Category Archives: Equity, Justice, & Social Change

How to Transform a Panel: TLH Presentations at ASA, CUNY DEI, AERA, and HASTAC

The TLH team presented at 4 conferences in the 2022-2023 academic year. In November 2022, Shelly, Cathy, Christina, Jessica, Javiela and Jason had presented “Radical Tools, Radical Pedagogy: An Interactive Workshop on Teaching to Transform” at the American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting. There, TLH members were inspired by the personalized introductions in the authors session “Insurgent Black Feminist Poetics,” chaired by Kara Keeling and including Sarah Cervenak, Erica Edwards, Kevin Quashie, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, LaMonda Horton-Stallings, Courtney Thorsson, comment by GerShun Avilez. Instead of each presenting their own book, the authors in this session presented reviews of one another’s books—and what made the session shine was hearing what each colleague loved most about one of their colleagues’ books. This transformed each conference presentation from an egotistical or defensive maneuver into an act of admiration and support for another colleague’s work. And the audience listened with deep interest, resulting in a robust and productive Q&A session.

At the subsequent TLH presentations at the DEI, AERA, and HASTAC conferences, the team incorporated a new method derived from this transformative model. Instead of having the panel chair introduce everyone by reading their bios in a long monologue at the beginning of the session, each TLH panelist introduced another. Instead of focusing on accomplishments and publications, they shared one thing they’ve learned from their co-presenter. While key biographical histories and publications were briefly mentioned, because these details can be found online and are the traditional focus, the TLH team found the personal and relational introduction more compelling and representative of the relationships built throughout the initiative. For example, at AERA Christina shared she has learned from Grace H. to leave more space for all voices, stopping after every item in a meeting to ensure everyone has had a chance to review, reflect, and share if desired. At HASTAC, Shelly shared how supported she feels by Christina, knowing the phrase “I got you” actually always rings true when coming from her. These introductions start our presentations with a strong sense of connection, an illustration for the audience that the team truly cares for one another and thus also demonstrating the content of the presentations, a transformative and loving pedagogy.

We’ve found that this method transforms a room into a site of community-building, inviting the audience into the positive energy we have as co-panelists who respect and admire one another’s work. We encourage others to integrate this method in their own way at future presentations, workshops, and talks.

TLH Presentations:

In November 2022 Shelly, Cathy, Christina, Jessica, Javiela and Jason presented “Radical Tools, Radical Pedagogy: An Interactive Workshop on Teaching to Transform” at the American Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting themed The Roof is on Fire held in New Orleans, Louisiana
In March 2023 Christina, Khanh, Jessica, Matt and Shelly presented “Prioritizing Learning: Transforming CUNY from the Classroom Up” at CUNY’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Conference (DEI) themed The Illusion of Inclusion: Collaborative Solutions for Performative Diversity held at the CUNY Graduate Center
In April 2023 Grace H., Grace P., Christina, Shelly, Matt, Jessica, and Virginia presented “Practicing Equity Through Active Learning: An Interactive Symposium on Transforming the Higher Education Classroom” at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting held in Chicago
In June 2023 Grace H., Christina, Jason, Javiela, Jessica, Shelly, and Matt presented “Critical Pedagogy and Social Justice” at the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC) themed Critical Making & Social Justice held at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn

Transformative Learning Projects at Hunter (TLH CTL Project Recap)

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Transforming Awareness into Action: Student Created and Led Applied Theatre Workshops

Dr. Alexis Jemal, associate professor at Silberman School of Social Work – Hunter College, developed the first iteration of an MSW elective course, Critical Social Work: Bridging the Micro-Macro Divide, in 2019 and piloted the course in 2020. This class was and is grounded in her Visionary, Philosophical Artivist (theoretical and practice-based) framework to raise critical consciousness and then tap into radical imagination to convert that consciousness into action. Dr. Jemal, with her collaborators from the Masters in Applied Theatre program at CUNY School of Professional Studies, Brynne O’Rourke and Tabatha Lopez, revised the spring 2021 course to integrate applied theatre as the modality through which we bridge the micro-macro divide.

“Applied Theatre” is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of theatre and drama practices that are often socially engaged, politically inspired, and non-traditional in form, context and venue (e.g., teaching settings, the justice system, health care, the political arena, community development, and social service agencies). Applied Theatre can be a tool for Social Work – education, research, and practice. Continue reading →

The CUNY 1969 Project: Teaching and Learning the Struggle for Black and Puerto Rican Representation (TLH CTL Project Recap)

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In 2021, the Baruch Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) launched the CUNY 1969 Project, an interactive Open Educational Resource (OER) platform that explores the history of the 1969 Five Demands student protest movement, which fought for policies to reconstitute the racial composition of incoming CUNY students. Through the curation of historical texts, recordings, and interviews, the project provides an applied showcase of CUNY’s institutional archives that can be used in classrooms across CUNY.

From the student movements of the 1960s to the recent demands for antiracist classrooms and pedagogies, CUNY’s history of activism often remains frozen in archives and does not get passed down to its undergraduates. The work of the CUNY 1969 Project seeks to grapple with this problem by engaging CUNY stakeholders to reanimate the history of student activism at the university, re-engage with the archives that store it, and pass this knowledge down to students.

On February 8th of this year, with support from the Transformative Learning in the Humanities Grant (2023), we hosted and recorded a panel of three experts who have used the CUNY 1969 Project in their teaching and research. Panelists and attendees were invited to reflect on this history, teaching opportunities across disciplines, and the possibilities of students’ own agency within the university.

You can view the panel here:

CUNY 1969: What We Learn from the Struggle for Black and Puerto Rican Representation at CUNY
In spring 1969, CUNY students, faculty, and community activists mobilized in efforts to reshape CUNY and reverse its systemic disenfranchisement of Black and Puerto Rican communities.

And thanks in part to funding from the Transformative Learning in the Humanities Grant (2023) and the OER Initiatives Grant (2022, 2023), the CTL has been able to host a June “CUNY 1969 Teach-in and Retreat” program, first in 2022 and again this year. The retreat brings together CUNY scholars to closely examine the narrative, debates, and histories of open admissions at CUNY and the lasting legacies of student and faculty activism.

Over four weeks in June 2023, the second CUNY 1969 Teach-in will host a cohort of subject matter experts in CUNY institutional history, using and teaching with library archives, Creative Commons licensing, and undergraduate student research. Following the format of our successful (but Baruch-focused, due to more limited resources) Summer 2022 Teach-in, our Summer 2023 programming will facilitate synchronous and asynchronous instruction, discussion, and presentation on CUNY history, with a particular focus on student activism towards a more just and equitable university.

Teach-in participants will collaborate over open-access educational resources associated with the CUNY 1969 Project that interact with their interests, such as a lesson plan or assignment for future instructors using CUNY 1969 Project material.

Community partnerships—among departments, organizations, CUNY faculty and staff, and alumni—have been essential to the CUNY 1969 Project. The previous Teach-in created needed space for mindful conversations about CUNY’s history and future. Receiving the TLH grant has allowed us to scale up this project’s reach to a CUNY-wide community of teachers and scholars in the humanities and social sciences. We seek to support and develop instructors across CUNY who want to engage their students and peers in conversations and activities related to the activist history of our institution as well as, more broadly, transformative learning in higher education.

We invite you to check out the CUNY 1969 Project and join our efforts to center the university’s own complex history of students, faculty, staff, teaching, and learning.

—Hamad Sindhi and Seth Graves, CUNY 1969 Project Managers

Illustration by Jojo Karlin Sign up here for future updates about the CUNY 1969 Project.