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Rich History of Australian Distance Learning Prepares NYU Sydney for New Modes of Education

Australia

It had already been a most unusual summer in Sydney with once-in-a-generation bushfires grabbing global headlines. But as the fires began to subside, Australia faced a new challenge — the arrival of the COVID-19 virus.

Although Sydney was one of the last of NYU’s global sites to be closed, the spread of COVID-19 meant an inevitable movement to new modes of learning. According to the Times Higher Education, higher education is “pivotal” to Australia’s economy, contributing an estimated $66 billion to it each year. Thus the shift to moving to distance model in response to COVID-19 was hugely consequential not just for NYU Sydney, but all higher education institutions in Australia.

Australia actually has a long history of distance learning. “The School of the Air,” a generic term for teachers catering to children in remote and regional Australia has been in operation since June 8, 1951. In the early years of delivery, lessons were originally sent via the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Alice Springs, with classes later conducted via shortwave radio. The modernised service now sees students typically receiving one hour of face-to-face learning from teachers before spending the remainder of the day working through problems and content with family members. The service is sometimes affectionately called “the biggest school in the world” considering “classrooms” consist of roughly only 120 students spread over 1.3 million square kilometers. “The Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education has also utilised distance learning to service its Indigenous students,” notes Petronella Vaarzon-Morel, an anthropologist who teaches at NYU Sydney.

Petronella Vaarzon-MorelVaarzon-Morel was in the Northern Territory for field work at the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, and was able to smoothly transition to delivering lectures online. Vaarzon-Morel notes that she has made the most of her situation of continuing classes remotely from the Northern Territory. She is planning a socially-distant, in-person Q and A at Charles Darwin University with anthropologist Dr. Lisa Stefannoff, an NYU alum, and NYU students via Zoom. Stefannoff has worked on Indigenous screen production, broadcasting, and community arts in Alice Springs for the last 15 years. Vaarzon-Morel also recently recorded an interview with senior lawyer David Avery from the Central Land Council, an Indigenous community organization that represents the Indigrous people in land issues. 

Fran Molloy, an NYU Sydney instructor for Environmental Journalism has been pre-recording one-on-one interviews with local experts to supplement her lecture material. 

“I have been fortunate that two journalists who wrote articles I had assigned as readings, were willing to speak to me on Zoom about how they wrote the story, what their challenges were, and even offer some tips for students who have feature articles coming up,” she says.

“Both writers live in distant parts of Australia so it would normally be tricky to get them into a classroom. It feels like the virtual classroom (despite its many disadvantages) has given us the opportunity to break down the distance barrier.”

The class also had the opportunity to speak to leading water scientist Bradley Moggridge, whose work combining the traditional knowledge of his Aboriginal ancestors with western science has been groundbreaking in Australia.

San Souci Community GardemNYU Sydney has also hosted online field trips, with one class having a virtual tour of traditional aboriginal fish traps. Molloy recently organised a socially-distant personal video tour of a local community garden, tailored for NYU Sydney students by the founder. A portion of Fran Molloy’s virtual field trip to the San Souci Community Garden can be viewed via NYU Stream here.

Marcus Neeld, Assistant Director of Student Life at NYU Sydney has also worked at continuing to maintain community beyond the classroom. “Strong relationships between staff and students have been the hallmark of the NYU Sydney experience,” he says. 

“Our team has been challenged to maintain these relationships with students across multiple time zones. As we transitioned to remote learning, our team has been available to provide consistent individualized support. More broadly, we have moved our programming online, replacing previously familiar in-person meeting places with virtual meeting rooms and online hangout spaces. We have introduced relaxation programming and we regularly host friendly virtual competitions and opportunities for students to share with us their homes, pets, hobbies, and study spaces. NYU Sydney’s Wellness Counsellor, Dr. Lauren Stahl continues to support students on an individual basis, and student leaders are encouraged to continue making their valuable contributions.”

Adapting the African City

 

“What students are doing now ⁠— asking the subjects themselves to take part in creating a documentary ⁠— is their contribution to how the genre has been evolving since its inception in the early 1920s,” explains filmmaker Yahaya Alpha Suberu, a lecturer at NYU Accra. Instead of having films take the stance of a passive observer, “documentaries are now engaging the subjects, they are filming their own voices, and the collaborative process has changed between subject and documenter,” says Suberu.

In “Documenting the African City,” a course that has been offered at NYU Accra since its establishment 15 years ago, students learn how to tell stories using the language of film. The class is open to all students, regardless of their discipline a background in film is not required — and helps students discover more about the city during the process of shooting short pieces, recording sound, and editing their work. “The topics of their documentaries,” said Suberu, “are as varied as NYU’s diversity. Music, religion, race, politics, transportation, education, gender, sexuality, streetism, commerce, health, dance, tradition, the list goes on and on.” 

“Usually by mid-semester students have all the basic skills for pre-production, production, and post-production to finish five-minute individual or group projects. By the end of the semester they would have honed their skills and produced a longer documentary which is about ten minutes in duration.” The longer documentaries are screened outdoors in Accra to an audience from NYU Accra and the surrounding community.

My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. Yahaya Alpha Suberu

However, this spring presented a set of unique challenges, as NYU Accra, like the rest of NYU’s campuses and academic centers, was forced to suspend in-person operations due to the COVID-19 virus, and the cohort found themselves in a range of unexpected locations. “Some were in quarantine in their home countries, some at a place that was a ‘stopover’ or a place that was not home,” said Suberu. In response, the entire structure of the course had to be reshaped and the course’s focal point on Accra also had to adapt given that most of the cohort was no longer in Africa.

How exactly did Suberu adapt his instruction for a course that is typically very hands on, particularly in the locational aspect of the documentaries and the use of NYU Accra’s on-site film equipment and editing suite? And how did he support the continuity of a course that requires a high level of focused creativity in the midst of the chaos and stress? 

As he adapted how classes were conducted, spent time identifying short-format films that addressed the needs of the syllabus, and worked with students to expand their story themes beyond the city limits of Accra, Suberu found himself spending more time identifying resources and engaging with students online than in-person. “Even though class is over, I’m still doing research and communicating by email when you end class, you are still on the screen, spending more time there than one usually would in more familiar circumstances. And along with the move from campus to computer, there has been a shift in how we think about time in terms of teaching and student engagement.”

“My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. For instance, one student wanted to interview an individual in Accra, so the subject filmed herself and sent the footage to the student. Another documented the journey of a friend from NYU New York who travelled back home to China, and self-recorded the experience of being in quarantine.” 

Interestingly, the class produced films that have taken a timely look at different angles of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Suberu. “One student’s dad works in virology and he was able to tie his dad’s work into a story that was driven by his interest in biological warfare. Along similar lines, another student investigated how her mom is taking care of herself as a front-line medical worker.” 

The final projects from the course will be screened online on May 15th to a public audience. Open to 300 participants via Zoom, Suberu says “it will be quite fascinating to see how many viewers tune in from all over the world.”

 
 
 
 
 

NYU Berlin Lecturer Colin Self on Making Distanced Experimental Music

Colin SelfNYU Berlin Lecturer Colin Self was on a ten-day trip in Mexico when the COVID-19 crisis broke. His ten-day trip has become a multi-month journey, though the composer and choreographer continues to teach his NYU Berlin course, Experiments in the Future of Performing and Producing, from Mexico City.

Self, who teaches in the Clive Davis Institute program in Berlin, explores themes related to expanding consciousness, troubling binaries, and boundaries of perception and communication, and his teaching is focused on the “exchange of energies” in the classroom. His class has a virtual live performance coming up on May 15. Details are in the flyer below.

1 – What inspired you to teach at NYU Berlin? How have you found the experience?

I was really fortunate to have met Jason King, Associate Professor and the founding faculty member of The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music who developed the international study abroad program Clive Davis Institute x Berlin. After some initial conversations, he invited me to submit a performance syllabus. With some dialogue, Jason generously approved and I jumped right into teaching. It immediately felt like I was on the right path, in the right place. Performance is my life and getting to build and share ideas about what it is and what it can be is an ongoing practice. The experience has been incredibly inspiring, from the first class into the current class. One of the best things about teaching is the perpetual learning experience that occurs in all directions, with dialogue unfolding into new territory every term. Perceiving and experiencing the world of music and performance through the eyes of artists who are 20 and 21 years old folds back into my own learning of what the future of music and performance will be.

2 – Prior to the COVID-19 crisis did you have any experience with remote learning / teaching?

No, this is all fairly new to me.

3 – How have you found the transition? How do the classes work?

flyerIt was certainly a challenge at first try to think about performance as something that we could be in dialogue about over distance. So much of the class is about this kind of vis-à-vis energetic exchange between all of us in the laboratory of watching and responding to performance. As a perfmonance-maker that is really something that I cherish about performance pedagogy. The IRL [in real life] experience. It has required a great amount of re-imagining with a lot of care being put into presenting alternatives; asking questions about how the psychological and emotional conditions of this experience also affects art-making and performance.

It took a couple of weeks to get into the flow of things, but actually turned out to be a wonderful bonding experience for the group. So often this class is about connectivity and creating mutually supportive relationships students have with each other and each other’s art-making.

4 – I noticed that you developed a new syllabus for a Zoom course and specifically pivoted to “explore the canon of experimental art made during pandemics, global crises, and how individual and collective limitations can activate opportunities to experiment and grow as artists.” Can you comment about that? Can and will great art come of this?

One of the most fruitful things that happened as COVID was unfolding was engaging with others about what it might mean to make art in this time. It started with a letter by California College of the Arts Dean of Fine Arts Allison Smith about art being made during crises and the role artists have to heal and process our collective experiences. I was then in conversation with Jason King about the AIDS crisis and trench art and the really deep emotional history we have on this planet of artists making work under challenging circumstances. Quite often history shows us that some of the most grave circumstances brought forth some of the most inspiring and evolutionary art-making. Now that we are seeing the amplification of care as a priority, and the distribution of resources to people who do not have as much, the creative landscape is changing. 

5 – Have you or the students learned anything – whether academically or personally – that you might not have done in a classroom?

Colin SelfOne of the biggest lessons for me and so many others I’ve been in communication with has been the vitality of live performance and public assembly, and what a source of inspiration and energy that is to us both individually and collectively. Performance has always been a real life process of dreaming a better, different world into reality. Without that energetic interaction, I’ve realized what a treasure those experiences are and how there is really no replacing that over digital experiences.

6 – Anything else you would like to share?

I could say how deeply grateful I am for the interdependence and care that has appeared among colleagues both at NYU and other schools, to be in conversation with the present day circumstances, working together to re-imagine both our pedagogy and how to move forward together in a way that acknowledges and incorporates our collective condition. The problem-solving together, especially in regards to something like performance, continues to be one of the most inspiring experiences I’ve had at NYU – seeing across distance and difference, everyone working together to nurture our shared process of teaching.

NYU Prague Professor Leads Music Education Students in Engaging Locally

Klara with instrumentsKlára Boudalová is a teaching and performing artist, scriptwriter, and concert presenter. She teaches Foundations of Music Education at NYU Prague, a course with a syllabus she describes as “practical” and which involves community engagement because she always wants “her students to make a difference.” This year, she had planned for the students in her course to work with children in Prague on a musical project.

Klára’s focus on connecting students with the Prague community through music is consistent with her own work. She is an accomplished musician and music educator. For the past twelve years, she has worked for The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra as a creative author of education and outreach programs, working mostly with school groups and families (chamber and orchestral concerts, workshop series), young aspiring artists (masterclasses and discussions) and music teachers (leading a professional development project Music for Schools).

As an educator, Klára has designed outreach programs for many professional and student orchestras. She has also written a series of twelve audiobooks entitled “Don’t be Afraid of the Classics” which became a best-selling, award-winning, nationwide classroom music teaching tool in the Czech Republic. An early music soprano and a lover of swing and Irish folk music, at NYU Prague Klára helps students find their own passions for and styles within the field of music education.

Klara Boudalová with childrenFor her class this year, instead of being able to work together with children in Prague on a project, NYU Prague students are now designing their own projects. According to Klára, “Each student was asked to connect with their local community – find kids who are bored at home or reach out to former teachers – to find something beneficial that can be done through music.” In redesigning the course, she realised that there are currently many people who could benefit from support and so she asked students to design projects relevant to the COVID-19 situation in which children must stay home. The students were encouraged to use their creativity when designing their projects.

 The Foundations of Music class is meeting twice a week at 9:00 – 10:30 pm local time for Klára, which works only because Prague’s cultural institutions are closed so she is not performing in concerts. But with students now joining from China, Alaska, and everywhere in between, this was the best time. Teaching remotely to a global cohort means that “the students have a lot more academic responsibility now,” according to Klára. “Originally they would have developed their projects with me present, guiding them in their lessons, but now they have to respond on their own. I have one-on-one mentoring sessions with them to track their process.” She has been impressed with how well the students are doing on their own.

iPad showing piano keys and maskThe students are also actively sharing with one another and with Klára in the class meetings and are creatively approaching their local musical engagement. Students began by exploring tools to facilitate virtual music education, such as online learning apps and videos. They are also generating their own ideas. For example, teaching children how to make homemade instruments out of pots or other materials they would find at home and then composing music with their home-made instruments. Klára is pleased with the interactive aspect of the class, despite not being able to meet in person. “We are all tracking each others’ research and progress through a shared google drive folder with videos that the students are making. Everyone is recording videos and reacting.” Klára and her students are creatively making the most of a challenging time.

The results have shown that Klára and her students are all doing what they can “to make this better.” Students have recorded cute videos for family singing and home dancing. Others have started a home disco project or are teaching vocal warm up techniques to singers so the do not loose their sound quality during lockdown. One student, Valesca Gongora, a Steinhart sophomore majoring in Music Education, created an online choir and together they recorded a song video dedicated to health care workers. The choir recorded “Shed a Little Light” by James Taylor, which Klára calls “amazing, touching, emotional and incredibly inspiring.” You can have a listen here.

Valesca “immediately knew” that she wanted to organise a virtual choir when the class shifted to remote learned and the students had to develop projects. “During quarantine,” says Valesca, “I’ve seen people turn to the arts for support and comfort. As a music education major, that was such a beautiful thing to me. My goal was to put together a meaningful project that had the power to take our minds off of the craziness of the world for a few minutes. Music truly brings people together and can make us feel connected while we are social distancing.” She also feels that it is important for people to have a creative outlet during this time of uncertainty and fear and that music can provide a sense of normalcy. “It makes us all feel connected,” Valesca emphasises. “Working on this project has taught me that communities can still unite during this time of social distance, we just have to make adjustments and be creative.”

Klára has also been making the most of this time outside the classroom and music. She is currently staying with her parents in South Bohemia and making homemade masks for local medical facilities. She has sewn over 150 of them so far and has become quite good at it.

NYU London, Tisch, and RADA Modernize Shakespeare in a Virtual Performance

students actingNYU London’s intensive Shakespeare in Performance course involves sixteen actors who audition for their places and who train at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). The course, part of a long-standing partnership between NYU London, Tisch, and RADA, always concludes with the performance of a Shakespeare play. When COVID-19 necessitated the move to distance learning, both students and instructors were determined that the show must go on.

In a normal semester, the students train at RADA for full days on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays throughout the term. The training culminates in two full-time weeks of rehearsals and a final performance of the Shakespeare play. This final performance is always organised such that students share roles so that each actor has approximately the same number of lines and stage time. It is usually an intense and intimate experience.

Course Director Geoff Bullen, in collaboration with his RADA colleagues, has chosen to see this forced change of approach as an opportunity to experiment. This year, RADA’s Gary Lagden, whom Geoff calls  “an exceptional teacher / director,” with whom only half of the students had a chance to work with before NYU London closed, will direct an abridged Coriolanus, tailored to video. According to Geoff, “The plan is to take advantage of the format (and its inevitable unevenness) and have the play be devised as a kind of samizdat, an underground or revolutionary kind of action, but still with a keen focus on language, imagery, and delivery. It could be ideal for editing into a showcase.” The virtual performance will be delivered via NYU Zoom.

Instead of two weeks rehearsing together in person, the students will put the performance together over four days of intensive rehearsals. Director Gary Lagden is “really excited about this production.” Having never directed an online Shakespeare play before, he is enthusiastic about the challenge and looking forward to working with the students, saying “my mind has been wonderfully active with ideas.” The challenge, according to Gary, is to in four days create a performance of Coriolanus that “uses the voice as the tool of communication” with the actors using their own vocality to create scene, mood and character.” He believes it will be both demanding and fun.

Meanwhile, before the rehearsals commence, the training classes that provide the foundation for this final performance are underway. Students in this course are taking on Shakespeare together from around the world. RADA tutor Adrienne Thomas has been very impressed with how constructively the students are working, saying, “I’ve been happily reminded of what a delightful group they are, supportive, bright and imaginative with a real commitment to the work.” She has also seen improvements in their work as they develop their connection to language through breath, body and voice. Although not anticipated, she and others are finding the virtual learning a meaningful experience. “I’m very moved at our ability to communicate over these great distances and at this difficult time. Long may we continue to explore what we share as human beings and what unites us, through the medium of Shakespeare’s wonderful language.”

Marie Kallis, a Tisch junior majoring in Drama, has found the transition to remote learning “fairly smooth” and also inspiring. Marie had known she wanted to study at RADA since she was a freshman because she “adores Shakespeare” and was “really eager to study his worth with the RADA faculty.” Having been looking forward to the experience for so long, Marie was disappointed when she had to leave London but has found the NYU London and RADA teams “have done an excellent job putting together a course for us online and my classmates have continued to stay motivated and engaged, which is such a positive energy and outlook to have.” Although “studying acting is super challenging over Zoom because it primarily relies on being present with your partner(s)”, there have been some opportunities presented by remote learning. Marie appreciates the many individual tutorials, which she finds “immensely beneficial.”In addition, they have found ways to continue some classes that would seem impossible over Zoom, including a Physical Performance class.

Zoom classMarie feels that remote learning has provided some unique learning opportunities: I have definitely acquired some tools and techniques that I’ll carry throughout my work. For example, in our physical performance class, it’s been so freeing to not be able to see my classmates or myself on the screen. I feel the freedom to move without ever worrying about if what I’m doing is “incorrect based on what other people in the class are doing.And, during our presentations, Zoom made it possible for me to feel like my scene partner and I were the only two in the room, as we couldn’t see the rest of the faculty. And, that’s how it should always feel – feeling present in the moment with who is on stage with you and having an awareness that the audience is there, but throwing all the judgement and the feeling like you’re being “watched” out the window. 

All are optimistic that the course work will pay off. As the training continues and preparations for the final performance commence, Director Gary Lagden is hoping to explore theatrical truth through the screen. “The glory of this new digital restriction being mined and exploited to create a creative constraint that can achieve a true synthesis of performer and sound. This production will be in close up. It will be necessarily low tech and edgy. It will aim for truth and transformation. The wonderful work that the actors have undertaken with the RADA tutors now being the foundation of this performance.”

Marie is similarly enthusiastic about the online production. The final show is something all the students look forward to, so she was “thrilled” to learn it would go forward and finds it “really thoughtful of our faculty to make this possible for us.” Although it has “definitely been an adjustment to perform via the camera and work out all the technical kinks that come with an online production,” Marie is grateful to work with “an amazing director” who is Gary Lagden, who we were all so excited to work with again. He is “really making this process worthwhile.”

Understanding the challenges of an online performance, Geoff and Gary and the students have chosen to embrace the challenge and not aim for perfection in this unique, shared event. They will celebrate the happy accidents in performance and technical blips. Gary’s vision is that, “We will work together to tell this tale; we will challenge ourselves to be present and heroic in action.”

NYU’s Shanghai Community Sends Supplies to Help NYC’s Fight Against COVID-19

masks being shippedAs New York City’s hospitals fill with coronavirus patients and medical staff struggle with shortages of personal protective equipment, NYU’s Shanghai community has pulled together to support New Yorker’s  in their fight against the pandemic, sending some 17,000 masks to NYU New York.

Last week, a group of NYU New York parents who are based in Shanghai purchased some 10,000 N95 masks to help protect medical workers on the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19 at NYU Langone Medical Center. NYU Shanghai, with the help of a school donor who paid shipping costs, arranged for those masks to be delivered to New York City. NYU Shanghai also shipped separately some 4,000 N95 masks from its own stockpile to colleagues in New York.     

“Even if we are thousands of miles away, we still feel anxious and want to do something to help,” said one of the parent donors, who wished to remain anonymous. “As members of the NYU family, we hope that New York University will be alright, New York will be alright, and America will be alright.”

Vice Chancellor Lehman said he was moved by the parents’ generosity. “The bonds of affection between China and the US can produce tremendous benefits for the world,” he said. “We are proud of and grateful to these devoted members of the NYU community for stepping forward to help NYU Langone’s healthcare workers in this hour of need.” 

masks arriving in NYC

10,000 N95 masks donated by Shanghai-based parents of NYU New York students arrives at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City on April 7.

Tuesday’s delivery was the latest in a series of protective equipment donations that has streamed across the Pacific from Shanghai. As the “hot zones” of the coronavirus pandemic have shifted away from China to New York and elsewhere, NYU Shanghai has drawn from its own resources to help fellow NYU Global Network members in Washington Square.

 Over the past several weeks, in addition to the N95 masks, NYU Shanghai staff in Student Health, Finance, Public Safety, and the office of the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor have sent a combined total of 3,000 medical and disposable masks to colleagues at NYU New York. 

NYU Shanghai is paying forward the generosity that flowed to the campus during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic in China. The university received 850 disposable masks from NYU New York in early February, in addition to several hundred pairs of gloves, 20 protective suits, and thermometers. Corporate donors and NYU Shanghai faculty members also donated another 21,000 masks and other monitoring and protective equipment to the campus throughout February and March.  The community also came together quickly in the Light a Lantern project in February to raise more than U$50,000 to assist the people of Wuhan in their fight against the virus. 

 

This post comes to us from NYU Shanghai. You can find the original here.

NYU Los Angeles Goes Virtual

 

The following post is a guest submission from Gracie Corapi, assistant to NYU Los Angeles Program Director Nina Sadowsky.

By Gracie Corapi

I started as the assistant to Nina Sadowsky, program director of NYU Los Angeles (NYULA), in September 2019, still early in the program’s inaugural semester. We gave our first 33 students a study away program to celebrate: distinct LA experiences, unique panels and programming, an academic center with sunset views and Brita-filtered water. By the time Spring 2020 began and a new cohort of 36 joined us, we’d turned it up to 100: a one-on-one mentorship program! Double the special events, double the networking! Brita pitchers in each student apartment! Alumni mixers! And… a worldwide pandemic that sent them all home? 

As a student, I experienced a few unexpected bumps in my university years. In undergrad, classes were cancelled by a polar vortex. In grad school, I was on campus during an active shooter scare––thankfully, a false alarm. But this is a much bigger bump, and it’s my first time with an admin-level view of how a school can adapt when the world makes an unprecedented turn. This is what went into transitioning NYULA into a successful (and fun!) remote learning program. 

We began with the lecturers all of whom are accomplished and flexible, but that didn’t make them automatic Zoom experts. Our first project: creating resources. We had help from the knowledge base and from materials shared by NYU Shanghai (who were the first in the NYU community to face the Coronavirus), but we discovered that what our entirely part-time lecturers really needed was distilled guidance, not wallops of information on top of the changes in their own careers and lives. We created a step-by-step Zoom guide in PDF form for the visual learners, and we set up a system of 1:1 staff-led tutorials with the active learners. Then we created a schedule of staff support: every single class has a staff member on call, joining the Zoom meeting for at least the first ten minutes, making sure all tech runs smoothly. And hey, it’s not a bad deal for me, a forever-learner; I’ve ended up staying the full length of several classes, enjoying the content and conversation, forgetting I’m not a student myself. 

Our challenge for [the students] was instead experience-based: how do we provide an education equal to what we were providing before? Gracie Corapi

Adapting classes to a remote model has been more challenging for some than others. Our biggest challenge came when we’d all settled into our new home “offices,” when we’d all learned the difference between day and night PJs, when the hard work of transition seemed to be leveling out. We have a professor with… a VHS addiction. The treatment: after a hilarious but ineffective attempt to hold an iPad up to an old, VHS-equipped TV, the ingenious professor scoured YouTube for comparable clips and even learned how to digitize their tapes. It’s not quarantine if you’re not learning new skills, right? 

It’s no surprise that our amazing students are already tech-savvy. Our challenge for them was instead experience-based: how do we provide an education equal to what we were providing before? As a millennial, I say this completely genuinely: the great thing about Gen Z, which describes our cohort, is that they have big ideas and they’re not afraid to share them. In classes, professors are asking and listening to students about how best to change assignments to fit the new landscape. Group projects are morphing. Final paper topics are changing in real time as the industry adapts around us. 

One of the great facets of the LA program is the internship component. All students are required to have one, and we worried that this would be a grand hurdle. But so far, everyone has adapted. While many students have been able to maintain their internship work remotely, those that haven’t are working with our program director on customized projects that keep them connected to the type of work that drew them to LA in the first place.  

On the administrative side, we’re collaborating with our student workers on multiple fronts: what do you and your peers need from us? What do you want from us? What does support look like now, and what does the LA experience look like when you’re not even in LA? We created “Virtual LA” for the cohort, a constantly-growing source of online museum tours, livecam music, plus photos and stories of the city’s history and LA-set movie recommendations from faculty and staff. There’s more where that came from: we’re working on industry and craft book recommendations, an NYULA cookbook, and we’re in early discussions about a Zoom talent show. 

A couple of our ongoing projects are adapting too: our big event, the Hollywood Sustainability Summit, is going digital on May 16th. Our mentorship program continues by phone and Facetime. But now we have student-led movie nights and support groups, too. Our small staff is doing 1:1 student check-ins, and we’re dedicated to creating even more community as we go along. 

So far, so good. Nothing is easy in this kind of transition, and no one is really loving it. But NYULA, true to our city, has a sunny outlook. We’re finding unexpected opportunities in the remote world. That said, I am looking forward to returning to our NYULA home on Fairfax. I don’t have sunset views and a Brita filter at home, and I can’t take one more second of Tiger King. 

 
 
 
 

NYU Washington, DC Co-Hosts Informative Webinar on COVID-19

coronavirus imageOn March 24, NYU Washington, DC hosted the first fully virtual DC Dialogues event, which drew 315 participants. NYU Washington, DC and the NYU School of Global Public Health co-hosted an informative webinar on COVID-19. The discussion focused on science-based facts about the pandemic and aimed to answer questions about the uncertainties we face as a global community.

This webinar included faculty experts from the NYU School of Global Public Health, including Dr. David Abramson, Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences; Dr. Jack Caravanos, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Environmental Public Health Sciences; Dr. Robyn Gershon, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Epidemiology; and, Dr. Elodie Ghedin, Ph.D., Professor of Epidemiology. They provided guidance on what you can do to help contain the spread of this virus.

This Dialogue was moderated by USA TODAY’s healthcare policy reporter, Jayne O’Donnell.

Dr. Cheryl Healton, Dean of School of Global Public Health, provided welcoming remarks.

The webinar was recorded and you can find it here.

The Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in Argentina

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MLKcrop

Photo Source: United States Embassy in Argentina

“What would Martin Luther King do if he were here today in our Latin America?  With no doubt, he would certainly be denouncing the inequality that affects black populations, claiming for them to have fairer working conditions. He would be inspiring us. He would be making history.”

So writes Anny Ocoró Loango, professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences whose scholarship focuses on ethnic-racial issues, and presenter at a panel discussion, The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., From the Argentine Context, held in early February. Centered around the topic of inclusion, NYU Buenos Aires (NYUBA) hosted the event, which was organized by the United States Embassy in Argentina. 

Convening academic and practitioner perspectives, the panelists also included: Madoda Ntaka, an anti-discrimination attorney; Miriam Gomes, president and co-founder of the Diáspora Africana en la Argentina (DIAFAR) and scholar on the influence of African culture in Argentinian society; and Nengumbi Sukama, founder and executive director of the Argentine Institute for Equality, Diversity and Integration (IARPIDI). From legal, academic, and human rights perspectives, the panelists considered how Dr. King would address the current struggles of Afro-descendants, and how his legacy has informed the work of activists historically and today. An audience of embassy personnel, members of Afro-Argentine advocacy organizations, city of Buenos Aires representatives, as well as members of the NYU community, came together to engage in open-format conversations with the presenters. 

“The space itself allowed for people of color, as myself, to feel heard in a safe room with others that acknowledge the plight of sticking out in a country that has done a lot in the past to white wash certain parts of history,” said Fanny Yayi Bondje, a junior studying away at NYUBA in the Global Liberal Studies program with a concentration in Politics, Human Rights, and Development. “The panelists were vulnerable and shared stories where they have been targeted with racist acts and words by neighbors, coworkers, and even strangers on the street. They have used those experiences to make them fight harder for what’s right and have been inspired by activists all around the world, such as Dr. Martin Luther King. They shared some of their favorite quotes from Dr. King but they also shared the names and legacies of influential Afro Argentines figures, who are often not talked about in history or today. For example, Bernardino Rivadavia, the first Argentine president was of Afro-descent.”

“To talk about leaders and activists who gave their life for equality, justice and integration is a way of disseminating their legacy to our generation and future ones to come,” said South African and Argentine lawyer Madoda Ntaka. Providing pro-bono work on anti discrimination cases to the Afro-descendant community, he hopes to promote justice and increase understanding of racial issues in the City of Buenos Aires. 

Growing up in an environment of activism, Ntaka’s father Simon “Blues” Kotsi Ntaka, was a musician and militant from South Africa. “[He] also fought for the rights of those in the African Diaspora. As an active member of the African National Congress, he dedicated his life to fighting the apartheid system in South Africa until 1965, when he was forced into exile in Argentina. […] So I feel connected with the struggle that many African and Afro-American leaders have undertaken in the US, Africa and the Americas as a whole.”

The topics of inclusion, diversity, belonging, and equity (IDBE), said Site Director Anna Kazumi Stahl, inform some of the events and academic projects at NYUBA, including Fall 2019 Global Equity Fellow Brian Ruiz’s collaboration with three local experts — Sandra Chaga, Cleonice Da Silva, and Maria Isabel Soares — on a workshop on the history, dance, and culinary culture of Afro-Descendants. IBDE is a deeply important issue — indeed a core concern — for us in BA. Many staff and faculty have a heightened experience of such and engage in research and/or activism vis-a-vis this theme. At the same time, we very much want to continue to develop more ways to bring attention to these themes as they play out in this local context.” 

The panelists agreed that one of the major problems today is the lack of education about the long history of Afro-Argentine presence and their contributions to the country. Reflecting on the ideas discussed, Bondje noted, “I can only imagine how much could change if children in schools were taught about them and could see them in this beautiful way, how different Argentina would look today.”

NYU Washington DC Hosts Dialogue on Women and Migration(s)

event bannerOn March 10, NYU Washington, DC will welcome NYU Tisch’s Deb Willis and Ellyn Toscano for this special DC Dialogue on Women and Migration(s).  This panel’s perspective on migration seeks to capture a breadth of experience: an account of the migration of women is the totality of many stories. Women have been part of global and historical movements of peoples, to escape war, to avoid persecution, for work, for security. Women have been uprooted, stolen, trafficked, enslaved. Women have been displaced from land despoiled of resources and habitats lost to extreme weather patterns and climate change. The topic of migration generates thoughts of memory, belonging and identity, borders and home, objects and affects, deprivation and indulgence, self-imagining, family and loss. Women have moved and migrated for deeply private and personal reasons – to reach potential freely, to lead meaningful lives, to secure a future for themselves and their families. Women have sailed, flown, driven and walked. Some have not survived the journey.

The Women and Migration(s) research group convened first in Florence and subsequently in Abu Dhabi, involving scholars, artists and writers from each national community. In Washington, DC, a panel of artists, activists, historians, and organizers will discuss their work in this area.