Celebrates Our Retired Faculty

Dr. Amy Berkov

After teaching at City College for over 20 years, Dr. Berkov is retiring from her current position as Assistant Professor in the Biology Department. Her favorite courses include Botany (which was taught for Landscape Architecture and Biology students), Insect Ecology, Plant Animal Interactions, and Global Change. “I’ve been pretty lucky in the courses that I’ve taught at City College,” she reflects. Her Insect Ecology course even got to work in a lab on Governor’s Island, where students helped with insect surveys; the course is running again in summer 2023, and will include help from Dr. Berkov with a former student of hers leading the course.

Dr. Berkov encourages her students to get out into the field and learn by a variety of means through lab work or reading, and by interacting directly with the environment. Whether it be field trips, normal class time outside, or specific field research, students gain the opportunity to work on their planning skills and curb the expectation for things to go perfectly. She has had to learn how to be flexible, and offers an example of this as she recalls making mistakes in the field on a trip sponsored by the Entomological Society of America in 2009. When in the field, she advises her students to start with a tight plan, because then if something goes wrong, it will be easier to think of a solution.

Dr. Amy Berkov earned her first college degree in art, and worked as a freelance graphic artist for 13 years after moving to New York City in 1979 from Colorado. She did not always see herself going into science. As the graphic design industry started to change, Dr. Berkov decided she was going to change too, and dedicated time to work at a printmaking workshop, nonprofit organizations and galleries, and local community gardens. While in the gardens, she remembered how much she enjoyed being hands on in the dirt in the backyard as a child, so she took the opportunity to take classes with the CUNY Plant Sciences Program at Lehman College, which partnered with the New York Botanical Garden. While back in school, she participated in a volunteer research expedition to French Guiana and went on vacation in Peru. It was in Peru’s rainforests where Dr. Berkov knew she wanted to pursue botany. While reaching the top after climbing a large tropical tree, she was amazed to see the extent of plant life in every visible direction, and she was reminded of the extent of human intervention on these natural landscapes. From then on, she developed an interest in tropical rainforests and things that threaten them.

Working with students is what she has liked most about her time at CCNY. She appreciates the diversity in student backgrounds, which has made teaching these courses in seminars, labs, and in the field a fun time. Her favorite time was spent out in the field. Ultimately, she has enjoyed both the research and teaching parts of her job. Since changing career paths, Dr. Berkov has accomplished and learned more in her research than she would have ever imagined. This includes learning to deal with the uncertain situations that come with forest research, and developing the planning and organizational skills to keep things going. International fieldwork is not easy, and starting off in a new place can be hard. Dr. Berkov became familiar with all the places she worked, and finds that you gain multiple homes when working around the world.

Dr. Berkov has also served as Director of CCNY’s Master’s Program. She would advise incoming faculty “that our students are not ourselves,” and that the students may learn differently than how the faculty do. “Our students have so many different backgrounds,” she says, so it is important to be flexible. She also reminds people to be adaptable and aware of their environments, which is why she started students off by studying street trees on the CCNY campus in her Botany course. If students can learn to recognize trees they pass every day, they can gain transportable skills, and “they can take those skills and go on with them to something beyond.”