President's Report for November 2024

 Center for Excellence in Teaching and Leaning (CETL)

The Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) will be hosting a virtual session on "Faculty Fellowship Project Presentations" (Nov 15 @ 11:00 AM) to provide an opportunity for faculty to share the outcomes of their research. ​CETL will offer professional development opportunities for Open Educational resources (OER) development process. For the 8th consecutive year, as part of the New York State Open Educational Resources (OER) Scale-Up Initiative, CUNY has funded QCC's ongoing OER project. Queensborough has received funding for Cohort VIII (2024-25). Thirty faculty from various disciplines will have the opportunity for redesigning course materials and implementing pedagogical approaches to replace proprietary textbooks with OERs available on campus-based, centralized technology platforms.​ All Faculty are encouraged to visit CETL and OET homepages to see a complete listing of all upcoming events and professional development opportunities. 

Office of Educational Technology (OET) 

During the Fall 2024 semester, the Office of Educational Technology (OET) offered 16 training workshops. Our reports show that 85 faculty signed up for these workshops. 

Demo Student Tool - CUNY has recently introduced the CUNY custom-developed Demo Student tool, a user-friendly resource that allows instructors to view and interact with course content exactly as students do. This tool offers comprehensive student experience that is like Blackboard's Student Preview mode. It enables instructors to interact with course content the same way students would, allowing them to access and complete course materials, such as quizzes, submit assignments, participate in discussions, and check grades and feedback from a learner's perspective. 

Brightspace Technical Support and Resources - The following websites are intended to be a resource for updates, training, course conversion, help documentation, and support and will be updated regularly so please check back often. 

• CUNY’s Transition to Brightspace: https://www.cuny.edu/academics/brightspace-transition/
• QCC’s Transition to Brightspace: https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/brightspace/

Technical Support

• For questions about the Transition Project, please contact [email protected] 
• For technical questions, please contact [email protected]

  If you are interested in training:  

• CUNY Instructor Training Series  
• Brightspace Guided Training  
• D2L Website  

 Additional considerations: QM Rubric. 

Follow the QM Rubric to review and improve course quality and accessibility for Brightspace.

 Office of Workforce Development

1. Overview 

 Workforce Development, formerly a division of the Office of CEWD, now reports to the Provost in the Office for Academic Affairs. The division leads and implements Workforce Development Industry Certificate and short-term skills-based courses for students, alumni and adult learners throughout Queens and NYC and supports their career pathways to family-sustaining Good Jobs in the NYC region. Workforce Development collaborates with Senior Administration, Faculty, Academic Departments, Continuing Ed and Administrative Depts. to secure funding from government agencies, foundations, organizations & corporations for Workforce Development Initiatives. 

II.Monthly Accomplishments 

• Workforce Development’s ACE Upskilling Opportunity Grant, “Creating Inclusive Technology Pathways & Sustaining Careers for CUNY Students, Alumni & the Broader NYC Community”, which has been renewed three times in the past four years, has now been offered an extension grant to offer additional Technology Certificate courses, including the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Computing & Cybersecurity Training, Introductory Software Engineering/Web Development and Advanced Software Engineering Development.

• Workforce Development is collaborating with Dean Michael Pullin, Christine Spicknell, Director of Grants & Sponsored Programs, James Harnsberger, Assistant Director, Grants & Sponsored Programs and Anna Lee, STEP Program Coordinator, on writing a new NYS Dept. of Education Grant proposal for the Science & Technology Entry Program (STEP), for 2025-2030.

• Workforce Development will be offering the Google Data Analytics Certificate course to CUNY students, alumni and New Yorkers in need of upskilling and reskilling, in collaboration with Dr. Wendy Ford and Professor Humberto Morales, who are working on getting approval for Data Analytics credit courses through the Business Department.

• Lori A. Conkling, Director, Labor Market Research & Workforce Development, will be presenting at a U.S. Department of Labor Webinar, “Strengthening Community Colleges 1 End of Grant Celebration” on Tuesday, October 22^nd.

 

Athletics Update
• QCC Men’s Soccer Team won the CUNY regular season championship but, lost in the championship game to BMCC 5-1.
• The Women’s Soccer Team won the CUNY Championship in only the program’s second season and freshmen student Stephanie Perez was named CUNY Player of the Year.
• The Women’s Volleyball Team won the CUNY regular season championship and will be the #1 seed for the CUNY Tournament taking place on October 28 at QCC.
• Men's Cross Country finished second at the Region XV Championships.
• Women's Cross Country finished third at the Region XV Championships.

Personnel Announcement
We are excited to announce the appointment of Lamar Greene (they/them/theirs) to the position of LGBTQIA+ Specialist for Queensborough Community College’s LGBTQIA+ Center. In this capacity, and reporting to the Dean of Students, Lamar will be responsible for overseeing the center and all programming efforts aimed at the education and celebration of our LGBTQIA+ students, faculty, and staff. They will also collaborate with campus colleagues to support the college’s strategic plan, with an intimate focus on creating a student-centered environment that is both welcoming and reflective of our culture of care. QCC has a growing population of students who have self-identified as queer and transgender. With this, we aim to provide an affirming space that allows them to thrive and achieve academic success. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Lamar earned their Bachelor of Arts Degree in Human Health from Emory University in 2019. While at Emory, Lamar revamped a Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (“PrEP”) clinic and created a clinical provider workshop on race and sexuality that was later recognized by the American College Health Association. They also helped to develop an inclusive curriculum around mental health and sexual health for LGBTQIA+ students and students of color. Beyond Emory, Lamar has co-created an LGBTQIA+ workgroup as a fellow at the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy and advanced global HIV advocacy with the U=U Campaign. Most recently, Lamar worked with an entirely queer and trans team to provide post-exposure prophylaxis (“PEP”), PrEP, and HIV treatment navigation services with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Motivated by their upbringing as a Queer, Black person in a food desert, Lamar desires to ensure people have the knowledge and resources to reach their full potential. They plan to bring that perspective and their passion for LGBTQIA+ liberation to Queensborough and work collaboratively with the campus community to further establish the center. Please join us in welcoming Lamar to the QCC campus and everyone is invited to visit the LGBTQIA+ Center, located in the Administration Building – Room 206!

Student Support Resources
• The Office of Financial Services will be hosting weekly FAFSA Fest events to assist students with completing their financial aid applications. For the fall 2024 semester, events will take place on Wednesday afternoons from 1:00 – 4:00 pm in Library Building – Room117 (Academic Computing Center area) starting on September 18 and running through November 20 (click HERE to view upcoming dates). Additional events may be added and will be posted to the QCC Campus and Virtual Events Calendar. Please encourage students to attend. If students have any questions, please refer them to the Office of Financial Services located in the Administration Building - Room 106 or email [email protected].
• Faculty and staff are asked to encourage our students to avail themselves of the valuable and free resources through the Advocacy Resource Center. Services provided include public benefits screening, financial coaching, legal assistance, tax preparation services, housing assistance, food pantry referrals, and more.
• Emergency funding is available to students who face a financial crisis that puts at risk their continued enrollment toward their QCC degree. Supported through a grant from The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, the funds provide one-time, emergency grants to students in good standing with short-term financial emergencies to enable them to remain in school, rather than being forced to leave or drop out. Students with short-term financial emergencies should be referred to Ms. Amawati Gonesh, Advocacy Resource Center Program Manager, via email at [email protected]. Additional information can be found online at QCC Scholarships.

• The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship makes it possible for the nation's top community college students to complete their bachelor's degrees by transferring to a selective four-year college or university. The Foundation provides up to $40,000 per year to each of approximately 45 deserving students selected annually, making it the largest private scholarship for two-year and community college transfer students in the country. Each award is intended to cover a significant share of the student's educational expenses – including tuition, living expenses, books and required fees – for the final two to three years necessary to achieve a bachelor's degree. Awards vary by individual, based on the cost of tuition as well as other grants or scholarships he or she may receive. The deadline to apply is January 11, 2024.

• The Point Foundation Flagship Scholarship empowers LGBTQ students who are earning their undergraduate, graduate, & doctoral degrees at accredited colleges in the United States by offering financial support, community resources, and professional development. Eligible applicants must be enrolled or intending to enroll at an accredited college or university based in the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska. Community college students must be transferring to a bachelor’s degree program at a four-year college or university for the academic year of the scholarship. The application will open at 12:00 pm EST on September 10 and close on December 5 at 8:00 pm EST.

• The Women's Forum Education Award provides a scholarship of $10,000 to women age 35 and over who have faced and overcome adversity and now, after an interruption in their education, have resumed the pursuit of their first associate or bachelor's degree. Applicants must demonstrate noteworthy promise and resilience in the face of challenges and must also demonstrate a commitment to helping others and to making a difference in their community, large or small, when their own career goals are achieved. Financial need and academic excellence are not the primary determining factors in the selection of recipients, although true financial need should be evident, and the candidate should be in good academic standing. The deadline to apply is February 1, 2025.

Upcoming Events

• Free HIV/STI/STD Testing will be provided by Northwell Health every Wednesday beginning October 9 through December 18 from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm in the Office of Health Services (Medical Arts Building – Room MC02). The AIDS Center of Queens County (“ACQC”) will provide free testing on Tuesday, October 15, October 29, and November 12.
• Health Insurance Enrollers will be present on the QCC campus in the Science Building Lobby. Fidelis Care will be present on Wednesdays from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm beginning October 9 through December 18 and Anthem Blue Cross will be present on Thursdays from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm starting October 10 through December 19. Students looking to enroll in a health insurance plan are invited to stop by their information table for help. Contact the Office of Health Services at [email protected] for additional information.
• All Sewed Up! Are you big into fashion? Have you ever had the desire or dream to create your own clothing? Well, this workshop is for you! Join us for “All Sewed Up” on Wednesday, November 6 and Wednesday, November 13 at 12:30 pm in the Student Union – Upper Level in Rom 107 (QMRC) for a two-day workshop “All Sewed Up.” During this workshop, individuals will learn the skills necessary to make a t-shirt from scratch. In this session, individuals will explore the fundamental procedures on how to sew. By the end of these sessions, individuals will have created their own T-shirt.
• Holiday season is here, and anxiety levels are high. Fresh off midterms, are you looking for something to help you relax? Join us for the Male Resource Center's Mindfulness Art event on Tuesday, November 12 at 12:00 pm in the Student Union – Upper Level in Room 107 (QMRC). This event is designed to create a cozy and calm interruption to the stressors of your daily routine through art. We look forward to seeing you at the Male Resource Center, located in the Student Union Upper Level, for a day of fun, art and laughs. See you then!
• The Office of Health Services will host their annual Winter Wellness Health Fair on Wednesday, November 20 at 11:00 am in the Student Union – Upper Level. All QCC students, faculty, and staff are invited to stop by as information tables, free health screenings, and giveaway items will be available to all in attendance. For additional information, contact the Office of Health Services at (718) 631-6375 or [email protected].
• All QCC students, faculty, and staff are invited to a “Stop The Bleed” workshop on Thursday, November 21 at 1:00 pm in the Medical Arts Building – Room 136. Organized by the Office of Health Services, this workshop place an emphasis on stopping arterial bleeds, the use of tourniquets, risks associated with intracranial hemorrhage in the setting of falls specifically in the elderly with anticoagulation use. For additional information, contact the Office of Health Services at (718) 631-6375 or [email protected].
• Get Fresh for Free! The Male Resource Center is offering students free haircuts on a first come, first-served basis as part of their “Barbershop Day” initiative on Monday, December 2. We recognize the growing cost of many routine self-maintenance services students need in order to present their best selves, and we would like to help.

Events Report

DO GOOD. GIVE! Annual Fund Campaign
Davia Wills, ‘24 is enormously grateful to you for the impact you had on her academic journey at Queensborough. She is pursuing a dual-joint bachelor’s and master’s degree in criminal justice at John Jay College. She is asking faculty and staff to please join her in supporting other students with stories like hers. If you have not already, please respond to Davia’s letter. You can choose to support the Lucille A. Bova Food Pantry, the new LGBTQIA+ Resource Center, and the QCC Promise Scholarship. Click here to make your donation online. Make checks payable to the QCC Fund, Inc., and mail them to The College, Division of Strategic Initiatives and Advancement, Room A-508.

#CUNYTuesday, December 3, 2024 - 24 hours of giving back and celebrating Queensborough!
If you have not already, please hurry and join a #CUNYTuesday team, and start fundraising with your colleagues! The team that raises the most money wins a life-size Tiger and bragging rights for a year and the team that secures the most donors wins a Tiger trophy!!

Consider the impact you could make by supporting:

• The Lucille A. Bova Food Pantry
• The QCC Promise Scholarship
• The New LGBTQIA+ Resource Center

For more information, please contact Saji at [email protected].

New York City Marathon – Sunday, November 3, 2024
We have five (5) entries for the NYC Marathon this year. Each runner has agreed to raise $3,000 for our students. Thank you to Cigale Henry,’12, Melanie Jerez, ’24 Valedictorian, Benjamin Wade,’24, Tony Clark, a professor at Lehman College, and Jason Turk, who enrolled at Queensborough after a career in the US military.

                            All gifts to the Annual Fund Campaign work together to make a difference!
                                         Thank you for your continued support and for always caring!

                                            The Professor Joseph D. Santora Natatorium
Some of you on campus may remember Professor Emeritus, Joseph D. Santora who spent 30 years in the Health, Physical Education, and Dance Department at Queensborough. His daughter, Vivian Santora, has agreed to donate $100,000 to name the swimming pool in the RFK gymnasium in honor of her father who turns 100 years old in March. The funds will be used to award scholarships to HPED students who demonstrate excellent performance in the Public Health, Nutrition, Movement Science, Dance, Massage Therapy, and Emergency Medical Technician disciplines.

The Lucille A. Bova Food Pantry Give Thanks Give Back Thanksgiving food distribution is scheduled for Monday, November 25, 2023, from 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Students will receive Thanksgiving items and perishables. Elected officials will be on site to help with packing bags and are welcome to stay to distribute the prepackaged bags to students.


                                                                       Art Gallery

In Collaboration with the English Department:
November 13, 2024 – 11:00 – 12:00 p.m. and 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Lecture by Raj Tawney’s Colorful Palate (2023)
Memoir of his experiences growing up on Long Island in an Indian, Puerto Rican and Italian American family.

Internship Program:
There is one student attending the internship from the Museum Studies of the Department of Art and Design.

                                                  Kupferberg Holocaust Center

                                          2024-25 KHC-NEH COLLOQUIUM
Circuitous Exchanges:
https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu/neh-programs/

Circuitous Exchanges, the theme for the 2024-2025 Kupferberg Holocaust Center-National Endowment for Humanities colloquium, focuses on the various exchanges that exist among historically oppressed and marginalized groups. Our use of the word exchanges refers to the connections, ideas, and creative productions shared among these groups. We use circuitous to emphasize that these connections, ideas, and creative productions are not always apparent, do not always travel from one direction to the other, and are often recursive in nature.

We center the lived experiences of these groups as they negotiate their outsider status with their host (or inhospitable) insider culture and devise ways to create a cultural identity regardless of their treatment. The events of Circuitous Exchanges build on the Kupferberg Holocaust Center’s mission to use the lessons of the Holocaust to educate current and future generations about the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping.

2024-25 Faculty Fellows:
• Dr. Danny Sexton, Associate Professor, English Department
• Dr. Raquel Corona, Doctoral Lecturer, English Department
• Dr. Julia Rothenberg, Associate Professor, Social Sciences Department

Transportations of Terror and Trauma:
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 – 12:00 p.m. EST
Click here to register: https://tinyurl.com/2s4bywbe

New World Slavery and the Holocaust were dependent upon the use of transportation systems, ships in terms of slavery and trains in terms of the Holocaust, to transport people to forced labor and death. Join Dr. Marcus Rediker, author of The Last Slave Ship, a Human History and Dr. Sarah Federman, author of Last Train to Auschwitz, for a discussion about the interconnected roles these systems play in our memory of the atrocities and how they should be held accountable for their participation in these human tragedies.

The Holocaust and Hollywood Studios at Home and Abroad, 1933 to 1941
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 – 12:00 p.m. EST
Click here to register: https://tinyurl.com/2pcrr7n6 

As immigrant outsiders, Jews found ground-level entry into the burgeoning Hollywood film industry when other occupations barred them, while antisemites regularly singled out Hollywood for attack, alleging Jewish conspiracies and self-interest. Hollywood, reeling from the emergence of sound technology and the Great Depression, battled censorship domestically and abroad at a time when the public allowed overt intolerance directed toward marginalized ethnic groups. Join us for an exploration of the complicated history of Jews in Hollywood featuring Dr. Steven Carr, Professor and Graduate Program Director of Communication and Director of the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Purdue University Fort Wayne, and author of Hollywood and Antisemitism: A Cultural History up to World War II.

                              HOLOCAUST MEMORY/ANNUAL KRISTALLNACHT COMMEMORATION

2024 Kristallnacht Commemoration: Rethinking Antisemitism in Our Times
Monday, November 11, 2024 – 6:00 p.m. EST
Click here to register: https://tinyurl.com/3z7ze9u6

Against the backdrop of the troubling rise in antisemitism around the world, a complex debate about how to define what is known as the oldest hatred continues unabated. On the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom that took place November 9 and 10, 1938, join us for a conversation about the importance of rethinking how we study antisemitism, including what does and does not work featuring Dr. Magda Teter, Professor of History and the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham University and one of the scholars consulted on President Biden's National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.

                                                 KHC ORIGINAL EXHIBITION
The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide

On View and Online at: https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu/camps/

The KHC continues to offer self-guided audio tours of its original exhibition which surveys the scope and brutality of the Nazi system of incarceration and genocide, underscoring the horrific consequences of antisemitism, racism, and authoritarianism. In addition to the exhibit’s text, images, and artifacts, personal testimonies from local Holocaust survivors offer painful insights into these excruciating landscapes of degradation and dehumanization. This exhibit is curated by Dr. Cary Lane, KHC 2020-21 Curator-in-Residence and Associate Professor of English at QCC.

                                                              RECORDED EVENTS

KHC public programs that took place during AY2023-24: https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu/recordings/

KHC curated playlists: https://www.youtube.com/user/CUNYQueensborough/playlists

                                               Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC)
This fall, the College will launch a national search for the next Director of QPAC, a position previously held by Susan Agin. An assessment will be conducted to determine how we can expand QPAC’s involvement in the borough and further integrate the Center with the College as we enter this next chapter in QPAC history. While a national search is launched and conducted, Mark Amsterdam, who has worked for QPAC for three decades, has been appointed Interim Director.

                                                         The Department of Communications

• #CUNYTuesday:
 Videos that will highlight the three areas we will ask donors to support.
 Written campaign to support the Advancement team.
 Communications support for the #CUNYTuesday Teams

• Communications support for the TRHT sponsored Unseen Threads Initiative

• Communications support for the Cultural Affairs Working Groups Native American Heritage Month events.