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Morris, Craig
No full textCraig Morris, born in the Bronx in 1945, was raised in the Parkchester planned community. There, most of his friends were Jewish, although he did meet some nice kids who were Irish, Italian, and Protestant. However, he also had some violent run-ins with different ethnic groups, in particular the Irish. Morris discusses areas of Parkchester he couldn’t enter for fear of being attacked, and different incidents that occurred throughout his childhood. Overall, however, he describes Parkchester as a nice place to grow up, with good playgrounds, community spaces, and opportunities for children to walk around and explore.
Morris describes his household as very “emancipated” relative to the time. He and his siblings all did the dishes, and there was no expectation that the women should be subservient to the men. He played lots with his siblings, including Saturday morning Monopoly tournaments and ping-pong baseball in the living room. With his friends, Morris played games with marbles, baseball cards, and Tinker Toys.
Morris devotes time to his love of music. As a child, he was particularly fond of Rachmaninoff, and he spent lots of time practicing violin and composing music. In medical school, he joined some friends in the Bronx Symphony Orchestra, where he played for forty years. He has also worked professionally as a cantor, and he describes his various experiences in different cantorial roles. He even worked as a cantor during his time in the Air Force, where he was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Base in Dayton, Ohio as a psychiatrist during the Vietnam War. While he chose as a teen to attend Bronx Science instead of LaGuardia High School, he still incorporated music throughout his professional and personal life. In his two trips to Israel, he made sure to visit cultural and music centers.
Morris was, and continues to be, very involved in Jewish life. In high school, he attended Hebrew high school in Manhattan, he attended a conservative synagogue, and he led Jewish services in the Air Force. His family did not, however, keep Kosher, as a result of his parents’ mix of beliefs and upbringings. Nonetheless, cultural Judaism was an important part of Morris’s childhood, and continues to be highly valued by him today
“It\u27s important to talk about these issues”: The Need for Leaders to Establish Connections and Address Students\u27 Experiences and Concerns
No full textIn this Conversations in Urban Education, high school student leader Sofia Díaz shares her experience with racial and gender inequity and justice while transitioning into high school in the 2020-2021 school year and attending school virtually and in-person during the continued pandemics of Covid-19 and racial injustice. Díaz provides insights on how educational leaders and staff can build relationships and reach out to students and families in order to support student well-being and safety. Díaz\u27s experiences and observations highlight the myriad issues students and families face and the importance of supporting students through increasing awareness of resources and developing coping skills. Díaz\u27s story underscores the need for educators to Expressions in Urban Educationlicitly address issues that arise in order to improve schooling experiences for students, especially those who continue to experience marginalization
Levine, Louis
No full textSummarizer: Sophia Maier
Louis Levine was born in 1940 on the Grand Concourse to immigrant parents. His mother came to the United States from Poland at three years old, in 1906, and his father came from Vilna at 28 years old, in 1931. Both worked in manufacturing, making and selling women’s garments and gloves, respectively, before his father opened a small glove making factory of his own. Levine grew up on 168th Street and Walton Avenue. He attended Yeshiva Salanter from the time he was five years old and then Bronx High School of Science, which was also predominantly Jewish at the time. Levine describes the difference between yeshiva and Bronx Science as being exposed to people of a different socioeconomic class than his family and directing his social life away from the Bronx and towards Manhattan.
Levine explains his West Bronx neighborhood as 70% Jewish and 30% Irish and Italian, with a sense of a divide among the children. He says his own friends were all Jewish. One block away was “Synagogue Row” on 169th Street, which contained a diversity of synagogues including Temple Adath Israel on the corner with the Grand Concourse, and in the other direction on 167th Street was the shopping street with Jewish delis and bakeries. Levine remembers playing in the street, building his Erector Set, reading, seeing movies, and going up to a bungalow colony in the Catskills for the whole summer to avoid polio. Joining the Boy Scouts, he enjoyed attending their summer camp much more.
Levine was bar mitzvah at a Lithuanian (Litvak) shul and later joined United Synagogue Youth (USY) through his friends at Park Avenue Synagogue to meet girls and socialize. Through USY, after graduating from high school, Levine spent a year in Israel on a kibbutz with Habonim. He went on to become an archeologist, working in Iran for 14 years, before going on to museum work. He did not live in the Bronx again after his 1957 graduation, and his parents eventually left the Bronx after their apartment was broken into while they were in it. Levine credits Bronx Science with opening up the rest of the world to him.
Keywords: Walton Avenue, Grand Concourse, 167th Street, 168th Street, 169th Street, Poland, immigration, manufacturing, Yiddish, yeshiva, Salanter, Bronx High School of Science, education, Catskills, summer camp, Boy Scouts, United Synagogue Youth, Israel, socialism, crime, famil
In Quest of a Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate from the Global South
No full textBased on the author’s eight years of fieldwork with the United Nations-led Conference of Parties (COP), In Quest of a Shared Planet offers an illuminating first-person ethnographic perspective on climate change negotiations. Focusing on the Paris Agreement, anthropologist Naveeda Khan introduces readers to the only existing global approach to the problem of climate change, one that took nearly thirty years to be collectively agreed upon. She shares her detailed descriptions of COP21 to COP25 and growing understanding of the intricacies of the climate negotiation process, leading her to ask why countries of the Global South invested in this slow-moving process and to explore how they have maneuvered it.
With a focus on the Bangladeshi delegation at the COPs, Khan draws out what it means to be a small, poor, and dependent country within the negotiation process. Her interviews with negotiators within country delegations uncover their pathways to the negotiating tables. Through observations of training sessions of negotiators of the Global South, Khan seeks to reveal understandings of what is or is not achievable within negotiated texts and the power of deal-making and deferrals. She profiles individuals who had committed themselves to the climate negotiation process, moving between the Secretariat, Parties, activists, and the wider UN system to bring their principles, strategies, emotions, and visions into view. She explores how the newest pillar of climate action, loss and damage, emerged historically and how developed countries attempted to control it in the process. Khan suggests that we understand the Global South’s pursuit of loss and damage not only as a politics of forcing the issue of a conjoined future upon the Global North, but as a gift to the youth of the world to secure that future.
With this book Khan hopes to rekindle an older way of doing politics through the tenets of diplomacy upheld by the UN that have been overshadowed of late by the politics of confrontation. She stresses that while the tension between efforts of equity and solidarity and global economic competition, which have run through the negotiation process, might undercut the urgency to carry out climate mitigation, it needs to be addressed for meaningful and sustainable climate action.
Deeply insightful and highly readable, In Quest of a Shared Planet is a stirring call to action that highlights the key role responsive and active youth have in climate negotiations. It is an invitation not only to understand the climate negotiation process, but also to navigate it (for those planning to attend sessions themselves) and to critique it—with, the author hopes, sympathy and an eye to viable alternatives.
In Quest of a Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate from the Global South is available from the publisher on an open-access basis
How and Why They Came Together in Community: A Case Study of a Reentry Program for Women with a History of Incarceration
No full textA community-based program was provided for reentry women to support their continued process of returning to community. This study explored the RCC Coming Home Program as it formed partnerships, developed resources, and utilized the community connections to provide two 24-week programs (2018-2019). A single case study qualitative methodology and narrative analysis explored this reentry program through 18 current interviews (community partners, mentors, volunteers, leadership and a reentry woman) combined with archival program data to understand this program within the community and explore (1) why people got involved, (2) why they returned week after week, (3) challenges and (4) areas of restoration. Using Relational Cultural Theory as a framework, this study found common factors for why people got involved (alignment to values to provide support; abundance of resources) and stayed involved (I/we connected) despite challenges (mismatched expectations) with common elements suggesting a supportive restorative environment
Evaluating Strategies for Focusing on What Is Important: Text Presentation and Comprehension
No full textThis quantitative study endeavored to compare a new strategy of making irrelevant information less salient with a common reading strategy of highlighting to determine which would best aid students in making connections within and between multiple texts. Participants were 60 high school students, ranging in age from 14–17 years old. The adolescents were placed into one of three conditions: highlight relevant information, fade irrelevant information, or read-only. After reading two informational texts using their assigned strategy, the participants responded to a prompt that required them to use information from both texts. The number of inferences included in the participants’ responses was counted to ascertain whether the type of reading strategy affected the synthesis of information within and between articles. Although this experiment did not yield significant differences in the number of inferences made, participants in all conditions had high levels of integration, suggesting that the controlled variables in the experiment (giving the prompt prior to reading and reading through each text twice) facilitated synthesis. This study has important implications for future research on multiple text comprehension and for application in instructional settings
Quantum Counting in a Distributed System
No full textThis project delves into the implementation of the quantum counting algorithm within a distributed system, focusing on its efficacy in handling extensive datasets. The primary objectives revolve around reducing both execution time and qubit usage, critical factors in quantum algorithm performance. Experimental testing reveals that the Quantum Counting (QC) algorithm not only achieves an 85.0% reduction in execution time but also reduces qubit usage by 12.5% compared to Grover\u27s algorithm. This reduction in qubit demand presents an opportunity for enhanced scalability in quantum algorithms, enabling their application to more extensive and intricate problem domains. The significance of decreasing qubit requirements extends beyond scalability challenges; it addresses the technical complexities of maintaining and controlling a large number of qubits. By optimizing qubit usage for specific computations, this approach simplifies physical implementation and lowers technological barriers in achieving practical quantum computers. Moreover, the judicious use of limited quantum resources, such as qubits, gate fidelities, and coherence times, allows for more efficient utilization within the constraints of existing quantum hardware. While the experiments showcased promising outcomes, there remain areas for improvement. Expanding the dataset volume and range to larger extents would necessitate computational systems with increased memory and processing capacity. Furthermore, conducting a comprehensive comparative analysis with other algorithms stands as an essential avenue for future exploration, offering insights into potential advancements and areas for further research
Sandra Chestnut and Marguerite Nelson
No full textSandra Chestnut and Marguerite Nelson are friends who grew up together in the Amsterdam Housing project in the Lincoln Square Neighborhood of Manhattan. Born before the Lincoln Square Urban Renewal Project which razed many city blocks in the Lincoln Square neighborhood to construct Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Fordham\u27s Lincoln Center campus, Chestnut and Nelson recall the neighborhood before and after Urban Renewal. In this oral history recorded by Fordham students Dana Ebralidze and Nicole Miceli, Chestnut and Nelson reflect on their childhood in the Amsterdam Housing community, the impact of Urban Renewal and how the neighborhood has changed over their lifetimes
Developing the Weaving Healthy Families Program to Promote Wellness and Prevent Substance Abuse and Violence: Approach, Adaptation, and Implementation
No full textFamily prevention programs that enhance mental health, wellness, and resilience—while simultaneously addressing violence and alcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse—among Indigenous families are scarce. This gap in culturally grounded and community-based programs creates a critical need to develop and evaluate the efficacy of such prevention programs. This article fills this gap, with the purpose of describing the structure and content of the Weaving Healthy Families (WHF) program, a culturally grounded and community-based program aimed at preventing violence and AOD use while promoting mental health, resilience, and wellness in Indigenous families. The focus then turns to how to approach this process of developing and implementing the program in a culturally grounded and community-based way