“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity. We believe that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive”. This is the official mission statement of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Founded in 1969 New York, The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Foundation (MMUF) works to fund organizations rooted in higher learning, arts and culture, public knowledge, and the humanities. In August, CUNY received a $10 million gift from them to help serve 25 campuses and…
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Call for More Funding for CUNY Schools in 2020
CUNY schools are said to be some of the most affordable schools there are for undergraduate and graduate education, but is that really the case? According to Student Debt Relief, the national average for undergraduates during the 2017-2018 school year was $9,970 for in-state residents at public universities, and $25,620 for out-of-state residents at four-year institutions. For four year private schools, the average is $34,740. Either way, more people are graduating with debt than ever. According to CNBC and the College Board, “the average cumulative student debt balance in 2017 was $26,900 for graduates of public four-year schools and $32,600 for graduates of private nonprofit four-year schools.” CUNY’s website lists…
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Professor Rachael Benavidez: Adjunct English Professor at Queens College
Professor Benavidez got the teaching passion later than some professors. She was in marketing and editing before going to CUNY City College for Worker Education, a school which helps adults going back to school. The reason she went was simply due to her devotion to education. In the past Benavidez tutored at CUNY LaGuardia Community College, where she was an admin for first year writing. When asked why she loved to teach, Benavidez expressed that she loves to do interdisciplinary work, and enjoys studying different stories and rhetoric. “Seeing the social, political and historical context [of a story] has always interested me,” Benavidez noted. She cited one of her own…
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OP-ED: A lifetime of history in one summer
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to study in three countries as part of QC Study Abroad. The program was entitled, “History of Art: A Thousand Years of European Highlights.” From July 7 to Aug. 16, 2019, I was able to travel to Florence, Italy, Utrectht, the Netherlands and Germany to learn about different time periods in history. I started the program learning about the Renaissance in Italy, moved to the Dutch Golden Age in the Netherlands and finished by learning about both post-World War I and post-World War II art in Germany. The reason I chose this program was because I had never before taken an art history…
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Young Voters: Who went to the polls, and who didn’t
November 6th, 2018 – Midterm elections were underway all around the nation. Social media campaigns were issued to prompt voting, celebrities endorsed candidates and anyone and everyone was begging people to vote. The question, however, remains: did young people actually vote? It is still too early to definitively tell the number of people who voted. Demographics like voter turnout are hard to precisely determine, but predictions and current data show positive outcomes. According to The New York Times, in an article published November 9th, there was an overall 138.8 million person increase in turnout. This was the first time that voter turnout for a midterm election topped 100 million;…
