The Core 100 program invites students and faculty from the College to join us for our weekly lecture series. Each week, all of the first-year students participate in lecture-discussions with about 400 of their classmates. We have space in the Center for the Arts (Building 1P) Williamson Theatre to accommodate individual guests (no permission needed) and can have as many as two additional classes at each of the lectures. Permission is not required for classes to attend, but please notify Donna Scimeca at 718.982.3405 if you plan to bring a class.
The lectures are 50 minutes and are all in the Williamson Theatre. They meet on the following days/times: Wednesdays at 12:20pm, and Thursdays at 8:00am, 10:10am, 4:40pm, and 6:30pm.
Please note that in the spring, the Saturday 10:10am lectures are held in the Center for the Arts Lecture Hall, but due to space limitations, we unfortunately cannot accommodate additional classes.
The Lecture Series schedule for the week of Monday, Mar. 9 is as follows:
Wednesday, Mar. 11
-12:20pm:
“How the Emancipation Proclamation Determined the Fate of America,” presented by Deborah De Simone.
This lecture gives a brief history of the Emancipation movement, with particular interest to the views of A. Lincoln and why they changed over time. Special attention is given to analyzing the text of the Emancipation Proclamation in order to recognize the truly unique aspects of this historic document.
Professor Deborah De Simone is an Associate Professor of Education in the School of Education at CSI. She has been on the CSI faculty since 1993 and was a member of the cadre of professors who designed and first implemented Core 100. Her specialty areas are social studies education and U.S. history. Her undergraduate degree is from Brown University and her graduate degrees are from Columbia University Teachers’ College.
Thursday, Mar. 12
-8:00am: “Prelude to Civil War: The Three-Fifths Compromise,” presented by Victor Miller.
The Three-Fifths Compromise was the one great flaw to come out of the Constitutional Convention. The founding fathers left the issue of slavery to future generations. From 1820 to 1860, multiple compromises were made in an attempt to prevent a Civil War.
Victor Miller earned a BA in History at the College of Staten Island in 2005 and an MS in Adolescent Education in 2008. He has been an adjunct of Core 100 since February 2012.
-10:10am: “Political Corruption and the Constitution,” presented by Richard Powers.
In “Political Corruption and the Constitution,” we will trace the framers’ intention to eliminate political corruption and how this has been drastically limited by this Supreme Court’s equation with money in politics with constitutionally protected free speech.
Richard Gid Powers has been teaching history at CSI since 1971 and was one of the people responsible for creating Core and establishing it as a required course at CSI. He has written books on J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI, U.S. anticommunism, and FBI in popular entertainment, and he has just published a religious thriller, The Mystery of the Trinity.
-4:40pm: “The American Civil War, Causes of and Objectives of the Conflict,” presented by John Comfort. (John will also be presenting this topic on Thursday, Mar. 14 at the 6:30pm lecture.)
John Comfort will discuss the causes of the war and Lincoln’s main objective. Also, he will discuss a brief history of the most deadly conflict in U.S. history.
John Comfort earned his MA in History from the College of Staten Island in 2003 and has taught classes at CSI in the Core program and also the American Studies program since 2006.
