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

QView #224 | March 24

The three-day Middle States Commission for Higher Education (MSCHE) site visit started on campus Monday, March 23, with college community meetings and continues today. Faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to attend the final session in LeFrak Concert Hall at 10 am tomorrow—Wednesday, March 25—for the readout of the MSCHE report. An institutional accreditor recognized by the United States Department of Education, Middle States serves as an independent voice in higher education.

In conjunction with the MSCHE visit, the Dunkin Donuts on Horace Harding is offering accreditation-themed snacks (in-store order only). From 9 am-4 pm, through Wednesday, March 25, members of the QC community can get $1 off any medium or large iced drink. There’s a special treat of 10-Count QC Knights Munchkins. For this deal, it’s necessary to show your QC ID at checkout.

Students learned de-escalation techniques and self-defense skills during Gay Fight Club, an empowering, trans-inclusive, body-positive and gender-affirming workshop in the Muyskens Conference Room at the Summit Apartments on Wednesday, March 18. Workshop attendees enjoyed a special screening of the comic kung fu film short, The 44th Chamber of Shaolin, with pizza and a lot of laughs. Students also received free safety whistles.

This event was sponsored by LGBTQIAA+ Programs and Resource Center at Queens College and the Summit Apartments at Queens College in partnership with the CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium and the New York City Council. The Queens College Gender, Love and Sexuality Alliance/GLASA, the Queens College Alliance of Latin American Students/ALAS, and the CUNY Office of Student Inclusion Initiatives were co-sponsors.

High school guidance and college counselors from local yeshivahs visited campus on Friday, March 20. President Frank H. Wu, Vice President for Communications and Marketing and Senior Advisor to the President Jay Hershenson, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management Vivek Upadhyay, Admissions Director Chelsea Lavington, Queens Hillel Executive Director Jenna Citron Schwab, and other admissions staff addressed and met with the attendees. The participants included counselors from Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, New Jersey and QC Hillel staff.

Institutional Advancement gathered QC supporters on March 21 for an evening that culminated in Colden Auditorium for Michael Feinstein’s Tribute to Tony Bennett. 

Men’s Tennis Keeps Rolling; Wins 11th Straight Match

The Queens College men’s tennis team won two more matches last week to push their win streak to 11. The 11 straight wins is a program record for consecutive wins to start a season and ties the school record for most wins in a row at any point.

The Knights were dominant last week, defeating Daemen University and University of the District of Columbia, both by a score of 7-0. Their great play is getting noticed, as they are now ranked 22nd in the country. 

The women’s tennis team is having a fantastic season of their own. Last week, they also defeated Daemen, 7-0, to improve to 8-3 overall and 5-0 in the East Coast Conference (ECC).

Coming up this week, the women’s tennis team hosts D’Youville on Tuesday at noon and St. Thomas Aquinas on Wednesday at 1 pm. The men’s team will take on Daemen once again on Saturday at 6:30 pm, this time on the road. 

On the diamond this week, the baseball team visits East Stroudsburg on Tuesday at 3 pm before taking on rival Molloy University this weekend in a four-game series beginning Friday. Softball has a busy week, as well. They’ll welcome Jefferson on Tuesday for a doubleheader at 4 pm, then travel to Southern Connecticut State for two games on Wednesday beginning at 2:30 pm. On Friday, they’ll return home to take on the College of Staten Island in a twin bill starting at 2 pm. 

The outdoor track and field team will begin their 2026 season this week. They’ll compete at the St. John’s Big Hurt meet, which takes place on Saturday at 11 am. 

For the latest Knights’ news, scores, stats, schedules, and more be sure to visit queensknights.com.

GLOBE Program To Expand Local Impact

With more than $1 million in federal funding allocated by Representative Gregory Meeks, QC’s GLOBE NY Metro will work to improve STEM education in elementary and secondary schools in New York City and Nassau County.

GLOBE, an acronym for Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, is an international science and education program that provides K-12 students and the public with the opportunity to participate in the scientific process and data collection. NY Metro is the local GLOBE partner for Southern New York State.

In this new federally funded initiative, GLOBE NY Metro, in partnership with the New York City Department of Education, will run nine three-day GLOBE certification workshops in late summer 2026, for 100 elementary school teachers and 80 secondary teachers in the New York City metropolitan area; priority will be given to teachers in NYC districts 27, 28, 29, and in the Nassau County districts of Sewanhaka, Lawrence, and Valley Stream. In addition to training, each participating teacher will receive books and equipment to enable them to implement the newly acquired strategies and techniques in their home schools.

“We are deeply grateful to Congressman Meeks for this tremendous support and for recognizing the college’s indispensable role in educating teachers in the New York metropolitan area,” said President Frank H. Wu. “This funding significantly enhances the critically important hands-on science opportunities made possible through the GLOBE NY Metro program, which we are so deeply proud to offer New York City and Long Island students.”

For additional details, see QC’s press release.

Ahmad Sims To Join Provost’s Office

Ahmad Sims has been appointed associate provost for innovation and student success, effective April 13. He fills a position left vacant when Nathalia Holtzman was named interim provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at the College of Staten Island.

Sims comes to Queens College from Weber State University, where he served as associate vice president for student success. Previously, he worked at Christian Brothers University and Tennessee State University.

Sims holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Florida Atlantic University, a Master of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University, and an EdD in Leadership Higher Education and a Master of Human Resource Management from Northcentral University. He serves on the board of directors for the National Association of Academic Advising; the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Education Advisory Board; and the Inclusion and Engagement Committee. He was recently appointed to the ACPA (College Student Educators International) Equity & Inclusion Council. 

Scholarships for Undergraduate Hispanic Women

The New York League of Puerto Rican Women https://www.nylprw.org/ has opened its next scholarship application cycle. Female undergraduates who are Puerto Rican or Hispanic, have matriculated at an accredited institution of higher education, and have a GPA of at least 3.0 with no failing grades may be eligible to apply. For complete requirements and an application form, go to info@nylprw.org. Applications, accompanied by academic transcripts and two letters of recommendation, must be submitted by May 15.

Calandra Exhibits Contemporary Art

Vincent Stracquadanio, Crane Your Neck, 2025

A group show, New Practices in Italian American and Italian Diasporic Contemporary Art, will open on Thursday, March 26, at 6 pm at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute’s gallery in midtown Manhattan. Curated by Rosa Berland, the exhibition features paintings, sculptures, photography, prints, video, and site-specific works by 30 artists from the Italian diaspora, including the United States. 

“The exhibition’s theme is a call to home and discovery along the edge: the revealing of artistic transformation of memory, identity, and reclaimed atelier practice as well as craft,” says Berland. “It’s a place of the enigmatic and the liminal: installations that pay homage to the handicraft of women’s invisible labor and voices, the ghostly traces of land as drawings, paintings as aqueous portals, imaginary topographies constructed of textiles, the geometric discipline of abstraction, gestural poetics, the tradition of linear illustration, memories of the botanical and natural world, and studies of the human figure as well as classical sculpture. We also find here the work of teaching artists who continue the centuries-long tradition of foundational studio practice, a way of working that began in sixteenth-century Italy.”

New Practices in Italian American and Italian Diasporic Contemporary Art will be on display through August 14.

Follow the Yellow-Brick Buildings

Concerns about New York City’s high cost of living, and solutions for it, are not new. Case in point: the Mathews Model Flats. Hundreds of these three-story, yellow brick tenements were erected in Queens in the early 20th century. Each building had six apartments; each unit had five rooms and a bathroom, a luxury in that era. Today, many Mathews Flats enjoy landmark status within Ridgewood’s historic districts. You can learn more about these notable buildings in a virtual lecture presented by the Greater Astoria Historical Society and Forgotten New York on March 25 at 7 pm.  

Why Summer Session Is Cool

Students can make progress toward graduation through Summer Session at QC. It’s possible to earn up to 15 credits on a convenient schedule: There are hundreds of courses in in-person, hybrid, and online formats. Classes last four or seven weeks and start as early as June 1. 

Sandra Mew

Former Queens College staff member Sandra Mew passed away last week.

Mew joined QC in October 1997, when she took a position in the office of the dean of students. In the ensuing 26 years, she served as a valuable and beloved member of the Office of the Provost, Institutional Advancement, the President’s Office, and other departments. She retired in October 2023.

Mew is survived by her husband and son. A memorial service will be held for her this Sunday, March 29, at the Greater Allen AME Cathedral of New York, 110-31 Floyd H. Flake Blvd. (formerly Merrick Blvd.), Jamaica 11433. Viewing will take place from 4 to 6 pm; the service will start at 6 pm. 

Stephen Schwerner

Social justice and civil rights activist Stephen Schwerner, a former director of counseling at Queens College, passed away on Friday, March 20. He was 88.

The Bronx-born Schwerner earned a BA in secondary education at Antioch College, where he was active in the NAACP, and an EdD in counseling psychology at New York University. He came to QC in 1963 as an intern. At about that time, he joined the downtown chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), as did his wife Nancy, his younger brother Mickey, and Mickey’s wife, now Rita Schwerner Bender ’64. 

In 1964, the Ku Klux Klan murdered Mickey—along with Andrew Goodman and James Chaney—in Mississippi, where they were volunteering in a CORE project that registered African American voters. National outcry over the murders helped achieve congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the family responded to their loss with even greater activism.

Schwerner remained at Queens College until 1976, becoming director of counseling and playing other important roles on campus. He chaired the Academic Senate; served as New York City’s first draft counselor during the Vietnam War, a conflict he organized against; and was faculty advisor to the college chapter of CORE. Returning to Antioch as dean of students, he held that position for 15 years, then taught for another 13, including his signature courses on the civil rights movement and on the history of jazz.

Schwerner was interviewed a few years ago for “Heroes in Harm’s Way: Dr. King and Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner,” an episode in the Queens College docuseries Legacy Connection: QC and Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. . He also participated in a panel discussion in 2024, on the 60th anniversary of the Mississippi murders. 

At Commencement that same year, Queens College presented its highest administrative honor, the President’s Medal, to Schwerner for his civil rights activism and his outstanding leadership in higher education. Because he was too ill to attend the ceremony, his daughter Cassie accepted the award on his behalf. 

Martin Luther King Jr. and Queens College

Heroes in Harm's Way: Dr. King and Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner

Clarification

Dean David Speidel, whose death was reported in last week’s QView, worked at Queens College for nearly 37 years.

Jada Alyanna Chico, a Macaulay Honors student at QC, has been selected as a Class of 2028 Jeannette K. Watson Fellow. This fellowship places undergraduate students in internships with nonprofit, for-profit, and government agencies in New York City and overseas . . . . Vice President for Communications and Marketing and Senior Advisor to the President Jay Hershenson is among the panel members interviewed in “CUNY SEEK Program: 60 Years of Student Success,” an episode of the CUNY TV program “One to One with Sheryl McCarthy.” A veteran journalist, McCarthy was Distinguished Lecturer of Journalism at Queens College until 2020 . . . .

Darlene Love’s April 25 appearance at Colden Auditorium is featured in the Pac Track section of the current issue of Good Times Magazine.