Track Session Type

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA): Engaging Student Leaders; Inclusion and Diversity in Open Education, OER Community Building

Presentation Type

Panel Presentation

OER Level of Expertise

Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Audience

Faculty, Librarian, instructional designer, Administrator, Staff, Other

Session Abstract

Open Educational Resources and pedagogy flip the script on learning communities and authorship. However, without intentional focus on dismantling barriers to actual inclusion, the same algorithmic and epistemological biases will be replicated in the digital landscape. BSAA is an inter-institutional partnership based at the Borough of Manhattan Community College to directly address anti-Blackness in and beyond the classroom by connecting students with faculty mentors, graduate fellows and external collaborators from countries of the African diaspora to create OER developed from their research on afro-descendent populations and culture.

Members of the F23 cohort, including graduate fellows and program co-founders and director, will share lessons learned from this and previous iterations of the program. Program development and management, student and faculty engagement, inter-institutional and external collaboration, OER creation, and accessibility will be discussed followed by a brainstorming “Black To The Future” session and Q&A.

Objectives of the Session

Attendees will recognize the complexity and benefits of creating inter-institutional programming to address anti-Blackness in the classroom and digital landscape. BSAA not only encourages the creation of critically-needed OER focused on Black Lives, but enables diverse participants to expand their knowledge and vision of Blackness on academic and personal levels while building interpersonal, research and technological skills.

Full Description of the Session

This session will feature short presentations on various aspects of the BSAA program including a site walk-thru, brainstorming activity “Black To The Future” and Q&A. A Co-Founder and Program Director will discuss BSAA’s history, purpose and external partnerships beyond CUNY, followed by student presentations on program management and timeline, faculty and student interaction, graduate fellow experience, technological needs and considerations. Attendees can participate by posing questions during the presentation in the chat and using a jam board during the Black To The Future brainstorming and discussion portion of the panel.

We hope to inspire attendees to not only recognize the major lack of OER and attention dedicated to Black lives in the academy, but to identify ways they can shift narratives of anti-Blackness and lack of support for equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives by utilizing the expansive possibilities of digital humanities and open pedagogy to create equitable learning communities that center students, community members from the under-represented and appreciated groups that are being studied and extend beyond the academy. This program, which features diverse students and graduate fellows, faculty members and external collaborators, along with partnerships including campus administrators and digital librarians, encourages everyone to rethink and revision their understanding and research of Black Studies, how we teach about and relate to Black people, whose ideas are worthy of study, publication and sharing, and why our society remains so resistant to truly celebrating and valuing Black lives, culture and contributions.

Presenter Bios

Presenter 1

Name: Janelle Poe

Email: jpoe@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Phone: (917)7969429

Janelle Poe (she/ella) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and PhD fellow in English, Humanities Alliance Fellow with BMCC at The Graduate Center, CUNY and an OER Fellow at The City College of New York. She has taught courses in Black Studies, composition and creative writing at City College and Lehman College. Research centers Black representation, liberation, love, and futures across diasporas in literary, visual and sonic culture. Conference chair and visionary for the Breakin’ BLACK Reachin’ Back virtual conference on Black Rhetoric, DJ and Hip Hop Scholarship (’22), she led an inter-institutional team to host the annual ESA conference with UNC-CH, featuring over 50 artists/scholars in a convergence activating public and digital humanities. Publications include Bushwick Review, Chant de la Sirene, Black & White Studies with Sheryl Oppenheim, a Manifold OER guide for English instructors, and contributions to Black Diasporic Visions: (De) Constructing Modes of Power.

Presenter 2

Name: Judith Anderson

Email: janderson@bmcc.cuny.edu

Phone: (212) 220-8000; ext=5585

Dr. Judith Anderson is a cultural anthropologist and Afro-Latin Americanist whose research focuses on Black political mobilization in present-day Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has taught and conducted scholarly research in areas including the African Diaspora in the Americas; Latin American Studies, and Race and Identity in Argentina. She earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology, with an Interdisciplinary focus in Film and Media Studies from the University of Florida at Gainesville, where she also completed an advanced graduate certificate in Latin American Studies. Before joining the faculty at BMCC, Professor Anderson taught at Hunter College/CUNY, York College/CUNY, and and the College of New Rochelle. She is widely published, with articles focusing on the politics of Black identity in Buenos Aires.

Presenter 3

Name: Ariel Leutheusser

Email: aleutheusser@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Phone: (347) 354-9089

Ariel Leutheusser (they/them) is a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. They completed their B.A. and M.A. at The Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. Their research interests include affect theory, queer theory, Frankfurt school theory, theories of photography and image and memory and sound studies. Ariel’s research pursues the study of documentary film and audio, photography, literary nonfiction writing, long-form journalism and the depiction of reality in writing.

Ariel is a passionate instructor and educator and has designed and taught numerous courses in English composition and literature at Brooklyn College. As a CUNY Humanities Alliance Graduate Fellow, they will be working with on the Learning Experience Design campus project at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Presenter 4

Name: Inma Naima Zanoguera

Email: izanogueragarcias@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Inma Naima Zanoguera (she/her) is pursuing her PhD in English at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She completed her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Toledo, Ohio, where she wrote about Black aesthetics, specifically the poetry of the Black Arts Movement. In her current research, she’s looking at Black aesthetics in the broader context of the Hispanophone and Anglophone Black Atlantic. From 16th century liturgical and popular music, to present day Flamenco, she’s exploring archives of sound, music, and embodiment in search of (sonic) traces of the Black social, artistic, and intellectual life that slips through the cracks of continuing colonial oppression.

Presenter 5

Name: Luis E. Frias

Email: lescamillafrias@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Luis E Frias. PhD Candidate at LAILaC doctoral program at the Graduate Center. He holds a master’s degree in Modern Languages from Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City and two bachelors in Hispanic Literature and Mexican History, from UNAM and UAEH, Mexico, respectively. Adjunct of Portuguese and Spanish languages at Brooklyn College and College of Staten Island. He has been Digital Research Fellow at Mexican Studies Institute of CUNY. He is currently fellow at both CUNY Publics LAB and CUNY Humanities Alliance. For the latter he is performing at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. His academic interests revolve around Latin American Literature, Resistance Movements, Violence, Neoliberalism and Masculinities. He’s currently working on both his predissertation proposal and a book of tales.

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Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Start Date

4-4-2023 10:00 AM

End Date

4-4-2023 11:00 AM

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Apr 4th, 10:00 AM Apr 4th, 11:00 AM

Min(d)ing the OER Gap: Black Studies Across The Americas at CUNY and Beyond

This session will feature short presentations on various aspects of the BSAA program including a site walk-thru, brainstorming activity “Black To The Future” and Q&A. A Co-Founder and Program Director will discuss BSAA’s history, purpose and external partnerships beyond CUNY, followed by student presentations on program management and timeline, faculty and student interaction, graduate fellow experience, technological needs and considerations. Attendees can participate by posing questions during the presentation in the chat and using a jam board during the Black To The Future brainstorming and discussion portion of the panel.

We hope to inspire attendees to not only recognize the major lack of OER and attention dedicated to Black lives in the academy, but to identify ways they can shift narratives of anti-Blackness and lack of support for equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives by utilizing the expansive possibilities of digital humanities and open pedagogy to create equitable learning communities that center students, community members from the under-represented and appreciated groups that are being studied and extend beyond the academy. This program, which features diverse students and graduate fellows, faculty members and external collaborators, along with partnerships including campus administrators and digital librarians, encourages everyone to rethink and revision their understanding and research of Black Studies, how we teach about and relate to Black people, whose ideas are worthy of study, publication and sharing, and why our society remains so resistant to truly celebrating and valuing Black lives, culture and contributions.