Discimus ut serviamus: We learn so that we may serve.

First-year students received warm introductions to Queens College and the first days of classes through back-to-back events last week. There were virtual and video presentations by President Frank H. Wu, senior academic and student affairs administrators, and Student Association leaders. Ubuntu, a resource fair and networking opportunity focused on the Black student experience, was offered for the first time on Monday, August 25. The event included inspiring guest alumni speakers such as Olivier Noel ’11, founder of an online DNA bank that provides researchers with samples from all over the world, and Vallaire Wallace ’20, who received a full scholarship to pursue doctoral studies in African American literature and the culture of the Harlem Renaissance at the University of Virginia. Welcome Day, on Tuesday, August 26, continued a longstanding campus tradition, celebrating the start of the QC journey for all incoming students. Current students, such as Cayla Kempf, Kathy Arroyo, and Andre Benjamin, fielded questions from newcomers.

Here’s a chance for QC students to channel their inner auteur and win a $250 gift certificate to the QC campus store. Make a brief video about the steps for preventing the transmission of COVID-19; submit it by Tuesday, September 8, at 5 pm, to Beethoven.Bong@qc.cuny.edu via WeTransfer with the subject headline "Health & Safety First Video Contest." The Student Association will review the entries and select the best one.

QC President Frank H. Wu will host his next virtual briefing about the college’s fall 2020 safety plan on Thursday, September 3, at 6 pm. (Note that classes and operations remain 99 percent remote; for the rare exceptions, see “College Resumes Key In-Person Services” in this issue of QView.) Participants in the forum will have the opportunity to ask questions and share their concerns. Space is limited, so please register by Wednesday, September 2, at 5 pm. A Zoom link will be sent to registrants.

CUNY's newest cohort of student government leaders have started their terms. Here is QC Student Association President Zaire Couloute, @QC_News, with a message for her classmates.

Amazon is looking to fill full-time positions and internships in operations. Learn more at the Queens College information session today—Wednesday, September 2—at 12:30 pm. To join the meeting, click here Meeting ID: 4922228619

For the 29th year in a row, Queens College has been included in Princeton Review’s Best Colleges guide. The 2021 edition lists 386 institutions, based on interviews with more than 140,000 students across the country. In addition to its best college status, QC continues to appear on the following lists: “Got Milk” (campuses where beer is scarce) and “Scotch and Soda, Hold the Scotch” (no hard liquor). As reported in QNS.com, the school was also recognized in the categories of Best Value College and Green College.

Attesting to the long-term value of a Queens College diploma, Business Insider rated QC among the 24 U.S. colleges it identified for offering the best return on investment. Queens College came in fourth, with an ROI of 84.4 percent, just edging out Hunter College; the only CUNY school to outperform QC was the first-place finisher, Baruch. Meanwhile, the latest report from LendEDU ranked QC 26th nationally and fourth in New York City in terms of the comparatively low debt burdens carried by students in the class of 2019, with an average debt per borrower of $14,738. QC also made Money’s annual Best Colleges list.

Succeeding Sharon Shulman, who retired, Annette L. Durrant has been appointed by President Frank H. Wu as interim chief diversity officer and Title IX coordinator. No stranger to Queens College, she held the same title in Spring 2019 and then taught as an adjunct lecturer in the Urban Studies Department.

Before coming to QC, Durrant worked at two agencies of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority: New York City Transit and the Long Island Rail Road. Her background encompasses investigating claims of discrimination and retaliation, dispute resolution, grievance handling, employee counseling, accident and incident investigations, and creation and delivery of training programs. Durrant holds a BS from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a JD from St. John's University School of Law.

To facilitate travel for those with approved access to campus, the Queens College Shuttle runs as of September 2 at 50% capacity Monday to Friday, between 8 am and 5 pm. There is no weekend service. Masks and social distancing are required aboard the bus, with only one passenger allowed per bench. No more than 10 people may ride the bus at any time. A map of the shuttle bus route can be found at the QC Shuttle Bus webpage.

Faculty and staff traveling to campus have the option of purchasing rides on the shuttle bus on a daily, monthly, or semester basis. Tickets can be purchased here or by clicking on the Buy Tickets Now tab at the QC Shuttle Bus page. Any QC student may ride the shuttle by displaying a current QCard as identification; no ticket is needed.

Reserve September 17 for the Louis Armstrong House Museum Virtual Gala, We’ll Be Together Again. Festivities run from 7 pm to 7:45 pm, featuring a presentation by Research Collections Director Ricky Riccardi on Armstrong’s social justice advocacy, as well as cameo appearances by celebrated musicians. To reserve your space, click here.

The U.S. Census, conducted every ten years, determines how many seats each state gets in Congress, as well as allocations of federal money. Everyone counts—citizens, permanent residents (who hold green cards), and immigrants, documented or otherwise. Do your part for New York. If you haven’t already completed a census form, you can do so safely online. Forms must be submitted by September 30.

As the 2016 presidential elections demonstrated, every vote counts. In New York State, the voter registration deadline is October 9. U.S. citizens who will be 18 by the election date—November 3 this year—and have lived in New York City or their county for at least 30 days before that date are eligible to register.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, all registered New York State voters may apply for absentee ballots. On the form, check the box for “temporary Illness,” which has been expanded to include “a risk of contracting or spreading a disease” such as COVID-19. The official application deadline is October 27, but the effective deadline is October 12. The post office has advised that it cannot guarantee delivery of ballots applied for less than 15 days before the election.

For more information about both voter registration and absentee ballot applications, click here.

This semester, the Academic Senate will hold monthly sessions via Zoom. Meetings will begin at 3:35 pm on September 10, October 8, November 12, and December 10.

Meeting ID: 983 9047 6701

Passcode: 008773

The BlaQue Resource Network has grown beyond its origins as a Facebook group dedicated to uniting the borough’s communities of color through civic engagement, financial growth, and wellness support. Over the summer, the network held multiple events, including a rally against economic injustice; a bike-a-thon to raise funds for organizations that serve children and young adults in Southeast Queens; and a virtual gala. Queens Borough President Sharon Lee recognized the group by declaring August 10 “BlaQue Resource Network Day” and issuing a proclamation to its founders, Aleeia Abraham and Steve Toussaint. To learn more about BRN, click here.

Margaret Tellanian Kyrkostas, founder of QC’s Anthropology Museum of the People of New York, passed away in February from complications of bladder cancer.

Born in Queens to Armenian immigrants, Kyrkostas was in her forties when she went back to school. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Queens College and a master’s in Physical Anthropology from New York University, she joined QC’s Anthropology Department. In 1977 she launched the Anthropology Museum, curating multiple exhibitions and organizing community events; she served as director until the end of her life. She also curated an exhibition for the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, Armenia: Memories from Home, insisting that it include photographs and text documenting the Armenian Genocide.

Predeceased by her husband, Ted Kyrkostas, and their son Mark, she is survived by children Theo Kyrkostas and Peggy O’Hanlon; four grandchildren; and one greatgrandchild.

Albert Levenson died last May of pancreatic cancer. Levenson, who earned his bachelor’s degree and doctorate at Columbia University, joined Queens College in 1961 as an assistant professor of Economics. Attaining full professorship nine years later, he went on to serve as an associate dean of Social Sciences and acting chair of his department. Levenson was the author of Manpower Supply and Demand in Nassau-Suffolk, 1965-75 and a member of several professional association.

Jeff A. Beeler (Psychology), PhD students Devry Mourra, Roseanna Zanca, and Rebecca Ravenelle, and CUNY faculty Peter Serrano (Hunter College and The GC), Susana Mingote (Advanced Science Research Center), and Nesha S. Burghardt (Hunter and The GC) received attention in SUM for their work on activity-based anorexia. Their paper was published in Biological Psychiatry . . . .

Andrew Beveridge (Sociology), recently retired, gave a virtual presentation—Will the 2020 Census Fail? Four (or maybe More) Risks to Census 2020—on August 10 to a session of the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association . . . . Desiree Byrd (Psychology) was made a fellow in the American Psychological Association, Division 40, Clinical Neuropsychology. In addition, the editors for the culture and gender department of The Clinical Neuropsychologist (TCN) invited Byrd to provide a commentary on white privilege in neuropsychology . . . . Peter Calandra (ACSM) wrote the score for the Democratic National Convention video, “We the People,” which aired on Monday, August 17. He also wrote music for two other videos, including “This Time Next Year,” shown on the convention’s final night . . . . John Dennehy (Biology) received attention for the protocol he developed with Monica Trujillo (Biological Sciences and Geology, Queensborough Community College) for determining the local prevalence of COVID-19 by measuring the level of the virus in New York City sewage . . . . Michael Finkel ’01, director and senior counsel at the Global Investment Bank Societe Generale, is to be nominated director of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation . . . .

Tarry Hum (Urban Studies) reports that her department’s policy brief, Disrupt Disparities in Gentrification: Older Adults in Gentrifying New York, pgs. 26-34,​ was published earlier this year in the AARP Disrupting Racial and Ethnic Disparities 2.0 report ​ . . . . Sari Kisilevsky (Philosophy) published an essay, “Queens College students persevere in spite of COVID’s toll: A professor’s perspective” in the Queens Eagle . . . .

Maaze Mengiste (English) was nominated for the Booker Prize for her latest novel, The Shadow King, as reported by the BBC . . . . Yoko Nomura (Psychology) is among the coauthors of a study on common genetic risks for ADHD and narcolepsy, published in Nature . . . . Caroline Rupprecht (Comparative Literature) announced publication of her new book, Asian Fusion: New Encounters in the Asian-German Avant-Garde (Peter Lang) . . . .

Jerry Seinfeld ’76 disputed assertions that New York City is dead with an opinion column in the New York Times . . . . Edward Smaldone (ACSM) has released two CDs. Double Portrait (Ablaze Records) and Amazon Music. Once and Again (New Focus Records) can be downloaded here; enter code 10887 . . . . John Weir (English) won the Grace Paley Price for Short Fiction from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs for his short story collection, Your Nostalgia is Killing Me (Red Hen Press) . . . . QC President Frank H. Wu will present a webinar, “Asian Americans at a Cross Roads During COVID-19: Allyship and the Future of Civil Rights,” on September 15, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, through the Dean’s Distinguished Speakers Series 2020 at the University of Houston Law Center . . . . Mason Youngblood, a doctoral student in psychology, published a paper in Nature on the spread of far-right extremism in the United States from 2005 to 2017.