TESTIMONY
Testimony by Wendy Hensel, Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost of City University of New York, on CUNY's Transfer Initiatives
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11 min
Wendy Hensel provides an overview of CUNY's efforts to improve transfer processes for students. She discusses strategies implemented to address transfer challenges and emphasizes the importance of transfer in CUNY's strategic plan. Additional details include:
- CUNY has placed transfer at the forefront of curricular decisions
- The university has developed comprehensive strategies to address transfer challenges
- Transfer is a prominent feature in CUNY's 2023-2030 strategic plan, 'CUNY Lifting New York'
Wendy Hensel
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Good afternoon, Chair, Dinowicz, and other members.
Eric Dinowitz
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Is your is your microphone?
Wendy Hensel
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I think it is.
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I can bring it closer.
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Good afternoon, Chair Denowitz and other members of the New York City Council Committee on Higher Education, staff, and guests.
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I'm Wendy Henssel, Executive Vice Chancellor And University Provost of the City University of New York.
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I'm joined this afternoon by CUNY's Vice Chancellor academic and faculty affairs, Doctor Alicia Alvaro, Doctor Sangita Bishop, current faculty transfer fellow and former department chair of Ephro of Manhattan Community College and Doctor.
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Colin Chelman, University Senior Dean of Applied Research Evaluation And Data Analytics.
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In academic year 202223, nearly 9000 students transferred from Acuni Community College to Acuni 4 year college program.
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We are here today to share with you the transformational progress CUNY has made over the last several years towards seamless transfer of students between our community, comprehensive, and senior colleges.
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We will also outline for you the work that remains to be done and our full commitment to its successful completion.
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Quni's founding legislation makes clear the university system was created in part to facilitate the seamless transition of our students between associate and bachelor degree programs.
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We are motivated not only by this understanding, but also by the moral imperative that the time, resources, and effort our students expend to achieve academic credit and complete their degrees anywhere at CUNY should be recognized fully everywhere across our system.
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I also note that 2 of us sitting here today have experienced these issues as parents.
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And we have watched our children struggle through a transfer process in which they've lost credits at CUNY and elsewhere.
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We understand firsthand the challenges and frustrations faced by transfer students, and we are dedicated to ensuring a seamless experience for all CUNY students.
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While my testimony today will focus on the strategic transfer initiative we began in 2022, that was by no means the beginning of our work in this space.
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For example, in 2013, CUNY's general education pathways initiative was launched with support from a resolution by the CUNY Board of Trustees to facilitate the transferability of general education credits.
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Coursework that every CUNY student is required to take for degree completion.
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This work was expanded with philanthropic support to identify more than 1000 discipline specific major gateway courses guaranteed to transfer seamlessly within CUNY for credit.
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At the same time, thanks to the support and collaboration, with Ithaca SNR, Lexalogue, who previously held my position, the staff at Lehman College, and key philanthropic partners.
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We have developed a tool known as CUNY Transfer Explorer, which provides information on how any course at CUNY transfers to any other CUNY College.
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It also reflects useful trends and outcome data on transfer to bring transparency to the process.
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In addition to these central led efforts, there have been several extremely effective collaborations at the campus level to affect the seamless transfer of students within specific majors and specific schools.
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For example, Bronx, Gutman, and Hostess Community Colleges each established blanket articulation agreements with Lehman College that guarantee a minimum of 60 credits will be applied to the bachelor degree in many common disciplines, resulting in admission with junior status.
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In addition, several multi college academies were created, including the CUNY Justice Academy at John J, the Baruque Business Academy for Business Administration Majors across 4 community colleges, the Online Psychology Academy at the School for Professional Studies, and the Urban Academy at the CUNY School of Labor And Urban Studies.
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These academies provide seamless transfer from community colleges and include many wraparound services that facilitate engagement between the community and senior colleges before students matriculate.
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These programs have been well received and are extremely successful.
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It's also important to note that our Accelerate, complete, and Engage, or ACE program, the baccalureate version of ASAP, aims to double timely baccalaureate completion, not only for first time freshmen, but also for transfer students with an associate's degree.
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In FY22, based on outstanding outcomes at John J and Lehman, ACE expanded to 4 additional senior colleges.
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York, Citibank, CSI, and Queens.
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The first transfer cohort at Lehman admitted in fall 2019 realized a 2 year graduation rate of 61% versus 30% for a comparison group of students.
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We are extremely appreciative of the city's $8,200,000 allocation for ACE and $2,000,000 for Medgar Evers CHamps program in FY24, which allowed us to serve approximately 32100 students.
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However, this funding has never been baselined.
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Which significantly hampers our ability to implement these programs effectively.
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As of today, only $1,000,000 has been allocated in FY 25 city budget for both programs.
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While these and other efforts have improved transferability, the first comprehensive initiative to us the universal transfer of credits within each major was launched in late 2022 and memorialized in CUNY's 2023 strategic plan.
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Entitled 1 Quni.
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This initiative comprehensively addresses transfer through curricular alignment within each major the development of transparent policies and efficient technology, and the implementation of best practices for the retention, advisement, and advancement of transfer students.
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In January 2023, the CUNY Board of Trustees endorsed this approach by unanimously passing a resolution, charging the university with making student transfer within the same major from a community to senior college, seamless by December 2024.
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I'm pleased to report that we are on track to accomplish this goal.
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A key challenge to the full transferability of credits within each major is the lack of coordination and alignment of academic programs across colleges and schools at CUNY.
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Recognizing the importance of faculty governance and the faculty's primary role in developing curriculum.
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In December 2022, CUNY's office of academic affairs partnered with the university faculty senate to reimagine curricular alignment across the system.
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By identifying with disciplinary fact the universal core competencies within each major that should be achieved within the 1st 2 years of the degree path.
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We will ensure that our community college students retain credits within the major and secure junior standing when transferring to the same major at Acunee Senior College.
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We began by tackling our largest transfer majors, which account for about 85% of all transfer students, and we will continue this process until all majors are addressed.
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In addition, all new programs developed in the future will be fully aligned across CUNY before receiving the approval to launch.
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Our approach is unique has been embraced by the faculty, and already has been identified as a potential national model for other systems.
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Nevertheless, aligning core competencies and coursework alone will not solve the transfer problem.
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We must also tackle the numerous intentional unintentional ways in which our policies and systems operate to impede transfer.
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For this purpose, last year, we established a new transfer committee on academic to review existing policies and identify new ones that will support transfer students throughout their academic journey.
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For example, we are working on a policy to ensure that the course equivalency is in place at the time a community college student first enrolls in CUNY remain valid until they transfer to a baccarat program to avoid unnecessary credits or courses that do not contribute to degree progression.
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We likewise are thoroughly evaluating the transfer process from the students' perspective, beginning with the transfer application and continuing through admission and registration at a 4 year college.
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We are identifying every obstacle and forming cross functional teams that develop targeted solutions addressing issues ranging from technological enhancements to improvements in the advisement process.
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We know that to succeed, transfer students must also have wraparound support that they need when they first begin their journey at a 4 year institution.
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This transition period is a critical juncture when students simultaneously begin to take more advanced courses and lose some of the extra support Community College provides.
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CUNY is working on several measures in this space, including a pilot transfer of peer mentor program this fall, will embed transfer centers at 2 community colleges and 1 senior college.
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Mentors will work closely with academic advisors across all three institutions to provide transfer students with the information, resources, and most importantly support and belonging necessary to succeed during the transition.
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As I mentioned earlier, Quni Transfer Explorer is a transformative tool that provides students information and transparency.
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The transferability of CUNY and non CUNY courses, credits for prior learning, and advanced placement exams is now clear and accessible across the system.
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Students can identify how their credits will transfer to specific majors at specific colleges before transferring to help them make the best decisions.
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Notably, this is not just for students, but also serves as an important resource for academic advisors, faculty, and college administrators.
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Our goal is to have community college students indicate their plan when they enroll so that we can integrate this critical information into our advisement software and enable 4 year colleges to provide proactive support from the moment of matriculation.
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Transfer Explorer also contains publicly available leaderboards indicating how long transfer admission actually takes.
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The percentage of graduates by transferring non transfer status, and much, much more.
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Quni will is committed to further enhancing Transfer Explorer's impact and will continue to add new features and tools to this important tool.
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One critical challenge we face is our students limited access to academic and career advisers, which can acutely affect the success and ease of transfer.
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While our specialized programs like college discovery, ASAP, ACE, and Seek maintain low student advisor ratios, The ratios at senior colleges are significantly higher.
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While we appreciate the one time funding we have received from the council to address this challenge, The necessity for additional baseline funding for academic and career advisers cannot be overstated.
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Advancement and advisement technology and analytics can alleviate some of the workload each advisor carries, but the ability to dedicate personalized time to each student remains essential particularly for transfer students.
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Improved data means little if there is no adviser on the other end that can act on the information.
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I conclude by noting that our efforts to improve the transfer experience are yielding positive results already.
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Ball 2024 transfer student enrollment is currently up by 6 0.9% compared to the same period last year.
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By December 2024, we will have achieved the full transfer of credits within the same major for most of our community college students, a goal established by our board, and importantly, our work doesn't stop there.
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We will continue to have transfer at the forefront of every conversation and perspective curricular decision as reflected by its prominence in our 2023, 2030 strategic plan CUNY Lifting New York.
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We know that addressing the transfer challenge requires a comprehensive and holistic approach we are confident that we now have the strategies in place across the system to finally reach this goal on behalf of our students.
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Thank you, and we look forward to your questions.
