Discimus ut serviamus: We learn so that we may serve.
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QView #127 | April 26, 2022
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Peter Archer ’85—retired band director at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School 74 in Bayside and a consultant for the Oscar-winning and hit animated movie, Soul—swung by campus on Tuesday, April 12. Archer is organizing his personal papers to donate to Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library. From left: Annie Tummino (Special Collections and Archives), President Frank H. Wu, Peter Archer, and Scott Davis (Music Library).
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Men’s Tennis Clinches Third-Straight ECC Regular Season Title |
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The Queens College men’s tennis team has finished the regular season in first place in the East Coast Conference (ECC) for the third consecutive season, finishing with a record of 15-7 overall and 6-0 in the ECC.
The Knights will now head into the ECC Men’s Tennis Championship as the #1 seed. The championship will be held at Queens College on Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30. Queens will take on the #4 seed, Daemen University, at 11 am on Friday in the semifinals. If the Knights win, they will advance to face the winner of #2 St. Thomas Aquinas College and #3 University of the District of Columbia in the championship match at 12 pm on Saturday.
The Knights will be seeking their fifth-straight ECC Championship. Should QC win the ECC Championship, they would receive an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
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Mobile phones and Queens College T-shirts have evolved since the 1990s, and so has the man in the photo, who turns 67 on April 29. Among the benefits of aging, Jerry Seinfeld reports, is that when people ask him to do something, he can just say no. “I don’t feel old; I don’t feel tired,” the celebrated QC alumnus observed recently. “I’ve just seen a lot of things.”
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The topics included pursuing the American Dream, immigrants, achieving career success, the option of double majors, and the importance of speaking out and combating hate on Monday, April 11, when President Frank H. Wu visited a class led by Wen-shan Shih (Chinese). |
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During the Yellow Heart Memorial event on Wednesday, April 13, members of the QC community supported each other and collectively mourned loved ones lost to COVID-19. Speakers included Borough President Donovan Richards, Senator Joseph Addabbo, Assemblymember Nily Rozic, family members of COVID-19 victims, and the QC students who organized the event. Watch QC mailers for information from the Office of Student Affairs on future activities.
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At an anti-hate-crime rally on campus Wednesday, April 13, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that 205 nonprofit organizations had been awarded almost $16 million in total through the Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes program. The event was featured in a two-minute video produced by the Office of Communications and Marketing. Houses of worship, religious schools, and civic organizations were among the grant recipients. President Frank H. Wu introduced the governor and thanked her for “strongly standing against the virus of bigotry, antisemitism, and discrimination infecting the state and nation.” About two hundred community, religious, and civic leaders attended. Speakers included Congressmember Grace Meng, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, District Attorney Melinda Katz, Senator Toby Stavisky, Assemblymember Nily Rozic, and Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal.
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The Office of Compliance and Diversity inaugurated the Campus Conversations series on Thursday, April 14, with an event featuring prominent civil rights activist and journalist Myrlie Evers-Williams. Over Zoom, Evers-Williams talked about her career and her campaign to get justice for the murder of her husband, Medgar. Speaking from her California home, she was joined by President Frank H. Wu and answered questions from an admiring QC community on combating racism, promoting societal change and voting rights. Breakout sessions were held on related topics, including Delany Hall concerns. |
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A reception for Queens Rising, a borough-wide arts festival taking place this June, attracted arts, business, and community leaders to the Queens Museum on Wednesday, April 20. |
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President Frank H. Wu and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards |
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President Wu; Rebecca Leifer and Sean Rilley from Forest Hills Stadium; AVP of External and Governmental Relations Jeffrey Rosenstock (back to camera), who moderated the program. |
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President Frank H. Wu delivered the Wednesday, April 13 keynote at the annual CUNY Accessibility Conference. It was the first time a college president spoke in this capacity. The event was live-streamed and widely publicized by the event organizers. Those who missed the speech—which featured a PowerPoint presentation—can watch it here.
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Thinking Globally
The QC delegation won two major awards at the National Model United Nations (NMUN) conference held in person the week of April 10, 2022, at the Hilton Midtown Hotel in Manhattan. The delegation which represented India won Honorable Delegation Award and Outstanding Delegate for the Food and Agriculture Organization. More than 94 schools and 1300 students participated in this year’s event.
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Members of QC's Model UN team enjoy a photo op with Sneha Dubey (front row, third from left) of the Permanent Mission of India at the United Nations and, at far right, Francois Pierre-Louis (Political Science). |
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NMUN’s annual New York conference, the oldest and largest intercollegiate Model UN in the world, gives students the opportunity to explore a range of topics from the perspective of their assigned country or organization. |
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Marking Holocaust Remembrance Day |
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National Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and President Frank H. Wu will explore past and current events during a conversation taking place tomorrow—Wednesday, April 27, at 7 pm—in commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). Their conversation is presented by the Center for Jewish Studies and QC.
Prior to joining the ADL, Greenblatt was an accomplished business executive and entrepreneur who served the Obama administration as director of the Office of Social Innovation. He wrote It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—and How We Can Stop It, published earlier this year.
The discussion, conducted in Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, Room 230, will be livestreamed. To attend in person or receive the online link, register here.
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Poetry Month, Continued
This week, in observance of National Poetry Month, QView features a work by Nicole Cooley (English).
Trash
Good you are trashing, my husband says, when I send him a photo
of a plastic fork and an N95 I found on the ground beside
the closed down library. And I know he wonders why I disappear
for hours, walking the streets of nearby towns. Walking
is the only way to be reliably alone, though how I miss bodies,
shoulder to shoulder on the E-train, that press and discomfort.
Small pink tricycle, I type into my phone. Empty bottle of bleach.
I track objects. Look for the discarded. Behind the shuttered
Our Lady of the Lake chapel: flattened box
of animal crackers. Empty bottle of gin.
Taped to a garbage can – handwritten note for those who
will empty it: Thank you and stay safe!
Merleau-Ponty once said, The body is our general medium
for having a world, but I walk to outpace my body, to leave it
behind with relief. In the church parking lot, an open
box of Emergency Food from the county, bag of green onions,
school-size carton of milk. You are a bad mother runs the soundtrack
in my head. I can’t give my girls faith in the future.
Later, I’ll drive to the grocery store, in my mask and gloves,
wait in line outside, fill the cart with food for my family, desiring nothing.
I used up all my wanting in the early months, a year ago,
when I bargained everything I loved away to keep my daughters safe.
Now it’s mid-winter, the wind sharp-edged, pricking
my skin, the sky curdled milk. Now I walk to find
the hinge in the world where I can slip back
into the Before, last February when we knew
nothing, my daughters together in a light-pooled room,
together at the kitchen table. I think the body
is a medium for nothing, Later tonight while my girls sleep,
I’ll stretch out awake and shaking under sheets
as if under the surface of river water.
—Nicole Cooley
(Published in PLUME)
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Gala Gets Down to Business
Seats are still available for the annual Queens College Gala on Wednesday, May 11, at Gustavino’s in Manhattan. The gala is the college’s biggest fundraiser, supporting student scholarships, faculty research, and more. Accomplished business executives Paulette E. Mullings Bradnock ’84, chief audit executive for BNY Mellon, and Matthew T. Higgins ’98, co-founder and chief executive of RSE Ventures, are this year’s honorees. To learn more about the gala or purchase tickets, click here.
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Paulette E. Mullings Bradnock |
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“Shaking Up Science,” the latest Big Ideas video, debuted on April 21, right before Earth Day. In this episode, Cecilia McHugh (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences) explains how her study of earthquakes can help her forecast when they will happen again.
Big Ideas, an original online video series introduced last year by the Office of Communications and Marketing, highlights the innovative research of QC faculty. The current season is described here.
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John Joseph Gates, an assistant psychology professor at Queens College in the 1960s, passed away in January from complications of a chronic heart condition. He was 81.
A native Brooklynite, Gates earned a BA in psychology from Manhattan College, followed by a master’s in the same subject as well as a doctorate in clinical psychology and school psychology from Florida State University. He completed a clinical internship at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, California, and a post-doc at the University of Kansas’s Bureau of Child Research in Parsons, Kansas, before joining the QC faculty.
Moving to Georgia in 1969, Gates held a series of positions at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville. In 1983, he was named state director of the Division of Mental Health, Mental Retardation & Substance Abuse (now the Division of Behavioral Health and Mental Disabilities). In that capacity, he began a long collaboration with Rosalynn Carter, Georgia’s former first lady. From 1993 to 2000, he directed the mental health program at the Carter Center; he subsequently was a member of the center’s mental health task force and the advisory board of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers.
“Words cannot express my gratitude for all John did to help me with my work, as well as to improve the lives of countless people with mental health conditions,” said Carter.
Gates is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren.
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Steve Gerard, former chair of the Queens College Foundation (QCF), died on April 12 after a brief illness.
“On behalf of the entire Queens College community, I wish to extend my sympathies to Steve’s family and to express my deepest appreciation for his outstanding service and loyalty to Queens College,” said Queens College President Frank H. Wu.
Lee Fensterstock, chair of the foundation, noted that Gerard served on its Board of Trustees for over 30 years. “Most recently, as a co-chair of the board’s allocation committee, Steve was instrumental in ensuring that his alma mater received the support it needed to help counter the effects of the pandemic on campus,” said Fensterstock.
Born in the Bronx, Gerard graduated from QC in 1967 with a BA in economics. He served in the Army from 1965-1967.
His career encompassed 16 years with Citibank, N.A. in various senior corporate finance and banking positions; seven years with the American Stock Exchange, where his last title was vice president of the Securities Division; and leadership of Triangle Wire and Cable, Inc. as chairman and CEO. In October 2000, he became the CEO of CBIZ, Inc., a position he held until his retirement in March 2016. He remained chairman of its board.
Gerard was previously a director, chairman of the Compensation Committee, member of the Compliance Committee and the Audit Committee of Las Vegas Sands Company and lead director and member of the Audit Committee of Joy Global, Inc.
At the time of his death, he was director, chairman of the Compensation Committee, and member of the Audit Committee of Lennar Corporation and director and member of the Audit and Finance Committees of AutoNation, Inc.
Gerard was on the faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors and earned the NACD Leadership Fellow designation. He also served on many boards, both public and charitable.
“He was truly a brilliant, kind, and beloved colleague and friend,” said Fensterstock. “We are profoundly grateful for his leadership and devotion to the Queens College community and its students. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Steve’s family. He will be fondly remembered and greatly missed.”
Gerard is survived by his wife of 40 years, Jane Heller; son, Andrew; daughter-in-law, Melanie; two loving grandchildren; mother, Annette; and brother, Neil.
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Peter Calandra (ACSM) got coverage in Jazziz for his track “Same As It Ever Was” . . . . Ralph Carhart (Drama, Theatre and Dance) appears alongside ESPN senior writer Howard Bryant and Penn State Professor Amira Rose Davis in a History Channel podcast about Jackie Robinson’s pre-major league career. Robinson is receiving extra attention this year, the 75th anniversary of his integration of the Dodgers. Carhart has also published a new book, Not an Easy Tale to Tell: Jackie Robinson on the Page, Stage and Screen . . . . Alexander Kouguell (ACSM emeritus) has launched a professional page on Facebook, with links to his cello recordings . . . . Jane and Rich Kaner, a couple who met as students at QC, were the subjects of a story in “The Hunt”—a real estate column in the New York Times—about downsizing from their long-term home in Merrick, Long Island . . . . David Musheyev, a QC alumnus, has won a prestigious Salk Scholarship. He will be profiled in a future issue of QView . . . . Annette Santiago, who earned a degree in art from QC before becoming a musician and circus acrobat, is the subject of an Arts in the City video on CUNY TV . . . . Anthony Tamburri is the subject of an interview in La Voce di New York . . . . Sachigusa Yasuda, an MFA student, is among the artists in Hyperallergic’s enthusiastic review of UnHomeless NYC, a group show at the Kingsborough Community College Art Museum.....President Frank H. Wu and Chief Diversity Officer and Dean of Diversity Jerima DeWese participated in University Presidents Summit on Antisemitism, a conference organized by International Hillel, the American Jewish Congress and the American Council on Education.
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The Q View is produced by the
Office of Communications and Marketing.
Comments and suggestions for future news items are welcome.
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