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Anita Altman | |
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Born | June 2, 1945 (age 78) |
Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur and city planner |
Anita Altman (born June 2, 1945) is an American social entrepreneur and city planner. [1] Anita Altman co-founded ReelAbilities, the largest film festival in the United States dedicated to showcasing films by or about people with disabilities. [2] Altman is an active Jewish feminist, [3] and a member of New York's B’Nai Jeshrun synagogue. Altman is the mother of Sascha Altman DuBrul, who co-founded the Icarus Project.
Altman was raised in a working-class Greek Jewish community in East Bronx. Her Romaniote Jewish grandparents, Anna and Zadick Coffino, emigrated from the Ottoman Empire to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, before settling in Hunts Point [4] [5] Her father, Jack Altman who was an Ashkenazi Jewish plumber, married their daughter Sarah.[ citation needed ]
Altman attended the all-girls Hunter College High School. [6] She received a B.A. in Political Science from The City College of New York in 1967, and a Master of Professional Studies in Health Services Administration from the New School for Social Research in 1982. In 2014, Altman was awarded the City Colleges' Alumni Association's Townsend Harris medal for outstanding post-graduate achievement. [7]
Altman has one older brother, Stanley Altman, who is a professor at Baruch College. [8]
While working at New York City's Planning Department, Altman participated in developing the Master Plan for the city. [9]
While working in New York's Health Services Administration, she focused on improving prison health services.[ citation needed ]
Altman worked as the Director of Community Development for Co-op City, organizing human service providers and an array of cultural programs. [10]
As Deputy Director of Montefiore Medical Center's Building Program, Altman worked with hospital administrators, architects, the City Planning Commission, and community representatives to help plan the reconstruction and expansion of its physical plant.[ citation needed ]
Altman served on Manhattan's Community Board 7 for ten years from 1973 to 1983 and was the co-chair of its Social and Health Care Services sub-committee for several of those years. [11]
In 1987, Altman began working at the UJA-Federation and spearheaded the first grant proposal to fund “A Jewish Response to the AIDS Epidemic,” which helped establish training and educational programs and create service programs linking hospitals and community-based agencies.[ citation needed ] UJA-Federation became one of the five founding members of the New York AIDS Coalition, which emerged as the largest AIDS advocacy organization in New York State.
Altman worked to raise support for Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) as environments to organize communities with substantial senior populations. [12] Altman believed an increasing number of seniors must be enabled “to age in place.” [13] [14] [15] [16] Altman helped execute the program concepts pioneered at Penn South, a union-sponsored, moderate-income housing co-op in Manhattan's Chelsea community, [13] including a program with the express goal of helping senior residents to remain living in their own home. This supportive service program (SSP), mobilized the community and built partnerships between senior residents, housing management, and health and social service agencies to achieve that end. [17] With the support of the Robert Wood Foundation, the program was successfully replicated and in 1994 the New York State Legislature passed the first NORC-SSP legislation in the country, providing matching grants to an original 10 programs. This was followed in 1999 by the establishment of the New York City NORC funded by its City Council. [14]
In 1993, Altman convened a group of authorities in related fields to address the question of domestic violence in the Jewish community. This resulted in her founding the UJA-Federation Task Force on Family Violence, which, in 2001, received the New York State Governor's COURAGE award. [18] In 2008, Altman received the Woman of Valor award from the New York Board of Rabbis for her work with the Task Force.[ citation needed ]
Altman also founded the UJA-Federation Task Force on People with Disabilities, which focused on serving disabled people and their families throughout the New York metro area. [19]
During her work with the UJA Task Force on People with Disabilities, Altman decided that films could be an effective medium to help create wider public awareness about people with disabilities. [2] In partnership with the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, she founded ReelAbilities: New York Disabilities Film Festival. [20]
ReelAbilities is now the largest film festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of people with different disabilities, with 13 cities currently sponsoring festivals in their own communities. Altman herself has said, “It is a festival with a social mission, namely to change public perception and understanding of who are people with disabilities.” [21]
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges, and seven professional institutions. In 1960, John R. Everett became the first chancellor of the Municipal College System of New York City, later known as the City University of New York (CUNY). CUNY, established by New York State legislation in 1961 and signed into law by Governor Nelson Rockefeller, was an amalgamation of existing institutions and a new graduate school.
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, The CUNY Graduate Center is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". The school is located at the B. Altman and Company Building at 365 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The CUNY Graduate Center offers 31 doctoral programs, 14 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes. It employs a core faculty of approximately 140, who are supplemented by 1,800 faculty members from CUNY's eleven senior colleges and New York City's cultural and scientific institutions. As of June 2024, the Graduate Center enrolls 3,228 students, of which 2,621 or 81% are doctoral students.
Baruch College is a public college in New York City. It is a constituent college of the City University of New York system. Named for financier and statesman Bernard M. Baruch, the college operates undergraduate and postgraduate programs through the Zicklin School of Business, the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, and the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.
The City University of New York Athletic Conference is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Its member institutions are all located in New York City and are campuses of the City University of New York. The CUNYAC also has a community college division, affiliated with the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).
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Sascha Altman DuBrul, a.k.a.Sascha DuBrul or Sascha Scatter, is an American activist, writer, farmer and punk rock musician known as the bass player of the 1990s ska-punk band Choking Victim.
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Lisa Staiano-Coico or Lisa S. Coico is an American academic. Coico was the twelfth president of City College of New York, from August 2010 until October 2016.
UJA-Federation of New York is the largest local philanthropy in the world. Headquartered in New York City, the organization raises and allocates funds annually to fulfill a mission to “care for Jews everywhere and New Yorkers of all backgrounds, respond to crises close to home and far away, and shape our Jewish future.”
Antonio Pérez López was appointed in 1995 as president of Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), The City University of New York (CUNY) which has grown since that time to have the highest enrollment of any CUNY college. President Pérez stepped down in 2018.
The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Medicine is a public medical school that was established on June 10, 2015, and began operation in the fall of 2016. The school is in Hamilton Heights on the campus of The City College of New York (CCNY) and partners with Saint Barnabas Health System in the South Bronx, Harlem Hospital Center of NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation, and Staten Island University Hospital of Northwell Health for clinical medical education.
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