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BMCC Professor Aims to Change Lives of Formerly Incarcerated Students

December 8, 2015, 1:36 pm
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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="590"] BMCC Human Services Professor Lisa Rose[/caption]
December 8, 2015
Before she enrolled at BMCC in Spring 2014, human services major Renata Hill worried about the hurdles she would face in school because she has a criminal record. Hill, who is the subject of an award-winning documentary Out in the Night, has maintained an almost perfect GPA at BMCC. She plans to transfer to a four-year school after graduation and eventually pursue a career in social work. “In five years, I see myself running some sort of transitional housing for formerly incarcerated folks or people just down on their luck, “ Hill said. But Hill, now in her third semester at BMCC encountered a hiccup when it came time for her to be placed in a human services internship during her Human Services fieldwork class. The City University of New York (CUNY), like many other college systems nationwide, does not ask applicants about their criminal history. But most employers do background checks. Further, many publicly funded social service agencies are required to do background checks before placing a student in an internship. And despite Renata Hill’s openness about her past, therein lies a problem. Both she and her professors were limited in where Hill could be placed for an internship, a fieldwork requirement in the third semester of her major.

Gathering Information

“There is a screeching halt that happens for these students at that moment,” said BMCC Human Services Professor Lisa Rose. There is little data about the college enrollment rate of the estimated 700,000 individuals who get released from U.S. prisons each year. What is widely known is that people who do participate in college courses while-in-prison or those that enroll in college-after prison are less likely to return to jail according to numerous studies. In January 2015, Professor Lisa Rose wrote a research paper that examined some of the obstacles faced by college students with criminal backgrounds. Titled “Community College Students with Criminal Justice Histories and Human Services Education: Glass Ceiling, Brick Wall or Pathway to Success,” the paper was published in the Community College Journal of Research and Practice. In her work, Rose found limited research related to students attending community college programs with criminal backgrounds. Rose argued there is a clear need for qualitative and quantitative research. During Fall 2015 semester, Rose applied for Institutional Review Board permission at CUNY to do a small qualitative study that would explore the obstacles faced by Human Services students who had spent time in prison. In October 2015, Rose, along with BMCC Professor Glenny Valoy presented these preliminary findings and recommendations at the annual conference for the National Organization of Human Services in Charlotte, North Carolina—The anxiety students felt about internships, their hopes for their future careers, as well as the limitations they perceive in the field. The BMCC professors also talked about the importance of creating a safe space in the classroom for students to share their experiences with classmates, and the need to develop more internships that welcome students who have had contact with the criminal justice system in the past.

Choosing Social Work as a Career

“In a profession like social work, which by its very nature believes in giving second chances to people, it seems to me that the doors should be much wider open,” Rose said. Although college is widely regarded an inoculation against recidivism, Rose says academia has yet to figure out a way to support formerly incarcerated students. And in the case of human services and social work, part of that mission is helping those students find meaningful internships. Many students who were formerly incarcerated seek careers in social work and human services. Unfortunately, there are limitations. “Social workers may be the first professionals they encounter when they come out of prison or halfway houses,” said Rose. “However, when it comes to careers in social work, where a license is required, things get sticky,” Rose said. This past September, Rose started doing interviews with a small cohort of formerly incarcerated human services students, both males and females. She found that formerly incarcerated students have similar struggles as other students and then some. “They all hate math, many have financial problems,” Rose said. But Rose also found that self-disclosure about criminal backgrounds can be a huge burden. “I wanted to specifically find out if they felt isolated on campus,” said Rose who adds, “Engagement in the college community is key to academic success.” In her interviews, Rose discovered students may not be sure when it’s appropriate to disclose their contact with the criminal justice system, but when students did disclose this information, as long as they felt safe enough to do so, they felt accepted by fellow students. In fact, self-disclosure would often help others to understand the experiences of those that had been incarcerated. The internships most available to formerly incarcerated students are through agencies that serve, alcoholics, substance abusers and formerly incarcerated people, Rose said. BMCC student Renata Hill says she had assumed in her first two semesters that getting an internship by the third semester would be easy since the Human Services Program has numerous relationships with outside agencies. But that wasn’t the case. “I completely fell off the grid when I couldn’t land an internship,” she said. Hill said she was always open about her status in class and wanted to build an honest relationship with her professors and classmates. “When I’m out with the film and I go speak at other colleges, I always say this isn’t just my story, this is the story of so many other people, some who just give up because they felt forgotten,” Hill said. Hill also believes college campuses would benefit by creating a specialized department, a safe zone with dedicated support staff that formerly incarcerated students can go to in complete confidence for counseling and help navigating the system. Hill has since secured an internship at the Fortune Society, a nonprofit social service and advocacy organization,, whose mission is to support successful reentry from prison and promote alternatives to incarceration. Professor Rose hopes to expand her research and advocacy in the coming year. “I’d like to talk with more students who have had contact with the criminal justice system and are now in college studying to be human services and social workers. It’s also important to more fully understand perceptions of social service agency supervisors and administrators: What are the actual concerns and experiences with interns who have been incarcerated. “Rather than limiting the aspirations of students who have had contact with the criminal justice system, we should be advocating for their success,” Rose said. “We have to find that sweet spot between not stigmatizing students who are ex-offenders by not only identifying who they are, but also welcoming them into the college and to the human services profession with the support they need.”
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BMCC Receives Teagle Foundation Grant for Mathematics Education

December 10, 2015, 9:47 am
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Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) has received a $53,000 grant from The Teagle Foundation to support the college’s three-year Project for Relevant and Improved Mathematics Education (PRIME). The grant-funded program begins in July 2016. BMCC was one of three CUNY community colleges chosen to receive the PRIME project funds from the Teagle Foundation. BMCC Provost and Vice President Karrin Wilks said “Improving outcomes in remedial mathematics is one of the most vexing problems facing community colleges today.” Wilks said the PRIME project provides support for BMCC faculty to redesign mathematical course sequences, including remedial courses and college-level general education courses, with the ultimate goal of improving retention and graduation rates. Specifically, PRIME allows the participating faculty from all three colleges to implement a placement policy and curricular streamlining strategy for developmental mathematics. BMCC has four goals to achieve says Mathematics Professor Susan Licwinko who is BMCC campus director for the project. Among them, BMCC plans to expand the number of sections it offers in quantitative reasoning courses (Quantway and credit-bearing Quantitative Reasoning) for non-STEM students requiring remediation. Over the three years of the project, BMCC will offer increased numbers of sections of credit bearing statistics courses, and will permit students with greater remedial need to take the class. “The college will also pilot the combining of its elementary and intermediate algebra courses. BMCC is currently the only one of the three PRIME project colleges that offers three levels of remedial mathematics (arithmetic, elementary algebra, and intermediate algebra),” said Licwinko. Licwinko said if the pilot is successful, BMCC may scale down its remedial mathematics offerings to two (arithmetic and algebra), which she says is similar to the course offerings at other colleges. Finally, over the course of the first year of the PRIME project, BMCC will determine what the needs are for quantitative skills non-STEM college-level gateway courses are, and will then redesign the remedial and partially remedial mathematics courses accordingly. Licwinko says all of BMCC's goals involve placing students into courses containing streamlined, aligned, quantitative material.
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MECA Students Have Great Adventure Creating Advertising Campaigns

December 10, 2015, 9:48 am
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Screen Shot 2015-12-10 at 12.32.11 PM   On December 9, four student teams from the Manhattan Early College School for Advertising (MECA) created and presented advertising campaigns for Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. They presented their ideas in MECA’s auditorium, competing for free tickets to the theme park. “This was really tough,” said Paul Gould, Director of Sales and Marketing at Six Flags and one of four industry professionals who gave feedback and selected the winning team, "Best Time Ever,” which included MECA students Anthony Crespo, Jefry Ricon Lopez, Efrain Mendez and Leon Ramotar. All four ninth graders received free tickets to the theme park, and had presented an advertising plan in areas that all four teams had focused on: strategy, creative ideas, media plan, suggested partnerships for Six Flags, and overall presentation.
Tomorrow's media professionals
“We know as media professionals, we’re going to see you in the industry one day,” Gould told the contestants. His fellow judges and marketing professionals included Juliette Eziefula of Deutsch, Inc.; Jamie Suk of Horizon Media and Aleigh Huston-Lyons of Momentum Worldwide. “I loved the radio spot,” Huston-Lyons told the first team, “Black Sophistication,” which included MECA students Naeemah Allen, Tyler Herrera, Shakira Mills, Makeda Walker Huggins and Zyah Washington. The students had written, sung and recorded an original radio commercial highlighting Six Flag’s Holiday in the Park events, which garnered enthusiastic applause from the audience and judges’ panel. The second team included Esneri Acosta, Tamara Nunez, Ocean Valentine and Anna Zamanberdiyeva and got kudos from the judges for their tagline, “Don’t Let the Cold Stop You,” as well as for their idea of partnering with Uggs and expanding Six Flags ads to the sides of city busses. The third team on stage was “Dreamers of the Six,” which included Taylor Allen, Shaniya Clarke, Kayla Foster, Terrell Guerra, Jordon Haskell, Nathan John and Alex Messon and was recognized for having maximized what they learned from an earlier briefing session, in which they learned about Six Flags’ current marketing plan.
Great possibilities
MECA is a partnership between BMCC, the NYC Department of Education, CUNY and industry partners from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s). MECA students begin taking college courses with BMCC professors in the 10th grade, and over a six-year period, earn a high school Regents Diploma and free associate degree from BMCC. Al Benoit, MECA's liaison with 4A’s, organized the Six Flags event along with MECA teachers Carol Sun and Lora Morgenstern. BMCC’s liaison to MECA, Gregory Bryant also helped coordinate the event. MECA principal Matt Tossman welcomed the audience and commented that getting feedback from industry professionals “benefits students because it lends authenticity to what they do. The judges as well as many of our teachers who have worked in the advertising and media fields, help keep students aware of current marketing, creative and business trends, and are able to give them actionable next steps for their projects." “I was impressed with the students’ presentation skills and how they had picked up cues in the session they attended with our marketing team. I see great possibilities for the students.”
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Golf, Art and Dismantling Old Beliefs

December 10, 2015, 10:36 am
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me bags   Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY) Assistant Professor of Art Charles McGill has been awarded a $25,000 Painters & Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. McGill, who teaches in BMCC’s new associate degree program in Art Foundations/Studio Art, will open his first major museum exhibit, Charles McGill: Front Line, Back Nine on April 21, 2016 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton, Florida. The new exhibit will feature McGill’s assemblage pieces made from repurposed golf bags. “I get them out of people’s garages, the Salvation Army, Craig’s List,” he says, adding that he drives as far as Chicago to collect them. When asked, “Why golf bags?” he explains that the attraction “is more about the hardware; the way the bags are made and the structure of all those materials: brass, steel, vinyl, the heavy nylon stitching, tempered plastic, buckles.” It is also about the concepts imbedded in golfing, he says, as well as American history and McGill’s own experience.

The intersection of golf and art

Having earned a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts and an M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art, McGill was already pursuing an art career when he took up golfing with a friend, eventually working at a country club and joining their golf apprentice program. During that time, he says, he visited a gallery with his golf bag over his shoulder, “and someone said, ‘Do you mind if I take a picture of you? I’ve never seen golf clubs in an art gallery before’.” That triggered something, McGill says, and he was inspired to introduce golfing objects into his art by reworking cylindrical golf ball containers with what he describes as “racially charged images of black people in American advertising” from the 1920s and other eras. Next, he began collaging the images onto golf bags, then progressed to deconstructing the golf bags with a handsaw; no easy feat. “I hurt myself a lot,” says McGill. “I took my fingernail off once with a reciprocal saw. Several of the pieces actually have blood on them. I started using wire cutters, a circular saw and utility blades.” As it turns out, he was disassembling more than leather and vinyl panels. “For me as a black man, taking this historically ‘white’ object, repurposing it and putting another identity to it resonated on a lot of levels," says McGill. "It’s not a coincidence that a lot of this work started right around the time that Obama took office. There was that sense of change in the country, the potential for dismantling old belief systems.” He explains that many older golf bags are made in the South, and stamped with the name of where they’re made, on a brass plate: "They’re throwbacks to American vintage quality, and they resist coming apart." In the process of making of each piece, “Emotional stuff gets churned up,” he says. “The best way I can describe what happens in the studio is, it’s like sneaking up on a wild boar in the woods and trying to skin it while it’s still alive. I feel like I’m skinning these bags … Part of it might be subconscious; the idea of taking this object that has been a symbol of exclusion for a long time, and altering it to be what I want it to be.”

The impact on students

McGill’s latest work includes pieces in which the leather and vinyl is assembled into oversized bull’s-eyes.
“There is a target on black men’s backs,” says McGill, citing public backlash to change, and giving the example of Jack Johnson, who in 1908 became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. He links that societal resistance to “aggressive policing of black men, and backlash to Obama.” In other pieces of McGill’s recent work, the golf bag becomes a kind of torso, topped with what he describes as “a hood; it’s Klan-like,” adding that the use of hardware in the pieces “references enslavement. A handle in the ‘chest’ of one piece suggests that the person is owned; there are all kinds of connotations.” As an art professor at BMCC, McGill talks with students about “formal concerns I’m exploring, and personal things that I explore through that medium,” he says. To emphasize the importance of learning the basics of drawing and other techniques, he brings portfolios of his early work to class. “I share with the beginning artists in my classes, all that crappy art from my late teens,” McGill says. “Then I show them how my art evolved after I learned some fundamentals. I make sure to remind them that the fundamentals I learned are the same fundamentals they’re learning now.” Where they take it, he says, will have to do with their own personal narrative and concepts they feel compelled to tear into.
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BMCC Veterans Resource Center Collects More Than $20,000 in Toys and Winter Clothing for Those in Need

December 29, 2015, 1:18 pm
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IMG_0819[4] copy-1 The BMCC Veterans Resource Center led a donation drive from October 26 through December 4. The drive collected more than 350 articles of winter clothing valued at about $8,000, and more than 600 children’s toys valued at about $12,000, for families in need. Volunteers and staff collected items on the second floor lobby of BMCC’s main campus, and at the Center. Toys were donated by the BMCC community as well as by Goldman Sachs, The Clearing House Payments Association, families from the Tribeca area and businesses in One World Trade Center and the Financial District. The toys and clothing are being distributed by We Care New York, Inc. and U.S. Marines Toys for Tots, which gave away more than 220,000 toys in January 2014 across the United States, and is still calculating this year’s donations.
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Student Volunteers Get Tax Payers the Credit They Deserve

January 12, 2016, 10:13 am
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Tax_DSC6429BMCC Accounting Professor Corinne Crawford   Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) students gain valuable experience as IRS-certified volunteers providing free tax preparation through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA). Accounting Professor Angela Jervis started the VITA program at BMCC in 2013. “I was a member of the Student Affairs committee of the BMCC Academic Senate, and one of the things we wanted to do was encourage students to do more volunteering,” Jervis says. “I recognized that the VITA program would be an ideal opportunity for our students to put into practice, what they are learning in their accounting classes, and to help their communities, so I brought it to BMCC.” The program is currently coordinated by accounting professors Joel Barker, Corinne Crawford and Angela Jervis. Crawford, who was just ranked #3 among the Top 10 Accounting Faculty in New York according to The Accounting Path, says the program trains students to prepare returns and ensure that people who are eligible for tax credits, receive them. “About 20% of those eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, never apply for and receive the refund, which averages to about $2,074,” she says, “and of those who do apply, over half seek assistance from paid tax preparers who take a 12 percent cut of their refund.” Along with Jervis, Crawford and Barker, other accounting professors teaching in the VITA program are Sharon Brickman and Barry Cooper.
IRS seal of approval
So far, 65 BMCC students have signed up for the VITA training at BMCC in January 2016, says Crawford. The training takes place at a branch of the NYC Food Bank, which launched its Tax Assistance & Financial Services Program in 2002 and hosts 16 tax preparation sites in all five boroughs of New York City. BMCC is one of nine partners with the Food Bank, and provides the highest number of volunteer tax preparers. “Our students are beloved by the program, because they speak so many languages,” says Crawford. In their training, “students focus on state and federal tax law in a one-week session led by BMCC accounting professors,” says Crawford. “They also work with IRS training software, Link & Learn, at an IRS site and take a certification test on tax law.” If they pass that test, the students attend a session led by IRS trainers, complete at least eight hours of tax preparation for eight weeks and receive their IRS certification.
Class concepts in real-world applications
Accounting majors Marquise Clemons and Tornike Nizharadce have undergone the VITA training, and had some surprises, preparing returns. “Sometimes people get upset about the money,” says Clemons. “They hear about a friend’s tax return and expect the same amount. They’re already planning what to do with the money and don’t understand why they’re getting it in the first place. They think it’s just free money from the government. So we’re kind of educating them.” He adds that people who haven’t filed their income tax returns consistently or haven’t claimed the correct amount of dependents are surprised by what they learn when they sit down with the VITA volunteers, who learn quite a bit themselves, from the experience. “It was good to have the VITA training and taxation class at BMCC at the same time,” says Nizharadce. “We dealt with the standard tax forms such as 1040 and all the schedules, and we filed everything in a tax database which I had used in a taxation class.” In addition, Clemons and Nizharadce were impacted personally, by preparing tax returns. “You have this duty to help people out and guide them,” says Nizharadce. “You work with people who maybe don’t have a home, or are struggling with money. Things like the Earned Income Tax Credit can be very helpful to them.” They recommend the VITA training to classmates. “Professors tell you exactly what is going on, and guide you in what to focus on,” says Nizharadce. “I did the taxes for someone who happened to be a college student,” says Clemons. “I might have changed his mind to become an accounting major.”
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BMCC Ranked Sixth Fastest Growing Community College of its Size in United States

January 12, 2016, 10:23 am
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The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) ranked #6 among the fastest growing public two-year colleges of its size in the United States from fall 2013 to fall 2014 according to data complied by Community College Week magazine in its December issue. Among schools with more than 10,000 enrollees, BMCC grew its student population to 26,606 in fall 2014, up 9.1% from 24,186 in fall 2013 according to the CCW’s 2015 rankings of Fastest Growing Community Colleges. Earlier in 2015, BMCC ranked as one of the nation’s top colleges for awarding associate degrees according to CCW’s annual Top 100 report released on September 14, 2015.
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BMCC Office of Internships and Experiential Learning Prepares Students for Success in the Workplace

January 21, 2016, 6:51 am
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Burrell
Students at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) now have more opportunities to gain valuable real-world experience outside the classroom. In November 2015, the college established its Office of Internships and Experiential Learning. “BMCC is committed to expanding internship and experiential learning opportunities for BMCC students, both as a proven engagement and retention strategy, and to prepare students for success in the workplace,” said Provost and Senior Vice President Dr. Karrin Wilks. In November, BMCC also named Laura Burrell director of the new office. The college wants to see more students not only participate in, but also better understand what experiential learning can do for them, Burrell said. BMCC already offers a multitude of experiential learning opportunities.  Last year, the college had more than 16,000 students participating in experiential programs or activities. “Under the umbrella of experiential education are formal credit –bearing internships, informal internships, study abroad programs, exchange programs, project based learning, job shadow programs, service learning, externships and many others,” said Burrell. The new Office of Internships and Experiential Learning opens at a time in the nation’s economy when more and more companies are requiring a certain of amount of field experience for many entry-level jobs. The new BMCC initiatives align with a spring 2015 directive from the CUNY Board of Trustees to plan for experiential learning as required by New York State Legislation for all CUNY and SUNY colleges. Many BMCC students already work full or part time.  Burrell hopes the program will present these students with more opportunities that are both paid and field specific. Burrell says she will be working to establish relationships with local companies, nonprofits, the emerging TAMI sector (technology, advertising, media and information), and even members of New York City’s burgeoning Silicon Alley.
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BMCC Welcomes Three New Academic Leaders

January 28, 2016, 8:01 am
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Three Deans(L to R): Jim Berg, Janice Zummo and Christopher Shults

  In its efforts to enhance student retention, faculty excellence and institutional growth, the Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY), has brought on board three new deans, two of whom are filling new positions within the College. Christopher Shults, BMCC’s new Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning, will come on board February 1. Jim Berg is BMCC’s first Associate Dean of Faculty, and begins his role on January 25. Janice Zummo, BMCC’s first Assistant Dean of Academic Support Services, joined the college in early January. “I am thrilled to welcome three very strong leaders to our team in Academic Affairs,” said Karrin Wilks, Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs. “They collectively bring the skills, knowledge and experience to further our strategic priorities; particularly to improve student success and support faculty development and scholarship.” Christopher Shults will oversee and develop an institutional effectiveness system aimed at refining programs and services, as BMCC’s Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning. He will oversee the offices of Assessment and Institutional Research. Since 2011, Shults has served as Executive Director of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness at Suffolk County Community College, and before that time was Acting Associate Provost for Academic Programs, Innovation and Strategy at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of Michigan. As Associate Dean of Faculty, Jim Berg will oversee programs that are key to the College’s strategic priorities, including the Office of Research, E-Learning, and the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship. For the last eight years, Berg has served as Dean of Arts and Sciences at the College of the Desert in Palm, Desert, California. An active scholar who has focused on the work of writer Christopher Isherwood, Berg earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. He was a founding director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Maine, and Associate Director for Grants Programs at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. BMCC’s new Assistant Dean of Support Services, Janice Zummo, will develop and assess programs that strengthen BMCC’s long-term goals, including the Learning Resource Center, the Writing Center, Immersion, College Now and Upward Bound. Zummo earned her Ph.D. in Education at Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began her higher education career as a tutor in the Writing Center at John Jay College/CUNY, and quickly advanced to leadership positions including that of Director of the SEEK program at Medgar Evers College, where she also developed a peer mentoring program and managed Coordinated Undergraduate Education (CUE).
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BMCC’s Italian Program Enrollment is Among the Largest in the Nation

January 28, 2016, 8:05 am
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Professor Tom Means of the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) Modern Languages Department recently discovered that the BMCC Italian program, in which enrollment has quadrupled since 2000, is the largest Italian program among community colleges, nationwide. Professor Means has also just published an article examining language learning, in Italica, a top peer-reviewed journal in the field of Italian Studies. “The thrust of the article is about how the majority of our Italian students are Hispanic, and that through a linguistic phenomenon called ‘intercomprehension’, Spanish speakers are able to decode Italian rather naturally,” says Means. After submitting the article for pItalicaublication, he continued his research. "I got curious about just how big our Italian program is," he says. "It turns out, we are the largest Italian program in the United States for community colleges.” Means bases this finding on his analysis of data from the Modern Language Association (MLA), and concludes that not only does the BMCC Italian program larger than Italian programs at all other U.S. community college, “we are the seventh largest Italian program in all of U.S. higher education,” he says. “Only St. Johns, the University of Arizona, the University of Georgia, Loyola University/Chicago, Montclair State University and New York University are larger than us. Syracuse University and Pennsylvania State University come right behind us.” In order to get those numbers, “I combed through the MLA’s Language Enrollment Database,” Means says. The Italian language program is growing alongside several other language programs at BMCC, which is about to launch a new Associate of Arts (A.A.) in Modern Languages degree program with three concentrations: Spanish, French and Italian. This associate degree program will link to bachelor’s degree programs in French, Italian, Spanish, Romance Languages and Translation at Hunter College, CUNY.
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Four BMCC Professors Win Diana Hacker Award

January 28, 2016, 8:15 am
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BMCC Prof. Jeff Gonzalez, who along with professors Christa Baiada, John Beaumont and Nancy Derbyshire has been awarded the Diana Hacker Award

  Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) professors Christa Baiada, John Beaumont, Nancy Derbyshire and Jeff Gonzalez have been awarded the Diana Hacker Award in the category of Fostering Student Success at the Two-Year College English Association (TCEA). The group earned the award for their presentation, The BMCC Teaching Academy: Building a Teaching College One Cohort at a Time, during the TCEA conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in October 2015. Baiada, an associate professor of English and one of four Master Teachers in the 2015 cohort of the BMCC Teaching Academy, worked with a cohort of four teaching fellows from different departments at the college. Baiada said her role was to encourage and facilitate the fellows’ reflection of and experimentations in their teaching. "I listened and observed and tried to reflect back to the fellows about what happens in the classroom,” she said. "I invited the fellows to observe my teaching and comment on what they saw that might help me enhance my own teaching." The BMCC Teaching Academy is a four-semester professional development program for faculty members new to BMCC and/or new to teaching. Participating faculty are placed into a teaching community of up to four teaching fellows under the guidance of a master teacher. The teaching community members meet regularly, observe each other teaching, videotape their own teaching, discuss common readings and attend workshops together. As the capstone feature of the program, each Teaching Fellow produces a presentation or paper for publication based on research they did in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Professor Beaumont, Director of the BMCC Teaching Academy, said the academy supports new faculty where traditionally there is very little support. “The expectation is for them to publish scholarly work and do other activities within the college and professionally,” he said. "They’re also expected to be competent as teachers, yet very few of them have had formal pedagogical training. So the Teaching Academy allows new faculty members to look at their teaching and explore what they’re doing through reflection, peer observation and non-judgmental feedback from a teaching community; a group of four to five teachers including one Master Teacher that they’re working with.” By the end of two years in the Teaching Academy, participants will be able to have increased awareness of classroom events, behaviors, and attitudes; engage in non-judgmental reflection and feedback on teaching and learning; engage in multi-modal teaching and become more confident as teachers.
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BMCC African Heritage Month Begins February 3

January 28, 2016, 8:18 am
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african-heritage-banner-650 A month filled with performances, film screenings, lectures and other activities is set for African Heritage Month at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) in February. The celebration of African American culture and history kicks off February 3 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the main campus cafeteria where there will be a music and dance performance, food, fashion and poetry. Ashtian Holmes, Director at BMCC's Urban Male Leadership Academy is one of the planning committee members and says this year’s events offer something for everyone. "We were able to incorporate many of the students' ideas into the program, which gave it a different flavor from years past," said Holmes. "Recent events have sparked much-needed national conversations about race, inequality, and social justice. We wanted to make sure the events address these issues, and provide our students with a platform to let their voices be heard." Holmes says African history and culture is often overlooked in K-12 education. “Many of our young people do not have a strong sense of the struggles and accomplishments of people of African descent. Black history is the world's history, and we want our students to know that. "Empowering the next Generation" means that we learn from the lessons of the past and present, so we can work towards building a better future,” said Holmes. Highlights from this year’s event include:   Feb. 3: African Heritage Month Opening Ceremony Feb 9: The Black Bubble: Defining the State of Black America Feb. 9: Screening of the film “Selma” followed by a panel discussion Feb. 10: Black Love; Discussion of black love, marriage, relationships and family Feb. 11: Film: The Human Stain Feb. 16: On the Shoulders of Giants: Exploring Black History through Quilts Feb. 16:  Film Screening and panel discussion: “When the Bough Breaks” Feb. 17: Healthier Soul Food Feb. 17: On the Shoulders of Giants: Exploring Black History through Quilts (Evening Session) Feb. 18: Film Screening: “Rosa Parks speaks at BMCC” Feb. 22: Film Screening: “All the Difference” Feb. 23: Five Percenters; Hip-Hop and the Urban Cultural Experience Feb. 23: Muslim in America (symposium) Feb. 24: The American Dream featuring the CUNY Creative Arts Team Feb. 25: The Life and Legacy of Louis Stokes Feb. 29: Martin Luther King: Reconstructed (actor/poet David Mills) Ongoing Exhibits Feb. 1 – Feb. 12: The NYC Freedom Trail:  Frederick Douglas Landing Feb. 1 – Feb. 29: : From Slavery to Freedom: the Journey to NYC
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BMCC Faculty Showcase: Art/Works

January 28, 2016, 8:23 am
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  jgoodrich_002-1 Artwork by BMCC Professor John Goodrich, one of 33 faculty artists featured in upcoming exhibit   Faculty artists at Borough of Manhattan Community College/The City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY) will showcase their work in an upcoming exhibit, Art/Works, opening Wednesday, February 10 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the Shirley Fiterman Art Center, located on the first floor of BMCC’s Fiterman Hall, 81 Barclay Street between Greenwich Street and West Broadway in Lower Manhattan. The exhibit will run through March 19. Featured faculty artists and designers in Art/Works include Yevgeniya Baras, Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Tess Bilhartz, Lynn Braswell, Simon Carr, Betty A. Copeland, Elisa Decker, Donelle Estey, Dikko Faust, Pat Genova, John Goodrich, Xico Greenwald, Joseph Haske, Sarah Haviland, Ann Hjelle, Ana Garces Kiley, Michael Leigh, Susan Leopold, Charles McGill, Thaddeus Radell, Jessica Ramirez, William Reed, Kimberly Reinhardt/Analog Exodus, Judy Richardson, Owen Roberts, Erik Saxon, Adele Shtern, Rachelle Street, Janet Esquirol Sylvan, Joan Thorne, A.C. Towery, Michael Volonakis and Amy Westpfahl. Art/Works provides a glimpse of the dynamic, diverse faculty who teach in BMCC’s new Art Foundations program. Students are now able to earn an Associate of Art (A.A.) in Art History or Associate of Science (A.S.) in Studio Art. Both programs link to the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Art History program at Queens College, CUNY. BMCC’s faculty artists teach a wide range of courses in studio art, design and art history. They guide students in building portfolios of their work and provide them with the fundamental training required for successful transfer to top art and design schools. A portion of all sales of art from Shirley Fiterman Art Center exhibits goes to support the BMCC Foundation scholarship fund. Images are available upon request. For more information, contact BMCC Professor of Art Peter Greenwald, pgreenwald@bmcc.cuny.edu.
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2016 Undergraduate Research Symposium Will Be Held Feb. 17

February 3, 2016, 11:07 am
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POSTER_DSC2927[1] The Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City of New York (BMCC/CUNY) community will celebrate the passion, work and commitment of BMCC students and faculty on Wednesday, February 17 at the 2016 Undergraduate Research Symposium on the college's main campus at 199 Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan. The day-long symposium will feature student oral presentations, a panel discussion and poster sessions showcasing student research in the biological and social sciences, mathematics, computer information systems and other areas. That morning in Theatre 2, student oral presentations will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. The symposium will then shift to Richard Harris Terrace, where a faculty panel discussion will take place from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., followed by Poster Session I from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., Poster Session II from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m, and closing remarks. For more information, click HERE.
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Research Thrives at BMCC

February 19, 2016, 11:50 am
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The 2016 BMCC Undergraduate Research Symposium, Faculty Panel Discussion and Poster Sessions I and II were held February 17 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the college’s main campus building in Lower Manhattan. The day kicked off with student oral presentations in Theatre 2. Six students took the stage to narrate slides highlighting their research projects led by BMCC professors, and covering topics such as searching for gaps in active nuclei disks, and determining the degree to which tea leaves can be used to absorb toxic metals from water sources. A faculty panel discussion followed in Richard Harris Terrace and featured Science Professor Jun Liang, Psychology Professor Marjan Persuh and Engineering Professor Kibrewossen Tesfagiorgis. “We talked about careers in the sciences, our research projects, and the importance of working with students at the community college level,” said Liang. The day closed with two well attended student poster sessions in Richard Harris Terrace. Over 100 student presenters in 59 research projects stood beside posters, engaging visitors and answering questions about their investigations in the biological and social sciences, mathematics, computer information systems and other areas. Science major Claude Cyriaque was on hand to discuss his research project led by Science Professor Lauren Wickstrom, “Understanding Estrogenic Mechanisms Driving Breast Cancer.” Cyriaque plans to become a physician’s assistant, and was drawn to the project “because a couple people dear to me have passed from the disease.” He explains that the research explores links between estrogens, or molecules that regulate cell tissue and growth, and parabens, molecules used as an anti-bacterial preservative in cosmetics. In addition to learning the biology of cancer and its possible causes, “Professor Wickstrom has had us learn computational modeling techniques to analyze molecular structures, and other strategies that are key in our science studies,” says Cyriaque.
Science major Evelyn Szeinbaum is working with Science Professor Patricia DeLeon on the research project, “The Healing Effect of Reiki on Human Cancer Cells and C. Elegans.” Szeinbaum, who plans to study naturopathic medicine at the University of Bridgeport after leaving BMCC, explained that as conventional pharmaceutical approaches to illness have failed, holistic healing practices have been examined as viable alternatives. Professor DeLeon, who is not only a biochemist and professor, but also a Reiki master, added that in addition to learning lab techniques, “Student researchers gain the ability to think in an analytical way and deal with the frustration and apparent defeat that is part of any research project. It makes them grow professionally and as a person.” Judges circulated throughout the poster sessions and will select three student researchers to receive $500 each toward travel expenses to present their research findings at a national conference. These will be announced at a later date. “This event represents the dedication and hard work of the BMCC research community,” said Helene Bach, BMCC Director of Research. “Our students and faculty are of the same caliber as those at any four-year or private school. It is important for our students to engage in research as early as possible in their academic caree
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BMCC Names Odelia Levy as Chief Diversity Officer

February 19, 2016, 11:54 am
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Borough Manhattan Community College/City University of New York welcomes Odelia Levy as its Chief Diversity Officer and Special Advisor to the President. Prior to BMCC, Ms. Levy served as the Executive Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity with the New York City Department of Education’s Office of General Counsel. In her role, Ms. Levy served as the senior legal advisor in areas of law, compliance, and policy matters in the employment, EEO enforcement, diversity, Title IX, and privacy realm. BMCC President Antonio Pérez said, “Odelia has diversity experience both in private and public sectors that make her a strong addition to our institution.” “BMCC has a very diverse student population and it is ahead of the curve when it comes to managing diversity issues,” said Ms. Levy. “The law is evolving in such a rapid rate. It’s important for institutions to be aware of these changes and this is what attracts me to this type of work.” Ms. Levy worked as an Employment Associate with Sills Cummis & Gross, in Newark, where she provided counsel and investigated allegations of discrimination and prepared position statements for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission submission. Ms. Levy also served as an Affirmative Action/Employee Associate with Jackson Lewis, LLP in Melville, NY. Ms. Levy graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from Brandeis University; and earned her Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School where she was a Carswell Merit Scholar.
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Over 100 BMCC Professors and Staff Join Middle States Self-Study Process and Launch

February 19, 2016, 12:19 pm
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    On February 5, 2016, BMCC launched its Middle States decennial self-study process, part of the college’s ongoing cycle of accreditation through the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), a unit of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. “As we implement our college-wide strategic plan, which will be published shortly, we will integrate departmental planning with the Middle States Self-Study process to identify specific opportunities and challenges,” said BMCC President Pérez in a message to the college community. Over 100 faculty and staff have joined the BMCC Middle States Steering Committee and seven working groups. Their launch meeting on February 5 kicked off a two-year process that will culminate in the submission of BMCC's Self-Study report to the MSCHE in Fall 2017. The college will also host a visit from the Middle States Evaluation Team in Spring 2018. Senior Vice President and Provost Karrin Wilks and Professor of Science Lauren Goodwin are serving as steering committee co-chairs. “BMCC has always had great faculty and staff input into the process of maintaining accreditation,” Goodwin says. “This is an important opportunity for BMCC not only to assemble evidence about how we meet or exceed the Standards but also to take a hard look at ourselves and what we can do better,” said Wilks. Christopher Shults, BMCC’s new Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning, will be closely involved in the Middle States process and oversee its overall coordination. “My first observation regarding the MSCHE launch was the festive and collegial nature of the event,” said Shults. “Secondly, I noticed that there was broad representation across each of the groups – all academic departments, individuals representing many units, and a mix of new and seasoned employees. Finally, as I was ‘floating’ to assist the groups with questions, I was impressed with the high level of expertise and camaraderie across departments and units. Our self-study is off to a great start and I am excited to be part of this team as we thoroughly examine our ability to enhance student learning, the environment for teaching and learning, and institutional operations over the next two years.”   The working committees are organized around the Middle States standards and chaired as follows: Standard I, Mission and Goals, chaired by Maria Enrico, Chair of Modern Languages and Michael Hutmaker, Dean of Students; Standard II, Ethics and Integrity, chaired by Bob Diaz, Vice President for Human Resources and Sangeeta Bishop, Chair of Social Sciences/Human Services/Criminal Justice; Standard III, Design and Delivery of Student Learning Experience, chaired by Hollis Glaser, Chair of Speech/Communications/Theatre and Sarah Salm, Professor of Science; Standard IV, Support of Student Experience, chaired by Ken Levinson, Chair of Academic Literacy & Linguistics and Marva Craig, Vice President of Student Affairs; Standard V, Educational Effectiveness Assessment, chaired by Erwin Wong, Dean of Programs and Instruction and Anna Salvati, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems; Standard VI, Planning, Resources and Institutional Improvement, chaired by John Montanez, Dean of Grants Administration and Scott Anderson, Vice President for Administration, and Standard VII, Governance, Leadership and Administration, chaired by Sunil Gupta, Dean of Adult & Continuing Education and Janice Walters, Chair of Teacher Education.
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BMCC Welcomes Three New Academic Leaders

February 19, 2016, 12:48 pm
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(L to R): Jim Berg, Janice Zummo and Christopher Shults
  In its efforts to enhance student retention, faculty excellence and institutional growth, the Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY), has brought on board three new deans, two of whom are filling new positions within the College. Christopher Shults, BMCC’s new Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning, will come on board February 1. Jim Berg is BMCC’s first Associate Dean of Faculty, and begins his role on January 25. Janice Zummo, BMCC’s first Assistant Dean of Academic Support Services, joined the college in early January. “I am thrilled to welcome three very strong leaders to our team in Academic Affairs,” said Karrin Wilks, Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs. “They collectively bring the skills, knowledge and experience to further our strategic priorities; particularly to improve student success and support faculty development and scholarship.” Christopher Shults will oversee and develop an institutional effectiveness system aimed at refining programs and services, as BMCC’s Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning. He will oversee the offices of Assessment and Institutional Research. Since 2011, Shults has served as Executive Director of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness at Suffolk County Community College, and before that time was Acting Associate Provost for Academic Programs, Innovation and Strategy at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of Michigan. As Associate Dean of Faculty, Jim Berg will oversee programs that are key to the College’s strategic priorities, including the Office of Research, E-Learning, and the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Scholarship (CETLS). For the last eight years, Berg has served as Dean of Arts and Sciences at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. An active scholar who has focused on the work of writer Christopher Isherwood, Berg earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. He was a founding director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Maine, and Associate Director for Grants Programs at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. BMCC’s new Assistant Dean of Support Services, Janice Zummo, will develop and assess programs that strengthen BMCC’s long-term goals, including the Learning Resource Center, the Writing Center, Immersion, College Now and Upward Bound. Zummo earned her Ph.D. in Education at Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began her higher education career as a tutor in the Writing Center at John Jay College/CUNY, and quickly advanced to leadership positions including that of Director of the SEEK program at Medgar Evers College, where she also developed a peer mentoring program and managed Coordinated Undergraduate Education (CUE).
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Women’s HerStory Month Kicks off with Women and Power Conference on March 2

February 23, 2016, 7:10 am
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herstory650 Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) will present Women’s Herstory Month, March 1 through April 12. On the schedule are panels, films, live performance, workshops and many other events. The month will kick off with a day-long conference on March 2: Women and Power 2016. The conference will open with welcoming remarks by Antonio Perez, President, BMCC; Marva Craig, Vice President for Student Affairs, BMCC and Deborah Parker, Director, Women’s Resource Center, BMCC. Next will be Panel I in a series of panels addressing women and power and featuring Elizabeth de Leon Bhargava, Deputy Secretary of Labor, NYS Governor Cuomo Office; Wendy Garcia, Deputy Chief Diversity Officer, Office of the Comptroller, Stringer and Yolanda Jimenez, Executive Director, Joe Torre Foundation. Andrea Shapiro Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor, CUNY, will moderate. Panel II, moderated by Patricia Mathews-Salazar, Director, BMCC Center for Ethnic Studies, will feature Aisha Holder Campbell, Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University Counseling and Psychological Services; Bobbi Humphrey, Jazz Recording Artist, Flautist and Tanya Torres, Artist and Writer. The Luncheon Keynote Speaker will be Ana Oliveira, President & CEO, The New York Women’s Foundation. Other luncheon speakers will include conference co-chairs Amy Sodaro and Brianne Waychoff, Co-Chairs, Women’s HerStory Month; Karrin Wilks, Provost and Senior Vice President, BMCC, and Conference Chair Deborah Parker, Director, Women’s Resource Center. A student jazz concert will follow, and then a panel featuring Janet Martin, Executive, Verizon; Sally Robles, Clinical Director, Brooklyn College and Victoria Sell,Education Advisor to NYC City Council Member Brad Lander. The moderator will be Margaret Barrow, Deputy Chair, English Department. After that, a b.Girl Movement Workshop: “Am I My Sister’s Keeper? The Responsibilities and Rewards of Women in Power Supporting Other Women” will be led by Nicci Page and Nicole Junior, Co-founders, b.Girl Movement, and moderated by Brianne Waychoff, Deputy Chair, Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts Department. Panel IV, moderated by Olivia Cousins, Professor, Health Education Department ,will present Maryam Habibian, Filmmaker; Jungah Kim, Professor, English Department and Asha Samad-Matias, Anthropologist, City College/CUNY. The final event in the March 2 conference will be "I Step On Air: A Dance, Music, Poetry Performance Dedicated to the Memory of May Ayim, Afro-German Poet and Activist,” featuring Oxana Chi and Layla Zami, Performers and Writers, and facilitated by Jill Strauss and Brianne Waychoff, Professors, Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts Department. Following is a listing of other events, exhibits, performances, workshops and other events throughout Women's HerStory Month. March 1 - 9 Exhibit: Humanizing Blackness with a Black Gaze Theater 1 Breezeway March 2 2nd Annual BMCC Women’s Conference: Women and Power Various locations March 2 HerStory Through Children’s Literature Table Richard Harris Terrace promenade March 5 Performance: Monk in Motion, Veronica Swift TPAC March 9 Discussion: Defining “Woman” Hudson Room March 9 Film: Codes of Gender N-468 March 10 Panel: Structural Violence and Women in the Dominican Republic and Haiti Richard Harris Terrace March 11 Workshop: Ndebele Doll Sculpting S-753 March 14 Discussion: Unearthing the Hidden in Women’s Lives Through Journals, Letters, Periodicals Richard Harris Terrace March 14 Film: Matrilineal Muslim Women of Minang F-211 March 16 Staged reading of play: Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler N-452 March 17 Documentary film: Remembering Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra N-582 March 17 Exhibition: HerStory Through Children’s Literature S-341 March 17 Panel: Immigrant Women’s Experience S-341 March 21 Open Mic: Poetry of Empowerment: An Open Reading Location TBD March 24 Documentary film: Remembering Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra N-582 March 28 Live performance: 100th Anniversary of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles: A Staged Radio Reading F-1014 March 29 Panel: Women and the Spanish Civil War: From Memory to International Citizenship in a Dangerous World Hudson Room March 30 Faculty presentation CETLS March 30 Workshop: Reading Silence: Hearing Women’s Voices in the Archives S-341 March 31 Workshop: Microaggressions in Everyday Life CETLS March 31 Performance: Stage Struck: Women in Theatrical History F-205 March 31 Panel: Immigrant Women’s Experiences and Strategies for Survival S-341 April 12 Faculty presentation CETLS The BMCC Women’s HerStory Month Planning Committee includes Amy Sodaro, Co-Chair, Social Sciences, Human Services, & Criminal Justice Department; Brianne Waychoff, Co-Chair Speech, Communications, & Theatre Arts Department; Judith Anderson, Center for Ethnic Studies; Monica Foust, Social Sciences, Human Services, & Criminal Justice Department; Stephanie Laudone-Jones, Social Sciences, Human Services, & Criminal Justice Department and Deborah Parker, Women’s Resource Center.
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BMCC Undergraduate Research Poster Winners Announced

February 25, 2016, 11:32 am
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2016Posters_DSC7424 The 2016 BMCC Undergraduate Research Symposium, Faculty Panel Discussion and Poster Sessions I and II were held February 17 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the college’s main campus building in Lower Manhattan. The day kicked off with student oral presentations in Theatre 2. Six students took the stage to narrate slides highlighting their research projects led by BMCC professors, and covering topics such as searching for gaps in active nuclei disks, and determining the degree to which tea leaves can be used to absorb toxic metals from water sources. A faculty panel discussion followed in Richard Harris Terrace and featured Science Professor Jun Liang, Psychology Professor Marjan Persuh and Engineering Professor Kibrewossen Tesfagiorgis. “We talked about careers in the sciences, our research projects, and the importance of working with students at the community college level,” said Liang.
Levy
Poster sessions
The day closed with two well attended student poster sessions in Richard Harris Terrace. Over 100 student presenters in 59 research projects stood beside posters, engaging visitors and answering questions about their investigations in the biological and social sciences, mathematics, computer information systems and other areas. Science major Claude Cyriaque was on hand to discuss his research project led by Science Professor Lauren Wickstrom, “Understanding Estrogenic Mechanisms Driving Breast Cancer.” Cyriaque plans to become a physician’s assistant, and was drawn to the project “because a couple people dear to me have passed from the disease.” He explains that the research explores links between estrogens, or molecules that regulate cell tissue and growth, and parabens, molecules used as an anti-bacterial preservative in cosmetics. In addition to learning the biology of cancer and its possible causes, “Professor Wickstrom has had us learn computational modeling techniques to analyze molecular structures, and other strategies that are key in our science studies,” says Cyriaque. Science major Evelyn Szeinbaum is working with Science Professor Patricia DeLeon on the research project, “The Healing Effect of Reiki on Human Cancer Cells and C. Elegans.” Szeinbaum, who plans to study naturopathic medicine at the University of Bridgeport after leaving BMCC, explained that as conventional pharmaceutical approaches to illness have failed, holistic healing practices have been examined as viable alternatives. Professor DeLeon, who is not only a biochemist and professor, but also a Reiki master, added that in addition to learning lab techniques, “Student researchers gain the ability to think in an analytical way and deal with the frustration and apparent defeat that is part of any research project. It makes them grow professionally and as a person.”
Student research winners
Judges circulated throughout the poster sessions to select six student researchers who will receive $500 each toward travel expenses to present their research findings at a national conference. The winners of the 2016 BMCC Annual Poster Presentation are:
  • Engineering science major Rron Dedushi, who is working with Professor Daniel Torres on the project, "First-principles Investigation of Segregation Effects in Metal Alloys";
  • Science major Hillel Wolin, who is working with Professor Yasmin Gurcan on the project, "Quantum Biology":
  • Science major Obeng Buo, who is working with Professor Kibrewossen Tesfagiorgis on the project, "The Dynamics of Water Storage Over Lake Eyre, Australia Observed by Satellite DATA";
  • Science major Shivron Sugrim, who is working with Professor Mahmoud Ardebili on the project, "Piezoresistive Materials Analysis";
  • Science major Kateryna Zhadnova, who is working with Professor Abel Navarro on the project, "Biosorption of Copper Metal Ions from Solutions by Tailored Adsorbents to Enhance their Pollutant Affinity," and
  • Science major Hilario Garcia, who is working with Professor Abel Navarro on the project, "Preparation of Fresh Water from Saline Solutions by Using  Spent Tea Leaves in Batch Systems."
“This event represents the dedication and hard work of the BMCC research community,” said Helene Bach, BMCC Director of Research. “Our students and faculty are of the same caliber as those at any four-year or private school. It is important for our students to engage in research as early as possible in their academic careers. They build important skills, confidence and knowledge, and it strengthens our overall retention.”
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