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LIU Announces Winners of 69th Annual George Polk Awards in Journalism

WASHINGTON, DC (Feb. 20, 2018) – In a ceremony held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Long Island University (LIU) announced the winners of the 69th annual George Polk Awards in Journalism, continuing the University’s longstanding tradition of honoring and celebrating the impact of courageous and authentic journalism on our national and global discourse.

Special recognition goes out this year to the staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post for their extraordinary effort in uncovering the connection between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation. The Polk judges felt the investigative work, based on the cultivation of sources, was equally outstanding on the part of both newspapers and may play a significant role in safeguarding our democracy from foreign interference. But the important topics of sexual abuse, immigration enforcement, ecological disaster and modern-day slave auctions also gained award-winning coverage in this year’s prizes.

“It’s a time of both crisis and triumph for responsible news media. Of vilification and vindication,” says John Darnton, curator of the Polk Awards and recipient of two Polk Awards and a Pulitzer for his work with The New York Times. “They’re attacked almost daily as purveyors of ‘fake news’ to undermine their credibility. Yet they’ve delivered on their promise to keep the American public informed. Without them, we wouldn’t know what’s going on in Myanmar or Yemen or Charlottesville or Washington. Without them, there’d be no Mueller investigation. So, this year the George Polk Awards have decided to highlight the achievements of the nation’s press, television and online news organizations by announcing the winners in the capital.”

The George Polk Awards are conferred annually to honor special achievement in journalism. The awards place a premium on investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results. They were established in 1949 by Long Island University to commemorate George Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war.

Below are the winners of the 69th Annual George Polk Awards (for work published in 2017):

The staff of The New York Times and the staff of The Washington Post win a Special Award for revealing ties between Trump campaign officials and Kremlin-connected Russians that gave rise to the Mueller investigation.

Iona Craig of The Intercept wins the Foreign Reporting Award for documenting the destruction and civilian casualties of a covert U.S. Navy SEAL raid on a remote village in Yemen.

Jody Kantor and Megan Twohey of The New York Times and Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker win the National Reporting Award for exposing the decades-long sexual predation of the movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the campaign to cover it up.

Melissa Segura of BuzzFeed wins the Local Reporting Award for drawing attention to innocent men framed for murder by a Chicago police detective with stories that led to their release from prison.

Maria Perez of The Naples Daily News shared the Immigration Reporting Award for exposing the practice of Florida companies hiring undocumented workers in dangerous jobs to avoid compensating them when injured, in some cases by arranging their deportation. Antonia Farzan and Joseph Flaherty of Phoenix New Times also won the Immigration Reporting Award for revealing that Motel 6 motels in Phoenix, Arizona, provided nightly guest rosters to ICE agents investigating undocumented immigrants.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists won the Financial Reporting Award for mining a trove of 13.4 million records to reveal how corporate giants and prominent wealthy individuals use financial manipulations to evade taxes.

Nina Martin of ProPublica and Renee Montagne of NPR won the Medical Reporting Award for explaining the reasons and portraying the tragedies behind an alarming increase in maternal deaths in pregnancy and delivery in the United States.

Stephanie McCrummen and Beth Reinhard of The Washington Post won the Political Reporting Award for digging into the past of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama to disclose on-the-record accounts of sexual assault upon a 14-year-old girl and his pursuit of other teenage girls.

Ben Taub of The New Yorker won the Magazine Reporting Award for showing the humanitarian devastation caused by the shrinkage of Lake Chad in Africa and underlining the connection of the ecological disaster to famine and armed uprising.

Adam Dean and Tomas Munita of The New York Times won the Photography Award for capturing the plight of the Rohingya people desperately fleeing burning villages in Myanmar and pouring into woefully ill-equipped refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Elle Reeve of VICE News won the National Television Reporting Award for her on-the-scene up-close coverage of the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, that probed the motivations and tactics of white nationalist leaders behind the rally that turned deadly in August.

Nima Elbagir and Raja Razek of CNN won the Foreign Television Reporting Award for uncovering a hidden modern-day slave auction of African refugees in Libya.

David Begnaud of CBS News won the Public Service Award for capturing the destructive power Hurricane Maria unleashed on Puerto Rico in September and documenting how limited aid from the federal and territorial governments delayed the island’s recovery.

Gail Collins of The New York Times won the Commentary Award for her columns of satiric wit and neighborly wisdom that probe the oddities of American politics and social mores, skewering public figures on all sides of the aisle with equal-opportunity zest.

The distinguished winners of the 69th Annual George Polk Awards will be honored at a luncheon ceremony at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan on Friday, April 6, 2018. This year’s David J. Steinberg Seminar of the George Polk Awards will be held Thursday evening, April 5, 2018 at LIU Brooklyn’s Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts. The seminar topic will be announced shortly.  That event, which will start at 6:30 p.m., is free and open to the public.

About Long Island University (LIU)
LIU, founded in 1926, is a nationally recognized teaching and research institution which continues to redefine higher education.  Recognized by Forbes for its emphasis on experiential learning and by the Brookings Institution for its “value added” to student outcomes, as well as accolades and recognitions from US News and World Report, The Princeton Review, and Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education.   LIU’s network of 200,000 alumni includes industry leaders and entrepreneurs across the globe. LIU’s renowned faculty, the LIU Promise student mentoring program, innovation in engaged learning, further distinguish LIU as a leader among the nation’s most respected universities. Visit liu.edu for more information.

LIU’s Palmer School Ranks in Nation’s Top 20 Online Master of Library Science Degree Programs

Being a librarian is not like the old days when the most important task was keeping the reading room quiet. Today’s modern librarian has to be widely versed in a range of disciplines in order to help people find the information they seek.

There’s more to it than just loving books—although that certainly helps. Knowing how to conduct the right kind of research matters most. That’s why getting a Master of Library Science (MLS) degree is key to working in this demanding profession. To launch their careers, would-be librarians are increasingly turning to online masters degree programs.

The Palmer School of Library and Information Science at LIU Post was rated by Master’s Programs Guide as No. 17 on its list of the nation’s 50 best programs.  The Palmer School offers a Master of Science in Library and Information Science (MSLIS) degree program with a School Library Media specialization completely online.

The ranking is a composite of several important validators of quality, including U.S. News and World Report, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the  iSchools consortium, and the American Library Association. Three criteria determined which programs made the grade: affordability and accessibility, accreditation and commendation, student support services and specializations.

At LIU, students come to learn that “the school library represents the buried treasure at the core of our civilization.” The MSLIS degree program requires 36-credit hours to graduate. LIU Post also provides a fully online 18-credit hour Certificate of Advanced Study in Archives and Records Management.

To read more, click here.

Student Spotlight: Dylan Silva (’18)–The $10 Million Pioneer

When Dylan Silva goes on a job interview, he has a unique talking point — he has already successfully pitched an eight-figure idea — thanks to his extensive internship experience.

A senior from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Silva majors in Business Management at LIU Post’s nationally-ranked College of Management, and is also the face behind the mask of LIU Post’s mascot, the Pioneer.

Silva began an internship at 1-800-Flowers in digital marketing.  1-800-Flowers is an innovative company that operates 17 different companies under its flagship umbrella, giving Silva the opportunity to work with subsidiary companies – Florist.com, Fruit Bouquets, and Personalization Universe.

He was then accepted into an exclusive internship program as a business analyst at Meijer, the $16.6 billion company, ranked as the No. 19 largest privately held company by Forbes. There, he pitched a $10-million idea to the executives. Silva based his proposal to provide wider width shoes in a variety of styles on market research he had found that showed that wearing casual footwear had the effect of widening feet over time. Meijer implemented his finding.

Silva later returned to 1-800-Flowers where he was accepted into its elite Digital Leadership Program.

“I am in charge of testing theories and breaking hypotheses about the technology industry,” he explained. “1-800-Flowers works very closely with Google, so I utilize Google analytics and Google adwords to create marketing campaigns. I recently developed the go-to-market strategy for one of their new companies: BerryliciousBerries.”

After graduating this May, Silva plans to continue in the Global MBA program, which partners LIU Post’s internationally recognized business school with Cambridge University and Fudan University.

“I want to go into the consulting industry so the fact that I can get an MBA where I study in three different countries will really help me stand out amongst my competitors when it comes time to apply for jobs,” he said.

 

 

Student Spotlight: Julia Raie (’17), Road to the Big Four

 

Julia Raie came to LIU Post as a student who knew exactly what she wanted.  She enrolled in LIU Post’s School of Professional Accountancy — part of its prestigious College of Management — because of its established network with the Big Four accounting firms.

Excelling in her studies, Raie approached her Accountancy professor Dr. Jeffrey Hoops, a former partner at Ernst and Young, for an internship opportunity with the prestigious corporation. Dr. Hoops connected Raie with key associates who facilitated the challenging entry into this exclusive program, which included an interview for the EY Emerging Leaders Program, a three-day session that consisted of formal meetings and interviews within the company, attendance at a professional baseball game, and a barbecue at a partner’s home.

“The whole process was like an informal interview – although there were formal parts where we had to interview, there were informal parts where they were watching how you would behave in different settings,” Raie said. “Like the baseball game was informal where we were dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, but the whole process was an interview so we were on our toes.”

Raie shined in the Emerging Leader’s Program and was accepted into the discriminative summer internship program that commenced with a week-long training in Chicago, where interns were introduced to a rigorous learning session that prepared them for the work ahead. They were taught the specific systems practiced by Ernst and Young, the rules and regulations, and the tax code information that they put to use throughout the summer. Each intern was assigned a mentor to help navigate the corporate atmosphere, creating an ideal learning environment.

Raie knew that she wanted to work in international tax law and was therefore assigned to that department, where she gained valuable experience meeting with clients and inputting data. Ernst and Young concluded the internship period by sending the students to Orlando for four days where they experienced more training, along with visiting Disney World and meeting with partners, senior managers, recruiters and Marc Weinberger, Global Chairman and CEO of Ernst and Young.

Today, Raie has her BS degree in Accountancy, and she is forging ahead through LIU’s accelerated Global MBA program with a coveted internship experience and a full-time position awaiting her at esteemed Ernst & Young.

“This two-month process confirmed that this is what I want to do and this is the company I want to launch my career from,” Raie said.

The job offer confirms that the feeling is mutual.

LIU Brooklyn’s Soccer Star Gio Savarese Is Named New Head Coach of Portland Timbers

Gio Savarese, LIU Brooklyn's class of '94, is the new head coach of the Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer's Western Conference. (Photo courtesy MLSsoccer.com)

Giovanni Savarese, once upon a time a star forward on LIU Brooklyn’s soccer team, has scored again.

Savarese has just been named the manager of the Portland Timbers, which play in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference. And so, in barely half a dozen years of his managerial career, he’s risen to the top tier of professional men’s soccer in the United States and Canada.

Before he became a coach, Savarese made a name for himself as a ferocious player. After he graduated from LIU in 1994, Gio joined the Long Island Rough Riders before being drafted by the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (now the New York Red Bulls), where, soccer writer Dave Martinez writes, he was “the dynamic attacking marauder who won the hearts of MetroStars fans in the founding years of the league.”

Since then, Savarese has become “one of the hottest coaching commodities” on the continent, adds Martinez.

After Savarese joined the Cosmos in the USL Premier Development League, he led the team to the North American Soccer League title in 2013. He didn’t stop there. In 2016 his team, nicknamed the “Cardiac Cosmos” because of their heart-stopping tenacity on the field, won the third club title since he took over as their manager.

Born in Caracas in 1971, Savarese came to the U.S. with his parents from Italy and demonstrated his soccer prowess with the LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds. As a senior in 1993, he earned All-American honors, having scored 50 goals in four years. During his 18-year professional playing career, he racked up 52 goals in 121 MLS regular-season and playoff appearances, according to MLSsoccer.com.

Merrit Paulson, owner of the Timbers, couldn’t be happier that he’s brought Savarese to Oregon. “Gio is an intelligent, attack-minded coach,” said Paulson in a statement provided by the team, “and is a driven individual who is both a great fit with us on and off the field. We are extremely pleased to welcome Gio and his family to Portland.”

Savarese called the move “ideal.”

“The passion, ambition and support surrounding this club is truly inspiring,” he said in a statement. “I am sincerely honored and grateful for this opportunity to lead it on the pitch and to build on the club’s history of success for the community and the incredible supporters of the Portland Timbers.”

He is their third full-time head coach since they entered the MLS.

Savarese likes to credit the trajectory of his success to his own coach at LIU, Arnold Ramirez.

“He was someone who was there all the time for all the players he coached,” Savarese recalled last summer when he was still involved with the Cosmos. “For me, that was a great lesson from a young age, to see how much he cared for us, not only from the standpoint of doing well in soccer, but that we advanced with our studies and in our lives—and that we developed as people.”

He enjoyed coaching the Cosmos but now he’s gone west to show what he can do at another level. Brooklyn’s loss is now Portland’s gain. But he’ll always be remembered here as a Blackbird who learned how to fly above the rest.

LIU Brooklyn Student Emily-Anna Barba Represents Japan at Model UN Environmental Conference

Before coming to LIU Brooklyn, Emily-Anna Barba had never been to Japan.

Now, she’s preparing to represent Japan.

In early January, the President of LIU Brooklyn’s student government will travel to the Galapagos Islands to attend a National Model United Nations conference on San Cristobal Island.

There, Barba will serve as the Japanese representative in simulated meetings of the UN Environment Assembly, which will discuss “Management and Reduction of Waste in Urban Areas” and “Eco-friendly Technology for the Protection of Oceans and Seas,” two of 10 topics related to climate change scheduled for discussion at the conference.

“It’s very exciting,” Barba said. “I can’t wait to go.”

Researching solid waste management
 in Japan without being in the country may seem very difficult. However, after representing Ireland and Singapore at two previous Model UN conferences (one of which took place in Japan), Barba has gotten used to the process.

“This paper is easier than the ones I’ve written in the past,” Barba said. “It shows what experience can do for you. You start working, and it all floods back.”

Besides, challenging herself to look at
the world from unfamiliar perspectives is what Barba enjoys most about Model UN.

“Model UN is truly understanding the world,” she said. “It’s completely removing yourself from your own surroundings, taking the country you’re representing and creating yourself in their world.”

Barba’s passion for exploring different global perspectives was sparked during her first year at LIU Brooklyn, while studying utopian and dystopian fiction in a class with political science professor Si Sheppard.

“Every class, he would blow my mind,” Barba said. “Toward the end of the class, he mentioned that there are people who do what we were doing, but in the real world, and that was Model UN.”

As she completes her degree in Health Science, Barba has her eyes on a career with the real United Nations, the World Health Organization, or another group that takes on health challenges around the globe.

“Health care in America is so different from the rest of the world,” Barba said.  “We’ve created a different society.”

For Barba, the skills that she has developed through Model UN are the key to developing the global perspective that she’ll need to put her education into action.

 

Macy’s Features LIU Professor and former Trustee for Black History Month Event

Macy’s Herald Square presented a special evening celebrating the release of Hildi Hendrickson’s biography of Reverend Dr. Paul Smith, Senior Pastor Emeritus of the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn.

Hildi Hendrickson, Chair, Department of Sociology/Anthropology and Associate Professor of Anthropology at LIU Brooklyn, penned the book Listening for the Sound of the Genuine: Race, Religion and Renewal in the Life of Rev. Dr. Paul Smith to create contexts for talking and thinking about race in America.

Dr. Smith, a former LIU trustee, shared his experiences and the wisdom he has gained over the course of his career. Following the discussion, guests enjoyed live music from a jazz band as they were served refreshments. Reverend Dr. Smith autographed copies of his new biography.

LIU Pharmacy Poised to Do Pioneering Research in Genomics

Long Island University is on the forefront of the genomics revolution. The building block of precision medicine—designing therapeutic drugs to precisely treat a particular patient’s disease—is the study of genomes. And that’s just one fascinating aspect of the far-reaching research now underway at LIU Pharmacy.

Helping LIU Pharmacy lead the way is Dr. Jeffrey Idle, who has joined the university to head the new Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics Division. Dr. Jeffrey Idle is a world leader in the fields of metabolomics and pharmacogenetics. Dr. Idle’s work in this field and in pharmacogenetics has been instrumental in moving therapeutics towards more patient-specific treatments (“precision medicine”) in a broad range of medical specialties.

In addition, metabolomics has been successful in the discovery and definition of biomarkers of disease susceptibility and outcome, for example, in various types of cancer patients. Metabolomics and precision medicine may also lead to breakthroughs in treatments for osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and liver and lung disorders, among others. The building block of precision medicine is the study of genomes.

“The entire field of the treatment of human disease is moving toward precision or personalized medicine,” says Dr. John Pezzuto, Dean of the College of Pharmacy at Long Island University. “Basically, we’re all different people. One size does not fit all. By understanding the differences in terms of metabolism and genetics, systems, pharmacology and epigenetics, a more efficacious and more advantageous therapeutic approach can be designed.”

A genome is the complete set of DNA of an organism. Therefore, the human genome is all the genetic information in the DNA that has been used to produce and to operate a human being. Each of us has a unique genome, with the exception of identical twins, who share a common genome. The human genome comprises approximately 3 billion so-called “base pairs” arranged into units called genes, each of which has particular biological functions. We have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 individual genes and, despite the Human Genome Project, the exact number is still uncertain.

Since our genome is largely responsible for our individuality, including our response to drugs, the study of how the genome affects drug responses, pharmacogenomics, is one of the main building blocks of precision medicine. This is why the pharmaceutical industry is collecting information on 2 million genomes, so that drugs can be better tailored to individual patients. By stratifying patients using genomic information, the licensing of new drugs by FDA will be streamlined.

“Systems pharmacology and pharmacogenomics research at LIU will furnish new insights into the mechanisms of drug action and adverse drug reactions, and therefore assist in the development of programs of precision medicine, fueling the greater good,” says Dr. Idle.

“We will move to the top of this area of precision medicine,” says Pezzuto. “In turn, this will lead to many important partnerships with various other institutions, hospitals, and clinics throughout the city, the nation, and, perhaps, the world. State-of-the-art technology and expertise will be right here at LIU.”

LIU Pharmacy Grad Dieter Weinand Is Bayer AG Board Member and President of Pharmaceuticals

As a member of the board of management and president of Pharmaceuticals at Bayer AG, Dieter Weinand described his experience earning his master’s degree at LIU Pharmacy in 1987 as “essential” to his career.

He remarked that his education at LIU gave him a foundation of “solid scientific understanding required to identify unmet medical needs and opportunities for medical or pharmaceutical intervention,” and reinforced that “seemingly minor scientific nuances can make a meaningful clinical difference.”

Looking forward, Mr. Weinand stated, “We are moving from population-based medicine to individualized personal medicine yielding better outcomes.” He reflected on the evolution of the industry and the unmet medical needs around cancer and complex cardiovascular or neurological conditions, as well as the growing and consequential body of research on stem cell technologies and artificial intelligence. Under Mr. Weinand’s leadership, Bayer is focusing on two primary therapeutic areas: cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In hemophilia, women’s health care, and ophthalmology, he sees Bayer uniquely positioned in the respective disease segment. As such, the company is well prepared to confront, and one day perhaps even overcome, some of the top health concerns impacting patients and health care systems today.

For the pharmaceutical industry to successfully deliver solutions for today’s major health concerns, Mr. Weinand says the true focus must be on the best science and delivering true value. “We have become agnostic as to whatever the cutting-edge science is and go to where it comes from, be that at academic institutions, small or large companies, or internally. Our focus is on providing health care solutions that benefit societies.”

For aspiring pharmacists, Mr. Weinand advises, “Continue your education, share your knowledge and learn from perspectives of others. Most importantly, go where the science is. In our globalized environment, scientific excellence has no geographic boundaries. Young scientists need to embrace flexibility to get the best out of all the different approaches to deliver true innovation that benefits patients.”

LIU Post Alum Jonathan Ortiz Featured by Wall Street Journal for Empowerment Efforts

Socially responsible LIU Post alumnus Jonathan Ortiz (MS, 2009) has been featured in the Wall Street Journal discussing the plight of students weighed down by college loans. In a recent video called “Student Debt in America and the Hope of Affordable Education,” Ortiz outlines the problem and becomes part of the solution.

Ortiz is the director of the Phipps Neighborhoods Financial Empowerment Center, a non-profit organization based in the Bronx, dedicated to helping struggling New York City residents improve their lives.

“For over nine years, I have assisted New York City residents rise above poverty by empowering them with information that impacts the way they move forward in managing their finances,” said Ortiz. “From budgets to credit scores, the goal is for my clients to move forward and break the cycle of poverty that in over 95 percent of the situations has been holding them back from acquiring basic necessities.”

He oversees a team of counselors that handles more than 2,000 counseling sessions a year. Their work has been covered by Telemundo, Univision, Bronx News 12, El Diario, and Bronxnet, to name a few media outlets. Ortiz is also an active LIU GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) member.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the total U.S. government student loan portfolio in September 2017 topped $1.4 trillion. Nationwide some 5 million Americans are now in default. In the Bronx, the Journal reports, 19 percent of the students default on paying back their loans—the national rate is 22 percent.

“What ends up happening,” Ortiz says on the video, “is that you end up in deep debt that you don’t know how to control because you’re coming out with a certificate or a degree and you’re not finding jobs that are paying you enough to ever make a dent on these student loans.”

To see Ortiz in the Wall Street Journal video, click here.

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