President's Monthly Report
President’s Report and Updates
President's Monthly Report August/September 2023
Welcome to a new academic year! The excitement and palpable energy of a new academic year will never grow old for me. This year, we welcome many more students to our beautiful campus. This is thanks to all your hard work with recruiting, advising, registering, and onboarding students, and the tireless work of our Building and Grounds teams in sprucing up and beautifying our campus.
Since my last report in May, we have celebrated our graduates, continued to support our continuing students, prepared for our incoming students, enhanced our campus and hopefully engaged in well- deserved rest and relaxation. Although we have entered a new semester, we continue to be plagued by the concerns of the past year. The College budget continues to be an area of concern. In the face of mandated saving targets and City reductions, ensuring a healthy student enrollment, minding our expenditures and focusing on priority hirings continues to guide our efforts.
Fiscal Year 2024 (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024) will be a challenging budget year, we begin the fiscal year with a mandated University savings target of $5.894 million, made up of our FY23 savings target of $1.684 million which we achieved and an FY24 target of $4.210 million.
In addition to the mandated savings target, New York City imposed a budget reduction on all city agencies, including CUNY. The amount of Kingsborough reduction is an additional $3.0 million above the mandated savings target of $5.894 million, the total reduction to the college budget is $8.894 million in the current year.
We have prepared and submitted our FY24 Financial Plan to CUNY and are scheduled to meet with the University to discuss the submission later this month.
FY24 will present many budgetary challenges, however, with the increase in enrollment, currently over 10% for Fall 23 over Fall 22, we remain optimistic that the trend will continue into the next year and provide much needed budget resources to the college.
As with every August, the College was engrossed in enjoying the last days of summer and preparing for the first days of the fall semester and new academic year. All around the campus, like in the Nursing Department, the S Building, T3, the Cluster Breezeway, the Student Union & Intercultural Center, there were painters, B&G staff, and IT upgrading areas. In late August, we held our in-person orientation and close to 1100 new and transfer students poured into the campus. A virtual orientation followed the first week of September with a record number (over 900) students logging in. Special thank you to all the Student Life, Student Affairs, Advisement Staff, Enrollment Management and Academic Departments and offices for joining in the all-hands-on deck effort to welcome and orient our newest students.
Throughout the summer, VP Rivera sent weekly updates regarding enrollment. The reports reflected steady and increasing enrollment. As of September 8, we increased freshmen enrollment by 214 students and transfers by 139 students over our target and we did a better job with our continuing students and enrolled 444 more students compared to last year. Now that the NYC Public Schools are in session, College Now enrollment will continue to grow. Kingsborough’s final enrollment will not be determined until later this month.
We not only have a new cohort of students, but we have a new cohort of faculty as well. You can check them out here: https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/newfaculty/index.html.
In August, we also had the pleasure of meeting with NYS Senator Jessica Scarcela-Spanton in her Staten Island office. We were grateful that earlier this spring, she joined our Baseball Team and threw out the first ball at one of their games. Not only is she a great pitcher, but she is avid CUNY and KCC cheerleader. I connected with NYS Senator Roxanne Persaud as well at her Back-to-School event. I also had the pleasure of dancing it up with Randy Peers and Board Members from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce at the West Indian Day Parade earlier this month.
This week, we launched our year-long celebration of KCC’s 60th anniversary with a cake cutting. Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, I could not be here for the festivities, but I heard it was absolutely beautiful and I expected nothing less. A big should out to the Chair of the Anniversary Committee Dr. Brian Hack, the members of the committee and the college community for a fitting kick-off and an exciting calendar of things to come.
In shared governance news, as you know we concluded the spring semester, with two vacant positions in College Council: Parliamentarian and Secretary. I am pleased to congratulate, John Mikalopas, Parliamentarian and Amanda Kalin, Secretary, both elected by the Council body during the September 12 College Council meeting. We look forward to continuing the work we started on our shared governance constitution during this academic year and finally bringing it to complete fruition.
As you know, in the spring, we launched a search for a Chief Diversity Officer. We are still in the process of accepting applications and interviewing candidates. In the interim, you can continue to reach out to Arlene Peterson at Arlene.Peterson@kbcc.cuny.edu or by phone at (718 368-6793) or Beth Douglas at Beth.Douglas@kbcc.cuny.edu (718 368 5109). As shared previously, the following portal: https://www.cuny.edu/about/administration/offices/hr/discrimination-and-retaliation-report-form/ allows for the submission of a report of discrimination and/or retaliation, as prohibited by and defined in CUNY’s Policy on Equal Opportunity and Non-Discrimination (“EO Policy”).
I look forward to seeing you all around campus and at Convocation on September 21. Michelle Anderson, President of Brooklyn College will serve as our keynote.
Here’s to 60 years and all the years to come!
Claudia V. Schrader, Ed.D.
President