President Williams to Lead University of Cincinnati
CCNY President Gregory H. Williams is resigning to become President of the University of Cincinnati. His new appointment begins November 1. "The University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees has offered me an exceptional opportunity to serve as leader of a proud institution and I have chosen to accept their offer," he said in announcing what he called a "difficult" decision. "Just as City College has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of young people over its history, it has transformed my life by allowing me to become part of one of the most remarkable institutions in American higher education, and I will cherish my experience here forever." CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein stated: "The outstanding gains and achievements of The City College of New York during President Gregory Williams' eight years of exemplary service are a matter of public record. We wish him all the best in his new leadership post at The University of Cincinnati." The University of Cincinnati is a coeducational public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, part of the University System of Ohio. Founded in 1819, it has an enrollment of nearly 40,000 and offers 600 academic programs ranging from two-year Associate’s degreed to Doctoral and post-doctorate education. More on this story.

CCNY Retains Standing as ‘U.S. News’ Diversity Leader
CCNY ranks first in diversity among masters-level universities where Hispanics comprise the largest minority group, according to the 2010 "U.S. News & World Report America’s Best Colleges" guidebook. Hispanics comprise 39 percent of CCNY’s student population. "Diversity imbues everything we do at City College," said CCNY President Gregory H. Williams. "It has a profound positive impact on the student experience here since all major ethnic groups have a sizable presence on our campus. We are heartened to be recognized for it by "U.S. News & World Report."" CCNY tied with Baruch College for the overall lead in diversity among masters-level universities in the report. Both institutions had scores of .71 out of 1.0 on "U.S. News’" diversity index. Two other senior colleges of The City University of New York, Hunter College and Brooklyn College, were second in the category with diversity index scores of .70. At Baruch and Hunter, Asian Americans are the largest minority groups; African Americans are the largest minority group at Brooklyn College. More on this story.

Research Funding at CCNY Climbs 21.5 Percent
Spurred by new programs related to cancer and nanoscience, funded research at The City College of New York (CCNY) rose 21.5 percent during the 2008-09 fiscal year. Total support from government, corporations and foundations reached $55.2 million, compared with $45.4 million the prior year. The College’s Division of Science and Division of Social Sciences had the largest gains, according to Regina Masterson, Director of the Office of Research Administration. Division of Science funding grew from $11.7 million to $16.7 million, a 42.7 percent year-over-year gain, and Division of Social Sciences funding rose from $1.0 million to $3.8 million, up 280 percent year-over-year. "These gains put us well ahead of our plan for achieving the goal of $65 million in funded research by 2012," said Provost Zeev Dagan. "City College is implementing a strategic plan to become a research university, and we anticipate funding will grow substantially as recently hired faculty members expand their research and scholarship." More on this story.

CCNY Appoints Marilyn Hoskin Dean of Social Sciences
Dr. Marilyn Hoskin, a political scientist with 24 years of experience in academic leadership, became Dean of Social Sciences at CCNY, effective September 1. "Marilyn Hoskin’s long track record of accomplishment as a dean at three public institutions of higher education makes her the ideal person to lead CCNY’s Division of Social Sciences to a new level of excellence," said President Williams in announcing the appointment. Dean Hoskin joins from the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where she had served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts since 1995. She succeeds Dr. Brett Silverstein, who resumes teaching as Presidential Professor of Psychology and serves as Director of the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service. More on this story.

Dennis Shields Named Interim Student Affairs VP
President Williams has appointed Dennis J. Shields Interim Vice President for Student Affairs. He will serve in that capacity while the College undertakes a search for a new Vice President to replace Esther Peralez, who left CCNY August 14. Dean Shields had been a Professor of Law at the Phoenix School of Law, and served as Dean of the Law School from 2005 to 2008. Prior to joining the Phoenix School of Law, Dean Shields served in senior administrative posts at the University of Iowa, in both the Law School and the central administration, the University of Michigan Law School and Duke University School of Law. He has also served as chair of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity and on the Board of Trustees of the Law School Admissions Council.

Hip-Hop Pioneer Will Power Appointed Kaye Artist
Theatre with a heavy dose of hip-hop is in store for City College undergraduates this fall when Will Power, an award-winning playwright and singer, actor, and dancer brings his multiple talents to CCNY as the Kaye Artist in Residence. Mr. Power, whose fusion of traditional drama, African storytelling and hip-hop sensibilities is said to be helping to transform modern theatre, will teach a class, "Theatre Workshop: Hip- Hop Performance," in CCNY’s Department of Theatre and Speech and perform, as well. While teaching at CCNY, Mr. Power will be preparing for the world premiere of his new play "Fetch Clay, Make Man." Winner of an Edgerton New American Plays award, the production explores the real life friendship between early 20th Century African-American actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, who portrayed Stepin Fetchit, and boxer Muhammad Ali. The Kaye Artist in Residence program is funded through a $3.5 million grant made to the College four years ago by the Kaye Foundation to "support young people pursuing new frontiers in humanities and arts." More on this story.

NYPD Vet Steven Harris Named Director of Security and Public Safety
Steven L. Harris, a 25-year veteran of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), has been appointed Director of Security and Public Safety at CCNY, President Williams announced. In addition, Douglas M. White, a member of the Office of Public Safety since 1992, has been promoted to Deputy Director from Lieutenant. "Having served since 2005 as commanding officer of the NYPD’s 26th Precinct Detective Squad, Steven Harris knows our campus well," President Williams said. "His experience and professionalism will serve us well and I am delighted to welcome him." Mr. Harris, who held the rank of lieutenant commander at the time of his retirement from the NYPD, has served in a wide range of positions with police precincts and bureaus in three boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx – during his 25-year police career. Deputy Director White served as Acting Director of the Office of Public Safety for almost 10 months prior to Mr. Harris’ appointment. "His leadership enabled the department to function seamlessly throughout this transition period," President Williams noted. More on this story.

CCNY Alum Donald Ritchie Becomes Senate Historian
In August, Dr. Donald A. Ritchie, ’67, was appointed Historian of the U.S. Senate. While Congress was on recess, he was kept busy helping journalists report on the 47-year career of the "Lion of the Senate," Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, who passed away August 25. "Over the last month, I've taken a lot of calls from reporters regarding Ted Kennedy's long congressional career," said Dr. Ritchie, who functions as the Senate’s institutional memory. "The types of questions we received ranged from wanting to know how the Senate had changed over his 47-year tenure, what records he might have set, what legislation he sponsored, and what personal human interest stories we could provide." The Historian of the Senate oversees the collection and distribution of information on important events, precedents, dates, statistics, and historical comparisons of current and past Senate activities for use by members and staff, the media, scholars, and the general public. Congress established the Senate Historical Office in 1975 in the wake of the Watergate investigation, and Dr. Ritchie is only the second person to hold the position. More on this story.

President Williams Kicks off Lecture Series at CWE
CCNY President Gregory H. Williams inaugurated the Center for Worker Education’s Book Talk lecture series, which began August 31 and runs through December 14. All lectures are free and open to the public and begin at 6 p.m. They will be held in the CWE auditorium, located on the seventh floor at 25 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. "Book Talk will bring some of the best and most recognized authors in the country to the Center," said Juan Carlos Mercado, Dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education. President Williams discussed his memoir, "Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy who Discovered he was Black," which won the 1995 "Los Angeles Times" Book of the Year award. For other speakers in the series, the books they will discuss and their speaking dates, read more on this story.

Time Running Out For Baby Boom Bridges, Editor Warns
Just as people tend to incur higher medical expenses as they get older, the cost to maintain a bridge rises significantly as it nears the end of its useful life. So says Dr. Anil K. Agrawal, Professor of Civil Engineering in The Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York. Professor Agrawal was recently elected editor of the "Journal of Bridge Engineering." More than 50 percent of the United States’ 600,000 bridges are aging, i.e. are more than 50 years old, he notes. Many of these bridges were built during the Baby Boom era, between 1946 and 1964. In the metropolitan New York area, they include the: Tappan Zee Bridge, opened in 1955; Throgs Neck Bridge, opened in 1961, and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, opened in 1964. "As we get close to the end of a bridge’s useful life, the rehabilitation cost goes significantly higher," Professor Agrawal points out. "Bridges are a key part of our infrastructure. They play a very important role in everything from emergency response and security to the smooth functioning of business and the economy." More on this story.

Jae Lee Seeks To Control Methane Hydrate Formation
Methane hydrate is a substance consisting of molecules of methane encased in molecules of water. Naturally occurring deposits of the ice-like substance have been located in Polar Regions and on the continental shelves of the world’s oceans. They represent a potentially huge untapped energy source since the deposits may contain more organic carbon than all the world's coal, oil, and non-hydrate natural gas combined, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Dr. Jae Lee, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering in The Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York, is investigating methods for controlling methane hydrate formation. With a three-year, $304,120 grant from the National Science Foundation, he is studying techniques to accelerate and to retard its formation in order to achieve two divergent goals related to energy storage and transportation. Dr. Alexander Couzis, Professor of Chemical Engineering in The Grove School, and Dr. Camille Jones, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Hamilton College, are his co-investigators. More on this story.

Greater Harlem Chamber Honors President Williams
CCNY President Gregory H. Williams was honored by the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce (GHCC) for his stellar service and long-standing commitment to Harlem at the annual Harlem Week "Joints Are Jumpin’" event, Wednesday, August 26. President Williams said he was humbled and honored to receive the award. "To earn the recognition of a Chamber that has presided over the remarkable transformation Uptown that has been dubbed the second Harlem Renaissance is simply marvelous." He noted that CCNY and the Harlem community shared an inextricable bond through numerous partnerships and links in various fields and reaffirmed the College’s commitment to the surrounding neighborhood. "We draw strength and inspiration from this relationship and can only endeavor to serve the community better." Lloyd A. Williams, GHCC President/CEO and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly presented a plaque to President Williams at Terrace in the Sky. The Morningside Heights restaurant was one of the eight participating venues for the event. Organized by the GHCC, the "Joints Are Jumpin’" is a bow to the old Harlem club-hopping tradition that began during the Harlem Renaissance era.

CREST Center Hosts NOAA Cooperative Institutes
The NOAA-CREST Center, based at CCNY, hosted the sixth annual Cooperative Research Symposium for NESDIS Cooperative Institutes, Tuesday, August 18, and Wednesday, August 19. The two-day event brought together representatives from Cooperative Institutes and individual schools supported by NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data & Information Service (NESDIS) to share recent research and highlight the work of graduate students and post-docs. Approximately 75 researchers from 10 institutions in seven states and Puerto Rico attended the symposium. The symposium provides an opportunity for scientists and students from the cooperative institutions and NOAA-CREST Center to discuss areas of mutual interest and promote innovative, cross-disciplinary research to improve understanding of the oceans, land and atmosphere. Its focus is to discuss various techniques for extracting the most information possible from remote sensing data, including statistical methods and understanding the physics behind satellite observations and algorithms. More on this story.

Two Writers Donate Books to Dominican Studies Library
The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at CCNY recently received collections of books from well-known Dominican writers Julia Alvarez and Rhina Espaillat. The donations include complete collections of the authors’ published writings as well as several books from their personal libraries on topics related to the history, society and culture of the Dominican Republic. Julia Alvarez is perhaps best known for her best-selling novel "How the García Girls Lost Their Accent". A professor of English at Middlebury College, her other novels for adults include: "Saving the World;" "In the Time of Butterflies;" "In the Name of Salomé," and "¡Yo!" Rhina P. Espaillat is a poet and essayist who writes in English and Spanish and whose works have appeared in numerous magazines, on many websites and in some 50 anthologies. Now a resident of Newburyport, Mass., she is a product of the New York City public school system and taught high school English in New York for several years. Dr. Ramona Hernández, the Institute’s Director, called the donations "a gesture of solidarity. It is also an honor to become a depository where one will find for sure the work of these great writers." More on this story.

Test Prep Pioneer Stanley Kaplan, B.S. ’39, M.S.E. ‘41, Dies
Stanley H. Kaplan, B.S. ’39, M.S.E. ‘41, a City College alumnus and benefactor whose innovative methods helped hundreds of thousands of students prepare for college and professional school entrance exams, died August 23 in Manhattan. He was 90. "Stanley Kaplan represented the best of the best of our City College graduates and went on to a distinguished career that touched students across the nation," said President Williams. "His strong support of the College made him invaluable to the renaissance at CCNY. He will be sorely missed." Mr. Kaplan served on the boards of the City College 21st Century Foundation, the City College Fund and the CCNY Alumni Association. He was a member of the President’s Circle, a group composed of the CCNY’s most dedicated and generous alumni and friends, and he created the Stanley H. Kaplan Institute for the Advancement of Mathematics Education in the Middle School. Mr. Kaplan founded what became the Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center in 1938. He sold the company to The Washington Post Company in 1984 but remained with the company until 1994. In 1988, CCNY awarded him an honorary doctorate for his groundbreaking work in education.

CCNY, Brookhaven Lab Physicist Sam Lindenbaum Dies
Sam Lindenbaum, a physicist who held dual appointments at CCNY and Brookhaven National Laboratory, passed away August 17. At CCNY, Dr. Lindendaum held the Mark W. Zemansky Chair in Physics from 1970 to 1995 and was named Professor Emeritus in 1998. Over a 45-year career a Brookhaven, he made numerous contributions to the field of physics, in such diverse areas as high-energy pion production and radiation protection shielding. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was a pioneer in developing computer techniques to study basic high-energy interactions. In 1970, he became co-group leader of Brookhaven’s Particle Spectrometer Group, which designed and built a multi-particle spectrometer capable of observing interactions of 100,000 particles a second delivered to a target. Later on, he worked on the design of a new model that was ten times as powerful. After retirement, he was a guest senior scientist at Brookhaven, and was studying fluctuations and correlations in relativistic heavy ion collisions to search for indications of "bubbles" of quark-gluon plasma that might be created prior to the formation of hadrons.

From the President

When I was a high school student in Muncie, Ind., the counselors tried to brand me; that is steer me toward vocational classes, because of my race. I wouldn’t let them. I worked my way through college, went on to earn four advanced degrees and embark upon a career in higher education that in 2001 led me to become President of The City College of New York.

When I arrived here, people were trying to brand City College. They said our best years were behind us. They said we couldn’t raise academic standards while maintaining diversity. They said we were strictly a commuter school. They said we’d be lucky to raise $25 million through our capital campaign.

We defied the skeptics. I believed then – and still do – that City College’s best years are ahead of it. We raised academic standards – and enrollment – and today rank as one of the nation’s most diverse institutions. In 2006, we opened the first residence hall built on a CUNY campus. Our capital campaign has raised $310 million to date.

My life has been about confronting – and rising to – a series of challenges. I have been presented with another challenge, which I have accepted. I will become President of the University of Cincinnati, a 37,000-student institution that is a powerhouse in research, effective November 1.

I did not reach this decision lightly. Just as City College has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of young people over its history, it has transformed my life by allowing me to become part of one of the most remarkable institutions in American higher education, and I will cherish my experience here forever.

While I did not allow Muncie Central High School to tell me what I could do with my life, there was one identity from my alma mater that I proudly embraced – that of a Bearcat, the team for which I played basketball. At the University of Cincinnati, I will be a Bearcat again.

To the thousands of students, faculty, staff and alumni I have met and worked with during my eight years at City College, my heartfelt thanks for your support. I wish you and CCNY all the best. I will never forget you.

Gregory H. Williams
President

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