President’s Cabinet Meeting Minutes - November 9, 2020

Via Zoom Meeting

Agenda

  • Implementation planning around PMP Goals
  • Coordination of disaggregated programs (Internships, Bridge programs, Articulation agreements)

Attendees

  • Alex Couzis, Interim Dean, Grove School of Engineering
  • Diana Cuozzo, Chief Diversity Officer and Title IX Coordinator
  • Daisy Dominquez, Interim Chief Librarian
  • Teresa Flemming, Executive Associate to the President
  • Erica Friedman, Interim Dean of the CUNY School of Medicin
  • Ken Ihrer, Vice President of Operations and Coronavirus Coordinator
  • Erec Koch, Dean, Division of Humanities and the Arts
  • Felix Lam, Vice President, Finance and Administration
  • Edwin Lamboy, Interim Dean, School of Education
  • Tony Liss, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
  • Celia Lloyd, Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management
  • Lesley Lokko, Dean, Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture
  • Juan Carlos Mercado, Dean, Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at CWE
  • Pat Morena, Executive Director of Public Safety
  • Dee Dee Mozeleski, Senior Advisor to the President and VP, Office of Institutional Advancement and Communications
  • Paul Occhiogrosso, Executive Counsel to the President
  • Susan Perkins, Dean, Division of Science
  • Andrew Rich, Dean, The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership
  • Sherri Rings, Director of SEEK
  • David Robinson, Assistant Vice President, Office of Facilities Management
  • Teresa Scala, Special Projects Administrator – Office of the Provost
  • Mary Ruth Strzeszewski, Associate Provost and Chair, CCNY Graduate Constituent Council
  • Johanna Urena, Special Project Manager for Presidential Initiatives, Office of the President
  • Rose Marie Wesson, Interim Associate Provost for Researc
  • Karen Witherspoon, Vice President, Division of Government, Community & Cultural Affairs

Absent

  • David Jeruzalmi, Chair, The Faculty Senate

President Boudreau opened the meeting stating that in the wake of last week’s events there is some renewed hope for a stimulus package. He also stated that the first part of the CARES ACT funding has now been allocated to reimburse the college for expenses that had to laid out over the last six months. However, these reimbursements do not make up for the overall shortfall the college is facing.

Another portion of the CARES ACT would be helpful and we remain hopeful that having spent most of the first to build about infrastructure to do distance education and the like, that there might be a little more discretion and budget relief built into the second part. 

Part of our responsibility as members of the College’s leadership team is to signal to the teams working for us that there, we will continue to look at progressive ways to address the shortfall. We are at the start of what will be a multiple year set of challenges and it is imperative that every member of the college be engaged in this thinking.

He stated that there’s room for us to convene larger conversations that include students, staff and faculty in a wider dialogue across all of our schools and divisions. He encouraged everyone to be very clear about what we know for sure and what are the kind of things you’re looking at to figure out what the road ahead is.

President Boudreau stated that he has not been able to get to the campus community good budget numbers since this cycle started. However, he has been able to quote things the governor said and revenue reports from the city. President Boudreau reminded Cabinet that we may continue to not have consistent budgeting information to work with as things constantly change due to COVID. President Boudreau also stated that he does think that it is important for people to see a continued commitment to being as transparent as possible, with accurate information. These kinds of conversations at every level of the school will be very important to keep people assured that the College is on sure footing.

President Boudreau also spoke about where we are as far as the pandemic is concerned. He stated that these are concerning times. He also stated that the number he is looking at most carefully now is the ratio of positive per 100,000 population.  The New York Times runs the daily tabulation and we have gone from a month ago 25 to 29 cases per 100,000 over seven weeks to about 150 cases over seven weeks.  Elsewhere in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and places close to us, the numbers are two and three times higher than that.

There have been a small number of confirmed cases on campus over the last few of days including in our DOE school in Baskerville. One of the big differences between where we are now and where we were in March and April is that now when a case comes in a place like CDI or at the High School of Math, Science and Engineering, it is impacting  an area of campus that is largely depopulated. He stated that because of our contact tracing efforts that instead of contacting 60 and 70 people we are contacting closer to ten (10) and they are not people who are visiting multiple locations on , but rather are localized to their office or classroom.

President Boudreau stated that, we’re going into the cold and flu season and this year we are going to have to treat each case as potential COVID-19 infections.  There will be systematic and periodic testing on campus for anyone who are regular campus visitors.  Testing will be done on as many people as possible as frequently as possible and twenty percent of the student dormitory population will be tested every two weeks.

Implementation Planning around PMP Goals

Pres. Boudreau shared and discussed with the Cabinet his Performance Management Process (PMP) letter submitted to Chancellor Matos Rodriguez.

Coordination of Disaggregated Programs (Internships, Bridge Programs, Articulation Agreements)

President Boudreau introduced a part of the PMP document that he has been talking about with different stakeholders across campus specifically in reference the need to four areas of work on campus: Bridge programs, Advising programs, Honors programs and Internship programs.

He shared that over the last 20 years, the college has received philanthropic money to start off small programs and sometimes big programs under the guise that we’re going to test these programs on small groups of students and see if they worked, and if so, find ways to roll out those programs across campus. Instead, those programs often lost funding and were then absorbed into other, similar programs, but without a formal assessment of the long-term viability of the work and its impact on students.

President Boudreau would like Cabinet members to begin the work of assessing best practices across these four areas (Bridge programs, advising programs, Honors programs and Internship programs), not to have them folded into one unit, but rather to assess how they overlap and how we might strengthen the programs and ensure long-term success and funding viability

President Boudreau stated that each of programs will require the campus to share best practices and then the most efficient way to deliver these programs; it may be that every proactive advising program may need an administrator and two advisers, for instance. If put together, the administrative resources and the advising resources could be pulled together and we could do this work better to reach all of our students.

President Boudreau has asked Professor Stan Altman to help to assess data on these bridge programs similar to the initial assessment he did to launch the Harlem Science. Professor Altman has been working with schools and divisions across campus to identify overlap that already exists and spaces where collaborations might take place.

President Boudreau has asked Professor Altman to begin with an inventory of all the Bridge programs here at the college, in particular STEM programs. Once the inventory is completed, discussions about consolidating information about what programs exist and then trying to figure out if having a central coordinating eye on them will produce efficiencies will begin.

Honors programs

President Boudreau stated, that the college has various honors programs; the Macauley program, City College Honors, and many departmental and divisional honors programs. Some of which are partially funded, some are not funded and some are only funded because they were funded in the past and discretionary resources have been funded to them. 
Associate Provost  Strzeszewski and VP Mozeleski, who has been working on this will be taking inventory of these programs as well and sharing information with Cabinet at a future meeting before the end of this academic year.

The meeting adjourned at 12:00 pm.

Last Updated: 11/24/2020 11:52