News & Events
Borough President Marty Markowitz to Deliver 2008 Commencement Address on June 3
City Tech will mark the annual rite of passage for graduating students at its 68th Commencement Exercises on Tuesday, June 3, beginning at 10:30 a.m., in the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. President Russell K. Hotzler is expected confer 1,912 degrees, including 1,090 associate and 812 baccalaureate.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will deliver the commencement address. No honorary degrees will be conferred.
Marty Markowitz
Commencement Speaker
No one works harder for all 2.5 million-plus Brooklynites than Marty Markowitz, the president of the Borough of Brooklyn. Since entering Borough Hall in January 2002, he has served as the tireless chief advocate for Brooklyn’s economic, social and cultural interests, while initiating and promoting efforts to improve the quality of life.
Born and raised in Crown Heights, Markowitz graduated from Wingate High School in 1962 and went on to receive his BA in political science at Brooklyn College. Marty began his career in public service in 1971, at the age of 26, by organizing the Flatbush Tenants Council, which grew into Brooklyn Housing and Family Services, the largest tenants’ advocacy organization in New York State.
Markowitz was elected to the New York State Senate in 1979, where he served 11 consecutive terms representing Central Brooklyn. But as Borough President he fulfills his dream of serving all of Brooklyn and was honored to be re-elected to a second term in 2005. In addition to setting an ambitious agenda focused on the core issues of his more than three decades in public service -- housing, neighborhood preservation and community development -- Markowitz has enacted programs to boost civic pride, improve health, empower young Brooklynites, and generate more resources for the borough’s businesses and residents.
He consistently seeks to maximize the amount of affordable housing in every residential project that comes before him for review. Marty also helps create the jobs Brooklyn needs, by forging community benefits agreements and helping Brooklyn attract new businesses and industries.
Markowitz is Brooklyn’s biggest cultural booster. In February 2004 he launched the Brooklyn Tourism & Visitors Center, making Brooklyn the first borough with its own tourism office, and the annual “Dine In Brooklyn” restaurant week, which attracts thousands of diners to the hundreds of restaurants that are fast making Brooklyn the culinary capital of America.
On quality of life issues, Markowitz has been pro-active and aggressive, seeking to reduce sky-high auto insurance rates for all New Yorkers. He is party to a lawsuit to force oil companies to clean up an oil leak under Newtown Creek that has contaminated Greenpoint for decades. He founded the Brooklyn Center on Health Disparities, to help reduce rates of cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, infant mortality, asthma and diabetes among Brooklyn’s minority communities.
Marty married his wife, Jamie, in 1999. They are the proud parents of Beep, an 8-year-old African Grey Parrot.
Stacy Cruickshank
Class of 2008 Valedictorian
The class valedictorian is 27-year-old Stacy Cruickshank, who is receiving two degrees: a bachelor of technology degree in facilities management and an associate degree in civil engineering technology. Cruickshank, an international student who was raised in Trinidad and Grenada, has made the most of her college years.
She has worked with faculty under a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study the Brooklyn Waterfront. She competed as a City Tech team member on the American Society of Civil Engineers and American Institute of Steel Construction Steel Bridge Building Competition and interned for two years at the New York City School Construction Authority. She now works at City Tech as a college lab technician, delivers motivational talks to high school students and their parents in the College's Continuing Ed program, and tutors both for the City Tech Learning Center and Local 1199 Nurses Program. She was inducted into both the National Society for Collegiate Scholars and The Order of the Engineer, served as president of the ASCE student chapter on campus, and founded and served as president of the International Students Alliance. She intends to continue her education and earn a master's degree in construction management.
Limor Garfinkle
Class of 2008 Salutatorian (second to the valedictorian)
Ten years ago, Limor Garfinkle, 30, arrived in the U.S. from Israel alone and with just $1,000. The former sergeant in the Israeli Army, who had a gap of eight years between when she finished high school and began studying communication design at City Tech, lacked confidence in her academic abilities. With the encouragement of her husband and his family as well as administrators and faculty at City Tech, she excelled in her coursework and in her internship at Grey Advertising, one of the top ad agencies in the world. She did so well there that she was offered and accepted a full-time job after graduation as the New York studio assistant coordinator. This has turned out to be a banner year for her as she also gave birth at the end of February to her first child. The City Tech commencement on June 3 will be the first graduation ceremony she will ever attend. Eventually, she hopes to run her own design firm.
5/8/08
