New York State Education Department

1. To determine what additional information, if any, is needed from CUNY or the State Education Department to adequately assess CUNY’s plan to eliminate remediation at its senior colleges;

2. To conduct site visits to representative senior and community colleges to assess the potential impact of the proposed plan;

3. To provide an assessment of CUNY’s plans in terms of criteria that include mission and purpose, academic quality, access to higher education, resources, fiscal viability, and evaluation; and

4. To identify any deficiencies or recommended changes in the proposed plan.

This report represents the unanimous findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the panel. The “we” of the text is specific and limited to the members of the panel and reflect neither prior review or approval of the Board of Regents, the New York State Department of Education, or the City University of New York, its faculty, staff, students, trustees, or senior officers. Our findings and recommendations relate only to CUNY and should not be applied to other contexts, institutions, or circumstance.

For clarity of presentation, we have divided our assessment of the planning occasioned by the proposed plan into two parts. The first section of the report, “Answering the Charge,” directly addresses the Regents’ charge, as outlined above. The second section, “Issues for Consideration,” presents our more general considerations and recommendations to the Regents and to CUNY. This latter section is meant to provide a broader context, as the Board of Regents deliberates the proposed Amendment to the CUNY Master Plan.

Answering the Charge

We would like to begin by extending our thanks to the New York State Department of Education and the City University of New York for organizing a comprehensive and successful series of meetings and site visits, as well as providing the data necessary for assessing both CUNY’s plans and intentions. The schedule was tight, but manageable, the meetings almost uniformly informative and cordial, and the materials collected readable and comprehensive.

As outsiders, we have no doubt that we have missed many of the nuances associated with the provision of quality education in an environment that is always complex, frequently contentious, and more than occasionally confrontational. Nonetheless, we believe that we have come away from our assignment with a thorough understanding of what has been proposed, why it is controversial, and what impediments to its success exist—as well as of the planning that has proceeded on the assumption that these obstacles can be overcome.

Our specific findings in relation to our charge and the questions posed to us by the Board of Regents are the following:

1. Determine what additional in formation, if any, is needed from CUNY or the Department to adequately assess CUNY’S plan to eliminate remediation at its senior colleges.

In answering the charge put forth by the Regents, we drew upon direct observation, interviews, and a variety of technical analyses and projections for the most part supplied by CUNY’S Central Administration. While our own analysis was subject to time constraints, we believe the resources provided and site visits conducted were sufficient for arriving at a sound evaluation.

We want to note at the outset, however, that our willingness to endorse CUNY’s planning for the implementation of the proposed Amendment to its Master Plan is based on a set of projections stating that only a relatively small number of students will be impacted by the proposed change in admissions criteria and the elimination of remedial course instruction from the senior colleges. Like most such projections, their accuracy will not be fully determined until the process of implementation has actually begun. Recognizing this limitation, the plan itself calls for a phased implementation of the new policy, beginning with those senior colleges best able to meet the new standards now. We therefore recommend that Phase 1 of the plan be carefully monitored to determine the extent to which the actual numbers of students affected match CUNY’s projections. To the extent that the projections prove to understate the number of students affected, CUNY’s planning will have to be revised.

2. Conduct visits to representative senior and community colleges to assess the potential impact of the proposed plan.

To carry out our charge, between August 29 and 31, 1999, we conducted site visits with faculty, staff, and students at senior and community college CUNY campuses, as well as with representatives of CUNY’s Central Administration. The focus of these visits and interviews was to determine:

1. The scope and detail of CUNY’s planning for implementing the proposed Amendment;

2. The extent to which CUNY is prepared to commit sufficient human and fiscal resources to carry out that planning; and

3. How CUNY will evaluate the success of its efforts to implement the proposed Amendment to its Master Plan.

3. Provide an assessment as to whether CUNY’s planning meets each of six criteria.

Criteria 1: Mission and Purpose. The proposed change in admissions policy is consistent with CUNY’s historic mission and statutory purpose, including its “commitment to academic excellence and to the provision of equal access and opportunity for students, faculty, and staff from all ethnic and racial groups from both sexes” (Education Law § 6201).

We find that the proposed change is consistent with CUNY’s historic mission and statutory purpose, given that the new policy is intended to promote higher academic standards at CUNY senior colleges and to ensure that their admitted students are prepared to engage in college-level work—while continuing a dedication to equal access within the system.

Criteria 2: Academic Quality. The proposed change enhances the quality of the academic programs at CUNY’s community and senior colleges, including those provided for remediation purposes. The faculty and support staff are sufficient in number and teaching experience and are appropriately assigned to implement effectively CUNY’s plan. The use of resources is conducive to good instruction and learning.

In general, we believe that the proposed change promises to enhance the quality of academic programs—including developmental programs—across the University. Of particular importance is the potential for the change in policy to strengthen articulation between the University’s community and senior colleges. CUNY deserves to be congratulated on the plan’s expansion of the range of interventions offering remediation to a wide variety of students in need of academic support.

We found no indications that the resources provided to implement CUNY’s planning will lead to less effective instruction and learning. Only time and practice will tell whether each individual institution’s advising system will prove to be up to the task and whether key measures for ensuring good instruction, such as smaller class sizes in developmental courses, are realized. At the same time, the incremental elimination of programs of remedial course instruction at senior colleges will need to be carefully monitored at each implementation phase.

In addition, we strongly recommend that CUNY personnel draw more extensively on the growing research literature documenting what works and, just as importantly, does not work when seeking to remediate a student’s readiness for college-level work. Of particular importance are the growing number of alternatives to formal remediation. CUNY itself might consider assembling a review team to evaluate the remediation activities delivered by the four senior colleges during Phase 1 of the plan.

Criteria 3. Access to Higher Education. The proposed change does not diminish affordable and equitable access to higher education for residents of New York City.

We do not believe that, in the aggregate, the proposed change in policy will diminish affordable and equitable access to higher education—although, clearly, access to CUNY’s senior colleges will be based more on standards of individual student preparedness. What this policy will do is marginally reduce student choice regarding initial attendance at a CUNY senior college. The projected outcomes of the new policy estimate that less than 250 students per year who apply to senior colleges will be required to seek remediation at a community college; in our opinion that total does not represent an inequitable outward shift of students from the University’s four-year to its two-year institutions.

Here, again, we need to accompany our finding with an important caveat. A key to the success of the Amendment to the Master Plan is the availability of a free summer remedial immersion program, which reduces the likelihood that the proposed change will have a disproportionate, negative impact on access for low-income students. CUNY’s ability to sustain this commitment to a free program of summer remediation is essential to the plan’s success and needs to be monitored. More generally, we remain concerned that the proposed Amendment could have a disproportionate impact on those students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Criteria 4. Resources. Under the revised admissions procedures, CUNY has the human and physical resources to support learning and services of appropriate breadth and quality for all of its students. CUNY has an effective system to assure each student has access to the resources needed to undertake and complete his/her program of study.

We were not able to assess whether current levels of human and physical resources are of appropriate breadth and quality to address the remediation challenge faced by the University. However, there is nothing to indicate that the revised admissions procedures will diminish the magnitude or quality of resources currently available. Indeed, institutions in at least the first phase of implementation appear to have access to more resources. Where inequities existed in the University prior to the phase-out of remedial course instruction at the senior colleges, they are likely to continue.

Criteria 5. Fiscal Viability. CUNY’s current and prospective fiscal resources are sufficient to carry out its objectives and to implement the proposed change in admissions requirements. while maintaining academic programs and related services at academically sound and effective levels.

Again, we believe that the level of allocated and projected resources will not diminish CUNY’s ability to carry out its objectives or maintain academic programs and services at effective levels. According to the information provided, the magnitude of resources budgeted is equal to or greater than current levels. As mentioned in the discussion of Criteria 4 above, resources appear to be more than adequate for implementation at the first four institutions during Phase 1.

However, in the second phase, we are concerned that the level of internal reallocation for both City College and Lehman College may not prove adequate. IA the final phase of the plan, the issue of resources is likely to prove even more problematic for Medgar Evers College and York College, given the magnitude of the challenges facing the institutions in the last stage of the phase-out of remedial course instruction in their baccalaureate programs.

Criteria 6. Evaluation. CUNY has a plan of appropriate scope and depth to monitor and evaluate, at each affected unit, student attainment, persistence, and rate of degree completion, including impact on student access and mobility within the CUNY system and on the communities it affects, in accordance with CUNY’s mission and purpose.

We believe that CUNY is well-equipped to monitor and evaluate the following items: student attainment, persistence, rate of degree completion, and impact on student access. If CUNY maintains an integrated student database, it will be possible to monitor and evaluate the mobility of individual students across the University. To the extent that CUNY changes its instruments of evaluation, particularly the FSAT, it will have to pay close attention to the establishment of benchmarked results.

We have no way of determining if CUNY will be able to monitor and evaluate the proposed change’s impact on the communities it serves. Although many institutions across the country have tried to make such a calculation, the fact remains that there is no ready methodology for answering these questions—though their importance is now greater than ever.

At the moment, CUNY has collected a respectable amount of data to analyze the outcomes of alternative remediation activities. However, this data collection was done in support of the planning process. We are not sure tat an ongoing, systematic, and institution-by-institution evaluation has been built into the implementation plan. The lack of such a systematic evaluation of remediation is a potentially serious flaw in CUNY’s planning. We recommend that the design and testing of an effective plan for the evaluation of remediation at each institution become an integral component of Phase 1 implementation. Without such evaluation, CUNY administrators will not know which parts of the plan are working and which parts are failing both the University and its students.

4. Identify any deficiencies and/or recommend any changes in the proposed plan.

We have identified the following deficiencies and recommend the following changes to. the proposed planning to implement the Amendment to the Master Plan. While each of these deficiencies is important and needs to be remedied, none are serious enough to warrant a delay in the start of implementation:

1. The planning is potentially deficient in tracking those students who pass summer immersion but require support once regular course attendance begins. In addition, the planning does not address what happens to students who pass out of remediation altogether but still require it at some point in their college careers.

2. The policy—and, hence, the Amendment to the Master Plan as adopted by the Trustees—establishes a dichotomy between foreign- and native-born students who require ESL programs. We believe that dichotomy to be a false one—one that should not be embedded in the proposed Amendment. Moreover, we can not help but wonder whether this false dichotomy reflects the inappropriate conflation of ESL programs with remediation.

3. The planning to implement the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan does not contain sufficient measures to ensure that all of CUNY’s community colleges are involved in building partnerships with its senior colleges.

4. The planning does not appear to contain a contingency plan for providing adequate levels of student support services if the actual number of students affected are significantly larger than what is projected or if there are significant increases in student fail rates on the FSAT or an equivalent standard.

5. The new programs and initiatives that are being introduced in support of the proposed change in policy lack a noncognitive or affective assessment. This oversight is inconsistent with contemporary practice in developmental education.

6. There do not appear to be provisions within the planning for training or retraining the faculty and staff who will be providing instruction in the programs’ newly developed forms of remediation.

7. What is substantially lacking at the moment is an effective communications strategy explaining what the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan does and, just as importantly, does not do. While we recognize that legal concerns may have placed constraints on the amount of information that could be publicly released, we were surprised that many students equated the Amendment with the Mayor’s Task Force report “An Institution Adrift.” In addition, many students and counselors viewed the plan as being a remedial “all or nothing,” while presidents understood that remediation would continue through support services. CUNY’s administration may wish to work aggressively with the media, faculty and staff unions, and professional associations to clarify the plan’s actual meaning and impact.

8. The discussion and controversy surrounding the proposed Amendment has tended to focus on the passing of tests, but not on remedial achievement per se. Too little attention has been given to how CUNY will ensure that the exit standards from remedial courses and programs are consistent with the entry standards of the college-level curriculum.

9. The new policies deriving from the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan are silent on the steps necessary for addressing the remediation needs of current matriculants.

10. Differentiated funding does not reflect the needs of the colleges, as reported to the team. Current statutory appropriation laws and resource allocation strategies mandate a differentiated funding pattern between CUNY’s senior and community colleges. These expenditure patterns have been historically driven by State and City funding practices in conjunction with the Central Administration’s determination of need. Therefore, these patterns do not necessarily reflect the funding requirements of CUNY’s individual institutions. Funding senior colleges based on line-item appropriations and community colleges on enrollment increases works well for generating resources for CUNY. However, changes in internal allocation strategies maybe necessary to increase the chances of success for the proposed program. Our concerns are three-fold: (1) that CUNY’s ability to maximize its resources system-wide is limited; (2) unused funding for remedial instruction will not be the same at all senior colleges, leading to patterns of inequity; and (3) marginal increases in funding resulting from marginal increases in community college enrollment due to the Amendment may be insufficient to address the infrastructure generated by the enrollments.

Issues for Consideration

Drawing on our own experiences, we have also identified eight points that are not specifically addressed in the Regents’ charge but that we believe can facilitate the Regents’ consideration of the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan.

These issues provide a broader context in which to debate the efficacy and equity of the policy change, particularly since it has been introduced as part of a larger strategy to better position the University in an increasingly competitive market for higher education. Given the significant differences across CUNY’s institutions in the preparedness of incoming freshmen, to fare well in such a market CUNY must:

1. Fully satisfy the aspirations of all citizens of the City of New York by providing appropriate instruction for appropriate levels of student preparedness;

2. Be seen as a more competitive alternative to selective higher education institutions both within and beyond New York City; and

3. Move aggressively to justify the public’s confidence in the quality of the education it offers—particularly among employers and public officials.

1. Practicing the Education You Preach

CUNY’s future is intrinsically linked to that of New York’s public schools. As the quality of public schools has declined, so has the capacity of the University to meet the full range of academic needs of the City of New York. We suspect that, in many respects, the importance of the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan lies in its ability to “send a message” to the Board of Education of the City of New York that the Board now must deliver on its own promises: that social promotion will be curtailed, if not eliminated; and that New York City’s public high schools will offer the quality of instruction that enables students to pass the five Regents’ exams on which diplomas will be based. Were that to happen, the changes proposed in the Amendment to the Master Plan would be moot. What we observed is that almost no one expects the City’s public high schools to meet this challenge. It is the pessimism as well as the cynicism that accompanies this expectation that has helped make the issue of the proposed Amendment controversial, even by New York’s standards.

2. From Political Clout to Political Theater

We also came to recognize that the ensuing controversy has had an important and in some ways salutary effect. There is now a palpable sense of urgency within the University: a recognition that those with political clout have determined that a fundamental improvement in the University’s perception as well as its reality must occur. Further, a growing number of people both within and without CUNY now understand that the City’s and State’s publicly elected officials are prepared to use that clout to effect the kinds of changes they think are important.

That said, the sad fact of the matter is that the ways in which that political clout has been demonstrated and the kind of predictable responses the process has engendered now threaten to swamp the educational value of the reforms being proposed. First, the wielding of political muscle reinforces the image of an intrusive political order that does not trust the University’s duly constituted authorities or the faculty’s ability to achieve the necessary reforms. Second, the process of considering the strategic strengthening of the University has given way to an invasive political theater in which outrageous claims are the norm, policy comes to reflect anecdote rather than analysis, and almost everyone feels free to talk without restraint—about lines drawn in the sand, about the fundamental negation of the institution’s basic mission, about an institution being adrift. In fact, CUNY has been evolving a fundamental change in strategy for quite some time: the College Preparatory Initiative in 1992; the limiting of semesters of remediation and the introduction of differentiated admissions requirements for senior colleges in 1995; the successful transition to a curriculum without remediation at Baruch College in 1998; and the current development of an enhanced range of short-term remedial strategies to improve students’ college readiness all speak to the success and vitality of the University.

What other states and other communities have learned is that political theater largely negates many of the positive returns of educational reforms that actually enjoy broad-based support. In this instance, those opposed to the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan have argued that it represents a reneging of the University’s commitment to open admissions begun in the 1970s. As we have testified above, we do not believe this assessment to be the case. What the controversy now swirling about the University has engendered, however, is a growing public perception that as a city university, CUNY has as its principal function the remediating of poorly, prepared students. We believe that CUNY does recognize this function as part of its mission, but its central educational thrust is—and ought to be—the teaching of prepared learners who are positioned to take advantage of the very best talents and skills that the faculty have to offer.

3. Facing the Facts

One unfortunate result of the politicization of this issue. has been a misunderstanding of which and how many learners are likely to be affected by the policy change. In the early presentation of issue, particularly in the press, there was an assumption that the proposed Amendment would cause a major outward flow of students from senior colleges to community colleges. In varying degrees, the proponents of the Amendment its opponents, and the Mayor’s Task Force all bear responsibility for the initial absence of a well-documented statement of impact. That estimate has now been prepared. While many opponents still openly question its accuracy and even its veracity, we believe that CUNY’s administration has made a more than credible case that the impact on learners will, in fact, be minimal.

In its most recent estimate of the Amendment’s impact, the CUNY Central Administration notes that the proposed change, when fully implemented, will apply each year to the University’s 24,603 first-time freshmen enrolled in institutions offering baccalaureate programs—Out of a total of more than 200,000 students. Roughly 6,000 of these freshman will enter associate’s programs at the senior colleges. As part of the SEEK program, another 1,600 students will be exempt from the changes that are part of the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan, while approximately 400 students who were enrolled in high school outside of the continental United States will be exempt as ESL students.

This leaves roughly 6,500 students who are likely to meet the admissions requirements of CUNY’S 11 senior colleges. The Central Administration estimates that roughly 4,000 of these students will be exempted by having sufficient SAT scores, passing the Regents’ exams, or passing all three PSATs (placement tests used as admissions criteria). The remainder—roughly 2,500 students—would be found admissible under current admissions standards for one or more senior colleges and yet be in need of some remediation before being deemed ready for collegiate-level instruction. These projections are consistent with the University’s immediate past history as reflected in enrollment statistics for the last five years.

The analytic and planning question then becomes: Is there an adequate plan to address the 1,750 students with admissible credentials who, by one measure or another, have been deemed not ready for collegiate instruction? The answer given by the Central Administration is, “Yes,” based on the actual experience of last summer’s immersion programs, after which the Central Administration projects that just over 1,000 students will still require additional remediation during their first semester in a senior college baccalaureate program. Slightly more than half will be eligible for a Prelude to Success or similar program, and another 280 eligible for a year-round immersion program. The balance leaves just over 150 students who would be shifted to a community college for remediation.

The logic of the projections is clear; the numerical base for estimating the number of students with qualifying credentials in general but without sufficient scores on one or more of three required tests, the Regents’ exams, or the SATs is also clear and reasonable. We also believe, based on last summer’s experiences, that the number of students likely to demonstrate through standard testing that they meet the required minimum standards is reasonable. What remains untested is the success of the Prelude to Success or equivalent programs and the year-long immersion programs, though the claims made in the projections appear modest and therefore reasonable. Finally, the phased nature of the implementation plan, with the four strongest institutions rolling-out the program first, followed by two successive waves of senior colleges, gives sufficient time to further test the projections’ basic assumptions.

We close this point of discussion with two general observations on the current preoccupation with numbers. First, in the controversy surrounding this policy change, the numbers have become more important than the process that is driving it. Stated another way, the push-pull of a conflict in which one group says thousands of students will be affected while others project less than 200 students will be affected is an exercise in numbers and not in learning. Concomitant with this misappropriation is the misfortune that remediation becomes a slogan instead of an evolving flexible learning process recognizing that all students—no matter what their initial level of preparedness—periodically require additional support to succeed in their studies.

4. Haven’t We Been Here Before?

This is not the first time that the Board of Trustees has issued policy edicts. Another jaded response we encountered was that there are policies and then there are -policies—some are hot buttons, others are quietly forgotten. The 1988 policy on articulation, for example, seems to have had little lasting impact on the practice of articulation between CUNY’s community and senior colleges. Too many share the notion that policies come and go, boards change, governors and mayors leave—all the while, the fundamental divisions within the University remain to fester. The inauguration of a new chancellor represents a moment of opportunity to move beyond this impasse, and we hope the University’s leadership takes up this challenge.

Equally significant is the often-perceived disassociation of policy and resources: those responsible for actually delivering the education have learned to abide by a calculus whose bottom-line reads: “If they aren’t prepared to spend substantial amounts of money, they aren’t really serious.” Trust has also been lost through the readiness of those within the University to seek redress through legal action. The clear implication is that, at a fundamental level, key constituencies within, University have lost faith in the processes of consultancy and governance. The fact that the plan is openly perceived as being “top-down” further lessens the trust that a successful university needs to operate.

We also note with some chagrin that the impact of legal action has even affected normal planning for implementation; much of what we were asked to review was m a state of suspended animation, pending the results of various court challenges. Our own experiences as academics tell us that successful policy requires a basic faith in process as well as a willingness to accept the judgments of duly constituted groups.

B. Differentiation or Uniqueness?

In some ways, the plan and its reception University-wide reflects some of the dilemmas that everyone responsible for the delivery of effective education currently faces. The Amendment’s underlying strategy is one of purposeful mission differentiation based on levels of readiness that suggest different modes for different institutions and on an appeal to different segments of CUNY’s potential student populations. We would expect that the natural complement to such differentiation would be a practice of flexibility, in which individual colleges would be allowed to develop their own pathways towards adopting an integrated, more rigorous set of standards. Yet, the plan itself—perhaps out of political necessity—has taken on a strong, centralized cast in which basic rules are being applied unilaterally and everyone is expected to march to the beat of the same drummer. The most obvious rule is that no senior college can offer in-course remedial instruction for credit to baccalaureate students.

The irony is that, in this case, institution-specific experimentation has played an important role in the evolution of the policy changes that underlie the proposed Amendment to the Master Plan. Baruch College, under the prodding of its business school faculty, moved to sharpen its focus in part by limiting remediation across the institution. When faced with the option of substantially reduced budgets, the faculty of Lehman College voted to eliminate developmental education as a separate program and incorporate the remedial task within the mission of its remaining departments and programs. As we note, these solutions represent different strategies for different institutions at different points of development.

We cannot help but wonder whether, in a less charged atmosphere, the University might have developed a more varied set of mechanisms for encouraging as well as enabling its senior colleges to differentiate their missions, in terms of the academic preparedness of the students for which they design their programs of instruction. Along with differentiated strategies, CUNY may have more easily developed the kind of differentiated funding patterns of expense that in other educational environments are coming to replace centralized allocation formulas.

6. The Bottom Line

There is a general notion that CUNY is underfunded. Put another way, many on the campuses we visited expressed concern over the funding available to support academic excellence. The fundamental question is: How has CUNY used its existing funds to further its mission? For example, the use of highly credentialed and salaried professors to teach remedial instruction at the senior colleges presumably redirects scare resources to targeted classes that historically cost more on a per-student basis. Assuming the elimination of remedial instruction at the senior colleges and the continuation of current funding practices that require newly available dollars to remain at the college, where will this excess financial capacity go? To enhance funding to support academic excellence? We believe it should. In addition, dollars to supplant previous remedial instruction appear to be sufficiently available from federal, state, and local sources.

The issue of insufficient funding would be addressed more effectively and efficiently if systemic solutions, such as system-wide fundraising, were practiced in conjunction with—or in place of—individual college solutions. Even with declining governmental resources, CUNY has substantially improved their funds deficit as of FY 1998, though it is still slightly out of balance. This deficit reduction reflects effective resource management. We are not saying that CUNY is overfunded or underfunded. Instead, with the continuation of successful practices to reduce deficits, improved strategic planning and budgeting, and the capturing of performance data, CUNY should seek to establish institutional benchmarks and measurable action steps. This approach may prove to be more accurate in assessing whether the system is “underfunded.”

We note that excess capacity is defined as a college’s ability to receive more students based on insufficient enrollment during a given semester or year. Given that definition, all but two of the CUNY community colleges have experienced low enrollments and therefore, excess capacity.

7. Separating Access from Assistance

CUNY should find a way to decouple the notions of open admissions and remediation. One of the fundamental truths of collegiate instruction is that all students need additional support at some time in their college careers. Often, that support is not metered through course credits but distributed at service centers. In that sense, higher education in general and CUNY in particular need to stop talking about remediation and start talking about readiness.

Too often in debates around remediation, the student is portrayed as both the victim and the culprit. A student is simply a learner who, on the one hand, needs support but on the other needs to take active responsibility for his or her studies and educational experience. The teal task of readiness is to match needs and services on a continually changing basis. That need gets lost when remediation becomes a slogan and the dialogue a rhetorical debate.

Open admissions is really about a social contract between an institution and the constituency from which it draws its students. It says: “If you are prepared to learn, we are prepared to teach.” Not surprisingly, some students will be more prepared than others, and it is not a violation of open admissions policies to distribute students on the basis of preparedness~ provided that the end result is not determined at the moment of initial placement. As Astin (1998) puts it:

Rather than seeing the underprepared student as a burden or as a threat to excellence, we need to understand that we and the society and our democracy have an enormous stake in what happens to these students. In other words, the presence of the underprepared students in our institutions represents a tremendous opportunity for each of us to make a contribution to the welfare of the society.1

8. A Time of Promise

As our report makes clear, we came away from our assignment with a sense of the energy and potential that is CUNY. We are, as we have made equally clear, troubled by the political theater that has become, all too often, an expected part of its educational processes. Mostly, we came away with a sense of the potential for new beginnings represented by the appointment of a Chancellor that is “of the University” in the most fundamental sense—both a part of its history and an exemplar of its commitment to excellence. In his meetings with us, then-Chancellor Designate Goldstein made two fundamental points that provide an important frame for both

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1Astin, A. 1998, January. “Evaluating Remedial Programs is Not Just a Methodological Issue.” Paper presented at die Conference on Replacing Remediation in Higher Education, Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University.

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understanding and evaluating what CUNY seeks through the proposed Amendment to its Master Plan.

First, the proposed policy shift is evolutionary, rather than fundamental, having its roots in the changes first proposed in the early 1990s and then extended through a series of initiatives that lead to greater differentiation of mission across the University and that are based on the academic preparedness of students.

Second, the Chancellor defined the issue for us as a set of promises to be kept—promises the University makes to all its potential students of all ages, ethnicities, economic circumstances, and levels of academic preparedness. The Chancellor spoke of a University in which everyone is pushed and pulled to both qualify and excel. There is also the promise that CUNY makes to the employers of the City of New York to provide a workforce that is as skilled as it is adaptable to the changing rigors of economic competition. Finally, as the Chancellor described it, there is the promise CUNY makes to the City itself—to be a magnet for excellence and an exemplar of successful competitiveness. To fulfill this latter promise, the University must once again become a first choice for more of the very best prepared and intellectually venturesome graduates of the City’s high schools.

He believes the University is positioned to fulfill all three promises, provided it can get on with the task. We’re persuaded he’s right.