Discimus ut serviamus:
We learn so that we may serve.
|
|
The stars were in alignment at LeFrak Concert Hall within the renowned Aaron Copland School of Music on Monday, November 18, when QC hosted the inaugural Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards Ceremony. The evening featured celebrity presenters
Brian d’Arcy James, Robert Klein, Marissa McGowan, Paul Shaffer, Joe Torre (seen at left with Interim President William Tramontano), and Martha Stewart,
as well as a program of Hamlisch’s repertoire performed by the Queens College Orchestra, the QC Choral Society, and prominent guest artists. QC music students were among the scholarship recipients. A selection of photos of this most memorable tribute to the late alumni composer may be viewed at
www.qc.cuny.edu.
|
|
Professionals on Campus brought (l to r) Vishnick McGovern Milizio LLP attorneys Andrew Kimler ’74 and Joseph Milizio, and Roy Schwartz, the firm's director of Marketing and Business Development, to campus on Monday, November 18, at 1 pm, for an LGBTQI+ legal rights and remedies workshop in the President’s Lounge and Patio Room of the Dining Hall. The event was sponsored by the Office of Student Development and Leadership, the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs, and the Office of Institutional Advancement.
|
|
Institutional Advancement presented additional POC events on Thursday, November 21. At right: In a discussion with Amy David (Accounting and Information Systems), Ellis Ende ’77, CPA, managing partner, and partner-in-charge of business advisory services at the accounting firm Raiche Ende Malter & Co. shared professional pointers from 2:15 to 3:15 pm in Powdermaker 116. Below: Celebrated soprano Reri Grist ’54, one of the first African American vocalists to achieve a major international career in opera, listened to singers from the Aaron Copland School of Music from 2:30 to 4:30 pm in the Choral Room of the Music Building.
|
|
Campbell Dome was the setting for a conversation from 5 to 6:15 pm with four alumni prominent in real estate. Below, from left: Howard Sipzner, managing member and founder of Dunes Capital LLC; Laurie Dorf, QC's VP for Institutional Advancement; John Roche, chief executive officer and chief financial officer of ShopOne Centers REIT; Daniel Fromm, senior managing director of Newmark Knight Frank; and Barbara Hochhauser, licensed associate real estate broker and senior global advisor of the Corcoran Group.
|
|
The next POC date, on Monday, November 25, featured Gary Katz ’81, former president and chief executive officer of the International Securities Exchange, from 10:45 to 12 noon in Powdermaker 118. Katz is front-row center of the photo below, flanked by Interim President William Tramontano and VP for Institutional Advancement Laurie Dorf; in the back, from left, are Economics Professor Luc Marest and Dean of Social Sciences Michael Wolfe.
|
|
Upon receiving the 2019 Thomas Tam Scholarship at the Asian American/Asian Research Institute’s 18th annual gala in Chinatown on November 14, Biling Chen was congratulated by Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Elizabeth Hendrey. Chen is an international student at Queensborough Community College and a peer mentor in STEM Bridges Across Eastern Queens, a partnership between Queens College and QCC funded by the U.S. Department of Education
HSI-STEM program
.
|
|
Birds of a feather run in the cold together: Approximately 40 people took part in the campus Turkey Trot on Wednesday, November 20, testing themselves on a 1.5-mile course—three and a half laps around the Quad.
|
|
A wonderful time was had by all at QC’s first Latinx Faculty Soiree, sponsored by the Office of the Provost on the evening of Thursday, November 21. “There was no formal agenda—just an opportunity for faculty to socialize, feel a sense of community, and celebrate faculty diversity,” reports Alicia Alvero, a
ssociate provost of Academic and Faculty Affairs.
|
|
QC Ranks Fourth on National Social Mobility Index
Queens College holds fourth place—up from eleventh last year—in the annual social mobility index issued by CollegeNET, which provides web-based services to higher education and nonprofit institutions. The company conducted its
national survey
of 1,458 four-year colleges and universities by analyzing five variables: tuition, economic background of the student body, graduation rates, early career net salaries, and the school’s endowment.
“CollegeNET’s index is just the latest evidence of the outstanding value of a Queens College education,” says Interim President William Tramontano. “The work done by faculty and staff on our campus—and elsewhere in The City University of New York—enables hardworking students from all backgrounds to attain lasting professional and personal success.”
CUNY dominated the CollegeNET index, with six colleges in the top 25. Baruch came in first, followed by QC, Brooklyn College (ninth), Lehman College (14th), Hunter College (16th), and City College (23rd).
|
|
Visiting Fulbright Scholar Sowmya Dechamma Explores the Politics of Language
When languages are the focus of your study, the Borough of Queens, where some 160 languages are spoken, makes an appealing locale in which to do your research. “I read about Queens being one of the most diverse places for languages,” says Sowmya Dechamma (Comparative Literature), a visiting Fulbright Scholar from the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Hyderabad in India. “I thought it would be interesting to look at the dynamics of language here and that it would coincide with my interests in what I’m doing for my research.”
“I’m exploring the relationship of the dominant written languages that claim the glory of a long past and the languages that have not required the need of writing thus far,” says Dechamma, who focuses on the politics of language. “These languages do have a history, articulated in other forms than in writing. . . . Because the spoken histories are very difficult to document—they’re not recorded in the sense of the written languages—it has huge implications to the histories and identities of the community concerned.”
Dechamma’s interest can be traced, in part, to her own formative years. “My community is Kodava, which is an ethnolinguistic minority,” she says. Today, she speaks six languages, including English, which she was taught in school, and can manage two more.
Written Language Rules
“Language politics plays out in a way that privileges the written,” she continues. “That includes any written language; it’s not just Sanskrit, or Hindi, or Tamil. In Karnataka, the state where I come from, Kannada claims more than 1,500 years of written history. The smaller languages are always cocooned in a very private realm.” There are 780 recognized languages in India. Some of them have begun being written just recently and only two—Hindi and English—are recognized as the country’s official languages.
Dechamma’s studies are being facilitated, in part, by the PL 480 program created in 1956 to supply American wheat to India after crops were devastated by successive monsoons. Rupees paid to the U.S. government were used to buy Indian books in various languages for distribution to American university libraries by the Library of Congress.
“Because of that there is a whole lot of material that is lodged in U.S. libraries. I thought that I could access that,” says Dechamma. “But I also wanted to know what’s happening within comparative literature in this part of the world. Indian comparative literature, while it is established and it is old, is not as flourishing as, let’s say, departments of English. I thought that being in a comparative literature department here would help me understand what’s going on and if we could enrich our departments back home.”
|
|
Upcoming Event and Course
In the meantime, Dechamma is enriching the QC campus. On Thursday, December 5, from 12:15 to 1:30 pm, Dechamma will present a public lecture, “The Language Question: Notes of a Comparatist on Sanskritization and Ethnography,” in Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, President’s Conference Room 2. Next semester, she will teach a course in modern Indian literary cultures. “I’ll be teaching texts from 1890s onward,” she says. “Until then, very few languages wrote extensively.” The course will use English translations of literature written in different Indian languages. “Even in India,” she explains, “when most of us teach Indian literature, it is in English because there is no one Indian language into which everything is translated.”
|
|
Suzana Pavisic Appointed Director of Graduate Admissions
QC’s new director of Graduate Admissions, Suzana Pavisic, is familiar to many on campus: She was the college’s associate director of Graduate Recruitment from 2013 to 2015.
Pavisic, who assumed her position on November 18, has 13 years of enrollment management experience, in both the public and private sectors. She comes to Queens College from Manhattan College, where she served for the past four years as director of Admissions for Graduate and Continuing and Professional Programs, the school’s first director in that position. In that capacity, she created and implemented student-centered recruitment initiatives for both graduate and working professional student populations. Pavisic worked closely with deans, program directors, and other stakeholders to achieve consistency, transparency, and best practice in the student enrollment process. She holds a BA and a Master of Arts in Teaching Social Studies from Manhattanville College and a Master of Business Administration from Manhattan College.
|
|
Taruna Sadhoo Named Manager of CUNY Service Corps
QC alumna Taruna Sadhoo returned to campus on November 4 as manager of the CUNY Service Corps.
“Taruna will build on the success the Service Corps has had, with approximately 625 students having completed the program,” says Eva M. Fernández, associate provost for Innovation and Student Success. “Now in our seventh year, we currently have 124 students in paid positions at our partner sites. The program develops opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to work on projects that improve the city’s short- and long-term civic, economic and environmental sustainability efforts.” Sadhoo comes to QC from UNICEF USA, where as senior director of Community Engagement she led the development, management, and expansion of the organization’s community, youth, and volunteer mobilization strategies. Previously, she served as the assistant director of Student-Alumni Programs at Columbia University and spent three years as an academic advisor and coordinator of specialty advising at QC. Sadhoo holds a Masters in Higher and Post-Secondary Education from Teachers College at Columbia, and a BA in Psychology from QC.
|
|
Chapbook Festival to Spring Up on Campus
Distinguished Professor Kimiko Hahn (English) is bringing chapbooks to Queens College! An award-winning poet who tests the boundaries of poetic form and genre, she is also a writer and aficionado of chapbooks: modest publications that have had impressive longevity among varied audiences from early modernity right up through the present. From stapled photocopies to hand-lettered presses to digital editions, their versatility continues to endear them to bibliophiles of all sorts—students, writers, artists, and readers.
Hahn is planning an ambitious, three-day Chapbook Festival in March 2020 that will feature new work and independent regional presses. Held in Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, it will be open to the QC community and the public, with activities appealing to both enthusiasts and people new to the genre. A highlight of the program will be a reading and talk by New York State Poet Laureate Alicia Ostriker, who will be publishing new work for the occasion with Queens chapbook press
Ghostbird
. Acclaimed poet Cornelius Eady and his trio will perform his original songs, also published in chapbook form. Ugly Duckling Presse will lead a workshop in the Makerspace on making chapbooks. Also planned for the weekend are panels, readings, and a book fair.
This festival reprises an earlier incarnation
that Hahn took part in organizing
at the CUNY Graduate Center; that event had a five-year run and involved major literary organizations and chapbook publishers.
The QC initiative is co-sponsored by a CUNY Affiliation Group (comprising the four CUNY MFA Programs and supported by the executive vice chancellor’s office) and
Rosenthal Library—especially Kristin Hart, Annie Tummino, Jeremy Czerw, Nick Normal, and Leila Walker—and MFA colleagues Nicole Cooley and John Rice.
“In an age when everything is never fast enough, the chapbook is a small anchor to the moment; it is a pause to read and relish,” says Hahn. “It is also an object that can be made by anyone and gifted all around. We are so excited to celebrate the chapbook by bringing readers, writers—and future chapbook makers together.”
Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
|
|
Looking to Warmer Times
Cold weather last week reminded us that summer is only seven months away! QC offers four summer 2020 sessions, and registration for all of them has already opened. This is a great benefit for planning and scheduling purposes. To learn more, students can
click here, view “Enrollment Dates” on their CUNYfirst Student Service Center, or consult an academic advisor.
|
|
Building Futures Profile: The Brostek Family
|
|
Learning from—and Serving—QC
The Brostek family has had a long association with Queens College. Joseph Brostek ‘55, QC's unofficial historian, himself has chalked up almost 70 years! A Queens Village native who graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan, Joe stayed in his home borough during college. “The price ($30?) was certainly right,” he notes, speaking like the economics major he was. Efficient with time, too, he threw himself into all kinds of activities, serving as president of both Phi Omega Alpha and the Student Council while fulfilling the requirements of the United States Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps.
At a Newman Club meeting, he met Carol Heiser ‘54, a campus personality in her own right: She would become the club’s vice president as well as president of her sorority, Sigma Delta Chi. They married in 1956 and moved to Topeka, Kansas, where Joe served with the Strategic Air Command. When his tour was over, they moved back to New York City where the family grew to five children. Joe embarked on a business career that encompassed sales, marketing, corporate identity, TV and events management, while Carol was a homemaker, active in her church and community.
Their third child, also named Carol, emulated her parents by matriculating at QC. “It offered me an affordable option close to home,” she says. “Many days I walked or rode my bike to school. The fact that it was my parents’ alma mater was a bonus!” A staff writer for the QC newspaper
Night Beat
and a psychology major, she graduated with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1982; at that Commencement, the Brosteks were honored as one of the first of the college’s second-generation families. (They had also been honored as Alumni Family of the Year in 1965.)
In 1986, Joe left the corporate world and joined the college as a consultant, eventually serving in five administrations. By 1988, he was the director of special events, a portfolio that included Commencement, service award ceremonies, groundbreakings, ribbon-cuttings, presidential events, and much more. Borough President Helen Marshall acknowledged his service by declaring June 2, 2005—the 50th anniversary of his graduation—Joseph Brostek Day in Queens. Marshall announced a second Joseph Brostek Day on March 9, 2010, at a party marking the namesake’s retirement from QC.
In a more durable form of recognition, QC established the Joe and Carol Brostek Prize, which provides financial assistance to outstanding students who hold leadership roles on campus; subsequently, Joe made it a fully endowed scholarship. “I have been very pleased to meet the wonderful recipients over the years,” he reports. A widower since 2012, he treasures his children, grandchildren, and extended QC family, and remains involved with the college as an officer of the retiree’s association. He is also quite active in many community organizations including the Queens Historical Society.
|
|
In
Memoriam
: James Doyle '43
|
|
James Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada from 1958 through 1988, passed away on Thursday, November 20, at the age of 98.
The son of an accountant who changed jobs often in the Depression, Doyle was born in Pittsburgh in 1921 and moved around the Midwest with his family until they settled in Long Island. Upon graduating from high school, he enrolled at QC. Elected president of his class, he worked closely with the vice president, Ethel Miriam Clancey. “We joined energies for the benefit of our fellow students, and in doing so grew to know and respect one other, started dating, and fell in love,” he recalled in a note to the alumni magazine.
Already enlisted in the army by the time the couple married in 1943, Doyle saw World War II duty as an aerial photo interpreter; among the many photographs he interpreted and annotated was the run of pictures of Hiroshima, Japan, destroyed by U.S. bombing. He was awarded a citation for this service by General Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific and Southwest Pacific.
Doyle had been editing a trade journal when he interviewed at CPA, telling its officers they’d be making a mistake if they didn’t hire him. They agreed. Twenty-six years later, Pope John Paul II recognized his contributions by naming him a Knight of St. Gregory the Great. After retiring from the CPA, Doyle wrote a column in
Catholic New York
for several years. Some of his pieces are collected in
Tales from a Real Life,
published by Saint Mary’s Press.
Doyle is survived by his wife, Ethel, and an extended family of children, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
|
|
Maaza Mengiste
(English), author of the highly acclaimed novel
The Shadow King,
was the subject of a story in the CUNY website,
SUM
, and in the CUNY Podcast Book
Beat
. . . QC has published its first
Global Newsletter
,
documenting exciting developments in all campus divisions . . . The
Tech Incubator
hosted two Girls Who Code clubs this semester, as seen in
this video
.
Activities were facilitated by
Ivy Pan, a data scientist from Via, and QC students
Ming Lei
,
Muxiang Lin
,
Shuhau Song
,
Michelle Yu
, and
Hannah Zeng
. At a graduation ceremony on November 17, club members presented the websites, games, and robots they created . . . Approximately 100 world history students from Queens High School for the Sciences @ York College visited the
Godwin-Ternbach Museum
on November 18-19 to look at objects from its permanent collection. After closely observing items from Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, China, Greece, and Italy, the students shared ideas and participated in a lively discussion. Then they were captivated by the contemporary works in the museum’s current exhibition,
Arte Cubano
.
|
|
The
Q View
is produced by the
Office of Communications and Marketing.
Comments and suggestions for future news items
are welcome.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
