The Humanities are vital to a CUNY education
In the Climate Justice course Professor Shelly Eversley taught at Baruch College last spring, her students created documentaries exploring how climate issues affect them person- ally. When three students in the class realized they all had asthma, they decided to collaborate and produced a powerful short film about their experiences living in a place they call “Asthma Alley.” Eversley isn’t teaching science or health. She’s a professor of English and the interim chair of Baruch’s Black and Latino Studies program. She is also a faculty leader of CUNY’s on- going commitment to strengthening humanities education. She developed the unique approach of her Climate Justice course as a way to engage students in a subject that can seem far removed from their everyday experiences. “They do research and collect data,” Eversley says. “But fundamentally, it’s about storytelling.” Sixteen of the 22 students in the class landed internships with climate justice organi- zations after the course. ...