To our CUNY friends and colleagues,

 

No one will deny that the coronavirus pandemic has left all of us with a deep sense of displacement. Not only have our 25 campuses splintered into thousands of individual bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens, but much of the family and community that we count on for support during the school year now must be kept at some distance from us, sometimes even within the same house. Nothing is normal right now, and nothing about the way we are scattered—even when it is vital that we be so—feels good.

 

Like you, we at the CUNY Distance Learning Archive look forward to the time when all of us will come back together again. It is in anticipation of that time—and in a symbolic act of bringing us together in the interim—that we invite you to send us a dispatch from your temporary outpost, wherever it may be.

 

Here are a few ways for you to contribute your story to the archive:

 

• Email. Forward us an especially creative, compassionate, or confusing email you have received from a professor, administrator, mentor, or friend regarding life in the time of online classes at CUNY. Or tell us what it is like to “do” distance learning in the spring of 2020, and how you are feeling about the fall semester to follow. Email us at: cunyarchive@gmail.com.

 

• Document. Give a second life to a class assignment you have been working on lately: a reflective essay, artwork, data set, lesson plan, or syllabus that has emerged during the current moment. Or drop us a link to a blog, website, or course page that highlights the best, worst, and weirdest of distance learning at CUNY. If you feel up to writing, we have drafted questions to prompt your reflections. You can upload files or share links to the archive from the home page of our website.

 

• Social. Help us stay on top of the social media accounts, channels, threads, and hashtags that are telling the complete CUNY story in real time. Tag or DM us at @cunyarchive on Twitter and Instagram with your reactions to CUNY news or photos of the new work space you hacked together in your apartment. You can also follow us on Facebook for periodic news and updates.

 

We know that, in the coming weeks and months, many will look to explore and reflect on the numerous ways the coronavirus pandemic has affected the CUNY community. Our commitment is to ensuring that an archive exists that brings together each of our unique experiences. We hope you will be part of that effort with us.

The CUNY Distance Learning Archive team

Contribute

—

About the CUNY Distance Learning Archive

 

The CUNY Distance Learning Archive (CDLA) is a crowdsourced archive of personal and institutional documentation related to the City University of New York’s move to online learning spaces in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. The CUNY Distance Learning Archive allows students, faculty, and staff from across the CUNY system’s 25 campuses to submit personal narratives about the experience of moving online, emails and communications related to the decisions to move online, documentation of online learning experiences (e.g., photos, narratives, screenshots), and links to social media threads, hashtags, and accounts that capture the event in real time.

 

The project was founded in March 2020 by faculty and students affiliated with the Spring 2020 Knowledge Infrastructures course in the Ph.D. Program in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY, working in partnership with collaborators from The Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate Program, to document this moment of crisis response from a critical approach to educational technology.

To our CUNY friends and colleagues,

 

No one will deny that the coronavirus pandemic has left all of us with a deep sense of displacement. Not only have our 25 campuses splintered into thousands of individual bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens, but much of the family and community that we count on for support during the school year now must be kept at some distance from us, sometimes even within the same house. Nothing is normal right now, and nothing about the way we are scattered—even when it is vital that we be so—feels good.

 

Like you, we at the CUNY Distance Learning Archive look forward to the time when all of us will come back together again. It is in anticipation of that time—and in a symbolic act of bringing us together in the interim—that we invite you to send us a dispatch from your temporary outpost, wherever it may be.

 

Here are a few ways for you to contribute your story to the archive:

 

• Email. Forward us an especially creative, compassionate, or confusing email you have received from a professor, administrator, mentor, or friend regarding life in the time of online classes at CUNY. Or tell us what it is like to “do” distance learning in the spring of 2020, and how you are feeling about the fall semester to follow. Email us at: cunyarchive@gmail.com.

 

• Document. Give a second life to a class assignment you have been working on lately: a reflective essay, artwork, data set, lesson plan, or syllabus that has emerged during the current moment. Or drop us a link to a blog, website, or course page that highlights the best, worst, and weirdest of distance learning at CUNY. If you feel up to writing, we have drafted questions to prompt your reflections. You can upload files or share links to the archive from the home page of our website.

 

• Social. Help us stay on top of the social media accounts, channels, threads, and hashtags that are telling the complete CUNY story in real time. Tag or DM us at @cunyarchive on Twitter and Instagram with your reactions to CUNY news or photos of the new work space you hacked together in your apartment. You can also follow us on Facebook for periodic news and updates.

 

We know that, in the coming weeks and months, many will look to explore and reflect on the numerous ways the coronavirus pandemic has affected the CUNY community. Our commitment is to ensuring that an archive exists that brings together each of our unique experiences. We hope you will be part of that effort with us.

The CUNY Distance Learning Archive team

Contribute

—

About the CUNY Distance Learning Archive

 

The CUNY Distance Learning Archive (CDLA) is a crowdsourced archive of personal and institutional documentation related to the City University of New York’s move to online learning spaces in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. The CUNY Distance Learning Archive allows students, faculty, and staff from across the CUNY system’s 25 campuses to submit personal narratives about the experience of moving online, emails and communications related to the decisions to move online, documentation of online learning experiences (e.g., photos, narratives, screenshots), and links to social media threads, hashtags, and accounts that capture the event in real time.

 

The project was founded in March 2020 by faculty and students affiliated with the Spring 2020 Knowledge Infrastructures course in the Ph.D. Program in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY, working in partnership with collaborators from The Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate Program, to document this moment of crisis response from a critical approach to educational technology.