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Hofstra Happenings
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Hofstra Submits Application to Host 2008 Presidential Debate
This spring Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz announced that the University submitted a formal application to the Commission on Presidential Debates to host a 2008 presidential debate. On April 26 the Commission on Presidential Debates met with Hofstra officials and local political leaders as part of Hofstra’s bid. The University is the only site being considered in New York state.
President Rabinowitz, Board of Trustees Chair John D. Miller and other senior administrators met with Marty Slutsky, executive producer for the commission, and his staff and Special Agent Craig Wisniewsky of the U.S. Secret Service to examine Hofstra’s proposal for a debate. That included touring campus facilities such as the Physical Fitness Center and the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex, which would be the site of the debate.
The commission opened the early portion of its meeting to the news media, with President Rabinowitz summarizing Hofstra’s strengths for hosting a debate, including its experience producing and hosting 11 presidential conferences. He also pledged that a presidential debate at Hofstra would be very much a “student-centered” event with Hofstra students participating in and learning from the experience.
Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, New York State Senator Dean Skelos and other political representatives pledged their support for Hofstra’s application. Mr. Slutsky said he was impressed by the show of support from the University and from state, county and local officials and indicated that Hofstra would be a good location for a presidential or vice presidential debate, which has not been held in this part of the country for many years.
“It would be an honor to host a presidential debate, and to allow our students the extraordinary opportunity to participate in the democratic process,” said President Rabinowitz. “Hofstra’s emphasis on academic disciplines such as presidential studies and suburban studies is a unique connection between the debate, American culture and history, and Hofstra’s scholarly strengths.”
Renowned Choreographer Martha Clarke Serves as Special Visiting Professor
Widely considered one of the most important choreographers in America, Martha Clarke served as a special visiting professor in the Department of Drama and Dance for the spring 2007 semester. She is known for her groundbreaking, visually inspired music theater pieces. Ms. Clarke is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (otherwise known as the “Genius Award”) and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Ms. Clarke joined another renowned choreographer, Rosalind Newman, Hofstra faculty members Stormy Brandenberger, Anita Feldman and Dyane Harvey-Salaam, and Hofstra students in a beautiful array of premieres and exciting reconstructions of classic dance pieces at the 2007 Annual Spring Dance Concert held April 19 to 22 at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse.
In 1984 Martha Clarke created a series of sketches based on the work of 15th-century painter Hieronymus Bosch called The Garden of Earthly Delights, which received both a Drama Desk Award and the L.A. Drama Critics Award. Her 1986 piece, Vienna: Lusthaus, which evokes the decadence of fin-de-siècle Europe, won an OBIE for best new American play.
Recently she directed Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre in London and conceived and directed An Uncertain Hour, co-commissioned by the Nederlans Dans Theater 3, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and American Dance Festival (ADF). She conceived and directed Vers la fIamme, a dance/theater work based on short stories by Chekhov with music by Scriabin, also commissioned by Lincoln Center and ADF. In 2004 Ms. Clarke directed Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Other projects include the theater/dance composition KAOS, based on works by Luigi Pirandello, which premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in December 2006.
Hofstra Team to Excavate Slave Quarter at Historic Joseph Lloyd Manor
Associate Professor of Anthropology Chris Matthews will head a team of students from Hofstra University, other colleges and Uniondale High School, and begin excavating a Lloyd Harbor, New York, site this summer that is believed to have been an 18th-century slave quarter.
The site is located at Joseph Lloyd Manor, a historic museum house built in 1767 and owned by the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, which invited Dr. Matthews and his team to conduct the dig. The site of the likely slave quarter lies just west of the manor house and is believed to have housed as many as 10 slaves. This excavation will be one of the first archaeological studies of a slave quarter in New York state, according to Dr. Matthews.
Lloyd Manor is already well known as the residence of Jupiter Hammon, the first published black poet, who was born a Lloyd family slave in 1711 and died in approximately 1800. Hammond’s writings drew on Christian theology to challenge the injustices of slavery. “The archaeology of Lloyd Manor will provide a comparison between the remains of everyday life at the slave quarter and the poetry of Jupiter Hammon,” Dr. Matthews said.
The excavation team will consist of students from Hofstra and other universities and also student interns from Uniondale High School. The dig is part of the summer course “Slavery and Freedom in Early New York,” which will also look at the diversity of the enslaved African Americans, resistance to slavery, and definitions of “community” both historically and in the present day. The interdisciplinary course will combine methodologies of archaeology, comparative literature, history, cultural studies and community outreach.
11th Annual Hofstra Gala Honors Frank and Patricia Zarb
The David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex was completely transformed into a sophisticated and elegant reception and dining hall for the 11th annual Hofstra Gala, held May 3, 2007. With approximately 700 guests in attendance, the event was one of the most successful in Gala history, raising more than $1.3 million for the Hofstra Scholarship Fund. This year’s honorees were devoted Hofstra alumni Frank G. and Patricia K. Zarb, both Class of 1957.
Patricia K. Zarb is a former reading specialist, classroom teacher, and admissions officer with a B.S. in education from Hofstra University as well as an M.S. in learning disabilities-reading, Professional Diploma in reading. She has also taken Ph.D.-level courses in cognition, language and reading. She serves on the board of the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Center at Hofstra University and had served as chair of the board for three years. In fact, Mrs. Zarb has been a member of the board since its inception 14 years ago.
Frank G. Zarb is an internationally renowned leader in the financial services industry. He has served as chair and CEO of the National Association of Securities Dealers; chair and CEO of the NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc. (a NASD company); chairman, CEO and president of Alexander & Alexander Services, Inc.; vice chairman and group chief executive of The Travelers, Inc.; chairman and CEO of Smith Barney; and senior partner of Lazard Freres & Co. From 1974 through 1977, Mr. Zarb was the senior official for all U.S. government energy-related activities, serving as executive director of the Cabinet-level Energy Resources Council, administrator of the Federal Energy Administration, and assistant to the president for energy affairs (the “Energy Czar”). He has served in various assignments with the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations.
Currently, he serves as managing director and senior adviser to Hellman & Friedman LLC. He is also non-executive chairman of the Promontory Financial Group and a member of the board of the American International Group (AIG). He is a former chairman of the NYSE Nominating Committee and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation.
Mr. Zarb is a member and former chair of the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, and the University named its business school after him. Mr. Zarb, who earned a B.S. and M.B.A. from Hofstra University in 1957 and 1962, respectively, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University as well as the school’s Outstanding Scholar Award. He also received an honorary doctorate from the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.
The Zarbs were married in their senior year at Hofstra, March 31, 1957.