This piece is part of a series by participants in the Winter 2026 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.
Felix Yirdong is a Fulbright alumnus and doctoral student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science Program at The CUNY Graduate Center. His research examines the conditions under which a desire for death emerges and the culturally specific factors that shape risk for suicidal ideation and attempts among ethnoracially minoritized youth. He is particularly interested in how childhood adversity, emotional regulation, and social connectedness interact to influence adolescent suicide risk. Felix holds an MA in Psychology from The New School, New York. He currently teaches Health Psychology at Hunter College.
Knowledge has the greatest impact when it is accessible. Yet for many students and educators, especially those working in low-resourced contexts, accessing high-quality academic materials can be surprisingly difficult – an experience I associate with. My recent participation in the Graduate Center Open Knowledge Fellowship (OKF) challenged me to think more critically about these barriers and how graduate instructors like me can play a role in expanding equitable access to learning.
As a doctoral student, much of my learning trajectory has been shaped by access – access to not just the right mentors alone but also access to academic materials and institutional resources that made it possible to engage deeply with scholarly knowledge. However, this access is not universally shared. In many educational settings, especially those serving students from marginalized or low-resourced backgrounds, obtaining learning materials can be an arduous task. Paywalls, restrictive licensing, and the monetization of knowledge – while understandable from the perspective of authors and publishers often create systemic barriers to information that should ideally support broad learning and intellectual development.
My interest in the OKF started after a colleague of mine shared several open-access resources with me. These materials demonstrated that high-quality educational content could be freely available and widely distributed if knowledge about their availability is shared by educators. As a graduate instructor to undergraduate health psychology students, I immediately recognized how valuable such resources could be for my students. I was convinced that many of them would benefit greatly from open learning materials that reduce financial burdens and structural barriers to educational and learning materials.
The Open Knowledge Fellowship proved to be an enriching and transformative learning experience. One of the most valuable aspects of the program was being introduced to the broader ecosystem of open educational resources (OER). Through workshops and guided activities, I learned how educators can identify, adapt, and integrate freely accessible materials into their teaching practices.
Another key component of the fellowship involved learning how to develop a personal teaching website. This process helped me envision how digital platforms can serve as repositories for course materials, lecture notes, and curated resources that students can access freely. Building a teaching website also highlighted the potential of technology to extend learning beyond the traditional classroom. The fellowship also introduced me to thoughtful ways of incorporating generative artificial intelligence into my teaching and learning. Rather than viewing AI solely as a technological novelty, the program emphasized how it can be used responsibly to enhance student engagement, support critical thinking, and assist in the creation of accessible learning materials. Equally important was the sense of community fostered throughout the Fellowship. Engaging with peers who shared a commitment to open knowledge created a supportive environment for collaboration and idea exchange. Hearing about the diverse ways my peers were applying OER in their classrooms broadened my perspective and inspired new possibilities for my own teaching.
My participation in the Open Knowledge Fellowship was both intellectually stimulating and practically empowering. Beyond learning how to build a teaching website, the experience deepened my understanding of how open knowledge initiatives can contribute to democratizing education. I now feel better equipped to share learning materials more widely – not only with my students but also with a broader audience interested in health psychology. I have no doubt that the fellowship refined my approach to teaching. It encouraged me to think more intentionally about how to design interactive learning environments that prioritize accessibility, engagement, and inclusivity. Integrating OER into my courses allows students to focus more on learning and less on navigating barriers to information.
I am deeply grateful to the City University Graduate Center Mina Rees Library for generously sponsoring this fellowship opportunity. I also extend sincere thanks to all the facilitators and fellow participants whose enthusiasm and collaboration made the experience both meaningful and inspiring. Ultimately, the Fellowship reinforced a simple but powerful idea: when educators commit to sharing knowledge openly, they expand the possibilities for learning far beyond the classroom.
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