There was once a time when we would see each other often in the halls. We’re in a different era now. We don’t gather as much in person anymore. But the Inquirer, our faculty publication, is still a means of communicating the things that are important to us. That’s why we have partnered with CETLS to launch a new Inquirer Talks series that will give us all a chance to talk with the authors of the Inquirer pieces.

I’ve read the Inquirer, written for it, and finally have been an editor for it as well for the past three years. There are always pieces I’m interested in. There are always pieces that make me think again about what I’m doing in the classroom and why. I walk away from my colleagues’ voices with new ideas for teaching and new ideas for my own professional development. It’s not an exaggeration to say that some Inquirer pieces have made me cry, others laugh out loud; others have made me contemplative, ambitious, or angry. I hope many of us feel this way.

I remember reading Rifat Salam’s piece in Inquirer #29, a post-pandemic issue where we were still grappling with the effects of our changed world. She wrote about ambiguous loss. For me, it was a relief to put a name to what I was feeling. Also in Inquirer #29, Robin Isserles shared a section of her book The Cost of Completion that was a powerful argument about the ways “data-driven metrics” are erasing huge parts of our students’ lives and, in the process, doing harm to students’ real chances of success.

In a different vein, Mateo Sanchez Cardiel inspired me to bring podcasting into my classroom. I would never have tried it without his piece in Inquirer #31. We’ve had pieces on banned books from Tali Noimann, reports on students’ post-pandemic mental health from Hardaye Hansen and Michael McGee. We’ve had reports from sabbaticals, Fulbrights, and a faculty-led trip with students to Washington, DC.

We are such a talented, interesting, and ambitious group of people. There is power in our sharing. We hope that Inquirer Talks will be an opportunity to discuss our thoughts and responses to the Inquirer pieces with the authors and to show our appreciation for the work our colleagues have done in sharing their projects, ideas, and experiences. It is an informal series where we’ll have a short presentation and then an opportunity to discuss the work.

The first talk will take place on Tuesday, December 10 at 3:00 on Zoom (register here) and will feature Michelle Ronda and Lisa Rose discussing Project Impact: the BMCC/John Jay collaboration with Otisville Correctional Facility. Their piece in Inquirer #31 is here: BMCC and Justice-Impacted Student Support: Project Impact. And you can view a video of Michelle speaking about the project below.

Next in our Inquirer Talks series will be Mira Zaman on January 23 at 2:00, also on Zoom (register here), talking about sprucing up our syllabi so they are more useful for us and our students. See Mira’s piece here: Does Your Syllabus Need a Glow Up?

We’ll be continuing the series in Spring 2025, and hope to see many of you at one of the talks! In the meantime, we are also accepting submissions for Inquirer #32. See our call for papers here: Call for Papers – Inquirer (cuny.edu).

Project Impact: A Public Community College Campus-Based Support

In this Voice episode, Michelle Ronda discusses her TC Record article, Project Impact: A Public Community College Campus-Based Support and Reentry Program for Justice Impacted Students in New York City. Read full article here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01614681241282159