News

Politicians and policymakers often tout the economic and social benefits of large-scale transportation infrastructure investments, but often the projects they promote are approved without the benefit of thorough economic analysis. So says Dr. Joseph Berechman, Professor and Chair of Economics at The City College of New York. In a new book for the trade, “The Evaluation of Transportation Investment Projects,” (Routledge, 2009) Professor Berechman contends investment decisions about multi-billion dollar capital projects rely too heavily on preliminary cost estimates and demand forecasts. These

Program to Increase Diversity Draws Raves from 26 Aspiring Lawyers At a time when minority enrollment in law school is declining, the new Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Honors Program at The City College of New York (CCNY) is working to reverse that trend. This fall, the first cohort of 26 Skadden, Arps Scholars enrolled in the intensive two-year program. All juniors, they were selected through a highly competitive process. Students in the program are raving about it and the advantages it will offer them when they apply to law school. “This program is unique nationally because no other

Two years ago, while working on her M.A. thesis about delinquency in Bushwick, Stefanie Joshua, a City College student with no filmmaking experience, decided that the socio-economic plight of her old neighborhood could make a good documentary. The sociology student, who completed her degree in 2005, took a filmmaking class and wrote, produced and directed “Bushwick Homecomings,” a 38-minute film about the Brooklyn neighborhood’s social and economic changes between 1970 and 2000. The film, which won the “Best USA Documentary” award at Britain’s 2008 Swansea Life Film Festival, has been acquired

The City College of New York’s scenic campus, with its landmark neo-gothic buildings, is about to get greener. The 162 year-old institution is now part of the nation’s first official “Heritage Rose District.” A variety of heritage roses including the rare “Green Rose” were planted by a group of CCNY officials, Heritage Rose Foundation members and community residents on the west side of the 35-acre campus, along Amsterdam Avenue (between 135th and 136th Streets) on October 24. This followed the “Heritage Rose District” ground breaking in Harlem and Washington Heights earlier in the day by

Seven Alumni to Receive Townsend Harris Medals for Outstanding Postgraduate Achievement The Alumni Association of The City College of New York will present its 62nd John H. Finley Award jointly to actor F. Murray Abraham and the Theater for the New City (TNC). The presentation will be made at the Association’s 129th Annual Dinner, Wednesday, November 4, at The New York Hilton. The award, named for CCNY’s third President, is presented annually to New Yorkers who have given exemplary service to their city. Mr. Abraham is a distinguished star of the silver screen and stage who has promoted

The City College of New York (CCNY) will offer a new, interdisciplinary graduate program, “Sustainability in the Urban Environment,” that incorporates emerging approaches from the disciplines of architecture, engineering and science. The program will enroll its first students for the Spring 2010 semester. It will award a Master of Science degree in Sustainability to its graduates. “None of the masters-level programs in sustainability currently listed on the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education website integrate the disciplines of architecture, engineering and

Dr. Sheldon Weinbaum, CUNY Distinguished Research Professor of Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering in The Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York (CCNY), has received the National Biomedical Engineering Society’s Inaugural Diversity Award. The award honors exceptional contributions to improving gender and racial diversity within biomedical engineering. Professor Weinbaum was chosen for his long-standing efforts to integrate women and under-represented minorities (URM) into engineering and, more recently, into biomedical engineering as co-founder of CCNY’s Biomedical

It is not often that a group of scientists get to define a field of study. But, that is what Dr. Jeffrey Morris, Professor of Chemical Engineering in The Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York (CCNY), and colleagues at CCNY and the University of Chicago are attempting to do. Professor Morris is principal investigator on a new, five-year $3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that establishes a Partnership in Research and Education in Materials (PREM) at CCNY in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. The

Collaboration has long been recognized as essential to the advancement of scientific knowledge. While the nature of co-production of knowledge in collaborative settings has been studied for some time, little is known about how the process works in collaborations established and maintained through virtual organizations. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at The City College of New York (CCNY) is studying how virtual organizations, where people work in different locations, sometimes halfway around the world, change and affect the production of scientific knowledge. They are supported by a

Freshmen Daniel Asemota, Mohammad Sadat, Maha Salama and Chantal Strachan, all aspiring physicians in the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York (CCNY), were chosen as 2009 recipients of the prestigious Lois Pope Annual LIFE Unsung Hero Scholarship Awards at CCNY. Mrs. Pope, the Florida-based philanthropist and President of Leaders in Furthering Education (LIFE), presented the awards, which each carry a $25,000 stipend, at a ceremony and luncheon at the College, Wednesday, October 7. The scholarships go to incoming Sophie Davis freshmen who have