The Teaching and Learning Center and the Center for Humanities invite members of the CUNY community to participate in an ongoing visual and textual sense-making project to document and reflect collectively upon this unprecedented moment. From my window…and other places is a space for expression, connection, and reflection to elaborate the social, psychological, political transformations we are all facing as educators and students in 2020 and beyond.

The project has two parts. The first is an open call for creative documentation, sharing and reflection of our perspectives on the moment using social media.

The second will be an ongoing Focused Inquiry Group – a small group of CUNY students (graduate and undergraduate) – who will reflect more deeply and collectively about their experiences through the spring 2021 semester using artistic and written projects. Both parts will work together to document our moment and offer a collective reflection upon our common past, present, and future.

The TLC and Center for Humanities will release weekly prompts on our Twitter feeds (@GCTLC and @HumanitiesGC) each Monday inviting all to pause, sit, get physical and elaborate thoughts, feelings, memories, and reflections. You will be invited to post photos, small written excerpts, favorite quotes, drawings, or even engage to create a collective poem using the hashtag #CUNYFromMyWindow.

The Focused Inquiry Group seeks five Graduate Center students to reflect in a more intimate space about the same set of issues. This group will have space to exchange ideas, engage in two artistic workshops in which participants can learn new skills while also playing around with their memory, imaginations and forms of expressions. They will work together to produce a collaborative reflection in spring 2021 that will be based on photos, sketches, elaborated drawings, watercolor images, videos, poems, essays. Basically, every form of expression will be welcome.

Our intention with this project is to promote a reflexive, distributed community of engagement, since we are not able to share the same physical spaces. We are guided by the sense that we have all learned so many things, and are frequently so overwhelmed that sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. Community can break down the sense of isolation, and strengthen our capacity to reflect and carry forward meaningful lessons.

To participate in #CUNYFromMyWindow reflections, please follow us on Twitter @GCTLC and on Instagram at @VisiblePedagogy. We will post weekly prompts under the hashtag #CUNYFromMyWindow. You can participate on your own time, at your own pace, and using any form of expression you prefer.

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To apply for membership in the Focused Inquiry Group, read the following instructions:

“From my window…and other places” seeks 5 graduate student participants who are interested in thinking through the experiences we have shared over the last several months and on the time to come, making sense of them from different perspectives. In practical terms, we will schedule two or three meetings in which the participants will be introduced to each other and have a space to connect. The participants will also enjoy two hands-on, arts-based workshops designed to engage both your body and other senses in a memory-imaginative process. The intention of these meetings is to help participants get in touch with their reflections on our moment and explore other modes of expressions, while we also learn and document this process.

Selection Process and Expectations
We will select five Graduate Center students. We will be looking for interdisciplinarity and willingness to engage with the prompts and ideals of this project. Abilities to use different languages and mediums such as create videos, or websites are welcome, but not necessary. Selected participants will receive an honorarium of $300, and in addition, they will have the chance to participate in public conversations, work with a community of fellow instructors and produce a final product of their choice. The final artifact may be individual, a small group project, or one collective final artifact.

To Apply
Interested applicants should email the following materials as a single PDF to tlc@gc.cuny.edu by November 25, 2020 under the subject heading: “From My Window FIG.”

• using the prompt “From my window, I have learned …” produce an artistic artifact and a reflective writing from 250-500 exploring your ideas about it.
• a brief 2-page CV that includes your program, year, teaching experience

Please direct any questions about this project to TLC Fellow Fernanda Blanco Vidal.