QView #140 | November 8, 2022

Today—Tuesday, November 8—is Election Day. Polls are open from 6 am to 9 pm; if you didn’t submit an absentee ballot or participate in early voting, be sure to vote today. To locate your voting site, click here.

From left: Jennifer Lee, Microsoft; Troy Hahn, QC Office of Technology; Kaitlyn Jackson, LinkedIn Learning; Hetal Jani, SPEAKHIRE

People who rely on technology for most of their work—which is to say, students, staff, and faculty—turned out for QC’s first Tech Day on Wednesday, November 2. Presented by the Office of Information Technology, the hybrid event featured panel discussions, demonstrations by CUNY/QC partners, and more. 

James Vacca (Urban Studies) was the keynote speaker at the Inaugural Ceremony of the Chisholm Leadership Seminar organized by Norka Blackman-Richards (SEEK) and her team. QC alumna Carmine Couloute presided as the first cohort was installed, comprising 15 students, including from the Percy E. Sutton SEEK Program, the Black Student Union, the Student Association, the Muslim Student Association, Africana Studies, and ALAS. Students who complete the seminar will be matched with a legislator's office for a 100-hour summer internship. 

Dawn Kelly, founder and CEO of The Nourish Spot in Jamaica, Queens, provided lunch refreshments for the event. The leadership seminar is named after the late Congresswoman Shirley A. Chisholm of Brooklyn.

Women’s Volleyball Headed to the Playoffs, Soccer Players Earn All-Conference Honors, and Basketball Gets Ready for Season Opener

The Queens College women’s volleyball team concluded the regular season last week and qualified for the East Coast Conference (ECC) playoffs, which will begin Friday, November 11, in Buffalo, New York, on the campus of Daemen University. The Knights will battle Molloy University at 7:30 pm in the semifinals. If they win, they advance to the ECC Championship game on Saturday at a time to be determined.

Although the men’s soccer team came up short in the ECC playoffs last week, the team earned a number of individual accolades. Head Coach Frank Vertullo was voted as the ECC Coach of the Year after he led the Knights to a program-record 13 wins this season. Sophomore midfielder Adolfo Martinez Paquet was named to the All-Conference First Team following a season in which he ranked second in the ECC in goals with 11, and senior defender Thomas Esperoe was also a first-team selection. Junior forward Leo Pinto, who netted five goals this season, and senior goalkeeper Dario Giovanni Cruz, who ranked third in the ECC in goals against average, were both named to the All-ECC Second Team.

On the women’s side, senior defender Marina Pappas and sophomore defender Sarah Anderson each made the All-ECC Third Team.

As the fall sports wrap up their seasons, the winter sports are just beginning. The men’s and women’s basketball teams will open the 2022–23 season this weekend. The Knights will host the ECC-Northeast 10 Challenge beginning on Friday when they welcome Adelphi University to FitzGerald Gymnasium at 7 pm. The women will take on Chestnut Hill College on Saturday at 5 pm at the ECC/CASS Conference Challenge hosted by Jefferson University.

Endowment To Honor Carol Douglas

Roughly a year after the death of Carol Douglas—administrative executive assistant for the School of Social Sciences, a QC and CUNY alumna, and a founding member and leader of the Black and Latinx Faculty and Staff Association (BLFSA)—she is being commemorated in an appropriate way: An endowment campaign has been opened in her name. The fund will support an annual award to a QC student who contributes to supporting equity and diversity on campus, as well as an event celebrating the campus community’s diversity. The endowment, which has already reached the $25,000 minimum required for activation, will have its official launch at a memorial event that will be announced to the college community. 

Recognition Workgroup Holds Second Townhall

Continuing the discussion about renaming buildings, acknowledging holidays observed by the diverse college community, and acknowledging the land that became campus, the Recognition Workgroup will hold the second of its two townhalls on Wednesday, November 9, from 12:15 to 1:30 pm. The hybrid session will take place in person at the Muyskens Conference Room in The Summit Apartments and over Zoom; to attend remotely, RSVP here.

Saluting Veterans

William Barron

Arthur Grabiner

Elias Illescas

Sharon Lindsey

Four local veterans—William Barron, United States Army; Arthur Grabiner and Elias Illescas of the United States Navy; and Sharon Lindsey, United States Army Reserve—will be honored on Wednesday, November 9, at the annual Veterans Day luncheon sponsored by QC’s Veterans Support Services. Assembly Member Daniel Rosenthal, Assembly Member Khaleel Anderson ’19, and New York City Council Member James Gennaro are expected to speak, and former New York City Council Member James Vacca (Urban Studies) will emcee. A special video message from President Frank H. Wu in recognition of the honorees and Veterans Day will be shown.

Banking on a Career with JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase (JPMC), the world’s fifth-largest bank, will hold a one-hour virtual information session on Wednesday, November 9, at noon. All first-year students and sophomores, regardless of major, are welcome to attend and learn more about JPMC initiatives for students, such as the Career.edYOU Academy, Early Advantage Leader Development, Code for Good, Winning Women Undergrad Programs, and the Advancing Black Pathways Apprentice Program. RSVP here.

Accounting for the Future

Professionals from Canon USA, Deloitte, and UiPath will be among the panelists on November 9 when the QC Business School and the Department of Accounting and Information Systems hold a roundtable, the Future of Accounting, in the Q-Side Lounge. Presenters will include QC faculty Amy David, Ivy Huang, and Jian Xiao, and members of the QC student chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants. The event starts with a light lunch and registration at 11:30 am, followed by the discussion, and ends at 2 pm after a Q&A, raffle, and networking session. To attend, RSVP here.

Arts for Justice

The Kupferberg Arts Incubator, a residency program launched in 2020, promotes collaborations among artists of color; each residency pairs a member of the QC community with someone outside the community.

Action Songs/Protest Dances, debuting this weekend, is the incubator’s first project. Conceived, directed, and choreographed by Edisa Weeks (Drama, Theatre, and Dance), this work features five original songs commissioned by composers/musicians Taina Asili, Spirit McIntyre, and Martha Redbone. Featured dancers include Noni Byrd-Gibbs, Steven Jeltsch, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Devin Oshiro, and Brittany Stewart.

Three of the songs are inspired by the life, speeches, and writings of civil rights activist James Forman (1928-2005), whose personal archives are housed at Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library; two are about social justice issues in America today. Together, the songs and dances serve as a call to action, a protest against injustice, and a demand that America become a more just, equitable, inclusive, and truly great nation.

Action Songs/Protest Dances will be presented at LeFrak Concert Hall on Saturday, November 12, at 8 pm, and on Sunday, November 13, at 3 pm. (Tickets are $20 and may be purchased here; QC students get a 50% discount.) After each show, audience members will be able to participate in a discussion with Weeks, Asili, McIntyre, Redbone, and the dancers. Miles Grier (English) will moderate the discussion on Saturday, November 12, and Natanya Duncan (Africana Studies, History) will be the moderator the next day.

Power Breakfast

Stacey Dackson ’94, vice president, operations manager of interior construction firm Structure Tone, will speak when the Queens College Business School holds its next Business Breakfast on November 17 from 8:30 to 10 am at the Q-Side Lounge. A frequent panelist for Commercial Observer’s Women in Construction, Dackson double-majored in political science and urban planning at QC and then earned a master’s in urban planning at New York University. RSVP to reserve a place at this free networking opportunity. 

Tour an Undersea Volcano from Home

Using geophysics, Dax Soule (SEES) and his team surveyed Orca Volcano—a caldera rising about 900 meters above the South Ocean seafloor near King George Island—during the Antarctic field season of 2019. In an At Home with Queens presentation on November 17 at 4 pm, Soule will discuss the data collected on the expedition and describe the magma accumulation zone beneath the caldera. To attend this fascinating virtual lecture, register here.

Department of Sanitation Artist Visits QC

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Perhaps no one believes that statement more than sTo Len, a New York City-based artist who focuses much of his work on environmental issues such as waste and pollution. Len stopped by the Queens College campus on October 25 to speak to urban studies and art students about his important work.

Len is the public artist in residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation as part of the Public Artist-in-Residence (PAIR) program, which embeds artists in city government to propose and implement inventive solutions to pressing civic challenges. He creates art made from trash or from polluted waterways to raise awareness about each person’s own waste stream and to acknowledge the important work of the New York City Department of Sanitation, the largest sanitation department in the world.

Len’s work has been shown internationally, including exhibits in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, Australia, Denmark, and Canada. His art includes prints made with polluted water from the Newtown Creek, an East River tributary that is one of the United States’ most polluted industrial sites; garbage collected by river clean-up crews who “curate” pieces of trash for him; and 3D videos of Fresh Kills Park, a 2,200-acre public park in Staten Island that was once the site of the world’s largest landfill.

Finding Inspiration



Len wanted to be an artist from a young age and always had an interest in environmental issues. Born in Virginia with familial roots in Vietnam, he was inspired to focus his art on waste and pollution when he first moved to New York City in the late ’90s and was curious about the city’s less explored areas. 

“It dawned on me that people in New York kind of have their back to the water. Everyone’s distracted by the spectacle of the city,” said Len during his lecture to students of Urban Studies 252, The Changing Environment. “When I moved to New York, I started living on the edge spaces of the city. These are spaces that are sometimes hard to get to and neglected but are really cool parts of the city. I just started exploring all of them.”

He began boating New York City waterways with a rowboat he purchased off Craigslist and made prints inspired by a Japanese art technique called Suminagashi (ink floating), which involves dropping ink on the surface of water and then placing paper on top to lift the ink. Instead of using ink, Len uses polluted waterways as the ink for his prints. In addition to creating unique pieces of art, it gives a new perspective on waste and human consumption.

“It was a great way to collaborate with the city’s waterways, to get to know all these places people usually overlook. It became a way of mapping our consumption, our ways, and our behavior, and our surroundings—almost like a human imprint,” added Len. “A lot of this was about giving visibility to these unseen waterways and giving people a new perspective of the city they live in.”

The Department of “Sanity”

Len’s unique art is what led him to becoming the public artist in residence for the Department of Sanitation for 2021–­22 year.

He spent the first few months of his residency riding along on collection trucks, interviewing workers, and following the waste trail—from the curb to the transfer station—to get a better understanding of the work the Sanitation Department does.

He has a studio space at the Department of Sanitation office where he takes heaps of old materials, such as signs and publicity posters, and gives them a fresh look. He also scours historical video and film footage stored away for decades and digitizes it for use in video installations. He even gives employees “Department of Sanity” patches, which he created because without the Sanitation Department’s efforts, he feels people would go crazy.

Much of his work at the Department of Sanitation can be viewed on the website that sTo created, Office of In Visibility.

“It’s all about just getting people to think about, what is it I’m throwing away?” he noted.

Raising Awareness

After giving a lecture about his work to an urban studies class in the morning, Len took the MFA seminar class around the campus in the afternoon to learn more about QC’s waste stream.

“sTo’s visit was informative in terms of how an artist can operate,” said Chloë Bass, who teaches the MFA seminar. “Our students know that not all artists are heavily based in the studio, and that many have socially engaged practices, but sTo showed the intersections between the two: how to work within a government system and a public agency as a citizen, as an observer, as an archivist and supporter, and as a creator who will engage with materials in his own particular way.”

Natalie Bump Vena, professor of Urban Studies 252, also found Len’s visit beneficial to her students.

"By sharing his prints made with wastewater and discarded objects, sTo Len brought visibility to things society inevitably forgets, with devastating environmental consequences,” said Bump Vena. “Through his artistic interventions with the New York City Department of Sanitation’s archives, Len also taught my students about the essential labor of sanitation workers (who are too often underappreciated). His visit empowered them to think before throwing something away."

#29

Doris L. Wethers ’48, an authority on sickle cell disease, was the first black attending physician at Saint Luke’s Hospital in 1958.

Ina Plotsky Kupferberg

Attorney and philanthropist Ina Plotsky Kupferberg passed away on October 20 at the age of 66. A graduate of Cornell University and Boston University Law School, Kupferberg practiced labor and employment law before teaching business law at Baruch College. Sharing her time, talents, and resources, she served on the boards of Commonpoint Queens and other organizations as well as on numerous UJA-Federation of New York committees, and is recalled as a “book fair leader extraordinaire” for her children’s schools. Together with her husband Mark and the Kupferberg family, she was an advocate for and generous supporter of Queens College and its students.

Barry Zaret ’62

Barry Zaret, former chief of cardiology at Yale New Haven Hospital and professor emeritus of internal medicine (cardiology) and diagnostic radiology at Yale School of Medicine, died on October 20 at 82. Encouraged by his father, an immigrant, to pursue a profession, Zaret graduated from QC and then New York University School of Medicine. After his internship and residency at Bellevue Hospital, fellowship training at Johns Hopkins University, and two years of military service, he was recruited by Yale. Regarded by many as the founder of nuclear cardiology—which uses noninvasive techniques to evaluate certain heart conditions—he significantly advanced the understanding of coronary blood flow physiology, ventricular function, management and risk assessment of cardiovascular disease, and molecular imaging. Mid-life, Zaret made time to pursue the arts he loved, publishing three volumes of poetry and painting landscapes. In 2015, he returned to his alma mater to chair the Queens College Science Advisory Board. In that capacity, he offered his counsel and expertise to further the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences’ mission to prepare QC students for careers in science, math, technology, and health.

Regina Bain

Andy Beveridge

Stephen Pekar

Regina Bain (LAHM) is quoted in a recent New York Times article about Louis Armstrong . . . . Andy Beveridge (Sociology) and alumna Susan Weber provided demographic analyses for a recent New York Times article

explaining where and why Republicans fought the outcome of the last presidential election . . . . Cesar Bustamante, a QC and CUNY School of Journalism graduate who has been published in Forbes, Narrative.ly, Crain's New York Business, DNAinfo, NYC Life, Queens Chronicle, and the New York Daily News, will speak on Monday, November 14, from 12:15 to 1:30 pm over Zoom through the Knight News Visiting Journalist Series . . . . Eric Chernov (ACSM) will have a concert of his chamber music performed at Juilliard’s Paul Hall on November 19 at 5:30 pm . . . . Riyahuana Headley, a QC student, is quoted in the McGraw Hill video Education for All: What It Takes to Get There . . . . Markos Papadatos, an alumnus, just published his interview with Carol Burnett in Digital Journal . . . . Andy Lipton, an alumnus, will have a film screened at the New York Short Film Festival at Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Manhattan. Sabrina Ionescu’s Art of the Pass will be shown on November 15, at 9:30 pm . . . . Stephen Pekar (SEES) will give a talk on Wednesday, November 9, from 12:15 to 1:30 pm in Science Building C-207 about exploring the newly named eighth continent and investigating climate changes when atmospheric CO2 was higher than today . . . . Yan Sun (Political Science) gave a talk, Why Uyghurs? Religious Revival, Ethnic Violence and State Response in Xinjiang, at UCLA on November 8 . . . . Anthony Tamburri (Calandra) was honored on October 26 by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards at a celebration of Italian American Heritage Month.