Alum Steven Appel, an international politics and cultural anthropology major, now helps QC students\u2014who hail from over 130 countries\u2014map pathways to peace as the assistant director of the college\u2019s Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding<\/strong>.<\/p>\nAs the featured speaker at Queens College\u2019s May 2009 commencement ceremony, Steven Appel urged his fellow graduates to \u201cpursue the paths that are unconventional.\u201d That summer, he helped his brothers, James (\u201909) and Byron (\u201910), set up an airport baggage delivery service. That August, following his love of traveling and photography, he ventured into remote Vietnamese villages.<\/p>\n
That fall Appel followed another piece of his graduation advice: to \u201calways strive to serve others.\u201d He co-founded and became assistant director of QC\u2019s Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding. \u201cQueens\u2014the college and the borough\u2014is absolutely the perfect setting for doing work like this,\u201d he believes. \u201cIt\u2019s a microcosm of much of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an undergraduate, Appel led tours and classes at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, taught and researched Middle East issues, gave lessons in schools on conflict resolution, appeared on Fox News TV to discuss Obama and the youth vote, and founded both QC\u2019s anti-genocide STAND chapter and the online forum Constructive Dialogue. In summer 2008 he volunteered in one of Cairo, Egypt\u2019s poorest areas; helped abused women at the House of Ruth in Washington, D.C.; and interned for U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D.-NY).<\/p>\n
Appel blazed more paths as a student journalist. Elected editor-in-chief of QC\u2019s Knight News<\/em> as a freshman, and twice re-elected, he founded a religious dialogue section\u2014highly unusual in a college paper\u2014and guided the biweekly into a much larger, hard-hitting, award-winning enterprise. Under his leadership, the newspaper won 17 state and national awards, some for the first time in CUNY history.<\/p>\nDespite all those deadlines, Appel excelled at academics with a double major in political science and cultural anthropology. At graduation, he was awarded QC\u2019s highest academic honor: the Paul Klapper Scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know so many people who\u2019ve come out of undergraduate schools with huge debts, and the jobs aren\u2019t there,\u201d Appel says. It was mainly affordability, plus diversity, that made QC his only choice. \u201cI was absolutely amazed that I received such a top-notch education at Queens College for that price,\u201d says Appel, who hopes to earn a J.D and have a career in public office.<\/p>\n
Musical interests:<\/strong> \u201cAnything and everything I can connect with\u2014from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Snow Patrol to Michael Jackson and Elvis.\u201d<\/p>\nBook everyone should read:<\/strong>\u00a0 Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny<\/em>, Robert Wright<\/p>\nSurprising fact:<\/strong> In high school, he wrestled competitively.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Name: Steven Appel Major: International Politics and Cultural AnthropologyGraduation Year: 2009Company: QC Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious UnderstandingTitle: Co-founder and Assistant Director “I was absolutely amazed that I received such a top-notch education at Queens College for that price.”- Steven Appel Student Profiles Alumni Profiles Faculty Profiles Staff ProfilesAlum Steven Appel, an international politics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"page_category":[],"wf_page_folders":[164,137],"class_list":["post-927","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1782,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/927\/revisions\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_category?post=927"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}