February 5, 2024Starr Vijolan-Bobelea Interns in Washington, DC

Starr Vijolan-Bobelea, a fourth-year student majoring in Political Science, spent fall of 2023 in Washington DC with Ramapo’s DC internship program. We asked her a few questions about her experience:

Why did you decide to do a DC internship instead of one closer to home? I chose to pursue an internship in Washington, DC to participate in a type of study abroad program that is not as far as other forms of study abroad programs. In addition, as a political science major pursuing a future in the legal field, I was very intrigued to work in a public interest law firm. In the future, I would like to pursue a career in New York City, but for the time being, I wanted to get a sense of the work culture in our nation’s capital.

What were some of the challenges you faced in your internship? Adjusting to the distance from home was the biggest challenge I faced. Being my first time away from home, it took some getting used to being away from my family. However, this experience definitely gave me a sense of independence.

What did you do in DC outside of the classes and internships? Outside of classes and my internship obligations, I attended numerous networking events and explored many of DC’s museums.

Would you recommend this for other Ramapo students? I would definitely recommend this program to other Ramapo students, regardless of their field of study. I believe that there is something for everyone in Washington, DC, and it is a beautiful, productive city to gain working experience.

Ramapo’s Washington DC internship program is not just for political science majors. If you or are your students are interested in contact Prof. Jeremy Teigen (B211) or check out www.wiidc.org/ramapo

Categories: Student News

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February 2, 2024Building Community and Preserving History Through Digital Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Dr. Sarah Koenig, assistant professor of history, approximately $150,000 to develop digital humanities communities of practice (CoP) at Ramapo College. The grant is the largest awarded in New Jersey this cycle and will support training not only for faculty and students, but for members of partner communities including local public schools and the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation.

“This grant builds on existing digital humanities initiatives at Ramapo College and will provide ongoing support to develop these separate initiatives into a comprehensive and enduring digital humanities program at Ramapo College,” said Koenig. Since 2019, Koenig has developed three DH projects: Mapping the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation, Mapping the Wild West in New Jersey, and Making Modern New Jersey. She has assisted with two others: The Human Side of a Pandemic and the Penny Colman Collection of Historical Landmarks of Women.

Additionally, the grant supports training programs that enable our faculty and students to collaborate with community partners. These initiatives help to safeguard and share the rich histories of various communities. Ramapo faculty and students are currently immersed in compelling digital humanities projects focused on preserving and showcasing the histories of groups such as the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation and Englewood’s Fourth Ward. These communities possess invaluable narratives covering the founding of the American nation, the evolution of civil rights, environmental racism, and more. Leveraging digital humanities platforms empowers these communities to safeguard and present their histories authentically.

Koenig is proud about this grant and what it means for Ramapo College and the community. “This grant shows that Ramapo’s strengths—a liberal arts education, a collaborative spirit among faculty, robust opportunities for student research and community involvement—are being recognized by outside institutions.” She went on to explain how the National Endowment for the Humanities process is not just about having a good idea; it is also about showing that your institution can support that idea, adding, “I think the NEH reviewers saw the compatibility between this grant proposal and the values and strengths of the college more broadly.”

What are the Digital Humanities?

Digital humanities is an exciting hybrid field that combines the methods of the humanities: critical inquiry, close reading, qualitative research, creative writing, etc., with digital tools such as mapping, blogging, podcasting, and digital exhibits, in order to expand understanding of the humanities, create public-facing humanities projects, and critically engage with technology. Ramapo College creates opportunities to with community members to learn about the digital humanities such as the Passaic County Community College-Ramapo College Experiential Learning and Digital Humanities Conference held on January 26.

Using Digital Humanities Technology 

Faculty in the School of Humanities & Global Studies utilize digital humanities technology and diverse humanistic research approaches to produce scholarship accessible to the public. They collaborate with community groups to create applied humanities projects aimed at preserving community knowledge, encouraging public inquiry, and nurturing literacies in digital, informational, historical, and cultural domains. Through research projects and digital course assignments, faculty provide Ramapo students with hands-on learning experiences, allowing them to develop a profound understanding of their subject matter and acquire valuable, marketable skills.

The Importance of the Digital Humanities

Integrating digital tools into a humanities education equips students with a comprehensive skill set, positioning them effectively in a dynamically evolving job market. “The humanities are not only compatible with but essential to emerging technologies, because the critical thinking, deep analysis, and attention to culture that the humanities provide help us to use digital technologies in more equitable, thoughtful, and creative ways,” shared Koenig.

Hands-On Learning Opportunities for Students

One of the most exciting parts of this grant is that Ramapo students will be involved at multiple levels. Students will work as student-faculty researchers on specific digital humanities projects, such as Englewood Makes History, the Penny Colman Collection, and Mapping the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation. Students not only within the School of Humanities & Global Studies, but across the college will learn digital humanities methods and participate in digital humanities projects as the technology is integrated into more courses in the Ramapo curriculum.

 

Categories: Faculty News, Faculty-Student Research, Grants and Awards

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April 20, 2023Jacob Labendz Interviewed on NBC 4 News

Jacob Labendz, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies was interviewed on April 19 on NBC News.Click here to watch the interview.

Categories: Faculty News

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April 20, 2023Natalia Santamaria Laorden's Health Care and Human Service Professionals Adopted Nationwide

Associate Professor of Spanish, Natalia Santamaria Laorden, co-authored a textbook entitled Spanish for Health Care and Human Services Professionals (Cognella, 2022) that underscores the importance of the integration of the arts and intercultural communication within medical training and well prepares students to competently and compassionately serve Spanish-speaking clients and patients. Within seven months of its publication, 289 universities and colleges have ordered a copy of it and 20 universities such as Colorado Boulder, Northeastern, Cincinnati, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and Villanova have adopted it.

Recently elected as the chair of the languages for specific purposes special interest group in the American Council of Teaching of Foreign Languages, she will also be presenting and moderating a panel entitled The Role of Spanish in Speech Therapy and the Treatment of Language Disorders” in the Cervantes Observatory at Harvard University in hybrid format on June 1.

Categories: Faculty News

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March 7, 2023Indya Jackson Wins Teaching Fellowship

Dr. Indya Jackson, assistant professor of African-American literature, has been awarded a teaching fellowship by Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium (DEFCon) to develop two digital humanities projects at Ramapo College.

One project is for the English and literary studies senior seminar in the School of Humanities and Global Studies. The question guiding the seminar is, “How do marginalized communities use satire as a form of resistance?” Students will engage with texts such as Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, Mosin Hamid’s The Last White Man, and Chinelo Okparanta’s Harry Sylvester Bird. Jackson aims “to incorporate into the course the social annotation of assigned criticism” and anticipates that “students will meaningfully and critically engage with challenging academic texts in an interactive way.”

The second project focuses on the creation of an online exhibit showcasing audio and visual materials related to assigned readings. Exhibited materials will likely include audio recordings of authors reading from their work, video interviews with scholars, and/or original audio and visual art that relates to the course themes. Jackson expects that the exhibit “will provide a unique, yet critical means through which students can explore and connect with the course material.”

Categories: Faculty News, Grants and Awards

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February 7, 2023David Colman Joins the Bergen County Historic Preservation Advisory Board

Congratulations to Associate Professor of African-American History David Colman who was recently appointed to the Bergen County Historic Preservation Advisory Board. Member of this group serve as a resource to the Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs and to the County Executive and the Freeholders on historic preservation policy, interpretive programs, operation of county historic sites and facilities, preparation of a County Preservation Master Plan, and on acquisition and preservation of properties as County-owned historic sites. The board reviews applications and recommends funding for the Historic Preservation Trust Fund component of the BC Open Space Trust Fund, sponsors the annual County Historic Preservation Awards, reviews construction and development applications from the public and private sectors that may impact historic sites, sponsors educational seminars pertaining to preservation subjects, and, when requested, provides technical assistance on historic preservation to municipalities and private individuals.

 

Categories: Faculty News

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February 6, 2023Karl Johnson Quoted in Ebony Op-Ed on Black History Month

In a recent op-ed in Ebony, Dr. Karl Johnson, co-convenor of the Africana Studies program was quoted on the importance of Black History Month:

“African American History Month is American History and has been vital to the progress of this nation. The 13th,14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution passed originally for African Americans after the Civil War is now utilized by all Americans to protect civil rights and freedoms,” he declares. “Additionally, more than ever, evidenced-based history is under attack. It is important we begin to move away from the myths and stereotypes from the past to continue to progress and become even more inclusive.”

The op-ed, written by Ramapo alumni Dr. Daniel Jean, offers three ways to make Black History Month last all year:

• To continue to celebrate our history outside of the classroom, dating back to the beginning of civilization ensuring our children know their African lineage.
• To continue the constant discovery of new facts and proof of our many contributions to our global society, like The 1619 Project and Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America have done.
•  To continue to share oral history to ensure the nuanced perspective can be passed down from generation to generation. We must be thankful for all our ancestors who fought for the many freedoms and privileges we have today.

 

Categories: Alumni News, Faculty News

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November 17, 2022Free Online Courses on Scholarly Editing Available on eLabs

Three online courses by Cathy Moran Hajo, Director of the Jane Addams Papers, were recently launched on eLabs, a multi-year effort by the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital Editing to develop curriculum for publishing historical documents on the web. The program was funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. It is a rethinking of a long-standing in-person training program, known as the Institute for Editing Historical Documents.

The three courses currently available are: What Will Your Edition Look Like?, Organizing Your Documents, and Transcribing Your Documents. These courses are part of the Fundamentals series, which was designed to introduce practitioners to common topics, activities, and questions related to the practices of editing and recovery. Eleven additional courses in this series will be released between now and July 2023.

Categories: Faculty News

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November 9, 2022Ramapo Represents at the Student Conference on United States Affairs!

Professor of Political Science Jeremy Teigen was invited to be a Co-Chair at the Student Conference on US Affairs, or “SCUSA.” Ramapo also sent two student delegates, Matthew Wisneski and Hannah Scroggins (pictured here). The event, hosted by the United States Military Academy at West Point, took place November 2-5, 2022. Around 180 students, half of them cadets at West Point and the other half being civilian delegates from colleges and universities from all over the country, assembled and were grouped into working teams to develop foreign policy briefs on various international challenges facing the US. Co-Chairs’ jobs included helping the student groups organize themselves, debate options, and eventually guide students to write and present a policy brief. The keynote speaker this year was United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield and this event’s theme was “American Foreign Policy in an Era of Polarized Politics and Revisionist Powers.”

Categories: Events, Faculty News, Student News

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September 28, 2022Hugh Sheedy's Design Flaws Due Out in November

Advance praise for Hugh Sheedy’s (Literature) Design Flaw: Stories (University of Chicago Press) recently appeared in Publisher’s Weekly:

“Sheehy (The Invisibles) delivers a dark and dazzling collection pocked with surface tension and an undercurrent of menace. The bewitching title story chronicles a troubled married couple who adopt a ‘designer animal,’ part monkey and part cat, who is soon accused of mutilating neighborhood animals. The son in “Amontillado” laments his aging mother’s declining mental agility while attending the funeral of a childhood bully. A man in ‘Demonology, or Gratitude’ takes in a hard-partying woman, falls in love with her, then watches her self-destruct from abusing various drugs. The good Samaritan driver in ‘First Responder’ seeks only to help an increasingly menacing hitchhiker he meets at a gas station, but winds up getting so much more than he expected. Closing out the collection is the thoughtful ‘Modern Wonders,’ about a computer interface that accesses users’ memories and shows them uncomfortable truths about themselves. Artfully imagined and written with a distinctly devilish edge, these beguiling yarns plumb the depths of humanity and explore how human behavior can be twisted and modified by science. Often murky and mysterious, with some only a few pages long, Sheehy’s curious tales never fail to enchant and entertain.”

Categories: Faculty News

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