Introductory letter to the Faculty
Colleagues and Friends,
I return to Brooklyn College with pleasure and full of optimism. I bring with me knowledge of the University such as one can acquire only by running it and acquaintance with people at the colleges and the Central Office, in Albany, and at City Hall that will, I believe, greatly benefit the College.
My experience as interim chancellor and as provost of Brooklyn College under the two previous presidents convinces me that Brooklyn College can become the best of the University’s colleges - the jewel of the system - and one of the best colleges in New York State.
Our first responsibility is to our students. Many are the first in their family to attend college, and they look to us for the education that will help them enter the American mainstream and gain economic security. We are in conscience bound to demand of them their best work and to offer them the solid foundation in the liberal arts that will advance them toward their goals. I want to attract to Brooklyn College the best students in the city’s high schools and to retain them continuously through graduation.
This means that the College must enjoy a strong academic reputation founded on real quality; that all our students - incoming freshmen, transfers, adult students, and graduate students - must be able to negotiate our systems free of obstacles; and that we must give them the support - moral, financial, and intellectual - that will enable them to satisfy our rigorous academic requirements while carrying their many other responsibilities.
The heart of the enterprise is teaching and learning: the content of our curriculum and the effectiveness of our instruction. I believe we should have classes of reasonable size, taught with dedication by a faculty of scholarly distinction that is rewarded for its achievements. This spring I will present proposals for increasing the number of named professorships and for establishing other rewards, especially for new faculty members, and for making these awards more prestigious and more meaningful.
Brooklyn College is known for its good programs. Our nationally recognized core curriculum and our Honors Academy are models for the other CUNY colleges. Our record in winning major grants to underwrite these programs is unmatched and widely admired, as is our technological support of our programs.
I plan to continue our tradition of distinguished programs by addressing the training of aspiring and in-service teachers. The plight of the American public schools has captured public attention at last, and I want Brooklyn College to contribute importantly to national, regional, and local movements toward reform and renewal. I also want to respond to the ambitions of our students by offering the best professional and preprofessional programs in the City University, informed by a first-class liberal arts curriculum.
I attach great value to the quality of life on the campus, and I appreciate the patience and courtesy practiced by the College staff, who deal with a larger public than either the faculty or the administration encounters. I shall expect members of my administration to set an example, providing encouragement and support to the most important component of the Brooklyn College community: our students.
I have gained a reputation - of which I am rather proud - for my interest in performance measures, outcome assessment, and institutional effectiveness. I believe that the performance of an institution should be monitored at all levels and that these indicators weigh heavily in decisions about governance. As we prepare our strategic plan for the next five years, we will want to define specific performance goals consistent with our mission and to devise criteria by which we can measure progress and effectiveness.
We are a public institution with an obligation to public service. We are not richly funded and we must work hard. The state is unlikely to fund us at the level we need for the kind of quality we want to achieve (a condition I want to correct), and we must call on alumni and friends for help.
I return to the College as to my second home-glad to be back and among friends and eager to make a new beginning. I invite you to join me in a great common undertaking - to give me your counsel and advice, your help and support, your proposals for new programs and your comments on current ones - as we undertake a college-wide effort To be the Best. Brooklyn College deserves that effort, and it is worthy of that place among the CUNY colleges.
