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Nanette Shaw
ABC News Correspondent John Stossel will be the keynote speaker at the CUNY Baccalaureate Program Commencement on Thursday, June 8. The ceremony will be held at the Church of the Incarnation, 209 Madison Avenue (between 35th and 36th Streets) beginning at 10:15 a.m. Susan M. Orzel-Biggs will speak for the 242 students who will be graduating. Three graduates who first started college over 40 years ago will be honored: Miriam G. Wolfson, Alan Friedberg and Yasuko Nagasawa.(see attached bios). John Stossel joined the ABC newsmagazine, "20/20," in 1981. He began doing one-hour primetime specials in 1994, which have consistently rated among the top news programs when broadcast. He has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Among his other awards are the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award. In his early years at ABC, Stossel served as consumer editor at "Good Morning America." Prior to that, he was consumer editor for WCBS-TV in New York City. He began as a researcher for KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon. He is a 1969 graduate of Princeton University with a B.A. in psychology. The CUNY Baccalaureate Program operates as a small, individualized program within The City University of New York. Drawing on university-wide resources, the program reflects the CUNY-wide consortium model of The Graduate Center, where it is headquartered. The Program allows academically motivated students the freedom and independence to work with faculty advisors in developing an individualized course of study. In offering students an unusual amount of flexibility, the Program appeals to many individuals who have been away from school for a long stretch, work full time, manage a family, or have noncollege experiences that can be credited toward degree requirements. Students in the CUNY Baccalaureate Program can attend classes at all 17 CUNY colleges, and they frequently take advantage of independent research projects, internships, and honors seminars in the course of their studies. Since it was founded in 1971, nearly 5,000 students have received their undergraduate degrees through the Program, about 45% of the graduates have gone on to obtain master's degrees, and about 12% have since earned doctorates. The Program’s web site is www.cunyba.cuny.edu. CUNY Baccalaureate Program Commencement 2000 Graduating Students Who First Started College over 40 Years Ago Born in 1922, Miriam G. Wolfson started college 60 years ago. After a year at Hunter College in 1940, Ms. Wolfson attended college sporadically. In her application to the CUNY Baccalaureate Program she described this early college attempt and her decision to resume her education: "At the age of 74, I decided to return to college in order to complete my degree. I had had a successful career as an accountant for 43 years but always bemoaned the fact that I had not completed my degree. As a young woman, I attended Hunter College and had dreams of becoming a physician. With my family’s negative attitude toward a woman becoming a doctor, my education was not a priority and the pursuit of my goals was not encouraged. I left school, began working, and never stopped until my retirement. Along the way, I always enrolled in classes, some matriculated, some not, but always with the goal of expanding my knowledge base. My thirst for exposure to ideas and learning has always stayed with me. Now, with the gift of luxury of time, I can pursue a life-long interest in psychology." And so in 1996 Ms. Wolfson returned to Hunter College and in the Spring of 1998 she joined the CUNY Baccalaureate Program where her area of concentration has been Psychology. She will be entering the Master’s in Social Work program at Hunter College. Forty-six years ago, in 1954, Alan Friedberg attended Baruch College where he took courses through 1961. In 1988 he resumed his studies at Kingsborough Community College where he received his Associates degree in Travel and Tourism. When he applied to the CUNY Baccalaureate Program, he wrote of his regrets, saying: "I stopped attending college in 1961 and have spent most of my life regretting the decision." He was busy, however. He married, raised a family and supported his wife’s educational career; she earned her undergraduate degree in the CUNY Baccalaureate Program and now has a Ph.D. in Social Work. Mr. Friedberg stated that while he was excited about his wife’s success, he was envious of her accomplishments. So he returned to Brooklyn College in 1994 and entered the CUNY BA/BS Program in 1995 where he concentrated in Business Administration. Yasuko Nagasawa started college 40 years ago at the Junior College of Engineering, Chiba University, Japan from 1960-63. Coming to the United States in 1984, she began studying art history at Hunter College. Ms. Nagasawa entered the CUNY Baccalaureate Program in September 1996 because not only did she want to study art, she wanted to write about it. Having received her New York press card, she wanted to work on journalistic articles on culture, both in English and in Japanese. Her area of concentration is 20th Century Art History and Criticism. In one independent study, she translated Dr. Meyer Shapiro’s essays on contemporary art into Japanese. Ms. Nagasawa considers Shapiro to be one of the most important art historians of the 20th century. Her other independent study included an interview with two influential Japanese artists, On Kawara and Yayoi Kusama, who moved to New York after World War II. In addition to directing art exhibitions in New York and Japan, she has been asked to lecture at several universities in Tokyo and will be writing about the New York art scene for the Ryukyo Shinpo newspaper. |