being a student in new york city

yesterday was day two of our week-long seminar on food. the day was excellent.

in the morning we discussed michael pollan's the omnivore's dilemma and used it as a launch pad to discussions about organic farming, industrial organic farming, going green, and the privilege (or elitism) that accompanies the current US green movement. on the first day, too few people dominated the discussion; today, many more got involved and it was provocative, interesting, and engaged.

for lunch, all of the classes come together in the kimmel center to have a big collective meal. together, we're probably around three hundred people. the food is decent and plentiful - salad (with cherry tomatoes; the other tomatoes cause panic these days), roast beef and tuna sandwiches, beans and rice, pickles. lots of cookies, lots of brownies, and coffee and tea. and enough bottled water and soda to nullify any green-leaning act any of us had done that day.

during lunch, i decided it would be a good idea to take photographs of all the people at all the tables. after using my table as the test-table, i got up and approached each table, one at a time, and asked, "may i take a picture of all of you? it may or may not go on my blog." no one said no.


(if you click the picture above, or simply click here, you will be magically transported to a flickr set that contains many more photographs of tabled lunchers.)

after lunch, we had an excellent guest lecture from jennifer black - doctor black - who just earned her PhD from NYU's department of nutrition, food studies, and public health. jennifer presented findings from her dissertation, a fascinating, map-inspired analysis about the existence, or lack thereof, of things like supermarkets, restaurants, fast food joints, fitness centers, walking trails, and tennis courts in various new york city neighborhoods and the ways their existence, or lack thereof, serve as predictors for obesity among the various neighborhoods.


after jennifer's talk, some of us got a brief tour through NYU's campus kitchen. USF needs something like this, a place where students, staff, and faculty can come together to cook delicious meals.



jennifer's talk was followed by a film screening of the documentary the real dirt on farmer john. the film traces john's life and his relationship to the family farm. brilliantly and sadly, john's life becomes of living timeline of recent american farming: farming with his parents and extended family in the 1950s, opening up the farm as a countercultural commune/art space during the late 1960s, losing the farm during reagan's 1980s, going organic around the turn of the century, and, currently, transitioning into a CSA farm. the plight of american farms and farmers makes the documentary gripping; john peterson - farmer, artist, seeker - makes the film entertaining. this film, coupled with a conversation with daryl white about how he uses film in the class, gave me a lot of ideas for future classes.

but i ain't gonna lie - despite an excellent day of being a student in new york city, the best part of the day was the evening, when i walked from the west village to the east village and popped in to see these two blobs of unbelievable cuteness, my nephews a. and p.



today = foodie field trips across the lower east side!

a class about food

i'm in new york for a week attending the faculty resource network at NYU. along with twenty other professors, i'm enrolled in the landscape of american food in the twenty-first century, taught by amy bentley, a faculty member in NYU's department of nutrition, food studies and public health.

we're spending five days reading about food (including warren belasco's meals to come: a history of the future of food and michael pollan's the omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of four meals), talking about food, and, later in the week, talking about teaching about food. plus, we'll be taking two, maybe three field trips across new york city.

the disciplinary diversity of my fellow classmates is awesome. there are faculty from agricultural technology, anthropology, business, chemistry, communication, criminal justice, english, food service, french, health and human performance, history, math, media studies, natural sciences, physical sciences, psychology, and sociology. although the majority of participants are from US community colleges, colleges, and universities, there are three professors from puerto rico.




like last year, i'm staying in hayden hall, an NYU dorm located directly next to washington square park. suh-weet.

back from new york

on the last day of last week's foundations of online course development workshop, each of the participants presented their work. there was an excellent spectrum of ideas, questions, and answers and it was impressive to see how much ground we travelled within a week. plus, it was great to meet and learn from so many committed professors.


i'll be back in new york soon - mostly to check in again with these cuties.

twins in new york

since sunday, i have been in new york, participating in a faculty resource network workshop at nyu. together with twenty-five other professors from all around the united states and puerto rico, i am part of a workshop called foundations of online course development. the workshop runs each day from nine to five and is facilitated by ian david aronson.

the workshop has been fairly interesting and i've learned some educational theory to bolster what i've been doing naturally in the class for over a decade. i must admit, i have little interest in distance education - time spent face to face with students in the classroom is one of the best parts of my job. but i am always interested in using digital learning environments such as blogs, wikis, and facebook to enhance, not replace, what we do in the class.

the first day we were assigned to groups and i got lucky - our group, group one, rocks. we be (left to right): perpetua ruiz (mathematics and computer science, chicago state university); me; juan martinez-colon (accounting, university of puerto rico, rio piedras); martiza sostre rodriquez (english, university of puerto rico, bayamon); and tae kim (nursing, st. joseph's college).


workshop participants' knowledge, experience, and comfort levels around computers and digital resources varies widely and ian has done a good job keeping us all on track. unfortunately, however, there is a major design flaw in the workshop's curriculum. the workshop is based not on the technology resources of participants' home colleges and universities but rather upon those found at nyu. this is extremely problematic.

for example, early in the workshop, ian was talking and said something like, "at this point, you take your project to your IT staff." a professor from puerto rico turned to me and whispered, "what is an IT staff?" another professor, also from puerto rico, told me that his university has a single lab of twenty computers for all students in four departments. "and," he added, "nearly none of my students have computers at home." it is awfully nice for nyu to host all of us but it sure is wrong to assume we have access to similar kinds of resources and staff.

the workshop ends at five and that's when the fun begins.


five months ago, my sister lisa and her husband jean had twins. through phone calls and photographs, i have tried to keep up with the lil' guys' progress but there's no substitute for seeing them face to face, holding them, and squeezing their cute little feet. they are like two little chunks of sweetness.


last night, after lisa put the twins down, we feasted. jean cooked up a delicious asparagus and shittake mushroom risotto and lisa made a salad that would make the folks at stonelake farm proud. numerous times throughout the evening, i excused myself and tip-toed into the boys' room to watch the twins sleep. with bellies full and proud parents nearby, the twins slept blissfully.