A College of The City University of New York

**PRESS RELEASE**

For Immediate Release: Contact: Michael Goldstein

September 13, 2004 (718) 368-5666

KINGSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION TO HOLD FREE FALL 2004 KICK-OFF EVENT AT BROOKLYN’S MAGNIFICENT COLLEGE BY THE SEA

Brooklyn N.Y.- The Kingsborough Community College Alumni Association will be holding its first Free Fall 2004 Kick-Off Event on Wednesday, September 29^th at 6:00 pm in the college’s Marine and Academic Conference Center.

This year’s event will include a photographic retrospective of Kingsborough Community College’s first 40 years and greetings from Kingsborough’s new President, Dr. Regina S. Peruggi. The election of new Kingsborough Alumni Association Board Members will be conducted. In addition, the Alumni scholarships, which were given to Kingsborough students during this past year, will be announced. There will be free refreshments and an opportunity for KCC Alumni to join Kingsborough’s Alumni Association.

“This event is a great opportunity for Kingsborough alumni to get together and come back to the place they got their start. Kingsborough is a family and our graduates have strong and positive feelings about their experiences here. This event will be a time to share those good feelings,” said President Peruggi.

“I invite all of Kingsborough's graduates to attend, however, if you are unable to join us, please let us know what you're doing. Contact the Office of Alumni Relations or stop by the campus and get reacquainted. We want to tell your story to the students who are with us today” she added.

Kingsborough Community College, which opened its doors in September of 1964, is now celebrating its 40^th Anniversary as Brooklyn’s only community college. The college has graduated more than 50,000 students since its inception. More than half a million New Yorkers have either taken credit or continuing education classes at the college.

Many of Kingsborough’s graduates have achieved great success: CNN Correspondent and former KCC Valedictorian Jeff Koinange, New York State Senator Larry Seabrook, Media Executive Tracy Cloherty, Airline Pilot and Motivational Speaker, Lt. Colonel Drew Brown, Former New York Met, Pete Falcone, Former New York State Assemblywoman Barbara Patton, Kiss-FM Disc Jockey Lenny Green and thousands of others.

Graduates of Kingsborough have become doctors, nurses, teachers, business people, boat captains, graphic artists, accountants, web designers, professional authors and hundreds of other professions after graduating from KCC. Many have continued their education and have secured bachelors degrees and doctorates at some of the best colleges in the nation. Others have entered the workforce after obtaining their associate degree and have consequently achieved great professional success.

“The college has long been known as the number one entry point to higher education in Brooklyn,” said Peruggi. “At Kingsborough students are given the nurturing, caring, and the skills that they need to succeed both at a four-year college and in the workplace. If you factor in the beautiful campus, the approachable and highly credentialed faculty, and the incredibly reasonable costs, then it makes sense that Kingsborough should be the number one choice for students.”

Kingsborough students originally attended classes in Quonset huts on what was originally a Navy and Merchant Marine training base located at the tip of Manhattan Beach.

“The students in those days used to slog through the mud to get to class,” said one alumnus. “Now when I walk on the campus I can’t get over how beautiful it is and how lucky the kids are to go to college there.”

The Alumni photographic retrospective will showcase the growth and development of the college from its inception to today. Photos from the 1960’s include visits by Muhammad Ali, Jane Fonda, and other sixties celebrities to the campus. They also include photos of students, faculty, and college campus sites that haven’t been seen in 40 years.

“The Director of Buildings and Grounds at Kingsborough, Anthony Corazzo, discovered boxes of old photos and scrapbooks in a utility closet. We couldn’t believe what gold he had found that had been hidden away,” said Michael Goldstein, Director of Alumni Relations. “Professor August Tuosto, the Curator for the retrospective, was able to clean up and organize the photos to be displayed. He is going to ensure that they are all scanned, placed on computer disks, and saved for future generations.”

The found photos will be combined with Kingsborough’s extensive archives from the Kingsborough Historical Society. The display showcases the growth of the college, which began with less than 500 students, and now serves more than 20,000 credit students and 15,000 continuing education students each year.

Kingsborough’s new President, Dr. Regina S. Peruggi, began her job as the head of one of the top community colleges in the nation this past summer. President Peruggi, who has extensive and varied experiences in both not-for-profits and higher education, was formally the President of Marymount Manhattan College and the Central Park Conservancy. She also has a long history at the City University of New York as a top administrator at York College in Queens and at the CUNY Central Offices.

“The Alumni Association was extremely happy to have met with President Peruggi during the search process for the new President of Kingsborough. She had some really terrific ideas about what an Alumni Association does in partnership with a college, and we all came away extremely impressed by her successes at Marymount and the Central Park Conservancy,” said Gary Baxter, President of the Kingsborough Alumni Association. “Last year was really our first with an organized kick-off event and we had more than a hundred and fifty people. This year I hope we can double it. I encourage all graduates to attend and I will be there to greet them at the door to the MAC Center.”

The program for the event will also include updates on new alumni activities for the year. Free refreshments will be served, and there will be an opportunity for gathered alumni to mix and mingle with faculty and administrators from the college. Those who attend can join the Kingsborough Alumni Association, if they haven’t already done so, for the 2004-2005 year with a donation of $25.00. Funds collected are used to sustain the Kingsborough Alumni Association as well as to provide for student scholarships. If you cannot attend but would still like to join the Kingsborough Alumni Association, you can send a check or money order for $25.00 to the Office of Alumni Relations at Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York 11235.

If you are interested in attending the event and are an alumnus of Kingsborough, you can RSVP by contacting the Office of Alumni Relations at Kingsborough, by email at kccalumni@kingsborough.edu or by phone at (718) 368-6540.

Kingsborough Community College (KCC) located in Brooklyn, New York, serves more than 20,000 credit students and 15,000 continuing education students each year. Kingsborough is located on a 70-acre waterfront campus in Manhattan Beach, on the southern peninsula of Brooklyn. Founded in 1963, Kingsborough is one of twenty colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) system, the third largest system in the United States.