Sabrina A. Griffin ’92, of St. Petersburg, Florida, and Kelly Herbert ’06, of Brooklyn, New York, have been appointed to serve as the chair and vice chair of the Pace University Alumni Association Leadership Council as of July 2021.

Griffin, who will serve as chair, is a senior consultant with Jennifer Brown Consulting, LLC, a diversity and inclusion firm, where she develops business cases for clients, creates long-term strategy plans, conducts focus groups to assess corporate culture, and guides clients on establishing and/or rebranding employee resource groups to align with business objectives.

Griffin is an alumna of the Lubin School of Business where she received an MBA in finance. She serves on the President’s Council and the Presidential Taskforce on Diversity and Inclusion. Griffin received her bachelor’s degree in marketing and management from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Griffin previously worked at Chubb & Son, Inc. for over thirty years, most recently as assistant vice president and diversity manager, overseeing leadership development programs for women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ employees.

As chair of the Pace University Alumni Association Leadership Council, she will support the Association’s guiding principles and set of the Leadership Council’s priorities. Griffin will also serve as one of the Association’s representatives responsible for reporting annually to the Board of Trustees through the Development and Alumni Relations Committee.

As a leader of the Association, Griffin aims to bring her whole self to her new role, especially her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

“When I think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, with regard to an alumni association, I focus on inclusion and consider how to broaden offerings that appeal to every member of the Pace alumni family,” she shared. “When you get that right, diversity and equity can be achieved. By discovering what is important to people at their particular stage in life, you can develop programming around a variety of topics. Everyone won’t be interested in the same thing, but there should be something for everyone.”

Herbert, who will serve as vice chair, is a litigator in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Her practice involves complex commercial litigation, data and privacy issues, government investigations, appellate law, and constitutional law. She also has a robust pro bono practice centered on immigration rights, racial justice, election law, and LGBTQIA+ issues.

Herbert is an alumna of the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences where she received bachelor’s degrees in psychology and english language and literature, with a minor in women’s and gender studies. While at Pace, Herbert was the recipient of many academic honors including the David A. Bickimer Promise of Learning Award by the Academy of American Poets, the Scholarly and Critical Writing Award, and Dyson College’s Senior Awards for Excellence in both Psychology & English. Herbert then earned her Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif.

After graduating from Pace, Herbert was instrumental in founding the University’s LGBTQA+ Center in New York City and ultimately ran the Center for its first four years. In that capacity, she developed many educational and social programs, facilitated discussion groups, and advised students, staff, and faculty on LGBTQIA+ issues and campus policy. Between her time spent as a student and as a staff member, Herbert dedicated 13 years of service to Pace. In honor of her lasting contributions to Pace, the Kelly Herbert Writing Award was established. The Award was endowed in 2011 and is awarded annually to students who demonstrate excellence in writing about LGBTQIA+ topics, life, and love.

As vice chair of the Pace University Alumni Association Leadership Council, she will aid the Office of Alumni Relations and the chair in setting priorities for the Council and the execution of the Association’s guiding principles.

Herbert hopes to strengthen the alumni network and create an environment where people are comfortable reaching out for opportunities and eager to support fellow alumni. She aims to nourish a sense of shared responsibility to care for others and create a strong, tight-knit Pace alumni community.

“I look forward to showing alumni that they are not on their own,” she shared. “My hope is that the Association will not only communicate—but demonstrate—that the greatest benefit of becoming part of the Pace alumni family is that you inherit a diverse, accomplished network of people who are ready and willing to help.”

About the Pace University Alumni Association

The Pace University Alumni Association creates a space for alumni to engage with each other, current students, and the University to enrich the alumni experience. Alumni will build community, celebrate Pace, and share innovative ideas to move the University forward. Through programming and volunteer opportunities, the Association provides a home for alumni where they can support and strengthen their affinity to the university. After administering an all alumni survey in November 2019, the University's Board of Trustees along with the Office of Alumni Relations partnered to ensure a structure was established to provide a sense of community, connection, and belonging for all Pace alumni, therefore creating the Alumni Association. Follow Pace Alumni on social media: Twitter: @PaceUAlumni, Facebook: @PaceAlumni, and Instagram: @paceualumni or stay up to date by visiting the Pace University Alumni Association’s Webpage.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to help all the people placed with me to enhance and recover naturally.

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For Dr. Yvette Edwards it’s been a long but ultimately fulfilling road from Kingston, Jamaica, where she was born, to her private practice in South Carolina, one that incorporates chiropractic, nutrition, weight loss, and regenerative medicine.

Arriving in the United States in 1980 and raised by a single and financially struggling parent, Edwards very much wanted to be independent upon graduation from Pace. An initial career assessment as a student revealed that she could excel in many different areas, so she selected a major in chemistry, a course of study that was listed as leading to high-paying professions.

It has led to her best life in more ways than one.

She said, “It allowed me the opportunity to mix and make products starting from scratch, and I have been able to use this skill in figuring out the best combination of nutritional supplements that lead to health and healing for so many folks.”

Edwards didn’t start out with a plan to pursue medicine. At one point, she did consider becoming a medical doctor, but her philosophy on life and belief that the body is self-healing discouraged her.

After graduating from Pace, she was immediately recruited by a chemical company, BASF, where she flourished for nearly a decade, working in automotive quality assurance.

Then one day, Edwards needed to accompany her mother, who was struggling with walking, to a chiropractic appointment during a visit to South Florida. At the time, she was neither overly familiar with this modality nor aware of its holistic approach to health. Edwards was astounded when her mother, who’d entered the office with a walker, exited “practically running” following her appointment. After having a personal experience of recovery for back-related issues, Edwards decided to enroll in Sherman College of Chiropractic in Atlanta, where she eventually graduated with honors.

It has been almost twenty years that she has been a licensed chiropractic physician, work that is both financially and personally rewarding.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to help all the people placed with me to enhance and recover naturally,” she said.

Today, she has expanded her practice to include an associate doctor of chiropractic, and she provides nutritional consults, weight-loss therapy utilizing UV-light technology, and non-surgical knee pain recovery, thereby helping others recover from illnesses they otherwise expected to be lifelong.

When asked what advice she would provide students, her response, of course, is wholistic.

“Stay disciplined enough to finish [school], don’t worry about your future, and hold your image of success,” she said.

If you’re a residential student living on campus for Fall 2021, you’ve probably gotten a lot of emails from Residential Life and Housing Operations. From scheduling move-in appointments to COVID-19 testing, we’ve hit you with all of the pertinent information. But, we’ve got some helpful tips to make your move-in go smoothly—in New York City and in Pleasantville.

Check ‘em out:

• Arrive on time. Try to arrive at your residence hall during the window of time for which you signed up. It is okay to come AFTER your appointment, but please do not come BEFORE your appointment.
  • If you are arriving after 6:00 p.m., you may need to contact the RA on Duty to come down and check you in (the contact information for the RA on Duty will be easily available in each residence hall).
• Speak to staff at the Check-In tables. Students arriving between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. should check in with the Residential Life Staff stationed at their residence hall. There will be an easily identifiable check-in location at each residence hall.
• We’ll make it quick. The initial check-in process is very quick, and simply allows the staff to verify that each student has completed all steps necessary for moving in. Some students may also need to pick up keys and/or ID cards at this step in the process.
• Bring a couple of people. Three people, max. Students may have up to two people enter the residence hall to assist them in moving their things in. We suggest that one person always stays with the car (if arriving by car) to ensure that it can be moved if necessary. For this reason, we recommend that no more than three people accompany each student to move in (two to help move things into the building, one to stay with the car). We ask that helpers limit their stay to just the time needed to move things in and assist in setting up the room. After move-in, as per the Guest Policy for the start of the academic year, residential students may only have other members of the Pace Community visit them in the residence halls.
• Parking stuff. If arriving at your residence hall by car, you will want to unload quickly, but then have someone move the car to a parking lot. There is parking available in the Pleasantville Campus, but there is no Pace parking for the New York City Campus. There are many private parking garages in the area, and they are easily identifiable (and security and other Pace staff can help direct you to them).
• We’ll help keep the process moving. Pace staff will be present on site to assist in direction of both vehicle traffic and foot traffic. Pace Security staff will work to ensure that cars keep moving as they are unloaded. Student and staff volunteers from the Pace Community will be present to also assist, but each student should be ready to move their own things into the building.
• Hello, dolly. A limited number of rolling moving bins will be available at each location, but depending on demand at any given time, we cannot guarantee that bins will be available to everyone. Students who have a cart, wagon, dolly, or hand truck are encouraged to bring it to help with their move in process.

Enjoy the rest of your summer and reach out anytime with additional questions to housingoperations@pace.edu. You can also find more information and explore our buildings online on the Housing website.

New York City is an ongoing work-in-progress. No matter where you turn, you’ll likely see scaffolding, construction, and the endless churn of redevelopment.

This is increasingly true on the many waterfronts in New York City, where redevelopment is often touted as, (a. a necessity, in order to protect city residents from rising sea levels and the unforgiving whims of climate change, and (b. an undeniable environmental boon, as many urban waterfronts are considerably polluted.

Often lost in the conversation surrounding waterfront redevelopment, however, is the current recreational and community usages of each waterfront, and the ways redevelopment will inexorably alter existing social ecosystems.

“For a very long time the water bodies in New York were too polluted to be under any sort of consideration as a public resource or a lucrative area of development, but that’s really shifted, especially with the passage of the Clean Water Act,” said Dyson Assistant Professor Monica Palta, PhD. “Although New York City waterways now receive much less pollution than 50 years ago, there are still legacy effects from old industries along the waterfront, and ongoing pollution problems caused by the city’s outdated sewage system. So the water bodies around New York City are still polluted, but in general, there’s a lot of long-term planning that would involve development along the waterfront.”

After receiving funding from the Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship, fellow environmental studies and science assistant professor Anne Toomey, PhD—who has long studied the relationship between citizen science and public engagement surrounding pertinent environmental issues—teamed up with Palta to examine the current social and ecological environment of Coney Island Creek, a heavily polluted waterbody in New York City, slated to be substantially redeveloped in the coming years. Their research, which ranged from water sampling, to citizen interviews, to urban planning analysis, documents current uses of the area in hopes of providing a context as to how to create a more sustainable future for Coney Island Creek and the New York waterfront in general—in ways that reduce existing environmental hazards while also preserving existing place attachments and meanings to the population it serves.

Both Toomey and Palta view urban waterfronts such as Coney Island Creek as a complex puzzle. As one of the most heavily polluted bodies of water in New York City, Coney Island Creek may be declared the next SuperFund site. Yet at the same time, it has been an important community hub for decades, and a vital recreational space for children and adults alike.

“On any given day in the summer there will be hundreds of people interacting with the water in Coney Island Creek; bathing, boating, etc. It obviously serves an important community recreational and cultural value, but it’s also very polluted,” said Toomey.

“We wanted to better understand how these dynamics work—local residents are trying to clean up the creek and also seek to have a say in how it’s being developed,” said Toomey. “Not just Coney Island, but as New York City is developing different waterfront plans, city planners are making decisions on a regular basis about how these waterfronts are developed, and we want to be a part of the discussion.”

One way these various competing realties are playing out in Coney Island Creek is through the construction of a proposed ferry terminal, which would dramatically alter the scope in which the creek is used and interacted with. As Toomey notes, many Coney Islanders support the construction of a ferry in Coney Island, as a ferry would substantially improve transportation options and access.

However, the plan to place the ferry terminal in Coney Island Creek—not the most convenient location for the many tourists who would likely be using the ferry in the first place—would likely expeditiously gentrify a lower-income area of Coney Island, and could possibly provide increased benefits to tourists at the expense of residents with personal investment and connection to the existing community. All of these potentially inalterable changes in the social fabric, naturally, do not even take into account the negative environmental effects that may arise from dredging the creek, the constant flow of ferries, and other realities of the redevelopment.

“It’s hard to make an argument to protect an area that is very polluted—it’s an uphill battle to say ‘yes, leave these submerged wrecked ships’ (which is actually good for mussels)—and ‘don’t replace this concrete where people fish with a park, because people who fish there aren’t going to have access to that space,’” said Palta. “This is why it’s really important to look at the net benefit vs. net harm. And that can be very nuanced.”

All in all, Toomey and Palta view their work as important contribution to the redevelopment conversation. While redevelopment often must and will inevitably happen, broadening the conversation to consider what truly constitutes waterfront improvement—and how to tailor necessary and essential improvements to the communities that already have strong ties to the waterfront—can force city officials, developers, and communities to better understand the complex dynamics of urban waterfronts, and work together to create plans that are truly sustainable.

“It’s not to say that it’s fine that people are swimming in polluted water, but we need to think about current uses and how to support those current uses—not just for a subset of people who could afford to live on gentrifying waterfront developments that are more resistant to rising sea levels,” said Toomey.

“I think the work that we’re doing is really important in terms of documenting what’s there,” said Palta. “All we can do is push that narrative forward and shed more light on how these systems are currently being used, and what the actual hazards or benefits are that are associated with them.”