Higher Education Commons^™

Crossing Digital Borders: Student Success, Peer Mentorship And Ethical Ai Literacy In Community College Curricula, Adrian Bordoni, Jody A. Resko

Open Educational Resources

A changing job market set wthin the context of new Generative Articial Intelligence applications and technology requires academia to integrate, innovate and implement updated materials in their classes. Lack of training and awareness of ethical use of emerging technologies by students will be addressed, and best practices will be modeled, by Peer Mentors.

Faculty Coordinators will train 4 students to serve as Peer Mentors to develop materials as part of an interdisciplinary, career focused set of workshops. These workshops will be hosted in Education and Criminal Justice Classes in person- as well as a hybrid session in collaboration with Faculty …

La Citación En Educación: Funciones Retóricas En Textos Académicos Escritos Por Expertos Y Estudiantes Universitarios, David Sanchez-Jimenez, Juan Antonio Núñez Cortés, Enrique Alonso Sainz

Publications and Research

The present study aims to investigate the differences in citation usage and frequency among university students and expert writers in the field of Education. The analyzed corpus comprises 50 papers written in this discipline and is divided into two sub-corpora: one consisting of 25 TFGs and the other one formed by 25 articles published in specialized journals. To examine this phenomenon, a qualitative and quantitative methodology was employed, performing a textual analysis of the rhetorical functions of citations. This analysis is based in the typology proposed by Petrić in her 2007 article, slightly modified for the purpose of the present …

Highly Confident But Slightly Uncertain: A Long Overdue Reinvention Of The School Scientific Method, Teaching - Volume 4, Stephen Demeo

Publications and Research

In Volume 4, the last book of the series, I continue the argument for greater parity between conceptual knowledge—the "what" of science—and methodological knowledge—the "how" of science—but in the context of teacher instruction. To this end, two literature reviews are presented: One on how students build confidence, specifically regarding the reliability or consistency of measurement or results, and the other on scientific uncertainty. Research studies focusing on student misconceptions are summarized and organized from the elementary to the college level. These literature reviews describe invaluable ways for teachers to improve their instruction, while providing examples of experiments that can be …

Highly Confident But Slightly Uncertain: A Long Overdue Reinvention Of The School Scientific Method, Uncertainty And Error - Volume 3, Stephen Demeo

Publications and Research

Volume 3 explores the essential roles of uncertainty and error in scientific experimentation. It distinguishes between scientific error and scientific uncertainty: Scientific error refers to the difference between an experimental value and an accepted literature value, as well as the difference between data points in an x-y scatter plot and a predicted trendline. Scientific uncertainty, on the other hand, is associated with doubt arising from instrument limitations, variability within a data set, and psychological factors. Human error is set apart as mistakes or blunders, not to be conflated with scientific error.

Of utmost importance to the scientific investigator is the …

Chi Meta-Project Ecosystem Overview - Spring 2026, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This paper offers a high-level account of the Center for Holistic Integration’s (CHI) meta-project ecosystem as visualized in the included system map. CHI provides an organizational structure framed around persistent meta-projects that support and extend individual initiatives across curriculum, scholarly and applied research, infrastructure, artistic production, AI development, cultural inquiry, and external partnerships. Rather than presenting the map as a static inventory of projects, the paper examines how its core domains function as living systems through which knowledge, tools, documentation, participants, and collaborations can accumulate over time. It also considers how CHI-mediated connectivity, institutional integration, and external funding allow the …

Exploring Engineering Technology: A Multi-Year, Multidisciplinary Project-Based Engineering Technology Workshop, Benito Mendoza, Angran Xiao, Muhammad Ummy

Publications and Research

Many students enter engineering technology programs with a limited understanding of disciplinary differences, curricular expectations, and career pathways, contributing to early dissatisfaction and attrition. To address this challenge, we developed Exploring Engineering Technology, a multidisciplinary, project-based workshop that introduces students to Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer Engineering Technology through a shared robotic systems project. This paper presents a multi-year design-based educational research (DBER) study documenting the iterative refinement and sustained implementation of the workshop across three consecutive summers (2023–2025) at a large urban public college. Using a consistent post-workshop survey administered across cohorts and aggregate student progression indicators, we examine …

Pedagogy Of Care: Exploring Climate Justice Frameworks In Cuny Undergraduate Courses, Ismerlyn Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Climate justice centers the human rights of communities most impacted by the climate crisis rather than solely focusing on the scientific aspects of environmental challenges and disasters. Higher education institutions play a key role in advancing climate justice education, but research shows that frameworks are not consistently defined across institutions. The IRB-approved study that produced the findings in this capstone sought to explore how climate justice frameworks are implemented at the CUNY undergraduate level and learn more about the instructors delivering these courses. From February to April 2026, instructors from different CUNY undergraduate campuses were surveyed, interviewed, and asked to …

Cuny Oer Initiative Catalog (Ay 2024-2025), Jahanara Alamgir, Yujin Lee-Hwang, Rachael Nevins, Elliot Galvis, Rebecca Morofsky, Andrew Mckinney, Jojo Karlin

Open Educational Resources

This circulating catalog inventories the reusable teaching objects produced by CUNY campuses in AY 2024-2025! You’ll find textbooks, assignments, syllabi, videos, and more, organized by discipline and with brief descriptions of the resource. This publication (which links to all the resources) is supplemented by a by our online, filterable CUNY OER Initiative Catalog.

The CUNY OLS Research and Publishing Strategy team gathered, described and indexed the work of the campuses. OLS Fellow Hwang-Lee Yujin designed the publication.

Forever Young: Student Employee Unionization In Higher Education, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

This article presents history and data about unionization among graduate and undergraduate student employees in the United States. It demonstrates that student employee unionization is not a new phenomenon and is part of a second curriculum for higher education students, which provides first-hand experience in workplace representational democracy and citizenship, including maintaining a majority coalition and making hard necessary compromises

Academic Freedom And Collective Bargaining: A Joint Report By The National Center For The Study Of Collective Bargaining In Higher Education And The Professions And The Aaup’S Center For The Defense Of Academic Freedom, William A. Herbert, Isaac A. Kamola, Timothy R. Cain, Erin Ward, Anita Levy, Kathryn Ritchie, Ariana Gonzalez

Publications and Research

This is a joint report by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College (National Center) and the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF) at the American Association of University Professors. It presents excerpts from forty-five collective bargaining agreements in higher education to demonstrate the wide range of ways academic freedom is defined in contracts, or not, and how the negotiated definitions incorporate, quote, follow, mirror, or deviate from the principles set forth in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure (hereinafter 1940 Statement).

A Phenomenologically Informed Study Of Black Male Preservice Teachers’ Lived Experiences: Professional Socialization, Social Representation, And The Redesign Of Teacher Education For Equity, William A. Anders

Student Theses

This qualitative research explores the experiences of Black male preservice teachers in New York City’s teacher education programs. To examine the underrepresentation of Black male preservice teachers, the research employs Critical University Studies and Critical Race Theory to investigate the institutional barriers they face. Using semi-structured interviews with seven participants and reflexive thematic analysis, the findings revealed six paramount themes: Pathways in Teaching, Representation and Identity, Experiences in Teacher Education, Racial Bias and Institutional Challenges, the Role of Mentorship and Support Networks, and Teaching Philosophy.

Participants described the challenges that Black male preservice teachers face, including isolation, economic hardships, unsuitable …

A Critical Lens On Emotions And Learning: Shame, Loneliness, And Alienation In Community College, Mike Rifino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores how community college students make sense of and navigate their emotions related to learning. Community colleges are two-year public higher education institutions that primarily serve working-class and students of color, enrolling almost half of all current undergraduates in the United States, yet their experiences are rarely addressed by researchers. Drawing on critical theories (e.g., feminist politics of emotions, Black feminist/queer women of color theorizing), emotions in this study are conceptualized as socio-politically situated, shaped by institutions and ideologies distributed through power across intersecting social identities. Although emotion research in higher education has grown substantially in the past …

Building Engagement And Bringing Joy: Ungrading An Online, Asynchronous Course, Stephanie M. Margolin, Margaret Bausman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

In Their Own Words: Why First-Generation Minority Students Take On Leadership Roles At Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Suzette Ramsundar Ed.D

Theses and Dissertations

While there is an abundance of research on student leadership and how it impacts student retention (Tinto, 1987 and Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), it is typically from the university's perspective. This phenomenological study, however, investigated the experiences and perceptions of first-generation minority students who commuted to campus and pursued leadership roles at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Utilizing phenomenological methodology, this research examined the lived experiences of eight student leaders to understand how they made meaning of their leadership engagement.

Student leaders in this study shared the details of the significant challenges they navigated, including financial pressures, commuting demands, cultural barriers, and …

The Open Knowledge Fellowship: An Opportunity For Transformative Learning At The Doctoral Level, Elvis Bakaitis, Jill Cirasella, Patrick Mcgee

Publications and Research

How can we integrate the principles, practicalities, and complexities of open educational resources (OER) and open access scholarly literature into graduate-level education? At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), the popular and successful Open Knowledge Fellowship offers a much-needed intervention in doctoral education by addressing these topics and associated debates. Between 2020 and 2025, the intensive six-week Fellowship program was offered 12 times and trained over 200 doctoral students from across the disciplines in the selection and use of openly licensed resources in the courses they teach. These 200+ students then taught their revamped courses …

Appendices A, B, C, D, & E For "In Their Own Words: Qualitative And Quantitative Analyses Of What Students, Staff, And Faculty Say About Vertical Transfer", Alexandra W. Logue, Vita Rabinowitz, Kerstin Gentsch, David Wutchiett, Barbara Condliffe, Sophia Sutcliffe, Yoshiko Oka, Stephanie Abbeyquaye, Rhina Torres, Nayeon Yoo, Kyle Du

Publications and Research

Deposited here are the Appendices (A, B, C, D, & E) for an article to be published in 2026 in Journal of Postsecondary and Student Success. The abstract of this article is:

This research analyzed higher education constituencies’ statements about vertical transfer (student transfer from community to bachelor’s colleges). Data consisted of both focus group excerpts involving dozens of students, staff, and faculty, and of answers to open-ended survey questions completed by thousands of students and faculty. Results were generally consistent using both qualitative (topic identification) and quantitative (bigram frequency and sentiment analysis) analyses. The results were also compared …

Graduate Student Retention: Examining Why Master’S Students Leave And What Motivates Their Return In A Large Public University System, Sonja Prophete

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate student persistence is a relatively unexplored area in the literature of higher education studies; specifically, at a multi-institutional scale at the master's level. This research study examines the factors which cause students to discontinue their master's degrees, and what conditions could possibly support them returning to their program at a large urban public university system. The current study was guided by Hoyt and Winn's (2004) distinction between non-returning students, and Bean & Metzner's (1985) theoretical model of student attrition. A sequential mixed-methods study was conducted to examine the institutional and environmental influences on students' decision-making processes.

The quantitative data …

Seek In Cuny Archives, Reign Mcconnell

Publications and Research

SEEK in CUNY Archives is an inclusive research guide to archival materials about the Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program, and College Discovery (CD) program available at CUNY archives. The SEEK Program was established within CUNY in 1965 on the pre-baccalaureate level to integrate Black and Puerto Rican students into the CUNY system and expanded to other senior-level colleges in 1966. The program provides students with academic and financial support, as well as tutoring and counseling services. Currently, the SEEK Program is available at twelve of CUNY’s four-year colleges. College Discovery is a two-year program …

Major And Institution Transfer Path Combinations And The Relaxed Lasso Method: Parsimonious Prediction Of Vertical Transfer Student Success, David Wutchiett, A. W. Logue, Martin Kurzweil, Colin Chellman

Publications and Research

The majors, institutions, and their combinations, which characterize transfer between higher education institutions relate to student success but introduce high-dimensionality and multicollinearity to statistical modeling. Relaxed lasso regression, a procedure blending regularized lasso models with unregularized refit models, selects variables and facilitates unbiased coefficient estimation in high-dimensional settings. Using a large sample of students transferring from associate to bachelor’s programs (n=28,166), we compared lasso and ridge regression parsimonious models predicting bachelor’s graduation and posttransfer GPA improvement, evaluating associations using unregularized parsimonious predictive models. Relaxed lasso parsimonious optimal models outperformed standard lasso and ridge regression models while including few of 702 …

A Study Of The Impacts Of Infusing Data Analysis And Research In An Interdisciplinary Environmental Economics Course, Sean P. Macdonald

Publications and Research

This paper explores the impacts of introducing quantitative literacy skills in an interdisciplinary Environmental Economics course typically taught as an issues and policy course without a quantitative component. The study examines the effects of infusing an engaging, student-selected data collection and analysis assignment on students' quantitative reasoning skills, as well as their interest in and attitudes about data analysis and quantitative information. Using data gathered from a set of pre- and post-assessment questions designed to measure changes in quantitative reasoning skills and attitudes, the findings point to significant attitudinal impacts, gains, but smaller, insignificant gains in quantitative reasoning skills.

Reclaiming Agency: Ai Hallucinations And Translingual Interrogations In The City Tech Writing Center,, Joseph Franklin, Anna Laura Falvey

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Finding Solutions: Meeting Essential Needs To Overcome Health And Educational Inequities Among College Students, Nicholas Freudenberg, Rashida Crutchfield

Publications and Research

Many economic, academic, and social factors influence college completion, and scholars have documented that a significant cause of students leaving school before graduation is that many do not have their basic needs for food, housing, and health care met. These barriers undermine their academic success by forcing students to reduce the time spent on their studies, work more hours, or stop out of school to support themselves or their families. Unmet essential needs jeopardize academic and life success for students in higher education across the United States and widen racial/ethnic and class inequities in college completion and health. Our review …

Recognition Of Service: Information For Faculty Seeking Tenure, Certificate Of Continuous Employment (Cce), And Promotion, The Center For Excellence In Teaching, Learning, & Leadership, Soniya Munshi, Elena Sigman

Open Educational Resources

Service is an important element of the faculty experience at Queens College. In Spring 2025, the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CETLL) convened two panels about fulfilling expectations for service activities for QC faculty at various stages of tenure and promotion. Each of the panels was comprised of deans, department chairs, and faculty members, including a Provost’s Faculty Fellow.

The panels aimed to address recurring faculty questions about service, including:

• what activities are recognized as faculty service

• how to document service activities

• how service activities factor into tenure, promotion, and CCE decisions

This informational document condenses the …

Writing Workshop Journal: A Student-Centered Guide For College Composition, Tanya Zhelezcheva

Open Educational Resources

This comprehensive OER workbook supports ENGL 101 (Composition) students through a structured journal-based writing system. The resource combines Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles with post-process pedagogy to offer diverse pathways for student learning and writing development.

The workbook features:

- 4-component journal entry structure (exercises, reflection, next steps)

- 40+ writing exercises across four categories (Foundation Skills, Reading Logs, Drafting, Growth Mindset)

- Extensive planning and organizational tools (weekly/monthly calendars, goal-setting frameworks)

- Metacognitive reflection exercises that build writing awareness - Backward planning and time management strategies

- Evidence-based approaches to developing thesis statements, integrating sources, and crafting arguments …

Open Ended Item Response Dataset For "In Their Own Words: Qualitative And Quantitative Analyses Of What Students, Staff, And Faculty Say About Vertical Transfer", A. W. Logue, Vita Rabinowitz, Kerstin Gentsch, David Wutchiett, Barbara Condliffe, Sophia Sutcliffe, Yoshiko Oka, Stephanie Abbeyquaye, Rhina Torres, Nayeon Yoo, Kyle Du

Publications and Research

This dataset consists of statements by CUNY students and faculty concerning their knowledge of and experiences with vertical transfer (transfer from a community college to a bachelor's college). The statements were obtained via open-ended survey questions. Thousands of students and thousands of faculty participated.

Tutoring Online During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Use Of Critical Incidents To Improve Practice, A.E. Dreyfuss, Jose Armando Sanchez Diaz, Barakat Adigun, Helen Baraki, Thalyia Thompson

Publications and Research

Developing expertise in the practice of online tutoring is presented by peer tutors who provided support to students with synchronous sessions with the onset of COVID-19. The experiences and learning of peer tutors were probed through the use of critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954), and how weekly training meetings provided support to them, creating a collaboration among the tutors and the training manager.

Open Educational Resources (Oer) Workshop Slides For The Center For Teaching & Learning Annual Seminar, Ian Mcdermott, Rena D. Grossman, Emma Handte

Open Educational Resources

LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York (CUNY) began receiving funds from a New York State Open Educational Resources (OER) grant in 2017. Since 2020 we have offered a spring OER Seminar through the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). The seminar invites instructors and staff to explore their past, current, or desired use of OER at LaGuardia. Seminar co-leaders present and discuss a variety of experiences with OER, from authoring a textbook to implementing OER in high enrollment courses. The five workshops have been co-led by the library in collaboration with faculty in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics, …

Generative Ai In The Classroom: Best Practices, A Cetll Guide, The Center For Excellence In Teaching, Learning, & Leadership, S E. Hackney, Brandon K. Jeffries Mr., Emily Drabinski, Joshua Rogers, Holly Weisberg, Yael Neumann, Ashlyn Cavitt, Claudia Brumbaugh, Lindsey Albracht, Robin Naughton, Annalee Roustio, Amy Wan, Soniya Munshi, Jean Kelly

Open Educational Resources

In 2024-2025, in collaboration with Amy Wan, Professor of English and Special Assistant to the Provost for Writing, CETLL hosted a Generative AI in the Classroom Faculty Fellowship, through which an interdisciplinary cohort of thirteen faculty members were supported to critically engage the different concerns and opportunities that generative AI presents for our work as educators.

From our discussions with the Faculty Fellows and other resources, we have developed Generative AI in the Classroom: Best Practices, a CETLL Guide. This guide includes step-by-step guidance about how to engage with questions of generative AI in your classrooms, sample syllabus statements, …

Growth Mindset And Generative Ai, J. Elizabeth Clark, Casandra Silva Sibilin

Open Educational Resources

This module expands the CUNY Learning Mindsets framework—originally developed with the University of Virginia’s Motivate Lab to support student motivation through growth, purpose and relevance, and sense of belonging (GPS)—by introducing a fourth module focused on generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI). Designed in spring 2025 by CUNY Learning Mindset Ambassadors Casandra Silva Sibilin and J. Elizabeth Clark, the module integrates growth mindset principles with emerging research on Gen AI to help educators and students engage with these tools as opportunities for learning and development rather than shortcuts or sources of academic misconduct.

The module provides an introduction to …

Evidence-Based Shared Agendas For Scholarship On Teaching With Primary Sources: Reflections On A Bibliometric Analysis, Jen Hoyer, Anne Bahde

Publications and Research

This article explores how scholarship about teaching with primary sources (TPS) has evolved over time and what future directions past work might suggests. Using bibliometric analysis and visualization tools, we examined how TPS work has grown; what fields and disciplines focus on this work; key themes and issues; and what scholarship has been influential to the field. These insights led to reflections on disconnects across the field, considerations for publishing about TPS, and the potential of pedagogical standards and guidelines. Finally, this article concludes with recommendations on how this analysis points to possibilities for shared education, space, conversation, and products.