CCNY Site Hides the Good Stuff

If you click on About CCNY on the site, you'll read generic mission statement stuff. Click on history, and read a version of CCNY's history that I don't recommend, and I've read a few versions of it. The protests to open admissions, I could not find at all so of course the protests to stop tuition implementation, I could not find. But there is a tab called Share your Memories, and there is much better writing there. I haven't read them all, but this was a student here, who graduated in 1968. Check it out.

Ron Sternfels (Chem '68)


Where do I begin? My life at City College began the day after the Harlem riots in 1964. Baskerville was still the chemistry building and I remember one day when the bomb squad came to remove an old bottle of a chemical that had become unstable. One lab was being remodeled and beneath the wood floors was found 300 lbs of mercury. I remember taking swimming at 8:00 am in winter at the Wingate pool (bathing suits were forbidden) and then having to run to South Campus for my next class, stopping only to buy a pretzel from Raymond the Bagel Man. I remember the anti-war rallies, the fight to preserve free tuition, Ravi Shankar's weekly concerts and "House Plans" where I made the best friends I ever had. I remember Leadership Training and “T-Groups” that taught me so much about myself. I remember that my first semester fees were $23 total. Most of all I remember the education I received that was second to none and the respect I have had through my career when people find out I went to City College. I'm so proud that New York has preserved the the campus so that students in years to come can feel the presence of those who passed before them.




Posted: 2007-11-05 23:50:30