Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 7 - Issue 1 - September 2023
Carolee Bongiorno is an Adjunct Professor in the Childhood Education program. She holds a B.A. in English and education from Saint Francis College, where she was one of the first 20 women to be admitted. Later, she went on to get an M.S. degree in reading through the arts at Fordham University and studied at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts with Maxine Green. After teaching for ten years, she decided to pursue a second M.S. degree in TESOL from Fordham University. Prof. Bongiorno is a board-certified art expressive therapist, receiving her certificate at The Art Therapy Workshop School in SoHo. There, she studied art, dance, music, and drama as techniques to help people overcome crises. She also pursued a dance certificate in education at the Isadora Duncan International Institute, dancing all over the world.
Prof. Bongiorno’s teaching career started when she was 19 years old at a progressive parochial school called Saint Catherine of Alexander, where she taught grades 3-6 for ten years. She then worked for the NYCDOE for 25 years in District 2 and at City College Academy of the Arts. Back then, she also taught ESL to members of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. During her professional career, she initiated a program called ESL through the Arts, through which she gave workshops at the NYCDOE and New Jersey City University.
This is Prof. Bongiorno’s fifteenth year teaching at CCNY. She considers teaching pre-service teachers both an honor and a joy. “It is a wonderful experience to pass the torch and see them all go out into the world and teach.” She enjoys all the courses she teaches, from being creative in reading and writing and studying children's development to supporting student teachers and watching them bloom and grow. In her courses, she instills a deep sense of appreciation for diversity in her students. “I believe it makes the public school system a better place to be by including the communities around us,” she says. Furthermore, she is excited to announce the new teaching salon for students that she created with her colleague, Prof. Randy Brozen.
Prof. Bongiorno has presented at national conferences such as NCTE, and she published an article entitled “Dance as a living language” in the Journal of the Imagination. Also, she is a member of the CCNY Computing Integrated Teacher Education (CITE) team. CITE is a $17 million, four-year initiative that aims to support teacher educators in infusing computational thinking and computer literacy into their programs. Lastly, she is a member of the Sacred Dance Guild and a member of the Art Alumni Board at CCNY.
Last Updated: 09/29/2023 12:20