I became students at John Jay in 1968.
1973 graduate of John Jay.
So I came to John Jay in January 1977. I graduated in 1986.
I'm originally from upstate New York so
moving to New York City was probably the biggest change of my life.
And I decided to go there because I wanted to become a police officer like my mother.
So they told me about John Jay.
They highly recommended as the criminal justice school.
John Jay kept coming up as the best for forensic science. I got my
transcript at high school and I asked a person next to me.
Hey give me the name of some of the college's you're applying to.
I envisioned going to college was gonna
be open lawns and you know reading under a tree.
I wanted the closest school
to my house if I could have enough money to even get on the train to school.
It was a school that would take me.
Thank goodness in those days it was open admission which turned out to be awfully good for me and I didn't realize it at the time.
When you think about John Jay being
fifty years old of fifties a young age
but it's not only its age it was when it
was born it was born during the 60s to
come about and being born during that
period of time it produces a special.
Child law-and-order was the catch word
of the day. It's hard to believe today we
said you can't trust anybody over 30. I
mean the very fact that the college was
first called cops College of police
science tells a lot about what the
original focus was on the part of the
faculty they chose the name a small
group of senior faculty members and came
up with the name John Jay because he was
associated with New York. He was the
governor of New York.
He was involved with the anti-slavery society and one of the founders of the anti-slavery society.
and also because he was the first Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court there's a
very small student body I would say my
first order to be mentioned in the
hundreds because it was at the police
gathering then we were like the
wandering College we wound up wandering
up to Park Avenue South
which was a bit of tobacco from an
elevator usage point of view and then a
few years later we'll move to you know
North Hall which was the old I Milla
shoe factory women were almost an exotic
species well for example there were no
women's room in the police academy so
one morning I came in and the girls were
all sitting on the floor of the bathroom
with geraniums in the urinals and I see
what is going on what are you doing it
wouldn't give us a bathroom so that was
the first protest
it really was the birth of the idea of
criminal justice was at John Jay and it
was a work in progress
who's a liberal arts institution
students were all in-service police
officers but the educational
opportunities for those students
included English and history of
chemistry and social studies.
In 1970 the university began what was called the
open admissions program.
The student body doubled in 1970 it doubled again in 1971.
it allowed us to hire a lot of great new faculty.
Suddenly arrives you know blacks
and Puerto Ricans and Irish Italian working class kids.
Looking at these
long-haired kids coming into the elevators and going who are they?
Well we're here and this young vivacious
high-energy afro wearing lady with
knee-high boots comes in and stands up
in front of class I'm thinking she can't
be old enough to be the professor yet
and I remember she would stick it to us
and provoke us into dialogue and that
dialogue something when half the class
is armed you gotta forget about how
spirited the dialogue get but the point
was that all they had to do was defend
what they said by doing critical reading
and by reading a lot this kind of a
dynamic in a democratic society is very
very good. You need people who don't
agree with one another to disagree
publicly and understand one another.
We had a wonderful sociology faculty
member named Dave Bloomberg and he had a
student in his class. I don't know if it
was known to him or not that this was an
FBI officer and a Bloomberg said
something negative about
J Edgar Hoover and the student challenged it and a Bloomberg being a great
teacher said why don't you research it
and make a determination yourself and he
wrote up his paper and made the mistake
of giving it to the typing pool and
director Hoover demanded that the
professor A Bloomberg be fired from the college.
Hoover told Donnie had to
remove 36 at agents.
You have to understand a demand from J Edgar Hoover
this is a man who intimidated presidents
and riddle said I will not fire a
faculty member for doing his job and
Hoover did told every FBI agent and said
this particular student to what was then
Siberia for the FBI which was beaut Montana.
A proud day in the history of the college even if it wasn't a good day at
the time but we established that we were a real college.
A decade later the city went into fiscal
freefall and lost its financial footing
and all sorts of things were back on the
table in terms of whether they were
affordable by the government including
public universities including particular
John Jay. and they wanted to cut that is
eliminate John Jay College of Criminal
Justice completely.
We were letting people who normally would not have had
the opportunity, the chance, the ability
to have an education. We were being
punished by being closed down.
Being targeted that was so short sighted. the offered a Gerald Lynch that if he laid low
they would make him a Dean at Baruch. The
president Baruch called me down said
he'd give me a deanship and had both
it's a very good research possibilities
and so forth and I should know I'm not
coming as you can consider it the
administration said to everybody if you
know somebody who has any influence use
use that influence and demonstrations
marching in the streets with police
officers parading from Hell's
Kitchen the West Side over to the Upper
East Side to CUNY offices you had cops
stopping traffic at the intersection so
that that the protest could pass through.
There was a wonderful sense of
togetherness and also it was students
and faculty marching together.
That was a tough fight. I'm proud of the people who were still here who made that fight.
particularly Jerry Lynch.
They did a great job and saved the college.
You know when you think about
your life back. What you've done,
this is one of the best things I think
I've ever done and I'm very glad to hear
this day is here because that's
30-something years later and or is it
for 40 years later that the college is
alive and kicking. Thank you.
After the fiscal crisis our educational
offerings were constrained.
They were limited by the university and now 10 years ago we once again opened up majors
in English and history and now we have
gender studies a philosophy and law & society
I'm an English major in the BA
MA program in forensic psychology and
public administration in the minor in
music composition in criminology was a
minor in psychology
I'm studying security management I
majored in politics law and economics
management operations of human resources
My major is criminal justice. fire and emergency
services with a minor in chemistry a
master's in forensic mental health
counseling political science for two
minors history and English. I love those three so much.
Our history has always been about
providing access and giving the best
education that we can and so justice is
embedded in our history.
You know a lot of motto of many colleges and
universities are in Latin and nobody
really knows what they are right. this
motto here is in English and it's very clear.
Everything we do or we decide to
do making sure that you find a way to
incorporate in social justice was what
graduating from John Jay meant to us.
When I was in law school
most the students were there for one
reason only to make money. It's not the
same of the John Jay student.
And the quality is the kind of selflessness. thinking of others and it makes
them very dear. Either go to the Peace
Corps or join other government agencies.
To work with youth through
music and other forms of art.
Underrepresented or marginalized groups
I like to fight for.
I want to really become a principal one day. I want to start my own school.
I want to be a social worker for immigration. My career as a paramedic will be a stepping stone to be a medical doctor.
I think that
because the college had to fight to keep
itself alive,
it created a real sense of community amongst the faculty and staff here.
You have the feeling that you can do things.
For a professor to enter an institution
and be part of it now a future vision
that's something that that's
extraordinarily rare because I've seen
other places and I've seen professors
not care and no matter what happens here
you know that the professor's care.
I first came to John Jay and was just lost.
My first day was frightening. I actually
felt 7 feet tall as I was walking
through the building so I knew yes I
definitely had to be a John Jay.
A phrase that I left home with my mother said
good better best never let it rest until
your good is better and your better best.
During those difficult times of
challenging courses that pushed me and
compelled me to reach down deep and find
something beside me the students the
faculty of the counselors they were all there.
All the students really seem to
need is a drive to do the work and
someone that cares and is interested in
their progress. She encouraged me to go
to the Writing Center because I wanted
to learn how to make my writing better
and sometimes you just have to plant
that little idea in their head and
just watch them see them growth. We're now
in year two of Macaulay Honors College
it is an eight campus consortium honors
college for CUNY and these students are
academically outstanding they are
talented. They're interested in service.
Macaulay
brings students of varying backgrounds
many students who are first in their
family to go to college.
I'm the first Arab woman in my family to have graduated and like all you really need
to go to college you're first generation
we believe in you you can do it.
You want to know one of the essential things
about what the history of New York City
is that we're going to be looking at
it's you. There are over 100 languages
spoken in New York alone. Isn't that 
extraordinary.
Met a lot of people from all over the place and from Africa
different parts of Europe.
Sitting in my one class I have probably up to ten
different cultures and backgrounds put
into the class discussion. black white
Latino Irish would all be in your
classroom you have the firefighter and
then the Communists and the liberal and
the Conservatives all just battling it
out in one class.
One of the things that's so important about diversity is
diversity is where newness emerges.
So John Jay's own relative youth links to the
very future of the United States in fascinating ways.
The level of
innovation for younger school the nature
of the student body it's kind of whole
different look and feel to it.
You're now a senior college the all baccalaureate
institution with master's and doctoral programs.
Those students who don't meet
the new standards are now enrolled in
those programs that we design in the
community colleges and there are 9,000
students in John Jay design programs. In
the community colleges it'll make us an
institution that will have even more
academic offerings particularly at the
graduate level engage the professions
the communities of practice.
We have one of largest law enforcement agencies on the
globe. John Jay has often played the role
in advising these institutions. You know
every time you will get an issue whether
it's on Gleason on an Innocence Project
on DNA evidence or forensic science and
the reoccurring theme over the last
decade has been John Jay is now go to
college for expertise as relates to the
faculty. John Jay is helping me and my
team here build our new crime strategies
unit which is a new unit that is
dedicated to dealing with gun violence
before it occurs New York is John Jay.
John Jay is New York.
I've had students in Iraq.
I've had students in Afghanistan. I've had
students in South Africa and I've had
students in Dublin were able to use our
technology and John Jay online to reach
out to our students around the world.
Look at the great work that president
Jeremy Travis has done is related to
captivating sort of the international
community around this curriculum I think it's
pretty extraordinary. So part of our
challenge in this fiftieth anniversary
is really to step it up and to make sure
that we are prepared to take on many of
the challenges that an increasingly
interconnected world has for us. We joke
had a student the other day say this is
life or death professor. Of course it's a
joke it's not life or death but on the
other hand it is life or death that is
to say what does it mean for a moment in
your life 4 years in your life 5 years
in your life what does it mean to have
that redirect and reorient everything
about not only who you are but who your
family is and who they will be this
question of the future I think in so
many ways wait heavily on or students.
One of the great things about John Jay
me as I was always about the politics
and government I was running around
working for it selling the Jerry Nadler
and you could take a course in the
morning if you had to go to a meeting
you take the course at night and vice
versa and that was very helpful to what
I would ultimately get to do in my life.
Early in my college life I was a legal
studies.
My family's and I always talked too much
I should be a lawyer and it was the
internship office where I signed up for
the New York State Assembly and intern
from the very guy that I eventually
would replace in the assembly. It was at John Jay
the difference. I hate to admit this in terms of a
state Senator than the US Senator. Learn
the fundamentals not in high school but
in Georgia they have no doubt that had
it not been for John Jay I would not be
here today as Brooklyn district attorney
and had a huge impact on my professional
careers both in the social services and
what I do today.
John Jay is a beautiful place that should have a beautiful
building it was a very pleasant surprise
because they found a home away from home
and you know I would spend anywhere from
12 13 hours on campus and you know I was
I would enjoy every second of being on campus.
It looks like something that
really honors the students that come
here having three floors and access to
all the instrumentation I mean no matter
we were able to produce before but now
we can produce in five different fields.
Everyone that I am currently going to
school with is going to do great things
in life and I think that if we do lose
touch
you know personally thing at one point
or another we're going to run into each other.
Frankly it's a it's a wild kind of moment to see how it's grown several
hundred students when I started fifteen
thousand students today and I think that
says that's what celebrations and
anniversaries should be about
celebrating achievements certainly but
celebrating the platform it is to
achieve the dreams it has the future.
if you think about it 50 years is not
that long. Right that in somebody's life
it's maybe halfway in the life of a
college it's just the beginning so we've
built a platform we have a new building
we have an identity we have a mission
very clear about that
and now we're ready to jump off that
platform into the next 50 years and so
when people say well you were only
around for 50 years yeah baby those were
some difficult 50 years and we were born
through the fire but we came out not
smelling like smoke but leaving
everybody else in the dust I'm looking
forward to the next 50 years and
encouraging the next generation of John
J students are to be successful to do
great things and hopefully I'll go back
I want to go back and still finish my
master's program I'm at John Jay and
sitting alone up in the new park outdoor
terrace that they have there and read my
book under the tree like it was supposed
to be when I first got there so I'm
going to come full circle
go back to John Tay and add that
experience
you
