CM Aviles on Constructive Dialogue Institute funding

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

First and foremost, I just want to thank the whole CUNY team for being here, for the work that you do shepherding New York City's prized institutions.

We deeply appreciate it.

I wondered if you could, I know in your testimony, which I was not here to hear, but read, could you elaborate a little bit more on the Constructive Dialogue Institute?

Can you tell us a little bit about how long this initiative has been in play?

How much the funding of the program currently supports, and what would be the need, the funding need in order to appropriately expand it throughout the campuses.

So thank you for your question.

The funding for the CDI, which began about a year and a half ago, depends on funding from the city council.

We're asking for additional funding for that.

I think we're asking for three quarter million for the year, and it's indispensable to continue the work that we've been doing.

We also got some grants from two foundations initially to do a pilot and get it going.

One of the things that is really wonderful about that program is that we have the work of the trainers from the CDI team.

But they're working to adapt that to however campuses are doing different kinds of initiatives.

So some campuses are including engaging in constructive dialogue and dealing with difficult conversations in freshman seminars.

So they're working with the faculty who are doing that to bring in that to that component there.

In some other cases, they're working with student groups and other groups to be able to work with the student groups as the student groups get ready to face programming that they do.

So it's been a very, very adaptable program.

And again, I am really proud that we're the only institution in the country that's doing this system-wide, right?

So it's not just a campus.

And the funding from the city council on this will be crucial to keep it going.

Does the current level allow cover the entire system?

So we did that with some of the combining the past funding from the council with some philanthropic funding that we received.

You know, the funders like to give you money for a couple of years and they say somebody else should pick it up, right?

So we're hoping that in that case, it's the council that does that.

So we will need that to continue to be system-wide.

Right.

Definitely something within our interest.

Thank you for the question, yes.

To baseline as an important program.