Welcome to the Faculty Fellowship Publication Program 2021-22 Virtual Orientation page. This space exists as a complement to our live Zoom Orientation on December 10, 2021. In the archive below, you will find an introduction to the matters at the heart of FFPP: writing, publishing, and reviewing. We hope you will continue to refer to this page throughout the spring 2022 semester and beyond. Once again, congratulations to our new Fellows!

Our Academic Directors

Our Mentors

Welcome Messages from Friends of FFPP

Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor, City University of New York

As FFPP Fellows, you join a distinguished group of CUNY faculty. Your predecessors have won prestigious awards and fellowships, published award-winning books and articles, and gained promotion at CUNY and recognition in their disciplines. I expect no less from each of you, and I look forward to learning about your accomplishments and celebrating them.
Read full Letter here

Doriane K. Gloria, Vice Chancellor, Human Resources

Launched in 1998, the Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP) advances the University’s institutional commitment to professional development of junior faculty. Known for its successful outcomes, FFPP has been recognized as a model of faculty mentoring programs, one that has been replicated by others nationally. Indeed, it has been described by a former fellow as “the best experience I’ve had at CUNY so far.”
REAd full letter here

Annemarie Nicols-Grenenko, University Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs

I want to encourage you to take advantage of your time in this program and enjoy it as an opportunity to celebrate and elevate your scholarship in your day-to-day life as an academic. I look forward to learning about all the exciting scholarship that I know you will produce.
read full letter here

Mentor Writing Stories

Our FFPP Mentors are all successful, published writers. Here, they share some of their personal writing stories with you–hitting both the highs and the lows and offering some good advice as you navigate the many paths toward publication and tenure. We will add Mentor Writing Stories throughout the spring 2022 semester to encourage and inspire you.

Lina Newton, Hunter College

“The reduction of noise is something we can make for ourselves in small ways.”

Anahi Viladrich, Queens College

“Turn a rejection into a win-win situation.”

Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College

“Short sentences help.”

Michael Gillespie, City College

“The most important work that I feel I’ve done…has consistently involved a measure of collaboration.”

Ted Ingram, Bronx Community College

“I was very intentional about being lead editor as well as contributing at least one chapter to every edited volume that I was part of.”

Bridgett Davis, Baruch College

“I’m here to talk to you about my second book, the one no one would publish, my novel.”

William Carr, Medgar Evers College

“A way will open, but in order for something to grow, you must first plant the seed.”

Katherine K. Chen, City College

“Thriving in the Academic Commons: A Writing Survivalist’s Guide”

Audio File

On Writing

Over the course of this academic year, we’ll share a variety of writing resources with you. For our Virtual Orientation, we’ve selected two of our favorites.

The first is a talk by longtime friend of FFPP, Ken Wissoker. Ken is the Director of Intellectual Publics at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and Senior Executive Editor of Duke University Press. Ken’s talk, “From Dissertation to First Book: A Practical and Conceptual Guide,” demonstrates an academic book editor’s deep knowledge of pre-tenure faculty members’ concerns and questions. Ken has delivered versions of this talk several times at past FFPP Orientations, and we know you’ll find his expansive, detailed vision of how to reshape an intellectual writing project both informative and inspiring.

Our second writing resource offers you a preview of life inside one of our Writing Groups. This particular cohort of Fellows has become known as “The Writing Group That Never Quit,” because after their formal fellowship period ended in the spring of 2016, they kept on meeting…and they haven’t stopped yet! We know you’ll enjoy the Indoor Voices Podcast and a Q&A in which these dedicated CUNY colleagues discuss how their experience in FFPP led them to a long-term commitment to writing and to each other. They put the “fellowship” in FFPP.

https://indoorvoicespodcast.com/2019/02/04/episode-24-the-group-that-wont-quit/

On Publishing

Ultimately, FFPP is a publication program. Fellows write, review, and revise in order to produce publishable work that will advance them toward promotion and tenure at CUNY. Our Mentors not only guide the Writing Groups but stand out themselves as models of scholarly and creative writing and publishing. Below are just a few of the books published by Fellows and Mentors in the past several years.

One of the most timely resources for up-to-the-minute insights into the publishing world is the University Press Week 2021 Blog Tour, hosted by the Association of University Presses.

AUPresses also hosts an “AskUP” page, where editors from university presses respond to some of the most common questions about book, journal, and digital publishing.

On Reviewing

Peer review is a vitally important professional activity in the academy, yet we often receive no training as reviewers. FFPP Writing Groups offer Fellows direction in peer review not only in service of improving colleagues’ manuscripts but as an intellectual good in itself. Your Mentors are central to this area of professionalization, but we think you’ll find the following models useful in preparation for engaging with your peers’ writing in the spring.