QView #146 | February 15, 2023

On Monday, February 6, Provost Emerita Elizabeth Hendrey, along with Global Student Success Program (GSSP) Director Lin Reed and GSSP Marketing and Recruitment Director Blake Engbert, gave a presentation about Queens College’s partnership with Navitas, a global higher education organization. More than 100 staff and faculty members attended the Zoom presentation to learn more about how the partnership has increased Queens College’s global reach. Since the program began in January 2020, students from 23 different countries have enrolled in Queens College’s GSSP. In 2022, the program’s enrollment nearly tripled from the previous year, and further growth is expected for 2023.

Everyone had a ball at the Corner Pocket Game Room on Tuesday, February 7, when the Office of Student Development held Wu vs You. The event gave students the opportunity to play pool and table tennis with the president.

President Frank H. Wu met with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Flushing business leader and QC alumnus John Wang on Tuesday, February 7, to discuss issues—including hate crime and federal support for the college.

Queens College is celebrated for its many extracurricular activities. Students had the chance to explore their spring semester options during Club Day on Wednesday, February 8.

A Life in the Arts alumni event on Wednesday, February 8, featured Salvatore Petronella ’90, a graduate of the creative writing program. Today, Petronella is vice president of Onward Search, a firm dedicated to placing creative talent in digital marketing, user experience, and graphic design at Fortune 100 companies.

Bruce Jackson—associate general counsel at Microsoft and managing director for strategic partnerships—had a well-attended conversation with Chief Diversity Officer and Dean of Diversity Jerima DeWese on Thursday, February 9, as part of Black History Month at QC. Jackson talked about his journey from childhood poverty to the executive suite of one of the world’s leading technology companies.

On Thursday, February 9, the Tech Incubator at Queens College hosted a welcome dinner for participants in the Venture Access NYC Founder Fellowship—a program launched by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) to promote entrepreneurship. President Frank H. Wu broke bread with Mark Shekter and Nancy Trites Botkin, co-founders of Think8 Global Institute, who came to town to lead on on-campus workshop for fellows February 10-12.

Late last year, NYCEDC named QC’s Tech Incubator an operator partner in the Founder Fellowship; Canada-based Think8 offers training and consulting to help owners grow their businesses.

Annual NYC Men Teach Day: Empowering Student Learning Through Reimagination, featured a virtual presentation by Richard Haynes, director of School Support at the New York City Department of Education.

Queens College students paused for a photo op at Lincoln Center, where they attended a New York Philharmonic matinee on Friday, February 10.

Active Shooter Protocols

What steps should people take during an active shooter incident? On Wednesday, February 22, from 12:15 to 1:30 pm in the Dining Hall Patio Room, CUNY Public Safety will explain how to respond in the event of a shooting on campus. This informational session is presented by Queens College Public Safety and the Office of Student Development and Leadership. Students attending this session will have a chance to win a Visa gift card.

Earthquake Relief

Millions of people are in need of humanitarian support in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria on February 6. In a message last week, President Frank H. Wu identified seven organizations accepting donations for relief efforts. In a recent statement, CUNY has recognized three additional organizations. 

Queens College extends heartfelt sympathies to members of our community affected by this catastrophe. Students who would like to speak with a counselor may email our counseling center at counselingservices@qc.cuny.edu. Faculty and staff are encouraged to reach out to our Employee Assistance Plan Provider, CCA at 800-833-8707 or by logging in here (company code: “cuny”). 

Women’s Basketball Wins on Buzzer Beater

Graduate student Raven Pitt drained a hook shot with 0.08 seconds remaining to give the Knights women’s basketball team a come-from-behind, 48-47, victory over the University of the District of Columbia last Saturday. The Knights overcame a 12-point deficit thanks to Pitt and a strong performance from freshman Brianna Davis, who recorded 16 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks. Yesterday, Davis was named the East Coast Conference Rookie of the Week in recognition of her efforts.

This week, both the women’s and men’s basketball teams will be on the road. They will visit Wilmington University today—Wednesday, February 15—at 5 and 7 pm respectively. On Saturday, February 18, they travel to Roberts Wesleyan College. The women tip off at 2 pm and the men follow at 4 pm.

The indoor track and field team will compete in the East Coast Conference Championship on Sunday, February 19, which will be held at Ocean Breeze Complex in Staten Island. A live stream of the championship is available at eccsportsnetwork.com.

Additionally, the women’s tennis team will open up the spring portion of their schedule this Sunday when they host St. Francis College in the QC Tennis Bubble at 8 pm.

For the latest news on QC athletics, be sure to visit queensknights.com.

Discovery Rocks Anthropology

Thomas Plummer (Anthropology) is the lead author of a paper published in Science showing that hominins—a term comprising modern humans, our ancestors, and extinct related species—used tools in food preparation 3 to 2.6 million years ago, roughly half a million years earlier than previously estimated.

Plummer is part of a team studying a site in Nyayanga, Kenya, where they uncovered the bones of hippos that had been carved up for meat, as well as stone tools used in that work. Toolmaking is a skill that scientists have attributed exclusively to human ancestors in the Homo genus. Intriguingly, two molars excavated alongside the neolithic utensils come from the extinct hominin Paranthropus, raising the possibility that members of that species crafted tools, too.

This story has been covered by the Associated Press, Reuters and many other news outlets.

Black History Month This Week

In “Lessons from The First Rainbow Coalition: A Sweet Song for Fred Hampton,” community activists Felipe Luciano, a QC alum, and Denise Oliver-Velez, a SUNY professor emerita, will discuss their experience in building multicultural alliances that helped shape grassroots organizing in the city. Johanna Fernandez (Baruch College) will facilitate the conversation, taking place tomorrow—Thursday, February 16—from 4:30 to 6:30 pm in Rosenthal 230. This event is sponsored by Africana Studies, SEEK, Media Studies, Black Men Teach, CERRU, the History Department, and the Political Science Department. If you haven’t already participated in “I am QC Black History Trivia Month,” presented by Africana Studies there’s still time to enter; to be eligible for prizes, complete the educational quiz by February 28, at 5 pm.

Advancing the Education of Hispanic Women

“Educate a woman and you educate a family” is the motto of the New York League of Puerto Rican Women (NYLPRW). Since 2009, the league has been issuing $1000 scholarships to Hispanic women pursuing bachelor’s degrees. Recipients are chosen on the basis of academic excellence and community service. Applications will be accepted for the 2023 awards until May 26.

To be eligible, students must meet seven requirements: be undergraduates matriculated at an accredited institution; have a GPA of at least 3.0, with no failing grades; submit a resume; submit an essay detailing their educational and career goals and community service; provide an official college transcript; provide two letters of recommendation from a professor, college advisor, employer, minister, or supervisor; submit a 4" by 6" (minimum size) color headshot photo in high resolution, jpeg format of the applicant in appropriate business casual or professional attire, with a neutral background, for inclusion in NYLPRW’s commemorative gala journal; and be available to meet with the scholarship committee.

To apply, email nylprwomen@gmail.com for an application or click here. Transcripts and letters of recommendation must be emailed to nylprwomen@gmail.com, cc’d to: nylprwpresident@gmail.com and lynettenylprwomen@gmail.com.

Hot Times Ahead

It’s not too soon to make plans for June, July, and August. QC’s Summer Session will offer more than 400 undergraduate and graduate courses, including online and hybrid options. Students may earn up to 15 credits. To learn more, click here.

Neurodiversity Hub Gives Faculty and Staff a New Resource To Support Students

An increasing number of neurodivergent students are progressing into higher education each year. In an effort to help them succeed at Queens College, Sally Izquierdo (Psychology) is leading a project called the Neurodiversity Hub: a one-stop shop for faculty and staff to find resources that will help support neurodivergent students.

Although neurodiversity is a term most associated with autism spectrum disorder, it also includes experiences such as attention-deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) disorder, learning disabilities, epilepsy, anxiety, synesthesia, and Tourette Syndrome. According to statistics from the New York State Education Department, CUNY had more than 7,000 students with a neurodevelopmental disability during the 2020–2021 school year. The increasing number of higher education students with learning difficulties associated with neurodiversity poses a challenge for faculty members, and the Neurodiversity Hub was established to help QC faculty and staff meet this challenge.

“We’re trying to get our faculty and staff caught up so that they have a better understanding of how to support students and incorporate inclusive practices into their teaching and other interactions they have with students,” explained Izqueirdo.

Izquierdo, who is the clinical training manager for the master’s programs in the psychology department, program director for applied behavior analysis graduate programs, a board-certified and licensed behavior analyst, and director of QC Project REACH, collaborated with Neurodiversity Support Fellows Kartika Kumari and Gloria Livai on this project. They created two faculty presentations to teach faculty about neurodiversity, inclusivity, and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL)—a framework designed to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. These presentations, “Neurodiversity in The Classroom” and “Acknowledging Neurodiversity and Removing Barriers for Autistic College Students,” debuted last year and were hosted by QC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CETLL). 

Hub Highlighted 

Izquierdo and her fellows then took the recorded presentations, along with other helpful resources, and organized them onto a Microsoft Teams platform to create the Neurodiversity Hub. Other resources in the Hub include Blackboard training links; research articles; an instructor checklist; and helpful books, podcasts, and websites. Members can communicate with one another on the platform with the post and chat functions.

“We hope to not only make it a place to find resources but also to have collegial discussion about neurodiversity where faculty members can come and ask a question of a team member or share something great that they found,” noted Izquierdo.

In addition, the Hub provides graduate fellows an opportunity to gain more experience in working with neurodivergent students as they prepare for their future careers. Kumari, a student in QC’s behavioral neuroscience master’s program, played a vital role setting up the Hub and found the experience valuable.

“It’s really interesting for me and is an opportunity to learn for myself and to make an impact,” said Kumari, who is a neurodivergent individual herself and is expected to graduate this spring. She hopes to have a career in a research field upon graduation. 

Staff and faculty members can enter the Neurodiversity Hub by using the access code qazm3d5 on Microsoft Teams or by accessing the link directly and logging in with a CUNYFirst account. They can also fill out the Neurodiversity Hub interest form.

To assist neurodivergent students with their study needs, QC Project REACH held a Neurodiversity Study Workshop on February 1. A second workshop is being planned for later this semester.

For more information about the Neurodiversity Hub or the study workshop, contact Sally Izquierdo at sally.izquierdo@qc.cuny.edu.

GTM Collaborates on Middle-School Workshop

Creatures dreamed up late last year by sixth-graders at Middle School 419Q rival anything described in the Odyssey or the Harry Potter series. For example, Flutter, an herbivore comprising parts of a butterfly, snake, flamingo, and bear, loves sunsets. Flutter shares space in the students’ imaginary bestiary with Deulbirsa, a snake-deer-bird-bull most comfortable on Mount Everest, and Kiro, a jackal-bunny-reptile that saw land emerge on Earth. These chimeras and others were painted by students participating in an afterschool pilot that MS 419Q, a school that just opened in Elmhurst, launched in partnership with the Godwin-Ternbach Museum (GTM).

The program grew out of inventive crowdsourcing by Soledad Montañes ’03, the founding principal of MS 419Q. Montañes is eager to give her students—many of them immigrants or the children of recent immigrants—access to the arts. However, she explains, “at a new school with limited resources, I couldn’t hire a full-time art teacher.” In January 2022, roughly eight months before the school would welcome its inaugural sixth-grade class, she sought help. Via email, she reached out to various organizations and institutions, including Queens College, where she earned a BA in Education and English. 

At QC, Maria Pio, co-director of the Godwin-Ternbach, fielded the message. “This is why I do what I do,” says Pio. “People think of museums as art on display, but so much more goes into museum work.” She set up a meeting with Montañes. After exploring other options, the two women settled on an art-making residency they called ARTistic Afternoons. Pio put together a proposal that received funding from the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation.

The MS 419Q community learned about ARTistic Afternoons—a series of six two-hour sessions on Wednesdays, starting on November 23—from a flyer sent to parents. About 20 students signed up.

To lead the class, Pio engaged Dimitri Saari, a visual artist specializing in mask making, puppetry, costume design, and performance. “This was my first time working with a museum,” says Saari, who has been a teaching artist in K-12 schools, higher education, senior centers, community gardens, and parks for over 17 years. “I loved going through the Godwin-Ternbach collection for inspiration.”

During his first session, he showed the class a copy of a 17th century print from GTM holdings, a dog that in some ways resembles a lion, and asked students to jot down what they saw. On another week, he introduced alebrijes, a folkloric genre originated by Mexican artist Pedro Linares López: brightly painted papier-mâché figures combining features of two or more animals. Saari also brought in an alebrije made by a friend. Midway through the program, he passed around pictures of animals and asked students to draw their own alebrijes, incorporating parts of at least three animals without tracing anything or worrying about anatomical accuracy.

Creative Creatures 

Later, with supplies—paint brushes, acrylic paint, and “really good BFK Rives printmaking paper from France for the students to paint on”—Saari picked up from Materials for the Arts and some instruction in brush technique, students made paintings of their creatures. “They just went wild with this,” he reports. “Some of the kids had never painted before and it was exciting.” In a complementary writing exercise, he urged students to give their alebrijes names and back stories, such as where they come from, what special powers or skills they possess, what they enjoy. Students kept their preliminary sketches and writing; Saari assembled the final versions in a book presented to MS 419Q at a reception on January 11, 2023. 

The young artists and their families were thrilled by the experience. So was Saari. “The kids were great—curious, asking a lot of questions,” he says. “I got amazing support from the principal and teachers. I felt so lucky to be working in a brand-new school with a brand-new art room.”

For Montañes, ARTistic Afternoons exemplifies culturally responsive programming with significant educational value. “Students were encouraged to think about identity,” she says. “They explored who they are. For their alebrijes, they chose attributes from animals.” At the same time, the program encouraged parental involvement. “Often, parents aren’t as engaged when their children are in middle school,” she continues. “Here, they had the opportunity to participate in a celebratory event.” With funding, she would like to repeat ARTistic Afternoons among the next cohort of sixth-graders and allow the inaugural group to expand on their work, making three-dimensional figures in the coming year, perhaps using them in a theatrical program the year after that.

In an era of tight budgets, Montañes suggests that other schools could build on the ARTistic Afternoons pilot and solicit external support. “Different people came together to provide students what they deserve,” she observes. “I’m incredibly grateful to Queens College and Maria Pio. I hope this serves as a model for future partnerships across the city.”

The benefits of the MS 419Q-QC collaboration aren’t limited to a single art initiative. “Middle school isn’t too early for students to think about their career paths,” says Montañes. “I want them to know there’s a college they can attend in Queens.” Adds Pio, “Museums are part of a well-rounded education. I want to create a long-lasting relationship, a community beyond our walls. These kids are going to be in high school soon. I want them to know that Queens College is here for them for college and beyond.”

AAPI Photography Show at Flushing Town Hall

This is Home, a photo exhibition at Flushing Town Hall through Sunday, February 26, tells stories of the AAPI community in New York City and abroad: how they live, work, love, and when needed, stand up for what they believe. Presented in connection with the Lunar New Year, the group show features Queens-born Korean American photographer Janice Chung; New York City-based photographer and activist Cindy Trinh, a child of Vietnamese refugees; and An Rong Xu, a photographer and director who was born in China and raised in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Priscilla Ciccariello

Priscilla Ciccariello BA ’73, MLS ’74 died last month at the age of 97. Ciccariello enjoyed a 25-year career at the Port Washington Library, serving as its head of reference for a decade, retiring in 1993. She also chaired the American Library Association’s Reference and History Section.

Beyond library circles, Ciccariello was known for her efforts on behalf of people who have Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that afflicted her husband and members of their family. She co-founded the National Marfan Foundation, founded and led the International Federation of Marfan Syndrome Organizations, founded the Coalition for Heritable Disorders of Connective Tissue, and was appointed to the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal, and Skin Diseases by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala.

Predeceased by her husband and one of their children, Ciccariello is survived by six children, 11 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren. 

Burton Pike

Burton Pike, professor emeritus of comparative literature and German, passed away in December 2022. He was 92.

Pike earned his bachelor’s degree at Haverford College and his MA and PhD in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. A member of the faculty at both Queens College, where he chaired the German Department, and the CUNY Graduate Center, he received Guggenheim, Fulbright, and American Council of Learned Societies fellowships. In recognition of his co-translation of Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities and scholarly work on Musil, the city of Klagenfurt—the Austrian novelist’s hometown—awarded Pike its Medal of Merit. In 2016, New York University’s Deutsches Haus gave him the Friedrich Ulfers Prize for championing German literature in the United States.

#33

Kimiko Hahn

Umar Kagzi

Yoko Nomura

Jamie Cohen (Media Studies) was quoted in an Observer article about Reddit’s plans to go public . . . . Kimiko Hahn (English) read and talked about one of her poems in a “Brief But Spectacular” PBS NewsHour video on the power of poetry . . . . Umar Kagzi ’22, who held a series of internships with NASA, is profiled in this month’s edition of “Simply Science,” broadcast on CUNY TV . . . . Yoko Nomura (Psychology) and QC graduate student Barbara Kinsella-Kammerer are co-authors of “Outdoor Play as a Mitigating Factor in the Association Between Screen Time for Young Children and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes,” published last month in JAMA Pediatrics . . . . President Frank H. Wu wrote essays to accompany the images in A Good Citizen, a book of photography by Benjamin Rasmussen. Wu’s keynote at the Asian American Business Development Center’s Lunar New Year Celebration on January 20 (QView 145) has been posted on YouTube.