Brooklyn College Magazine, Fall 2009 - The City University of ...

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Fall 2009

Transcript of Brooklyn College Magazine, Fall 2009 - The City University of ...

Fall 2009

Last August, Brooklyn College set up

accounts on Facebook and Twitter. One week

later, more than 1,500 students became

Facebook fans, and a little over two hundred

began waiting for our next tweet on Twitter.

The fans keep coming and our tweets are

expanding as more of our community tunes

to these social networking sites for

important news and information about the

college, events, and stories about students

and professors.

You too can keep up-to-date on everything

BC by becoming a fan on Facebook and

following us on Twitter today! Just visit the

college website and clink on the links.

Editor-in-Chief

PatWillard

Associate EditorsStephen GaroneElaineWeisenberg

Contributing EditorJoe Fodor

WritersLisa LincolnErnesto MoraRichard SheridanJamilah Simmons

Class Notes EditorEileen E. Howlin

Brooklyn College Magazineis published by theOffice of CommunicationsBrooklyn College2900 Bedford AvenueBrooklyn, NewYork 11210-2889.Copyright © 2009 Brooklyn College.E-mail: [email protected]: www.brooklyn.cuny.edu

table ofContents

D E PA RT M E N T S

2 From Our Readers

4 Top of the Quad

18 College News

24 Faculty and Staff News

28 Alumni News

29 Foundation News

34 Alumni Newsmakers

37 Class Notes

44 Recent Books

46 In Memoriam

48 Endpaper

9 Madam PresidentThe Start of a New Era

12 Taking It to the StreetThe Power of Learning—andTeaching—in the Community

Vol. XXIII • No. 2 • Fall 2009

Art DirectorJoe Loguirato

Senior and MagazineDesignerLisa Panazzolo

Production AssistantMammen P. Thomas

Staff PhotographersClaudia MandlikJohn Ricasoli

Front cover: Justin Davis in the heart ofdowntown Brooklyn.

Back cover: President and dignitariescutting the ribbon for theWest Quad Center.

16 Internships BoostJob ChancesHow We’re Jump-StartingStudent and AlumniCareers in Tough Times

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from ourReaders

To the Editor :I would like to extend my

congratulations to you for putting outsuch an interesting and meaningful issue.I received it yesterday and I think it wasdone very professionally.

Perusing it, I had numerousrecollections.Your interview withdeparting President Kimmich wasexcellent. I met him twice: once at BCand once at a reunion of the BCgraduates of South Florida. He alwaysstruck me as a very intelligent andsensible person. From all I have read andheard, he did an excellent job aspresident. I hope his successor will be asgood.

Seeing the picture of Larry Goldmade me recall my friendship with hisfather, with whom I shared the honorand privilege of being on the BC varsitysoccer team for four years. I also recallhis mother, Arlene, fondly. But it was thepiece on Distinguished Professor ofHistory Hans Trefousse that held specialmeaning for me.

Ever the type A personality, I wasn’tcontent to begin college in September; Istarted the summer before.The firstteacher I had was Hans Trefousse. Hewas an excellent instructor—veryknowledgeable and knew how topresent the material to the students. Healso had a great sense of humor, whichhe sprinkled throughout his lectures andpresentations. I was very impressed withhim. I even recall seeing him wheel ababy carriage around outside of thecampus while wearing aWorldWar IIfield jacket.What a tremendous pleasureit was to be exposed to such a terrificfaculty member.

Dear Readers,

With a new president at the helm and a major new

building opening, Brooklyn College has experienced the

shock of the new this fall. In their individual ways,

President Karen L. Gould and the West Quad Center

are reshaping the college, steering it in directions that

are both startling and invigorating. President Gould,

who we profile on page 9, is a renowned scholar of

French-Canadian literature, with a stellar background

in administration at several public universities across

the country. Soon after she arrived in August, President

Gould began to refer to herself as the college’s

cheerleader and that is the perfect image for the

enthusiastic way she has thrown herself into the job.

One of President Gould’s first duties was presiding

over the opening of the West Quad Center—the first

new building to be added to the campus in almost forty

years. The 145,000-square-foot glass-fronted structure

dominates a new quadrangle west of Bedford Avenue,

and houses a one-stop student services center and state-

of-the-art physical education, athletic, and recreational

facilities. Take a peek inside the complex on page 18

and a slice of the ribbon cutting on the back cover.

We hope you will return to visit the campus and

explore the new building for yourself—maybe swim a

couple laps in the pool, work out in one of the fitness

rooms, or just enjoy the new quad. And please let us

hear from you. Your comments help us to create the

magazine and inspire us to make steadfast

improvements.

Pat Willard

Editor

In recent years, I have received anumber of honors. I was knighted by twocountries (Italy and Spain), and I was alsoselected for the Distinguished FacultyAward, the JosephYenni DistinguishedChair for the Development of ItalianStudies, and the Distinguished ResearchMaster title, among other achievements.None of this would have been possiblewithout the training and the inspiration Ireceived from my teachers, or withoutthe education I received at BrooklynCollege. Keep up the good work!

Joseph V. Ricapito, Ph.D., ’55,

To the Editor :In regard to my letter about the passingof Professor Dante Negro, which youkindly published in the spring 2009 issue,please be advised that one of youreditors misread my “apprised” as“appraised.” Please print a correction lestthe BC community think that one of itsformer Romance Language instructors isin need of remedial work in English.Thank you.

Paul Ash,‘46

To the Editor :As I scanned the spring 2009 issue of theBrooklyn College Magazine, I found amongthe names listed in the In Memoriamsection, two individuals that touched mepersonally: George S. Rotter, ’54 andGrace Reinhardt Goldberg, ’48.

I was in the National Guard whenthe KoreanWar began.Two months later,my unit was drafted into the army andsent to Korea shortly thereafter. Upon myreturn to the U.S. and my discharge fromthe army, I resumed my college education,and, among other things, joined theVeterans Club at Brooklyn College.

The president of the Veterans Clubwas George Rotter, whose passing I hadjust read about. It saddened me because,unbeknownst to him, he did somethingthat changed the course of my lifeforever.

We were chatting one day andGeorge said that he was going to theschool library to take out a book. Idecided to go with him. He took out abook and I took out the librarian.Twoyears later, the librarian and I weremarried and have been together eversince—for more than 50 years now.George was the catalyst for one of themost significant events of my life.

I also came across the name ofGrace Reinhardt Goldberg, ’48. She hadbeen a dear friend for more than 40years. May she and George rest in peace.

Paul H. Krupenie,’54

To the Editor :I was saddened to learn of the death ofJohn Hope Franklin.

I served as a student aide in theLaGuardia Hall Library reserve roomduring part of his tenure. I recall the carehe displayed toward the books he put onreserve. He wanted to ensure that theywere readily available for his students.

I also remember how fond hisstudents were of him. Their commentsextolled his many teaching virtues. Itseems that he was not only a greatscholar, but a wonderful human being aswell.

I was not fortunate enough to beone of his students, but I sure wish I hadbeen.

Dr. Ira Brand,’59; M.S.,‘61

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Helen Phillips and AdamThompson can’tfully explain it, but even though theyhad never visited, they felt called to

Brooklyn. So, after they both finishedundergraduate studies at Yale University in2004, they moved, sight unseen, to a SunsetPark apartment.

It turned out to be a good move. As artists,he a painter and she a writer, they felt that thenuances of Brooklyn gave them “something torub our ideas up against,” says Phillips. “Beinghere completely changed our work.”

They haven’t looked back.The couple,married in 2007, both completed M.F.A.programs at Brooklyn College––Phillips increative writing in 2007 and Thompson in artthe following year—and now have adjunctteaching positions at the college. Additionally, Phillips is thecoordinator of the M.F.A. program in creative writing.

“NewYork is a very surreal environment,” says Phillips,who is originally from Colorado. “Many times it feels likeyou are walking through a dream. I go to Prospect Park inthe mornings and get inspired.You’ll see the most surrealwhite swan, and then there’ll be an overflowing garbagecan.There are so many contrasts, juxtapositions, and weirdimpossible things.”

The environmental inspiration has had a successfuloutcome. Phillips is the recent recipient of the prestigiousRona JaffeWriter’s Award, which honors writers whoshow promise early in their careers.The award comes witha $25,000 prize that Phillips is using to take a year off fromteaching in order to work on a novel and a collection ofshort stories. She is also the recipient of the 2008 ItaloCalvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, the 2009 Meridian Editors’Prize, and a Ucross Foundation residency. In 2010, herwork will appear in American Fiction: The Best UnpublishedShort Stories by Emerging Writers, and her collection ofshort stories, “AndYet TheyWere Happy,” is undercontract to be published in 2011 by Leapfrog Press.

Thompson, who says the M.F.A. program opened hismind to more conceptual work, has been featured inrecent shows in Martha’s Vineyard, Chelsea, and Flushing.He also has a website, www.thedrawingarchive.com, that

cleverly features his pencil sketches, which were createdunder rules that required that they all be done on 8.5 by11 inch paper, with only plain lines and no shading.

It was an idea that inspired Phillips when she setabout writing “AndYet TheyWere Happy.” “I had beenslogging through a novel, and I started to hate it because itwas such a long process,” she says. “Adam, on the otherhand, was really thriving under his set of rules, so hesuggested that I try the same. It was the best advice I evergot.”

Phillips applied the rules idea to her work, restrictingthe short stories that would become the” AndYet TheyWere Happy” collection to one page, or 340 words.“Sometimes I feel overwhelmed when writing, and to haveone rule is actually really helpful,” says Phillips. (See anexcerpt from “AndYet TheyWere Happy” on page 48.)

Both Phillips and Thompson say that working withBrooklyn College students has also been very inspiring.“A lot of these students sacrifice so much to be here,”says Thompson, a Maine native who teaches basicdesign classes.

“My students have schooled me,” says Phillips.“Teaching here is very humbling.We don’t think therecould be a better life.” –J.S.

Brooklyn as Muse

Top ofthe Quad

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As a first-time director andscreenwriter, Mark von Sternberg, ’00,wanted to work with people he feltcomfortable with. So he called in ahandful of his fellow Brooklyn Collegealums—Francisco Solorzano, ’00; JohnHarlacher, ’00; and Victoria Malvagno,’99––and together they collaboratedon a movie that made quite a splashat a slew of film festivals this fall.

Love Simple, featuring Solorzanoand Harlacher, with costumes designedby Malvagno, was a hit at Los Angeles’Feel Good Film Festival, the OrlandoHispanic Film Festival, and mostnotably at HBO’s NewYorkInternational Latino Film Festival.

“This is a big festival.Theyhave big movies with bigstars,” says von Sternberg, whograduated with a B.F.A. inacting, along with Solorzanoand Harlacher. “The fear iswhen you are a little film, youget lost in the shuffle.”

The eighty-six-minute moviemade it into the HBO festival despitethe fact that the event routinely netsnearly three thousand applicants.VonSternberg says there were full housesat all the screenings.

“I was terrified, but people werereally into it,” he says. “They werelaughing at the funny parts and movedat the more serious moments.”

The exposureeven landed themovie a reviewin the industryrag, Variety,which said it had“genuine flairand wit.”

“Once the positive feedback fromthe festivals gets out there along withthe reviews, you just try to build fromthat,” explains vonSternberg. “Thedream would be to get lucky with asmall theatrical release. Or we mightget Netflix.You never know what cancome from these kinds of things.”

Watch a clip from Love Simple atwww.lovesimplethemovie.com. –J.S.

A Saintly SolutionIn the early years of this decade, when a lot of Americanswere eager to exact vengeance against the Islamic communityfor the deadly attacks of September 11, 2001, Professor ofJournalism Paul Moses was quietly contemplating a long-agomission of peace.

Moses’s thoughts have now been put into book form.The result—The Saint and the Sultan: the Crusades, Islamand Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace—was published inSeptember by Doubleday.

The peace mission that caught Moses’ imaginationtook place in the year 1219, during the time of the bloodyFifth Crusade.The trip was conceived and undertaken byFrancis of Assisi, an Italian nobleman’s son who as a youngman was wounded in battle and held as a prisoner of warbefore turning to pacifism.

Francis went on to found the Order of Friars Minor—commonly called the Franciscans—and was later admittedto the roster of Catholic saints. Now recognized for hislove of animals and his personal piety, in 1219 Francis alsoled a band of followers to the Holy Land, where hecrossed enemy lines and met with Egyptian Sultan Malik al-Kamil, commander of the Islamic forces, in an attempt toconvert the Muslim leader to Christianity.

Shortly after the events of 9/11 he chanced to readLittle Flowers of Francis of Assisi. “I saw it as a bigger story,”says Moses.

Not until 2006 had he fleshed out that story sufficientlyto engage an agent to approach Doubleday about a book

deal. Using the advance for the book to finance a trip to theMiddle East and the time off from teaching made possibleby aWolfe Institute Fellowship, he researched and wrotethe book.

“We’ve all read so many stories about Christians andMuslims at odds with each other,” he says. “I felt weneeded other stories.”

Francis’s mission was no simple walk in the park, saysMoses. “The Fifth Crusade was a very miserable war,” henotes. “There was a lot of hand-to-hand fighting going on.. . . Francis risked being treated like a spy.”

But, adds Moses, “within Islam there is a tradition ofbeing respectful of holy Christian monks.The sultan’s warmwelcome to Francis reflects this tradition.”

In Moses’ view, “the fact is that if [Saint Francis and theSultan of Egypt] could talk to each other back then, weshould be able to talk to each other now.” –R.S.

The Kids Stay in the Picture

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T O P O F T H E Q U A D

Shortly after obtaining his B.A. inEnglish from Stanford Universityin 1961, John Frankenstein, the

political scientist on the EconomicsDepartment faculty, joined the U.S.Navy and, was shipped to thePhilippines and Vietnam.Yet evenbefore that, he was clear that hewanted to specialize in Chinese andAsian affairs.

“I grew up in a neighborhoodclose to Chinatown,” says the SanFrancisco native, “so I’ve always beeninterested in China. I realized it was acountry people knew little aboutbecause it was always closed tooutsiders. But its significance wasgrowing in the post-war period andneeded to be studied.”

Frankenstein went on to becomea foreign service officer in Africa, Asia,and Europe from 1968 to 1976, anexperience through which he pickedup Mandarin Chinese and French.

“My Mandarin is a bit rustynowadays, though sufficientlyfunctional. And my French,” he quipswith a smirk, “I learned it in Vietnam,and French people like to point outthat it shows because I speak it like aVietnamese.”

Then he decided togo back to school andwent to theMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology where heobtained a Ph.D. inpolitical science in 1983.

“Fresh out of MIT, Iwent to teach at theThunderbird School ofGlobal Management inGlendale, Ariz., one of the

leading international businessprograms in the country.”

After seven years at Thunderbird,Frankenstein went to teach at theUniversity of Hong Kong, where hestayed for nearly six years beforeheading to the Asian ResearchCenter at the Copenhagen BusinessSchool. Later, he became a visitingprofessor at the University ofInternational Economics and Businessin Beijing, and the Institute forInternational Studies and Training inJapan.

“I was running a smallnongovernmental organization andmanaging an exchange programbetween U.S. community colleges andChinese vocational technical colleges,a project that was funded by theFord Foundation,” he says, “when Iheard from former Provost RobertaMatthews about a position in theEconomics Department at BrooklynCollege.” Frankenstein joined thecollege in 2003 as an adjunct.

Because some of Frankenstein’sacademic work is on Chineseindustrial policy, he was asked toteach about political economy andbusiness in China and Asia.

“In my capstone course onstrategy, for example, I teach studentsabout Asian business and I ask themto use all the knowledge they havelearned in other classes to writestrategic analyses of competingcompanies in Asia.”

Asked whether China representsa threat to U.S. economic dominance,Frankenstein points out that the twoeconomies are interdependent.

“At some point, China’s grossdomestic product (GDP) will surpassthat of the United States,” he says,although he points out that it will nothappen any time soon.

“Our country’s GDP is threetimes larger than China’s, even if wehave less than a third of that nation’spopulation.”

According to Frankenstein,despite China’s accelerating economicgrowth, its brand of capitalism has yetto develop a solid internal market forthe goods its economy produces.“Income distribution is more uneventhan ours,” he adds and also notesthat, “they have great difficulty increating brands, even after buyingentire factories from us and Europe.”

But after restating that the U.S.still leads the world in innovation andproductivity, Frankenstein strikes anote of caution.

“The U.S. had better stay on itstoes and keep its edge on technology,higher education, and scientificknowledge. And we also need tomodernize our public transportationsystem and address issues regardingenergy and conservation.

Unfortunately those powers restwith Congress, which sometimesseems to lack the political will tomove the ball.” –E.M.

Frankenstein’s Edge:From Foreign Service to the Classroom

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Judicious Steps

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It is ironic, but true, that sometimes taking a wrong step maylead in the right direction. For a student who has difficultycontrolling anger or other negative impulses, a formal

complaint about his or her behavior may result in more than areprimand. It may lead to a lasting change in behavior throughthe intervention of the Office of Judicial Affairs.

Formerly known as Discipline, the Office of JudicialAffairs is part of the Division of Student Affairs. Led byMoraima Burgos, ’02, the office not only reins inmisbehaving students, it educates all parties involved in adispute about how to de-escalate a confrontation, resolveconflict, and negotiate. “It is such a pleasure to see astudent change from being someone people avoid to aperson people want to see,” says Burgos.

Burgos investigates complaints filed about a currentstudent’s behavior, on or off campus, by speaking with allthose involved and makes a recommendation for action toDean of Student Affairs Milga Morales. If the behaviorviolates college rules, penalties can range from a verbalwarning to expulsion from CUNY. In addition to penalties,community service, an ethics class, or a workshop in stressmanagement or time management may be required.Counseling may be recommended.

In cases where no rule has been broken, but anindividual was offended by a student, Burgos tries to coach

the injured party onstrategies to avoidsimilar situations. “Wealso often talk to astudent even whenthere is no formalcomplaint,” saysBurgos. “Studentsmay not realize howthey are making aperson feel. It is oftenan issue ofmiscommunication.”

Burgos sees the primary function of the office aseducation. Last spring, the office invited Professor P. M. Forni,author of Choosing Civility (St. Martin’s Press, 2002) andcofounder of the Johns Hopkins University Civility Project, todo a workshop for the college. “Everyone gets angry,” saysBurgos, “but there are different ways to express it.”

Working closely with the national Association forStudent Conduct Administrators (ASCA) and its networkof lawyers, Burgos continues to learn about the bestpractices in disciplinary action, conduct codes, and case law.“If Brooklyn College aims to be a model citizen, that meansour students must be model citizens, too,” she says. –L.L.

Connecting StudentsBrooklyn College loves its students and wants them to stayat the college until they earn their degree.

Learning communities are one type of high impactlearning experience cited by the Association of AmericanColleges and Universities (AACU) as essential inpromoting student persistence and raising retention andgraduation rates. In helping freshmen get the most out oftheir first year, academically and socially, they can’t be beat,but the college is finding ways to make them better.

Last year the college placed 35 percent of thestudents not already in special programs in learningcommunities. This year 60 percent of students enjoy them,and next year even more will benefit, reports Dean ofUndergraduate Studies DonnaWilson.

A direct outgrowth of the award-winning FreshmanYear College program begun in 1995 by Professor ofEnglish Ellen Belton, then dean of undergraduate studies,and Kathleen Gover, associate dean of undergraduatestudies, learning communities have evolved to includemuch more for the cohorts of students who share thesame classroom experiences.

Every freshman in the learning community, alsobenefits from contact with a team of staff members. “TheMagner Center for Career Development and Internshipsassigns a career counselor for each section,” saysWilson.“A librarian, an academic adviser, and a peer mentor arealso assigned. With the instructor, that is a five-personnetwork for each section, and it works.”

Peer mentors were added to the communities last year.“Peer mentors help students to feel at home on campus andalso introduce them to college life. This first part isfundamental,” says seniorTara Mulqueen, the peer mentoringprogram coordinator.“If you didn’t feel at home somewhere,why would you stay? Equally important, in order tosuccessfully navigate the college system, you have to be ableto make sense of it and find the resources you need.”

The difference that learning communities make tostudents becomes apparent in retention rates. Recentstudies show that Brooklyn College students whoparticipated in a learning community during their first yearpersist into the crucial third year at a significantly higherrate than those who did not. –L.L.

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T O P O F T H E Q U A D

Spending twenty-four hours in a dampmarsh in the rain may not sound likethe most pleasant weekend activity. Buttell that to the students who spent twodays last September collectingspecimens of the various birds, reptiles,mammals, insects, and other creaturesthat call the wetlands home. Not onlydid they receive a hands-on educationbut they also did some good for themarsh and its inhabitants.

Rebecca Boger, an assistantprofessor of geology who helpedorganize this year’s third annual JamaicaBay BioBlitz at Floyd Bennett Field, feelsthat students truly gained something valuable by theexperience. “They benefited by the opportunity to workwith scientific experts in the field and to see whatresources there are all around us in the city’s naturalenvironment.”

More than one hundred students, including forty fromthe Brooklyn College School of Education, took part in theevent. Also represented were students from QueensCollege, Baruch College, and Adelphi and Hofstrauniversities.

Participants were originally scheduled to collectspecimens and analyze them in the field from 3 p.m. onFriday to 3 p.m. on Saturday. Rainy weather, however,prevented them from remaining outside overnight.

“The weather this year led many nocturnal species totake shelter against the rain and reduced the number ofspecies that could be collected,” Boger explained. Yet,despite the difficulties Boger said the students managed togather a total of 123 different species of marsh residentsand plants.

Among the species collected were red tailed Cooper’shawks, mallard ducks, great blue herons, and numerous fish,including shad, striped bass, bluefish, and bay anchovy. Thevolunteers also collected painted turtles, gray tree frogs,red-backed salamanders, and the common garter snake, aswell as opossum, raccoons, and the Norway rat.

Both terrestrial and aquatic plant life were wellrepresented, too: poison ivy, white clover, yucca, brownkelp, and green and red algae.

Events like BioBlitz help the marsh and its residentcreatures because collecting and analyzing wildlife advancesresearch into the wetlands environment and encouragesinterest among students in pursuing scientific careers.These activities also provide officials and scientistsresponsible for maintaining marshlands with moreinformation that can help them improve management ofthe area. A video of the BioBlitz may be viewed atwww.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/multimedia.php. —R.S.

Taking aHeadcount:BioBlitz 2009Benefits Wetlands

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By Jamilah Simmons

On a mild fall evening, Brooklyn College’s new president,Karen L. Gould and her husband, Rick Simon, greet guestsnear one of the fluted columns in the rotunda of BrooklynBorough Hall.They exchange pleasantries with various CityUniversity of NewYork officials who have gathered forBorough President Marty Markowitz’s cocktail partywelcoming two new CUNY presidents:William L. Pollard,at Medgar Evers, and Gould.

She can’t recall how many of these functions she’sbeen to in the last month but Gould understands thekinds of connections that are made at these events, andthat she’s the new face of the college. She’s happy to be itsNo. 1 cheerleader. So the president, a petite woman, is a

good sport through Markowitz’s short jokes, as they applyto both parties, and even laughs heartily at his one-linersdetailing the culture shock one might experience comingfrom Southern California to Brooklyn. She was just sayingduring an interview a few days earlier that she’s a littlebemused at the impression that she’s still a California girl.Though born in San Francisco, much of her adult andacademic life has been lived in the Midwest, the EastCoast, and abroad, except for the last two years, whenshe served as the provost at California State UniversityLong Beach.

In fact, she says she decided to apply for the job, herfirst presidency, precisely because it seemed that Brooklynwould be a good fit for her.

Madam PresidentIntroducing Karen L. Gould, Brooklyn College’s Ninth President

President Gould has been an active

participant in many campus events

since assuming her postion.

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“I wasn’tlooking,” she offers,from her second-floor office inBoylan Hall. “Butwhen I got the callabout this job, I felta little pang. I said,you know, thissounds like a placeI could really be connected to. And the more I heard andread, the more I said maybe I can’t not look into this.”

As someone who considers herself a global citizen,Gould, 61, says she feels right at home in Brooklyn. Aformer dancer, she says she’s always been attracted to thearts scene in NewYork. Her daughter, a graduate of NewYork University, has been a Brooklyn hipster for sometime. And, a big proponent of public higher education,Gould says that Brooklyn College has many strengths shethinks she will be able to build upon.

“This is our time to be bold,” the college’s first femalepresident promised faculty members, with some audacity,at her first general faculty meeting in October.

Leadership OpportunitiesGould may have first established her spunkiness as a highschool junior. The Northern California native had beenselected to go to France for a year as a foreign exchangestudent and though she had been taking French sinceseventh grade, she says her linguistic skills were mediocre.

“We set sail on the SS America for seven days. Iremember landing at the port in Le Havre and meetingmy French mother and the only word she could say inEnglish was ‘hello,’” she recalls with a genial laugh, puttingon a French accent when she says hello. “Then the Frenchstarted. And I realized I couldn’t put together more thantwo words with any confidence.”

Gould leans back a little and folds her arms at herwaist, digging into a story that clearly brings back fondmemories. “I like to think of the experience as similar to atemporary immigrant experience. I really did have thatsense of working in a language that wasn’t my own and allthe struggles and challenges that that presents for anyimmigrant to any culture,” she says, noting that theexperience may help her relate better to many Brooklyn

College students.“That was lifechallenging. Somany thingschanged for me interms of mythinking. It reallyhelped meunderstand howadaptable as

human beings we can all be.”The year of study abroad also helped form the

foundation for her interest in French culture, which shewould eventually parlay into a robust career as aninternationally recognized scholar of French-Canadianliterature.

She began her teaching career at Bucknell Universityin Pennsylvania, where she met her husband, an economicsprofessor turned tax and business consultant. Afterspending about six months in Montreal on a grant toconduct research, she returned to the states and gotmarried.The couple moved on to Virginia Tech, whereGould was happy but was seeking more.

“I was looking for an academic environment where Icould do a few more things,” she explains. “They didn’thave a graduate program at Tech and I wanted to have thesense that I could take on leadership opportunities if Iwanted to.”

When she was offered a faculty position at BowlingGreen State University, just outside of Toledo, Ohio, shetook it. She quickly became coordinator of the graduateprogram in French and eventually, director of theWomen’sStudies program, a position she thought she’d try out for afew years while also teaching some graduate courses.

“I was thinking that if I didn’t like it I would simply goback to being a full-time faculty member,” she says. “But itturned out to be a very important transition—I realized Ienjoyed working with faculty members across theuniversity. I liked lobbying administrators for programmaticadvancement.”

At Bowling Green, she moved up through the ranks,becoming an associate dean and developing aninterdisciplinary research center for the sciences andhumanities. “I was beginning to see that I enjoyed this and Iwas being invited to apply for deanships,” she says.

She landed one at Old Dominion University, stayingthere for five years before moving on to another deanshipat the larger University of Cincinnati, where she oversawsome eighty graduate and undergraduate programs.

“After five and a half years there, I knew I was readyfor provost work,” she says. “I really enjoyed workingacross the college and by this point I was getting the viewfrom higher up of how all the pieces fit together.”

Setting GoalsIn the short time she has been at Brooklyn College, Gouldhas already pinpointed some areas she’d like to work on.Chief among them is broadcasting the college’s successes.“Brooklyn College has a rich story to tell and yet we donot tell it well enough,” she says, noting that getting thecollege’s story out will help bolster fundraising and grants.“Moving forward, we cannot afford to be a well-keptsecret.”

So, as she did at the Markowitz event, Gould hasbeen getting out there, meeting Mayor MichaelBloomberg, engaging with officials from his office andgetting to know other movers and shakers in the boroughand the city at large in order to try to reposition thecollege to be more of a player. She’s hoping thehobnobbing will pay off with more partnerships that leadto programmatic enhancements and other resources forthe students.

She’s also determined to improve retention andgraduation rates and is setting up a committee of studentsand faculty and staff members to consider the obstaclesthat students face. She also says that improved retentionand graduation rates will partly flow from enhancing“enrichment activities” like service learning, athletics,student involvement in research and study abroad—oneof her pet projects.

“I want to make sure students at Brooklyn Collegehave that opportunity if they seek it,” she says, adding thatshe’d like the college to have a more active study abroadoffice. “I will be finding ways to fundraise and promotethe learning and cultural experiences beyond theUnited States.”

Gould notes that she was pleasantly surprised to seehow much students participate in research at the collegebut she’d like to see more. She also wants to see thecollege and faculty members win more grants to supporttheir hard work. “I will always be an administrator who iscommitted to the teacher-scholar model and to makingsure that the academic environment is supportive ofresearch, and that we are striking the right balance so thatwe don’t ignore the rich teaching tradition here,” she says.

Karen L. GouldPersonal: Gould is married to Rick Simon, a semi-retired taxand business consultant. Their son Aron recently graduatedfrom medical school at the University of Cincinnati and iscurrently an intern at the University of Nevada, Reno. He isalso an avid skier. Their daughter, Alisa, graduated fromNew York University and works as an online fashion critic.The president was an avid dancer, starting with tap at theage of three and eventually moving on to ballet. She studieddance in California and in Paris and did not altogether giveup dancing until she became an administrator.

Previous Academic Experience:

Provost and Senior Vice President, California StateUniversity Long Beach, 2007–2009

Dean, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences andProfessor of French and Francophone Studies, Universityof Cincinnati, 2001–2007

Dean, College of Arts and Letters and Professor of Frenchand Women’s Studies, Old Dominion University,1996–2001

Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Professor ofFrench, Bowling Green State University, 1985–1996

Associate Professor of French, Virginia Polytechnic andState University, 1980–1985

Associate and Assistant Professor of French, BucknellUniversity, 1973–1980

Education:

Ph.D. in Romance Languages, University of Oregon, 1975

B.A. in French, cum laude, Occidental College, 1970

Diplôme d’études, Cours de civilization française,La Sorbonne, 1969

Awards:

The Donner Medal in Canadian Studies, 2005

Governor General’s International Award for CanadianStudies, 2003

Fulbright Research Fellow in Canada, 1992–1993

Olscamp University Research Award, BGSU, 1991

Dean’s Award for Model Educator, BGSU, 1990–1991

Canadian Government Senior Fellowship Research Grant,1986–1987

Woodrow Wilson NEH Fellowship, 1972–1973

Takin’ It to the Streets:B

orn to the borough or recent arrivals, most of our students live in Brooklyn, aregion so rich in history and diversity that a liberal arts college couldn’t ask fora better teaching laboratory. To take advantage of our good fortune, and to

form partnerships with organizations in surrounding communities, BrooklynCollege is currently investigating ways to fully incorporate and support city-basedlearning in the curriculum.

City-based learning may not be as familiar to readers as community service orstudent teaching, but it similarly combines classroom instruction with directexperience, and is founded in such tried-and-true pedagogical practices as

demonstration and learning by doing. What is novel andespecially effective about it is its emphasis on a local place as thearena for investigation and the subject of analysis, and itembraces an interdisciplinary approach as the key to solvingreal-world problems. The benefits of city-based learning includeenhancement of student motivation and increasedcomprehension and retention of course material. By rootingabstract concepts in examples close to home, city-based learningenables the student to see a personal connection and develop adeep understanding of the subject. This engagement oftenresults in a lifelong love of learning.

A recent inventory of the faculty shows that more than onehundred professors currently utilize local contexts to conveycomplex subject matter to their students.

City-based learning is a natural in the Geology Department.Freshman offerings have been restructured to emphasize local settings as“anchors” for conceptual frameworks and core curriculum classes are

partnered with other disciplines to achieve the verity that our students crave.“This is about as authentic a research project as we can do,” Brett Branco,

assistant professor of geology, told his students as they gathered on Plumb Beachlast spring. “I can tell you how to collect and analyze the data and how to developresearch questions, but I can’t tell you what we’re going to find.” It was the first ofseveral expeditions to the beach.

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By Lisa Lincoln

“They didn’t seem to mind, because they got it,”Branco says, “that this is how science is done.”

“It was real!” sophomore Alessandra Coco confirms.“Going out and putting together the equipment, makingobservations about the time of day, the level of the tide,creatures on the beach, gathering samples –– we were inthe field! Now every time I go to a beach, I analyze it!”

In an e-mail after she finished the course,TamaraMinott, a junior, noted that because of the class, “I ampursuing the B.A. in geology.” Referring to Branco’sdemonstration of wave motion through the travels of aseashell across the shore, Minott said, “Actually witnessingthe process instead of reading about it in a textbook madeit easier for all of us to understand and remember whathappened.”

Most apparent to the students was how humaninterventions wreaked havoc on the beach. Plumb Beachis only fifty yards away from the Belt Parkway. As Brancopointed out to his students, while sand is naturallyremoved by the ocean, “at Plumb Beach the sand supplyhas been interrupted, so the beach is slowly disappearing.Over time, that and other infrastructure could bethreatened by erosion, so a natural process becomes partof a larger set of issues.”

“Plumb Beach gets students thinking,” says Branco.“They might have thought of the geology class as separatefrom their sociology, political science, philosophy, oreconomics classes, but when you bring them to local sitesand you point out the connections, their courses comealive — they can see how they fit together.”

Learning Through the City

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As for Plumb Beach, city-based educational opportunities often involve sustainabilityissues. For this reason, as the college continues to incorporate city-based approaches inthe curriculum, it has established committees and appointed fellows to investigate thebest practices of other educational institutions in city-based and sustainability education,and in the cultivation of community relationships.

Rebecca Boger, assistant professor of geology, a former fellow for sustainabilityeducation, has an international basis of comparison for city-based and sustainabilityeducation from her ongoing work with Global Learning and Observations to Benefit theEnvironment (GLOBE). She has collaborated with the universities, colleges, and localcommunities of nineteen African nations on environmental science education programsfor teachers, grades K–12. “Locality is the theme that brings people together,” Boger

notes. “People take great pride in their localities,whether it’s Brooklyn or Nigeria. City-basededucation promotes being involved in communityand understanding your surroundings.Sustainability education also requires a sense ofplace and understanding of the natural and humansystems,” she explains. “In a highly urbanizedenvironment, the human and natural systems arelinked together.”

Two cohorts of incoming freshman are seeingthis for themselves this fall. In two sections of anew and already popular environmental learningcommunity, Boger is working with instructors fromsociology and English. “We are integrating the corecurriculum courses through PLANYC as well as

having students study community gardens in Red Hook and East NewYork,” shesays. “From the geology side, the students learn about soils and their importance

in growing food. On the sociology side, they learn demographics––who the gardeners are.In English 1, the focus is on environmental themes.”

Boger also co-teaches the foundation Geo 1 course. “The theme is particulatematters and air quality. We relate what students find in air samples to health issues,” saysBoger. One group of students in the class found iron particulates in subway station airsamples. “It made them aware,” she notes. “The long-term goal is to make themempowered and involved citizens.”

With the help of CUNY’s Coordinated Undergraduate Education (CUE) fundinginitiative, Dean of Undergraduate Studies DonnaWilson is coordinating the study ofbest city-based learning practices on behalf of the college as part of its ongoing effort toimprove undergraduate education. Wilson notes that the “initiative is a way ofexpanding student access to high impact learning” throughout the college years and thatthese approaches are known to foster integrative learning, aid in student retention, andincrease graduation rates. City-based learning also provides bountiful opportunities torealize the college’s mission to be a model citizen or civic partner in the dynamic mix ofBrooklyn’s communities.

“It is important to remember that city-based approaches can be utilized in anumber of ways,” notes Tammy Lewis, a visiting professor of sociology who specializesin community-based sustainability. She holds the Carol L. Zicklin Chair in the HonorsAcademy. “This is not about faculty and students extracting data from the community,”says Lewis, “We want to enable partnerships that work.”

When discussing how to make city-based learning benefit all participants, JocelynWills, associate professor of history and the 2009–2010 fellow for city-based education,is optimistic. Wills has utilized this approach since 2005, when she created a project totest her “students’ abilities to undertake serious social history research, using myAmerican Dreams and Realities course, which explores the everyday lives of Americansand our assumptions about mobility. I took my students to Green-Wood Cemeteryand told them to pick five burial sites that seemed to tell different, class-based stories.”

“It wasWills’s class and the Green-Wood field trip that showed me how mucheducation a student can get out of the surrounding environment,” senior Philip Cruise,a history major, wrote in an e-mail. “This discovery was accompanied by some usefullife skills, such as analytical approaches to research and detective-like investigation . . . .through Internet lineage research and public archive investigation, using such tools asmarriage licenses, draft registrations, steamship records, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagleand NewYork Times web-based archives.”

Wills has ample evidence in the work of herstudents that the city-based approach works.“Despite their complicated lives and workschedules, students value serious assignments whenwe give them something local to explore,” she says.“They find it easier and exciting to link the local tothe global, and simultaneously improve their criticalthinking and writing skills.”

“From walking along the winding paths ofGreen-Wood Cemetery,” writes history majorJesse Bayker, a senior, “to leafing through old citydirectories in a library reading room to decipheringthe handwriting of nineteenth-century censusenumerators, research into the lives of ordinarypeople has been a deeply fascinating and gratifyingexperience for me and has taken me many places,literally and figuratively speaking. Every piece ofevidence,” he notes, “raises more questions.”

Philip Cruise, now working as an intern withWills, is helping to compile theinventory of city-based practice in play at the college and has surveyed studentshimself. “Having been exposed to city-based learning in art, history, music, and manyother areas of my education,” he writes, “I believe that this is a method of teaching thatnot only educates, but also creates an awareness of one’s surroundings and a sense ofcivic responsibility.”

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As the nation’s unemployment ratehas risen to over 10 percent, collegestudents all across the country havebegun to search far and wide for helpin finding a job. But Brooklyn Collegestudents have the Magner Center forCareer Development and Internshipson their side.

The Magner Center for CareerDevelopment and Internships—thebrainchild of alumna Marge Magner,’69, whose generosity, guidance, andpersonal involvement have allowedthe Center to expand its services toall students, and more recently toalumni—plays a critical role in thecollege’s commitment to enablingstudents to pursue their life goals andpreparing them for careers once theygraduate.

Internships have long played amajor role in the Magner Center’sstrategy for readying graduatingstudents for careers after college, saysPam Brown-Laurenceau, an internshipprogram specialist at the Center.“Internships allow students to seehow a real-life business operates,” shesays, “how managers manage and howworkers perceive things and interact.This is important because many ofour students have little or no on-the-job experience.”

Over the years the MagnerCenter has developed a diverse menuof services. Students can register forworkshops to learn the secrets ofwriting successful résumés or tomaster interview techniques; they cansign up for Magner Center–organizedtours of companies to observe what ittakes to operate such different typesof businesses as Madison SquareGarden,Time-Warner Inc., andGoldman Sachs & Co. In addition, theycan also scan online lists ofcorporations that offer variousinternships and apply for any thatappeal to them. Hundreds of students

have already gained real-world workexperience in this way.

But perhaps one of the mostinnovative ideas in internshipscurrently being offered by the MagnerCenter is through the Sustainable andSocial Entrepreneurship Program. Thistype of collaboration between thecenter and the EconomicsDepartment is a first.

“We have worked togetherbefore,” says Brown-Laurenceau,noting that the two previouslycollaborated on a CitiBank-sponsoredinternship program that placedstudents in local small businesses withfewer than three hundred employees.The program lasted two years and, inits second year, sought to placewomen and minorities in internships.

“This time we decided to seek aCUNYWorkforce DevelopmentInitiative grant,” says Professor ofEconomics Hervé Queneau, who notesthat the partners decided to choosesustainable, or “green,” companies thataim to improve the environment ordevelop new forms of energy, as wellas entrepreneurial enterprises with asocial mission, such as providinghousing to low-income people.

He adds, “We wanted to choosetypes of companies that would fit inwith the local business community andones that would be likely to receivefunding.”

The partners agreed that Queneauwould write the proposal, with inputfrom Economics DepartmentChairperson Hershey Friedman, andlook after the academic side of theprogram. Meanwhile, Brown-Laurenceauwould handle the paperwork and findthe student interns and the greenbusinesses and socially consciousentrepreneurship organizations wherethey would be placed.

Queneau requested a total of$26,000 in funding, which included

Internships Boost Job ChancesforWilling Students By Richard Sheridan

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money to pay for eighteen $1,000internship stipends (eight during the fall2009 semester and another ten duringspring 2010) as well as a $1,000 firstprize and two $500 runner-up prizesthat will be awarded at the end of thesecond semester in a project conceptcompetition. In return, he promised ahigh-quality academic environment forthe interns.

Meanwhile, Brown-Laurenceau puttogether a list of students who couldfill the intern positions.

As students began to respond, saysBrown-Laurenceau,“I sent them anapplication to complete, along withquestions to answer. This process helpedcreate a writing sample for us. I then metwith each student in an interview.

“To select our interns, we lookedat their GPA, communication skills, andlevel of maturity,” notes Queneau.“After all, these student interns wouldbe going out as representatives ofBrooklyn College to the community.”

Brown-Laurenceau was alsoreaching out to faculty members,contacting local employers with whichthe Magner Center had previouslycollaborated, and scanning librarylistings of green companies.

“I always use networking as a meansof collecting a list of potential contacts,”she says.“I called them on the phone. Insome cases, however, I met with them oncampus—basically, to introduce them tothe program and to explain the grantcriteria regarding student placement sites,among other things.”

Jenny Lee, a senior business,management, and finance major, hadspent the spring 2009 semester in aninternship arranged by the MagnerCenter. Then, in the summer, shereceived an e-mail from the MagnerCenter regarding the Sustainable andSocial Entrepreneurship Program.Thee-mail offered her a chance to applyfor an internship with a not-for-profitorganization working either in thesustainability arena or with anentrepreneurial firm dealing with suchsocial issues as housing or health. She

was intrigued to apply and wasaccepted for an internship with theVisiting Nurse Service of NewYork(VNSNY). She currently is working tenhours a week for a total of 135 hoursfor the semester.

VNSNY “is a very multiculturalplace,” according to Lee. “Everyonespeaks a second language. It’simperative for the job.When youspeak a language of your own andsomeone calls in requesting thatlanguage, you can understand thepatient better and can help in makinginformed decisions.”

She credits her time atVNSNYwith expanding her experience. Shesays, “The skills you gain from aninternship can help greatly, contributingto the knowledge that is essential inyour chosen career. You learn to hit theground running because even thoughyou may be an intern, you’re givenresponsibilities like other workers whoare earning a salary. I would definitelyrecommend it to a younger friend orsibling because it is a great experience,and you will learn to appreciate lifemore through your internship.”

Like Lee, senior Yana Imberg is abusiness, management, and financemajor. She arrived at Brooklyn Collegeas a transfer student two years agoand is planning either to work for thegovernment as a financial/businessanalyst or to become a manager in asocial services capacity. Imberg says

she finds the Sustainable and SocialEntrepreneurship Program to be avaluable experience.

“I was assigned to a social,nonprofit organization—stateAssemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs’s 42ndAssembly District office,” Imberg says.

The staff at the assemblywoman’soffice, she says, “helps people in need.They provide assistance at differentsocial levels, such as housing, healthinsurance coverage, mortgage/foreclosure prevention programs,employment assistance, college financialaid assistance, and assistance in gettingappropriate and affordable day careand school opportunities for seniorcitizens, disabled persons, and low-income families.”

Working at the office as an intern,Imberg notes, has taught her “planning,research, development, communication,and management.”

She adds, “Working off campus isa brilliant idea. It involves not onlytheoretical knowledge, but also itspractical use. In addition, you are ableto expand your network and buildbusiness relations and personalcontacts with the professionals withinyour field.”

Brooklyn College students on a tour of

Madison Square Garden in June,

organized by the Magner Center.

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The first building to be constructedon the Brooklyn College campus innearly forty years officially threw

open its doors on Tuesday, September 22.TheWest Quad Center, a 145,000-square-foot glass-fronted structure that dominatesthe new quadrangle west of BedfordAvenue, will serve as both a one-stopstudent services center and the hub ofstate-of-the-art physical education andrecreational facilities.

With high-spirited enthusiasm, thecollege’s cheerleader squad opened andclosed the ceremony.

“This is an auspicious day for BrooklynCollege,” President Karen Gould said. “Weare especially excited because theWest Quad Centerrepresents the fulfillment of a promise—to provide ourstudents with one convenient location for many of theservices they need, from applying to the college andregistering for classes, to receiving financial aid informationand scholarship assistance.

“No less important,” she added, “this new building willalso serve a stellar array of athletic and recreationalactivities, offering our students opportunities to engage inthe kind of sports events, training, and physical exercisethat will enhance their academic experience at BrooklynCollege and help them to realize their full potential.”

Gould went on to praise her predecessor, formerpresident Christoph M. Kimmich, “for the brilliance of hisvision and his steadfast commitment” to the completion oftheWest Quad Center project.

CUNY Executive Vice-Chancellor and Chief OperatingOffice Allan Dobrin and Vice-Chancellor for FacilitiesPlanning, Construction, and Management Iris Weinshall alsospoke at the ceremony.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz cameto the podium to marvel at the immense changes that hadbeen made to the west end of the campus since hegraduated in 1970. A number of state legislators, includingState Senator John Sampson, Assemblywoman Rhoda

Jacobs, and Assemblyman Nick Perry,whose support for the project providedmuch of the funding that went into itsconstruction, also spoke.

Arvind Badhey, a junior in the B.A.–M.D.Program and member of the track team,rounded off the speeches with a loud sigh,expressing the satisfaction felt by manyathletes that theWest Quad Center was atlong last opened.

After the ribbon was cut, guests enteredthe building to enjoy a buffet luncheon andto join guided tours of the facilities.

The building’s ground floor is home tothe Enrollment Services Center and a full-service café. The AdmissionsWelcome

Center is on the second floor, along with offices forAdmissions, Recruitment, Scholarships, and Student FinancialServices.The Registrar’s and Financial Aid offices and theOffice of the Assistant Vice-President of Enrollment Servicesare all on the third floor.

The fourth floor is given over to department andfaculty offices for the Department of Physical Educationand Exercise Science; the Recreation, Intramurals, andIntercollegiate Athletics Office; a coaches’ bull pen; ateaching lab; and three research labs for physical education.

Athletic facilities are spread over three floors.Thelower level houses an 11,700-square-foot competition gymwith retractable seating for seven hundred in bleachers onboth sides, and features a twenty-five-yard swimming poolwith eight lanes and two diving boards. There are alsothree racquetball/squash courts; a two-court practice gymfor basketball, volleyball, and badminton; two weight andfitness rooms; training and equipment rooms; anequipment check-out counter ; and four sets of locker andshower rooms for men and women.

On the ground floor, there is a 2,500-square-foot weightand fitness room, access to the pool and competition gymspectator seating, and an observation area for the pool andgyms are on the ground floor.

The second floor contains a 3,400-square-foot dancestudio and a 3,400-square-foot multipurpose room.

collegeNews

West Quad GloryA Modern Student Service and Athletic Center Brings Excitement to Campus

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More than $1.9 million in stimulus grants haverecently been given to BrooklynCollege for six projects, including

biomedical research and robotics, GovernorDavid A. Paterson announced at a Manhattan pressconference on September. 22.

“The awarding of these grants is atestament to Brooklyn College’s increasinglysignificant place in science education and to theseriousness we bring to preparing ourstudents for a future in the new economy,”said President Karen Gould.

Paterson said universities, medicalfacilities, businesses, and researchinstitutions across the state have beenawarded 1,164 research grants worth more than$600 million through competitive stimulus fundsmade available by the American Recovery andReinvestment Act of 2009, the Obama administration’sstimulus package, which became law in February.

“The key to a growing economy is investing ininnovation—by turning discoveries into businessopportunities,” Paterson said. “The $605.5 million thatinstitutions all around NewYork have won will help ensurethat NewYork remains a leader in research as we continueto work with our universities to build bridges fromresearch to application.”

He added, “I thank the Obama administration and ourNewYork congressional delegation for helping our state’scolleges, universities, and businesses obtain this critical funding.”

The six grants to Brooklyn College—four from theNational Institutes of Health (NIH) and two from theNational Science Foundation (NSF)—totaled $1,926,967:

• $26,084 for the project “Cloning and Analysis of aGamete Fusion Gene,” under the direction of AssociateProfessor of Biology Charlene Forest.The NIH grant waseffective June 1–October 31, 2009.

• $1,147,782 for the project “REU Site: Islands of Change,”under the direction of Professor of Anthropology andArchaeology Sophia Perdikaris.The NSF grant is effectiveJuly 1, 2009–June 30, 2012.

• $345,000 for the project “REU Site: MetroBotics:Undergraduate Robot Research at an Urban Public

College,” under the direction of Associate ProfessorElizabeth Sklar and Professor Simon Parsons, both of theDepartment of Computer and Information Science.The

NSF grant is effective July 1, 2009–June 30, 2012.

• $194,178 for the project “Amyloid-likeInteractions in Yeast Cell Adhesion,” underthe direction of Professor of Biology PeterLipke.The NIH grant is effective August 1,2009–May 31, 2011.

• $104,521 for the project “Gatekeepersand Roadblocks: Increasing URM StudentSuccess in Science,” under the directionof Dean of Research and GraduateStudies and Professor of Psychology

Louise Hainline.The NIH grant is effective September 1,2009–May 31, 2011.

• $109,402 for the project “Biomedical Research Trainingfor Minority Honors Students,” under the direction ofDean Hainline.The NIH grant is effective September 1,2009–August 31, 2011.

The Brooklyn College awards are among a total ofsixteen grants amounting to $4.6 million that were given toBrooklyn institutions, including SUNY Downstate MedicalCollege, Medgar Evers College, and the Brooklyn BotanicGarden Corporation.

“I commend the Obama administration for investingstimulus funds in NewYork City that will enhance ourresearch and innovation capabilities,” said CongressionalRepresentative Yvette Clarke. “These funds will go a longway in boosting Brooklyn's local economy by creating jobs.”

Clarke added, “Brooklyn College and the BrooklynBotanic Garden have received in total over $2.1 million instimulus grants.They have been leaders in research andinnovation in our community for years, and it gives megreat pleasure to know that these new grants will helppush Brooklyn to the forefront of innovation in our nation.”

Congressional Representative Edolphus Towns said, “Iam pleased these research funds will be invested in adiverse range of innovative projects in Brooklyn.Thanks tothe National Science Foundation and the NationalInstitutes of Health, our community will have theopportunity to participate in vital research projects withfar-reaching benefits.”

Brooklyn College Receives Nearly $2 Million in Stimulus Grants

C O L L E G E N E W S

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More than fifty Brooklyn Collegestudents, alumni, faculty, and staff wereon hand at Brooklyn Borough Hall onTuesday, September 22, for theunveiling of a partnership dedicatedto advancing women to leadershippositions in various communities andsectors—right up to the presidencyof the United States.

Brooklyn Borough PresidentMarty Markowitz, ’70, addressed thecrowd, as did Deputy BoroughPresidentYvonne Graham; BrooklynCollege President Karen Gould; ErinVilardi, national program director oftheWhite House Project; and NamitaManohar, coordinator of the BrooklynCollegeWomen’s Studies Program.

Under the terms of thepartnership, theWhite House Project,a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3)organization, will conduct Go Lead

training, a unique daylong eventdesigned to inspire young women toenter the world of politics by teachingthem innovative skills and strategiesthey will need to run for office.

“The overall goal of the projectis to foster a positive environment inwhich young women can activelycontribute to and transform thepolitical arena,”Vilardi said.

Go Lead training will serve as afoundation for young, smart,ambitious women at BrooklynCollege to pursue promising futuresin politics.The training aims to

demystify the political process andinspire a richly diverse group ofwomen to vie for entry to theleadership pipeline.Workshops willprovide nuts-and-bolts advice onrunning for political office by focusingon such areas as communications,fundraising, and campaigning.

The project’s goals are to createa network of young activists who willcontinue to be involved in thepolitical arena and to find ways tomentor and bring more women intothe political process.

Brooklyn College and theWhite House Project Announce Partnership

Three Brooklyn College juniors—Javeria Hashmi,Christine Pigott, and Ilya Ryvin—have won JeannetteK.Watson fellowships, which provide three

consecutive years of paid summer internships, mentoringsupport, and many networking and professionaldevelopment opportunities to select undergraduates atNewYork City colleges and universities.

This was the first year since 2006 that the Thomas J.Watson Foundation, which established the fellowships in1999, chose three Brooklyn College students among thefifteen fellows it selects each year.

Hashmi, a double major in political science andeducation, kicked off her first Watson internship last

summer at the Manhattanoffices of the Institute forInternational Education, whichfacilitates study and researchabroad. Her first project washelping NewYork Universitylaunch a new campus in AbuDhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Pigott, a double majorin computer science andtelevision and radio, spent thepast summer interning at the

Rubin Museum of Art in NewYork, where she managed animage database and assisted with a book that the museumwas publishing.

Ryvin, a film major, spent his summer interning at theNewYork City Department of Cultural Affairs, where heworked in program services. He said, “They handle all theorganizations that apply for city funding. I think it’s wellover one thousand organizations this year.”

Ryvin noted that he would like to initiate his owninternship for the second year. “I want try something in thepublic sector, but I’m not opposed to doing anothernonprofit sector internship. For the third year, I lookforward to spending my summer abroad. India is definitelya possibility.”

Trio of Brooklyn College Juniors NamedWatson Fellows

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“Each book is like a person,” said Slava Polishchuk, a masterbookbinder and fine artist who has been restoring booksin the collections of the Brooklyn College Library since2002. “It needs constant care.”

Polishchuk was talking about his job in CUNY’s firstand only Conservation Laboratory, located behind the glassdoors in the library’s Archives and Special Collectionssection, where artifacts, memorabilia, manuscripts, andprinted matter ranging from 17th-century handwrittenjournals and folio-size tomes to fragile 1950s Hank Kaplanpaperbacks and boxing gloves are often on display.

The Conservation Lab opened this past May at aceremony where invited guests enjoyed a talk and a tour

New Conservation Lab Is Extending Life of Collections

This semester, Brooklyn Collegeundergraduates are finally ableto call themselves children’s

studies majors.The new 30-credit B.A. in

children’s studies features breadthand depth, offering students thebenefit of perspectives from a varietyof disciplines as well as researchopportunities with authorities in thefield, relevant internships, and careercounseling.

Eighteen years ago, a committeechaired by Professor of SociologyGertrud Lenzer established theinterdisciplinary field of Children’s

Studies and rapidlyturned BrooklynCollege into anational leader inthis emerging area.The BrooklynCollege Children’sStudies Program,directed by Lenzer,has since beencopied by anumber of collegesand universities

around the nation. Its enrollment andcourses have increased steadily everyyear.

Since 1994, undergraduates havebeen able to take a children’s studiesminor, and there has been aconcentration for education majorssince 2001.

“The vision for this newinterdepartmental field of study wasbased on the insight that childrenfrom birth to age eighteen representin every society a distinctsociocultural class and generationalcohort,” says Lenzer. “This recognitionset the agenda and mission for

children’s studies—to view childrenas whole human beings and tointegrate knowledge from disciplinesin the arts, humanities, social andbiological sciences, medicine, and law,which focus on specific aspects andpropensities of children andchildhood.”

As a result of Lenzer’s efforts,the Brooklyn College Children’sStudies Center for Research, Policy,and Public Service was established in1997. It provides students with theopportunity to shape public policythat has a direct impact on the healthand well-being of children and youth.Serving as a think tank and catalystfor change, the center has hostedfour well-attended forums on publicpolicy for legislators, teachers, health-care providers, and judicial and lawenforcement personnel.

The center’s faculty and staff—experts in the field of children’sstudies—regularly participate inpanels, testify in support of legislation,and conduct research to further therights of children.

Children’s Studies Program Becomes a Major

C O L L E G E N E W S

The first rain on Commencement day in twenty-three years failed to dampen the spirits of 3,332undergraduate and graduate students, and their

families and friends, who assembled on the Central Quadon May 28 for Brooklyn College’s Eighty-FourthCommencement Exercises.

The newest alumni dodged raindrops to receive theirdegrees during the two-hour ceremony, presided over fora final time by President Christoph M. Kimmich.

Kimmich said, “As I graduate one last class at BrooklynCollege, I am honored to be in the company of the city’sfinest educators and students and am humbled by thegenerosity of so many alumni who give back to the collegecommunity that they came from.”

“As a graduate of Brooklyn College,” said NoamRubinstein, one of this year’s new alumni, “I’m lookingforward to using the tools I learned here.” Rubinstein saidhe was planning to work for one of the nation’s Big Threeaccounting firms. “Between what I learned in my businessclasses and my core courses,” he explained, “I feel thatBrooklyn College prepared me not only for the world welive in, but also for the one that we’re transitioning to.”

Mathematician and computer scientist Lawrence H.Landweber, ’63, delivered the Commencement address.Widely considered to be a “guardian” of the modernInternet, he received an honorary doctor of sciencedegree. Two other individuals also received honorarydegrees for their impact on our local and globalcommunities. Douglas C. Steiner, president of SteinerEquities Group, received a doctor of humane letters for hisfar-reaching belief in Brooklyn, manifested in hisdevelopment of Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Alexander (Sandy)Howe, a seniordesigner at theBoston architecturalfirm of ShepleyBulfinch Richardsonand Abbott,received a doctorof fine arts degreefor achievements inacademicarchitecture, in particular for his beautiful, valuable, andgreatly loved renovation of the Brooklyn College Library.

A Presidential Medal was presented to Howard(Woody) Tanger for his highly successful career in radiobroadcasting, his unwavering commitment to classicalmusic, and his bountiful philanthropy. A second PresidentialMedal went to Barry R. Feirstein, ’74, for his achievementsduring his exceptionally productive career in finance, for hisdeep commitment to Brooklyn College, and for hisleadership and financial support.

In addition, Distinguished Alumni honors werepresented to Don Buchwald, ’59, for his long andprincipled career as a talent agent, his enduring belief inartistic potential, and his steadfast loyalty to and support ofhis alma mater; to Arne L. Kalleberg, ’71, for his importantcontributions to sociology and to our understanding ofwork and its impact on society; and to Nancy A. Lynch, ’68,for her broad knowledge and creative insights and for theimpact she has had on the lives and careers of hercolleagues and students in the fields of theoreticalmathematics and computer science.

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Rain Doesn’t Cloud Bright Futurefor Eighty-Fourth Graduating Class

led by Polishchuk, who restores bindings and covers ofbooks—some of which are four hundred years old—toresemble their original form. He also creates slipcases forfragile, fine, or fantastic volumes.

“The addition of the Conservation Lab will contributeto the preservation of the library’s precious holdings andbenefit students as well as faculty,” said HistoryChairperson David G.Troyansky. “We historians think oflibraries and archives as our laboratories for scholarlyinvestigation.”

But this resource will do even more. “TheConservation Lab will afford Brooklyn College theopportunity to offer students enrolled in our

interdisciplinary archival studies and communitydocumentation minor a comprehensive course-cum-workshop in book and paper conservation,” said AnthonyM. Cucchiara, the college’s chief archivist and coordinatorof the ASCD minor, which is offered by the HistoryDepartment in conjunction with the library.

“Generally, such a concentration is available only tograduate students seeking library master’s degrees orcertificates in archival management,” he noted. “BrooklynCollege is the first in the City University of NewYork—and the first nationally—to offer this specialized course ofstudy to undergraduates.”

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Carolina Bank Muñoz, Sociology, wasawarded the Terry Book Award for bestbook of the year by the Academy ofManagement for her book, TransnationalTortillas: Race, Gender, and Shop-floor Politicsin Mexico and the United States (CornellUniversity Press, 2008).

With funding from the National ScienceFoundation, Christian Beneš,Mathematics, presented “The Rate ofConvergence of Loop-Erased RandomWalk to SLE (2),” at the 33rd Conferenceon Stochastic Processes and TheirApplications in Berlin, in July.

Anindya Bhattacharya, Economics,presented “Discreet Manufacturing: IsIndia Going to Be the Next Global Hubfor High-Tech Manufacturing?,” at the2009 Annual Conference of theNortheast Decision Sciences Institute, atthe Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, in April.

David C. Bloomfield, Education,contributed “Small Schools: Myth andReality,” in NYC Schools UnderBloomberg/Klein: What Parents, Teachers,and Policymakers Need to Know (Lulu,2009). He is also the author of severalarticles: “Qualified Immunity for SchoolLeaders: Safford USD v. Redding,” inTeachers College Record, athttp://www.tcrecord.org, ID Number:15737, August 5, 2009; and “CreditRecovery—Joel Klein’s Race to theBottom,” at GothamSchools.org, on June10. As head of the EducationalLeadership program, he obtained grantsfrom the U.S. Department of Education,NewYork State Education Department,and theWallace Foundation.

Rose Burnett Bonczek,Theater, recipientof the 2009-2010 Claire TowDistinguished Teacher Award, directed andproduced Gi60 2009 Live Edition U.S., theinternational interactive one-minute playfestival produced in conjunction withViaduct Theater and Leeds University, UK,and BBC Big Screen in June. She directeda staged reading of Israel Horovitz’s

Barking Sharks at the Cherry LaneTheater for the Barefoot TheaterCompany as part of its 70/70International Festival in June, and was acopresenter of “Downloadable Theaterand the Global Ensemble,” at theAssociation for Theater in HigherEducation Conference in NewYork, inAugust.

Edwin G. Burrows, History, contributed“The Gibraltar of America” to New York400, (Museum of the City of NewYork,2009). The Fraunces Tavern Museumnamed his most recent book, ForgottenPatriots: The Untold Story of AmericanPrisoners During the Revolutionary War(Basic Books, 2008), as the best book onthe American Revolution published duringthe previous year.

Chia-ju Chang,ModernLanguages andLiteratures,wrote “PuttingBack theAnimals:Woman-AnimalMeme inContemporaryTaiwanese

Ecofeminist Imagination,” in ChineseEcocinema in the Age of EnvironmentalVisibility (Hong Kong University Press,2009). Chang also contributed “Lee, Ang,”an entry in the Encyclopedia of ModernChina 4 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2009).

Robert Cherry, Economics, published“The Folly of Academic College for All” inTeachers College Record (August 24), and,in September, presented “IrishCatholicism:The Specter of Jansenism” atthe American Conference for Irish Studiesat Monmouth College.

Last July, Patricia Cronin, Art, exhibitedher sculptures and photographs in“Battaglia al Castello di Civitella Ranieri,”at the Civitella Ranieri Gallery, inUmbertide, Italy. Through January 24, her

faculty and staffNews

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watercolors “Harriet Hosmer, Lost andFound,” are on exhibit at the BrooklynMuseum. She is the author of HarrietHosmer: Lost and Found, A CatalogueRaisonné (Charta Art Books, 2009). Shereceived a Civitella Ranieri FoundationFellowship, Umbertide, Italy (summer); anExcellence in Creative AchievementAward, Brooklyn College (May); a PSC-CUNY Research Award, and a grant fromthe Research Foundation (June).

Robert Curran, Physical Education andExercise Science and Health andNutrition Sciences, was awarded the HighPerformance Award from the USASwimming High Performance Network,the highly screened network ofpractitioners qualified to work with theUSA National Swimming Team. Heauthored “The Vital Signs,” a three-partseries examining the core metrics ofemergency medical services, in theMarch–May issues of Emergency MedicalServices Magazine.

Mary DeBey, Education, head of theChildhood EducationTeacher program,was appointed to the board of the NewYork City Local Early InterventionCoordinating Council, which advises theDepartment of Health’s Division of MentalHygiene on early intervention issues.

Jason Eckardt, Music, composed “TangledLoops,” performed by Nathan Nabb andWinston Choi, on the Tangled Loops CD(Amp Records, 2009). He was alsocommissioned by pianist Benjamin Binderto compose a response to “Sphinxes”from Robert Schumann’s Carnaval.

The National Institutes of Health awardedDan Eshel, Biology, a $39,580 supplementto his existing American Recovery andReinvestment Act grant, “SignalingPathways and Microtubule Function.”

Rennie Gonsalves, English, wrote “TheLiar or the Mad Dog(s)? Another LACUSLook at the Liar Paradox” in LACUS(Linguistics Association of Canada and theUnited States) Forum 35 (2009). He wasalso elected to serve on the boardof LACUS.

Alexander Greer, Chemistry, was invitedto be an associate editor ofPhotochemistry and Photobiology (Wiley-Blackwell) and was elected to the boardof the Committee of Concerned

Scientists and the American ChemicalSociety’s Subcommittee on ScientificFreedom and Human Rights. Hepresented “Singlet Oxygen DeliveryThrough a Hollow-Core Fiber OpticDevice: Aiming towards Cancer TreatmentandWastewater Treatment,” at theUniversity of Delaware in April, and at theGordon Research Conference on PhysicalOrganic Chemistry at Holderness, NewHampshire, in July.

David Grubbs, Music, played a soloconcert at the Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) inBarcelona for its summer Post-Rock?series. Anthony McCall’s film installation,Leaving (With Two-Minute Silence), featuringa soundtrack by Grubbs, premiered at ArtBasel in June. Grubbs presented concertswith Susan Howe at the South BankCentre (London) and at CambridgeUniversity in June, and he performs ontwo new CDs: The Wingdale CommunitySingers, Spirit Duplicator (Scarlet Shame,2009) and Niobe, Blackbird’s Echo(TomLab, 2009).

Christian Grov, Health and NutritionSciences, presented the following papersat the August International Academy ofSex Research (IASR) meeting in San Juan,Puerto Rico: “Neurocognitive Deficits andDaily Diary Evaluations in MSM withSexual Compulsivity and MSM withoutSexual Compulsivity”; and “Symposium ofSexual Compulsivity and Co-OccurringPsychosocial Health Problems in aCommunity-Based Sample of Gay andBisexual Men: Further Evidence of aSyndemic.” His paper “Consequences ofCasual Online Sexual Activities onCommitted Relationships” was presentedat the Eastern and Midcontinent RegionalMeeting of the Society for the ScientificStudy of Sexuality, in St. Petersburg,Florida, in June.

Dan Gurskis, Film, interviewed film criticMolly Haskell about her book, Frankly, MyDear: Gone with the Wind Revisited, as apart of the Sunday Authors Series inQuogue, Long Island, in June.

Olympia Hadjiliadis, Mathematics,presented the following papers:“Decentralized Quickest ChangeDetection Through One Shot Schemesand Coupled Sensor Systems,” at theUniversity of Connecticut, Department ofStatistics, in September; “One Shot

Schemes in Discrete and ContinuousTime Models,” at the second InternationalWorkshop on Sequential Methodologies,in Troyes, France, in June; and“Drawdowns and Rallies in a Finite Time-Horizon and Applications” at the 15thINFORMS Applied Probability SocietyConference, in Ithaca, NewYork, in July.

Annie Hauck-Lawson, Health andNutrition Science, moderated and was apresenter on the panels “The FoodVoice:Spheres of Meaning and Expertise” and“Gastropolis: Food and NewYork City.”She participated in the “Eating forTomorrow: Nutrition Pedagogy”roundtable at the Annual Meeting of theAssociation for the Study of Food andSociety at State College, Penn., in May.She presented “The FoodVoice: Born inBrooklyn; Can Be Heard All Over” at theFood, Farms, and Community Conferenceat the Rural Heritage Institute of SterlingCollege,Vermont, in June.

JonathanHelfand, JudaicStudies,contributed“Father andSons:The FrenchRothschilds andtheYishuv,” inRAV CHESED:The HaskelLookstein Jubilee

Volume (KTAV, 2009). He also delivered alecture, “Custom and Conflict:The KaraiteConnection,” at the summer series ofThe Jewish Center, NewYork, in July.

Jerome Krase, Sociology (emeritus),wrote “AVisual Approach toMulticulturalism,” in BeyondMulticulturalism, (Ashgate Publishing Ltd.,2009). He presented, “Seeing Communityin a Multicultural Society:Teaching aboutPeopling of Global Cities,” at the 9thConference of the European SociologicalAssociation, in Lisbon, Portugal, inSeptember. His articles for the onlinepublication, I-Italy, (www.i-italy.org), include:“Explaining American Politics,” (July 17);“BoysWill Be Boys,” (June 24);“Remembering D-Day,” (June 2); and“Turning Back the Tide,” (May 14).

Régine Latortue, Africana Studies,appeared on the “Creole Poems” episodeof History Detectives series on PBS, inJune. The program featured her book,

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F A C U LT Y A N D S TA F F N E W S

coauthored with Gleason R.W. Adams,Les Cenelles: A Collection of Poems byCreole Writers of the Early NineteenthCentury (G.K. Hall, 1979).

Hong-Jen Lin, Economics, received a one-year grant to study “Cost and ProfitEfficiencies of Banks in China,” fromPSC-CUNY in July.

Linda Louis, Education, presented “ThePsychological Truth of Early VisualImagery,” at the Annual Meeting of theNational Art Education Association inMinneapolis, in May.

Nicola Masciandaro, English, wrote:“TheOne with a Hand:An Essay onEmbodiment, Labor, and Alienation,” inRhizomes: Cultural Studies in EmergingKnowledge 19 (2009); “Black Sabbath’s‘Black Sabbath’: A Gloss on Heavy Metal’sOriginary Song,” in Reconstruction: Studies inContemporary Culture 9 (2009). He read hispapers “Grave Levitation: Being Scholarly”and “Non potest hoc corpus decollari:Beheading and the Impossible” at the 44thInternational Congress on Medieval Studiesin Kalamazoo, Mich., in May.

Kathleen McSorley, Education, has beenselected as a member of CUNY’s NewCommunity College Initiative: Assessmentand Portfolios Committee.

Janet Moser, English, wrote “Perspectivesin Time: Using the Arts to Teach Proustand HisWorld,” in International Journal ofEducation and the Arts 11 (2009). She alsowrote “Voicing Reason: Personalizing theUndergraduate Research Paper,” in Journalof College Writing (Summer 2009). She wasinvited to lead a discussion at the ClassicStage Company’s performance of TheProust Project in NewYork City, in April.

Roni Natov, English, wrote “Child Powerin Louise Erdrich’s Historical Fiction forChildren,” in International Research inChildren’s Literature 2, no. 1 (July 2009).She presented “Representing the Cultural‘Other’ in Young Adult Fiction:TwoApproaches” at the 19th BiennialCongress of the International Research

Society for Children’s Literature at theInstitut fur Jugendbuchforschung, Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt am Main, Germany,in August.

Victoria Núñez, Education, wrote“Remembering Pura Belpré’s Early Careerat the 135th Street NewYork PublicLibrary: Interracial Cooperation andPuerto Rican Settlement During theHarlem Renaissance,” in Centro, The Journalof the Center for Puerto Rican Studies(spring 2009).

Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome, PoliticalScience, contributed “Immigrant Voices inCyberspace: Spinning Continental andDiaspora Africans into theWorldWideWeb,” to Gendering the African Diaspora:Women, Culture, and Historical Change inthe Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland(Indiana University Press, 2009). Okomealso appeared on the PBS televisionprogram Worldfocus onWNET 13 in June.

Irina Patkanian,Television andRadio, wrote,directed, andproduced theshort film ArmedDefense, whichwas selected toplay at theWomen’s Film &Arts Festival in

Austin,Tex., in May. Her documentary film,My American Neighbor, which she alsowrote, directed, and produced, waslicensed by Films for the Humanities &Sciences for distribution to the NorthAmerican educational market.

Vanessa Pérez Rosario, Puerto Rican andLatino Studies, was awarded a 2009Library Scholars Summer Grant from theDavid Rockefeller Center for LatinAmerican Studies at Harvard, where sheexplored the archives at the university’sHoughton and Schlesinger Libraries for abook project on Julia de Burgos. She alsoreceived a publication grant from theAmerican Association of UniversityWomen, July 2009–June 2010.

Tanya Pollard, English, presented“Enclosing the Body:Tudor Conceptionsof Skin,” at the Tudor Medicine and theHistory of the Body Symposium atHampton Court Palace in East Molesley,UK, in June, and “Athens at the PublicTheater : Kyd, Revenge,Tragedy, and theGreek Model” at the Authority andAuthorities Conference at the EarlyModern Research Center of the,University of Reading, UK, in July.

Laura Reigada, Psychology, was awardedthe Goldman Scholar in PediatricResearch honor from the Crohn’s andColitis Foundation of America for thehighest scoring grant. Reigada cofoundedand was elected the first copresidentof Cognitive Behavioral Therapy–NewYork City.

Nava Renek, Women’s Center, presented“Indie Presses” at the Fifth Annual NewYork Round TableWriters Conference atthe Center for Independent Publishing, inBuffalo.

Bernd Renner, Modern Languages andLiteratures, was an invited participant inthe Radcliffe Institute seminar“Renaissance Encyclopedism,” at HarvardUniversity in June. He published “SatiricalDialogism in the Paratext of BonaventureDes Périers’ Nouvelles récréations etjoyeux devis,” in French Forum 33, nos. 1–2(2008), which appeared in May 2009.

Corey Robin, Political Science, wrote “TheFirst Counterrevolutionary,” in the Nation(October 19, 2009). He presented “Easy toBe Hard: Conservatism andViolence” tothe Department of Political Science,Stanford University in May. His book, Fear:The History of a Political Idea (OxfordUniversity Press, 2004), was translated intoSpanish [El Miedo: Historia de una ideapolítica (Fondo de Cultura Económico,2009)] and Romanian [Frica: Istoria unei ideipolitice (Vremea, 2009)]. It has now beenpublished in seven different languages.

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Karel Rose, Education, presented aninvited paper, “Unpacking the CulturalSuitcase of the Young Adult Reader:Aesthetic Experience and the Feeling Lifeof the Other,” at the 19th BiennialCongress of the International ResearchSociety for Children’s Literature inFrankfurt, Germany, in August.

María R. Scharrón-del Río, Education,presented two papers: “Espiritualidad,Bienestar y Sintomatología Depresiva enEstudiantes UniversitariosPuertorriqueños” and “Traducción,Adaptación y Evaluación de TresCuestionarios de Espiritualidad en PuertoRico,” at the XXXII InteramericanCongress of Psychology, SociedadInteramericana de Psicología(Interamerican Psychological Society),Guatemala City, in June. She presented“Speaking of Skills: Creating Safe Spaces,Promoting Dialogue, and InstitutionalChange,” at the 117th Annual AmericanPsychological Association NationalConvention in Toronto, in August.

Anthony Sclafani, Psychology, was aninvited presenter of “Opioids and FoodHedonics Revisited,” at the 10th BenjaminFranklin Lafayette Seminar in Frejus,France, in June.

In June, Robert Moses Shapiro, JudaicStudies, organized his third YIVO EPYCEducators Seminar in East EuropeanJewish Culture at the Center for JewishHistory in Manhattan. In August, hepresented several invited lectures at theCenter for Jewish Research at theUniversity of Lodz, Poland, in associationwith the commemoration of the sixty-fifthanniversary of the liquidation of the Lodzghetto. His stay in Poland was fundedthrough the Fulbright-Hays Programadministered by the cultural attaché atthe United States Embassy inWarsaw.

Sexual Exiles, a documentary film by IreneSosa, Television and Radio and PuertoRican and Latino Studies, was screened inAugust at Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity, as part of the African Diaspora

Film Festival Summer Series. In October,the film was shown at La GuardiaCommunity College.

Jessica Siegel, English, wrote The NewMarketplace: How Small-School Reformsand School Choice Have Reshaped NewYork City High Schools (Center for NewYork City Affairs,The New School, 2009).She also launched a high school journalismwebsite (www.newsstandnyc.org), which isaimed both at high school journalismstudents and their teachers.

Michael Sobel, Physics, wrote “Physics forthe Non-Scientist: A MiddleWay,” in thePhysics Teacher 47, no. 6 (September2009).The article touched off somecontroversy—three physicists challengedSobel’s findings in the October issue.

Jeff Suzuki, Mathematics, won anAllendoerfer Award (his second) fromthe Mathematical Association of Americafor his article “A Brief History ofImpossibility,” Mathematics Magazine 81,no.1. He is also the author ofMathematics in Historical Context(MAA Press, 2009).

Judylee Vivier,Theater, wrote “The Breath:Heart and Soul of the Self,” in Breath inAction: The Art of Breath inVocal and Holistic Practice (Jessica KingsleyPublishers, 2009). She presented a paper,“Women Performers and the Relationshipto Their Voices,” at the Voice and SpeechTrainers’ Association Conference, at PaceUniversity, NewYork City, in August.

Stephanie Walker, Library, published thefollowing articles: “Come-Outers” inAmerican Countercultures: An Encyclopediaof Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, andRadical Ideas in U.S. History, (ME Sharpe,2009); “Purchase of Journal Portfolios isNot Cost-Effective and May Lead toNormalization of Collections,” in EvidenceBased Library and Information Practice 4,no.1 (2009); and “Bioline International: ACase Study in Open Access and Its Usagefor Enhancement of Research Distributionfor Scientific Research from Developing

Countries,” in OCLC Systems and Services,Special Issue on Open Access 25, no. 4(2009).Walker was elected to the Boardof the NewYork State Higher EducationInitiative, an Albany-based advocacy groupfor academic libraries, and reappointed tothe Scholarships and Grants Committeeof the American Library Association

ChristianWarren, History,presented“Losing Our Sol?Elegies to theSunlit Past in theTwentiethCentury,” at theWorld Congressof EnvironmentalHistory and the

International Consortium of EnvironmentalHistory, in Copenhagen, in August.

Marjorie Welish, English, wrote“Inscription,” for American Poet (Fall2009). She also discussed her poetryunder the auspices of the YaleWorkingGroup of Contemporary Poetry andPoetics, at Yale University, in October.

Barbara Winslow, Education, wrote, “TheFirst White Rastafarian: Sylvia Pankhurst,Haile Selaisse, and Ethiopia,” in At Homeand Abroad in the Empire: British WomenWrite the 1930s (University of DelawarePress, 2009). Her work is a part of theUniversity ofWashington’s antiwar andwomen’s liberation oral history archive:http://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/interview_winslow.shtml.

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alumniNews

The Brooklyn College Alumni Association hosted theNineteenth Annual Post 50th Alumni Awards Ceremonyand Luncheon on October 18. The weather might havebeen frighful, but it did not dampen the spirits of the morethan 160 alumni and guests who graced the campus thatday and participated in the festivities. It was also the firstofficial alumni event that Karen L. Gould attended sincebecoming the ninth President of Brooklyn College.

On this occasion, Lillian Jorgensen Secundy Lynch, ‘34,Murray Seeman, ‘34, and Kate Mandel Tuchman, ‘34observed the seventy-fifth anniversary of their graduationfrom the college. Members of the classes of 1939, 1944,1949, and 1954 celebrated their seventieth, sixty-fifth,sixtieth, and fifty-fifth reunions, respectively.

The accomplishments of alumni who graduated fromthe college more than fifty years ago were alsoacknowledged with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Therecipients included Helen Gordon Davis, ’42, Estelle SillenFuchs, ’44, Jean Leon Kaplan, ’44, Joseph Berger, ’49, FrancisXavier Cunningham, ’49, Jack Deitch ’49, Eugene Fried, ’49,HildaWerner Hainer, ‘49, Carol Bird Myers Ravenal, ’49,Herbert Dorfman, ’51, Albert C. Lasher, ’51, SolomonSchiff, ’51,William L.Taylor, ’52, Norman M. Charney, ’53,Carl M. Levine, ’53, Sally Freiberg Gross, ’54, Marcia JacobyHillman, ’54,Thelma Esan Kandel, ’54, Allen Lashley, ’54,

Arnold M.Weiss, ’54, Elio Zappulla, ’54, and Philip G.Zimbardo, ’54.

In addition, the Milton Fisher ’38 Second HarvestAward, which is given in recognition of the achievementsof alumni subsequent to their 50th reunion, was presentedto Irene Danzker Deitch, ‘52. Dr. Deitch graciouslydesignated the monetary portion of the award be sharedwith the M.F.A. CreativeWriting Program for a readingseries and the Department of Psychology for its mentalhealth counseling program.

Save the DateSaturday evening, April 17, 2010

Alumni Reunion Party at Brooklyn College

Class of 1970, Class of 1980, Class of 1990

Reminisce with friends and classmates while

enjoying music, dancing, hors d’oeuvres, and open bar.

Submit photos and memorabilia for a

“Wall of Memorable Moments”

BC Office of Alumni Affairs

2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210

(Please have your name on all items submitted.)

ExpatriatesWelcomeBC's New President

On Sunday, November 22, alumni and guests fromthe Los Angeles area gathered at the beautifulhome of Phyllis Berger, ’58, to attend a

welcoming reception for Brooklyn College President KarenL. Gould. This was an opportunity for President Gould—who came to the college from California State University,Long Beach—to meet expatriate alumni who relocated tothe Golden State after graduation. In the coming months,graduates will have an occasion to meet our newpresident as she travels to other areas of the country toattend alumni chapter events.

BCAA Post 50th Awards Ceremony and Luncheon

AlanWashkowitz, ’62, believes that “the future belongs tothe techies.”That’s why he donated $250,000 to theBrooklyn College Foundation to establish theWashkowitzTechnology Fund.

Washkowitz was motivated to create the endowmentat a breakfast meeting with former President Christoph M.Kimmich, during which he learned that many BC studentsdon’t own a computer. “That was shocking to me,” he said,“I’m not a big computer guy, but I do have a view aboutthe future. Everyone majoring in liberal arts should knowabout technology.”

Through theWashkowitz fund a new “smart”classroom was created for the Honors Academy. Thestate-of-the-art classroom includes a lectern with a built-inPC, ceiling-mounted projector and screen, DVD/VCRplayer, sound system, network access, room to connect a

laptop to the projection and sound system, and wirelessInternet access.This semester, nine classes are using theroom.Virtually all Honors Academy students will use theroom at some point for a course or other activities.

“The students use the room to present theirindependent research, for peer-mentoring, and forcocurricular activities, such as viewing film,” said Tammy

Lewis, who holds the endowedCarol L. Zicklin Chair in the HonorsAcademy and teaches a course onglobalization and sustainability in thefacility. “The technology providesthem with opportunities to expandtheir communication skills, which willserve them in whatever career theychoose.”

A recent ribbon-cuttingceremony for the newly upgraded

facility kicked-off the Brooklyn College Foundation’s “ClassAct” campaign. Through this program a gift of at least$100,000 will establish a legacy at Brooklyn College bynaming a classroom in honor of the donor. A plaque in theclassroom will highlight the career of the generoussupporter, serving not only to honor the donor but also toinspire current students.

AlanWashkowitz grew up in Midwood, received hisB.A. in economics at Brooklyn College, and went on toearn both a law degree from Columbia and an M.B.A.from Harvard. For nearly thirty years he was a leader ininvestment banking and private equity management.

After the ribbon cutting, he sat in on Professor Lewis’sclass while four students made presentations—on suchvaried topics as sustainability in Brooklyn and theeffectiveness of micro-lending in Ecuador, each using theroom’s technology.

“I was blown away by the presentations,” Washkowitzsaid. “It’s much easier to write the check than it is to learnabout these new techniques.”

foundationNews

Honors Academy Gets New “Smart” Classroom

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F O U N D AT I O N N E W S

The second meeting of the BrooklynCollege Prelaw Advisory Council tookplace on June 8. The council is aforum where legal professionals meetwith faculty and administrators toconsider the college’s prelaw offeringsas well as ways to provide the bestpossible undergraduate preparationfor careers in law.

A key aspect of the council isrepresentation from diverse areas ofthe law—public interest, commercial,environmental, and others. Amongthe notable members of the councilare Alan Dershowitz, Felix FrankfurterProfessor of Law, Harvard University;Barry E. Hill, Esq., Senior Counsel forEnvironmental Governance, Office ofInternational Affairs; Chief JusticeDeborah Poritz, first woman attorneygeneral of New Jersey, first womanchief justice of the Supreme Court ofNew Jersey; and the Honorable JackWeinstein, Senior U.S. District Judge,Eastern District of NewYork.

The discourse began withProvostWilliamTramontano’sdiscussion of the college’s historicalrole in producing significant numbersof future lawyers and physicians,followed by Dean DonnaWilson’spresentation of the action items fromthe November 5 inaugural meeting,which emphasized the need forwriting tutors, LSAT prep, and anincrease in the number of law schoolapplicants from Brooklyn College.

Professor Sally Bermanzohnreported on the upgrading of thecollege’s prelaw education anddistributed the interdisciplinary list of

suggested courses spanning thespectrum of subjects from politicalscience to chemistry.

Associate Professor CatherineKemp of the Philosophy Departmentexplained a method of informal careercounseling through which students aredirected to various resources, includinglawyers and law professors. ProfessorKemp raised concerns about whetherall self-identified prelaw studentspossess the academic readiness toearn competitive LSAT scores andsuccessfully complete a law education.

Among the many action itemsthat emerged from the discussion are(1) the need for a fine-tuned andupdated prelaw website; (2) aflowchart delineating pathways ofguidance in LSAT prep and completionof law school applications; and (3)better tracking of Brooklyn Collegelegal alumni at major law schools.

The council members whoattended the inaugural and secondevents include Professor AsharSameer; Professor Sally Bermanzohn,

Department of Political Science; AlanBlum, Esq.; Alan Dershowitz; ProfessorWilliam Hellerstein; Barry Hill, Esq.;Professor Sarumathi Jayaraman; theHonorable Sterling Johnson; AssociateProfessor Catherine Kemp; BettyLugo, Esq.; Professor MartinMendelsohn; Robert Oliva; CarmenPacheco, Esq.; Chief Justice DeborahPoritz; Myra Rochelson; ProfessorManouska Saint Gilles; MarlaSchreibman, director of Alumni Affairs;Brooklyn College;Vice President forInstitutional Advancement AndrewSillen; Phylesia Steele; ProvostWilliamTramontano; the Honorable Jack B.Weinstein; and Dean DonnaWilson.

From left to right: Former New Jersey

Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, Martin

Mendelsohn, Esq., Barry E. Hill, Esq.,

Honorable Sterling Johnson Jr., and

Brooklyn College Provost William

Tramontano.

PreLaw Council Makes Opening Statements

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Barry R. Feirstein, ’74President, Feirstein CapitalManagement Corporation

Chairman, Board of Trustees ofBrooklyn College Foundation (as ofJune 30, 2009)

Executive Committee Chairman

Development Committee

Ad Hoc Strategic PlanningCommittee

Barry R. Feirstein joined the BrooklynCollege Foundation in 2005. Prior tohis election as president of thefoundation, he served as chair of thefoundation’s Audit and FinanceCommittee. He is the owner andpresident of Feirstein CapitalManagement Corporation, a top-tierprivate investment management firm.He and the members of his fundmanagement team were among thefirst to recognize innovations thatwould bring new small- and medium-sized companies to the forefront.Many lesser-known companies heinvested in have become householdnames—companies such asGenentech and Apple.

Jeffrey S. Fried, ’80Fried & Company P. C.

Development Committee

Jeffrey Fried was elected to thefoundation board at the June 2009meeting for a three-year termbeginning in July 2009. He is theprimary partner of Fried & Company,P.C., aWashington, D.C., law firm hefounded in 1994.The firm specializesin corporate, sports, andentertainment law. His firmrepresents some of the premierclients in the sports andentertainment industry and isinvolved in important domesticmergers, acquisitions, and worldwideshareholder and regulatoryconsiderations. He is the agent forNewYork Knicks point guard SteveFrancis. Fried is involved incommunity and charitableorganizations, including the SpecialOlympics and the StarlightFoundation, and is establishing theConey Island College ScholarshipFund.

Evan J. Silverstein, ’74

Audit and Finance Committee

Evan Silverstein, elected to thefoundation board for a three-yearterm, is a financial analyst and hedgefund manager specializing in theenergy industry. He began his careerin 1975 at Drexel Burnham Lambert.He served as utility and energyportfolio manager for the BassBrothers Companies, and as seniorequity utility analyst for L.F.Rothschild, Unterberg & Towbin. Heretired in 2005 as general partnerand utility and energy portfoliomanager at SILCAP LLC. In August2006, Silverstein was elected to theboard of directors of Reliant Energy,Inc., a Houston-based provider ofelectricity and energy services.Management and industry expertsconsistently seek Silverstein’s insights.He is a frequent professional speakerand has testified before Congress ona variety of energy-related issues. Mr.Silverstein has been involved in manyindustry organizations, including theEdison Electric Institute.

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FoundationWelcomes New Board MembersAt the June meeting of the Brooklyn College Foundation Board, Barry Feirstein was elected chairmanand two other alumni were elected as members.

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F O U N D AT I O N N E W S

As chief archivist of the Brooklyn College Library,Professor Anthony M. Cucchiara has had to researchvarious arcane bits and pieces of literary and historical

interest. Back in 2005, when he set out for Kendall Park,Florida, on the outskirts of Miami, he had both a professionaland a personal interest in mind. Cucchiara was on the trail ofwhat he had been assured was the world’s largest and mostextensive collection of documents, imagery, memorabilia, andartifacts from the history of boxing that covered a wide rangeof people connected with the sport.

Until television boosted the popularity of organizedbaseball and football, boxingwas America’s most popularsporting activity–knocking thetwo team sports to thecanvas. From the mid-1800sto the 1950s and afterward, acareer in boxing served as ahighway to social acceptanceand financial viability for thenation’s underclasses and forwaves of immigrants to thiscountry–Irish, Italians, Jews,African Americans, Hispanicsand many others had foughttheir way up and into themainstream. Cucchiara knew this intimately. In addition tobeing a respected professor teaching archival management,he is also a boxer who works out three times a week atGleason’s Gym in Brooklyn.

A steady procession of sportswriters, authors,scholars, and other adherents of boxing had precededCucchiara to the suburban Florida home of Brooklyn-bornHank Kaplan. Over the course of fifty years, Kaplan hadfilled thousands of boxes, cartons, and even suitcases withnews clippings, record books, photographs, posters, boxinggloves, and an assortment of other materials—all relatedto what Kaplan liked to call the “fistic arcana” that detailedthe history of boxing and the lives, and sometimes thedeaths, of its characters.

The feat of pulling together such a sizable and far-reaching research collection and transmitting its most

intimate secrets to the outside world had earned Kaplanthe appellation “Lord of the Ring.”

Cucchiara noted that former New York Times writerand Vanity Fair contributer David Margolick, author of thehighly praised biography, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. MaxSchmeling, and a World on the Brink, recommended Kaplan’scollection as a research treasure trove for anyoneinterested in boxing history.The collection filled Kaplan’sentire two-car garage and overflowed into other rooms ofhis house. Cucchiara admitted, “When I first saw it. . . I wasstunned.”

Orphaned at an earlyage, Kaplan had becomeinterested in boxing afterhe received a bloodynose in a fistfight withanother youngster atsummer camp in upstateNewYork. As a youngman he fought as anamateur and thenengaged in a singleprofessional bout, whichhe won. He promptlyabandoned the squaredcircle and instead of

fighting himself, devoted all his spare time to chroniclingthe lives of those who did, amassing an encyclopedic troveof information about boxers and their world.In December 2007, at the age of 88, Kaplan died.Thoughmany worried that his death meant his potentially pricelesscollection would be lost or scattered, Cucchiara knewotherwise: Hank’s will had left his entire collection toBrooklyn College. Now 2,000 cartons containing thecollection have been shipped to Kaplan’s home borough,where they occupy a 10-foot-high space in the Archivesand Special Collections Division of the library.

Conservatively valued at nearly $3 million, the books,records, photographs, news clippings, magazines, lists, andeven personal items that had once belonged to suchillustrious figures as Cassius Clay, Kid Galivan, RockyMarciano, Jack Dempsey,Willy Pep, and others are in the

Lord of the Ring and His Corner Men

process of being sorted and catalogued. “We have alreadybeen deluged by calls from writers, researchers, andscholars eager for access to this major research collection,”says Cucchiara.To make this possible will require $250,000to re-house and preserve the collection.

It is an awesome task, but Cucchiara now has a veryvaluable ally waiting to work in his corner. He is renownedWashington, D.C., sports and entertainment attorneyJeffrey S. Fried, a native of Coney Island and a 1980Brooklyn College graduate. In addition, as of July 1, he hasbeen a member of the Brooklyn College FoundationBoard of Trustees.

Shortly after joining the Board, Cucchiara says, Friedcontacted him and offered his services and contacts topromote and grow the collection. According to Cucchiara,Fried expressed “great passion” in working on thecollection.The two men plan to meet in NewYorksometime this winter to discuss the best ways toaccomplish their goals.

After graduating cum laude from Brooklyn Collegewith a bachelor of science degree in accounting, Friedwent on to earn a law degree from the AmericanUniversityWashington College of Law. Before founding hisown law firm, Fried & Company, in 1994, he worked as aCPA for Deloitte Haskins & Sells, specializing in the tax and

corporate aspects ofinternational corporatetransactions. His firmnow is involved in thecommercial and legalaspects of corporatefinance and sports andentertainmenttransactions. In additionto NBA stars, CBSsports broadcasterJames Brown, andWorld Poker ChampionPhil Ivey, Fried hasrepresented a variety ofboxing interests,

includingWorld Boxing Association Champions RiddickBowe, Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather; Olympic GoldMedalist AndreWard, and worldwide boxing promoter,Goossen Tutor Promotions, among others.

“I can certainly point Tony in the right direction, andlikewise, to avoid the pitfalls sometimes associated withour industry,” says the attorney and promoter of elite levelboxing events for the past twenty years. “The Kaplancollection is a magnificent draw that can create wonderfulopportunities.We plan on applying it in a diverse mannerto widen the circle and bring an enhanced interest to theBrooklyn College community.”

“Considering what Jeff has accomplished in the boxingindustry and the uniform respect of his peers, I’m lookingforward to working with him,” says Cucchiara.

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GOT C L I P S ?

If you’ve been in the news

lately, let us know. Items

for Alumni Newsmakers

may be e-mailed to

[email protected]

or mailed to Brooklyn

College Magazine.

“There is no higher callingthan furthering theeducational advancementof our nation’s youngpeople and encouraging

and inspiring our nextgeneration of leaders,”according to PresidentObama, who has honoredveteran Cal State Northridgebiology professor StevenOppenheimer, ’65, with aPresidential Award forExcellence in Science,Mathematics, and EngineeringMentoring. Besides the honor,Oppenheimer, who hasdevoted his career to makingscientists and training K–12science teachers, received a

trip toWashington, D.C., to attend aspecialWhite House ceremony andmeet the president.The award,administered by the National ScienceFoundation, also includes $10,000 tosupport student research.

Barry Freedman, ’80, leading a teamatWake Forest University, discovereda single gene, MYH9, that researchersestimate is responsible for half of allcases of kidney failure among AfricanAmericans.The identification of thegene—common to all AfricanAmericans—will help researchers tofocus on the environmental triggersthat cause this particular gene tocontribute to kidney disease. “Thisgenetic finding will forever change theway that we categorize the causes ofkidney disease,” Freedman told CNN.“It has the potential to lead to newtreatment options to prevent thisdevastating disease.”

Judge Arthur M. Schack, ’66, is no fanof sloppy foreclosure motions. TheNew York Times recently profiled theNewYork State Supreme Courtjustice, who has tossed out forty-sixof the 102 foreclosure motions thathave come before his bench in thelast two years, calling him, “a judicialDon Quixote, tilting at the phalanxesof bankers, foreclosure facilitators,and lawyers by the bale.” Schack wasoriginally a schoolteacher whojumped to law school during theNew York City fiscal crisis of the1970s. He was then counsel for theMajor League Baseball Association inthe 1980s and 1990s, before winningelection to the Civil Court in 1998and to the Supreme Court forBrooklyn and Staten Island in 2003.“I’m a guy from Brooklyn whohappened to become a judge,” hetold the Times. “I see a bank giving a$500,000 mortgage on a buildingworth $300,000 and the interest rateis 20 percent, and I ask questions.What can I tell you?”

Nia Phillips, M.A., ’08, spent threeyears teaching first grade in aBrooklyn public school beforeattending law school, but instead ofbecoming a judge, she is joining theObama administration as deputygeneral counsel for Departmentaland Legislative Services in the Officeof the General Counsel at the U.S.Department of Education, where shewill oversee legal services to thedepartment, which relate to businessand administrative law and toproposed or pending legislation.

The Miller Theater at ColumbiaUniversity is no fusty recital hall. Ledby Melissa Smey, M.F.A., ’97, since last

alumniNewsmakers

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fall, the Morningside Heights venue,which has traditionally has featuredcomposer portraits, early music, Bach,and the Baroque, is increasinglyknown for jazz and alternative rockmusic. In profiling Smey, the New YorkTimes remarked upon her “wide-eyedflashing ebullience” and noted thatshe has frequent recourse to wordslike “cool” and “awesome” whendescribing her coming season ofperformances.

Generating serious buzz in theliterary world is Electric Literature, thenew journal of short stories, coeditedby Andy Hunter and ScottLindenbaum (both M.F.A., ’08).Eschewing the traditional template,Electric Literature is primarily anInternet phenomenon, with electronicversions available for sale on Amazon,for Kindle, and as an iPhoneapplication. Sporting the subversivemotto, “Reading That’s Bad for You,”the publication has luredheavyweights like MichaelCunningham and Jim Shepard into itspages, and because the publicationpays $1,000 per story, the editorshave also received a flood ofunsolicited manuscripts fromhundreds of lesser-known scribes,hoping for their big cyber-break.

Stanford University Professor LucyShapiro, ’61, recently shared twoprestigious scientific awards with herUniversity of Pennsylvania colleague,Stephen Benkovic, for discovering anovel way to reformulate drugs byusing boron atoms to replace carbonatoms: the Benjamin Franklin Medal inLife Science from the Franklin Instituteand the Gairdner International Awardfrom theToronto-based GairdnerFoundation.The discovery, whichimproves the efficacy of older drugsand makes newer drugs capable oftargeting specific infections, also led tothe creation of AnacorPharmaceuticals in 2002, a companybased in Palo Alto, Calif., that develops

anti-inflammatory, antifungal, andantibacterial drugs.Winning a GairdnerAward is considered a precursor towinning the Nobel Prize in Physiologyor Medicine, as sixty-nine priorGairdner recipients have gone on tocollect the big prize in Stockholm.

Animator Rob O’Neill, ’81, meldedhis interest in physical anthropologyand computer imaging to help createthe vivid characters in Shrek 2 andMadagascar as a character technicaldirector with DreamWorks Animation,and he’s something of an expert onanimation technology and 3Dmodeling. In fact, last year he publisheda 344-page textbook on the subject,Digital Character Development:Theoryand Practice (Morgan Kaufmann, 2008).This summer he and two colleaguestook the plunge and openedKickstand, a research and developmentstudio for animation production basedin Brooklyn that promises to “breathenew life into 3D character animation.”

David Mintz, ’76,inventedTofutti, thetofu-based,nondairy ice-

cream substitute,after nine years of

trial and error.And, no,he is not going to tell you

how to make it.The secret formula isso secret that no employee atTofuttiBrands knows it, and everyone workson only a small part of theTofuttiprocess.“It’s like Coca-Cola,” Mintz toldthe New Jersey Jewish Standard.“None of the bottling plants has thesecret formula. If you take all of theingredients and try to makeTofutti,you’ll never do it.”Tofutti is now sold allacross the United States and in thirtycountries worldwide, but Mintz almostgave up on his dream of creating thesoy-based dessert, until MenachemSchneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe,encouraged him and assured him,“Thisis going to be huge!”

James Patrick,M.F.A., ’01,the executivedirector ofthe beautifullyrestoredWarnerTheater inTorrington,Conn., was acruise director

(“like Julie McCoy on The Love Boat”)before attending the BrooklynCollege Theater DepartmentPerforming Arts ManagementProgram. At the helm of the 1,700-seat theater since 2004, Patrick’sfavorite memory is the day theyscreened vintage cartoons for ninehundred children. “All you heard wasthe sound of popcorn popping andthe whole theater smelled the way itwas meant to,” he told the RegisterCitizen. “To see the smiles on the kids’faces and know that these kids weregetting to see a 1931 movie palacethe way it was really meant to be,was pretty special.”

Little Rock, a play by Rejendra Ramoon,M.F.A., ’98, about the attempt tointegrate Little Rock Central HighSchool in 1957, had a staged readingstarring Broadway veteran LeslieUggams at the RebelTheater, whereRamoon is artistic director. The play isthe result of three years of researchand more than one hundred interviewsconcerning the dramatic events inSeptember of that year.

The San Diego Union-Tribune caughtup with Lila Rockstein, ’49, whostarts out at 6:30, three mornings aweek, to run four to five miles. Onthe mornings she doesn’t run, sheswims. She recently competed a fivekilometer charity run for theParkinson’s Disease Association, andnoted that the other participants inher age category (she’s eighty-one)were using walkers and wheelchairs.

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Over the course of his long career, Mark Kroll hasdescribed himself by a variety of titles. A harpsichordist.A fortepianist. A conductor. A teacher. A scholar. Anauthor. One wonders which label he likes the most.“I guess it depends on which period of my life you ask

me about and how much money I had at the time,” he says,with a laugh.Then he answers more seriously: “I’m a musician.

Musicians fulfill one or more functions at certain times intheir careers . . . But, to be truthful, we are just entertainers.We always have been.”Entertainer might very well be the description that he

likes best. The Washington Post once called him “the idealperforming artist.”He admits, “I hate to practice, but I love playing.”Kroll did not set out to become a musician. Born and

raised in Brooklyn’s East New York section, he attended P.S.202 and Thomas Jefferson High School. He trained on thepiano from an early age, but at fifteen, while still atJefferson, he developed a fascination for a much olderinstrument, the harpsichord, a forerunner of the piano.He adds, “It was both the kind of music that has been

written for it and the sound of the instrument itself thatattracted me to the harpsichord.”The instrument was undergoing a revival in popularity

at about the time Kroll was drawn to it. Now, it is an

integral part of historical performance practice, which triesto recapture the sound and mood of music listened to inearlier times.Kroll enrolled at Brooklyn College as a premed

student. But that was not to last. “There’s an old saying,‘You don’t choose music; music chooses you,’” Kroll states.“In my sophomore year I said to myself, ‘That’s it,’ and Iswitched to music.”At the time Kroll was studying at Brooklyn College,

there was no Conservatory of Music. “It was simply theDepartment of Music back then,” he explains. “If theConservatory had existed, I likely would have continued atthe college to work for my master’s degree.”After graduating with a B.A. in 1968, Kroll stayed for

one year of graduate study in musicology and then went toYale University, where he received a master of music degreein harpsichord in 1971.Kroll says he has no regrets for the choice he made

back in his teens. “I’ve never looked back,” he says. “I’vehad a very active career.”Also, Kroll notes, “I’m very grateful for the education I

received at Brooklyn College. The professors provided mewith a very high level of instruction. Throughout myacademic career I’ve tried to teach the same way that I wastaught at Brooklyn College.”He has taught since 1971 after working as a teaching

assistant at Brooklyn College while doing his graduate workin musicology. He is currently professor emeritus at BostonUniversity, where he spent twenty-five years of his careerbefore retiring, and a visiting professor at NortheasternUniversity, where he has been for the last three years.In 1989 Kroll served as Fulbright professor and artist-in-residence in Yugoslavia, later returning for recitals inLjubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, and Zadar. In 1991 he was avisiting lecturer at the University of Padua, Italy, and in1993 he was a professor at the Conservatory of Music inWürzburg, Germany. Recently he served as a member ofthe jury of the Prague International HarpsichordCompetition. He is a member of the music panel of the ProMusicis Foundation.Over the past decade, Kroll says, he has devoted more

time to his role as scholar, producing three books, amongthem Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician’s Life and World(Scarecrow Press), which earned high praise from critics.

Mark Kroll, ’68

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1 9 3 3Herbert NestlerClass Correspondent8440 South Military Trail, Apt. 216Boynton Beach, FL 33436

Juliet Relis Bernstein recently receivedthe PioneeringWomen’s Award fromCape Cod Community College and theUN Human Services Award from ChurchWomen United.

1 9 3 5Irwin GlickClass Correspondent5071C NestingWayDelray Beach, FL 33484-1705

1 9 3 7HarryW.AnisgardClass Correspondent2563 Greer RoadPalo Alto, CA 94303

1 9 3 9Adele Barlin PessenClass Correspondent853 East 18 StreetBrooklyn, NY [email protected]

Adele Barlin Pessen recently performedher original monologue, Breaking Up, forthe Brooklyn College IRPE theater artperformance directed by Martin Grumet.

1 9 4 1Shirley Edelman GreenwaldClass Correspondent1Washington Square Village, Apt. 16BNewYork, NY 10012-1632

1 9 4 3Romola Ettinger KaplanClass CorrespondentP.O. Box 648East Quogue, NY 11942-0648

1 9 4 4Renee B. Landau EidlinClass Correspondent30 Oak Street Ext., Apt. 507Brockton, MA 02301-1169

Caryl Berzin Shapiro recently retiredafter many years of teaching mechanicaldrawing at the Cooper Union, CityCollege of NewYork, and the NewYorkInstitute of Technology.

1 9 4 6Bernard R. SchwartzClass Correspondent404 Beach 143 StreetNeponsit, NY 11694-1111

1 9 4 7Reva Frumkin BiersClass Correspondent4631 Ellenita AvenueTarzana, CA 91356-4931

1 9 4 8Eneas Newman SlomanArkawyClass Correspondent27110 Grand Central Parkway, Apt. 8GFloral Park, NY 11005-1209

1 9 4 9Marvin E. Newman was honored at theseventh Annual Lucie Awards inphotography held at Lincoln Center. Hewas recognized in the category ofAchievement in Sports.

classNotes

To all alumni:Many class years include the name andaddress of a class correspondent, whois the link between your class andBrooklyn College Magazine.When youhave news about your accomplishmentsthat you would like published in themagazine, please write to yourcorrespondent. If your class has nocorrespondent, please send itemsdirectly to Brooklyn College Magazine,Brooklyn College, 2900 BedfordAvenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889.You may also reach us by fax,

718.951.5962, or e-mail,[email protected].

If you wish to volunteer to serveas a class correspondent, please writeto Eileen Howlin [email protected].

—Class Notes Editor

Malvin E. Ring, ’39, considered the foremost dental historianin the country, was a guest at the gala celebration in Chicago of the onehundred fiftieth anniversary of the American Dental Association. It wasa major honor, since of the 150,000 dentists in America, only 400 wereinvited. The ADA will publish a coffee-table book on the 150-yearhistory of the association, to be edited by Dr. Ring.

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1 9 5 0Louise J. KaplanClass Correspondent175West 12 StreetNewYork, NY 10011-8275

1 9 5 1Marion Unger GordonClass Correspondent70 East 10 Street, Apt. 9PNewYork, NY 10003-5112

1 9 5 2SheilaTalmud RaymondClass Correspondent3 Lakeside LaneBay Shore, NY 11706-8845

1 9 5 3Ben SuntagClass Correspondent1311 Franklin LaneRockaway, NJ [email protected]

1 9 5 4Marlene (Marcia) Jacoby HillmanClass Correspondent255West 94 Street, Apt. 6QNewYork, NY 10025-6986

Marcia Jacoby Hillman is producer for theinternet radio show, Lenore Raphael’s JazzSpot, on www.purejazz.org. The showfeatures performances by and interviewsof top jazz musicians and vocalists.

The American Jewish Committee recentlyhonored Harvey R. Miller, a partner inthe firm ofWeil, Gotshal & Manges LLP,with its prestigious Judge Learned HandAward for outstanding service to the legalprofession.

Trudy Rosenblum Powell-Corneliusreceived a regional acting award for herrole as Maude in a recent production ofHarold and Maude in Gulfport, Fla. Shealso taught a reader’s theater class inOttawa last summer.

1 9 5 5Geraldine Miller MarkowitzClass [email protected]

Evelyn Steinberg Kaden enjoysvolunteering as a clown with St. Paschal’sMinistry in Cleveland, Ohio, in herretirement. The group feeds thehomeless and entertains in nursinghomes. Evelyn believes she is the first andonly Jewish clown in Ohio.

1 9 5 6Mike SaluzziClass Correspondent1351 E. Mountain StreetGlendale, CA [email protected]

Martin P. Schreibman, distinguishedprofessor emeritus of biology andfounder and director emeritus of theAquatic Research and EnvironmentalAssessment Center (AREAC), was invitedto the U.S. House of Representatives toparticipate in briefing congressional aidesand staffers on the negative aspects ofopen-ocean aquaculture and to present amore viable alternative: land-based, waterreuse-recirculation aquaculture systems,which he has used in his research atBrooklyn College for the past decade.

1 9 5 7Micki Goldberg GinsbergClass Correspondent217 E. Maple AvenueMoorestown, NJ [email protected]

Sandra Pawgan Koffler of Philadelphiawas recognized as a “DistinguishedNeuropsychologist” by the AmericanBoard of Clinical Neuropsychology inJune 2009.

1 9 5 8Sandra Seigel PikoffClass Correspondent4500Williams Drive #212-320Georgetown,TX [email protected]

For the last thirteen years Alan M. Rubinhas been painting full time and now has awebsite showcasing his artwork,www.alanrubin.com.

Phyllis Goldstein Waldman was honoredas a “Teacher of the Year” by theCommission on Jewish Education andLeadership of the Jewish Federation ofGreater Hartford. Waldman has beenteaching at Congregation Adath Israel inMiddletown, Conn., for forty-two years.

1 9 5 9Rosalie Fuchs BerleClass Correspondent260 Garth Road, Apt. 3J5Scarsdale, NY 10583-4057

The Onondaga County Bar Associationhas recently honored RosemaryShankman Pooler, a judge on the UnitedStates Court of Appeals for the SecondCircuit, with theWilliam C. Ruger Awardfor her outstanding achievement anddevotion to the principles of our justicesystem.

Elio Zappulla, ’54, reports that his verse translation of Dante’s Inferno isstill doing well in the paperback version published by Vintage Books (RandomHouse) as the tenth anniversary of its publication approaches. Zappulla, aprofessor of English and humanities at Dowling College in Oakdale, New York, iscurrently working on a grammar text “with a twist” for use by college students.He was recently honored with a BCAA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Marilyn P. Safir, ’59,was selected for the 2009Outstanding InternationalPsychologist Award by Division52 of the AmericanPsychological Association.

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1 9 6 0Saul KravitzClass Correspondent3382 Kenzo Ct.Mountain View, CA [email protected]

Helene Greenfield-Fisch Aylon has a newshow, In G-d We Trust, at the JewishMuseum in NewYork. It will travel to theContemporary Jewish Museum in SanFrancisco.

A gala benefit evening of poetry in honorof Visions International, the World Journal ofPoetry on its thirtieth anniversary willfeature Bradley R. Strahan. A formerFulbright Senior Scholar who taughtpoetry for twelve years at GeorgetownUniversity, as well as all over the world, hecurrently teaches at the University ofTexas in Austin.

1 9 6 1David S. HerskowitzClass Correspondent1175 Kildeer CourtEncinitas, CA [email protected]

Ellen Shumsky recently had aretrospective of her photographic workpublished in book form by Graeae Press.The book is entitled Portrait of a Decade:1968-1978. A show of forty-five imagesfrom this collection was on display at theLGBT Center in NewYork City from Juneto September 2009 and was covered byCNN. Ellen is a psychotherapist,psychoanalytic teacher, and writer.

1 9 6 2Steven J. NappenClass Correspondent38 Troy Hills RoadWhippany, NJ 07981-1315

Barry R. Chiswick, distinguished professorin the Department of Economics,University of Illinois at Chicago, wasawarded an Honorary Ph.D. by LundUniversity, Sweden, in May 2009. His

most recent book, coauthored with PaulW. Miller, is The Economics of Language:International Analyses (Routledge, 2007).In 2007 he was the recipient of theMarshall Sklare Award from theAssociation for the Social Scientific Studyof Jewry. His Sklare Lecture, “The Riseand Fall of the American Jewish Ph.D.,”was published in Contemporary Jewry, 29(1), April 2009.

Richard Palumbo recently wrote anarticle on Samuel Johnson and his famousdictionary in honor of the 300thanniversary of Johnson’s birth.

Karen Friedman Stein is a professor ofEnglish and women’s studies at theUniversity of Rhode Island.

Beverly Sussman, a former teacher, nowa businesswoman and writer, has recentlybeen elected trustee for the village ofBuffalo Grove, Illinois.

Roberta Rempell Temes is the author ofmany books and has a practice inpsychotherapy and medical hypnosis inNewYork City and New Jersey.

1 9 6 3Cliff RosnerClass Correspondent111 BlueWillow DriveHouston,TX 77042-1105

Ellen Tublin Taylor is director ofSacramento programs for CaliforniaLawyers for the Arts.

Alice J. Sheflin Zal was recently chosenpresident-elect of the PennsylvaniaOsteopathic Medical Association, astatewide organization for physiciansholding the doctor of osteopathicmedicine (D.O.) degree. She is an activestaff member at Mercy Suburban Hospitaland Montgomery Hospital, and a clinicalassistant professor in the family medicinedepartment at the Philadelphia College ofOsteopathic Medicine.

1 9 6 4Jay OrlikoffClass Correspondent20 Beaverdale LaneStony Brook, NY [email protected]

Mel Barlin was guest speaker on MoneyMatters, a nationally syndicated financeradio show, hosted by Gary Goldberg. Itis the oldest financial program on the airtoday. Mel spoke about long-term careinsurance.

1 9 6 5Barbara Berman LeveeneClass Correspondent24 Jubilee CircleAberdeen, NJ 07747-1807

1 9 6 6Felicia FriedlandWeinbergClass CorrespondentP.O. Box 449Clarksburg, NJ 08510

1 9 6 7SharonWeinschel ResenClass Correspondent1740 Kimball StreetBrooklyn, NY 11234-4304

Frank P.Tomasulo was selected to be thefirst recipient of the University Film andVideo Association’s annual teachingaward. This pedagogical honor is awardedon the basis of a member’s lifetimecontributions to classroom teaching,curricular development, mentoring ofcolleagues and students, pedagogicalpublications, and organizationaladvancement related to teaching.

Barbara Sutton Masry, ’62, produced a play, Rewriting Her Life, atManhattan Repertory Theatre’s Summerfest.

Richard Steckel, ’64, is adirector of the Milestones Project.Wise at Heart is an initiative of theMilestones Project, which isdedicated to healing the world’sdivisions by sharing pictures of ourcommon humanity.

Robert Sarnoff, ’59,’smovie THE ROMEOWS wasrecently shown on campus in theTanger Auditorium. These “old”Brooklyn friends view the worldwith humor, melancholy, and hope.

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1 9 6 8Eileen McGinnClass Correspondent210 East 15 Street, Apt.10NNewYork, NY 10003-3927

1 9 6 9Edward M. GreenspanClass Correspondent1237 Avenue Z, Apt. 6GBrooklyn, NY [email protected]

Arnold Korotkin is the founder of a 9/11listserv that sends a daily e-mail aboutSeptember 11-related topics to nearlyfive thousand subscribers.

1 9 7 0Barry SilvermanClass Correspondent176 Stults LaneEast Brunswick, NJ [email protected]

Louis A. DeNino has been appointeddirector of the Office of Strategic Analysisfor the Veterans HealthcareAdministration. VHA is the world’slargest health care system. Louis says “it isa distinct honor and privilege to serveour nation’s veterans.”

The tenth annual Midtown InternationalTheater Festival presented a stagedreading of an original play, Lesson for Life,written and directed by Phillip W.Weissand produced by Phil’s LiteraryWorksLLC.

1 9 7 1Constance Forte PigozziClass Correspondent7802 16 AvenueBrooklyn, NY 11214-1004

1 9 7 2Stanley A.AlexanderClass Correspondent98 B Charles River RoadWaltham, MA 02453

Robin Fried Schwalb retired fromteaching Spanish in NewYork City. Shenow lives in Cary, NC., and tutors highschool students.

1 9 7 3Linda E. Gross CarrollClass Correspondent212 Stony Point DriveSebastian, FL [email protected]

1 9 7 4Diane OetersVaughnClass Correspondent42 Briarwood DriveOld Saybrook, CT [email protected]

Paul Zuckerman is assistant deputysuperintendent and counsel at the NewYork State Insurance Department wherehe supervises the Opinions Unit andworks on legislation.

1 9 7 5Rubin LeitnerClass Correspondent138 East 96 StreetBrooklyn, NY 11212-3534

Debra Redlo Leschen Hoffman’s firstbook, Welcome to Kindergarten, is now inits fifth printing with HeinemannPublishers.

1 9 7 6Henry P. FeintuchClass Correspondent50 Barnes LaneChappaqua, NY 10514-2425

At the fortieth Medical-ScientificConference of the American Society ofAddiction Medicine, Lawrence Brown, Jr.,

M.D., M.P.H., FASAM, and executive seniorvice-president, was awarded the ASAMAnnual Award for outstandingcontributions to the growth and vitality ofthe society, thoughtful leadership in thefield, and deep understanding of the artand science of addiction medicine. Hewas also recently elected to a four-yearterm on the board of directors for theCollege of Problems on DrugDependence. The NewYork State Officeof Alcoholism and Substance AbuseServices named Dr. Brown the “2009Addiction Physician of the Year.”

Randy Berne Cavaliere was promoted toportfolio administrator with Griffin AssetManagement in NewYork City.

Henry Feintuch launched FeintuchCommunications, based in NewYork City.The public relations and strategic relationsfirm was admitted into ECP Global, aninternational partnership of premiereindependent PR firms.

Donald Loggins is a contributingphotographer to Central Park’s ArsenalGallery display, GreenThumb’s Gotham: APhotographic History of New York City’sCommunity Gardens, an exhibitioncelebrating the diversity of NewYorkCity’s community gardens. Hisphotographs were also featured in threerecently published books: Greening Cities,Growing Communities; Shaping theAmerican Landscape: New Profiles from thePioneers of American Landscape DesignProject, and The Lower East SideRemembered and Revisited: A History andGuide to a Legendary New YorkNeighborhood.

Joseph Novick, a graduate of Seton HallSchool of Law, is now practicing law inNew Jersey. He served his community asan elected councilman in Flemington, N.J.,for more than ten years.

Herbert Schonhaut just completed histhirtieth year with the NewYork CityTransit Authority and is manager ofstation signage, overseeing signage in all467 subway stations.

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1 9 7 8Susan A. KatzClass Correspondent120 PinewoodTrailTrumbull, CT 06611-3313

Norene Wittlin is with the NewYorkState Office of Mental Retardation andDevelopmental Disabilities. She wasrecently presented with the KarunaHeisler Award, which honors a pastcommittee chairperson.

Diane Guzzi Zerega is a NewYork CityDepartment of Education theater and artteacher and is looking forward to comingback to Brooklyn College for an M.F.A. indirecting.

1 9 7 9Anthony EspositoClass Correspondent211 Highway 35 NMantoloking, NJ 08738-1420

1 9 8 0Tap en Pointe, is a memoir in words anddance, with jazz, swing, R & B, and classicalmusic. It was conceived, choreographed,and directed by Yvonne Curry and wasperformed at the Third Street MusicSchool Settlement.

Christine Termini Passarella is founder ofThe Kids for Coltrane Project. Hermission is to encourage children to“follow their bliss” and her vision is tohelp create environments in which theirmultiple intelligences are truly respected.

1 9 8 1Debbie Schiffer-BurkeClass [email protected]

Debbie Schiffer-Burke has added multiplesaxophone gigs to her communityvolunteer work, entertaining preschoolersat a local HeadStart, and playing for thelocal library and American Red Crosschapter, and the UnitedWay. She hasalso launched the website, Pocono Jazzand Poetry, a not-for-profit resource for

local artists and musicians. Schiffer-Burkecontinues to love her salaried job as editorof Pocono Business Journal.

1 9 8 2Eileen Sherman GruberClass Correspondent69 Derby AvenueGreenlawn, NY 11740

1 9 8 3Michael KosikClass [email protected]

Caryn Golub Siebert is president andCEO of the national third-party claimsadministrator Carl Warren & Company,which has been named one of the twentyBest Companies to work for in OrangeCounty, California. The company was alsoawarded an AACE award for ESOPExcellence and Ms. Siebert was asked tojoin the advisory board for the NationalRestaurant and Retail DefenseAssociation.

1 9 8 5Peter HuertasClass Correspondent5135 Fedora DriveSan Antonio,TX [email protected]

1 9 8 6Ian Lee BrownClass Correspondent4631 Twin Lakes LaneLong Grove, IL [email protected]

1 9 8 7Eric SteinhardtClass Correspondent915 East 7 Street, Apt.1HBrooklyn, NY 11230-2733

1 9 8 8Lauren Korn PopkoffClass Correspondent951Woodoak DriveBaldwin Harbour, NY 11510

Robert M. Siegfried is a full professor inthe Department of Mathematics andComputer Science at Adelphi Universityin Garden City, Long Island, where he hasbeen teaching for ten years.

1 9 8 9Irwin Gordon-YaShad presented alecture, “I Want My Daddy’s (andMommy’s)Work Records! –– SocialSecurity Detailed (Itemized) EmploymentEarning Statements,” at the twenty-ninthAnnual Conference of the InternationalAssociation of Jewish GenealogicalSocieties held in Philadelphia, last August.

1 9 9 0Beth Debra KallmanWernerClass Correspondent105 Husson RoadMilford, PA 18337

1 9 9 2Seren Marc Taylor is currently director ofstaff for the Republican Fiscal Committeeof the Senate of the State of California.

1 9 9 4Ilene BerkowitzClass Correspondent1575 46 StreetBrooklyn, NY 11219

Mira Thomas Lowe, ’84, is editor in chief of JET magazine, theworld’s number one black newsweekly. She oversees all aspects of themagazine’s editorial content and staffing, and its evolving direction on both printand digital platforms.

Marco Oppedisano, ’96, is included in a photography book of morethan eighty distinguished guitarists from around the world. It is by highlyregarded art photographer Ralph Gibson. The book, State of the Axe: GuitarMasters in Photographs andWords, was featured in an exhibit at the Museum ofFine Arts in Houston.

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C L A S S N O T E S

1 9 9 5Nathan SolatClass Correspondent2793 Lee PlaceBellmore, NY 11710

1 9 9 6AnthonyVitaleClass Correspondent1742 Gildersleeve StreetMerrick, NY 11566

1 9 9 7Tara M. DowdClass Correspondent40West 72nd Street, Apt. 23ANewYork, NY 10023

1 9 9 9David MoskowitzClass Correspondent2327 East 18 StreetBrooklyn, NY 11229-4416

2 0 0 0Mark von Sternberg wrote and directeda movie, Love Simple (see page 5), whichrecently premiered as part of the HBOLatino Film Festival starring FranciscoSolorzano, ’00, and John Harlacher, ’00.

2 0 0 1Tatesha Bennett ClarkClass Correspondent540 East 82 StreetBrooklyn, NY 11236-3119

Derrick M. Guest is president and CEOof Griot’s Roll Film Production & Services,Inc., and was recently featured in BlackEnterprise magazine.

Jack Shuler is assistant professor ofEnglish at Denison University. His workhas appeared in the Columbia Journal ofAmerican Studies, South Carolina Review,Fast Capitalism, and Reconstruction: Studiesin Contemporary Culture.

2 0 0 4Yael Abraham FogelClass Correspondent570 Ocean Pkwy, Apt. 5CBrooklyn, NY [email protected]

Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Reguer wasawarded a Fulbright scholarship to studyin Taiwan for a year. She is in the doctoralprogram for Chinese religion and cultureat the University of Michigan at AnnArbor. This exciting news came to usfrom her proud mom, Brooklyn CollegeProfessor of Judaic Studies Sara Reguer.

2 0 0 6Johnmichael Rossi was awarded a travelgrant through the TheatreCommunications Group’s NewGenerations—Future Collaborationsprogram. He will be working withLOTOS Collective of UK on TriangulatedCity, a collaboration with Zoukak TheatreCompany of Lebanon, to develop amultilocation performance in Beirut,Lebanon. In June 2009 his theaterensemble, newFangled theatReR, featuringBrooklyn College alums Esra Cizmeci,Niluka Hotaling, and Justin Sturges,performed Short Kutz & Forks, an eveningof thirteen short plays written byJohnmichael, at the Red Room in NewYork City. Earlier in the year he wasnamed education director atWomen’sProject.

2 0 0 7Ezra N. RichClass Correspondent588West End Avenue, Apt 1BNewYork, NY [email protected]

Julia K. Porter has been appointeddirector of program expansion at theGlamourGals Foundation, Inc., a nonprofitwhose mission is to fosterintergenerational relationships betweenteen girls and elderly women living insenior homes through provision ofmonthly facials, makeovers, and manicures.

2 0 0 8Stefanie LowClass Correspondent3-A Putnam AvenueGlen Cove, NY [email protected]

Vladislav Belyayev received his TESOLcertification and is traveling to Peru toteach English for six months.

Playwrights Horizons presents theworld premiere of Circle MirrorTransformation, a play by

Annie Baker, ’09.

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Betty Lugo, ’81, can still see the picture, which she probablyhas somewhere, that her then-classmate Carmen Pacheco,’81, drew that day when a senior-year study session turneddaydreamy. It showed a big building with their names on it,a nice atrium, and a driveway, even a heliport. It was wherethey would open their law firm one day.“She announced, ‘we’re gonna be big,’” says Lugo. “I

told her, ‘we’re two kids from Brooklyn. What makes youthink that will happen? You’re crazy.’”Crazy like a fox, it turned out, because, some ten years

later, Pacheco would prod her buddy to join her in openingthe first Latina-owned law firm in New York City. They alsogot that building with the heliport, when they set up shop atOne World Trade Center in 1992. They were the youngestlawyers to charter a firm in the building at the time.The two didn’t meet until their senior year, when they

were classmates in Professor Edward Kent’s philosophy of lawcourse, but they became fast friends. Pacheco had grown up inGowanus, Lugo in Williamsburg, and in many ways neither ofthem had dared to dream until they got to Brooklyn College.Lugo had graduated third in her high school class and

had gotten a scholarship to Cornell University but firstwanted to be a legal secretary. Pacheco, a Catholic schoolgirl, says she figured she’d be a nurse or a secretary because,“at my high school, that’s what they told us we could be.”But their undergraduate years affected them in ways

they had not expected. “I took a philosophy of religioncourse, and I remember coming home and telling my momI was going to be a Muslim,” recalls Lugo. “That’s howmuch Brooklyn College pushed you.”Pacheco went on to St. John’s University School of Law,

becoming a member of its law review, and Lugo went toAlbany Law School after graduating from Brooklyn Collegecum laude. After law school, the pair stayed connected socially.Lugo had stints as an assistant district attorney, a civil litigator,and a trial attorney, while Pacheco made waves at Wall Streetfirms. But eventually Pacheco, feeling unsatisfied, decided thatshe didn’t want to continue to work for someone else.“I said, ’Betty, let’s do this,” recalls Pacheco. “She

turned me down.”Lugo wrote Pacheco a card, which she has kept to this

day. “I wished her a lot of luck and said, ‘I am always here tohelp,’”says Lugo. But Pacheco kept on calling. Ultimately,her persistence was persuasive, and soon they were planninga party, and getting proclamations from then-mayor DavidDinkins and Andrew Cuomo.

At their corner offices on floor 29 of One World TradeCenter, they didn’t skimp on the furniture. “One client calledand said ‘You have such beautiful offices, you must be doingsomething else,’” recalls Lugo. “We were so hurt by that.”Others asked, “Are all your clients going to be Hispanic?”

“Will all the attorneys be women?” No and yes. Pachecho andLugo, PLLC, the two principals, are women. But their clientshave ranged from mom-and-pop shops to rappers andinternational banking institutions. (Their forms of paymenthave ranged from chunks of cheese to turkeys and cigars.)They left Manhattan in 2002 and bought a building on

Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The firm tends to take on a lotof commercial loans for, yes, minority-owned and women-owned businesses, in addition to handling some cases onemployment discrimination and labor relations.In 1993, when Lugo headed the Hispanic National Bar

Association’s Northeast chapter, she held a press conference,hoping to persuade then-President Bill Clinton to nominatea Hispanic to the Supreme Court. She could not haveforeseen that some fifteen years later, she and Pacheco wouldfind themselves traveling back and forth to Washington tocheerlead through Senate confirmation hearings for their oldfriend Sonia Sotomayor, the nominee for the SupremeCourt seat vacated by David Souter. The women knewSotomayor through circles both professional and personal.“We couldn’t be happier,” says Pacheco. “She’s a dear friendand a very intelligent Latina, indeed.”The two have also turned their attention to nurturing the

next generation in their line of work, with a group of alumniin the legal profession who are members of the PreLawCouncil. “We want to help the students network,” explainsPacheco, a former member of the Brooklyn CollegeFoundation’s Board of Trustees. “These kinds of connectionsare what make the Ivy League so successful. We can do thesame thing here; Betty and I have all kinds of connections.And through our own story, we’d like to encourage them todream big too.”

Pioneers in the Law

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Faculty Books

Vinni Marie D’Ambrosio, M.A., ’65,English (ret.), An Italian Morning: Poems.Waterside Press, Inc., 2008. $25,hardcover.

Katherine Fry, Television and Radio, andBarbara Jo Lewis, Television and Radio,Identities in Context: Media, Myth, Religion,and Time, Hampton Press, Incorporated,2009, $47.50, hardcover.

Robert Muccigrosso, History, The BlackLlama Caper, Buy Books on theWeb.Com, 2008, $11.95, paperback.

Priya Parmar, Education, Knowledge ReignsSupreme: The Critical Pedagogy of Hip-HopArtist KRS-ONE, Sense Publishers, $26.10,paperback.

Tobie S. Stein, M.F.A., ’82, Theater, andJessica Bathurst, Performing ArtsManagement: A Handbook of ProfessionalPractices, Allworth Press, 2008, $33.75,paperback.

Jeff Suzuki, Mathematics, Mathematics inHistorical Context, MathematicalAssociation of America, 2009, $58.50,hardcover.

Barbara Winslow, Education, CarolBerkin, and Margaret S. Crocco, eds., Clioin the Classroom: A Guide for Teaching U.S.Women’s History, Oxford University Press,2009, $24.95, paperback; $99, hardcover.

recentBooks

Paul Moses, ’75, English, The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, andFrancis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace, Doubleday, 2009, $26.00, hardcover.

An important book ...The Saint and the Sultan is fascinating readingthat will change the reader's concept of who St. Francis of Assisi was.

Myrna Katz Frommer, ’51, andHarvey Frommer, It Happened inBrooklyn: An Oral History of GrowingUp in the Borough in the 1940s,1950s, and 1960s, ExcelsiorEditions/State University of NewYork, 2009, $24.95, paperback.

This paean to a bygone place .. . . throbs with life andaffection.That more innocentworld is remembered as beingpreferable to the Brooklyn oftoday, with its influx of drugsand racial strife.Thecontributors to this engagingrecollection include RobertMerrill, Pat Cooper and manylesser-known natives.

Nava Renek, M.F.A., ’89,Women’sCenter, No PerfectWords, SpuytenDuyvil, 2009, $14, paperback.

Written with sensitivity andfairness, this is an invite tostop, think, and reshape the giftof living, loving, and creatingstars from dust.

James F. Faraguna, ’77, America Lives inBrooklyn: From West Point to Street Vendor,Xlibris Corporation, 2009, $19.99.paperback; $29.99, hardcover.

Margaret Flynn, ’60, and Arlene Scollar,Putting for the Green, AuthorHouse, 2008,$15.99, paperback; $24.99, hardcover.

August (Gus) Franza, ’54, If I Die Before ILive, Xlibris Corporation, 2008, $23.99,paperback.

Ann Gelfman ’75, Menopausal WeightGain: It’s Not Your Fault!, AuthorHouse,2008, $13.99, paperback.

Andrea Grannum-Mosley, ’04, The PinkSlip: Human Resources Secrets for theDisplaced Worker, CreateSpace, 2009,$14.95, paperback.

Leslie Herzberger, ’72, My Existentialism:A Social Science Methodology, XlibrisCorporation, 2009, $22.99, paperback.

G.Winston James, M.F.A., ’04, Shamingthe Devil: Collected Short Stories, Top PenPress, 2009, $14.95, paperback.

Samuel L. Leiter ’62, Rising from theFlames: The Rebirth of Theater in OccupiedJapan, 1945-1952, Lexington Books, 2009,$85, hardcover.

Ellen Levitt, ’95, The Lost Synagogues ofBrooklyn, Avotaynu, 2009, $32.95,paperback.

Alumni Books

Thomas Allen, ’08, (James Baptiste),Suspended in Time: The Price of Loyalty,AuthorHouse, 2007, $19.98, paperback.

John W. Barker, ’55, Wagner and Venice(Eastman Studies in Music), University ofRochester Press, 2008, $65, hardcover.

Barbara Levy Boxer, ’62, Blind Trust,Chronicle, 2009. $24.95, hardcover.

Susan I. Buchalter, ’78, Art TherapyTechniques and Applications: A Model forPractice, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2009,$29.95, paperback.

Joe Diamond, ’89, Around the World in 80Lays: Adventures in Sex Travel, SkyhorsePublishing, 2009, $24.95, hardcover.

Joseph Ditta, ’89, Gravesend, Brooklyn,Arcadia Publishing, 2009, $21.99,paperback.

Ruth Drescher Dombrow ’52, IN THEBELLY OF THE MOON, Outskirts Press,2005, $29.99, paperback.

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Fran London, ’72, No Time to Teach: TheEssence of Patient and Family Education forHealth Care Providers, Pritchett & Hull,2009, $12.95, paperback.

Edward C. Patterson, ’72, Look AwaySilence, CreateSpace, 2009, $8.99,paperback.

Gerald Rosenkrantz, ’71, (Yakov Azriel),Beads for the Messiah’s Bride: Poems onLeviticus, Time Being Books, 2009, $15.95,paperback.

Joseph D. Schulman, ’62, Autotelic Tales: AnAssortment of Ruminations, BookSurgePublishing, 2009, $14.99, paperback.

Sara Shepard, M.F.A., ’05, Pretty Little Liars#6: Killer, HarperTeen, 2009, $16.99,hardcover.

Jack Shuler, ’01, Calling Out Liberty: TheStono Slave Rebellion and the UniversalStruggle for Human Rights, University Pressof Mississippi, 2009, $50, hardcover.

Joel H. Silbey, ’55, Party Over Section: TheRough and Ready Presidential Election of1848, University Press of Kansas, 2009,$34.95, hardcover.

Phyllis Rolfe Silverman, ’48, and MadelynKelly, A Parent’s Guide to Raising GrievingChildren: Rebuilding Your Family after theDeath of a Loved One, Oxford UniversityPress, 2009, $16.95, paperback.

Sheldon Spear, ’59, Daniel J. Floor: ABiography: The Congressional Career of anEconomic Savior and Cold War Nationalist,Lehigh University Press, 2008, $44.50,hardcover.

Karen F. Stein, ’62, Reading, Learning,Teaching Toni Morrison (Confronting the Text,Confronting the World), Peter LangPublishing, 2009, $32.95, paperback.

Mathis Szykowski, ’62, Betrayal andSurvival and Beyond: A Memoir, DorrancePublishing, 2009. $19, paperback.

Roberta Temes, ’62, Solace: Finding YourWay Through Grief and Learning to LiveAgain, Amacom, 2009, $14.95, paperback.

Paul Treatman, ’48, Haiku PUNishment.iUniverse, 2009, $17.95, paperback.

Tachelle Shamash Wilkes, ’99, Amanda’sRay, Enaz, 2009, $15, paperback.

Michael Largo, ’76, Genius and Heroin:The Illustrated Catalogue of Creativity,Obsession, and Reckless Abandon Through the Ages. Harper Collins, 2008, $15.95,paperback.

Largo offers a kind of Ripley's Believe It or Not for the excess-obsessed teen in everyone.The title is misleading as the historicalpersonages that populate its pages are not neccesarily geniuses orjunkies. Instead, Largo gives an alphabetical biographical listing ofactors, authors, and artists, politicians and Celtic queens, from thefamous (Van Gogh, Sappho, Charlie Parker) to the obscure (ArtAcord, Berthold der Schwarz).

Sara Shepard, M.F.A., ’05, TheVisibles: A Novel, Free Press, 2009,$24, hardcover.

When Summer Davis is toldby a substitute high schoolbiology teacher that “DNAmakes up everything insideyou,” and that “you can’tescape your parents,” her tiesto her vanished motherbecome more like a padlockas her mentally ill fatherbecomes sicker. Summer’sown path eventually leads tothe NYU genetics lab, but theopportunity to pursue herdreams may be underminedby her father’s deeply hiddensecrets.

Richard Slotkin, ’63,NoQuarter:The Battle of the Crater,1864, Random House, 2009, $28,hardcover.

Jealousy, intransigence,incompetence, and evencowardice among Uniongenerals resulted in acombination massacre andrace riot, as white Union andConfederate troops turned onthe black soldiers. Slotkindepicts all this, and the armyand Congress's subsequentwhitewashes, with the verveand force that place himamong the most distinguishedhistorians chronicling the roleof violence in the Americanexperience.

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inMemoriam

Faculty

William BrowneEnglish Department

Herbert GambertAdministration, “Office ofAcademic Adjustments”

Béla K. KirályHistory Department

JohnWilliam KnellerFormer BC President

Edith Leora(aka “Lee” Dennis)“Health and PhysicalEducation” (AthleticsDepartment)

AlumniGerald Lowenstein, ’33

LilyanWarshawWeingart, ‘33

Herbert N. Blackman, ’34

Theodore R. Friedman, ’34

Lillian Keilson, ’34

Bernard Klein, ’34

Edna PellegrinoRomanell, ‘34

Jeanette Ross Roos, ’34

Viola Anderson Ferretti, ’35

Henrietta BlausteinHoneyman, ’35

Florence Shainer Koenig, ’35

Beatrice Stern Levine, ’35

Thelma Futter Rothberg, ’35

Lewis J. Allison, ’36

Jack J. Brancato, ‘36

Irving Breines, ’36

Selma Arginteanu Jaffe, ’36

Marguerite VasciminiO’Connell, ’36

Morris Tepper, ’36

Maxwell Werboff, ’36

Lauretta GreenbergZegans, ’36

Vito Natrella, ’37

Elliott M. Ruben, ’37

Bessie Fuchs MoskowitzDickman, ’38

Jack Dickman, ’38

Mina (Minnie) FriedwaldKulick, ’38

Harold Albaum Norse, ’38

Sara Pilchman Spiegler, ‘38

Roslyn Ulman Fishman, ’39

Amalia (Mali) RapaportPearlman, ’39

Muriel Lazarus Sackler, ‘39

Sydney Axelrod, ’40

Morris A. Fishalow, ’40

Leon J. Kosofsky, ’40

Ira Krainess, ’40

Vita Clementi Marrone, ’40

ArnoldW. Sametz, ’40

Alvin Shapiro, ’40

Bernard Davis, ’41

Anabel SchulmanFriedman, ’41

Joseph Goodgold, ’41

Ruthe Galler Nadel, ’41

Ethel Bilchinsky Ratner, ’41

Harriet Cohen Safian, ‘41

Thelma Imber Seifer, ’41

Mary Marchese Stolfi, ’41

Tess Geldzahler ForrestBarnett, ’42

Morton R. Eichel, ’42

IraWeil, ’42

Eleanor KaplanWeingast, ’42

Gloria Gordon Bolotsky, ’43

Samuel F. Coleman, ’43

Leonard Elterman, ’43

Herbert Gambert, ’43

Gerald Rosenbaum, ’43

Goldie BaronRothenberg, ’43

Marie Cusato Salemme, ’43

Gladys Dellerson Shaffer, ’43

Arthur A. Stern, ’43

Franklin H. Epstein, ’44

Seymour Fromer, ’44

Shirley Greenstein Love, ’44

Millicent Eckstein Lowitz, ’44

Mary Piatoff, ’44

Sylvia Rosner Rothchild, ’44

Sol Saporta, ’44

DorothyWool Tesser, ’44

Philip Thomsen, ’44

Edith Levine Turetsky, ’44

Anthony L. Danza, ’45

Samuel M. Ehrenhalt, ’46

Carolyn Mandle Layton, ’46

Thelma GreenblattMandelkorn, ’46

Arthur S. Richman, ’46

David I. Shapiro, ’46

Gloria Reisler Leeds, ’47

Harriet GordonMachtiger, ’47

Martha Rosten, ’47

Phyllis RatnerWarschauer, ’47

Phyllis PosnerWeinreb, ’47

Max Zwiebel, ’47

Oscar A. Grossman, ’48

Irwin Jacobs, ’48

Bernard Kaplan, ’48

Kadish Millet, ’48

Barnett Rosenberg, ’48

Jerome Eckstein, ’49

Marvin I. Friedman, ’49

Saul Lambert, ’49

Herbert M. Salkin, ’49

Raymond Schulman, ‘49

Doris Freed Shaffer, ’49

Eleanor Cohen Treuhaft, ’49

Marilyn Nagel Gillman, ’50

Bernard Goldowitz, ’50

BernardW. Klein, ’50

Stanley Kitzis, ’50

Mario C. Suarez, ’50

Betty Trolin, ’50

Christina EdwardsWilliams, ’50

Eli H. Baum, ‘51

Elaine Rosen Engelberg, ’51

Selma Zucker Holme, ’51

Victor Milstein, ’51

Alfred Gottschalk, ’52

Walter O. Huegel, ’52

Salvatore P. Lipari, ’52

Robert J. Schultz, ’52

Sondra Sherr Silverman, ’52

Marcus Alexis, ’53

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C E L E B R AT I N G A L I F E

It is often said—andwithout too muchhyperbole—thatBrooklyn College alumnihave influenced almostevery field of humanendeavor. This magazinestrives to celebrate asmany of those endeavorsas possible and we alwayslament when we arebelatedly introduced to

some of our alumni’s most important contributions on theNew York Times’ obituary page.This November, we read one such obituary. Alice S.

Rossi, ‘47, died Tuesday, November 8. She was a notedsociologist and feminist scholar and, in 1966, one of thefounders of the National Organization for Women.The two-columned Times article highlights her scholarlyachievements, as well as her faculty appointments atHarvard, the University of Chicago, John HopkinsUniversity, and Goucher College, but it was the followingpassage that held us most:

One of her most influential feminist articles was “EqualityBetween the Sexes: An Immodest Proposal.” First presented in1963 at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts andSciences, it was published the next year in the academy’sjournal, Daedalus.

In the article, Professor Rossi argued that for most womenmotherhood had become a full-time occupation, a state ofaffairs that hurt not only women but also the larger society inwhich they lived. For the well-being of both the women andthe culture, she wrote, parity of the sexes is essential.

Familiar today, Professor Rossi’s argument was consideredsubversive at the time. As a result, she was called a monster, anunnatural woman and an unfit mother, as she recalled ininterviews afterward. Her article can be found in theanthology, Life Cycle and Achievement in America(Harper & Row, 1969).Rossi’s proposal, immodest or otherwise, may no

longer be considered subversive, but it continues to bewrangled over and hotly debated—privately in women’slives and publicly in social and political policies. BrooklynCollege is very proud of her alumna, Alice S. Rossi, forframing the discussion and helping to lead the way forward.Rossi’s full obit may be read at: http://www.nytimes.com.

John Baptiste DeCosmo, ’53

Lillian Dichter Houss, ’53

Irving Liebman, ’53

Joan Sanders Millstein, ’53

David Rachlis, ’53

Sandra Rothbart Cohen, ’54

Mary Totino Krohn, ’54

Joan Siegel Starr, ’55

DonaldW. Dempsey, ’56

Furio (Ray) Gennari, ’56

William H. May, ’56

Sherry Kunda Blackman, ’57

Ronald S.Tavel, ’57

StanleyW. Rosen, ’58

Lawrence D. Ferdland, ’59

Ruth G. Freed, ’59

Lillian Goldring, ’59

Peter Nicholakakos, ’59

Victor J. Schlansky, ’59

Roy E. Consiglio, ’60

Claire Friedlander, ’60

Sondra Cohen Sulam, ’60

Rhoda Levy Goldstein, ’61

Joann Natke, ’61

Stanley N. Sobin, ’61

Alfred L. Davis, ’62

Arthur Musikar, ’62

Linda Richman Nadell, ’62

Hope Coe Arner, ’64

Eleanor Kaplan, ‘64

Nathan Kaplan, ‘64

Carol JohnsonLomangino, ’64

Gerald J. Steubben, ‘64

Seth Dragiff Charney, ’65

Morton Atkins, ’66

George A. Priestley, ’66

Frank McCourt, ’67

Helen Pomerantz, ’67

Kenneth B. Siegelman, ’67

William R. Gray, ’68

Richard S. Shulberg, ’69

Marjory Hull Odessky, ’70

William M. Parente, ’70

Martin H. Fleischman, ’71

Marcia R. Kaminsky, ’72

Fred J. Feigelman, ’73

Paul L. Kaufman, ’73

Alayne FinkelsteinUnterricht, ’73

Leo Stec, ’74

Joyce F. Kersner, ’75

Mitchell Wiener, ’75

Ben Jones, ’76

Herman G. Campbell, ’77

Ella Rosenheck, ’79

Raymond P. Moen, ’80

Chaya Bliech Gurwitz, ’81

George Spiegel, ’81

Goldee E. Hecht-Meyer, ’82

Ida Schwartz, ’82

Geraldine L. Scotto, ’86

David A. Kaltenbach, ’04

BROO

KLYN

COLL

EGE

MAGA

ZINE

FALL

2009

4848

A short story by Helen Phillips

In the factory where the virgins are made, we’re givenbread at noon.We eat it in the cement courtyard, sittingaround the dry fountain, looking up at the brokenwindows.We are not ones to talk.We are virgins.This isthe law, and a sensible law at that.

Our virgins are sent all over the world, to Guatemala,to South Africa, to France, to Cuba, to Brazil, to Poland, toPortugal.We mail them out naked. Father blesses thecardboard boxes.When they arrive at their destinations,they’ll be dressed in the velvet robes that have beenstripped off the outdated virgins. Our newer, bettervirgins—high-quality plastic, real human hair from ourheads, eyelashes from our lids—will be placed in glasscoffins that have been dusted for the occasion. I’vewondered, but never asked, what becomes of the oldvirgins.

Instead, I’ve turned my attention to picturing how ourvirgins must glow against the great stones of cathedrals,and against the wooden walls in poorer countries. I’vethought of their sad peaceful faces. I’ve always wonderedwhy I am instructed to paint their lips with slight frowns.I’ve worked here for two decades, and it is an honor to bethe woman who paints the lips. Still, certain things havebeen given up along the way.Six months ago, when I first did it, I made it soimperceptible that Father would not notice, nor anyoneelse, until some girl in some cathedral somewhere wouldpause before my virgin, and leave the building with awhoop, and go outside, and feel finally, for the first timeever, blessed.

The complaints have begun to roll in. Father’sdispleased.The bishops cannot quite put their finger onwhat the issue is, but—something’s amiss. Father has toldus to work harder, to be more perfect, to not falter inmaking the virgins we’ve been making for decades. He saysthe troublemakers will be found, and punished.

When they come for me, I’ll be ready, smiling aninvisible smile.

Illustration by Adam Thompson

Endpaper

In the FactoryWhere theVirgins Are Made

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