Women on the Role of Public Higher Education Personal Reflections from CUNY's Graduate Center

Women on the Role of Public Higher Education presents fourteen auto-ethnographic essays by women who have received doctoral degrees in the social sciences from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Their powerful narratives, critical perspectives on the academy, commitment to feminist pedagogy, and development of new forms of research methods offer a nuanced portrayal of the importance of public higher education in people's lives, and for society as a whole. Their personal reflections on the impact public higher education has had in developing a critical political awareness, building a commitment to teaching, and in aiding self-discovery should be seen as evidence for what can happen when higher education is made public.

Deborah Gambs is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, USA. Her work uses feminist, auto-ethnographic, and visual approaches to look at the confluence of art, nature, technology, and culture. She has published in Qualitative Inquiry, Socialism and Democracy, and Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies.

Rose M. Kim is Assistant professor of Sociology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, USA. She previously worked as a journalist at New York Newsday and the Los Angeles Times; and received a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

1.Introduction; Deborah S. Gambs and Rose M. Kim
PART I: LEARNING TO BE CRITICAL
2.The 'Children of the Whole People' Can Be Educated; Michelle Ronda
3.Taking Refuge in the Public University: From Harvard to CUNY; Grace M. Cho
4.The Personal is Global, the Political is Communal, the Rest is Teaching and Mentoring; Laura Fantone
5.Reflections On My Public Education; Angelique Harris
6.Network Analysis: Personal Connections Within and Across Academies in NYC; Melissa Hope Ditmore
PART II: BUILDING CARING COMMUNITIES
7.The Accidental Scholar: Overcoming the Odds and Succeeding through CUNY; Jennifer Pastor
8.Start Over; Start Again; Hosu Kim
9.Creating Caring Communities at the Graduate Center; Robin G. Isserles
10. Learning to Ask Life's Big Questions; Rose M. Kim
11. My Not-At-All-Private Metamorphosis: On the Graduate Center of The City University of New York and Public School Spaces; Jean Halley
PART III: BECOMING AND STAYING PUBLIC
12. Striving to Stay Public; Alia Tyner Mullings
13. Becoming Public; Deirdre Conlon
14. An Open University: Taking the Experimental Path; Deborah S. Gambs
15. An International Student's Reflections on the CUNY Years: Far Away, So Close; Ayse Akalin