Philip V. Cannistraro, Distinguished Professor of History at The Graduate Center and Queens College, passed away in May. Professor Cannistraro specialized in Italian American studies; he also served as director of Queens College's Italian American Studies Program and Editor in Chief of The Italian American Review. He published frequently on such topics as fascism and Italian Americans, co-authored a textbook on Western civilization, and edited The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement. At the time of his death he was writing a biography of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. A fund has been established at The Graduate Center in Professor Cannistraro's name to provide awards to graduate students demonstrating excellence in Modern Italian or Italian-American History; donations may be made to The Philip V. Cannistraro Fund, c/o The Graduate Center Foundation, Inc., The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue Suite 8204, New York, NY 10016-4309.
Beatrice Friedland, a Graduate Center alumna and Library Associates Executive Committee member, passed away in June. Friedland was a graduate of Brooklyn College and the Manhattan School of Music, and received her Ph.D. in Music from The Graduate Center in 1975, writing her thesis on French music. Friedland authored a book on the 19th century French composer Louise Farrenc in 1980, and edited Critical Questions: On Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940-1980 by Jacques Barzun (University of Chicago Press, 1983). For many years she served as editor at Da Capo Press. Friedland also devoted energy and resources to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Seymour Maxwell "Max" Finger, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, passed away in July at the age of 90. Finger served as a diplomat for many years, beginning in 1946 with the Foreign Service and later with the United States Mission to the United Nations from 1956 to 1971 with the rank of Ambassador; from 1967 to 1971, he served as a senior adviser with the rank of Ambassador to the United States' permanent representative to the United Nations. Finger directed the Ralph Bunche Institute from 1971 to 1982. Among his many publications are American Jewry During the Holocaust, published in 1984 by the American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust; American Ambassadors at the UN, published in 1988; and Inside the World of Diplomacy: The U.S. Foreign Service in a Changing World, published in 2002.
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