CUNY TV’s third virtual town hall special on COVID-19 is a conversation on CUNY’s transition to distance learning–the challenges of he challenges of making it happen almost overnight midway through the spring semester and questions ahead amid the uncertainties of the continuing pandemic. Host Mike Gilliam talks with Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost José Luis Cruz (bottom row center); Lehman College Provost Peter Nwosu (top right); Cathy N. Davidson, director of the Futures Initiative at the Graduate Center (bottom right); and students Sally Zieper of Brooklyn College (top center) and Kalli Siringas of Hunter College (bottom left).

To see the show on CUNY TV click here

CUNYcast Episode 15 

 

Transcript

Mike Gilliam  Welcome to CUNY TV presents “COVID-19: A Crisis in Motion,” a virtual town hall meeting. I’m Mike Gilliam. This is our third town hall and this time we’re tackling distance learning. The move to distance learning or online instruction began March 19, with no set end date. It’s been a massive undertaking for a system offering more than 36,000 courses with more than 15,000 instructors and more than 217,000 students. There have been challenges and successes. Here to delve into all of it we have the Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost José Luis Cruz; the provost of Lehman College, Peter Nwosu; Cathy N. Davidson, the founding director of the Futures Initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center; and two students, Kalli Siringas, who attends Hunter College and writes for the student paper, and Sally Zieper, a student at Brooklyn College. She’s a student correspondent for the CUNY Office of Academic Affairs newsletter.

Welcome to all of you. I want to start right off with a message from the Chancellor to the CUNY community on distance learning.

Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodriguez (on videotape) I am so proud and thankful for all you have done in these challenging times, faculty, staff and students coming together. This is a learning experience for everyone involved, including me. Even though there might be bumps along the way, please keep in mind that we all share one common goal, to get to this semester together, to complete this semester and to protect your financial aid and your education.Mike Gilliam  Now, let’s start with EVC Cruz. There’s an important message there, right?

José Luis Cruz   There is. I think actually there are three different messages from the chancellor. I think the first one is an acknowledgement of our campus communities and how intentional and deliberate they were in seizing the moment and converting a massive number of in-person courses to online with the objective of ensuring that learning outcomes were met. It’s also an acknowledgement from the Chancellor that we will support the campus community to the best of our ability as we face these historical challenges. And then, of course, I think there’s also the underlying message that the recovery of the city of New York runs through CUNY. And so it’s not only about how we are able to maintain the continuity of our academic programming and the support services towards students that go with that, but also our involvement as thought partners to the city and the state as we move to get away from the current state of affairs into one where we are more prosperous, healthier and better positioned to serve the people of the city of New York.

Mike Gilliam  To our students, this is not the year that any of us expected going in. How is this transition to online education worked out for you guys? Kalli?

Kalli Siringas  I think it’s been a pretty smooth transition, at least for the media department at Hunter College. I think all my classes have been smaller and more focused.