Digital Commons Network^™

Two Major Ontario Hospital Labs Bought Research Dogs From U.S. Breeder With Troubled Pastdogs Bred For Scientific And Medical Testing Suffer Abuse As The Scientific Industry Increasingly Turns To Alternatives For Research., Allison Hunter, Mary Beech, Sami Marshak, Kate Morano

Capstones

The purpose-bred dog breeding industry for research is little known. Each year, thousands of dogs are bred for scientific and medical testing, supplied to research facilities by a handful of major commercial breeders. But gaps in enforcement and regulation have allowed abuses to persist, even as the industry increasingly turns to alternatives to animal testing. Animal rights advocates have been decrying the treatment of these dogs. A federal Inspector General report found lax oversight of the industry, raising further concerns about how dogs are treated. This story was reported in collaboration with the Investigative Journalism Bureau, based in Toronto, and …

Syllabus For Com 3150 Dept. Of Communication Studies, Baruch College, Cuny, Rachel Kovacs

Open Educational Resources

This is a Fall 2025 Syllabus for COM 3150 (Business Communication), which is a 3-credit, 15-week required course for the Communication Studies major.

The Trust Equation: Users, Companies, And Safety In The Online Dating World, Hayley Solomon

Student Theses and Dissertations

Digital dating platforms have become essential to modern-day relationship formation, yet concerns about user safety, harassment, deception, and accountability have intensified distrust, particularly among women. This study explores (1) how women’s personal experiences of danger shape their perceptions of dating apps’ trustworthiness, (2) how women explain the nature of trust and distrust in these digital environments, and (3) how communication professionals can design messages that promote safety and strengthen trust on dating platforms. Using a qualitative study design, four focus groups with three participants each were conducted with heterosexual cis-gender women aged 18–50 who had used Hinge, Tinder, or Bumble …

Fake News Y Redes Sociales: Cómo El Algoritmo En Torno A La Migración Afecta La Salud Mental, Maria F. Alarcon

Capstones

Las redes sociales son la principal fuente de información para migrantes latinos en Estados Unidos, pero también son un terreno fértil para fake-news que afectan la salud mental y desinforman.

Grappling With Parenthood In 2025, Elisa Muyl

Capstones

In 2024, I became a parent for the first time. Within the first year of my child's life, president Trump was elected for a second term and came into office on the back of a right-wing project to “restore” the American family as the central unit of American life. I knew instinctively that the values and policies this project espoused would not work for my family or many others. At the same time, I was grappling with a profound sense of social alienation and the lack of structural support for new parents, exacerbated by the way that community is sustained …

San Mateo County’S Digital Jail Mail Sparks Reckoning Over Private Data, Juan A. Lasso

Capstones

This capstone examines privacy and data risks embedded in digital communication systems used in U.S. correctional facilities. As private vendors introduce tablets, kiosks, and mail digitization services, these technologies enable widespread surveillance and data collection of incarcerated people and their loved ones. The project explores how these systems track and analyze digital footprints in ways that challenge established legal and ethical expectations around privacy. It documents the personal impact on loved ones of people currently or formerly incarcerated in San Mateo County. The reporting centers on the California county jail where a civil rights lawsuit is pending over the mail …

Security Blanket: An Idea Of "Home" Across The Housing Spectrum, Willa D. Odefey

Capstones

Security Blanket: an idea of "home" across the housing spectrum addresses the logistical and emotional gaps left by policy-makers who prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach of housing to New York City’s houseless crisis. Independent living can be a major adjustment for people who have never lived on their own (eg. lived with parents, were formerly incarcerated, were in long-term hospital care), and shelters do not adequately prepare residents for the life-building steps after move-out. I asked New Yorkers experiencing homelessness where they are now, what home means to them, and what it would or has taken to ground themselves as they …

How Armenia And Azerbaijan Are Lobbying For Influence In D.C., Gibran C. Boyce, Dawn Kikel

Capstones

In the wake of President Trump taking office, foreign government agencies and U.S.-based non-profits serving Armenian and Azerbaijani interests have been hiring lobbyists in Washington, D.C. as part of their concerted efforts to curry favor, gain influence, and seek policy changes that would benefit the rival post-Soviet nations.

Beyond The Model Minority: South Asian New Yorkers Confront Poverty, Mizuki Uchiyama

Capstones

This capstone project examines poverty among South Asian immigrants in New York City, challenging the “model minority” myth that portrays Asian Americans as uniformly successful. Through a reported NY1 television news package and accompanying written narrative, the project highlights how language barriers, economic insecurity and limited access to public benefits shape daily life for many immigrant families in Queens.

Reporting from the South Asian Council for Social Services (SACSS) in Flushing, the story connects individual experiences in workforce and sewing programs to broader data showing that Asian New Yorkers experience poverty at rates comparable to Black and Latino residents, with …

Building Another World, Christopher Edwards

Capstones

"Another World" is a mutual aid hub in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The space was opened in June 2025 and is ran by the Crown Heights Care Collective, a mutual aid network started in 2022. Another World hosts free events surrounding political education and provides basic needs like food and clothing to residents of the area. In just a few months, the group has made inroads in a diverse community altered by gentrification.

The Adverse Digital Childhood Experiences (Adces) Framework: A Transformative Paradigm For Decoding Digital Adversity And Safeguarding Human Agency In Child Development And Lifespan Trajectories, Asrat G. Amnie

Publications and Research

Childhood is no longer confined to physical spaces; It increasingly unfolds within digitally saturated environments where algorithmically mediated technologies shape attention, learning, and identity formation from the earliest years. Traditional adversity frameworks, particularly the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) model, do not capture the distinctive, persistent, and often invisible risks of digital life. To address this gap, this study advances the Adverse Digital Childhood Experiences (ADCEs) framework, an empirically informed and theory-driven extension of ACEs that systematizes ten interrelated domains of digital adversity encompassing social, cognitive, and environmental stressors. These include cyberbullying and exploitation, commercial surveillance and privacy harms, technoference and …

Fundamentals Of Business Communication Eco 21660 - Assignment 1: Career Communications Portfolio, Catherine M. Young

Open Educational Resources

The Business Communications Unit 1: Career Communications assignment applies Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to an assignment that is highly relevant to students' lives. It prompts students to create a resumé, cover letter, and a LinkedIn page, as well as develop three verbal narratives. Each element has its own brief rubric. The complete assignment is weighted at 30% of the grade.

My First Conversation With Chatgpt (February 22, 2023): Origins Of A Generative Dialogue, David Smith

Publications and Research

This working paper presents the first recorded interaction between the author and the generative AI system ChatGPT, written on February 22, 2023 during the initial weeks of a faculty sabbatical in Boston. The document preserves a complete and unedited transcript of an exploratory conversation conducted without predetermined research aims, marking the author’s first encounter with a large-language-model conversational interface. Although the exchange includes creative experimentation—including musical and poetic prompts—the discussion remains informal and wide-ranging, and no theoretical framework is articulated at this stage. Rather, this transcript is published as primary-source material documenting the moment of discovery and experimentation that precedes …

Government Regulations-Consumer And Worker Protection Laws Business Law, Lorelei Salas

Open Educational Resources

This assignment challenges the students to dive deeper into consumer and worker protection laws, by expanding their knowledge base or exploring personal experience with these issues.

1 Repository, 26 Campuses, 10 Years: Strength (And Chaos) In Numbers, Jojo Karlin, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

In the ten years since its inception, the CUNY Academic Works repository has grown to house and provide public access to more than 33,000 scholarly, pedagogical, and creative works by affiliates of the City University of New York, the largest urban public university in the United States. Representing all 26 CUNY campuses — community colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate/professional schools, with legacies as old as 1847 (The City College of New York) and as young as 2018 (CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies) — CUNY Academic Works has flourished thanks in large part to a system that combines central …

Propuesta Curricular Para La Asistencia Médica Bilingüe Orientada A La Concordancia De Lenguas Y La Interpretación Médica En Español, David Sanchez-Jimenez, Noemi Rodriguez, Justin Harnandan, Margarita Perez, Melissa Garcia

Publications and Research

Resumen: El presente trabajo describe el proceso para establecer una especialización secundaria bilingüe centrada en la comunicación y la interpretación médica en una universidad de Estados Unidos designada como Institución al Servicio de los Hispanos. Este nuevo título universitario brindará a los estudiantes bilingües de español e inglés especializados en el área de la salud la oportunidad de mejorar sus destrezas comunicativas para convertirse en competentes profesionales de la salud concordantes de lengua.

Abstract:This paper details the process to establish a new bilingual academic minor in health communication and medical interpretation at a United States university designated as a Hispanic-Serving …

Navigating Legal Labyrinths: Health Communication And The Experiences Of Immigrant Healthcare Professionals In The Us Healthcare System, Sabahat Moughal, Sarah Price

Publications and Research

This study examines how immigrant healthcare professionals experience immigration-related stress, cultural tension, and communication demands within U.S. clinical environments. A survey of 55 clinicians at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center showed varied levels of cultural conflict and socioeconomic worry, as well as frequent adjustments to communication styles. While many participants reported feeling culturally stable, a significant portion experienced tension or uncertainty tied to immigration status. These findings highlight the wide range of adaptation experiences among immigrant clinicians, supporting the need for institutional awareness and targeted support. IRB Protocol #: 20251023-12, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center

Red Scare At Cuny: A Research Guide, Wilhelmine Coste, Scout Zabel, Erin A'Hearn, Patrick J. Mcgee

Publications and Research

The Red Scare at CUNY is a comprehensive guide to archives documenting anti-communist political repression of faculty, staff, and students at CUNY, primarily from the 1930s-1960s. Organized by repository, it highlights relevant collections within CUNY, evaluated by the authors in consultation and collaboration with archivists at Brooklyn College, City College, Hunter College, and Queens College in 2025. Each entry is accompanied by a description that incorporates information from finding aids and other published research. These collections include faculty personal and professional papers, student activist materials, and oral histories. The guide also includes collections from other repositories within New York City …

Finding Black Joy: Understanding How Black Students Are Seen, Affirmed, And Nourished In Expanded Learning Opportunities., Jamila Mosley

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how Black students experience Black joy within expanded learning opportunity (ELO) programs and how those programs are structured to nurture that joy. It is guided by the central research question: How do Black students describe the ways in which an expanded learning opportunity program fosters their joy through experiences of being seen, affirmed, and nourished? Using an instrumental case study design at two secondary schools, the study draws on semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and observations of students participating in robotics, debate, Sister Circle, cheer, basketball, and creative writing. Data were analyzed through multiple cycles of coding, first …

Advancement Of Wearable Hardware & Possible Cross-Sector Applications, Yassine Chahid, Patrick Slattery

Publications and Research

This study examines recent advances in wearable technologies including smart glasses, watches, rings, and related devices. It evaluates their applications across healthcare, manufacturing, education, and logistics. As real-time data collection, hands-free interaction, and continuous health monitoring become more prevalent, wearables are emerging as pivotal tools for both personal and professional contexts. The methodology combines a comparative analysis of current-generation devices, a review of technical specifications from manufacturer documentation, and case studies of specialized deployments, particularly in medical diagnostics, remote monitoring, and workplace efficiency. Project findings will indicate the rate at which wearable devices are moving beyond consumer fitness tracking and …

Understanding Mental Health Crisis Response Through The Lens Of First Responders, Ella Gibson

Student Theses

Responses to mental health crises are becoming an increasingly contentious topic as cases of extreme police violence or fatality during a crisis are publicized in the media. Although first responders’ experiences with mental health crisis response have been explored in prior literature, there remains a lack of research that gathers data from multiple first responder roles and compares their experiences across groups. There is also a significant gap in research examining the perspectives of co-response teams. This study sought to gather qualitative data on the experiences of police officers, EMTs/paramedics, and co-response team members, and to explore their perceptions of …

Rhetorical Analysis Essay, Reema A. Rao

Open Educational Resources

This assignment is a rhetorical analysis essay typically assigned as part of the English 110 course during the summer semester. For this assignment, students apply their understanding of rhetorical appeals and devices to read a chosen text closely and analyze how the author constructs meaning and purpose. A variety of resources are provided to students, each accompanied by a brief overview, and students may select a topic of personal interest from these options. They then conduct a rhetorical analysis of their chosen source and write an essay based on that analysis.

Students are supported with a wide range of , …

A Detailed Investigation Into Word-Order In The Modification Of Pronouns, Kelli Hesseltine, Joseph C. M. Davis

Publications and Research

This study builds upon Hesseltine and Davis ([2020]. “The Communicative Function of Adjective-Noun Order in English.” WORD 66 (3): 166–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2020.1793499), which examines word order in modification in English and proposes the Assertion of Characterization hypothesis. To communicate an assertion of an entity’s traits, speakers employ two different meanings: weaker, signaled by the order AB as in long (A) hair (B), and stronger, signaled by BA as in hair (B) long (A). The attribution of the characterization is thus made less or more assertively. This work focuses on examples where the characterized entity, the B, is a form traditionally …

Development And Applications Of A Health Equity Summary Score Using The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Ronald R. Sanchez

Dissertations and Theses

Despite sustained national efforts, disparities in healthcare delivery persist among racial and ethnic minorities, low-income individuals, and socially at-risk populations. Monitoring modifiable aspects of care delivery, such as the structures and processes that health systems can directly improve, is a key strategy for addressing these gaps. However, most measures evaluate modifiable aspects of care delivery separately, limiting understanding of how improvements in one domain reinforce the other and how their combined effect influences equitable care.

This dissertation addresses this gap by combining patient experience and clinical quality, two modifiable aspects of care that captures how patients interact with the health …

Saussure’S Universal Distinctive Feature Dimensions, Thomas M. Eccardt

Publications and Research

This paper revisits Saussure’s scalar analysis of phonemes, offering a modern reinterpretation that replaces binary features with phonological dimensions grounded in measurement theory. By redefining Saussure’s [openness] and [backness] as ordered scales and Chomsky and Halle’s “combination and concatenation” as partially ordered scales, the paper introduces a notion of “[phono]logical simultaneity.” This framework renders the variously-defined phoneme and segment redundant, and shifts the focus of distinctiveness to the linguistic sign, the morpheme. It demonstrates how phonological dimensions link continuous articulations and acoustic signals (e.g., F1 and F2) with discrete linguistic signs through calibrated distinctive features. The analysis identifies Saussure’s two …

Lessons From Tiktok: Using Popular Social Media Platforms To Engage Gen Z, Debra Bernstein

Urban Library Journal

This study looks at how academic libraries in the New York City metropolitan area are using TikTok to engage with their communities, particularly students. It analyzes the most popular videos from five active library accounts, categorizing content types and measuring engagement through TikTok’s built-in metrics. Results indicate that humorous and lighthearted content consistently receives the highest engagement, while instructional or “how-to” videos tend to underperform. These findings suggest that while TikTok may not be the most effective platform for instructional outreach, it holds potential as a tool for visibility, community engagement, and humanizing the library’s presence. As students increasingly turn …

Final Assignment - Group Performance, Asya Gorovits

Open Educational Resources

The final assignment invites students to collaboratively devise and perform a site-specific, immersive theatrical experience in the ground floor of the Music Library. Working in groups, students will create a 7-minute mini-scene that engages with the space, considers audience sensory and emotional experience, and draws on techniques from twentieth-century avant-garde movements as well as insights from their midterm fieldwork. Through workshops, rehearsals, and a public performance, students practice creative collaboration, spatial analysis, and experiential design. The project emphasizes process, responsibility, and teamwork, enabling students to apply course concepts in embodied ways while developing practical skills in directing, performing, and devising. …

Midterm Assignment, Asya Gorovits

Open Educational Resources

This midterm assignment invites students to investigate theatricality beyond traditional theatre spaces by attending and analyzing a live, non-theatrical event such as a concert, religious service, festival, sports game, tour, or audio-guided experience. Through a 4–5 page reflective paper and a brief oral presentation, students will observe audience behavior, spatial dynamics, and implicit rules of participation, and relate these observations to early anti-realist theatrical movements discussed in class. The assignment develops close observation, critical thinking, and communication skills while encouraging students to connect personal experience with historical avant-garde practices and to contribute to a collaborative exploration of how performance operates …

Queens: An Urban Palimpsest, Lee Norton

Open Educational Resources

Overview:

“Queens: an Urban Palimpsest” is a 2-3 week module about community archives, primary source research, and the importance of place in collective memory. It is centered around the digitally-accessible archival documents hosted by the Queens Historical Society in Flushing, NY.

This resource is offered in three parts: most substantially, five class sessions, written up as instructor scripts; second, a list of additional resources to scaffold the module, which, in its initial design and implementation, kicks off the second of three units in my College Writing I course; and, lastly, an outline of several possible ways of continuing beyond this …

Assignment Prompt: Presentation On The Arts In New York City, Caroline K. Hong

Open Educational Resources

I will be creating a prompt for a presentation assignment for a first-year Macaulay Honors College course, Honors 125 (also known as Seminar 1): The Arts in New York City, which I usually teach every fall. Students will be required to present on a specific art form, artist, artwork, or arts institution/organization from their neighborhood or community. The format will be a PechaKucha presentation, which consists of a slideshow that shows 20 slides or images, each for 20 seconds, and the slides advance automatically as the presenter talks along with the slides.

The goals of this assignment are for students …