The following are syllabi that were created or altered during the pandemic to accommodate distance learning and add flexibility during an uncertain time. Please follow the links below to find out more about each participant and their projects. The list is organized alphabetically.

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AMY A. MARTINEZ  | PH.D. PROGRAM IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE (JOHN JAY COLLEGE/GC CUNY) | EXPLORE AMY’S PROJECT

Bio: Amy A. Martinez (she/her) is a first-generation working class Xicana from Southern California. She is currently a Doctoral Student in the Criminal Justice Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center, CUNY studying the intersections of mass incarceration, colonialism, and Mexican/Chicano gangs. She aspires to become a public intellectual and professor at an R1 university and through her passion and commitment to social justice, contribute to the liberation of all oppressed peoples.

Project description: Here I offer a syllabus that implements a ‘Wellness & Health’ statement wherein well-being is a guiding value. Students will have the opportunity to benefit from a “wellness pass” that excuses them from two class assignments during the semester without having to explain themselves. It is imperative that we as educators recognize now more than ever, that our students, who already come from working class and marginalized communities, are finding their mental health challenged in unimaginable ways. We must materialize a holistic approach to teaching to continue breaking the barriers of accessibility in higher education and ensure our students are thriving.

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OLIVER SAGE | PH.D. PROGRAM IN FRENCH | CONTACT: OSAGE@GRADCENTER.CUNY.EDU | EXPLORE OLIVER’S PROJECT

Bio: Oliver Sage is a Doctoral Candidate in the Ph.D. Program in French at The Graduate Center, CUNY, as well as an adjunct lecturer in the Romance Language Department at Hunter College, where they teach French language and French-language literature. During the first few months of the pandemic, they were a Humanities Alliance Teaching Fellow at Laguardia Community College. Their own work focuses on transatlantic intersections of gender, race, fantasy, and violence in French and American texts by marginalized authors.

Project description: I am sharing a syllabus for “LIB 200: (Virtual) Cultures of Gender Transgression: Writing the Body”. LIB 200 is the capstone course for all Liberal Arts majors at Laguardia Community College. The course is meant to provide a writing-intensive and interdisciplinary approach to the humanities, science and technology, but is otherwise very open in subject and structure. Because I was able to choose the theme, material, and pacing, the course lent itself especially well to the uncertainties of the early months of the pandemic.

Through making organic changes to the syllabus according to student interest and relevance, and allowing for deadline and schedule flexibility, the class became a place for experimentation, connection, and deep reflection. It also produced extremely high quality (student-designed) projects that deftly explored their relationships to issues including race, gender, immigration, class, and gentrification. I believe that flexibility, empathy, and solidarity with our students is something that we can hone during times of crisis, but that remain just as relevant in our return to the everyday violence of “normal life.”

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JOSEPH A. TORRES-GONZÁLEZ | PH.D. PROGRAM IN ANTHROPOLOGY | CONTACT: JTORRESGONZALEZ@GRADCENTER.CUNY.EDU | EXPLORE JOSEPH’S PROJECT

Bio: Joseph is a Ph.D. Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He holds a master’s degree in Anthropology and a Certificate of Graduate Studies in Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies, both from the University at Albany, SUNY. His research interests are in the intersections of History and Anthropology, Political Economy, Popular culture, and consumption. His current research project is based in Puerto Rico, studying food, coffee shops, baristas, and identity. He held an appointment as a research assistant at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health, served as a Graduate Fellow at the Office of Educational Opportunity and Diversity Programs at the CUNY Graduate Center, and teaches at the Department of Anthropology at Brooklyn College.

Project description: I am sharing my original and modified syllabus from the Spring 2020 semester when I taught at Brooklyn College. In this syllabus, I added elements that complemented remote learning, along with preparing a full lesson on Medical Anthropology, Race, and the Pandemic. I have integrated multimedia sources to my teaching (podcasts, short documentaries, and other videos) in order to complement the topics I am covering in class each week, in addition to reducing the amount of assignments for the course. I am sharing this resource with people who are still grappling with re-calibrating their pedagogy, methods, and assessments from an in-person environment to a hybrid or fully online environment. I was completely new to this method, but I hope this source helps those that are figuring how to transition to online teaching.

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NIK MAGAÑA VALDEZ | PH.D. PROGRAM IN ENGLISH | CONTACT: THEMXNIK@GMAIL.COM | EXPLORE NIK’S PROJECT

Bio: Nik Valdez is a queer Chicane writer, learner, & instructor para siempre making trouble. They are pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature at The Graduate Center. CUNY. Their work lo encuentro su casa in a multi-disciplinary cross-section of Queer of Color Theory (notably Latine, Chicane, Indigenous, and Black Feminist/Queer thought), Abolitionist Pedagogy, Accessibility, Literature, & Creative Writing. As a multiply-disabled, first generation, former community college transfer student, their work seeks to be rooted in and accessible to su gente; to create work that is both a personal praxis and a generator for transformative change dentro y fuera de su communidad.

Project description: This “distance learning edition” syllabus integrates the necessity of thinking about the multiple, enforced vulnerabilities of the present moment as we teach and learn with the ever-present, status quo violences of the classroom itself. This syllabus is a resource for others, to encourage alternative pedagogies that are student-centered, holistic, and attend to the vulnerabilities demanded within the classroom, regardless of whether we are assigned the role of “teacher” or “student”. This syllabus is intended as a platform from which to build transformative, abolitionist pedagogies and should be altered according to the needs and vulnerabilities of the learners & instructors.

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ASHER WYCOFF | PH.D. PROGRAM IN POLITICAL SCIENCE | CONTACT: WYCOFF@PM.ME | EXPLORE ASHER’S PROJECT

Bio: Asher Wycoff (he/him) is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at The Graduate Center, CUNY and an adjunct lecturer in Political Science at Lehman College, where he teaches introductory courses in comparative politics and political theory.

Project description: The pandemic underscored the punitive nature of teaching practices I’d taken for granted. In addition to the untenability of a “normal” workload under present conditions, penalties for late assignments and absences became self-evidently absurd during the Spring 2020 semester. Accordingly, my Fall syllabus for Politics and Culture reflects a shift in expectations. I reduced the amount of assigned material and eliminated late and absence penalties, which students reported reduced anxiety. Substantively, POL 266 is an introductory political science course with flexibility in content, so I took the opportunity to focus the semester on state management and cultural effects of various kinds of crisis.