Ann Kirschner

Ann Kirschner is an American entrepreneur,[1] academic,[2] and author of the books Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story[3] and Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp.[4] She currently serves as the interim president of Hunter College.[5] As a tech entrepreneur in the 1990s and 2000s, Kirschner launched the National Football League's website, the first online livestream of the Super Bowl,[6] and co-founded Columbia University's interactive knowledge network Fathom.com.[7] She is Dean Emerita of Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York (CUNY), a University Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, a faculty fellow of the Futures Initiative, and interim president of Hunter College.[8]

Ann Kirschner
14th President of Hunter College
Assumed office
July 2023
Preceded byJennifer Raab
2nd Dean of the Macaulay Honors College
In office
2006–2016
Preceded byDr. Laura S. Schor
Succeeded byMary C. Pearl
Personal details
SpouseHarold Weinberg
Alma materUniversity of Buffalo (BA)
UVA (MA)
Princeton (PHD)

Education and early career

Kirschner was born in New York City to Sala Garncarz, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and Sidney Kirschner, an American GI who brought her home as a war bride.[9][10] Kirschner attended public school in New York City, then earned a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a master's degree from the University of Virginia. She received her doctorate in English literature from Princeton University, where she was a Whiting Fellow in the Humanities.

Kirschner started out as a lecturer on Victorian literature at Princeton University and working as a freelance writer for CBS, The New York Times, and Chronicle of Higher Education. She assisted the director of English programs at Modern Language Association, and Lola Szladits, the director of the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. Kirschner has conducted research on doctorates in business, funded by grants from Texas Committee for the Humanities, and the Littauer Foundation to study slave labor camps. Kirschner was scholar-in-residence at Rollins College and James Madison University.

Entrepreneurship

Her start-ups include Request Teletext, the first full-channel cable teletext service;[11] Primetime 24 - the first home satellite broadcast network;[12] NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL.com - the first sports league on satellite television and the Internet; and Fathom.com, one of the first offerings of online learning in higher education to be affiliated with universities, libraries, museums, and research institutions. Fathom's consortium includes Columbia University, London School of Economics, New York Public Library, British Library, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cambridge University Press, the Science Museum of the University of Chicago, University of Michigan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and American Film Institute.[13] She introduced new media to the National Football League (NFL) using emerging technologies, such as interactive television and the Internet, and founded NFL.com, Superbowl.com and Team NFL on America Online. Kirschner was responsible for livestreaming Super Bowl XXX,[14] the first Super Bowl ever broadcast on the web.[15]

Academia

From 2006-2016, Kirschner served as Dean of Macaulay Honors College, the selective honors college for students at the City University of New York. As Dean, Kirschner opened the William Macaulay Honors College Center on 67th Street in Manhattan, which was the first dedicated space for CUNY students in the honors college.[16] After retiring as dean, Kirschner served as Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and University Professor developing courses in higher education and workforce development at the CUNY Graduate Center.[17]

Kirschner co-founded Women In Technology and Entrepreneurship in New York (WiTNY), a collaboration between CUNY and Cornell Tech to increase participation of women in computer science.[18][19] WiTNY later became the founding chapter of Break Through Tech, where Kirschner serves on the advisory board.[20][21]

In 2023, Kirschner was appointed interim president of Hunter College.[22]

Advisor and Board Director

She is a current or former board member of Movado Group (MOV), Strategic Cyber Ventures, Apollo Group, Topps, onhealth.com, Public Agenda, Jewish Women's Archive, MOUSE, Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation,[23] Footsteps, World Quant University, New York Media Association, Theatreworks USA, Footsteps, the Princeton University English Department Advisory Council, and the Leadership Council of the Princeton University Graduate School.[24][25]

Professional recognition

Kirschner received the Above and Beyond Award (2014) from City and State Magazine,[26] New York Award from New York Magazine (1999),[27] and as a distinguished alumni of SUNY Buffalo and Princeton University. In 2023, City & State New York named her to the Manhattan Power 100 list of the borough's most influential political players.[28]

Publications

Books

Kirschner is the author of Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story, the story of her mother's wartime rescue of hundreds of letters sent to her during the five years she spent in Nazi slave Labor camps. The letters include correspondence between Kirschner's mother and Ala Gertner, who was hanged for her role the sonderkommando revolt at Auschwitz.[29] The book has also been published in German as Salas Geheiminis, in Polish, as Listy z Pudełka, in Italian, as Il Dono di Sala, in French, as Le Secret de ma mère, in Czech as Salin Dar, [30] and Chinese (Mandarin). The book was adapted to a play entitled Letters to Sala by Arlene Hutton, which had its New York premiere on October 2, 2015 by and is distributed by Dramatists Play Service.[31]

Her second book, Lady at the OK Corral: the True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp was published by HarperCollins in March 2013. It is a biography of Josephine Marcus Earp, Wyatt Earp's common law wife of nearly 50-years. According to the author, Marcus sparked the world's most famous gunfight, buried her husband in a Jewish cemetery after he died in 1929, and subsequently shaped the legend of Wyatt Earp and the Wild West. In 2013, Kirschner's book was selected as an Editor's Choice by The New York Times Sunday Book Review[32] and Kirschner was honored as best new Western author by True West Magazine.[33]

Selected publications

References
  1. "Ubiquity: Ann Kirschner on marketing and distribution of online learning". ubiquity.acm.org. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  2. "News, The City University of New York". www1.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  3. Kirschner, Ann (2006-11-12). "'Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  4. Yost, Mark (2013-03-29). "Book Review: Lady at the O.K. Corral". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  5. "CUNY Names Ann Kirschner as Interim President of Hunter College". CUNY Newswire. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  6. Elliott, Stuart (1995-12-18). "THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING;Adding to the annual spectacle, NBC and the N.F.L. take the Super Bowl to cyberspace". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  7. "The 1999 New York Awards - Nymag". New York Magazine. 1999-12-20. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  8. "The New Leader of Hunter College of the City University of New York". Women In Academia Report. 2023-07-19. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  9. Shattuck, Kathryn (2006-03-11). "Bringing One Woman's Holocaust Experience to Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  10. "News, The City University of New York". www1.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  11. "Communiques". InfoWorld. 1984-10-01. Retrieved 2011-02-16.
  12. "Columbia University Record". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
  13. "The Technology Source Archives - New Times, New Rules: An Interview with Fathom's Ann Kirschner". technologysource.org. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  14. "Superbowl.com Kicks Off". NFL.com. Archived from the original on 19 Dec 1996.
  15. "Jumping from the Ivory Tower". Princeton Alumni Weekly. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  16. "Education Update - Dr. Ann Kirschner Heads CUNY Honors College". www.educationupdate.com. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  17. "Rethinking Higher Education for the Knowledge Economy (Fall, 2017) – Futures Initiative". Retrieved 2023-09-19.
  18. "CUNY, Cornell Tech launch women-in-tech initiative". Crain's New York Business. 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  19. "The IT factor: NY initiative steers women into the tech sector". 2016-04-06. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
  20. "Lessons in leadership: Judith Spitz on women in tech | McKinsey". www.mckinsey.com. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
  21. "Our Team". Break Through Tech. 2021-03-12. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
  22. "Hunter College Welcomes Interim President Ann Kirschner | Hunter College". Hunter College |. 2023-07-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  23. "Governance: Ann Kirschner". Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.
  24. "Ann Kirschner *78, ENG". GradFUTURES. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  25. Promislo, Susan (June 12, 2017). "Six elected to Princeton Board of Trustees". Princeton University. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  26. "Above and Beyond: Honoring Women of Public and Civic Mind". City & State. Archived from the original on 25 June 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  27. Steele, Michael. "The 1999 New York Awards: Ann Kirschner, Computer Literate". New York Magazine. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  28. "The 2023 Manhattan Power 100". City & State NY. 2023-08-14. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
  29. Adler, Margot (March 7, 2006). "Letters Offer Glimpse of Life in Nazi Labor Camps". NPR.org. Retrieved September 19, 2023.
  30. televize, Česká. "Salin dar: dopisy z "černé skříňky" holocaustu". ČT24 - Nejdůvěryhodnější zpravodajský web v ČR - Česká televize (in Czech). Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  31. Letters to Sala. Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
  32. The New York Times (June 7, 2013). "Editors' Choice". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  33. Rosebrook, J. Stuart. "The Best of Western Books for 2014". True West. True West Magazine. Archived from the original on 12 October 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
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