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.

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.

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.

Life after ITP

NYU ITP Panel

As part of an alumni panel discussing life and career possibilities after graduation, I was invited once again to speak to students in the NYU Interactive Telecommunication Program. It was a great event, but I must admit to having a good laugh at the fact that I was the oldest person on the panel by far.

The funniest thing was when I mentioned the year I graduated a student in the front row mouthed the word “wow”. Dat’s right son, I’m a straight up ODG (Original Digital Gangsta)! Protect ya neck!

Speaking at the Grad Center

A colleague of mine, Michael Mandiberg, invited me to be a guest lecturer for a class he was teaching at the CUNY Graduate Center. The students in his class were PhD candidates within the CUNY Interactive Technology and Pedagogy certificate program. Over the course of the semester his class examined how people and technologies have shaped academic classroom and research interactions in the past, and how they are reshaping the university in the present.

I spoke on the topic of “The Digital Humanities & the Future of Academic Inquiry and Publishing”. Michael thought that my previous papers, interviews, and conference presentations on the topic of digital scholarship would help spark a lively debate among his students.

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CUNY IT Conference 2015: Online Learning

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We had a great session yesterday at the 14th annual CUNY IT conference held at John Jay College. The subject of the session I participated in was “Online Learning: What’s in it for CUNY”. The panel featured some of the most knowledgeable people within the City University system on the topic of how online education can best be implemented to the benefit of our students, faculty, and individual institutions.

The session was well attended and the discussion section of the panel spark a number of interesting debates on how CUNY needs to proceed with online education. In November of 2014 CUNY Chancellor James B. Milliken, speaking at a meeting of the Association for a Better New York, proclaimed Continue reading “CUNY IT Conference 2015: Online Learning”

CUNY Career Opportunities for NYU-ITP Students

I was approached a few months back by the folks at NYU to be a part of an academic career opportunities event for students of the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). I was asked to to introduce ITP students to the teaching opportunities available within the City University of New York (CUNY) system. My presentation highlighted the two schools I represent, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and LaGuardia, and how current students and alumni can work as adjuncts, teaching assistants, tutors, workshop organizers, application writers, interns, etc..

This felt very much like a homecoming for me. It was the first time I had formally presented at my old Alma Mater. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed my time at ITP.

LaGuardia New Media Technology Update

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Last week I was part of a faculty panel that presented on the upcoming curricular changes to the LaGuardia New Media Technology major. In addition to the core web development classes we are now adding new tracks in digital journalism, ecommerce/entrepreneurship, game design/mobile app development, and digital media/VFX.

These are changes that I had fought for over a number of years and were outlined in the Periodic Program Review (PPR) which I produced over two years ago. The event was well attended and many of my new colleagues in seem extremely excited to begin this work. After so many years of being the sole full time teaching member of the New Media program, it is great to have additional voices involved in shaping the future direction of the major.