- The first of the Great Evenings in the Great Hall celebrating Cooper Union's 150th anniversary was thrilling. Scholars and actors read from major figures in the Abolition and Civil Rights movements who had spoken in The Great Hall. Prof. Eric Foner of Columbia recounted the history of the times. Rev. Calvin O. Butts read from Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois, David Strathairn from Wendell Phillips and Peter Cooper. Barbara Feldon read a moving passage from "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and Marina Squerciati gave a passionate interpretation of Anna Dickinson's Great Hall speech. Prof. Manning Marable (also of Columbia) read from Thurgood Marshall. Kevin Collins narrated the evening and the New York City Labor Chorus sang rousing songs including "John Brown's Body" and "We Shall Overcome." The next of the eight Great Evenings, Electoral Politics, will be on May 19 at 6:30 and will celebrate the hundreds of men and women who have campaigned for public office in The Great Hall.
- The Cooper Union mourns the passing of friend and noted architect J. Max Bond Jr. Bond was widely recognized for his professional work in architecture around the world as well as his contributions as an educator at both City College and Columbia's School of Architecture. In addition to this, Bond also served on Cooper Union's President's Council since 2002. Bond was a partner in the firm Davis Brody Bond and SmithGroup, which recently won the design competition for the Black History Museum in Washington D.C.
- On April 17th, Dinner Co-chairs Judy Gerrard (AR'83) and Robert Tan (AR'81) and more than 275 alumni, faculty, students and friends of The Cooper Union attended the annual Founder's Day Dinner Dance at The Ritz Carlton New York, Battery Park to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the founding of The Cooper Union, the 218th birthday of Peter Cooper, honored five outstanding alumni and recognized the 25th reunion of the Class of 1984.
- The Cooper Union's 2009 commencement is just weeks away. More information is available online at our Commencement website.
- The Cooper Union's monthly News From the President's Office has recently been redesigned, incorporating our new institutional identity. The redesign anticipates the forthcoming renewal and relaunch of our entire homepage later this year.
- Congratulations to Associate Professor of Art Walid Raad for his recent receipt of a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. The highly prestigious award comes at the height of Raad's distinguished and internationally recognized career. His work has been exhibited in such high profile exhibitions and venues as Documenta 11 (Kassel, Germany), the Venice Biennale, the Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany), the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and Homeworks (Beirut, Lebanon).
- Stanley Allen (AR'83) was recently honored with a 2009 American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award for "work... characterized by a strong personal direction."
- Lucy Kirkman (A'2009) has won a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship.
- Congratulations to Cooper Union alumni and students who have received Fulbright Fellowships this year for international study and travel. Recent awards have gone to Liana Fink (A'2008) who will be going to Belgium to work on a graphic novel and Anna Kostreva (AR'2009), who will be going to South Africa to study children's relationships to urban architecture in Johannesburg. This brings the total number of Fulbrights won by Cooper students and alums to 31 since 2000.
- Noah Garcia (AR'10) has recenently been announced the recipient of the 2009 RTKL Traveling Fellowship from the American Architectural Foundation.
- Espen Vatn (AR'10) was just awarded a Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates Traveling Fellowship.
- Eugene Belilovsky (EE'10) and Anurag Panda (EE'11) were selected to participate in Research Internships for Science & Engineering (RISE) in Germany. German Academic Exchange Service fellowships will support their practical training. Belilovsky's research will focus on speech recognition at the University of Luebeck. Panda will work on nonlinear ballistic transport in two-dimensional systems at the University of Duisburg. The fellowships include language training.
- An innovative and multidisciplinary team of Cooper Union engineering students designed and presented a solar lighting system, a project tailored for people inhabiting very poor communities in the developing world, at the March Madness for The Mind exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Prototype assembly lines of the solar lighting system are currently under evaluation by African students in Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya. Press coverage of the event appeared in the Washington Times and BusinessWeek as well as on the Discovery Channel, USA Channel 9 and Voice of America, to name but a few.
publications, presentations and major exhibitions
- Stanley Allen (AR'81), organizer and moderator, "Landform Building — Architecture's New Terrain," conference, Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ, 18 April 2009; "Chapel, Chosen Children Village, The Philippines," DOMUS, #924, April 2009.
- Shigeru Ban (AR'84), "10 Unit System by Shigeru Ban," DEZEEN, April 14, 2009.
- Christine Benedict (AR'86), panelist, "Safeguarding History and the Environment: Commonalities and Conflicts Between Preservation and Sustainability," April 15, 2009, Center for Architecture (sponsored by Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation), NYC.
- Lorenzo Clayton (Adjunct fac) and Timothy Corbett (A'2003), group exhibition, Abrazo Interno Gallery, NYC. Through May 9th.
- Robert Cowherd (AR'88), co-organizer, "Designing for Life: Medellin/Caracas," international symposium, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, September 19-October 2, 2008.
- Elizabeth Diller (AR'79), Urban Edge Award, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning.
- Evan Douglis (AR'83), Autogenic Structures, New York: Routledge, 2009.
- Nelson Fernando Figallo (AR'03), participant, Speakeasy 2009 Benefit Auction, sponsored by Exit Art, April 28, 2009.
- Natalie Fizer (AR'89), and Glenn Forley, "Tailoring Form: A Brief Look at the Anonymous History of the Architectural Template," SCAPES 7, Fall 2008.
- Martha Friedman (Adjunct fac), solo show, Wallspace, NYC. Through May 16th.
- Judith Gerrard (AR'83) and Robert Tan (AR'81), "Blissed Out," INTERIOR DESIGN, March 2009.
- David Gersten (AR 91/Arch fac), roundtable discussion participant, "How Do We Look to the Outside?," Rhode Island School of Design, April 7, 2009, Providence, RI.
- Alexander Gorlin (AR'78), "Eavesdrop: Sara Hart," THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER, April 1, 2009; "Barbs from the Beyond," THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER, April 1, 2009.
- Stephanie Hightower (Dir. Outreach Program), solo show, Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, NYC. Through May 16th.
- Bob Hopkins (Chief Technology Officer and fac), "Believe in Your Dreams: Anatomy of an ARISS Circuit," CQ Magazine, April 2009.
- Gwen Hyman (HSS fac), Making a Man: Gentlemanly Appetites in the 19th-Century British Novel, Athenes, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2009.
- Randall Korman (AR'72), Spring 2009 Batza Professorship in Art and Art History, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York.
- Thomas Leeser (Arch fac), "This Hotel Breaks the Archetype," eOCULUS, April 7, 2009.
- Dan Lepek (ChE'04 and fac), The Theodore, Mary and Sara Kraut Lecture in Chemical Engineering: "Pharmaceutical Engineering: Opportunities and Challenges in a Novel Academic Discipline," May 2009.
- Kyna Leski (AR'85), roundtable discussion participant, "How Do We Look to the Outside?," Rhode Island School of Design, April 7, 2009, Providence, RI.
- Daniel Libeskind (AR'70), "Starchitect Libeskind Reinvents the Mall", YAHOO!News, April 21, 2009.
- Toshiko Mori (AR'76), "A Frank Lloyd Wright Landmark Gets a Modern Pavilion by Mori," ARCHITECTURAL RECORD, March 10, 2009; "Mori on the Prairie," THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER, April 1, 2009.
- Jesse Reiser (AR'81), participant, "Landform Building — Architecture's New Terrain," conference, Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ, 18 April 2009.
- Alexis Rochas (AR'02), "Alexis Rochas' rooftop farm in Los Angeles," Iconeye, March 31, 2009; "The Start of Something Big," INTERIOR DESIGN, March 2009.
- Ysrael Seinuk (Arch fac), keynote speaker, Florida International University 2009 Order of the Engineer induction ceremony, April 28, 2009.
- Argington (Andrew Thornton [AR'06], Jenny Argie), "2009 Best of New York: Best Bunk Bed," New York Magazine, March 9-16, 2009.
- Thomas Tsang (AR'00), Honorable Mention, 2008 Shinchenchiku Residential Design Competition "Four Square House Design Problem — Homage to John Hejduk," JAPAN ARCHITECT 73, Spring 2009.
- David Turnbull (Arch fac), symposium participant, "James Stirling: Architect and Teacher," Yale University, New Haven, CT, May 9-10, 2009.
- Nanako Umemoto (AR'83), participant, "Landform Building — Architecture's New Terrain," conference, Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ, 18 April 2009.
- Anthony Vidler (Arch Dean and fac), symposium organizer, participant, and keynote speaker, "James Stirling: Architect and Teacher," Yale University, New Haven, CT, May 9-10, 2009.
- Michael Webb (Arch fac), work featured in Silent Auction to benefit the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, NY, May 5, 2009.
- Jennifer Williams (Adjunct fac), group show, A.I.R. Gallery, NYC. Through May 24th.
- Lebbeus Woods (Arch fac), work featured in Silent Auction to benefit the Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, NY, May 5, 2009.
- Michael Young (Arch fac), design team member, "Chapel, Chosen Children Village, The Philippines," DOMUS, #924, April 2009.
- Bryan Zimmerman (Photo tech. asst), presenting the work "4x4," Megapolis Audio Festival in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville, MA, April 24-26.
- Mark Jay (PHY'73), William Kerrigan (PHY'71) and Michael Reich (PHY'72) have made generous gifts toward naming the Physics Laboratory in 41 Cooper Square in honor and memory of department head and eminent Swiss physicist Dr. Richard C. Extermann. In addition to Mark and Michael, to date 13 physics alumni, including Howard Amols '70, James Bangel '67, Leo Chirovsky '70, Armand de Palo '72, Ronald Friedman '67, Frederick Kelcz '69, Len Margolin '67, Gerald Matusiewicz '73, Jay Moskowitz '70, Stephen Moss '72, Leonard Newton '74, Dennis O'Brien '73 and Paul Wiita '72, have contributed to the Physics Suite Campaign.
Dr. Extermann's family, headed by his nephew, Dr. Pierre Extermann, also a prominent Swiss physicist, has made a generous gift to fund the purchase of a state-of-the-art "optical tweezers" apparatus for the new physics lab. - The Cooper Union received a generous bequest from Jeanne Ostuni to establish an endowment named in memory of her husband Peter Ostuni (A'36) to support students of the School of Art.
- The annual Commencement Lunch for the Class of 2009 will be held on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 in Wollman Lounge at 1:00 p.m. following the Commencement rehearsal.
- The Golden Legion Celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Class of 1959 will be held Friday, May 8, 2009. The opening ceremony will take place in The Great Hall at 10:30 a.m. where the class of 1959 will be inducted into the Golden Legion by President George Campbell Jr. A luncheon in Wollman Lounge from 12:00 to 2:30 p.m. follows. Guided tours of the schools and 41 Cooper Square will take place during the afternoon. The day's events will culminate with a visit to the Wesselmann Studios, guided by alumna Claire Wesselmann (A'59), from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. to view a collection of the works of her late husband Tom Wesselmann (A'59).
- The annual On the Rooftop event will be held in the Peter Cooper Suite on Thursday, May 21, 2009 from 7 to 9 pm. Event Co-Chairs Grace Baird (CE'2008) and Julianne Rhoads (IE'2008) and the Classes of 1988-2008 welcome our newest alumni, the Class of 2009, into The Cooper Union Alumni Association.
- The Class of 1994 will celebrate the 15th Anniversary of their graduation from The Cooper Union on Saturday, May 30, 2009. The reunion will begin with a tour of 41 Cooper Square and follow with a reception at the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant from 1 to 5 p.m.
- The Classes of 1999 and 2000 will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of their graduation from The Cooper Union on Saturday, June 6, 2009. The reunion will begin with a tour of 41 Cooper Square and follow with a reception at The Bowery Bar and Grill from 6 to 9 p.m. Make reservations online at www.cualumni.com.
- FIRE THE BOSS: The Worker Control Solution from Buenos Aires to Chicago
Friday, May 15, 7:00pm, discussion, The Great Hall
Haymarket Books presents FIRE THE BOSS: The Worker Control Solution from Buenos Aires to Chicago, with the authors and editors of Sin Patrón: Stories from Argentina's Worker-Run Factories: lavaca collective, foreword by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (Haymarket Books). Featuring:
• Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, writer of The Take
• Avi Lewis, director of The Take and host, Al Jazeera English "Fault Lines"
• Claudia Acuña and Sergio Ciancaglini of lavaca collective in Argentina
• Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de Republic Windows (Chicago, Illinois)
• Leah Fried, United Electrical workers union
• Brendan Martin, The Working World/La Base
This event includes a discussion, with clips of The Take by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis and selections from a documentary about The Republic Workers' struggle, followed by a book signing. Translation provided for Spanish speakers.
Co-sponsored by The Cooper Union, The Indypendent, UE, Nation Institute, and Nation Magazine.
To find out more about the event, please visit http://www.haymarketbooks.org/. - Great Evenings in The Great Hall: Electoral Politics
Tuesday, May 19, 6:30pm, multimedia event, The Great Hall
For 150 years, thousands have come to Cooper Union's Great Hall to protest or promote political change in New York City and across the nation: from Theodore Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Reliving some of those momentous times in American politics, Great Evenings in The Great Hall presents "Electoral Politics", an exciting multi-media event and rare opportunity for the public to see notable New Yorkers such as author, journalist and political pundit Fred Siegel, CUNY professor Frances Fox Piven, actress Rutanya Alda and other well-known actors and writers reenact portions of these pioneering Great Hall speeches. The program includes the overthrow of Boss Tweed and the notorious Tammany Hall Gang, as well as Rutanya Alda reading the words of Bella Abzug, a pioneering feminist who mobilized women into American politics. The Great Hall has been and continues to be a catalyst for change and can be experienced live in "Electoral Politics." A musical performance and a montage of Great Hall political figures will be integrated throughout the evening's festivities, concluding with footage of President Obama, then a Senator from Illinois, marking his presidential run for the White House with an illuminating speech in the Great Hall.
Great Evenings in The Great Hall is an eight-part series running from April 2009-February 2010. Each of the eight programs in the year-long series will focus on one area of protest, reform, or education to be reenacted by notable New York actors, writers and historians.
- On April 13, Marek Bartelik (HSS faculty) introduced a screening at Cooper Union of Erich Schmid's documentary Max Bill: The Master's Vision concerning the life and work of the Swiss architect and artist. Max Bill's widow, the art historian Angela Thomas, was present.
- On April 9, William Germano (dean HSS) codirected a seminar on "Shakespeare and the Organization of Knowledge" at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America.
- Associate Dean of Engineering Simon Ben-Avi will publish a new paper "Central Fatigue After Cycling Evaluated Using Peripheral Magnetic Stimulation", written together with his associates from Lenox Hill Hospital, including adjunct Professor Ian J Kremenic (EE'92, MEE'94) and former Rudin lecture series speaker Stephen Nicholas, MD. The paper will appear in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise in July 2009. Dean Ben-Avi attended a joint conference of the Orthopedic Research Society and the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons in Las Vegas in March, and was a panelist at the joint MIT/Harvard BMES Eastern Regional Conference held in Boston in April. Dean Ben-Avi was one of the first researchers in the United States to investigate magnetic nerve stimulation, and introduced the technology to Lenox Hill. Later this month, he will speak at SUNY downstate and also at Lenox Hill on nanotechnology in medicine.
- The Continuing Education Department will hold many of its classes off campus this summer, while construction and renovation continue, offering art history courses at the Metropolitan Museum, drawing courses in Central Park and other locations and language courses at the University Settlement. Registration begins on May 4.
- CU @ Lunch with Cooper Union Alumni featured Fiyel Levent (AR'03) and Anne Romme (AR'05) on April 7 and Caroline Woolard (A'07) on April 28. The program is co-sponsored by the Center for Career Development and the Office of Alumni Relations.
- On April 14, Elina Alayeva (BSE'04) talked to students about her experience as a Fulbright Fellow in British Columbia, Canada. Ms. Alayeva undertook a study of First Nations community involvement in education capacity building, particularly in the area of math and science curriculum development in Native-run schools. She discussed her research, travels and experiences working with several First Nations communities in Canada. The event was organized by the Center for Writing & Language Arts and the Center for Career Development.
- The Center for Career Development's spring Special Topics series included presentations on fiscal sponsorship, copyright law and exhibiting. "Exhibiting" was a roundtable discussion led by Robert Thill (dir. Center for Career Development) that included representatives from Clamp Art, The Drawing Center, Luhring Augustine, Max Protetch, and Rush Arts Gallery.
- Undisciplined, a series of presentations and discussions on topics and practices that transcend conventional disciplines, featured an online facilitation by Steve Mann on Glogger in which members of the Cooper Community were encouraged to share first-hand recording activity to explore the concept of "equiveillance" — the balance between surveillance and sousveillance. Mann is a cyborg, inventor, engineer, artist, and activist. The program was organized by the Center for Career Development.
- The Cooper Union participated as a partner-school via the Center for Career Development in Columbia University's Not-For-Profit & Public Service Consortium Career Fair on March 6, enlarging employment and internship opportunities for Cooper students and alumni.
- The Center for Career Development augmented its online resources for Faculty & Staff. Of special note are "Developing a Teaching Portfolio or Dossier" and "Writing Letters of Recommendation."
- On March 12, the Center for Career Development welcomed Harvard Business School (HBS) to campus to conduct an information session about their unique 2+2 MBA program. The program is designed to offer engineering students an avenue to pursue a business education by allowing them to gain two years of professional experience before beginning the MBA.
- Krista Durney (IDE'2009) submitted a poster for a presentation at the Northeast Bioengineering Conference at Harvard University several weeks ago. The material presented was from research she performed over last summer as part of an NSF grant at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the Cardiovascular Biomechanics Lab.