January has been quite a busy month in Albany. During intersession, Governor Cuomo delivered his State of the State, and Chancellor Zimpher delivered her State of the University. Then, this week, the Governor provided his Executive Budget. I shared an overview of the State of the State a while back, so let me take this opportunity to give a quick overview of the State of the University and proposed Executive Budget as they relate to MCC.
STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY
The Chancellor outlined five key initiatives for SUNY in the coming year; for each, I’ve provided a quick look at the impact on MCC.
Open SUNY: Within a new context driven by changing federal and state regulations, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and an emphasis on degree completion and affordability, SUNY is rethinking its approach to online learning. Open SUNY will offer special tracks for students seeking to complete degrees related to state workforce needs and a greater emphasis on registration across multiple colleges. In addition, it will be tasking Empire State College to do much more with assessment for prior learning. MCC has been represented in all these discussions by Vice President of Educational Technology Services Jeff Bartkovich, who serves on the design committee.
SUNY Smart Track: This initiative is another way SUNY is responding to state and national calls for greater affordability and accessibility in higher education. The system seeks to give students the opportunity to complete their four-year degrees in three years by emphasizing high school dual enrollment (HSDE) and seamless transfer. MCC has been expanding HSDE in the past couple years and is well poised to respond. We have also been in the lead in integrating DegreeWorks -- the system’s selected degree audit program -- to aid in transfer, and of course, MCC’s Career and Transfer Center Director Chris Belle-Isle is one of the state’s recognized authorities on transfer issues.
Experiential Education: SUNY is presenting a complement of programs that it believes provide students with a competitive edge, among them Experiential Education. In practice, this has been led by SUNY Works -- the system’s co-op office. MCC is a state leader within SUNY Works and is frequently held up as a model.
SUNY Innovation Hubs: These entrepreneurial-focused hubs will be administered by the SUNY Research Foundation and aligned with the Regional Economic Development Councils. While the Innovation Hubs have a research institution focus, my seat on both administering groups will give us an opportunity to inform this process.
Common Data Systems: In its continued pursuit of efficiencies within systemness, SUNY is standardizing its data systems around three main products: the aforementioned DegreeWorks, Banner, and Blackboard. Many colleges are currently using other systems, but MCC is currently using all three, making any transition to standardized formats easier for the college. Part of this initiative also involves SUNY’s ability to report performance metrics and respond to ongoing state and federal calls for accountability data. MCC’s excellent Institutional Research office and staff are already seen as state leaders in this area.
EXECUTIVE BUDGET
As suggested in the State of the State, the Governor’s budget provided performance-based incentive funding for community college workforce programs (defined as AAS, AOS, and Certificate): the Next Generation College Linkage Program. It also tied continued funding for such programs to their regional economic relevance; that is, they need to be graduating students who meet a documented regional labor need. Significantly -- and unlike other states adopting performance funding, New York state has kept this program separate from base aid, so the Next Generation program offers community colleges the chance to increase their funding by meeting defined metrics rather than forcing them to compete to keep their base funding (a big difference). This $3 million incentive pool for SUNY community colleges is the only new higher education funding of any sort in the Executive Budget, so we are thankful that the Governor recognized the critical role community colleges play.
The 2013-2014 Executive Budget does not propose any increase for community college base FTE aid, which is held flat from the current year. The current and proposed FTE rate of $2,272 puts us even with base aid last seen over a decade ago. SUNY and the New York Association of Community Colleges will continue to advocate for restoration of state aid, which had been cut by over 20% during the peak of the recession.
The Executive Budget is the starting point for the legislative budget process (which guides our own budget process), and we anticipate an accelerated legislative timeline this year so stay posted for developments.
Your feedback is welcome. Please post your thoughts to the blog.
Anne M. Kress
President's Office
01/23/2013 |