INTRODUCTION

Carl James Grindley
Kim Sanabria

The Professor Magda Vasillov Center for Teaching and Learning is proud to present a fledgling project, the first edition of Touchstone. This new faculty journal has been produced by the Division of Academic Affairs of Eugenio María de Hostos Community College under the auspices of the CTL. Since its creation in 2003, the CTL has served many purposes. It is a place for reflection and inspiration; a venue for meeting other faculty; and a source of information about the workings of the college. Most importantly, however, the CTL is also the forum for discussions about teaching and learning, and has served as a well of shared experience that has provided the impetus for this project.

Hostos himself firmly believed in the power of interest to spur educational achievements, which he proclaimed to be the “toque de piedra de la enseñanza.” This idea provided both the genesis and the name of Touchstone. We hope to remain faithful to Hostos’s directive in the articles, reports, and studies we publish. Our goals include the desire to create a forum for discussion—indeed, some of what you read may provoke you. Nothing would make us happier than to see Touchstone grow into a vibrant forum for promoting divergent scholarships of teaching.

The journal is roughly divided into three sections, with a creative interlude—a painting, play, and poem—separating the first section, comprised of original re- search and theoretical studies, and the last section, which includes reports of projects and best practices. Since many of these projects stemmed from a Title V-funded initiative, COBI (the Committee on Beautiful Ideas), Touchstone’s second section begins with a history of COBI and with remarks by University Dean for Under- graduate Education, delivered at our 2007 COBI Innovation Awards Ceremony.

We include in our thanks many individuals who have guided and overseen the growth of Touchstone: our own Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Daisy Cocco De Filippis, for generating and supporting the project; Professor Amanda Bernal-Carlo, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, for her guidance and collaboration: Department Chairs, who encouraged faculty members to submit their projects; reviewers Professors Gina Cicco, Robert F. Cohen, and Jennifer Tang; and Dr. Richard Gampert, Director of Institutional Research. Finally, we extend our gratitude to the contributors themselves, who have generously lent us a point of departure for further discussions about teaching and learning.

The journal begins with a study by Professor Christine Mangino, Chair of the Education Department. In The Learning Profiles of Hostos Community College Students, Professor Mangino delivers a fascinating portrayal of the complex learning styles she found among our student population. Coming as it does at a juncture when educational philosophies are being called into question across the U.S., this study and the ones that follow ask us to question our assumptions about the way people learn best and the concomitant responsibility of faculty and administrators as they review their instructional methodologies and planning grids. Using what methods should information be imparted, and how does this vary by discipline? How long can listeners concentrate on a lecture? Should study areas include places for food consumption? To what extent should we modify our instruction based on these findings? Mangino reminds us of the efforts our students have taken to enter the doors of the college and gently calls on us to shoulder a responsibility to consider students as individual learners.

Professor Eileen Kennedy studies another facet of our students in Teaching in the Linguistically Diverse Classroom. She set out to study her students’ insights into the writing process, specifically within a student body drawn from several continents, with varying degrees of language proficiency in English, and used two different discussion methodologies to see how she could best help students prepare for academic writing. Of particular interest was Professor Kennedy’s experimentation with using the students’ first language to brainstorm ideas and to tabulate their affective response to assignments. Not unexpectedly, the students’ own reactions to the various methods she used is proving to be extremely insightful.

In Library Services on the Cutting Edge: Reaching the Net Generation, Professor Miriam Laskin documents some of the characteristics of students who have used computers for most of their lives, and explains the steps the library has taken to both accommodate and stimulate these new kinds of learners. Embracing the challenges they present, rather than shying away from them, is of course incumbent upon faculty. We will surely encounter in our library, recipient of the ACRL Award for 2007, resources and assistance that can spawn new ways of thinking about instruction even as they retool the less computer-savvy among us with skills that today have become indispensable.

Professor Gina Cicco explains how college educators might adopt group-leader- ship skills in order to increase motivation in our classes and, indeed, lead to a better assessment of the classroom experience. In Tips for Effective College Teaching, she delves into the various activities in which faculty members engage on a daily basis in courses where lecture is not the norm: “reflecting… confronting… diagnosing… suggesting” and so on. To weave a classroom tapestry of experience, it is undeniably helpful to have a battery of techniques at one’s fingertips.

Our students’ successful employment is the next consideration in a report by Professor Héctor López, Chair of the Business Department. In Business Education, he establishes the presence of new, 21st century demands, which indeed continue to emerge in a dynamic and rapidly changing workplace, and soberly places the onus on educators to prepare students for their future. Happily, an increasing recognition of essential skills, along with practices that take the students into internship positions and real-world scenarios, have enabled Hostos to explore appropriate academic offerings for our students. As we seek to provide a better segue from college to the business sector, it is vital to understand the hurdles involved.

Our faculty’s creative pieces come next. In Professor Ian’s Charles Scott’s Notes on a Portrait, we are treated to introspection, oral and visual, of a project that is inspired, conceived, battled, tackled, and eventually brought forth from the canvas. The various incarnations of the portrait show the stages of an artist at work. Professor Walter Rada’s poem Tierra Mía, articulating a feeling of longing for his home-land, echoed across many students’ hearts when it was first recited at an Honors ceremony a year ago. It is published here for the first time. Finally

Professor Miguel Correa’s one-act play, La Entrevista, will bring tears of sorrow and delight to those who recognize in the interaction between a social worker and an elderly immigrant the disconnect of a bureaucracy that affects the lives of so many of our students.

Those not familiar with the Committee on Beautiful Ideas, the faculty-driven curricular renewal funded by our college’s Title V grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Innovations in Faculty Leadership will be interested to learn about the genesis and impact of the COBI initiative. Professors Amanda Bernal-Carlo, Isabel Li and Lucinda Zoe show how faculty were enticed and charged with exercising their powers of imagination, innovation, and ingenuity. We are grateful to Dean Judith Summerfield for her supportive remarks about this groundbreaking project.

Finally, this volume includes four reports of projects realized or in progress at the college. These entries also demonstrate the ongoing intellectual vibrancy and breadth of work among our colleagues. Professor Nelson Núñez-Rodríguez reports on two projects, tangible applications of classroom theories, in Teaching Anatomy and Physiology Beyond the Boundaries of the Classroom. Professors Paula Korsko and Catherine Lyons document the quicksilver uncovered during a collaborative project in Crossing Academic Domains. Professor Amy Ramson, in Education for Sexual Harassment Prevention, finds that certain techniques work better than others when introducing students to this important topic, and generates questions along with answers. Professor Gregory Marks finds that his students react energetically to the Phaedo in Socrates in the South Bronx.

We happily present Touchstone to readers and are honored to have edited this new publication.

Carl James Grindley
English Department

Kim Sanabria
Language and Cognition Department