I moved to New York City in time to start my high school education in Brooklyn, at Erasmus Hall High School. I received my Bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and my Masters and Ph.D. from Columbia. I’ve been working at LaGuardia for a long, long time now, and I’ve taught many courses—all of the composition courses, naturally, as well as Drama, the Novel (to which I add a few of the Victorian works that are part of my specialty), Shakespeare, the Short Story, and LIB 200, the Liberal Arts and Sciences seminar.
As a result of the Design for Learning and First Year Academy projects, I learned how to use Blackboard and internet materials and tools in my courses. I am very active in university politics as a faculty representative on the CUNY Faculty Senate; I’m the Vice Chair of the University Faculty Senate I edit the UFS Senate Digest; and I am the faculty representative on the CUNY Board of Trustees Committee on Policy, Program and Research.. I was recently elected to the American Association of University Professors National Council and am on the AAUP Governance Committee. I edited the Victorian Studies Bulletin for 14 years. Recently, I’ve presented at conferences on being a Victorian scholar at a community college, on the pedagogical uses of Blackboard,, on assessment, and on academic freedom. When I’m not teaching, reading or grading papers, I run, practice yoga, try to meditate, watch lots of baseball games (especially the Philadelphia Phillies), and study French at the Alliance Francaise.
Schools Attended: Brooklyn College, B.A.; Columbia University, M.A., Ph.D.
Area of Specialization: Victorian Studies, Composition, Pedagogy and Testing.
Favorite Quote: “There is no absolute knowledge; all information is imperfect." Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man
Authors I teach: Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, The Difference Engine and Bram Stoker, Dracula (for LIB 200); Duong Thu Huong, Memories of Pure Spring (for ENG 101); Great Expectations or Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea (for the Novel); poems by Marvell, Shakespeare and Robert Hayden, stories by Poe, Carver and Oates (for ENG 102); Antony and Cleopatra (for Shakespeare)
The author I’d do if I didn’t always run out of time—Gerard Manley Hopkins

I have been fortunate in my career to have taught and written in many areas beyond my initial field of specialization (American literature). Besides nearly forty courses in English (half-a-dozen of which I created), I have also taught Humanities courses (American Film, Film and New York City, Critical Thought Skills) and Social Science courses (Hisory of New York City). My publications divide about evenly into three categories (film, literature, the teaching of writing), with a few in other fields (e.g. a biography of the American illustrator, Neysa McMein). I have been a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, and the CUNY Graduate Center--and have occasionally taught at Vassar and the CUNY Graduate Center. Still, a vast majority of my time has been spent, basically pleasureably, at LaGuardia--my pleasure coming chiefly from working with our students.
Schools Attended: Fordham University (B.A. English, Philosophy) University of Pennsylvania (M.A., Ph.D. English--speciality: American literature)
Area of Specialization: American literature, Irish literature, film, American film, American cultural history, Venetian history, Restoration and Eighteenth-century literature, Drama.
Favorite Quote:"The vast expanses of space terrify me."--Blaise Pascal.
Authors I teach: Shakespeare (Literature of the City--Venice), Zora Neale Hurston (The Novel), James Joyce (Short Story), Alfred Hitchcock (Literature and Film), Walt Whitman (Literature of the City--New York).

I come from a background of excellence and caring in teaching and a deep respect for learning and what can be achieved through a sound education. These roots began in the community of Queenstown, Maryland, named for my family (my Q., always used, stands for Queen), where I attended Queenstown Elementary School before going to Bates High School in Annapolis. After I completed my B.A. at Morgan and M.A. at Howard, I was invited to return to both colleges to teach; I chose Morgan and then later taught at Coppin State College in Baltimore. After the Ph.D., I taught at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, CT. before coming to LaGuardia as a full-time faculty member in the English Department in 1978. I founded the Department’s Black Literature Series Committee that has brought many outstanding writers to our campus. Since its inception in 1989, I have chaired the LaGuardia Task Force on Pluralism that promotes pluralism, diversity, and multiculturalism.
Schools Attended: Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD ( B.A. in English); Howard University in Washington, D.C. ( M.A. and Ph.D. in English)
Area of Specialization: African American Literature. My M.A. thesis was on the Harlem Renaissance short story writer and novelist Rudolph Fisher. My Ph. D. thesis was a study of the Black male character in African American fiction from 1920-1960.
Favorite Quote: “Hold fast to dreams/For if dreams die/Life is a broken-winged bird/That cannot fly.” -- Langston Hughes
Authors I teach: Among the many authors that I teach in English 225 that spans the slavery era to the present day are Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Gwendolyn Brooks. I teach Toni Morrison in English 225 and 269; Ernest Gaines is also a favorite in 269, as is Paule Marshall. I teach August Wilson in both English 102 and 265 and Zora Neale Hurston in 102 and 225.
 

I am grateful for my twenty-five years in the English department. I could not have wished for a warmer and more friendly student body, and a more intelligent and inspiring group of faculty colleagues. Of my many teaching experiences, I have greatly enjoyed and learned from my work in the Learning Communities of the Liberal Arts clusters.
For the last 20 years, I have been on the editorial collective of Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching. In addition to writing a regular column on “News for Educational Workers,” I have edited and co-edited clusters on Gay and Lesbian Studies (issue 24), Gender and Sexuality, Vols. I and II (issues 66 and 67), and the Columbus cluster on the Quincentennial. I was also co-edited of Politics of Education: Essays from Radical Teacher(SUNY Press), an anthology of articles from the first 36 volumes of the journal. Recently, I published on Queer Studies in The Politics of Writing in the 2-Year College (Boyton/Cook).
For the last 10 years, I have been a faculty mentor and co-mentor of the Straight and Gay Alliance (SAGA), a LaGuardia student club. I appreciate the opportunity to work closely with such a fun group of students. In 2000-2001, I won awards for Best Club Mentor both from SAGA and the Student Advisory Council. Most recently, I had the pleasure of working with SAGA to plan and organize the Queer CUNY V Conference.
Schools Attended: Kent State University (and yes, I was there when the National Guard killed four students and wounded nine. And yes, it did change my life).
Area of Specialization: British Drama Since 1956; Queer Studies; Composition Theory Authors I teach:

• E.L Doctorow’s Ragtime-- in Composition 101.
• Manlio Argueta’s One Day of Life, and Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible-- both in the Art, Politics and Protest, a Urban Studies course.