President Ricardo R . Fernández
A message from
President Ricardo R . Fernández
Every ending is a new beginning . As we look forward to another commencement , I am preparing to end my tenure as the President of Lehman College . This was not an easy decision ; nor was it one that I made lightly . But after twenty-six years at the helm of Lehman College I can look back at my first day here — September 1 , 1990 — and the twoand-a-half decades that followed with immense pride at the things we have accomplished .
This issue of Lehman Today is , for me , full of memories both personal and professional . The Bronx was in a much different place when I arrived here from Milwaukee , Wisconsin where I had lived since I was an undergraduate and graduate student ( with the exception of my time as a doctoral student at Princeton ). Lehman was in a different place , too . It was primarily known as quiet liberal arts college in the north Bronx . Today , I am proud to say that Lehman has built on its proud liberal arts and sciences history to add new academic programs , new schools , new buildings , and it has forged an incredible bond with our home borough . You can read about it in this issue ’ s cover story ( which beings on p . 11 ).
You can also read how , once again , Lehman College hosted another global politics dignitary when Secretary-General of the United Nations , Ban Ki-moon , visited our campus in March to deliver the Herbert H . Lehman Memorial Lecture . It was an historical event , one that I will not soon forget ( p . 18 ). Other major activities this spring were the Second Annual Science Day , which combines a number of our science-based events such as the Bronx SciFest , the Research and Scholarship Day ( when our undergraduate and graduate students put their scientific research on display ), and the Arthur Sweeny , Jr . Memorial Lecture by Chemistry Nobel laureate Richard R . Schrock into one science-filled day here on campus ( p . 22 ). There are also stories about the accomplishments of our faculty , students , and alumni such as novelist / memoirist André Aciman ( p . 24 ), who recalled the influence of one of his professors , Joseph Tusiani , recently named New York State Poet Emeritus by Governor Andrew Cuomo , and who has just published a new poetry collection ( p . 10 ).
My time at Lehman College has been an incredible honor . I am extremely proud of this College , and the dedicated staff and outstanding faculty who have served it through the years . But most of all , I am proud of the students . During my time as the President , some 60,000 students have graduated from Lehman . It ’ s a big number and one that I believe has had an outsized impact on the economic and social life of the Bronx , New York City , and beyond . And while the past fills me with great pride , I am also excited by the promise that the future holds for Lehman College . We should all take pride in what has been accomplished at Lehman in its 48 years of existence as a senior college , and we look forward with anticipation to its 50th anniversary in 2018 .
I know I am .
Lehman Today 1