The Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Leadership Newsletter
March 2026
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In the Spotlight: Eric Goldfischer (Urban Studies)
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Service Learning as a Form of
Career-Connected Learning
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This month, we interviewed Dr. Eric Goldfischer, Lecturer and Service-Learning Coordinator in the Urban Studies Department, to learn more about service-learning, career-connected learning, and career-readiness.
CETLL: Can you explain what “service-learning” means? What are its goals?
Dr. Goldfischer: Service-learning is a form of experiential learning or experiential education that specifically pairs students with internships but also involves an academic component. The biggest difference between
a traditional internship and what we consider to be service-learning is that in service-learning you’re doing an internship but you’re also in a class, and you’re also having an academic experience that’s guided by a faculty member.
There’s also explicitly a social justice component with service-learning, so all of the internships that students do as part of a service-learning experience are with organizations that have a social justice mission or with
government agencies that have a “helping people” mission.
The internships are really curated. We meet with the internship sites beforehand. For a lot of them, we’ve been working with them for years and make sure that they understand the goals of the internship program for the students,
which are that students will have an experience that will hopefully help prepare them for professional life, but also that they will be able to connect what they’re doing in the internship to what they’ve learned in the classroom during their time in college.
What makes it really specific are these kinds of connections between experiential learning outside the classroom and academic learning inside the classroom.
Please
click here to read the full interview.
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Course Content Accessibility
Support for Faculty
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In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued new ADA Title II regulations requiring public universities to ensure that actively used digital content is accessible. These regulations apply directly to course materials
such as websites, documents, videos, media, and other web-based instructional resources housed in Brightspace and otherwise used in teaching.
These requirements take effect for New York State on April 27, 2026.
At CETLL,
we recognize that accessibility is not simply a compliance requirement—it is part of a commitment to inclusive pedagogy. Ensuring that course content is accessible enhances student success, improves the usability of online materials, and supports learners
with a wide variety of needs, regardless of disability or assistive technology use.
Go to CETLL’s website for
more
information on digital accessibility.
We recommend you conduct a review of your syllabi, announcements, presentation slides, and required readings, videos, and other materials in your course to identify what revisions are needed.
QC instructors can use the Ally Accessibility Tool
to help assess and remediate accessibility issues in Brightspace.
Make use of our new guide, Make
Your Course Content Accessible.
Come to CETLL’s (expanded) virtual Drop-In Hours
on Fridays from
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., beginning March 13 for 1:1 support (no DIH on April 3
and 17). We will continue to hold Drop-In Hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
You’re welcome to bring your materials to DIH to work in real time in the Zoom room.
No appointments are needed—you can simply drop into the Zoom by clicking on this link:
https://bit.ly/QCxCETLL__Zoom
You can email us anytime at CTLOnline@qc.cuny.edu with questions, requests, and/or to set up an appointment
with a member of our Instructional Technology team.
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Scam Alert: Never Share Your CUNY Login Password or MFA
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Please remember the following:
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Never share your passwords or MFA factors with anyone
— Campus and CUNY IT will never ask for it.
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Do not respond to an MFA prompt if you did not initiate the login yourself.
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Do not click on links or open attachments in suspicious or unexpected texts and emails.
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If you think you may have provided your password or MFA factor, clicked on a suspicious link, or opened a suspicious attachment by mistake, please contact your
campus
help desk for assistance.
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Pedagogy Pop-Ups are a space for faculty to engage in peer-based discussion about teaching and learning at Queens College.
Please join us for our upcoming pop-up:
Local
History and Community Memory in Queens College Classrooms with faculty presenter Johnathan Thayer,
PhD, MLS (QC School of Information Studies).
We will meet on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 in Kiely Hall 111A and on Zoom from 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Click
Here to Register
Join us for a presentation and discussion on place-based learning through local community history curricula and a local community memory program for Queens College graduate students.
Faculty Presenter Bio: Dr. Johnathan Thayer is Associate Professor at the School of Information Studies, Queens College, CUNY, where he is Coordinator of MLS/MA Programs. He teaches classes in archival studies, public
history, and community-engaged local history.
Next Pop-Up Date: April 22, 2026 at 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. with Jorge A. Alves, PhD (Political Science and Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS))
Global Development Theories at Your Doorstep
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Brightspace Advanced Training for Faculty Spring 2026
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This Spring, CETLL will be continuing our
series
of workshops covering advanced features in Brightspace.
Sessions on each topic will be offered twice, in order to accommodate faculty schedules. Each session will begin with a demonstration, followed by a hands-on period where you can apply what you learned to your Brightspace
course.
Please see the schedule and registration links below.
“Quizzes & Questions Pools” sessions: Creating Quizzes, Availability Dates & Conditions, Special Access, Submission & Completion, Evaluation & Feedback, Add Questions, Question Library, and Question Pools.
Click
Here to Register for Thursday, March 12, 2026, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Click
Here to Register for Monday, March 16, 2026, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
“Discussions” sessions: Create Forums and Topics, Due Dates, Availability Dates & Conditions, Submission & Completion, Evaluation & Feedback, and Evaluate Individual Posts.
Click
Here to Register for Thursday, March 26, 2026, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Click
Here to Register for Monday, March 30, 2026, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
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Pedagogies of Writing Workshop
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Designing career-oriented and disciplinary
writing assignments
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Facilitated by Amy Wan (Special Assistant to the Provost on Writing and Professor
of English)
How can we use our writing assignments to help students prepare for their future classes and careers?
Join us to learn about developing career-oriented and disciplinary writing assignments. Hear from colleagues across campus about assignments they’ve developed with these kinds of future writing expectations in mind. We’ll
talk about a range of types of writing we ask students to do, as well as have time to develop or revise writing assignments.
All participants should bring an assignment to the workshop.
We will meet on March 23, 2026 from 12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. in the President’s Conference Room #2 (RO 525).
Click
Here to Register
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Spring 2026 Teaching & Learning Showcase
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Assignments that Build Student Skills in the Age of Generative AI
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We will meet on Friday, April 17, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. in the Muyskens Conference Room (The Summit). Breakfast will be served.
Register
Here
Are you a QC faculty who is…
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experimenting with ways to incorporate student use of gen AI in your course assignments?
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concerned that students are offloading their learning when they use gen AI in assignments?
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curious about how other CUNY faculty are addressing student use of AI in assignments?
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all of the above?
Please join CETLL for a faculty development program focused on the design of assignments aimed at building foundational student skills (e.g. critical thinking/reading/writing) and discipline-specific skills along with AI literacy
through the intentional use of generative AI.
PROGRAM:
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Pedagogy Pop-Up:
Invitation to Share Your Work
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In Spring 2025, CETLL launched Pedagogy
Pop-Ups - an informal peer-based space for QC faculty to share innovative strategies, pressing questions, and helpful resources related to teaching and learning matters.
We invite QC faculty members to bring their ideas to the table for presentation and discussion.
If you are interested in presenting at or facilitating a future pedagogy pop-up,
please
fill out this short form.
Questions? Contact us at CTLOnline@qc.cuny.edu
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