By SARAH GARLAND

In a little foray into the higher education beat, I profile a professor who has what few would consider a desirable task: trying to make idealistic, left-leaning college students and conservative, right-leaning academics happy at the same time. His job is to take multicultural requirement in Columbia’s great books program and bring it up to par with the other “serious” courses in the curriculum. A wild guess says Musics of the Caribbean and Intro to Japanese Painting are coming off the list.

http://nysun.com/news/new-york/columbia-professor-takes-overhaul-core-curriculum

I followed a group of Burmese refugees from (almost) the moment they got off the plane to their new house in a rough Brooklyn neighborhood and out into the city during their first week in New York. A sidebar that briefly overviews the PATRIOT Act politics that have prevented other refugee groups from coming links from the story. The best part of the package is probably the photographer’s contribution, a slide show that really captures in their faces the worry, bewilderment, and excitement as they navigate their new world.

http://nysun.com/news/new-york/burma-refugees-relaunch-lives-new-york-city

The Village Voice, Jan. 21-27, 2004, p. 21
Pols Push Tougher Policing For City’s Gang Problem
Gang Planks

Complaints Highlight Kelly’s Delicate Balance

New York Sun

June 27, 2007

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s must deal with an unprecedented spike in complaints against police as he seeks to secure his legacy with a series of moves to improve community relations.

The New York Times
August 8, 2006 Tuesday
Group Teaches Immigrants About AIDS, Hoping to Head Off a Crisis
BYLINE: By SARAH GARLAND
Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 6

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Javier Soriano has made it his personal mission to combat a health crisis he fears has been building for years in New York City, unnoticed and unchecked.
His main worry was that language and cultural barriers were preventing agencies that have traditionally done H.I.V. outreach to Hispanics to make inroads with newly arrived Mexican immigrants, many of whom come from villages in the states of Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrero and speak any of a number of local dialects.

Booker Seeks Vouchers
BY SARAH GARLAND
February 20, 2007
Pg. 1

Cory Booker on Education

The mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, says he could turn around his city’s struggling schools in half the time it has taken Mayor Bloomberg to make improvements in New York City’s schools — if voters grant him mayoral control. Merit pay for teachers, vouchers, more charter schools and New York City-style empowerment for principals are also on Mr. Booker’s schools agenda, which he disclosed to The New York Sun in an interview last week.

Church Schools Face Challenge From Charters
BY SARAH GARLAND
February 27, 2007
Pg. 1

Catholic schools face charter challenge

First, the population of nuns began to dwindle. Then, droves of parishioners began moving to the suburbs. Now, Catholic schools around the city are facing a new threat to their increasingly tenuous existence: charter schools.

The New York Sun
February 13, 2007 Tuesday
The British Have Arrived: They’re Reviewing City Schools
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND
SECTION: NEW YORK; Pg. 3

British school evaluations

The adults were nervous, the children were rambunctious, and the two middle-age British women who arrived to help them were armed with clipboards, a jolly sense of humor, and firm advice that few would dare question.
The scene could have been from “Nanny 911.” In fact, it was a public middle school in Greenwich Village, and the visitors were reviewers from the British company Cambridge Education, which has a contract with the Department of Education valued at about $6.4 million a year to evaluate how city schools evaluate themselves.

The New York Sun
December 27, 2006 Wednesday
City Schools Try To Replicate a Successful Formula
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND -, Staff Reporter of the Sun
SECTION: NEW YORK; Pg. 1

City Schools Try to Replicate a Successful Formula

Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have made leadership the centerpiece of their education strategy, with mayoral control the focus at the city level. At the school level, an intense effort to train new principals in the mayor’s Leadership Academy has been combined with the introduction of empowerment schools.
So far, many parent leaders say, their approach has left out an essential ingredient.
“When the history of this administration is written, historians will note that the stakeholders of the school system - parents and teachers - were left out of the critical policy decision making,” the president of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, Timothy Johnson, said.

The New York Sun
December 15, 2006 Friday
Florida Abuzz With Talk Castro May Be Near Death
BYLINE: SARAH GARLAND -, Staff Reporter of the Sun
SECTION: FOREIGN; Pg. 6

Castro Rumors

Speculations whipping around South Florida that the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, is near death reached fever pitch this week as federal emergency officials ran “post-Castro” drills in preparation for the death announcement.