Editor: Susan Rauch
Associate Editors: Micky Josephs
Ariana Caragliano
Contributing Editor: Irene Sax
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Hello all,
Are you ready for summer? Please remember to register for summer study groups if you haven’t already! The deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 10.
We have a few events in the next weeks I hope you will attend. This evening we have a Science Seminar with Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel and next week, on Thursday, May 19 at 4PM, member Bill Siegel will engage in conversation on the Abraham Accords with Benjamin Rogers, the American Jewish Committee Director of Middle East Initiatives.
If you joined IRP/LP2 between Spring 2017 and Spring 2021, you should have received an email from me last week about the membership participation survey. Please remember to submit this by May 16. As a reminder to all members, while we are playing “catch up” this year by sending it to multiple classes; moving forward, the survey will be sent annually to members after their first year.
The Curriculum Committee has been hard at work to finalize the Fall grid and we plan to open registration in early June as we coordinate classrooms with the Registrar.
You will be hearing from us intermittently through the summer as we plan a bigger return to campus in the Fall and supporting members in that transition. Keep an eye out for opportunities to visit campus and for virtual help desks to secure Cleared4 access.
My best,
Mariel
212-817-2474
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STUDENT ID and CLEARED4 PASSES
How to request your Graduate Center student photo ID card:
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Email [email protected] from your Graduate Center email address. Put “ID Card” as the subject.
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The email body must contain your name, your program (LP2) and your mailing address.
- Attach a “passport type headshot” JPEG picture taken within the past six months.
To access campus, you must be fully vaccinated and have a Cleared4 pass for validation. In anticipation of the Fall semester, we would like to get all members in the system over the summer if they are not already pass holders. We will send instructions via email to those who need to register.
Watch Your email for Cleared4 Instructions. If you want to come to campus before receiving instructions, email [email protected] a week before your intended visit.
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This is the last regular issue of The Observer for the semester. Starting next week, The Observer will comprise a listing of upcoming events and official announcements. The full Observer will run again in September. |
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Summer 2022 Registration Deadline is TOMORROW
Classes begin on Tuesday, May 31 and run through Thursday, July 7. All study groups will be conducted on Zoom and there are no study groups scheduled on Mondays or Fridays.
Special thanks to the Curriculum Committee for their hard work organizing the summer session.
Watch your email inbox in June for the Fall 2022 Grid, which will also be available on our Website (lp2nyc.org), under Study Groups.
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200+ Members Attend GMM, Participate in Town Halls
More than 200 LP2 members attended the Spring 22 General Membership Meeting (GMM), held on April 29 on Zoom. Director Mariel Villeré reviewed the highlights of LP2 ‘s experience since joining the Graduate Center in CUNY in September 2020. 67 new members and 2 new staff members (Joanna Micek and Monben Mayon) have joined us. Study groups continue to provide a vibrant curriculum, with the past year seeing the beginning of a return to campus with both in-person and HyFlex modalities. Access to remote scholarly data bases is available for members preparing study groups or interested in researching new topics.
In keeping with tradition at recent GMMs, members participated in a few minutes of silence during a video that memorialized members we have lost during the year.
Advisory Board Chair Barbara Marwell reviewed the contributions of committees and special interest groups in keeping LP2 strong and active during the second year of the pandemic. A preview of the 60th Anniversary celebration of IRP/LP2 included a trailer for a new video including members describing how LP2 enriched their lives after retirement with both intellectual challenges and a new community of friends. A gala to celebrate the 60th Anniversary is scheduled for Thursday, September 22 from 5:30-8:30PM at a Manhattan location with both outdoor and indoor space. The location will be announced shortly.
Barbara thanked the outgoing Board Members, Eileen Hanley, Lesley Herrmann, Richard Resnik and Randy Ross for their work and support during the transition of LP2 to the CUNY Graduate Center and welcomed newly elected Board members Chuck Brecher, Maury Harris, Judy Monson and Pat Siconolfi to the challenging year ahead.
Following the presentations, groups of members met with individual Board members in 13 “mini town-hall” breakout rooms to share highlights of their experiences during the year as well as ideas for Board members to consider going forward. Many members are eager for a return to on-campus study groups with its opportunities for the community of friendships. There was also support for continuing some level of virtual programming for those members whose health or mobility issues prevent them from coming to campus. The Fall grid, to be released in early June, includes a mix of on-campus and Zoom-based study groups. The Board will review registration data and continue to study the best way to provide a program that will meet the needs of all our members, without changing the essential nature of our lifelong peer learning program.
The Advisory Board meeting that followed the GMM, on May 3, was largely devoted to analysis of the member input at the Town Halls. In addition, the newly constituted Board elected members of the Board’s Executive Committee. Barbara Marwell was re-elected to the position of Chair; Michael Kessler was elected as Vice Chair; Maury Harris as Secretary; and Judy Monson, Treasurer.
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PROCRASTINATORS: THIS MEANS YOU!!
On Monday, June 6, the Zine automatically will redirect you to the new website at lp2nyc.org. We are delaying this change to make sure that all members have an opportunity to learn how to login to the new site, which is required for accessing the Member Directory and Faces. Setting your own unique personal password makes information on the site more secure and helps keep everyone’s personal information safe. We strongly urge all members to create their password and login to the new site before this transition. Go to lp2nyc.org and click on Log In in the upper left corner. Click on Forgot Password to set your password. There will be prompts that explain the next steps. You will enter your personal preferred email - this is your personal email that is on the Zine Directory. Then check your own email for a new link to reset your password. Take a minute now to check the Zine Directory and make sure you know what email address appears there.
Need Help?
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Sign up for the LP2 Website Basics: How to Login, Bookmark, and Use It! workshop on June 2 at 3:00PM on Zoom. See a full description of the workshop below with sign up information.
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Ask for detailed step-by-step login instructions or one-on-one help: Email [email protected].
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Warning – Be Alert to this “Phishing” Scam Aimed at GC-CUNY Accounts!! |
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If you Receive This Email, Do NOT Respond |
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This is the correct GC reset email. |
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Have a friend you’d like to refer to LP²? On our Website, it’s as easy as 1,2,3
The Admissions Committee has just scheduled a September 8 Information Session, the first of the 2022-23 Academic Year. The easiest and most direct way to attend an information session is to:
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Go to the LP2 Website, www.lp2nyc.org.
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Click on Come to an Info Session (under Join the Conversation!)
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On the JOIN US page, scroll down to the CONTACT US form, fill it out, and click on Submit.
It’s also possible to get to the CONTACT US form via the GC-CUNY site. Either way the Engagement Office will respond about the Information Session if you request it.
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ArtSIG Event
Back by Popular Demand: ARCHITECTURE WALKING TOUR
Architect and LP2 member Patrick Siconolfi
will repeat his tour down Broadway
Wednesday, May 18 @ 2:00PM
Meet: Broadway at 32nd
End with a glass of wine near the Flatiron Building
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The Abraham Accords: A New Development in the Middle East
Thursday, May 19, 4:00 pm
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Bill Siegel, an LP2 member, has invited Benjamin Rogers, the American Jewish Committee Director of Middle East Initiatives, to discuss the impact of the Abraham Accords on the future of Middle East engagement. Signed in the Fall of 2020, the Abraham Accords are a series of diplomatic agreements between the State of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco.
The conversation will explore how these normalization agreements emerged, their impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations, and their long-term effects throughout the region.
Bill is a retired attorney and longtime member of the American Jewish Committee's National and New York board of governors and a member of the AJC International Affairs steering committee
Benjamin Rogers is the Director for Middle East and North Africa Initiatives with the American Jewish Committee's Department of Policy and Diplomatic Affairs. In this capacity, he supports AJC's diplomatic outreach, policymaking, and Middle East advocacy.
Rogers has held positions at the Israel Policy Forum, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies, United Nations Development Programme and Capitol Hill. He holds an M.A. from Tel Aviv University in public policy and Israeli politics and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in political anthropology and archeology.
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Update Your Profile! A Workshop on Making Yourself Findable
Wednesdays, May 11 & June 15 @ 3:00-3:30PM (Zoom)
What do you read? What are your interests? W56here do you live? LP2 members want to know! Make yourself findable and make new friends. Learn how to update your Profile Photo, Cover Photo, Bio, Interests, Skills, Neighborhood, Contact info and more in the new LP2 Member Directory. In this half-hour Zoom Workshop Denise Waxman will give a full tour of the new Member Directory, show you how you can search in ways you couldn’t do before, find out more about members you have met in Study Groups and other ways to contact them others. Most important you can learn how to make yourself more findable by updating your photo and sharing what you want others to know about you. There will be an opportunity to get your questions answered and one-on-one help. You might even learn another computer trick or two.
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LP2 Website Basics: How to Login, Bookmark, and Use It!
Thursday, June 2 @ 3:00PM (Zoom)
After May 13 the Zine will be retired; not accessible; gone; history. If you want to check the Member Directory and Faces on the new LP2nyc.org website you’ve got to take the plunge! Learn how to create and save a new personal password for the site, how to come up with a secure and easy-to-remember password, how to reset it yourself if you forget it, how to bookmark the site (or make it a favorite) so you can get to it with a single click, how to get help 24/7 if you forget any of this. All that in a ½ hour, small-group workshop. There will be an opportunity to get your questions answered and one-on-one help. If there is time, we will tour a few pages that you might find most useful and answer other site-related questions.
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AFTER THE MEAL IS OVER
The Curriculum Committee Coordinators’ Luncheon
On Friday, March 6, the Curriculum Committee held a luncheon for the 60+ members who coordinated during 2021-2022. They gathered at the Arte Cafe outdoor garden to celebrate being together again at the end of another successful year at LP2. Because of COVID, this annual event has not been held since the Spring of 2019. Coordinators are our heroes and we thank them for coordinating many superb study groups in difficult times.
Curriculum Committee Chair, Ruth Mackaman, sent us some pictures.
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Meera and Ajit Kumar with Ed Brill |
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Ruth Mackaman with Iris Zevin |
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Michael Kessler, Jenny Ross and Bob Braff with James Smith looking on |
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Andrew Shapiro, Judy Goldman and Chuck Brecher |
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Help Wanted: VOICES
VOICES—our literary magazine—has been an important part of our program for four decades. It has been online since 2012, and all past online issues are available on our site. We are beginning to plan for the next issue. We’d like to hear from people who want to be part of our management team. VOICES has poetry, prose and photography editors, as well as a publication group that organizes the process and uploads the submissions. Most of the people who worked on the last issue are available to continue, but we’d welcome new leadership as well. This is a great opportunity for people new to LP2 to contribute to the community.
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Go Set a Watchman, Mockingbird, the search for Atticus Finch with Arlynn Brody and Steve Kalinsky
Tuesdays at 4PM: May 10, 17, 24
We’ll spend most of our time examining Harper Lee's second and final published novel, Go Set a Watchman, which somewhat mirrors the To Kill a Mockingbird story but is updated by 20+ years. Published in 2015, it is Harper Lee's last published novel and is set before "Mockingbird" and presents a very different view of the "Atticus Finch" that we all know and appreciate. We look at race relations in the American South in the 1930s to 1950s.
Required reading: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.
Optional reading: To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee and Atticus Finch, The Biography by Joseph Crespino.
You’ll receive a Zoom invite before the first session.
Monday Afternoons En Plein Air with Carol Borelli
LIVE: Gardens in NYC
Mondays from 2PM to 4PM:
May 16 and May 23
Bring your materials and spend a Monday afternoon or two, sketching or painting in one of NYC's beautiful gardens. Our locations will be determined by the size of the group.
Stories Aloud with Sharon Girard
Mondays from 3PM to 4:30PM
July 18, August 1, 15, and 29
Welcome to the pleasures of stories read aloud by volunteers from our group. The stories are emailed in advance. During pauses, we enjoy general comments and questions, not to mention one-liners and insights wise and dumb. This summer, we're considering stories by Grace Paley, Felisberto Hernandéz, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah Eisenberg, Nikolai Gogol, Nicole Krauss, Eudora Welty, Italo Calvino. We welcome your suggestions. Readers change from session to session - giving an opportunity to read to all who wish to do so.
Please email Sharon at [email protected] for the Zoom link; also, indicate if you would like to be a reader.
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Call for Break Activities between Semesters
The Community Building Initiative seeks volunteers to lead activities during either or both of the two breaks from May 16 - 27 and July 12 - August 31.
Your activity can meet once or multiple times. Whether it’s a book or movie or current events discussion, a travel adventure, art presentation, an encore from a prior study group or something different, LP2 members will appreciate your efforts. Tech help is available to set up and assist you run the Zoom session. You’ll receive a Zoom link to send to participants. To propose your activity, contact Jane Case Einbender at [email protected].
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ONLINE ART SHOW
From: Susan Winston
Title: Urban Sunset
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Susan says: The evening sky’s ethereal glow was in marked contrast to the denseness and rigidity of the buildings in the foreground.
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Calling All Painters, Sculptors, Photographers, Block Printers, Ceramicists and Textile Artists!
Display the creative work you have been doing this summer in the Online Art Show. Send a photograph of your work with a title and a brief statement about it to Carol Millsom at [email protected]. Art works appear in The Observer in the order in which they are received.
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MISSING LINKS DIRECTORY
Linkedin Learning (formerly known as Lynda)
What links would you like to see included? You don’t have to know the actual link, just what you’d like to be able to link to without cleaning out your desk to find the paper you wrote it down on.
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Joy Schulman, in conjunction with other groups and individuals, is interested in working to save Roe v Wade and asks members who are also interested to email or call her if you are interested in working on this too. Her email is [email protected] and her phone number is listed in the Website Directory.
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Pictures from the ArtSIG Trip to Artists SoHo Loft Studios
Jerry Vogel, Photographer
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Artist Michelle Doner talking about her sculpture |
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LP2 Member Richard Herrmann admiring (LP2 Member and host) Claude Samton's Photography
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Artist Zizi Ben Haim showing us his latest paintings |
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PhotoSIG Visit to Photographer/Portraitist Beowulf Sheehan’s Studio
A number of PhotoSIG members, requiring two shifts, met at Beowulf Sheehan's studio in the Lower East Side. Here are some photos by Alec Rill, PhotoSIG leader.
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Beowulf Sheehan with some of the books featuring his photographs. |
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GC-CUNY Campus Covid Protocols
For those who are coming to campus:
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Masks are no longer required in all campus spaces.
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The rest of the Covid-19 policies remain in place. If you do not have a Cleared4 Pass, email [email protected] a week before your intended visit. Cleared4 Pass (or “Blue Pass”) system automatically renews passes on their expiration date, If you lose your pass, email [email protected] to manually extend it.
- Bring GC-CUNY ID or other official ID.
Additional Campus Operations Info: Reporting positive cases and contact tracing:
- If you are feeling sick, DO NOT come to class.
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If you come into close contact (within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes total, even if in segments) with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, please be sure to wear a close-fitting mask around others and test at least five days after exposure (regardless of symptoms). You do not need to stay home unless you develop symptoms.
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If you test positive for COVID-19, do not come to class and isolate for 5 days before testing. Take precautions until day 10 including wearing a well-fitting mask when around others. Please email me at [email protected] so that I can manage contact tracing while maintaining your privacy and give further guidance per CUNY’s policy, following CDC guidance.
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Unfortunately, the COVID-19 testing centers on CUNY campuses are not available for use by LP2 members at this time. I will update you if this changes. NYC offers free COVID-19 testing and all New Yorkers can receive a free COVID-19 virus PCR test. Diagnostic tests are available through NYC COVID Express sites or through other public and private sites (search via the COVID-19 Test Site Finder). Further information on free testing can be accessed by calling 311 or the NYC Health and Hospitals website.
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The Women’s Group meets at 3:45PM on Thursdays. Contact Arlyne LeSchack at [email protected].
The Men’s Group meets at 3:45PM on Wednesdays. Contact Jay Fleishman at [email protected].
Stitch Away Stress meets at 4PM Tuesdays. Members share skills and enjoy the meditative benefits of handwork. Contact Michelle Harris at [email protected].
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Schedule for submitting articles for The Observer and Website
Members wishing to submit information for publication in The Observer or listing on the Website have a new deadline: the Wednesday before the Monday publication date. In addition, we urge you to send us your material as early as possible so that it can be entered onto the LP2 calendar, which is managed by the Graduate Center. If you have an event to publicize, please notify Micky Joseph at [email protected] at least one month in advance to ensure that the event receives maximum publicity.
Online Art Show Submissions: Send Online Art Show entries and suggestions for tours to Carol Millsom at [email protected].
Member Forum Submissions: If you have something to share with the LP2 community, e.g., a photo, an article, a book or a web site that you’ve discovered and think would be interesting to members, send it to Micky Josephs at [email protected] for inclusion in the Member Forum.
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