May-16-2022-Minutes

The Academic Senate Committee on Senate Committee on Cultural and Archival Resources met on May 16, 2022 12:00pm (online)

Committee Members in Attendance:

Susan Agin, Franca Ferrari, Aviva Geismar, David Pham, Jessica Prepetit, , Madeline Ruggiero, Bianca Sosnovski, Nathaniel Sullivan, and  Huixin (Maritza) Wu.

Liaisons in Attendance:

Steering Committee Designee: Carlene Byfield

KHC’s representative: Marisa Hollywood

Business:

The meeting was called to order at 12:00pm

The meeting was called to order at 12:00pm

 

Attendance and greetings

Welcoming to one of the new members, David Pham.

 

Review and approved minutes from May 16, 2022 meeting

Approved (Franca makes motion and Bianca seconds motion).

One correction made by Marisa on the spelling of her name that appears in the cultural center directors section of the minutes.

 

Chair's report

Overviewed of the tasks done by the committee during the academic year 2021-2022: worked a lot on the website by updating old information, some regular cleaning up the website, removing pdf files or change them to HTML, keeping consistency with how things are posted, linking to repositories and resources available in the Cultural Centers, including some highlighted projects.

Possible tasks to be done in the next year is to continue with the work of updating the website and possibly include resources of the Art Gallery.

 

Reports from cultural center directors 

 

QPAC – Susan Agin

• Anticipates opening in the Fall of 2022
• Received $312,000 in City Council Discretionary Funding
• Provided cultural programming for 8 senior centers, serving a total of 10,000 seniors in the borough: Allen Community Center, Forest Hills Community Center, Latimer Gardens Senior Center, Community House (Kew Gardens), Young Israel Senior League, Bayside Senior Center, Clearview Self-Help, and Allen Rockaway Blvd. Senior Center,
• Provided cultural programming to the Benjamin Rosenthal Senior Center through access to links for streaming virtual entertainment produced by QPAC
• Provided cultural programming through a CASA grant (Cultural After School Adventure) for the schools PS 280Q, PS 139Q, and PS 193Q, serving 500 students in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades
• Provided in-school dance workshop to 100 students at PS 45Q
• Provided virtual Gotta Dance workshops to adults (our own students at QCC) and for kids in local schools: P.S. 64, St. Rose of Lima, PS/MS 200, PS/IS4 499, JH216, JH217, Q896, PS203, IS109, MS74, and MS172
• Provided in-person cultural programming with 10 In-District Concerts: Verdi’s of Whitestone (for HANAC Angelo Petromelis Senior Center),
• Will provide in-person cultural programming in the summer of 2022: Juniper Park (4 free concerts sponsored by Councilmember Robert Holden), and a Bell Boulevard Family Festival (Disney concert sponsored by Councilmember Paul Vallone)
• Provided QPAC Drive-In Concerts (3 concerts)
• Provided virtual streaming program on QPAC’s YouTube, Facebook channels and on its website which included the following and served more than 20,000 individuals through repeated airings on Queens Public Television: What The World Needs Now, Natalie Carter, Richie Santa as Elvis, CeeCee Teneal - Portrait of a Queen, Brian Brigham, Terron Brooks, Robert Klein
• Collaborated with the English Dept. on 3 live virtual presentations of the following, serving 250 QCC Students: Dracula (celebrating 125th Anniversary of novel publication), A Doll’s House, and The Red Masque

 

KHC – Marisa Hollywood

• Kupferberg Holocaust Center’s Focus is on Public Programs, Exhibitions, Education, and Holocaust Survivors
• Had 4 events in National Endowment for the Humanities Series. The 2021-22 Theme is: “Incarceration, Transformation & Paths to Liberation during the Holocaust and Beyond”, led by Dr. Azadeh Aalai in Sociology and Dr. Mirna Lekic in Music
• Had 4 events in the Human Rights and the Museum Series, led by Kat Griefen in Art & Design Dept.
• The pandemic situation enabled partnership with 15 outside institutions that focus on Holocaust and other human rights issues
• Had 8 partnerships within QCC: CETL, the Creative Writing Club, QPAC, LGBTQIA, Departments of English, Art and Design, and Music.
• Had 3 CUNY wide partnerships: M.A. Program in Museum at the School of Professional Studies, Dept. of Jewish Studies at Queens College, and LGBTQIA at Staten Island College
• The International Remembrance Day Commemoration was the event with largest reach and took place in January of 2022 with 600 registrants and attendance of about 400 people, and it was co-sponsored by 9 Holocaust Institutions
• Provided a list of event recordings on its website, which is great way for faculty to continue to engage
• Had a new collaboration for the Common Read: Fighting Off the Weight of Nonexistence: A Conversation with Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric. The Center will continue to collaborate with the Common Read again next year
• Had a new initiative with the Welcome Read to host an event
• Installed the original exhibit The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide in August. It was scheduled to open the September of 2021 but with COVID a virtual version was created. Then it progressed to have groups of QCC students visiting in person.
• Has 5 interns (QCC students) and 2 fellows (graduate students) that were taking classes in the M.A. Program in Museum at SPS. They assist the Center with projects and were all doing research pertaining to the Exhibition
• Will soon welcome the local Holocaust survivors back to the Center since the pandemic started

 

Final Remarks

Members discussed the possibility to have an event to have faculty talking about the work that they have done with the Cultural Centers, to encourage other faculty to create projects involving the Centers.

 

Meeting adjourned at 1:03 PM.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Bianca Sosnovski
Committee on Senate Committee on Cultural and Archival Resources, Secretary

Minutes typed on May 16, 2022