A warm welcome to instructors of Spring 2026 courses. I’m Director of Undergraduate Studies in the departments, and as such I maintain this site. It’s chock-full of resources for instructors, and especially for instructors of the core courses in our curriculum that sit between 120/220 and the specialized “topics” courses of the 300/400 level.

If you’re new to teaching these courses, please peruse the FAQs that pop out when you hover over the applicable course on the top-level menu. These documents give pithy overviews of the course and contain links to the “groups” (in CUNY Academic Commons parlance) that are targeted to instructors of each course. If you’re not a member of a “group” for a course you teach (again, 252, 285, 304, 306, 307, and 320 are included thus far), contact me and I’ll help you out.

As you get organized for the semester, a few suggestions/resources of interest:

• ACERT, our center for teaching and learning, is offering a ten-day syllabus challenge, starting Monday. It’s exactly what it sounds like: an asynchronous set of prompts that help instructors break down the process into manageable chunks and create nudges to keep us accountable to ourselves without getting overwhelmed or lost.
• The Provost’s site maintains a handy set of teacher resources, including a Faculty Handbook and Syllabus Checklist, with all required language re: grading, academic honesty, sexual harassment policy, ADA, etc.
• If you plan on having a session with a librarian this term (required for 252 instructors and might be helpful for other instructors emphasizing original research), this is the time to do it. Our subject librarian, Jennifer Newman, is lovely!
• If you’re new(ish) to Brightspace, Hunter’s preferred LMS, here are some resources to orient you. I’m using it for the first time this term (I normally teach on a Commons interface like this one), and I found the videos and especially the consult with the Ed Tech team in HN C105 to be very helpful.

Below are details for the last faculty workshop of the semester.

Oral Presentations and Student Engagement 

Wednesday, May 7, 12:00 – 1:30PM

Nancy Hightower and Ben Frischer 

Location: Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82639523161?pwd=HpbvNywBQbJbka5YyxFXbR15b5c0i3.1

Midterm season and the end of the semester can be challenging times when it comes to attendance and participation.  This workshop will explore how oral presentations give students an opportunity to re-engage with literature, critical texts, and their own research. We will examine different models ranging from final paper presentations to student-led class discussions. Participants will work on strategies for scaffolding oral presentations into their own assignments and lessons in order to promote student collaboration and emphasize original student work.

Adjunct faculty receive paid NTA hours for attending. Non-Teaching Adjunct (NTA) hours are paid out through NTA Appointments in AEMS. The median NTA rate is $51.32. Instructors are allowed a number of NTA hours per semester depending on their semester teaching hours. See graph below for Spring 25. ENGL 120 or ENGL 220 = 60 teaching hours per section. Any class other than ENGL 120/220 = 45 teaching hours. 

Austin and Sasha are repeating their collaborative writing workshop on Wednesday 30th at 2.30-4. Details below:

Exploring Student Collaborative Writing 

Wednesday, April 30, 2:30 – 4PM 

Austin Bailey and Sasha Maceira 

Location: Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86273991236?pwd=QTYvZmtlb2Z6eUp5SnVBYmd2OXZ0QT09

Meeting ID: 862 7399 1236

Passcode: 193056

Partly in an effort to offset the overuse of AI in student writing, and partly as a means of affirming writing as an act of communal invention and inquiry, this workshop explores options for assigning essays to students that ask them to write collaboratively with their peers in the context of individual classes. A broader question framing this approach is: What happens when we think of writing not as an index of skill acquisition but as a form of authentic, place-based invention? Writing as collaboration has the potential to offer students an exercise in deep ethos, that is, generating a sense of credibility through place and community, and thus exploring what rhet-comp scholar Rosanne Carlo calls the “re-wonderment” of finding and using language anew. How does the process of using language and making meaning together transition our understanding of writing away from the transactional to the transformative? Participants will come away with practical suggestions on how to approach collaborative student writing, both in first-year composition and across the English curriculum.        

Non-Teaching Adjunct (NTA) hours are paid out through NTA Appointments in AEMS. The median NTA rate is $51.32. Instructors are allowed a number of NTA hours per semester depending on their semester teaching hours. See graph below for Spring 25. ENGL 120 or ENGL 220 = 60 teaching hours per section. Any class other than ENGL 120/220 = 45 teaching hours. 

For folks who missed their workshop earlier this week on developing collaborative writing assignments, Austin and Sasha have kindly passed along their slides for reference. You can find them here.

Cindy Wishengrad and Nathan Schrader have graciously offered to share materials emanating from their workshop on Grammar and Language Support in the classroom, which took place before Spring break.

Here are Cindy’s materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iBw8Gya7KDpsI5L9HlOd4W7gt08DKkDx/edit?tab=t.0

And here is a link to a presentation by Nathan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwMCiXXttg8

Thanks to both of them for sharing this work.

Exploring Student Collaborative Writing 

Wednesday, April 23, 11:30AM – 1PM

Austin Bailey and Sasha Maceira 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86273991236?pwd=QTYvZmtlb2Z6eUp5SnVBYmd2OXZ0QT09

Meeting ID: 862 7399 1236

Passcode: 193056

Partly in an effort to offset the overuse of AI in student writing, and partly as a means of affirming writing as an act of communal invention and inquiry, this workshop explores options for assigning essays to students that ask them to write collaboratively with their peers in the context of individual classes. A broader question framing this approach is: What happens when we think of writing not as an index of skill acquisition but as a form of authentic, place-based invention? Writing as collaboration has the potential to offer students an exercise in deep ethos, that is, generating a sense of credibility through place and community, and thus exploring what rhet-comp scholar Rosanne Carlo calls the “re-wonderment” of finding and using language anew. How does the process of using language and making meaning together transition our understanding of writing away from the transactional to the transformative? Participants will come away with practical suggestions on how to approach collaborative student writing, both in first-year composition and across the English curriculum.        

Non-Teaching Adjunct (NTA) hours are paid out through NTA Appointments in AEMS. The median NTA rate is $51.32. Instructors are allowed a number of NTA hours per semester depending on their semester teaching hours. See graph below for Spring 25. ENGL 120 or ENGL 220 = 60 teaching hours per section. Any class other than ENGL 120/220 = 45 teaching hours. 

Dear Faculty,

We’re happy to be hosting the following workshops this semester (more workshops to be announced soon). Adjunct faculty will receive paid NTA hours for attending (see my note below regarding NTA hours). Please RSVP for workshops by emailing [email protected].

Nuts and Bolts of Teaching

Tuesday, April 1, 2:30-4:00PM 

Location: HW 1242

Considering revamping your class policies to set clear expectations from the first day of class? This practical workshop aims to guide instructors through different effective course policies/procedures to implement into the classroom structure and syllabi. In this workshop, participants will hear fellow faculty members share their strategies for attendance, participation, grading schemas, assignments, distributing materials, and what to do on the first day of class. By the end of this workshop, instructors should be able to reflect on the purpose of clear, communicative syllabi, determine appropriate class policies, and hone their best classroom practices.

Creating a Positive Classroom Culture

Monday, April 7, 4:00-5:30PM

Location: Thomas Hunter 414

Interested in making your classroom a place for students to feel safe and engage in their scholarly community? This practical workshop aims to help instructors foster and maintain positive classroom culture that allows students to actively engage in class discussions and group assignments. Participants will learn different approaches to cultivating a sense of belonging in the classroom, dealing with conflict, and setting community expectations. By the end of this workshop, instructors should be able to develop techniques that reward constructive involvement in the classroom environment, reflect on best practices to resolve communal issues, and create opportunities for students to take valuable risks outside their comfort zones. 

Providing Grammar and Language Support in the Classroom 

Thursday, April 10, 11:30AM – 1PM

Location: TBA

Do you find your students struggling to write clearly and grammatically at a college level? This practical workshop will provide you with some specific ideas for eliciting clear points from students, contextualizing grammar instruction with a rhetorical approach, and identifying specific vocabulary useful for academic writing. In this workshop, instructors Cindy Wishengrad and Nathan Schrader will share strategies they use in their ENGL 120/220 ESL sections and explore how you can apply them in non-ESL courses. By the end of this workshop, you should feel more confident in your ability to “diagnose” problems in your students’ writing and “prescribe” strategies for improvement.

Non-Teaching Adjunct (NTA) hours are paid out through NTA Appointments in AEMS. The median NTA rate is $51.32. Instructors are allowed a number of NTA hours per semester depending on their semester teaching hours. See graph below for Spring 25. ENGL 120 or ENGL 220 = 60 teaching hours per section. Any class other than ENGL 120/220 = 45 teaching hours.