A LETTER FROM GENERAL POWELL
Collaborating to Promote Lasting Change

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We've been extraordinarily busy this past year at the Colin Powell Center, adding new staff to handle a widening array of programs, figuring out new ways to direct young people toward service careers, and deepening our partnerships with community and service organizations.

One of our most exciting new initiatives, an innovative Partners for Change program, advances my vision of helping more City College students find their way into service careers. Students in the program work closely with our New York Life leaders in residence, professionals and mentors positioned to guide young people through policy-relevant research and service programs. This year, Dr. Alwyn Cohall, head of the Harlem Health Promotion Center, and Alison Palmer, founding director of the New Settlements College Access Center, lead these efforts. In this issue, you'll read about the two separate student cohorts working to help increase college access among Harlem youth and to address Harlem's devastatingly high rates of hypertension.

This work reflects a Powell Center mission that continues to grow in size and richness, a growth that nobody anticipated when we originally set up shop. To fully reflect these developments and help signal our way forward, we recently changed our name. Known since 1997 as the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies, we are now the Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service, a name that far more effectively communicates my true goals and vision for the Center.

Finally, we've all been deeply engaged in the campaign to make Colin L. Powell Hall on the CCNY campus a reality. On our Website, you can now view a short film that shows why we think this building will be so transformative for the City College community, and for everyone in northern Manhattan. Located at the very heart of the CCNY campus, Powell Hall will bring the Center's core leadership development and service missions into deeper interaction with the full range of CCNY activity, and will help open that activity to everyone in northern Manhattan. Powell Hall will invite generations of City College students, community organizations, and public leaders to work together to solve the pressing problems we all face.

This endeavor means a great deal to me, and will leave an indelible mark on the community in and around City College. We still have a ways to go to achieve this dream, but I've been gratified by the many of my friends who have joined their names to mine, and pledged support for this project. I'll keep you updated on our progress, and on our programs, and invite you to learn more about how you can help.

Thank you,
COLIN L. POWELL

FOUNDER AND CHAIR,
COLIN L. POWELL CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE

FACULTY RESEARCH
Faculty Member Completes Multi-Year Kofi Annan Project

Five-volume publication offers insight into the achievements of the pivotal UN leader.

A joint six-year CCNY-Yale University project led by Professor Jean Krasno culminated this spring with the official publication of the collected papers of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The collection, a five-volume set from Lynne Rienner Publishers, contributes an organized historical record of Annan's selected public and declassified papers, and makes the breadth and depth of his work accessible to scholars, students, and policymakers. Krasno, the project's principle investigator, is the Center's initiative director for multilateral diplomacy and international organizations. Read the story

PARTNERS FOR CHANGE
New York Life Conference Targets Heart-Health "Epidemic"

"Heart-2-Heart: Improving Heart Health in Harlem and Winning the Million Hearts Campaign," mobilizes the community around healthy living goals.

Calling cardiovascular disease "an epidemic of broken hearts," keynote speaker F. Bruce Coles set the stage for the 2012 New York Life Conference, "Heart-2-Heart: Improving Heart Health in Harlem and Winning the Million Hearts Campaign." Hosted by the Colin Powell Center and the Harlem Health Promotion Center, and sponsored by the New York Life Endowment for Emerging African-American Issues, the May 2 conference brought together distinguished community leaders, health professionals, and other committed citizens to improve cardiovascular care and outcomes in Harlem. Read the story

 PARTNERS FOR CHANGE
Allison Palmer: Turning College into a Reality for Youth

The Colin Powell Center focuses on expanding college access under the guidance of Allison Palmer, a New York Life leader in residence.

Allison Palmer, founding director of the New Settlement College Access Center in the southwest Bronx, has been transforming lives for more than a decade. Now as a New York Life leader in residence for 2011-2012, Palmer is shaping the Colin Powell Center's new Partners for Change program in the area of college access. Her work includes guiding select Partners for Change fellows as they conduct in-depth research on the barriers to college access and success for low-income first-generation youth, volunteer in this area, and collaborate on a college access Web portal for New York City students and their families. Read the story

SERVICE-LEARNING
Center Honors Growing Community of Service-Learning Practitioners

2012 Service-Learning Recognition Ceremony reveals the breadth of civic engagement on campus.

On Thursday, April 26, the Colin Powell Center honored almost 50 faculty, students, and community partners at the 2012 Service-Learning Recognition Ceremony for their commitment to supporting high quality service-learning at City College. The relaxed occasion was an opportunity for CCNY's service-learning practitioners to surround themselves with like-minded colleagues and to acknowledge and celebrate CCNY's growing service-learning movement. Read the story

SERVICE-LEARNING
Vanessa Valdés: Opening Minds, Changing Lives

Service-Learning Faculty Fellow Vanessa Valdés expands the horizons of local middle schoolers.

This past semester, service-learning students in Vanessa Valdés's freshman writing seminar captivated the seventh graders of Harlem's Public School 161 through a series of interactive presentations on Afro-Latino/Latina culture. Over the course of four visits to Pedro Albizu Campos School on CCNY's doorstep, the freshmen delivered a series of talks and activities on Afro-Latino/Latina poets, musicians, writers, and historical figures, inspiring pride and sparking energetic discussion in the class of 39 students. Read the story

COLIN POWELL LEADERSHIP PROGRAM
Center Graduates Its Largest Class of Fellows to Date

Jill Iscol, educator, philanthropist, and author of Hearts on Fire, headlines keynote panel on leadership and service.