KCC English Department Newsletter
Newsletter Editor Jane Weiss
English Department Office
Christine, Audrey, and Shelly are delighted that more of us are back on campus in person; in fact, they’re providing coffee and snacks, so stop by and visit C309! However, there are some start of semester tasks you can handle more efficiently through other means. If you have computer or account-related issues, please contact Instructional Technology directly (718-368-6679, helpdesk@kbcc.cuny.edu); to find out your room assignments, please check CUNYfirst, and if you run into problems with your room, contact Academic Scheduling at Academic_Scheduling@kbcc.cuny.edu or 718.368.5686. And make a note that the English Department office will function remotely from April 22, 2024 through April 30, 2024; during that period, which is Spring Recess at KCC, C309 will be closed and the best way to reach the office will be via email.
Workload Forms
If you have not already done so, please send your Spring workload and multiple position forms to the English Department immediately at Engworkload.kcc@kbcc.cuny.edu. You can find blank workload forms (and the handy 19-page Quick Guide to filling them out) at https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/aa/forms.html
PSC-CUNY Chapter Meeting
Please join PSC-CUNY’s KCC chapter for our first meeting of the semester on Thursday, March 14th at 4:00 PM on Zoom. This meeting is urgent: Executive Vice Chancellor Wendy Hensel has proposed revisions to the CUNY Bylaws that, among other things, would transfer the responsibility of class scheduling to the college administration, taking that power away from faculty-elected department chairs. The proposed Bylaws changes have been sent to PSC-CUNY members’ KCC email addresses, and the Zoom information will be sent later this week. As always, please feel free to reach out to Scott Cally, the chapter chair, or to Rick Repetti, our campus grievance officer, if you need the union’s help with anything. And if you are not a PSC-CUNY member and these threats to our ability to shape CUNY’s curriculum distress you, please sign up with PSC-CUNY at https://psc-cuny.org/join-psc/ .
Verification of Enrollment rosters for Spring 2024 (Regular academic session) Due Sunday 17 March Before 11:59 PM
The CUNY Board of Trustees mandate is that faculty report any students who have never attended and or participated in courses for which they are officially registered using the “Verification of Enrollment (VOE) Roster.” All VOE rosters are required on or before the deadline Sunday, March 17 at 11:59 PM.. there will be financial liability to both the student and the college if this information is not submitted on time, please plan accordingly.
The VOE rosters are now available in the Faculty Center in CUNYfirst. TO ACCESS THE VOE ROSTERS YOU NEED TO CLAIM (ACTIVATE) YOUR CUNYFIRST ACCOUNT IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE SO ALREADY. To navigate to CUNYfirst n the Kingsborough website at http://www.kingsborough.edu, place the mouse over the Quick Links button, and in the drop-down menu select “CUNYfirst Portal” If you prefer, you may instead type https://home.cunyfirst.cuny.edu in your web browser’s address bar. Detailed step-by-step instructions to submit your VOE roster are available here: Microsoft Word – Submission of Verification of Enrollment Rosters.docx (constantcontact.com) Please ensure that you take the time to account for all of the students that have been attending your class and that they appear on your CUNYfirst roster.
Report ONLY those students who NEVER participated in academically-related class activities by the time you submit the VOE Roster. Per CUNY guidelines, logging into the online class is NOT sufficient to demonstrate participation. Students reported as never having participated will be assigned the non-punitive grade of WN, Withdrawn/Never Attended. As a result, the student will NOT be able to count the course toward financial aid eligibility. WN grades are scheduled to post on the student record on Monday, March 18 per the VOE roster reporting.
Remember VOE rosters MUST BE SUBMITTED on or before Sunday, March 17 at 11:59 pm. Please note that after the deadline lapses, the portal to submit rosters will no longer be available in the Faculty Center in CUNYfirst. any rosters that are NOT submitted by the deadline will be reported to your Department Chair and the Provost Office for their appropriate action.Once the VOE roster is “Submitted to the Registrar’s Office,” any changes will need to be made by completing the appropriate forms. Please contact the Registrar’s Office for more information.
Polls on Course Caps and Program Leadership
If you haven’t yet added your voice to the polls Annie circulated last week, this is a reminder to please take a minute to do so before the end of this week. The polls use Microsoft Forms, which requires you to sign in using your CUNY credentials. She has set both of these polls to NOT record the names of respondents. Please be assured that your responses are entirely anonymous.
One topic discussed at the English Department meeting on March 5 2024 was Annie’s feeling that we have developed enough expertise in teaching online that it is no longer necessary to maintain lower course caps for online sections of our courses. Annie has prepared this poll on course caps between in person and online courses to gather more feedback. https://forms.office.com/r/YDZ9eXch42
Annie had also hoped to spend a short amount of time during that meeting to generate various ideas and options for how we might want to structure the selection process we use for our Liberal Arts concentration program directors – for Literary Studies and for Creative Writing – in the future. This is not part of any move or plan to shift current faculty out of these roles. Instead, it’s an effort to collaboratively create a transparent process by which these leadership roles can be chosen in the future, when needed. Here is another, different, poll to gather your feedback on this topic: https://forms.office.com/r/ccdtzzNH8d
Faculty Mentor and Support Hours in E219
A message from Hope Parisi: Hope will be in E219 this semester, available for informal chats with new and experienced part-time faculty, and all faculty, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:40pm-2:30pm, with more availability by phone or Zoom according to wish or need. Please come by this welcoming environment if you’re on campus. Hope’s email is Hope.Parisi@kbcc.cuny.edu.
English Department Protocol for Faculty Absences
A reminder of the department protocol when you cannot meet your students during a regularly scheduled class meeting, whether in-person or online synchronously: You must report all absences to our department immediately, ideally before the class session that you will miss. Please send an email to Shelly Benjamin (please cc Christine Marchese), who will initiate the absence paperwork process for you. Please be advised that it is against CUNY and NYSED policy for a faculty member to modify a course’s modality during a semester, so it is not acceptable to meet students online, whether synchronously or asynchronously, when you cannot meet them in person. In such a case, you must cancel class and take an absence for that class period.
When you know in advance that you must be absent, remember that you can contact Shelly Benjamin and request that she try to find another faculty member who can sub your class for you. Please do not arrange for a sub on your own because many of our faculty members are at their maximum hours for the year and cannot be paid more for additional teaching hours.
Writing Center Asynchronous Tutoring
A message from Tony Iontasca: Tony has sent the sign-up instructions for the writing center’s new asynchronous tutoring program (which are, incidentally, nearly identical to the sign-up instructions for any tutoring appointment) to English department faculty members at your KCC email. As Tony mentioned in the announcement last week, the Writing Center will be piloting the program only with students in English 12 and 24. Our aim is to see how things go, and hopefully to expand this initiative to all students seeking help with writing. This tutoring format is open to all English 12 and 24 students, not only those enrolled in asynchronous English courses. In addition, the KLC’s website has a set of new handouts, with more to come (especially research related handouts). Typically, the tutors and and Tony develop these during the summer and winter modules when tutoring is less busy. Here is the link to those handouts:
https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/KLC/TutoringResources.html#english
Informational Video: Access-Ability Services (AAS)
A message from Christine Rudisel: The link below is for an informational video about Kingsborough’s Access-Ability Services (AAS). Please consider posting it on your course sites and/or including it in your syllabi. In addition to providing information about the services offered by the college, this video is a good way to remind students who need accommodations (or think they might need accommodations) to contact AAS at the beginning of the semester.
As always, if you have questions about AAS, would like to discuss strategies for working with atypical learners, or have students who might benefit from registering with AAS, please feel free to contact me at Christine.Rudisel@kbcc.cuny.edu.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/17KBAKkUv_g?feature=shared
Upcoming English Department Meetings
Upcoming English Department meetings are on 9 April 2024 and 21 May 2024, both in V219 from 3:00 to 4:30 PM.
A Note about the Newsletter
A message from Jane Weiss, the Newsletter editor: The next issue of the Newsletter will come out on Monday 18 March 2024. Please send newsletter items by Friday, 15 March 2024 to Jane Weiss at Jane.Weiss@kbcc.cuny.edu. Please keep items brief (preferably 100 or fewer words). Longer items will be abridged. At the English Department retreat, many faculty members said they’d like to learn more about colleagues’ areas of scholarship, so if you would like to share what you’re working on, the Newsletter will welcome descriptions of your research and recent or upcoming presentations, publications, or performances.
