COVID University New York

The Residents

Leaving home to move on to a college campus is all about new connections – living with roommates, going to classes, joining clubs, playing sports, socializing, dating… all of which, of course, are either severely curtailed or banned outright under COVID protocols. So what is it like to live in a dorm right now? In this episode, Char gets the insider’s view from Seth Grossman, Director of Housing and Residence Life at City College, and Angie, a freshman living on campus at the College of Staten Island.

The Vaccine

It's 2021, and we finally have several viable vaccines for COVID-19, but that doesn't mean the pandemic is over. They need to be manufactured, they need to be distributed... and even then very real cultural obstacles exist to vaccinating enough of the population to allow social distancing to end. In this episode, we hear from people in the CUNY community who are working hard to make the vaccine not only available but also acceptable to the people who need to receive it.

The Unhoused

Many of us don't often associate college with homelessness, but as many as 14% of CUNY students have no fixed address - some living on couches, and many relying on shelters or living on the street. How does someone manage to work and study with that kind of personal instability? What if you're also trying to take care of a family while doing it all? And how about now, when COVID-19 has made everything more difficult for everybody? To find out, Char speaks to Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor at CUNY School of Public Health and recent graduate Kassanda Montes, who lived in shelters with her young son for the majority of her time as a student at Lehman College.

The Voters

The 2020 presidential election is only days away, and everyone agrees the results are going to have momentous consequences for the country, but the importance of this election only serves to underscore serious systemic questions about participatory democracy in the US - who votes? who doesn't? and why? and how? In this episode, we hear from CUNY Law student Melissa Shohet, and Professors Frances Fox Piven of the CUNY Graduate Center and Don Waisanen of Baruch College as they discuss their perspectives on this insidious and complex problem.

The Essential Workers

Along with doctors, nurses, and first responders, COVID's media "heroes" included an unlikely and previously unheralded group, the "essential workers" - custodians, supermarket employees, delivery drivers, and other solidly blue-collar, often underpaid and under-respected men and women who all of a sudden seemed to be the only ones holding society together. What has this sudden spotlight revealed about the nature of work in America and what we do and don't value and why? Charles Scott, Director of Facilities at the CUNY Graduate Center and John Krinsky, Professor of Political Science at City College weigh in on what was, what is, and what should be in the future.