Chancellor Matthew Goldstein reports to the Board of Tustees, September 29, 2009.
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An Afghan activist representing a Kabul-based human rights organization has a harsh message for the U.S. and its allies. “Afghanistan is a free country, but only for rapists,” said “Zoya,” who uses a pseudonym and won’t be videotaped or photographed. “It’s free for the drug lords who have made the country the largest producer of opium, for the warlords to commit any kind of crime without the least concern, and for foreign troops to kill our civilians.” “Zoya” spoke on behalf of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on a panel that examined the escalating conflicts in Afghanistan as the U.S. enters its eighth year of intervention. She was joined at the Graduate Center event by Nation columnist Jeremy Scahill, Bill Fletcher, Jr., executive editor of The Black Commentator, and Adaner Usmani of Action for Progressive Pakistan (APP).
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Is there such a thing as a secular state? How can we find a way to mediate between religion and politics? In a conversation about the meaning of secularism and Islam today, moderated by John Torpey, professor of sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim and Patrick Weil tackle these and other controversial and relevant questions. A professor of law at Emory University and author of the recently published Islam and the Secular State, An-Naim joins Weil, a visiting professor of Yale University School of Law from the University of Paris, in a discussion at the Graduate Center. “It is equally important to separate religion from the state as to acknowledge, regulate, and organize the connectedness of religion and politics,” says An-Naim. Weil agrees, while pointing out the difficulties in achieving that. “The secular state has to ensure the freedom of consciousness for the majority of the population–and it’s not always easy to find a way to ensure that freedom.”
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Since its inception in in 2001, the William E. Macaulay Honors College has become one of the largest and most innovative programs of its kind in the country. At a breakfast event held at the college entitled, “Stepping Up for New York’s Brightest: How Public Education Prepares Our City’s Best Students,” Chancellors Matthew Goldstein and Joel Klein spoke to guests about the importance of investing in programs like Macaulay in order to stay competitive in tomorrow’s marketplace. “We are now thinking forward about an economy that’s being transformed very quickly from a manufacturing economy to one that is going to be driven by highly skilled and knowledge-based decision making,” said Chancellor Goldstein. “The only way we’re going to compete is if we train our students at the highest levels that we are capable of training them.”
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One of America’s bleakest chapters produced some of the 20th century’s most enduring cultural images, says critic Morris Dickstein. In his latest book, “Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression,” Dickstein, distinguished professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center, writes about this 1930s paradox. “The arts provided a powerful psychological stimulus,” he said, referring to the iconic film classics “The Wizard of Oz” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” “They injected a potent dose of imaginative energy into a period or relative stagnation and inactivity.” In a discussion moderated by jazz critic Gary Giddins at the Graduate Center, “Making Sense of Hard Times: Cultural and Crisis in the Great Depression,” Dickstein joined fellow panelists including film critic Molly Haskell and author Peter Conn.
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Breast cancer isn't one disease, but multiple ones, and the type of cancer should be identified before a care plan is set up, says Jill Bargonetti, associate professor of biological sciences at Hunter College and a biology faculty member at the Graduate Center. “We have to do pharmacogenomics to determine what the cancer is before we think about how we’re going to kill it,” she said. “If you use the same treatments without thinking about the genomics of the disease, you might do more harm than good.” In her lecture “Disarming Breast Cancer’s Elusive Molecular Arsenals: How Close Are We?” — part of the Serving Science Café series — Bargonetti explains how the focus of her research, the tumor suppressor protein p53, might someday be a common molecular target to help disarm multiple breast cancer types.
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For more than three decades, Robert A. Caro has been one of the leading biographers of our time. He chronicled the political trail that defined Robert Moses as one of New York’s most influential and controversial figures in The Power Broker, and traced Lyndon Johnson’s rise from poverty to power in the three-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson, garnering two Pulitzer Prizes and three National Book Critics’ Circle awards. In this Leon Levy Biography Lecture at the CUNY Graduate Center, Caro — who lived in the Texas Hill Country of Johnson’s youth as he researched his biography — discusses the critical role physical setting plays in nonfiction. “For a book to endure, the sense of place must be present,” Caro said, “letting the reader see clearly enough, (so) the scene becomes more vivid and more real to him.”
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Since graduating from Yale Law School, Rhonda Copelon has dedicated her life to the struggle for human rights, first at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, where she litigated civil rights and international human rights cases for 12 years, and then at CUNY Law School where she co-founded the International Women’s Rights Law Clinic in 1992. Under her direction, IWHR has earned wide acclaim and enabled CUNY Law students to participate in groundbreaking human rights advocacy in the U.S. and abroad. Prof. Copelon discusses the clinic’s evolution as well as its current role. “Almost any issue you touch has a gender dimension — it’s often hidden — so what we’re trying to do…is give students an understanding of how to work towards a broader concept of justice that is inclusive.”
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Queens College sociologist Stephen Steinberg believes that it’s important to look beyond the historic election of the nation’s first African-American president and hope that his eloquent rhetoric will be turned into concrete results. “The bigger question is whether Obama’s election is merely a symbolic event or whether it will translate into policies that will advance the unfinished civil rights agenda,” said Prof. Steinberg, who was recently appointed Distinguished Professor of Urban Studies by Queens College, where he has taught since 1977. The author of several groundbreaking books, including “The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity and Class in America,” and his latest work, “Race Relations: A Critique,” Prof. Steinberg’s studies on urban cultures and the role race plays in society have earned him the respect of colleagues worldwide.
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After spending two years behind bars on an assault charge, Leslie Campbell was ready, willing and able to turn her life around. But she needed guidance and direction. That help came in the form of the College and Community Fellowship (CCF), a not-for-profit program based at the Center for Women’s Studies at the Graduate Center, which helps formerly incarcerated women obtain a college education. “CCF helped me tremendously as far as momentum, support and community,” said Campbell, who graduated magna cum laude from John Jay College last June with a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology. Campbell, who is now on the staff of CCF, discusses her position as a recruitment and retention specialist, and why the program works. “I hope my experience will convince women that there is hope after prison.”
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