File #: Res 1211-2008    Version: * Name: Reclassify Medgar Evers College as a four-year post-secondary institution for capital budget purposes.
Type: Resolution Status: Filed
Committee: Committee on Higher Education
On agenda: 1/30/2008
Enactment date: Law number:
Title: Resolution calling upon the New York State Legislature to reclassify Medgar Evers College as a four-year post-secondary institution for capital budget purposes.
Sponsors: Charles Barron, Lewis A. Fidler, Sara M. Gonzalez, Letitia James, James Sanders, Jr., Larry B. Seabrook, Kendall Stewart, Rosie Mendez, Inez E. Dickens
Council Member Sponsors: 9

Res. No. 1211

 

Resolution calling upon the New York State Legislature to reclassify Medgar Evers College as a four-year post-secondary institution for capital budget purposes.

 

By Council Members Barron, Fidler, Gonzalez, James, Sanders Jr., Seabrook, Stewart, Mendez and Dickens

 

                     Whereas, The City University of New York (CUNY) is the largest urban public university system in the nation, comprised of 23 institutions including 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, and serves more than 450,000 degree-credit students and adult, continuing and professional education students; and

                     Whereas, Medgar Evers College, established in 1970 in central Brooklyn, is the youngest of the four-year senior colleges in The City University of New York system; and

                     Whereas, Its mission is to serve the educational, cultural, and social needs of the central Brooklyn community and to that end it offers associate and baccalaureate degree programs in such fields as biology, business, computer science, elementary education, English, environmental studies, liberal studies, marketing, mathematics, nursing, and public administration; and

                     Whereas, According to CUNY data for fall 2006, the total enrollment at Medgar Evers College is 5,561 students, of which 91.8% are black , 76.8% are female and 23.2% are male; and

Whereas, Currently, Medgar Evers College has the unique and unenviable distinction of being the only four-year college at CUNY classified as a two-year college for capital budget purposes; and

Whereas, In 1976, the New York State Board of Education designated Medgar Evers College as a community college at the height of the City’s fiscal crisis; and

Whereas, When the State Legislature returned Medgar Evers to four-year college status in 1994, it did not change its capital status as a community college; and

Whereas, Although the State of New York assumes 100% responsibility for the capital funding and operation of all senior colleges and the schools for advanced studies, presently the City of New York and the State split the financial responsibility equally for the capital funding of CUNY’s six community colleges and Medgar Evers College; and

Whereas, The City has repeatedly requested that the State take over 100% of the capital costs of Medgar Evers College to equalize the college with the other CUNY senior colleges that already receive 100% reimbursement of capital costs from the State; and

Whereas, Such reclassification would save the City approximately $42 million, which could be reinvested into the community colleges; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls upon the New York State Legislature to reclassify Medgar Evers College as a four-year post-secondary institution for budget capital purposes.

 

LS # 4213

S.O.

1/22/08

1:30pm