Remarks at the Stated Meeting of the Faculty
September 20, 2000
A lot has happened since we last met here. On our Web page you'll find information on recent developments -- on the college budget and fall enrollment, among other things. I'll concentrate today on matters related to our future planning.
Let me give you an update on some of the important short-term goals that I mentioned last spring.
One was to make Brooklyn College a more inviting campus: clean, secure, and hospitable. The quadrangle and the walks are cleaner, as I'm sure you've noticed, and so are the classrooms and the hallways. Over the summer we painted offices and fixed up labs; you'll find hundreds of new chairs in the classrooms and a face lift in the cafeteria. A temporary faculty lounge is open. The wooden deck outside Whitehead is under repair. Residents in James already have new windows; those in Boylan will have them soon. We've scheduled a major renovation for this theater and for Gershwin. We completed all these projects with our own crews, assisted by a staff of temporary carpenters, electricians, custodians, and maintenance workers, and they did good work.
I hope you're as proud as I am of that photograph on the first page of the real estate section of Sunday's Times: a brilliant shot of the new library, with the bell tower, as seen looking down from the roof of New Ingersoll. Construction continues on schedule and we expect the new library to open a year from now. We're about to begin discussion of the configuration and uses of the building that will stand at the end of the new West Quad. The new chiller plant, at the west gate of the parking lot, has passed a battery of tests lately and is being hooked up to cool many of the buildings on campus. These projects, part of the capital master plan we adopted a few years ago, and others to come will transform the campus.
A second goal is to make Brooklyn College student-centered, which means adapting our campus systems to our students' needs. The On-Course Advantage, which will enable selected students to proceed to a degree as rapidly as they wish, begins this fall as a pilot project. My thanks to the task force. The Topfer Library Café is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and our students love it. They really are there all the time.
Finally, our third goal: Brooklyn College recognizes excellence. We honor exceptional achievement by our faculty and we give new faculty time they need to pursue their scholarly interests and build their scholarly reputations.
National searches have brought us 15 new members of the faculty this year. Their names are on the Web page and we welcome them. We have authorized 28 faculty searches for the coming year. Our new acting provost will oversee these searches and much else. I am delighted to introduce Elizabeth Beaujour to the entire faculty.
The Brooklyn College Foundation, at my request, has funded released time from teaching for young faculty and four new Broeklundian professorships, for a total of 12. A call for nominations will go out shortly.
At a time of fiscal exigency some years ago, we stopped appointing Distinguished Professors at Brooklyn College. I've consulted with the chairs and decided to resume appointments. The competition for appointment as Distinguished Professor enlarges our horizons, helps us recruit faculty, and enables us to recognize major accomplishment on campus -- all part of our long-term strategic plan. I've also opened discussions on how the College can dissemi nate information on prestigious fellowships -- Guggenheims, NEH, ACLS, and the like -- and help members of the faculty compete.
I announce with great pleasure the appointment of our new Murray Koppelman Professor, Gail Gurland, of the Department of Speech Communication Arts and Sciences. Would Professor Gurland please stand and receive our congratulations. Would the donors please stand and receive our thanks: Murray Koppelman, class of 1957, and Elizabeth Koppelman.
Last spring, Leonard Tow, class of 1950, and Claire Tow, class of 1952, approached me with a proposal to create several travel stipends and professorships in their name. Mr. and Mrs. Tow have now given us funds for travel fellowships that will enable members of the faculty to pursue research projects, collaborate with colleagues, work at research institutes, and undertake fieldwork in the United States and abroad. They have also given us funds for travel stipends for upper-division students who want to travel abroad to pursue their studies, learn foreign languages, or conduct research. Specific information on these stipends is being prepared for publication and will be available shortly.
Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Tow have given us funds for four new Tow Professorships to be awarded to scholars and artists of national reputation. The Tow Professorships are for a term of two years and carry a stipend of $25,000 a year. In consultation with the Provost, I have chosen our first three Tow Professors for the term 2000-2002. I proceeded thus in keeping with the donors' wishes and in order to establish a standard. With great pride I present two scholars and an artist who enjoy national standing. When you hear your name, may I ask you please to rise and remain standing. Let us withhold our applause until we can congratulate all three: Lesley Davenport, Professor of Chemistry; Margaret King, Professor of History; Tania Leon, Professor of Music.
During the semester that has just begun, I shall give great attention to three important projects: enrollment, strategic planning, and fundraising.
On enrollment, I have good news. The College experienced a increase of nearly 9% in the number of regular freshmen who enrolled. We led the University in percentage increase of total applications and of the number of applicants who named Brooklyn College as their first choice.
Enrollment matters. The quality of our students is central to our undertaking to make Brooklyn College the best of the CUNY colleges and eventually the best of its kind in the country. Recent changes in CUNY admissions policy will make recruiting more competitive, and we must extend and focus our marketing and recruiting, targeting students who meet our high expectations and who can profit from what we offer. We've retained a consultant to help us with this effort, to which all of us can contribute.
Enrollment, as you know, is not only about recruiting new students but also about retaining those that are here. We will direct our energies at finding yet further ways to do so. This too will involve us all.
A discussion draft of the strategic plan, my second big project this semester, will arrive in your mailbox tomorrow. That draft distills the deliberations of the Planning Council and of a dozen committees and incorporates contributions by faculty, administrators, and students. Please read the draft carefully and participate in subsequent discussions in meetings at the department level and then in open hearings.
A strategic plan sets out institutional goals in keeping with the College's mission and describes the means of attaining these goals. Our paramount goal for the next five years is to establish Brooklyn College as a model of its kind within the University, in the region, and nationwide. Three important means, discussed in the strategic plan, will enable us to attain that goal:
First, we want to maintain and improve our academic quality. We build on a solid foundation: Brooklyn College is known throughout the University for its good programs. Our faculty is exceptionally committed to the College and exceptionally committed to reform and renewal. We undertake now to attract -- and to retain -- an academically-prepared student body, to whom we offer a curriculum rich in the liberal arts and in appropriate and effective pre -professional and professional programs. We want to support our students academically and socially with good teaching, tutoring, technology, advising, and counseling. We want to develop clear and rigorous standards to measure student progress and qualification for graduation and faculty qualification for promotion and tenure. And we need to renew our programs.
As a second means of making Brooklyn College a model of its kind, the strategic plan undertakes to assure a student-centered campus. We want to consolidate a college community that is dedicated to learning, that values high standards and rewards achievement, and that cultivates an atmosphere of civility and respect. We want to give our students a range of offerings that allows them to attain their educational goals. We want to free their lives here of impediments and obstacles, from the moment when they apply until the moment when they graduate. The quality of the education that we offer our students should be the measure by which we judge ourselves and choose our priorities.
The third way we can make Brooklyn College a model of its kind is to make it a "model citizen" in the borough of Brooklyn. We carry the name of the borough in our name and our students come to us mainly from the borough of Brooklyn. The borough is our resource and we want return to the borough assets that we gain from it. We should make the borough a subject of study and a setting for internships, training programs, and fieldwork. We should engag e the local community, businesses, families, and individuals in ways appropriate to our academic mission, contributing to needed change in the local school system and to the community's economic development, and we must maintain productive relationships with elected officials and other supporters.
One of the great mysterious things a college president does, mysterious because one hears about it on campus but never sees it (which is as it should be), is fundraising, my third big project for this semester. In an era of diminished public funding, private funds and the effort to attract them are of immeasurable importance to the future of the College. Fundraising, to cite an example close to home, has put Baruch College on the map. And fundrais ing will bring us, as it has brought Baruch, the things we want.
At my urging last spring, the Brooklyn College Foundation engaged Community Counseling Services, a respected consulting firm, which it has subsequently decided -- also at my urging -- to retain for the next 18 months. CCS made a survey of donors and potential donors that suggests that a fundraising campaign in the tens of millions of dollars is appropriate and feasible. It will be the biggest campaign we've ever undertaken. The survey also indicat ed that donors want to see their funds applied to the recruitment, development, and retention of a superior faculty, to the pursuit of academic quality and academic programs, to improvements in campus life and technology, and to support for students. And these are the priorities of our strategic plan.
I have described my three big projects for the semester -- enrollment, strategic planning, and fundraising -- so that you will know what I am doing when you don't see me and so that you won't be surprised when I call on you for help.
Now I have a surprise for you. When we were redoing the front steps of Boylan Hall, we discovered in a hollow stone in the frame of the doorway, a metal box, 24-gauge copper, welded shut. Here it is. This box went into the masonry when the building went up.
In October 1936, President Roosevelt was here to lay the cornerstone of a building that came to be named Roosevelt Hall. On 28 October, the Times reports, the President, accompanied by his wife, Governor Lehman, and Mayor LaGuardia, spoke to some 7,000 people gathered on the grounds shortly before noon.
The President said: "I have seen Brooklyn College in pictures and now I have seen the real article with my own eyes. Every time the Mayor of New York comes to Washington I tremble, because it means he wants something, and he almost always gets it. This project is killing two birds with one stone. It is not only putting to work thousands of people who need work [Brooklyn College, we know, was a WPA project], but it also is improving educational fac ilities now and for generations to come.... I am interested in all projects for the improvement of education, and my wish for Brooklyn College is the fine future it deserves. May it live to build up a better American citizenship." So saying, he picked up a trowel, spread some mortar and placed his hand on the cornerstone as it was pushed into place by two workmen.
Back to the box. I have a confession to make. I peeked and I know what's in this box. And I'm the only one who knows. I invite Professor KC Johnson of the Department of History to join me here and describe to you what he finds in the box.
The college archivist will arrange a display of all the contents of the box. Then we will add our contribution and put the box back where we found it.
Are there questions? If not, I would be pleased to have you join my wife, Flora, and me for a reception on the stage.
