Emil J. Polak, Class of 1953, professor emeritus of history at Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York, died at his Long Island home in Sayville, New York, on April 8, 2021, at age 84.

A specialist in the history of medieval rhetoric, Polak was best known for his published inventories of medieval manuscripts that contained treatises and formularies on the ars dictaminis (the art of letter writing) and the ars aregandi (secular oratory).