Public Discourse The recovery of a lost history can mean more than recalibrating our understanding of a time or people: sometimes, it can fundamentally reposition how we think about ourselves and our place in the world. The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (CUNY-DSI) achieves just such a repositioning in mounting its exhibition Sixteenth Century La Espanola: Glimpses of the first Blacks in the Americas. In examining the very beginnings of the New World slave trade as it passed through what became the Dominican Republic, the CUNY-DSI, for the first time, shows the world a different kind of pioneer. Brought to this country against their will, America’s first Blacks nevertheless entered a world that included both the dehumanization of a market in men and women, and heroic efforts to build institutions to resist that trade and to care for one another within its stifling confines. It also situates the history of Latinos and African Americans as intertwined from the very beginning, undercutting the myth of deeply separate paths and incommensurate national identities. But more deeply than that, it represents an invitation to delve into lives and histories of individuals obscured for centuries beneath the approximating, aggregate language of “slave” or “Dominican.” It represents a recovery of history on a human scale, in which more and more of us today will be able to find ourselves and gives a voice to millions of lives over the past five centuries.
Human Rights Two years ago, we began a collaboration
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COLIN POWELL SCHOOL FOR CIVIC AND GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
with the Division of Humanities and Arts and the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education on the topic of human rights. We undertook the project because we appreciate that our educational mission is to equip our students and our society with the rights and resources needed to fully achieve their potential. We also embraced the program because, although many of our students are drawn to New York City and to the United States, just as many are driven from their distant homes by violations of their human rights or the rights of those around them. As of 2014, the City College Human Rights Forum has become an institution, with regular audience members and a set of frequent collaborators across the city. This year, we presented lectures on issues including the rights of children in migration, LGBT rights as human rights, and humanrights law. The series is set to continue next year and for the foreseeable future as one of our main expressions of public scholarship.
Immigration It’s hard to name an issue that matters more to our students than immigration. Each year, approximately 80 percent of CCNY students who fill out a broadranging survey report being born outside the United States. Many of our students join advocacy groups, lobbying for general
immigration reform or for programs that offer so-called “Dreamers” a path to citizenship. Moreover, there is no other issue on which the Colin Powell School has a greater concentration of faculty expertise or interest. As we think about how we speak to public audiences—why we should enter a debate or the authority with which we do so—immigration looms large on the agenda. This year, we initiated a multiyear initiative, the Colin Powell School’s Perspectives in Immigration Series. Launched via the public event and academic conference “Growing up Muslim in Europe and the United States,” the series will continue through 2015–16, and will feature next year’s Dean’s Seminar on Immigration, which begins in the fall 2015 semester.
Breakfast Series The Conversations with City Breakfast Series is designed to present conversations between CCNY experts and those in the field on some of the most significant questions of our time. Arranged to particularly highlight the accomplishments, activities, and contributions of the Colin Powell School specifically, the series began as a way to introduce our different departments and programs. This year, we presented discussions on, among other things, police reform, the future of Latin American studies, and one session entitled, “Understanding Female Fighters: Perspectives from South Asia.” The series concluded with a session examining trends in public higher education and asking after strategies institutions can adopt to cope with the defunding of public higher education.
THE CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK
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