Community College Librarian Needs Assessment: Academic Status and Research Interest

This pilot study explores the results of the Spring 2023, “Needs Survey for Community College Librarians” conducted by the Community and Junior College Libraries Section (CJCLS).  CJCLS is a section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). One hundred and seventeen individuals participated in the survey. The survey asked community college librarians about their academic employment status and publication requirements, their interest in research, and the support for research available to them at their institutions. The key findings of this research show a broad range of academic status classification among community college librarians, demonstrate a desire to conduct research by community college librarians, and establish a need for focused supports to help community college librarians achieve their research aspirations

Monosaccharide Binding to Synthetic Carbohydrate Receptor Microarrays

Chapter 1: A glycan detection platform comprised of synthetic carbohydrate receptors (SCRs) immobilized onto polymer brushes was prepared. SCR043, an alkene-containing SCR, was incorporated into grafted-from polymer brushes using hypersurface photolithography, resulting in microarrays of SCR043-functionalized polymer brushes, where brush height (h) and SCR grafting density (Γ) is controlled precisely at each feature in the array. The influence of h and Γ on the binding to five fluorescently labelled monosaccharides – α-glucose (α-Gluc-FL), α-galactose (α-Gal-FL), α-mannose (α-Man-FL), β-glucose (β-Gluc-FL), and β-galactose (β-Gal-FL) – in aqueous buffer was investigated using fluorescence microscopy. These experiments provided 9,072 data points, each corresponding to an individual binding experiment that were used to assess the effects of polymer h, Γ, monosaccharide structure, and monosaccharide concentration on binding avidity (Kd). We demonstrate that SCR-based microarrays bind monosaccharides selectively as a result of cooperative, supramolecular interactions that occur within the multivalent polymer brushes. Kd, Hill coefficients, 50% inhibition concentrations, and inhibition constants (Ki) were calculated for the different monosaccharide-SCR043 binding pairs and were compared with the binding energies calculated using Density Functional Theory. The SCR-functionalized polymer brush microarrays could detect monosaccharides at micromolar concentrations in aqueous buffers with Ki as low as 5 μM for α-Man-FL. The strength of the monosaccharide-SCR interactions is attributed to the cluster-glycoside effects that can occur within the SCR-functionalized polymer brushes. This report represents the first demonstration that SCRs can function as effective glycan recognition elements in microarray formats

Local Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) Enzymatic Activity Modulates Cholinergic Interneuron Function in the Dorsolateral Striatum

The renin angiotensin system (RAS) is an ancestrally ancient peptidergic signaling pathway best known for its role regulating blood pressure in the periphery. However, its presence and importance in the central nervous system has more recently been identified and is less well understood. Previous work shows RAS is expressed in the nigrostriatal pathway of the basal ganglia and has been implicated in basal ganglia disorders including Parkinson’s disease (PD) and levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID). Interestingly, the canonical and noncanonical arms of the RAS pathway produce opposite effects on PD disease vulnerability and progression. The shift from the neurodegenerative canonical RAS to the neuroprotective noncanonical RAS is regulated by the enzymatic activity of angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). To explore how RAS modulates basal ganglia function under physiological conditions, we assessed the expression of both canonical and noncanonical RAS in the dorsolateral striatum (DLS), a key integration hub for the basal ganglia, and found that ACE2 is broadly expressed in the region. Interestingly, cholinergic interneurons (CINs), an interneuron population essential for striatal function, showed unique enrichment of angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) and mas receptor (MasR), the receptor counterparts to the substrate and product of ACE2 activity. Reducing ACE2 enzymatic activity in the DLS, either through conditional ablation or pharmacological inhibition, altered how CINs respond to DA input during burst events, including a significant reduction in the amplitude of CIN pausing following DA burst release events. This pause is known to be modulated in part by dopamine D2 receptor activity, and AT1R and D2R have been shown to form heteromers capable of bidirectional inhibition in the striatum. AT1R inhibition and D2R agonism through coinjection of MLN4760 and quinpirole, respectively, reduced CIN activity in an additive manner as compared to each treatment alone and a proximity ligation assay on DLS sections revealed that AT1R and D2R colocalize within 40nm of each other on CINs. Functionally, unilateral ACE2 ablation in the DLS produced an ipsilateral turn bias without altering overall locomotion, consistent with altered striatal asymmetry. Bilateral ablation impaired motor learning in a rotarod paradigm, linking RAS-dependent CIN modulation to adaptive motor control. Taken together, these findings suggest that ACE2 regulates CIN sensitivity to dopaminergic input by maintaining the balance between AT1R- and MasR-mediated signaling. AT1R inhibits D2R-dependent CIN pauses, while ACE2 activity promotes MasR activation, which relieves this inhibition. Disruption of this balance such as in PD or COVID may therefore contribute to basal ganglia dysfunction through impaired dopaminergic–cholinergic integration. This work identifies a novel mechanism by which the brain RAS modulates striatal microcircuit function, bridging molecular signaling and motor learning

GEO 170 - Earth Science and Society

Syllabus for our new OER cours

No Tech for Apartheid Memory: Oral Histories of Google Worker Organizing

The NOTA Google NYC Digital Memory Archive is a digital memory project centering the worker narrative in tech labor struggles in the wake of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Rooted in my dual experiences as a Google Software Engineer and a No Tech for Apartheid organizer, this capstone project, initially created in 2024, seeks to combat the silencing around the nature of labor organizing through expanding upon the existing archive to incorporate oral history testimonies of NOTA organizers (notechforapartheidmemory.com/interviews). After conducting 4 oral history interviews with former Google workers currently based in NYC, the videos were edited and captioned using Final Cut Pro, compressed using HandBrake, uploaded to a private DigitalOcean Spaces bucket, and linked in newly added HTML sub-pages to the archive site. Given the sensitivity of the interviews I was entrusted with, I took precautions to ensure that the tools I used for this capstone project did not compromise the ownership and confidentiality of the data. This project explores the stewardship of oral history, production of long-form resistance media, and development of technological infrastructures of labor cyber-resistance through digital memory archives. Throughout this white paper, I discuss the challenges, successes, and learnings from undergoing the tedious, yet rewarding, editing and captioning process manually, while inviting varied labor perspectives in testimonies from other NOTA Google NYC organizers. Although NOTA has a presence in Google and Amazon offices throughout the country and internationally, the scope of this project is limited to NOTA Google organizers currently based in NYC, given the pre-existing nature of my relationships with workers here. It is important to note that the experiences of workers in NYC, while being representative of NOTA at-large, do not cover all possible experiences. Nonetheless, the testimonies yield much-needed insights into organizing labor resistance within the tech industry during a time in which technofascism takes new oppressive forms

HLT 101 Introduction to Public Health

The syllabus, created by Professor Elyse Gruttadauria as part of the CUNY OER Initiatives for HLT 101 contains a course description, course objectives, course readings divided by week and a link to four OER textbooks

Sometimes I Picture You Dreaming: How American Female Directors Use Women-in-Prison Films as a Pathway for Public Education and Activism in the Era of Mass Incarceration

This thesis examines the role of female directors in creating media that showcases how prisons perpetuate sexism or gender-based violence. As mass incarceration began to take off in the 1970s, this paper begins with an analysis of Jack Hill’s The Big Doll House (1971), which often served as the model for women-in-prison (WIP) exploitation films. While Hill perpetuated the white and male gaze in The Big Doll House, Stephanie Rothman subverts oppressive gazes in her WIP film, Terminal Island (1973), and demonstrates a concern with the historical gendered realities of prison – moving beyond representations of prison on the screen in the ‘70s that were only used for figurative or narrative device purposes – while simultaneously asking viewers to think critically about media constructions of criminality. Lastly, this paper examines Prison Stories: Women on the Inside (1991), a television-movie consisting of three episodes, primarily concerned with women’s abilities to mother while incarcerated. In this paper, I will analyze two episodes: “Esperanza” directed by Donna Deitch and “Parole Board” directed by Joan Micklin Silver. In doing so, I will highlight how Deitch and Micklin Silver show how the legal justice system criminalizes survivors of domestic abuse: either through charges like “accomplice liability,” or through self-defense. In doing so, I hope to illuminate the ways that directors who are women have been influenced by their positionalities – including their experiences navigating a predominantly male-dominated film industry – to create movies that serve as a call to action for gender-responsive legal justice reform

Recognition at Work: How Managerial Acknowledgment Shapes Team-Level Outcomes

Employee recognition has become a central focus for organizations worldwide, with billions of dollars spent annually on recognition programs. Despite this investment, scientific research on the effectiveness of recognition beyond performance outcomes remains limited. Furthermore, little is known about how recognition operates at the team-level and the specific attributes that make recognition impactful. This study addresses these gaps by disentangling the nuanced attributes of recognition and exploring their influence on employee perceptions of recognition. It also examines how these perceptions affect key outcomes, including perceptions of manager support, job security, autonomy, team cohesion, and engagement, and tests whether trust moderates the relationship between objective recognition and perceived recognition. Using data from an organization’s recognition platform, the findings indicate that recognition quality was related to perceived recognition, however this relationship differed across samples. Trust did not moderate this relationship in either dataset. Perceived recognition was consistently associated with job security, manager support, autonomy, and cohesion, and each of these work conditions, as well as perceived recognition itself, predicted engagement. By integrating objective recognition data with employee perceptions, this study provides a novel methodological approach to understanding the collective impact of managerial recognition on teams and offers evidence-based insights for improving recognition practices and team-level outcomes

Menendez de Aviles and La Florida

The present volume is a translation of Solis de Meras and Barrientos,  Menendez de Aviles y La Florida: cronicas de sus expediciones, edition, notes, and introduction by Juan Carlos Mercad

Organizing and Advocacy Analysis and Innovation

This assignment emphasizes students’ evaluation and creation skills while connecting to their broader coursework on advocacy and community engagement. Students analyze a real-world advocacy campaign, applying a SWOT framework to evaluate its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. They then generate at least two original ideas to enhance or expand the campaign’s impact, drawing on their lived experiences, critical thinking, and social awareness. The assignment encourages the use of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to support brainstorming, research, and content generation, with reflection on how AI contributed to their process. By integrating personal perspective, analytical rigor, and creative problem-solving, students develop skills in critique, innovation, and inclusive advocacy while preparing for future project proposals