ALL ABOUT MENTORINGA PUBLICATION OF SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE Issue 54 • Autumn 2020 ALL ABOUT MENTORING Issue 54 • Autumn 2020 ALL ABOUT MENTORING ISSUE 54 AUTUMN 2020 Alan Mandell College Professor of Adult Learning and Mentoring Editor Karen LaBarge Senior Staff Assistant for Faculty Development Associate Editor PHOTOGRAPHY The quotes sprinkled throughout this issue of All Photos courtesy of Stock Studios, About Mentoring offer us a glimpse of the ideas and and faculty and staff of SUNY Empire State College, perspectives of Arthur Chickering, founding academic unless otherwise noted. vice president of SUNY Empire State College, whose contributions over decades and decades have left COVER ARTWORK such an indelible mark on so many individuals and By Donna Gaines Triune (Art on Neptune), 2015 institutions interested in students’ learning and their 32” H x 22.5” W, development. (Please see more information about Acrylic/spray paint/ dirt/found plywood Chickering’s work and impact on page 123.) Photo credit: James Graham PRODUCTION Kirk Starczewski Director of Publications Janet Jones Office Assistant 2 (Keyboarding) College Print Shop Send comments, articles or news to: All About Mentoring c/o Alan Mandell SUNY Empire State College 325 Hudson St., 5th Floor New York, NY 10013-1005 646-230-1255 [email protected] Special thanks: Thanks, as always, to our whole SUNY Empire State College community for voices and ideas that make this publication, and so much else, possible. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial — Our World ................................................................ 2 Art and Activism at SUNY Empire State College ....................80 Alan Mandell, Manhattan and Saratoga Springs Menoukha Robin Case, Mentor Emerita, Saratoga Springs Connecting Community Scholarship and Service ................... 4 Rebecca Bonanno, Garden City and Manhattan Snow ...........................................................................................81 Zeeva Bukai, Brooklyn Running a College on the Side: Reflections on My Engagement With Coursera .....................12 Universal Design for Learning for Mentors ...........................82 Valeri Chukhlomin, Saratoga Springs Allison Moreland, Instructional Designer, Rochester Pieces of My Life’s Journey: Some Reflections .......................86 Now and Then: ESC — and Life After .....................................20 MaryNell Morgan-Brown, Mentor Emerita, Carole Ford, Mentor Emerita, New Paltz Saratoga Springs China Stories .............................................................................22 How Did We Get Here? .............................................................94 Deborah Smith, Saratoga Springs Ian Reifowitz, Manhattan Finding Space to Breathe in a Volatile World ........................26 Tales of My Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain .................96 Himanee Gupta-Carlson, Saratoga Springs Gohar Marikyan, Manhattan A Fulbright Semester: The SUNY Empire State College Adirondack Building a Social Work Dream Together ................................31 Environmental Studies Residency .........................................104 Susan McConnaughy, Hartsdale Drew Monthie, Saratoga Springs My IMTL Project to the Rescue: Reflections of a Retiree ..........................................................108 Virtual Study Group Ahead of the Emergency ......................33 Lear Matthews, Mentor Emeritus, Manhattan Diane Perilli, Manhattan Hand and Head: Reflections on a Four-Phase Life .............................................35 Making and Knowing in the Labor Studies Program ..........109 Menoukha Robin Case, Mentor Emerita, Barrie Cline and Rebecca Fraser, Manhattan Saratoga Springs “Small, significant conversations” .........................................117 Care in the Age of a Pandemic ................................................44 Shantih E. Clemans, Brooklyn Colleagues from the School of Nursing and Allied Health A Review of: SoTL in Action: Illuminating Critical Moments of Practice How Do You Solve a Problem Like Reentry? ..........................47 Edited by Nancy L. Chick Sue Kastensen, Founder and Director, Fair Shake New Educational Technologies: Almost Out of Thin Air .....120 The Essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne and Jason Russell, Buffalo My Recollections of Times Past ...............................................54 A Review of: Richard Bonnabeau, Mentor Emeritus and Volunteer 25 Years of Ed Tech Archivist, Saratoga Springs By Martin Weller Lost Art .......................................................................................67 From the Archives ...................................................................122 Donna Gaines, Garden City Anastasia Pratt, SUNY Empire Archivist, Plattsburgh Revisiting The 1619 Project: Remembering Our Colleagues ..............................................123 A Heartfelt Response During a Racialized Pandemic ...........71 Rhianna C. Rogers, Buffalo Core Values of Empire State College ....................................126 Virtual Student Exchange: SUNY-Venezuela Higher Education Engagement Initiative ................................76 Victoria Vernon, Manhattan 2806 SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE • ALL ABOUT MENTORING • ISSUE 54 • AUTUMN 2020 2 E D I T O R I A L Our World “Oh, I think I understand just like it did not have to happen that difficult and disturbing, particularly as Fear is like a wilderland people don’t have shelter and could tuition-dependent institutions and those Stepping stones or sinking sand” be evicted from their homes and can’t whose very existence depends on public feed their families and have no work — funding are barely hanging in there. — Joni Mitchell, “I Think or are just full of fear. 2020: This is (They are — we are — in survival mode, I Understand” (1969) our world. not helped in the least by distorted budget priorities.) We can look at the miserable failure e are in a crisis. This is what of “systems” — economic, political, My sense is that it is possible, and it is a crisis looks like. This is not sociocultural — to function in the best absolutely necessary, to work together W only a crisis of “legitimacy” interest of the citizenry (look at our to change systems. We have to fight to (as the great social theorist Jrgen berserkly unequal economic system, or do that — to critically evaluate policies Habermas described such historical our health care system that too often and reimagine institutions of all kinds moments); it’s a crisis of all major social lacks the care). And, at the same time, that are not, and should be, responsive institutions that not only have lost their we can also think about the thinning out to the vast majority. (And this includes reliability and credibility but, particularly of our “lifeworld” — the quality of our changes at every level of educational now, have made us poignantly aware of daily lived experiences, the textures of systems to make them smarter, fairer, their cracks, their basic unfairness, their our subjectivity and shared meanings more flexible, more accessible — and to failure to provide what we feel — and (look at the alienation and depression demand that they be properly funded.) know — they need to provide. Too many so many feel, or the worry that parents But what some imagine can be a people in too many places are being have about what their kids are taking technical fix, a system correction, hurt; too many people cannot make it, in, or the belligerence that underlies so simply can’t rescue us. no matter how they try. Of course, there much communication). (This system/ It is thus also absolutely necessary to are degrees of pain and suffering (as I sit lifeworld discussion is one taken up work together to change values and at my desk in my home with August rent by Habermas and by many other dispositions. We have to fight to do paid and food on the table and health philosophers and social theorists.) that, too — to carefully and critically care in place and a full-time job, I am Of course, no institutional arena can reflect, at every turn, on the ideologies incredibly aware of my privileges — they escape this crisis. Its damage ripples and ethics that we too often just take are stunning), but, overall, the world is through every part of society. Education for granted or forget are never neutral. just out-of-kilter, startlingly askew. is smack dab in the middle of all of this. (And this includes changes in schools Honestly, I cannot get it out of my Parents and kids in preschool through at every level to make sure that we’re head that in a four-week period high school scramble to figure out not just reproducing the attitudes and between 11 March and 11 May, 33,500 what schools will (and should) look like ways of seeing each other that reflect a of my fellow New York City neighbors and whether those who are already competitive, mean-spirited anonymity, died of COVID-19 (and that’s the official vulnerable will have the supports they which is, horribly, the only thing too count!) and the numbers continue to need to learn. (It looks quite doubtful.) many people know.) Still, what some climb. This did not have to happen, The higher education scene is just as SUNY EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE • ALL ABOUT MENTORING • ISSUE 54 • AUTUMN 2020 3 wish can be a community and identity that originated in the ivory tower? the crisis, what concrete steps can we revolution, a lifeworld transformation, Why not just invite everyone in?). And take to question and rebuild this and can’t do it all. our lifeworld had to be revised (Why