Sisters Malaak Shabazz (left) and Ilyasah Shabazz keep their parents? spirit alive through the Center. (Photo by Robin Elisabeth Kilmer/Manhattan Times)
Nearly five decades after the assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights, a portion of the building is now dedicated to preserving the legacy of the African-American icon, reports Robin Elisabeth Kilmer for Manhattan Times. While the legacy of Malcolm X and the Ballroom, located at 3940 Broadway at 165th Street, are forever intertwined, the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center with its mostly volunteer staff – led by interim executive director Mark Harding – strives to establish its own identity, distinct from the Audubon. Last year, over 30,000 visited the Center, said Harding, 10,000 more than 2011. “We are a conduit for people who love Malcolm all over the world,” said Harding. “We’re the custodians of this place of martyrdom.”
Vamık Djemal Volkan, M.D., a Turkish Cypriot emeritus professor of psychiatry who resides in the US, has been one of the two winners of the prestigious Sigourney Award, which honors achievements for the advancement of psychoanalysis. Volkan and Jay Greenberg, Ph. D have been selected as the recipients of the 2015 Sigourney Award for their outstanding achievement in psychoanalysis, according to a statement posted on sigourneyaward.org.
Two well-known Muslim professors joined the ranks of many Muslims who have been targetted by U.S. authorities at airports in recent years. Turkish professor Dr. Talip Kucukcan and Iranian-American professor Hamid Dabashi were both questioned at the New York JFK airport last week. Dr. Talip Kucukcan revealed that he was questioned for one and a half hours in an humiliating manner as he entered New York’s JFK airport on November 11, according to his Twitter account.
You shouldn’t need a first in maths from Oxford to figure out that your ancient, inadequately subsidised alma mater urgently requires the support of private donors — and that your money is as good as (almost) anyone’s, says Josh Spero. It started with the Led Zeppelin concert.’ Unlikelier sentences have been spoken, but probably not in Oxford. Professor Nick Rawlins is sitting in his office overlooking Wellington Square talking about the recently announced £26 million gift to the university by Mica Ertegun, the widow of Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Records founder and promoter of the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin and the Zep. The money will endow 35 scholarships for humanities graduates at a time when the sciences, seen as more practical or valuable, receive more philanthropic funding. £1 million from the concert at the O2 was donated to Oxford by the band and ‘that got Mica Ertegun thinking she’d like to come to Oxford. She came to Oxford and she fell in love, not just with the buildings but with the people.’ It must be rare for donors to walk through the door. ‘There are several days when no multimillionaire comes to ask me if they can help,’ he laughs.
