Discimus ut serviamus: We learn so that we may serve.
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Art lovers at the reception
Photo credit: Gina Minielli (Photography faculty)
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From left: President Frank H. Wu, Assemblymember Nily Rozic, and AA/ARI Interim Dean John Chin during lobbying rounds in Albany | |
President Frank H. Wu and Asian American / Asian Research Institute Interim Dean John Chin participated in the REACH Coalition’s Advocacy Day in Albany on February 11. REACH—the acronym stands for Representing and Empowering AANHPI Community History—works for the integration and implementation of Asian American and Pacific Islander curricular materials into New York State public schools’ history and social studies curricula. | From left: State Senator John Liu, President Frank H. Wu, and Assemblymember Grace Lee in the Capitol in Albany | |
Students pursuing a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Medical Career Preparation, a group advised by Mika Vesanen (Biology), participated in a writing workshop hosted by the Queens College Writing Center on Friday, February 14. During the session, they concentrated on the personal statement, a critical component of applications to medical school, dental school, and other programs. | |
ECC Gives Weekly Awards to Quartet of Knights | Four Knights just picked up East Coast Conference (ECC) weekly awards. Men’s basketball senior Nasan Ayala, women’s basketball rookie Arianna Lopez, and men’s tennis junior Alexis Martin-Gibiard and sophomore Caleb Brightman were named to the Honor Roll. | |
Men’s and women’s track and field wrapped up their indoor season this past Sunday; both teams placed ninth. Three Knights received All-ECC honors. Among the men, senior John Ray was named to the first All-ECC team and sophomore Kadeem Patterson was named to the second. On the women's side, sophomore Carly Koprowskiearned All-ECC First Team honors. | |
This is a busy week in Flushing. Both men’s and women’s basketball teams head into their final two weeks of the regular season as each team looks to capture a spot in the postseason tournament. Men’s tennis welcomes Division I Fairleigh Dickinson University and baseball opens their 2025 season with five games down in Myrtle Beach. | |
Sharing the island of Hispaniola, the second-largest land mass in the West Indies, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have a complicated past. In “Independence from Whom?”—a Black History Month event on Monday, February 24, 12:15-1:30 pm—Soribel Genao (Educational and Community Programs) and Margarita Rosa (Baruch College) discuss the complex relationship between these countries, from the first Black colony to mass deportations to recovering Haitian and Dominican history. Hosted by the Office of Student Development and Leadership, the hybrid presentation will take place in the Summit’s Muyskens Conference Room and over Zoom; register here. | |
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Know anyone looking for an educational change of scenery? Study Abroad enables students to accumulate academic credits by taking courses in a different country or state. Learn more about the possibilities at this semester’s Study Abroad Fair on Wednesday, February 26, from noon to 2 pm in the Dining Hall, Midway Court. Here’s an opportunity to speak to CUNY Study Abroad advisors, previous Study Abroad students, and international exchange students.
Can’t make it to the fair? The conversation will continue over the next two days during a pair of virtual, student-led sessions. A general information session will take place on Thursday, February 27, at 6 pm; the CUNY-Paris Exchange will be the subject on Friday, February 28, at 12:15 pm.
To attend the fair or the online events, RSVP here.
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Passion for People Motivates Jennifer Bisram ’04 | |
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A familiar face the past few years to viewers of CBS News New York (and before that at PIX11 News/Channel 11), Jennifer Bisram ’04 has from a young age always wanted to find a career in journalism—initially in print and later as an on-air reporter.
“My first internship was at age 16 in print, believe it or not,” she recalls. “I knew I wanted to write a long time ago. My teachers always told my mom and dad I was a good writer. I would write poetry in my bedroom. That’s how I kind of expressed myself. I had a poem published in The Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans.” She found she enjoyed seeing her name in print.
Bisram proudly identifies herself as a Queens girl. Her Guyanese parents came to the United States in the 1970s, initially living in the Kensington section of Brooklyn before moving to Richmond Hill in Queens while she was in primary school.
When the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) visited John Adams High School in Ozone Park, she applied for their High School Journalism Workshop. (Bisram has remained a member of the NABJ to this very day, motivated, she says, by the many great mentors the group provided and by her observation that women of color remain underrepresented in the journalism arena.) Also, while in high school she began taking weekend classes at York College for print journalism: “I knew very early on that I wanted to do journalism,” she says. “There was always something going on with current events, I always wanted to know things.”
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Majoring in Media Studies
Graduating from John Adams, Bisram went directly to Queens College, where she majored in media studies and minored in journalism. “That’s the way you do it when you have strict parents who want you to do better than they had,” she declares. “There’s no question about it: You go to high school, you graduate, you go to college.”
Immediately after graduating from QC, Bisram became a substitute teacher for New York City schools, working at PS 100 in Queens as well as another school. “I remember loving the kids so much,” she says, “especially the first graders.”
But she was also getting calls from News 55 on Long Island and she eventually made what she describes as the heart-wrenching decision to follow through on the many internships she had worked and devote herself fulltime to a career in journalism: “We’re able to touch tens of thousands of adults every day on the TV screen with the news that we cover, and we help people every day.”
Since her start at News 55, Bisram has reported and anchored in Detroit, Orlando, and Miami, as well as at News12 Long Island, Westchester, CT, and NJ. She has also written stories for Newsday, the Amsterdam News, and the Queens Chronicle, and was once featured on Comedy Central’s “Detroiters” as a reporter. In 2016, Bisram came back to New York City for a job with PIX11 News. Combining her love of both teaching and journalism, she also spent at least one semester as an adjunct instructor teaching journalism at Queens College.
After nearly six years covering education, crime, Rikers Island, parades, community stories, and breaking news for PIX11 News, Bisram moved to CBS.
Sharing Star
Meanwhile, eager to reach children the way she reaches adults on television, she wrote two children’s books. First Day of School: Do You Want to Be My Friend? (2014) is about a little girl named Star who poses the question to everyone she meets in her class on the first day of school. She used Star as the child’s name: “And everyone she met was from a different country around the world.”
The book came about, Bisram explains, in part because of the great variety of people she had met working TV and print journalism jobs at cities around the country. “The more I got around and met people, I just thought, ‘Gosh, the world is so diverse, and I want people to learn more about all the people and cultures and the melting pot that New York and the country really are.’”
“When you go and speak with kids, their minds are so young and they’re so ready to take on the world. They’re just so innocent, and you just want to be able to help mold them to be even better than they are or they’re growing up to be.”
“I love what I do; I love being a journalist and reporter.,” she continues. “I don’t regret it, but I do like the fact that I still can provide something to children.”
The book saw her doing readings in schools “in a bunch of states, especially around back-to-school time. It gave me comfort knowing I could reach the kids and the adults at the same time.”
More recently, Bisram lost her grandmother of whom she says, “She was the glue that held us all together, as many grandmothers are.” Out of her love and memory of her she wrote a second children’s book, Grandma Used to Say.
Asked what aspect of her reporting for CBS News New York most appeals to her, Bisram says, “I love all stories about people. I love that I get the opportunity to talk to different people about different subject matter every day. You come to work maybe not particularly an expert on a topic, but you leave at the end of the day being that expert because you want people to trust you. I try to come to work every day with that in mind.”
The ability to quickly acquire a degree of expertise that gains viewers’ trust has proven to be a valuable asset in reporting on issues such as the cost of caregiving, an increasingly challenging fact of life for many. What began as a single story grew into an entire series. “We don’t have the resources we need to care for our aging New Yorkers,” she says, “especially as the population continues to increase.”
Bisram does a lot of cultural stories, too. “The Indo-Caribbean is a big one, especially in Queens.”
Bisram does a lot of law enforcement stories, which require her to interact with all branches of law enforcement—from the NYPD to various federal law enforcement agencies. This has included stories about local and federal efforts to reduce gun violence. In addition, she has covered the opioid crisis and deaths attributable to fentanyl. New York City’s migrant crisis has also been part of her beat.
“It’s a passion for people that drives me to the stories I do,” she affirms. “I wouldn’t say that it’s one thing in particular. Because even if it’s a bad or a hard story, we’re still telling someone else’s story. We’re helping someone in some way, and that is what I enjoy doing.”
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Celebrating Black History Month in Queens
Black History Month is being observed around the borough with an exhibition, talks, and performances.
Through March 2, Culture Lab LIC is presenting The People Behind the Names: Black History in Queens. Curated by the Queens Memory Project, the show spotlights notable individuals identified in the Queens Name Explorer, an interactive online map. (The Queens Memory Project is a community archiving initiative created by the Queens Public Library and Queens College.)
Queens County Farm Museum - Home - Queens County Farm Museum is offering Storytime Sessions for Children on Black History through February 21, from 11 am to noon. After listening to the day’s story, children will be encouraged to talk about it. On February 28 at 6 pm, historian J. Keith Doherty will visit the museum to give a lecture on Black Owned Farms in the Early 1800s.
Itinerant musicians and poets will be the topic during Book Talk: Griot V at the Louis Armstrong Center on February 20 at 3 pm. The event, held in the Jazz Room, will feature author—and trumpeter, composer, and bandleader—Jeremy Pelt.
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Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning has booked West African dance companies this weekend. Kofago Dance Ensemble will perform on February 21 at 8 pm and FANIKE! African Dance Troupe will take the stage the following evening, same time.
Lewis H. Latimer House is highlighting Black Pioneers in STEM on Sunday, February 23, from 1 to 2:30 pm. The theme isn’t coincidental: Latimer invented the carbon filament lightbulb.
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Until May 23, the New York League of Puerto Rican Women is accepting applications for its next scholarship cycle. Eligibility is limited to students who are matriculated in an accredited institution, have earned at least 12 credits, and have a 3.0 GPA or better with no failing grades. For complete requirements and an application form, go to http://nylprw.org/ or call 917-426-5987.
The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute is offering a fellowship for graduate students who are writing their dissertation specifically on Italian emigrant and/or Italian ethnic labor and/or working-class life, either in the United States or in the wider Italian diaspora. Requirements for the fellowship, named after the slain dockworker and labor activist Pietro “Pete” Panto (1910–1939), are available here. Applications are due May 1.
Students are reminded about Internal QC scholarships, in amounts ranging from $250 or $2,500, for the fall 2025 semester. For more information about these scholarships and how to apply for them, see the recent mailer on the topic.
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Gustav Eric Bauer, a longtime University of Minnesota faculty member, died on January 31. He was 90.
A Queens native, Bauer—known by his middle name—headed west after graduating from QC, earning a doctorate in anatomy at U Minnesota. Remaining there for the rest of his career, he taught anatomy and histology at the university’s medical and dental schools for more than 50 years. In addition, he conducted research at his home institution and at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.
A recreational sailor and fisherman, Bauer loved the water. His other outlet was music; a violinist, he played chamber music and was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis, the city’s oldest community orchestra.
Bauer is survived by his wife, his children, his stepchildren, his grandchildren, and their spouses.
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Ida Masone Comparin passed away on January 15 at the age of 96.
The first in her family to go to college, Comparin earned not only a bachelor’s degree from QC but also an MLS from Columbia University. Her career included two years as a special services librarian in Japan and positions as a reference librarian at Purdue University, co-director of Montgomery Regional Library, and acting director of Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library. Upon retiring from Montgomery-Floyd in 1994, she served the library as a volunteer.
Predeceased by her husband of 59 years, Comparin is survived by five children and their spouses, eight grandchildren, and many nieces, nephews, and their spouses.
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Sebastian Alvarado (Biology) is quoted in the Inside Higher Ed article How colleges engage faculty in student career development . . . . Joy Behar ’64 is the author of an Off-Broadway comedy, My First Ex-Husband, which premiered this year at MMAC Theater. Behar has also appeared in the critically acclaimed production; Susie Essman, Tovah Feldshuh, Adrienne C. Moore, and Susan Lucci are among the other performers who have been cast in the four-woman play . . . . John Dennehy (Biology) has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology | ASM.org. He is among 65 fellows in the class of 2025 . . . . Gina Fini (Office of the General Counsel to Queens College) was named interim senior advisor for Strategic Academic Initiatives, in the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost. She assumed this position on January 21 . . . . Corky Lee ’68, celebrated photographer and Asian American activist, was remembered by his brother on a segment on “CBS Sunday Morning,” February 9 . . . . | |
CETLL Director Soniya Munshi (Urban Studies, Asian American Community Studies) was interviewed on LH (Los Herederos) Radio’s “Documenting as Resistance” program https://www.losherederos.org/2-7-2025/ . . . . Grace Pai (EECE) was awarded a Fulbright to conduct research in Taiwan next academic year . . . . Karen Weingarten (English) edited Abortion Stories: American Literature before Roe v. Wade, which will be published by Penguin Classics on March 4. There will be a launch for the book at the GC's Center for Humanities on March 4. Rebecca Traister, who wrote the foreword, and Renee Bracey Sherman, who wrote the afterward, will speak; Vanessa Perez Rosario (English) will serve as moderator . . . . The Calandra Institute received Artnet coverage for the exhibition on Edward Boccia, the American Expressionist Who Time Forgot, Is Suddenly Everywhere.
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