The following projects are syllabi and reflections that focus on wellness and care-based pedagogy. Please follow the links below to find out more about each participant and their projects. The list is organized alphabetically.

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ANDREA NIKTÉ JUAREZ MENDOZA| PH.D. PROGRAM IN URBAN EDUCATION | EXPLORE ANDREA’S PROJECT

Bio: Andrea Nikté Juarez Mendoza is an NYC-based Guatemalan scholar-activist, artist, and organizer from San Francisco California, whose work centers on community-driven change. She uses arts-based and healing-centered methods through an approach she calls collective Testimonio-Art. Andrea’s current research broadly looks at immigration, family separation, dehumanization, decoloniality, social movements, and scholar/activism. She has worked as a translator in detention centers with the Feerick Center for Social Justice; accompanying families and individuals to court; and as an organizer and graduate researcher with the APA, CUNY, and the Public Science Project on local, state-wide, and national projects documenting and archiving immigration experiences.

Project description: This artifact is a reflection of my experiences during Covid-19 as a mentor to college students and as a co-researcher with adult and youth community organizers. The pandemic, in this context, brought forth the importance of more clearly articulating the need for doctoral education, teaching, and research that centers collectivity, collaboration, and the needs and desires of those most impacted by social issues and crisis. I describe two instances in which students and community members named the impact of Covid-19 on their lives, raised questions about institutions pushing for productivity in the midst of a pandemic, and shared their visions for possibilities toward more just, loving, and humanizing ways forward.

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BRITT MUNRO | PH.D. PROGRAM IN ENGLISH | CONTACT: britt.munro0@gmail.com | EXPLORE BRITT’S PROJECT

Bio: I am a second year PhD student in the English Department at CUNY graduate center. There, I study the ways in which a liberal-enlightenment concept of self-possession shapes dominant relations to history in the white settler colony, and how those relations in turn work to reproduce structural white supremacy. I have a deep interest in how liberalism and racism are wed, and how we might disrupt this entanglement in order to imagine other ways of being together. I am currently lucky enough to be teaching undergraduate composition at Lehman college. I love teaching more than anything- in particular the challenge of implementing my politics in the form (and not just the content) of my pedagogy.

Project description: This is an article I wrote reflecting on Cathy Davidson’s advice that, during the pandemic, we should choose to be ‘human first, professor second’ (‘The Single Most Essential Requirement in Designing a Fall Online Course’ in Hastac, May 11 2020). My argument (and not to suggest she would disagree) is that, pandemic or no, we should structure our pedagogy and our classrooms so as to be both. As a previous social worker who began undergraduate teaching during the Fall of 2020, I have been very interested in the range of reflections on trauma-informed pedagogy (TIP) that have surfaced in response to the pandemic. These encouraged me to delve further into the literature on TIP and its particular rationale. In this article, I aimed to reflect on the purposes and methods of TIP as they have been implemented during the pandemic, and to suggest that such measures are just as relevant and essential to the ‘normal’ classroom as they are during this unprecedented time.

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ANNA D. VAYNMAN | PH.D. PROGRAM IN PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW (JOHN JAY COLLEGE/GC CUNY) | EXPLORE ANNA’S PROJECT

Bio: Anna Vaynman is a Doctoral Student in Psychology and Law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research focuses on plea bargaining and the role of attorneys within the plea process. Anna has been a Teacher’s Assistant since the Spring of 2020 and deeply values her relationship with students.

Project description: In 2020, “teaching” morphed into an all-encompassing experience, one in which we were expected to provide educational guidance, emotional support, and answers to impossible questions from students coping with challenges we are still struggling to comprehend today. As a TA, I came to appreciate that we do not teach classrooms; we teach individuals. It is our responsibility to be generous with our time, kind with our words, and reasonable with our expectations. I am sharing my thoughts in the hopes of capturing a small window into the world of students and teachers alike, both struggling to overcome, heal, and grow together.