@John Jay News and Events of Interest to the College Community

August 25, 2010

Worth NotingSeptember 1 4:00 PMBook & Author SeriesDenial: A Memoir of TerrorJessica SternHoover Institute Task Force onNational Security and Law

Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby

September 14 6:00 PMCriminal Justice &The Lindsay YearsKeynote Speaker: Police Commissioner Raymond W. KellyModerator: Sam Roberts,The New York Times

Museum of the City of New York1220 Fifth Avenue (103rd Street)RSVP required: programs@mcny.orgor 917.492.3395

September 25 7:30 PMMusic for HumanityA narrated concert in memory ofWall Street Journal journalistDaniel Pearl

Gerald W. Lynch Theater

September 28 3:30 PMFall Faculty MeetingGerald W. Lynch Theater

September 29 7:30 PMSound + Vision: At WarA multimedia performance of wartime images from Afghanistan and IraqPhotojournalist Chris HondrosMusical Director Kenneth HamrickFeaturing the music ofJohann Sebastian Bach

Gerald W. Lynch Theater

October 4 3:00 PMGraduate Open HouseGerald W. Lynch Theater

RSVP: 212.237.8863

John Jay recently flexed its technological muscles, becoming the first CUNY college — and one of only a few nationwide — to have its own smart-phone app.

The application, downloadable free for iPhone and Droid users, provides access to the College’s sports news and schedules, calendar of events, admissions information, telephone directory, faculty profiles, John Jay mobile sites, social media, college newsletters and more. Users are

A crime summit held at John Jay on July 28-29 marked the first time that a broad coalition of elected and criminal justice officials gathered with community experts in New York City to collectively address national trends in prosecution, crime prevention and crime reduction strategies.

The symposium — “Communities & Justice: Partnerships & Challenges for the 21st Century” — was co-sponsored by the College, the Office of the Manhattan District Attorney and the Office of the Manhattan Borough President. Participants included prosecutors, judges and police executives from New York, New Jersey and other states from Massachusetts to Oregon, along with representatives from community and nongovernmental groups. Attendees heard keynote remarks from featured speakers Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Newark, NJ, Police Director Garry F. McCarthy.

“There is no greater mission for law enforcement and government than keeping our residents safe,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance. “This symposium is the realization of a goal many of us have shared for more than a year — to bring together great minds in many disciplines to bring forth the best ideas for keeping our streets safe and our justice system fair.”

“Through an open exchange of diverse ideas,” added President Jeremy Travis, “we can build on each other’s strengths and expertise and develop new approaches for addressing some of our nation’s most complex criminal justice issues.”

Some of the issues under the microscope during the symposium included conviction integrity, restorative justice, problem-solving courts, immigration, education and gang alternatives for youth, new crime prevention strategies, hot-button issues affecting communities and law enforcement, community prosecution and prisoner reentry.

“With cities and states from coast to coast facing a third consecutive year of shrinking revenues, police, prosecutors and courts are all being asked to do more with less,” said Bloomberg. “How we rise to that challenge is critical to the people that we serve and what we do to keep our streets safe will help create the sense of confidence crucial to making full economic recovery a reality.”

“Our police officers have made New York City a model for the nation by driving crime down 36 percent since 2002 despite a tough economy, fewer resources and the demands of counterterrorism,” said Kelly. “We look forward to comparing the proactive strategies they have employed to make this possible with the best ideas from across the country at this unique

The standing ovation that greeted the June 24 announcement that Johnny Taveras, John Jay’s web manager, was the recipient of the 2010 Outstanding Employee of the Year Award made it clear that his unanimous selection by the Bravo! awards committee was an overwhelmingly popular one.

Taveras, a member of the Office of Marketing and Development, has been with John Jay since 1988. As the web manager, he and his two-person staff — Ahn Phan and Lenis Perez — play a pivotal role in all of the College’s online efforts. He has been one of the prime architects of the redesigned John Jay Web site, the faculty and staff intranet Inside John Jay and the student intranet Jay Stop. His team established the College’s presence on iTunes University, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And, he created a John Jay app for iPhone and Droid smart phones. [See related story, at right.]

“Johnny works at 110 percent of capacity year-round and delivers throughout the year an unbelievable amount of energy, commitment and courtesy,” said Vice President for Marketing and Development Vivien Hoexter in presenting

Taveras’s award. “Almost everyone in the College has, at one point, come in contact with him. No matter how last-minute the request, Johnny, always with a smile, tries to accommodate. He juggles many tasks and never seems to get flustered.”

In addition to his web-management responsibilities, Taveras serves as coordinator of the annual Jack Brennan Children’s Holiday Party.

The Outstanding Employee of the Year Award was presented at a luncheon during the Bravo! Summer Employee Institute. In addition to Taveras, Dean for Human Resources Donald Gray acknowledged the latest group of Bravo! divisional award winners. They are:

Kristina Borowski (Registrar); Mariluz Bribiesca (Honors, Awards and Special Opportunities); Mario Chabau (Facilities Management); Kinya Chandler (Academic Affairs); Nadia Griffith-Allen (Accessibility Services); Nyeema Morgan (Art and Music); Michael Merseburg (Central Receiving/Stockroom); Valentina Morgan (Enrollment Management); Bill Pangburn (Instructional Technology Support Services); David Rivera (Public Safety); Michael Rohdin (First Year Experience);

Johnny Taveras, the 2010 Outstanding Employee of the

Year, along with five of his biggest fans — (from left)

daughters Christa, Shantelle, Jonelle and Christine, and

President Travis.

Here’s Johnny! Hard-Working, Easygoing WebmasterIs College’s 2010 Outstanding Employee of the Year

Janet Rubel (Finance and Administration, and Linda Von Lumm (Facilities Management).

John Jay Leads the Waywith First Smart-Phone App

able to connect with John Jay faculty and staff, register via smart-phone for events at the College and get the latest college news updates.

“This exciting innovation will enable us to connect with our entire college community as well as prospective students, through the communications systems that they use daily,” said President Jeremy Travis.

The app was created in-house by John Jay’s web manager, Johnny Taveras, who read more than 15 books on building a smart-phone app before he started the actual design and construction. He then applied to Apple and Android for approval to make the John Jay app available through their respective app stores. It proved to be a home run on his first swing.

“While the entire process from construction through approval was quite a learning experience for me, I was delighted that the College’s app was accepted on our first submission,” Taveras said. [See also related story on Taveras, at left.]

The new app can be downloaded for iPhone users through the iTunes store (www.iTunes.com/Downloads) and for Droid users through the Android Marketplace (www.android.com/market).

High-Profile ‘Crime Summit’ ExaminesCriminal Justice Challenges & Solutions

DA Cyrus Vance, Borough President Scott Stringer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (seated, left to right) listen as President

Jeremy Travis drives home a point in opening remarks during the “Communities & Justice” crime summit held at the College

July 28.

conference.”Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer,

a John Jay alumnus, applauded Vance and Travis for their leadership roles in organizing the crime summit. “The summit is the latest effort from a DA’s office which has demonstrated its visionary and forward-looking approach to law enforcement,” Stringer said.

FACULTY / STAFF NOTES

@ John Jay is published by theOffice of Marketing and Development

John Jay College of Criminal Justice555 West 57th Street New York, NY 10019www.jjay.cuny.edu

Editor Peter Dodenhoff

Submissions should be faxed or e-mailed to:Office of Communications

fax: (212) 237-8546e-mail: pdodenhoff@jjay.cuny.edu

educating for justice

ON BOARDKAMAL HARUNA (Athletics) was named head coach of the newly formed women’s soccer team. A native of Ghana, Haruna was an assistant coach of the men’s soccer team in 2009, and a member of that team as a student from 2006 through 2008. He received his bachelor’s degree from John Jay in 2008. The Athletics program has also named BRITTANY FOUT as head coach of the women’s volleyball team. She was an assistant coach of the team last season.

PRESENTING…MICHAEL PFEIFER (History) presented a paper titled “The Bitter Seed of Albion and Eire: Extralegal Violence and Law in the Early Modern British Isles and the Origins of American Lynching” at a conference, Toward an International History of Lynching, held at the University of Heidelberg in Germany on June 4.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was named to the Speakers’ Bureau at Edgecombe Prison in New York City. She spoke to the entire inmate population on June 18 about the coping skills required for satisfactory reentry into society after

incarceration. In July, she participated in a virtual presentation of her “conversational pedagogy” teaching style at the International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies at the University of Barcelona in Spain.

BETWEEN THE COVERSJEFFREY HEIMAN and ADAM BERLIN (English), co-editors of the College’s J Journal, recently received a superlative-laden review of the periodical in The Review Review, an online roundup and critique of literary journals. The Website praised the fall 2009 issue of the J Journal as “a mouthwatering literary surprise” and a “smartly put-together collection of writing.” Heiman and Berlin, the reviewer said, “have taken on a big challenge, and they deliver.”

MARGARET WALLACE and DIANA FRIEDLAND (Sciences) published a paper “Genotyping diptera using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP): Development of a genetic marker system for species in the families Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae.” Appearing in the current issue of the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, the article was co-authored with Jason C. Beckert, who received his master’s degree in forensic science from John Jay in 2009 and is now a research microscopist with Microtrace Scientific LLC in Elgin, IL.

FAINA FRADKIN (Human Resources) had her book, The Pictures from My Childhood, published by a division of RusKniga, a Moscow publishing house. The book is a collection of Russian language stories, based primarily on her childhood in Moldova in the former Soviet

Union, along with an essay in English about her experience during the events of 9/11.

PEER REVIEWSAMANTHA MAJIC (Political Science) won the 2010 Best Dissertation Award from the Women and Politics Section of the American Society for Public Administration. The awards committee praised Majic’s dissertation — “Protest By Other Means? Sex Workers, Social Movement Evolution, and the Political Possibilities of

Professor Ned Benton (r.) of the Department of Public Management led a delegation of faculty members and graduate

students from the MPA-Inspector General program who attended the national Association of Inspectors General conference

in Indianapolis, IN, on May 12–14. The John Jay representatives met with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (l.) who, after hearing

a description of the MPA-IG program and getting a taste of the research being conducted by John Jay graduate students,

announced that he planned to replicate John Jay’s program in Indiana. Among the featured speakers at the conference was

John Jay alumnus Frank Straub (MA ‘90, PhD ‘97), who is Director of Public Safety for the City of Indianapolis.

Nonprofit Service Provision” — as an original and incisive work that “shed light on some of the key issues at play at the intersection of gender and politics.”

MARIA R. VOLPE (Sociology) received the 2010 Achievement Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York at its annual conference on June 24. She was recognized for her innovative work in the dispute resolution field.

Recent months have brought a number of new appointments to the academic leadership team at John Jay, including two new associate provosts.

On July 19, James Llana joined the College as Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness, a role that will include leading the implementation and ongoing assessment of the Master Plan, John Jay @ 50, and helping to lead the Middle States self-study and reaccreditation process. Llana, who holds a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University, was a member of the faculty at SUNY/Old Westbury for 25 years, including seven years as chair of its interdisciplinary humanities program, and for the past five years, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Karen Terry of the Department of Criminal Justice, who has been serving as Executive Officer of the John Jay/CUNY Graduate Center PhD Program in Criminal Justice, was named Interim Associate Provost and Dean for Research and Strategic Partnerships. Terry will take the reins of the Office for the Advancement of Research from James Levine, who will retire on August 31. In an expanded role, she will oversee the Institutional Review Board and the Office of Sponsored Programs, as well as the College’s many centers and institutes.

In other appointments and transitions, Provost Jane Bowers announced that Professor Nathan Lents of the Science Department will head a newly created Office of Undergraduate Research. Lents, a molecular biologist, has been actively involved in the area of educational technology and innovations since coming to John Jay.

English Professor John Matteson was named to a three-year term as Academic Director of the

With the high cost of college textbooks putting an ever-larger dent in students’ wallets, the John Jay College bookstore has launched a program of renting books to students at savings of more than 50 percent compared to the cost of purchasing new books.

Selected textbook titles may be rented from the bookstore, located at the Westport building. Students may use financial aid, campus debit cards or any other method accepted by the bookstore to pay for rental fees. Rentals may be converted to outright purchase within the first two weeks if a student decides to keep the book, and rented texts must be returned no later than 10 days after the last day of finals.

The use of highlighting and writing in books is permitted with rented texts.

For more information on the rental program, visit the bookstore or go online to www.jjay.bncollege.com.

BookstoreTackles High Cost of Buying Texts

New (and Old) Faces Join Academic Affairs LeadershipJohn Jay Honors Program. Matteson, who holds a law degree in addition to a doctorate in English, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.

Professor Dara Byrne of the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts will become the Interim Director of the SEEK Program and Interim Chair of the SEEK Department during

Popular ScienceThe streets around Manhattan’s Washington

Square Park were packed with curious passersby

eager for a peek at “The CSI Experience,” John

Jay’s contribution to the 2010 World Science

Festival street fair on June 6. Members of the

Department of Sciences, led by Professor Linda

Rourke, along with a cadre of student volunteers,

organized four tents with a variety of interactive

forensic exhibits and activities. The exhibit fea-

tured a cordoned-off “crime scene,” complete with

bloodied “corpse,” where visitors were encour-

aged to investigate the scene from a scientific per-

spective. Visitors numbering in the hundreds were

able to dust for latent fingerprints, assess blood-

spatter patterns, examine blood cells, hair and

insects under the microscope, and investigate fire-

arms evidence. Faculty/staff volunteers included:

Shu-Yuan Cheng, Peter Diaczuk, Alison Domzalski,

Don Hoffman, Lilja Nielsen, Argeliz Pomales and

Marcel Roberts. They were assisted by student

volunteers Michael Gittings, Eric Gosselin, Loretta

Kuo, Michael Lugo, Melinda Lui, Zuleyma Peralta,

Shay Smith, Anna Stoll, Alicia Williams, Cindi-Ann

Williams and Kyle Zavinsky.

the 2010-2011 academic year. Byrne, a specialist in intercultural communication and digital media, was a 2009 recipient of the College’s Distinguished Teaching Awards.

Professor Carmen Solis, a member of the SEEK Department, was selected as the Faculty Fellow in Graduate Studies, a role in which she will serve as associate to Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo for a three-year term.

John Jay College received a record $21 million in external grants during the 2009-2010 fiscal year. The funds — a 28.1-percent increase over the previous year, will be used to support research, education, training programs and community initiatives.

The grantees represent a cross-section of disciplines and academic departments, including mathematics, the sciences, anthropology, psychology, sociology, history and criminal justice. Funding entities included the Centers for Disease Control; the National Institutes of Health; the

U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Education and Justice; the National Science Foundation; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Ford Foundation; the McCormick Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the New York State Department of Education, and the New York City Department of Correction.

“This is a remarkable accomplishment,” said President Jeremy Travis, “a real tribute to our research-oriented faculty and to the solid support provided by our Office for the Advancement of

Research. We are particularly proud of the depth and scope of the research emanating from our scholars.”

Subjects for current faculty research include: Internet privacy protection and authenticity verification; HIV transmission among intravenous drug users; intimate partner violence reduction; right-wing extremism; childhood neglect and abuse; prisoner reentry; firearms and toolmark evidence; lineups and mistaken witness identification; digital crime, and Italian prison policy.

External Research Funding Sets New RecordFaculty Scholarship Brings in $21 Million from Wide Range of Sources