Thinking about studying the humanities may conjure images of dusty textbooks and snoozy lectures. In the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, however, hands-on learning isn’t reserved solely for the science labs and art studios. In fact, Pace’s experiential approach to the humanities, particularly in the English department, has garnered national attention in media outlets such as The New Yorker, Inside Higher Ed, and The Chronicle of Higher Ed.

The experiential humanities at Pace build on the University's longstanding commitment to undergraduate research and civic engagement, as well as on recent initiatives in the digital humanities, public humanities, community-engaged art, and antiracist education. It is an approach designed to empower students to explore and participate in the production of knowledge about the past and present; to make sense of the history and current lived experiences of racism, sexism, and economic inequality; and to blaze new pathways for achieving social justice and creating a better world.

“The humanities have been undergoing a transformation for some time now that is about questioning who are we studying when we're studying the humanities or who are the humanities really for?” said Associate Professor of English Kelley Kreitz, PhD, Pace’s newly appointed director of experiential learning and the Pace Path. “To do that, you need to rethink how knowledge is produced in the first place and who is producing knowledge. And suddenly the experiential part of the humanities becomes not only something that makes sense, it becomes necessary.”

In addition, Pace University was recently awarded a total of $350,000 through a pair of grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) that will help cement Pace as a hub for the humanities through new projects, community partnerships, and instructional spaces.

Take a look at a few of many examples of how the humanities are coming to life at Dyson.

AMS 333 Chinatowns in the Americas (NYC campus)

Associate Professor of English Stephanie Hsu, PhD, designed the Chinatowns in the Americas course as one of Pace’s designated civic engagement courses as a form of resistance to the anti-Asian racism—particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic—that’s been directed at Chinatowns, including the neighborhood adjacent to Pace’s downtown campus.

“For us in this course, experiential learning revolves around another key concept: mutual aid,” said Hsu, “which means that we’re listening to our community partners (cultural and social services nonprofits in Chinatown) and trying to meet the actual needs they describe by using our skills and resources in new and innovative ways that benefit and improve us, too, as individuals and as an institution.”

Through the course, Pace students are connecting directly with community members to learn about the political developments and quality of life issues facing Manhattan’s Chinatown, including real estate development, eminent domain land seizures, the city’s plans to build a “mega-jail,” and food insecurity driven by high food prices.

CMS 309 Girls’ Media Studies: Theory and Research (NYC campus)

In spring 2023, students in the Girls’ Media Studies course, taught by Professor of Communication and Media Studies Emilie Zaslow, PhD, partnered with the online Girl Museum to create an exhibit in the museum’s first student-led collaboration. As part of this initiative, each student first conducted research on the topic of girlhood and media between 1910-1960, and then selected a toy advertisement that targeted girls or advertised toys intended for girls during this era. In addition, a museum educator from the Girl Museum visited the class virtually and presented a session on writing and interpretation for virtual museum audiences, after which, each student expanded their research, wrote an analysis, and engaged in peer reviews.

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Ari Cardenas ’23, Communication and Media Studies, selected an advertisement for the “Tiny Tears” doll, whose marketed feature was its ability to cry “real” tears. Researching the manufacturer, the American Character Doll Company, Cardenas gained an understanding of the era when the toy was made as context for examining the language of the advertisement and the purpose of the toy, which is to prepare young girls for motherhood through a doll that mimics an actual baby.

“I found it really interesting to explore this cross-examination of the ingrained gender roles and the role that our media plays in socializing us at an incredibly young age,” said Cardenas. “I hope that this opens people’s eyes and allows people to think a bit differently as to how they are contributing to perpetuating gender roles or how today’s media does it as well.”

ENG 223A: Creating a Good Life (Westchester campus)

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Taught by Lecturer of Writing and Cultural Studies Alysa Hantgan, MFA, Creating a Good Life “explores the intersection of research on creativity, productivity, success, and happiness.” Students in the course explore the existing body of happiness research and begin to incorporate strategies discussed in the research—such as practicing meditation, engaging in new activities with friends, participating in aerobic exercise, and writing gratitude cards—into their own lives to explore their impact on happiness.

“Through interactive means and creative experiences, each student focused on specific gauges of their life (work, play, love, and health) and narrowed in on the few that could be improved,” said Lydia O’Briskie ’25, Early Childhood Education (School of Education). “The material of this course led me to visualize the improvement of my gauges, as I was focusing on love and health. As a result of my research and investigation, I learned to appreciate those that I love and to show gratitude, in addition to taking better care of my body and mental health.”

Upon conducting this experiential “me” search, students employ creative writing to share their findings on their new understanding of what makes a “good life.” Angela Sgobbo ’25, Early Childhood Education, chose to present her work through the creation of a children’s book.

“This dynamic presentation not only added a layer of creativity to the autoethnography, but also allowed for a more immersive exploration of my struggles, triumphs, and the broader cultural implications of my pursuit of a good life,” said Sgobbo. “Through this innovative approach, I sought to resonate with the themes of the class while maintaining the integrity of autoethnographic research.”

ENG 322A: The Art of the Memoir (Westchester campus)

In The Art of the Memoir, Assistant Professor of Writing and Cultural Studies Vyshali Manivannan, PhD, employs strategies, such as body scanning and body mapping, to help inform and deepen students’ writing about their own lives. Body scanning is a meditative practice that helps students bring awareness to physical sensations and emotional states, as well as the connection between them. Body mapping is an art form in which students use body diagrams to locate and record these sensations.

“A short trauma-informed body scanning session can effectively and safely reconnect writers with immediate sensation; a brief trauma-informed body mapping exercise can help writers develop somatically-located and -focused narratives of lived experience from those sensations,” said Manivannan.

“This class focused on embodiment and writing about embodied experiences,” said Hannah Mills ’26, Writing and Cultural Studies. “The mindfulness techniques that we practiced in class and that were interworked within my drafting process have been very meaningful to develop. These strategies have impacted the way I approach writing about my life experiences and connecting with myself and my writing.”

Manivannan, who also employs yoga practices and gamification techniques in many of her classes, noted that students have delivered their memoir project in a variety of forms, including Canva infographics, interactive websites, and audiovisual projects.

HIS 196H COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter: Comparative, Crisis-based Oral History in the American Experience (NYC campus)

In HIS 196H, a designated civic engagement course taught by Clinical Associate Professor of History and Assistant Provost for Research Maria Iacullo-Bird, PhD, students conduct and interpret oral history interviews surrounding the COVID-19 crisis and Black Lives Matter movement in America. Students are trained as oral historians, focusing on the Pace University and Lower Manhattan communities, to gain a deeper understanding of the intersection of infectious disease and social justice.

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“Oral history allowed me to understand both COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement from individual perspectives,” said Madison Turunen ’23, History and Peace and Justice Studies. “Much of my understanding came from the media, my inherent biases and beliefs, and my circle of friends and family. With the interviews, I was able to learn from the experiences I did not interact with: healthcare professionals and community organizers. It is one thing to read statistics and reports, it is a complete other to hear first-hand experiences."

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The goal of this course is also to create a digital archive centered on these concurrent crises. The video recordings and transcripts of the oral history interviews are compiled on a blog site, allowing public access to the students’ findings. Students in the course have also presented their work as part of Pace’s annual Social Justice Week.

LIT 211U Latina/o Voices: Transnational Currents in American Writing (NYC campus)

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In Kreitz’s introductory Latinx literature course, the class explores the Spanish-language publishing that began in the 19th century in the neighborhood surrounding what is now Pace’s downtown Manhattan campus. Kreitz noted that, because this is an understudied area of publishing, it can be a challenging topic to teach.

“It becomes necessary to engage students in recognizing where the gaps in the archive are and why they happened in the first place,” said Kreitz, who has also received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her work.

The class participates in a series of assignments where students create a digital map, often after visiting significant locations in the neighborhood, researching sites of 19th century Spanish language press. The goal, then, is for students to not only to recognize the vibrant community that existed right in their backyard, but also to be a part of making that history visible.

“We don’t really understand the lives, hopes, and struggles of those publishing in the Spanish language until we make a dedicated effort to study it,” said El Aparacio ’25, English Language and Literature, who took the course. “This project pinpoints the locations of these impactful newspapers and brings them into focus. We find the when and where of Spanish language press, then we’re able to further contextualize their importance—the why. Above all, it really made me appreciate the people dedicated to preserving this part of print history.”

PHI 230: Philosophy of Happiness (Westchester campus)

In Philosophy of Happiness, taught by Lecturer of Philosophy and Religious Studies Len Mitchell, PhD, students engage in personal exploration and collaborative discussion in reflecting on philosophers’ ideas on happiness. The course includes critical reading of three texts, with students participating in storytelling exercises to describe a personal experience related to the material and group activities to investigate varied perspectives of happiness.

“What makes this course unique is the open dialogue between students and Dr. Mitchell,” said James Kennedy ’24, Personality and Social Psychology. “The class is designed to allow students to share how they interpret each topic discussed. This method of teaching creates a more comfortable environment where students can openly speak to the class to provide their own opinions regarding how the topic relates to happiness and can gain valuable new perspectives from others.”

Students are asked to write responses to prompts about their ideas about happiness on the first day of class. On the last day of the semester, Mitchell asks them to answer the same questions and reflect on how their ideas and understanding have evolved throughout the course.

Jason J. Czarnezki is the Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law and the Associate Dean of Environmental Law Programs and Strategic Initiatives. Professor Czarnezki joined Haub Law in 2013, and teaches Natural Resources Law, Sustainable Business and the Environment, Property, and the Environmental Law Seminar: Current Challenges. Since he joined Haub Law, the environmental law program has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as number one in environmental law for the last two years in a row and for three times in the last four years. A generational environmentalist, learn about Professor Czarnezki’s recent research interests, his family full of outdoor enthusiasts, and more in this Q+A.

Let’s start with discussing your recent work – both in and out of academia.

Recently, I’ve been working on researching eco-labeling, sustainable procurement, and the evolution of sustainable business law. I’m looking at challenges that individual consumers face when buying products. There are many issues in this category: consumers are overwhelmed by labels, there is a lot of greenwashing, consumers do not understand what product labels mean, whether or not the burden should be on consumers, and how to make labels more accessible.

I have also been looking at retailers, wholesalers, and public institutions (schools, government agencies, etc.) in the context of sustainable procurement. How do we measure non-price characteristics such as environmental footprints (for example, carbon, land use, and water), social welfare and economic welfare? For example, EU law allows public purchasers to employ life cycle costing – they don’t have to buy the good with cheapest price.

Outside of academia, I work with cleanteach and sustaintech startups that are harnessing sustainability data to improve and green the supply chain and their products.

Additionally, we have over 300 students involved in our environmental law program in some way. Part of my role in administration is to organize and create intellectual projects for the program (Garrison and Kerlin Lecture, NELMCC). We always ask what can we improve and how can we innovate? Through this culture, we have created the Food Law Initiative, the Environmental Law & Policy Hack, and the new Sustainable Business Law Hub.

Can you tell me a bit about the new Sustainable Business Law Hub?

More and more law firms are adding ESG groups to work with clients on disclosures, climate risks, and drafting environmental policy statements for their companies. The Hub will serve as an incubator space, student-training program, research endeavor, and think tank devoted to addressing global sustainability challenges through policy and research projects, relationships with the business community, and capacity building in private environmental governance. Students will be able to work closely with faculty experts and receive practical training and experience. We hope that more students will pursue the JD/MBA and participate in ESG corporate externships. Students involved in the Hub will jump into their first job after graduating understanding how they can help their employers foster sustainable business practices.

More and more law firms are adding ESG groups to work with clients on disclosures, climate risks, and drafting environmental policy statements for their companies. The Hub will serve as an incubator space, student-training program, research endeavor, and think tank devoted to addressing global sustainability challenges through policy and research projects, relationships with the business community, and capacity building in private environmental governance.

How did you become interested in environmental law? And what keeps you interested in environmental law?

It’s the family business! My grandfather graduated from the first graduating class of what is now the College of Natural Resources in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. My relatives are park rangers, foresters, and lumberjacks. I grew up in a family that went camping, hunting, and fishing. My grandfather worked as a supervisor in the Milwaukee County Parks System, pioneering at-the-time novel ideas like mulching grass back into the lawn rather than bagging it in plastic. My father served in the Wisconsin State Legislature, sponsoring significant environmental legislation. I decided to go to law school to work in environmental law.

Two things keep me interested in environmental law. First, I enjoy my administrative role as vehicle to create opportunities for students that lead to careers of impact and meaning in the field of environmental law. For example, we have increased funding for the DC externship, created the Haub Scholar program, created more student scholarships—all things that can be transformational student experiences. We have also diversified our curriculum, which now includes environmental justice, climate law, and food law, as well as add significant diversity to our environmental law faculty and staff.

Second, I enjoy nature and value conservation, and exploring how law shapes our environmental values. What brings me the most joy, though, is teaching my students and facilitating their exploration of nature. I love taking my students on “natural resources tours” of NYC and can’t wait for my natural resources law field course in Grand Teton National Park to return.

Do you have any advice for students interested in environmental law?

My advice to an environmental student isn’t different than to a non-environmental student. Work hard. Look a few years past graduation. You’re not going to graduate from law school and be EPA Administrator. Many graduate have to do other things first. They might do real estate law or big law for a few years before switching to environmental law. Two alumni come to mind. One does legal sustainability for a major company. The other is General Counsel for a large environmental non-profit. Both were in non-enviro jobs initially. While you’re in school, think about what skills you need to have to do that job down the line. Look at the resumes of people with your dream jobs and see what they did. Finally, do not rob from your future self, as my spouse likes to say. There’s so much you don’t know. You might be interested in a job you didn’t think you would like. Be open-minded. All law contains environmental issues.

As we reflect on Earth Day, what advice can you give students to make a difference in saving our planet and promoting conservation and sustainability?

I wrote a whole book about this called "Everyday Environmentalism.” There are so many actions, big and small, that each of us can take. “The low-hanging fruit include, to name a few: try to eat organic and local, eat less meat and shift away from red meat, live close to where you work and play, see if your household can get along with only one car (and try to make it a fuel efficient one), walk and take public transit, compost as much as possible, stop engine idling, buy compact fluorescent light bulbs, adjust down the thermostat, decrease household water temperature, keep proper tire pressure, and work to educate yourself about the ecological and economic costs of your actions in the long term. Engine idling, for example, accounts for a substantial portion of carbon emissions and fuel consumption, measured at 1.6% of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and 10.6 billion gallons of fuel per year. Attempts to address idling through public education campaigns have proven successful in Canada, and similar success in the United States would prevent 7 to 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year and reduce fuel consumption by 660 million to 2.3 billion gallons each year. Recall that generating public awareness is a tool always to consider when seeking change in individual decision-making.“

Jumping to your non-academic interests – what are some of them?

I like playing music, but haven’t played at all during the pandemic because I want to be outside. I enjoy swimming in lakes, kayaking, cooking, exploring the NFT market, and splitting wood.

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After about a year of analyzing Dominican identity from a social formation perspective, Lulu Moquete ’24, Mathematics, approached Associate Professor of Mathematics Emilio Fernández, PhD, with a dilemma that many students face as they head into their final year of undergraduate study—what should she do after graduation?

Throughout Moquete’s time on Pace’s Westchester campus, Fernández has become a trusted mentor who shares many parallels with Moquete—both have a deep-seated love of mathematics and critical thinking, and both are part of the Dominican diaspora living in the United States. It was these similarities, and Moquete’s eye on her future, that encouraged Fernández to suggest that she apply for the Provost Office’s Undergraduate Summer Research Grant.

With the grant, Moquete worked alongside Fernández engaged in multi-level cultural analyses to explore the impacts of colonialism on people living in the Dominican diaspora (a term used to refer to Dominicans living outside of the Dominican Republic, often in the United States and Spain). Through the immersive analysis of multidisciplinary texts, Moquete investigated the social structures at work, as well as the psychological and sociological impacts of colonialism on Dominicans and society as a whole. Moquete and Fernández’s ultimate goal, as a result of this work, is to persuade the University to offer an introductory analytical course for students to understand the “formation and operation of culture.”

“When Lulu became my mentee, I realized that she already had a lot of people teaching her math, so I thought, ‘What are the ways I can better serve her?’” said Fernández, noting his belief in the liberal arts notion of exploring a breadth of knowledge, rather than specializing solely in one topic. “As fellow Dominicans, I didn’t have to think much about it. A lot of the challenges she faced were cultural issues, as when I was in her shoes.”

The Intersection of Data Analysis and the Humanities

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The project centered around the critical reading of three cross-disciplinary pieces of literature. The first was the Pulitzer Prize winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, a fictional story of a young Dominican boy living in New Jersey who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien.

“I felt that this book was going to be an easy read for Lulu,” said Fernández, “because if you’re a Dominican living in the diaspora and you happen to go to school, there is no way that you’re not going to find yourself immersed in this character.”

The next piece was more challenging: French Marxist Louis Althusser’s essay, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In it, Althusser argues that social institutions such as school, the church, and family have the capacity, through seemingly compulsory, albeit unconscious, rituals and customs, to promote a worldview of bourgeois domination.

“As a math student, reading this kind of essay was a very new thing for me,” said Moquete. “I just started taking it slowly and rewriting it in a way I could understand. I realized then that I was analyzing it like a data scientist would analyze quantitative data. This was me analyzing qualitative data.”

Moquete’s final reading was Black Skin, White Masks, a 1952 book by the French-Martinican psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon. Having served in the French Army and having experienced several hurdles as a Black medical student, Fanon’s doctoral thesis was rejected, as the faculty deemed it was not valuable to the field. After graduating medical school and solidifying his theories with the empirical evidence of his practice, he published his work. The book lays out a human-scientific approach to how colonialism imposes, defines, and replicates the psychology of the colonized. The book also engages in a systemic analysis and provides a historical critique of the effects of colonialism on the human psyche.

“It became very clear to me that, because she does not mainly study the humanities, Lulu needed very specific examples to connect to,” said Fernández of selecting Fanon’s work. “This book is more of a sociological, scientific analysis, so I thought this was the most applied theoretical framework that Lulu could utilize to begin to make sense of all of these texts.”

Their emphasis in employing these three vastly different texts was to contextualize both qualitative and quantitative data on the effects of colonialism. Fernández mentioned that the statistician and the sociologist often work separately—the statistician supplies the numbers, and the sociologist contextualizes them. His hope is for his students, in this case particularly Moquete, to understand the connection from both sides.

The Outcomes

This fall, Moquete presented her work to members of the Pace community at an event hosted by the Center for Undergraduate Research Experiences for students who participated in summer research programs. Fernández noted his pride in Moquete’s presentation, particularly in her ability to speak eloquently and analytically about information outside of her declared discipline, mathematics.

Moquete and Fernández have laid the groundwork for the course they hope will one day become a staple of social analyses at Pace, noting that conversations have begun to add their course to the academic catalog, a legacy that Moquete can leave at Pace even after she’s crossed the stage in May.

“I really hope that once this course is created, it can influence many other minoritized students to get involved in programs and departments like this,” said Moquete. “You don’t usually see a lot of minoritized students in a math program, but I hope that in the future, more will know that they’re capable of being in programs like this.”

And as for her post-grad plans, her work with Fernández did, in fact, provide her with clarity on her next step: she plans to pursue a PhD in applied mathematics or data science.

“Having this mathematical background has helped me think more eloquently in a lot of different fields,” Moquete said. “So, imagine having a higher degree in that, how many more windows it would open for me to be able to see the world in a different way.”

Above all, Moquete will graduate with a life-changing connection with Fernández.

“The one topic that Lulu and I have never discussed in our hundreds of hours in my office or via email is math,” Fernández said with a laugh.

“I'm really glad that I've had a mentor like Professor Fernández, especially within the department,” said Moquete, “to help guide me through this experience of college and extend myself in ways I didn't know I could.”