2021 marks 50 years since LaGuardia Community College opened it's doors to students. To help students navigate the Institutional Archives remotely and engage with archival material, we have put together a list of materials that introduce them to how LaGuardia operated it was in when it opened, and highlighted a few issues that the college has continually faced.
If there are any topics or other types of source materials you would like to use for your class that are no in this list, please contact Thomas Cleary, Archivist/Librarian (tcleary@lagcc.cuny.edu).
Here are selected documents that have introductions to LaGuardia Community College. They outline how the college is organized, the mission of the college, and the students the college serves. Some of these documents also go very in-depth into how the college operates, but the first few pages usually cover what you would need to know.
“LaGuardia Community College- The First 25 Years” by Terry Golway, 1996
“LaGuardia Community College” by Peter H. Binzen, New Colleges for New Students, 1974, also available through the Internet Archive
“A Guide to Cooperative Education” by the Division of Cooperative Education, 1971
“Master Plan: 1972-1976" by Master Plan Committee, LaGuardia Community College, 1972
“Overview of Cooperative Education” Division of Cooperative Education, 1980’s
Student Handbooks available on the Institutional Archives website are also an excellent resource to introduce people to the services the college provided in a specific year
The website might not always be the easiest to search or navigate so here are a list of key topics that students can browse through. New lists can be created by clicking on the different “Subjects” either in the Refine results section. Subjects can also be found on each item page under the “Details” section at the bottom of the page.
Joseph Shenker- the College’s first President
Cooperative Education- documents relating to the Co-op program
Budget Cuts, Budget, CUNY Budget Cuts - a reoccurring issue in CUNY
Student Protests- some examples of student activism, including a 10 day takeover of the M-Building in response to CUNY wide tuition increases
Student handbooks- A collection of student handbooks on the archive’s website, outline everything a student needed to know for that year. These can be used to supplement the Introduction to LaGuardia documents.
Course Catalogs- course listings offered year to year, good for showing how programs departments change to meet student needs.
Photograph Collection- Have students browse photographs in the collections. Some guiding questions that highlight some aspects of the college:
What is happening in this photo?
Can you easily identify who are faculty and who are students?
How are people dressed? What might that say about how formal the college was?
Where is this photo taken? In a classroom? Gym? Cafeteria?
What types of people do you see represented in these photos?
How old do these students look?
Student Publications- Newspapers and literary journals written by students. Fiorello’s Flute and The Bridge may be the most useful, as they show what issues mattered to students at a point in time and how students talked about these issues.
Oral Histories- Video collection of oral histories done for the 25th Anniversary showing a cross section administrators, faculty, staff and students. Each video contains a timestamp summary of the interview. It does not contain a full transcript of the interview.
