2008 Archive

@John Jay News and Events of Interest to the College Community

August 27, 2008

Worth NotingSeptember 4 11:30 AMLaunch of the Christian Regenhard Center for EmergencyResponse StudiesFor information, contact Elizabeth McCabe, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs,(212) 237-8918

6th Floor, Haaren Hall

September 12 8:30 AMPrisoner Reentry Institute Occasional Series onReentry ResearchWomen, Reentry and Everyday Life:Time to Work?Venezia MichalsenWomen’s Prison Association

Room 630, Haaren Hall

September 12 9:00 AMInterrogation and Torture Controversy: Crisis in PsychologyPresented by the Center on Terrorism,the Division of Social Issues ofthe New York State Psychological Association and York College

Gerald W. Lynch Theater

September 15 4:00 PM Book & Author LectureFor the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb,and the Murder that Shocked ChicagoSimon Baatz


September 18 3:30 PMFall Faculty & Staff MeetingGerald W. Lynch Theater

September 22-25 Spirit WeekA weeklong series of“Welcome to John Jay” events

Times and locations vary

All aboard! The John Jay Subway Series is in the station, ready for incoming freshmen to begin the “journey of a lifetime.”

The Subway Series is an innovative Web-based learning program aimed at helping new John Jay students make a successful transition from high school to college through what is described as “an (un)common learning experience.” This online experience seeks to “introduce you to some of the disciplines, know-ledge, habits and abilities that you will encounter in your first semesters at college,” President Jeremy Travis tells students in a videotaped intro-duction to the pilot program.

“We chose the subway system as the context for this learning experience because most students will come to John Jay by public transportation,” said interim Dean of Under-graduate Studies José Luis Morín. The flashy yet instructive Web site accompanying the pilot learning program opens with a fanciful render-ing of the Columbus Circle subway entrance that encourages freshmen to “get on track.”

After clicking on the entrance, students find themselves at the turnstiles to a station for an introductory message that explains the learning experience. Another click to “start the journey” brings students inside a subway car, complete with doors that open with a familiar “ding-dong” sound to reveal a route map.

Professor Dara Byrne of the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts serves as the students’ “guide” in a videotaped introduction. She points out: “Imagine yourself as a new pas-senger on this fun and challenging journey. By boarding John Jay’s ‘subway,’ you will learn new academic habits, strategies and abilities that will prepare you for the challenges you will face as you attend college classes.”

The John Jay subway system has nine “learn-ing stops,” each of which introduces the student to a different academic discipline. Students can

get off at one or two of the stops, or as many as all nine.

After selecting a discipline, such as art, mathematics, science, anthropology, sociology or English, students are asked to read online materials that will help them to complete vari-ous assignments, which are then submitted for

review by a Subway Series Evalua-tion Team made up of John Jay fac-ulty. Students then become eligible to win prizes that include Barnes & Noble discount cards, one-month MetroCards and iPods.

“The more stops you take, the more prizes you can win,” Byrne notes.

“We are confident that your par-ticipation in this learning program will help you to develop the skills you will need to succeed at John Jay and beyond,” Travis tells students in his introduction.

The Subway Series learning experience was conceived by Pro-fessor Mark McBeth of the English department and developed for the

College’s Web site by a team from the Depart-ment of Institutional Advancement led by Direc-tor of Communications Christine Godek and including Johnny Taveras, Lenis Perez, Anh Phan and Doreen Viñas. It was unveiled at freshman orientation on August 21 and 22, and formally launched online on August 27.

It has been more than 30 years since John Jay College last offered an English major, but that has now changed with the unveiling of a new undergraduate major that includes what is said to be the country’s first “rich and rigorous curriculum in literature and the law.”

The English major is one of two new curricular offerings at the College, along with a Bachelor of Science program in economics that will include an optional concentration in forensic financial analysis. Both new majors, recently approved by The City University of New York, make their formal debut with the fall 2008 semester.

“Mission-specific” and “writing-intensive,”

according to the proposal approved by the College’s Curriculum Committee, the English major will include a core requirement in Literature and the Law, along with an optional concentration in this field. Students may also opt for a concentration in more traditional literary study.

Designed partly in recognition of the nearly one-third of John Jay students who say they aspire to attend law school, the English major is aimed at developing “moral acuity and independent thought,” according to the proposal. It will provide students with critical skills in analysis and argumentation, and “reinforce the interpretive and linguistic competencies desired of law school candidates.”

The 36-credit major includes a mix of new and existing courses, including “The Word as Weapon,” “Shakespeare and Justice,” “Courtroom Drama,” and “Law in African Literature.” There will also be a capstone Senior Seminar in Literature and the Law.

The new economics major, to be offered by the Department of Public Management, also takes notice of John Jay students’ law school aspirations. Students with a bachelor’s degree in economics are “among the most sought students in law school admissions,” the proposal for the new major states, citing a 1995 study suggesting that a “criminal justice student planning on applying to law school have a dual major or at least a minor in…economics.”

Three concentrations will be offered within the new major: Economic Analysis, Investigation of Economic Crimes, and Forensic Financial Analysis. A new two-course sequence in forensic accounting and auditing will be offered, along with two new senior-level seminars.

With the new economics major, John Jay assumes a leadership position in the rapidly growing fields of economics and crime and the investigation and analysis of commercial and economic criminal activity. Only one other college in the United States is said to offer a bachelor’s degree in economics and crime.

The College’s economics faculty has secured a formal pledge of assistance from the faculty in the Department of Accounting at Borough of Manhattan Community College in further developing the new major.

The largest on-the-job training initiative in John Jay’s history took place to rave reviews on June 19-20. More than 400 employees took part in a variety of professional and personal development workshops, social networking opportunities and entertainment offerings as part of the first Bravo! Employee Summer Institute.

Organized and presented by the college’s Department of Human Resources, the Summer Institute — subtitled “Building the Future Together” — provided dozens of small-group sessions led by in-house experts as well as outside specialists. Participants could learn how to manage their money, deal with difficult co-workers, improve their health and fitness, protect themselves against identity theft, use an iPod or a Facebook account, or run various computer programs.

Each day included a complimentary continental breakfast and lunch, which were provided by corporate sponsors. At the end of a full morning and afternoon of workshops, employees could play softball or volleyball, participate in a yoga session or enjoy a jazz concert in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

“Being so new to the College, I did not know

what to expect but I was profoundly impressed by the buzz and energy in the air,” said Director of Human Resources Services Christel Colon. “Without exception, the feedback then and to date remains enthusiastic. I think the Summer Institute was a great success on so many levels and I can’t wait to do it again next year.”

Making a differenceA week after the Summer Institute, 18 John

Jay employees who are “making a difference” with creative problem-solving and superior customer service were honored as the latest

winners of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards

“It’s not a stretch to say that the satisfaction of being part of the John Jay community comes from knowing that, by doing our jobs well, we provide something of value and importance to the world at large,” President Jeremy Travis said at a June 25 breakfast ceremony.

The newest Bravo! honorees are: Hector Bracero (Facilities), Inez Brown (Strategic Planning), Rima Douglas (Student Activities), Marianne Kahn (Physical Education and Athletics), Katherine Killoran (Undergraduate Studies), Angelos Kyriacou

(Enrollment Management/International Students), Luzennette Lima (Facilities), Marisol Marrero (One-Stop Center), Tara Mastrorilli (Academic Affairs), Shavonne McKiever (Enrollment Management), Litna McNickle (Freshman Services), Selwyn Morris (Facilities), Luis Negron (Media Services), Tyrone Oree (Physical Education and Athletics), Rafael Quiles (Undergraduate Admissions), Cindy Robles (Payroll), Marilyn Simpson (Continuing and Professional Studies), and Crystal Vasquez (Affirmative Action/Disabled Student Services).

President Travis and Senior Vice President Robert Pignatello (center rear) join the Bravo! award

winners in an enthusiastic thumbs-up salute at the June 25 recognition ceremony..

Major Developments: College Adds New English, Economics Programs

John Jay Employees in Summer Spotlight

Freshmen Can “Get on Track” with Subway Series Learning Experience

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES

@ John Jay is published by the Department of Institutional Advancement

John Jay College of Criminal Justice899 Tenth Avenue,

New York, NY 10019www.jjay.cuny.edu

Editor Peter Dodenhoff

Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:Office of Communications

fax: (212) 237-8642e-mail: [email protected]

educating for justice

ON BOARDLAURA DRAZDOWSKI (Physical Education and Athletics) was appointed head coach of the John Jay women’s softball team. Drazdowski, the College’s Assistant Director of Athletics for Marketing and Promotion, served as interim softball coach for the 2008 season, leading the team to a 12-23 record and a fourth place finish in conference play. Over the summer, John Jay

added two other new head coaches. CARL

NEDELL was named women’s tennis coach,

succeeding AMY ROWLAND, who resigned earlier this year. Nedell had previously coached the John Jay men’s tennis team during the 2000 season, and has also coached for Hunter College, James Monroe High School and Forest

Hills High School. JESSICA KOLACKOVSKY will serve as interim coach of the women’s swimming team for the 2008-09 season, filling

in for JANE KATZ, who will be on sabbatical. Kolackovsky served as a volunteer assistant under Katz last season, and also serves as the College’s head lifeguard. She was a Big East Conference

Academic All-Star as an undergraduate swimmer at Seton Hall University. BETWEEN THE COVERSANDREW SIDMAN (Government) has an article, “Forecasting Non-Incumbent Presidential Elections: Lessons Learned from the 2000 Election,” due out in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Forecasting. Sidman also has 12 entries in the recently published Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Election, and Electoral Behavior (Sage, 2008).

MARY GIBSON (History) received a Senior Fulbright Research Grant and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to finish a book on the history of prisons in modern Italy. Her article “Ai margini della cittadinanza: le detenute dopo l’Unità italiana (1860-1915) [At the Margins of Citizenship: Women Prisoners after Italian Unification]” has been published in the journal Storia delle Donne [Women’s History].

NATHAN LENTS (Sciences) had his manuscript “Identification and Characterization of a Novel Mdm2 Splice Variant Acutely Induced by the Chemotherapeutic Agents Adriamycin and Actinomycin D” published in the journal Cell Cycle in June.

DANIELLE SAPSE (Law, Police Science

and Criminal Justice Administration), ELISE

CHAMPEIL and ANNE-MARIE SAPSE (Sciences), working in collaboration with two professors from the University of Rouen, France,

had their paper “Interaction of DNA Fragments with Methyl Lithium” accepted for publication in the journal Comptes Rendus des Séances de L’Académie Française. The paper applies theoretical methods to the study of DNA fragments interaction with methyl lithium and its possible use for criminal investigation.

PRESENTING…EDGARDO DIAZ DIAZ (Foreign Languages) addressed a full house of doctoral students and faculty members at the University of Padova, Italy, on April 22. Diaz, an ethnomusicologist, spoke about the meaning and influence of Italian opera in the Caribbean.

JANICE BOCKMEYER (Government) moderated the roundtable “Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding at 40: The Midlife Crisis of Community Participation?” at the annual meeting of the Urban Affairs Association in Philadelphia in late April. The roundtable explored the impacts of federal community development policies in the 40 years since the War on Poverty urban initiatives.

MARGARET WALLACE (Sciences) was an in-vited speaker at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Korean Academy of Scientific Criminal Investigation. Wallace’s presentation on “Forensic Science: The Interface between Scientific and the Law” discussed the role of forensic biology in hu-man identification and genotyping botanical and entomological samples. Wallace was also named Foreign Editor of the Journal of the Korean

Academy of Scientific Criminal Investigation.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) spoke to the Correctional Services Division of the Los Angeles County Sher-iff’s Department on May 23, about the educa-tional needs of adult offenders and the programs funded by the National Institute of Corrections.

M. VICTORIA PÉREZ-RÍOS (Government) pre-sented a paper on “Western Bias in International Law: Francisco de Vitoria’s Writings and the Third World School” at the International Studies Asso-ciation Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA, in late March.

PEER REVIEWMARIA HARTWIG (Psychology) received the “Early Career Award” from the European Association of Psychology and Law, for her “excellent track-record in peer-reviewed papers in international journals and chapters in national and international volumes, and for being an inspiring example showing how a young researcher from a small place can find her way to a top position in the international arena.”

PETER DODENHOFF (Institutional Advance-ment) recently earned his U.S. Coast Guard merchant captain’s certification. The license, awarded on the basis of experience, test scores, fitness, character references and other criteria, allows the for-hire operation of merchant and recreational vessels in U.S. coastal waters, including charters and yacht deliveries.

In the past, John Jay College has held its biennial International Conference on Justice and Policing in Diverse Societies in such cities as St. Petersburg, Russia; Bologna, Italy; Budapest, Hungary, and London. This June, the conference was sited for the first time in the Western Hemi-sphere, drawing an enthusiastic throng of more than 225 prominent scholars, civic leaders and government officials to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The three-day conference was cosponsored by several leading institutions of higher education in Puerto Rico, including the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, the University of Puerto Rico Law School and El Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez. More than 20 countries from every continent except Antarctica were represented at the June 9-12 gathering, where 45 panel discussions and presentations explored the latest research on various criminal justice topics.

“This conference provided a framework for criminal justice scholars and professionals to share knowledge and discuss strategies to address the most serious challenges of the 21st

century,” said President Jeremy Travis. “John Jay College, our faculty and our conference partners are uniquely positioned to foster this important dialogue.”

Led by President Travis, the John Jay delegation included 75 faculty members, college officials, and doctoral and graduate students.

The conference’s opening plenary address on “Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court,” was delivered by the Hon. Navanethem Pillay, the only African judge of the appellate division of the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Other plenary speakers were Hugo Fruhling, director of the Center for Studies on Public Safety and professor at the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Chile, and Jan J.M. van Dijk, a professor of victimology at Tilburg University in The Netherlands and former Policy Director on Crimes Issues for the United Nations in Vienna.

A number of top government officials from Puerto Rico participated in the conference, at which sessions were held in both English and Spanish. Among them were Miguel Pereira, the commonwealth’s Secretary of Corrections, and

Marta A. Mercado Sierra, a prosecutor with the Puerto Rico Office of Women’s Affairs.

Panelists and presenters discussed a broad array of topics, including governance and cybercrime, counterterrorism, therapeutic jurisprudence, international perspectives on domestic violence, curbing public corruption, Latin American prisons and justice, evolving

sentencing systems, juvenile justice, human trafficking, and much more.

The Office of Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vilá of Puerto Rico underscored the importance of the International Conference by hosting an opening-night reception for attendees at La Fortaleza, the 16th-century fortress in Old San Juan that serves as the governor’s official residence.

A $250,000 grant from the JEHT Founda-tion will allow John Jay College to establish an Arson Screening Project that will marshal the College’s forensic science, law enforcement and legal expertise to develop a process for screen-ing arson cases, apply that process to a grow-ing backlog of “bad science” convictions, and disseminate the assessments to the media and criminal justice agencies.

The screening project will be run by John Jay’s Center for Modern Forensic Practice.

“This will enable the College to utilize its ex-pertise in examining cases where questionable

forensic techniques were used to obtain an arson conviction,” said President Jeremy Travis. “Receiv-ing this kind of support reaffirms John Jay’s posi-tion as a leader in criminal justice research.”

James M. Doyle, the Center’s director, pointed out that the Arson Screening Project was devel-oped in consultation with the Innocence Project, which already has a backlog of arson cases in need of scrutiny. The Innocence Project limits its own direct involvement to cases in which biologi-cal evidence can provide a conclusive answer.

“This funding will enable the Center to collect and evaluate claims of wrongful conviction based

Combine 22 top Arizona police officials, an all-star faculty of current and former law enforce-ment luminaries, the staff of the John Jay Lead-ership Academy, stir thoroughly for three days, and you have the makings of “an unequivocal success,” according to Dr. Ellen Scrivner, the academy’s director.

The program, held in Phoenix from June 24-26, was a first for the academy’s Public Safety Executive leadership Institute, and was presented in conjunction with the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University.

“These sessions afforded participants an opportunity to sharpen their professional skills in responding to the increasingly complex public safety issues they confront daily,” said Scrivner.

The Public Safety Executive Leadership Insti-tute is a unique national program designed solely for top law enforcement officials. Its curriculum focuses on the complex interaction of strategic, cultural and political processes and how they combine to influence the effectiveness of public safety leadership.

The faculty for the Arizona program included

Darrel Stephens, retired Chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC, Police Department and for-mer executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum; Paul Evans, retired Commis-sioner of the Boston, MA, Police Department; Frank Straub, Commissioner of the White Plains, NY, Police Department and an alumnus of John

on the use of a faulty, folk-science of fire indica-tors over the past 20 years,” said Doyle. “For the first time, we will expand beyond the Innocence Project tradition to take a systemic look at old convictions where there is no DNA evidence.”

The project will be led by Doyle, along with Professor Peter D. DeForest of the Department of Sciences and Peter Diaczuk, the Center’s director of forensic science training.

The New York-based JEHT Foundation sup-ports research and best practices in areas relevant to the foundation’s core values of justice, equal-ity, human dignity and tolerance.

Jay, and George DeLama, former Managing Editor of the Chicago Tribune.

The faculty led participants through a series of interactive learning dialogs — the Leadership Academy’s signature activity — to explore real-world, real-time public safety leadership challenges and solve multidimensional leadership

problems. Participants were required to shift their focus from discrete management skills and tactical activities to seeing the “big picture” through action-learning experiences.

The Leadership Academy has been invited to deliver similar executive institute programs in two additional states.

Taking San Juan by Storm:

Biennial Justice ConferenceIs a Multinational Success

President Travis (standing, 4th from left) is joined by a blue-chip array of Puerto Rican officials, international criminal justice

luminaries and John Jay College representatives at the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan during a welcoming reception

before the opening of the International Conference on Justice and Policing in Diverse Societies. Among those on hand were

Professor Mangai Natarajan, chair of the conference organizing committee (seated, 3rd from left) and the Hon. Navanethem

Pillay (seated at right), the only African judge of the appellate division of the International Criminal Court at The Hague,

who was the keynote speaker for the conference’s opening plenary session.

College Experts to Screen Faulty Arson Cases

It’s Back to School for Police Officials:

Leadership Academy Scores with Arizona Road Show


May 7, 2008

Worth NotingMay 12 9:00 AMMedia, Race andCapital PunishmentPresented by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the Center on Race, Crime and Justice, and the Department of Psychology

Featuring David Kaczynski of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, and screenings of the documentaries Race to Execution and Juror Number Six


May 27 5:30 PMCommencementAwards CeremonyGerald W. Lynch Theater

May 28 6:00 PMHonorary DegreeRecipients’ DinnerOffice of the President

May 28 7:30 PM - 11:30 PMNight of the Stars:A Celebration to Honorthe Graduating Class of 2008(Event limited to membersof the graduating class.)

6th Floor, Haaren Hall

May 29 10:30 AM & 3:30 PM2008 Commencement CeremoniesThe Theater at Madison Square Garden

June 2 8:30 AMImmigration and Justice: Where Do We Go From Here?Presented by the Centeron Media, Crime and Justice


Professor John Matteson of the English department recently became the second member of the John Jay faculty to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature. He won the 2008 Prize for Biography for his acclaimed book Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.

The book examines the relationship between the celebrated author of Little Women and her father, the 19th-century utopian idealist and philosopher Bronson Alcott.

Matteson was bowled over by winning the Pulitzer, echoing the words of John Steinbeck when he won a Nobel Prize for Literature, who said he felt “wrapped and shellacked.”

“I am extraordinarily pleased,” said Matteson. “I am so thankful to have been able to do this with and for John Jay College, which hired me when no one else would and has supported me through thick and thin.”

Matteson, who holds a PhD in English from Columbia University and a law degree from Harvard Law School, has taught literature and legal writing at John Jay since 1997. His biography of the Alcotts — the first to examine Louisa May and her father jointly — has been hailed by critics as “engrossing,” “elegantly written” and “impossible to put down.” The book, which was already cited as one of the best

books of 2007, is due out in a paperback edition later this year.

“This is a stunning achievement by a promi-

Once Again, a Pulitzer Prize HasJohn Jay Professor’s Name on It

Professor John Matteson beams after learning that his book Eden’s Outcasts (above

right) won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

A new literary journal that, like John Jay College, takes a multidisciplinary approach to criminal justice issues will make its debut in May.

The J Journal: New Writing on Justice “is framed within John Jay’s principal points of academic focus and was generated when we found no outlet for those writing creatively within the criminal justice field,” said Professor Adam Berlin of the English department, who is co-editor of the journal along with his colleague, English professor Jeffrey Heiman.

The inaugural issue includes fiction, poetry and personal essays examining justice issues from a variety of angles. “Our contributors are professional writers, criminal justice professionals, lawyers, professors, police officers and inmates,” Heiman noted. “Responses to our calls for submissions were enthusiastic and came from all parts of the country.”

The editors foresee two target audiences for the J Journal: readers of literary journals and criminal justice professionals interested in creative writing about such issues. They also hope to build a subscription base that includes libraries, criminal justice institutions, other criminal justice programs and targeted listservs. “Professors might find the journal a fruitful addition to scholarly reading lists,” Berlin added.

Top John Jay students continue to win the notice of various outside entities, as scholarships, fellowships and other accolades —some of them first-time achievements for the College — have been pouring in over the past several months.

“This is great news,” said President Jeremy Travis. “We have developed quality selection processes that have resulted in John Jay students being accepted to prestigious programs.”

Below are highlights about these high-achieving students.

O Kaplan, My Kaplan! John Jay’s first effort to compete in the Kaplan

Leadership Program was an immediate success

with the selection of JANET ARAYA, a criminal justice major. She was chosen along with nine other City University students for the program’s 2008 cohort, its largest to date.

The Kaplan Leadership Program is aimed at helping associate degree students move into and successfully complete a bachelor’s degree.

Araya’s acceptance letter from the foundation noted, “Your academic success, commitment to pursuing your education, the strength of your application and the positive impression you made during your interviews all contributed to our decision.”

Second SteamboatAMANDA INGLE, a junior majoring in

forensic psychology, recently became the second John Jay student to win a prestigious Steamboat Foundation Summer Scholarship.

Like John Jay’s previous Steamboat Scholar, Abdoulaye Diallo, who won the award in 2007, Ingle will be partnered with the Center for Court Innovation. Ingle, a Justice Scholar and president

of the Phi Eta Sigma honor society, is concerned with studying alternatives to incarceration for mentally ill and juvenile offenders.

The scholarship provided by the Greenwich, CT-based foundation allows outstanding students to connect with acknowledged leaders in public, private and nonprofit organizations.

Alpine AmbassadorsAs spring break arrived for John Jay students, a

delegation of 10 high-achieving undergraduates once again made their way to Salzburg, Austria, to serve as student ambassadors to the prestigious 2008 Salzburg International Study Program.

Professors Mark McBeth and Rosemary Barberet led the John Jay contingent, the members of which — all Dean’s List or honors students — included:

ARIE BRAIZBLOT, an international criminal justice major, who plans to pursue graduate study in international relations and a career with a federal or international agency;

KIMMESHA EDWARDS, a forensic psychology major and McNair Scholar, who hopes to pursue a doctorate in clinical

psychology and a law degree with a focus on human rights and gender law;

RICHARD FERRIS, a McNair Scholar majoring in government, who has interned in the office of New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, and hopes to pursue a doctorate in public policy;

DI’INDRA FORGENIE, a justice studies major, who has her sights set on becoming an immigration or international human rights attorney;

RENNAE FRANCIS, a forensic science major from Dominica in the Caribbean, who plans to pursue graduate degrees in criminal justice and business administration;

EDWIN M. HERNANDEZ GARCIA, a Justice Scholar majoring in public administration, who plans to attend law school in hopes of playing a key role in the future development of his native Dominican Republic;

DOMINIQUE MORGAN, a Peter Vallone Scholarship winner majoring in justice studies, who is currently a New York State Assembly intern and hopes to become a lawyer focusing on international human rights;

DAVID MORGANTE, a CUNY Baccalaureate student majoring in international crime and terrorism studies, who served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq and hopes to become a special agent with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security;

ELIZABETH SOTO, a public administration major, who is planning a career as a Foreign Service officer with the State Department, and is currently in line for a summer internship with the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs;

CHRISTOPHER YU, an international criminal justice major, who was recently awarded an internship with the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office, a non-governmental organization.

nent member of our faculty,” said President Jeremy Travis. “We are delighted to join the world in our cele-bration of Professor Matteson’s talents.”

CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein added: “Professor Matteson’s achievement adds to the luster of the University’s impressive roster of award-winning faculty. I congratulate him on winning the Pulitzer Prize for his first book as he joins the winners’ circle of CUNY faculty.”

Mike Wallace, a Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay, won a Pulitzer Prize for History in 1999 for his book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.

A mountain scene that greeted John Jay’s student ambas-

sadors to the Salzburg International Study Program. (More Student Achievers on Page 2)

Literary Journal Tackles Criminal Justice Issues

Spring Semester Brings a Bumper Crop of Student Scholarship & Fellowship Winners









PRESENTING…SUSAN OPOTOW (Sociology) presented a paper on “After the American Civil War: Moral Inclusion and Exclusion in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow Eras” and co-presented “Post 9/11 Conflicts in New York City, 2001-2006” at the Western Social Science Association convention in Denver, CO, on April 25. At the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums in Denver on April 29, she chaired a panel on “Quantifying Fun in the Museum Environment: Results of Recent Research.” An article by Opotow, “Not So Much as Place to Lay our Head: Moral Inclusion and Exclusion in the American Civil War Reconstruction,” was published in the March 2008 issue of the journal Social Justice Research.

GLORIA BROWNE-MARSHALL (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was a participant in an April 12 seminar on the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision. The

seminar was sponsored by the Black History Committee of the Dutchess County Historical Society. Also participating in the seminar was

EDWARD J. SHAUGHNESSY (professor emeritus of sociology).

ELISE LANGAN (Government) presented a paper on “Muslims in Non-Muslim Countries” at the Comparative and International Education Society at Teachers College, Columbia University on March 17. On March 27, she presented her paper, “A Survey of Identity and Attitudes in French Higher and Secondary Education” at the American Educational Research Association in New York City.

ITAI SNEH (History) served as a judge in the “Mock Trial on the Responsibility of States to Take Armed Action to Stop Genocide at the International Court of Justice,” and presented a paper on “Human Rights as the Missing Link in U.S. Foreign Policy: Justice, Politics and Publicity,” at the International Studies Association annual conference, held in San Francisco in late March.

GENE O’DONNELL (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was the keynote speaker at the annual James Connolly/Mike Quill Labor Celebration hosted in March by the Transport Workers Union, Local 100.

BENJAMIN LAPIDUS (Art, Music and Philosophy) will be the scholar-in-residence for

the Jewish Museum of New York’s humanitarian mission to the Jewish community of Cuba from May 27 to June 3. On July 13, he will be performing at the Central Park Summerstage, and in August he will be performing in Japan with celebrated flutist Kaori Fujii.

NATHAN LENTS and DIANA FRIEDLAND (Sciences) both presented their research at the recent annual conference of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, held in San Diego, CA. Lents presented a poster titled “Discovery and Characterization of a Novel DNA Damage-Induced Splice Variant of Mdm2.” Friedland delivered a lecture on “Pokeweed Antiviral Protein, an Unusual Ribosome Inactivating Protein.” She also presented the most recent data from her John Jay laboratory at a poster session, with a poster titled “Characterization of Pokeweed Antiviral Protein’s Interaction with Eukaryotic Initiation Factors and an S/R Loop Oligoribonucleotide.”

BETWEEN THE COVERSANN A. HUSE (English) published a review of Patricia Phillippy’s book Painting Women: Cosmetics, Canvases, and Early Modern Culture in the latest issue of Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History.

ABBY STEIN (Interdisciplinary Studies) published her article “This Is Your Brain on Trauma” in the spring 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychiatry.

Stein was also an invited speaker at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Division 39, held on April 10 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Government) recently had his book Human Rights Education for the 21st Century, which he co-authored with Richard Pierre Claude, published in Portuguese by the University of Sao Paulo Press in Brazil. This is the third foreign language edition of the book; it previously appeared in Japanese and Chinese editions.

PEER REVIEWDELORES JONES BROWN (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) received the 2008 William Bracey Award from the New York Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) on May 7. The award recognizes outstanding achievements benefiting the African-American community.

ROBERT D. MCCRIE (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was recently honored with the Richter H. Moore Jr. Educator Award by the Security and Crime Prevention Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice

Sciences. The award, presented by MARVIE

BROOKS (Library), cited McCrie as a superb teacher who has helped many students to become good practitioners and educators, and who mentors students even after they graduate.

Shaheen Wallace, a junior majoring in government, will take office June 6 as president of the John Jay College Student Council for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Wallace, who served this past year as a member of the council’s Judicial Committee, won the election handily during three days of balloting on March 29 and 31 and April 1.

Serving with Wallace will be vice president Clement James, a graduating senior majoring in criminal justice, who also held that office this

CSTEPping OutTwo John Jay students won prizes at the 16th

annual CSTEP (Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program) Statewide Student Conference, held April 4-6. Four students presented posters in the Natural Science category, with

ANA SANCHEZ taking second place for her presentation on “Depurination of RNA by Pokeweed Antiviral Protein (PAP): FLuorometric Determination of Released Adenine.”

EKATERINA CHADWICK won third prize for “Chiral Recognition of a Fish Pheromone by CD-Sensitive Dimeric Zinc Pophyrin Host.”

A total of eight John Jay CSTEP students and two staff members attended the conference, at which 50 colleges and universities in New York were represented. This marked the second consecutive year in which John Jay students won prizes at the CSTEP conference.

Taking on the WorldA team of John Jay students won the

Distinguished Delegation award at the National Model United Nations Conference that concluded on April 26 — the fourth consecutive year that that John Jay’s Model UN team has brought home a major award.

“Our is the only John Jay team that participates in an academic competition at the international level and wins major awards on a regular basis,” said Professor George Andreopoulos, director of the John Jay Center for International Human Rights and an advisor to the team. “This year’s award is particularly satisfying for me since we were representing Greece” — Andreopoulos’s native country.

The Model UN team is coached by Matthew Zommer, a lecturer in the Department of Government. The delegation members were:

GABRIELE URSITTI, JOSEPH SIMONE,

CHRISTINA LEE, SARAH REHMAN, PATRICK

SCULLIN, ALI BESSYONI, NORHAN BASUNI,

PAWEL MILKO, MONIKA LEKARCZYK,

NORY BOIATCHIAN, LATOYA BROWN,

MEGGIN SIMMERS, SUSANNE DUQUE,

KSENIA KHAIMOVA, YURI HARRY, KAFAY

LOUIE LIANG, ANEESA BABOOLAL, EWA

HELENA HERNIK and RALITSA RUSKI. Research support was provided by students

ARIE BRAIZBLOT, MARGARET COLBERT and

SYBIL D’ANGELO.

Model StudentThe state capitol in Albany came calling for

John Jay junior MALYNDA RASCOE in April, with the news that she had won a scholarship to attend the Model State Senate Session Project. Rascoe, a government major with double minors in history and philosophy, plans to attend law school after graduating from John Jay in 2009, with the goal of getting involved in politics.

The Model Senate Project, administered by the City University’s Edward T. Rogowsky Internship Program in Government and Public Affairs, each year brings together more than 60 CUNY and SUNY students for a series of intensive training seminars on state policy formulation, legislative processes, representation and leadership.

Jolly Good FellowCAROLINA ALMARANTE, a McNair Scholar

and former Salzburg student ambassador, who will graduate May 29 with a bachelor’s degree in public administration, has won a highly competitive Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs.

The fellowship will give Almarante the opportunity to engage in a series of two- to seven-week projects in the St. Louis, MO, area. Completion of the fellowship also comes with automatic admission and possible scholarships to a number of selective graduate programs

It’s Springtime, And Student Achievement Is in Bloom

New President in Store for Student Council

CAMPUS SCENES

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!Faculty members (above) from a wide range of disciplines

who authored books published in 2007 were feted

in President Jeremy Travis’s office on April 8. Their

books, seen displayed at left, included everything from

biographies of Louisa May Alcott and Johnny Depp to

thoughtful examinations of gangs, comparative policing,

issues in constitutional law and philosopher Martin

Heidegger, among other topics.

FREE AT LASTIshmael Beah fields a question from the audience

at the April 10 Book & Author discussion where he

spoke about his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs

of a Boy Soldier. The book chronicles his experience

as a precocious 12-year-old boy in Sierra Leone

who got swept up in that country’s brutal civil war

in the 1990s. Beah became a machine gun-toting

soldier living a drug-fueled life of casual mass

slaughter, before he escaped army life at age 15

with help from UNICEF. Two years later, he made it

to the United States, where in 2004 he graduated

from Oberlin College in Ohio. He is now an

outspoken children’s-rights advocate.

THE PLAY’S THE THINGJonathan Butler, as a defendant, and

Todd Davis, a prison guard, interact in

a scene from In The Moment, a one-

act play staged at John Jay on March

6, followed by a thought-provoking

panel discussion. Written by Butler, a

Hoboken, NJ, police officer, and Ross

London, a former Hoboken judge, and

produced by Professor Lorraine Moller

of the Department of Speech, Theater

and Media Studies, the play challenges

audience assumptions about race, class,

police shootings, black-on-black crime

and prison dynamics. Said London:

“What we are trying to do is...let the

audience take a look from the inside of

the young African-American cop faced

with a life-and-death situation.”

past year. Treasurer-elect Nadine Hylton, a BA/MA student in forensic psychology, was previously a council member at-large. James and Hylton are receipients of the 2008 CUNY Leadership Award.

Class representatives also elected to the 2008 council, include: freshman Benigno Macias; sophomores Stephanie Montero and Natalie Vasquez; juniors Reeshad Ali, Sekou Kesselly, Victoria Oyaniran and Edwin Hernandez; and seniors Attalah Cox and Porfirio Fernandez. Davinder Sahota was elected to an at-large seat.


April 16, 2008

Worth NotingApril 30 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM2008 Alumni ReunionGymnasium

April 30 - May 4 8:00 PMMother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of WarPresented by the Department of Speech, Theatre and Media Studies

Gerald W. Lynch Theater(Call 212-237-8363 for ticket reservations.)

May 2 - 3 9:00 AMHuman Traffickingand Migrant SmugglingPart of the Policing Across Borders Project. Presented by the Center forInternational Human Rights,in collaboration with the Center for Security Studies of the Greek Ministryof the Interior(By invitation. For more information,call 212-484-1353.)


May 6 4:00 PMBehind Bars:Latinos/as in PrisonPresented by the Department ofPuerto Rican/Latin American Studies


May 7 4:00 PMBook & Author LectureCop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern DistrictPeter Moskos


May 12 9:00 AMMedia, Race andCapital PunishmentPresented by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the Center on Race, Crime and Justice, the Department of Psychology, and the Office for the Advancement of Research

Featuring David Kaczynski of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, and screenings of the documentaries Race to Execution and Juror Number Six


One of John Jay’s newest academic innovations, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, was formally launched on March 25 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that also saluted the individuals whose insight and enterprise brought the new center into being.

“What more important thing can we do than celebrate and elevate teaching?” said President Jeremy Travis at the ceremony, before a packed

Get ready, Class of 2008 — your graduation ceremonies are just around the corner!

On Thursday, May 29, at the Theatre at Madi-son Square Garden, John Jay will present degrees to an anticipated graduating class of more than 2,800 students. Duplicating the success of last year’s commencement exercises, there will once again be two graduation ceremonies, one at 10:30 AM and one at 3:30 PM.

The 10:30 ceremony will be for students receiving degrees in computer information systems, criminology, deviant behavior, government, international criminal justice, judicial studies, justice studies, forensic psychology, forensic computing and legal studies, as well as for recipients of dispute resolution certificates.

At 3:30, the College will present degrees in forensic science, corrections, criminal justice, fire science, police studies, public administration,

protection management and security management.

The College will award honorary doctoral degrees to Gary L. Wells, a distinguished professor at Iowa State University and a pioneering expert in eyewitness identification; Ellen Wolf Schrecker, a professor at Yeshiva University and one of the leading historians of the Cold War era, and Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician who is founding director of Partners In Health, an international organization that treats some of the world’s poorest populations.

This year’s commencement-related festivities will also include more than two dozen awards’ ceremonies, receptions, dinners, and a rooftop cocktail party and dance for the Class of 2008.

For complete information on the 2008 commencement, consult the College Website at www.jjay.cuny.edu/academics/1230.php.

A two-day roundtable — “From the Classroom to the Community: Exploring the Role of Education during Incarceration and Reentry” — explored the role education plays in incarceration and reentry, in hopes of bridging the gap between the disparate worlds of corrections and academia.

Hosted by John Jay’s Prisoner Reentry Institute and the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center on March 31 and April 1, the conference drew observers and participants from more than 20 states and from such professional spheres as academia, state and federal government, and the nonprofit sector.

“We gather in this format to explore the difficult, complex and controversial phenomenon of increased incarceration and coming home, what that means for us and our communities,” said President Jeremy Travis, who served as the roundtable’s facilitator.

Travis noted that there has been a “changed national mood” about incarceration and reentry, exemplified by passage of the Second Chance Act of 2007, which would reauthorize a grant program for returning offenders. With this, Travis said, our government is “making a statement about investing in people coming back from prison.”

Topics raised by roundtable participants ranged from the moral imperative of providing inmates with an education to the practical means for doing so and the strategic reasons why it serves the best interests of communities. Asked for one good idea that would move the field forward, they responded with such suggestions as creating educational programs for inmates that could be transferred to schools on the outside; an information campaign for the public on how correctional education helps improve public safety; forming strategic partnerships that would raise employment among ex-convicts; and fostering the understanding that small measures can create big changes over time.

In a presentation titled “Race, Poverty, and

Education: Intersections with Incarcerations and Reentry,” Theodore M. Shaw, former president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, commented on the lack of a civil rights movement, such as there was in the 1960s, that would include the incarcerated. While there are civil rights organizations, he posited, there is no “organic movement” to draw people committed to these issues.

Exploring the significance of providing post-secondary education for prisoners, Jeanne Woodford, a former warden at San Quentin and now chief adult probation officer for San Francisco County, CA, maintained that college is important to inmates.

“San Quentin is popular for its college programs,” she said. Under California laws, returning inmates are released back into

their old communities, many of which have unemployment rates of 40 percent. “This makes it hard to succeed with or without college.”

Myriad challenges exist to providing post-secondary education for inmates. Participants pointed to resistance from lawmakers who consider basic education in prison an amenity. Furthermore, they noted, the Internet has had such an enormous impact on education that if that technology cannot be used as a tool in inmate education programs to contact libraries, it will be tremendously difficult to provide college-level scholarship.

Steve Schwalb, a veteran correctional administrator who is president and CEO of Pioneer Human Services, cautioned, however that “leadership on technology needs to come from prison administrators, not educators.”

house in the center’s new office space in Room 333 Haaren Hall. The center, whose stated aim is “making teaching visible and valued,” is under the direction of Meghan Duffy, a 1999 graduate of John Jay who is currently a PhD candidate in theater studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

At the ribbon cutting, Provost Jane Bowers gave a special tip of the hat to the person she called her “noodge-in-chief,” Kathy Killoran, who brought the center from concept to reality. “The center,” said Bowers, “will put John Jay on the map as a place that really knows how to teach.”

One of the first initiatives by the center is the production of an e-handbook providing a variety of helpful information for faculty at John Jay, which will be accessible on the College Intranet.On April 1, the center and the Lloyd Sealy Library co-sponsored a workshop titled “Exploring the Web of Knowledge,” aimed at helping faculty members and graduate students learn how to track experts from a wide range of disciplines who are citing their publications.

The launch ceremony included a tribute to Professor Betsy Gitter, who recently retired after a long career as a faculty member in the Department of English. President Travis presented

Improving Reentry Through EducationConference Looks at Role of Colleges in Aiding Ex-Offenders

Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies Jose Luis Morin has the happy assignment of presenting Vaneza Guevara (center)

with the 2008 Prisoner Reentry Fellowship, created and funded by El Diario/La Prensa, as the newspaper’s Publisher and

CEO, Rossana Rosado, looks on. The fellowship, presented at the prisoner reentry conference on March 31, gives a high-

achieving undergraduate a $1,000 prize and the opportunity to work with the College’s Prisoner Reentry Institute.

The Big Day Nears forGraduating Class of 2008

Center Makes Teaching “Visible & Valued”

Gitter, who served as the first interim director of the center, with the first “Innovations in Collaboration Award” in recognition of her “contributions to the life of the College over so many years.” The award will become an annual honor presented to a John Jay faculty member in Gitter’s name.

“I’ve had fun every year I’ve been here,” said Gitter. “I’ve had an enviable career, and the collaboration with colleagues has been wonderfully invigorating.”

Meghan Duffy, director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, and re-

cently retired English professor Elisabeth Gitter, who served as the center’s interim

director before Duffy. {Photo: Steve Singer]


@ John Jay is published by theDepartment of Institutional Advancement







BETWEEN THE COVERSTODD CLEAR (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) has had his book Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Communities Worse (Oxford University Press, 2007) chosen as one of the finalists for the annual C. Wright Mills Book Award, presented by the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Government) recently published “The Challenges and Perils of Normative Overstretch” in The United Nations and the Politics of International Authority (Routledge, 2008). Andreopoulos was also recently a Visiting Professor at the Institut des Études Politiques of the University of Toulouse in France, where he lectured on “Crimes of War and Crimes of Peace.”

PEER REVIEWGLORIA PRONI (Sciences) has been selected by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation to receive a 2008 Special Grant in the Chemical Sciences. The $31,180 award will support Proni’s project titled “Chemistry is All Around Us.”

PRESENTING…EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English) was the invited keynote speaker on March 18 at the spring faculty development workshop at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Her topic was “Creating Inclusive Pedagogies for Diverse Classrooms: Building Bridges and Forging Links.”

ELLEN BELCHER (Library) presented a paper titled “Interpreting Halaf Figurines: Empirical Proposals” at the recent annual conference of the British Association of Near Eastern Archaeologists, in Liverpool, UK. On March 4, she presented a paper on “The Halaf Beads and Pendants from Domuztepe (Kahramanmara, Turkey): Technological and Reductive Strategies,” at the Sixth International Conference on Chipped and Ground Stone Tools of the Fertile Crescent, in Manchester, UK.

GABRIELLE SALFATI (Psychology) was the featured speaker in March at the monthly meeting of the Society of Professional Investigators in Manhattan. Salfati is director of

the College’s Offender Profiling and Crime Scene Analysis Research Unit.

JEREMY TRAVIS (President) gave the Orison S. Marden Lecture at the New York Bar Association on March 19, on the subject of “Race, Crime and Justice: A Fresh Look at Old Questions.”

Professor Delores Jones Brown of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration was formally announced as director of the College’s Center on Race, Crime and Justice on March 26, after having served as the center’s interim director since late 2005.

“This is an auspicious day for John Jay,” President Jeremy Travis said at a reception honoring Jones Brown. “This center will be one of the most important activities for the College in the decades to come. Nobody else does this. Professor Jones Brown nurtured the center through its incubation stage and put it on the map.”

To date, the center has sponsored or co-sponsored a variety of seminars, symposia and discussions on such topics as stop-and-frisk

John Jay faculty will continue to make a powerful contribution to the nation’s anti-terrorism and domestic security efforts, aided by $580,063 in new multiyear grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The funds will be used to support education, research and professional development aimed at training the next generation of homeland security experts and scholars.

According to President Jeremy Travis, the homeland security grants “solidify John Jay’s role as a premier research institution for the study of terrorism and other domestic security issues.

The Elmira, NY, area is home to four correctional facilities, as well as to an unusual mixed-race neigh-borhood known to locals as “Zebratown.” For the past several years, the area has also served as a part-time home of sorts for John Jay Professor Greg Donaldson. His forthcoming book, with the working title of Zebra-town, will examine issues of prisoner reentry through the lens of ex-convict Kevin Davis, one of the area’s residents.

On March 27, before a standing-room-only audience, Donaldson dis-cussed the genesis of his research, some of the pitfalls he has encountered, and the process of writing what he calls “creative nonfiction.”

A member of the Department of Speech, Theater and Media Studies, Donaldson first met Davis while doing research for his book The Ville: Cops and Kids in Urban America (Ticknor & Fields, 1993), a no-holds-barred look at life in New York City’s tough Brownsville neighborhood.

Davis, known by the street name Killer Kev, served 10 years in prison for murder, and did two things upon his release. He decided not to return to New York City, but rather to remain in Elmira, in the Zebratown section that was home to nu-merous other ex-inmates and mixed-race couples and families. He also promptly got in touch with Donaldson.

Donaldson acknowledged that he had been eager to research and write a book about a per-son “behind the gangsta types in rap songs,” although he admitted that his motivation was fraught with misgivings. “Why would I want to write about and reinforce a stereotype?” he mused. “I realized a good story isn’t enough.

The fact is that we’ve become addicted to certain stereotypes.” He then decided to try writing a book about “Killer Kev’s reentry into society.”

A hulking, hyper-alert man with zero tolerance for disrespect, Davis “always wanted to be a star, and saw the possibility of a new book about him as a capstone to his career,” Donaldson said.

Methodically fielding a steady barrage of ques-tions from the students and faculty members in the audience, Donaldson said he made sure Davis was aware that his story would be told “flaws and all.” He approached the research and writing of the book “as a journalist, not an academic.” The research included numerous visits to Elmira to meet with Davis and his wife, a white woman from Pennsylvania. He used court records, prison records, diaries, interviews and other sources to come up with the truth of the story. “You have to triangulate your data, and you have to have 20 times more information than you’re likely to use,” Donaldson said. Through it all, he never found Davis to exaggerate “even one single bit.”

Davis has visited Donaldson’s “Criminal Justice in the Theater” class, where he always comes off as “polite, soft-spoken and understated.”

These grants will help to support innovative faculty projects that will prepare our students for future leadership roles.”

One three-year grant of $291,835 will fund a team of researchers from the CUNY Graduate Center and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This funding will enable the institution to recruit, support and train an interdisciplinary group of criminal justice faculty and students in the CUNY Criminal Justice Doctoral Program and the undergraduate John Jay Criminal Justice Honors Program to teach and conduct research on homeland security and terrorism, targeting

Smilesof Fame

The newest members of the John Jay Athletics Hall of Fame sport high-wattage smiles after

their March 19 induction ceremony. Joined by former Director of Athletics Susan Larkin (left)

and her successor, Davidson Umeh (right), the inductees are: Derrick Tinsley, basketball and

baseball; Gregory Andrew, basketball; Carri Raffone, softball, and William Allard, pistol

shooting. Full details on the athletic greats and their accomplishments can be found by visit-

ing the Hall of Fame on the fourth floor of Haaren Hall.

Professor’s Book Sizes Up LifeAfter Prison in “Zebratown”

Federal Funds Help Train New Homeland Security ScholarsPresident Travis introduces Professor Delores Jones Brown as the new Director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice.

practices, the death penalty, racial profiling, the Scottsboro Boys case, prisoner reentry and minorities in policing. The center recently welcomed its second visiting scholar, Rod Brunson, an assistant professor of justice studies at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

The center is a continuation of an idea that Travis first began to consider while he was a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Seed money to plan and create the center was provided by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation.

A former Monmouth County, NJ prosecutor, Jones Brown received high praise from Dean for Research James P. Levine for her “boldness, inclusiveness and congeniality.” He noted that she received an award for excellence from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2006 for her work in launching the center.

Race, Crime & Justice Center Gets Permanent Director

Jones Brown Removes “Interim” from Title

THOMAS A. KUBIC (Sciences) moderated a session on forensic microscopy at the recent 46th Annual Eastern Analytical Symposium in Somerset, NJ. Among the more than 3,500 scientists and students in attendance were John

Jay science faculty members PETER DE FOREST,

NICHOLAS PETRACO and PETER DIACZUK.

applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups.

Under the direction of Professors Stephen Rice of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration and Joshua Freilich of the Department of Sociology, this grant will also afford students the opportunity to participate in internships with peer institutions as well as develop and present their own empirical research.

A second grant, totaling $288,768, will fund a project titled “Educating Tomorrow’s Homeland Security Leaders Today.” Led by Professor Peter

Romaniuk of the Department of Government, the project will enhance the focus of John Jay’s graduate curriculum on homeland security, and increase the ability of junior faculty members to conduct research into homeland security topics involving the social, behavioral and economic sciences.

The grant will also help to create a Homeland Security Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (HS-STEM) community of students and support the recruitment and retention of minority graduate students interested in homeland security careers.

Professor Greg Donaldson (rear, at microphone) discusses the five years of research that

went into the writing of his manuscript Zebratown.


March 26, 2008

Worth NotingMarch 27 12:30 PM“Zebratown”A research discussionby Professor Greg DonaldsonPresented by the Center on Race,Crime and Justice, the Department of Speech, Theater and Media Studies,the Department of African-American Studies, and the Office for the Advancement of Research


April 3 3:15 PMThe DNA Wars: Science, Law and Controversy in the Making of DNA ProfilingProfessor Jay Aronson,Carnegie Mellon UniversityPresented by the Office for the Advancement of Research


April 7 5:30 PMGraduate Lecture SeriesPoisoning: The Interface betweenClinical and Forensic ScienceDr. Lewis Nelson, Director,New York City Poison Control Center

Multi-Purpose Room, North Hall

April 10 3:30 PMBook & Author LectureA Long Way Gone:Memoirs of a Boy SoldierIshmael Beah

Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby

April 11 8:30 AM - 5:15 PMLiterature and Law ConferencePresented by the Department of EnglishRegistration required. Online athttp://literatureandlaw.blogspot.com

Various campus locations

The Second Annual Law Day at John Jay, held on March 1, turned into a day of firsts, as the College presented its first John Jay Medal for Justice to the Hon. Judith Kaye, the first woman to serve as Chief Judge of the State of New York.

John Jay, one of the nation’s founding fathers, was the first person to hold the chief judgeship in New York.

At the Law Day event, sponsored by the College’s Pre-Law Institute, Kaye delivered the first Samuel and Anna Jacobs Foundation Lecture on the Law and the Legal Profession. Kaye told the more than 250 students who had come to learn more about legal careers that they should believe in themselves and have the confidence to pursue their dreams.

“However difficult your path may seem, the only obstacles are the ones you create,” the Chief Judge said. “No calling offers so many opportunities to contribute to policy-making, change the world or change one person at a time.”

Gender biases were very noticeable when Kaye first entered the legal profession, she recalled, with separate ladies’ entrances to the court and a separate lunch club for women. In fact, she said, some challenges still exist with regard to promoting diversity in the legal system.

Kaye drew a parallel between John Jay the

man and John Jay College, noting that both are committed to justice. “John Jay College carries forth its namesake John Jay’s tradition of commitment to the public good and advancement of our collective knowledge in the rule of law,” she said, calling the College “a great local, state and global leader” and President Jeremy Travis a “cool, dynamic president.”

The Law Day event included workshops and panel discussions on the law school application process, financial aid options and how to prepare

Shannon R. Mayers, a long-time veteran of the New York City performing arts scene, joined the John Jay community on March 10 as the College’s new Theater Services Director.

Mayers was director of production at the Arts World Financial Center in New York from 2002-2007, and production manager at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College from 1998-2000. She is no stranger to the City University, having served as an adjunct professor of drama, theater and dance at Queens College.

In the summer of 2007, Mayers was program director for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, where she negotiated the largest income-generating event for the park, the Microsoft Zune Concert, and increased revenues for the park and the conservancy.

She has also worked with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Theater for a New Audience, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and the Ellen DeGeneres show, among other venues.

“I am confident that her broad knowledge of the arts and the educational community will help expand, enhance and transform the theater’s ongoing mission at John Jay to become a substantial performing arts center,” said Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Robert Pignatello. “She will help integrate this enormous asset into the life of our students, the curriculum and the outside community.”

After an exhaustive national search, President Jeremy Travis named Dr. Jane Bowers as the College’s new Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Travis formally announced the appointment to enthusiastic applause at the Spring Faculty and Staff Meeting held on March 3. Bowers had been serving as interim Provost since July 1, 2007. Previously, she was John Jay’s Dean of Undergraduate Studies.

“Jane is passionately devoted to our College,” Travis said. “In a time of historic change at John Jay, we are fortunate to have as our academic leader someone with deep knowledge of our community, creative

ideas about ways to support scholarship and teaching, and strong interpersonal skills. I am confident that she will provide energetic and creative leadership during the critical next phase of our journey toward academic excellence.”

Travis specifically noted that during Bowers’ tenure as interim Provost, she has created new financial and budgetary systems, opened new lines of communication with fellow administrators and the faculty, forged new relationships between Academic Affairs and Student Development,

and worked to recruit and retain “the very best faculty.”

As Dean of Undergraduate Studies, and

On With the ShowCollege Names New Theater Director

Law Day Is a Blue (and Gold)-Ribbon Event as College Salutes New York’s Chief Judge

Speakers Map Out Paths to Legal Careers for John Jay Students

for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Attendees also learned about life as a law school student from a distinguished panel of John Jay alumni who are now practicing law.

One of those former John Jay students on hand for Law Day was Bronx Supreme Court Justice Wilma Guzman, a 1978 graduate who was the day’s Alumni Honoree. Guzman urged the students to “work in the trenches, and know everything there is to know.”

“The American Dream happens every year at John Jay,” Guzman said.

President Jeremy Travis presents New York State Chief Judge Judith Kaye with the first-ever John Jay Medal for Justice at

the second annual Law Day event on March 1. At right, Bronx Supreme Court Justice Wilma Guzman, a 1978 graduate of

John Jay, with her Alumni Honoree award.

“Energized” Bowers Named as Provost

Dr. Jane Bowers is all smiles after the formal an-

nouncement of her appointment as Provost and

Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

subsequently as interim Provost, Bowers played a key role in the design and implementation of educational partnerships with CUNY community colleges and the development of new liberal arts majors at John Jay.

Bowers, who was a member of John Jay’s English department faculty from 1987-1997, said she was “excited by the opportunity come back to a college I love and help shape its future. It’s a privilege and a dream come true.”

“I have a lot of ambition for the College,” Bowers said, “and I’d like to help students realize their ambitions. Love is not too strong a word for how I feel about the students here.”

One of the best parts of her job, Bowers said, is getting to know the future faculty of John Jay through her involvement in the recruitment process. “It’s exciting to have all this fresh energy and vision.”

“I am gratified and very much energized by President Travis’s vote of confidence in me, and the many expressions of congratulation I’ve gotten from colleagues at John Jay.”

With the recent spate of championship seasons accumulating for John Jay College athletic teams, the co-ed rifle team was not about to be left behind. On March 1, the team captured its fourth Mid Atlantic Conference (MAC) title in five years, capping off a winning season that began back in October.

The championship-winning meet in Cambridge, MA, included a 2028-1909 victory over Massachusetts Maritime Academy in small bore rifle. In a three-way matchup in the air-rifle discipline, the John Jay team shot a 2131 to defeat SUNY Maritime College, with 2095, and Massachusetts Maritime, with 1984.

Competing in the Mid Atlantic Conference, since the CUNY Athletic Conference does not include a rifle program, the John Jay shooters

regularly compete against Hofstra University, the University of Akron, Virginia Military Institute, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and the US Naval and Coast Guard academies,

among other schools. Leading the rifle team in the

championship meet, as he had all season, was sophomore Stephen Wilson, who scored 562 in small-bore and 548 in air rifle.

The rifle team’s victory also brings to four the number of John Jay athletic teams that are reigning conference champions, along with the baseball, men’s cross-country and men’s basketball teams. At a victory celebration on March 4, head rifle coach Vincent Maiorino acknowledged the championship company his team

was keeping. “It’s nice to be among the elite in the College along with the basketball, baseball and cross-country teams,” he told the audience. “I also would like to thank the many who have supported us through all our success.”

Once Again, Rifle Team Finds Its Mark

Head coach Vincent Maiorino (right) and the championship John Jay rifle team.









The annual “wearing o’ the green” took place March 14 at John Jay, as the McCabe Fellowship Breakfast honored a “firm advocate, supporter and fan” of the College, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

The event celebrates the exchange program that was created in memory of Irish police detective Jerry McCabe, who was killed in the line of duty during an attempted robbery in June 1996. Each year, two or more members of An Garda Síochána, the Irish national police, come to John Jay for an intensive course of study toward a graduate degree.

Quinn was introduced by President Jeremy Travis, who called her “someone known to this community, the community of people who care about policing.” Travis recalled how, in the aftermath of the murder of John Jay graduate student Imette St. Guillen in February 2006, “Christine Quinn came through for us and we were able to turn our grief into something very positive,” namely the all-day Nightlife Safety Summit that was held at the College in September of that year.

With the summit session, Quinn told the audience, “John Jay College lived up to the best sense of what a public university should be about.”

Quinn, whose support for the NYPD includes a successful effort to provide upgraded, customized body armor for all uniformed officers, praised police by noting that they exhibit “a tremendous amount of bravery to do a job with far less recognition than they deserve.”

Over the next year, Quinn said, “I hope to deepen the City Council’s commitment to people in our uniformed services.”

One of numerous speakers who paid tribute to the ongoing success of the McCabe Fellowship program, Quinn called it “a great opportunity to learn, to plagiarize even, and to do the most we can to provide the best police training we can.” She was followed to the podium by Mary

Hanafin, the Irish Minister for Education and Science, who noted that “the top education provided at John Jay College makes a major contribution to the success of policing in Northern Ireland.”

“This is a College very much rooted here in New York, yet with an international outreach and influence,” said Hanafin.

Continuing on the morning’s theme, Sir Hugh Orde, Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said the McCabe Fellowship “demonstrates just how much good can come from something so tragic.” Niall Burgess, the Irish Consul General in New York, recalled that Detective McCabe “embodied excellence in policing in every respect.” The McCabe breakfast, he added, has become “an extraordinarily important event on a busy St. Patrick’s Day calendar in New York.”

Anne McCabe, the slain detective’s widow, pointed out “how consoling it is for me and my family to stand shoulder to shoulder with people who stand for the same rights and beliefs as we.”

“Of all the memorials to Jerry,” she said, “the fellowship program at John Jay has a very special place in my heart.”

This year’s McCabe fellows are Gardaí Eleanor O’Halloran, who is in the Public Administration-Inspector General program, and Olivia Markham, who is pursuing a master’s in criminal justice. They will both complete their graduate studies at John Jay this summer.

PRESENTING…YI HE (Sciences) recently presented a work titled “Determination of Chloroanilines in Environmental Waters Using Hollow Fiber Supported Liquid-Liquid Microextraction,” at the Pittcon 2008 conference held in New Orleans March 2-7.

BETWEEN THE COVERSJOSHUA FREILICH (Sociology) co-authored a research brief, “Surveying State Police Agencies about Domestic Terrorism and Far-Right Extremism,” that the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) recently published. The lead

author of the brief was JOSEPH SIMONE JR., a graduating senior at John Jay, who was awarded two START undergraduate research fellowships to work with Freilich and Professor Steven M. Chermak of Michigan State University on the project.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) authored an article titled “Providing Incentives to Offenders in the Reentry Process,” which appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Community Corrections.

EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English) had a paper, “Judicial Syntax: A U.S. History,”

published in the conference proceedings of the Second European IAFL Conference on Forensic Linguistics/Language and the Law. The paper was originally presented at the International Association of Forensic Linguistics (IAFL) Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

DOROTHY MOSES SCHULZ (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) co-authored an article, “Making Rank: The Lingering Effects of Tokenism on Female Police Officers’ Promotion Aspirations,” which appears in the March 2008 issue of Police Quarterly. Professor Carol A. Archbold of North Dakota State University was her co-author.

PEER REVIEWDANIELLE SAPSE (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) received a $3,000 PSC-CUNY grant for research into the application of theoretical methods to forensic science and its legal aspects, and the presentation of the results in a series of lectures at the University of Rouen in France this fall.

JOSEPH KING and SERGUEI CHELOUKHINE (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) were elected as distinguished professors of the Russian Academy for the Study of National Security. In addition, their article,

“Corruption Networks as a Sphere of Investment Activities in Modern Russia,” which was featured in the March 2007 issue of the Journal of Communist and Post-Communist Studies, was named one of the “Top 25 Hottest Articles” for 2007 by the website ScienceDirect.

RICHARD KOEHLER (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration, retired) was recently honored by the municipal government of Valadares, Brazil, for the 15 years of service that he and his law firm, Koehler & Isaacs LLP, have provided to Brazilian immigrants living in the United States. The 23-attorney, New York-based firm specializes in immigration, labor and employment, personal injury, real estate, criminal, matrimonial and general practice cases.

CAMPUS SCENES

An aggressive sign-up period has begun to encourage John Jay students, faculty and staff to participate in CUNY Alert, the new university-wide emergency notification system that will soon go online

CUNY Alert will enable the University’s campuses to provide alerts and timely information in emergencies, such as severe-weather scenarios, fires and bomb threats, civil disturbances, major road closings and threats to personal safety. Participation is elective in the secure, Web-based alert system, which will provide messages ranging from specific instructions to general warnings, depending on the severity of a given incident.

By signing up online at www.cuny.edu/alert — or on campus at one of several information kiosks — participants can choose how they wish to receive voice or text notifications: cell phone, home phone, e-mail or IM, or any combination of these. The Web page provides step-by-step instructions for signing up, and the process takes less than two minutes.

“The College is committed to doing all we can to ensure the safety of all members of the College community,” said President Jeremy Travis. “CUNY Alert will help us achieve this goal.”

Sign Up Nowfor CUNY Alert

Professors Joseph King and Serguei Cheloukhine with their

credentials from the Russian Academy for the Study of

National Security.

Irish Eyes Are Smiling atAnnual McCabe Breakfast

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO . . .One of the world’s leading experts on torture, Dr. Darius Rejali, a professor of political science at Reed College in Oregon and

author of Torture and Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2007), addressed a full house of students and faculty at John

Jay on March 13 on the subject of “Torture, Democracy and Our Future.” Presented by John Jay’s Center for International

Human Rights and the CUNY PhD/MA Program in Political Science, Rejali noted that throughout history, democratic societies

have sometimes set the pace when it comes to torture, although their track record is nowhere near as bad as that of

authoritative regimes. Torture, Rejali said, remains “an absolute danger to democratic life.”

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gestures during her remarks as

keynoter at the annual McCabe Fellowship Breakfast on March 14.

LIFE OF RILEY . . .New Orleans Police Superintendent

Warren J. Riley gave the Big Apple a

taste of policing in the Big Easy when he

visited John Jay on February 27 as the

keynote speaker for the annual Lloyd

Sealy Memorial Lecture, co-sponsored

by the College and the New York chap-

ter of the National Organization of Black

Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).

Riley, a 27-year policing veteran, took

the reins of the New Orleans depart-

ment in the fall of 2005, less than a

month after his city was devastated by

Hurricane Katrina.

REMEMBERING JIM FYFE . . .Dean for Research James Levine presents the 2008 Fyfe Fellowship award to Kevin McCarthy, at the 2nd James Fyfe Police Ac-countability Conference, “Stop and Frisk: Policy, Practice and Research,” on February 28. On hand to remember the late John Jay distinguished professor were (from left): Fyfe’s widow, Dr. Candace McCoy; Dr. Karen Terry, executive officer of the PhD Program in Criminal Justice; 2007 Fyfe Fellow Charles Lieber-man; Levine; Fyfe’s sister, Dorothy R. Fyfe; Dr. Delores Jones Brown, director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice; and McCarthy.


March 5, 2008

Worth NotingMarch 10 9:15 AMHigh-Tech Surveillance Societies and Our PrivacyPresented by the Center forCybercrime StudiesJeff Jonas, Chief Scientist,Entity Analytic Solutions


March 14 8:30 AMMcCabe Fellowship BreakfastGuest speaker: New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

Auxiliary Gymnasium

March 21 8:30 AM - 10:00 AMPrisoner Reentry InstituteOccasional Series onReentry ResearchTransitional Jobs for Formerly Incarcerated IndividualsDan BloomMDRC


March 27 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMGraduate Lecture SeriesThe Physical Evidence Record and Alternate Sources of Information in Criminal InvestigationsProfessor Peter DeForestScience Department


The New York Giants are no longer the only underdog champions in town. The John Jay Bloodhounds on February 22 capped a Cinderella run through the CUNY Athletic Conference post-season tournament with a stirring 68-54 victory over York College to capture the College’s first-ever men’s basketball championship.

The top-seeded and heavily favored York team had beaten John Jay handily during the regular season, and took the court for the finals as the conference’s two-time defending champion. The Bloodhounds, meanwhile, began the tournament as the sixth seed with a 10-15 regular-season record, but proceeded to knock off the College of Staten Island (CSI) and New York City College of Technology en route to the championship game.

It was the team’s first appearance in the finals since 1990, and the players made the most of it.

“I thought we were supposed to be the underdog in this game,” said President Jeremy Travis. “Apparently someone forgot to tell our players.”

The Bloodhounds’ wounded warrior, senior forward Hakeem Kased, won the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award for his 13-point performance in the finals and 23-point outburst in the quarterfinals against CSI, as well as his constant on-the-court leadership.

“This means everything,” said Kased, the team captain, who was in tears after the final buzzer sounded and his team’s championship became official. “This is for four years of hard work, for

all the running. This is for all the student-athletes who have too much on their plates. I knew that if we played consistently in this tournament, no one could stop us.”

Kased’s own plate is kept full with athletics, academics and a full-time job with the New York City Transit Authority, where he works the overnight shift as a track maintainer. He missed the entire 2006-2007 season with a knee injury, and played much of this season with a variety of ailments, including an injured back.

His teammate Vaughn Mason, a junior forward, led the Bloodhounds with 14 points in the championship game before fouling out. Both Mason and Kased were named to the all-tournament team.

“It’s a tremendous compliment to see these young men who believed in the coaches and themselves, day in and day out, to get to this point and get out there and do it on the court,” said third-year head coach Charles Jackson.

The men’s basketball team next moves on to its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III post-season tournament, against an opponent yet to be determined.

Hometown HeroChris Jaeger, a sophomore forward for the

Bloodhounds, was featured in the February 11 sports section of USA Today, in an article focusing on his experience with the U.S. Army in Iraq for 12 months in 2004 and 2005.

Jaeger compared heroics on the basketball

court with heroics under fire, saying: “In sports, a good athlete has good instincts. Same with being a good soldier. You want to be someone you can count on. You don’t have to sit there and think about what to do.”

His experience in Iraq, he said, gave him a

deeper appreciation for basketball, which he was unable to play in the extreme conditions of the war zone. “Basketball was always where I could forget all my problems,” he said. “That was the one thing you could do to relieve your stress over there and you didn’t have that option.”

The John Jay men’s basketball team, led by tournament Most Valuable Player Hakeem Kased (left), celebrate at center court

after dominating York College 68-54 on February 22 to capture the CUNY Athletic Conference championship — the team’s

first conference title ever.

Patricia Cornwell, the best-selling crime writer, has donated $1 million to John Jay College to establish a Crime Scene Academy that will become the first and only international center for crime scene training for professionals, students and interested members of the general public.

Cornwell’s numerous fiction and nonfiction works have been published in dozens of countries and languages, and have earned her widespread acclaim for her meticulous research and insistence on detailed accuracy, especially in forensic medicine and law enforcement procedures.

“I’ve always respected and admired law enforcement professionals, and am intimately aware of the dangers and difficulties of their jobs,” she said. “Police, forensic scientists and pathologists, and so many others have been unfailingly generous in sharing their expertise with me. Now it is my privilege to give something back. The greatest gift is knowledge, and there’s no better place to get it than John Jay College.”

John Jay presented Cornwell with an honorary doctorate of letters at the May 2007 commencement ceremony, citing her “commitment to the principles of academic excellence and understanding for all.”

The Crime Scene Academy will comprise five central components:

A Cornwell Fellowship Program in crime scene decision-making, through which law enforcement professionals from across the country will be recruited and brought to John Jay to learn the latest advances in crime scene investigation and set the standards necessary for modernizing the practice. Over time, it is envisioned that this network of Cornwell Fellows will create a national cohort that will assume leadership roles in the evolution of the forensic science community.

A Police Leadership Program, which will

include a series of weeklong symposiums for senior law enforcement executives to promote better understanding of the management of a criminal case from the crime scene through the investigative and adjudicative processes. Police executives will interact with John Jay faculty experts in forensic science, psychology, law and police science.

Law Enforcement and Crime Scene Laboratory Training Modules, to provide college-level instruction in state-of-the-art crime scene investigation techniques. In conjunction

with these modules, the Crime Scene Academy will develop a train-the-trainers program supplemented by online training.

A Post-Baccalaureate Forensic Science Certificate Program, an intensive 10-week summer certificate program that will give students with undergraduate degrees in the natural sciences the comprehensive training in forensic science and criminalistics they need to compete for jobs in forensic laboratories.

K-12 Teacher Programs/Continuing Education Public Programs, a series of training sessions for teachers, middle-school students and the general public. The program for teachers will incorporate into its curriculum materials developed by the John Jay Department of Sciences for an established weeklong training session for K-12 science teachers.

President Jeremy Travis said in accepting the gift: “Patricia Cornwell, who is noted for her realistic portrayal of forensic investigations and law enforcement, has been educating millions of devoted fans about forensic science and medicine through her best-selling crime novels for more than 15 years. This makes her the perfect partner for John Jay College, which has long been recognized as the premier center for forensic study in the United States. This generous

gift will allow us to address the critical need to enhance the quality of crime scene analysis around the country. It will also further realize our mission of providing students with the latest innovations in modern forensics and their applications in crime scene investigations and analysis. The Crime Scene Academy will serve a national constituency of law enforcement personnel.”

A national search will be conducted for a director of the new Crime Scene Academy.

Best-Selling Author Gives John Jay$1M for New Crime Scene Academy

Cornwell: “My Privilege to Give Something Back” to Policing

Hoop Dreams Come True as John Jay Wins CUNY Title

Mark Your CalendarMarch 14 is the application

deadline for top 2008 commencement awards.

For details, contact Mary Nampiaparapil, director of scholarships. (646) 557-4516.

[email protected].

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell, the recipient of an honorary doctorate

from John Jay in 2007. Her $1-million gift to the College will establish a

pioneering Crime Scene Academy.





Editor Peter Dodenhoff Graphic Design Gary Zaragovitch




Braving a blast of inclement wintry weather, attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast on February 22 heard speaker after speaker exhort them to never lose sight of the importance of education and doing one’s best.

The breakfast, named for slain civil rights activists Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., drew an enthusiastic group of faculty, staff and students to the College gymnasium.

The 2008 event honored playwright and novelist David Lamb, whose first novel Do Platanos Go Wit Collard Greens? achieved critical and commercial success with its exploration of relations between blacks and Latinos. He also

wrote the plays Platanos and Collard Greens and From Auction Block to Hip Hop.

Richard James Ferris, a senior major in government at John Jay, followed Lamb to the podium, addressing most of his remarks to fellow students in the crowd. “If we truly want to honor the memory of Martin and Malcolm,” Ferris said, “we should pursue education. We must make sure that tomorrow belongs to us.”

The morning’s keynote speaker, award-winning reporter and commentator Dominic Carter of the NY1 news channel, said with a smile that he felt upstaged by Ferris’s brief remarks. “I should’ve spoken before you — you delivered the keynote address,” he said to Ferris. “You have an outstanding future.”

Like Ferris before him, Carter addressed his comments largely to the students who were present. Asking them to stand up and be recognized, roughly half the audience rose to its feet, including about a dozen high school students. “This is what it’s all about,” Carter observed. “This is what Dr. King and Malcolm X ultimately gave their lives for.”

Carter grew up in a Bronx housing project, where he was raised by a grandmother he described as having “a PhD in loving me.” He called himself a “proud product” of affirmative action, noting, “without that opportunity, I would not be standing here today.”

When Cyclone Sidr slammed ashore in Bangladesh on November 15, packing 150-mph winds and torrential rains, it did more than carve a swath of destruction that left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. It triggered a student-run relief effort at John Jay that in very short order raised nearly $4,500 and earned the official recognition of the Bangladeshi government.

President Jeremy Travis paid tribute on February 7 to the members of the Bangladesh club and other student organizations, at a reception in his office that was attended by the Asian nation’s Consul General to the United States, Mohammed Shamsul Haque. The students’ fundraising effort, Travis said, is another example of “building a reflexive communal reaction to come together in times of need.”

Syeda Begum, who described herself as “just a regular student here,” explained that people she worked with at the U.S. State Department had encouraged her to get involved in the Bangladesh relief effort. She enlisted the aid of Professor Mabel Gomes in the Department of Public Management. Soon after, the student African American Club, Haitian Club and Muslim Students Association also came on board. “John Jay really came through to help us,” said Begum.

People were first asked to donate time to the relief effort, Begum said. Requests for donations of money came later.

Gomes, who saw first-hand the extent of cyclone-related devastation in Bangladesh, said the money raised at John Jay would go directly

to where the needs are greatest. She said of the students’ efforts, “If you can transcend boundaries of race, religion and nationality, you can have an impact on the world.”

The Bangladeshi consul general said he felt “very privileged, personally and professionally,” to be on hand for the salute to the students. “I feel very proud that we’re not alone in our plight, that we have friends like you around the world,” said Haque. “I’ll let our people know that there’s

“We can achieve anything if we really believe in it and are willing to work hard,” said Carter. “Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. We don’t have the right to ever do less than our best.”

Proceeds from the Malcolm/King breakfast are used to support a leadership scholarship for John Jay students who demonstrate

outstanding academic achievement and success in African American studies. This year’s award was presented to Conrad Phillips, a Dean’s List student with a 3.6 GPA, who last year joined John Jay faculty members and representatives of the media and law enforcement as a panelist at the “Stop Snitching” symposium.

Attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast enjoy a conversational moment during the festivities on February 22.

From left to right: Kewaulay Kamara, Department of African American Studies; author and playwright David Lamb; NY1

news anchor Dominic Carter; Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo; Gregory Bryant, director of the Liberty Partner-

ship Program; student honoree Conrad Phillips.

Breakfast Salutes Those Whose Future Honors the Past

a community at John Jay College that cares about them.”

Haque, who said the money raised by John Jay students would go toward building one of several multipurpose cyclone shelters, opened the door to building a partnership between Bangladeshi institutions and John Jay, and invited Travis to visit his country. “We want to benefit from values like yours, and institutions like yours,” Haque said.

Student-Driven Effort Raises Fundsto Aid Bangladesh Cyclone Victims

The formal debut of the Mozart Academy at John Jay College took place on Sunday, February 3 with a program presented by the academy’s Concerts By Children division.

Hundreds of enthusiastic families filled the Gerald W. Lynch Theater for a program that included performances by the Carnegie Hill Children’s Orchestra of Haydn’s Toy Symphony and “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin, played by 12-year-old soloist Sirena Huang, brought the house down.

Concerts By Children, the brainchild of John Jay Artist-In-Residence Caroline Stoessinger, is aimed at building new audiences and educating families to weave the legacy of great music into their lives. “Concerts By Children is a testament to the power of music as a shared language in a city filled with different dialects, ethnicities and cultures,” said Stoessinger. “The concerts celebrate the city’s youngest performers, drawn from all cultures, playing the masterpieces of past generations for all audiences. More than simply child performers, the musicians are a credit to their art and a treat for audiences of all ages to hear.”

Huang has performed in concerts sponsored by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, King Abdullah of Jordan, former President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.

The large audience on February 3 included Professor James Cohen of the Department of Public Management, who attended along with Christopher, a boy he mentors in the Big Brother Program.

“Before the concert began, Chris was fidgety, but, as soon as the children on stage began playing, he was riveted to the music,” said Cohen. “For me, it was inspiring to see such a wonderfully diverse group of young people playing classical music, with such evident skill.”

Children’s Concert Launches Mozart Academy Program

Violin prodigy Sirena Huang captivates the audience with

her performance of Tschaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin.

PEER REVIEWHOWARD PFLANZER (Speech, Theatre and Media Studies) has been awarded a Playwriting Residency to work on a new project, beginning in June 2008, by the Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain.

IRA TITUNIK (Sciences) recently won the Markle Award for the Forensic Scientist of the Year 2007. The award was presented by the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Sciences at the University of New Haven.

PRESENTING…KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) addressed the Osborne Association on February 12 on “Child Abuse and Domestic Violence,” as part of a seminar series sponsored by OASIS (the Outcome and Assessment Information Set), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

STEPHEN HANDELMAN (Center on Media, Crime and Justice) delivered a lecture to the Cleveland Council on World Affairs on February 19, on the “Russian Mafia and Transnational Organized Crime in the New Russia.”

THOMAS KUBIC (Sciences) and PETER

DIACZUK (Center on Modern Forensic Practice) traveled to Kigali, Rwanda, in January to evaluate evidence on behalf of defense counsel representing individuals accused of crimes before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

BETWEEN THE COVERSJEREMY TRAVIS (President) had his article, “Reflections on the Reentry Movement,” published in the December 2007 issue of Federal Sentencing Reporter. The article looks back at the first 10 years following Attorney General Janet Reno’s call for proposals to create new

reentry partnerships and reentry courts around the country.

ITAI SNEH (History) has had his latest book, The Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed to Change U.S. Foreign Policy, published by Peter Lang Publishers.

MICHAEL AMAN (Speech, Theatre, and

Media Studies) and KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) have co-authored an article titled “Psychopathic Elements in the Film Goodfellas,” which will appear as the lead article in the May/June issue of Community Corrections Report on Law and Corrections Practice, published by the Civic Research Institute. In the article, they stress the importance of criminal justice professors teaching elements of psychopathy to criminal justice professionals, using film as a learning tool, not just entertainment.

Joined by Professor Mabel Gomes (second from left) and student representatives, President Travis presents a check to Bangla-

desh Consul General Mohammed Shamsul Haque, to be put toward relief efforts in the cyclone-stricken nation.


March 5, 2008

Worth NotingMarch 10 9:15 AMHigh-Tech Surveillance Societies and Our PrivacyPresented by the Center forCybercrime StudiesJeff Jonas, Chief Scientist,Entity Analytic Solutions



Auxiliary Gymnasium

March 21 8:30 AM - 10:00 AMPrisoner Reentry InstituteOccasional Series onReentry ResearchTransitional Jobs for Formerly Incarcerated IndividualsDan BloomMDRC


March 27 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMGraduate Lecture SeriesThe Physical Evidence Record and Alternate Sources of Information in Criminal InvestigationsProfessor Peter DeForestScience Department


The New York Giants are no longer the only underdog champions in town. The John Jay Bloodhounds on February 22 capped a Cinderella run through the CUNY Athletic Conference post-season tournament with a stirring 68-54 victory over York College to capture the College’s first-ever men’s basketball championship.

The top-seeded and heavily favored York team had beaten John Jay handily during the regular season, and took the court for the finals as the conference’s two-time defending champion. The Bloodhounds, meanwhile, began the tournament as the sixth seed with a 10-15 regular-season record, but proceeded to knock off the College of Staten Island (CSI) and New York City College of Technology en route to the championship game.

It was the team’s first appearance in the finals since 1990, and the players made the most of it.

“I thought we were supposed to be the underdog in this game,” said President Jeremy Travis. “Apparently someone forgot to tell our players.”

The Bloodhounds’ wounded warrior, senior forward Hakeem Kased, won the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award for his 13-point performance in the finals and 23-point outburst in the quarterfinals against CSI, as well as his constant on-the-court leadership.

“This means everything,” said Kased, the team captain, who was in tears after the final buzzer sounded and his team’s championship became official. “This is for four years of hard work, for

all the running. This is for all the student-athletes who have too much on their plates. I knew that if we played consistently in this tournament, no one could stop us.”

Kased’s own plate is kept full with athletics, academics and a full-time job with the New York City Transit Authority, where he works the overnight shift as a track maintainer. He missed the entire 2006-2007 season with a knee injury, and played much of this season with a variety of ailments, including an injured back.

His teammate Vaughn Mason, a junior forward, led the Bloodhounds with 14 points in the championship game before fouling out. Both Mason and Kased were named to the all-tournament team.

“It’s a tremendous compliment to see these young men who believed in the coaches and themselves, day in and day out, to get to this point and get out there and do it on the court,” said third-year head coach Charles Jackson.

The men’s basketball team next moves on to its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III post-season tournament, against an opponent yet to be determined.

Hometown HeroChris Jaeger, a sophomore forward for the

Bloodhounds, was featured in the February 11 sports section of USA Today, in an article focusing on his experience with the U.S. Army in Iraq for 12 months in 2004 and 2005.

Jaeger compared heroics on the basketball

court with heroics under fire, saying: “In sports, a good athlete has good instincts. Same with being a good soldier. You want to be someone you can count on. You don’t have to sit there and think about what to do.”

His experience in Iraq, he said, gave him a

deeper appreciation for basketball, which he was unable to play in the extreme conditions of the war zone. “Basketball was always where I could forget all my problems,” he said. “That was the one thing you could do to relieve your stress over there and you didn’t have that option.”

The John Jay men’s basketball team, led by tournament Most Valuable Player Hakeem Kased (left), celebrate at center court

after dominating York College 68-54 on February 22 to capture the CUNY Athletic Conference championship — the team’s

first conference title ever.

Patricia Cornwell, the best-selling crime writer, has donated $1 million to John Jay College to establish a Crime Scene Academy that will become the first and only international center for crime scene training for professionals, students and interested members of the general public.

Cornwell’s numerous fiction and nonfiction works have been published in dozens of countries and languages, and have earned her widespread acclaim for her meticulous research and insistence on detailed accuracy, especially in forensic medicine and law enforcement procedures.

“I’ve always respected and admired law enforcement professionals, and am intimately aware of the dangers and difficulties of their jobs,” she said. “Police, forensic scientists and pathologists, and so many others have been unfailingly generous in sharing their expertise with me. Now it is my privilege to give something back. The greatest gift is knowledge, and there’s no better place to get it than John Jay College.”

John Jay presented Cornwell with an honorary doctorate of letters at the May 2007 commencement ceremony, citing her “commitment to the principles of academic excellence and understanding for all.”

The Crime Scene Academy will comprise five central components:

A Cornwell Fellowship Program in crime scene decision-making, through which law enforcement professionals from across the country will be recruited and brought to John Jay to learn the latest advances in crime scene investigation and set the standards necessary for modernizing the practice. Over time, it is envisioned that this network of Cornwell Fellows will create a national cohort that will assume leadership roles in the evolution of the forensic science community.

A Police Leadership Program, which will

include a series of weeklong symposiums for senior law enforcement executives to promote better understanding of the management of a criminal case from the crime scene through the investigative and adjudicative processes. Police executives will interact with John Jay faculty experts in forensic science, psychology, law and police science.

Law Enforcement and Crime Scene Laboratory Training Modules, to provide college-level instruction in state-of-the-art crime scene investigation techniques. In conjunction

with these modules, the Crime Scene Academy will develop a train-the-trainers program supplemented by online training.

A Post-Baccalaureate Forensic Science Certificate Program, an intensive 10-week summer certificate program that will give students with undergraduate degrees in the natural sciences the comprehensive training in forensic science and criminalistics they need to compete for jobs in forensic laboratories.

K-12 Teacher Programs/Continuing Education Public Programs, a series of training sessions for teachers, middle-school students and the general public. The program for teachers will incorporate into its curriculum materials developed by the John Jay Department of Sciences for an established weeklong training session for K-12 science teachers.

President Jeremy Travis said in accepting the gift: “Patricia Cornwell, who is noted for her realistic portrayal of forensic investigations and law enforcement, has been educating millions of devoted fans about forensic science and medicine through her best-selling crime novels for more than 15 years. This makes her the perfect partner for John Jay College, which has long been recognized as the premier center for forensic study in the United States. This generous

gift will allow us to address the critical need to enhance the quality of crime scene analysis around the country. It will also further realize our mission of providing students with the latest innovations in modern forensics and their applications in crime scene investigations and analysis. The Crime Scene Academy will serve a national constituency of law enforcement personnel.”

A national search will be conducted for a director of the new Crime Scene Academy.

Best-Selling Author Gives John Jay$1M for New Crime Scene Academy

Cornwell: “My Privilege to Give Something Back” to Policing

Hoop Dreams Come True as John Jay Wins CUNY Title

Mark Your CalendarMarch 14 is the application

deadline for top 2008 commencement awards.

For details, contact Mary Nampiaparapil, director of scholarships. (646) 557-4516.

[email protected].

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell, the recipient of an honorary doctorate

from John Jay in 2007. Her $1-million gift to the College will establish a

pioneering Crime Scene Academy.









Braving a blast of inclement wintry weather, attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast on February 22 heard speaker after speaker exhort them to never lose sight of the importance of education and doing one’s best.

The breakfast, named for slain civil rights activists Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., drew an enthusiastic group of faculty, staff and students to the College gymnasium.

The 2008 event honored playwright and novelist David Lamb, whose first novel Do Platanos Go Wit Collard Greens? achieved critical and commercial success with its exploration of relations between blacks and Latinos. He also

wrote the plays Platanos and Collard Greens and From Auction Block to Hip Hop.

Richard James Ferris, a senior major in government at John Jay, followed Lamb to the podium, addressing most of his remarks to fellow students in the crowd. “If we truly want to honor the memory of Martin and Malcolm,” Ferris said, “we should pursue education. We must make sure that tomorrow belongs to us.”

The morning’s keynote speaker, award-winning reporter and commentator Dominic Carter of the NY1 news channel, said with a smile that he felt upstaged by Ferris’s brief remarks. “I should’ve spoken before you — you delivered the keynote address,” he said to Ferris. “You have an outstanding future.”

Like Ferris before him, Carter addressed his comments largely to the students who were present. Asking them to stand up and be recognized, roughly half the audience rose to its feet, including about a dozen high school students. “This is what it’s all about,” Carter observed. “This is what Dr. King and Malcolm X ultimately gave their lives for.”

Carter grew up in a Bronx housing project, where he was raised by a grandmother he described as having “a PhD in loving me.” He called himself a “proud product” of affirmative action, noting, “without that opportunity, I would not be standing here today.”

When Cyclone Sidr slammed ashore in Bangladesh on November 15, packing 150-mph winds and torrential rains, it did more than carve a swath of destruction that left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. It triggered a student-run relief effort at John Jay that in very short order raised nearly $4,500 and earned the official recognition of the Bangladeshi government.

President Jeremy Travis paid tribute on February 7 to the members of the Bangladesh club and other student organizations, at a reception in his office that was attended by the Asian nation’s Consul General to the United States, Mohammed Shamsul Haque. The students’ fundraising effort, Travis said, is another example of “building a reflexive communal reaction to come together in times of need.”

Syeda Begum, who described herself as “just a regular student here,” explained that people she worked with at the U.S. State Department had encouraged her to get involved in the Bangladesh relief effort. She enlisted the aid of Professor Mabel Gomes in the Department of Public Management. Soon after, the student African American Club, Haitian Club and Muslim Students Association also came on board. “John Jay really came through to help us,” said Begum.

People were first asked to donate time to the relief effort, Begum said. Requests for donations of money came later.

Gomes, who saw first-hand the extent of cyclone-related devastation in Bangladesh, said the money raised at John Jay would go directly

to where the needs are greatest. She said of the students’ efforts, “If you can transcend boundaries of race, religion and nationality, you can have an impact on the world.”

The Bangladeshi consul general said he felt “very privileged, personally and professionally,” to be on hand for the salute to the students. “I feel very proud that we’re not alone in our plight, that we have friends like you around the world,” said Haque. “I’ll let our people know that there’s

“We can achieve anything if we really believe in it and are willing to work hard,” said Carter. “Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. We don’t have the right to ever do less than our best.”

Proceeds from the Malcolm/King breakfast are used to support a leadership scholarship for John Jay students who demonstrate

outstanding academic achievement and success in African American studies. This year’s award was presented to Conrad Phillips, a Dean’s List student with a 3.6 GPA, who last year joined John Jay faculty members and representatives of the media and law enforcement as a panelist at the “Stop Snitching” symposium.

Attendees at the 18th annual Malcolm/King Breakfast enjoy a conversational moment during the festivities on February 22.

From left to right: Kewaulay Kamara, Department of African American Studies; author and playwright David Lamb; NY1

news anchor Dominic Carter; Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo; Gregory Bryant, director of the Liberty Partner-

ship Program; student honoree Conrad Phillips.

Breakfast Salutes Those Whose Future Honors the Past

a community at John Jay College that cares about them.”

Haque, who said the money raised by John Jay students would go toward building one of several multipurpose cyclone shelters, opened the door to building a partnership between Bangladeshi institutions and John Jay, and invited Travis to visit his country. “We want to benefit from values like yours, and institutions like yours,” Haque said.

Student-Driven Effort Raises Fundsto Aid Bangladesh Cyclone Victims

The formal debut of the Mozart Academy at John Jay College took place on Sunday, February 3 with a program presented by the academy’s Concerts By Children division.

Hundreds of enthusiastic families filled the Gerald W. Lynch Theater for a program that included performances by the Carnegie Hill Children’s Orchestra of Haydn’s Toy Symphony and “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin, played by 12-year-old soloist Sirena Huang, brought the house down.

Concerts By Children, the brainchild of John Jay Artist-In-Residence Caroline Stoessinger, is aimed at building new audiences and educating families to weave the legacy of great music into their lives. “Concerts By Children is a testament to the power of music as a shared language in a city filled with different dialects, ethnicities and cultures,” said Stoessinger. “The concerts celebrate the city’s youngest performers, drawn from all cultures, playing the masterpieces of past generations for all audiences. More than simply child performers, the musicians are a credit to their art and a treat for audiences of all ages to hear.”

Huang has performed in concerts sponsored by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, King Abdullah of Jordan, former President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.

The large audience on February 3 included Professor James Cohen of the Department of Public Management, who attended along with Christopher, a boy he mentors in the Big Brother Program.

“Before the concert began, Chris was fidgety, but, as soon as the children on stage began playing, he was riveted to the music,” said Cohen. “For me, it was inspiring to see such a wonderfully diverse group of young people playing classical music, with such evident skill.”

Children’s Concert Launches Mozart Academy Program

Violin prodigy Sirena Huang captivates the audience with

her performance of Tschaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin.

PEER REVIEWHOWARD PFLANZER (Speech, Theatre and Media Studies) has been awarded a Playwriting Residency to work on a new project, beginning in June 2008, by the Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain.

IRA TITUNIK (Sciences) recently won the Markle Award for the Forensic Scientist of the Year 2007. The award was presented by the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Sciences at the University of New Haven.

PRESENTING…KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) addressed the Osborne Association on February 12 on “Child Abuse and Domestic Violence,” as part of a seminar series sponsored by OASIS (the Outcome and Assessment Information Set), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

STEPHEN HANDELMAN (Center on Media, Crime and Justice) delivered a lecture to the Cleveland Council on World Affairs on February 19, on the “Russian Mafia and Transnational Organized Crime in the New Russia.”

THOMAS KUBIC (Sciences) and PETER

DIACZUK (Center on Modern Forensic Practice) traveled to Kigali, Rwanda, in January to evaluate evidence on behalf of defense counsel representing individuals accused of crimes before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

BETWEEN THE COVERSJEREMY TRAVIS (President) had his article, “Reflections on the Reentry Movement,” published in the December 2007 issue of Federal Sentencing Reporter. The article looks back at the first 10 years following Attorney General Janet Reno’s call for proposals to create new

reentry partnerships and reentry courts around the country.

ITAI SNEH (History) has had his latest book, The Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed to Change U.S. Foreign Policy, published by Peter Lang Publishers.

MICHAEL AMAN (Speech, Theatre, and

Media Studies) and KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) have co-authored an article titled “Psychopathic Elements in the Film Goodfellas,” which will appear as the lead article in the May/June issue of Community Corrections Report on Law and Corrections Practice, published by the Civic Research Institute. In the article, they stress the importance of criminal justice professors teaching elements of psychopathy to criminal justice professionals, using film as a learning tool, not just entertainment.

Joined by Professor Mabel Gomes (second from left) and student representatives, President Travis presents a check to Bangla-

desh Consul General Mohammed Shamsul Haque, to be put toward relief efforts in the cyclone-stricken nation.


February 13, 2008

Worth NotingFebruary 22 9:00 AM18th AnnualMalcolm/King BreakfastGuest speaker: Dominic Carter, NY1RSVP to 212-237-8764

Gymnasium

February 27 6:00 PMLloyd Sealy LecturePolicing America’s Cities in the 21st Century: Challenges and Triumphs in New York City and New OrleansCommissioner Raymond W. Kelly,New York City Police DepartmentSuperintendent Warren J. Riley,New Orleans Police Department


February 28 9:00 AMStop and Frisk ConferencePresented by the Center onRace, Crime and Justice andthe Office for Advancement of Research


March 1 9:00 AMLaw DayPresented by the Pre-Law Institute

Gymnasium and various locations

March 3 3:30 PMSpring Faculty/Staff Meeting and Service Recognition ReceptionGerald W. Lynch Theater & Theater Lobby


Auxiliary Gymnasium

President Jeremy Travis is encouraging John Jay students, faculty and staff to participate in CUNY Alert, a new university-wide emergency notification system that will soon go online following an initial signup period.

CUNY Alert will enable the University’s campuses to provide alerts and timely information in emergencies, such as severe-weather scenarios, fires and bomb threats, civil disturbances, major road closings and threats to personal safety. Participation is elective in the secure, Web-based alert system, which will provide messages ranging from specific instructions to general warnings, depending on the severity of a given incident.

By signing up online at www.cuny.edu/alert, participants can choose how they wish to receive voice or text notifications: cell phone, home phone, e-mail or IM, or any combination of these. The Web page provides step-by-step instructions for signing up, and the process takes less than two minutes.

“The College is committed to making sure we do all we can to ensure the safety of all members of the College community,” Travis said. “CUNY Alert will help us achieve this goal.”

College Pushes Sign-Ups forCUNY Alert Net

More than $200,000 in scholarship funds is waiting to be claimed by qualified John Jay students, and the College is launching a major Web-driven effort to ensure that funds and students come together smoothly.

In early February, the College unveiled the latest component of its newly redesigned Web site, focusing on the array of scholarship options available to students. With an application deadline of February 28 drawing near for many of the scholarships for the spring 2008 semester, the hope is that increasing numbers of students will take advantage of these opportunities.

“Merit scholarship is grant money and you do not have to pay it back,” observed Mary Nampiaparampil, the director of scholarship services. “It is given in recognition of your academic achievement and public service.”

She noted that there are scholarships for freshmen, sophomores, upper-division and graduate students, as well as ones specifically for women, international students, research-oriented students and more.

The Web site includes downloadable applica-tion forms in PDF format that students can print, fill out and submit. The forms themselves have been streamlined, so that a single form now covers more than 30 scholarships.

“We have a brand new focus on scholarships at the College, and are encouraging as many qualified students as possible to apply,” said Vice President for Enrollment Management Richard Saulnier, who oversees the scholarship services office. “We have no shortage of highly qualified students — and we always want more — but for

some reason some scholarship opportunities have gone underutilized in the past.”

“We’re trying to ensure that institutional scholarship funds are being spent for the purposes for which they were intended,” added Saulnier.

Most undergraduate and graduate scholar-ships have February 28 deadlines. Nampia-parampil urged students to consult the list of available scholarships online at www.jjay.cuny.edu/340.php, or visit the Office of Scholarship

Services in Room 4113N. Most scholarship ap-plications require essays and/or letters of recom-mendation, she noted, urging students to seek any needed help from the Writing Center or faculty members who know them well.

“President Travis wants more emphasis on recruiting, recognizing and rewarding highly qualified students, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. The reorganization of scholarship services and the overhaul of the Web site is all part of that,” Saulnier noted.

“And what did you do on your summer vacation?”

For roughly 60 John Jay students, the answer to that oft-posed question will soon involve earning college credits in exotic locales, as part of a series of intensive study abroad programs this coming June.

The three inaugural faculty-led study abroad programs are:

“Urban Cultural Spaces in Puerto Rico,” taught by Professor Alma Mora (Foreign Languages), meeting in San Juan, PR.

“Caribbean Criminology,” taught by Professors David Brotherton (Sociology) and Luis Barrios (Puerto Rican/Latin American Studies), meeting in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

“Gender, Culture, Community and Violence,” taught by Professor Chitra Raghavan (Psychology), meeting in Rabat, Morocco.

Ken Lewandoski, the Director of International Studies and Programs, noted that while John Jay students have had study-abroad opportunities in the past through other CUNY campuses, this will be the first time they can earn John Jay College academic credits in programs led by John Jay faculty. The programs qualify under the Study/Travel Opportunities for CUNY Students (STOCS) program, which will allow participating students to receive $750 to $1,500 in financial aid. (The deadline for STOCS applications is March 14.)

“We want these programs to be academically rigorous — not travel abroad, but study abroad,” Lewandoski added. “They are all designed to enhance a student’s chosen course of study.” The four-week programs will include classroom lectures and discussions, field trips and presentations by local persons of interest.

Living arrangements will vary from one

program to the next. Students will stay in apartments at the University of Puerto Rico, dormitories at the Autonomous University of

Santo Domingo or in Moroccan homes.

All students will be required to attend a pre-departure orientation, and to share their experiences with the broader John Jay College community upon their return, Lewandoski said.

“Congratulations in advance to the students who will have the unparalleled opportunity to travel with John Jay professors to study these interesting topics in such interesting parts of the world,” said President Jeremy Travis.

Application dates for the three courses vary. For more information, contact Lewandoski at 212-484-1339, e-mail [email protected].

Dollars for Scholars With Deadline Looming, Thousands in Scholarship Aid Await Students

Faculty to Lead GroundbreakingStudy-Abroad Programs This Summer

Thousands of dollars in scholarship aid — along with a streamlined application process — await qualified students.

John Jay students will have a chance to study abroad in San Juan, PR, or one of two other

locales this summer in four-week, credit-bearing courses.

$3 Million in Free PublicityJohn Jay continues to maintain a high media

profile nationwide, with a new survey showing that the College’s faculty, administration, students and alumni were quoted or mentioned in more than 1,089 stories appearing in print and dedicated Internet news sites in 2007.

An appraisal of the media placements using the PRTrak database estimated the value of the media visibility to be equivalent to roughly $3 million in paid advertising.

Although the College arranges appearances on television and radio programs for many faculty members, the survey does not include broadcast news reports, as the College does not subscribe to broadcast monitoring services.

All 19 academic departments received press attention. While some garnered more than others, John Jay’s faculty were quoted

in an impressive number of print and online publications. The College’s centers and institutes were also mentioned in many media outlets

Media visibility, while nationwide, varied by region, with most of the press attention concentrated in the Middle Atlantic region (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) and the South Atlantic. The New York Daily News (10 percent) and The New York Times (6 percent) gave the College the most media attention.

The Communications Office is eager to promote faculty members’ expertise as well as students’ accomplishments. Faculty who would like to provide expert commentary to the media or who have information to share about their scholarly activity should contact Chris Godek (212-237-8628, [email protected]) or Doreen Vinas (212-237-8645, [email protected]).


@ John Jay is published by theDepartment of Institutional Advancement







PRESENTING…BENJAMIN LAPIDUS (Art, Music and Philosophy) will perform in concert on April 5 at the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn to celebrate the release of his newest CD, Herencia Judia. Lapidus is an acknowledged master of the guitar, the six-string Cuban tres and the 10-string Puerto Rican cuatro. His new CD is inspired by the musical traditions of the Spanish Caribbean and Jewish liturgical music.

ABBY STEIN (Interdisciplinary Studies) was invited by the Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine to present her critically acclaimed book Prologue to Violence: Child Abuse, Dissociation and Crime (The Analytic Press, 2007) at an international conference in Mumbai, India in February.

ITAI SNEH (History) delivered a paper titled “From Vietnam to Carter: Attempts to Reverse Realpolitik” at a conference on peace studies at the London School of Economics on February 2.

EFFIE PAPATZIKOU COCHRAN (English) kept up a busy schedule during her yearlong sabbatical in 2007, including pressing ahead with her video research project involving nonverbal cues and communication in parole board hearings. She co-presented a paper — “What Legal Writers Should Know: A Syntactic Analysis of a Legal Brief” — at the biennial conference of the International Association of Forensic Linguists

in Seattle, WA. She also taught a seminar on “Sector Analysis: X-Word Grammar” for the University of Catania in Ragusa, Sicily.

BETWEEN THE COVERSKIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration/Interdisciplinary Studies) authored an article titled “Detention in a Japanese Jail for Ten Days in 1998,” which will appear in the May/June 2008 issue of American Jails magazine. In the article, she explores the work of Setsuo Miyazawa from Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan and the reflections of genbatsuka, or increased severity of punishment that is written into Japanese criminal justice policy, from the point of view of one American incarcerated in a Japanese prison.

JANICE BOCKMEYER (Government) published her chapter “Building the Global City — The Immigrant Experience of Urban Revitalization,” in the book Governing Cities in a Global Era: Urban

Innovation, Competition, and Democratic Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). The book, edited by Robin Hambleton and Jill Simone Gross, represents the work of scholars from 11 countries on urban challenges facing city residents, leaders and managers in all continents.

ITAI SNEH (History) published a review of Richard Parker’s biography John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics on the Web sites H-1960s and H-Net Reviews.

JAMES DOYLE (Center on Modern Forensic

Practice) and JENNIFER DYSART (Psychology) have co-authored, with Elizabeth Loftus, the 4th edition of Eyewitness Testimony: Civil and Criminal (LexisNexis, 2008). The book provides courtroom-ready trial techniques and the latest psychological research concerning a wide variety of issues pertaining to eyewitness testimony. Loftus, the lead author, is a distinguished professor at the University of California-Irvine.

Professor John Matteson of the English department knew he had a hit on his hands when his book Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father was published last year by W.W. Norton. After all, the initial reviews lavished the book with such praise as “engrossing,” “elegantly written” and “a deftly rendered and highly recommended portrait.”

Further evidence of the book’s significance and merit came in early January, with the news that Eden’s Outcasts had been named as one of the best books of 2007 by both the Christian Science Monitor and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Eden’s Outcasts chronicles the relationship between the celebrated author of Little Women and her father, Bronson Alcott, who is described as a self-taught farm boy turned idealist and philosopher. In its review last August, the Monitor praised Matteson for telling “the tale of a most unusual American life.”

“Particularly for those unfamiliar with the Alcott story,” the Monitor’s reviewer wrote, “this is a journey of much interest.”

The Post-Dispatch was no less effusive in its applause for Eden’s Outcasts, describing it as “impossible to put down” as it unfolds its tale of “two fascinating main characters.” The book

New York City police officers will soon be returning to our classrooms in significant numbers, thanks to a new initiative that will make it easier for them to obtain their bachelor’s degrees at John Jay.

The new program, due to begin in the summer of 2008, will allow officers to complete their degrees by earning 30 credits at the College, finish at least 50 percent of their major at John Jay and earn 120 credits including prior academic experience and NYPD training.

Until now, NYPD officers seeking to obtain their bachelor’s degree from the College often had to complete added course requirements that left them with close to 200 credits before graduating.

“President Travis saw a need for more police officers at John Jay, and the faculty liked the idea of having veteran officers, with their work and life experience, in their classes,” said William Devine, director of the College’s NYC Police Leadership Certificate Program, a 12-credit sequence that channels roughly 750 officers through John Jay each year. “Further

Two Thumbs Up. . .

English Professor’s Work Makes “Year’s Best” Lists

includes numerous portraits of father, daughter and other Alcott family members, which the newspaper characterized as “one of the volume’s chief pleasures.”

Matteson, who called the critical praise for his

book “very gratifying,” said that telling the story of Bronson and Louisa May Alcott began to take shape for him as two areas of interest — one scholarly and one personal — converged.

“I thought about writing a book on 19th

century utopian communities,” he recalled, “and Bronson Alcott, who founded the Fruitlands community, was one of the first I explored. At the same time, I wanted to write about an important father-daughter pair, because I am a dad myself. Before I knew it, the book began to take on a life of its own.”

Other biographers have examined the lives of Louisa May Alcott and her father individually. Eden’s Outcasts, Matteson noted, is the first book to look at their lives jointly.

A paperback edition of the book is due out later this year. Matteson will also be serving as a consultant and on-air commentator for a forthcoming PBS documentary on Louisa May Alcott.

Matteson, who has taught literature and legal writing at John Jay since 1997, holds a PhD in English from Columbia University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Based on the success of Eden’s Outcasts, he recently signed a contract with W.W. Norton to write a second biography. The new work will focus on Margaret Fuller, the pioneering women’s right activist, gender theorist and journalist. He hopes to have the book out in time for the Fuller bicentennial in 2010.

English professor John Matteson (center) is joined by his department colleagues Margaret Tabb and Elisabeth Gitter at a

Book & Author presentation on November 12 where they discussed his critically acclaimed biography Eden’s Outcasts: The

Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. The book was recently named as one of 2007’s best by two major newspapers.

investigation pointed up the excess-credit impediment, and steps were taken to remedy the situation.”

“The administration is behind this, the faculty are behind this, and the Police Commissioner is behind this,” Devine continued. Travis and Vice President for Enrollment Management Richard Saulnier met with Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who personally endorsed and promoted the idea.

The program, which is being handled by the Division of Enrollment Management in conjunction with the Counseling Department, offers a personal touch for interested officers. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions will evaluate officers’ credits and determine eligibility for the program. Officers then meet one-on-one with a dedicated academic advisor who will develop a personal academic profile for them and assist them in completing their degrees within 120 credits.

“The personal touch is very important,” Devine added, “because each student is different.”

Active or retired NYPD members who are in the program will be able to complete their degrees in as few as six semesters.

More than 100 officers attended one of three recent workshops on the program and are now in the pipeline to enroll for the summer

or fall semesters. Additional workshops will be scheduled and interested officers should e-mail [email protected] for more information. Officers can also call Katie Pzeniczna in the Division of Enrollment Management at 212-237-8874.

Looking for Clues

It’s not every day that the National Institute of Justice and the FBI sponsor a Trace Evidence Symposium — the session held

in Clearwater, FL, in August was the first in more than a decade. Still, members of the John Jay Department of Sciences were

out in force, as forensic scientists and trace-evidence specialists from around the world gathered to share expertise and

present research. Professor Peter R. DeForest (above right) was a moderator and presenter in both the evidence recogni-

tion and recovery workshop and the general session on education and research, where he was joined by Professor Thomas

A. Kubic (above left). Kubic also presented a paper on laboratory report writing. Other faculty members at the symposium

were Professor Nicholas Petraco, who presented on the debris generated by the collapse of the World Trade Center towers;

and Peter Diaczuk, director of forensic science training for the Center for Modern Forensic Practice, who was a panelist in the

evidence recognition and recovery workshop and presented on firearm evidence and shooting scene reconstruction.

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

Led by John Jay’s Center for International Human Rights, police officials from six European nations gathered at the College on December 13 and 14 for the first of three workshops as part of the project “Policing Across Borders: Strengthening the Role of Law Enforcement in Global Governance.”

The workshop, “Strengthening Cooperation in the Fight against Terrorism: Legislation, Institu-tions, and Proposals,” brought together officials from Greece, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey, along with

academics and representatives of intergovern-mental and non-governmental organizations.

The workshop was co-sponsored by the Greek Center for Security Studies and the Institute for Central-Eastern Europe and the Balkans of the University of Bologna. Funding for the three-year “Policing Across Borders” project was provided by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

The next workshop in the series, focusing on human trafficking and migrant smuggling, will take place at John Jay on May 2 and 3.

Hands Across the Border


January 23, 2008

Worth NotingFebruary 4 6:00 PMOpening Reception for DadsAn exhibition of photographsby Stephen Shames, part ofthe annual movingWALLS series.

6th Floor Gallery Space, Haaren Hall

February 22 9:30 AM18th AnnualMalcolm/King BreakfastCall (212) 237-8764 for details

Gymnasium

February 27 5:30 PMLloyd Sealy LecturePolice Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, New York City Police Department


February 28 9:00 AM - 5:00 PMStop and Frisk ConferenceSponsored by the Center onRace, Crime and Justice,the Office for Advancement of Research, and the New York Civil Liberties Union


March 1 8:30 AM - 3:30 PMLaw DayPresented by the Pre-Law Institute

Gymnasium and various locations

Twenty-one employees who are “making a difference at a critical time in John Jay’s history” were honored December 20 as the first winners of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards.

Robert Pignatello, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration, pointed out that the Bravo! Program will recognize new and creative ideas, innovative problem-solving and superior customer service, and will include the outstanding employee of the year honors that are bestowed at commencement. “It’s all part of

our ongoing effort to turn John Jay into a more employee-centered organization,” he said.

Dean of Human Resources Donald Gray, emcee of the first Bravo! awards presentation, noted, “After 19 years at John Jay, I couldn’t have hoped for a more qualified, more deserving inaugural group of honorees.”

President Jeremy Travis observed that everywhere he travels throughout the United States, “People know of John Jay, and it’s because of the work we do here — and a lot of

The inaugural recipients of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards, joined by President Travis, flash an enthusiastic

“thumbs-up” after they were honored on December 20.

work goes into making this institution one of quality, day after day, year after year, and even decade after decade.”

With the new awards, Travis said, “We are recognizing the ‘extra ingredient’ that goes into institutional transformation.”

The College’s vice presidents were called to the podium in alphabetical order to introduce the employees in their units who were to receive the Bravo! awards. The winners were:

Academic AffairsAzinia BrooksSandrine DikambiDarryl Westcott-Marshall

Student DevelopmentMalaine ClarkeChristine GivensDana Trimboli

Institutional AdvancementJuan TaverasGary Zaragovitch

President’s OfficeElizabeth McCabe

Finance and AdministrationGeorge CorreaMario Alex DeLeonJoseph LaubYenny RodriguezSuzette SanchoKevin Silva

Enrollment ManagementSean JulieNilsa LamCheuk LeeSylvia Crespo-LopezJo-Alejandra LugoPeggy Roth

Kudos for Employees who Provide an “Extra Ingredient”

John Jay College is due to receive more than $1.5 million in federal funds to support a wide range of criminal justice research initiatives.

The funds, in the form of grants and Congressional earmarks, will support efforts examining emergency response to large-scale disasters, gang violence and crime prevention, sex offender management, domestic violence, undergraduate science education and public safety leadership.

“The Congressional earmarks will insure that national visibility is given to the landmark work of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control and the Regenhard Center for Emergency Response. Furthermore, federal funding of John Jay’s programs helps to insure that John Jay maintains its criminal justice leadership position,” said a jubilant President Jeremy Travis. “Our faculty are recognized world over for their expertise and these funds attest to their scholarship.”

The funded programs include:¶ A $330,000 grant from the Department of

Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, for the project “Real-Time Decision-Making for Public Safety Executives.” Led by Ellen Scrivner, Director of the John Jay Leadership Academy, the program will focus on the real-world practice of preparedness leadership and decision-making among public safety leaders.

¶ A $305,500 Congressional earmark, sponsored and led by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), to support the award-winning work of the College’s Center for Crime Prevention and Control, directed by Professor David Kennedy. The funds will allow the Center to develop and disseminate crime-reduction strategies through hands-on fieldwork, research and unique partnerships with communities, the police and other law enforcement professionals in cities throughout the United States.

¶ A $296,656 grant from the National Institute of Justice for the project “Sex Offender

Management, Treatment and Civil Commitment: An Evidence-Based Analysis Aimed at Reducing Sexual Violence.” Professors Elizabeth Jeglic and Cynthia Mercado of the psychology department will lead the effort to examine the program management, treatment and recidivism of sexual offenders in New Jersey.

¶ A $265,883 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the project “Can Family-Based Prevention of Conduct Problems Prevent IPV Development?” Led by psychology professor Miriam Ehrensaft, the initiative will explore whether intimate partner violence (IPV) in high-risk children can be prevented via early, family-focused intervention.

¶ A $206,424 grant from the Department of Education for the Comprehensive Program Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Invitational Priority A. Science professor Anthony Carpi will lead the project to develop a

curriculum and supporting content for teaching the process of science to undergraduates.

¶ A $178,600 earmark, sponsored and led by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) with the backing of the state’s Congressional delegation — prominently Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) — to support the creation of the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies. The Center, directed by Glenn Corbett, professor of public management, will provide an integrated and comprehensive approach to the study of emergency response to large-scale disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

“Thanks a Million (and a Half)!”Faculty Research Efforts Get a Major Infusion of Federal Funds

SUNY-Old Westbury’s loss is John Jay’s gainWayne Edwards, former Dean of Students

at the State University campus on Long Island, was recently named as John Jay’s new Dean of Students. He began the new position officially in early January.

President Jeremy Travis noted that Edwards is “an experienced student services professional who will bring great strength and creativity to his new post. His arrival represents a great day for our students and a new chapter in strengthening and revitalizing student services at John Jay.”

At Old Westbury, Edwards supervised residential life, judicial affairs, career services, counseling services, the Student Union, interfaith services and student activities. He was a faculty member in the Department of American/Media Studies, teaching such courses as popular music in U.S. culture, the politics of the media, and culture, communication and society.

Edwards also has extensive experience in the music and publishing industries, as senior director at Mercury Records, as director of media relations for the Lee Solters public relations firm, and as editor in chief of Black Sounds magazine. He holds two master’s degrees and is currently completing his PhD in sociology at the CUNY Graduate School.

The deanship at John Jay was filled on an interim basis by Arnold Osansky, who was praised by Travis for his “exemplary service” in taking on an “important assignment at a critical time in the history of the College.” Osansky is now the Director of Outreach Programs. In this new position, he will oversee the College’s outreach efforts to high schools, community colleges and professional organizations in order to advance our recruitment of more diverse and better prepared students.

New Deanof StudentsTakes the Reins

The work of Professors David Kennedy (above left) and Glenn Corbett will be aided by recent Congressional earmarks.

WELCOME,SPRING 2008FRESHMEN!









BETWEEN THE COVERSMICHAEL BLITZ (Interdisciplinary Studies) had his newest book, Johnny Depp: A Biography, published by Greenwood Press. This is Blitz’s second biography since 2006 in Greenwood’s Young Adult series.

ADINA SCHWARTZ (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) published her “Commentary on Nichols R.G., Defending the Scientific Foundations of the Firearms and Tool Mark Identification Discipline: Responding to Recent Challenges, J. Forens. Sci. 2007 May; 52(3): 586-94” in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences. In recent months, Schwartz has taught Continuing Legal

Education sessions on challenging firearms and tool mark identification for the North Carolina Bar Association, the Juvenile Defender Leadership Summit, the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the Los Angeles Public Defender Forensic Science Conference and the National Seminar for Federal Defenders.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) authored an article titled “To Shame or Not to Shame: Lessons from ‘Quiz Show,’” which will appear in the March/April 2008 issue of Community Corrections Report on Law and Corrections Practice. In the article, she makes a case for not shaming those being held in correctional facilities.

ON BOARDGABRIELLE SALFATI (Psychology) was appointed as Associate to Dean of Research JAMES LEVINE. In this role, she will be assisting Levine while he is serving in the dual capacities of Dean and Interim Chair of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration. With the addition of Salfati to the Office for the Advancement of Research, “the College will continue its ambitious drive to further enhance its research agenda and increase

its reputation in the world of scholarship,” Levine said in a statement issued jointly with JANE BOWERS, the Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

PEER REVIEWJEREMY TRAVIS (President) recently received the 2007 Research Award from the International Corrections and Prison Association, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based professional organization. The award cited Travis for “the significant body of work that you have done in the field of corrections and, in particular, for your recent seminal research on prisoner reentry.”

PRESENTING…YI HE, ANTHONY CARPI, PETER DEFOREST and NICHOLAS PETRACO (Sciences) were featured presenters and panelists at the 46th Eastern Analytical Symposium & Exposition, “Opening Up the World of Analysis,” held in November in Somerset, NJ. Also participating in the symposium was PETER DIACZUK, the director of forensic science training for John Jay’s Center for Modern Forensic Practice.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) addressed the Osborne

With the 2008 Presidential election campaign beginning to shift into high gear, Americans have a piece of advice for candidates: elected officials should spend less time talking about terrorism and more time discussing specific strategies for preventing crime.

The advice came in a recent national survey conducted by the College’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice, which was released in conjunction with the third annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium, held at John Jay on December 3-4. The survey found that registered voters view crime as an issue on a par with the economy and health care.

The finding that people are still worried about crime and ways to address it “isn’t a surprise at all,” said President Jeremy Travis.

“If you’ve watched the presidential debates over the past few months, you’re hard-pressed to hear a discourse on crime,” Travis said. “You hear

a lot about security and terrorism — incredibly important issues, to be sure — but not about crime. This poll indicates that candidates need to discuss crime, its causes and potential ways to address it, because voters are ready to listen.”

According to the poll, which was conducted for the center by the Global Strategy Group, 53 percent of American voters agreed strongly with the view that crime is a very serious problem. Sixty-four percent said they believed there is more crime in America than one year ago. Forty-three percent said they wanted the media to focus more attention on crime prevention and less on crimes committed, and 36 percent felt that elected officials are not talking enough about preventing crime.

Asked to identify the primary causes of crime, 33 percent of those surveyed pointed to drugs and alcohol, 17 percent said poverty, and 6 percent cited illegal immigration.

When it came to possible ways of reducing crime in the United States, survey respondents called for putting more police on the streets (24 percent), tougher sentencing (24 percent), stricter gun laws (18 percent) and violence prevention programs for youths (18 percent). Other strategies that were identified included job training programs for prisoners and parolees (16 percent), more mental health and drug treatment programs (14 percent), preventing illegal immigration (11 percent) and removing criminal penalties for possession of certain drugs (11 percent).

The 1,000 registered voters who were polled included a mix of city dwellers, suburbanites and rural residents. One-third said they had completed college and/or graduate school.

The poll was made possible through grants from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Open Society Institute.

Association on “Cultural Diversity and Competence” on November 27. She spoke about the importance of overcoming prejudice and promoting diversity in correctional counseling.

HOWARD PFLANZER (Speech, Theatre and Media Studies) held a reading of his play Jersey Nights at the Living Theatre in Manhattan on January 14.

JANE KATZ (Physical Education and Athletics), above, recently won seven gold medals competing in swim events at the 2007 Maccabiah Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

As Campaign Heats Up, Poll FindsCrime Issues Still Matter to Voters

A certain hamburger-restaurant chain proclaims itself to have served “billions and billions.” The John Jay College Office of Continuing and Professional Studies is quietly making its mark by serving 560 — and counting — with a cutting-edge package of DNA training aimed at police, prosecutors, defense attorneys and others throughout New York State.

The training initiative is part of a $2-million contract awarded to the office by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), of which $1 million was passed along to the New York City Police Department and the remainder used by John Jay for statewide DNA training.

“The DCJS set a goal of training 400 law enforcement officers by the end of 2007,” said Dean of Continuing and Professional Studies Judith Kornberg. “We did 560.”

The training was led by Herb Johnson of the John Jay Criminal Justice Center, Peter Diaczuk of the Center for Modern Forensic Practice and Marilyn Simpson of the New York-New Jersey Regional Community Policing Institute, which is based at John Jay. On December 13, President Jeremy Travis saluted the trainers and Dean Kornberg with a reception in his office.

“Logistically, this has been absolutely the biggest project to date by the Office of Continuing and Professional Studies,” Kornberg said. “Our trainers covered the state from Niagara in the west to Suffolk in the east, from Plattsburgh in the north to Westchester in the south, and many other points in between.”

Kornberg said the prosecutors’ training component has been subcontracted to the New York State Prosecutorial Training Institute in Albany, and that her office hopes to develop a training curriculum for defense attorneys sometime this spring. Additional training will focus on nurses, coroners and, Kornberg hopes, crime scene technicians.

“This solidifies John Jay’s reputation as the place to come for DNA training in the Northeast,” she said.

On January 15, the state DNA advisory subcommittee, which regulates and monitors public DNA labs in New York, met at John Jay in a symposium on the use of “familial matching” search techniques in the state’s DNA data bank. The Webcast session was open to the College community.

When the Issue Is DNA Training, the Answer Is “John Jay”

BehindClosed Doors

President Travis and Special Agent Harry Kern, chief of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, cut the ribbon December 11 to open the expanded “FBI

Room” in North Hall, which houses hundreds of closed-case files available to John Jay graduate students in forensic psychology as part of an educa-

tional and research partnership between the College and the FBI. Above right, at the ribbon-cutting, students wait to receive certificates for comple-

tion of the educational component of the program.

Muchas,Muchas GraciasInterim Dean of Undergraduate Studies Jose Luis

Morin presents an award to Rossana Rosado, Publisher

and CEO of the newspaper El Diario/La Prensa, at the

annual Latino/a Breakfast on November 30. Rosado,

the event’s keynote speaker, surprised attendees

with her announcement of a new Prisoner Reentry

Fellowship, beginning in the Spring of 2008. Open to

undergraduates with at least 30 credits and a GPA of

2.5 or higher, the Fellowship will award $1,000 and

give the selected student the opportunity to work

with the College’s Prisoner Reentry Institute on issues

related to people returning home from prison and

jail. Applications for the competitive fellowship must

include two essays and a letter of recommendation.

For complete details on how to apply and application

deadlines, contact the Office of Scholarship Services in

the Division of Enrollment Management.

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2008 Archive

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