In late January of this year, Professor and Deputy Chair of the BMCC business department, Carmen Leonor Martínez-López, presented a paper in The Third International Conference for World Balance.

The conference was sponsored by UNESCO, through the José Martí Project of World Solidarity, and was held in Havana, Cuba.

“I was there in 1992 and after 20 years, Havana is changing for the better; the energy is different,” she says. “People are doing many things with very few resources, and by using their creativity.”

She gives an example: “The people of Cuba have many personal electronics, such as iPads and smart phones, and now you see a number of small businesses appearing, to repair those electronics. People who start these businesses train themselves by reading a lot on the Internet, and also they attend vocational institutions within Cuba, that prepare them with technical skills.”

Fighting poverty with education
This movement toward innovative training and entrepreneurism would have pleased the conference sponsor’s namesake, José Julián Martí Pérez (1853 –1895), who advocated for education as a tool for fighting poverty throughout the Americas.

José Martí was also a writer whose poetry, essays, translations and journalism ushered in the modernist tradition in Latin American letters. An impassioned revolutionary, he opposed U.S. expansionism into Cuba and died in battle, fighting for Cuba’s liberation from Spanish colonial rule.

Dr. Martínez-López’s paper, Education for All: The Past and Present of José Martí’s Ideas, “demonstrates how José Martí’s thoughts on higher education are a reality that some countries of the America’s hemisphere are confronting today,” she says.

Her research applies evidence from the United States and Colombia, she adds, “focusing on issues related to the interaction of the university with the business sector, and the role governments perform in the process of preparing a productive population.”

Social responsibility
“In my business classes, one of the concepts I teach is social responsibility, which is defined as a business’s commitment to its stakeholders,” she explains. “According to this theory, businesses are accountable for their economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic performance.”

These issues, she says, “are related to José Martí’s philosophy of education for all the citizens of a nation, whether they are rich or poor, and a sustainable world in all aspects related to humans and our planet.”

The changing focus of higher education in Cuba reflects Martí’s philosophy, Martínez-López says.

“People have begun to realize that while there are many professionals in Cuba, such as lawyers and engineers, those professionals are driving taxis. So now there is an emphasis on helping people attain skills that actually result in employment in their field.”

Also, she says, “Cuba is doing a great job developing their tourism industry, and attracting visitors from Latin American— Brazil, Argentina, Chile—as well as from Canada and Europe.”

Restrictions on U.S. visitors
According to Professor Martínez-López, visitors to Cuba from the United States are subject to stricter limits than most.

“They must be journalists or professionals whose travel is related to academic research or who are attending a conference in Cuba,” she says.

An official travel affidavit from her trip adds that if those full-time professionals are attending a conference, it must not be a conference focused on commercial activities, such as those related to tourism or biotechnological products.

Compliance to these restrictions is well worth the effort, Martínez-López says.

“Havana is a beautiful, historic city. UNESCO is investing in the renovation of the city and also the Brazilian government and others are investing in the development there. It is a country and a people that are growing in many ways.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: For students interested in learning more about the legacy of José Martí in education today, Professor Martínez-López’s conference presentation will be published with UNESCO’s support and made available through the BMCC library.

“Can someone hit the house lights? Can I have all the actors in the house?”

Marcus Dargan, an alumni of the BMCC theatre program—as well as an award-winning playwright and co-founder of the NuAfrikan Theatre in Harlem—is directing the dress rehearsal for The Negro Speaks, A Celebration of African American Poetry, Prose, and Music, in BMCC’s north-wing theatre space.

Dargan compiled and adapted the production through the Nu Afrikan Theatre, and in cooperation with the BMCC Speech, Communications, and Theatre Arts department, where he is now an adjunct lecturer, having recently earned his M.S. Ed. in Educational Theatre at City College, CUNY.

“Okay, from the top!” he calls out, and a line of actors surges onto the stage, decked out in black dresses and furs from the Harlem Renaissance era; African head wraps, vests with watch chains, white shirts and a minister’s long black coat.

Weaving across stage, they clap and sing in vibrant harmony, “Wading through the water, children!,” from a traditional Negro spiritual.

300 years of poetry and songs
“I was initially inspired to create The Negro Speaks during the speech class I taught last semester,” Dargan says, referring to his students’ oral interpretation projects.

“One person presented Tupac Shakur’s ‘Changes’, another presented Maya Angelou’s ‘Phenomenal Woman’, and the final student presented Langston Hughes’ ‘Crystal Stair’,” he says, adding that he was “moved by the authenticity in their delivery, and the enthusiasm they shared for the text.”

In January, the BMCC theatre department held auditions for Dargan’s new production inspired by his students’ presentations. He cast several of them in The Negro Speaks, and began pulling the text together.

“I used The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., as my primary source,” he says, and the resulting production features poetry and songs ranging from Phyllis Wheatley’s 1773 classic “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” to Duke Ellington’s 1932 hit, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing),” to Gil Scott-Heron’s seminal work from 1970, “The Revolution Will Not be Televised.”

“Pick it up!”
“Put some stamp on it,” Dargan yells out during the dress rehearsal. “Pick it up!”

“Levels!” he shouts. “Use the stools!” and the actors adjust their positions, some standing tall, some crouching down, their attention trained on one person at the center of their group.

“Let me get light cues! … five, four, three, two,” Dargan calls out, and a delicate woman in a black-and-white dress kneels in the spotlight, quietly reciting her piece as another woman gestures gracefully around her.

The works span over 300 years, and take two hours to perform. In the closing number, the entire ensemble gathers on stage.

“The battle ain’t over till the black man sings!” they chant. “The battle ain’t over till the black woman sings! The battle ain’t over till we all sing!”

Dargan calls out, “Saturday Night Live! Saturday Night Live!,” and the actors laugh and hug each other, echoing the well-known TV show’s familiar sign-off, a full cast hugging on stage.

By the community, for the community
In just a couple hours, the cast of The Negro Speaks will run through their performance again, but that time for a packed house, and without their director’s reassuring commands.

“To stage a production in a matter of weeks demands intense dedication,” says Dargan, who brought to the production not only his theatre experience, but insight gained by leading conflict resolution sessions, technique workshops with professional actors and LGBT youth, and social studies enactments with public school children.

Teaching and directing at BMCC is for him, a kind of coming home.

“With minimal time and resources, we were faced with very high expectations and everyone rose graciously to the occasion,” he says of the production that features several BMCC students and alumni, as well as participants from other CUNY colleges. “I encourage our audience to laugh, cry, shout, dance, and sing along with us. This is theatre for your community, by your community!”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Negro Speaks was produced and presented by the following individuals: Actors: Noel B. Austin, Christian Baxter, Aissatta Beretay, Alexandra Bernard, Janelle Brathwaite, Duane Burress Jr., Tiffany Caserta, Leroy Graham, David Joel, Carelythia Laguer, Sophonia Pickett, Epiphany Samuels, Nefertiti Warren, Craig Watson and Crystal Williams; Guest Musicians: Larry Roland, Marcos Varela and Nioka Workman; NuAfrikan Theatre: Marcus Dargan and Jajmi V. Robinson; BMCC Faculty Advisors: Professors Liz Chaney, Diane Dowling, Katherine Kavanaugh, Shawna Lucey, Alkis Papoutis and Christopher Peifer; BMCC Student Production Staff and Crew: Aliff Abad, Erikka Anderson, Sabrina Bocel, Tiffany Caserta, Jazmin Fernandez, Franciose Foster, Blake Gainey, Hector Guzman, Kristina Gramlich, Nicole Iovino, Will Johnson, Julian Mobley, Kalia Narruhn, Bilal Patel, Isabella Peralta, Amelia Perez, Ryan Sheopersad and Devonte Springer.

Sharing Hope

Hannah Vaughn plays the role of Anne Frank, and Phillip Burke is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Letters from Anne & Martin, a new stage production co-sponsored by The Anne Frank Center USA and BMCC, and presented recently in BMCC’s Richard Harris Terrace.

“I’m an actor, primarily,” says Vaughn, who also directed the production and assembled the script from two well known texts: The Diary of Anne Frank and Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

“It was like a puzzle, putting the excerpts together,” she says.

Philip Burke, who plays the role of Martin Luther King, Jr. noted, “being part of this production made me realize there are a lot of universal themes in the messages of Anne Frank and Martin Luther King.”

As Vaughn put it, “Anne Frank’s writing is reflective, in that she focuses on what will come to pass after the war is over. Dr. King on the other hand, was able to go out in the world and enact change. But they both have a very determined sense of hope.”

“A unique way to touch people”
An audience of over 50 BMCC students, faculty and staff gathered for the performance, and were welcomed by BMCC VP of Student Affairs, Marva Craig.

“It’s always a pleasure to invite our neighbors and fellow New Yorkers to collaborate with us, as we listen to some voices of the past, present and future,” she said. “Anne Frank and Martin Luther King will always be with us because of what they have said and done.”

“This is our first collaboration with a college,” said Yvonne Simmons, Executive Director of The Anne Frank Center. “Our mission is to teach young audiences about the consequences of intolerance.”

Deborah Chapin, co-chair of The Center’s board of directors, spoke of “great substantive connections between Anne Frank’s and Martin Luther King’s enduring message,” and Center board member Suzanne Waltman commented that “the combination of having a literary and historical and moral component is a unique way to touch people.”

“You be the judge.”
Robert Levin, Director of Education at The Anne Frank Center, introduced the play, reminding the audience that Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King “are two legendary voices for peace and tolerance,” and that Anne Frank, who was among millions of Jews and other groups persecuted in Europe before and during World War II, went into hiding with her family at age 11, in 1942.

In that tiny attic crowded with two families, “Anne’s greatest companion was her diary,” he said, adding that it became “one of the most widely read books in the world, translated into 80 languages, and a source of comfort for millions.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., said Levin, “was a giant among leaders in American history,” and is known for leading the American civil rights movement.

“He was arrested many times, and his home was bombed,” Levin said. “Nevertheless, he advocated non-violent protest, and by age 35, was the youngest man to have won the Nobel Peace Prize. He gave over 2,500 speeches, and his Letter from Birmingham Jail has become a manifesto for the civil rights movement.”

The play, Levin said, would feature, “Anne Frank, a 14-year-old girl, and Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the world’s greatest orators. Two very different voices—but what of their message? You be the judge.”

A message of tolerance, in two voices
Hannah Vaughn as Anne Frank opened the play with the diary’s famous salutation: “Dear Kitty,” bringing to life the words of a teenage girl whose world spirals into a nightmare of genocide, on a scale of millions.

“We’re surrounded by darkness and danger,” the character Anne says, and asserts that Hitler’s Nazi’s “are the cruelest monsters that stalk the earth.”

Her message is delivered in tandem with that of Dr. King, who, played by Phillip Burke, refers to “the appalling silence of the ‘good people’,” in troubled times leading to the American Civil Rights Movement, and that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Behind the two speakers, historic photos were projected onto a large screen: police aiming fire hoses at unarmed protestors, and in a grainy black-and-white image recalling the horror of lynching in the American South, Hitler’s victims are hanging by their necks, in a group execution.

The play closes with Anne Frank’s often-quoted optimism, even more poignant in light of her own death in a concentration camp: “In spite of everything, I believe people are truly good at heart.”

A cry for freedom
In a Q&A session after the performance, one BMCC student commented on the unexpected pairing of Dr. King and Anne Frank, “a Christian and a Jew, and their two faces so different. But their cry for freedom spanned their differences. You touched me, with your performance. You did effectively communicate to me the spirit of Anne Frank and Dr. King.”

Another student said, “I praise Anne Frank for making her story known,” and his classmate noted, “It’s one thing to read the diary of Anne Frank, and another to hear it performed live.”

Yvonne Simmons, Executive Director of The Anne Frank Center, extended a special invitation to BMCC students: “We will waive admission if you want to visit The Anne Frank Center,” she said, and noted that The Center is just a couple blocks from BMCC’s Fiterman Hall, up the hill on Park Place.

Marva Craig closed the event. “Just as Anne Frank’s voice went beyond the walls of that tiny house where they hid during the war,” she said, “if you students continue to write and speak out, your message will be out there, too. Your voices will go beyond these walls.”

“This has been a great year for us, our best year ever,” BMCC President Antonio Pérez told BMCC students, staff and faculty filling the tiered seats in Theatre II, as he opened his annual State of the College Address.

“Fifty years ago, when BMCC began as a small business college on two floors of a midtown office building, it would have been hard to imagine our future. Now we are the largest undergraduate college in all five boroughs,” the President said.

He shared some encouraging statistics based on data collected by Community College Week, including this one: BMCC is ranked as Number 2 among the nation’s two-year colleges for awarding degrees to underrepresented students.

With successes, though, come challenges, he said, including Hurricane Sandy, and noted that despite heavy damages, BMCC opened its doors to faculty, staff and students just three days after the storm.

Excellence in teaching, research and learning
Acknowledging the importance of BMCC’s student-to-faculty ratio, President Pérez reported that “since last spring, we have added 54 full-time faculty. We now have almost 500 full-time faculty members teaching at BMCC. We also depend upon a large and qualified pool of adjunct faculty.”

In addition, he said, the college has doubled the size of its advisement staff, and added administrative staff for special programs.

One of these, the Presidential Scholars Program, is first of its kind among community colleges and has paired up nine junior faculty—Professors Susie Boydston White, Alex Gosslau, Rachel Torres, Yolanda Martinez, Frank Crocco, Kathleen Offenholley, Adolfina Koroch, Shengkun Zheng and Lin Rice—with prominent researchers throughout CUNY.

Together, they will develop grant proposals aimed at creating a community of scholars on the BMCC campus.

Student Excellence
BMCC students continue to earn regional and national recognition, said President Pérez.

Nearly 200 students over the past two decades have participated in the Vassar Exploring Transfer Program, and in both 2011 and 2012, seven of the 32 students accepted nationwide into the program were from BMCC.

On completing the program, those BMCC students transferred to Vassar, Amherst, Smith, Stanford, Mt. Holyoke, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Sarah Lawrence, and other four-year colleges.

President Pérez also spoke about the BMCC Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, which hosted the 2012 New York Region Leadership Annual Conference.

He congratulated BMCC’s Phi Theta Kappans, who won the most awards of any New York Chapter at this year’s Spring Regional meeting, and gave a shout-out to the BMCC women’s basketball team and men’s soccer team—both of which won CUNY championships this past year.

Start here, excel here
BMCC, said President Pérez, is recognized both within CUNY and nationally for “our strategic approach to innovation in academics and basic skills proficiency.”

To support students who struggle academically, several cutting-edge programs have been piloted at BMCC, he said, adding that “we are now scaling up aggressively in order to make these programs available to more students as quickly as possible.”

Those programs include the New Mathways initiative, or Quantway Network, led by the BMCC Office of Academic Affairs, Department of Mathematics, and Office of Institutional Research.

Another opportunity for BMCC students is located at The New York Simulation Center for the Health Sciences, where students engage in clinical interactions with two types of “simulated” patients – either high-tech mannequins, or actors trained to emulate symptoms of various illnesses.

President Pérez also spoke about the new BMCC Freshman Learning Academies (FLA), funded by the New York Community Trust and a joint effort of BMCC’s Academic Affairs and Student Affairs departments.

FLA provides both academic and social support for students acclimating to college, he said, and the average pass rate for the current 276 FLA participants is close to 100%—a 30% increase over BMCC’s usual fall-to-spring retention rate for new students.

On a related note, President Pérez noted that BMCC is a leader among CUNY campuses in developing exemplary Enrollment Strategies to ensure students’ ability to stay in school.

Through the leadership of BMCC’s new First-Year Coordinator, he said, the college stayed in touch with new students through social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

The college also created a new orientation program, Getting Prepared to Start (GPS), which provides advisement, financial aid and registration guidance.

Organizational excellence
In June 2013, said President Pérez, the college will submit a Periodic Review Report (PRR), marking the midway point in BMCC’s 10-year accreditation cycle.

A Periodic Review Team, led by Professors Gay Brookes and Kay Conway “are doing a superb job as co-chairs of this process,” he said, and recognized in the audience, faculty and staff who serve on the PRR committees.

The BMCC Strategic Steering Committees and Work Teams, said the President, “have begun to work on the excellent, actionable, program and initiative ideas they presented to the BMCC Collaborative Improvement Council last summer.”

One of these, he said, the Steering Committee on Supporting Global Studies, “has recommended the creation of an Introductory Globalization course,” which will serve as a model for other new Global Studies courses.

Ultimately, he said, “such curricular changes will equip, energize, and empower our students to assert themselves as global citizens.”

Fiterman Hall and enhancing campus physical space
“Let’s congratulate ourselves for having the most beautiful new building in CUNY: Fiterman Hall,” said President Pérez, and reminded the audience that improvements to the BMCC main campus building at 199 Chambers are underway, as well.

The opening of Fiterman Hall, he said, entailed many new hires for the college, including 33 custodial workers, 19 skilled tradespeople, six IT support assistants, and approximately 24 campus security employees.

“Also, as we address the issues of the physical space, it’s important to note that BMCC is fully committed to the goals of a sustainable future,” he added, describing BMCC’s 10-year sustainability plan, which includes energy conservation, curriculum and education, procurement, waste management and recycling.

He also invited students, staff and faculty to attend BMCC’s Second Annual BMCC Sustainability Fair, on Earth Day, April 22, in the Richard Harris Terrace.

CUNYfirst is here at last
President Pérez announced the arrival at BMCC of CUNYfirst, “a new technology that will streamline the way our students register, our professors communicate, and all BMCC staff maintains their personal information.”

This new University-wide system, he said, will go live at BMCC in April 2013.

At that time, “our current Panther and CUNYVM systems will expire, and CUNYfirst will take its place as our student information system,” said President Pérez, and explained that students will register, pay their tuition and view their transcript online through CUNYfirst, while professors will use it to view their rosters and submit grades.

CUNYfirst will also provide a new form of student academic advisement.

“DegreeWorks will be used in place of our advisement data sheets,” he told the audience. “Through DegreeWorks, advisors can plan out their students’ courses and leave notes for advisement in an environment that students can access and refer back to anytime online.”

He acknowledged the hard work of BMCC’s CUNYfirst team, which has focused for years on smoothly transferring the college’s data to this new system.

“There might be some growing pains in the beginning,” said President Pérez, “but I assure you, in the long run, CUNYfirst will make working and learning at BMCC more efficient and easier than ever.”

A brighter economic future
The final Strategy Priority President Pérez talked about was Global Engagement and Economic Development.

“Since BMCC began, we have been clear that our mission was to serve the residents of New York City,” he said. “We are also aware that many of our neighbors are still searching for that job that guarantees a secure foothold in our economic future.”

He acknowledged the role of BMCC’s Center for Continuing Education and Workforce Development in improving economic opportunity for New Yorkers, and described the BMCC-administered Manhattan Economic Opportunity Center, or MEOC, which “engages low-income New Yorkers by offering them academic and vocational courses like ESL, PC Repair, GED and college prep.”

In October of 2012, he announced, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded BMCC and MEOC $3 million dollars to deliver healthcare training to unemployed and dislocated workers.

This award will create at BMCC the only Health Informatics Specialist Certificate program in the City of New York.

It will also result in training for 450 individuals who have been disproportionately impacted by the current recession, and will be administered by Sunil Gupta, Dean of Continuing Education; Dr. John Graham, Executive Director of MEOC; Professor Linda Carlson, Chair of BMCC’s Allied Health department, and Computer Information Systems professor Mete Kok.

Pathways and BMCC’s changing demographics
Sharing some personal perspectives, President Pérez expressed his support for the CUNY-wide Pathways initiative.

“It has been contentious at times,” he said, “but it’s a part of who we are. For too many years, I’ve seen students have difficulty transferring to other colleges, and the Pathways initiative provides for that transition.”

He also talked about the changing demographic composition of BMCC. “I believe in our faculty and I feel our faculty and staff serve our students well,” he said. “I find our students might also be changing.”

Most of BMCC’s students hail from Brooklyn, he said, with the Bronx coming in second, then Queens and Manhattan. He also noted, “41% of our students are now Hispanic, and 32% are Black. We also have more Asian and White students coming through our doors.”

One commonality among the diverse student population at BMCC, he said, is that “they see the world in a different way than their professors might,” referring to the technologies that are part of students’ lives and adding that, “we as educators have to be aware that they learn differently than we did.”

Q & A
Following tradition, President Pérez closed his State of the College address by opening the floor to the audience, with a Q&A session.

Of those who spoke, Professor James Blake commented on the connection between graduation rates and students’ difficulty adjusting from a “high school mentality” to one that helps them succeed in college; he stressed the critical need for more programs to support that transition.

Also taking the microphone was a student who expressed frustration at his grade in an English class, and another who shared, “I’m a little technology challenged,” and stated concerns about BMCC’s switch to CUNYfirst. President Pérez directed Dean Erwin Wong, and CUNYfirst administrator Christina Lev, respectively, to follow up with them.

Next, Professor Shirley Zaragoza spoke, sharing that her business students, who are focusing on “evidence-based management,” created a survey in which students evaluate their professors. This survey, she said, was based on student-created criteria. She urged the college to include that criteria in hiring new faculty, and President Pérez referred Professor Zaragoza to Dean Jane Delgado, for further discussion.

Last of all, Eric Glaudé, veterans’ counselor in the BMCC Office of Advisement and Counseling, shared “some good news,” he said, reporting that while there were 157 veterans on campus when he came onboard at BMCC in 2009, about 400 veterans are expected to be attending BMCC in Fall 2013.

His name is “Angel,” and to one New York resident, he lived up to his name.

“There was one woman who was so happy with the service I provided her, she sang me some opera,” laughs Angel Arroyo, a recent BMCC graduate who currently attends CUNY John Jay. “You get some good-hearted callers here.”

The “here” Angel Arroyo is referring to is the CUNY 311 Call Center, located in Lower Manhattan, where he works part-time as a call representative.

The CUNY/311 Project, a collaboration between the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) and the City University of New York, provides qualified CUNY students with the opportunity to work as part-time Call Center Representatives within New York City’s Customer Service Center.

Founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, CUNY 311 provides New Yorkers with one easy-to-remember number to access all city agencies and services.

So, anytime you call NYC’s helpline number—311—there could be a BMCC student on the line!

Work prep
“Students work an 18-hour work week, in three 6-hour shifts,” explains Kristine Irizzary, Project Coordinator, adding that “the skills are transferable. Working here, in customer service, lays a foundation for any job the students pursue in the future.”

International students are also drawn to the CUNY 311 Call Center, because, says Irizzary, “if they’re bilingual if they can handle calls in more than one language.”

BMCC graduate Fatima Begum, who currently attends York College, also works for CUNY 311.

“Working here taught me about time management—which, in turn, made me a better, more organized student,” she said.  “When I was at BMCC, I’d often walk from class to work, since the Call Center is only 15 minutes away from BMCC’s main campus.”

Begum calls her fellow colleagues “friendly,” adding that the CUNY 311 program is for “those who want to learn, grow, and be willing to help others.”

Adds Arroyo: “You learn a lot working here—how to think on your feet, provide accurate information, and work with many different personalities—it’s all a valuable experience and great for a first office job.”

NOTE: Current CUNY students are eligible to apply to work at the CUNY 311 Call Center on Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan. All potential CUNY 311 employees undergo an on-campus screening to be sure specific requirements are met. For more information, click here.

Star Performers

Science, according to Prof. Barry McKernan, is basically a social activity.

“The most important work takes place when smart people come together to argue, exchange ideas, and present alternative viewpoints,” he says.

Colleague Saavik Ford puts it even more plainly: “Science is about getting a lot of us in the same room and banging our heads together until something good comes out.”

Ford and McKernan, who are professors in BMCC’s Science Department as well as veteran astrophysicists, will have an opportunity to indulge in some creative head-banging this summer.

Recently named 2013-2015 Kavli Scholars, they will spend two weeks at University of California-Santa Barbara’s Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics, sharing their views and observations with colleagues from around the world and taking part in meetings and symposia.

A community college first
Established in 2000 by the California-based Kavli Foundation, the Kavli Scholars program supports college faculty involved in theoretical physics research. Some 100 Kavli Scholars have been selected to date. McKernan and Ford are the first from a community college.

The mission of the Kavli Foundation is to foster scientific research through research, professorships, and other programs in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics at 16 Kavli Institutes throughout the world.

“Evidently, the Kavli Institute was impressed by our work and wanted to encourage us,” says McKernan.  “We feel very encouraged.”

Over the past several years, he and Ford probed the mysteries of supermassive black holes—vast areas in deep space that exert enough gravitational pull to keep even light from escaping. “Much of our work has focused on the physics of supermassive black holes—how they form, grow, behave and sometimes merge together.”

Conventional black holes, they’ve observed, typically fall into disc-shaped orbits around supermassive bodies—a breakthrough discovery that has led to new ways of thinking about black holes and their place in the universe.

In addition, the two have helped design instrumentation for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2018 with the goal of studying the birth and evolution of galaxies, stars and planets.

Reaching out to talented minority students
The priority Ford and McKernan place on the free exchange of ideas is reflected in their involvement in Astrocom NYC.

Drawing on the collective skills and knowledge of astronomers and astrophysicists from throughout CUNY, as well as Columbia University and the American Museum of National History, Astrocom NYC is aimed at creating learning and networking opportunities for CUNY students interested in careers in astronomy and physics.

“Minorities are significantly under-represented in the sciences, and the field of astrophysics is no exception,” says Ford.

Students selected for Astrocom NYC, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, attend summer courses at the American Museum of Natural History and mentored research programs on site at participating institutions.  The program will continue in the fall with coursework and colloquia at Columbia.

“Scientists do their best work as a part of a community,” says Ford.  “The idea behind Astrocom NYC is to create that same kind of community for talented minority students.”

As it turns out, one of Professor Ally’s students was a half-second later for class than he thought.

The other students in Great Issues in Philosophy were responding to a question their professor, Matthew Ally had posed:What are potential problems with the belief that consciousness causes our actions?

One of them commented, “Our brain is always working with a half-second delay, so consciousness isn’t immediate,” and this brought up another question: Where do consciousness and matter come together?

The students considered these questions within a number of contexts: the work of René Descartes, “Quantum weirdness,” functionalism and other topics they’ve delved into, over the semester.

They talked about a study in which a neuroscientist applied stimuli to a test subject, interrupted that person’s neurological response, and concluded that the human brain perceives stimuli a half second later than it happens—and that’s when one student quietly entered the room and slid into his seat, not just a few minutes late, but 500 milliseconds more, on top of that.

Views on “seeing”
The class also spent some time formulating questions on the physical phenomenon of vision, approaching it from the point of view of a neuroscientist, a psychologist and a philosopher.

Occasionally guided back on track by Professor Ally, they grappled with each other’s questions, such as “How does internal perception relate to external reality?” and “What chemicals in the brain give us the perception of sight?”

They reflected on a biological experiment in which a frog’s eyes were surgically rotated 180 degrees, causing him to zap his tongue in the opposite direction to that in which a fly appeared. They marveled at optical illusions on handouts passed around by Professor Ally, noting how the brain sees something quite different from reality.

But wait—experiments on frogs, chemistry in the brain—is this a science class, or a philosophy class?

“You can’t do philosophy of mind responsibly in the 21st century without thinking about psychology and neuroscience,” says Ally.

Likewise, he explains, scientists “need” philosophers. “Three scientists use the term ‘free will’ and each means something different,” he says. “Philosophers help add concepts and valuable clarity to the scientific process.”

“Real” dialogue
Matthew Ally’s own work is interdisciplinary in that it relates to three areas of research: consciousness studies, sustainability studies, and the ethics of globalization.

A specialist in 20th-century Continental philosophy, he is known for his intense research on the humanist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, and offers an environmentalist interpretation of Sartre’s work in his new book forthcoming from Rowman & Littlefield, A Case Study in Existential Ecology: Bringing Sartre to the Biosphere.

The Great Issues in Philosophy course brings students into that interdisciplinary conversation, “the interface between neuropsychology and cognitive psychology and philosophy; real dialogue between philosophers and scientists,” Ally says.

His student Eder Morales, a Liberal Arts major who hopes to earn a bachelor’s in philosophy someday, is excited by philosophy’s impact on the sciences and other areas.

“Philosophy changes the way we see the world and other people,” he says. “It gives us a new perspective emotionally, ethically, in the workplace, and politically.”

Philberth Allen, who is considering a major in sociology at Hunter College, says that studying philosophy “gives you important ways of thinking about how to address a problem. It delves into neuroscience and helps us dig deeper. For me, it matters because humanity will make scientific advancements related to the brain, and this helps that process.”

Philosophy’s impact
“Once I had a student who actually burst into tears at the notion that free will is an illusion,” says Professor Ally. “Not all neuroscientists think it’s an illusion, of course, but it’s a tough idea to ponder anyway. Same goes for the idea that the self is illusory. Again, it may or may not be, depending on your angle. But some students definitely get shaken up thinking about it.”

Being “shaken up” is untimately, though, a positive outcome in his class.

“Students seem to really have a new sense of themselves, and come away not only with a sense of some of the surprising limits of human experience, but more importantly, with new wonder at its strengths,” he says.

“We challenge our intuitions about things like the self, free will, animal minds, artificial intelligence, and the like, and students come out with a better understanding of the richness of being human and of the world around them.”

Max Donnewald, a liberal arts major who wants eventually to major in French literature and creative writing at Hunter College, says he is appreciative of the class focus on contemporary philosophers “who are still alive and still developing their theories in the field.”

“Our textbook by Susan Blackmore has ‘practices’ that come with the chapters, questions intended to make us rethink our subjectivity,” he adds. “We’re applying philosophic ideas to studies in neuroscience, psychology, and later, we’ll apply them to evolutionary biology.”

Ayesha Azarcon is one of the few science majors in the class, and previously took an ethics course with Professor Ally.

“To me, this class is more interesting than the ethics course, because it’s a lot more puzzling,” she says.

“It gives me a sense that I’m progressing in my understanding of myself and of reality. In ethics, the conflicts are fairly clear, but in discussions of consciousness, there’s a lot more wondering.”

Assistant Professor of Art History Megan O’Neil has such an affinity for Mayan Art she’s been on archeological excursions to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.

“So many artifacts have been destroyed over time,” she says, “but we can better understand their culture through their artwork.”

Recently, O’Neil was offered the chance to contribute to a scholarly publication called Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks. (Dumbarton Oaks is a Washington, D.C.-based research library and museum affiliated with Harvard University that houses Mayan artwork predominantly found in the mid-twentieth century.)

O’Neil immediately accepted the project, and along with other scholars, contributed content to the book.

The result—and proof that hard work pays off? Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks won the 2013 Alfred H. Barr Award for small museums from the College Art Association.

Established in 1980, the Alfred H. Barr Jr. award is presented to the author or authors of an especially distinguished catalogue in the history of art, published in the English language under the auspices of a museum, library, or collection.

The book, described by Dumbarton Oaks as “a volume that provides a detailed introduction to Maya art and culture,” is presented in catalogue format, and written by leading international scholars of Maya archaeology, art history, and writing.

Writing about Jaina figurines
“The first-third of the book is the history of the collection, ceramics, shells, kinds of materials and objects in the collection,” explains O’Neil. “My contribution is about Jaina-style figurines; followed by the section on individual objects. I have essays on 9 objects in the collection.”

Jaina refers an island located in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, off the western coast of the State of Campeche, Mexico.

“Although often called ‘Jaina’ figurines, we use the term ‘Jaina-style’ or ‘Jaina tradition’ to refer to the ceramic figurines in the Dumbarton Oaks collection, for there is no certainty that they were found on the Island of Jaina,” explains O’Neil.

According to O’Neil, Jaina sculptures “portray many different kinds of figures in diverse roles of activities—men of different professions (including rulers, ballplayers, court attendants, and captives) and women of different statuses who are shown sitting nobly or engaging in activities such as weaving, cooking, or holding children,” she states, adding, “They give us windows into different kinds of people and activities in the ancient Maya culture.”

Other works
O’Neil, a New Orleans native who attended Yale, then the University of Texas at Austin for her Master’s, and returned to Yale for her PhD in art history, also completed a post-doctorate fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art and has been published in other journals such as RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, Ancient Mesoamerica, the Journal of Visual Culture, and more.

“At BMCC, I’m currently teaching Intro to Art History classes and Intro to Western Art, and Teaching Mayan Art in the Non-Western Art History class,” she says, adding, “I’m also in the process of developing a new class on ancient arts of Mexico, Central, America, and South America and working on a book titled The Lives of Ancient Maya Sculptures.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: According to O’Neil, “there is no difference between ‘Maya art’ or ‘Mayan art.’ There is a convention among scholars to write ‘Maya art,’ but most people outside of scholarship say ‘Mayan art.’”

BMCC’s entrepreneurial spirit is in full swing as we ease into 2013 with fireworks, cheers, and, yes, cupcakes.

Desserts bring joy to many people; including three BMCC staffers who are embracing their inner “sweet tooth.”

Possessing the passion
A staffer in the Business Management department, Yvonne Francis is also a full-time BMCC education major.

She started Kady’s Sweet Delicacies, a home-based cakeshop, in honor of her twenty-seventh birthday this year. (Kady, she explains, is her middle name.)

Francis, who grew up in St. Lucia, knew she was on to something when her fellow church members praised her sweet treats. Over the years, she’s made wedding cakes, cream puffs, chocolate bark, and more.

“I have a passion for baking and decorating cakes,” says Francis, who grew up in a family that “loved the kitchen.”

Her most-requested cake flavor is Caribbean Rum.

“Customers have been submitting orders since the summer—it comes out so moist,” she says. “I also love red velvet. I think everyone does.”

Her advice for BMCC students who feel overwhelmed balancing work with classes?

“I really stick to a schedule. I study on my lunch break; bake and study on weekends,” she explains. “If you have the passion for something, you will find the time to do it. However, be honest about your time.”

Francis hopes to someday open a storefront, and also bake with children.

“Teaching a child to cook or bake fosters conversation; they may open up to you through the activity, and it’s therapeutic for both of you,” she explains. “I think everyone needs some cake in their lives. Just seeing a nicely-decorated sweet brings a smile to people’s faces.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ice Scream, You Scream
Melvin Troter, a staff supervisor in BMCC’s Receiving & Stores department, oversees a small ice cream stand that operates in the summertime.

However, during this festive, sweets-filled winter, Troter couldn’t resist talking about his niche side business.

“I’m from Trinidad, where people gather on the streets at ice cream stands—it’s very social,” he explains. Feeling nostalgic and armed with ice-cream recipes from his native country, this summer he opened an ice-cream stand outside of De Hot Pot Caribbean Cuisine restaurant in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Troter and some friends churned the ice cream flavors—which included coconut, rum raisin, and peanut—themselves inside the restaurant’s kitchen.

The stand operated every Saturday afternoon from early June through Labor Day, and, according to Troter, was a hit.

“Some customers were in from Long Island. They liked the ice cream so much, they came back the following week,” he says.

Troter’s ice-cream stand doesn’t have a name yet, but it did generate a positive write-up in The Daily News.

He looks forward to opening the cart again next summer.

“People at BMCC are surprised to hear about the ice cream,” he says, laughing while admitting, “Then they’ll immediately ask for some!”

Baking and blogging
“As a teenager, I fell in love with food and nutrition,” says Sandy-Bruce, who initially put her culinary interest aside to study toxicology at John Jay College.

About three years ago, she took some homemade cupcakes to a party and one minute they were there; the next, they were gone.

“That sort of started Cupcake Chromatography,” says Sandy-Bruce, who, like Troter, is originally from Trinidad.

“People at BMCC are surprised to find out that I bake,” she adds. Fittingly, her sweets-themed blog “relates science to baking.” (One recent post outlined the baking uses for isomalt sugar.)

“I try to make the blog educational so readers can find a good recipe and learn a bit more about science as well,” she explains.

This season, she’s made tea-inspired cupcakes, cheesecake, pumpkin fruit cakes, and more.

“I’ve also gotten better at making ‘animal faces’ cakes for baby showers,” she explains. “It’s been my new forte.”

According to Sandy-Bruce, for the holiday season, she put her own spin on the black fruit cake, a traditional dessert in Trinidad.

“I made a lighter, cupcake version that’s less dense,” she says.

Sandy-Bruce loves getting into the holiday spirit, and not just for the meals…

“For me, this time of year is about family, and nothing brings family together like food,” she wrote on her blog. “And you can’t have food without some great dessert.”

New York City continues to remain a hub for jobs in the financial sector—and BMCC itself is located just minutes from Wall Street, which Business majors have stated is a major coupe; and a draw to the campus.

Three BMCC graduates currently working in the financial arena recently shared their job-hunting advice for 2013.

“Land of opportunity”
Elena Gonzalez grew up in Ukraine, and watched her best friend—who had a degree in Economics—struggle to find a job in the field.

Feeling uneasy about her career goals, in 2007 Gonzalez moved to New York, brushed up on her English, and enrolled at BMCC.

“For the first time, getting a college degree felt meaningful,” she recalls; having previously thought “only luck, connections or money” dictated one’s future, “as opposed to hard work and education.”

She took ESL and Business Law courses simultaneously, gradually learning how to grasp the specific terminology outlined in her legal course.

“It was tough, but I made through that class with an A,” she said. “One by one, accomplishments like that one made me realize I can do anything if I work hard.”

Gonzalez was active in Phi Theta Kappa at BMCC, and went on to graduate from Baruch/CUNY before landing a financial analyst job at Morgan Stanley.

“Looking back, I recognize that BMCC offered me a land of opportunities—and it was up to me to take advantage of them,” she says.

More than numbers
According to Gonzalez, “finance is not just about making trades on a stock exchange, job insecurity, or living in the office without knowing what home, friends and family are,” she says.  “There are thousands of finance jobs in New York that are open for college graduates in accounting, information technology, consulting…plus, smaller firms look for finance graduates in industries such as fashion, retail, health care, real estate, sports—the list goes on and on. There’s something for everyone.”

Gonzalez encourages BMCC students to pursue a bachelor’s degree and to “be personable.”

“Top companies are not just looking for strong performers, but someone with  interpersonal skills who have initative and can manage relationships,” she explains.

Be a ‘team player’
BMCC Liberal Arts graduate Christian Narvaez stresses the importance of finding a mentor.

At BMCC, he connected with advisors Nelson Izquierdo, Pedro Perez, and the late Orville Hill, of the College Discovery program.

Narvaez credits his former advisors with keeping him focused on his coursework and grades—a focus he carried into Baruch as an economics major, and into the workforce.

“I was impressed by Christian’s ability to not only excel academically, but to also maintain part-time employment, while being active in Chi Alpha Epsilon National Honor Society, Latino Honor Society and the Hispanic Heritage Month Planning Committee,” says Izquierdo of Narvaez. “He has the perseverance, determination, and leadership abilities to succeed in any endeavor that he may pursue.”

After graduating from BMCC and Baruch, where he balanced financial internships with his classes, Narvaez found work as a Financial Data Analyst for Moody’s Investors Service. He often returns to BMCC to talk on alumni panels.

His advice for those seeking careers in finance?

“Be a team player. Be driven. The best job advice I received was to follow my dreams and always be happy with what I’m doing,” he says. “If you wake up in the morning not wanting to go to work, then it’s time to make a change.”

‘Proud to be at BMCC’
Roberto Jimenez commends his academic roots.

“I’m very proud that I went to BMCC; it’s where I developed my leadership skills, especially in the accounting club,” says the recent graduate who currently attends Pace University as an accounting major. “BMCC is where I developed a business acumen, which I brought with me to internships and beyond. I won an accounting award at BMCC, which really kept me motivated.”

Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Aruba, Jimenez, who speaks English, Spanish, and Dutch, says he always had a knack for math and numbers.

Jimenez interned in the controller department at a large Wall Street firm and currently interns in the CFO office of a hedge fund.

He advises students to consider an internship—which can sometimes be counted as a ‘course’ for credit—if they’re interested in a financial career.

”Also, be knowledgeable about the market,” he advises. “At least about a particular area of finance, and bring that knowledge with you to a job interview. I have a background and associate’s degree in accounting, which I can use in so many aspects of the career world. In a way, it’s not as broad as general business; it’s very specific.”

Jimenez also credits BMCC for preparing him for Pace University.

“The professors really grill you at BMCC; in the accounting department they wanted to make sure you were prepared for the real world, and your higher education,” he says, adding that BMCC’s family-feel “is something I really miss.”

On Wednesday, January 9, 2013,  at 9:30 a.m. BMCC President Dr. Antonio Pérez will ring The Opening Bell of the New York Stock Exchange. He will be accompanied by BMCC Foundation Chair Christine Larsen; Secretary/Treasurer Laura Morrison, Managing Director at NYSE Euronext, and a group of current BMCC students.

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) of the City University of New York (CUNY) was founded in midtown Manhattan in 1963. Since then, the college relocated to lower Manhattan–and vastly expande–by adding 25+ majors and re-opening a technologically-advanced building called The Miles and Shirely Fiterman Hall, with sweeping views of the financial district. BMCC students ‘start here,’ and transfer to top senior colleges, both within the CUNY system, and beyond.

A growing success story, according to the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of International Education, BMCC is among the highest ranked community colleges in the country, in awarding associate degrees to African-American, Hispanic and minority students.

Check back here for more updates, and images of President Pérez at the New York Stock Exchange.

Let the anniversary celebration begin!

Modern Languages professor Tom Means recently took his Italian 200 students to Sole di Capri, a neighborhood restaurant where they experienced Italian language and culture all at once.

“I went there ahead of time to make the sure the owner, Eduardo Erezo, would be there and agree to work with us,” said Professor Means. “It seemed he got a kick out of it, and spoke only Italian to the students.”

Sole di Capri owner Mr. Erezo is all for this kind of learning. “It helps the students and improves their Italian,” he said. “I could understand them fine, they did very well.”

Means agrees. “Sometimes they would speak English but Mr. Erezo would speak Italian back to them. This seemed to embolden them to try again, in Italian.”

A Tribeca “gem”
Sole de Capri, formerly known as Capri Caffé, is on Church Street between Chambers and Reade, just a couple blocks from BMCC’s main campus.

“It’s a tiny little Tribeca gem, where I’ve been going for years,” said Means. “They always greet me, “Buon giorno, Professore!”

He prepared his class for the visit, with pre-activities that highlighted Italian phrases used in a restaurant setting.

“I made sure the students were all comfortable with negotiating the menu,” he said. “They memorized what we call ‘chunks’, or two or three words together, such as ‘Posso avere…’, which means, ‘May I have…’, and then with a partner, they wrote dialogues using those phrases.”

In addition to preparing everyone “to interact fluently with the waiter,” he said, “we also did some role-play in class.”

After the trip, he felt confident that “advanced development of functional skills, such as ordering, requesting information, confirming information, and others, in Italian, was achieved.”

Enhanced learning
This is an Italian 200 class, “our third in a 4-semester sequence,” said Professor Means, adding that the class trip was made possible by an Enhanced Learning in the Classroom (ELIC), grant through the BMCC Office of Student Affairs.

A few of the students had been to Tuscany, Italy, as part of BMCC’s Study Abroad program. For most, though, “this grant enabled them to get as ‘close’ to Italy as possible,” said Professor Means.

“I call it, ‘experiential learning’ because they’re using their knowledge of the language, through their experience.”

Part of the experience involved being a resource for each other.

“There was definitely peer-to-peer bonding at the restaurant,” said Professor Means. “Some of the students stayed to have coffee afterwards, and continue practicing their use of Italian.”

When the students left the restaurant, he said, “they definitely had the satisfaction of accomplishing a task in the target language.”

They also gained new vocabulary. “They were asking questions about items on the menu they’d never seen before,” he said, “like ‘acciuga’, which are anchovies.”

For business and pleasure
While understanding Italian provides valuable context for art and culture from antiquity to the present—both the Roman and Renaissance periods center in Italy—college business majors are increasingly interested in speaking Italian.

Italy has the seventh largest economy in the world, and thousands of U.S. firms have offices in Italy, including IBM, General Electric, Citibank, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

There is also, of course, the food. Regarding the class trip to Sole di Capri, “It was experiential learning at its most…delicious!” said Professor Means.

Of all the choices incoming freshmen have to make, selecting a lunch option—turkey sandwich, vegetable wrap, tuna, chicken salad or ham—at the all-day Freshman Year Experience event, is one of the easiest.

Much harder for students, is choosing classes that will transfer to the 4-year college they’ve set their sites on, or committing to better study habits. This event (which follows New Student Assembly day) provided guidance for those and other decisions, with interactive lectures and small group advisement sessions.

Having some fun
BMCC’s latest Freshman Year Experience was held in Theatre I at the main campus. Hundreds of student filled the rows of red seats and Senior Academic Advisor Allana Hankey-Thomas opened the event.

“We’re going to have a little bit of fun,” she said. “We’re going to give you MetroCards, vouchers for movie tickets—and also a lot of important information.”

She explained that the students’ majors build toward three degrees at BMCC—an associate of arts, associate of science, and associate of applied science.

“But academic advisement is so much more than telling you to take these or those classes, to build toward that degree,” she said. “Our goal is to help you plan your entire academic future, not just here at BMCC, but beyond.”

Working the systems
Hankey-Thomas walked the students through concepts vital to their understanding of college: GPA credits, credits earned, remedial classes, prerequisites, and more.

“What is CUNYfirst?” she asked the audience, and the student who answered, “a new system for registering and paying your bill,” was called up to the stage to receive a complimentary MetroCard.

“CUNYfirst is also a way for you to apply for financial aid,” said Hankey-Thomas, and reminded everyone to use their BMCC email accounts, to access the system.

“I have a rule,” she said. “I will not respond to any student email that comes to me not from their BMCC account.”

She talked about another system, DegreeWorks, and demonstrated on the large screen behind her, how students can use it to calculate their grade point average, or GPA, and see which credits will be accepted if they change majors.

“You have to set goals,” said Hankey-Thomas, “and stay on track. Certain 4-year colleges will require a certain GPA when you’re ready to apply to them.”

“Guess which one saved $40,000?”
Freshmen are permitted to take one online course, Hankey-Thomas told the audience, and explained that the ratio of computer to classroom time varies in online, hybrid, and web-enhanced courses.

She went on to talk about BMCC’s degree requirements—a student who knew what they were won a voucher for movie tickets—and writing intensive classes.

Regarding the advantages of earning an associate degree—as opposed to transferring to a 4-year school before completing it—she stressed that “schools are more likely to take all your credits,” and “you become a more desirable candidate to other colleges and employers because you completed your associate degree.”

She mentioned two students who transferred from BMCC to New York University (NYU); one left for NYU after just a year at BMCC, the other waited till she had earned her associate degree.

“Guess which one saved $40,000?” Hankey-Thomas asked the audience, and reminded them that CUNY Pathways, starting in Fall 2013, “will promote transfer between BMCC and all other CUNY senior colleges.”

She also encouraged students to consider volunteering through BMCC’s Office of Student Affairs, and “We have over 60 clubs,” she said. “If you don’t see one you like, you can start your own.”

The power of note taking
“Education is an active process, not passive,” said speaker Jason Schneiderman, Director of the BMCC Writing Center.

“How much of the information that Allana just gave you, do you think you retained?” he asked the group, and a student volunteered, “85 percent?”

“If you do nothing to review the information, you’ll probably retain about 20 to 30 percent of what you just heard,” Schneiderman responded, adding that to have something to review, a person needs to have taken notes.

“Writing is a way to keep your mind on what’s going on,” he said. “Have a separate notebook for each class. Sit up straight—it can keep you focused. And sit in front.”

To the students’ great amusement, he shared that a colleague had described his class as follows: “The front row, that’s the ‘sponges’. People on the sides are the ‘watchers’. And students in the back, those are ‘prisoners’,” or the most reluctant to be there.

Schneiderman urged the students to be “sponges,” and addressed some misconceptions about learning: “Does tape recording a class help? Unless it’s an accessibility issue, recording a class just gives you an excuse to zone out.”

While he was on the topic, he encouraged students with a learning disability to visit the BMCC Office of Accessibility, for advisement on accommodations that might support their success in class.

He shared two methods for note taking: The Cornell Method, which creates a left-hand column for key words, and the Associative Method, for students who prefer to circle clusters of notes, and draw lines connecting them.

Class notes are a vital tool for review, he said, “within 24 hours of the class, and often throughout the semester. Don’t cram, or wait till the night before a test to return to your notes.”

Insider tips on test taking
Grades, Schneiderman told the freshmen, “measure not how hard you worked, but how much you learned.”

The room seemed stumped when he asked, “Why is it a bad idea to ask the professor, ‘Will this be on the test?’,” so he shared an insider’s tip: “That tells the professor, ‘I only really care about the parts that are on the test. Everything else you say, I’m not really interested in’.”

He gave specific strategies for various types of tests, such as multiple choice: “Cover the answers, think about what the answer might be, then look at them,” he said, and suggested estimating the answer in a math test, before starting to solve a problem, “so you have an idea if you’re in the right ballpark.”

After getting a test back, “Look at the grade, but don’t go over it for 24 hours,” he advised. “Then visit your professor during office hours, to go over the test, and use your graded test to study for future tests.”

Test taking is stressful, Schneiderman acknowledged, and advocated getting enough sleep the night before, sitting far from the door, deep breathing, and other relaxation strategies.

Most of all, he told the students, “If you’ve reviewed your notes throughout the semester, you won’t be as stressed.”

Wise words from VP Craig
Of keen interest to college students, is their grade point average, or GPA. Marva Craig, Vice President for Student Affairs, led students through a sample grade report in their packets, explaining quality points, credit earned, and other terms.

She demonstrated the difference between a final grade of “W” (“Withdrew”), and “WU” (“Withdrew Unofficially”), leading the students through an exercise in which they calculated the GPA for a grade report in their sample packet.

Next, she had them replace one of the grades with a “WU,” and recalculate—for a sobering outcome in which the GPA plummeted.

“Don’t let this happen to you,” VP Craig told the group, stressing the importance of official withdrawal.

She also clued everyone in on the 5-year expulsion from all CUNY campuses if a student attempts to attend a college in the system under the false pretense of never having attended another CUNY college, and touched on BMCC’s attendance policy—a 4-hour class allows five hours of absence (not five sessions); a 6-hour class allows seven hours of absence, and so on.

Finally, she shared her own story—graduating from BMCC in 1980, then going on to earn a Bachelor of Arts at Hunter College/CUNY, a master’s degree from NYU and a Doctor of Education or Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University.

The students received a complimentary flash drive as they left the auditorium, and enjoyed a free lunch in Richard Harris Terrace, before meeting in small groups with academic counselors.

“It was definitely helpful to me to be here today because I didn’t know anything about any of this stuff, being as I’m the first generation of my family to be going to college,” said freshman Elizabeth Vargas, a criminal justice major and aspiring forensic psychiatrist.

What happens when you mix the 16th-century Renaissance splendor of Mantua, Italy, with the splashy 1960s decadence of Las Vegas?

Nearly 75 BMCC students now know the answer to that question—found in The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Rigoletto—thanks to a staffer simply picking up the phone.

“Opera is a passion of mine,” says Brian Haller, BMCC Director of Foundation & Corporate Relations.

“I didn’t really discover opera until I was an adult, and I knew that many of our students had never been to Lincoln Center, let alone an opera,” he says.

“So, I called the Met’s education department three or four years ago, to see if they might have tickets for dress rehearsals for any of their productions.”

A generous welcome
Thanks to that call, Noelle Thorn, Director of Audience Development & Outreach for The Metropolitan Opera, “sends me a schedule each year of dress rehearsal performances that are available to us,” Haller says.

“We normally get 30 or 40 tickets, but this year, they gave us 75 tickets. I thought since we were on break, more students might be available to attend.”

He was right.

“Students came from the Women’s Resource Center and Out-in-Two; they were BMCC Foundation Scholars, and from theatre and Italian language classes,” he says.

They not only got free seats to one of the most dramatically innovative opera productions in years, they got great seats.

“We were sitting in the ‘dress circle’ audience area, about midway up, and then Alisa Reich, Noelle’s assistant, found our group and invited us to move down closer, to sit in the orchestra section,” says Haller.

“That put us in the first third of the orchestra; superb orchestra seats, and it was an unbelievably close-up experience. The students were blown away by it. It’s not just that it’s spectacular, it’s theater with the most glorious singing the world has ever experienced.”

New fans meet lifelong fans
Associate Professor Maria Enrico, Chair of BMCC’s Modern Languages department, attended the performance with her Italian class.

“One or two of the students knew opera,” she says, “but most had never been to Lincoln Center, or to the opera. This was a comfortable way to experience something they’d only heard about.”

Enrico, a lifelong opera fan, coached students at Catholic University in Washington DC, who were learning to perform as opera singers, majoring in music and taking Italian.

“My grandparents were great lovers of opera and I grew up with it,” she says. “My grandfather knew all the great operas and played them on his mandolin, and my grandmother sang the arias.”

For those who are less familiar with opera, The Met’s education department provides online summaries of each performance, and an English translation of the libretto is provided through LCD screens on the backs of the theater seats.

Joining the cultural conversation
In director Michael Mayer’s new production of Rigoletto, the character after which the opera is named is not a lowly jester, as Verdi intended, but a much-maligned bartender who finds himself forced to keep a difficult Duke and his mobsters amused, in a riotous Las Vegas setting.

Opera fans across the City are excitedly debating Mayer’s choices in this ambitious production, and now BMCC students are part of that conversation.

“I was amazed by the performance and I liked that it took place in the 1960s, although it would have been nice to see the costumes from the 16th century,” says Studio Art major Stalin Espinal.

“The last act, when the duke arrives at the club and bursts out in song—that was definitely my favorite moment,” he adds. “The seats were great and they gave me a really nice view of what was going on. I am really looking forward to my next opera.”

That’s exactly what Brian Haller wants to hear. The students, he says, “came away knowing that this part of New York is open to them, and now they can attend performances through the Met’s student ticket program.”

Chances are, they will.

Two dance companies—Ballet International Africans, led by artistic director Amini Hecksall, and Kinetic Afrique, led by choreographer and dancer Damon Foster—presented over an hour of dance and drumming to kick off African American Heritage Month.

The well-known performers drew about 200 students, faculty and staff in the large open space outside Richard Harris Terrace, even attracting audience from outside BMCC.

“I used to dance in Korea and America, too—ballet and modern,” said Seulgi Baek, a criminal psychology major at John Jay College. “My professor recommended the performance.”

“I heard about it from the CUNY Alumni Club,” said Jessica Barnes, who is earning a master’s degree in international relations from City College.

Giovanni Slowly, an accounting major at BMCC, was there because “I have a passion for dance; the movement, free spiritedness and creativity,” he said, and another accounting major, Janelle Gould-Steele, added, “I’m taking a class with Professor Hollerbach, and we’re studying the history of African music. I love the drums, the rhythm. It’s different from what I typically hear.”

Dance creates a village
An audience was fast filling the space outside Richard Harris Terrace as four drummers took their place and Amina Hecksall danced onto the stage.

“Welcome to our village!” she called out to the crowd. Four dancers joined her, in flowing pastel costumes. The next dance was performed in orange-and-black costumes that accentuated their movements with cowrie shells and fringe. Men performed in colorful, traditional African fabrics and in one solo, a dancer wore an elongated wooden mask.

The dancers rattled Malian shakers and calabash bowls, and aligned their movements with the complicated drumming, at times reaching to the sky, or gesturing toward the floor.

“That’s paying homage to the sun and earth,” Amina Heckstall explained later.

“It’s a language between the dancer and the drummer,” said BMCC student and aspiring dancer Keshia Sinclair. “You have to be in sync with each other.”

Everybody on the dance floor
As one group of dancers left the stage, someone in the audience called out, “We wanna dance too!” and one of the drummers—without, no pun intended, missing a beat—called back, “You wanna dance?”

It didn’t take a lot of coaxing to get BMCC students on the dance floor. One by one, they took turns matching the drummers’ music with their moves.

One of the students who joined in the fun was liberal arts major Jasmine McDonald, who introduced herself to choreographer Damon Foster after the show.

Unbeknownst to Foster, McDonald’s mother is one of his current students at the DeVore Dance Center in Queens, where Jasmine herself intends to take classes.

Decades of dance
Damon Foster began dance lessons at the Bernice Johnson Cultural Art Center when he was seven years old, and by age 14, he was teaching dance at the Center.

“I’ve been dancing for 27 years,” Foster said, “I’ve performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and The Apollo Theater.”

A widely respected instructor of West African dance, he specializes in the traditional dance of Guinea, and has taught in numerous studios and theaters, including The Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn.

Amina Heckstall, who has accrued over 30 years of dance training, is known for her work teaching dance to the youth of New York City, and has traveled to Senegal to teach traditional West African dance.

Her awards include the Sam and May Rudin Foundation Community Service Fellowship in Arts Education, and she is a 4-time recipient of The Citizens For New York’s Building Blocks and New Neighbors Grant.

Heckstall and Foster put together a program of traditional African dance that enthralled the crowd, many of whom were recording the event on their phones and IPads.

“Damn, that’s pretty good,” a young man said to himself during one of the performances.

He was not alone in his assessment. During each dance, mesmerized audience members quietly spoke their praise:

“Wow.”

“That is awesome.”

“Nice.”

Mark Collazo, a Registered Respiratory Therapist and Neonatal Pediatric Specialist, literally worked his way up to being Director of Respiratory Care Services at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital.

“I was working in the basement, in the kitchen at St. Luke’s as a food service aide, delivering food to the patients and washing dishes,” he says. “Before that, I was working as a bike messenger, and the winters were tough.”

“Don’t give up.”
Before finding his food service job at St. Luke’s, Collazo applied for a volunteer position, and was placed in the Respiratory Care department, where his interest in the field began.

“I had been at BMCC but left during this time, and by then I had kids and was working nights, so it was tough,” he says.

“I applied to Empire State College, and they saw I only needed four credits to get my associate degree, so they advised me to go back to BMCC, then complete 32 credits with them, for a bachelor’s degree.”

Collazo admits he was a little nervous returning to BMCC after a few years away, “but Everett Flannery [head of Allied Health at BMCC] welcomed me back with a big hug,” he said.

He graduated with an Associate in Applied Science in Respiratory Therapy from BMCC in 1999, and completed his Bachelor of Science in Health Services from Empire State College, in 2001.

“I want to say to people who are thinking about going back to school, ‘Don’t give up’,” he says.

“You think you’re too old, you have a family and it will be hard, but it’s actually easier, because you have wisdom, more motivation. And BMCC is great. They really try to accommodate for your work schedule and family life.”

Education: A family affair
“My wife also graduated from BMCC with an associate degree in respiratory therapy,” Collazo says. “She was pregnant with our second child when she began the program. We were the quintessential family trying to improve our lives.”

His daughters are now young adults, and “my two youngest are at Hunter College,” he says. “The oldest girl just passed the bar, and she’s practicing family law in New Jersey.”

Collazo himself was born on Long Island, but his family moved back to Spain when he was six.

“I’m an international guy,” he says. “My mom is from Brazil, and she met my dad here, when they were taking English language classes.”

After completing high school in Spain, “my dad encouraged me to return to the U.S.,” Collazo says. “He loves this country. He says there is no country with more opportunity than the U.S. I came here after high school and I got hooked.”

Today he pays forward, the encouragement his father gave him.

“I tell my kids, education is a life process. The hardest part is taking the subway, making that first appointment and going to the admissions office. At BMCC, I found out that once you get that far, they don’t let you go.”

“Nothing better for the money”
“In respiratory therapy programs, things have gotten even more rigorous because of technology,” Collazo says. “You’ve got to be doing continuing education constantly, just to keep up.”

At BMCC, he says, those changes in technology are reflected in the labs and equipment students practice on.

“It’s a state-of-the-art program,” he says. “There’s nothing better for the money—you don’t want to graduate with big loans. At BMCC, you do all the core credit classes you would do in a more expensive bachelor’s degree program in RT.”

Another advantage of the BMCC program, he says, “is that the students complete a lot of hands-on practice with actual patients—after they get the techniques down, by performing procedures on simulators.”

Collazo also has an important role working with RT majors who complete their practicum at St. Luke’s. “I oversee the students’ clinical development,” he says.

And as director of RT services at St. Luke’s, “we set the policies for the department and oversee the competencies and staff training,” he says, “but I also see myself as a facilitator, guiding new RTs in their skill development.”

The rewards of being an RT
“The RT field is really expanding and moving into areas of preventive medicine, home care, teaching, clinics, sleep labs,” Collazo says. “You can find what you’re passionate about, and build a career around that area.”

The RT profession, he says, can also be rewarding on a personal level.

“My wife has asthma, and my kids had asthma when they were growing up, so it motivated me to learn about respiratory health,” says Collazo, who is not only a Respiratory Therapist, but earned additional certification as a Neonatal Pediatric Specialist.

“You want to relate to patients, but also to their parents,” he says, “and it helps if you’ve also been up with your own kids having a hard time breathing late at night.”

Wellness education, overall, is a growing part of the role of a respiratory therapist, he explains.

“City air is not the cleanest, so we teach people about allergens, nutrition, and triggers they have at home, like pets or dust mites. We encourage them to get a vaporizer in the winter, because the air can be so dry.”

Reaching out to young people is also part of his job. “We bring equipment and do presentations at schools and do workshops with the teachers,” he says.

As far as Collazo is concerned, the less he sees a patient—young or old—in an emergency setting, the better.

“Helping people manage their respiratory disease to the point where they don’t have to go to the hospital so often, empowering them to manage their own health, well that’s very satisfying,” he says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tmVB3kM8bE

As a child, Jorel Lonesome’s mother gave him a journal, where he sketched, jotted down notes, and gathered coins, articles, and other memorabilia.

“I would draw familiar characters such as Spider-Man, Spawn, and Blade,” he explains, naming pop-culture Superheroes.

Fast forward to life after high school. After performing at poetry and spoken word events throughout Manhattan, Lonesome decided it was time for a creative change.

“I was away from the comic book world for a while,” he recalls. “But then I saw the Robert Rodriguez movie Sin City. I loved that it was based on a comic book.”

From there, he recalls, “I read the Sin City volumes, and that pushed me back into comics, and I started reading all sorts of genres, from comedy to action. I wondered, ‘Could I write comics? What is the process like?’”

And so, “I decided to take a break from spoken word events to focus on comics.”

Finding mentors
Lonesome enrolled as a Writing and Literature major at BMCC, where he found mentors in Professors Carlos Hernandez and George Stevenson.

“Professor Stevenson showed me that storytelling for film is not too different from the way comic books are made,” says Lonesome, who is also an ASAP student.

Prior to BMCC, in 1999, Lonesome attended Andy Schmidt’s Comics Experience courses led by Mike Siglain, “an editor at DC Comics at the time,” he says. “We were given scripts to read and had to draw them out panel-by-panel. We’d make sure the action reflected the description of what’s happening in the story.”

When the comics course ended, Lonesome and friends, “networked and decided to create a comic book anthology about bounty hunters. We scheduled monthly meetings at a pizza shop in Times Square to discuss our ideas.”

From there, Pronto Comics—an independent, non-profit collective of writers and artists—was formed. The group’s first book was called For a Price: Bounty Hunters And Other Scum.

Putting the words down
As more books and anthologies were launched under the Pronto name, Lonesome “felt more comfortable taking the position as writer and editor.”

Lonesome, who graduates this spring then heading to Hunter College, is best known for his independent comic book anthology series, Blackout 1 & 2, published by Pronto.

“In addition, I have featured stories in other anthologies such as For a Price, Kicked, and Pronto Goes to War,” he says.

Pronto Comics are sold at conventions, online stores, and Manhattan storefronts such as The Time Machine and St. Mark’s Comics.

Real world preparation
Lonesome encourages anyone interested in writing or illustrating comics to stop by a Pronto comics meeting for some feedback—but you’ve got to be a team player, he stresses.

“If everything works out, we pair a writer with an artist, and your work is overseen by an editor.”

According to Lonesome, “we serve two purposes; the first is to allow creators to network and build teams, allowing them to achieve their goals and make their books together,” he says.

“Also, we self-publish. Large companies like Marvel and DC want to see your professional work, and that’s why publishing your own comics is so important.”

Pronto’s official facebook page can be found here.

Sarah Ragasa entered BMCC speaking two languages. Now she speaks five.

Born in the Philippines, Sarah emigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was nine. In seventh grade, she was required to choose a foreign language to study.

“The options were French, Latin and Spanish,” she recalls. “I chose Spanish because it was most similar to Tagalog, the language my parents spoke at home.”

She threw herself into the study of Spanish and kept at for the next five years. “All of a sudden, in high school, I found that I was fluent,” she says. “I was surprised.”

Moving on to French—and then Italian
When Sarah entered BMCC, it was only natural that she’d continue her studies in Spanish. She also signed up for French and took to it with astonishing ease.

“I realized I had a knack for learning languages, especially Romance languages,” she says.

So, the following semester she added Italian, registering for an introductory course taught by professor Tom Means.  “He’s a great teacher who emphasizes the practical applications of a language rather than just drills and rote memorization,” Sarah says.

Today, with just one semester of French and one of Italian behind her, Sarah speaks both languages with a level of proficiency that defies explanation.

“I’ve been teaching college for 15 years and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of students I’ve encountered who are as proficient in four languages as Sarah is in five,” says Means.

His student has a theory. “I think becoming fluent in a foreign language comes down to being good in your own language,” Sarah says. “Although I lived in Philippines as a child, I’ve always considered English my first language, and English was always my favorite subject in middle and high school. If I hadn’t understood the structure of a sentence in English, I doubt I could have understood it in a different language. Knowing your native language firsthand is key.”

An appetite for hard work also helps.
“There’s really no shortcut to mastering the grammar and syntax of a language, and I’m not sure that being bilingual expedites the process,” says Means. “You need to put in the effort and time.”
Sarah attributes her fluency in Spanish—the first of three foreign languages she would master—to spending six years studying, drilling and memorizing.

“There are rules you just can’t get around,” she says. “It’s a lot of work.”¿

From polite phrases to fluency
That said, Italian came relatively easier to her. “Italian is a very musical language,” she says. “And of all the languages I’ve studied, I find have the easiest time with pronunciation with Italian.”

As a high school graduation gift, Sarah’s grandmother took her on a month-long tour of Europe.

“I came to love the Italian lifestyle, Italian culture—and especially Italian food,” she says. “But it was frustrating not to speak the language. I knew a few some polite expressions, but couldn’t string together a sentence and really wanted to be able to do that. It’s one of the experiences that pushed me toward focusing on learning foreign languages.”

A Liberal Arts major, Sarah is uncertain when she’ll complete her studies at BMCC.

“I’m planning on taking a semester abroad in France,” she says. “When I do that—and get back to BMCC—will determine when I can graduate.” Eventually she’d like to pursue a career as a translator or tour guide. “I’d love to work in the travel industry,” she says.

Means has high hopes for his student. “Sarah is now at a point where she can really develop a professional level of proficiency in all three of the languages she’s studied at BMCC.”

As a rule, language teachers “follow this profession because we love languages—and having a student like Sarah makes you realize there are students who love languages as much as you do,” he says. “It also gives me hope that there are other Sarahs out there.”

“I wrote like fire. This was all done in a year. I took all of these documents everywhere I went. I was obsessed.”

That’s how Cheryl Wills describes her experience writing Die Free, A Heroic Family Tale, which tells the story of her great-great-great grandfather, Sandy Wills—a teenager who ran away from the plantation where he had been enslaved, to join the Union Army and fight with the United States Colored Troops in the American Civil War.

A question planted in childhood
Cheryl Wills, a reporter and anchor with NY1 News, served as the station’s Health Reporter for six years, and received an honorary doctorate degree from the New York College of Health Professions in 2005, as well as a CUNY Medical School Achievement Award.

Her tenacity as a journalist proved useful as she pieced together her family lineage.

She started with her father, Clarence Douglas Wills, who served as a Marine paratrooper in the Vietnam War then attended BMCC, on the GI Bill. “I came here at about four years old and watched him in his cap and gown,” she says.

The oldest of five children, Cheryl Wills was 13 when her father was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident on the Williamsburg Bridge. As she was looking at his flag-draped coffin and reading what she describes as “a very flimsy funeral program,” she says, “I couldn’t help but ask, ‘Who are the Wills?’”

She knew the family harkened back to Haywood County, Tennessee, but no relatives remained there, and little else was known about their history.

“It bothered me my entire childhood and into my adult life,” she says.

The legacy unfolds
Cheryl Wills solved the mystery of her family background, by “fooling around on the Internet one night and surfing a genealogical website,” she says.

“I put in my father’s last name, and ‘Haywood County, Tennessee’, and an incredible legacy unfolded.”

Almost immediately, she found herself introduced to “Sandy Wills, USCT [United States Colored Troops],” and quickly sought the services of a professional genealogist.

“He called back within three hours,” she says. “He was shocked. Edmund Wills, a plantation owner, plucked a 10-year-old boy away from his family on an auction block,” and that boy, Sandy—Cheryl’s ancestor—was made to take “Wills” as his last name.

Six teenagers become soldiers
In addition to Sandy, five other boys had been “plucked” by Edmund Wills around that time: James, Andy, Richard, Dick and Mack, all mandated the Wills last name, and spending the rest of their childhood on the Wills plantation.

By the time the boys were teenagers, the Civil War was raging, Cheryl explains, and when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the Wills plantation, all six of them—by then, young men about 18 years old—made their escape to Columbus, Kentucky, where they enlisted to fight in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) Fourth Heavy Field Artillery unit of the Union Army.

Details of their enlistment are confirmed in over 5,000 military records housed in the National Archives, and when Cheryl Wills sought to retrieve them, a staff person told her, “You’ll have to pay by the page”—which she was happy to do.

“It was the best investment I ever made,” she says. “This was my legacy I was purchasing.”

That legacy includes enlistment documents on which each of the Wills men reports his occupation as “slave”—all but one, Sandy Wills.

“Imagine the ‘hallelujah’ I had, when I imagined him walking up to that certification officer and defying him to certify him as ‘farmer’,” Cheryl Wills says.

Emma’s ‘x’
Eventually, Sandy Wills returned to Haywood County and married a young woman named Emma, who had also grown up in Haywood County.

As did many former slaves, the two became sharecroppers, says Cheryl Wills, “a different kind of enslavement. For every dollar they earned, they would owe $1.25.”

Despite their hardships, though, the couple raised nine children, and with each birth, Emma—who had been denied an education, as a child—apparently asked someone else to inscribe the infant’s name and date of birth in her bible.

“She was the first in her generation to be able to keep her children,” and not lose them at the slave auction, says Cheryl Wills. The family grew and remained in the tiny enclave of Brownsville, Tennessee, and when Sandy Wills died at the age of 50, Emma Wills applied to the federal government for her husband’s pension.

Her application was denied.

“So she rolled up her sleeves and hired a lawyer,” says Cheryl. “She filed hundreds of depositions back and forth.”

Each of those depositions—stored over a century in the National Archives—shows Emma Wills’ “humble ‘x’” in place of a signature, says Cheryl Wills. “The documents would ask, ‘Please provide proof of your husband’s’—or Emma’s—’birth’, knowing full well, it didn’t exist.”

Finally, one letter from the federal government read as follows: “This is our final correspondence. Please provide proof of the children of Sandy Wills”—and the birth entries in the bible of Emma Wills were submitted, and accepted as certification.

Emma’s determined battle with beaurocracy was over, and she received a pension for herself and her nine dependent children.

“Now when I’m at book signings for Die Free, I sign my name with special boldness, in honor of Emma’s ‘x’,” says Cheryl Wills.

Being lifted
Finding and celebrating the story of her family history is bittersweet for Cheryl Wills.

Her own father, she says, while highly awarded for his valor as a paratrooper and later, for his bravery as a New York City Firefighter, was disappointing as a parent.

“Had he known this story, that his great-great grandfather stood by his nine children in a one-room shack, he might have stood by his own children and family,” she says. “If you do not know your legacy, you become like a leaf in the wind.”

At the same time, she acknowledges that her family legacy might have remained undiscovered for so long, because Sandy Wills himself was undoubtedly cautious about bringing attention to his war history.

“The Klan was born in Tennessee,” Cheryl says, “and if you were a Black soldier who helped topple the Confederacy, you didn’t necessarily tell your kids about that and risk the wrong people hearing it.”

Her family’s story, she says, is also an important part of women’s history.

“This is all of your stories,” she told the audience at BMCC. “Search out the Emma’s and the mothers in your family, and let them lift you up.”

Daughters of history
In a question-and-answer session following Cheryl Wills’ talk, students and staff members shared their own experiences of searching for family history.

“The U.S. Census starts in 1870 for Black people,” Cheryl told them, adding that the Census has gathered not just dates and names over the years, but information about people’s lives. By reviewing the 1910 Census records, she said, she learned that “every one of Emma and Sandy Wills’ children could read and write.”

For students whose families trace back to countries outside the United States, she suggested that they “search the court records, and search for any property they might have owned. There’s probably some kind of deed record.”

One member of the audience, BMCC professor of health education and ethnic studies Olivia Cousins, shared that she has traced her lineage to Ezekiel Gomer, a descendent of enslaved Africans who fought as a young man, in the Revolutionary War.

As with Cheryl Wills, the teenage soldier in Professor Cousins’ family history had an impact on her life today.

For one thing, being descended from Ezekiel Gomer has made her eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a non-profit lineage organization. The DAR chapter Professor Cousins belongs to was co-founded by Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly, also a woman of African descent; in fact, five of the 13 women in that DAR chapter in Queens, are women of color.

“It’s in the telling of the story, that you realize it wasn’t just one, but there are legions of us,” said Professor Cousins. “It’s a story of how our people moved through revolution and rebellion. It’s about claiming our space in that story.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This event was a collaborative effort of Eric Glaude and the Counseling & Advisement Center; John Gallagher and the BMCC Media Center; Deborah Parker and the Women’s Resource Center, and the BMCC Organization for Student Veterans.

A “queer lit” class starts out like any other. Instructor Jaime Weida writes homework on the board—finish reading The Color Purple, by Alice Walker—along with a reminder of when the students’ midterm essay is due, and dates for spring break.

Where the class begins to feel less typical, maybe is here: in the “queering” of a work of literature, which includes, Weida explains, “the comparison of censored and unaltered works by authors whose homosexuality was deemed unsuitable content, in their day.”

In other words, says her student, Liberal Arts major Ricardo Perrin, “in other classes they might mention there’s a rumor that a writer is gay, but they still examine it from a heteronormative [promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation] standpoint.”

Walt Whitman, says Weida, is a good example of a gay writer whose biography has been suppressed and work altered, to accommodate heteronormative views.

“When he was writing in the mid-1800s,” she says, “a lot of his poetry was explicit about his sexuality,” but when it was published, pronouns were changed to mask its homoerotic nature.

A new theme
Projected on a large screen are two versions of Whitman’s sensuous poem, “Once I Passed Through a Populous City.”

A line from the first version reads, “I remember only a woman I casually met,” while in the second, published after Whitman’s original manuscript was found in 1925, female pronouns have been restored to male.

Weida relates this sample of Whitman’s work to the Ray Bradbury story, “Long After Midnight,” which has homosexual content and “is less anthologized,” she says, as is Langston Hughes’ poem, “Café 3 A.M.,” which tells of a police raid on a gay bar, a common occurrence in the pre-Stonewall New York that Hughes lived in.

“This brings up a larger class theme,” she says, “and that is, how queer literature gets marginalized.”

Shining light in those margins is one of Weida’s passions. This year at the CUNY Graduate Center, she’ll complete her doctorate in English with a focus, she says, “in 20th-century literary feminism, and less canonical texts and literary formats.”

One of those texts, a short story by Caitlin R. Kiernan, appears in her syllabus for English 346.

“Kiernan is one of the writers I discuss in my dissertation,” Weida says, “and I firmly believe her work should be widely read.”

A new era
“How does queer literature challenge the traditional literary canon?” Weida writes on the board, and introduces the “Great Modernists,” listing D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Elliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and others.

She describes the historical context in which they wrote; industrialism and the impact of World War I—the last war to use trench warfare, and mustard gas, prompting the Geneva Convention.

“The motto of the Modernist writers at this time,” says Weida, “was ‘Make it New’.”

For example, she says, Elliot experimented with poetry that didn’t rhyme, and yet, “there was also a sense of nostalgia and longing for pre-World War I and aristocratic society, a reinforcing of patriarchal heteronormative values cloaked in innovation.”

The students consider the influence of modernism on the time in which American poet and literary critic Adrienne Rich lived, and reflect on her famous anecdote of a male poet at a party telling a female poet, “Women shouldn’t write poems. Women are poems.”

They toss that one around for a while.

“It means he doesn’t trust women to write poems; he doesn’t trust them to be objective,” one student speculates, and they move to the mermaid and merman image in Rich’s groundbreaking poem, “Diving Into the Wreck,” with its highly referenced closing image, the “book of myths in which our names do not appear.”

A new resource
Throughout this look at history, cultural values and literature, Weida provides practical tips, such as, “When quoting from a poem, use line numbers, not page numbers.”

She also has created a class blog that includes many of the shorter works they read, as well as related articles, and links to the Writing Center and the Library’s online journal database.

Occasional light-hearted photos (bunny with pancake on head), balance the blog’s more serious notes on plagiarism and midterm guidelines, and she clarifies in her syllabus that “aside from prerequisites, the only requirement for this course is an open mind and a willingness to learn.”

“Gay or straight, it’s a great class to take,” says Writing & Literature major Taylor Rountree. “She’s very hands-on with us, she makes it open for us to talk with her, and she gives us a lot of things on her website.”

A new horizon
In closing, Weida screens a YouTube clip one student brought, and which has attracted over 17 million hits; a young man testifying before group of legislators on “being raised by two moms,” and advocating for gay marriage.

She ties the video back to Walt Whitman’s time, when it was illegal for people of different races to marry in the United States, framing the day’s discussion as students begin packing up their bags and pulling on their coats.

“Taking ‘Queer Lit’ expands your horizons,” says Liberal Arts major Amber Rosa, “because now we see literature from a different perspective, a homosexual perspective.”

Weida stresses that she designed the class with her colleagues at BMCC.

“The whole English department put it together,” she says. “I put together the proposal, and other professors made recommendations for course content. It was a paper-heavy process, but there was no opposition whatsoever.”

In fact, given the college’s support for the new class, “I along with many other people thought we already had this course,” she says. “We checked and it was very surprising to find we didn’t.”