CM Lewis on baseline outcomes, federal research cuts, and Reconnect

Thank you, Chair.

Good to see you, Chancellor, and to everyone on the panel.

Good morning.

I have three questions, so I'm going to try to barrel them out.

The executive budget includes $15 million in baseline operational support

beginning in fiscal 2027 for academic advisement, mental health services, career readiness, workforce preparation, and tutoring programs.

What enrollment growth, retention, and graduation outcomes does CUNY expect to achieve from this investment?

And how will success be measured over the next several years?

My second question.

We know that graduate students, doctoral candidates, and students involved in research often depend heavily on federally funded grants and fellowships.

Has CUNY assessed whether potential federal cuts would disproportionately impact graduate education, research opportunities, and workforce pipelines?

And what investments would be necessary to maintain those programs and federal support if federal support continues to decline?

My last question.

I'm taking notes.

All right.

You know,

You mentioned earlier to the chair, the chair Lee had spoke to you about enrollment.

So I wanted to know how has enrollment significantly grown over the last few years?

And I wanted to know for constituents that are watching today, that's watching this hearing today, I wanted to know how do you think

the CUNY Reconnect can open opportunities for them if they're thinking about college and how could that help?

So those are the three questions.

Thank you for the questions.

Let me, well, begin, I'm going to respond to them in the inverse order that you did them, right?

And I'm sure you'll remind me if there's something missing.

A, so we have intensified on the enrollment side our partnership with the New York City Public Schools.

That is our main source of students, right?

And we've gone deep in working with them, sending personalized letters at the beginning of senior year, working with their parents, right, even earlier than senior year to make sure that they know that CUNY is ready for them and it's an opportunity.

And, for example, one of the things that I'm very proud we did this year.

The welcome letter we've been doing now for, I think, three years.

This year, it went electronically.

My old-fashioned self wanted an old piece of paper, but the electronic version allows us to tell the story.

students if they have been taking College Now courses, it could tell you you already have 15 credits of courses banked in and you'll be saving this much money, right?

So we are going to the questions that the caregivers and the students have.

So we're trying to individualize that as much as we can to make it personal and bring you in.

Reconnect key three-quarter New Yorkers, three-quarter million New Yorkers, some college, no degree.

That is, and Reconnect has been our way to be able to bring all those people back who have some credit and need to finish their program to be able to get to their next, to the next job.

So Reconnect has been

critical for us to be able to do that and to listen to what was it that led you to drop out in the first place so that we can prevent that.

Right.

For the students we have.

On the graduate student, your question clearly, the main, I mean, people talk about

the funding being cut by the feds in this attack on higher education and research funding.

And of course, innovation is being targeted.

But the other part that's a real tragedy is the pipeline of talent that we need to keep the research infrastructure that is getting decimated.

And in our case at Acuna, I'll be happy to provide you with a breakdown.

In some of the programs that

got canceled by the administration were many pipeline programs, right?

For students of color and other groups to be able to get PhDs, to be able to get post-doctorate awards.

And we've lost a number of that, and that is really going to have an impact in the diversity and the number of graduate students that we're going to be able to have, which is a teaching force of the future and the research force of the future.

So I'm happy to provide you with some of that information because it's one of the things that we are very, very concerned.

And I know that locally we have incredible leadership at the Graduate Center with Dr.

Bromberg working very closely to be able to see how we can be supportive of our graduate students in their PhD route.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Morano, followed by Brewer.