Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at The Graduate Center, was awarded the "Médaille d'Honneur de la Ville de la Marseille" in a ceremony at the University of the Mediterranean in January. The presentation was made by the Deputy Mayor of Marseille, Renaud Muselier, who is the former under-secretary of foreign affairs and current vice-president of foreign affairs in the French National Assembly. Weiss was recognized for his "contributions to the study of the United Nations and multilateralism." The ceremony took place at the opening, in Marseille, of the European Centre of the Academic Council on the United Nations System. Weiss chairs the Council's Board of Directors.

Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age, will be co-published by Harvard University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation in May 2008. Written by John Mollenkopf (Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, and Director of the Center for Urban Research) and Philip Kasinitz (Professor of Sociology), along with Mary Waters and Jennifer Holdaway, this eagerly awaited book examines the question of how well new immigrants are becoming part of American society. Drawing on the results of a groundbreaking, long-term study of young adults of immigrant parents in metropolitan New York, it builds upon work described in an earlier volume, Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation, published in 2004. Inheriting the City looks at five immigrant groups, focusing on how they are faring relative to native-born groups, and how achievement differs between and within these groups. The study finds that this second generation is rapidly moving into the mainstream—speaking English, working in jobs similar to those held by native New Yorkers their age, and creatively combining their ethnic cultures and norms with American ones.

The Graduate Center's Ph.D. Program in French has been recognized with the Venet d'or, which honors an American individual or institution that promotes francophonie and its valuesm—solidarity, cultural diversity and multilingualismm—in the United States. Awarded annually in New York, it is named for the celebrated sculptor Bernar Venet, who created the work of art that is presented to the winner. The French Program was recently ranked second in the country for the scholarly achievement of its faculty (Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index). The presentation took place on March 17 at the Graduate Center, during the "Grande Soiree de la Francophone." Paul Holdengraber, the public programs director of the New York Public Library, presided. Accepting on behalf of the Graduate Center were Edouard Glissant, Distinguished Professor of French, and Professor Francesca Canade Sautman, Professor of French and Executive Officer of the Ph.D. Program in French.

The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program (MALS) at the Graduate Center will offer a concentration in Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir beginning in the Fall of 2008. It will take "life writing" as a focal point for studying a variety of literary genres and themes in personal narrative such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, and the social construction of the self in different times and places. Core courses will prepare students for doctoral-level courses with the Graduate Center faculty, which includes many eminent biographers as well as scholars and critics in the field. The culminating thesis may be a memoir or biographical text. This new interdisciplinary program will benefit from its proximity to the Graduate Center's new Leon Levy Center for Biography, which will also begin in the Fall of 2008. Other concentrations in the Liberal Studies Program include American Studies, Film Studies, Modernity, Urban Education, and Women's Studies.

The Graduate Center has received one of the first four grants in the groundbreaking $2.5 million Jonas Nursing Scholars Program of the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence. Designed to address the nation's accelerating shortage of nursing faculty, the Scholars Program supports educational development of new nursing faculty and stimulates models for joint faculty appointments between schools of nursing and clinical affiliates. The Jonas Nursing Scholars will have the opportunity to collaborate on multi-disciplinary translational clinical research teams and a variety of clinical programs for dissertation research. During their first semester, all the Scholars will participate in a new interdisciplinary research seminar offered by Columbia University's Irving Institute of Translational Research.

The 2008 Edwin Booth Award was presented to internationally renowned performance artist Karen Finley on April 4 at a ceremony in the Martin E. Segal Theatre. The Award was established in 1983 by the Graduate Center's Doctoral Theatre Students Association to honor a person, organization, or company for outstanding contributions to the New York City and American Theatre, and the performance community. Students of the Program nominate candidates and elect recipients. Past honorees include the HERE Art Center, Paula Vogel, Tony Kushner, Richard Foreman, Arthur Miller, Joseph Papp, Ellen Stewart, and The Royal Shakespeare Company.

The Graduate Center has become the twenty-first institution to join the NYSGrid, a collaboration among New York institutions to create an advanced technological infrastructure in the State. The Graduate Center has been supporting computational clusters for faculty and faculty-sponsored research since 1999. In 2001, the Center initiated a successful CUNY Grid project connecting clusters at the City College of New York, the College of Staten Island, and the Graduate Center. The Graduate Center's computing resources have been used in research in numerous disciplines, including biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physics. At present, more than fifty doctoral faculty and seventy doctoral students make use of the CUNY Grid for computational research. Florian Lengyel, Assistant Director for Research Computing, will serve on NYSGrid's Council, acting as liaison between NYSGrid and CUNY.