Top of the News

  • This year, Dr. Ronald Drucker (CE'62), chairman of the board of trustees, will be the commencement speaker. Presidential Citations will go to Jesse Reiser (AR'81) and Nanako Umemoto (AR'83) for architecture, Thomas Nozkowski (A'67) for art and Nancy H. Yieh (ME'79) for engineering.
  • On April 30, the Higher Education Capital Matching Grants (He Cap) Board (State of New York) approved $52 million in He Cap funding for projects at 33 institutions. The Cooper Union was awarded $411,414 towards construction costs for the new academic building.
  • The Cooper Union will host its Sixth Annual Urban Visionaries Award Dinner and Silent Auction on Tuesday, June 10, 2008, honoring Annie Leibovitz for her accomplishments in visual art, David Childs for his achievements in architecture, Lloyd G. Trotter of GE Industrial Systems for his outstanding contributions to the field of engineering, Richard Ravitch for urban citizenship and Wangechi Mutu (A'97) as an emerging talent.

    Serving as dinner chairs are Kevin Burke (EE'72), T.J. Gottesdiener (AR'79), Hedy Klineman (A'62), Kathleen Lacey and James Hoge and Marilyn Jordan Taylor.

    This year's benefit will take place at 7 World Trade Center — a dramatic downtown space with spectacular 360-degree views of New York City. The evening will begin with a cocktail reception featuring an extensive silent art auction of small works by some of the country's most talented artists. Participating artists include: Karen Bausman (AR'82), Ernesto L. Caivano, Susanna Coffey, Stephen Doyle, Sue Ferguson Gussow, Kimsooja, Vera Klement, Lisa Lawley, Janet Odgis, Yoko Ono, David Storey and Tom Wesselmann. A seated dinner with awards presentation will follow.

    Tickets are available for $500, $1,000 and $2,500 and tables for $5,000, $10,000, $25,000 and $50,000. A limited number of tickets are available for faculty and staff at the discounted price of $250. All proceeds will support The Cooper Union's hallmark tradition of awarding full-tuition scholarships to all admitted students. For more information or to make a reservation, contact Lindsey Cole at 212.353.4106 or uv@cooper.edu.

    Keep checking www.cooper.edu/urbanvisionaries for updates and to see photographs of last year's event.

Congratulations

  • Continuing a tradition of outstanding performance in such competitions, Cooper Union electrical engineering students swept the 2008 IEEE Region I Undergraduate Student Paper Contest, held April 26th at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

    First Place: "CLEMIROCRAFT: Design and Fabrication of an EHD Powered Hovercraft," by Clemens Wan (EE'08) and Miroslav Ovcharik (EE'08), advised by Professor Toby Cumberbatch, sponsored by SEA²M³.

    Second Place: "System-on-a-Chip for Real-Time Network Intrusion Detection Using Counting Bloom Filters," by Jared Harwayne-Gidansky (EE'08) and Deian Stefan (EE'09), advised by Professor Kausik Chatterjee, sponsored by S*ProCom².

    Third Place: "A 2.4GHz Cognitive Radio Network Using Open-Source Software Defined Radio," by Mohammed Billoo (EE'08), Michael J. Fox (EE'08) and Yasin Sobhan (EE'08), advised by Professor Cumberbatch, sponsored by S*ProCom².
  • The School of Art is pleased to announce that Betsy Alwin (tech. ass't., sculpture shop & casting techniques instr.) and Dennis Delgado (computer studio tech.) have been selected as the 2008 Barbara White Fellows to attend the artists' residency program at the Vermont Studio Center this summer. These fellowships are funded by the family of alumna Barbara White (A'60) in her honor.
  • Javier Bosques (A'08) has been awarded a residency at Skowhegan.
  • Sharon de la Cruz (A'08) has received a Fulbright for study in Peru. She is currently focused on filmmaking, and her project takes up questions of race and identity in Peruvian culture. She will be working with children on a collaborative film project about identity. John Greenberg (AR'08) has won a grant to Tunisia. He is planning to create a narrative history of water in Tunisia. He will create a portfolio that investigates the relationship of landscape, national borders, and identity to water in Tunisian and the greater North African region. Samuel Omans (AR'08) has been awarded a grant to Kazakhstan for the 2008-09 year. He will be studying the yurt as a portable architectural structure taking up culture and history; his work will include a museum studies residency and a period spent on the steppes observing contemporary uses and traces of the structure.
  • David Doonan (A'77) has been elected mayor of Greenwich, NY.
  • Hans Haacke (Art fac. emeritus) will be receiving an honorary degree in fine art by the San Francisco Art Institute.
  • Obra Architects' (Jennifer Lee [AR'97] and Pablo Castro) BEATFUSE! has won an 2008 AIA New York Honor Award in the AIA New York Design Awards this year. There will be an accompanying show at the Center for Architecture that opens May 1st.
  • Professor Robert Hopkins (Eng. fac./Director of the Computer Center) and Andrew Lent (father of Professor Chris Lent [Eng. fac.]) have been named Eminent Engineers by Tau Beta Pi.
  • Pam Lins (Art fac.) has been granted a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2008.
  • Anne Ronan (CE'83/MCE'84/Eng. fac.) has just won the annual Chi Epsilon Excellence in Teaching Award from the Metropolitan District of Chi Epsilon. She was nominated by the Cooper Union Chapter of Chi Epsilon "in recognition of her dedication to teaching."
  • Raja Swaidan (ChE'08) was accepted and will attend the KAUST master's program in Saudi Arabia.
  • Caroline Woolard (A'07) has been awarded a residency at The MacDowell Colony.
  • Eight students went to Washington D.C. to represent Cooper Union in the 4th National Sustainable Design Expo, featuring the 4th Annual P3 (People, Prosperity, and the Planet) Award Competition, April 20th-22: David Berger (CE'10), Leah Freed (ChE'09), Ian Jacobs (ChE'10), Anurag Panda (EE'11), James Stevenson (ChE'11), Varsha Venugopal (ChE'11), Lindsay Volk (ChE'10) and Nicholas Wong (ME'11). The students presented work on Solar Lighting for Remote Rural Communities or The Development of an Indigenous Fluoride Filter. Beatrix Ponce (ME'11), Allan Ho (CE'09) and Ryan Hogan (A'11) were also involved in the projects, which both won Honorable Mentions.

publications, presentations and major exhibitions

  • Dennis Adams (Art fac.), solo show, Kent Gallery, NYC.
  • Samuel Anderson (AR'82/Arch. fac.), AIA New York Chapter/Boston Society of Architects 2008 Building Type Award, Sustainable Design, Merit, Harvard University Library Services Building, eOCULUS, April 1, 2008.
  • Dore Ashton (H&SS fac.), in "Barceló ha entrado en la historia del arte con la capilla de Palma," (Barceló has made an entrance into the history of art with the Chapel of Palma) El País, March 15, 2008; in "Barceló ya tiene su 'lugar en los anales de la Historia del Arte,'" (Barceló already has secured its "place in the annals of the History of Art.") El Mundo, March 15, 2008.
  • Marek Bartelik (H&SS fac.), editor, POZA: On the Polishness of Contemporary Polish Art, Real Art Ways and D.A.P., March 2008; "From Politics to Reality: Constructivism in the United States," in "Neo-Constructivism: Art, Architecture, and Activism," exhibition catalogue, Raul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers, March 2008; interviewed by France Culture, "Carnet Nomade," New York edition, February 2008.
  • Simon Ben-Avi (Eng. assoc. dean), "Electromyographic Activity During Standard Shoulder Strength Tests: Surface Versus Fine Wire Recordings," Orthopedic Research Society's annual meeting, San Francisco; "Optimizing Achilles Tendon Repair: Effect of Epitendinous Suture Augmentation on the Strength of Achilles Tendon Repairs," American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society Proceedings.
  • Gerardo del Cerro (dir., assessment & innovation), "Ethnography in Robotics. Measuring Learning through Qualitative Analysis in the Robotics-for-Theater Project," Futures Research Quarterly, 2008.
  • Elizabeth Diller (AR'79), Ricardo Scofidio (AR'55/Arch. fac. emeritus), Hayley Eber (AR'01/Arch. fac.), "You Prison," Domus, March 2008.
  • Lois Dodd (A'48), solo exhibition, Alexandre Gallery, New York City, through May 29.
  • Michael Dolinski (AR'68), "In the shadow of children in flower," Domus, March 2008.
  • Edward Feiner (AR'69), "Feiner Goes All-in as Las Vegas Sands' New Chief Architect," Architectural Record, February 27, 2008; "Names in the News," eOCULUS, March 18, 2008.
  • Martin Finio (AR'88), "Studio Visit—Christoff:Finio Architecture," The Architect's Newspaper, March 5, 2008.
  • Audrey Flack (A'51), Eva Hesse (A'57), Sylvia Plimack Mangold (A'59), WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, P.S.1, New York City, through May 12.
  • William Germano (H&SS dean), "Finding Fault with Shakespeare," "Originality and Technology" seminar, Shakespeare Association of America annual meeting, Dallas, March 2008.
  • Frank Gerard Godlewski (AR'82), "Cookie Paintster," Baristanet, March 16, 2008.
  • T.J. Gottesdiener (AR'79), "New York Area's Largest Architecture Firms," Crain's New York Business, April 7, 2008.
  • Atina Grossman (H&SS fac.), lecture, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany, Jewish Museum Frankfurt and Jewish Museum Berlin.
  • Sue F. Gussow (A'56/Arch. fac. emeritus), Architects Draw, Princeton Architectural Press.
  • Cynthia Hartling (A'84/Eng. office), "Shape Shifters," Sideshow, Brooklyn, NY, through May 17.
  • R.B. Kitaj (A'53) (deceased), solo exhibition, Marlborough Gallery, New York City, through May 3.
  • Murray Levi (AR'79), "LEED and its impacts in New York City," Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, New York City, April 2008.
  • Daniel Libeskind (AR'70), "Editor: Of Ethics and Architecture," The Architect's Newspaper, April 2, 2008.
  • Jill Magid (Art fac.), solo show, Stroom, The Hague, Netherlands, through June 15.
  • Marlene McCarty (Art fac.), solo show, Sikkema Jenkins, New York City, through May 3.
  • Matthew Monahan (A'94), Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, New Museum, New York City, March.
  • Toshiko Mori (AR'76), Gropius Lecture, "Reflections on the Effects of Architecture," Harvard University, April 2008.
  • Thomas Nozkowsi (A'67), solo show, Pace Wildenstein, New York City, through May 3.
  • Ken Okiishi (A'01/ass't. dir., Center for Writing and Language Arts), A Fair to Meddling Story (with Nick Mauss [A'03]), JRP Ringier, 2008; "On Georges Perec's un homme qui dort" Bidoun, Spring-Summer 2008; Top Ten, Artforum, March 2008 (with Mauss).
  • John Sarich (H&SS fac.), "Some Empirical Tests of Turbulent Arbitrage," Review of Radical Political Economics; "Is there a 'Long Wave' in Profitability," Eastern Economic Association meetings, New York, March 2007; "What Do We Know About the Real Exchange Rate? A Classical Cost of Production Story," Review of Political Economy, vol. 18, number 4 (October), 469-496.
  • Ysrael A. Seinuk (Arch. fac.), "Principals Talk Back," panel discussion, SMPS Long Island, March 2008.
  • Grahame Shane (Arch. fac.), lecture and book signing, "Recombinant Urbanism", New York Institute of Technology, Manhattan Campus, March 2008.
  • David Shapiro (Arch. fac.), "The New York Canon: Books," New York Magazine, April 7, 2008.
  • Eric Shiner (H&SS fac.), "Snake Alley," Taipei Cultural Center, April 2008; "Social Edit," Location One, April 2008; "Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win: Emerging Artists from the Chinese Diaspora," Deutsche Bank, April 2008.
  • George Sidebotham (Eng. fac.), interview, "Studio 360: Power Cart," NPR, April 2008; "Microgravity Opposed Flow Flame Spread in Polyvinyl Chloride Tubes," Combustion and Flame.
  • Fred Siegel (H&SS fac.), in The Daily News and on WABC and WCBS.
  • Martha Skinner (AR'95), "School Haze," Metropolis, March 19, 2008; "Pollution Absorbing Walls to Make Schools Near Freeways Less Pollutey," la.curbed.com, March 19, 2008.
  • Lee Skolnick (AR'79), "Natural Elements Inspire New Residences in Anguilla," eOCULUS, March 18, 2008.
  • Suchitra Van (AR'94), "A Global Sweep on a Tiny Budget," The New York Times, March 20, 2008.
  • Anthony Vidler (Arch. dean & fac.), Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism, introduction by Peter Eisenman (Arch. fac. emeritus), MIT Press; "Aftertaste 2," symposium, Parsons The New School for Design, New York City, April 2008.
  • Michael Webb (Arch. fac.), "Two Journeys," New York City Technical College, May 2008.
  • Suzan Wines (AR'90/Arch. fac.), Azin Valy (AR'90) (I-Beam Design), "Pallet House," Dwell blog, March 28, 2008; "Pallet House Transitional Refugee Shelter," Open Architecture Network, March 29, 2008 http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/node/2081; "A Pallet-able Architecture," Metropolis, April 8, 2008.
  • Kwame-Lante Wright (EE'09) with Jian Wang, Kartik Gopalan, "XenLoop : A Transparent High Performance Inter-VM Network Loopback," International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC), Boston, MA, June 2008.

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giving to cooper union

  • A very warm thank you to Jane Deed, widow of Donald Deed (ChE'37), who has made another generous planned gift, most recently to establish a Charitable Remainder Trust at the college. Mrs. Deed's latest contribution brings the total amount of her remarkable support of The Cooper Union to more than $2 million, making her one of the college's top 10 living benefactors.
  • Chairman of the Board of Trustees Ronald W. Drucker (CE'62) and Lisa Ware made their third gift toward the new academic building fund, which brings our chairman's lifetime giving to more than $1.0 million, and makes the couple the newest members of the Peter Cooper Heritage Society.
  • New alumni trustee Thomas R. Driscoll (ME'77) and his wife made a generous pledge to the new academic building fund. His is part of a Cooper Union family: His father Timothy J. Driscoll (ME'56) and brother Timothy Driscoll (ME'73) are also graduates of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering, and the current Engineering Building has a well-used Driscoll Room, as will the new building.
  • Vice Chairman Mark Epstein (A '76) very generously made a second pledge to support the new academic building fund.
  • The Alumni Roof Terrace just passed the $1.5 million mark in support of the new academic building. Stephen Levee (ME'65) (who has already reserved a space for his name on the terrace) reserved a space in honor of his father, Harris Levee (ME'43), and made the gift that helped us reach this milestone. A big thank you to all alumni who have contributed so far, and a reminder to all alumni who haven't pledged yet: The Alumni Roof Terrace is almost half full; don't miss your chance to commemorate your time at Cooper Union. Please remember that all pledges are payable through June 30, 2012. For more information, contact Claire Michie at 212-353-4171 or michie@cooper.edu, or visit Give to Cooper Union.
  • Jack & Susan Rudin have made a five-year $500,000 pledge in support of The Cooper Union's new Institute for Sustainable Design. The Institute will facilitate interdisciplinary research and scholarship in creating sustainable environments, and will disseminate information to enhance the public understanding of green building design and construction.

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Don't Miss

General Interest

  • The Cooper Dramatic Society's production of Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson will take place May 2, 3 and 4 in the Wollman Auditorium. The play is a dramatized version of how the screenplay for Gone with the Wind was re-written in an unprecedented amount of time by some of the industry's best writers and directors.
  • The Fall Engineering Career Fair will be held on October 7, 2008 in the Great Hall. The Spring Engineering Career Fair on February 26th in the Wollman Lounge was once again a great success, with more than 40 companies in attendance.

Alumni Events

  • The Golden Legion celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of the class of 1958 will be held Friday, May 9, 2008. The opening ceremony will take place in The Great Hall at 10:30 a.m. where the class of 1958 will be inducted into the Golden Legion by President George Campbell Jr., followed by a luncheon in Wollman Lounge from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. Guided tours will follow the luncheon, and the day's events will culminate with a reception for all Golden Legion members of the classes of 1926 through 1958 in Wollman Lounge from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
  • The Cooper Union Alumni Association (CUAA) will visit The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) on Friday, May 16, 2008 to view the spectacular Tibetan and Himalayan sculpture, painting, weavings and photography. Cooper Union alumni and friends will meet at 6:00 p.m. in the K-2 Café Lounge, followed by docent-guided exhibition tours at 7:30 p.m. and viewing of "La Cravate" and also "Transformation: Building of the Rubin Museum of Art" at 9:15 p.m. For further information go to ww.cualumni.com. To register, call event coordinators Paul Heller (ME'53) at 631-643-8608 or Rebecca Uss (AR'90) at 212-663-9856 by Friday, May 9 with your RSVP and the number of people in your party.
  • The annual On the Rooftop event will be held in the Peter Cooper Suite on Thursday, May 22, 2008 from 7 to 9 p.m., during which the classes of 1987-2007 welcome our newest alumni, the class of 2008, into The Cooper Union Alumni Association.
  • The annual commencement lunch for the class of 2008 will be held on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 in Peter Cooper Suite following the commencement rehearsal.
  • On April 11th dinner co-chairs John Huddy (AR'85) and Elizabeth Huddy and more than 260 alumni, faculty, students and friends of The Cooper Union attended the annual Founder's Day Dinner Dance to honor alumni achievements, celebrate Peter Cooper's 217th birthday and recognize the 25th reunion of the class of 1983 in The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers. The CUAA proudly honored the 2008 alumni award recipients: The Gano Dunn Award for outstanding professional achievement in engineering: Dr. Ira Whitman (CE'61/MCE'63); the Augustus Saint Gaudens Award for outstanding professional achievement in art: Whitfield Lovell (A'81); the John Hejduk Award for outstanding contribution to the theory, teaching and/or practice of architecture: Alexander Gorlin (AR'78) and Alumnus of the Year: Ronald Weinstein (CE'67).

Upcoming Lectures and Public Programs

  • The Third Annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture by Umberto Eco
    "On the Advantages of Fiction for Life and Death"
    Introduced by Francine Prose, with an on-stage interview by Joyce Carol Oates
    Sunday, May 4, 6:30 p.m., lecture, The Great Hall
    $15/$10 PEN members, www.smarttix.com or 212.868.4444
    The third annual PEN World Voices Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture is to be presented by Italian writer, philosopher, critic, and professor, Umberto Eco, whose body of work has made significant contributions to the fields of semiotics, aesthetics, medievalism, and literary theory. Umberto Eco is one of the most acclaimed writers of the last thirty years, winning a number of awards and receiving over thirty honorary doctorates from academic institutions across the world. We are honored to welcome Umberto Eco to deliver this prestigious lecture, which was established in collaboration with the Arthur Miller Estate. Umberto Eco will be joined onstage after his lecture for a discussion with three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joyce Carol Oates. The evening will be introduced by PEN President, Francine Prose.
  • Subway Song
    Wednesday, May 21, 6:30 p.m., concert, The Great Hall
    "Subway Moon" is a collection of stories inspired by the subway and told through music, image, and words by Roy Nathanson and The Jazz Passengers, high school students from the Institute for Collaborative Education and visiting students from the suburbs of Paris. The piece tells of a magical underground place where people from a variety of different age groups, backgrounds and sensibilities can think and reflect.

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Did You Know?

  • Blindspot, a book of recent paintings by Robert Bordo (Art fac.), is now available at Spoonbill and Sugartown in Williamsburg (218 Bedford Avenue).
  • The Center for Career Development introduced a Special Topics series this spring. The series included a presentation on copyright law by Raymond J. Dowd. Basic employment law was discussed by Mitchell H. Rubinstein. A roundtable discussion on exhibiting was led by Robert Thill (dir. Center for Career Development). Participants included Eric Heist, director, Momenta Art; Elisabeth Ivers, director, Marianne Boesky Gallery; Matthew Lyons, associate curator, The Kitchen; and Yasmeen M. Siddiqui, curator, Storefront for Art and Architecture.
  • On April 1st, Brian Turner (AR'06) talked to Cooper Union students about his experience as a Fulbright fellow in Fukuoka, Japan, at Kyushu University. Turner undertook a study of Japanese carpentry and the roots of Shinto and Buddhist architecture in Japan. He discussed his research, travels and experiences as an American entering into the world of Japanese craftsmen. The event was organized by the Center for Writing & Language Arts and the Center for Career Development.
  • The last installment of this year's graduate school panel series for engineering students took place on April 2nd . In response to students' growing interest in applying their undergraduate degrees to business fields, the Center for Career Development hosted admissions representatives from the business schools of MIT, RPI, Baruch and Pace University. Megan Massimiano (career counselor for engineering) moderated the panel discussion on application processes, program offerings and career directions post MBA.

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