Biographical Narrative

B.A., Brooklyn College (1967); Columbia University—M.A. (1969), Ph.D. in Victorian Studies (1974). I have taught at LaGuardia Community College in the English Department since 1974, the first four years as an adjunct. Now a professor, I have taught most of our courses: composition, literatures, courses in learning communities, the Seminar in Humanism, Science and Technology. Recently I have been engaged in projects in teaching and learning with technology and the e-portfolio.

I led the LaGuardia Middle States Self-Study in 2002. As a recipient with five colleagues of a CUNY Community College grant, I am researching the impact of high stakes testing on composition classrooms. I have published in composition and pedagogy (the Internet, forthcoming from In Transit; “How to Read a Website,” from Designed for Learning Sampler), educational politics (CUNY, in Community Review; The Mismeasure of Students: The Case Against the CUNY/ACT); and Victorian studies (co-editor of the Victorian Studies Bulletin, 1985-99; articles on A.M.H. Watts and John Ruskin).

I have been active in shared governance on the LaGuardia CC Faculty Council since 1992 and on the Executive Committee of the CUNY University Faculty Senate (UFS) since 1999. I am the UFS Vice Chairperson and I sit on the Academic Freedom Committee and the UFS Community College Caucus. I am the editor of the UFS newsletter, Senate Digest, where I have paid special attention to academic freedom issues involving CUNY. I have helped to organize two conferences on academic freedom in 2004 and 2005. I am the UFS liaison to the PSC-CUNY Academic Freedom Committee.

I have been elected to the National Council of the AAUP, and I serve on the Committee on Governance where I am especially interested in issues of accreditation and faculty evaluation of administration.

Finally, not unrelated, I am a member of Amnesty International Local Group #11 and the AIUSA Urgent Action Network.