Three-time Oscar nominee Arthur Penn, director of such film classics as “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Miracle Worker,” says World War II was his “film school.” While serving in the U.S. infantry, Penn directed plays and musicals for the Soldiers Show program and later used that experience to land a job as floor manager at NBC-TV. As part of the David Dortort Lecture in the Dramatic Arts: Stage, Film, and Television series, Penn joined Jerry W. Carlson, Coordinator of Critical Studies in the Film and Video Program at CCNY, to discuss the challenges of directing for both the Broadway theater and Hollywood films and working with cinema icons including Marlon Brando, Robert Redford and Paul Newman. “Actors are the principal ingredient of the photographed drama,” said Penn.
Listen Now

For the Pulitzer Prize-winning classical composer John Corigliano, scoring music for the film “The Red Violin” — a story that spans four centuries in five countries — presented a unique challenge. Before a screening of the movie that was held at New York City College of Technology as a part of the Brooklyn Philharmonic 2008 John Corigliano Festival, Corigliano discusses his use of seven simple chords as the foundation that connects the film’s various themes. A Distinguished Professor of Music at Lehman College, Corigliano, was presented with an Academy Award for best original score for “The Red Violin” and has also been the recipient of multiple Grammy Awards.
Listen Now

As a child of an immigrant father, presidential hopeful Barack Obama knows firsthand what it’s like to straddle two cultures. Allan Wernick explains how a Obama presidency might impact the issue of immigration if his run for the White House is successful. “It will be very hard for people to bash immigrants if you have a president with that kind of background,” observes Prof. Wernick.
Listen Now

With a full-time work, school and practice schedule, Hakeem Kased doesn’t sleep more than two hours at a time. But that didn’t stop him from leading The John Jay Bloodhounds men’s basketball team to an amazing win, taking the 2008 championship title from reigning York College. Kased, this year’s championship MVP, talked with Sportsweek after the game. Plus a recap of the action and a look ahead to next weekend’s championship events.

Listen Now

Mohammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and founder the Grameen Bank in his native Bangladesh, discusses his latest book, “Creating a World Without Poverty” and how the free market can eliminate poverty, hunger and inequality. Speaking at York College, Yunus recalls the beginnings of his pioneering banking program in the late 1970s, when he lent $27 to a group of women so they could buy bamboo to make furniture. The bank provides small loans known as microcredit to borrowers, mostly women, so they can develop self-employment projects and generate income. Today, Grameen Bank is owned by 7.7 million borrowers, 97 percent of them women. “Poverty,” he says, “is an artificial imposition on the people.”
Listen Now

Public meeting of the Board of Trustees, February 25, 2008

Download

Despite fiscal storm clouds ahead, Chancellor Goldstein describes the proposed 2008-09 budget as one that ensures stability. The Chancellor details the University’s efforts to enhance government funding and notes that philanthropic and private donors have contributed a record $279 million in 2007. Spring enrollment is also at a record level.
Listen Now

As the “Big Friday” CUNY Athletic Conference 2008 basketball finals approach, Sportsweek’s Jason Greene caught up with Brooklyn College guard Jaclyn Cavalcante, a long-range basketball marksman with over 1,100 career points and the current scholar-athlete of the month. Plus a final look ahead to the 2008 Senior College Basketball Championships.

Listen Now

Historian and illustrator Joshua Brown began “Life During Wartime,” a collection of more than 200 original works recently on exhibit at the CUNY Graduate Center, “as a sort of visual political blog.” His political cartoons, visceral reactions to the war’s developments, “chronicle and comment on the impact of the war on the home front—and also convey some critical views about the war which, at the time, were getting comparatively little public access.” Brown is the executive director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the Graduate Center and an adjunct professor of history.
Listen Now

World-renowned scientist and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku says his passion for physics began with the theory Albert Einstein could not finish – the unified field theory. Known also as the “Theory of Everything,” unified field theory attempts to connect and explain all matter and energy in a one-inch long equation. Speaking at the New York City High School’s Science and Engineering Fair at City College, Professor Kaku, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at City College, discusses the theory and explains why the discoveries of dark energy and dark matter – the unknown forces that hold our planet together while simultaneously expand the universe – prove every science textbook wrong.
Listen Now