QView #188 | October, 16

From left: NYS Assembly Member Edward C. Braunstein, President Frank H. Wu, TSINY Chief Executive Officer Larry S. Grubler

Attending the annual gala for Transitional Services for New York (TSINY) on October 8, President Frank H. Wu made time for a photo op. At the gala, TSINY honored Wu as “Academic Leader of the Year” and Queensborough Community College President Christine Mangino as “Educator of the Year.” TSINY is a comprehensive community-based mental health organization that has offered comprehensive rehabilitative services for five decades.  

Computer science peer tutors, NSF S STEM Scholars, and student leaders shared insights at the Fall 2024 Tech Internship Panel Discussion on Wednesday, October 9. Guests included Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success Nathalia Holtzman and CUNY Tech Prep Director Theodore Brown (Computer Science).

Students enjoyed snacks and beverages at Harvest Fest on October 9. Harvest Fest is an initiative of the Knights Table Food Pantry, which works to reduce food insecurity among CUNY students.

What a wonderful location! The QC President's Council held its Thursday, October 10, meeting at the Louis Armstrong House Museum; President Frank H. Wu hosted. Council members toured both the original home of the iconic jazz musician and the new Armstrong Center. 

Sukkot, a Jewish holiday celebrating the fall harvest, starts at sundown on Wednesday, October 16. Members of the campus community got prepared on Thursday, October 10, when Queens College Hillel held a Sukkot Tailgate at the entrance to the Student Union. President Frank H. Wu dropped by.

Fall Sports Teams Continue Strong 2024 Season

The men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams each had another good week as they continue their strong 2024 seasons.

Men’s soccer earned a 2-0 win over Jefferson University last Wednesday and then played to a 0-0 draw versus Caldwell University on Saturday. Junior forward Harry Cooke scored both goals in the win against Jefferson, and he now leads all of NCAA Division II in goals (14) as of October 13. His outstanding play has helped put the Knights in first place in the East Coast Conference (ECC) with a record of 7-4-1, 4-0 ECC.

In their only match last week, the women’s soccer team earned a 0-0 draw against Georgian Court University. Freshman goalkeeper Samantha Hines-Hirsch made nine saves in goal to earn the clean sheet. The Knights are 5-4-1 overall, 2-1 in the ECC and are just one game out of first place in ECC standings.

Women’s volleyball added a 3-1 win over Molloy University in their only match last week. They sit in first place in the ECC with an impressive record of 14-5, 4-0 ECC.

Women’s tennis lost their only match last week to the University of the District of Columbia, but they are just one match out of first place in the ECC standings and are in good position for an ECC playoff berth.

Cross country competed at the NJIT Highlander Invitational last Saturday. John Ray ran a career-best time of 26:06.9 in the 8k race to finish 12th out of a crowded field of 246 runners. Rachel Mow also posted a career-best time in the 5k race in 19:57.8. She placed 25th out of 219 competitors.

It will be another busy week of action for the QC fall sports teams. For the complete schedules and latest Knights news, be sure to visit queensknights.com.

Eat Your Heart Out

With new dining spots operating across campus, it’s possible to enjoy three meals a day without leaving college grounds. The recent mailer from CFO Joseph Loughren details the options, including a halal truck and a location with grab-and-go kosher items. Coming later this month: Mama’s Kitchen, a kosher eatery in the Main Dining Hall.

Supporting Students’ Mental Health

Counseling Services gives special attention to students’ mental health, with the aim of alleviating painful symptoms, enhancing self-understanding and understanding of others, and fostering students’ pursuit of their goals. Licensed psychologists, certified social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and counseling interns supervised by professional staff offer individual counseling, groups, and referrals to appropriate college or community resources. 

Counselors work with students on a variety of issues, including—but not limited to—anxiety, depression, grief, family conflict, relationship issues, college adjustment, and career/life choices. All services are confidential and free of charge.

To set up an appointment, students can call 718-997-5420 or send an email to counselingservices@qc.cuny.edu. They should leave their name, CUNY ID, and phone number. All messages—whether voicemail or email—will receive a response within 24 hours during business hours (usually Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm). Students will be scheduled a time for a brief screening (approximately 30 minutes) with a counselor to help determine how best to assist.

Once the intake is completed, students can schedule sessions, in person or remote. Offices are located on the first floor of Frese Hall.

Also available to all Queens College students is the CUNY Crisis Text Line. For access, text CUNY to 741741.

Strategies for Keeping Safe

According to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, active shooter incidents are often unpredictable and evolve quickly. Knowing how to respond can save your life. Tomorrow—Wednesday, October 16, from 12:15 to 1:30 pm—a team from CUNY Public Safety will cover what to do during an active shooting on campus. The session, taking place in the Q-Side Lounge of the Dining Hall, is open to all; students in attendance will be entered into a raffle to win Visa gift cards donated by the School of Arts and Humanities.

For additional information, watch Active Shooter Preparedness, a video made by the Office of Communications and Marketing and the Office of Public Safety in collaboration with the Department of Drama and Theater. Filmed on campus several years ago using student and faculty actors and subsequently updated, Active Shooter Preparedness features comments by President Frank H. Wu and Interim Public Safety Director Deborah Huggins.

New at the Godwin-Ternbach

The Godwin-Ternbach Museum will open two shows on October 17: Exploring the Language of Form and Wunderkammer II: Animalia.

The first Godwin-Ternbach exhibition to focus exclusively on sculptural shapes, Exploring the Language of Form features more than 80 pieces—some of them never displayed previously—from the museum’s collection. Made of ceramic, wood, metal, fabric, ivory, feathers, glass, stone, paper, and other materials, the items span 5,000 years and range from spiritual to utilitarian in purpose. Here’s an opportunity to see the efforts of celebrated sculptors juxtaposed with works by anonymous makers and folk and outsider artists.

Exploring the Language of Form will run through December 19.

Wunderkammer II: Animalia, in the Lobby Gallery, explores the animal world in different media. Museum precursors originating in the 16th century, Wunderkammern, German for “rooms of wonders,” showcased curiosities from around the world. (The exhibition title references Wunderkammer I: Material Pleasures, a show the Godwin-Ternbach presented from September 28, 2022, through August 10, 2023.) 

Wunderkammer II will be on display through May 29, 2025.

QC at a Glance Gets an Update

The latest edition of QC at a Glance is now available online. True to its title, the brochure offers an overview of Queens College programs, activities, facilities, and notable alumni.

The Continuing Adventures of Emma

Jane Austen’s Emma has inspired multiple film and television adaptations, such as the popular teen comedy Clueless, the contemporary Hindi movie Aisha, and the web series “Emma Approved.” But it appears that no one had written a sequel to the novel until Framingham State University President Emerita Helen Heineman ’58 undertook the challenge.

A professor of English before she moved into administration—she was one of the alumni profiled in “Preparing Future Presidents,” Queens magazine, fall 2018—Heineman began teaching in Framingham’s Lifelong Learning program after she retired. “I teach one course in the fall, one in January, and one in the spring, on Zoom,” she says. “There are no papers or tests. It's one of my lifelines.” In 2020, she led a course on Emma. She also watched the BBC's four-part television treatment of the title she regards as Austen’s masterpiece. “I usually hate TV versions of novels I love,” Heineman observes. The BBC’s production of Emma was an exception. “Most of the dialog came from the novel. It was a visual feast for me.” Eager to continue the story, she began writing Emma Redux: Happily Ever After, the first installment in what became a four part series exploring the life of the protagonist after (spoiler alert!) she marries Mr. Knightley.

Deep Dive 

The pandemic gave Heineman plenty of time to immerse herself in Emma’s setting in early 19th century England. “I researched [Regency] period dress, furniture, houses, and landscapes,” she reports. “The internet is great.” Author of four academic biographies of nineteenth century individuals, none of them Austen, Heineman admits to eliding topics beyond the scope of her Emma project. “I didn't research too much history. My excuse is that Austen didn’t care too much about that, so I don’t, either.”

Much as Austen read her novels to her nieces, Heineman developed Emma Redux: Happily Ever After by reading sections aloud to her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson; in keeping with COVID protocols, everyone sat in her garden. (In the course of completing the series, she would share her work with multiple daughters-in-law.) Once the first manuscript was complete, she submitted it to TouchPoint Press in 2021. Two years later, tired of waiting for a commitment from TouchPoint, she published the book herself. The cover art, drawn by one of her grandsons, features a woman in Regency attire seated at a desk.

Excellent Endorsement 

Looking for an endorsement, Heineman reached out to the historical consultant for the BBC’s “Emma”: Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, professor of English Literature at the University of London and a fellow of Magdalene College. “I wrote to him and asked for a blurb, saying, ‘I could send you a few chapters,’” she recalls. “He said he wouldn’t write the blurb unless he read the whole book, so I sent it to him.” Douglas-Fairhurst contributed the following comment: “Helen Heineman’s sequels to Emma tidy up some of the loose ends Austen left behind and then weave a whole new set of adventures for her characters as they make their way through a changing world. Full of lightly-worn learning and crackling with wit and warmth, these stories show us what might have happened after the ‘happily ever after’ of one of the world's most popular novels.”

Amazon readers snapped up Emma Redux: Happily Ever After, with nearly three-quarters awarding the book five stars and no one giving it fewer than three. “People have said that I caught the voice of Jane Austen,” Heineman notes. “I’m very happy that readers said that.”

Delighted though she was to see her book in print, Heineman contacted editors at TouchPoint, writing, “I would rather have published with you.” Unexpectedly, TouchPoint picked up Emma Redux, releasing it in a second edition. Continuing the series, Touchpoint readied Emma Redux 2: Full Circle, which focuses on Emma’s daughters and their matrimonial prospects, for publication in 2023, and planned to release Emma Redux 3: Family Secrets later in 2024. The Emma Redux saga concludes with the fourth title, Matchmaking Magic. “I wanted Emma to be in all of the books, and she’s getting to be an old lady,” observes Heineman. She plans to add a family tree to each book to help readers keep track of an expanded cast of characters that exceeds Austen’s and includes the real-life figures of Anthony Trollope and Letitia Austin, a younger sister of Charles Dickens.

Regrettably, TouchPoint Press has closed its doors, but the Emma Redux series is still available on Amazon and on the author’s website.

Emulating Dickens, who wrote from morning until early afternoon every day without interruption, “I try to provide myself with time to write whether or not anything comes,” says Heineman. To date, she has also published poetry and a mystery novel cum literary tour, In England Now That Murder’s There, its title riffing on the opening line of Robert Browning’s “Home Thoughts, from Abroad.”

She is quick to credit QC for her success as scholar and a novelist. At Queens College, “almost every class opened doors for me,” she concludes. “It was a great academic experience and the mentoring was extraordinary. It changed my life.”

Dominican Studies Institute Names Fellows

Four scholars have been awarded CUNY DSI Research and NSA Fellowships for 2024. Fellows will work over the next few months in the Dominican Studies Institute’s archives and library and with its research unit to conduct work that expands knowledge about people of Dominican ancestry.

Andrea Constant

Molly Hamm-Rodríguez

Génesis Lara

Imán Muñiz Mella

The fellows are Andrea Constant, a PhD student in sociology at The Ohio State University; Molly Hamm-Rodríguez, an assistant professor of Social Foundations of Education at the University of South Florida; Génesis Lara, an assistant professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine; and Imán Muñiz Mella, a lecturer in the Sociology and Sexuality Studies Department at San Francisco State University and a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Each will receive a $10,000 grant to support research expenses. 

For more information about the fellows and their projects, click here.

Around the Borough

Numerous Queens sites are included in Open House New York (ohny.org), October 18-20. The Queens Economic Development Council has simplified matters by compiling a list #Newsflash | Open House New York Weekend Features Dozens of Queens Adventures - QEDC | It’s In Queens of borough activities. Many tours are open access and free of charge. Click on those that interest you for more details.

Registration is now open for the 2024 Queens Marathon, QDR Half Marathon & 10K on November 17 in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Borough boosters take note: the Road Runners Club of America has designated the Queens Marathon as the New York State Championship Race. A half-marathon and a 10K will take place on the same date and the same course, a loop around the park. Marathoners will commit to four laps, half-marathoners to two, and 10K-ers almost one lap. Medals will be awarded in multiple categories.

William Barron, Student Association president, is among the recipients of this year’s Student Veteran Leadership Award from Military Friendly. Published by Viqtory Media, Military Friendly rates employers and schools on their policies for veterans, service members on active duty, and military spouses . . . . John Chin’s appointment as interim dean of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute was reported by World Journal, a Chinese-language newspaper . . . . Christine Jang-Trettein (Sociology) was a panelist at HUD’s Next Generation of Housing Policy roundtable along with other national experts on housing policy. This event took place October 7-8 and was hosted by HUD Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman . . . . Queens Hillel Executive Director Jenna Citron Schwab and her husband Devon Schwab welcomed their first baby, a boy, earlier this week . . . .

John Waldman (Biology) co-authored “Decoupled shifts of dominant and rarer fish species as a response to warming and extreme events in a large estuary.” published in Ecosphere over the summer. The study, which shows that warm-water fish from southern regions, due to rising water temperatures, got coverage in the New York Post and QNS . . . . President Frank H. Wu will present “The Many Truths about Asian Americans: Debunking the Stereotype of the Model Minority” on Thursday, October 17, 10:30-11:45 am, at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. RSVP to attend in person or watch over Zoom . . . . The Calandra Institute’s recent symposium on the 500th anniversary of Giovanni da Verrazzano’s arrival in what is now known as New York Harbor received video coverage by Umbria Journal.