Contributors

Ximena Gallardo C. is an Assistant Professor of English. Her first book, Alien Woman, co-authored with C. Jason Smith, has been awarded the 2005 Popular Culture Association Ray and Pat Browne Book Award for excellence in research in popular culture.

Seán Galvin is the Director of the LaGuardia Liberty Partnership Program. He is also an urban folklorist, the author of What's This Got to Do with Quilting: Nine Stories of Southern Women Quilters Living in New York City and the co-author of Jews of Brooklyn as well as numerous academic articles on Faeroese and Scandinavian ballads, ethnic breadmakers, foodways, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. He is an adjunct Associate Professor in the Communication Skills Department.

Unn Hidle is an Assistant Professor of Nursing. She is the coordinator of Maternal-Child Health and she teaches maternity and pediatric nursing. She holds a Master's degree in Nursing from Hunter College with a specialty as a Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She is currently completing another Master's Degree in Education, also from Hunter College. Unn's website is online at: http://faculty.lagcc.cuny.edu/uhidle/index.html

Liz Iannotti is the Academic Coordinator and an instructor at the English Language Center Day Intensive Program in Adult and Continuing Education. She teaches listening, speaking, and writing classes and has led numerous faculty development initiatives. Liz is currently experimenting with incorporating student-created digital storytelling projects in her ESL courses to build communication skills. To view Liz's digital story sites go to http://faculty.lagcc.cuny.edu/eiannotti/.

William J. Koolsbergen is Director of the Theatre and Communication Option of the Liberal Arts Program. He has a Ph.D. in Theatre from The Graduate Center, CUNY. In addition to his national work in Learning Communities with Phyllis van Slyck, he is a professional actor who most recently appeared in an episode of Law and Order. He is working on a book and one-man theatre program, When I Was Beautiful.

William F. Kurzyna became a full-time member of the Communication Skills faculty in September 2001. He is working towards a doctorate in Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. He has also appeared in several plays produced at LaGuardia, among them Death of a Salesman, Mother Courage, and Medea.

George McCormack completed his doctoral degree at Columbia University's Teachers College with a specialization in Remedial Mathematics. He has been a member of the LaGuardia faculty for two years and serves as the at-large faculty representative on the College Senate. His current interests include the origins of the new math curriculum and video streaming web-based tutorials.

Carol Montgomery teaches Speech/Communication courses to native and non-native speakers of English at LaGuardia. She teaches a methods course, Teaching Second Languages Across the Content Areas, for future ESL and foreign-language teachers at New York University. She has also taught at Nanjing University and Shanghai University in the People's Republic of China.

Paula Nesoff began her career at LaGuardia Community College in 1982, when she joined the Division of Cooperative Education to work on a grant to mainstream students with disabilities into internships. Paula continued to work as a Cooperative Education Faculty member for fourteen years. In 1997, she transferred to the Natural and Applied Sciences Department's Human Services Programs where she teaches courses such as Orientation to Human Services, Principles of Human Relations, Community Dynamics, and Field Placement Seminars.

Jorge A. Perez holds an Ed.D. in Mathematics Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Master's in Mathematics from Universidad Técnica del Estado (UTE), Santiago, Chile. He is the author of a textbook on Abstract Algebra published by UTE, and the co-author of a textbook in basic algebra and two in college algebra. Before teaching at LaGuardia, he taught mathematics in Chile at a school of engineering and at a teachers college, both part of the UTE.

Marie Sacino is an Associate Professor in the Cooperative Education Department. She has a strong interest in career development, in designing and developing new courses, and in experiential education. Her new projects include teaching online seminars, helping students create ePortfolios, and working with students in the new Fundamentals of Professional Advancement course.

Reneé Somers is an Assistant Professor in the English Department. During this past year, she completed two book manuscripts: "Edith Wharton as Spatial Activist and Analyst" (Routledge) and "Film, Television and Contemporary Culture" (forthcoming, Longman). At LaGuardia, she has taught Basic Writing, Composition, and The Short Story.

Carolyn Henner Stanchina is a Coordinator and Instructor in LaGuardia's College Now program. She completed her DEA (Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies) at the Universite de Nancy II, France, where she taught for 6 years. She has been involved in ESL/EFL and teacher education projects at CUNY and various sites abroad since 1973. Her current interest lies in the integration of autonomous learning and thinking, technology, and materials development. She is co-author of Grammar Dimensions, Book I.

Sonja Tanner completed her Ph.D. in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. A member of the Humanities Department at LaGuardia for the last six years, Sonja taught Philosophy and Critical Thinking courses. During her time at LaGuardia, she was an active participant in a number of learning communities and helped lead learning community workshops at regional conferences.

Melinda Thomsen teaches vocational ESL in the Center for Immigrant Education and Training. Her article, "Writing for an Audience: Interviews of Working New Yorkers," is forthcoming in the TESOL Perspectives on Community College ESL Series. Melinda's poetry has been published in journals such as The New York Quarterly, Rattle, Main Street Rag, Spitball: Baseball Literary Magazine, and the anthology Blues for Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews.

Ting Man Tsao teaches composition and literature in the English Department. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His dissertation "Representing China to the British Public in the Age of Free Trade, c. 1833–1844" examines the intersections between Britain's popular representations of China and its foreign policy during the Opium War. His scholarly and creative work appears in Victorians Institute Journal, Writing Macao: Creative Text and Teaching, Peer English (in press), and The History Teacher.

Phyllis van Slyck is a Professor in the English Department with a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. She has published essays on Henry James in The Henry James Review, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, and in literature anthologies. She has published on the pedagogy of learning communities in College English, Change Magazine, and AAHE Monographs. At LaGuardia, she has designed, taught in, and coordinated liberal arts clusters for more than a decade. She is currently coordinating a pilot liberal arts assessment project.

Francine White is an Assistant Professor in Cooperative Education where she teaches classes related to the internship experience. She has a Master's in Business Administration from Dowling College. She has been researching and experimenting with teaching civic engagement. She is interested in social justice and community issues and is currently working on a number of projects in this area.