- Professor, English
- Professor, Urban Education
- Professor, Digital Humanities
- Professor, Interactive Technology and Pedagogy
Research Interests
- Basic writing
- the politics of language use
- error analysis
- composition and rhetorical theory
- literary/critical theory
- assessment and evaluation
- computer-mediated communication and instruction
Education
- Ph.D., Stanford University (Modern Thought and Literature, 1982)
- M.A., Claremont Graduate University (History, 1977)
- B.A., Claremont McKenna College (Literature, 1975)
A longtime member of the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center in the PhD Programs in English, Urban Education, and Interactive Technology & Pedagogy, George Otte became the Academic Director of CUNY's first fully online degree in 2006. He is now the chief academic officer of the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS), currently with twenty online degrees (10 graduate, 10 undergraduate – those undergraduate degrees ranked in the top 5% by US News & World Report). In 2008, he was named University Director of Academic Technology for CUNY, a modulation in the title of CUNY Director of Instructional Technology, a position held since 2001. At the end of the 2018-19 academic year he gave up that position to focus entirely on the rapid growth at SPS. His experiences since the turn of the century can be taken as a warning to be wary of dabbling with technology, but he does occasionally reconnect with the field(s) he worked in before, notably by co-authoring, with Rebecca Mlynarczyk, a book on basic writing (having co-edited the Journal of Basic Writing from 1996-2002).
Selected Recent Publications:
- Change We Must: Deciding the Future of Higher Education (co-edited with Matthew Goldstein). Rosetta Books, 2016.
- “The CUNY Academic Commons: Fostering Faculty Use of the Social Web” (with Matthew K. Gold). On the Horizon 19:1 (2011), 24-32.
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Basic Writing (with Rebecca Mlynarczyk). Parlor Press, 2010.
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"An Administrator's Guide to the Whys and Hows of Blended Learning (with Mary Niemiec). Journal of Asychronous Learning 13:1 (Spring 2009): 19-30.
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"Sunrise, Sunset: Basic Writing at CUNY's City College," in Basic Writing in America, ed. Nicole Greene and Pat McAlexander (Hampton Press, 2007): 21-47.
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"New Questions for Online Learning, and New Answers: The Case of the CUNY Online Baccalaureate," On the Horizon 15:2 (Fall 2007), 169-176.
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"Online Learning: New Models for Leadership and Organization in Higher Education" (with Meg Benke), Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 10:2 (Spring 2006): 23-31.
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"Using Blended Learning to Drive Faculty Development (And Vice Versa)," in Elements of Quality Online Education: Engaging Communities, ed. John Bourne and Janet Moore (Sloan-C, 2005): 71-84.
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"High Schools as Crucibles of College Prep: What More Do We Need to Know?" Journal of Basic Writing 21.2 (Fall 2002): 106-120.
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"The Improving Power of e-Conversation," in Teaching/Writing in the Late Age of Print, ed. Paul Johnson, Jeff Galin, and Carol Haviland (Hampton Press, 2002): 85-97.
