Bold,
High-Tech TV Magazine
Invites "Study with the Best"
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"Study with the
Best" senior producer Linda Prout, above, and series
hosts Tomiko Karino and Zyphus Lebrun, below.
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What do the madcap prince of morning radio
Skerry Jones (aka the Na Na Guy), the balletic mating dance
of Papua New Guinea's bird of paradise, and Khamranie Bhagroo's
first trip to the opera have in common? The City University
of New York, of course, and anyone interested in learning more
about these wide-ranging subjects may do so at 8 am or 8 pm
on Sunday, December 16, on CUNY-TV Channel 75—and every
Sunday after that.
These are among the segments that
will be presented on the debut edition of "Study with the
Best,” a vigorously-paced, high-concept video magazine designed
to bring the accomplishments of CUNY faculty and students, the
University's broad array of career opportunities, and activities
on its many campuses to the metropolitan-area television audience.
New editions of “Study with the Best” (SWTB) will be aired on
subsequent Sundays over the next several months at the same
time (think “Sunday at Eight with CUNY”). If the eye-popping
cross-cuts, funky camera angles, chart-topping music tracks,
and zingy animated graphics leave viewers now and then thinking
“ MTV,” the producers will not be at all miffed. Welcoming
viewers at the top of the inaugural edition to a university
with “more than 1,200 academic programs and students from 184
countries,” Chancellor Matthew Goldstein says, “If you are thinking
about college and your career and wondering what to expect,
this show is for you.”
He points to many financial aid plans and scholarships—later
in the show we learn that 70% of full-time CUNY undergraduates
receive such aid—and ventures a promise to those who become
students: “New York City will be your campus, and CUNY will
be your ladder to success.
Chancellor Goldstein's remarks are
brief because, hey, Senior Producer and Writer Linda Prout
and her on-air student co-hosts Tomiko Karino and Zyphus
Lebrun (all three are from City College's journalism program
and media and communication arts department) have jam-packed
their 26 minutes of air-time with a borough-hopping itinerary.
First up is Joe Brown, the manager of WHCR-FM, CCNY/Harlem Community
Radio, giving CCNY communications students their introduction
to the “management and talent side of radioÇand the technical
side.” Then the crew heads out for the new home of the Staten
Island Yankees, where we observe College of Staten Island graduate
Michael Cappelo getting hands-on experience as a sports broadcaster
(and “getting paid for it”) for station WSIA-FM.
As a Brooklyn College student, Skeery Jones looked into his
heart and the future and saw—radio. He praises CUNY for
helping him “stick with the passion” as a campus radio personality,
and since graduating he has won fame among morning persons as
the Na Na Guy on top-ranked station Z100. The SWTB caravan pays
a rambunctious visit to Jones's aptly titled program, "Morning
Zoo."
After that, the SWTB camera zooms
in on the Westbeth apartment of Lehman College professor and
computer art wiz David Gillison, whose career began as
a photographer and student of the culture of Papua New Guinea,
notably the natives'fertility rituals. Gillison became fascinated
by the mating dance of the bird of paradise, and his attempts
to capture it on film led a colleague at National Geographic
magazine to suggest he refine his work with computer animation.
He didÇand was soon deeply involved in three-dimensional modeling
at Lehman College's Art and Mathematics Project.
Another segment introduces two members of the first class of
CUNY Honors College. Justin Gogel's interest is political science,
and he was on the verge of going to the obvious school, George
Washington University in D.C., but his impression of “a rebirth”
at CUNY (and acceptance into the Honors College) brought him
to Hunter College. Khamranie Bhagroo is pursuing a pre-med path
at Queens College and expresses particular pleasure at the opportunities
opened up by the cultural passport that is one Honors College
perk: “I had no clue what opera looks like from inside, and
I got to do that!
The debut edition wraps up with a visit to the second annual
CUNY Jazz Festival at City College, with great bassist and Distinguished
Professor Ron Carter on hand to observe, "When you attend
CUNY, all of New York City is your campus."
Study with the Best” was conceived by its executive producer,
Jay Hershenson, precisely to “ignite the fire” in ambitious
and motivated prospective students, mainly from the metropolitan
area but also from afar. Hershenson, who is also CUNY's Vice
Chancellor for University Relations, explains that he was inspired
by “two contradictory facts. First, television today is, overwhelmingly,
the primary source of information for most people. Second, there
is virtually no information about colleges available on television.
We are going to change that reality, with an exciting and pioneering
series to showcase the University.
Sensing the time was right for a major innovative venture onto
video, Hershenson and CUNY-TV Director Bob Isaacson over
the summer initiated planning for SWTB and brought in Professor
Prout to lead the project. For production facilities they are
relying on the multifaceted technological resources of CUNY-TV,
located at the Graduate Center, and the University's well-established
Channel 75.
Hershenson asserts that “Post September 11, more people are
watching television together with family and friends. This is
an important time to help New Yorkers learn about opportunities
for advancement through higher education.”
Prout, director of the Journalism Program at City College, is
now a writer for the Emmy-nominated PBS newsmagazine “In the
Life,” the producer of “WomanSource,” an award-winning series
on women and HIV, and a producer at CUNY's Channel 75.
Over the last two decades Prout has worked in all the major
media, notably covering the Caribbean and Latin America as a
correspondent for Newsweek and Newsday (her reportage on the
invasion of Grenada won a New York Press Club award). Scouting
shrewdly in her own back yard, Prout was able to recruit two
impressive CUNY students as co-hosts who, it happens, had already
worked together on a documentary about nursing homes. Tomiko
Karino was born and raised in Osaka, Japan and came alone to
the U.S. at age 19; after earning an Associate's degree at a
Kansas community college, she and her boyfriend decided they
didn't want to be in Kansas any more and made their way to New
York. With private schools far beyond her means, Karino entered
City College, where she has thrived as a journalism major to
the tune of a 3.8 GPA. Now 23, she expects to graduate in June
2002.
When Zyphus Lebrun arrived at City College from his native St.
Lucia in the Lesser Antilles in 1998 at the age of 21, he was
already something of a broadcasting man-of-all-work. He had
reported, produced and anchored newscasts and feature stories,
helped to create a call-in newsmaker program, and also hosted
a “week in review” program for two different St. Lucia broadcasting
companies.
A media communication arts major, Lebrun is maintaining a 3.9
GPA and, like Karino, expects to graduate in June 2002. Already
in the can or on the story board for future editions of STWB
are: a visit to that cornucopia of fine cuisine and elegant
service, the Hospitality Program at New York City Technical
College; a profile of Patricia Fraticelli, the charismatic Bronx
Community College 4.0 GPA student and mother of three whose
appearances highlighted several CUNY Information Fairs last
year; a visit with some of John Jay College's forensic pathologists,
who have been assisting in World Trade Center search and identification
efforts; a segment on a research fellow at Hunter College's
Brookdale Center who creates theater pieces based on the life
stories told by Alzheimer's patients; and a profile of CCNY
grad Barbara Nevins Taylor, now an investigative reporter for
Channel 9's I Team.
Many segments will draw attention to outstanding scholars, artists,
and research scientists on the CUNY faculty, among them Lehman
College's U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, award-winning composer
John Corigliano (Lehman College, Graduate Center), and bassist
Ron Carter (City College).
Co-hosts Karino and Lebrun intersperse, between segments of
SWTB, brief announcements directing viewers to other easily
accessible sources of information about the University and its
collegesÇthe CUNY Web site (www.cuny.edu), the toll-free number
(1-800-CUNY-YES), and the Office of Admission Services (1114
Avenue of the Americas at 42nd Street, NY, NY 10036, 212-997-CUNY)—as
well as information on financial aid and many special academic
programs and outreach events.
To draw attention to "Study with the Best,” plans are under
way to distribute thousands of dubs of the first program to
New York City's college-prep students (and their parents), public
educators, librarians, community leaders, and approximately
2,000 public and private high school counselors in the metropolitan
area. Excerpts from the series will be available on the CUNY
Web site. |
