Martin D. Sass ’63, Chairman and CEO of M.D. Sass, one of the nation’s leading independent registered investment management firms, is greeted by a student at the M.D. Sass Investment Institute dinner last November. The institute, established in 2015 as an experiential learning initiative in the Koppelman School of Business, engages Brooklyn College students in research on an active investment fund. Members of the 1982 “Kingsmen” basketball team stand with the wife of late coach Mark Reiner, Tina, at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony on December 2. The team made college history by reaching the Final Four of the 1981-82 NCAA tournament. New York City District 39 Councilmember Shahana Hanif ’15 shared her journey from college to political leader at the Women’s Center on December 2. The first Muslim woman elected to the New York City Council, Hanif spoke about her efforts to encourage women entrepreneurship. In December, a new mural was unveiled in the Film Department in the West End Building. Thirteen students worked with artist and Adjunct Professor Julia Cocuzza ’11 M.F.A. on the project. Artist and Assistant Professor Derrick Adams acted as an adviser. In January, students gathered at the New York City headquarters of Aon plc for a reception celebrating the new Career Partners and Alumni Champions programs. Inaugurated by corporate leaders Aon, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, these programs allow businesses and organizations to invest in the college’s diverse talent, and students are given opportunities to become candidates for employment in the participating companies. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center President and CEO Dr. Selwyn Vickers, M.D., FACS, joined President Michelle J. Anderson for a conversation on February 2 in the Don Buchwald Theater in the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts. The first event in the new Presidential Lecture Series at Brooklyn College focused on health care as a social justice issue and career opportunities in the field. President Michelle J. Anderson, along with CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, joined student interns for a tour of the Flatbush African Burial Grounds on February 16. The students worked to protect the site—a burial ground for enslaved Africans in the 1700s—on a semester-long paid internship. The internship is part of the college’s Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiatives (BRESI), funded by the Mellon Foundation. On February 22, John Hope Franklin Day Speaker, accomplished historian, photographer, and educator Deborah Willis, led a discussion on the visual archives of Black history in the library. In the 1950s, John Hope Franklin was chair of the history department at the college, the first African American to be named chair of an academic department at a municipal college. Poet, educator, and judge JP Howard delivered the Tow Mentor-in-Residence keynote address on February 22 in the in the Don Buchwald Theater in the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts. Brooklyn College Student Amara Minott displays an award received at the Night of Black Excellence held in the Student Center on February 28. The event, a formal awards dinner, was hosted by the college’s National Association of Black Accountants, Black History Month Committee, the Student Activities, Involvement, and Leadership (S.A.I.L) Center, Undergraduate Student Government, and the Black Latino Male Initiative. For a third straight season, Brooklyn College was CUNYAC Women’s Basketball Champions. The top-seeded Bulldogs held off No. 2 John Jay, 64-58, to win their fourth title in five seasons and earn the league’s automatic bid to the 2023 NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball Championship. After a loss to top-ranked Christopher Newport University, the Bulldogs ended the 2022-23 Season with an overall standing of 19-8. In celebration of Women’s History Month, Ambassador Howaida Essam Abdel Rahman of the New York Egyptian Consulate visited Brooklyn College on March 6. The ambassador discussed her professional and personal experiences working in international diplomacy. A scene from William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew performed by members of the Brooklyn College Theater Department. The play ran from March 3 to March 7 in the New Workshop Theater in Whitman Hall. Brooklyn College students on the West Quad cover each other with brightly colored powder in celebration of Holi, a popular Hindu festival held each spring. On March 16, feminist, activist, and Hess Scholar-in-Residence Barbara Smith gave the keynote address, “What I Believe” at the Don Buchwald Theater in the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts. Accompanied by Conservatory of Music Associate Professor Malcolm Merriweather and a 10-member choir, mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford performs at the keynote address of feminist and activist Barbara Smith, the Hess Scholar in Residence. The event took place on March 16 at the Claire Tow Theater in the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts. Deans Qing Hu, Koppelman School of Business, María Scharrón-del Río, School of Education, and Peter Tolias, School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences, present on Admitted Student Day in the Don Buchwald Theater at the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts. The event gave incoming students an opportunity to see the campus, interact with faculty from various departments, and confirm their commitment as Brooklyn College students. Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson greets a new student on Admitted Student Day in the lobby of the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts. President Michelle J. Anderson pauses for a photo with Patrick Gaspard, the president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress and the chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Gaspard was the second guest in a new Presidential Lecture Series. The evening’s event, held at the Don Buchwald Theater in the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, focused on Gaspard’s career trajectory, international relations, and the building of a more equitable world by investing in democracy, health care equity, and social justice. Chair of the Brooklyn College Foundation, Evan Silverstein ’76, and President Michelle J. Anderson, join Best of Brooklyn Honorees, Aaron Olson, Aon, and Anthony Castellanos ’85, KPMG, on the Best of Brooklyn Gala red carpet in May.
