Tell us a bit about your childhood.

I had a terrific—if somewhat sheltered—childhood. I grew up on East 38th Street between Avenues I and J. My parents were immigrants from Jamaica. We first lived in an apartment on Ocean Avenue. Then one Sunday after church, my parents showed us a house across from Amersfort Park between East 38th and East 39th off Avenue I. They told us that it would be our home. As a child, I played many baseball games and participated in countless foot races in that park. It’s about a mile from ������Ƶ.

How did you decide to study at ������Ƶ?

I was originally going to the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In high school, I was immersed in photography. It afforded me a certain proximity to my dad, who loved the craft. He left his own aspirations in the field when he departed from Jamaica, but he built a darkroom for me in our basement. Still, on some level, it didn’t feel practical for the son of immigrants to become a photographer instead of a doctor or lawyer or engineer. Unfortunately, I had already been admitted to SVA and was at a loss as to what to do next. ������Ƶ had rolling admission, so that summer I applied and enrolled that fall. The more aspirational reason I ended up at ������Ƶ is that it was highly regarded in my neighborhood. My aunt had taken some classes there, so there was something familiar and welcoming about it.

So, you made a sudden switch from art school to a liberal arts college. Did you know what you wanted to major in?

Once I decided on ������Ƶ and saw the language offerings, Ancient Greek was a no-brainer. Growing up in a religious household, I often heard our pastor reference the Greek New Testament. In our adolescent searches for meaning, we all still turn to the familiar, even when it extends a bit out of our comfort zone. I took Ancient Greek from my first semester. After taking Core 1, I ended up being a peer tutor for the class, which gave me an early taste of what it would be like to be a teacher.

Then you took Professor Gail T. Smith’s Core 1 class, Classical Origins of Western Civilization.

The arc of my professional career started with the late Professor Smith and Dean Kathleen Gover. Most of the professors in the Classics Department mentored me in some way or another. The late Howard Wolman, who taught my beginning Greek classes, had students over to his house frequently, and he invited us to the theater and other cultural events in the city. [Professor Emerita] Dee Clayman let me work on a major classics bibliography that she was digitizing at the time, the L’Année philologique. And [Professor Emeritus] Edward Harris was an eminent scholar of Greek law who was my mentor for an honor’s program thesis.

At the time I did not realize how unique it was to have not only an African-American classicist in Professor Smith as a teacher, but also Mervyn Keizer, who was also Afro-descended, also on the faculty, and someone I greatly admired. By the time I entered graduate school at Yale, I began to feel isolated—I was the only Black person in the classics program.

How did you overcome that isolation?

The late Greek historian Donald Kagan, also a ������Ƶ alumnus and director of graduate studies at Yale, helped by showing me what a classicist could be.

I also addressed the isolation by reading the works of other African Americans who drew from the classics. I had always wanted to read Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in college. I finally delved into the novel early in my career, and it blew my mind. My first book, Ulysses in Black, explores how Ellison and other authors, like Toni Morrison, drew from classical myth and literature. Ulysses in Black set me on a path to seeing the classics as ubiquitous tools for understanding our world, even if these tools are hidden in plain sight.

Still, the classics carry a reputation of being an esoteric subject. How do you make them accessible and relevant to your students?

For many students, the classics are already relevant. A meme was going around recently on TikTok about how often men think about the Roman Empire. This was so much a part of popular culture that the actor Jason Momoa had a skit on Saturday Night Live drawing from the meme. The issue is that the classics do not feel relevant to certain students. Or, perhaps “we”— the majority culture, even some teachers—do not believe those students belong or will be drawn to the subject matter. Figures like Toni Morrison dispel the myth.

You are a Black classicist, but what is Black classicism?

“Black classicism” is a term that the scholar Michele Valerie Ronnick coined to characterize the indelible role that education in Greek and Latin has always played in the lives of Black Americans from the very foundation of the country. African Americans studying the European classics is odd only in our contemporary context, where few people, even from the broader population, know the history, literature, or mythology of Greece and Rome. In the time of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the African poet Phillis Wheatley learned Latin and subtly instructed her enslavers in individual and collective freedom. Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass read Greek and Roman rhetoric in translation, and they certainly influenced his legendary oratorical style. By the mid-to 20th century, not all readers would have expected African-American authors like Richard Wright or Ralph Ellison to be steeped in the classics. Still, these authors left many traces of their classical learning—whether self-taught or otherwise—on the page. I believe Professor Ronnick was drawing on wider studies in the field, like Meyer Reinhold’s Classica Americana, to name a subset (“black classicism”) of the longstanding affinity for the classics within the United States.

Afro-futurism has come into its own as a field of study and as a literary genre. Do you see any connections between Afro-futurism and the classics?

There is absolutely a connection. I’m slowly making my way through John Szwed’s biography of Sun Ra (Herman Poole Blount), the jazz musician widely regarded as one of the founders of Afro-futurism. I have been struck by Sun Ra’s hearkening to the past, to ancient Egypt, in his futurism. Through the connection to Egypt and their Nubian predecessors, Sun Ra conceived of a once-and-soon-to-be great people. He moved Blackness from the real identity around him to a crafted one that drew from the past and was somehow out of time. I am extremely interested in this connection and the deeper and broader question of why people study the past in the first place. I am not a historian, but the past is also an imagined space where we rewrite the present.

We’ve seen classics scholars like you go on to work in fields outside of academia. What are some of the other practical applications of the field?

Classicists are everywhere. I spent over a decade and a half as a higher education administrator, and some of the most successful administrators I have met have been classicists. The field comprises many disciplines, including the study of languages, material culture in art and archaeology, and increasingly, scientific study that includes understanding of DNA and ancient DNA. As such, it teaches complexity, problem-solving, and focus, to name only a few skills. Classicists make good lawyers, doctors, and most importantly, good citizens. I wish more of our elected officials had a foundation in civics and the study of democracy.

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Smith’s lecture, “What I Believe,” will be an intimate exploration into her life as a trailblazer who broke new ground as a Black feminist, lesbian, activist, author, publisher, and independent scholar who inspired generations. She was among the first to define an African American women’s literary tradition and to build Black women’s studies and Black feminism in the United States. She has been politically active in many movements for social justice since the 1960s.

“I am so honored to serve as the Hess Scholar-in-Residence during the 2022–23 academic year,” Smith said. “At a time when some in our nation wish to limit the information and ideas that students can access, I look forward to expansive dialogues with members of ������Ƶ’s wonderfully diverse community.”

“As a writer, publisher, teacher, and organizer, Barbara Smith is a transformative force for justice. Her work has reshaped the American academy and society. We are honored to host her for a week of events culminating in the Hess Memorial Lecture,” said Gaston Alonso, interim director for the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities and associate professor of political science at ������Ƶ.

This lecture event is free and open to the public and serves as the main highlight of the college’s  for 2022–23.

The event will also feature President Michelle J. Anderson as well as , distinguished professor of political science, and Professor of English , interim dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

On November 29, Smith was part of a conversation on campus with Theoharis when they discussed selected clips from the documentary , which features Smith and is based on Theoharis’ research and  of the same name.

A prolific writer and publisher, Smith has edited three major collections about Black women: Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue (with Lorraine Bethel, 1979); All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell-Scott, 1982); and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983). She is also the co-author, with Elly Bulkin and Minnie Bruce Pratt, of Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism (1984). Smith is the general editor of The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History (with Wilma Mankiller, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, and Gloria Steinem, 1998). A collection of her essays, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom, was published by Rutgers University Press in 1998. Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith, edited by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks with Barbara Smith, was published by SUNY Press in 2014.

The evening will also include mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford and the Conservatory Singers, ������Ƶ’s select chamber ensemble, who will perform “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.” The group will be conducted by Associate Professor/Director of Choral Studies , director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus.

This signature event will be held on Thursday, March 16, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Claire Tow Theater at ������Ƶ. It will also be livestreamed on the .

Highlights From the Hess Week Calendar, March 13–20

Full calendar and speakers

Barbara Smith—Hess Scholar-in-Residence Library Exhibit: An exhibit located in the main entrance of the ������Ƶ Library that will highlight the works and legacy of Barbara Smith. Archival material from the Robert L. Hess Collection will also be presented. Curated by Professor and Librarian Helen Georgas.

March 13, 11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.: President Anderson Welcomes 2022–23 Hess Scholar-in-Residence Barbara Smith Woody Tanger Auditorium, ������Ƶ Library, and on Zoom

March 13, 2:15–3:30 p.m.: “If Black women were free…”: The State of Black Feminism 2023 Woody Tanger Auditorium, ������Ƶ Library, and on Zoom

March 14, 2:15–3:45 p.m.: “Transforming the U.S. Academy” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ������Ƶ Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 15, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.: “Justice or Just Us?: Defining a Queer Agenda” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ������Ƶ Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 15, 3:40–4:55 p.m.: “Teaching as a Liberating Practice” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ������Ƶ Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 16, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.: “Working for Liberation and Having a Damn Good Time” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ������Ƶ Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 20, 6–7:15 p.m.: “Putting Class Back Into Intersectionality” Online via Zoom

About the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program

The Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program, established by ������Ƶ, is supported by the Robert L. Hess Fund. The program serves as a permanent tribute to the scholarly commitment of Robert L. Hess, exemplified during his tenure as president of ������Ƶ. It represents the ideal of the educated individual—knowledgeable, thoughtful, inquiring, alive to the shared purposes and concerns linking all intellectual pursuits. More particularly, it evokes the scholarly and academic virtues embodied in the curriculum at ������Ƶ.

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“I remember not having that type of guidance when I was planning my career and wanted to give that kind of support to today’s students,” he says.

A native of Brooklyn, Budnick graduated from Sheepshead Bay High School. During the open admissions policy that allowed New York residents to attend any City University of New York school for free, he enrolled at ������Ƶ, earning a B.A. degree in 1974. Budnick graduated from SUNY Downstate Medical School (now SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University) in 1977 and attended Harvard School of Public Health, where he received his master’s degree in public health the same year.

Israa Ismail ’22, a Scholars Program student who majored in psychology, with a minor in chemistry, agrees that mentorship is the key.

“Dr. Budnick has been a tremendous support and given me great advice throughout my entire interviewing process,” says Ismail, who is taking a gap year to work in healthcare policy.

“Of course, all schools have different criteria, but one thing we look for is any sort of clinical work, or work in the field,” says Budnick, who has also worked at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where he was an epidemic intelligence service officer. He was also a medical epidemiologist with the U.S. Public Health Service, and a clinical assistant professor at the Department of Environmental & Community Medicine, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Ismail certainly fulfills the criteria for a student already working in the field.

As a global health policy coordinator at the American Medical Students Association, she is concerned with disparities in underserved communities. She has also participated in the COVID-19 Navigation Project at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to understand the effects of vaccine hesitancy on Arab American immigrant populations undergoing chemotherapy.

Marwa Islam is another student who has benefited from Budnick’s advice and support. Islam, a Macaulay Honors student who graduates this May with a B.S. in chemistry on a pre-med track, reached out to the Magner Center for help prepping for her medical school interviews. The center’s director, Natalia Guarin-Klein, connected her with the doctor, and a mock interview was scheduled.

“He gave me so many tips on how to improve my interviewing style,” says Islam.

“What questions that might come up, how to prepare for those questions, what to review, what to pay attention to.” He provided hints that Islam says did not show up in online searches, information that only someone with experience in medical school admissions can give. “I’ve been on interviews, and they’ve gone very well thanks to Dr. Budnick’s help.”

To enrich its mentorship programs, ������Ƶ is seeking more than 200 alumni to participate in various mentor initiatives in 2023. Through events and one-on-one mentoring, alumni can help students gain clarity on their career interests and develop a plan to reach their goals. All interested alumni may contact Magner Career Center Director Natalia Guarin-Klein at careernews@brooklyn.cuny.edu for more information.

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Jeanne Theoharis

On November 29, from 2:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Smith will be part of a conversation on campus with ������Ƶ’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science Jeanne Theoharis. The pair will discuss selected clips from the documentary, “,” which features Smith and is also based on Theoharis’ research and book of the same name. Smith and Theoharis will explore Rosa Parks’ life of freedom fighting, how the many myths of Parks and the movement cloud our understandings of social change, the roles and experiences of women in the movement, and the lessons this history provides for the work of organizing and social justice today. After their conversation, there will be a Q&A period for students, staff, and faculty.

The event will be held in the library’s Woody Tanger Auditorium and will also be livestreamed on the Wolfe Institute’s YouTube channel. At the speaker’s request, masks are required for the in-person event. Room 441 in the library will also be open for guests to watch the lecture online.

You can watch the livestream of the event

To stream the documentary for free before the event, ������Ƶ students, faculty, and staff can email: wolfeinstitute@brooklyn.cuny.edu

More Hess Scholar-in-Residence lectures will be held in March 2023, and a complete schedule of events will be made available soon.

About the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program

The Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program, established by ������Ƶ, is supported by the Robert L. Hess Fund. The program serves as a permanent tribute to the scholarly commitment of Robert L. Hess, exemplified during his tenure as president of ������Ƶ. It represents the ideal of the educated individual—knowledgeable, thoughtful, inquiring, alive to the shared purposes and concerns linking all intellectual pursuits. More particularly, it evokes the scholarly and academic virtues embodied in the curriculum at ������Ƶ.

Sponsors

Africana Studies Department; American Studies Program; Anthropology Department; Caribbean Studies Program; Classics Department; the Shirley Chisholm Project; Communications Arts, Sciences, and Disorders Department; English Department; Film Department; History Department; the Honors Academy; Judaic Studies Department; the LGBTQ Resource Center; Modern Languages and Literatures Department; Philosophy Department; Political Science Department; Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Department; Sociology Department; Women’s and Gender Studies Program; and the Women’s Center at ������Ƶ.

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“Thanks to the generosity of The Tow Foundation, the college will be able to provide students with life-changing mentors who will expand their sense of what is possible to achieve,” ������Ƶ President Michelle J. Anderson said. “Faculty mentors and mentors-in-residence will connect deeply with students, providing them with academic opportunities, opening doors, and enriching their lives. We want to build a commitment to mentorship into the college’s DNA so that excellent mentorship defines the ������Ƶ experience.”

Leonard Tow ’50, founder and chairman of The Tow Foundation, himself knows first-hand how mentorship can transform lives. Tow, who also serves on the Board of Trustees of the ������Ƶ Foundation, recently spoke of his experiences as a student at the College’s 2022 Commencement, where he received the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Pointing to the “gifts” he received at his alma mater, Tow recalled a powerful relationship he developed with his economics professor, Martha Steffy Browne.

“Steffy Browne, an immigrant herself, took me under her wing and introduced me to a life I never knew existed and pushed me to pursue my dreams,” Tow said. “It set me off through graduate school where she was guiding me every step of the way. Giving back does not have to always involve material things,” Tow added. “There are a lot of ways to change lives, including offering your time, guidance, and mentorship.”

A number of programs already constitute a rich mentoring ecosystem at ������Ƶ, including the Mellon Undergraduate Transfer Student Program (MTSRP), which supports transfer students in the humanities; the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, an honors program for minority students pursuing Ph.D.s in specific fields; as well as other mentoring programs in the Office of Academic Affairs, the Immigrant Student Success Office, and the Magner Career Center, among others. The Tow Mentoring Initiative will deeply enrich the existing ecosystem, giving students across disciplines more opportunities to thrive and grow.

Key components of the new Mentoring Initiative include Tow Mentors-in-Residence, the Tow Mentoring and Research Program, the Tow Mentoring Prize, and five Tow Senior Faculty Mentors. The goals are to enhance student opportunities for high-impact academic engagement and faculty-student collaboration; increase the number of students winning prestigious grants and awards; increase the number of students going to graduate school; and enhance junior faculty research, scholarship, and creative endeavors, such as grants, awards, and publishing.

The college is thrilled to have “Gridlock Sam” as its first Tow Mentor-in-Residence. Sam Schwartz is a celebrated transportation engineer and former New York City Traffic Commissioner who will engage with students and faculty over the course of the semester by offering guest lectures and providing formal and informal academic and professional guidance to students. Schwartz helped to launch the Tow Mentoring Initiative with his visit to campus for a special keynote presentation and reception on October 19.

Students will also benefit from the Tow Mentoring and Research Program, which consists of 25 student/faculty collaborative research teams. Students will receive mentoring in research, plus additional workshops on applying for graduate school and awards, coaching on professional presentations, small group meetings on goal setting and time management, and other personalized trainings.

The Tow Mentoring Initiative also supports the mentoring of faculty themselves. The Tow Senior Faculty program supports five senior faculty members from each of the five schools. They work with chairs, deans, and faculty in their schools to mentor junior faculty members to achieve tenure and promotion through excellence in research, scholarship and creative work, teaching, and service.

Professor of Sociology and former Associate Provost Tammy Lewis leads the Tow Mentoring Initiative. She is excited to see how this effort will benefit both students and faculty. “This new initiative provides ������Ƶ with the opportunity to intentionally engage in the process of institutionalizing mentorship on campus for both students and faculty,” Lewis said. “Through the Tow Research and Mentoring Program, we are creating structures to guide students to become agents of their futures and to realize that they have the capacity to shape their own lives and the world around them. Through the Tow Senior Faculty Mentors and the Tow Mentoring Prize, we are providing structured mentorship and recognition for faculty mentors, which deepens a culture of mentorship at the college.”

Fact Box: The Tow Mentoring Initiative

The Tow Mentoring and Research Program includes 25 student/faculty collaborative research teams. Students receive mentoring in research plus additional workshops on applying for graduate school and awards, coaching on professional presentations, and other personalized training.

Tow Summer Intensive, which starts in summer of 2023, will host a program for students, led by a faculty member, to assist them with applying for awards, grants, graduate school, and other opportunities that will help them transform their lives.

The Tow Mentor-in-Residence Program will recruit high-profile, senior scholars and practitioners for structured engagement with students and faculty over the course of a semester. Mentors-in-Residence are outstanding leaders across various fields. They will engage in guest lecturing in select classes, giving talks to students and faculty, and providing formal and informal academic and professional guidance to groups of students.

Tow Senior Faculty Mentors will lead the effort at the five schools at college: Education, Visual, Media and Performing Arts; Natural and Behavioral Sciences; Koppelman School of Business; and Humanities and Social Sciences. This part of the program connects senior faculty with junior faculty in an in-depth peer mentoring experience.

The Tow Mentoring Prize will be awarded annually to a faculty member for excellence in mentoring.

About ������Ƶ

Widely known for its offer of an excellent education at an affordable tuition and recognized nationally for its diverse student body, ������Ƶ has been an anchor institution within the Borough of Brooklyn and greater New York City for more than 90 years. With approximately 16,000 students in more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the arts, humanities, sciences, education, and business, the college is renowned for its rigorous academics, award-winning faculty, distinguished alumni, and community impact. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), ������Ƶ offers a vibrant and supportive student experience on a beautifully landscaped 35-acre campus in the borough’s Midwood neighborhood.

About The Tow Foundation

The Tow Foundation, established in 1988 by Leonard and Claire Tow, supports visionary leaders and nonprofit organizations that serve historically marginalized populations, help individuals contribute to their communities, and champion advancements and experiences that make it possible for all people to live healthy and joyous lives. It invests in innovative programs and reform in culture, higher education, journalism, justice and community wellness, and medicine. For more information, visit or follow The Tow Foundation on , , and .

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Today, ������Ƶ celebrated the achievement of more than 4,000 students at its 2022 Commencement at Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn. The ceremony, which was full of energy, marked the first in-person commencement in two years.

College President Michelle J. Anderson, Provost, and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Lopes, and Vice President for Student Affairs Ron Jackson helped lead the conferring of degrees from the college’s School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences, School of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts, Murray Koppelman School of Business, School of Education, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as the .

Anderson lauded the determination of the Class of 2022, saying that despite everything they faced throughout the difficult times of the pandemic, they stayed the course.

“The graduates sitting here in Barclays today needed an extraordinary kind of commitment to get to these seats,” Anderson said. “They had to tackle rigorous academic work. In so doing, they have been transformed by the power of critical thinking, the scientific method, creativity, and advanced analysis that are the foundations of higher education. They explored new ideas that have shaped their values and beliefs for the future. They have studied with classmates who will become lifelong friends—and they have learned from outstanding faculty members who became their cherished mentors.”

The college also welcomed several distinguished guests, including Mayor Eric Adams; U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer; New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; and the president of New York State Higher Education Services Corporation Dr. Guillermo Linares.

Mayor Adams emphasized the importance of the moment and the impact the Class of 2022 will have on society. “This is your moment to make this country what you want it to be.”

CUNY was also well-represented, as CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez; Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Denise Maybank; and CUNY Board of Trustee members Una S. T. Clarke and Brian D. Obergfell, also attended.

Chancellor Rodríguez called the day “a pure celebration” that validated the graduates’ brilliance, grit, and tenacity and congratulated them for overcoming such an extraordinary set of obstacles to ultimately succeed.

Specifically, ������Ƶ conferred 3,195 baccalaureate and 966 master’s degrees, along with 96 advanced certificates. Included in the Class of 2022 were 10 veterans and service members. In all, 4,257 graduates joined the prestigious ������Ƶ family of more than 160,000 proud alums worldwide.

The valedictorian of the Class of 2022 was Carina D’Urso. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in the . D’Urso earned a perfect 4.00 grade point average and graduated summa cum laude. Following commencement, she will pursue graduate studies in human development and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she plans to concentrate in the arts and learning. The salutatorian was Hafsa Fatima, a Macaulay Honors College graduate and chemistry minor who will receive a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and a B.A. in art. She will be attending The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine.

D’Urso thanked her advisors, peers, and professors for their support and guidance. She also pointed to the influence her grandparents had in her continuing her education. Born and raised in Molise, the smallest region in Italy, neither attended school past the fifth grade. For this reason, D’Urso’s mother always instilled the importance of education in her and her brother.

“As a teenager inspired by the values my mother instilled in me, I became galvanized by the idea of becoming an educator,” D’Urso said. “When it was time to apply for colleges, I knew I wanted to be a commuter student so that I could attend school in the heart of New York City, with countless opportunities at my fingertips. Little did I know how this dream would come true. As a member of the Macaulay Honors College and the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique Interdisciplinary Studies, I built my own major, marrying my passions for the arts, education, and social change.”

Special honorees included Leymah Roberta Gbowee, who served as the honorary degree recipient and keynote speaker. Gbowee is a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and renowned human rights leader who led the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that worked to end the 14-year civil war in Liberia. She is also the founding head of the Liberian Reconciliation Initiative, a forum for the victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to bring about healing and produce a more accurate accounting of the country’s devastating civil war.

Gbowee, who today is the executive director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa, congratulated the graduates and their families. She told the story about when she learned she had won the Nobel Prize and had her first meeting with fellow Nobel Prize winner Desmond Mpilo Tutu. Relaying the advice Tutu gave her, she told the graduates the three most important things to remember when they win: cultivate and hold the values that brought them to the win; always hold onto their integrity and their voice; and when they succeed, also do good by humanity.

“Class of 2022, you will win,” Gbowee said. “In the midst of your winning, you can’t give up on your higher power, whatever that is.”

Other awardees included Leonard Tow ’50, who earned the Distinguished Alumnus Award. Tow is a philanthropist and ������Ƶ Foundation Board of Trustees member. Leonard and his wife, the late Claire Tow ’52, established The Tow Foundation in 1988. Through more than 700 fellowships, scholarships, internships, professorships, and teaching awards, they have enriched the quality of intellectual life for ������Ƶ’s entire campus by providing the means to allow its students and faculty to become exceptional in their fields.

The couple also donated $10 million for the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts at ������Ƶ, which opened in 2018. The state-of-the-art center has transformed the campus footprint and is home to the Conservatory of Music and the Department of Theater.

“To the ������Ƶ family, Len, as he is known to us, needs no introduction. It is safe to say that his positive impact on the ������Ƶ community is unparalleled,” Anderson said. In a particularly touching moment, Anderson helped recognize Tow’s 94th birthday, which was May 30, and the college community sang happy birthday, presenting him with a cake.

The recipient of the Presidential Medal of Honor was Jules Coleman ’68. Coleman is one of the world’s most renowned scholars of law and jurisprudence. Widely acknowledged to have created the field of the philosophy of tort law, as well as inclusive legal positivism, Coleman was the first and remains the most influential advocate of a corrective justice approach to tort law. A first-generation college student, Coleman received his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, magna cum laude, from ������Ƶ in 1968; his Ph.D. in philosophy from Rockefeller University in 1972; and his master of studies in law from Yale Law School in 1976.

About ������Ƶ

Widely known for its offer of an excellent education at an affordable tuition and recognized nationally for its diverse student body, ������Ƶ has been an anchor institution within the Borough of Brooklyn and greater New York City for more than 90 years. With approximately 16,000 students in more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the arts, humanities, sciences, education, and business, the college is renowned for its rigorous academics, award-winning faculty, distinguished alumni, and community impact. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), ������Ƶ offers a vibrant and supportive student experience on a beautifully landscaped 35-acre campus in the borough’s Midwood neighborhood.

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������Ƶ: When did you become interested in law?

JB: I served as the captain of Fort Hamilton High School’s law teams. I was able to fine-tune my public speaking, writing, and reasoning skills, but the most incredible experience was that I got to participate in a moot court competition at the Peace Palace in The Hague in the Netherlands. It was in front of a team of judges who sat on the International Criminal Court. It was there that I became committed to learning about international humanitarian law.

������Ƶ: As a pre-law student, you majored in psychology? What made you choose that field of study?

JB: I was interested in studying psychopathic traits and criminality. I’ve been examining relationship differences between primary and secondary callous unemotional adolescents—two variants of the psychopathy dimension. I think that violent crimes and prison recidivism can be reduced by identifying and addressing the biological and social roots of these particular psychopathic traits and implementing tailored and early intervention.

������Ƶ: Have you received any awards?

JB: I received the Stanley Geen Memorial Award. It’s a grant used to finance pre-law internship and fellowship stipends and tuition fees for LSAT prep courses. Because of the award, I was able to complete an internship at the office of New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. Working there sparked my interest in public interest law. I am so grateful for the opportunities that have opened up for me because of awards like this.

������Ƶ: Any other experiences at ������Ƶ that stand out?

JB: I am a student representative for the Psychology Department’s curriculum committee. I also did work in Professor Ana Gantman’s lab in human morality and in the psychophysiology lab led by Associate Professor of Psychology Yu Gao.

In May of last year, I was an intern at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. I was allowed to assist in ongoing investigations and trial preparation. It was my most informative experience outside of the classroom. It was amazing to be in the courthouse all the time and gain hands-on experience with cases.

������Ƶ: What are your plans?

JB: I have been accepted to Columbia Law School through early admissions and will attend in the fall. I plan on pursuing a juris doctorate and a Ph.D. in psychology. I want to use all of the access, knowledge, and experience I gain to be able to make a difference in chronic issues like crime, poverty, and human rights violations. I’ll know that I’m successful when my work has a much more significant impact, far beyond what I can do now.

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The college will recognize the conferral of 3,195 baccalaureate and 966 master’s degrees, along with 96 students receiving advanced certificates. Included in the Class of 2022 are 10 veterans and service members. In all, 4,257 graduates will join the prestigious ������Ƶ family of more than 160,000 proud alums worldwide.

“Being able to return to an in-person celebration of our students’ remarkable accomplishments is truly something special,” said President Michelle J. Anderson. “How they have endured and persevered is remarkable, and the Class of 2022 represents the best and the brightest ������Ƶ has to offer. I am confident the graduates will make a tremendous impact on the world, just as they did on our campus community.”

The valedictorian is Carina D’Urso, who will receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in the . D’Urso earned a perfect 4.00 grade point average and graduates summa cum laude. Following commencement, she will pursue graduate studies in human development and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she plans to concentrate in the arts and learning. The salutatorian is Hafsa Fatima, a Macaulay Honors College graduate and chemistry minor, who will receive a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and a B.A. in art. She will be attending The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine.

������Ƶ is pleased to announce that, pending CUNY Board of Trustees approval at its May 16 meeting, Leymah Roberta Gbowee will serve as the honorary degree recipient and keynote speaker. Gbowee is a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and renowned human rights leader who led the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that worked to end the 14-year civil war in Liberia. She is also the founding head of the Liberian Reconciliation Initiative, a forum for the victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to bring about healing and produce a more accurate accounting of the country’s devastating civil war. Today, she is the executive director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa, established in Ghana in 2006 as a nongovernmental organization to advance women’s leadership in the governance of the continent’s peace and security.

������Ƶ will bestow its Distinguished Alumnus Award to philanthropist and ������Ƶ Foundation Board of Trustees member Leonard Tow ’50. Leonard and his wife, the late Claire Tow ’52, established The Tow Foundation in 1988. Through more than 700 fellowships, scholarships, internships, professorships, and teaching awards, they have enriched the quality of intellectual life for ������Ƶ’s entire campus by providing the means to allow its students and faculty to become exceptional in their fields. The couple also donated $10 million in seed money for the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts at ������Ƶ, which opened in 2018. The state-of-the-art center has transformed the campus footprint and is home to the Conservatory of Music and the Department of Theater.

The recipient of the Presidential Medal of Honor will be Jules Coleman ’68. Coleman is one of the world’s most renowned scholars of law and jurisprudence. Widely acknowledged to have created the field of the philosophy of tort law, as well as inclusive legal positivism, Coleman was the first and remains the most influential advocate of a corrective justice approach to tort law. A first-generation college student, Coleman received his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, magna cum laude, from ������Ƶ in 1968; his Ph.D. in philosophy from Rockefeller University in 1972; and his master of studies in law from Yale Law School in 1976.

About ������Ƶ

Widely known for its offer of an excellent education at an affordable tuition and recognized nationally for its diverse student body, ������Ƶ has been an anchor institution within the Borough of Brooklyn and greater New York City for more than 90 years. With approximately 16,000 students in more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the arts, humanities, sciences, education, and business, the college is renowned for its rigorous academics, award-winning faculty, distinguished alumni, and community impact. Part of the City University of New York (CUNY), ������Ƶ offers a vibrant and supportive student experience on a beautifully landscaped 35-acre campus in the borough’s Midwood neighborhood.

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Saba Iqbal will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in children and youth studies with a 4.00 GPA. At ������Ƶ, she figured out how to synthesize a passion she developed for kids with her interest in medicine, all while maintaining a position on the Dean’s List every semester she has attended. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

������Ƶ: How was your first year at ������Ƶ?

SI: It was amazing. I made some choices that helped me move toward my career interests and made many friends I consider family today. The Honors Academy, in conjunction with the Magner Career Center, helped me land my first job opportunity as a physical therapy aide. I reviewed strength-training techniques with patients, tracked their walking times and distances, and instructed them on musculoskeletal exercises.

������Ƶ: Why did you decide on children and youth studies with a minor in chemistry?

SI: It started back in high school. I performed well in STEM classes, but I also naturally gravitated toward the subjects. So, I took biology and chemistry courses my first year at ������Ƶ. Then I took a great course called   in my sophomore year and decided that children and youth studies with a minor in chemistry aligned my interests with my future career perfectly.

Children are such a vulnerable yet intellectual group. I am as intrigued by them as I am eager to learn from them. The things I learned in this class were pivotal to realizing that I want to be a pediatrician. Also, my time working as a physical therapy aide solidified my interest in their treatment and diagnosis. I enjoyed taking care of adult patients, but children who came by the clinic gave me joy. After the internship, I shadowed pediatricians at Geo Medical Care Pediatric Clinic. I aided the clinic in its day-to-day operations and tracked patients from infants to toddlers.

������Ƶ: Do you have any interests outside your field of study?

SI: I enjoy doing makeup. I started off doing it on my own, then began to offer makeup services further down the line. With makeup, you must be aware of the variations in the application process because facial structures and skin tones differ so much. Similarly, with patient care, people have unique medical backgrounds, fears, and cultural/ethnic principles that a physician needs to be sensitive to. In this way, being a good physician is just like being a good makeup artist: You need to acknowledge the patients as individuals and make them comfortable to assess care for them properly. Makeup has taught me to pay attention to what I call “the tree within the forest.” What makes the individual. Being a doctor is way more than just tending to physical needs.

������Ƶ: Any advice for future graduates?

SI: Take everything one step at a time. Stay steadfast and do the things you are passionate about.

������Ƶ: What’s next for you?

SI: Graduate school, definitely. I want to continue my studies to become a primary care pediatrician. I won’t name the schools I have in mind because my fingers are still crossed.

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At 5 years old, Zohra Saed and her family fled the destruction of the Soviet-Afghan war and joined the growing diaspora of those leaving Afghanistan for the United States.

As a child, Saed began transcribing the folktales passed down to her by her family and has since used her writing to preserve and maintain her culture. “I’ve never been able to return to Afghanistan; my family was either killed in the war or joined diasporas in other countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, so Afghanistan is both far and close,” says Saed.

She has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, edited One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature, and is the co-founder, with ������Ƶ M.F.A. alumnus Robert Booras, of UpSet Press, an indie publication created to give a platform to people from communities and cultures overlooked or ignored by mainstream publishing. In 2021, she joined the faculty of the Macaulay’s Honors College as a distinguished lecturer.

Yet, for Saed, who graduated from ������Ƶ with an M.F.A. in poetry, her accomplishments as a poet and publisher have been overshadowed by the tragedy of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. What started as a project to translate and preserve older Turkic languages of the Afghan Uzbek culture evolved into something bigger. She was given a manuscript of folk lyrics by a writer in northern Afghanistan just before the Taliban took over.

“He and his family are beautiful, incredible. They had been working for gender equity, developed a school for girls in a rural area, and sports programs for boys and girls, which made them a target for the Taliban,” says Saed. “They wanted the list of the girls in the sports program, and the writer burned the list to protect them. He put his family at risk to go to save these young girls.” The family applied for humanitarian parole but are still in the country.

“I haven’t been able to get them out yet,” says Saed. The urgency coming from her is palpable. “And humanitarian parole comes with a price tag. The application costs $570 for each family member—there are 12 in the family.”

And there are other obstacles. “Countries announce programs to allow Afghan refugees in but cumulatively, allowing 20,000 to come over four years, so 5,000 a year. Then they must pay to travel to the country in addition to the fee for humanitarian parole. So much can happen while they wait,” Saed says. “December was the hardest month; the realization set in that we wouldn’t get refugees out as we hoped. And winter is very cold in Afghanistan—we have 10 different words for snow.”

Keeping the family anonymous while working to get them out is another worry. “We’ve been trying very hard to make sure no one traces them,” says Saed. Although there are safe houses, the Taliban still find and raid them, especially targeting Afghan people who are pushing back.

“There are incredible groups that are resisting, like the national resistance front. They’re the ones standing up against the Taliban. And in the north protestors are being killed secretly; and women activists are being taken as prisoners or abducted and forced into marriages.

Since last summer, more than 75,000 Afghan refugees have made it to the United States, airlifted from Kabul Airport and flown to military bases. In July 2021, H.R.4736, Improving Access for Afghan Refugees Act, was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary to ease the way for asylum in the United States. “But right now there are refugees here in the U.S. in limbo, who have no status, and can’t get jobs because they did not come here through the regular channels of a special immigration visa.”

Saed says there are “incredible organizations giving me advice, like the Center for Women in Journalism, and Women for Afghan Women. And it is through her CUNY community, especially at Macaulay Honors College, that she was able to reach as wide an audience as possible about the poet and his family. Saed’s wants to make sure that they and the rest of the people targeted by the Taliban are not forgotten. Last October, the family’s plight was featured in an article in The New York Times.

“I was in a meeting for new faculty and Dean [Vanessa K.] Valdez from the Macaulay Honors College heard my story and said, ‘Wait, you’re doing what?’ She was wonderful. She helped get me the interview with the Times and got us help to raise funds. We raised $7,000 to pay for the humanitarian parole applications, including donations from corporate lawyers who heard about us and just wanted to help. She is currently working with individuals to find asylum for the families in Europe or South America because few humanitarian parole applications are being accepted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.”

Of the individuals and organizations that have been helping and advising Saed, “I’ve never in my life met such kind people. I’m so moved by this community that comes together at times of great catastrophe.” And with the world now focused on Ukraine, Saed will continue to search for pathways to asylum for the poet, whose goal was to preserve the literary heritage and language of Afghanistan, and is desperately trying to get his family out of his besieged homeland.

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