Message From the Dean
Dean Kenneth A. Gould
Greetings School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) students, staff and faculty!
I hope that you are all having a good semester as we approach mid-terms. I know that the gradual transition back to campus has been challenging. Although most of us are excited to be slowly coming back to campus, concerns remain. I also know that shifting between instructional modalities has been problematic, and we are all very tired of managing this global public health crisis. I appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we try to make the best decisions that we can for our institution under shifting circumstances.
The good news is that things are getting better. Vaccination rates are up, infection rates are down, and the budget outlook for CUNY is improving. In HSS we are developing new minors in Asian-American Studies and Native and Indigenous Studies, and gearing up for an exciting Hess week. The theme for our Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities this year is (re)discovery. The Wolfe theme is appropriate to this moment of return to campus because, as our Wolfe Institute Director, Professor Rosamond King has put it, “We are simultaneously rediscovering people and experiences we've been away from, and discovering new ways to live, work, and learn.” This issue of Critical Thinking highlights our Hess Scholar-in-Residence Week with Professor of American Studies and Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Dr. Lisa Lowe. I encourage you all to attend and participate in our Hess week events.
I want to take this opportunity to highlight a few of our many recent successes. The Mellon Foundation extended and expanded funding for our transformational Mellon Transfer Student Research Program with an additional $1 million, thanks to the hard work of Professors Alan Aja, Joseph Entin, and Jeanne Theoharis. The Kitch Foundation provided us with generous support to assist our students with maintaining internet access while classes were mostly online. We were able to help 223 HSS majors stay connected to complete their online courses in the 2020-21 academic year, distributing $70k in total through $300 Kitch connectivity grants. Thanks to the efforts of Prof. Jonathan Nissenbaum, the college this year has been awarded $129,101 from the National Science Foundation, via the renewal of a Research Experience for Undergraduates award led by the Linguistics Program. The three-year grant is part of a larger program targeted at supporting minority and first-generation college students, providing participants with stipends to carry out year-long mentored research projects. Additionally, the New York City Council budgeted $1million to support the work of our CUNY Haitian Studies Institute under the leadership of Dr. Marie Cerat. We have a lot to be proud of.
Finally, as we prepare to more fully return to campus, let’s all strive for something better than simply a return to “normal.” The old normal was simply not good enough. We strive for better. We have all learned a lot through the challenges of this experience and I encourage all of us to take what we have learned and apply it in making significant structural and cultural improvements in our School and our College. We have a unique opportunity to address critical national and international issues of systemic racism, climate change, growing economic inequality, and the erosion of democratic governance through our curricula, pedagogy, research, and roles as institutional actors. Let us not miss this chance by settling for a return to business as usual, but instead let us make well-reasoned strategic interventions to disrupt business as usual in the service of building a better School, College and wider community. I am excited to work with you in these efforts.
Have a terrific rest of the semester!
Thanks,
Dean, Kenneth Gould
