QView #173 | February 27, 2024

Meredith Deckler summarized the discussion at her table as field supervisors received training in the use of the new Queens College Teacher Portfolio Assessment (QCTPA) on Thursday, February 22. 

When “Café con Felo”—a CUNY TV program hosted by Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez—filmed on February 23, QC student Mahir Sadad had the opportunity to ask questions of Congress Member Adriano Espaillat ’79. A SEEK alumnus, Espaillat is the first Dominican American and the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress.

Helena Pereira de Melo, professor of Constitutional Law, Health Law and Bioethics at the NOVA University of Lisbon, gave a presentation yesterday—February 26—on neo-genetics and human rights in European biolaw. The lecture was sponsored by the Center for Portuguese Studies.

Baseball Team Goes 4-0 in Myrtle Beach; Women’s Tennis Opens Spring Season with a Win

The Queens College baseball team, the defending East Coast Conference champions, opened the 2024 season in impressive fashion, winning all four games in Myrtle Beach last week, earning victories over Southern New Hampshire University, Post University, and Chestnut Hill College. The women’s tennis team also got its spring season underway on a positive note, defeating Franklin Pierce University, 6-1, on February 24.

This week, the softball team will open their season with a pair of games in Pinellas County, Florida on Sunday, March 3. Baseball ranked 4th in the East Region will host Franklin Pierce University in a doubleheader on Saturday, March 2, and will welcome Post University to campus on March 3. Times have not been announced for those games. Men’s tennis will host Hofstra University on Friday at 12 pm and visit New York University on Sunday at 2 pm. 

Additionally, the men’s and women’s basketball teams will close out the regular season this week. Both teams visit the University of the District of Columbia on Wednesday at 5:30/7:30 pm and host the College of Staten Island on Saturday at 1/3 pm.   

For the latest Knights news, visit https://queensknights.com/.

Alumni Meet and Greet in the Sunshine State

Florida was the site of multiple alumni gatherings last week.

On Thursday, February 22, Queens College Foundation Chair Lee Fensterstock '68 hosted Friends of Queens College for alumni attendees—and Interim Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Patricia Price and her husband Ari Dorfsman—at the Sailfish Club of Florida in Palm Beach. 

Fensterstock

Price, Dorfsman

Interim Provost Price, best-selling novelist Susan Isaacs ’65, and President Frank H. Wu held the QC banner at an alumni event in Pompano Beach on February 25. Isaacs gave the keynote before a robust and appreciative audience that included one member of the class of 1949, many from the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and some more recent graduates. Wu and Price spoke about QC today. 

A Phi Epsilon Pi reunion in Boca Raton attracted about 20 fraternity brothers. They learned about the state of the college and about the Phi Epsilon Pi endowment fund, which has supported 15 students to date and is expected to support five more students this year. 

Celebrating Black History Makers

A college famed for its diversity has had no shortage of notable Black alumni, faculty, and staff. Some of their achievements in education, science, sports, politics, and other fields are highlighted in Queens College Black History Makers, a new video from the Office of Communications and Marketing.

Marching into Women’s History

QC’s Women and Gender Studies Program will observe Women’s History Month with presentations on every Monday in March.

Susan Stryker (at right), distinguished visiting faculty at the Michelle Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, will deliver the keynote on March 4, 3:10 to 4:25 pm, in Queens Hall, Room 230. In her lecture, “The Romantic Roots of Gender in the Anthropocene,” Stryker will discuss how new historical research reframes gender as an expansive cultural practice that transcends masculinity and femininity.

The following Monday, March 11, Bernadita Llanos, professor of Spanish and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College, will speak about the novels Diamela Eltit wrote during and immediately after the Pinochet era in Chile. The hybrid event will take place from 3:10 to 4:25 pm in Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, Room 525, and on Zoom, ID 889 8661 9705, pass code 373993.

Brooklyn-based Colombian-American film programmer, scholar, and educator Natalia Erazo will moderate a student roundtable on feminist intellectual genealogy on March 18, from 4:40 to 5:55 pm in Rosenthal 525. Through writing, poetry, song, photo slideshow, video, visual art, collage, and other modes of expression, students from “Intro to Women and Gender Studies” will reflect on their understanding of feminism and feminist political practice.

The last session, on March 25 from 3:10 to 4:25 pm in Rosenthal 525, will be “Trans and Black Love and Rage as Revolutionary Struggle.” Building on the idea that the trans-lived experience can transform the struggle for freedom from oppressive power systems, Valerie Fryer-Davis, a doctoral candidate in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY, will examine different forms of love and ask how they manifest for trans people.

Three QC Professors To Tackle Immigration Challenges as FWD.us Fellows

Hsin

Ortega

Shih

FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg that advocates for evidence-based reforms in the areas of criminal justice and immigration, has announced its immigration fellows for the 2024–25 cycle. Only eight fellows were selected nationwide, and three of them are Queens College professors: Amy Hsin (Sociology), Francesc Ortega (Economics), and Kevin Shih (Economics). Immigration fellows lend their expertise to develop and refine the most common-sense, evidence-based, pro-immigration policies that support families, communities, and the U.S. economy.

Hsin was selected because of her mixed methods work on the educational outcomes of undocumented CUNY students. She will use her work with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and her work on undocumented CUNY students to craft evidence-based advocacy on immigration policy. DACA—an Obama-era executive action that granted legal work authorization and protection from deportation to undocumented high school graduates who arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday—has faced many legal challenges throughout the years. At its peak, over 800,000 young adults were beneficiaries of the program.

“It will be a great privilege to work alongside immigration scholars whom I have long admired,” said Hsin.

Ortega was invited to serve as a fellow because of his research on the economic contribution of undocumented workers to the U.S. economy, the effects of DACA, and the estimation of the gains from passing the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. The legislation would provide current, former, and future undocumented high-school graduates and GED recipients a pathway to U.S. citizenship through college, work, or the armed services. During his year as a fellow, Ortega will conduct new research on various issues related to immigration policy.

“The DACA program is in serious jeopardy and FWD.us advocates for the survival and expansion of the program,” he explained. “I am honored to be able to use my expertise in economic analysis to provide rigorous arguments to support this goal.”

Kevin Shih has extensive research experience in immigration policy, which will prove valuable during the fellowship. He wrote a research paper which the Department of Homeland Security cited as evidence of the important benefits of DACA on the educational attainment of undocumented youth. He was also featured in Forbes for contributing to research that showed foreign STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workers were responsible for 30 to 50 percent of the aggregate productivity growth in the United States between 1990 and 2010.

Further information about FWD.us and its work can be found on its website.

Proposals Sought for Outdoor Mural

Queens restaurateur Frank Ottomanelli has been erecting a mural at his eponymous Long Island City eatery and event space. To date, Ottomanelli has installed five sections of an anticipated 11,000-square-foot mural at Hunters Point South Park. Now he’s inviting borough artists to propose designs for additional segments.

“The goal is to erect a large, beautiful, and diverse mural created by local individuals and groups that promotes the wonderful things about Queens,” the Maspeth native told It’s In Queens, an electronic newsletter published by the Queens Economic Development Corporation. “A secondary goal relates to the mural becoming a tourism destination whose image is shared on many visitors’ social media channels.”

Anyone, professional artist or amateur, can submit a proposal; preference will be given to Western Queens residents and students. The deadline to enter this round is March 21. To request an RFP, complete this online form.

Robert Chazan

Robert Chazan, former director of QC’s Center for Jewish Studies (CJS), died on February 12 at the age of 87.

Equipped with secular and religious credentials—a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from Columbia University and rabbinical ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS)—Chazan became one of the first full-time scholars in Jewish studies. He taught at JTS, Ohio State University, and Tel Aviv University before arriving at QC, where he would lead CJS for six years. He subsequently moved to New York University, spending the rest of his career there.

Author of nine books, most of them focusing on medieval Jewish history, Chazan won the National Jewish Book Award in Jewish History for European Jewry and the First Crusade. He was active in organizations related to his discipline, serving as president of the Association for Jewish Studies, editor of the AJS Review, president of the American Academy for Jewish Research, and chairman of the Academic Advisory Board of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Peter Silberman '52

Peter Silberman, a top editor at the Washington Post, died on February 8. He was 93.

Born in pre-Nazified Berlin, where his surname was spelled with two Ns, Silberman was nearly nine when his family fled to the Jewish ghetto of Shanghai. After World War II, they immigrated to Queens. Already literate in English—he’d learned it at a Jesuit school in China—he majored in the subject at QC and, foreshadowing his future career, was editor of the college paper.

Upon becoming a U.S. citizen, Silberman did a tour in South Korea with the Army. Then he earned a master’s degree from the University of Missouri’s J school and worked briefly for the Kansas City Star. Joining WaPo in 1960, he rose on the masthead, retiring as its third-ranked editor. Among his achievements, he launched the paper’s weekly Washington Business section.

Susan Duncan, a double alumna of QC, joined the CUNY Graduate Center’s doctoral program in speech-language-hearing sciences as an associate professor . . . .

President Frank H. Wu testified last week before New York State senators from Queens County in support of additional aid to CUNY and Queens College . . . . the Department of Drama, Theatre & Dance will present The Late Wedding, which it describes as “a shape-shifting, genre-bending odyssey from inside a writer’s mind all the way to outer space,” February 29-March 3 and from March 7-10; see scheduling and ticket information.