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 necessary 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 in length and are all in the Williamson Theatre. They meet on the following days/times: Wednesdays at 1:25pm and 3:35pm, and on Thursdays at 8:00am, 10:10am, 4:40pm, and 6:30pm.

In the fall, the Saturday 10:10am lectures are held in the Williamson Theatre, but due to space limitations, we unfortunately cannot accommodate additional classes.

The Lecture Series schedule for the Week of Sept. 21, 2015 is as follows:

Wednesday, Sept. 23:

-Please note there are no Core lectures today.

Thursday, Sept. 24:

-8:00am and 10:10am: Rosemary McCall, “Articles of Confederation, Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the Gideon Case”

Dr. McCall will open the lecture with the first “weak” constitution that the newly formed Republic had in place. In those early years after the Revolution, it’s clear that the Founding Fathers as well as the congressmen and the 13 individual states didn’t trust concentrated power or each other. The lecture shifts to the Constitution framers’ activities in Philadelphia in 1787.  She will present some general information regarding the integral players (Madison and Washington, Randolph and Hamilton, Grov. Morris) and their roles in usurping and rewriting rather than “tweaking” the Articles.

Rosemary McCall received her Juris Doctor at the National Law Center of GWU.  Her master’s work was funded by the National Science Foundation and was completed at the University of South Carolina. She graduated. cum laude with Honors, in Geology from Brooklyn College.

-4:40pm: Ed Manganel, “The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment, “The Delicate Balance””

The “freedom of expression” provisions of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution are the “sine qua non” of democracy. Analyzing several Supreme Court decisions, this lecture will focus on the difficulty faced by the Federal Courts in giving meaning to the rather vaguely expressed words of the First Amendment; in doing so, the Supreme Court must strike “a delicate balance” between individual rights and the rights of society–liberty versus order.

Ed Manganel received his BA from Marist College and his MA from University of Colorado. He is the former Chair of the Social Studies Department and an AP U.S. History teacher at Monsignor Farrell HS. He has been teaching at CSI for 25 years and Core 100 for ten years.

-6:30pm: Veronica DiMeglio, “Understanding Constitutional Law: Does It Still Matter?”

This lecture covers the broad topic of constitutional law and the power of the Supreme Court that has evolved over time, through a series of milestone court cases.  The Court’s most fundamental power is judicial review–the power to interpret any act or law of the Executive or Legislative Branch.  The U.S. Constitution framers anticipated that the Federal judiciary would be the weakest branch of government. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has come to wield enormous power with decisions that have reached into the lives of every citizen and resolved some of the most dramatic confrontations in U.S. history. The word of the Supreme Court is final. Overturning its decisions often requires an amendment to the Constitution or a revision of Federal law.

Veronica DiMeglio earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Wagner College and a Master of Science in Urban Affairs from Hunter College. She became a member of the CORE faculty in 2008 and also serves as the Curriculum Coordinator in the Enrollment Management Division at the College of Staten Island.