B.A., January 2006, Theatre Production/Psychology

• Summa Cum Laude
• Thomas W. Smith Academic Fellowship
• Diego Hidalgo Scholarship for Art
• First Prize, Lou Rivers Drama ContestTeachers Memorial Prize
• Yue San Kan Scholarship
• Dean’s List

Chi Kuen (Jimmy) Kwok, who comes from Hong Kong, worked for ten years there as a dubbing artist, providing Cantonese voice-overs for English films, utilizing his writing and translation skills for such famous actors as Jim Carey, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mike Myers. At the same time, he was a performer for Zuni Production and Edward Lam Dance Theater, giving over 100 performances in Hong Kong, Beijing, Macau, London, and Okinawa, in the native tongue of each city. Then, he founded the production company “Jimmy’s Style,” where he worked as the director, writer and performer, using the stage to educate the community about social issues that had no other forum in Hong Kong, such as AIDS, homosexuality, women’s rights, and the former colony’s identity crisis. He achieved success and recognition in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia but wanted to play to a broader, more sophisticated international audience, so he came to New York to pursue a higher education.Kwok completed two areas of concentration in the CUNY BA Program, one in Theater Production, with courses at New York City College of Technology (NYCCT) and Brooklyn College, under the guidance of faculty mentor Prof. David Smith, Chair of Entertainment Technology, NYCCT, and Psychology, with courses at Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges, under the direction of faculty mentor Prof. Jeffrey Parsons, Psychology, and Chair of the Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies and Training (CHEST), Hunter.

In his Psychology area, he completed an independent study that included work at the Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies and Training, work at the Drag Initiative to Vanquish AIDS (DIVA) Project, and course work on line with the National Institutes of Health and with the CUNY Research Foundation. He also completed an independent research project entitled “Studies on Male Couples: A Brief Review,” and, for his senior year honors course, a research project entitled “Comparing Men in Same-Sex Relationships Based on Relationship Agreement and Seroconcordance: Their Sexual Communication, Jealousy, Satisfaction and Compulsivity.”

Among many accomplishments in his Theater Production area, Kwok designed the sound for two plays while in a senior year sound design class, wrote and directed “Longing,” his first English written play, for which he won the 2004 Lou Rivers Drama Contest at NYCCT, and worked on the award-winning 2003 Haunted Hotel designed by NYCCT students and faculty.

In the spring 2004 semester, Kwok wrote “The more psychology classes I take, the more I believe there is a strong connection between theater and psychology. When studying child psychology and social psychology, I learned not only the psychologies of children and human interactions, I also found most of the theories behind those psychologies could be used as themes for plays. This experience convinced me that I have correctly structured my CUNY BA degree.”

Kwok has been accepted to the MSW programs at NYU, Columbia, and Hunter College.

B.S., January 2006, Volunteerism and National Service in International Perspective/Music, Business

• Magna Cum Laude
• Thomas W. Smith Academic Fellowship
• Dean’s List

The oldest of eight children, April Deller she moved to New York City from Texas to study Music Business at New York University. At the time of her application to the CUNY BA/BS Program, she was recording an album at Divine Inspiration Records, but she had also just completed a year of volunteering in Americorps Vista, where she discovered a passion for the concept of volunteerism and national service. She came to the CUNY Baccalaureate Program to “blend two unlikely passions,” two sides of herself: the musical and the political

Deller takes an activist approach to her education: among many things she participated in she wrote for The Envoy, the Hunter College newspaper and later become its News Editor; she did an internship at the Forest Hills Community House in Jackson Heights, Queens where she was immersed in working with immigrants and later researched what protections they had against discrimination and where they could go for assistance; she interned at the New York City Office of the Comptroller where she learned about “green” buildings and environmentally friendly initiatives; and she completed an independent study about national service in nine different countries, which included interviews with the directors of several service organizations.

At the same time as attending college, she continued to apply her strong music, writing and teaching skills, giving music lessons as well as tutoring in the NYC public school system. She writes for various art and music projects, and has served as an assistant editor for the literary magazine “The Reading Room.” A singer, songwriter and composer, she has performed for children and adults at venues including the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and the United Nations. And in 2004, Deller represented the USA in a Service and Beauty Pageant called Mr. and Miss University International, held in Seoul, Korea.

Deller completed two areas of concentration, and was mentored by Professor Kenneth Sherrill, Political Science, Hunter College, and Prof. Stephen Jablonsky, Music, City College. One of her goals now that she has her degree is to promote national and international volunteer service to high school and college students. “I love the CUNY BA Program!” she says. “It gave me the freedom to design an academic program suited to my own interests and dreams, as opposed to forcing my interests to fit into a pre-set academic major.”