President's Report for December 2019

Enrollment Management Update 

The Office of Admissions has been processing and admitting Spring 2020 applicants for the upcoming enrollment cycle.  The Office of Admissions continues to work with the new CUNY First Proficiency Index implementation, which includes attending trainings, facilitating new business processes, and supporting prospective students effectively.  In conjunction with the Office of New Student Engagement, we have welcomed 300 prospective students and their families through various on-campus events.

Advisement and registration for both continuing and new students are underway for the Winter/Spring 2020 semesters.  Advisers have been leveraging Starfish to manage their caseloads.  The Office of Academy Advisement successfully hosted an “On-The-Spot Advising” event on Wednesday, October 30^th and were able to assist over 50 students with advisement/registration.  Academy Advisement also held their first “Instagram Live” event, in which they hosted a live feed that provided advising information and fielded questions in real-time from Instagram users.  In total, there were 291 viewers in what was a very successful accomplishment to get the word out about advising and registration for the winter/spring 2020 enrollment cycle.  An additional Instagram Live event is tentatively planned for December while, another On-the-Spot Advising event will take place on Wednesday, December 11^th. Lastly, advisement for readmitted students into our new Academic Fresh Start Program began on Thursday, November 21^st.  

Student Resources

Faculty and staff are asked to encourage our students to avail themselves of the valuable and free resources through the QCC Single Stop Program, located in the Library Building - Room 440.  Services provided include (but not limited to) financial benefits screening, financial counseling, legal assistance, tax preparation services, food bank, housing assistance and more.  Additional information can be found online at QCC Single Stop.

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. Please refer students with short-term financial emergencies to Ms. Karen O’Sullivan, Associate Director of Financial Services, via e-mail at KOsullivan@qcc.cuny.edu  or Ms. Amawati Gonesh, Single Stop Administrator, via e-mail at AGonesh@qcc.cuny.edu.  Additional information can be found online at QCC Scholarships.

The Women’s Forum Education Award provides a scholarship of $10,000.  The awards will be given to women aged 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 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, 2020.  Additional information can be found at QCC Scholarships.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Scholars Program awards renewable scholarships of up to $5,000 to underrepresented minority students who want to enter the fields of chemistry or chemistry-related fields, such as environmental science, toxicology and chemical technology. High school seniors and college freshmen, sophomores, or juniors are eligible to apply.  The ACS Scholars Program was established in 1994 to attract African American, Hispanic and American Indian students considered underrepresented in the chemical sciences by the National Science Foundation to pursue careers in the field.  The program also aims to help build awareness of the value and rewards associated with careers in chemistry and assist students in acquiring skills and credentials needed for success.  The deadline to apply is December 15, 2019.  Additional information can be found at QCC Scholarships.

CUNY continues its partnership with The Dream. US Scholarship Program to assist undocumented students in obtaining scholarships. The Dream.US Scholarship Program provides college scholarships to highly motivated undocumented 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. Scholarships are available to currently enrolled high school students and community college students who will be completing their degrees by the end of the 2019 -2020 academic year. The annual application period to award scholarships for the fall 2020 cohort opens on November 1, 2019 and the deadline is February 27, 2020. Please refer students to visit Dream US Scholarship Program to apply.

The Belle Zeller Scholarship Trust Fund is now available for eligible students to apply. The award shall consist of the yearly undergraduate tuition for in-state students as set by the university. The deadline to apply is March 6, 2020. For additional information, including eligibility requirements and scholarship application, please visit New York City Tech Belle Zeller Scholarship Trust Fund.

The Senator Jose Peralta NYS DREAM Act (DREAM Act) allows undocumented and other eligible students to apply for New York State financial aid. The NYS DREAM Act application is used to determine student eligibility under the provisions of the NYS DREAM Act.  Students who meet the NYS DREAM Act’s eligibility requirements for high school attendance, high school completion, in-state SUNY or CUNY tuition, and citizenship or immigration status will be able to apply for one or more NYS student financial aid programs.  Students who qualify under the NYS DREAM Act can separately apply for NYS student financial aid programs. The program is administered by the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation.  Additional information can be found at Senator Jose Peralta NYS Dream Act.

Academic Master Plan 

STEM Waiver

We are currently processing the STEM Waiver Program applications for the winter 2020 session, allowing hundreds of students to take a tuition-free STEM course. The balance of the FY 20 funding will be available to our students for summer session courses. 

Milestone Scholarship

We have offered Milestone Scholarships to over 180 students for the winter 2020 session, which allows them to take a tuition-free course that is part of their degree plan. Applications are currently being accepted and reviewed.  We will continue the Milestone Scholarship for the summer 2020 sessions to help students reach their “30-credit milestone.”

Upcoming Events 

Undergraduate Research Day: The 2019 QCC Undergraduate Research Day will be held on Friday, December 6, 2019, 11:30 am to 3:30 pm in the Student Union. All faculty engaging students in all forms of undergraduate research are urged to participate with their students. Abstracts/proposals are due November 24^th. Please use this link to submit the abstracts/proposals: QCC Undergraduate Research.

Faculty workshop: Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Workshop: 12/12/19, 2 to 3 pm (L313). QCC students and faculty who are involved in a research project on campus are required to complete the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) CITI online training within six weeks of starting the project and participate in an in-person RCR workshop within 12 months from the completion of the online CITI certificate. Please RSVP here: QCC Professional Development & Workshop

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) will host the New Faculty Institute, a three-day experience intended to familiarize new faculty with essential faculty support resources and pedagogical innovations offered at the College. The institute will be held on January 22-24, 2020, from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm in the Oakland Dining Room. Information on promotion and tenure, opportunities for service to the college, professional development programs and information on research and publishing will be available to faculty.

The Adjunct Faculty Orientation will be held on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 from 10 am to 12 pm in the CETL L-313 room.

2020 Faculty Workshops:

Sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs in conjunction with the Faculty Executive Committee, Academic Senate Steering Committee and CETL, several faculty workshops are planned for the following date in spring 2020:

Wednesday, February 5, 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm in the Oakland Dining Room -- What you need to know when applying to the rank of Full Professor

Friday, Wednesday, February 14, 10:00 am to 11:30 am in the Oakland Dining Room -- Promotion and Tenure for mid-career faculty

Wednesday, February 19, 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm in CETL L-313 – General Information on reappointment and tenure processes for Assistant Professors

Wednesday, February 26, 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm in the Oakland Dining Room -- Opportunities for service to the College and opportunities and programs at QCC and CUNY

CONTINUING EDUCATION & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT 

Celebration!

Certified Recovery Peer Advocate (CRPA) Training Program (CRPA) graduated the 5th cohort (16 students) and held a graduation ceremony at Flushing Satellite Campus on Tuesday, November 12, 2019. This program is sponsored by New York City Small Business Services.

Upcoming events:

CEWD will host 1st advisory committee meeting at Oakland, December 6, at 10:00 am -12:00 pm.

Grants Update

Grants Awarded October 22, 2019 through November 18, 2019

No grants awarded during this time period.

Art Gallery 

Bronx Triennial Latino Independent Film Festival

December 12, 2019

In partnership with BronxArtSpace, the QCC Art Gallery is presenting a day of films directed by local and international independent Latino film makers. The broad range of Triennial artists includes representation from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela. The Project will create awareness of the rich international network with Latin American artists, many with strong links to New York City.

Kupferberg Holocaust Center

Survivance and Sovereignty on Turtle Island: Engaging with Contemporary Native American Art is currently on view at the KHC through May 22, 2020.

The exhibit is curated by Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota) and QCC Art & Design faculty member, Kat Griefen, in collaboration with students and alumni from the QCC Gallery and Museum Studies Program and the KHC Fellowship Program. The exhibition addresses the histories and present-day realities of the first people of this continent through contemporary art. Turtle Island is the name given to North America by the Anishinabek, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), and the Lenape—some of the Indigenous people of this region. The sixteen works on display address survivance: a term that emphasizes both cultural survival and resistance in the face of hundreds of years of genocide and mass atrocities. Survivance and Sovereignty on Turtle Island has found its home at the KHC because it is only through studying the Holocaust that we develop the vocabulary to examine and acknowledge other genocides and the contemporary responses to them. By using art to communicate the impact that genocide has upon Indigenous people on Turtle Island, we can understand that these egregious crimes of attempted erasure are not outliers but part of a continuum.

To schedule a guided tour of the exhibit for your class or group, please contact khc@qcc.cuny.edu for more information.

The KHC/NEH 2019-2020 Colloquium continues during Spring 2020 with Three (3) Programs  

Authoritarianism on the Continuum: Complicity, Opposition and Dissent

With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Challenge Grant, the colloquium explores current manifestations of authoritarianism and public responses voicing both complicity and dissent. The series identifies the unique features of present authoritarianism that impact QCC’s students and other members of our community in order to better understand and to oppose fully formed and incipient symptoms of authoritarianism. The colloquium is organized by Julia Rothenberg, Associate Professor of Sociology in the Social Sciences department at QCC-CUNY. Her pedagogy and publications focus on overlapping topics within urban sociology, the sociology of art, race, and ethnicity, as well as social and cultural theory.

Spring 2020 colloquium events will discuss: Memorials and Memory Activism, Social Movements and Protest, and Journalism.

Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC) 

GOTTA DANCE!

QPAC’s Broadway Dance-Along Winter Workout Challenge!

December 14, 2019 – 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Professional dance choreographers teach popular dance numbers from some of the greatest movie musicals of all time!

First, watch a clip of the dance number being re-created in the context of the original movie.  Then, get ready to learn a reimagined version of the routine you just finished watching.

This special three-session dance workshop provides a great outlet for individuals looking to have fun and jump-start a healthy regime.  Two hours of exhilarating music and caloric-burning activity.

ONLY $5.00 per workshop

Tickets can be purchased online: Queensborough Performing Arts Center or by calling the box office at (718) 631-6311.  A purchased ticket reserves you a spot! Space is limited.

Suggested age: 18 – 90!

Individuals of all abilities are welcome – Do what you can!