The Sustainable Cities Blog

From CUNY to Harlem to Antarctica

CUNY Professor Steve Pekar is embarking on yet another voyage to Antarctica, this time with a focus on reaching Harlem Middle School students, with the hopes of generating interest in the sciences amongst minorities. His plan to engage young students from Harlem: Bring their teacher with him. Shakira Brown, a science teacher at Harlem’s Promise Academy will join him and 3 of his students for the trip in October.
                An Antarctic Summer

The trip which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation-who certainly acknowledges the lack of diversity in such expeditions-, sends about 300 people to the continent for research each year. They are working towards bringing more diversity to that cohort, which at this point consists of only 3-4 non-white researchers.

CUNY’s diversity among both faculty and students, certainly reflects a commitment-and mission-towards multi-cultural education and access for all. But as Dr. Pekar stated in the article that appeared in The Times this morning, he’s “tired of having a bunch of white people running around doing science.” While CUNY’s commitment to diversity and access is not to be questioned, there is always room for improvement. We welcome and appreciate future voyages like this one.