At Troubled City College, President’s Job Remains Unfilled By David W. Chen……see note please
City College was among the finest in the nation. It was called the “Harvard” of Convent Avenue and listed as one of the regional leaders in quality education. The list of alums includes seven Nobel laureates, prominent jurors, scientists, artists and intellectuals….tuition was free and admission based on meritocracy.In 1970, response to the spring 1969 building takeovers and riot threats by Puerto-Rican and black City College students, they instituted a policy of open admissions, guaranteeing every New York City high-school graduate acceptance to a CUNY campus and remedial courses anyone requiring them. …..the rest is history….rsk
When the president of the City College of New York resigned unexpectedly in October during a financial scandal, the school quickly named an interim leader and said it planned to pick a replacement by the end of the academic year.
But with the new school year less than a month away, no candidate has been chosen to replace Lisa S. Coico, who remains under federal investigation for using money from a college foundation to pay personal expenses.
Last month, in an unusual letter to the City College community, James B. Milliken, chancellor of the City University of New York, the college’s parent entity, cautioned that the search could take longer than anticipated.
“The search committee and our consultant continue their good work on this critically important responsibility, and I have assured them they should take the time required to see this process to a successful conclusion,” Mr. Milliken wrote.
Whether a successor is named in weeks — or months, as some officials are now speculating — the continued vacancy in the president’s office comes at a pivotal moment for City College, the flagship of CUNY, the country’s largest public urban university.
ADVERTISEMENT
The CUNY system is playing a central role in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s newplan to help make public colleges in New York tuition-free for middle-class students, and has been attracting more national attention as an affordableengine of upward mobility. With 16,000 students, most of whom are undergraduates, City College has been called “the poor man’s Harvard” for educating thousands of poor, minority and immigrant students.
But its more recent history has been troubled. In May 2016, The New York Times reported that the 21st Century Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with the college, had paid for some of Ms. Coico’s personal expenses when she took office in 2010. The foundation was then reimbursed for more than $150,000 by the Research Foundation of CUNY, which manages research funds for the entire system. As questions swirled over the handling of Ms. Coico’s expenses, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York began issuing subpoenas seeking records.
Ms. Coico resigned one day after The Times informed the college that a memo from 2011 concerning her reimbursements appeared to be fabricated, possibly to mislead prosecutors.
The college has also had to grapple with sizable budget deficits. A decline in state funding, mirroring a national trend, has contributed to deterioratingfacilities and overcrowded classrooms, made worse by management issues at City College. In 2015, for instance, the college imposed a 10 percent budget cut, citing increasing personnel costs, even though the figure at other CUNY schools was closer to 3 percent.
Since Ms. Coico’s departure as president (she is still on the faculty of the medical school), Vincent G. Boudreau, the college’s interim president, has won wide praise for restoring order and being more accountable and transparent. But in May, he warned in a letter to the college community that “a large deficit” for the coming year of perhaps $8 million would require difficult choices.
“Any far-reaching revamp of our budget model will likely need to wait for a permanent president, but it’s clear that we need an approach that considers strategic investments where it makes the most economic sense, and that factors the cost of educating our students into the conversation,” he wrote.
Indirectly contributing to the anxiety on campus is the fact that the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, another CUNY school some 80 blocks to the south, had no trouble hiring a new president. Three weeks after Ms. Coico resigned, Jeremy Travis, a leading academic voice for police reform,announced that he would be retiring after a 13-year run. By late April, the college had chosen Karol Mason, a former senior official at the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama, to succeed him.
And at Barnard College, just down Broadway from City College, where the president, Debora L. Spar stepped down in November, a replacement was announced in May.
Several people affiliated with City College who discussed a confidential process on condition of anonymity said that the search had gotten off to a slow start, and the recruitment effort had hit its stride only in early spring. But one attribute that the college desires, these people said, is a track record in fund-raising.
Lawrence A. Tabak, the principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health and a City College alumnus, was a candidate at one point. Dr. Tabak has had a long career in biomedical research and previously held senior positions at the University of Rochester.
In an interview, Dr. Tabak said that he had been drawn to the position because of his gratitude for his undergraduate education. But he withdrew from consideration, he said, after it became clear that college officials were looking for someone with a different skill set.
At present, at least three people are believed to be serious contenders, according to the people briefed on the search. One of the candidates, Jonathan GS Koppell, dean of Arizona State University’s College of Public Service and Community Solutions, visited the campus in recent weeks.
Asked Thursday whether there were any additional developments, the university said in a statement: “We have been pleased that the City College search has attracted a large number of excellent candidates, and we look forward to the successful conclusion of this important process.”
Mr. Koppell, whose father is G. Oliver Koppell, a former state attorney general, assemblyman and city councilman in New York, said in an interview that he was humbled to be considered for the City College job, calling it a “very intriguing opportunity.” And while he acknowledged the fiscal challenges, as well as the shadow of Ms. Coico’s departure, he said he was impressed that “you’ve got a lot of people at the institution who are very committed to making it work.”
A native of the Bronx, Mr. Koppell has degrees from Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley, and taught at Yale before moving to Arizona State and becoming dean in 2011. As dean, he has pushed to recruit first-generation college students, encouraged more students to enter public service and increased the number of online degree programs.
Mr. Koppell said that City College had a special place in higher education in America: “Because of its history, because of its prominence, it simply has to succeed to make a point about what higher education can be, and how it serves as an engine for social progress.”
Comments are closed.
