The Advocate

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CUNY Adopts “Master Plan”

The following is a press release from the CUNY Board of Trustees:

New Schools, Programs, Faculty, Buildings in Plan

The City University’s Board of Trustees has adopted a master plan that provides an innovative and diverse educational road map for the 19-campus system through 2008.
Most notable in the plan, which was adopted at the May meeting of the Board, is the call to hire 800 new full-time faculty members that will assure CUNY’s
continuing rise within the ranks of preeminent institutions of higher education.“

With this master plan,” Chancellor Matthew Goldstein said, “the University will continue its institutional renewal, will strengthen its high academic standards and will continue its mission to offer more meaningful educational opportunities to the widest range of students, including, importantly, those who are among the most highly qualified as well as those inadequately prepared for college.”

Among other key initiatives contained in the 2004-2008 master plan, which will be submitted to the N.Y. State Board of Regents, are the following:

*A Coordinated Undergraduate Education Initiative will aim at strengthening undergraduate education by bringing together several projects that have been developed in recent years to maximize student success. These include: the Coordinated Freshman Programs, free Summer Immersion Programs, Academic Support Programs, Writing Across the Curriculum and the new General Education Project, a University-wide investigation of the foundations of what should constitute a college education in the 21st century. The Project has been engaging faculty, students and administrators from the 17 colleges.

*The plan envisions the opening, in September 2005, of a new Graduate School of Journalism. Tapping the wide array of New York City media resources, including established professionals, the school will prepare students for careers in TV, radio and print news and will focus on media coverage of the metropolis.

*The building of a $198-million Advanced Science Research Center on the City College campus in Harlem will consolidate core resources from all CUNY campuses. The center—which will be supported by NASA, the National Institutes of Health and private companies—will focus on bioscience and biosensing, which has many practical applications, including monitoring and identifying biological terrorism and the treatment of disease. It will function in conjunction with the Center for Macromolecular Assemblies at the College of Staten Island and CCNY’s Structural Biology Center.

*Concentrated hiring of new faculty members in designated key disciplines is also planned. Among these key areas are art history, visual arts and foreign languages, as well as in digital media, an evolving academic discipline that promises numerous new practical business applications, and in photonics, a field in which researchers are exploring ways to harness light to generate energy.

*The University will implement a system-wide program to improve the recruitment, retention and graduation rates of male African-American and Caribbean-American students. This initiative will build upon existing CUNY programs, notably the Male Development and Empowerment Center at Medgar Evers College, which recently was expanded to actively involve other CUNY campuses. The CUNY Prep transitional high school, which has enjoyed success in this area, will serve as a model for the new initiative.

*The U.S. History Initiative will be enhanced by adding more senior faculty who have expertise in scholarship and teaching. The program will also be strengthened by the introduction of new online courses and teaching methods. Such measures will ensure that CUNY’s diverse student body, which includes a significant new-immigrant population, will be able to gain a thorough knowledge of the history of their new country.

*Expansion of the School of Professional Studies, a schedule-flexible Master’s-level program, will strengthen the University’s ability to respond to the educational needs of business and industry, unions, non-profit organizations, City agencies, and self-employed members of the city’s workforce. Both credit and non-credit opportunities will be offered. Credits will be applicable to undergraduate and advanced degrees, as well as certificates and accreditations in such fields as education, law, art and culture, finance, health and human services, and foreign languages.

*The plan includes enhancement of CUNY’s teacher-training programs in close collaboration with the Department of Education. The goal is to identify and project teacher shortages in each subject area and coordinate teacher-education programs to meet these needs. CUNY will also improve and streamline procedures by which future City public-school teachers transfer from community to senior colleges.

*CUNY’s veterans’ services and liaisons will also be improved under the plan. This will help in facilitating untimely exits and readmissions when soldiers are called to active duty. CUNY will be better able to collaborate with the Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs in providing up-to-date information on veterans’ benefits.