oped
In relentless year, CUNY stands strong
letters & comments
To the Editor,
Pascual Pelosi disagrees
with me in very civil and respectful
fashion, but I would
like to address his practically
weekly criticism of the COMACTA
columnist.
Mr. Pelosi, there is an
individual from Great Neck
who up to a short while ago
had opinion pieces appear on
these pages. I don’t know if he
stopped writing or BT/BTR
stopped publishing his letters.
This individual has been published
EVERYWHERE. For
every good letter he writes he
writes ten ludicrous letters.
His opinion pieces sometimes
directly contradict each other,
and many of them are to fuel
an insatiable addiction to seeing
his name in print. I’ve had
a few letters published pointing
out his spectacular leaps
of illogic, yet he continues to
get published.
Mr. Pelosi, the COMACTA
columnist will continue to be
published. The First Amendment
allows you to criticize
him and disagree with me.
I wouldn’t have it any other
way. But your criticism has
changed nothing. It has not
elicited a syllable in response
from him. In this week’s column
he quotes a source from
a right wing college newspaper
that discusses alleged attacks
by the left against the
right on college campuses
all across the country without
naming a single college.
He discusses Antifa, conveniently
ignoring the fact that
Antifa has many factions and
not all of them agree with violence.
More cherry picking
and convenient fact gathering.
But the CC will keep on
keeping on. My suggestion,
Mr. Pelosi, which you are free
to ignore, is stop devoting energy
and effort to what you are
not going to change. We are
living in a cataclysm: unprecedented
health, economic, and
quality of life crises. Much
more pressing matters than
the COMACTA columnist belong
on these pages.
Nat Weiner
7 Metropolitan Oval MC
Bronx, New York 10462
917-580-2890
BY FÉLIX V. MATOS RODRÍGUEZ
Back in early April, as the
coronavirus was tightening its
grip on New York, Gov. Cuomo
issued an executive order allowing
the state’s fourth-year medical
students to graduate early
so they could help in the battle
against COVID-19. One week
later, members of the inaugural
class of the CUNY School of Medicine
received their degrees and
began joining the front lines as
volunteers in city hospitals.
To me, it was a moment
that symbolized so much about
CUNY. Most of those fi rst-ever
CUNY MD’s are from racial
and ethnic groups that have
been both traditionally underrepresented
in medicine and
disproportionately affected by
COVID-19. In the kind of virtual
commencement that would later
become the norm, I told them
how proud I was of their willingness
to put themselves on the
line.
What a year 2020 has been:
It was a year that constantly
tested us, and frequently broke
our hearts. All of it demanded
— and inspired — great fortitude
and resourcefulness from
the more than 300,000 students,
faculty, staff and leaders who
make up the University, and a
great deal of sacrifi ce for the
common good. It’s important
to recall the challenges and triumphs,
and to celebrate the fact
that CUNY’s year is ending on
a high note. Let’s take a look
back.
The coronavirus was largely
a remote concern when the year
began, but it soon gained a foothold
in New York that forced
CUNY to all but shut down its
25 campuses and quickly pivot
to distance education. When
classes resumed after a weeklong
academic recess, 95 percent
of the University’s 50,000 course
sections had transitioned to online
instruction. We quickly
realized that thousands of students
lacked the tools to participate
in distance learning.
With support from Gov. Cuomo,
we purchased 33,000 laptops
and tablets and made sure they
were safely loaned to students in
need. It was just one part of our
broad efforts during the year to
help our students weather the
academic, economic and emotional
challenges they faced.
Early in the crisis, we established
the Chancellor’s Emergency
Relief Fund with $1 million
each from the Carroll and
Milton Petrie Foundation and
the James and Judith K. Dimon
Foundation. By the fall, support
from additional donors grew
the fund to more than $8 million
and allowed us to distribute
emergency grants to more than
10,000 students. CUNY colleges
and schools raised another $8.6
million on their own.
The perseverance and accomplishment
came amid a backdrop
of widespread grief. Every
CUNY campus has mourned
faculty, staff, students, alumni
and retirees lost to COVID-19.
Among them were Allen Lew,
CUNY’s senior vice chancellor
of the Offi ce for Facilities,
Planning and Construction
Management. The University’s
website now includes an In Memoriam
page to pay tribute to
those we’ve lost.
Through it all, we hunkered
down and pressed on. This
year CUNY conferred 56,527 degrees
— the second highest total
in our history and just shy of the
record high awarded last year.
Looking ahead to life after
COVID, we redoubled our efforts
to help students fi nd sustainable
career paths and play
an active part in the city’s economic
recovery. Among the
most important developments
were a plan to expand mental
health services and a new partnership,
the New York Jobs CEO
Council, which will create a
pipeline to job opportunities for
25,000 CUNY students. We also
focused our professional development
training to help 3,400
faculty become better online
teachers, part of a larger, longerrange
initiative to improve pedagogy
at CUNY.
Félix V. Matos Rodríguez is
the chancellor of The City University
of New York (CUNY), the
largest urban public university
system in the United States.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, JAN. 8-14, 2021 13
LET US HEAR FROM YOU
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