THE OBSERVER
April 04, 2022
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Editor: Susan Rauch
Associate Editors: Micky Josephs
Ariana Caragliano
Contributing Editor: Irene Sax
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Dear members,
Welcome back!
It’s hard to believe we are in April with this cold snap and only about a month of study groups to go. In the coming weeks, we will release information about summer session registration.
As we continue in multiple modalities of meeting, please take note of a few recommendations below for the best experience at home in the HyFlex modality:
- Check your speakers/volume settings at home if you are having trouble hearing people at the Graduate Center
- Stay muted when not speaking, which will help with being able to hear and to mitigate audio feedback/interference
- Keep your video camera on
- Pin the classroom view to keep it large and the people within the classroom visible
We encourage you to come to campus for your HyFlex classes to reconnect with friends you’ve seen only digitally mediated for the past two years. Campus access protocols are at the end of this issue. If you need instructions on how to add a shortcut to your Cleared4 pass to your phone’s home screen, we can help! Reach out to [email protected] – a screenshot of the QR code from a previous day will not be accepted. Coordinators, please remember to bring your Graduate Center email credentials and your Zoom login details for the smoothest start to class.
Our office has been working with the librarians to organize two workshops this month for LP2 members.
First, on Monday, April 18 at 4PM: an in-person tour of the Mina Rees Library that would focus on how LP2 members can access the library services while on campus. This presentation would focus on requesting and borrowing books and other items physically available at the Library and via interlibrary loans and cover accessing research resources while at the Library. This tour is capped at 12 members; we will keep a waitlist and schedule additional tours as necessary.
Second, on Wednesday, April 20 at 4pm: an online workshop on how members can access remotely the resources and services offered by the Mina Rees Library, covering the basics of how to request physical items and access online research sources, including other libraries, scholarly databases and journals, and media collections.
Finally, a reminder to register for Fridays@1 this week on April 8. Read on for details about the speaker!
Best,
Mariel
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Coming to Campus? Scroll Down for Current GC-CUNY Protocols |
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Elections for the Advisory Board |
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Your chance to vote for members to fill four vacant seats on the LP2 Advisory Board is to participate in the online election beginning Monday, April 11th and ending on Friday, April 15th. You will receive your ballot and instructions via email before the start of voting.
Six people are running to fill the four openings. Running for the three at-large seats are: Maury Harris, Steven Kalinsky, Arlyne LeShack, Judith Monson and Patrick Siconolfi.
Chuck Brecher is running for the “new member” seat.
Below are the candidates’ pictures and statements.
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MAURY HARRIS – LP2 MEMBER SINCE 2017-09-01
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: During my career as an economist, I managed economic research departments at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, PaineWebber and UBS. This experience should enable me to work with others to help improve the quality and breadth of our curriculum content. Also, my professional experience in making presentations to small groups can be useful input for the Curriculum Committee as it provides presentation guidance to new coordinators. I am a member of the IER Investment Policy Committee for our endowments and also serve on the Investment Board of the American Associates of Ben Gurion University endowment
LP2 EXPERIENCE: I have coordinated study groups on New York City and Texas history, COVID-19 economics, financial bubbles, Federal budget deficits, Native Americans and criminology.
MAJOR ISSUES: We need to further improve the already good diversity and content quality of our course offerings. More existing member participation in coordinating must be encouraged and aided. We should more proactively recruit new members who are qualified to lead study groups on specific topics for which we need to expand our course offerings
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STEPHEN KALINSKY -- LP2 MEMBER SINCE 2011-01-01
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: Lawyer, Administrative Law Judge, Administrator New York State and New York City
LP2 EXPERIENCE: Coordinated a bunch of study groups (around 30+/-), Member of the Curriculum Committee for 4 years, Member/Chair of the Virtual Classroom which provided content for Self Help Community Services members. (Zoom sessions to homebound prior to Covid 19); Senior Debate Group facilitator, Led Advances in Civilization discussions, current events discussions and collaborated with Barry Levine on a series of webcasts on Covid and discussions and current events discussions during semester breaks.
MAJOR ISSUES: While we are all looking forward to getting together in person for study group sessions and other activities...there is still a place for some remote activities or at least some HYBRID ACTIVITIES. Hopefully, we can create a program
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ARLYNE LESCHACK -- LP2 MEMBER SINCE 2010-02-01
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: I have had leadership positions in numerous areas including my condo board, charitable organizations, and on my school leadership team. I have had team building professional development experience.
LP2 EXPERIENCE: I have coordinated and co-coordinated many study groups. I have been a member of the Curriculum Committee and the Advisory Board. I am presently a member of the Admissions Committee and the Community Building Initiative. I developed and run the Women’s Group.
MAJOR ISSUES: We need to transition back to an in person learning community, taking into account ways we can meet the needs of our members. We need to continue to encourage our members to create diverse study groups, so we present a full curriculum. We need to encourage multiple ways to connect with one another.
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JUDITH MONSON – LP2 MEMBER SINCE 2018-01-09
PREVIOUS LP2 EXPERIENCE: To further LP2 goals, I will use skills gained in my corporate and volunteer leadership roles: accounting/finance, planning, strategy, team building and committee work. I spent more than 23 years at Seagram in finance positions, leading to Senior VP of Finance for a $billion division; my final role was General Manager of a luxury fashion house in Paris. For the last 6 years of my professional career, I became a Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State, living in D.C., Mexico City and Bogota. Concurrent with my business life, I held senior roles in not-for-profit organizations. As an active Cornell alumna, I served as a Trustee on the Board of Trustees; Vice-Chair of the Board’s Audit Committee; Founding Chairman of the President’s Council of Cornell Women; and member of the Inaugural Board of Directors of the Cornell Club of NY. At the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, I was on the Board of Directors and chaired the Audit Committee.
LP2 EXPERIENCE: Currently, I am Chairman of the Finance Committee and, also, Assistant Treasurer, elected by the Board. In the latter role, I work with Colette Siegel and will succeed her as Treasurer when she steps down in July. When I joined LP2 in Fall 2018, I organized five restaurant events over a year period for the 23 other new members who joined at the same time.
MAJOR ISSUES: LP2 must rebound from the "Zoom period" in both facets of its mission—to deepen members' learning and to provide opportunities for social/cultural engagement. Other areas for enhancement are providing a robust orientation/integration program for incoming (and recent) new members and re-energizing programs and SIGs outside of the classroom.
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PATRICK SICONOLFI –LP2 MEMBER SINCE 2017-04-01
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: For the 15 years prior to retirement, I ran a major trade association and advocacy group in New York. Skills that would be useful to LP2 include negotiating successful outcomes among disparate parties; a demonstrated ability to vastly increase funding by adding funding sources and building networks of colleagues and interested parties; achieving consensus among parties with diverging interests; building teams to achieve organizational goals; and helping to develop a vision to guide an organization in setting goals and building participation.
LP2 EXPERIENCE: In 2020 I co-designed and led a study group, “The Federalist Papers,” which was well received. In the current semester, as part of the ArtSIG’s programs, I am leading an Architectural Tour in Manhattan. This is to be first in an ongoing series.
MAJOR ISSUES: Several ideas:
1. Increase membership and diversity by developing sustained relationships with Employee Resource departments at major NYC employers to make retiring employees aware of LP2 as part of the employer’s retirement transition planning which is offered to employees as they retire. Many such employers could be approached; of particular interest could be employers that are colleges and universities.
2. Increase the participation of members by exploring a continued virtual form of participation, not instead of in-person participation but as an adjunct to it. This would enable SG coordinators and speaker/instructors who are not in NYC to enrich our programs. It would also enable us to hear occasionally from international voices.
3. Increase participation by adding early evening social events.
4. Develop ideas that expand the services offered by LP2 and by creating opportunities to enrich our programs by reaching out to other voices in our city and also from experts around the country and internationally.
5. Create a buddy system for members who are experiencing life challenges. This could provide both support for a member in need and an opportunity for the buddy to understand how individuals overcome adversity.
6. Explore relationships with other colleges and universities. This would enable us to draw on broader resources to enrich member programs. As an example, we might call on speakers from other institutions to address our Tuesday discussion series, or to add content to Special Interest Groups.
7. Develop ways to give back to the communities in which we live, perhaps starting with the CUNY community.
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NEW MEMBER CANDIDATES FOR LP2 ADVISORY BOARD
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Charles Brecher – LP2 MEMBER SINCE 2021-01-01
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: I have some expertise in finance, particularly public and nonprofit finance. I also have served on nonprofit boards including the Schyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy (SCAA).
LP2 EXPERIENCE: I am a relatively new member. I have taken multiple study groups each term including the summer term. I also am now doing my first stint as a coordinator with a six-week SG this term.
MAJOR ISSUES: We need to restore in-person interactions for study groups and other special interest groups. We also need to keep a varied and lively set of study groups offered each term, with many members participating as co-coordinators. Attention should also be given to diversifying the backgrounds of the members.
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LP2 Plan for the 2022-23 Academic Year
Adopted by the Advisory Board, March 23, 2022
Since its founding in 1962, IRP/LP2 has been a peer learning community with a dual mission – to offer high quality study groups that deepen our members’ learning and to provide an arena for the development of friendships and a range of opportunities for social and cultural engagement. This approach and structure distinguish us from many other adult education programs. When we meet in person the synergy of these two missions strengthens both. Since the arrival of the COVID 19 virus, as our community shifted from an in-person to a remote platform, the learning in study groups continued; however, opportunities for deeper social connections diminished.
As we witness the decline of the virus and many aspects of life in our city returning to a pre-COVID “normal”, LP2 faces a difficult decision with respect to the modality of study groups in the coming academic year. With a strong commitment to maintain our identity as a community of in-person peer learners and not simply as an on-line academic program, the Director and Advisory Board plan for a significant return to in-person study groups on the campus of the CUNY Graduate Center. To build a rich campus life in our new home, we anticipate more regular programming in person and in collaboration with the Graduate Center community.
Recognizing that some of our valued members are immunocompromised, and face significant risks in traveling and participating in groups on campus, we will offer a number of study groups in a virtual format to maintain their commitment and contributions to the program.
We view the 2022-23 academic year as a transition year, with the intent of returning to a full on-campus program in 2023-24, with additional opportunities for members who are not able to participate in person. Of course, if conditions change before the start of the Fall 2022 semester, we will be flexible in modifying this plan.
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LinkedIn Library Learning! (The app formerly known as Lynda)
LinkedIn Learning, formerly known as Lynda.com, is an online educational site that features thousands of courses and video tutorials where you can discover, complete and track courses related to your field and interests. LinkedIn Learning is free and accessible to all LP2 members with a library card from any of the public library systems in New York City: the Brooklyn Public Library, the Queens Public Library and the New York Public Library. LP2 members outside of the five boroughs should check with their local libraries. Note that LinkedIn Learning does not require users to set up a LinkedIn profile.
More information and resources:
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Call for Break Activities between Semesters
The Community Building Initiative seeks volunteers to lead activities during either or both breaks, May 16th - May 27th and July 12th - August 31st.
Like our earlier break activities, yours can meet once, twice or multiple times. Whether it’s a book or movie discussion, a current events discussion, a travel adventure or art presentation or something else, your colleagues will appreciate your efforts. We also invite all current and past coordinators to offer a one-session encore presentation selected from a prior study group. Tech help is available to assist you to set up and run the Zoom session. You’ll receive a Zoom link to send to participants.
To propose your activity, contact Jane Case Einbender ([email protected]) from the Community Building Initiative (CBI).
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CUNY ID Provides a Free Pass to Many NYC Cultural Institutions |
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Thanks to the program CUNY Arts, many of the city’s most prestigious cultural spots provide free admission or suggested admission prices to CUNY students, faculty and staff. Just show your CUNY ID at the door and explore the extraordinary exhibits at El Museo del Barrio, the Frick Collection*, Intrepid, the Jewish Museum, Museum of the City of New York, MoMA & MoMA PS1, Leslie-Lohman Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art and the Shed. For a complete list of CUNY Arts Partners, click here.
*The Frick Collection requires that you fill out a form including your GC-CUNY email address to receive a password that you use when “prepurchasing” a ticket online.
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Update Your Profile! A Workshop on Making Yourself Findable
Thursday, April 7, 4:00-4:30PM | Zoom
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What do you read? What are your interests? Where do you live?
LP2 members want to know! Make yourself findable and make new friends. Learn how to update your Profile Photo, Cover Photo, Bio, Interests, Skills, Neighborhood, Contact info and more in the new LP2 Member Directory. In this half-hour Zoom Workshop Denise Waxman will give a full tour of the new Member Directory, show you how you can search in ways you couldn't do before, find out more about members you have met in Study Groups and other ways to contact them others. Most important you can learn how to make yourself more findable by updating your photo and sharing what you want others to know about you. There will be an opportunity to get your questions answered and one-on-one help. You might even learn another computer trick or two. Write Denise Waxman at [email protected] to sign up.
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Time: 4PM
Location: Madison Square Park
Meeting Place: Inside the southern end of the Park (23rd Street) at the fountain
Transportation:
* Bus - M1
* Subway - N, W, R
Host Susan Rubens says, “I’m back and look forward to seeing members, new and not! Let’s get together and head out for wine, pizza or just a meet and greet.
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Fridays@1 With Roosevelt Montás, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation
Friday, April 8 @ 1:00PM
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What is the value of a liberal education? In his recently published book, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás offers an intimate account of the continuing relevance of the classics of Western thought and literature, especially to members of historically marginalized communities.
Montás will share with us the profound impact that the classics had on his life, and why they can still remake lives. At the same time, Montás will offer his bleak assessment of the state of liberal education in America today.
Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college. Montás is currently Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia.
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Online Research: A Zoom Workshop on 4 Essential Free Tools
Thursday, April 14, 4:00-4:30PM
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Want to know what academics think about the puzzle of the Man in the Mackintosh in Ulysses? Interested in reading a chapter or finding an illustration in an out-of-print book? Wondering how, and how long, the phrase “Sugar Baby” has been in use? This workshop is an introduction to a few of the tools featured on lp2nyc.org’s Library and Online Research page: how to use them together to get the information you want for your study group and how to save and share this content in a digital format. We will focus on Google Scholar, Google Books, Google Ngram (a tool within Google Books) and JStor. As time allows, we may provide a quick intro to other publicly accessible text, image, audio, video, and book sources. There will be an opportunity to get your questions answered and one-on-one help. You might even learn another computer trick or two. Write Denise Waxman at [email protected] to sign up.
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The Abraham Accords: A New Development in the Middle East
Thursday, May 19th, 4PM , Zoom Webinar
Benjamin Rogers, the American Jewish Committee Director of Middle East Initiatives, will join LP2 member Bill Siegel to discuss the Abraham Accords (diplomatic agreements between the State of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco) and their impact on the future of Middle East engagement.
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From: Maury Harris
Title: Desert Menorah
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Maury says: I am often surprised by the way Arizona cacti resemble familiar objects, even people.
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Calling All Painters, Sculptors, Photographers, Block Printers, Ceramicists and Textile Artists!
Display the creative work you have been doing this summer in the Online Art Show. Send a photograph of your work with a title and a brief statement about it to Carol Millsom at [email protected]. Art works appear in The Observer in the order in which they are received.
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Calling all Cinephiles:
Moya Duffy (Zoom) Film Course Free for LP2 Members
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Moya Duffy is coordinating a film course, Film, Form and Culture for the members of Inspiration Art Group International: https://inspirationartgroup.org/ and members of LP2 are welcome to join free of charge.
The first day of the course is this Wednesday, April 6th, at 1PM and the course, itself, is described on the website (above). The first class will concentrate on Kurosawa’s masterwork, Rashomon, with a presentation on the formal elements of film and how Japanese cinema both embraces and differs from Western film. There will be many clips and stills from this film and plenty of opportunity for discussion – similar to an LP2 study group.
If you would like to take part in this class, please email me at [email protected] to receive the zoom link.
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LP2 member Zuzana Justman is the featured speaker at the program opening the Center for Jewish History’s exhibit “Last Stop Before the Last Stop” about Theresienstadt, the Nazi transit camp. She is a documentary filmmaker whose works have largely been filmed in the Czech Republic and other European countries. In her work, she explores the Holocaust as well as postwar history.
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Zuzana Justman with her parents, Marie Picková and Viktor Pick, leaving a skating rink in Prague, in 1938. Courtesy of Zuzana Justman.
Date/Time Tuesday, April 12th, 2022, 5:30 – 7:30PM EDT
Venue
15 W. 16th St.
New York, NY 10011
Admissions
General: Free
Tickets
For those who cannot come in person, the program will also be streamed on our Facebook and YouTube pages. If you would like to receive the streaming links the day of the event, please select "Digital Admission" when you register on Eventbrite.
Over 80 years have passed since the first transport of Jews arrived in Theresienstadt. Still, the Nazi transit camp just forty miles from Prague remains misunderstood. Much of the evidence that has survived was produced or shaped by the perpetrators: films made for purposes of Nazi propaganda, artwork created under strict supervision, and censored letters sent from the camp.
But the truth of Theresienstadt survives in memoirs, diaries, and other artifacts. The Leo Baeck Institute's new exhibition, Last Stop Before the Last Stop, reveals the inmates’ experience of the grim reality of Theresienstadt. What can we learn from the history of Theresienstadt for today and the future?
Beginning at 5:30 PM, we invite you to visit this exhibit in the Katherine and Clifford H. Goldsmith Gallery. At 6:30 PM, we will be joined via Zoom in the Kovno Room for a live discussion with Zuzana Justman, a child survivor of Theresienstadt. In our conversation with her, we will talk about daily life in the ghetto, exposing fallacies and realities of its history, and the suffering and murder of its prisoners. Zuzana will then take questions from the live audience.
Please note that this event will be held in person at the Center for Jewish History. As of this time, vaccination is required to enter the CJH, and masks must be worn at all times. More information is available here.
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Lourdes Bernard: The Women of April
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The New York Studio School presents The Women of April, a group of works on paper by Lourdes Bernard that commemorate the 57th anniversary of the April 1965 revolution and US invasion of the Dominican Republic.
The narrative images celebrate the role of “The Women of April,” untrained civilian resistance fighters who fought against the 42,000 US Marines ordered by LBJ to invade the small Caribbean nation. The Women of April were attorneys, journalists, artists, teachers, academics, housewives and students.
Lourdes Bernard is a Dominican-American artist raised in Brooklyn.
Ends this Sunday, April 10, 2022
New York Studio School
8 W 8th Street
Before entering the New York Studio School, you must complete this survey (https://nyss.org/covid-survey/). Masks / Face Coverings required & Room Capacities must be followed.
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ArtSIG Members Trek Through 150 Years in 15 Blocks
Led by (LP2 member) architect Patrick Siconolfi last Wednesday,16 enthusiastic fans of NYC buildings walked from 6th Avenue and 32nd Street to Broadway and 18th Street, stopping to look up at some of the fabulous buildings erected over the last 150 years. Ranging from Beaux Arts, to Bauhaus, to (modern) International in style, they exemplify a history of New York City through its lifestyles, construction methods and materials and ideas of beauty and form. Here are some examples of what we were all cricking our necks at.
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225 Fifth Ave., built as the Brunswick Hotel, completed in 1907 |
Virgin Hotel, with an expected completion date of 2022 |
Broadway at 28th, recently known as the Arlo Nomad Hotel but reopening under a new name, completed circa 1910 |
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1200 Broadway, originally known as the Gilsey House Hotel, completed in 1871 |
The Ritz Carlton Residences and Hotel expected completion in 2022. |
1133 Broadway (at 26th Street), known as the St. James Hotel (noticing a theme here?), completed 1874 |
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MISSING LINKS DIRECTORY
LP2 Member Website
Linkedin Learning (formerly known as Lynda)
What links would you like to see included? You don’t have to know the actual link, just what you’d like to be able to link to without cleaning out your desk to find the paper you wrote it down on.
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GC-CUNY Campus Covid Protocols
For those who are coming to campus:
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Masks are no longer required in all campus spaces.
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The rest of the Covid-19 policies remain in place. If you do not have a Cleared4 Pass, email [email protected] a week before your intended visit. Cleared4 Pass (or “Blue Pass”) system automatically renews passes on their expiration date, If you lose your pass, email [email protected] to manually extend it.
- Bring GC-CUNY ID or other official ID.
Additional Campus Operations Info: Reporting positive cases and contact tracing:
- If you are feeling sick, DO NOT come to class.
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If you come into close contact (within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes total, even if in segments) with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, please be sure to wear a close-fitting mask around others and test at least five days after exposure (regardless of symptoms). You do not need to stay home unless you develop symptoms.
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If you test positive for COVID-19, do not come to class and isolate for 5 days before testing. Take precautions until day 10 including wearing a well-fitting mask when around others. Please notify me at [email protected] so that I can manage contact tracing while maintaining your privacy and give further guidance per CUNY’s policy, following CDC guidance.
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Unfortunately, the COVID-19 testing centers on CUNY campuses are not available for use by LP2 members at this time. I will update you if this changes. NYC offers free COVID-19 testing and all New Yorkers can receive a free COVID-19 virus PCR test. Diagnostic tests are available through NYC COVID Express sites or through other public and private sites (search via the COVID-19 Test Site Finder). Further information on free testing can be accessed by calling 311 or the NYC Health and Hospitals website.
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The Women’s Group meets at 3:45PM on Thursdays. Contact Arlyne LeSchack at [email protected].
The Men’s Group meets at 3:45PM on Wednesdays. Contact Jay Fleishman at [email protected].
Stitch Away Stress meets at 4PM Tuesdays. Members share skills and enjoy the meditative benefits of handwork. Contact Michelle Harris at [email protected].
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Observer Submissions Send items for the next week’s Observer to Micky Josephs at [email protected] by 5PM on Friday. Send Online Art Show entries and suggestions for virtual tours to Carol Millsom at [email protected].
Member Forum If you have something to share with the LP2 community, e.g., a photo, an article, a book or a web site that you’ve discovered and think would be interesting to members, send it to Micky at [email protected] for inclusion in the Member Forum.
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