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NYUALUMNIMAGAZINE/ISSUE#18/SPRING2012

ISSUE #18 / SPRING 2012

www.nyu.edu/alumni.magazine

THE BIRTH OF

THREE COMEDY STARS

A PATH TO ENDING

HOMELESSNESS

MAIRA KALMAN’S

DREAMLIKE WORLD

THENEWFACESOFFUNNY(MEET THEM ON PAGE 30)

Make a gift to NYU and receive an Alumni Card

FROM THE DAYYOU GRADUATE

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR

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NYUAlumni

2012APULIA, ITALYJune 19 - 27, 2012 (SOLD OUT)

September 4 – 12, 2012

COASTAL LIFE - ADRIATIC SEAJune 24 - July 2, 2012

ICELANDJuly 20 - 28, 2012

AMALFI, ITALYSeptember 5 - 13, 2012 RUSSIAN WATERWAYSSeptember 12 - 22, 2012

TREASURES OF EAST AFRICAOctober 4 - 18, 2012

SICILYOctober 12 - 22, 2012 JOURNEY THROUGH VIETNAMOctober 21 – November 5, 2012

RIVER LIFE - RHINE, MAIN, MOSELOctober 23 - 31, 2012

PATAGONIAN FRONTIERSNovember 30 - December 17, 2012

CHAMPAGNE DREAMS Blend with the Tastemakers Reims, Epernay, FranceJune 9 – 15, 2012

LIBRARY TREASURES OF ENGLANDThe Pages of History in Rare Collections - Canterbury, Oxford, Cambridge, LondonSeptember 5 - 14, 2012

GREAT OPERA HOUSES OF EUROPEThe Pinnacle of European Music Tradition - Paris, Vienna, MilanOctober, 2012 (Performance Dates to be confirmed upon

release of 2012 schedules)

INDIA, SRI LANKA & THE MALDIVESAn Extraordinary Journey by Private JetNovember 27 – December 16, 2012

EXPERIENCE THE WORLDwith NYU Global Travel Adventures

Set out on an extraordinary journey of discovery. Experience new cultures and paths of understanding and friendship in some of the world’s most exciting, legendary destinations. For information on itineraries and how to book an NYU Alumni and Friends Travel Adventure program, go to alumni.nyu.edu/travel or contact the NYU Alumni Relations Office at 212-998-6985.

2013 DESTINATIONS

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AlumniNYU

“There’s nosuch thing as aglass ceiling—it’s actually justa thick layerof men.”—MAJORA CARTER, ECONOMIC CONSULTANT AND

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ADVOCATE, ON A PANEL

WITH U.S. SENATOR FOR NEW YORK KIRSTEN E.

GILLIBRAND AT THE FIRST-ANNUAL WOMEN’S

ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT SUMMIT 2011,

IN ROSENTHAL PAVILION

“I thought: I’vegot to get somechickens. Andthen I realizedyou could orderthem by mail.”—SUSAN ORLEAN, JOURNALIST AND NONFICTION

WRITER, ON HER LOVE OF ANIMALS AND HER

LATEST BOOK, RIN TIN TIN: THE LIFE AND THE

LEGEND, WITH ROBERT BOYNTON AT NYU’S

ARTHUR L. CARTER JOURNALISM INSTITUTE

“When you enter American airspacefrom Britain, a series of strangesemantic changes takes place…. Oneis the complete transformation of theword liberalism…which can be used todescribe the philosophy on which thiscountry is founded and now meanssome weird, hellish mixture of biggovernment and fornication.”—TIMOTHY GARTON ASH, PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN STUDIES AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY,

DELIVERING THE 2011 TONY JUDT MEMORIAL LECTURE ON “MUSLIMS IN EUROPE! THE

CHALLENGE TO LIBERALISM,” SPONSORED BY NYU’S REMARQUE INSTITUTE

NYU / SPRING 2012 / 1

“[Women] are justanother domesticanimal, and noteven themostvaluable one.”

—LARA LOGAN, CBS NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, ON GENDER ISSUES IN IRAQ AT

AN EVENT HOSTED BY THE CENTER FOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS IN THE SCHOOL OF CONTINUING AND

PROFESSIONAL STUDIES AND THE JOHN BRADEMAS CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF CONGRESS

HEARDON CAMPUS

THE SQUARE8 / LIBRARIES

THE RIVETING ROSIES OF WWII

10 / NEW MEDIA

WHAT THE FRACK?

11 / WHAT THEY’RE LEARNING

STUDENTS TURN

CATASTROPHE INTO

CONSTRUCTION

12 / ENVIRONMENT

VIOLET LIFE GOES GREEN

14 / IN BRIEF

NYU’S NEWEST NOBEL

WINNER, AND MORE

15 / GLOBAL

ANOTHER CONTINENT,

ANOTHER CAMPUS

16 / CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH

THE CRISIS IN SCIENCE

EDUCATION, FAIR HOSPITAL

CARE, AND GOOD ADVICE

FOR PEOPLE IN POWER

IN NYC18 / HISTORY

THE TRUTH BEHIND

LADY LIBERTY

19 / ARCHITECTURE

100 YEARS OF FORTITUDE

20 / THE INSIDER

ESCAPE THE DAILY GRIND

WITH SOME LIVE JAZZ OR

AN ISLAND OASIS

CULTURE22 / AMERICANA

NORA GUTHRIE KEEPS

HER FATHER’S FOLK

LEGACY ALIVE

24 / COMEDY

LATE NIGHT WRITER

JEN STATSKY TWEETS

HER HEART OUT

25 / CREDITS

SPOTLIGHT ON AWARD-

WINNING ALUMS

IN PRINT26 / NONFICTION

ISLAM’S PROGRESSIVE

DEFENDER

28 / FICTION

FOR THE KIDS:

WIT AND WILD

PLUS MORE BOOKS

BY NYU ALUMNI AND

PROFESSORS

CONTTS

FEATURES

EN


DEPARTMENTS

RED-FOOTED PIGEONS ANDSUPER FINE STRING…THE WONDROUS WORLD OF ARTIST MAIRA KALMAN

/ BY JASON HOLLANDER / GAL ’07

EVERY ISSUE1 / HEARD ON CAMPUS

4 / BEHIND THE SCENES

4 / CONTRIBUTORS

5 / STAR POWER

6 / MAILBAG

64 / CAMPUS LENS

CLASS NOTES

VISIT US ONLINE!www.nyu.edu/alumni.magazine

CLASS CLOWNSCOMEDY IS MORE THAN FUN AND GAMES FOR AZIZ ANSARI,

AUBREY PLAZA, AND DONALD GLOVER

/ BY RENÉE ALFUSO / CAS ’06

30

LOCKED OUTWILL NEW RESEARCH BRING US CLOSER TO SOLVING THE

HOMELESSNESS EPIDEMIC?

/ BY NICOLE PEZOLD / GSAS ’04

36

42

COVER ILLUSTRATION © MAIRA KALMAN FROM THE PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY;

BACK COVER PHOTOS © NBCUNIVERSAL, INC (2); © IBRA AKE

NYU ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN: 1938-4823) IS PUBLISHED TWICE YEARLY IN FALL AND SPRING BY NYU OFFICE OF

UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS, 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, FOURTH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10012;

212-998-6912. CONTENTS COPYRIGHT © 2012. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLEASE ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:

EDITORS/NYU ALUMNI MAGAZINE AT 25 WEST FOURTH STREET, ROOM 619, NEW YORK, NY 10012, OR E-MAIL TO:

[email protected]. NO RESPONSIBILITY WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS AND

ARTWORK. BYLINED ARTICLES REFLECT THE VIEWPOINTS OF INDIVIDUAL WRITERS AND ARE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED

AS EXPRESSION OF OFFICIAL UNIVERSITY POLICY. MAILED THIRD-CLASS NONPROFIT AT BURLINGTON, VT.

MIXED SOURCES: PRODUCT GROUP FROMWELL-MANAGED FOREST, CONTROLLED SOURCES, AND RECYCLEDWOOD OR FIBER.

CERT. NO. SW-COC-002556. WWW.FSC.ORG. © 1996 FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL.

IN KEEPINGWITH NYU’S COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY, THIS PUBLICATION IS PRINTED ON FSC-CERTIFIED PAPER

THAT INCLUDES A MINIMUM OF 10 PERCENT POST-CONSUMER FIBER. (THE FSC TRADEMARK IDENTIFIES PRODUCTS THAT

CONTAIN FIBER FROM WELL-MANAGED FORESTS CERTIFIED BY SMARTWOOD IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE RULES OF

THE FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL.) FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT NYU’S GREEN ACTION PLAN, GO TO

WWW.NYU.EDU/SUSTAINABILITY.

ALUMNI PROFILES

50 / ANNE SAXELBY /

STEINHARDT ’03

ONE SHARP CHEESEMONGER

52 / SPENSER POPESON /

STEINHARDT ’08

TENACIOUS TRIATHLETE

56 / DONNA AND MICHAEL

BUTLER / BOTH WAG ’94

PARADISE FOUND

ALUMNI ART

55 / EIKO OTAKE / GAL ’07

FRAGILE AND NAKED

FOR ALL TO SEE

PLUS ALUMNI NEWS,

BENEFITS, AND UPDATES48

ur greatest goal hereat themagazine is thatpeople will read it.That may soundmodest, but amid a

landslide of news these days, that’ssimply what we’re after.

And there is no sureway to predictwhat, fromthe piles of pitches we re-ceive, will have thewidest appeal. Is it thehistory of a fabled profes-sor? Profile of an entre-preneur? Update ongenome research? Peekat an upcoming art show?More often than not, it’sall of the above. So theanxiety to deliver somethingworth-while hovers near as we select alineup and figure out how our staffwill pull it together by deadline.This round we threw out all cau-tion and tackled some far-reachingand hard-to-reach subjects.

In Issue #18, “Class Clowns”

(p. 30) catches up with three of thehottest young comedians—AzizAnsari, Aubrey Plaza, and DonaldGlover—whose ambition and ener-gy extend far beyond the smallscreens we see them on each week.

We then move to a new canvas withcritically acclaimed artist and authorMaira Kalman, who gives us a glancebehind the curtain of her profoundyet whimsical works in “Red-Foot-ed Pigeons and Super Fine String…”(p. 42). And finally, with “LockedOut” (p. 36), we explore the work

and research that so many NYU fac-ulty and alumni have contributed toin the pursuit of ending homeless-ness in New York City, and acrossthe country. Add to that an array ofstories on sustainability, religion,

music, media, race, edu-cation, history, and gour-met cheese, and we hopeyou’ll agree that there isindeed something foreveryone.

We say it over andover, but we’re alwaysamazed at the daring andcreativity of NYU’s fac-ulty and alumni, be theyartists or scholars, entre-preneurs or entertainers.

In a world that can feel very discon-nected, it’s nice to be reminded thatthose who have passed through theuniversity are all part of our com-munity,which somehowkeeps find-ing new ways to shape the zeitgeist.

—The NYU Alumni Magazine team

4 / SPRING 2012 / NYU

Issue #18 / Spring 2012

JASON HOLLANDER (GAL ’07)

Editor-in-Chief

NICOLE PEZOLD (GSAS ’04)

Deputy Editor

RENEE ALFUSO (CAS ’06)

Staff Writer

JOHN KLOTNIA / OPTO DESIGN

Creative Director

ArticlesJOSEPH MANGHISE

Copy Chief

DAVID COHEN

Research Chief

TATE MORALES (CAS ’15)

Editorial Intern

Art / Opto DesignRON LOUIE

Art Director

KIRA CSAKANY

Designer

JESSIE CLEAR

Photo Research Director

Alumni News EditorsJOANNE A. WILHELM

Executive Director,

Development and Campaigns

ALY WOLFF-MILLS

Associate Director,

Web & Communications

New York UniversityMARTIN LIPTON (LAW ’55)

Board of Trustees, Chairman

JOHN SEXTON

President

LYNNE P. BROWN

Senior Vice President for University

Relations and Public Affairs

DEBRA A. LAMORTE

Senior Vice President for University

Development and Alumni Relations

REGINA SYQUIA DREW (WAG ’01)

Deputy Director, Strategic Initiatives

New York UniversityAlumni AssociationMICHAEL DENKENSOHN (STERN ’73)

President

PHYLLIS BARASCH (STERN ’81)

JERRY S. GOLDMAN (ARTS ’73)

JEFFREY S. GOULD (WSUC ’79)

BEVERLY HYMAN (STEINHARDT ’80)

RONALD G. RAPATALO (CAS ’97)

Vice Presidents

TAFFI T. WOOLWARD (CAS ’04)

Secretary

JOHN BRINGARDNER (GSAS’03) is a legal reporter based inNew York. His work has appearedin The New York Times,Wired, andThe American Lawyer.

ANDREA CRAWFORD has cov-ered cultural news as a writer andeditor for 15 years. She has beensenior editor at ARTnews and con-tributing editor at Poets & Writers.

BRIAN DALEK (GSAS ’10) is aproducer for MensHealth.com.When not running, he writesabout nutrition and sports.

MEGAN DOLL (GSAS ’08) haswritten for Salon, ARTnews, Book-forum, Poets & Writers, and The Be-liever. She splits her time between

New York and Minneapolis,where she co-owns Your Yoga,an affordable yoga studio.

KEVIN FALLON (CAS ’09) is anassistant editor at TheWeek.comand a writer for The Atlantic’swebsite.

SALLY LAUCKNER’s (GSAS ’10)work has appeared in The NewYork Times’ Local East Villageblog, Marie Claire and Cosmopoli-tan magazines.

SIMON PEMBERTON is an illus-trator who works from a studio inthe East End of London. He hasworked for a wide range of clientsthroughout the world in design,editorial, newspapers, advertising,

books, and brand management.

JAMESONSIMPSON designs info-graphics and illustrations for clientssuch as Esquire, Popular Science,Wired, Men’s Journal, and This OldHouse.

DAVID MCKAY WILSON writesfor alumni magazines around thecountry, including articles onWoody Guthrie that appeared inSanta Clara Magazine and KeeneState Today.

WESLEY YANG is a contributingeditor atNew York and Tabletmag-azines. His work has appeared inThe New York Times Book Review,the Los Angeles Times, and TheNew York Observer.

CONTRIBUTORS


ACTOR JESSE EISENBERG READ FROM “THE PROBLEM IS CIVIL OBEDIENCE,” HOWARD

ZINN’S 1970 WAR-PROTEST SPEECH, AT NYU PORTRAITS: VOICES OF A PEOPLE.

TONY AWARD-WINNER BEN VEREEN (LEFT) AND ACTRESS JAMIE-LYNN

SIGLER AT NYU’S 9/11 ANNIVERSARY BENEFIT EVENT, 110 STORIES.

behind the scenes

PHOTOSCLOCKWISEFROMTOPLEFT:©NYUPHOTOBUREAU(ASSELIN);©JUSTIN

AYERS;©NYUPHOTOBUREAU(HOLLENSHED);©VANJASRDIC

(2);©NYUPHOTOBUREAU(OLIVO)

OMODEL CHERYL TIEGS AT THE 2012 GALLATIN

FASHION SHOW, TITLED SEXPOSED.

OSCAR-NOMINATED ACTOR SAMUEL L. JACKSON VISITED THE TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS FOR A Q&A

WITH STUDENTS DURING HIS RUN ON BROADWAY AS MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. IN THE MOUNTAINTOP.

ABC NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS

MODERATED WAGNER’S CAMPAIGN WATCH 2012 EVENT.

POWER

TOP-DRAW PERSONALITIES SPOTTED ON CAMPUSSTAR

EDITORS’ NOTE: The Fall 2011 cov-er story, “When a Woman Loves aWoman,” touched a nerve with somealumni. We received many responses toit; none positive. Many questioned whywe would publish an article on the issueof gay marriage. In short, the magazineaims to tell the most powerful and timelystories relating to our students, faculty,and alumni.We believe thatEdithWind-sor’s (GSAS ’57) landmark court case,which has been championed by the U.S.Attorney General and may soon go beforethe U.S. Supreme Court, falls perfectlyinto that category. Several readers alsoquestioned our cover photo choice. Wethought the decades-old image of the cou-ple in quiet conversation on a sunny beachbeautifully illustrated the strength of the44-year relationship that Windsor is nowfighting to have recognized.The magazine’s editors wholly sup-

port every person’s right to marry whomthey choose, and are exceedingly proud tohave told the story of one alumna’s strug-gle for this basic civil right that so manyothers enjoy. We were buoyed to see re-cent polls reveal that for the first time inthe nation’s history a majority of Ameri-cans—51 percent according to CNN andthe Public Religion Research Institute,

and 53 percent according to Gallup—now support marriage for all.

HOT TOPIC

The cover story, “When a WomanLoves a Woman,” is disturbing be-cause it paints a biased picture that rep-resents the gay agenda of a very, verysmall minority of people in Americawho are “gay” and a minority of peo-ple who would deem this issue as acivil rights movement. In noway doesdenying gay “couples” the same rightsas married spouses deem them as sec-ond-class citizens. Marriage is, andclearly always has been, a sacred rela-tionship between aman and awoman,with the greater purpose of reproduc-tion. Simply put, gay “marriage” isimmoral and is not marriage at all.

As an NYU alumna who stronglybelieves in the sacred institution ofmarriage, I suggest that the magazinewrite an article concerning the major-ity view on this issue. There are a vastnumber of students, alumni, andAmerican citizens who would deemthis article as nothing more than opin-ionated liberalism bent on persuadingpeople to sympathize with the gayagenda by using emotional appeal.

Sandra Alcaide (CAS ’11)Brooklyn, New York

It was rather appalling to see two les-bians grace the cover of your latest is-sue. I would think that there are moreimportant features to discuss than gaymarriage. When I first picked up mycopy I thought I was looking at atabloid out of the U.K., rather than amagazine from an allegedly prominentuniversity.

Fred Hahn (STERN ’62)Roswell, Georgia

I completed my PhD from NYU in1980 and usually enjoy the alumnimagazine. However, I am returningthe most recent issue. Why someoneat NYU thinks that alumni would beinterested in a lesbian marriage is be-yond me—let alone that it should bethe cover.

I expect that there are some alum-ni whowill reconsider contributing tothe university on the basis of this issue.In the future, you might consider thefact that there are alumni who havemoral standards and find articles suchas this one—not to mention the coverphotograph—to be highly offensive.Michael L. Nardacci (GSAS ’68, ’80)

Albany, New York

“When a Woman Loves a Woman”is well written, and it explains thepredicament of all who enter such arelationship. But then the editorschose to place a picture of the twowomen on the cover of themagazine,waving the flag of gay relationships.This move was unnecessary. Certain-ly the relationshipof these twowomenended in a tragedy, but why make itthe lead article of the magazine? Thewhole proposition rests on a biologi-cal impossibility (result: no children);a social anomaly (no acceptance bysociety); and a bad example to chil-dren (an undesirable goal).

Richard B. Weir (GSAS ’74)Yonkers, New York

SUPER FANS

I take my hat off to you on an excel-lent fall issue! I have received themagazine for some time, but unfor-tunately have never found the time toread it before. After reading everypiece in this issue, however, I am sure

it will not be the last time. Keep upthe good work!

Eric de Regnaucourt (CAS ’05)Leuven, Belgium

I loveNYUAlumni Magazine. It’s themost innovative and captivatingalumni magazine I’ve read. I’ve beencarefully archiving each and every is-sue from the first one on. You havedone a great job with the publication!It’s a pleasure to read and an honor toreceive.

Hebron Simckes-Joffe(TSOA ’99, GAL ’07)Los Angeles, California

NEWS HEIGHTS

The Fall 2011 issue is attractive, withmany articles of interest, but I focusedsentimentally on Ira Silverman’sMail-bag letter on page 6. If Mr. Silvermanthinks that his yellowing copy of aHeights Daily News issue was the“smallest dailynewspaper in thecoun-try” from 1964 to 1968, he should beinterested to learn that I have a copyof the Heights Rural News dated Sept.2, 1949. That now-fading mimeo-graphed paper was a newly publishedweekly. I was one of a three-studentstaff.

Milton Horowitz (ARTS ’52)Queens, New York

mailbag

We Hear FromYouThanks to all who responded to the Fall 2011 issue. Please keep the letters coming...


Please send your comments and

opinions to: Readers’ Letters, NYU

Alumni Magazine, 25 West Fourth

Street, Room 619, New York, NY,

10012; or e-mail us at alumni

[email protected]. Include your

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school, and year. Letters become

the property of NYU and may be

edited for length and clarity.

For questions regarding application deadlines, requirements, or course offerings, please contact the NYU Office of University Programs, 18 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 212.998.2292 [email protected]

NYUJoin us

New York University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution.

NYU Summer Sessions NEW YORK CITY Expand your interests,

gain experience with an internship, work toward a second minor. Over 1,000

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Undergraduate and graduate courses are offered in New York and abroad.

Housing and financial aid options are available. www.nyu.edu/winter

ARTS - University College ofArts and Science (“The Heights”);used for alumni through 1974

CAS - College of Arts andScience (“The College”);refers to the undergraduateschool in arts and science,from 1994 on

CIMS - Courant Institute ofMathematical Sciences

DEN - College of Dentistry

ENG - School of Engineeringand Science (“The Heights”);no longer exists but is usedto refer to its alumni through1974

GAL - Gallatin School ofIndividualized Study,formerly Gallatin Division

GSAS - Graduate School ofArts and Science

HON - Honorary Degree

IFA - Institute of Fine Arts

ISAW - Institute for the Studyof the Ancient World

LAW - School of Law

LS - Liberal Studies Program

MED - School of Medicine,formerly College of Medicine

NUR - College of Nursing

SCPS - School of Continuingand Professional Studies

SSSW - Silver School of SocialWork

STEINHARDT - The SteinhardtSchool of Culture, Education,and Human Development,formerly School of Education

STERN - Leonard N. SternSchool of Business, formerlythe Graduate School of BusinessAdministration; Leonard N. SternSchool of Business UndergraduateCollege, formerly School ofCommerce; and College of Busi-ness and Public Administration

TSOA - Tisch School of the Arts,formerly School of the Arts

WAG - Robert F. Wagner GraduateSchool of Public Service, formerlyGraduate School of Public Admin-istration

WSC - Washington Square College,now College of Arts and Science;refers to arts and science undergrad-uates who studied at WashingtonSquare Campus through 1974

WSUC - Washington SquareUniversity College, now College ofArts and Science; refers to alumni ofthe undergraduate school in arts andscience from 1974 to 1994

YOUR GUIDE TO THE SCHOOL CODESThe following are abbreviations for NYU schools and colleges, past and present

THE

SQUARE

would serve as a repository for thematerial gathered, and the videosare now available on its website.

The stories that have emergedfrom the 48 women interviewed inNew York, Michigan, Maryland,and Tennessee are varied and rich-ly textured: from Angeline Feath-erstone Fleming, who relocatedfrom rural Mississippi to Detroit towork as a riveter at Ford MotorCompany, to Idilia Johnston, whotook a contract with the defensedepartment to escape her authori-tarian Scottish father. Despite theirvariety, one common sentimentamong the “Rosies” is an exhilarat-ing sense of newfound independ-ence and economic freedom. “Wetake that idea of one Rosie, and shesteps out of that poster and becomesall these different, very real womenwith many different lives and expe-riences,” explains Kirsten Kelly,director of the videos.

While most of the women in-terviewed returned to their pre-war roles, a handful continued toseek work outside the home. Mil-dred Crow Sargent, for instance,went on to rivet again during theKorean War. She used the moneyshe saved to pay her way throughcollege and graduate school.Though her husband’s declininghealth kept her from completingher doctorate, she later publishedthree scholarly books. The war ef-fort also helped Jerre Kalbas exploreher talent for working with herhands—something she had had fewopportunities to put into practice.Even in her nineties, Kalbas con-tinues to work with metal, fashion-ing small objects of art out of silver.

Hemmerdinger, de Mare, andKelly are presently raising funds fora full-length documentary that willweave together the disparatethreads of their interviews into anarrative. “We’re hoping to makea film that will be an inspiration topeople who don’t even know thatthis is a part of history,” Hem-merdinger remarks. “Because thesestories are not in the history books,except in a glancing way.”

eated in her bed-room, next to hermetalworking tools,91-year-old JerreKalbas recalls labor-

ing at the California Shipyards dur-ing World War II. Though herbosses had promised her a promo-tion within four months of starting,as the date approached, Kalbas real-ized they planned to stonewall her.Taking matters into her own hands,she applied pressure to the unionleader who, seeing that Kalbas wasnot going to back down, reluctant-ly secured her promotion and raise.But Kalbas was not satisfied. “I said,‘Oh, no, not enough. You’re goingto get it for all the other women,’ ”she remembers. “And so we got it.”

This story is part of a collectionof filmed oral histories, called TheReal Rosie the Riveter Project,which aims to capture the experi-ences of the generation of youngwomen who went to work duringthe SecondWorldWar. In the spaceof a fewyears, thenumberofwomenin the workforce swelled from 13 to19 million as they filled the uncon-ventional roles of riveters, welders,mechanics, and drill press operatorsleft vacantbymengone to the fronts.

Time was of the essence for theproject, spearheaded by ElizabethHemmerdinger (TSOA ’03), as theteam set about recording the recol-lections of these women, now intheir eighties and nineties. “There’ssomething poignant about thesevery alert, contemplative, philo-sophical women reflecting at theend of their lives,” says Hem-

merdinger, who is at work on adocumentary that will bring thearchival material, housed byNYU’s Tamiment Library, to awider audience.

The figure of Rosie the Rivet-er, who appealed mainly to youngwomen, first appeared in 1942 asthe title character of a song byRedd Evans and John Jacob Loeb:“All the day long / Whether rainor shine / She’s part of the assem-

bly line / She’s making history /Working for victory / Rosie theRiveter.” Norman Rockwell laterdepicted Rosie in a 1943 cover ofthe Saturday Evening Post, but to-day we associate her most stronglywith J. Howard Miller’s “We CanDo It!” poster, which experienceda resurgence of popularity in the1980s.

Working women have longbeen of interest to Hemmerdinger,who volunteered her editorial serv-ices to Gloria Steinem’s nascentfeminist magazine Ms. in 1971 and,through a bit of bluffing about hav-ing some expertise with cars, land-ed a byline in the iconic July 1972Wonder Woman issue. Hem-merdinger started working withthe archetype of Rosie the Riveterin 2002, as a student in dramaticwriting at the Tisch School of theArts. Her Rosie-inspired play, We

CanDo It!, won the Goldberg Play-writing Award in 2003 and enjoyeda brief run at 12 Miles West The-atre Company in New Jersey.A few years later, Hemmerdingerreceived an unexpected call fromcountry singer and songwriter Lar-ry Gatlin, a former collaborator,and decided to rekindle their part-nership by adapting the piece into amusical. She brought on anotherformer collaborator, writer and di-

rector Anne de Mare, to help draftthe book for the new musical,which they titled Dupsky Does It!Searching for more immediatesources beyond books, films, andwebsites, they located and inter-viewed two women in New YorkCity, Jerre Kalbas and EstherHorne, who had worked on thehome front.

The interviews gave a suddendimension to Rosie’s flattened im-age and would become the seeds ofthe archive. Hemmerdinger wentto Carol A. Mandel, dean of theDivisionof Libraries, to seewhetherthe Tamiment Library & Robert F.Wagner Labor Archives had anyother primary source material.There were a few resources, butHemmerdinger and library headMichael Nash both saw an oppor-tunity to broaden Tamiment’s col-lection. They agreed that the library

librariesESTHER BECKER (NOW HORNE)

TAKES A BREAK OUTSIDE OF

GUSSACK’S MACHINED PRODUCTS,

IN LONG ISLAND CITY, WHERE

SHE WORKED FROM 1942 TO ’44.

SHE WAS ONE OF 48 WOMEN INTER-

VIEWED FOR THE ROSIE ARCHIVE.

S

THE REAL ROSIESA VIDEO ARCHIVE CAPTURES THE TRUE PICTUREOF A GENERATION—BEFORE THEY’RE GONE

by Megan Doll / GSAS ’08

The number of women in theworkforce swelled from 13 to19 million during World War II.


PHOTOCOURTESYESTHERHORNE

ike so many writersbefore him, DavidHolmes (GSAS ’12)experienced a eurekamoment at the most

unexpected of times: while ridingthe L subway line after a night ofwatching back-to-back episodes ofBattlestar Galactica. He was writing asong about fracking, in whichpipelines inject chemically infusedwater into the ground in order tocrack open and tap reservoirs ofnatural gas, and was attempting toexplain that—and the potentialhealth risks to a community’s watersupply—with the added elementsof a rhyming scheme, chord pro-

gressions, and harmony. As an en-vironmental term, “fracking” isawkward. On Battlestar Galactica,“frack” is used in lieu of another,not so family-friendly word thatbegins with “f” and ends in “ck.”The two different meanings,

Holmes decided, couldn’t be moresuited for each other, especiallyconsidering how complicated andcontroversial the fracking issue is. Ithit him: “What the frack is goingon / With all this fracking goingon?” became the hook for a trackthat started as a class assignment,grew to a professional-grade musicvideo, and, eventually, an inven-tive, extremely popular new medi-um for journalism.

“My Water’s on Fire Tonight(The Fracking Song)” is a two-and-a-half minute original song and cor-responding animated music videocreated by Holmes and fellow stu-dent Niel Bekker for a graduate

journalism course taught by JayRosen, director of the Carter Jour-nalism Institute’s Studio 20, whichfocuses on adapting journalism fortheWeb.The assignmentwas called“Building a Better Explainer” andpartnered students with the inves-

tigative journalism nonprofit Pro-Publica to find innovative ways tobreak down complex news stories.The finished product combines themusical learning tools from School-house Rock, the irreverence ofHBO’s former comedy Flight of theConchords, and the journalistic in-tegrity of NPR. More important,the vibrant clip—which pairs inci-sive lyrics about the process of frack-ing with an unshakable beat andthat earworm of a chorus—provid-ed an entry point into ProPublica’sthree years’ worth of extensive, if

sometimes dry, reporting on thecontroversy. As a music video, it’shighly entertaining; as news, itproves that journalism may be moreexciting than ever.

Early on in the process, Holmesinvited his childhood friend An-drew Bean, an audio engineer with

whom he had played music in col-lege at Ohio State University, tohelp hone the lyrics and craft thesong’s score. They were then set upwith Los Angeles–based animatorsAdam Sakellarides and Lisa Ruckerby a friend who knew that the West

Coast duo was passionate about theenvironment. “As soon as I saw thekind of animation being put to-gether with the lyrics, I knew theproject would be successful,” pro-fessor Rosen says.

In fact, it received more thanjust a passing grade. The complet-ed video was posted on explainer.net, the official website for the Stu-dio 20 “Building a Better Explain-er” project, and, after Rosenbroadcast it to his 70,000 Twitterfollowers, became an online sensa-tion. “We thought it would be cool

if the video would receive a fewthousand hits within a few weeks,”Bean says. It received 20,000 viewsin one day, and currently has about260,000. Mainstream sites, such asThe Huffington Post and The NewYork Times, picked it up. In its year-end countdown, Time named it the

second most creative video of theyear and called it “a great, viral wayto get the basics” of fracking.

In the wake of this success,Holmes and his team were com-missioned by Britain’s The Guardianto create a song and video about the

Euro crisis. Next cameanother collaboration withProPublica called “The Redis-tricting Song,” a hip-hop ex-plainer about how politicianscarve up voting districts to theiradvantage. Currently, Holmesand Bean are crafting a song onthe housing crisis inspired byBruce Springsteen and the EStreet Band. Holmes estimatesthat each number, includingmeticulous research and fact-checking, takes about 80 hoursto produce.

Holmes’s dream is thatnews organizations will soonhire staff composers, like him,just as they would a staff writeror copy editor. He believessuch nontraditional news me-dia are integral to getting con-sumers excited about issuesthey would ordinarily ignore.“The best part of the digitalrevolution is that we’ve got allthese different tools at our dis-posal,” he says. “I think thatpeople who are able to look ata topic and know instinctive-

ly the best way to communi-cate that story to thepublic”—be that through in-fographic, article, or even asong—“those are going to bethe people who will create thebest journalism.”


n the first day of as-sistant professorCorinne Packard’sPost-CatastropheRecon s t ruc t ion

seminar, students do not meet in aclassroom. They don’t even meetin the United States. Instead, acouple of weeks before the start ofthe semester, they travel togetherto a part of the world that has suf-fered disaster—whether naturallyor through terrorism—and partnerwith nongovernmental organiza-tions to assess damage to buildings,homes, livelihoods, and infrastruc-tures. Then they travel back toNYU’s Schack Institute of RealEstate, in the School of Continu-ing and Professional Studies, andget to work designing proposalsfor rebuilding.

This semester, the fourth timeshe’s teaching the course, Packardis at NYU Abu Dhabi focusing onreconstruction in Sri Lanka, whichstill suffers from the effects of boththe 2004 tsunami and a recent civ-il war. Previously, the class hastraveled to Chile once and Haititwice. “The Chinese symbol for

crisis means both danger and op-portunity,” Packard explains.“The two are connected. We fo-cus less on the danger and more onthe opportunity. We ask, ‘How doyou create more stable communi-ties?’ We’re trying to see whatgood can come out of somethingterrible.”

On the second trip to Haiti, lastsemester, students met with groupssuch as Architecture for Humani-ty and Habitat for Humanity todiscover what projects are underway and how they could help.One aimed to create jobs, hous-ing, and small businesses in an areanorth of Port-au-Prince, whereearthquake refugees had settledwith no infrastructure. Anothersought to increase commercial de-velopment, and a third required aplan for building an orphanage onan empty field outside the city.Back in New York, students—who come not only from theSchack Institute but also from theRobert F. Wagner GraduateSchool of Public Service, withbackgrounds in business, publicpolicy, and planning—undertook

feasibility studies, analyzed data,created budgets, studied previousdisaster recovery efforts, and cameup with proposals for implement-ing the projects in Haiti.

Distant lands are not the onlybeneficiaries. In the context ofreadings and discussions, the classalso considers how it could helpimprove New York’s own poten-tial for dealing with the aftermathof a catastrophe. Last semester,they investigated options for theswift completion of four-storyhousing, so that residents forcedout of their homes by disastermight remain in the area and con-tinue to support local business.Whether its focus is close to homeor far away, Packard’s hope for theclass is that it will result in realchange. “I’d like the students’ proj-ect proposals to be implemented,”she says. “They are passionateabout their work, and they comeup with excellent plans. I’d like tosee those plans transform lives.”

David Holmes’s dream is thatnews outlets will soon hire staffcomposers as they would a writer.


SRI LANKA, WHICH HAS STRUGGLED TO

REBUILD AFTER THE 2004 TSUNAMI,

WAS A RECENT FOCUS OF THE COURSE.

newmedia

NEWS DITTYJOURNALISM—THE MUSICAL

by Kevin Fallon / CAS ’09

L

O

STILLS FROM DAVID HOLMES’S

VIDEO, “MY WATER’S ON FIRE

TONIGHT (THE FRACKING SONG).”

what they’re learning

The Class: Post-CatastropheReconstructionby Amy Rosenberg

SQUARE

THE

PHOTO©

XIAOCHUAN/C

HINENOUVELLE/S

IPA

her staff installed some 4,000 indi-vidual “smart thermostats” in anoccupancy-based system, whichknows to scale back heating orcooling when no one is in a room.Another project involves makingdata centers, the rooms that storethe university’s servers, more effi-cient because they must be keptvery cool to offset the heat theygenerate. Based on the slew ofprojects planned, Scheib estimatesthat within the next three to fiveyears, NYU will have cut energyconsumption by 50 percent, anumber he says is “not pie in thesky.”

Beyond this, the university isaggressively studying the potentialof biofuel mixtures and requestingproposals for renewable energy al-ternatives. But harvesting suchpower in the middle of Green-wich Village poses many obsta-cles. “With tall buildings andskinny roofs and heavy loads allthe way down, there’s literally notenough sun input, or wind input,or geothermal inputs to power[these] buildings,” Scheib says.

“But it can help.” Also helping areinnovations from students, facul-ty, and staff who have receivednearly $400,000 in NYU GreenGrants for some 61 original proj-ects since 2007. The aim is to en-gage the community in devisingsustainability efforts—and the pro-gram has yielded many now-insti-tutionalized projects, including acampus bike share and an initia-

tive that uses overflow food indining halls to feed the homeless.Scheib says that NYU embracesthe challenge of pursuing cleanenergy in an urban setting: “If wecan do this in Lower Manhattan,we’ve shown that you can do itanywhere.”

This progress has not gone un-noticed. Last year, the Association

for the Advancement of Sustain-ability in Higher Education, orAASHE, gave NYU its highestrating, one of only 23 colleges anduniversities in the country to re-ceive a “gold” distinction. Thissystem, an independent programcalled STARS (the SustainabilityTracking, Assessment & RatingSystem), considers broad criteria,measuring an institution’s entire

educational, cultural, and opera-tional approach to sustainability.In the operations category, NYUranked highest among all 122schools assessed. AASHE also pres-ents individual national awards,and last fall its top prize for studentresearch went to Steinhardt Schoolof Culture, Education, and Hu-man Development graduate stu-

dent Annie Bez-batchenko for her dis-sertation on studentbehavior and sustain-ability.

Meeting its pledgeto New York City sofar ahead of schedulewill be a significant ac-complishment, butScheib suggests that the philoso-phy of “cuts” may already be out-dated. Instead, he and others areasking new questions: Should theuniversity simply pick an arbitrarynumber to aim for? Or is there abetter way to create new targets?In essence, how much energy doesa building actually require? In 2007,President John Sexton signed theAmerican College and UniversityPresidents’ Climate Commitmentto reach “climate neutrality”—ornet-zero carbon emissions—whichNYU estimates it can achieve by2040; engineering studies are nowunder way to help make that hap-pen. Scheib says: “Right nowwe’re driving 80, and I don’t knowif the speed limit is 65 or 35.”


ive years ago, any-one taking a late-night, summertimestroll around NYUwould have seen

clear evidence of a city that nev-er sleeps. No matter the hour,lights in most university buildingswould have been ablaze and hadone stepped inside, an icy blast ofair-conditioning would havegreeted them. Things havechanged.

The moment NYU saw thelight, as it were, dates to the fall of2006 when the universitylaunched a formal green initia-tive. The following spring, it hiredJonah “Cecil” Scheib, as its firstdirector of sustainability and en-ergy, and Jeremy Friedman, asmanager of sustainability initia-tives, and announced a bold mis-sion. As part of New York City’sPlaNYC 2030, NYU took up themayor’s challenge and pledged toreduce greenhouse gas emissions30 percent per square foot by2017. Last fall—some six yearsahead of schedule—NYU keptthat promise to the city. “We’vebeen enormously aggressive onreducing our energy use,” Scheibsays. “I don’t know anyone elsewho’s cut 30 percent in fiveyears.”

But Scheib and Friedmanaren’t ready to accept any acco-lades on the university’s behalf;there’s plenty of work left to do.Reducing greenhouse gas emis-sions, or the amount of carbon

that’s released into the air, can beaccomplished in two ways. Thefirst is to use cleaner energysources—more highly refined oil,natural gas, or renewable sourcessuch as wind, geothermal, and so-lar power. In fact, to mark thelaunch of its sustainability initia-tive, NYU made one of the na-tion’s largest purchases of windpower in 2006 and ’07. More sig-nificant, the university invested

$120 million to replace its 30-year-old, oil-fired power plantwith a new natural gas-poweredco-generation plant. This facility,which went online in 2010, nowsupplies electricity to 22 campusbuildings, while using the steam itgenerates to supply heat and hotwater to another 37.

The second way to lower emis-sions is to reduce energy usage,and when Scheib arrived at NYU,

he was determined to focus firston consumption, and then sup-ply. “There’s no point in puttingsolar panels on the roof to run aspace heater in the summer be-cause people are so cold in theiroffice,” he notes. At first, NYUtook the most straightforwardsteps. “You know how your momtold you to shut off the light whenyou leave the room?” Scheib asks.“We weren’t doing that.” Scalingheating or cooling and lighting ofbuildings back to a minimal levelfrom midnight to 6 AM, for ex-ample, reduces energy consump-tion by 25 percent. Even shuttingit down for just a couple of hoursa night still creates sizable cuts.

But turning off the lights alsomeant breaking electrical wiringapart, so that one out of every fewlights in an office or hallway re-mains lit for safety purposes, ormaking light switches operableoffice by office, rather than awhole floor at a time, so janitori-al staff can use only the specificlight they need. NYU installednew, higher-efficiency lamps andballasts, which alone can cut light-ing loads 40 to 50 percent, andoccupancy-based or daylight har-vesting sensors, which means of-fice lights grow dimmer whensunlight fills a room.

“It’s been a building-by-build-ing approach to see what we cando,” says Dianne Anderson, man-ager of sustainable resources, whooversees these efforts. In studentresidences, for example, she and

ILLUSTRATION©

JAMESONSIM

PSON

F

RUNNING ON NATURAL GAS WITH THE STRENGTH OF 50 MILLIONCONTINUALLY BURNING CANDLES, NYU'S COGEN PLANT GENERATES100,000,000 KWH EACH YEAR—OR ENOUGH TO POWER ABOUT20,000 AVERAGE NEW YORK CITY HOMES.

SQUARE

THE

environment

THE SUSTAIN GAMENYU HITS ITS GREEN GOALS YEARS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE,BUT IS THAT ENOUGH?

by Andrea Crawford

nce a year, Jonah “Cecil” Scheib and the rest ofNYU’s

sustainability staff can be found roaming campus and

snatching trash bags off the sidewalks. They’re not

looking for thrown-out treasures, but rather are at-

tempting to “characterize our waste.”

The staff gathers garbage and recycling from a representative

sample of NYU buildings and brings themback to the facilities plant,

where they tear open the bags, sort and weigh the contents. From

this, they have determined that NYU is diverting just above 30 per-

cent of its waste from landfills. The team estimates that another 60

percent of what’s in the trash is actually compostable material.

“Only about 10 percent of what we’re actually throwing away needs

to go into the landfill,” Scheib explains.

To improve these numbers, NYU has launched composting pilot

projects in a few locations, primarily in dining halls and student res-

idences. It recently started a techno-scrap program, and brown bins

to collect dead keyboards, CDs, tapes, and othermedia now stand on

nearly every floor. It also plans to investigate composting paper tow-

els from bathrooms, which account for a large amount of waste.

So what was the most significant discovery lurking in the

garbage? Perhaps not surprising for denizens of the city that never

sleeps: lots and lots of disposable coffee cups. In fact, in some build-

ings, cups accounted for almost all of the trash.

As a result, students on the green committee at the Leonard N.

Stern School of Business are now working with neighborhood coffee

providers to lower the price of beverages for customers who bring

their own cups—hoping that a financial incentive will wean students,

faculty, and staff off disposable ones.

The goal for landfill diversion, which Scheib believes is well with-

in reach, is 90 percent. Once NYU gets to that level, it will be worth

looking at the last bit. Then, for example, the sustainability staff

might work with the purchasing department and its suppliers, per-

haps lobbying a computer manufacturer not to install the one plas-

tic piece in its keyboards that prevent them from being recycled.

“But right now,” Scheib says, “there’s no point in fighting that bat-

tle when I’m swimming in coffee cups.” —A.C.

DUMPSTER DETECTIVES

Jonah Scheib projects that withinthe next three to five years,NYU will have cut energyconsumption by 50 percent.

O

S.R. SRINIVASA VARADHAN

AWARDED NATIONAL MEDAL

OF SCIENCE

S.R. Srinivasa Varadhan, a pro-fessor in the Courant Institute ofMathematical Sciences, receivedthe 2011 National Medal of Sci-ence, the highest honor bestowedby the U.S. government on sci-entists and engineers. Varadhanand the six other recipients of themedal received their awards at aWhite House ceremony.

Varadhan’s scholarship hascentered on the theory of largedeviations—the probability ofrare events. His contributionshave provided a method for un-derstanding a range of phenome-na, and his work has beenemployed in a variety of fields,including finance, traffic engi-neering, and biology.

In 2007, Varadhan was award-ed the Abel Prize in Mathematicsby the Norwegian Academy ofScience and Letters for “his fun-damental contributions to proba-bility theory,” which the academycharacterized as “hugely influen-tial” and lauded for its “great con-ceptual strength and agelessbeauty.”

CENTER FOR ACADEMIC AND

SPIRITUAL LIFE OPENS ON

WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

With a weaved facade dubbed“solid but penetrable” by the ar-chitects at Machado and SilvettiAssociates, NYU’s new GlobalCenter for Academic and Spiritu-al Life offers the height of bothintrospection and connectivity.Since opening in January, the cen-ter’s “global network classrooms”are being used to conference withstudents and professors across theglobe, making colleagues in AbuDhabi or Shanghai feel as if they’reat the next desk. In the largestcolloquium room, a 17-x-10-foot

video projection wall connects tofour tracking cameras, giving 66individuals the ability to commu-nicate seamlessly. But the cut-ting-edge technology in thebuilding—constructed to LEEDSilver standards—is complement-ed by space for music rehearsal,traditional classrooms, and spiri-tual life. In a nod to the long-standing religious presence at thesite, the ground floor houses aCatholic center, while the fourthfloor provides offices for the uni-versity’s 20-plus chaplains, openspace for prayer gatherings, and a24-hour meditation room.

NEW CENTER FOR

CRANIOFACIAL BONE BIOLOGY

IS SAVING FACES

More than 7,000 children born inthe United States each year sufferfrom craniofacial syndromes, ab-normalities of the skull that affectthe facial plate and head, and canresult in a concave face or a cleftpalate. Working with the pedi-atric neurosurgery division ofNYU Langone Medical Center,the new Craniofacial Center aimsto offer the latest research andtreatment for those afflicted.Nicola Partridge, founding direc-tor of the center, will recruit sci-entists at the College of Dentistryto expand their range of recon-structive repair.

TO RUSSIAN STUDIES,

WITH LOVE

One of the unforeseen casualtiesof the fall of the Berlin Wall wasour understanding of Russia. “Allof us are living the legacy of theCold War,” says Yanni Kotsonis,associate professor of history,Russian, and Slavic studies, whonotes that government spendingon Russian studies has slowed toa trickle and a new “Russopho-bia” has taken hold. He hopes,

however, that the opening in fall2012 of the Jordan Family Centerfor the Advanced Study of Rus-sia—made possible by a gift fromBoris (WSUC ’88) and ElizabethJordan—will help bridge that gap.As a unit of the Faculty of Artsand Sciences, the center will func-tion under the auspices of the

Department of Russian and Slav-ic Studies, while also benefitingfrom an advisory board of leadingfigures in Russian affairs. Withthe means necessary, Kotsonis an-ticipates that the Jordan FamilyCenter will be a base for Russianinfluence and understanding inour country.


IN BRIEF


For NYU students in NewYork, campus life is synony-

mous with the rhythms of the city:Bustling streets, honking taxis, tow-ering skyscrapers, and world-classculture all mingle to create a cos-mopolitan experience. Soon, stu-dents can enjoy all these urbandelights a bit farther east—in Chi-na. Come 2013, the university willadd a third urban campus (follow-ing NYU Abu Dhabi) to its globalnetwork. NYU Shanghai, a brand-new liberal arts and science college,will complement China’s goal ofkeeping talented students at home.But the campus will also offer op-portunities for others from acrossthe globe to study in one of theworld’s most vibrant cultural andfinancial centers.

With plans for NYU’s latestcampus moving full speed in prepa-ration for its fall 2013 inaugural se-mester, NYU Alumni Magazinespoke to R. May Lee (LAW ’90),

associate vice chancellor for Asia,about the challenges of creating anAmerican university in China’slargest city.

HOW DID NYU DECIDE ON CHINA

FOR ITS NEWEST CAMPUS?

If you think about the world’s ideacapitals, it makes sense to have apresence in Asia. Shanghai has a lotof similarities to New York, andbecause of our study-away sitethere, we already had a six-yearrelationship with the city.

HOW WILL THE CAMPUS

COMPARE TO WASHINGTON

SQUARE?

English will be the language of in-struction, but we expect all studentsto be fluent in Chinese by gradua-tion. Just like the Square, it’s goingto be in and of the city. We’ll havea building of about 550,000 squarefeet of usable space in downtownPudong, which is right in the heart

of Shanghai—the equivalent of be-ing at Park Avenue and East 57thStreet in New York. We’ve alreadyfound another space for us to builda bigger, more beautiful campus forwhen we’re ready to expand, butthat’s not until much further downthe line.

WHAT KINDS OF STUDENTS

WILL YOU ADMIT?

We’ll enroll both international stu-dents and Chinese students, andinitially there will be a differentprocess for each.We’re in the throesof preparing a global admissionssystem that will cover NYU AbuDhabi and NYU Shanghai, butthat’s still being refined.

WHAT’S THE DRAW OF

STUDYING IN SHANGHAI?

Shanghai is a great option for a stu-dent who wants to be in a majorcity but also wants to be part of asmaller cohort. In New York,

you’re one of 20,000 undergrads.[In Shanghai] you’ll be one of, at itsbiggest, 2,400 undergrads. Thecampus might also attract more ad-venturous students.WhenourNewYork students travel, they go toD.C. or California. Our students inChina can travel to Malaysia, Viet-nam, Singapore, or even Australia.

WHAT’S BEEN THE MOST DIFFI-

CULT PART OF THE ENTERPRISE?

We want to be a part of the city ofShanghai, and it’s complicated tobuild that robust community. Thevision of the global network, evenby [President] John Sexton’s ad-mission, is audacious, but we havethe benefit of coming after NYUAbu Dhabi and learning from themabout how to attract the best stu-dents in the world and how to re-cruit faculty. They’ve developed areal identity and vision.

WHAT’S THE BUZZ IN

SHANGHAI SO FAR?

Shanghai is one of the fastest-grow-ing cities in the world and has anincredible talent pool. There’s pal-pable excitement in China aboutNYU coming, and our potentialthere is limitless.

global

SHANGHAI CALLING: A NEW CAMPUS IS BORN

by Sally Lauckner / GSAS ’10

W enliang Wang recentlypledged $25 million to sup-

port and expand NYU’s GlobalNetwork University (GNU). Thegift will significantly further thestudy of U.S.-China relations atNYU and support students and fac-ulty who are active in the universi-ty’s global network.

Wang is actively engaged in fos-tering the bilateral U.S.-China re-lationship, as well as those inSoutheast Asia and on the KoreanPeninsula. He has generously sup-ported the creation of variousscholarly and exchange programsto this effect at several universities,includingNYU, theNationalUni-

versity of Singapore, and HarvardUniversity, where he is an adviso-ry committee member of the Har-vard University Asia Center. Heestablished the Wenliang WangCenter for U.S.-China Relationsat NYU in 2010, marking the firsttime such a center was created at amajor university in New York.The center has since become ahighly respected base for criticaldiscourse of issues crucial to boththe United States and China.

Wang’s philanthropy will creategreat momentum in advancingPresident John Sexton’s global vi-sion for NYU. His most recent giftwill endow the Wenliang Wang

Center for U.S.-China Relationsin NYU’s Faculty of Arts and Sci-ence, ensuring that the center re-mains a strongandpermanent aspectof NYU’s academic program. Thecenter will continue its academicvision of research on timely, real-world issues, with a focus on eco-nomics and foreign policy, and willbe housed at the NYU ShanghaiInstitute at Washington Square.

Wang’s contribution will alsoendow two faculty positions, theWenliang Wang DistinguishedGlobal Network Professors, andappointees will be selected fromworld-renowned scholars in vari-ous academic disciplines. In addi-

tion, his gift will support financial-aid awards for the most talentedstudents—to be known as Wen-liangWangGlobal Scholars—wish-ing to study in any of NYU’sschools, colleges, study-away sites,or portal campuses.

Wang is chairman of Rilin En-terprises, Ltd., a privately heldglobal infrastructure, logistics, andconstruction firm based in HongKong. His transformative gift willhave an extraordinary impact onNYU and will encourage studentsto develop an international con-sciousness that will prepare themto excel in an increasingly global-ized world.

$25 MILLION GIFT WILL FURTHER SUPPORT NYU’S GLOBALNETWORK AND U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

Thomas Sargent Wins24th Nobel Prize for NYU

The Noble Prize committee honored Thomas Sargent

(above left, receiving the award from His Majesty King

Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden) last fall for his groundbreak-

ing research, which has influenced numerous capitalist

economies over the past two decades.

Sargent, the William R. Berkley Professor of Economics

and Business, a joint position in the Faculty of Arts and Sci-

ence and the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, became

NYU’s 24th Nobel winner among faculty and alumni, and is

regarded as a pioneer of the rational expectations school

of macroeconomics. His work with 1995 Nobel Laureate

Robert Lucas provided the basis for the adoption of mone-

tary and fiscal policies that replaced Keynesian ideology.

Still, Sargent—who shared the prize in economics with

Princeton University’s Christopher Sims—remains hum-

ble about his vocation: “We’re just bookish types that

look at numbers and try to figure out what’s going on.”

PHOTO©

FRIDAWESTHOLM/THENOBELFOUNDATION

ast September, shortlyafter introducing a steepprice hike, movie-rentalgiant Netflix unveiled a

plan to separate its DVD deliveryand online streaming into two dis-tinct services—with two distinct

fees. According to a New YorkTimes article published last Octo-ber, a friend of Netflix CEO ReedHastings warned him that splittingthe services was a terrible idea, butHastings was undeterred. Cus-tomer outrage was so overwhelm-

ing that Hastings appeared in arare video mea culpa and the com-pany scrapped the plan within amonth.

This may seem like an unusu-al incident, but it’s part of a no-ticeable trend of people in power

ignoring advice from others, ac-cording to researchers Kelly Seeand Elizabeth Morrison. The twoLeonard N. Stern School of Busi-ness professors co-authored a pa-per that shows powerfulpeople—CEOs, high-level man-agers, and political figures—areless likely to heed advice fromothers. Published in the journalOrganizational Behavior and Hu-man Decision Processes, the papercombined results from four stud-ies, including one in which re-searchers asked participantsgeneral-knowledge questions(such as estimating the tuition atseveral universities), and thengave them advice from others be-fore allowing them to submit afinal answer.

The study revealed that peoplein power have higher levels ofconfidence in their own judg-ment, and a decreased willingnessto incorporate input from others.“Part of what gets you promotedis being knowledgeable and con-fident,” says See, noting that this

magine a third-grade class-

room in which students spend

a full week exploring the origin

of knowledge and certainty.

They interview one another with

questions such as, “What is some-

thing you know?” and “How do you

prove it?” They analyze texts, iden-

tifying claims authors make and

the evidence behind them. They

pinpoint sources—books, movies,

the Internet—and evaluate their va-

lidity. “The focus,” explains Susan

Kirch, associate professor of sci-

ence education at the Steinhardt

School of Culture, Education, and

Human Development, “is on giving

students the opportunity to learn

to use the tools of a scientist.”

Most science curricula in the

United States fail to do this, Kirch

argues. Instead, they focus on pre-

senting formulaic models that em-

phasize practical skills. For

example, instead of showing kids

how to use evidence to support or

challenge a given scientific claim,

many programs merely teach how

to produce a report in the correct

format. Instead of conveying the al-

gorithms that underlie math prob-

lems, many lessons merely

demonstratehowto“do”problems.

No one is arguing that practical

skills aren’t useful or necessary,

but, Kirch says, “students have to

understand the tool they’re using

before they begin using it.”

With this in mind, Kirch and her

colleagues at NYU’s STEME Educa-

tion and Research Center, a new fa-

cility devoted to understanding

how teachers learn to impart these

subjects and how children grasp

them, are seeking new ways of

teaching science to young children.

Along with her co-principal in-

vestigators,Kirchhassecurednear-

ly $450,000 from the National

Science Foundation for an initiative

called the Scientific Thinker Proj-

ect. The curriculum is based on the

idea that evidence is a fundamental

scientific tool and that children

have the capacity to understand its

nature—what it is, where it comes

from, how to evaluate it.

Pamela Fraser-Abder, associ-

ate professor of science education

at Steinhardt, also recently won a

three-year, $2.1 million grant from

the New York State Education

Department, which funds a pilot

program aimed at integrating new

science teachers more deeply into

the communities they serve and

improving retention rates among

them. “Gradually,” Fraser-Abder

says, “participants take on greater

responsibilities for teaching, so

that by the end of a school year,

they have gained solid practice.

They are more likely to remain

in the science education field

because they become more

invested in the work.”

There is often talk in this coun-

try of a crisis in science education.

But, Kirch says, while American

students may perform dismally on

international standard exams, or

avoid career paths in STEME fields

altogether, the real problem is that,

from the earliest years of school-

ing, curricula fail to instill a true un-

derstanding of how to think

scientifically. While it’s not clear

whether great science lessons

translate into more biologists and

engineers, the goal for now, Kirch

says, is to help children realize “the

scientific way of living is exciting,

fun, and rewarding.” Once that hap-

pens, shehopesmorestudentsmay

just be inspired to explore a career

in science.

—Amy Rosenberg

n 1999, a Congressional-spon-

sored study onU.S. health care

turned up some disturbing re-

sults: Minority patients are

less likely than whites to get organ

transplants, to undergo bypass

surgery, to receive kidney dialysis,

and even to receive heart medica-

tion. Further, minorities face

financial, geographical, and lan-

guage barriers preventing them

from accessing high-quality care.

In response, in 2006, the state

of Massachusetts passed a pio-

neering law attempting to drasti-

cally reduce these differences.

Through the ambitious “pay-for-

performance” initiative—part of

the state’s Medicaid program—

hospitals that showed a signifi-

cant reduction in care disparities

would become eligible for financial

bonuses. Sounded like a win-win.

“They were just wrong about

that,” says Jan Blustein, professor

of health policy and medicine at

the Robert F. Wagner Graduate

School of Public Service, who ex-

amined hospital records for treat-

ment patterns and spoke to

government officials and hospital

workers in response to the effort.

Her study, published in the journal

Health Affairs, revealed little evi-

dence of race-based disparities.

Blustein (WAG ’93) explains

that she believes racial disparities

do exist, but that they’re quite dif-

ficult to pin down. “Legislators

made the leap that people were

being treated differently in hospi-

tals in ways that could be demon-

strated within the program,” she

says. But Blustein adds that “the

inequities aren’t measurable in a

program like this.” Due in part to

racial segregation within cities,

nonwhite patients receive care

from a subset of providers that

tend to be of lower quality. There-

fore, racial disparities are more

likely to occur between different

hospitals and not within single

institutions as the pay-for-per-

formance model assumed.

Blustein’s study showed that

the policy could even end up hurt-

ing minority patients. Hospitals

that treated a majority of non-

white patients were penalized un-


health care

RIGHTING AWRONG

CUTTING-EDGEbusiness

THE WISDOM OF OTHERS

THE

I


education

Fundamental QuestionsNEW LESSONS AIM TO INSPIRE YOUNG SCIENTISTS

der the programbecause they pro-

vided a lower level of care across

the board. “We want low-perform-

ing hospitals to improve, not to be

punished,” she says. One viable

solution would be to simply offer

additional money to hospitals that

most need it, but Blustein warns

that this is harder than it sounds.

“Politicians may not want to an-

nounce more money for hospitals

that are doing poorly,” she ex-

plains. “[Voters] have this idea

that we should reward those that

do well. Rewarding hospitals that

are struggling, even ones that

serve mostly minority patients, is

difficult to sell.”

—S.L.

L

I

trait also has a downside. “Ourstudies showed that while power-ful people were more confident intheir judgment than lower-levelpeople, they were also less accu-rate in their answers.”

This problem extends beyondthe workplace, and See believesthat our view on leadership needsto change at a societal level.“There’s a general feeling that agood leader is decisive at alltimes,” she explains. “That’s awrong theory. A leader doesn’talways need to know the right an-swer, but they need to know howto find that answer.” In today’s in-formation age, See argues that it’smore valuable for a leader to knowwhere to seek reliable informa-tion and honest feedback, andhow to synthesize those resourcesin order to make the best deci-sions. Her recommendation:“Identify members of your teamwho don’t agree with you, andpromote people who aren’t afraidto challenge you.”

—Sally Lauckner

SQUARE

RESEARCH

AMERICAN STUDENTS PERFORM POORLY ON INTERNATIONAL EXAMS AND SUSAN

KIRCH SAYS THE SOLUTION LIES IN TEACHING THEM TO THINK SCIENTIFICALLY.

PHOTO©

LISAMERRILL

ILLUSTRATION©

R.O.BLECHMAN

history

THE PEOPLE’S GIFTAN HISTORIAN UNCOVERS LADY LIBERTY’SLITTLE-KNOWN PAST

by John Bringardner / GSAS ’03

WERE YOU FAMILIAR WITH

THE STATUE’S HISTORY

WHEN YOU TOOK ON

THE PROJECT?

I knew a lot about the Frenchiconography, the history of Mar-ianne, [their national] symbol ofliberty, and all that kind of thing,so what I had to do in order towrite this book was learn aboutthe American side of the story.

WHAT WAS THE AMERICAN

RECEPTION LIKE? HAD THERE

EVER BEEN SUCH A GIFT

FROM ONE PEOPLE TO

ANOTHER?

It’s pretty unusual. There were afew skeptics in the U.S. who re-ferred to the statue as a TrojanHorse, but most of the opposi-tion wasn’t that explicit. It wasmore like: Why should we wantthis? We don’t have classicalGreek and Roman statuary;that’s not who we are as 19th-century Americans. So when[French sculptor Frédéric Au-guste] Bartholdi first tried to sellthe idea, a lot of Americans werebefuddled.One of the other things I

learned is just how decentralizedtheUnited States was at the time,and so people from Philadelphia,much less San Francisco, could-n’t possibly see why they shouldcare about a statue that’s going togo up in New York Harbor.

THE STATUE WAS PROPOSED

AT THE END OF THE CIVIL

WAR. WERE THE FRENCH

MAKING A SPECIFIC

STATEMENT?

It’s completely fascinating. Em-peror Napoleon III wanted theSouth to win the Civil War be-cause he wanted to see a weakand divided U.S.—he had de-signs on Mexico.So there’s a whole geopolit-

ical thing, and that’s why it’sreally important to specify thatit wasn’t a gift from the Frenchgovernment, because that gov-ernment was pretty hostile to

the U.S., and certainly hostileto its democratic values.

WHAT WAS YOUR RESEARCH

PROCESS LIKE?

There was a lot to do. Barthol-di’s wife, who outlived him by adecade, deposited his papers inthe Conservatoire National desArts et Métiers, which is thetraining institute for technology.It’s mainly a massive archive ofpress clippings—from Frenchpapers and American papers,from German papers—and thatwas phenomenal. I had free rein,so I could follow the public opin-ion about it, and then I found allkinds of images.And one of the things I dis-

covered is that, because of all thedrawings of the Statue of Liber-ty, the illustrated press, [it] was areality before it even went up—and not just a reality, but acelebrity.One of the reasons why this

foreign import, which didn’t re-ally have any intrinsic meaninghere, could get accepted in thiscountry, and then embraced, isbecause the mass media of thetime made the statue so much ofa reality that by 1880 or so, mostAmericans couldn’t imagine notaccepting it.

HOW DO YOU THINK THE

BOOK WILL BE RECEIVED

IN FRANCE?

It has a different meaning, butthere’s a real pride that a lot ofFrench people feel about theStatue of Liberty. There are 13replicas in France, three in Parisand the rest sprinkled around thecountryside. Once Bartholdimade the model, it made senseto run off some copies. And thefoundry ran off a lot of copies.Now there’s an entrepreneur

who just created another dozenbecause he was able to make adigital mold from the originalplaster model. He’s selling themfor more than a million dollarsapiece.

INNYC

he journey to the topof the Statue of Lib-erty is like a tripabroad. You need aticket and an ID, and

when you finally make it to yourdestination—after a boat ride, ex-tensive security checkpoints, anda strenuous hike—everyone speaksa foreign language.For historian Edward Beren-

son, director of NYU’s Instituteof French Studies, the visit wasthe rare research mission that did-n’t require a passport. In his latestbook, The Statue of Liberty:A Transatlantic Story (Yale Uni-versity Press), Berenson unpacksthe largely misunderstood storybehind the statue’s French ori-gins, and traces its path as one ofAmerica’s most famous symbols.When the statue was first con-

ceived of in 1865, France had ex-perienced nearly a century ofrevolution and counterrevolution.In the midst of Napoleon III’s au-thoritarian regime, a small groupof liberal Frenchmen imagined amonument to the United States—which had just emerged from theCivil War a battered but still-unit-ed, democratic republic—thatwould also serve as a rebuke totheir own dictatorial government.By the time the statue was ded-

icated in 1886, Napoleon III wasgone, replaced by the moderateFrench Third Republic. Lady Lib-erty quickly settled into her role asan American icon, one whosemeaning has continued to shift withthe tides of culture and history.Berenson spoke with NYU

Alumni Magazine about the coppercolossus, and his own re-educa-tion in American history.

YOUR BOOK IS PART OF THE

“ICONS OF AMERICA” SERIES,

BUT MUCH OF IT TAKES PLACE

BEYOND OUR SHORES.

It’s amazing how little most Amer-icans know about the French his-tory of the Statue of Liberty.

Basically they think it was a giftfrom France, which it wasn’t. Itwas a gift from certain French peo-ple to the American people—thegovernments were not involved.None of the editors I worked

with, for example, knew thatGustave Eiffel had built the skele-ton. Nobody knew there was anEiffel tower inside the Statue ofLiberty.

T t the Institute ofFine Arts, thevery walls are apiece of archi-tectural history.

In a well-appointed marmorealdining room that looks acrossFifth Avenue to Central Parkand the Metropolitan Museumof Art, students unpack theirlunches. Across the main hall,they attend chandelier-lit lec-tures in a former ballroom. Theupstairs bedrooms and vast clos-ets that once stored socialiteDoris Duke’s luxurious dressesnow house volumes on art his-tory. On the topmost floor, fac-ulty members hold office hoursin erstwhile servants’ quarters.The mansion, which has been

home to the Institute of FineArts, or IFA, for the past 54years, will not only be the site of

study but also its object as theinstitute celebrates DukeHouse’s centennial this year.Constructed between 1909 and1912, the house is a notable sur-vivor of the wave of moderniza-tion that swept New York Cityin the early 20th century.“These kinds of buildings arerare,” NYU historian Jon Ritter(IFA ’99) notes. “Most of themcame down after World War II,or even earlier, in favor of thelarge apartment buildings thatline Fifth Avenue now.” In-deed, the Landmarks Preserva-tion Commission called DukeHouse “one of the last remindersof the Age of Elegance.”To mark the occasion, facul-

ty members are preparing a se-ries of events, including publiclectures and a seminar led by ar-

architecture

Fifth Avenue’sGrande DameAT 100, DUKE HOUSE IS A WINDOW

INTO NEW YORK CITY HISTORY

by Megan Doll / GSAS ’08

A


(CONTINUED ON PAGE 21)

IN 1882, BARTHOLDI WROTE: “THE STATUE COMMENCES TO REACH ABOVE THE

HOUSES, AND BY NEXT SPRING WE SHALL SEE IT OVERLOOK [ALL OF PARIS].”

BUILT FOR TOBACCO MAGNATE JAMES B. DUKE, THE HOUSE WAS MODELED ON

AN 18TH-CENTURY FRENCH MANSION.

PHOTOCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHYCOLLECTION,THENEWYORKPUBLICLIBRARY,ASTOR,LENOXANDTILDENFOUNDATIONS

PHOTOCOURTESYNYUARCHIVES

NYU / SPRING 2012 / 2120 / SPRING 2012 / NYU

PHOTOSCLOCKWISEFROMLEFT:COURTESYTHETRUSTFORGOVERNORSISLAND;©JOHNCHANCECOTTI;COURTESYDEMPSEY’S;©SCOTTLENGER

chitecture historian Jean-LouisCohen and the Frick Collection’sdecorative arts curator, CharlotteVignon, intended to peel backdecades of history and survey thehouse’s former grandeur.The stately limestone edifice,

which stands at Fifth Avenue andEast 78th Street, was built by Ho-race Trumbauer for James B.Duke, a tobacco tycoon whosesubstantial contribution to a col-lege in Durham, North Carolina,prompted the college’s fourthname change to Duke Universityin 1924. Trumbauer and chiefdesigner Julian Abele, one of thefirst prominent African-Ameri-can architects, modeled DukeHouse after the Hôtel Labottière,an 18th-century mansion in Bor-deaux, France.Duke’s wife, Nanaline, and his

daughter, Doris, donated thebuilding to the IFA in 1958. Lat-

er that same year, the institutegave the now famous postmodernarchitect Robert Venturi his firstcommission: the renovation ofDuke House. Venturi used a lighttouch, mounting the classroomfurnishings—desks, bookcases,and the like—away from thewalls, so as to leave the originalpaint, molding, and decorativeflourishes undisturbed. HistorianRitter commends “this idea ofmodernizing [the space] for itsnew uses but also keeping thecharacter of the old building.”Venturi’s design will allow

next fall’s seminar students to ex-amine these modern additionsalongside the original architec-ture. They will also learn aboutthe furnishings and art collectiononce housed in the mansion be-fore its donation. Professor Co-hen explains: “Part of the idea isto reconstruct the house as it wasin its age of splendor.”

BROOKLYNFARMACY&SODAFOUNTAIN

VILLAGEVANGUARD

DEMPSEY’S

GOVERNORSISLAND

BE S TO F NEW YORK

NYU FACULTY, STAFF, AND ALUMNI

OFFER UP THEIR FAVORITES

by Renée Alfuso / CAS ’06

the insider

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19)

NYC

IN

ISLAND GETAWAY

In the middle of New York Har-bor lies 172 grassy acres that wereclosed to the public for more than200 years. But now a free, seven-minute ferry ride takes urbanitesto the revamped oasis every week-end. “GOVERNORS ISLAND islike a pastoral, artsy wonderland astone’s throw away from the tow-ering skyscrapers of Lower Man-hattan,” explains Courtney E.Martin (GAL ’04), NYU AlumniMagazine contributing writer andauthor of Do It Anyway: The NewGeneration of Activists (BeaconPress). Martin is drawn to the islefor its outdoor sculpture garden,miles of car-free biking, and his-tory: It was originally used as amilitary outpost, and Fort Jay stillstands as a national monumentwith ranger-guided tours. Today,the island has a more bohemianvibe, with frequent exhibitionsand a whimsical miniature golfcourse with 18 holes that wereeach designed by a different artist.The park also hosts an array ofconcerts, crafts workshops, and

special events such as the Jazz AgeLawn Party, where visitors dressin 1920s attire for Charleston les-sons, live music, and a vintagemotorcar show. If you’re simplylooking for some R&R, head toPicnic Point, where stunningviews of the harbor and Statue ofLiberty may be enjoyed from free-standing hammocks in the grass.Says Martin: “In one little boatride, you feel like you are a worldaway.”Governors Island is open Sat-

urdays, Sundays, and holidayMondays from May through Sep-tember.FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

WWW.GOVISLAND.COM

GAME ON

Last year, 4.2 million Americanstuned in to watch the final matchof the UEFA ChampionsLeague—Europe’s most presti-gious soccer club tournament—and that’s not counting the hordesof fans that flocked to sports barsin New York City. “Watching abig game at a bar is the next best

thing to actually being there,”says NYU men’s soccer forwardKyle Green (CAS ’13). “There’s abuzz in the air that you just don’tget watching at home—whichturns into a frenzy when goals arescored.” Green, who turned 21last fall, stops by campus hangoutJosie Woods Pub to catch gamesbetween classes. But on week-ends, he heads to DEMPSEY’S inthe East Village to watch the Eu-ropean footballers duke it out onthe bar’s 10 mounted plasmascreens. “It allows you to watchmultiple games at once, which isgreat forChampions Leaguewhenhalf of the teams are all playing atthe same time,” Green explains.The pub also offers pool and dartsto go with its beer and hot wings.And when the U.S.-Europe timedifference means early-morningmatches for American fans, there’salways Dempsey’s traditional Irishbreakfast—served with a pint, ofcourse.61 SECOND AVENUE, 212-388-

0662; WWW.DEMPSEYSPUB.COM

THIRSTY FOR A THROWBACK

It’s hard to believe that carbonat-ed water was once a rare import,

but before giants like Coke andPepsi took over, soda jerks usedto mix drinks to order with fresh-ly made syrups in shops across thecountry. The difference betweenthe two is made crystal clear at theBROOKLYN FARMACY & SODA

FOUNTAIN, where instead ofchemicals and additives, theymake their own cola syrup withcinnamon, nutmeg, lavender, andcitrus peels.Co-founder Peter Freeman

spent a year and a half cleaningthe long-closed Carroll Gardensdrugstore but couldn’t throwaway the 1940s ointment tins andmedicine jars that now adorn theshop’s antique wooden shelves.“It’s nostalgia reminiscent of aNormanRockwell painting,” saysBrooklynite Tim Senft (GAL ’99),deputy director of strategic com-munications at NYU. “The factthat the ingredients are locallysourced is an added bonus, be-cause you know you’re gettingquality nostalgia.”All-natural ice cream from

Hudson Valley’s AdirondackCreamery is used to create arti-sanal floats in sodas like lime orhibiscus, as well as sundaes topped

with whipped cream, caramel,and broken pretzels. No shopwould be complete without afizzy egg cream, and the Brook-lyn Farmacy puts its own spinon the classic with flavors likecoffee, strawberry, and maple inautumn. The menu changeswith the seasons, so this springbrings specials such as the cher-ry blossom shake and “Rhap-sody in Blue”—fresh blueberrysoda filled with black raspberryice cream. For lunch, try the“Grumble, Grumble,” whichgets you grilled cheese, soup,and an egg cream for less than10 bucks.513 HENRY STREET IN BROOK-

LYN, 718-522-6260;

WWW.BROOKLYNFARMACY.

BLOGSPOT.COM

ALL THAT JAZZ

“New York City is exceptionalin that it has the greatest jazzclubs in the world,” says DavidSchroeder, director of jazz stud-ies at Steinhardt. When he’s notteaching, Schroeder (STEIN-HARDT ’93) performs with hisfaculty ensemble Combo Nuvoat renowned venues such as the

Blue Note and Dizzy’s ClubCoca-Cola—the uptown, up-scale Jazz at Lincoln Centernightclub that overlooks Cen-tral Park. For a more bohemianjoint, he suggests Smalls, whichis as intimate as its name im-plies. The downtown dive fea-tures up-and-coming musicianswho jam all night long, and just$10 buys admission to its after-hours sessions, which some-times last until 8 AM.But New York’s most leg-

endary club, the VILLAGE VAN-GUARD, has been around since1935 and is known as the genre’smecca. “It’s the quintessentialjazz club in the basement of anold building, and it has a totallyunique acoustical sound,”Schroeder explains. In fact, thetriangular-shaped room allowssound waves to reverberate andproject out like an opera house,which is why more than a hun-dred jazz albums have beenrecorded there by icons such asJohn Coltrane, Sonny Rollins,and Wynton Marsalis.178 SEVENTH AVENUE SOUTH,

212-255-4037;

WWW.VILLAGEVANGUARD.COM

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CULT

EUR

to accompany those who takethe suggested walking tour. TheGuthrie Archives will also soon re-locate from her home in MountKisco, New York, to Tulsa, Okla-homa, to a facility created by theGeorge Kaiser Family Foundation,which purchased the collectionfrom Guthrie Publications for$3 million in December 2011.Nora, who had long sought a per-manent home for the archives, willcontinue to license her father’ssongs and recruit artists to recordthem.

Cultivating Woody’s legacy,however, wasn’t always Nora’s pri-ority.With herDNA, it seemed in-evitable that she would become anartist. Like her mother, who per-formed with the Martha GrahamDance Company, Nora fell in lovewith dance and studied it in the late’60s at NYU’s Tisch School of theArts. Those were heady days inNew York, as modern dance blos-somed around Greenwich Village,and she collaborated with directorRobertWilson, internedwith light-ing designer Jennifer Tipton, andperformedwithMeredithMonk inpolitical street theater. She and class-mate Ted Rotante (TSOA ’71)formed Guthrie-Rotante DanceCompany, which flourished. Theysoon married and toured nationallywith the company.

In the early 1980s,Nora put per-forming aside to raise her children,Cole, 25, andAnna, 33,whoworksas director of events and programsfor Guthrie Publications, whichdoes outreach in schools, and hasconferences planned at four uni-versities, including Brooklyn Col-lege and Penn State, in 2012. Butby 1992, Nora had found her wayback into show business, helpingHarold Leventhal manage her fa-ther’s catalog of songs. In 1998, shewas executive producer of BillyBragg andWilco’sMermaid Avenue(named for the street Woody livedon inConey Island).The punk rockinterpretation of his music was notwelcomed by all quarters. “It wasconsidered blasphemy by some be-

cause it wasn’t folk,” Nora recalls,“butwe got aGrammynominationand great reviews. It gave me thecourage to keep going.”A decade later she won a Grammy,as producer ofTheLiveWire:WoodyGuthrie in Performance 1949.

Following this success, Nora hascontinued stretching her father’sappeal.Hermaternal grandmother,the well-known Yiddish poet Al-iza Greenblatt, lived across thestreet from the Guthries in the

1940s and became close with herson-in-law, as the twowould oftendiscuss each other’s work whilesharing their common interests inculture and social justice. Woodywas taken with Greenblatt’s her-itage,which prompted him towritea number of Jewish-themed lyricsat the time.Upon discovering thesesongs, Nora asked the Klezmatics,a Jewish Klezmer band, to set themto music, and they soon recordedthe critically acclaimed Woody

Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah,as well as Wonder Wheel: Lyrics byWoody Guthrie, which won aGrammy for Best ContemporaryWorld Music Album in 2006. Butthe latest CD,Note of Hope, is per-haps themost personal forNora be-cause it offers insight intoWoody’slast lucid and productive years.“His ideas from the heart never getold,” she says. “And his philoso-phy, his truths, are made accessiblethrough music.”

n Sundays as achild,NoraGuthrie(TSOA ’71) wouldoften sit in the cor-ner of her parents’

bedroom and marvel at the likes ofBob Dylan and Pete Seeger stand-ing just a few feet away. Such starswould regularly trek to her family’smodest Howard Beach, Queens,home to visitwith her dad,Woody,the father of American folk music.By then, Huntington’s disease—aprogressive neurological disorder—had sapped his body and mind, butthewell-wishers still gushed to himabout their latest works and playedhis songs. “Dylanwas the greatest,”recalls Nora, now 62. “He becametheWoody jukebox.Hewanted togoout into theworld to serve him.”

More than three decades later,in 1994, Nora would also serve herfather’s legacy by co-founding theWoodyGuthrieArchives. And thisyear, she is helping to orchestratethe 2012 centennial of his birth, forwhich the archives has partneredwith the Grammy Museum to puton festivals in both Berlin andWoody’s hometown of Okemah,Oklahoma, as well as a KennedyCenter gala in Washington, D.C.The anniversarywill also herald therelease of seven books and fiveCDs, includingNote ofHope:ACel-ebration of Woody Guthrie, co-pro-duced by Nora and bassist RobWasserman, and featuring JacksonBrowne,AniDiFranco, LouReed,and Studs Terkel, among others,who perform Woody’s lyrics inspoken prose, hip-hop, traditional

acoustic folk, and rock ’n’ roll. Thealbum illuminates Woody’sthoughts from New York duringhis final decades, offering views ofthe harsh life led by those on soci-ety’s margins, and the many joys offalling in love.

Dubbed the “Dust Bowl Trou-badour” for his baleful paeans to theOklahoma migrants of the 1930s,WoodyGuthrie,whodied in 1967,composed more than 3,000songs—including the anthem“This Land Is Your Land.” Hisoeuvre ranges from traditional folktunes to political ballads, from ram-bling blues to children’s ditties, andmany are now archived in theLibrary of Congress. His spirit em-boldened themusic and activism ofthe early beatniks and youth in the1950s and ’60s, and continues to in-spire today’s artists, including thebands Wilco and the Indigo Girls,and rock legendBruce Springsteen.RageAgainst theMachine guitaristTom Morello sang “This Land” atan Occupy Wall Street rally lastOctober, and a year earlier, herecorded Woody’s “Deportee” asa protest against Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.

But toNora, hewas always, sim-ply, “Dad.” She never actuallyknew the legendary Woody—theever-vigilant artist with a passionfor justice. His health and mentalstate continued to deterioratethroughout her childhood. Andonce the family could no longercare for him at home,Nora’smoth-er, Marjorie, would drive her andher brothers, Arlo and Joady, to vis-

it their father at Greystone ParkPsychiatric Hospital in Morris-town, New Jersey. “Growing upwith my dad was the hardest thingin my life,” says Nora, who alsoserves as president of WoodyGuthrie Publications, Inc. “We’dvisit him at the hospital, which waslike a scene out of One Flew Overthe Cuckoo’s Nest. His clothes weredirty. He couldn’t control his blad-der. He couldn’t walk. He couldbarely get a fork to his mouth.”

It was, in part, through found-ing the Guthrie Archives and be-

coming the curator of hiswords andmusic that Nora was finally able togrow closer to him. “Every aspectof his creative legacy evoked some-thing different in me,” explainsNora,who thisMaywill releaseMyName IsNewYork:Ramblin’AroundWoodyGuthrie’s Town—AWalkingGuide, authored by her and witharchival material about the 27 yearsWoody lived in the Big Apple. Itwill include an audio CD of songclips, lyrics, and original interviews

CULT

EUR

THIS MUSIC IS YOUR MUSICNORA GUTHRIE RESURRECTS HER FOLK-LEGEND FATHERFOR A NEW GENERATION OF LISTENERS

by David McKay Wilson

Americana


MUSIC LEGEND WOODY GUTHRIE WAS ALWAYS JUST “DAD” TO DAUGHTER NORA, SEEN HERE IN 1950, AND TODAY (AT LEFT).

PHOTOS:LEFT©

TINATSCHIRCH;RIGHT:COURTESYTHEWOODYGUTHRIE

ARCHIVES

O

Legendary funnyman BILLY

CRYSTAL (TSOA ’70) hostedthis year’s Academy Awards,where MARK BRIDGES (TSOA’87) took home an Oscar forBest Achievement in CostumeDesign for The Artist… BRUCE

SINOFSKY (TSOA ’78) co-directed the wrongful-impris-onment saga Paradise Lost 3: Pur-gatory, which was nominated forBest Documentary Feature…The Tsunami and the Cherry Blos-som, directed by LUCYWALKER

(TSOA ’98), was up for BestDocumentary Short Subject…ANDREW BOWLER (TSOA ’96)wrote and directed the sci-ficomedy Time Freak, whichscored a nod for Best Live

Action Short Film… The Help,produced by CHRISCOLUMBUS

(TSOA ’80) andMICHAELBAR-NATHAN (TSOA ’80), won theNAACP Image Award for Out-standing Motion Picture…At the Film Independent’s Spir-it Awards, SOPHIA LIN (TSOA’97) was given the Piaget Pro-ducers Award for the apocalyp-tic thriller Take Shelter, whilewriter-director DEE REES’s(TSOA ’07) coming-of-agedrama Pariah, executive-pro-duced by SPIKE LEE (TSOA’82, HON ’98), earned the JohnCassavetes Award, given to thebest feature made for less than$500,000… MARTIN SCOR-

SESE (WSC ’64, STEIN-

HARDT ’68, HON ’92) wasnamed Best Director at theGolden Globe Awards forHugo.Scorsese also won an Emmy forOutstanding Directing for aDrama Series for HBO’s Board-walk Empire. The show’s cast,including HEATHER LIND

(TSOA ’10) and PAUL SPARKS

(TSOA ’95), won the ScreenActors Guild Award for Out-standing Performance by anEnsemble in a Drama Series…At the Sundance Film Festival,DEREK CONNOLLY (TSOA ’98)received theWaldo Salt Screen-writing Award for Safety NotGuaranteed, directed by COLIN

TREVORROW (TSOA ’99)…MUSA SYEED (TSOA ’06) wonthe dramatic World CinemaAudience Award for writingand directing Valley of Saints,which also shared the Alfred P.Sloan Feature Film Prize withRobot & Frank, written byCHRISTOPHER FORD (TSOA’04)… GLEN J. MAZZARA

(WSUC ’89, GSAS ’93) has tak-en over as showrunner forAMC’s hit zombie drama TheWalking Dead… In Wes Ander-son’s latest film, Moonrise King-dom, BOB BALABAN (WSUC’77) stars alongside Bill Murrayand Frances McDormand…The MacArthur Foundationnamed 22 new “genius” fel-lows, including conduc-tor/pianist FRANCISCO J.

NÚÑEZ (STEINHARDT ’88),who founded the Young Peo-ple’s Chorus of New York City,and composer/percussionistDAFNIS PRIETO, who teachesjazz studies at Steinhardt.

—Renée Alfuso

THREE CHEERS FOR THIS SEASON ’SMANY AWARD-WINN ING ALUMNI

n March 2011, Jen Statsky(TSOA ’08) woke up to twomissed calls from her manag-er, and one e-mail that read:“Call me!!” Still half asleep,

Statsky—who was working as anSAT practice proctor in Los Ange-les at the time—dialed her phone todiscover she’d been offered a jobwriting for Jimmy Fallon on hisNBC show, Late Night With JimmyFallon. In that instant, years of hardwork and perseverance came to ahead. “I always thought that thesecond I got this kind of newsIwould be so happy…and Iwas su-per happy,” Statsky says. “But Iwasalso like…oh,myGod, I have to dothis now.”

That initial fear subsided onceStatsky foundherself right inside thetornado of working on a daily TVshow—andhaving to be funny full-time. Now more than a year intothe game, she’s grown accustomedto receiving a batch of topics eachnight and transforming them intopunchymonologue jokes bymorn-ing. It’s an art form she calls “amarathon, not a sprint.”When youwrite a good joke, she says, “youdon’t stop and celebrate,” just like“you don’t dwell on the terriblejokes you write either.”

While the former intern for Sat-urday Night Live, Late Night WithConan O’Brien, andThe Onion cancertainly see her success as the re-sult of years of networking and

honing her craft, a good chunk ofcredit must also go to a six-year-old microblog, otherwise knownas Twitter. Though skeptical,Statsky started “tweeting” in Sep-tember 2010 because she’d heardit was a good way to practice jokewriting in front of an audience—even if it was mostly family andfriends at first. But as hermaximum140-character quips quickly gainedtraction, getting retweeted andviewed by others in the industry,she watched her “followers”steadily climb.Within six months,she got a message from Late Nighthead writer A.D. Miles, who saidhe admired her work and invitedher to apply for an open writingposition.

Twitter magic struck againwhen Statsky became the center-piece of a New York Times articlelast fall on comedians using the so-cial networking site to further theircareers. That story tripled her fol-lowers from about 7,000 to morethan 23,000 as of this April. Equalparts Steven Wright, Louis C.K.,and Sarah Silverman, Statsky stillposts tweets almost every day.And although the pressure to befunny has never been higher, shesays that putting new twists on oldideas feels “like a discovery” eachtime, which helps fuel her nextjoke. “I think, oh, there’s moreout there,” she explains. “It has-n’t all been done.”


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TheTweetLife

comedyA Sampling of Statsky’s Top Tweets

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WRITER JEN STATSKY FINDS LAUGHSIN A NEW MEDIUM

by Jason Hollander / GAL ’07

I It’s so nice out today, I decided to go to thepark and have my panic attack there.

“If it’s Margaret, I’m not here.” —God

Think my cat might be depressed. She justtold me she’s thinking about getting a cat.

That last syllable of “techno” is exactly how Ifeel about it.

Infuriates me that all dogs go to heaven whenI think about that maltese that murdered mygrandpa.

So crazy that even in 2012, for every dollara man makes, a woman makes a deliciousapple pie.

My seasonal depression is entering its10th straight season!

Remember that time I had a headache butdidn’t let anyone know about it? Me either.

“Alright, alright, HI already.” —Kitty

No sadder sound than a human beingrepositioning themselves on an air mattress.

ENDGAME: BOBBY FISCHER’S

REMARKABLE RISE AND

FALL—FROM AMERICA’S

BRIGHTEST PRODIGY TO THE

EDGE OF MADNESS

(CROWN PUBLISHING)

FRANK BRADY

TSOA ’80, STEINHARDT ’91

Frank Brady declares in his intro-

duction that although he knew

the world champion Bobby Fisch-

er since their youth, played hun-

dreds of chess games against

him, and was a close friend of the

family, Endgame is a biography

and not a memoir. To accomplish

this, the author remains invisible

in many scenes to which he was

an eyewitness, electing to report

the facts rather than his impres-

sions. And so, Fischer’s infamous

tale of unraveling—from a gifted

Jewish boy growing up in Brook-

lyn to a raging anti-Semite and

anti-American who died a recluse

in 2008 in Iceland, the only coun-

try that would have him—is told

with reverence for the genius

that always lay beneath the

pathology. As Brady writes:

“Whether one admires or despis-

es Bobby Fischer—and it’s quite

easy to do both simultaneous-

ly…we should never forget his

sheer brilliance on the chess-

board.”

—Jason Hollander

worse. “I’ve been spat at,” she re-calls. “I’ve had people come up tome at public events and startscreaming.”But other voices began to flood

her inbox as well—a global con-stituency, as she describes it, ofthousands of individuals ma-rooned throughout the Islamicdiaspora. Manji’s self-assignedrole is to use the platform that theWest has granted her to providesuccor to those who want to posedifficult questions to their ownparents, imams, and tribal elders.Her newest book, Allah, Liberty,and Love (Free Press), consists ofe-mails from these fugitive voic-es—typically young peopleyearning for wider freedoms—aswell as brief accounts of otherswho broke with their own com-munities in defense of “universalstandards of dignity and decen-cy.” She cites crusaders such asLillian Smith, a white Southernwriter who took an antisegrega-tion stance in the 1940s, and Ab-dul Ghaffar Khan, a nonviolentPakistani activist who defendedwomen’s equality and fought forMuslim-Hindu unity.Such moral outliers, Manji

says, exemplify the goal of the in-stitute she leads at Wagner—theMoral Courage Project—whichhosts lectures and symposia de-voted to the subject and has fea-tured speakers such as authorSalman Rushdie. Manji alsoteaches a course designed not justto study outliers of the past but toequip young leaders to resist thesettled consensus within theircommunities. It’s not just a mat-ter of Muslims challenging theexcesses of Islam, she says;a deadening groupthink also keptmany Wall Street figures fromspeaking out in the lead-up to thefinancial crisis.Manji is not, as many of her

detractors have been quick topoint out, a scholar of Islam or an

expert on any of the regions inwhich Islam is the dominant reli-gion. She is, instead, a grown-upversion of the pestering studentshe had once been: “I would askthe [madrassa] teacher, ‘Why canwe not take Jews and Christiansas friends?’ and ‘Why can womennot lead the congregationalprayer?’ And by the age of 14,I had asked one too many of theseinconvenient questions and wastold to get out.”She went on to avail herself of

the many freedoms afforded toWesterners—to think independ-ently, to affirm her lesbian sexu-ality, to conclude that theZionists’ historical claim to theland of Israel is a just one—andshe insists that her position is asrelevant as any other to the strug-gle for the future of Islam.“When I left, I had to remindmy mother”—who broughtManji to Canada after being ex-pelled from Uganda by IdiAmin—“ ‘I just left the madras-sa. I haven’t left Allah.’ ”When asked whether she ever

worries that her public quarrelswith Islam embolden bigots andIslamophobes, Manji respondswith a passionate speech that ref-erences Rabbi Abraham JoshuaHeschel, who linked arms withMartin Luther King Jr. at themarch at Selma. He knew that byjoining the civil rights movement,he’d risk feeding the anti-Jewishsentiment in the South. “Heschelsaid, ‘That may very well be true,but I have to do the right thinganyway,’ ” Manji notes. Ulti-mately, she believes that suchmoral courage is innate in all ofus: “We know that certain thingsare just wrong, okay? Killing yourdaughter for any reason, let aloneto cleanse the family—that is justwrong. No matter what cultureyou come from, there is a basiclevel of human decency and dig-nity that you can relate to as a fel-low human being. What is theright thing to do? End of story.Do it. Just do it.”

rshadManji is railing againstwhat she calls “good West-ern liberals.” Sitting in heroffice in the Puck Building,the Robert F. Wagner

Graduate School of Public Serviceprofessor talks about a case inwhich one Toronto district schoolboard, for the sake of religious di-versity, had cordoned off a sectionof its middle-school cafeteria forFriday prayer for Muslim stu-dents—thereby, in Manji’s view,implicating itself in sexist abusesthat it would not condone underany other circumstances. Boys andgirls are segregated during prayer,with girls sitting well behind theboys. “Those girls who are on theirperiods are sent to the very back ofthe room,” explains Manji, noting

that she witnessed this in her ownmadrassa, or religious school,whilegrowing up in suburban Vancou-ver. “It’s not that we were consid-ered merely different; we wereconsidered dirty, unhygienic.Okay? And part of the filth thatcorrupts when it comes near any-thing that is male.”She calls that a double standard.

“If the Toronto district schoolboard people were to meet a whiteman who wouldn’t shake the handof a black man for fear of beingpolluted, they would definitelybust his balls,” she says, but whenit comes to women and Islam,“Somehow [it’s simply], ‘That’swhat those people do.’ ”Since the publication of her first

book, The Trouble With Islam To-

day: A Muslim’s Call for Reform inHer Faith (St. Martin’s Griffin),Manji has become a highly visiblescourge of what she calls the sexist,racist, and anti-Semitic strainswith-in the Islamic community, and alsoof the Western liberals whose mis-placed reverence for other cultures,as she characterizes it, makes themcomplicit in this oppression. Herbook posed difficult questions onthe practice of “honor killing,” thediscouragement of independentthought within madrassas, and theembrace of anti-Semitism at apeculiarly uncomfortable time forIslam—while American soldierswere trooping through Iraq andAfghanistan. It seemed like a strate-gic error to many Muslims. Somecalled it opportunistic pandering or

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IN

PHOTO©BRENTSTIRTON/GETTYIMAGES

nonfiction

TEACHER’S PESTSCHOLAR IRSHAD MANJI WON’T QUIT ASKINGUNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS

by Wesley Yang

I

MANJI SEES BOTH HARD-LINE MUSLIMS

AND WESTERN LIBERALS AS OBSTACLES

TO A MORE PROGRESSIVE ISLAM.

THE AMERICAN WAY OF

EATING: UNDERCOVER AT

WALMART, APPLEBEE’S,

FARM FIELDS AND THE

DINNER TABLE

(SCRIBNER)

TRACIE MCMILLAN

CAS ’99

In this thoughtful debut, journal-

ist Tracie McMillan explores first-

hand just how our most basic

need—to eat—is met, for better

and for worse, in America. By

working undercover in the fields

of California’s Central Valley, at a

Walmart in Detroit, and in a New

York City Applebee’s, she pieces

together the puzzle of how food

is grown, distributed, stored, and

served—and how money ex-

changes hands unequally along

theway. The divide between food-

ies and those who resort to gro-

cery shopping at liquor stores is

no classist accident, she notes,

but more likely a side effect of

the industry’s pursuit of profit.

Her challenge to readers: “How

do we make a foodscape crowded

with junk into an anomaly, and

one flush with fresh, healthy food

the norm?”

—Tate Morales

bibliofile


history

lthough the wounds of slavery still play a

profound role in American culture, Harvard

University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

spends much of his new book wrestling

with that institution’s legacy south of our borders:

Of the 11.2 million Africans who survived the journey across the Atlantic,

less than 5 percent ended up in the United States. InBlack in Latin Amer-

ica (NYU Press), he notes that the “real” African-American experience,

based on numbers alone, “unfolded…south of Key West, south of Texas,

south of California.” Some facts are unfortunately consistent across na-

tions: The darkest Latin-Americans are disproportionately represented

among the lowest economic rungs. However, other notions, such as

Brazil’s exhaustive list of categories of blackness, may boggle the Amer-

ican black-or-white mindset.

The following are Brazil’s “133 shades” of blackness, from the book’s

appendix:

THE OTHER AFRICAN-AMERICANS

hese days, there arefew penniless 15-year-olds who leaveschool to becomegovernesses at ex-

travagant mansions in the Englishcountryside. But there is Pene-lope Lumley, protagonist of TheIncorrigible Children of Ashton Place(HarperCollins), a hilarious seriesof novels for young readers.A Victorian-era orphan who hasspent her life at Agatha Swan-burne’s Academy for Poor BrightFemales, Penelope is told one dayby her beloved headmistress thatshe must leave to make room foranother bright girl in need. Shefinds an appointment at, yes, anextravagant mansion, where thejob description calls for, amongother skills, a love of animals.When she arrives, she discoverswhy: Her three new charges havebeen raised in the woods bywolves. Penelope’s mission is toeducate them—after teachingthem to speak instead of howl andto wear clothing.It will come as no surprise that

Maryrose Wood (GAL ’96), cre-ator of The Incorrigible Children, wasinspired partly by Jane Eyre, her fa-vorite book when she was a child.Like Jane, Penelope must make herway through an oppressive world,drawing on great inner strength topropel herself to security and hap-piness. But while Jane Eyre attend-ed a school run by sadists whostarved their pupils both physicallyand mentally, Penelope’s strengthderives in part from the nurturingaphorisms said to have originatedwith her alma mater’s founder:

“One can board one’s train onlyafter it arrives at the station,” forexample; “All books are judged bytheir covers until they are read”;“There is no alarm clock like em-barrassment.” These “Swanbur-nisms,” as Wood calls them, helpto guide Penelope through a seriesof adventures with the children,and eventually to uncover a greatmystery surrounding their ori-gins—and her own as well.Reading the books (three have

been published so far; Wood an-ticipates six in the series altogeth-er), it’s easy to imagine Wood assomething like Agatha Swan-burne herself—wise, optimistic,gently authoritative, cheerfullyhardworking—and that’s a fairlyaccurate portrayal. Before writingthe Incorrigible series, Wood, 50,wrote seven novels for teenagers,all acclaimed by the major chil-dren’s book review publications

for their humor and “pitch-per-fect narration.” But she came tothis career late in life; her firstbook was published only in 2006.That means that, with the publi-cation of the latest Incorrigible vol-ume, she’ll have written 10 booksin six years. “It took me a longtime,” she says, “but I finally un-derstood that what I was interest-ed in—critical questions aboutaudience and meaning, and thetechniques used to solve narrativeproblems—was the work ofa writer.”Her first calling was the stage.

A Long Island native, Wood hadharbored dreams of acting onBroadway since adolescence, andspent much of her teenagehoodstealing into the city to see anyshow she could get last-minutetickets for on the weekends.

(Her 2008 book, My Life: TheMusical [Delacorte], draws fromthose experiences.) She enrolledat NYU as an acting major, andbefore the end of her sophomoreyear had landed a role in theStephen Sondheim musical Mer-rily We Roll Along. It was a “leg-endary flop,” Wood recalls;nonetheless she dropped out ofschool in order to devote herselfwholly to acting. It took nearlyanother decade before she real-ized that she was actually a writerat heart. So she reenrolled atNYU, and four years later, inher mid-thirties and a youngmother, she had in hand a BAfrom the Gallatin School of In-dividualized Study.For a while Wood stuck to

screenplays and musicals, includ-ing The Tutor, which won theRichard Rodgers Award from theAmerican Academy of Arts and

Letters three years in a row. Butwhen a friend convinced her tocompose a novel for teenagers—her highly praised 2006 debut, SexKittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love(Delacorte)—she felt she’d foundher true calling. “Teens and chil-dren have very little control overtheir lives,” she says. “Novels al-low them to explore the possibili-ties of lives totally unlike theirown—not somuch to escape theirsituations, but togive themknowl-edge.” Wood, who now also im-parts knowledge to would-beauthors by teaching fictionwritingat Lehman College in the Bronx,believes in the power of guidingher young audience with litera-ture. “It’s a way of helping to pre-pare them for the adult world,”she says. “It’s one thing Jane Eyredid for me.”


fiction

A HOWL AND A HOOTMARYROSE WOOD’S NOVELS OFFER WIT AND WISDOM TO YOUNG READERS

by Amy Rosenberg

T

PRINT

IN

“Novels allow [children] toexplore the possibilities of livesunlike their own—not to escapebut to give them knowledge.”

AcastanhadaAgalegadaAlvaAlva escuraAlva rosadaAlvarentaAlvarintaAlvinhaAmarelaAmarela-queimadaAmareladaAmarelosaAmorenadaAvermelhadaAzulAzul-marinhoBaianoBem brancaBem claraBem morenaBrancaBranca-avermelhadaBranca-meladaBranca-morenaBranca-pálidaBranca-queimadaBranca-sardentaBranca-sujaBranquiçaBranquinhaBronzeBronzeadaBugrezinha-escuraBurro quando fogeCabo verdeCaboclaCaféCafé-com-leiteCanelaCaneladaCardãoCastanhaCastanha-claraCastanha-escuraChocolate

ClaraClarinhaCobreCor firmeCor-de-caféCor-de-canelaCor-de-cuiaCor-de-leiteCor-de-ouroCor-de-rosaCoradaCrioulaEnceradaEnxofradaEsbranquicentoEscuraEscurinhaFogoioGalegaGalegadaJamboLaranjaLilásLoira-claraLouraLourinhaMalaiaMarinheiraMarromMeio amarelaMeio brancaMeio morenaMeio pretaMeladaMestiçaMiscigenaçãoMistaMorenaMorena bem chegadaMorena-bronzeadaMorena-caneladaMorena-castanhaMorena-claraMorena cor-de-canelaMorenada

Morena-escuraMorena-fechadaMorena-jamboMorenãoMorena-pardaMorena-roxaMorena-ruivaMorena-trigueiraMoreninhaMulataMulatinhaNegraNegrotaPálidaParaíbaPardaParda-claraPolacaPouco claraPouco morenaPretaPretinhaPuxa para brancaQuase negraQueimadaQueimada de praiaQueimada de solRegularRetintaRosaRosadaRosa-queimadaRoxaRuivaRussoSararáSaraúbaSpecadaTostadaTrigoTrigueiraVerdeVermelha

LIST COURTESY NYU PRESS

A

ILLUSTRATIONCOURTESYHARPERCOLLINSCHILDREN’SBOOKS

Two years at the SouthCarolina Governor’sSchool for Science &Mathematics + fouryears at the Leonard N.

Stern School of Business = a ca-reer in stand-up comedy? It mayseem an unlikely equation, butit’s how Aziz Ansari (STERN ’04)got his start. “I grew up in this re-ally small town and there wasn’tmuch to do,” he says of his child-hood in Bennettsville, South Car-olina, about two hours northeastof Columbia. “There were neverany concerts or anything—therewasn’t even a movie theater.” Soit wasn’t until his freshman year

of college that Ansari sawhis firstshow at the Comedy Cellar onMacDougal Street and discov-ered his true calling. With en-couragement from friends, hetook the stage at an open micnight and worked his way up to aregular gig at the Upper EastSide’s Comic Strip Live, whereEddieMurphy and Jerry Seinfeldstarted their careers. Ansari’sjokes were sprinkled with popculture references and, early on,focused on being the nerdy guywho never gets the girl.

Hismaterial evolved to includestories about shopping for

SEE THOSE JOKERS ON THE LEFT? They make comedylook easy—but don’t be fooled by appearances.Aziz Ansari’s characters swagger and talk a biggame, yet the actor himself is just amodest, small-town guy with a marketing degree. Aubrey Plazaexpertly plays miserable, as if she doesn’t want tobe there, but being on camera is her dream cometrue. And though Donald Glover gained fame inthe role of cluelessman-child, he’s actually a Ren-aissancemanwith a laser focus on his career. Yes,their alter egosmay slack off for laughs, but thesethree young alums are some of the hardest-work-ing and funniest new faces in show business. AZIZANSARI


CLASCLOW

NSTHREE OVERACHIEVERS WHO MADE ITIN HOLLYWOOD BY TAKING COMEDYSERIOUSLY. THEY’RE NOT SLACKERS,THEY JUST PLAY THEM ON TV.BY RENÉE ALFUSO / CAS ’06

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While most kids dreamof growing up to be aballerina or astro-naut, Aubrey Plaza(TSOA ’05) set her

sights on Studio 8H. “SaturdayNight Live was the motivation forme to get into comedy and to be inNew York,” says the now 27-year-old. So as soon as she could, Plazaleft her hometown of Wilming-ton, Delaware, to take improvclasses at the Upright CitizensBrigade Theatre while studyingfilm and television production atthe Tisch School of the Arts. Andshedidmake it onto theSNL set—as an intern in the design depart-ment and a lowly NBC page—butquickly found herself unem-ployed and broke in Astoria,Queens, after graduation.

Everything changed in onewhirlwind week in 2008 whenPlaza flew out to L.A. for threemeetings.Sheauditioned forScottPilgrim vs. the World, the big-

screen adaptation of the best-selling graphic novels. She metwith the creators of a new sitcomcalled Parks and Recreation. Andshedida chemistry readwithSethRogen for director Judd Apatow,who was casting the film FunnyPeople. She landed all three.

Today, Plaza has a slew of newfilms coming out, after using lastyear’s Parks break to shoot fivemovies in six months. In SafetyNot Guaranteed, which debutedat this year’s Sundance Film Fes-tival, the funnygirl got her firstchance to act in a drama, whichshe hopes to keep doing. Plazaalso has her first starring role inThe To Do List, which reteams herwith SNL’s Bill Hader and hiswife, writer-director MaggieCarey, who once cast Plazaalongside Hader in an ear-ly Web series called TheJeannie Tate Show. “Itwas only supposed tobe a one-off video

but then became a whole series,”Plaza recalls of the gig. “That’show I ended up getting an agent,because once she contacted me Ijust kept, like, harassing her.”

Though Plaza may not haveachieved her childhood SNLdream, her deadpan style has cre-ated a beloved character on Parksand Recreation. The only thingmore fun than watching Plaza’s

April Ludgate stare apatheticallyat fellowofficeworkers is the raremoment when she smiles or givesin to a sudden, overly dramaticoutburst.

NYU Alumni Magazine spokewith Plaza about her career andthe very unfunny stroke she suf-fered at age 20 that almostderailed everything.

Who were some of your earlycomedy idols?Adam Sandler (TSOA ’88) was areallybig inspiration formegrow-ing up. Billy Madison is one of myfavorite movies. Just watchingsomeone like that go from Satur-day Night Live to writing his ownmovies and making his ownbrand of comedy, then doingserious movies and dramaticroles…I really wanted to belike him.

I also loved Tina Fey andAmyPoehler because to see

female comedians as

AUBREY PLAZA

600-thread-count sheets, tippingat Cold Stone Creamery, and lis-tening to a Kanye West albumwhile hanging out in the rapper’shouse. In 2005—just one year af-ter graduation—Rolling Stonenamed him the hottest stand-upact on its annual Hot List, and, afewmonths later, hewon the JuryAward for Best Stand-up at HBO’s2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festivalin Aspen. But with only so manyhours he could log on stage,Ansari found another outlet forhis funny bone: the Internet. Asone-quarter of the sketch comedygroup Human Giant, he co-wroteand starred in a slew of self-financed viral videos, includingthe acclaimed short film seriesShutterbugs, about a cutthroattalent agency for toddler stars.MTV discovered Human Giant onYouTube and offered them theirown show, a cult favorite that ranfor two seasons before the groupdecided to go their separateways.

That’s when Ansari landed arole on NBC’s Parks and Recre-ation as the image-obsessed,wannabe entrepreneur TomHaverford. But even after a longday of shooting, Ansari still goesout to perform stand-up mostnights and tours between film-ing because it remains his firstlove. Splitting time between LosAngeles and New York City,Ansari admits that it can be diffi-

cult to balance his career, but heprefers it that way. “I’m a veryworkaholic-type person, so I nev-er get too comfortable,” he ex-plains. “I just like tokeepworkinghard so that I get to keep doingwhat I’m doing.”

ALL ABOUT AZIZAge

29

Hometown Population

9,069

Twitter Followers

1.8 million and counting turn toAnsari for more than just jokes—as a passionate foodie, he fre-quently tweets restaurant recom-mendations for towns and citiesacross the country.

Where You’ve Seen Him

After stealing scenes in films suchas I Love You, Man (2009), FunnyPeople (2009), and Get Him to theGreek (2010), Ansari scored hisfirst major role in last year’saction comedy 30 Minutes or Less.

On Feeling Out of Place at Stern

“Iwasn’t reallyawareof thewholefinance culture, like I didn’t knowanything about Goldman Sachsand that stuff, so it was all kind offoreign to me. I remember there

was a class where the professorshowed us something from thatTalking Heads concert film StopMaking Sense, and, like, no oneknew who the Talking Headswere. It was like, wow, I don’tknow if I should be in this school.”

Ansari says that there weretimes he considered transferringto the Tisch School of the Arts orthe Gallatin School of Individual-ized Study, but instead decided topursue a comedy career on hisown. “I’d been doing stand-upand was just like, I think I can dosomething with comedy, so Istayed with Stern because mar-keting was…how do I putthis?…it wasn’t too rigorous onthe workload.”

Hitting the Streets

Tryingtobreak intothecity’scom-edy club circuit as an NYU under-grad, Ansari spent his Friday andSaturday nights in Times Squarehanding out flyers to passersby inexchange for stage time. “I thinkanyone who starts doing stand-up, you’re kind of terrible for thefirst couple years,” he says. “Ittakes a while before you reallyfigure out what you’re doing, butI was always very comfortableonstage so that definitely helpedme out.”

Lesson Learned

“When I was first starting out,

I went to the Comedy Cellar onenight and Chris Rock dropped in.He was working on new [materi-al] and it didn’t go that well, buthe didn’t care at all and it wasawesome,” Ansari recalls. “It wasan important thing to see early onbecause it just made me realizethat if I do a set and it doesn’t gowell…who cares? I’ll just do an-other one.”

Selling Out

Last year, his 30-city stand-uptour sold 10,000 tickets in NewYork alone, adding extra dates tomeet the demand. But the high-light for Ansari was performingfor a packed house at CarnegieHall. “I never thought that big,”he explains. “I never thoughtabout acting or anything whenI started. I just liked doing stand-up and wanted to do spots in thecity. Like, that would have beengreat in my book.”

Pawnee Pride

Created by the duo behind TheOffice, Parks and Recreation fol-lows a group of offbeat govern-ment employees in the fictionaltown of Pawnee, Indiana. GQnamed it “Sitcomof theYear”dur-ing its second season. Like May-berry and Springfield before it,Pawnee is a character in its ownright, with recurring faces onevery corner. “It’s really a dreamjob,” Ansari says. “There are sofew shows that I actually like onTV, so to just be on a show thatI think is good, I feel super lucky.”

Up Next

Ansari is currently developinga comedy called Olympic-SizeAsshole, in which he’ll star along-side Eastbound & Down’s DannyMcBride. This summer, fans canhear Ansari voice a prehistoricrabbit in the animated film se-quel Ice Age: Continental Driftwhile he wraps up his latest na-tional stand-up tour.

THOUGH THEIR PARKS CHARACTERS ARE POLAR OPPOSITES, ANSARI AND PLAZA ARE FRIENDS OFF-SCREEN. “IT’S COOL TOHAVE A GUY ON THE SHOW WITH ME FROM NYU, BECAUSE WE HAVE THAT SPECIAL CONNECTION,” SHE SAYS.

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writers of SNL who then go onto make their own shows—they were really big heroes ofmine. Now I get to work with[Poehler] every day, and that’salways weird to me.

What did you do after graduatingfrom NYU?I was just hustling. I waited ta-bles and worked at many tempagencies. I would show up at thetemp agency at, like, seven in themorning and if they had a job forme they would send me out, andif not, they would give me 20bucks. I pretty much just bustedmy ass in the city while takingclasses at UCB.

Being broke is a great motivat-ing force for someone who wantsto be an actress because you justhave to keep going. I decidedI wasn’t going to have a backupplan, so I said yes to most every-thing and just did as much asI could. But there were definitelytimes when I was, like, sitting onthe subway after an audition thatwent terribly and writing in myjournal that I’m a failure andI have to go back towaiting tablesagain. I have journal entries upuntil a week before I got cast onFunny People—which was themovie thatkindof changedevery-thing for me—but a week beforethat my journal says, “This is notgoing to happen.”

How did you prepare for thosefirst three Hollywood auditions?At the time I didn’t know whatIwas doing and I think that actual-ly helped me because I showed upat those meetings in, like, ripped-up jeans and a T-shirt—not realiz-ing how much it could change mylife. I just didn’t know any better.

Are you still getting used tosuccess?Yeah, it’s totally weird. I meanI forget that I have, like, moneynow. Like, Iwear the same clothes[and] I’m, like, oh, yeah, I can ac-tually buy clothes now. But I’m so

glad that I had a [struggling] pe-riod—even though I know it’s sig-nificantly smaller than mostpeople’s. I’m really grateful that Ihad that time in New York whereIwasjusthustlingwithmyfriends;those are probably the best yearsofmy life. I still lookbackon thoseas the best days.

Do you prefer working in filmor on TV?Well, I lovedoingmovies somuch;that’s always what I wanted to doand I never really thought Iwouldbe on a TV show. But I really loveworking on the show. It’s like Ihave this built-in family that I getto work with every day, andthere’s a stability there that youdon’t get with movies—moviesfeel like summer camp and thenParks feels like real life.

What’s the best part aboutplaying April on the show?April is an awesome character be-cause most of the time I can justpretend like I hate everyone andhave zero energy and just kind ofshow up. Playing a character thatis disinterested and doesn’t wantto be there is a fairly easy job, butthe fun part for me is when shehas these sparks of happiness—like when Andy [actor ChrisPratt] makes her smile or sheshows an emotion. That’s reallyfun for me because it means shehas many layers.

April always seems so cool andconfident. Does that reflect yourown personality?Oh, my God, I’m the most nerv-ous person ever! Actually the firsttime I did The Tonight Show WithJay Leno I almost passed out inthe middle of the interview. Ifyou watch it, there’s a momentwhere I kind of pause and I’m juststaring at the floor for a minuteand I think people thought I wasdoing it to be funny, but I was re-ally just trying not to pass out. So,yes, I have this false confidencethat I guess is very convincing,

but on the inside I’m terrified andwant to run away.

Like April, you’re half PuertoRican. Growing up, did thataffect your sense of humor asthe only “diverse” student in anall-girls Catholic high school?Yeah, I think so. Iwas always kindof using my differences to makepeople laugh. I don’t even lookPuerto Rican, but therewere only40 people in my class, so it waskind of a joke to be like, “I’m theonly diverse person,” but I wasthe only diverse person. I actual-ly got a Hispanic teenager of theyear award. Every weird thingabout me or anything I was inse-cure about, I always just tried toturn that into something funny.

Back in college you had asudden, unexplained stroke thatcaused expressive aphasia.Though it wasn’t life-threatening,what was that experience like,both personally and as aperformer who relies onher voice?I couldn’t talk for onlytwo days, but in those48 hours I was imag-iningmylifeasasilentactress. I actuallythought,well, thankGod I’m in filmschool and I can justbang out some scriptsnow or something. Itwas really terrifying. Imean obviously I wasconcernedabout a lotof other things in mylife and not just mycareer, but thatthought definite-ly did cross mymind and I waslike, this is justthe worst thingthat could ever happento me or to anyone, to justsuddenly not be able tospeak. But it does make meappreciate speaking for therest of my life [laughs].

R apper, actor, writer, stand-up comic—at just 28, Donald Glover (TSOA ’06) doesit all. Here’s a look at his unpredictable yet uninterrupted career trajectory.

In 2002, DonaldGlover leaves his sub-urban hometown ofStone Mountain,Georgia, to attendNYU, majoring in dra-matic writing with aminor in psychology.

Co-creates the sketch group Derrick Comedywith fellow NYU students DC Pierson (TSOA’07) and Dominic Dierkes (TSOA ’05), whoremain his writing partners today. Videoshorts—such as “Girls Are Not to BeTrusted” and the wildly popular “Bro Rape:A Newsline Investigative Report”—become asensation on YouTube and have since beenviewed more than 200 million times.

Today, Glover shows no signs of slowingamid his touring, acting, and script writing.He aims to launch a Childish Gambinoclothing line and plans to write a book some-day…when he has a few minutes to himself.

Still, Glover is cash-strapped asan underclassman. He gets byvolunteering for experiments atNYU’s psychology departmentwhile also working as an RA.

Catches his first big break dur-ing senior year when he’s hiredas a writer for a brand-new showcalled 30 Rock. “I literally hadmy RA pager go off the first dayof work,” he told New York mag-azine in 2009.

Graduates in 2006 and continuesto perform with Derrick Comedy.The group starts a live varietyshow in Queens that includesappearances by fellow alumAubrey Plaza. “It’s like we wereall kind of helping each other,”she recalls.

In early 2008, Derrick Comedytakes a break from viral videosto shoot their first feature-lengthfilm, Mystery Team, which theywrite, produce, and star in—with Glover also composing theoriginal score. The goofy, self-financed indie comedy, whichdebuts at Sundance in 2009,rejoins Glover with Plaza, whoplays his love interest.

Glover moves to anapartment building inL.A., where he isunemployed fora grand totalof six days.

Producers of the NBC sitcomCommunity cast him in the role ofex-jock Troy Barnes after seeingGlover in Mystery Team. He spendshis rare free time, usually late atnight, writing rap lyrics under themoniker Childish Gambino—whichhe got from a Wu-Tang Clan name-generator website.

After releasing four albumsand two mix tapes for freedownload online, Gloverdebuts his first major labelrecording, Camp, for IslandRecords in November 2011.His subsequent live touracross 23 cities in 33 dayscombines hip-hop, comedy,and viral sketch video.

Months later, Comedy Central airs Glover’s first hour-long comedyspecial, Weirdo, which he films during two sold-out shows in NewYork City’s Union Square Theatre. In his act, Glover calls HomeDepot the place where one’s childhood goes to die: “The one dayyou walk into a Home Depot and you’re like, oooh knobs—you’re dead, you’re dead inside. Bury your dreams cause you’renot a kid anymore.”

In spring 2009, Glover decidesto quit the Emmy-winning 30Rock after three seasons tofocus on yet another of hismany passions: stand-up come-dy. Tina Fey, the show’s creatorand star, tells The New YorkTimes, “Usually, when writerstell you they want to pursue per-forming, you want to tell them

to keep their day jobs. Butwith Donald, Ihad to agreethat his talent,youth, andhandsomenesswere not to bewasted sittingon my livingroom floor.”

DONALDGLOVER

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LOCKED OUT

RESEARCH HAS BROUGHT US CLOSERTHAN EVER TO UNDERSTANDING—ANDENDING—HOMELESSNESS. THE ELUSIVEFIRST STEP IS HOUSING.BY NICOLE PEZOLD / GSAS ’04

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and scary,” says Beth Weitzman,vice dean of the Steinhardt Schoolof Culture, Education, and Hu-man Development, who recallsdriving through the Bowery as achild in the 1960s. “It was dra-matically different from anythingone would encounter anywhereelse in New York at that time.”

Only two decades later, thespecter of “street people” wouldcreep out of the Bowery and intoneighborhoods across the city.Vagrants could be found sprawledon the stoops of the Upper WestSide. Squeegee-men camped outat intersections across Midtown.Panhandlers roamed the subwaysand public squares. A problemthat had once seemed quaran-tined was suddenly—and literal-ly—on New Yorkers’ doorsteps.

The early-1980s recession sawthe number of homeless in thecity’s shelters essentially doubleto more than 28,000 people onany given night. Adding to thealarm, women and children ac-counted for much of this new

business. From 1982 to 1992, thenumber of homeless families inthe city increased by 500 percent.“They likened it to a funnel,” saysWeitzman, who was among a teamof researchers contracted by theNewYork City Human ResourcesAdministration to study the crisis in1988. “The number of familiescoming into the system was muchgreater than the numbers [the city]was able to get out.”

Fast-forward to today, and theBowery, like much of the rest ofNew York, presents a shinier face.The BoweryMission still ministers tothe down and out, but it’s nowflanked by the gleaming hulk of theNew Museum, and is neighbor to aWhole Foods Market and $625-a-night suites at the Bowery Hotel. Butdon’t be mislead: The number ofhomeless people in the five boroughshas climbed to an historic high notseen since the Great Depression, whenthe tents of “Hoovervilles” dottedCentral Park. On any given night,more than 40,000 New Yorkers—in-cluding nearly 17,000 children—will

sleep in a shelter, and another 2,000 to3,000 people will sleep right on thestreet, according to the Coalition forthe Homeless. That’s a populationlarger than the entire city of Burling-ton, Vermont. And the rest of thecountry is faring no better, with pos-sibly two million—or the whole pop-ulation of Houston—homeless atsome point during any given year.And yet, in many ways, this is a

heady time in the struggle to houseour fellow citizens. After more thantwodecades of rigorous study—muchof it based at NYU, thanks to theuniversity’s proximity to the original“epicenter” of American homeless-ness—the problem is no longer anenigma. Research has revealed thatour old assumptions, namely thataddiction or mental illness lead tohomelessness, are inaccurate. In-stead the most common denomina-tor is, quite simply, extremepoverty. And the fix, also quite sim-ply, is housing. The challenge nowis how to channel the considerableresources that we spend toward themost promising solutions.

This year, New York City hasbudgeted about $788 million forhomeless services. However, thetrue bill is harder to calculate be-cause of the volatile nature of theproblem itself. “Families don’tjust go from their own apartmentinto a shelter,” explains MaryMcKay, McSilver Professor ofPoverty Studies and director ofthe new McSilver Institute forPoverty Policy and Research atthe Silver School of SocialWork. “They tend to move inwith relatives or friends first, orgo from apartment to apart-ment, so that by the time theyget to a shelter, they’ve been

on quite a destabilizing jour-ney.” The descent is so insidiousthat it taxes every public good,from hospitals and schools toparks and police precincts.

UNTIL RESEARCHERSturned a critical eye to the crisisin the 1980s, most studies of thehomeless had been descriptive—what did they look or act likeand how many were we dealingwith. They also tended to over-sample the “chronically home-less,” those who suffer fromsevere psychiatric problems, suchas schizophrenia, bipolar disor-der, major depression, and addic-tion. These are perhaps the mostvisible of the homeless—the“Bowery types”who set up houseon subway grates or have memo-rized the hours at the church’sbasement soup kitchen.

Weitzman and her colleagueswondered whether the familiesseeking shelter in the late ’80swere beset by the same problems.In 1988, as part of their study forthe city, they interviewed morethan 550 families on welfare, halfof whom sought shelter, to seewhether psychiatric disorders orsubstance abuse caused homeless-ness. They found that neither wasa factor for the vast majority;something else was going on. Fiveyears later, in a study funded bythe National Institute of MentalHealth, they followed up with thesame families. By then, four-fifthsof respondents had their ownapartment, and three-fifths hadbeen there for at least a year—theaverage being three years. Home-lessness, they discovered, was nota permanent state. People were

capable of moving on, and whathad made the greatest impact wassubsidized housing.

“Whereas there had beenmuchmore of a tilt toward emphasizingthe individual’s deficits, we,among others, helped to shift thelens to say, ‘Wait a second, this isprobably more about the fact thatpoor people can’t get housing,’ ”Weitzman says. In the 1990s,study after study confirmed thatwhile an addiction or illness ordomestic violence may hasten thedescent into homelessness, or ag-gravate the climb out, it was notthe cause. A man of means, afterall, may run a media empire andstill abuse prescription painkillers.A mother with a supportive fam-ily may get laid off or leave herpartner without necessarily losingher home.

HISTORY CONFIRMS thisidea that homelessness is tied toeconomics. Though we did notofficially start counting the home-less until the 1970 census, theyhave always lived among us. In1788, soon-to-be New YorkCity Mayor Richard Varick not-ed, “Vagrants multiply on ourHands to an amazing Degree.”Almost a decade later, the citywas forced to build a new four-story almshouse to deal with thegrowing problem. It’s impossibleto calculate homeless statisticsthrough history, but the numberhas, predictably, fluctuated withthe financial tides. The popula-tion surged after the AmericanRevolution and Civil War. Itgrew in the late 19th century, asnewly industrialized cities wereflooded with workers. And it

spiked during the depressionsof the 1870s and 1930s. Morerecently, the deinstitutionaliza-tion of mental hospitals in the1960s and ’70s accounted for arise among the chronicallyhomeless, and the ’80s recessionhit just as entitlement programswere being devalued for the firsttime. It was a perfect storm, fromwhich we still hadn’t recoveredwhen the financial and mortgagecrashes occurred in 2008. InNewYork, this new crisis meant that

stably employed parents could, in aninstant, find their family evicted if thelandlord went underwater.Through the years, society has gen-

erally responded with mounting char-

ity. A 2007 Public Agenda report not-ed that 85 percent of New Yorkers ap-prove of spending their tax dollars onhousing the homeless—and 62 per-cent would even pay more. Howev-er, for all our do-good instinct, thereremains an undercurrent of distrust.Kenneth L. Kusmer, author of Downand Out, On the Road: The Homelessin American History (Oxford Univer-sity Press), suggests that this could bea legacy of the Puritans. The flip sideof a society that values individual in-dustry is that it also tends to be un-

forgiving of those who cannotor do not work. The 16th-cen-tury Calvinist theologianWilliam Perkins warned that“wandering beggars and

rogues” should “bee taken as en-nemies [sic],” and at our coun-try’s founding, whipping,branding, ear cropping, andstockades were standard practicefor curbing homelessness. A NewYork Times editorial in 1886called “the tramp” a “victim of aviolent dislike to [sic] labor anda violent thirst for rum.”

We’ve come a long way sincethen, but even in the late 20thcentury, New York mayors fre-quently relied on police to “clean

up” neighborhoods plagued by“bums.” In 1964, NYU persuad-ed the local precinct to sweep upthe homeless men wanderingthrough campus. And the same

For much of its existence, the Bowery wasthe ultimate skid row. The mile-long stripin Lower Manhattan, just a few minuteswalk from Washington Square, devolvedfrom a raucous shopping and entertain-ment district in the mid-1800s to a denof 10-cent-a-night flophouses by thatcentury’s end. Men—and it was usually onlymen—languished in doorways and along thecracked pavement, hassling passersby forchange. They smelled of drink, sweat, andoften urine or feces, as their lodging rarelyhad adequate washing facilities, if any. Asthe rest of the world marched on in the 20thcentury, little changed there. “It was sad

In the 1940s, out-of-work men accounted for the majority of New York City’s homeless, who were largely quarantinedto the infamous downtown strip: the Bowery.

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2007 Public Agenda report onNew Yorkers’ altruism found thatthree-quarters of residents believethat the homeless lack motivationand are gaming the system for bet-ter housing.The truth is thatwe’venever quite shaken the suspicionthat homeless people may be un-

trustworthy, lazy, dangerous—and directly to blame for theirsituation. And so, as a show oftrust, we generally demand thatthey help themselves first, if theywant our aid. Ironically, the mosteffective—and cost-effective—program for the chronicallyhomeless turns this whole notionon its head.

AROUND THE same time thatBeth Weitzman was workingwith homeless families, a youngpsychologist, Sam Tsemberis(GSAS ’85), was striking out inhis attempts to lure mentally illstreet dwellers into treatment. Itwas difficult to sustain a thera-peutic conversation with some-

one preoccupied with wherethey were going to find lunchthat day or bed down that night.“People would often say, ‘Ineed a place to live,’ ” Tsem-beris says. And he would try tooblige them, offering to takethem to Bellevue Hospital,

where he directed an outreach pro-gram. But those beds were just aplace to crash, and came with con-ditions. One of the hallmarks ofAmerican charity is that housingshould be earned by getting sober,or staying on medication, in the caseof those with mental disorders.Pushed to frustration, Tsemberisthought: Why not just remove thehousing hurdle?

In 1992, Tsemberis founded thenonprofit Pathways to Housing,which provided the mentally disabledhomeless with their own private apart-ments, often in less expensive neigh-borhoods in the Bronx. The units areusually one-bedrooms or studios, andPathways “clients,” as they are called,may comprise up to 10 percent of one

building’s tenants. Pathways withholdsone-third of a client’s monthly disabil-ity check—those with diagnosed dis-orders may receive Social Securityincome as a result of deinstitutional-ization—which goes toward rent.There’s no probationary period, noris the client required to stay sober,take medication, or even meet withclinicians. There are no urine tests orthreats of expulsion. If there’s a prob-lem with the landlord or a neighbor,Pathways intercedes. If the client isthrown in jail or rehab, Pathwaysholds the apartment for them. Ifthey’re evicted, Pathways finds thema new one.

It worked astoundingly well.A randomized trial, funded by theSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthServices Administration, showedthat some 88 percent of Pathwaysclients stayed off the streets duringthe five-year period studied, com-pared to just 47 percent in programsthat required treatment first. It wasas if the client had won the lottery,Tsemberis explains. “ ‘Look at this!This is incredible!’ they think. ‘I’mgoing to do whatever I can to keepthis place,’ ” he says. “So the mo-tivation to deal with the illness oraddiction is actually activated afterthe housing. Nobody thinks ofincentives that way.”

Indeed, once housing was re-moved from the jumble of dailyworries, most clients were willingto attend to other problems.A measure of control and securi-ty had returned to their lives. In2004, Deborah Padgett and Vic-toria Stanhope, both professorsat the Silver School of SocialWork, led a team of researchersto further compare Pathways totraditional programs. In a $1.4

million qualitative study fundedby the National Institute of Men-tal Health, or NIMH, the teamfound that more than half of thosein traditional treatment wentAWOL during the course of ayear. But only 11 percent of Path-ways clients left the program dur-ing the same time—and, notably,it was to return to their families.“If you don’t engage people, theyleave,” Padgett says. “So the back-drop to this is a really high dropoutrate, what’s called the ‘institution-al circuit,’ where people go fromjail to hospital to shelter, and all ofthose options are more expensivethan an apartment.”Almost as compelling is that

Pathways clients were three timesmore likely to abstain from heavydrinking or druguse, even thoughit was never required of them.“That to me was the missingpiece,” Padgett says.

Of course, just because some-one is finally off the streets, andmay even be managing their dis-order and staying clean, doesn’tmean all of their troubles go away.The chronically homeless typical-ly live 25 years less than the aver-age American. They’ve oftenaccumulated an array of serioushealth conditions—HIV, tubercu-losis, heart and liver diseases. Somehave been physically or sexuallyabused. And they remain pariahs,which can set up barriers to jobsand friends, and the social wealththey bring. With the support of anew $1.9 million grant, also fromNIMH, Padgett and Stanhope arenow investigating how the home-less recover from their panoply ofproblems over time, and what rolehousing plays in this.

IN THE mid-2000s, the Path-ways model caught the eye of au-thor Malcolm Gladwell, whoseNew Yorker article provided a“celebrity boost,” in Padgett’swords, towhat has becomeknownas the “housing first” (versus“treatment first”) approach. Healso eloquently discussed the onehang-up with programs like this:They aren’t fair. “Thousands ofpeople…no doubt live day to day,work two or three jobs, and areeminently deserving of a helpinghand—and no one offers them akey to a new apartment,” hewrites. But even if it isn’t ideal,housing the chronically homelessis by far the least expensive andthe most effective solution. Asthe protagonist of Gladwell’s sto-ry, “Million-Dollar Murray,” ca-reened through public services,he ate tens upon thousands ofpublic dollars. To keep someonein a New York City psychiatrichospital for one year costs$433,000; a state psychiatric hos-pital is $170,000; jail is $60,000;a shelter is $27,000. It costs only$21,000 a year to give that sameperson a Pathways apartment.This is about efficiency, Gladwellnotes.

Pathways now operates inPhiladelphia, Washington, D.C.,and Burlington, and similar pro-grams have sprung up across thecountry, thanks in part to a one-time $35 million infusion fromthe Bush administration in 2002.The model—and its efficiency—had also caught the eye of Re-publican Philip Mangano, whoran the Interagency Council onHomelessness from 2002–09 andconvinced the Bush administra-

tion it was a worthwhileinvestment.

Efficiency is a favorite word ofNewYorkCityMayorMichaelBloomberg. And, indeed, hisadministration has delivered anew order to the Departmentof Homeless Services by stream-lining the shelter applicationprocess from days to hours, andcreating a preventive programfor those at risk of losing theirapartments. He also vowed toreduce homelessness by two-thirds.

THAT NEVER HAPPENED.Though there was a slight dip inhomeless New Yorkers in 2006,their ranks have climbed steadily.Blame the economy, and years ofbudget cuts. But also blame howwe connect poor people to hous-ing. We simply don’t have enoughcheap apartments, or an efficientway to get people into them. As thesystemworks now, only about one-quarter of New Yorkers who needhousing assistance get it, says IngridGould Ellen, professor of publicpolicy and urban planning at theRobert F. Wagner Graduate Schoolof Public Service. “It’s this crazy lot-tery system,” she says, where appli-cants are randomly chosen for city-and state-subsidized apartments. Andif you don’t win, there’s always thecity’s eight-year-long waiting list forfederal Section 8 housing.

One of the few entries to afford-able housing is through a shelter,which, in theory, should operate likean emergency room but more oftenfunctions as a long-term care center,where some families wait in limbo fora year or longer for a permanent home.

“The trick or challenge is to house

people more cheaply,” says Ellen, whoco-directs NYU’s Furman Center forReal Estate and Urban Policy, hasbeen an adviser for HUD, and chairedcandidate Barack Obama’s transitionteam on housing policy from2007–08. Ellen suggests that commu-nities find new ways to divvy up whatthey’ve already got: split current sub-sidies four ways, vary the amounts,enact time limits. We might, she sug-gests, even loosen building and oc-cupancy codes. Many of these arelocal regulations, such as require-ments that each unit must be a cer-tain size and have a privatebathroom, or limit the number ofpeople per square foot, which, asthey accumulate, can substantiallyinflate the cost of housing. Ellen

suspects that New Yorkers inparticular might reembracedorm-style buildings, with abathroom down the hall ora shared kitchen and other com-munal spaces. “I’m not advocat-ing slums,” she says. “We canlive in smaller spaces; we can livemore cheaply.”The question remains which of

these innovations, or which bal-ance of them, could empty theshelters. But for the first time inthe history of homelessness, wehave embarked on a course of ac-tion informed by research. Path-ways director Tsemberis notes thegreatest obstacle now is musteringthe political will. As it stands, hesays, “We have the solution.”

In the 1980s, homelessness appeared like an epidemic, starting in NewYork City and radiating across the United States.

Bronx Park East offers the formerly homeless dorm-like lodging—efficiencyapartments and shared living spaces for below-market rents.

WE GENERALLY DEMAND THAT PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES FIRSTIF THEY WANT OUR AID. IRONICALLY, THE MOST EFFECTIVE—ANDCOST-EFFECTIVE—PROGRAM FOR THE CHRONICALLY HOMELESSTURNS THIS WHOLE NOTION ON ITS HEAD.

PHOTOS:LEFT©

NEW

YORKDAILYNEWSARCHIVE;RIGHT©

RODRIGOPEREDA

by Jason Hollander / Gal ’ 07

Unraveling artist Maira Kalman’s favorite things

r e d - f o o t e dp i g e o n s a n ds u p e r f i n e

s t r i n g . . .

aira Kalman headed to JfK last May and boarded a flight to dublin. Like most people on holiday, she was full of verve, and some jitters. after a few days of sightseeing in the capital city, she drove for several hours on winding roads to reach her real destination: a gothic-style castle located along ireland’s green and mountainous southern coast. it’s a place

where any tourist could indulge, wandering in the cultivated gardens or lounging in the drawing room, awaiting afternoon tea and scones. Kalman did neither. she had come, at age 62, to spend nine days inside the castle working as a maid. Working. polishing, pressing, sweeping, scraping, straightening, scrubbing, dusting, and degreasing. it’s not typically the occupation of an artist who draws covers for The New Yorker, designs products for Kate spade and isaac Mizrahi, had a New York Times column, helped create album covers for the talking Heads, was a guest on The Colbert Report, exhibits her work across the globe, and has illustrated or authored 22 books, includ-ing The Principles of Uncertainty, And the Pursuit of Happiness, strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, Michael pollan’s Food Rules, and Lemony snicket’s 13 Words. But don’t be fooled—her employment wasn’t a publicity stunt or research for a new book. it was, rather, fulfillment of a childhood dream. “i love objects, and i love taking care of objects,” explains Kalman (WsC non-grad alum), who bunked in the former butler’s quarters. “i love to iron and make things neat and put them in order. it’s an occupation of a very honorable sort.” Castles are indeed grand places, but they require massive upkeep. and inherent in all the effort to produce all the splendor is a grace that few people on the planet appreciate more than Maira Kalman.

alman was born in tel aviv in 1949, when israel was still brand-new. Many of the earliest citi-zens—including her father—were among the last of their family, the rest having been wiped away by the Holocaust. those narratives were everywhere then, and being surrounded by them colored her thinking. “the idea that things can be destroyed in a heartbeat,” she says, “that

really insinuates itself into your being.” she moved with her family at the age of 4 and settled in riverdale in the Bronx, quickly becoming a city kid. Her parents, especially her mother, sara, impressed on her the courage to embrace new York without self-consciousness or fear. this also applied to any friends, clothes, hairstyles, hobbies, or music she was drawn to. “to use the term unconditional love, that’s something very extraordinary,” says Kalman of her mother. “But she had that.” and so Kalman discovered lifelong enchantments with aimless walks, and objects of character (a tired rubber band, a noble matchbook), and Lewis Carroll, and J.s. Bach, and sponge cake, and the smell of fresh citrus, and Kay thompson, and Henri Matisse, and then, intensely, the works of Vladimir nabokov. it was the russian author—and his autobiography Speak, Memo-ry—who whispered into her a desire to write. she studied literature at nYu for several years before dropping out in 1971, with no judg-ment from her parents. they trusted her, even though she was only a

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D ( L E F T ) : Kalman’s son, Alexander.

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D ( M I D D L E ) : A wooden box made by Kal-man’s daughter, Lulu, when she was little (top); Cheezle cheese product (bottom).

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D ( R I G H T ) : Some thoughts on Friedrich Nietzche’s philosophy—and moustache.

T H I S S P R E A D , FA R L E F T

( c L O c k w I S E F R O M T O P ) : The emotions of the super-market; a discarded chair; Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers to Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek”; the price of indulgence.

L E F T : Fountile.

R I G H T ( F R O M T O P ) : Kalman says, “Between now and five billion years from now, someone will look out this window”; a “so splen-did” man on the city street; a slice of seven-layer cake from Cuccio’s bakery in Brooklyn.

M

K


handful of classes short of graduating. things were radical then. “We thought we were going to do something ‘other,’ and a degree wasn’t going to mean anything,” Kalman says. “it turned out to be true for us but, you know, that’s taking a leap.” part of the “us” refers to her late husband, tibor Kalman, the legendary graphic designer and founder of the pioneering M&Co, which the two ran until his death in 1999, at 49, of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. tibor provided inspiration after col-lege when Maira, frustrated with her writing, started to put ideas on paper in a new way. she found that shapes and colors were so much more freeing than typed words. and she waded in with no formal training: “i needed to find out who i was without really knowing how to do it.” finding that meant tapping into her earliest lessons of percep-tion. Life as a child with her mother, Kalman says, often felt “free-floating and dreamlike” as they made their way around the city, at-tuned to the smallest details one could see and hear. “the real world felt completely—and still does—like the unreal world,” she explains. “it wasn’t that she was crazy, it was just this ability to focus on some-thing else.” Kalman channeled that into her art and the words she handwrites as a sort of narration. so the red-footed pigeon on the avenue u subway platform struts proudly as a man shoos it with his newspaper. the painting of young nabokov staring so innocently at the reader carries the lament that his life will be forever in upheaval once his family flees russia. the portrait of a poor-postured, slow-stepping old woman contains a note from Kalman: “soon enough it will be me struggling (valiantly?) to walk… How are we all so brave as to take step after step? day after day?” others that get the royal treatment include fruit platters, balls of string, curbside couches, radiators, garbage cans, a bathroom sink that “speaks the truth,” and a “tough-as-nails” waitress slicing giant radishes. Yet Kalman also loves fine things—indulgent, delicious, paper-wrapped, fragrant, frilly, bursting-with-color things. she’s drawn to the energy that goes into them, and the sad notion of how quickly they may become part of the weekly trash. to describe her illustration almost demands that you use the word “whimsical,” but there are too many layers for an explanation so simple. the loss of her father (in 1994) and her mother (in 2004), and tibor, and so many others is inherently tied to her personal works, where even the sparest pictures can feel like collages of memory and emotion. she often weaves in her ever-present fear of death. But the next page usually offers the happiness of fresh yellow and red flowers or a tall slice of chocolate cake. she’s almost always at work, and prefers it that way. in fact, aside from strolling the city and being with loved ones—especially her daughter, Lulu, who is an executive sous chef for danny Meyer’s union square events, and her filmmaker son, alexander—Kalman is happiest when she has a project of some kind. this includes the time she was assigned to scrub the toilets at a Zen monastery she went to for her 50th birthday, an experience—just like her stint in the irish castle—she calls “hilarious and fabulous and not horrible at all.” it’s just the sort of real-life moment that finds its way into her art, and encompasses all she’s been trying to communicate. “i would love to be able to say that the body of work i have speaks of someone who is very human and has a sense of the joy in life and the beauty,” she says, “and who is heartbroken some of the time.”

Maira Kalman’s next show opens May 10 at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea (www.saulgallery.com).

L E F T ( F R O M T O P ) : A woman dancing; a key chain from 1966 bought in a Jaffa flea market; Abraham Lincoln.

R I G H T ( c L O c k w I S E ) : Kalman’s self-portrait, with Pete; an Italian fruit platter; a camera from the collec-tion of photographer Helen Levitt.

FA R R I G H T : The woman with three extra-large bobby pins in her hair (top); the now-extinct dodo bird (bottom).

CLASS

NOTES

THEODORE D. KEMPER /

GSAS ’60 / has published

a book on sociological the-

ory, Status, Power and Rit-

ual Interaction: A Relational

Reading of Durkheim, Goff-

man and Collins (Ashgate),

which presents an empiri-

cally based relational mod-

el of social interaction and

emotions.

SEYMOUR KATZ / MED

’64 / received the Distin-

guished Physician and

Lifetime Achievement

Award from the Crohn’s

and Colitis Foundation of

America in October 2011.

He also earned the

Keynote J. Edward Berk

Distinguished Lecturer

Award of the American

College of Gastroenterolo-

gy the following month.

He is an attending gas-

troenterologist at North

Shore University Hospital-

Long Island Jewish

Healthcare Systems and

St. Francis Hospital.

ALAN A. WARTENBERG /

ARTS ’67 / is president of

the Massachusetts Chap-

ter of the American Socie-

ty of Addiction Medicine.

He practices general

internal medicine and

addiction medicine in

Massachusetts and Rhode

Island. He recently

received the Nyswander-

Dole Award from the

American Association for

the Treatment of Opioid

Dependency for his contri-

butions to the field.

WILLIAM LIPTON /

STEINHARDT ’68 / pub-

lished his first book in 25

years, Grandpa Was a Deity:

How a Tribal Assertion Cre-

ated Modern Culture (iUni-

verse), in September 2011.

The book emerged from

Lipton’s investigation into

his own y-DNA, discovering

the shared markers with

the possible authors of

The Book of Genesis, and

the calendar system.

STANLEY TURKEL /

STERN ’47 / just pub-

lished his third book, Built

to Last: 100+ Year-Old Ho-

tels in New York (Author-

House). Turkel serves as

a Friend of the NYU Tisch

Center for Hospitality,

Tourism, and Sports Man-

agement, where he also

lectures.

BURTON J. BOGITSH /

ARTS ’49 / has submitted

the manuscript for the

fourth edition of Human

Parasitology (Elsevier)

and is a professor emeri-

tus of biological sciences

at Vanderbilt University

in Nashville.

JOSEPH BOSKIN / GSAS

’52 / has published a

memoir of his time as of-

ficial historian for a se-

cretive Korean War–era

project to build a U.S. Air

Force Base in Greenland.

The book is titled Corpo-

ral Boskin’s COLD Cold

War: A Comical Journey

(Syracuse University

Press).

EILEEN NEEDLEMAN

DARWIN / WSC ’52 /

received the retiree

teacher of the year

award from the New York

State United Teachers

at its representative

assembly in April 2011.

Darwin taught in Hunt-

ington, Long Island, for

20 years and remains

active in the union.

SARAH (BETTY) BROWN

WEITZMAN / STEIN-

HARDT ’56 / is the au-

thor of a children’s novel,

Herman and the Ice Witch

(Main Street Rag). Her

third book of poetry, Nev-

er Far From Flesh (Pure

Heart Press), was pub-

lished in 2006. She lives

in Delray Beach, FL.

DONALD N. BERSOFF /

STEINHARDT ’58, ’60,

’65 / has been elected

president of the Ameri-

can Psychological Asso-

ciation for 2013. Bersoff

is a professor at Drexel

University and director

of the JD/PhD program

at the Earle Mack School

of Law.

LAWRENCE LIPSITZ /

STEINHARDT ’59, ’60 /

received the inaugural

lifetime achievement

award of the internation-

alAssociation for Educa-

tional Communications

and Technology in recog-

nition of his continuing

editorship of Educational

Technology Magazine,

which he founded in 1961.

1950s

1940sNYU WAS ONE OF DOZENS OF UNIVERSITIES MARKED BY

STUDENT UNREST IN THE LATE 1960S AND EARLY ’70S. THERE

WAS A LOT TO BE ANGRY ABOUT: THE WAR IN VIETNAM, PLUS

RACIAL AND GENDER INEQUALITIES. IN DECEMBER 1966, NYU

ANNOUNCED ITS SECOND TUITION HIKE IN TWO YEARS. STUDENTS

SWIFTLY REACTED WITH A STRIKE, INCLUDING PICKET LINES AND

SIT-INS IN THE MAIN BUILDING (NOW THE SILVER CENTER), SUCH

AS THIS ONE FROM DECEMBER 9. THE MASSIVE PROTEST SHUT

DOWN MOST CLASSES OVER ITS THREE-DAY DURATION AND WAS

A HARBINGER OF WHAT WAS TO COME AS THE ANTI-WAR AND

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTS GAINED MOMENTUM.

SIT DOWN FOR YOUR RIGHTS

1960s

PHOTOCOURTESYNYUARCHIVES

We want to hear from you! Let us knowwhat is happening in your career and life.Submit your news items, personalmilestones, or an obituary of a loved oneto: NYU Class Notes, 25 West FourthStreet, Fourth Floor, New York, NY, 10012or via e-mail to [email protected] can also share Class Notes online bylogging on to alumni.nyu.edu/classnotes.


came a regular, tastingherway through asmanycheeses as possible, andultimately lined up acheesemaking intern-ship at its farm in Con-necticut for the fall aftershe graduated. Althoughshe had focused onpainting and drawing inthe Steinhardt School ofCulture, Education, andHuman Development’sstudio art program, Sax-elby decided not to pur-sue a career as an artist.“I tried working inall different aspects ofthe art world during col-lege, but it was just a lit-tle bit rarefied, and someof it was downright pre-

tentious,” she says. “Ifelt like I didn’t really fitin there.”Saxelby did fit in,

however, up on thefarm. And more so, shefound parallels betweenconverting milk tocheese and creating awork of art. The multi-step process requires asimilar attention to de-tail, and both paintingand cheesemaking arelargely solitary activities.“Being in the cheeseroom for eight hours aday was a lot like spend-ing time in my studio,”she explains. “It’s thesame principles of rigorand discipline and crafts-manship, butwith cheese,

the results are edible, soanyone can judge it forthemselves.”She continued to

hone her expertise byworking at Murray’sCheese Shop for thenext year and a half, andvisiting cheese farms inVermont. Craving evenmore experience, Saxel-by interned overseaswith cheesemakers andaffineurs (cheese agers) inFrance’s Loire Valley. “Iwas also spying on spe-cialty shops and gourmetfood businesses,” she ad-mits. “I figured I’d usethe trip as kind of R&Dto see what was going onin Europe that might bemissing over here.” Shecites one specific shop inParis, Laurent Dubois, asinspiration. “It was like a

little jewel box,” she re-calls. “There were nocrackers, no olive oil, novinegar, no chocolate,no nothing. I really likedthat kind of simplicity,because I thought ifcheese is what I reallylove and what I’ve beendevoting my life to, whyspread myself thin?”After years of self-

education, Saxelby feltready to open a shop ofher own back in NewYork. She modified asample business plan thatshe found online and puttogether some rudimen-tary financial projectionsin January 2006. A friendsuggested that she con-sider opening a little

store within the city-op-erated Essex Street Mar-ket, and she recognizedthat running a tiny standthere would be muchmore manageable thanattempting to rent an in-dependent space. Herparents loaned her themoney for the initial in-vestment, and by Mayof that year, SaxelbyCheesemongers wasopen for business. “Atthe beginning, I workedsix days a week by my-self,” Saxelby says. “Iwas getting the cheesemostly via FedEx, be-cause there aren’t manydistribution networks inplace for small farms.”The shop has come a

long way. Nine monthsafter opening, Saxelbyjoined forces with a

business partner, andnow has two full-timeemployees and severalpart-timers working atboth the shop and a2 , 0 0 0 - s q u a r e - f o o twarehouse in Brooklyn.That space is the base forthe company’s whole-sale activity, which ac-counts for 75 percent ofits income. Within thenext five years, Saxelbyplans to open a secondstore. “There’s some-thing about cheese,” shegushes. “I love that it’seasy for everyone to un-derstand, because youcan just taste it, but alsothat it brings such pleas-ure and happiness. It’skind of a trifecta.”


food market on EssexStreet, it’s easy to forgetthat the location is Man-hattan’s Lower East Sideand not rural Vermont.Figurines of sheep and cowsare clustered on a shelfoverhead, and handwrittendescriptions of the cheeses

give a distinctively mom-and-pop feel to the store.Owner Anne Saxelby’swarm smile and unhurriedexchanges with customerscomplete the picture ofquaintness.But despite its small size,

the shop is making a big

impact on New York’scheese lovers. Saxelby se-lects cheeses from smallproducers at some 40 localfarms, offering products notavailable elsewhere in thecity. In 2011, her shop wasnamed Manhattan’s SmallBusiness of the Year as part

of the city’s NeighborhoodAchievement Awards, andshehas developed abustlingwholesale business supply-ing cheese to more than150 NewYork area restau-rants, including MichelinStar recipients GramercyTavern, Per Se, andMinet-ta Tavern.As a student at NYU,

the suburban Chicago na-tive would never havecalled herself a foodie. “Mymom cooked for us, butwe were not adventurouseaters,” Saxelby says of herchildhood. “We weremore like the ‘chicken1,000 ways’ family.” It wasduring a trip to Florence tovisit a friend that she began

broadening her horizons.“One trip to the centralmarket and your food ex-pectations are altered forthe rest of your life,” sheexplains. “That’s whereI fell in love with cheese.”Her curiosity quickly

developed into a full-fledged passion. Saxelbywas amazed that despite somany varieties and flavorsof cheese, all come fromthe same basic ingredients.She started frequentingMurray’s Cheese Shop, onBleecker Street, and theUnion Square Greenmar-ket, where she was espe-cially impressed with theselection at the Cato Cor-ner Farm stand. She be-

PHOTO©

TONYCENICOLA/THENEW

YORKTIM

ES

CLAUDE L. WINFIELD /

ENG ’70 / received Our

Town newspaper’s Top East-

side Families Award, which

celebrates those who have

improved NYC. Winfield is

vice chair of Community

Board Six Manhattan.

MARTIN LAURENCE /

STERN ’72 / , professor

emeritus at the William Pa-

terson University of New

Jersey, was honored by the

Case Writers’ Association of

Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur

for developing management

case writing workshops dur-

ing the early 1980s while

domiciled in Malaysia as

a Fulbright Scholar, and for

a period beyond his residen-

cy there.

ALAN E. WEINER / LAW

’72 / was selected as the

2012-13 chairman of the IRS

Garden City (Long Island)

Tax Practitioner Liaison

Committee. He is a founding

tax partner and now partner

emeritus at Holtz Ruben-

stein Reminick, LLP. His

article “Preparer Tax ID

Number: Revisited and Up

for Renewal” was published

in the December 2011 issues

of The Suffolk Lawyer and

Tax Stringer.

ANNE GRIFFIN / GSAS ’73,

’75 / has received the rank

of Officer of the Order of the

Crown from the Belgian gov-

ernment, which is awarded

by royal decree for distin-

guished artistic, literary, or

scientific achievements.

Since 1998, Griffin has been

gathering testimonies of

the last surviving members

of resistance movements

in Belgium.

DALE N. LEFEVRE /

STEINHARDT ’73 / record-

ed The Sounds of South

Africa CD with his choir

Sosa Xa!, which marks the

first time he has been pro-

fessionally recorded singing.

He has also revised his book

Best New Games (Human

Kinetics) and updated his

website inewgames.com.

MARLENE ROSSMAN /

STEINHARDT ’74 /teaches

wine education at the Uni-

versity of California, Irvine

Extension, where she was

awarded the Distinguished

Instructor Award. She is the

wine columnist for Chef

magazine and author of two

books: Multicultural Market-

ing: Selling to a Diverse

America (AMACOM) and

The International Business-

woman: A Guide to Success

in the Global Marketplace

(Bergin & Garvey).

MARTIN H. LEVINSON /

STEINHARDT ’75 / has

been named president of

the Institute of General Se-

mantics, a nonprofit organi-

zation that promotes the

value of modern scientific

thinking toward solving per-

sonal and professional prob-

lems. For the past 15 years,

he has also served as book

editor of ETC: A Review of

General Semantics.

AVA K. DOPPELT / LAW ’76

/ was recently selected by

her peers for inclusion in

The Best Lawyers in Ameri-

ca 2012 (Woodward/White).

She is a Florida board-certi-

fied intellectual-property

law attorney and sharehold-

er at Allen, Dyer, Doppelt,

“Being in the cheese room for eighthours a day was like spending time inmy studio,” former painter Saxelby says.


STANDING AT THE COUNTER OF SAXELBYCHEESEMONGERS, A COZY SHOP NESTLEDINTO A CORNER OF A 72-YEAR-OLD SPECIALTY

SAXELBY CHEESEMONGERS

WAS NAMED MANHATTAN’S

SMALL BUSINESS OF THE

YEAR IN 2011.

CLASS

NOTES

alumni profile

ANNE SAXELBY / STEINHARDT ’03

The Big Cheeseby Kristine Jannuzzi / CAS ’98

1970s

Fifteen for 15—the first-ever campaign createdby recent alumni to generate support for thestudents who follow in their footsteps atNYU—was created to raise $15,000 dur-ing the summer of 2011 from graduates ofthe past 15 years. In that two-month peri-od, the original goal was nearly doubled andalumni raised almost $30,000. The campaignwas revived at the end of 2011 and some of NYU’snewest graduates from the Class of 2011 were among thecampaign leaders. This time, the goal was to raise $1,500a week for nine weeks, and by December 31, alumni haddonatedmore than $14,000. That brought the total for theentire year to $44,000—quite an accomplishment in sucha short time!The Fifteen for 15 campaign was inspired by a student

fund-raising initiative known as the 1831 Fund, which

provides scholarships for incomingfreshmen and transfer students.Seniors are encouraged to makea contribution of $18.31 in hon-or of NYU’s founding year, and PresidentJohn Sexton and NYU Trustee H. DaleHemmerdinger (WSC ’67) match every con-

tribution, dollar for dollar. In the 1831 Fund’sinaugural year, the Class of 2011 raised more than

$11,000. The Class of 2012 aims to raise the bar by accu-mulating $15,000 by the time they graduate in May. BothFifteen for 15 and the 1831 Fund are a testament to thepower of the recent alumni community and the seniorswho will soon join them.

To learn more about Fifteen for 15 and how you can get involved,visit www.nyu.edu/giving/1831-fund/15for15.

for the April 2010 Wilm-ington (North Carolina)Athletic Club SprintTriathlon two-and-a-halfhours late, thanks to afaulty alarm clock. Thisleft little time to warm-up.Then he was positioned tostart way in the back, be-hind weekend warriorsand teens half his age whowere simply out for thepersonal challenge. Pope-son was racing for his ca-reer. Less than a yearbefore, he’d given up a

good job and much of hissocial life to begin chasinghis dream of becoming aprofessional triathlete.When the starting gun

sounded, Popeson quicklymoved past the pack, fin-ishing an unexpected sec-ond in his debut triathlon.The only person to beathim? The man who wouldbecome the U.S. nationalchampion in 2010.For many, taking sec-

ond in a competition thatentails a 300-yard swim,

an 11.5-mile bike ride, anda 3.1-mile run would seema significant accomplish-ment. But it gnawed atPopeson. “I didn’t want tostart accepting failure,” the26-year-old says. “If I wasgoing to do this for a liv-ing, second place wasn’tgoing to cut it.” That atti-tude led Popeson throughgrueling workouts andfamily tragedy to a divi-sional victory—just 17months later—in the ITUShort Course Triathlon

Age-GroupWorld Cham-pionship held in Beijing inSeptember 2011.It’s not surprising that

Popeson has found successas a triathlete. The toolswere all there. As a runner,he had helped the NYUcross-country team winthe 2007 NCAA DivisionIII Cross Country Nation-al Championship. He alsoswam competitively fromthe age of 7 while growingup in Linwood, New Jer-sey, where he later surfedand worked as a beach life-guard. That aptitude in thewater gave him a moremuscular six-foot-two,163-pound build than theaverage distance runner,and has made him a proto-type triathlete. Despitethis, or the fact that thesport is booming—2.3million people completedtriathlons in 2010—Pope-son knew it would be astretch to earn enoughprize money or sponsor-ship to cover living andtraining expenses. “I tell

triathletes to think of [it] asa small business,” says BarbLindquist, collegiate re-cruitment coordinator forUSA Triathlon. “Plan onlosing money in the firstyear, break even in the sec-ond, then make moneyin the third year andbeyond.”It was a risky move in a

tough economy. Pope-son’s communications de-gree had landed him a jobpromoting the Nike run-ning brand along the EastCoast at high schools andNike events, but seeingelite runners regularly lefthim wanting more. “Iwould say, ‘I think I cando that,’ ” he remembers.His parents, Joanne andDennis, were skeptical atfirst, but when they sawhis commitment, theysoon offered moral sup-port. He quit working full-time, took on an assistantcoaching gig at NYU, andfound a professional train-er. “After two months ofworking with him, I knew


FRANK DESIMONE /

STERN ’80 / received the

Excellence in Service

award at the Faculty

Awards Dinner for Wagner

College in Staten Island

this past November.

DeSimone has taught

at Wagner since 2005.

MAX FERGUSON /

STEINHARDT ’80 / will

have his 13th solo exhibi-

tion, Painting My Father,

hosted at Hebrew Union

College Museum in New

York through June 29,

2012. The show is a series

of approximately 30 paint-

ings done over a 30-year

period. His works are in

many prominent public

and private collections, in-

cluding the Metropolitan

Museum of Art, the Crys-

tal Bridges Museum of

American Art, the British

Museum, the Albertina in

Vienna, and the Museum

of the City of New York.

SULE GREG WILSON /

TSOA ’80, GSAS ’86 /

released Runaway Dream,

his CD of string band,

blues, and percussion,

with guest artists Mike

Seeger and Dom Flemons.

He also worked with the

Carolina Chocolate Drops

on their 2010 Grammy-

winning CD, Genuine

Negro Jig. In November,

Wilson was featured in the

PBS documentary Give Me

the Banjo. He is currently

teaching storytelling at

Maricopa County, AZ,

community colleges and

dances of Africa at Ari-

zona State University.


1980s

alumni profile

SPENSER POPESON / STEINHARDT ’08

BY LAND AND BY SEAby Brian Dalek / GSAS ’10

THE MORNING OF SPENSER POPESON’S FIRSTCOMPETITIVE TRIATHLON WASN’T IDEAL.AFTER TRAINING FOR NINE MONTHS, HE AWOKE

CLASS

NOTES

this guy would get what hewanted,” says his coach,Marisa Carter. The twomet at a Nike clinic inRaleigh in 2009, andCarterwas immediately in-trigued by Popeson’stenacity. After that firstWilmington race, Popesonstarted prepping for the2010 USA Triathlon Na-tional Championship inTuscaloosa, Alabama.But the biggest chal-

lenge Popeson would facecame a month before therace, when his sister, Tay-lor, 21, who had sufferedfrom bipolar disorder,suddenly died. “It didcross my mind that maybeI should stop for now andbewithmy family,” Pope-son says, “but training waskind of how I coped.”And he says Taylor has al-ways remained with him:“During my workouts orduring my races, I’ll talkto her about how ‘I’m go-ing to need you on thistough run.’ ”Popeson’s dedication

paid off. He finished fifthoverall in Tuscaloosa,making him eligible torepresent the UnitedStates in Beijing as an am-ateur at the Short Course(1-mile swim, 25-milebike ride, 6.2-mile run)ITU Triathlon Age-Group World Champi-onship, where he tookthird overall among morethan 1,000 athletes andfirst in the men’s 25-29-year-old division. He wasa world champion a yearinto his career, leaving lit-tle doubt that he will for-mally turn pro in 2012. Sowith his initial dreams nowachieved, what’s next? “Ijust want to get faster,”Popeson says. “That’s myonly goal.”


alumni giving

FIFTEEN FOR 15NEW GRADS RAISE NEARLY $30,000 FOR CURRENT STUDENTS

Milbrath and Gilchrist, PA,

in Orlando.

JAMES F. HOLSINGER /

STERN ’77 / and his clin-

ic won the 2011 Davies

Ambulatory Care Award,

a national award of excel-

lence by the Healthcare

Information and Manage-

ment Systems Society

that recognizes imple-

mentation of electronic

health records.

DEBORAH WEIR / STERN

’78 / published Timing the

Market (Wiley), the first

book to apply information

from the fixed-income

markets to asset alloca-

tion. Weir is a chartered

financial analyst and is

on the faculty of the New

York Institute of Finance.

JILL CLIFFER BARATTA

/ TSOA ’79 / was accept-

ed into the National Asso-

ciation of Women Artists,

Inc. as a printmaker.

LEMUEL “CHIP” H. GIB-

BONS III / LAW ’79 / was

named 2012 Raleigh Tax

Law Lawyer of the Year by

Best Lawyers. He is a part-

ner at Poyner Spruill, LLP.

ALBERT SKAIR / GAL

’79 / was honored by the

board of trustees and

management of the Col-

lege of Science, Technolo-

gy & Applied Arts of

Trinidad & Tobago for his

10 years of service.


POPESON TOOK THIRD AMONG MORE THAN 1,000 ATHLETES AND FIRST IN THE MEN’S 25-29-YEAR-OLD DIVISION AT THE 2011 ITU WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN BEIJING.

PHOTOSCOURTESYSPENSERPOPESON

lacial” is one

of the more

popular epi-

thets used by

critics to de-

scribe the measured move-

ments of EIKO OTAKE

(GAL ’07) and Takashi Koma

Otake, two Japanese-Ameri-

can dancers whose 40-year

collaboration is currently

the subject of a three-year,

mixed-media retrospective

project. The tour, which hit a

total of 13 cities in the Unit-

ed States as well as Dublin,

Ireland, culminated this year

with the premiere of Fragile,

a commissioned piece, at

the University of Maryland.

In addition to restaging

some of their early pieces,

the pair also unveiled

Naked, a living installation

staged on a terrain of earth

and feathers (see right).

During the four- to six-hour

performance, spectators

enter and exit the space

at will while the gaunt, an-

drogynous bodies of Eiko &

Koma inch slowly toward

and away from each other.

Time is yet another plastic

material in the hands of the

performers: In Naked, they

seem to be moving imper-

ceptibly toward their own

dissolution.

Eiko & Koma—the first

collaborators to receive a

MacArthur “genius” Fel-

lowship, in 1996—build

their own sets, fashion

their own costumes, and

often create their own

soundscapes. “We trust

each other as a performer

and as a co-artistic direc-

tor,” Koma says. “It also

makes each of us own a

piece less, whichhelps

us to share it with other

people.”

Though trained in the

outré Japanese style Bu-

toh and German Expres-

sionism, Eiko & Koma

reject categorizing their

work—in part, Eiko says,

because they don’t feel

that they’ve studied any

tradition deeply enough to

be representative of it. But

dance critics have found a

way to describe it. “You

can trace various influ-

ences running through the

work of all artists,” The

New York Times’ Claudia

La Rocco writes. “But

more than most choreog-

raphers, Eiko & Koma

seem to inhabit a singular

artistic space, as if they

had come into being fully

formed, the creative

equivalent of Athena

springing from the head

of Zeus, ready for war.”

—Megan Doll


SPOTILLUSTRATIONS©

ALANKIKUCHI

CLASS

NOTES

alumni art

Fragile and Naked,In Retrospect

Learn more by visiting alumni.nyu.edu/yalc

Giving is a personal choice and the Young Alumni Leadership Circle is a group of alumni who have decided it’s the right choice for them.

Become a member with a donation starting at $250, tiered by graduation year.

Join today and make a difference. Your participation will help shape the future of the NYU community.

The Young Alumni Leadership Circle has a place for you.

GIVING. PHILANTHROPY.

COMMUNITY.

One of the many alumni benefits available to all NYU alumni.

J O I N TH E NYU C LU BT HE PR I NCE TO N CLU B O F N E W Y O R K

M privileges include:

. Connect with over 500 NYU Alumni and those from peer institutions

. Cozy members’ lounge

. State-of-the-art meeting rooms and banquet facilities, newly renovated accommodations and restaurants

. Fully-equipped business center and free WiFi access

. A 10,000-volume lending library

. Access to more than 200 exclusive clubs worldwide, including private golf clubs

Please contact the Membership Office at 212-596-1240 or [email protected]

W E L C O M E N Y U A L U M N I

15 West 43rd St. New York, NY 10036

www.princetonclub.com/nyu

G“

global connections

ALUMNI PASSPORTNYU was founded in 1831 to be “in and of the city,” andhas grown into a global network university that is “in and ofthe world.” Our diverse alumni population reflects that ex-pansion, with more than 22,000 graduates living outside theUnited States. Many of them studied abroad as students andspeak multiple languages, and like so many of their fellowstateside alumni, they are leaders in their fields.With 10 existing NYU global academic centers, two

more on the way in Sydney andWashington, D.C., and twoportal campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai (opening in2013), the number of alumni living and working overseaswill continue to rise. The NYUOffice of University Devel-opment and Alumni Relations responded to this growingbody of international alumni by establishing the GlobalAlumni Passport program, with the purpose of not only ex-panding existing international activities but of also providingstrong professional networking opportunities for our gradu-

ates. In the past two years, we have held receptions withPresident John Sexton in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong,London, Abu Dhabi, Seoul, and Paris, as well as events foralumni and parents in Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai, Taipei,Mumbai, and Tel Aviv.Alumni have also taken the lead in running local events

and activities with assistance from the Office of UniversityDevelopment and Alumni Relations. Recent events havebeen held in cities such as Seoul, Dubai, London, Paris,Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore—and there’s an ar-ray of regional alumni clubs and networks spanning theUnited States.

Wherever you have established yourself post-NYU, we hope youwill remain engaged with your alma mater. In order to stay informedabout university programs around the world, please update your con-tact information at www.alumni.nyu.edu/address-change.

PHOTO©

ANNALEECAMPBELL

Before settling in Bogotá,Butler traveled aroundCentral America to im-prove his Spanish. He wasdazzled by its paradisiacalbeauty:the vibrant bluewa-ter, lush flora, and strikingtoucans that flooded hisfield of vision.“I was reallyblown away by how ‘backto basics’it was,”he remem-bers.“At that point I start-ed getting some of the ideasin my head.” One idea wasto open an environmental-ly conscious resort in thewilds of Latin America,where guests could leavebehind the distractions andthe hyperconnectivity ofmodern life.

Butler put his plan onthe back burner while hereturned to New York tofinish his master’s in urbanplanning at the Robert F.Wagner Graduate Schoolof Public Service beforeworking in real estate de-velopment and communityrevitalization throughoutNewYork City. His ambi-tion was reborn when hebumped into DonnaMadey at a holiday cocktailparty organized by theAmerican PlanningAssoci-ation in 1998.The two hadmet as graduate students atWagner but didn’t knoweach other very well.A na-tive NewYorker like But-

ler, Madey had also spenttime outside of the city,working in open spacepreservation in CastleRock, Colorado.The twoshared a passion for the out-doors and when Michael

revealed his plan to createan eco haven, Donna waseasily persuaded. “It wasnot a difficult idea to em-brace,” she recalls.

Three years later,Michael and Donna mar-ried.That same year, theysold theirWestVillage apart-ment and moved to CostaRica. The income fromtheir apartment helpedthem purchase 165 acres offormer cacao farmland onthe Península de Osa.“Thesouthern part of Costa Ricahad a little base of tourismgoing, but it was still veryremote and pristine, whichis what we were lookingfor,” Michael says. Theywere confident that thelodge’s environs,adjacent toPiedras Blancas NationalPark and only accessible byboat,would retain their un-spoiled beauty.

When the coupleopened Playa NicuesaRainforest Lodge in April2003, ecotourism was in aperiod of transition.The in-dustry, which had providedrustic adventures for ruggedindividuals in the 1980s,be-gan to include more crea-ture comforts and attractfamilies in the 2000s.Theterm has consequently be-come more elastic, thoughecotourism is typically de-fined as a small-scale, low-impact enterprise that seeksto educate visitors about

pristine areas while benefit-ing the local economy.

Billed as a “high-end”eco lodge, Playa Nicuesaaims to balance sustainabil-

ity—solar energy and recy-cled materials, includingnaturally fallen wood—with modern conven-iences, such as hot waterand refrigeration.Throughkayaking tours and guidedrain forest treks, visitors areinvited to explore the envi-ronment.The main lodge isa breezy, open-air structurethat seamlessly integratesthe outdoors.“There’s a realsense of where you are,”Donna remarks.That’s alsotrue of the cuisine, whichdraws from local produceand spices. Coconut,lemongrass, tropical salsasand chutneys enliven thelodge’s Latin-inflected fam-ily-style meals. Fresh fishcaught by guests during theday reappears as sushi comecocktail hour.

“Off the grid” is a termthat both Michael andDonna use to describe theresort’s location. Its re-moteness has proven to bemostly a blessing but haspresented distinct chal-lenges.When erecting thelodge, the Butlers had tobuy a barge to bring overthe materials,and then hirelocal kids to transport thecargo in wheelbarrows.The isolation has also fos-tered a familial bondamong the now 22 staffmembers—all locals, savefor the in-house yoga in-structor and massage thera-pist. (The Butlers returnedto NewYork in 2009 to re-connect with their EastCoast roots.) Carol-LynnGrow,who visited the lodgetwice, recalls one time justbefore sunset when shewatched the entire staffjump off the dock and intothe bay:“You felt you weresurrounded by people whoenjoyed the big things in lifeas well as the small things.”

MICHAEL BUTLER WAS FIRST DRAWN TO LATINAMERICA IN 1991 BY AN INTERNSHIP TO HELPBUILD AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN COLOMBIA.

alumni profile

DONNA AND MICHAEL BUTLER / BOTH WAG ’94

A CostaRican Waldenby Megan Doll / GSAS ’08

“Off the grid” is a termthat both Michael andDonna use to describePlaya Nicuesa.

THE BUTLERS’ ECO-LODGE

MIXES REMOTE RAIN FOREST

ADVENTURE WITH A TOUCH

OF MINDFUL LUXURY.


CLASS

NOTES

Join your fellow alumni and experience the best of NYU and NYC at NYU Alumni Day 2012! Hear from President John Sexton, gain insights on today’s most pressing issues, and reconnect with old friends. There is something for everyone at NYU Alumni Day!

Visit alumni.nyu.edu for more information.

LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2012!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR•• NYU ALUMNI DAY NYC ••

OCTOBER

20 2012

PHOTOCOURTESYPLAYANICUESARAINFORESTLODGE

MICHAEL E. KEARNEY /

LAW ’82 / has joined Bal-

lard Spahr, LLP in the

firm’s Las Vegas office as a

member of its business and

finance department.

JOHN F. KOWAL / WSUC

’82 / has been appointed

vice president of programs

at the Brennan Center for

Justice, a think tank run by

NYU School of Law. Kowal

will be responsible for co-

ordinating and guiding the

organization’s program-

matic work, including its

democracy, justice, and lib-

erty and national security

programs, as well as its

Washington, D.C., office.

DAVID JAY BROWN /

GSAS ’86 / has published

his ninth book, Over the

Edge of the Mind: Exploring

the Interface of Psyche-

delics, Culture and Con-

sciousness (Inner

Traditions), which de-

scribes the electrical brain

stimulation research that

Brown did as a graduate

student at NYU.

MARYJANE HAYES /

STEINHARDT ’86 / was

featuredauthor for the Her-

itage Book Festival 2011.

She wrote Emma’s House

ofSound and Emma’sFreaky

Sneakers, a series about a

bullied deaf childwho puts

on asoundless concert, and

Thumbs Up—Veggies for

Kids (all by St. Augustine),

a picture book for 2-3-year-

olds. A play she wrote also

received a grant from the

St. Johns CulturalArts

Council.

KAREN M. WICKS / WAG

’86 / is executive and aca-

demic director of the Royal

Live Oaks Academy of the

Arts & Sciences Charter

School, Ridgeland, SC,

a public charter school for

disadvantaged children she

co-founded in August.

VIRGINIA ANAGNOS /

WSUC ’87 / has been pro-

moted to executive vice

president at Goodman Me-

dia International, a New

York–based public relations

firm. Anagnos joined the

firm in 2000.

JOSEPH SCIORRA /

GSAS ’87 / co-edited and

contributed an essay to the

exhibition catalog Graces

Received: Painted and Met-

al Ex-votos From Italy

(John D. Calandra Italian-

American Institute).

YULUN WANG’s / STERN

’87 /award-winningjazz la-

bel, Pi Recordings, was cov-

ered in a New York Times

feature in August. The la-

bel’s releases and artists

are regularly featured on

NPR and in the press. Wang

previously worked in invest-

ment finance.

ANDREW D. MELICK/

TSOA ’88 / recently pub-

lished A Century of Serv-

ice: A History of the Bis-

cayne Bay Pilots (Biscayne

Bay Pilots Association),

which is available online.

RITA REYNOLDS / STEIN-

HARDT ’88 / was recog-

nized by the Diversity

Action Council at the

Faculty Awards Dinner for

Wagner College in Staten

Island this past November.

Reynolds has developed a

range of courses that ex-

amine American diversity,

including a two-semester

African-American history

sequence and an upper-

level course on the civil

rights movement. In addi-

tion, Reynolds has person-

ally mentored many

students, both African-

American and Caucasian,

in dealing with race issues

on campus.

PETER ROGNESS / TSOA

’88 / was nominated for a

2010 Emmy Award for Out-

standing Achievement in

Art Direction for HBO’s

Mildred Pierce, a mini-

series based on a 1941 novel

and starring Kate Winslet.

TERRI GINSBERG / GAL

’89, TSOA ’97 / has just

published her fourth book,

an editorial collection

titled A Companion to Ger-

man Cinema (Wiley-Black-

well). The volume contains

22 newly commissioned

essays on innovative criti-

cal approaches to areas in

the field, espe-

cially concern-

ing race,

gender, sexu-

ality, and

transnational-

ism. Ginsberg

presently

serves on the

board of direc-

tors of the In-

ternational Council for

Middle East Studies, a new

think tank based in Wash-

ington, D.C.

DIANA K. LLOYD / GSAS

’89, LAW ’89 / was named

to the 2011 Top Massachu-

setts Super Lawyers list,

which is published by

Thomson Reuters and rec-

ognizes excellence in law

practice. Lloyd does secu-

rities litigation for Choate,

Hall & Stewart, LLP.

SUSAN TOMIC / WSUC

’89 / published The King

Maker (Champagne Books),

a contemporary romance—

set in England and New

England—revolving around

attempts by the friend of

a dead American pilot to

expose an international

crime ring.

ROBYN WALENSKY/

GSAS ’89/ released a

book about the Casey An-

thony trial in Orlando, FL,

titled Beautiful Life? The

CSI Behind the Casey An-

thony Trial & My Observa-

tions From Courtroom Seat

#1 (CreateSpace).


“I believe in giving back because I’ve been given the chance to take risks and discover new opportunities at NYU.”Hails from: New York, NY

Major: Childhood Education and Special Education

Damaris

2012Sanchez

Steinhardt

We need the generosity of our entire community to support our talented and committed student body. Please make a gift to The Fund for NYU in support of students like Damaris.

PLEASE MAKE A GIFT TODAYwww.nyu.edu/giving • 1-800-698-4144

NYUAlumni

Why I made a gift to NYUduring my senior year:I want to give back because the scholarships I received from NYU have helped me achieve my

academic goals.

Greatest source of pride:I am a native New Yorker and an

NYU student!

Favorite thing about NYU:No matter who you are or where you’re from, you can carve your

own niche at NYU.

What I have done to give back: Tutor deaf children through America Reads, assist New York City teachers in their classrooms, help build classrooms and develop

curriculum in an Ecuadorian school.

Future plans: I want to become a mentor for students who come from low-income households or live with a learning disability to help them see that they deserve the right to earn an education at a place like NYU.

vI belie“ ving back e in gi g back

Steinhar

SDammS

NHails from:

dtr

Sanchezmaris

1220

isS hmarS

ork, NYw YYork, NYe tuopporand discothe chabecause I’

vI belie

unities at NYUwer nevsco

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help them see with a lealiv

.Ut ation aearn an educa

ey deservt thee thaoarning disability t

or NYhe Fund fo Tted and cour talent

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tudents likYU in support of s.tudent bodyed sommitt

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AlumNYU

eduyu..nwwwSE MPLEA

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1-800-•givingu//giving MAKE A GIFT

14498-4-6YAAYODT

CLASS

NOTES

Want toHearMoreAboutAlumni Activities?Contact Us!

COLLEGE OF ARTSAND SCIENCE, [email protected]

COLLEGE OF [email protected]

COLLEGE OF [email protected]

COURANT INSTITUTEOF [email protected]

GALLATIN SCHOOL OFINDIVIDUALIZED [email protected]

GRADUATE SCHOOL OFARTS AND [email protected]

INSTITUTE OF FINE [email protected]

LEONARD N. STERNSCHOOL OF [email protected]

LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM212-998-6880

ROBERT F. WAGNERGRADUATE SCHOOL OFPUBLIC [email protected]

SCHOOL OF CONTINUINGANDPROFESSIONAL [email protected]

SCHOOL OF [email protected]

SCHOOL OF [email protected]

SILVER SCHOOL OFSOCIAL [email protected]

THE STEINHARDT SCHOOLOF CULTURE, EDUCATION,AND [email protected]

TISCH SCHOOL OF THE [email protected]

1990sADAM BERENSON /

TSOA ’93 / has had a col-

lection of his early jazz

music released by Mighty

Quinn Productions.

GABRIELLE F. CULMER

/ STERN ’93 / is the au-

thor of Damp Whisper

(Vantage), a novel about

courage in the face of

life’s changes. Her first

novel, A Matter of Keep-

ing (Vantage), was pub-

lished in 2009.



DIANA

KWIATKOW-

SKI RUBIN /

GSAS ’94 /

has had her

latest book,

Renewal

(Xlibris),

published.

It contains both new

and award-winning

poems.

GAIL FISHMAN GERWIN

/ GAL ’96 / was a 2010

Paterson Poetry Award

finalist for her memoir

Sugar and Sand (Full

Court Press). Gerwin’s

poems earned four con-

secutive Allen Ginsberg

Poetry Awards honor-

ablementions, and

her poems and re-

viewsappear widely in

literary journals. She

presents readings and

leads writing workshops.

Gerwin owns ined-

it, aMorristown, NJ,

writing/editing firm.

CHRISTINA BURCH /

STEINHARDT ’98 / was

recently commissioned to

do a piece forHarper’s

Bazaar and Swarovksi;

the artwork was included

in last December’s issue

of Bazaar and will be

auctioned to support

the Art of Elysium, a

charity dedicated to

bringing art and artists

into children’s hospitals.

FRANCIS M. HULT / CAS

’98, STEINHARDT ’01 /

has been awarded the ti-

tle of docent, Finland’s

second-highest academic

rank, by the University of

Jyväskylä in recognition

of his scholarly work in

discourse studies and

educational linguistics.

TANIA SANCHEZ / CAS

’98 / published The

Little Book of Perfumes

(Viking) with Luca Turin.

It features 100 master-

pieces of perfume:

96 five-star perfumes

from their 2008 book

Perfumes: The A-Z

Guide (Penguin) and

four legendary scents

that are preserved in the

Versailles Osmothèque.

AARON FORD / TSOA

’99 / was promoted to

vice president, on-air

marketing, in September

2011. He manages the

on-air marketing team

and oversees all promo-

tional scheduling and

planning for USA, Cloo,

and Universal HD chan-

nels. Ford joined USA

Network as an intern,

working on shows such

as La Femme Nikita while

in college.

HEBRON SIMCKES-

JOFFE / TSOA ’99, GAL

’07 / had his film 6Gun

selected to screen at

Comic-Con International.

It stars NYU alumni, in-

cluding BEN MORRISON /

TSOA ’01 / and DAHELI

HALL / TSOA ’98 /, as

well as Simckes-Joffe.

Run Edward, Run!, also

written and directed by

Simckes-Joffe, received

a Silver Ace Award from

the Las Vegas Film Festi-

val in July 2011.


CLASS

NOTES

(CONTINUED FROM

PAGE 59)

KELLY BRENNAN /

STEINHARDT ’00 /

recently completed an

EdD in executive leader-

ship at St. John Fisher

College’s Ralph C. Wilson,

Jr. School of Education in

Rochester, NY. Brennan’s

dissertation focused on

philanthropic leadership

in higher education,

specifically the practices

and perceptions of chief

advancement officers to-

ward alumni giving and

alumni volunteer efforts.

MAUREEN BRADY

COYLE / STEINHARDT

’00 / is director of study

abroad at Felician College

in Lodi, NJ, and was

awarded a Fulbright

Scholar grant to study

and observe educational

developments and inter-

national education in

the Federal Republic of

Germany.

DARRELL ROYSTER

MYRICK / WAG ’00 / was

appointed associate pro-

fessor in public adminis-

tration at the University

of South Africa in Sep-

tember.

TONI IRVING / GSAS ’01

/ , deputy chief of staff

to Illinois Governor Pat

Quinn, received the John

D. and Catherine T.

MacArthur Foundation

“Champion for Change”

award. The honor recog-

nizes her efforts to make

juvenile justice reform a

2000s


NEW YORKUNIVERSITYSTATE OF MIND

On May 16, 2012, NYUwill celebrate its 180thcommencement ceremo-ny—once again at its newhome for the event,Yankee Stadium. Last

year, on the eve of the big day,the Empire State Building (above)shined bright in NYU purple to helpstudents, parents, and friends toastthe 179th graduating class.

NYU Family Legacy

DeanThomas Carewof the NYU Fac-ulty of Arts and

Science has announced theappointment of professorGeorge Downs as the firstincumbent of the Bern-hardt Denmark Professor ofInternational Affairs in theWilf Family Department ofPolitics.

Downs, a prominentscholar of international in-stitutions,human rights,andinternational law, has beena member of the Depart-

ment of Politics facultysince 1988, and served asdean of social science from2001–09. Immediately pri-or to joining NYU’s facul-ty, he served as the BoswellProfessor ofWar and Peaceat PrincetonUniversity,anddirected the doctoral pro-gram at Princeton’sWoodrow Wilson Schoolof Public Affairs. In makingthis announcement, Carewstated, “Through this ap-pointment, we are delight-ed to honor professor

Downs’s work and long ca-reer in international rela-tions and human rights, andwe are equally grateful toJoel Smilow for recogniz-ing the excellence of ourDepartment of Politics andestablishing this prestigiouschair.”

The Bernhardt Den-mark Professorship of In-ternational Affairs wasestablished by NYUTrustee Joel E. Smilow inhonor of Denmark who, in1969, recruited Smilow to

be his successor as presi-dent of International La-tex, Inc. (predecessor ofPlaytex Products, Inc.), thebeginning of a close friend-ship that continues to thisday. Denmark graduatedfrom NYU in 1941, servedin the U.S.Army, and thenjoined International Latexin 1949. He became thecompany’s president in1965, and under his leader-ship the company greatlyexpanded its product baseand global reach. Denmark

and his wife, Muriel, havetwo children, two grand-children, and three greatgrandchildren.

Smilow retired fromPlaytex Products, Inc. in1995 but has remained ac-tive in the business and,more important,in the phil-anthropic world, includingNYU and the NYU Lan-gone Medical Center. Hewas the lead/naming donorfor the NYU LangoneResearch Center on FDRDrive.

The following are justsome of the manygenerous gifts re-

cently presented to NYU:• The Guess Foundation

has established the GuessDistinguished Visiting Pro-fessorship in Fashion andFashion Business at the Gal-latin School of Individual-ized Study,enabling a designor industry business expertto teach a course each se-mester.The Guess VisitingProfessor will also make atleast one public presentationduring his or her tenure onhow students can developtheir understanding of all

facets of the fashion indus-try.The GuessVisiting Pro-fessor will co-teach eachclass with a current Gallatinfaculty member.

• With a $1.5 milliongrant over the next threeyears, Banco Santander re-newed its scholarship sup-port for students studying inBuenos Aires, London, andMadrid, as well as annualfellowships for two studentsstudying creative writing inSpanish.

• The Bickel & BrewerFoundation has committed$5 million to continue sup-port for its existing univer-

sity initiatives,including theBickel & Brewer Latino In-stitute for Human Rights atthe NYU School of Law,the Bickel & Brewer Glob-al Debate Program, and theBickel & Brewer/NYU In-ternational Public PolicyForum, which includes an-nual support for the NYUDebate Club.Through a $2million portionof this com-mitment, the foundation—which is led by UniversityTrustee William Brewer(LAW ’78)—also estab-lished the Bickel & BrewerScholarship Fund for un-derrepresented undergrad-

uate students university-wide.

• TheRice Family Foun-dation has pledged a $1.5million gift to the Robert F.Wagner Graduate School ofPublic Service to establishand endow the Rice UrbanStudies Fellowship Fund.The fund will award tuitionassistance tooutstanding stu-dents in the Master of Ur-ban Planning or Master ofPublic Administration andNonprofitManagement andPolicy programs at theWag-ner School.The fellowshipalso offers the opportunityfor full tuition support for

one new student each year,with the possibility to re-new for continuing study.

• Constance and MartinSilver have pledged $1 mil-lion to support cancer re-search at NYU LangoneMedical Center’s Cancer In-stitute.The institute aims todiscover the origins of can-cer and to use that knowl-edge to eradicate thepersonal and societal burdenof the disease worldwide.The Silvers’ gift will enableCancer Institute scientists toconduct groundbreaking re-search thatwill enhanceclin-ical outcomes for all patients.

NYU GIFT BOXAN INSIDE LOOK AT RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE UNIVERSITY

F IRST BERNHARDT DENMARK PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS APPOINTED

GIFTS EXPAND ACADEMIC ENTERPRISES ACROSS CAMPUS

NYU takes great pride in recognizing those who have made a

family tradition of attending the university. If you and another

member of your family are NYU graduates, let us know via a

Class Note and we’ll list your names here.

This issue’s spotlight family:

MICHAEL J. CAMPBELL / STERN ’72 / (FATHER)

KATHERINE GROVER / SSSW ’93 / (MOTHER)

ANTHONY CAMPBELL / STEINHARDT ’94 / (SON)

PHOTOCOURTESYNYUPHOTOBUREAU


WILLIAM WOLFF / ARTS ’36

SIDNEY METZGER / ENG ’37, NYU-POLY ’48

RUTH BARCAN MARCUS / WSC ’41

CORWIN HANSCH / GSAS ’44

MORTON FRIEDMAN / STEINHARDT ’47

MURRAY HANDWERKER / WSC ’47

ARNOLD ALLAN PISKIN / STEINHARDT ’48

MARVIN GELMAN / ARTS ’50

CORNELIUS QUINN / STERN ’50

JAMES G. CHAPMAN / STERN ’52, GSAS ’64

HOWARD KAPLAN / ARTS ’53, GSAS ’54, ’58

MELVIN STANGER / WSC ’56

ROBERT A. LACKEY / STERN ’57, ’63

INEZ LOIS SMITH / STEINHARDT ’63

ROBERT E. BERMAN / STERN ’69

CHARLES C. DOSS / ENG ’75

DONALD LANIER / SCPS ’84

MATTHEW SAPOLIN / WSUC ’93, WAG ’96

ANNE T. LOMMEL / TSOA ’98

SARA B. NARINS-SUSSMAN / STEINHARDT ’05

ILYA ZHITOMIRSKIY / CAS ’11

ZACHARY ROSS / TSOA ’12

DERRICK BELL / LAW FACULTY

DOROTHY DURKIN / SCPS ASSOCIATE DEAN

HELEN FAITH KEANE REICHERT / FORMER

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF RETAILING FACULTY

RICHARD TURNER / IFA FACULTY

New York University mourns the recent passing of our alumni, staff, and friends, including:

Obituaries

hallmark of

the Quinn ad-

ministration.

Irving lives in

Chicago and

was previously

on the faculty

of the Univer-

sity of Notre

Dame.

KYLE SHADIX / STEIN-

HARDT ’02 / was award-

ed the title Certified

Research Chef by the

Research Chef’s Associa-

tion. Shadix is the 77th

culinary professional

to receive this honor

and is the only RCA-

certified chef who is also

a registered dietitian.

Shadix is a research chef

at PepsiCo.

ANTHONY SIRECI /

CAS ’03 / has joined

the faculty of the College

of Physicians and

Surgeons at Columbia

University as an assistant

professor of clinical

pathology.

JEFFREY S. MULLER /

LAW ’05 / was elected

partner in the Newark of-

fice of McCarter & Eng-

lish, LLP. Muller is an at-

torney in the tax and ben-

efits practice.

GEORGE DEREK

MUSGROVE / GSAS ’05 /

published Rumor,

Repression, and Racial

Politics (University

of Georgia Press), an

examination of black

politics in the post–civil

rights era.

SAMRAT SHENBAGA /

STERN ’05 / has been

appointed to lead global

consulting firm ZS Associ-

ates’ new San Diego

office as principal.

Shenbaga joined ZS

Associates in 1998 and,

since 2007, has worked

closely with clients in

Southern California,

guiding complex sales and

marketing transforma-

tions.

JACOB RANDALL

KREUTZER / LAW ’06 /

has joined the faculty of

Penn State Law as a Dale

F. Shughart scholar.

Kreutzer researches cy-

ber rights and economic

analysis. Prior to joining

Penn State, he was an as-

sociate at Irell & Manella

in Los Angeles, where he

participated in defense

against SEC enforcement

actions and derivative

lawsuits.

LAUREN HILGER / CAS

’07 / was awarded a

MacDowell Fellowship in

poetry. She began her

eight-week residency

this spring.

KIRSTEN BISCHOFF /

TSOA ’08 / recently

launched HATCHEDit.

com, a social-collabora-

tion tool designed to meet

the organizational needs

of moms. The site is a dig-

ital whiteboard for family

members to keep track of

their personal lives

through calendars, news

feeds, and online

address books.

STEPHANIE NORMAN /

CAS ’08 / was admitted

to the Delaware bar in De-

cember 2011. Norman is

an associate at Richards,

Layton & Finger, PA, in

Wilmington, DE, where

she works in the firm’s

corporate advisory group.

She earned a JD from the

Georgetown University

Law Center.

KARLA J. SOLORIA /

CAS ’08 / has joined the

law firm of Kaufman &

Canoles as a litigation

associate.

GABRIELA MARCUS /

TSOA ’09 / co-authored

Theater as Life: Practical

Wisdom Drawn From

Great Acting Teachers,

Actors and Actresses

(Marquette University

Press) with her psycho-

analyst father, Paul

Marcus.

KATIE SHEA / STERN

’09 /, SUSIE LEVITT /

CAS ’10 /, and AMANDA

SITZER / CAS ’11 / work

at CitySlips, a company

that makes rollable and

foldable ballet flats, and

was founded by Shea

and Levitt in their NYU

dorm. The two were

named finalists in Busi-

nessWeek’s 2011 Young

Entrepreneurs contest.

HAMPTON WILLIAMS /

STEINHARDT ’09 /

spent two months in

Joplin, MO, working with

the state attorney

general’s office aiding

tornado victims and the

disaster recovery effort.

Williams assisted in

filing, investigating, and

resolving more than 200

consumer complaints

resulting from the storm.

CLASS

NOTES

A Legacy of Learni ng

“NYU made it possible for my daughter and me to receive a great professional education.It is only wise to give back to the school that gave us so much when we had so little.”

A Bequest ThatMakes a DifferenceAs thousands of students do each year, Essie Barry came to

New York in 1959 to pursue her dream of a college education.

Born on a former slave plantation in Mississippi, Essie was 46 years

old and a widowed mother of three when she came to New York

City without friends, family, money, or a ticket home. She left

her youngest daughter Carlita, then 10 years old, with her older

married daughter.

And she persevered. Over a period of 17 years, Essie worked

during the day, first as a live-in domestic and later as a teacher,

and studied at night — earning six separate degrees. She completed

her last degree, an MS in Educational Administration, at the

Steinhardt School of Education in 1975 at age 62. Essie’s daughter

Carlita eventually joined her in New York City, earned an

undergraduate scholarship to NYU, and then attended the

NYU School of Medicine.

In recognition of the opportunities that NYU gave her and

her daughter, Essie Barry provided in her will for a generous

legacy for student scholarships.

Learn how you can provide through your will or living trust to

support scholarships, professorships, and the exceptional programs

that make a difference at NYU. We would be delighted to send you

information about estate planning and the benefits of naming the

University in your will.

NEWYORK UNIVERSITYOffice of Planned Giving25 West Fourth Street, 4th FloorNew York, NY [email protected]

Your BequestMakes A

Difference.

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(CONTINUED FROM

PAGE 60)

MARC D. GALINDO /

STERN ’10 / married Amy

M. Krivohlavek on July 16,

2011, in Omaha, NE. Marc

is a leveraged finance

banker at GE Capital, and

Amy is a marketing writer

at American Conservato-

ry Theater. The couple

currently resides in San

Francisco.

SARA A. O’TOOLE / LAW

’10 / has joined Loeb &

Loeb, LLP’s New York of-

fice as an associate in the

real estate department.

ALEXANDER A. POGRE-

BINSKY / GSAS ’10 / has

opened Bear, a restaurant

and bar in Long Island

City, NY. The restaurant

serves what Pogrebinsky

describes as “new Euro-

pean cuisine” and is open

for lunch, dinner, and

brunch.

2010s


WHAT

OCCUPY WALL STREET GATHERING TO MAKE MUSIC AND ART IN JANUARY 2012

WHERE

WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

WHY

THE GROUP ABOVE WAS RAPPING ABOUT THE ECONOMY WHEN EGLE MAKARAITE (GAL ’14)

TOOK THIS PHOTO, ONE OF MANY SNAPPED BY THE VISUAL ARTS AND SOCIETY MAJOR, WHO CAMPED

OUT AT ZUCCOTTI PARK ON THE FIRST NIGHT THE MOVEMENT BEGAN THERE. THE WHOLE

EXPERIENCE HAS INSPIRED THE LITHUANIA NATIVE. “THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE GETTING

TO KNOW HOW THE GOVERNMENT WORKS AND THE ISSUES AT HAND,” SHE SAYS.

“IT REALLY IS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.”

—JASON HOLLANDER

campus lensPHOTO©

EGLEMAKARAITE

Make a gift to NYU and receive an Alumni Card

FROM THE DAYYOU GRADUATE

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR

MA HETAKE TE MOSTMAYOFOHETAKE

ROUTE MOST

OYFR

DOU GRAROM TH

ETUADHE DAY

OY DOU GRA ETUAD

Make a gift to NYU and receive an t to NYU and receive an Alumni Card n

NYUAlumni

2012APULIA, ITALYJune 19 - 27, 2012 (SOLD OUT)

September 4 – 12, 2012

COASTAL LIFE - ADRIATIC SEAJune 24 - July 2, 2012

ICELANDJuly 20 - 28, 2012

AMALFI, ITALYSeptember 5 - 13, 2012 RUSSIAN WATERWAYSSeptember 12 - 22, 2012

TREASURES OF EAST AFRICAOctober 4 - 18, 2012

SICILYOctober 12 - 22, 2012 JOURNEY THROUGH VIETNAMOctober 21 – November 5, 2012

RIVER LIFE - RHINE, MAIN, MOSELOctober 23 - 31, 2012

PATAGONIAN FRONTIERSNovember 30 - December 17, 2012

CHAMPAGNE DREAMS Blend with the Tastemakers Reims, Epernay, FranceJune 9 – 15, 2012

LIBRARY TREASURES OF ENGLANDThe Pages of History in Rare Collections - Canterbury, Oxford, Cambridge, LondonSeptember 5 - 14, 2012

GREAT OPERA HOUSES OF EUROPEThe Pinnacle of European Music Tradition - Paris, Vienna, MilanOctober, 2012 (Performance Dates to be confirmed upon

release of 2012 schedules)

INDIA, SRI LANKA & THE MALDIVESAn Extraordinary Journey by Private JetNovember 27 – December 16, 2012

EXPERIENCE THE WORLDwith NYU Global Travel Adventures

Set out on an extraordinary journey of discovery. Experience new cultures and paths of understanding and friendship in some of the world’s most exciting, legendary destinations. For information on itineraries and how to book an NYU Alumni and Friends Travel Adventure program, go to alumni.nyu.edu/travel or contact the NYU Alumni Relations Office at 212-998-6985.

2013 DESTINATIONS

GALAPAGOS ISLANDSANTARCTICATHE AMAZONCUZCO & MACHU PICCHUIGUAZU FALLSRIO DE JANEIROCHINABANGKOKSINGAPOREBALIISRAELKENYAMOROCCOINSIDER’S PRAGUEINSIDER’S ISTANBULBARCELONAand more...

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NYU OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY

DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS

25 WEST FOURTH STREET, FOURTH FLOOR

NEW YORK, NY 10012-1119

NONPROFIT ORG

US POSTAGE PAID

PERMIT 295

BURL, VT 05401

NYUALUMNIMAGAZINE/ISSUE#18/SPRING2012


www.nyu.edu/alumni.magazine

THE BIRTH OF

THREE COMEDY STARS

A PATH TO ENDING

HOMELESSNESS

MAIRA KALMAN’S

DREAMLIKE WORLD

THENEWFACESOFFUNNY(MEET THEM ON PAGE 30)

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