In April 2026, City University of New York (CUNY) Wikimedian-in-Residence (WiR) Richard Knipel and City Tech Librarian Jen Hoyer hosted an edit-a-thon at City Tech. Jen Hoyer also wrote two blog posts about student contributions to Wikimedia Commons. With instruction from CUNY Newmark Wikimedian-in-Residence Richard Knipel, Communication Design students in the Fall and Spring semesters took original photos around New York City and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons. To read more and view student images, read the full blog post.

Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons are valuable educational resources, as both a research tool and a space for students to contribute their original work. Read more about the impact of City Tech student contributions to Wikimedia Commons: here.

In May, the CUNY-Newmark Wikimedian-in-Residence Richard Knipel hosted three Borough-specific events at three CUNY campuses: The College of Staten Island, The City College of New York in Harlem and LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City.

Thanks to the work of CUNY and Wikimedia NYC, photographers from the NYC Wiki community came together to document overlooked buildings and landmarks in Harlem and Long Island City. Following the photo tours, Richard helped participants upload their images to Wikimedia Commons with guidance from the CUNY librarians, faculty, the Queens Public Library, and local historian Alan Archivala. In the first Staten Island edit-a-thon since 2020, participants edited Wikipedia articles focused on Staten Island landmarks and history, including the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum.

In June, Richard and Wikimedia NYC facilitated an edit-a-thon at the United Nations, part of the UN Tech Over series during UN Open Source Week 2026. He also led another #WikiTakes photo tour with the Girl Scouts of America, capturing images in and around Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

This Spring, the CUNY Newmark Wikimedian-in-Residence and the CUNY Pit Lab kicked off Wiki-Play Fridays at the NYC PIT Pop Up in the World Trade Center Occulus. A new monthly event series, Wiki-Play Fridays are a pop up exhibition and laboratory of Wiki-based immersive design with demos and playtesting of wiki-games and novel modes of interaction, both digital and tactile.

Wiki community members came from across the city—including students and faculty from CUNY and NYU—to explore Wiki game engines developed at the WikiGameJam in October 2025 and March 2026, create Wikidata entries by hand, watch tech demos like the Wiki Receipt Printer, and more.

We end the Spring 2026 Semester with some impressive statistics from the last two academic years.

• 9 articles created
• 300 articles edited
• 2,481 references added
• 1.1 million article views
• 434 student editors
• 5,885 total edits
• Wiki platforms used in over 30 classes
• 280,000 words added

We also celebrated more CUNYpedia Focus Articles: In April, the hormone Kallidin, and its role in diabetes and Parkinson’s, an article written by a pair of students over two semesters as part of a Biochemistry Lab class at Hunter. In May, Coney Island Creek, developed by students as part of a Brooklyn College Principles of Ecology class. In June, Homelessness in New York was expanded and improved by students from a LaGuardia Community College English 103 class during the Spring semester. While the article is still a work in progress, students made strides in organizing and adding information, and students in upcoming semesters will be able to continue their work.

This Summer, we also welcome new faculty fellows with Wiki-related academic projects from various CUNY campuses. Thanks to support from the Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the 2026 Summer Archives and Open Knowledge Faculty Fellowship is supporting 4 full-time teaching faculty members to expand the use Wikimedia platforms at CUNY in the Fall 2026 semester. Participants will produce either public programming, or openly licensed lesson plans that use CUNY archival collections and integrate Wikimedia platforms. Read more about the participants here.