Made for This Moment: A Sit Down with President Boudreau
The following article was featured in the June 2020 edition of The Campus.
By Aspasia Celia Tsampas
Closing the school year remotely with an unprecedented public health crisis, The Campus sat down, or rather Zoomed, with Vincent Boudreau, President of The City College of New York. While a lot has changed these past few months for the college, President Boudreau was able to offer insights into the future of the institution and the tumultuous next steps for getting City College back on track.
In October, The Campus was able to chat with President Boudreau about some of his initiatives for the 2019-2020 school year. The college had big plans to continue City College’s success for its entire community, but overwhelmingly the focus was on further solidifying independence for the school, but socially and financially. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing classes online and placing the future of the City College community into question, New York, and subsequently City College, is faced with both a social and financial crisis. While in some senses everything has changed due to the global pandemic, President Boudreau is equally confident that the long-term goal of independence of City College remains undisturbed, he states, “COVID-19 changed everything but at the same time we continue to execute on the most important task of the moment which is to build our capacity to really flourish in a couple of years.”
That being said, it is impossible to predict the effects these changes are going to have on City College in the imminent future. At the forefront of that is the budget. President Boudreau states, “The kind of adjustments we are going to have to make to deal with the current budget cut is unprecedented in the last 50 years.” Under the governance of the state, President Boudreau expects at minimum a 10% budget cut across the board. However, listening to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, the hit can be much deeper without federal assistance from the government.
Applying this to City College’s budget, about 81% of the budget is devoted to the salaries of permanent employees. These are faculty members who are on tenure or on tenure-track and the long-term staff members with a Certificate of Continuing Employment, which is similar to tenure but for those who are not professors. The other 19% of the budget is for temporary services, such as adjunct professors and “Other Than Personnel Services,” or OTPS, which consists of money for stationery, food for meetings, etc.
According to President Boudreau, where the brunt of these budget cuts hits deepest in the budget is dependent on the state, but there are two options. One is to load cuts on the segment of the population that doesn’t have employment security, which falls into the 19% category of the budget above including adjunct professors and preserve the employment of those who are fully employed, the 81%. The option would be a plan to preserve full employment and spread the pain of budget cuts across the budget. This would require an act of the state and would include asking people to temporarily reduce their salaries.
Furthermore, CUNY’s eligibility for the CARES Act is already in the pipeline. Allocated from the government to City College with a sum total of about $14 Million, half of that will go to students directly from CUNY. The amount each student receives will depend on financial need and PELL eligibility. A base amount that increases accordingly with need. While this is a great form of financial relief for many students, the act is not extended toward undocumented students and international students.
The other half of money will be used within City College to help adjust to the exigencies of the college. Some of which will help the college refund Student Activities Fees. The other applications of the money must be proposed and approved by the state. President Boudreau states, “Some will go to enhanced mental health services, some will be for technology that allows us to deliver online education more effectively, some will go toward training faculty, and some of it will again be used for emergency grants to students.”
While the aid directly to students is imminent and already in the works, how the rest of the grant gets allocated to the school is all dependent on the state and how much money it’s expected to collect in sales and income tax. Boudreau states, “The thing to watch as far as state budget cuts to City College and CUNY is what the states revenue collection is going to be.” Overall, there is a large hole in the budget and while it would ideal for government aid to fill that hole, it is virtually impossible without extended federal aid. In the end President Boudreau says it is his duty to “prepare the campus to function if we don’t get that federal money at all.”
The way this works is by highlighting the opportunities City College can step up to take advantage of during this unprecedented and uncertain time. Going back to Boudreau’s long-term goal of making City College independent means repositioning the school as a necessary and prominent institution of New York and the pandemic has given the college the opportunity to become just that.
Boudreau states, “The social, economic, and political leadership of Upper Manhattan have now come to the college and said they need the expertise of City College to map out a plan of what it takes to reopen the economy, society, and cultural institutions.”
One of President Boudreau’s favorite initiatives includes City College’s involvement with the commission for the second Harlem Renaissance. Harlem and its neighboring communities have been disproportionately affected and hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic with death rates, the closing of institutions, businesses, and challenges of infrastructure. This commission is to aid the rebuilding of the Harlem economy and social well-being with more than just reopening up shops. Boudreau states, “We have to think about whatever happens after COVID-19 by building new infrastructure and the new landscape in these neighborhoods that redress past inequalities and eases vulnerabilities [caused] by the pandemic.” The commission would work directly with the expertise of City College, and President Boudreau on the committee, to see how different departments at the school can help this commission and the institutions involved. President Boudreau states, “What I like about this is I’ve always thought that the college should be this vibrant public resource for solving problems that the citizens of New York have, and most focused on the citizens that live in the neighborhoods where our students largely come from.”
Other opportunities come from the advantages of online learning. With distance learning comes a whole new cohort of people in New York City that City College can now accommodate. When geography and scheduling are more flexible, even more students who work full-time jobs or have other preventive factors in their education can now take advantage of City College’s classes, at affordable prices. Boudreau states, “There are ways in which solving the problem of keeping us safe by going online can also save our budget and in some cases allow us to deliver services more efficiently.”
More efficient services can mean the days of waiting long lines at Financial Aid or Registrar are over. The simple tasks of these services such as Bursar, Financial Aid, Registrar, and Advisement can be done online, saving up more time and space in person for the more complicated issues, Boudreau adds, “If we can deliver those services online and efficiently we can actually be better at efficiently at serving student needs and saving some money.”
Additionally, while there is no way for Boudreau to predict whether students will be back on campus this upcoming fall, as that is a decision that not only depends on the state but the coronavirus curve as well, either way the value proposition around online education will be a factor. Any student who doesn’t feel safe or doesn’t want to come onto campus can complete their full coursework online.
As for the possibilities of classes in the Fall, President Boudreau let The Campus know of all the possibilities the college is concerning when the Governor announces the plan of action, including a hybridization of online and in-person classes, completely online, or any other plan that could go into effect come August. Boudreau states, “The key for us is to be as nimble as we can and for faculty to embrace that online education is going to happen and we have to be better at it in the fall than we were in spring.”
While some transition hiccups from in-person to online classes were expected for such short notice this past semester, President Boudreau is committed to solving those problems and increasing accessibility and comfort for all students remotely.
One problem to solve is the accessibility to internet technology to students. While this past semester over 500 laptops and tablets were given out, the announcement of these services was done through E-Mail, Boudreau adds, “I’m not convinced that we reached everybody so that’s an accessibility issue.”
On the other hand, accessibility increases with online education as learning goes from synchronous to asynchronous. This means students can access classes on a more flexible schedule, such as professors posting lectures that are available for longer periods for students to watch once, twice, and whenever.
While there are ups and downs to online learning, there are still hundreds of questions that City College aims to focus on solving over the course of the Summer to make Fall remote learning seamless for all.
President Boudreau states, “What do you do with students who are not sighted or have trouble hearing? Once you get all that taken care of, what do you do as far as testing is concerned, the kinds of accommodations that take place in that environment? I can’t give you the specific solution but we are now and will continue to make an investment in the training and acquisition technology to solve those problems.”
While no one can predict what the future holds for City College and its community amidst this ongoing global pandemic, the institution is seizing all opportunities for advancement with President Boudreau at the helm. With a health and economic crisis altering all aspects of life, many uncertainties lie ahead for the City College community, but it’s path to independence as a prominent institution remains intact.
