Here I am with my Sping 2008 class at a community event about police brutality as a public health issue that the students organize Fall, 2011:
Graduate Courses (CUNY-Graduate Center)
"Visual Media, Technology & Health," (PUBH 851/PH 711)
"Cities, Societies & Health" (syllabus not yet available)
Undergrad Courses (Hunter College)
"Introduction to Community & Public Health" (COMHE 301)
Where do you teach?
I teach at CUNY (CUNY; 
/ˈkjuːni/). The City University of New York (CUNY) is an urban public university serving more than 480,000 students at campuses throughout the city. The University’s 23 institutions include 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, and the CUNY-Graduate Center. The newest of these institutions is the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, where I'm Associate Professor.
There are approximately 21,000 students at Hunter College who come from over 142 nations, most of whom are first-generation college students; many are first-generation Americans. Since 2003, I have had the pleasure of teaching in Sociology, Women's Studies and Urban Public Health at Hunter College. I also teach at the CUNY-Graduate Center.
Prior to teaching at CUNY, I logged college classroom experience in a variety of institutions, including: University of Texas-Austin, University of Cincinnati, Florida Atlantic University and Hofstra University.
How do you teach?
All the courses I teach share a common thread. In each course there is a focus on social inequality through critical media literacy. What this means is that in all my courses I employ the use of multimedia, particularly documentary films, to illustrate sometimes difficult conceptual problems. I keep a couple of lists of documentary films I've used in my classes here and here.
In my experience, documentary films offer students from diverse backgrounds and skill levels an entry into the course material and provide a common language for participating in class discussions.
I connect the films to an assigned reading, usually from the peer-reviewed scholarly literature (or a textbook for beginning level courses), to add complexity and rigor to the concepts explored in film. For undergraduates, I use "Video Worksheets" designed to help them make the connections between the films and the readings, and build skills in critical media literacy.
I have a number of papers about this innovative pedagogical approach currently under review for publication.
What do you teach?
I teach a variety of undergraduate classes, including: Introduction Community Health; Electronic Media for Health Communication; Medical Sociology; Research Methodology; Sociology of Gender & Sex Roles; Race & Ethnic Relations; Urban Sociology; Politics of Queer Sexuality.
The graduate courses I teach include: Visual Media, Technology, & Health; Cities, Society & Health; Urban Health Promotion; New Media & Health; Exploring White Racism.
In Fall, 2011 I'm teaching two graduate courses: Cities, Society & Health and Visual Media & Technology.
How can I take one of your classes or be one of your graduate students?
I teach mostly undergraduates (at Hunter) and doctoral students (at the Graduate Center). If you want to be a Community Health major at Hunter, you need to apply to the program.
If you want to pursue doctoral studies at the Graduate Center, you need to apply to the GC. If you're already enrolled in a doctoral program at the Graduate Center, contact me directly.
If you're interested in enrolling in an MPH program, you should apply to the CUNY School of Public Health.
