COLLEGE NEWS

MFA's Tom Sleigh Wins 2008 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

Tom Sleigh, a professor of poetry in Hunter’s MFA program in Creative Writing, has won the 2008 Kingsley Tufts Award for his collection Space Walk. The prestigious award - which comes with a $100,000 prize, the largest in the nation for a mid-career poet - is administered by Claremont Graduate University.

Sleigh is the author of seven books of poetry, a book of essays, and a translation of Euripides’ Herakles. He has been a finalist for the Lamont Poetry Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and has been nominated for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets and The Nation Magazine.

Sleigh will be honored at a ceremony at Claremont on April 15.

New York Times Covers Hunter Prior to Primary 

The New York Times captured the political air at Hunter just before Super Tuesday. Read the full story here.

Peter Carey Named Distinguished Professor

Peter Carey, Director of Hunter College’s MFA program in Creative Writing, has been named a CUNY Distinguished Professor by the CUNY Board of Trustees. The appointment was approved unanimously and announced on January 28 by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein.

Professor Carey is one of the most original, talented and prolific writers in the English language today. He is a two-time winner of both the Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Prize, and the recipient of countless other distinctions.

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Hunter Awarded Stem Cell Research Grant

Hunter College is one of 25 New York State institutions to receive a one-year development grant from Governor Eliot Spitzer’s stem cell research initiative. Hunter received the maximum it was eligible for: $155,980, which will be used to supplement funding for current stem cell research being conducted in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Center for Study of Gene Structure and Function. Associate Dean Ann Henderson is Hunter’s principal investigator of the grant. The award was announced January 7.

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Professor Flanagan's Video Game Research Website Launched

An innovative new website called “Values at Play” aimed at encouraging video game designers to focus more on social activism and human values in their games went online recently though funding from the National Science Foundation.

The website, http://www.valuesatplay.org/, is a collaboration between Hunter’s Tiltfactor Laboratory, the first academic lab in the country to do such social research into video games, and New York University.

Department of Film and Media Studies Professor Mary Flanagan is the founder of the Tiltfactor lab at Hunter.

ALUMNI NEWS

Alum's Thesis Published by Bureau of Labor Statistics

David Lempert's ('07) economics master's thesis—“Women’s Increasing Wage Penalties from Being Overweight and Obese”—has been published on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website as Working Paper 414. The Working Paper Series circulates research findings as a means of encouraging discussion prior to publication in academic journals.

Lempert's thesis analyzes rising rates of obesity through an economic lens, drawing on studies that show that white women suffer the greatest wage penalties for exceeding weight norms.

Hunter Alumna Ruby Dee Wins SAG Award

Famed Hunter alumna Ruby Dee (’44) has won a prestigious Screen Actors Guild Award for best supporting actress for her standout performance in the hit movie American Gangster. She received the prize at the Guild’s 14th Annual Awards Ceremony, held in Los Angeles on January 27th.

Dee the legendary actress who graduated first from Hunter High School and then from the College with a BA in French and Spanish earned rave reviews in the role of Mama Lucas, the mother of a Harlem drug king pin played by star Denzel Washington.

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Alumna Joins Peace Corp in Macedonia

Hunter alumna Marissa Polnerow does not work to receive a paycheck—her compensation comes in the form of community development. A Peace Corps volunteer in Negotino, Macedonia, Polnerow helps non-governmental organizations strengthen local communities.

Polnerow headed to the Eastern European republic in September 2007, one month after graduating from Hunter with a degree in French and political science.

Hunter College sent 40 students to Harvard University on February 14 to take part in the prestigious Harvard National Model U.N., a highly-competitive U.N. simulation in which students take on the role of diplomats from different countries. The Hunter students were chosen to represent Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Tajikistan.

All are from the Hunter College Model U.N. class, an initiative launched this year by Hunter President Jennifer J. Raab, Dean of Arts and Sciences Shirley Clay Scott and Professor of Political Science Pamela S. Falk. Professor Falk, who teaches the class and also works for CBS television at the UN, was able to help the students prepare by getting them unusual access to the General Assembly, the Security Council and even to actual diplomats from the countries they’re representing.

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Hunter senior Silvia Caballero has been selected as one of five outstanding young scientists from across the nation to receive a prestigious 2008 Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study.

These highly-competitive fellowships, awarded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, provide full support for up to five years of study toward a PhD for exceptional young people in the field of biomedical research. The awards are aimed at fostering excellence and diversity in education and science.

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Hunter Science Student Wins Award at Research Conference

Hunter College student Asif Rahman received a prestigious award for outstanding scientific presentation at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Austin. 
 

Rahman - a junior with a triple major in biology, political science and Thomas Hunter special honors won for his project studying factors that play a role in hypertension and epilepsy.

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