Discimus ut serviamus: We learn so that we may serve.
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Celebrating Hispanic Heritage |
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Queens College is marking Hispanic Heritage Month, which started September 15, in virtually every way possible.
HSI-STEM Bridges Across Eastern Queens—a QC-Queensborough Community College partnership dedicated to increasing the number of Hispanic and lower-income students earning four-year STEM degrees—has launched a social media campaign highlighting Hispanic members of its community. The campaign is posted on the program’s website, as well as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook,
On Wednesday, September 16, the Office of Student Development and Leadership and the Alliance of Latin American Students (ALAS) co-sponsored two events: a Latinx Block Party during free hour and a Latinx Dance Party from 7 to 9 pm. ALAS kicked off the block party with a presentation about Hispanic Heritage Month and additional information, followed by Latin dance instruction with Xavier Marzan and performances by the band Afro Dominicano. The celebration continued in the evening with DJ Unico.
On October 20 at 7 pm, Jan Kus and the Slavo Rican Assembly (SRA) will stream a performance and a live post-concert Q&A session on Kupferberg Center for the Art’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Kus, a saxophonist and composer who graduated from ACSM, founded the SRA, a fusion project uniting Caribbean and Slavic musicians.
QC, like many CUNY campuses, is a Hispanic-serving institution, defined by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities as a nonprofit, accredited college, university, or system/district in the United States or Puerto Rico, where total Hispanic enrollment constitutes a minimum of 25% of the total enrollment at the undergraduate or graduate level or both.
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Honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg
QC President Frank H. Wu joined people across the United States in commemorating Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday, September 18, at age 87 after a long battle with cancer. President Wu wrote, “Justice Ginsburg demonstrated an abiding faith in our diverse democracy. She used logic, evidence, and the rule of law to bring about social justice. That deserves not only admiration but also emulation. To grant what is rightly due, the Queens College flag will be flown at half-staff.” His complete statement is available here.
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Register To Vote (and Request an Absentee Ballot)
Remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg and register to vote, if you haven’t done so already. Time is running out for U.S. citizens residing in New York to register to vote and request an absentee ballot.
In New York State, the voter registration deadline is October 9. U.S. citizens who will be 18 by the election date—November 3 this year—and have lived in New York City or their county for at least 30 days before that date are eligible to register.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, all registered New York State voters may apply for absentee ballots. On the form, check the box for “temporary Illness,” which has been expanded to include “a risk of contracting or spreading a disease” such as COVID-19. The official application deadline is October 27, but the effective deadline is October 12. The post office has advised that it cannot guarantee delivery of ballots applied for less than 15 days before the election.
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Online Activities, Real-World Expenses
posted to the QC website in three different locations (the Tuition and Costs landing page, Bursar landing page, and the Coronavirus landing page) on August 27, student fees are still necessary to fund vital campus services. Some of these services and programs include the shuttle bus, child care in the Child Development Center, virtual fitness classes from the Department of Athletics Recreation, enhanced tutoring services by the Committee of Disabled Students, and the Knight News.
Student fees also help to fund staffing costs for the Office of Student Development and Leadership. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this office has executed dozens of programs geared toward the social, emotional, and educational development of QC students, ranging from last spring’s meditation workshops and Zumba parties to recent events such as the New Student Welcome Day, Ubuntu, and the 9/11 Memorial Program.
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Kupferberg Programming Features ACSM Alumni, GTM Staff
Free events that highlight the talents of members of the QC community are among this season’s offerings from the Kupferberg Center for the Arts.
Music Makers, a four-part series, stars ACSM alumni in an eclectic mix of repertoire reflecting the cultural diversity of the college and the borough. The programs will stream on KCA’s Facebook and YouTube pages at 7 pm and will be followed by a livestream Q&A with the artists.
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On Tuesday, September 22, vocalist Sofia Tosello will synthesize the tango of her native Argentina with a rich variety of Latin American canción traditions. The next date—October 20—will feature the Slavo Rican Assembly, described in “Celebrating Hispanic Heritage” above. Alex Conde, a pianist specializing in flamenco, will perform with his jazz quartet on November 17. Beto Jim, a guitarist proficient in Afro-Caribbean and Mexican music as well as jazz, will close out the series with his quartet on December 15.
Godwin-Ternbach Museum Co-Directors Maria Pio and Louise Weinberg will go online on Tuesday, September 29, at 7 pm, to present Human/Nature: Portraits from the Permanent Collection of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum. President Frank H. Wu will join them for a discussion and Q&A around the themes of the show. Like the concert series, this program will stream on KCA’s Facebook and YouTube pages.
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Grad Student Booked for Library’s New Civil Rights Fellowship
Victoria Fernandez, a dual master’s degree student at QC, has been selected for the first-ever Freda S. and J. Chester Johnson Civil Rights and Social Justice Endowed Archives Fellowship.
Fernandez, who is pursuing master’s degrees in history and library science at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, will work with the Civil Rights and Social Justice Collections in the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library. She will gain hands-on experience and mentorship under the head of Special Collections and Archives, Annie Tumino, as well as a stipend of $2,500 per semester and reimbursement to attend a professional conference.
In her role, Fernandez will shine a light on the college’s history of involvement in civil rights and other struggles for social change through archival processing, digitization, exhibits, outreach, oral histories, and more. This semester, she will coordinate and participate in the “Student Help: Lived Experience” project, a collaboration with alumni to document civil rights activities of the early to mid-1960s through oral histories, written submissions, and digital collections.
Fernandez also works part-time as the administrative coordinator at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) at Queensborough Community College, where she helps develop and edit exhibition content, instructs student programming, and facilitates a monthly Holocaust survivor support group. She graduated from the Macaulay Honors College at QC in May 2018 with a dual BA in history and political science. Fernandez hopes to gain experience working with archives so that she can pursue career paths that stress the importance of social justice and equity in the historical materials that are collected.
“Victoria Fernandez is an extremely impressive and talented student,” said Tumino. “She displayed a nuanced understanding of the past and how it informs the present. Her empathy and ability to communicate effectively shone through, even in a Zoom setting. These qualities, as well as her background working with Holocaust survivors and curating sensitive content at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, were a perfect match for the fellowship project.”
“I viewed the opportunity to be a Freda S. and J. Chester Johnson Fellow as a way to hone the skills I’ve already developed at the KHC, while also applying them to other archival materials that similarly involve issues of prejudice and racism,” noted Fernandez. “As an archivist, I believe it is imperative that we offer literal connections between the past and present to foster diverse and inclusive practices in the many ways that archives are used, which is something that I hope to incorporate in this fellowship.”
Freda and Chester Johnson have donated widely to civil rights and social justice issues and are regular donors to the civil rights archives at QC. Freda Johnson, a QC alumna, is also a member of the QC Foundation; Chester Johnson is a prominent poet, essayist, and translator who recently published Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and a Story of Reconciliation.
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Upcoming Conference Focuses on Fellini |
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Renowned film director Federico Fellini will be the subject of a conference series offered online by the Italian American Heritage Committee of New York Inc. in collaboration with the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College, CUNY, and the Società Dante Alighieri NYC. The series marks Italian Heritage and Culture Month—which takes place in October—as well as Fellini’s centennial. Conferences will be held on six consecutive Wednesdays, starting September 30, and feature presentations by experts, including Eugenia Paulicelli (ELL), founder and director of Italian Cinema—CUNY. The complete schedule is posted here https://italyculturemonth.org/.
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Panel Explores Book Publishing Careers |
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Editors from divisions of MacMillan will discuss careers in book publishing on October 7 at free hour in an event presented online by the Center for Career Engagement and Internships.
The panelists will be Hannah Campbell, Trisha de Guzman, Megan Kiddoo, and Erin Siu.
Campell is a production editor for Henry Holt & Co., where she manages copyediting, proofreading, and indexing for adult fiction and nonfiction titles. Before coming to Macmillan, she worked as an assistant editor at Penguin Young Readers and as a high school English teacher. De Guzman is an associate editor at Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, where she acquires and edits books for children and young adults. As associate editor, trade production, Kiddoo coordinates the production schedule for 20 to 30 books at a time, shepherding both interiors and covers through the process. Siu, an associate editor at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, manages MCPG's paperback imprint, Square Fish, and acquires and edits picture books, middle grade, and young adult titles for Feiwel & Friends.
To reserve a place at this event, students should RSVP at on HIREQC.
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Stanley Crouch
Eminent cultural critic Stanley Crouch, a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant who chaired the board of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation until earlier this year, passed away on September 16 at the age of 74. An accomplished poet, novelist, and essayist, Crouch was in his twenties when he began teaching college-level English without holding a degree; a self-trained percussionist, he stopped playing jazz and devoted himself instead to writing about it, calling the genre “the highest American musical form because it is the most comprehensive, possessing an epic frame of emotional and intellectual reference, sensual clarity and spiritual radiance.” Playwright-director George C. Wolfe and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis were among the people mentored by Crouch, who helped to found Jazz at Lincoln Center and was a senior creative consultant for “Jazz,” the documentary series by Ken Burns. “We can rejoice in having known and worked with Stanley,” said Jackie Harris, executive director of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. “The foundation saw tremendous growth and development during his tenure as president. He was a brilliant contributor to the organization as a board member, as well. There is no way to measure or express his contributions to jazz, Pops, and the literary world.” Crouch is survived by his wife, Gloria Nixon Crouch, a sculptor, and his daughter and granddaughter.
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Stanley Crouch shares a moment with Selma Heraldo, longtime neighbor and dear friend of Lucille and Louis Armstrong.
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Shirley Slotkin Gorenstein
Influential social scientist Shirley Slotkin Gorenstein ’49 died on September 14, 2020. Something of a prodigy in her field, she traveled at the age of 17 to the Kahnawake Reserve in Quebec, Canada, to study Mohawk ironworkers, presenting her paper to the American Ethnological Society in 1946. After graduating from Queens College, she earned master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Columbia University. In the 1960s and ’70's, Gorenstein led archaeological expeditions in Mexico, and wrote and edited numerous books and articles on Mesoamerican archaeology. After a decade as a professor at Columbia, she founded the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she mentored a generation of scholars. Predeceased by her husband, Gorenstein is survived by her sons Ethan and Gabriel, daughter-in-law Margee, and their families.
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Heard Around the Virtual Campus |
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Dianne Greenfield (SEES) has been awarded two National Science Foundation grants. She received $576,427 under NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation Program for acquisition of a versatile, integrative AUV system to support cross-disciplinary research and education in coastal and urban waters. Through NSF’s Rapid Response Research for Collaborative Research, she received $99,945 toward “Understanding linkages between nutrient quality and phytoplankton assemblage responses to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in an urban, estuarine system” . . . . Tarry Hum (Urban Studies) published an opinion column, “Busting Industry City Rezoning Myths,” in Gotham Gazette on September 14 . . . . Ashima Kant (FNES) received a four-year, $275,000 Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture/USDA for her project, Success And Support Of Under-Represented Nutrition Students At Queens College . . . . Cecilia McHugh (SEES) will join the United States Advisory Committee for Scientific Ocean Drilling for a three-year appointment beginning on October 1, 2020 . . . . Winifred McNeill MFA has recent ceramic sculpture and charcoal drawings on display at Art House Gallery in Jersey City. On Tuesday, September 22, from 12:30 to 2 pm, she is presenting a live walk-through of the exhibit; to attend the event remotely, register at here . . . . Maaze Mengiste (English) is among the six finalists on the short list for the Booker Prize; she was nominated for her latest novel, The Shadow King, published in 2019 . . . . Anne Posten MFA ’13, a Fulbright recipient who with multiple translations to her credit, published an essay about her craft on Lithub. High as the Waters Rise, her translation of a novel by Anja Kampmann, has been nominated for a National Book Award . . . . President Frank H. Wu will be a recipient of the OCA National Asian Pacific American Executive Excellence Award in a virtual ceremony to be held on Friday, October 2, from 4 to 5 pm. He is being honored for his lifelong dedication to pushing for Asian American Pacific Islander inclusion and uplifting AAPI voices in history, academic, and other spaces.
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