When she was about to graduate from high school, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda I. Solis told the 2009 Hunter College graduating class, her guidance counselor advised her mother: “Your daughter is not college material. Maybe she should follow the career of her older sister and become a secretary.” Despite that, Solis said, her “ganas,” or desire to succeed, spurred her on to college and beyond. A daughter of immigrants, she became the first Latina elected to the California State Senate in 1994, representing Los Angeles’ 32nd congressional district. And earlier this year, she was tapped by President Obama for Labor, the first Hispanic woman to serve as a Cabinet member. “There are probably a dozen of you in this hall who are future Sonya Sotomayors and probably two dozen future Hilda Solises,” Solis told the graduates gathered at Radio City Music Hall.
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Citing President Obama’s intent to strengthen community colleges, “second lady” Jill Biden told the 2009 graduates of Kingsborough Community College the two-year schools are “one of America’s best-kept secrets,” and “the education gained on campuses like this one will provide the knowledge that will power the 21st century.” Dr. Biden, an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College who taught English full-time at a Delaware community college for 16 years, referred to Obama’s higher education proposal, which includes a community college initiative to better prepare students for the job market and encourages their transfer to four-year schools. “The president wants the U.S. to have the highest proportion of college graduates (in the world) by the year 2020…and he knows community colleges will play a major part in achieving this goal.”
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As a war correspondent, Mohamad Bazzi never knew for certain what was around the corner. “Sometimes you have to be prepared for completely unexpected things,” the former Newsday Middle East bureau chief told 2009 graduates of the CUNY Baccalaureate Degree at their commencement at Cooper Union. Bazzi recalled a 12-hour drive from Amman to Baghdad in which his driver armed himself with a grenade in case of a bandit attack. “There I was on the road to Baghdad, having to talk to my driver, who was twice my age, to put away a live grenade.” An award-winning journalist and CUNY Baccalaureate alumnus, Bazzi, now an assistant professor of journalism at NYU, urged the graduates to be willing to adapt and use what they’ve learned at CUNY to their best advantage.
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Addressing the 2009 graduating class at York College, Gov. David Paterson offered a ray of hope to future entrepreneurs during these bleak economic times. “The minority-owned and women-owned businesses that were less than 5% of contracts awarded in 2006 now (make up) over 25% of the contracts that do business with the state of New York,” said Paterson, referring to his promise, while serving as lieutenant governor, to expand an executive order that would ensure more equity for minorities and women-owned businesses. “When you get out there, come see us at the state because New York is opened for business, for everyone,” said Paterson, keynote speaker at the college’s commencement.
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Under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet more than 3,200 were murdered, more than 30,000 tortured, and hundreds of thousands forced into hiding. One victim was Heraldo Muñoz, whose political memoir “The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet,” was named one of the best books of 2008 by the Washington Post. Pinochet’s regime “imposed a systematic and brutal repression of the Chilean people,” Muñoz, now Chile’s permanent ambassador to the U.N., said at LaGuardia Community College. “At the time, we only thought of hiding and surviving.” As a Socialist party member, Muñoz was trained as a paramilitary explosive expert and later worked with the social democratic Party for Democracy, which ousted Pinochet in 1990.
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Public meeting of the Board of Trustees, June 22, 2009.
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The president of Physicians for National Health Program favors an “expanded and improved Medicare for all” health care plan that would provide coverage for all U.S. residents of any age. “The problem with Obama’s approach is that it relies on expanding private health insurance,” says Dr. Oliver Fein, associate dean at Weill Cornell Medical College at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. “The only way to expand it and make it affordable, is to increase deductibles.” Fein, who recently participated in the White House Summit on Health Care, thinks the country should consider a “publicly financed and privately delivered” system. In his lecture “National Health Insurance-Has Its Time Come?” held at the Graduate Center, Fein discussed the history of health care in the U.S. and his health policy proposals.
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Dubbed “Felix the Fixer” by the tabloids during New York’s 1970s fiscal crisis, investment banker Felix Rohatyn was widely credited with saving the city from bankruptcy as chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation. At 81, Rohatyn is still solving problems. In a forum co-sponsored by the Aspen Institute and Hunter College’s Roosevelt House, entitled “Leadership and the Economic Crisis: What’s Next?” Rohatyn argues that recent bank bailouts are essential to raising the public’s confidence in America’s banks and in pulling the nation out of debt. “For our economy to work, it is crucial for our citizens to believe in financial institutions,” said Rohatyn, who was joined by Robert Steel, former president and CEO of Wachovia, Daniel Gross, senior editor of Newsweek, and moderator Lesley Stahl, correspondent for 60 Minutes.
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Human trafficking is a hugely profitable, global enterprise that, says Suzanne Tomatore, director of the Immigrant Women & Children Project of the New York City Bar Association, often involves trusted friends or family members who are used to entrap victims. “The U.S. State Department estimates that 14,500 to 17,000 people are trafficked to the U.S. each year,” says Tomatore, a CUNY Law School alumna. “Often our traffickers, on the cases I’ve been involved with, tend to be family members — boyfriends, husbands or someone from the same town or village.” Tomatore was joined by Ivy Suriyopas, staff attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, at the CUNY Law School discussion, “Human Trafficking, Interpersonal Violence, and the Power of Gender Violence as a Tool of Oppression.”
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As the deadline nears for renewing the 2002 legislation that gave Mayor Bloomberg control of public schools, New Yorkers weigh in on whether the system should remain under the Panel for Educational Policy or be overhauled. In a discussion moderated by Baruch College Professor Doug Muzzio and led by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, the teachers union and city were in agreement. “The present structure is sound,” said Klein, cautioning against tweaking it. “We would undermine it and create divided authority.” United Federation of Teachers Vice President Michael Mulgrew said, “Not a single person (here) wants to go back to the old system…We want to move forward.” The event was co-sponsored by Citizens Union and the Center for Innovation and Leadership in Government at Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs.
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