Nucleus
A Faculty Commons Quarterly Volume 7
Fall 2015
NUCLEUS: A FACULTY COMMONS QUARTERLY
Volume 7 | Fall 2015
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N EW YOR K CIT Y COLLEGE OF T ECH NOLOG Y of the City University of New York
Faculty Commons
Russell K. Hotzler President
A Center for Teaching, Learning, Scholarship and Service
Bonne August Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Miguel Cairol Vice President for Administration and Finance Marcela Katz Armoza Vice President for Enrollment and Student Affairs Gilen Chan Special Counsel/Legal Affairs Designee
Julia Jordan, Director Assessment and Institutional Research Tammie Cumming, Director Kimberly Johnson, Institutional Research Specialist Yimi Zhao, Senior Institutional Research Analyst Olga Batyr, Survey Services Liaison James Jeannis, Research Assistant Office of Sponsored Programs Barbara Burke, Director Patty Barba Gorkhover, Associate Director Eleanor Bergonzo, Assistant Director
Stephen M. Soiffer Special Assistant to the President/ Institutional Advancement
Grants Outreach Coordinator 2015-2016 Professor Soyeon Cho
Pamela Brown Associate Provost
US Department of Education Title V A Living Laboratory Charlie Edwards, Project Manager
Justin Vazquez-Poritz Interim Dean, School of Arts and Sciences
Design Team Professor Anita Giraldo, Artistic Director Kevin Rajaram, Web Master Maen Caka, Web Developer Loubna Aly, Arianna Bollers Raciel Guzman, William Luperena Mandy Mei, Marlon Palmer, Designers
Kevin Hom Dean, School of Technology and Design David Smith Dean, School of Professional Studies Carol Sonnenblick Dean, Division of Continuing Education
Curator Professor Sandra Cheng Photographer Arianna Bollers
Professional Development Advisory Council (PDAC)
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Daniel Alter Isaac Barjis Esteban Beita
Gwen Cohen-Brown Susan Davide Lynda Dias
Paul King Darya Krym Xiangdong Li
Susan Phillip Marcia Powell Estela Rojas
Nadia Benakli Lucas Bernard Karen Bonsignore Candido Cabo Sanjoy Chakraborty
Mary Sue Donsky Aida Egues Boris Gelman Pa Her Louise Hoffman
Janet Liou-Mark Karen Lundstrem Zory Marantz John McCullough Djafar Mynbaev
Walied Samarrai Rebecca Shapiro Kimberly Strickler Ryoya Terao Shauna Vey
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Gail Williams Farrukh Zia Pamela Brown, Chair
Contents
Fall 2015
What Is the Work of the Faculty?
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Undergraduate Research
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City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press
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US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
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L4: Living Lab Learning Library
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How Will You Use OpenLab?
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“At Home” Review
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Poem
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Bonne August
Pamela Brown
Mark Noonan Paul C. King
Anna Matthews, Laura Westengard Jill Belli, Jody Rosen Michael McAuliffe
“Troubled Asset Relief” Robert Ostrom
“ L4 has potential to grow and make City Tech an internationally visible force for emerging pedagogical innovation.” Anna Matthews, Laura Westengard L4 Co-Directors
Site Plan - Egress CoverUS Department of Energy Solar Decathlon DURA (Durable, Urban, Resilient, Adaptable)
E d itor s, Ba rba ra Bu rk e and Ju li a Jo rd an | D e s i g ne r, Ma rlon Palm e r | P r i nt i n g , R e p rod u ction C e nte r at C it y Te ch NUCLEUS: A FACULTY COMMONS QUARTERLY
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What Is the Work of the Faculty? Teaching, Scholarship, and Also Service Bonne August expectation for service does not end when the hurdles of tenure or promotion have been passed; it is an integral part of faculty work.
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ll over the United States, at colleges and universities large and small, new faculty members are instructed that their work is expected to have three well-developed and demonstrated facets: teaching, scholarship (extended to include creative work and certain kinds of professional work), and service. This concept provides the foundation for evaluation of faculty members and for recommendations regarding their tenure and promotion. Like so many apparently straightforward matters, however, this expectation proves far less clear-cut when applied to the widely varied disciplines and professional fields that make up the curriculum. What is clear—or should be—is that these three designations are not separate domains but in reality are aspects of a coherent professional life. Research and scholarship—the creation of knowledge—and their counterpart, the production of creative work, nourish teaching and may in turn be nourished by work with students. Ideally too, service grows from the faculty member’s engagement in teaching and scholarship. And like teaching and scholarship, the
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CUNY’s guidance to faculty describes service as “the ability to work with others for the good of the institution.” Some of that work will inevitably involve tasks that are neither inspiring nor especially engaging, but are simply needed as part of the shared work of departments and institutions. Other service, however, such as leadership in college governance, creation of new programs and degrees, or playing an important role in a significant project, offers opportunities to accept meaningful challenges, make a permanent contribution to the institution, or help change the direction of students’ lives. What service is not is nominal presence on committees with no meaningful agendas or records of accomplishment. This issue illuminates ways that service can grow out of or animate other aspects of faculty work. Mentoring students in City Tech’s growing undergraduate research program, discussed by Associate Provost Pamela Brown, offers a particularly meaningful form of service, extending both teaching and scholarship to introduce students to the core work of the faculty member’s discipline. Team DURA, the faculty and students who participated in the Architectural Technology Department’s entry to the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition, experienced a quintessential hands-on learning project. They designed and built a solar-powered house that was shipped to California and reassembled for the competition, competing successfully against teams comprising graduate students.
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Our Title V grant: A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st Century College of Technology, now nearing its end, leaves a rich and living legacy of teaching-related service. OpenLab, with more than 15,000 users, is embedded across and beyond the curriculum. In this issue thirty-some new faculty weigh in on how they are using or plan to use this rich resource. Dozens of faculty members have participated as Faculty Fellows or Associate Fellows, designing assignments and teaching activities that bring high impact practices to their classrooms. Through the Living Lab, Laura Westengard (English) and Anna Matthews (Dental Hygiene) have developed L4, a public global teaching resource, making available some of the best work of City Tech colleagues and inviting contributions from outside the college, as well, in a vibrant example of Open Pedagogy. Scholarship and academic service are closely linked in Mark Noonan’s (English) NEH Summer Seminar, which brought 24 faculty members from across the United States to City Tech last summer to explore the history of the periodical press in New York City. Finally, creative work receives its due in this issue as Michael McAuliffe (Humanities) reviews “At Home,” a faculty-staff art exhibit now hanging in the Faculty Commons. Through their service, these faculty members have reached beyond their classrooms and beyond our campus in significant ways, illustrating our Gen Ed Living Lab aspirations and positioning themselves as scholarly and creative ambassadors of City Tech.
Undergraduate Research Opportunities for Teaching, Scholarship, and Service Pamela Brown Integrating authentic research and guided inquiry into the curriculum can make courses more relevant and lead to publications, particularly in educational research journals. These curricular research experiences help students develop hands-on skills, learn to deal with uncertainty, work effectively in groups, and may pique their interest to subsequently undertake additional research projects.
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eaching, scholarship, service — these are the responsibilities of faculty around the world. Their relative emphasis depends on the institutional culture and mission, as well as discipline standards. With only 24 hours in a day, achieving the right balance among teaching, scholarship, and service is an important challenge. Through undergraduate research, the demands of the three traditional roles can be part of an integrated set of activities, rather than in competition with each other. Undergraduate research is defined by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) as an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline. George Kuh has identified undergraduate research as a high-impact educational practice, leading to gains in student learning and persistence [1]. A recent study showed that City Tech students who participated in the apprenticeship model of undergraduate research had higher graduation rates than a matched comparison group.
Mentoring undergraduates through the apprenticeship model can also combine teaching, service, and scholarship. Many faculty-student collaborations at City Tech have already led to presentations at regional, national and international conferences and peerreviewed publications (http://www. citytech.cuny.edu/academics/deptsites/ schoolofartsandsciences/docs/stu_ scholarly_activities.pdf). Supporting undergraduate research is arguably teaching and service as research experiences allow undergraduate students to discover new knowledge, learn to balance collaborative and individual work, develop workforce skills, explore an area of interest, and may inspire students to higher education and careers as researchers. Several programs and faculty committees provide the support structures that help to make City Tech’s undergraduate research programs such a success. Honors Scholars and Black Male Initiative (BMI), under the leadership of Janet Liou-Mark (Mathematics) and Reginald Blake (Physics), organize the student professional development workshops that enrich participating students’ research experiences.
Students in the Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), City Council sponsored CUNY Research Scholars Program (CRSP), and the newly launched CUNY Strategic Investment Initiative Bachelor’s Research Scholars Program (BRSP) also participate. The Committee on Undergraduate Research maintains information on internship opportunities, mentoring and faculty research interests on their OpenLab site, under the direction of Jody Rosen (English), and co-sponsors the Research Mixer with Honors and BMI. Some funding through the CUNY Strategic Investment Initiative is available to support the purchase of equipment and supplies and faculty and student travel to conferences to further support research. With so many benefits to both faculty and students, I encourage you to consider becoming involved in undergraduate research. To do so, please contact the newly appointed Director of Undergraduate Research, Hamid Norouzi (Construction Management and Civil Engineering Technology), a long-time member of the Undergraduate Research Committee. Professor Norouzi will help to coordinate all of these activities, and to create new ones for students and faculty. He takes over after the impressive tenure of Justin Vazquez-Poritz (Physics) as Director of Undergraduate Research, prior to his appointment as interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Upcoming initiatives include further expanding course-based undergraduate research in the engineering technology curriculum, and expanding student professional development opportunities.
[1] Kuh, George. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. AAC&U, 2008
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City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press Mark Noonan
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ew York City has been the publishing capital of periodical literature in America since the Civil War. At the epicenter of advertising, commerce, publishing, immigration and a host of socio-political movements, New York produced periodicals that both shaped and reflected the most vital and tumultuous currents of American culture and politics. Today, contemporary digital technology has not only transformed the nature of magazines; it has enabled the creation of digital archives that put two hundred years of magazine production within reach of scholars everywhere. These technological possibilities have crystallized periodical studies as an important new focus in humanities scholarship, inviting the development of new interpretive and critical tools. As Project Director for a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, I designed and led a summer seminar on City of Print: New York and the Periodical Press. Held in June 2015, the seminar brought a diverse cohort of college faculty from across the nation to Brooklyn to explore the shaping of readerships and genres and the significance of place in magazine culture. Seminar participants considered the impact of publishing institutions on the careers of major writers and artists, including Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, O. Henry, Dorothy Parker, W.E.B. Dubois, James Thurber, and Norman Mailer.
Over two weeks, NEH participants took part in discussions led by cultural historians, archivists and experts in the fields of American literature, art and urban history; participated in hands-on sessions in the periodicals collection of the New-York Historical Society; visited sites important to the rise of New York’s periodical press, such as Newspaper Row, the Algonquin Hotel, and the Conde Nast archives in the Freedom Tower. They also worked collectively on a digital map hosted by Historypin. Across eras, New York disseminated news and produced creative content in a plethora of publications, ranging from newspapers, monthly reviews and annuals to niche magazines covering political, social, or aesthetic matters. It was very exciting to bring together scholars from across the country to study this important archive and to organize this material on our digital map for further study. Publishing in New York City is an ever-evolving story which this institute—based out of City Tech—plans to continue to tell for both academic audiences and the general public.
This project is supported by NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes.
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY MANDY MEI
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The Solar Decathlon 2015 Paul C. King
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PHOTOGRAPH BY MARLON PALMER
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hrough a competition sponsored by the US Department of Energy in Fall 2013, the Department of Architectural Technology was one of 20 architecture programs from across the country invited to participate in its bi-annual Solar Decathlon. Selected institutions were challenged to design and build a net-zero house in which the power needs of the house are met by a solar powered array. City Tech named its entry DURA (Durable, Urban, Resilient, Adaptable) as a response to the impact of Superstorm Sandy which hit the coast of New York City in October of 2012, flooding the city and taking large sections of the city off the power grid for weeks. A unique urban solution that can be adapted to multiple site configurations, our competition entry called for the development of a low scale four-story building of four to eight apartment units, each independently powered by a vertical solar array erected on the south façade. The leadership team included Alexander Aptekar, the Solar Decathlon Project Director, Moses Grubb, a master carpenter, Amanda Waal, an experienced decathlete, and me, as construction manager. Over two years a group of students and faculty from a wide range of disciplines including Architecture, Construction Management and Civil Engineering, Environmental Control, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Hospitality Management and Communication Design were taken through the design process in the classroom, through the environment of an active construction site at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, to the competition site in Irvine, California, where they spoke of their experience and defended their ideas to a professional jury and the public. We were supported by many others here at the college, professional consultants as
well as sponsors including Santander Bank which provided a combination of funding, expertise, and time. Primary construction began in May of 2015 and continued until the house was loaded onto trucks for shipping in the middle of September, with the judging and public exhibition portion of the competition occurring in the month of October.
“As leaders of the project Alexander and I now understand how difficult good learning and good teaching can be...and the importance of remaining open minded and versatile and ready to improvise.” This outline alone cannot fully express the magnitude and intensity of the experience or the rich learning environment it provided our students and faculty. Each phase of the process—Design, Construction, and Competition—brought its own distinct experiences and challenges. What was unique about our entry is who we are, an ethnically diverse group of students and faculty from an urban public undergraduate institution who commuted on a daily basis from all over the city to our Brooklyn campus, a combination that was simultaneously our greatest source of challenge and strength.
The Design Process: Compromise and Acceptance From the outset, our process would need to be collaborative and would encompass a wide range of disciplines and expertise too great for any individual student or faculty member to possess. In order for any idea to move beyond the Design phase, it would first need to be thoroughly researched and vetted; participants would need to deftly exhibit critical soft skills including presentation, defense, negotiation, compromise, and acceptance. Over the course of two years a rotating group of as many as 50 students and faculty simultaneously debated architectural, engineering, structural, mechanical, building science, and construction methodology while they worked to develop the DURA concept. Debates were often passionate and fierce, with hurt feelings. While some chose to abandon the process and leave the team, others took on the critical roles of leaders or peacemakers helping the group maintain itself through a democratic consensus-building process.
The Construction Process: Pace and Endurance In the second phase we moved from the classroom to the construction site at the edge of the water in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In retrospect, when I visualize that empty building site and the students working to lay out the footings, it is amazing that a group of students with no construction experience was able to come so far. In four short months they learned to work with tools, to interpret their design drawings into details that were built and assembled into a 1000 square foot house. We often struggle as educators to try to communicate to students the importance of something they have not yet experienced themselves. When
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learning is directly connected to a physical experience, when students manipulate building materials with tools and begin to understand how they behave, a new level of learning is possible. When a hole drilled in a piece of wood weakens it to a point of failure, this leads to understanding and true knowledge is gained. The experience was intense, beginning six days a week in May from 7 am till 7 pm and ending by working almost continually through the month of September, often through the night with little or no sleep, as we coordinated the loading of our house onto trucks for transport to California. It is not often that we consider the development of pace and endurance to be key soft skills of the learning experience.
The Competition: Adversity, Fortitude, and Pride Arrival on the competition site brought our experiences into perspective. After two years of working together as a team, we were now in a public forum alongside the other teams.
“I realized that people will give their all in
order to realize projects that are important
the others. While the typical solution was a single family detached house with a solar array often hidden on the roof, our multi-story urban solution featured a set of vertical steel fins supporting an array of 19 solar panels visible along the south façade. Articles published on the 2015 Solar Decathlon pointed to our house as one of the few in the competition that presented new and sustainable ideas. Some teams relied on professional contractors for construction while others were divided into sub-teams with one group focused on assembly, another on public exhibit, and a third on the disassembly after the competition,
allowing each group to be well rested and fresh. Our team stood in contrast— a true cross section of our urban roots and smaller than the others—we had a single group who wore all these hats simultaneously. While this may have put us strategically at a disadvantage, it was clear that the involvement of our team in all aspects of the competition made for a richer and more valuable experience. Adversity, while difficult, can be the greatest source of strength and inspiration. During transit we lost all five of our spare solar panels, suffered damage to over 50% of our cement board façade, and the damage to our mechanical module prevented us from
to them. In our case, seeing our home finished.”
—City Tech decathlete
PHOTOGRAPH BY CARLOS HENRIQUEZ
As each team began to assemble its house, as each design took shape, we began to see ourselves in the context of our fellow competitors, to see how our team and our DURA concept stacked up against others. There were striking differences among the teams and the concepts and visually our house stood in striking contrast to 10
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being able to put our sprinkler system online. When the competition officially opened we were not ready. Missing the first two days of competition put us at a deficit from the start.
“...to prove myself and
to see what I was made of, and to contribute to a greater cause...
by completing the
decathlon I grew as an individual and took part in
In the end, of the 18 teams that were originally part of the competition, we finished 5th place in Engineering, 7th place in Architecture with an overall standing of 13th of the 14 teams that made it all the way to Irvine, California.
The Legacy of DURA The legacy of DURA is not just embodied in our building but in our students. As they move forward in their lives and their careers they will carry with them the value of this seminal experience. As leaders of the project Alexander and I now understand how difficult good learning and good teaching can be both physically and mentally, and the importance of remaining open minded and versatile and ready to improvise.
Would we do it differently? Yes of course—after seeing how much work our students are capable of doing and learning in such a short period of time— we are ready to sign up again. At present our house sits in storage in California along with four others, including the winning entry from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, all waiting to raise funds for transportation back home or for an appropriate home in California. It is our hope that our house can remain in a public forum where it can continue to serve an educational role.
something special.” —City Tech decathlete
PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS KELSEY, U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY
During those dark days as we continued to work and our team exhibited an unwillingness to give up. We found support from unexpected sources as both the competition organizers and our fellow competitors showed up at our doorstep tool belts in hand to lend assistance—and we accepted. It was the spirit and actions of our students that served as a catalyst that transformed the character of the competition to a more open and supportive environment.
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L4: Living Lab Learning Library A Virtual Resource Exchange of Teaching Practices Anna Matthews and Laura Westengard Background
W PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN RAJARAM
e participated in the 3rd year General Education Seminar, and joined the final fellowship year in 2015 as Communications Leaders, tasked with creating an online resource exchange of best teaching practices, many of which were developed in the course of the Living Lab fellowships.
Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology
Development Over the past five years City Tech’s Title V project, A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st Century College of Technology, has implemented a variety of initiatives to help define and realize the college’s unique institutional vision of general education. These include: • Conducting the General Education Seminar, bringing together diverse groups of Faculty Fellows to revitalize General Education through place-based learning and high-impact educational practices; • Development of the OpenLab, City Tech’s innovative open digital platform for teaching, learning and collaboration; • Partnering with the Office of Assessment and Institutional Research (AIR) to integrate comprehensive outcomes assessment into the General Education curriculum; • Supporting the creation of the Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center, devoted to interdisciplinary, place-based study of Brooklyn’s historic waterfront. This work has been made possible by the efforts of a great many passionate and dedicated faculty members from across the college, inside and outside the project. While the grant officially draws to a close this year, faculty work continues in the Gen Ed and Assessment Committees, in the ongoing Living Lab General Education Seminars (now offered through the Faculty Commons), in the vibrant and ever-expanding community on the OpenLab, and in many other complementary initiatives, L4 being one of them.
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We envisioned the online resource exchange as a way to integrate the HighImpact Educational Practices (https:// www.aacu.org/leap/hips) [1] and other innovative teaching methodologies into our college’s culture. In order to develop a site that is appealing and useful to faculty within City Tech and beyond, we consulted with individuals, departments, and committees. Through this highly collaborative process we learned that in addition to a forum for the exchange of teaching activities, the site needed to be easy to navigate, searchable, and it should offer visitors valuable information about pedagogy, publishing, and links to other important sites, such as Faculty Commons and AIR. With all of this in mind, we developed L4: Living Lab Learning Library, a project hosted on City Tech’s OpenLab and designed to be a userfriendly platform where faculty can access important information and share their unique and creative projects and assignments, big or small.
The Site Today L4: Living Lab Learning Library features a unique and cohesive design with original artwork by the Faculty Commons design team (Matthew Joseph). The memorable name was developed in collaboration with Living Lab leadership, current fellows, and Faculty Commons, and thanks to the behind-the-scenes work of City Tech’s OpenLab team (Andrew McKinney, Scott Henkle), the site features a fillable Activity Template Form, which improves functionality of the site and simplifies online submission process. As a public site, L4 allows both City Tech faculty and educators from beyond the college community to easily contribute teaching activities, and the posted activities are automatically categorized to streamline searching. Educators looking for new ideas in the classroom can easily filter the posted activities to find the posts that suit their specific needs. In addition to activities, the site features resources for publication, further research, and assessment practices.
The Future L4 has potential to grow and make City Tech an internationally visible force for emerging pedagogical innovation. In Spring 2016, we will join the college’s General Education Committee to continue promoting and maintaining the site as L4 codirectors. However, the true success of the site will depend on faculty participation. We look forward to working with our colleagues across the college to build a vibrant and active site that makes visible the creative and often groundbreaking work being done by our faculty. Please visit L4 (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/l4) to find inspiration for your next assignment or project and share your own!
[1] Kuh, George. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter. AAC&U, 2008
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How Will You Use OpenLab?
We’re excited to see new faculty around the college exploring the possibilities that the OpenLab brings to their teaching and professional development. New faculty are already inspired by how the OpenLab fosters community building and interdisciplinary collaboration, and creates opportunities for students to share and reflect on their academic pursuits. We look forward to seeing these efforts develop in future semesters, and our Community Team is always available to provide support for these endeavors. Jill Belli, Department of English/OpenLab Co-Director Jody R. Rosen, Department of English/OpenLab Co-Director
Elena Filatova Department of Computer Systems Technology
Merlyn Dorsainvil Department of Nursing
I plan to use the OpenLab to host my web page and the information on projects that I am running. Nora Almeida Ursula C. Schwerin Library
Linda Bradley Department of Nursing
I use the OpenLab in my credit courses because I like the flexibility of the platform when it comes to setting up a course site. I also like the interactive possibilities of the OpenLab which enable students to collaborate asynchronously and to continue discussions that we start in class. I think it’s good experience for student to think about web design and to gain fluency in wordpress, a ubiquitous web platform that they will likely encounter in the future.
I rely on Blackboard as my primary source of information provided to my students. I consider the OpenLab another tool for making connections with my students and their assignments.
Katherine Gregory Department of Health and Human Services
George Garrastegui Department of Communication Design … I can begin to use the blogging platform of the OpenLab to allow students to record and chronicle their research while establishing design solutions … they will be able to create stories and can use the OpenLab to maintain an archive and point of reference…
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Nan Li Department of Mathematics
The OpenLab is the perfect platform through which to engage students and to foster peer-to-peer communication for my hybrid courses. Lavelle Porter Department of English
Janusz Kusyk Department of Computer Systems Technology I want to provide a centralized access to freelyavailable materials that would introduce students to computer networking...The OpenLab is a place where students can quickly and conveniently recall or grasp basics of particular concepts at any time before, during, or after taking the class.
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I might use the OpenLab to create an interdisciplinary forum for students in various departments to come together on an assignment or other project. I think if we begin working together while training/ studying, we can gain an appreciation and respect for other professions and subsequently collaborate more effectively for improved care to populations.
The OpenLab is a great user-friendly interface for sharing class notes, assignments and links to other academic resources. I mostly use it as the main web portal for all my courses where students can access most of the course documents outside of class. It has the secondary benefit of being a convenient way to share syllabi and other course content with academic communities outside of City Tech. In coming semesters I am planning to incorporate more collaborative projects into my courses and have students build content together on the OpenLab.
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As a member of the OpenLab I am exploring the many possibilities that it provides faculty and students. Look for my site in Spring 2016.
Rachel Raskin Department of Business I might use the OpenLab next semester for a project that I plan to assign to my Principles of Accounting I class. As Knowing Brooklyn is the GenEdge theme this year, the assignment will require students to explore accounting practices and business challenges of a company that was founded in Brooklyn.
Linda Ann Paradiso Department of Nursing
Claudia Hernandez Department of Architectural Technology We are planning on launching a learning community between English Composition I and Architectural Design I: Foundations in the Fall of 2016. I believe the OpenLab will be an excellent platform for encouraging and supporting collaboration between the two courses.
The OpenLab is a very exciting concept for integrated studies. This spring, I am teaching a course that introduces the student to concepts of leadership and management for application in practice settings… the open format gives other students the ability to learn about these concepts for the skills are easily transferred to any business, healthcare, and management setting.
Khalid Lachheb Department of Humanities
Nadia Kennedy Department of Mathematics
I just joined the OpenLab and created my profile. I may use the OpenLab to encourage students to discover the Arabic language and culture.
I’m planning to start The Math Teachers’ Circle @ CityTech (MTC@CityTech), which is modeled on the “math circle approach”—an Eastern European problemdiscussion approach to teaching and learning challenging mathematics topics. The MTC@CityTech will utilize the OpenLab as a platform for collaborative engagement with math teacher candidates in discussing advanced topics beyond the regular school curriculum, in immersing them in mathematics problem solving, and in ongoing discussion of the Common Core School Standards for Mathematics in the context of problemsolving tasks.
Joanne Weinreb Department of Biological Sciences The BioMedical Informatics program uses the OpenLab to disseminate information about the program. We use it as an opportunity to supply the students with resources to help them move forward with their education. Topics range from program curriculum, to information about internship as well as career opportunities in the field of bioinformatics and medical informatics.
Ellen Kim Department of Hospitality Management
Chen Xu Department of Computer Engineering Technology
I’d like to develop open educational resources using the OpenLab to offer a great opportunity for people everywhere to share knowledge.
I think the OpenLab is another great platform for CityTech, even CUNY community. It is more serious than Facebook, and less academic than Blackboard. It can close the distance between instructors and students. Actually, that is the goal for me to use the OpenLab. I want to use this platform to communicate with students and my colleagues about the courses and research work. I will gradually add more resources into my website and attend some seminars related to the OpenLab.
Kitching Wong Department of Health and Human Services I would like to use the OpenLab as a platform to promote communication and interactions with my students, particularly to share new knowledge and current development in the practice world of human services, beyond textbooks and classrooms.
Andrew Shea Department of Communication Design Deborah Courtney Department of Health and Human Services
Caner Koca Department of Mathematics In the future, I might use the OpenLab to share the course material with the students.
The OpenLab is an excellent forum for students to openly reflect on their growth, both personally and professionally, that has occurred as a result of the course and learning throughout the semester. Doing so in such a format fosters community among the classmates and myself, and enhances self confidence in sharing one’s process with others.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARIANNA BOLLERS, MARLON PALMER, KEVIN RAJARAM
Joseph Jeyaraj Department of English The OpenLab offers a public electronic space backed up with free technological support. In future, I might use it for showcasing student work, innovative pedagogical ideas, and my own scholarship.
I love the OpenLab and am currently using it for two of my classes: Design Team and Typography II. I add details for each assignment, syllabi, and resources. In the future... I will also create an OpenLab site that highlights work, initiatives, and projects in classes or departments at CityTech that have positive social, environmental, health, political, educational, or economic impact.
Zheng Zhu Department of Humanities I use the OpenLab to develop and share important teaching documents with my colleagues.
Thalia Warner Department of Hospitality Management The OpenLab is a wonderful tool to connect the college community and as I consider the plethora of opportunities to use it for in my Introduction to Food and Beverage Management course, the possibilities are endless! Mark Van Doren is quoted as saying “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” … Using the OpenLab in this way would allow the students to share what they are learning- in and out of the classroom- with the college community over the course of the semester.
Gordon Xu Ursula C. Schwerin Library The OpenLab offers many possibilities. I am looking for a fit with my work.
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At Home: Review of 2nd Annual Juried Exhibition Michael McAuliffe “At Home” is the unifying theme of the second annual juried faculty-staff art exhibition hosted by the Faculty Commons. It features work by 12 artists working in a range of media including paint, photography, collage, and jewelry. Untitled (Oakwood Beach, Staten Island), an archival pigment inkjet print by Robin Michals, is a richly toned color photograph that captures the orange glow of a sunset on deserted beach cottages and a towering blasted tree. Drawing on motifs originating in her beloved homeland of Ukraine, Tatiana Malyuta surprises us with a necklace of tiny amber and pearl beads fashioned into bound strands for Necklace with Needlework Pendant. Still Life with Peaches and Tomatoes, a medium-sized oil on canvas painting by Vladimir Kezerashvili, stands out with a vibrant palette and playful composition that recall Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. A collage by Laura Kodet entitled Boarders depicts an array of people through photographs and fragments of nature, suggesting the transience of life. Photographic works by Maria Cipriani, Anita Giraldo, John Huntington, Memorioso, and Denise Scannell reveal further meditations on loss, memory, and domesticity. A delightful range of responses to the theme are also seen in works by Martie Flores, Eva Machauf and Ira Robbins in images at once individual and universal. “At Home,” was curated by Sandra Cheng and Anita Giraldo and is on view until June 2016 in the Faculty Commons, Namm 227.
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARIANNA BOLLERS
AT HOME FEATURED ARTISTS Curated by Sandra Cheng and Anita Giraldo “You could walk out of the house, but you always returned home.” — Witold Rybczynski, Home: A Short History of an Idea
In his short history of the home, the architect Witold Rybczynski examines the concepts of domestic comfort and privacy from the middle ages to today. Rybczynski traces the evolution of furniture and rooms to demonstrate the complex relationships between the form and function of objects and their surroundings. Homes not only reflect the values of society but our dwellings offer insight into our interior and domestic lives as well. The art in this exhibit affirms and challenges our ideas of the home, in the end expanding our notions of what it means to be “at home.”
Sandra Cheng, Department of Humanities MARIA CIPRIANI Department of English ‘Home in Dawn Fog’ Digital photograph on aluminum
LAURA KODET Department of English ‘The Boarders’ Mixed media montage
MEMORIOSO ‘Homelessness/ The Presence of an Absence’ Photograph
MARTIE FLORES Adult Learning Center ‘Loneliness’ Mixed media on paper
“Many people in this montage died too young, so in a sense they were only “boarders” inhabiting the earth for just a short time until they moved on to a different kind of Home.”
“From personal experience some may assert that home is where dreams are made, where dreams grow, where dreams become memories—memories that make each of us who we are.”
“When I revisit the land I once considered home, I recognize life can be remote no matter where I subsist—everywhere I turn becomes an extension of that solitude.”
EVA MACHAUF Department of Communication Design ‘Berkeley Home Series’ Oil on canvas
ROBIN MICHALS Department of Communication Design ‘Untitled (Oakwood Beach, Staten Island)’ Archival pigment inkjet print
ANITA GIRALDO Department of Communication Design ‘House/Pet’ Digital c-print from transparency “Sharing your home with an oil rig puts a different perspective on striking oil in your backyard.” JOHN HUNTINGTON Department of Entertainment Technology ‘The Road from Home’ Color photograph “It’s the road leading away from the house I grew up in rural Maryland.” VLADIMIR KEZERASHVILI Department of Physics ‘Still Life with Peaches and Tomatoes’ Oil on canvas “Being at home means painting still lifes.”
“The façades of the houses reveal little and yet express much. The noncontextual specificity of the images leaves room for the viewer to meditate on their own recollections and personal histories.” TATIANA MALYUTA Department of Computer Systems Technology Necklace with Needlework Pendant “I am from Ukraine, and my heart aches for my Motherland and my friends. I made a collection of patriotic necklaces and pendants. My current home is here now. In fact, I feel that it is the home of the other me—the one who came to the U.S. Another me stayed in Ukraine.”
“I continue to go back to Oakwood Beach to think about what it means to lose a home and a community. That some families stay, despite knowing what might come, is a testament to the power of home.” IRA ROBBINS Department of Communication Design ‘Reflection’ Oil on canvas “I see home as a fleeting moment in time, like light, passing like a dream, beckoning with memories of a future.” DENISE SCANNELL Department of Humanities ‘The Landscape Calls Me Home’ Photograph “Sometimes the landscape speaks to you in a way that lets you know that you are home.”
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Troubled Asset Relief What you said I shattered was the window but we both know what you meant. I can’t recall a single meadow that didn’t slow my pulse. Though you are far you are on my wing: you are the sight of an apple in the bathroom or oils unintended for a wood floor. A fence ran the length of a field, between two trees so that, in snow, it looked like stitches or a fallen rope ladder. Did you know that three hundred years ago the heart was a furnace? At this point what else can I do but follow the precedent I’ve established? Choose one of the following: at Monticello, the turnips gave me a toothache, or at Red Hook, the red bees. Will you laugh if I say, I beat my heart into a red caul of sentences? Near the pond I lifted a rock and found life under it crowded with so many urges. To see if it’s possible to dig a grave, today I took a shovel to the field. It is possible and surprisingly easy to dig a grave! Over coffee, on the phone, I said to you, it took trillions to prop up the markets, but what I wanted to say was, I have beaten my heart into a red caul of sentences. Robert Ostrom
First published by the Academy of American Poets 18
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FACULTY CONTRIBUTORS Jill Belli is Assistant Professor of English and OpenLab Co-Director. Her interdisciplinary scholarship includes utopian studies, positive psychology/happiness studies, writing studies, digital humanities, education, and pedagogy. She teaches courses in composition, literature (especially science fiction and utopias/dystopias), and the newly launched B.S. in Professional and Technical Writing. Paul C. King is Associate Professor in the department of Architectural Technology. He is a licensed Architect, with degrees in Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture. This summer and fall he lent his expertise as a skilled carpenter to the college Solar Decathlon team in both New York and California. Anna Matthews is Assistant Professor in the department of Dental Hygiene. She is a co-director of L4: Living Lab Learning Library, a public resource exchange of teaching and learning practices. She teaches Oral Anatomy, Pharmacology, and clinical dental hygiene. Her research interests are student diversity in health care professions and educational innovations using technology in the classroom. Michael McAuliffe is a Full Time Lecturer in the department of Humanities. His areas of expertise are Italian old master drawings and American Contemporary art. He teaches the history of Western art. Mark Noonan is Professor of English. He is author of Reading the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine: American Literature and Culture, 1870-1893 (Kent State UP, 2010) as well as articles on Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Norman Mailer. He is co-editor of The Place Where We Dwell: Reading and Writing about New York City and served as Executive Editor of the Columbia Journal of American Studies from 1998-2009. He presently serves on the Advisory Board of American Periodicals. Robert Ostrom is Assistant Professor of English and the author of The Youngest Butcher in Illinois (YesYes Books 2012). His chapbook, Cross the Bridge Quietly, is forthcoming from Phantom Books, and Saturnalia is publishing his second book, Ritual and Bit. Jody R. Rosen is Assistant Professor in the department of English and Co-Director of the OpenLab. She teaches English Composition—often in learning communities—as well as Fiction, Women Writers, and other literature courses. Her scholarship focuses on Modernism, narrative theory, gender and sexuality studies, as well as the intersections of technology, pedagogy, and community. Laura Westengard is Assistant Professor in the English Department. Her areas of research are US literature and culture after 1900, queer and feminist studies, trauma studies, and the Gothic. She teaches Gothic Literature and Visual Culture, Studies in Identity and Orientation, Composition, and Developmental Writing.
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