Digital Commons Network^™

Case Studies In The History Of U.S. Empire And Society, Samuel Finesurrey, Gary Greaves

Open Educational Resources

These case-studies in U.S. history attempt to break away from the white racial frame that too often is used to tell the story of America's past. These resources explore the United States from the vantage of the enslaved, exploited, persecuted, conquered and occupied who made possible the realization of others' wealth and dreams.

Eng 110: Narrative Essay, Justine Matias

Open Educational Resources

This assignment asks students to compose a reflective narrative essay examining a significant moment in their language and literacy development. Drawing from literacy studies and linguistic justice frameworks, the assignment positions students' diverse language experiences—including multilingualism, code-switching, and various communication modes—as valuable resources for meaning-making rather than deficits requiring correction. Students select a meaningful personal moment related to language or literacy, develop it through rich sensory detail and narrative techniques, and analyze its broader social significance by connecting individual experience to larger cultural, educational, or societal patterns. The assignment incorporates Universal Design for Learning principles through multiple pathways for success: …

Cuny ’69 – Students In Social Movements. A Global Perspective, Despina Lalaki

Open Educational Resources

This teaching material was developed as a result of the CUNY 1969 Teach-in that took place in Summer 2025. Prof. Lalaki has developed a course that situates CUNY ’69 within a broader historical and global framework of student movements, and invites students to engage with sociological theory, protest texts, oral histories, news coverage, activist media, archival materials, and film.

Mapping Rhetoric: Cross-Analyzing Protest Movements, Eva Dunsky

Open Educational Resources

This teaching material was developed as a result of the CUNY 1969 Teach-in that took place in Summer 2025. The assignment prompts students to consider how the history of past college protests affects us now and will continue to have an impact in the future by playing the role of figures within these movements, close reading primary texts, and eventually researching a campus protest of their own.

Cuny 1969 Feminist/Queer Visual Arts Archive Assignment, Portia Seddon

Open Educational Resources

This teaching material was developed as a result of the CUNY 1969 Teach-in that took place in Summer 2025. This assignment invites students to engage with archival material from the CUNY 1969 project, and to reflect on this history in its intersections with the feminist/queer/LGBT social activism and art of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Social Annotation: Building Engagement And Community While Improving Academic Skills, Kelly Hammond, Cuny School Of Professional Studies

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Ebony Patterson’S …Things Come To Thrive…In The Shedding…In The Molting… (2023) As Intervention, Renee Mcgarry

Publications and Research

This paper examines the use of horticulture and botany in Ebony Patterson's 2023 exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden, …things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molting… as it relates to the history of NYBG, the Bronx, and the populations that historically and currently reside in the borough. Using plants, blown glass, and glittering styrofoam forms, Patterson productively intervenes in the relationship between an historic, prestigious institution and a changed borough that, since the 1990s, has been walled off from the Garden. The exhibition highlights the tension between community and institution and offers up a new way of understanding …

Educating The Educators: Six Frames For Three Identities, Eric Silberberg, Laura Cameron, Christina Jones, Amy James, Alison Lehner-Quam, Robin Ewing, Margaret Gregor

Publications and Research

Educating tomorrow’s teachers is a complex and evolving process. !ey are preservice teachers in undergraduate programs, current teachers pursuing career advancement in master’s programs, and aspiring educational researchers in doctoral programs. Perhaps nowhere else on campus does information literacy instruction have more potential to affect generations of information users than when librarians educate the educators as education students will, in turn, impart information literacy skills to the students in their classrooms for many years.

Education students inhabit three overlapping identities as they progress through degree programs: as students fulfilling assignments, professionals conducting evidence-based research, and future teachers responsible for teaching …

Hostos Community College Academic Bulletin 2024-2025, Hostos Community College

College Bulletins

This is the official college catalog for 2024-2025. It contains course descriptions as well as information on degree programs, college resources and services, financial aid, admissions, and the academic calendar.

Ai And Positionality:A Guide For Learning Communities, Emese Ilyés

Open Educational Resources

This practical guide helps educators thoughtfully integrate AI tools while preserving what matters most—student voice and agency. Drawing on research with students navigating AI in higher education, it offers concrete activities and frameworks that position technology as an assistant rather than a replacement for authentic expression. Through adaptable classroom strategies and qualitative approaches, educators across disciplines will discover how to create learning environments where students recognize the value of their unique perspectives in an age of artificial intelligence.

No Remedy For Colonization, Sigrid Vendrell Polanco

City University of New York Law Review

The United States purports to maintain a democratic relationship with its inhabited territories, yet the Supreme Court continues to uphold twentieth century laws that affirm rather than abrogate colonial policies. The gap between how the United States idealizes democracy and its real world application, especially in its five colonized territories (Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the United States Virgin Islands, and American Samoa), is not just growing – it is becoming a chasm. These colonies are currently referred to as United States territories. In 2023, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico experienced a controversial sovereignty challenge …

On The Wax: How Prosecutors Weaponize Rap Lyrics At Trial, Jasmine Ross

City University of New York Law Review

In the last few years news headlines have been filled with stories of high-profile trials in which celebrity rappers like Young Thug, Tekashi 6ix9ine (now “6IX9INE”) and Bobby Shmurda have been confronted by prosecutors with lyrics they wrote. Of course, the use of rap lyrics in these trials is no accident. Since the 1990s criminal defendants who happen to pen rap lyrics are increasingly likely to have their lyrics admitted against them at trial. This is happening all over the country—in federal and state courts—at every stage of criminal proceedings. This Note will focus on the use of rap lyrics …

“Windows For Witness: Dan Fishback’S Radical Access”, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

Dan Fishback’s Jewish crip aesthetic – art made within a framework of integrated access – is rooted in the human (or Jewish!) capacity to be generous and so much more. He expands our understandings of who is in the room, who is in the world, who is in our community, who lives at the same time as us but in a different way. This connection in his show between chronic illness and Palestine is not only about alienation it is about identification and solidarity.

Prls 3316: Banned Books: Teaching Latinx Children And Youth Literature, Carla España

Open Educational Resources

Banned picture books, early readers, middle grade, and young adult novels by Latinx authors and illustrators. Emphasis on contemporary books dealing with topics of identity, (im)migration, intergenerational connections, community, LGBTQ+, social movements, and changemakers. Literature analysis and advocacy plan; translingual texts, and translanguaging pedagogy in monolingual and bilingual settings. Censorship in education.

Pols 3014w Research Strategies In Public Policy, Sevdenur Koru

Open Educational Resources

Anthropological, psychological, political, social, and economic arguments and knowledge frequently depend on the use of numerical data. An anthropologist might examine how population differences in genes explain population differences in health outcomes; a psychologist might hypothesize that I.Q. is attributable to environmental or genetic factors; a politician might claim that handgun control legislation will reduce crime; a sociologist might assert that social mobility is more limited in the United States than in other countries, and an economist might declare that globalization lowers the incomes of U.S. workers. How can we evaluate these issues and arguments? Using examples from anthropology, psychology, …

English 1012: English Composition Ii: Seminar In Expository Writing, Sophia Bamert

Open Educational Resources

In this course, you will continue to build on the expository writing and critical thinking skills you developed in ENGL 1010, and we will add research skills into the mix. Specifically, we will explore how and why research is not only relevant but crucial to understanding our own lives and uplifting our communities.

Our class will act as a research community this semester, learning together and helping one another collaboratively as you each pursue an individual research project. The course will offer continued guidance on the writing process — drafting, peer review, revising, formulating thesis statements, integrating quotations, etc. — …

Intro To Puerto Rican And Latinx Studies, Jasmine Mitchell

Open Educational Resources

“Survey and theoretical foundations in Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies. Case study on Puerto Rico. Pertinent themes in Puerto Rican and Latinx history, culture, literature, contemporary society, and politics. Impact of the United States’ economic policies on Puerto Rico and the causes of Puerto Rican and Latinx migration to New York City and urban centers. Satisfies Pathways Flexible Core US Experience in Its Diversity requirement.”

Latin American Culture, Bernardita Llanos Mardones

Open Educational Resources

This course examines a series of contemporary cultural and social issues in Latin America through the study of case studies in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Nicaragua, Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Among the topics we will analyze are: feminicide- or the killing of women due to their gender, abortion rights, historical and cultural memory, peace and war, sexual abuse and male power, politics and corruption, machismo and racism. The course ends with the ethics and life style based on the community practiced by the Andean world and summarized in the thirteen principles of “el buen vivir o Sumak Kawsay.” Through the readings …

Toxin-Like Proteins In The Venom Of Drosophila Parasitoids, Lady V. Cardenas

Dissertations and Theses

The figitid parasitoid wasps of Drosophila are gaining importance in agriculture due to their ability to kill the resilient soft-fruit pest Drosophila suzukii. Their success and infection strategies vary, and the mechanisms underlying these differences are largely unknown. Some of their venom proteins have been shown to be important in suppressing host defense. Here, we report that Ganaspis brasiliensis, a parasitoid of D. suzukii survives well on Drosophila yakuba, a host species with a strong cellular immunity, and infected flies are unable to mount a strong immune response. To predict possible toxin-like proteins in Ganaspis venoms that might suppress cellular …

Building An Evidence-Based, Innovative, Special Education Program To Fit The Needs Of New York City Schools And Students, Ginny Dembek, Yoon-Joo Lee, Stella Kyprianou

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Entrepreneurs Handbook: A Practical Meets Academic Guide For Both Current And Budding Business Owners And Risk Takers, Howard J. Friedman

Open Educational Resources

This work has been created with the intention of being used as a practical guide for the budding entrepreneur. The concepts are presented to optimize creative thinking and find a path to a fully realized business. From idea through funding, the company life cycle. This work is meant to provide the reader with all the materials that will be needed to make a real-world decision. Effort has been made to combine academic and practical data to offer a straightforward guide to finding, funding, and realizing your dream.

Mailing It In: Due Process Requires Technology-Driven Safeguards In Public Benefits, Eric Lukoff

City University of New York Law Review

Due process in safety net public benefit programs requires agencies to employ modern technology in providing notice that is reasonably likely to reach participants. The Supreme Court has held that due process is dependent on the time, place, and circumstances in which it operates. Scholars have further argued that due process is adaptable to changing facts and circumstances over time. Yet, mailed paper notices remain the standard in providing notice to participants in public benefit programs. Living in poverty today looks significantly different than it did nearly fifty years ago at the time of Mathews v. Eldridge, where the …

The Imperceptibility Of Muslim Identity, Nadia B. Ahmad

City University of New York Law Review

This article examines the challenges facing Muslim Americans, particularly Muslim women, as they confront systemic bias, intersectional oppression, and the racialization of religion in the United States. Through personal narrative and critical legal scholarship, it explores the pervasive nature of Islamophobia in political, academic, and societal spaces, highlighting its deep entrenchment in media and public policy. The author recounts a gendered Islamophobic attack during the 2024 Democratic National Committee’s Convention as an example of how prejudice and political intimidation intersect to marginalize Muslims. Using this experience as a foundation, the article critiques structural inequities reinforced through diversity, equity, and inclusion …

Caring For Public Art On Campus: A Case Study In Archives, Conservation And Curation For Public Art At The City University Of New York At York College In South Jamaica, Queens (2025 Cuny Research In The Classroom Grant Project), Emily Verla Bovino

Open Educational Resources

The City University of New York (CUNY) hosts public art at many of its colleges. The practice of funding public art through the CUNY Construction Fund and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) began after a 1966 New York State Law created a financing and construction partnership between the two entities.

As these collections of museum-quality contemporary art on CUNY campuses age and increase in value, how can care and conservation be ensured? Conceived in response to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the projected 11% growth of employment for archivists, curators, museum technicians, …

Caspases Protect Against Hyperglycemia Induced Necroptosis-Like Cell Death In Brain Endothelial Cells, Aleena S. Mathew

Theses and Dissertations

Acute diabetes characterized by high spikes in blood glucose levels in association with severe hyperglycemia can lead to an increased risk of ischemic stroke in the brain. To better understand high blood glucose levels, hyperglycemia, in the brain we explored its effects on endothelial cells. Endothelial cells line the inner walls of blood vessels and are directly impacted in hyperglycemia. Brain endothelial cells are a major component of the blood brain barrier (BBB) which tightly regulates the brain’s microenvironment. The type of cell death such as apoptosis, caspase dependent, or necroptosis, caspase independent, can exacerbate diabetes associated complications. There is …

“Democracy,” Usa, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

What does it mean to be an effective citizen in a democracy? Answering this question requires unpacking “democracy” and an analysis of institutions that systematically disempower and alienate citizens. This paper briefly examines the contributions of psychoanalysis to understanding democracy and authoritarianism. It scrutinizes U.S. governance institutions and points to democratic deficits and backsliding present even before Trump 1.0 and 2.0. These range from the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to the Federal Communications Commission. All contributed to institutionalizing minority rule and elite capture. Governance institutions failed to deliver what the American people tell opinion pollsters they …

Commencement Program, 2025, Cuny John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

Reports and Publications from John Jay College

Commencement Programs are handed out at each graduation. They include information on honorary degrees, awards and prizes and candidates for degree. However, they cannot be considered an official record of conferring of degrees.

Creating An Ofrenda, Sara Hinojos

Open Educational Resources

You do not need to be Mexican to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). What you need however is a deep and thoughtful cultural understanding of the practice. This lesson plan teaches students what Dia de los Muertos is, the influence of colonialism (past and present), how mainstream media understands the celebration in the U.S., and how local communities honor the celebration. This approach is from a media studies perspective and a particular focus on art, specifically altar making or making an ofrenda. Writer, philosopher, tejana Gloria E. Anzaldúa details that altars are “‘the sanctuary of the …

Fnes 722 Exercise, Energy Balance, And Body Composition, Bridget Mcfadden

Open Educational Resources

This course focuses on the interrelationships between exercise energetics, energy balance, and body composition. There are four major goals for students in this course. Each student will be expected to acquire and demonstrate knowledge in the following areas: macro- and micro- nutrient requirements and the role they play in physiological function; energy expenditure and body composition assessments; nutrition and exercise considerations for physique and sport; ability to evaluate the scientific evidence on nutritional ergogenic aids and diets.

Intro To Motion Graphics & Effects, Andrea E. Defelice

Open Educational Resources

Introduction to Motion Graphics & Effects MEDST 258 Section 1, 3 credits | Open Educational Resources (OERs) Faculty Fellowship Program 2024-2025 Online/Synchronous | Professor Andréa DeFelice

Links: Academic Commons: https://motiongraphicsfx.commons.gc.cuny.edu

OER-Calibrated COURSE DESCRIPTION: Get a project-based approach to the aesthetic and technical aspects of motion graphics and effects. This introductory course is designed to inform and inspire beginners, while utilizing OER and zero-cost materials. Students enrolled in this course are provided a free Adobe CC license and taught to use Adobe After Effects. Students are also taught how to be resourceful by searching out open license/free media online, by way …