George Otte

In a previous life I was an [English] professor and a director of writing programs. In the late nineties, while still at [Baruch College], I served as Baruch College’s Executive Director of Enrichment Programs, which included presiding over high school outreach and communication-across-the-curriculum programs. Appointed a member of the doctoral faculty at the [CUNY Graduate Center] in the mid-nineties (originally in [English],later in  [Urban Education] and [Interactive Technology & Pedagogy]), I was co-editor of the [Journal of Basic Writing] from 1996-2002. In 2006, I became Academic Director of the [CUNY Online Baccalaureate], CUNY’s first fully online degree, and since have been kicked upstairs to become the chief academic officer of the CUNY [School of Professional Studies] (SPS), where that online degree is one of many — currently two dozen, split between Master’s and ten Bachelor’s. (Those undergrad degrees were in the top 2% nationally by US News & World Report in its most recent ranking of online Bachelor’s degrees.) During much of this time I also had another gig: in 2001, was named CUNY’s Director of Instructional Technology, I and in 2008 University Director of Academic Technology for CUNY. As my responsibilities at SPS (and SPS itself) grew, I realized I could not continue in both roles and stepped down from my central role at the end of the 2018-2019 academic year. I continue to pursue the interests that relinquished title reflects, including [academic technology], [online instruction] and [blended learning], [digital scholarship], and [computer-mediated communication].