Demos Orphanides, Webmaster and Online Community Strategist at HASTAC@Duke, recently joined the HASTAC@CUNY and Futures Initiative team for a few days while we prepare for several exciting new things on our horizon. Demos is the force behind the HASTAC.org website and it was great to work with him in person this past week.

We are also pleased to be continuing to develop partnerships with faculty throughout the CUNY community and were happy to have Prof. Anthony Picciano of Urban Education join us for a productive dinner with stunning skyline views in midtown Manhattan.

As we look forward to the upcoming semester and our project to Map Higher Education, we are also thinking about mapping in literal and abstract terms. We are excited to see what kinds of maps the Graduate Center students and their undergraduates at the CUNY colleges will create.

When I consider the cityscape at night from this high vantage point, even as a New York native, I do not lose a sense of wonder and anticipation. When I began my own CUNY undergraduate career with the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, I was asked to create a map of “My New York,” which I completed as a drawing and collage by hand. If I were to create a map again, it would be completely different as we have both (the City and me) changed. Although the City is not perfect and there is still a lot of work to do, I cannot wait to see how my fellow CUNY students approach the prompt of mapping and how it intersects with the City, public education, and equity.