On March 21, in LeFrak Concert Hall, two brothers reminisced on their childhood and their mother. At the final QC evening reading for the 2016-2017 academic school year, Leonard Lopate interviewed his brother, Phillip Lopate, who recently released a tell all story about his mother, “A Mother’s Tale.” Lopate is the director and a professor of creative non-fiction at Columbia University. This particular work details his mother’s life from the tragic loss of her father in childhood, to the birth of her children, to her many careers, raising her children in Williamsburg, Brooklyn all against a landscape of many historical moments in the United States such as the Great Depression, World…
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Students’ Empowerment Party aims to seek change at QC
A new political party has formed on campus this semester and it plans to make changes in student government beginning this spring. The Students’ Empowerment Party held its first official meeting on March 1 and they hope to gain enough momentum and votes to overtake the current administration, the Students for Change. The group consists of people from many backgrounds from upper class persons, underclass persons, and alumni. Recent graduate and alumni Michael Devan cites that the foundation of the Students’ Empowerment Party began late last semester after frustrations with not receiving promised funding from the student government for another group he was included with on campus, the Participatory…
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Jhumpa Lahiri discusses career and publishing at QC Evening Readings
Pulitzer Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri visited QC on March 7 to discuss her past work, the publishing business and her new venture of writing and translating works in a different language. Lahiri has authored works such as “The Namesake,” “The Lowlands” and “Interpreter of Maladies,” but it was her most recent texts—2016’s “In Other Words” and 2016’s “The Clothing of Books”—that were the focal discussion point of the event. Given her accomplishments in her career, Lahiri’s new focus has shifted to writing in Italian and translating works from Italian into English. “It’s an experiment worth pursuing,” Lahiri said. “It’s a new way of seeing things; I’m enjoying how…
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PSC Members push for Timely Pay
After years of contract negotiations, members of the Professional Staff Congress, the union that represents CUNY faculty members, are now pushing for timely pay. Though the new contract was ratified in Aug. 2016 by a 94 percent vote, according to their website, members of the PSC learned that the pay increase included in the new contract will not begin until January 2017. PSC members have voiced their thoughts on the matter citing issues with mortgage bills, home repair, providing for their children and families and the postponement of retirement because of the delayed payment. David Gerwin, Associate Professor of Secondary Education and the chair of the PSC chapter at Queens…
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Inspector General releases Interim Report on CUNY spending
In November, the Office of the Inspector General opened an investigation into fiscal management in the CUNY system. William C. Thompson Jr., Chairperson of the CUNY Board of Trustees, requested that the New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott start this investigation after it was revealed there were discrepancies in spending at City College that lead to the resignation of their University President Lisa S. Coico on Oct. 7. “The goal of this interim report and my continuing investigation is to help restore the trust among the student body and taxpayers at large as to the integrity of this esteemed institute of higher education,” Scott said in a press…
