CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein Named Carnegie 2007 Academic
Leadership Award Winner
Recently, Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of
New York, announced Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor of The City University of New
York, as the latest recipient of the Corporation’s Academic Leadership Award.
The award recognizes leaders of institutions of higher education who have an
abiding commitment to liberal arts and who have initiated and supported curricular
innovations, including development of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
programs that aim to bridge the gulf between the theoretical and the practical.
In addition, the award honors leadership that actively supports K-12 school
reform, strengthens teacher education and emphasizes community outreach.
Goldstein will receive $500,000 to be used for his academic priorities.
“By raising standards, strengthening student preparation,
revolutionizing financing and adding new schools to the system, Matthew
Goldstein has truly reinvigorated the City University,” said Gregorian. “The
Academic Leadership Award celebrates excellence,” he added. “It builds on the
foundation’s long tradition of developing and recognizing the importance of
leadership in American institutions of higher education. Clearly, Matthew
Goldstein’s accomplishments prove that excellence in leadership is much more
than effective management.”
A number of initiatives underway in the CUNY system demonstrate
Goldstein’s effectiveness and reflect the criteria for the award:
Commitment to liberal arts is the hallmark of CUNY’s William E.
Macaulay Honors College, which offers free tuition and other benefits to the
city’s highest achieving students (an enrollment of 1,200) who might otherwise
not be able to afford higher education. The presence of more high academic
achievers has garnered several prestigious awards for the university, both from
the Macaulay Honors College and other programs, with students winning Barry
Goldwater, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Truman scholarships in 2007, in addition
to recent Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships.
Curricular innovation characterizes CUNY’s Decade of Science
(2005–2015). Over $1 billion has been dedicated to new and expanded
science facilities throughout the CUNY system as part of this commitment to
bridging theoretical research and practical outcomes, ensuring a healthy
pipeline to the science, math, technology and engineering fields critical to
the evolving global economy. The Teacher Academy was launched in 2006 as part
of the New York City Partnership for Teacher Excellence within the New York
City Department of Education in support of this highly innovative effort, and
incorporates interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs to train math and
science teachers for high-need New York City schools.
CUNY has formed partnerships with the New York City Department
of Education to enhance students’ readiness for, and participation in, higher
education. The university has developed a network of 15 high schools housed on
its campuses and opened ten early college schools, with four additional schools
in the pipeline. The successful College Now program helps 32,000 students
annually in over 280 New York City high schools meet high school graduation
requirements while preparing for college success.
“The opening of CUNY’s new Graduate School of Journalism clearly
demonstrates Matthew Goldstein’s sense of the university as a cultural and
economic force in New York City as well as his understanding of the changing
role of media throughout the world,” said Vartan Gregorian.
Goldstein is the first
alumnus of the university to be appointed chancellor, the highest position
within the nation’s largest urban public university.
Shortly before Goldstein was
named chancellor in 1999, an advisory task force issued a report calling the
CUNY system “an institution adrift.” But his reform plan, which included
converting the loose federation of colleges into a unified system of flagship
programs and adding over 1,000 full-time faculty throughout the CUNY system,
has turned the university around. As a result, enrollment is at its highest
level in 31 years: more than 470,000 students, from 167 countries and speaking
119 languages, now attend CUNY’s degree-credit and continuing education programs.#
