Although the proceedings won’t be pod-casted, the Faculty and Staff Assembly at LeFrak Hall on October 17 at 3:30 pm promises to be a multimedia affair. In addition to the usual musical prelude—this year, QC organist-in-residence Jan-Piet Knijff will be performing on the recently refurbished Maynard-Walker Memorial Organ—the event will feature a screen-ing of Nobody Does It Better, a video that salutes 43 alumni in the entertainment and media fields.

Appropriately enough, two of the day’s honorees, Cherice Evans (Chemistry) and Joan Nix (Econom-ics), recipients of the President’s Grants for Innovative Teaching Projects, are exploring the educational applica-tions of high-tech tools.

Evans’s project, “Teach-ing Experimental X-ray Crystallography in Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratories,” is designed to give students hands-on experience with the Brookhaven National Laboratory synchrotron—a large circular (continued on page 2)

ERP Moves Closer to Reality at QC 2...QC to Host Queens History Conference

3...Education Abroad Enrollment Increases 7...Academic Advising

Center Continuesto Grow 8...NPR to Profile Education Dean Hammrich 8

Ballet Folklórico de México click here

Queens College Faculty & Staff NewsfyifyiBallet Folklórico de México

Octo

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assigning volun-teers to scientists and dispatching the teams into the field for three-to-four-hour shifts. Walking through the woods in clear, breezy weather, people tended to lose the sense that they were within the limits of New York City. “If it weren’t for the buildings you see in the dis-tance, you would swear you were in the

Everglades,” says Waldman, who along with National Park Service district ranger Dave Taft and QC laboratory technician Andrew Silver, pulled on waist-high rub-ber waders to audit fish populations in ponds and ocean water.

“I was constantly wowed; I didn’t know what to expect,” reports Stewart, who man-aged the BioBlitz base camp at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge visitor center, turning one room into a temporary lab. Working

around the clock, muddied team leaders strolled into the center to file reports and fortify themselves with appropriately chosen snacks: animal crackers, Swedish fish, energy bars, and Gatorade. Eventually, the lab’s tables were filled with speci-mens, from tiny mollusks cor-ralled in a petri dish, to neatly labeled fungi arranged in an impromptu display.

For the general public, the schedule of free activities included guided field walks,

a workshop on sketching plants and animals in the wild, a junior BioBlitz for children, and, of course, speeches. New York City Council member James Gennaro, chair of the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, (continued on page 8)

Puttin’ on the BlitzLike the borough it’s in, Jamaica Bay boasts a highly diverse community. QC researchers who surveyed that feder-ally protected parkland on September 7 and 8 for a BioBlitz—a 24-hour tally of flora and fauna—counted more than 700 species, exclusive of the Homo sapi-ens who participated.

Gillian Stewart (SEES) and John Waldman (Biology) organized the event,

Gillian Stewart closely examines a speci-men retrieved from the wetlands area of Jamaica Bay.

Faculty and Staff Assembly Goes Multimedia

Evans

�

In the quiet of the summer, Queens College was busy fulfilling its role as a vanguard college for the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project, the new CUNY-wide computer system recently dubbed CUNY FIRST (Fully Integrated Resources and Services Tool).

At the core of this five-year project is the replacement of the aging computer systems in CUNY’s financial, human re-sources, and student administration areas.

The preliminary elements of the system will be operational in the next month or so, says Sue Henderson (VP, Institutional Advancement), who has been direct-ing QC’s efforts. “But the people on this campus who will be using it initially are the very high-end users, and they will only be experimenting with it because ERP is still very much in the conceptual stage. Most of us will probably begin seeing the first pieces of the system on campus next spring.

“The ERP process started three years ago when CUNY picked the vendor, Oracle,” notes Henderson, offering a brief review of the project. “This past Janu-ary and February the broad project plan was put together and the groups that we pulled together at that time were the major stakeholders: the registrars who are primarily responsible for student data, the budget people who would be responsible for financial data, and the HR people.”

In July a general ledger was created to (continued on page 3)

ERP UpdateNew Faces on CampusAn impressive array of artists, critics, re-searchers, and writers joined the QC faculty this year and will be introduced at the Fac-ulty and Staff Assembly. Below, we profile a handful of the new hires who have brought their talents to the campus.

Veronica SchanoeS (English) comes to the Division of Arts and Humanities from the University of Pennsylvania, where she

earned master’s and doctoral degrees in English and a certifi-cate in Women’s Stud-ies. Her dissertation, on feminist revisions of fairy tales and classical myths, ana-lyzes the sympathetic relationship between the recast versions and

the originals. A poet as well as a scholar, Schanoes won the William Carlos Williams Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets in �00�.

The Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences welcomes elSe J. FJerdingStad (Biology), who holds an MSc and a PhD in biology from Aarhus University, Denmark. She arrives at the college after an interna-tional career that has included postdoctoral research appointments at top universities in Switzerland, Australia, and France. Fjerd-

ingstad studies social insects to explore social evolution, mating sys-tem evolution, and re-lated topics. Her work has been published in Evolution, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Molecular Ecolo-gy, American Naturalist, and other journals.

Franklin turner (EECE), one of six newcomers in the Division of Education, is completing a PhD in urban educational policy at Rutgers University, concentrating in educational psychology. As an adjunct

professor at Kean Uni-versity, Turner taught courses in experimen-tal psychology, tests and measurements, and the psychology of learning. Previously, he worked as a middle school teacher and as a graduate student counselor at the Cook

College Counseling Center at Rutgers. A dedi-cated volunteer, he participated in Habitat for Humanity projects in New Orleans and wrote grant applications for the After-School Boxing Program in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Turner is co-author of a recent article

in Current Issues in Counseling and Psycho-therapy.

Suzanne Strickland (Sociology) has built her career outside academia: She has held senior management positions in government and in start-up companies, and enjoyed high-profile political appoint-ments. Her achievements include obtaining passage of a bill by the Massachusetts legislature. Currently, she is developing an

investment strategy for Afghanistan that will use resources from social invest-ment funds to help invigorate the nation’s private sector and public investments. Strickland’s classes will address the foun-dations of sociological

theory; social welfare as a social institution; and the sociology of developing countries.

Another recent addition to the college is Distinguished Lecturer Sheryl Mccarthy (Journalism), an award-winning reporter and columnist whose resume includes Newsday, the New York Daily News, and “ABC News.” McCarthy will teach journal-ism courses, mentor students, and host a weekly public affairs talk show on CUNY-TV.

(Assembly from page 1) track that accelerates electrons until they emit X-ray beams. After on-site training at the federal facility, nearly a dozen juniors and seniors will use those beams to uncover the physical structure of crystals grown in QC’s labs. “Brookhaven is giving us �4 hours of beam-time,” says Evans. “It’s an amazing gift.”

Meanwhile, Nix’s grant is allowing her to integrate Second Life (SL), an Internet-based 3D virtual world, into her corporate

finance course. Using an avatar—a computer-gen-erated stand-in for a per-son—students will be able to interact with each other and navigate around QC’s private SL island. In this alternative location, participants will have the

opportunity to accumulate shared resources and collaborate on work, experiences that

should enrich “first life” classroom learning. Since the college’s virtual property is large enough to accommodate additional courses, Nix’s project may inspire similar efforts in other departments.

Outstanding educators will also receive formal recognition at the assembly. Wil-liam Green (English) will be honored for 50 years of teaching at the college. Excellence in Teaching Awards will be given to full-time faculty members Nicholas Coch (SEES), a hur-

ricane expert; Susan Croll-Kalish (Psychol-ogy), the professor behind the Psychology Statistics Laboratory and the neuroscience major; and Timothy Short (Biology), a scientist with expertise in a wide range of flora and fauna. Adjuncts Nicholas Alexiou (Sociology) and Helen Gaudette (History) will receive Excellence in Teaching Awards, too.

Awards will also be given to an out-standing employee in the Gittelson category and in the HEO series.

Schanoes

Fjerdingstad

Turner

Strickland

Nix

3

(ERP from page 2) identify the various fi nancial areas within the college, and prototypes were developed for the HR and fi nance areas. These are conceptual designs of transactions that take place within those areas. Much of the sum-mer was spent performing a process called “fi tgap,” which meant determining if any changes are needed in the college’s practices to accommodate ERP and vice-versa.

Henderson notes that Oracle has im-plemented over 400 ERP solutions for in-stitutions nationally. While most of QC’s business practices are remarkably similar to those at 95% of other institutions, CUNY does have some unique charac-teristics. Henderson cites, for example, the fact that our payroll comes from both the state and the city. “So whatever we program in for our payroll modules has to connect with and talk to the state and the city system. And our HR modules have to interface with the various unions and all their rules and regulations.”

Henderson emphasizes that, despite their different responsibilities, the HR, fi nance, and student systems within ERP will have similar interfaces and that the systems will be connected. “Our campus ran before on three separate systems that

didn’t do a very good job of talking to each other. This will be an integrated sys-tem that connects them. As the program and our modules are refi ned and con-nected, we will train more people to use the system.”

An area at QC where the ERP will have a signifi cant impact is admissions.

“I see it enhancing the work that we do,” says Admissions Director Vincent Angrisani. “On the transfer side, we’ll be able to do better evaluations of transfer credit; it will be much easier for us to gather information on all students within the university who move to Queens. The centralization of the data will help us in making reports, which will in turn help us manage our population.

“I think the service to the students will be improved as well,” he continues, “because ERP will eliminate a lot of obstacles they constantly run into, such as providing proof of immunizations or locating records.

“I can only see it being very good for the University,” he concludes. “ERP is getting us to rethink how we do business. And that, alone, is very important.”

More than three centuries of borough achievements will be honored on a single day when QC hosts the Queens History Conference on Saturday, October 13 at the Science Building.

Scheduled in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of the college—which held its first classes on October 11, 1937—the event is sponsored by the school, Borough President Helen Marshall, and historians Jeff Gottlieb ’�4, James Driscoll (president of the Queens Historical Society), and Stanley Cogan. The conference simultaneously cele-brates the 350th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance, a document in which local

residents, none of them Quaker, endorsed the right of their Quaker neighbors to wor-ship as they chose.

With its rich heritage and diverse population, the college was perhaps overdue for a history symposium; three had been organized to date. Two were held on cam-pus in 1988 and 199�,

with the third taking place at Borough Hall in 1994. The conference has been in the works for almost a year.

The program, which is free and open to

the public by advance registration, will begin at 8:30 with a continental breakfast. After Marshall and QC President James Muyskens deliver brief remarks, three 40-minute ses-sions will follow. During each session, audi-ence members will have a choice of lectures and panel discussions. Another two sessions will be held in the afternoon. Presentations will tackle topics ranging from slavery in colonial Queens to contemporary urban development and demographic changes. Almost a dozen exhibitions will be displayed in the lobby during the day, including one on the history and impact of Queens College.

Predictably, the lineup draws heavily on the talents of the college community. Fac-ulty, former faculty, alums, and a current QC student wrote 11 of the �8 papers that were accepted. Speakers include former City Councilman Archie Spigner ’7�, Roger Sanjek (Anthropology), Pyong Gap Min (So-ciology), Arnold Franco ’43, and QC junior Will Spisak, who did research for the WWII memorial that Franco, a veteran, funded on campus. A team of history honor students will assist at the event.

Queens History Conference: Presenting the Past

The Queens College Foundation’s Second Annual Golf & Tennis Classic held September 17

at the Fresh Meadow’s Country Club in Lake Success was a huge success in every way. The

event, which honored Robert Wann ’82 (second from left), Senior Executive Vice President

and Chief Operating Officer of New York Bancorp, was intended to raise money in support

of athletic scholarships. Thanks to a great turnout the total significantly eclipsed the total

from last year’s Classic.

Teeing Off for a Great Cause

MAGNUS BASSEY (SEYS) has been ap-pointed to the advisory board of “Classic Edition Sources: Education” by McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Series . . . BEVERLY

BISLAND (EECE) is the QC coordinator for Learning History Together for Teachers of English Language Learners, which received a three-year (�007–�010), $1 million U.S. Office of Education Teaching

American History Grant . . . The college received a four-year, $504,439 grant from the National Science Foundation to pro-mote undergraduate research in ecology, evolution, and behavior, especially among students from underrepresented minori-ties. The project, URM: Mentoring Urban Undergraduate Students in an Integrated Ecological Research Experience, is being di-rected by STEPHANE BOISSINOT (Biology), who will head a group of faculty including MITCHELL BAKER, ELSE FJERDINGSTAD, and MICHAEL HICKERSON (Biology), LARISSA SWEDELL (Anthropology), and Christine Tuaillon (Nassau Community College)

. . . NICK COCH (SEES) and TIMOTHY EATON (SEES) will both present research at the 119th annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Oct. �7–31, in Denver. Coch will discuss “A Case Study in the Effects of Coastal Engineering Structures and Beach Restoration Methods After Storms—Westhampton Beach, Long Island, NY.” Eaton will talk about “Re-sistivity Profiling and GPR for Characteriza-tion of Urban Fill and Buried Infrastructure” . . . On Aug. 15 a satellite office of the CUNY Center for Advanced Technology in Photon-ics Applications (CUNY-CAT) was established

at QC in order to be closer to the program’s director, HARRY GAFNEY (Chemistry). The new office is in Razran 314 . . . DAVID GERWIN (SEYS) has been elected to the board of the College and University Faculty Assembly of the

National Council for the Social Studies . . . SUE HENDERSON (VP, Institutional Advance-ment) was honored by the Northeast Queens branch of the NAACP on Sept. �3 . . . JESSICA HARRIS (SEEK) has been named to fill the Ray Charles Endowed Chair in African-American

While the complete text of the Queens College Strategic Plan is not due for release to the campus community until the end of this month, a preview of the final draft reveals that it will have three major goals.

The first, Advance Our Academic Pro-grams, emphasizes offering programs of exceptional quality by recruiting, develop-ing, and retaining a faculty of interna-tional stature. It also seeks to implement a model undergraduate curriculum and

Upcoming Strategic Plan Has Three Major Goalsinfuse the college’s academic programs with a global perspective.

Build a Culture of Community, the second goal, focuses on both the campus and the surrounding area. It intends to strengthen students’ college experience and enhance the professional development of staff. Another part of this goal is making our campus more welcoming and “green,” as well as increasing our visibility by using technology to deepen our sense of commu-nity and identity. Ultimately, this goal will

Qc PeoPle Material Culture at Dil-lard University in New Orleans. The chair was funded by a $1 million grant from the estate of the late musician. As scholar-in-residence for the fall semester,

Harris will do research, teach, and publish about the historical and cultural impact of the food of Africans who were displaced across the world due to slavery . . . YIN MEI (Drama) has received a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts for “In the City of Paper,” her dance work in which she employs her body as a brush, creating figures inspired by ancient Chinese calligraphy . . . President JAMES MUYSKENS will present a workshop for managers Nov. �8 at New York Hospital–Queens on the special ethical responsibilities inherent in the management role . . . A pro-posal submitted by STEVE PEKAR (SEES) to the National Science Foundation for International Polar Year has been recommended for fund-ing. Pekar will be co-leader of an expedition to Antarctica to collect seismic and gravity data. Three QC students will participate in the expedition . . . In celebration of His-

panic Heritage Month, the Hispanic & Latino Book Fair of New York was held Sept. �1–�3 at the Renaissance Charter School in Jackson Heights. The event was dedicated to GREGORY RABASSA

(HLL) and included readings, a book sale, seminars, and children’s activities . . . In June NATHALIS WAMBA (LEAP) presented a paper entitled “Action Research as Critical Pedagogy” at the Fifth Interna-tional Conference on Teacher Education at a Crossroads in Beersheva, Israel . . . AMY WINTER (Godwin-Ternbach) notes that the Godwin-Ternbach Museum has received a grant for $7,500 from the Lower Hudson Conference’s Museum Conservation Treatment Grant for the conservation of two Rococo oil paintings by Nicolas Lancret . . . A paper co-au-thored by ZAHRA ZAKERI (Biology) and Richard Lockshin (St. John’s University) was one of the highest cited papers of �004 and �005 in the International Jour-nal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology.

Harris Rabassa

Bisland

4

make the college a driver for the financial development of the borough.

The success of the first two goals can only be enhanced by the achievement of the third: Solidify our Financial Founda-tion. The college will accomplish this by increasing its endowment, diversifying its funding streams, advancing its facilities master plan through public-private part-nerships, re-engineering business processes, and developing a new business model.

More than a year in development,

the Strategic Plan reflects hundreds of hours of work by dozens of individuals representing every part of the campus community. While it proposes a number of goals for the next five years against the backdrop of a longer-term vision, it does not lay out the numerous management decisions required to achieve them. Those will be addressed in an Implementation Plan drafted during the summer and fall of 2007 that will be shared with the cam-pus community upon completion.

Gafney

55

Homecoming

Among the many events at last month’s Homecoming Weekend was a raffle for

this Queens College throw held by (l to r) Angelika Ostrowski of the class of �010

and alums Rosa Rea Braut ’0�, Clara Parker ’0�, and Oliver Torrentejo ’01. The

lucky winner was Renee (Osto) Wexler ’47. Proceeds will be used to fund QC schol-

arships. Abetted by beautiful fall weather, a full day of events began with brunch

under a tent on the quad, followed by a variety of activities—including a women’s

soccer game, a jazz presentation, class reunions—before concluding with an eve-

ning reception under the tent.

In a hospital emergency room, the difference in a patient’s outcome is often determined by how quickly a physician makes a correct

diagnosis and applies appropriate measures. Thanks to the efforts of senior Isaac Solaiman-zadeh, ER doctors may eventually respond more quickly and accu-rately to patients who appear to have severe coronary conditions.

The son of a physician, Solaimanzadeh, who is majoring in neuroscience, has firsthand ER experience, having worked as a volunteer at North Shore University Hospital. He broad-ened his medical experience this past summer when he was one of only 1� students chosen to intern at NASA’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I’m a pre-med student and I came across this internship,” recalls Solaiman-

zadeh. “It really captured my imagination, so I sent in an application.”

At the institute he was placed with a team of scientists at NASA’s Neuroautonomic Laboratory. The group is exploring ways to use advanced electrocardiography (ECG)—originally developed to monitor the health of astronauts during spaceflight—to analyze different conditions in earthbound humans. Using a computer program, the researchers have been focusing on minute changes in heart patterns as precursors to specific acute medical conditions.

“With the small study that they had done prior to my arrival, this technology showed strong promise to predict different heart conditions,” observes Solaimanzadeh. “What was lacking was more data to make it more powerful. So I suggested, ‘Why not bring it to North Shore?’ It has a great emergency department.”

Solaimanzadeh had astutely realized (continued on page 9)

Student Profile: Isaac Solaimanzadeh Is Bringing the Space Age into the ER

In the year since his appointment, Ca-landra Institute Dean Anthony Tamburri has been expanding the institute’s role within CUNY and broaden-ing its public profi le, as well as the profi le of

Italian-American studies in general. “Having directed dissertations and PhD

students since the mid-nineties,” he says, referring to his previous role as director of a PhD program at Florida Atlantic Univer-sity where he was associate dean and chair of language and linguistics, “I know that having a brick-and-mortar institute allows

us to get more graduate students to do Ital-ian-American studies as part of their PhD program.

“We need to have more discussions between the various CUNY colleges,” he says, citing programs in Italian-American studies at Brooklyn, Queens, and Lehman Colleges and a growing interest in creat-ing one at Staten Island. “The thing about Italian-American studies is that in theory it should have two homes: Part of it should be in Italian Studies and part of it in American studies.”

A prolifi c author in both English and Italian, Tamburri is a second-genera-tion Italian-American born and raised in Stamford, CT. He has PhD, MA, and BS

degrees in Italian (Berkeley, Middlebury College, and Southern Connecticut State College, respectively) and has taught Ital-ian and Italian literature and culture for more than a quarter century at various institutions. But his present position offers him something unique: “The Calandra Institute is the only institute of its kind not only in the Americas, but also in Western Europe, and that would include Italy.”

While Tamburri sees the advantages of the institute’s location within a city that is one of the major centers of Italian-Ameri-can culture, he wants the institute to look beyond the tri-state area and other well-known centers. “We know the West Coast, the East Coast, and parts of Chicago have

large Italian-American populations. But we sometimes forget about in between,” he says. “We tend to forget that Indiana also has a large Italian-American population. We need to make sure that we expand not only locally, but regionally and nationally.”

To that end, Tamburri has initiated a number of efforts to raise the institute’s pro-fi le, such as a well-received Italian-American poetry festival in April. This was followed by the Italo-American Social Science Con-ference co-sponsored with William Paterson University in May and a conference on The Cultures of Migration co-sponsored with Dartmouth College in June.

To enhance Calandra’s international (continued on page 9)

Faculty Profile: Dean Anthony Tamburri

�

Qc in the Media Students in the college’s Continuing Educa-tion Paralegal Studies Program now have a choice of venues. Queens has won approval from the American Bar Association—which awards accreditation to paralegal pro-grams—to provide training at Lehman Col-lege, which no longer offers that program.

Although the options on the Flushing campus are more extensive, both sites offer the core curriculum needed for paralegal certification, which involves completion of five required courses and seven electives. Students may take classes at either location.

The first four Queens/CEP paralegal courses at Lehman, held in pairs of back-to-back sessions on Saturdays and Sundays, will begin the weekend of October 13 and continue through early to mid-Decem-ber, depending on the class. The schedule includes Introduction to the Law and Ethics, Legal Writing for Paralegals, Legal Research, and Litigation I. These classes are

essential for paralegal certification. The program will resume in the Bronx

the first weekend of January with another four classes: Litigation II—the fifth manda-tory course—and electives in Personal Injury Torts and Insurance Law, Contracts and the Uniform Commercial Code, and Criminal Law.

“We are very excited about this oppor-tunity to participate in CUNY’s initiative to establish joint ventures between CUNY colleges and, at the same time, make a top-notch paralegal program available to the Bronx community,” says Sharon Shulman. An attorney, Shulman is education coordi-nator for the program.

Graduates of the Queens/CEP Paralegal Studies Program have a promising future: the U.S. Department of Labor expects growth in this field to exceed the national average for all occupations.

Queens Brings Paralegal Program to the Bronx

ANDY BEVERIDGE (Sociology) was quoted in a story Aug. 14 on NY1 concerning a

recent census report noting that, for the first time in decades, New York City’s Hispanic population is no longer growing. He commented on census data show-ing increasing numbers of African-Americans

leaving the city to the New York Times on Sept. 1� and NY1 on Sept. 13. The Times of London also drew upon his expertise for a Sept. 1� story about U.S. lending institu-tions charging higher rates to black and Hispanic borrowers . . . The Sept. � edition of the Queens Tribune noted the Journal of Neuroscience’s recent publication of research by JOSHUA BRUMBERG (Psychology) . . . QC’s hurricane expert, NICK COCH (SEES), offered his observations

about the metropolitan area’s preparedness for a major hurricane for stories that appeared Sept. 5 on Channel 5 News, Sept. � in the Queens Chronicle, and Sept. 8 on the National Geographic

Channel . . . BARRY COMMONER (CBNS) spoke about global warming, nuclear testing, and the use of solar energy in an Aug. �� interview on “The Charlie Bren-nan Show” broadcast over St. Louis radio station KMOX . . . An article by HAROLD GELLIS (Accounting), “China: The Impact of Financial Reporting on Economic Growth,” appeared in September on EnterpriseToron-

to, Canada’s biggest municipal Web site . . . Research concern-ing the behavior of microwaves, con-ducted by a group directed by AZRIEL GENACK (Physics), was the subject of

a story in the Aug. 10 edition of Physical Review Letters, the journal of the Ameri-can Physical Society . . . MADHULIKA KHANDELWAL (A/AC & Urban Studies) joined Leonard Lopate’s live WNYC radio program on Aug. �4 in a competition sponsored by the BBC to compare four cities—New York, London, Syd-ney. and Toronto—and determine which one was the most multi-cultural . . . A story appearing Sept. 7 in the New York Times describing the efforts of a

small downtown clinic to track the health of Ground Zero workers featured the comments of STEVE MARKOWITZ (CBNS) . . . News-day columnist SHERYL MCCARTHY’s (Journal-ism) arrival at QC as a

distinguished lecturer was noted Aug. 1� in the Queens Courier . . . On Sept. 5 VICTORIA PITTS-TAYLOR (Sociology) appeared on the National Geographic Channel program “Taboo,” discussing cross-cultural body modification . . . STEPHEN STEINBERG (Ur-ban Studies) offered his strong dissent for a Sept. � story in the TimesLedger concerning controversial research by Harvard political science professor Robert Putnam describ- (continued on page 7)

Beveridge

Genack

Khandelwal

Markowitz

Coch

Sid Kerner will maintain his presence on campus long after his current QC Art Center show, Face-to-Face: From See to Shining See, closes on October 31. The acclaimed New York City photographer has donated the entire exhibition to the college, becoming the first artist to make such a gesture.

The gift was announced at the show’s

opening on September 11, when Kerner gave a richly personal gallery talk and President James Muyskens welcomed guests to the reception that followed. Among the attendees was Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who presented the Brooklyn-born artist with a proclamation from City Hall.

Kerner has a long relationship with QC, having been the subject of an Art Center retrospective in 1990. He began his career at age 17 as a member of the Photo League, using his camera to document the realities of urban life. Then he saw World War II duty in Okinawa with the �8th Photo Reconnais-sance Squadron. Employed after the war as a television lighting director for NBC and ABC, Kerner continued taking pictures in his spare time. The images in Face-to-Face reflect his interest in presenting everyday objects in unfamiliar ways.

Saving Face: Artist Donates Exhibition to QCBrumberg

7

(In the Media from page 6) ing the negative influ-ence diversity has on local communities . . . The Sept. 7 BioBlitz (see page 1) of Jamaica Bay conducted by GILLIAN STEWART (SEES) and JOHN WALDMAN (Biol-

ogy) and a host of volunteers was given major display—two upfront pages, with photos—in the Sept. 18 Daily News. It was also covered in the Sept. 1 issues of the Queens Chronicle, Queens Tribune, Times Ledger, and in Newsday Sept. �3. The story also received advance coverage Aug. �8 in the Epoch Times. Stewart was inter-viewed that evening on the Hellenic Public Radio program “Cosmo-nauts” featured on WNYE-FM. Waldman was quoted in a

Sept. 14 Boston Globe story about scientific efforts to preserve some endangered fish species . . . AMY WINTER (Godwin-Tern-bach) was quoted in stories Aug. 30 in the Queens Courier and Sept. � in the Queens Tribune about the museum’s receipt of a $90,000 grant to create an online archive of its extensive collection. The grant was also noted Sept. � in the Daily News . . . On Aug.

1� the TimesLedger noted QC’s selection as one of “the �5 Hottest Schools in America” in the �008 Kaplan/Newsweek guide How to Get into College, as did both NY1 and the Daily News on Aug. 18 . . . QC’s #9 posi-tion as a Stone Cold

Sober college (�008 Princeton Review The Best 366 Colleges) was announced on NY1, CNBC, and WCBS-AM . . . The current QC Art Center exhibition of photos by New York City photographer Sid Kerner, Face to Face: From See to Shining See, was the subject of a feature in the Aug. 30 edition of the Queens Courier. It also received mentions Aug. �7 in the New York Times, Aug. �8 in the Daily News and Aug. 30 in the Queens Chronicle . . . QC freshman Sean Kim was the subject of an Aug. 30 profile in the New York Sun . . . QC’s new emergency alert system was the cover story for the Aug. 30 edition of the Queens Courier. It was also reported Sept. 5 in the Queens Gazette and Sept. 18 in the Daily News . . . The fifth and final installment in its series “Spotlight on Queens College Alumni” appeared Sept. 5 in the Queens Courier. It featured Hollywood

Using a recipe that called for

planting, watering, weeding,

and harvesting with a gener-

ous helping of TLC, FNES’s Clare

Consiglio (second from right)

and her students brought a

little-known garden to life this

past summer. Tucked away

between Remsen and Razran

and surrounded by building

construction, the tiny 4’ x 8’

organic garden now boasts a

rich bounty of vegetables and

herbs that Consiglio uses to prepare such culinary delights as bruschetta and pesto in her

Science of Foods and Meal Planning classes.

Consiglio says that the garden helps give her students a stronger connection to food.

“They learn the importance of supplying one’s own food and gain a greater appreciation

of and enjoyment for fresh vegetables they’ve grown themselves.”

Home-made pumpkin pie, anyone?

A Secret

Garden

screenplay writer Jay Wolpert and Mark Maxwell-Smith, a game show creator and producer . . . A Sept. 18 event at the Langston Hughes Library in connection with the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s exhibition Breaking Barriers: Louis Arm-strong and Civil Rights received advance coverage Aug. 30 in the Queens Chronicle, Sept. � and 11 in the Daily News, Sept. 13 in the Queens Courier, and Sept. 17 in the New York Times. Participant David Margolick, the editor of Vanity Fair, was interviewed Aug. �0 about the event for the Web site AllAboutJazz.com . . . The SA Diner, the refurbished cafeteria in the QC Student Union, was among several dining facilities at city campuses reviewed Aug. 30 in the Friday Food section of the Daily News.

When asked how they spent their sum-mer vacation, a growing number of QC undergraduates can say they studied

overseas. “Although this

was only the second year that we offered summer programs, we saw a 40% increase in enrollment,” says Education Abroad Director Gary Bra-glia. The college’s

menu of one-month courses attracted 111 CUNY students, the majority from the Queens campus.

The curriculum was certainly appeal-ing, encompassing French language and culture, King Arthur, Italian fashion, and more topics—a total of 15 classes held in major western European cities and

taught by QC professors or their coun-terparts at host institutions. Sessions cost $3,000 to $4,000 and were worth three to six credits. As with all Education Abroad programs, the courses were open to anyone who had completed at least one freshman semester and had a GPA of 2.8 or better.

Braglia hopes that eventually half of QC’s undergraduate body will participate in some kind of foreign study. “Nowa-days, kids have to have global compe-tency, and experiencing another culture is a great way to achieve it,” he explains.

A little bit of travel can confer other benefi ts, too. “Many of our students have never left home, or gone anywhere without their parents,” Braglia continues. “They come out of this more indepen-dent. It’s amazing what one month can do for them.”

Education Abroad Attracting More Students

Braglia

Waldman

8

A group of QC students who had the opportunity to study music in Italy performed their own original compostion before an audience of QC alumni from Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The occasion was a Dessert Reception and Musical Performance hosted by President James Muyskens on September ��. The unusual location was the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City. The event was organized in hopes of forming a Long Island QC Alumni chapter.

An Alumni Chapter Takes Off

What’s in a name? When it comes to the de-partment formerly known as the Advising Center, the question is more than academic. “We’re still processing the changes that

took place over the last year,” says Laura Silverman, director of the expanded and renamed Academic Advising Center, which held a ribbon cutting on September �5. “We’ve had a two-fold growth spurt.”

The growth began last spring, after QC reorganized its advising services, turning Silverman’s office into the campus’s primary source for information about educational requirements and college policies and procedures. Since March, she has added four academic advisors, a development that enabled the Academic Advising Center

to enhance its accessibility for all under-graduates. “Now we’re open seven days a week, even in summer,” reports Silverman. “We’re open three evenings, too.”

The extended hours are necessary be-cause QC’s undergraduate body is getting steadily larger. All freshmen must meet with academic advisors during orienta-tion; while incoming transfers have no such obligation, a majority utilize the center’s services, entering the college through a Transfer Advising Workshop. Then there are the college’s continuing students, who seek information and guidance year-round.

The numbers tell the story. From May �007 through the last week of August, ad-visors held individual or small group advis-ing sessions with 5,554 students. “That’s a lot of students,” says Silverman, noting that sessions last on average 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, the center has acquired some extra real estate. Room �0� was annexed over the summer and painted in colors that link it architecturally to the main reception area, which one staffer dubbed the mother ship. Provost Evangelos Gizis, using more prosaic language, calls this sec-tion of Kiely Hall “the Academic Advising Center corridor,” reports Silverman, who coined an elegant alternative, “Advising Center North.”

Academic Advising Center Continues to Grow

Dean Penny Hammrich (Education) will be in good company when she is profi led next year as part of a series of radio pro-grams called “The Sounds of Progress: The Changing Role of Girls and Women in Science and Engineering.”

Hammrich was one of only eight female scientists from such institutions as Stanford University, Ohio State, and the University of Texas at Austin who were chosen for this series. Her research, the

Sisters in Science Equity Reform Proj-ect, is designed to involve more girls in

the study of science and math in urban schools. It is report-edly the longest-run-ning research in this fi eld in the U.S.

Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation,

“The Sounds of Progress” will cover eight 10-to-15-minute magazine-style radio stories focusing on gender-based research strategies and methods being used to increase the participation of women in science and math education and the workforce.

“Our programs will put a human face on gender-based research and allow the people behind the scenes to discuss their own experiences and work in a way that

will be understandable to a lay audi-ence,” says Glenn Busby, the series pro-ducer. “Hopefully by widening the net on this research, we’ll be able to change the status quo and establish more equi-table avenues for all students to pursue academic success in math and science.”

The programs are scheduled to air beginning January 2008 on National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the country.

NPR to Profile Education Dean

Hammrich

(BioBlitz from page 1) said a few words during Friday after-noon’s opening ceremonies. More digni-taries arrived the following day for the 3 pm conclusion of the Blitz: President James Muyskens and Barry Sullivan, general superintendent of the Gateway National Recreation Area—which con-tains Jamaica Bay—shared the podium with Congressman Anthony Weiner, a longtime bay advocate who proudly declared himself a birder.

Gratified as they were by the support of legislators, Waldman and Stewart were even more pleased by the BioBlitz’s find-

ings. The survey revealed some surprising bay residents, such as a red-spotted newt, a black widow spider, and a moth species not previously spotted in New York state. Subsequent audits, which the professors hope to repeat periodically, can help track changes in plant and animal populations.

But this year’s most exciting discovery may be the existence of an unexpectedly strong local community of future natural-ists. “I’m blown away by the number of young people who wanted to go into the field and learn how to identify things,” says Stewart.

Cutting the ribbon for the expanded and renamed Academic Advising Center are Evangelos Gizis, June Bobb, Judith Summerfield, and Laura Silverman.

9

(Tamburri from page 5) profi le, the institute acted as consultant for a special event at last June’s 43rd annual Pesaro Film Festival. “We helped organize a fi lm festival within a fi lm festival in Italy that focused on fi lms by Italian-American directors who were born in the 50s,” notes Tamburri, who hopes to re-create that pro-gram here in November. That event also produced a spinoff in the form of a series of fi lms by Italian-American directors that the institute will soon show at the CUNY-TV studios.

Tamburri observes that, since its found-ing in 1979, the Calandra Institute has added signifi cantly to its original mission of educating Italian Americans: “It’s morphed and expanded over the years into more of a research institute.” Conse-quently, another of his goals is to see that research on Italian-American students done by faculty from about 1975 to 1990

under the auspices of the faculty fellows program is fi nally published. “That would be the beginning of a resource we could use as a point of comparison when we look back from today.

“Cosponsoring conferences and publish-ing gets the research being done at Calandra out into the public, where it needs to be,” he says. Towards that end, the institute hopes to revive the Italian-American Review, its social science journal that last published in 2002. This would be in addition to VIA (Voices in Italian Americana) that Tam-burri co-founded in 1990, co-edits, and brought with him to the institute. Tamburri also brought along a small not-for-profi t publishing venture called Bordighera Press, which publishes VIA as well as volumes of poetry, prose, and essays.

Responding to the observation that he’s set an ambitious agenda, Tamburri laughs and says, “Yes, but it’s good work.”

9

Thanks to the inspira-

tion of Joe Brostek,

the monochromatic

blue fence surrounding

the Remsen addition

construction site now

sports several color-

ful images illustrating

types of equipment–

microscope, test tube,

beeker, etc.–commonly

found in labs of the

sort that will one day

serve QC students at

this location. Rikki

Asher (SEYS) orga-

nized the group of science and art students who created the stencils and applied the paint.

Depending on the pace of construction, their work may stand for two years.

Students Decorate Remsen Construction Site

The Sixth World Conference of the In-ternational Society for Universal Dia-logue drew 150 participants to Helsinki, Finland, in �005. Now some of the most compelling papers from that conference are available in a single volume, The Challenges of Globalization: Rethinking Nature, Culture, and Freedom (Blackwell Publishing), edited by philosophy profes-sor Steven Hicks and his DePauw Univer-sity colleague, Daniel Shannon. Hicks, a former president of the ISUD, wrote the introduction to the book, which includes 11 essays by leading scholars from all over the map. Collectively, they address a wide range of issues, from international law to cultural relativism; many of the contributors also propose ways to over-come social and political repression.

Qc author

(Solaimanzadeh from page 5) the potential of a collaboration between the NASA research team and doctors in North Shore’s ER, and he arranged to have his NASA mentor Todd T. Schlegel contact the hospital. The study is now in a preliminary stage, waiting for grant money so that it can go forward.

If the study finds merit in this application for advanced ECG, Solaimanzadeh believes it may help relieve the burden placed on some busy ERs. “The data collected and the resulting database will help hospitals rapidly diagnose different heart conditions and help to alleviate a lot of the influx that emergency rooms are experiencing,” he ex-plains. “It can become another standard to at least eliminate patients who are healthy before any more time-consuming and finan-cially draining tests are conducted.”

The son of Iranian-Jewish immigrants, Solaimanzadeh says the advanced ECG

study also has application for familial dysautonomia, a rare genetic condition that particularly affects Ashkenazi Jews. “It’s a neuroautonomic disorder,” he says. “Patients suffer from a lot of symptoms, but one of the primary concerns is how many of them experience sudden cardiac death and respiratory arrest. This technol-ogy is being used to better understand their condition and to speculate on what processes are occurring that make sudden death happen.”

Asked whether he has his mind set on any particular medical schools upon gradu-ation, Solaimanzadeh laughs and says, “I’ll go wherever I get in and wherever I get a great scholarship.” Becoming more serious, he says, “I’m going to apply to schools across the spectrum. I’m not as-suming anything. I just know I want to study medicine. I’m gonna shoot for the stars, and see what happens.”

Spirit & Power in African Art

31 Wed Biology colloQuiuM: “Cellular mechanisms of thyroid hormone action on the heart,” Sara Danzi (LI Jewish Research Center). Science Bldg., Room B137, 12:15 pm.

PreSidential roundtaBle: “A Feast of Tongues: Italy’s Literary Dialects,” Hermann Haller (European Langs.). Q-Side Lounge, 12:15 pm.

SeMinar: Breast Cancer Awareness, Karen Karsif (Director, Breast Center, NY Hospital Queens). Powdermaker Hall, Room 108, 12:15 pm.

ExhibitsSpirit & Power in African Art. Godwin-Ternbach Museum, through Dec. 15. www.qc.cuny.edu/godwin_ternbach/

Face to Face: From See to Shining See; Photographs by Sid Kerner. Art Center,6th floor, Library. Through Oct. 31. www.qc.cuny.edu/Library/art/artcenter.html

Breaking Barriers: Louis Armstrong and Civil Rights. Louis Armstrong House Museum, Corona, Queens.www.satchmo.net. Through October 8.

October 10Wed Biology colloQuiuM: “Design of Smad-based Smurf1 inhibitors) to Promote Osteogenesis,” Boojala Reddy (Biology). Science Bldg., Room B137, 12:15 pm.

recital: Audrey Axinn, fortepiano. Works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert. LeFrak Hall, 12:15 pm.

11 thu gueSt recital: Stephen Hamilton, performing on the Maynard-Walker Memorial Organ, with members of the QC Orchestra, Maurice Peress, direc-tor. Rheinberger’s Organ Concerto and other works. LeFrak Hall, 12:15 pm.

15Monchoral coFFee Break: QC Chorus, Cindy Bell, conductor, and QC Choir, James John, conductor. Library, Bar-ham Rotunda, 12:15 pm. PhySicS colloQuiuM: “Nonlin-ear transport of 2D electrons in strong magnetic field,” Sergey Vitkalov (City College). Science Bldg., Room 326, 12:15 pm.

16 tue reading: Mario Vargas Llosa, will also be interviewed by Leonard Lopate. LeFrak Hall, 7 pm. $15.

17 Wed choral concert: QC Chorus, Cindy Bell, conductor, and QC Choir and QC Vocal Ensemble, James John, conductor, with guest conductor Raphael Immoos (Hochschule für Musik, Basel, Switzer-land). LeFrak Hall, 12:15 pm.

lecture: “Thief ’s Paradise: Hip-Hop and Post-Civil Rights Politics,” Mi-chael Ralph (NYU). Library, 5th floor, President’s Conf. Room 2, 12:15 pm.

22 Mon Joint cheMiStry/PhySicS collo-QuiuM: “Ferroelectric nanomaterials: chemistry controlling phase transitions AND phase transitions controlling chem-istry,” Andrew Rappe (UPenn). Remsen Hall, Room 101, 12:15 pm.

PreSidential roundtaBle: “They Read It, but Do They Get It?” Jacqueline Darvin and Carole Rhodes (Secondary Education). Q-Side Lounge, 12:15 pm.

24 Wed neuroPSychology colloQuiuM: “Strengths & Weaknesses of Thala-mocortical Synapses,” Randy Bruno (Columbia). Science Bldg., Room E308, 12:15 pm.

Qc orcheStra: Maurice Peress, direc-tor, Charles Castleman, violin. Dvorák’s Scherzo Capriccio, Violin Concerto, and Slavonic Dances. LeFrak Hall, 12:15 pm. lecture: “African Art and 20th-Centu-ry Art,” Amy Winter (Godwin-Ternbach Museum). Klapper Hall, Room 401, 5:30 pm.

25 thu SyMPoSiuM: Recent Scholarship on Contemporary Italian-American Youth. Student Union, Room 301, 1–5 pm. For further information: www.qc.cuny.edu/calandra; 212-642-2094.

26 Fri gueSt recital: Japanese Popular Song Series, Japanese-American As-sociation Chorus and Chamber Orches-tra, Reona Ito, music director. LeFrak Hall, 3 pm.

hiP-hoP PerForMance: Aquamoon. LeFrak Hall, 8 pm.

27 Sat dance: Ballet Folklórico de México. Colden Auditorium, 8 pm. $24; $12.

29 Mon gueSt choral concert: Americas Vocal Ensemble, Nelly Vuksic, music director. Music from North and South America. LeFrak Hall, 12:15 pm.

Fyi items should be submitted to Maria Matteo (maria.matteo@qc.cuny.edu), kiely 1310, x 75593.

10

Ballet Folklórico de México.

Vargas Llosa