Category: Future of Education

Posted on

Starting a new semester at CUNY SPS

As I embark on another academic year at the CUNY School of Professional Studies, I thought I would share how I’m kicking things off with my students. Since my courses in digital media are fully online and asynchronous, I created a video introduction highlighting my background, the passions that fuel my teaching, and the interests that will drive the journey with my students.

This semester I am teaching courses in Visual Communication and Social Media. Both classes are recently redesigned courses I created for the program to help bring the curriculum more aligned with industry trends. I restructured the course content of both classes to a greater project-based method of instruction. I hope that a more practical and hands-on focus will benefit the students.

Over the summer, while redesigning these classes, I concentrated heavily on implementing effective pedagogy. My teaching approach fosters meaningful connections and a dynamic learning environment. As I begin my 24th year of teaching within the CUNY system, I look forward to guiding my students through this semester and learning alongside them.

Posted on

Graduation Day at CUNY SPS

The perfect way to end an academic year is to celebrate the accomplishments of our amazing students. It has been a genuine honor to serve as the Interim Academic Director of the Communication and Media Program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) this year.

This was a role I previously served in from 2013 – 2016. Due to my previous experience with the institution, the administration at SPS asked for me to serve in an interim capacity while the current Director was on research leave. I am happy to say that I will be staying on through the Fall while the current Director puts the finishing touches on a completed manuscript.

Posted on

It is good to be back at CUNY-SPS!

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dean Jorge Silva-Puras for an interview on my role as the Interim Academic Director of the Communication and Media program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS). During the session, we discussed what it is like to head up one of the only fully online four-year degrees within CUNY. The talk ventured into how the asynchronous nature of the program benefits students wanting to earn a degree, and what it takes to break into the field.

Posted on

CUNY ASAP STEM Career Event

A few months ago a former student of mine, Caroline Mendez, reached out to me to see if I would be interested in participating in a LaGuardia virtual event to promote STEM professions to students of color. Caroline studied digital media with me back in the early 2000s shortly after I made the switch from corporate IT to academia. She is currently an Academic Advisor for the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) and is tasked with helping students, particularly students of color, find their way by providing intensive academic advisement, career development, tuition scholarships, textbooks, and transportation assistance. Since I love reconnecting with former students, I eagerly agreed to join the panel discussion on STEM career opportunities.

Continue reading “CUNY ASAP STEM Career Event”
Posted on

New Media Alumni Profiles – Arin Soukoule

This is another in a series of former student profiles that I am putting together. Arin is an alumnus of the LaGuardia Community College New Media Technology Program and a former student of mine. During the pandemic, they were kind enough to speak with me via Zoom and talk about their experience as a former student of the program to assist current students in finding their way to a post-LaGuardia world.

Posted on

New Media Alumni Profiles – Will Domingue

Will is an alumnus of the LaGuardia Community College New Media Technology Program and a former student of mine. During the pandemic, he was kind enough to speak with me via Zoom and talk about his experience as a former student of the program to assist current New Media students in finding their way to a post-LaGuardia world.

Posted on

Thanks, I needed that today.

Every time I start questioning my choice of career, and I have been doing it a lot lately, I get a message like this from a former student and start to think that maybe the last 20 years of my professional life haven’t been a total waste of time.

Posted on

Online teaching? We should have been better prepared.

The video above is from a 2014 panel group discussion I participated in on the subject of evaluating online instruction. I went back to look at the video after all of this time because college administrators recently featured in the news have mentioned the difficultly schools are having in shifting to a distance learning modality. We are three weeks into this semester and the one thing that I have realized about how High Education has responded to the COVID-19 impact on face to face instruction, is that we should have been better prepared.

Continue reading “Online teaching? We should have been better prepared.”