Remarks at the Stated Meeting of the Faculty
18 September 2002
This is a movable feast. I hope you had your first course this morning in the Library. And I hope you made a first course this morning of our new Library. A second course of the Library — a film on how the new Library came to be and a guide for what you will find there — will follow shortly. And that will be followed by the main course of the meal we started in the Library — the annual Stated Meeting buffet luncheon: the curtain, you notice, is closed to conceal good things.
To prepare for all this, I have more good news.
As those who have been teaching in packed classrooms these last two weeks already know, enrollment is up. Our incoming freshman class is 13.74% larger than last year. The cohort of transfer students is 19.29% larger. Overall, our undergraduate enrollment has grown by 7.32%. When we saw this coming last June, we took a step we've never taken before: we closed freshman admissions. That, we think, will improve our cachet, and we've told the college counselors in the high schools that students who want to come to Brooklyn College would do well to apply early.
About 95% of the current freshman class is 20 years old or younger. We are looking, not at the mix of older and younger students we've become accustomed to but at a cohort of students of traditional college age. If the trend persists, the average age of our student body will drop and our students will have fewer work and family obligations. We will have to give thought to the kind of mentoring and counseling we should offer young people fresh out of high school. The ethnic make-up of the student body has changed little over the last three years though this year again we see a small increase in the representation of Asian students. And those of you who can hear geographical origin in an accent will have noticed that students from Queens are on the increase. 10% of the freshman class comes from Queens, replacing Staten Island as second-ranking borough.
We start the year with 26 new members of our faculty. We continue to build our strengths in all areas and this year particularly in the natural sciences, the performing arts, and the humanities. Searches for next year are underway.
I am pleased to recognize two new Leonard and Claire Tow Professors — George Cunningham, of Africana Studies, and Mac Wellman, of English. Would you please stand so that we may recognize you.
George Cunningham and Mac Wellman join our two other Tow professors — John Blamire, of Biology, and Tania Leon, of the Conservatory of Music, who recently brought honor to herself and to the College by winning the annual award of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and an honorary degree from Oberlin College.
Major fellowships have taken off campus Professor Annette Danto (Film), who is in India as a Fulbright Scholar, Professor Ellie Hisama (Music), a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow, and this year's three Whiting Fellows, Christopher Barnes (Classics), Martin Spinelli (TV/R), and Jocelyn Wills (History). The Whiting Fellowships reward exceptional teaching in the humanities with a year's leave to pursue scholarship.
I am also pleased to recognize those members of the staff commended by department chairs and supervisors for outstanding service and selected as "employees of the month" this past academic year. Would you please stand and remain standing until I have called the entire roll and we can recognize and applaud you.
For September 2001, Karen Munday (Chemistry)
For October 2001, Florence Valentino (English/ESL)
For November 2001, the EMS Team of the Office of Campus and Community Safety Services: Sheron Belfon, Eslon Bennett, Mario Cabrera, William Guillaume, Maureen Knight, Wyatt LeCadre, Edwin McBride, Robert Turner, Walter Soto
For December 2001, Blanca Gonzalez (Facilities)
For January 2002, Millicent Grant-Jagdeo (Financial Aid)
For February 2002, Brenda Hertzendorf (Human Resource Services)
For March 2002, Loretta Chin (Dean of Student Life)
For April 2002, Marga Battista (Sociology)
For May 2002, Levi Washington (Campus and Community Safety Services)
For June 2002, Kathy Napoli (TV/R)
Congratulations. You make the College work and we thank you.
Good fortune has rained down on some of our academic departments.
Some who have been here even longer than I will remember Walter Cerf, a specialist on Hegel, who came to Brooklyn College in 1948 and taught philosophy here for 24 years. Professor Cerf died last October, at 94, and left to the College our largest bequest ever: a $6.5 million endowment, to be divided equally among the Department of Art, the Department of Theater, and the Conservatory of Music.
Some years ago, Jacque Levy, an alumnus who took a degree in chemistry, bequeathed to the College funds to establish a professorship in analytical chemistry and another in physical chemistry. This year, as Mr. Levy's estate was settled, we received just over a million dollars for an endowment in the Department of Chemistry to be used for "scholarships, lectures and other programs."
Thanks to loyal friends, alumni, and members of the faculty, we now have at Brooklyn College what is not unusual at private universities: departmental endowments that provide annual funds in perpetuity.
Finally, the Princeton Review. You already know what I'm going to say, but this is so good I'm going to say it again. In the 2003 edition of Princeton Review's 345 Best Colleges, Brooklyn College ranks 9th for best college town, 5th for best relations among a diverse student body, 5th for Best Academic Bang for Your Buck, and 1st for most beautiful campus. We are smart and we are beautiful. We are terrific.
A famously beautiful campus, a brand spanking new library. On the strength of that we're going to clean up some classrooms — as we did early last year in Whitehead. The work has already started and will give us over 50 reappointed and freshly painted classrooms and lecture halls by the end of the academic year. We have made a special effort to provide well-equipped offices to new faculty, and we intend to extend that effort to the rest of the faculty. We are incorporating into the strategic plan a project to redo a number of offices annually.
Meanwhile, let's go back to the Library. I promised you a movie that tells us what a splendid acquisition we have made. And here it is.
[Film: From Vision to Legacy: A Brief History of the Brooklyn College Library]
Everyone who has been involved in any kind of construction and maintenance here on campus knows how indescribably difficult it is. The Library, our first major construction in thirty years, was as difficult as any.
Our local heroes are:
Steve Little
Steve Czirak
Barbra Higginbotham and all her colleagues in the Library and in Academic Computing
Mark Gold and David Best and their crew in Administrative Computing
Would you please stand so that we may thank you properly.
I take particular pleasure in remembering those who, with their private fortunes, helped the College furnish the new Library.
About two years ago, we started a capital campaign — quietly as is the practice. We invested a lot of time and effort and we continue to do so. The campaign has already yielded several multi-million dollar gifts, and we see the effect of these gifts throughout the campus. Most obviously, the Library Café. Less obviously, opportunities for students, especially in the Honors Academy; for faculty research and faculty research travel; and for some refurbishing of classrooms. Gifts by alumni enabled us to equip the Library with a million dollars' worth of computers.
You may have seen the names of major donors at various places in the new library — Morton Topfer ('57), Edith Everett ('49), Alexander Tanger (originally a member of the class of '41, who in fact graduated with the class of 2001), and his son Woody, not an alumnus, who gave in honor of his father.
Their loyalty to their alma mater and their commitment to "give back" is their way of thanking the College — for the instruction they received here, for professors whom they remember yet, for lasting friendships, and for entry into satisfying lives and careers. Present and future generations benefit from their generosity, and we thank them.
Are there questions or comments? If not, I invite you to join my wife, Flora, and me on the stage for the promised lunch.
