CUNY Newswire

June 28, 2010 | The University

The Board of Trustees of The City University of New York today appointed Dr. Eduardo J. Martí, who has served as President of CUNY’s Queensborough Community College for the past decade, to the newly created post of Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges.   Chancellor Matthew Goldstein recommended the appointment which was unanimously approved.

Chancellor Goldstein said:  “Vice Chancellor Martí brings to the new position a quarter of a century of exemplary leadership at a time when the national administration is focused on the expansion of community college education and CUNY is in the forefront of community college reform. The Vice Chancellor will work with the leadership of our six community colleges and the proposed new community college to maximize innovative collaborations and opportunities for success. By all measures, this appointment is a stroke of good fortune for all concerned.”

Dr. Martí has served as President of Queensborough Community College since July 1, 2000. An experienced educator who has led several community colleges with distinction for more than 25 years, he previously served for six years as President of Corning Community College of the State University of New York (SUNY); and for eight years prior to that as President of SUNY’s Tompkins Cortland Community College. He has also been Acting President of Middlesex Community College, and Executive Dean of Tunxis Community College, both located in Connecticut.

Dr. Martí stated: “As someone who witnessed the empowerment of so many through the establishment of financial aid as Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as someone who has witnessed the growth and maturing of our sector of higher education, as someone who is proud of being part of the educational renaissance of CUNY, I am delighted and honored to serve on Chancellor Goldstein’s team at this important time for the CUNY community colleges.”

The Board also announced the appointment of Dr. Diane Bova Call as Interim President of Queensborough Community College.  Previously, Dr. Call was the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the College.  She has also held the positions of vice president for finance and administration; dean for finance and administration; assistant dean, Office of Academic Affairs; and assistant dean of instructional support services.

As the President of Queensborough Community College, Dr. Martí has been a strong advocate and spokesman for community college education both locally and nationally, with an emphasis on high standards and traditional values of education. Queensborough, which reflects the diversity of the Borough of Queens, America’s most diverse county, has roughly equal populations of African-American, Asian, Caucasian and Latino students. Its students hail from some 143 countries and over 46 percent speak a language other than English at home.

More than 15,000 are enrolled in associate degree or certificate programs, while another 10,000 students of all ages attend continuing education programs. Queensborough offers transfer and career degree programs through seventeen academic departments leading to the Associate in Arts (A.A.), the Associate in Science (A.S.), and the Associate in Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees.

Dr. Martí serves on the Board of Teachers College at Columbia University, as well as the Community College Research Center Advisory Board of Columbia University, and on the Excelsior College Board.

At Teachers College he is a member of the Trustees Advisory Board for the Campaign for Educational Equity.  Additionally, he serves on the Board for the Hispanic Educational Telecommunications System, and the Board of Governors of the Council for Aid to Education. His recent appointments include The College Board’s Commission on Community Colleges, and The California Community College Collaborative at the University of California, Riverside.

In 2009 he was reelected to the Board of the American Association of Community Colleges, and is past President of the Association of Presidents of Public Community Colleges of the State of New York. A member of the ACE Commission on International Education, Dr. Martí is also a member of the Board of the Cornell Institute for Community College Development; Chair of the Small and Rural Commission of the American Association of Community Colleges; a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Community College President’s Academy; and a member of the Commission on Secondary Education of the Middle States Association. In 2007 he was appointed by then Governor Eliot Spitzer to the New York State Commission on Higher Education.

Dr. Martí received his bachelor of arts, master of science, and Ph.D. degrees in biology from New York University. He has received NYU’s Founders Day and Distinguished Alumnus awards and, in October 2008, The New York Post honored Dr. Martí with the Liberty Medal Award as a champion of human rights. He has also been named to the Honor Roll of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges. As the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad award, Dr. Martí traveled in China with leaders of minority serving institutions during June 2004. He has been President of the United Way of Tompkins County, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Martí is a member of the Board of the Queensborough Community College Fund, Inc., QCC’s primary fundraising organization that also sponsors numerous educational programs and cultural events for the local community.

The new post of Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges, together with the City University’s plan to open a new community college in 2012, reflect the growing importance of community college education both locally and nationally. When President Barack Obama announced the American Graduation Initiative in July 2009, he called for an additional five million community college degrees and certificates by 2020, along with new steps to ensure that those credentials will help graduates get ahead in their careers.

Enrollment at CUNY’s six existing community colleges now exceeds 85,000, an increase of approximately 40 percent over the past decade. In 2007 Chancellor Goldstein launched CUNY’s ambitious Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) with $19.5 million in funding from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Center for Economic Opportunity, with the goal of graduating at least 50 percent of its 2007 cohort of community college students within three years. As of June 2010, a total of 596 ASAP students, or 53 percent of the original 2007 cohort, have graduated with an Associate’s degree, while an additional 83 students are on track to graduate by September 2010, which amounts to a 56 percent three-year graduation rate. The national urban community college three-year graduation rate is 16 percent. Based on ASAP’s impressive success the Center for Economic Opportunity has made ASAP funding permanent at its current level of $6.5 million per year.

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