Higher Education Commons^™

1967 Convocation Charter, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Faculty, administrators, and students signed a charter at the opening convocation of York College in 1967.

The Role Of Audiobooks In Academic Libraries, Catherine Stern

Publications and Research

The decision by the library of LaGuardia Community College to add audiobooks to its collection led librarians to examine the scope and the nature of audiobook use at other college and university libraries. The author created, distributed, and tabulated a survey that recorded a number of traditional uses for these materials as well as a number of interesting new possibilities and challenges.

Beyond Friending: Buddypress And The Social, Networked, Open-Source Classroom, Matthew K. Gold

Publications and Research

Classrooms have always been networks, of a sort, with professors and students forming an interlaced series of nodes that take shape over the course of a semester, but tools like BuddyPress and WordPress can make those networks more open, more porous, and more varied. In very useful ways, the classroom-as-social-network can help create engaging spaces for learning in which students are more connected to one another, to their professors, and to the wider world.

The C.R.E.A.T.E. Approach To Primary Literature Shifts Undergraduates’ Self-Assessed Ability To Read And Analyze Journal Articles, Attitudes About Science, And Epistemological Beliefs, Sally G. Hoskins, David Lopatto, Leslie M. Stevens

Publications and Research

The C.R.E.A.T.E. (Consider,Read, Elucidate hypotheses, Analyze and interpret data, Think of the next Experiment)method uses intensive analysis of primary literature in the undergraduate classroom to demystify and humanize science. We have reported previously that the method improves students’ critical thinking and content integration abilities, while at the same time enhancing their self-reported understanding of “who does science, and why.” We report here the results of an assessment that addressed C.R.E.A.T.E. students’ attitudes about the nature of science, beliefs about learning, and confidence in their ability to read, analyze, and explain research articles. Using a Likert-style survey administered pre- and postcourse, …

The Cuny Academic Commons: Fostering Faculty Use Of The Social Web, Matthew K. Gold, George Otte

Publications and Research

This paper analyzes the implementation of an academic social network that connects faculty members, administrators, and graduate students in a multi-campus university system. Part of a new generation of university-sponsored virtual spaces that foreground social networking, the CUNY Academic Commons has fostered a growing community of members who use the site to collaborate with colleagues across the system. This paper describes the processes involved in creating the site and offers guidance to institutions considering similar projects.

Overcoming The Model Minority Myth: Experiences Of Filipino American Graduate Students, Kevin L. Nadal, Stephanie T. Pituc, Marc P. Johnston, Theresa Esparrago

Publications and Research

Filipino Americans are one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States and the second largest Asian American/Pacific Islander ethnic group. However, there is little research focusing on the unique experiences of this group, particularly in higher education. This paper presents a qualitative exploration of the experiences of Filipino American graduate students utilizing consensual qualitative research methodology. Results were categorized into domains and themes, with an example of a domain being "deficiencies and lack of resources" and an example of a theme being "Filipino Americans as different from Asian Americans." Implications for higher education administrators and researchers are discussed.

About Us And Not About Us: Theorizing Student Resistance To Learning About Race And Racism From Underrepresented Faculty, Eve Tuck, Karanja Keita Carroll, Michael D. Smith

Publications and Research

Three early-career scholars write across their experiences as underrepresented faculty who teach required diversity courses to future educators in a predominantly white, small, state college. The authors theorize student resistance to course material and to faculty of color teaching about race and racism in a series of tableaus of their classrooms. They examine the ways that students' tactics of avoidance, consuming the Other, and "I won't learn from you" are simultaneously ''about us and not about us," unmasking uneven assumptions about the role of diversity courses in teacher preparation programs.

The Future Of Natural Selection Knowledge Measurement: A Reply To Anderson Et Al. (2010), Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The development of rich, reliable, and robust measures of the composition, structure, and stability of student thinking about core scientific ideas (such as natural selection) remains a complex challenge facing science educators. In their recent article (Nehm & Schonfeld 2008), the authors explored the strengths, weaknesses, and insights provided by a detailed exploration of three commonly used measures of student thinking about natural selection in a large sample of underrepresented minority students. One of their core findings was that all of the tools they studied--including the CINS--have strengths and weaknesses that must be carefully taken into consideration by those …

Welcome To The Land Of Super-Service: A Survivor's Guide. . .And Some Questions, Phyllis E. Vanslyck

Publications and Research

Community college faculty accept high service demands, in addition to heavy teaching loads, as essential to tenure and promotion. Much of service work is uncompensated or very modestly compensated. If historically service was a substitute for scholarship, this is no longer the case. And the culture of our college community does not encourage a discussion of service concerns. This article poses questions for faculty, for department chairs, for administrators regarding how best to support the multiple demands being made of community college faculty, particularly women.

Increasing Student-Teacher Interactions At An Urban Commuter Campus Through Instant Messaging And Online Office Hours, Nathan H. Lents, Oscar E. Cifuentes

Publications and Research

Encouraging first year undergraduate students in large lecture-hall classes to seek out and actively engage their professors is a perennial problem in science education. This problem is especially acute for commuter and minority populations. Thus, because personal relationships between students and professors are well known to promote student learning and academic success, fostering new ways to connect students and faculty is essential for reducing attrition at inner-city colleges. In the current study, we demonstrate that the use of instant messaging (IM) is highly effective in fostering student-teacher interactions in the lecture-hall setting of an introductory major-level biology course at John …

The Messy Teaching Conversation: Toward A Model Of Collegial Reflection, Exchange, And Scholarship On Classroom Problems, Heidi L. Johnsen, Michelle Pacht, Phyllis E. Vanslyck, Ting Man Tsao

Publications and Research

Whether we teach in junior or senior colleges, we often represent our teaching in the best possible light, leaving little room for acknowledgment or discussion of uncertainty or errors. It seems that the only way to discuss a set back is as part of a larger narrative, one where a failure is simply a precursor to success, a way of highlighting a challenge overcome.This wall of silence about our "messes" prevents us from honestly discussing our day-to-day work in the classroom. This article models just such a "messy teaching conversation."

Advocate, November 2009, Vol. [21], No. [3], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: Education Über Alles. (p. 2)

Adjuncting: The Collapse of the Tenure Track. Alison Powell (p. 4)

Health Issues: Rapid HIV Testing Returns to GC on Dec. 3. Collette Sosnowy (p. 5)

Political Analysis: The Militarization of Crowd Control. Justin Rogers-Cooper (p. 6)

Dispatches from the Front: Grading Papers is Hell (But It Doesn’t Have to Be). Talia Argondezzi (p. 8)

Books That Changed the Way We Think: Autonomy! Review of Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, edited by Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi (MIT Press, 2007). Ashley Dawson (p. 9)

Lessons in Terror at John …

In Transit Vol 4 Fall 2009, Laguardia Community College

LaGuardia Community College Publications

In Transit is the LaGuardia Journal on Teaching and Learning. It is published by the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY.

Advocate, October 2009, Vol. [21], No. [2], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: Back to Basics (p. 2)

Correction (p. 3)

Political Analysis: Defending the United Nations. Andrew Bast (p. 4)

Health Issues: Young but Not Invincible. Kimberly Libman (p. 5)

How to Avoid the Flu this Season (p. 5)

GC Students Join Protest to End Afghan War (p. 6)

Adjuncting: Where’s the Anger? Renée McGarry (p. 8)

Intellectual Leadership: Plato’s Dream, Popper’s Nightmare. C.A. Pasternak (p. 9)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The GC Advocate Guide to the 2009 NYC Mayoral Elections (p. 11)

Masthead (p. 2)

CUNY News in Brief: Bed Bugs …

Advocate, September 2009, Vol. [21], No. [1], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: A Riot of Their Own (p. 2)

Political Analysis: Battle over CAFTA Rages in El Salvador. Michael Busch (p. 6)

Adjuncting: Teacher Pay Around the World. Alison Powell (p. 8)

Dispatches from the Front: The Second Language of “Standard English.” Alison Powell (p. 9)

Health Issues: Student Health Services: Still There, Still Needed, Still Yours… So Speak Up! Collette Sosnowy, Health Issues Committee (p. 10)

Some Teaching Mistakes Other People Have Made (So You Don’t Have To). Nichole Stanford (p. 12)

Masthead (p. 2)

Letters to the Editor (p. 3)

On Class Violence. …

Advocate, May 2009, Vol. [20], No. [7], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: Writer’s Block (p. 2)

Adjuncting: Stifling the Economy of Ideas. Renée McGarry (p. 4)

Political Analysis: Letter from Dakar. Michael Busch (p. 7)

Foul Play at Bard? Controversy Ensues After College Terminates Kovel. John Boy (p. 8)

Midlife Crisis for a Movement Icon: At 95, the “Peace Pentagon” Building is Hardly in its Dotage; Is it Nonetheless Nearing the End of Its Days? John Otrompke (p. 10)

Masthead (p. 2)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 3)

Student Enrollment to Hit All-Time High

Even on the Cheap, Education Costs are Difficult to Bear

While …

Academic Library Services For Users With Developmental Disabilities: Partnership Of Access And Syracuse University Libraries, Adina Mulliken, Ann Atkins

Publications and Research

Syracuse University Library and Access partnered to provide library orientations to six Syracuse University students who have developmental disabilities. Access is a service that supports college course attendance for students who have developmental or cognitive disabilities. Students with developmental disabilities are being included in college life more and more. As this occurs, academic libraries will be providing more services to this population. We hope Syracuse University’s experience will be useful for other libraries to build on as they develop services. Additionally, we discuss opportunities to improve services for all students by focusing on students with developmental disabilities.

Director's Letter, Sarah Chinn

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Dear Friends: We all have guilty pleasures, and one of mine is the end-of-year top ten list. I love the condensing of the past twelve months in digestible morsels of best, worst, most important, most outrageous; it's as though I can live the year about to expire all over again from the comfort of my own home and in record time. This past year, though, resists easy summing-up.

General Education Inquiry Groups: The Story Of A Pedagogical Conversation, Gina Cicco

Touchstone

In September of 2007, I was asked to serve as leader of the Education Department’s Inquiry Group at Hostos Community College. At the time, the General Education initiative to form inquiry groups across all academic departments was fairly new. The first goal for our department was to define “inquiry group” and to establish a precise purpose for our group.

Brooklyn College To Offer Minor In Lgbtq Studies, Jesse Bayker

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Brooklyn College became the first CUNY school to offer undergraduates a minor in LGBTQ Studies when college faculty approved the proposal in December.

Advocate, March 2009, Vol. [20], No. [6], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor's Desk: Give it Back!: Getting New York’s Wealthiest to Pay Their Fair Share (p. 2)

Guest Editorial: The General’s Labyrinth Revealed, Patrick Inglis (p. 3)

Adjuncting: Naming the Problem, Renee McGarry (p. 4)

CUNY Edu-Factory (p. 5)

Political Analysis: Supply, Demand, and the Mexican Drug War, Andrew Bast (p. 6)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 7)

Hampshire College and the Politics of Divestment, Advocate Staff (p. 8)

Academic Labor Under Siege: Towards a Politically Engaged Professionalism, Henry A. Giroux (p. 10)

Book Review: Two or Three Things I Know About Him, Matt Lau (p. …

Using The Lure Of Gang Life To Teach Interpersonal And Group Attraction, Gordon Alley-Young

Publications and Research

Course: Small Group Communication

Objective: Students will apply group and interpersonal attraction theories to discover the factors impacting a young man's small group membership choices in The Lure of Gang Life; this short story illustrates the forces that attract individuals to different small groups across their lives.

Advocate, February 2009, Vol. [20], No. [5], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor's Desk: Putting Away Childish Things (p. 2)

An Open Letter to President Jennifer Raab, Hunter College, CUNY (p. 3)

In Memoriam: John Patrick Diggins (1935-2009) (p. 4)

Framing Shape: War Crimes and Paralysis, Alan Koenig (p. 6)

Adjuncting: Free Choice and Adjunct Equity, Renee McGarry (p. 8)

Afghanistan: The Use and Abuse of a Buffer State (Part 2), Christian Parenti (p. 9)

Gaza Forum: The War of Punishment and Frustration, Adel Safty (p. 12)

The Dark Days: Fortress Israel’s Final Stand, Naji Ali (p. 13)

Book Review: The Crisis of Labor, Carl Lindskoog (p. …

Academy Honors Two Asu Professors, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Advocate, December 2008, Vol. [20], No. [4], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Books Issue

From the Editor’s Desk: Shut it Down (p. 2)

Adjunct Layoffs on the Horizon: Effects of Paterson’s Budget Cuts Continue to Reverberate through CUNY Schools (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief: NYU-CUNY Financial Aid Partnership a Fraud (p. 3)

Grad Life: Debting on the Future. Justin Rogers-Cooper (p. 4)

Political Analysis: In Midnight’s Shadow. Danny Nassre (p. 5)

Adjuncting: Budget Cuts. Tuition Hikes. Job Insecurity. Renée McGarry and Jesse Goldstein (p. 7)

Afghanistan: The Use and Abuse of a Buffer State, Part 1. Christian Parenti (p. 8)

Masthead (p. 2)

Advocate Books Issue

Bolaño’s Inferno. …

Advocate, November 2008, Vol. [20], No. [3], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor's Desk: The Road Ahead (p. 2)

Political Analysis: The Other November Election, Michael Busch (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 3)

Adjuncting: Adjunct Project Wants You to Have More Money!, Renee McGarry and Jesse Goldstein (p. 5)

Grad Life: The Long View from the Ivory Tower, Alison Powell (p. 6)

What’s So Democratic about American Democracy?, Advocate Staff (p. 7)

Forgetting Iraq and the Discourse of Responsibility, Steven Pludwin (p. 9)

What’s Happening to America?, Chalmers Johnson, Bill Ayers, and Amiri Baraka (p. 11)

Book Review: Democracy’s Demons: Inside the Mind of the …

In Transit Vol 3 Fall 2008, Laguardia Community College

LaGuardia Community College Publications

In Transit is the LaGuardia Journal on Teaching and Learning. It is published by the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY.

Advocate, October 2008, Vol. [20], No. [2], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor's Desk: Shocking Wall Street: Disaster Capitalism and the Promise of Progressive Reform (p. 2)

Political Analysis: Three Days in the West Bank, Nirit Ben-Ari (p. 3)

Dispatches from the Front: Teaching Writing Intensively (and Often), James Hoff (p. 4)

Adjuncting: Graduate Student Health Insurance Is on Its Way — But Not For All, Renee McGarry and Jessie Goldstein (p. 5)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 5)

Grad Life: The Battle of St. Paul, Abe Walker (p. 6)

The Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now, Roisin O'Connor-McGinn (p. 8)

Profiteers, Union-Busters, Witch Hunters... Look Who’s …

Advocate, September 2008, Vol. [20], No. [1], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: I Want to Believe (p. 2)

Guest Editorial: Class Struggle and the PSC. Tom Smith (p. 3)

Opinion: Tech Fee: Let Students Decide. Gregory Donovan and Rob Faunce (p. 4)

Adjuncting: Grad Students, Job Security, and Health Care. Jessie Goldstein and Renée McGarry (p. 4)

Dispatches from the Front: Of Earth Monsters and Adjunct Lecturers. Renée McGarry (p. 5)

Grad Life: The Summer Fling. Erin Lee Mock (p. 6)

Political Analysis: China, New York, and the American Way. Justin Rogers-Cooper (p. 7)

The PSC’s “Adjunct Problem”: The Proposed Contract and the Future of …

Celebration Of The Committee On Beautiful Ideas, Judith Summerfield

Touchstone

I take this project seriously, this COBI. It is, for me, the most unconventional, sound, and forceful project at CUNY. The project is unconventional: it flies in the face of prevailing winds that make us to attend to depersonalized gerunds and reified nouns: teaching, learning assessment; to outcomes, summations, totals that signal failures, deficiencies; to inabilities that signal impossibilities. Failure rates, killer courses, remediation, that can level the faint at heart.