Cuny Lecture Series Videos

No matter what platforms people choose for communication, the business of public relations essentially remains the same, according to industry experts. You still need to build a personal brand that stands for something, says Don Middleberg of Middleberg Communications, whose client list includes American Express, Consumer Reports and Reuters. Whether it s personal contacts, bloggers, or journalists, someone still needs to pick up your phone call or answer your e-mail or tweet. Middleberg was part of a panel discussion at Baruch College that explored ways to meet the unique challenges brought on by the decline in print outlets and the rise in social marketing media tools such as Twitter and YouTube. Other participants included Peter Himler, founder of Flatiron Communications; Bill Southard, founder of Southard Communications; Jeff Gluck of IBM and Dave Armon, past president of PRNewswire, who served as moderator. Listen Now

The American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie believed his steel fortune should be used for the greater good, says David Nasaw, author of the biography Andrew Carnegie. At a roundtable discussion of how Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller shaped modern philanthropy, Nasaw, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Professor of History at the Graduate Center, described Carnegie s outlook: Without the tremendous rise in the population in the United States there would have been no need for his steel, which was used for the rails to bring Americans west so the money was not his, it was the community s. The event, Foundations of Modern Philanthropy, Private Wealth to Public Good, 1889-2009, was sponsored by the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in cooperation with CUNY Graduate Center, and featured Peter J. Johnson, author of The Rockefeller Century ; Patty Stonesifer, special advisor to the trustees, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Jean Strouse, author of Morgan, American Financier, and was moderated by Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Listen Now

In 1963, as a teenager fresh out of high school, Elizabeth Nunez came to the United States from Trinidad and began to experience the longing many immigrants have felt as they struggled to adapt amid changing traditional values and cultural upheaval. This theme is at the heart of her latest novel, Anna in Between, about a young woman returning home to the Caribbean island of her youth as her mother, battling breast cancer, faces her own mortality. The genesis of the novel came primarily out of a deep sadness and loss that I felt when i started to write it, said Nunez, Distinguished Professor of English and provost at Medgar Evers College. The author of five previous novels, Prof. Nunez reads from latest book as part of the Provost Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series at York College. Listen Now

For one of America s most beloved poets, writing poems is still a leap of faith. You hope that someone is going to read it, Billy Collins, who served two terms as the U.S. Poet Laureate, joked at a Book Talk lecture sponsored by City College s Center for Worker Education. A Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, where he joined the faculty in 1968, the prolific Collins recently published his eighth volume of poetry, Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. Reading from his 2001 collection, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems, Collins discussed his technique. It s all very exploratory, said Collins. I think of the pen as an instrument of discovery or a flashlight, which may lead me somewhere. Listen Now

Constance Rosenblum s latest book, Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak and Hope Along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, is a valentine to the neighborhoods around the Grand Concourse, whose distinctive Art Deco buildings were a sought-after address for upwardly mobile families during the first half of the 20th century. A long-time editor of The New York Times City Section, who currently writes the Habitats column for the Sunday real estate section, Rosenblum chronicles the evolution of this iconic boulevard, modeled after the Avenue Champs-Elysees by its French-born engineer Louis Risse, up to its decline in the 1960s. To talk about what it had been and then what became of it, in subsequent years, seems to be the perfect metaphor to speak about urban change, Rosenblum said in an book talk at the CUNY Graduate Center. Listen Now

Is there such a thing as a secular state? How can we find a way to mediate between religion and politics? In a conversation about the meaning of secularism and Islam today, moderated by John Torpey, professor of sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim and Patrick Weil tackle these and other controversial and relevant questions. A professor of law at Emory University and author of the recently published Islam and the Secular State, An-Naim joins Weil, a visiting professor of Yale University School of Law from the University of Paris, in a discussion at the Graduate Center. It is equally important to separate religion from the state as to acknowledge, regulate, and organize the connectedness of religion and politics, says An-Naim. Weil agrees, while pointing out the difficulties in achieving that. The secular state has to ensure the freedom of consciousness for the majority of the population and it s not always easy to find a way to ensure that freedom. Listen Now

An Afghan activist representing a Kabul-based human rights organization has a harsh message for the U.S. and its allies. Afghanistan is a free country, but only for rapists, said Zoya, who uses a pseudonym and won t be videotaped or photographed. It s free for the drug lords who have made the country the largest producer of opium, for the warlords to commit any kind of crime without the least concern, and for foreign troops to kill our civilians. Zoya spoke on behalf of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on a panel that examined the escalating conflicts in Afghanistan as the U.S. enters its eighth year of intervention. She was joined at the Graduate Center event by Nation columnist Jeremy Scahill, Bill Fletcher, Jr., executive editor of The Black Commentator, and Adaner Usmani of Action for Progressive Pakistan (APP). Listen Now

One of America s bleakest chapters produced some of the 20th century s most enduring cultural images, says critic Morris Dickstein. In his latest book, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, Dickstein, distinguished professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center, writes about this 1930s paradox. The arts provided a powerful psychological stimulus, he said, referring to the iconic film classics The Wizard of Oz and It s a Wonderful Life. They injected a potent dose of imaginative energy into a period or relative stagnation and inactivity. In a discussion moderated by jazz critic Gary Giddins at the Graduate Center, Making Sense of Hard Times: Cultural and Crisis in the Great Depression, Dickstein joined fellow panelists including film critic Molly Haskell and author Peter Conn. Listen Now

For more than three decades, Robert A. Caro has been one of the leading biographers of our time. He chronicled the political trail that defined Robert Moses as one of New York s most influential and controversial figures in The Power Broker, and traced Lyndon Johnson s rise from poverty to power in the three-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson, garnering two Pulitzer Prizes and three National Book Critics Circle awards. In this Leon Levy Biography Lecture at the CUNY Graduate Center, Caro who lived in the Texas Hill Country of Johnson s youth as he researched his biography discusses the critical role physical setting plays in nonfiction. For a book to endure, the sense of place must be present, Caro said, letting the reader see clearly enough, (so) the scene becomes more vivid and more real to him. Listen Now

The great influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed some 50 to 100 million worldwide, is considered the prototype for all flu outbreaks, says Philip Alcabes. But in his lecture The War Against Swine Flu: Who Loses? sponsored by The Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, he says the 1918 flu was unique, but not paradigmatic and that today s public-health approach to influenza is flawed because it provides no long-term solution. Professor Alcabes, who is a professor of urban public health at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, contends that drug companies and vaccine makers have capitalized on the infamy of the 1918 flu by offering expensive vaccines that only protect against the current year s strain. It s tragically simple-minded to imagine that human flu can be prevented with vaccines and Tamiflu, he said. The flu web is complex and humans are a small part of it. Listen Now

William E. Macaulay believes the Obama administration s focus on alternative energy, including solar and wind, should be expanded to other energy sources. The Bush administration was oil, he said, but the Obama administration has not paid attention to nuclear, and they haven t really pushed natural gas. Macaulay is the chairman, chief executive officer, and a managing director of First Reserve Corporation, a private equity firm focusing on the energy industry, which he joined in 1983. He is also a graduate of City College and the benefactor of the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, which hosted his lecture, World Energy: Current Outlook, Future Possibilities. Listen Now

Like anything else in business, when it comes to greening your workplace, you first need a plan. You have to assess performance, come up with goals, identify what needs improvements, come up with an action plan, implement and see what the results are, says Dan Miner, chair of the New York City chapter of the Sierra Club. In his lecture, Easy Ways Everyone Can Green Their Workplace, part of the Governor s Island Lectures sponsored by the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, Miner discusses ways in which businesses can start to make their workplaces more environmentally friendly, including the installation of roof solar panels and replacing incandescent lights with compact florescent bulbs. Listen Now

In his “Environmental Town Hall” lecture, William Solecki, director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, insists that any future plans to green New York City from retrofitting old buildings to creating environmentally friendly ones should start now. “We are literally rebuilding New York today in many fundamental ways,” said Solecki, professor of geology at Hunter College, “and it’s important that we rebuild with an eye towards that sustainable future.” Solecki said that cities are responsible for about 70 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, but since they contain about half the world’s population, they are also our best hope for a greener future. Listen Now

Award-winning Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat can add a genius grant to her long list of accolades. One of 24 individuals who will receive a total of $500,000 over five years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Danticat helped kick off the 2009 Provost Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series at York College this September. Known for her haunting depictions of Haitian immigrants, Danticat explained the essence of her work. I try to write things that I would like to read, said Danticat, who also read selections from her novel, The Farming of Bones (1999) and her memoir Brother, I m Dying (2007). If you try to be formulaic, you will always aim wrong, she said. Write what you love reading. Listen Now

Even city dwellers can become localvores (consumers of food grown locally), according to Bilen Berhanu, outreach coodinator for the New York City Parks Department s GreenThumb, the nation s largest urban gardening program. Any item on your plate has traveled, on average, 1,500 miles to get to you, said Berhanu, and the environmental costs associated with that are astronomical. In her lecture Gardening in the city? Of Course! Window Box and Container Gardening 101, sponsored by the CUNY Institute of Sustainable Cities on Governor s Island, Berhanu explains that with an adequate amount of sunlight, it is possible to maintain a garden indoors. Listen Now

There is no secret formula to writing a best-selling book, but Colin Harrison, author of six novels four of them named notable books by The New York Times Book Review grasps what readers want. Best known for crime stories set in New York City, Harrison, also a Scribner s senior editor, has won fans worldwide with fresh plot twists and colorful characters. In his talk Confessions of a Magpie, at the Best-Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College, Harrison likened the novelist to the bird known for building its nest from a wide assortment of things. Novelists collect fragments, images and moments they observe, he explained, because there might be something about that person that is useful for a story. Listen Now

Fernando M. Valenzuela, who steps down this year as head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the United Nations, says that to be effective, the U.N. must change. If we want multilateralism to work efficiently, we need to engage in a new form of global governance, said Ambassador Valenzuela, a 30-year career diplomat who was Spain s ambassador to Canada before joining the E.C. as political director and taking the helm in 2005. In his lecture The E.U., the U.N. and the U.S.: Some Parting Reflections, sponsored by the Graduate Center s European Union Studies Center, he insisted, States working together can achieve objectives that go far beyond what even the most powerful country can achieve on its own. We need to make sure that the new emerging powers have their place at the table. Listen Now

When she was about to graduate from high school, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda I. Solis told the 2009 Hunter College graduating class, her guidance counselor advised her mother: Your daughter is not college material. Maybe she should follow the career of her older sister and become a secretary. Despite that, Solis said, her ganas, or desire to succeed, spurred her on to college and beyond. A daughter of immigrants, she became the first Latina elected to the California State Senate in 1994, representing Los Angeles 32nd congressional district. And earlier this year, she was tapped by President Obama for Labor, the first Hispanic woman to serve as a Cabinet member. There are probably a dozen of you in this hall who are future Sonya Sotomayors and probably two dozen future Hilda Solises, Solis told the graduates gathered at Radio City Music Hall. Listen Now