Discimus ut serviamus: We learn so that we may serve.
#42
What’s News
President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez Graduates to CUNY Chancellorship
In last Wednesday’s unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees of The City University of New York, Queens College President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez was named chancellor of CUNY, effective May 1. To commemorate this news, the Office of Communications and Marketing prepared a video. For more information, see the CUNY press release here.

The eighth person to hold this title, Matos is the second QC president to head the university, and the first Latino and person of color to do so. (Joseph S. Murphy, QC president from 1971 to 1977, went on to become CUNY chancellor from 1982 to 1990.) Matos came to Queens in 2014 after five years as president of Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College; his resume includes five years as director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, where he was a tenured professor of Black and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies. He also served as a senior cabinet-level official in the government of Puerto Rico.

“The appointment of Félix V. Matos Rodríguez as chancellor marks the onset of a historic chapter in the narrative of this vital institution, one in which every member of the CUNY community should rejoice,” said William C. Thompson, chair of the CUNY board and leader of the 14-member chancellor search committee. “Felo’s deep roots in CUNY, combined with his rich experience as a scholar and as leader of both senior and community colleges, make him uniquely suited to lead the university forward, keeping it positioned as the standard-bearer for quality and access in public higher education.”

“I am deeply grateful and tremendously excited to lead the nation’s foremost urban public university, particularly at a time when its mission to ‘maintain and expand academic excellence and to the provision of equal access and opportunity’ has never been more vital,” said Matos in his remarks to the trustees.

In his February 13 message to the college community, he expressed gratitude for the support and enthusiasm his efforts received on campus. “I thank each and every one of you for your friendship and collegiality,” Matos wrote. “I’m proud of the collective work we have been able to accomplish despite tight fiscal times.” He will return to QC on May 30 to preside over Commencement one last time.
Alicia Alvero Appointed Associate Provost

Alicia Alvero, a professor of industrial-organizational psychology at QC, has been named the college’s associate provost for research and faculty affairs, following a national search. 

Alvero holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University, and an MA and PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and Applied Behavior Analysis from Western Michigan University. Author of several book chapters, she has served as an editorial board member for the Journal of Safety Research and as an associate editor for the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management . She is also an organizational consultant in the areas of training, leadership, and performance management, teaching leaders across a number of domains, including human service agencies, how to utilize behavior management principles to help solve organizational challenges. She has put her skills into practice on our campus, helping to streamline workflow within the Department of Psychology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of processes affecting students, staff, and faculty.

Since coming to QC in 2003, Alvero has held administrative responsibilities, including directing both graduate and undergraduate programs, being a member of her department’s P&B, serving as deputy chair, and most recently, interacting with senior administration as a faculty fellow in the Office of the Provost. She participated in the CUNY Faculty Leadership Academy and is currently participating in the HERS Executive Leadership Institute.
Cruz and Woody Win Gold at East Coast Conference Track and Field Championship
QC’s Ryan Woody (left) and Diana Cruz (right) each took home first place in the 500-meter run this past Saturday at the East Coast Conference (ECC) Indoor Track and Field Championships held at Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in Staten Island.

Woody, a junior, bested 14 other runners in a time of 1:06.86, nearly a full second faster than the closest competitor. Cruz, a senior, finished the same event in a time of 1:19.47 to claim first in her final ECC Indoor Championship.  

Other finishes of note for the Knights include Myles Jackson, who placed second in the 800-meter run in 1:57.88, and Pavan Bhat, who was fourth in the triple jump (13.34 meters). The men’s distance medley relay team also took second place with a time of 10:46.11—just off the pace of Georgian Court University, who finished in 10:45.11

Overall, the men’s team finished fifth at ECC Championships, while the women placed ninth. Georgian Court took home the team title on both sides. The two teams will now rest up for a few weeks before getting started with outdoor season.

For a complete recap of the event, view the story here.
QC Offers Tax-Prep Services

Completing annual returns taxes the patience of many people. For the second year in a row, the QC clinic of the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA) is here to help. VITA provides free federal tax return preparation and electronic filing to people in certain categories, including all students. QC’s Department of Accounting and Information Systems learned about this valuable program through Robert Clovey, a QC alumnus and York College professor.

The VITA clinic at QC, in Kiely Hall 102, offers services by appointment only on Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm through April 15, 2019. To book a slot or determine your eligibility, contact the clinic at 718-997-2980 or qcvita@qc.cuny.edu .

Any QC student may serve as a tax preparation volunteer after getting the appropriate training; to learn more, write to FREETAXPREP@york.cuny.edu .
Karol Rathaus Festival Bows This Week
Discovering Rathaus, a festival honoring the work of one of the founding professors of QC’s Music Department, is now under way, with events taking place on and off campus. Yesterday, pianist Daniel Wnukowski coached ACSM students in his master class on 20th century piano repertoire. Tomorrow at 12:5 pm, in the Music Building, Room 226, Michael Haas of the Vienna University for Music and Performance Arts will present “German and True,” a lecture about German Jewish assimilation and music. On Sunday at 3 pm in LeFrak Concert Hall, Leon Botstein (above) will conduct Bard College’s The Orchestra Now in an all-Rathaus program; Wnukowski will be the soloist in the Concerto for Piano, op. 45. Tickets may be purchased online at www.kupferbergcenter.org . For a complete listing of festival events, visit www.karolrathausfilm.com
Upcoming Black History Month Events

QC’s Black History Month celebration continues this week with a pair of great events on campus.

On Friday, February 22, at 7:30 pm, the visiting choir from Guadeloupe Island will perform in the Aaron Copland School of Music Choral Room (Room 264). Ten young singers from the small city of Baie-Mahault will sing a program of Creole calypso, beguines, and mazurkas. The group, which is making its first trip to New York City, represents a larger choir of one hundred music students from Lycée Polyvalent Charles Coeffin, a high school in Baie-Mahault. The iTones at Queens College, a student-led a capella group, will also perform a few selections.

Then on Monday, February 25, from 12:15 to 1:15 pm, the Student Union Ballroom West will be the site for “Reflections: In the Footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” Footsteps, an annual QC tradition scheduled during the week of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, takes a small group of students down south to visit historic sites of the civil rights movement. In “Reflections,” this year’s cohort will use video, photography, and speech to share what they learned with the campus community. 

Both events are free and open to the public. For further information, visit qc.cuny.edu/BHM .
Fellowships Available for Summer Seminar on Italian Diaspora

 Doctoral and advanced MA students are invited to apply by Friday, February 22, for fellowships to the Italian Diaspora Studies Summer Seminar at Roma Tre University from June 17 to July 5, 2019. The seminar, now in its fifth year, is a collaborative program between the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute/Queens College and Roma Tre University. Room, board (breakfast and lunch), and tuition cost $3,000, exclusive of air and ground travel; the fellowships cover $1,500 per participant.
Academic Advising Appears at Student Association’s Town Hall

QC’s Student Association Academic Affairs Committee will host A Knight at the Round Table: Academic Advising Town Hall in the Patio Room (inside the Dining Hall) on Monday, February 25, from 6 to 8 pm. The committee’s second town hall—and the first of spring semester—features a presentation by Academic Advising Director Laura Silverman, who will take questions from students. With music and food, this will be a night to remember.
Info Session Could Set Up Tech Students with a Promising Career

CUNY Tech Prep (CTP), a boot camp for CUNY computer science majors, will host an information session as well as a LinkedIn workshop on Wednesday, February 27, from 12:15 to 1:15 pm in Kiely Hall, Room 250. 

Students who take part in CTP will benefit from learning in-demand technologies and industry best practices, while receiving year-round career coaching from industry partners. Employers who partner with CTP benefit from having a diverse group of skilled CUNY students to pull from for the growing tech sector. 

Students who are accepted into the program, which takes place from Summer 2019 to Spring 2020, will train for 40 hours total during the summer and take a two-and-a-half-hour course once a week in Manhattan during each academic semester of the year.

In order to be a part of the CTP cohort, students must attend a CUNY school in the fall of 2019 as an undergraduate, complete a coursework in data structures, study computer science or a related major, not make more than $50,000 per year, and be at least 18 years old and legally able to work in the United States. Past years have seen around 120 CUNY students accepted into the program.

Those in attendance at the information session can also benefit from the LinkedIn workshop, which will teach students how to leverage LinkedIn in their job search and how to craft their profiles to best market themselves to employers.

Students interested in attending the workshop can register here . Those interested in CUNY Tech Prep can apply here or find out more information at the workshop. For additional questions, go to cunytechprep.nyc or email cunytechprep@gmail.com .
Contest Seeks Students’ Works about Work

Making Work Visible, an annual contest open to all CUNY undergraduates in good standing, offers cash prizes of up to $1000 in four categories: poetry, essay writing, fiction, or art. Last year, QC students were among the winners.
Labor Arts created the contest, now in its eighth year, to encourage visual literacy and serious attention to the history of workers. Entries must be submitted online by March 18. Prizes will be awarded at a ceremony this spring.

Details about the contest and its application process are available at www.laborarts.org/contest . People who have questions may contact Patrick Kavanagh, director of Graduate Studies at Brooklyn College, at mwv@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Building Futures: Profile
Khaleel Anderson

Maybe destiny brought Khaleel Anderson to Queens College.Displaced from his Far Rockaway home by Hurricane Sandy, he and his family had sheltered at Queens College for several months. “When I wasn’t back in the Rockaways helping out with the relief effort, I was wandering around the QC campus,” he recalls, concluding, “It was a pretty cool place.”
 
Poised to graduate in May 2019 from Queens College’s five year Accelerated Master’s Program in Urban Affairs, Anderson quite literally was born to be a community organizer. His father was a union member leader for his 1199 SEIU local, and his mother was an organizer for ACORN, The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
 
So, it’s not surprising to learn that for the past two years Anderson has been a member of the New York Police Department 101st Precinct Community Council and Community Board 14, the latter an appointment by District 31 Councilman Donovan Richards. In addition, Anderson’s on the board of directors of the Rockaway Youth Task Force; a nonprofit organized in 2011, it works on youth empowerment, civic engagement, and environmental and transportation justice. “That’s kind of how I built my name in the community,” he says. “I was organizing with them for five or six years.”
 
Probably his most far-reaching effort with the greatest impact for the greatest number of people was a transportation issue in his native Far Rockaway. He spent two to three years lobbying to get the Q52 bus that runs to Woodside in mainland Queens to make stops farther east in Far Rockaway, closer to more densely populated public housing and more people of color. “That bus is phenomenal as it relates to getting people to jobs,” Anderson says.
 
“We did petitions, advertising campaigns, rallies and demonstrations,” he reports. “They finally listened to us and extended the line an extra ten to twelve blocks.” The MTA also made it a Select Bus Service line, placed it in a dedicated bus lane, and consolidated some bus stops—changes that substantially shorten transit times.
 
Undecided as to a specific career objective, Anderson says, “I only know that whatever it is, it will have an advocacy background.” He does note, however, that he takes inspiration from one community organizer who made it all the way to the White House.
Now, for the first time, QC students can take advantage of the earliest summer registration offered by any college in the tristate area. Hundreds of courses are available in four sessions, along with free campus parking and shuttle buses. Undergraduate Pell grant recipients may be eligible for summer Pell for up to six credits. www.qc.cuny.edu/summer
Heard Around Campus
Barbara Brotman ’78, a retired Chicago Tribune columnist, wrote an op-ed about Queens for the New York Times . . . . Marie Checker (Urban Studies) was quoted in a Washington Post article about the collapse of the deal to bring Amazon to Queens . . . . Stephen Pekar (SEES) testified in Manhattan on February 14 at a New York State Senate public hearing on the Climate and Community Protection Act. The hearing was livestreamed. . . . Jeff Satenstein (Accounting and Information Systems) led more than 30 students to the Manhattan offices of accounting firm BDO USA, where they met with representatives of the audit assurance and tax practices. The visit, seen below, was arranged through QC’s World of Work program. . . .
Edisa Weeks (Dance) performed original work at Mabou Mines earlier this month as part of a SUITE/Space creative residency, getting coverage in Theatre Times , New York Theatre Review  and Dance Enthusiast .
Errata: The My Brother’s Keeper photo published in last week’s QView featured New York City Department of Education Schools Superintendent Elaine Lindsey, not DOE First Deputy Chancellor Cheryl Watson Harris.
The Q View is produced by the
Office of Communications and Marketing. 

Comments and suggestions for future news items are welcome.