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GOAL 3: A DISTINCTIVE LEARNING DYNAMIC
A DISTINCTIVE LEARNING DYNAMIC
Goal three underscores the value of the College’s combination of a large university’s curriculum with the person-centered learning of a liberal arts college, which challenges students to become educated both in depth and breadth.
• Manhattan College announced the public launch of its capital campaign, Invest in the Vision: The Campaign for Manhattan, at the annual President’s Dinner in
September 2019. Invest in the Vision is a historic $165 million campaign to secure and strengthen the College’s educational mission at a time of unprecedented technological, social and economic change.
The top three priorities are: enhancing facilities on the College’s north and south campuses; growing endowment for scholarships and faculty development; and securing unrestricted support for academic programming and student support services.
• Manhattan College made the list of U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2019-20 Fulbright U.S. students.
Each year, the U.S. Department of State’s
Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs announces the top-producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the
U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Natalia
Alvarez ’19, Alia Flanigan ’19 and Emily
Hay ’19 earned Fulbright English Teaching Assistant awards during the 2019-20 academic year. Alvarez is currently teaching English in Brazil. Both Flanigan and Hay are teaching English in Malaysia. It was the first time that more than one Manhattan College student has received a Fulbright award during an academic year.
• During the last week in September 2019, 58 students gave presentations on the research they conducted during the summer in a variety of fields of study.
The Jasper Summer Research Scholars program is managed through the Center for Graduate School and Fellowship
Advisement. Students are chosen based on an evaluation of their proposed research or creative project, their academic and cocurricular achievements, and promise for future contributions to knowledge and research in their discipline. As part of this program, the Center provides enhanced programs, advising and support so that students develop intellectual, interpersonal and research skills to be competitive applicants to graduate school, professional school and fellowships.
• Last October, Manhattan College’s Center for the Study of the Future of Education hosted Marc Brackett, director of the Yale
Center for Emotional Intelligence and professor at the Child Study Center at Yale
University. Brackett is the lead developer of RULER, a systemic, evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning
The Summer Research Scholars poster session, keynote address and presentations took place in late September. Students from all five schools participated, with research topics covering a wide range of academic inquiry, from Wonder, Philosophy and Irish Poetry to Classifiers for Machine Learning to Investigating the Effects of Decaying Dark Matter on the Hubble Constant.
that has been adopted by more than 2,000 public, charter and private schools across the United States and in other countries. In his talk, Brackett addressed the role of emotions in learning and decisionmaking. Through research, discussion and application to the Manhattan College community, the Center for the Study of the Future of Education explores issues related to education, from preschool through college, that have the potential to dramatically impact the future of education.
• As part of the Center for Ethics’
Manhattan College Effective Altruism
Project, several leaders in the emerging field of effective altruism visited campus this past year. Scott Weathers, policy specialist for the Good Food Institute, gave a lecture on plant-based foods and his work in addressing global alternative food production. Classroom “Giving Games” were led by Kathryn MecrowFlynn, philanthropic educator and curriculum developer from the nonprofit The Life You Can Save, which also provided free copies of Peter Singer’s book The Life You Can Save for an effective altruism reading group. Kennan McClung, director of growth and development for One for the World, a movement to change charitable giving to end extreme poverty, held an informational session and student chapter training.
• The College’s annual Peace and Justice
Week in February centered on the theme of Doing Good in the World. Sponsored by the Peace and Justice Studies department in collaboration with the Center for Ethics, Campus Ministry and Social Action, the Women and Gender Studies department, the Religious Studies department and the Multicultural Center, the week’s events included a presentation by Savanna Michener, the first graduate of Drexel University’s master’s degree program in peace engineering, and a lecture by Palestinian artist Malak Mattar on her development as an artist in the Gaza Strip.
• Peace and Justice Week events continued later in the month with a visit from
Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio
Grande Valley and a national advocate
In her Peace and Justice Week address, Sister Norma Pimentel shared firsthand accounts of asylum seekers whom she has encountered during her three decades of humanitarian work in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. She emphasized migrants’ humanity, and called for Catholics to respond by spreading a message of love for all.
for immigrants and justice. A sister with the Missionaries of Jesus, Sister Norma delivered a talk on her work and immigration at the Southern border. Her visit, which drew a crowd of about 450 attendees, was hosted by Catholic Relief Services, Campus Ministry and Social Action, and the office of Student Engagement, with several other offices collaborating.
• The Urban Studies Annual Lecture featured A.K. Sandoval-Strausz of Penn
State University to present research from his book Barrio America: How Latino
Immigrants Saved the American City in
February. Sandoval-Strausz discussed the history of how Latino immigrants revitalized the nation’s cities after decades of disinvestment. The lecture was co-sponsored by the Urban Studies program, Fuerza Latina, Campus Ministry and Social Action, the Critical Race and
Ethnicity Studies minor, the Peace and
Justice Studies program, the O’Malley
School of Business, and the departments of History, Political Science, Sociology and Modern Languages and Literatures.
• In April, the O’Malley School of Business hosted its annual Innovation Challenge virtually on Facebook Live. Budding entrepreneurs from the business school and School of Engineering pitched their business ideas to a panel of alumni, friend and faculty judges for prizes totaling $6,500 in startup cash. Marketing majors
Jeffrey Bartlett ’21 and Desmond Cole ’21 were awarded first prize of $3,000 for their company DYFRENT, a digital media consulting service that provides clients with social media design and management, lead generation, targeted outreach and web design. Marketing major Joseue
Encarnacion ’20 and business analytics major Adrian DeJesus ’21 took home second prize of $2,000 for their product,
Baythoven, that would sell a healthmonitoring chip for pets through retailers, wholesalers, veterinarian offices and animal shelters. In third place, economics major Laurent Span ’21 captured $1,000
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT RANKS MANHATTAN COLLEGE
13TH AMONG THE BEST
REGIONAL UNIVERSITIES IN THE
NORTH CATEGORY — THE FIFTH
CONSECUTIVE YEAR THAT THE
COLLEGE HAS BEEN RANKED IN
THE TOP 15
MANHATTAN ALSO WAS RANKED
SIXTH AMONG THE BEST
COLLEGES FOR VETERANS IN
THE REGION BY U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT AND PLACED
SEVENTH IN THE REGION FOR
UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING
MANHATTAN COLLEGE IS
ONE OF THE NATION’S
BEST INSTITUTIONS FOR
UNDERGRADUATES TO EARN
THEIR COLLEGE DEGREE,
ACCORDING TO THE PRINCETON
REVIEW’S BEST 386 COLLEGES
THE COLLEGE MADE THE LIST
OF THE TOP U.S. COLLEGES AND
UNIVERSITIES THAT PRODUCED
THE MOST 2019-20 FULBRIGHT
STUDENTS, ANNOUNCED BY THE
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE’S
BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL AND
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
FOR THE SIXTH STRAIGHT YEAR,
MANHATTAN COLLEGE HAS
EARNED A SPOT ON VIQTORY’S LIST OF MILITARY FRIENDLY
SCHOOLS, RECEIVING A
SILVER DESIGNATION
for his social media sharing app, WeGoal, which allows users to announce their goals and receive support from fellow users through posts, tokens and follows.
• Nicholas Rogalewski ’20 is the first recipient of the Con Edison Endowed
Scholarship, which was initially announced at the 2019 De La Salle Medal
Dinner by John McAvoy ’80, chairman and CEO of Con Edison. A native of the Bronx, Rogalewski is majoring in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics. The $5,000 scholarship has been established through Con Edison to provide support, based on financial need, for undergraduate students who major in a field of science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
• Rachel Roca ’21, a mathematics major, is one of 396 students across the United
States to receive a Goldwater Scholarship from the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and
Excellence in Education Foundation. She is the second Manhattan College student in two years to receive the scholarship. From an estimated pool of more 5,000 college sophomores and juniors, 1,343 natural science, engineering and mathematics students were nominated by 461 academic institutions to compete for the prestigious scholarships.
• Autumn Herndon ’19 was awarded a 2020
Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs
Fellowship. The fellowship, funded by the
U.S. Department of State and managed by the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs
Center at Howard University, supports extraordinary individuals who want to pursue a career in the U.S. Foreign Service. It also supports her through a two-year graduate program to receive a master’s degree in an area relevant to U.S. foreign policy and provides extensive professional development opportunities.
• Mary Elizabeth Pizzimenti ’21 earned a
National Italian American Foundation
Fellowship for the 2019-20 academic year. An Italian minor, she is one of 15 college students nationwide to receive the competitive prize. The fellowship program is intended for future leaders who selfidentify as active in the Italian American community through their choice of study, participation in on-campus Italian Clubs, and their grassroots efforts.
• Civil engineering major Matthew
Sweeney ’21 is the first Manhattan
College student to receive a prestigious honorable mention from the Morris K.
Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation.
The program recognizes sophomore and junior college students across the United
States for leadership, public service, and commitment to issues related to Native
American nations or to the environment. It awards 50 scholarships and 54 honorable mentions around the nation annually.
• Eight civil engineering students have been awarded scholarships from member firms and regions of the American Council of
Engineering Companies of New York. The scholarship amounts range from $2,500 to $10,000 and are awarded based on the students’ cumulative GPA, college activities, work experience and essays.
Nadia Itani ’21 received a $10,000 ACEC
New York Award of Merit Scholarship, and Jeremy Capuder ’21 was named the recipient of a $5,000 STV Group Scholarship. The following six students also earned $2,500 scholarships: Grace Stackowitz ’21 (ACEC Long Island Region Scholarship), Rachel Foertech ’21 (ACEC New York Western Region Scholarship), Alyssa Hirani ’21 (Hazen and Sawyer Scholarship), Kerry Brosnan ’21 (HDR Scholarship), Robert Del Prete ’21 (Sam Schwartz Engineering Scholarship) and Danielle DeSimone ’21 (Stantec Scholarship).
• In addition, five civil and environmental engineering students participated in the
Water Environment Federation’s Technical
Exhibition and Conference, hosted by the Young Professionals Committee of the Water Environment Federation in fall 2019. The team was composed of civil engineering graduate students Sarah
Sansone ’20; Logan Graney ’18, ’20; Adina
Rivera ’19, ’20; Chris Casey ’19, ’20; and
Arijit Ghosh ’20. The group was led by
Jeanette Brown, professor of civil and environmental engineering, who was recently named a distinguished member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The team was tasked with redeveloping a wastewater treatment plant and creating a design report, along with a 20-minute presentation, which were the result of five months’ effort.
• With creators using new techniques to produce artistic content from home, five film studies students were inspired to create their own short films, New Day,
New You and Captor to showcase their talent and express their creativity while in quarantine. Regan Alejo ’22, Nick Chiofalo ’21, Sharon Egan ’22, Angela Ramoni ’23 and
Teresa Ramoni ’20 participated in both the FilmOneFest 24-Hour Film Slam and the New York City Quarantine Film Festival. Captor won Best Horror Film in the New York City Quarantine Film Festival, competing against more than 100 other short films. New Day, New You won the People’s Choice Award in the FilmOneFest 24-Hour Film Slam.
• Angel Pineda, associate professor of mathematics, was awarded a three-year
National Institutes of Health grant of $395,000. The funding will support
Pineda’s project, Optimizing Acquisition and Reconstruction of Under-sampled
MRI for Signal Detection. This research project advances a larger scientific effort to accelerate MRI while maintaining the diagnostic quality by optimizing the performance of constrained reconstruction and deep learning on detecting subtle signals in accelerated MRI. • Helene Tyler, associate professor of mathematics, won the Distinguished
Teaching Award by the New York
Metro section of the Mathematical
Association of America, the world’s largest association of mathematicians, students and mathematics enthusiasts. Her main research interest is in the representation theory of finite dimensional algebras.
• Sarah Wacker, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, received an
Academic Research Enhancement Awards
R15 grant from the National Institutes of Health to identify and characterize the environmental signals that bacteria recognize when forming communities called biofilms. These communities have roles in a variety of settings and can lead to chronic infections. The proposed research will answer fundamental questions about how cells choose a particular fate and how environmental signals are integrated into the decision to form a multicellular community.
• The Kinesiology department has been awarded a grant from CVS Health to implement its recently launched e-cigarette prevention program, CATCH
My Breath. An acronym for Coordinated
Approach to Child Health, CATCH
My Breath is an e-cigarette and JUUL prevention program that aims to provide middle and high school students with the skills to resist peer pressure and media influences to try e-cigarettes. Kinesiology faculty will facilitate training sessions for physical education student teachers and health and physical education teachers.
• Manhattan College introduced a new public health major this fall. The program’s mission is to educate students on the core principles of public health knowledge to address health outcomes of the population through equity, policy and action. Students can choose from two tracks: community health and health care administration, both concentrations within the field of public health. Tekeyah
Sears serves as program director of the
Allied Health/Public Health programs and designed the public health major.
• Manhattan students can now minor in geography through the Sociology department. Students will learn how geographers think about the complex problems facing our planet: poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, climate change and more. The theoretical foundation of human geography gives students a critical lens to approach humanenvironment interactions, including
(Opposite page) Tekeyah Sears, program director of the Allied Health/Public Health programs, designed the new public health major. Courses address health issues through fi ve public health disciplines: behavioral health/health education, biostatistics, environmental health, epidemiology, and health services administration. (This page) Manhattan’s new cosmetics lab will help students prepare for entry into the cosmetic and consumer goods industries.
studying the link between geography and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
• Th e O’Malley School of Business MBA program launched concentrations that provide students with in-depth knowledge in some of the economy’s fastest-growing sectors: business analytics, fi nance and economics, and organizations, markets and sustainability. In response to student demand for programs targeted to specifi c career areas, these concentrations are available to all MBA students.
• Th e O’Malley School of Business also started an Honors Program in the fall 2019. Th ose accepted join a community of students who are focused on academic and leadership achievement, and enter a curriculum designed to enhance their business and interpersonal skills through seminar-style core classes, major courses and a senior capstone research experience.
Th e honors program off ers highly motivated business students the chance to develop rigorous business skills and interact with top business leaders and mentors.
• Th e School of Engineering recently established a new laboratory for cosmetic engineering graduate students within the
Chemical Engineering department that will help prepare students for top jobs in the industry at companies such as Estée
Lauder and L’Oréal USA. Th e chemical engineering program features industryrelevant equipment and advanced characterization techniques that also are being used by graduate students carrying out research within the department’s new biopharmaceutical engineering option.
• Th e Major Author Reading Series (MARS) featured Helen Phillips, author of Th e Need and various other works, and Sarah Grieve, poet, professor and author of Honey My
Tongue, during the fall 2019 semester.
• Th e Experiencing Veterans and Artists
Collaboration (EVAC), an art project that was displayed in the O’Malley Library in spring 2019, moved to a pop-up space in midtown Manhattan’s Flatiron Building in fall 2019. Th e exhibit includes visual presentations and accompanying narratives, such as those of a World War II Marine who fought in Okinawa, Japan; a Gold Star mother; and a post9/11 82nd Airborne veteran who served multiple tours as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Two alumni who served in the armed forces — Kirsten Battocchio ’18 and Michael Giraldo ’19 — also had their stories told through the EVAC art gallery.
• Andy Bauer, director of performing arts, produced a series of videos featuring the
Singers, Players and Jazz Band this past spring to replace their on-campus, end-ofsemester performances. Th e videos were recorded in the performers’ homes from across the country. Th e Manhattan College
Singers’ performance of Let the River Run, the Players’ presentation of Th e Addams
Family Musical Special, as well as the Jazz
Band’s Stay at Home Shuffl e, among others, are on the College’s YouTube channel.
