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A Newsletter for The City University of New York • Winter 1999

Matters

INTHISISSUE

Youth will be served. Who is this child captured in pensive pose by one of the19th century's finest photographers of children? Hint: her name is Alice. Seethe story on page 9. The10-year-old Brooklynite on the right grew up to beone of the major American literary critics of the 20th century. A former CUNYDistinguished Professor, he is fondly remembered on page 11.

I t is fitting, following his death onJanuary 8, to present Leon M.Goldstein quite literally standing be-

hind Kingsborough Community College.For throughout the 27 years of his presi-dency at the College, he was the animatedand animating force behind its growth intoa thoroughly modern campus serving15,000 students and offering degree pro-grams in 29 areas.

With President Goldstein, who was 66at his death, is Vice President Al Gore,who visited Kingsborough on December 3to speak at a town hall meeting that fo-cused on a wide range of educational is-sues. While on the Manhattan Beach cam-pus, the Vice President announced a fed-eral grant of $871,000 to the borough ofBrooklyn for one of Goldstein’s many inno-vative programs of outreach in the bor-ough: after-school programs.

“Leon Goldstein was an outstandingnationally-renowned educator and admin-istrator,” said Chairwoman of the CUNYBoard of Trustees Anne A. Paolucci, andInterim Chancellor Christoph M. Kimmichin a joint statement.

Goldstein also served as Acting Chan-cellor in 1982 and as Acting Deputy Chan-cellor from 1981 to 1983. A nationalleader in higher education, he was VicePresident of the Middle States Associationin 1994 and Chair of its Commission onHigher Education from 1991 to 1993.

A champion of the state’s communitycollege movement, he was honored

for “outstanding academic leadership” in a1981 joint resolution of the New YorkState Legislature—and by a similar StateSenate resolution in 1988.

A product of CUNY himself (a B.A. fromCity College, M.A. from Brooklyn College),

Senioritis, a pathology frequently ob-served among high school students,hasn’t affected Kingsborough High

School students Maria Pak and EricRadezky. Three mornings a week they ar-rive at school 50 minutes earlier than re-quired to participate in a three-credit,freshman-level science course that incorpo-rates the latest aspects of physical sci-ences, health sciences, biology, chemistry,and neuroscience. Thiscourse is offered throughthe auspices of CollegeNow, a partnership be-tween KingsboroughCommunity College andthe New York City Boardof Education.

Explaining her reasonsfor participating in CollegeNow, Pak says, “I wanted tosee what college is actuallylike. . .I feel more assurednow of my ability to suc-ceed there.” Mr. Radezkysays that he enrolled in theprogram to challenge him-self academically, to takewhat he has learned in highschool “to a higher level.”

Both students praise the experience. “Itgives you an independence you don’t feel inhigh school. It teaches you responsibility.”Radezky says he has “learned a lot in thescience class—about the ‘greenhouse’ effect,for example, and the formation of Brooklynand Rockaway during the Ice Age, and theplant life around the Kingsborough campus.”

He also likes being “treated (a) like anadult and (b) like a college student.”

Their College Now teacher, MatthewLerman, has taught the science course for13 years, first at Beach Channel HighSchool in Queens, and now at KingsboroughHigh School. The challenge for him is cal-culating how to bring collegiate content,

Leon M. Goldstein

PART OF THE LEON M. GOLDSTEIN LEGACY

College Now@KingsboroughBy Rachelle Goldsmith,Director, Office of Collaborative Programs,Kingsborough Community College

standards, and structure into the class-room. Lerman does this, he says, “by plac-ing more emphasis on thinking across thevarious science disciplines, encouragingindependent research projects, giving col-lege-level reading and writing assignments,and following college testing, homework,and grading guidelines.”

College Now is a program designed tofacilitate the transition from high

school to college. It was conceived in 1983by Kingsborough Community College Presi-dent Leon M. Goldstein in response to pub-lications like A Nation at Risk (1983),

which criticized the lack of collaborationbetween institutions of higher educationand K-12 systems, and began operation inthe fall of 1984. Its growth from its firstcohort of about 450 students has beenspectacular. College Now is currently of-fered in 24 public high schools located infour boroughs, and it enrolls more than5,000 annually. More than 40,000 stu-dents have participated in this highly suc-cessful consortial initiative.

In 1992, College Now was cited by theU.S. Department of Education as one of sixmodel high school/college partnerships inthe nation that deserved replication, andmany visiting educators have come to study

Goldstein was deeply committed to accessand excellence in higher education. Amongthe many initiatives he was instrumental increating at Kingsborough are College Now,Family College (the first of its kind in thenation), the Kingsborough High School ofthe Sciences, the My Turn program for se-niors, the New Start program to help in-crease retention within CUNY, and theTeacher’s Academy, which provides profes-sional development courses to publicschool teachers on sabbatical.

Throughout his presidency, he took a per-sonal interest in the community near thebeautifully-sited, 36-year-old campus on theeastern end of Coney Island, maintainingclose dialogue with Brooklyn’s neighbor-hood social and civic groups. Among hismany awards was the Puerto Rican Brother-hood Award, the Academic LeadershipAward of the New York Civic Council, andhis induction, in 1988, into the BrooklynHall of Fame.

Photo, Jon Simon.

Continued on page 11

College Now science teacher Matthew Lerman with studentsMaria Pak and Eric Radezky. Photo, Randy Fader-Smith.

State Budget AnnouncedThe 1999-2000 New York State Executive Budget was released on Janu-

ary 27 and is under review by University officials. The proposed budgetrecommends no tuition increases. Operating funds for senior colleges wouldbe reduced by $5 million from the 1998-1999 budget, reflecting a transferof the monies to the New York City Board of Education for collaborativeprograms with CUNY. Community College support is virtually unchanged.

Substantial changes in the Tuition Assistance Plan (TAP) are proposed,including an increase in the number of credits required for full-time study(from 12 to 15 credits); a 15% reduction (from 90% to 75%) in the maximumTAP awards available to CUNY students, with reimbursement available forstudents who graduate after four years in baccalaureate programs andtwo years in Associate Degree programs; and other restrictions on the num-ber of semesters students would be eligible for TAP assistance. Aid to part-time student programs (APTS) is funded at last year's level.

Interim Chancellor Christoph M. Kimmich indicated that "the Universitywill work with both the Office of the Governor and the State legislature onpossible improvements during budget deliberations."

A comprehensive analysis of the proposed budget isavailable through the Office of University Relations (212-794-5650) or on the CUNY website (www.CUNY.edu).

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Most traveling New Yorkers havepassed through LaGuardia Air-port at one time or another, and

most of them have likely taken a cab tocatch their flights. But it is a certainty thatevery single cabby currently licensed byNew York City’s Taxi and Limousine Com-mission will, when renewing his or her li-cense, pass through a very differentLaGuardia—CUNY’s community college inLong Island City.

They were all enroute to the College, notto catch a fare but to take a four-hour cus-tomer-service course designed to help thembetter serve taxi passengers, particularlythose with disabilities. Since October 1,1997, when the Taxi and Limousine Com-mission ordered all licensed medallion taxi-cab drivers in the city to complete thecourse in order to renew their license,more than 38,000 drivers have learnedhow to deal with a difficult passenger,how to make a patron’s trip a morepleasant one, and how to assist a wheel-chair-user in and out of the cab.

“The required courseteaches the superior customer-services techniques that arecritical in providing the level ofservice New York City taxi pas-sengers have come to expect,but on occasion do not re-ceive,” a TLC spokespersonhas said. “The course builds

on the knowledge and experience pos-sessed by each taxicab driver, balancingthis against passenger issues and thenbridging the gap.”

Needless to say, for hackies, especiallyveterans who have been on the streets

for years, this course was not an easy sell.When first instituted the TLC received aflood of calls from drivers who questionedwhat “the College could teach them abouttheir job.” One driver admitted afterward, “Iwent in with a chip on my shoulder the sizeof Mt. Rushmore. How dare the TLC tell mewhat to do after all these years of driving?”

My colleagues and I at the Taxi DriverInstitute, which offers the course, answerthat fair question with this reply: “Even gooddrivers can become better ones.” In thosefour hours, the Institute strives to prove thateven the most seasoned cabby can takeaway improved customer-service skills.

LAGUARDIA’S BUSY TAXI DRIVERS INSTITUTE

Hail and Fare WellBy Steve Brauch, Director,New York City Taxi Driver Institute,LaGuardia Community College

During the first half of the course, theemphasis is on sensitizing drivers to theirwide variety of customers. Because taxi-cab service is customized, we impressupon our students that they really are notin a transportation business but in a cus-tomer service profession. Unlike fixed-route transport alternatives such as sub-ways, buses, and trains, whose stops aredetermined by the operator, taxicabs mustefficiently respond to the unique requestsof their riders.

Before a class of some 20 drivers, An-drew Vollo, the instructor and AssistantDirector of the Institute, will rattle off anumber of obvious ways his students canbetter meet the needs of commuters whoopt to take a yellow cab over a subway ora bus: keep your cab clean, exchangepleasantries, drive with care. Then headds some suggestions that take the ser-vice to the next level: identify points of in-terest to tourists, have the morning paperson hand for the passenger’s perusal, help apassenger with his or her luggage, and,upon leaving a fare off, especially late atnight, watch to make sure he or shesafely enters the building.

“An important part of the class is gettingdrivers to understand what they are doingout there and to start treating the passen-ger like their guests,” said Vollo.

The discussion will then shift to servingpassengers with disabilities. “How manypassengers with disabilities have youpicked up in the past year?” Vollo asks. “Idon’t know why the TLC is making such abig fuss,” said one driver. “In seven yearsI’ve picked up only two or three.”

“People with disabilities are prime cus-tomers for you simply because other modesof transportation are not as accessible,” theinstructor responds. “So why don’t they takecabs? —because cabs have a reputation fornot picking up people with disabilities. It isyour responsibility to win them back.”

To reverse this way of thinking, theInstitute’s students first learn the differenttypes of disabilities they can encounter—ablind or visually-impaired person with a

Continued on page 10

Driver Ronald Frederique, above center,assists Manuel Junot from a wheelchair ina role-playing exercise; instructor IrickKerr looks on. Photo, Randy Fader-Smith.Shown at left is the 1984 inaugurationceremony for the Taxi Drivers Institute.With former LaGuardia President JosephShenker and Mayor Edward Koch wasReuben Cohen, then believed to be NewYork City's oldest working cabbie.

Continued on page 9

For almost 20 years, the CityUniversity’s Coordinated FreshmanProgram (CFP) has offered the an-

cient Chinese philosopher’s critical firststep to students on their challenging jour-ney to earning baccalaureate and advanceddegrees. The CFP—a unified initiative join-ing the Pre-freshman Summer ImmersionProgram, the Intersession Basic Skills Im-mersion Program, and the Freshman YearInitiative—has provided students with acohesive array of academic and supportservices, and in the summer of 1998 morethan 15,000 students attended theUniversity’s Summer Program.

It has become increasingly clear thatstudents are more likely to cope success-fully with college-level work—and remain inschool—when they are provided with threeforms of assistance: curricula carefullyplanned with their needs in mind, intensivesupport of their academic progress, and thefullest possible counseling and advisingresources. This basic CFP philosophy, well-grounded in the research literature onfreshman year study, focuses on retentiondata, which has become a barometer of in-stitutional effectiveness and a measure ofcommitment to the student population. Tothe surprise of few, research has demon-strated that the quality of freshman-yearexperience is critical to achieving high re-tention rates.

Hence the University Summer Immer-sion Program (USIP), which is for

thousands the first CUNY experience. Stu-dents who fail one or more Freshman SkillsAssessment Test and therefore need reme-dial help may participate in this Program.Introduced in 1985 on a pilot basis for across-section of 500 senior college fresh-men, USIP has grown to its current 15,000-enrollee level and is sited on every commu-nity and senior college campus.

Even prior to 1985, the University hadprovided summer help to admitted studentsthrough such opportunity programs as theSearch for Education Elevation and Knowl-edge (SEEK ) and College Discovery (CD).The Pre-freshman Summer Program wasdeveloped to help bridge the gap between astudent’s previous academic experience andthe realities of college study. CUNY’s cur-rent summer offerings share the same basicgoal of this forerunner program: to accom-plish in six weeks (1) improvement of basicskills in order to pass Skills AssessmentTests, (2) reduction of the time spent inremedial course work, and (3) preparationfor successful transition to the college envi-ronment.

Instruction is offered in reading, writing,mathematics, and English as a Second Lan-guage. Typically, some 95% of students at-tending the summer programs either com-plete their remedial work or move to the nexthigher level of remedial work in the subject

15,000 STUDENTS CAN’T BE WRONG

Summer Programs, an Overview “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” —Lao-tzu

By Dolores StrakerInterim Associate Deanfor Academic Affairs, CUNY

area in which they took summer classes.All programs are tuition-free, and many

provide students with either book money orbooks and supplies. Participants are intro-duced to collegiate ways in a supportive,creative environment, often interactingwith staff and faculty they will meet in thefall. The summer faculty are focused onundergraduate teaching, and they use thisopportunity to create or refine their cur-ricula while exposing students to the rig-ors of college work.

Summer programs, in fact, have pro-duced pedagogical and curricular inno-

vations. One successful program, for ex-ample, is a mid-level ESL course aimed atscience students. Its focus was on the im-pact of science and technology on society.Students read intensively, explored libraryresources, conducted research at the Mu-seum of Natural History, wrote 10-pagepapers, and gave oral presentations.

Also innovative is an intensive, 75-hourcourse on literature developed for studentsneeding remedial work in writing and read-ing. It focused on critical thinking andreading strategies and encouraged studentsto respond critically to college-level textsand to use computers in editing and revis-ing essays. Such work prepared studentsfor a fall-semester block program whichincludes a core course, a speech course,and freshman composition. A special sec-tion of writing, reading, and conversationwas also developed for ESL students. Thiscourse was linked with native-speaker sec-tions to promote cultural exchange and as-sist in the social mainstreaming of ESL stu-dents. Students who need remediation inmath have had an opportunity to registerfor computer-assisted instruction developedby the mathematics faculty.

The summer program has also provided atesting ground for some of our award-win-ning freshman year initiatives. FreshmanYear programs at both Brooklyn and QueensColleges have been awarded the HesburghAward for faculty development, and theSEEK Program at Brooklyn College wasawarded a three-year grant from the Fundfor the Improvement of Post-SecondaryEducation for a program that incorporatesboth faculty and curriculum development.

Two special-opportunity programs givenin 1998 illustrate the creativity which

seems to flourish in the summer programs.The College Discovery Program at Boroughof Manhattan Community College and theSEEK Program at City College conducted aprogram entitled Gateway to Engineering.Students participated in basic skillscourses in the mornings at their home cam-puses and, in the afternoon, in counselingand a science laboratory or a math course.Weekly field trips introduced students toprofessional engineers.

In another area, the SEEK Program atJohn Jay College and the Higher Educa-tional Opportunity Program at FordhamUniversity conducted a joint, thematic sum-mer pre-freshman program on Social Jus-tice in a Diverse Society. This enrichmentprogram included achievement of computerliteracy, seminars on crime in New York

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City Council ExploresCUNY Economic Impact

Numerous aspects of the City University’s far-reaching andmassive impact on the economies of New York City and

New York State were the subject of testimony on November 18in the historic Chambers of the City Council.

Educational, governmental, labor, and business leadersoffered testimony before the Council’s Committee on HigherEducation, which was convened for the occasion by its chair,Councilwoman Helen Marshall.

Notable among the findings cited at the hearing was theconclusion that, according to U.S. Department of Commercemethods of calculation, CUNY’s total economic impact on theNew York economy and tax base is approximately $13.7 billionannually—more than 10 times its annual budget. CUNYcampuses spend $122 million annually for supplies, equipment,and services, nearly all of which is provided by New York-basedvendors. Ten years after graduation, 80% of CUNY alumni live,work, and pay taxes in New York.

CUNY Trustee and Former Board Chair James P. Murphy, aprominent member of the local banking and legal community,elaborated on what he called “the CUNY dividend.” He notedthat nearly one in every 20 New Yorkers attends the University:“the math is simple: 200,000 are enrolled in degree programs,160,000 in continuing education = 360,000 x 20 = 7,200,000, whichis just below the census count.”

Interim Chancellor Christoph M. Kimmich observed, in hiscomments about the subject, that “for every student turned awayfrom CUNY because of inadequate resources, we put at risk astream of dollars spent in New York, a career-long stream of taxespaid by our graduates.” Here are excerpts from four testimonies

TENFOLD ($13.7 BILLION) CONTRIBUTION TO NEW YORKSERVING UP CEO’S, SERVING

FIRST-TIME COLLEGIANS

According to Standard & Poor’s 1996 Execu-tive/College Survey, “The City University of NewYork, since 1980, has led all other colleges anduniversities in bestowing undergraduate degreeson alumni who are now top executives.”

Of course, it is not news that CUNY provides apath of upward economic mobility for its stu-dents, but S&P’s findings are especially remark-able in the light of the nature of CUNY’s studentbody, most of whom are the first generation oftheir family to attend college. Their success isnot due to the corporate connections of theirfamilies or inherited wealth, but solely to theirown determination. . .Enabling both newcomersto our shores and U.S.-born minority students toachieve their personal ambitions remains one ofthe most important ways CUNY contributes tothe City’s economy. Last year, for example, 69%of CUNY’s entering freshmen were either bornoutside the U.S. mainland or had one or bothparents born abroad.

In terms of doctoral degrees, CUNY producesalmost one-and-a-half times the earned Ph.D.sannually than Columbia, New York, and ChicagoUniversities combined, and a recent NationalResearch Council report rates more than a thirdof the GSUC’s doctoral programs as among thenation’s top 20. . .

—Dr. Louise Mirrer, CUNY Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

THE EXAMPLE OFNEW YORK CITY TECH

The Technical College at City Universityoffers 25 associate and 11 baccalaureatedegree programs that prepare students forspecific careers that contribute to the vital-ity of the region’s economy.

Examples from arts and communicationsfields are Art and Advertising Design,Graphic Arts, and the state’s only StageTechnology program. In engineering, theCollege offers Architectural Constructionand Environmental Control, so vital to theconstruction trades in New York, as well asElectrical, Electromechanical, and Me-chanical Engineering technologies thatsupport the region’s telecommunications,computer services, and manufacturing in-dustries. . .The world-renowned HospitalityManagement program is a mainstay of thecity’s restaurant and lodging industry.

City Tech’s award-winning Tech Prep pro-gram, the High School Transitions IntensiveEnglish Language Program, and the Ex-panding Options program provide opportu-nities for our future workforce to developskills essential to scholastic achievement. . . Among initiatives at City Tech that suc-cessfully contribute to economic develop-ment are the Next Step Program, an indus-try/education partnership with Bell Atlanticand its Communications Workers union thatproduces “Super Tech” workers able to ad-dress the sophisticated and intricate needsof the telecommunications industry.

Another unique and highly successfulprogram is MADE-IT, or Mother and Daugh-ter Entrepreneur Teams, which is supportedby the Kauffman Foundation. Gaining Ac-cess is a program that delivers vocational

A LOOK AT CUNY’S UNION LABEL

I am a native New Yorker and a CUNY gradu-ate—Queens College, Class of 1970.

You have learned that more top corporate ex-ecutives have earned CUNY degrees than at anyother school, public or private.

So did many of the people who work forthem. I want to tell you today about someother, less famous CUNY graduates, the mem-bers of Local 1180, a union of the City’s admin-istrative employees. Most are minority womenwith family responsibilities who want a collegeeducation for themselves and their children.Like hundreds of City workers, Local 1180members have gotten their Bachelor’s andMaster’s degrees from CUNY through the UrbanPartnership Program. Hundreds of 1180 mem-bers participate in this program, which is oneof the proudest parts of our union.

Working with the Labor Education and Ad-vancement program (LEAP), Local 1180 and theUniversity designed a program especially forgovernment workers that brings together aca-demics, work experience, and real-life issuesfacing workers and citizens of New York. Wehave been actively involved in the City CollegeCenter for Worker Education in Lower Manhat-tan. In fact, an 1180 member from the CWEgraduated a few years ago as the City Collegevaledictorian.

The Queens College Labor Resource center inMidtown provides classrooms, a library, counsel-ing services, and computer labs to assure ourmembers’ academic success.

Another example of CUNY making educationavailable to New York’s workers is the Consor-tium for Worker Education, a union-led, non-CUNY entity. It receives $4 million in state fundsfor tuition-assistance vouchers, and half thissum is channeled by about a thousand workersinto CUNY classes and programs. . .

The labor education programs I have men-tioned are exactly the kind of thoughtful, work-place-oriented programs we need to build astrong economic future for our city. Studieshave shown that 86% of welfare recipients whograduate with a Bachelor’s degree never returnto welfare. Hardworking New Yorkers who needa job need CUNY: it is that simple.

—Arthur Cheliotes, President, Local 1180,Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO

The City University School of Engineering(SOE) at City College is the only engineeringschool within CUNY and the only public onein the metropolitan area. It has an 80-yeartradition of educating technical profession-als and now has 18,000 living alumni, two-thirds of whom live in the City. . .

We are proud of our role in educating dis-advantaged minorities. . .At the undergradu-ate level, 57% of our students are African-American or Hispanic. This represents 42%of such enrollments in all public and privateinstitutions in New York State. Our graduateprograms have recently become among thetop five producers in the nation of African-American Ph.D.s in engineering.

The SOE is at the forefront of research inmany areas. The Levich Institute is interna-tionally renowned for its physico-chemicalhydrodynamic research. Led by EinsteinProfessor Andreas Acrivos, it also hosts the

training in building maintenance and re-pair to TANF recipients (Temporary Aid toNeedy Families).

Few issues are of greater importanceto our future than ensuring that city resi-dents enjoy economic self-sufficiency, thatnew businesses are started every day, andthat all business and industry in this citythrive. All indicators show that this hap-pens when you have a highly literate,well-trained workforce and high-perfor-mance workplaces utilizing the most ad-vanced technologies.

New York City Technical College is amajor contributor to this workforce devel-opment. As a prominent player in eco-nomic development, its knowledge ofbusiness and industry trends, employmentpatterns, needs and challenges is quintes-sential.

—Jacqueline Cook, Dean of Continu-ing Education and External Partnerships,New York City Technical College

most distinguished journal in fluid dynam-ics. The Center for Biomedical Engineeringis a leader and educational innovator in anarea that overlaps both engineering andmedicine, and that will be key to maintainingthe City’s preeminence in health care.

The University Transportation ResearchCenter is the lead institution of a consor-tium of New York and New Jersey institu-tions funded by the U.S. Department ofTransportation to oversee the Department’slocal Region IV. The Center for Environ-mental Research is developing laser-basedremote sensing techniques for monitoringthe environment. It is also the leadingCUNY participant in a partnership with theGoddard Institute for Space Studies andNASA. Finally, the Photonics EngineeringLaboratory is an important component ofCUNY’s State-funded Center for AdvancedTechnology in Ultrafast Lasers, where

Continued on page 9

ENGINEERING SUCCESS

Photo, André Beckles.

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CUNY•Matters inaugurates herean occasional feature that willfocus on some of the more promi-nent interdisciplinary and inter-campus teams operating atCUNY on noteworthy researchprojects. Future articles willhighlight additional CAT re-search activities, as well as theApplied Science CoordinatingInstitute, and other promisingcollaboratives.

From The Office of Research Develop-ment, CUNY Research Foundation

The cat—Felix domesticus—is a veryagile and clever creature, on occa-sion curious to a fault, seemingly

contemplative, and it has served the emo-tional needs of human beings for millennia.As a companion to human endeavor, sci-ence is a late-comer, but it is an agile,clever, and contemplative creature too. Aspracticed by a distinguished team at sev-eral CUNY campuses, including City Col-lege, science has in fact yielded a new spe-cies of feline: the New York State Centerfor Advanced Technology, or CAT, in thehigh-technology field of photonics, which isthe advanced study of light.

Substantial credit for this CAT’s ability topounce on the latest developments inphotonics goes to CUNY’s Institute forUltrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL), aprogram that has just celebrated its 15thyear of pursuing research that matters toCUNY, to the scientific community at large,and to the technology industry in New YorkState and beyond.

Since 1983, major research universitiesthroughout New York State have worked,through the highly competitive CAT Program,with industry partners on problems of mu-tual interest and benefit to the state’seconomy. Each of the present 14 CATs, lo-cated at major research institutions, sup-ports a different area of specialization, butthey share a common goal: the transfer andcommercialization of technology. The CATprogram provides industry access to innova-tive technology through facilities available atthe participating research institutions.

The CUNY CAT operates under the lead-ership of Distinguished Professor of

Science and Engineering Robert Alfano ofCity College. His Deputy Director for Sci-entific Affairs is Distinguished ProfessorFred Pollak of Brooklyn College. Theirphotonics researchers include a team ofabout 50 physicists, chemists, electricalengineers, computer scientists, materialsspecialists, and support staff located atfive CUNY campuses—Brooklyn, CCNY,Hunter, Queens, and Staten Island. Logis-tic support is provided by a Business Devel-opment and Operations Center located inthe Research Foundation; it is led byDeputy Director Dr. Vincent Tomaselli.

The State awarded CUNY the PhotonicsCAT in 1993. A wide range of analyticalequipment and test facilities has been as-sembled for use by CAT researchers, whohave collectively published about 2,000papers, been awarded more than 100 pat-ents, currently generate $3 million a yearin external research support, and use al-most $5 million worth of equipment intheir studies.

While stretching the frontiers in theultrafast phenomena of light, the CAT sup-ports innovative research in such advancedareas as semiconductor structures and in-terfaces, optical storage, nonlinear optics,novel optical materials, thin films, commu-nications, lasers, optical imaging, andmedical diagnostics. A further multi-cam-

Research MattersCUNY Institute ExploresUltrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers

pus effort building on the laser and opticalimaging aspects of the CAT was the NASAInstitutional Research program establishedin 1992 and directed by Professor Alfano.

A significant advance in ultrafast spec-troscopy was achieved in 1970, with thediscovery of the "super-continuum" by Pro-fessor Alfano and the late Dr. StanleyShapiro. This type of light enabled scien-tists to generate light pulses of five femto-seconds (5/1,000,000,000,000,000ths of asecond)—the shortest attained as of thatdate. This breakthrough led, for example,to practical applications in semiconduc-tor and optical material properties, opti-cal imaging, and medical diagnostics.Today, ultrafast technology is an estab-lished, exciting, and rapidly growing fieldthat is yielding spectacular results inbasic information, communications, andcommercial products.

In 1982, prior to the evolution of the CAT,the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy

and Lasers (IUSL) was created at City Col-lege to oversee ongoing research studies inseveral fields. Since then, it has served asthe home for several programs, such as theMediphotonics Laboratory, established in1986, and the Center for Laser Imaging andCancer Diagnostics, awarded by the U.S.

Department of Energy in 1997. Collabora-tions with other CUNY researchers—and ashared vision to create a focused, Univer-sity-wide photonics effort—led to the estab-lishment of the CAT.

Its research projects focus strongly oncommercially viable outcomes. Scientistswork with industry partners by helpingwith technical problems, performing criti-cal measurements, and seeking third-partyinvestment capital. Since start-up theyhave worked with more than two dozencompanies, like General Electric, QuantumElectronics Technology, and Boston Scien-tific Corporation.

One example of CAT’s commercial suc-cesses is the specialized optical character-ization equipment developed by ProfessorPollak. His instruments have been success-ful in providing important processing datato the semiconductor device manufacturingindustry. Demand for these instrumentshas resulted in the formation of a spin-offcompany, Semiconductor CharacterizationInstruments, Inc. With increasing yearlysales generated by word-of-mouth, SCI’ssuccess epitomizes the fundamental CATgoal of generating growth in New York’stechnology sector.

In addition to the work of Alfano, IUSLscientists Ping Pei Ho, Vladimir

Petricevic, and Feng Liu have been focusingon lasers, non-linear optics, optical imag-ing, and medical applications. Other CATscientists are on the prowl for discoveriesin several other fields: the growth of semi-conductor crystals and novel optical semi-

conductor materials and struc-tures (Prof. Maria Tamargo, CityCollege); compact solid state la-sers (Prof. Ying-Chih Chen,Hunter College); optical proper-ties of glasses (Prof. HarryGafney, Queens College); wavepropagation in random media(Prof. Azriel Genack, QueensCollege); and optical propertiesof organic compounds (Prof.Nan-Loh Yang, College ofStaten Island).

One powerful example of CAT’sservice to the State’s photonicsindustry is the development ofadvanced medical technology atthe IUSL over the last decade.Since 1984 medical diagnosticresearch has been focused on thecharacterization of tissue to dis-tinguish normal, benign, and can-cerous samples (see the Fall1998 CUNY•Matters). Opticalbiopsy and optical imaging are twoemerging complementary photonictechnologies that use light to diag-nose disease and to peer inside

the human body in search of lesions.The photonic technologies under de-

velopment at City College, partially sup-ported by Mediscience Technology Cor-poration, are designed to be safe, non-invasive, and more affordable. Alfanoexplains, “We pursue a strategicroadmap that starts with basic discover-ies, and proceeds to novel and practicalapplications and prototype development,all using light,”

Light interacts with biological tissuesthrough a variety of processes that includereflection, refraction, absorption, emis-sion, as well as elastic and inelastic scat-tering. Light is a less-damaging and non-ionizing radiation than X-rays; thus, rou-tine screening with light reduces healthrisk. Optical biopsy techniques use the“color” of light, that is, the spectroscopicdifferences between normal and canceroustissues to diagnose the disease. The dif-ference in light transmission through nor-mal and infected tissues provides thephysical basis for optical imaging.

A combination of these two major ap-proaches, optical biopsy and optical imag-ing, is expected to provide simpler and morecost-efficient medical diagnostic imagingmodalities. This work has led to the devel-opment, in collaboration with theMediscience Technology Corporation, of twoinstruments, the CD (i.e. cancer detection)Scanner and the CD Ratiometer. Atpresent, prototype instruments developedfor fluorescence-based cancer diagnosis areundergoing FDA testing. Patents have beensecured to protect intellectual propertyrights, and researchers are continuallystriving to make novel photonic technolo-gies available to medical practitioners.

The interaction of IUSL and CAT-spon-sored research at City College nur-

tures the promotion of related projects.Following a highly competitive applicationprocess, the U.S. Office of Energy Re-search awarded funds to City College for aCenter for Laser Imaging and Cancer Di-agnostics. Research at this IUSL Centerbuilds on existing technologies and part-nerships with major medical research cen-ters in New York. Partners in this newCenter include Memorial Sloan-KetteringCancer Center, New York Hospital-CornellMedical School, and Hackensack Univer-sity Medical Center, as well as theLawrence Livermore Laboratory. An indus-trial advisory board, consisting of repre-sentatives from major medical instrumentmanufacturers, is an integral part of theCenter’s structure.

A CAT Trick: CunyiteProfessor Vladimir Petricevic, City College, aCUNY/CAT faculty member, inspects a lasercrystal growth station. Cunyite, a new, near-infrared-tunable, solid-state laser material, wasdeveloped and invented in CUNY laboratories.Cunyite and a related crystal, forsterite, havefacilitated the development of lasers with higherefficiency, longer life-spans, stable operation,compactness, and portability. Thesedevelopments have been directly put into use inproducts built and marketed by Long Island-basedQuantronix, Inc., a specialty laser manufacturerand CAT affiliate. Photos, Kestutis Sutkes.

CAT SPRAYPierre Galland, a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at CityCollege, uses optical imaging methods to study jet sprays in an IUSLlaboratory. He is also part of NASA’s Institutional Research Awardprogram at CUNY, which supports 46 undergraduate and 26 graduatestudent assistantships. Information on the fuel spray, droplets, andturbulence in liquid rocket engines can help to predict and improvethe cooling and combustion stability of combustion chambers. Usingpicosecond, time-resolved, and spatial gated optical imagingtechniques, the project seeks to obtain information from a sequenceof images on how fuel droplets change in time. This will increaseknowledge of fuel/oxidizer jet geometry and dynamics, dropletinformation, size, shape, velocity, and interaction with other droplets.

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PT: Your vita is daunting: travel, teach-ing, field work, publication, and many yearsof what must be called activism. Where tobegin?

JG: Let’s begin with the whole questionof human and civil rights, which I see aspart of the health care scene. We’re hear-ing more and more statements—including,most recently, those from the new head ofthe World Health Organization, GroBrundtland defining health, not merely ac-cess to health care, as a human right.

At Harvard’s Kennedy School last De-cember, for a celebration of the 50th anni-versary of the Universal Declaration of Hu-man Rights, I described a problem posed bythe unqualified assertion of a right tohealth. If a child is born with Tay-SachsDisease or some other ailment that con-demns it to die in its first year, who hasdeprived that child of its rights? There is abetter pathway to that right. Certain otherarticles in the Universal Declaration sug-gest people are entitled to a standard ofliving that implies, in broad paraphrase, areasonable shot at health. In the UnitedStates, and certainly in the developingworld, are millions whose social and bio-logical environments determine they willhave shortened life spans. This is a UDHRrights violation.

PT: More than a half-century ago youfounded a chapter of CORE, the Congresson Racial Equality in Madison, Wisconsin,years before the national civil rights move-ment of the ‘60s. Were you drawn to COREbecause of health care concerns?

JG: Simply the manifest injustice. It

CCNY’S COMMUNITY HEALTH INNOVATOR

A Mover, Shaker—and BuilderFor Health Care and Civil Rights

For decades H. Jack Geiger, theArthur C. Logan Professor of CommunityMedicine Emeritus at CUNY’s Sophie

Davis School of Biomedical Education, hasstormed society’s ramparts in the battle forequitable delivery of health care. His “Emeri-tus” appellation is worth a good chuckle: Gei-ger is still constantly on the professional move,helping a Harvard search committee oneday, for example, conferring in New York onNational Medical Fellowships the next. Therecipient of the Sedgwick Medal of theAmerican Public Health Association and theLienhard Award (the highest) of the Institutionof Medicine in the National Academy of Sci-ences last fall, Geiger has been in the fore-front of virtually every movement attuned tothe world’s health and safety.

He has raised awareness of environmentaldebilitation, human rights violations, and thestockpiling of weapons of mass destruction.A founding member of Physicians for SocialResponsibility in 1961, Geiger has argued long and passionately in favor of globaldisarmament. If you don’t classify these as public health issues, you have notbeen in Geiger’s classroom. As he tells his medical students, “the determinantsof the health of a population are not just in health care, but in the public policyissues, the physical environment, the social environment, the biological environ-ment.” But, Geiger admits, health care still remains an excellent point of interven-tion because, “people still listen to their doctors.”

Geiger very presciently attended the New York City high school named afterTownsend Harris, the architect of local public higher education. He did not re-turn to New York, however, until 1978, when he joined the Sophie Davis Faculty.Ironically, short hours before the recent bombing of Iraq, CUNY•Matters writerPeter Taback met with Geiger at Sophie Davis to talk about war and the fewphilosophical constants in Geiger’s multilateral career in public health.

was 1943, and the conflict was glaring be-tween our purpose in fighting World War IIand what was actually going on in thecountry: segregation in the armed forces,the rampant segregation north and south,differing only in character. CORE was in-teresting, compared to the NAACP andother older mainline advocacy groups, be-cause it was explicitly interracial andworked through direct action. It was per-fectly legal in those days for a restaurant inMadison or Chicago to refuse to serve ablack customer. An interracial team ofCORE members would arrive in a restau-rant, sit down and occupy tables—whitesat one table, blacks at another. When theblacks were refused service, the whiteswould respond, “We won’t be served untilthat person is served, and we’re not leaving.”Then the dialogue with other patrons: “Thisis what’s happening—we think you have amoral responsibility to join us in this.”

PT: And this interracial version of civildisobedience was years before Greensbor-ough, Selma, Montgomery?

JG: It was Gandhi. It was the first timethat, as a matter of deliberate principle, anadvocacy group in the U.S. widely employednon-violent, direct-action techniques. We,more than anyone else, were precursors ofthe Student Non-Violent Coordinating Com-mittee.

PT: By SNCC’s time, though, you werealready a member of the faculty, not a stu-dent.

JG: When I was in the public schoolshere, they didn’t know about enrichmentand just “skipped” kids. I skipped about

five grades and went on to Townsend Har-ris, which did high school’s four years inthree. I graduated, God help me, when Iwas 14! I also won a Regent’s scholarship,but no university would let me in. When Iturned 15, the University of Wisconsin re-lented. I wanted to be a journalist andworked at night for Madison’s Capital Times(half its staff had gone to war). Then, in1943, I enlisted in the only branch of themilitary that was not segregated, the Mer-chant Marine. After almost four years inthe Marine, I went to the University of Chi-cago and discovered that the MedicalSchool was lily white and its hospitals re-fused to admit black patients. The minutesof the School’s admissions committee hadthings about black applicants like, “Quali-fied, but we’re not ready to have any blackstudents here yet.” Perfectly legal in 1947!And so we organized a long campaign,somewhat ahead of its time, that included astrike of students and faculty.

PT: What were you studying then?JG: Essentially pre-med. Like many a

CUNY student, I had to support myself byworking at night—for Chicago’s Daily News,then the International News Service (Mer-chant seamen got no GI benefits). I alsohelped run major civil rights campaigns.Eventually, with my good education in sci-ence, the obvious thing to do was cover sci-ence and medicine. I was the science editorfor INS the next five years.

PT: Then, in 1954, you enrolled at West-ern Reserve Medical School to become aprimary-care physician?

JG: I really wanted to do nucleic acidresearch—what I’d been covering as a sci-ence reporter. I knew an M.D. would beeasier than a Ph.D. in a field like biochem-istry, which is very rigorous. Soon I discov-ered I didn’t have the patience to sit withone enzyme system for five years. I alsowasn’t so good in the lab!One day I was standing onthe steps of the school andgazing at the Cleveland sky-line. It suddenly occurred tome that who got sick outthere, who did not, and alltheir interactions with thehealth care system were so-cial as well as biologicalphenomena. All my previousexperiences with civil rights,I realized then, had rel-evance to medicine. I wasvery excited.

PT: The dawn of socialmedicine?

JG: I ran to the libraryand discovered the Britishand the Germans hadbeaten me to it. Also bychance, I then came uponword of a Department ofSocial Medicine that was operating astrange new thing called “community healthcenters” in, of all places, South Africa. Itwas in the one medical school for non-whites in that apartheid nation, Durban’sUniversity of Natal Medical School. Poolingelectives, I wangled five months of my se-nior year to go there. Doctors Sidney andEmily Kark, who invented community-ori-ented primary care, led the program. I wasvery lucky to have, with them, that experi-ence of teaching the use of epidemiology inmedicine and thinking about the health ofpopulations.

PT: But you returned?JG: I completed my internship and resi-

dencies in Boston, training for internationalhealth work. Then, in 1964, I went to Mis-sissippi with the Medical Committee forHuman Rights—part of that summer’s civilrights campaign. I took a long look aroundand realized I didn’t have to go to Africa,Southeast Asia, or Latin America: we hadthe same health care injustice and inequityhere. Maybe community health centerswere appropriate for the U.S. And so mycolleagues and I started two communityhealth centers, one in inner-city Boston andthe other in the Mississippi Delta. I workedat them for the next eight years, mostly inMississippi’s Bolivar County, then thenation’s third poorest. Any indicator youlooked at there—in education, employment,housing, income, disease—was about asbad as it could get.

In addition to our clinical and publichealth work, we offered GED and college-prep programs. Our center produced fromthis county, in the first decade, seven M.D.s,five Ph.D.s, about 25 registered nurses, halfa dozen social workers, two environmentalengineers, and Mississippi’s first 10 blackregistered sanitarians. I still visit thishealth center, and now more than 100people are in one branch or another of thehealth professions. So I have been veryaware of the lesson we learned there: un-tapped human resources in underservedpopulations.

PT: How did you find your way to theSophie Davis?

JG: I recruited myself.PT: Don’t tell me—chance was involved

again?JG: Yes, in the New York Times in 1977,

I happened to see an advertisement for theLogan Professorship at this school notedfor its commitment to recruiting minorities

and training for practice in underservedareas. I jumped at it.

PT: The School arguably leads the nationin attracting students committed tounderserved populations. How does thisplay out in the classroom?

JG: They look different, compared tomost medical school classes, though untilCalifornia Prop. 187 and the Hopwood casein Texas and other attacks on affirmativeaction, many medical schools were doingbetter at multicultural recruitment. A lot ofthese kids are also from working-classbackgrounds, some from a poverty of means

The former and present H. Jack Geiger.Photos, André Beckles.

H. Jack Geiger, left, in 1966 on the construction site of the DeltaHealth Center on the outskirts of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Withhim on what was formerly a cotton field is Dr. John W. Hatch, thenthe director of community organization and health education forthe center. Photo, Dan Bernstein.

Continued on page 8

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Don Adriano de Armado is thehilariously feckless Spanish socialclimber at the court of the King of

Navarre in Shakespeare’s great early com-edy Love’s Labour’s Lost. He knows thatwhen you address a letter to a king youbetter pull out all the salutatory stops.And so he does, beginning “Great deputy,the welkin’s vicegerent, and sole domina-tor of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s God, andbody’s fostering patron. . .”

Don Armado has obviously done somehomework on letter-writing—“vicegerent,”whatever that might be, is no everydayword. This is a subject about which Dr.Emil J. Polak, a professor of history atQueensborough Community College, knowsmore than just about anyone in the world.Since 1978 Polak has been visiting librar-ies throughout the world, locating andmaking a census of Medieval and Renais-sance manuals on letter-writing, a branchof rhetoric that flourished most spectacu-larly during these periods. Nearly everywinter and summer recess over two de-cades has found him haunting librariesworldwide, scrutinizing how-to volumesthat address proper salutations and letteretiquette.

Recently, Polak was captured standingat the threshold of the municipal library ofCharleville-Mézières in northeasternFrance. The occasion marked his 600thlibrary visitation.

Polak’s work has produced—in addition,one hopes, to an entry in Guinness—thefirst two of a projected four volumes of hisMedieval and Renaissance Letter Treatisesand Form Letters (1993-94), one focusedon Eastern Europe and the formerU.S.S.R., the other on Western Europe,Japan, and the U.S.

His findings have exceeded all hisoriginal expectations. “The two pub-

lished volumes cite about 2,500 works. . .concerning Medieval and Renaissance so-ciety from the Pope, emperors and mon-archs down to bishops, nobles, priests,nuns, monks, townspeople, and fathersand sons—these last usually seeking aidfrom home while away at college.” Thecensus, Polak explains, offers a guide to a“very important rhetorical genre in theMiddle Ages and Renaissance, letter-writ-ing or epistolography, which was a majorroot of humanism and Latin culture thatspread from Italy throughout Europe.”

After majoring in Latin at what is nowSUNY-Albany and earning a ColumbiaPh.D. in Medieval and Ancient History (hisdissertation was on a 13th-century Latintextbook on letter-writing), Polak becameone of the first recipients of a Rome PrizeFellowship in post-classical humanisticstudies at the American Academy.

Since then he has sought to visit allstate, city, university, episcopal, monastic,and private libraries or archives contain-ing Latin books and manuscripts. Nine-teen awards have supported Polak’s work,including grants from the NEH, the DelmasFoundation, and PSC-CUNY.

In most cases, of course, library secu-rity is strict, but Polak has encounteredsome unusual protocols. He has been leftalone with precious codices and simply

PERIPATETIC QUEENSBOROUGH SLEUTH

Salutations on a 600th Library Visit

instructed to leave them on thetable and close the door firmlybehind him. In the town libraryof Noto, Sicily, he was forced tocut the leaves of its 1889manuscript catalogue in orderto read the pages.

And in Modigliana he had toconvince the town librarianthat the library did indeed pos-sess at least 93 codices (a co-dex is a bound volume withcontents written by hand). Thedebate brought them to aformer library building datingfrom the 17th century, anabandoned near-ruin. A care-ful search revealed a dust-cov-ered heap on the floor: themanuscripts, some of them 500years old. Today they are, if not sound, at least safe.

Such discoveries make the drudgery of detective work all worthwhile,Polak says. “It’s exciting when a relevant manuscript is identified forwhich there is no written record. And to do so it is essential to consultthe manuscripts firsthand.”

Of Epistles Monitory, Amatory, Invective

To give readers a flavor of letter-writing manuals from Shakespeare’stime, CUNY•Matters offers here some samples from The EnglishSecretarie, Or Methods of Writing Epistles and Letters by Angel Day(1599).

• The author advises a wife whose traveling hus-band has belatedly thought to write to begin thus:Good husbande, I am glad that you have at the lastremembred your selfe, by this bearer, to write unto me, whohave thought it verie long to heare from you.

• Here is how to end a “pleasantly written epistleinvective” addressed to “a vaineglorious person”:Onely doubting lest, overswolen with your humours, youshould consume in your follies, I have done, leaving therest to your correction, if at least you have any wit at allwhereby to amend them.

• Here is how to begin an “epistle monitory” tothe father of a bad seed: Though it seeme an ap-proved folly to cast pearles before swine, or to offer agolden saddle to an ass's back, yet I have written unto youto manifest the vile and bad parts of your sonne, whereofyou will take no notice.

• It is a shame this style for an “epistle amatory”has vanished completely: The long and considerateregarde, by which in deep contemplation I have eyed yourmost rare and singular vertues, joyned with so admirablebeauty, and much pleasing condition grafted in your per-son, hath moved me good Mistresse ______ tofavour you, earnestlie to love you, and therewith to offermy selfe unto you.

Regrettably, The English Secretarie offers no assistance whatever tothe correspondent desiring to address an epistle abusive to a dither-ing department chair or an epistle querulous to a university chan-cellor—interim or otherwise.

DANCING AT LUGHNASA–AND NOW

Dancing at HortobágyThe Feminist Press at the City University has justpublished The Defiant Muse: Dutch and FlemishFeminist Poems, a bilingual anthology of more thana hundred poems from the 13th to the 20th centu-ries edited by Maaike Meijer. From the collection isthis poem by Giza Ritschl (1869-1942), who arrivedin The Netherlands in the 1890s from Hungary.Called the “Hungarian Nightingale,” her main themewas love (translation by Myra Scholz).

To Sebestyén

Once I danced in a Csárda,On the Puszta in Hortobágy.

The music was wild, my feelings caught fire,In the Csárda on the Puszta in Hortobágy.

The glasses rang out, passion and wine made me drunk,In the Csárda on the Puszta in Hortobágy.

And oh, a thousand songs must have echoed,In the Csárda on the Puszta in Hortobágy,

Now I sit here and dreamOf the Puszta in Hortobágy.

Again and again all the beauty floods backOf the Puszta in Hortobágy.

In a Fata Morgana my thoughts float overTo you, my Puszta in Hortobágy.

And to the Csárda I love, that I danced in, laughing,On the Puszta in Hortobágy.

A Musicologist’s PrankIn 1980, the massive, 20-volume New Grove Dic-tionary of Music and Musicians appeared. Oneof its more puckish contributors felt thereshould be at least one completely fictitious en-try amid all the scrupulous, often arcane schol-arship. Here it is:

Esrum-Hellerup, Dag Henrik (b Århus, 19July 1803; d Graested, 8 Sept 1891). Danishflautist, conductor and composer. His fatherJohann Henrik (1773-1843) served in theSchwerin court orchestra before becomingchamber flautist to King Christian IX; he wassubsequently honoured as Hofkammer-musicus. Dag Henrik studied with his fatherand with Kuhlau and rapidly acquired a repu-tation as an accomplished flautist. His riseto fame in the 1850s was as rapid as his de-cline into obscurity; his opera Alys og Elvertøj(now lost) was much admired by Smetana,who is said to have conducted a performanceduring his time in Göteborg. Besides being akeen folksong collector (he made manyfolksong arrangements), Esrum-Hellerup alsochampioned his Scandinavian contemporar-ies Hägg, Almquist, Berwald, and others, andin later years Wagner and Draeseke; heplanned performances of Parsifal in bothEsbjerg and Göteborg but died before accom-plishing this. Some flute quartets showingthe influence of Kuhlau are among his fewsurviving works. He published a transla-tion of Quantz’s treatise and a two-volumeset of memoirs (Musicaliske intryck,Copenhagen, 1883-6).

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ease in New York City. Davis will receive$2500 a year to pursue her studies.

When 69-year-old Elly Gross was at-tending LaGuardia Community College

a while back, she submitted a somber poemthat recalled the memories of a 15-year-old

girl who was transported to the concentra-tion camp at Birkenau in World War II.Burnt into her memory are the bright skiesblackened by bellowing smoke, the five chim-neys that spewed ashes, and the pungent

Dysphonia is a rare neurologicaldisorder that typically manifestsitself in loss of voice, severe weak-

ness, muscle tremors, and asthma. SharonDavis of the Bronx suffers from it, but shedid not let that—or being a black woman inher late forties—stop her from deciding togo to college. She gradu-ated with an Associate’sDegree last spring fromQueensborough Commu-nity College’s ExternalEducation Program forthe Homebound with amajor in psychology.Davis not only main-tained a 3.5 GPA but alsoreceived one of CUNY’sVera Douthit Awards forscholarship and service.

“It has been said thatwhen one door closes,another opens,” Davisobserved, looking back onher QCC career. “Manydoors have opened forme, and many wonderfulpeople have entered my life since that daywhen I received my diagnosis for dysphonia.”

And “euphonious” is certainly the word forDavis’s current academic career. She is en-rolled in Queens College’s Homebound Pro-gram and learned last fall that she had won ascholarship from the Stony-Wold HerbertFund, a privately endowed organization dedi-cated to fighting all forms of pulmonary dis-

TWO RECENT COMMUNITY COLLEGE GRADS

Triumphing over Dysphonia,Memories of the Holocaust

and tireless advancement of pub-lic interest law.”

“At the school Dean Glen nur-tures, deployment of law in the publicinterest is not a ‘sometime thing.’ Itis fundamental to the legal educationCUNY offers. Collaborative student,faculty, and staff endeavors to ‘pro-mote the general welfare’ are CUNY’shallmarks and pride. . .”

“Law and lawyers, you know,have fared rather badly in many asong and story,” Ginsberg observed.“Writers from Shakespeare to Sandburghave now and then revealed a certain dis-taste for the lawyers’ trade. CharlesDickens, in Bleak House, put it this way:

The one great principle of the En-glish law is to make business for it-self. There is no other principle sodistinctly, certainly, and consistentlymaintained through all its narrowturnings.

Viewed by this light it becomesa coherent scheme and not themonstrous maze the laity are aptto think it. Let them but onceclearly perceive that its grandprinciple is to make business foritself at their expense, and surelythey will cease to grumble.

But the legal profession has among its

practitioners brave men and women whostrive to change this perception, and lawstudents like those assembled here, alreadydevoted to, and at work for, the publicgood—people who are the best of lawyersand lawyers-to-be, the most dedicated, theleast selfish.”

“Kristin Booth Glen,” Ginsberg con-cluded, “is just such a lawyer. She leads afaculty outstanding in the endeavor toshape fine legal education to the challeng-ing needs of public interest practice. Forall she has done and will continue to dothroughout her work and days, and for theinspiration she gives to others who will fol-low in her way, may I invite all of you to joinme in applause and a rousing ‘Brava!’”

odor that permeated the air. “The professornever received a poem on this subject from astudent before,” Gross recalls.

She was the 15-year-old. Recentlygraduated from LaGuardia, Gross is nowtelling her story to a much larger audi-ence as a spokesperson for Holocaustsurvivors who are suing German corpo-rations that used slave labor duringWorld War II. She has appeared on “60Minutes” and is one of the 50,000 survi-vors filmed by Stephen Spielberg’s Survi-vors of the Shoah Foundation.

“Every time I look back, I ask myself, ‘howwas I able to cope with all the tragedies thathappened to me?’” says Gross. “My destinywas to keep going and living, so that today Ican share some of my memories.”

And terrible they were, including the de-portation of her father from her native Ro-mania to the vicinity of Moscow for forcedlabor. On May 27, 1944, Gross was sepa-rated from her 37-year-old mother and five-year-old brother at Birkenau, and was sentto Germany to work in a factory owned byVolkswagen, painting metal cylinders anddeveloping a severe cough and bleedinggums from the fumes.

But misery did not end with liberation, asGross learned when she returned to herhome town. “There I found strangers livingin our home and I learned that my motherand brother were gassed at Birkenau and myfather was burned alive on the Russian frontin 1943.”

Now a wife, mother, and grandmother,Gross resides in Jamaica, Queens, andamong the pieces of life she has put backtogether is her associate’s degree. “The de-gree provides me with a personal satisfac-tion because I did not have a chance to pur-sue higher education when I was younger.”

Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg, left, withDean Glen. Photo, Richard Zeitler.

Happy Queensboroughgraduate Sharon Davis, left.Elly Gross, below, withmementos of her life beforethe Holocaust. Photo,Randy Fader-Smith.

A t a ceremony in Washington, D.C. onNovember 6, Dean Kristin BoothGlen of the CUNY School of Law re-

ceived the Law School Dean of the YearAward conferred by the National Associationof Public Interest Law (NAPIL).

Dean Glen was selected notably for herwork on establishing the Haywood BurnsChair in Civil Rights, the School’s EmmaLazarus Immigrants Program, and the Com-munity Legal Resource Network, a consor-tium of four law schools funded by an OpenSociety Institute grant to create innovativepublic interest practice models to supportsmall law firms.

Currently celebrating its 15th anniver-sary, CUNY Law at Queens College wasthe first public interest law school ac-credited by the American Bar Associa-tion. Last year the Law Student Divisionof the ABA named the School the top pub-lic interest school in the nation.

The featured speaker at the award cer-emony was Associate Justice of the

Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. “Ihad vowed to copy Poe's Raven and say toall mid-sitting period invitations: ‘Never-more,’” Ginsberg explained. But whenshe received news of Glen’s NAPIL award,she said she “could not resist the oppor-tunity to cheer her for her innovations

JUSTICE GINSBERG APPLAUDS

Public Interest Lawyers Honor Dean Glen

O ver the last 26 years, more than athousand American college gradu-ates have pursued post-graduate

degrees in Great Britain on Marshall Schol-arships— established by the British Gov-ernment as a thank-you for Marshall Planassistance after World War II. None hadcome from Queens College, however, un-til it was announced in December thatnot one but two of the College’s gradu-ates would be sceptered isle-bound asMarshall Scholars this fall.

Tara Helfman, of Flushing plans topursue a doctorate in history at Cam-bridge, with a specialization in constitu-tional law. Economics Professor Eliza-beth Roistacher, who advised Helfmanand the other winner, Joseph Stern,called her student “a brilliant historian .. . who seems to have discovered the 48-hour day. She carries a demanding aca-demic load and is recognized as stellarnot only in history but also in philosophyand music.”

QUEENS COLLEGE FIRST—TWICE

Math/Philosophy,History MajorsPlan Marshall Studies

In addition to her scholarly pursuits,Helfman, the daughter of two CUNYalumni (her mother is a City publicschool teacher), has volunteered in theJamaica Hospital ER and was foundingeditor of the College’s Scholar’s Sentinelnewsletter. Her recreations includecooking (vegetarian) and swing-dancing.

Stern came to Queens College withpainting and sculpting in mind—he isalso a jazz guitarist and vocalist with alocal group called Trio Mio—but wassoon lured into philosophy, mathematics,and quantum theory. He will pursue aMaster’s in pure mathematics at ImperialCollege, London.

Stern, who hopes eventually to earn adoctorate in the States and teach on thecollege level, has worked in constructionand volunteered as an art therapist forlow-functioning adults.

Marshall Scholars designate Tara Helfmanand Joseph Stern. Photo, Daniel Reilly.

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and, to some extent, of aspiration. Thesekids have much more variegated experi-ence; most of them have worked or areworking while they’re here.

PT: So they don’t need to be told of dis-parities in U.S. health care?

JG: No—nor about another Americanaffliction: the problem of racism in healthcare. But, like most other Americans,they’re uncomfortable talking about race. Ithink some of them feel, “these are socialissues...what do they have to do with medi-cine or medical school?” Like most medicalstudents, they’re not well-informed aboutrace as a social, not biological, construct.

So, for example, I explain that 90-or-sopercent of genetic difference occurs notbetween ethnic groups but within them. Ihave two African-American students andtwo white students stand up and I point outthat there is more variation between thetwo African-American students than thereis between them and the white students,and vice versa. They’re astonished.

PT: Also by their experience in the Commu-nity Health and Social Medicine programs?

JG: All of them, even those from middle-class homes, end up with much more directexperience. Any student who, as part of hisor her assignment, accompanies a welfaremother trying to make an application forfoods stamps or Medicaid eligibility comesaway better educated.

PT: And better prepared for work in thevolatile health care sector?

JG: Yes. In fact, there is now more in-terest in and contentment with the idea ofprimary care as compared to specialty andsubspecialty training because much moreemphasis is being placed on primary caretoday—and because the income of primarycare physicians is rising. They’re almostthe only segment of the profession in whichthat’s the case. Our students are alsokeenly aware that 43 million Americans arenow without any health insurance.

PT: And the system they willenter...what is your current prognosis?

JG: We are facing a crisis in this coun-try. In 30 years or so, more than half of thepopulation will be “minority.” Simulta-neously, minority applications to medical

school are falling and the pipeline thatleads there is narrowing substantially. Ihave editorialized in the American Journalof Public Health on “Ethnic Cleansing in theGroves of Academe,” where I deal with thewhole of the remediation issue and cite thedata on medical school and college admis-sions. This is the pipeline that leads to anapplication to medical school. Minoritypopulations that are already overburdenedwith morbidity and mortality, living in envi-ronments that put them at higher risk aresimultaneously faced with this impendingcrisis in health care.

PT: How will the growth of managedcare affect this scenario?

JG: Nobody wants to go back to the oldfee-for-service system, which was headedtoward chewing up 18-20% of the GNP. Andmuch about managed care has been salu-tary: standardization of treatment, greateremphasis on preventive care, computertracking of individuals and populations—much of which we teach in community-ori-ented primary care syllabus.

PT: I had thought the national consensuson managed care was: “fear and loathing.”

JG: The real problem has been the intro-duction of venture capital into managedcare organizations—care of the stockholdersuperseding care of the patient. The distri-bution of income and the motivation forrestriction of services are an outrage. Dis-content, I think, is going to boil over.

PT: What is the big lesson the studentsin your “U.S. Health Care” class at SophieDavis take away?

JG: That the determinants of the healthof a population are not in health care.Health care contributes, but the determi-nants are all of these public policy issues,the physical environment, the social envi-ronment, the biological environment. Thisis what we learned in Mississippi.

PT: You testified for the White House in1993. Was the nation just not ready?What happened?

JG: A series of political blunders. Firstwas the preliminary secrecy, which natu-rally aroused suspicion. Second was trans-lating an essentially sound plan into suchcomplicated detail that it made a 1000-page piece of legislation—a real non-starter. The third blunder was internal: the

great variety of opinions of all the separatetask forces wasn’t reflected well in the finalproduct. Finally, and perhaps biggest, wasthe blunder of not anticipating the hugemedia assault mounted by the powerfulenemies of regulation.

PT: Is the industry’s disarray affectingmedical school applicant pools?

JG: Although many applicants tell youthey have been advised by every doctor intheir ken not to go, applications have contin-ued to rise, until very recently. This is some-thing people want to pursue for other moti-vations. Just reflecting as we talk, I see thatthese issues of health care, of civil rightsand human rights, equity and justice, thedistribution of resources in a population, areall part of a seamless whole. They aredeeply connected with each other.

It goes back to the father of modern so-cial medicine, the great German pathologistRudolph Virchow we always end up quoting.He said (and I never can remember whichway it runs!) “Medicine is just politics writlarge” or “Politics is just medicine writlarge.” He was famous for having been sentby the Kaiser to investigate an epidemic oftyphus among poor peasants in Silesia. Andhe said the real answer to this problem isthat these people ought to have decent in-comes, better housing, better food, a regularjob, safer environments, and some dignity.

PT: Did the Kaiser welcome that response?JG: No, certainly not. But in a way it

was the beginning of the struggle I've beentalking about. In the middle of the Indus-trial Revolution, a man named John Simon,who counts as London’s first public healthofficer, in about 1849 called for a revolu-tion in the status of the poor on thegrounds that this was simultaneously a ma-jor issue of health and of justice. So there

is a long radical tradition of the kind ofmedicine I have been describing.

PT: Is such a fight still perceived as“radical” in the America of 1998?

JG: It is so labeled by The Wall Street Jour-nal and other conservative organizations. Theytout only personal responsibility, individualchoice, life style, and so forth. This narrownessis nonsense, given what we know about thefactors that create ill health.

PT: This brings to mind your 1987 re-view in the Times of Randy Shilts’s study ofthe nation’s response to AIDS, And theBand Played On. You wrote “great and le-thal epidemics are never merely biologicalevents and never elicit merely biological orscientific responses. They become socialforces in their own right, carving up deepnew fissures in the political and culturallandscape, thrusting up buried fears and

hatreds.” AIDS, you added, was not onlyan epidemic: “it is a mirror, revealing usto ourselves.” Ten years on, what doesthe mirror say?

JG: This is another example of theprofound connections between the way asociety is organized and its people’shealth and health care. It is noble andappropriate for medicine to be trying todeal clinically with the disastrous conse-quences of AIDS, but it’s insufficient ifwe are not simultaneously advocating thekinds of social change that will reduce oreliminate those problems at their source.

PT: You pursued that preventive-medi-cine agenda, as well, in your associationwith Physicians for Social Responsibility.

JG: Don’t use the past tense! Somewherebetween 30,000 and 50,000 nuclear war-heads are still floating around in the world.Perhaps the most notable thing we did wasseriously analyze the consequences of anuclear war. We published our pessimisticconclusions in what became a whole issue ofthe New England Journal of Medicine. Weprovided a model for any city; you could goon New Orleans or St. Louis and say, “This iswhat a one-megaton burst will do here.”Viewers could find their home on the map.

PT: And all the old civil defense homiliesand recommendations were just a publicrelations maneuver to quell public anxiety?

JG: And most everyone believed it!PT: Have the planet’s hopes shifted now

that the nuclear threat is no longer two-sided and developing nations are addingtheir names to the nuclear club?

JG: I wrote a long review in The Nationjust after India and Pakistan did, its thrustbeing: We are in a hell of a position to pointa finger at them for acquiring what werefuse to divest.

PT: But is it possible, or wise, forthe U.S. to divest completely?

JG: There is a campaign for aboli-tion—the total elimination of nuclearweapons, just as we are attemptingby treaty to destroy chemical and bio-logical weapons of mass destruction.This is vulnerable to all the obviouscriticisms. How do you knowsomebody’s not sneaking—the personwho has one when everybody else hasnone is in a position of power.

I’ve been putting more of my en-ergy into human rights work in thelast few years. Those inequities aregetting worse. The world’s 225 rich-est individuals, of whom 60 areAmerican, have a combined wealth ofmore than $1 billion—equal to the

annual income of the poorest 47% of theentire world’s population. You see such fig-ures all the time.

PT: You started civil rights demonstra-tions in the ‘40s, trained in South Africa inthe ‘50s, studied nuclear catastrophe andled in the development of a national net-work of 850 community health centers fromthe ‘60s to the ‘80s, and have advocated theinvolvement of the medical/academic com-munity in global human rights initiatives.Would it be fair to say you’ve been a pio-neer in every step of your career?

JG: Pioneer is the wrong word. What Isaid before about the invention of socialmedicine is true of civil rights or protestsagainst social inequities. Nor would I everclaim I was the first to see the connectionswith the practice of medicine. There arealways people who precede you.

On January 14, the eve of MartinLuther King Jr. Holiday, LaGuardia

Community College opened a six-month-long exhibition of 50 black and white im-ages taken during the last year of the civilrights leader’s life by his personal photog-rapher, Benedict J. Fernandez.

During 1967 Fernandez worked withKing—who was assassinated on April 4,1968—on two important projects, hisbook Trumpets of Freedom and the PoorPeople’s Campaign at Resurrection City.Included are images of King speaking atthe United Nations, private moments withhis family, and the funeral.

The photojournalist, currently an ad-junct professor in LaGuardia’s CommercialPhotography program, has extracted theworks on view from his book Countdown to Eternity. They can be found on the secondfloor atrium of the College’s E Building at 31- 10 Thompson Avenue, Long Island City.

FROM HIS PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHER

Final Images of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Geiger Interview, continued from page 5

Geiger in the office of his Brooklyn home.

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He did not photograph anyone and everyone, only“well-made children who have a taste for beingtaken. . . .I should decline the offer of others,” he

wrote, “as I think such pictures would be unpleasant.” Hewas also especially careful to insure that the children feltcomfortable with him and wanted to be photographed. Heinvited one mother to bring her daughters round for a visit,“not to be photographed then and there (I never succeedwith strangers), but to make acquaintance with the placeand the artist, and to see how they relished the idea ofcoming, another day, to be photographed. . .”

When he knew that the children felt at ease with him, hewent to work, gently and carefully, using all his naturalcharm and wit to achieve a pleasant air. He strove to cap-ture his subjects as they appeared in real life. “He couldnot bear dressed-up children,” one observer later wrote,“but liked them to be as natural as possible. He never letthem pose . . . and it did not matter a bit if their hair wasuntidy; in fact, it pleased him better.” His experience withthe theater led him to value stage props, and he used themliberally: a book, a lens, a croquet mallet. . .He disliked

CUNY EMERITUS CELEBRATES A CENTENNIAL

A Famed MathematicianAdventures into the Dark RoomHe preferred giving un-birthday presents because he could givethem so many more times in a year. In the course of his work asa professional mathematician-logician, he invented witty syllo-gisms like this one:

No Professors are ignorant;All ignorant people are vain.Conclusion: No Professors are vain.

He was also a most unusual university teacher. He noted inhis diary one day in 1880, “I propose to the Staff SalariesBoard that, as my work is lighter than it used to be, I shouldhave £200 instead of £300 a year.” A few weeks later he re-corded, “Offer was accepted.” And, oh yes, he wrote Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland under the pen name Lewis Carroll.

What is not so well known about Charles Lutwidge Dodgsonis that he was one of the most distinguished 19th-century pio-neers of the photographic art form, which was only 16 years old

Lewis Carroll’s photograph of AliceLiddell in profile. Pierpont MorganLibrary, New York. Houghton Collection

when he took it up in 1856. He was often paired withJulia Margaret Cameron as the century’s finest photogra-phers of children. In honor of the centenary of Carroll’sdeath on January 14, 1898, Morton Cohen—emeritusprofessor of English at City College and the CUNY GraduateSchool and the world’s leading Carroll expert—has just pub-lished Reflections in a Looking Glass: A Centennial Celebra-tion of Lewis Carroll, Photographer (Aperture). The vol-ume offers the most extensive selection ever from the morethan 3,000 images he captured (some hitherto unpublished).

Following is an excerpt from Cohen’s introductoryessay describing Carroll’s methods of capturing his youngsitters, who were obliged to be motionless for about 45seconds for a successful “take.” The Alice Liddell referredto below, of course, gave her name to history’s most fa-mous children’s tale.

elaborate backdrops and favored a stone or brick wall, asimple blanket, a cloth, or a plain curtain, a flight of stairs,a classical pillar, a Gothic arch.

Although he did not invent any photographic material orprocedures, he did experiment with different techniquesand sought innovations. He created story photography: achild portrayed in a nightdress, mouth set grim, hair di-sheveled, a brush and a mirror in her hands—with the title“It Won’t Come Smooth”; Alice Liddell and her two sisters,one holding a cherry out for another to reach with her lips,titled “Open Your Mouth and Shut Your Eyes.” Others de-pict characters from literature and lore: the Beggar Maid,Little Red Riding Hood, a tableau vivant entitled “St. Georgeand the Dragon,” a youngster as Viola in Twelfth Night. Heintentionally double-exposed a group of children in one en-titled “The Dream,” with a lad appearing as a ghost.

“On one occasion,” a friend recalled, “he was anxious toobtain a photograph of me as a child sitting up in bed in afright, with her hair standing on end as if she had seen aghost. He tried to get this effect with the aid of my father’selectrical machine, but it failed, chiefly I fear because I wastoo young quite to appreciate the current of electricity thathad to be passed through me.”

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898). Photograph from thecollection of Morton Cohen.

City, exploration of career opportunities inCriminal Justice, field trips to relevant his-toric and cultural sites in New York City,mentoring and tutoring in reading, composi-tion, economics, mathematics, science, aswell as leadership and diversity training.

Student evaluations of this program,recorded in journals, were particularlygratifying. Regarding the program Seminaron Social Justice one student wrote, “ Thissession gave me an opportunity to ask my-self how I can contribute to life in a decentsociety.” Referring to the Seminar onLeadership another student wrote of onelecture, “it was great because it made merealize some things I hadn’t thought of be-fore. For example, it is education that pro-vides you with the freedom to succeed;education will set you free; this societymust move from me to we; and educationis a tool” for moving in that direction.

This year a major effort, including addi-tional funding, was made to expand

the University Summer Immersion Pro-gram. Participation of prospective first-time freshmen more than tripled from1997 at one senior college, doubled at twoothers, and rose substantially at several of

Summer Programs, continued from page 2

the community colleges.Student outcomes were impressive as

well. Dramatic gains were made by seniorcollege students who retook the WritingAssessment Test. After the summer pro-grams, approximately 85% of senior col-lege students either passed the WritingAssessment Test or moved ahead with theirremediation. About 76% of communitycollege students did the same. Substantialgains were also registered in the Math andReading Assessment Tests.

A study of the most recent class to com-plete one full year since CUNY’s Trusteesdecided in 1995 to limit remediation at se-nior colleges indicates that students whoparticipated in the USIP performed betterand were retained at a higher rate than

students who were underprepared but didnot participate in the program.

Overall, the evidence seems to show thatwe are making headway not only in improv-ing the preparation of our incoming fresh-men, but also in communicating the wis-dom of participating in a summer immer-sion program. The Office of Academic Af-fairs remains committed to working closelywith the faculty and student services staffsof the colleges to insure the continued re-finement of these programs.

We are convinced they will help futurestudents complete their long journeys—ifnot the thousand miles specified by Lao-tzu, certainly the educational distance tograduation and productive, fulfilling careersbeyond.

widely acknowledged cutting-edge experi-ments in photonics materials are under way.

In discussing the institutional aspect oftechnology transfer, however, it is importantto note that the institutional support net-work for high-technology small business isunderdeveloped in our region. While NewYork is the financial capital of the world andis a deep source of financial capital for high-technology venture capital investments, only3% of that national total of such investmentswent to New York enterprises (31% went toSilicon Valley, 11% to New England, ).

To address the above shortcomings, theCity Council may wish to look into tax incen-tives for private technological investments inthe City and measures to nurture pilotprojects designed to enhance the transfer oftechnology from City University units to en-trepreneurial businesses. I think that, shortof proactive steps such as these, coopera-tion between the City’s business and educa-tional sectors will remain sub-optimal anddeprive our city of a major economic benefitthat would result from a more fully symbioticrelationship.

—Professor of Electrical EngineeringJamal T. Manassah, Chair, Faculty Commit-tee, CUNY School of Engineering

Testimony, continued from page 3 In 1891 Dodgson wrote from Christ Church College,Oxford, to a young acquaintance, Mary Mallalieu:

Photos are fine, but . . .

“Photographs are very pleasant things to have, but love is the best thing in the world. . . .Ofcourse I don’t mean it in the sense meant when people talk about ‘falling in love’; that’s onlyone meaning of the word and only applies to a few people. I mean in the sense in which wesay that everybody in the world ought to ‘love everybody else.’ But we don’t always do whatwe ought. I think you children do it more than we grown-up people do: we find so manyfaults in one another.”

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forming, often under very trying conditions,a job that is far more difficult than the pub-lic can readily imagine.

To help eradicate these negative stereo-types we stress that drivers improve theirpublic image “one passenger at a time.”One driver said hetook that adviceand got a positiveresult. He notedthat, two days aftertaking the course,he encountered apassenger whoasked where hewas from. “Insteadof getting defen-sive, I simply an-swered the ques-tion. To my sur-prise, the passen-ger had a relativewho lived not farfrom the smalltown where I grewup. We sharedsome reminis-cences. I felt big-ger and happierthe rest of the day. And the fact that Ireceived my largest tip ever was not theonly reason!”

This continuing education course grewout of a recommendation by the TLC’s TaskForce on Disabilities that all drivers par-ticipate in a workshop to accustom them tothe needs of the disabled. After passing a

white cane or a guide dog, a mobility-im-paired passenger with crutches or in awheelchair, or a person with a hearing orspeech impairment—and how to more ef-fectively communicate with them.

In a series of role-playing exercises, thedrivers quickly get a sense of what the dis-abled person may face when traveling bycab. In one scenario a driver plays a wheel-chair user, while another student is thedriver. As the driver carefully maneuvers thechair toward a mock cab “parked” in theclassroom, the students observe the rightand wrong way to assist the passenger, howto fold the chair and place it in the cab ortrunk, and how to reverse the procedure.

The majority of drivers agree theyshould go the extra mile to make the

ride a bit more pleasant, but they are alsoencouraged to explore the negative—not tosay insulting!—attitudes passengers typicallyexpress about cab drivers. . .attitudes fre-quently aggravated by the kinds of anti-cabbyjokes David Letterman likes to offer up.

Passengers, I believe, should understandthat most drivers do not fit either of the twoprevalent and contradictory stereotypesabout drivers that New Yorkers love togripe about: the crusty, heart-of-gold,“toidy-toid and toid,” cigar-chomper (be-loved by makers of TV commercials) or theeasily lost, illiterate, dishonest, yet aggres-sively insulting foreigner. The overwhelm-ing majority of drivers are well-intentioned,hardworking men and women who are per-

rule requiring the professional educationworkshop, the Commission solicited pro-posals from different potential educationalproviders. The College, which was one oftwo founding schools that developed thefirst required training course for new driv-

ers in 1984, ex-pressed its interestand made the casethat a single schooltraining all driverscould provide amore consistent pro-gram. LaGuardiaCommunity College’sTaxi Driver Institute,along with its Officefor Students withDisabilities, wasinstrumental in re-fining the course’sagenda. The TLCwas looking for aninstitution with ex-perience servingthis population andthe ability to delivera highly specializedcurriculum effec-

tively to a large audience. The Institute metthese criteria.

The Institute’s customer service course,conducted through the College’s Division ofAdult and Continuing Education, is offeredto 400-500 drivers a month. It also offers arefresher course to a much smaller numberof drivers—100 to 200 a year, or one-quar-

ter to one-half percent of the city’s approxi-mately 40,000 cabbies—who persistentlyviolate TLC rules. And the Institute servesseveral hundred taxi and “for hire” vehicledrivers each month with a New York State-certified defensive driver course tailored tothe challenges of urban driving.

As we tell drivers in the course, morepeople seem to like to talk about their

bad experiences, so the 99.5% who aregood drivers have to become even better.We also tell them they get back what theygive out; they should not wait for the pas-senger to make the first move. This adviceis for riders, too. Those who tell us theyconsistently get good drivers are the oneswho seem to respect drivers and appreciatethe difficulty of their job.

The response to our work is often, wehope, like that of Peter Franklin, the driverwith the Mt. Rushmore-size chip on hisshoulder. He said after “graduating,” “Isaw immediately that the instructor wasdealing with a very hostile audience, butI’ve got to tell you he won us over in only afew minutes.”

Franklin noted, too, one important addedadvantage of the TLC requirement: “Themain reason I’m in favor of such classes isthey give drivers an opportunity, in a fairlyrelaxed atmosphere, to discuss the good,the bad, and the ugly parts of taxi driving—they make us feel like we’re doing a realprofessional job. . .I’ve always felt like aprofessional; that course at LaGuardiaproved to me that I am!”

ETYMOLOGY IN YELLOWAccording to most sources, the word

"hack" probably derived from the hack-

ney carriage, which was a four-wheeled

carriage drawn by two horses, common

in 17th-century London. ''Cab" may also

have come down from a horse-drawn

carriage, the cabriolet, used in 18th-

century France. The cabriolet was two-

wheeled and operated on one horse

power. The term "taxi" is derived, less

colorfully, from taximeter, the instru-

ment devised by Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891

to measure automatically the distance

traveled and/or time elapsed, enabling

accurate calculation of a fare.

Taxi Institute, continued from page 2

F or many years the sympathetic images of the hu-man condition by Bruce Davidson have gracedthe pages of such periodicals as Time Magazine,

Newsweek, National Geographic, and Life. This year thelegendary photojournalist is passing on his skills to stu-dents at LaGuardia Community College.

His arrival as a Visiting Distinguished Professor thisfall was hailed by Professor Bruce Brooks, chair of thecommercial photography program at LaGuardia, as“equivalent to having Picasso teach painting.” He will beteaching intermediate courses as well as conducting aseminar/tutorial for advanced students.

Widely published, exhibited, collected, and honored,Davidson became in 1966 the first photographer to re-ceive a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.He began his career at age 10 in his native Oak Park,Illinois, using a Fulcon 172 box camera and the develop-ing equipment of a local drugstore.

Reproduced here is one of Davidson’s images from

Photo Pro Turns Distinguished Prof

“The Brooklyn Gang, 1959,” a photo essay on viewat the International Center for Photography (5thAvenue and 94th Street; closes March 7). This ar-ray of 50 photographs, most never seen before,creates a vivid view of restlessness and alienationin the youth culture of the 1950s. The project be-gan in the spring of 1959, when Davidson was in-troduced by a youth board worker to the Jokers, agang of Brooklyn teenagers. He was able to bondwith them, and they allowed him to join them attheir favorite hangouts. The one pictured here isthe Coney Island Boardwalk. A book derived fromthe show has been published by Twin Palms.

In 1995, Davidson published Central Park (Aper-ture), an exhilarating tour through the four seasonsand myriad moods of Manhattan’s great recreationaloasis. At CUNY•Matters’ request, Davidson kindlychose an image from this collection very suitable forits winter issue.

The GSUC’s Office of Research andUniversity Programs offerings dur-ing the Spring semester will includethe following six seminars: SocialWork Research-Support; CurrentPolicy Issues in Economics; Balanc-ing the Curriculum for Gender,Race, Ethnicity, and Class; theCUNY Logic Workshop; Evolution-ary Perspectives on Human Repro-ductive Behavior; and Teaching Chi-nese at CUNY: Present and Future.

Four colloquia have also beenscheduled: Language and DiasporaCultures; Establishing Strategiesfor Librarians/Instructional FacultyPartnerships to Improve Researchand Writing Skills for Beginning Col-lege Students; Teaching Statistics:Technology and Reasoning; and Fac-ulty Facilitation Training: Using Fa-cilitation Skills to Manage Class-room Discussions.

For information on these offer-ings and Requests for Proposalsfor FDP activit ies next year(deadline for Fall 1999, April 15;deadline for Spring 2000, Octo-ber 15), call the Office of Re-search at 212-642-2151.

Spring Offeringsof the

Faculty DevelopmentProgram

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Of Loneliness and the Writer

Simone Weil said that the only real question to be asked of another is “What are you going through?” And another even

more fiercely independent Jew: “The Kingdom of God cometh notwith observation.” No, it doth not. I know this as a critic of otherpeople’s books, as a tiresome moralist even to myself of otherpeople’s habits and choices, as a spectator, merely, wanderingNew York all my life in constant amazement at the number ofpeople walking briskly alone talking to themselves, glowering asthey sit fiercely alone on park benches, fiercely adopting attitudesas they talk to make a point, then just as surely drooping awayfrom this make-believe height as soon as the others are gone.

Science, seeking confirmation, proof, objective testing andproof, cannot avail itself of this cardinal human loneliness, butliterature can. And this with language that is always failing andstumbling, breaking the writer’sheart by its mere approximate-ness to the thing in his mind.Besides, language is alwaysasserting its primitive author-ity, is a halting servant but canbe a terrible master. Scienceprogresses all the time, litera-ture never. How should it “im-prove” over the centuries whenits very subject is the enigma,the inaccessibility of the hu-man condition? The beast inthe jungle only seems tothreaten us, being outside in its“jungle.” The final act, when itcomes, will be to show uswhere the failure of our expec-tation lay. The fall of man isonly too real when it comes toourselves.

But that is a marvelousfable, isn’t it, coming from awriter virgin, who acted in lifeonly by writing, writing, whohad left his own country behindwhile hardly finding one inEngland’s upper classes, whobecame part of England only by changing his citizenshipwhen England went to war in 1914? Yet Henry James

manages now to make his reader feel like an accomplice. Heproved that whatever his withdrawals as a man, his valor as awriter was enough—and overreaching. The mere spectator tran-scended himself by plowing to the depths, in a hundred Europeanhotels, the exceptionality of his own condition. He never readMoby-Dick, but he would have understood Ahab saying, “How canthe prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?”James himself, in old age: “The starting point of my life has beenloneliness.”

–From A Lifetime Burning in Every Moment

“‘Notice things. . .just notice things,’he practically pleaded.”

Once a student timidly asked, “Professor Kazin, are we going to do an explication de texte?” Alfred didn’t pause to reflect,

simply bellowed, “yes, yes, we’re doing it right now—it’s calledreading a poem!”

The offense of sloppy writing Alfred took personally, and I sus-pect that there was no greater crime for him than somehow doingharm to the English language. Bill Potter, a truly fine student,recalled how Alfred had once angrily circled a typo on the titlepage of one of his papers. Next to it was written, “Potter, yourlack of care makes me suffer!”

. . .There was really no such thing as being prepared for a classled by Alfred Kazin. And underpreparation meant you were in seri-ous danger of being thought not to care enough or, worse, you couldbe the cause of outrage. Once Alfred became totally frustrated by a

student’s ignorance about the Book ofJob. He picked up the Bible and hurled itto—and, I will admit, at—the offendingstudent. A friend reminded me of thisoccasion and said he would always re-member it as classic Alfred, vividly illus-trating “literary canon as cannon.”

These were not easy moments withour uneasy professor, but they shook usin ways we needed shaking. They madeus look twice, engage more deeply, andunderstand —sometimes profoundly un-derstand—what we didn’t and don’tknow. These were great lessons, hum-bling and indelible.

—Marybeth McMahon

Remembering Alfred Kazin—Writer & Teacher

The family, friends, colleagues, andadmirers of former CUNY Distin-guished Professor Alfred Kazin—the

eminent critic of American literature, of lifein New York City, and of himself—gatheredat the 92nd Street YMHA on October 24thto celebrate his life and accomplishments.Kazin, who was born on June 5, 1915, diedon the same day in 1998.

Among the dozen speakers were the attor-ney Martin Garbus, who sat in on a Kazinclass at City College and later became hisfriend, and GSUC Professor MorrisDickstein, who recalled a Kazin interviewthat aired on CUNY-TV and the sometime

curmudgeon’s characteristically blunt advice:“Never underestimate the power of ego.”

Leon Wieseltier, author and literary edi-tor at The New Republic, spoke particularlyeloquently of Kazin as “a man so illimitablyin love with his subjects” and one who“made enthusiasm intellectually respect-able.” Just prior to poignant closing remi-niscences by Kazin’s son Michael, a profes-sor of history at American University, GSUCProfessor Louis Menand closed his homageby quoting a powerful passage from Kazin’slate memoir A Lifetime Burning in EveryMoment. Its final paragraphs are repro-duced here. (Kazin’s wife, Judith Dunford,

in a striking coincidence, chose to read thesame passage at the private family funeralservice.)

Also among the speakers was MarybethMcMahon, who first encountered Kazin in aseminar on Herman Melville at the Gradu-ate Center and went on to become the lastof his dissertation advisees. At his death,McMahon was completing her doctoralstudy of Willa Cather. It is particularly ap-propriate that the accompanying short ex-cerpt adapted from her eulogy appearshere, for while serving as a writer in theCUNY Chancellor’s Office she became afounding co-editor of CUNY•Matters.

Alfred Kazin at about the ageof ten in the mid-1920s, withhis sister Pearl. A convales-cent Kazin caught in mid-softshoe by his wife JudithDunford in 1977, when hewas at the Center forAdvanced Study in theBehavioral Sciences inStanford, California.

the program. Concluding that collegeremediation comes too late for some stu-dents and must be extensive for those withthe greatest needs, the University hasturned to the College Now model in a bigway: this last summer, plans were devel-oped to expand College Now to the fiveother CUNY community colleges.

The program’s philosophy is that highschool students need (1) help in determin-ing whether college is a viable option, (2)assurance that they can improve their basicskills levels to meet the needs for college-level success, and (3) assistance in actuallymaking the transition to a college campus.

To achieve the first task, College Nowadministers the CUNY Freshman Skills As-sessment Test (FSAT) in the junior year, andour counselors meet with students to dis-cuss the results and advise appropriatecourse work in the senior year. Those whoneed to improve can take non-credit devel-opmental courses in writing, reading, andmath, after which they can retake the FSAT.

Students who pass the screening testsmay then enroll in one of five three-

credit, freshman-level courses offered eachsemester in Business Administration, Be-havioral and Social Sciences, Humanities,Mass Communications, or Science. Thesecourses, jointly created by college and highschool faculty, provide a rigorous interdisci-plinary core curriculum that does not dupli-cate any Kingsborough offerings.

Each course is designed to engage stu-dents actively in forms of intellectual in-quiry of typical college freshman courses.They are taught by high school teacherswho have competed for and won adjunctappointment in an appropriateKingsborough department. They receivespecial and on-going training to sharpentheir pedagogical skills and update theirprofessional knowledge.

It should be emphasized that theseclasses do not replace high school degreecourses. Each course is an elective “extra”that must be attended for 14 weeks, eitherbefore or after the regular school day.

Two one-credit courses offered throughCollege Now address the fact that successin college requires a refined ability to de-fine, set, and pursue academic goals. Weencourage students to enroll in a pre-col-lege orientation course that focuses on col-lege selection, collegiate remediation proce-dures, and techniques for survival on cam-pus (study habits, time management, finan-cial planning). Another course, on choosinga career, examines in depth the prospectivejob markets for various professions andexplores how college can facilitate specificcareer paths.

Our College Now participants receive aKCC photo ID that entitles them to usemany campus facilities, notably the library,computer labs, College center, and cafete-ria. They also earn a transcript reflectingtheir courses, credits, and grades.

College Now has established a secureniche in its participating schools serv-

ing more than 60% of the senior class. Ithas been extensively evaluated since itsinception, both intra- and extramurally. Thedata have consistently shown higher perfor-mance by College Now graduates. In 1990,CUNY researchers reported, for example,these higher persistence rates at the end of

the first academic year: 95% of the studentsremained enrolled in the CUNY system, com-pared to 81.6% of non-College Now stu-dents. At the end of the sophomore year,the figures were 76.5% and 58.1%

As one would expect, data also indicatealumni of the program required lessremediation. In the freshman year theytook 5.2 credits of remediation, comparedwith 7.1 for non-College Now students.This result was sustained throughout thesecond year, during which College Nowstudents earned a total of 2.8 fewer reme-dial credits.

Our students also appear to progress

faster toward their degrees: by the end oftheir junior year, they were found to havetaken a striking 19.5 more credits thannon-College Now students. In a 1998study, University researchers again con-firmed that alumni significantly outper-formed non-College Now students in bothretention and graduation. The six-yeargraduation rate for baccalaureate studentswas 44.6% for participants compared to33.5% for non-participants. This differencewas substantially higher for College Nowassociate degree students, whose six-yeargraduation rate was 41.7%, compared to29.2% for non-participants.

While conceptually a simple program,this success has not been accidental.

Several key factors have played a part.Foremost has been a strong institutionaland staff commitment. On theKingsborough campus and at each highschool, support “starts at the top” with thehands-on support of president, principal,and superintendent which extends to thedirectors and classroom teachers.

Second, the quality of the teaching ishigh. College Now goes to great lengths toinsure adherence to the most advanced andrigorous standards, notably by employing

College Now, continued from page 1

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The Office of University RelationsThe City University of New York535 E. 80th St.New York, NY 10021

Letters or suggestions forfuture articles on topics ofgeneral interest to theCUNY community should beaddressed to

CUNY Matters535 E. 80th St., 7th FloorNew York, NY 10021

CUNY Matters is availableon the CUNY home page athttp://www.cuny.edu.

Jay HershensonVice Chancellor forUniversity Relations

John HamillDirector of Media Relations

Editor:Gary Schmidgall

Managing Editor:Rita Rodin

Board of TrusteesThe City University

of New YorkAnne A. Paolucci

ChairwomanHerman BadilloVice-Chairman

Satish K. BabbarJohn J. Calandra

Kenneth CookMichael C. CrimminsAlfred B. Curtis, Jr.

Edith B. EverettRonald J. Marino

John MorningJames P. Murphy

Kathleen M. PesileGeorge J. RiosNilda Soto Ruiz

Richard B. StoneBernard Sohmer

Chairperson, University Faculty SenateMizanoor Biswas

Chairperson, University Student Senate

Jeffrey Ladman with students in hisCollege Now behavioral and socialscience class at Kingsborough HighSchool. Photo, Randy Fader-Smith.

coordinators (usually senior professors)from appropriate College departments whocontinually monitor the curriculum, text-books, and support materials. They alsoconduct the hiring and training of faculty.Once in place, these teachers earn the sal-ary of CUNY adjuncts and regularly attenddevelopmental workshops.

A third factor is, simply, that College andhigh school partners share the same goal:facilitating collegiate success. Such consen-

sus is necessary to resolve the countlessissues involved in implementing a programthat students have made clear they want freeof charge and on the high school site.

Here, the spirit of accommodation is vital.Principals must give College Now recruiterspermission to visit classes, just as the Uni-versity must allow the FSAT to be adminis-tered by University staff at times convenientto the high schools. The scheduling of classmeetings around the regular curriculum,obviously, requires much give-and-take.

And, finally, the College’s,University’s, and Board ofEducation’s leaders must col-laborate vigorously everyyear to assure governmentfunding of College Now.

Each of the five new Col-lege Now sites will beginstart-up programs at high

College Now, continued from previous page schools this spring. This will increasethe number of City high schools with thisprogram to 51, more than double thecurrent number. If all goes well, everypublic high school student may soon beable to take classes like those taught byCollege Now behavioral and social sci-ences instructor Jeffrey Ladman.

Ladman has worked in the program for11 years, first at George Wingate HighSchool and now at Kingsborough HighSchool. Echoing the College Now philoso-phy that kindergarten through collegeshould be a minimal requirement, he be-lieves the program should be replicatedeverywhere because of “its unique ability tostraddle the very different worlds of schooland college.”

He says his students “benefit fromhaving the security of a familiar class-room and instructor blended with thehigher expectations and academic rigorof college classwork.” Then Ladmanadds, “And I get a chance to teach a sub-ject I love to students willing to put forththe extra effort necessary to participatein College Now.”

The U.S. Secretary of Health and HumanServices Donna E. Shalala returned

to Hunter College, where she was Presidentfrom 1980 to 1987, to deliver the annual Mil-lennium Lecture on October 15.

She begin amusingly with a précis of herlife since arriving in Washington: “When youbecome a Cabinet Secretary, you’re suddenlybeing driven around in a big ugly car that getslousy gas mileage. Your every waking hour isscheduled by people young enough to be yourchildren. Every decision wins you newfriends—and costs you an equal number ofold ones. The press wants your opinion onevery conceivable matter, whether you knowanything about the subject or not...And mostimportant: if you’re not careful, you can fallinto the dangerous habit of looking down atyour feet and thinking, ‘Hmmmm, I have prettybig shoes to fill.’”

This led Shalala to recall the shoes she wasfilling, for the preceding Millennium Lecturerhad been Bella Abzug, who died last year:“Bella not only had the heart of a New Yorker,she had a New York-size heart. Big, coura-geous, salty, and brimming with wit and wis-dom. She was a Hunter alum and proud of it.”

After speaking of Isaiah Berlin's famed

HUNTER’S MILLENNIUM LECTURER

A Look Back to the FutureFrom Health Secretary Shalala

study of Tolstoy, with its big-idea Hedge-hog and many-idea Fox, Shalala turnedto these remarks.

hYou may recall a line from Tennyson’s poemUlysses: “Come, my friends, ‘tis not too lateto seek a newer world.” It’s the perfect linefor today because that is what the next mil-lennium must really be about—seeking anewer world.

No matter how far we’ve come, what wetake on faith today has a way of fading intomemory tomorrow. To take just one whim-sical example, music that was consideredcutting-edge around the time I gave my in-augural address at Hunter in 1980 mighttoday be used to sell mini-vans or retire-ment cruises.

The important question is: What will gofrom revolutionary to routine—and fromunimaginable to indispensable—in the 21stcentury? I’m no Nostradamus, but thismuch seems certain: changes in communi-cation, technology, and life expectancy will

give ordinary Americans greater controlover our nation’s future than even Tolstoycould have imagined.

What does this kind of change imply forgreat universities like Hunter? In 1980 Isaid, “Hunter must be uniquely sensitive tothe world it is part of. That implies predict-ing change and responding to it in such away that we are enriched, rather than im-poverished, by whatever the future holds.”That is even truer today. The primary re-sponsibility of Hunter is to prepare its stu-dents to face change—and make change—in the next century.

hFrankly, increasing the knowledge base andadaptability of students is not the biggestchallenge facing universities—or our nationas a whole. The bigger challenge is to pre-

pare the leaders of the next millennium touse knowledge as a guide, not a substitute,for judgment and morality. How, for ex-ample, do we make sure that our sciencenever gets ahead of our ethics . . .or thatour belief in progress never gets ahead ofour belief in good citizenship?

The problem is not intellectual advance-ment. No one believes in supporting re-search and discovery—the creation ofknowledge—more than I do. I have longadvocated greater scientific literacy for allAmericans. In particular, we need a Con-gress literate in science. Still, all knowl-edge and discovery must be tempered withhuman values, restraint, tolerance, honest,and plain decency.

This Leo Tolstoy believed to the bone,and so do I. After all, we’re only threeyears away from 2001. . .the year anotherauthor, Arthur C. Clarke, turned into ametaphor for technology run amuck. Thatmust not be our destiny. And it won’t be ifwe make the next millennium a shining mo-ment of morality and service to humanity.

I want to return one last time to my1980 inaugural address. I said then, “Ilook at a profile of our students and amreminded that Hunter is New York.” Well,two decades later I can say, Hunter ismore than New York. Hunter is America,America at the millennium: multi-cultural,pro-women, inspired, robust, intellectuallycurious. Leading, changing, ascending.Striving to do right. Doing right . . .

Secretary Shalalaembracing one of manyCUNY friends from her

years as HunterPresident, Senior Vice

Chancellor EmeritusJulius C.C. Edelstein,just before delivering

the Millennium Address.Photo, Saul Robbins