Traveling to Thailand and more: CCNY unveils new courses

Biologist David Lohman of The City College of New York is back from this winter session’s Tropical Ecology and Thailand course—the first of its kind. The 19-day voyage is the only Study Abroad & International Programs’ biology course ever taught by a CCNY faculty member as a CCNY course.

“The course is taught in collaboration with Prince of Songkhla University, and about half of the students will be from that institution,” said Lohman. “I definitely hope to offer this course again—either as a winter or summer term course.”

Students learned about functioning tropical ecosystems including forests, streams, mangrove swamps, coral reefs and a large subterranean cave. They also got to investigate challenges to biodiversity conservation in developing tropical countries with visits to a shrimp farm and tropical tree plantations, including rubber and oil palm.

Following are new and exciting courses for spring 2019:

• Art, Place, & Engagement: Harlem Convergence, an undergraduate course, will be taught by Professor Shani Peters, from the Division of Humanities and the Arts. 

The art course is conceived as a three part structure: first, a survey of the Harlem neighborhood spanning from the Harlem Renaissance to the present; second, a survey of socially engaged artists producing work in specific and committed orientation to the locality of their work (both Harlem-based and beyond); and finally, the enactment of a neighborhood, group engagement project, designed and implemented by the class;
• Design and Build: Material, taught by Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture professor Christian Volkman, aims to design-build a material library on the third floor of the architecture building, in form of a three-showcase-assembly, to serve students as a resource for material investigations;
• Activist Space in NYC, taught by architecture professor Nandini Bagchee, will be focused on the examination of participatory practices in re-purposed buildings that reveal the critical relationship between real estate, architecture and activism. Students will create a “zine” that memorializes the efforts and projects a future for a particular “activist” site; and
• Race, Class and Gender in Media, taught by Elena Romero at the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education, introduces students to the history of U.S. media as it pertains to race, class and gender. Students will focus on four-related areas: media representation of race, class and gender; audience interpretations of media portrayals; critical analysis of media culture and content; and addressing concerns: media message production and consumption, media literacy, activism and advocacy.

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