Podcasting with John Metaxas

Center Makes Fundraising Push in Face of CUNY Budget Cuts

In this second episode of the Podcast of the Center for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies at Queens College CUNY, I speak with the College’s President, Frank Wu, who has emerged as an important ally for the Center as it deals with a cut-off of funding from CUNY. Earlier in 2023 all independent centers at CUNY had to certify that they were capable of self funding. This has provided a challenge to the Center as it prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a fundraising gala in Queens on May 17, 2024.

The Byzantine and Modern Greek Center is the brainchild of the late Professor Harry Psomiades, who left a tenured position in the history department at Columbia University to come to Queens in 1974. Since then, the Center has been arguably the largest Hellenic studies program in the country with more than 20,000 students enrolled over the decades.

Over its 50-year history the Center has gotten substantial support from the Greek-American community, which has funded the dozens of scholarships that help its primarily middle class students cover the cost of their educations. In addition, it received substantial support from various Hellenic and Hellenic-American foundations, one of which helped endow a professorship in Byzantine studies. But as a recent article in Kathimerini, Greece’s leading newspaper, pointed out, Hellenic studies programs around the world are suffering from decreased funding from their host universities, in part because of an emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) over the liberal arts (though this does not appear to be the motivation at CUNY).

In a wide ranging conversation, Wu, a lawyer and legal scholar who has written books on race relations, recounts his upbringing as the child of immigrants from Taiwan and makes connections with the experiences of his diverse student body at Queens, which speaks more than 100 languages. He outlines his vision for a diaspora center at Queens and the vital role the Byzantine & Modern Greek Center plays in the College’s mosaic. And he pledges his support for the Center and expresses his eagerness to work with the Greek-American community to help fund it for the future.

Says Wu, “It’s so important that we have a program that looks at and helps to empower the Greek diaspora.”

I have served on the Center’s advisory council for three decades, a position in which I followed my father, the late Takis J. Metaxas, a founding member of the council in the early years with Professor Psomiades. I have been able to watch all the successes and challenges the Center has experienced. It is comforting to know that as it faces the future, the Center for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies has College President Frank Wu in its corner.

As Greece works to recover from the devastating financial crisis of the last decade, one of its most vital tasks is to bring talented individuals back into the country to work and create opportunity for others. In this podcast I speak with Dr. George Nounesis, the director and chairman of Demokritos, Greece’s National Centre for Scientific Research.

Nounesis, who is an award winning scientist, says he is on a mission to create opportunities for Greek scientists who are living and working abroad to bring their world class research back to Greece.

One of the young scientists who has heeded the call to return to Greece is Filippos Tourlomousis. Working with M.I.T.’s Center for Bits and Atoms — an interdisciplinary initiative exploring the boundary between computer science and physical science (where he had done his post-doctoral work) — Tourlomousis is setting up at Demokritos the first labs in Greece for digital manufacturing.  You can watch my video interview with Tourlomousis on my website at: https://www.wallstreetnorth.com/2023/03/reversing-greeces-brain-drain/

This inaugural episode of the Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies Podcast from Queens College (CUNY) features Professor Gerasimus Katsan, director of the College's Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, and its assistant director, Professor Maria Athanasopoulou. They speak in both English and Greek with John Metaxas about the Modern Greek language, what it takes to learn it, how students are different today, and how teaching Modern Greek is different today from the time of the Katharevousa, the conservative form of the language taught until the 1970s. They also offer information on Queens College's senior auditing program, which allows senior citizens to sit in on classes, including online classes.

I am pleased to present, here, one of the highlights of my years at WCBS -- the 2021 Edward R. Murrow Award winning best regional newscast recognized by The Radio Television Digital News Association. I was privileged to co-anchor this newscast, which was a true team effort.

Looking back on this broadcast from March 3, 2020, it’s clear that we’ve come a long way since then.

That day we reported on New York’s second confirmed case of coronavirus, in a lawyer from New Rochelle, NY. We reported that his family was self-quarantining, a new concept to all of us at that time. The U.S. death toll from the virus stood at 9 people. Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that a coronavirus vaccine would be months away.

The Dow would fall 786 points that day as the Fed cut interest rates 50 basis points to help the economy in the looming health crisis.

More than 1,300 Democratic delegates were at stake on that Super Tuesday, which would be the day that Joe Biden scored dramatic primary victories on his way to the presidential nomination.

You can read more about my time at WCBS at: https://www.wallstreetnorth.com/2022/11/my-last-day-at-wcbs/

Nearly six in ten Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court is out of touch with the country, according to the latest poll by Monmouth University. That opinion has crystallized in the months since the Court took away a woman's constitutional right to an abortion in its June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. On the Friday that Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the newest justice and as the Court was preparing to start its new term on the first Monday in October, Monmouth University released its poll results. I interviewed Patrick Murray, Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute on WCBS, about the poll.

Three days before Eric Adams was elected Mayor of New York, I had the opportunity to interview him live on WCBS during my news broadcast. In a few minutes here, he outlines his vision for the city in the coming years.

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol.

I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate.

John Metaxas

WallStreetNorth.com

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol.

I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate.

John Metaxas

WallStreetNorth.com

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol.

I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate.

John Metaxas

WallStreetNorth.com

WCBS asked me to cover first the Presidential Debate from the station's studios, where we maintain a severely limited in-person staff and a strict COVID protocol.

I was tasked with reporting, writing and producing four 90-second reports for morning drive time. Each covers a different substantive slice of the debate and aired in a four-part rotation every half hour throughout the morning, in combination with CBS Network coverage and guests who gave their perspective on the debate.

John Metaxas

WallStreetNorth.com