Seminar 2 Encyclopedia

Their New York

Professor: Mike Benediktsson
ITF: Christina Nadler & Madison Priest
Campus: Hunter College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/theirnewyork/

This website is the result of a unique research project undertaken by first year Macaulay Honors students at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) under the supervision of Mike Owen Benediktsson, Madison Priest and Christina Nadler. The interviews, images, and research collected here were collected entirely by students, as part of their coursework for the People of New York City seminar, or Seminar II, an interdisciplinary class on the past and present of the city’s neighborhoods, with a focus on migration and immigration.

The People of New York City

Professor: Sarah Bishop
ITF: Anna Gjika
Campus: Baruch College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/bishop17/

Class website to retain course materials (readings, syllabus), student reading reflections, and scaffolded final project assignment posts.

Contested New York

Professor: Peter Vellon
ITF: Amanda Matles
Campus: Queens College
URL: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/vellon17/

This website is the hub for a collection of six digital projects that focus on several key points of socio-economic conflict, struggle, and tension in New York City from the post World War II period to the present.

It would have been great to coordinate link-backs to the hub site from each of the group project sites, but not all of the groups included one.

Religious Life on Staten Island and New York City

Professor: Melissa Borja
ITF: Kamili Posey
Campus: College of Staten Island
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/borja2014/

This spring, the students of Prof. Borja’s Macaulay Honors College seminar studied “The Peopling of New York City,” with a special focus on Staten Island. By conducting original research with archival sources and multilingual oral history interviews, we endeavored to document the rich diversity of religious practices and institutions on Staten Island, the most understudied borough of New York City. Ultimately, our research and our website were motivated by a public-minded commitment to Staten Island. Our goals were to deepen understanding of Staten Island’s changing population, to share stories of religious life on the ground, and to create a public archive in the service of preserving the collective history—and diverse histories—of our community.

NYC’s D Train

Professor: Nancy Aries
ITF: Owen Toews
Campus: Baruch College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/aries2014finalproject/

In Spring 2014, professor Nancy Aries’ CUNY Baruch/Macaulay Honors seminar studied the diverse neighborhoods linked by New York City’s D Train. The class broke into small teams, each researching one of seven neighborhoods. The primary purpose of the site is to bring together the seven neighborhood studies, with links to individual sites for each neighborhood (students decided to use the same theme for each of their sites, which gave them the united aesthetic they wanted, but limited some groups in what they could do). The secondary purpose of the site is to host a map displaying the seven stops along the D train. The map includes bubbles displaying photos and basic information for each stop, giving a nice overview of the entire project. However, the way the Google map embed displays makes it a bit difficult to see all this information at once. Students chose the ever-popular sliding doors theme to create a colorful, engaging snapshot of human life on the D train.

Seminar II: The Peopling of New York

Professor: Mike Benediktsson
ITF: Jesse Goldstein
Campus: Hunter College
URL: http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/benediktsson2013

Our public facing work consisted of short video documentaries produced by small teams of students. Our website has a page in which all of these videos are embedded, though this site was not a focal point of our work. All of the videos are on vimeo and students are encouraged to link to them, add them to their personal eportfolios, etc.

Exploring Diversity in Jackson Heights

JacksonSights compiles historical and empirical studies of Jackson Heights in Queens. Aiming at providing an overview of the diversity found within Jackson Heights, the site is divided into four different sections: history, religion, food, and fashion. Information has been gleaned from on-site excursions, personal interviews, mini-ethnographic studies, and scholarly research materials. In addition to representing the culmination of the class’s exploration, this site hopes to share gained insights and to transform into learning to appreciate the hardships, the triumphs, and the rich heritages offered by the people of New York City.