PREFACE
Lucinda Zoe
It is a pleasure to offer this preface to the second edition of Touchstone, the Hostos journal on teaching and learning. In the spring of 2008 the first edition was published by the Magda Vasillov Center for Teaching and Learning to document our work, share ideas and pedagogies, explore best practices and provide an opportunity and incentive for faculty to prepare a manuscript for publication and have it reviewed and edited by a team of consummate professionals. Dean Kim Sanabria and Professor Carl James Grindley bravely stepped forward to go where no Hostos faculty member has gone before, and agreed to serve as the co-editors of the journal, to critically review and edit the work of their peers. This is no small task and one that must be approached in a genuine spirit of care and respect for their colleagues. It is truly an honor to work with such a gifted and intellectually lively team here at Hostos and to witness daily the generosity and commitment each one brings to the task at hand.
What do we talk about when we talk about teaching? That is the question and our challenge as teachers and academics. Over the past several years we, as community of scholars and practitioners, have become more engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and faculty have been encouraged to develop their expertise as teachers and share the results and their experiences on what is happening in their classrooms. As a community college we place a greater emphasis on teaching and the research of teaching than is typically found in a senior college or research university. We take great pride in our skill in the classroom and our ability to reach our students where they live and learn and we are very good at it. Community college faculty in CUNY spend a lot of their time in the classroom-a 27-hour work load, compared to a 21-hour work load at our sister senior colleges-so it stands to reason that we should focus our efforts on applied scholarship and embrace our unique role in the university system. We excel at the first-year experience, preparing our students to engage as critical thinkers as they build core academic literary skills and make their way through their academic careers. We are good at language learning and skills development…and we have some stories to tell about it. In these pages of Touchstone you will find the fruits of our labor and evidence of our many beautiful ideas and efforts in the classroom and beyond.
At Hostos, we invest in faculty, which means we put serious resources into our faculty development initiative. The Office of Academic Affairs is enriched by the creative ingenuity of faculty whose great commitment to teaching is complemented by their motivation to continue growing as both teachers and as scholars. Important out- lets for these activities are provided by the Office of Instructional Technology and the Magda Vasillov Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Supported by our Title V grant, “Shifting the Paradigm on Teaching and Learning to Improve Student Success,” as part of the faculty development component, the Committee On Beautiful Ideas (COBI) team planned and executed the third annual December COBI Innovation Awards Ceremony as well as the fourth annual off-campus, two-day retreat at Bear Mountain Overlook Lodge. The December celebration awarded thirteen faculty members with release time to continue the development of their project for implementation. The COBI Advance Retreat hosted 60 faculty and administrators, including twenty-six project co-developers who represented thirteen projects and eight departments. The Retreat was electric, a two and a half day frenetic and explosive exchange of stories, strategies, music, and conversation, with faculty taking the time to share meals and spend the time together to envision new and exemplary plans and approaches to teaching and learning. Seven projects to be selected at the end of the spring semester will each be awarded $2,000 mini-grants for creativity, ingenuity, and the potential to make a positive difference in student learning.
To encourage greater sharing across the disciplines and beyond Hostos, this year we created a new faculty travel fund to encourage greater participation at professional conferences and more opportunities to share the best practices and beautiful ideas that make us who we are.
We care about teaching. And you can so clearly see it in these pages-the love, dedication, passion, and genuine affection of our faculty for what they do. It is with great joy, and my supreme pleasure, to share the work and insights of our faculty in this second edition of Touchstone.
Lucinda Zoe
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs