Faculty Interest Groups (FIGS)

We are excited to lead a faculty interest group discussion on teaching about privilege at the Faculty Center for Professional Development (IL-2013). We talk about how we address race, class, gender and sexuality in our classes.  At times, we struggle to explore these issues with our students, particularly during the current political climate. 

Some students are very resistant to these discussions, while others bring to the classroom a painful history of facing various forms of oppression and know, already, too much about how privilege works in our contemporary social world.  Some of us have found that faculty who come from a marginalized group experience extra resistance from students when discussing problems of privilege; for example, an openly queer faculty member might face resistance from students when discussing queer issues.  Please do join our open Faculty Interest Group for a chance to share teaching ideas, struggles and successes.

The Privilege Faculty Interest Group hosts a panel on privilege in the classroom. A group of faculty members and other scholars share their experiences with privilege and race, social class, religion, sexuality, disability, and gender in the classroom. After the panelists have briefly discussed their experiences of privilege, the audience has the opportunity to ask questions and engage in conversation about each of the topics covered.

Faculty Interest Group Facilitator

Jean Halley (College of Staten Island faculty member)

Regular Speakers:  

Professor Sharifa Hampton (College of Staten Island faculty member)

Ramsha Begum (College of Staten Island staff member)

Danielle Lucchese (doctoral student in disability studies and sociology at the New School for Social Research)

Robin Smith (College of Staten Island student)

Dr. Ron Nerio (sociologist and City University of New York administrator)

In her book On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), Sara Ahmed asks, "What does diversity do? What are we doing when we use the language of diversity?" Our upcoming Diverse Faculty Interest Group session will engage with these questions. We invite faculty and staff to join us for a discussion on the ways we talk (or don't talk) about institutional diversity and how we can effectively bridge the gap between "saying diversity" and "doing diversity."

Participants are encouraged to read Ahmed's article "The Language of Diversity" beforehand. The essay is published in Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.2 (2007): 235-256. 



Faculty Interest Group Facilitator



Lara Saguisag

Assistant Professor, English Department

The CUNY Unlimited- Developing Universal Design Strategies is Faculty Interest Group about a new initiative at CUNY to develop a meaningful credential for students with intellectual disabilities, CUNY Unlimited/TPSID. The purpose of this FIG is to create a space where faculty can share creative instructional strategies to support neurodiverse students, can learn more about UDL, and can help guide development of more supports for faculty teaching neurodiverse students.



Faculty Interest Group Facilitator



Kristen Gillespie

Assistant Professor, Pshychology Department

The idea of this Faculty Interest Group is to bring together faculty members from various Academic Departments and disciplines as they share about their research projects whether they are completed or ongoing research projects.