UMAH: End of Semester Student Presentations

The International Cinema Education program is an NGO at the United Nations that works with New York City teachers to educate public high school students about global issues through film. Our group investigated how to make their curriculum more accessible and distributable to middle school teachers and students within the five boroughs of New York, and to offer recommendations in order to achieve this goal based on our research findings.

Our project focuses on Corona, Queens, a largely immigrant neighborhood that has become increasingly overcrowded with little change in zoning or land use to help alleviate the problem. Illegal conversions of garages and and overcrowding in units have become an issue in the neighborhood, and a  growing number of residents are rent burdened or severely rent burdened. There are many empty or underutilized lots in the neighborhood which, with the use of new development techniques, could be used to help with the decrease in affordable housing in the neighborhood.

Goddard Riverside Community Center requested that the Hunter College graduate students develop a demographic profile of people living in public housing in comparison to the total population living in the Upper West Side . The needs assessment is being conducted to distinguish between the youth population that is currently being served and those that are not participating in Goddard Riverside Community Center’s youth initiatives.

Our studio was tasked with developing a vision, in cooperation with the Long Island City Partnership, for the potential development of Sunnyside Yards in LIC, Queens.

Washington Market Park is a small, public park serving both residents and non-residents in the Tribeca area. In this presentation, we look at usage and demographic data of park users in order to identify the ways in which this park reflects broader issues around public and private use of space.

Our project focuses on the Willets Point area of Queens, New York also known as the Iron Triangle. It is currently going through changes under the City’s Development Plan for Willets Point. We examine the efforts currently taking place to transform Willets Point from mainly an auto and sanitation industrial site to a mixed-income neighborhood and commercial area, concentrating on environmental and social impacts.

This project was designed to gather data on the testing facilities, testing personnel and the experience of students who tested between March 2014 and August 2014 and subsequently enrolled in the community colleges for Fall 2014 semester at 3 of 8 CUNY community college campuses-Bronx Community College (BCC), Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC).