March 20 2023 English Department Newsletter
Newsletter Editor Jane Weiss
Composition Coordinators Spring 2023 Office Hours
Gregory Bruno
Tuesdays in C309B: 12:30-1:15
Wednesdays via Zoom: 10:30-12:30
Thursdays in C309B: 12:30-1:45
Rachel Ihara
Tuesdays and Thursdays in C309B: 9:00-10:00
Fridays via Zoom: 9:00-11:00
Faculty Mentor and Support Hours in E219
Hope Parisi will be in E219 this semester, available for informal chats with new and experienced part-time faculty, and all faculty, on Wednesdays, from 1pm – 3pm, with more availability by phone or Zoom according to wish or need. Please come by this welcoming environment, on Wednesdays, if you’re on campus.
Spring 2023 Verification of Enrollment Due Thursday 23 March 2023
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” in CUNYfirst. The VOE rosters submission period is open through Thursday, March 23 at 11:59 PM. All VOE rosters are required on or before the deadline. Your cooperation is imperative; there will be financial liability to both the student and the college if this information is not submitted on time. You can view full instructions here.
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 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 an online class is not sufficient to demonstrate participation. Academically-related activities include, but are not limited to, physically attending a class; submitting an academic assignment; taking an exam, an interactive tutorial, or computer-assisted instruction; attending a study group that is assigned by the school; participating in an online discussion about academic matter; engaging in an online academically related activity, or initiating contact with the instructor to ask a question about the academic subject studied in the course or to ask a course-related question. Students reported as never having participated will be assigned the non-punitive grade of WN, Withdrawn/Never Attended.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 March 24 per the VOE roster reporting.
Remember VOE rosters MUST BE SUBMITTED on or before Thursday, March 23 at 11:59 pm. After the deadline lapses, the 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.
Faculty Development Session for College Composition Friday 24 March 2023, 2:00-3:30 PM
A message from Rachel Ihara and Greg Bruno: Over the winter, 15 faculty members met to discuss issues related to student success in English 1200/12A0. We reflected on factors affecting student performance in our classes and identified some strategies to try to address those issues. Participants committed to trying out one or more of these during the spring semester and to take some notes about what they observed.
We’d like to share these ideas with the rest of the department. If you can attend one of the following sessions, you’ll get a chance to hear what your colleagues came up with and what they’re working on this semester. This may give you ideas for things to try out in your class and/or you may have ideas of your own to offer.
Greg will lead a session on Friday March 24th from 2-3:30. Here’s a zoom link for that session.
Faculty who participated are invited to attend to discuss what they’re working on. Everyone is invited to come to listen and participate. This project is funded by CUNYCentral as part of an effort to support developmental education reform, including co-requisite classes. Part time faculty will be paid at their non-teaching rate.
CUNY Open Pedagogy Fellowships
A message from Shawna Brandle: On behalf of Open Education KCC, I am writing to invite applications from interested faculty members for participation in the Spring 2023 Open Pedagogy Fellowship. Open Pedagogy is an evolving practice, but can be briefly characterized as “the practice of engaging with students as creators of information rather than simply consumers of it. It is a form of experiential learning in which students demonstrate understanding through the act of creation” (Introduction to Open Pedagogy, UTA Libraries).
The KCC Open Pedagogy Fellowship serves as a teaching and learning development opportunity for Kingsborough faculty and students. The goal of the fellowship is to introduce faculty and students to the worlds of open education and open pedagogy, and to encourage faculty and students to employ these practices in their educational work.
Faculty fellows will meet three times in the Spring semester to discuss readings on open and critical digital pedagogy, as well as explore and examine existing open educational tools and platforms. Meetings will also include time for fellows to receive feedback on their open pedagogy projects, discuss their progress, and plan for their piloting in the following semester or module. The Spring 2023 meetings are tentatively scheduled as follows:
Friday, March 31st (Orientation & Introduction to Open Pedagogy)
Friday, April 21st (Open Educational Tools and Platforms)
Friday, May 26th (Open Assignments and Creative Commons Licensing)
During the fellowship, faculty fellows will create and openly license a set of open pedagogy assignments, teaching resources or learning tools and share their work in CUNY Academic Works. Two Open Pedagogy students will potentially participate in all meetings to ensure student perspectives are a central part of discussions. Students will work with faculty members to provide advice and feedback on their open pedagogy projects. Both student and faculty fellows will be responsible for blogging their experience in the fellowship blog on the CUNY Academic Commons. We encourage applicants to explore the site further for details on the kind of work that the fellowship might entail.
Participation is open to all instructors at the college, and faculty fellows will receive a stipend of $1,000 upon completion of the fellowship, and the deposit of their open education projects into a selected repository.
To apply to participate in the Open Pedagogy Fellowship, please complete the form here by Friday, March 24, 2023. If you have any questions, please email KCC’s Faculty Coordinator of Open Education, Professor Shawna Brandle, at shawna.brandle@kbcc.cuny.edu.
CUNY Undergraduate Research Symposium
A message from Gordon Alley-Young:
CUNY’s Undergraduate Research Symposium will be held on May 31, 2023 at BMCC. We are looking for students to showcase KCC’s research at this symposium, and have extended the deadline for nominations to April 10, 2023. This is a wonderful opportunity to highlight KCC’s rich research environment with students that have conducted research. If you would like to have your students participate in this symposium, please complete this Google Form by April 10, 2023.Please email Professor Farshad Tamari (Farshad.Tamari@kbcc.cuny.edu) if you have any questions about the symposium.
CUNY Leadership Development Fellowship Program
The CUNY Office of Faculty Affairs is now accepting applications for the 2023-2024 Leadership Development Fellowship Program. This program aims to increase CUNY’s pipeline of faculty who are well prepared to thrive and serve in an academic executive leadership role at CUNY. The program is designed to provide faculty with an interest in pursuing a career in academic administration the opportunity to explore this path and develop their administrative skill set. The fellowship will provide a platform for fellows to broaden their experience in the daily demands, expectations, and responsibilities of executive leadership positions in the CUNY system. Applicants must be full-time tenured professorial rank faculty or full-time lecturers with CCE with at least seven years of experience at CUNY. Faculty from all backgrounds, abilities and experiences are encouraged to apply. For more information, please see https://www.cuny.edu/academics/faculty-affairs/faculty-development-across-cuny/ousap-leadership-development-fellowship-program/ The call for applications has also been sent to eligible faculty members’ KCC email addresses. Applications are due by 5pm on April 10, 2023. For questions, please contact University Dean for Faculty Affairs and Leadership Development, Dr. Annemarie Nicols-Grinenko, at Annemarie.Nicols-Grinenko@cuny.edu.
David B. Silver Poetry Competition
Student entries are invited for the David B. Silver Poetry Competition. Student entries will be accepted beginning Monday, March 20, 2023. The deadline for submission of entries is Sunday, April 16, 2023. Rules for competition: Only KCC students may participate; each student may submit a maximum of two entries; poems must be fifty lines or fewer; all entries must include the student’s full name, address, telephone number, and email address. Entries should be emailed to SILVERFUND@KBCC.CUNY.EDU The poems will be judged on these criteria: originality of perspective; appropriateness of English language, form, and content; evocative trigger of emotional reaction; economical use of language. Awards: First Prize: $500; Second Prize: $300; Third Prize: $200. The David B. Silver Scholarship Faculty Committee will evaluate all entries. Awards will be presented during the KCC Awards ceremony on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Questions about the poetry competition should be directed to: SILVERFUND@KBCC.CUNY.EDU
KCC Information Technology Services Office
You can call KCC’s ITS Help Desk at (718) 368-6679 or email helpdesk@kbcc.cuny.edu 9:00 – 5:00 on weekdays. For Blackboard support during hours when KCC’s Help Desk is not available, call 1-646-664-2024.
Sending Email to Your Classes: Additional Ways to Do It
For KCC communications – with department staff, with students, with Annie – please use your KCC email address, not personal email accounts, whenever possible. You can send email to any or all of the students in your current classes by logging into CUNYfirst, clicking Faculty Center, and then the class roster; check the boxes in the column headed “Notify” to select individual students, or click “Notify All Students” at the bottom of the roster to send an email to everyone in the class. In Blackboard, you can send emails to all students or selected students by clicking “Send Email” in the course menu. The KCC IT office has also created email lists for each of your classes in Inside KCC on the KCC website, in the following format: SubjectClass.Number@groups.kingsborough.edu
For example, if you are teaching Art 100 and the class number is 123456, your email distribution list would look like the following: ART100.123456@GROUPS.KINGSBOROUGH.EDU
You can view email distribution lists for your courses by clicking Inside KCC at the top of the KCC website and selecting KCC Notices, Faculty and Staff Notices, and then log in to Inside KCC using your KCC email username and password; select Email Groups. You will see a table that will list all the courses you teach. You can also click on Members to view all the students that are enrolled in that particular course distribution list. You can send test emails to your students. If you do not see any courses listed or some are missing, please notify the IT Services office support@groups.kingsborough.edu Include these in your email: your EMPLID, the subject, the catalog number and class number for the courses that are missing. If there are students missing, please provide the same information above as well as the EMPLID for the student(s). Send this information to support@groups.kingsborough.edu . Requests will be responded and replied to within 48 hours.
In addition, KCC IT has added the student-provided cell phone number as part of the group email listings. You can send texts to the class or to individual students. The revised listing provides you with the student cell phone in case you need to get in touch with the student.
Campus Reopening Hub
For information about KCC’s reopening, visit the new KCC Campus Reopening Hub. You can find information about the reopening plan, mask policies, on-campus COVID-19 testing, Cleared4 campus entry passes, and visitor policies.
CUNY Alerts
To receive notifications by phone, text, or email regarding campus conditions, sign up for CUNY Alert by logging on to CUNYfirst. Once you have logged on, the CUNYfirst Main Menu will be near the top of the screen on the left side. Click CUNY Alert Subscription to sign up; you can update contact information at CUNY Alert Preferences. You can check KCC’s home page for updates about campus conditions.
Good News
Patricia George’s article, “Implementing Virtual Literature Circles to Support English Language Development,” has been published in the December 2022 issue of Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature, 4:2 (63-86). You can read it here:
Daniel Perrone’s My English PhD dissertation defense is this Thursday, March 23rd at 2:00 PM. It will be live streamed (and probably recorded as well). Here is the Zoom link.
A Note about the Newsletter
The next issue of the Newsletter will come out on Monday 27 March 2023. Please send newsletter items by Friday, 24 March 2023 to Jane Weiss at Jane.Weiss@kbcc.cuny.edu. Please keep items brief (preferably 100 or fewer words). Longer items will be abridged. Items about publications and achievements are very welcome.
