"Campus Update" is a weekly e-newsletter published by LaGuardia's Division of Communications and External Affairs to provide news and information to the college community. | |
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LaGuardia’s COIL Featured at CUNY-wide Global Learning Event
Olga Aksakalova, director of LaGuardia’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) recently participated in a “Celebration of Global Scholars Achieving Career Success (GSACS) and Other Global Learning Initiatives at CUNY.” Dr. Aksakalova presented at the event that offered an opportunity for CUNY campuses to showcase their programs to help facilitate students’ global awareness, cross-cultural and cross-linguistic communication through interactive online practices. The event included GSACS faculty and student presentations and an information session about the developments at Ibrahim Program and Malave Leadership Academy. In addition to LaGuardia, other participating CUNY schools included Guttman Community College, Hostos Community College, and Borough of Manhattan Community College.
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New Animal Sciences Program Launching Fall 2023
A new major will soon be available for students interested in working with animals. The Animal Sciences track of the Environmental Science major will lead to an associate of science degree and is the first of its kind in New York City. The major officially opens in Fall 2023, though students may begin coursework as Environmental Science majors in the Spring semester. The Animal Sciences program has established a transfer agreement with Rutgers University. Interested students are invited to attend a virtual info session with program leaders from LaGuardia and Rutgers. Contact Preethi Radhakrishnan to learn more.
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LaGuardia Leadership Participate in HETS Conference
On February 2 and 3, President Kenneth Adams and Vice President for Adult and Continuing Education Sunil Gupta attended the annual Hispanic Educational Technology Services (HETS) Conference. The conference included a showcase of outstanding work by member institutions that use technology to achieve Hispanic student success with a focus on access, retention, and online learning. HETS is the first bilingual consortium constituted by more than 40 higher education institutions, including LaGuardia Community College, in Puerto Rico, United Sates and Latin America. The organization’s mission is to promote, support, and increase the capabilities of member institutions in order to enhance Hispanic/Latino student success and opportunities in Higher Education.
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Sheik Shaneeza Ali is Channeling Her Passion for Helping Others into a Future Career
For LaGuardia student Sheik Shaneeza Ali, earning her college degree means getting a step closer to her aspiration for a career where she can apply her passion for helping others, particularly those from marginalized communities. “In my home country, Guyana, there is a lot of poverty. I would see girls as young as 14 or 15 be married and having babies, or they would be sent to live with another family as a maid, or worse. I want to help victims of human trafficking and end these patterns of abuse.” After earning her GED, Sheik enrolled at LaGuardia in fall 2021 and is now in her second year. She has a 3.98 GPA and is getting ready to graduate in June with her AAS in Paralegal Studies. She plans to earn her bachelor’s, and then go to law school. Sheik is dedicated to making the world a better place. Last year, she worked with the LaGuardia Humanitarian Initiative to design flyers to raise funds for the Malala Fund towards girls’ education, and volunteered at a food drive for LaGuardia CARES. Outside of LaGuardia, she volunteers with New York Cares and is a blood donor.
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LaGuardia Celebrates BHM
February is Black History Month (BHM), honoring the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history. LaGuardia Community College proudly recognizes the Black Pioneers who played critical roles in the history of African Americans, including Marsha P. Johnson (pictured here). Visit the DEI website to learn about Black Pioneers and upcoming BHM events.
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LaGuardia Community Encouraged to Participate in DEI Women’s History Recognition
March is Women’s History Month, and LaGuardia Community College is recognizing women from all across campus. Visit the DEI Instagram page to learn about different members of the LaGuardia family. According to womenshistory.org, “Women’s History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day. The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year. In 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women’s History Alliance)—successfully lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th,1980 as National Women’s History Week. Subsequent Presidents continued to proclaim a National Women’s History Week in March until 1987 when Congress passed Public Law 100-9, designating March as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, each president has issued proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.” Women from the LaGuardia community who wish to be featured on the DEI Instagram page can submit their photo and information HERE. To learn more visit the DEI website or contact Wendy Nicholson, Executive Director of DEI at wnicholson@lagcc.cuny.edu.
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Updated Logo Lockups and Branded Products Catalog Available on the Faculty Staff Portal
LaGuardia’s recently updated logo is available for download on the Faculty Staff Portal. There you will also find logo lockups for many campus departments, organized by division. Log in to the Portal with your LaGuardia email credential, and select SharePoint sites, then Visual Identity to view and download the logos as well as templates and campus photographs. If you are in need of a department logo lock up that is not on the Portal, please send a request to Communications & External Affairs for assistance. The 2023 Branded Products Catalog is also now available, featuring a wide variety of products you can purchase for your program with LaGuardia branding, from t-shirts to pens to tech accessories, as well as folders and table throws.
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NEH Summer Institute "Border Waters” Seeks Faculty Applicants
Faculty are invited to apply to participate in the summer institute, "Border Waters,” funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Ten faculty fellows will read and discuss scholarly and creative works on borders, maritime cultures, and oceanic and riverine environments. In the mornings of our institute, we will attend talks with visiting scholars and artists doing innovative work in their fields. Applications are due by March 3, 2023; contact co-directors Filip Stabrowoski, Karen Miller, and Christopher Schmidt for more information.
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Updated YouTube Channel has Launched
Video recordings of LaGuardia’s College Senate meetings continue to be publicly available on YouTube at the link posted on the College Senate website. To better maintain that access, the Senate has had to create a new branded channel where the Senate’s videos are now available. The link on the Senate website has been updated for the new channel. Any subscribers to the original Senate channel will need to re-subscribe to the new one.
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LAGUARDIA AND WAGNER ARCHIVES | |
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LaGuardia Students Discuss Their Research with Former City Council Member
On February 1, former three-term Queens City Council Member Daniel Dromm met with students at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives to discuss their research on the 1986 Gay Rights Bill, passed by New York City Council fifteen years after it was first proposed in 1971. The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, employment, and public accommodations. The students are currently researching the City Council Collection at the Archives, reading and discussing documents on the movement for LGBTQ rights and the opposition. Dromm spoke to the students about his involvement in the 1970s with the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), based at the Firehouse on Wooster Street in SoHo. The GAA advocated for the bill, along with other organizations, such as the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Dromm also discussed his decision to become an elementary school teacher at P.S. 199 in Sunnyside, Queens in 1984, reflecting on the challenges of being a gay man in a district where homophobia was particularly rampant. In 2016, Dromm, co-founder of the Queens Pride Parade in 1993, donated his papers to LaGuardia and Wagner Archives.
LaGuardia and Wagner Archives awarded fellowships to fifteen students to research the Gay Rights Bill, a surprisingly neglected topic in New York City history. These students are developing curriculum for city public high school teachers, creating a Wikipedia page, writing a scholarly article, and conducting oral history interviews. The faculty mentors for the projects are Poppy Slocum, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Nichole Shippen, Professor of Political Science, and Natalie Willens, Adjunct Professor of Education. Stephen Petrus, Director of Public History Programs at the Archives, is collaborating with faculty and students on the projects and helping to organize an online exhibit on the subject, to be launched in June at the outset of Pride Month.
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LAGUARDIA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER | | |
Image: Me and Who, performed during LPAC's Rough Draft Festival last week. | |
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a route to redemption, forgiveness and finally....healing.
LPAC's Rough Draft continues this week with Redemption by Jessica Carmona, an adjunct faculty member at the Humanities department.
Traveling across time between the 1960's, 1990's and today, the play follows the story of a troubled Latino Pastor who tries to make amends with a childhood friend he abandoned years ago following a traumatic event.
Performances are Thursday, February 9th @ 7 p.m. and Friday, February 10th @ 2 p.m. in the Main Stage Theater. Purchase tickets; $5 discount tickets with code LPAC5.
Enjoy a snippet from an interview between Theresa Buchheister (The Brick Theater) & Jessica Carmona.
For more info, please reach out hozbilgin@lagcc.cuny.edu
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Re-Introducing LaGuardia to the Queens Community
On Monday, January 30, Britney Simpson, a LaGuardia Student and Civic Fellow with the Department of External Affairs, met with Mathew Francis, Community Well-Being Manager at Arab American Family Support Center in Astoria, Queens. This was a part of the External Affairs Literature Drop Off initiative to increase enrollment, boost community engagement and nurture existing relationships with local community organizations. In the upcoming weeks, the Civic Fellows will hand out more LaGuardia information sheets to neighborhood community organizations. For more information about Community Relations, please contact Luda Spajic at lspajic@lagcc.cuny.edu.
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Dr. Jayashree Kamblé Brings Her Love for Romance Literature and Film to LaGuardia Students
Growing up in western India, Jayashree Kamblé read a lot of romance novels. Throughout her time at university in India, earning a bachelor’s and master’s in English, she kept reading romance novels. When it came time to write her doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota, her faculty advisor urged her to “write about what you read even when you don’t have to read it.” Consequently, mass market romance novels became her subject.
Today, Dr. Kamblé is a professor of English at LaGuardia, teaching First Year Seminar for English and Creative Writing majors, Introduction to Expository Writing, and literature courses like Survey of British Literature II and Images of Women in Literature. Her academic research focuses on romance novels, as well as romance narratives in mainstream English and Indian cinema and other media.
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She recently received an ACLS/Mellon fellowship and a CUNY Black, Race and Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI) grant for researching the history of publishing Black romance novels between 1977-1990. Additionally, Dr. Kamblé is the author of a book coming out in June 2023 on romance novel heroines and what their journeys say about contemporary conversations on gender, sexuality, citizenship, race, and economic status. She is the current president of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. | |
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Faculty Encouraged to Participate in COACHE Survey
The 2022-23 Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey will launch this month and close in early April 2023. Harvard University’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) is a consortium of institutional leaders working to improve outcomes for faculty. Conducting the COACHE survey at CUNY is part of the university’s commitment to its faculty and its mission, and the data generated from the survey will be important to our college. As such, we urge faculty to participate in the 25-minute survey. Stay tuned for detailed instructions and reminders via email from COACHE at coachefaculty@abtsurvey.com or coachefaculty@abtassoc.com. The email will contain a web-link that is uniquely yours so please don’t delete.
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Faculty Invited to Learn about Chat GPT, Feb. 16
The Center for Teaching and Learning is hosting a hybrid Chat GPT brown bag on February 16 at 1 p.m., The chat will be hosted by Milena Cuellar from the MEC Department and Ljubica Depovic, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Attendees can join in person or online for a brief presentation and a conversation with colleagues about Chat GPT. The discussion will include: a short overview/demo of what Chat GPT is, its capabilities and limitations; a discussion about its possible implications for academic integrity, assignments, syllabus, etc.; and opportunity to hear from those who have used it, and conversations with colleagues about its possible impact on courses in the spring semester. Artificial Intelligence (AI is an evolving phenomenon that changes almost daily. A detailed outline of the brown bag will follow soon. Here is a LINK to learn more about AI and a YouTube video with instructions for individuals who want to sign up and try it. REGISTER HERE if you plan to attend.
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CUNY Seeks Faculty Applicants for Career Success Fellows
CUNY's Office of Transformation has been partnering with the inaugural Career Success Fellows to build on CUNY’s legacy as one of the most important engines of social mobility in the country and help the University to prepare CUNY students for their futures even more effectively. This Spring, a new cohort of Career Success Fellows will be welcomed and will contribute to this important work. Each campus will have two Fellows, one representing Liberal Arts, Humanities, Education, or Social Sciences, and one representing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), Healthcare, or Business & Accounting. Fellows will take part in a collaborative professional development program and be actively engaged as campus leaders and cross-CUNY liaisons, including spearheading local events, from Spring 2023 through June 2024. Interested faculty can apply here. The application deadline for the Career Success Fellows is close of business on Friday, March 3, 2023. For more information about this opportunity, including eligibility requirements and compensation, please review the Request for Applications. Please reach out to transformation@cuny.edu with any questions.
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LaGuardia to Host Second Annual CUNY LGBTQI+ Student Conference
The CUNY LGBTQI+ Student Conference brings together LGBTQI+ students from across CUNY interested in learning more about leadership and creating change on our campuses and broader communities. What does leadership for social change look like? What does an inclusive CUNY look like? The conference encompasses workshops, a keynote address, and most importantly, bringing together Queer & Trans students, faculty, staff, and allies. The theme of this year's conference is Community, Advocacy, Power, and Healing. Registration is now open for the Conference, taking place Friday, March 31, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and welcomes keynote speaker Cecilia Gentili, founder of Trans Equity Consulting and the former Director of Policy at GMHC. Contact Nathan Tosh with questions, or for more information.
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LaGuardia Red Hawks Basketball Teams Take the Court
Women’s Basketball
- Thursday, February 9 at 6 p.m. at Suffolk CC
- Saturday, February 11 at 5 p.m. vs. Nassau CC
Men’s Basketball
- Thursday, February 9 at 8 p.m. at Suffolk CC
- Saturday, February 11 at 3 p.m. vs. Nassau CC
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CUNY Career Launch Offers Paid Student Internship Opportunity
This summer, 2,000 bright and ambitious CUNY students will launch their careers by interning in a job related to their major while earning $20 per hour! CUNY Career Launch is recruiting undergraduate students who have not yet had paid internship experience but are ready to apply the skills they’ve learned in the classroom to the workplace. Interns will work for 7 weeks between early July until mid-August for 19 hours a week. Application deadline is February 5. For more information or questions, contact Hub Director Sharon Rios.
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GOOD NEWS FROM GRANTS DEVELOPMENT | |
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The purpose of the project is to expand and strengthen the “safety net” for those at risk for mental health concerns by teaching how to effectively intervene and/or de-escalate a mental health related crisis. Utilizing three evidence-based trainings, faculty, staff, and students at LaGuardia Community College will learn how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis, including suicide.
The three evidence-based trainings to be used as the project's main strategy of teaching mental health distress and crisis intervention are: Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), QPR (Question. Persuade. Refer.), and CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Training. Trainees will include faculty, staff, and students at LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC) with a special focus on high-risk populations, including LGBTQIA students, students with disabilities, international and culturally diverse students, African-American students, and student veterans.
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Spring 2023 CUNY x New York Yankees Internship Program
CUNY has teamed up with the New York Yankees for another year to provide internships to matriculated CUNY Students. The New York Yankees Spring 2023 internship program will introduce college students to a range of professional opportunities in the sports industry. Interns will be exposed to departments throughout the Yankees organization, each with a strong connection to community involvement. Selected interns will be exposed to real-world work experiences, provided professional and career advisement, and given opportunities to network with others throughout the company. Interns will learn about the sports industry while developing skills and knowledge to help them move forward in their professional endeavors. Students can learn more on the CUNY Internship Portal and contact LaGuardia’s Center for Career and Professional Development for application support and resume review.
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Third Cohort of Healthfirst Data Analytics Academy Underway
Healthfirst, New York State’s largest not-for-profit health insurer, has contracted with ACE’s Workforce Development Department to train a third cohort of Healthfirst employees in data analytics skills, including SQL, Python and Tableau. The Healthfirst Data Analytics Academy prepares students for potential upgrades within Healthfirst and supports Healthfirst’s efforts to become a best-in-class, data-driven organization, leveraging insights from data to improve population health, client experience, and operational efficiency. Students work on applied projects that are relevant to Healthfirst and graduate with a Data Analytics Certificate from LaGuardia Community College.
The partnership with Healthfirst was piloted through a U.S. Department of Labor grant several years ago. Healthfirst was so happy with the results that they chose to invest directly in the training at LaGuardia, sponsoring a second and now third cohort of the Data Analytics Academy for their employees.
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PUBLIC SAFETY TIP OF THE WEEK | | |
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Emergency Medical Assistance
The Public Safety Department will summon Emergency Medical Services (EMS) if needed or requested to do so. If a medical emergency occurs on campus call the Public Safety Emergency number from any College phone at extension 5555. Trained Public Safety officers will respond to the location. There is also a college EMT on duty at the Health Services Center, MB40, extension 5280.
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LAGUARDIA IN THE HEADLINES | |
"Campus Update" is produced and published by the Communications and External Affairs Division. Faculty and staff who wish to submit items for publication can Share a Story or send an email to CampusUpdate@lagcc.cuny.edu. Submissions must be received by 5 p.m. Monday to be considered for publication on Wednesday. |
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