President's Report for December 2024

OFFICE OF CENTER FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AND LEARNING (CETL)
The Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) will offer High Impact Practices (HIPs) workshops (Jan 23 & 24, 2024) to support faculty in integrating Academic Service Learning, Common Read, Global Diversity Learning, Students Working in Interdisciplinary Groups, Undergraduate research, and Writing Intensive. All faculty are encouraged to sign up for the workshops for integrating High-Impact Practices (HIPs). These practices are teaching strategies that promote deeper learning and greater persistence. CETL and the Office of Educational technology (OET) will provide professional development opportunities on Open Educational resources (OER) development process. For the 7th 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 VII (2023-24). 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 the CETL and OET homepages to see a complete listing of all upcoming events and professional development opportunities.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

I.       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, beginning in January 2025. Information Sessions will be held in December 2024 and flyers will be marketed to the QCC community for these no-cost, in-demand Certifications.

• Lori A. Conkling presented "Seamless Pathways to Career Success: A Design Jam for Integrating Education and Workforce Development" at the Continuing Education Association of New York Annual Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY on November 14, 2024.

Enrollment Management Update

• The Office of Academy Advisement Office is seeing an early demand for students to register for spring 2025 classes. Academy Advisement requires all first-time, first semester students to see an adviser prior to registration. In addition, students on academic probation with a cumulative GPA below 1.6 are also required to meet with an adviser before spring registration. Their office also had a very successful campaign in October and early November to encourage students to seek advisement and register early on, which has led to a robust demand for our services in advising. Lastly, students enrolled in FYS-100: First Year Success Seminar were given a priority registration date. This has led to about 50% of our freshmen having already registered for spring 2025. The Office of Academy Advisement has also begun advising and registering new, incoming Spring 2025 students (freshmen, transfer, and readmitted students) as of November 6.

• The Office of New Student Engagement began their “Tips for Success” workshop series on Tuesday, December 3. These workshops were created to offer new incoming students with information on topics such as paying for college, how to be a successful student, and the importance of academic advisement to name a few. All new incoming registered students are invited to participate as part of their onboarding to the college.

Athletics Update
• The Women’s Soccer Team won the 2024 CUNY Community College Championship, with freshmen Stephanie Perez winning the Player of the Year Award, and head coach Samantha Dias winning Coach of the Year Award. The Men’s Soccer Team won the 2024 CUNY Community College Regular Season Championship but lost in the championship game. Freshmen athlete Juan Rambal was named Player of the Year, while head coach Aziwoh Ayafor was named the Coach of the Year.

• Women's Volleyball won the 2024 CUNY Community College Championship. It's the 8th time they've won that title in the past 9 seasons. Sophomore Michelle Liu was named the Player of the Year and head coach Jason Demas was named the Coach of the Year. We bid farewell to coach Jason Demas, who has since stepped down from his coaching duties effective at the end of the season after 15 years to spend more time with his family.

• Lastly, the Men's Cross Country Team finished in 2nd place at the 2024 Region XV Cross Country Championships while the Women's Cross Country finished in 3rd place.

Queensborough Community College 64th Annual Commencement Ceremony
QCC's 64th Annual Commencement Ceremony is scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 29 at 10:00 am on the Athletic Field. Students who complete their degree requirements as of the conclusion of the fall 2024 and winter 2025 semesters, as well as those anticipated to complete their degree requirements as of the conclusion of the spring and summer 2025 semesters, will be invited to participate in the ceremony.

Student Honors/Awards/Recognition
SGA Vice President for Evening Students and ASAP student Sabreen Qaisar has been accepted into the prestigious Kaplan Leadership Program. QCC Class of 2024 graduate and Valedictorian, Melanie Jerez Cruz, was also accepted into the program. The Kaplan Leadership Program provides financial assistance to ethnic minority students enrolled in an associate degree program in the New York City area. Both Sabreen and Melanie are excellent students, who managed to attain a cumulative GPA above the 3.5 mark and were inducted into the Lambda Sigma Chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. Please join me in congratulating these exemplary students.

Student Support Resources
• With unanimous approval from the center’s advisory council at QCC, the newly established LGBTQIA+ Resource Center has officially been renamed as “The PRIDE Center.” A name plate formally designating the space will be visible on the center’s door in the coming weeks. Located in the Administration Building – Room 206, The PRIDE Center opened for students on Monday, October 7, and there have consistently been students in the space every day since the second week of its opening. The PRIDE Center has hosted a Halloween film screening in collaboration with the Caribbean Student Coalition and hosted a separate club meeting for the Ally LGBTQ Club. The PRIDE Center has been meeting with different campus partners at QCC to identify resources while also further developing the space.

• 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 AGonesh@qcc.cuny.edu.  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 9, 2025.

• 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.

• The Dream.US Scholarship Program provides college scholarships to highly motivated students who entered the United States as minors under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Temporary Protect Status (TPS), and who, without financial assistance, cannot afford a college education. All funding is provided by private donations to The Dream.US organization. Full details, including eligibility requirements, can be found HERE. The application opened on November 1 and will close on February 28, 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).

• 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 HealthServices@qcc.cuny.edu for additional information.

• 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.

• Students who anticipate completing their degree requirements at the conclusion of the fall 2024, winter 2025, spring 2025 or summer 2025 semester are invited to take their Graduation Portrait. Portraits will be taken beginning Monday, December 2 through Thursday, December 5 in the Student Union Building – Lower Level from 10:00 am – 5:30 pm and appointments are required. To schedule an appointment, students can contact the Office of Student Activities at (718) 631-6233, visit their office in the Student Union Building – Lower Level, or email Ms. Cha Huang at CHuang@qcc.cuny.edu. 

Events Report

                                                           THANK YOU!

...to the campus community and our #CUNYTuesday teams for their outpouring of support for #CUNYTuesday. Every dollar raised will have a life-changing impact on our students.

... to our five 2024 NYC Marathon runners, 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. The runners have collectively raised nearly $11,000 for the QCC Fund Promise Scholarship!

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 similar to 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.

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


                                                                          Art Gallery

• Internship Program:

This semester, one student is fulfilling an internship from the Museum Studies of the Department of Art and Design.

• Exhibits:
Don’t Forget the Sunflower
Opening December 19, 2024 - 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

In March 2014, Joung people led Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement which in time completely reversed the course of Taiwan’s foreign and domestic policy. The Sunflower Movement successfully blocked the proposed legislation easing trade with China, leading many of its participants to enter formal political life and thereby rejuvenating Taiwan's political culture.
Artists played a pivotal role in the struggle, not merely as observers but actively on the front lines. The Island Sunrise Team, employing paint brushes, cameras, and video recorders, documented the events. The exhibition showcases visuals from 2014.

                                                                Kupferberg Holocaust Center
  
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE MUSEUM SERIES
This series brings together museum curators and other cultural workers who discuss the roles historical and cultural institutions play in addressing human rights, social justice, and genocide. This program is part of the Kupferberg Holocaust Center’s living Land Acknowledgment and ongoing commitment to feature Indigenous voices and viewpoints. The program is organized collaboratively by Kat Griefen, faculty member and Program Coordinator for the Gallery and Museum Studies program, and the KHC.


Regarding Repatriation: Museums and Native Communities Today
Wednesday, December 11, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. EDT
Click here to register: https://tinyurl.com/tazyf7bz  
Join us for a conversation about the 2024 revisions to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), including its effects on museums and Native communities featuring Danyelle Means, Director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM and cocurator of the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center’s (KHC) 2019-20 exhibition, Survivance and Sovereignty on Turtle Island: Engaging with Contemporary Native American Art.

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

Finding Home: Exploring the Cuban Jewish Experience in the Caribbean and the US
Recorded on October 30, 2024
Recording link: https://youtu.be/hMrfnID5-HQ?feature=shared 
Join us for a conversation surrounding Cuba’s long Jewish history with Dr. Ruth Behar, a cultural anthropologist and published children’s book author who has spent her career studying and sharing her own personal experience navigating her identity as a Cuban Jew. The discussion will encompass the ways in which Jewish immigrants reckoned with the creation of their new homes and identities as they migrated from Europe to the Caribbean and the US.

Transportations of Terror and Trauma
Recorded on November 20, 2024
The link to the recorded event is available on the KHC’s website.
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
Recorded on December 4, 2024
The link to the recorded event is available on the KHC’s website.
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.

                                                     Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC)

A national search is being conducted for the next Director of QPAC. 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.

Department of Finance
• The Science atrium will be closing next week by Wednesday. DASNY has mobilized and started some work. Larger abetment project will take place during the Holidays recess. Smaller abetment projects will take place during the weekends. We don’t have the exact dates yet, but the building will need to close Saturday and Sunday.

• Friendly reminder, Departments need to use Archibus to submit work orders.

• Tiger Bites opening is scheduled for December 3rd. The new dining area in SUL will have operations from 10AM to 4PM.