Remarks at the Stated Meeting of the Faculty

15 February 2005

I begin with the customary subjects�the college budget and enrollment � because we all to need know where we stand. I then want to turn to a review of how the College has changed over the last five years and to what lies ahead.

First, the budget. Every year, in January, the Governor releases his budget for the coming year. The Governor's budget is a recommendation to the Legislature; the State budget is final only when the Executive and the Legislative branches have agreed. In years past, that process has taken months. No one expects that to be any different this year.

The Governor's budget recommendations for the City University in 2005-06 are better than last year's. There is no apparent decrease for the senior colleges; there would even seem to be a slight gain. Some of that consists of State funds. The rest � some $28 million - is to be raised by the CUNY colleges by increasing the number of tuition-paying students.

Even so, it is not enough. The University's costs keep going up and the State budget does not keep pace. On-going expenses, further faculty hiring, improvements in programs and infrastructure, contractual salary increases � the University estimates that it will need another $70 million for these purposes. In effect, we are worse off than we were a year ago.

The State is cognizant of this shortfall and proposes that we close the gap between what we get and what we need, at least in part, through yet another tuition increase � $250 a year for resident undergraduate students � coming only two years since the last one.

The Governor's budget also proposes, as it has done for the last two years, to restructure financial aid for students, giving those eligible half of their aid while they are in college and the rest when they graduate. That proposal is already dead. The Governor backed away from it last week, simply leaving it to the Legislature to find the money it would take to make financial aid whole. However, he has not backed away from a proposal, which we've also seen before, to reduce financial aid for the SEEK Program. That translates into less money for stipends, fees, and book expenses � money SEEK students cannot do without.

Our response, devised by the University and applicable to all the campuses, is, once again, a massive lobbying effort, asking the Legislature to add additional funds for our operating budget, for financial aid, and for SEEK. Brooklyn College will be asked to help. Since over half of our students are on financial aid, helping is a good investment. The University is putting up a website to facilitate our efforts at reaching our legislators.

You have heard me say this before. It is an annual request. One can be impatient, even cynical, about this practice. But remember, elected officials will hear from everyone harmed by the budget. If they don't hear from us, they will notice � and assume that we don't care. So please participate when I call on you in the course of the next few weeks.

It matters. You know how much we've come to rely on tuition revenue to cover our budget � about 70% of what we spend on salaries, adjuncts, part-time staff, maintenance and supplies comes from tuition. Unless we can persuade the State to restore fund while holding students harmless, we are facing some mighty tough times.

That brings me to my second topic � enrollment. As of this morning, we have enrolled 14,301 students for the spring semester. Last year at this time, we had enrolled 14,075. We're up by 226 students (or about 2%). The number of new undergraduate and graduate students is about the same as last year, and that's true of transfer students as well. We show a healthy increase in the number of continuing students, in both divisions � our retention strategies are paying off. That's the good news. We are still short of the number needed to generate the tuition revenue we must have to get us through the semester � short by about 500 students. Our rainy day fund is rapidly being depleted.

We continue to explore and adopt new ways to increase enrollment, and we will have to devote some additional resources to that purpose. Let me be very direct. We can step up marketing and recruiting (and we will), but what really draws enrollment is academic programs, especially new programs, such as the Bachelor in Business Administration, recently approved by Faculty Council. We are losing students to other colleges, including the University's own School of Professional Studies, because they offer what we don't. If we are to remain competitive, we must be imaginative and we must be quick. Attractive and compelling programs, both in the undergraduate and in the graduate division, and perhaps online programs in some areas, are the best way to increase numbers without compromising standards. This is critical. It is in our hands, the faculty's hands, to make it happen.

It is five years almost to the day that I first addressed you at the Stated Meeting. I spoke then of my ambitions for our College � building and maintaining academic quality, creating a student-centered campus, becoming a model citizen in the borough of Brooklyn. Together we have accomplished a great deal. I want us to look at some of the major changes and understand what has taken place.

Academic quality rests, first and foremost, with the faculty. Over these last five years, we have added 135 new faculty members to our ranks, more than a quarter of the total. (Chart) For those of us who remember the lean times, when hiring had dried up almost completely, this influx of promising new teacher-scholars is most especially welcome. As a group, they have given the faculty a new cast, adding youthful talent to the ranks, much-needed expertise, ready familiarity with the new technologies, and a commitment to teaching and research. They come in all ranks, some fresh from graduate school, others with established reputations and national fame. (Chart) As you can see from our statistics, they will affect faculty age structure, (Chart) gender distribution, (Chart) and diversity. (Chart) It is they who are our future, and we are enormously pleased to have them here.

Over the last five years, we have steadily raised admissions standards, in a calculated effort to recruit students who meet the high expectations you set in the classroom. We have gone up in total numbers � a jarring tuition increase notwithstanding � and find that more students are taking more credits, taking advantage of the new class patterns. (Chart) You can also see a steady rise in SAT scores (not entirely matched by college admissions averages). Rising standards have not come at the cost of diversity within the student body; it continues to enrich our community and our campus discussions. (Chart)

Undergraduates tend to stay at the College in greater number; graduate student retention has gone up dramatically. And graduation rates are up � and will be up further as TOCA students graduate in ever-larger numbers. (Chart) Indeed, those accustomed to close reading will have spotted a reference to TOCA as a model program in the Governor's budget message.

We are all enormously proud of the students in the Honors College. These are students who would be admitted to college anywhere and chose to come to Brooklyn College. They arrive with remarkable records from high school (Chart) � and their academic work once they're here bears out our expectations.

Good faculty attract good students; good students attract good faculty. To support faculty and students to mutual benefit has been one of the primary goals of the campaign to raise funds. (Chart) State and tuition revenues provide us with the bare essentials; (Chart) private donations enable us to do things otherwise out of reach. (Chart) I have had occasion to mention our fundraising campaign before. (Chart) We set ourselves a five-year goal of $50 million, (Chart) and we have now raised $47 million � with one year to go. (Chart) At the same time, our endowment has grown by 53% � from $28.3 to $43.3 million. (Chart)

We are blessed with generous donors, chiefly alumni, and their gifts have been munificent. There are gifts to support students � full tuition scholarships (the much-coveted Presidential Scholarships, some 200 of them altogether) and travel funds that enable qualified students to go abroad - to study French in France, work on a dig in Iceland, do fieldwork in Mexico. The Library Café, furnished with a gift by Morton Topfer,'59, will now be expanded to twice its capacity. (Chart) The Magner Center, supported by Marjorie Magner,' 69, offers students the advice and assistance they need to get internships and to enter the world of business. And the MFA Program in Creative Writing, a bright gem among our offerings, has been endowed by Irwin and Carol Lainoff, class of '53. Our library's magnificence owes no little to the generosity of Morton Topfer, Al Tanger '01, and his son Woody (not an alum), and Edith Everett, '49.

And there are gifts to support faculty. Leonard and Claire Tow, '50 and '52, have given us professorships and sponsored a highly-prized award for superior teaching. (Chart) They and others have made available travel and research stipends. And Carol Zicklin, '61, gave us our first-ever endowed professorship, to be housed in the Honors Academy.

These are tangible reminders of the loyalty and affection alumni have for Brooklyn College. (Chart) They give because they treasure their memories, and they want future generations to have the opportunities they enjoyed. They give because they valued their education and cherished their teachers. And we today are the beneficiaries of that memorable teaching and that dedicated interest in students.

And then there's construction. We have been fortunate in securing funds from the State, the City, and the Borough (Chart) to build buildings and to modernize facilities that have been neglected for decades. The Library, (Photo) the West Quad, (Photo) the Library Café, (Photo) Whitman Theater (you sit on new seats, walk on new carpets, see the new décor - though not what's behind the scenes: a modern stage, a brand-new sound system, a brand-new lighting system). A dozen or so lecture halls in Ingersoll are slated to be modernized this summer; the two top floors of the Student Center will be upgraded and refurbished in the year ahead. We are asking City Council this spring to give us funds to redo the roof of James Hall � welcome news for all those who break out umbrellas in the office whenever it rains.

Last week I took a walk through Plaza � or what's left of it. A surreal experience � once-familiar computer labs, lecture halls, offices, and corridors no one would recognize; gaping holes in the walls and ceilings; exposed wiring and plumbing; (Photo) huge piles of debris, empty, dark. Demolition crews conduct what looks like large-scale vandalism. (Photo) Everything salvagable is being torn out before, in March and April, the structure itself will be demolished and crushed � to fill in the area below grade that will form the foundations for the West quadrangle. We expect, within a year, to have a new quadrangle, new facades and new entry-ways to Roosevelt and James, and rudimentary foundations for the West Quad building. (Photo)

You have heard me talk about the prospect of a performing arts center, the first major construction project anywhere in the University that is built with private, not public funds. (Photo) It will bring together the performing arts in a flowering of unprecedented collaboration and synergy, and will give glamour and life to that end of the campus to complement what is happening at the other end. (Photo) A campaign has started to raise matching funds toward the $10 million pledge made towards construction by Leonard and Claire Tow, our most generous donors.

And finally. (Photo) One of the few bright spots in the Governor's proposed budget last month is the capital budget. It allocates funds for the architectural design of a modern science facility in Roosevelt Hall. To get to this point has taken a long time and been the work of many hands. The intention is to start the project once the West Quad is done, scheduled for the end of 2007, and the denizens of Roosevelt have migrated to the new building.

The Roosevelt project is the beginning of a two-stage process devised some ten years ago when the College adopted its capital master plan. The first step is to transform Roosevelt into a science building, relocate some of the sciences from Ingersoll into that building, and then, as a second step, go about renovating Ingersoll and Ingersoll Extension. That way we can do major construction without, for untold years, impeding your teaching and your research.

There is now some urgency about this. (Photo) The University has just asked us for a listing of what we want and need in renovated Roosevelt. When do they want it? They want it by the end of April. We shall draw on suggestions that emerged in discussions of the science faculty over the last few years, but we need � in these next two months � to concentrate on producing something relatively concrete that will give the architects a clear sense of what they should do.

These are highlights. (Photo) They do not exhaust what, with your energy, your ideas, your hard work, and your commitment, we have done in these years. They were shaped by the Strategic Plan we adopted in 2000, and which we used to advantage as a guide. We are now at work on a Strategic Plan for the next five years, poised for the future. It will serve us as well as the first. As our College changes and renews itself, its reputation is ever higher. I hear laudatory comments from community leaders and elected officials. Friends and alumni talk about us with exuberance. They are proud of what they see at the College. And we share that pride.

These five years have been enormously rewarding for me personally. I have been a part of this College for some three decades, and to see it grow and flourish in these recent years is a source of deep satisfaction. And for that, I thank you.

And now � cause for congratulations.

We are of course enormously proud of our Rhodes Scholar � Eugene Shenderov, a member of our BA/MD program. (Photo) He is one of two at the University this year, and the second at Brooklyn College. His is the classic Brooklyn College story. An immigrant, new to America, educated at local public schools, entering Brooklyn College on a Presidential Scholarship, taking full advantage of what the College has to offer, and finding it, as so many before him, the gateway to the future. Governor Pataki took occasion to mention him when he addressed the Legislature last month as emblematic of the changes that we have witnessed here and at the University.

There are few student honors that rival a Rhodes Scholarship. To be chosen for this honor is recognition of versatility, hard work, and high achievement. It is a tribute to Eugene but no less to the faculty that taught and mentored him. It is they who provided intellectual challenges and encouragement; it is they who made the difference. That, in essence, is Brooklyn College today.

We recognize and acknowledge members of the faculty who have been honored for the work they have done. (Photo)

Rochelle Cherry, the Murray Koppelman Professor of Speech Communication Arts and Sciences, was selected to receive this year's "Clinical Educator Award," presented by the American Academy of Audiology. This national award is presented to an audiologist in recognition of major contributions to the field.

Arthur Reber, Broeklundian Professor of Psychology, took a nostalgia trip back to graduate school days. Last October, he found his master's thesis on a list of "Great Dissertations in Psychology" published by the American Psychological Society. There are twenty dissertations on the list; his is one of them.

Robert Viscusi, English and the Wolfe Institute, was honored by the Provincia de Benevento, in Italy, with the Golden Gladiator Award for his achievements as author and critic.

And major new grants have been awarded to:

Lori Scarlatos and Simon Parsons (CIS), together with John Jannone (TV/R), from the National Science Foundation;
Richard Magliozzo (Chemistry) from the National Institutes of Health;
Andrew Delamater (Psychology), also from the NIH;
Theodore Muth (Biology) from the United States Department of Agriculture.

You deserve our applause.

Our achievements over these five years are a good omen as we enter our 75th year. The anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate what we have done and who we are � the faculty, the students and alumni, the campus. We now have concrete plans. There is a new logo; there will be events and activities; we'll have exhibits and memorabilia. Ideas for special events have come from many of you � an all-college birthday party, an arts festival. You'll get specific information and dates in good time. But mark your calendars now (Photo) for the birthday party on the Quad (10 May), for our annual Brooklyn College Day (9 June), and for an arts festival featuring the faculty and students in the arts, starting in May and spanning the rest of the year.

Are there questions? If not, the Stated Meeting stands adjourned.