Volume 6 | Issue 1
Class Notes from the Brooklyn College Magazine, Volume 6 | Issue 1.
1940
Eva Weiss Hubschman
Class Correspondent
1650 West Glendale Avenue
Apt. 1101
Phoenix, AZ 85021-5757
1941
Cecile Yasker Kaufman
Class Correspondent
3212 N. Miller Road, Apt. 320
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
1943
George Walsh, who fought as a dive bomber in the Battle of Iwo Jima, is an expert on World War II air battles, and his expertise will underpin an upcoming documentary, Midway, on the war’s key conflicts.
1946
Irene Hammer Goldstein
Class Correspondent
igoldhammer10@gmail.com
1947
Reva Frumkin Biers
Class Correspondent
4631 Ellenita Avenue
Tarzana, CA 91356-4931
revabiers@sbcglobal.net
Dr. Muriel Gerhard released Teach Them All to Think (Page Publishing, 2017), a book aimed at educators. In the introduction, she writes, “We can teach for thinking! We can improve our pupils’ cognitive skills, be it decisionmaking, creativity, analysis, problem solving, inductive and deductive reasoning, as well as concept development.”
1948
Eneas Newman Sloman Arkawy
Class Correspondent
271-10 Grand Central Parkway, Apt. 8G
Floral Park, NY 11005-1209
1949
William D. Isaacson
Class Correspondent
269-10 Grand Central Parkway, Apt. 18Y
Floral Park, NY 11005-1018
vevvyd@yahoo.com
George Plafker ’49: Anyone who considers geology and seismology to be dry and purely academic subjects is not familiar with the work of George Plafker ’49. His research on what is literally a groundbreaking topic has won him honors and accolades throughout his storied career. He was awarded the 2017 Harry Fielding Reid Medal by the Seismological Society of America. It’s the highest distinction for scientists in this discipline. Plafker’s study of the 1964 Alaskan earthquake has reshaped the field. His research on the causes of the quake, plate slips at convergent boundaries, established the concept of plate tectonics. After applying those concepts to the Chilean earthquake of 1960—the largest in history, at 9.5 on the Richter scale—his work became the gold standard. His research and writings on massive earthquakes and tsunamis have altered the way in which researchers understand the potential of these devastating events today.
After Plafker received a bachelor of science degree at Brooklyn College in 1949, he went on to earn a master’s degree in geology at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956 and a doctorate at Stanford University in 1972. He has worked hard to enable students at Brooklyn College to follow in his large footsteps by endowing the Plafker Family Scholarship. Created in 2010, the scholarship goes to a Brooklyn College student majoring in earth and environmental sciences with a minimum GPA of 3.5, and may be renewable provided the recipient continues to meet the criteria. —Martin Johnson
1951
Marion Unger Gordon
Class Correspondent
70 East 10th Street, Apt. 9P
New York, NY 10003-5112
Helene Nathan Guttman is the donor of the Priscilla Frew Pollister Award for a biology major. The award supports a summer stipend for the student to do research under the mentorship of a Biology Department faculty member. Several prior awardees have gone on to continue in graduate school.
Sydell Gasnick Rosenberg’s book H Is for Haiku: A Treasury of Haiku from A to Z (Penny Candy Books, 2018) was published posthumously by her daughter, Amy Losak.
1952
Sheila Talmud Raymond
Class Correspondent
3 Lakeside Lane
Bay Shore, NY 11706-8845
Francine Lifton Klagsbrun is the author of the biography Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel (Schocken, 2017).
1953
Ben Suntag
Class Correspondent
1311 Franklin Lane
Rockaway, NJ 07866-5814
gatnus@gmail.com
Lubin Hunter was part of a delegation of Shinnecock Indians who were recognized during the preliminary ceremonies before the U.S. Open golf tournament. This recognition brought to light Hunter’s achievements, which include service in World War II as a pilot in the Pacific and pioneering work on behalf of Native American rights.
1954
Marlene (Marcia) Jacoby Hillman
Class Correspondent
255 West 94th Street, Apt. 6Q
New York, NY 10025-6986
Daniel Ginsberg currently serves on six boards of directors of social service agencies, among them Jewish Family Services of Northeastern Pennsylvania, United Cerebral Palsy of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and United Neighborhood Centers.
Philip Zimbardo travels the world giving lectures that focus on the transformation of research on the psychology of evil into the psychology of everyday heroism. He is now the president of the Heroic Imagination Project.
1955
Geraldine Miller Markowitz
Class Correspondent
1500 Palisade Avenue, #26C
Fort Lee, NJ 07024
geraldine@nj.rr.com
Artist Karl Volk recently exhibited his work at the Kent Art Association in Kent, Connecticut, the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, the Art Collective of Hyde Park, New York, and the Art Society of Kingston, New York.
1956
Mike Saluzzi
Class Correspondent
1351 East Mountain Street
Glendale, CA 91207-1837
msaluzzi@earthlink.net
1957
Micki Goldberg Ginsberg
Class Correspondent
217 E. Maple Avenue
Moorestown, NJ 08057-2011
mginsberg10@gmail.com
Howard A. Palley, professor emeritus of social policy at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland, and distinguished fellow at the Institute for Human Services Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore, co-authored “DNA, Privacy, and Social Justice: The Policy-making Process in the State of Maryland,” published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Human Rights.
1958
Sandra Seigel Pikoff
Class Correspondent
4500 Williams Drive #212-320
Georgetown, TX 78633
sspikoff@aol.com
Dick Flacks and his wife, Mickey Flacks, authored Making History/Making Blintzes: How Two Red Diaper Babies Found Each Other and Discovered America (Rutgers University Press, 2018).
1959
Joel Kosofsky ’59: “My son says I should write a memoir,” says Joel Kosofsky ’59. His tone is warm but ambivalent about the idea. He sounds like a man who prefers to look ahead to new achievements rather than back at previous ones.
Still, he has much to look back on. Kosofsky won three Emmys for his work as a writer, director, and producer on the celebrated children’s television show Captain Kangaroo. He worked his way up to that position at CBS by doing gigs that included time as a page, putting him backstage when the Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. He ran his own television production company, Square One, and continues to work managing the media company Havas Life. “I still go to work every day,” he said with a chuckle. “If you do that, you can achieve a lot.”
Not all of Kosofsky’s efforts are part of his day job. Recently, he and his wife built a two-story log home in the Catskills near Hunter Mountain. The endeavor followed a path probably familiar to many New Yorkers. The couple regularly vacationed on Fire Island and began to think of buying, but the costs directed their interests elsewhere. They investigated upstate, found it to their liking, and purchased a lot. From there it was much like any business venture: assembling the right team, setting goals for time and cost, then meeting those goals. After 15 minutes discussing his career and personal accomplishments, he paused and offered about the possible memoir, “Maybe my son is right.” —Martin Johnson
1960
Saul Kravitz
Class Correspondent
3382 Kenzo Court
Mountain View, CA 94040
kravitzsaul@gmail.com
Stanley Brezenoff was named interim chairman of the New York City Housing Authority. Brezenoff, who headed the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation during the 1980s and received a Presidential Medal of Honor in 1984, will lead NYCHA until a permanent director is found.
1961
David S. Herskowitz
Class Correspondent
1175 Kildeer Court
Encinitas, CA 92024-1278
davidsh@sbcglobal.net
1962
Steven J. Nappen
Class Correspondent
38 Troy Hills Road
Whippany, NJ 07981-1315
Larry Katz serves as co-chair of the Brooklyn College Alumni Association–Long Island Chapter, raising scholarship funds through membership and donations. He is active on and off stage in local community theater with wife, Maxine Silver Katz ’64.
Don Landolphi is spearheading the development and popularization of blind baseball, a sport involving no pitchers and catchers, but rather a ball and bases containing audio signals. The sport was developed in Italy, where Landolphi learned of it, and it has taken hold in Columbia County, New York. Landolphi has been involved in baseball for his entire life and is an inductee of the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He was an assistant coach for both the Brooklyn College and the Italian National teams.
Carol Zimmerman Brody was recently honored with an award for her painting Party Papers, Ribbons and Red Confetti, which was exhibited in the Missouri Watercolor Society’s 2018 International Exhibition in Qingdao, China.
1963
Cliff Rosner
Class Correspondent
111 Blue Willow Drive
Houston, TX 77042-1105
Anne Rothstein has resumed the directorship of the Lehman Center for School/College Collaboratives, which she founded in 1985. Her new book, Creating Winning Grant Proposals: A Step-by-Step Guide, will be released by the Guilford Press in late fall.
1964
Jay Orlikoff
Class Correspondent
20 Beaverdale Lane
Stony Brook, NY 11790-2507
drjay@drjay.com
Ellis Krauss was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun Gold Rays and Neck Ribbons by the Japanese government for his decades of devoted study and education on Japanese society and government. He has promoted academic exchange between Japan and the United States for more than 45 years.
1965
Barbara Berman Leveene
Class Correspondent
24 Jubilee Circle
Aberdeen, NJ 07747-1807
Sandy Gold will be traveling to St. George, Utah, in October to participate in the Huntsman World Senior Games cycling events.
Joel Klein has retired after 52 years in the field of education. He has since been involved in various humanitarian efforts. One highlight was a trip to Vietnam in April with the Spring Valley Rotary, donating funds, time, and materials (school supplies, bicycles, wheelchairs, etc.) to several orphanages and schools.
1966
Felicia Friedland Weinberg
Class Correspondent
P.O. Box 449
Clarksburg, NJ 08510
1967
Sharon Weinschel Resen
Class Correspondent
1740 Kimball Street
Brooklyn, NY 11234-4304
shabojo@aol.com
1968
Eileen McGinn
Class Correspondent
210 East 15th Street, Apt. 10N
New York, NY 10003-3927
qedeileen@aol.com
Phil Heit was honored by the City of New Albany, Ohio, which named its 54,000-sq.-ft. wellness center the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany. The center focuses on prevention in partnership with the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Barry F. Hersh is the author of Urban Redevelopment: A North American Reader (Routledge, 2017).
Chamber musician and concert soloist Mark Kroll recorded the harpsichord music of composer François Couperin for Centaur Records. The project, a 10-CD set, is to be completed in 2019.
Seth Lewin is currently vice president and chief medical officer of the New York County Health Services Review Organization/MedReview, Inc., New York’s longest-established peer review and audit organization.
Sheldon Stone was awarded the W. K. H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics for 2019. Stone is a distinguished professor of physics at Syracuse University.
1969
Edward M. Greenspan
Class Correspondent
emgreenspan@optonline.net
Allan Gibofsky, professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of the Clinic for Inflammatory Arthritis and Biologic Therapy at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, was recently honored by the Arthritis Foundation for his lifetime commitment to research, education, and patient care.
Irvin Schonfeld is the coauthor with Chu-Hsiang Chang of the 2017 book Occupational Health Psychology: Work, Stress, and Health (Springer Publishing Company). In 2018 Oxford University Press published Schonfeld’s annotated bibliography on occupational health psychology, and in June 2018 he delivered a keynote address at the annual meeting of the Brazilian chapter of the International Stress Managemen Association in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
1970
Barry Silverman
Class Correspondent
176 Stults Lane
East Brunswick, NJ 08816-5815
writeone@comcast.net
Gail Gurland is the author of the children’s picture book Olives, Where Are You? (Austin Macauley Publishers), which was released this fall.
Harriett Mosatche is the author of the award-winning Breaking Through! Helping Girls Succeed in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (Prufrock Press, 2017).
Gary Robbins was voted to the board of directors of the U.S. Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists. He is also editor of the newsletter of the U.S. Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists.
1971
Robert J. Miller
Class Correspondent
494 East 18th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11226
rjmiller@courts.state.ny.us
1972
Stanley A. Alexander
Class Correspondent
98 B Charles River Road
Waltham, MA 02453
1973
Linda E. Gross Carroll
Class Correspondent
1732 Mistletoe Street
Sebastian, FL 32958-6646
lcarroll32@comcast.net
Jacquelyn Burch Shipe has served as the chief executive officer of Global Ties Alabama, which hosts international exchange delegations under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State. Shipe chairs the board of the Global Ties U.S. network.
1974
Diane Oeters Vaughn
Class Correspondent
42 Briarwood Drive
Old Saybrook, CT 06475
dianeleslie29@hotmail.com
1975
Rubin Leitner
Class Correspondent
138 East 96th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11212-3534
Yossi Klein Halevi authored the New York Times bestseller Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (Harper, 2018), a collection of works that empathizes with the Palestinian plight from an Israeli perspective and attempts to find ways to create a peaceful coexistence.
1976
Henry P. Feintuch
Class Correspondent
33202 Town Green Drive
Elmsford, NY 10523.
Henry Feintuch has been elected as CFO of the PR World Alliance, an international partnership of independent public relations firms.
Artist Marie Roberts’ works were the subject of a solo exhibition, “Coney Island: From the Studio,” at the Figureworks Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
1978
Susan A. Katz
Class Correspondent
120 Pinewood Trail
Trumbull, CT 06611-3313
BCAlum@Katzing.com
Ellen Feig Gray co-wrote Hacking School Culture: Designing Compassionate Classrooms (2018), published by Times 10 Publications as part of its Hack Learning series for educators.
Susan Katz recently became chair of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Bridgeport.
Jeffrey Kraus has been named provost and vice president for academic affairs at Wagner College in Staten Island.
1979
Anthony Esposito
Class Correspondent
211 Highway 35 N
Mantaloking, NJ 08738-1420
1981
Debbie Schiffer-Burke
Class Correspondent
debcolumn@gmail.com
1982
Eileen Sherman Gruber
Class Correspondent
69 Derby Avenue
Greenlawn, NY 11740-2130
1983
Michael Kosik
Class Correspondent
866.327.5162
michael.kosik@morganstanley.com
1985
Peter Huertas
Class Correspondent
5135 Fedora Drive
San Antonio, TX 78242-2427
alamodude2001@yahoo.com
Rachel Gordon Bernstein exhibited oil paintings and watercolors in two exhibitions at DIAA Gallery in Deer Isle, Maine.
1986
Ian Lee Brown
Class Correspondent
10090 Lake Vista Court
Parkland, FL 33076
ianleebrown@gmail.com
1987
Eric Steinhardt
Class Correspondent
915 East 7th Street, Apt. 1H
Brooklyn, NY 11230-2733
eric.steinhardt@verizon.net
Floralba Arbelo is an associate professor of education at Carlos Albizu University and recently published articles in the Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research and The Journal of Teacher Action Research.
Gino Diiorio’s play James Hemings was staged at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. Another new play by DiIorio, Crib, was given its world premiere at Playhouse in the Square in Memphis, Tennessee.
Poet Jeffrey Cyphers Wright published Blue Lyre (Dos Madres Press, 2018).
1988
Lauren Korn Popkoff
Class Correspondent
951 Woodoak Drive
Baldwin Harbor, NY 11510-5023
1989
Pamela Hughes released Meadowland Take My Hand (Three Mile Harbor Press, 2017), a collection of lyric and narrative poetry that explores the outdoors from industrial landfills to the Manhattan skyline and from majestic mountains to serene mudflats.
1990
Beth Debra Kallman Werner
Class Correspondent
105 Husson Road
Milford, PA 18337-7156
bwerner@ptd.net
1991
Tami Sheheri
Class Correspondent
140 Cadman Plaza West, #14E
Brooklyn, NY 11201
tsheheri@yahoo.com
1992
Connie Tang released Fearless Living: 8 Life-Changing Values for Breakthrough Success (Clovercroft, 2017), a book about her experiences as an immigrant in New York City and the keys to her professional success.
1993
Sarah Battaglia
Class Correspondent
P.O. Box 882
Miller Place, NY 11764
millerplacesb@yahoo.com
Rivka Weinberg authored The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When, and Why Procreation May Be Permissible (Oxford University Press, 2017).
1994
Ilene Berkowitz
Class Correspondent
1575 46th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11219-2726
Timothy Gerken is an associate professor of humanities at SUNY Morrisville, and is the first recipient of the SUNY Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI) Award for Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice.
Timothy Lynch has been named interim president of Queensborough Community College. Previously, Lynch served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at both QCC and SUNY Maritime College.
1995
Nathan Solat
Class Correspondent
2793 Lee Place
Bellmore, NY 11710-5003
1997
Diane Abramowitz Rosenberg
Class Correspondent
Rosenberg & Rosenberg, LLP
5 Penn Plaza, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10001
dr@rosenbergrosenberg.com
Omar Lizardo is the LeRoy Neiman Term Chair Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. This appointment follows a 12-year stint in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
1998
Glenn P. Nocera
Class Correspondent
616 East 4th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218-4922
buttonboy@aol.com
1999
David Moskowitz
Class Correspondent
206 Murray Road
Newark, DE 19711-4510
2001
Tatesha Bennett Clark
Class Correspondent
540 East 82nd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11236-3119
Priscilla Flores-Dohnert has been named vice president of brand marketing for Universal Kids, a network under NBC.
Rachel Strauss-Muñiz ’01: In the decades since the Internet first infiltrated, then conquered American life, LOL has become one of the most recognized and understood abbreviations. Rachel Strauss-Muñiz ’01 has found a unique and dynamic tweak to those three little letters; with a few friends, she has launched Latinos Out Loud, a podcast featuring commentary, sketch comedy, improv, pranks, character segments, and guest interviews, among other things. It is rapidly becoming one of the hottest podcasts on the Web and is the winner of the 2018 Hispanicize Tecla Award for Best Podcast Content Creator.
The show began two years ago when Michael Diaz approached Strauss-Muñiz about creating a podcast. “At the time I was really in the dark about them,” she says. She did some research and found that “Latinos are severely underrepresented and underserved” in the media. That led her and Diaz to conceptualize a podcast “that married our passion for sketch comedy, improv, character acting, pop culture, interviewing the artists we love, and moving our people forward.” Now in its fourth season, the Latinos Out Loud show is available on most major podcast platforms and is sponsored by the ReVolver Network.
The show dovetails her interest in sketch comedy and multicultural marketing. For Strauss-Muñiz, a business major who minored in Puerto Rican and Latino studies, love of comedy was born in the wee hours of the weekend watching Saturday Night Live; the latter passion came out of her experience at Brooklyn College. Her degree in business management and finance helped gain her a career in marketing with top firms. Now a writer, producer, and actor in the comedy troupe Room 28, as well as a podcaster, StraussMuñiz says that her Brooklyn College education gave her one more thing: “It allows me to kick my dad’s butt when we compete and watch Jeopardy together.” —Martin Johnson
2002
Kimy Mandil
Class Correspondent
twixpop22@aol.com
Gregg Korrol released his first book, The Gifted Storyteller: The Power Is In the Story You Tell (Motivational Press, 2017).
2004
Yael Abraham Fogel
Class Correspondent
431 Broadway
Lawrence, NY 11559
yct.fogel@gmail.com
Robert Conwell has been appointed the commanding officer of the NYPD’s 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Cara Fulton was named the director of the Career Development Center at Geneva College.
2005
Miriam Alexander
Class Correspondent
118-03 228th Street
Cambria Heights, NY 11411
Miriam118@aol.com
2007
Ezra N. Rich
Class Correspondent
309 S. Second Avenue
Highland Park, NJ 08904
ezrarich@gmail.com
2008
Stefanie Low
Class Correspondent
3-A Putnam Avenue
Glen Cove, NY 11542
stefanielow@yahoo.com
R.O. Kwon released her debut novel, The Incendiaries (Riverhead Books, 2018), a coming-of-age story about losing one’s religion. The story and characters were inspired by Kwon’s experiences in high school.
2009
Steven Juskowicz
Class Correspondent
1485 East 32nd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11234-3403
SJuskowicz@gmail.com
Miriam Ani is an adjunct professor of theater at California State University, Sacramento. She just understudied the role of Margaret d’Anjou in The War of the Roses (the Henry VI Parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III tetralogy), and directed the critically acclaimed production of The Crucible for Pacifica Spindrift Players’ 2018 season.
2010
Playwright Jean Ann Douglass published The Providence of Neighboring Bodies (Oberon Modern Plays, 2018). The book’s release coincided with a production of the play at the Underbelly theater in Edinburgh, Scotland.
2011
Christine Shaw recently completed her first feature-length documentary, Panorama: Jamming to the Top. It follows the efforts of a group of Brooklyn steel pan enthusiasts to keep the music they love alive. The film premiered in October as part of the La Femme International Film Festival. MAGGIE STEIN became the education director of the Brooklyn Preschool of Science.
Donna-lyn Washington’s essay “Frank Yerby and His Readership” has been included in the upcoming anthology Edited Collection: Critical Insights into Frank Yerby. She is also editing Conversations with John Jennings as part of the Conversations With series. Both books are from University Press of Mississippi.
2012
Joanna Cantor published the novel Alternative Remedies for Loss (Bloomsbury, 2018), a Best Books of the Month selection at Amazon.
Kate Sidley, a writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was recently nominated for her third Emmy award for writing. She also performs regularly at UCB Theatre with Alfredo: Late Show Writers Improv and is co-host of the monthly sketch open mic Liquid Courage.
2013
Elizabeth Weiss
Class Correspondent
2013elizabethweiss2013@gmail.com
Loretta Chin is co-editor and contributor to the book Rod Bush: Lessons from a Radical Black Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice (Ahead Publishing House: Okcir Press, 2019).
2015
Meghan Richards
Class Correspondent
richards.meghan.a@gmail.com
Molly Dektar will release her novel The Ash Family (Simon and Schuster) in early 2019.
Jose Sonera is making his off Broadway debut with his one-man show Prinze, a new play based on the life of the late comedian Freddie Prinze Sr., the pioneering Latino actor. It will be featured on PBS’s new network ALL ARTS in 2019.
2017
William Holley, assistant men’s basketball coach at Brooklyn College, is pursuing a doctorate of education from East Tennessee State in Global Sport Leadership.
Shirlgandy Saint Jean is coordinator of the Pathways for Expecting and Parenting Students (PEPS) program at Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Sarah Valentini works as the interactive assistant at Broadway Across America, where she manages social strategy and execution for the national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.
