GRANTS&HONORS

‘The experiment is to be tried…whether the children of the people, the children of the whole people,

can be educated; whether an institution of learning, of the highest grade, can be successfully controlled by the popular will, not by the privileged few, but by the privileged many.”

— Horace Webster Founding Principal, The Free Academy

WINTER 2017

CUNYMatters c u n y . e d u / n e w s • T H E C I T Y U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K • F O U N D E D 1 8 4 7

Balk

Santiago

Weiss

Chao

Nemeroff

Fritz

RecognizingFacultyAchievement

THE UNIVERSITY’S re-nowned faculty members continually win profes-

sional achievement awards from prestigious organiza-tions as well as research grants from government agencies, farsighted founda-tions and leading corpora-tions. Pictured are just a few of the recent honorees. Brief summaries of many ongoing research projects start here and continue inside.

Matthew Caballero and Rachel Chase of Hunter College have been awarded $1,197,141 in grant support from the NY State Education Department for “2013-2016 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.” The NY State Department of Education Office of Higher Education has extended $300,000 in grant funding to Millicent Roth of City College for the “City College Academy for Professional Preparation.”

Michael Kress and Lisa Ebert of the College of Staten Island have received a $500,000 grant from the NY City Council for a “Tech Incubator.” The Institute for International Education has awarded $294,843 to Der-Lin Chao of Hunter College for the “K-12 Blended Learning Pilot Program.” The Hospital League, Local 1199, has awarded a $200,172 grant to Milton Santiago of Lehman College for a “Health Care Careers Core Curriculum.”

“Preparing for Imple-mentation of Sustained Release Antivirals for HIV Prevention,” a project directed by Sarit Golub of Hunter College, has been awarded $617,794 in grant funding by PHS/NIH/National Institute of Mental Health. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded

Continued on page 3 ➤

Raab

Murelli

Kamga

Continued on page 6

CUNY in 2017 More graduates, as well as top rankings

for social mobility and debt-free education

THE EXCELSIOR SCHOLARSHIP — TUITION-FREE COLLEGE FOR NEW YORK'S MIDDLE CLASS Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and CUNY Board of Trustees Chairperson William C. Thompson Jr., announce Cuomo’s first-in-the-nation plan to ease the burden of college tuition for New York families. Under this groundbreaking proposal — The Excelsior Scholarship — more than 940,000 middle-class families and individuals making up to $125,000 per year would qualify to attend college tuition-free at all CUNY and SUNY colleges. For more details: http://www.governor.ny.gov/news/

MORE GRADUATES, more degrees granted, more high-achieving students, persistent strong enroll-ments and a shower of prestigious rankings and

faculty and student honors all define The City University of New York at the start of 2017.

With nearly 273,000 degree-credit students entering in Fall 2016, CUNY enrollments remain at record and near- record highs, reflecting enduring demand for the Universi-ty’s high-quality, a�ordable academic opportunities and the appeal of studying in the nation’s most intellectually and dynamic urban environment.

The trends include strong interest from high-achieving students, according to University data: Over the five years

from Fall 2012 to Fall 2016, undergraduate enrollment at the highly selective colleges — Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens — held steady or posted increases. And Baruch, City and Hunter saw dramatic increases in average entering freshman SAT scores.

This academic year, the University continues to expand and refine programs such as CUNY Start, which improves incoming students’ college readiness skills as they prepare to enter associate degree programs, and ASAP, which has remarkably increased retention and graduation rates at the community colleges.

“CUNY’s fundamental mission of providing a�ordable, high-quality education is more important now than ever,

INSIDEPAGE

2PAGE

10PAGE

3CUNY interns at the White House – five served in the final days of the Obama administration

New year begins, charities still looking for donations, still grateful to get them

From Chancellor James B Milliken: CUNY welcomes, supports and educates immigrants, regardless of status

CUNYMatters • Winter 20172

cussions with students, faculty and sta� at CUNY, and I write today to share more broadly many of the import-ant elements that will continue to be part of CUNY’s pledge to its community. CUNY’s commitment includes the following: • CUNY will take no action to assist in the enforce-ment of the immigration laws except as required by law. • CUNY will protect student record information in compliance with the Family Educational Rights andPri-vacy Act. • CUNY will not turn over student information to immigration enforcement authorities except pursuant to court order. • CUNY will not request or gather information about students’ citizenship or immigration status in the course of providing educational or other services or in connec-tion with public safety activities except as required in connection with tuition or financial aid eligibility. • CUNY will not permit immigration enforcement o�cials to enter its campuses except to the extent re-quired by a warrant or court order. • CUNY will work with city, state and federal leaders in support of immigration reforms that maximize, not diminish, educational opportunities for all students. We will continue to monitor and assess policies and practices that a�ect our students and take action, consistent with our obligations under the law, to support and protect our students. CUNY will continue

to pursue policies and prac-tices that help ensure that our campuses welcome and value all of our students, re-gardless of immigration sta-tus, race, religion, national-ity, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. And we will always condemn acts of violence, hate crimes, and expressions of bigotry and intolerance. In short, CUNY remains the university that, in the words of the first president of our predecessor insti-tution the Free Academy, educates “the people, the whole people.”

CUNYMatters

BOARDOFTRUSTEESThe City University of New York

William C. Thompson Jr.Chairperson

Barry F. SchwartzVice Chairperson

Wellington Z. ChenUna S. T-Clarke

Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez Rita DiMartino

Fernando FerrerJudah Gribetz

Mayra Linares-GarciaRobert F. Mujica

Brian D. ObergfellJill O’Donnell-Tormey

Charles A. Shorter Ken SunshineSandra Wilkin

Chika OnyejiukwaTrustee ex officio

Chair Student Senate

Katherine M. ConwayTrustee ex officio

Chair Faculty Senate

Gayle M. HorwitzSecretary of the Board of Trustees

and Senior Adviser to the Chancellor

James B. MillikenChancellor

Michael ArenaUniversity Director

for Communications and Marketing

Kristen KelchManaging Editor

Charles DeCiccoLenina MortimerNeill S. Rosenfeld

Writers

Miriam SmithArt Director

André Beckles Photographer

Articles are available at cuny.edu/newsPlease send letters and suggestions to

cunycommunications@cuny.edu

THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK is a national leader in welcoming, supporting and educating immigrants, regardless of status. Today, there is quite understandably height-

ened concern about the ability of universities across the country to protect and support their undocumented stu-dents. Since the presidential election, I have written to the CUNY community to rea�rm our historical commit-ment to providing education and opportunity to all, with particular emphasis on our fundamental commitment to immigrants. I have stated unequivocally that CUNY will take any steps available under the law to protect and support its undocumented students. I joined other leading university presidents writing to urge the incoming administration to retain the humane and beneficial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Through our important partnership with TheDream.US, CUNY has the largest number of undocumented students supported by private scholar-ships in the country, and we will pursue other means to support our students. We are justifiably proud of our historical leadership in welcoming, supporting, and providing a wide array of services to immigrants. This is true on our campuses and it is true across the city through our outreach programs. We operate the extremely e�ective “Citizenship Now!” program, at this time more important than ever, which has o�ces in all five boroughs, providing one-on-one legal services, referrals to needed social services, reviews of legal status and assistance with immigration and visa applications. Our campuses have been providing coun-seling and other services, and each campus will establish a central point of contact for information and resources for students. Our commitment to un-documented immigrants at CUNY is not new and has been demonstrated by the resourc-es and attention we devote to these valued members of our community. Over the last month, I have had many dis-

A MESSAGE FROM CHANCELLOR MILLIKEN

CUNY Will Take Any Steps Available Under the Law to Protect and Support

Its Undocumented Students

Government Leaders Support Chancellor Milliken’s Statement

Congressman-Elect and New York State Senate Member Adriano Espaillat “CUNY has always been a beacon of hope for immigrants; an institution with an unwavering commitment to education to make America the land of opportunity,” said Congress-man-Elect and New York State Senate Member Adriano Espaillat. Today, CUNY Chancellor Milliken reaffirmed that commitment by calling on President-elect Trump to preserve DACA. We must all stand together during this challenging time to protect the progress we have made for our neighbors that are living in the shadows.

Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte, A daughter of Immigrants“I am heartened by City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor James Milliken’s commitment to take any steps available under the law to protect and support undocumented students as well as his commitment to pursue other financial means to support these students if the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) comes under attack,” said Assemblymember Bichotte, a daugh-ter of immigrants. “I stand beside the Chancellor and at the same time continue to advocate for the passage of the DREAM Act, as well as an allocation to implement NY Promise, which would provide free tuition for community college. Education is still the best tool we have to create a level playing field. Therefore, we must all do our part to ensure that opportunity remains open to all.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is renewing his call for passage of the stalled state Dream Act, which would allow certain undocumented students to receive financial aid at New York’s public colleges, and other education-related benefits. The governor urged action on the Dream Act in his State of the State message at 1 World Trade Center Jan. 9, where he also proposed a defense fund guaranteeing legal representation to im-migrants. His proposals will be present-ed to the state Legislature as part of the budget process, which is underway.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito“New York City has been a haven for immi-grants seeking the American dream since the founding of this nation,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. “As the flagship university system of the city, CUNY has taken the lead in educating these welcome additions to our population for generations.”

New York City Council Member Carlos Menchaca“I applaud the statement and actions of Chancellor Milliken. The existing political climate has our immigrant New Yorkers feeling very afraid – and that includes CUNY students, their families, their friends, neighbors and colleagues. It is powerful to make a statement that our City institutions of higher learning will stand by immigrants and follow their mandate,” said Council Member Carlos Menchaca. “We must provide educational opportunities to the people of New York, regardless of immigration status. This and other stances I have seen taken by my colleagues and other City officials and, of course, the advocacy of courageous New Yorkers, keep me hopeful.”

New York City Council Member Daniel Dromm“I applaud Chancellor Milliken for his unmitigated support of undocumented CUNY students,” said Council Member Daniel Dromm. “CUNY is one of our city’s premier educational institutions. Our immigrant students are a very large part of the university’s success. I pledge to work alongside the Chancellor and my colleagues in government to protect these students and their futures.”

New York State Assembly Member Francisco P. Moya“The results of a presidential election should never compromise the time and dedication a student has invested in earning their degree. Regardless of where they were born, every student should be able to pursue an education without their government acting as an obstacle. I’ve called for SUNY and CUNY schools to become sanctuary campuses that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities for the purpose of deporting undocumented students. I commend CUNY Chancellor Milliken for standing in solidarity with New York’s students and putting those safeguards into practice at CUNY schools and making New York City a safe haven for higher education.”

Statement of Support from the Student Affairs Committee of the CUNY University Faculty Senate“The members of the Student Affairs Com-mittee of the CUNY University Faculty Sen-ate have voted to express their opinion as a single voice concerning the continuation of our country’s Deferred Action for Child-hood Arrivals Program (DACA). We wish to make it clear to our city, state, and nation that we support Chancellor Milliken’s No-vember 18 statement regarding the impor-tance of DACA to all residents of the US. One of the greatest cultural resources that the City University of New York possesses is its diversity. The contributions already made by DACA students and graduates are clear. Their academic commitments are carefully measured, as described in the DACA guidelines, showing scholastic accomplishment in every category. The CUNY UFS Student Affairs Committee stands beside our students. With a single voice, we support our students’ continued efforts to improve their lives and those lives around them. Our scholars need a sense of security and normality in order to perfect and to accomplish their research and creative endeavors. We urge national leaders to avoid creating a problem where none exists.”

Winter 2017 • CUNYMatters3

F or Troy Blackwell, the White House internship was a young policy wonk’s dream come true: He set up briefings on top national issues ranging from the minimum wage to the A�ordable Care Act, helped with logistics for the Italian

prime minister’s state dinner and was in the room when President Obama discussed expanding opportunities for young men of color.

“I was able to see history unfold – and to be a small part of it,” says Blackwell (Macaulay Honors College at City College, ’17). Working in the o�ce of Valerie B. Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, his duties included handling constituent correspondence about policy and setting up meetings with mayors of more than 100 cities.

He was one of five CUNY students and alumni to win the coveted White House internships in fall 2016, and one of 17 from CUNY to do so since fall 2011. Interns are unpaid, but they gain invaluable work experience and contacts, building relationships that can pay o�.

Under Obama, the longstanding internship program set out to mentor and cultivate young leaders, building a commitment to public service. They work for 16 presidential departments, ranging from Digital Strategy to Legislative A�airs, from Management and Administration to Political Strategy and Outreach, from the White House Counsel to Scheduling and Advance. Typical responsibilities include research, attending meetings, managing inquiries, writing memos and sta�ng events. Interns attend a speaker series and meet-ings exploring di�erent policy aspects of the Executive O�ce of the President.

White House intern-ships provide entrée into a community of young leaders. Quintin Haynes, 27, president of the White House Internship Alumni Network – a Facebook-like online meeting and men-toring resource for some 3,000 Obama-era interns – moved from his internship into two federal jobs before becoming Mayor Bill de Blasio’s director of human resources and diversity.

Through the alumni network, Haynes says, “You can look people up and they’ll want to help you without knowing who you are, because we believe in an ethos of public service, in which we were trained in the Obama adminis-tration.” Obama, he adds, “made sure everyday Americans had access to the internships.”

Blackwell had chosen a career in public policy before his internship. A fed-eral Gilman International Scholarship took him to Senegal. When al-Qaeda bombed a hotel in Dakar, the capital, he immediately connected his host family’s visceral discussion of how terrorism a�ected them with the e�ects of weak public policy: “People cannot thrive with extreme economic dispari-ties, a lack of infrastructure, no police or fire system.”

Through the CUNY Service Corps, he helped a City Council member put strong local policy into practice by organizing a partici-patory budget initiative. And during a summer research internship at Stanford University, he developed public policy options for solving the financial crisis in Puerto Rico, where some of his family came from.

At the White House, Blackwell worked for Jarrett in the O�ces of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental A�airs, helping to prepare events and briefings on issues like the minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, gun violence, criminal justice, immigration and the A�ordable Care Act – not to mention logistics for then-Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi’s state dinner. And, after grunt work setting up a public-private meeting of My Brother’s Keeper, Blackwell saw President Obama champion his signature initiative to expand

opportunities for young men of color. “It felt like a dream,” Blackwell says. Each semester – spring, summer and fall – the White House

selects about 150 interns from across the country through a rigorous process. The students and alumni overwhelmingly come from the nation’s top colleges and universities – Ivy, private and public.

Far more rarely, a community college student has the right stu� for an internship – someone like James Fitzgerald (Bronx Community College, ’17), one of CUNY’s five interns last fall.

A Purple Heart Army combat veteran who volunteers to help other veterans, Fitzgerald worked with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Joining Forces campaign, which supported service members, veter-ans and their families. “It was amazing knowing that the individuals at the tip of the spear of our government hold this issue to the highest priority,” he says. “Mrs. Obama wanted to know what was being done … There was nothing left in the tank when you left every day.” After finishing his associate degree and earning a bachelor’s, he foresees a career that blends business, politics and military issues.

Working for Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign a�airs advisers, Naomi Ducat (Queens College, ’16) says she “did research and writing to help them prepare for conversations with foreign dignitaries.” If the advisers couldn’t attend meetings, she would write reports on what happened. The issues were often weighty, like a summit on protect-

ing indigenous women victims of violence. “There were leaders from America, our attorney general, and leaders from Mexico and Canada to discuss laws that would apply in all three regions,” she recalls.

Joseph Lawlor (Macaulay Honors College at Lehman College, ’15) compiled and maintained contact with tech-sector employ-ers while at the National Economic Council, which advises the President on domestic and global economic policy in fields including healthcare, energy, housing, agricul-ture, commerce, financial markets, fiscal policy, labor and Social Security. “My supervisor worked on streamlining the opportunities for com-panies to train and hire nontraditional candi-dates – people who don’t have four-year degrees in those fields,” Lawlor says.

He seeks a career in education and economic policy, an interest honed in undergraduate internships at the Federal Reserve Bank, which he obtained through the CUNY Service Corps, and the Commerce Department, with which he connected through CUNY’s Edward T. Rogowsky Internship Program in Government and Public A�airs. This winter, Lawlor was to start work with Opportunity@Work, a nonprofit startup with which he collaborated while at the White House.

Emmanuel Sanchez (Baruch College, ’15) also interned at the National Economic Council, dealing with the minimum wage, veterans programs and the FirstJob Compact, a White House agreement with companies to hire and train out-of-school and out-of-work 16- to 24-year-olds and create pipelines to employment in their communities. “The program allowed us to meet many senior officials in the administration and, on occasion, prominent business CEOs,” Sanchez says.

Asked for his take-away from his White House experience, Sanchez says: “What has left a lasting impact is the meaning behind my work, meeting impressive like-minded friends, and the mentors/sta�ers who took an interest in my professional growth.”

CUNY Interns at the White House Five Served With Obama in Fall 2016

GRANTS&HONORS

$200,000 to Silvia Mazzula of John Jay College for “Expanding the Latina Researchers Net-work to Build Community, Diversify Research Capacity, and Foster Interdisciplinary Collab-orations.” Bridget Weeks of Kingsborough Community College has received a $100,000 grant from the Ambrose Monell Foundation for

the “Ambrose Monell Foundation Scholar-ship.”

The Foundation for Child Development has awarded $530,000 in grant funding to Lacey Peters and Lindsay

Portnoy of Hunter College for “New York University, City University of New York Health

Promotion & Prevention.”

Elaine Klein of The Graduate Center has re-ceived $912,540 in grant support from the NYC De-partment of Education for “The SIFE Curriculum.”

William J. Fritz of the College of Staten Island has been awarded $163,260 in grant support from the NYS Education Department/VTEA for “Perkins Funding for Career and Technical Education.” Barry Nemeroff of John Jay Col-lege has won a $155,210 grant from the NYS Education Department for the “Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP).”

Hunter College’s President Jennifer J. Raab has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining a distinguished group of scholars, scientists, writers, artists, civic, business, and philan-thropic leaders. Academy President Jonathan F. Fanton stated: “Jennifer Raab’s election to the Academy is a testament to her ac-complishments in education, public policy, and in business. . . .We look forward to her participation in our projects, publications, and events—and to her help in producing the use-ful knowledge for which our charter calls.”

The National Eye Institute has extended $351,936 in grant sup-port to Mark Emerson of City College for “Tran-scriptional Regulation of Cone Photoreceptor Genesis.” Cruz Cullari of the College of Staten Island has received a $212,962 grant from the

NYS Education Department for the “Workforce Investment Act.” Ryan Murelli of Brooklyn College has been awarded a $125,383 grant from St. Louis University for a project entitled “Optimization of Alpha-Hydroxytropolones as Novel Inhibitors of the HBV RNASEH.”

Columbia University has awarded a $377,501 grant to Lia Krusin-Elbaum of City College for “Columbia University Materials Re-search Science and Engineering Center.” Julia Lathrop of Hunter College has been awarded $250,950 from WESTAT/Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for the “Foster Youth Initiative,” while Denis Nash of Hunter College received $230,000 from Health Research Incorporated for the “Foster Youth Initiative.”

Continued on page 5

Continued from page 1

Portnoy

Klein

Emerson

DREAMINGOF THE WHITE HOUSE

A CCNY-Stanford partnership helped shape his ideas on ways to solve Puerto Rico’s economic crisis. Now he’s a White House intern.

Winner, Benjamin A. Gilman International ScholarshipCCNY-Stanford Summer Research Program in the Humanities

Master’s in public policy or public administration; perhaps run for office.

AWARDS

GOAL

HIS STORY

Troy BlackwellCity College of New York/CUNY, 2017Communications Major

THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK-1847 HUNTER COLLEGE-1870 BROOKLYN COLLEGE-1930 QUEENS COLLEGE-1937 NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY-1946 COLLEGE OF STATEN ISLAND-1956 BRONX COMMUNITY COLLEGE-1957 QUEENSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE-1959 CUNY GRADUATE CENTER-1961 BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE-1963 KINGSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE-1963 JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE-1964 YORK COLLEGE-1966 BARUCH COLLEGE-1968 LAGUARDIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE-1968 LEHMAN COLLEGE-1968HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE-1970 MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE-1970 CUNY SCHOOL OF LAW-1983 MACAULAY HONORS COLLEGE AT CUNY-2001 CUNY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM-2006CUNY SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES-2006 GUTTMAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE-2011 CUNY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH POLICY-2016 CUNY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE-2016

cuny.edu/welcome

Senior Troy Blackwell, Macaulay Honors College at City College, was part of a recent CUNY marketing campaign aimed at recruiting new students. Blackwell was a White House intern assigned to work in the office of one of President Obama’s top advisers, Valerie B. Jarrett.

CUNYMatters • Winter 20174

TECHNOLOGY

Speed Data-ing Comes to All Campuses

FOR THE MOST SOPHISTICATED anal-ysis of the data they collect from weather satellites, scientists at the NOAA-CREST environmental sensing center at City College send their digital payloads to Staten Island. So do Baruch’s business

researchers: Every few months, they deliver several terabytes of data on the financial markets to the CUNY High Performance Computing Center at the College of Staten Island. The supercomputer center, one of the most ad-vanced in the country, provides elegant computer modeling to researchers throughout CUNY, as well as to institutions beyond the city. But there has been one hitch: The digital link to CSI — and to all of CUNY’s outer-borough campuses — has lacked the capacity to transfer large amounts of data. Think of an 18-wheel-er trying to deliver a trillion dollars in gold bars up a narrow path in the woods. So how have they been getting all those loads of gigabytes and terabytes to the High Performance Computing Center? In the most low-performance way, says center director Paul Muzio: “You write the data to a number of disc drives, you put it in your car and you drive it over the Verrazano Bridge.” But that’s in the process of changing. The Univer-sity’s O�ce of Computing and Information Services expects to complete by March an $8 million upgrade that will expand CUNY’s high-speed fiber-optic net-work — previously available only to the Manhattan and Bronx campuses — to all the colleges in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. The expansion will bring high-speed Internet access

that will increase by tenfold the current average speed on the outer-borough campuses. At the same time, the o�ce is working with several campuses to design and deploy a separate, research-only network that will put CUNY at the forefront of network speed and design. When it’s completed, colleges will be able to set up dedicated paths for specific needs, allowing research-ers on di�erent campuses to share large data files at speeds that will move a terabyte of data across the network in 90 seconds. That’s the equivalent of down-loading a full Blu-ray movie in less than four seconds. “The ability to safely access content in greater

quantities at greater speeds, and to transfer data quickly among colleges, is essential to the expansion of online learning and collaboration across colleges at CUNY,” says Brian Cohen, vice chancellor and chief information o�cer for the University. “This enhanced network also underlies our plans to build a world-class research network. Our students, faculty, researchers and sta� will benefit greatly from this investment.” The fiber network expansion began in 2015, funded through CUNY’s Strategic Technology Initiative program. The project continued with a second phase in the fall of 2016, when six of the eight colleges in Brooklyn and Queens were connected. The College of Staten Island was connected in early January and the remaining two campuses in Brooklyn, Medgar Evers and Kingsborough, are expected to be online by March. Joshua Brumberg, dean of the sciences for the Grad-uate Center and a professor of psychology and biology at Queens College, says the upgrade will be a major improvement for researchers throughout CUNY who rely on the University’s two world-class technology facilities — the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) and the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC). For instance, a faculty researcher at Queens who is collecting blood-oxygen measurements of pa-tients from Mount Sinai and Albert Einstein medical schools can now quickly transfer files back and forth to the ASRC for analysis by the center’s functional MRI equipment. And researchers in the School of Public Health who use large datasets will be able to transfer files between campuses in a relative instant. The expansion brings benefits not only to far-flung researchers, but also to every student, faculty mem-ber and administrator who goes online on a CUNY campus, especially when they click a download button or upload button. The O�ce of Computing and Infor-mation Services says that internet use is up sharply on the colleges hooked up since the fall—a direct result of improvements in access speeds that one chief infor-mation o�cer called “remarkable.” Tony Wilson, an associate professor of evolutionary biology at Brooklyn College, said the upgrade will be good for everyone from Ph.D. students working with human genomic data to undergraduates drawing research from academic journals. With budgets tight, he noted, campus libraries have replaced expensive print subscriptions with online access. But the missing piece was a speedy link. Now a PDF of a journal article downloads in a New York second.

Transferring large amounts of data to or from CUNY's outer-borough campuses has been a little like driving an 18-wheeler through a path in the woods. But no more. . . .

. . . By March, the University’s Office of Computing and Information Services will complete an $8 million expansion of its high-speed fiber network to every campus.

Winter 2017 • CUNYMatters5

GRANTS&HONORS

Rein V. Ulijn, Director of the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center’s Nanoscience Ini-tiative, has received two grants from the Air Force Office for Scientific Research: $600,000, over three years, for investigation of new materials that can change shape and function on demand, which may have applications in soft robotics and sensors; and $487,745 to purchase a super resolution microscope which will enable researchers to visualize dynamics of nanostructures with much higher resolution than is possible with conventional microscopes.

Deborah L. Balk of Baruch College, asso-ciate director of the CUNY Institute for Demo-graphic Research, who studies urbanization and climate change, and Thomas G. Weiss, a presidential professor of political science at The Graduate Center focused on international relations and global governance, have each been awarded a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fel-lowship by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Each will receive up to $200,000 toward funding one to two years of scholarly research and writing aimed at addressing some of the world’s most urgent challenges to U.S. democ-racy and international order. They were among 33 named Andrew Carnegie Fellows out of nearly 200 nominees.

Two CUNY sociologists and their col-leagues at Georgia State University have received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study community land trusts (CLTs) as a way cities can address shortages of safe, affordable housing and their effects on residents. Mary Clare Lennon, the lead investigator, and Susan Saegert, both of The Graduate Center, are joined by Deirdre Oakley and Erin Ruel of Georgia State University in a study that will examine CLTs in the Minneapolis, Minnesota and Portland, Oregon areas.

Cathy Spatz Widom, Distinguished Pro-fessor of Psychology at John Jay College and a faculty member of The Graduate Center, has received the 2016 Stockholm Prize in Criminol-ogy, the most prestigious award in the field, together with Travis Warren Hirschi, emeritus professor of sociology, University of Arizona, and Per-Olof Wikström, professor of ecological and developmental criminology, University of Cambridge. They jointly explore how parents and peers shape successes, or failures, in preventing adult violence and crime.

Eisele Doerthe of City College has won a $376,218 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled “MRI: Acqui-sition of a Multi-Functional Near-Field Scan-ning Optical Microscopy (NSOM) System to Establish a Cross-Disciplinary Nano-Imaging/Spectroscopy Laboratory at CCNY.” “Focused Computer Games to Promote Specific Cogni-tive Skills,” a project directed by Bruce Homer of The Graduate Center, has received $213,002 in grant funding from the University of Califor-nia, Santa Barbara/IES.

Continued on page 8 ➤

Continued from Page 3

Carpi

At City College’s 136th Annual Alumni Association Dinner, 60 CCNY students received association scholarships for their outstanding academic achievement. The scholarships range from $1,000 to $5,000 and can cover up to one year of the awardee’s tuition. At the dinner, co-anchors Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly of “Good Day New York” on Fox 5 were recipients of the 69th John H. Finley Award, which recognizes ex-emplary dedicated service to the City of New York and the nation, while enhancing the quality of life of its people. In addition, seven City College alumni will receive the 2016 Townsend Harris Medal for outstanding postgraduate achievement in their chosen fields. The seven are: Stan M. Altman ’63, Anthony J. DiNardo ’64, Robert M. Gitlin ’44, Alfonse T. Masi ’51, Ketly Michel ’77, Evelyn Roth ’59, and Sigmund Tobias ’55.

City College of New York’s Langston Hughes Medal winner this year is Ntozake Shange, the famed playwright and poet. The dramatist of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” joins a list of literary luminaries, including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Walter Mosley, who have received the honor from City College. In a hugely prolific career, Shange has written 15 plays, 19 poetry col-lections, six novels, five children’s books, three collections of essays, and a mem-oir called “Lost in Language & Sound.” Her theater piece, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide,” dubbed a “choreopoem” for its highly original combination of music, poetry and dance, was a stunning success on Broadway in 1976-1977, and was made into a movie by Tyler Perry in 2010. Retha Powers, director of the Langston Hughes Festival, said the award was both a celebration of Langston Hughes’ legacy and Shange’s essential and inimitable work. Shange is regarded as one of America’s greatest living writers — an acknowledged master in the genres of drama, fiction, memoir and poetry. In addi-tion, she’s been a voice for di�erent social justice movements and, above all, embod-ied the ongoing struggle of black women for equality, dignity, and respect for their enormous contribution to human culture.

Ntozake Shange

NEWSWIRE

Baruch College was ranked the No. 2 on the 50 Safest Large Colleges and Universities in America listed by College Choice in its first annual ranking focusing exclusively on campus safety. “The Department of Public Safety at Baruch has taken care to balance protection with communication and service. In addition to offering escort aid, counsel-ing, vehicle assists, and campus notifications, the security team at Baruch is thoroughly trained on legal issues, effective communication, customer ser-vice, substance abuse, and disability awareness.” Baruch received high marks in each of the safety categories, scoring a 98.3% on general safety, 100% on anti-discrimination, 100% on women’s safety, 98.3% on party culture and 100% on fire

safety. College Choice also recognized Baruch’s previous acco-lades stating, “Baruch holds many awards and has been lauded for its diversity, social mobil-

ity, affordability, and academic reputation.” Ranked No. 1 of the safest large colleges and universities, Thomas Edison State University; Columbia was No. 5; New York University, No. 24; Johns Hopkins, No. 25; St. John’s, No. 30; Temple, No. 42; Harvard, No. 46; and Boston University, No. 49.

Bronx Community College is celebrating a recent facelift. Elected o�cials from across New York City and the state recently gathered on the campus for the

ribbon-cutting ceremony that formally opened BCC’s newly renovated Quadrangle. “The dramatic physical changes at Bronx Community College in recent years, including the extraordinary new library and an enormous infrastructure project, culminating in the reopen-ing of the beautiful quad, represent substantial new investment by the state and the city in this historic and vital campus,” said Chancellor James B. Milliken. Lt. Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul added that, “New York State’s $50 million investment in this re-imagined Quad is another sign of continued belief in the work of our community colleges, like Bronx Community College.” The Quadrangle completes the vision of the legendary original architect, Stanford White. Designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects, it provides an important outdoor space that can be enjoyed by members of the BCC community, as well as visitors to the only community college in America with architecture that has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

It’s not every day that you get to kayak past a playful otter and document the sight with a photograph. But this was the experience of some LaGuardia Community College commercial

photography students exploring the Alaskan wilderness this summer. “It was a stroke of luck that we got the otter. They usually swim away when we get close,” says commercial photography major Allison Minto who snapped the otter pictured. Minto, along with 11 classmates, participated in a monthlong study away trip to Alaska. The students spent time in the fishing village of Cordova and joined researchers at the Prince William Sound Science Center. They learned about how climate change, pollution, concerns about encroachment and the search for fossil fuels have impacted the indigenous community. Students also ate local fare like caribou and moose meat. They hiked on glaciers, swam in ice cold glacial lakes, and participated in a sacred biennial celebration of the arctic way of life at the Gwich’in Gathering in Arctic Village, Alaska. Each student was also responsible for creating a visual story through photography and video. Once back at LaGuardia, these projects were made into an exhibition entitled, “68° North: A Visual Journey Through the Alaskan Wilderness.”

Chancellor Milliken and elected officals join BCC presdident and students at ribbon cutting on BCC Quad

CUNYMatters • Winter 20176

and the opportunity for so many of our students to graduate debt-free is key to their success after college,” said Chancellor James B. Milliken. “Our students learn from outstanding faculty and compete successfully with students everywhere, and they do this without the financial burden and long-term debt that many of their peers at other institutions incur.

“The combination of low tuition and federal, state and other financial aid programs position many CUNY students to enter the job market or graduate and profes-sional schools with little or no federal debt. This is obvi-ously a great advantage and one that we are committed to maintaining,” the Chancellor said.

Recognition of CUNY colleges’ transformative value for students and the metropolitan area has also come in the form of numerous top rankings and honors.

The Social Mobility Index ranked three CUNY colleges among the country’s top 10 schools for improv-ing low-income students’ educa-tional and job prospects. Five others ranked in the top 10 percent.

City College was recognized as the most military-friendly in the nation, and CUNY colleges were also spotlighted in publications includ-ing Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and the Wall Street Journal. Three colleges were ranked among the top 10 colleges, out of 300 nationwide, identified by the Student Loan Re-port as graduating students with the lowest debt; three other CUNY schools were in the top 30.

Prestigious academic awards continue to roll in for CUNY students. A 2016 Marshall Scholarship — an aca-demic honor considered on par with the Rhodes Schol-arship — was awarded to Hunter College senior Faiza Masood to earn a master’s degree in Great Britain. The University’s positive enrollment trends transcend

CUNY’s undergraduate programs.CUNY School of Law’s Fall 2016 enrollment saw a

27.8 percent increase in the number of first-year stu-dents: 193 entered, compared with 151 in 2015.

The jump came as New York State’s 15 law schools posted a flat overall enrollment this year. The number of CUNY graduates – and the number of degrees grant-ed – increased to record levels in 2015-2016. There were 49,457 graduates in 2015-2016 compared with 47,620 the previous year. The number of degrees granted also bumped up, to 50,022 from 48,125 in 2014-2015. The number of baccalaureate degrees awarded to students graduating from CUNY’s five highly selective colleges showed a significant increase from 2010-2011 to 2014-2015.

Graduation rates are also on the upswing. Associate degree three-year graduation rates for first-time, full-

time CUNY community college students increased significantly — by 4.2 points — from the 2011 to 2012 freshman cohorts — the largest year-to-year change in 20 years. At the University’s highly selective Baruch, Brook-lyn, City, Hunter and Queens colleges, graduation rates also reflected an increase for the fall freshman cohorts from 2005 to 2009.

Among the students entering CUNY colleges, two-thirds are transfers, including those

transferring between CUNY schools and a significant number transferring from outside the University. Students transferring to CUNY from other institutions numbered 6,732 in Fall 2015 and included students from a broad swath of public and private colleges in the metropolitan area and out of town, including local St. John’s, Long Island and Hofstra universities, SUNY community colleges and highly selective schools. More

than 375 transferred to CUNY from a wide range of selective private institutions, including highly selective University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Brown, Yale, Georgetown, Swarthmore, Tufts, Vassar and New York University.

A CUNY education remains remarkably a�ordable compared with the cost of public and private higher education in the New York metropolitan area and nationwide. CUNY’s senior college tuition is among the lowest nationally; because so many low-income CUNY students are eligible for full financial aid, their tuition bills are low to nonexistent.

Sixty-five percent of full-time, in-state CUNY under-graduates attend tuition-free due to a combination of federal Pell grants, New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) awards, scholarships and federal tax credits, University data show.

CUNY students also have far less education debt than other students. Eight in 10 students graduating from CUNY colleges carry no federal education debt, while more than 43 million borrowers nationwide hold an estimated $1.3 trillion in debt.

CUNY’s status as one of the country’s top

Masood

The Social Mobility Index ranked three CUNY colleges among the top 10 in the country for boosting educational and job prospects of low-income students.

Continued on page 7

CUNY in 2017 More graduates, as well as top rankings

for social mobility and debt-free educationContinued From page 1

Winter 2017 • CUNYMatters7

universities for graduating students debt-free was recently a�rmed by The Student Loan Report website. It ranked 300 public and private colleges across the country whose graduates had the lowest student debt. Three CUNY schools — Queens, York and Baruch — were in the top 10 of low-debt schools and another three — Brooklyn, City and Lehman — were among the top 30.

Baruch, City and Queens colleges were ranked among the top 10 in the country in educating low-in-come students and graduating them into solid careers, according to The Social Mobility Index ranking creat-ed by CollegeNET, an educational services company that focuses on economic mobility.

The index identifies colleges and universities best at educating students with family incomes below the na-tional median, and at lower tuitions that allow them to graduate into good jobs while burdened with less debt. Baruch took the top spot, City ranked ninth, Queens 10th, and five other CUNY colleges were in the index’s top 10 percent: College of Staten Island (16), Hunter (19), Brooklyn (24), Lehman (65) and John Jay College of Criminal Justice (86).

Three CUNY schools, Baruch, Queens and Hunt-er, are also ranked among the “best values in public colleges” in the Feb. 2017 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, which is available online. And Macaulay Honors College was recognized in an unranked Kiplinger’s list of 16 tuition-free colleges. In another recognition last year, Macaulay received the highest rating among public university honors colleges and programs in the book Inside Honors: Ratings and Re-views of Sixty Public University Honors Programs.

Macaulay earned five “mortarboards,” one of just three honors programs in the Northeast, and of 10 nationally, to receive the top rating, posted on publicu-niversityhonors.com.

“Receiving the top rating is wonderful recognition for the college as it continues to attract students with the highest academic achievement. Those students benefit greatly from being part of an honors commu-nity and continue to excel by winning 200-plus major scholarships, fellowships and awards in the past 15 years,” said William E. Macaulay, chairman of Macau-lay’s Foundation Board.

In other notable CUNY college recognitions, City College was lauded as the nation’s most mili-tary-friendly campus among public institutions with more than 10,000 students, by Victory Media, which specializes in services for veterans.

It awarded CCNY its Top 10 Gold award for 2017

based on public information and personal data provided by students who are veterans. “Veterans are looking for a hand up, not a hand out,” said Victory Media founder and Chairman Chris Hale, who praised CCNY’s leadership in “creating great opportunities for what I would call our next greatest generation.”

The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education survey ranked two colleges as among the top 10 in the city overall and the top two for “providing a learning environment for all students” and attracting a “diverse student body and faculty.” The survey listed Baruch and City colleges among the finest of 27 New York City colleges it analyzed, and the only two public institu-tions.

The Journal’s website said it used “clear perfor-mance indicators” to answer the most important questions facing students: “Does the college have su�-cient resources to teach me properly? Will I be engaged, and challenged, by my teacher and classmates? Does the college have a good academic reputa-tion? What type of campus community is there? How likely am I to graduate, pay o� my loans and get a good job?”

CUNY students consistently garner prestigious national academic honors including Fulbright awards for teaching and research abroad and National Science Foundation grants. Masood, one of the nation’s 40 recipients of the elite 2016 Marshall Scholarships, is the seventh CUNY student winner in the scholarship’s six decade history.

She will continue her studies in Great Britain to earn a master’s degree in Islamic law focusing on how the religion can adapt to modern societies.

In other student honors, two CUNY School of Law students have been awarded post- graduate fellowships by the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The third-year students, Annemarie Caruso and Maggie Gribben, were among 30 selected nationwide for the fellowship program, which employs new law

graduates in full-time jobs with sponsoring legal advo-cacy organizations and encourages them to build pub-lic service careers. Described as “a legal Peace Corps,” Skadden Fellowships are awarded for two years to law students committed to public interest work. Twelve CUNY Law graduates have served as Skadden Fellows.

Pathways, an initiative begun in fall 2013 to clarify general education course requirements and streamline the transfer process so students can achieve timely graduation, is producing positive results so far. While it is too early to assess the impact on graduation rates, positive Pathways-related results include a 31 percent increase from fall 2012 to fall 2015 in the number of students trans-ferring to CUNY baccalaureate programs with associate degrees; an increase from 62 to 65 in the average total number of credits that transfer students have earned and

received credit for; and nota-bly, the courses that students take before transferring are much more likely to count toward their degree.

Before Pathways, 33 percent of CUNY transfer students had at least one course that did not count at their receiving schools. By fall 2015 the percentage was down to 12. Since the Pathways implementation, transfer students’ average GPAs and one-year reten-tion rates have remained stable.

The University is also reforming how it deter-mines college readiness, with a plan to give incom-ing students the option of

satisfying their math requirements with courses that are more appropriate for their majors, such as statistics instead of algebra. Consistent with new math ap-proaches across the country, CUNY proposes to better tailor mathematics sequences to students’ interests and intended studies, for example, requiring algebra mastery for those aiming for STEM or business fields but for others, providing a more appropriate, and still rigorous, math option.

The University’s proposal will increase access to credit courses by eliminating the expensive obstacle of having to take and retake remedial college algebra, and permit students to enroll with academic support if needed, saving them time and money.

“Our students learn from outstanding faculty and compete successfully with students everywhere … without the financial burden and long-term debt that many of their peers at other institutions incur.” — Chancellor James B. Milliken

Continued From page 6

CUNYMatters • Winter 20178

CUNYSCIENCE

Mathematical Modeling — for Kids!It all adds up. That’s why the National Science Foundation is funding a three-year $1.5 million research project to study the teaching and learning of mathematical modeling in elementary education. Mathe-matical modeling, which plays a role in everything from weather forecasting to election forecasts, uses graphs, equations and diagrams to tackle real-world issues. Mary Foote, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education in the Department of Elementary and Early Child-hood Education at Queens College, and colleagues from the University of Washington, Tacoma; Washington State University Tri Cities; and the University of Arizona will study teaching concepts, methods and community-based resources to introduce mathematical modeling to third-, fourth- and fifth-graders. They will consult elementary school teachers to find out the best teaching meth-ods and test their e�ectiveness in classrooms. Lessons plans and other materials will be archived in a digital library.

Thicker-Shelled CuckoosHere’s the answer in an egg-shell.It’s well documented that birds siphon calcium from the inner layer of their eggs when they are hatching, which, in turn, makes it easier for them to peck their way out. But the eggs of parasitic cuckoos, which are laid in the nests of other bird species for incubation, have thicker shells that protect them from the sharp beaks of rejecting foster parents. An international team of research-ers, including Mark Hauber,

professor of psychology at Hunter College, compared the thickness of unincubated and hatched cuckoo and great reed warbler eggs with scanning electron microscopy and found that they exhibited similar amounts of decalcification, with

the cuckoo eggs maintaining their thicker shells at all stages of development. The findings were published recently in the Journal of Zoology.

There’s an App for ThatCall it research in motion. Rein Ulijn, director of the CUNY ASRC’s Nanoscience Initiative and professor of chemistry at Hunter College, has paved the way for the development of dynamically evolving polymers that form spontaneously by adapting to their environment. By allowing the peptides — strings of polymers composed of amino acids — to continu-ously reorganize their sequenc-es, they will eventually form polymers that are most suited to the environment, paving the way for the development of a number of products applicable to drug delivery, food science and cosmetics. Inspired by the principles of evolution, Ulijn’s team identified a range of here-tofore unseen peptide-based

materials. While previous research in peptide nanotech-nology centered on chance dis-coveries or painstaking design, the new approach allows for unbiased discovery by self-se-lection of optimized structures. The research, published in Nature Nanotechnology, stems from the cross-collaboration of ASRC teams from Macau-lay Honors College, Hunter College and Bronx Community College.

Lighting Up the BrainWhen it comes to pain manage-ment, a zap of electric current to the skull may do the trick. Although the brain-hacking technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, has become a popular alternative treatment for those who su�er from everything from depression and epilepsy to drug addiction and schizophre-nia, there’s no scientific proof

that it works. But a recent study co-authored by Marom Bikson, a professor of biomedical engi-neering at City College, gives, for the first time, a look inside the cranium. Through an MRI, the magnetic fields induced by tDCS can be seen in living humans. The study is a techno-logical breakthrough, Bikson says. “You cannot characterize what you cannot see, so this is a pivotal step in the development of tDCS technology.”

A Diamond in the Rough (and in the Lab)A novel multicolor scanning microscopy technique, devel-oped by City College physicist Carlos Meriles and his team, sheds light on the charge trans-port between nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamonds. The experiment, which is being called a breakthrough, could lead to room-temperature quan-tum information processing in diamonds and optical data storage in three dimensions. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is an optically active defect in diamond made up of a nitrogen atom and an adjacent vacancy, replacing carbon atoms in the diamond lattice. This defect has electrons that can store quan-tum information. To use this special property for quantum computation, there has to be a network of interacting NV cen-ters. The research has focused on using photons emitted by the NV centers to create this interaction in low temperatures. “These are very promising initial results,” says lead author Harishankar Jayakumar, a postdoctoral fellow on the team that includes Sid-dharth Dhomkar and graduate student Jacob Henshaw.

Changing the MenuIf you want to lose weight, look at the calories. And the menu. In a study in Psychology & Marketing, researchers at York

College found that menus with combo plates like a burger and

fries entice people to

indulge.

Al-a-carte menus, on the other hand, encourage people to make healthy choices. In the study, where people were shown menus that o�ered

hamburgers and side orders, 61 percent made a double-indul-gent choice from combination menus compared with 38 percent from à-la-carte menus. When the choice was changed to wa¸es and toppings, there was a similar pattern, but the di�erence was significant only for those who were watching their weight.

A Walk in the Ancient PastOn the shore of Tanzania’s Lake Natron, researchers have discovered more than 400 human footprints that were made in the mud some 5,000 to 19,000 years ago. The find, which walks through Engare Sero gorge, is the largest of its kind in Africa.The footprints, uncovered under the auspices of the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration, o�er an unprec-edented view of what life was like in that time and place. “It’s a very complicated site,” re-search team member William Harcourt-Smith, a paleoan-thropologist at Lehman Col-lege, told National Geographic magazine. “There’s one area where there are so many prints, we’ve nicknamed it the ‘dance hall,’ because I’ve never seen so many prints in one place. It’s completely nuts.”

White Dwarfs and Cosmic Distance Borough of Manhattan Com-munity College professors Saa-vik Ford and Barry McKernan

are seeing stars in a new light.Their mathematical model, de-scribed in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, aims to show how the dead stars called white dwarfs explode, which is instrumental to measuring extreme distanc-es in the universe. The two are out to prove that during orbit, white dwarfs, which are Earth-sized balls of matter that

wobble, tug on each other. This propels them closer and closer, creating a “resonance” akin to a child being pushed on a playground swing. If enough energy is deposited in

the resonating white dwarf, it could detonate before it touch-es the other one. If it does not explode, the stars will crash. They will test their model with data from gravitational wave detectors.

John Maciuika of Baruch College has won the Rome Academy Prize in Historic Preserva-tion and Conservation. The award supports 11 months of research and writing in residence at the American Academy, where he will work on the architecture of the baroque Berliner Stadtschloss, the Berlin City Palace, once the winter residence of Prussian kings and German emperors. Damaged in World War II, it is being rebuilt with private funds as a museum, hotel and commercial center. The American Academy in Rome, chartered by Congress in 1905, enables scholars and emerging artists to study in Rome.

Theodore Brown of Queens College has received a $450,000 grant from the New York City Council for a “Queens College Technol-ogy Incubator.” Lehman College has been awarded a $265,732 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project directed by Donna McGregor, entitled “Flipping Chemistry and Biology Classes to Increase Student Engagement and Performance and Effect Cultural Change in Institutes

of Higher Education.” Jamal Jalilian-Marian of Baruch College has been awarded $101,381 from the DOE/Office of Science for research concerning “High Energy QCD in Heavy-Iron Collisions.”

Sally Hoskins of City College has won a $298,600 grant from the National Science Foundation for “Leveraging Faculty Expertise in CREATE Pedagogy to Transform Teaching and Maximize Student Outcomes Through Courses Focused on Scientific Literature at 2- and 4-Year Institutions.” Harris Philip Zeigler and Paul Feinstein of Hunter College have been awarded $188,241 in grant sup-port from Washington University/NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke for research entitled “Functional Segregation Within the Whisker-Barrel Neuraxis.”

Jonas Reitz of New York City College of Technology has received $626,133 in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Edu-cation for “Opening Gateways to Student Success: STEM.” Camille Kamga of City Col-lege has received $392,462 in grant support from the NYC Department of Transportation

for a project entitled “Transportation Systems Development Agreement — Active Traffic Demand Management.” The NY State Education Depart-ment has awarded a $307,988 grant to Craig

Michaels and Robert Vago of Queens College for an “Advanced Certification, Post-Master’s Clinically-Rich Intensive Teacher Insti-tute in Bilingual Education and English.” David Mootoo of Hunter College has won a $120,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled “Synthetic Tools for Glycobiology Research.”

GRANTS&HONORS

Continued from page 5

McGregor

Mootoo

Winter 2017 • CUNYMatters9

Budgeting EducationInto OblivionAusterity Blues: Fighting for the Soul of Public Education, examines how, since

the 1980s, government austerity policies have severely reduced public investment in higher education, exacerbating inequality among poor and working class students of color, as well as part-time faculty. Co-au-thored by Michael Fabricant, Graduate Center professor of social welfare and the vice president of CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress, and Stephen Brier, professor of urban education at the Graduate Center.

Eleanor: the Warand AfterEleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962, by Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor

of History at John Jay and the Graduate Center. The third and final volume of this acclaimed biography takes us through World War II, FDR’s death, the founding of the UN, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s death in 1962, as she continued to struggle for her core issues — economic security, New Deal reforms, racial equality, and rescue.

Living ThroughIslamic HistoryIn Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives, Chase Robinson, Graduate Center president and history professor, draws on the Muslim scholar-

ship tradition of exploring the biographies of notable figures, and weaves these lives together to create a rich narrative of Islamic civilization. Beginning with the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, Robinson looks to the lawmakers, writers and philosophers who have shaped the 1,400-year-long development of the world’s second-largest religion.

Myth of CriminalImmigrantsJose Luis Morin, profes-sor in Latin American and Latina/o studies at John Jay College, has written Latinos and

Criminal Justice: An Encyclopedia, which provides insights into the realities of the Latina/o experience in the U.S. criminal justice system. Although increased Latino immigration is often associated with in-creased crime, statistics show the opposite. Immigrants are actually less likely to be involved in crime than citizens, and they have lower incarceration rates than other groups in the population.

Homeless inNew YorkHomelessness in New York City: Policymaking from Koch to de Blasio, by Thomas Main, associate professor

at Baruch’s School of Public Affairs, tells the story of how America’s largest city has struggled for more than 30 years to meet the crisis of modern homelessness, since the initiation of the Callahan v Carey liti-gation in 1979. New York City now shelters more than 50,000 homeless people at an annual cost of more than $ 1 billion.

BOOKTALK

NEWTITLES / CUNYAUTHORS

INTERVIEW

A Journey of Prison DiscoveryBaz Dreisinger started a pioneering program that brings college courses to people in prison and admits them to CUNY colleges after their release. The experience led the English professor at John Jay College of

Criminal Justice to spend two years on a very personal journey to prisons in nine other countries. The result, Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World, is a revealing exploration of how we think about crime and punishment — and justice for both perpetrators and their victims.

You use an interesting word to describe your two-year tour of prisons around the world. You called it a pilgrimage. Why?

I think pilgrimage has a moral and ethical implication to it. We usually think of it as a religious undertaking. In many respects this was a religious journey, in that it was grounded in morality, ethics, philosophy and the rethinking of these fundamental concepts about prison. I wanted it to be an emotional, personal and visceral journey because prison is those things. It’s not just about statistics, facts and figures. These are human beings and human lives all around the world.

What made it so personal for you — and not just a research project for a sabbatical?I run what is technically an academic program, but it’s really so much more than that. I’ve spent years going in and out of prisons here in New York State and in other states in America and developed deep relationships with people whose lives are scarred by incarceration. Their families’ lives are scarred by incarceration as well. So for me, the issue is never just about data. It’s always connected to personal relationships and human lives.

How many people in prison have gone through the program that started in 2011, and then have come to CUNY? We’ve had about 25 students come home from prison and more than a third of them are in college right now completing degrees. Another third is likely to start in the next year or so. And then there are about 25 to 30, who are still inside, and at various phases of coming home. We also have information sessions and we do CUNY assessment testing inside the prisons throughout New York State. We also run a film program with Tribeca Film Institute aimed at increasing interest in and access to higher education among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Through that program we’ve impacted hundreds of people around the state as well.

What inspired you to visit prisons in nine countries?I had always been curious about how [prisons] look over-seas. But most fundamentally, I had this feeling of prisons almost becoming stale in my consciousness. I wanted to shake myself up and see prison and these concepts anew. The other thing was that I felt that in the past couple of years, there’s been increased attention to mass incarcera-tion. It’s a hot issue. I’m thrilled for that. But I did feel like there were some real things missing from the conversation, one of them was an international perspective, a look at how the U.S. policy is impacting overseas; also, looking at how

many other countries around the globe are facing such a similar crisis. I also felt like the moral aspect, the ethical dimension of the conversation wasn’t being addressed.

The United States locks up more people than any country on earth. But more than that, the prison system can be thought of as an Ameri-can product — and it’s an export. Can you talk about that?The modern prison system was essentially enacted on American soil in the 19th century. We built the first two

modern prisons in Pennsylvania and in New York. They were built based on European ideas that were circulating in the 18th century. What happened is you have leaders from around the world come and visit these two prisons. Charles Dickens and Alexis de Tocqueville are two of the most famous visitors, but leaders also came from India, Jamaica, and countries

in South America. In a nutshell, by way of colonization and then globalization, you had this same model copied around the world. Today, it’s a jarring thing to go to Kingston, Jamaica, and take a look at the prison and feel like I’m in upstate New York, or go to the Supermax in Brazil and feel like this might be the federal Supermax in Colorado. I’m in these foreign places — that look radically di�erent in so many ways — and yet here is the same model of prison plopped down on foreign shores.

Since this is something that we exported, did you come back with anything that we should be doing differently in this country? Are there lessons to be learned?Well I did. I think it certainly bolstered my confidence in the fact that prisons are a bereft system of justice, morally, economically, socially speaking. The same ills are being repeated overseas and the same people are being targeted, namely poor minorities. Prison has historically been — and

continues to be — a way to oppress minority groups and poor people. It essentially re-enslaves them or recolonizes them, most of the time for a labor force. I think the thing that I came back with most was the sense that there are pockets of possibility happening in di�erent places, wheth-er it’s Thailand or Australia. I ended the journey in Norway, which is touted for its very progressive prison system. The open prisons allow people to come and go. The home leave program was something that I saw as a possibility. I also saw a very exciting re-entry program in Singapore, of all places, which is not somewhere we think of as being progressive and isn’t in a million and one respects. So there were pockets of possibility and progress, and most of all I think pockets of progressive people who see that this is wrong, feel that something needs to be changed and are pushing for it. The last thing that I really bring back is a supreme commitment to restorative justice, which, in many ways my book begins with in the grounding of restorative justice in Rwanda and in South Africa. These countries’ justice systems are saturated in the language of restorative justice. I saw how powerful restorative justice can be in those plac-es. And it is possible to enact a justice system that is about reparations and restoration, as opposed to revenge.

What’s restorative justice and what would it look like?We throw around this idea that prisons are about punish-ment. I explore this in the book, particularly the chapters on Rwanda and South Africa, because I don’t think pun-ishment is moral. I don’t think it’s ethical. It really adds up to “an eye for an eye.” What I saw happening, particularly in Rwanda, post-genocide, was an attempt to deal with these atrocities, not through punishment and revenge but through restitution, reconciliation and reparations. Systems were built that allowed the perpetrators to give back to the people they harmed, to rebuild communities and try to make up and repair the harm that they had done. It wasn’t just about, ‘Throw them in prison and let them rot.’ Rwanda couldn’t do that. Physically there was no space in the Rwandan prison system for that level of o�enders. And because of that, and because there is a longstanding tradition of thinking restoratively in many African commu-nities, there was a push toward, ‘let’s do something di�er-ent.’ They enacted a system and it certainly wasn’t flawless. That’s what restorative justice is. It’s thinking about justice, not in terms of who did the wrong and punish them, but, rather, who was harmed? What are their needs? And how can we create a system that allows their needs to be met? It’s a victim centered approach. _______________________________________________This Q & A is excerpted from a CUNY Book Beat podcast. To listen to the entire interview, go to www.cuny.edu/bookbeat

_________________Incarceration Nations:

A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the WorldBaz Dreisinger_________________

CUNYMatters • Winter 201710

FORYOURBENEFIT

Make the Most of Your GivingOpportunities to Help Extend Beyond the Holidays

EVEN THOUGH it’s the beginning of a new year, many charities that began soliciting donations during the holidays are still asking – and still grateful to receive.

But being charitable, in these times, can be confusing. Social media brings us news about natural disasters and

other calamities far more rapidly than ever before. Often these a�ect distant lands. We wonder if we should help those in dire need far away. Or if charity starts at home?

Or if we should give both locally and globally.You want to help. You want to donate what you can a�ord,

be it large or small. But then there is an additional concern. How do you know that the money you send will actually reach those who need it?

In regard to these matters, the University has helped. The CUNY Campaign for Voluntary Charitable Giving,

with its message, “the power of one, the strength of many,” reported at the end of December that it had raised at least $320,000 with more donations expected. The campaign closed January 13. This was its 33rd annual drive. Since its incep-tion, the campaign has been providing a convenient way for employees to give to reliable charities. Donations are made through payroll deductions or by check or credit card.

Over the years, employees have contributed more than $12 million to support health, human services, education and environmental charities. Numerous charities have been included on a “campaign look-up tool.” The campaign site also linked to an independent “charity navigator.”

The monies donated this year were then distributed exact-ly as requested by employees through Earthshare, a nonprofit organization

Gloriana B. Waters, the University’s Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Management and the 2016 CUNY Campaign chair, noted during the campaign: “Maybe your passion is to support education or perhaps your mission is to help children facing health issues. These causes and hundreds of others are all part of The CUNY Campaign. I assure you,” she added, “that the money you donate will come back to

benefit you, your loved ones and our community in so many ways.”

Each year those who want to give to campus-based organi-zations – or charities that operate within the five boroughs – can search for them by name on the campaign site. According to Chancellor James B. Milliken, the campaign in 2015 “raised over $400,000, with half of those funds directed to cam-pus-based charities that support valuable programs at our colleges, such as scholarship funds and campus child develop-ment centers.”

Recently, Sheila O’Connor, who directs Earthshare’s pub-lic employee campaigns including CUNY’s, was asked for advice on giving internationally. Many at the University are concerned about Hurricane Matthew victims in Haiti, which is still recovering from an earthquake six years ago. Many have personal connections to the country. As of Fall 2015 there were 5,595 undergraduate students of Haitian descent throughout the university’s campuses. Within the Haitian stu-dent population at CUNY, 1,730 undergraduate students were born in Haiti. Many employees are of Haitian descent, as well.

“Haiti isn’t being mentioned so much in the media lately,” O’Connor said. “But needs haven’t been met yet. They are long term. The recovery will be long term. That’s one of the good things about going through the CUNY Campaign because organizations with sustainable support are included, organiza-tions such as Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders. It’s best to get to the organizations that are already there, that have services on the ground, because they don’t have to set up the logistics.”

Here are some links to help you give responsibly though

CUNY and learn more about giving in general:

http://www.cuny.edu/site/campaign.html

http://www.earthshare.org/workplace-giving-campaigns.html#2

http://www.charitynavigator.org

ATYOURSERVICE

By Barbara Fischkin

Highlighting the Spectrum of Diversity

ARLENE TORRES, recently appointed University Dean for Recruitment and Diversity, is using her scholarship as a cultural anthropologist

to showcase, highlight and, when necessary, remediate issues relating to diversity at CUNY. As dean, Torres also chairs the University Advisory Council on Diversity, which reports directly to Chancellor James B. Milliken. Torres brings an eye for qualitative as well as quantitative research to these missions; she looks at the stories that speak to diversity at the University, along with examining the numbers. The dean, who has mentored many junior faculty throughout her career, has held meetings on individual cam-puses and plans to hold more. She has also added members representing a wider range of campuses to the council. “At the end of the day, universities do reflect the world we live in,” Torres says. “They are also laboratories, spaces to imagine, experiment with, and create new possibilities. As we grow and learn about those possibilities, we have the power to commit to transforming our society.” “She really wants to shine a light on what takes

Microsoft OfficeFree for Faculty, Staff

Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus software is now avail-able at no cost to all active University faculty

and staff, as part of the Microsoft Office in Education program. Eligible employees can install the Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus Office productivity suite on personal devices, including desktops and laptops, tablets, and smart phones. This free version includes such Microsoft applications as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. For more details and to log in, please visit: www.cuny.edu/officeproplus. Login credentials are your CUNYfirst user name followed by @login.cuny.edu (e.g., Jane.Doe16@login.cuny.edu), along with your CUNYfirst password. Please also review the FAQs on this site about usage and eligibility. CUNY students already enjoy a similar benefit.

place on campuses, to create a culture of transparency while doing some quality control,” says Maryann McKenzie, who is Torres’ deputy and a member of the council. “Diversity is a broad swath,” the deputy adds. “It’s about race, gender, veterans, disabilities, age and more. We want everyone to have a seat at the table.” Torres is also an associate professor in the Department of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies at Hunter College. She previously served as director of the Chancellor’s Latino Faculty Initiative in Academic Affairs.

Arlene Torres

Another Way to Give to Haiti Christopher Rosa, CUNY’s Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Chair of the University Disaster Relief Committee, has also asked students and employees to consider donating to a University fund for charitable donations for Haitian victims of Hurricane Matthew. “While the devastation across the path of the hurricane is severe, the situation in Haiti is par-ticularly perilous,” he writes. “The United States Agency for International Development estimates that 14 percent of the country’s entire population has been impacted by this storm.” Roberta Nord, University Director of Student Advocacy, adds that in situations like this, CUNY students and employ-ees may be impacted from afar. She said that the University also makes counseling available for those who request it. She noted that as part this effort to raise funds, some campuses are hosting food fairs and concerts. The funds will be donated to a repu-table charity that is engaged in medical missions to the affected region. For more on how to donate to this fund please see:

http://www2.cuny.edu/about/administration/offic-es/ovsa/disaster-relief/hurricane-matthew-haiti

Winter 2017 • CUNYMatters11

(More)On the Web at cuny.edu

FEATHERED SONGWRITERS CUNY.EDU/BIRDTUNES

Sheraine D. Gilliam

GLEASON’S GYM CUNY.EDU/GLEASONS

Kenneth Thompson, 50, John Jay College, first African-American to hold the office of Brooklyn District Attorney, and considered one of the most progressive district attorneys in the country. He launched a unit to examine past criminal convictions, winning exonerations in at least 10 cases, and organized a bureau to dismantle armed drug gangs and fight organized crime activities. As an assistant U.S. Attorney, he helped prosecute the New York police officer convicted of torturing Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in 1997.

Maria J. Williams, 66, York College Learning Center director for 29 years, who has been credited with the successful expansion of the learning center during her tenure. Williams retired in August 2015 to pursue full time pastoral ministry at the Russell Sage Memorial First Presbyterian Church of Far Rockaway.

Joseph L. Birman, 89, City College, a physics professor who was honored for his humanitarian work with scientists facing repression in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, helping scores of them to come to the United States. In 2010, he was one of three recipients of the Andrei Sakharov Prize, given by the American Physical Society in recognition of outstanding leadership or achieve-ments in upholding human rights.

Gloria Naylor, 66, Brooklyn College, author of The Women of Brewster Place, which won a Na-tional Book Award and was adapted into a mini series, who drew inspiration from the work of female African-American writers she studied at the college.

WE REMEMBER CUNY.EDU/WEREMEMBER

Williams

Faulty, Staff Go Solar and Save

Forty-four CUNY faculty and staff members were able to save money when they added solar

energy to their homes last year. They did this through a model “group purchasing” campaign developed by “Sustainable CUNY,” a University initiative. The 44 faculty and staff members saved an average of $8,500 each for installation. This savings was in addition to government incentives. Sustainable CUNY has led the NYC Solar Partnership, together with the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and the New York City Economic Development Corporation, since 2006. This model program at CUNY was utilized to develop the “Solarize NYC” program at the Mayor’s office. This program supports multiple campaigns throughout the city. Each individualized campaign is a short-term, local, community-led group pur-chasing effort that brings together potential solar customers through outreach and education.

Here’s a to-do list for CUNY employees who would like to participate in a city-supported campaign:

See the solar potential of your home on the CUNY- built NY Solar Map and Portal. Encourage your community to send a Letter of Intent to participate in a 2017 Solarize NYC Campaign — communi-ties can be self-described affinity groups, neigh-borhoods, employees, etc. For renters or those with problematic roofs or no roofs: The New York City Solar Partnership has developed the Shared Solar NYC program so that all New Yorkers can invest in solar.

Illu

stra

tion

by L

ivia

Nie

ves

THIERRY GOURJON, who has taught photography at LaGuardia Com-munity College since 2001, conceived this project as a collection

of photographs documenting the life of the legendary Gleason’s gym through images of the faces of those who came to train there. The gym opened in 1937 in the South Bronx and is the oldest active gym in the country. Now located in Brooklyn, it is the home of more than 700 professional and amateur boxers, male and female, from 68 national-ities and ranging from 8 to 72 years of age. While boxing is for many a conflicting emotional experience, this project focuses less on the violence, and more on the inherent beauty of the sport and its various rituals along with the fact that Gleason’s has managed to retain the atmosphere of another era, while adjusting to the present.

THE TUNEFUL BEHAVIOR of certain songbirds parallels that of human musicians. That’s the

conclusion presented in a recent paper published by an international team of researchers, including members from the City University of New York, New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Freie Universität Berlin and Macquarie University in Australia.

BIOBLITZING THE RIVER CUNY.EDU/BIOBLITZ

THE CITY is the lab when Macaulay

Honors College students get out of the classroom and into the municipal environment, exploring the diversity of life along the shoreline of the East River. BioBlitz is hands-on science edu-cation, with in-the-field expeditions for hands-on science research.

Feb. 10Jazz at the Lighthouse: Ella! Featuring Award-W

inning Vocalist Thana AlexaKingsborough Com

munity

College7 p.m

.$40

Feb. 17The Yotam

Silberstein QuartetBaruch College8 p.m

. – 10 p.m.

General Public: $35Alum

: $30Staff: $25Students: $15 (First 25 Baruch students free)

Feb. 22Rom

ni Smith:

Wom

en of Jazz & BluesThe Grad Center6:30 p.m

. – 8:30 p.m.

Free

Feb. 23Art Into M

usic Into Perform

anceBaruch College7 p.m

. – 9 p.m.

General Public: $35 Alum

: $30 Staff: $25Students: $15

Feb. 26Teatro Lirico D’Europa’s LaTraviata!Queensborough Com

munity College

3 p.m.

$42, $39, $35

MUSIC•DANCE

Jan. 24Fidel/Post-Fidel: Tim

es and LegacyThe Grad Center

4 p.m. – 6 p.m

.Free

Feb.16Reparations and the HolocaustQueensborough Com

munity College

6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m

.Free

Feb. 24LGBTQ Issues in HealthcareThe Grad Center2:30 p.m

. – 4 p.m.

Free

LECTURES•PANELS

Jan. 27Café Con Com

ics: Boricuas In the Com

ic Book IndustryHunter CollegeFree

Until Feb. 11Spots, Dots, Pips, Tiles: An Exhibition About Dom

inoesHunter College, Silberm

an School of Social W

ork12 p.m

.- 5 p.m.

Free

Until Feb. 17Endangered!Tim

e variesJohn Jay CollegeFree ART•EXHIBITS

Until July 1M

edical Assistant Train-ing for English Language LearnersLaGuardia Com

munity

CollegeTim

e variesFree

Feb. 3CIDR Sem

inar Series: “M

onastic Competition

in 11th�13th Century Germ

any”Baruch College1 p.m

. – 2:30 p.m.

Free

Feb. 9Linguistics Colloquium

: Chris Barker (NYU)The Grad Center4:15 p.m

. – 6 p.m.

Free

Feb. 10Em

erging LeadersBaruch College11 a.m

. – 3 p.m.

Free

Feb. 22KHRCA 2016-17 Colloquia - Event 5: A Com

mon Thread Of

Uncomm

on Courage: From

Genocide Orphan to Hum

an Rights ActivistQueensborough Com

munity College

12 p.m. – 2 p.m

.Free

Feb. 24The 27th Annual M

alcolm/King

Scholarship BreakfastJohn Jay College9 a.m

. Free

SPECIAL EVENTS

In the World & on the W

eb

Feb. 2Throwback Film

s: “W

hen Harry Met Sally”

College of Staten Island5:30 p.m

. Free

Feb. 4The Berenstain Bears Live! “Fam

ily Matters

the Musical”

College of Staten Island3 p.m

. – 4 p.m.

$20

Feb. 5Onstage atKingsborough: “Twinkle Tam

es a Dragon,” from

Vital Theatre Company

Kingsborough Com

munity College

2 p.m.

$12

Feb. 8KHRCA Film

Screening: “Judgm

ent at Nurem

berg”Queensborough Com

munity College

12 p.m. – 2 p.m

.Free

Feb. 9Throwback Film

s: “Dirty Dancing”College of Staten Island5:30 p.m

. Free

Feb.16Throwback Film

s: “Pretty W

oman”

College of Staten Island5:30 p.m

. Free

The Green PrinceBaruch College6 p.m

. – 8 p.m. Free

Feb. 23Throwback Film

s: “The Birdcage”College of Staten Island5:30 p.m

. Free

THEATER•FILM

cuny.edu • cuny.tv • cuny.edu/radio • cuny.edu/youtube • cuny.edu/events

Grease Is the Word

Nobody seems to like brown

grease, but if you heat it up enough, you’ve got som

e-thing, says M

edgar Evers College assistant chem

istry professor Lawrence Pratt: an alternative source of

fuel. “Someday petroleum

will run out,” he says, and food waste heated to 350

Celsius and above is a potential replacem

ent. “We

can’t continually rely only on fossil fuels.” Pratt and his com

patriots at Medgar

Evers College experiment

with heated brown food grease. “This stuff does not com

e from coal, petroleum

or natural gas,” says Pratt. “It com

es from waste. W

e need energy from

algae. We

need solar, we need wind,” he says.

Search: Cuny.edu/science

Give Him

Some Space

Kim Kardashian m

ay have broken the Internet, but Leh-m

an assistant astrophysics professor M

att O’Dowd has given a digital perform

ance of The Quantum

Experiment

That Broke Reality. O’Dowd is the host of the PBS digital

series Space Time, which

has covered other scientific topics including

Is an Ice Age Coming? and

Why Haven’t W

e Found Alien Life? O’Dowd has a

particular interest in using the Hubble Space Telescope

to research black holes, which he calls som

e of this universe’s m

ost import-

ant but least understood phenom

ena.Search: Cuny.edu/science

Dainty RobotBaruch associate biology pro-fessor David Gruber was at a National Geographic Explorers m

eeting showing video of deep sea coral reef

research when a fel-low Explorer

wondered if he had

heard of soft robotics. He sug-gested

that Gruber might use

flexible, elastomeric m

aterials in his work. “There’s no biolo-gist who’s using squishy robot

fingers to go underwater,” Gruber says. He changed that by trying out the technology

during a weeklong expedition on reefs deep in the Red

Sea using Baruch’s remotely

operated submarine. W

ith the soft robotics, one can “work delicately with deep coral

reef organisms,” Gruber says.

And who knew Baruch has a subm

arine?Search: Cuny.edu/science

Get That Healthy Glow

Shining a certain kind of light on body tissue

produces a glow that shows changes in the tissue,

including cancer. The use of such biom

edical optics will som

e day be able “to detect disease directly without

taking tissue from the body,”

says Robert R. Alfano, a distinguished professor of science and engineering at City College. “It’s sort of like ‘Star Trek,’” he says. “They

scan your body, and you can get inform

ation directly.”Search: Cuny.edu/science

Dainty Robot