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Visiting French Students Assess Brooklyn Redevelopment Plans and Help Park Slope 5th Graders Throw a Dinner Party for Their Parents
Visiting French students, Université d’Evry/Val d’Essonne advisors and City Tech faculty at farewell luncheon and graduating ceremony.
Thirty-eight visiting French students conducted research and developed marketing strategies for selling the revitalization of both Coney Island and Atlantic Yards to community residents and other local interests as part of a month-long course of study at City Tech in June. They also helped graduating Brooklyn elementary school kids throw a dinner party for their parents.
The French students were part of the College’s six-year-old international exchange program with Université d’Evry/Val d’Essonne, the University of Paris’ college of technology. Accompanying them to New York were Professors Aude d’Andria and Pierre Chevallier.
While the French students were in Brooklyn taking hospitality-related marketing and cost accounting courses under Department of Hospitality Management Professors Elizabeth Schiable and Jean Claude, 28 City Tech students were at Evry studying European approaches to travel and tourism and the culinary arts. The American students were accompanied to France by department Professors Louise Hoffman and Francis Lorenzini.
After arriving at City Tech, the French students broke into smaller groups and were given one of two research assignments. One involved interviewing community residents, area business people, local representatives and lawmakers about the ongoing revitalization of Brooklyn’s Coney Island, once America’s most popular oceanfront playground. Based on these interviews, the students concluded that this redevelopment likely would usher in both increased tourism and significant economic benefit for the area, making Coney Island a once again vibrant residential and commercial community.
The second project involved visiting the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn and talking with local business people, community residents and others about competing plans to redevelop the MTA’s Atlantic Yards site. The two proposals currently on the table call for constructing both commercial and residential buildings, but on different scales. One proposal also includes building a new sports arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team.
What the students found was consistent with ongoing media reports: While few of the people they interviewed were completely opposed to redevelopment of the area, they were divided on how extensive that redevelopment should be. Some were particularly concerned over the impact of increased traffic on neighborhood streets and the loss of the “neighborhood feeling” that has long characterized the community, if towering office and apartment buildings replace the brownstones and other low-level structures that now largely make up the area.
Both groups presented their findings and marketing recommendations in PowerPoint
presentations on campus. The presentations were part of the “final exams” at
the conclusion of the French students’ studies.
Shortly before their return to France, four of the French students, together
with Professors Schiable, Claude and Lynda Dias as well as City Tech hospitality
management program graduates Mercedes Castillo ‘99, Laurel DaGrosa ’05
and Hiroshi Tsuboi ’03 helped graduating 5th graders at P.S. 282 in
Park Slope throw a dinner party for their families and friends. The youngsters
were a part of the Spoons Across America Dinner Party Project that teaches
elementary school students about food and nutrition by engaging them in planning,
preparing and hosting a dinner party. Similar events have been held in cities
coast to coast.
“The Dinner Party Project is so cool,” said Julia Jordan, assistant
to the dean of City Tech’s School of Professional Studies and a founder
of the Spoons Across America national educational program. “It’s
so rewarding to get kids cooking and working together through the dinner party
project and other Spoons initiatives. Children are engaged and enthusiastic
in all aspects of planning and producing a nutritionally balanced meal and
theme-based party. The pride is on the faces of all involved and the results
are lip-smacking good.”
Working with these young people was a great experience said French student
Cedric Ziegelmeyer. “We took them shopping for produce at a local farmer’s
market,” he said, “taught them how to select the right vegetables,
and later helped prepare the various international dishes on the menu the
youngsters helped plan.”
At market, the kids talked about growing vegetables with some of the farmers selling their goods. “There was one delightful little kid,” Ziegelmeyer continued, “who seemed genuinely surprised to learn that vegetables come from farmers’ fields all over the world and are not grown out behind the neighborhood grocery store.”
French student Aurelie Nicolau talked about the group’s overall experience: “We all loved walking around New York. Walking down the streets was just like traveling around the world. The cultural diversity in New York City is simply amazing.” Kristell Roulle, another Evry student, nodded in agreement.
For students Jean Babtiste Merchat and Vincent Gaucher, it wasn’t the cultural diversity of New York but the incredible range of things to do any hour of the day or night that surprised them the most. “It’s true that the city never sleeps,” said Merchat. “It runs 24 hours a day and the subways never close. You can go anywhere you want, any time you want and do just about any thing you want to do.” Gaucher added: “People who have never visited New York can’t possibly imagine what it’s like.”
At the conclusion of their visit, the French students were guests of celebrity chef and City Tech hospitality management graduate Michael Lomonaco ‘84 at a farewell luncheon at Guastavino’s restaurant in the anchorage of the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan. The following day, the students prepared a multi-course gourmet luncheon for their City Tech hosts at an on-campus ceremony marking the completion of their studies.
“Fostering global citizenship through international experienced-based learning has been a commitment of hospitality management faculty for many years,” said Gerald Van Loon, the department’s new chair. “City Tech and the Université d’Evry jointly recognize the need to prepare hospitality students to successfully interact with all people in a diverse and rapidly shrinking world.”
Plans are already underway for next year’s exchange, and City Tech President Russell K. Hotzler and Acting Provost Bonne August are looking at ways to expand international study opportunities across the curriculum for City Tech students. The College’s Department of Dental Hygiene recently launched its own program involving a student exchange with Inholland University in Amsterdam.
08/17/05
Photo by Al Vargas
