Touchstone - Spring 2008

Daisy Cocco De Filippis

“Let the Beauty You Love, Be What You Do,” Rumi (1207-1273)

It is a joy to write these brief words to preface the inaugural issue of Touchstone, the Hostos journal on teaching and learning. This beautiful issue reflects the intelligence and the commitment of its editors Professor Kim Sanabria and Professor Carl James Grindley, and of colleagues in different disciplines and departments who contributed with works of reflection and beauty.

The creation of Touchstone is one of the outcomes of the work that has taken place on campus for the past six years. It is a journey that began with the drafting and passing through committees of the first revision to the A.A. degree in decades, and the creation of the Hostos Academic Learning Center in 2002. Since those early days, we OAA administrators working hand in hand with faculty members have moved an aggressive agenda of academic renewal to support faculty development and student success. One highly successful result has been the proclamation of academic year 2007-08 as The Year of Gen Ed, bringing general education to the forefront of college awareness by infusing COBI with AACU principles, creating a student-friendly information brochure, launching the cross-curricular, web-based Gen Ed mapping tool, and creating the upcoming Gen Ed Monologues.

Trust, respect and support define a journey that has seen the doubling of academic majors, the creation of honors programs, the robust development of writing intensive courses, the magnificent innovation brought about by the integration of technology to support the teaching and learning process, our students’ success in CUNY mandated tests and the support provided by the addition of significant grant dollars to support the teaching and learning process. In 2003 the Professor Magda Vasillov Center for Teaching and Learning was created. Since its inception it has moved forward in a spirit of inquiry and love, exemplified by one of its founding members, our beloved and never to be forgotten, Magda. The Center for Teaching and Learning has provided faculty leadership for multiple efforts to support teaching and learning on campus.

More recently, D. Cocco De Filippis supported by the division’s Title V grant, “Shifting the Paradigm on Teaching and Learning to Improve Student Success,” it has integrated faculty and curricular development through the efforts of the Committee on Beautiful Ideas Academic year 2007-2008 has seen the creation of four Information Learning Commons (HALC, Library, Academic Computing Center, Faculty Development Center). These efforts are soon to be enhanced by the creation of a Science Information Learning Commons to be housed in the Department of Natural Sciences, funded by a MetLife grant. Cutting edge technology embraces tradition at Hostos Community College. In every initiative we undertake, we are mindful to affirm our commitment to one of Eugenio María de Hostos’ significant principles: Students must be met where they are. In that spirit, we have moved forward with an agenda that honors tradition through a series of international conferences and lecture series even while we enter boldly the world of the 21st century through our vigorous integration of technology to assist teaching in the classroom and to enhance student academic support. As some of the entries in Touchstone illustrate, we are meeting students where they are with academic support for those who need it most when they come to us, and curricular innovation in the form of challenging programs for those who come to us at the honors level. The journal’s bilingual offerings in the form of creative writing (the language of the soul) written in Spanish honors the language and culture of many of our students, as they address “el desarraigo,” the sense of loss experienced by those who share the immigrant experience.

In Hispanic tradition, and in particular in the poetry and works of medieval and renaissance Spain, it was customary for a work worthy of consideration to be prefaced by an “envío,” a generally not too sincerely humble entreaty that the modest work in question be received “charitably” by its reader. This is a tradition Cervantes mocks in his prologue to the first part of his Quijote, published in 1605. I will depart from tradition here to affirm with enthusiasm and in a celebratory manner that our inaugural issue is to be taken seriously; to be considered an invitation to record our journey of reflective engagement in the teaching and learning on this campus. To paraphrase Salomé Ureña, the most celebrated Dominican woman poet and educator of the 19th century, who affirms boldly in another context, “…le digo al porvenir te lo confío.”
Full of confidence I envision a significant future for Touchstone, another pillar in support of the generous and efficacious labor of intelligence and love our faculty have engaged in. What a glorious journey these past six years have been! Mil gracias y bendiciones.

Daisy Cocco De Filippis Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs May 2, 2008