Making a case for “balanced immigration reform,” former Secretary of State Colin. L. Powell told a City College policy conference that “study after study … confirm that our economy utterly depends on the contribution of immigrants, documented and otherwise.” At the same time, the retired Army general and son of Jamaican emigres said, balanced reform must include “reasonable proposals to make our borders less porous, whether by increased security forces or by a fence that would limit illegal crossings.” The City College alumnus was the keynote speaker at “National Concern, Local Action: Immigration Integration in New York,” hosted by the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies, which he founded.
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Chancellor Matthew Goldstein discusses the University’s continuing efforts in Albany to secure a portion of state’s estimated $24 billion federal economic stimulus package redistribution. Washington also approved a boost in funding for federal Pell Grants, which is expected to support an additional six to seven thousand low-income students at CUNY. Spring enrollment has increased 4.5 percent from this time last year. The data show more students are studying full-time, an indicator closely associated with improved retention and graduation rates.
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Public meeting of the Board of Trustees, February 23, 2009.
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Controversy has never ceased about the United States’ decisions to use nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later. Were these bombings necessary to end the war? At a 2008 CUNY symposium tied to the opera “Doctor Atomic,” moderator Gerald Holton, professor of physics and the history of science at Harvard University, discusses a host of questions with Martin J. Sherwin, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” and a professor of history at George Mason University; Harry Lustig, provost emeritus and professor of physics at The City College of New York, who wrote “Did the Allies Know that the Germans were Not Building an Atomic Bomb?”; and Gar Alperovitz, Bauman professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, author of “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.”

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James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center, says it was Frederick Douglass’s “brilliant” tribute at the 1876 unveiling of a monument honoring Abraham Lincoln that convinced him to write about the politically complex ways the two great Civil War-era Americans worked to abolish slavery. “It was his big summation speech of everything he had to come to terms with about Lincoln,” says Prof. Oakes, whose book “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics,” won Gettysburg College’s prestigious 2008 Lincoln Prize. Prof. Oakes explains why he chose to weave together the achievements of one of the nation’s most important black leaders and the 16th President, who continues to inspire Americans.
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Public hearing on items on the Board of Trustees Calendar for the February meeting of the Board, February 17, 2009.
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A fierce advocate for community college education in America, Dr. Gail Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College, is taking her message abroad. In December she traveled to Chile to help create a pilot community college with the Universidad Central in Santiago, that will assist lower income students when it opens in March 2010. “We’re helping to start a movement in Chile that will promote democratic impulses in that country,” said Dr. Mellow. She also discusses the record enrollments at community colleges across this country, and why it is imperative to invest in community colleges to meet the increased demand. “Without the American community college, there wouldn’t be a middle class,” she says.
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JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says the buck stops with him: “Are U.S. banks to blame for the current financial crisis? Of course.” Speaking at the Future of New York City, a conference co-hosted by CUNY at the Grand Hyatt and sponsored by Crain’s New York Business and the Partnership for New York City, Dimon also explained why he felt the Federal Reserve should have authority to regulate all banking system companies, including investment banks. “If you’re going to regulate, you’ve got to regulate all of it,” said Dimon, who heads one of Wall Street’s most powerful institutions. “If you don’t, you are going to end up here again with all of these problems.”
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Recalling the dark fiscal days of the 1970s, when New York City faced bankruptcy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg insists that today’s city is a very different place. “I am more optimistic about the future of this city than ever before,” said the mayor in his keynote address at the Future of New York City, a conference co-hosted by CUNY and sponsored by Crain’s New York Business and the Partnership for New York City. “This is where I want to live, this is where I want my kids to grow up, this is where I want to make an investment.” Citing the record low crime rate, improved public education, vibrant neighborhoods and more efficient budget management, the mayor said, “We are lucky to be New Yorkers.”
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In 1924, the brutal murder of a 14-year-old boy at the hands of two privileged, intelligent young men, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, held the country in suspense. In his acclaimed new book, “For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago,” Simon Baatz, associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says the murderers’ lack of remorse was striking. “What shocked people was that they seemed to be so amoral,” said Baatz, who was joined by Louis Schlesinger, a criminal psychologist, and Stephen Handelman, director of the Center on Media, Crime, and Justice, at John Jay College’s Book and Author Series.
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