From the fried chicken served at Sylvia’s in Harlem to the lox sliced at Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side, food is part of New York’s DNA, a mark of cultural and religious identity. And, according to Jonathan Deutsch, assistant professor of tourism and hospitality at Kingsborough Community College, it can also tell a story: “What you eat and what you don’t eat can communicate things, sometimes, in ways that are more powerful than words alone.” Prof. Deutsch and Annie Hauck-Lawson, associate professor of foods and nutrition at Brooklyn College, co-edited “Gastropolis: Food and New York City,” an essay collection tracing the history of food in New York. At an event sponsored by the Gotham Center for History at the Graduate Center, they joined with some CUNY faculty members whose essays appear in the book.
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Two avant-garde artists rooted in the contemporary New York arts scene kicked off the semester’s Center for Humanities’ The Great Issues Forum at the James Gallery at the CUNY Graduate Center. Poet Eileen Myles, who gave her first reading at CBGB’s in 1974 and has published more than 20 volumes, and filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh, an experimental film and video director who honed her skills at the 1980’s downtown performance space The Kitchen, joined James Gallery director Linda Norden in a discussion about the cultural power of art. “The notion of making or doing something that nobody asked you to do is one of the most exciting kinds of power,” said Myles, who also read from her forthcoming novel, “The Inferno.”
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The university’s leadership is embarking on a bold and ambitious second phase. Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, Chairman Benno C. Schmidt Jr. and the presidents of the colleges have announced the launch of Invest in CUNY: Expanding the Vision, which sets a new total goal of $3 billion by 2015.
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By the year 2020, New York City will need an estimated 7,000 more nurses than it is projected to have, according to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. To help ease the shortage, Ms. Quinn proposed a five-year partnership with CUNY and local hospitals to train more nurses. Speaking at a press conference at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, Ms. Quinn explained her plan to tap ten experienced nurses from area hospitals to teach at CUNY; the partnership would allow for 100 additional nursing students each year. “With the tough economy that we’re facing,” said Quinn, “We need to fill every job we can.”
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The Baruch Business Report offers a conversation between John Elliott, Dean of Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business and Terrence Martell, Zicklin’s Saxe Professor of Finance and International Business. The discussion weighs the merits of the proposed stimulus package, particularly the economic effects of individual and business tax credits. The stimulus package includes significant funding for infrastructure investment, which Professor Martell calls a “fundamentally good idea.” Dean Elliott suggests that the package’s proposed protectionist features—an insistence that the materials used in constructing new infrastructure be produced in the United States—may cause other nations to bar the use of U.S. imports. Both Dean Elliott and Professor Martell also express concerns about the size of the debt being assumed by the federal government and the risk of future inflation it creates.
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The Baruch Business Report offers a conversation between John Elliott, Dean of Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business and Terrence Martell, Zicklin’s Saxe Professor of Finance and International Business in Zicklin. The discussion starts with the results of the third quarter 2008 “Chief Financial Officers Outlook Survey,” which is conducted quarterly by Financial Executives International and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, and continues into a larger economic analysis including expenditures in both hiring and technology. The survey results are available on Baruch College’s website at
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/cfosurvey/.
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Photographers Rachael Fermi and Esther Samra share images from their book, “Photographs from the Secret World of the Manhattan Project,” during a 2008 CUNY symposium surrounding the opera “Doctor Atomic.” Fermi, a granddaughter of Enrico Fermi, one of the key physicists of the Manhattan Project, began her quest to document the project after finding a color snapshot of the world’s first atomic blast amid family photos in a shoebox. They discuss official and unofficial photographs, as well as work and social life at the various project sites.
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In an unprecedented gathering, 11 scientists who helped develop the first atomic bomb discuss their roles and experiences at a 2008 CUNY symposium related to the opera “Doctor Atomic.” The discussion begins with an overview by Harold Agnew, the former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who was involved in almost all aspects of the Manhattan Project and wrote “Chicago, Los Alamos, Tinian Island and the Atomic Bomb.” The other scientists speaking are Albert Bartlett, Benjamin Bederson, Robert J. Brown, Morton Camac, Hans Courant, Roy Glauber, E. Leonard Jossem, Nathan T. Melamed, Murray Peshkin and Tom Wartik.

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Water, the most essential ingredient for life, is woefully mismanaged globally, says Charles Vörösmarty, distinguished scientist and professor of civil engineering at The City College. “This is a major issue and a real indictment of our capacity to provide clean water to major portions of our populations,” said Prof. Vörösmarty, citing statistics that claim more than 1 billion people lack drinkable water and 2 million die annually from contaminated water. In his lecture, “Water in the Line of Fire: Origins and Solutions to the Global Water Crisis,” for CUNY’s Serving Science Series, Prof. Vörösmarty explores why antiquated water systems like dams and reservoirs must be improved. “One-seventh of the world’s population has to struggle with not having clean drinking water…The solutions of the 21st century have to be more than the engineering solutions of the past.”
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On Sept. 16, 1920 a horse-drawn wagon rigged with dynamite exploded on Wall Street, killing 38 and wounding hundreds. It was the worst terrorist attack in the United States until the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the worst in New York City until Sept. 11, 2001. In her acclaimed new book, “The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror,” Beverly Gage, who teaches the history of terrorism at Yale University, describes the fruitless search for the perpetrators in a time of political repression and strong anti-labor sentiment. “I’ve tried to demystify the notion that terrorism is something new and also that terrorism is somehow unique to the Middle East,” Gage said at the Gotham Center History Forum at the CUNY Graduate Center. “Terrorism is a tactic that has been used … in a variety of political contexts.”
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