CUNY Academic Commons

I try to listen to various podcasts, read blogs, and watch YouTube channels and vlogs in order to supplement, and sometimes to correct or exceed, the reading I do in my doctoral studies as much as possible. The […]

In 2018, I wrote a piece in Left Voice about the ecological nature of CUNY education: “I believe that CUNY is an educational ecology with relations flowing in many directions, meaning that what affects us as a […]

Sunday, May 6th was Mother’s Day. One of the movements that has drawn my attention and respect is the movement to bail out poor Black mothers from jail, where they stay for weeks, months or longer simply because […]

By Louis Olander

In my previous post linking Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), I wrote about the general overlap between the two frameworks: both embrace the challenge […]

I recently saw a posting for a workshop on hip hop pedagogy at my university, which I unfortunately won’t be able to attend. I’m not familiar with hip hop pedagogy—which is why I’m disappointed I can’t make i […]

It’s the end of January and the beginning of the semester. This is a month late in writing, but I feel like the vibe of it still rings true as classes start up and hopes for learning and growth gain root for […]

2019 has begun with pain, exhaustion, and uncertainty for many people in the United States, and hope has been hard-won and tenuous. I volunteer with New Sanctuary Coalition, whose executive director, Ravi Ragbir, […]

By Louis Olander

Many instructors think of good writing pedagogy and accessible pedagogy as two separate things, but much of what makes Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) important for developing student […]

The word friends was included without quotes in the title of this post because the unadorned word properly reflects the core values of community, solidarity, advocacy, and recognition of humanity expressed at an […]

The expression “cry someone a river” according to Wiktionary has two definitions:

(idiomatic, often sarcastic) To weep profusely or excessively in the presence of another person.
(idiomatic, usually […]

Something that has gotten little attention in the news lately is the fact that under discussion is the merging of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Department of Education at the federal level, a conversation […]

Last night I watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a biopic about the life and work of Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister and TV personality known to people of my generation as the host of PBS show Mr. Rogers’ […]