Executive Summary

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New York City College of Technology (City Tech) presents this 2017 Self-Study in support of decennial reaccreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Using the lens of the seven Middle States Standards of Excellence, the Middle States team has engaged in an iterative two-year process in which a cross-section of faculty, administrators, staff, and students have come together to consider how and how well the college fulfills its mission. Under the leadership of President Russell K. Hotzler, the college has made remarkable strides over the past decade in its transformation to a baccalaureate institution. City Tech’s future is deeply intertwined with that of New York City; it is a microcosm of the city’s diversity, breadth of enterprise, creative energy, and innovative spirit. The value of a City Tech degree to graduates in potential for upward economic mobility and professional success has been proven. This potential lends urgency to our goal of increasing retention and accelerating time-to-degree for more students.

Summaries of each standard are below; for the full text, please click the links to the right.

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Questions about the report or review process? Contact Kim Cardascia at KCardascia@citytech.cuny.edu
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16 thoughts on “Executive Summary

  1. Peter Spellane

    Fourth sentence, I suggest adding the word “cultural” so the phrase reads “is a microcosm of the city’s cultural diversity, …”.

    BTW, note to editor, be mindful in using the phrase “microcosm of.” Ever since Sarah Palin described Alaska as “a microcosm of America,” the phrase, in my mind at least, is likely to be followed by word or words that render the statement untrue.

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  2. Peter Spellane

    Under EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, expanded section under STANDARD II, last paragraph: the sentence “Students surveyed about the process for making service complaints and equity-related grievances known revealed widespread lack of understanding of the process.” is difficult to follow.

    Suggested rewrite: Students surveyed about the process for registering service complaints and equity-related grievances indicated widespread lack of understanding of the process.

    I am uncertain of the meaning of “equity-related grievances.” Will it be clear to MSCHE readers?

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  3. Ann

    I believe the following sentence could be made a little easier to process:
    The value of a City Tech degree to graduates in potential for upward economic mobility and professional success has been proven.

    A possible alternative:
    The potential for upward economic mobility and professional success that a City Tech degree provides to graduates is well attested.

    There are probably a few other rewrites that might be more effective, of course.

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  4. So Lan

    Standard IV: Support of the Student Experience
    Since City Tech is committed to inclusion, experiential learning and responsiveness to the needs of the community we serve, perhaps we can also mention the Center for Student Accessibility for its great work in supporting students with disabilities and the CUNY Service Corps for engaging students in year long service projects in the community while providing them with important professional development experiences.

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  5. Tanya Goetz

    With regard to the point about upward economic mobility, I think it would be good to cite a quote or at least point readers to the research study that was done and highlighted in the New York Times in articles such as https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/opinion/sunday/americas-great-working-class-colleges.html or https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html. Since a visual is always effective, the chart from the second article linked above that puts CityTech at number 9 among colleges nationwide that successfully move graduates from the bottom 40 percent to the top 40 percent would effectively support the “has been proven” in the summary.

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  6. Tanya Goetz

    The final sentence in Standard I is in passive voice and a little hard to follow. Maybe it could be broken into 2 sentences and then the active voice could be used. “The college recognizes it needs to increase awareness of its mission and goals through better internal communications. CityTech also must find new ways of increasing the engagement of its constituencies and consider more carefully the impact administrative(?) decisions have on students. ”

    The above two sentence structure may not quite capture what the intent was on the earlier sentence. But in trying to rewrite it, I wasn’t quite sure of the authors’s intent. For example, is it administrative or curriculum decisions being discussed or both?

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  7. Julia V Jordan

    re: executive summary end statement, we seem to limit our scope. Consider removing the word more and replacing it with all.
    “This potential lends urgency to our goal of increasing retention and accelerating time-to-degree for more students.”
    Our mission is not limited to more students; it is our goal for all students. We believe in the potential of our students to succeed.

    What is different since the last middle states is that we are working intentionally in multiple ways to engage all students, with support of faculty and staff, in their persistence through graduation (ASAP, FYP, Honors, UGR, CUNY Service Corp, PDC, SLSD, SEEK, SGA, ‘pipeline’ conferences, competitions to graduate studies, etc.) via curricular and co-/extra curricular opportunities w/stated goals. Faculty and staff participate in focused professional development through grants and fellowships, college wide committee activities –gen ed, assessment, shared governance, orientations– actions that strengthen the student experience from recruitment through graduation.

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  8. John Huntington

    It’s not clear to me in “STANDARD I: MISSION AND GOALS” why the excerpt of the mission statement is edited/abbreviated? “City Tech’s distinctive emphasis on applied skills…”

    John

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  9. John Huntington

    It’s not clear to me in “STANDARD I: MISSION AND GOALS” why the excerpt of the mission statement is edited/abbreviated? “City Tech’s distinctive emphasis on applied skills…”

    John

    Reply
  10. John Huntington

    RECOMMENDATIONS

    It seems to me that every single problem we have at Citytech is caused or exacerbated by endless austerity and constant under funding. Clearly, we can’t print money, but shouldn’t one of our goals as an institution be to help lobby for things like a reasonable, ongoing budget stream?

    Thanks to everyone involved for their hard work on this document.

    John

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  11. Ivan L Guzman

    Please consider expanding on this sentence by providing source of ratings:

    “The value of a City Tech degree to graduates in potential for upward economic mobility and professional success has been proven.”

    Consider adding something in the form of source of rankings, awards, etc.

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  12. Barry Ling

    Students make the school.
    City Tech will not get the Brooklyn Tech nor Bronx Science studnets; most likely the B or below studnets some of whom are in this segment because that is their level, and the rest because of the language.
    The goal is to make sure they are able to find jobs.
    The strategy is:
    *each class must have getting student a job as its focus, nothing else, be it English, language, or math
    *quality of graduate must be high; this will make employers come back for more
    *the why is not that important, the how is; graudates must be able to start as soon as hired
    *focus on a limited number of majors where there is high demand, and put all your money in it
    *set high graduation GPA for those selected majors; students who do not cut it must not be allow to carry that major so that graduate quality is assured
    *the above requires that students be monitored early on, and career advise matching a student’s strength be given; if one fails Discrete Math two times, computer track may not be well suited for one.
    *do not let them start college level classes until they are ready. set up free or cheap catch up classes for a longer period; you cannot master English in 2 semesters, but maybe 2 years. It is okay to graduate in 6 years.
    When employers can find desirable employees from City Tech, they will come back.
    This will draw better quality students to City Tech.
    Better students mean better graduates
    Better graduates will draw more employers.

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  13. Mohammed Feknous

    1. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. There should be a more cohesive and intensive relation with the high schools to smooth the process of acquiring better prepared students for college.
    2. A committee f on each department can devise more effective examples and problems for faculty to include in their courses
    3. Another committee can devise more practical and hands on project to trigger the interest of the students as we learn most from what we do and keep them on campus longer to keep them from being distracted by useless activities outside the campus

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  14. Cheryl Thomas

    Greater focus on retention and graduation.
    Teach UP to the students. Hold them accountable to their proper education.
    Professors must be proficient in teaching ability not just content mastery.
    Professors must be much more technology savvy. Black Board, a great resource in which citytech/cuny invested funds is seriously underutilized by most faculty.
    Advise students in the use of academic tools like Degree works from their inception here. Do group advisement in majors.
    Raise personal and student expectation.
    Leave bias and bigotry on the side walk.
    Greater outreach to students using all technology. More than half of the students are under 25. They are very much exposed to FB, Twitter, snap chat … Instructors must use these tools to operate in student’s zone of proximal development. Putting plans on paper is fine but the true test of whether you reached students in in the retention and graduation numbers.
    A proper education is a partnership – Students – Faculty – Staff, any weakness in this equation negatively impacts all the well written outcomes.
    Promote four years to graduation as viable. General Education classes help give students clarity re interests and ability.
    Willingness to use an online option when life happens – Professors ill, students ill or overwhelmed with personal issues like getting to school.
    Less reliance on student evaluation to monitor Professor effectiveness. Many students will not truthfully rate professors because they don’t believe that colleges impose sanctions. As long as they get an A no problem. Students see the same ineffective professors semester after semester when everyone knows the deal.

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  15. Cheryl Thomas

    Much more in the area of grants should be a focus of the college. The grants that are available should be advertised more aggressively. I am enrolled in two grant programs and the last 10 students I told about these programs had never heard of them. In the mean time they are stressed trying to work for $10 an hour to pay for school and living. If students don’t have to work they will more likely appreciate the “all you can eat notion.” We pay the same amount for 15, 18 credits that we pay for 12.

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