News From Fort Schuyler
February 25, 1999 - Volume 3, No. 11
EMPIRE STATE VI RETURNS - Having completed a successful training voyage for Mass Maritime, the training ship will again be alongside at Fort Schuyler, with an ETA of 10: 00. Accompanying TSES VI on the Caribbean cruise were C/E RON JACKSON, C/M CHRIS ZOLA, Class of 1993, ED KESSLER, Class of 1981, and MATT MAHANNA, Class of 1994.
HONORED I’M SURE - Noted in the "Campus News" section of the SUNY System Administration Briefing #31 [ http://www.sysadm.suny.edu/University_Relations/Briefing/briefing.htm ] "Rear Admiral David C. Brown, President of SUNY Maritime College, was awarded the Legion of Honor Gold Medallion by the Chapel of the Four Chaplains in Philadelphia February 2. The award is presented annually for service and commitment to others that epitomizes the spirit of the four chaplains who died after giving their life jackets to other servicemen aboard the troopship DORCHESTER, torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic in World War Two."
MORE HONORS ON THE WAY - Thursday, March 18 is the Alumni Association’s "Awards Night" gala at the New York Athletic Club. JOHN REYNOLDS, Class of 1965, will receive the 1999 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year award, and ROBERT B. ZUBALY, Professor on Engineering, will receive an award for Outstanding Service to the Maritime College.
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH - "Black men have been working on American ships since the 1620's. Some escaped slaves became pirates (25% of Blackbeard’s crew was black.) Crispus Attucks, killed at the Boston Massacre, was a sailor. Denmark Vesey, leader of a slave revolt, was a sailor. And by the early 19th century, a fifth of all merchant seamen in the North were African American. Historian W. Jeffrey Bolster has discovered a forgotten part of American history" in his book, ‘Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail’ (Harvard 1997) "He shows us how a life at sea gave black men a degree of freedom they rarely enjoyed on land. And he explains why, ironically, all that changed with the Civil War." (The quotes are from the page for February 8 in my Page-a-Day calendar. The book is in the Gove Collection, VK221 .B65 1997)
CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY AT MARITIME - The Cultural Club of the Maritime College, in association with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers, is sponsoring the 12th Annual Black History Month Dinner being held tonight, February 25. This gala event, held in the First-Class Mess Deck, features a keynote address by an eminent jurist, Judge Julius Johnson, a retired Administrative Law Judge. (Yes, Judge Johnson’s wife IS Judge Norma Holloway Johnson of the U.S. District in Washington, D.C.) Brooklyn poet, Lisa Muhammad, will also be reading from her works. Finally there will be a tribute to one of Fort Schuyler’s first African-American graduates, the late Carl F. Burnett, Class of 1950.
CHECKING OUT BRIDGETOWN - A recent note from MARK LANDOW, Class of 1989, aboard Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory's oceanographic research vessel, R/V MAURICE EWING. "We are currently dropping off moorings on the perimeter of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between 33 North and 17 North. We just dropped our last, and will be heading into Barbados for a few days later today. The moorings are anchored in about 4000 to 6000 meters, and are submerged about 800 meters below the surface. They consist of a seismic listening device that will monitor the area for seismic activity for 1 year, and then be recovered, renewed, and put down again for another year. They are trying to pinpoint the location of active areas as the plates pull apart. After a few days in Barbados, it’s off to the Canal and more Pacific seismic research." Mark ends his e-mail with this postscript: "We are NOT covertly listening for submarines!!" You can read more about Lamont-Doherty, the MAURICE EWING and its activities at - http://www.ldgo.columbia.edu
PLASTIC IS IN, FINALLY - The banner headline in the Plan of the Week for February 22-28 tells it all: "The Ship’s Store is now accepting credit cards!!" This should make it much easier to order those caps and jackets with the Maritime College logo.
CALLING THE CLASS OF 1959 (AND THEREABOUTS) - AL SONG, Class of 1959, writes: "We are celebrating our 40th at the Fort this year on the evening of [Saturday] September 18th. I heard that there will be a "Cigar Night" on Friday ... most of us will be there, too. We will look forward to seeing the guys who gave us a hard time (Classes of 1956 through 1958) and those who suffered from us (Classes of 1960-1963)."
FIRST CALL -The Society of Marine Port Engineers, New York, New York, Inc. will have its 47th Annual Fort Schuyler Forum on Thursday, 11 March from 0800 - 1600 at the S&E Lecture Hall of Marvin-Tode.
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