Our Students
Reuben Perez
Reuben Perez, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, Sociology (B.A., 2016)
The acceptance letters for graduate school in sociology are rolling in for Reuben Perez. Tough choices, but it is looking very likely that this 2016 Brooklyn College Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate will turn down the prestige of one New England Ivy, the wide open spaces of a couple of campuses in Texas, and the freezing winters of Minnesota for a warm and sunny spot at UC Berkeley. That is quite a big journey in many ways for a young man who dropped out of high school in northern Manhattan to avoid gang violence and entered Brooklyn College in 2010 as a SEEK student. But Perez is ready for it and says he has many mentors at Brooklyn College to thank for where he is now.
Initially, Perez did not know what he wanted to major in when he got to the college. In fact, he started out in a number of remedial classes in mathematics, reading, and writing. Nonetheless, Perez credits the easing into college life with giving him the time he needed to thoughtfully choose a major and ultimately a life course. He had thought he would study accounting, perhaps because of family encouragement to choose a path that promised to be lucrative, and considered health and nutrition sciences, too, when he had thoughts of becoming a nurse, but before he even took an accounting course or a course in HNS, time spent working through the core courses showed him where his interests lay, and he committed to becoming a Puerto Rican and Latino Studies major. Perez jokes, "I thought it would be an easy major." It wasn't, but the challenges steered him toward even bigger challenges and a decision to look more deeply into sociology. Hence, he took on a double major.
Along his path, Perez took several classes with Professor Carla Santamaria. He admired her way of teaching and decided that this was the career he wanted. He, along with his friend Tom D'Angelis (now in a Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota), were mentored by Professor Alejandro Carrion, who encouraged both to become sociologists. Others who helped set Perez on his academic path include the now Acting Dean of HSS Kenneth Gould and professors Carolina Bank-Munoz, Yung-Yi Diana Pan, Rosamond King, Liv Yarrow, and Maria Perez y Gonzalez. It was Perez y Gonzales who steered Perez toward the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program. Perez participated in the Mellon Mays program for two years, and it opened up opportunities for him to present at conferences. He presented at UNC, Ashville, through an invitation, and was also invited to present at a conference in Haiti. He did a summer research program at Princeton in 2016, and did an oral presentation at the 2016 Leadership Alliance National Symposium on "Framing Neoliberal Reforms in the Dominican Republic" under the tutelage of Princeton professor Javier Guerrero. "Mentoring was pivotal in my education," observes Perez.
Perez grew up moving between Yonkers and Manhattan, first with his two brothers and his mother after his father was deported to the Dominican Republic, and then with his grandmother during high school. He left what he saw as a dangerous and underperforming high school in the ninth grade but was encouraged to return by a math teacher and was eventually mentored in the CUNY college application process to apply to Brooklyn College and City College. Always willing to set his sights far afield, Perez chose Brooklyn because it made him feel like he was going away to school. He is the first in his family to attend college, and continues to get encouragement from home, especially from his mother. "She doesn't know much about what I am studying, but she wasn't surprised about all of my graduate school acceptances. After all, as an undergraduate I was studying all of the time," he says beaming.
While at Brooklyn College, Perez was involved with several clubs, including Students of Color and the Sociology Club. He was president of the Hispanic Society, belonged to the fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta (a Latino-based fraternity dedicated to brotherhood, scholarship, community service, and cultural awareness), and worked as a peer mentor.
Perez has spent the year and a half since graduating working to save money for graduate school. He did a short stint as a teacher working with unaccompanied minors, and more recently has worked as a research assistant at MDRC. Working on policy in a non-academic setting only reinforces Perez's interest in forging his career in academia. He ultimately would like to work in higher education administration, but before that he sees himself in a faculty position at an integrated, liberal arts institution. He looks forward to connecting with students who do not share his background. He plans to focus his research on immigration, in particular the incorporation of black immigrants both in the United States and elsewhere. "I am here for the next generation," says Perez, ready to pay it forward.
Mellon Transfer Student Researchers
Mellon Transfer Student Researchers
In 2015, Dr. Richard A. Greenwald, then dean of the Brooklyn College School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), made a convincing proposal to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In the proposal, he described his idea for a program that "presents an opportunity to provide a model for aiding transfer students at a large urban public college that mirrors what students often get at elite liberal arts colleges through a program of mentoring and undergraduate research. Undergraduate research has a proven record of aiding student retention, speeding graduation and improving persistence." The Mellon Foundation saw something special in this proposal and gave HSS $100,000 in starter money to launch the pilot Mellon Transfer Student Research Program. Its great success led to an additional $410,000/four-year grant this past fall.
The program, limited to students with a major, a second major, an undeclared major, or a minor in HSS, runs under the direction of professors Alan Aja (Puerto Rican and Latino Studies), Joseph Entin (English and American Studies), and Jeanne Theoharis (Political Science). Faculty get the word out about the program by word of mouth (mostly in-class announcements), through e-mail from the dean's office, and campus tabling, but they find their "strongest ambassadors" are the faculty and student participants who have gone through the program and encourage their friends to apply. In fact, several former participants have stayed with the program as student mentors, and one now works as a college assistant in charge of outreach.
Faculty have been especially active in recruiting students, and several faculty have participated multiple times with different students, though students are limited to participating for one semester only. According to Theoharis, "Great projects are coming from many directions: from independent projects that students have long wanted to work on, from ideas that spin out of classes they have taken, as offshoots of a research project the professor is working on (including books and conference presentations), or team projects on a project the professor has long wanted to explore but didn't have the capacity to do so."
Projects fall within one of three types: (1) students working on their own independent ideas with faculty support and guidance; (2) students working independently on a topic related to faculty research; and (3) students pursue independent research in conjunction with other students and their professor on a common topic. According to Aja, "the range of topics has been as diverse as the students themselves, as the program has given students a way to explore and extend their own individual interests with support from faculty. It has also given students the opportunity to do substantive research to aid and augment a variety of faculty book projects."
One hundred and twenty students, or about 20 students a semester, have worked on Mellon projects since the beginning of the program. Their projects represent a range of interests. Roberto Carrillo, for example, is a senior with a passion for oral history. His project blossomed under the mentorship of professors Philip Napoli (History) and Jerome Krase (Sociology). It examines the various cultural, demographic, and ethnic changes within different neighborhoods in Brooklyn, in particular the Sunset Park and Bensonhurst neighborhoods. Carrillo presented his research at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, where photographs and texts of his work were on display in the entrance. "As an oral historian you have to connect the puzzle and develop great writing and listening skills which are important," says Carrillo.
Phoebe Robinson turned her attention to media coverage of the lynching of Italian-Americans in the 19th century. Living in times now where there is much scrutiny of media and a rise in hate crimes, Robinson's interest in her topic holds special meaning. "I found that the lynching of Italian-Americans and the mistreatment of other immigrants was almost always biased in presentation through the media—many reporters blamed Italian-Americans for their own lynching and mistreatment. Consequently, my conclusion is that hate existed and will continue to exist until we shed light on these issues and act upon them," she says.
Liana Segan coupled a creative writing project with research into the classics. Inspired by a course she took with classics Professor James Pletcher and encouraged by professors Entin (English and American Studies) and Danielle Kellogg (Classics), Segan wrote a loose adaptation of Eurpides' play The Bacchae. "In order to write a modern adaptation," explains Segan, "it was critical to take into account the original context in which the play was written and performed. By understanding the political, cultural, and religious context, that nexus of conditions allowed me to identify key components and devise an appropriate modern equivalency."
The website for the Mellon Transfer Student Research Program lists many other projects. These include Jiu Lan Ho Ng's international study of smog and worker health and safety, Blake Aragon's examination of ecosystems as a common, Felesha Harris' examination of incarcerated black women, Avi Toiv's examination of archeological data from the Iron Age in the Levant as a key to understanding the Hebrew Bible, and Christopher Wassif's examination of historical and contemporary approaches to food security. The program directors have nothing but pride when they discuss the growth they have seen in student participants. As Professor Aja describes it:
Certainly one of our favorite times is the first meeting of the semester going around and hearing the tremendous variety of projects—and then fast forward three months, and watching these same students having gone farther than we even imagined and presenting their research in a mini-conference format. Over and over and over, students have told us this program has changed what they imagine for themselves, has given them a confidence about their ideas and their possibilities they didn't have before. Many of our students have headed or are heading to graduate school, interned at newspapers, displayed their work at the Brooklyn Public Library, presented at conferences, and journeyed to research sites in other states or other countries.
The student participants themselves see their experience as transformative. As one reflected in an evaluation, "I had at some point lost interest in continuing my own education. I never before got to experience genuine interest or thought that it was possible that a project such as mine would be worthy of academic research." Another reflected on the power of the experience to elevate her: "It made me feel more involved in my own education for sure, and made me feel more like colleagues to my professors." In written exit surveys, nearly all students reported that the program had given them a set of research skills, an important faculty mentor, and a greatly expanded sense of their own capacities. Many say the experience has led them to consider going to graduate school in their discipline.
Student projects have made their mark on the professional academic landscape. One student had an essay co-authored with her faculty mentor accepted for publication in an academic anthology. Two students co-authored a presentation that was delivered at the 2016 American Studies Association conference, while another had his research accepted for presentation at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at the University of Memphis. Several students are heading to Ph.D. programs (including one accepted at Columbia), and others into M.A. programs, at institutions ranging from Long Island University to Oxford. Multiple students have been accepted into CUNY's Pipeline Program, which supports minority students seeking to enter the professoriate. One team of students exhibited photographs they took and oral histories they conducted in the Brooklyn Public Library, and students who researched participatory budgeting helped student government allocate some of its money. One student participated in a seminar with the top poverty scholars in the nation.
The Mellon Transfer Student Research Program offers an extensive list of resources helpful for all students, but Brooklyn College transfer students in particular. The directors of the program see it as a complement to other services offered by the Transfer Office and as a retention model. As Professor Theoharis explains, "There's no better way to retain students, transfer or not, than treating them as intellectuals, enabling substantive research experiences, and building lasting mentor relationships."
A very important resource the program also offers its students is a spacious meeting room in 3114 Boylan Hall. The room is equipped with computers and meeting/presentation space for students and faculty, staffed by a former transfer student with experience in numerous campus administrative offices and often used by students to eat lunch together, study for courses, meet for group projects, or work on their research. One student commented, "Our room is like a sanctuary."
Acting Dean of HSS Kenneth Gould continues to show the kind of support for the program that Dean Greenwald had when he wrote the initial grant proposal. Gould sees the program as "a model for other potential programs that seek to empower other vulnerable/marginalized academic communities." In a large part, the program is about equity. As Professor Entin states, "Too often underfunded public universities like CUNY cut back on treating students as researchers and thinkers—and seek to 'prepare them for the job market.' We are preparing students to imagine anything they can and be anything they want, and assuring a temporary yet effective structural scaffolding to help them get there." The current program directors hope to have conversations with the Mellon Foundation about how this program would be easily replicable on other campuses. In the meantime, transfer students at Brooklyn College continue to shine.
