Transitions and Transactions VI Explores Teaching and Learning in a Pandemic

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY), in collaboration with the New York College English Association, will present Transitions and Transactions VI: Teaching Literature in the Time of COVID, an all-day virtual conference set for Saturday, April 9.

The conference, which was founded at BMCC in 2010 and is held every other year, will feature 20 panels and two featured panels. The conference presenters are from Europe, Canada and many regions of the United States.

What this remarkable array of researchers and educators share is having grappled with remote learning across many diverse communities, both urban and rural; privileged and low-income.

The conference program presents topics as varied as Shakespeare, creating community while teaching first-year writing online, detective writing, critical reading in the time of COVID, challenges of teaching to diversity, virtual team teaching, how to best serve at-risk students in an online setting, responding to literature through the arts, trauma-informed pedagogy, empowering students, the side effects of onscreen learning and more.

The conference will also offer a Creative Presentation: Love & Peace in Times of Crisis, and Keynote Panel in two parts: Teaching Remotely During and Beyond the Pandemic and Archiving the Present.

“We are looking forward to the opportunity to meet with our colleagues from all over the world to discuss the challenges we have encountered as teachers of literature during the pandemic,” say Stephanie M. Oppenheim and Manya Steinkoler, the conference organizers and professors in the BMCC English Department, in a joint statement. “Our conference takes seriously the complex diversity of our student populations and our sensitivity to the issues that emerge in online teaching.  By exploring together, the changes our pedagogy has undergone in response to the Covid crisis, we hope to enrich our teaching practices as we move forward.”

Presentations will be led by CUNY faculty from BMCC, Hunter College, The Graduate Center, LaGuardia Community College, Hostos Community College, Queens College, Kingsborough Community College, Queensborough Community College and Bronx Community College.

The conference will also present speakers and presenters also come from colleges and universities across the country.

These include from New York: Iona College (New Rochelle) and Teachers College, Columbia University (NYC); from California: Suffolk Community College (Selden), Cabrillo College (Aptos), California State University Northridge (Northridge) and Cypress Community College (Cypress); and from New Jersey, Middlesex College (Edison) and Raritan Valley Community College (Branchburg).

Other presenters are from Massasoit Community College (Brockton, Massachusetts), Rocky Mountain College (Billings, Montana), the Community College of Rhode Island (Providence, Rhode Island), Saint Paul College (St. Paul, Minnesota), Alabama A & M University (Huntsville, Alabama), Grand Rapids Community College (Grand Rapids, Michigan), Collin College (McKinney, Texas) and Tidewater Community College (Virginia Beach, Virginia).

Presenters from Canada are affiliated with the University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba (both from Winnipeg, Manitoba); the University of Alberta and MacEwan University (both from Edmonton, Alberta); Brandon University (Brandon, Manitoba), McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) and The College of New Caledonia (British Columbia).

Finally, the presenters extend to Europe, and the Universitat de Girona (Girona, Catalonia, Spain).

For program details and more information, visit Transactions and Transactions VI or email transitionsandtransactionsconference@bmcc.cuny.edu.