OH. Oral Histories / Queens Memory

Scope and Contents This interview, which took place on 04-17-2013 in one session as a part of Queens College's 75th anniversary celebration, and covered Dr. Saul B. Cohen's time as president of Queens College, during which the college delt with several challanges,particularly the fallout from the New York City fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s. Dr. Cohen's contributions to the revitilization of Queens College included: the creation of the Schools of Music and Education, and the construction of Rosenthal Library,...

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Scott Ruthizer talks about his career as an accountant, how he began his accounting business, and the fulfillment that teaching at Queens College gives him. This interview was conducted as part of English 395W, "Theory and Practice of Oral History," taught by professors Bette Weidman and Ben Alexander.

Scope and Contents Soribel Genao talks about her family, education, interests, and general upbringing in Manhattan, then Brooklyn, then Manhattan again; the challenges of the higher education system and maneuvering it as an undergraduate and graduate student; the importance of mentors in her career and how she started at Queens College as a teaching professor rather than a research associate, as was her initial plan; how COVID impacted her as a teacher and how she has adapted for the current moment with...

Scope and Contents Stan Shaw and Michael Wenger discuss their experience initiating, coordinating, and participating in the Virginia Student Help Project and the Jamaica Student Help Project of Queens College in the early to mid-1960s. The Virginia Student Help Project was an intensive education effort during the summer of 1963 in Prince Edward County, Virginia where public schools were closed for five years in massive resistance to integration. The Jamaica Student Help Project took place closer to home....

Scope and Contents Susan Glaser, daughter of immigrants, grew up in Jamaica, Queens, and attended Queens College in the second half of the 1960s. In this interview, she reminisces fondly about her time in the campus and how much she enjoyed an active social life as a member and later president of the Doll House house plan. She also reflects on how political events like Nixon’s campaign for the presidency and the shooting of Martin Luther King Jr. occurred during her student years, and how everything seemed to...

Abstract

This oral history was conducted by Obden Modesir (interviewer) and Waldo Jeff (interviewee) in July and August 2019. In this interview, Waldo Jeff talks about his time as one of the first counselors of Queens College's SEEK program, his path to New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his involvelment in civil rights movements in both the Deep South and the North.

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This interview covers topics such as growing up in Flushing in the 1950s; being brought up in a leftist/progressive home; civil rights movement activities he and his older brothers participated in at Queens College and in Flushing in the early to mid-1960s; and later activism in which Rosenthal was a participant.

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In this interview, William W. Sales, Jr. describes his experiences as an educator and Director of Queens College SEEK in the late 1960s / early 1970s and how the program managed to educate students and maintain credibility while aligning itself with the ideals and strategies of the greater movement for civil rights.

Scope and Contents In this interview, William Tramontano, the Queens College interim president at the time, talks about the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the closing of Queens College along with other CUNY campuses, and the abrupt switch to remote online instruction. He mentions the increase in summer registration despite the challenges of online instruction and learning, as well as the increase in first-year students’ applications. With a background in molecular biology and with a wife who has a...