MANY VOICES, ONE CALL

Internships can transform lives. They help students gain experience, build skills, grow their social capital, get hired, and even earn higher starting salaries! But in spite of these known perks, a mere "35% of first-generation seniors reported participating in an internship" according to 2021 numbers, and a large proportion of students said they were simply not able to afford an interns...

Youth's faith in the political system is fraying; many of them "feeling underrepresented and underserved," as a recent Tufts Circle survey reported. Concerns about the high cost of living and their own job prospects, frustration with the two-party system and national politics, and distrust of elected officials shape the thinking of many 18- to 29-year-olds today, as numerous studies...

Digital technology is everywhere and social media notifications put a constant demand on our attention. Studies abound that all this pull on our minds, thoughts, and emotions, and the monetization of our user data is not working in our favor! On this episode, hosts Ashleylucie Lumbala, Sion Hardy and faculty co-host Dr. Babette Faehmel ask: What are we losing when we give so much attention to our...

Freedom of expression is generally upheld as a core American value and a key ingredient for a functioning democracy! At the same time, we are constantly debating the limits to speech. Especially when speech is abrasive, hateful, deceiving, or simply careless, it becomes difficult to stand by our free speech principles. And on many college campuses, recent studies have found , students would rather...

Veterans only make up between 4 to 5 % of the overall student population. In experience, skill sets, and mindset, however, this group stands out prominently. For this episode, the co-hosts Ashleylucie Ntumba Lumbala, Sion Hardy, and Dr. Babette Faehmel met with current and former student veterans to talk about how they navigated the transition from military service to college, the challenges they...

In spite of some recent studies indicating a decrease in the prevalence of major depression, mental health remains a significant concern among community college students. Many report that anxiety and stress harm both their well-being and academic success, with some even withdrawing from classes. The constant stress from trying to balance college, work, and family responsibilities is "also ass...

Gender diversity might seem like a new topic spreading on social and digital media. But is this phenomenon really new?  Join co-hosts Archer and Babette for a thought-provoking conversation about not only the realities faced by trans students, faculty, and staff today, but also about how colonization, historical erasure, and language have shaped what we believe to be true about our own selves and...

The mission of community colleges is to open access to opportunities, to help students achieve their dreams, and to offer the kind of career and academic guidance that transforms lives! But at community colleges nationwide, only 27% of students graduate. For Pell Grant recipients at SUNY Schenectady, that number drops to a mere 20%. What is behind these devastating statistics? "It's not...

On February 28th, 2025 we'll celebrate the 60th anniversary of the TRIO federal education programs . Established in 1965, TRIO was designed to help those who are economically vulnerable — including veterans, individuals with disabilities, and first-generation college students — achieve higher education.    At SUNY Schenectady, over 80% of students qualify for one of TRIO’s programs whose posi...

How are students processing the election? What do they expect and what do they need, from us - their educators, peers, and supporters? And how divided are we, really, over politics? Are our divisions truly as deep as they might appear judged from social media or from some of the political discourse in the nation? Or are we actually more polarized emotionally, and much less polarized when it comes...

Politics is not a topic that many Americans bring up voluntarily. According to the Pew Research Institute , 65% of survey participants stated they "always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics." More than half "feel angry,” only 10% feel "hopeful," and even fewer (4%) are excited.“ With a national election barely a month away, we wanted to know how our stude...

This is a follow-up to the episode on AI that we published on October 11, 2023 under the title " Artificial Intelligence (AI): Why we need to talk about it!" As it turns out, we still need to talk about "it", but this time we wanted to get deeper into students' perspectives on using AI. Please join hosts Dr. Babette Faehmel and Alexandre Lumbala to learn more about what st...

What does it mean to identify as "Black"? Is it the melanin level in one's skin? Is it a shared experience? A shared heritage? A culture?  What does a "Black History Month" mean to people who might identify "as Black," but whose history and culture is not limited to US American experiences of "Blackness"?  Please join student host Alexandre Lumbala for...

On October 7, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas (an acronym for the Arabic name of “Islamic Resistance Movement”) launched a brutal invasion of Israel. Attacking kibbutzim and other Israeli settlements, Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people, wounding thousands, and taking around 150 Jewish hostages. A day later, Israel attacked the Palestinian territory of Gaza with the goal of destroying Ha...

Since its days as a Dutch settlement in the midst of Mohawk country, Schenectady has been a place where different cultures met upon one another. One of the most recent examples for such a meeting of diverse peoples is the arrival of large numbers of Guyanese and Guyanese-Americans who moved here from either New York City's Richmond Hill district in Queens, or from Guyana itself, in the early...

What is A.I.? What is a Large Language Model? How does it matter for teaching and learning? And will A.I. inhibit or help the acquisition of knowledge? These are essential questions that suddenly came to the fore in the winter of 2022 when OpenAI released its seemingly magical "ChatGPT" for beta testing to the public. On this episode, new (!) student co-host Alexandre Lumbala and Dr. Bab...

From air pollution due to Canadian wildfires, to heat waves and floods, New Yorkers are increasingly feeling the effects of the global climate crisis. Yet while we all shared the experience of sweating through the hottest summer since record keeping began in the early 1900s, the effects of the climate crisis are not distributed equally. Please join podcast host Dr. Babette Faehmel, Math Science an...

For a couple of years now, legislators in a number of states have proposed - and at times passed - legislation aimed at restricting what topics and subjects should be allowed in K-12 history classes. Many of these efforts are aimed at controlling how much students should be permitted to learn about so called “divisive concepts”: race/racism, the history of sexuality, or LGBTQIA+ experiences. Recen...

According to the Pew Research Center, more than 70% of Americans regularly use social media. Most of us rely on Google, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit or YouTube for information. But how do we know the information we get from these internet giants is reliable? What drives misinformation? What makes us susceptible to it? Are we too gullible? And how can educators make sure that all students have the i...

When it comes to the topic of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we often focus on all those things we are not doing. But what are we doing that is working? What are the practices, policies, and opportunities that our students want because they see them as essential to their success? On this episode, join co-hosts Babette Faehmel, Professor in the Division of Liberal Arts, and Amira Stevens-Salih, s...

In April 2022 the Mohonasen Senior High School’s track and field team took a stand against racial bias. When they learned that fellow students of color, especially Black athletes, were unfairly targeted under a New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) policy banning hair adornments, Zionna Perez-Tucker, Bonnieta Supaul and Zoe Miller-Graham took action.  Join host Babette...

For over a year now,  teams of SUNY Schenectady faculty,  staff, and administrators, have been meeting to research and discuss key topics in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  On this episode, join host Babette Faehmel, Professor in the Division of Liberal Arts, to learn about important insights from these professional development teams.  This episode features Tiombe Farley, Director of the Educati...

Nationally, about one in every four community college students is a parent. Most of them are single mothers, and more than half are women of color.  Compared to their non-parenting peers, these students are performing exceptionally well. Student parents are more likely to have a GPA of 3.5 or higher than students without dependents -- an accomplishment especially remarkable if one considers that t...

Join host Professor Babette Faehmel and student cohosts Val and Zia for a discussion of what real inclusion  means for LGBTQI+ and Trans* students, of  what makes a space a truly safe one for non-binary people, and of how to be an effective ally.  Val and Zia are the President and the Vice President, respectively, of SUNY Schenectady's Pride Alliance.  They are joined by Pride Alliance adviso...

The theme for Black History Month 2022 is “Health and Wellness.” On this episode, hosts Jennifer Malave and Babette Faehmel, Professor in the Division of Liberal Arts, are joined by Lakeia Bowman, Associate Director of Workforce Wellness, SEAT Center; Carol Maimone, Medical Coding and Billing Instructor, SUNY Schenectady ; Marcus Henderson, graduate of the SUNY Schenectady Community Health Worker...