African American Legends; Marcia Keizs, "York On The Move"

The African-American legend series highlights the accomplishments of blacks and areas as varied as politics, sports, aviation, business, literature and education. We will explore how African-Americans have succeeded in areas where it didn't be previously excluded because of segregation, racism and lack of opportunity. I'm your host, Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., and with us today is Mosea Keith, the President of York College of the City University of New York. Welcome to African-American legend, Mosea. It's a delight to be with you, Dr. Brown. This is the 2007-2008 academic year, and as a college president, I know you have great plans. So tell us about your plans for those seven or eight. Well you know Roscoe having been there, that September can be one of the most difficult months for the college president because the first thing you've got to do is to bring

in the enrollment, as it were. We're pleased to say that in terms of our goals for this year, let me talk about it in four different themes. Bringing in a freshman class, a well-prepared freshman class, retaining that class as well as others, strengthening our academic programs, and finally fundraising. On the, bringing in the class, we've been very, very pleased by the fact that this year, we enrolled just about a thousand students as freshmen. A portion of those students came in through the Sikh program, just about 225. And another 750 or so represented freshmen from across the board, and that really is a significant increase over last year, where we topped off at about 700. So we're very, very pleased with that. On the second front retention, this now is really our main agenda for this year. Because over the years at York, we have not been as good at keeping our students, helping

them progress through to graduation as some of our senior sister colleges within the system. And so, for instance, when I got to York, and even at the present time, we find that 65% of our freshmen stay on. Last year with our enhanced class of 206, what we have preliminary numbers tell us that we're in the 72 to 73% retention rate. And so that's good. It's moving in the right direction. And so this year, we must work to assure that we keep more of the students who come to us. So retention is a very critical thing for us to see. The number of things that you're doing, because you know, students have a myriad of concerns, economic concerns, family concerns, job concerns that cause them to stop out or drop out. So what are some of the things that you're doing at York that will hopefully hold some of those students?

Okay, well, I'm glad you asked that question, because we tried a couple of things this year. We were approaching it as an all-around kind of impact, certainly you touch on one important thing, and it's the issue of financial, their economic ability. One of the things we did a couple of years ago is to put in place some merit scholarships. Now they're quite modest. They don't take care of the full tuition. And what we hope is that by eliminating the need to work, or at least to work fewer hours, students can focus on the academic. So merit scholarships is a very critical thing for us. A second thing we did this year, and we want to expand that, is to really have a very solid freshman orientation. You know, there's a big gap when you leave high school and you come to college. And very often, students have not sort of found a way to make that transition. This year, for the first time in many years, we held a two-day freshman orientation, and remember now, we're a commuter school.

We don't have them sleeping overnight with us. And those students came in 450 of our freshmen, came in and spent two days with us day and evening. And what we did during that time is to sort of expose them to the individuals, to the faculty, the counselors, and to their peers, who could sort of give them a window on what to expect. And to your wonderful campus. And to the wonderful campus, of course, yes. Your house, they have one of the newest and one of the best new campuses in CUNY, with all kinds of facilities, of course, as a president, you don't have enough. The other thing is that, of your new students, you call them freshmen, probably about 25 to 35 percent of them are people who are returning to college or who never went to college. And going into college for the first time, I know when I was president of Bronx Community College, about a third of our students, our new students, we call them freshmen, were people who had graduated from high school 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years ago.

And that's another transition. People who have been working and are not accustomed to the discipline of college. So it's a combination of building a family, in a sense, and also a community where people understand that you and staff are there to help them. And that's the other thing. What are some of the support services you have? Yes. Let me talk about those. Let me talk about, for instance, especially you mentioned those who are returning students. Those who have been out of the scene for some time. There are two programs at York. One, a long-standing program, it's been around for 20 years. And the second one that joined us a year and a half ago, that really can help to address some of these students. We have a women's center, so this is an affinity group now. This is a group, and the women's center has been around for 20 years. And only in the last year and a half, we have developed a men's center. They have their own space. It's visible space, quite beautiful space, not big, but beautiful. And it has, each one has its own leadership.

In the case of the women's center, a young woman named Miss Linda McKenzie, and in the case of the men's center, a young man who happens to be a York graduate, Mr. Jonathan Kwash. These kinds of places provide students a sort of safe haven, if you will, not only to study, but also to discuss issues that are on their mind. In fact, the men's center has a feature called the barbershop. And the barbershop is a time when the men can get together. It is very much guided by a senior, it can be a faculty member. In fact, we have run Daniels on our campus as a distinguished lecturer. We sometimes bring in others. But un-initiated, who is run Daniel? Is, well, run Daniels is a phenomenal gentleman who has, well, he ran for president. Do you know that many years ago? And he has been a part of the civil rights movement for many, many years. He has also studied public policy.

And he left the center for constitutional law and joined us this year. And he has already made some interesting impact on the intellectual life of the campus. So somebody like Ron, for instance, joins the barbershop and provides such a wonderful intellectual context for the kinds of discussions that can go on. Well, this was John the things idea, because he said that the barbershop, as you know, is the hairdressing salon, is a place where men in the case can, first of all, it's a sacred place. Women don't enter, right? And it's a place where all, you know, all people are all that backgrounds and stories are told, history is told, truth is told, confessions are told, if you will. And so there's a real opportunity for fair and honest exchange.

And he's the only program called the barbershop. There is. There is. And so Jonathan thought he would sort of build on that particular experience of the black community and to do that. So those are just two particular things. Let's transition to the academic program, because college is about going to class, community credits, graduating and so on, what are some of the things you're doing to strengthen your academic program? Glad you asked. A number of things, and they cover the gamut. Number one, we are trying to increase our full-time faculty. That's a very important piece. We very much value our adjuncts, but you know, they can only be there part of the time. And you talked about the fact that if you want to bring that family feel and that connection to the campus, you need people who can be there for the duration. And so we're trying very hard to build our full-time faculty currently. I think we're at about 55%.

Not good enough. Yeah, the national average or the goal is about 75, exactly. Not many people achieve it quite frankly, but it's a goal we need to really work on. The second thing we're doing is trying to strengthen our academic programs by being sure that our programs are accredited externally. And this, in the last three or four years, we've gotten our physician's assistant program accredited. We've gotten our nursing program re-accredited. We've gotten a wonderful, clean bill of health from NCAT. That's our teacher education program, and we're really very, very proud of that. We've gotten our social work program accredited. Yet on the list, and we have a few, our medical lab technician program, we're ramping up now to try to get a accreditation, and also our business programs. So do you not have some programs that are supported by the federal government, the food and drug administration, how do those programs tie in with the college? Okay. Glad to talk about that.

They're two in particular that are federally supported. It's our aviation program. And of course, we get to talk to you about that as well as our science program. For many, many years, York has really been seen as a center for excellence in science. We've produced PhDs, MDs, out of our science department. About 10 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration was looking for a new home. And we at York accommodated it with the help of our local elected officials by placing the Food and Drug Lab on our campus. As a result of that building being there, we've developed fairly good. And I can say really now, a good relationship with the Food and Drug Administration. And here's the way it goes. They teach some of their science researchers teach in our department as adjuncts. They bring state of the art.

Our students, about 15 students, have internships in those labs. Do you know what that means for those students? Can they graduate with that and move on? We also have one faculty member who serves as a science advisor for the FDA. And that allows for a really nice exchange of ideas. The one thing we're pursuing now, which comes out of the relationship, is the idea of putting in place a new curriculum, and you talked about what are we doing for academics, a new curriculum in the area of pharmaceutical sciences. It is on the books, we're just at the pilot stage, but what we're hoping to do is during the course of this year to complete all of the work that needs to be done, and to get the approval from the trustees and of course from the state education department. On another front, the SEMA program, I just want to mention that. The SEMA program is not a program for our students. The SEMA program is really an outreach program.

It sort of springs from our science program, and it is a way to introduce elementary school students and middle school students to the wonders of science, to sort of bolster what happens in their middle schools and in their elementary schools, and hopefully to sort of provide them some really bedrock kind of experiences that may intrigue them to continue to pursue a career in the sciences. Now, of your graduates, what percent graduate in different programs, education programs, your bio programs, et cetera? Okay, let me give you sort of the broad thrust in terms of where we are. Roughly 25 percent of our students come to us for the business programs, quite a large proportion, and I would say that another 20 percent or so come for the other professional programs, I mean by that, our health programs, which includes medical lab tech, includes nursing, includes occupational therapy, and by the way, our occupational therapy program

is the only B-S-M-S program within CUNY, so you can start at the back of law rate and complete, and it also includes our medical lab, and I would say that another 25 percent of students cluster in that area. Our science and mathematics programs, about 9 percent, and then the others range, the remaining 40 or so percentage range along the broad spectrum of liberal arts, humanities, social work, health, and teacher education, so that's the way it sort of falls out at York. Our science programs are strong but small, science and math, and one of the goals, one of the goals I have as president, is to build capacity to sort of widen the pipeline of students that we graduate in math and science.

Now, I know you have a college now program, which is the way CUNY reaches into the high schools to establish relationships with high school students in the college, and I know I was there the summer when the college now talked about aviation and the talk about Tuskegee Ammon and talked about their arts program as well. What is the aviation program? How is that developing, what is scope and its purpose? Great. It was so wonderful to see you and your colleagues on campus on that day, and we welcome you back anytime, I want you to know. Just a little bit about college now, college now of course is an existing program, 10 years old, maybe 15 years old within CUNY, we serve about 500 students in the high schools. And what we do is again, it's really focused on strengthening the academics, really serving as partners with the public schools, and a college will work from its strong suits. So we work on the sciences, we work on the arts, you know we have a phenomenal performing

arts program at the college, a very rich music program, and of course we're right in the heart of black music in Jamaica, Queens, so we would be remiss if we didn't expose our students to that. The aviation program is a new wish development, and it came to us five years ago through the Port Authority, we were given a grant of a million dollars, and I do believe that this came as a result of some public pressure from the community because of the building of airtrain. There was a notion that we should be doing more in this community to expose the community to work in the aviation industry and possibly to develop a curriculum. It was a little bit of a rocky and slow start, but we're pleased to say now that we have a BS in aviation management, we didn't go on the engineering side because Vaughn, which is a neighbor at LaGuardia Airport, was doing that end of the business, and we thought

there was no way for us to compete with them, hence we went on the business side. And so we now have a BS in aviation management, there are 40 students enrolled in that program, we're pleased to say even though it was only launched last year, and growing a very attractive program, college now participates in that as does our own students. And as a co-curricular activity, and this Roscoe I know you would like, we are able to provide an opportunity for our students who are studying the aviation business program to experience flying, to learn to fly. We have a phenomenal gentleman, Mr. Ray, who instructs them and is really through his passion and his knowledge that our program has thrived so much. And of course, you were there, you saw some of the students, I don't know if you saw the film we've done already, but it's really a very exciting project that we're doing.

As you say, York is located in Jamaica, Queens, and in part the college came because of some pressure from that community, Congressman Flake, and Congressman Greg Meeks, and Archie Spigner, the City Council person, and so on. So now that you've been there 40 years, it seems like four, but it's only two and a half years. Oh, 40 years, I'm sorry, 40 years, right. What are some of the things that college is doing to celebrate its 40th anniversary? How is it reaching out to the community? Okay, well, York has very much always understood its relationship with its community, because without the Queens community and the Southeast Queens community, we would nearly not be where we are, and we would not have the wonderful facility we have on our 50 acres there. And so we really like to pay homage to them. We continue the relationship in a number of ways.

First, our first and main thing is to make sure that we have a strong academic program that anyone in that community would be proud to send their children or their grandchildren to if not come themselves. So that's number one. Number two, we do a lot of work on the economic development and business side. You know, we house an SBDC, a small business development center. And as you know, part of the idea of putting York where we are was to help to rebuild, if you will, the economic base. And so we continue that work with small business development. On the community side, we have not only do we have rely on our community advisory board to keep us honest and to keep us posted, but we work very closely with the community board 12. We work closely with the greater Jamaica development. We also work closely with folks in the health sector, the hospitals to make sure that

what we're doing as an institution is compatible with their work. Finally, and I must touch on the cultural piece, we have a phenomenal performing arts center and we have an array of programs that's unmatched and many of the events free. So I really want to say how good we feel about the work we do on the cultural side as well. Give me examples of some of those programs. Well, we have a chamber music concert. We have jazz concerts. We have phenomenal theater series treatment issue we did last year. And it was co-sponsored by one of the big Presbyterian churches in the neighborhood. We do a lecture series as well, where we bring in distinguished lecturers, book readings and the like. In fact, Ron Daniels did a major lecture for the community last year. We brought back one of our alums, Jerry Reynolds, who is the commissioner of human rights.

And so we do those kinds of things and those are open and free to the Jamaica community. Well, the public wants to hear about them. What numbers do they call? How do they get in touch? We've been delighted to tell you, of course, everything is done on the web now. So the best way to reach us is to get to the York College website, a very attractive website, if I might say so. And to go to www.york.cune.edu, you'll get all the information there. And in case there's anyone who wants to come to the college as a student, the admissions information is up on the web page, and you can also reach us, of course, at 718-262-165. We really want everyone beyond Jamaica, beyond Queens, to come see us there and to participate in some of our activities. Now, York is one of the four-year colleges of a city university.

And over the years, the administration has been raising the entrance standards for the four-year colleges. To what extent is this going to have an effect on the number of minority students, particularly African-Americans, in the community for your college? I imagine that York, being in a predominantly minority community, has a large number of minority students, but some other four-year colleges don't. But percent of your student body is African-American Asian, Hispanic, et cetera. York is almost at this time of fully minority institution. I would imagine that we have about 8 percent of our students who are white. About 55 percent African-American, and that, by the way, includes all kinds of afro, afro- African-African-African-American. We have a growing percentage of Hispanic students. At the present time, and I don't know the numbers for 2007, but last year, about 15 percent,

and of quite growing percentage of Asian, of different Asian ethnicities, primarily I must say Southeast Asian, Bangladeshy, Pakistani, and of course the Indians from Guyana who sometimes identify as black and who sometimes identify as Asian. But Richmond Hill, which is an adjacent community, and is a strong Guyanaese community, really sees York, if you will, as their college of choice. It's an immigrant population. For them, it's affordable. It's nearby. They feel comfortable. Many of their relatives, parents, and friends have graduated, and so they flock to us. But we are, as you know, open for business across New York. My sense is that we have only, in the last two years, established that real floor for admissions,

and at the present time, our admissions is a 75 high school average, and all three CUNY tests being passed, meaning the math test, the writing test, and the reading test. And that now is our standard. Prior to my arriving, we had a very flexible, more open admissions kind of system. We haven't seen an impact yet. It's only one year in implementation. We have not yet seen an impact on a changing demographics. What's the total number of students, full-time, part-time? Total number of students, I think today, 6,100, we're getting a larger number of our students being full-time. So we're probably at about 55 to 60% full-time. We're also, interestingly enough, getting a larger share of the younger student, so that we're getting a more, quote-unquote, typical college-going age.

And what percent of the students on financial aid? We're fully 55% of our students on financial aid, but that's a great improvement in terms of opportunities for people who may not have financial background. And the community vision is how much? Some additional fees, of course, some technology fees, some student fees. And of course, you really must set aside now another $1,500 or so for books. Books are very, they're very big and they're very expensive. Any donation to the York College Leadership Fund has a very well-known job. Our foundation is active. That's one of the goals we have this year, in fact, beyond recruiting and retaining and also strengthening our academics fundraising. And our goal this year is 300,000, so anyone who wants to get on that website and

keep it moving. Keep it moving. Today on African-American Legends, we've been talking with my CQs, the president of York College of the City of University of New York. Thanks for being with us. Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk about your college. Thank you.