Were You There? Brooklyn College has never been a dull place. Social change, clashes with authority, and the constant battle over academic freedom have marked this College, which from its earliest days has had a reputation for student activism. Here we recall some particularly memorable moments of the past seventy—five years. There has always been tension between students and administration, and, motivated by youthful ideals, students have periodically engaged in peaceful-and not so peaceful-protest. It's an inevitable process as each generation of Brooklyn's best and brightest meets the challenges of their education and their world.

1990s 1991 December 4. Lisette Nieves, a history major, was named one of thirty-two Americans in the 1992 class of Rhodes Scholars. December 10. Toba Friedman received a Marshall Scholarship 1993 April 22. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., opened. The Tower of Life, a major exhibit, consists of approximately one thousand reproductions of prewar photographs of Jewish life, gathered from more than one hundred families of the shtetl Eishyshok by Brooklyn College Judaic Studies Professor Yaffa Eliach, '67, who spent her early childhood in that town. 1994 President Bill Clinton chooses Brooklyn College as the site for a major address on community service and crime prevention. 1995 June 1. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the Commencement address at the College's seventieth Commencement Exercises. December 29. The Brooklyn College chess team, led by Grand Master Gennady Sagalchik, won the Pan American Collegiate Chess Tournament. 1996 Distinguished Professor of Biology Martin P. Schreibman, '56, received a grant of $1 million from the New York State Higher Education and Technology program to create the Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center on campus. 1998 January 31. More than two hundred tropical fish from Brooklyn College's Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center (AREAC) spent five days on the orbiting space station Mir. April 8. U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, whose mother, Selma Rosen, and wife, Iris Weinshall, both attended Brooklyn College, announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the Brooklyn College Student Center. April 19. Brooklyn College won its first athletic title in two decades when the men's volleyball team captured the CUNY Athletic Conference championship.

BC Timeline:  1930s  ||  1940s  ||  1950s  ||  1960s  ||  1970s  ||  1980s  ||  1990s  ||  2000s

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