Spotlight

Contact: Alice Newcomb
adoyle@brooklyn.cuny.edu
(718) 951-5882

April 10, 2001
Top Scholars in Anthropology and Journalism Are Appointed Visiting Professors at Brooklyn College

Brooklyn, N.Y. - Two scholars, Bettina Schmidt, professor of anthropology at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, and Juan Gonzalez, award-winning columnist for the New York Daily News, have been named visiting professors in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College for the spring 2001 semester.

"It is a clear reflection on the high caliber of our faculty and student body that we can attract an internationally distinguished scholar and a renowned journalist to our campus," said Christoph M. Kimmich, president of Brooklyn College.

Dr. Schmidt has devoted her academic career to Latin American studies and has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, and New York. She is coeditor of Violence and Conflict (Routledge 2001), a collection of articles that explore the history of war in different cultures. Dr. Schmidt is teaching an undergraduate course, Comparative Studies in African, Asian, Latin American, and Pacific Cultures, and a graduate course, Puerto Rican and Latino Communities in Urban Areas.

"It's a golden opportunity for me to teach at Brooklyn College because of its unique, rich, cultural environment," said Dr. Schmidt.

A professional journalist for twenty-five years, Professor Gonzalez has covered politics and the election process in Mexico, Haiti, and many other countries.

As the Belle Zeller Visiting Professor in Public Policy and Administration this spring, he holds a joint position with the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, where he is teaching Puerto Rican Communities in the U.S.: Settlement and Evolution, and the Department of Political Science, where he is conducting an oral history project on the establishment of Puerto Rican studies during the Civil Rights movement.

"I am eager to share my research experience with students at Brooklyn College," said Professor Gonzalez. "Clearly, the Latino population has dramatically increased and changed in its composition in the borough of Brooklyn, and this will be relevant in my course work."

Professor Gonzalez, who has lectured all over the United States, and throughout the City University of New York, will deliver two lectures at Brooklyn College this spring on the subject of Latinos and the media.

He is also the author of Roll Down Your Window: Stories of a Forgotten America (Verso, 1995), a critique of journalism that includes a collection of some of his columns over the years. Last year, Viking published Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in the U.S.

Brooklyn College, founded in 1930, is one of the eleven senior colleges of the City University of New York. Located on a twenty-six acre tree-lined campus in Flatbush, it enrolls 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students who are representative of the diverse population of Brooklyn and New York City. The college is nationally known for its core curriculum, which has been hailed as one of the "bright spots" in American higher education. Visit the College Web site at: www.brooklyn.cuny.edu.

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