25 DE JUNIO 2020 • 15
HIGHER ED TODAY
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Elvira Mata was born with a physical disability
that causes swelling and pain in the
joints of her fingers. The second-year student
at Hostos Community College works as a senior
nurse attendant, and for months cared for
patients with COVID-19 in a Bronx hospital.
Despite her condition, she was able to lift and
bathe her patients.
“Before I go to work, I have pain,” says Elvira,
who was diagnosed as a young child with
boutonnière deformity. “But when I see that
the patients need me, I can move more freely.
I love seeing their smiles when I help them and
they feel better.”
Elvira is also dealing with tremendous
personal heartache after her father, a taxi
driver, died of COVID-19 in April. Her mother
was also infected and endured a lengthy period
of recovery.
I am proud to say that Elvira exemplifies
a standard of public service not uncommon
among students at the City University of New
York, an intense drive to help New Yorkers persevere
despite their own challenges and personal
losses. They are nurses and medics, National
Guard members and good Samaritans
who helped shoulder the pain of the pandemic
while they balanced demanding course loads
and caring for their own families.
They are why New York’s recovery goes
hand in hand with CUNY. With campuses
throughout the city that was the pandemic’s
one-time global epicenter, the nation’s largest
urban public university has the intellect
and applied expertise to help chart a course
forward; the capacity to retrain workers, and
equip them with the skills to participate in a
re-invented job market; and the wellspring of
creative capital to help our city and state move
forward in the months and years ahead.
When it comes to our students, Elvira
is not alone. Many others stepped up and did
what they could to help New Yorkers weather
the crisis. Here are just a few examples.
Anthony Almojera, a Brooklyn College
senior who is also an Emergency Medical Services
lieutenant paramedic in the FDNY and
vice president of the EMS officers’ union, has
always leaned on family and faith to get him
through difficult times. Almojera took off the
spring semester to have surgery on a torn biceps
tendon, an injury he sustained during a
call. When the pandemic surged in March, he
put off the surgery to pitch in, working 16-hour
shifts nearly seven days a week and fielding
some of the more than 7,000 calls that came in
each day requesting emergency medical service
in the city.
Shawna Townsend is pursuing her Ph.D.
in nursing at The Graduate Center while also
serving as a clinical nurse leader at the Hospital
for Special Surgery in Manhattan. When
the pandemic deepened, she helped convert a
hospital that specializes in orthopedic surgery
to one that could treat patients with COVID-19.
In the darkest days when up to four of the
hospital’s floors were filled with coronavirus
patients, she would find inspiration from the
patients who recovered and were showered
with applause from the staffers as they left the
facility.
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Borough of Manhattan Community College
student Fenellah Kargbo is a member of
the New York Army National Guard. She managed
to keep up with her coursework in four
classes even after she was activated in March,
midway through the semester, to load personal
protective equipment at a distribution center
in Albany. For encouragement while separated
from her family, Kargbo, who plans to apply to
the BMCC nursing program, relied on frequent
video chats with her husband and 14-month-old
son.
As their Chancellor, I am humbled by
the bravery and sacrifice of Elvira, Anthony,
Shawna, and Fenellah, all CUNY heroes. They
are exemplary ambassadors of the University,
embodying the University’s mission to help
one another so we all can move forward together.
They, and many more like them, are the
University’s guardian angels, and on behalf of
the whole CUNY system, I extend the gratitude
of the University community and all New Yorkers.
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