CUNY Newswire

Levine-de Beer Genetics Lecture to explore idea of DNA as ultimate forensic record of three billion years of evolution

Four City College of New York undergraduates were winners in two recent CUNY-wide student competitions. Christopher Nickerson, a sophomore in the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education, won first prize in the 2013 Student Speech Competition, and studio art majors Elizabeth Arias, Bao Lin Zhang and Steven Chalmers took second prize, third prize and honorable mention, respectively, in the visual arts category in the 2013 CUNY / LaborArts contest.

For the first time ever, graduating seniors in The City College of New York’s Department of Theatre and Speech will present a showcase evening of scenes, songs and monologues to the New York entertainment industry. The City College Showcase will be presented 7 p.m. Monday, May 6, at the Producers’ Club, 358 W. 44th Street, in the Crown Theater.

Military Times, a publisher of newsweeklies and a website for armed services personnel and their families, ranked The City College of New York 33rd best four-year college in the United States for veterans. CCNY was the highest-rated New York State public college in the annual survey.

Spring break in the Caribbean conjures up images of days on the beach and nights in the clubs. But for five City College of New York undergraduate environmental engineering majors, two professors, a graduate student and a post-doc, it means something very different: trying to understand a climate-related phenomenon that is imperiling two lakes on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Student teams from more than 20 schools in New York City, Long Island and New Jersey will delay spring break to converge at The City College of New York Saturday, March 23, for an underwater robotics competition – the first ever of its kind in the Northeast.

Two scientists from The City College of New York have won National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards to support their research, teaching and outreach over the next five years.

Pulitzer Prize winner to do book reading and signing March 18; Cuban blogger to participate in a dialogue March 21

The City College of New York hosts two prominent figures from the world of Hispanic arts and letters the week of March 18.

The City College of New York Department of Media and Communication Arts will welcome its first group of students into its new master’s degree program in Branding + Integrated Communications – “BIC” in September 2013.

BIC is a 36-credit, portfolio-driven master’s degree program created with the guidance, insight, and support from significant players in New York City’s advertising and public relations community.

Tom Sleigh, senior poet and director of Hunter College’s creative writing MFA program, will be the featured guest poet for the 41st annual The City College Poetry Festival. The all-day, all-verse event runs 9:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, May 10, in Theater B of Aaron Davis Hall, 135th Street and Convent Avenue on the CCNY campus. Dubbed “the Woodstock of the Spoken Word,” the festival has become New York’s longest-running poetry celebration.

Dr. Arthur Szlam, assistant professor of mathematics at The City College of New York, has been awarded a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship for 2013. Professor Szlam develops mathematics for cutting-edge applications in machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence research focused on improving the abilities of computers to learn in a more human way.

Five outstanding City College of New York undergraduates will participate in a UN-hosted global analysis of gender-based violence, highlighting CCNY’s 2013 Women’s History Month observance. The event March 9, will be at the 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and is free and open to the public.

City College of New York Professors of Education Beverly Falk and Megan Blumenreich’s new book presents an insider’s look at the complex challenges facing urban educators. “Teaching Matters: Stories from Inside City Schools” (The New Press, 2012) tells the stories of 15 teachers who applied analysis and critical thinking to come up with solutions to trying educational issues.

How does a city measure success? In the case of Newark, N.J., the city is a major employment, cultural and education center. However, limited education attainment and low incomes preclude many residents from taking advantage of opportunities right in their backyard.

Director Shirley Clarke, a founder of the New American Cinema movement of the early 1960s, has recently begun to get long overdue recognition. Last year, Milestone Films, an independent film distribution company, acquired a collection of Ms. Clarke’s feature and short films, and has been restoring them for rerelease. City College will honor its former student, who studied with the legendary Hans Richter, by showing two of the most important films in that collection, at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Friday, February 22, in Shepard Hall Room 95 on the CCNY campus. The event is free and open to the public.

“El Músico y el Pintor/ The Musician and the Painter: An Exhibit Documenting the Lifetime, Work, and Artistic Trajectory of Two Early Twentieth Century Dominican Artists in New York,” will be on view February 15 through March 27 at the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Archives and Library. The Archives and Library are on the second floor of the North Academic Center at The City College of New York.

The exhibit consists of 16 panels, documents, photographs, musical scores, and paintings from the Dominican Archives collections that highlight the careers of musician Rafael Petitón Guzmán and painter Tito Enrique Cánepa.

“Waterproofing New York,” a daylong conference to explore the impact of past and future storms on five key infrastructure systems: water/waste, power/data, circulation/fuel, parks and recreation, and shelter, has been rescheduled to Saturday March 2, conference organizers with City College’s Spitzer School of Architecture announced.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals details of living tissues, diseased organs and tumors inside the body without x-rays or surgery. What if the same technology could peer down to the level of atoms? Doctors could make visual diagnoses of a person’s molecules – examining damage on a strand of DNA, watching molecules misfold, or identifying a cancer cell by the proteins on its surface.

The City College of New York is one of the nation’s “Best Value” colleges and universities, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company profiles CCNY in its book, “The Best Value Colleges: 2013 Edition,” (Random House / Princeton Review) published February 5, 2013.

The University’s Board of Trustees appointed City College of New York historian and author Dr. Judith Stein a University Distinguished Professor at its January 28 meeting. The appointment recognizes Professor Stein’s outstanding scholarship over the past four decades, which has helped shape the study of 20th century U.S. history, labor history, African-American history and political economy.