REMARKS

Thank you, President Malatras and all the members of the Reimagine Education Advisory Council. I want to thank Governor Cuomo for appointing this important Council and Deputy Secretary of Education Dan Fuller for his work with the council. And I’d like to thank Karol Mason, my favorite president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, for representing CUNY on the panel.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, CUNY, like schools at every level, had to confront a rapidly developing situation and make almost instantaneous decisions affecting the health, well-being and future of many thousands of students. Looking back at the communications I sent out to the CUNY community in those intense weeks in March really brings home how much we had to do on the fly – how little time we had to make and implement incredibly difficult and complex decisions, and how little room for error we had. Now we have to make equally critical decisions about what lies ahead, even as the situation remains fluid and so much is still unknown.

My team and I have been working around the clock to use what we’ve learned to prepare for the eventual lifting of Governor Cuomo’s NYS on Pause executive order, when New York City is cleared to begin its phased reopening. We are thinking about both the near term and the longer term as we consider decisions that require both careful thought and decisive action. In all cases, it is the safety of our 275,000 students, 20,000 faculty and 28,000 staff that is front and center, just as it has been since this crisis began. We are also guided by the principles of equity and inclusion that are core to CUNY’s mission. And we are focused on doing all this with as much certainty as is reasonably possible for the Fall 20 and Spring 21 semesters, so that our students, faculty and staff can plan their lives.

We know there are many factors to be considered, and numerous entities to be aligned prior to deciding and communicating a final way forward for CUNY but I thought it would be good to share why our thinking today is that a mostly online semester is our most prudent option for the fall. We believe it is the best way for CUNY to secure safety, ensure equity, maintain academic momentum for our students and continue to be the nation’s leading engine of social mobility. It is consistent with the advice of an increasing number of health experts, and it is the course being adopted by institutions such as the California State University, the nation’s largest system of public higher education with 23 campuses and half a million students.

Let me be clear that no final decision has been made but in determining what the best possible course of action for the Fall could be, we are considering a range of factors.

First, it seems likely that New York City and the surrounding region will reopen in early June based on the criteria established by the governor. Because education is part of the fourth and final phase of reopening, it would take CUNY even longer to physically “reopen” – and just to be clear, we have been open throughout the pandemic – than other sectors. Even if CUNY did reopen, physical distancing parameters would probably remain in place, undermining access. As an urban university, our vertical campuses with their elevators, hallways and ventilation systems are probably not conducive to social distancing controls. Open campuses present challenges in terms of congregating in open spaces. In addition, CUNY leases space and buildings where we have limited control over building access and protocols. All these drawbacks — as well as our students’ reliance on public transportation — would increase the risk of backsliding into another wave of crisis. Moreover, the challenges that would be posed in trying to safeguard the university community through testing, tracing and quarantining would also seem to pose the threat of continuous and widespread disruption, not to mention the significant costs these activities will entail.

For all these reasons, and given the persistent uncertainty of the duration of this pandemic, we believe that beginning to prioritize planning for a primarily virtual fall semester is a logical, prudent and pragmatic thing to do. But I also know, as you well know, that there’s other factors and considerations, and numerous entities to be aligned prior to a final decision.

There is also a way to look at the continuation of distance learning as a positive — not as a choice that has been forced upon us, but also an opportunity with the potential to deliver long-term benefits for CUNY.

We are at an inflection point in the University’s storied history, and the decisions we make today, out of concern for safety, can jump-start a transformation that positions CUNY as a leader in digital education.

Our early estimate is that 83 percent of courses scheduled for Fall 2020 can be delivered online. Meanwhile, courses with smaller enrollments, such as labs and studios, can be reconfigured to meet social distancing guidelines while adapting to some level of online learning.

This could help pave the way for a blended educational model that triples CUNY’s digital footprint and allows us to expand access and increase our impact. Furthermore, the expansion of that footprint will come with a significant investment in the quality of that digital instruction. We just completed intensive online teaching training for nearly 500 faculty members and are scheduled to do as many as 1500 more over the summer. This is consistent with several themes our strategic plan moving forward — to build on the online success of our School of Professional Studies and evolve as a multimodality institution for the future and to double-down on improved pedagogy as key component of our student success strategy. We already have entered into partnerships that promise to broaden our pool of potential students in the online space and expand our investment in faculty development in online pedagogy.

While other institutions have clung to a reliance on familiar ways of doing things, CUNY has always blazed its own trail. And now, the opportunity cost is as low as it will ever be for leaning into our digital transformation and giving CUNY a massive competitive advantage. And in the process fulfilling our vision of a bigger, bolder, better CUNY.

Thank you.

Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, PhD

Chancellor

The City University of New York

205 East 42nd Street

Suite 1840

New York, NY 10017

(646) 664-9100 – phone

www.cuny.edu