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Consultants recommend CUNY reorganization

By Daniel Arimborgo

Reorganization of the City University of New York system will mean more autonomy for individual colleges, variable salaries for college presidents, and increased efficiency for CUNY as a whole, according to an internal report completed by a consulting group and obtained by Times/Ledger.

The report, commissioned by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and issued by the Connecticut-based Pappas Consulting Group, calls for restructuring the central office to better resemble a corporate model.

“This is a complex organization as you would expect,” said Jay Hershenson, vice chancellor of university relations and Goldstein's executive assistant. He said the university system, which has 20 colleges and 350,000 full- and part-time students and a $1.3 billion operating budget, is the largest urban university in the country.

He said the restructuring of the administration would help Queens' five CUNY schools – Queens College, York College, the CUNY School of Law, Queensborough Community College, and LaGuardia Community College – become stronger while CUNY would be more responsive to their needs.

“The university as a whole is looking to build flagship programs within a flagship environment,” he said. “That basically means the systematic identification of academic programs that have the potential to achieve national stature. It's an effort to reinforce quality and to attract the best and the brightest, both faculty and students to the university system.”

Hershenson said the chancellor planned to have the changes completed by the end of the spring semester. “There will be a chief operating officer like many corporations have,” he said.

Addressing possible academic collaboration between Queens College and Queensborough Community College, Hershenson said: “I'm very familiar with the fact those two institutions share a lot in common. These are two institutions that are very capable of working closely together.”

Hershenson said opportunity for partnerships with other institutions both inside and outside of CUNY were greatly encouraged. “There has been interest in expanding campus-based Ph.D. programs. That can be done within the existing structure of the university. The leadership of those institutions would get a lot of support from here, and in fact they have.”

Salaries of presidents will also fluctuate in the future under CUNY reorganization. The vice chancellor for university relations said that all CUNY college presidents currently make $136,000.

“The board of trustees is in the process of considering a recommendation from the chancellor to establish variable salary ranges for college presidents,” said Hershenson. “Whether they have an institution of 20,000 students or 7,000 students, whether or not they head an institution that has graduate research, baccalaureate programs, whether or not they head an institute that has only associate degree programs, this system is different from other major universities in the country.”

Hershenson said there was a recommendation to hire a university dean for teacher education to coordinate efforts in intensifying teacher recruitment and development activities. “There's an awareness at CUNY that there are major teacher shortages imminent.” He said that over the next five years the city public school system may lose up to 55,000 teachers who will be eligible for retirement.

According to a source from the teacher's union, there are currently 78,000 city public school teachers, and there are a projected 55,000 vacancies including retirements, and positions created due to increased enrollment.

“CUNY is an extraordinary system, and as someone who grew up in Queens and personally benefited, the purpose of the reorganization on the part of the chancellor, is to make the system even more effective in delivering needed services to the next generation of students that we serve,” said Hershenson, who spent his childhood in Jackson Heights.

“Given the fact that Queens County serves more diverse groups than any other county on the planet earth, efforts to modernize how services are delivered take on a special importance,” he said.