CUNY Student Summit

A Student Opportunity From Transforming Learning in the Humanities:

Call for Proposals: Student Summit on the Role of Humanities in a Just Society

Applications are due TOMORROW, Wednesday, March 15, 2023. 

May 5, 2023 @ 9 AM-5 PM ET (Zoom)

What is the university you want? Transformative Learning in the Humanities (TLH) calls for creative, multimodal presentations from 50 CUNY students. Accepted applicants will receive a financial aid scholarship of $300 and a tablet.

We invite you to think about what your college community needs most to better support its students, and to imagine resources that would improve your social learning experience and academic life. To dream of safe spaces where respect, communication, and transparency are valued. To envision a stripped-down version of the faculty-student relationship, where faculty are better resourced themselves to be able to put students’ needs first. To conceive of concrete ways in which CUNY administration can better respond to issues raised by students. For the Spring 2023 Student Summit, a one-day virtual gathering, CUNY’s TLH program will provide a platform upon which students from all backgrounds can speak freely about what their institution is missing, and can talk back to their university.

The summit is being organized by a student-led Advisory Board. The Board encourages CUNY students to speak about real and tangible student needs, including mental health and childcare resources; issues faced by commuters, students on academic probation, and nontraditional aged students; racial equality, diversity, and representation; accessibility; community and belonging; and more quiet, reflective spaces provided for spirituality and self-care. A student-centered vision and student-run summit (a gathering to share creative works, reflections, manifestos), the Summit will allow you to take back the power and find your voice within the university to call for an answer to these unmet needs. The Summit will engage students, faculty, and staff in conversation to find common interests and begin transforming the larger institution to be more just, equitable, and student-centered. To remind CUNY administration that we are here, first and foremost, to learn and improve ourselves, and that we need a community that cares for us.

The summit will utilize transformative, active learning methods, sparking a collaborative space of brainstorming and free thought with workshops, anonymous idea boxes, open discussions, presentations, and more. The Student Summit accepts applications in any form for 10-minute individual presentations or 1-hour panels (4 or more presentations to be delivered together in the same session), on Friday, May 5, including but not limited to:

• A manifesto, call to action, or persuasive speech

• An interactive activity

• A poem or spoken word

• A video you plan to make (or have already made) yourself

• A performance (with or without co-performers, or an invitation to the audience to perform a script or interactive activity with you)

• A work of visual art

• A podcast, recorded interview (with permission to share), or sound recording

• A dream syllabus or assignment for a class that does not yet exist

• A modified syllabus or assignment for an existing class

The Student Summit invites students to respond to one question below or to another question of their own making:

• How does a professor’s way of teaching influence the way you learn?

• How can students or faculty incorporate social justice in the classroom?

• What do antiracist teaching methods look/feel/sound like?

• If you could build your own syllabus/develop your own curriculum, what would it look/feel/sound like?

• Describe your university experience; what are some extraordinary experiences you’ve had in and out of the classroom?

• How can you incorporate student advocacy in the classroom and beyond?

• How has transformative learning affected the way you learn in class and beyond?

• How can faculty better respond to issues raised by students in class and beyond?

• How can we move beyond inclusivity to actual antiracist praxis in the university?

• What could the university do to…
  • Be more environmentally aware?
  • Increase LGBTQI+ equality?
  • Be more accessible?
  • Make education more affordable?

• What on-campus resources do we need right now?

Proposals from all CUNY students taking courses for credit in the Spring 2023 semester will be considered, including those on academic probation, those studying part-time, and those commuting to campus.

If you would like to apply, please fill out this Google Form. If you have any questions about the application process, please direct them to Yuma Carpenter-New, Student Summit Coordinator, at yuma.carpenter-new@cuny.edu. Yuma will also hold open office hours, during which you can speak about ideas for proposals and the application process together.