NYC Climate Justice Hub Classes & Curriculum Spring Symposium & Workshop: A Bridge Between Frontline Communities and Academia
May 11, 2026
The NYC Climate Justice Hub’s Classes & Curriculum Spring Symposium brought together NYC-EJA member organizations, CUNY faculty, students, and community partners at John Jay College on Wednesday, April 29, 2026.
The in-person gathering was framed as a bridge between “frontline communities and academia” to reflect on the Hub’s recent collaborations, imagine how climate justice can be more deeply embedded in CUNY classrooms, how classrooms can serve communities, and retool these academic spaces to support a community-driven just transition for New York City.
The event opened with remarks from Kobie Colemon, Classes & Curriculum Lead, and Eunice Ko, Deputy Director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA) and Co-Director of the NYC Climate Justice Hub.
Ko described the Hub as a partnership intended “to break down the invisible barriers” between schools and their surrounding neighborhoods. She explained that the Hub seeks to reverse the usual dynamic in which academic institutions ask community organizations to support research based on their priorities rather than the community’s priorities.
Honoring collaborations
The first half of the program, “Honoring Collaborative Successes,” featured a fireside chat with six panelists: Prof. LaDawn Haglund (John Jay College), Prof. Lauren Wang (CCNY), María Reyes (Hub Advocate at The Point CDC), Nando Rodríguez (Hub Advocate at The Brotherhood Sister Sol), and students Luke Rodríguez (Baruch College) and Ismerlyn Gonzalez (Graduate Center).
They highlighted the successes of several Hub’s Classes & Curriculum collaborations over the past two years, including site visits to The Brotherhood Sister Sol and learning about their community composting system; a “Count Those Trucks” project with The Point CDC in Hunts Point (South Bronx) and The City College of New York; student mini-documentaries on climate justice issues in New York City, and a capstone project surveying CUNY climate justice courses. A central theme of the conversation was how CUNY classes and resources can support research and advocacy priorities identified by local communities.
Nando Rodriguez (The Brotherhood Sister Sol) described community composting as a way to create a “micro impact” that can later help build broader, citywide solutions.
Counting trucks
Maria Reyes (The Point CDC) explained that the “Count Those Trucks” project emerged from community needs around last-mile warehouse facilities and intense truck activity in the South Bronx. Students from Professor Lauren Wang’s environmental justice class at CCNY helped design and conduct traffic counts while also attending to residents’ lived experiences of air quality and the struggle for clean air.
Wang detailed that her class counted trucks at three major intersections in and out of Hunts Point, conducting 21 hours of counts over two weeks and estimating approximately 13,000 trucks per day in 2024. She emphasized that while a semester-long class could only offer a sample, “it could be a powerful sample” when it supports a community organization’s ongoing advocacy for a full traffic study.
Learning in the field
Participants also reflected on what experiential learning enables students to do. Prof. LaDawn Haglund (John Jay) read one of her students’ field notes after a visit to The Point CDC and Hunts Point in the South Bronx: “Learning about environmental injustice in class is very different from experiencing it in real life,” wrote the student.
Student participants echoed that point. Luke Rodriguez, a Baruch student, shared his experience taking a climate justice class with Dr. Shelley Eversley in which students created mini-documentaries on climate justice issues in New York City. He said that when students are connected with “the people who are doing the groundwork,” climate justice becomes “a lot more real” and opens more opportunities to get involved.
Syllabus Lab
The second part of the event centered on a “Syllabus Lab” organized into three modules: anti-extraction versus just transition, curriculum design questions, and overcoming institutional constraints. Colemon framed the first discussion around how CUNY resources can be centered with—and not simply at—community partners.
During the anti-extraction discussion, Dariella Rodriguez, Director of Community Development at The Point CDC, explained that, when deciding whether to join a project, they ask themselves: “Is this adding to our neighborhood, to our neighbors, to what they need, or is this taking more than it’s giving to our neighbors and our neighborhood?”
During the curriculum design discussion, participants reflected on how course syllabi can reflect intellectual diversity and the lived experiences and needs of grassroots community organizations. The workshop prompted faculty to consider whether course bibliographies feature organizers, local activists, and scholars from the Global South. Participants also discussed the importance of moving beyond “inclusion” toward centering community knowledge, local campaigns, and just transition frameworks within course design.
As Dariella Rodriguez noted, just transition is not only about transforming infrastructure or power plants; it is also about “transitioning the way we exist, within each other, within our society, within our institutions, within our communities.”