CUNY News In Brief (February, 2009)
Enrollment at Record High
With the economy spiraling into a nose dive of recession, the number of New Yorkers returning to school has spiked in the past recent academic year. Enrollment has surged to record highs since September 2008, as the total CUNY-wide student body has reached nearly a quarter of a million students.
But the crappy economy cannot claim full responsibility for the high demand for a CUNY education. With their majority adjunct faculties leading the way, four of the systems colleges—Hunter, City, Queens and Baruch Colleges—were recently ranked by USA Today and Princeton Review as among the fifty “top value” educations in the United States. Many of CUNY’s other campuses have also been recently recognized for their continued improvements and academic excellence.
Not surprisingly, then, classrooms across CUNY’s various campuses have swelled to capacity. Demand has been felt most pressingly at the Community College level, where CUNY brass, led by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, have called for the creation of a seventh community college to meet increasing demand.
New Community College
Always mindful to promote his commitment to excellence, prestige, and the best interests of CUNY’s student body, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein pushed ahead recently with his plan to inaugurate a seventh community college into the City University family within two years time.
Citing increased economic pressures on New York City’s working class, and the bloated student rosters at the six existing community colleges, Chancellor Goldstein lobbied the State Assembly’s Committee on Higher Education by emphasizing the need for increased access to a quality community college education. “Our students will face increasingly competitive pressures in an unforgiving economy,” Goldstein argued, “and getting a degree matters. It is therefore in their interest to attend community colleges where the focus is on high standards and degree completion.”
How will he ensure a focus on “high standards and degree completion”? Unfortunately not by hiring a fully tenured faculty of committed professors, it seems. According to Chancellor Goldstein’s public comments thus far, what will single out his “honors” community college from its forebears will be a restricted menu of course offerings, full-time enrollment demands, and a tighter admissions criteria, including face-to-face interviews of all applicants (which the CUNY honchos insist is not a weeding-out selection mechanism).
If the notion of expanding CUNY spending at the moment when Governor Paterson has waged his own shock and awe campaign against the state’s public education budget strikes you as strange, have no fear: our Chancellor is no dummy. According to sources, Goldstein has only wasted some of his time with city and state officials tasked with funding higher public education. Instead, his energies have been spent approaching a number of private foundations to fund his pet initiative, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has indicated an eagerness to get involved.
No Cuts at Comm. Colleges
Social activism pays off. In a heartening victory for New York’s working class at the start of February, Governor David Paterson’s attempt to balance the state’s budget by slashing monies for community colleges was roundly rejected by state legislators. Had the budget bills passed, community college students would have been asked to shoulder the burden of $4.3 million in cuts to pay for the state’s fiscal irresponsibility.
According to the Professional Staff Congress, over 9,000 New Yorkers took the time to write to their representatives demanding that they slam the door in the face of Paterson’s proposals. Moreover, hundreds of activists organized demonstrations across CUNY campuses in opposition to the Governor’s projected cuts, the PSC itself marched on Albany to protect our schools, and they were met there by New York State United Teachers groups in a show of solidarity.
If CUNY—including all its students and teachers—is to weather the storm of future attempts to hijack the public education budget, this sort of unity will be of the greatest importance.
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