Remarks at the Stated Meeting of the Faculty
10 SEPTEMBER 2001
Let me begin with the two pressing questions: what does the budget -- or, in a now well-worn phrase, the bare bones budget -- that the legislature adopted last month mean for us? And where do we stand with enrollment this fall?
The adoption of a bare bones budget is the legislature's strategy for a showdown with the executive over fiscal matters. Ostensibly the two branches are quarreling over the amount of money available for a budget. In fact, they are quarrelling about who gets to write the budget, and that can be interpreted as a constitutional issue. Neither side is looking for a constitutional fight. There are signs that they are looking for a face-saving resolution to their spat.
Meanwhile, we have a version of the state budget that pares further what was not a generous budget prepared by the governor in january. It does not include funding the university requested for additional full-time faculty or for additional academic and student support services -- advising and counseling services, our writing-across-the curriculum initiative, freshman year programs, and such. Nor does it improve funding for doctoral student support, child care, the seek program, and such. What it does give us is a budget -- at Brooklyn College -- close to what we had a year ago.
What does that mean? First, it will allow us to continue with current searches for faculty and support staff. It will allow us to continue efforts to improve the campus and the areas in which we work. It allows us to cover contractual salary increments and other mandatory costs. We will feel the pinch in having to live with department and office budgets that do not reflect inflation and with an adjunct allocation that's even smaller than usual. All in all, constraining but not a crisis.
Now is the time to remind the governor and the legislature of our needs. We must write, all of us, right now. Please join me in this effort; it makes a difference. The department chairs have information and sample letters.
Enrollment. What matters is quality: that we have a student body that will benefit from the education we provide, take advantage of the opportunities we offer, and meet the high expectations all of you set in your classrooms. Numbers matter too: that we attract and retain students, since their tuition, however it is paid, covers about half of our operating budget.
This was the first year of the new process -- called "Multiple Admissions" -- in which Brooklyn College competes with other CUNY colleges to capture a freshman class. The conventional measures used to compare us with other institutions (college admissions averages and sat scores) show that we are getting better-prepared students than we did last year. In fact, the regular first-year students we admitted to the college this year had the highest sat scores in the university.
This fall we admitted our first class of 35 CUNY Honors College students and a new cohort of 57 presidential scholars. They were born in some 11 different countries, command some 15 different languages, achieved high school averages uniformly in the 90s and average sat scores close to 1300 (with one perfect score). They are committed to their studies, members of the national honor society, active in the community. They tutored Middle School students, coached the girls' swimming team at the Y, published poems and fiction, and won 7th place in the Chess Nationals.
Elizabeth is a member of the CUNY Honors College. One of the outstanding students to graduate from Fontbonne [Font Bonn] Hall Academy this year, she represented her school at Yale University seminars and at the UN conference on global warming. She won a first-place award from the National Library of Poetry and a Women-In-Math-And-Science award. She's a member of Greenpeace, Tutors Grammar School Children, and is Active in her church. She chose Bbrooklyn College.
Elizabeth is one of 14,884 students enrolled at the college as of this morning. We have experienced notable increases in new students -- entering freshmen and transfers. Those of you who saw this morning's Times may be puzzled by that statement. The decline the Times reports is attributable to our decision to set the number of seek students we enroll at where it was in 1999, before the unusual increase we saw last year. Regular freshmen are up by about 8%; transfers by about 3%.
The number of returning students, undergraduate and graduate, is also up from last year. We are doing less well in the number of non-degree students, undergraduates taking courses beyond the bachelor's degree, and graduate students hoping to meet our admissions criteria by taking preparatory courses. On balance, we are up in quality, up in areas where it matters, and have a total slightly above what it was last year.
National searches have brought us 32 new members of the faculty this year of whom we are, with reason, very proud. Their names will be posted on our web page and we welcome them. We have authorized 33 faculty searches for the coming year. Our new provost will oversee these searches and much else. I am delighted to introduce Roberta Matthews to the entire faculty.
That brings us up to date.
Our plans for the coming year. Last year, as you know, we developed a multi-year strategic plan, and I thank you again for your contributions in the form of insights and suggestions and of hard work. And I know I will ask for more of that in the future.
Let me expand on four matters of great importance to our Strategic Plan: enrollment; academic programs; technology; and campus construction.
Enrollment. Under the strategic plan, we undertake to recruit promising and well-prepared students of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds and to retain them. From our experience recruiting students under the university's new multiple admissions process, we can draw three useful conclusions. One, we're still not doing as well as we should in attracting the high-achieving high school students who would flourish at brooklyn college. Two, we're still not doing as well as we should with transfer students. Three, we're still not doing as well as we should with retention. Under the aegis of the provost we will launch a major initiative that addresses these deficits. You will see changes in our recruiting and marketing strategies. We will do something about a reputation that represents us as something less than transfer-friendly. And we'll do something about retaining students whom we value and who benefit from being here. Students come to and stay at colleges where they feel welcome, can progress at their desired pace, and can engage with peers and faculty in a rewarding experience.
There's work to be done here.
The Strategic Plan commits us anew to academic quality, to building programs of distinction and making them effective. The Honors Academy, one priority, will prosper and grow as it integrates the new cuny honors college. We need to develop academic programs that respond to changes in the discipline, to shifting student interests, and to new opportunities. The core curriculum, our signature, has just turned twenty. The strategic plan directs us to learn whether it meets the lofty goals we have set for it. Last year, faculty council discussed and then endorsed a significant departure in core 5. The core committee proposed a core director and new roles for the core coordinators. One of the student newspapers ran a series of articles on student opinion of the core. Straws in the wind. We need to determine for ourselves whether the core, which is our commitment to general education in the liberal arts, is in fact working as we want it to. Does it comply with the demand of middle states, our accrediting agency, that we measure the outcomes of our academic programs?
Our technology and its applications are known as the most innovative and advanced in the university. Our faculty is much admired for resourceful web-based instruction; our administrative practices are copied; initiatives such as webgrade are envied; the college website gets top billing. We have used technology to enhance what we do and what we want to do. For all that, we have yet to develop a coherent sense of what we want technology to do for us. It is, after all, a tool, and not a goal in itself. Where do we want to go with it; how do we solve problems of maintenance, support, upgrading and replacement; how do we best exploit its advantages without undermining our basic purpose and mission? We need to arrive at a comprehensive statement that answers these questions and enables us to plan intelligently.
Finally, construction. The library -- both the new annex and the renovated part -- will open in february 2002. As this project reaches completion, we look to the next: the west quad. Since spring, a group of faculty and administrators has been meeting with architects and consultants to determine what will be housed in the new building and how to take best advantage of the space that will open up in existing buildings. We're just about at the end of that process, and in a month or so we'll ask the architects to start designing the building.
These big projects will engage us all.
Having dwelt long on how we can improve ourselves, let us now congratulate ourselves.
We are proud to have appointed Michael Cunningham, whose novel The Hours won the pulitzer prize in 1999, distinguished professor of English, where he adds yet further luster to the MFA program in Creative Writing. Professor David Berger, Department of History, has been named Broeklundian Professor, and Professor John Blamire, Department of Biology, has been named Tow Professor. Would you please stand so that we can recognize you.
Major research grants have been awarded to Professor Martha Bell, Department of Educational Services; Professor Stephen Lepore and to Distinguished Drofessor Anthony Sclafani, both in Psychology; to Distinguished Professor Theodore Raphan and to Professor Lori Scarlatos, both in Computer Science; to Professor Virginia Sanchez-Korrol of the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies; to Professor Shlomo Silman, Speech Communication Arts and Sciences; and to Professor Sophia Perdikaris, Anthropology. Professor Arthur Bankoff, also Anthropology, heads a research team that will analyze and catalogue half a million artifacts unearthed during recent construction work in city hall park. Would you please stand.
Since last spring, when i introduced our first employee of the month, we have recognized other committed members of our staff: carl paparella (chemistry), johana rivera (registrar), arcangela lopez (student life), george essex (facilities), and karen munday (chemistry). Please stand and be recognized.
We can also recognize a new program -- TOCA, The On-Course Advantage, that allows students to complete their studies in four or five years. Piloted by the office of the Dean of Undergraduate studies, it enrolled more than 200 students last spring, and we expect it to go well beyond that this coming year. Dean Ellen Belton and her staff deserve our thanks.
Finally, Kathie Gover, of the office of the Dean of Undergraduate studies; Myra Kogan, of the Learning Center; and Mark Gold, of Computer Services, working with colleagues from other areas, applied for and won a grant from the Department of Education in Washington for some $1.7 Million which we will use to establish a virtual student service center. Using the web, students will be able to inquire at any time about their standing, progress toward a degree, and eligibility for financial aid. They can find information on courses, course equivalencies, and online tutoring. This we hope will make our students do even better and want to stay. Kathie, Myra, Mark, would you please stand.
Are there questions or comments? If not, I adjourn the stated meeting of the faculty -- and invite you to join my wife, Flora, and me for a reception on the stage.
