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 12:20pm 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 Mar. 14, 2016 is as follows:

Wednesday, Mar. 16:

-12:20pm: “African Americans’ Transition from Slavery to Freedom,” presented by Calvin Holder

The focus of this lecture will be the African Americans’ transition from slavery to freedom and how the federal government aided their transition.

Calvin Holder is a Professor of History and the African Diaspora Studies at the College of Staten Island.

Thursday, Mar. 17

-8:00am: “The 10th Amendment versus the 14th Amendment,” presented by Vincent DePaolo and Victor Miller, in collaboration with students Jason Andrade and Harley Schick

Two of our Core students, Jason Andrade and Harley Schick, will be assisting both professors in a debate over civil rights issues from the 19th century to the present. Through the lenses of the Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debates, we will be discussing these pertinent issues from a 10th Amendment and 14th Amendment perspective.

Jason Andrade is a water treatment specialist who has been working as a sales consultant since 2006. He has obtained two degrees from the Chubb Institute, for computer programming and computer technical support. While working for Cascade Water Services, Inc., he negotiated and was awarded the domestic water treatment contract for the World Trade Center Tower 1 building. Jason now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Harley Schick is 18 years old and a graduate from Tottenville High School. She enjoys bowling and is the vice president of the USBC. Harley is currently a student at the College of Staten Island. She is working hard toward her degree and hopes to be a nurse.

Professor DePaolo earned a BA in History and MS in Social Science with a concentration in History and Advanced Graduate Certificate in United Nation Studies at Long Island University- Brooklyn Campus.​ He has also earned a Master’s degree in Secondary Social Studies from the College of Staten Island-CUNY.

Professor 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 and currently also works for the Office of Academic Support. Victor is the author of the “Summer of ’87” Reacting to the Past classroom simulation and also recently served on the CORE 100 textbook editing committee.

-10:10AM:  “The Honeymoon that Changed the World,” presented by Michael Batson

This lecture will explore the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848.

Michael Batson has been a Professor at the College of Staten Island since fall 2000. He teaches history, women’s studies, and Core. He specializes in social history and earned his Master’s degree in Liberal Studies.

-4:40 PM: “Was There a Real Need for the Civil Rights Movement?” presented by Patrice Buffaloe

The lecture focuses on a series of political movements for equality before the laws that peaked in the 1960s through discussions on the campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change via nonviolent forms of resistance.

Patrice Buffaloe is a teacher at the Department of Education for New York City. She has taught English and U.S. history for nine years. She received both her Master’s in Adolescent Education and Master’s of Liberal Arts from the College of Staten Island. Patrice began teaching at the College of Staten Island in 2009. Currently, she teaches COR 100 U.S. Issues, Ideas, and Institutions; EDD 602 Studies in Urban and Metropolitan Education; and EDS 201 Foundations in Education at the College of Staten Island.

-6:30pm: “Carpetbaggers, Scalawags, Redeemers, the Klu Klux Klan, and Jim Crow: The Failure of Reconstruction,” presented by Donna Scimeca

Historian Eric Foner argues, “What remains certain is that Reconstruction failed, and that for blacks its failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine accomplishments that did endure.” Sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B DuBois, wrote in Black Reconstruction in America, “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”

This lecture will examine the causes of the failure and what life was like for the newly freed people living in the South in the post-Reconstruction period, and how this would give rise to the Civil Rights Movement.

Donna Scimeca, earned a MA in History from the College of Staten Island, and is the Core Program and Learning Community Coordinator at CSI.