VOLUME 25, NUMBER 5
AUGUST 8-AUGUST 21, 2012
SGT. HOLCOMB CLEARED OF MAXIMUM SENTENCE IN CHEN CASE
Students in the Art Institute’s graphic design program paid back loans at a stronger pace, with 35 percent making a dent in their debt during the surveyed period, but lagging far behind 69 percent at competing School of Visual Arts. “There’s a lot of anxiety,” said Joe Politz, a 23-year-old graphic design major at the Art Institute who is supposed to graduate this
BY ALINE REYNOLDS ergeant Adam Holcomb, the first of eight soldiers to be tried in connection with U.S. Army Private Danny Chen’s suicide, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and $1,182 forfeiture of pay. The penalties, tied to two counts of maltreatment and one count of assault, were minimal compared to what Holcomb would have faced had he been convicted of negligent homicide and reckless endangerment — charges that could have resulted in dishonorable discharge from the Army and a 17-and-a-half-year jail term. The verdict, determined by a court-martial panel based in the Fort Bragg, North Carolina military base, was the outcome of five days of testimony by several fellow soldiers, family and friends of Chen — in addition to a U.S. Air Force medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Chen’s remains. Transcripts of the proceedings weren’t available by press time. Chen, a 19-year-old from Chinatown, is believed to have fatally shot himself in a guard tower in Kandahar, Afghanistan last October. Chen’s parents, Su Zhen and Yan Tao Chen — who reside on the Lower East Side — made the 10-and-a-half-hour trip by car from New York to Fort Bragg to attend the trials late last month. The Chens weren’t available for comment on Holcomb’s sentence. In a written, translated statement, the couple said, “We would like to thank everyone who has assisted us in this very difficult time. We still are grieving for the loss of our precious son, and we hope that justice will be done for his sake.” The statement continued,
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Photo courtesy of Joe Woolhead
Workers inspecting a crane atop 1 World Trade Center on a recent Saturday. To view the latest rendering of New York City’s tallest tower, skip to page 18.
Art Institute grads face uncertain, debt-filled future THE NEW YORK WORLD BY CURTIS SKINNER & SAM SPOKONY ome students at Tribeca’s Art Institute of New York will be facing more than the fast-paced pressure of creative industries once they graduate. Just one in five of the former students in the school’s fashion program,
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whose payments on government-sponsored student loans first came due during the 2006 and 2007 school years, subsequently paid down their loans during fall 2010 or the first nine months of 2011, newly released government data shows. Art Institute fashion students left school with debt obligations equivalent to more than twice their annual discretionary income, as measured by the average earnings of the program’s graduates over two years.
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