Transcript of Plenary Meeting of UFS on September 15, 1998

IV. Invited Guests, Members of Mayor’s Task Force on CUNY

Richard Roberts - I want to introduce the people who are here with me. I am a member of the CUNY Task Force. I’m joined by Richard Schwartz, who is also a member of the Task Force; Alison Amar-Garb, and Sally Renfro. I want to thank you all for this opportunity for a dialogue. I view it very much as an opportunity. I want to thank the Chancellor -- I guess he has departed -- and to echo his comments in terms of his cooperation and the cooperation of his staff with our effort in terms of their professionalism and cordiality.

Last week a small group of us had an opportunity to have a discussion with the Executive Committee of this body. While certainly there were very severe and, I think, stringent points of disagreement, I thought that the dialogue was an interesting one. I know that the folks who were present from our side appreciated that opportunity as well. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to listen and to share dialog with this body. Neither Mr. Benno Schmidt, who is out of the country, nor Dr. Roger Benjamin, who is with RAND, could join us tonight. I know that for a group of academics, they certainly would have been preferable in terms of having a dialogue. I guess you’re stuck with me and the folks I brought along, but I’ll try to do my best to move this along and to have an exchange that’s productive.

I’m going to be very brief and then I think the best way for us to proceed here is to probably have a dialogue and to have some interaction. I’m anxious, and I know my colleagues will be anxious, to take your questions and to hear your comments.

The principal and overriding mission of the Task Force is to make a report or provide some information to the Mayor of the City of New York. Our charge is to investigate and to collect data, and to analyze that data and to make a report that will assist him in looking at the set of policy prescriptions and recommendations that might be appropriate. As part of the data collection effort we are working with the RAND Corporation. Roger is much more eloquent in describing the scope and the view of RAND in terms of the types of analysis and work that they are doing. Their focus is really on the academic component and situation at the City University of New York. And we’ve also engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is helping us gather information and assess some of the financial implications and understand some of those budgetary issues that CUNY faces and that the City of New York faces in the context of CUNY. There are some other researchers that have been supplemented from the staff and may have been involved in doing some investigation and involved in discussions. Some of you may have participated in those discussions. Certainly we want to thank people who have participated. We have found those discussions to be productive.

There are a number of issues that I think are within the purview and focus of the Task Force. We’re looking at issues related to remediation and to standards in the academic context, financial issues, governance, issues related to the institutional mission and focus of CUNY. I think we’ve had some very serious discussions about the relationship about the City’s K-12 system as it relates to CUNY, particularly looking at the issues CUNY confronts in terms of the preparation that students come with and into CUNY out of the K-12 system. I’m not by any stretch of the imagination an expert in these issues. First and foremost, it is to educate myself about the issues, to be in a position to actually make some recommendations to the Mayor. But I think we also as a Task Force are interested in seeing the impact of our analysis, to have some impact upon the City University. And I think we really believe, and I think the Chancellor mentioned it earlier, that CUNY’s situation, and the implications of this type of analysis of CUNY, have far reaching implications for the higher education system in the country.

Benno Schmidt is someone who is open and committed to a process of engaging individuals and having discussions. I think that will continue. I know that Dr. Benjamin and the conversations that we’ve had with a variety of members of the faculty, including the Executive Committee of this body, certainly expressed an interest in working with and sharing information, data, and analysis with that body. I think that’s a very appropriate step for him to take and I know he’s very interested in doing that. We will be making a set of recommendations and be engaged in some policy prescriptions for the Mayor. At this point, we have done nothing definitive. We have not reached any conclusions as to what our report is going to look like, or the information that we will actually forward to the attention of the Mayor and his staff. We have done a lot of work. I would characterize that work at this point as being preliminary in nature. But there has been a lot of serious dialogue and consideration of the information we have received. There certainly are some concerns, some specific questions that the group might have. I think it would probably be best to hear those questions and concerns and either I or my colleagues can actually try and take a stab at trying to be responsive. I guess I think your practice is a pretty good system. It is probably presumptuous of me to say that. People line up and we’ll take them from one side or the other.

Professor Bell (Student Services, Brooklyn College) - "At the Executive Committee meeting, Dr. Benjamin indicated that sometime in the past week he was meeting with the Task Force to delineate exactly what it was and to define the scope of the RAND Corporation’s mission and how it would proceed. I wondered if that had occurred and if someone could give us the results of that discussion." / Mr. Roberts - We did have a meeting last week. The Task Force meets on alternative weeks, every other Wednesday. He went through some information with us. The scope of his discussion was actually exactly what he had outlined in the meeting that we had with your group. He talked a lot about focusing on looking at financial implications and projecting out the financial needs of the University as it related to its academic mission. He talked a lot about looking at the assessments, particularly as related to remediation. He tried to get some understanding as to not only the specifics within CUNY, but also relating that to a broader national assessment picture. At that last meeting we spent a good deal of time going over some information that had been collected regarding initiatives for reform in higher education in other states -- a comparative analysis of what might or might not be appropriate in this context. We spent a lot of time talking about changes that had been made recently in Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and that was really a conclusion of a prior meeting we had not made a lot of headway on. So that’s where we were. He did not get as far as I think he had hoped. But those were two of the issues he focused on.

[Panelists were requested to tell their occupations.]

Mr. Richard Schwartz - I’m Richard Schwartz. I am a consultant in workforce development. Formerly, I was a senior advisor to the Mayor in this administration and worked in areas related to social services and the construction program and other government re-organization programs.

Mr. Richard Roberts - I am a lawyer by training. I’m the City’s Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development. I’ve held that position since February of 1997. Prior to that I was Vice President for Strategic Planning, Government Affairs, and Community Development at the Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Ms. Alison Amar-Garb - I am an attorney, on loan from the New York City Department of Employment.

Ms. Salley Renfro - I’m an attorney, on loan from New York City Department of Employment. The New York City Department of Employment oversees the job training partnership of the City New York.

Professor Crain (Psychology, City College) - "I’m sure that all of you, despite the fact that you have some ties to the current administration, believe that you are going to conduct a neutral, objective, unbiased report marked by integrity. I honestly do believe that this is what you plan to do, and you may do this. You are serving a Task Force appointed by a Mayor who has openly said that he is opposed to an open admissions, who said he wants to get rid of remediation at the community colleges throughout the CUNY system, who wants to privatize remediation. You are working for a Task Force that includes Heather McDonald and Herman Badillo -- people who are out to destroy the City University. In your own interest, you are going to be very sorry you served. If you go in with good intentions, you are going become a tool. Don’t do this. These people are out to destroy our great University and ruin the opportunities of our students. Please be aware of the arrogance and presumption. Not on your part, but of the whole mission. It assumes that we need study, as if we do not have scholars who have been studying this situation, who have not documented the progress already. David Lavin, and all the others -- great research has gone into this already. We have found over the last painful year that the data do not matter. The Board of Trustees and its committees, as David Lavin has said, are data proof. We’ve brought the Mayor data and statistics, but it does not count. What I would ask you to do once again is resign, just resign."

Mr. Roberts - I will take the advice in the spirit in which it is intended. I appreciate the advice.

Professor Cooper (English, York College) - "Though the process is in an early stage. You are investigating institutions and programs and their effect upon the education of students. Have you yet formulated or attempted to formulate the definition of success as it applies to students, beyond tables and numbers?" / Mr. Roberts - I will make one kind of blanket statement about this exercise. I guess I would agree certainly with a portion of what was said by the person that just spoke. It is an enormous task, and there is a lot of information around which we have to get our hands and arms. We are trying to collect the data. We’ve made, and I will reiterate that, we’ve made no final or even preliminary determinations even about the most basic of questions. I think our issue at this point is trying to understand what is a very large complicated institution and for some of us we have varying degrees of experience with the institution. We are just trying to get to the point where we understand the data. No, we have not. That is a long way of saying no. If you have a suggestion or a point you’d like to articulate in that context, we’d love to hear it. / Professor Cooper - "Only that some definition of success ought to precede the collecting of data to find out whether or not it has been met. If we talk about success after all the data has been collected and then decide whether something has been successful, I don’t think that is a method we would approve for our own students in their research. I think early on a definition of success is warranted for your own clarity."

Professor O’Malley (English, Kingsborough Community College) - "I want to address this question to Mr. Schwartz, or maybe someone else should speak. The question is, Mr. Schwartz, are you aware of the charge to the Mayor’s Advisory Task Force? If you look at Section 2, Purposes of the Task Force, given the charge, how can you be objective? It says, "you must make recommendations regarding the best means of arranging for third parties to provide remediation services to insure that prospective CUNY students can perform college level work prior to their admission to CUNY." I know that Sally Renfro has come to my campus and had good discussions, and Alison, too. But how on earth can you be objective if you’re coming to look at our remediation programs, but the recommendations must be how to privatize it before students come to CUNY. I am confused about your objectivity. Are you aware of the charge? How can you be objective?" / Mr. Schwartz - Because I am objective. / Professor O’Malley - "Even though the recommendation must be to privatize?" / Mr. Schwartz - I have opinions, we are now going through a lot of data, and Richard can second this. There is a lot of work to do because it is hard to be conclusive in a lot of the data that you look at when you analyze what’s going on with the different programs at CUNY. It will be impossible to make those kinds of determinations until there is clear data to back up the idea of doing it. That will take time to do. If it can’t be done, it can’t be done. I think it’s fair to look at it from the point of view of asking the question. I think that is a reasonable thing to do, to ask the question. But the data will have to prove out one side or the other or in between. There are all kinds of ways of thinking this through and analyzing it. I have not made a conclusion. / Professor O’Malley - "So you might disagree with the charge?" / Mr. Schwartz - I will affirm recommendations I feel comfortable with, that I believe are supported by data. I think that’s a fair way of putting it.

Professor Levine (Applied Science, College of Staten Island) - "I have two questions related to budget. CUNY has, starting with CCNY, a one hundred and fifty year history, roughly much of which occurred during a period of free tuition. We have a long history of success stories. You could objectively examine the percentage of CEO’s of American corporations who are graduates of CUNY and the quality of the graduates in science, engineering, and in many areas, and reach the conclusion that CUNY now is underfunded. That the only thing wrong is this underfunding. I read a statement to you that Dr. Benjamin stated, "the Task Force will be sensitive to larger issues, including the fact that CUNY is, has been, and will continue to be underfunded." Is there any possibility that after an objective study of our successes, you would conclude that CUNY should no longer be underfunded?" / Mr. Roberts - I guess I would agree with the statement Richard made with respect to looking at the data and me drawing conclusions that are supportive. I certainly wasn’t there when Dr. Benjamin made that statement. I think he is, from RAND’s perspective, very interested in looking at financial questions, particularly related to trend data in terms of enrollment, and so forth. I think he is also interested in looking at that in two contexts. There is the context in which you pose the question which is strictly an underfunding issue. He’s also made the statement to me that he looks at that question potentially from a structural standpoint -- that the question might be viewed in terms of how you would structure CUNY going forward. And whether you would structure CUNY in light of the resources that are available to it going forward. There are two ways of looking at that. But he certainly did make that statement. And I think we’ll look at whatever the data presents because he’s very interested in looking at that. / Professor Levine - "Many faculty have asked me this question. This clearly is a very impressive collection of individuals involved in doing this study from many fine consulting outfits. You deserve to be paid; consultants deserve to be paid. How much is this study costing? Second question, who is paying for it?" / Mr. Roberts - There have been two statements I think have been made about resources related to the task force. The first is that Benno Schmidt is in the process of raising private money to support the analytical work, in part because he believes that this work does have implications for the national higher education situation. He’s in conversations with a number of different foundations about that. Secondly, the Mayor has indicated that he would commit a certain amount of City money to support the work of the Task Force. I think that we are looking at trying to raise a significant amount. The vast majority of that, and I would say the split would be 5:1, in terms of private money vs. public money that would be expended. At least that’s the target. At this point we don’t have a final budget in terms of ... / Professor Levine - "I would hope that you could at least release a budget of the expenses to date, so we could see as it’s progressing, what the budget is and where the money is coming from." / Mr. Schwartz - I think to an extent we have information about that.

Professor Friedman (Developmental Skills, BMCC) - "I have two very brief questions again about the charge from the Mayor. And maybe I’ll address it to the two women on the panel, so we can hear some different voices. The first one kind of follows up with the prior question. Charge Number 2 which says, "The Purposes of the Task Force." It says that, "The Task Force shall review, examine, audit, and make recommendations regarding the uses of City funding by CUNY." My question is, what percentage of CUNY’s total budget comes from City tax payer money? [Various voices quote figures; Mr. Roberts estimates $110 million.] It’s a rather small amount of $1.2 billion. My second question relates to the "Powers of the Task Force," Item 3. It says, "in carrying out its mandate the Task Force may consult with third parties as it deems appropriate and may hold public hearings. I would like to know what the plans are for holding public hearings." / Mr. Roberts - We are authorized to hold public hearings. I think that what we are trying to do in a very aggressive fashion is to try to go to as many venues as possible and have discussions with people. We consider this to be one example of that. We have not discussed any plans to hold public hearings at this point. / Professor Friedman - "I think the faculty would encourage you very strongly to hold very public hearings perhaps in each borough and in very large rooms."

Professor Gallagher (English, LaGuardia Community College) - "I’d like to ask a very naive question, but as you may remember teachers sometimes progress by asking naive questions. None of you, unless you left something out of your vitae, are actually primarily educators. You were appointed by a Mayor whose attitude toward the University is known -- it’s hostile, it’s vicious, it’s unfair, sometimes it’s wicked. And you are appointed by a Mayor who cavalierly dismisses the reports of Task Forces with which he does not agree. My simple question is, how can we trust you?" / Mr. Roberts - There is no reason for me to respond to that. I don’t need to be trusted. What our view is, we ultimately have to be judged on the reasonableness of the recommendations that we present. I think that answers, that gets to questions about objectivity of the research. From my view, people may disagree with that, but we live someplace where we can disagree. That also gets to questions about the process we conduct. We’re trying to look at the reasonableness of trying to present a set of recommendations and policy prescriptions that are reasonable. I think as Richard pointed out, that are supported by the data. That’s our goal. / Professor Gallagher - "We just have a little history with this. The Watson Report that was commissioned by the Board of Trustees was ignored. How are you going to deal with being between a rock and a hard place? That is, take your profession of good will and objectivity at face value, but if the data and the conclusions do not come up to what the Mayor is looking for, what’s going to happen to it?" / Mr. Roberts - I think we’ll have to cross that bridge when and if we were to come to it. But I think the process we’re engaged in is try to deal with the data and a set of recommendations that can be supported by the data. I don’t have a response to that hypothetical.

Professor Savage (Sociology, Queens College) - "I think that we need to have a little more confidence in the training in quantitative data analysis that the staff members have. It seems that the responses repeatedly have to do with, "we are going to have to look at the data and we’re going to have to analyze it objectively, and we’re going to give an honest and fair report." I work with educational data, as do many of the people in this room. It can be very tricky to evaluate these data objectively and fairly. I guess my question is really for Nancy Pelz-Paget. My question is, when you are collecting data on CUNY, are you going to go ahead and also collect data on private colleges in the New York City area? Many of whom have records we would compare very favorably to. Is that part of your plan?" / Ms. Pelz-Paget (mostly inaudible) - I’m not a research data collector, but I can tell you that the RAND Corporation stands on its reputation in data collecting and analysis… elsewhere in the country RAND has done significant research. So an attempt is being made to look at other circumstances in other states, where major urban centers are trying to the same kind of job that CUNY is trying to do with a diverse population and a lowering of support from the government sources and the public sources that have traditionally provided the ability to do the job. What is going on nationally is going here bigger time -- an erosion of fiscal support for public institutions at the same time a larger enrollment, more diverse, and a more challenging population of students is arriving at the door. Those are the kinds of things RAND is accustomed to looking at, sorting, and trying to make recommendations about through data analysis. / Professor Savage - "Thank you. I’d like to be on record as adding three suggestions. One is that you pay attention to the inputs, the qualification of the student at the moment they arrive at the University and evaluate what progress they have made based upon their inputs. The second one is a pattern you should be very aware of: many students begin at CUNY and they go to CUNY for two or three years, and then they transfer to a private institution to graduate from that institution. One-third of the students who leave our institution have 3.0 averages or better. They are in good or excellent academic standing. I hope you pay attention to these kinds of transfer patterns in using a graduation rate evaluation. The third one, I very strongly urge you to compare these private and public institutions in terms of the eventual amount of student indebtedness at the time they graduate.

[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER] - May I suggest that Dean may be a paradigm for what we should really be doing. Which is a serious discussion and an input into the potentials of what the study can do.

[UNIDENTIFIED PANELIST] - On the transfer patterns, is it also that people come back?

Professor Savage - No. There is a pattern of going to Queens College for the first two or three years, because the parents don’t want to pay $20,000. Then you graduate in the last year and a half and you go to a private school. If you’re not paying attention to that, you’re not doing justice.

[UNIDENTIFIED PANELIST] - That is helpful. That is what we need to hear.

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) - "There is a chart [very favorable to CUNY] showing the statistics of students transferring into the City University and transferring within the City University at 30 and 60 credits requiring remediation. Transferring in from privates, not passing the CUNY Assessment... Two year students going from our two year colleges into our four year colleges vis-a-vis students coming from private colleges into our upper divisions. One of the reasons we are very jittery about your use of statistics was a chart shown at City Hall last winter that supposedly demonstrated that about 1% of CUNY two year students graduated in two years. It turns out that in the entering class of 1994, there were 47 students who were enrolled full-time and 22 of them graduated in two years. Which is about close to 50% graduating." / Mr. Roberts - I think that is a great point, if that’s indeed the case. I saw the chart and it is very difficult to understand. They have to make that information clear to everybody, I think. / Professor Cooper - "That information was taken from the Office of Information Research at 57th Street at CUNY. At least 15 efforts were made to explain it, both to Herman Badillo and everyone at City Hall by the Chancellor and me. I wanted to shift the question a bit, if I may. Mr. Roberts indicated that among the areas of your expedition into CUNY, you would write up something about governance. The word ‘governance’ has a very unique meaning in university circles. Governance does not carry the same meaning it conveys perhaps to people in government. It doesn’t have at all the meaning it would have for example in the military or in General Motors, or even in your Commission. Governance since the 12th century has been understood as a collective activity. In almost every European university, which is the source of universities in the entire world, it is the faculty who elect the dean, the president, or the chancellor. In this country we have moved much closer to the CEO model. Universities will fall apart if that’s imposed upon them, including this one. There will not be a University; there will be a third rate high school. I wondered what your understanding of the charge about governance means to you. Since none of you seem to have direct university experience, you must have something going on in your head about what it means. / Mr. Roberts - My concept or discussion and reference to governance relates to a concept that Mr. Schmidt has referenced on a couple of occasions. I certainly would agree, I’m not an expert nor a student of the history of university governance. I think he may know a little bit about it. His focus has been on looking at the relationship principally between the central administration of CUNY and its individual campuses from the perspective of a shared institutional, academic, financial, and operating mission. Which quite frankly fits more in line with the criticism you just made. Implied in that discussion, or in that concept, is a more centralized view. But he’s also talked about, and I think wants to look at, whether there is as much -- what people refer to in the private sector sometimes as synergy, between and among the various campuses of CUNY. Technology, academics, cross-fertilization of the various campuses. Those are the two concepts that he’s raised with us. Those have been the subject of discussions that he’s had with the presidents. I think we’ll have to get into it more, but I think you raised a good point. / Mr. Schwartz - I would suggest very strongly that possibly a several page document to us explaining what governance really means might be... / Professor Cooper - "What you have just described is what we call administrative structure, which is terribly different from the way governance is used in universities."

Professor Sherrill (Political Science, Hunter College) - "I was curious listening to the earlier discussions this evening. Several times in the course of their questions people said things that surprised you and that you found as useful information. I wonder if you could individually tell me what, in the course of the summer, you as an individual have learned about the University that surprised you the most?" / Mr. Schwartz - Maybe we should submit that in writing, too. That’s a great question. Off the top of my head that’s a difficult question. There are a lot of interesting things that have come up. I have to think about it, honestly. Let’s get back to it maybe. / Mr. Roberts - Quite frankly I don’t know if anything I’ve heard has actually registered, or I’ve taken as a fact or a truth. Because, quite frankly, I don’t think it has been independently verified. So I’m at the point now where I’m listening to anything and everybody. / Mr. Schwartz - There is a lot of material to go through and as you go through it, as you probably know, and as somebody made reference to before, it’s hard to make absolute conclusions until you have really good data. You look at something and then you realize, indeed, there are several ways of looking at it. I think that we are kind of processing all of that right now. Meetings are now more frequent and the information flow is larger than it has been over the last four months since we started. It’s just a difficult question to answer. There are all kinds of things. You look at it one way and it looks to be something that you expect. You look at it another way and it’s totally unexpected. This is not a criticism of CUNY, but in any institution like this, it’s very difficult to get the data that gets you right to the bottom line of what is really going on, what you think is going on vs. what people are trying to push forward as an idea or not. That’s really what’s going on right now with the Task Force. It is just a lot of material, lots of documents, a lot of analysis, and still not completed yet. Maybe we need about another month to answer that point.

Professor Bohigian (Mathematics, John Jay College) - "I’d like to focus on costs. I see we have in the audience, Nancy Pelz-Paget from RAND. I’d like to ask if she could cite one other education study that RAND did perform, how long it took, and what the cost factor was associated with it." / Ms. Pelz-Paget - The most recent study RAND has done was called, "Breaking the Social Contract, the Fiscal Crisis in Higher Education." It was a look at national trends and the impact on public institutions, the change in demographics, the change in patterns of funding, and what they imply for the future. A second study, a follow up, was done on the entire California state system, based on data within California. Those are the two most recent. / Professor Bohigian - "Approximately how long did the study take?" / Ms. Pelz-Paget - Two years. / Professor Bohigian - "What was the approximate cost?" / Ms. Pelz-Paget - I have no idea. / Professor Bohigian - "Over $100 million?" / Ms. Pelz-Paget - No. / Professor Bohigian - "Ten million?" / Ms. Pelz-Paget - No, I can tell you I’m certain it wasn’t anything like that. / Professor Bohigian - "To the panel, I haven’t checked it but apparently at least four or five members are City employees or on the payroll. So we’re talking about right away a cost of at least $500,000 right there, which is currently being charged. These individuals are working in another area right now. I would like an answer to this question. It is not as specific as the other one. Ken’s point was well taken. I’d like to know from each of you, all four of you, what you’ve learned about CUNY so far and what your impressions are about our role and remediation. And the Mayor is very fortunate, Mr. Roberts, in having you, because you have really been carrying the ball here. I want to hear from the other members of the panel as well. I would like them to start this off. /

Ms. Amar-Garb - Well, as some of you know from personal experience, Sally and I spent a large part of the summer going around to most of the college campuses and meeting with the people who were heads of some of the summer remediation programs. And other people who were very familiar with what the various colleges were doing in the area of remediation. We learned that there is tremendous variation among the colleges. I think that’s one thing that we learned that was very interesting. Also, that it’s a complex undertaking and there are a lot of different approaches being tried. That’s sort of the gist of it. The amount of stuff that people told us is enormous. They were telling us that we would end up knowing more about remediation at CUNY than any other single person in the system. I’m not sure if that’s true. It certainly felt that way at the time.

Ms. Renfro - We went to 14 out of 17 campuses this summer. We recognized that remediation does not begin at CUNY.

Mr. Schwartz - It doesn’t begin or end with CUNY. There is the whole public school issue. How can people be adequately prepared at that level in a sensible way where large numbers of people can keep going through the system, where they are not left back en masse, where they are not dropping out. But where they are making it through the public school system reliably and into CUNY in such a fashion that remediation is less of an issue than it is today. There is just a comprehensive element to this where the boundaries of CUNY are not sufficient to form an analysis.

Mr. Roberts - I really have not reached any conclusions. I have read a lot of material. I’ve sat in on a lot of meetings. It’s been an interesting process, but I want to be careful not to be characterized as drawing a conclusion about any one factor one way or another.

Professor Bohigian - "How much time do you estimate you’d need to absorb all of this data and come up with a conclusion which was adequate for the data you have?" / Mr. Roberts - I’m not sure about that. I do think that in the meeting we had with the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, we were asked point blank whether the work of the Task Force would be concluded as of the 30th of this month. The one thing I will tell you is that is not anywhere near enough time. I don’t know how much time we will need. I think we’re working very hard. I think we will not present recommendations until we are ready to do so. No deadline has been imposed. / Mr. Schwartz - We’ve actually been instructed to issue the report when we believe we have the facts and the data to support whatever recommendations are to be made, and not before then.

Professor Vozick (Science, BMCC) - "I’d like to begin by saying, it’s my sense of this meeting that people are actually working hard to try to generate or develop, or discover empathy for you all in your roles. Trying to encompass many professional lifetimes of experience into the compass of a very few short months. It seems to me an almost impossible task to do with real integrity. Given the particular circumstances of your appointment, that’s yet another burden that your carrying. The test of your objectivity is going to be extreme. I would like to point out that in urban public higher education which I’ve been in most of my life, there are constituencies that are critical to the functioning of the institution. But they are dealt with only second hand or third hand, they are reported about, but not actually factored into the actual thinking process or creative process of understanding what the institution is and what it’s doing. I’d just like to highlight two of those groups and ask you whether you’ve thought of them. First is the group that I’m a part of, the part-time faculty, which are characterized as adjuncts, but in fact are a permanent part of the scene. Adjuncts means disposable or contingent employee, but in fact there is no contingency to the need for adjuncts in the City University structure. It’s a permanent part of the scene for the moment. The first question is, are you making any arrangement to contact organized groups of adjuncts or part-timers to get their perspective on the system they are holding up? Or are you restricting yourself to other people’s opinions of what they are doing? Even more important than that is the students. The students are what this institution is about. Everybody in the institution speaks to the students. There is no one who doesn’t. But there are very few opportunities for the students in an organized way to develop their very great capacity to present their own circumstance and the issues that are of importance to them and so forth. I know that your Director Schmidt has met with one group of students on one occasion. But that’s just scratching the surface. It really needs to be a structured process, even conferences and so on to begin to get their perspective. I wonder what your thoughts in those two areas are." / Ms. Amar-Garb - I’m trying to plan a survey that would encompass both of those groups that you mentioned as well as full-time faculty and possibly administrators and staff. That’s in the planning phases right now. We’re hoping to get input from all of those constituent groups as we put together the survey so that it will be most helpful. But it is in the planning stages right now. We’ll be getting back to you with more information as it starts to become more formulated.

Professor Hager (Music, Brooklyn College) - "I wanted to ask a question related to students as well. The profile of the typical CUNY student is from a working class family, works 20 hours a week or more. Many students come from a public school system that has been disgracefully underfunded for the last 20 years. Will the data that you are collecting and the projections that you plan to make include the impact on closing the doors on students for whom this is an opportunity to advance themselves both socially and economically? What would have happened if remediation and other support systems for students had been withdrawn ten years ago? What would have been the impact on New York State if thousands of students who were educated through public higher education had been denied access to that? Because I think that what we’re concerned about is helping students who have suffered, many of them, as a result of being poor, growing up in an urban area, and the impact of denying the American dream to these students. I wondered if any of that kind of information will be collected and analyzed?" / Mr. Roberts - Yes, we’re going to look at that issue. I think it is a good question. Although I think your question is posed to a certain extent in a conclusion. We’re going to try to avoid that. We’re going to look at that issue and reveal it. I would also state that at least in my personal view, it’s not just a question of the K-12 system has been under funded, it has also under performed. Whether it has gotten the adequate level of funding is one issue. Clearly on any objective criteria it has also not done its job.

Professor Beaky (English, LaGuardia Community College) - "I have two questions. We’ve heard a lot tonight about data. I would like to know specifically from the two staff people who have been to some of the campuses, and are planning to come to some of the others. Besides data, what specific measures have you taken or do you plan to take, to actually talk to people. Specifically, faculty, not administrators, and students. My second question, have you visited classes? Do you plan to visit classes? What firm is preparing that survey? I urge you to talk to people and not to restrict yourself to numbers which don’t tell the entire story or not even maybe the most important part of the story." / Ms. Renfro - Over our journey we have met with faculty who teach remediation, we’ve gone to classes, we’ve talked to students. If time permits we will continue to do that. We’ve gotten a pretty broad view of what’s going on at CUNY with regards to remediation from the faculty and from the students. / Professor Beaky - "Considering this is the Fall now, do you plan to continue that in the Fall, now that we have Fall classes, not just summer immersion?" / Ms. Renfro - We are discussing it and we’re seeing what our time allotment will be for that activity. We hope to. / Ms. Amar-Garb - No final decision has been made yet about what firm will be conducting the survey. As soon we are at liberty to release that information we will. / Professor Beaky - "So it sounds like it’s really in the planning stages." /

Professor Sank (Anthropology, City College) - "I imagine the Task Force has gotten a clear understanding of the concerns of the faculty here. I hope you do take it in the positive sense that we’re trying to communicate. There are certain areas that really concern us as I get the sense of the body. That is, of course, the origin of the Task Force, where it originated in the political arena. Perhaps also, very important, the composition of the Task Force, and the fact that basically none of you are educators. May we make a suggestion, that you make a recommendation that the Task Force be expanded to perhaps to include 50% being composed of educators, including faculty from the CUNY system, to get that communication input from within and from the field of education, because you are evaluating the whole area of education. Also, the necessity I think was put forth, for communication in the sense of the meetings being open to the public. And that means of course the faculty, staff, students of the CUNY system. They should be able to come to the meetings and there should be a period when they are open to the public, perhaps at the end of the meeting when there can be questions asked on target, regarding issues that are raised by the Task Force at that time. Also, I hope that you will come back to this body before you issue your final report to get that final interaction and input. I was going to ask the RAND Corporation, in their previous studies did they have professional educators on those task forces? Tonight you seem to be largely attorneys. You are students of education, in the sense that you went through the education system. But you are not getting the perspective of the faculty." / Mr. Roberts - I appreciate those comments, and I guess just two responses. One, suggestions that you made I think have some merit, but I think the composition of the Task Force has been set. I do believe that one of the reasons the Mayor specifically focused on Mr. Schmidt as a Chairman of the Task Force is because he has a very extensive background in higher education. I think that certainly is appropriate. It doesn’t address fully the concerns you’ve laid out, but it addresses them to a certain extent. And secondly, one of the reasons that the Task Force specifically focused on trying to identify an organization like RAND and also PricewaterhouseCoopers is because both of those organizations are essentially comprised of people who have a broad degree of experience in higher education. I think they bring those analytical skills and that experience base to this exercise. I think we are unfortunately at a little bit of a disadvantage in the context of this session because given schedules and so forth, you are stuck with lawyers and the consultant. We want to honor the commitment that Mr. Schmidt made, and I think he will come back. He’s pretty open to having a dialogue. I know that Dr. Benjamin has indicated a willingness to continue to work, certainly with the Executive Committee. / Professor Sank - "I’m an anthropologist. In anthropology, we discovered that in studying cultures, there are two methods, One is where you are outside the culture looking in, and you get a certain sense of objectivity doing that. It is very good. In a sense I see you as outside looking in. But the other aspect is getting the people inside the culture to really describe the culture. That is what I’m trying to get across. You should get that balanced kind of perspective."

Professor Richter (English, Kingsborough Community College) - "I think many of the comments and questions that have preceded me have had the same general thrust, which seems to have been to discover whether there is an agenda behind all of this -- an agenda that is distinct from the methodology of the investigations that you are undertaking. It seems to me that because of the particular composition of the investigators, the agenda seems to be the question of efficiency. It seems to be a question of money, of the smooth functioning of an organization, more than it does any theoretical ideas of an education. We’re concerned, I certainly am, about the fact that education is not just a business and cannot always be so easily quantified. I think part of the hostility which you’ve unfortunately had vented upon you, has come from that realization that we rather jealously guard the raggedness of the educational process. Having said that, it seems to me that there is a very clear agenda here in terms of money. If this is indeed a Task Force convened by the Mayor, who has a 3% interest in the overall budget of this very large and very complex organization, then one of the questions is, why is it that you are also investigating the four year colleges, besides the two year colleges, where the Mayor really has no financial interest? What is the relationship with the Governor? What is the Governor’s relationship to this particular Task Force? Finally, what is the relationship of the RAND Corporation’s apparently pre-collected, pre-digested material, which doesn’t have very much to do with investigation of an educational system, to do with the conclusions that you hope to reach? I am generally puzzled by these concerns, and I hope you’ll address them." / Mr. Roberts - I’ll address them in the reverse order that they were presented. The first is, I think we will have to let RAND speak for what they consider to be the applicability of their research in other contexts to this particular situation. We do believe that certainly the issues that Nancy outlined, are issues that are confronting higher education generally in communities throughout the country. An added element to the three or four criteria that I think she would outline, is that there is a public component of the accountability, performance, and circumstances which all public institutions face. Certainly, I run a large public institution. In response to your comment about being the subject of people venting, I’m the City’s Housing Commissioner, for God’s sake. I’m not a stranger to people expressing hostilities in public forums. This is fine and I appreciate the spirit in which this has been presented. But I do believe that the institutional focus of accountability standards and looking at the performance of this institution as a large public institution is something that is part a financial question. But it is also something that the Mayor of the City of New York has taken a strong interest in, beyond his having a statutory role in terms of the appointment of Board members. And regardless of how people feel about the CUNY Board of Trustees, there clearly is a relationship there which requires some interest on his part. That certainly is his view. I think our charge is to try to present a series of recommendations and policy prescriptions that can assist him as best as we possibly can. As for the role of the Governor, he plays no direct role in this process in terms of our deliberation. Just for the record, I am aware that a member of the Task Force is technically a Governor appointee to the CUNY Board. But the Task Force has been charged with making recommendations to the Mayor, and we are not involved with the Governor’s Office. / Professor Richter - "Despite the fact that 95% of the budget comes from the State." / Mr. Roberts - 100% of CUNY is within the 5 Boroughs of the City. It is reasonable. / Professor Richter - "You’re right; I stand corrected."

Professor Young (English, BMCC) - "You have a lot of data, and you have to analyze this data. In order to analyze data and make recommendations, you have to have certain kinds of premises, assumptions, and contextual frameworks. I would like to address this question to every member of the Task Force, but we have four of you here today. We know what Heather McDonald believes about education. Because we’ve heard about it a lot, and she’s written about it a lot. I would like to know from each of you, what are some of your fundamental premises or beliefs on which you are going to base any recommendations you make about City University? Do you have premises? Do you have beliefs? And if so, what are they?" / Mr. Roberts - I’ll state one belief. Everybody else can jump in. I made this statement at the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate. I believe in any process of evaluating the performance of public institutions, it is an appropriate line of inquiry to analyze the relationship between the public sector providing those services and the private sector providing those services. I believe that is important. That is a belief I have. Not that in all instances, or even necessarily in the majority of instances, that it is appropriate. But I do believe it is an appropriate line of inquiry. That is just one perspective that I bring. / Mr. Schwartz - I think that’s definitely one aspect of it and I would second that. It just has to be looked at and considered. Then you try to move and try to do what is the right thing. In addition, not just CUNY, but most publicly funded institutions in the country today -- hospitals, school systems, higher education systems, city agencies, construction programs -- are going through a level of scrutiny, a level of fiscal discipline, because the money is being taken away. That’s a fact. I can’t go into the specifics of how much money is coming into CUNY or not coming into CUNY. But we know that resources are dwindling across the country, states cut taxes and they’ve done it more and more aggressively over the past fifteen or twenty years, and this is to the issue of how this nation was structured. They do that for a number of different reasons; Republicans do it and Democrats do it. What it amounts to is that all of these public institutions are going through very significant reconsiderations. Some of them don’t change very much, and some of them do. I’ve worked in the past with HUD in Washington, D.C. For better or for worse, and I would say for worse as far as New York City is concerned, Congress is cutting HUD funding significantly. And we have, as many of you probably know, 10% of federal public housing in America, in New York City, in terms or bricks and mortar. They are going though radical reconsiderations because they have to. That is not the same as what would necessarily take place in CUNY. But I think all of us have to take that point of view and understand that’s part of the reality of life in America right now. Politicians and elected officials make choices about where they want to allocate resources. There are things we are going to look at with an open mind in that regard, but they are basically reducing the funding or eliminating the growth of spending in major areas all across the board. That is something that really has to be carefully considered in terms of CUNY’s future, and how best to proceed in that environment. / Professor Young - "So that’s part of your assumption?" / Mr. Schwartz - I think that for me is an assumption. That there is less and less public funding available and people have to be more and more thoughtful and creative about where each dollar is going to do.

Professor Donohue (English, Medgar Evers College) - "I was glad to hear that you are going out to the colleges to see what is going on. I hope you come to Medgar Evers and see the 27 mobile units where there used to be a school yard. My attention was caught to a remark you made in response to the statement that we’re underfunded. You responded, "yes, but I think we’ve underperformed," if I remember right." / Mr. Roberts - No, I was talking about the K-12 system. She made the statement, she said that the K-12 system was underfunded. And I said that I think it’s also underperforming. / Professor Donohue - In any case, that does seem to involve a conclusion, doesn’t it? It would have to be based on some definition of success, which is an issue that came up before." / Mr. Roberts - I think as a general matter among a wide range of people of different political perspectives, educational, and pedagogical view points, I think that it is a fair statement to say that the K-12 system in the United States of America is under- performing. That is, I don’t think I’m "out there."

Professor Matthews (Mathematics, Hunter College) - "I’m concerned that nobody has brought up the issue of ESL. Now there may be a technical definition of ESL. You may be looking at states like California or Florida that have large populations for whom English is not the first language. I will contend that New York is very much more complicated than that. We have students whose first language is all sorts of languages. Their schooling from whereever they come is very varied. They may not have even had an elementary school as bad as New York City’s. I teach mathematics. In calculus classes we used to have some of the Asian students with their Chinese dictionaries. They were doing terrifically in calculus. There is also a cultural background. In this country, when we come to elect people to Phi Beta Kappa, what’s the low grade? Usually the math course. Our culture says, women don’t go into Math. Where are we getting a lot of our computer technicians? From India and elsewhere. There is a strength in CUNY, just the interaction of these students from all over the world that you cannot really measure. The definition of ESL, I think, is how many years you weren’t here for high school. But there have been studies that show, to really to become competent in English as the Second Language, you would need more like five years, not the one or two in the definition. This is a very complex issue. I hope you don’t take simplifications that may happen with data."

Professor Gallagher (English, LaGuardia Community College) - "Certainly some of the answers you gave to questions can be tentatively accepted, I think, by this body. You said that you are not ready to yet pronounce what are the most surprising things you’ve learned about CUNY. You are not ready to even come out with some tentative conclusions. You don’t know whether you are going to be visiting any more students this Fall. You seem to take in a number of points that were made in the audience as part of the information you are gathering. In light of that I just hope that if there is time pressure on you to produce this report in the next month or two, that there isn’t a rush to judgment. It seems to me that you are not far along enough in the process to be coming out with conclusions in October or November. I hope you resist the pressure to do so."

Professor Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College) - "One piece of information that you may not know, which I think is very interesting. That is, that tax levy money in New York State, not only goes to CUNY and SUNY, but also to the private colleges. It is called Bundy Aid. This comes from the State. Quite frankly, I can’t imagine the reaction of private institutions if the Governor appointed a Task Force to study Syracuse or St. John’s because there is State tax levy money used. The other thing is, in addition to RAND, I know you’ve hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to do the budget analysis. I’d like to suggest that rather than these be parallel studies, these be intertwined studies. Because there is an absolute direct relationship between the funding and the use of monies and the allocation of monies with the educational enterprise. It’s not just the data you collect and analyze, but how you ask the questions that really matters. We are all of course concerned about that, too. As the last one at the microphone, I want to thank you for your forbearance and graciousness."/ Mr. Roberts - I want to thank you all for taking the time and being very helpful and respectful.