NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 5, 2023) – In Spring 2023, The Humanities Edge at Florida International University (FIU) continued its productive collaboration, begun in 2020, with Guttman Community College to offer professional development opportunities with FIU and Miami Dade College (MDC) faculty.
Through active learning seminars, Guttman faculty shared the Ethnographies of Work (EOW) concept and framework for incorporation into the FIU and MDC curricular contexts. The overarching goal is to use the EOW model to broaden engagement of faculty and increase impact on student career engagement and learning. This year, Dr. Williams, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, and Provost Blake offered a workshop, entitled “Let’s Remix Work Observations: Ethnographic Mapping and Genre Switching.” The workshop explored various methods to transform and remix workplace observations. Specifically, faculty focused on how to integrate ethnographic mapping and how to use different genres to support ethnographic writing.
“Working with faculty and administrators at Guttman Community College to adapt the Ethnographies of Work concept for humanities education has been a rewarding experience for faculty and students, alike,” noted Marianne Lamonaca, Program Director for The Humanities Edge at Florida International University. “FIU and MDC faculty have created EOW-informed modules for courses as diverse as creative writing, graphic design, and history. In addition, the Humanities Edge has incorporated EOW into its summer bridge program, a week-long learning initiative at FIU’s main campus that engages MDC students to explore completing a four-year degree in a humanities discipline at FIU and as a pathway to a rewarding career.”
The Humanities Edge is an academic and career development program for MDC-to-FIU transfer students majoring in the humanities. This pathway partnership between Miami Dade College and Florida International University, supported, in part, by a grant from The Mellon Foundation, creates a rich academic experience to help students maintain an interest in the humanities while aiding their transition to university. The Humanities Edge also supports faculty by offering professional development opportunities and a framework to improve humanities curriculum while affirming the value of diversifying scholarship across the disciplines.
Florida International University is Miami’s public research university. Offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, both on campus and fully online, FIU is worlds ahead in its service to the academic and local community. Designated as a top-tier research institution, FIU emphasizes research as a major component in the university’s mission. The Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences’ Discovery Lab, are just two of many colleges, schools, and centers that actively enhance the university’s ability to set new standards through research initiatives. For over four decades, FIU has positioned itself as one of South Florida’s anchor institutions by solving some of the greatest challenges of our time. We are dedicated to enriching the lives of the local and global community. With a student body of over 56,000, we are among the nation’s top 10 largest universities and have graduated over 275,000 alumni, 165,000 of whom live and work in South Florida.
Stella and Charles Guttman Community College was CUNY’s first new community college in more than forty years. Reimagining what community college could be, Guttman opened its doors in Manhattan in August 2012 to create a research-based, innovative model focused on moving students efficiently toward graduation. Offering associate degree programs in a nurturing environment, the College’s three-year graduation rate consistently surpasses the national average, and most graduates transfer to senior colleges. Guttman is federally designated as a Hispanic-serving institution and minority-serving institution with more than 85% of the student population identifying as Latine or Black/African American. The College was named the best community college in America in 2020 and the top community college in New York State for 2020, 2021 and 2022 by Niche.com and other ranking agencies.
