The Advanced Science Research Center has brought CUNY to a landmark moment in its multi-billion-dollar commitment to becoming a national leader in visionary scientific research of vital, real-world consequence. Located on the south end of the City College campus in Upper Manhattan, the striking, 200,000-square-foot ASRC building embodies a bold vision of 21st Century discovery. At the center’s core is a world-class facility designed to inspire an innovative approach to the scientific method itself, one that links a new wave of talented scientists with hundreds of top researchers from CUNY campuses across the city. The ASRC focuses CUNY initiatives in five of the most energized areas of global research: Nanoscience. Photonics. Structural Biology. Neuroscience. Environmental Sciences.

These are diverse and seemingly distinct fields, but they intersect in many of the most significant research quests of our time. It was the opportunity for myriad collaborations—particularly between labs in areas that are already in CUNY’s spheres of strength—that guided the center’s planners. Led by Vice Chancellor for Research Gillian Small, what they have conceived is the DNA of a distinctive research culture—creative, collaborative, convergent—to take on scientific challenges ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to the future of the global water supply. The CUNY Advanced Science Research Center brings the nation’s leading urban public university to a landmark moment in its multibillion-dollar commitment to innovative science. The ASRC focuses on CUNY initiatives in five dynamic fields of applied science: Nanoscience, Photonics, Structural Biology, Neuroscience, and Environmental Sciences. Through its innovative architectural design, the center reflects a uniquely collaborative culture, where scientists work across disciplines to take on some of global science’s most vital and tantalizing challenges.

The website allows users to post videos of police abuses, track them on an interactive map and even play a game in which the goal is to avoid gunfire from police officers.

Called Protect & Swerve, the website and companion app were created by six Bronx high school students who recently presented their work to business and community leaders, including the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, at an economic summit in Midtown Manhattan.

The students received applause, then a question: How much money would they need to further develop the app? “Tell your people to call our people,” Shemar DaCosta, 15, replied. “And I’m just putting this out there: We’re all free for internships.”

The students’ success highlights a growing movement in the Bronx to equip young people with the knowledge and the skills to write code, the language of computers, so that they can become creators rather than simply consumers of apps, video games, websites and other programs. There have been coding lessons in schools, so-called weekend hackathons for students to code together for as long as 24 consecutive hours and training institutes for teachers across the borough as educators, leaders and others aim to help students navigate an increasingly digital world and better prepare for jobs in the future.

Coding has already become a way of life for students at the Bronx Academy for Software Engineering, which opened in 2013. “It’s the students who know how to program that can have an impact on their world,” Mr. Grossman, who supports the city’s efforts to bring computer science to all schools, said.

Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popular and relevant to a local, specific audience but is often overlooked by commercial or mass-media broadcasters. Community radio stations are operated, owned, and influenced by the communities they serve. They are generally nonprofit and provide a mechanism for enabling individuals, groups, and communities to tell their own stories, to share experiences and, in a media-rich world, to become creators and contributors of media.

In many parts of the world, community radio acts as a vehicle for the community and voluntary sector, civil society, agencies, NGOs and citizens to work in partnership to further community development aims, in addition to broadcasting. There is legally defined community radio (as a distinct broadcasting sector) in many countries, such as France, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and Ireland. Much of the legislation has included phrases such as “social benefit”, “social objectives” and “social gain” as part of the definition. Community radio has developed differently in different countries, and the term has somewhat different meanings in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Making a short film with the availability of today’s technology has become a relatively simple endeavor for most people.  Assuming that you own a respectable computer, a digital camcorder and some kind of editing software, you are basically ready to go.  Add some decent actors, a simple script and you’re a filmmaker!

But, first things first, you will need a story.  Remember, most of what filmmakers do is to become a storyteller.  And if this is your first attempt at creating a short film, consider a comedy or spoof on a topic that isn’t too serious.

With the discriminating taste that has been acquired by most film viewing audiences, even on Youtube, it’s wise to leave the more sobering ideas to those that can spend millions of dollars telling their story.

Now that you have a basic outline for your story using the cast available to you, create a bit of a character for each role.  What is the personality of each character?  Do they have a specific way of speaking?  There are many ways to create individual characters for each role which helps when writing the final draft of the script.  But don’t get jammed here.  You might have friends that are really good actors and you have no idea.  Ask around, see who is up for the excitement involved in making even a short film.  Then work around what you have when writing the final draft of your script.  Don’t forget that although you might only have a few characters in your story, that there will be background actors required, set dressers and production assistants to help organize things during the day of filming.

Despite the rising cost of education, a college degree is one of the best investments that a young person can make. In 2015, median earnings among workers aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree were $43,000, compared with $25,000 for those with just a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, a person with a bachelor’s degree typically earns $800,000 more than someone who has completed only high school, even after netting out tuition costs.
The financial prospects for college dropouts are poor, for two reasons. First, dropouts earn little more than people with no college education. Second, many dropouts have taken on student loans, and with their low wages, they have difficulty paying off even small balances. Dropouts account for much of the increase in financial distress among student borrowers since the Great Recession.
The dropout problem is particularly acute for students whose parents did not attend college. First-generation students beat enormous odds by even enrolling in a four-year degree program. Yet 30 percent of first-generation freshmen drop out of school within three years. That is three times the dropout rate of students whose parents graduated from college.
A new “On-track Pell bonus” will increase the grants of low-income students who enroll in 15 credits a semester. The bonus is intended to signal that 15 credits is the right level of course work if students want to graduate on time.
Helping students to enter college isn’t enough. For higher education to fulfill its promise as an engine of economic mobility, we need to get students across the finish line to graduation.