c u n y.edu/news THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK • FOUNDED 1847 AS T H E F R E E A C A D E M Y

“Open the doors to all — let thec h i l d ren of the rich and the poor taketheir seats together and know of no

distinction save that of industry,good conduct, and intellect.”

— Townsend Harris, founder

SEPTEMBER 2006

In September the University receivedthe largest donation of its history, a$30 million gift to the CUNY Honors

College from financier William E.M a c a u l a y, who said he wanted to “ h e l pensure that young people today can get ahigh quality education just as Ireceived at CUNY some fourdecades ago.”

Macaulay added, “The turnaroundat CUNY over the past several yearsunder Matt Goldstein has given methe confidence and inspiration tohelp support the University throughthis gift.”

The generous grant will go largelyt o ward the purchase of a building onM a n h a t t a n ’s Upper West Side thatwill become the permanent home ofthe Honors College.

Chancellor Goldstein expresseddeep appreciation, noting theHonors College “has become a mag-net for the city’s finest students.”Board of Trustees Chair Benno C.S c h m i d t , J r. s a i d : “ M r. M a c a u l a y ’sgenerosity comes at a time when theUniversity is seeing record enroll-ments and highly accomplisheds t u d e n t s … ”

Macaulay is a 1966 Honors gra d-uate of City College, h aving majoredin economics at the Baruch Schoolof Business, which was part of CityC o l l e g e.

This is indeed a time of expansionand of great achievements at theU n i v e r s i t y.

According to preliminary fig u r e s,226,213 students were enrolled in CUNYdegree programs at the beginning of thiss e m e s t e r, making it the largest studentbody in 31 years. And increasingly they aret ransferring to our colleges from others.T h o u s a n d s, h aving heard about the suc-cesses of CUNYstudents and gra d u a t e sin recent years, a p p l yfrom out of state. ( S e earticle on page 7.)

Especially worthy ofmention is the experi-ence of the HonorsC o l l e g e, where applica-tions soared nearly 40p e r c e n t , to 3,186, c o m-pared to last year. T h o s eseeking admission werefacing some of thestiffest competitiona r o u n d , with the appli-cants from some of thebest high schools in ther e g i o n , applying for roughly 320 seats. T h eacceptance rate of 25 percent was on parwith that of the most competitive priva t ecolleges in the nation.

Chancellor Goldstein proudly noted

also that this academic year marks thebeginning of three highly significant newp r o g rams at the University, a Gra d u a t eSchool of Jo u r n a l i s m , a Teacher A c a d e m yspecializing in math and science, and anOnline Baccalaureate progra m .

The journalism school — the only suchg raduate program at a public college in theNortheast — is historic in more ways thano n e, being located in the hallowed formerheadquarters of the late, great H e r a l dTr i b u n e newspaper in midtown.

The class of 57 students, selected fromamong 216 applicants,constitutes the mostdiverse student body ofany graduate school ofjournalism in the country.

D avid Chiu, 3 2 , o fB r o o k l y n , said he wa spleased by his decision toe n r o l l .

“The professors I’v ehad are experienced andthe students are brightand full of energy,” h es a i d . C h i u , who workedas a freelance contributorfor such publications asThe New York Ti m e s a n dRolling Stone, a d d e d : “ I ’ m

totally learning a lot here.”The last student to register, Zeyad A . , i s

an Iraqi dentist who chronicled daily lifeunder siege in Baghdad over the past twoyears in his blog, which he called “ H e a l i n g

I ra q .” He had been in Jordan for threemonths awaiting an American visa.

The 27-year-old Zeyad (who for hisown protection did not use his last name)will study interactive media with ProfessorJeff Ja r v i s, whose own blog inspired

Z e y a d ’s efforts. Z e y a d ’s reports fromI raq have been featured by The NewYork Ti m e s, The Washington Po s t, a n dThe Guardian, among other majornews outlets.

The new Teacher A c a d e m y, w h i c hhas 107 students in its inaugural classbut hopes to reach 300 students in itssecond academic year, is located onseven CUNY campuses — BrooklynC o l l e g e, The City College, College ofStaten Island, Hunter College,Lehman College, Queens College andYork College. Its purpose is to “ p r e-pare a new generation of exceptionalteachers to produce high levels of stu-dent achievement and to inspire mid-dle and high school students’ interestin mathematics and science.”

A great incentive for applying tothe Teacher Academy is that, like theHonors College, students receive freetuition and stipends for their foury e a r s. The Academy is a `partnershipbetween CUNY and the New Yo r kCity Department of Education.

This summer, a student in theincoming first class of the A c a d e m y,Steven Herbst, addressed a gatheringof other students, professors andCUNY administrators at The CUNYG raduate Center.

“The real reward of the Te a c h e rAcademy is not only the full tuition schol-arship we have all received, nor is it onlythe dedicated faculty we are privileged towork with,” Herbst said.

The real rewa r d , explained Herbst, w h owill be based at Hunter College and is ag raduate of James Madison High School inB r o o k l y n , is the joy of helping others tosucceed in life.

“New York City will have a new genera-tion of math and science teachers to teachthe future of New York City,” he said. “A n dI am proud to be a part of it.”

Executive Vice Chancellor forAcademic Affairs Selma Botman said: “ T h eTeacher Academy is a place for aspiringteachers to blossom….”

As for the new CUNY Online Bacca-l a u r e a t e, it is designed for workingstudents who have great difficulty attend-ing classes and can benefit from “ d i s t a n c el e a r n i n g.”

“If you are looking for a flexible way togain a high quality bachelor’s degree whilebalancing career and family obligations, t h eOnline Baccalaureate is for you,” the pro-g ram beckons on its website. There areabout 260 students registered now in theOnline progra m .

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein (left) with William andLinda Macaulay, outside the Steinhardt Building at 35 We s t67th Street, a Gothic revival structure that will be home ofthe CUNY Honors College, thanks to William Macaulay.

Wrongfully Convicted,Now Pursuing B. A .

Alan Newton spent 22years in prison for acrime that DNA showshe did not commit.Medgar Evers comes tothe rescue with a schol-arship and a job offer,and Newton now hopesto become a law y e r. S e epages 2 and 3, t o p.

New Trustees Promiseto Build on Past Gains

Philip Berryand Fr e i d aFo s t e r- To l b e r tare newestmembers ofthe Board ofTr u s t e e s. T h e ywill workwith Chair-man Benno C. S c h m i d t , who was reap-pointed to a new seven-year term, a n dwill bring “special perspectives” to theirt a s k s. See pages 2 and 3, b o t t o m .

The College LibraryEnters a New A g e

The role of the collegel i b rarian has changed signif-icantly in recent years,especially since the birth ofthe Internet. The craft is anincreasingly complex disci-p l i n e, and librarians are nowmore teachers than they aref a c i l i t a t o r s. See page 4.

College RecruitingAs an A r t

Colleges are aggressively marketing them-selves to prospective students, trying totell the stories of success that make oth-ers say, “I want to go there!” Hearing then e w s, t h o u s a n d sof out-of-stateresidents areapplying toand attendingCUNY col-l e g e s. See pages6 and 7.

CUNY MonthAll around the University during

N o v e m b e r, CUNY Month, c a m p u s e ssponsor conferences on topics of interdis-ciplinary interest; they hold open houses;and they otherwise showhow excit-ing collegelife can be.S e epage 12.

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I n s i d eMacaulay Gives $30 Million to Honors College,Says He was Inspired by CUNY’s ‘ Tu r n a r o u n d ’

‘The turnaround atCUNY… under

Matt Goldstein hasgiven me the

c o n fidence andinspiration to help

support theU n i v e r s i t y,’ Wi l l i a mE . M a c a u l ay said.

students to thisnoble professionis an essentialgoal of theA c a d e m y.We know howimportant increased K-12 participation andp r o ficiency in math and science are—andwe also know that excellent teachers are thekey to meeting those objectives.

This fall, our new Online Baccalaureateis opening up new opportunities for thosewhose work demands, family responsibili-t i e s, or physical disabilities have made a tra-ditional “bricks and mortar” e d u c a t i o nd i f ficult to complete. The online degreep r o g ram is designed specifically for busyadults who have already made signific a n tprogress toward a baccalaureate degree andnow want to finish it. The 300 studentswho have already been admitted are fin d i n gan answer to their need for a flexible andconvenient program that maintains a rigor-ous curriculum taught by experienced fac-u l t y. I am very pleased that the Universityhas developed this online degree option tomaximize students’ ability to achieve theiracademic and professional goals.

An essential component of an adva n c e deducation is an appreciation of our civicr e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s, and another new initiativethis fall expands CUNY’s longtime work tohelp new immigra n t s, and all students, p a r-ticipate fully as citizens. Voter A wa r e n e s sMonth runs from September 13 to October1 3 , and its intent, according to Carlos Sierra ,chairperson of the University Student Senateand a key organizer, is nothing less than toturn CUNY into “a powerhouse of voters.”The University is partnering with other cityorganizations to increase the number of reg-istered voters in New York City by sponsor-ing registration drives, helping students toserve as poll workers on election days, a n dworking to maximize voter turnout by dis-abled students. The effort is a natural exten-sion of CUNY’s citizenship efforts, w h i c hinclude this year’s “Nation of Immigra n t s ”C a l e n d a r, developed by the Office ofUniversity Relations and the LaGuardia andWagner A r c h i v e s, in partnership with T h eNew York Ti m e s, JP Morgan Chase, a n dT I A A - C R E F. I encourage CUNY staff andfaculty to participate in Voter A wa r e n e s sMonth on their campuses and within theircommunities and, of course, to register tovote and exercise that important privilege.

On behalf of the University, thank youfor your important role in helping moreand more CUNY students advance theire d u c a t i o n . I hope you enjoy a productiveand successful 2006-07 academic year.

2 CUNY MATTERS — September 2006

Manfred PhilippC h a i r p e r s o n ,Faculty Senate

Carlos SierraC h a i r p e r s o n ,Student Senate

Benno C. Schmidt Jr.ChairmanValerie L. B e a l Joseph J. L h o t a

Philip Berry Randy M. M a s t r o

John S. B o n n i c i Hugo M. M o ra l e s

Wellington Z. C h e n Kathleen M. Pe s i l e

Kenneth Cook Carol Robles-Román

Rita DiMartino Marc V. S h aw

Freida Fo s t e r- To l b e r t Jeffrey Wi e s e n f e l d

C h a n c e l l o rMatthew GoldsteinSecretary of the Board of Trustees andVice Chancellor for University RelationsJay HershensonUniversity Director for Media RelationsMichael A r e n aEditor Ron HowellW r i t e r s Gary Schmidgall, Rita RodinP h o t o g r a p h e r André BecklesGraphic Design Gotham Design, N Y CA rticles in this and previous issues are available at c u n y. e d u/n e w s.Letters or suggestions for future stories may be sent to the Editorby email to M e d i a re l a t i o ns@m a i l . c u n y. e d u. Changes ofaddress should be made through your campus personnel office.

PostScript PictureCUNYMatters cube.eps

THECHANCELLOR’S DESK

BOARDOFTRUSTEESThe City University of New Yo r k

for so much of what we see has happenedin the University,” Goldstein told Schmidt,a former President of Yale University.

New Trustee Berry, who is the Vi c ePresident of Global Workplace Initiativesand Corporate Officer for Colgate-

Palmolive Corp. , a $12 billionglobal consumer products com-p a n y, said he wants “to contin-ue to build on the innova t i o n sthat have taken place and bringmore perspectives from theworld of work and from theworld of business.”

Berry is a Trustee of theCUNY Construction Fund anda member of CUNY’s BusinessLeadership Council. He alsosits on the Mayor’s EducationalPriorities Pa n e l .

A graduate of Borough of ManhattanCommunity College and Queens College(with an MBA from Xavier University andan MSW from Columbia University),

In Au g u s t , a New York Ti m e s article not-ed the sharp increase of people in theNew York metropolitan area who hold

at least a bachelor’s degree. One of the rea-sons given for this growing concentration ofhighly educated people in our area is theincrease of residents obtaining degrees—asa result of enrollment growth at CUNY.

The University’s resurgence continues,r e flected in the number of students ita t t racts (with freshman applicationsincreasing by more than 5 percent thisyear) and in the educational experiences ito f f e r s. As we welcome the growing interestin CUNY by students of all backgrounds,including more high-achieving high schoolg ra d u a t e s, we are creating innovative newways to respond to the needs of individuall e a r n e r s, the community, and the market-p l a c e. We are very proud that this fallmarks the launch of some brand-new wa y sthat CUNY will help New Yorkers adva n c etheir academic aspira t i o n s.

F i r s t , the CUNY Graduate School ofJournalism greeted its inaugural class inS e p t e m b e r. Led by founding dean StephenS h e p a r d , former editor-in-chief of Bu s i n e s sWe e k , the school is the only public gra d u a t eschool of journalism in the Northeast. T h a tfact is central to the school’s purpose: s t u-dents with high ambition and limited meansnow have access to a top-quality, i n t e n s i v elearning experience in the heart of themedia capital of the world. The first cohortof 60 students is meeting a faculty compris-ing veteran journalists and industry profes-sionals and participating in print, b r o a d c a s t ,or interactive tra c k s, a community news ser-v i c e, and summer internships. The school ishoused in the former headquarters of theNew York Herald Tr i b u n e, a truly historicsetting updated with a state-of-the-art news-room and wireless classrooms.

Students in the new CUNY Te a c h e rAcademy also began their innovative aca-demic program this fall. Responding to theneed for more high-quality math and sci-ence teachers in the New York City schools,C U N Y, in partnership with the Departmentof Education and New York University, h a sdeveloped a new approach to teacher edu-c a t i o n . Combining a rigorous program inm a t h , b i o l o g y, c h e m i s t r y, or earth scienceand a strong liberal arts curriculum withe a r l y, hands-on experiences in New Yo r kCity public schools, the Academy preparesstudents for long careers in urban educa-t i o n . The selective progra m , based atB r o o k l y n , C i t y, H u n t e r, L e h m a n , a n dQueens colleges and the College of StatenI s l a n d , offers four years of free tuition andstipends for internships. D rawing the best

The Expanding Universityby Curtis Stephen

Alan Newton, 4 5 , had long dreamedof going to college. When he gra d -

uated from Dewitt Clinton HighSchool in the Bronx in 1979, he enteredthe workforce and took jobs at a local bankand a telephone company in the Wo r l dTrade Center to pay his way throughs c h o o l .

“I didn’t want to takeout a big loan,” h er e c a l l e d . “I wanted to usethe company’s collegep r o g ram to get somea s s i s t a n c e.”

But in June 1984,those plans came to anabrupt and terrifying halt.He was arrested for therape of a 25-year- o l dwoman inside an abandoned building inthe Bronx after the victim identified him intwo separate lineups. At his 1985 trial,Newton was convicted of rape and assaultcharges and was sentenced to up to 40years in prison.

N o w, after a judge recently determinedon the basis of DNA evidence that he hadnot committed the crime, Newton is goingto live out his dream of attaining a bache-l o r ’s degree. This semester, h aving beenawarded a full scholarship, he is enrolled asa student at Medgar Evers College, w h e r ehe plans to take courses that will preparehim for a career as a law y e r.

If Newton was happy as he wa l k e dthrough the halls of his new college, the joywas magnified by the fact that, a mere twomonths before, he was standing anxiouslyin the halls of justice.

On July 6, after more than two decades ofi ncarceration, Newton had appeared in acrowded Bronx courtroom before JudgeJohn Byrne, who granted a motion to over-turn the conviction as DNA evidenceproved what Newton had adamantly main-tained all along — that he was innocent. “Ialways believed that the truth would comeout. I didn’t give up, though, because Iknew that I had to keep fighting,” saidNewton, who was born in Manhattan and

raised in the Bronx.Since being exonera t e d , Newton has shared

the details of his ordeal in local and nationalmedia outlets, including an appearance on thelong-running WABC-TV public affairs show,“Like It Is.” He also gave a well-receivedaddress during the Board of Directors dinnerat the NAAC P ’s annual convention inWashington D. C.

“I never thought I would bet h e r e,” said a still-surprisedN e w t o n . “It was just an honor tobe around people that you onlyread about.”

Yet the same could also be saidof Newton himself — that he isbeing read and talked about quite ab i t . H e ’s been fielding phone callsfrom a number of public fig u r e s,including Carl Banks, the formerNew York Giants linebacker, a n d

Eric A d a m s, co-founder of the Brooklyn-basedadvocacy group, 100 Blacks in LawE n f o r c e m e n t .

But nothing prepared Newton for the callhe received one afternoon from Noel Hankin,a marketing executive at Moet Hennessy.H a n k i n , who is also vice chairman on theBoard of Directors for the Thurgood MarshallScholarship Fund, offered Newton the chanceto achieve his lifelong goal of earning ab a c h e l o r ’s degree.

Established in 1987, the scholarship sup-ports students at Historically Black Collegesand Universities (HBCU’s) nationwide. A m o n gthe participating institutions are CUNY’s Yo r kCollege and Medgar Evers College, w h e r eNewton has decided to enroll. A d d i t i o n a l l y,Medgar Evers President Edison O. Jackson gav eNewton a job with the college’s MaleDevelopment and Empowerment Center, a swell as additional scholarship money and al a p t o p. Newton is now fully covered for his$2,200 in tuition for the semester, as well asother expenses.

“This is incredible on so many levels, e s p e-cially when you consider that Alan was sittingin a prison upstate just three months ago,”said Vanessa Po t k i n , who represents Newtonand serves as a staff attorney at the InnocenceP r o j e c t , a non-profit legal clinic in New Yo r k .

Earning a college diploma is seen by

After Alan Newtonspent 22 years in

state prisons,D NA evidence

showed conclusivelyhe was not guilty.

Enrolled at Medgar Evers, He

Philip Berry and Freida Fo s t e r- To l b e r t ,the newest members of the Board ofTr u s t e e s, said they looked forward to

building upon advances made duringBenno C. S c h m i d t , J r.’s tenure as c h a i r m a n ,as new Honors College Dean Ann Kirschnerpromised to take her progra maggressively into a new era ofg l o b a l i z a t i o n .

Berry and Fo s t e r- Tolbert wereappointed this summer byGovernor George Pa t a k i , w h oalso took another notable action:He reappointed Schmidt toanother seven-year term.

Speaking at a Board ofTrustees meeting in late Ju n e,Chancellor Matthew Goldsteinsaid the University owed itsresurgence to Schmidt’s 1999report that laid out a new direction ofgrowth and achievement for CUNY.

“[Y]ou wrote the play book with yourreport that really served as the foundation

Berry and Fo s t e r- Tolbert A r e

BENNO C. SCHMIDT, JR.

B o a rd of Tru s t e e s

C h a i rman

W h i t e wa t e r.During the mid-1990s Fo s t e r- To l b e r t

worked at Borough of ManhattanCommunity College as Human ResourcesA d m i n i s t ration Liaison and as a recruiterfor COPE (College Opportunity to Preparefor Employment), advocating for studentson public assistance who were attemptingto further their education.

“I became completely sold on the ideathat it is education that can transform ac i t y, the state, the world,” Fo s t e r-Tolbert said of her experiencesworking at CUNY.

Berry and Fo s t e r- To l b e r treplace former Trustees NildaSoto Ruiz and John J. C a l a n d ra .

K i r s c h n e r, an English scholar,i n n o vative administra t o r, a n dpioneer in the use of digitalm e d i a , said she is honored to bethe new dean of CUNY HonorsC o l l e g e.

“I am delighted to be working

with the tremendously talented students,f a c u l t y, and staff of the CUNY HonorsC o l l e g e,” Kirschner said after her appoint-ment by the Board of Trustees this summer.

Selma Botman, executive vice chancellorfor academic affairs, said that the feelingsof appreciation were mutual.

Kirschner “will apply her considera b l etalents to advancing the CUNY HonorsC o l l e g e, a program that has a proven recordof recruiting accomplished students, e n g a g-

ing dedicated faculty, and creat-ing exciting academicp r o g ra m m i n g ,” Botman said.

An honors graduate of theState University of New York atBuffalo and holder of a Ph.D. i nEnglish from Princeton,Kirschner “brings fresh ideas,e n e r g y, and a deep respect forthe students and faculty con-nected with the HonorsC o l l e g e,” Botman added.

Before coming to CUNY,

Honors DeanKirschner wa sinstrumental ind e v e l o p i n gC o l u m b i aU n i v e r s i t y ’s overa l ls t rategy for technol-ogy and learning,which led to thecreation of Fa t h o m ,the first online knowledge network. Fa t h o mwas created in association with the LondonSchool of Economics, the New York PublicL i b ra r y, and other institutions in the UnitedStates and United Kingdom.

Opening doors of opportunity — fori m m i g rants and others striving to succeed inNew York and in the global economy — iswhat motivates Kirschner. “As a kid growingup in New York City, and a child of aHolocaust survivor, I never doubted thatpublic education was my front door too p p o r t u n i t y,” Kirschner said in a late Au g u s tinterview with the journal Inside Higher Ed.

CUNY MATTERS — September 2006 3

Berry has been tire-lessly active as analumnus of thosei n s t i t u t i o n s.

“ We ’ve shown wecan produce qualitys t u d e n t s,” Berry saidof CUNY. “ T h eteaching faculty atthe City Universityof New Yo r k , Iwould stack againstany scholars in the world. What we have tocontinue to offer is a world-class education— so that students can function not just inthe City of New Yo r k , or the State of NewYo r k , or just in the United States, but any-where in the world.”

Fo s t e r- To l b e r t , Deputy Director of theG o v e r n o r ’s Office of Community A f f a i r sand a former Assistant to the Governor forAfrican-American A f f a i r s, has a bachelor’sdegree from Hofstra University and a mas-t e r ’s from University of Wi s c o n s i n -

PHILIP BERRY

Tru s t e e

FREIDA FOSTER-TOLBERT

Tru s t e e

experts as the best way to overcome thee x t raordinarily difficult obstacles facingthose who have done time in prison, e v e nthose who were wrongfully convicted, r e i n-t e g rating them back into society withsteady employment and stable housing.

For decades, CUNY has been deeplyengaged in this issue through a number ofinitiatives designed to increase the chancesthat the formerly incarcerated will leadproductive lives. In 1991, L a G u a r d i aCommunity College developed CUNYC a t c h , an early-intervention program thatoffers career development, academic coun-seling and vocational training to at-risk ado-lescents who are either on probation or

detained in Rikers Island jails. And last yearthe Prisoner Re-Entry Institute, which pro-vides academic opportunities and supportto individuals with criminal records, wa sestablished at John Jay College.

The Institute, which receives some fund-ing from the Black Male Initiative launchedby Chancellor Matthew Goldstein earlier thisy e a r, also regularly convenes workshops andpanels with policymakers, researchers andcriminal justice advocates to explore re-entryissues and solutions to the broader dilemma.

“Education is the bridge to help peoplewho have come out of prison and other-wise would have a barrier to getting backinto the job market. It helps them get back

on the tra i n ,” said Debbie Mukamal, d i r e c-tor of the Institute, which aided about 130CUNY students last semester.

As he faced an unrelenting daily night-mare as a wrongfully convicted man insideNew Yo r k ’s toughest maximum securityp r i s o n s, which included the Sing-Sing andAttica Correctional Fa c i l i t i e s, Newton tooksolace in the support of his family and theunyielding faith that his innocence wouldbe proven.

“It was my source of strength,” e x p l a i n e dN e w t o n , who has eight siblings. “I didn’tset a time limit when I first went intop r i s o n . I always believed that the evidencewould turn up. U n f o r t u n a t e l y, one yearturned into five and five turned into ten.And the time just kept going on. It felt likea blur after aw h i l e.”

At the trial, N e w t o n ’s defense attorneysought to prove that he was nowhere nearthe scene of the crime when the incidento c c u r r e d , an account that was supportedby members of his family. But the jury hadbeen swayed by the multiple identific a t i o n smade by the victim — the first of whichwas made from a police mug shot bookthat contained Newton’s photo from a pri-or arrest as a teenager after having a fig h t .

The victim, who has since died of anundisclosed illness, had also identifie dNewton in a live police lineup and duringthe trial.

After losing on direct appeal, N e w t o nlaunched a vigorous campaign to bringattention to his plight and wrote letters tocivil rights groups, elected officials andnews organizations.

“I tried to reach everyone. I was gettinglittle to no help in my case, and the littlehelp I got wasn’t doing me any good,” h er e m e m b e r e d . When feelings of disillusion-m e n t , rage and isolation threatened toconsume Newton’s soul, he occupied histime by working on his case and earningan associate’s degree from DutchessCommunity College.

“ You face so many pitfalls behind thosewa l l s, so I tried to find the things thatcould help me cope, like music, poetry andb o o k s. I was just trying to soak in whateverI could because the more you learn, t h e

Alan Newton, as he begins the semester at Medgar Evers College.

smarter you get. T h a t ’s the basic principle.”The turning point in Newton’s case began

in 2001 after family members filed an onlineapplication with the Innocence Project,which has helped to exonerate 183 falselyimprisoned men nationwide through DNAevidence since it was founded in 1992.

Newton had initially petitioned thecourt for DNA testing of the rape kit in1 9 9 4 , but was denied since that evidencecould not be found in the Queens wa r e-house where the New York City Po l i c eDepartment had stored it.

But after a direct appeal from theInnocence Project in 2005, Bronx A s s i s t a n tDistrict Attorney Elisa Koenderman made apersonal request for a thorough search ofthe facility, which led to the discovery ofthe evidence. “Had this evidence not turnedu p, Alan would still be in prison right now,”said Po t k i n , the Innocence Project staffl awyer who represents Newton.

To date, the real perpetrator has yet tobe found. And it’s a fact that continues torankle Newton.

“The way the system is designed, it usu-ally means justice for the victim. But myunjust conviction denied the victim justicebecause the person who did this is still outt h e r e. So who received justice in this case?”he asked. “I received a lot of time wrong-fully and the victim didn’t receive any jus-tice because the person who assaulted heris still free. Justice for all doesn’t mean jus-tice for one person.”

N e w t o n , who began taking classes atMedgar Evers College in late Au g u s t , plans touse his own experiences in the criminal jus-tice system as part of his long-term goal ofbecoming an attorney and creating an organi-zation that can make a difference in the livesof other formerly incarcerated individuals.

“ T h e r e ’s a lot of other groups out there,but having somebody who was actuallyinside is different,” he said.

One lesson Newton will be sure toimpart is the sheer importance that educa-tion can have in one’s life. “ T h a t ’s one thingthat no one can ever take from you,” h ee x p l a i n e d . “They can take your freedomand your possessions, but they can’t takethe knowledge that you possess.”

Hopes to Retrieve Years Lost While Wrongfully Imprisoned

New Tr u s t e e s, Kirschner is New Honors Dean

ANN KIRSCHNER

Dean,

CUNY Honors College

4 CUNY MATTERS — September 2006

said Downing with a smile.One salient example: the partnership

between the library staff and the mar-keting department to develop theDirect and Interactive MarketingResource Center. Working with market-ing professor Harvey Markovitz, t h el i b rary two years ago designed the cen-ter as a “ l a b o ra t o r y ” for students tolearn how to create marketingc a m p a i g n s, using sophisticated informa-tion resources obtained by the libra r y,such as proprietary data bases.

Last year, a survey of more than7,000 CUNY students and facultyacross CUNY campuses found thatusers placed a high value on theirl i b rary facilities.

“One of the most surprising fin d i n g swas how important the library is as aphysical place,” said UniversityL i b rarian Curtis L. Ke n d r i c k . “ T h e ylike being in that space when they’r enot in class.”

At some colleges, like Hunter,libraries are unveiling a “browser’slounge” where students can gather andperuse books and journals. BrooklynCollege’s new library, completed in2002, offers an “informationcommons” — including distinctivestudy and reference areas, each withdozens of PCs.

B a r b ra Higginbotham, C h i e fL i b rarian and Executive Director ofAcademic Information Te c h n o l o g i e s,said that a principal goal is to make

Brooklyn College’s library a “ c o m f o r t a b l e ”p l a c e. “ We give many options as to spaces todo work: more formal settings, alone or ing r o u p s, quiet or noisy,” Higginbotham said.

One of the main challenges facing theUniversity broadly is to make its va r i o u sl i b rary resources available throughout thes y s t e m , Kendrick said. He foresees a num-ber of “growth areas,” including the creationof a “digital repository” that would “serve asa home for documenting the scholarshipand creative activity of CUNY faculty.” O fc o u r s e, a major considera t i o n , as alwa y s, i sm o n e y. But Ke n d r i c ksaid that the will ist h e r e, and the willleads the wa y.

tion closer to the heart of the university’seducational mission, said Assistant ProfessorLaRoi Law t o n , director of the Gerald S.Lieblich Learning Resources Center atBronx Community College.

“A lot of us are very, very proactivewhen it comes to teaching,” said Law t o n ,who is also president of LAC U N Y, T h eL i b rary Association of the City Universityof New Yo r k .

“ We ’re always in the classroom.”At Baruch, t o o, there is a sharp focus on

“tying the library into the curriculum,” s a i dArthur Downing, Chief Librarian and Vi c ePresident for Information Te c h n o l o g y. “ Wespend a lot of time strategizing how toinsinuate ourselves into people’s courses,”

The Internet has had animpact on virtuallyevery person in

American higher education.But even in that vast expanse,the librarian stands out as onewhose work has undergone asea change.

C U N Y ’s campus libra r i e s— there are 20 of them now— were once considered tobe largely support systems forclassroom instruction. But inan age of high technology andinformation profusion — inwhich information literacy isa hallmark of a strong educa-tion — librarians have takenon a much more critical role.

“The fact that so muchinformation is out therem a k e s … l i b rarians even morei m p o r t a n t ,” said George Otte,C U N Y ’s Director ofInstructional Technology anda member of the doctoral fac-ulty at the Graduate Center.“How do you get [informa-tion] and authenticate it andknow that it’s good? You goto libra r i a n s. Who knows bet-ter? They have a huge role top l a y.”

About 12 million peopleenter CUNY libraries everyyear to make use of the uni-v e r s i t y ’s collections, w h i c hinclude more than 7.5 million books,30,000 periodicals, and thousands ofm i c r o fil m s, music scores, s l i d e s, tapes andv i d e o s. Millions more access the libra r i e so n l i n e, searching data bases andreading books, m o n o g raphs and journalsthat have been put into digital formats.

Students have access to and borrowingprivileges at all CUNY libra r i e s ; a l u m n ih ave privileges at colleges they attended.

The libraries are still evolving places,and digitization projects — in which docu-ments “ m i g ra t e ” into digital files — hav ebeen launched at many campuses.

At John Jay College, for example, t h e“Crime in New Yo r k , 1 8 0 0 - 1 9 5 0 ” p r o j e c tincludes the digitizing of all the tra n s c r i p t sfrom the trials of the Court of Genera lSessions from1883 to 1927. “ M u r d e r,g rand larceny, assault—every type of crimein New York is covered,” said LarryS u l l i va n , chief librarian at John Ja y, n o t i n gthe project included the colorful 1904 trialof the notorious gangster, Monk Eastman,one of the characters in the movie “ G a n g sof New Yo r k .”

The goal is to make such information“ a c c e s s i b l e, with the intent of being search-able on the We b,” S u l l i van said.

The We b, i n d e e d , has become an abid-ing feature of the modern libra r y, s a i dAssistant Professor Lisa Finder, S e r i a l sL i b rarian at the Hunter College Libra r y.

At Hunter, the libra r y ’s home Web pagefeatures links to almost 200 data bases,dozens of electronic journals and electron-ic reserves (accessible from students’ homec o m p u t e r s, with passwords).

But if a college library is to offer adizzying array of resources, it must alsoensure that students and faculty aret rained to use them.

A n d , in fact, there has been in recentyears a major effort to bring library instruc-

Hunter Student at NPR

Mi chael Ehrie, an MA student inmusicology at Hunter, was an

intern this summer at National PublicRadio in Wa s h i n g t o n , D. C.

Selected out of more than 1,000a p p l i c a n t s, Ehrie worked for the classicalmusic program “ Performance To d a y,”where he listened to and logged the tim-ing of new concert acquisitions.

He was also a reporter for the inter-nal radio program “Intern Edition,” ashow produced, reported and edited bythe summer interns.

Lehman Student in Ja p a n

Three 2006L e h m a n

College gra d u a t e sand one currentstudent attended aglobal conferencein Hiroshima,Ja p a n , this pasts u m m e r, to galva-nize support forimproving educa-t i o n , h e a l t h , and social equity as a pre-lude to peace.

The conference was titled “Building aJust and Sustainable Pe a c e.”

Jeniffer Herrera, now a junior, a n dg raduates Alice Michelle Au g u s t i n e,Frank Critton and Monique McPhersonwere chosen based on their outstandingacademic achievements and keen inter-est in the conference’s goal of building aculture of peace.

The conference’s keynote speakersincluded Nobel Peace Laureates ShirinEbadi of Iran and Jody Williams of theUnited States.

Studying Latin in Italy

Kristen DeJo s e p h, a senior in theCUNY Baccalaureate Progra m , t h e

University's individualized bachelor'sdegree progra m , spent two months inR o m e, I t a l y, studying Latin with one ofthe preeminent instructors in the world.

D e Joseph studied with Fr. R e g i n a l dFoster of the Latin Letters Departmentof the Vatican Secretariat of State.While in the CUNY BA progra m ,D e Jo s e p h ’s “home college’ is BrooklynC o l l e g e, where she is studying “ C l a s s i c a lLanguages and Linguistics” under thementorship of Professor Craig Wi l l i a m s.

Fire Chief is A l u m

John Jay and New York City Collegeof Technology alumnus S a l v a t o r e

C a s s a n o was recently sworn in as theFire Department of New York's Chiefof Department.

C a s s a n o, who has the highest-ra n k i n guniformed position in the agency, w i l loversee the department’s three majoruniformed bureaus: o p e ra t i o n s, t ra i n i n gand fire prevention.

Cassano received an associate degreein fire protectiontechnology fromCity Tech in 1970and later went onto earn this bache-lor of sciencedegree in fire sci-ence from John Ja yCollege ofCriminal Ju s t i c e.

Jeniffer Herrera

Salvatore Cassano

Students use computers and search for books at Baruch CollegeL i b r a r y, which has been transformed by the information explosionof recent years.

STUDENTHONORS Role of Librarian Undergoes Great Changes

The College Library as a MusicL o v e r ’s Realm

When he graduated from Brown University in 1980, C u r t i sL . Kendrick decided to pursue the dream of many post-college 20-somethings: playing in a rock ’n’ roll band.

Kendrick spent his nights playing keyboards for a band called “ L a s tVisible Dog” — the name inspired by a passage in the well-knownc h i l d r e n ’s book, The Mouse and His Child, by Russell Hoban.

Of course, Kendrick had a day job, t o o, as an assistant in the Brown Libra r y.So when the band broke up, the Long Island native headed off to Simmons

G raduate School of Library and Information Science in Boston.He then launched a peripatetic career at a string of prominent academic libra r i e s :

Oberlin College, followed by State University at Stony Brook (then back to gra d u a t eschool for an MBA at Emory), then Harvard and then Columbia.

In the fall of 2004, Kendrick was appointed University Librarian at CUNY, a newposition created within the Office of Academic Affairs “to reflect the close relationshipbetween the libraries and the University’s core mission,” Kendrick said.

The role of librarians has become increasingly complex, he said. “They act as go-b e t w e e n s, and in an era of specialization, the need for go-betweens has become morep r o n o u n c e d .”

Kendrick said that one of the most compelling challenges at CUNY is making dis-p a rate parts work together as a whole.

Using a metaphor from his music days, he added, “In the end, you realize that thegroup only sounds as good as the whole group together.”

Students said they learned a fact of publiclife that has perhaps eluded many youngp e o p l e : that there are plenty of job opportu-nities at the Pe n t a g o n , w h i c h , after all, is runby civilians.

“It was mind-opening,” said ChristinaC u r e l l a , an Honors College student interest-ed in a public service career. Curella said shewas especially impressed with the dedicationof the public servants she met.

“I feel people who work there are dedi-cated to the American people. That qualitystood out,” Curella said.

Pesile said she would like to create oppor-tunities for Honors College students to win

White HouseFe l l o w s h i p s, t h eprestigious pro-g ram in whichFellows work aspaid assistants totop governmento f ficials inWa s h i n g t o n .

A s s i s t a n tS ecretary Grecostarted his careeras a W h i t eHouse Fe l l o w.Former Secretaryof State and

‘Gearing Up’ to Get Low-Income Students into College

CUNY GEAR-UP has one of the mostimportant jobs in town.

It starts working with youngsters inmiddle schools, and then stays with thosestudents through high school, giving thema rigorous academic program that includescollege courses.

More than 2,000 students, m o s t l yAfrican-Americans and Latinos, h ave gonethrough the program over the past severa ly e a r s.

Recently the University received an$800,000 grant from the U. S. D e p a r t m e n tof Education to help GEAR-UP continue itsmission of helping low-income public schoolstudents enter and succeed in college.

It is anticipated that the grant — whichwill fund GEAR-UP’s Middle Gra d e sInitiative (MGI) — will continue for sixy e a r s, at $800,000 annually, for a total of$4.8 million.

Donna Linderman, the Project Director,said that CUNY GEAR-UP has developed“a comprehensive strategy for success.” I thas successfully worked with 2,300 mostlyminority students from 2000 to 2005, s h es a i d .

The Middle Grades Initiative has strongrelationships with 13 New York City pub-lic schools and features math, reading andwriting progra m s, along with outreach toparents and early counseling about college.

Study of Hebrew Making aRevival at Lehman College

After a decade-long absence, the study ofHebrew is making a comeback at

Lehman College, thanks to Professor Z e l d aKahan Newman, an expert in Hebraic andJudaic Studies, and a growing group of inter-ested students.

With the success last year of its fir s tHebrew course in ten years, the College’sDepartment of Languages and Literature isoffering two additional courses this fallthat will provide more advanced languageinstruction as well as study of the modernHebrew novel.

In the first-year course, Hebrew 101,students learn to read, write and speakmodern Israeli Hebrew. Students also learnto understand various levels of Hebrew,from formal language to slang. S e c o n d - y e a rstudents will have the opportunity to fur-ther explore the language.

Idit Pilch, formerly the language editorfor the Israel Academy of Science andHumanities Publishing House, will teachthe first-year course. P i l c h , who receivedthe Grinspoon award for excellence int e a c h i n g , also teaches at Queens College.

Professor Newman will teach the second-year course, a n d , as with Hebrew 101, s h eplans to incorporate song into the curricu-l u m . “In both courses, we learnsongs as we learn gra m m a t i c a lc o n c e p t s,” she explained.

In addition, Newman willteach “Hebrew 327: T h eModern Hebrew Novel.” T h i st h i r d - y e a r-level course willfocus on the novels of ChaimS a b a t o, who won the SapirPrize in literature for his novelabout the Yom Kippur War asseen through the eyes of ayoung soldier.

Classes for Hebrew 201 and327 will meet online, as well ason the Lehman campus.

Hall of Fame Offers InsightsAbout the N e w New Yo r k

The Hall of Fame for Great A m e r i c a n s, which honors prominent people who areconsidered great symbols of American culture, is located on the BronxCommunity College campus.

In Ju n e, this classical landmark, designed by Stanford W h i t e, was host to a two-week seminar for Lehman, Hostos and BCC College professors, who met to developinsights into how the old figures in the Hall of Fame could be made relevant to ad e m o g raphically changed Bronx.

Thanks to a $75,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to BCC’s Centerfor Teaching Excellence, the professors explored how the historical figures Walt W h i t m a n ,Nathaniel Haw t h o r n e, Edgar Allen Po e, George Wa s h i n g t o n , John Adams and BenjaminFranklin can be connected to Americans coming from countries and cultures differentfrom that of early U. S. A .

The bronze busts of these Great A m e r i c a n s, along with 92 others, make up thelandmarked Hall of Fame for Great A m e r i c a n s. It is a 630-foot, open-air colonnadethat connects four buildings, including the Gould Memorial Libra r y.

“Through course assignments and projects or just by walking through the vera n d a hof the Hall of Fame for Great Americans colonnade, and contemplating the bronzebusts and their inscriptions, sons and daughters of new immigrants and those of work-ing-class parents have the opportunity to contemplate the role they wish to play in thef u t u r e,” stated Dr. Harriet Shenkman, project director and Director of the Center forTeaching Excellence.

(The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is open free to the public daily. For morei n f o r m a t i o n , please call (718) 289- 5161.)

Honors College students pose at the Pentagon during visit with Assistant Secretary ofthe Navy Richard Greco, Jr.

CUNY MATTERS — September 2006 5

At the Stanford White-designed Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx CommunityC o l l e g e, Political Science Professor James Freeman (left) asks Architect Lisa Easton questionsabout the Hall.

Athletic Programs Using Webfor Continual Updates

CUNY athletic programs increasinglyare using the Web to provide exten-

sive information about their teams tosports loving students and faculty, as wellas to outsiders.

The enhanced use of the Internet isbeing done in conjunction with InternetConsulting Services (ICS), a 10-year- o l dcompany that has been servicing a growingnumber of athletic websites.

“ Websites with college athletics hav ejust exploded in the last decade,” s a i dD avid Gansell, assistant director of theCUNY Athletic Conference.

At CUNY, “ We are catching on to theimportance of having a really professionalw e b s i t e,” Gansell added.

The College of Staten Island recentlyannounced it was the latest CUNY collegeto come on board with ICS, using it topublicize its 12 varsity teams. “The newsite (at w w w. c s i d o l p h i n s. c o m) offers a totalmultimedia experience for fans of CSI ath-l e t i c s,” the college announced.

“ We got the ball rolling,” with regard tousing ICS, said Gansell. Baruch Collegesoon joined the team, Gansell said, f o l l o w e dlately by the College of Staten Island.

Among the features are: players of thew e e k , updated scores and statistics, n e w sstories and photos of players.

“They make it easy to update your web-s i t e,” Gansell said of ICS.

As Gansell spoke, the CUNY A t h l e t i cConference website (cunyathletics. c o m )was featuring photos of soccer players whohad just returned from their summerGoodwill visit to South A f r i c a .

College of Staten Island administra t o r sare happy with their new site. “Our part-nership with ICS means that visitors toour site will now have a wealth of infor-mation at their fin g e r t i p s, complete with asleek design and user-friendly interface,”said Jason Fe i n , A c t i n gDirector of A t h l e t i c sat the college.

NOTED&QUOTED

Trustee Kathleen M. Pesile took 18CUNY Honors College students on a

trip to the Pentagon recently where theymet with Assistant Secretary of the Nav yRichard Greco, J r.

Greco is the comptroller of the Nav y, t h eperson responsible for its fin a n c e s, and Pe s i l ethought that it was important for students tomeet him and “broaden their horizons, t oshow that finances play a major role in edu-cation and the military, and to look at” t h efield of finance from “different perspectives.”

“ People think of the Pentagon as an indus-trial complex, but if you don’t have money,nothing gets done,” said Pe s i l e.

Website photo of CUNY soccer players infront of Nelson Mandela statue in SouthAfrica this summer.

CCNY alumnus Colin Powell was also aWhite House Fe l l o w.

“The opportunities are astounding,”Pesile said.

During their Pentagon visit, students wenton an official tour and then sat down forlunch in Assistant Secretary Greco’s priva t edining room, with two admirals and twobudget directors.

Of such experiences, great dreams are born.

Honors College Students Visit Pe n t a g o n

academic achievement who goon to the most competitiveresearch programs and gra d u-ate and professional schools.”

He added, “The image ofFiona stops you because shehas an earnest face and people

s a y, ‘That could be me.’ ”Commuters have also been drawn to bus

stop ads featuring another charming pair ofback-to-back winners, recipients of thehighly prestigious Truman Scholarships.First was Claudio Simpkins, who recentlyg raduated from the Honors College at CityCollege and is now at Harvard Law School,and then Ryan Merola, an Honors College

at Brooklyn College senior majoring inpolitical science and philosophy.

Riding these waves of recruiting/market-ing successes, C U N Y ’s colleges across theboard have been stepping up their efforts.H i s t o r i c a l l y, C U N Y ’s recruitment progra m sh ave been modest when compared to thoseof private institutions, but that has beenc h a n g i n g.

“New York City is one of the most com-petitive higher education markets in then a t i o n ,” said Richard P. A l va r e z , U n i v e r s i t yDirector of Admission at CUNY for the pastf o u r-and-one-half years. “The Tri-State areahas one of the nation’s greatest concentra-tions of colleges and universities,” he added,

6 CUNY MATTERS — September 2006

what I would call theart of the possible at CUNY, where studentsof limited means, e c o n o m i c a l l y, can win topcompetitive awards and become great suc-cess stories, through hard work.”

At York College, aspokesman for PresidentMarcia V. Keizs said the mes-sage about CUNY students ofmodest means catapulting toheights of success has beene x t raordinarily effective. T h espokesman referred specific a l l yto a new “ B a c k 2 B a c kWi n s 4 C U N Y ” poster featuringthe late City College alumnusand Nobel Prize-winning scien-tist Jonas Salk, who is picturedside-by-side with York alumnaFiona Smith, an ’05 York gra dand CUNY Salk Scholar nowattending Penn StateUniversity School of Medicine;and Max H. S a e n z , an ’06 Yo r kg raduate and honorary SalkScholar now attending theUniversity of Virginia Schoolof Medicine.

The spokesman said, “ W h e nyou pair Fiona with Jonas Salk,it says right away that York isan institution that producesstudents at the high end of

In a New and Competitive Environment, Colleges

On a fine daylast spring,C h a r l e sD e C i c c o,C i t yC o l l e g eClass of ’67,

was in the Bronx doing what heloves — sitting at Yankee Stadium,preparing to cheer his Yanks —when suddenly his attention wa sd rawn to the huge centerfie l ds c r e e n .

D e C i c c o, who has spent hisprofessional life telling the outsideworld about the virtues and tri-umphs of the University, s awsomething that left him unchara c-teristically drop-jaw e d .

There on the screen wa sChancellor Matthew Goldstein,who began to announce thatC U N Y ’s own “Superstar Te a m ”had staked out positions on theacademic field of dreams.G o l d s t e i n ’s remarks were accom-panied by a huge image of ninestudents from across the Universitywho had won prestigious awa r d sand honors, including David Bauer,2005 winner of the Intel Sciencec o m p e t i t i o n . B a u e rchose to attendCUNY HonorsCollege at CityC o l l e g e, though hecould have attendedvirtually any priva t ecollege in the country.

In DeCicco’s recol-lection of that superstard a y, which he recalledin a touching fir s t - p e r-son account published inCity College’s alumnim a g a z i n e, Goldstein toldthe sellout crowd of5 5 , 0 0 0 :

“[A]s more and more New Yorkers ared i s c o v e r i n g , t o d a y ’s superstar high schoolstudents are choosing to study with thechampions at the City University of NewYo r k .”

With the fast-spreading awa r e n e s s, l o c a l-ly and around the globe, of the importanceof higher education, universities have beenenergetically striving to inform target audi-ences of the good being done within theirhallowed halls. Marketing has become atool not only of growth but of survival forcolleges and universities big and small.

The video produced by CUNY-TV andshown at Yankee Stadium was a marketer’sd r e a m . But throughout the city and, i nf a c t , throughout the region — on city sub-way cars, at city bus stops, at Long IslandRailroad stations and elsewhere — thereare countless colorful posters beaming sim-ilar messages of success about CUNY tomen and women pondering their futuresin an ever-changing and global economy,where a college degree has become all bute s s e n t i a l .

“This is a sea change,” said Ja yH e r s h e n s o n , Vice Chancellor for UniversityRelations and Secretary of the Board ofTr u s t e e s, speaking of the long reach ofC U N Y ’s message machine.

“We now have a presence showcasing

The image of CUNY as Commuter U. is being altered somewhat by the new City College dor-mitory complex accommodating 600 students and faculty members — The Towers at T h e

City College of New Yo r k , which opened this semester. Some of the residents are from out-of-s t a t e, although there are many students in the New York metropolitan area who want to avoid longcommutes and who, i nthe words of City CollegePresident Gregory H.Wi l l i a m s, desire “ r e s i d e n-tial college experience.”Pictured here in dormapartment are (left toright) David Wi l c o xand CharlesC l o u d .

New Dorm Opens Doors at CCNY

P i c t u red here ,

left to right, are

Maxine Barg r a s s e r

Siegel, Special

Events Coordinator for the Welcome Center at

Hunter College, with Student

Ambassadors Olga

Generalova, Dilini

K a s t u r i a r a c h c h i ,

Acyuta Cuffee, and

Clair Blake.

An ad showcasingthe successes ofYork College gradsFiona Smith andMax Saenz

S T U D E N TA M B A S S A D O R S

“so we’ve got to be competitive, i n n o va t i v eand proactive in getting our message out.”

With CUNY’s reputation and profile ind ramatic ascendancy, he continued, “ T h e r ehas never been a better time to expand ourefforts to inform students, p a r e n t s, c o l l e g eadvisors and the general public about thedepth and breadth of our progra m s, a n dour affordability.”

While the University’s enrollment is up,A l varez said, “the number of New Yo r kState high school graduates is projected todecline beginning in 2013, and so we mustbe prepared to compete for a shrinkingpool of students.”

T h a t ’s one reason that CUNY is expand-ing its outreach horizons beyond the city,and into the Tri-State area, he informed.

The Campus is the PlaceA l varez said CUNY must take a page

from the privates and get more students tovisit the campuses, “because it’s where thesale is made.”

And that’s exactly what Hunter Collegeis doing through its highly regarded StudentAmbassadors Progra m . Beginning with justthree students in 2001, the program hasgrown to 45 students, including six leaderswho also help train new members.

“In the past, we had difficulty accommo-dating large groups of campus visitors,” n o t-ed Maxine Bargrasser Siegel, the SpecialEvents Coordinator at Hunter’s We l c o m eCenter who developed and heads the pro-g ra m . “Now we are able to conduct a largenumber of tours year- r o u n d .”

In addition to conducting campus toursfor prospective students and their parents,the Student Ambassadors regularly speak atc o l l e g e, community and alumni functions.B a r g rasser Siegel described them as “ b r i g h t ,highly motivated and eager to share theirpositive experiences about Hunter witho t h e r s. They fully reflect Hunter’s diversity,and we couldn’t have better good-willambassadors for the College and CUNY.”

City College’s new Director ofA d m i s s i o n s, Joe Fa n t o z z i , promised that2006-2007 will be an exciting year forC i t y ’s recruitment team. “ With new aca-demic progra m s, a brand new residencehall housing 600 students opening inS e p t e m b e r, and heightened awareness ofthe new Harlem renaissance, t h e r e ’s muchfor us to talk about.”

M e a n w h i l e, Baruch College offersExecutive MPA Open Houses whereprospective applicants sit in on a currentc l a s s, h ave lunch with students, and areable to discuss the day and ask questions.The College also invites newly admittedExecutive MPA students, and those stillinvolved in the application process, to aninformal session at which they can meetand ask questions of current students.

“ We ’ve found these events to be veryeffective in encouraging prospects to applyand in helping to form a close connectionamong new students and current students,”said Michael J. L o va g l i o, Director of Baruch’sG raduate Admissions and Student Services.

For its part, Queens College hosts a va r i-ety of workshops, b r e a k f a s t s, open housesand campus visits with musical entertain-ment for high school guidance counselors,parents of potential students and commu-nity residents.

Queens is also reaching out to new mar-k e t s, including an ambitious program to

a t t ract potential students from Long Island,particularly Nassau County. Like Hunter,Queens College has highly motiva t e dStudent A m b a s s a d o r s, who conduct weeklycampus tours and promote the college atrecruitment fairs.

K i n g s b o r o u g h ’s President Regina S.Pe r u g g i , a former President of MarymountManhattan College, has stressed the impor-tance of utilizing some of the recruitmenttechniques of private colleges. So the College

initiated “Kingsborough For a Day,” w h e r eprospective students and their families expe-rience what it’s like to be a Kingsboroughs t u d e n t . They attend a mock class, tour thec a m p u s, attend athletic events, take a KCCboat tour, meet with student clubs and stu-dent government, and attend a financial aidand admissions workshop.

City Tech has a diverse menu of recruit-ment techniques, according to MarcelaKatz A r m o z a , Vice President of Enrollment

and Student A f f a i r s. “ We have developed asharp focus on sub-populations, such asv e t e ra n s, and are advertising in multi-cul-t u ral publications,” she said.

Of course, during the upcoming CUNYM o n t h , through November, all of the col-leges will be publicizing themselves in wa y screative and even lyrical. Some of theevents are included on the calendar onpage 12. O t h e r w i s e, visit cuny.edu andclick the “ e v e n t s ” l i n k .

CUNY MATTERS — September 2006 7

s Must Market Themselves to Prospective Students

be easy. Though a Te x a n , she was actuallyborn in Lima, Pe r u , and felt at home in thec i t y ’s ethnic mix. She came here at first tow o r k .

“I had just started working at a jewelrystore (in New York City) when an NYUprofessor in mathematics came into thes t o r e,” said the aspiring accountant. “ Westarted talking and he told me aboutB a r u c h . He said ‘NYU could give you thep r e p a ration courses; but Baruch will pre-pare you for the companies and the world.You will be well-rounded.’ ”

And indeed she is. A member of A L P F A(Association of Latino Professionals inFinance and A c c o u n t i n g ) , Z e g a r ra is alsocaptain of Baruch’s women’s cross-countryt e a m . She said, “My mom wanted me to goto a more big name school; but I loveC U N Y. I t ’s a wonderful experience, v e r ydiverse and you get the most bang for yourb u c k . I’m glad they accepted me. If theyhadn’t I’d be at NYU with a pile of debt.”

Leaving Kentucky for Harlem

Cicely Carter of Lexington, Ke n t u c k y,was so happy about her decision to

attend City College she wrote an articleabout it in her hometown paper, t h eLexington Herald-Leader, where sheworked this past summer as an intern.

“Most people who ask me about mycollege decision continue to question whyI want to go so far awa y,” Carter wrote inthe article published in the May 31, 2 0 0 6issue of the newspaper. “I proudly and con-fidently let them know that I'm ready for achange and that I'm ready for somethingnew…It has always been in my blood toblaze my own trail and do somethingd i f f e r e n t .”

Carter applied to the University ofSouth Carolina, Fo r d h a m , S t . Pe t e r ’sCollege (in New Je r s e y ) , CCNY andBrooklyn College. She had her pick, a n dher parents wanted her to attend theUniversity of South Carolina, which wa scloser to home.

“But I liked the location of CityC o l l e g e, and I liked Harlem,” said Carter.

Carter is an athlete who plans to tryout for City’s basketball team. She saysshe’ll rent a room from a family she foundthrough the classifieds (“for at least onesemester”) and plans to work at least 15hours per week to supplement loans thather parents plan to take out on her behalf.

Full-time out-of-state students taking12 to 16 credits at a CUNY senior collegepay between $4,320 and $5,760 for as e m e s t e r. After living in New York for ayear and establishing residence here, o u t -of-staters can become eligible for the low-er in-state tuition ra t e s.

The Office of InstitutionalResearch and Assessment sayst h a t , over the past six years,

CUNY colleges have drawn stu-dents from every state in the

n a t i o n .

Some admit they are wa n d e r e r s. M i c h e l eSutherland came from Arizona to attendB M C C. S u t h e r l a n d , 3 3 , spent much of thelast decade touring the United States as aguitarist in a rock band. But she recentlyg raduated with her associate’s degree and isoff again, now to attend Stanford University,where she plans to study philosophy.

S u t h e r l a n d , who was a liberal artsm a j o r, feels BMCC taught her about lifeand litera t u r e. Determined to again spreadher wings, she applied not only toS t a n f o r d , but to Ya l e, S m i t h , Brown andMount Holyoke, and was accepted at all.

She is pleased with her life, and says sheowes it all to a downtown Manhattan two-year college. “ I t ’s a community wherethings can and do happen,” she said.

As an affordable public Universitylocated in the most cosmopolitan

city in the world, CUNY has understand-ably drawn many thousands of foreign-born New Yorkers into its student rosters.

But in recent years the University hasalso been drawing students from others t a t e s, ambitious young men and womenfrom the West Coast, the Mid-West ande l s e w h e r e, who are attracted by reports ofC U N Y ’s achievements and New Yo r kC i t y ’s cultural vitality.

According to the most recent fig u r e s,slightly more than 5,000 students lastyear had out-of-state addresses and paidthe out-of-state tuition. M a n y, of course,hail from nearby New Jersey andC o n n e c t i c u t , but others come fromAlaska and A r i z o n a , Kentucky andK a n s a s, and points in between.

While out-of-state students pay morethan double what New York State resi-dents pay, their tuition is still half to athird of what other public institutionscharge their out-of-state students.

Alaskan Finds Gold in Bro o k l y n

Reyn Krebbs, a native of A l a s k a , w e n tto high school two blocks from the

University of A n c h o ra g e. But when col-lege time came, he decided to trav e l3,400 miles to attend Medgar EversCollege in Brooklyn. He liked the idea ofbeing in a place that was like a micro-cosm of the whole world.

“New Yo r k ’s a place where you’re stillin A m e r i c a ; but at the same time it hasthe rest of the world in it. I’m learning alot and not just in the classroom,” he said.

Krebbs realizes he stands out, and heseems to like that. “When my friends hearwhere Medgar Evers is they say, ‘Are youc razy? Yo u ’re a white kid!’” K r e b b srecalled with a laugh.

He is a music major, a drummer and amember of the college’s jazz ensemble,and he believes there’s no better place fora musician than New Yo r k . “ You can’t getyour name out when you live in a statethat is separated by another country,” h es a i d , referring to Canada.

A l r e a d y, h e ’s landed a paying gig(through one of his professors) and feelsh e ’s being exposed to musical tra d i t i o n sand skills that he couldn’t have foundanywhere else, certainly not in A l a s k a .

K r e b b s, who said he’s benefiting froma full scholarship through the college’smusic department, lives in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

Texan Chooses Baru c h

Mercedes Zegarra , of El Pa s o, Te x a s,found her transition to New York to

R E Y NK R E B Sleft his home state of

Alaska to study music at

Medgar Evers College.

From A(rizona) to W ( yoming) They Love New Yo r k

8 CUNY MATTERS — September 2006

President of Social Work A s s n .

Social work Professor Carl Mazza h a sbeen elected president of the New

York State Social Work EducationAssociation (NYS S W E A ) , an organiza-tion that provides a forum for educators,professionals and scholars to discussissues concerning social work education.

M a z z a , of Lehman College, p r e v i o u s-ly served as the NYS S W E A’s vice presi-d e n t . He is an expert in criminal andjuvenile justice,and teaches a16-week parent-ing class at SingSing prison. H i sresearch focuseson the emotionaland social needsof children andpartners ofi n c a r c e ra t e dp a r e n t s, as wellas the re-entryof formerly incarcerated people intos o c i e t y, with an emphasis on tra n s i t i o n-ing from prison to college.

Award for ‘EarPopper’

Professor Shlomo Silman of BrooklynCollege and his colleagues are recipi-

ents of a National Institutes of HealthA ward for their EarPo p p e r, which wa sdeveloped for non-surgical/non-pharmaceutical treatment of ear disease.

The so-called Tibbets A ward isgiven for medical developments that aretechnologically innovative and that willlikely have economic impact.

Silman is co-inventor of theE a r Po p p e r, a non-inva s i v e, n o n -pharmacological way of treating middleear flu i d , or Otitis Media with Effusion,which has often been treated with anti-biotics or surgery.

L i t e racy A ward at City Te c h

New York City College of Te c h n o l o -gy English for Speakers of Other

Languages (ESOL) instructor Ja yK l o k k e r was one of eight recipients ofthe Literacy Assistance Center’s 21stAnnual Literacy Recognition A ward at aceremony in Ju n e.

Klokker was honored for his abilityto conceive of new and varied ways tohelp his students learn by involvingthem in activities that connect with thelarger world.

As an example of his outside-the-boxa p p r o a c h , Klokker several years agodeveloped a class around the theme of“Equal Rights in South Africa and theUnited States,” enabling students to learnabout apartheid and its impact.

Plan to Reduce Fossil Fuels

In an article published in the journalS c i e n c e, Reuel Shinnar, D i s t i n g u i s h e d

Professor of Chemical Engineering at CityCollege and Director of the Clean FuelsI n s t i t u t e, and Francesco Citro, a ResearchAssociate with the Institute, present aroadmap for reducing U. S. dependence onfossil fuels by up to 98 percent.

The plan, “A Roadmap to U. S.D e c a r b o n i z a t i o n ,” would sharply curtailcarbon dioxide and methane emissionsand reduce global warming while simul-taneously reducing A m e r i c a ’s depen-dence on imported oil and gas.

Former CUNY Vice Chancellor Ira Fuchs, co-creator of BITNET.

FACULTYHONORS

people in universities all over the world,”wrote Mark Humphrys, author of T h eInternet in the 1980s. “It had worldwide e-m a i l ; it had real-time interactive chat…Thewhole thing [BITNET plus connected net-works] was an embryonic Internet.”

In the beginning, h o w e v e r, the primarygoal of Fuchs and Freeman was to focus onserving the needs of university communities.

“ We were tool makers,” Freeman said.“ We delivered very good tools to the facul-ty to make exciting things happen. B I T-NET was one of them.”

F u c h s, a Forest Hills native, came toCUNY in 1973 at age 24 to becomefounding director of the university’s com-puter center. “There wasn’t anyone in theworld that I knew who was more qualifie d ,who knew more, who had more energy, o rwas more intelligent,” recalled Ke n n e t hK i n g , the former dean of computing sys-tems at CUNY, in a published report sev-e ral years ago.

When Fuchs and Freeman startedB I T N E T, they split the costs

between Yale and CUNY. Ya l epaid for the leased lines fromNew Haven to Manhattan,probably about $200 am o n t h , Fuchs said. C U N Ypaid about $10,000 for the

two modems, w h i c hweighed about 70pounds each andwere the size of piz-za boxes, he said.

O r i g i n a l l y, B I T-NET stood for,“Because It’s T h e r eNetwork”— as in,“Why do peopleclimb Mt. E v e r e s t ?Because it’s there,”Freeman said. B u t

that appellation seemed “a little too fli p,”Fuchs said, so it became, “Because It’sTime Network.”

Whatever its name, once the mecha-nism for the network was set up, “it startedto spread epidemiologically,” Freeman said.It was inexpensive and effic i e n t , a “ p o i n t -t o - p o i n t ” network where e-mail messagesand files were transmitted from one server

to the next until reaching theird e s t i n a t i o n . Anyone who had anaccount on a mainframe couldsend instant messagesand fil e s.

“There was no charge,” Fr e e m a ne x p l a i n e d . “ You couldn’t charge anyone oncampus other than for timesharing. T h a twas very important.”

Fuchs first approached 34 universities inthe Northeast, asking whether they wereinterested in participating. Within a fewy e a r s, the network had spread toC a l i f o r n i a , then Canada, Europe andJa p a n . In 1986, Fuchs got permission fromthe U. S. Department of Commerce toallow Russia to connect to the network.

By 1988, more than 1,400 universities,s e v e ral research laboratories and govern-ment agencies in 32 countries had signedonto BITNET, according to John S.Q u a r t e ra n ’s 1990 book, The Matrix:Computer Networks and ConferencingSystems Wo r l d w i d e. Even IBM asked toconnect its VNET system to BITNET.

“ We both took the attitude, ‘ P r o s e l y t i z e,p r o s e l y t i z e, p r o s e l y t i z e,’ ” Freeman said.“Proselytize everywhere you went.” F u c h shad buttons made up: “Byte into BITNET.”

In 1987 BITNET merged with CSNET(Computer+Science Network), creating alarger network managed by the newC o r p o ration for Research and EducationalN e t w o r k i n g , or CREN. By then, Fuchs hadleft CUNY to become Princeton Univer-s i t y ’s computer czar, where he stayed for15 years before joining the MellonFo u n d a t i o n . Around the same time,Freeman left Yale for Gartner, a technolo-gy-related consulting company based inS t a m f o r d , C o n n . , where he held severa lsenior positions until leaving last year.

For several years, BITNET was thelargest academic network in the world forc o m p u t e r-based communications. It alsodeveloped the concept of the e-mail listservice (tools such as LISTSERV) bywhich a user could send e-mail to a broadg r o u p. But by the mid-1990s, it becameclear that the Internet was providing va r i-ous capabilities that BITNET offered, a n dthe network slowly faded awa y.

S t i l l , Fuchs notes, the network that heand Freeman launched “because it’s time”has secured its place in our language, a swell as our technological history. “ I t ’s alittle-known fact,” he said. “BITNET is aword in the Oxford English Dictionary.”

You can look it up.

In the spring of 1981, I ra Fuchs andGreydon Freeman sat down at a confer-ence for computing professionals in St.

Louis and began hatching a bold new idea:a computer network that could connectfaculty at colleges and universities nation-wide — even worldwide.

“ We wanted to connect every scholar atevery university,” said Fuchs, who at thetime was Vice Chancellor for UniversitySystems at CUNY, responsible for technol-ogy at the university’s campuses.

Fr e e m a n , who was then director of com-puting at Yale University, said they had thes o f t ware they needed and the required IBMh a r d ware was already in-house (many univer-sities already were using IBM mainfra m e s ) .“ We thought, ‘All the pieces are there, w h ynot do it?’” Freeman recalled in a telephoneconversation from his home in Wo o d b r i d g e,C o n n . “ We decided to order it up.”

So the two administrators did just that,linking up the Yale computer center withC U N Y ’s computer center at 555 We s t57th Street. Six months after theirmeeting in St. L o u i s, Fuchs senthis first e-mail message toFreeman over a collabora t i v euniversity network they calledB I T N E T.

“It was probably, ‘ Wa t s o n ,come here, I need you!’”said Fuchs with a laugh,echoing the famous wordsof Alexander Graham Bellas he intoned the world’sfirst telephone message tohis assistant.

“I think I sent him a bot-tle of champagne, t o o,” s a i dF u c h s, now vice presidentfor research in informationtechnology at the A n d r e wW. Mellon Fo u n d a t i o n .

Fuchs’ message, delivered 25 years agothis month, highlights the important histori-cal role CUNY played in establishing aworldwide communications network forresearch and educational institutions — as

well as helping to lay theg r o u n d -work thateventually createdthe Internet.

“BITNET had

Professor Recalls Creating Forerunner to Internet

D r. Carl Mazza

For several years BITNET—co-developed by then CUNY

Vice Chancellor IraF u c hs— was the largestacademic network in theworld for computer-based

c o m m u n i c a t i o n s.

not least themutilation ofhis left hand inb a t t l e, his fiv eyears’ slav e r yas a Muslimprisoner inA l g i e r s, and hisd i s g race andp u n i s h m e n t , a sa minor offi-c i a l , for losingg o v e r n m e n tmoney in abank failure.

Part Two ofFi g h t i n gWi n d m i l l soffers ar e m a r k a b l etour — andcritical tourde force —revealing theknight of LaM a n c h a ’s pop-up appeara n c e sin masterpiecesof world lit-e ra t u r e.

Vo l t a i r e ’sC a n d i d e, f o re x a m p l e. The authors concede the obviousd i f f e r e n c e : C a n d i d e is “simply a short, b r i l-liant masterpiece, a sort of Fabergé egg,whereas Don Quixote is more like a hugecountry house, full of corridors, secret pas-s a g e s, spacious halls, and turrets.” But thesew o r k s, the authors counter, are “ t rav e l

b o o k s ” not only in the geo-g raphical but also the

philosophical sense:“both works announcethe triumph of a pra g-matic attitude, fin a l l yfree from idealization.”After all, t h e yproduced the near-synonyms quixotic andp a n g l o s s i a n .

Its rich vein of paro-dy and Cervantes’ will-ingness to enter hisown narra t i v e, t h eauthors suggest, t i eDon Quixote to thenovels of HenryFielding (both Jo s e p hA n d r e w s and To mJo n e s) and LaurenceS t e r n e ’s garrulous nar-rative slapstick inTristram Shandy.S t e r n e ’s inimitablyeccentric Uncle To b y(oddly referred to hereas Tobias) and his ser-vant Trim are plausiblylikened to the Don andS a n c h o. L i k e w i s e, i nthe next century, i nDickens’ Po s t h u m o u s

Papers of the Pickwick Club, “ M r. P i c k w i c k ,a new Don Quixote, found his Sancho, h i ss e r vant Sam We l l e r.”

C e r vantes’ strong vein of realism anddisenchantment with the politics and soci-ety of his day are the ties that bindQuixote to Stendhal’s The Red and theB l a c k.Then Flaubert’s Madame Bovary i sconvincingly cast as a female Quixote.

By Gary Sch m i d g a l l

It is today the most widely read litera r ymasterpiece in world litera t u r e, and yetthe 400th anniversary of its first publi-

cation in 2005 passed with little fanfare,except in its native land, S p a i n . For manyin the non-Spanish-speaking world, m e n-tion its title and one immediately beginshumming the tune of that Rocinante ofshow-stopping warhorse anthems, “ T h eImpossible Dream.”

Filled with celebratory energy apt to aq u a d r i c e n t e n n i a l , co-authors Fay Rogg,professor of Spanish at Borough ofManhattan Community College, a n dManuel Durán, Yale professor emeritus ofSpanish litera t u r e, h ave produced a book-length homage intended to remind oneand all of the enormous after- p r e s e n c e, i nlater centuries and in the literatures of oth-er nations, of Miguel de Cerva n t e sS a av e d ra ’s Don Quixote de la Mancha.Fighting Wi n d m i l l s : Encounters with DonQ u i x o t e ( Yale University Press), t h eauthors say, attempts to answer the ques-t i o n s, “Why do Don Quixote and SanchoPanza captivate us? How does the workp e n e t rate and play on the modern mind?”

Rogg notes that Harold Bloom, t h eauthor (among countless other books) ofThe Anxiety of Influ e n c e, played a role insparking the project to life, and one couldwell call Fighting Wi n d m i l l s a virtuosod e m o n s t ration of the pleasures of fin d i n gl i t e rary influ e n c e.

Before embarking on their search forDon Quixote’s literary DNA in master-pieces of the last four centuries, Rogg andDurán (Rogg’s mentor during her gra d u a t estudies at Yale) devote four chap-ters in Part One to anoverview of Cerva n t e s ’life and personality,his intellectual milieu,the creation of whatmany consider thefons et origo of alllater novels, a n dsome of the author’sd e fining stylistich a l l m a r k s.

Like his contem-p o rary Shakespeare(they both died in1 6 1 6 ) , C e r vantes lefthardly a clue abouthis “inner life.” T h e r eis “no correspon-d e n c e, no personald i a r y, and only a fewreferences to himselfin the prologues tohis works.” Also likeS h a k e s p e a r e, t h i svery well-read authornever darkened au n i v e r s i t y ’s door.C e r vantes’ “ o u t e r ”life is summarized bythe authors as“ i n t e n s e, a d v e n t u r-o u s, and va r i e d .”N o t a b l y, it involved much traveling aroundE u r o p e, though his request to head for theNew World was turned down. Among hishigh points were participation in the HolyL e a g u e ’s defeat of the Turks at Lepanto in1571 and the instant popularity of Part Oneof Don Quixote. It was a long time coming,t h o u g h : he was 58 at the time. As with hish e r o, disappointments were mostly his lot,

BOOKTALK

Turning toR u s s i a , the authorsnote that a friendof Nicolai Gogolwrote in her diarythat “Pushkin spentfour hours atG o g o l ’s place andg ave him the sub-ject for a novelw h i c h , like D o nQ u i x o t e, will bedivided into cantos.The hero will trav e lall over thep r o v i n c e s.” T h eresult was Gogol’s

comic epic,Dead Souls.Ties are alsomade to thenovels ofTu r g e n e vand a lec-ture of his,

“Hamlet and DonQ u i x o t e,”w h i c hargues thatm a n k i n dcan bed i v i d e d

among these two types. In War and Pe a c eTolstoy is credited with two Quixotes (theerstwhile world-changers Prince A n d r e yand Bezuhkov) and one Dulcinea (NatashaR o s t o va ) .

Turning to the New Wo r l d , Rogg andDurán mount a comparison of the Donwith Melville’s whaling captain-errant A h a b.They note that Melville’s copy of Q u i x o t e i sfilled with pertinent marginalia and cite crit-ic Harry Levin’s view that “No A m e r i c a na u t h o r...can be more fitly compared withC e r vantes than Herman Melville.”

Among “sightings of Cerva n t e s ” in the20th century are Fitzgera l d ’s The GreatG a t s b y: “ Just as Alonso Quijano requires anew name for his new personality, Ja m e sGatz will morph into Jay Gatsby.” K a f k a ’sshort story “The Truth About SanchoPa n z a ” is cited, as well as Graham Greene’s1982 novel Monsignor Quixote. The manym e t a - l i t e rary mindgames of Borges, t h eArgentine librarian and fabulist, are thor-oughly Cerva n t e s i a n . Check out his story,“Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote.”

Even Woody Allen makes a cameoa p p e a rance in Fighting Wi n d m i l l s, thanks tohis 1985 film The Purple Rose of Cairo.A l l e n ’s Mia Farrow character escapes thedreariness of the Depression in a movieh o u s e, just as the Don avoids the drearinessof La Mancha in his libra r y, and both char-acters are eventually thrust by their creatorsinto an exciting imagined parallel universe.

By the wa y, Man of La Mancha, w h i c hwas based not on the novel but on a priortelevision play, gets short shrift: “too manyl i b e r t i e s.”

My favorite far- flung pop culture tie-into Don Quixote is when Rogg and Duránobserve of the Don: “No matter how muchhe suffers and falls down, he always pickshimself up and continues his quest.” T h e ythen point to that cartoon character famedfor his impossible avicidal dream: “ t o d a y ’syoung readers may be reminded of anotherc o u rageous chara c t e r, also familiar withadversity and misadventure, Wile E.C o y o t e.”

Men in the Movies

In his book, Manly A r t s,D avid A . G e r s t n e r, A s s o -

c i a t e Professor of CinemaStudies at the College ofStaten Island, reveals the crucial role thatearly cinema played in consolidating anAmerican masculine ideal.

Gerstner describes how cinema cameto be considered the art form of the NewWo r l d , and shows how its experimentalqualities mixed with other art forms(such as European painting, l i t e ra t u r eand photography) to create a bra s h , n e wAmerican form.

Manly A r t s : Masculinity and Nation inEarly American Cinema was published byDuke University Press.

Reading New York City

The Place Where WeD w e l l spans many

d i s c i p l i n e s, including his-t o r y, l i t e rature and ethnics t u d i e s, as it offers fin eexamples of good writingabout New York City.

The book, by Ju a n i t aBut and Mark Noonan, with an introduc-tion by Brian Keener — all members ofthe English Department at City Tech —also crosses genera t i o n s.

For instance, The Place Where WeD w e l l : Reading and Writing about NewYork City contains “generous portions of[19th Century industrialist] A n d r e wC a r n e g i e ’s ode to accumulation,” s a y sL a u ra Hapke, who teaches at City Te c hand wrote a review of the book in theMarch 2006 issue of The Journal ofAmerican Culture.

Italian-American Roots

Buried Caesars takes a comprehensivelook at Italian-American writing as it

explores connections between Italian-American language and culture.

The author, Robert Vi s c u s i , a Professorof English at BrooklynC o l l e g e, argues that manyItalian immigrants consid-ered English to be a dialectof Italian, and theyattempted to create anAmerican English refle c-tive of their cultural roots.

Buried Caesars and Other Secrets ofItalian American W r i t i n g was publishedby the State University of New Yo r k .

Revolutionary Mothers

In Revolutionary Mothers, Carol Berkin,Professor of History at Baruch and T h e

G raduate Center, shows how womenplayed a vital role throughout theAmerican Revolution.

The women organizedboycotts of British goods,raised funds, and managedfamily businesses. T h e yalso fired weapons. B e r k i ntells about MargaretC o r b i n , who was crippledfor life when she took herh u s b a n d ’s place beside acannon at Fort Monmouth.

Revolutionary Mothers: Women in theS t r u ggle for A m e r i c a ’s Independence, p u b-lished by Alfred A . Knopf in paperbackearlier this year, illuminates a fascinatingand unknown side of the struggle forAmerican independence.

CUNY MATTERS — September 2006 9

Two Gents ofModern LiteratureMiguel de Cervantes and Wi l l i a m

Shakespeare are the “fonts andthe origins” of Spanish and English lit-e ra t u r e, the foundations upon whichcountless future authors constructedtheir own great works.

Thinkers have posited that the for-m e r ’s Quixote and the latter’s Hamletare polar opposites of humanexistence — the optimistic sally-forthspirit and the pessimistic self-doubteroverwhelmed by dark musings.

It is notable, even poignant, t h a tC e r vantes and Shakespeare were bornin the same year and died in the same year — within days of each other, i nfact — though they never met.

Encountering Quixote on His 400th A n n i v e r s a r y

Statue, in office of BrooklynCollege President ChristophM. Kimmich, wassculpted byalumnus MarcMellon.

(who has just graduated from high school).Rondinone published short stories, w r o t en o n fiction steadily for Omni magazine andworked on a novel. “He was very driven,”Jason remembered.

Some of his work got noticed, n o t a b l ythe script that he and Wisotsky wrote for“ Yo Yo Land,” a tale about love, the mob,rooftop golf and a gay golf course in theB r o n x . It was a finalist in both the 1996Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab andthe 1997 Herbert Beigel ScreenwritingA ward competition.

“ You should have seen him network,”Wisotsky said. “Every year we’d go to theIndependent Feature Film Market at theAngelika [theater in SoHo]. We ’d have awork in progress, a feature film or a screen-p l a y. That was a tough week.You realizedyou had good stuff, but didn’t know the rightp e o p l e. I miss that. After Peter passed away in2 0 0 2 , I never went back; i t ’s too hard.”

Rondinone earned a master’s in creativewriting from City College in 1987 and aP h . D. from New York University in 2002.He taught for two years at BronxCommunity College and, in 1986, j o i n e dthe English Department at LaGuardia, a tboth schools teaching the basic writingskills he’d learned at City College.

At LaGuardia, Rondinone focused onj o u r n a l i s m , mentoring students and, a g a i ntaking a chapter from his City Collegee x p e r i e n c e, working with the studentn e w s p a p e r, The Bridge.

“ Pe t e r ’s students absolutely loved him,and his colleagues had great respect forhim as a teacher and as faculty adviser tothe newspaper,” said Dr. S a n d ra SellersH a n s e n , L a G u a r d i a ’s English Departmentc h a i r. “His students really, really connectedwith him.”

One was an immigrant from Guyana.“ Peter was central in my way of looking atthe world and figuring out who I wa s,” s a i dBryan Vi ra s a m i , who took Rondinone’sJournalism 101 class, discovered a careerand now reports for Newsday. Their friend-ship continued after Vi rasami gra d u a t e dfrom LaGuardia, went on to HunterCollege and later earned a master’s at

10 CUNY MATTERS — September 2006

maker Jeffrey Wi s o t s k y,who is now an associateprofessor at BronxCommunity College andcoordinates its mediatechnology progra m .

Plunging into a writ-ing partnership thatwould last 26 years,they expanded the op-ed article into a$ 1 0 , 0 0 0 , 2 0 - m i n u t efil m , “The Subwa yFa n t a s y.” Two bitingscenes fromR o n d i n o n e ’s life stando u t : The father dispar-ages the protagonist’squest for educationwhile insisting that hetake out the garbage.And a film producer (inthe op-ed and reality, aTV reporter) calls theopen admission studentsat the campus W r i t i n gCenter “ a n i m a l s.”

In succeeding yearsRondinone and Wi s o t s k yproduced two otherfil m s, “Housing Project,U S A” and “A Block inthe Bronx.” In these andin other scripts theyoung writers drew ontheir Bronx experiences.

After graduating in1 9 7 7 , Rondinone wa sguest editing an issue of

City Magazine when he met KathrineJa s o n , then a Spanish translator and now aprofessor at Nassau Community College.They adjuncted at Hunter College, e v e n t u-ally married and had a daughter, M i c o l e

So despite his 65 av e rage and general —not academic — diploma from DeWi t tClinton High School, Rondinone choseCity College and enrolled in 1972, t a k i n gremedial classes in writing and math, a swell as college study skills.

“I couldn’t write a coherent sentence orconstruct a para g ra p h ,” he later recalled. S ohis Basic Writing I instructor, R e g i n aS a c k m a r y, made an offer: “ I ’d write anessay a day in addition to my regular class-w o r k . A l s o, I ’d do a few term papers. S h ehad this idea that learning to write wa slike learning to play a musical instrument— it takes pra c t i c e, everyday pra c t i c e.”

P ractice he did, including writing forThe Campus newspaper and, l a t e r, T h eObservation Po s t, both student-run news-p a p e r s. When he finished his first newspa-per story, the editor-in-chief said, “ ‘ T h i sisn’t even English.’ Yet they turned it overto a rewrite man and the story appearedwith my byline. Seeing my name in printwas like seeing it in lights.”

In November 1976, when the Universityraised the minimum standard of a highschool av e rage of 80 for admission to thesenior colleges, Rondinone vividly sketchedhis life story in a New York Times op-eda r t i c l e : “I am one of those few individualswho was given a chance during a uniqueperiod in the history of American educa-tion to get a college education, and I did.”

Soon after the op-ed appeared,Rondinone met classmate and aspiring fil m-

By Neill S. R o s e n f e l d

Peter J. R o n d i n o n e, ateenager forged by thep r o j e c t s, toughened by a

street gang, hardened by anabusive father, was on the fastt rack to self-destruction circa1 9 7 0 .

“The fact is, I didn’t learnmuch in high school,” h ew r o t e. “I spent my time on thefront steps of the buildingsmoking grass with the dudesfrom the dean’s squad. Fo rkicks we’d grab a freshman,tell him we were undercoverc o p s, handcuff him to a banis-ter and take his money. T h e nw e ’d go to the back of theb u i l d i n g , cop some ‘ d o w n s,’and nod away the day behindthe steps in the lobby.”

In this drug-induced haze,Rondinone might have pre-dicted that his life would hav ee n d e d , as it later did, in alco-h o l , despair and suicide. H ecould not see a second path-wa y, one that would lead himto become an author of fic-t i o n , a writer of screenplays,with advance degrees fromCity College and New Yo r kU n i v e r s i t y, a beloved professorof English at LaGuardiaCommunity College, and amentor to a new generation ofrough-and-tumble studentslike him in need of structure,self-discipline and basic aca-demic skills.

To survive his youth,Rondinone had recast himselfinto a thug. Gone was the sen-sitive first violinist in his junior high schoolo r c h e s t ra , the chess champion and thev o racious reader. At times on welfare, h i swas one of last white families remaining asthe South Bronx imploded in violence, fir eand decay. For years, his father, a nalcoholic Italian immigra n t , was too sick tow o r k . His mother, a Russian Jew who hadsurvived a Nazi work camp during Wo r l dWar II, barely spoke English.

One night, smashed on pills and beer,he passed out in a gutter and was carriedhome by friends. His brother, f u r i o u s,shoved him down a flight of stairs. “ M yskull hit the edge of a marble step. . . T h e r eI wa s : a high school gra d u a t e, a failure,curled in a ball in a pool of blood…. Iknew I had to do something… Pills andviolence didn’t promise much of a future.I went back to a high school counselor fora d v i c e. He suggested I go to college.”

It was an era of turmoil and social fer-m e n t , fueled by Vi e t n a m , civil rights andblack power, roiled by the murder ofMartin Luther King Jr. , i n flamed by thec i t y ’s racial convulsion over K-12 educationin 1968. In 1969, 200 students had takenover City College, demanding that moreblack and Hispanic students be admitted towhat then was a mostly white school.

Moved by this tide, the University openedthe senior colleges to virtually all city highschool gra d u a t e s, expanding the unrestrictedadmissions policy that had long been theprovince of five community colleges.

Born and schooled in Tr i n i d a d , R o b b ySoman spent several years in televi-sion production in the Virgin Islands,

enjoying the dynamic, e v e r- c h a n g i n grhythm of work. Yet he realized that hecould advance his career with a collegedegree — and New York City, hub of themedia world, was the place to earn one.

A CUNY brochure led him to themedia technology program at BronxCommunity College. In 2004 he enrolledin Professor Jeffrey Wi s o t s k y ’s BeginningFilm and Video Production class, w h i c hintroduces students to the technical side ofp r o d u c t i o n , from camera work to lightingto sound. With classmates as his crew, h edirected a five-minute film that was shot inM a r c h , edited in April and finished in May.

At BCC’s annual Film and Vi d e oFe s t i val that year, it won a Peter J.Rondinone Memorial A wa r d , w h i c hWisotsky created after the death of hisclassmate and screenwriting partner, a CityCollege alumnus and LaGuardiaCommunity College professor who previ-ously had taught at BCC.

“ Peter inspired students to pursue theirc a r e e r s. This award honors his legacy,” h es a y s.

In a wa y, the award also pays tribute tothe University’s historic mission of accessand two of the generations of studentswho benefit e d . Rondinone wrote exten-sively of how his remedial courseworkhelped him climb from the tough streetenvironment of his youth and obtain hisdegree at City College.

S i m i l a r l y, Soman arrived to theUniversity Heights campus in the Bronx inneed of basic academic skills. “After beingout of school for four or five years, I wa sr u s t y,” Soman says. “After taking the place-ment exam I was very surprised, but I’mg rateful that I took remedials in math andE n g l i s h , because it sharpened my skills andhelped me build my foundation” and tra n s-fer to Brooklyn College to pursue his bac-calaureate degree.

To d a y, tens of thousands of studentswho otherwise might not have had a shotat college degrees are earning them atC U N Y ’s six community colleges, and at

P r o f. Peter J. R o n d i n o n eof LaGuardiaCommunity College:“These people are part ofmy family. . .”

A Memorial A ward that Bridges Two

Up From the Streets: The Life and Times of A Beloved Professor

s a y s. “It took mea week to get thebuilding [for theshoot] and peo-ple to work with.Before I wa n t e dto be a camera p-erson or do light-i n g , but now I’dlike to become adirector of musicv i d e o s.”

Her parents,i m m i g rants fromG u a t e m a l a ,attended the fes-t i va l . “I wa n t e dtheir opinionmost of all,” s h es a y s. “ T h e yunderstood whatI was trying tos a y, and theyreally liked it.”

Like Rondinone, Arreaga , 2 0 , hopes toattend City College after securing her asso-c i a t e ’s degree. M e a n w h i l e, s h e ’s sketchingout a Romeo and Juliet kind of story about

Columbia Journalism School.Rondinone had a way with students

from the inner-city streets he knew sow e l l . “ Peter was very good at seducing verytough kids and talking their language,”Jason said. “He could get them to believein their own experi-e n c e, in their ownv o i c e s, and he couldspeak theirl a n g u a g e.”

Rondinone alsolearned from hiss t u d e n t s. “ H e ’d askthem what thestreet talk was ande n c o u rage that talkin his classroom.From his studentsh e ’d get a connec-tion to that worldhe knew,” she said.

He channeledtheir 1990s streetl i n g o, gangsta ra pand a hip-hop beatinto his history andi m a g i n a t i o n , p r o-ducing an edgy vol-ume of short storiescalled The DigitalH o o d( P i c a d o r, 1 9 9 8 ) . I nbleak scenes, his mostly black and Latinoprotagonists speak in code, the languagev i g o r o u s, slangy and misogynistic, the toneoften bitterly humorous.

In the title story set during the cra c kepidemic — a rant that echoes his ownchildhood — a black South Bronx com-puter geek urges the Glock-fir i n g , d r u g -dealing gangbangers who knock off hisglasses to become cybergangstas like him:“All I need is one headlong rollercoasterride on a program that makes me a moneylaundry — one cyber-cleaning megabuckon-line cash transfer to my own convolut-ed electronic credit slot in a Zurich bank,the Cyrillic alphanumerics reeling downmy monitor, the zeros multiplying untilmy final squirt transmission cuts behind

the core command to gobble up the bank’sglitch systems, the distress calls. Then I’mr i c h , you turkeys.”

Newspaper interviews followed publica-t i o n . The national rap magazine T h eSource said the book “exposes the heart of

the South Bronx neonwilderness withoutf e a r.” Barnes & Noblepicked The DigitalHood for its “ D i s c o v e rGreat New W r i t e r s ”s e r i e s, putting it instorefronts across thec o u n t r y. Rondinone andWisotsky pitched itsstories for film adapta-t i o n .

And then somethingwent wrong. In remarksread at Rondonine’smemorial service atLaGuardia in 2003,Jason said it could hav ebeen “what Te n n e s s e eWilliams once called‘The catastrophe ofs u c c e s s.’ Maybe thesuccess wasn’t as gra n das he’d imagined it; o rit came too late, w i t hhis father, his judge,now gone; maybe it

didn’t begin to assuage his ambitions ori n j u r i e s ; or maybe he didn’t feel deserving.”

Maybe Rondinone couldn’t escape hisp a s t . Even taking the subway to and fromL a G u a r d i a , his hand was always near an X-acto knife tucked between student papersin his briefcase.

In his doctoral dissertation, a memoirwhich he was submitting to publisherswhen he died, Rondinone wrote: “I wouldloathe socializing with those who hav e n ’ tbecome as educated as I hav e, or thosefrom my old community who reflect thevalues and ways that I’ve worked so hardto reject. But… [t]hese people are part ofmy family… And I don’t want to suggest…that even after my ‘ t ransformation’ (so tospeak) that I reject everything from my

Who Never Left the Neighborhoodformer social group… I do retain somevalues from my old community/familythat make me sometimes feel equally anoutsider to my new social group…”

Jason said: “Of course… I knew that hispast selves lived uncomfortably in the pre-sent… But Peter… was also a consummated i s s e m b l e r. To give voice to these confli c t swould have been to disclose his ownuncertainty about a divided self.” Where hegrew up, “If you’re uncertain, y o u ’re a tar-g e t , a pussy and a dupe.”

After The Digital Hood was acceptedfor publication, Rondinone began drinking.His marriage deteriora t e d . Yet Jason stoodby him as, in the summer of 2002, t h e ybegan an infuriating and ultimately futilesearch for help. A detox program rejectedhim because he had quit drinking a weekb e f o r e. He couldn’t get into a hospitalbecause of limited insura n c e. At an outpa-tient progra m , he encountered street kidsand crack addicts, along with professionals.M e t a p h o r i c a l l y, she said, “ H e ’d gone backto the Bronx.”

In October he tried to hang himselfwith his bathrobe belt. “It was almost witha sense of relief that I called 911 andreported a suicide attempt,” Jason said atthe memorial. Finally he could get into ah o s p i t a l , but his insurance ran out afterjust 13 days. “Never mind that only daysbefore Peter had told our friend Rebeccathat if he decided to hang himself again,he would succeed. Never mind that hewanted more interaction with the staff,more thera p y.”

H o m e, Rondinone refused to take anantipsychotic medicine because it madehim feel gra n d i o s e, as he had when he wa sd r i n k i n g. He attended only one out-patientv i s i t . Two weeks after his release, h ehanged himself.

Kathrine Jason ended her memorialremarks by quoting from his last story:“This is going to sound mad cra z y. But Ihad to arrest myself. Let me say that onemore time just in case you missed it: IHAD TO ARREST MYS E L F.”

CUNY MATTERS — September 2006 11

four comprehensive colleges that offerassociate degree progra m s. Admission isopen to any student who holds a highschool or GED diploma.

Now 29, Soman expects to gra d u a t efrom Brooklyn College next spring with adegree in radio and television. He intendsto continue his education, like Rondinonegoing on for a master’s degree with thelong-term goal of teaching.

The Rondinone A wa r d , kept vibra n twith the support of Communication A r t sand Sciences Department Chair DebraG o n s h e r, herself an award-winning televi-sion producer, is the centerpiece of BCC’sFilm and Video Fe s t i va l . Wi s o t s k y, w h olaunched the festival 13 years ago, h a sworked to make it an inspiring event. H ehas brought in sponsors like EastmanKo d a k , Avid Technology and ClearviewC i n e m a s, which hosted the festival lastJune in one of its theaters near LincolnC e n t e r.

The latest first-place winner wa sJennifer A r r e a g a . “I learned how much youh ave to work through to be a director,’ she

Daughter Micole and widow KathrineJason with Rondinone portrait.

Crossing the Borderwith Mexico, T h e nClimbing theLadder ofS u c c e s s

Pedro Rojas still remembers 1993 like itwas yes t e r d a y. T h a t ’s when he arrived

in the United States from his nativeE c u a d o r, hungry for educational oppor-tunity and the chance of a better life.

Like thousands of other Latino immi-g ra n t s, he had crossed the borderbetween Mexico and the United States.

Today Rojas is a story of glowinga c h i e v e m e n t , living proof that highereducation is the sure route to personaland professional success.

Rojas today holds associate’s andb a c h e l o r ’s degrees from City Tech and am a s t e r ’s degree in electrical engineeringfrom City College.

And this past June he started workingwith Science Systems and A p p l i c a t i o n s,I n c. ( S S A I ) , a firm under contract to theNational Aeronautics and SpaceA d m i n i s t ra t i o n ’s (NASA’s) GoddardSpace Flight Center Greenbelt,M a r y l a n d .

“A lot of people helped me along thewa y,” he said, r e flecting on his life over thepast 13 years, “from my parents who trust-ed me and my employers who gave meflexible work schedules so I could go toc o l l e g e, to my professors at City Tech andCity College, who always went the extramile to help me excel in my studies.”

After crossing the border in 1993 andarriving in New York City, Rojas found ajob as a busboy. He mastered the Englishlanguage within a year, but it becameincreasingly clear to him that highereducation would be the way to success.

The year 2001 brought him his fir s tcollege degree — an associate’s intelecommunications technology fromCity Te c h . He went on to earn a bache-l o r ’s degree summa cum laude in thesame field from the college in 2004, a n dhe completed his master’s in electricalengineering with a concentration in pho-tonics at City College this past spring.

The next step in Rojas’ plan is tocontinue studies towards a PhD degree,but that effort is being delayed briefly ashe begins his new job in Maryland.

Rojas squeezed enough from hisearnings over the years to help all sevenof his siblings back in Ecuador completetheir high school education, and helpput one sister through college. He isnow a naturalized U. S. c i t i z e n .

It goes without saying that his familyis very proud of him and of what he hasa c c o m p l i s h e d , “although what I amdoing in my research and related work isvery difficult for them to understand.”

Starting with associate’s degree, Pe d r oRojas climbed to the heights of success.

a young couple and overprotective parentswho try to separate them. “If I do become aHollywood director, I ’d like to make it areal fil m .”

Robby Soman

G e n e ra t i o n s

November is CUNYM o n t h , the time whenthe colleges open their

doors to students, alumni andthe general public, putting ondisplay an exciting variety ofevents and ideas.

Among the offerings:“Romeo and Ju l i e t ” can be seenat Queensborough CommunityCollege for the pittance priceof a dollar. The life and workof Enrico Caruso will beexplored at LaGuardiaCommunity College.

A l s o, conferences of greatintellectual value are beingh e l d . For instance, H o s t o sCommunity College andMedgar Evers College, i nconjunction with otherCUNY campuses, are spon-soring a conference span-ning several days on “ T h eAfrican Presence andI n fluence on the Culturesof the A m e r i c a s.”

E n j o y !( For more details, s e e

calendar or visitw w w. c u n y. e d u .)

CUNY Month at theC a m p u s e s : A Time toVi s i t , a Time to Enjoy

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