OAA THIS WEEK | Oct 20, 2022

A news update and community connection for the Office of Academic Affairs of The City University of New York

OAA This Week (OTW) continues on its biweekly schedule through 2022. For inclusion in upcoming editions, please send updates of your unit’s news and milestones to me at Jason.Brooks@cuny.edu.

The next edition of OAA This Week will be Thursday, November 3. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m., Monday, October 31.

AVC Alicia Alvero (left), President Berenecea Eanes (center), and EVC Wendy Hensel (right) rock red and black for York.

__ __The town hall, held in the college’s main auditorium, drew over 100 faculty, students, and staff, both online and in person. Questions for EVC Hensel ranged from scaling services for students with disabilities to the modernization of technology on campus. When asked about further development of online courses offerings at CUNY, the EVC recognized the work of faculty — who nimbly switched to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic — and reported that the University is redoubling its efforts to ensure that the faculty are trained to deliver the highest caliber of classes to students, which drew a hearty round of applause from the audience.

Program coordinators Leslie Rivas (left) and Zoraima Rosario-Rolón (center left), and Early Childhood Development Executive Director Dona Anderson (right) give a warm welcome to EVC Hensel at OAA's Court St. office.

_____In addition to the York visit, EVC Hensel spent this past Monday visiting OAA sites at Court Street in Brooklyn and 57th Street in Manhattan, where she and her team toured the offices of Early Childhood Development, Student Success, Library Services, the University Student Senate, Student Affairs, as well as the Office of Research and ORAEDA. These site visits were the first opportunity for EVC Hensel, whose tenure at CUNY began in June, to connect in person with many of the OAA staff who work there. Throughout the day, she assured staff that these visits were only the start of continuing and closer engagement between her office and the various offices that comprise these extra-Central Office sites. “This is not a one-and-done hello and goodbye,” said EVC Hensel. “This is just the beginning of the conversation.”

____ The EVC’s listening tour continues today at the College of Staten Island, which will also feature a town hall-style Q&A with faculty and students. Other upcoming dates include October 26 at Guttman Community College and October 31 at LaGuardia Community College. More information on the listening tour and a complete list of Fall 2022 dates can be found here. 

Earlier this week, the CUNY Office of Research announced that Lynda Mules was appointed University executive director of Research Integrity and Compliance. Mules is expected to bring a wealth of leadership to the position and play a pivotal role in advancing the entire CUNY research enterprise.

_____Mules has served in CUNY compliance since 2015, when she joined John Jay College of Criminal Justice as their research compliance senior analyst. At John Jay, she oversaw the full scope of critical compliance activities, including strategic planning, policy and procedure development, quality assurance, and educational content delivery.

_____“Lynda is renowned, both throughout CUNY and the wider compliance field for her expertise and ability to build partnerships that strengthen institutional research integrity,” said Tamera Schneider, associate vice chancellor and University vice provost for Research. “The CUNY Office of Research is very lucky to welcome someone with her caliber of talent coupled with her collaborative nature, as well as her vision for protecting the mosaic of exemplary research that takes place across our 25 colleges and schools.”

_____Mules begins her tenure at the Office of Research team on October 24.

CUNY will host the annual Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) conference October 28 and October 29 at the Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island. PIT-UN is a partnership of colleges and universities committed to applying technological skills, knowledge, design, and practice to questions of individual rights, justice, social welfare, and the public good.

_____The co-chairs for this year’s event are Effie MacLachlan, director of grants and research programs in the Office of Research at CUNY and PIT-UN university designee, and College of Staten Island professor Katie Cumiskey, the recipient of more than $235,000 in Challenge Grant funding to build the PIT@CSI program and the CUNY PIT Lab. Last year, $3.61 million in PIT-UN Challenge Grants were awarded to 31 recipients; all awards were given to faculty at PIT-UN’s member institutions.

_____The 2-day conference seeks to inspire the next generation of technologists working as engineers, designers, computer and data scientists, as well as those interested in using their technological skills in service of the public good. As part of the 2-day agenda, there will be a special “provosts and presidents” panel discussion that includes policy analyst Anne-Marie Slaughter, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, and Executive Vice Chancellor Wendy Hensel. The panel will explore how public interest tech can be developed and scaled by public universities, with particular attention to curricula development vis-à-vis social justice reforms.

_____Learn more about PIT-UN and register for the conference here. 

The Office of Transformation (OT) is hosting a series of CUNY-wide “listening sessions” to gather feedback from students, faculty, staff, and employers on the best ways to help CUNY students prepare for their futures. Over 450 people registered for the first Listening Session with career services advisors and other administrators. You can listen to it here.

_____The next “From Classrooms to Careers” listening session, November 22, is designed for CUNY students and will be led by recent CUNY alums. On December 7, OT will host a session for CUNY faculty. Each session will begin with brief presentations, followed by an open forum for questions, comments, and suggestions.  

_____The series is facilitated by Distinguished Professor Cathy N. Davidson, senior advisor to the Chancellor on Transformation and founding director of the Futures Initiative, and Rachel Stephenson, Chief Transformation Officer, previously assistant vice chancellor of Academic Strategy and Operations at OAA.

_____The schedule for the listening series is as follows.

_____November 22, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.: “Session 2: Students.” Four recent CUNY graduates will address the questions about the job interview process. RSVP here.

_____December 7, 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.: “Session 3: Faculty.” Four faculty who have spent the year as CUNY Career Success Fellows will briefly discuss their ideas for how to align the content in CUNY coursework, at any level in all fields, with the skills employers prize most. RSVP here.

Earlier this week, Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez joined Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams in announcing plans to transform Hunter College’s Brookdale Campus into a 1.5-million-square-foot, state-of-the-art public health and education hub. The center will eventually house Hunter’s School of Nursing and research labs, as well as the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Public Policy and Borough of Manhattan Community College health programs.

_____The Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC) Kips Bay, as it will be called, will also include a new Department of Education high school that is expected to create a career pipeline for nursing, health care, and public health.

_____“As the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated, New York City relies on a steady crop of well-trained nurses and health professionals to meet the needs of our complex city,” said the Chancellor, who, in a written statement, highlighted CUNY’s annual enrollment of nearly 40,000 students in health and human services. “CUNY is proud to be a part of this partnership, which will help New York recover from the pandemic equitably,” he said.

_____Driven by investments from New York City and State, SPARC Kips Bay will generate approximately $25 billion in economic impact to the city over the next 30 years; create 10,000 jobs, including 2,000 permanent jobs; and transform Hunter College’s Brookdale Campus on East 25th Street and First Avenue into new, state-of-the-art teaching and commercial facilities, according to CUNY’s website.

_____“Thanks to this agreement with the city, SPARC Kips Bay will give New York’s life sciences sector a major boost, creating thousands of high-paying jobs, investing in education, and making New York the place where miracles are made,” said Governor Hochul in a statement. 

_____The project will occupy an entire city block — with over 1.5 million square feet of academic, public health, and life sciences space, more than doubling the life sciences footprint in Kips Bay — and rebuild a new accessible pedestrian bridge on East 25th Street connecting to the East River and Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. SPARC Kips Bay is expected to cost $1.6 billion and will be jointly funded by the City and State with additional investment from the private sector in life sciences. It is expected to break ground in 2026 and be completed by the end of 2031.

If you appreciate unique films devoted to advocating for people's rights, whether they be LGBTQI+, persons of color, urban, rural, or differently abled, do not miss the second annual Bronx Social Justice Matters International Film Festival, which will be held virtually tomorrow through October 30.

Seeking some Halloween spirit — and looking to split town for a day? Bethel Woods in Woodstock promises “peace, love, and pumpkins” for all.

With El Día de los Muertos hiding just around the corner, Rockefeller Center has transformed its grounds into a vibrant plaza of the dead.

In The Bronx, Pelham Art Center brings the joy and celebration of El Día de los Muertos to the community with an afternoon of Mexican folk art and dance.

Finally, not to be a downer … but … epidemiologists are predicting a particularly rough winter in NYC with a perfect storm of new COVID-19 variants and influenza. People’s CDC is a good source for tracking real case numbers in the City and beyond.

And don’t forget to get your booster. Be safe, everyone!