Travis continued, “As we celebrate our role in the last chapter of John Jay, we are ready to write the next chapter.” He then announced the launching of a new master planning process that will enable the College to produce Master Plan John Jay @50 — a new five-year Master Plan by the end of the academic year. The plan will be built around five domains that define John Jay: Student Success, Academic Excellence, Research Excellence, External Partnerships and Institutional Effectiveness. The strategic planning process will serve to inform the Middle States Accreditation Process, which will begin with a self-assessment.

In noting the recent accomplishments, Travis stated, “The changes at John Jay are simply breathtaking and everyone at the College should feel a great sense of accomplishment in creating a revitalized College.”

Highlights of these accomplishments include:

Improving Student Success
Five years ago, John Jay’s entering freshman class consisted of 1,182 baccalaureate students, this fall we enrolled 1,657 baccalaureate freshmen, a 40% increase. Based on this success, the College has officially closed associate degree programs and will seek senior college designation next fall. Simultaneously, working with the six CUNY community colleges, John Jay has created joint degree programs in criminal justice forensic science and forensic financial analysis. These educational partnerships, collectively called the CUNY Justice Academy, will enable us to expand access to criminal justice programs across the university.

Reinvigorating Faculty
This fall the College welcomed 36 new full-time faculty members. With their arrival John Jay reached another milestone – since 2004, our ranks of full-time faculty have grown from 335 to 449, a 33% increase. Fully 50% of the College’s full-time faculty have been hired over the past five years. These new faculty come from premier doctoral programs around the world, committed to excellence in scholarship and teaching, and eager to join the John Jay community. They are a critical building block of a revitalized John Jay College.

Retooling Core Academic Programs
John Jay has added liberal arts majors in English, Economics, Gender Studies and Global History, with Philosophy, Law and Society, American Studies, Anthropology, Latin American and Latina/o Studies and Sociology in the pipeline. These new majors are receiving positive reviews from academic colleagues around the country and will distinguish the John Jay undergraduate education in the coming decades. The College is also expanding options at the graduate level with two new Masters programs – one in Forensic Mental Health Counseling and another in International Crime and Justice and certificates in Forensic Psychology and Forensic Accounting. In addition, this fall, the College launched its first online degree program – the MPA – Inspector General Program.

To further raise the quality of John Jay’s academic programs, the College is midway through an overhaul of its general education programs. It has redesigned its Honors Program and will accept the first students in Fall 2010. And, the College has revised its science curriculum and launched Math 2012, an initiative to strengthen its math curriculum.

To read the full text of President Travis’ remarks, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu/Stateofcollege.pdf.

About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.

The conference, presented in partnership with Hassan II University and the Advisory Council on Human Rights of the Kingdom of Morocco, will bring together scholars, practitioners, government leaders, police officials and representatives of international organizations in an effort to promote international and interdisciplinary understanding of justice issues in the broadest sense.

The conference’s program committee, chaired by Professor Chitra Raghavan of the Department of Psychology, has issued a call for papers soliciting proposals for symposiums, presentations or posters on relevant themes, including legal reform, terrorism, human rights, transnational trafficking in drugs, arms and human beings, financial crimes, gender and social justice, and more. Proposals should reflect scholarly work and may be submitted in English, French or Arabic. The deadline for submitting abstracts or panel proposals is December 15.

For more information on the conference, go online to www.jjay.cuny.edu/ic, or contact Ken Lewandoski, Director of the Office of International Studies and Programs, at intconference@jjay.cuny.edu.

The program will feature the Gloria section and Dona Nobis Pacem from Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Directed by Music Professor Diana Mittler-Battipaglia and accompanied by the Lehman Symphony Orchestra, the 150-member chorus will also perform shorter multicultural selections and works by Bach and Mendelssohn, as well as from Johann Strauss’s “Die Fledermaus.” In addition, the program will feature works for two oboes and orchestra by Albinoni and Handel, as well as a holiday song for the audience.

Members of the chorus and soloists group include Lehman students, alumni, faculty, staff, and a broad selection of residents from many communities in the Bronx and the greater New York area.

For reservations, call the Music Department at 718-960-8247 or e-mail: music.department@lehman.cuny.edu.

A senior college of the City University of New York, Lehman is located at Goulden Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard in the northwest Bronx and is accessible by bus as well as the #4 and “D” subway lines. Free attended parking is available.

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The program will include Bach’s French Suite No. 2, Haydn’s Sonate Hob. XVI-23 F-Dur, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 and F. Chopin’s Nocturne Des-dur, Op. 27, No. 2.

This is Kuschnerova’s third performance on the Lehman campus in as many years. She is particularly popular in Europe and Japan, having performed concert tours in Japan for many years. She is also recognized as a piano professor, giving master classes throughout Europe, East Asia and the U.S. Since May 2006, she has been a guest professor at the Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima, Japan.

A senior college of the City University of New York, Lehman is located on Bedford Park Boulevard West and Goulden Avenue in the northwest Bronx. It is easily accessible by bus as well as the #4 and “D” subway lines, and free attended parking is also available. For more information on this event, call the Music Department at 718-960- 8247. For directions, visit www.lehman.edu.

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Contact: Christina Dumitrescu/ 718 960-5746

An installation and oil painting of a bedroom are just one example of Spanish artist Quintana Martelo's exploration of perception vs. reality in "Memoria", on exhibit at the QCC Art Gallery from November 21, 2009 through February 12, 2010.

On a life-size wooden table are an artist’s working tools, while nearby is a man standing next to a chair. This sounds like a description of a typical artist’s studio, however, the room is not real, it is an installation; and the man, who is gazing at a large painting of an upside-down artist and his chaotic studio, is a sculpture self portrait made out of polyester resin. This dramatic contrast in reality versus perception is the purpose behind Memoria, the new Exhibit by Spanish artist Quintana Martelo, which will be presented at the QCC Art Gallery, from November 21 through February 12, 2010.

In Memoria, first exhibited at the Church of the University of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, the artist also creates replicas of his bathroom and bedroom, representing his interpretation of space as places of power, love, affliction, and intimacy.

“La razón y la intención de la pintura y, para mí, el interés último, radica en el reconocimiento de los cambios, los errores o las correcciones que configuran el acto de pintar, en el logro de un orden, una armonía o una belleza exenta, fuera del modelo establecido como referencia; moviéndose en el tiempo, convirtiendo el espacio en una obsesión y no en una conquista, girando constantemente en torno a mí mismo tratando, tan sólo, de entender,” says Mr. Martelo.

“Installation art, exhibits that are designed specifically for the space in which it is installed,  has gained momentum over the last twenty years and is many artists’ preferred method of communicating ideas,” says Faustino Quintanilla, Executive Director and Curator of the QCC Art Gallery. “Because of its modern, immediate sensibility—and Mr. Martelo’s masterful presentation of its concepts –installation art is very appealing to young people and I anticipate that our students will especially enjoy this particular show.”

Quintana Martelo was born in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. He studied calligraphic printmaking at Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, in Barcelona, Spain, and contemporary mural painting at Pintura Mural, Sant Cugat del Vallés, also in Barcelona.

Since 1966, the QCC Art Gallery has been an integral part of Queensborough’s mission to educate its students and enrich the College, which is celebrating a banner academic year with the 50^th Anniversary, the launch of the Freshman Academies and the opening of the new Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center.

Housed in the beautifully renovated, historic 1920’s Oakland Building, formally the Club House for the Oakland Golf Club, the QCC Art Gallery was recently awarded a Queensmark. Its permanent African Art exhibit has received critical acclaim from The New York Times. Recent major exhibits include A Cameroon World: Art and Artifacts from the Marshall and Caroline Mount Collection; Picasso, Printmaker: A Perpetual Metamorphosis, The Myra and Sandy Kirschenbaum Collection; and Kuba Textiles, The Sam and Mei Ling Hilu Collection. Gallery Hours: Tuesday & Friday 10:00-5:00; Wednesday & Thursday 10:00-7:00; and Saturday and Sunday 12:00-4:00. Please visit the QCC website at www.qccartgallery.org, e-mail us at QCCArtGallery@qcc.cuny.edu, or call 718-631-6396 for more information.

Queensborough Community College, a College of The City University of New York, is located on a picturesque 37-acre site in Bayside, Queens. The College offers a rich liberal arts and science curriculum, as well as career and pre-professional courses. Over half of the faculty holds doctorates compared with 21% of faculty in other community colleges nationwide. Comprising one of the most diverse populations of any college in the U.S., nearly 15,000 students pursue an Associate degree or Certificate program and another 10,000 students of all ages attend continuing education programs. Among the campus’s prized resources are the Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center, the QCC Art Gallery, and the Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC), created to stimulate ideas and intellectual curiosity while exposing students and the public to culture and the arts. Please visit our website at qcc.cuny.edu.

The talk will focus on Prof. Ackerman’s experiences as a student in Professor Sweeny’s classes and how these experiences influenced his research.

A 1973 Lehman graduate, Prof. Ackerman earned his doctorate in molecular biochemistry from the Microbiology Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. In addition to research and teaching, he directs the biochemistry program at UMass Boston.

Hosted by the Lehman Chemistry Department, the lecture is named in honor of one of Lehman’s founding faculty members. For 36 years, Prof. Sweeny taught organic chemistry at Hunter-in-the-Bronx, which became Lehman College in 1968, and then continued to teach at Lehman for six years. As pre-medical advisor first at Hunter and then at Lehman, he helped to break down the barriers to medical school admission for women from working-class families, as well as for students from minority groups. Upon his retirement in 1974, he was designated Professor Emeritus, and a continuous lecture series was established in his honor. Prof. Sweeny died in 2001 at the age of 94.

A senior college of the City University of New York, Lehman is located on Bedford Park Boulevard West and Goulden Avenue in the northwest Bronx. It is easily accessible by bus as well as the #4 and “D” subway lines. For more information on this event, call the Chemistry Department at 718-960-8146. For directions, visit www.lehman.edu.

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Contact: Christina Dumitrescu/ 718-960-5746

Heyward is currently pursuing a double major—in English and education—at City College and preparing for a career as a teacher. “Prior to attending BMCC, I had only a general knowledge of what it meant to be a teacher and what I might accomplish in a classroom,” he says. “What I got from BMCC was a passion for the possibility of activism through education—and an understanding of how I might be able to turn that passion into ways for students from urban areas to overcome some of their disadvantages.”

Finishing touches
Clearly, much of that passion is part of the legacy Heyward inherited from his grandfather. “I’d been working on Granddaddy for quite some time, but it was in my last semester at BMCC that I got it into shape with the help of my creative writing teacher, Dr. Carlos Hernandez,” he says.

As a man of color growing up in the South in the 1930s and ‘40s, Heyward’s “granddaddy” — his name was Joseph Smith—never had the opportunities that would later be open to his children and grandchildren. “In those days, racism in the South was very brutal and many people died,” Heyward says.

“Their stories were never told. My grandfather was one of the ones who survived, but he had to work incredibly hard to take care of his family. At the same time, he made sure that his children and grandchildren all had a chance to work with him and to learn what it meant to get your hands dirty.”

A mechanic by trade, Granddaddy also ran a landscaping business on the side. “He’d work all day at his mechanic’s job, come home, change his clothes, and then do yard work around the neighborhood,” says Heyward.

Late one hot August afternoon, Heyward and his grandfather were cutting the grass on the grounds of a bank. “Afterwards, I observed my grandfather having words with the bank manager—apparently over payment. But he showed what I thought was incredible restraint and, on the drive home, didn’t say a word to me.”

Lessons for living
After Granddaddy’s funeral in 1993, the family gathered to share a meal and stories. “I talked about the time Granddaddy had been cheated by this man and done nothing to defend himself—and my uncles and older cousins all laughed at me,” Heyward says. “It turned out that he had done this same thing with each and every one of them—same bank, same bank manager, year after year—because he wanted to show us what not to do in business. He was just trying to teach us a lesson.”

It was the importance of that lesson—what it meant to Heyward and what it said to him about his grandfather—that inspired him to write Granddaddy. No doubt it will shape the kind of teacher he becomes as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The campaign, which proved to be an overwhelming success, set up collection sites on campus where volunteers sought donations of toiletries and other sundries, baby wipes, anti-fungal creams, socks, non-aspirin pain relievers, food items, holiday candy, “gently used” magazines, books and videogames, phone cards and letters of support. Monetary donations to cover the costs of packaging and shipping were also encouraged. 

“The title for our benefit drive, Treats for Troops, is derived from a national organization that delivered thousands of care packages to soldiers all over the world,” said Director of Community Outreach Declan Walsh. “We are hoping to reinstate the Treats for Troops mission of providing relief to soldiers on active duty overseas as a college community.” 

The campaign more than met its goals, Walsh pointed out. “We set out to raise about $1,000 and collect enough materials to fill 50 goodie boxes,” he said. “By the last day of the collection drive, we had collected about $3,500 and were able to fill 100 boxes.” 

Among the John Jay students who have already received care packages from the Treats for Troops effort, Walsh said, are Sgt. Yevgeny Gershman, who is serving in Iraq with the 192nd Military Police Battalion, and an unidentified female student who is now on her third tour of duty in Afghanistan. 

Walsh said he learned that the first care package reached its intended recipient in Iraq on November 11, Veteran’s Day. “How special was that?” he mused. 

For more information on the Treats for Troops drive at John Jay, call 646.557.4820, or visit the Office of Community Outreach in Room 3408 North Hall.

A Video Arts and Technology (VAT) major, Rivera is on track to graduate next spring, but she has already gained significant professional experience in the broadcast industry.

Last fall, she did a six-month internship at Sirius XM Radio, where she handled a broad range of tasks, both on the air and behind the scenes—from conducting interviews to making sure that commercials and station IDs came on at the right times.  These days, she volunteers at WSIA, a radio station at the College of Staten Island, and is working on having her own weekly radio show.

More recently, Rivera assisted veteran NBC TV journalist Gabe Pressman as an editorial newsroom intern. In that capacity, she conducted background research on local news stories and blogs and had a hand in producing TV news segments on social issues, personalities and neighborhoods.

“Radio is really my first love, and the field I hope to pursue a career,” she says. “But the NBC experience helped me develop my writing skills—and, hopefully, makes me more attractive to potential employers.”

Creating newscasts from start to finish
Rivera has already proven herself a valuable resource in the broadcast industry. Having taken all of BMCC’s VAT course offerings and mastered the intricacies of software programs like AVID and Final Cut Pro, she has learned how to create storyboards, write, shoot and edit news segments, conduct a news broadcast and tell a compelling story through sound.

Along the way, she has been guided and mentored by BMCC faculty members, including John Dash, of the Cooperative Education Department, and VAT instructors Judy Noble, Shari Mekonen and Laura Starecheski.

Rivera was offered the NBC internship through her membership in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “About halfway into my studies at BMCC I realized that, while I was doing well academically, I didn’t belong to any clubs, teams or sororities,” she says. “I thought it would make sense to connect with a relevant organization.” She did some online research and found a group that seemed to have her name written on it—the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).

Making the connection
“I think it’s important to be attuned to your culture and where you come from,” says Rivera. “So I was very excited about joining the NAHJ—as both a Hispanic woman and an aspiring journalist.”

Soon thereafter, she was selected to attend the association’s annual journalism convention, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “This was a great networking experience—one that gave me a better understanding of the field and connected me with other like-minded individuals,” Rivera says. “I made friendships that will last a lifetime.” And it was through her membership in the NAHJ that she was offered the NBC internship.

“I’m well aware of how competitive the broadcast field is—especially in the current economic climate,” says Rivera, who hopes to continue her studies at Brooklyn College next fall and ultimately pursue a career in radio, perhaps in a not-for-profit setting.

“But I feel BMCC has prepared me really well. I’m very thankful for the education and professional opportunities I’ve received here.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

In accepting the award, McCann said, “As fiction writers and people who believe in the word, we have to enter the anonymous corners of human experience to make that little corner right.”

“Let the Great World Spin” tells the tale of 1970s New York City through characters whose lives are touched by famed tightrope walker Philippe Petit and his memorable high-wire act between the World Trade Center towers in August 1974.

McCann is also the author of two collections of short stories and five novels, including “This Side of Brightness,” “Dancer” and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers. His fiction has been published in 30 languages and has appeared in major literary publications including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ and The Paris Review. His short film “Everything in this Country Must,” directed by Gary McKendry, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005.

This past May, McCann was inducted into Aosdana, one of Ireland’s highest literary honors. Later this fall, he will be awarded a French Chevalier des arts et lettres by the French government, making him one of a exclusive number of foreign artists recognized in France for their literary contributions.

At Hunter, McCann teaches fiction in the college’s MFA program.