COVID-19 Memorial: Enduring Loss npr.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from npr.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began a year ago, I read
The book tells how, when the number of infections exploded in Philadelphia, the first major city in the United States hit by the deadly flu, 2,000 nuns from all over the country came to nurse the sick. Hospitals were overwhelmed, so sisters set up clinics anywhere there was space. As a result, 23 of them died from their close contact with the infected.
It occurred to me that hundreds of women religious must have died in that terrible outbreak. There would have been deaths not just among those caring for the sick, but in convents across the country. After all, an estimated 50 million people died worldwide from what became known as Spanish flu, and an estimated 675,000 of those deaths were in the United States.
History of The Graduate Center
History of The Graduate Center
The historic B. Altman building, current home of The Graduate Center.
Former President William P. Kelly
The establishment of The Graduate Center in 1961 by the New York State Legislature, itself, had few precedents. This was to be the first publicly supported doctoral program in New York City.
It was a bold move that grew out of the historic commitment to public higher education in New York City, the need to provide advanced education for the growing post-World War II baby boom population, and the mission that defines The Graduate Center graduate education for the public good.