Tag: students

Thoughts

Two Letters, to Where I have Been and Where I am Going

Frances Tran

Dear CUNY,

I’ve been holding my breath, holding myself back from writing this letter because I know that it can never encompass all I want to say about what being in and of you has meant. And/but I am taking the advice that a CUNY mentor once gave me when I was floundering during the dissertation process, to start writing before you are ready, because I know this letter is one that I’ll never be fully ready to write.

In many ways, it was growing up in and with you that helped me find community, direction, purpose, a voice, myself. So, there is much I want and need to say:

The first is thank you. Thank you for giving me opportunities that I know I haven’t always appreciated. Thank you for the people you brought into my life–friends, teachers, mentors, allies, leaders, students, strangers–people who have been variously kind, strong, loving, hurtful, generous, difficult, inspirational. Thank you for the way you forced me to get to know this city, to move out of the sheltered corner of Little Neck, Queens where I grew up to traverse its sprawling landscape, to walk across bridges, to find other sites of belonging. You taught me how to feel at home in this city. Thank you for the skills you helped me develop while I was learning and working as a CUNY student and teacher: the ability to read, write, and grade papers standing on public buses and trains, a dexterity honed during long commutes and all-too-frequent MTA delays; a knack for finding windows in stuffy, claustrophobic buildings, to look for spaces to let light in when the weight of the work feels especially heavy; a know-how for tracking down resources, opportunities, and pockets of funding, which you haven’t always made easy to find, but it’s because of that that I learned to ask questions and to make demands, to realize the sound and worth of my own voice; an eye for recognizing people who are similarly lost and out of place, who are also driven by questions, ideas, and a refusal to accept things as they are; an intuition for making community out of commuter campuses, to find people and causes worth showing up and fighting for. This list could go on and on.

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Events

Event Recap: Futures Initiative Spring Forum–“Publics, Politics, and Pedagogy: Remaking Higher Education for Turbulent Times”

Frances Tran

On Wednesday, March 28, 2018, the Futures Initiative hosted a daylong forum on “Publics, Politics, and Pedagogy: Remaking Higher Education for Turbulent Times.” Part of our University Worth Fighting For series, this event was an occasion to foster interdisciplinary conversation on the relationship between pedagogy, equity, and institutional change. It was also an opportunity for the people involved in the many areas of our program–from our graduate fellows and the students and faculty involved in F.I. team-taught courses to our undergraduate leadership fellows and colleagues in the Humanities Alliance–to share their knowledge and experiences in a public setting, to engage precisely the different publics our work serves. We were joined by faculty, staff, students, administrators, and activists both in person and online (via Twitter and livestream) from across CUNY, New York City, and beyond. During the event, we collectively contemplated the current state and stakes of higher education, the challenges of being both a teacher and student in today’s turbulent sociopolitical climate, and the possibilities that might arise from and through our pedagogy, creative work, political commitments, and public encounters, which the day’s activities and conversations only affirmed are not separate endeavors.

It was a pleasure for me to shape this event and then to watch it unfold, to listen and learn from old and new allies, and to revel in the ways that the Futures Initiative’s mission to advance innovation and equity in higher education resonated across the dialogues, workshops, presentations, and bodies assembled in the room.

Read the full event recap on the Futures Initiative blog.

Teaching

On a Year Teaching at Fordham

Frances Tran

It has been a difficult year, one filled with uncertainty, anger, and confusion over the new political administration in the U.S. and the directions we are heading in as a country. Recent events have made divisions clearer, sharper than ever before… So, yes, it is a new world we are living in but this racism, hate, and injustice are intertwined with long histories of oppression that people in underrepresented minoritized communities know all too well. So in another sense, this world is not that new after all.

At the same time, I don’t want to lose sight of the good that has happened this year as well. Looking back, I am filled with pride in the students I taught at Fordham who faced these trying times in the best possible way- with a willingness to listen and learn from each other. This openness to really hearing the voices and perspectives of others is something that these students modeled with bravery and grace, and I wish that it was a practice reflected more broadly in the worlds we live. I have learned so much from them and I will miss our conversations, their thoughtfulness, patience, and the many unexpected, unruly directions they took, when I assume my new role as a Postdoctoral Fellow and the Interim Associate Director of the Futures Initiative later this summer. Knowing this, I wanted to share some highlights of my year at Fordham, the kernels that I will remember and take with me as I press ahead:

Teaching Sabrina Vourvoulias’s Ink (2012). This magical realist novel immerses readers into a dystopian futuristic landscape where persons with any trace of an immigration history are tattooed with barcodes indicating their status, from citizen to temporary worker. Discussing this text with my classes couldn’t have happened at a better time; thinking through Vourvoulias’s novel allowed us to grapple with debates on immigration and the rhetoric of xenophobia, hate, and fear that pervaded the 2016 presidential race. It served as an anchor for reflection and critique as we grappled with fluctuating emotions in an increasingly uncertain present. And, I will say, that while the novel is dark, with too much bloodshed and loss, there is also hope that comes in the form of magic and a budding revolution.

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