In times of uncertainty, especially for immigrant and undocumented communities, the college stands as a steadfast ally. We are unwavering in our commitment to educating, supporting, and advocating for our immigrant students and their families.

Working Together for a Safe and Supportive Campus

On April 10, the college took an important step toward addressing the systemic challenges faced by immigrant students with the launch of its first-ever Immigrant Student Support Summit.

Spearheaded by President Anderson and Immigrant Student Success Office (ISSO) Director Jes煤s P茅rez, the summit brought together a wide range of student-centered offices for an honest and solutions-driven conversation about transforming the immigrant student experience鈥攆rom application to graduation.

President Anderson opened the two-hour meeting of the minds with a powerful call to action, urging faculty, staff, and administrators to reimagine the student journey and to identify ways 可乐视频 can deliver a more intentional, inclusive, and empowering educational experience.

Framing the discussion around how to fulfill the college鈥檚 promise of a high-quality education for every student, President Anderson guided the group through a thoughtful examination of the bureaucratic hurdles immigrant students often face 鈥� from their initial inquiry to graduation and career readiness.

The summit was well-attended and sparked candid, in-depth conversations about the complex transition immigrant students navigate.

Representatives from essential student-serving offices鈥攊ncluding Admissions, Financial Aid, the Bursar鈥檚 Office, the Office of Scholarships, the Center for Academic Advisement and Student Success, the Registrar, and the Magner Career Center鈥攕hared valuable insights into both the structural barriers students encounter and the opportunities for institutional growth and innovation.

Several key themes emerged from the discussion:

• Streamlining administrative processes to ease the burden on students and reduce confusion
• Fostering interdepartmental collaboration to provide more holistic support
• Expanding visibility and access to resources, especially for undocumented and first-generation students
• Promoting early engagement with academic advising, financial aid, and scholarship opportunities

The summit closed with a strong, shared commitment to continue this critical work. Participants agreed this inaugural gathering would mark the beginning of an ongoing series of strategic conversations鈥攁ll aimed at reshaping policies, improving coordination across offices, and ensuring that every 可乐视频 student, regardless of immigration status, can pursue their educational goals with dignity, clarity, and confidence.

Teaching and Learning Rights

To help understand the changing landscape, the college also held two 鈥淜now Your Rights Workshops鈥� on February 23 and April 21. The most recent workshop continued the conversation on constitutional rights, focusing on what individuals need to know while in transit to 可乐视频, in the surrounding area, and on campus.

Topics covered included what is considered a public space, what rights apply in different settings, and how to safely navigate interactions with law enforcement.

These sessions provide guidance on how individuals and their families can prepare for a potential law enforcement encounter. Open to students, staff, faculty and community members seeking to protect themselves and support others co-sponsored by ISSO, 可乐视频 Faculty Council and Staff, PSC, We Stand Against Hate, and CUNY Law Immigrant and Non-Citizen Rights Clinic.

ISSO at Your Service and More

While these efforts are often adjusted and refocused, they have been ongoing. Since 2019, 可乐视频 has offered a wide range of dedicated resources to help students manage difficulty situations and thrive. The ISSO office supports, advocates for, and empowers students from a variety of immigration backgrounds through an intentional philosophy of holistic support, including free legal services, help accessing financial aid and counseling, as well as health and wellness offerings, and much more. The ISSO Office is located in 117 Roosevelt Hall and can be contacted at ISSO@brooklyn.cuny.edu or by phone at 718.951.5023.

To help students, as well as faculty and staff, understand their rights no matter of citizenship status, other online resources on both the 可乐视频 and CUNY websites are available, including:

• Resources for Undocumented Students

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Her staff under CAASS and the Student Success Unit work with first-year, transfer, and continuing students to ensure that they map out their courses, connect with the right faculty members and programs, know their degree requirements, and more. As November鈥檚 College-Wide Advisement Month wraps up, Newton has been working as hard as ever.

A native Long Islander for whom the four-hour daily commute is more than worth it, Newton received an interdisciplinary bachelor鈥檚 degree in political science, sociology, and women鈥檚 and gender studies. It was during her undergraduate studies that she discovered a love for higher education.

鈥淚 worked in residential life and was involved with student activities. I loved being on a college campus, and I felt like I didn’t want to leave,鈥� says Newton, a first-generation student. 鈥淚 realized it鈥檚 where my passion lies.鈥�

After earning an M.S. in counseling education, she ended up as a site administrator in an undergraduate nursing program. But with her background and devotion to inclusion and accessibility, she was drawn to CUNY鈥檚 mission.

鈥淚 was researching CUNY as a place to work and thought, 鈥榃ow. There are a lot of things here that align with my personal values’,鈥� says Newton. 鈥淐UNY is what I believe that higher education should be for all students.鈥�

After working as an academic adviser at Queensboro Community College, she started at 可乐视频 as a senior academic adviser. Within the past two decades, she has grown and learned through holding the positions of associate director, co-director, and now executive director鈥攁nd she hasn鈥檛 looked back.

With her knowledge and experience, she is a mentor and a friend to the associate directors that she works with each day, but she never takes sole credit for the work.

鈥淚 don’t think I could be more fortunate to work with such an amazing team,鈥� she says, pointing out how the CAASS staff and Student Success Unit have not skipped a beat for the students during some trying times.

鈥淥ur students鈥� sense of safety was shaken after Hurricane Sandy,鈥� says Newton. 鈥淚t was so important to me that we make any process or procedure related to their academic advising or appeal to policy due to extenuating circumstances as supportive and seamless as possible. Experiencing these students rebuild not only their basic needs, their homes and neighborhoods, but also their academic paths, was truly inspiring.”

Little did she know, this tragedy helped prepare her office for the COVID-19 pandemic.

鈥淲e immediately went virtual on March 16th, the next day,鈥� she says. 鈥淢y team was committed to making sure that they were available for students during a scary time. We wanted to remove any obstacles for them and give them a sense of stability during a scary time.”

It was also a time when the office was just trying to launch its Transfer Student Success team, to help remedy the previously unmet needs of transfer students.

鈥淭here are unique challenges to being a transfer student and our team has dubbed this ‘transfer turmoil’, which includes ‘transfer shock,’ a dip in a student鈥檚 GPA, loss of momentum toward completion, and a general sense of being unmoored,” she says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not just about their GPA鈥攊t鈥檚 about being there to support their transition to a senior college or a new senior college.鈥�

The Transfer Student Success Team works closely to support current students, whether through referring them to the Learning Center, connecting them with resources like the Food Pantry or Personal Counseling, helping them get advisement on the Navigate app, or encouraging them to explore student life.

Outside of empowering students and elevating her teams, Newton is an adventurous, creative people-person at heart. Though she hopes to someday become an expert ukulele player so that she can jam out to her favorite songs, for now, she enjoys paddle boarding, baking (and putting exciting twists on recipes), spending quality time with her family, and health activism.

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He wanted to be a theater actor and director, but after graduating, getting married, and having a family, he thought about how challenging it would be to make a living in the field. He was also coming to an understanding鈥攁fter taking a job as an adviser in the Center for Academic Advisement and Student Success鈥攖hat he might have an additional calling.

鈥淭he more I worked in advisement, the more I realized that this was a job that could satisfy my soul and my need to pay for a mortgage,鈥� says LoPorto, now the associate director of the Student Success Unit.

In his position, he heads a group called the Transfer Student Success Team鈥攁 unit generously funded in part by 鈥攚hich offers personalized coaching, workshops, and a variety of other services to transfer students. He also runs the Student Success Connection Coach team, oversees DegreeWorks, and coordinates the college鈥檚 DegreeMaps.

You鈥檝e been in the 可乐视频 family for more than 30 years now! How did your experiences as a student here shape the work you do today?

I was a terrible student! I was grateful to be here because I had so many other things going on. I would not have succeeded were it not for a former 可乐视频 dean, Kathy Gover, who mentored me and showed me different opportunities.

So this idea of how transformative CUNY can be, simply by making college accessible, is very real to me. I get how important it is for the college to be as proactive as possible in our outreach. I get鈥攐n a personal level鈥攖he need for connection and catered programming.

The college received funding for your team of transfer specialists in 2020. What has it been like building that team?

We got the original grant right before the pandemic and told students, 鈥淪ee you in a couple weeks once this pause is over.鈥� Ha! Pretty quickly, we realized this had to be operationalized online, and funny how life works, but that turned out to be beneficial. That created a greater opportunity to engage with students that didn鈥檛 rely on them coming to our space at a certain time. It helped change the dynamics of how and when we engage our students. It changed the way we reach out to other colleges.

It鈥檚 been great building the team and seeing the satisfaction they get when a student graduates or finds that professor they were looking for. The team is made up of all CUNY graduates who understand that CUNY students live complicated lives. We鈥檙e here to smooth out the parts of their lives that we can.

You continue to work in the theater world. Do you see a connection between that world and your role in advising?

One of the pillars of theater-making is that everyone throws out ideas and you collaborate and respect everyone鈥檚 contribution. My experiences as a director leading casts and crews have helped me apply that here. I鈥檓 not afraid to tear something down and start again. That leads to innovation. We have to do that here sometimes to meet the needs of a new generation of students. It鈥檚 taught me the flexibility I need.

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The former Macaulay Honors College student who took classes at Hunter says 鈥渋t took a village鈥� to get her across the finish line, from her professors and mentors to the academic and student support professionals who checked in on her. Later, as a graduate assistant and doctoral candidate, she had the opportunity to mentor students, and realized she had been honing a skill set that could lead her down a slightly different career path.

Today, she is a wife and mother to two young children, a serious kung fu practitioner, and the college鈥檚 associate director of student success and EAB Navigate manager.

You were well on your way to becoming an anthropologist and tenured professor. When did your career path shift?

I started my Ph.D. early, at 22, and I thought I knew what I wanted to do. But I realized through the mentoring work I was doing that I am really passionate about the first-generation, underrepresented, low-income student population.

My training is as a cultural anthropologist. I taught at the college level for 10 years and learned that teaching isn鈥檛 just standing up there and sharing your expertise. A huge part of it is mentoring students and being supportive.

When I got to know my students, I was seeing how all these other things outside of the classroom tied into academic success. It was my relationship with my students, my rapport with them, and me showing them that I cared that really made a difference.

So, a number of threads came together that made me move into student success and academic advisement.

You came to 可乐视频 eight years ago as an academic program coordinator, and in the last year you became the associate director of student success and EAB Navigate manager. Navigate is relatively new to the college. How does it work?

Navigate is a software and student management tool that has all these different features. The most popular is the appointment feature, which makes it easier for students to make appointments with faculty and administrators, and on the faculty/administrator side, it makes it easier to manage appointments.

When faculty and advisers meet with students, they can put in case notes and create a virtual case file so that we are all in communication. We can see, for example, that a student saw an adviser in the Center for Academic Advisement and Student Success, then saw an adviser in his or her major, and what they went over. We can see students鈥� GPA trend and other important data highlighting potential roadblocks to degree progress and ultimately, graduation. It鈥檚 essentially a collaborative care model that allows us to engage with the students better.

But I always stress that it鈥檚 only as good as those utilizing it. It doesn鈥檛 replace a human connection. When used properly, it facilitates connections and allows us to be more proactive in our outreach and streamline our work.

It seems so data-driven for someone who got into your role to work with students.

I really believe so strongly in the relationship aspect of all of this. EAB Navigate is just a way to get to the student faster and more efficiently. If we don鈥檛 cultivate relationships with students that are meaningful, that鈥檚 when we鈥檒l lose them to life.

I was a CUNY student through and through. I know how life gets in the way. Our students are smart, they鈥檙e hustling, they work, they have families, they are in school full time. We just need to be there to walk them through this journey.

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“At 可乐视频, we鈥檙e committed to the success of our transfer students,” says President Michelle J. Anderson. “This generous gift from the Petrie Foundation will help to ensure that our students have the support they need to complete their degrees.”

Transfer students typically make up more than 50 percent of the college’s student population, and the vast majority of those transfers come from Kingsborough and the Borough of Manhattan community colleges. But transfer students often face unique obstacles to graduation that require greater support and academic advisement.

“They encounter transfer shock,” says Tracy Newton, executive director of Academic Advising and Student Success. “They鈥檙e used to having multilayered support. They鈥檙e eager to study and want to maintain their momentum, but when they don鈥檛 have the support they need, their path to graduation can end up being a very winding one.”

The grant will help address the issue by providing funds to hire three transfer advisement coaches, three transfer completion coaches, and four peer transfer advisers. It will also support 可乐视频 in establishing a presence鈥攚hich will be virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic鈥攁t the two-year schools to support pre-matriculation events, early advisement sessions, and other events for transfer students.

The additional staffing will be key in establishing what Newton calls a “collaborative care model” in which the transfer advisement coaches will facilitate workshops to orient students to the college鈥檚 academic life as well as connect them to the appropriate faculty and departmental advisers. The completion coaches will act as intermediaries, advocating for students and navigating them through obstacles that may increase their time to degree or their risk for fatigue. Completion coaches will have a particular focus on the final semester.

“One of the biggest takeaways we want transfer students to have is that there will always be someone here to help them,” says Newton.

Newton says that the biggest gains she hopes to see are better graduation and retention rates and less time and fewer excess credits needed to graduate.

“We will make sure that we offer students a consistent and reliable support system. We want them to know that we are here for them from commitment to completion. They have a partner in this journey and their success is important to us,” she says.

The Petrie Foundation has a long history of supporting students at CUNY. At 可乐视频, the foundation supports the Food Pantry and emergency grants aimed at helping students complete their degree.

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“We are happy to report that no existing appointments were canceled, and we were able to schedule new appointments with no delay in service,” says Tracy Newton, director of the Center for Academic Advisement and Student Success, which switched its main advisement sessions with students to Zoom.

Much was the same throughout the college, where the effort to transition many services that had long existed mostly on an in-person basis鈥攆rom advisement to commencement, and now, student orientation鈥攈as mostly been smooth. Provost Ann Lopes has announced that the college will resume distance learning for the Fall 2020 semester, and many of these programs and offices that have supported remote learning are being refined.

Within the first couple of weeks of the quarantine, the college set up a Virtual Front Desk to field calls from students who wanted to speak to a live person. “In these times, having access to a real human being is more important than ever,” says Newton.

By early July, nearly 2,000 students had used the service, where they can also get information about emergency grants, laptop loans, and inquire about other technology issues. Offices like the bursar, financial aid, scholarships, personal counseling, enrollment services, and many more offered immediate access during regular office hours.

Ronald C. Jackson, the vice president for student services, says that some of the most significant hiccups came when making sure all students had access to technology. In some cases, Wi-Fi service providers who had offered deals for students were inaccessible to those living in buildings with thick walls. Jackson says the college was able to purchase some hot spots鈥攚hich the Information Technology Services office is test piloting now鈥攖hat may be loaned out to students in the fall. Some courses had to be adjusted to accommodate compatibility issues with the Chromebooks and iPads the college loaned out.

He says the college also experimented with the best way to get its messages and announcements out to as many students as possible, working with formats such as Instagram Live chats with President Michelle J. Anderson. The social sessions proved popular, with chats on financial aid, personal counseling, academic advisement, and the Magner Career Center.

“We鈥檙e trying some new things,” says Jackson. “Overall, the transition has gone well, but as we prepare for the fall, we continue to have discussions on what we can improve and build on.”

One of the biggest events the college had to retool was the annual commencement exercises. The virtual graduation ceremony featured keynote and valedictory addresses in addition to the usual greetings from politicians, professors, and others who wished the Class of 2020 well, in addition to a scroll of each graduate鈥檚 name across the college website鈥檚 homepage. The celebration got far and away more views than any of the other CUNY campus virtual commencement ceremonies with 9,000 views on YouTube, more than 60,000 impressions on Twitter and Instagram, and nearly 200,000 people reached on Facebook.

For the college’s new student orientation, a website was launched that includes a virtual campus tour, greetings from the president, Provost Anne Lopes, and the heads of the undergraduate and graduate student government. There are also videos on technology for remote learning, student clubs, and other topics like financial aid.

Magner Career Center Director Natalia Guarin-Klein says they have hosted 67 career sessions for nearly 1,500 attendees since the college moved to remote learning, including virtual job fairs, alumni and employer networking events, and career 101 programming. The center also created a Slack group with more than 200 students who are currently seeking jobs, and has been able to engage with more alumni in the virtual environment who otherwise would not be able to attend.

“While some of our services are delivered differently, the passion and commitment to help students have not been negatively impacted by the center being virtual,” says Guarin-Klein.

Many more offices, like the LGBTQ Support Center, the Veterans Affairs Office, the Black and Latino Male Initiative, and the Immigrant Student Support Office, are conducting regular Zoom meetings with the students they serve. Both Personal Counseling and the Health Clinic are offering tele-appointments.

Even services for the college鈥檚 Alumni Engagement office saw opportunities in the transition to the virtual environment, says its director Lisa Dicce. The office tried new engagement strategies on social media and around online events that were low cost and more accessible to a wider number of people.

“The world has changed, but our mission has not,” says Dicce. “We are planning for all things to remain virtual a while longer and are moving full steam ahead with those plans.”

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可乐视频 will receive $1.5 million over the next three years as part of a five-year initiative by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the city鈥檚 Department of Small Business Services that aims to double the number of graduates from the City University of New York (CUNY) with bachelor鈥檚 degrees ready to compete for tech jobs in New York City. Designed in partnership with academic and industry leaders, the CUNY 2x Tech initiative includes investments in instruction, advising, and internships across a total of at least six CUNY senior colleges.

鈥淎ll of us at 可乐视频 are delighted that our computer science students will be the beneficiaries of the CUNY 2x grant from the New York City Economic Development Corporation and NYC Department of Small Business Services,鈥� said 可乐视频 President Michelle J. Anderson. 鈥淭his partnership strengthens our ties to the tech industry, increases our course offerings in computer science, and expands advisement and career services, ensuring that our students are optimally prepared for a broad range of careers in tech fields.鈥�

The initiative鈥檚 approach to double the number of tech bachelor鈥檚 degrees awarded and increase students鈥� ability to secure and succeed in tech jobs focuses on building the capacity of CUNY computer science departments. It is not expected that campuses will double overall enrollment, but rather will work together with the city and industry partners to decrease time to graduation and increase alignment of education with the preparation needed to succeed in tech jobs today and in the future.

鈥淭his additional investment in NYC public colleges expands the pipelines of opportunities for New Yorkers to enter quality, well-paying careers in the tech sector,鈥� said Gregg Bishop, commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services. 鈥淟ocal employers can now reach into a larger pool of home-grown talent to help their business and New York City鈥檚 economy grow.鈥�

In addition to the goal of doubling the number of New Yorkers graduating from CUNY with bachelor鈥檚 degrees in tech with the skills needed to land full-time tech jobs in NYC at market-rate salaries, the initiative also seeks alignment between NYC鈥檚 public university system and industry by establishing collaboration between NYC tech employers and CUNY colleges. This coordination is intended to ensure students are equipped with the technical and professional skills they need to land entry-level tech jobs at market-rate salaries upon graduation, and that employers look to CUNY as a dependable source of top-tier entry-level talent.

To achieve these goals, 可乐视频 will hire two full-time lecturers with expertise in an in-demand tech field to meet the demand for the number of students aspiring to major in tech fields and provide CUNY students with tech education aligned with the evolving needs of NYC tech employers. The college will support at least two industry practitioners through the Tech-in-Residence Corps in the 2019鈥�2020 academic year and provide students in tech majors with relevant work experience by placing them as tutors in courses in their major.

The college also will hire an academic adviser dedicated exclusively to computer science majors to support students鈥� ability to stay in tech majors and complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time, expand student exposure to tech careers and the courses needed to prepare for them, and help students plan for internships and other opportunities to build their experience in and exposure to tech workplaces.

In addition, the college will design and implement a system for collecting data on employment and salary status of majors and graduates; build an industry feedback loop within campus to synthesize feedback and develop recommendations for鈥攁nd pursue鈥攗pgrades to curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular avenues for student preparation aligned with industry needs; and identify students to participate in professional skills workshops for tech majors delivered by an entity other than the college. A campus manager also will be hired to oversee the initiative and to ensure its successful execution, reporting, and coordination among partners.

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“You don鈥檛 have to be a millionaire to be generous,” says Mrs. Walling. “It鈥檚 not necessarily about receiving the accolades that can sometimes come along with giving. It鈥檚 about leaving a positive legacy. It鈥檚 about being an example and hoping that others, including our own children will be inspired to give what they are able to give.”

“The fact that public universities have become increasingly dependent on private funds was a real wake-up call for us in assigning priorities,” adds Mr. Walling. “Being a certified financial planner, I knew the IRA option was now available and that we could gift money directly to our designated charities and thereby reduce our taxable income.”

With that in mind, the Wallings, with the help of the 可乐视频 Foundation, created the Susan Lee (Stecker) & Robert C. Walling Scholarship. It is awarded to students who have a commitment to engage in careers focused on civic engagement. It is available to students at 可乐视频 who are sophomores (or greater), enrolled full time, and in good academic standing, and may follow one student through graduation as long as they continue to major in sociology, psychology and/or social psychology; maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0; demonstrate a spirit for civic engagement, as exhibited by involvement and leadership in school/campus organizations, registered student organizations and/or volunteering with nonprofit organizations in the community; and demonstrate financial need. Cultivating citizens who understand the value of giving back is part of 可乐视频’s mission.

“‘Civic engagement,’ to me, is being a good citizen,” Mrs. Walling says. “It鈥檚 doing good for other people. It鈥檚 making those career choices that will uphold those principles and values. It鈥檚 those kinds of people who make those kinds of commitments to be involved, whether through academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, or politics.”

Mrs. Walling was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York (in the neighborhoods of Bensonhurst and Flatbush) and graduated from Midwood High School in 1962. She attended 可乐视频, following in her brother’s footsteps, because it was a rigorous, but affordable institution of higher learning. She received her bachelor of arts in sociology/psychology from 可乐视频 in 1966. During her time at the college, she was an adviser in the Student Adviser Leadership Program as well as a member of Alpha Sigma Tau. She received a Regents Scholarship and a graduate assistantship to support her attendance at Syracuse University where she received her master of arts in college personnel in higher education.

Very early on, Mrs. Walling had a keen sense of social justice, recalling that at one point in the college’s history, female candidates were required to have a higher GPA than male candidates for admission.
“I remember always empathizing with the underdog and wanting to right what I perceived as wrongs,” she says.

The first recipient of the Wallings’ generosity is Belicia Bethel. Bethel鈥攚ho double majors in psychology, and children鈥檚 and youth studies, and minors in linguistics鈥攊s a Brooklyn native and the child of Trinidadian and Grenadian parents. Bethel’s father is an alumnus of the 可乐视频 Department of Accounting. She is also a peer mentor on campus and works at the Flatbush YMCA. In addition to the Walling Scholarship, Bethel is also the recipient of the Myrtle Mandiberg Scholarship for pursuits in child psychology, and the J. Robert Lloyd Scholarship for outstanding peer mentoring.

“The Walling Scholarship really stood out to me because of its prioritization on civic engagement,” says Bethel. “Giving back to my community is something that is super-important to me. It’s simply one of my central values. My community is the reason why I am the person I am today and was the support system I relied upon when chasing after my goals. It would be a personal act of betrayal if I didn’t return that support by being for others what my community has been for me. The scholarship from the Wallings is a blessing because it helps me to achieve that goal.”

The Wallings, who have retired to Arizona, returned to Brooklyn to visit the campus this summer and meet Bethel, who graduated with the Class of 2019 on May 30. It was an incredible meeting that allowed them to see firsthand the effects of what the Wallings describe as “the gift of helping other people.”

可乐视频聽is able to provide students the financial assistance, skills, values, and opportunities that are essential to fulfilling their academic achievements, civic engagement, and career aspirations thanks to the generosity of alumni and friends received through the聽可乐视频 Foundation. To learn about the various ways to contribute to student success, please visit the聽foundation website.聽

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With this kind of data in mind, 可乐视频 is pushing all students to complete 30 credits per year, and to specifically complete crucial English and math credits during their first year, as part of the Academic Momentum campaign, a CUNY-wide drive to help students earn their degrees in four years. To do so, the college has been beefing up student support and examining crucial questions about how to structure courses, majors, and financial aid.

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to help students achieve their success by creating a holistic approach,鈥� says Jesus Perez 鈥�95, director of the Center for Academic Advisement and Student Success or CAASS. 鈥淲e know that in order to achieve that, all the pieces of the machine have to come together. From the academic departments to the administration, to the financial side of the house, everybody鈥檚 asking what are we doing right and what can we do better to help students move through the college faster.鈥�

Completing a degree, or 120 credits, in four years is still not mandatory for 可乐视频 students. College officials recognize it won鈥檛 be possible for everyone to achieve this goal, but statistics show that students who complete required credits in English and math in their first year often stand a better chance of graduating in four years.

Advisers also stress that completing a degree in four years helps students stay in line with financial aid and scholarship requirements. New York State financial aid is limited to eight semesters and the state鈥檚 new Excelsior Scholarship requires students to take and earn 30 credits a year in order to qualify.

Perez says that one of the biggest tools his office is pushing in order to help students stay on track is degree mapping, where students get a map of suggested courses to follow each semester that makes it easier for them to understand how to graduate in four years in each major. The college is also looking to improve the DegreeWorks system, which provides students with details about the courses they have taken and those that are still required for graduation.

Additionally, the college is also looking into creating 鈥渕eta majors,鈥� where individual majors are grouped under one academic umbrella, an option for students who come into college unsure of which specific field they want to go into. They aren鈥檛 official majors but they allow students to take widely-applicable courses and not lose ground while they figure out which direction they want to go. Perez adds that his office will be working with faculty to identify students who may be falling behind in key courses in order to offer interventions to keep them on track.

The push isn鈥檛 simply about which courses to take. Tracy Newton, executive director of student success, says that advisers want to help students plan out 鈥渉igh impact鈥� activities like internships and study abroad that enrich the academic journey.

鈥淚t isn鈥檛 just about finishing in four, it鈥檚 about finishing with a robust amount of knowledge and experience,鈥� she says.

Both Perez and Newton stress that it is incumbent upon 鈥渟tudent success partners鈥� across campus to work together closely in order to achieve these goals

鈥淭his is not about forcing a student to complete a degree in four years, it鈥檚 about supporting them and giving them the opportunity to do that, taking into consideration all the variables in their lives,鈥� says Newton. 鈥淭hey have very heavy lives and that does not come out of the equation for us. But we want to give them a clear path where requirements, course offerings, and student support services align with student needs. We鈥檙e really thinking through this campaign to make sure we do everything we can so that students can progress.鈥�

For more information on the Academic Momentum campaign, contact the Center for Academic Advisement and Student Success at 3207 Boylan Hall, 718.951.5471, or at caass@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

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Coming in at #43, the college was noted for its outstanding national academic reputation, rigorous honors college, study abroad program, first-year learning communities, diversity, and selectivity. Additionally, Money highlighted 可乐视频 as having one of the highest rates of achievement in the country in regard to assisting its students climb the socioeconomic ladder. This is exemplified by resources like the Magner Career Center. The center’s dedicated staff provides expert career guidance and utilizes alumni networks to help students obtain valuable internship opportunities that give them an advantage in the marketplace.

“College rankings can vary in usefulness, but Money‘s methodology is refreshing and very practical because of its focus on student success, not just inputs,” said James B. Milliken, Chancellor of The City University of New York (CUNY). “It’s not surprising that their assessment confirms what so many have consistently found: CUNY schools offer high-quality education, great access and affordability, and a tremendous boost up the social ladder. CUNY has become America’s premier urban university by providing generations of low- and middle-income students the means to achieve their aspirations.”

可乐视频 was the #2 ranked CUNY institution, coming behind only Bernard M. Baruch College (the top-ranked CUNY school was #2 overall), and beating stiff competition from the likes of Rutgers University, Barnard College, the University of Chicago, Stony Brook University, Cornell University, Duke University, and Wesleyan University.

Money‘s ranking system assesses schools on educational quality, affordability, faculty, graduation rate, and alumni success, among other factors.

To see the full listing, please visit the .

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