CUNY Podcasts

On this latest episode of CUNY Uncut, Danny Chicon-Ramirez joins Hannah Kavanagh to discuss how the lack of race representation in media perpetuates negative stereotypes and promotes implicit bias that affects every facet of our lives. Ultimately the question is: Where do we go from here?

Alyssa Kitt (GC ’22) joins host Hannah Kavanagh on this latest episode of CUNY Uncut to discuss how her illustrious burlesque career has shaped her views on body positivity, sexual pleasure, confidence, and desire.

Emily Portalatin-Mendez (Lehman ’23) appears on this latest episode of CUNY Uncut to discuss how cryptocurrency and blockchain works, the benefits of investing in it, how Web 3.0 and the metaverse fits into all of this, as well as how different cryptocurrency companies plan on mitigating the environmental and classist issues associated with it—all the while Hannah and the listeners plunge themselves into the unknown.

 

Host

Hannah Kavanagh

Macaulay at Hunter ‘22

Hannah Kavanagh is a Macaulay@Hunter senior that initially majored in political science and journalism until this past semester, when she switched to a film major to pursue her passion for filmmaking and acting–all the while minoring in Arabic. She is currently the host and executive producer of CUNY Uncut, as well as her seminal podcast Tea For Three—which has garnered a cult following over the course of her college career. She was also active in Hunter College’s Undergraduate Student Government this past year as a junior senator.

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Guests:

Emily Portalatin-Mendez

Macaulay at John Jay College ’23

Emily Portalatin-Mendez (she/her) is a rising senior majoring in computer science and minoring in finance at Lehman College. She is also a Presidential Scholar and an award-winning software developer with industry specialties in information systems and risk management. Through her work as the President of the CUNY Digital Currency Initiative and beyond, she aims to strategically blend enterprise systems design with public, private, and social sector programs to positively impact local economies of scale.

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Referenced Sources:

* SheFi (female-run organization that focuses on crypto education for women and non-binary people)

* opensea.io (a platform dedicated to NFT sales and distributions)

* pointer.gigi (website dedicated to crypto education)

* Vitamin3.xyz (sends over automated text-based snippets about crypto)

Hanna Yeum (Macaulay @ John Jay ’23) and Kimberly Paredes (John Jay ’22) join Hannah in discussing their experiences dealing with and responding to racial injustice, how CUNY’s response to such acts prompted them to start John Jay’s APISA Club, and what they hope to accomplish through their club’s mission to validate students and ensure that they feel seen.

Timothy Hunter and Djenabou Barry join Hannah Kavanaugh to discuss Strategy for Black Lives, the CUNY-led initiative they founded, and how their contributions to the BLM movement have helped them learn more about themselves and the world around them.

I think every protest starts with a “Why?”…Why are we doing this? Who do we want to engage? What does our audience look like?

— Timothy Hunter

Read Full Transcript

 

Host

Hannah Kavanagh

Macaulay at Hunter ‘22

Hannah Kavanagh is a Macaulay@Hunter senior that initially majored in political science and journalism until this past semester, when she switched to a film major to pursue her passion for filmmaking and acting–all the while minoring in Arabic. She is currently the host and executive producer of CUNY Uncut, as well as her seminal podcast Tea For Three—which has garnered a cult following over the course of her college career. She was also active in Hunter College’s Undergraduate Student Government this past year as a junior senator.

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Guests:

Timothy Hunter

Baruch MPA ‘23, City Tech ‘20

Timothy Hunter (he/him) is one of the founding members of Strategy for Black Lives, a current grad student majoring in public administration at Baruch, and current president of the Graduate Student Assembly. Tim has been heavily involved in both local and student government since his beginnings at CUNY, having served as president of City Tech’s Student Government Association and chairperson of the University Student Senate.

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Djenabou Barry

City College MPA ‘22 ‘20, Guttman ‘18

Djenabou Barry (she/her) is a key member of the leadership board at Strategy for Black Lives as well as a grad student majoring in public administration at City College. She is also the founding member of the first Muslim Students Association at Guttman Community College and a strong political activist for her home country Guinea, having visited the Guinean Embassy in DC to protest the coup against President Alpha Condé.

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Full Transcript

00:06 HANNAH: Hello everyone, this is Hannah Kavanagh speaking and welcome to yet another amazing episode of CUNY Uncut: the student-led CUNY podcast where we talk about anything and everything uncensored, unedited and uncut. Today I’m here with two amazing guests to talk about this incredible CUNY-led initiative called Strategy for Black Lives. But before we get into the details of that, first I’d like to introduce you to our amazing guests. So the first guest that I’m going to be introducing today is currently the Communications Director for Senator Julia Salazar, who’s a Democratic socialist –  love to see it. He’s also the former USS chairperson and the former student trustee at the CUNY Board of Trustees. Yeah, and he’s also the co-founder for Strategy for Black Lives. Awesome, awesome person and such an inspiration to many.

Student leader Dave Basnet--a Hunter senior who was just named a Rhodes Scholar--joins Hannah to discuss his experiences being a DACA recipient from Nepal, the various trials and tribulations he faced when solidifying his legal status, and what could be done to make the immigration process more accessible to undocumented people.

CUNY Student Trustee Juvanie Piquant (City Tech ’22) joins me in discussing mental health, how we’re feeling about the stress and anxiety surrounding this fall semester, and how we care for ourselves during difficult times — uncensored, unedited, uncut.