CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

In the same vein as other official communiques, this email from Hunter College regarding available resources sought to strike a balance between logistical planning and human apathy. Of particular interest was the focus in this message on libraries. With many members of the City University of New York (CUNY) community coming from multi-generational, shared households, the question of space for education was a crucial – but often overlooked – concern. With the brief mention of this concern, we are reminded how the transition to distance learning was not as simple as switching on a computer; the fundamental nature of space for study outside of traditional classrooms was also complicated.

This item is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) Distance Learning Archive, a group project developed as part of Prof. Matthew K. Gold's Spring 2020 Knowledge Infrastructures seminar in the Ph.D. Program in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY, in partnership with the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate Program. The project's goal was to resist or trouble the discourse of catastrophe around the shift to online learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by documenting the lived experiences of students, faculty, and staff across CUNY's 25 campuses. Further, the project wanted to document the moment of crisis response by taking a critical approach to educational technology.