HIGHER ED TODAY
������������������������������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������
������������������������������������������������������
One of the most crucial ways that CUNY
has committed to its mission in recent years
has been to respond to the evolving needs of
our students after graduation. And the central
strategy of that focus has been to vigorously
pursue partnerships with employers
who share our vision of creating professional
opportunities for students from underserved
communities. It’s an approach
with payoffs for both our students and the
local economy.
Now, of course, there is a new urgency to
this priority: The pandemic confronts New
York with economic challenges we couldn’t
have imagined a year ago, and CUNY is determined
to support its students when they
need it most and to take a leading role in the
city and state’s recovery.
Prior to the coronavirus, we had put together
a team in our workforce programs
office to help CUNY and its colleges forge
connections with private-industry partners
in the city’s largest and most thriving economic
sectors with the goal of creating career
pathways for our students. The result
has been remarkable: Tens of thousands
of professional opportunities in the health
care, finance, tech, real estate, architecture
and cultural sectors. Now we are doubling
down on these efforts, making good on our
mission to propel students up the socioeconomic
ladder at a time when the pandemic
has eliminated thousands of internship and
job opportunities.
One of our newest and most exciting
partnerships is with the New York Jobs
CEO Council, a coalition led by 27 chief executives
of some of the largest employers
in New York including JPMorgan Chase,
Amazon and Microsoft. It’s a collaboration
that will create job opportunities for 25,000
CUNY students with a focus on low-income
and Black, Latinx and Asian communities.
The Jobs CEO Council has a direct impact
on the economy and our partnership will
create a robust pipeline of skilled CUNY
workers into the growing workforce.
This fall we’re also launching our Federal
Work-Study Experimental Site, a program
that will allow both companies and
non-profit organizations to hire some 9,000
CUNY students for paid internships. This
unique opportunity will allow students to
work off campus with private companies at
a time when the pandemic has halted many
on-campus activities, including work-study
employment that so many students depend
on. And with many businesses struggling
and in need of financial support to hire and
retain staff, this initiative allows employers
to hire CUNY workers because costs are
shared with the federal government.
And then there is the CUNY 90-day Upskilling
Challenge, which is providing free
virtual skills training and includes partnerships
with Google and IBM to connect
students to employers that are hiring during
COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the continuing pandemic
keeps us focused on the need to engage
our students with the career opportunities
available to them in the healthcare field —
and to provide them with the training and
Caribbean L 20 ife, Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 2020
experience that will give them the skills and
credentials they’ll need to walk into wellpaying
jobs.
Our ongoing relationship with Montefiore
Health System is a prime example.
All three of our colleges in the Bronx have
partnerships with Montefiore that help prepare
their students for jobs in health care.
At Lehman College, Montefiore is a partneremployer
of the Braven Accelerator Course,
a professional readiness program that was
launched in the spring and helps students
build skills in the health service field.
Montefiore and Hostos Community College
have worked closely to develop and deliver
health care training for students. H.E.R.O.
High School, which opened in 2013 in the
Bronx as a collaboration between CUNY,
Montefiore and the city Department of Education,
provides an integrated six-year program
in which students gain healthcare
workplace experience while they earn a Regents
diploma and an associate’s degree in
nursing or community health from Hostos.
Montefiore also serves as an industry adviser
in the development of a new associate
degree in health sciences at Bronx Community
College.
The list goes on: CUNY partnerships
with financial firms like Centerbridge Partners
and Deerfield Management, trade associations
like the Real Estate Board of New
York, economic development companies
like the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development
Corporation and nonprofits like the Urban
Land Institute are helping us weather the
pandemic and keep our students on track to
be part of the recovery. With support from
the Mellon Foundation, we are expanding
the CUNY Cultural Corps, our provensuccessful
program to expose students to
sustainable career paths in the city’s arts
and cultural sectors. Break Through Tech,
which grew out of the successful Women in
Tech (WiTNY) program and was launched in
partnership with Cornell Tech and industry
allies, promises to move many more young
women into tech-focused fields in which
they have been long underrepresented.
Two recent economic impact studies
noted that CUNY and its colleges pump
billions of dollars a year into the regional
economy and our growing list of private
sector partnerships is no small part of that.
CUNY’s first priority is always to our students—
to graduate them into good jobs and
careers and to put them on paths to fulfilling
lives. This year more than any other we
expect New York City to be the beneficiary
of their success.
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
�������� ������������ �������������� ������������������������ ���������������� ����������������
������������������ ������ �������� ���������� ������ ������������ �������������������� ��������
������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
A lack of
communication
Parents, pols slam city over tech gap
BY TODD MAISEL
More than 77,000 students at New
York public schools either have no
computer, iPad or access to adequate
internet, city leaders and education
advocates claimed on Sunday.
At an Oct. 18 press conference outside
the Department of Education
headquarters at Manhattan’s Tweed
Courthouse, Borough President Eric
Adams and other advocates bemoaned
that students are being left behind
by the city’s new blended and remote
learning models — including an outsized
number of students of color.
Some parents whose children do
not have access to the internet at
home, and others who reside in homeless
shelters, slammed the situation as
untenable, saying their children were
forced to miss out on days of Zoom
learning.
The situation has led some parents
to use online fundraising platforms
like GoFundMe to buy laptops for
children whose families can’t afford
them.
Adams, along with Coney Island
Councilman Mark Treyger and Manhattan
Councilman Ben Kallos, demanded
sweeping before students fall
behind and drop out of school. Adams
warned that failure to address this
problem now could result in a domino
effect across the city.
“The people of this city should be
outraged, impacted or not, over what
we are doing to children in temporary
housing and in communities that are
economically challenged,” Adams said.
“It is unbelievable what the DOE has
clearly normalized, the lack of education
for these students. Every child we
fail to educate is a child that will potentially
be incarcerated. When you don’t
give children the basic education, and
you move about as though it is normal,
acceptable — you write them off.”
Treyger was equally outraged, saying
he said he needed a subpoena the
DOE to reveal information on the number
of children ill-equipped for virtual
learning. The councilman, a former
teacher, said the problem will go from
temporary to generational, and will
cause permanent damage to children
in the city if not addressed quickly.
“On Friday we had a hearing, DOE
was not happy that they had to spend
hours answering questions,” said the
southern Brooklyn pol, adding that
the Council had been asking for data
Lazaro Allah, 9, still can’t get a computer or
an iPad to keep up with the virtual school
year due to COVID-19. Photo by Todd Maisel
since May. “The only thing worse than
77,000 kids that we know of not having
the device right now, is entering the
school year knowing that thousands of
children still do not have a device.”
Parents expressed similar frustrations,
including one Canarsie resident
who 9-year-old son, Lazaro, who is having
trouble keeping up in school due to
the reliance on technology.
“I have two children that have not
received a laptop. It’s hard to have one
child who tries to accommodate her
siblings getting their education. It’s
impossible for them to use their telephones
to do homework on,” said Atzalah
Allah.
Among the parents’ and leaders’
demands are clear communication
from DOE to the families of those still
struggling with tech needs, up-to-date
tracking on device delivery and for the
city to utilize its full purchasing power
and renegotiate bulk remote learning
device procurement for a better taxpayer
deal at below-retail price.
Above all, advocates say, they want
transparency so that education does
not continue to go underfunded —
something, Adams noted, dates back
well before the current mayoral administration.
“The city was run for 20 years by
Republicans,” said Adams, who is one
of many vying to be the city’s next
mayor. “Incompetency is not a party.
Incompetency is how we are failing to
run this city.”
EDUCATION