Author: queens

– Sociologist is a Nationally Recognized Authority on the Asian-American
and Korean-American Experience in the Areas of  Entrepreneurship and Religion –

 

FLUSHING, NY, February 5, 2010—Queens College sociologist Pyong Gap Min, an expert on Asian Americans, and in particular Korean Americans, has been appointed Distinguished Professor of Sociology by the City University of New York (CUNY). His work is now considered the standard reference on the Asian-American and Korean-American experience. With this appointment, Min becomes the twelfth distinguished professor in residence at Queens College. A CUNY Distinguished Professorship is an honor reserved for teachers with records of exceptional performance by national and international standards in their profession.

“Pyong Gap Min is one of the most important scholars in America as he is studying our future—for this new wave of immigrants will no doubt influence our nation and enrich the lives of Americans for generations to come,” says Queens College President James Muyskens.

The author of five books, Min has conducted groundbreaking research on the Korean-American experience that has helped define this area of sociology. In his multi-award-winning book Caught in the Middle: Korean Communities in New York and Los Angeles (1996), he explores the racial dynamics between Korean merchants enmeshed between their often low-income minority customers, Latino employees, and white corporate suppliers. Focusing on the targeting of Korean businesses during the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 1990 African-American boycott of Korean stores in Brooklyn, Min outlines the Korean community’s response through collective action, political mobilization and other strategies.

Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival: Korean Green Grocers in New York City (2008), written while Min held a prestigious Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the Russell Sage Foundation, looked at how a unified boycott over mistreatment of grocers by suppliers at a city wholesale market brought systemic change. In 2010 Min will publish Preserving Ethnicity Through Religion in America: Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus Across Generations. This groundbreaking work, partly based on his study of a Korean-American church and Indian Hindu temple in Queens, examines how Korean Protestant and Indian Hindu immigrants maintain ethnicity through religion in two radically different ways.

Min has edited or co-edited six books, four of which focus on Asian Americans, including Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues (1995), the first social science anthology on this group. He has also written over 30 journal articles focusing on Asian immigrants and second-generation Asians. Last September he became director of the new Research Center for Korean Community at Queens College. The center promotes research on Korean Americans and disseminates data and information within QC as well as to the Korean community and Korean government.

“When I came to Queens College, I never imagined my career would be marked by this honor,” says Min, a resident of Oakland Gardens. “Over the past 22 years, I have truly enjoyed my academic life here at this multiethnic campus in Flushing, the heart of Korean and Asian enclaves. I am humbled to accept this extraordinary recognition.”

Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), founded in 1937, is dedicated to the idea that a first-rate education should be accessible to talented individuals of all backgrounds and financial means. Its more than 20,000 students come from over 140 nations and speak scores of languages, creating an extraordinarily diverse and welcoming environment. Located on a beautiful, 77-acre campus in Flushing, Queens College enjoys a national reputation for its liberal arts and sciences and pre-professional programs. U.S. News and World Report America’s Best Colleges (2010) ranks Queens College #10 among “Top Public Universities—Master’s (North).” Queens College is also consistently included among America’s 100 Best Value Colleges by the Princeton Review. The college opened its first residence hall in August 2009. Find more info on Queens College at www.qc.cuny.edu

For more about Queens College visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx

Contact: Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
718-007-5597
[email protected]

Maria Matteo
Assistant Director of News Services
718-997-5593
[email protected]

– Queens College Recruiting 7- to 11-Year-Old AD/HD Children for Free Research Study That Uses Memory-Training Exercises and Social Skills Development to Change Behavior –

FLUSHING, N.Y., February 1, 2010 – All of us at one time have forgotten an item on a shopping list in our heads or an important phone number or address.  Consider how frustrating and stressful it is for a child who is hyperactive, inattentive or impulsive to forget important information.  What if there was a way to strengthen the child’s ability to hold onto information by expanding memory capacity through mental exercises?  Would a better working memory make it easier for parents to help develop their children’s social skills and improve their behavior?  Would the combination of these two programs lead to improvement in the youngster’s attention span, problem-solving ability and impulse control?

A new research study and free treatment program at Queens College is seeking answers to these questions. Called Refining Attention Memory and Parenting (RAMP), the program is recruiting families with 7- to 11-year-old children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). RAMP uses home-based, computerized memory-training exercises to enhance a child’s brain development and long-term behavioral functioning without medications like Ritalin and Adderall.

The National Institute of Mental Health has provided a three-year grant of $697,500 to test the RAMP approach.  If preliminary results prove promising, the college will receive additional funding for more advanced study.

According to QC Psychology Professor Anil Chacko, who is directing the program, AD/HD is among the most common neurological disorders in American children.  Fewer than half of children with the disorder outgrow it; if untreated, it can have long-term adverse effects into adolescence and adulthood.

“Research has found that the brain development of children with AD/HD – particularly in areas that involve aspects of memory, attention and planning – is delayed,” Chacko says. “Treatments such as psycho-stimulant drugs or behavioral therapy alone provide short-term, symptomatic relief for AD/HD, but limited, if any, long-lasting benefits. Our approach is unique because it integrates computerized working-memory training with interventions that target parenting techniques and children’s social skills development. We feel this is a powerful combination that will insure lasting cognitive and behavioral improvements.”

Here’s how the program works:

Following a comprehensive evaluation, children take part in a computerized memory-training program that has been downloaded to their home computer.  Each day for five weeks  they spend an hour completing different exercises presented in an entertaining video game format. 

One game involves recalling numbers in the reverse order in which they are given.  In another, the youngster must remember the sequence in which rows of lights turn on.  They use their computer mouse to punch in the answers, earning points along the way.  The program stays a step ahead of the child’s ability, making the exercises increasingly more difficult and challenging.  The parent serves as a motivational coach, supporting the child to stay on-task.

After the memory-training portion is over, families attend weekly parenting and child social skills groups at the college for nine weeks to learn strategies to modify and manage their children’s behavior, while the children learn about key social skills. Because the program is expected to enhance academic achievement, the child’s teacher is also required to fill out a set of questionnaires assessing the student’s performance in reading and math before and after the training.  Both teachers and parents are reimbursed for their time.

Families interested in participating in this free evaluation and treatment program should call: 718-997-3248 or Email: [email protected]. Both parent and child must be fluent in English, and the family must have Internet access at home.  To be considered for the study, the child cannot exhibit an autism spectrum disorder. 

Besides his affiliation with Queens College, Chacko is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as well as a licensed clinical psychologist in New York State with a background in developing and evaluating multi-component psycho-social behavioral interventions for youth with behavioral difficulties.  He has received several grants to support his research in such areas as AD/HD intervention for preschoolers, treatment for single mothers of children with AD/HD, and prevention of child maltreatment in high-risk populations.

“There aren’t a lot of services and resources in Queens for children with mental health difficulties,” says Chacko.  However, Queens College has built a strong reputation for its outreach to parents whose children have AD/HD, autism and other neurological disorders.  For example, Chacko also works on the Queens College Preschool Project with QC Distinguished Psychology Professor Jeffrey Halperin, who is currently conducting a separate study to determine whether four- and five-year-olds with AD/HD can change their behavior by playing skill-based games.  Halperin has been an active clinical researcher in the area of AD/HD and child behavior disorders for over two decades.

 

For more about Queens College visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx

Contact: Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
718-997-5597
[email protected]

Maria Matteo
Assistant Director of News Services
718-9975593
[email protected]

– Armstrong Museum Tours; Documentary Film Screening; “Talking Quilt” Display; Lecture and Panel Discussion on Haiti Are Among Other Free Public Events –

FLUSHING, NY, January 29, 2010 – Following a successful four-year run at over 75 venues – including off-Broadway theaters, middle and high schools — the soulful hip-hop musical Ghetto Chronicles will top the lineup of public events at Queens College in commemoration of Black History Month.  The show is a “raw, rare and real” musical journey through the pain and triumphs of inner-city living as told through the stories of eight young, multi-ethnic actors, rappers and singers, including QC alum Britton Saffer, Class of ‘07.  Written, produced and directed by world-renowned choreographer Duane Whitley (DWhit), Ghetto Chronicles addresses such issues as random violence, invisible fathers, unwed pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, racial intolerance and incarceration, yet ends with an inspiring message of hope.  At this performance on February 25, from 6 – 8 pm in LeFrak Concert Hall, a special dance tribute to the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti will also be included.

“Ghetto Chronicles is representative of the exciting program of public events we have planned to celebrate the voices of the past, present, and future in African-American history, art and culture,” said Ron Huggins, QC’s Acting Assistant Director of Student Life.  “They are sure to entertain, educate and enlighten many people.”

The following events, including Ghetto Chronicles, are free and open to the public.  All will take place from 12:15 – 1:30 pm.  More information is available at http://qc.cuny.edu/bhm.

Wednesday, February 3 
Documentary film:  Eyes on the Prize: Awakenings (1954-1956)
Highlights of the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King’s contributions. The film screening will be followed by a discussion with QC alum Yudraj Tiwari, Class of ’09 who’s very knowledgeable about Dr. King’s work and achievements. 
Campbell Dome.

Monday, February 8, and Wednesday, February 10:  Creation and Display of “A Talking Quilt,” presented by Queens College Africana Studies Professor Marjorie Blenman-Roane:  Designed to foster tolerance and respect among the diverse ethnicities represented at the college, a quilt will be created from pieces of fabric donated by students, staff and faculty that tell stories of family and cultural traditions and beliefs.  Included in the finished quilt on display will be traditional Adinkra symbols which were used to express proverbs and philosophical ideas and were stencilled on many African textiles as far back as the 16^th century.
Q-Side Lounge — Dining Hall.

Wednesday, February 17:  “The History of Stepping”
Lecture and Performance:  Adam Barnes, director of the Stepping School, LLC, will discuss the meaning and origins behind the widely popular and expressive dance phenomenon called “stepping.” Because African-American fraternities in the 1970s have been credited with introducing this dance form, a brief stepping demonstration will be performed by members of  fraternities, sororities and clubs.
Patio Room – Dining Hall.

Monday, February 22:  “Haiti:  The Unknown”
Lecture:  Africana Studies Professor Evelyn Julmisse will present a discourse on the unknown story of Haiti and its global influences.  Campbell Dome

Wednesday, February 24
Panel Discussion:  Political Science Professor Francois Pierre-Louis will moderate a discussion with members of the QC community who have been directly or indirectly impacted by the devastation of the recent earthquake in Haiti. 
Q-Side Lounge – Dining Hall

OTHER EVENTS:

Saturday, February 6, 13, 20, 27; 2 pm
Lectures and Free Guided Tours at the Louis Armstrong House Museum

The Louis Armstrong House Museum (LAHM) will celebrate the contributions of jazz great Louis Armstrong to the Civil Rights Movement with house tours and presentations.

Louis Armstrong was one of the world’s greatest entertainers. He was loved and revered internationally as the father of jazz. He was a genius trumpeter and singer, a goodwill ambassador, charismatic movie star, prolific writer, and talented collage artist. But he was rarely viewed as a civil rights pioneer. 

A series of fun, family-friendly events will shed light on the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong, including a look at the many barriers Armstrong broke during his remarkable 50-year career. A guided tour of the house that he shared with his wife, Lucille, for almost 30 years will follow each presentation.

The Louis Armstrong House Museum, administered by Queens College, is located at 34-56 107^th Street, Corona, Queens.  Space is limited; advance registration required for all free lectures and tours. More info: 718-478-8274; www.louisarmstronghouse.org

For directions to and a map of Queens College, please visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/welcome/directions/2d/Pages/default.aspx.  The college is located at 65-30 Kissena Blvd. in Flushing, Exit 24 (Kissena Blvd.) on the LIE. It can also be reached by public transportation.                

For more about Queens College visit      http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx           

Contact: Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
718-997-5597
[email protected]

Maria Matteo
Assistant Director of News Services
718-997-5593
[email protected]

– Presentations and House Tours in Honor of Black History Month –

WHAT:     Every Saturday this February at 2 pm, the Louis Armstrong House Museum (LAHM) will celebrate the contributions of jazz great LouisArmstrong to the Civil Rights Movement with house tours and presentations.

Louis Armstrong was one of the world’s greatest entertainers. He was loved and revered internationally as the father of jazz. He was a genius trumpeter and singer, a goodwill ambassador, charismatic movie star, prolific writer, and talented collage artist. But he was rarely viewed as a civil rights pioneer. 

In honor of Black History Month, the Louis Armstrong House Museum staff offers weekly family-friendly presentations on the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong, including a look at the many barriers Armstrong broke during his remarkable fifty-year career. The presentations explore Armstrong’s controversial response to the Little Rock Nine school desegregation crisis in 1957: refusing to go on a State Department-sponsored tour to the Soviet Union. View the FBI file that carefully tracked Armstrong’s whereabouts after his public call for change. 

A guided tour of the Armstrong House will follow each presentation.

Reservations are required as space is limited. To make a reservation, email [email protected] or call the museum at 718-478-8274.

WHEN:     Saturdays, February 6, 13, 20, 27, 2010 at 2 pm

WHERE:  The Louis Armstrong House Museum is located at 34-56 107^th Street in Corona, Queens. For directions, visit www.louisarmstronghouse.org

ADMISSION:     Event included in Museum admission. 
$8 for adults; $6 for seniors/students/children, free for members. 

BACKGROUND: 

Jazz great Louis Armstrong moved to Corona, Queens, with his wife Lucille in 1943. The couple spent the rest of their lives in the house. Thanks to the vision and financial support of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, their residence—still containing its original furnishings—is a National Historic Landmark administered by Queens College. House tours explore the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong and include recordings of him enjoying a meal with Lucille at his dining room table, chatting with friends in his living room, and practicing the trumpet in his den. For more information on the Louis Armstrong House Museum, including directions, visit www.louisarmstronghouse.org.

For more about Queens College visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx

Contact: Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
718-997-5597
[email protected]

Maria Matteo
Assistant Director of News Services
718-997-5593
[email protected]

Deslyn Dyer
Assistant Director
Louis Armstrong House Museum
718-478-8274
[email protected]

– Work by Such Masters as Rembrandt, Rubens, and Dűrer Show
How the Pursuit of Inspiration Changed Art; Exhibition on View Feb. 2 – March 27 –

FLUSHING, NY, December 18, 2009 –A richly detailed account of how Renaissance art bequeathed modern values to succeeding generations is on view in Scholars, Explorers, Priests: How the Renaissance Gave Us the Modern World.  Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Hogarth are among the artists whose work appears in this exhibition, which opens Tuesday, February 2 and closes Saturday, March 27. The curator, Professor James Saslow, will give a gallery talk at the opening reception on February 2 from 5:30–7:30 pm.

Seventy objects—paintings, prints, sculpture, and decorative objects from the museum collection—demonstrate the zest for realism, scientific inquiry, individual expression, and spiritual renewal that marked the Renaissance, which began in Italy and swept across Europe from the 1400s to the 1700s. Kings, witches, dwarfs, games, family portraits, bacchanals, Greek gods, the Whore of Babylon, and the Golden Calf are among the subjects that stoked the creativity of the artists whose works are on display.

During this artistically fertile period, people looked backward to antiquity and, for the first time, to the world around them for new sources of inspiration. This sense of inquiry is apparent in such works as Albrecht Dürer’s portrait engravings of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1526) and Philipp Melanchton (1526); anatomically accurate renderings in St. Jerome Reading by José de Ribera, ca. 1624; Hawks and Owls by Wenceslaus Hollar (1663); Crouching Atlas with Lamp, a bronze objet d’art by Severo Calzetta da Ravenna (ca. 1500); and Madonna and Child, from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1611-1640. Peasant Scene, Adriaen Jansz van Ostade’s painting of a rowdy, untidy 17^th--century interior, shows real life with unvarnished truth.

The pursuit of inspiration plus a devotion to traditional religious subjects changed art, according to Saslow, a professor of Art History (Queens College) and of Theatre and Renaissance Studies (CUNY Graduate Center). Landscape, portraiture, scientific illustration, and genre scenes—paintings of ordinary life—emerged while religious art became a new platform for innovation. Professor Saslow selected and co-curated the artwork on view with graduate students enrolled in his fall 2009 seminar on Renaissance art. He is also the author of The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation (Yale, 1991).

The artwork in Scholars, Explorers, Priests is organized around six themes:

● Religion: From unity and faith to pluralism and reason
● Awakening interest in earthly life: Landscape, genre, and empiricism
● The Individual: Portraiture and new opportunities for women
● The Revival of Greek and Roman Antiquity: Expanding knowledge across time
● Exploring the Globe: Expanding knowledge across space
● Science and Technology: Printmaking and paper

“The Renaissance period,” Professor Saslow notes, “is often called the early modern period because many innovations from that time laid the groundwork for what we think of as the modern world. For instance, the revival of ancient Greek culture opened us up to a new idea: that history is an ongoing evolution and not static religious truth, which allowed Europeans to develop technology and the printing press. Art was no longer restricted to the rich. Ordinary people could be represented in art.” And, thanks to the printing press, he says, “ordinary people also had the possibility to see representations of the world.”

One of Professor Saslow’s favorite works in the show is Rembrandt’s Jews in the Synagogue (1648).  “What I like about it is that it is one of the first scenes of ordinary Jewish life. It’s very homey and ordinary. These are just a group of old men standing around the synagogue praying.  It’s obviously drawn from real life because Rembrandt lived in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. Holland was the first country to offer tolerance to the Jewish people.”

The Artist’s Family, a 1771 etching by Daniel Chodowiecki, a Czech artist working in Berlin, is another of his favorites. “It’s funny and sweet. The artist did a print of himself and his family in his own studio and sent it to a family member abroad. It’s really a family snapshot. The father is in the background writing away.  It’s a perfect example of how, in the Renaissance, art became a vehicle for personal and individual expression, not just glorification of divine, kingly figures,” he says.

Amy Winter, director and curator of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, cites the painting Madonna and Child, ca. 1611-40 from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens, as emblematic of artistic innovation during the Renaissance.  The work depicts a robust infant Jesus standing in his mother’s lap. “If you go back just a century,” Dr. Winter said, “you still have images that are flat, abstracted icons, with the infant Jesus sitting on his mother’s lap, staring straight ahead. Here, a baby standing and taking its first step, as his mother fondly looks on, gives us a sense of human and maternal tenderness and a new understanding of how to create a three-dimensional illusion on a two-dimensional plane.”

 Scholars, Explorers, Priests has been funded by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Queens College Department of Art, the Queens College Office of the President, and Friends of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum.

Exhibition hours are Monday–Thursday, 11 am to 7 pm; Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm. Please call 718-997-4747 for further information on the exhibition or visit http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/godwin_ternbach/

In addition to the curator’s talk, the museum will host two other illustrated lectures by Queens College faculty who specialize in Renaissance art. There will also be a Family and Children Printmaking workshop and a film screening. For further details and schedules, visit the museum website or call the museum office.

Travel Information:

By car, the Godwin-Ternbach Museum is 40 minutes from midtown Manhattan.  Directions are at http://www.qc.cuny.edu/welcome/directions/Pages/default.aspx

The Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College is the only comprehensive collectionof art and artifacts in the borough of Queens, housing over 3,700 objects that date from ancient to modern times. The mission of the GTM has grown over time from serving as a teaching museum for the benefit of art and art history students to embracing all disciplines and an increasingly diverse and engaged community. All exhibitions are free, as are their relatedlectures, symposia, gallery talks, workshops, films, concerts, and tours.

For more about Queens College visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx

Contact: Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
718-997-5597
[email protected]

Maria Matteo
Assistant Director of News Services
718-997-5593
[email protected]