Council Member Stevens presses DCLA on tracking CUNY Cultural Corps outcomes

And you said CUNY Corps, is that what you just said?

CUNY Cultural Corps, a paid internship program.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because I know I was talking to the deputy speaker.

We've heard this mentioned, but we don't have a lot of information about what this program is and what it entails.

And could you talk a little bit about this program?

Yeah, it was started, I believe, in 2017.

It is a partnership with CUNY where CUNY places undergraduate students in paid...

Internships at cultural organizations across the city, either one year or one semester.

And to date, there's been 1,100 CUNY cultural course students.

And they really are.

I mean, I've worked at a number of organizations.

1,100.

So how many?

Have you seen go to the executive track or leadership track?

How many from that 1,100?

I don't have that data.

So you guys not tracking that?

No.

So we have a program that you just cited as being a place that can bring diversity, but you're not tracking how that diversity is being dispersed amongst the 1,100 young people that have went through the program?

Well, yes.

I mean, each institution is tracking their own hiring process.

But how do you do that if this is a program you just talked about?

Maybe that's something we should do, right?

Yeah, we can look into it for sure.

And I know anecdotally that a lot of them have been hired and, you know, are finishing university and then go into a career in the arts or have a different relationship.

But shouldn't we be at a place where it's not anecdotally and we're actually tracking?

Because if you can track that there was 1,100 young people that went through this program, then, like, why are we not tracking their progress?

Because isn't that the point of the program?

In part, yes.

Yes.

And I believe that CUNY is starting to undergo a survey right now, a research study around what are the impacts of the internship program.

When was this program started?

2017.

So this program has been going on since 2017.

It's 2026, almost nine years later, and we don't, we're not tracking these young people to see the impact of the work.

We have anecdotal data.

We have data from CUNY.

We have data from cultural organizations.

But the Department of Cultural Affairs has not done a comprehensive study.

Well, maybe we should, right?

If this is a program we're toting and saying that,

This is helping with diversity.

We should actually be tracking it and using it to do that work.