A national search has begun for a new academic leader for the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which has emerged as one of the leading journalism schools in the country less than a decade after its founding, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has announced.

Trustee Peter Pantaleo is chair of the search committee for a new dean, which includes trustees, faculty, students, alumni and several distinguished journalists who serve on the School’s board of advisors.

The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism is the only publicly funded graduate program in journalism in the Northeast. It was among the first to offer a fully converged curriculum that blends traditional journalism with the multimedia, interactive, and technical skills of the new media world. Students also specialize in one of five subject concentrations: arts and culture, business and economics, health and science, international, or urban reporting. The School occupies state-of-the-art facilities on West 40th Street near Times Square, in a building next to The New York Times that formerly housed the New York Herald Tribune.

Chancellor Goldstein said: “CUNY’s pioneering Graduate School of Journalism is an extraordinary program with a world-class-faculty that combines the eternal values of traditional journalism, including fine reporting and writing, critical thinking, and ethical values, with the new multimedia, interactive possibilities of the 21st century.”

The School was opened in September 2006 under the leadership of Founding Dean Stephen B. Shepard, former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek magazine and a graduate of the City College of New York (Class of 1961). Dean Shepard announced in February that he would step down, effective Dec. 31, 2013. He will stay on as a University Professor, working on special projects such as the CUNY Journalism Press.

The School graduated its sixth class in December, 2012. Since its founding, more than $25 million has been raised for special academic programs and scholarships. The CUNY J-School offers an intensive 16-month Master of Arts in Journalism program that includes a required paid professional summer internship and an extensive January Academy enrichment workshop series. The School also offers an M.A. in Entrepreneurial Journalism. About 100 new students enroll each fall, about 65% of them women and nearly 40% students of color. Some 32% come from underrepresented groups, and 41% are non-New York State residents, including 10 from countries outside the U.S. Their average age is 27.

Beyond its basic programs, the School runs two centers and a book publishing imprint:
* The Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism trains students and mid-career professionals to develop products and services for the digital age and conduct research on new business models to sustain quality journalism.
* The Center for Community and Ethnic Media, launched in 2012, serves New York’s vibrant neighborhood and immigrant-community newspapers and broadcast outlets -– some 350 of them, published in more than 50 languages. The Center offers their staffs training programs in business, technology, and journalism.
* CUNY Journalism Press, launched in 2012 in partnership with OR Books, publishes books about journalism in two formats: e-books and print-on-demand paperbacks.

Located in midtown Manhattan, the School is just one block from Times Square and next door to The New York Times. With dozens of media outlets within walking distance and the whole of New York City just a subway ride away, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism could not be more ideally located.

In addition to the plentiful resources of New York City, the School itself boasts state-of-the-art media technology and a superb faculty composed of industry professionals and veteran journalists who have chosen to bring their expertise to the classroom.

Students have daily contact with working journalists, developing mentoring relationships and making the connections that will guide them both in and out of the classroom. Students also participate in professional internships across the city and the world, gaining the hands-on experience that is so important during that first crucial job search.

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.
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Eight outstanding City University of New York students – recognized for research on subjects including cancer, immunology, cardiovascular disease, genetics, neuroscience, autism spectrum disorder, nuclear physics and the physical interactions of dye molecules – have been awarded Jonas E. Salk Scholarships to study in the medical field in 2013, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has announced.

The awards, among the more prestigious awarded by the University, recognize the high ability and scholarship of students who plan careers in medicine and the biological sciences and who are judged likely to make significant contributions to medicine and research. They are selected on the basis of original research papers undertaken with prominent scientist/mentors.

“I am very proud of this year’s Salk Scholars for their commitment to academic quality and to public service, whether as physicians treating the sick and underprivileged, or as researchers working toward medical breakthroughs,” Chancellor Goldstein said. “Their work exemplifies the proud legacy of Dr. Jonas E. Salk.”
Dr. Salk, a 1934 graduate of City College, developed the polio vaccine in 1955. He turned down a ticker-tape parade in honor of his discovery, asking that the money be used for scholarships. The city provided initial funding for the Salk Scholarships in 1955.

The endowment provides a stipend of $8,000 per scholar, to be appropriated over three or four years of medical studies, to help defray medical school costs. Salk Scholars also receive achievement citations and diagnostic kits that include an otoscope and ophthalmoscope.

The 2013 Salk Scholars represent Baruch, Brooklyn, City and the Macaulay Honors colleges. Two scholars will attend SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, while the others were accepted to Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York University School of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, and The Commonwealth Medical College.

The Salk Scholarships will be awarded on Thursday, May 16, 2013 from 9am – 11am at Baruch College in the William and Anita Newman Conference Center, 151 East 25th Street, 7th Floor, Manhattan.

The keynote speaker will be Magee Hickey, Emmy Award-winning television news reporter for PIX 11 News, who has covered most of the big stories in the tri-state area in the past 25 years.

2013 Salk Scholarship Winners

Mizanur R. Ahmed
Brooklyn College
SUNY Downstate College of Medicine

Mizanur, who is presently participating in an immunology research project at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, is pursuing a degree in chemistry and anthropology. He has worked as a volunteer at New York Methodist Hospital, where he provided patient care in the cardiology and neurology departments, and at Lutheran Medical Center, where he was a clinical observer in the emergency department. In addition, he was a volunteer with the Brooklyn College chapter of Global Medical Brigades in June 2012 when the group participated in a medical mission to Panama. Mizanur worked with the New York City Police Department’s Youth Soccer League during the summer of 2009. He has worked with the Arab-American Association of New York to improve the lives of members of his community by teaching English, assisting with immigration needs, participating in programs focused on the development of youth education and offering health relat
ed workshops targeting mothers within the community, including a breast cancer informational session.

Anna Groysman
The Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College
SUNY Downstate College of Medicine
Anna is majoring in chemistry and philosophy and has completed 320 hours of summer clinical experience as a participant in Project Healthcare at Bellevue Hospital, a very intense experience that involved assisting patients who are alcoholics, drug addicts, rape victims, prisoners and trauma victims. Since September 2007, when she was still in high school, Anna has been involved with SUNY Downstate’s Department of Radiation Oncology, where she is presently working on an independent project focused on predicting cell survival curves after induction of double strand breaks and identifying the mechanism of break repair. During the summer of 2011, she assisted a team studying the effectiveness of markers to target cancer cells and developed a quantitative strategy to compare experimental results with predictions for hybrid spheroid growth. Because Anna became so well-versed in the techniques and procedures of the laboratory, she was given the responsibility to teach these skills to medical students involved in the lab’s research projects. She has studied abroad in Spain and Argentina, where she learned Spanish, and plans to expand her knowledge by studying medical Spanish and medical Russian.

Alana Lewis
City College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Alana, who was born in Guyana, was a participant in PAVERS (Patient Advocacy Volunteer in Emergency Research Services) at NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital. She has also conducted research on a project to characterize mitochondrial DNA deletions as possible biomarkers of oncogenic processes brought about by UVB-induced DNA damage in human epidermal cells. She quickly learned and implemented the requisite techniques including cell culture, isolation of genomic DNA templates, real-time PCR, plasmid cloning and sequence analysis. Alana also made several unique contributions of her own including the design of novel primers and reaction conditions that made possible more consistent and reproducible quantitation of the mtDNA deletions she was studying. Alana has a fascination with science and the human body and plans to apply her knowledge of medicine to improve the lives of others and reduce human suffering.

Christopher Lopez
Baruch College
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Christopher suffered an episode of Bell’s palsy — a form of temporary facial paralysis — at an early age that guided him to a career in medicine. Researching facial diseases showed him that destitute children around the world may live their entire lives with deformations like cleft palate because surgery is either too expensive or unavailable. Chris pursued a double major in biology and English literature, and his honors thesis dealt with the role of medicine and disease in Shakespeare’s plays, which won him the school’s prize for the best thesis that year. Also an outstanding physics student, he was a tutor in Baruch’s Student Advisement and Counseling Center. Professor Stefan Bathe, a world-renowned nuclear physicist, arranged for Chris to analyze data at Brookhaven National Laboratory dealing with the PHENIX project, which seeks to model conditions of the early universe by colliding sub-atomic particles close to the speed of light. Chris familiarized himself with the physics behind the nuclear collisions, learned the tools required to analyze the data accumulated by the particle detectors and was able to analyze a subset of the data himself by checking for correlations of signals from various detectors. With his expertise in biology, physics and English literature, Chris is a unique student whose abilities span a wide range of subject areas.

Irina Mironova
Baruch College
The Commonwealth Medical College
Irina, who grew up in rural Russia, has been a volunteer at Lenox Hill Hospital, where she has worked for several years with patients in the ER and in the Open Heart Recovery Unit. She has also volunteered since 2010 in the Survivors of Torture Program at the International Institute of New Jersey, where she assisted with translation of documentation and prepared émigrés for asylum and immigration law. Irina has also excelled in research, participating in a project studying how the physical interactions of dye molecules with various fabrics determine color. The theoretical explanation of these effects may have significant practical applications in fabric dyeing. Earlier this year, Irina’s group produced an article in Dyes and Pigments, the preeminent journal in the field. While mastering the extensive background literature of this project, Irina earned co-authorship by developing a consistent dyeing procedure for the fabrics being studied, no simple task because of the many difficulties associated with use of these molecules as dyes. Prior to this work, no reproducible dyeing technique utilizing these molecules had existed.

Susanna Nguy
City College
New York University School of Medicine

Susanna is described by her faculty mentor, Professor Kamilah Ali, as “by far the best undergraduate student I have trained since being a graduate student at Yale University.” Susanna’s research project was to delineate the novel functional role of Apolipoprotein D in macrophages as it pertains to atherogenesis, a key remodeling process in the vascular wall for the development of cardiovascular disease. She was required to master and implement new techniques and experiments and established for the lab the isolation of bone-marrow myeloid lineage cells from mice, cell culture maintenance and propagation, flow cytometry (and analysis software- FloJo) and confocal microscopy analyses. After mastering these new techniques, she set up all experiments to analyze the behavior of bone marrow-derived macrophages from C57BL-6 and ApoD-null mice. Susanna demonstrated remarkable research productivity despite the rigorous academic demands of her honors program and extracurricular activities. Her goal is to continue cardiovascular research and follow up with clinical research projects she has worked on at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Ivan Jacinto Santiago
City College
Harvard Medical School

Ivan’s approach to research is described by his professors as analytical, careful and possessing highly developed critical thinking skills. Ivan quickly demonstrated an ability to master research techniques and concepts. During the past two years he has become very proficient in Drosophila genetics and cell biology, immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy. He also has excellent oral and written communication skills, and an article reporting his research findings is under preparation for publication in a professional journal. Ivan has been involved in teaching other incoming undergraduates as a peer mentor in the City College Academy for Professional Preparation and served as vice president of the CCNY Biology Club. Professor Tadmiri Venkatesh, Chair of the Biology Department, calls Ivan “the best undergraduate that I have come across in the past 20 years. He is highly passionate about neuroscience research and is very committed to a career in this area.” Ivan has also been offered doctoral fellowships in neuroscience programs at Harvard, Yale and the University of California, San Francisco.

Emma Schatoff
City College of New York
Weill Cornell Medical College
Emma has a strong interest in oncology, disease mechanisms and drug targets, and the genetics of disease. Since 2010 she has conducted independent honors research concerning the molecular genetics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the fruit fly Drosphila as an experimental model, which has been highly productive and produced interesting and important data. Her work on ASD involves studying the molecular genetics of Neurobeachin (Rugose) in Drosophila. Emma is a co-author of two papers that have been submitted for publication in professional journals and will be the lead author on another paper that is being prepared for publication. She has also served at Mount Sinai Hospital as a patient care and music volunteer, participated in the Gateways to the Laboratory Program as part of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program as a summer intern and is an accomplished violinist.

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.
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The Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the CUNY School of Professional Studies has recognized six leaders who have distinguished themselves in the areas of social and economic justice. The six honorees will receive the 2013 Joseph S. Murphy Emerging Leaders Award at a reception inaugurating the Joseph S. Murphy Institute Scholarship for Diversity in Labor on May 16th in New York City. The reception will benefit the Scholarship, which has been created by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein to promote diversity in union leadership and the field of labor studies.

The recipients of the 2013 Leadership Awards include:

• Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director, New York Taxi Workers Alliance
• Lucía Gómez-Jiménez, Executive Director, La Fuente
• Sara Horowitz, Founder, Freelancers Union
• Alden Nesbitt and Mikhel A. Crichlow, Dream Act Leaders
• Ai-Jen Poo, Executive Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance

“The recipients exemplify an inspiring new generation of leaders, and represent a broad coalition of movements for social change,” Greg Mantsios, Director of the Murphy Institute, said. “These diverse and dynamic leaders are all working for the greater cause of social and economic justice, and we are thrilled to honor them for their important work.”

“The CUNY School of Professional Studies was founded on the ideal of providing opportunities for our City’s workers to continue and complete their college educations,” noted John Mogulescu, the School’s Dean. “This scholarship will augment our efforts, and I am delighted that our students have a chance to see, through the examples of our honored guests, the social impact that can result from hard work and dedication.”

The 2013 Emerging Leaders will be honored at a reception, Educating the Future: Strength in Diversity on May 16th in the Atrium of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, located at 524 West 59th Street in Manhattan.

“We are seeking candidates from under-represented constituencies who wish to pursue careers with labor unions or who want to develop academic careers in labor-related fields of study,” Mantsios said. “Our hope is to have some impact on the way unions and universities develop leaders.”

The Joseph S. Murphy Institute was established as a collaboration between The City University of New York and New York City labor unions to provide undergraduate and graduate education for working adults, particularly in the fields of labor and urban studies. The Institute has attracted some of the most prestigious labor studies and social science faculty in the country.

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.

2013 CUNY Commencement Ceremonies: Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Nasser D. Khalili, New York State Court of Appeals Judge Jenny Rivera, CNN lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer, El Diario La Prensa Publisher and CEO Rossana Rosado, President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Reynold Levy, award-winning author and historian David Nasaw, forensic DNA testing pioneers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, President and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., avant-garde director and playwright Robert Wilson, acclaimed CBS producer and editor Warren Lustig, African history scholar Toyin Falola, cystic fibrosis research pioneer William B. Guggino, education scholar Diane Ravitch, Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes are among the speakers and honorees.

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, who announced that he will step down this summer after 14 years at the helm of CUNY, will speak at his alma mater, City College, to mark the 50th anniversary of the famed commencement address delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Dr. Goldstein’s graduating class of 1963. CCNY will also award the President’s Medal to former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, who is president and CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, Inc. They head an impressive list of distinguished public servants, authors, playwrights, educators, jurists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, scholars, scientists, journalists, environmentalists and philanthropists who are among the speakers and honorees for the 2013 commencement ceremonies of The City University of New York.

Nasser D. Khalili, the world-renowned scholar, entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist who was recently named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for his pursuit of peace among nations, will speak at Queens College and receive the Queens College Medal, while educational historian and research professor Diane Ravitch will receive an honorary doctorate. The Hon. Jenny Rivera of the New York State Court of Appeals, will deliver the commencement address at the CUNY School of Law, where honorary degrees will be awarded to Lucas Guttentag, Senior Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Professor Beth E. Richie of the University of Illinois at Chicago, a leading authority and advocate for women and youth. Award-winning author and historian David Nasaw, the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History at CUNY, will address graduates at The Graduate Center, where honorary degrees will be awarded to Lawrence Weiner, a founding figure in conceptual art, and Robert Wilson, widely acknowledged as the theatre’s leading avant-garde director and playwright. City College will award an honorary doctorate to Martin Cohen, a 1970 alumnus who is co-chairman and co-CEO of Cohen & Steers, Inc., the world’s largest investor in publicly traded real estate companies.

“The Class of 2013 is a source of enormous pride and satisfaction for CUNY, the City of New York and New York State,” said Chancellor Goldstein. “The vast majority will remain in New York where they will work,study and contribute to the social, intellectual and economic vitality of our communities. We offer special thanks to CUNY’s world-class faculty and staff who, along with the families of our graduates, alumni donors and college friends, have provided crucial support to help make possible the success of our students and the joy of the upcoming commencement celebrations.”
Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, co-founders and co-directors of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, who have pioneered studying and litigating issues concerning the use of forensic DNA testing, will speak at the morning and afternoon commencement ceremonies of John Jay College. Brooklyn College will present its Distinguished Alumni Award to William B. Guggino, who has pioneered groundbreaking research on cystic fibrosis, and Warren Lustig, an award-winning CBS producer and editor. Professor Toyin Falola, who has had a global impact in the study of African history, modern Africa and the African diaspora, will receive an honorary doctorate at the College of Staten Island.

At Lehman College, Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of America’s leading environmental advocacy groups, will speak and receive an honorary doctorate, along with Dr. Fernando A. Picó, S.J., renowned author and historian at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. The speaker at Baruch College will be Gillian Tett, the British author and leading financial journalist, who will also receive an honorary doctorate together with Wesley K. Clark, retired four-star general and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. York College’s speaker will be Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents nearly 300,000 students attending 47 public Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, whose drama, “Water by the Spoonful,” won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, will speak at Bronx Community College. Rossana Rosado, Publisher and CEO of El Diario La Prensa, the oldest Spanish-language newspaper in America, will deliver the commencement address at the Macaulay Honors College, where honorary degrees will be awarded to Reynold Levy, the President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts who has spearheaded a $1.2 billion physical transformation and modernization of the Center; and Virginia Slaughter, who founded the Horace W. Goldsmith Scholars Program at Macaulay to identify, inspire and support the aspirations of undergraduate intellectual leaders. David Hinson, national director of the Minority Business Development Agency, will deliver the commencement address at New York City College of Technology.

The CUNY Spring 2013 Commencement Schedule May 17 – June 11:

May 17

CUNY School of Law: 11am, Kupferberg Center for the Arts, Colden Auditorium, Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, Queens.

Speaker: The Honorable Jenny Rivera was appointed to the New York State Court of Appeals in February 2013. She is the second Latina to sit on that bench. Until her recent appointment, Judge Rivera served on the faculty at CUNY Law School since 1997, teaching property, administrative law, civil procedure, lawyering, and civil rights. She is the founder of the Law School’s Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE). She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, Reporter for the ABA Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities, and a former member of the National Board of Bar Examiners Diversity Issues Committee. She served as a law clerk to then-District Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She has also served as an administrative law judge, a Commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, and a Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights for then-New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. She was a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Family Rights Project and served as an Associate Counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF. Judge Rivera has a JD from New York University School of Law and an LLM from Columbia Law School. Among her many awards and recognitions are the 2013 Spirit of Excellence Award from the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession and the New York State Bar Association 2012 Diversity Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Laws: Lucas Guttentag is Senior Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and teaches at Yale Law School. He has argued important constitutional cases involving immigrants before the Supreme Court and various United States Courts of Appeals. He is in the forefront of the fight against laws such as Arizona’s SB 1070 and anti-immigrant laws in states including Georgia and Alabama. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Laws: Beth E. Richie is Professor of Criminal Justice and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a graduate of the CUNY Graduate and University Center, where she received her Ph.D. in sociology in 1992. Currently, Dr. Richie is leading a multi-million dollar research project sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation researching women and youth issues at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. She was the recipient of three major awards: the National Advocacy Award by the Department of Health and Health and Human Services, Office of Violence Prevention; the Audre Lorde Legacy Award of the Union Institute stemming from her work with the National Network for Women in Prison; and the Visionary Award of the Violence Intervention Project.
Contact: Carol Kozo, 718-340-4207

May 23

CUNY Graduate Center: 5 p.m., Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza (Columbus Avenue & 65th Street), Manhattan. Attendance is by invitation only.

Speaker: David Nasaw, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History, The Graduate Center, CUNY. Celebrated author, biographer, and historian, David Nasaw specializes in the cultural and social history of early twentieth-century America. His biography of William Randolph Hearst, The Chief, won the Bancroft Prize, and his acclaimed biography of Andrew Carnegie was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. The Patriarch, a finalist for a 2013 Pulitzer, brings to life the story of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, in this, the first and only biography based on unrestricted and exclusive access to the Joseph P. Kennedy papers. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Lawrence Weiner is a founding figure in conceptual art. His career has flourished since the first presentation of his work in California in 1960. The Bronx-born artist, educated in the public schools of New York, is a great exemplar of that brand of wide-ranging innovation that changes minds, challenges perceptions, and has helped to keep New York the cultural capital of the world. His many honors include National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1976 and 1983), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994), the Wolfgang Hahn Prize (1995), and a Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual Art (1999). Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Robert Wilson, widely acknowledged as the theatre’s leading avant-garde director and playwright, is also a celebrated painter, sculptor, designer, and video artist, who has done trend-setting work as performer, choreographer, and sound and lighting director. The New York Times described him as “a towering figure in the world of experimental theater . . . an explorer of the uses of time and space onstage.” Megacritic Susan Sontag called his career “a major artistic creation,” adding, “I can’t think of any body of work as large or as influential.” Wilson is perhaps best known for having created, with composer Philip Glass, the monumental and tradition-shattering opera “Einstein on the Beach.” Among Wilson’s awards and honors are an Obie for direction, the Golden Lion for sculpture from the Venice Biennale, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship Award. He has been named a “Commandeur des arts et des lettres” by the French Minister of Culture.
Contact: Tanya Domi, 212-817-7283 or 212-817-7183.

May 28
John Jay College of Criminal Justice: Two ceremonies: at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., Jacob K. Javits Convention Center North, W. 40th St. and 11th Ave., Manhattan.

Speaker and Honorary Degree: Doctor of Laws (10:30 a.m. ceremony): Barry Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Speaker and Honorary Degree: Doctor of Laws (3:30 p.m. ceremony): Peter Neufeld, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. In 1988, Neufeld and Scheck became involved in studying and litigating issues concerning the use of forensic DNA testing. Their work not only shaped the course of case law across the country but also helped lead to an influential study by the National Academy of Sciences on forensic DNA testing, as well as important state and federal legislation setting standards for the use of DNA testing. They are members of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, a body that regulates all crime and forensic DNA laboratories in the state. They have litigated and taught extensively in both the “hard” and behavioral forensic sciences. Their trials frequently redefine and expand the parameters of permissible defenses involving forensic psychiatry and laboratory science. Most of this work is pro bono and of public interest. Their cases often result in enhancing public awareness of systemic problems, improving the criminal justice system and legislative reform.
Contact: Doreen Vinas, 212-237-8645

May 29

Brooklyn College: 2 p.m., Master’s Commencement – Program I (School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences, and School of Visual and Performing Arts): Walt Whitman Theater, 2900 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn.
Speaker and Distinguished Alumni Award: Warren Lustig ’99 is an award-winning producer and editor at CBS where, for thirty years, he has documented historic, international events in television broadcasts that have captivated American audiences. Lustig was on the front lines for three Winter Olympics; the discovery of the Titanic in the North Sea; former President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Russia in 1988, which preceded the fall of communism; the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square; Operation Desert Storm; and Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. For his work, Lustig has been honored with 11 Emmy Awards and two Peabodys. His productions have aired on many well-known and prestigious shows, among them “60 Minutes,” “60 Minutes II,” “The Evening News with Dan Rather” and “Street Stories with Ed Bradley.” He also spent several years with CBS Sports. Lustig created TV Boot Camp, an intensive two-week program in which CUNY broadcast journalism students create a half-hour broadcast in the style of “60 Minutes.” In 2010, the program was recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in a magazine that was distributed at the Emmy Awards ceremony. Born and raised in Midwood, Brooklyn, he completed the majority of his collegiate studies at Brooklyn College, ultimately earning his degree through the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Contact: Ernesto Mora, 212-662-9939

Hunter College: 2 p.m., Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Speaker: Wolf Blitzer is CNN’s lead political anchor and the anchor of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

In the 2012 election season, Blitzer moderated three CNN Republican presidential debates and led CNN’s election coverage throughout America’s Choice 2012, serving as lead anchor on key primary and caucus nights. During the 2008 presidential election, Blitzer spearheaded CNN’s Peabody Award-winning coverage of the presidential primary debates and campaigns. He also anchored coverage surrounding the major political events, including both conventions, election night and the full-day of President Barack Obama’s inauguration. Blitzer began his career in 1972 with the Reuters News Agency in Tel Aviv. Shortly thereafter, he became a Washington, D.C., correspondent for The Jerusalem Post. After more than 15 years of reporting from the nation’s capital, Blitzer joined CNN in 1990 as the network’s military-affairs correspondent at the Pentagon. He served as CNN’s senior White House correspondent covering President Bill Clinton from his election in November 1992 until 1999.
Throughout his career, Blitzer has interviewed some of history’s most notable figures, including President Barack Obama, former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Blitzer has also interviewed many foreign leaders— the Dalai Lama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former South African President Nelson Mandela among them.
Among the numerous honors he has received for his reporting, Blitzer is the recipient of an Emmy Award from The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his 1996 coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing and a Golden CableACE from the National Academy of Cable Programming for his and CNN’s coverage of the Persian Gulf War. He was also among the teams awarded a George Foster Peabody award for Hurricane Katrina coverage; an Alfred I. duPont Award for coverage of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia; and an Edward R. Murrow Award for CNN’s coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Blitzer is the author of two books, Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter’s Notebook (Oxford University Press, 1985) and Territory of Lies (Harper and Row, 1989). He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a master of arts degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Honorary Degree: Doctor of Fine Arts: Anne Pasternak. Ms. Pasternak’s groundbreaking contributions to the artistic culture of New York City have changed the face of public art here and around the country. She is widely renowned for bringing art to urban spaces and transforming how citizens view their city and world.
As president and artistic director of Creative Time, where she has served for almost 20 years, Ms. Pasternak has overseen major projects by new, emerging, and established artists in locales like Grand Central Station, Coney Island, and the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage. She is perhaps best known for initiating the Tribute in Light, the twin beacons that lit up the World Trade Center six months after 9/11. Ms. Pasternak studied art history at Hunter College.

Contact: Susan Konig, 212-772-4068

Brooklyn College: 7 p.m., Master’s Commencement – Program II (School of Business and School of Education): Walt Whitman Theater, 2900 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn.
Speaker and Distinguished Alumni Award: William B. Guggino ’69 is a professor, researcher and mentor who has pioneered groundbreaking research on cystic fibrosis and dedicated much of his time to the training and mentoring of future scientists. He has had a long and distinguished career at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he is a professor of pediatrics and of physiology, head of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Development Program and co-director of the Polycystic Kidney Disease Research and Clinical Core Center. His substantial research in the field of cystic fibrosis and his effective mentorship of clinician scientists have contributed to advances that have doubled the lifespans of people living with this disease. His research collaboration with colleague Peter Agre on water channel proteins led to discoveries that eventually won Agre the 2003 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Agre often credited Guggino for critical experiments that led up to his award. In 2006, Guggino received the Doris F. Tulcin Cystic Fibrosis Research Award from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which recognized his research achievements as well as his mentoring work. He has been a recipient of the Hopkins Excellence in Teaching Award and the National Institutes of Health Merit Award and was recently elected as a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. Guggino was born and raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. He obtained a bachelor of science degree in biology from Brooklyn College, a master of science in comparative physiology from Long Island University C.W. Post College, and a doctorate in marine biology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was a fellow at Yale Medical School in renal physiology in 1982.
Contact: Ernesto Mora, 212-662-9939

May 30
Queens College: 9 a.m., Queens College Quad, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, Queens.
Speaker and Recipient of the Queens College Medal: Nasser D. Khalili, world-renowned scholar, entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist. Khalili has received many honors, among the most recent being named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in October 2012 for his pursuit of peace among nations through culture and education. Khalili is co-founder and chairman of the Maimonides Foundation, a charity that promotes peace and understanding among the three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Since 1970, under the auspices of his family trust, Khalili has assembled six of the world’s finest and most comprehensive art collections, comprising some 25,000 works. Selections from each collection have been exhibited more than 35 museums worldwide. Khalili is also a Trustee of the City of Jerusalem; was knighted by two Popes; holds the title of Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Francis I; and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Boston University. Among his notable contributions to the scholarship of Islamic art was his endowment of The Nasser D. Khalili Visiting Professorship in Islamic Studies at Queens College, where he received his bachelor of science degree in 1974. He is a graduate, Associate Research Professor, and Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Diane Ravitch is an educational historian and research professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Formerly she served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education in both the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “perhaps America’s most influential scholar on education,” Ravitch is a champion of public education curricula rooted in the liberal arts and teacher training programs that focus on developing expertise in content areas. She has authored more than 20 books including the 2010 bestseller, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. In 2011 Ravitch was awarded the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize by the American Academy of Political and Social Science for her work toward advancing the public good.
Contact: Phyllis C. Stevens, 718-997-5597; or Maria Matteo, 718-997-5593

Brooklyn College: 9:30 a.m., Baccalaureate Commencement Program, Brooklyn College’s Central Quadrangle, 2900 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn.
Speaker and Honorary Degree: Doctor of Fine Arts: Kate Rothko Prizel ’73 is a physician specializing in clinical pathology and transfusion medicine. She is also the daughter of famed abstract painter Mark Rothko. As a young woman and Brooklyn College student, Rothko Prizel successfully sued one of the most powerful art galleries in New York City to claim her father’s paintings, which he had always wanted to be offered up for public consumption after his death. After nearly a decade in court, Rothko Prizel won the return of more than 650 of her father’s paintings and became the administrator of his estate. She was involved in reconstituting the Mark Rothko Foundation, which donated the bulk of the artworks to 19 museums, allowing public access to some of the most important paintings of the 20th century. She planned the first major retrospective exhibition since her father’s death, which opened at the Guggenheim Museum in 1978; a major European exhibition, which opened at the Tate Gallery in 1987; and a retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, which opened in 1998, as well as many other smaller shows. Rothko Prizel was highly involved in overseeing the planning and design of the Mark Rothko catalogue raisonné and has also provided assistance to other authors of works on her father and his art. She has participated in several film and television programs featuring Mark Rothko and has served on the board of trustees of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Rothko Prizel graduated from Brooklyn College with a bachelor of science in chemistry, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and won a Jonas Salk Scholarship to attend medical school. She went on to graduate from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1978 with an M.D. and went on to complete a residency in pathology and a fellowship in transfusion medicine there. After completing her medical training, Rothko Prizel practiced clinical pathology and transfusion medicine at several institutions in the Baltimore-Washington area, including Uniformed Services University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Chesapeake American Red Cross Blood Services and the Washington, DC, VA Medical Center. At the same time she taught pathology courses at Johns Hopkins, Uniformed Services and George Washington University School of Medicine. Presidential Medal: Howard Slusher ’59 is a Nike consultant and legendary sports attorney whose keen tactics changed the game for athletes seeking equitable representation with ownership at the negotiation table. For many years, Slusher acted as an agent for high-value sports players, assuring they obtained the contracts the market justified. He represented 16 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and more than 200 athletes, coaches and entertainers. After agenting, Slusher continued his career in the sports world, working for Nike for more than thirty-five years as special assistant to chairman Phil Knight. Slusher and his wife Rebecca founded the Athletic Fund for Brooklyn College which donated state-of-the-art uniforms, athletic footwear and equipment for Brooklyn College student-athletes, coaches and game staff. Slusher’s athletic prowess awarded him distinction on the Brooklyn College Athletics Wall of Fame. He remains committed to athletics and began running marathons at age 56. He has since completed 19. In 1996, he was named No. 13 among the Top 20 most powerful people in sporting goods/apparel by Sportstyle. Slusher is a Willamsburg, Brooklyn native who intended to pursue a career in football coaching until Brooklyn College professors persuaded him to pursue graduate school. He earned his bachelor of science degree in health and physical education, cum laude, from Brooklyn College; a master of arts and doctorate degrees in physical education from The Ohio State University; and a law degree from the University of Southern California. Slusher has taught undergraduate and graduate programs in health and physical education at The Ohio State University, the University of Maryland and the University of Southern California, where he was a tenured faculty member and also coached soccer. He is also the author of Man, Sport, and Existence: A Critical Analysis. Class Representative: Latricia Davidson ’13 is a B.A. in Television and Radio Communications and a B.F.A. in theater (acting), is the vice president and treasurer of the Brooklyn College Forensics Team. The recipient of the Spring 2012 Susan & Zachary Solomon Scholarship from the Theater Department, she has performed in various plays staged by the Theater Department. As the recipient of the 2011 Alumni Association Student Award, Davidson volunteers part time in the Health and Nutrition Program and plans to obtain a doctorate in human development and culture, to volunteer as a teacher and do research in underserved areas of the world, including parts of West Africa and the Caribbean. A Marge Magner Spring Internship Honoraria, Davidson also hopes to pursue studies in media, especially in film production, to become a professor of communication and cultural studies.
Contact: Ernesto Mora, 212-662-9939

College of Staten Island: 10 a.m., Great Lawn, 2800 Victory Blvd., Staten Island, New York. Departmental Exercises to follow immediately.

Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Betsy Dubovsky, Executive Director of The Staten Island Foundation, has dedicated her professional life to community service, benefiting the College of Staten Island and residents of Staten Island and managing the operations and the annual allocations of this 15 year-old, $70 million-foundation. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Toyin Falola, CSI Professor and world-renown scholar of African history. As a profoundly original thinker, intellectual leader, engaging teacher, and institution builder, Professor Falola has made a global impact in the study of African history, modern Africa and the African diaspora.
Contact: Ken Bach, 718-982-2200

Herbert H. Lehman College: 11 a.m., Southern Field, Lehman College, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, N.Y.

Speaker and Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation’s leading environmental advocacy groups with 1.3 million members. She is the author of Clean Energy Common Sense: An American Call to Action on Global Climate Change and was appointed by President Obama to serve on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Dr. Fernando A. Picó, S.J., is a Professor of History at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras and the author of Puerto Rico: A General History, considered a classic text of Puerto Rican history.
Contact: Joseph Tirella, 718-960-5746

Baruch College: 2:30 p.m., Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, 126th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, Flushing, Queens.

Speaker and Honorary Degree: Doctor of Letters: Gillian Tett is a British author and news journalist at The Financial Times where she is Assistant Editor and Columnist. In 2012 she received a Society of American Business Editors and Writers award. Ms. Tett was previously Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards (2009). Her book, Fool’s Gold, won “Financial Book of the Year” at the inaugural Spear’s Book Awards in 2009. In 2007 Ms. Tett was awarded the Wincott prize, the premier British award for financial journalism, for her capital markets coverage. Additionally, she was British Business Journalist of the Year in 2008. Before joining The Financial Times in 1993, Ms. Tett was awarded a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Cambridge University based on field work in the former Soviet Union. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Wesley K. Clark is CEO of Wesley K. Clark and Associates, an international consulting firm that specializes in business development, crisis support, and strategic communications; and retired General of the United States Army. He was valedictorian of his graduating class at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he earned a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master’s degree in military science. During his 34 years of service in the United States Army, Clark rose to the rank of four-star general as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. After his retirement in 2000, he became an investment banker, author, commentator and businessman, and sought the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Contact: Mary Gorman, 646-312-3315

May 31

York College: 8:30 a.m., York College Athletic Field, behind 160-02 Liberty Avenue, Jamaica, Queens.

Speaker: Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO, Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), the only national organization representing nearly 300,000 students attending this country’s 47 public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). With approximately 80 percent of HBCU students attending TMCF member-schools, Mr. Taylor leads an organization responsible for providing this country with a robust and diverse pipeline of talented workers and future leaders. Immediately prior to assuming the presidency of TMCF, Mr. Taylor worked as a senior executive for IAC/InterActiveCorp – first as its Senior Vice President of Human Resources and then as the President & CEO of one of IAC’s operating subsidiaries, RushmoreDrive.com. Before joining IAC, Mr. Taylor’s career spanned nearly 15 years as Litigation Partner and President of the human resources consulting business for the McGuireWoods law firm; Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary for Compass Group USA; General Counsel & Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Viacom subsidiary, Paramount Pictures Live Entertainment Group; and Associate General Counsel & Vice President of Human Resources for Viacom subsidiary, Blockbuster Entertainment Group. Mr. Taylor, an Isaac Bashevis Singer Scholar and honors graduate of the University of Miami, went on to earn a master of arts with honors from Drake University and a doctor of jurisprudence with honors from the Drake Law School, where he served as research editor of the Drake Law Review and argued on the National Moot Court Team. He is licensed to practice law in Florida, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. and holds a Senior Professional in Human Resources certification. Mr. Taylor, who serves on the corporate board of Gallup, a leader in organizational consulting and public opinion research, also volunteers his time to several nonprofit boards, including serving as: former chairman of the Society for Human Resource Management, one of the world’s largest professional associations with 250,000 members in more than 100 countries; and member of the Board of Directors of the YMCA of the USA, the country’s largest social service agency. He is also a proud member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.
Contact: Marcia Moxam Comrie, 718-262-3865

Bronx Community College: 10 a.m., Ohio Field, Bronx Community College, 2155 University Avenue, Bronx, N.Y.

Speaker: Quiara Alegría Hudes, an award-winning playwright. She is the author of “Water by the Spoonful,” winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. “Water by the Spoonful” is the second in a trilogy of plays. The first, “Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. The third and final installment, “The Happiest Song Plays Last,” opens at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in April 2013. Hudes wrote the book for the Broadway musical “In the Heights,” which received the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical, and was a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist. In its original Off-Broadway incarnation, “In the Heights” won the Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical. The touring companies of “In the Heights” have performed at Puerto Rico’s Centro Bellas Artes, LA’s Pantages, and Tokyo’s International Forum. Her other works include “Barrio Grrrl!,” a children’s musical that premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2009 and toured nationally. “26 Miles” premiered at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in 2009 and was published in American Theatre Magazine. “Yemaya’s Belly,” Hudes’ first play, premiered at Portland Stage Company and received The Clauder Prize. Hudes’ honors include the United States Artists Fontanals Fellowship, the Joyce Fellowship at the Goodman Theatre, the Aetna New Voices Fellowship at Hartford Stage, the Roe Green Award at the Cleveland Playhouse, fellowships at Sundance Theater Institute and the O’Neill Theater Center, and a residency at New Dramatists. The City of Philadelphia honored Hudes with a resolution in 2011 and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel declared April 27, 2013 “Quiara Hudes Day” in Chicago. After graduating from public school in Philadelphia, Hudes went on to receive a B.A. in music from Yale University and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Brown, where she studied with Paula Vogel. Hudes is on the board of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, which produced her first play when she was in the 10th grade. She lives in New York with her husband and two children. President’s Medal: The Hon. Carmen E. Arroyo. In a special election in February 1994, 30 years after she came to New York City from Puerto Rico to build a better future for her family, Arroyo became the first Hispanic woman elected to the New York State Assembly and the first Puerto Rican woman elected to any state assembly in the country. By then she had already established a record of social and political activism, beginning in 1966 when she organized the welfare mothers of her community into the South Bronx Action Group. In 1978, she became the Executive Director of the South Bronx Community Corporation, where she implemented policy and oversaw program budgeting. That same year, Arroyo was elected Female District Leader of what today is the 74th Assembly District, a position she held until 1993. In addition to her work in the State Assembly, where she serves on the committees for Alcoholism & Drug Abuse, Children & Families, Education, and Aging, Ms. Arroyo is President of Puerto Rican Women in Political Action and a founder of Entre Nosotras, Inc., an organization to empower Puerto Rican and Hispanic women throughout the state. A graduate of Hostos Community College, she is also a poet and author, currently working on her next book, The Life of a Puerto Rican Woman in the U.S.
Contact: Diane Weathers, 718-289-5770

City College of New York: 10 a.m., Commencement Plaza, 135th Street at Convent Avenue, Manhattan.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Matthew Goldstein, outgoing Chancellor of The City University of New York and a member of the CCNY Class of 1963. During his 14-year tenure, Chancellor Goldstein has led the transformation of CUNY into the premiere integrated urban public university in America. He has overseen the rise in enrollment to more than 270,000 degree-seeking students, increased admission standards and graduation rates and enhanced resources. Today, CUNY comprises 24 colleges and professional schools throughout New York City. Prior to his appointment as the first CUNY graduate to lead the university, Chancellor Goldstein served as president of Adelphi University. He has also served as president of Baruch College, president of the CUNY Research Foundation, and acting vice chancellor for academic affairs of CUNY. A distinguished mathematician, the Chancellor has held faculty positions at several colleges and universities and has written extensively in mathematics and statistics. Among his honors are the 2011 Association for a Better New York “Spirit of ABNY” Award, and the 2007 Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Academic Leadership Award. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Science: Martin Cohen ’70 Liberal Arts, is co-chairman and co-CEO of Cohen & Steers, Inc., the world’s largest investor in publicly traded real estate companies, a universe encompassing more than $1 trillion in assets worldwide. His contribution to the financial world is as a pioneer; investing in real estate through the public market. As a portfolio manager at New York’s Citibank, he organized and managed a real estate securities fund for the bank’s clients, the first such fund of its kind. Later, at National Securities and Research, he and Robert Steers started the first real estate mutual fund. In 1986 they established Cohen & Steers. Mr. Cohen has served as a member of the Board of Governors of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) and chairs CCNY’s 21st Century Foundation Board. He received NAREIT’s Industry Achievement Award in 2001 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from NYU’s real estate program. In addition to CCNY, Mr. Cohen assists in the advancement of many other organizations such as the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Central Park Conservancy. President’s Medal: C. Virginia Fields, president and CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, Inc. (NBLCA) who also served as the 25th Borough president of Manhattan (1998 to 2005). Mrs. Fields was in the forefront of community battles in the early 1980s to secure housing for people living with AIDS. As Manhattan Borough President, she was instrumental in the allocation of millions of dollars for programmatic support to community-based organizations and educational institutions, borough-wide. In 2005, Mrs. Fields was a Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City, becoming the first African-American woman to seek that office. A graduate of Indiana University’s School of Social Work, she has served as an adjunct lecturer at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work.
Contact: Jay Mwamba, 212-650-7580

Queensborough Community College: 10 a.m., Athletic Field, Queensborough Community College, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside, N.Y.

Presidential Inauguration: Queensborough Community College’s 52nd Commencement Exercises will feature the inauguration of the College’s fifth President, Dr. Diane B. Call. Dr. Call was appointed President by the CUNY Board of Trustees on January 28, 2013 after serving as Interim President since July 1, 2010. Prior to that Dr. Call was Queensborough’s Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. She has also served as Vice President for Finance and Administration, Assistant Dean for Instructional Support Services and in other posts in a career spanning four decades at the College and CUNY in positions that encompass virtually all major areas of administration and academics at Queensborough Community College. Commencement will also feature members of the Class of 1963, a tradition of inviting back the 50-year class that began last year with QCC’s first graduating class.
Contact: Alex Burnett, 718-631-6044

Borough of Manhattan Community College: 11:30 a.m., Jacob K. Javits Convention Center North, 37th Street and 11th Avenue.

Speaker: Dr. Antonio Pérez, BMCC’s President will speak about BMCC’s 50th anniversary celebration. Dr. Pérez, has served as BMCC’s President since 1995 and has dedicated himself to making BMCC an institution revered nationally for its excellence in teaching, learning, scholarships, and service to students and the community. Dr. Pérez maintains a deep, personal commitment to community support by serving on the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s World Trade Center Memorial Committee. Additionally, he sits on the boards of the Business Alliance for Downtown New York, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Presidential Medalist: Ms. Christine Larsen, Executive Vice President, J.P. Morgan Chase. Ms. Larsen is chairperson of the BMCC Foundation Board.
Contact: Barry Rosen, 212-220-1238

June 1

Medgar Evers College: 12 p.m., Jacob K. Javits Convention Center North, 655 West 34th St., Manhattan.

Speaker: Lowell F. Hawthorne, is a graduate of Bronx Community College, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill. After migrating with his family in 1981 to the United States, he went to work as an accountant for the New York Police Department before striking out as an entrepreneur starting Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill in the Bronx in 1989. Today, the company, with more than 120 stores throughout the country, is the nation’s largest manufacturer, distributor, and franchiser of Caribbean baked products. Golden Krust is the first Caribbean-owned business in the U.S. to be granted a franchise license. Mr. Hawthorne received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002, was conferred with the Order of Distinction from his native homeland of Jamaica, and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Medgar Evers College in 2011. Most recently, he penned his autobiography, The Baker’s Son. His philanthropic interests include the Mavis & Ephraim Hawthorne Golden Krust Scholarship Foundation, awarding more than 150 scholarships to institutions since its launch in 2005. Currently, Mr. Hawthorne is a director of the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CACCI) and chairman of the Partnership Board of the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies.
Contact: Dawn S. Walker, 718-270-6901 or 718-530-4539

June 4

CUNY Baccalaureate Degree: 10 a.m., The Great Hall at The Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY.
Speaker: TBA. Faculty Mentor Speaker: TBA. Student Speaker: Nicholas A. Montano, June 2013 Graduate, International Criminology / Juvenile Delinquent Psychology, Recipient of a 2013 Marshall Scholarship.
Contact: Beth Kneller, 212-817-8238

New York City College of Technology: 11:30 a.m., Jacob Javits Center North, 40th Street at 11th Avenue, Manhattan.
Speaker: David Hinson, national director, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), a bureau within the United States Department of Commerce. MBDA’s mission is to expand the U.S. economy and create new jobs by promoting the growth and global competitiveness of large, medium and small businesses that are minority-owned. Prior to joining the Obama Administration as a presidential appointee, Hinson was president and CEO of Wealth Management Network, Inc., a multi-million dollar independent financial advisory boutique, where he provided global asset management and risk management services to high net worth and emerging wealth clients. He holds an MBA in finance from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BBA in insurance and finance, with honors, from Howard University, Washington, DC.
Contact: Michele Forsten, 718-260-5979; or Dale Tarnowieski, 718-260-5695

CUNY School of Public Health Graduation Recognition Ceremony: 5:30 p.m., The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, Manhattan.
Keynote Speaker: John E. McDonough, DPH, MPA is a professor of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the new HSPH Center for Public Health Leadership. Most recently, he was the Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health at Hunter College. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as a Senior Adviser on National Health Reform to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Contact: Michael Arena, 646-664-9300

June 5

CUNY School of Professional Studies: 6 p.m., Starr Theatre, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Broadway at 65th Street, New York, NY.
Keynote Speaker: Tanya Fields, Executive Director, The BLK ProjeK, is an activist and social entrepreneur in the South Bronx. As the Founder and Executive Director of The BLK ProjeK, her work seeks to address food justice, public and mental health issues as they specifically relate to underserved women of color through culturally relevant education, beautification of public spaces, urban gardening and community programming. She recently created and hosted Not Just Talk: Food in the South Bronx, a one-day conference centered on issues of food justice and food sovereignty. Prior to establishing The BLK Projek, Ms. Fields worked extensively with nonprofits including Sustainable South Bronx and Mothers on the Move. A noted speaker, Ms. Fields was profiled in the 2011 book, The Next Eco-Warriors: 22 Young Women and Men Who Are Saving the Planet, and currently blogs for Ebony magazine. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Baruch College.
Contact: Heather Zeman, 212-817-7274; or Lia Kudless, 212-817-7255

Macaulay Honors College: 6:30 p.m., Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Broadway at 65th Street, New York, N.Y.
Speaker: Rossana Rosado has been Publisher and CEO at El Diario La Prensa since 1999, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the oldest Spanish-language newspaper in the country. Prior to becoming publisher, Ms. Rosado was Editor-in-Chief of the paper and was the first woman to hold that position at the now 97 year-old paper. Her many awards include an Emmy, a STAR award from the NY Women’s Agenda, and a Peabody Award for Journalism. She served on Mayor Bloomberg’s transition team in 2001 and as one of six co-chairs for Governor Eliot Spitzer’s transition team in 2006. She currently serves on the board of the New York Women’s Foundation, 100 Hispanic Women of Westchester, Repertorio Español and co-chairs a capital committee for the Caribbean Cultural Center. She is also an adviser to The Fortune Society, and served on Governor Paterson’s Task Force on Juvenile Justice from 2008 – 2009. Ms. Rosado holds a B.A. in journalism from Pace University. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Reynold Levy is the President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. During his tenure, Lincoln Center’s award winning and critically acclaimed programs flourished, even as its unprecedented and much applauded $1.2 billion physical transformation modernized and expanded the 16-acre campus housing eleven world-class performing arts organizations and educational institutions. Levy’s leadership at Lincoln Center continues a distinguished career of public service. He has been President of the International Rescue Committee, the senior officer of AT&T in charge of government relations, President of the AT&T Foundation, Executive Director of the 92nd Street Y, and Staff Director of the Task Force on the New York City Fiscal Crisis. Levy’s alma mater, Hobart College, honored him with its Alumni Medal of Excellence, given to only twenty graduates in the 125-year history of the school. The International Rescue Committee bestowed on him its coveted Freedom Award. Columbia University awarded Levy the highly regarded Lawrence A. Wien Prize for Social Responsibility. Lincoln Center granted him its Laureate Award. He received the 2009 Design Patron Award granted by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum for his stewardship of Lincoln Center’s massive physical transformation. Reynold Levy is a graduate of Hobart College. He was granted a master’s degree and PhD in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and a law degree from Columbia University, the latter two in 1973. Honorary Degree: Doctor of Humane Letters: Virginia Slaughter founded the Horace W. Goldsmith Scholars Program at Macaulay Honors College in 2002, with the aim of identifying, inspiring, and supporting the aspirations of undergraduate intellectual leaders. Her first job after graduating college in 1948 was working for the United Nations alongside Ralph Bunche. Her spirit of adventure and her burgeoning interest in the intellectual development of young people led her next to the Institute for International Education. She was brought to City College by the renowned educator and theorist Mina P. Shaughnessy to teach in the basic writing and ESL programs. In 1976, she coordinated the creation of reports on every remedial program in the University–an early instance of cross-campus cooperation and best practices research. Her work culminated in the publication of Teaching Basic Skills in College (Jossey-Bass, 1980), of which she is co-author. Her commitment to access and excellence in education led to the creation, in 1984, of the Scholarship Enhancement Program at CUNY, an enormously successful program designed to encourage high achieving students to compete for national and international graduate fellowships. For more than ten years she served as President of Inwood House, a leader and innovator in teen pregnancy prevention, youth development and family support. She is Trustee Emerita at Connecticut College, where she served on the Board of Trustees from 1997 to 2007, focusing her efforts on financial aid, student diversity and science initiatives. Ms. Slaughter received a B.A. in psychology from Connecticut College and a master’s degree in education from the University of Bridgeport.
Contact: Autumn Payne, 212-729-2909

June 6

LaGuardia Community College: 10 a.m., Jacob Javits Center North, West 40th Street and 11th Avenue, Manhattan.
Keynote speaker: TBA.
Contact: Randy Fader-Smith, 718-482-5985

June 7

Hostos Community College: 3:30 p.m., New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, New York, N.Y.
Speaker: TBA
Contact: Soldanela Rivera, 917-627-9097

June 11
Kingsborough Community College: 11 a.m., 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York, Marine Academic Center Plaza tent.
Speaker: Elizabeth C. Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community based organization. Her vision for an inter-generational, multi-cultural and community led organization is the driving force behind UPROSE. She is a long-time advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around sustainable just development in Sunset Park. She is part of the New York City environmental justice leadership responsible for getting NY State’s first Brownfield legislation, Article X power plant legislation and NYC’s Solid Waste Management Plan passed. In Sunset Park, Brooklyn she facilitated an aggressive urban forestry initiative, helped double the amount of open space and developed a project that resulted in the retro-fitting and re-powering of 12 diesel trucks for a local business. She holds a law degree from Northeastern University along with a Certificate of Non-Profit Management from Columbia University. President’s Medal: Elizabeth C. Yeampierre.
Contact: Ruby Ryles, 718-368-5543

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.

The City University of New York has received a $25 million gift from the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation to support The New Community College at CUNY and two other community college initiatives to boost student retention and graduation rates. In honor of the gift, the foundation’s largest and the largest ever given to a New York State community college, the CUNY Board of Trustees passed a resolution to rename The New Community College The Stella and Charles Guttman Community College.

The Trustees on April 29 approved the naming of the college and of the Guttman Student Success and Engagement Fund, which will promote further development of the college’s innovative programs. The Board of the Guttman Foundation is committing half of its current assets to CUNY. The Guttman Board approved the gift on April 11, 2013.

The $25 million includes a $15 million endowment for the New Community College, a $9 million endowment for scholarships to help academically qualified students from all seven CUNY community colleges transfer to CUNY senior colleges, and $1 million to expand the University’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) initiative, which has won national acclaim for its success in improving community college retention and graduation rates.

The Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation focuses much of its grantmaking on educational programs and social services to support low-income New York City children, youth and families. The son of immigrants, Charles Guttman was raised on the Lower East Side and attended public school until age 13, when he began working odd jobs to help support his family. In adulthood he built a successful business, The Paddington Corp. In 1959, he and his wife, Stella Rappaport Guttman, established the Guttman Foundation for the “improvement and benefit of mankind, and the alleviation of human suffering.” Upon their deaths in 1969, without leaving descendants, the Guttmans bequeathed substantially all of their assets to the Foundation.

“CUNY is deeply grateful for the Guttman Foundation’s generosity,” said Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. “This gift, similar to the mission of The New Community College, will help us meet our goals of improving students’ graduation rates, maintaining academic integrity and quality, and successfully launching these students into the next phases of their lives.”

“The Guttman Foundation’s commitment to CUNY’s community colleges shows a deep understanding of the profound changes that community colleges make in the lives of our students and of our city,” said Benno Schmidt, chairperson of the CUNY Board of Trustees. “Community college students, who often start needing significant help in English, reading and math, are eager to excel, and many of them do spectacularly. With this gift, CUNY will have greater capacity to help many more of them move into promising careers and baccalaureate programs.”

The Foundation’s President Ernest Rubenstein said, “The CUNY grant is the result of several years of research into how the Foundation could best advance the cause of making a college education available to the largest possible number of highly motivated, low-income public school graduates. The Foundation’s Board and staff are convinced that achieving that goal is critical to the future of our city, state and nation—-and best honors the aspirations, values and memory of Charles and Stella Guttman.”

The Guttman Foundation has a long history of support for non-profit organizations in New York City. Since 1990 it has supported programs with funding of $40 million for early childhood education, youth development, school reform, and aging services. The Foundation also has contributed in Israel and was an early funder of efforts promoting coexistence between Arabs and Jews as well as social and educational programs for Arab-Israelis. With the $25 million CUNY gift, the foundation is directing half of its current assets to the single goal of improving the college success of New York City public school graduates.

“The Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation endowment for the college will be transformational for our students in providing support for internships, peer mentoring and active engagement with the City of New York while helping us maintain our extraordinary 92% retention rate,” said New Community College President Scott Evenbeck. “Chancellor Goldstein and Mayor Bloomberg, who created the college, have high expectations for the achievement of our students, and this generous gift is both strong affirmation of that vision and a solid foundation for our achieving that aspiration.”

The $25 million gift will be directed as follows:

· The New Community College will receive a $15 million endowment to establish the Guttman Student Success and Engagement Fund. Income generated by the fund will foster further development of NCC’s innovative approach to community college education, which seeks to improve the historically low success and graduation rates of community colleges. Paid internships, scholarships and student emergency funds will be among the items funded by the gift.
· The University will receive a $9 million endowment to establish the new Guttman Transfer Scholarship Fund to increase the number of academically qualified, low-income CUNY community college students who continue their education at CUNY senior colleges. Recipients, drawn from all seven community colleges including NCC, will receive grants of $2,000 a year for two years to complete their bachelor’s degrees. Within five years, the $9 million endowment is expected to provide more than 200 scholarships annually.
· CUNY will also receive $1 million for ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs), the University’s nationally acclaimed program to help motivated community college students earn their degrees as quickly and successfully as possible. The program, which includes block-scheduled courses, required full-time study and intensive advisement, will expand from 2,209 students to more than 4,050 students in 2014. ASAP has produced three-year graduation rates of 55% compared to 23% for similar community college students.

The New Community College at CUNY, the University’s first new community college in more than 40 years, was inspired by Chancellor Goldstein’s goal of improving graduation rates for CUNY’s diverse students. The college officially opened in midtown Manhattan overlooking Bryant Park on Aug. 20, 2012, after four years of planning in consultation with experts from around the country and hundreds of faculty and staff across the University. It enrolled its inaugural class of 300 students in Fall 2012. Enrollment will grow to approximately 5,000 when the college moves to its permanent home at 59th Street and Tenth Avenue.

The philosophy and structure of The New Community College is based on the University’s ASAP program, which is designed to help motivated community college students earn their degrees as quickly as possible, with a goal of graduating at least 50% of students within three years. Key ASAP features include a consolidated block schedule, cohorts by major, small class size, required full-time study and comprehensive advisement and career development services. Financial incentives include tuition waivers for financial aid-eligible students and free use of textbooks and monthly MetroCards for all students.

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.

The CUNY Board of Trustees today announced the appointment of Dr. Chase F. Robinson as Interim President of The Graduate School and University Center, upon the recommendation of Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, effective July 1, 2013.

Provost of The Graduate School and University Center since 2008, Dr. Robinson is considered the leading expert of his generation on early Islamic history. He chaired Oxford University’s faculty of oriental studies from 2003 to 2005, having first served as professor of Islamic history at Oxford beginning in 1993.

The Board of Trustees named Graduate Center President William P. Kelly Interim Chancellor of the University, effective July 1. Dr. Robinson will lead the Graduate Center during the period that Dr. Kelly serves as Interim Chancellor.

Dr. Robinson’s books on Islamic history include Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest (2000); A Medieval Islamic City Reconsidered: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Samarra (2001); Islamic Historiography (2003) and Abd al-Malik (2005).

He is also the editor of The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries (2010) and, with Sarah Foot, The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume 2, 400 to 1400 (2012).

Among the grants and fellowships he has received are those from the British Academy, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, The Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the American Research Center in Egypt.

Dr. Robinson, who holds the faculty rank of Distinguished Professor, earned a B.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students. College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.

The Board of Trustees today approved the appointment of Dr. Stuart Suss as Interim President of Kingsborough Community College, effective Sept. 1, 2013, pending completion of a search to replace Dr. Regina Peruggi, who will step down from the presidency at the end of the summer. Dr. Suss’ appointment was recommended to the Board by Chancellor Goldstein.

Dr. Suss currently serves as Kingsborough’s Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, and “is highly qualified to assume the responsibilities of Interim President, with over 30 years of experience in key leadership positions at Kingsborough,” the Trustees said in a resolution approving the appointment.

Dr. Suss, who stepped in as Kingsborough’s Interim President, from Dec. 19, 2011 through March 9, 2012, previously served as a dean and as the college’s first Director of Collaborative and Special Programs, responsible for the development, implementation and supervision of key programs, including College Now and Family College. He has served as Kingsborough’s Chief Academic Officer since 1999. Dr. Suss has a distinguished background in Latin American and Caribbean history and is a tenured member of Kingsborough’s Department of History, Philosophy and Political Science.

Dr. Peruggi announced her intention to step down on April 5, and will serve as President until Aug. 31. She has led Kingsborough for nine years, a tenure she described as “challenging, creative, exciting, productive, and a great deal of fun” in a letter to college staff. “I have rarely found a group of individuals – faculty, staff, and board members – filled with such compassion, commitment and dedication to our students’ success,” she wrote.

Chancellor Goldstein expressed his “deep gratitude” to President Peruggi for her “outstanding work” at the University. “You have been an exemplary leader, bringing together a talented and dedicated community of faculty and staff who, under your guidance, have created an educational environment that is truly fostering the success of the college’s students,” he wrote to her on April 12. “You have been an exceptional ambassador for the mission and value of community colleges, and your passion for serving students with integrity and care has been a major factor in the increased attention community college education is receiving both locally and nationally.”

The Chancellor cited the recent naming of Kingsborough as one of four finalists with distinction for the Aspen Institute’s 2013 Prize for Community College Excellence. The prestigious national prize recognizes institutions for achievement in four areas: student learning outcomes, degree completion, employment success and facilitating minority and low-income student success.

“Kingsborough Community College has achieved strong results in graduation, transfer, and employment outcomes while working with an extremely diverse group of students, many who face challenging life circumstances,” said Josh Wyner, executive director of the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, when the $100,000 award was announced in Washington, D.C. in March.

About The City University of New York:
The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in New York City in 1847, the University is comprised of 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. The University serves more than 269,000 degree credit students and 218,083 adult, continuing and professional education students.College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 300 high schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The University offers online baccalaureate degrees through the School of Professional Studies and an individualized baccalaureate through the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree. Nearly 3 million unique visitors and 10 million page views are served each month via www.cuny.edu, the University’s website.
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MOST OF US gratefully remember a special teacher whose skill in the classroom transformed our learning experience, making complex or unfamiliar material accessible, relevant, and compelling, and igniting our curiosity. At The City University of New York, we are fortunate to have many faculty whose expertise and creativity have enriched student proficiency in demonstrable ways. I am delighted that this issue of Salute to Scholars recognizes some of the exceptional faculty whose teaching has garnered awards and acclaim. I commend all of our faculty for their efforts to improve student progress through innovative, dedicated instruction.

CUNY is just as committed to enhancing the learning of K-12 students through effective teaching. Our teacher-leader education programs have led the way in developing and implementing initiatives to enhance the quality of teacher-leader preparation across the University. These include high admission standards for all our graduate education programs; expanding professional development opportunities for University faculty, particularly the training of CUNY field supervisors, through a grant from the State Education Department; enhancing accountability and program effectiveness by tracking the performance of University graduates working in the New York City Department of Education as teachers and principals; and establishing clinically rich graduate-level teacher preparation pilot programs.

In addition, we continue to strengthen our partnerships with organizations dedicated to improving K-12 teaching. CUNY has an exclusive relationship with Math for America in New York City to support effective preparation of middle and high school mathematics teachers. The first cohort began at City College last summer. Our long-standing partnership with the Lincoln Center Institute to introduce its approach to fostering imaginative learning capacities is now focused on researching the impact of the institute’s experiences on our teacher candidates.

Much of the University’s work has informed the recommendations of the New NY Education Reform Commission, Governor Cuomo’s statewide initiative to review the state of public education and develop actionable reforms. As a governor-appointed member of the commission and its working group on teachers and leaders, I have worked closely with Joan Lucariello, the University’s dean for education, to inform and expand commission discussions and determine best practices in K-12 education and higher education in collaboration with leaders from across the state. The commission, which is addressing student learning performance, evaluation of in-service teachers and leaders, and teacher and principal preparation and pipeline, issued its preliminary recommendations in December: http://www.governor.ny.gov/assets/documents/education-reform-commission-report.pdf. Members will continue to explore ways to improve student achievement and will issue a second action plan this fall. I am proud of the pioneering campus-based efforts across the University to prepare skilled teachers and leaders, which continue to serve as statewide models.

Our focus on strengthening the quality of teaching at every level is a reminder of the importance of maintaining a robust full-time faculty corps across the University. Student progress depends on the presence of talented, creative teacher-scholars whose outstanding knowledge of their disciplinary field is matched by their ingenuity in transmitting that knowledge to students. That’s why increasing the number of full-time faculty is a top priority. True education reform is only possible through dedicated faculty determined to transform student learning and student lives.
— Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor

By Margaret Ramirez

AFTER BEING ACCEPTED to Kingsborough Community College in 2011, Mushfica Masud was depressed to receive a class schedule filled with remedial courses.

But two years later, Masud boasted a 4.0 GPA, made the dean’s list, and was recently awarded a scholarship for academic excellence.

“When I entered college, I was so afraid. I thought, I’m going to fail each and every class.”
— Mushfica Masud,
Kingsborough Community College

In between her studies, Masud now squeezes in time for her show at the campus radio station where she is known as “DJ M+M.”
Masud credits her success to CUNY Start, an academic preparation program for students who have been accepted to college but need additional instruction in writing, reading and/or math.

“When I entered college, I was so afraid. I thought, I’m going to fail each and every class,” says Masud, 26, who is majoring in Media Technology and Management, “so I took CUNY Start. I think that was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Since 2009, when CUNY Start began, nearly 2,000 students have enrolled in the program, which provides new University students with an intensive semester of reading, writing and math to prepare for college-level coursework. CUNY Start serves as an alternative to traditional remedial courses usually taken in combination with college-credit courses.

The unique program is designed for underprepared high school and GED graduates who have been admitted to a CUNY college, yet scored poorly on CUNY Assessment Tests. Learning from an innovative curriculum and dedicated instructors, CUNY Start students showed significant academic improvement and increased confidence.

Upon entering the program, about 61 percent of CUNY Start full-time students required remedial instruction in reading, writing and math. By the end of the program, some 46 percent were proficient in all three subjects.
After CUNY Start ended and students matriculated in college, they continued to excel, earning more credits and higher GPAs than other students who required remediation.

“In one semester, students in CUNY Start are able to address multiple remedial needs, which could take years to complete if they were to enter a traditional remedial track.”
— Mia Simon, University director of CUNY Start

Because of the program’s dramatic success, plans are under way to expand CUNY Start from 1,900 students this year to 4,000 students by June 2014.
CUNY Start’s growth comes as educators across the nation grapple with the rising number of college students requiring remedial or developmental education. Currently, half of all undergraduates and 70 percent of community college students take at least one remedial course, according to a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

More troubling is growing evidence that shows traditional remedial college courses are ineffective in meeting the needs of unprepared college students. A 2009 report on developmental education found that only a quarter of community college students who took a remedial course graduated within eight years.
Mia Simon, University director of CUNY Start, attributed the success of the program to its intensive approach that requires 25 hours a week of study. A part-time CUNY Start program with 12 hours a week of afternoon and evening classes is also offered at LaGuardia Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College and Hostos Community College.

“In one semester, students in CUNY Start are able to address multiple remedial needs, which could take years to complete if they were to enter a traditional remedial track,” Simon says.

Another essential part of CUNY Start is the advisement component where students meet weekly to talk about progress and other issues.
“The advisement component supports students’ abilities to better manage their time, understand the expectations in college, choose courses … and overall be better prepared for what they will need to do and prepare for once in college,” she says.
Masud was so grateful for the help she received from CUNY Start that she began volunteering for the program by leading campus tours during student orientation.

“It feels great. Getting the scholarship, the honors,” Masud says. “Definitely, CUNY Start prepared me for all this.”

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