUNY,

says he has witnessed big changes before,but “nothing like this.” Now the executivedirector of budget and financial planning atKingsborough Community College,Correnti is among those who helped con-figure the current financial processes at theUniversity, but affirms that it's time for achange. “It’s been a long time coming,” hesaid. “We’ve been holding things togetherwith spit and bubble gum. [CUNYfirst]will take a lot of training and it's going toprovide a lot of new things to learn, but itcan only have positive end results.”

CUNYfirst is actually the project namefor a generic computer-industry approach

known as EnterpriseResource Planning.This approach usessoftware and pro-cesses that integratethree “pillars” orfunctions—finance,human resourcesand an organization’sspecific line of busi-ness —in CUNY’scase, studentservices.

After more than400 staff membersworking in financeare trained, theUniversity will over-haul its hiring, per-sonnel managementand benefits admin-istration systems. Inthe future, all jobapplications will be

handled online. And within a year, theentire CUNY community will be givenaccess to a new system to check out theirbenefits, pay information and employeerecords.

In the spring of 2009, CUNYfirst stu-dent systems that will assume functions

“ We’ve been holding

things together with spit

and bubble gum. [CUNYfirst]

will take a lot of training

and it’s going to provide a

lot of new things to learn,

but it can only have positive

end results.”— Bill Correnti, executive director of budget and financial planning

at Kingsborough Community College

Wave 2Colleges

Wave 3Colleges

Wave 4Colleges

July Fall/Winter March Summer Winter March July Winter March March2008 2008-09 2009 2009 2009-10 2010 2010 2010-11 2011 2012

How CUNYfirst Will Be Phased In

General Ledger system

Purchasing,accountspayable, expense systems

Wave 1 (Queens CollegeQueensborough)

Budgeting,asset/cashmanagementsystem

STUDENT ADMINISTRATION

HUMAN RESOURCES

Basicpersonnelsystem

Admissions, registration,course catalogstudent financials

Benefits,payrolladministrationsystems

Time/labormanagementsystems

Work/studyAuxilliary payrollsystems

FINANCE

The University is streamlining procedures infinance, humanresources, and student affairs. You’ll start seeingchanges this summer.

Kingsborough Community Collegefinancial professionals takingtraining at the Brooklyn BoroughTraining Center at BrooklynCollege.

First Things

U.S. POET LAUREATE Charles Simic wasBaruch College’s 10th Sidney Harman

Writer-in-Residence this spring semester. ABelgrade native who arrived in America morethan a half-century ago speaking little English,he has since garnered numerous honors thatinclude the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for his poetrycollection The World Never Ends, the 2007Wallace Stevens Award for Poetry and aMacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” He waspreviously profes-sor emeritus at theUniversity of NewHampshire.

Q: How do youperceive America’scurrent interest inpoetry?

Charles Simic:Tremendous. Muchmore so than whenI started in the1950s. There are alot of poets, a lot ofgood poets. A lot ofpoetry is beingwritten, a lot of lit-erary magazines arebeing published.Web sites. Writingprograms almost inevery college anduniversity. Creativewriting classes evenin some highschools. I don’tthink ever beforehas there been somuch interest inpoetry.

Q: When youmoved to theUnited States youwere 15 and a non-English speaker.When and in whatlanguage did youstart writing poetry?

A: I started writingin English. I knewsome English whenI came, not much.It wasn’t very good.I came in 1954; byspring of 1956, mylast semester inhigh school in OakPark, Illinois, I start-ed writing poetry. Iwrote in Englishbecause I wantedto show my poemsto my friends and Icouldn’t write in my native language becausethey wouldn’t know. I didn’t know what I wasdoing; nobody does. You start kind of fum-bling around. You write about this, that, thecity, the life of the city, love poems, Godknows what.

Q: Who were some of your early inspirations?

A: Well, when I started I didn’t read as muchpoetry as I read fiction. But the first poetsthat I really liked are William Carlos Williams,

Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot —everybody loved T.S. Eliot.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your position asBaruch College’s Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence.

A: It was a great honor to be invited. This is avery distinguished position at Baruch Collegeand to be part of that was very, very attrac-tive. The students are terrific. I’ve been teach-

ing poetry workshopsfor 35, 36, maybe evenmore years. You see[students] in confer-ences, teach them howpoems are made, howthey’re revised and allthe aspects of poetry.[Baruch] students comefrom a great ethnic andracial mix; most of themare children of immi-grants. So this is won-derful. I just reallyadore it. It reminds meof the days when I wasa kid, what they used tosay, off the boat. Thesekids are just off theboat. So I’m kind ofreliving my youth.

Q: What contributes tothe urban motif fea-tured in most of yourpoetry?

A: Well I was born inthe city, Belgrade. I livedafterwards in Paris.When I was back in theUnited States, I lived inNew York, I lived inChicago. I lived in NewYork for many, manyyears. I still spend a lotof time in New YorkCity. So cities are reallyin the heart of my imag-ination. I constantlythink about the city.Just as a poet, we haveto choose where we feelmore at home and I feelvery much at home inthe city of New York.

Q:You also write mostof your poetry withplainspoken observa-tion. Why is that?

A: I try to make mypoems accessible, tomake them almost dis-arming in theirapproach. They seem at

first simple and then hopefully as readers readthe poem, they’ll begin tosee that there’s moreto it. But a wel-coming style thatsays come in,make yourself athome. But thenstrange thingsbegin to happen.

Q&A: CHARLESSIMIC U.S. POET LAUREATE

CUNY MATTERS — Summer 2008 11

For full interview and more podcasts, visit CUNY

Radio online atwww.cuny.edu/podcasts

and click “Newsmakers.”

...................................That Little Something. The likelihood of ever finding it is small. It’s like being accosted by a woman And asked to help her look for a pearl She lost right here in the street.

She could be making it all up, Even her tears, you say to yourself, As you search under your feet, Thinking not in a million years…

It’s one of those summer afternoons Where one needs a good excuse To step out of the cool shade. In the meantime, whatever became of her?

And why years later do you still, Off and on cast your eyes to the ground As you hurry to some appointment Where you are now certain to arrive late?...................................

“I don’t think ever before has there been so much interest in poetry.”

such as the admissions process, registration and records man-agement are scheduled to be configured for Queens Collegeand Queensborough Community College. The systems will berolled out on other campuses in three successive waves, untilcompletion in2012.

“We want to beable to provide aset of tools forstudents, faculty,staff and adminis-trators to navigatethe system,” saidRonald Spalter,deputy chief oper-ating officer. Forexample, if a stu-dent at HunterCollege wanted totake a class atBaruch College,he or she wouldbe able to goonline and registerfor the course. Butsetting up anorderly process tomanage this hugetransition has notbeen easy. Eachcampus hasassembled a teamof CUNYfirstliaisons andexperts who areresponsible for managing project tasks, identifying problemsand gaps that need fixing in current systems and helping pre-pare people for change.

Kingsborough’s Correnti, for example, was part of aUniversity-wide group of about 20 staff members whoreceived early training to help smooth the way for change.Even after the checkbook system goes “live” this summer,Correnti and others will continue reviewing it for about a year.(You can track the progress of CUNYfirst by visiting the pro-ject’s website, http://first.cuny.edu.)

“The whole education process to get a 35,000-membercommunity ready for this activity is transformational in someways,” Spalter said. “It's beyond what we’ve ever done. We’regoing to have to train 6,000 staff members and we want to doit in the most humane way possible. These are people whohave been responsible for our success. It’s a matter of engagingand encouraging them, doing everything possible to help themunderstand how the new system works. We owe it to them toproperly prepare them for the future.”

While the goal of CUNYfirst is to streamline systems andprovide better “customer service” to all members of theUniversity community, that does not mean that CUNY is seek-ing to shrink staff through technology, Spalter said. For exam-ple, as the University speeds up the process of rehiring andpaying adjuncts through online applications, officials expect tosave time and paper, gradually “redeploy-ing people to use them more wisely,”he says, but not cutting jobs.

Ultimately, “this is a huge busi-ness-processes change that every-one will have to go through,”Correnti said. “It’s extraordinary.There will be a lot of good returnon investment. It's going to be thesmartest thing the University hasdone since I've been here.”

Track theprogress of innovation

at the University.Visit the CUNYfirst

website athttp://first.cuny.edu

1 Streamline online course registrationacross the University

2 Pay adjuncts, freelancers and contract workers faster

3 Enable students, faculty, staff to view their records online

4 Allow online applications for University employment

5 Speed up rehiring of adjuncts via online applications

6 Create online requests for financial aid

7 Provide more flexibility in all interactive processes

8 Reduce by half new employee processing time

9 Redeploy staff for most efficient use

10 Standardize administrative terminology throughout CUNY

First

Charles Simic, andbelow, the title poem

of his latest book

CUNYfirst’s Top Ten

AUGUST

sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday

JULY

KingsboroughCommunityCollegeHot SummerNights: PatrioticPops8 PM Free

KingsboroughCommunity CollegeHot SummerNights: JohnnyCash Tribute &Sing-Along7:30 - 9:30 PM Free

Office of University RelationsThe City University of New York535 East 80th St.New York, NY 10075

Matters Non-Profit OrgU.S. Postage

PAIDStaten Island, NY

Permit # 169

Visitcuny.edu/podcasts

for programs archived from

March 2006

Borough ofManhattanCommunity CollegeSummer RowingProgram ClosingCelebration/StudentPresentation1 PM Free

Hostos CommunityCollegeDominican DayParade10 AM - 5 PM Free

Hunter CollegePromotingEmotionalIntelligence1 PM Free

Lehman CollegeSummer ArtsFestival (also 8/7)7 PM Free

LaGuardiaCommunityCollegeJob SeekerMakeover -Workforce1Career Center10 AM - 4 PMFree

Hunter CollegeLearning AboutInfants 1PM Free

School of Profes-sional Studies (thru 7/19)Budgets andAccounting -Planning & Mgmtof Children'sPrograms9:30 AM - 2 PM $270

Queens CollegeOpen HouseExhibit: AnnaMatouskova,Paintings,Drawings andGlass SculptureLast Day of Show Free

La GuardiaCommunityCollegeOpen HouseOn-the-SpotAdmissions12 - 6 PM Free

Hostos C.C.Adult Enrichmentand Education —variety of courses10 AM - 8:30 PM Free

KingsboroughCommunity CollegeHot SummerNights: Balkan &Mexican Rhythms7:30 - 9:30 PM Free

Hunter CollegeThe Impact ofFoodInsufficiency onYoung Children’sDevelopment1 PMFree

Hunter CollegePromotingParent-ChildCommunicationin Autism1 PMFree

KingsboroughCommunityCollegeSwing Under TheStars with theDanny RepoleSwing Band8-10 PM Free

Baruch CollegeCampus Tour -MBA & MSPrograms12:30 - 1:30 PMFree

CUNY-HostosCommunityCollege GrandConcourse/EastTremont BronxDominicanParade12 Noon Free

LaGuardiaCommunity CollegeChase LatinFestival —Mexican dancecompanyCamarino Quatro8 PM$15

KingsboroughCommunity CollegeHot SummerNights: LouisianaZydeco &KentuckyBluegrass7:30 - 9:30 PM Free

Subscribe today!

Hunter CollegePromotingPositive MentalHealth Outcomesamong Teenagers1 PM Free

Brooklyn College.BrooklynOpportunities inScience andCareers(7/7 thru 8/14)10 AM - 3 PM

LaGuardiaCommunityCollegeCollege forChildren(7/7 thru 8/16)9 AM - 3:30 PM

LaGuardiaCommunityCollegeTeen Academy(7/7 thru 8/16)9 AM - 3:30 PM

Hostos CommunityCollegeSummer IntensiveLanguageProgram (SIELP)(7/7 thru 8/16)9 AM - 5 PM

NYC College ofTechnology

NSF-Sponsored Summer Bridge

Courses(7/7 thru 8/21)9 AM - 4 PM

School ofProfessionalStudiesWriting WorkshopSkills(7/7 thru 8/13)5:30 PM - 8:45 PM

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

9 1 2 3 4 5

13 15 16 19

22 24

Queens College“On the Town”See above for details

Queens College“Sweet Smell ofSuccess”See above for details

Queens College“Breakfast atTiffany’s”See above for details

Queens College“Network”See above for details

27 29 30 31

Queens CollegeLife-Long Learning

Summer Film Festival films from 1930-1980

featuring NYC All shows: 1:15 PM $40 (plus $10 fee)

for 6 films

Queens College“Radio Days”(See 7/1 above fordetails)

Hunter CollegeELT for theDigital Age —Friday, 8/1 One-day conference9 AM - 5PM $50

Queens CollegeExhibit: Beggars andChoosers:Motherhood is not a class privilege inAmerica (thru 9/27)Free

IndependenceDay

QueensCollege“My ManGodfrey”See abovefor details

FallSemesterBegins:

Last week of August

QueensboroughCommunity CollegeShakespeare’s “A MidsummerNight’s Dream”7 PM Free

The GovernorsIsland LectureSeries: See 7/5

CurbingCatastrophicWaste at HomeAndy Padian,Steven WinterAssociates

PlaNYC: Toward a Greener,Greater New YorkAriellaRosenberg-Maron,Mayor's Office ofLong-TermPlanning andSustainability

Water Efficiencyin New York: WhyIt’s Importantand How toAchieve ItWarren Liebold,New York CityDepartment ofEnvironmentalProtection

TheQueensbridgeWind Power project Andrea Polli,Hunter College

Sustainable CitiesTown Hall:

An open forum for New Yorkers Moderated byBill Solecki,Director CUNYInstitute for SustainableCities

5 6 7 8 9

The GovernorsIsland LectureSeries: 12:30 PMPershing Hall Free

7/5: Plants in theGreen City Steve Clemants,Brooklyn BotanicGarden

7/12: Greeningthe Big Apple:a Natural Historyof the New YorkMegalopolis Betsy McCully,KingsboroughCommunityCollege

7/19: Water: The IntegralDesign Elementfor Green Infrastructure in New York.Paul Mankiewicz,The GAIA Institute

7/26: Fuel fromAlgae JuergenPolle, BrooklynCollege

10 11 12 13 14 16

1 2

sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday

www.cuny.edu/summerinthecity

Find a course or an event: professional development, creativity, kids, teens, leisure

For more on the AstrophysicalObservatory at CSI,

visithttp://supernova7.apsc.csi.cuny.edu/

home.html

SUMMER SKIESJuly 4

Aphelion Earth at orbital position farthest from sun 08:00 GMT. Earth's orbital velocity is slower

and the sun appears smaller than at any other time of year.

August 1Solar* eclipse (total) Maximum at 20:42 GMT.

Viewing a solar eclipse.

August 12Perseid meteor shower. Anticipated peak shower activity.

Viewing a meteor shower.

August 16Lunar eclipse (partial) Maximum at 21:09 GMT.

Viewing a lunar eclipse.

SUMMER SKIESJuly 4

Aphelion Earth at orbital position farthest from sun 08:00 GMT. Earth's orbital velocity is slower

and the sun appears smaller than at any other time of year.

August 1Solar* eclipse (total) Maximum at 20:42 GMT.

Viewing a solar eclipse.

August 12Perseid meteor shower. Anticipated peak shower activity.

Viewing a meteor shower.

August 16Lunar eclipse (partial) Maximum at 21:09 GMT.

Viewing a lunar eclipse.

20 21 22 23

24/31 25 30

For moreevents, visit

www.cuny.eduand click

‘events’

Hear their views. Cheer them.Dispute them. Learn from them.Listen now or at your convenience tothese and other internationally knownopinion makers via CUNY podcasts.