Home » 2024
Yearly Archives: 2024
Celebrating a Milestone: The Journey and Impact of Indoor Voices
When Kathleen Collins, a Professor in the Library at John Jay College, launched Indoor Voices in 2017, she never imagined it would blossom into a 100-episode deep dive into the “CUNYverse,” a sprawling community of creativity, scholarship, and untold stories. From its humble beginnings as a curiosity-driven project, the podcast has become a platform for exploring diverse voices and ideas within the City University of New York system.
“Every category of person and idea is represented here,” Collins reflects. “It would take many lifetimes to learn about them all, but it’s very satisfying to try.”
The podcast’s latest milestone, marked by an episode featuring environmental scholar Rebecca Bratspies, exemplifies its unique charm. Titled with a phrase that captures Bratspies’ essence, the episode was born of Collins’ careful, empathetic approach to storytelling. “I asked if she was comfortable with it, and she was on board immediately! It’s my favorite title of all,” Collins shares, highlighting the collaborative spirit that defines her work.
Podcasting merges Collins’s passions for education, entertainment, and authentic conversation. “I always try to be authentic, curious, empathetic, and never too formal,” she says. This ethos informs not only her podcast but also her teaching style as a professor. An intersection of roles brings a refreshing dynamism to her classroom and her audience.
On April 2, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. in the Ninth Floor Conference Room, Collins, in collaboration with the Office for the Advancement of Research, will amplify the podcast’s impact by hosting a live episode to celebrate its legacy. Keep reading to learn more about the podcast in this Q&A .
What inspired the unique title of Episode 100, and how do you approach quirky yet meaningful topics?
The title of that episode came from the vibe I got from Rebecca Bratspies, the subject of the interview. Emily Sohmer Tai (History professor at Queensborough Community College) recommended her book to me because she had given a talk at the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences. I don’t remember if Rebecca said that specifically, but in telling her story, she gave the impression that that is what she was thinking as she drove through traffic on the Major Deegan. I wanted to use the title, but I asked her if she was comfortable with it, and she was on board immediately! It’s my favorite title of all of them!
How do you select topics and guests? Are there any topics or people you’ve been especially excited to feature?
In the first few years of the podcast, I would scout, explore, and research. I’d Google things like “CUNY authors” and scour the lists from offices like yours that highlighted the faculty publications of 2018, for example. Gradually, I stopped needing to do that because I would keep my eyes open for anything that interested me in a listserv or newsletter that came across my inbox or at an event. My eyes are almost too wide open because everything seems interesting! In the last few years, I’ve impulsively reached out to people I find interesting and asked them if they want to be a guest (I have never had anyone say no!), and I have too many in the pipeline. It’s a great problem to have, of course. The other thing that started happening after the first few years was that CUNY people approached me and asked to be guests. That is gratifying and makes me feel like people are listening, which is the whole point.
What are the key lessons you’ve learned from creating and growing the Indoor podcast?
In poking around looking for subjects for the podcast, I am continually amazed at the density of creativity and scholarship in our midst. CUNY is a microcosm of the world in many ways. Every category of person and idea is represented here. It would take many lifetimes to learn about them all. Indoor Voices doesn’t even come close to scratching the surface of revealing these lives and stories, but trying is very satisfying.
How do your experiences in journalism, media history, and podcasting shape your audience connection and episode structure?
I would have to thank my graduate journalism degree for helping me overcome my reluctance to interview people because now I love it. I love talking to people and asking questions. That’s research! As for my interest in media history, some episodes revolve around this topic. I could have easily continued to invite guests to talk about television and popular culture exclusively. However, I wanted to broaden the scope and offer guests the opportunity for rich, satisfying conversations that might be better with someone also involved in their field of study. I still conduct some of the interviews (I prefer to think of them as conversations) if I am particularly interested in the topic or do not feel too in-depth. But it’s an excellent opportunity to bring in guest hosts (i.e., conversation partners) because it doubles the number of people we get to highlight.
The technical aspects of podcasting are not my forte. Podcasting was just a way for me to indulge my interests and curiosities. I was always an avid podcast listener, so I liked the audio’s format and intimacy. All these aspects made it seem like a prominent project for me. And podcasting is pretty simple if you don’t get too fussy about it.
How do your roles as a professor and podcast host intersect, and has podcasting influenced your teaching style?
I have always been fascinated by the intersection between education and entertainment! That’s what all my nonfiction books have been about, and now that you raise the question, I think it is how I approach teaching, too. I don’t see a direct connection or impact between my teaching and podcasting, but how I approach podcasting reflects how I approach teaching. I always try to be authentic, curious, empathic, and never too formal or structured.
One of the episodes I am particularly proud of is Episode 77, with a rather bland – though accurate – title of “BRESI grant awardees. I had read about this in some newsletters and found the list, and I thought it was a great source of possible interview subjects. But I thought there were so many great projects; how can I cover all of them? So, I emailed every awardee and asked them to send me an audio file describing their project. Thank goodness not all 126 responded – I don’t know what I would have done if they had; see how impulsive I am. – about 28 did, so I have a collage of all these different voices giving a few minutes’ summary of their project. A few of those people have also returned to the podcast to discuss their work. In January, for instance, you’ll hear Mary Phillips and her Lehman College colleague Olivia Moy talking about her new book, Black Panther Woman.
What advice would you give aspiring academic podcasters on creating an engaging, informative, and sustainable show?
Podcasting can serve many purposes, depending on one’s goal and who they want to reach. It’s not difficult or expensive if you do it. I’m grateful to the Office for the Advancement of Research for recognizing the value of the project. In 2017, when I talked with Dan Stageman about funding opportunities, he was immediately supportive and referred to the idea as “public scholarship.” That phrase hadn’t occurred to me, but it made sense and lent a sense of weightiness, making it feel like more than a lark. OAR funds a few of my costs – a digital recorder and microphones, the podcasting hosting software platform (LibSyn) fees, and WordPress.com for the accompanying blog. I’m completely self-taught and do minimal editing (a task I have discovered that I love; it is a very soothing and absorbing activity) using the free Audacity program. So, my advice is – do it! And keep it interesting by partnering with others with different interests and skills so that there’s a diverse output.
What are your goals for the podcast’s future? After reaching this milestone, where would you like to take it?
I want to keep doing what I’m doing and discovering new people and corners of CUNY. I had no notion that it would ever be going on this long, but because of the vast CUNYverse, there is so much material. Thanks to Dan Stageman, who came up with the idea of a live episode that is in the works for the spring, and I’m so excited about it! It is the ideal way to acknowledge the relative longevity of this little homegrown DIY endeavor.
Q&A: Provost Allison Pease Shares her Vision for Academic Excellence and Research
As Dr. Allison Pease embarks on her new role as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she brings nearly three decades of commitment to the institution. Dr. Pease is ready to shape John Jay’s academic future from her beginnings as a Professor of English to taking on multiple leadership positions. She will steer the institution’s educational mission in close partnership with President Karol Mason while remaining firmly committed to its core values. As a seasoned academic leader and scholar, Dr. Pease paints a compelling vision for the future of John Jay College. Her vision strongly emphasizes student success, academic excellence, and a vibrant research culture. She is driven by the belief that interdisciplinary collaboration and strong mentorship are the keys to fostering an empowered community of faculty, staff, and students who can achieve their full potential. In an engaging Q&A conversation with the Office for the Advancement of Research (OAR), Dr. Pease outlines her strategic priorities and bold vision of expanding opportunities for all college community members. She discusses her plans to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration and mentorship, setting the stage for John Jay’s next phase of growth and innovation.
Introduction
Hi, I’m Alison Pease. I’m the Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs. I have been at John Jay for 27 years, first starting out as a professor in the English department,taking on a series of different roles, including the director of gender studies, the chair of English, the Interim dean of undergraduate studies, a few administrative roles in the provost’s office, and eventually, I am now here as provost.
Q: What personal and professional aspirations do you have for your tenure as Provost?
Dr. Pease: I’m excited to be the provost of John Jay. It’s an honor. And John Jay, to me, has always been a place of opportunity and transformation. That’s what the college experience was about. But as a professor and then an administrator, it’s been a place that’s given me a lot of opportunity. I want that for all of our students. I want that for our faculty and our staff. And so, the opportunity personally to get to lead Academic Affairs is just a real honor, but professionally, I want to make sure that everybody has these kinds of opportunities.
Q: What key priorities will guide your leadership, and how do you plan to steer the academic community toward the future you envision for John Jay College?
Dr. Pease: I have three priorities. I want to focus on student success. I want to focus on academic excellence and then administrative excellence and support, starting with student success. We have done a great job in improving student success at John Jay, and we have some more work to do. So, the next steps are on creating an undergraduate foundational program where students really understand that they belong to a smaller community, that they have opportunities to thrive and explore their careers, and that we are improving the educational experience with them. Then, when it comes to academic excellence, this is sort of where faculty and students meet, right? So, it’s about hiring just the best faculty that we can and providing a rigorous curriculum. How am I going to achieve these two things, academic excellence and student success, through administrative excellence and support? And so, the key here is investing in faculty and staff professional development and in our research enterprise so that we can continue to grow and enhance the and enhance experience of everybody on campus, faculty, staff, and students alike.
Q: How do you intend to foster and support faculty research across diverse disciplines, particularly in creating an environment that champions interdisciplinary collaboration and intellectual exploration?
Dr. Pease: John Jay is already a research powerhouse, and my job as provost is to really tell our research story. We have the most productive faculty in terms of producing research per year in all of CUNY, and we’re the third largest grant- and grant-funded institution in CUNY. We continue to get better and support faculty by listening to what faculty need and figuring out how to reach them better. I’m really proud of our office for the advancement of research, for the work that they do in reaching out to individual faculty and smaller groups of faculties, and also for thinking interdisciplinarily by creating clusters and knowledge clusters and ways that we can continue to advance our research mission.
Q: What are some of your scholarly achievements that you are most proud of?
Dr. Pease: If I’m being honest, I’m proud of a lot of my research, but the work I’m most proud of is a book I published almost 20 years ago. It’s called Modernism, Mass Culture and the Aesthetics of Obscenity. It is a very rigorous cultural and Aesthetic history and analysis of the relationship between, believe it or not, art and pornography from the 18th century to the 20th century. What I’m proud about in that work is that it ended up defining a field. And, you know, the book is still in print, 25 years later, it’s still cited, and it established my way of interacting in the modernist studies field.
Q: How do you plan to balance the demands of high-level administration with ongoing scholarship? Do you see opportunities to integrate your scholarship into your work as Provost?
Dr. Pease: It is an honor and a privilege to be the provost of a big institution like John Jay, and I see that as my absolute priority. My own research takes a real back seat. I’m not spending a lot of time on it. I’m still, and luckily, an expert in my field. People reach out to me and ask me to review things all the time. I often say no because this job takes all of my efforts.
Q: How do you plan to mentor and cultivate the next generation of scholars at John Jay College?
Dr. Pease: Mentorship is a critical part of success in our field. I am a college professor because of mentorship, and I think some of my success is because of the mentors that I’ve had who’ve nurtured my talent. I want that for every faculty member at John Jay. So, we do have a junior faculty mentoring program, and that’s a great start, but it can’t be the end. One of the things that I’ve tried to foster is a collaborative culture of support, right? Mentoring isn’t always a vertical relationship of a senior and a junior faculty member. It is often about communities that collaborate and support one another. And so, you know, we do have writing boot camp days when faculty get together. They talk about their research at lunch, but they also just write together. Hopefully, departments are nurturing this sort of lateral mentorship as well. Our Office for the Advancement of Research is partnering senior scholars with more junior scholars to work on this. Another thing that I think is really helpful is that we’ve appointed a Distinguished Faculty Fellow for research at the college, Dr Preeti Chauhan. She’s been mentoring a lot of faculty on how to get grants. That’s an important step for a lot of faculty and sort of a milestone, and I’m hoping that that will help more faculty understand how to get grants and how to be a national player.
Q: What are your long-term aspirations for John Jay College under your leadership, and what criteria will you use to measure the success and impact of the initiatives you plan to implement?
Dr. Pease: I am mindful that being provost is a temporary position and that I am a sprinter in a relay race, right? I’ve taken this role from someone, and I will have to pass it on to someone; what I want, what I hope is to achieve, if not at the end of my Provostship, at least in the next two, is that one will increase our graduation rates at least by 20 percentage points so that we’re up in the 70s by the time I’m done. Second, I do want to tell John Jay’s research story. We already have brilliant, big-hearted professors who are doing, you know, field-defining research; somehow, that story has to be communicated in a way that people understand John Jay is where exciting research happens, and I want that to be a known fact.
I want to be the best feeder of our students getting into law school that we can be. We are known as a baccalaureate-origin school for Hispanic students pursuing doctorates. That’s fantastic. I want to be the best at that. Right? Our students come to us with their hopes and dreams, and they are worthy of their aspirations. I want to be able to serve them in a way that propels them into outstanding futures.
Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Maureen Allwood
John Jay College staff in the Office for the Advancement of Research join the college community in mourning the passing of Dr. Maureen Allwood, a distinguished researcher, educator, advocate, and friend. Dr. Allwood’s sudden departure on Monday, March 4, in Providence, Rhode Island, has left a profound void in the hearts of those who knew her. Yet, her legacy of warmth, inspiration, and tireless dedication to marginalized communities will endure for generations.
A valued scholar in the field of psychology, Dr. Allwood’s work focused on understanding the developmental effects of trauma and violence, particularly emphasizing their disproportionate impacts on different sociodemographic groups. At John Jay College, she was a beacon of academic excellence and served as a professor of psychology since 2007. She also co-directed the department’s mentorship program for underrepresented and first-generation undergraduate students, leaving an indelible mark on the community with her passion and expertise. Her commitment to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within academia was unwavering, and her impact extended far beyond the classroom.
While grieving, her profound impact on the John Jay College community resonates deeply. Reflecting on her legacy, Dr. Angela Crossman, the Interim Dean of Faculty and Professor in the Department of Psychology where Dr. Allwood worked, aptly captured the sentiments of many, stating:
“Dr. Allwood’s passing was an incredible shock that is still difficult to fathom and is a tremendous loss to us all. She was a brilliant scholar, a passionate mentor and teacher, a dedicated and thoughtful colleague, and a warm and kind friend. I admired her greatly, appreciated the important work she was doing on the impact of trauma and violence exposure on youth development, and was always incredibly grateful that she chose to make John Jay her academic home. The world is a better place for her having been a part of it, and she will be deeply missed by her friends, family, colleagues, and students – students who will carry on her legacy of impactful and important scholarship conducted with integrity, rigor, and care.” said Dr. Crossman.
Beyond her scholarly pursuits, Dr. Allwood’s impact was deeply personal, touching the lives of students, colleagues, and friends alike. Professor Daryl Wout, Chair of the Psychology Department and Associate Professor of Psychology, emphasized her brilliance and passion to spearhead efforts to cultivate a more inclusive environment within our College and at the CUNY university level.
“Dr. Allwood was a beloved member of the John Jay community. She was an active department member and contributed to our students’ development and our clinical program’s growth. She fiercely advocated for an increased focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and spearheaded various DEI efforts at the college and university levels. Her research on the developmental effects of trauma and violence and their disproportionate impacts on different sociodemographic groups has significantly impacted our understanding of this important area. As a mentor, she was extremely supportive and nurturing of her students. She always prioritized her students and their success, even while on sabbatical. Beyond her impact at the College, she was a loyal friend, an exceptional mother, and a committed wife. As a community, we have been blessed by her presence and are deeply mourning her sudden death. She will forever be in our hearts and minds.” said Daryl Wout.
Reflecting on Dr. Allwood’s profound influence, Distinguished Professor Kevin Nadal wrote in his Instagram post, “She was a no-nonsense educator and mentor—someone who wanted her students to succeed while always encouraging them to work their hardest and never make excuses. She was an extraordinary colleague—one of the few humans who made an oppressive place like academia feel welcoming. SHE is what a professor looks like.”
Dr. Maureen Allwood received the 2023 OAR Scholarly Excellence Award winner, exemplifying a commitment to excellence, and has won several accolades and grants for the College. Her most recent groundbreaking study, “Youth Exposure to Gun, Knife, and Physical Assaults,” which examined PTSD symptoms across various demographic groups, was notably featured in Impact Magazine 2023 of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her legacy, as showcased in Impact Magazine, serves as a testament to her enduring influence in shaping our understanding of critical societal issues.
As we honor Dr. Maureen Allwood’s memory, let us carry forward her excellence, compassion, and advocacy legacy. Though she may no longer be with us, her spirit will continue to inspire us to strive for a more just and equitable world.
John Jay Institute Director Champions Education, Advocacy, and Policy Change for Black Empowerment
In celebration of Black History Month 2024, Andre Ward, the Executive Director of the John Jay Institute for Justice and Opportunity, reflects on a journey shaped by personal experiences within the criminal legal system. From incarceration to becoming the John Jay Research Center Director, his experiences drive a vision to empower formerly incarcerated individuals through education and to influence policy changes addressing social and racial inequalities. Read more about his background in the Q&A below.
As we celebrate Black History Month, can you share a bit about the journey that led you to John Jay’s Institute for Justice and Opportunity and a professional achievement that you believe has contributed to advancing justice and opportunity for the Black community?
I came to the institute as a result of my past involvement with College Initiative in 2009. I was released from incarceration on January 16, 2009 (the day Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday was observed), and two weeks later, I enrolled in Medgar Evers College. Earning both undergraduate and graduate degrees from CUNY’s Medgar Evers and Herbert H. Lehman Colleges, respectively, created opportunities for me to deepen my commitment to empowering the Black Community. After earning my Master’s Degree in Social Work, I was asked by the department chair at Medgar Evers College to return as an adjunct lecturer, where I taught mostly Black (and Latinx) students for 4 ½ years. Following this professional achievement, I localized myself in non-profit reentry/policy/advocacy work, culminating in a major New York City legislative win with the passage of the Fair Chance for Housing Act in December 2023. This legislation would prevent people with a conviction record from being discriminated against when applying for housing. For many justice-impacted college students like those whom we serve at the Institute for Justice and Opportunity, housing is indispensable to creating stability. This important legislation would protect them and the other 750,000 New Yorkers (80% of whom are Black and Latinx) from being denied access to housing solely on the basis of past justice system involvement.
How has your previous experience prepared you for the role of Research Center Director at the Institute for Justice and Opportunity?
Being directly impacted by the criminal legal system and working with diverse groups and students who had and did not have justice system involvement has prepared me for the role of Research Center Director at the Justice and Opportunity Institute. Additionally, my training as a social worker, policy/legislative change agent, and advocate for justice, fairness, and equity in education, employment, and housing – especially for people with conviction records – has also prepared me for this role. Serving in various capacities in New York City non-profit starting with providing job readiness/career coaching to facilitating academic and life skills workshops for students at Baruch College’s SEEK program and overseeing restorative justice/alternatives to incarceration work for young adults ages, serving as director of workforce development and executive leveled roles in advocacy and education and employment services, has prepared me for this role. My experience of being incarcerated has also served to prepare me for this role.
What is your vision for the Institute in promoting justice and opportunity, particularly within the context of Black communities?
My vision is to expand how we equip formerly incarcerated students with the knowledge and skills necessary for securing gainful employment, an essential factor often impeded by the stigma of a criminal record. Deepening existing stakeholder relationships while simultaneously innovating in areas of program service provision is part of my vision to move toward national and international education efforts.
Given the current social and racial inequalities landscape, how do you see the institute’s role in influencing policy changes that address these disparities?
The institute can support advocacy efforts that address discrimination in education. It can also join voting rights efforts to get our students involved in changing policy/legislation that impacts their lives. Through narrative sharing and engaging elected officials in the city and state, IJO’s students can become empowered to organize their communities to facilitate change. By doing so, members of the community become co-creators of public safety, thus creating the world they want to see and be in.
How do you see the institute actively contributing to the ongoing narrative of Black history and progress?
Education transcends the mere acquisition of knowledge; it serves as a catalyst for personal transformation. For formerly incarcerated individuals, this transformation can be profound. Education instills self-worth, purpose, and a vision for the future, offering a beacon of hope and a pathway to self-improvement. IJO will continue to serve as a place where justice-involved students can come. And through the impact IJO has on students, coupled with students developing an understanding of themselves, they will become assets to the community, creating a history of contribution that adds value to the black community and humanity.
IJO will actively nurture essential life skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making, which can be a powerful tool for psychological healing, helping individuals overcome the stigma and emotional burdens associated with their criminal history.
Western and Redburn (2017) emphasize in their seminal work, Education as Crime Prevention: The Case for Reinvesting in Prison Higher Education, that the role of education is to serve as a platform for self-improvement and a means for shifting individuals’ perspective from their past to their potential. This transformational aspect of education is pivotal in successfully reintegrating formerly incarcerated individuals into society, and IJO will maintain this work – especially during Black History Month.
How are you celebrating Black History Month?
I am celebrating Black History Month by actively making monetary and skills contributions to small Black organizations that support the communities we come from and focus on reentry and higher education services for people with a conviction record. I am also celebrating the amazing good fortune I have to serve our students alongside my deeply committed colleagues at IJO. Together, we are making a difference in the lives of Black people in particular, and humanity generally – one powerful academic student at a time.
Read more about the John Jay Institute for Justice and Opportunity here.
How Black Writers Sought Justice During the Jim Crow Era
In American media history, the Saturday Evening Post, often celebrated for its nostalgic portrayal of American life, undergoes a critical analysis in the groundbreaking book “Circulating Jim Crow: The Saturday Evening Post and the War Against Black Modernity” by Dr. Adam McKible, associate professor of English at John Jay College. This study challenges the idealized image of the iconic publication, exposing its deep connections to racist ideologies during the Jim Crow era, contrary to the widely held belief that the magazine offered an uncomplicated reflection of American life.
The book begins with Dr. McKible exploring the career of George Horace Lorimer, an editor who propelled the Saturday Evening Post to prominence during the modernist era and established the magazine’s remarkable influence. With a readership in the millions, the magazine played a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and influencing households across the nation. Under Lorimer’s editorship, the magazine fueled anti-immigration sentiments by promoting nativist politics and racial pseudoscience, contributing to policies that closed the nation’s borders to immigrants from diverse regions, including southern and eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
“The magazine under Lorimer was very involved in ginning up anti-immigrant sentiment in America and making Americans suspicious of other Americans based on their racial origin,” said Dr. Mckible in an interview with John Jay Research.
Focusing on the Harlem Renaissance, Dr. McKible’s research also exposes how the Saturday Evening Post portrayed African Americans and responded to changes in Black American life during the Harlem Renaissance. He unveils the magazine’s subtle but insidious approach to addressing the era’s transformations, coining the phrase “register and re-contain” to describe how the magazine acknowledged black achievements only to undermine them through racist stereotyping.
Dr. McKible’s findings reveal that despite recognizing the emergence of black modernity, the magazine consistently endeavored to restrain and belittle black accomplishments, transforming them into subjects of ridicule or disregard. This dismissive approach extended to influential figures such as Booker T. Washington and other black leaders during the Harlem Renaissance, as the Saturday Evening Post downplayed their contributions.
In response, black writers resisted the magazine’s narratives by taking aim at the white writers who were widely recognized as Saturday Evening Post authors. By naming such figures, as famous Post authors as Octavus Roy Cohen and Irvin S. Cobb, Harlem Renaissance writers signaled their displeasure with and resistance to the caricatures and stereotypes perpetuated by Lorimer’s magazine.
“With the help of the Saturday Evening Post, America took on the work of establishing Jim Crow, legally and culturally. These were not legal efforts but instead cultural maneuvers designed to denigrate, demean and dismiss black humanity, to take back everything that happened during Reconstruction and destroy it,” says Dr. Mckible in an interview.
Expanding the history to contemporary implications, Dr. McKible emphasizes the importance of truth-telling, challenging nostalgia, recognizing that America’s history is fraught with complexities, and acknowledging the deep-rooted racial inequalities that persist.
“The contemporary media should always tell the truth,” Dr. Mckible emphasizes.
Dr. McKible’s groundbreaking research redefines our understanding of the Saturday Evening Post and contributes to contemporary discussions about media responsibility, representation, and the ongoing struggle for racial equality.
Read about Dr. McKible’s Research here.
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Recent Comments