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August 2008
Dear Colleagues:
To those of you returning to Queensborough, welcome back! To those of you who are joining our ranks for the first time, I wish you a long and happy tenure.
I look forward to officially welcoming all of you at a meeting scheduled for Friday, September 5th, at 9:30 a.m., in room M-136. As in previous years, I will review the performance indicators and how we fared in comparison to other CUNY colleges. Also, I will discuss the highlights of the strategic objectives for the coming academic year.
Below are some highlights of how we ended the past academic year and some of the challenges for the coming year.
The Middle States Self-Study is well on its way. The open hearings will take place in September and the dates for the preliminary and full visits have been set. They are: November 24 and 25 for the Preliminary visit by the Team Chair and March 15 through 18, 2009 for the Team accreditation visit. We will be ready.
During 2007-08, we spent a great deal of time involving the entire college community in the development of six Learning Academies. This coming year we will make final preparations to accept every first-time, full-time student through one of these Learning Academies. The full implementation of the Learning Academies will commence with the fall 2009 semester.
The Learning Academies include: Business; Education; Liberal Arts & Sciences; Health Related Sciences; Visual and Performing Arts; and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM.) In these Learning Academies:
- All first-time, full-time students will have an extended orientation (2 days).
- All first-time, full-time students will take at least two blocked courses or one learning community, including the Introduction to College Life course.
- Each student will have an administrative “home” staffed by a secretary and Student Manager. The Learning Academies will be staffed day and evening.
- Learning Academy specific counseling and discipline clustered tutoring will be provided.
- Student manager(s) will monitor the success of the students.
- Student activities will be tailored to each academy.
Under the able leadership of Dr. Sheena Gillespie, the Faculty Executive Committee has sponsored a Conference of the College for the last six years. The sixth Conference of the College, scheduled for October 19, 2008, will include faculty facilitators and their students discussing strategies to enhance student identity and academic success in preparation for the 09 launching of the Learning Academies.
The research program continues to mature; however, we still have a long way to go. Our Director for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Belle Gironda, accepted a position in the Middle East. CETL operates as a faculty development center and as an office of research. I intend to hire someone who will coordinate and stimulate research in experimental pedagogy at the community college level. He/she will help faculty members design pedagogical research protocols that may have a chance of being funded. He/she will coordinate with the Director of Sponsored Programs to find sources of funding for the research. I believe that there are significant private and public funding opportunities for this type of research.
In addition, as we embark upon an area of experimental pedagogical research that is not familiar territory for many of us, I will continue to insist that our Institutional Review Board be extremely careful in approving research protocols that involve our students. I know that there are some who believe that our IRB is unrealistic. I believe it is extremely important to have very high standards at this time in the development of our experimental research program. To that end, I am naming two faculty coordinators, on limited release time, to serve as resources for our faculty. These coordinators will be IRB trained and will render their opinions to the faculty before the grant application is submitted. This should obviate the possibility of having a research protocol rejected by the IRB after the project is funded.
You have heard about the budget situation. The State and the City are in a very difficult financial position. Our friends in the Legislature and the City Council did the best they could to protect CUNY, but we did not get all that we needed. On the revenue side, we are responding to these budget constraints by counting on additional enrollments. However, we must pay very close attention to the issue of capacity, in both physical and human resources. We must enhance our weekend and evening programs, we must increase enrollments in the Winter and Summer session, and we must offer more Distance Learning courses. On the expenditure side, we are hopeful that if we stay at the same level of expenditure as last year, the over-enrollments will compensate for the cuts. Needless to say, this will require some sacrifice on everyone’s part in order to preserve the quality of educational services that is the hallmark of our College. We will reallocate resources to ensure that the additional students can be accommodated without loss of educational services. This may mean some delayed hiring and some administrative cost-cutting.
The Buildings and Grounds staff has been busy this summer preparing the campus for the new semester. The establishment of academy spaces has been achieved for the Education and Visual and Performing Arts academies. Also ready are spaces for the Technology (of the STEM group) and the Business academies, with plans in place for the next phases of academies, coming in the next year. In FY 08, Finance and Administration exceeded CUNY productivity/efficiency targets. The funds made available were applied to over 35 projects to create, re-purpose and remodel instructional labs, classrooms, administrative offices, as well as support of initiatives such as emergency preparedness, technology, health and safety, facilities infrastructure upgrade, and the establishment of a fund for students’
presentations/performances at academic conferences/events. We enhanced ADA access with electronic doors to departments on the first floor of the Library, a digital signage system installed in 10 locations in three buildings and two V brick systems (fixed and portable) to permit live video broadcasting by college officials and authorized student leaders directly to the digital monitors around campus. Five additional classrooms were equipped as smart rooms this year.
Our thanks are extended to all of the faculty and staff who were cooperative and worked diligently to facilitate this summer’s asbestos abatement project in the Science Building. We are especially appreciative for Dr. Paris Svoronos’ participation as the academic affairs division coordinator for the project. Also, our thanks to the Buildings and Grounds staff for helping install new furniture and painting of faculty offices in the Science and Medical Arts buildings.
We exceeded our annual fundraising goal of $2.5 million even though our goal was based on a figure that included Harriet Kupferberg’s major gift of $1 million. We have expanded our Fund Board of Directors and recruited a number of interesting individuals who understand the requirements of Treasure, Time, and Talent. When we began to raise private funds, I told the Fund Board of Directors that the first two campaigns would be “catalyst” campaigns. In other words, while the main purpose of our fundraising efforts is to fund scholarships, faculty travel and research, we conducted these first two campaigns to change the conversation at the College.
I am delighted to report we have raised approximately $1.8 million toward the endowment of the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center. Our goal is $5 million. Although donations continue to come in, we are engaged in a fundraising strategy of having individuals host cocktail parties at their homes or at other locations for the express purpose of building our potential donor database. We hosted three of these cocktail receptions in Manhattan, and we have raised over $120,000 to-date.
The Art Gallery continues to offer world-class exhibits. This year we had two “blockbusters,” the Cameroon Exhibit and the Picasso Exhibit. More importantly, the College community is becoming more aware that these exhibits are mounted for pedagogical reasons: they must be incorporated into the Queensborough Community College student’s experience. Many faculty members are beginning to use these facilities as laboratories for writing, literature, history, basic skills and fine arts courses.
Another significant development has been in the area of student scholarships. I dream of the day when we can offer full scholarship to every full-time student who attends Queensborough Community College. Our Fund Board of Directors has heard me, and they have doubled the number of scholarships, enabling us to award $250,000 this year. We should be awarding $2 million; but that is in the future. More importantly, these are merit scholarships; so because they are not based on Financial Aid eligibility, they can be offered to our foreign students and those who are undocumented but able to attend CUNY under Board policy.
The Capital projects already funded for Queensborough Community College will be implemented. This year we will complete the Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and the perimeter fence. And, we are proceeding with plans to start the Central Cafeteria project during 2009-10.
In summary, our College is doing well. This year the major initiatives are:
- Full implementation of two new Learning Academies: Education and Visual and Performing Arts.
- Preparing to accept all full-time, first-time students in the fall 09 through one of the six Learning Academies.
- Establishing an infrastructure to promulgate experimental pedagogical research.
- Completing a successful Middle States Evaluation Team visit.
I am proud to be the president of a college that is truly a leader in community college education.
I will see you on September 5th.
Sincerely,
Eduardo J. Martí
President
Previous Convocation Speeches. These reports are in PDF format and will require Acrobat or equivalent to view.
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