Fabio Battista           Matthew Block Laura Rita Feola Pablo Garcia Martinez Anthony Klambatsen Jeremy Randall Allen Strouse Ralitsa Todorova

Fabio Battista

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a Writing Across the Curriculum Fellow at Hunter College, where I served in the Romance Languages Department. As a WAC Fellow I offered workshops, both independently and during class hours, on methodological topics such as reading and annotating strategies, time management, assignment scaffolding, and writing the research paper. I also held weekly office hours during which I worked with both undergraduate and Master’s students, in Italian and in English. In addition, I am teaching an original course on “Music and Italian Identity: Risorgimento to Today,” which gives me the opportunity to put my WAC training to use in the classroom. As a scholar, my research focuses on late-Renaissance Italian culture (especially theatre, historiography, and narrative prose) and translation studies. My doctoral dissertation is entitled “Cultural Translation in Early Modern Italy: Fiction and English Affairs, 1590-1690.”

Matthew Block

As a WAC Fellow, I worked with advanced students, faculty, and the Chair of Hunter’s Sociology Department. I supported over fifty students in conceptualizing, analyzing, writing, and revising research projects and reports in eight distinct courses. I also worked with faculty members to develop and integrate writing assignments in their courses, and with the Chair and Curriculum Committee to systematize the Contemporary Theory courses as writing intensives, a project to be continued in the Fall.

As a PhD student in sociology at the Graduate Center, I specialize in social movements, social psychology, and critical theory. Using a synthesis of actor-network-theory, participatory action research, and institutional ethnography, my current research is on the formation of decentralized social movements as “circuits of resistance.”  Extending my research on participatory democracy and the formation of a decentralized women’s movement in South India, this project looks at copwatch patrols, sanctuary spaces, direct action town halls, and popular education groups in New York City as practices through which community organizers reflexively deploy fragmented, hybridized subjectivities as resources with which to fuse hidden transcripts into counter-narratives in the constitution of dissident subcultures.

Laura Rita Feola

I am a second year WAC Fellow at Hunter College, in the Romance Languages Department. This second year I continued my work with Professor Maria Cornelio in the Spanish Translation Program. My task has been to create English grammar activities and materials for students of Spanish/English and English/Spanish translation, as well as to provide them with some introductory grammar theory. My dissertaion on contemporary Italian women authors nears completion.

Pablo Garcia Martinez

During the 2016-17 academic year I enjoyed the opportunity to work as a Writing Across the Curriculum Fellow in Hunter College's Romance Languages Department, while completing the first stage of my dissertation research. This academic year also witnessed my debut as a senior publisher in my academic field: an article appeared in Penn Press' Revista Hispánica Moderna; another one in the Taylor & Francis Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies; and a book chapter in Palgrave MacMillan's Rerouting Galician Studies: Multidisciplinary Interventions. In my WAC work, I enjoyed the discussions with students in the Romance Languages Department during the tutoring I offered and also during the workshops I organized. I also enjoyed very much the weekly meetings with my colleagues from the Hunter WAC Program, in which we discussed matters regarding writing pedagogy, but also other issues related with the intertwining of our roles as researchers and servers of a public institution such as the City University of New York.

Anthony Klambatsen

Anthony Klambatsen is a graduate student in the Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience program. His research explores the molecular neuroscience of drugs of abuse. He has taught in the psychology department at Hunter College and mentored undergraduates in the lab. As a WAC Fellow, Anthony provided tutoring and writing services for the Thomas Hunter Honors Program and the writing-intensive Biology course Current Topics in the Biosciences. He also participated in the application process for new students in the Honors Program, reviewing and assessing writing samples to identify those in need of additional writing services before they entered the interdisciplinary colloquia offered by the program.

Jeremy Randall

Jeremy Randall is a fifth year PhD student in the History program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His research focuses on the intersections of leftist intellectual movements and popular culture during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) as fostering an affective, emotional, and discursive of experience that serves as a counter to the hegemonic imaginings of the state and society as sectarian. During his year as a Writing Across the Curriculum Fellow in the History Department at Hunter College, he provided tutorial assistance for students on their essays. He also provided workshops in classes on citing properly, conducting secondary source research, and structuring essays.

Allen Strouse

A.W. Strouse is a poet who teaches medieval literature and historical linguistics at Hunter. Strouse is the author of several peer-reviewed articles on medieval topics, as well as three books of poetry and many essays in popular venues.

As a WAC fellow, Strouse worked in the English Department (specifically focusing on ENG 220, a writing-intensive course). Strouse helped instructors with syllabus design and assignment development, and Strouse led workshops in teaching poetry—his specialty!

Ralitsa Todorova

Ralitsa Todorova is a doctoral candidate in Developmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her dissertation research examines the college admissions essay and its role in access to college, particularly for underserved students. She worked as a Hunter College WAC Fellow with the Psychology Department, specifically with the PSY 250 Experimental Psychology course. She mainly met with faculty in the department and worked collaboratively to strengthen the resources and materials students and faculty can utilize for the course. Ralitsa also worked on a student survey, given at the end of the semester, which assessed students’ experiences in the course.