Profiles of New Faculty on Campus 2 . . .

Athletics Hall of Fame Inductees Announced 2 . . .

Homecoming October 18 5 . . . Louis Armstrong

Festival a Success 6 . . . QC People 6

QUEENS COLLEGE FACULTY | STAFF NEWS SEPTEMBER 2015

2015–2016 is the Year of Silk Roads CLICK HERE fyiRichard Alvarez Appointed College’s First Vice President for Enrollment and Retention

of admissions, NYC campus—for 14 years, before embarking on his 13-year tenure at CUNY’s Central Office.

His experience at CUNY, where he worked closely with the enrollment teams at all of the university’s campuses, finds him uniquely qualified to address the challenges here at Queens. He also brings the perspective one can only have acquired as a product of the CUNY system: He earned a BA in communications from Hunter College and an MSEd in higher education administration from Baruch College.

Alvarez has a hands-on approach as a manager/administrator. “I still like to go out and talk to parents and to community leaders,” he says. “And I know that’s something I will continue doing within my role here.

“We at the college need to do a better job sharing what we do. Our faculty are doing incredible work. The student experience from an academic perspective is excellent,” he observes. “We just need to tell that story much earlier so that people aspire to be at Queens College.’”

As part of his strategy to improve enrollment, Alvarez would like to reconnect with alums who have college-bound children

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Richard P. Alvarez views his new position as Queens College’s first vice president of enrollment and retention as an opportunity to again be where he believes he has always been happiest: on a college campus

where he can be closer to the people to whom he has devoted his entire career: students. “I still feel like I’m an admissions counselor,” he says. “That will never go away.”

In July President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez announced that Alvarez, CUNY’s longtime university director of admissions, had joined the administration as part of an enhanced focus on student recruitment and retention.

Alvarez, in fact, began his career in 1985 as an admissions counselor at Montclair State College (now University) in New Jersey. He subsequently moved on to Pace University, where he served as part of its enrollment management team—including as director

Changes at the Top

Glenda G. Grace, who came to QC last fall as the college’s chief of staff, has added the role of general counsel to her portfolio. As part of this new position, she will be responsible for labor relations for faculty and the instructional and administrative staff.

Grace will retain the role of chief of staff, and will be assisted by Odalys Díaz Piñeiro, who was recently named acting deputy chief of staff and director of strategic initiatives. Prior to joining Queens College, Piñeiro was the director of special projects in the president’s office at Hostos Community College, where she established strategic partnerships with citywide and community-based organizations, higher educational institutions, and the philanthropic community. She also was

to make sure they’re seriously considering their alma mater as a destination. “I do think that we could do a better job of getting our alums to feel that, ‘This school really did well by me; I’d like my child to have the same opportunity.’”

He knows that all parents want something better for their child. “Our job is to convince them there is nothing better,” he notes.

QC’s “affordability factor” is an important asset, Alvarez believes, as today’s students are increasingly confronting the fact that their career aspirations may require having a graduate, professional, or terminal degree.

“We need to help students and their families understand that an education at Queens College is going to open doors at the graduate level—and not just in terms of academic excellence, but also in terms of affordability,” he says.

Alvarez wants them to know that what they save here on an undergraduate degree they can later put toward a master’s. “And I hope,” he says, “they will do that here, as well.”

Grace

Lynn Gilbert, Urgut, Uzbekistan, 2014

FYI SEPTEMBER 2015 | 2

New Faces on Campus

Twenty-eight new faculty members recently settled into their offices and lab spaces on campus and began the process of getting to know their students and colleagues. Here are brief introductions to four of them. To see the complete list, visit qc.cuny.edu/NewFaculty2015.

Settling into the Science Building, the first thing CHAO CHEN (Computer Science) did was to “get rid of a lot of furniture from my office and put in a fantastic whiteboard.” It takes a Big Surface to

design the algorithms and models needed to analyze Big Data’s geometric properties and spatial relations. “I really like doing a lot of calculations,” affirms the assistant professor. In the emerging field of topological data analysis, Chen pursues practical applications in biomedical informatics, neuroscience, computer vision, and social science. “You need a global amount of information in order to draw conclusions,” he explains.

Born in a Chinese city “almost at the beginning of the Silk Road,” Chen majored in computer science at Peking University.

He earned a master’s degree in Singapore and came to the United States for a doctorate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Chen joined the college’s faculty after two postdocs—at Rutgers University and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria—mentored by leading lights in his field. The first postdoc, under the direction of Herbert Edelsbrunner at Vienna, was more theoretical, but then “I really wanted to get my hands dirty and get into real-world problems, real-world applications.”

At Rutgers, Chen explored applications such as spine, cardiac, and brain imaging, for example, to analyze “the live beating heart” and how dendrites function in communication. “You have to know how to tune the model, add in different assumptions, and simplify to make the model work on actual data,” he observes.

RPI’s Daniel Freedman inspired Chen to venture into topology. Chen became intrigued with “the shape of data in the most global sense. We don’t know whether we’re stand-ing on the surface of a really huge ball or on a really huge donut, unless we zoom out a lot,” he notes. Big Data is vastly voluminous, clanging with noise, and “always more difficult than we imagine,” says Chen. “We’re not really catching the whole surface; instead, we catch samples.”

This fall Chen is furthering his research and teaching undergraduates Data Structures—the course covering stacks, queues, hash tables,

Celebrating good sports on the court, the field, the ice, and the staff, the Office of Athletics recently announced its 2015 Hall of Fame inductees. Launched four years ago, the Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding performances by students and coaches. “This induction class is very special,” says Athletics Director China Jude. “Many of these inductees are still engaged in collegiate sports as athletes, coaches, and administrators, and have received honors for their work around the country.”

Eight individuals and one team will be feted at a dinner following the college’s Annual Golf Outing on Friday, October 16. For tickets to the induction dinner, visit qcgolfhof.com or call the Athletics Office at 72795.

Here are the 2015 Hall of Fame inductees:

Sharon Beverly ’76, ’87 MS competed in basketball in 1974–1976 and participated on the team that won the AIAW regional championship. After serving as an assistant coach under Lucille Kyvallos,

Beverly became head coach in 1980. She played a significant role in the department’s transition from Division III to Division II and ended her administrative tenure at QC as an assistant athletic director.

Joseph Brancaccio ’86 specialized in the hammer throw and shot discus hammer. A conference champion in multiple categories, he served as track team captain for 1982–83,

became an All-American for hammer throw at the end of that season, and was invited to compete in the Olympic Development Meets. He continues to

New Inductees into Athletics Hall of Famecompete on the senior level while serving as a detective with the NYPD.

Paul Chakrian ’81, ’84 MS played varsity lacrosse for QC from 1976 to 1981, serving as team captain during his last season, when he broke the school record for saves in a single game. A

physical education major, he subsequently coached QC varsity lacrosse for two years and studied educational supervision and administration at Brooklyn College.

Scott Cohen ’77 played varsity ice hockey at Queens College from 1973 to 1977. As head coach of the team, he led it to consecutive league championships in 1979 and 1980.

Pete Ginnegar ’80 was conference champion in hockey, established the school’s assist record in lacrosse, and played defense in soccer. He holds a BS in physical education from

QC and a master of art in athletic adminis- tration from Springfield College. Ginnegar currently coaches the Israeli National Lacrosse Team and the men’s lacrosse team at Claremont College in California.

Aline Pascale Lubin was QC’s head volleyball coach from 1993 to 2010. Under her leadership, the women’s volleyball team won the first Conference Championship; her athletes were frequently named conference MVPs and most of the 2003–2004 roster was chosen for the all-conference team.

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CHANGES AT THE TOP – from page 1

instrumental in obtaining numerous grants to support strategic initiatives.

In her new capacity at QC, Piñeiro will work closely with the college’s executive team, providing senior-level support and managing highly visible and complex projects and activities. She also will

assist in the creation and implementation of college-wide strategic initiatives.

Piñeiro

Piñeiro earned her doctorate of education and master of arts degrees in educational administration at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; she holds BA degrees in political science and communication from the University of Pennsylvania.

Meryl Kaynard, who served for over five years as general counsel and special counsel for labor/management relations under three Queens College presidents, has left the college to join CUNY Central’s general counsel office.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

Chen

FYI SEPTEMBER 2015 | 3

NEW FACES ON CAMPUS – from page 2

heaps, and much more. “This is one of the most important classes in computer science. I have this responsibility,” he believes, “of making sure that when graduates go into industry, they understand all the basic principles. Overall, I’m very excited.”

“When I’m teaching in a writing course,” observes MAAZA MENGISTE (English), “as much as anything it is teaching how to read: how to break apart a sentence, a paragraph, looking at how the nuances of words carry a book

or a story.” Recently a visiting professor at QC, Mengiste is now an assistant professor. In her epic novel, newspaper columns, b&w photographs, and a documentary, she has movingly told nuanced tales of acclimation and transformation, love and war, lived experience and imagined lives.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from,” Mengiste believes. “We’re all made up of these different identities.” The many consequences of Ethiopia’s revolution forced Maaza and her family from their homeland. She lived in Nigeria and Kenya before coming to America. Adjusting to a new life in Colorado at age 7, and learning an American version of the English she was learning in Kenya, she recalled, “I realized very quickly that I needed to read as much as I could to catch up and stay caught up. That might have been one of the things that pushed me into literature.”

Mengiste’s acclaimed first novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, begins in the time and place where she was torn from her home: Addis Ababa in 1974, the final year of the long reign of the “Lion of Judah,” Haile Selassie. It follows a family unraveling in the struggle for freedom. The novel was a finalist for the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. The Guardian named it one of the 10 best contemporary African books. Her columns for that paper address heartfelt concerns, among them

humanitarian crises, African identity, and how art “can provide a level of comfort.” Novels, she elaborates, “are one way to begin considering issues or circumstances that might feel too large otherwise.” When our own questions “are condensed into two or three characters, and we watch them walk through their lives, it narrows the lens and maybe sometimes we find some answers.”

Mengiste’s forthcoming novel, The Shadow King, led her to an unfamiliar time and place: 1935 Italy and its occupation of Ethiopia. She spent almost a year in Italy on a Fulbright, researching in the Fascist archives. Other prestigious fellowships have included the Puterbaugh and the Prague Summer Program.

At QC, Mengiste is excited by the “intellectual energy” that her students with their world languages and experiences bring to her classes, among them African American literature and a fiction workshop. In the MFA program in creative writing and literary translation, she notes, “My students are writers. Sometimes they need a little guidance, pushing, reshaping. But I haven’t felt I had to teach anyone to be a writer.”

Passionate about multicul-turalism, persuasive in dis-cussing how institutions can create a respectful climate of cultural competence, DAVID P. RIVERA (Counselor Education) has become a beacon of therapeutic practices. The

associate professor is devoted to helping marginalized people deal with their identities and emotional pain. Caring and compassion have permeated his scholarship, his practice as a counseling psychologist, his professional activities, and his higher education experience, including at CUNY and most recently William Paterson University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming, his master’s from the Johns Hopkins University, and his PhD in counseling psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Since 2010, QC’s “Year of” series has highlighted the arts, history, and culture of a single country: China, Turkey, India, Brazil, and South Africa. For 2015–16, the campus is pursuing a different route: It’s the Year of Silk Roads. Dating perhaps as far back as 100 BCE and linking Asia to Europe, this trade network encouraged the exchange of ideas as well as material goods, making the Silk Roads an apt metaphor for global education.

“In many instances, Silk Roads is the logical next step of ‘Year of,’” says its

program director, Marleen Kassel (History), who is working closely with Morris Rossabi (History), Carl Riskin (Economics), Kristina Richardson (History), and Warren Woodfin (Art) to plan two semesters of events.

“This theme enables us to do comparisons among China, Turkey, and India. To date, the ‘Year of’ country series has been largely a bilateral study—the United States and the country of focus. We have talked about a second stage which would allow us to do a broader study of topics of international significance, such as water and water usage, access to education, social justice, and the like. If we move to this second stage, we would invite guests from former ‘Years of’ to join us in the discussion.”

QC’s Silk Road programming started with Welcome Day, when freshmen marched onto campus to the music of a traditional Bukharian ensemble. Upcoming highlights include an introductory lecture at free hour on October 14 by Rossabi, an expert on the Silk Roads. From October 15 through December 15, the Godwin-Ternbach Museum will exhibit large-format

photography by Lynn Gilbert, who recorded interiors in Turkey and Uzbekistan, and Didier Vanderperre, who captured street scenes in Xingjiang, China. Internationally renowned ethnomusicologist Theodore Levin will present “Musical Meridians of the Silk Roads” on Monday, November 2, at 4:30 pm, and Woodfin, guest curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art show Liturgical Textiles of the Post-Byzantine World, will discuss Byzantium’s influence on the arts of the Silk Roads on Wednesday, December 2, at free hour.

The Year’s schedule will also feature performances, workshops, sports on the Quad, and, next semester, a student-focused celebration of the spring Persian holiday, Noruz. For more information, including the latest calendar of events, visit silkroads.qc.cuny.edu.

www.qc.cuny.edu/silkroads

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Photos from Godwin-Ternbach exhibit: (top)Lynn Gilbert, Bhukara, Uzbekistan, 2014; (bottom) Didier Vanderperre, Turpan Bazaar, Xinjiang, China, 2014

Trading Places

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Mengiste

Rivera

FYI SEPTEMBER 2015 | 4

Rivera studies the issues impacting people of color and sexual minorities, especially the microaggressions that can erode a person’s well-being and even livelihood. In the 1970s psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce coined the term “racial microaggression.” The concept gained wider currency around 2007. These micro-slurs and subtle snubs, even when unintended, can make people feel they are second-class citizens because of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, education, culture, or other factors.

Resolving multicultural issues brings about what Rivera calls “difficult dialogues” within institutions and among individuals. QC’s Center for Ethnic, Racial & Religious Understanding has its own initiative on these “complicated conversations,” he notes. It was QC’s remarkable diversity that made the college an attractive fit for Rivera: “a place where my research philosophy and topics would be nurtured.” This year he serves as board co-chair of CLAGS: the Center for LGBTQ Studies—the nation’s first—which is housed at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Rivera’s courses on group counseling—his favorite modality of therapy—guide students in developing “their own therapeutic voice, their therapeutic orientation” as counselors. Teaching Socratic-style, he sits with them in a circle “to try to remove as much of the hierarchy that already exists between students and professors.”

It was under Cheyenne, Wyoming’s “big open skies, full of stars at night” that Rivera “grew up with a big appreciation for nature, and for family and community.” Since then, he has had his own “aha! moments” reflecting on what having a “different identity” meant in high school. While at times he misses the West’s wide-open spaces, QC’s sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline symbolizes for him the “awe-inspiring” magnitude of the contributions of CUNY, QC, and their graduates. He also thrills to seeing the city close-up: This year, Rivera ran his first New York City Marathon.

KARA SCHLICHTING (History) says it was some great faculty members and undergraduate courses at Cornell University that convinced her that she wanted to become

The Queens College Retirees Association is an organization of retirees from QC and

other branches of CUNY who want to keep in touch with each other and the college. Its primary aims are to

provide a forum for discussion of problems relating to retirees’ rights and interests and the means to further those rights, to offer scholarships and awards to deserving QC students, and to hold social gatherings.

“If you are not a QCRA member, you are missing a great opportunity to stay in touch with former friends and colleagues,” notes Joe Brostek ’55, the association’s membership chair. “Since 1972 the QCRA has had many hundreds of members. We hold luncheon meetings on campus twice a year with interesting speakers and lots of camaraderie. We publish a great newsletter, have a terrific website (qcra.wordpress.com), and have sponsored scholarships and special projects for the Rosenthal Library, Copland School, Godwin-Ternbach Museum, and other areas of the college.” 

Yearly dues are $15. To join, send a check made out to the QCRA to Joe Brostek, c/o QCRA, Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Queens, NY 11367-1597.

Retirees Association Looking for New Members

NEW FACES ON CAMPUS – from page 3

QCRA

an environmental historian.While, as she explains

it, the classic version of environmental history is about wild places, having grown up in coastal Connecticut at the edge of the New York metropolitan area, Schlichting instead

developed an interest in places more familiar to her, places where elements of urban living overlap the natural world. In the New York metropolitan area, this is most prominently seen in waterfront areas.

One of those areas, certainly familiar to members of the QC community, was the subject of a lecture Schlichting gave two years ago at Stevens Institute of Technology while she was a PhD candidate at Rutgers University. It was titled “‘From Dumps to Glory’: City Planning, Coastal Reclamation, and the Rebirth of Flushing Meadow for the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair.”

Schlichting’s work in American history of the late 19th and 20th centuries sits at the intersection of urban, environmental, and political history. Her dissertation examined

Schlichting

On Friday, October 16, QC’s Athletics Office will hold its annual golf outing at the Harbor Links Golf Club in Port Washington. All proceeds from the outing are used for student-athlete scholarships and support services. These funds help students pursue a rigorous education while competing on the NCAA Division II level. This year the college offered more than $1.1 million in scholarships to approximately 200 student athletes.

For golf outing tickets and schedule information, visit qcgolfhof.com or call Athletics at 72795.

CLASSIC

QUEENS COLLEGE ANNUAL

metropolitan growth in greater New York from the perspective of the urban periphery, focusing on property regimes, environmental reclamation issues, and the collaborative city-building work of grassroots actors and professional planners.

Schlichting’s teaching interests range from the history of New York City, the 1960s in America, and the city in American history to environmental history, including an interdisciplinary class on water. “I’m interested,” she says, “in how you think of a healthy harbor or a healthy coastline, and who decides on how property should be used and what’s an appropriate use of the waterfront.”

Schlichting has been awarded a Mellon fellowship in urban landscape studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, DC, for next spring for her new project, “The Nature of Urban Coastal Resiliency: Twentieth-Century Governance, Environmental Management, and Design.” And students in one of the courses she plans to teach can certainly expect a field trip to that not-too-distant site once dominated by the Trylon and Perisphere.

FYI SEPTEMBER 2015 | 5

Q U E E N S C O L L E G E

HOMECOMING

2O15S U N D AY | O C T O B E R 1 8

Featuring special guest DENNIS ELSAS ’68 of WNEW-FM and WFUV talking about his creative music programming and history-making

interviews—including his famous 1974 conversation with John Lennon—music by the legendary PATTI LABELLE, a state-of-the-college address by

PRESIDENT FÉLIX V. MATOS RODRÍGUEZ, fascinating roundtables with faculty, a children’s Halloween party, and much more!

REGISTER NOW!

Online at qc.cuny.edu/homecoming or call Alumni Relations at 718-997-5534.

Register online by Monday, October 5, to save $15 on tickets and to become eligible for a chance to win an Apple iPad!

Nollywood stars exercised their own agency in the industry’s regional and global ascendancy, especially across the African diaspora. Tsika explores key aspects of stars’ agency, such as their acting abilities, their cosmopolitanism and multilingual skills, their entrepreneurialism in literally transporting and publicizing the films outside Nigeria, their adaptation to the visual and material qualities of changing cinematic technologies, and their ability to perform and become known transnationally—integrating into the entertainment cultures of other nations without losing their distinctive styles and personas. Tsika breaks new ground in showing that Nollywood stars are not the passive creations of an industry, but rather have been essential conditions of its existence and phenomenal success.

Nollywood ranks with Hollywood and Bollywood as one of the three largest, most valuable film industries in the world, yet American scholarship on Nigerian film lags far behind its prodigious output. In Nollywood

Stars: Media and Migration in West Africa and the Diaspora (Indiana University Press), NOAH TSIKA (Media Studies) tackles a subject that surprisingly few have explored: the actors themselves. He argues that, unlike African art film where auteurs hold sway, in

QC Author

Lubin was NYCAC Coach of the Year in 1993 and 1997 and ECC Conference Coach of the Year in 2003 and 2004.

Gregory Vaughn ’78 (deceased) was a top per-former in basketball in the 1970s, setting four QC records that stand to this day. He organized tourna-ments and sports-related

programs in Brooklyn and Queens while mentoring youths. He also helped develop playgrounds and basketball courts in pub-lic housing projects in Queens. Basketball courts in Baisley Pond Park have been dedicated and named in his memory.

Shalonda Young played basketball for QC from 1984 to 1988. Scoring over 2,000 career points, she finished her collegiate career as the

ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME – from page 2 30th highest scorer and the 11th highest in free throw percentage in the nation. An American Women’s Sports Federation All-American in 1987, Young was named to the First Team All-Conference in the Mideast Conference and selected twice in the Cosmopolitan Conference.

The 1978–1979 Varsity Ice Hockey Team won two Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference Championships in a row, coached by Lou DeLuca ’72.

FYI SEPTEMBER 2015 | 6

Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World, a one-day music festival held on June 20 to celebrate the life and spirit of Satchmo,

featured activities ranging from live music to hands- on interactive exhibits and workshops. Besides the music presented on the main stage, there was an alternate festival site—called “Louis’ Backyard Bash”—that featured beer halls, a tent with kid-friendly activities and a DJ party in the Queens Museum featuring QC’s own DJ Rekha ’98.

Photos, from top left: Headliner Ms. Lauryn Hill; tickets for the event went quickly, with all 23,000 being claimed within days of the announcement; audience cheers—and takes pictures—as the main stage performances begin; members of the Shannon Powell Traditional All-Star Band; Duke Amayo of Afrobeat band Antibalas; and members of the Latin hip-hop unit Ozomatli.

For information about next year’s festival, go to armstrongswonderfulworld.com.

A WONDERFUL DAY FOR A FESTIVAL

Photos by Erick Urgiles, except top right, by Gustavo Rodriguez.

The third edition of Becoming a Reflective Mathematics Teacher was recently published by Taylor and Francis. Its four authors are all members of QC’s SEYS Department: ALICE F. ARTZT, ELEANOR ARMOUR-THOMAS, FRANCES R. CURCIO, and THERESA J. GURL. A Korean version of the second edition of the book has just been published . . . FRAN CURCIO (SEYS) was inducted into the New York State

Mathematics Educators Hall of Fame on September 25 . . . YIN MEI CRITCHELL (DTD) was invited to choreograph the new musical Dreams by composer Klaus Badelt. It will be performed in Beijing’s National Centre

for the Performing Arts in October . . . A poem by KIMIKO HAHN (English), “Not Nothing,” was featured on the website of the Academy of American Poets on August 24 . . . CHINA JUDE (Athletics) was elected assistant vice president for athletics of the Minority Opportunities Athletic Association . . . Last April CHRIS HANUSA (Math) and the students in his Mathematica class visited the Shapeways factory in Long Island City, where 3D printers turned their computer-

generated designs into real models . . . MIHAELA ROBILA (FNES) was invited to participate at a United Nations Expert Group Meeting organized by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, where she presented a paper on “Policies on Family Violence in Europe: Developments and Challenges” . . . Governor Andrew Cuomo recently appointed MANUEL ROSA (Urb. St.) as the director of community relations for the Governor’s Office of Faith-based Community Development Services . . . CAROLINE RUPPRECHT (Comp. Lit.) presented a paper on “Uebersetzung als

Begegnung: Pham Thi Hoai und Yoko Tawada” at the Internationale Vereinigung fuer Germanistik at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, on August 28 . . . JOHN TYTELL’s (English) long review of the City Lights

Pocket Poets Anthology appeared in the July 3 Los Angeles Review of Books . . . The film Vigilante, with a screenplay by RICHARD VETERE (Media Studies), was recently named one of the best independent films of the 1980s by BAMcinématek and the Cinema Conservancy.

QC People

Critchell

Tytell

To kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, Congressman Joseph Crowley ’85 (ctr) held a ceremony honoring prominent Hispanic Americans, including (l–r) QC President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez; Juan Tineo, founding member of the Hispanic/Latino Cultural Center of New York; Assemblyman Francisco Moya; Rep. Linda Sanchez; Dr. Mario and Ana Henriquez, founders of the Salvadoran Renal Foundation; and Assemblyman Michael DenDekker.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

FYI SEPTEMBER 2015 | 7

PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA

Dimokratiki.gr reported NICHOLAS ALEXIOU’S (Soc.) participation in the Conference of Overseas Lerians 2015 concerning people from the Greek island of Leros . . . The destruction of ancient archaeological sites by Islamic State militants prompted

ALEXANDER BAUER (Anthro.) to write a column entitled “Why Do Monuments Matter?” for the Indian Express . . . THOMAS BIRD (ELL) spoke at an event reported by forward.com recalling the day in 1952 when several Soviet Yiddish poets were executed . . . A Wired story about SAILORS, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s Outreach Summer program, the country’s first artificial intelligence summer camp for girls, featured

comments from SOPHIA CATSAMBIS (Soc.) . . . DIANE COOGAN-PUSHNER (Risk Mngmnt.) commented on recent fluctuations in the stock market tied to economic turmoil in China for a story in amNewYork . . . Articles in the

Queens Gazette and TimesLedger concerning Congresswoman Grace Meng’s securing of a $220,000 federal grant for QC’s Disability Student Support Services quoted MIRIAN DETRES-HICKEY (Spec. Svcs.) . . . RAYMOND ERICKSON (Music,

emeritus) wrote a letter that appeared in the New York Times in response to its story “Stolen Stradivarius

Found, 35 Years Later” . . . JOSHUA FREEMAN (History) was quoted in a story at cityandstateny.com concerning whether New York State can still claim to be leading the way on important national issues . . . JESSICA HARRIS (SEEK) offered her thoughts on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina to mvtimes.com . . . RON HAYDUK (Pol. Sci.) was quoted in the Politics blog at huffingtonpost.com on the topic of Reviving Pre-Citizen Suffrage . . . SAMUEL HEILMAN (Soc.) was quoted in a Jerusalem Post article concerning the contro-versial choice of a Muslim woman of Pakistani extraction to head the board of the campus arm of J Street, the lobbying organization that believes in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In another Post story he commented on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stance with respect to the Iran nuclear accord . . . MICHAEL KRASNER (Pol. Sci.) was quoted in a Wall Street Journal story concerning Mayor de Blasio’s lack of comment as several Democrats vied for a City Council seat in Queens. He was also quoted in stories carried by CBS News and the Associated Press about the Guardian Angels’ return to patrolling Central Park . . . A report in amNewYork about the

increase in marijuana-related summonses in NYC’s minority neighborhoods quoted HARRY LEVINE (Soc.) . . . President FÉLIX V. MATOS RODRÍGUEZ was interviewed by the

TimesLedger about QC’s inclusion again in Washington Monthly’s annual listing of colleges providing the “Best Bang for the Buck” in the northeast. He was also featured in Queens Gazette coverage of this year’s Welcome Day festivities . . . As reported at localtalknews.com, a panel examining the use of eminent domain as a way to address Newark’s “foreclosure crisis” heard from Christopher Neidt (Hofstra), who discussed a study he co-authored with STEPHEN MCFARLAND (Urb. St.), “Our Homes, Our Newark: Foreclosures, Toxic Mortgages and Blight” . . . Dean of Education CRAIG MICHAELS was quoted in a story at ny.chalkbeat.org about why NYC currently has no shortage of teachers but may in the future . . . GREGORY O’MULLAN’S (SEES) research that discovered strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in parts of the Hudson River was included in a report at Earth Wise, a production of WAMC Northeast Public

Radio . . . FRANCOIS PIERRE-LOUIS (Pol. Sci.) was interviewed at therealnews.com concerning his observation of this summer’s elections in Haiti . . . A study of the effects a Spanish family leave law, co-authored by NÚRIA RODRÍGUEZ-PLANAS (Econ.), had on hiring practices in that country was cited in an article about American family leave practices at thefederalist.com . . . MORRIS ROSSABI (History) was quoted in a feature at the website of Money magazine concerning the 10 richest people of all time . . . The New York Times blog, Wordplay, mentioned ALEX RYBA (Comp. Sci.) in a posting about the famous British mathematician John Horton Conway . . . HAROLD SCHECTER (English) discussed his new book Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal, with Colorado Public Radio . . . JUAN VALDEZ (EECE) took part in a discussion at WGBH public radio in Boston entitled “Under the Radar: A Crisis in the Dominican Republic.” He also wrote a piece for the Haitian Times on the recent controversy concerning Dominicans of Haitian heritage.

IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA IN THE MEDIA

Coogan-Pushner

KrasnerHickey

Harris

Hayduk

Alexiou

Michaels

Erickson Mandala with Buddhist Deities, Tibet or Nepal, 19th–20th century.

Five Continents, One Borough: Art Treasures from the Homelands of Queens. Selections from the Collection of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum

This exhibition offers 33 striking artworks from all corners of the world that Queens residents have called their homes. Works range from pre-Columbian textiles to Buddhist objects. Five Continents, One Borough is on view at the Citi DeFord Gallery in Long Island City through Jan. 12. Information: www.gtmuseum.org.