CUNY Newswire

A new year prompts reflection with family and loved ones, CUNY Human Resources reminds employees to ensure that beneficiary designations and emergency contact information are current. If you have experienced any family status change since your start date at CUNY, such as marriage, birth of child, adoption of child, divorce or death, contact Human Resources at your campus as well as your retirement plan to request beneficiary forms. Remember, that in order for benefits to be paid promptly and according to specific wishes, up-to-date beneficiary designation forms are essential.

On a recent Monday morning at York College, inside the Academic Core Building, Human Resources Executive Director Barbara Manuel reviewed her day’s schedule.

Longtime Queens College professor of Russian History and Anarchism Paul Avrich, known as a preeminent historian of American anarchism, was working at the time of his death in 2006 on a biography of Alexander “Sasha” Berkman.

Andrew J. Polsky says in the Afterword for Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War that his study was born just after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. But it took “a very different turn” as he wrote it. Instead of being just another liberal lament “about excesses of executive authority,” it came to express a view more conservative than he had intended: “a profound sense of the limits of power.”

Solecki, director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, was commenting after the release of a seminal report by the prestigious advisory group that he cochaired. The New York City Panel on Climate Change, convened by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, warned that the consequences of rising temperatures would be dire and costly without strong action to adapt.

At 3 a.m. on Oct. 30, G. Scott Anderson looked out a window of Borough of Manhattan Community College and saw the Hudson River churning and swelling just 100 feet away.

HAVE YOU HEARD? What community college is the nation’s first to be designated a national landmark? How you can lose more weight — enjoyably? Which CUNY institution has started an academic press?

Today, CUNY’s 6,700 full-time faculty carry on this legacy, contributing in ways that truly transform our city, benefiting the lives of millions of New Yorkers every day. Many provide critical training for the city’s diverse workforce.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has closed discrimination complaints against CUNY’s Black Male Initiative programs, saying the campus mentoring and support programs comply with federal laws.

That’s not an exaggeration. Our nation’s borders may not be in imminent danger. But our ability to produce a workforce capable of leading a global economy is compromised by the gap between the projected need for more scientists, engineers and technically proficient workers and our ability to prepare a diverse workforce with the requisite skills.

The University’s renowned faculty members continually win professional-achievement awards from prestigious organizations as well as research grants from government agencies, farsighted foundations and leading corporations. Pictured are just a few of the recent honorees. Brief summaries of many ongoing research projects start here and continue inside.

Before Hurricane Sandy had blown out of the city last fall, CUNY students were already springing into action to help fellow New Yorkers deal with devastation. They soon spread through hard-hit areas offering food, labor and compassion.

Jessie Streich-Kest and her friend since middle school, Jacob Vogelman, died when a tree fell on them as they walked her dog during the storm. She graduated last summer with a master’s degree in special education from Hunter College’s Urban

Groundbreaking research emerging from advanced science laboratories. More faculty in classrooms, including 355 new full-time hires in 2013 alone.

The University’s renowned faculty members continually win professional-achievement awards from prestigious organizations as well as research grants from government agencies, farsighted foundations and leading corporations.

Some already are pursuing high goals — such as expanding accessibility for the disabled and inspiring tolerance along with scholarship in school children.

The South Bronx was burning when Wallace “Wally” Edgecombe arrived at Hostos Community College in 1973. Gangs were active, drugs were ubiquitous and many people lived in poverty.

Roberto Perez was already a self-described “political junkie” when he was introduced to state politics through CUNY’s Model New York State Senate.

Perhaps the most distinguished marriage of two American artists was that of the abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and Lee Krasner (1908-1984).

Training employees to guide students is one key to creating University-wide collaboration.