CCNY honors Phylicia Rashad and six distinguished alumni at annual gala

Award-winning actress and director Phylicia Rashad is this year’s John H. Finley Award recipient. The award is given out by the Alumni Association of The City College of New York for exemplary and dedicated service to the City of New York. A graduate of Howard University, Rashad receives the award on Nov. 5 at a ceremony at the New York Hilton.

In addition, six City College alumni will receive the Townsend Harris Medal for outstanding post-graduate achievements at the association's 135th Annual Dinner at the Hilton.

The six are:

  • Dr. Lester Gerhardt ’62, a major contributor at Bell Aerospace to the visual stimulation system for the first Apollo moon landing; 
     
  •  Dr. Jeffrey S. Gurock ’71, an award-winning author and editor of 18 books on American and New York Jewish history, including “Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City”;
     
  • Jack S. Hoffinger, Esq. ’48, a distinguished criminal defense attorney and senior partner of The Hoffinger Firm, listed in “The Best Lawyers in America”;
     
  • Hazel-Ann F. Mayers, Esq. ’96, an accomplished civil litigator and executive vice president and general counsel of Simon and Schuster, Inc.; 
     
  • Dr. Neville A. Parker ’65, Herbert G. Kayser Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering and director of the CUNY Institute for Transportation Systems; and
     
  • Dorothy Schnabel ’54, pioneering engineer at IBM, where she designed logic for mainframe computers. 

For more information on CCNY’s 135th annual alumni dinner or to attend the event, please click here or call (212) 234-3000.

About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided low-cost, high-quality education for New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture; the School of Education; the Grove School of Engineering; the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, and the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. U.S. News, Princeton Review and Forbes all rank City College among the best colleges and universities in the United States.


 

MEDIA CONTACT

Jay Mwamba
p: 212.650.7580
e: jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu