Eric Dinowitz
0:00:47
I'm counsel member Eric Denowitz, chair of the committee on higher education.
0:00:51
Welcome to our joint hearing with the committee on education chaired by council member Rita Joseph.
0:00:57
Today's oversight hearing is on streamlined college acceptance of New York City Public High School graduates.
0:01:04
We're going to be discussing a program that CUNY started last year and that has great potential both to serve our high school students better and to grow the enrollment at our CUNY Institutions.
0:01:14
Let me offer some background.
0:01:16
At least 10 states and their public college, systems have opened their doors to high school students in their states in a variety of ways.
0:01:24
From the state of Idaho, which adopted the nation's 1st direct admissions program in 2015 by admitting all high school graduates to its public higher education institutions, to the very popular flagship University of Texas at Austin, which in this academic year automatically admitted the top 6% of graduating high school classes in Texas to the new law signed last week by Wisconsin governor Tony Evers Legislating that the well respected flagship University of Wisconsin at Madison must accept all Wisconsin high students who finish in the top 5% of their graduating classes.
0:02:02
And at the other University of Wisconsin System Colleges must admit students who finish in the top 10%.
0:02:10
We are looking forward to conversing with a special guest at today's hearing, found Fung Yang, the associate vice president for strategic enrollment management at California State University Fresno.
0:02:21
Vice president Yang's direct admission program remarkably starts with 9th graders.
0:02:27
In our last legislative session, our committees examine some outstanding programs that can work only when CUNY and the deal we cooperate and collaborate.
0:02:37
First, we looked at CUNY's array of college preparation initiatives for middle and high school students and how they have improved the status this quote for everyone involved.
0:02:47
Then we looked at the New York state seal of by literacy, which recognizes and appropriately rewards high school student skills in world languages and how those students can also be rewarded when they bring those skills to CUNY.
0:03:01
I would add since that hearing, we passed 2 resolutions related to the seal of by literacy, and we are, of course, hopeful that the that the DOE and Quni will continue collaborating in for the syllabus to award students credits for this seal.
0:03:19
Today, we will examine 1 more joint effort between CUNY and the DOE, getting our high school students transitioned onto our CUNY Community College campuses as they are getting ready to graduate and doing that as efficiently and effectively as possible.
0:03:34
We are looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today the details of the current program and the plans for the future of that program.
0:03:42
We are also interested in their response to Governor Hogel's proposal in her state of the state address to expand SUNY's current pro pro program of accepting students at SUNY Colleges.
0:03:52
The governor's proposed expansion would emit New York State students in the top 10% of their graduating classes automatically to 4 year student campuses.
0:04:00
Now I want to acknowledge my colleagues on the my colleagues who have joined who are present, council members Lewis, Narcis Hanks, Krishnan, Marte Gutierrez, and Hanif.
0:04:14
I would also like to thank Adam Sarapoli, my director of legislation, my chief of staff, Jenna Klaus, Sahara Moazami, the committee's counsel, Regina Paul, the committee's policy analyst and Carolina Gill, the committee's principal financial analysts.
0:04:30
I would now like to invite chair Joseph to give her opening statement.
