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

#53

From left: student Kathia Giardullo, Professor Maral Tajeria, Interim President William Tramontano

Getting to know the campus community, Queens College Interim President William Tramontano, a cellular biologist, met fellow scientists and new faculty members Sebastian Alvarado and Maral Tajerian in their labs. Alvarado and Tajerian are a husband and wife team who—in addition to their research and teaching duties—co-founded Thwacke, a consulting firm that polishes the science behind the fiction seen in broadcast television, film, and video games. Following a consult on The Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N., Alvarado went on to publish his first book, The Science of Marvel, with Simon & Schuster, in April 2019. At the college, Alvarado focuses on the evolution of the African cichlid fish. Tajerian studies the mechanisms of chronic pain.

From left, standing: Interim President William Tramontano , Professor Sebastian Alvarado; seated: students Seulbi Lee and Kimberly Wu

Interim President William Tramontano (in suit, at far right) attended his first meeting of the Kupferberg Center Arts Advisory Board on Wednesday, June 12, at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum. The board, which consists of professionals from the business community, arts leaders in a range of disciplines, and senior members of the QC administration, as well as students and current and former faculty, gets together twice a year.

At the invitation of Representative Grace Meng, a QC delegation led by Interim President William Tramontano was in attendance on Monday, June 24, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Meng visited Elmhurst Hospital Center to protest deportation raids that had been planned for the previous weekend by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. From left: Grace Meng; Nancy Pelosi; Steven Choi, executive director, New York Immigration Coalition.

About 30 participants, ranging in age from 3.5 years old to 75, learned about local flora and fauna when the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, in collaboration with the New York City Parks Department, led a nature walk through Kissena Park on Wednesday, July 10. The museum’s latest show, Hope is the Thing with Feathers: Art of the Natural World, was extended through July 31.

Perhaps the coolest place on campus on Monday, July 15, was the Tech Incubator at Queens College, which welcomed an estimated 40 guests to an open house for middle and high school students and their parents. Computer science students from the college were enlisted as teachers, conducting classes and demos on website design, 3-D modeling and printing, and virtual reality, among other topics.

New York City Councilmember Inez Barron (left), chair of the council’s Higher Education Committee, listened to students Oheine Porter and Jade Perry during a visit to QC on Wednesday, July 24, in connection with the Fostering College Success Initiative. Through this program, young people transitioning out of foster care are housed in campus residence halls while attending CUNY colleges. This fall, 40 FCSI students will be living in The Summit Apartments; a quarter of the students will be enrolled at QC.

The Committee for Disabled Students cooked up a great event on Thursday, July 25, to celebrate the 19th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Senator Toby Stavisky, and Assemblymembers Catalina Cruz, Daniel Rosenthal, and Harvey Epstein spoke to the many attendees, focusing on helping the 11,000 CUNY students with disabilities achieve their educational goals. Then everyone tucked into hamburgers, hotdogs, and other standard seasonal fare.

A DREAM Comes True for Undocumented Students

As of this month, a college education is more attainable for countless immigrants throughout New York City and State. Thanks to the Jose Peralta New York State DREAM Act, undocumented students may apply for the Excelsior Scholarship, the Tuition Assistance Program, and other types of state-administered financial aid. To be eligible, students must have completed high school diplomas or GEDs in New York; for details, click here. (Bear in mind that state-funded programs have different deadlines. For the fall 2019 term, applications for the Excelsior Scholarship must be submitted by 11:59 pm on August 14, 2019.)

The DREAM Act was named posthumously for its original sponsor, a QC alumnus and former Student Association president who was the first Dominican-American elected to the New York State Senate. “The late Senator Peralta was an early outspoken champion of this cause, and he would be proud to know that this day has come,” said CUNY Chancellor Felix V. Matos Rodriguez. “As a graduate of Queens College, he understood the many ways that extending opportunity to Dreamers and other undocumented New Yorkers would benefit the university and its students alike.”

For information about what to do before, during, and after an encounter with Immigration and Enforcement agents, refer to this memo from Chancellor Matos Rodriguez.

Pridefest Marks 50th Anniversary of Stonewall Uprising

Rain was in the forecast, but spirits remained undamped when QC hosted the Second Annual CUNY Pridefest on Thursday, June 20. The celebration—which commemorated the LGBTQ community’s violent resistance to a police raid at Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969—moved into the Dining Hall, where QC’s Interim President William Tramontano gave opening remarks. Adam Rockman (Student Affairs) and Stephen Petrus (LaGuardia and Wagner Archives) also addressed the crowd. A Reflections on Stonewall presentation, an LGBTQIA+ community expo area, and student musical and dance performances were among the highlights of the afternoon.

QC is grateful to Queens College LGBTQI+ Programs and CUNY Pridefest Coordinator John Carlson, and to the event’s many supporters: LaGuardia Community College/CUNY; the New York City Council, through the offices of Speaker Corey Johnson and Council Member Daniel Dromm; Vishnick McGovern Milizio LLP; and the offices of the Queens College President, Vice President for Student Affairs, Student Development and Leadership, the Student Association, and its organizations—the Gender, Love, and Sexuality Alliance (GLASA), Guyanese Student Association, Circle K International and Inter-Greek Council.

From left: GLASA member Cayla Kempf, former GLASA President Shua Reinstein , Andrew Kimler, QC Interim President William Tramontano, Joseph Milizio, Angel Delgado, Circle K member Hunter Lane , QC VP Adam Rockman

Above, left: Pridefest activities attracted an enthusiastic crowd. Above, right: Among the performers was Bella Noche (left); John Carlson played a critical role in planning the event.

Forum Features Female Asian American Executives

The fourth and final Business Forum Breakfast of the academic year, held in the Student Union on Friday, June 28, focused on the challenges and obstacles faced by Asian American women entrepreneurs. Jennifer Rambarran, director in the Regulatory Risk and Quality Control Group of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, moderated a panel comprising Tammy Mooney, associate state director of Operations and Finance at the New York State Small Business Development Center; Christina Seid, second-generation owner of Chinatown Ice Cream Factory; and Hanah Tran, founder of FHH Group, a Tokyo-based global agency that strategically invests in and incubates portfolio startups. Investors Foundation, sponsor of the event, presented $2,500 scholarships to two QC students majoring in accounting and information systems—Iris Fang and Hazel Hernandez.

The Business Forum Breakfast series will resume on September 25. That session, devoted to technology and titled “High Tech Meets Higher Education,” will feature Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of CUNY, and Martha Pollack, president of Cornell University, which operates a satellite tech campus on Roosevelt Island. Their discussion will be moderated by QC Interim President William Tramontano.

QC is entering the new academic year with changes in the administrative lineup.

Sandy Curko has been named interim general counsel, filling the position left vacant when Glenda Grace became CUNY’s senior vice chancellor for institutional affairs, strategic advancement and special counsel. Curko previously served in CUNY’s Office of Labor Relations as a hearing officer, presiding over Step Two grievance hearings.

Troy Hahn has joined the college as interim assistant vice president and chief information officer for Information Technology Services, replacing Tom Hull, who is returning to Florida. Hahn comes to QC from Medgar Evers College, where he was AVP for Technology and CIO.

Joseph Loughren has been appointed assistant vice president for Finance and Administration, replacing Jeanne DeMasters, who has retired. In Loughren’s prior position, he served as director of financial services for Facilities and Administration at Stony Brook University.

Meghan Moore-Wilk has left CUNY Central, where she was director of Space Planning, to serve as QC’s interim chief of staff, succeeding Glenda Grace. Moore-Wilk has extensive experience in coordinating facilities planning and developing capital projects.

Yongwu Rong has been named associate provost for Research and International Programs, a new position on campus. Previously, he was associate dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at the George Washington University.

Jeff Rosenstock, assistant vice president for External Affairs and Governmental Relations, is serving as acting director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, replacing Kenyon Adams, who resigned in July.

Sharon Shulman has assumed the title of interim chief diversity officer and Title IX coordinator. For the past 25 years, she was the director of professional programs in the college’s Office of Professional Studies, overseeing the paralegal program and, more recently, the project management and personal development programs.

In two last changes, the college is bidding a fond farewell to June Bobb and Brian DeMasters, who have retired after long careers at QC. Bobb taught English, specializing in Caribbean literature and women’s writers, before assuming administrative responsibilities as assistant provost and assistant vice president for Enrollment and Retention. DeMasters, a QC alum, has been full-time at Athletics since 1980, serving in multiple capacities, including softball coach, interim athletic director, and his most recent title, director of camps.

CUNY Opens Search for QC’s Next Chief Executive

The national search for a new president of Queens College is under way; candidate applications are now being accepted.

For more information, to submit confidential inquiries, nominations and application materials, and to read a comprehensive leadership profile, visit qc.cuny.edu/presidentialsearch .

Marie Ponsot

By assigning herself ten minutes of writing a day amid personal and professional responsibilities that would have overwhelmed anyone else, former QC Professor Marie Ponsot—who passed away on July 5 at age 98—became one of the nation’s most admired poets.

A native New Yorker born in 1921 to a schoolteacher and a businessman who variously imported wine, olive oil, or cigars, Marie discovered her voice early: Her first published poem appeared in a children’s column in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A graduate of Richmond Hill High School in Queens, she earned a BA from St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn, and in 1941 a master’s degree in 17th-century literature from Columbia University. Employed at a book store, she left it after World War II and sailed to Paris, where she took classes at the Sorbonne and traded books and poems with fellow student Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whom she met crossing the Atlantic. She also met and married a painter, Claude Ponsot.

The 1950s found the couple and their growing family ensconced in Queens with Marie’s parents. Claude’s lack of earnings were offset by Marie, who wrote for radio and worked as a freelance translator. Ferlinghetti, by that point living in San Francisco, published her first collection, True Minds, a volume of love poems—the title referenced Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.” 

The romance didn’t last. Ponsot began teaching at Queens College in 1966; four years later, she and her husband called it quits, leaving her a single mother responsible for seven children. Writing in spare moments on whatever paper was available, she stuffed a desk drawer with poems about divorce, family life, and nature. These works would comprise her second collection, also referencing Sonnet 116—Admit Impediment.

Teaching at QC until 1991, and after that at New York University and Columbia, among other institutions, Ponsot would release five more collections. In a long and distinguished career, she also translated more than 30 books from French into English, and received numerous honors, including the Shaughnessy Medal of the Modern Language Association, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a lifetime achievement award. Nonetheless, she remained modest. “Anyone can write a line of poetry,” she insisted. “Try. That’s my word: try.”

Ponsot is survived by all of her children, 16 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and her readers. NYTimes. America Magazine.

David Starr ’42

An iconic figure within the Advance Publications media company and in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he was the long-term publisher of The Republican, QC alumnus David Starr died on July 1 at 96.

Starr, ne David Sinowitz, was born in New York City in 1922 to Polish immigrants. He spent much of his childhood in his father’s candy store, reading every paper it sold. By age 10, he had resolved to become a newspaperman; two years later, he began his long relationship with the Long Island Press, an Advance property, as one of its delivery boys. He was editor of the newspaper at Richmond Hill High School, and was elected to the same title at the Crown, the original student paper at QC, where he majored in economics, deeming the subject useful to a journalist. A multitasker before the term had been coined, he sold freelance articles to the Press under the byline of David Starr, spent weekends in its newsroom as a copy boy, worked as campus correspondent for both the Daily News and the New York Times, and even served as the college’s director of public relations. In that last capacity, “I was paid $15 a week, and that was good money,” he recalled.

The Press snapped up Starr—who had legally changed his name—upon his graduation, aware that he was about to enter the army. Ultimately, he was deployed with counterintelligence in Austria, where, thanks to his command of German and French, he was tasked with arresting prominent Nazis and their sympathizers. “It was an enjoyable job for a Jew from New York City,” Starr said. Demobbed, he returned to the Press, rising on its masthead; apart from brief stints at two other publications, he stayed at the paper until it folded in 1977. Then, because he told Advance that he wanted to run his own paper, he was given responsibility for The Republican.

As publisher, Starr won over staffers who regarded him as an outsider and immersed himself in Springfield. He played a prominent role in the city’s revitalization and supported local institutions, such as the symphony, the public radio station, and native son Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, who is honored with a memorial garden that Starr helped to establish. His efforts, which included leadership roles in too many newspaper and cultural organizations to list, did not go unrecognized. In 2017, Massachusetts presented him with a Governor’s Award in the Humanities.

Starr is survived by his wife of 76 years, Peggy; their two children; their two grandchildren; and the countless journalists he mentored in his remarkable career. Mass Live.

Andrew Beveridge (Sociology) contributed to two amicus briefs filed before the Supreme Court; one concerned gerrymandering and the other addressed the citizenship question proposed for the U.S. Census. His research on another topic—New York City’s affordable housing lotteries—was cited in a New York Times article about his report, which the city released in response to a federal court ruling . . . Joseph Brostek ’55 published pieces in the Queens Chronicle and the Queens Historic Society Newsletter recalling Apollo 11. As a member of the advertising department of the Continental Can Company—which made flexible food pouches astronauts would use in space—Brostek created commemorative pouches that were mailed during the mission to 675 leaders in business, finance, and media, postmarked Apollo, Pennsylvania . . . Kimiko Hahn (English) saw the publication of “Trigger Happy” in Kenyon Review Online . . . Daniel Kaufman (Linguistics) was quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article about the linguistic diversity of Queens and his efforts to document endangered languages . . . Jose Sanchez (Library and Information Studies) has won two grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, totaling nearly $500,000. He was awarded $150,000 for “National Forum on Integrating Computational Thinking into LIS Youth Services Courses” and $349,375 for “Diversity by Design: Scaling and Fostering Diverse and Inclusive Intergenerational Communities of Practice” . . . The June 2019 issue of CUNY Matters profiled Chu May Paing ’17, who is doing work in Myanmar with the support of a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship. Coverage was also given to Kaitlin McDermott, named to this year’s class of Jeannette K. Watson Fellows, and Alessa Farinella, recipient of the Beinecke Memorial Scholarship . . . . QC’s Urban Teacher Residency Program was cited as a model of success in Teacher Residencies: Supporting the Next Generation of Teachers and Students, a report issued by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. . . John Waldman (Biology) is interviewed in the third episode of AdriftNYC, a podcast series exploring 30 New York City waterways.

The QView will resume publication in September