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14 AUGUST 27, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM Q&A with Judge Anthony Cannataro BY DEAN MOSES EDITORIAL@QNS.COM @QNS Schneps Media is sitting down with judges across the city’s court systems to discuss their roles and how they’ve changed in the age of COVID-19. This week’s interview is with the Hon. Anthony Cannataro, Citywide Administrative Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York and Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. Schneps Media: Could you describe your duties as an Administrative Judge? Hon. Anthony Cannataro: I am the Citywide Administrative Judge for the Civil Court of the City of New York (one of the three citywide courts along with Family Court and Criminal Court). The Civil Court operates in all fi ve borough and is best known for our housing part (the court that landlords go to when they seek to evict their tenants and to litigate other housing matters). That is an extremely highvolume court, approximately 225,000 new cases are filed every year. The other well-known operation of the Civil Court is the Small Claims Court. My job is to oversee the day-to-day operations. I deal with budgets, with problems like disciplinary issues, and attendance issues as they come up. I also deal with what we call access to justice, which is the court’s eff ort to make these high-volume cases fairer for people. Many of the litigants who come here do not have attorneys representing them. So, we must go out of our way to make sure that the process is as fair as it can be even for people who don’t have attorneys. SM: Have housing cases increased because of the pandemic? AC: Not necessarily. I would almost say that the issue of representation has gotten a little better because of the pandemic, which is not to say that everything is great. Since the pandemic began there has been a more concerted movement, both within the court and outside the court to try to get counsel assigned for people who are facing eviction and who don’t have lawyers. SM: How has the position changed during the pandemic? AC: I fi nd myself communicating a lot more with interest groups that represent various litigants. For example, in the housing sphere, there are many groups out there who are concerned about evictions happening during a pandemic and all the problems that come along with litigating those kinds of cases and possibly evicting people as a result of those cases. I’m now speaking a lot publicly and in smaller groups with the various interest groups about how the court can do its business and still be mindful of the public health and safety needs of the litigants who come before us. There are many interests to balance. It’s extremely diffi cult. Using housing as the prime example: On the one hand you have tenants who probably lost their jobs, they legitimately cannot aff ord to pay their rent. But you have landlords, many of whom are small landlords who just own two or three apartments, maybe in just one building and they have to pay taxes and they have to pay mortgages. There are a lot of diff erent perspectives. SM: Has there been a silver lining during the pandemic? AC: The pandemic has really driven us into using technology to help us do what we do. Whereas before the pandemic you would hardly ever see virtual appearance or conferencing with the court or among the parties. We have moved forward aggressively into using teleconferencing platforms to do our work. There is a lot being done with remote appearance. SM: Are there any misconceptions people have about judges you would like to clear up? AC: The biggest misconception about judges is that we are not sensitive to the needs of the litigants that appear in front of us, and I say this as someone who oversees a court where there are so many unrepresented people from such diverse backgrounds. I think there is a feeling that judges don’t understand what regular people are going through. People tend to forget sometimes that judges are regular people. We come in all diff erent types, sizes, and backgrounds. SM: Are there some hobbies you enjoy partaking in during your free time? AC: I grew up as a child of Italian immigrants. I spent many of my summers in Italy and as I became older, I started seeing the world. I just love to travel. That’s the bug I have. I love visiting off the beaten path locations and cultures that I’ve never seen before. Last summer, I went to the Azores, which are small islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that are a part of Portugal. HIGHER ED TODAY �� Like universities across the country, CUNY has worked intensely these past six months to keep our students on track for graduation despite the unprecedented obstacles of the pandemic. It’s the technical challenges of teaching and learning from a distance that get most of the attention, but we are just as focused on helping our faculty become more effective teachers — and our students, better learners — in ways that have nothing to do with laptops, digital platforms or video conference apps. In the education world, the word for this is pedagogy: How teachers teach, how students learn and what methods and approaches have proven most effective at elevating student achievement and outcomes. It’s a recognition that teaching is an art, a science and a craft. That consideration is one of our key priorities at CUNY — a way to both boost student success and support the invaluable resource that is our faculty. Improving and innovating our teaching strategies was front and center before the coronavirus, and we haven’t let the scramble to put courses online throw us off track. CUNY students began the fall semester this week, and the vast majority of their nearly 50,000 course sections — 98 percent — are being delivered virtually. They will surely benefit from the work their professors, their campuses and their university have done to adopt instructional practices that put a priority on the needs of online learners. For obvious reasons, much of the professional development training we have offered to faculty in recent months has focused on the improvement of distance learning. But that effort is part of a bigger project at CUNY that will far outlast the pandemic. Studies have supported the notion that improving pedagogy can make a significant difference in student success. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, but this should: Most college faculty undergo almost no professional development to build these skills, or to improve their teaching methods, while in graduate school. It’s just not something that universities have traditionally emphasized as much as they ought to. I began my career as a history professor and taught for many years, and whatever training I got in pedagogy was not something promoted by the University. That is why I have prioritized a long-term series of initiatives to fill a demonstrated need. At the top of the list is the CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy, which will serve as a hub for professional development and the vibrant exchange of ideas for new approaches to student engagement and success. Last year, we forged partnerships to launch several pilot projects for the academy aimed at helping faculty master best practices for both online and in-person teaching. For starters, we are teaming with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) and the National Association of System Heads (NASH) on a 25-week program in which 300 faculty from CUNY senior colleges will be trained in practices that improve student achievement and close equity gaps. This fall, another 420 faculty will be trained and credentialed in online teaching methods that focus on areas such as creating an inclusive learning environment, inspiring inquiry and designing learner-centered courses. More recently, we announced a $10 million gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that includes $2 million to train humanities faculty in ways to make their classes more participatory and prepare students for a world that requires collaboration, communication, analytical reading and cross-cultural thinking. We hope the Innovative Teaching Academy will become a national model. The pandemic has required us to focus our professional development efforts on training that helps our faculty improve student engagement and foster an inclusive, encouraging instructional atmosphere in the online modality. It’s been an all-hands-on-deck effort this summer to provide programs with noted experts and partnerships with other academic institutions. Leveraging the expertise of the CUNY School of Professional Studies, a longtime national leader in online degree programs, CUNY created online developmental workshops for more than 2,000 faculty members across the system to improve their online instructional practices. I’m confident that the benefits will be apparent, and that they will be just one part of our long-range commitment to improved teaching. We’ve been confronted this year by enormous challenges to our broad educational mission, and to our specific efforts to help our students complete their courses, earn enough credits each semester to graduate on time and pursue careers that will allow them to climb the economic and social ladder. But even as health and budgetary circumstances remain uncertain, CUNY’s commitment to improving student outcomes and supporting our faculty is unwavering. After all they’ve endured in coping with the challenges of the pandemic, our students, faculty and staff deserve nothing less. �� link /WWW.QNS.COM link