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Manhattan District Attorney Candidates Debate Resumes and Reform Credentials


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Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


The eight candidates running in the 2021 Democratic primary for Manhattan District Attorney convened virtually on Thursday for a panel discussion to offer their plans for a reimagined District Attorney's office. While all the candidates are talking about extensive reform, some want to go far further than others, and the candidates’ resumes inform those distinctions and, in combination, offer significant differences for voters to choose from in the upcoming June primary.

The candidates are running to succeed Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, a Democrat who was first elected to the post in 2009 and has not declared whether or not he will run for reelection, but has not appeared at early events or begun significant fundraising with under five months until primary day. Thursday's forum — hosted by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy — allowed each of the candidates to highlight their experiences and key objectives, revealing differences among them as they moved through topics including bail reform, discovery reform, the 2020 increase in shootings in Manhattan, and plans for holding members of the NYPD accountable, among other topics.

The candidates participating in the forum, all eight of the Democrats running active campaigns, included: civil rights attorney Tahani Aboushi; former Principal Deputy State Attorney General Alvin Bragg; State Assemblymember Dan Quart; public defender Eliza Orlins; Tali Farhadian Weinstein, the former general counsel to the Brooklyn District Attorney and a former federal prosecutor; and former Manhattan Assistant District Attorneys Liz Crotty, Lucy Lang, and Diana Florence.

Perhaps indicative of the turn of the calendar into 2021 and the rapidly-approaching vote, several candidates appeared somewhat more pointed in talking about their competitors or trying to differentiate themselves to voters.

Throughout the conversation Bragg led with his upbringing in Central Harlem to differentiate himself from the pack, highlighting his personal experiences with drug-related violence, police brutality, and the prison system. He additionally pointed to his management experience overseeing 12,000 people while working at the attorney general’s office.

"We've heard people talk about community partnerships, about their clients, about their legislation. This is my life," Bragg said. "I'm the only one here who has lived an entire life in a neighborhood that's been overpoliced, Black and brown folks have been my neighbors, my family, my loved ones my entire life — so I've paid bail, I've woken up in the middle of the night with collect calls from prison. I've lived this."

As they have throughout the race, Aboushi and Orlins took the most progressive and far left stances, including when, in response to a yes or no question, they were the only two candidates to support cutting the NYPD budget by half. Aboushi called for overarching reforms to dismantle the prison industrial complex and hold police accountable. She also pointed to running a community-led campaign as an indication of how she would manage the district attorney's office.

Orlins made efforts to juxtapose her career as a public defender with the prosecution records of the other candidates.

"I'm the only public defender in this race and I'm the only one with both the authentic commitment and the experience to transform this system," Orlins said. “The difference between me and everyone else in this race is clear. Anyone can recite progressive talking points. I hope that you'll all look beyond the answers in this forum and look at who has walked back policies after being criticized by public defenders, look who is endorsed by prosecutors who have locked up children of color using gang conspiracy laws and led to their deaths."

Florence presented herself as the candidate for the working class, pointing to her career of prosecuting crimes of power and holding the wealthy accountable.

"In choosing your next DA comes ultimately down to the work and who can get the job down," Florence said. "My vision comes directly from my work because I've done it. More than a dozen labor unions have endorsed me because they know that no one in this race has my record of standing up to power and there is no one who has fought harder on behalf of working people."

The forum started with a discussion of New York's major bail reform passed at the state level in 2019 and subsequent partial rollback in 2020. Lawmakers had eliminated cash bail for 90% of low-level arrests, drastically reducing the number of people held in jail before trial. Certain violations were re-added to the list of bailable offenses in changes made last year, drawing the ire of some reformers, including several of the candidates for Manhattan District Attorney, though not going far enough in the other direction for many law enforcement officials and more moderate or conservative critics of the changes made previously.

All candidates agreed on abolishing cash bail for misdemeanor arrests, however Crotty highlighted that the question of cash bail becomes more complicated when looking at defendants with established criminal records who may pose public safety risks. 

"There comes a point when you have to look at what the scenario is. What is the rap sheet, what is the likelihood that they will come back to jail, what is the public safety risk? These are the questions that should really be asked of people," Crotty said.

Florence attempted in several ways to establish herself as a defender of the working class, including by pledging to work towards a system that would ask bail of the wealthy who have ample means to flee, while utilizing alternative pre-trial options for the majority of cases. She cited a text messaging system as the least restrictive cash bail alternative or electronic monitoring as a more restrictive choice. Farhadian Weinstein stated that ideally there would be no cash bail, but added that there did need to be a mechanism to hold people before trial who are a risk to others in the smallest number of cases.

"We must abolish cash bail; it doesn't make us safer. I've had clients in on $250 bail that may as well have been a million," Orlins said. "It simply should be for the purpose of assuring someone's return to court and we're being sold this false choice between public safety and incarceration."

Quart added that the current system of cash bail continues to disproportionately impact communities of color.

"If you don't end cash bail, if you ask for cash bail then you are going to allow for a system of judicial discretion and a dangerous standard," Quart said. "We know that these twin issues are the things that led to nearly 78% of people in Rikers Island being people of color."

The conversation quickly moved to discovery reform and the same pattern of sweeping change, followed by some rollbacks that occurred in 2019 and 2020 at the state level. The rollbacks allow prosecutors more time before turning over evidence against the defendant to their counsel. Previously, the prosecution was required to hand all evidence over to the defense within 15 days after arraignment, but the new legislation allows prosecutors between 20 and 35 days.

Lang, Florence, Farhadian Weinstein, and Crotty all advocated for open-file discovery, but voiced a need for utilizing protection orders for witnesses who may be put at risk through participating in the prosecution. Bragg, Orlins, and Aboushi all called for open-file discovery with extremely cautious use of protection orders, arguing that the orders are often abused by prosecutors looking to withhold evidence from the defense. 

"We need to also talk about abuse of protection orders by prosecutors. I've seen that as a defense lawyer, I've seen that as a civil rights practitioner," Bragg said. "We have to talk about true public safety concerns and not let prosecutors abuse protection orders."

Starker divisions among candidates arose when asked about the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, an organizational quirk of New York City and, apparently, the only office of its kind in the nation. The office is responsible for prosecuting only narcotics offenses across the five boroughs and acts separately from the five district attorney offices. The office is known for a 'tough on crime' approach and wields a $25 million budget.

Crotty defended the Special Narcotics Prosecutor as vital and important, stating that it goes after big fish. She rejected the notion that the office pursues low-level drug crimes, the prosecution of which is often attributed as one cause of mass incarceration.

"Special Narcotics does not go after street dealers, that's not what they do. They go after the big top players in the drug industry on top of going after doctors who over-prescribe," Crotty said. "I think we have to look at how drugs work and where they're targeting their efforts. It's not as much on street crime as everyone likes to say. It's really looking from the top, from the doctors offices and looking at how drugs have infiltrated our city in different ways."

Aboushi and Bragg took a harder line against the office. Aboushi supports abolishing it and said she would remove the 57 Assistant District Attorneys employed there from the Manhattan DA’s office. Bragg said the special narcotics office prosecutes kinds of cases that he would avoid and categorized narcotics as a public health issue. He added that a non-elected special narcotics prosecutor should not be handling those cases, the elected district attorney should.

"I am in favor of doing away with the Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office and I would also withdraw my ADAs from that office," Aboushi said. It's just another layer of mass incarceration and prosecution that disproportionately falls on communities of color and one way to allow jurisdiction under the DA's office is to stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting poverty and issues that really belong from a public health department."

Another source of concern during the pandemic has been a roughly 100% increase in shootings in New York City in 2020 compared to 2019. Some, including NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, have connected the spike with bail reform, a claim that is largely unsubstantiated by the data. Mayor Bill de Blasio has blamed the shutdown of court trials, but that has also been debunked. The mayor has at times pointed to the broader social implications of the pandemic, disruptions to daily life, major loss of work, and other changes to patterns in the city, as a significant potential cause.

Weinstein called getting the shootings under control one of the top priorities of the district attorney. She advocated for cracking down on gun trafficking and for bolstering community resources to curb the issue. Florence, Bragg, and Aboushi joined in the call for investing in community resources to combat gun violence. Aboushi renewed calls to resist calls for throwing many more people in jail and instead focused on the NYPD budget.

"These statistics are alarming but we can't allow this to serve as an opportunity to maintain our systems of mass incarceration and mass criminalization of communities of color," Aboushi said. "We have to understand that these statistics are present while we have a recklessly bloated NYPD budget as well as a recklessly bloated district attorney budget. For those who are accustomed to falling back on the only thing they have been trained to do — police and prosecute more — we have to do something different. People need resources, we are in a pandemic where bad situations have only turned worse."

Crotty again separated herself from the pack by taking a more moderate stance, insisting that a key way to get guns off New York City streets is through the work of the NYPD. She argued that guns are coming into New York in private vehicles, making it necessary for properly trained NYPD officers to investigate the sources. She added that New Yorkers need to be clear that there will be serious consequences for illegal gun ownership.

Candidates also answered the question of how to approach prosecuting members of the NYPD. After members of the Minneapolis police department killed George Floyd, New York State passed the George Floyd Policing Act and New York City passed a law that went even further outlawing chokeholds by law enforcement, as well as other acts that could restrict a suspect’s breathing. Police unions and their allies have strongly opposed that law, and District Attorneys in the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island have indicated that in some cases they may not prosecute certain instances where the law might be violated incidentally or when an officer’s life appears in danger, according to the moderator.

Bragg and Weinstein laid out plans to establish free-standing police accountability units that would report directly to them while Orlins and Aboushi highlighted their experiences going after police for misconduct.

Quart was the only candidate to call for bringing in an independent prosecutor to evaluate the facts of each serious injury case to determine whether or not an offending officer should be prosecuted. He argued that there is a conflict of interest between the district attorney's office and the NYPD given the two offices work in tandem on countless cases. Aboushi strongly disagreed with pulling in a special counsel and instead advocated for the district attorney's office handling the cases directly. 

"I'm the only candidate here that has gotten officers terminated, disciplined, or criminally charged for their conduct and that's because I have the guts to do it and I put no badge or bank account above the law."

Crotty struck a different note on police accountability, highlighting both her experiences defending individual police officers and suing the NYPD in excessive force cases.

"I think we have to remember that NYPD are people,” she said, “and they should be looked at as people and when they break the law they should be held accountable and they should be held accountable in every instance."

Candidates moved from police accountability to how to hold perpetrators accountable for racially-charged and racist incidents. In December, Miya Ponsetto was caught on camera tackling a Black teenager in a SoHo hotel after falsely accusing him of stealing her iPhone. After rousing public outcry, Ponsetto was charged with third-degree attempted robbery, grand larceny, acting in a manner injurious to a child and two counts of attempted assault. Similarly, in May, Amy Cooper called 911 on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park and falsely accused him of assaulting her. Cooper was charged several weeks later with filing a false police report. The moderator asked candidates how they would handle prosecuting incidents like these.

"I am a Palestinean Muslim woman in New York City. I know about hate crimes very well," Aboushi said. "Not only did Trump run on a platform of banning Muslims he tried it and we fought it. While I understand the pain, humiliation and frustration of hate crimes that are not only a process of the DA's office, but are actually widely accepted by people across this country as we've seen by the attack on the capitol, I am committed to decarceration. We can't incarcerate our way out of hate and we're not going to incarcerate our way to education. We need to invest in communities we need to promote education."

Bragg indicated more willingness to prosecute hate crimes and stated his belief that the district attorney's office could both charge offenders for hate crimes and still be committed to restorative justice.

"All of those cases came from a place of hate and need to be [prosecuted], but also in Manhattan," Bragg said. "We have to call hate hate and you can charge something and still have a restorative justice process, but if we don't document and call hate hate the next person who does it will be emboldened."

Florence cautioned that prosecuting hate crimes cannot be motivated only by public outcry, but must be proactively handled.

"Hate crimes need to be taken seriously and it can't be when its public outcry," Florence said. "When it comes to Amy Cooper the current DA waited six weeks to charge something we all saw within moments of it being posted on Twitter, so what we need to be doing is proactively making sure that if there is hate crimes that are committed that we do them quickly. We also need to be looking at the groups like the Proud Boys who have committed crimes ehre in Manhattan and not only going after the cases reactively after they've happened but looking at their underlying funding."

The forum also covered gender-based violence. The moderator said sexual assault crimes are among the easiest to get away with because victims are often afraid of reliving their trauma or not being believed, which results in underreporting. These crimes additionally are under-prosecuted, meaning low conviction rates, the moderator said, also pointing to high-profile cases in cluding Harvey Weinstein andn Jeffrey Epstein.

"Those cases are an example of how the current district attorney's office defers to power and created a concierge system of justice where certain people get a pass and others are over-criminalized. That's never been the way I have conducted myself," Florence said. "I am the only person in the race who has decades of experience prosecuting crimes of power and I have the most experience of doing the actual gender-based cases. I spent five years prosecuting domestic violence."

Aboushi was the only candidate to mention sex work in her answer to the question.

"I would stand with advocates to disband the NYPD vice unit that has used the guise of prosecuting and arresting sex work to meet quotas, to get overtime and to abuse their power and require secxal favors," Aboushi said. "Sex work is work and I will work to decriminalize sex work."

***
by Emily Mason for Gotham Gazette
     

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The Money Race in the Democratic Primary for Manhattan District Attorney: January Filing


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Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein
Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


It seems more and more likely that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance will not run for reelection as he has not fundraised for his campaign even as a crowded field of Democrats is seeking the party’s nomination in the June primary. The eight candidates running active campaigns and Vance all just filed their latest mandatory campaign finance disclosures, showing their fundraising and spending for the last six months and setting the stage for the final five months before the all-important primary vote.

The winner of the primary in heavily-Democratic Manhattan is all but certain to become the next New York County District Attorney.

Vance, a third-term Democrat, has just $4,193 in his campaign account, according to his latest filing – he raised $2,022 in the last six months and spent only $3,247. Though he has been a progressive in some ways, he has faced criticism for declining to prosecute wealthy defendants and mishandling other high-profile cases, and has also been entangled in campaign finance scandals that seemed to deter him from running again.

The eight Democrats attempting to replace him are civil rights attorney Tahanie Aboushi; former Principal Deputy State Attorney General Alvin Bragg; former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Liz Crotty; former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence; former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lucy Lang; public defender Eliza Orlins; Assemblymember Dan Quart; and Tali Farhadian Weinstein, the former general counsel to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. 

Weinstein, also a former state and federal prosecutor, has far surpassed the rest of the field, raising $2.26 million and spending about $628,000, leaving her with $1.6 million in cash on hand as of the filing. She has received significant funding from wealthy donors. For instance, 11 donors each gave her $35,400 and another four donors gave $35,000. Of the more than 2,000 contributions that she received, her campaign said that more than 1,700 were of $200 or less.

The Manhattan District Attorney race operates under state election and campaign finance laws, not those of New York City, given it is technically a state position.

Bragg is in second place in fundraising, having raised $1.33 million overall since he launched his campaign in 2019 and having spent about $249,000. He has about $1.07 million in cash on hand as of the filing. In just the last six months, he raised about $578,000 and spent only about $97,000. His campaign said he received 3,889 donations, and claimed that he is the only candidate that hasn’t received contributions from corporations.

Assemblymember Quart, who was one of the earliest candidates to jump into the race, has raised about $488,000 and spent about $272,000. But he’s also transferred about $765,000 from previous state and city campaign accounts, which means he had about $940,000 in cash on hand at the filing, putting him almost on par with Bragg.  

Lang has raised $716,000, spent about $134,000, and had about $533,000 on hand as of the filing. Her campaign said she had about 900 donors, 80% of whom gave less than $250.

Orlins, a criminal defense attorney with the The Legal Aid Society, has overall raised just under $600,000 and spent about $163,000. She had about $407,000 left as of the filing. Her campaign boasted of broad grassroots support, claiming to have received more than 7,300 individual contributions, with roughly 3,770 contributions in the last six months alone. Her campaign estimated that more than 95% of contributions were of $100 or less. 

Aboushi has raised a total of about $771,000, of which $346,000 came in the latest filing period when spent about $153,000. She transferred a balance of about $367,000 from a previous campaign account which was transitioned to a narrower committee account for public reporting purposes, her campaign said. She had about $561,000 on hand as of the filing. Her campaign noted that she received 2,377 contributions, 87% of which are under $200.

Florence has raised $355,000 overall and spent about $132,000. She had about $238,000 in cash on hand as of the filing. She has also refused donations from corporations and real estate developers. Crotty has raised just under $280,000, spent $108,000 and had about $166,000 on hand at the filing.

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Note - this article has been updated to provide clarity about Aboushi's campaign transfer from a previous account. 

Note - this article has been updated to note that Diana Florence is also not taking corporate donations or those from real estate developers. 

CUNY Chancellor on What's Next for the Public University System and New York's Recovery


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CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodriguez (photo: Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez)


For the City University of New York’s hundreds of thousands of students and millions of alumni, the largest urban university system in the United States has long served as a springboard. A 2017 study by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and coauthors, ranked five CUNY schools in the top 10 of their economic mobility index, meaning these schools have achieved high success in propelling lower-income students to the top 40% of the income distribution. A similar 2020 Brookings Institution report ranked 12 CUNY senior colleges and community colleges among the top four-year and two-year colleges in the country in lifting low-income students into the middle class.

However, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has rocked the institution to its core, triggering intense interrogation about how CUNY should adapt in this new social, economic, and education landscape while continuing to fulfill its historic role as a social mobility driver in a post-pandemic world, and how CUNY fits into New York City’s larger recovery from the depths of the mass illness, death, unemployment, and dislocation wrought by COVID-19.

In May of last year, after in-person schooling had been shut down and the city was just coming out of the worst of the outbreak, CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez said on Facebook, “I have no doubt that the road to recovery for New York goes through CUNY.” The post implied a future in which CUNY’s system of four-year and community colleges, as well as graduate schools, would help fuel the city’s post-covid economic recovery.

In an interview with Gotham Gazette in October, Matos Rodríguez said, “We’re clearly an indispensable partner moving forward in the efforts to bring back the city and the economy, and its social and civic life.” He continued, “We’ve been working very hard with different sectors — the business community, with elected officials, with some of the other civic society groups who are framing an agenda about what needs to be done, so we can be an integral part of all those conversations.”

Tuesday night, Matos Rodríguez expanded upon his vision for making the university a crucial player in New York City’s “inclusive recovery,” in which New Yorkers from all backgrounds benefit from the city’s post-pandemic resurgence.

The chancellor appeared in an online forum hosted by the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit think tank that has conducted thorough, ongoing research on CUNY’s role in creating a more inclusive and equitable economy in New York City. Matos Rodríguez and moderator Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, touched upon a variety of important topics throughout the hour-long event: how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted the university and its students, how CUNY is addressing the economic consequences of the pandemic, how CUNY can improve career development opportunities for its students, including a talent pipeline into the city’s workforce and partnerships with major employers, and how the next mayor might impact CUNY. The chancellor provided a number of ideas for new policies and programs, though at times he was short on details in outlining his vision or answering the questions posed to him.

For the first 20 minutes of the discussion, Bowles posed questions of his own to Matos Rodríguez, while the remaining time was opened to questions from audience members.

Winston C. Fisher, a partner at Fisher Brothers, a real estate firm, and a philanthropic funder of the Center for an Urban Future’s research initiatives, opened the event, saying, “You can’t have a conversation about the future of New York City’s economy without talking about CUNY.” He added, “CUNY is on the front lines helping to develop a diverse and talented pool of employees for the 21st century economy.”

Bowles asked how the university could help the city achieve a more equitable economy.

According to Matos Rodríguez, an inclusive recovery will leverage CUNY’s diverse student population, which he said has become an increasing focal point among employers. “Clearly, our student body reflects that diversity of New York City, that talent pool that we need to take advantage of to rebuild the city,” the chancellor said.

The latest figures show that the university’s student population is composed of about 27% white students, 26% Hispanic students, 23% percent Black students, 23% Asian or Pacific Islander students, and less than 1% American Indian/Alaska Native students.

Matos Rodríguez also pointed out that there is a lot of diversity on the “faculty and staff side,” many of whom are policy experts, which he said will benefit the design and evaluation of new programs to help the university's mostly low-income students earn credentials and find employment post-graduation. He added that CUNY was working “with the governmental sector,” on both the city and state levels, in the design of programs to economically reinvigorate New York.

Additionally, Matos Rodríguez said CUNY has leveraged partnerships with employers in the private sector, citing the CUNY Cultural Corps internship program as an example. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded CUNY with a $10 million endowment in August to expand the talent pipeline for students from historically marginalized backgrounds into careers in the arts, an area that has been hit hard by the pandemic and where diversity is often lacking. Matos Rodríguez lauded the program for putting “thousands of CUNY students in paid internships” and “real money in the pocket of students.”

As part of a broader initiative to diversify corporate recruitment, CUNY has partnered with a coalition of 27 major companies called the New York Jobs CEO Council, which has pledged to hire 100,000 low-income and Black, Latino, and Asian workers, including 25,000 CUNY students, by 2030. Affiliated companies include household names like Amazon, Google, and JPMorgan Chase. “A more robust programming of paid internships is a great way to increase the connectivity between CUNY and employers,” said Matos Rodríguez. Details about the program are still unclear, including how the recruitment and application process will work and how the CEO Council will be held accountable for meeting its goal.

Beyond the CEO Council, Matos Rodríguez said he wants to see more intentional efforts from employers that target CUNY students when recruiting for their internship programs. He said he’s noticed “a double standard when they’re reaching out to certain schools and not to ours.” But Matos Rodríguez also acknowledged, “That’s beginning to change,” remarking how he’s noticed increased outreach from employers in various industries, including publishing and finance. Relatedly, the chancellor said employers should utilize “word-of-mouth” and “social media” to attract CUNY students to paid internship opportunities, while also providing reasonable scheduling flexibility for the “many [students] balancing work and family in ways that typical 18-year-olds graduating from college do not.”

A recent November report from the Center for an Urban Future found that the number of degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) awarded annually nearly doubled in the last 10 years. “It [CUNY] seems like it's ripe for more recruitment among the city's tech employers,” Bowles pointed out. 

These findings coincide with another report from the Center for an Urban Future that found unemployment has disproportionately impacted workers in particular industries. Jobs in tech, finance, engineering, and scientific research and development services saw minimal job losses when the pandemic struck, compared to jobs in many low-wage industries including restaurant, retail, the performing arts, and personal care, which saw the greatest job losses, as well as the hospitality industry and transportation.

A university official reported during a June City Council hearing that CUNY students had been disproportionately affected in terms of unemployment, as well, with 40% of students having lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic. According to a 2016 report, 60% of CUNY’s undergraduate population comes from households earning less than $30,000 a year.

“Many of the industries with the greatest job losses are also the ones that are most accessible for people who don't have a college credential,” said Bowles.

Preliminary data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that the unemployment rate in New York was 11.8% in November, up from 3.4% the same month in 2019.

Asked how CUNY was responding to these unemployment trends, Matos Rodríguez said, “Our students work 20 hours or more [per week] and had part-time jobs in those sectors,” referring to industries hit hardest by the pandemic. “CUNY needs to provide students with “additional tools to be able to pivot into other areas,” particularly for those seeking employment in industries where the job prospects are “soft,” such as tourism and the performing arts.

Expanding CUNY Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), a financial and academic support program that helps students earn an associate’s degree within three years, is an important aspect of Matos Rodríguez’s vision plan for CUNY. Other program benefits include free unlimited MetroCard, help with textbook costs, and advice. In particular, Matos Rodríguez says he wants to see personalized advising expanded to the rest of CUNY to help students make more “informed choices” and avoid costly mistakes early on in their academic careers, especially among first-generation students, who may not be as equipped to navigate collegiate structures and bureaucracy.

The first question from the audience asked the chancellor how to ensure academic preparedness among high school students so they can take full advantage of CUNY’s programs and resources. Matos Rodríguez said he wants to maximize the potential for data based on “proficiency standards” to let students know “whether [they’re] college-ready or not,” during either their sophomore or junior years of high school. That kind of policy intervention would “save time for the students, get them ready for college, cut down on the cost of remediation on our side, and lead to more on-time degree completion.”

City Council Member Inez Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat and chair on the Council’s Committee on Higher Education, asked the chancellor how much money would be necessary to adequately fund CUNY personnel, citing decades of underfunding from the city and state, with the ultimate aim of eliminating overdependence on adjunct faculty and expanding support programs, such as ASAP.

“For every $100 million you’re putting in a capital investment into CUNY, you’re generating a thousand direct or indirect jobs in the city,” said Matos Rodríguez. He did not specify an exact dollar amount but did say, “We have not invested enough in our career centers” and called for “additional support for the work that we do.”

In envisioning how a post-pandemic future would look for CUNY, the chancellor said the university system plans to maximize its recent foray into online and hybrid instruction, offering students a broader selection of classroom styles to suit different learning needs. CUNY’s increased online classes coincided with diminished course offerings and ballooning class sizes during the pandemic, as well as nearly 3,000 faculty layoffs.

Additionally, Matos Rodríguez described “the focus on pedagogy” as “a great result of this tragedy.” explaining that updating instructional best practices is “a key part of student success.” He cited concerns in the early months of the pandemic over whether faculty members were properly trained to teach online as an example of this; in response, CUNY offered online training workshops for all faculty members. “I want to keep that same focus on teaching the students that we serve at CUNY moving forward, so that we have less students dropping out, more minorities and women taking STEM courses — all the things that we know happens with better teaching.”

When asked how CUNY can encourage traditional liberal arts faculty members to “align to more workforce transferable curriculum,” the Chancellor emphasized the importance of real-world application in teaching, saying, “We need to give faculty who do not come trained that way more tools to be able to feel comfortable to point people in the right direction.” He did not specify what those tools would include, but added, “I think that there's ways in which you can do that entirely consistent with the field that you're teaching, even if it's the humanities.”

Expanding peer advising as a work-study option for students is also on the chancellor’s agenda, alongside existing programs that support adult learners, many of whom have returned to school in the wake of pandemic-induced unemployment.

***
by Allison Smith for Gotham Gazette
 @GothamGazette

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