Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the New York City Council hearing for the committee on higher education.

At this time, I'd like to remind everyone to please silence all devices, and at no point during the hearing may you approach the dais.

If you wish to testify at today's hearing, please see a sergeant at the back of the room to fill out a testimony slip, even if you have registered previously online.

Good afternoon.

I'm Councilmember Rita Joseph, Chair of the Committee on Higher Education.

Welcome to today's Oversight Hearing on Racial Equity at CUNY.

Before turning to our hearing topic, let me start by noting that Friday is Juneteenth, a federal holiday since 2021.

Juneteenth was first commemorated in 1866 when Black Freedom organized the first Jubilee Day as a day of celebration, prayer, and solidarity, exactly one year after Union troops began enforcing the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas.

Last Thursday, the City Council passed a resolution recognizing the history of Juneteenth and affirming the City of New York's commitment to upholding the legacy of Juneteenth as a day of hope and celebration.

Today's hearing is part of the committee's oversight role is to ensure that racial equity is at the center of our work when it comes to advancing and progressing higher education in our city.

I'd like to comment on the Justice Department's announcement, its civil rights division has initiated an investigation of possible racial discrimination at CUNY in its release.

The DOJ claims to have received report alleging that CUNY BMI provides educational benefit to minority, particularly black males on the base of race.

CUNY's website states clearly that all programs and activities of CUNY BMI initiative programs are open to all academically eligible students, faculty, and staff without regard to race, gender, and national origin or characteristics.

These claims are baseless, and to be clear, I stand with CUNY BMI Initiative.

CUNY mandates embeds in New York state law is to maintain, expand CUNY's commitment to academic excellence and the provision of equal access to an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff from all ethnic and racial groups and from both sex.

New York state law also states that activities on CUME CUNY campuses must recognize and respond to a positive desire to have city university personnel reflect the diverse communities which compromise the people of the city and state of New York.

The strong statement make it clear that ensuring racial equity for students, faculty, and staff is explicitly at the heart of CUNY's mission.

Our committee applause that mission.

Today we'll be hearing specifically about the racial ethnic breakdown of CUNY student, faculty, and administration across the university, and also by campus.

We want to discuss where those figures reflect a reasonable definition of racial equity and where they do not.

Our job is to ensure CUNY keep their promise to every student, faculty, and administrator, regardless of race.

We are here to follow the data, ask hard questions, and demand real answers.

Equity isn't a box for CUNY to check each year.

It's a promise renewed each day.

As the chair of this committee and as a heart educator at heart, I intend on holding all us to all account.

Now I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues on the city council.

I have Joan Ariola on Zoom.

I have Virginia Minoli, Councilmember Maloney's here, and Councilmember Harvey Epstein, who's currently in a hearing, Councilmember Wrestler in a hearing.

And I'll also like to thank my staff, Giovanni Picon, Chief of Staff, Julia Goldman, Goldsmith Pickham, Committee's Senior Legislative Council, Regina Paul, the committee's legislative policy analysis, and Ali Stofer, the committee's final financial analysis.

I would like to remind everyone who wishes to testify in person today that you must fill out a witness slip, which is located on the desk of the sergeant at arms near the entrance of this room.

Please fill out the form even if you have already registered in advance that you'll be testifying today.

To allow as many people as possible to testify, testimony will be limited to three minutes per person, whether you're testifying in person or in Zoom.

I'm also going to ask my colleagues to limit their questions to and comments to five minutes.

Please note that the witnesses who are here in person will testify before those signed into Zoom.

Okay, now in accordance with the rules.

Hi, I'll ask you to raise your right hand and I'll call on each of you to answer the oath, which is uh do you form to tell the truth and answer your questions from this uh councilmember to the best of your ability?

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Joseph and members of the committee.

I am Alicia Albero, Executive Vice Chancellor, University Provost of CUNY.

I am pleased to be joined today by Larry D.

Johnson Jr., president of Bronx Community College.

Thank you for convening today's hearing on racial equity at CUNY.

Few questions are more central to our university's purpose or more consequential for the future of our city.

As the first Latina to serve as a university's executive vice chancellor and university provost, I'm intimately aware of why representation matters.

I'm a first generation American, a first generation college student, and the daughter of Cuban refugees.

I started as a faculty member at Queen's College in 2003 and have dedicated my career to making the university more equitable.

The consequential work we are doing together sends an important message to our campus community and city, namely that the principles of access and inclusion are crucial drivers of success for all New Yorkers.

Discussions like the one we are having today provide important forums to focus attention on racial equity and other issues that pursue justice for the underserved.

CUNY students mirror New York City's rich diversity.

78% of our population are students of color.

Serving them equitably is what our university exists to do.

CUNY's mission has always been rooted in equity, access, opportunity, and academic excellence.

Diversity is not separate from those commitments.

It is essential to them.

In fact, it is both a moral and legal obligation.

New York State Education Law Section 6201, which established CUNY as a unified system in 1961, explicitly calls for university that reflects the diverse communities that comprise the people of the city and state of New York.

As one of the most diverse university systems in the country, CUNY serves nearly 247,000 students across 26 campuses and degree levels.

In fall 2025, the student body was 22.7% Asian or Pacific Islander, 27.5% black, 27.6% Hispanic, and 21.9% white.

To fulfill our academic mission, we strive to ensure that our faculty reflects a comparable breadth of perspectives in identity and lived experience and intellectual approach.

A diverse faculty strengthens university in specific, measurable ways.

It broadens the questions we ask and the knowledge we produce.

It deepens the student educational experience, allowing students to see themselves reflected in the curriculum and in their mentors.

It strengthens pedagogy and mentorship in a system where students bring a wide range of perspectives into the classroom, and it ensures that our programs evolve alongside the society of our students will enter.

Diversity in this sense is not an initiative.

It is a core component of the university's quality and strength.

The question of faculty diversity is one of the most persistent challenges in American higher education.

A chronicle of higher education analysis published this month and drawing on federal data from 2024 found that more than seven out of 10 faculty members nationwide were white.

Minority faculty, the report found, represent approximately 28% of all faculty.

CUNY significantly exceeds that national average, with 45% of our nearly 19,000 faculty members coming from minority groups in fall 2025.

This includes 15% who were Asian, 15% who are black or African American, and 13% who are Hispanic.

While CUNY's faculty diversity far exceeds the national average, we know our work is ongoing, and we are committed to broadening opportunity across the university.

Over the past five years, a majority of new full-time faculty hires at our senior and community colleges have come from minority groups reaching 61% in 2024-25.

In that year, 21% of hires were black or African American, the highest rate in five years, while 27% were Asian and 9% were Hispanic.

CUNY's non-teaching workforce is also highly diverse.

More than two-thirds of our staff are members of minority groups, 17% are Asian, 24% are black, and 26% are Hispanic.

And the diversification of CUNY's senior leadership has accelerated since 2019 when Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez became chancellor.

Since then, minority group representation among our 26 presidents and deans has grown to 62%, including 27% who are black and 27% who are Hispanic.

At CUNY Central, 50% of the chancellery belongs to a minority group.

The numbers tell part of the story.

The programs tell the rest.

And the most important thing to understand about CUNY's approach is that we are strengthening academic fields in ways that expand opportunity, support excellence, and better serve our student, our diverse students and city.

The clearest example is our investment in Black race and ethnic studies.

In 2020, CUNY received a multimillion dollar grant from the Andrew W.

Mellon Foundation to develop and expand initiatives advancing social and racial justice.

At the center of that work is the $3 million Black Race and Ethnic Studies Initiative, Bressy, which awarded 1.8 million in competitive grants for 126 projects during the 2022-23 academic year.

In 2024, the Mellon Foundation extended this commitment with a new $5 million grant through fiscal year 2028 focused on two things launching New York State's first PhD and master's program in Black Race and Ethnic Studies at the Graduate Center, and a cluster hire initiative bringing four new faculty positions in this field over the next three years.

The cluster hiring model across multiple campuses allows us to build CUNY strength in the field, foster collaborative research and teaching, and create a sustainable foundation for future academic growth.

The Brest Initiative is not a standalone program.

It is a system-wide academic effort designed to advance racial and social justice through curriculum, research, and graduate education, and to support faculty-led work in curriculum and community engagement while building a pipeline of scholars working on issues central to New York City and beyond.

Our commitment to equity extends well beyond faculty hiring to the many long-standing proven programs that serve hundreds of thousands of CUNY students with a particular focus on our commitment to racial equity.

Our ASAP program, accelerated study and associate program, serves nearly a third of all incoming community college freshmen with an even higher share among Black and Hispanic students.

Seek and college discovery were founded more than 60 years ago specifically to expand access.

These programs continue to provide academic and financial support to thousands of students facing systemic barriers to higher education.

College Now and early college programs serve more than 30,000 students in 2024-25, of whom 35% were Hispanic and 24% were Black.

CUNY Reconnect, our initiative for adult learners and students returning to complete their degrees, has served more than 71,000 students since its launch in 2022.

In its first two years, more than two-thirds of enrollees identified as black or Hispanic.

We are proud of our diversity at CUNY and remain committed to continuing our work with focus, clarity, and purpose, building a stronger, more dynamic academic institution that reflects the breadth of New York City and serves its students with excellence.

I look forward to your questions.

Good afternoon, Chair Joseph and members of the committee.

I am Larry Johnson, the seventh president of Bronx Community College.

It is an honor to lead this historic educational pillar and continue my service within CUNY as a national advocate for community colleges and student success.

Throughout my career, from Georgia Piedmont Technical College to Broward College, St.

Louis Community College, Phoenix College, and CUNY's Gutman Community College, I have focused on transforming access into achievement.

That commitment guides my leadership through the Bronx Renaissance 2031, a new strategic vision centered on student success, workforce preparation, partnership, and inclusive opportunity.

Under this vision, we are building a renaissance rooted in access belonging and the belief that the West Bronx deserves public institutions prepared to meet the promise of this generation.

Bronx Community College's racial diversity and access story is central to our mission, enrollment identity, and value to New York City.

Located in University Heights, BCC serves a community where race, income, language, immigration, family responsibility, and educational opportunity intersect.

The Bronx is among the nation's most vibrant and culturally rich communities.

It is also navigating poverty, housing insecurity, food insecurity, health disparities, limited digital access, and uneven economic opportunity.

In this context, our mission is local and urgent.

In fall 2025, Bronx Community College enrolled 7,345 students.

Our student body was 48% Hispanic, 42% Black, 5% Asian Pacific Islander, and 5% white.

70% are Bronx residents, 67% of Pell Grant recipients, 63% are first generation college students, 64% have non-U.S.

ancestry, and 33% are non-native English speakers.

Like many community colleges, BCC experienced enrollment declines following the pandemic.

Our head count declined 19% to 6,787 students between fall 2020 and fall 2024.

Since then, BCC has begun to reverse that trend.

In fall 2025, we enrolled 7,345 students, an 8% increase in an important sign of institutional recovery.

We have strengthened recruitment and enrollment strategies through a more data-informed student-centered approach focused on application to graduation conversion, onboarding, financial aid completion, and advising.

We have expanded recruitment across the Bronx, deepened partnerships with high schools, early college programs, and community organizations, and invested in high demand career aligned programs in nursing, allied health, engineering, and technology.

Our goal is not simply enrollment recovery.

It is connecting more Bronx residents to college access, career pathways, transfer opportunities, and long-term economic mobility.

At BCC, we recognize that student success does not begin and end in the classroom.

Hunger, housing insecurity, childcare responsibilities, mental health needs, financial instability, transportation barriers, and limited technology access all affect what the students enroll, persist, and complete.

Through our Access Resource Center, BCC provides a one-stop connection point for benefit screening, SNAP, food pantry services, housing options, transportation referrals, legal and financial consultations, tax preparation, fair hearing assistance, and other government resources.

The Bronco Food Pantry serves up to 2,000 families each month.

The SNAC cart program serves up to 150 students per day, recognizing a simple truth.

Students cannot fully focus if they are hungry.

As of spring 2026, it served 43 preschoolers and 18 infants and toddlers.

By supporting student parents, we support retention, graduation, and intergenerational opportunity.

BCC is also a pilot campus for CUNY CARES, a three-year Bronx-based initiative supported by the New York City Council that connects students to health care, mental health treatment, food, housing assistance, SNAP, Medicaid, and other public benefits through trained student advocates and navigators.

BCC's academic portfolio is one of the most important equity assets.

We offer programs that prepare students for career advancement across fields essential to New York City's future, especially in a borough where many residents seek credentials, skills, and pathways that increase household income.

Healthcare is one of the Bronx's largest employment sectors, and the need for trained professionals continues to grow.

At BCC, more than 1,070 students are enrolled in nursing and allied health programs, including radiologic technology, medical laboratory technology, nuclear medicine, and medical office assistant programs.

Through clinical partnerships with Montefiore Medical Center, Jacobi Medical Center, the New York Presbyterian, and Montefiore Wakefield, our students gain hands-on experience and prepare to enter the workforce directly.

Graduates enter careers that provide economic stability with wages that support families and strengthen the Bronx economy.

Beyond healthcare, programs in cybersecurity and networking, computer science, automotive technology, engineering, business administration, education, criminal justice, digital arts, liberal arts and sciences, and other fields connect students from historically underserved communities to sectors with real demand.

The goal is earning power, stability, and mobility.

Students should not have to navigate college through guesswork, disconnected offices or unclear handoffs.

Advising structured pathways and academic planning aligned with career planning make access real.

BCC's student success ecosystem includes many holistic, structured student success and access programs.

In fall 2025, BCC enrolls students in ASAP, College Discovery, College Now, the Early College Initiative, CLIP, CUNY Start, English Start, Future Now, and Math Start.

These programs help students build early momentum, access proactive advising, receive academic preparation, and know someone at the colleges helping them move forward.

Our commitment to diversity also extends to the faculty and staff who serve our students.

This past academic year, BCC employed 1,444 faculty and staff with approximately 78% identifying as ethnicity other than white.

Our workforce included 126 Asian employees, 444 black employees, and 517 Hispanic employees and 318 white employees, and 39 employees identified as other minority groups.

This diversity expands our perspectives and strengthens our ability to meet students' holistic needs.

Bronx Community College is one of New York City's most important access institutions, but access alone is not enough.

We will continue strengthening advising student services, academic pathways, financial support, belonging, workforce preparation, and career outcomes so that students we enroll are the students we retain, graduate, transfer, and launch into careers, careers that are vital not only to the Bronx, but to the future of New York City.

As a CUNY community college, we remain both student-centered and community centered.

That means meeting students' basic needs, expanding high-demand academic and workforce programs, strengthening pathways to completion, and ensuring that more Bronx residents can access the opportunities that lead to economic mobility.

Our diverse faculty and staff are partners in this work.

Together, we're helping students do more than walk across the graduation stage.

We're helping them walk through open doors of opportunity for themselves, for their families, for tomorrow's workforce, and for the future of the Bronx in our vibrant New York City.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Johnson.

I'd like to recognize Councilmember Dinowitz.

How do you collect information about race and ethnicity for students and employees?

Are the grouping in line with current federal requirements?

How do you account for people who identify with multiple race, ethnicity, or ancestry?

We collect.

So sorry.

We collect that information.

Did you want to both faculty and students?

So at a time of employment, we collect that information, and we capture information where it's reported multiple.

They can select more than one if there are multiple ethnicities.

For the students, a time of application is when we collect that information and same, and we are in compliance with all federal and state laws and how that information is collected.

Thank you.

Given that each campus and perhaps each department with a campus does its own hiring, how does the executive CUNY leadership work towards a racially diverse faculty?

Well, each of the campuses have their own HR and chief diversity officers.

Centrally, we also have the same office.

And so centrally, all of the information we ensure compliance with and ensure processes are followed, both at the campuses, everything gets reported up and final approval is at the central level.

So while hiring is initiated and takes place at the campuses, everything then comes through the central HR offices.

Are you seeing differences in representation across faculty based on position of authority and seniority?

I can't speak to the specific numbers, but what I can say is CUNY has really put in and double down on our efforts to ensure that we receive a diverse breadth of applications.

And you can see that in the numbers of our diversity, I mean that's really the focus is how do we expand access, opportunity, and intentionally really reach a very wide group of representatives.

But I will also add it's just as important then in retaining and the efforts that we do, and it's a collective approach across all the campuses and the central leadership as well.

Thank you for that.

The percentage of white full-time faculty is measurably higher than the percentage of white students at CUNY, and the percentage of black and Hispanic Latino faculty is clearly smaller compared to CUNY students.

These statistics strike me as underrepresentation of black and Hispanic faculty.

Is this a concern to you?

Do you have a goal for improving these discrepancies?

We really focus on the diversity at the point of really the application and notification.

How can we reach the broadest group of faculty across to bring in a very diverse pool of applicants?

And that's that's really a large part of where we focus our efforts.

But a very important part is also feedback.

I have to uh note how many committees we have across all of CUNY, both at the central office level at the different campuses, that whose purpose really is to provide just survey, to provide feedback, information on our efforts to have that feedback loop.

We try initiatives, we try things to try and make sure that we're reaching the largest breadth of faculty and staff in leadership in those applications, but then we have members of our community, faculty and staff across HR, across all campuses at the central office level, providing feedback on these initiatives so that we can continuously make improvements in our work and so that it's that continuous feedback loop that I think is what strengthens CUNY and our diversity.

I always say that you have to get feedback from the people who are on the ground and doing the work in real time, so in order for you to apply what you're getting back from feedback in real time, that's really good.

So my next question will be the percentage of white part-time adjunct faculties are measurably higher than the percent of white students and percentage of black.

So it's the same.

Hispanic, Latino, and Asian faculty is clearly smaller than the percentage of those students.

Is that a concern to you?

And do you also have a goal to improve that?

The same work that we are doing overall across all positions applies to to part-time faculty as well.

Okay, so with the same type of feedback and reality.

So type of feedback, all of the groups and councils and committees are representative of part-time faculty, full-time faculty, part-time staff, full-time staff.

That feedback loop encompasses and those groups and committees encompass our entire CUNY uh community.

Do you also get um feedback and surveys from students as well?

Absolutely, absolutely.

And our student Senate has an ad hoc committee on campus climate as a mechanism to provide feedback.

We also have the student experience survey that we deliver to maintain that continuous feedback loop and that open dialogue.

And we invite students to participate in almost every committee across CUNY.

Thank you for empowering students.

What is the impact on black Hispanic and Asian faculty of being in the minority of their colleagues?

Do teachers of color report any measure of stress, workload as being higher or different from any of their other colleagues?

These groups that I mentioned earlier, I do want to speak speak specifically about the group of the faculty senate.

The faculty senate created idea inclusion, diversity, equity, and access, specifically to be able to provide feedback on any concerns.

We also have coach faculty survey that we deliver all of the campuses.

We receive a centralized report on and measures and ask questions specifically of faculty.

And we could create committees across every single college.

They are required to take the feedback seriously and take actionable steps on the feedback provided through those surveys.

And I'm not sure if President Johnson, he you know, being on the ground and being responsible for some of that coach faculty survey, if there's something you want to add to that.

Absolutely.

As the president of the college, this is always important to me to hear directly from stakeholders because they are the ones who you know are serving our students, their boots on the ground.

So we take those surveys very seriously and we make sure that those action plans uh comport with the university requirements.

And how often is the surveys given out?

Every two years.

The coach survey is every two years.

Um, but the university faculty senate committee and um the campus affinity groups that we have.

We have Latino faculty and staff association, black faculty and staff caucuses, that's continuous and year-round.

Uh, the feedback, and a lot of the feedback really is about uh creating mentorship opportunities, which we have done, um provided a professional development opportunities to really the goal really is to create a sense of belonging and inclusivity.

Um, and we've taken great strides, and that based off of the feedback that we've collected collectively.

Thank you.

Um we know that racial ethnic makeup of faculty vary from um campus to campus at CUNY.

How do you judge that makeup?

Is it is it by campus based on the makeup of the student body or is there a general standard across campus looking at the faculty makeup by campus?

Which campuses do you feel are more most in line where they should be or at least in line?

May I ask you to repeat that question?

I missed the very, I got you.

We know that the racial ethnic makeup of faculty vary greatly from campus to campus at CUNY.

How do you judge that makeup?

Is it by campus based on the makeup of the each campus student body, or is there a general standard across campuses?

Looking at the faculty makeup, campus by campus, which campuses do you feel are most in line with where they should be or which are least in line?

Well, we do not have any particular standards.

Um we collect the data individually at all of the colleges, and we ensure uh consistency in our practice and our recruitment efforts.

Um, so what is done at one campus is done across all of them, and that's part of that model of having the chief diversity officers across the campuses, but then at the center of central office level, we also have a CDO and we have HR, and so ensure that those recruitment efforts are consistently practiced across all of the campuses.

Thank you for that.

Um what about the makeup of CUNY students in community colleges and um senior college seems reasonably well balanced across racial ethnic groups, but at the graduate level, CUNY students are 40%, 42% white according to fall 2025 enrollment figures, is um that's more than twice as many white students as any other single ethnic ethnic category of students.

How do you account for that difference?

Has have you set any specific recruiting and admission goals to look at this disparity?

In our strategic plan, uh our goal was by 2030 um to eliminate um the disparity in the number of uh minority students compared to white students who apply who enroll in graduate programs at CUNY and that is that was really our focus and our target has how do we eliminate that racial gap um and I am very proud to say that although we established a goal for 2030 um we have already achieved that that goal and so we have the same percentage of our minority students as compared to white students who graduate from CUNY baccalaureate enrolling in our graduate programs.

And so that's where we concentrated our efforts is how do we support encourage um and increase the number of students going to graduate school um and so I'm I'm very proud that we reached that goal so quickly.

Okay.

What help can the city council be in supporting CUNY in meeting its goals regarding the racial ethnic makeup of students faculty and administrators I've always asked that whenever you come here how can we be a partner to you?

Thank you so much for that always appreciate that that question and I think the the continued support that we do a lot funding the programs that really help promote and support our continued ability to provide support for our diverse student body and meet those needs.

And I would say continue doing exactly what you're doing advocating for us and funding these programs we are very grateful.

Are you on track to change a reporting on race and ethnicity by 2029 when the new federal report is standard will include a single combined race ethnicity question that allow multiple rep um responses and add Middle Eastern or North African as a new minimum category.

Yes yes ask my data people and both of them confirmed.

And data drives this work as an educator you know that it drives our data policy even funding absolutely you know how many students are coming to your school were able to um answer that colleagues you guys have questions.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

I wanted to ask about the difference between a percent of the faculty that's diverse from adjunct faculty versus full-time and if you see a difference in racial representation there.

There is a difference across the the two groups and we apply um the same exact approach to recruitment and increasing our recruitment efforts for positions and preparation and professional development for for all of our faculty and to provide as many opportunities as possible for them.

So the same things that are that matter so much to us on how do we increase the diversity of of our students of our faculty and staff and how do we ensure that we're capturing the largest breadth are the same things that we apply across position types.

And between those two types of faculty where do you see greater diversity?

I can look at my data I think I'd have to get back to you just on the specific numbers to show um the the different makeup because you want to know the difference across the the races and where there might be the largest or just adjunct or or full time is what I was asking about but another another question is on the retention side.

So there's recruitment but then retention and how if you see differentials across different racial groups or different type of faculty members and where in the faculty pipeline you see the greatest attrition.

So I have the the breakdown of full time faculty is 13% black or African American 12% Hispanic or Latino 17% Asian and then part time faculty 17% black African American 14% Hispanic Latino and 14% are Asian.

And the retention efforts are the same that we provide for full-time and part-time faculty.

So those committees and those groups and those opportunities to provide that that feedback.

All faculty, regardless of being full-time or part-time, can participate.

But more importantly, the efforts that we then develop and the professional development opportunities, really focused on creating that sense of belonging and support, are available to both.

I will also say our PSC is a champion of this and a partner with us.

We have research grants available.

They're available to both part-timers and full-timers, so they can continue to attend conferences and do research.

And so the equity that we provide is across both full-time and part-time faculty to retain and support and create a sense of belonging.

Thank you.

Always great to see you.

That's great to see a Bronx guy too.

It's fantastic.

I feel seen.

I've heard the phrase increased diversity a number of times.

In other words, what are the goals for increase in diversity?

How do you know you've reached the goal the goal of increased diversity in the faculty?

Is there a percentage of faculty members that are of a certain demographic to know that you've increased diversity?

So I'll I'll start by talking about diversity is not just ethnic diversity, it's really about the academically and academic diversity and ensuring that everything that our faculty, our staff, our community reflects that of the city.

These students, we want to prepare them for the workforce in a very diverse city.

And so the diversity to us means diverse intellectual perspectives, diversity and being able to see and have mentors of people that look like you that have lived experiences such as you.

There are no goals, no quotas, no no numbers.

And we uh, for example, in the Brest initiative of the clustering hire, we have found that's a really impactful way to gain and reach that diverse perspective.

We do that.

We're hiring clusters of faculty in AI.

Um we don't want all the faculty to be in one particular department, one specific specialization.

Um we want the expertise to be across all of the disciplines, and when you hire a group of faculty from one pool, um it ensures that you're going to be able to select a diverse group of faculty and for the breast program, the Black Race and Ethnic Studies program, it's that same approach, and we have found that that's a really uh powerful way and impactful way to ensure the diverse perspectives of those hires.

So it's so it's so there are no goals for diversity in let's say ethnic background, and but there are also no goals, specific metrics in terms of let's say political perspectives or um academic background or country of origin.

Uh we don't establish goals based on on race, ethnicity, gender.

Um it is really about ensuring that what are the needs of the students to meet the workforce demands, what are the things that are happening culturally?

How can our students who want to contribute?

So many of our students want to contribute societally back to New York City, ensuring that we have sufficient academic experiences, a curriculum that meets our needs, uh the needs of our students and our city.

You have a university advisory council on diversity.

Yes.

Is their perspective the same as yours?

Uh in that there are a lot of different definitions of diversity, that they don't they don't focus on race or or you know, hiring more black and Latino instructors, for example, they have the same breadth of the definition of diversity is as you've explained.

Well, they may may focus more on some of the issues uh of race and um racial equity.

Um they do have a very uh broad perspective, and it's very focused on how to create a sense of belonging um within CUNY.

How do we ensure that everyone who is hired in CUNY um feels a sense of belonging?

And and one thing that I I um I love to tell people I have had the privilege of going to all 26 uh uh colleges, and I have met faculty, um, staff, administrators, um, and regardless of where their perspectives are, their backgrounds, um they all have the one thing in common, and that is they came to CUNY because of the mission of CUNY.

And so we know that our mission attracts um people who want to be able to give back to provide to be here for our students and mentor our students.

When did they I get well when did they last meet?

Uh the advisory council or how and how often do they meet?

Last month they just met.

They meet monthly.

Um, yeah.

Do you want to have somebody?

Are you are you on the council?

Yes, yes.

So you're on the council?

Or we can choose to swear her in.

I'm chamberlain.

Come on.

You have to be sworn in right here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth before this committee?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So you met last month?

Yes, actually.

And you meet how often?

Last week, okay.

They attend uh they attempt to meet once a month.

Of course, sometimes in summer, that's not as possible.

Yeah, as it should be, teacher, come on.

We work so hard, teachers work so hard during the year.

Let it give us give us the summer.

Um, and do you does your committee release reports or recommendations?

And if you do, are those recommendations implemented by CUNY or your prospective um respective campuses?

The history of the council is began with reviewing compliance at CUNY.

In more recent years, it has been more about inclusion and belonging.

Currently, they're engaged in two major efforts.

One is to um produce our biannual diversity conference in 2027, where we have our faculty and staff come to share their research and share their ideas.

Another is to have a panel in November on CUNY's uh contribution to the history of diversity and higher education, and to also provide some um awards recognizing people in our community who have done a great deal.

Okay, and just my um chair, if I may have my last question.

I'm I'm just just want to understand.

Does in addition to those uh it sounds like very valuable events, does the does the council itself make recommendations or policy proposals to CUNY Central or to their respective campuses as to increase diversity?

Um as we were saying.

In recent years, they have met with the chancellor informally once a semester.

They have not issued reports from those meetings, but they have had conversations.

Okay, I mean it's it sounds like you have a number of representatives from various schools and various backgrounds.

It sounds like these panels and these biannual conferences are excellent opportunities to address a problem of of disparity, I think, in our in our faculty uh versus versus our students, and it seems it just seems like a missed opportunity not to make recommendations uh to CUNY, who would I know gladly implement policy changes uh if made by such an illustrious group of individuals?

I do want to add that uh while the group may not provide in a formal report any recommendations and those conversations with the chancellors, um they do bring up ideas and thoughts, and then those are shared.

And um they are taken very seriously because we receive feedback from all of our different um groups, the faculty senate of their group in particular, do they did just recently issue some recommendations and a report um and they're working on one, I think for the fall because it's a little uh outdated, um, and I think it's a couple years old, and they're issuing another one.

So there's while that you're highlighting one particular group, um, there are groups across all of the campuses that do very similar things and provide feedback individually to some of the college presidents.

So it may not even be all at the central office level, but there are many different uh committees, affinity groups, um that do the same thing that meet, provide recommendations, and then provide those recommendations to the leadership.

Thank you.

I'll share.

I know my time is about I I'm certainly interested in what those goals are for these affinity groups, the council, what the actual goals are and what CUNY's steps are in actually meeting uh meeting those goals because conversations are great, but policies uh a little better.

Absolutely, and and one way in in the the coach faculty survey, that is something that um some of the questions specifically ask about sense of belonging if you're a faculty member of minority, you know, what are the things and recommendations, and then we create a university-wide group dedicated to those recommendations that have to provide updates on what steps have been done.

For example, um we we found that um, which is true uh nationally, that faculty uh of color in particular and women um sometimes get stuck at the associate professor rank and maybe aspire um to be full professor.

And so we then developed very targeted um support.

Um there was a lack of uh reported uh clarity on the tenure and promotion uh process, and so I am very happy to say I have officially uh um issued uh tenure and promotion guidelines for all of the colleges to try and help address it.

We take the feedback very very seriously because once you know, having and recruiting a diverse group of faculty of staff is is absolutely wonderful, but retaining them is a goal and making uh creating a sense of belonging and welcoming and support for their professional growth and development, and and that's where a lot of the recommendations come in is how do you create a sense of community amongst the faculty and staff?

Thank you, thank you, Chair.

Very welcome.

Um I have a question.

Do you track retention of faculty?

Um are there differences across racial ethnic lines?

We do track retention, correct?

Or is that is your HR here?

Um we do.

We do track retention.

We also uh have an exit survey program that our colleges participate in, and uh we do ask for self-identification in that survey as well.

I don't have that information.

And we don't have the details of the of the numbers.

Um you can get that to me as well.

What percentage of diversity in your chancellor your chancellor positions by race and gender?

Let me see.

So uh I can say first uh the presidents and deans, uh, presidents and deans, um 62 percent uh belong to a minority group, 27% black Latino, 27%.

I mean black or African American, 27% Latino Hispanic, and 8% Asian, and the chancellors, uh cabinet and executive uh the chancellery, um 50% belong to a minority group, 21.4% black or African American, 21.4% Hispanic Latino, 3.6% Asian.

And how about gender?

I do not have you'll get that to me.

I can absolutely that would be great.

Um I have a question.

What role do the black administrators play in assisting with policy implementation across the university system and how they included in decision making process?

You said you take a survey.

Are the black staffers included in making implementing implementing some of these policies?

Absolutely.

Uh it's not a separate subgroup, but uh definitely part of the group in the conversation, and so many of the executive leaders across the colleges as well, um, represent and are um diverse and participate and are um policy and decision makers, and I would uh ask that uh president give the perspective at the college of how that's done.

Absolutely.

Uh so as a president in the university, I participate in the chancellors who's called our cops.

Um that's where we get a chance to really opine on policies and procedures uh that impact the university and also impact our respective campuses.

So we're highly engaged in the policy and procedures of how we can really inform what how the university is moving forward.

What type of mentorship and opportunities exist for faculty of color when they join your staff, educators across the city have a mentor for three years.

What is your mentorship policy for professors?

So for all of our faculty upon higher, all faculty are, and this was part of the tenure and promotion guidelines to ensure that there's uh consistency across colleges.

Many of the colleges now will a faculty member is assigned a mentor from the very beginning, junior faculty to help support them, get acclimated to the college.

Um there are also a lot of affinity groups across all of the colleges, and the faculty are invited to participate in the affinity groups, and you know, they'll have social events and they get together, and it varies from campus to campus, but there's a lot of engagement.

We also have at the office at central office, the office of faculty affairs.

Um we will have uh new faculty events to bring everyone together so they can meet across the system because at the individual colleges there's a lot done because we want them to know, and so many of them report.

We came here because while I might be the only one specializing in my particular area at this college, I know that we exist across the university.

So providing those opportunities and engagements to meet the faculty with that have similar lines of research, similar interests, and bring them together.

So while the colleges may do things individually, then at the system level we engage in different opportunities.

We also have a faculty uh fellowship program where junior faculty are assigned a mentor and to help them in writing and making sure they reach their writing and publication goals.

Um there's many different mentorship opportunities, not just for uh promotion and tenure processes, but also professional growth and as well as the specific affinity.

How long are the mentorship programs?

Um the mentorship at your departmental level would be uh, you know, until you get tenure and promotion, but those relationships kind of last forever.

How long can someone take before they become tenure?

Um tenure is seven-year process, um, and so it's a seven year of mentorship and meeting and making sure that you're um you're on track, and so that that would be at the departmental level, and then the other programs, some mentors uh um as a meet in these affinity groups and different events can be throughout the lifetime of the faculty member.

The specific one of the writing is a one-year mentorship program, um, and all report, of course, continued relationships after.

Okay, thank you.

Uh what recruitment processes utilize for filling positions across CUNY.

Um may I ask for a little clarity on um are you looking at the what the steps are or what's done to what are the steps?

Right, yeah.

Um, do you want to give a little bit about the diversity?

Yes, sure.

And if I may ask, are you focusing on faculty or all staff at CUNY?

Um faculty.

Faculty at CUNY.

We begin with the definition of what the jobs are that we wish to fill.

And um, there's been a tradition, unfortunately, in higher education, that if a job becomes available, it's communicated through informal networks, or that was the historical version.

Uh CUNY has been very clear about widely distributing information about jobs.

We had all of our faculty jobs up on the internet beginning in 2004 at a time when other universities were not doing that.

We belong to two consortia of employers that distribute jobs to people who are interested, including the higher education recruitment consortium, which is a central hub for people seeking jobs in higher ed, and also the direct employers association, which distributes jobs through various networks to public and private sources.

We have a standard, we have a manual on how searches should be performed, and it is the responsibility of the chief diversity officer to educate the people at the school as to not only compliance requirements but what makes a successful search.

What kinds of questions are best used to be able to help people demonstrate their capabilities and so on?

The chief diversity officer also signs off on any selection procedures, signs off on the results of the search, and is generally monitoring the activities as it goes.

Faculty are generally selected through a search committee, and we expect the search committee to represent the diversity of the faculty as well.

That's very important.

And maybe you can speak each search committee member has to receive a particular training.

Yes, each search committee member receives training from the chief diversity officer.

Some officers provide that training every time there's a search.

Other schools have a standard that everyone has to have that training twice a year.

Is that an external search firm for certain position?

No, that would be the chief diversity officer provides that orientation.

Okay, okay.

What about the other positions?

Directors, executive.

Yes.

Okay.

Does CUNY track and evaluate the diversity of applicant pools across positions?

Do you track that and look across?

Yes, yes.

I was looking today.

Our applicant pools for faculty positions are approximately 54% people of color at this time, which is extraordinary, really.

And what and what's some what are some of the criteria you consider when determining when does the candidate advance to the next next step of the hiring process?

What does that look like?

For faculty, the search committee does an initial review of all of the resumes or CVs that are submitted, and that is the initial review.

There's conversation, discussion.

Each committee member is asked to rank and evaluate each of them based off of the chief diversity officer's guidelines.

And then from that pool one and pool two are identified.

The pool one group are the ones that you want to first bring in for interviews, pool two, or if we have people that might drop out, say they're no longer interested, and all nothing can move forward without the sign-off from the chief diversity officer.

So after the select the search committee does that initial review, then the chief diversity officer looks at all of the applications to ensure that these groups, tier one and two, um, are based off of the criteria established in that job description.

And then from there they are interviewed, brought in sometimes for in-person, sometimes it's first Zoom, and then they advance a smaller group to in-person interviews.

Oftentimes they come, they do a mock course and teach or lesson, all of the disciplines do it a little bit differently, and then the recommendation is made to the dean or provost for the selection of the candidate.

Any good thing.

How do you assess whether recruitment efforts are reaching a broad range of qualified applicants?

How do you assess that?

We do look at the applicant pools, not only how many people apply, but of the people who apply and are qualified, how many are selected for interviews and who are they, and how that progresses into offers.

So applicants to interviews, interviews to offers are tracked.

Okay.

What practices you have in place to ensure equitable access to employment opportunities across the university system?

May I ask would you mean for existing employees or?

Can you can you speak up?

Yeah, may I ask it for current employees or yes for current employees?

Um all of our jobs are posted and available for internal and external people to apply.

Okay, that's primarily.

I have a quick question for faculty.

How do you provide professional development to support faculty?

And learning opportunity you mentioned earlier.

Sometime the interviews are a mock lesson.

What other support do you provide for faculty in terms of professional development once they are part of your system?

Yes, we have no shortage of professional development opportunities for our faculty.

Each of the campuses have a center for teaching and learning, teaching and learning and excellence, where there are a plethora of opportunities for faculty development and teaching.

We also at Central Office do the same thing, and we coordinate with all of the directors across the campuses.

The Office of Faculty Affairs also provides professional development for faculty who may want to work with and collaborate with other researchers, and we facilitate that collaboration because that's also very, very meaningful to faculty, especially faculty of color is that sense of community and partnership and being able to work with other faculty.

So we have an office of research that facilitates some of those collaborations, and the campuses do that as well.

The campus provosts and leadership coordinate that as well.

We also have for the faculty who like me may consider a leadership role at some point.

We have created department chairs when they are elected.

Oftentimes, years and years ago, there was no department chair training, and they each person was trying to figure out the role all on their own.

We have a system-wide department chair training.

We offer it every single summer.

We offer sessions throughout the year for department chairs, and a lot of the campuses have also created their own professional development opportunities for those who might be interested in doing a leadership role.

So whether it's teaching, research, uh potential leadership opportunities, we offer a wide range of development opportunities as well.

That was going to be my follow-up.

And once you get into leadership, who supports you when you're in leadership and guides you, so you do have that support in place for folks who are in leadership positions.

Is it a group?

For example, principals in public schools, they go through a C30 process.

What's your process like?

For faculty, it's a search committee of other faculty primarily.

They are, it is possible if there are not a lot of faculty at one school in a certain discipline, they can have faculty from other schools participate in the committee as well.

It's generally at least five people.

At least five people to come in and interview and ask the question.

And for our cluster hires, that's exactly what we do.

We have faculty from different colleges in that group to be able to offer the that diverse perspective.

Is there any training provided for the hiring managers that's gonna sit on this hiring process?

Yeah, it's a requirement that all of them receive training.

Okay, they do the same thing in public schools, okay.

What other safeguards are in place to minimize bias through the hiring process?

That would be the training that's offered implicit bias training as part of that requirement, and the chief diversity officers at all of the colleges provide that, and at the central office level as well, so regardless of where the search committee lies.

You provide that through the training.

I provide implicit bio training, yes.

Okay.

Um, how are candidates evaluated and what measures ensure consistency, transparency, and decision making?

Well, all candidates are evaluated uh based on the criteria in the job description.

I will say the HR offices work very, very closely, whether it's faculty position, staff position, to ensure very transparent and clear job description.

Um oftentimes we know what the job we wants we want, and it sounds really great in our head, but it might not appear that way on paper.

So there's a lot of checks and balances to ensure that every candidate knows the specific criteria you will be evaluated on is reflected on that job description.

Um we have a strict guidelines that require that anyone who is brought into an interview, we have to demonstrate we've used and adhered to those criteria that were explicitly listed in the job description, and those are the only ones that we can use.

Follow up on real quick on your professional development.

Is it tailored to black faculties or any other ethnic group on campus?

I saw you turn on, I thought you were gonna answer that.

So the ones that we have at the central office level, they're not tailored.

That would be more at the campus level or affinity groups at the campuses, may do individualized professional development, and those at the campus, but we also have a diversity projects development fund at Central, which is run, and it's a grassroots diversity equity initiative that are led by faculty and staff, and it's open to anyone in the system for funding.

And that in and of itself, these passion projects really give diverse faculty and staff an opportunity to meet others, professional development opportunities so they could do activities that are of their interest and lead to their professional growth and development.

And what metrics do you have in place to assess the effectiveness effectiveness of initiatives aimed at supporting black faculty?

Our main the coach survey and the surveys that we do and reporting and measuring and monitoring retention.

I mean, we collect and we track retention information, the collective information from the feedback from all of the different groups that we receive throughout the year, plus the coach uh formal survey and looking at retention.

So it's a collective approaches or not one specific metric that tells us how we're doing.

We really look for that feedback.

That's why that feedback is so critical, hearing directly from people and giving them an opportunity to hear versus a very delayed survey, waiting two years.

We want to hear from faculty from our staff where there might be concerns, um and and so it's really that feedback mechanism combined with looking at the numbers and implementing um feedback in real time.

Absolutely not waiting two years, right?

That's right.

Um, what resources and support system are necessary to empower black faculties in their academic roles.

I I really think it's all the opportunities that we've mentioned uh before.

Uh sense of belonging, mentorship opportunities are very, very critical.

Um dedicating um resources which we have done and the individual colleges, I might ask, you know, President Johnson talk about the resources dedicated specifically because these professional development opportunities um do require uh a level of funding and um the the college presidents uh you know um he could uh the president Johnson can explain uh what he may do.

Um but at Central, we allocate and dedicate some of our operating budget specifically to initiatives of professional development and leadership training, all of uh the initiatives that we mentioned were umes that we might not have a specific earmark for, but that we uh insist on providing those opportunities every year.

And faculties give you feedback on whether they're working or not and what should be improved and how is that implemented with their voice in mind?

Um after every single event, we always do a survey.

We always want to know how we could do better, um, what could be changed?

Did it is did they receive um the what they had expected?

Were their expectations met?

Um, and we use that feedback every single year.

And um I'm proud to say that the results are always very powerful.

They want more and more and more.

Um, and so we do those surveys after every single event.

I don't know, President Johnson, if you wanted to add anything to that.

Absolutely.

Uh, you know, in coming to CUNY, one of the things I realize is that we're not short on resources in terms of preparing our faculty for success.

And as the president, it's important to me that our most important stakeholders are our faculty because if there's a direct correlation to if our faculty are successful, that means in terms that our students will be successful.

So at a campus level, you know, we work diligently to ensure uh in different means, so uh resources that are allocated from the university.

Uh at my discretion, we may have an opportunity to provide release time for faculty who want to do specialized projects.

Uh so also as the as the president oversees the reappointment promotion and tenure process, it also gives me an opportunity to work directly with our pro roles and our faculty as well as I'm looking at those packets to determine are there additional resources that we need to provide to our faculty to ensure that they're successful so that when they reach their seven year clock that they're successful.

So there are a number of resources that we're doing at the college, and we ensure, and that's a part of you know my role to make sure that I'm always very cognizant of our faculty development, uh ensuring that all of our faculty receive the you know the same resources to ensure that they're serving the most vulnerable students that we have in the Bronx.

And the faculties you have now, your black faculty members, um, how do you support them in retaining them in their respective departments?

Yeah.

So I will say we we serve all of our faculty uh equally, and you know that is that is my role to ensure that all faculty have the same number of resources so that they can serve again our most vulnerable students.

Uh, we are with our provost to support, we may identify that there are opportunities to serve faculty who may need a little more additional support, and we allocate those resources through our department chairs to make sure that those faculty are meeting the needs of our students, but they also comport with the academic rigor as we've established as a university.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that both the PSC and our faculty senate are very strong partners in this area.

Um, the PSC, we have research awards, we have um they've negotiated um release time for junior faculty, so less teaching, more time to be focused and dedicated over the years.

It's been reallocated where faculty said, um, once I get tenure, then all of a sudden it all goes away, and there's so the the amount of work becomes too much and intense.

And so now part of it's used when your junior faculty till you get tenure promoted to associate professor, and then you still have uh um some more, um, so that way you're kind of a weaned off of uh of that, but there's also opportunities to apply for grants.

The faculty senate is continuously uh providing that um support as well, and so it really is a very strong partnership across the university to make sure that all our faculty are supported throughout their professional journey.

Um let's talk about some shortage areas.

For example, strategies CUNY can implement to enhance recruitment of black faculty and STEM disciplines, and we see that across all of our system that when we don't have enough faculty in the STEM disciplines, how what are we doing to recruit more black faculty in STEM?

I I will say that um we really are expanding um when I mentioned the strategic plan and that goal of increasing and and um the uh or decreasing the equity gap of our students applying to graduate school, the focus of really uh providing the support necessary for our students of color to apply to graduate school and creating uh you know a robust graduate enrollment that's more reflective of our diverse city is really where um most of our focus is because I think that's that's what we do well is how do we um educate um students and prepare for uh diverse workforce, and and that's really where um most of our efforts are because we realize that that's our it's our moral responsibility to ensure that that racial um equity gap is uh decreased.

Yeah, because we you're you are employing the next workforce, so it must also reflect the diversity as well.

Um, how can mentorship programs be structured to effectively support black faculty and STEM?

What kind of support are you providing for faculties who come into STEM?

The mentorship opportunities are uh the same for all of the faculty, um, where at the departmental level providing that that level of support, and the faculty also find mentors in in these affinity groups across campuses, providing those levels of support and um sometimes intentionally uh one of the goals of the Office of of research, um, and uh we just had a meeting on this actually.

In the Office of research.

We just rolled out a centralized uh research um tracking system.

So it's called CAUS, it's a grants management system.

Um, and before it happened very locally, the campuses would uh faculty would apply for grants, um, they might receive them, they might not.

Now we have a centralized system, and what excites me the most about this, and I just talked to the council of presidents about this, is we will be able to see the faculty who've been unsuccessful who keep struggling to get a grant in a particular area.

And we can identify other faculty across the system who've been extremely successful in obtaining grants and make those connections to help some of the faculty who have been successful and or perhaps have had more years of experience and the junior faculty who might be strong.

We've never had insight into that.

And so we're excited to for the opportunity really provide much more of that.

Because right now it is much more informal of connecting, but it's not necessarily specific mentorship for a particular goal, other than the faculty publication mentorship program.

Um and so we're really excited in that area because that is uh I think an area where we we've just never had much insight into.

Is there any um future possibility for partnership collaboration with CUNY to expand um on STEM fields with recruitment of black candidates and other partnerships that you can create to mentor this shortage area?

Just like similar to education, STEM is also one of those areas where we don't have representation.

I think the mentorship is really key that um you've identified and really ensuring that we have much more strategic mentorship opportunities in STEM.

Um as you know, publications and grants are really kind of the key to success, and uh so the targeted mentorships specifically um around those areas I think will uh prove to be extremely useful to CUNY and to our faculty and students.

And earlier you talked about leadership.

Um, what specific initiatives you have implemented to identify and promote qualified candidates for positions of black deans, provosts, and presidents?

Yeah, our department chair training is really kind of where it all started, and I am very proud to say that I was one of the founding members of the department chair uh training, and my um background is organizational psychology, and I very quickly realized that higher education is not um different than a lot of uh the challenges other organizations have where you somebody gets put into a leadership position, has to learn on the job.

Um, and I realized that very quickly at the department chair level where um I might have a PhD in psychology and history and all of a sudden have to manage a budget.

I have to deal with personnel issues, um, and that can feel like a very lonely place and very frustrating place.

And so that department chair training is really where it starts in academic positions.

Um that is usually the faculty members' first experience with a leadership role is at and that foundational position is so important to provide that support, and so we provide that training on on the budget, having difficult conversations, managing um staff and employees.

Um, how do you create um course schedules that meet the needs of the faculty of the students?

Um, and that is really where we provide the level of support.

And then at the dean level, um, under my leadership, we've now created a dean's council.

Um, so we have a council of all of the deans to provide that leadership support.

So it's not just about support in their current role, it is also the bench for the next role, and the same thing at the department chairs.

That's one of the the most uh impactful parts of the development programs is you identify the people who want to move and advance, and then you have that bench of people when you're you need somebody for that position, you've identified them because of participation in these programs, and this council model is something that we do often, and at the individual colleges, um they they do the same as well.

But at the central office level, um we've been very strategic specifically about each of the academic ranks to make sure we not just support them in their current role, but how do we ensure that if they so choose and want to explore other opportunities, they can.

So you create a pipeline for um staffers who want to um how much of the is there percentage of women and um black faculty that you look to make sure that they are also in leadership and representation?

Um we don't have a specific target or a goal or uh or a number, um, but we the opportunity is available to all and we ensure participation across across all.

And how do you measure um your outreach strategies designed to attract diverse pool of applicants in leadership positions?

Well, it depends on the type of leadership position, and I may ask President Johnson to talk about uh some of uh at the college level.

Some of the positions we do use an executive search firm, it depends on the role and the title.

Um and um I am not from HR, so I'm not quite sure how they're the criteria established for that difference.

I don't know if um HR wants to elaborate on on that, and then maybe the campus perspective of what you're what you do.

In terms of search firms, it's generally where we've experienced difficulty in recruiting in the past, either for that specific role or similar roles as well.

Uh we also uh for the colleges we publish a catalog of outreach resources, um both free and paid, and networking opportunities and colleges are encouraged to participate actively in recruiting.

And what I might add is very similar to what Ann and the Provost stated, you know, it depends on the specificity of the position.

So for example, if we're searching for a dean in a very specialized role, we may need to engage with a search consultant because they may have greater reach in terms of being able to identify a pool of candidates beyond our scope of New York City.

So it just really depends on the various roles.

So if it's a probability or vice presidency, depending again, depending on the specificity or where we're looking for at the campus level, some searches, you know, we may look to for a search firm.

Many of those we may look to uh in terms of internally, but you know, one of the commitments that you know I've always had as a leaders to make sure that our students and and the students that are in the classroom and the faculty that are teaching them that there's a reflection of the ecosystem that they're serving in, and I think that is one of the great things that uh we do at CUNY.

I mean, we are a laboratory and we're preparing those students for the world of work, and that representation certainly is uh paramount and it is certainly represented in the faculty at BCC.

What role can community engagement play in selection process for these leadership positions and how candidates leverage their connection to enhance community um involvement.

And then that's a really good one.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

So, for example, I'll give an example of if there's a position centered around um advancement, for example, uh it's important that we always look to our community because they will be engaged in terms of fundraising and outreach.

So, oftentimes, in my tenure in CUNY, I oftentimes look across the university, but also in the community to make sure that there is that connectivity because as those administrators come onto the college, it's not that they're just engaging internally with the internal stakeholders, they have to know the ecosystem to which they are part of.

So we we are very, very always engaged in how we can engage our community in terms of how they can support and also add a different lens because they may have a different context that might help to strengthen uh the pool in terms of the candidate that we choose for respective role.

And I and I want to add that on on some of the executive leadership positions, that search committee is comprised of members of uh external to CUNY of organizations, community leaders who are involved and actively involved.

Um, and so that's a that is absolutely central at the leadership level.

Um it's not at the faculty level, it's the faculty experts with the faculty, but at the leadership level, it's really the breadth of that committee because they are the stakeholders, they are the ones that you want those um diverse perspectives to uh really impact the, you know, the selection of the right candidate.

Um what steps can um can be taken to ensure accountability and achieving a diversity goal within the senior leadership teams at CUNY.

Well, I do want to say that um there's not necessarily a specific goal, but ensuring a compliance is something that um our my HR colleague here can definitely um talk about to ensure that's fair and equitable access.

Yeah, specifically, we do compare our applicant pools and our representation to estimates of labor market benchmarks that are based on both internal and external labor markets, meaning how many people would be eligible to move up into a category, and how many people may be available in the local community who might be qualified for a job.

One thing that we've noticed year over year is that we might fill about 65 or so jobs in our executive ranks each year, and it is pretty much 50-50 internal and external, which speaks to the strength of the internal um pipeline that we have at CUNY.

Yeah, that's to go back to my question.

Um, do you plan on strengthening leadership development pipelines, succession plan, professional investment opportunities for black students for black staff and administrators?

We we uh uh continue to strive to provide more professional development opportunities.

Um when I mentioned the dean's uh council at the academic level.

Um there's also councils that we've created, for example, in enrollment management.

Um I know I'm gonna get the name wrong because I want to say quality stars, but it's not quality stars, but it's the something with stars looking for uh leaders within enrollment management.

So it's not just within academics and not just the faculty, it's within enrollment management and uh looking to replicate within student affairs professionals and within the different um sectors uh across the system and how can we create programs?

And um the one within enrollment management's extremely successful, and a one actually asked to come shadow me for a day and shadow other leaders, and and we we did exactly that.

So it's really very intentional professional development, and replicating this and expanding access to these models across all of the areas is our goal.

Um will CUNY commit to publicly reporting annual data on leadership hiring, promotions, retention, representation so that students, faculty, staff, and public can evaluate progress towards creating leadership that reflects the diversity of New York City and the students at CUNY.

We have done that up until now.

Uh each college has prepared an annual plan and they have posted that on their website.

We are in the process of determining what kind of plan we will be using in the future, uh, and what kind of metrics we will be using.

But yes, that's something that should be available.

Would you be willing?

Um, can you share that with the committee as well?

And could we also see what a copy of your survey that you provide?

The coach survey for faculty in particular, we we can provide that.

We would love to see that.

And we can see the the links that we have available to any reports.

We can certainly provide that.

Yeah.

So recruiting students, black students to CUNY is only the first step, but ensuring that students have equitable access to resources, opportunities, support system necessary to persist graduate and other meaningful careers is equally important.

So, how will CUNY strengthen support for black students across through increased investments in seek honor programs, undergraduate research, internships, study abroad opportunities and career readiness initiatives and mental health services while ensuring equitable access to high impact practices?

So, all of our programs, both um ACE and the opportunity programs and even um uh the dual enrollment and early college programs are all very uh uh designed to support students uh where they are and meet them and provide the financial support, academic support, necessary for their success.

And uh in the numbers that uh that we have and the makeup of our students, um, we have a very diverse um group of representation across all of the programs and and CD, Seek, ASAP, ACE, dual enrollment, and all of those are designed specifically with student success.

So transportation costs are covered, and what have food and security at the food pantries, CUNY cares, designed support.

It's a holistic approach to support for all of our students to ensure their success.

And from our campus perspective, in addition to ASAP college discovery, by which almost half of our students are part of the ASAP program.

Of our 7,000 students, about 2,300 students identify as ASAP, about 313 are in discovery, and we have a number of early college initiatives.

But in addition to that, programs that are co-curricular in nature.

So that also helps to foster and support that sense of belonging for students because we know if they belong, if you're the sense of belonging, then they'll be retained and they'll persist.

So programs such as our men program, which is akin to the Black Male Initiative, those are programs that we have on the campus for students.

Equally important is the Roman Up program that similarly supports our students that you know are a part of that initiative.

So those are just maybe two, and uh LGBTQ plus resource centers.

So when we think about programming uh at Bronx Community College, and to your question, we know that in addition to the programs that we certainly want more support for that were mentioned earlier, it is the co-curricular programs that also help to foster that belonging that keep students enrolled at the college.

And there is a program that the SEC created about two and a half years ago available.

So research programs specifically for SIG students, where they work closely with the faculty mentor, and uh primarily in STEM fields, you know, in thinking of a pipeline, uh, do a research project.

Um of the students have been able to attend a professional conference for the first time in their lives to showcase some of their research.

Um, and I uh attended their the conference, they do a student symposium at the end of the year, and it's what started off as a pilot has been a really really robust experience for students.

Um, and I would love to invite you to it because the energy, it was the most, probably one of the most exciting uh events, and that's something that was created specifically about how do we address um support in research in STEM and uh we we created that program uh within Seek called iCorp.

Thank you.

Um also CUNY has not updated the SEC program guidelines in 30 years.

What specific steps is CUNY taking?

And what's the timeline to revised this guidelines to remove institutional barriers to admission better reflect the current socioeconomic and educational realities of today?

New Yorkers, particularly those with patterns of historical economic disadvantage.

It's almost like you're a mind reader because I just spoke to the mind.

You sure did, you sure did.

Um so the SEC uh college discovery and seek directors have been working um with the dean on those changes, and um just this morning or yesterday afternoon, um the the dean said we're wrapping up those those changes, and so then the next step um would be that it would go to uh my office for review and then board approval because they are uh board guidelines, but the seek directors and CD directors have been working so long and hard on those revisions because they they are very outdated um guidelines, and so it's been a very heavy lift, they're all very passionate about it.

I am so excited, so we will soon have new updated um guidelines.

Yeah, is there any other program that you're looking at that have been outdated that needs to meet the moment of the students in the system now?

Um none that um you know what's unique to CD and SEC is that they're board-approved guidelines and so others are much more fluid and continuously updated, and so we've been um very strategic on the um language that's permissible in the um the seek guidelines to try and give a little bit more flexibility um for future.

And we hope to when when when you finalize with the revision or update the guidelines, please share with the committee.

Given the program in CUNY's modeled after SEEK, such as ASAP has grown significantly while SEC enrollment has remained stagnant or in some cases decline, and what time when more New Yorkers are in need of programs like Seek?

What is CUNY's strategic growth plan for SEC?

How is the outreach?

How are you doing it?

And what do you what's the plan to bring up the numbers?

So the dean that was very new dean.

I started this last year, was charged with getting those guidelines done, as well as a five-year enrollment plan and worked hit the ground running, work with working with all the SIC directors at each of the campuses.

And one of the things that was really integral, and I actually started before it being in this position, is visiting each of the campuses and having a meeting with the SEC faculty staff and hearing from them about the challenges and then meeting specifically with the college leadership.

Seek as many different programs across campuses.

Sometimes their work in silos and work in silos can be problematic.

If enrollment management is not working hand in hand with SEC, financial aid for that financial aid verification, which can be a very complicated, cumbersome process.

That that connection and that collaboration are absolutely critical.

And so we've been working with each of the college leaders on how to create that synergy and have them in the room in those conversations.

Because when their strategy applied to the SEC program and SEEC enrollment has not declined in every single program, where you see that strategy and that partnership, seek enrollment has continued to increase in certain programs.

In others where they've been operating in silos, is where there might have been some challenges, and we hit the ground running, met with all the presidents at the Council of President.

We've discussed the strategy, and we have a five-year plan working hand in hand.

And so very excited about what we're gonna do.

Your New York City public school students is where majority of your students come from.

Are we talking to guidance counselors on the ground to let them know that this program exists and what what does it do that it shouldn't have a decline?

Matter of fact, you should be bursting at the seams for this program.

Absolutely.

I see you wanna say something, and I'll say one thing.

Um several years ago, we started uh the first ever um event, uh, all day event inviting the guide guidance counselors across um New York City public schools, um, specifically to highlight and talk about, and it was extremely well attended, um, to ensure that everybody really knows what the programs are.

Um, and to your point, uh, some didn't know uh about and so two years ago, maybe it might have been three years ago that we started that uh to huge success, um, and that partnership uh with the counselors is absolutely critical.

Yeah, very critical.

Uh in the Bronx and the West Bronx, we're certainly focused on how we how do we deepen connections with our K-12 partners and strengthen those partnerships, not only with them, but our community-based organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club and those various organizations who also have youth components.

But I think in stepping back and also looking at the fifth grade, sixth grade, the middle schoolers, because that is the next career trajectory in terms of the next, I will say young people who will become students who will become employers, and we're looking at ways uh at BCC in terms of how we can not only engage with those ninth through twelfth graders, but also how we reach back and begin to really cultivate uh those younger populations as well to so that they are aware of programs like ASAP, but for us this college discovery and those different resources so that they cannot see financial financial resources as a barrier, but they begin to understand that career pathway while they're in middle school and high school.

So we're strengthening partnerships with our superintendents, engaging them soon, bringing them on campus, not to talk at them, but to talk with them around ways we can co-create programming outreach, open houses that will engage not only the students, but also their parents.

So those are ways I think in the next few years, we'll begin to continue to see that growth and also to increase racial diversity because we're going into the community where the students are, and we're seeing those leaders as thaw partners.

Yes, you need to be in the schools and the churches and everywhere else to make sure we're recruiting students.

Um, and I think we should start as early as middle school.

I I I also believe there should be CTE programming in middle schools for young people to put them on the career pathways.

We have so many shortages.

So I think it should be.

So we will send these questions to be answered to us.

Give me one second, let me huddle with my attorney.

Just a few more questions.

How does CUNY um evaluate and improve its hiring policies and procedures over time as you hire or you're making improvements as you go along?

Walk me through that process.

We have a council of chief diversity officers and a council of human resources managers who uh we meet with regularly and advise us on issues that they see.

We should also be informed by the data, of course, where we see opportunities for improvement.

Okay.

Um in your earlier you talked about um your new AI um division.

What does that look like in terms of um representation of black faculty in that field?

We have not yet hired, um, and so that will be uh rolled out, but the uh committees will uh represent a diverse perspectives of faculty, and so in that clustering higher model, we have faculty across different um campuses, different areas of expertise, and uh so the selection process will follow all the protocols as we mentioned earlier to ensure that we have the broadest reach and um a diverse uh representation both on the search committee and and the pools, but um I don't have any information on the hires because that hasn't happened yet.

And you'll get that to us, and yeah, I I think the first group I have to see when the first group is being hired.

So it might be a little delayed, but when it happens, we can get you information.

Okay.

All right, I think we're good.

I think we're good.

Thank you so much.

And we'll send over questions, um follow-up questions in as usual.

All right, take care.

Thank you.

I will now open the hearing for public testimony.

I remind members of the public that this is a formal government proceeding and that the quorum shall be observed at all times.

As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times.

Witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify.

No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table.

Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recording as testimony, but may submit transcripts of recording to the sergeant at arms for inclusion in the hearing.

If you wish to speak today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the sergeant of arms if you not have already done so and wait to be recognized.

One recognize you will have three minutes to speak on today's hearing topic racial equity at CUNY.

If you have written statement or additional written testimony, you must submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to Sergeant of Arms.

I will now call the first panel.

Okay, thank you.

My name is Akeem Polak and I serve as the chairperson of the University Student Senate and as a CUNY trustee on the CUNY Board of Trustees, and where I represent over 240,000 students.

CUNY has long been one of New York's greatest engines of opportunity for working class families, immigrants, first generation students, and communities that have historically faced barriers to higher education.

As one of the most diverse public university systems in the nation, CUNY plays a crucial role in advancing racial equity by creating pathways to educational and economic mobility for students from every background.

The USS University Student Senate appreciates CUNY's continued commitment to advancing racial equity through initiatives such as the Black Race and Ethnic Studies Initiative.

Efforts like these have expanded opportunities for student research, internships, faculty scholarship, and curriculum development while helping to foster a more inclusive academic environment across the university.

At the same time, racial equity must extend beyond representation in the classroom.

It must also address the barriers that prevent students from fully participating in college life and achieving their academic goals.

Many CUNY students continue to face challenges such as transportation costs, food insecurity, housing instability, and financial hardship.

These barriers disproportionately, I got the word right this term, affect students from historically underserved communities and can impact persistence, retention, and graduation outcomes.

One area where we can make meaningful progress is the transportation access.

The USS has proposed a student commuter omnicard pilot program to address the financial burden of community students with the great need of, well, we'll need 700,000 in the New York City budget and an additional 700,000 in the state budget for a total investment of 1.4 million.

The pilot would provide targeted transportation assistance to students with disabilities, student parents, students formally in foster care, low-income community college students, and international students facing hardship.

Transportation is more than a transit issue, it is also an equity issue.

So advancing racial equity at CUNY requires a holistic approach.

It means creating inclusive learning environments, investing in programs that celebrate and support diverse communities, and removing the financial barriers that prevent students from fully participating in higher education.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, what is your opinion of the balance of um CUNY full-time faculty across racial and ethnic groups based on your experience?

Well, based on my experience, I know it's not it's not evenly distributed.

You do have um, well, based on what I've seen, you do have um faculty from let's say one racial background versus like minorities.

I don't think you have um a lot of minors.

I believe CUNY has the opportunity to do a lot more work in that area.

Um, in terms of adjunct, how what what has your been?

What experience have you had with adjunct professors across a racial and ethnic groups?

So from a personal experience, it has been reasonable.

As I said, it's not huge, like a huge minority balance there.

You don't have a many minority adjuncts.

And I'm just speaking from one institution.

But it has been somewhat positive, their understanding of the community and the needs of the students.

I definitely believe so because they should be doing.

Yeah, because majority of our student populists are minority groups, and I believe the leadership should reflect that.

And would as you're in a position of leadership, how have you addressed that with leadership at CUNY?

Well, so we have, as I spoke on the the black race and ethnic studies department built program, that's something that we've supported consistently, and we've ensure that we have representation from all areas and all groups in everything we do.

Earlier you saw you heard me talk about CUNY graduate students are disproportionately white compared to undergraduate students.

Should CUNY be doing more to recruit black and Hispanic students in their graduate division?

They say the make the goal.

Well, definitely, and especially since, as I said, especially from an undergrad perspective, we do have more minority students.

So we should be encouraging them to pursue graduate studies with CUNY as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Linda to Johnny.

That's thank you.

Great.

I want to make sure you have your all your time.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Joseph and members, and this message, of course, is for additional members of the higher education committee.

Before I get started, I do um I do want to just be clear that the Commissioner Racial Equity is a government entity, and so we are part of the administration and council and the branches of government.

So I'm the honor of serving as a chair and executive director, but I'm testifying today both as a government leader as well as a CUNY alum myself.

And so before I get started, I also just wanted to thank both the students and the representatives of the CUNY community that are coming here to speak bravely about their experiences within CUNY and the long-standing racial inequities that continue not only amongst the faculty enrollment programming, but also specifically within CUNY TV.

So CORE, as you may know, is a product of the 2022 ballot.

And so the ballot measure was introduced to redress long-standing racial disparities.

We have over a million New Yorkers that voted to affirm that New York City should have an independent an independent commission that will hold the city, all city entities accountable to advancing racial equity and to increasing community voice and government decision making.

Alongside establishing core, the city is legally mandated to release racial equity plans for every single city agency, both a preliminary and a final plan.

The preliminary plan, which was just released, did not have a CUNY plan included.

This is highly problematic.

CUNY being one of our premier educational institutions not having a racial equity plan, one we believe is in violation of the law, both the racial equity law, but also the preamble that identifies our values as a city.

And so we are hereby requesting that they have a plan.

As a city, voters affirmed that racial equity at CUNY in every government institution is mandatory, and we declared ourselves to be a multiracial democracy.

What I would like to do is in my testimony, I do offer some statistics that were raised by other individuals.

So I'm not going to go.

Don't worry about the time.

Oh, okay, don't worry about time.

Great.

Wonderful.

So in that case, I shall continue.

So as we've declared ourselves to be a multiracial democracy, that means that we are required to tell the truth about race and racism and our history in all of our work, both in the way in which that we hire, the way in which that we promote, the way that we run programs, and specifically our media programming.

So CUNY TV is a critical component of the testimony that I'm offering today.

Our students and our faculty have a significant challenge ahead, one that CUNY is morally and legally obligated to confront and win.

Across our nation, higher education leaders are removing andor refusing to hire black faculty and staff, so programmatic and academic leadership, as well as institute black curriculum.

The U.S.

Department of Education proudly boasts that over 300 colleges and universities have eliminated DEI, removed offices, fired personnel, and remove public messaging.

To be clear, racial equity is not DEI, but it is a critical component to the united front of resources and supports needed to end long-standing racial inequities in education.

Public reporting shows that news outlets such as the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, CBS, and MBC have fired senior black producers, journalists, and editors, and dismantled teams or desks specifically reporting on race and issues facing black Americans.

Remaining staff are left under threat of losing their job if they do not change their interviewer or apply a lens that is palpable to white America.

Black media professionals should not be forced to choose between keeping their lights on and telling their truth about racist challenges that black communities face on a daily basis.

Without honest reporting, without arts driving change, we know that Supreme Court cases that have ended segregation and push forward civil rights would never have happened.

Enrollment and enrollment hiring and programmatic work at CUNY are all riddled with long-standing racial inequities.

Beginning with enrollment, black and brown students and students with low andor limited income are increasingly diverted to underfunded community colleges.

In the borough with one of the largest concentration of black New Yorkers, Brooklyn, CUNY Brooklyn College has approximately 3,000 black students enrolled out of approximately 14,000 students in total at the school.

Black full-time professors are at approximately 6.5%, which is reported lower than other borough-based CUNY colleges.

Although the city university system employs around 40,000 people, less than 5,000 identify as black.

What I do want to note and diverges a little bit from my testimony is that we've heard today lots of data, both from CUNY as well as hearing data from other members of the public who are testifying.

And one thing that I think is extremely important to note is that New York City is particularly rich with black professionals across every single industry and area and concern expertise.

So the loan numbers and the low percentages we're seeing is unacceptable.

When black voices are removed from the workforce, either by denial of an executive appointment passed over for promotion, failure to execute a diverse and expansive search for the best applicant, or released from their duties, then we remove the voices of those who built this city, who built CUNY, and who created the conditions in our city and our country for racial equity and social justice to exist.

We undermine the work of Brown versus Ford, Cooper versus Aaron, and Grudder versus Bollinger, which reaffirm that universities have a compelling interest in a diverse student body.

These court cases are some but not all examples of the long fight to end racism in education.

People power, which includes students, parents, faculty, and staff, drive racial and social justice in the courtroom and the classroom.

Court cases come to fruition because leaders take a stand.

And in other words, personnel drives policy.

And this is particularly important in the case of CUNY TV.

CUNY TV, the city's educational public media station has an opportunity to rise to the occasion and increase support of highly experienced Black media producers, or they can choose to bend to the whim of a racist federal government policy working to erase black voice, story, and truth.

In order to be a true educational public multimedia station, CUNY TV must be included in a CUNY racial equity plan and comply with local law.

We must hire and uplift extraordinary pool of black scholars, producers, journalists, filmmakers, and media executives.

And most importantly, ensure that CUNY executives create a workplace culture where Black professionals are not merely presented but are empowered to tell the truth and affect change.

One example in which to raise would be the account of the hiring current officials such as Chiki Carterhaina, the executive director of CUNY TV.

We would ask and have asked regarding the search process when we are considering the fact that we know news stations across the United States have released, have fired, have let go of desks and journalists that New York City is rich with potential black media professionals that can come in and lead public education programming, who we place in that role and the process by which to get there is critical.

Racial equity as defined in our New York City Charter is not only the outcome, it is also the process.

So when looking particularly at this role, we would ask what is a what was the national regional local search that was conducted to fill this role?

Was there an external search firm retained?

And if that firm specifies in DEI work, how is the position advertised?

We'd be interested to know the pool of applicants for this particular role, what was the racial and ethnic composition of that role, were there benchmarks that were set with respect to how many people would be interviewed and the diversity of that particular pool?

And then who has selection and oversight responsibilities for this executive role in particular, but also for executive roles overall.

I'm focusing particularly on CUNY TV and this executive director position because it is absolutely essential that we take a look at who is driving the stories, who is responsible for ensuring a creative workplace, a multimedia, a public media platform that both is funded through New York City tax dollars and New York State tax dollars, and to make sure that that position, that work and that program is upheld to the highest standards and does not fall whim to the current racist federal policy that is eradicating black voice from New York City, in particular New York City institutions and higher education.

So I would like to end by just noting that racial equity plans and the reason why we are I am particularly raising this executive director role and hiring process is because in our community equity priorities, we specifically note, and over 13,000 New Yorkers noted that it is not only about hiring a diverse workforce, it's about ensuring that the person who is hired believes and support racial equity and therefore making decisions with racial equity in line.

So the work that we're presenting today is about hearing what community has said and raising that in my accountability role to ensuring that all of government takes account for their hiring process, takes account for their appointment process, and takes account for the outcomes and how it is moving our city forward towards a multiracial democracy.

CUNY as a city agency must offer transparency in how they seek to address long-standing racial equities.

They must create a plan of action, receive input from community and implement true change that improves the conditions for students' families, for students' faculty, for their families, as well as for programmatic and programming staff.

We take our racial equity mandates seriously at NYC core.

We believe that the racial equity plan will advance cost-saving innovation that ensures that everyone in New York City thrives and that our city becomes the multi- multiracial democracy that we voted for in November of 2022.

I have a question for you.

Did CUNY ever say why they did not submit their report?

No, they did not.

And have any attempts made to for CUNY to provide a report?

Yeah, so I my understanding is that the racial equity plans and the way that it's written in the law is that the administration pulls together all of the city agencies and institutions that are required to put in a racial equity plan.

We also have additional institutions that are still funded by the city that opted into the plan because they understand the moral and fiscal importance.

The plan itself is to guide the city's budget, right?

And so CUNY as a critical institution that receives city and state funding that is held to New York City local law and state law should be required.

And if they are not, they should opt in considering the population that they serve and what they have stated their commitments are.

It is critical that we have a final plan that includes CUNY as one of the agencies, and that the CUNY plan specifically addresses both the academics as well as the programs, specifically CUNY TV.

Got it.

Was there any outreach for CUNY TV to find out what was their search process and bringing in a new producer?

Yeah, so I apologize.

That actually was the first question I thought that you had asked.

There was outreach specifically on this role, but we were not provided any answers.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The following panel, Dr.

Anthony Brown.

Dr.

Brenda Green.

Randall Clark.

Ulyssia Perry.

If I'll butcher your name, give me grace.

And Dion Bennett.

There's one other person.

Did you fill out the form?

You want to sit up here?

That means I'm gonna have to squeeze in.

One more.

Sorry.

I don't have to think that.

What is your name, please?

Is it Felicia Wharton or Donna Hill?

Donna Hill.

Thank you.

And who's Felicia?

You're testifying with the group, or you're waiting.

You're after.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay.

Have everybody's testimony, or you will share with me.

You'll email it to me.

Oh, just yours.

Okay.

Okay.

If you have copies, you can give it to the spig.

Where's yours?

You need one for yourself.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

One for me and one for my attorney.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You keep one for yourself.

My other committee members had other hearings, so it's normally full.

All right.

Well, that's why.

We do in person first.

And then we do all everyone.

Thank you so much.

All the folks in the room go first and then Zoom.

If you want to wait and see the testimony, you can do that as well.

Okay.

And who wants to start?

Oh, you don't start.

Go ahead.

Dr.

Green.

Go ahead.

Press.

The green light has to come on.

You see my green light?

There you go.

You good.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Rita Joseph for calling this hearing on racial equity, and um greetings to my colleagues in the room.

I'm Dr.

Brenda Green, Professor Emeritor, and founder and executive director emeritor of the Center for Black Literature at Megar Everest College.

I'm also a founding member of the CUNY Association of Black Faculty and Staff.

And this opening statement is on behalf of the association.

Informed by rich and enduring intellectual traditions, the mission of the CUNY Association of Black Faculty and Staff is to support and advance the academic professional and civic development of Black students, faculty, staff, and alumni across the city university of New York, and to serve as a resource for their recruitment, retention, success, and growth.

A core goal of the association is to preserve and promote Black African American and African studies programs and departments.

It was called by the honorable Inez Barron, a formal and a formidable and unforgettable New York City Council member.

Ongoing fulfillment of our mission and goals has become increasingly urgent as institutions and visual individuals throughout the nation face aggressive efforts to dismantle and delegitimize the educational constitutional and social advancement of people of African descent and our profound contributions to America's democratic cultural and educational traditions.

Are expanding.

A commitment to diverse communities is institutionalized and required both in the CUNY mission and in New York State Education Law 125 section 6201.

Black studies programs and departments and black students, faculty, and staff play an essential role in CUNY's effort to fulfill its legal and ethical commitment to diversity.

As we work with CUNY to honor its commitment to diversity, this association asserts that black faculty, staff, and students, both within and beyond Black studies programs, departments, and centers play an essential role in serving the intellectual, academic, sociocultural, and professional needs of all members of the CUNY community.

This association is invested in sustaining that legacy by preserving and promoting black intellectual and democracy advancing social justice traditions.

It is dedicated to engaging and serving the community to which CUNY campuses and members of CUNY communities are proudly connected and committed.

You will hear from members of our association who will provide specific perspectives on faculty, students, staff, centers, and Africana Studies and SEAC.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next?

Good afternoon.

I'm Dr.

Anthony Brown, a professor of Africana Studies at Hunter College.

I thank Councilwoman Joseph and her staff of the higher education committee for this opportunity to present today.

Since the early 2000s, political decision making resulted in an overhaul of CUNY, whereby its most selective colleges significantly raised admission standards and enroll fewer freshmen from New York City public high schools.

The impact was the creation of a bifurcated CUNY system, whereby most prestigious CUNY colleges increasingly admitted more Asian and white students, while black and Latinx students were disproportionately forced to enroll in community colleges.

More recently, after the 2008 recession, applications surged at CUNY because of CUNY's affordable tuition rates, and CUNY began to draw from more middle class families.

That same year, CUNY increased its math SAT requirement.

And by 2012, the tougher admission policy had a major impact on the number of Black public high school students enrolled as freshmen.

And we saw their numbers dropped approximately 42%.

Over the past two decades, due to more stringent admission standards, particularly the increasing SAT requirement, decreased public funding, and higher tuition have together changed the demographics of these institutions.

While these changes increase CUNY's national ranking, they came at the expense of declining enrollment rates for black Puerto Rican and Dominican students at these selective CUNY colleges.

Currently across CUNY, 26% of its students are Black, but at more selective colleges, the Black student population tends to be significantly lower.

At several of these senior colleges, black student percentages are less than 14%.

Distressingly, African American and Latino students are least likely to complete a baccalaureate degree within six years at CUNY.

Their underrepresentation is an example of how structural discrimination continues to limit opportunity.

Another concern regarding students is the Macaulay Honors College, which offers higher achieving students and enrich academic experience that is tuition-free.

Macaulay students have access to grants for study abroad programs, paid living expenses during internships, and research projects.

While Black students comprise 24% again of CUNY's senior colleges, they are significantly underrepresented at Macaulay, accounting for approximately 7% of the student body.

In conclusion, we collectively have a responsibility to implement policy changes that repair the harm of the past 26 years that has systematically excluded thousands of Black and Latinx students from CUNY's selective senior colleges.

We can all agree that CUNY is an important ladder of upward mobility into the middle class.

However, for a recent generation of Black students, the rungs of that ladder have increasingly become difficult to surmount.

We must confront the injurious impact of structural discrimination that exacerbates racial inequality.

We can balance access and excellence, but it will require intentionality and investment.

Everything I've said today is very much in alignment with CUNY's 2030 strategic plan, and we need to implement and honor that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next?

You could bring it a little closer.

Okay, it moves.

We're sharing.

It hasn't.

Oh, you can hear me.

Oh, okay.

Just didn't turn green.

Hi, I'm Dion Bennett.

I'm a faculty member in the African American Studies Department at the New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn.

I also am a member of the University Faculty Senate, where I co-authored a resolution on diversity, inclusion, diversity, equity, and access several years ago that evolved into an advisory committee and a standing committee upon which I serve.

And I also currently serve on the University Advisory Council on Diversity.

Dr.

Brown served on it previously, so I can answer those questions.

We think it is important to recognize that Black people are 21% approximately of New York City's population, 26 to 27%, it varies of CUNY student population, which is even higher, but only 12% of our full-time faculty.

And I want to emphasize that's full-time faculty.

That is not including our adjunct faculty.

And I'm not sure if it was clear from earlier discussions that there is a segregating dynamic, uh, a kind of silent segregation in which uh people of color, including African Americans, uh, women of all races are concentrated in those adjunct faculty uh roles.

And while I'm happy to be a full-time tenured faculty, in part because of the support of this uh organization, I feel responsible for advocating for our adjunct faculty.

CUNY cannot sustain itself, period, without that labor, that underpaid labor of adjunct faculty.

So I just want to make that point because I don't think it's made often enough.

We as Black faculty uh diversify the curriculum, serve as uh role models and mentors, and have greater ties than many others to the many communities that uh that CUNY serves.

Also, I mentioned the 12%.

You'll note that as was just mentioned, uh and is mentioned throughout the day, some schools are less than six percent.

Um, you'll also see a higher concentration of black students in community colleges, and that segregation is just moving throughout the system.

Uh, therefore, we recommend a comprehensive and sustained strategy for the recruitment retention and promotion of black faculty and an appreciable increase of black faculty over the next five years.

This would include vastly increasing the tenure track lines, um, CUNY-wide diversity cluster hires, uh, innovative recruitment and hiring strategies, enhanced support and retention programming for faculty of color throughout their academic careers, and efforts to promote faculty of color to senior faculty ranks and higher administrative positions.

Um, given the competitive market of market for black faculty in the New York Metro area, uh, we recommend targeted initiatives similar to the Latino faculty initiative.

Um, we also recommend increasing the number of black doctoral students across all disciplines, which feeds into the next generation of scholars.

We want to also point out that the recruitment and retention of black faculty must occur both within and outside of Black studies programs.

The diversity of Black faculty is often dismissed.

We keep hearing about that.

We need intellectual diversity.

We have intellectual diversity within every community of color, every gender community, every community of sexuality.

So I just wanted to make that critique.

Black faculty, both within and outside of Black studies programs and departments, should be recruited and retained, and after retirement, those faculty member positions should be prioritized for replacement.

Most black studies departments at CUNY do not have adequate full-time faculty members, and some colleges are obscuring their inability to recruit and retain Black faculty in other departments by relying on black studies faculty to improve their diversity numbers.

So we ask you to please be mindful of that.

When you hear these numbers, be aware of where are they concentrated?

Where are these these black faculty members concentrated?

Are they tenure track?

Are they adjunct?

Are they, you know, full-time lecturers?

Where are they within that system?

Um we recommend an expansion uh of black studies departments and programs that includes the recruitment and retention of new faculty and the replacement of those who have retired or left uh the institution.

Uh, in fact, this is this is read it reaching a crisis situation where we have these extraordinary faculty members who are retiring, including our own Dr.

Green, who we keep dragging back, even though she's retired because she's so extraordinary.

They are not being replaced, and that is going to have consequences for decades.

Um, we also recommend that CUNY uh recruit, uh include HBCUs in state colleges, retain black faculty members and various departments throughout the university, uh, including STEM disciplines.

Um, and I just want to add, we are not marginal.

We are central, we are foundational to the CUNY mission and to the democratic project of this country, and we should be recognized as such and treated as such, and we are not.

At CUNY or any, it's not just CUNY.

Nowhere are we treated that way.

Uh, but we should be.

I want to also just add that the current crisis in this, where we've we're seeing an attack on black studies, on black history, on DEI generally, is having an impact on black faculty.

It's affecting their, even though you know we are state and city funded, it's affecting their federal funding, affecting grants, um, affecting programming.

We're seeing that for faculty of color, and we're seeing it for faculty of all backgrounds.

Um, and so we uh we thank you for listening to these concerns and encourage you to recognize this as a as a crisis situation that requires a critical response.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Who's next?

This is good afternoon.

Uh my name is Donna Hill.

I serve as executive director at the Center for Black Literature and an associate professor in the Department of English and Rural Languages at Mega Everest College.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the critical role that CUNY centers and institutes play in advancing the university's mission and serving the people of New York City.

Across the CUNY system, centers and institutes function as hubs of innovation, scholarship, community engagement, and workforce development.

They were established to create opportunities for faculty and students to engage in research, internships, employment, professional development, public programming, and community partnerships that extend beyond the learning classroom.

Collectively, these centers and institutes address some of the most pressing issues facing our city and nation.

Their work spans a broad range of disciplines and interests, including aging, public health, applied sciences, transportation, environmental sustainability, ethnic and cultural studies, literature, the performing arts, urban affairs, law and social justice, and economic development.

Through conferences, workshops, fellowships, research initiatives, cultural programming and public engagement, they serve not only students, faculty and staff, but also residents, educators, policymakers, community organizations throughout New York City.

Despite their broad impact, many centers and institutes operate with remarkably limited resources.

Most are staffed by only a small number of dedicated professionals who are responsible for program development, grant administration, fiscal management, partnership cultivation, fundraising, communication, and day-to-day operations.

These teams consistently produce outcomes that far exceed the resources available to them.

In many ways, centers and institutes represent one of CUNY's greatest returns on investment.

They attract external funding, establish strategic partnerships, create experiential learning opportunities, support faculty research, provide pathways to employment, and strengthen CUNY's visibility and reputation.

Yet many are expected to sustain themselves financially through grants, private donations, and fundraising efforts, often without the institutional support afforded to other essential components of the university.

At a time when institutions of higher education nationwide are confronting budget reductions, decline in grant opportunities, program consolidations, and increased demands for measurable public impact, the work of CUNY centers and institutes has become more vital.

As departments face increasing pressures, centers and institutes help fill critical gaps providing resources, expertise, programming, and community connections that support both academic and civic missions.

It is important to recognize that while many centers and institutes were established to as distinct entities within individual colleges, they are not peripheral to the university.

They are integral to CUNY's ecosystem.

They enhance student success, expand research opportunities, strengthen community engagement, and serve as bridges between the university and the communities in which they serve.

The centers and institutes comprise an interconnected network of intellectual, cultural, and civic resources that help define CUNY's identity as a public university, committed to access, excellence, and public service.

They are not ancillary programs.

They are essential infrastructure.

Centers and institutes often serve as a public face of the university.

For many community members, nonprofit partners, schools, and cultural organizations, their first interaction with CUNY is through a center or institute.

As CUNY plans for the future, equitable and sustained financial and administrative support for its centers and institutes must be a part of that vision.

Investment in these entities is an investment in student opportunity, faculty innovation, community partnership, and the continued relevance of public higher education.

We would ask what strategies can CUNY implement to elevate and profile of its centers and institutes and showcase their accomplishments and ensure they are recognized as essential contributors to the university's mission and impact.

And how can we ensure that black Latina and Latino Dominicans and Dominican centers receive equitable funding?

CUNY needs the centers and its institutes, and the centers and the institutes needs CUNY's commitment.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairman Joseph and guests.

My name is Ralisa Galloway Perry, and I am currently the department deputy for administrative affairs in the Department of Africana Studies and a higher education officer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and co-chair of the CUNY Association of Black Faculty and Staff.

When I first arrived at John Jay College, I was a student in 1987, and over 30 years later, I am still employed at CUNY.

The average student starting college has not had to make important decisions that would impact their future until they reach college.

Students need support, mentorship, and advisement of faculty and staff that look like me.

If it is not for the black, if it was not for the black faculty and staff members of John Jay, such as Drs.

Roger Witherspoon, Basil Wilson, Jeanette Domingo, Ruby Malone, Bobby Trout, Hank Smith, James Malone, and George Best working tirelessly to advise and mentor me along my journey, which allowed me to start working as a college work studies student in the Burst Size Office and rising as far as the chief of staff in the office of the president.

I would not be here today in front of you.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the roles of black faculty, administrators, and staff play at CUNY in shaping our future leaders of today.

Also, I want to stress the institutional experience produced by CUNY alums who then become staff at CUNY allows our students to receive a smoother navigation of the college experience and focus on graduating and starting their journeys in the workforce.

Black staff members often experience professional job insecurity and inequity and difficulty finding upward mobility within CUNY.

They are often concentrated at the lowest end of the administrative organizational chart.

And since the pandemic, CUNY has lost a lot of black staff through retirement and more lucrative job opportunities outside of CUNY in different employment fields.

This has also created a bottleneck in vacancies being filled and additional workload on staff that is still here.

We acknowledge that the enrollment is not pre-pandemic numbers and is down, but that should not affect filling vacancies as CUNY has been understaffed for many years.

The lack of black faculty, the lack of black staff who are trained to train to trained and given professional development opportunities to recruit, admit, advise, and engage more students does not allow our students to receive the appropriate personal touches they need from faculty and staff who look like them to be successful during their academic journey.

The additional cuts to our support staff, specifically college assistants, and not filling vacancies as appropriately in a timely manner over the years has increased the workload of the higher education officer series throughout CUNY as we are absorbing the workload of other contractual titles that have been cut due to attrition and budget deficits throughout CUNY colleges.

In closing, I have spent many decades moving up the ranks of John Jay in different positions because of the Black faculty and staff that meant to me over the years.

And if I had to do it all over again, I would do it the same way.

Thank you for this opportunity for you to witness what a CUNY education means and looks like at this institution.

We must continuously invest in the people of New York City, and CUNY must continuously continue to invest in its population and communities that they serve to ensure that our students receive the appropriate education they are entitled to and become taxpayers and stewards of this great city we love.

My hope is that all black fac all black faculty and staff will have the opportunities to grow as I had to be mentored by people who look like me to give back to CUNY students the way I still do to this day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, well, good afternoon.

My name is Dr.

Randall Clark, and I'm a uh seat director and former chair of the seat director council.

Uh, this is a statement of concern by the directors of the search for education elevation and knowledge program, better known as SEC.

We are concerned about the apparent consistent decrease in visibility and support for SEC.

For almost 60 years, SEC has served nearly five thousand 500,000 students.

Programs such as ASAP provide students with support and financial, social, and academic advising.

These programs are modeled on SEEG, yet SEC enrollment lacks intentional pipelines and clear guidelines that reflect the legislative mandate that considers students' life patterns of historical economic disadvantage and educational gaps that predate their admission to college.

Therefore, the growth of these programs is not taking place.

And it's no strategic growth plan for Sikh exists at CUNY despite the current and growing need of this population in New York State.

Without the understanding of these realities, the recruitment, retention, and persistence of black students in CUNY will continue to be stagnant.

We recommend that CUNY update its 30-year-old guidelines for seek to remove institutional barriers to admission, improve persistence and graduation of this population to one that reflects and addresses the current needs of today's students.

We recommend that CUNY build upon the access to a population that SEC serves, which is unique to any program in CUNY, an inadmissible population that carries significant impact to New York State as chronically under rep under resourced and out of school, out of out of work youth who currently present a significant social cost to the state.

We recommend that the staffing structure in SEC at a minimum reflects that of other support programs like ASAP, Macaulay, et cetera.

We recommend campus fiscal accountability across all SIC programs and the requirement of a timeline for the allocation of funds to campuses for operations and strategic planning prior to the start of the fiscal year.

Furthermore, we recommend an increased public relations campaign, buses, subways, and social media, and the development of pipelines to seek from New York City middle and high schools to raise greater awareness and improve enrollment in these programs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So what is your opinion of the balance of CUNY full-time faculty across racial and ethnic groups?

The professor wasn't paying attention.

The Zoom is after.

I said everyone here will testify before the folks on Zoom.

I said you can wait and you can wait when everyone is done, and then you'll see the person come on Zoom.

Sorry.

And so can you please repeat the question?

Because I was confused.

What is your opinion of the balance of CUNY full-time faculty across racial and ethnic groups?

Um I can my opinion is based on the evidence.

Right.

Um, and the evidence shows that white faculty are overrepresented relative to both the city and student uh population.

We rarely discuss white overrepresentation, but I think it's appropriate uh to do so here.

Um, since our and I think you know we can see that uh those discrepancies uh around uh different groups of people of color, and since our focus here uh is uh is black faculty and staff.

Um we are literally half we're half the number of the students in the in the CUNY system.

You know, they're they're uh 26 to 27 percent.

We're 12 percent, and at some schools lower than 6%.

We're 12% if we're doing well.

Um, and so the concern is is that well, you know, I understand nobody wants to talk about we don't need quotas, etc.

We etc.

We do need to honor New York State education law, which includes a commitment to diversity as a requirement for funding.

CUNY, nobody ever talks about the funding.

CUNY's funding is based on that law, and diversity is part of that law.

And so when you have an this big discrepancy between the student population, the city population, and the faculty, um, then we are not honoring our legal obligations.

Um, and we are not honoring our moral obligations to the city.

Um, I also just want to add, um, certainly it's important for us to talk about that correlation between the student uh students uh and faculty of specific ethnic groups.

Recent research is showing that uh with black, and it's focused on K 12 educators, but it's still relevant here.

Black educators improve outcomes for everyone.

So certainly, you know, we are at this moment we're talking about black faculty and black black students, but it's important to recognize that centering black faculty is a benefit to the institution at every level, and it fulfills the CUNY's mission and our uh oblig our state uh education law obligations.

Um what about um faculty and leadership?

Um what's your opinion on balance in terms of CUNY faculty leadership positions across racial and ethnic groups?

You go.

You know, that's a very good question, and thank you for asking that.

I think we have to look at it uh across the institution and compare senior colleges to community colleges, right?

Obviously, the community college level, we see the demographics much more representative of the student body.

When we go to the senior colleges, particularly the more selective senior colleges, the disparity is quite pronounced, right?

So there's an unevenness that we see uh between levels and also between prestige of the college at the senior level.

So what recruiting and hiring practices CUNY have in order to remove those barriers and those obstacles to achieve what your equity that you're looking for.

Well, you know, some of it was mentioned mentioned in passing earlier, but we really need an intentional effort to uh there was discussion earlier about chairs.

Uh chairs can become a pipeline into higher leadership.

Right.

Uh and so we need uh much more intentional commitment to make sure that chairs, not just in the humanities, but also STEM fields, et cetera, are given the support, the resources to move through from chair to provost to dean to perhaps even chancellor.

And as you know, I've been here more than 20 years, I haven't seen that broad-based commitment.

I know there are programs in place, but it has not begun to move the needle in a way that certainly my colleagues would like to see.

Um the provost spoke about mentorship when you do become and they're creating a pipeline of succession.

How does that work?

Have you seen it?

I as a former chair, I would say it was quite uneven.

I was I was uh chuckling to a colleague of mine that um, you know, some of us received binders when we became chair, we might have received a one-day um introduction to being chair, uh, but ongoing support uh across the institution is something that I have not seen.

Uh and so certainly uh making sure that something like that structurally is in place that will provide broad based support uh for those who become chair to be successful in those positions as opposed to maybe having to do it more informally.

I just like to add, um, having served as chair for at least 15 years, um I think it's really important that CUNY make it very clear to the provost and subsequently to the chair of its value on diversity because basically what you end up having in many search committees as people replicating themselves.

So if you don't have a clear mandate that diversity is valued and that we need more black faculty, if that's not coming from the top, if that's not coming from CUNY and being funneled to presidents and to provost and deans and chairs, it's not going to happen.

People continue to replicate themselves.

So I think that's where we have to be uh CUNY has to be more intentional about saying that they value this.

And when you set up clusters, I think ignoring race and ethnicity and clusters is very telling.

If you really want to diversify, you have to make sure that all aspects of um diversity are included, and racial and ethnic diversity is essential to ensuring that there's a balance with respect to black faculty.

Earlier, the provost said she met her goal of 2030 for the diversity plan.

What's your opinion?

I have not been, I've not um, well, we one of the concerns we had is that we we we had a diversity, a person who was hired for diversity to ensure that across the campus, and we've asked for a person to be replaced, that person retired or stepped down.

But there may be an office of diversity, but there's no person in CUNY focused on that I know of, focused on diversity for faculty and um staff and ensuring that that is happening.

So it's been hard to really see that.

Um when I when I served on the faculty university faculty and served on the faculty committee, we had um a person come in and talk to us about enrollment patterns with respect to students and faculty, and it and that person had clear data and made recommendations, but we have not seen those recommendations put into effect, and my colleagues can add to that.

I can if I may, but just add one thing.

Um regarding recruitment of black faculty, um, one of the things that we have pushed for is is something that CUD did uh several years ago, which was to create a Latino faculty initiative, whereby coming out of 42nd Street, the Chancellor's office, there was an individual tasked with recruiting, identifying recruiting and placing Latinx faculty across the institution.

And by pretty much all measures, it was successful.

We've asked for something similar for black faculty across the institution.

And again, um, as was mentioned earlier, there's great talent, not just here in New York City, but at HBCUs, etc.

But we don't see and have not seen the kind of commitment to making sure that CUNY goes wherever that talent is and makes sure to recruit them uh to this institution.

May I may I respond?

Do you want me to wait?

Go ahead, but I had some.

Okay, I'll go.

No, go.

Um, I just think uh the the only way I can describe it, describe it when you look at CUNY, and it took me a while to see this, is that what I there is what I would call like a malignant middle.

And what I mean by that is you can actually look at leadership, and you saw it sounded like good numbers, right?

Um, for leadership percentage.

Um, but that doesn't trickle down.

You know, the those diversity values are not moving through the system.

They kind of get stuck in the leadership roles, and then they get stuck in the bottom.

Okay, community college students, uh staff members, we get stuck at the bottom, and then we get some, you know, some uh people at the top, and so it's it looks great until you look at the malignant middle where you have a crisis.

So I just want you to kind of be aware that those numbers are can be a little bit deceptive, also to pay attention.

Sometimes uh we talk about the difference between quantitative and qualitative diversity, so it's not just the numbers, we do want the numbers, but we want substance, um, and we don't have that.

Okay.

Um question um around seek.

Provost did mention they are making changes to the guidelines.

Yes, so the guidelines has been a uh issue that's been raised by the by the directors since about 20 n 2020.

Um there has been numerous efforts to move it forward.

Um the last effort we made um to move it forward with the previous dean um who served for two years, uh it got it got stalled at the board of trustees and then it bounced back.

So under this new direct dean, they're hoping to move it forward again.

Um we're we're hopeful we you know we've we've got to weigh in on the work that was done with the previous dean.

Um and hopefully we'll um the current dean is taking elements of what we worked on, but um, you know, seeing is believing for now.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Very welcome.

Thank you.

Felicia Wharton.

Robert Echevaria, if I mispronounce it, gimme Grace.

Tia Poquet.

Tia.

Leah Mishimuri Mura.

Thank you.

Sean Miller.

Good afternoon, Chair Joseph.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

I'm Sean Miller, Northeast Regional Director of Young Invincibles.

We're a national uh policy and advocacy nonprofit dedicated to amplifying the voices of young adults in the political process and securing economic opportunity for our generations.

I'm here today to share our thanks and adamant support for racial and economic equity initiatives at CUNY, including but not limited to supporting the New Deal for CUNY, ACE and ASAP, CUNY Reconnect, and CUNY CARES, especially.

We know that state funding continues to be insufficient to address the decades of underfunding of CUNY facilities, faculty, staff, and students.

Thus, we call on the city budget to help fill these gaps, especially to number one, hire a sufficient number and diversity of full-time faculty, number two, academic counselors, and number three, life-saving mental health counselors, especially.

Our working class young folks in New York City, although being a historically underrepresented constituency, are speaking very loud and clear when they tell us that our CUNY schools do not have enough counselors and a full-time faculty or enough financial support.

And the staff that they do have is not representative of the student body's robust racial and ethnic diversity.

I especially want to stress the lack of sufficient mental health counselors, a contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis that is often stigmatized, kept quiet, or ignored.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students, second only to accidents.

It's therefore that uh the most preventable public health crisis among our CUNY students.

However, the ratio of counselors to students at CUNY schools often exceeds one cow one counselor to every two thousand five hundred students.

We've even heard that at some schools, like Hunter College, for example, uh, the student to counselor ratio has been as high as 7,000 students to every one counselor.

7,000 to one.

These major shortages cause students to wait weeks or sometimes months for a meeting with a mental health counselor.

And once they do meet with them, counselor diversity is often lacking, creating in turn, a widespread lack of culturally affirming care for students who are seriously in need.

Uh the cost of increasing the ratio of mental health counselors CUNY wide to the nationally approved ratio of one counselor to every 1,000 students, which is supported by the International Association of Counseling Services, would be roughly $15 million uh per uh CUNY PSE estimates, just zero point zero zero zero zero one two percent of the city's proposed one hundred twenty-five billion dollar budget.

Uh we know this long overdue reinvestment will help ensure that thousands more low-income black Hispanic AAPI and MENA students at CUNY can thrive and survive rather than suffering in silence.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Felicia Wharton, a doctoral lecturer in mathematics at a Brooklyn Educational Opportunity Center, administered by City Tech, and the PSC treasurer, testifying on behalf of the 30,000 faculty and staff of the Professional staff congress of CUNY.

Thank you very much, Chair Joseph, and members of the Committee of Higher Education for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I'm going to be direct.

After reviewing three years of higher-end data from 2022 to 2024, the picture that emerged is that there's a racial inequity problem at a city university of New York.

As such, I will identify five critical areas and Chair Joseph, you also asked some of the questions that I'm going to speak about.

The first is that CUNY needs more full-time faculty to properly serve our students.

A 2021 study by the University Faculty Senate found that white students concentrated at SUNY have significantly greater access to full-time faculty than black and brown students who are concentrated at CUNY.

I will submit a copy of this report with my testimony today.

Secondly, CUNY's salaries have been eroded across decades of underfunding, and our workload is greater than at comparable institutions.

There exists a limited pool of black and brown faculty in university professions, in part because of the educational debt one may inquire required to take on, and lower pay compared to other professions.

CUNY is frequently unable to compete to attract and retain black and brown faculty at CUNY, where faculty work more and are paid less than our public peers.

From 2022 to 2024, black faculty representation at CUNY went from 15.0% to 15.1%, a gain of 0.1% in three years.

This is not progress.

This is stagnation, and it's unacceptable.

CUNY students should have access to faculty who look like them, to whom they relate and who function as role models.

Faculty from different racial and ethnic backgrounds bring intellectual diversity to the classroom.

When black and brown students at CUNY do not see black and brown faculty in the classroom, they are receiving a message that they're not full members of the community.

We need to attract and retain more black and brown faculty and professional staff in key areas such as mental health counseling and advising immigrant students.

CUNY should also focus strongly on the retention of faculty of color.

We are losing ground.

From the data, some of the CUNY colleges have lost black and brown faculty.

For example, at my home campus City Tech, in 2022, black faculty was 31.6% compared to 2024, 11%, a change of 2.6%.

Hostos Community College also lost Hispanic faculty members.

CUNY is losing faculty to attrition.

There are long-term staff shortages and vacancies among higher education officers and college lab technicians.

The professional staff that keep CUNY running.

As such, many are overworked.

Some are expected to do the labor that should be assigned to two or three full-time employees.

CUNY has lost experienced excellent employees because of workload and fiscal austerity.

According to CUNY's 2025 staff FATS reports, more than a quarter of the non-teaching instructional staff in these titles are black.

More than 70% are people of color.

These faculty members serve on many committees than others early in a tenure process based on culture or identity.

As we serve, even if they're spread thin, and we support the mission and vision of the university and the students we serve.

This expectation is never stated when one is recruited or during the higher end process.

This becomes overwhelming and taxing as time goes by.

Studies have shown that the impact of that extraterrestri can hamper promotion, research, and a health work life balance.

Faculty of color are often expected to speak in moments of crisis and conflict, which can place a larger burden on their mental health.

In the PSC CUNY last round of bargaining, the union advanced a demand won by the union represented faculty and staff in the California State University system.

Those faculty of color may now apply for occasional release time, a reduction in their teaching load, tied to performing diversity work.

The PSC will advance this proposal again, and we are returning when we return to the bargaining table next year.

Bottom line is CUNY has a diversity problem, and the time for incrementation is over.

CUNY and CUNY can and should do better.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Oh, there we go.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

My name is Robert Acheveria.

I'm the president elect of the undergraduate student government of Brooklyn College, a place where I've been representing over 14,000 Brooklyn College students these past three years.

A student body which undergraduates alone, over 23.5% of its demographics are made up of Asian American and Pacific Islander AAPI students, and 23.7% of its demographics are students who are black or African American.

Affinity offices and having access to NYC public transit are what further helps the legally mandated mission of the City University of New York, which is thanks to student support services and programs.

Having the final city budget provide $700,000 to fund free OmniCards for all CUNY students, and having the final city budget provide a lean-targeted time limit time-limited city investment of $1 million that would preserve core leadership and essential services for CUNY's three successful AAPI serving institutions, Anapeezy projects across the campuses of Brooklyn College, Hunter College, and Queens College would allow for CUNY to remain to be to fulfill its legally mandated mission.

Especially since September of 2025, the U.S.

Department of Education has abruptly terminated federal funding and revoking MSI grants from these student support services and programs at CUNY, including an Anapeezy project at Brooklyn College, which is also an affinity office, which acronym is BCAP.

What a free OmniCard for a CUNY student would mean is that it can change student lives.

Like a Brooklyn College student named Savely, who uses the New York City subway to commute all the way from Brighton Beach to Brooklyn College almost every day.

A South Brooklyn neighborhood, which 13% to 15% of its residents are AAPI, and is also part of the 14,000 AAPI residents across community district 13.

AAPI residents who are enrolled in CUNY.

What a city investment into CUNY's Anapezi projects would do is stabilize these previously federally supported data-driven programs, which improve persistence, graduation rates, and career outcomes of AAPI students, as well as other low-income and first generation CUNY students.

CUNY's Ana PC projects provide targeted advisoring, tutoring, paid internships, culturally responsive wellness support that bring that also provides a culturally inclusive space that brings a sense of belonging for AAPI students within the university community for AAPI students and promoting their academic and mental health success and community engaged learning to thousands of CUNY students.

Over 1,500 students alone at Brooklyn College as of April 2026, without omni cards for CUNY students and city investment into CUNY's and a PZ projects, which has lost federal funding, which was its only funding to be able to operate for the 2027 fiscal year.

The reality you'll have is immediate loss of leadership, staff, services, and longstanding partnerships, despite demonstrated need and strong outcomes.

You'll have backsliding for thousands of CUNY students, and you'll have affording an Omnitap be the difference for a CUNY student to earn a degree or drop out.

While on top of that, the federal government may target CUNY BMI next, which serves underrepresented groups like Black Students, which is 23.7% of my campus.

This is why I call upon the NYC council to orchestrate and secure actionable support by including in the city budget funding for free omni cards for CUNY students and a city investment into CUNY's three Anapizy projects, as these are vital programs that are as vital as our students they serve.

This is what the role the council can play to meet the needs of CUNY's very diverse student population.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair Joseph, and members of the Committee on Higher Education.

My name is Lisa and I'm here representing Young Invincibles.

At YI, we advocate for racial and economic equity in higher education.

As DEIB, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives face federal rollbacks, New York City must stand as a resilient counterweight.

CUNY is a beacon for diversity, but enrollment is only the first step.

True equity requires us to look beyond tuition and eliminate the systemic barriers forcing students of color to drop out.

Currently, CUNY's four-year graduation rate is just 27.5% for black and Hispanic students and plummets to 17.8% for black men.

And this was a research from the Center for Urban Future.

Proactive advisement and wraparound resources rewrite these trajectories.

A student advocate in our network immigrated to New York only to endure severe housing instability and navigate the shelter system for nearly two years.

While working two jobs and managing a full course load, it was the dedicated guidance of her campus advisor and immediate access to emergency student aid grants that kept her enrolled.

Because of that support, she didn't just survive, she actually thrived, serving as student government vice president at her community college campus in the Bronx and graduated with a 3.5 plus GPA.

The empirical data echoes her resilience.

MDRC found that CUNY's ASAP model nearly doubled three year graduation rates.

Similarly, the ACE program completely eliminated racial equity gaps at John J College, which is an MSI, boosting graduation rates for black students by 21.7% of points.

Meanwhile, the CUNY blackmail initiative drives localized student retention rates as high as 83% at Mega Everest College through intentional peer mentorship.

I can personally attest to the importance of BMI as someone who has been a part of UMI at John Jay.

Both as someone who has served as a mentor and has discovered mentors in this space.

Even though I was a part of my college's honors program at the time, I found that black and brown faculty and staff associated with UMI were my biggest champions at advocates.

Without them and I and countless of other students may not have made it to their graduation.

Despite facing numerous challenges to my basic needs, having a family member go through the justice system, it is because of their guidance, mentorship, and support that I'm able to say I'm a CUNY alum along with other students.

It is thus important that we not only have representation of underrepresented students, but foster a community and sense of belonging that students and faculty and staff in college are engaged at their colleges.

I can personally test, I know you talked about the honors college and you know, not just Macaulay, but honors programs all across CUNY, and I will definitely attest that at the time I did not see a lot of black and brown students in honors colleges, especially Macaulay honors colleges, and we definitely need to do something in terms of having more diversity, but diversity is just not, it's just only the first step.

We also need to foster that sense of belonging.

And so, in conclusion, to wrap this up, when federal structures scale back equity, New York must scale it up.

I therefore support these wraparound programs and centers and ask that we intentionally protect, fund and expand them and dismantle the historical and systemic barriers preventing our students from thriving.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tia Poquet, and I'm currently a graduate student at Brute College, pursuing my MPA.

I'm also policy fellow with Young Invincibles.

We are a member of the CUNY Rising Alliance Coalition with CUNY PSC, USS, NYPERG, USPIR, YDSA, and many others.

I want to thank the Higher Education Committee and Chair Joseph for the opportunity to testify this at its core is a racial equity issue.

As a current graduate student working part-time, I know firsthand how much transportation costs shape the decision students make.

When the financial pressure became too great, I made the difficult decision to choose to shift to an online program, saving myself $72 dollars a month in subway fares.

That is not a small amount.

That is groceries, that is a utility bill.

That is one less thing, standing between staying enrolled and falling behind.

CUNY is home to seven New York City's most economically vulnerable students.

Nearly two in three undergraduates attend tuition-free, and at campuses like City College, more than 70% of students qualify for federal PAL grants.

These are disproportionately black and Latina students, immigrant students, and first-generation college students, and 90% of CUNY students rely on public transportation to get to campus.

The subway fair is not a minor inconvenience, it is a barrier.

With transportation costs being the single most reported non-tuition barrier for students, a free omni card pilot is a straightforward high impact investment in student success.

Therefore, we support funding the free Omnicard student commuter grant pilot program to make transit access a permanent part of how New York City supports racial and economic equity at CUNY.

I hope I can count on the council's support for free on for the free omnipilot program.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you.

Earlier, you wanted to share something with me, you said.

I think we have it, just study.

Oh, okay.

Um is this this one?

Yeah, okay, great.

Thank you.

It will go into our archives so we can review it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

So anyone.

Christopher Leon Johnson.

Is there anyone in the room that did not testify yet?

Everyone testified.

Okay.

Sweet.

Greetings.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

Greetings, Chair Joseph, other committee members, CUNY leaders, and my fellow presenters and guests.

I want to first echo the words of my fellow CUNY black and faculty staff association members, and thank you for allowing me to speak today.

The education of free people is the hope of humanity.

These inspiring words, which have been a part of the mission and ideals of the City University of New York, CUNY continue to challenge us and to hold us accountable for presenting a well-rounded education, no matter an individual's background or means.

State education law, Article 125, Section 6201, details our commitment to how we govern and lead.

I'm Jerved Ward, and as the chair of the re-established Black Studies Department at the City College of New York C CNY, I am here to speak regarding support for Black studies in the CUNY system.

The City College motto, which translates as look back, look here, look forward, provides an ideal pathway for this dialogue to lead to substantive action.

First, look back.

Whether one considers the student activists who were a part of the freedom struggle of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, or Black Lives Matter, over and over again, our students hold a mirror to ourselves and show us how we can stand with the marginalized.

They have been standing for something larger than themselves for decades.

On the campus of CCNY in 1969, a group of courageous students issued what we now know as the five demands, which is also the name of the documentary on PBS that details their heroism.

Many of these students were coming out of seek, which education law article 125, Section 6201 also states, seek and college discovery programs must not be diminished as a result of greater state financial responsibility for the operation of the city and state of New York.

CUNY has a beautiful and courageous history of supporting and uplifting systems that provide greater access for the marginalized.

We've not always lived up to that history, and we have an opportunity to do better.

Second, look here.

Third and finally, look forward.

The current CUNY Strategic Plan, CUNY Lifting New York 2023 to 2030 strategic roadmap, details our commitment to several goals.

Goal one: be a national leader in providing access to higher education for diverse populations of students.

Black studies is the embodiment of this goal and should be supported and expanded with resources and finances.

Goal two, improve our ability to boost student outcomes and eliminate academic equity gaps with innovative curriculum and support for our world-class staff and faculty.

Investment in Black studies would allow for the direct meeting of this second goal.

We can hire faculty and senior administrators who are committed to eliminating equity gaps.

Goal number three, advance our community through comprehensive research, engagement, and service.

As our national champion, New York Nix and our new mayor have shown us, diversity and inclusion are our superpowers.

We have the ability to continue comprehensive research, engagement, and service, and a discipline that allows for an engagement with the whole.

We are three years into the CUNY strategic plan, and we have approximately four years to accomplish these goals and to move towards greater alignment with our own ideals and vision for what this institution that is beautifully made up of 26 colleges can ultimately be.

But we must not wait.

We must not tarry in taking action towards accomplishing these goals.

Black studies is under documented attack nationally, which heightens the need to reaffirm CUNY's commitment and an increase in resources, hiring, and funding.

Lip service and words are not the same as consistent and tangible action.

To meet the needs of our students, our city, our state, and the ideals of a country founded 250 years ago, we must act now.

We must fund and provide resources to recruit and retain qualified faculty and staff.

We must invest in interdisciplinary education, and we must make sure that we do not make our mission and values an afterthought in our funding plans.

I look forward to seeing the substantive action from this leadership in upholding these goals and our mission and values with their funding plans and provision of resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jillian Abbott.

Hello, can you hear me?

I can't, my picture is not on.

We can hear you loud and clear.

Do you know why you can't see me?

Why is that?

I think you're blocking my.

We can't see you, but we could hear you.

Oh, you don't want to see me.

Okay.

You could turn that's on.

No, you have to turn on your camera.

I have to turn on my camera.

You do, not me.

Okay.

Sorry, sir.

There you go.

You see?

There you go.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Uh I'm the only adjunct who's speaking today.

Um, I'm an adjunct at York College.

Uh, CUNY, I used to be on uh on the CUNY uh faculty senate for the whole CUNY, and I also was involved in the leadership of the PSC CUNY at York College.

I also have an answer for your question about um faculty rankings by race.

If you wanted afterwards, uh, I have an example from your.

Of course, I want to know.

Okay, well, I'll tell you afterwards, and also I didn't know until today that Trump had come at all or the Justice Department were doing some things.

He had been very quiet on CUNY, so my first sentence is a bit wrong.

Donald Trump has not come after CUNY.

Why?

Because the current chancellor appointed in his first term had already gutted undergraduate education and replaced it with a series of private graduate schools that most CUNY graduates could never qualify for.

Daily at CUNY, I witness I see corruption, cronyism, exploitation, abuse directed at adjuncts who are the core who do the core work of a public university.

Teach the next generation to thrive and keep the city competitive.

In undergraduate, there are two CUNYs.

The one that works for the 30% of students who graduate, the other that fleeces the 70% of students who take Hell grants or loans, then drop out.

They're lost the money keeping the party going in the admin wing.

The learning environment at York College, where the overwhelming majority of students uh the overwhelming majority are students of colour, and where funding is amongst the lowest per capita is beyond fragile.

The money you give CUNY is used to hire six figure admins who troll homeless shelters for vulnerable New Yorkers to trick into enrolling in courses they could never pass.

A student came to me asking for help.

He couldn't write a proper paragraph, yet he had been tricked into enrolling in five courses.

I had him come to my office and practice writing.

He came every time.

By semester's end, he could write a college-level English paper.

I said I'd set him up for success, but the trolls pressured him into enrolling in five courses again.

For those at a distance, full-time faculty and administrators, the 70% of these seven, him and the 70% of students are subhuman revenue streams.

For teaching adjuncts, they are human beings with hopes and dreams.

I'll lose my job for giving this testimony.

They're already flipping me from 8 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

classes.

I'm 67 with Ars Riders and had to wade through the snow in the dark depths of winter to keep my job.

That's the consequences of speaking power truth to power in CUNY.

This semester, my students and I were locked out of our classroom for almost half an hour twice.

The first time only six of 25 students remained.

You don't have to spend one more cent on Cooney.

I'm begging you to restructure it.

Abolish two-thirds of the executive positions and at least a third of the high-level administrative jobs.

Divert all that money saved, including Hochel's four million to York for a nonsense pedagogical study to employ those adjuncts who have taught successfully for five years and employ them as full-timers.

Pedagogical studies repeatedly show pay teaching faculty enough to spend more time with students and the student outcomes get better.

Throwing money at repeated studies, stop throwing money at repeated studies and start implementing.

There will be pushback.

The dark money vested interests won't give up without a fight.

Departments will fight appointing us.

As once as a senior faculty member put it, you know too much.

If you find the courage to do this, CUNY will be what it once was, an engine of economic mobility.

If the teaching faculty, the most important faculty in a public institution, have the resources we need to do our jobs, we can educate every student that enrolls to their full potential.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And you wanted to answer my question that I had earlier.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Well, if you take a look at the York College English departments, um, white faculty are assistant professors, associate professors and full professors.

Black faculty with PhDs are doctoral lecturers, and without PhDs, they're lecturers.

And those are the two lowest, and they're not tenure, and you know, there's all these implications.

So that's one very small, and I guarantee it's repeated across all of CUNY, and um, you know, what can I say?

Have a look.

I'm not making it up.

No, I believe you're not making it up.

I'll definitely take a look and continue to have.

And then there's one, there's one brown uh um person from India who who is an associate or a professor or or something like that.

Thank you so much for your testimony.

Well, thank you for having me.

Of course.

Of course.

Anytime.

Thank you.

You know, you don't have to look beyond the adjuncts for the for the teaching.

We do it with our hearts because we're not paid for money, you know, and we're helping us.

We're helping all the students.

Thank you.

Very informative.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

You're welcome.

Bye.

Oh.

Is there any as and anyone else on Zoom?

All right.

And we're ending this hearing.