Sy, I plead guilty to the charge of enthusiasm—about CUNY and about a lot of things. Emerson said: “No great thing was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.” Actually, there are two schools of thought about enthusiasm. One is summed up in the old saw: “An enthusiast is someone who doesn’t understand the problem.” The other view has been captured very well by one of CUNY’s most eminent graduates, Secretary of State Colin Powell: “enthusiasm is a force-multiplier.” Educators especially need enthusiasm. It tends to be contagious. It is a great offensive weapon and it helps on defense, as well. Clark Kerr, the great architect of the University of California, summed it up well when the Regents unceremoniously dumped him as Chancellor of the University. “I’m leaving just the way I arrived,” Kerr remarked, “fired with enthusiasm.”

But I have to confess that back in 1998 when Mayor Giuliani asked me to head up a Task Force on the City University, I had a few qualms.

I thought of the sign on the barn of a dude ranch I visited a few years ago. It read: “For people who like to ride slow, we have slow horses. For people who like to ride fast, we have fast horses. And for people who’ve never ridden, we have horses that have never been ridden.”

Sy, thank you for saying nice things about the Task Force Report. But the truth is that Report today is of mainly historical interest. For the fact is that CUNY is an institution almost completely transformed from the one described four and a half years ago in the Report. What interests us is where CUNY is today and what the future holds. But to understand CUNY today you have to know what it was, and what it is in the process of becoming.

An Institution Transformed
Six years ago, CUNY’s senior colleges were swamped with remediation: 72 percent of incoming freshman failed at least one of the basic skills tests. The senior colleges were losing enrollment. Remediation was conducted on a massive scale, but the tests used were flawed, they were not nationally-normed, they were not secure, they were not used to diagnose what students needed, and there was no objective information about the effectiveness of CUNY’s remediation effort. Remediation was a black box in terms of useful information about both input and output.

Today there is no remediation in CUNY’s senior colleges. All students admitted are prepared to be able to succeed at rigorous academic levels. Remediation continues at CUNY, stronger than ever, and for all who need it. But what is done at CUNY takes place in CUNY’s superb community colleges. Vastly more remediation now takes place, with CUNY’s intervention, in the schools where it belongs. Now valid, nationally-normed tests are used both to assess whether students need remediation and to assess whether remediation efforts have been successful. CUNY now has comprehensive objective information about remediation. We have hard evidence of what great work is being done at the community colleges and in CUNY’s highly successful summer immersion programs.

CUNY has increased enormously its efforts to raise academic standards in New York City’s public high schools. College Now, CUNY’s program which gives high school students an opportunity to take college level courses and, even more important, provides remedial programs for those who need it, has been greatly expanded. College Now reached about 9,000 students five years ago, in the 11th and 12th grades in about 45 high schools. Today College Now works with more than 40,000 students, it reaches down to the 9th grade, and it operates in more than 200 high schools.

CUNY is also expanding its highly effective campus-affiliated high schools. With the recent announcement of support from the Gates Foundation, CUNY will soon have roughly 15 percent of New York’s high schools operating on its campuses, where students can immerse themselves in the intellectual climate of the university, take college courses, and use the libraries and laboratories of the colleges. This is an unprecedented level of university collaboration with the public schools. I know of nothing like it in any other city. Our two Chancellors deserve high praise.

Our critics predicted that the end of remediation and the effort to raise standards at the senior colleges would be a disaster, with enrollments dropping by 50 percent or more and the diversity of CUNY’s students being trammeled. Just the reverse has taken place. In every year since the reforms were instituted in 1999, senior college enrollment has grown, and now stands a robust 10 percent ahead of four years ago. Diversity remains very strong. CUNY’s senior colleges serve more African-American students than ever, and there are large increases in the numbers of Hispanic and Asian students served.

The most impressive transformation at the senior colleges has been the dramatic advances in academic standards. The decision to require objective proof of college-readiness, the announcement of higher required standards for admission, the end of remediation, the massive intervention in the high schools, have produced tremendous gains. Because CUNY did not require students applying to the senior colleges to take the SAT, it’s hard to make exact comparisons of SAT levels of incoming students. But it is clear that the top-tier senior colleges, Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens, have seen huge gains, between 100 and 200 points on the SAT levels of incoming students. All the senior colleges have seen big gains.

Even more important, the level of academic success of students in the senior colleges has moved up dramatically. First-year to second-year retention rates are up significantly. Students are mastering many more course credits in their first year—the gain rates in credit accumulation are 20 to 50 percent across the senior colleges. This is huge: a sure harbinger of big improvements in graduation rates.

The teacher education exam results, a bellwether of trouble before, is a bellwether of success today. Where five years ago only 62 percent of CUNY’s teacher candidates could pass the state tests, today 92 percent pass, and the rate of success will without doubt continue to climb. This is good news indeed for New York City’s public schools, where CUNY graduates provide roughly one-third of the teachers.

Academic success is also on the rise in CUNY’s community colleges. Enrollment in the community colleges has also increased since 1999, by 13 percent, and more and more community college students are moving into baccalaureate programs. The number is approaching a remarkable 50 percent. Most remarkable, community college graduates are as successful in senior college programs as students who started in senior college. What a tribute to our community college faculties! Eighty-two percent of incoming community college students need remediation, and the community colleges carry forward CUNY’s proud commitment to open admissions. The community colleges are the vital engines of educational opportunity for all, and they are doing more and more to make opportunity translate to academic success.

One final point about students success at CUNY today. Five years ago, CUNY knew very little. Students readiness and achievement was a black box in terms of information. A black box of information will turn into a Pandora’s Box in terms of academic standards. Today CUNY knows more about student performance than any university in the country. CUNY is one of the very few universities that require all its students to take a test of literacy and critical reasoning, including quantitative analysis, as a condition of moving beyond sixty credits, which is halfway to a bachelor’s degree. CUNY can thus be certain that students moving to advanced college levels are ready and able to succeed. 90 percent of CUNY’s students are passing this test with flying colors. There are very very few universities that have such a guarantee of consistent student performance.

Let me briefly mention several other indicators that CUNY is moving ahead on all fronts. Grant and contract income is a pretty good measure of a faculty’s research energy and ability. CUNY’s grants and contract income will be well above $300 million this year, a fifty percent increase from five years ago. There are strong reasons to predict that this vital measure of support will continue to rise dramatically.

Although CUNY is located in the capital of philanthropy, has huge numbers of very successful graduates, and has an unmatched case for charitable support, CUNY has not been an effective fundraiser. That is starting to change. We estimate that gift income this year will reach about $80 million, more than double the level of five years ago. Soon we will announce a capital campaign that will put CUNY where it belongs, in the front ranks of public institutions which attract major levels of gift support from its graduates and friends of educational opportunity.

The final subject I want to touch on in telling you where CUNY is today is the faculty. The renewal of the faculty will prove in the long run to have the most decisive effect on CUNY’s quality – it is also the part of CUNY’s renaissance closest to my heart. To invest in faculty renewal in a time of budgetary stringency is perhaps the most difficult test of academic leadership. It is also the most valuable, because hiring new faculty when others are retrenching is the sure path to high quality. After years and years of simply trying to hold the line against the further aging and shrinking of CUNY’s full-time faculty, we are beginning to move. A relentless focus on operating efficiencies along with stubborn dedication to the academic priority of faculty renewal is beginning to bear fruit. An astonishing 625 new full-time faculty have arrived at CUNY this year. When one measures this influx of talent against the full-time faculty size of 5600, and expected retirements of fewer than 100, one can see the measure of renewal this represents. Next year we expect that over 700 new full-time faculty will arrive. This is the highest two-year level of faculty hiring since the early 1970’s, about a 40 percent increase over recent levels. The quality of these new professors is even more impressive than their numbers. They are, in a word, world-class. That CUNY can undertake such a vital and visionary investment in its future in times of such stringency is perhaps the most brilliant achievement of an academic leadership team that has led CUNY to institutional advances on many fronts.

The Next Five Years
The progress made by CUNY in the last five years has been stunning. I know of no comparable gains in such a short time in any public university system in the United States. But there is strong reason to believe that CUNY can make even greater progress in the next five years. After all, it is easier for academic institutions to build on momentum than to reverse long-standing policies and set new directions. An awful lot of energy gets channeled into controversy, cleaning up messes, and learning new ropes. And academic progress tends to build on itself. Enhanced reputation elevates expectations and attracts stronger students and faculty. A more ambitious research agenda generates more interesting and productive additional research. Greater financial support produces higher quality and more of the productive activity that generates financial support. For academic institutions, spirals of renewal and spirals of decline are self-reinforcing. So even though the progress of the last five years seems remarkable, there is no reason it cannot be equaled or exceeded in the next five years.

What might that mean? Let’s look ahead to 2008. The Honors College which in 2003 was made up of 720 students, has grown by 2008 to 2000 students, equivalent in academic ability, prestige, and drawing power to Berkeley or the University of Michigan. By 2008, CUNY’s top-tier senior colleges are now attracting students from New York City, and, increasingly from other states and countries, in the top 20 percent of academic promise nationally. Baruch is neck-and-neck with West Point as the most selective public institution in New York State, unless City, Hunter, Brooklyn, or Queens has grabbed that honor. No colleges anywhere have student bodies more diverse, more stimulating, more determined, more international, and more perfectly suited to a global economy. To these colleges by 2008 come more than 4000 very able out-of-state and foreign students per year. But unlike the promising out-of-state students who flock to Ann Arbor, Berkeley, and Madison for a great public university education, most of whom leave after graduation, ninety percent of CUNY’s promising out-of-staters stay here, producing an extraordinary influx of talent for our City.

By 2008, CUNY is increasingly recognized as a first-class research as well as a great teaching university. By 2008 CUNY’s grant and contract income stands at $750 million, an increase of 150 percent over this year’s level of $300 million. New York City currently ranks second in the nation in biomedical research grant and contract income, trailing only Boston. By 2008, CUNY has helped our City close that gap and take first place. Believe me, that is a lot more significant for the future of New York than beating the Red Sox. And of course the grant and contract income is only the tiny tip of the iceberg in terms of the economic and human benefits of cutting edge research.

CUNY has also emerged by 2008 as a philanthropic powerhouse. Annual gifts have increased from a level of $80 million today to over $150 million annually. The alumni are supporting CUNY as never before. And the philanthropic community has awakened to the fact that CUNY has the highest return on philanthropic investment of any educational institution anywhere.

We are currently making very substantial investments to build our already strong graduate programs. By 2008, more than a dozen of CUNY’s graduate programs are ranked in the top 10 in the nation by the National Research Council. Another ten programs are in the top 20. No university’s graduate programs are moving up so fast. CUNY’s professional programs in engineering, biomedical sciences, business and finance, architecture, teacher education, and nursing, are among those ranked with the best public university programs anywhere.

CUNY’s community colleges in 2008 will be renowned as the most extraordinary engines of educational opportunity and social mobility anywhere in the world. More than two-thirds of their students go on to complete baccalaureate programs and beyond. The quality of general education and career preparation at CUNY’s community colleges has produced a seamless integration with the senior colleges and graduate programs that is unique among public university systems.

2003 will be seen in retrospect as a historic turning point for CUNY’s faculty. As I mentioned before, this year there are 625 new full-time faculty members at CUNY. Next year we expect over 700 new faculty will arrive. In quality and quantity, this is the greatest infusion of academic talent CUNY has ever seen. God and Albany willing, we continue this momentum.

CUNY’s faculty by 2008 has been renewed and revitalized. More than seventy percent of CUNY’s courses are taught by full-time faculty. The full time faculty has increased in size by 20 per cent. More new faculty have been appointed between 2003 and 2008 than in any five-year period in the last four decades. CUNY faculty have won more Pulitzers, more National Book Awards, more Bancrofts, more Bookers, more poetry and music awards, than any other university faculty anywhere.

Five years from now our unprecedented partnership with the New York City public schools will have transformed the way high school students access the resources of higher education. More than fifty percent of high school graduates will have taken at least one college course during their junior and senior years, or participated in an accelerated math and science program during the summer. And the majority of high school students deemed “at-risk” in earlier grades will, as a result of CUNY’s College Now interventions, become part of the college-going population. We will have realized our goal of ensuring that the education background, skills and qualifications necessary to active participation in the modern world is attained by New Yorkers, irrespective of their socioeconomic standing.

More than one billion dollars of capital investment has produced magnificent new faculties at John Jay, Medgar Evers, Lehman, City College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and Bronx Community College. New science laboratories at City, Queens, and Hunter, among others, have given CUNY science teaching facilities that rank with the top research universities in the United States.

In five years, Matt Goldstein is older and wiser. He has moved his calculus class to a weekday morning so he can spend all his Saturdays working on the second edition of his book, The Accountable University. Matt is widely regarded as the Clark Kerr of his generation, the greatest public university visionary of this time. He is still brimming with energy, but no one, not even CUNY’s feisty Faculty Senate, has even suggested that he be fired with enthusiasm.

Five years ago, a nautical metaphor seemed to me to best capture CUNY’s difficult situation. I called our report CUNY: An Institution Adrift. Whether or not that was a fair characterization in 1999, it has long since ceased to fit this extraordinary dynamic and advancing university. So mates, let’s weigh anchor, unfurl the sails and say goodbye to nautical metaphors. CUNY is ready for a new sobriquet. How’s this: CUNY: The Pride of the City.