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

QView #145 | January 31, 2023

What’s News

Current COVID Polices


CUNY’s vax mandate for students remains in effect, as explained in a recent mailer from Zeco Krcic (Facilities, Planning and Operations). Students registered for in-person, hybrid, and hyflex classes must be fully vaccinated unless they were granted a medical exemption or religious exception to the vaccine.


However, in conformance with CUNY guidance, QC will no longer require vaccination or testing for visitors. Students living in The Summit will be folded into the random testing pool instead of undergoing weekly tests. The random program will drop to testing 5 percent, rather than 10 percent, of the campus population. (On-campus testing center hours are posted here, under Testing Site at Queens College.) Gateway testing will no longer be required for athletes and residence hall students. 


While CUNY does not require face masks, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene strongly recommends their use due to the increased rates of COVID-19, seasonal flu, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).


Unvaccinated faculty, staff, and students are urged to wear a mask.


Masks are available upon request at every entrance where you tap your QCard for entry and at every Public Safety booth. Masks will continue to be available in campus offices. To receive masks, campus office personnel should send a work request to Buildings and Grounds at bngweb@qc.cuny.edu or stop by the B&G office (L1 building) Monday through Friday, 8 am-4 pm.


Please visit the Coronavirus landing page for more information.

Chelsea Lavington (Admissions) and colleagues represented Queens College last night, on the steps of Queens Borough Hall, at the vigil organized by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and staff to honor the memory of Tyre Nichols and demand accountability for those responsible for his death. On Saturday, January 28, President Frank H. Wu issued a statement on the fatal beating of Nichols by several police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.

Group photo red curtain in background

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr., and Assembly Member Khaleel Anderson ’19 joined President Frank H. Wu and student leaders in offering greetings during the college’s MLK Day Celebration, Sunday, January 15, in LeFrak Concert Hall. The program began with a stirring rendition of “Life Every Voice and Sing,” the Black national anthem, by Aisayma Lennard, an Admissions counselor at QC.

(Seen in photo above, from left: Wu, Adams, jazz vocalist Samara Joy, CUNY Board of Trustees Vice Chair Sandra Wilkin, Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb, and Richards.)

Aisayma Lennard

Jelani Cobb

Event honoree Jelani Cobb, dean of the Columbia Journalism School and staff writer for The New Yorker, delivered the keynote. The program included the first screening of a video tribute, “The Legacy Connection: Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Queens College,” and a performance by GRAMMY-nominated jazz vocalist Samara Joy, who brought down the sold-out house with her set. If you weren’t able to attend, you can watch the proceedings here.

Samara Joy singing- pianist bass player and drummer in background

Procurement 101, a workshop on processing and/or approving procurement paperwork in compliance with New York State and CUNY requirements, debuted over Zoom on January 17-18, presented by Joe Loughren (Budget and Finance; above left) and Surinder Virk (Procurement, Property and Fleet Management). For the benefit of those who couldn’t attend, the sessions were videotaped and posted to the Budget Office’s landing page. Ideally, every administrative office, academic department, center, program, and institute at the college should have at least one employee familiar with the often complicated ins and outs of procurement.

Coffee and conversation flowed on Friday, January 20, when members of the borough’s legislative delegation joined CUNY college presidents, the CUNY Law School dean from Queens County, Central Office officials, staff, and the president of the Higher Education Services Corporation in the Student Union Ballroom for the annual Queens Legislative Breakfast.

Front: Deputy Queens Borough President Ebony Young, Congresswoman Grace Meng, Assembly Member Alicia Hyndman, Councilwoman Lynn Shulman. Back: Assembly Member Steven Raga, Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar, State Senator Joseph Addabbo Jr., State Senator Leroy Comrie, HESC President Guillermo Linares.  

President Frank H. Wu participated in two boroughs as communities marked the Year of the Rabbit—or to Vietnamese, the Year of the Cat. On the evening of January 20, President Wu spoke at the Lunar New Year Celebration held by the Asian American Business Development Center at Federal Hall in Manhattan.

The following day, he joined several thousand people, including local community and business leaders, at the annual Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing. On January 26, President Wu took part in a livestream Lunar New Year panel organized by WABC AM Radio, moderated by Dominic Carter, and including business and community leaders and the president of the radio station. They focused on the causes and impact of increased violence against members of Asian-American communities. Wu was invited back by the station owner, John Catsimatidis, for a second interview the same evening. 

Athletes from 13 CUNY colleges stormed the Lucille Kyvallos Basketball Court at Fitzgerald Gym for the CUNY wheelchair basketball tournament held at QC on January 20. The CUNY women’s team is one of seven in the nation. 

Program To Support STEM Transfer Students


Thanks to a Sloan Foundation grant, QC will offer mentoring to STEM students transferring from two-year CUNY schools.


Sloan’s three-year, $1.5 million award has enabled the CUNY Office of Research to create Transfer to STEM Student Success, or TS3. The program’s goal is to diversify the pipeline leading to advanced degrees and careers in STEM. TS3 will recruit a total of 96 undergraduates transferring from the university’s community colleges to one of four baccalaureate institutions—City College, Hunter College, Lehman College, and QC. These students, most of whom come from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM, will receive hands-on research experience and be mentored by graduate students in related fields.


Graduate students working in the program will also benefit from TS3. They will receive professional development through mentoring boot camps, planning seminars, and liaising between undergraduate participants and their new STEM faculty mentors.

Finding Success through SEEK


For 56 years, the Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge program, better known as SEEK, has helped disadvantaged students thrive at college and beyond. To learn more about this program and some of its outstanding alumni—such as Congressman Adriano Espaillat ’79 and Assembly Member Khaleel Anderson ’19—watch the new video SEEK-ing Higher Education at Queens College.

From Queens Farm to Knights Table

From left: Kya Simmons, Hayden Lees Cubas, Sarah Meyer, President Frank H. Wu, Ariana Livreri, Kristin Berkey, Vice President Jay Hershenson

Through an annual holiday campaign, the Queens County Farm Museum works to reduce food insecurity among college students. The museum asks the public to bring non-perishable items to the farm store. At the end of the drive, donations are given to the Knights Table Food Pantry, which is based at QC, but serves individuals enrolled at any CUNY campus. On Wednesday, January 4, a delegation traveled from the farm to deliver 2022’s “harvest” of packaged goods. Special thanks to CEO Jennifer Walden Weprin and her staff for organizing this important initiative.

Supporting Students’ Mental Health


It’s a stressful time to be a college student.


At QC’s Counseling Services, licensed psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and counseling interns supervised by professional staff offer individual counseling, groups, and referrals to appropriate college or community resources. Counselors work with students on a variety of issues, including—but not limited to—anxiety, depression, grief, family conflict, relationship issues, college adjustment, and career/life choices. All services are confidential and free of charge.


To set up an appointment, students can call Counseling Services at 718-997-5420 or send an email to counselingservices@qc.cuny.edu. They should leave their name, CUNY ID, and phone number. All messages—whether voicemail or email—will receive a response within 24 hours during business hours (usually Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm). Students will be scheduled a time for a brief (approximately 30 minutes) screening with a counselor to help us determine how best to assist them.


CUNY also has a Crisis Text Line available to all QC and CUNY students. For access, text CUNY to 741741.

Instant Acceptance for Qualified Applicants

Aisayma Lennard (right) working with an applicant

U.S. veterans, servicemen and -women on active duty, and transfer students got on the fast track to QC when the college offered on-the-spot admission January 4-5—a development NY1’s Ron Lee covered on “In the Boroughs” and in a Twitter story quoting Dennis Torres (Veteran Support Services).


Before coming to campus for scheduled appointments, individuals were required to complete a CUNY application and pay an online application fee. Academic transcripts had to be sent by mail or email or submitted in person in sealed envelopes. Applicants also had to bring photo IDs and proof of COVID vaccination.


QC has a long history of educating vets and members of the military. An estimated 70 percent of the pioneer class of 1941 saw World War II service.


“The veterans and military personnel taking courses here bring an unrivaled level of academic excellence to our institution,” said President Frank H. Wu. “Their dedication to and sacrifice for our great country are inspirational and sustain our ideals. We take pride in the college consistently being designated as a military-friendly school and as a military-friendly spouse school and are committed to providing support to this community through specialized services such as our Veterans Support Services office.”

This Week in Black History Month


QC’s Black History Month programming will get off to a challenging start in the Student Union tomorrow, February 1, at 12:15 pm: The Office of Student Development and Leadership (SDL) will sponsor a Black History Month Trivia contest in the Faculty and Staff Lounge. On Friday, February 3, at 6 pm, SDL will present interdisciplinary poet and performance artist Ebony Stewart in the Student Union Ballroom; she will be followed by members of the Queens College Black Student Union reading their own work. For additional events, check college calendar listings.


All month, the Louis Armstrong House Museum will offer a tour, Black and Blue: Louis Armstrong and Civil Rights in America, Thursday through Saturday.

QC Hillel Recognized by Partner Organization


At the Hillel International Global Assembly in Dallas, Texas, last month, QC Hillel received the Joseph Meyerhoff Award for Jewish Education Vision for the Building Bridges Interfaith Fellowship. The award recognizes a campus Hillel that finds new ways to keep students connected to their Judaism amid many competing factors and commitments. 


Building Bridges is based on a decade of interfaith programs and learning led by QC Hillel. Each year, through the fellowship, four to six students from diverse faith backgrounds explore their identities in a safe, supportive environment and learn to establish resilient communities of friends and allies across campus.


Working with QC Hillel staff and visiting experts, fellows receive training in dialogue, active listening, community building, and storytelling. As a team, they organize programming designed to facilitate healthy and productive conversations, build allyship across faith communities, and create a network of peers who support each other in good times and in challenging times.


“We are honored to receive recognition for our important work in interfaith dialogue, community building, and leadership development,” said Jenna Citron Schwab, executive director of QC Hillel. “This award is a testament to the hard work of our staff, students, and volunteer leaders who have been instrumental in creating a vibrant and meaningful Jewish community for college students across Queens. Given the extraordinary diversity of Queens College’s population, we believe this program could serve as a role model for other Hillels across the nation and the world.”

Incubating Teen Talent

The Tech Incubator at Queens College (TIQC) helped students from Thomas A. Edison Career & Technical Education High School tackle a workplace challenge posed by the New York City Department of Education/New York City Career and Technical Education: using augmented reality to create services and products for businesses. The six-week project involved TIQC staff, five business owners, two teachers, and around 50 students. Organized in teams, the students brainstormed ideas, developed skills in web-based augmented reality, and designed, built, and tested their prototypes. Participants presented their work at QC on December 16.


Workplace challenges are among the authentic work-based experiences provided to students engaged in career-related programs or courses in New York City schools. The New York State Education Department and the NYC DOE CTE recognize workplace challenges as work-based learning activities for specific credit purposes.

COIL Springs Forward


Since fall 2019, Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) has been helping QC students think globally. After being chosen for the program, COIL Faculty Fellows work with Schiro Withanachchi (Economics, BALA) and the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CETLL) to redesign their courses around projects students can pursue online with peers in other countries. Members of last year’s cohort shared their modules in a virtual showcase on December 7, 2022. 


Three new Faculty Fellows have been selected for 2022-2023: Padmini Biswas (Urban Studies), Jennifer Eddy (Secondary Education and Youth Services), and Nafiz Shufa (Graduate School of Library and Information Studies). 



URBST 273 (Labor and Globalization) will examine the social, political, and economic effects of global capitalism expansion, with an emphasis on the impact on workers in the United States. Biswas’s students will interact with their counterparts at SOAS University of London and design a joint labor rights or social movement campaign with panel discussions from labor activists and scholars. 


Students in Eddy’s SEYS 714 (World Language Program Design), in partnership with peers at University College London, will develop program curricula for differentiated levels of proficiency targets, including performance-based assessment and student self-assessment statements for content and intercultural competence. Participants on both sides of the pond will also explore how interculturality goes beyond borders in intercultural communication. 


Through LBSCI 702 (Info Sources & Service), students in Shufa’s class will collaborate with students at the University of Zadar, Croatia, on an information behavior research proposal. Their research poster and presentation will showcase the combined skills they gain in information science.  

Five from QC Named CUNY Faculty Fellows

Do Jun Lee

Jun Li

Sandy Plácido

Rosemary Twomey

Nicholas Vlamis

CUNY has selected five Queens College faculty members for the 2023 CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP), a university-wide initiative that assists full-time untenured CUNY faculty (assistant professors) in the design and execution of writing projects essential to progress toward tenure.

This year’s winners from QC are Do Jun Lee (Urban Studies), Jun Li (Computer Science), Sandy Plácido (History), Rosemary Twomey (Philosophy), and Nicholas Vlamis (Mathematics). QC’s Anahi Viladrich (Sociology) is taking part in the program for the eighth consecutive year, serving as a senior faculty mentor to professors from other CUNY schools.


FFPP is sponsored by the Office of Recruitment and Diversity to advance CUNY’s institutional commitment to diversity. Projects may include research-based scholarly articles for juried journals, books for academic presses, and creative writing projects. Proposals on structural and systemic inequality are encouraged.


“I am an immigrant and Latina professor and absolutely love working with colleagues from different backgrounds, particularly by helping them overcome both the intellectual and emotional barriers that keep them from thriving,” noted Viladrich. “Not only does the FFPP assist fellows to improve their academic and professional skills, but it also instills in them a sense of personal and professional empowerment.”   


In order to be accepted into this prestigious program, faculty members submitted a detailed proposal on their project along with a diversity statement and letters from the department chair and the provost supporting the reassignment of three contractual hours for participation in FFPP.


Each Fellow’s Project Summarized


Lee is preparing a paper titled “From Threat to Essentially Sacrificial: NYC Food Delivery Workers in Covid-19.” When the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio shut down New York City except for essential services, including food delivery. The mayor also suspended a punitive police crackdown on electric bikes, ridden mostly by immigrant food delivery workers. Lee’s paper will critically examine a system of racial capitalism repurposing the racialized mobility and labor of the city’s immigrant food delivery workers during the pandemic. His article will be submitted to the peer-reviewed journal Mobilities.


Li is working on a project titled “Sequence-aware Coding for Large-scale Matrix Multiplication.” Matrix multiplication is a foundational building block in numerous artificial intelligence algorithms. With the fast-increasing sizes of datasets and complexities of models, the sizes of matrix multiplications also grow quickly. It is challenging for one server to perform matrix multiplication when the input matrices are massive. Li will design novel coding schemes to address issues that arise from large-scale matrix multiplication and will present the preliminary results of this research to a top conference in information theory or distributed computing and submit a paper to a high-impact journal.


Plácido will be finalizing her book manuscript on Ana Livia Cordero. Cordero was a Puerto Rican physician and activist-intellectual who worked tirelessly to build solidarity and achieve Puerto Rican liberation during the twentieth century Cold War period. Plácido's book already has a contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press, and she will be taking advantage of the writing workshop format of the FFPP to address final revisions to her manuscript. 


Twomey will be working on a book project about Aristotle. In his works on psychology, Aristotle describes us as passive recipients of impressions of external objects, which appears to undersell the role of the perceiver in constructing their experience. The project will account for Aristotle’s optimism about our access to things as they really are by appeal to his distinctive theory of causation.


Vlamis plans to generalize the Dehn–Nielsen theorem that characterizes the relationship between the symmetries of a compact surface—a topological object—and the symmetries of the surface’s fundamental group—an algebraic object associated to the surface. He will submit his findings for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.


“The Faculty Fellowship Publication Program provides the mentorship and space necessary for faculty to complete major writing contributions that will be central to their professional success,” added Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Patricia Price. “It is a fantastic support for CUNY faculty and one of the real benefits of working here. I am so proud of this year's Queens College faculty awardees!”

Baseball Ranked Eighth out of 32 in Preseason Regional Poll

The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association released its 2023 East Region preseason rankings on January 24, and the Queens College baseball team is ranked eighth heading into the season.


Last season, the Knights, led by freshman All-American Mark Cisco, went 26-17 and advanced to the East Coast Conference Championship. The 2023 season begins for the Knights on February 25.


In other Knight news, both the men’s and women’s basketball teams went 1-1 last week, as they each defeated D’Youville College on January 27 but fell to Daemen University on January 29. The women’s victory was an overtime thriller, as the Knights scored in the final seconds to earn a 66-63 victory.

Both teams are heading into the stretch run of the season as they fight for an ECC playoff spot. This week, the men will host Dominican College of New York on Thursday, February 2, at 6 pm. On Saturday, the women and men will visit Molloy University at 12 pm and 2 pm respectively.


The track and field teams will be busy this weekend as well; they will compete at the DeSchriver Invitational in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, February 5 starting at 9:30 am.


Fans can follow the action live at queensknights.com.

Dollars for Scholars

Deadlines are coming up for a variety of internal QC scholarships. Esther’s Book Fund, which offers $250 toward the purchase of textbooks, remains available for spring 2023; students must apply by February 6. For scholarships to be used in the fall semester, the deadline is March 10. Please review the recent mailer from the Office of Honors and Scholarships for general information about accessing and completing applications. For details on specific programs, visit the scholarship list.

The university-wide Belle Zeller Scholarship is still accepting applications for the current cycle. Distinguished CUNY students in undergraduate, graduate, and professional school programs are eligible for the one-year, $5,000 awards—issued $2,500 a semester. 


Candidates must have a cumulative GPA of 3.75 or higher; they must also have performed significant community service. Applications with requirements for each scholarship category are posted by the Belle Zeller Scholarship Trust Fund. All application materials must be received by March 3, 2023. The scholarships’ namesake, who passed away in 1998, was a long-term member of Brooklyn College’s political science faculty and the founding president of the Professional Staff Congress.

#52

Joel Benenson ’79 was the lead pollster and senior strategist for Barack Obama’s historic race for president in 2008, again in 2012, and a senior strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. He is a former journalist for The New York Daily News and communications director for the campaign of the late Governor Mario M. Cuomo.

In Memoriam

Betty Lee Sung

Dr. Betty Lee Sung teaching at City College in New York in 1972.

Credit: Jack Manning/The New York Times

Betty Lee Sung ’68, founder of City College’s Asian American Studies program and co-founder of CUNY’s Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AA/ARI), died on Thursday, January 19, at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland. She was 98.


The future scholar, née Betty Lee, was born in Washington, D.C., to an immigrant couple who ran a laundry out of their home. “As the youngest girl, I always knew I was the least important person in our family,” she would recall in Defiant Second Daughter: My First 90 Years, as quoted by the New York Times. “I did not feel less important, and I found it difficult to act so.” 


Struggling in the Depression, the family moved to China, where Lee’s mother and one child died. The five surviving members of the family eventually regrouped in the United States, Lee and two of her siblings fleeing China just ahead of the Japanese invasion.


Rejecting both of the suitors chosen by her father, Lee attended the University of Illinois on a scholarship, majoring in sociology and economics. After graduation, she married her classmate Hsi Yuan Sung. They settled in New York, where she researched and wrote Chinese-language scripts for the Voice of America (VOA); based in part on that work, she published her first book, Mountain of Gold: The Story of the Chinese in America. Subsequently, while employed at the Queens Public Library, she completed an MLS from Queens College.


That resume prompted City College to put Sung on its faculty in 1970; she earned a PhD at CUNY a dozen years later. During and after her doctoral studies, she released a series of books illuminating the experience of Chinese immigrants and their children.


Upon her retirement in 1992, she led a three-year project to build a database out of materials boxed at a National Archives warehouse—12,000 files containing personal memorabilia as well as transcripts of interviews that immigration officials conducted with Chinese trying to enter the United States. Sample question: “Did your mother have bound feet?”


“It was a very sad chapter in Chinese American history, because it shows the type of persecution that went on,” Sung told the New York Times. “Some people were kept in detention for a year or two, and grilled and grilled and grilled.” Her own father was a so-called “paper son” who had bought documents identifying him as a blood relative of a Chinese individual with U.S. residency or citizenship.


In 2001, Sung teamed up with immigrant and City College alumnus Thomas Tam, the first Chinese American to serve as a CUNY trustee, to found AA/ARI. She later established a $100,000 endowment at CUNY for AA/ARI to host a research fund on Asian American topics.


“Betty Lee Sung can only be described as a force,” said former AA/ARI Executive Director Joyce Moy. “She defied traditional cultural and familial expectations as a woman, and broke Asian stereotypes, paving the path and opening doors to Asian American studies for so many who came after her.” 


“Betty Lee Sung was a giant,” said President Frank H. Wu. “She did so much for Asian American Studies. She is among the heroes in the field whom we need to remember.”


Sung was predeceased by her second husband, Charles Chia Mou Chung. She is survived by four children from her first marriage and six granddaughters. At a later date, a memorial service for Sung will be held at the Museum of the Chinese in America (MOCA), which eulogized her as a pioneer in her field and shared images from papers she left the institution. Donations may be made in honor of her memory to the Betty Lee Sung Research Fund at Princeton University (609.258.0160) or the Museum of Chinese in America.

Joseph James Tufariello


Joseph James (“Joe”) Tufariello ’57, chemistry professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo SUNY, passed away of heart failure on November 28, 2022. He was 87.


A Brooklyn native, Tufariello earned a bachelor’s degree from Queens College followed by a PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He enjoyed a long and distinguished teaching career at SUNY Buffalo, eventually chairing its Chemistry Department. The Buffalo News reports that during his tenure, research expenditures doubled from $1.8 million to $3.6 million and the department achieved notable success in obtaining grants from non-government sources.


In subsequent positions, Tufariello served as dean of Natural Sciences and Mathematics—playing an important role in the creation of the Natural Sciences Complex on campus—and senior vice provost for educational technology.

In retirement, he indulged his interests in biking, nature walks, crossword puzzles, and rooting for his beloved New York Yankees. He relocated from Buffalo, New York, to Eugene, Oregon, in 2022 to be near family.


Predeceased by Agnes, his wife of almost 54 years, Tufariello is survived by his siblings Barbara and Anthony; his daughters Catherine (Jeremy Telman), JoAnn (Christopher Basler), Donna, and Jennifer (Cass Dykeman) Tufariello; and granddaughter Sophia Tufariello.

Heard Around Campus

Ammiel Alcalay (CMAL) had a virtual conversation with Aidan Levy, presented by Live! From City Lights on January 18, in connection with publication of the latter’s book, Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins . . . . Joanna Coleman (Biology) provided commentary for an Insider Business video about wildlife thriving on food waste . . . .

Sebastian Alvardo (Biology) joined alumna Fran Drescher on January 21 for a presentation at her health summit on the environment and health . . . .

Michelle Fischthal has been named vice chancellor of Institutional Innovation and Effectiveness for the San Diego Community College District. As noted in rushhourtimes, Fischthal began her career in New York after graduating from QC, where she studied clarinet on a music scholarship . . . . 

Kimiko Hahn (English) was appointed to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. As reported in the academy’s press release, chancellors serve six-year terms, during which they consult with the organization on artists matters, judge the organization’s largest legacy prizes for American poets, and act as ambassadors for poetry in the world at large . . . . Nuria Rodriguez-Planas (Economics) reports that her work “Hitting Where it Hurts Most: COVID-19 and Low Income Urban Students,” published last year in the Economics of Education Review, was cited in a brief of student loan experts submitted by President Joseph Biden in an application and petition to vacate the injunction issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th District in Biden v Nebraska . . . . Kara Schlichting (History) gave a presentation on January 25 in person at the South Street Seaport and over Zoom on the topic of how the waterfront shaped New York City. Schlichting is also a member of a team, mostly based in the United Kingdom at the University of Liverpool, that received a Wellcome Discovery grant for “Melting Metropolis: Everyday stories of health and heat in London, New York and Paris since 1945” . . . .

Anthony Tamburri (Calandra) published A Politics of [Self-]Omission: The Italian/American Challenge in a PostGeorge Floyd Age 2022, Aracne (Genzano di Roma) . . . . Pedro Val (SEES) is a co-author of a cover article in Science about the status of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil . . . . John Waldman (Biology) published an op-ed in the New York Times about the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. The piece got extra play in NY1’s “In the Papers” . . . . President Frank H. Wu commented on the issues surrounding the COVID tests required for travelers arriving in the United States from China in an article published in South China Morning Post, USA Today and other outlets. He also wrote an op-ed, “A responsibility to speak out,” for QNS . . . .

Reginald Wills, Rachel D. Latimore, Director of Blackstone LaunchPad

Sujen WuWu in hallway holding her certificate

Luc Marest (Economics), Sujen Wu Wu '22

In December, the team of Reginald Wills ’22 and Sujen Wu Wu ’22 placed first in the network round of the national Blackstone LaunchPad Business Ideas Competition, under the category of Social and Climate Impact. The team will receive a $10,000 grant from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. Their concept, Collabiversity, will serve as an intermediary between brands and colleges to create a merchandise and digital assets marketplace for students and alumni; the project would raise scholarship funds for students. Wills and Wu, who were mentored by Karl Mitchell (Economics), won the same category in QC’s LaunchPad contest (QView 144) in November. A longer article on this topic is in the works . . . . Queens College is among the recipients of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to improve undergraduate science education, as reported by Maryland Today and Science.org.

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