‘CUNY Attempts To Boost Its Competitive Status in City’

In the August 3-5 weekend edition, my colleague, William Crain, a professor of psychology at City College, questioned my statement to The New York Sun that City University of New York’s reforms since 1999 have raised enrollment and improved faculty quality — by adding almost 1,000 new full-time faculty — without sacrificing student diversity [New York, “CUNY Attempts To Boost Its Competitive Status in City,”July30,2007].

Mr. Crain testified at a Board of Trustees Public Hearing on January 19, 1999, that CUNY’s senior colleges would lose half of their enrollment if remediation was removed from the baccalaureate programs and that minority students would be disproportionately affected. Seven years later, CUNY’s 11 senior colleges are serving greater numbers of students from all racial groups.

Undergraduate student enrollment at the senior colleges has increased to 122,780 students in fall 2006 from 105,982 students in fall 1999.

As the standards were raised, new support services were put in place, including a university-wide expansion of free summer and inter-session skills programs for pre-freshmen, tutoring opportunities, and special efforts to recruit and retain minority students, like the Black Male Initiative.

There will always be fluctuations among individual senior colleges. But the huge losses predicted by some critics never happened.

CUNY also deepened its outreach to New York City high schools. In 1999, less than 7,000 New York City high school students took advanced placement courses at CUNY colleges through our College Now program. Today, more than 20,000 high school students annually are taking CUNY college classes, free of charge, including almost 9,000 African-American and Hispanic students.

Community outreach has been similarly expanded. For example, the new CUNY Xpress office opened in June in Washington Heights — not far from the City College of New York — and is providing a year-round program to help neighborhoods with large immigrant populations get the educational support they need to succeed.

The recently announced increase in senior college admission standards relating to mathematics preparation, accurately reported by the Sun, is part of a continuing process begun in 1999 to raise standards with support.

This is emblematic of the leadership of Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, the Board of Trustees, and the College presidents working together with faculty and students to move CUNY into the highest ranks of American higher education.

The sky has not fallen. In fact, the sky is the limit.

Jay Hershenson
Senior Vice Chancellor and Secretary
City University of New York
New York, N.Y.

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