Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
AGENCY TESTIMONY
CUNY Reconnect: Supporting Returning Students' Academic and Financial Needs
0:24:15
·
3 min
Peter Dachille Jr., an Academic Advisor at Baruch College, provides testimony on the impact of the CUNY Reconnect program in supporting students who return to complete their degrees. He highlights the program's role in addressing both academic and financial barriers that often prevent students from completing their education.
- Reconnect students bring real-world strengths such as time management, patience, and a renewed appreciation for education.
- Financial obstacles, often intertwined with academic challenges, can create a spiraling effect that leads to students dropping out.
- Completion and forgiveness grants are crucial in breaking the cycle of debt and allowing students to focus on their coursework.
Peter Dachille Jr.
0:24:15
Good afternoon members of the Higher Education Committee.
0:24:18
I'm Peter DeCille Junior, an academic advisor at Baruch College and advisor to reconnect students like Jacqueline George.
0:24:32
There we go.
0:24:32
Alright.
0:24:33
I appreciate this opportunity to be here today and attest to the academic and financial support that Reconnect brings to students.
0:24:40
Though we strive to have the pursuit of a college degree a focused goal, many factors supporting a family, employment, rents and the cost of living, then placing tuition on top of it all, it's not surprising that academic pursuits frequently get put aside.
0:24:55
Now I say put aside, not abandoned.
0:24:57
For students that we work with at Reconnect, their degree has not disappeared from their life goals and from the responses we have had, our outreach was the catalyst for returning and the benefits are what bring them to completion.
0:25:10
With over 230,000 students in CUNY colleges, there is a fear of getting lost in the mix and if you take even one semester off for any reason, you fall through the cracks.
0:25:20
I incorporate into my daily goal and advisement that every student knows their individual goals are shared, that I will meet them wherever they are and see them through to graduation.
0:25:29
But what about when that support isn't enough to prevent those pauses?
0:25:33
Two factors I see every day are academic and financial.
0:25:37
They are the bases for decision making in the best of times and deal breakers in the uncertain ones.
0:25:43
During our first reconnect meetings in 2023, Jacqueline and I reviewed new requirements for an updated curriculum, a potential factor in discouraging anyone's return.
0:25:51
However, Jacqueline's approach in navigating this with her other responsibilities was intentional and successful.
0:25:57
As she progressed, subsequent conversations shifted to the intangibles, overall a major GPAs, course outcome planning, and throughout knowing advisors were there for an answer or clarity at any level.
0:26:09
When reconnecting, students bring their real world strengths.
0:26:12
Time management and patience reconnect students understand measured course schedules.
0:26:18
Many times they change their original major, their jobs being the foundation of their career, with the degree being the supplement to that next level.
0:26:26
There's a seasoned stakeholding in what they bring to and expect from their academics.
0:26:31
But most of all, they bring a newfound appreciation and love for the college environment.
0:26:35
They join clubs and collaborate on initiatives and embrace their Bearcat pride with that enthusiasm towards their traditional classmates reciprocated.
0:26:45
These are the tenants of Reconnect students, resilience, grit, the ability to make experience based decisions and finding solutions to inhibiting factors towards their academic pursuits.
0:26:56
As I've alluded to though, academic obstacles are a direct line to financial context, which are themselves aligned with academic timelines and curricular guidelines.
0:27:06
If there's an issue with completing even just one prerequisite course at or by a certain time, that likely prevents getting a full time schedule the next semester compounded by no longer qualifying for state federal aid or scholarships, spiraling further towards a Bursar hold, not being able to pay that existing balance, and the specter of recurring that debt right back the next semester becomes the breaking point.
0:27:28
I have a quote from writer Henry Wheeler Shaw, debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into but hard enough to get out of.
0:27:36
Having completion and forgiveness grants is vital to lifting that burden, breaking that spiral so that students can focus on their coursework while planning with renewed vigor the next and final steps to their degree.
0:27:48
These grants aligned with Reconnect as a whole together create direct impactful solutions of academic and financial support for those at risk.
0:27:56
With students who recognize and value this outreach, the opportunity, the sincerity and backing we have to their goal.
0:28:04
With each student we bring back, and Siyof with the degree in hand, we increase the reputation of the impact of the CUNY education into the workforce and community.
0:28:13
Thank you.
Eric Dinowitz
0:24:25
Sorry.
0:24:25
Can you speak into the microphone?
0:24:27
That's There you go.
0:24:27
It's on.
0:24:28
You just Oh, yeah.
0:24:29
There you go.
0:24:29
You can move the mic.
0:24:30
You don't have to move your chair.
0:24:31
Yeah.
0:24:31
Better?
0:24:31
There you go.
Akkeem Polack
0:24:26
Oh, sorry.