1959 Artist Robert Sarnoff’s exhibit “Stages of Grief” is a permanent exhibition at the Ruttenberg Cancer Center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. His image “Ye Olde Jetty” was selected by the United States Postal Service to become their 2004 matted print and cachet. Sarnoff is the designer of the New York Mets baseball camp logo ULTIMetWEEK. Author of several books, including the self-published After the Fall: 9/11/11 A Decade@ War and Notes From the Crack Between Two Beds (Outskirts Press, 2022), he received the Brooklyn College Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. 1961 Janice Alper published a memoir, Sitting on the Stoop: A Girl Grows in Brooklyn, 1944-1957 (2023). Alper is a published poet, and as an active octogenarian, she is enrolled in an M.F.A. program in creative writing-poetry at San Diego State University. She says it is stimulating to be among young people today and has fodder for discussions with her grandchildren. Michael Esposito, a retired staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, received a lifetime achievement award from Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Education. Esposito says he owes a debt of gratitude to the former faculty of the Biology Department who provided excellent instruction and inspiration. 1962 Leonard Silverberg published Either Way It’s Perfect (2020), a “visual memoir” of caring for his wife with dementia. Silverberg also had an exhibition of his ink-wash drawings called “Streets and Borders” at Gallery Tract 16 in downtown Los Angeles this past summer. 1964 Gerald Henig, professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay, has recently published his fourth book, America’s Presidents: What Your History Teacher Never Told You (Wise Ink Creative Publishing, 2024). Intended for the “average” nonfiction reader, it offers unique and compelling views of those who occupied the White House. 1965 For several years, Paul Elstein has been teaching bridge classes to seniors in Howard County, Maryland. Elstein says he has learned a lot since his days playing bridge at the Brooklyn College Student Union building, but he is still far from being an expert player. 1967 Ellen Hymowitz is a licensed psychologist with a private practice specializing in cognitive behavior therapy for adolescents through adults. She works part-time at the Queens Centers for Progress, a preschool for children with disabilities, some of whom are in integrated classes. She is a retired adjunct professor from Long Island University and a retired psychologist from St. Francis de Sales School for the Deaf in Brooklyn. Rosemary Salomone’s book The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language (Oxford University Press, 2021; paperback, 2024) received the 2023 Premio Pavese award in non-fiction from the Cesare Pavese Foundation. The award is named in honor of the noted 20th-century Italian novelist, poet, editor, and translator. The book has been featured in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times of India, Time magazine, and The Economist, among other media. She most recently was interviewed at the Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival, at Oxford University, and University College London. 1968 A second edition of Mark Kroll’s 2007 biography of the 19th-century pianist and composer J.N. Hummel—Johann Nepomuk Hummel, A Musician’s Life and World—was published last year by Hudobné Centrum in Bratislava, Slovakia, the birthplace of Hummel. A Slovakian translation will appear soon. Kroll has also been active as a performing harpsichordist and recently recorded a 10-CD set of the complete “Pièces de Clavecin” of François Couperin, released by Centaur Records. 1969 Michael Novick is well into his second year as general manager of KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, Pacifica Radio for Southern California (sister station to New York City’s WBAI). Novick’s chapter on lessons of anti-fascist organizing from the 1960s to the present was published in No Pasaran! Anti-Fascist Dispatches From a World in Crisis (AK Press, 2022). 1970 Solomon Pinczewski independently published From Bergen-Belsen to Brooklyn (2020), a biography of his mother, who survived a Nazi concentration camp to find herself facing the challenges and ultimate success of raising her family in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. 1973 Valerie Rogers-Layton has been appointed a credentialed minister with the Assemblies of God Church. Cynthia Rosenberg has been “married 50 years to the guy I met in economics statistics with Professor [Emeritus] Hyman Sardi.” 1974 After over 39 years, Paul Zuckerman retired in 2019 as an attorney in the New York Department of Financial Services and the New York Insurance Department. He was an assistant deputy superintendent and counsel responsible for overseeing insurance law opinions and drafting regulations and legislation. He also served in an enforcement capacity. Since then, he has been an independent consultant, providing guidance in insurance law and drafting and enacting legislation. Zuckerman recently became a grandfather for the first time! 1977 Debbie Owens, Ph.D., has retired from Murray State University in Kentucky after serving 22 years at the institution. She joined the MSU faculty in August 2002, as an associate professor with the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC) in The Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business. She received the 2024 Dr. Steven Jones Faculty Excellence Award for her service and excellence in supporting students and promoting an inclusive campus. She was interim department chair, JMC graduate program director, and electronic media head. Owens’ higher education career spans nearly four decades; her professional media work includes advertising, broadcasting, and print news. 1978 After graduating with a master’s degree in school psychology, Brian Friedlander received a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for many years as a school psychologist in New Jersey public schools and was an associate professor of education at St. Elizabeth University for 25 years. There, he headed the graduate programs, special education, and assistive technology. For the last 40 years and counting, Friedlander has been a consultant to schools and families in assistive technology. 1986 Nechama Sorscher’s book Assessment and Intervention With Children, Adolescents, and Adults With Neurocognitive Challenges: A Psychodynamic Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) was published this summer. 1988 After graduating from Brooklyn College, Mary Dawson earned a Ph.D. in neural and behavioral science at SUNY Downstate (today Downstate Health Sciences University). She has been a Department of Biological Sciences professor at Kingsborough Community College since 1993. She was department chair from 2016 to January 2024, and as of February of this year, she is the associate provost and the dean of health programs. 1990 Loretta Arzu graduated from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, with an M.F.A. in poetry in 2023. Kelley Powers recently became the head of site for Rochester Clinical Research and its sister site, RCR Buffalo. The sites conduct clinical trials testing drugs and devices for companies such as Pfizer, Moderna, Merck, and GSK. 1993 Eric Wollman was recognized by the NYPD for serving 50 years with the auxiliary police, currently as an auxiliary inspector. The ceremony was held at One Police Plaza in Manhattan. 1999 Ian Maloney published his first novel, South Brooklyn Exterminating (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing, 2024). He is a professor of literature, writing, and publishing at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, a director of the Jack Hazard Fellowships at New Literary Project, and a contributor at Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Junji Ono is an electrician and member of Local 52 Motion Picture Studio Mechanics. 2000 Melissa Eleftherion’s new poetry collection, Gutter Rainbows (Querencia Press), was published this summer. She has recently completed her term as Poet Laureate for the City of Ukiah, California. Eleftherion now lives in Northern California, where she manages the Ukiah Branch Library and curates the library’s LOBA Reading Series. 2002 Brooklyn College M.F.A. directing alums Dev Bondarin and Cyndy A. Marion are collaborating on the production of a new play, Thistles, which will open this November at 59E59 Theaters in New York City. Betsy Fagin’s fourth poetry book, self-driving, was selected as the 2024 Autumn House Poetry Prize winner. It will be published in October 2025. Fagin’s Fires Seen From Space will be published by Winter Editions in November 2024. 2003 After spending nearly two decades in education, Troy Soto recently delved into film, completing a 55-minute urban drama called Back Home, which he wrote, directed, and appeared in. 2004 Vincent Cobb is an economics Ph.D. candidate at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a full-time economics lecturer at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a 2020–2024 American Economic Association Summer and Scholarship Programs (AEASP) Fellow and a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the international honor society for economics. 2006 After publishing his first book in 2023, award-winning journalist David Lepeska took on a new challenge in 2024—remaking Escape Artist, a troubled but promising travel and living abroad magazine. The author of Dessicated Land: An American in Kashmir (Vishwakarma Publications, 2023), Lepeska is also in talks to publish his second book in 2025. 2009 Joseph Falco is a professional artist working in New York City. Falco says he has learned invaluable lessons from studying art and design at Brooklyn College. He graduated 15 years ago, but the lessons of Brooklyn College remain with him. His Brooklyn College education experience has empowered him to explore his creativity. Composer and musician Stefan Kristinkov has recently released his second solo album, Notes of the Observer (Ulterground Records, 2024). He was honored with the 2023 ASCAP Foundation Jimmy Van Heusen Award. The award is presented to an outstanding, promising composer pursuing a career in television and film scoring. 2010 Frances Lyons became the first full-time and first woman director of athletics at Regis High School in New York City. She is a former member of the Brooklyn College women’s basketball team. 2011 Jessica Wynne is coaching adaptive sports for the University of Michigan as the inaugural and head wheelchair basketball coach. 2013 This past spring, Quanda Johnson received her Ph.D. in interdisciplinary theater studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is a lecturer in the Department of Theatre & Drama for the 2024–2025 academic year. 2015 Filmmaker Daniel Scarpati has released Beach 116: Stories From a Rockaway Street, a documentary that focuses on a key commercial street on the Rockaway peninsula, perched between the Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay. The film was made in collaboration with filmmaker Lee Quinby, the inaugural Zicklin Chair at Brooklyn College and a former distinguished lecturer at Macaulay Honors College. 2016 Michael “M.J.” Bryant spent several years as a public school English teacher in Brooklyn. He now serves as the director of MB Tutoring—a national tutoring service. 2017 Shirlglandy Saint Jean is an assistant director of career and transfer services at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. Cherry Lou Sy has published her debut novel, Love Can’t Feed You (Dutton/Penguin Random House, 2024). Tell us Your News Use the Class Notes form to share your news in our next issue.
