What is it about Brooklyn College and state politics? Do the math: The college’s enrollment of 14,000 represents about 3 percent of the CUNY total. Yet Brooklyn College has a dozen alumni currently serving in the Legislature – 28 percent of CUNY’s total of 43.

As a group, they mirror the richness of CUNY’s student body, with immigrants ( Assemblyman N. Nicholas Perry), first-generation Americans (State Sen. Martin Malave Dilan and Assemblyman Dov Hikind), women (Assemblywomen Adele Cohen, Rhoda S. Jacobs and Joan L. Millman), lifelong Brooklyn residents (State Sens. Carl Kruger and John Sampson and Assemblyman William Colton), one who left the borough to represent part of Queens (Assemblyman Ivan C. Lafayette), a former New York City policeman (Assemblyman Frank R. Seddio) and even a former City University professor, State Sen. Seymour Lachman.

	Assemblywoman Joan L. Millman

Though true Brooklynites are supposed to have an answer for everything, most of the dozen were stumped for a moment by the simple question: Why is this so? It’s a great school, all agreed.

“I had many great professors who helped me become a well-rounded person,” recalls State Sen. John L. Sampson. “Prof. David Abbott always had a sense of humor but made sure we understood political science and appreciated its value. Prof. Donald R. Reich, also in political science, held classes that made you feel like you were in law school.”

Yet while Sampson knew from age 15 that he wanted to be a lawyer, he didn’t think about running for office for years after he graduated cum laude in 1987 and went on to law school.

Back in Brooklyn, working for the Legal Aid Society, he became involved with the Rosetta Gaston Democratic Club in East New York and afterwards joined the law firm of the club’s attorney. In 1996, with encouragement from his father and his district leader, he ran for office and won.

	Senator Seymour P. Lachman

Sampson is fierce in his determination to provide others with the opportunities he had in college. “Institutions such as Brooklyn College are the bedrock and foundation of our community,” he says. “They allow us access to opportunity.”

Several legislators suggested that Brooklynites tend to stay in their home borough for college and after college, and that this helped account for the large number of Brooklyn College alumni in state government.

“I’m a big Brooklyn booster,” said Assemblywoman Joan L. Millman. “I think a lot of people who went to Brooklyn College stayed in Brooklyn. That includes people like Assemblywoman Adele Cohen — who went to Brooklyn College, who is from Brooklyn and who still lives there.”

	Assemblyman Dov Hikind

Millman, like many of her fellow students and legislators, chose Brooklyn College because she didn’t need to look farther to find an excellent school.

“I’d like to tell you I did an extensive search and found out that Brooklyn College had world-class teachers — which it did — and that I found out it had a world-class academic program — which it did. But I didn’t. The fact is I lived within walking distance.”

Millman was the first female of her family to attend college, and cost was a real factor in her choice of Brooklyn College.
“I’m one of those people whose parents made a sacrifice just to send me to college,” she says. “I didn’t have to bring income into the house – that was the sacrifice; their commitment was that they’d pay for it. I worked part-time and in the summers, of course.”

	Assemblyman Frank R. Seddio

Brooklyn College definitely helped prepare Millman for her service in state government. “I took liberal arts,” she recalled. “What was so great was that this exposed me to a little bit about a lot of things. I had some chemistry, some earth science, a lot of things. I became a lifelong learner – an enormous asset in this job.”

She added that as state budget cuts have added to students’ college costs, attending City University has become more difficult, particularly because many students today must care for families.

State Sen. Seymour P. Lachman has a long and deep relationship with both the City University of New York and the college and the borough of Brooklyn. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brooklyn College.

	Assemblyman William Colto

He taught in Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School, served as CUNY’s dean for community development, and was a professor at Baruch College. While teaching at the City University, he was tapped by the Brooklyn borough president to serve on the New York City Board of Education. He and his wife, Dr. Susan Lachman (who teaches sociology at Kingsborough Community College) live in Brooklyn “Like all young Brooklynites, when it came time for me to choose a college, I wanted to attend a good school with a superb educational reputation,” Lachman said. “In my mind, Brooklyn College stood out because it stressed academic excellence.”

Was cost a factor in his choice? ”I was offered a scholarship to Barnard,” Lachman recalled. “However, my parents and I could not even afford the living accommodations. Fortunately for me, CUNY offered the young men and women of my era a free education. Absolutely free. So for all of us struggling, college-bound students, the choice was relatively simple.”

	Assemblyman N. Nick Perry

Asked why he thought Brooklyn College had so large a contingent in the Legislature, Lachman noted that “For starters, Brooklyn has the largest population of any county in New York State, [so] Brooklyn College has a built-in pool of applicants…. As one of the oldest schools in the CUNY system, Brooklyn College has steadfastly represented its primary goal of academic excellence, and the State Legislature is living proof of this achievement.”

Lachman retains fond memories of his college days. “Meeting and learning from some of the best professors in the nation was—hands down—the greatest experience I had as a college student,” he said. “None of my later successes would have been possible without this early, life-enhancing experience at Brooklyn College.”

	Assemblywoman Adele Cohen

Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs has more than an alumna’s interest in Brooklyn College’s well-being: It’s the largest institution in her Assembly district. “A public university system is incredibly important,” she said. “Just knowing that it’s there opens portals to a lot of people who might otherwise have thought that they couldn’t go to college.”

Asked about its importance to the community and state, Jacobs responded with a question of her own: “What do we have to create economic development? We have our brain power. In New York, that’s our strength, and we have to develop it.”
As to CUNY’s social benefit, Jacobs said that “It’s someplace that allows people from different cultures to come together and recognize that we’re all in this together.”

	Senator John L. Sampson

All the Brooklyn College alumni were firm in their belief that the education that helped them achieve their goals must be maintained for current and future generations. “A college education today is a necessity for advancement in society,” Lachman noted. “Education is and must always be one of life’s priorities.”

Therefore, said Lachman, “The Legis-lature must recognize the importance of public higher education and not cut its budget. Increasing the City University’s vital needs should be of paramount importance.”

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who received his master’s degree from Brooklyn College after receiving his bachelor’s degree from Queens College, agreed. “My education gave me the skills and tools required for a successful career in politics,” he said. He is therefore commited to “making sure that CUNY receives the funding it needs so that today’s students can have the same chance to receive a high-quality, affordable education.”

	Senator Martin Malave Dilan

Brooklyn College alumni loyalty extends to the entire CUNY system. “During my 27 years in the Assembly, there have been a lot of critical times when CUNY was threatened,” said Assemblyman Ivan C. Lafayette, who chose Brooklyn College so that he could continue working in his father’s East Flatbush auto business. “For me – and for a lot of people who have been associated with a CUNY school – a top priority is to maintain the excellence of all of the campuses in the CUNY system, to make sure everybody gets a shot at higher education.”

Assemblyman Frank R. Seddio said, “Affordable college tuition is the key to allowing so many young people to achieve the American dream. I am convinced that we must do everything possible to create an environment where the inability to pay for college is not the obstacle which prevents a student from attending.”

	Assemblyman Ivan C. Lafayette

Assemblyman William Colton echoed the sentiments of his colleagues. “Moneys invested in higher education are the strongest investment the state can make in economic development,” he said. “Persons with college degrees earn substantially more money and therefore pay much more in taxes and have greater purchasing power. And a skilled workforce draws business to the state.”
But it was left to Assemblyman Nick Perry, an immigrant who heard about Brooklyn College and its quality long before he left his native Jamaica, to offer perhaps the best reason for its dominance in state government.

“Brooklyn College is like a little city in itself, and student government politics there are no less intense and aggressive and real than politics in the outside world,” he said. “I honed my skills and learned about American electoral politics there. Everything I had to do after graduation, I did in student politics: Petitions, challenges – people were sometimes knocked off the ballot. We had something similar to a Board of Elections, election commissioners, voters’ lists.”

	Senator Carl Kruger

He paused, then said with a chuckle, “Things sometimes got so intense there that they might well have been advised to set up a campaign finance board. So you can

understand that when you get exposed to such things at Brooklyn College, you come out with a real sense about whether you like politics or not.”

 

 

	Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs

 

Brooklyn Scores Far from Flatbush Brooklyn College’s impact on politics hasn’t been limited to New York State. Barbara Boxer, (Class of 1962) studied economics and worked as a Wall Street stockbroker after graduation. Later she and her husband moved to California where she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, after ten years in the U.S. House of Representatives and earlier service on the Marin County Board of Supervisors. In 1976, voters in Portland, Oregon elected Vera (Weintraub) Katz (Class of 1955) to the state legislature. Known as “Portland’s Bella Abzug" for her reformist views, she became house speaker in 1985 – only the fifth woman in U.S. history to lead a state assembly. Katz, who has served a Portland’s mayor since 1992, announced this year she wouldn’t seek a fourth term. Back here in the East, Brooklyn native Bernie Saunders spent a year at Brooklyn College, where he learned about socialism in the college’s Eugene V. Debs Club. After serving as mayor of Burlington, Vermont from 1981 to 1990, he became the third Socialist ever to serve in the U.S. Congress, where he has been reelected six times as the Vermont’s sole congressman. In December 1943, a young soldier wrote to his parents in Kansas about his engineering studies at Brooklyn College. “I spent more time in school this week here than I did in a month at K.U.," he wrote. “They throw assignments at us so fast that we have to take our books to bed with us to keep up. I’ve already had seven tests and will probably have more this week…" The writer? Robert Dole, Kansas congressman from 1960-68, senator from 1968-96, candidate for U.S. Vice President in 1976 and President in 1996. He spent several months at Brooklyn College as part of his officer’s training.