Discimus ut serviamus: We learn so that we may serve.

QView #209 | September 16

Preservice teachers from Social Studies Education (7–12) and English Education (7–12), coordinated by Meredith Katz and Wendy Tronrud of SEYS, participated in an immersive experience at the Louis Armstrong House Museum (LAHM) on September 10. Charanya Ramakrishnan, LAHM’s director of community engagement, organized the program and facilitated the educational sessions. Participants learned about using oral history projects and collage assignments as meaningful, differentiated classroom activities that enable student engagement. Teachers also appreciated the cultural significance of visiting LAHM: The experience helped them imagine the lives of Louis and Lucille Armstrong and understand their impact on the community.

Thomas Plummer (Anthropology) was elected chair of the Academic Senate on Thursday, September 11, the first meeting of the semester. Below: Rebekkah Chow, associate provost for Institutional Effectiveness, and Christoper Hanusa (Mathematics) presented an update on preparations for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education visit later this academic year.

Robert Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY), came to campus on Monday, September 15. His itinerary encompassed DASNY-funded projects taking place in Delany Hall, Razran Hall, the Science Building, and the Gertz Building. “It was deeply gratifying to welcome President Rodriguez to Queens College this week for a tour of the DASNY projects currently underway on our campus,” said President Frank H. Wu. “It is evident that he shares our commitment to students through his stewardship of these extensive campus upgrades. This investment in our campus infrastructure, specialized study areas, HVAC systems, laboratories, and external renovations strengthens our mission of providing students with a high-quality, competitive education that comes from access to state-of-the-art facilities at an affordable cost.”

Additional details of president Rodriguez’s visit will be available in next week’s QView.

QC Runners Earn Top Spots as Cross Country Season Gets Underway

Two members of the Queens College cross country team were among the top finishers in the Knights’ first meet of the season last Saturday at the Golden Eagle Invitational.

Senior Rachel Mow placed 4th out of 84 competitors in the women’s 5k, finishing in a time of 20:03.01. On the men’s side, junior Daniel DeGregori earned third place out of 92 runners with a time of 28:27.0 in the 8k.

In other Knights’ news, the men’s soccer team rolled to a 4-0 victory over Dominican University of New York last Wednesday. Harry Cooke netted two goals to lead QC. Women’s volleyball also picked up a win, defeating Chestnut Hill College 3-1 on Thursday. Senior Kendall Conrad recorded 16 kills and freshman Kylynn White had 11 kills and 15 assists in the victory. 

Coming up this week, the Knights’ tennis programs open their 2025 campaigns, with the men traveling to Philadelphia on Wednesday to face Chestnut Hill (11 am) and Jefferson University (3:30 pm). The women head upstate this weekend, visiting Daemen University on Saturday and D’Youville University on Sunday.

In soccer, the men play at Pace University on Wednesday (7 pm) before hosting D’Youville on Saturday (2:30 pm), while the women will welcome D’Youville on Saturday at noon.

The women’s volleyball team will visit Caldwell on Saturday (7 pm) and then compete in the East Stroudsburg Tournament on Friday and Saturday.

For the latest Knights news, visit queensknights.com

QC Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) started yesterday, and QC marked it with a performance at free hour by singer-songwriter Nikael. Events taking place through October 15 and beyond include a forum of Hispanic alumni professionals, talks, a concert, and the opening of Quinceañera: Dress & Memory in Latine Culture at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum. For the schedule, visit Hispanic Heritage Month 2025 - Latin American and Latino Studies

Calling All Would-Be Voters

Today—Tuesday, September 16—is National Voter Registration Day. You’re eligible to vote in New York City if you’re a U.S. citizen who has lived in the city for at least 30 days and will be 18 years old on or before Election Day (November 4 this year), among a few other qualifications.

Voter registration tables will be set up on campus from 10 am to 1:30 pm at the World War II Memorial and flagpole (behind Jefferson Hall); the Student Union Cafeteria; Rosenthal Library; Powdermaker Hall; and Remsen Hall. 

You may also register to vote in your CUNYfirst account or on the New York State DMV website.

Concettina Pagano Named QC’s 2025–26 Faculty Fellow

From left: Mathematics and Natural Sciences Dean Daniel Weinstein, Provost’s Faculty Fellow Tina Pagano, President Frank H. Wu, Associate Provost of Institutional Effectiveness Rebekah Chow, Vice President for Communications and Marketing and Senior Advisor to the President Jay Hershenson

Psychology Professor Concettina Pagano has been selected as the Queens College 2025–26 Provost Faculty Fellow.

Launched in 2017, the Provost’s Faculty Fellows Program mentors faculty in learning how QC operates. Fellows work on year-long projects under the provost’s guidance, collaborating with cabinet members and receiving leadership training. Past fellows have advanced into leadership roles across QC, the PSC, and CUNY Central.

“Professor Pagano has been pivotal for the University-wide Transfer Initiative, leading the Department of Psychology's engagement with our sister CUNY institutions in aligning transfer course equivalencies,” explained Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Patricia Price. “During the fellowship year, Professor Pagano will draw on this experience to work with chairs and departmental advisors across all QC departments to maximize transfer equivalencies, take a closer look at transfer advising in the majors, and generally help to ensure that our college goal of creating clear and supported transfer pathways remains on track.”

In addition to teaching and research, Pagano has taken on many important roles at Queens. Pagano is the deputy chair of the psychology department; serves on the faculty senate at QC and CUNY; is chair of the psychology department’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee; and is a member of the Personnel and Budget Committee and Academic Planning and Curriculum Committee. Pagano is also chair of the Nominating Committee—which submits nominations for committees to the Academic Senate—and co-chair of QC’s Middle States accreditation process for Standard VII: Governance, Leadership, and Administration. In 2025, Pagano was the recipient of the Presidential Faculty Award for Diversity and Inclusion.

Pagano has a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center, an MA from Queens College, and a BA from NYU.

“I have proudly called Queens College home for 39 years. It was here through Queens College and CUNY that I received my training in behavior analysis and was given the privilege of sharing that knowledge with our students. For this I am deeply grateful and strive every day to give back to this remarkable institution,” Pagano said. “As a Provost Faculty Fellow, I am honored to work alongside strong, passionate, and dedicated leaders. Together, I hope we can continue to support Queens College’s growth, so that we can welcome and serve more amazing students; attract and retain more outstanding faculty and staff; and strengthen our service to the New York City community.”

Fair Forecast for Study Abroad

Education knows no borders. Through QC’s Study Abroad Office, students have opportunities to earn academic credits in another state or another country. Programs last from a few weeks to a semester or a full year. To learn more about learning out of town, attend the Study Abroad Fair on Wednesday, September 17, noon to 2 pm, in the Dining Hall, Midway Court. RSVP here.

How CUNY Knight Dragons Made Big Splash in Local Boat Races

History will record that in the Chinese Year of the Wood Snake Queens College made its first venture into another Chinese tradition featuring serpents of a very different variety: The Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival.

Dragon boat festivals have been celebrated for over 2000 years to commemorate an idealistic poet and performer named Qu Yuan who drowned himself in the third century BC to protest his emperor's policies. August marked the 35th year of the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival being officially celebrated in New York City, with dragon boat races in the lake at Flushing Meadow between teams paddling long sleek wooden vessels with a dragon’s head and tail in the same manner as is done in Hong Kong.

Prompted by the urgings of the festival’s chairman, Henry Wan, Queens College President Frank H. Wu committed to entering a team this year, and it fell to Liza Marquez (Director for Government & External Affairs) to make that happen by serving as manager of this novel undertaking.

“We started with two people, and little by little, more people began to learn about it, and we wound up with a team of about 18,” Marquez says, mentioning that members came from both QC and the nearby community. “None of us, other than the team captain, Lt. Hemwatie Seusarran (Public Safety), knew anything about dragon boat racing, so everybody picked up a paddle for the first time.”

Six of the CUNY Knight Dragons proudly displaying their 2nd place finish plaque at the awards dinner are (l to r) Russell Gomes, Sabrina Castro, Yaci Castro, Michelle Gomez, Adrian Peters, and Miguel Bismonte. 

Winning Ways

Training began on May 18 to prepare the team to compete the weekend of August 9-10. Because the water in the Flushing Meadow Lake was still too cold, training initially took place indoors at the Queens College pool. As Marquez explains, they would sit alongside the pool with their paddles in the water and practice the proper holding and paddling technique.

As the water conditions improved, she recounts, “All our practices in June and July were on a boat in the Flushing Meadow Lake. We would try to work on being in sync, on paddling at the same time, with someone at the front called the drummer shouting the numbers [of the strokes].”

While they trained on boats with 20 paddlers with the addition of the drummer and a steerer in the rear, for the actual races boats had only 10 paddlers. Teams in the competition raced in identical boats provided by the festival, so no crew would have any kind of advantage other than what could be provided by the quality of their paddling. Nothing was allowed in the boats, other than pads for sitting.

“We all raced on the same boats,” says Marquez. “We weren’t allowed to put anything on the boats. No banners, no signage, nothing like that.”

The team was named the CUNY Knight Dragons, as the original team included York College President Claudia V. Schrader. She, however, was forced to withdraw because her schedule couldn’t accommodate the full schedule of weekend training sessions, but the CUNY designation which they had registered under remained. No other CUNY college participated.

“We registered for Regular/Mixed Race, which means that it’s mixed with males and females,” says Marquez.

The competition, which involved dozens of races, began on Saturday and consisted of 250-meter races in the morning and 500-meter races in the afternoon. Teams raced in qualifying heats of four or five boats, with winners advancing to the finals.

For first-time competitors, their training paid off spectacularly well: “We won first place in our first race [the qualifying heat] and in the finals, we got second place,” proudly proclaims Marquez, noting the CUNY Knight Dragons also placed third by a hundredth of a second among five schools competing in the Educational Invitational. 

But the third time was the charm, with an all-female crew, the CUNY Knight Dragons team paddled to first place in the Women’s Race. Additionally, under the banner Team United and sponsored by Spectrum, CUNY Knight Dragon women teamed with a few women from FDNY to win the Sponsors Invitational race.

Marquez admits to still being in recovery mode from the intensive training and the excitement of pulling together the first-ever dragon boat team from a CUNY college that went on to fare so well among several competing teams in different configurations.

“It was a lot of work, a lot of practices, and a lot of moving parts,” she says, noting she was quite exhausted afterwards.

Asked if she would do it all over again next year, she says, “Had you asked me this question the day after the event, I would have probably said no. It was a lot of work. But asking me today, yes, I probably would, only because it brought a lot of people from the campus together, and it was a lot of fun in the end.”

Roberta Luttrell ’72

Roberta Luttrell, professor emerita of English at Nassau Community College (NCC), passed away on August 15. She was 90.

Luttrell, who earned her doctorate at the Graduate Center, taught English composition, poetry, and other subjects at NCC for 33 years.

She was so committed to helping students develop literacy that she offered free tutoring in remedial courses and ESL and learned basic American Sign Language to work with the hearing impaired. Practicing what she taught, Luttrell wrote poetry, short stories, and magazine articles, and co-authored a drama with a colleague. She retired from NCC in 2010.

Luttrell is survived by her husband, four daughters, three stepchildren, three grandchildren, four step-grandchildren, and four step-great-grandchildren.

Allen Rosenbaum ’58

Princeton University Art Museum Director Allen Rosenbaum, a board member of and donor to the Godwin-Ternbach Museum (GTM), died on August 3. He was 88.

After graduating from QC, where he studied under GTM co-founder Francis Gray Godwin, Rosenbaum earned a master’s in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. He held positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the School of Fine Arts at the University of California-Irvine, and the former Shickman Gallery in New York before joining the staff of the Princeton museum in 1974. Six years later, he became its director, a job he held until 1999.

Rosenbaum is recalled for adding to the institution’s holdings in Italian art and supporting the acquisition of ancient pottery, sculpture, and textiles. He also increased staffing and expanded the museum itself.

Devoted to QC, he served on the GTM board for more than 25 years.



“I met him for the first time two years ago when he shared his latest obsession of objects purchased for our collection during COVID,” GTM Co-director Louise Weinberg wrote on a Princeton University blog commemorating Rosenbaum. “These timeless Daruma objects, such as scrolls or netsuke, illustrate the story of Bodhidharma bringing Zen Buddhism to Japan in the 4th century, and yet, reach into the present century embodied as dolls, tee shirts for children, or cake molds. We were (and are) working on a research project to create an exhibition that I had hoped Allen would see in his lifetime. His passion is an inspiration.”

Chloe Bass, a former member of QC’s art faculty, created the sonic public art project “If you hear something, free something” playing over the PA system at 14 subway stations. Debuted on September 3 and running through October 5, the project comprises 24 brief poetic messages delivered in English, Spanish, Arabic, Bangla, Haitian Kreyòl, and Mandarin—the six languages most commonly spoken in New York City. Bass recorded one of the messages herself . . . . JC Carlson, manager of Student Life Events and coordinator of LGBTQIAA+ Programs at QC, was one of the honorees at the AIDS Center of Queens County’s Garden Party, held at the Queens Botanical Garden on September 12 . . . .

Kimiko Hahn (English) will be reading her work in The Poem Remembers on September 21, 11 am, on the Main Stage on Borough Hall Plaza in Brooklyn. The free event is part of the Brooklyn Book Festival, September 14-22 . . . . 

Steven Markowitz (Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment) was interviewed on the “Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC and “CBS Evening News” about the impact of 9/11 on public health . . . . Dragomir Saric (Mathematics) has received $400,000 in funding from NSF Partnerships for Research Innovation in the Mathematical Sciences (PRIMES). The award supports his research and integrates some QC undergraduates into the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton; as part of the project, Saric becomes a member of the IAS for the academic year. There will be additional cross-pollination, with an IAS member giving a Math Discovery Series talk at QC this spring . . . .

AAARI is the subject of a story that aired on CUNY TV's "Asian American Life" on September 10. AAARI Dean John Chin speaks in the segment, which mentions the AANHPI Education Equity Act and includes New York State Assembly Member Grace Lee's comments on the act during her remote appearance at AAARI's gala. The full episode AAPI & Mamdani, South Korean Adoptees, Chinatown Tours | Asian American Life is on YouTube . . . . The Queens Memory Project—an archival program run by Queens College and the Queens Public Library—has posted the recording Doria Hughes: In Memory of Rosemarie Beck. Hughes is the granddaughter of Beck, a painter and member of the “New York School” of artists who taught at Queens College from 1968 to 1991. Beck passed away in 2003.