@John Jay News and Events of Interest

to the College Community

September 17, 2008

Worth Noting Emergency-Response Center Honors

September 22-25
Spirit Week
A weeklong series of
the Spirit of 9/11 Hero Firefighter
“Welcome to John Jay” events He was cut down in his prime, as one of
the heroic first-responders who perished in the
Times and locations vary terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, but the
name and spirit of one probationary firefighter
September 25 11:00 AM lives on in the new Christian Regenhard Center
The Wire: Drugs, Prison and for Emergency Response Studies at John Jay.
The Center, which was formally launched on
Community Survival September 4, will serve as a research repository
A student forum on current U.S. drug
and information clearinghouse for the study
policy and mass incarceration
of emergency responses to natural and man-
Room 630 Haaren Hall made disasters. The opening ceremony held at
the College was attended by members of the
October 7 6:00 PM Regenhard family, elected officials, top brass
from the Fire Department and members of
A Celebration of the
Regenhard’s probationary school class.
20th Anniversary of the Regenhard had graduated from the Fire
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Academy less than six weeks prior to the attack
Performances by students, on the World Trade Center. He was just 28 years
faculty and friends of John Jay old, assigned to Ladder 131 in Brooklyn, when he
was killed in the collapse of the Twin Towers. Fighting back tears, Sally Regenhard (above, at microphone) addresses reporters and others
Gerald W. Lynch Theater gathered for the September 4 ceremony to launch the Christian Regenhard Center for Emer-
“The Center will undertake important research
gency Response Studies, named for her son, Firefighter Christian Regenhard (inset). Joining
for developing an integrated, comprehensive
October 15 6:00 PM approach to the study of emergency responses
Mrs. Regenhard were her husband and daughter, FDNY Chief of Department Salvatore
Cassano (left) and members of Regenhard’s Fire Academy class.
The Castle to large-scale disasters,” said President Jeremy
A play conceived and directed Travis, who acknowledged the support of carry on Christian’s legacy,” said Regenhard’s on issues pertaining to homeland security and
by David Rothenberg Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer mother, Sally, who as founder and chairwoman emergency response. To that end, the Center
Tickets: $15 ( free for CUNY students and Representative Jerrold Nadler in securing a of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign has will collect and analyze such information as
with ID). Call 212-279-4200 for $169,000 Congressional earmark to fund the advocated for construction reforms and oral histories of emergency response workers,
reservations work of the Center. pressured Congress to investigate the collapse of GIS data and maps, communication transcripts,
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Noting that 67 members of the College the World Trade Center. “I wanted something in incident reports and digital photographs. Its staff
community — alumni, students and others the academic realm that would have relevance to will develop after-action and lessons-learned
— were killed in the terrorist attacks, Travis helping save first-responders and members of the reports, publish periodic industry alerts, and
October 22 6:00 PM said, “We feel compelled to use our talents public. Through the work of its dedicated faculty, produce scholarly and industry articles in the area
Patrick V. Murphy Lecture and energies to honor their memory and their this Center will honor all first-responders who of homeland security. With the help of the Lloyd
Room 630 Haaren Hall sacrifice.” lost their lives as a result of 9/11 and can help to Sealy Library, the Center also hopes to make
Congressman Nadler, who was on hand for ensure the safety of all responders in the future.” public-domain documents available online.
October 30 5:00 PM the ceremony, said he was “very glad to have Professor Charles Jennings of the Department On October 1-3, the Center will co-sponsor
helped” with securing an appropriation for the of Protection Management will serve as the a symposium on data structures for incident-
When Will U.S. Courts Center. “Congress has a right and a duty to Center’s first Director. He gave attendees at the related archives, which will help determine the
Join the International appropriate money for things like the Christian launch ceremony his “personal assurance that structure of the Center’s repository of incident-
Constitutional Conversation? Regenhard Center,” Nadler said. “We have to this Center will work to live up to the promise of specific information.
A lecture by Drew S. Days III, make sure that some good and some benefit its namesake.” “We have a lot of work ahead of us,”
former U.S. Solicitor General comes out of the tragedies and disasters we The Center plans an ambitious agenda of said Professor Glenn Corbett, Chair of the
Presented by the Center for face.” applied research and data collection aimed at Department of Protection Management and
International Human Rights “For the Regenhard family, this Center will promoting “best practices” and “good practices” Chair of the Center’s Advisory Board.

Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby

English and
Fresh Faces by the Hundreds
Language Faculty
in New Home
John Jay’s departments of English and foreign
languages are up and running at their new
home, the West 54th Street Academic Annex.
This new facility is located on the seventh
floor of the “Movie Lab” building at 619 West
54th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues.
The annex houses 79 offices, two conference
rooms, a kitchen and lounge area. Some faculty
members’ office will provide bird’s-eye views
of the John Jay women’s softball games at
neighboring Clinton Field next spring, while
others will overlook the Hudson River.
The departments were relocated to the
Academic Annex during the 2008 spring break.
The quarters they formerly occupied on the first
floor of North Hall are being converted to house
consolidated student services.
A shuttle service is being provided between
the Academic Annex, the Westport Building
and North Hall, operating on a fixed schedule
between 7:45 AM and 7:50 PM. In addition, the
shuttle will provide drop-offs at the Columbus
Circle subway station upon request. They came streaming in by the hundreds, filling the theater, the gym and numerous classrooms, as the
fall 2008 freshman orientation on August 21 and 22 welcomed new students to John Jay. The support-
“The College’s critical need for space will
ing cast for the event, attended by more than 2,300 freshmen and their parents, included 48 student
be assisted by this dynamic and very attractive orientation leaders, representatives of the John Jay Alumni Association and members of the Office
addition to the campus,” said President Jeremy of Undergraduate Studies (at right, promoting the “Subway Series” freshman learning experience).
Travis. President Travis hosted a luncheon reception for the newest members of the John Jay family.
New Semester, New Departments, New Faculty
The fall 2008 semester saw John Jay welcome
40 new full-time faculty members in 14 academic
departments. These new professors include
specialists to support the newest majors in
Economics and English.
President Jeremy Travis, pointing to what he
called “the infusion of new energy and talent at
the College,” noted that 35 percent of the full-
time faculty now at the College were hired in the
past four years. “This new generation of faculty,
with their demonstrated scholarly potential and
devotion to excellence in teaching, will provide
leadership at the College for decades to come.”
Several new departments debuted as well. The
former Department of Art, Music and Philosophy
has been split in two, with the philosophy faculty
having a new independent department while
the art and music faculty remain together. The
Department of Public Management has spun off
a new Department of Protection Management
and a new Department of Economics.
The most recent additions to the faculty are:
ANTHROPOLOGY
R. Terry Furst, PhD, assistant professor, New
School University (ethnography/substance
College Now Program Gives
Voice to “Poets for Justice”
Twenty 11th-graders from New York City
public high schools got an unusual taste of
John Jay in July through the first annual Poets
for Justice Summer Institute, sponsored by the
College Now program.
College Now partnered with two local arts
organizations, Urban Word NYC and the Hip-
Hop Project, to produce a three-week program
that exposed high school students to the college
environment and the expectations of college-
level coursework. Part history seminar and part
creative-writing workshop, the Institute examined
the historical roots and contemporary use of
poetry as an instrument of
social and political movement.
“The Institute embraced
the concept that poetry,
particularly in hip-hop and
spoken-word forms, provides
a unique and effective way
to engage youth in the
educational process and to
teach powerful lessons about
democratic citizenship,” said
David Jean-Paul, program
director of College Now.
The “justice poets,” as
the students were called,
were given a comprehensive
overview of the Black Arts
Movement of the 1960s
With acclaimed poet and playwright Amiri Baraka looking on, Vanessa Capistrano
and its direct lineage to of Information Technology High School and Joseph Mercedes of Manhattan Village
hip-hop. Course readings Academy present their work during the Poets for Justice Summer Institute.
FACULTY / STAFF NOTES
PRESENTING…
GLORIA PRONI (Sciences) presented a paper
titled “Chiral Recognition by a CD-sensitive
Dimeric Porphyrin Host: Recent Advances in
the Assignment of Absolute Configuration” at
the 235th American Chemical Society National
Meeting & Exposition, April 6-10, 2008 in
New Orleans, Louisiana. The work was done in
collaboration with the laboratory of chemistry
professor Nina Berova of Columbia University.
Later in the spring, Proni presented a research
talk, “Detection of Opioids in Urine by NMR
Spectroscopy: Preliminary Studies” at the 40th
Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM),
May 17–21 in Bayside, Queens. Donna Wilson,
a forensic science graduate student, worked
on this project as a fulfillment of her thesis
@ John Jay is published by the
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John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
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www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
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fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
abuse)
Anthony Marcus, PhD, associate professor, CUNY
Graduate Center (cultural anthropology)
Patricia Tovar, PhD, associate professor, CUNY
Graduate Center (urban anthropology)
COMMUNICATION AND THEATRE ARTS
Lyell Davies, PhD, assistant professor, University
of Rochester (visual and cultural studies)
ENGLISH
Al Coppola, PhD, assistant professor, Fordham
University (British literature)
Jay Paul Gates, PhD, assistant professor,
University of Wisconsin-Madison (medieval
studies)
Olivera Jokic, PhD, assistant professor, University
of Michigan (Romanticism/women’s studies)
Alexander Long, PhD, assistant professor,
University of Delaware (creative writing)
Richard Perez, assistant professor, CUNY
Graduate Center (Latina/o literature)
FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Clara Castro Ponce, PhD, assistant professor,
Brown University (Hispanic studies)
Raul Rubio, PhD, assistant professor, Tulane
were complemented by real-world accounts
of guest artists such as renowned poet and
playwright Amiri Baraka, founder of the Black
Arts Movement.
Students were also given the opportunity
to create, produce and perform their own
vocal works. They acquired hands-on skills in
such areas as songwriting, music production
and theory, audio engineering and marketing.
Instructors worked with students to produce an
audio CD, and the program culminated on July
31 with a performance by students at the famed
Nuyorican Poets’ Café.
requirement. The work was conducted jointly
with ELISE CHAMPEIL (Sciences). In late
August, Proni presented a poster titled “Synthesis
and Chiral Recognition of a Fish Pheromone by
CD-Sensitive Dimeric Zinc Porphyrin Host” at the
American Chemical Society National Meeting and
Exposition in Philadelphia. Ekaterina Chadwick,
an undergraduate forensic science student, co-
authored the presentation.
EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English)
was the lead discussant on a panel titled “Four
Interrogating Concepts and Cases: Family, Law,
and Language” at the Law and Society Annual
Conference in Montreal, Canada, on May 31.
ABBY STEIN (Interdisciplinary Studies) spoke at
the International Psychohistorical Association on
June 4 at Fordham University. Her presentation
was titled, “From His Cradle to Your Grave: How
Child Abuse Drives Violent Crime.” Stein also
served as the invited “Critical Issues” columnist
for the spring issue of ISSTD News, published
by the International Society for the Study of
Trauma and Dissociation. Her column focused on
“First Defense: Dissociated States and Criminal
Violence.”
R. TERRY FURST (Anthropology) presented a
educating for justice
University (Spanish)
GOVERNMENT
Susan Kang, PhD, assistant professor, University
of Minnesota-Twin Cities (political science)
Monica Weller Varsanyi, PhD, assistant professor,
University of California-Los Angeles (urban/
political/legal geography)
HISTORY
Andrea Balis, PhD, lecturer, CUNY Graduate
Center (health-care history)
Anissa Helie, PhD, assistant professor, Ecole
des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
(contemporary history)
Tracy Musacchio, assistant professor, University of
Pennsylvania (Egyptology)
Hyunee Park, PhD, assistant professor, Yale
University (history)
Matthew J. Perry, PhD, assistant professor,
University of Chicago (ancient history)
LAW, POLICE SCIENCE AND CRIMINAL
JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION
Joseph Pollini, lecturer, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice (police science)
Jon M. Shane, assistant professor, Rutgers
University, (police administration)
Cecile Van de Voorde, D Crim, assistant professor,
University of South Florida (criminology)
Klaus von Lampe, JD, assistant professor, Goethe
Universität (organized crime)
LIBRARY
Karen Okamoto, assistant professor, University of
Western Ontario (reference)
MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE
Hunter Johnson, PhD, assistant professor,
University of Maryland (computer science)
Shaobai Kan, PhD, assistant professor, Wayne
State University (systems science)
Students to Reap Benefit from
John Jay/DEA Partnership
John Jay College is on the brink of establishing
a trailblazing relationship with the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) that will
promote career paths, professional development,
research and other opportunities for students.
A Memorandum of Intent and Purpose is
due to be signed by President Jeremy Travis and
several key DEA officials in late September.
The memorandum’s stated purpose is to
create a partnership between the College and
the DEA’s Equal Employment Opportunity staff
and Minority College Relations Program (MCRP)
in which participants can conduct DEA activities
geared toward fostering educational excellence
and fulfilling the agency’s mission. The DEA will
increase its outreach to students in disciplines
such as criminal justice, finance and accounting,
physical sciences and computer science.
Under the terms of the two-year agreement,
the DEA will recommend employment oppor-
paper, “A Qualitative Exploration of an Office-
Based Buprenorphine Demonstration Program
in New York City,” at the Society for the Study
of Social Problems in Boston. He also presented
“A Harm Reduction Approach to the Provision
of Bupernorphine” at a conference on the
Developments in the Treatment of Dependence
on Opiate: Practices and Perspectives, in France,
and co-authored “Low Threshold Buprenorphine
Prescribing,” a paper presented at the
International Harm Reduction Conference in
Barcelona, Spain.
ELISE CHAMPEIL and GLORIA PRONI
(Sciences) co-authored the lecture “Use of
NMR Spectroscopy for the Detection of Opioids
in Human Fluids” that was presented at the
American Chemical Society National Meeting and
Exposition in Philadelphia in late August. Donna
Wilson, a recent graduate of the master’s degree
program in forensic science, collaborated with
the professors on this project as a fulfillment of
her thesis requirement.
BETWEEN THE COVERS
BENJAMIN LAPIDUS (Art and Music) will
have his new book, Origins of Cuban Music and
Dance: Changüí, published by The Scarecrow
Press on October 28. The book is the first in-
PHILOSOPHY
Hernando Estevez, PhD, assistant professor,
DePaul University (social/political philosophy)
Sarah Louise Scott, PhD, assistant professor,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
(philosophy)
PSYCHOLOGY
Kevin Yabut Nadal, PhD, assistant professor,
Columbia University (counseling psychology)
Deryn Strange, PhD, assistant professor, Victoria
University of Wellington (psychology)
Daryl A. Wout, PhD, assistant professor,
University of Michigan (social psychology)
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Amit Kumar, PhD, assistant professor, American
University (public administration)
David Shapiro, JD, assistant professor, Seton Hall
University (commercial law)
SCIENCES
Jason Rauceo, PhD, assistant professor, CUNY
Graduate Center (genetics/biomedical analysis)
Richard Li, PhD, associate professor, University of
Wisconsin-Madison (molecular biology)
John Reffner, PhD, associate professor, University
of Connecticut (polymer science)
Shu-Yuan Cheng, PhD, assistant professor, St.
John’s University (biochemistry/toxicology)
SOCIOLOGY
Mucahit Bilici, PhD, assistant professor, University
of Michigan-Ann Arbor (sociology)
David A. Green, PhD, assistant professor,
St. John’s College, Cambridge, England
(criminology)
Antonio Pastrana Jr., PhD, assistant professor,
CUNY Graduate Center (Latina/o studies)
Lucia Trimbur, PhD, assistant professor, Yale
University (sociology/African American studies)
tunities for students and graduates through the
Volunteer Student Program, the Student Tempo-
rary Employment Program, the Student Career
Experience Program and the Summer Honors
Program. The agency will provide career advice
and assistance to students, offer forums and
workshops aimed at increasing career and educa-
tional achievement, and training opportunities at
DEA for students and educators.
The DEA will also initiate direct transfers of
computer equipment and other technology to
the College.
The College’s responsibilities under the agree-
ment include providing the DEA with facilities
and services for hosting special educational and
training programs for students, inviting govern-
ment personnel to participate in training and
conferences, and working with the DEA’s MCRP
manager to establish a consistent and positive
rapport with members of the College community.
depth study of changüí, a style of music and
dance in Guantánamo, Cuba, that contributed to
the development of salsa.
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) and MICHAEL
AMAN (Communication and Theatre Arts)
co-authored an article, “No Country for Old
Men: Psychopathic Elements in an Academy-
Award-Winning Film,” in which they stress the
importance of criminal justice professionals
learning elements of psychopathy from the film.
The article appeared in the July/August issue
of Community Corrections Report on Law and
Corrections Practice.
PEER REVIEW
ROBERT GAROT (Sociology) has won a faculty
fellowship for the spring 2009 semester at the
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute at
Queens College. The fellowship will help facilitate
Garot’s research project on “Immigrants and the
Law in Contemporary Tuscany.”
ALLISON KAVEY (History) has been awarded a
$15,000 faculty development grant by the City
University of New York to fund her proposal,
“Teaching Portfolios: An Analysis of their Uses for
History Pedagogy.”
@John Jay News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
August 27, 2008

Worth Noting
September 4 11:30 AM
Freshmen Can “Get on Track” with
Launch of the Christian Regenhard
Center for Emergency
Subway Series Learning Experience
Response Studies All aboard! The John Jay Subway
For information, contact Elizabeth McCabe, Series is in the station, ready for
Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, incoming freshmen to begin the
(212) 237-8918 “journey of a lifetime.”
6th Floor, Haaren Hall The Subway Series is an innovative
Web-based learning program aimed
at helping new John Jay students
September 12 8:30 AM make a successful transition from
Prisoner Reentry Institute high school to college through what
Occasional Series on is described as “an (un)common
learning experience.” This online
Reentry Research experience seeks to “introduce you
Women, Reentry and Everyday Life:
to some of the disciplines, know-
Time to Work?
ledge, habits and abilities that you
Venezia Michalsen
will encounter in your first semesters
Women’s Prison Association
at college,” President Jeremy Travis
Room 630, Haaren Hall tells students in a videotaped intro-
duction to the pilot program.
September 12 9:00 AM “We chose the subway system as
Interrogation and Torture the context for this learning experience because
most students will come to John Jay by public
Controversy: Crisis in Psychology transportation,” said interim Dean of Under-
Presented by the Center on Terrorism,
graduate Studies José Luis Morín. The flashy
the Division of Social Issues of
yet instructive Web site accompanying the pilot
the New York State Psychological Association
learning program opens with a fanciful render-
and York College
ing of the Columbus Circle subway entrance that
Gerald W. Lynch Theater encourages freshmen to “get on track.”
get off at one or two of the stops, or as many as
all nine.
After selecting a discipline, such as art,
mathematics, science, anthropology, sociology
or English, students are asked to read online
materials that will help them to complete vari-
ous assignments, which are then submitted for
review by a Subway Series Evalua-
tion Team made up of John Jay fac-
ulty. Students then become eligible
to win prizes that include Barnes &
Noble discount cards, one-month
MetroCards and iPods.
“The more stops you take, the
more prizes you can win,” Byrne
notes.
“We are confident that your par-
ticipation in this learning program
will help you to develop the skills
you will need to succeed at John Jay
and beyond,” Travis tells students in
his introduction.
The Subway Series learning
experience was conceived by Pro-
fessor Mark McBeth of the English
department and developed for the
College’s Web site by a team from the Depart-
ment of Institutional Advancement led by Direc-
tor of Communications Christine Godek and
including Johnny Taveras, Lenis Perez, Anh Phan
and Doreen Viñas. It was unveiled at freshman
orientation on August 21 and 22, and formally
launched online on August 27.

September 15 4:00 PM
After clicking on the entrance, students find
themselves at the turnstiles to a station for an
Book & Author Lecture introductory message that explains the learning
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb,
and the Murder that Shocked Chicago
experience. Another click to “start the journey”
brings students inside a subway car, complete
Simon Baatz with doors that open with a familiar “ding-
dong” sound to reveal a route map.
Room 630, Haaren Hall
Professor Dara Byrne of the Department of
September 18 3:30 PM Communication and Theatre Arts serves as the
students’ “guide” in a videotaped introduction.
Fall Faculty & Staff Meeting She points out: “Imagine yourself as a new pas-
Gerald W. Lynch Theater senger on this fun and challenging journey. By
boarding John Jay’s ‘subway,’ you will learn new
September 22-25 academic habits, strategies and abilities that will
Spirit Week prepare you for the challenges you will face as
A weeklong series of you attend college classes.”
“Welcome to John Jay” events The John Jay subway system has nine “learn-
ing stops,” each of which introduces the student
Times and locations vary
to a different academic discipline. Students can
Major Developments: College Adds
New English, Economics Programs
It has been more than 30 years since John
Jay College last offered an English major, but
that has now changed with the unveiling of a
new undergraduate major that includes what is
said to be the country’s first “rich and rigorous
curriculum in literature and the law.”
The English major is one of two new curricular
offerings at the College, along with a Bachelor of
Science program in economics that will include
an optional concentration in forensic financial
analysis. Both new majors, recently approved
by The City University of New York, make their
formal debut with the fall 2008 semester.
“Mission-specific” and “writing-intensive,”
according to the proposal approved by the
College’s Curriculum Committee, the English
major will include a core requirement in
Literature and the Law, along with an optional
concentration in this field. Students may also opt
for a concentration in more traditional literary
study.
Designed partly in recognition of the
nearly one-third of John Jay students who say
they aspire to attend law school, the English
major is aimed at developing “moral acuity
and independent thought,” according to
the proposal. It will provide students with
critical skills in analysis and argumentation,
and “reinforce the interpretive and linguistic

John Jay Employees in Summer Spotlight
The largest on-the-job training
initiative in John Jay’s history took
place to rave reviews on June 19-
20. More than 400 employees took
part in a variety of professional and
personal development workshops,
social networking opportunities and
entertainment offerings as part of
the first Bravo! Employee Summer
Institute.
Organized and presented by the
college’s Department of Human
Resources, the Summer Institute
— subtitled “Building the Future
Together” — provided dozens of
small-group sessions led by in-
house experts as well as outside
President Travis and Senior Vice President Robert Pignatello (center rear) join the Bravo! award
specialists. Participants could learn
winners in an enthusiastic thumbs-up salute at the June 25 recognition ceremony..
how to manage their money, deal
with difficult co-workers, improve their health
and fitness, protect themselves against identity
theft, use an iPod or a Facebook account, or run
various computer programs.
Each day included a complimentary
continental breakfast and lunch, which were
provided by corporate sponsors. At the end of
a full morning and afternoon of workshops,
employees could play softball or volleyball,
participate in a yoga session or enjoy a jazz
concert in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.
“Being so new to the College, I did not know
what to expect but I was profoundly impressed
by the buzz and energy in the air,” said Director
of Human Resources Services Christel Colon.
“Without exception, the feedback then and to
date remains enthusiastic. I think the Summer
Institute was a great success on so many levels
and I can’t wait to do it again next year.”
Making a difference
A week after the Summer Institute, 18 John
Jay employees who are “making a difference”
with creative problem-solving and superior
customer service were honored as the latest
competencies desired of law school candidates.”
The 36-credit major includes a mix of new
and existing courses, including “The Word
as Weapon,” “Shakespeare and Justice,”
winners of the Bravo! Employee
“Courtroom Drama,” and “Law in African
Recognition Awards
Literature.” There will also be a capstone Senior
“It’s not a stretch to say that
Seminar in Literature and the Law.
the satisfaction of being part of
The new economics major, to be offered by
the John Jay community comes
the Department of Public Management, also
from knowing that, by doing our
takes notice of John Jay students’ law school
jobs well, we provide something
aspirations. Students with a bachelor’s degree in
of value and importance to the
economics are “among the most sought students
world at large,” President Jeremy
in law school admissions,” the proposal for the
Travis said at a June 25 breakfast
new major states, citing a 1995 study suggesting
ceremony.
that a “criminal justice student planning on
The newest Bravo! honorees
applying to law school have a dual major or at
are: Hector Bracero (Facilities),
least a minor in…economics.”
Inez Brown (Strategic Planning),
Three concentrations will be offered within
Rima Douglas (Student Activities),
the new major: Economic Analysis, Investigation
Marianne Kahn (Physical
of Economic Crimes, and Forensic Financial
Education and Athletics),
Analysis. A new two-course sequence in forensic
Katherine Killoran (Undergraduate
accounting and auditing will be offered, along
Studies), Angelos Kyriacou
with two new senior-level seminars.
(Enrollment Management/International Students),
With the new economics major, John Jay
Luzennette Lima (Facilities), Marisol Marrero
assumes a leadership position in the rapidly
(One-Stop Center), Tara Mastrorilli (Academic
growing fields of economics and crime and
Affairs), Shavonne McKiever (Enrollment
the investigation and analysis of commercial
Management), Litna McNickle (Freshman
and economic criminal activity. Only one other
Services), Selwyn Morris (Facilities), Luis Negron
college in the United States is said to offer a
(Media Services), Tyrone Oree (Physical Education
bachelor’s degree in economics and crime.
and Athletics), Rafael Quiles (Undergraduate
Admissions), Cindy Robles (Payroll), Marilyn
The College’s economics faculty has secured
a formal pledge of assistance from the faculty
Simpson (Continuing and Professional Studies),
in the Department of Accounting at Borough
and Crystal Vasquez (Affirmative Action/Disabled
of Manhattan Community College in further
Student Services).
developing the new major.
Taking San Juan by Storm:
Biennial Justice Conference
Is a Multinational Success
In the past, John Jay College has held its
biennial International Conference on Justice and
Policing in Diverse Societies in such cities as St.
Petersburg, Russia; Bologna, Italy; Budapest,
Hungary, and London. This June, the conference
was sited for the first time in the Western Hemi-
sphere, drawing an enthusiastic throng of more
than 225 prominent scholars, civic leaders and
government officials to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The three-day conference was cosponsored by
several leading institutions of higher education
in Puerto Rico, including the Interamerican
University of Puerto Rico, the Catholic University
of Puerto Rico, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón,
the University of Puerto Rico Law School and
El Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez. More
than 20 countries from every continent except
Antarctica were represented at the June 9-12
gathering, where 45 panel discussions and
presentations explored the latest research on
various criminal justice topics.
“This conference provided a framework
for criminal justice scholars and professionals
to share knowledge and discuss strategies to
address the most serious challenges of the 21st
It’s Back to School for Police Officials:
Leadership Academy Scores with Arizona Road Show
Combine 22 top Arizona police officials, an
all-star faculty of current and former law enforce-
ment luminaries, the staff of the John Jay Lead-
ership Academy, stir thoroughly for three days,
and you have the makings of “an unequivocal
success,” according to Dr. Ellen Scrivner, the
academy’s director.
The program, held in Phoenix from June 24-
26, was a first for the academy’s Public Safety
Executive leadership Institute, and was presented
in conjunction with the School of Criminology
and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University.
“These sessions afforded participants an
opportunity to sharpen their professional skills
in responding to the increasingly complex public
safety issues they confront daily,” said Scrivner.
The Public Safety Executive Leadership Insti-
tute is a unique national program designed solely
for top law enforcement officials. Its curriculum
focuses on the complex interaction of strategic,
cultural and political processes and how they
combine to influence the effectiveness of public
safety leadership.
The faculty for the Arizona program included
FACULTY / STAFF NOTES
ON BOARD
LAURA DRAZDOWSKI (Physical Education
and Athletics) was appointed head coach of the
John Jay women’s softball team. Drazdowski,
the College’s Assistant Director of Athletics for
Marketing and Promotion, served as interim
softball coach for the 2008 season, leading the
team to a 12-23 record and a fourth place finish
in conference play. Over the summer, John Jay
added two other new head coaches. CARL
NEDELL was named women’s tennis coach,
succeeding AMY ROWLAND, who resigned
earlier this year. Nedell had previously coached
the John Jay men’s tennis team during the
2000 season, and has also coached for Hunter
College, James Monroe High School and Forest
Hills High School. JESSICA KOLACKOVSKY
will serve as interim coach of the women’s
swimming team for the 2008-09 season, filling
in for JANE KATZ, who will be on sabbatical.
Kolackovsky served as a volunteer assistant under
Katz last season, and also serves as the College’s
head lifeguard. She was a Big East Conference
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
century,” said President Jeremy Travis. “John Jay
College, our faculty and our conference partners
are uniquely positioned to foster this important
dialogue.”
Led by President Travis, the John Jay delegation
included 75 faculty members, college officials,
and doctoral and graduate students.
The conference’s opening plenary address on
“Gender Justice at the International Criminal
Court,” was delivered by the Hon. Navanethem
Pillay, the only African judge of the appellate
division of the International Criminal Court at
The Hague. Other plenary speakers were Hugo
Fruhling, director of the Center for Studies on
Public Safety and professor at the Institute of
Public Affairs at the University of Chile, and
Jan J.M. van Dijk, a professor of victimology at
Tilburg University in The Netherlands and former
Policy Director on Crimes Issues for the United
Nations in Vienna.
A number of top government officials from
Puerto Rico participated in the conference, at
which sessions were held in both English and
Spanish. Among them were Miguel Pereira, the
commonwealth’s Secretary of Corrections, and
Darrel Stephens, retired Chief of the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg, NC, Police Department and for-
mer executive director of the Police Executive
Research Forum; Paul Evans, retired Commis-
sioner of the Boston, MA, Police Department;
Frank Straub, Commissioner of the White Plains,
NY, Police Department and an alumnus of John
College Experts to Screen Faulty Arson Cases
A $250,000 grant from the JEHT Founda-
tion will allow John Jay College to establish an
Arson Screening Project that will marshal the
College’s forensic science, law enforcement and
legal expertise to develop a process for screen-
ing arson cases, apply that process to a grow-
ing backlog of “bad science” convictions, and
disseminate the assessments to the media and
criminal justice agencies.
The screening project will be run by John Jay’s
Center for Modern Forensic Practice.
“This will enable the College to utilize its ex-
pertise in examining cases where questionable
Academic All-Star as an undergraduate swimmer
at Seton Hall University.
BETWEEN THE COVERS
ANDREW SIDMAN (Government) has an
article, “Forecasting Non-Incumbent Presidential
Elections: Lessons Learned from the 2000
Election,” due out in a forthcoming issue of the
International Journal of Forecasting. Sidman
also has 12 entries in the recently published
Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Election, and
Electoral Behavior (Sage, 2008).
MARY GIBSON (History) received a Senior
Fulbright Research Grant and a National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to
finish a book on the history of prisons in modern
Italy. Her article “Ai margini della cittadinanza:
le detenute dopo l’Unità italiana (1860-1915)
[At the Margins of Citizenship: Women Prisoners
after Italian Unification]” has been published in
the journal Storia delle Donne [Women’s History].
NATHAN LENTS (Sciences) had his manuscript
“Identification and Characterization of a Novel
Mdm2 Splice Variant Acutely Induced by the
Chemotherapeutic Agents Adriamycin and
Actinomycin D” published in the journal Cell
Cycle in June.
DANIELLE SAPSE (Law, Police Science
and Criminal Justice Administration), ELISE
CHAMPEIL and ANNE-MARIE SAPSE
(Sciences), working in collaboration with two
professors from the University of Rouen, France,
educating for justice
President Travis (standing, 4th from left) is joined by a blue-chip array of Puerto Rican officials, international criminal justice
luminaries and John Jay College representatives at the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan during a welcoming reception
before the opening of the International Conference on Justice and Policing in Diverse Societies. Among those on hand were
Professor Mangai Natarajan, chair of the conference organizing committee (seated, 3rd from left) and the Hon. Navanethem
Pillay (seated at right), the only African judge of the appellate division of the International Criminal Court at The Hague,
who was the keynote speaker for the conference’s opening plenary session.
Marta A. Mercado Sierra, a prosecutor with the
Puerto Rico Office of Women’s Affairs.
Panelists and presenters discussed a broad
array of topics, including governance and
cybercrime, counterterrorism, therapeutic
jurisprudence, international perspectives on
domestic violence, curbing public corruption,
Latin American prisons and justice, evolving
Jay, and George DeLama, former Managing
Editor of the Chicago Tribune.
The faculty led participants through a series
of interactive learning dialogs — the Leadership
Academy’s signature activity — to explore
real-world, real-time public safety leadership
challenges and solve multidimensional leadership
forensic techniques were used to obtain an arson
conviction,” said President Jeremy Travis. “Receiv-
ing this kind of support reaffirms John Jay’s posi-
tion as a leader in criminal justice research.”
James M. Doyle, the Center’s director, pointed
out that the Arson Screening Project was devel-
oped in consultation with the Innocence Project,
which already has a backlog of arson cases in
need of scrutiny. The Innocence Project limits its
own direct involvement to cases in which biologi-
cal evidence can provide a conclusive answer.
“This funding will enable the Center to collect
and evaluate claims of wrongful conviction based
had their paper “Interaction of DNA Fragments
with Methyl Lithium” accepted for publication
in the journal Comptes Rendus des Séances
de L’Académie Française. The paper applies
theoretical methods to the study of DNA
fragments interaction with methyl lithium and its
possible use for criminal investigation.
PRESENTING…
EDGARDO DIAZ DIAZ (Foreign Languages)
addressed a full house of doctoral students and
faculty members at the University of Padova,
Italy, on April 22. Diaz, an ethnomusicologist,
spoke about the meaning and influence of Italian
opera in the Caribbean.
JANICE BOCKMEYER (Government)
moderated the roundtable “Maximum Feasible
Misunderstanding at 40: The Midlife Crisis
of Community Participation?” at the annual
meeting of the Urban Affairs Association
in Philadelphia in late April. The roundtable
explored the impacts of federal community
development policies in the 40 years since the
War on Poverty urban initiatives.
MARGARET WALLACE (Sciences) was an in-
vited speaker at the Fourth Annual Conference
of the Korean Academy of Scientific Criminal
Investigation. Wallace’s presentation on “Forensic
Science: The Interface between Scientific and the
Law” discussed the role of forensic biology in hu-
man identification and genotyping botanical and
entomological samples. Wallace was also named
Foreign Editor of the Journal of the Korean
sentencing systems, juvenile justice, human
trafficking, and much more.
The Office of Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vilá of
Puerto Rico underscored the importance of the
International Conference by hosting an opening-
night reception for attendees at La Fortaleza, the
16th-century fortress in Old San Juan that serves
as the governor’s official residence.
problems. Participants were required to shift
their focus from discrete management skills and
tactical activities to seeing the “big picture”
through action-learning experiences.
The Leadership Academy has been invited to
deliver similar executive institute programs in two
additional states.
on the use of a faulty, folk-science of fire indica-
tors over the past 20 years,” said Doyle. “For the
first time, we will expand beyond the Innocence
Project tradition to take a systemic look at old
convictions where there is no DNA evidence.”
The project will be led by Doyle, along with
Professor Peter D. DeForest of the Department of
Sciences and Peter Diaczuk, the Center’s director
of forensic science training.
The New York-based JEHT Foundation sup-
ports research and best practices in areas relevant
to the foundation’s core values of justice, equal-
ity, human dignity and tolerance.
Academy of Scientific Criminal Investigation.
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) spoke to the Correctional
Services Division of the Los Angeles County Sher-
iff’s Department on May 23, about the educa-
tional needs of adult offenders and the programs
funded by the National Institute of Corrections.
M. VICTORIA PÉREZ-RÍOS (Government) pre-
sented a paper on “Western Bias in International
Law: Francisco de Vitoria’s Writings and the Third
World School” at the International Studies Asso-
ciation Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA,
in late March.
PEER REVIEW
MARIA HARTWIG (Psychology) received
the “Early Career Award” from the European
Association of Psychology and Law, for her
“excellent track-record in peer-reviewed papers
in international journals and chapters in national
and international volumes, and for being
an inspiring example showing how a young
researcher from a small place can find her way to
a top position in the international arena.”
PETER DODENHOFF (Institutional Advance-
ment) recently earned his U.S. Coast Guard
merchant captain’s certification. The license,
awarded on the basis of experience, test scores,
fitness, character references and other criteria,
allows the for-hire operation of merchant and
recreational vessels in U.S. coastal waters,
including charters and yacht deliveries.
@John Jay
Worth Noting
May 12 9:00 AM
Media, Race and
Capital Punishment
Presented by the Center on Media,
Crime and Justice, the Center on Race,
Crime and Justice, and the Department
of Psychology
Featuring David Kaczynski of New
Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, and
screenings of the documentaries Race to
Execution and Juror Number Six
Room 630, Haaren Hall
May 27 5:30 PM
Commencement
Awards Ceremony
Gerald W. Lynch Theater
May 28 6:00 PM
Honorary Degree
Recipients’ Dinner
Office of the President
May 28 7:30 PM - 11:30 PM
Night of the Stars:
A Celebration to Honor
the Graduating Class of 2008
(Event limited to members
of the graduating class.)
6th Floor, Haaren Hall
May 29 10:30 AM & 3:30 PM
2008 Commencement
Ceremonies
The Theater at Madison Square Garden
June 2 8:30 AM
Immigration and Justice:
Where Do We Go From Here?
Presented by the Center
on Media, Crime and Justice
Room 630, Haaren Hall
Literary Journal
Tackles Criminal
Justice Issues
A new literary journal that, like John Jay
College, takes a multidisciplinary approach to
criminal justice issues will make its debut in May.
The J Journal: New Writing on Justice “is
framed within John Jay’s principal points of
academic focus and was generated when we
found no outlet for those writing creatively
within the criminal justice field,” said Professor
Adam Berlin of the English department, who is
co-editor of the journal along with his colleague,
English professor Jeffrey Heiman.
The inaugural issue includes fiction, poetry
and personal essays examining justice issues
from a variety of angles. “Our contributors are
professional writers, criminal justice professionals,
lawyers, professors, police officers and inmates,”
Heiman noted. “Responses to our calls for
submissions were enthusiastic and came from all
parts of the country.”
The editors foresee two target audiences for
the J Journal: readers of literary journals and
criminal justice professionals interested in creative
writing about such issues. They also hope to
build a subscription base that includes libraries,
criminal justice institutions, other criminal justice
programs and targeted listservs. “Professors
might find the journal a fruitful addition to
scholarly reading lists,” Berlin added.
Once Again, a Pulitzer Prize Has
John Jay Professor’s Name on It
Professor John Matteson of the
English department recently became the
second member of the John Jay faculty
to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature. He
won the 2008 Prize for Biography for
his acclaimed book Eden’s Outcasts:
The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her
Father.
The book examines the relationship
between the celebrated author of Little
Women and her father, the 19th-century
utopian idealist and philosopher Bronson
Alcott.
Matteson was bowled over by winning
the Pulitzer, echoing the words of John
Steinbeck when he won a Nobel Prize
for Literature, who said he felt “wrapped
and shellacked.”
“I am extraordinarily pleased,” said
Matteson. “I am so thankful to have
been able to do this with and for John
Jay College, which hired me when no
one else would and has supported me
through thick and thin.”
Matteson, who holds a PhD in English
from Columbia University and a law
degree from Harvard Law School, has
taught literature and legal writing at
John Jay since 1997. His biography of
Professor John Matteson beams after learning that his book Eden’s Outcasts (above
the Alcotts — the first to examine Louisa
right) won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
May and her father jointly — has been
hailed by critics as “engrossing,” “elegantly
written” and “impossible to put down.” The
book, which was already cited as one of the best
Spring Semester Brings a Bumper Crop of
Student Scholarship & Fellowship Winners
Top John Jay students continue to win the
notice of various outside entities, as scholarships,
fellowships and other accolades —some of them
first-time achievements for the College — have
been pouring in over the past several months.
“This is great news,” said President Jeremy
Travis. “We have developed quality selection
processes that have resulted in John Jay students
being accepted to prestigious programs.”
Below are highlights about these high-
achieving students.
O Kaplan, My Kaplan!
John Jay’s first effort to compete in the Kaplan
Leadership Program was an immediate success
with the selection of JANET ARAYA, a criminal
justice major. She was chosen along with nine
other City University students for the program’s
2008 cohort, its largest to date.
The Kaplan Leadership Program is aimed at
helping associate degree students move into and
successfully complete a bachelor’s degree.
Araya’s acceptance letter from the foundation
noted, “Your academic success, commitment to
pursuing your education, the strength of your
application and the positive impression you made
during your interviews all contributed to our
decision.”
Second Steamboat
AMANDA INGLE, a junior majoring in
forensic psychology, recently became the second
John Jay student to win a prestigious Steamboat
Foundation Summer Scholarship.
Like John Jay’s previous Steamboat Scholar,
Abdoulaye Diallo, who won the award in 2007,
Ingle will be partnered with the Center for Court
Innovation. Ingle, a Justice Scholar and president
books of 2007, is due out in a paperback edition
later this year.
“This is a stunning achievement by a promi-
of the Phi Eta Sigma honor society, is concerned
with studying alternatives to incarceration for
mentally ill and juvenile offenders.
The scholarship provided by the Greenwich,
CT-based foundation allows outstanding students
to connect with acknowledged leaders in public,
private and nonprofit organizations.
Alpine Ambassadors
As spring break arrived for John Jay students, a
delegation of 10 high-achieving undergraduates
once again made their way to Salzburg,
Austria, to serve as student ambassadors to the
prestigious 2008 Salzburg International Study
Program.
Professors Mark McBeth and Rosemary
Barberet led the John Jay contingent, the
members of which — all Dean’s List or honors
students — included:
ARIE BRAIZBLOT, an international criminal
justice major, who plans to pursue graduate
study in international relations and a career with
a federal or international agency;
KIMMESHA EDWARDS, a forensic
psychology major and McNair Scholar,
who hopes to pursue a doctorate in clinical
A mountain scene that greeted John Jay’s student ambas-
sadors to the Salzburg International Study Program.
News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
May 7, 2008
nent member of our faculty,” said
President Jeremy Travis. “We are
delighted to join the world in our cele-
bration of Professor Matteson’s talents.”
CUNY Chancellor Matthew
Goldstein added: “Professor Matteson’s
achievement adds to the luster of the
University’s impressive roster of award-
winning faculty. I congratulate him on
winning the Pulitzer Prize for his first
book as he joins the winners’ circle of
CUNY faculty.”
Mike Wallace, a Distinguished
Professor of History at John Jay, won a Pulitzer
Prize for History in 1999 for his book Gotham: A
History of New York City to 1898.
psychology and a law degree with a focus on
human rights and gender law;
RICHARD FERRIS, a McNair Scholar majoring
in government, who has interned in the office of
New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum,
and hopes to pursue a doctorate in public policy;
DI’INDRA FORGENIE, a justice studies
major, who has her sights set on becoming
an immigration or international human rights
attorney;
RENNAE FRANCIS, a forensic science major
from Dominica in the Caribbean, who plans to
pursue graduate degrees in criminal justice and
business administration;
EDWIN M. HERNANDEZ GARCIA, a Justice
Scholar majoring in public administration, who
plans to attend law school in hopes of playing a
key role in the future development of his native
Dominican Republic;
DOMINIQUE MORGAN, a Peter Vallone
Scholarship winner majoring in justice studies,
who is currently a New York State Assembly
intern and hopes to become a lawyer focusing
on international human rights;
DAVID MORGANTE, a CUNY Baccalaureate
student majoring in international crime and
terrorism studies, who served with the U.S.
Marines in Iraq and hopes to become a special
agent with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of
Diplomatic Security;
ELIZABETH SOTO, a public administration
major, who is planning a career as a Foreign
Service officer with the State Department, and is
currently in line for a summer internship with the
department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs;
CHRISTOPHER YU, an international criminal
justice major, who was recently awarded an
internship with the Unitarian Universalist United
Nations Office, a non-governmental organization.
(More Student Achievers on Page 2)
It’s Springtime, And Student CAMPUS SCENES
Achievement Is in Bloom THE PLAY’S
THE THING
CSTEPping Out
Two John Jay students won prizes at the 16th
annual CSTEP (Collegiate Science and Technology
Entry Program) Statewide Student Conference,
held April 4-6. Four students presented
posters in the Natural Science category, with
ANA SANCHEZ taking second place for her
presentation on “Depurination of RNA by
Pokeweed Antiviral Protein (PAP): FLuorometric
Determination of Released Adenine.”
EKATERINA CHADWICK won third prize for
“Chiral Recognition of a Fish Pheromone by CD-
Sensitive Dimeric Zinc Pophyrin Host.”
A total of eight John Jay CSTEP students and
two staff members attended the conference,
at which 50 colleges and universities in New
York were represented. This marked the second
consecutive year in which John Jay students won
prizes at the CSTEP conference.
Taking on the World
A team of John Jay students won the
Distinguished Delegation award at the National
Model United Nations Conference that
concluded on April 26 — the fourth consecutive
year that that John Jay’s Model UN team has
brought home a major award.
“Our is the only John Jay team that
participates in an academic competition at
the international level and wins major awards
on a regular basis,” said Professor George
Andreopoulos, director of the John Jay Center for
International Human Rights and an advisor to the
team. “This year’s award is particularly satisfying
for me since we were representing Greece”
— Andreopoulos’s native country.
The Model UN team is coached by Matthew
Zommer, a lecturer in the Department of
Government. The delegation members were:
GABRIELE URSITTI, JOSEPH SIMONE,
CHRISTINA LEE, SARAH REHMAN, PATRICK
New President in Store for Student Council
Shaheen Wallace, a junior majoring in
government, will take office June 6 as president
of the John Jay College Student Council for the
2008-2009 academic year.
Wallace, who served this past year as a
member of the council’s Judicial Committee,
won the election handily during three days of
balloting on March 29 and 31 and April 1.
Serving with Wallace will be vice president
Clement James, a graduating senior majoring
in criminal justice, who also held that office this
FACULTY / STAFF NOTES
PRESENTING…
SUSAN OPOTOW (Sociology) presented a
paper on “After the American Civil War: Moral
Inclusion and Exclusion in the Reconstruction and
Jim Crow Eras” and co-presented “Post 9/11
Conflicts in New York City, 2001-2006” at the
Western Social Science Association convention in
Denver, CO, on April 25. At the annual meeting
of the American Association of Museums in
Denver on April 29, she chaired a panel on
“Quantifying Fun in the Museum Environment:
Results of Recent Research.” An article by
Opotow, “Not So Much as Place to Lay our Head:
Moral Inclusion and Exclusion in the American
Civil War Reconstruction,” was published in the
March 2008 issue of the journal Social Justice
Research.
GLORIA BROWNE-MARSHALL (Law, Police
Science and Criminal Justice Administration)
was a participant in an April 12 seminar on the
Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision. The
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
SCULLIN, ALI BESSYONI, NORHAN BASUNI,
PAWEL MILKO, MONIKA LEKARCZYK,
NORY BOIATCHIAN, LATOYA BROWN,
MEGGIN SIMMERS, SUSANNE DUQUE,
KSENIA KHAIMOVA, YURI HARRY, KAFAY
LOUIE LIANG, ANEESA BABOOLAL, EWA
HELENA HERNIK and RALITSA RUSKI.
Research support was provided by students
ARIE BRAIZBLOT, MARGARET COLBERT and
SYBIL D’ANGELO.
Model Student
The state capitol in Albany came calling for
John Jay junior MALYNDA RASCOE in April,
with the news that she had won a scholarship to
attend the Model State Senate Session Project.
Rascoe, a government major with double minors
in history and philosophy, plans to attend law
school after graduating from John Jay in 2009,
with the goal of getting involved in politics.
The Model Senate Project, administered by the
City University’s Edward T. Rogowsky Internship
Program in Government and Public Affairs, each
year brings together more than 60 CUNY and
SUNY students for a series of intensive training
seminars on state policy formulation, legislative
processes, representation and leadership.
Jolly Good Fellow
CAROLINA ALMARANTE, a McNair Scholar
and former Salzburg student ambassador, who
will graduate May 29 with a bachelor’s degree
in public administration, has won a highly
competitive Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs.
The fellowship will give Almarante the
opportunity to engage in a series of two- to
seven-week projects in the St. Louis, MO, area.
Completion of the fellowship also comes with
automatic admission and possible scholarships to
a number of selective graduate programs
past year. Treasurer-elect Nadine Hylton, a BA/MA
student in forensic psychology, was previously a
council member at-large. James and Hylton are
receipients of the 2008 CUNY Leadership Award.
Class representatives also elected to the 2008
council, include: freshman Benigno Macias;
sophomores Stephanie Montero and Natalie
Vasquez; juniors Reeshad Ali, Sekou Kesselly,
Victoria Oyaniran and Edwin Hernandez; and
seniors Attalah Cox and Porfirio Fernandez.
Davinder Sahota was elected to an at-large seat.
seminar was sponsored by the Black History
Committee of the Dutchess County Historical
Society. Also participating in the seminar was
EDWARD J. SHAUGHNESSY (professor
emeritus of sociology).
ELISE LANGAN (Government) presented a
paper on “Muslims in Non-Muslim Countries”
at the Comparative and International Education
Society at Teachers College, Columbia University
on March 17. On March 27, she presented her
paper, “A Survey of Identity and Attitudes in
French Higher and Secondary Education” at the
American Educational Research Association in
New York City.
ITAI SNEH (History) served as a judge in the
“Mock Trial on the Responsibility of States to
Take Armed Action to Stop Genocide at the
International Court of Justice,” and presented a
paper on “Human Rights as the Missing Link in
U.S. Foreign Policy: Justice, Politics and Publicity,”
at the International Studies Association annual
conference, held in San Francisco in late March.
GENE O’DONNELL (Law, Police Science and
Criminal Justice Administration) was the keynote
speaker at the annual James Connolly/Mike
Quill Labor Celebration hosted in March by the
Transport Workers Union, Local 100.
BENJAMIN LAPIDUS (Art, Music and
Philosophy) will be the scholar-in-residence for
educating for justice
Jonathan Butler, as a defendant, and
Todd Davis, a prison guard, interact in
a scene from In The Moment, a one-
act play staged at John Jay on March
6, followed by a thought-provoking
panel discussion. Written by Butler, a
Hoboken, NJ, police officer, and Ross
London, a former Hoboken judge, and
produced by Professor Lorraine Moller
of the Department of Speech, Theater
and Media Studies, the play challenges
audience assumptions about race, class,
police shootings, black-on-black crime
and prison dynamics. Said London:
“What we are trying to do is...let the
audience take a look from the inside of
the young African-American cop faced
with a life-and-death situation.”
the Jewish Museum of New York’s humanitarian
mission to the Jewish community of Cuba
from May 27 to June 3. On July 13, he will be
performing at the Central Park Summerstage,
and in August he will be performing in Japan
with celebrated flutist Kaori Fujii.
NATHAN LENTS and DIANA FRIEDLAND
(Sciences) both presented their research at
the recent annual conference of the American
Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
held in San Diego, CA. Lents presented a poster
titled “Discovery and Characterization of a Novel
DNA Damage-Induced Splice Variant of Mdm2.”
Friedland delivered a lecture on “Pokeweed
Antiviral Protein, an Unusual Ribosome
Inactivating Protein.” She also presented the
most recent data from her John Jay laboratory
at a poster session, with a poster titled
“Characterization of Pokeweed Antiviral Protein’s
Interaction with Eukaryotic Initiation Factors and
an S/R Loop Oligoribonucleotide.”
BETWEEN THE COVERS
ANN A. HUSE (English) published a review
of Patricia Phillippy’s book Painting Women:
Cosmetics, Canvases, and Early Modern Culture
in the latest issue of Clio: A Journal of Literature,
History, and the Philosophy of History.
ABBY STEIN (Interdisciplinary Studies) published
her article “This Is Your Brain on Trauma” in the
spring 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychiatry.
FREE AT LAST
Ishmael Beah fields a question from the audience
at the April 10 Book & Author discussion where he
spoke about his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs
of a Boy Soldier. The book chronicles his experience
as a precocious 12-year-old boy in Sierra Leone
who got swept up in that country’s brutal civil war
in the 1990s. Beah became a machine gun-toting
soldier living a drug-fueled life of casual mass
slaughter, before he escaped army life at age 15
with help from UNICEF. Two years later, he made it
to the United States, where in 2004 he graduated
from Oberlin College in Ohio. He is now an
outspoken children’s-rights advocate.
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
Faculty members (above) from a wide range of disciplines
who authored books published in 2007 were feted
in President Jeremy Travis’s office on April 8. Their
books, seen displayed at left, included everything from
biographies of Louisa May Alcott and Johnny Depp to
thoughtful examinations of gangs, comparative policing,
issues in constitutional law and philosopher Martin
Heidegger, among other topics.
Stein was also an invited speaker at the
annual meeting of the American Psychological
Association, Division 39, held on April 10 at the
Waldorf Astoria in New York.
GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Government)
recently had his book Human Rights Education
for the 21st Century, which he co-authored with
Richard Pierre Claude, published in Portuguese
by the University of Sao Paulo Press in Brazil. This
is the third foreign language edition of the book;
it previously appeared in Japanese and Chinese
editions.
PEER REVIEW
DELORES JONES BROWN (Law, Police Science
and Criminal Justice Administration) received the
2008 William Bracey Award from the New York
Chapter of the National Organization of Black
Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) on May 7.
The award recognizes outstanding achievements
benefiting the African-American community.
ROBERT D. MCCRIE (Law, Police Science and
Criminal Justice Administration) was recently
honored with the Richter H. Moore Jr. Educator
Award by the Security and Crime Prevention
Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences. The award, presented by MARVIE
BROOKS (Library), cited McCrie as a superb
teacher who has helped many students to
become good practitioners and educators, and
who mentors students even after they graduate.
@John Jay
Worth Noting
April 30 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
2008 Alumni Reunion
Gymnasium
April 30 - May 4 8:00 PM
Mother Courage and Her
Children: A Chronicle of War
Presented by the Department of Speech,
Theatre and Media Studies
Gerald W. Lynch Theater
(Call 212-237-8363 for ticket reservations.)
May 2 - 3 9:00 AM
Human Trafficking
and Migrant Smuggling
Part of the Policing Across Borders Project.
Presented by the Center for
International Human Rights,
in collaboration with the Center for
Security Studies of the Greek Ministry
of the Interior
(By invitation. For more information,
call 212-484-1353.)
Room 630, Haaren Hall
May 6 4:00 PM
Behind Bars:
Latinos/as in Prison
Presented by the Department of
Puerto Rican/Latin American Studies
Room 630, Haaren Hall
May 7 4:00 PM
Book & Author Lecture
Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing
Baltimore’s Eastern District
Peter Moskos
Room 630, Haaren Hall
May 12 9:00 AM
Media, Race and
Capital Punishment
Presented by the Center on Media,
Crime and Justice, the Center on Race,
Crime and Justice, the Department
of Psychology, and the Office for the
Advancement of Research
Featuring David Kaczynski of New Yorkers
Against the Death Penalty, and screenings
of the documentaries Race to Execution
and Juror Number Six
Room 630, Haaren Hall
The Big Day Nears for
Graduating Class of 2008
Get ready, Class of 2008 — your graduation
ceremonies are just around the corner!
On Thursday, May 29, at the Theatre at Madi-
son Square Garden, John Jay will present degrees
to an anticipated graduating class of more than
2,800 students. Duplicating the success of last
year’s commencement exercises, there will once
again be two graduation ceremonies, one at
10:30 AM and one at 3:30 PM.
The 10:30 ceremony will be for students
receiving degrees in computer information
systems, criminology, deviant behavior,
government, international criminal justice, judicial
studies, justice studies, forensic psychology,
forensic computing and legal studies, as well as
for recipients of dispute resolution certificates.
At 3:30, the College will present degrees in
forensic science, corrections, criminal justice, fire
science, police studies, public administration,
Improving Reentry Through Education
Conference Looks at Role of Colleges in Aiding Ex-Offenders
A two-day roundtable — “From the Classroom
to the Community: Exploring the Role of
Education during Incarceration and Reentry” —
explored the role education plays in incarceration
and reentry, in hopes of bridging the gap
between the disparate worlds of corrections and
academia.
Hosted by John Jay’s Prisoner Reentry Institute
and the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center
on March 31 and April 1, the conference drew
observers and participants from more than 20
states and from such professional spheres as
academia, state and federal government, and the
nonprofit sector.
“We gather in this format to explore the
difficult, complex and controversial phenomenon
of increased incarceration and coming home,
what that means for us and our communities,”
said President Jeremy Travis, who served as the
roundtable’s facilitator.
Travis noted that there has been a “changed
national mood” about incarceration and
reentry, exemplified by passage of the Second
Chance Act of 2007, which would reauthorize
a grant program for returning offenders. With
this, Travis said, our government is “making a
statement about investing in people coming back
from prison.”
Topics raised by roundtable participants
ranged from the moral imperative of providing
inmates with an education to the practical means
for doing so and the strategic reasons why it
serves the best interests of communities. Asked
for one good idea that would move the field
forward, they responded with such suggestions
as creating educational programs for inmates
that could be transferred to schools on the
outside; an information campaign for the public
on how correctional education helps improve
public safety; forming strategic partnerships that
would raise employment among ex-convicts; and
fostering the understanding that small measures
can create big changes over time.
In a presentation titled “Race, Poverty, and
Center Makes Teaching “Visible & Valued”
One of John Jay’s newest academic
innovations, the Center for the Advancement of
Teaching, was formally launched on March 25
with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that also saluted
the individuals whose insight and enterprise
brought the new center into being.
“What more important thing can we do than
celebrate and elevate teaching?” said President
Jeremy Travis at the ceremony, before a packed
protection management and security
management.
The College will award honorary doctoral
degrees to Gary L. Wells, a distinguished
professor at Iowa State University and a
pioneering expert in eyewitness identification;
Ellen Wolf Schrecker, a professor at Yeshiva
University and one of the leading historians
of the Cold War era, and Dr. Paul Farmer, a
physician who is founding director of Partners In
Health, an international organization that treats
some of the world’s poorest populations.
This year’s commencement-related festivities
will also include more than two dozen awards’
ceremonies, receptions, dinners, and a rooftop
cocktail party and dance for the Class of 2008.
For complete information on the 2008
commencement, consult the College Website at
www.jjay.cuny.edu/academics/1230.php.
News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
April 16, 2008
Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies Jose Luis Morin has the happy assignment of presenting Vaneza Guevara (center)
with the 2008 Prisoner Reentry Fellowship, created and funded by El Diario/La Prensa, as the newspaper’s Publisher and
CEO, Rossana Rosado, looks on. The fellowship, presented at the prisoner reentry conference on March 31, gives a high-
achieving undergraduate a $1,000 prize and the opportunity to work with the College’s Prisoner Reentry Institute.
Education: Intersections with Incarcerations and their old communities, many of which have
Reentry,” Theodore M. Shaw, former president unemployment rates of 40 percent. “This makes
of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational it hard to succeed with or without college.”
Fund, commented on the lack of a civil rights Myriad challenges exist to providing post-
movement, such as there was in the 1960s, that secondary education for inmates. Participants
would include the incarcerated. While there are pointed to resistance from lawmakers who
civil rights organizations, he posited, there is no consider basic education in prison an amenity.
“organic movement” to draw people committed Furthermore, they noted, the Internet has had
to these issues. such an enormous impact on education that
Exploring the significance of providing post- if that technology cannot be used as a tool in
secondary education for prisoners, Jeanne inmate education programs to contact libraries, it
Woodford, a former warden at San Quentin will be tremendously difficult to provide college-
and now chief adult probation officer for San level scholarship.
Francisco County, CA, maintained that college is Steve Schwalb, a veteran correctional
important to inmates. administrator who is president and CEO of
“San Quentin is popular for its college Pioneer Human Services, cautioned, however that
programs,” she said. Under California laws, “leadership on technology needs to come from
returning inmates are released back into prison administrators, not educators.”
house in the center’s new office
space in Room 333 Haaren Hall.
The center, whose stated aim
is “making teaching visible and
valued,” is under the direction of
Meghan Duffy, a 1999 graduate
of John Jay who is currently a
PhD candidate in theater studies
at the CUNY Graduate Center.
At the ribbon cutting, Provost
Jane Bowers gave a special tip of
the hat to the person she called
her “noodge-in-chief,” Kathy
Killoran, who brought the center
from concept to reality. “The
center,” said Bowers, “will put
John Jay on the map as a place
that really knows how to teach.”
One of the first initiatives
by the center is the production
of an e-handbook providing a
variety of helpful information
Meghan Duffy, director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, and re-
for faculty at John Jay, which cently retired English professor Elisabeth Gitter, who served as the center’s interim
will be accessible on the College director before Duffy. {Photo: Steve Singer]
Intranet.On April 1, the center Gitter, who served as the first interim director
and the Lloyd Sealy Library co-sponsored of the center, with the first “Innovations in
a workshop titled “Exploring the Web of Collaboration Award” in recognition of her
Knowledge,” aimed at helping faculty members “contributions to the life of the College over so
and graduate students learn how to track experts many years.” The award will become an annual
from a wide range of disciplines who are citing honor presented to a John Jay faculty member in
their publications. Gitter’s name.
The launch ceremony included a tribute to “I’ve had fun every year I’ve been here,”
Professor Betsy Gitter, who recently retired said Gitter. “I’ve had an enviable career, and
after a long career as a faculty member in the the collaboration with colleagues has been
Department of English. President Travis presented wonderfully invigorating.”
Race, Crime & Justice Center
Gets Permanent Director
Jones Brown Removes “Interim” from Title
Professor Delores Jones Brown of the
Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration was formally announced
as director of the College’s Center on Race,
Crime and Justice on March 26, after having
served as the center’s interim director since late
2005.
“This is an auspicious day for John Jay,”
President Jeremy Travis said at a reception
honoring Jones Brown. “This center will be one
of the most important activities for the College
in the decades to come. Nobody else does
this. Professor Jones Brown nurtured the center
through its incubation stage and put it on the
map.”
To date, the center has sponsored or co-
sponsored a variety of seminars, symposia and
discussions on such topics as stop-and-frisk
President Travis introduces Professor Delores Jones Brown as the new Director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice.
practices, the death penalty, racial profiling,
the Scottsboro Boys case, prisoner reentry
and minorities in policing. The center recently
welcomed its second visiting scholar, Rod
Brunson, an assistant professor of justice studies
at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
The center is a continuation of an idea that
Travis first began to consider while he was a
senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Seed money
to plan and create the center was provided by
the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation.
A former Monmouth County, NJ prosecutor,
Jones Brown received high praise from Dean
for Research James P. Levine for her “boldness,
inclusiveness and congeniality.” He noted that
she received an award for excellence from the
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2006 for
her work in launching the center.
Professor’s Book Sizes Up Life
After Prison in “Zebratown”
The Elmira, NY, area is
home to four correctional
facilities, as well as to an
unusual mixed-race neigh-
borhood known to locals as
“Zebratown.” For the past
several years, the area has
also served as a part-time
home of sorts for John Jay
Professor Greg Donaldson.
His forthcoming book, with
the working title of Zebra-
town, will examine issues
of prisoner reentry through
the lens of ex-convict Kevin
Davis, one of the area’s
residents. Professor Greg Donaldson (rear, at microphone) discusses the five years of research that
On March 27, before a went into the writing of his manuscript Zebratown.
standing-room-only audience, Donaldson dis- The fact is that we’ve become addicted to certain
cussed the genesis of his research, some of the stereotypes.” He then decided to try writing a
pitfalls he has encountered, and the process of book about “Killer Kev’s reentry into society.”
writing what he calls “creative nonfiction.” A hulking, hyper-alert man with zero tolerance
A member of the Department of Speech, for disrespect, Davis “always wanted to be a star,
Theater and Media Studies, Donaldson first met and saw the possibility of a new book about him
Davis while doing research for his book The as a capstone to his career,” Donaldson said.
Ville: Cops and Kids in Urban America (Ticknor Methodically fielding a steady barrage of ques-
& Fields, 1993), a no-holds-barred look at life in tions from the students and faculty members in
New York City’s tough Brownsville neighborhood. the audience, Donaldson said he made sure Davis
Davis, known by the street name Killer Kev, was aware that his story would be told “flaws
served 10 years in prison for murder, and did two and all.” He approached the research and writing
things upon his release. He decided not to return of the book “as a journalist, not an academic.”
to New York City, but rather to remain in Elmira, The research included numerous visits to Elmira
in the Zebratown section that was home to nu- to meet with Davis and his wife, a white woman
merous other ex-inmates and mixed-race couples from Pennsylvania. He used court records, prison
and families. He also promptly got in touch with records, diaries, interviews and other sources to
Donaldson. come up with the truth of the story. “You have
Donaldson acknowledged that he had been to triangulate your data, and you have to have
eager to research and write a book about a per- 20 times more information than you’re likely to
son “behind the gangsta types in rap songs,” use,” Donaldson said. Through it all, he never
although he admitted that his motivation was found Davis to exaggerate “even one single bit.”
fraught with misgivings. “Why would I want Davis has visited Donaldson’s “Criminal Justice
to write about and reinforce a stereotype?” he in the Theater” class, where he always comes off
mused. “I realized a good story isn’t enough. as “polite, soft-spoken and understated.”

Federal Funds Help Train New Homeland Security Scholars

John Jay faculty will continue to make a
powerful contribution to the nation’s anti-
terrorism and domestic security efforts, aided by
$580,063 in new multiyear grants from the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security. The funds
will be used to support education, research and
professional development aimed at training the
next generation of homeland security experts
and scholars.
According to President Jeremy Travis, the
homeland security grants “solidify John Jay’s role
as a premier research institution for the study
of terrorism and other domestic security issues.
These grants will help to support innovative
faculty projects that will prepare our students for
future leadership roles.”
One three-year grant of $291,835 will fund
a team of researchers from the CUNY Graduate
Center and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
This funding will enable the institution to recruit,
support and train an interdisciplinary group
of criminal justice faculty and students in the
CUNY Criminal Justice Doctoral Program and
the undergraduate John Jay Criminal Justice
Honors Program to teach and conduct research
on homeland security and terrorism, targeting
applicants from traditionally underrepresented
groups.
Under the direction of Professors Stephen
Rice of the Department of Law, Police Science
and Criminal Justice Administration and Joshua
Freilich of the Department of Sociology, this
grant will also afford students the opportunity to
participate in internships with peer institutions as
well as develop and present their own empirical
research.
A second grant, totaling $288,768, will fund a
project titled “Educating Tomorrow’s Homeland
Security Leaders Today.” Led by Professor Peter
Romaniuk of the Department of Government,
the project will enhance the focus of John Jay’s
graduate curriculum on homeland security, and
increase the ability of junior faculty members to
conduct research into homeland security topics
involving the social, behavioral and economic
sciences.
The grant will also help to create a Homeland
Security Science, Technology, Engineering and
Math (HS-STEM) community of students and
support the recruitment and retention of minority
graduate students interested in homeland
security careers.

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES

BETWEEN THE COVERS
TODD CLEAR (Law, Police Science and
Criminal Justice Administration) has had his
book Imprisoning Communities: How Mass
Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Communities
Worse (Oxford University Press, 2007) chosen as
one of the finalists for the annual C. Wright Mills
Book Award, presented by the Society for the
Study of Social Problems.
GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Government)
recently published “The Challenges and Perils of
Normative Overstretch” in The United Nations
and the Politics of International Authority
(Routledge, 2008). Andreopoulos was also
recently a Visiting Professor at the Institut des
Études Politiques of the University of Toulouse
in France, where he lectured on “Crimes of War
and Crimes of Peace.”
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
PEER REVIEW the College’s Offender Profiling and Crime Scene THOMAS A. KUBIC (Sciences) moderated a
GLORIA PRONI (Sciences) has been selected Analysis Research Unit. session on forensic microscopy at the recent
by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation 46th Annual Eastern Analytical Symposium in
to receive a 2008 Special Grant in the Chemical JEREMY TRAVIS (President) gave the Orison S. Somerset, NJ. Among the more than 3,500
Sciences. The $31,180 award will support Proni’s Marden Lecture at the New York Bar Association scientists and students in attendance were John
project titled “Chemistry is All Around Us.” on March 19, on the subject of “Race, Crime and Jay science faculty members PETER DE FOREST,
Justice: A Fresh Look at Old Questions.” NICHOLAS PETRACO and PETER DIACZUK.
PRESENTING…
EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English)
was the invited keynote speaker on March 18
at the spring faculty development workshop
at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Her topic
was “Creating Inclusive Pedagogies for Diverse
Classrooms: Building Bridges and Forging Links.”
ELLEN BELCHER (Library) presented a paper
titled “Interpreting Halaf Figurines: Empirical
Proposals” at the recent annual conference
of the British Association of Near Eastern
Archaeologists, in Liverpool, UK. On March 4,
she presented a paper on “The Halaf Beads and
Pendants from Domuztepe (Kahramanmara,
Turkey): Technological and Reductive Strategies,”
at the Sixth International Conference on Chipped
and Ground Stone Tools of the Fertile Crescent,
in Manchester, UK.
The newest members of the John Jay Athletics Hall of Fame sport high-wattage smiles after

Smiles
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications GABRIELLE SALFATI (Psychology) was the their March 19 induction ceremony. Joined by former Director of Athletics Susan Larkin (left)
and her successor, Davidson Umeh (right), the inductees are: Derrick Tinsley, basketball and
fax: (212) 237-8642 featured speaker in March at the monthly

of Fame
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu baseball; Gregory Andrew, basketball; Carri Raffone, softball, and William Allard, pistol
meeting of the Society of Professional shooting. Full details on the athletic greats and their accomplishments can be found by visit-
Investigators in Manhattan. Salfati is director of ing the Hall of Fame on the fourth floor of Haaren Hall.

educating for justice

@John Jay
Worth Noting
March 27 12:30 PM
“Zebratown”
A research discussion
by Professor Greg Donaldson
Presented by the Center on Race,
Crime and Justice, the Department of
Speech, Theater and Media Studies,
the Department of African-American
Studies, and the Office for the
Advancement of Research
Room 630, Haaren Hall
April 3 3:15 PM
The DNA Wars: Science, Law
and Controversy in the Making
of DNA Profiling
Professor Jay Aronson,
Carnegie Mellon University
Presented by the Office for the
Advancement of Research
Room 610, Haaren Hall
April 7 5:30 PM
Graduate Lecture Series
Poisoning: The Interface between
Clinical and Forensic Science
Dr. Lewis Nelson, Director,
New York City Poison Control Center
Multi-Purpose Room, North Hall
April 10 3:30 PM
Book & Author Lecture
A Long Way Gone:
Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Ishmael Beah
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby
April 11 8:30 AM - 5:15 PM
Literature and Law Conference
Presented by the Department of English
Registration required. Online at
http://literatureandlaw.blogspot.com
Various campus locations
On With the Show
College Names New
Theater Director
Shannon R. Mayers, a long-time veteran of
the New York City performing arts scene, joined
the John Jay community on March 10 as the
College’s new Theater Services Director.
Mayers was director of production at the Arts
World Financial Center in New York from 2002-
2007, and production manager at the Sylvia
and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College
from 1998-2000. She is no stranger to the City
University, having served as an adjunct professor
of drama, theater and dance at Queens College.
In the summer of 2007, Mayers was
program director for the Brooklyn Bridge Park
Conservancy, where she negotiated the largest
income-generating event for the park, the
Microsoft Zune Concert, and increased revenues
for the park and the conservancy.
She has also worked with the Brooklyn
Academy of Music, the Theater for a New
Audience, the Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation, and the Ellen DeGeneres show,
among other venues.
“I am confident that her broad knowledge
of the arts and the educational community
will help expand, enhance and transform the
theater’s ongoing mission at John Jay to become
a substantial performing arts center,” said Senior
Vice President for Finance and Administration
Robert Pignatello. “She will help integrate this
enormous asset into the life of our students, the
curriculum and the outside community.”
Law Day Is a Blue (and Gold)-Ribbon Event
as College Salutes New York’s Chief Judge
Speakers Map Out Paths to Legal Careers for John Jay Students
The Second Annual Law Day at John Jay, held
on March 1, turned into a day of firsts, as the
College presented its first John Jay Medal for
Justice to the Hon. Judith Kaye, the first woman
to serve as Chief Judge of the State of New York.
John Jay, one of the nation’s founding fathers,
was the first person to hold the chief judgeship
in New York.
At the Law Day event, sponsored by the
College’s Pre-Law Institute, Kaye delivered the
first Samuel and Anna Jacobs Foundation Lecture
on the Law and the Legal Profession. Kaye told
the more than 250 students who had come to
learn more about legal careers that they should
believe in themselves and have the confidence to
pursue their dreams.
“However difficult your path may seem, the
only obstacles are the ones you create,” the
Chief Judge said. “No calling offers so many
opportunities to contribute to policy-making,
change the world or change one person at a
time.”
Gender biases were very noticeable when Kaye
first entered the legal profession, she recalled,
with separate ladies’ entrances to the court and
a separate lunch club for women. In fact, she
said, some challenges still exist with regard to
promoting diversity in the legal system.
Kaye drew a parallel between John Jay the
“Energized” Bowers Named as Provost
After an exhaustive
national search, President
Jeremy Travis named Dr.
Jane Bowers as the College’s
new Provost and Senior
Vice President for Academic
Affairs.
Travis formally announced
the appointment to
enthusiastic applause at
the Spring Faculty and Staff
Meeting held on March 3.
Bowers had been serving
as interim Provost since
July 1, 2007. Previously,
she was John Jay’s Dean of
Undergraduate Studies.
“Jane is passionately Dr. Jane Bowers is all smiles after the formal an- new relationships between
nouncement of her appointment as Provost and
devoted to our College,”
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Travis said. “In a time of
historic change at John Jay, we are fortunate
to have as our academic leader someone with
deep knowledge of our community, creative
Once Again, Rifle Team Finds Its Mark
With the recent spate of
championship seasons accumulating for
John Jay College athletic teams, the co-
ed rifle team was not about to be left
behind. On March 1, the team captured
its fourth Mid Atlantic Conference
(MAC) title in five years, capping off
a winning season that began back in
October.
The championship-winning meet in
Cambridge, MA, included a 2028-1909
victory over Massachusetts Maritime
Academy in small bore rifle. In a three-
way matchup in the air-rifle discipline,
the John Jay team shot a 2131 to Head coach Vincent Maiorino (right) and the championship John Jay rifle team.
defeat SUNY Maritime College, with 2095, and
Massachusetts Maritime, with 1984.
Competing in the Mid Atlantic Conference,
since the CUNY Athletic Conference does not
include a rifle program, the John Jay shooters
News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
March 26, 2008
President Jeremy Travis presents New York State Chief Judge Judith Kaye with the first-ever John Jay Medal for Justice at
the second annual Law Day event on March 1. At right, Bronx Supreme Court Justice Wilma Guzman, a 1978 graduate of
John Jay, with her Alumni Honoree award.
man and John Jay College, noting that both for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT).
are committed to justice. “John Jay College Attendees also learned about life as a law school
carries forth its namesake John Jay’s tradition student from a distinguished panel of John Jay
of commitment to the public good and alumni who are now practicing law.
advancement of our collective knowledge in One of those former John Jay students on
the rule of law,” she said, calling the College hand for Law Day was Bronx Supreme Court
“a great local, state and global leader” and Justice Wilma Guzman, a 1978 graduate who
President Jeremy Travis a “cool, dynamic was the day’s Alumni Honoree. Guzman urged
president.” the students to “work in the trenches, and know
The Law Day event included workshops and everything there is to know.”
panel discussions on the law school application “The American Dream happens every year at
process, financial aid options and how to prepare John Jay,” Guzman said.
ideas about ways to support subsequently as interim Provost, Bowers played
scholarship and teaching, a key role in the design and implementation of
and strong interpersonal educational partnerships with CUNY community
skills. I am confident that colleges and the development of new liberal arts
she will provide energetic majors at John Jay.
and creative leadership Bowers, who was a member of John Jay’s
during the critical next English department faculty from 1987-1997, said
phase of our journey toward she was “excited by the opportunity come back
academic excellence.” to a college I love and help shape its future. It’s a
Travis specifically noted
privilege and a dream come true.”
that during Bowers’ tenure “I have a lot of ambition for the College,”
as interim Provost, she has Bowers said, “and I’d like to help students realize
created new financial and their ambitions. Love is not too strong a word for
budgetary systems, opened how I feel about the students here.”
new lines of communication One of the best parts of her job, Bowers said,
with fellow administrators is getting to know the future faculty of John
and the faculty, forged Jay through her involvement in the recruitment
process. “It’s exciting to have all this fresh energy
Academic Affairs and and vision.”
Student Development, “I am gratified and very much energized by
and worked to recruit and retain “the very best President Travis’s vote of confidence in me, and
faculty.” the many expressions of congratulation I’ve
As Dean of Undergraduate Studies, and gotten from colleagues at John Jay.”
among other schools.
Leading the rifle team in the
championship meet, as he had all
season, was sophomore Stephen
Wilson, who scored 562 in small-bore
and 548 in air rifle.
The rifle team’s victory also
brings to four the number of John
Jay athletic teams that are reigning
conference champions, along with
the baseball, men’s cross-country and
men’s basketball teams. At a victory
celebration on March 4, head rifle
coach Vincent Maiorino acknowledged
the championship company his team
regularly compete against Hofstra University, the was keeping. “It’s nice to be among the elite in
University of Akron, Virginia Military Institute, the College along with the basketball, baseball
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and cross-country teams,” he told the audience.
Institute of Technology, Princeton University “I also would like to thank the many who have
and the US Naval and Coast Guard academies, supported us through all our success.”
Irish Eyes Are Smiling at
Annual McCabe Breakfast
The annual “wearing o’ the
green” took place March 14
at John Jay, as the McCabe
Fellowship Breakfast honored a
“firm advocate, supporter and
fan” of the College, New York
City Council Speaker Christine
Quinn.
The event celebrates the
exchange program that was
created in memory of Irish police
detective Jerry McCabe, who was
killed in the line of duty during
an attempted robbery in June
1996. Each year, two or more
members of An Garda Síochána,
the Irish national police, come to
John Jay for an intensive course
of study toward a graduate
degree.
Quinn was introduced by
President Jeremy Travis, who
called her “someone known to
this community, the community
of people who care about
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gestures during her remarks as
policing.” Travis recalled how, in keynoter at the annual McCabe Fellowship Breakfast on March 14.
the aftermath of the murder of
John Jay graduate student Imette St. Guillen in
February 2006, “Christine Quinn came through
for us and we were able to turn our grief into
something very positive,” namely the all-day
Nightlife Safety Summit that was held at the
College in September of that year.
With the summit session, Quinn told the
audience, “John Jay College lived up to the
best sense of what a public university should be
about.”
Quinn, whose support for the NYPD includes
a successful effort to provide upgraded,
customized body armor for all uniformed officers,
praised police by noting that they exhibit “a
tremendous amount of bravery to do a job with
far less recognition than they deserve.”
Over the next year, Quinn said, “I hope to
deepen the City Council’s commitment to people
in our uniformed services.”
One of numerous speakers who paid tribute to
the ongoing success of the McCabe Fellowship
program, Quinn called it “a great opportunity
to learn, to plagiarize even, and to do the most
we can to provide the best police training we
can.” She was followed to the podium by Mary
Sign Up Now
for CUNY Alert
An aggressive sign-up period has begun to
encourage John Jay students, faculty and staff
to participate in CUNY Alert, the new university-
wide emergency notification system that will
soon go online
CUNY Alert will enable the University’s
campuses to provide alerts and timely
information in emergencies, such as severe-
weather scenarios, fires and bomb threats, civil
disturbances, major road closings and threats
to personal safety. Participation is elective in
the secure, Web-based alert system, which
will provide messages ranging from specific
instructions to general warnings, depending on
the severity of a given incident.
By signing up online at www.cuny.edu/alert
— or on campus at one of several information
kiosks — participants can choose how they wish
to receive voice or text notifications: cell phone,
home phone, e-mail or IM, or any combination
of these. The Web page provides step-by-step
instructions for signing up, and the process takes
less than two minutes.
“The College is committed to doing all we
can to ensure the safety of all members of the
College community,” said President Jeremy Travis.
“CUNY Alert will help us achieve this goal.”
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
Hanafin, the Irish Minister for Education and
Science, who noted that “the top education
provided at John Jay College makes a major
contribution to the success of policing in
Northern Ireland.”
“This is a College very much rooted here in
New York, yet with an international outreach and
influence,” said Hanafin.
Continuing on the morning’s theme, Sir Hugh
Orde, Chief Constable of the Police Service of
Northern Ireland, said the McCabe Fellowship
“demonstrates just how much good can come
from something so tragic.” Niall Burgess, the
Irish Consul General in New York, recalled that
Detective McCabe “embodied excellence in
policing in every respect.” The McCabe breakfast,
he added, has become “an extraordinarily
important event on a busy St. Patrick’s Day
calendar in New York.”
Anne McCabe, the slain detective’s widow,
pointed out “how consoling it is for me and my
family to stand shoulder to shoulder with people
who stand for the same rights and beliefs as
we.”
“Of all the memorials to Jerry,” she said, “the
fellowship program at John Jay has a very special
place in my heart.”
This year’s McCabe fellows are Gardaí Eleanor
O’Halloran, who is in the Public Administration-
Inspector General program, and Olivia Markham,
who is pursuing a master’s in criminal justice.
They will both complete their graduate studies at
John Jay this summer.
FACULTY / STAFF NOTES
PRESENTING…
YI HE (Sciences) recently presented a work
titled “Determination of Chloroanilines in
Environmental Waters Using Hollow Fiber
Supported Liquid-Liquid Microextraction,” at the
Pittcon 2008 conference held in New Orleans
March 2-7.
BETWEEN THE COVERS
JOSHUA FREILICH (Sociology) co-authored
a research brief, “Surveying State Police
Agencies about Domestic Terrorism and Far-
Right Extremism,” that the National Consortium
for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism (START) recently published. The lead
author of the brief was JOSEPH SIMONE JR., a
graduating senior at John Jay, who was awarded
two START undergraduate research fellowships
to work with Freilich and Professor Steven M.
Chermak of Michigan State University on the
project.
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) authored an article titled
“Providing Incentives to Offenders in the Reentry
Process,” which appeared in a recent issue of the
Journal of Community Corrections.
EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English)
had a paper, “Judicial Syntax: A U.S. History,”
educating for justice
CAMPUS SCENES
THE EVIL THAT MEN DO . . .
One of the world’s leading experts on torture, Dr. Darius Rejali, a professor of political science at Reed College in Oregon and
author of Torture and Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2007), addressed a full house of students and faculty at John
Jay on March 13 on the subject of “Torture, Democracy and Our Future.” Presented by John Jay’s Center for International
Human Rights and the CUNY PhD/MA Program in Political Science, Rejali noted that throughout history, democratic societies
have sometimes set the pace when it comes to torture, although their track record is nowhere near as bad as that of
authoritative regimes. Torture, Rejali said, remains “an absolute danger to democratic life.”
REMEMBERING JIM FYFE . . .
Dean for Research James
Levine presents the 2008
Fyfe Fellowship award to
Kevin McCarthy, at the
2nd James Fyfe Police Ac-
countability Conference,
“Stop and Frisk: Policy,
Practice and Research,” on
February 28. On hand to
remember the late John
Jay distinguished professor
were (from left): Fyfe’s
widow, Dr. Candace McCoy;
Dr. Karen Terry, executive
officer of the PhD Program
in Criminal Justice; 2007
Fyfe Fellow Charles Lieber-
man; Levine; Fyfe’s sister,
Dorothy R. Fyfe; Dr. Delores
Jones Brown, director of the
Center on Race, Crime and
Justice; and McCarthy.
LIFE OF RILEY . . .
New Orleans Police Superintendent
Warren J. Riley gave the Big Apple a
taste of policing in the Big Easy when he
visited John Jay on February 27 as the
keynote speaker for the annual Lloyd
Sealy Memorial Lecture, co-sponsored
by the College and the New York chap-
ter of the National Organization of Black
Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).
Riley, a 27-year policing veteran, took
the reins of the New Orleans depart-
ment in the fall of 2005, less than a
month after his city was devastated by
Hurricane Katrina.
published in the conference proceedings of the
Second European IAFL Conference on Forensic
Linguistics/Language and the Law. The paper
was originally presented at the International
Association of Forensic Linguistics (IAFL)
Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
DOROTHY MOSES SCHULZ (Law, Police
Science and Criminal Justice Administration) co-
authored an article, “Making Rank: The Lingering
Effects of Tokenism on Female Police Officers’
Promotion Aspirations,” which appears in the Professors Joseph King and Serguei Cheloukhine with their
credentials from the Russian Academy for the Study of
March 2008 issue of Police Quarterly. Professor
National Security.
Carol A. Archbold of North Dakota State
“Corruption Networks as a Sphere of Investment
University was her co-author.
Activities in Modern Russia,” which was featured
in the March 2007 issue of the Journal of
PEER REVIEW Communist and Post-Communist Studies, was
DANIELLE SAPSE (Law, Police Science and named one of the “Top 25 Hottest Articles” for
Criminal Justice Administration) received a 2007 by the website ScienceDirect.
$3,000 PSC-CUNY grant for research into
the application of theoretical methods to RICHARD KOEHLER (Law, Police Science and
forensic science and its legal aspects, and the Criminal Justice Administration, retired) was
presentation of the results in a series of lectures recently honored by the municipal government
at the University of Rouen in France this fall. of Valadares, Brazil, for the 15 years of service
that he and his law firm, Koehler & Isaacs LLP,
JOSEPH KING and SERGUEI CHELOUKHINE have provided to Brazilian immigrants living in
(Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice the United States. The 23-attorney, New York-
Administration) were elected as distinguished based firm specializes in immigration, labor and
professors of the Russian Academy for the Study employment, personal injury, real estate, criminal,
of National Security. In addition, their article, matrimonial and general practice cases.
@John Jay
Worth Noting
March 10 9:15 AM
High-Tech Surveillance
Societies and Our Privacy
Presented by the Center for
Cybercrime Studies
Jeff Jonas, Chief Scientist,
Entity Analytic Solutions
Room 630, Haaren Hall
March 14 8:30 AM
McCabe Fellowship Breakfast
Guest speaker: New York City Council
Speaker Christine Quinn
Auxiliary Gymnasium
March 21 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Prisoner Reentry Institute
Occasional Series on
Reentry Research
Transitional Jobs for Formerly
Incarcerated Individuals
Dan Bloom
MDRC
Room 630, Haaren Hall
March 27 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Graduate Lecture Series
The Physical Evidence Record and
Alternate Sources of Information in
Criminal Investigations
Professor Peter DeForest
Science Department
Multi-Purpose Room, North Hall
Mark Your Calendar
March 14 is the application
deadline for top 2008
commencement awards.
For details, contact Mary Nampiaparapil,
director of scholarships. (646) 557-4516.
mnampiaparampil@jjay.cuny.edu.
Hoop Dreams Come True as John Jay Wins CUNY Title
The New York Giants are no longer the only
underdog champions in town. The John Jay
Bloodhounds on February 22 capped a Cinderella
run through the CUNY Athletic Conference post-
season tournament with a stirring 68-54 victory
over York College to capture the College’s first-
ever men’s basketball championship.
The top-seeded and heavily favored York team
had beaten John Jay handily during the regular
season, and took the court for the finals as the
conference’s two-time defending champion. The
Bloodhounds, meanwhile, began the tournament
as the sixth seed with a 10-15 regular-season
record, but proceeded to knock off the College
of Staten Island (CSI) and New York City College
of Technology en route to the championship
game.
It was the team’s first appearance in the finals
since 1990, and the players made the most of it.
“I thought we were supposed to be the
underdog in this game,” said President Jeremy
Travis. “Apparently someone forgot to tell our
players.”
The Bloodhounds’ wounded warrior, senior
forward Hakeem Kased, won the tournament’s
Most Valuable Player award for his 13-point
performance in the finals and 23-point outburst
in the quarterfinals against CSI, as well as his
constant on-the-court leadership.
“This means everything,” said Kased, the team
captain, who was in tears after the final buzzer
sounded and his team’s championship became
official. “This is for four years of hard work, for
Best-Selling Author Gives John Jay
$1M for New Crime Scene Academy
Cornwell: “My Privilege to Give Something Back” to Policing
Patricia Cornwell, the best-selling crime
writer, has donated $1 million to John
Jay College to establish a Crime Scene
Academy that will become the first and only
international center for crime scene training
for professionals, students and interested
members of the general public.
Cornwell’s numerous fiction and nonfiction
works have been published in dozens of
countries and languages, and have earned
her widespread acclaim for her meticulous
research and insistence on detailed accuracy,
especially in forensic medicine and law
enforcement procedures.
“I’ve always respected and admired law
enforcement professionals, and am intimately
aware of the dangers and difficulties of their
jobs,” she said. “Police, forensic scientists
and pathologists, and so many others have
been unfailingly generous in sharing their
expertise with me. Now it is my privilege
to give something back. The greatest gift is
knowledge, and there’s no better place to get
it than John Jay College.”
John Jay presented Cornwell with an
honorary doctorate of letters at the May
2007 commencement ceremony, citing her
“commitment to the principles of academic
excellence and understanding for all.”
The Crime Scene Academy will comprise
five central components:
A Cornwell Fellowship Program in crime
scene decision-making, through which law
enforcement professionals from across the
country will be recruited and brought to John
Jay to learn the latest advances in crime scene
investigation and set the standards necessary
for modernizing the practice. Over time, it is
envisioned that this network of Cornwell Fellows
will create a national cohort that will assume
leadership roles in the evolution of the forensic
science community.
A Police Leadership Program, which will
all the running. This is for all the student-athletes
who have too much on their plates. I knew that
if we played consistently in this tournament, no
one could stop us.”
Kased’s own plate is kept full with athletics,
academics and a full-time job with the New
York City Transit Authority, where he works the
overnight shift as a track maintainer. He missed
the entire 2006-2007 season with a knee injury,
and played much of this season with a variety of
ailments, including an injured back.
His teammate Vaughn Mason, a junior
forward, led the Bloodhounds with 14 points
in the championship game before fouling out.
Both Mason and Kased were named to the all-
tournament team.
“It’s a tremendous compliment to see these
young men who believed in the coaches and
themselves, day in and day out, to get to this
point and get out there and do it on the court,”
said third-year head coach Charles Jackson.
The men’s basketball team next moves on to
its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III
post-season tournament, against an opponent
yet to be determined.
Hometown Hero
Chris Jaeger, a sophomore forward for the
Bloodhounds, was featured in the February
11 sports section of USA Today, in an article
focusing on his experience with the U.S. Army in
Iraq for 12 months in 2004 and 2005.
Jaeger compared heroics on the basketball
Crime writer Patricia Cornwell, the recipient of an honorary doctorate
from John Jay in 2007. Her $1-million gift to the College will establish a
pioneering Crime Scene Academy.
include a series of weeklong symposiums for
senior law enforcement executives to promote
better understanding of the management of a
criminal case from the crime scene through the
investigative and adjudicative processes. Police
executives will interact with John Jay faculty
experts in forensic science, psychology, law and
police science.
Law Enforcement and Crime Scene
Laboratory Training Modules, to provide
college-level instruction in state-of-the-art crime
scene investigation techniques. In conjunction
The John Jay men’s basketball team, led by tournament Most Valuable Player Hakeem Kased (left), celebrate at center court
after dominating York College 68-54 on February 22 to capture the CUNY Athletic Conference championship — the team’s
first conference title ever.
court with heroics under fire, saying: “In sports,
a good athlete has good instincts. Same with
being a good soldier. You want to be someone
you can count on. You don’t have to sit there
and think about what to do.”
His experience in Iraq, he said, gave him a
News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
March 5, 2008
with these modules, the Crime Scene
Academy will develop a train-the-trainers
program supplemented by online training.
A Post-Baccalaureate Forensic Science
Certificate Program, an intensive 10-week
summer certificate program that will give
students with undergraduate degrees in
the natural sciences the comprehensive
training in forensic science and criminalistics
they need to compete for jobs in forensic
laboratories.
K-12 Teacher Programs/Continuing
Education Public Programs, a series
of training sessions for teachers, middle-
school students and the general public.
The program for teachers will incorporate
into its curriculum materials developed by
the John Jay Department of Sciences for an
established weeklong training session for
K-12 science teachers.
President Jeremy Travis said in accepting
the gift: “Patricia Cornwell, who is noted
for her realistic portrayal of forensic
investigations and law enforcement, has
been educating millions of devoted fans
about forensic science and medicine through
her best-selling crime novels for more than
15 years. This makes her the perfect partner
for John Jay College, which has long been
recognized as the premier center for forensic
study in the United States. This generous
gift will allow us to address the critical need
to enhance the quality of crime scene analysis
around the country. It will also further realize
our mission of providing students with the
latest innovations in modern forensics and their
applications in crime scene investigations and
analysis. The Crime Scene Academy will serve
a national constituency of law enforcement
personnel.”
A national search will be conducted for a
director of the new Crime Scene Academy.
deeper appreciation for basketball, which he was
unable to play in the extreme conditions of the
war zone. “Basketball was always where I could
forget all my problems,” he said. “That was the
one thing you could do to relieve your stress over
there and you didn’t have that option.”
Breakfast Salutes Those Whose Future Honors the Past
Braving a blast of inclement wintry weather,
attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King
Breakfast on February 22 heard speaker after
speaker exhort them to never lose sight of the
importance of education and doing one’s best.
The breakfast, named for slain civil rights
activists Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., drew an enthusiastic group of faculty, staff
and students to the College gymnasium.
The 2008 event honored playwright and
novelist David Lamb, whose first novel Do
Platanos Go Wit Collard Greens? achieved critical
and commercial success with its exploration of
relations between blacks and Latinos. He also
wrote the plays Platanos and Collard Greens and
From Auction Block to Hip Hop.
Richard James Ferris, a senior major in
government at John Jay, followed Lamb to the
podium, addressing most of his remarks to fellow
students in the crowd. “If we truly want to honor
the memory of Martin and Malcolm,” Ferris said,
“we should pursue education. We must make
sure that tomorrow belongs to us.”
The morning’s keynote speaker, award-
winning reporter and commentator Dominic
Carter of the NY1 news channel, said with
a smile that he felt upstaged by Ferris’s brief
remarks. “I should’ve spoken before you — you
delivered the keynote address,” he said to Ferris.

Children’s Concert “You have an outstanding future.”

Like Ferris before him, Carter addressed his

Launches Mozart comments largely to the students who were

present. Asking them to stand up and be

Academy Program
The formal debut of the Mozart Academy at
John Jay College took place on Sunday, February
3 with a program presented by the academy’s
Concerts By Children division.
Hundreds of enthusiastic families filled the
Gerald W. Lynch Theater for a program that
included performances by the Carnegie Hill
Children’s Orchestra of Haydn’s Toy Symphony
and “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto
for Violin, played by 12-year-old soloist Sirena
Huang, brought the house down.
Concerts By Children, the brainchild of John
Jay Artist-In-Residence Caroline Stoessinger, is
aimed at building new audiences and educating
families to weave the legacy of great music into
their lives. “Concerts By Children is a testament
to the power of music as a shared language in
a city filled with different dialects, ethnicities
and cultures,” said Stoessinger. “The concerts
celebrate the city’s youngest performers, drawn
from all cultures, playing the masterpieces of past
generations for all audiences. More than simply
child performers, the musicians are a credit to
their art and a treat for audiences of all ages to
hear.”
Huang has performed in concerts sponsored
by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline
Albright, King Abdullah of Jordan, former
President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.
The large audience on February 3 included
Professor James Cohen of the Department of
Public Management, who attended along with
Christopher, a boy he mentors in the Big Brother
Program.
“Before the concert began, Chris was fidgety,
but, as soon as the children on stage began
playing, he was riveted to the music,” said
Cohen. “For me, it was inspiring to see such
a wonderfully diverse group of young people
playing classical music, with such evident skill.”
recognized, roughly half the audience rose to
Attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast enjoy a conversational moment during the festivities on February 22.
its feet, including about a dozen high school From left to right: Kewaulay Kamara, Department of African American Studies; author and playwright David Lamb; NY1
students. “This is what it’s all about,” Carter news anchor Dominic Carter; Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo; Gregory Bryant, director of the Liberty Partner-
ship Program; student honoree Conrad Phillips.
observed. “This is what Dr. King and Malcolm X
ultimately gave their lives for.” “We can achieve anything if we really believe outstanding academic achievement and success
Carter grew up in a Bronx housing project, in it and are willing to work hard,” said Carter. in African American studies. This year’s award
where he was raised by a grandmother he “Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. We don’t have was presented to Conrad Phillips, a Dean’s List
described as having “a PhD in loving me.” He the right to ever do less than our best.” student with a 3.6 GPA, who last year joined
called himself a “proud product” of affirmative Proceeds from the Malcolm/King breakfast John Jay faculty members and representatives of
action, noting, “without that opportunity, I are used to support a leadership scholarship the media and law enforcement as a panelist at
would not be standing here today.” for John Jay students who demonstrate the “Stop Snitching” symposium.
Student-Driven Effort Raises Funds
to Aid Bangladesh Cyclone Victims
When Cyclone Sidr slammed ashore in
Bangladesh on November 15, packing 150-mph
winds and torrential rains, it did more than
carve a swath of destruction that left thousands
dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. It
triggered a student-run relief effort at John Jay
that in very short order raised nearly $4,500 and
earned the official recognition of the Bangladeshi
government.
President Jeremy Travis paid tribute on
February 7 to the members of the Bangladesh
club and other student organizations, at a
reception in his office that was attended by the
Asian nation’s Consul General to the United
States, Mohammed Shamsul Haque. The
students’ fundraising effort, Travis said, is another
example of “building a reflexive communal
reaction to come together in times of need.”
Syeda Begum, who described herself as “just
a regular student here,” explained that people
she worked with at the U.S. State Department
had encouraged her to get involved in the
Joined by Professor Mabel Gomes (second from left) and student representatives, President Travis presents a check to Bangla-
Bangladesh relief effort. She enlisted the aid of
desh Consul General Mohammed Shamsul Haque, to be put toward relief efforts in the cyclone-stricken nation.
Professor Mabel Gomes in the Department of
Public Management. Soon after, the student to where the needs are greatest. She said of a community at John Jay College that cares
African American Club, Haitian Club and Muslim the students’ efforts, “If you can transcend about them.”
Students Association also came on board. “John boundaries of race, religion and nationality, you Haque, who said the money raised by John
Jay really came through to help us,” said Begum. can have an impact on the world.” Jay students would go toward building one of
People were first asked to donate time to the The Bangladeshi consul general said he felt several multipurpose cyclone shelters, opened
relief effort, Begum said. Requests for donations “very privileged, personally and professionally,” the door to building a partnership between
of money came later. to be on hand for the salute to the students. “I Bangladeshi institutions and John Jay, and invited
Gomes, who saw first-hand the extent of feel very proud that we’re not alone in our plight, Travis to visit his country. “We want to benefit
cyclone-related devastation in Bangladesh, said that we have friends like you around the world,” from values like yours, and institutions like
the money raised at John Jay would go directly said Haque. “I’ll let our people know that there’s yours,” Haque said.

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES

Violin prodigy Sirena Huang captivates the audience with
her performance of Tschaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin.
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Graphic Design Gary Zaragovitch
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
PEER REVIEW
HOWARD PFLANZER (Speech, Theatre and
Media Studies) has been awarded a Playwriting
Residency to work on a new project, beginning
in June 2008, by the Fundacion Valparaiso in
Mojacar, Spain.
IRA TITUNIK (Sciences) recently won the Markle
Award for the Forensic Scientist of the Year
2007. The award was presented by the Henry C.
Lee Institute of Forensic Sciences at the University
of New Haven.
PRESENTING…
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) addressed the Osborne
Association on February 12 on “Child Abuse
and Domestic Violence,” as part of a seminar
series sponsored by OASIS (the Outcome and
Assessment Information Set), a branch of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
STEPHEN HANDELMAN (Center on Media,
Crime and Justice) delivered a lecture to the
Cleveland Council on World Affairs on February
19, on the “Russian Mafia and Transnational
Organized Crime in the New Russia.”
THOMAS KUBIC (Sciences) and PETER
DIACZUK (Center on Modern Forensic Practice)
traveled to Kigali, Rwanda, in January to
evaluate evidence on behalf of defense counsel
representing individuals accused of crimes before
the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR).
BETWEEN THE COVERS
JEREMY TRAVIS (President) had his article,
“Reflections on the Reentry Movement,”
published in the December 2007 issue of Federal
Sentencing Reporter. The article looks back at
the first 10 years following Attorney General
Janet Reno’s call for proposals to create new
reentry partnerships and reentry courts around
the country.
ITAI SNEH (History) has had his latest book, The
Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed
to Change U.S. Foreign Policy, published by Peter
Lang Publishers.
MICHAEL AMAN (Speech, Theatre, and
Media Studies) and KIMORA (Law, Police
Science and Criminal Justice Administration)
have co-authored an article titled “Psychopathic
Elements in the Film Goodfellas,” which will
appear as the lead article in the May/June issue
of Community Corrections Report on Law and
Corrections Practice, published by the Civic
Research Institute. In the article, they stress the
importance of criminal justice professors teaching
elements of psychopathy to criminal justice
professionals, using film as a learning tool, not
just entertainment.

educating for justice

@John Jay
Worth Noting
March 10 9:15 AM
High-Tech Surveillance
Societies and Our Privacy
Presented by the Center for
Cybercrime Studies
Jeff Jonas, Chief Scientist,
Entity Analytic Solutions
Room 630, Haaren Hall
March 14 8:30 AM
McCabe Fellowship Breakfast
Guest speaker: New York City Council
Speaker Christine Quinn
Auxiliary Gymnasium
March 21 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Prisoner Reentry Institute
Occasional Series on
Reentry Research
Transitional Jobs for Formerly
Incarcerated Individuals
Dan Bloom
MDRC
Room 630, Haaren Hall
March 27 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Graduate Lecture Series
The Physical Evidence Record and
Alternate Sources of Information in
Criminal Investigations
Professor Peter DeForest
Science Department
Multi-Purpose Room, North Hall
Mark Your Calendar
March 14 is the application
deadline for top 2008
commencement awards.
For details, contact Mary Nampiaparapil,
director of scholarships. (646) 557-4516.
mnampiaparampil@jjay.cuny.edu.
Hoop Dreams Come True as John Jay Wins CUNY Title
The New York Giants are no longer the only
underdog champions in town. The John Jay
Bloodhounds on February 22 capped a Cinderella
run through the CUNY Athletic Conference post-
season tournament with a stirring 68-54 victory
over York College to capture the College’s first-
ever men’s basketball championship.
The top-seeded and heavily favored York team
had beaten John Jay handily during the regular
season, and took the court for the finals as the
conference’s two-time defending champion. The
Bloodhounds, meanwhile, began the tournament
as the sixth seed with a 10-15 regular-season
record, but proceeded to knock off the College
of Staten Island (CSI) and New York City College
of Technology en route to the championship
game.
It was the team’s first appearance in the finals
since 1990, and the players made the most of it.
“I thought we were supposed to be the
underdog in this game,” said President Jeremy
Travis. “Apparently someone forgot to tell our
players.”
The Bloodhounds’ wounded warrior, senior
forward Hakeem Kased, won the tournament’s
Most Valuable Player award for his 13-point
performance in the finals and 23-point outburst
in the quarterfinals against CSI, as well as his
constant on-the-court leadership.
“This means everything,” said Kased, the team
captain, who was in tears after the final buzzer
sounded and his team’s championship became
official. “This is for four years of hard work, for
Best-Selling Author Gives John Jay
$1M for New Crime Scene Academy
Cornwell: “My Privilege to Give Something Back” to Policing
Patricia Cornwell, the best-selling crime
writer, has donated $1 million to John
Jay College to establish a Crime Scene
Academy that will become the first and only
international center for crime scene training
for professionals, students and interested
members of the general public.
Cornwell’s numerous fiction and nonfiction
works have been published in dozens of
countries and languages, and have earned
her widespread acclaim for her meticulous
research and insistence on detailed accuracy,
especially in forensic medicine and law
enforcement procedures.
“I’ve always respected and admired law
enforcement professionals, and am intimately
aware of the dangers and difficulties of their
jobs,” she said. “Police, forensic scientists
and pathologists, and so many others have
been unfailingly generous in sharing their
expertise with me. Now it is my privilege
to give something back. The greatest gift is
knowledge, and there’s no better place to get
it than John Jay College.”
John Jay presented Cornwell with an
honorary doctorate of letters at the May
2007 commencement ceremony, citing her
“commitment to the principles of academic
excellence and understanding for all.”
The Crime Scene Academy will comprise
five central components:
A Cornwell Fellowship Program in crime
scene decision-making, through which law
enforcement professionals from across the
country will be recruited and brought to John
Jay to learn the latest advances in crime scene
investigation and set the standards necessary
for modernizing the practice. Over time, it is
envisioned that this network of Cornwell Fellows
will create a national cohort that will assume
leadership roles in the evolution of the forensic
science community.
A Police Leadership Program, which will
all the running. This is for all the student-athletes
who have too much on their plates. I knew that
if we played consistently in this tournament, no
one could stop us.”
Kased’s own plate is kept full with athletics,
academics and a full-time job with the New
York City Transit Authority, where he works the
overnight shift as a track maintainer. He missed
the entire 2006-2007 season with a knee injury,
and played much of this season with a variety of
ailments, including an injured back.
His teammate Vaughn Mason, a junior
forward, led the Bloodhounds with 14 points
in the championship game before fouling out.
Both Mason and Kased were named to the all-
tournament team.
“It’s a tremendous compliment to see these
young men who believed in the coaches and
themselves, day in and day out, to get to this
point and get out there and do it on the court,”
said third-year head coach Charles Jackson.
The men’s basketball team next moves on to
its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III
post-season tournament, against an opponent
yet to be determined.
Hometown Hero
Chris Jaeger, a sophomore forward for the
Bloodhounds, was featured in the February
11 sports section of USA Today, in an article
focusing on his experience with the U.S. Army in
Iraq for 12 months in 2004 and 2005.
Jaeger compared heroics on the basketball
Crime writer Patricia Cornwell, the recipient of an honorary doctorate
from John Jay in 2007. Her $1-million gift to the College will establish a
pioneering Crime Scene Academy.
include a series of weeklong symposiums for
senior law enforcement executives to promote
better understanding of the management of a
criminal case from the crime scene through the
investigative and adjudicative processes. Police
executives will interact with John Jay faculty
experts in forensic science, psychology, law and
police science.
Law Enforcement and Crime Scene
Laboratory Training Modules, to provide
college-level instruction in state-of-the-art crime
scene investigation techniques. In conjunction
The John Jay men’s basketball team, led by tournament Most Valuable Player Hakeem Kased (left), celebrate at center court
after dominating York College 68-54 on February 22 to capture the CUNY Athletic Conference championship — the team’s
first conference title ever.
court with heroics under fire, saying: “In sports,
a good athlete has good instincts. Same with
being a good soldier. You want to be someone
you can count on. You don’t have to sit there
and think about what to do.”
His experience in Iraq, he said, gave him a
News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
March 5, 2008
with these modules, the Crime Scene
Academy will develop a train-the-trainers
program supplemented by online training.
A Post-Baccalaureate Forensic Science
Certificate Program, an intensive 10-week
summer certificate program that will give
students with undergraduate degrees in
the natural sciences the comprehensive
training in forensic science and criminalistics
they need to compete for jobs in forensic
laboratories.
K-12 Teacher Programs/Continuing
Education Public Programs, a series
of training sessions for teachers, middle-
school students and the general public.
The program for teachers will incorporate
into its curriculum materials developed by
the John Jay Department of Sciences for an
established weeklong training session for
K-12 science teachers.
President Jeremy Travis said in accepting
the gift: “Patricia Cornwell, who is noted
for her realistic portrayal of forensic
investigations and law enforcement, has
been educating millions of devoted fans
about forensic science and medicine through
her best-selling crime novels for more than
15 years. This makes her the perfect partner
for John Jay College, which has long been
recognized as the premier center for forensic
study in the United States. This generous
gift will allow us to address the critical need
to enhance the quality of crime scene analysis
around the country. It will also further realize
our mission of providing students with the
latest innovations in modern forensics and their
applications in crime scene investigations and
analysis. The Crime Scene Academy will serve
a national constituency of law enforcement
personnel.”
A national search will be conducted for a
director of the new Crime Scene Academy.
deeper appreciation for basketball, which he was
unable to play in the extreme conditions of the
war zone. “Basketball was always where I could
forget all my problems,” he said. “That was the
one thing you could do to relieve your stress over
there and you didn’t have that option.”
Breakfast Salutes Those Whose Future Honors the Past
Braving a blast of inclement wintry weather,
attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King
Breakfast on February 22 heard speaker after
speaker exhort them to never lose sight of the
importance of education and doing one’s best.
The breakfast, named for slain civil rights
activists Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., drew an enthusiastic group of faculty, staff
and students to the College gymnasium.
The 2008 event honored playwright and
novelist David Lamb, whose first novel Do
Platanos Go Wit Collard Greens? achieved critical
and commercial success with its exploration of
relations between blacks and Latinos. He also
wrote the plays Platanos and Collard Greens and
From Auction Block to Hip Hop.
Richard James Ferris, a senior major in
government at John Jay, followed Lamb to the
podium, addressing most of his remarks to fellow
students in the crowd. “If we truly want to honor
the memory of Martin and Malcolm,” Ferris said,
“we should pursue education. We must make
sure that tomorrow belongs to us.”
The morning’s keynote speaker, award-
winning reporter and commentator Dominic
Carter of the NY1 news channel, said with
a smile that he felt upstaged by Ferris’s brief
remarks. “I should’ve spoken before you — you
delivered the keynote address,” he said to Ferris.

Children’s Concert “You have an outstanding future.”

Like Ferris before him, Carter addressed his

Launches Mozart comments largely to the students who were

present. Asking them to stand up and be

Academy Program
The formal debut of the Mozart Academy at
John Jay College took place on Sunday, February
3 with a program presented by the academy’s
Concerts By Children division.
Hundreds of enthusiastic families filled the
Gerald W. Lynch Theater for a program that
included performances by the Carnegie Hill
Children’s Orchestra of Haydn’s Toy Symphony
and “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s
Pictures at an Exhibition. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto
for Violin, played by 12-year-old soloist Sirena
Huang, brought the house down.
Concerts By Children, the brainchild of John
Jay Artist-In-Residence Caroline Stoessinger, is
aimed at building new audiences and educating
families to weave the legacy of great music into
their lives. “Concerts By Children is a testament
to the power of music as a shared language in
a city filled with different dialects, ethnicities
and cultures,” said Stoessinger. “The concerts
celebrate the city’s youngest performers, drawn
from all cultures, playing the masterpieces of past
generations for all audiences. More than simply
child performers, the musicians are a credit to
their art and a treat for audiences of all ages to
hear.”
Huang has performed in concerts sponsored
by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline
Albright, King Abdullah of Jordan, former
President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.
The large audience on February 3 included
Professor James Cohen of the Department of
Public Management, who attended along with
Christopher, a boy he mentors in the Big Brother
Program.
“Before the concert began, Chris was fidgety,
but, as soon as the children on stage began
playing, he was riveted to the music,” said
Cohen. “For me, it was inspiring to see such
a wonderfully diverse group of young people
playing classical music, with such evident skill.”
recognized, roughly half the audience rose to
Attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast enjoy a conversational moment during the festivities on February 22.
its feet, including about a dozen high school From left to right: Kewaulay Kamara, Department of African American Studies; author and playwright David Lamb; NY1
students. “This is what it’s all about,” Carter news anchor Dominic Carter; Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo; Gregory Bryant, director of the Liberty Partner-
ship Program; student honoree Conrad Phillips.
observed. “This is what Dr. King and Malcolm X
ultimately gave their lives for.” “We can achieve anything if we really believe outstanding academic achievement and success
Carter grew up in a Bronx housing project, in it and are willing to work hard,” said Carter. in African American studies. This year’s award
where he was raised by a grandmother he “Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. We don’t have was presented to Conrad Phillips, a Dean’s List
described as having “a PhD in loving me.” He the right to ever do less than our best.” student with a 3.6 GPA, who last year joined
called himself a “proud product” of affirmative Proceeds from the Malcolm/King breakfast John Jay faculty members and representatives of
action, noting, “without that opportunity, I are used to support a leadership scholarship the media and law enforcement as a panelist at
would not be standing here today.” for John Jay students who demonstrate the “Stop Snitching” symposium.
Student-Driven Effort Raises Funds
to Aid Bangladesh Cyclone Victims
When Cyclone Sidr slammed ashore in
Bangladesh on November 15, packing 150-mph
winds and torrential rains, it did more than
carve a swath of destruction that left thousands
dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. It
triggered a student-run relief effort at John Jay
that in very short order raised nearly $4,500 and
earned the official recognition of the Bangladeshi
government.
President Jeremy Travis paid tribute on
February 7 to the members of the Bangladesh
club and other student organizations, at a
reception in his office that was attended by the
Asian nation’s Consul General to the United
States, Mohammed Shamsul Haque. The
students’ fundraising effort, Travis said, is another
example of “building a reflexive communal
reaction to come together in times of need.”
Syeda Begum, who described herself as “just
a regular student here,” explained that people
she worked with at the U.S. State Department
had encouraged her to get involved in the
Joined by Professor Mabel Gomes (second from left) and student representatives, President Travis presents a check to Bangla-
Bangladesh relief effort. She enlisted the aid of
desh Consul General Mohammed Shamsul Haque, to be put toward relief efforts in the cyclone-stricken nation.
Professor Mabel Gomes in the Department of
Public Management. Soon after, the student to where the needs are greatest. She said of a community at John Jay College that cares
African American Club, Haitian Club and Muslim the students’ efforts, “If you can transcend about them.”
Students Association also came on board. “John boundaries of race, religion and nationality, you Haque, who said the money raised by John
Jay really came through to help us,” said Begum. can have an impact on the world.” Jay students would go toward building one of
People were first asked to donate time to the The Bangladeshi consul general said he felt several multipurpose cyclone shelters, opened
relief effort, Begum said. Requests for donations “very privileged, personally and professionally,” the door to building a partnership between
of money came later. to be on hand for the salute to the students. “I Bangladeshi institutions and John Jay, and invited
Gomes, who saw first-hand the extent of feel very proud that we’re not alone in our plight, Travis to visit his country. “We want to benefit
cyclone-related devastation in Bangladesh, said that we have friends like you around the world,” from values like yours, and institutions like
the money raised at John Jay would go directly said Haque. “I’ll let our people know that there’s yours,” Haque said.

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES

Violin prodigy Sirena Huang captivates the audience with
her performance of Tschaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin.
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Graphic Design Gary Zaragovitch
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
PEER REVIEW
HOWARD PFLANZER (Speech, Theatre and
Media Studies) has been awarded a Playwriting
Residency to work on a new project, beginning
in June 2008, by the Fundacion Valparaiso in
Mojacar, Spain.
IRA TITUNIK (Sciences) recently won the Markle
Award for the Forensic Scientist of the Year
2007. The award was presented by the Henry C.
Lee Institute of Forensic Sciences at the University
of New Haven.
PRESENTING…
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) addressed the Osborne
Association on February 12 on “Child Abuse
and Domestic Violence,” as part of a seminar
series sponsored by OASIS (the Outcome and
Assessment Information Set), a branch of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
STEPHEN HANDELMAN (Center on Media,
Crime and Justice) delivered a lecture to the
Cleveland Council on World Affairs on February
19, on the “Russian Mafia and Transnational
Organized Crime in the New Russia.”
THOMAS KUBIC (Sciences) and PETER
DIACZUK (Center on Modern Forensic Practice)
traveled to Kigali, Rwanda, in January to
evaluate evidence on behalf of defense counsel
representing individuals accused of crimes before
the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR).
BETWEEN THE COVERS
JEREMY TRAVIS (President) had his article,
“Reflections on the Reentry Movement,”
published in the December 2007 issue of Federal
Sentencing Reporter. The article looks back at
the first 10 years following Attorney General
Janet Reno’s call for proposals to create new
reentry partnerships and reentry courts around
the country.
ITAI SNEH (History) has had his latest book, The
Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed
to Change U.S. Foreign Policy, published by Peter
Lang Publishers.
MICHAEL AMAN (Speech, Theatre, and
Media Studies) and KIMORA (Law, Police
Science and Criminal Justice Administration)
have co-authored an article titled “Psychopathic
Elements in the Film Goodfellas,” which will
appear as the lead article in the May/June issue
of Community Corrections Report on Law and
Corrections Practice, published by the Civic
Research Institute. In the article, they stress the
importance of criminal justice professors teaching
elements of psychopathy to criminal justice
professionals, using film as a learning tool, not
just entertainment.

educating for justice

@John Jay News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
February 13, 2008

Worth Noting Dollars for Scholars

February 22 9:00 AM
With Deadline Looming, Thousands in Scholarship Aid Await Students
18th Annual More than $200,000 in scholarship funds
is waiting to be claimed by qualified John Jay
Malcolm/King Breakfast students, and the College is launching a major
Guest speaker: Dominic Carter, NY1 Web-driven effort to ensure that funds and
RSVP to 212-237-8764 students come together smoothly.
Gymnasium In early February, the College unveiled the
latest component of its newly redesigned Web
February 27 6:00 PM site, focusing on the array of scholarship options
available to students. With an application
Lloyd Sealy Lecture deadline of February 28 drawing near for many
Policing America’s Cities in the 21st Century: of the scholarships for the spring 2008 semester,
Challenges and Triumphs in New York City the hope is that increasing numbers of students
and New Orleans will take advantage of these opportunities.
Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, “Merit scholarship is grant money and you
New York City Police Department do not have to pay it back,” observed Mary
Superintendent Warren J. Riley, Nampiaparampil, the director of scholarship
New Orleans Police Department services. “It is given in recognition of your
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby academic achievement and public service.”
She noted that there are scholarships for
February 28 9:00 AM freshmen, sophomores, upper-division and
graduate students, as well as ones specifically for
Stop and Frisk Conference women, international students, research-oriented
Presented by the Center on students and more.
Thousands of dollars in scholarship aid — along with a streamlined application process — await qualified students.
Race, Crime and Justice and The Web site includes downloadable applica-
the Office for Advancement of Research tion forms in PDF format that students can print, some reason some scholarship opportunities have Services in Room 4113N. Most scholarship ap-
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby fill out and submit. The forms themselves have gone underutilized in the past.” plications require essays and/or letters of recom-
been streamlined, so that a single form now “We’re trying to ensure that institutional mendation, she noted, urging students to seek
March 1 9:00 AM covers more than 30 scholarships. scholarship funds are being spent for the any needed help from the Writing Center or
“We have a brand new focus on scholarships purposes for which they were intended,” added faculty members who know them well.
Law Day Saulnier. “President Travis wants more emphasis on
at the College, and are encouraging as many
Presented by the Pre-Law Institute
qualified students as possible to apply,” said Vice Most undergraduate and graduate scholar- recruiting, recognizing and rewarding highly
Gymnasium and various locations President for Enrollment Management Richard ships have February 28 deadlines. Nampia- qualified students, and that’s exactly what we’re
Saulnier, who oversees the scholarship services parampil urged students to consult the list of trying to do. The reorganization of scholarship
March 3 3:30 PM office. “We have no shortage of highly qualified available scholarships online at www.jjay.cuny. services and the overhaul of the Web site is all
Spring Faculty/Staff Meeting students — and we always want more — but for edu/340.php, or visit the Office of Scholarship part of that,” Saulnier noted.
and Service Recognition
Reception
Gerald W. Lynch Theater & Theater Lobby
Faculty to Lead Groundbreaking
March 14 8:30 AM
McCabe Fellowship Breakfast
Study-Abroad Programs This Summer
Guest speaker: New York City Council “And what did you do on your Santo Domingo or in Moroccan
Speaker Christine Quinn summer vacation?” homes.
For roughly 60 John Jay students, All students will be required to
Auxiliary Gymnasium the answer to that oft-posed attend a pre-departure orientation,
question will soon involve earning and to share their experiences
college credits in exotic locales, as with the broader John Jay College
part of a series of intensive study community upon their return,

College Pushes abroad programs this coming June.

The three inaugural faculty-led
study abroad programs are:
Lewandoski said.
“Congratulations in advance
to the students who will have the

Sign-Ups for “Urban Cultural Spaces in Puerto

Rico,” taught by Professor Alma
unparalleled opportunity to travel
with John Jay professors to study

CUNY Alert Net

President Jeremy Travis is encouraging John
Jay students, faculty and staff to participate in
CUNY Alert, a new university-wide emergency
notification system that will soon go online
following an initial signup period.
Mora (Foreign Languages), meeting these interesting topics in such
in San Juan, PR. interesting parts of the world,” said
John Jay students will have a chance to study abroad in San Juan, PR, or one of two other
“Caribbean Criminology,” taught locales this summer in four-week, credit-bearing courses. President Jeremy Travis.
by Professors David Brotherton Application dates for the
(Sociology) and Luis Barrios (Puerto Rican/Latin program to the next. Students will stay in three courses vary. For more information,
American Studies), meeting in Santo Domingo, apartments at the University of Puerto Rico, contact Lewandoski at 212-484-1339, e-mail
Dominican Republic. dormitories at the Autonomous University of klewandoski@jjay.cuny.edu.
“Gender, Culture, Community and

$3 Million in Free Publicity

CUNY Alert will enable the University’s
campuses to provide alerts and timely
information in emergencies, such as severe-
weather scenarios, fires and bomb threats, civil
disturbances, major road closings and threats
to personal safety. Participation is elective in
the secure, Web-based alert system, which
will provide messages ranging from specific
instructions to general warnings, depending on
the severity of a given incident.
By signing up online at www.cuny.edu/alert,
participants can choose how they wish to
receive voice or text notifications: cell phone,
home phone, e-mail or IM, or any combination
of these. The Web page provides step-by-step
instructions for signing up, and the process takes
less than two minutes.
“The College is committed to making sure we
do all we can to ensure the safety of all members
of the College community,” Travis said. “CUNY
Alert will help us achieve this goal.”
Violence,” taught by Professor Chitra Raghavan
(Psychology), meeting in Rabat, Morocco.
Ken Lewandoski, the Director of International
Studies and Programs, noted that while John Jay
students have had study-abroad opportunities in
the past through other CUNY campuses, this will
be the first time they can earn John Jay College
academic credits in programs led by John Jay
faculty. The programs qualify under the Study/
Travel Opportunities for CUNY Students (STOCS)
program, which will allow participating students
to receive $750 to $1,500 in financial aid. (The
deadline for STOCS applications is March 14.)
“We want these programs to be academically
rigorous — not travel abroad, but study
abroad,” Lewandoski added. “They are all
designed to enhance a student’s chosen course
of study.” The four-week programs will include
classroom lectures and discussions, field trips and
presentations by local persons of interest.
Living arrangements will vary from one
John Jay continues to maintain a high media
profile nationwide, with a new survey showing
that the College’s faculty, administration,
students and alumni were quoted or mentioned
in more than 1,089 stories appearing in print and
dedicated Internet news sites in 2007.
An appraisal of the media placements using
the PRTrak database estimated the value of the
media visibility to be equivalent to roughly $3
million in paid advertising.
Although the College arranges appearances
on television and radio programs for many
faculty members, the survey does not include
broadcast news reports, as the College does not
subscribe to broadcast monitoring services.
All 19 academic departments received
press attention. While some garnered more
than others, John Jay’s faculty were quoted
in an impressive number of print and online
publications. The College’s centers and institutes
were also mentioned in many media outlets
Media visibility, while nationwide, varied
by region, with most of the press attention
concentrated in the Middle Atlantic region (New
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) and the
South Atlantic. The New York Daily News (10
percent) and The New York Times (6 percent)
gave the College the most media attention.
The Communications Office is eager to
promote faculty members’ expertise as well as
students’ accomplishments. Faculty who would
like to provide expert commentary to the media
or who have information to share about their
scholarly activity should contact Chris Godek
(212-237-8628, cgodek@jjay.cuny.edu) or Doreen
Vinas (212-237-8645, dvinas@jjay.cuny.edu).
Two Thumbs Up. . .
English Professor’s Work Makes “Year’s Best” Lists
Professor John Matteson of the English
department knew he had a hit on his hands
when his book Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of
Louisa May Alcott and Her Father was published
last year by W.W. Norton. After all, the initial
reviews lavished the book with such praise as
“engrossing,” “elegantly written” and “a deftly
rendered and highly recommended portrait.”
Further evidence of the book’s significance and
merit came in early January, with the news that
Eden’s Outcasts had been named as one of the
best books of 2007 by both the Christian Science
Monitor and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Eden’s Outcasts chronicles the relationship
between the celebrated author of Little Women
and her father, Bronson Alcott, who is described
as a self-taught farm boy turned idealist and
philosopher. In its review last August, the
Monitor praised Matteson for telling “the tale of
a most unusual American life.”
“Particularly for those unfamiliar with the
Alcott story,” the Monitor’s reviewer wrote, “this
is a journey of much interest.”
The Post-Dispatch was no less effusive in its
applause for Eden’s Outcasts, describing it as
“impossible to put down” as it unfolds its tale
of “two fascinating main characters.” The book
century utopian communities,” he recalled, “and
Bronson Alcott, who founded the Fruitlands
community, was one of the first I explored. At the
same time, I wanted to write about an important
father-daughter pair, because I am a dad myself.
Before I knew it, the book began to take on a life
of its own.”
Other biographers have examined the lives
of Louisa May Alcott and her father individually.
Eden’s Outcasts, Matteson noted, is the first
book to look at their lives jointly.
A paperback edition of the book is due out
later this year. Matteson will also be serving
as a consultant and on-air commentator for a
forthcoming PBS documentary on Louisa May
Alcott.
Matteson, who has taught literature and legal
writing at John Jay since 1997, holds a PhD in
English from Columbia University and a law
English professor John Matteson (center) is joined by his department colleagues Margaret Tabb and Elisabeth Gitter at a degree from Harvard Law School. Based on the
Book & Author presentation on November 12 where they discussed his critically acclaimed biography Eden’s Outcasts: The
success of Eden’s Outcasts, he recently signed
Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. The book was recently named as one of 2007’s best by two major newspapers.
a contract with W.W. Norton to write a second
includes numerous portraits of father, daughter book “very gratifying,” said that telling the story biography. The new work will focus on Margaret
and other Alcott family members, which the of Bronson and Louisa May Alcott began to take Fuller, the pioneering women’s right activist,
newspaper characterized as “one of the volume’s shape for him as two areas of interest — one gender theorist and journalist. He hopes to have
chief pleasures.” scholarly and one personal — converged. the book out in time for the Fuller bicentennial
Matteson, who called the critical praise for his “I thought about writing a book on 19th in 2010.

New Effort Seeks to Ease Path to Bachelor’s Degrees for Police

New York City police officers will soon
be returning to our classrooms in significant
numbers, thanks to a new initiative that will
make it easier for them to obtain their bachelor’s
degrees at John Jay.
The new program, due to begin in the summer
of 2008, will allow officers to complete their
degrees by earning 30 credits at the College,
finish at least 50 percent of their major at John
Jay and earn 120 credits including prior academic
experience and NYPD training.
Until now, NYPD officers seeking to obtain
their bachelor’s degree from the College often
had to complete added course requirements
that left them with close to 200 credits before
graduating.
“President Travis saw a need for more
police officers at John Jay, and the faculty liked
the idea of having veteran officers, with their
work and life experience, in their classes,”
said William Devine, director of the College’s
NYC Police Leadership Certificate Program, a
12-credit sequence that channels roughly 750
officers through John Jay each year. “Further
investigation pointed up the excess-credit Active or retired NYPD members who are or fall semesters. Additional workshops will
impediment, and steps were taken to remedy the in the program will be able to complete their be scheduled and interested officers should
situation.” degrees in as few as six semesters. e-mail nypd@jjay.cuny.edu for more information.
“The administration is behind this, the faculty More than 100 officers attended one of Officers can also call Katie Pzeniczna in
are behind this, and the Police Commissioner is three recent workshops on the program and are the Division of Enrollment Management at
behind this,” Devine continued. Travis and Vice now in the pipeline to enroll for the summer 212-237-8874.
President for Enrollment Management Richard
Saulnier met with Police Commissioner Raymond
W. Kelly, who personally endorsed and promoted
the idea.
Looking for Clues
The program, which is being handled by
the Division of Enrollment Management in
conjunction with the Counseling Department,
offers a personal touch for interested officers.
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions will
evaluate officers’ credits and determine eligibility
for the program. Officers then meet one-on-
one with a dedicated academic advisor who will
develop a personal academic profile for them and
assist them in completing their degrees within
120 credits.
“The personal touch is very important,”
Devine added, “because each student is
different.”

Hands Across the Border

Led by John Jay’s Center for International
Human Rights, police officials from six European
nations gathered at the College on December
13 and 14 for the first of three workshops as
part of the project “Policing Across Borders:
Strengthening the Role of Law Enforcement in
Global Governance.”
The workshop, “Strengthening Cooperation
in the Fight against Terrorism: Legislation, Institu-
tions, and Proposals,” brought together officials
from Greece, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey, along with
academics and representatives of intergovern-
mental and non-governmental organizations.
The workshop was co-sponsored by the
Greek Center for Security Studies and the
Institute for Central-Eastern Europe and the
It’s not every day that the National Institute of Justice and the FBI sponsor a Trace Evidence Symposium — the session held
Balkans of the University of Bologna. Funding
in Clearwater, FL, in August was the first in more than a decade. Still, members of the John Jay Department of Sciences were
for the three-year “Policing Across Borders” out in force, as forensic scientists and trace-evidence specialists from around the world gathered to share expertise and
project was provided by the Stavros Niarchos present research. Professor Peter R. DeForest (above right) was a moderator and presenter in both the evidence recogni-
Foundation. tion and recovery workshop and the general session on education and research, where he was joined by Professor Thomas
A. Kubic (above left). Kubic also presented a paper on laboratory report writing. Other faculty members at the symposium
The next workshop in the series, focusing on
were Professor Nicholas Petraco, who presented on the debris generated by the collapse of the World Trade Center towers;
human trafficking and migrant smuggling, will and Peter Diaczuk, director of forensic science training for the Center for Modern Forensic Practice, who was a panelist in the
take place at John Jay on May 2 and 3. evidence recognition and recovery workshop and presented on firearm evidence and shooting scene reconstruction.

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES

PRESENTING…
BENJAMIN LAPIDUS (Art, Music and
Philosophy) will perform in concert on April 5 at
the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn to
celebrate the release of his newest CD, Herencia
Judia. Lapidus is an acknowledged master of the
guitar, the six-string Cuban tres and the 10-string
Puerto Rican cuatro. His new CD is inspired by
the musical traditions of the Spanish Caribbean
and Jewish liturgical music.
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Graphic Design Gary Zaragovitch
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
ABBY STEIN (Interdisciplinary Studies) was
invited by the Indian Academy of Forensic
Medicine to present her critically acclaimed book
Prologue to Violence: Child Abuse, Dissociation
and Crime (The Analytic Press, 2007) at an
international conference in Mumbai, India in
February.
ITAI SNEH (History) delivered a paper titled
“From Vietnam to Carter: Attempts to Reverse
Realpolitik” at a conference on peace studies at
the London School of Economics on February 2.
EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English)
kept up a busy schedule during her yearlong
sabbatical in 2007, including pressing ahead with
her video research project involving nonverbal
cues and communication in parole board
hearings. She co-presented a paper — “What
Legal Writers Should Know: A Syntactic Analysis
of a Legal Brief” — at the biennial conference of
the International Association of Forensic Linguists
in Seattle, WA. She also taught a seminar on
“Sector Analysis: X-Word Grammar” for the
University of Catania in Ragusa, Sicily.
BETWEEN THE COVERS
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration/Interdisciplinary Studies)
authored an article titled “Detention in a
Japanese Jail for Ten Days in 1998,” which will
appear in the May/June 2008 issue of American
Jails magazine. In the article, she explores
the work of Setsuo Miyazawa from Aoyama
Gakuin University in Japan and the reflections of
genbatsuka, or increased severity of punishment
that is written into Japanese criminal justice
policy, from the point of view of one American
incarcerated in a Japanese prison.
JANICE BOCKMEYER (Government) published
her chapter “Building the Global City — The
Immigrant Experience of Urban Revitalization,” in
the book Governing Cities in a Global Era: Urban
Innovation, Competition, and Democratic Reform
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). The book, edited
by Robin Hambleton and Jill Simone Gross,
represents the work of scholars from 11 countries
on urban challenges facing city residents, leaders
and managers in all continents.
ITAI SNEH (History) published a review of
Richard Parker’s biography John Kenneth
Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics on
the Web sites H-1960s and H-Net Reviews.
JAMES DOYLE (Center on Modern Forensic
Practice) and JENNIFER DYSART (Psychology)
have co-authored, with Elizabeth Loftus, the
4th edition of Eyewitness Testimony: Civil and
Criminal (LexisNexis, 2008). The book provides
courtroom-ready trial techniques and the latest
psychological research concerning a wide variety
of issues pertaining to eyewitness testimony.
Loftus, the lead author, is a distinguished
professor at the University of California-Irvine.

educating for justice

@John Jay
Worth Noting “Thanks a Million (and a Half)!”
February 4 6:00 PM
Opening Reception for Dads
Faculty Research Efforts Get a Major Infusion of Federal Funds
John Jay College is due to receive more than
An exhibition of photographs
$1.5 million in federal funds to support a wide
by Stephen Shames, part of
range of criminal justice research initiatives.
the annual movingWALLS series.
The funds, in the form of grants and
6th Floor Gallery Space, Haaren Hall Congressional earmarks, will support efforts
examining emergency response to large-scale
February 22 9:30 AM disasters, gang violence and crime prevention,
18th Annual sex offender management, domestic violence,
Malcolm/King Breakfast undergraduate science education and public
safety leadership.
Call (212) 237-8764 for details “The Congressional earmarks will insure that
Gymnasium national visibility is given to the landmark work of
the Center for Crime Prevention and Control and
February 27 5:30 PM the Regenhard Center for Emergency Response.
Furthermore, federal funding of John Jay’s
Lloyd Sealy Lecture programs helps to insure that John Jay maintains
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, its criminal justice leadership position,” said a
New York City Police Department jubilant President Jeremy Travis. “Our faculty are
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby recognized world over for their expertise and
these funds attest to their scholarship.”
February 28 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM The funded programs include:
Stop and Frisk Conference ¶ A $330,000 grant from the Department of
Sponsored by the Center on Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing
Race, Crime and Justice, Services, for the project “Real-Time Decision-
the Office for Advancement of Research, Making for Public Safety Executives.” Led by
and the New York Civil Liberties Union Ellen Scrivner, Director of the John Jay Leadership
Academy, the program will focus on the real-
Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby
world practice of preparedness leadership and
March 1 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM decision-making among public safety leaders.
¶ A $305,500 Congressional earmark,
Law Day sponsored and led by Representative Jerrold
Presented by the Pre-Law Institute Nadler (D-NY), to support the award-winning
Gymnasium and various locations work of the College’s Center for Crime
Prevention and Control, directed by Professor
David Kennedy. The funds will allow the Center
WELCOME, to develop and disseminate crime-reduction
strategies through hands-on fieldwork, research
SPRING 2008
and unique partnerships with communities, the
police and other law enforcement professionals
FRESHMEN!
in cities throughout the United States.
¶ A $296,656 grant from the National
Institute of Justice for the project “Sex Offender
Kudos for Employees who Provide an “Extra Ingredient”
Twenty-one employees who are “making a our ongoing effort to turn John Jay into a more
difference at a critical time in John Jay’s history” employee-centered organization,” he said.
were honored December 20 as the first winners Dean of Human Resources Donald Gray,
of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards. emcee of the first Bravo! awards presentation,
Robert Pignatello, Senior Vice President for noted, “After 19 years at John Jay, I couldn’t
Finance and Administration, pointed out that have hoped for a more qualified, more deserving
the Bravo! Program will recognize new and inaugural group of honorees.”
creative ideas, innovative problem-solving and President Jeremy Travis observed that
superior customer service, and will include the everywhere he travels throughout the United
outstanding employee of the year honors that States, “People know of John Jay, and it’s
are bestowed at commencement. “It’s all part of because of the work we do here — and a lot of
The inaugural recipients of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards, joined by President Travis, flash an enthusiastic
“thumbs-up” after they were honored on December 20.
News and Events of Interest
to the College Community
January 23, 2008
The work of Professors David Kennedy (above left) and Glenn Corbett will be aided by recent Congressional earmarks.
Management, Treatment and Civil Commitment: curriculum and supporting content for teaching
An Evidence-Based Analysis Aimed at Reducing the process of science to undergraduates.
Sexual Violence.” Professors Elizabeth Jeglic and ¶ A $178,600 earmark, sponsored and led by
Cynthia Mercado of the psychology department Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) with the
will lead the effort to examine the program backing of the state’s Congressional delegation
management, treatment and recidivism of sexual — prominently Senator Charles Schumer (D-
offenders in New Jersey. NY) — to support the creation of the Christian
¶ A $265,883 grant from the Centers for Regenhard Center for Emergency Response
Disease Control and Prevention for the project Studies. The Center, directed by Glenn Corbett,
“Can Family-Based Prevention of Conduct professor of public management, will provide
Problems Prevent IPV Development?” Led by an integrated and comprehensive approach to
psychology professor Miriam Ehrensaft, the the study of emergency response to large-scale
initiative will explore whether intimate partner disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the
violence (IPV) in high-risk children can be
prevented via early, family-focused intervention.
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
¶ A $206,424 grant from the Department of
Education for the Comprehensive Program Fund New Dean
for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education
(FIPSE) Invitational Priority A. Science professor of Students
Anthony Carpi will lead the project to develop a
Takes the Reins
SUNY-Old Westbury’s loss is John Jay’s gain
Wayne Edwards, former Dean of Students
work goes into making this institution one of at the State University campus on Long Island,
quality, day after day, year after year, and even was recently named as John Jay’s new Dean of
decade after decade.” Students. He began the new position officially in
With the new awards, Travis said, “We are early January.
recognizing the ‘extra ingredient’ that goes into President Jeremy Travis noted that Edwards
institutional transformation.” is “an experienced student services professional
The College’s vice presidents were called to who will bring great strength and creativity to his
the podium in alphabetical order to introduce the new post. His arrival represents a great day for
employees in their units who were to receive the our students and a new chapter in strengthening
Bravo! awards. The winners were: and revitalizing student services at John Jay.”
Academic Affairs At Old Westbury, Edwards supervised
Azinia Brooks residential life, judicial affairs, career services,
Sandrine Dikambi counseling services, the Student Union, interfaith
Darryl Westcott-Marshall services and student activities. He was a faculty
Student Development member in the Department of American/Media
Malaine Clarke Studies, teaching such courses as popular music
Christine Givens in U.S. culture, the politics of the media, and
Dana Trimboli culture, communication and society.
Institutional Advancement Edwards also has extensive experience in
Juan Taveras the music and publishing industries, as senior
Gary Zaragovitch director at Mercury Records, as director of media
President’s Office relations for the Lee Solters public relations firm,
Elizabeth McCabe and as editor in chief of Black Sounds magazine.
Finance and Administration He holds two master’s degrees and is currently
George Correa completing his PhD in sociology at the CUNY
Mario Alex DeLeon Graduate School.
Joseph Laub The deanship at John Jay was filled on an
Yenny Rodriguez interim basis by Arnold Osansky, who was
Suzette Sancho praised by Travis for his “exemplary service” in
Kevin Silva taking on an “important assignment at a critical
Enrollment Management time in the history of the College.” Osansky
Sean Julie is now the Director of Outreach Programs. In
Nilsa Lam this new position, he will oversee the College’s
Cheuk Lee outreach efforts to high schools, community
Sylvia Crespo-Lopez colleges and professional organizations in order
Jo-Alejandra Lugo to advance our recruitment of more diverse and
Peggy Roth better prepared students.
As Campaign Heats Up, Poll Finds
Crime Issues Still Matter to Voters
With the 2008 Presidential election campaign
beginning to shift into high gear, Americans have
a piece of advice for candidates: elected officials
should spend less time talking about terrorism
and more time discussing specific strategies for
preventing crime.
The advice came in a recent national survey
conducted by the College’s Center on Media,
Crime and Justice, which was released in
conjunction with the third annual Harry Frank
Guggenheim Symposium, held at John Jay on
December 3-4. The survey found that registered
voters view crime as an issue on a par with the
economy and health care.
The finding that people are still worried about
crime and ways to address it “isn’t a surprise at
all,” said President Jeremy Travis.
“If you’ve watched the presidential debates
over the past few months, you’re hard-pressed to
hear a discourse on crime,” Travis said. “You hear
Behind President Travis and Special Agent Harry Kern, chief of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, cut the ribbon December 11 to open the expanded “FBI
Room” in North Hall, which houses hundreds of closed-case files available to John Jay graduate students in forensic psychology as part of an educa-
Closed Doors
tional and research partnership between the College and the FBI. Above right, at the ribbon-cutting, students wait to receive certificates for comple-
tion of the educational component of the program.
FACULTY / STAFF NOTES
BETWEEN THE COVERS
MICHAEL BLITZ (Interdisciplinary Studies) had
his newest book, Johnny Depp: A Biography,
published by Greenwood Press. This is Blitz’s
second biography since 2006 in Greenwood’s
Young Adult series.
ADINA SCHWARTZ (Law, Police Science and
Criminal Justice Administration) published her
“Commentary on Nichols R.G., Defending the
Scientific Foundations of the Firearms and Tool
Mark Identification Discipline: Responding to
Recent Challenges, J. Forens. Sci. 2007 May;
52(3): 586-94” in the November 2007 issue
of the Journal of Forensic Sciences. In recent
months, Schwartz has taught Continuing Legal
@ John Jay is published by the
Department of Institutional Advancement
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue,
New York, NY 10019
www.jjay.cuny.edu
Editor Peter Dodenhoff
Graphic Design Gary Zaragovitch
Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:
Office of Communications
fax: (212) 237-8642
e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu
a lot about security and terrorism — incredibly
important issues, to be sure — but not about
crime. This poll indicates that candidates need
to discuss crime, its causes and potential ways to
address it, because voters are ready to listen.”
According to the poll, which was conducted
for the center by the Global Strategy Group, 53
percent of American voters agreed strongly with
the view that crime is a very serious problem.
Sixty-four percent said they believed there is
more crime in America than one year ago. Forty-
three percent said they wanted the media to
focus more attention on crime prevention and
less on crimes committed, and 36 percent felt
that elected officials are not talking enough
about preventing crime.
Asked to identify the primary causes of crime,
33 percent of those surveyed pointed to drugs
and alcohol, 17 percent said poverty, and 6
percent cited illegal immigration.
Education sessions on challenging firearms and
tool mark identification for the North Carolina
Bar Association, the Juvenile Defender Leadership
Summit, the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers
Association, the Los Angeles Public Defender
Forensic Science Conference and the National
Seminar for Federal Defenders.
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) authored an article titled
“To Shame or Not to Shame: Lessons from ‘Quiz
Show,’” which will appear in the March/April
2008 issue of Community Corrections Report on
Law and Corrections Practice. In the article, she
makes a case for not shaming those being held
in correctional facilities.
ON BOARD
GABRIELLE SALFATI (Psychology) was
appointed as Associate to Dean of Research
JAMES LEVINE. In this role, she will be assisting
Levine while he is serving in the dual capacities
of Dean and Interim Chair of the Department
of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice
Administration. With the addition of Salfati to
the Office for the Advancement of Research,
“the College will continue its ambitious drive to
further enhance its research agenda and increase
educating for justice
When it came to possible ways of reducing
crime in the United States, survey respondents
called for putting more police on the streets
(24 percent), tougher sentencing (24 percent),
stricter gun laws (18 percent) and violence
prevention programs for youths (18 percent).
Other strategies that were identified included
job training programs for prisoners and parolees
(16 percent), more mental health and drug
treatment programs (14 percent), preventing
illegal immigration (11 percent) and removing
criminal penalties for possession of certain drugs
(11 percent).
The 1,000 registered voters who were polled
included a mix of city dwellers, suburbanites
and rural residents. One-third said they had
completed college and/or graduate school.
The poll was made possible through grants
from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
and the Open Society Institute.
Muchas,
Muchas Gracias
Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies Jose Luis
Morin presents an award to Rossana Rosado, Publisher
and CEO of the newspaper El Diario/La Prensa, at the
annual Latino/a Breakfast on November 30. Rosado,
the event’s keynote speaker, surprised attendees
with her announcement of a new Prisoner Reentry
Fellowship, beginning in the Spring of 2008. Open to
undergraduates with at least 30 credits and a GPA of
2.5 or higher, the Fellowship will award $1,000 and
give the selected student the opportunity to work
with the College’s Prisoner Reentry Institute on issues
related to people returning home from prison and
jail. Applications for the competitive fellowship must
include two essays and a letter of recommendation.
For complete details on how to apply and application
deadlines, contact the Office of Scholarship Services in
the Division of Enrollment Management.
its reputation in the world of scholarship,” Levine
said in a statement issued jointly with JANE
BOWERS, the Interim Provost and Senior Vice
President for Academic Affairs.
PEER REVIEW
JEREMY TRAVIS (President) recently
received the 2007 Research Award from the
International Corrections and Prison Association,
an Edinburgh, Scotland-based professional
organization. The award cited Travis for “the
significant body of work that you have done in
the field of corrections and, in particular, for your
recent seminal research on prisoner reentry.”
PRESENTING…
YI HE, ANTHONY CARPI, PETER DEFOREST
and NICHOLAS PETRACO (Sciences) were
featured presenters and panelists at the 46th
Eastern Analytical Symposium & Exposition,
“Opening Up the World of Analysis,” held in
November in Somerset, NJ. Also participating
in the symposium was PETER DIACZUK, the
director of forensic science training for John Jay’s
Center for Modern Forensic Practice.
KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal
Justice Administration) addressed the Osborne
When the Issue
Is DNA Training,
the Answer Is
“John Jay”
A certain hamburger-restaurant chain
proclaims itself to have served “billions and
billions.” The John Jay College Office of
Continuing and Professional Studies is quietly
making its mark by serving 560 — and counting
— with a cutting-edge package of DNA training
aimed at police, prosecutors, defense attorneys
and others throughout New York State.
The training initiative is part of a $2-million
contract awarded to the office by the New York
State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS),
of which $1 million was passed along to the New
York City Police Department and the remainder
used by John Jay for statewide DNA training.
“The DCJS set a goal of training 400 law
enforcement officers by the end of 2007,” said
Dean of Continuing and Professional Studies
Judith Kornberg. “We did 560.”
The training was led by Herb Johnson of the
John Jay Criminal Justice Center, Peter Diaczuk
of the Center for Modern Forensic Practice and
Marilyn Simpson of the New York-New Jersey
Regional Community Policing Institute, which is
based at John Jay. On December 13, President
Jeremy Travis saluted the trainers and Dean
Kornberg with a reception in his office.
“Logistically, this has been absolutely
the biggest project to date by the Office of
Continuing and Professional Studies,” Kornberg
said. “Our trainers covered the state from
Niagara in the west to Suffolk in the east, from
Plattsburgh in the north to Westchester in the
south, and many other points in between.”
Kornberg said the prosecutors’ training
component has been subcontracted to the
New York State Prosecutorial Training Institute
in Albany, and that her office hopes to develop
a training curriculum for defense attorneys
sometime this spring. Additional training will
focus on nurses, coroners and, Kornberg hopes,
crime scene technicians.
“This solidifies John Jay’s reputation as
the place to come for DNA training in the
Northeast,” she said.
On January 15, the state DNA advisory
subcommittee, which regulates and monitors
public DNA labs in New York, met at John Jay in
a symposium on the use of “familial matching”
search techniques in the state’s DNA data bank.
The Webcast session was open to the College
community.
QUESTIONS? PROBLEMS?
THE ONE-STOP CENTER
IN NORTH HALL
HAS ANSWERS.
Association on “Cultural Diversity and
Competence” on November 27. She spoke about
the importance of overcoming prejudice and
promoting diversity in correctional counseling.
HOWARD PFLANZER (Speech, Theatre and
Media Studies) held a reading of his play Jersey
Nights at the Living Theatre in Manhattan on
January 14.
JANE KATZ (Physical Education and
Athletics), above, recently won seven gold
medals competing in swim events at the 2007
Maccabiah Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina.