MSCHE Pillars of Change
MSCHE Pillars of Change
Episode 8 - Félix Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor of The City University of New York
In this episode of the MSCHE Pillars of Change Podcast, Dr. Félix Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor of The City University of New York (CUNY) System, engages with Dr. David Rehm, Commissioner and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, about the system efforts to eliminate remedial courses in math and English and replace them with corequisite, credit-bearing courses accompanied by the academic support necessary for student success.
Dr. Matos Rodríguez, through his advocacy, focuses on system-wide change and highlights CUNY initiatives designed to help students continue their educational journeys.
00:00:14 David Rehm
Welcome to the Pillars of Change Podcast presented by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
My name is David Rehm, and I serve as Vice President of Academic Affairs at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA.
Thank you for joining me for the Commission's continuing series of podcasts, focusing on topics of diversity, equity and inclusion.
This podcast series spotlights highly effective institutional practices tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion that have made a difference in the lives of our students.
Today we are talking to Dr. Felíx Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor of the City University of New York, also known as CUNY.
The CUNY system of 25 colleges enrolls more than 243,000 degree seeking students and 85,000 adults, and continuing education students, having joined the CUNY system as Chancellor in 2019, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez has advocated. On behalf of student equity system wide.
In 2023, he worked throughout the system to eliminate non credit remedial math and English courses and replace them with Co-requisite credit bearing courses, accompanied by the academic support necessary for student success.
In addition, the Chancellor is especially proud of the CUNY comeback program, a program designed to help students continue their educational journeys by eliminating the system wide policy that allowed institutions to withhold transcripts from students. With unpaid balances.
I welcome Chancellor Felíx Matos Rodríguez to the podcast.
00:02:18 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Thank you, David.
It is great to be with you and thank you to middle states for this opportunity for providing this space and for all the good work they do in partnership with our universities.
And thank you, David also for your volunteer work as as Commissioner and and for the work in this podcast, which is important.
00:02:40 David Rehm
Thank you.
So let's begin by situating for our audience, who CUNY serves as a system, and where the CUNY system sits demographically across the CUNY campuses.
Who are the students and communities you serve?
00:02:58 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Well, thank you for that.
So we're. 25 campuses and we go from community colleges. We have 7 community colleges.
I had the honor of being president of one of them in the past, Hostos Community College in the South Bronx.
We have 11 four year schools.
I also had the pleasure of being the President of one of our four year schools, Queens College, prior to becoming chancellor, and we have a number of professional schools and honors, an honors college we also run.
20 early high schools, in partnership with the New York City Public Schools.
So you and CUNY is a place where you can go from a GED.
To a, you know, to becoming a a doctor to becoming a lawyer or to a graduate degree.
So we provide all of those.
We are in all of the five boroughs of the City of New York and and we're integrated system, very proud.
We're very representative of the students.
That we serve our student demographics in the in the credit buried side of of of the operation is about 30% Latino.
About 25% Asian American, another 25% African American and and then the the rest white. And that's, you know, pretty much an image of the population in New York City.
45% of our students.
Come from households.
That have a combined income of $30,000 or less. So we really educate those who do not have the means to achieve higher education on the.
Own about a little less than half of our students are foreign born and the first one in their families to attend college.
We are very proud that when you combine the state of the the the funding from the state of New York, in addition to Pell and other grants.
About 65 to 66% of our students virtually attend college.
Tuition free and all the students who do pay tuition of that small percentage that does 75% graduate with no federal student loan.
So we are very proud of our trajectory of access and affordability.
Of being anchoring institutions in the communities where our campuses are located, not just providing education and instruction and research, but also being the place where civic meetings are engaged, where we have cultural centers that enhance the cultural.
Offerings of you know that New York City offers to all our neighbors where community based groups have events and run programs.
So we're really, really part of the fabric of New York City.
In addition to those campuses being really small economic engines in, in the communities that they serve.
So very proud of this trajectory, which we can started 175 years ago with the Free Academy that became city.
College or first campus under the premise that New York City had individuals of great, great talent.
Incredible promise, but many of them didn't have the means to get an education, and we should do that in an affordable way.
00:06:48 David Rehm
It's a fabulous description of of the system, so I thank you for that.
And in light of what you've described as your, your your community of students.
What would you say are the challenges that your institutions face in supporting student success?
00:07:07 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Oh well, I mean the the I mean I think most of your listeners know that that students.
Who come knocking to higher ed to pursue their educational dreams, the ones who don't get to the finish, two things that affect their trajectory.
One has to do with economics, right?
Food insecurity, housing insecurity.
Issues with their families and their households. Of an economic.
And then the second one is also not being exactly sure. Why are you in higher ed and what are you hoping to achieve?
And so we work very hard to provide our students with additional support mechanisms.
Whether it be. Additional funding for food insecurities from food pantries to grant.
In the communities where they are, we have a very minimal population that is in residence.
Also, we're mostly a commuter university and that limits what we can do with our students in supporting those that have housing and security.
We began to do some partnerships with community based organizations.
To be able to assist with with that, as you probably are aware, I'm sure it happens in your campus too.
Small grants at times make a big difference in supporting students with emergencies.
So that and the the fundraising that we do with our alumni and other supporters to provide additional financial aid to our students, that's one bucket of the things that we do. We've also been trying to eliminate barriers that sometimes have been self-imposed by ourselves. With the best of. Intentions, I mean the example you gave about. Right.
We all have to collect.
I mean that is that is an important part. Of our work.
And and the students learn that they receive something and those who are paying ought to do that.
But it's a challenge, as I'm sure you know, and I'm sure in the past somebody said.
The idea of the transfer is a great character to then. To do that.
And that might be the case, and it might be an. Incentive for some to. Pay. But we also know. That many of them, and they did not pay because they didn't want to.
They couldn't.
And the transcript. Could be the key. That allow them to get the job, get the next degree that gets them to in a situation to be able to.
And that's why during the pandemic, as we were looking at ways in which we could go the extra mile to support the students, we decided to suspend the practice, which then governor. Cuomo made it state law in in in in our state, which I think several states in the country also have a similar policy. But again, we've been. Looking at some of those barriers, that again. Not critiquing. I'm sure we're going to create some things that 30-40 years from now, people are going to look and say what were they thinking people do with the best of intentions, but you have to have that spirit of critiquing your own policies and see where it doesn't make sense.
To have them and when you're causing more harm than good in in doing that and we're renewing those things. All across our campuses.
00:10:46 David Rehm
Fabulous to hear. Let's talk a little more specifically if we could about the change within the system. To eliminate system wide remedial courses in math and English.
Could you share with us the motivations behind these efforts and why the replacement with Co requisite courses was seen as critical to providing more effective and equitable support for the student learning experience?
00:11:20 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
So thank you for that question and and. Let me add that that's been a. Journey and we've been at that for about 8 years.
So I get to be the lucky Chancellor that got to see it finalized and in a system of our size and complexity, that's normal, small victory.
And I'm, I'm sure it happens in all the campuses that you know that.
Some of the forces that are skeptical about change are concerned.
Or change find ways to put roadblocks to even the best plan and organize changing structures and where your system of our size is easy to do that because it takes time to be able to do anything that affects all the campuses. But we saw that our students in the community. Colleges were not progressing at the rates that we thought they ought to be progressing based on. The scheduling of remedial courses, we also saw how it affected their financial aid once they got to complete the associates and go to a bachelor's degree, they were burning financial aid by taking remedial courses that. Counted towards financial. But didn't give them actual college credits.
They were not earning any credits to be able to complete their associates and and we just went around. And we looked. At what other places were doing what the best practices were and, and we explored the correct website model and we began A trajectory to be able to system wide. Have changed the courses which for those familiar with remedial education, they tend to cost a little bit more, right, because you're providing additional instruction to those students in that same English and math class providing additional help built into the class. But with the advantage that when you. Pass the class.
You get certified as being college ready to continue your journey through CUNY, but those credits stay with you. So less effect on your financial aid, better outcomes system wide coming out. Of those courses.
A lot of adjustments that that we have to to do, we still need to. Find to, for example. The work that we do with English language learners, which is a particular category of students that need remedial help locally.
We have vast. Faculty expertise there, but we're very proud of of of the change. It took time.
When I became Chancellor, we were in the middle of the journey and I think some of the folks that were not. Crazy about the change. Hope that maybe the new chancellor wouldn't prioritize this work as much.
Luckily, having been a Community College president and my campus at Hostos was one of the schools with the highest rates of student senior remediation, so are very much in tune with that. With that work, I say we need to continue with the reforms. Need to make them. Happen and we'll continue to monitor, right if. We think it is the right way to go for our students if the data over a couple of years shows otherwise we'll correct course.
There's no. The key thing is to keep doing what the data shows. You get your students to be successful, to complete on time, to keep their financial aid, and to keep their their dreams.
We've also innovated. With some programs clip, which is for language immersion and CUNY start for math, which allow students to attend a semester. This is not. They're not in college, technically, although they're with us. And for $75, they take an intensive class and they're able to get up to speed with their math and their English and then come in without again losing any financial aid. So we have a menu of options to serve the many students that. That we have and we feel that we have the right balance.
We'll continue checking the data and and hoping that this continues to be successful moving forward.
00:15:28 David Rehm
And as you've implemented this change, I assume you've been attentive to issues of the rigor of the courses and the ultimate student student learning outcomes, so that students are ultimately able to achieve the things that you wanted them to achieve in those credit bearing courses.
00:15:46 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Well, first, this has been a an effort that has had the faculty front and center in terms of the building of the curriculum and the design of the Co curricular courses.
I will tell you that we had some concerns, particularly, you know, the national trend of. Community College losing students started before the pandemic.
The pandemic just aggravated that. So I will tell you there was some concern in the faculty and the Community colleges whether this change would be an additional dislocation right to enrollment. And that's a legitimate concern that that we address.
But we had the student outcomes as you mentioned, David, as front and center in our analysis. The data of success. Of completing the course successfully and being able to continue your sequencing of courses in your associate degree.
Also the data show that the students benefited from from this model and like I said, the one area we're continuing to tweak because it probably requires additional curricular.
Work is the work with our our English language learners, which is really a very important category for us here in New York.
00:17:10 David Rehm
And I thank you.
00:17:12 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
No, but it. I mean, it's one example. Also that I'll say. You know, and I've had a really blessed and fortunate career, but I think it's the first time that we have a chancellor who was a Community College president here at CUNY.
And I think that on this one, it was really important that I have had that experience at also. Coming to this reform, because I knew the issues intimately and and also the Community College faculty and administrators also knew that I had their back because I have been part of their universe.
I think, you know, times as you know in higher. Ed we can. Be very segmented. And some sectors feel that well, the four year schools don't care as much about us as we that.
So I think it was very fortunate that I had that experience and as. I I I've. Been part of the attempts to change this. I embrace it. Let's just finish it. Make it system wide and and continue to get good data and do good work.
00:18:20 David Rehm
So you you talked a few minutes ago about the CUNY comeback program and you've talked here extensively about the elimination of the remedial courses. Let's assume for the sake of argument that that a number of the listeners of this program are going to be college and university presidents.
What do you see is particularly important in the presidential role in making changes like this specifically come about? And then more broadly in the diversity equity inclusion landscape?
00:18:56 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Well, thanks for that question, I. Mean a couple of thoughts. Come come my way.
One is I have been very clear about the importance of. Of having a set of administrators and faculty and staff, right?
But ultimately where I have the more immediate hiring impact is on the administrators that. Resemble and reflect the communities that you serve, and that means different things in different parts of the country, and there's not one cookie cutter formula that applies. You know what works for New York is going to be different in Pennsylvania and different parts of Pennsylvania and and in South Dakota.
But in New York. Very, very proud that I have a group of. Presidents that resemble the diversity of our city largest number of African American presidents ever in the history of CUNY. I was proud that I've hired the first two Asian American presidents in the history of the system. The first Asian American vice chancellor.
But we have the first. Muslim Vice vice chancellor and I can go on and on in terms of, you know, gender, race, ethnicity and the different communities that make up in this case, New York special and. And I feel that those are very well represented in my presidents and Deans and also in my cabinet. In which you know the the richness of the diversity of New York and and Muslim, you know, Jewish immigrant, and you need to feel. All those are represented in our team.
So our students, our faculty and staff, our communities can see themselves reflected in the Community leadership. And then with that moral high. I can go to the president and say you need to take this to the next level in your campus with our faculty, with our staff.
We just, you know it it's trickier, right? Because the, the the faculty do the hiring of the faculty. And they can be at times very set in certain ways to recruit and do the work that they that they've done and that.
But if you set the example. Since the beginning, you're sending that message very, very clear to to the entire system. We've done it with faculty.
We're very, very fortunate that Governor Cuomo in the last not this current, but the last budget cycle allocated several millions of dollars for us to hire. About 500 new faculty line system wise. Yeah, right. And which is a a gift, right, when in many. Says, you know, we're losing faculty, so one of the things that we did when we allocated the faculty slots by campus is that we told the campus. Just try to. Make sure that as you hire your cohort of new faculty, that that group is more diverse than your current. Faculty makeup, right? We're not gonna give you. A strict number. We're not going to.
00:22:12 David Rehm
Right.
00:22:13 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
We, we we we know that everybody's trying to to fight hard to diversify we all share that in a in in our goals but let's just move keep the bar moving in terms of our more recent hires and we're very proud. That we met that in terms of in all categories, that Group of new faculty is more diverse than what we had in our campuses, but.
75% also of the individuals we hired were former actors that were teaching part time in the. So we're very, very proud also that we took care of individuals who've been with us.
For many, many years, doing good work and now they can be, you know, full time faculty in, in, in a correct way.
So those are. Some of the things that that we try to do to model this, this message of diversity, equity and and inclusion on the on on the hiring. Front and on the programmatic front, I mean the I mentioned the. Transcripts and the comeback program. That was the largest. Sort of tuition and debt forgiveness program in the country we benefited over. 60,000 students.
We use the stimulus money and we put about 100 million of the stimulus money that we got just to be able to say we know you were having a hard time. You have that within this criteria.
Your debt is paid. Come back and finish your degree and and the pandemic here was particularly hard here in new. Work where where it began.
So very proud that, I mean, we're lucky that we had the resources from the stimulus funds to do that, right, but that we are very intentional again in being supportive of our students and sending that that message about what you need to be able to to complete. Good degree.
00:24:10 David Rehm
And the transcript initiative, which is the sort of newest, what was that in the works when you stepped into the Chancellor role or did did that come about recently and was that sort of bottom up or top down? I'm curious about sort of your perspective about from where? These ideas come and have their greatest efficacy.
00:24:33 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
I mean As I mentioned to you, I'm a very blessed and fortunate man that I have an Incredible team of folks that are are. Thinking about these things. Shamelessly replicating what other people are doing. And this is. Why I think that this podcast is. So important, right? Because I'm not interested in having always original ideas, I just want to have the best ideas that serve my students in the best possible way. The transit is something that I've been, I think, California is either low or is pending to become law, so it was in the in the higher ecosystem we picked it up from there and we adapted to our reality at at CUNY and some of the other things that I've mentioned to you have come from. Innovation like campuses.
Those programs that assist, for example, remedial students I mentioned clip and CUNY start began as pilot programs in two of our Community College I believe was Kingsborough Community College and then they proved to be good. And one of the things that is a good thing. Being part of a system is that we're then able to say, oh, that was working in Kingsborough. Let's see if we can do it system wide and benefit a a larger number of students so.
I I have an incredible team of people who are committed to this, to this kind of work. We don't always agree in the best ways to get there, but people have that motivation going on and and as you know. The pandemic tested. All of those in ways that, that, that we never thought will be tested and and I think in that desire. To go the extra mile to be supportive at a very difficult time.
You know, you kicked around a whole number of premises that you had before, so and we built some of the things that we felt we couldn't quite do. Into ongoing work, I'll give you one more example.
We are which is a big thing for system, our size really to streamline the transfer challenges that we've had in the past, you would have thought that because we're an integrated system, that issue was sold.
Well, as long as colleges have some level of autonomy, which is an important element of their own identity, and what they bring to the student experience, in many cases they put roadblocks to the movement of students from community colleges to four year colleges.
We began under the guidance of our of our university Provost, a program led by the faculty, so this is not an imposition from Mount Olive.
All impositions faculty that have been working together, in many cases creating 2 + 2 programs so they have been thinking about this pipeline issue even before.
We, we we articulate this way, we just wanted to do it system wide and we did it vertically along major. Not to do. It all over the system, which would have been really chaotic and very difficult. Let's keep it simple.
So David goes to a Community College at CUNY and gets his associate degree in psychology. What we're going to do is that all your core psychology courses transfer. To your psychology BA in the four year school. Right.
In the past, some classes did, others didn't. They count as electives, which you know makes you feel good, but it doesn't help you to get to the finish line.
Now we're saying let's get into agreement. Let's look at at the, you know, at the learning outcomes going back to your point of the courses.
00:28:26 David Rehm
That's right.
00:28:29 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Create currencies and as long as you're within the same major.
It you know, it becomes clean and that's the goal that we're doing and that alone. Will be huge because it is 60% of our students transfers within majors, right? So you you make that work for 60% of our students.
The level of change, the money that they're going to save the time they're going to save the people that are not going to stop their lives that are going to impact is going to be huge.
And I'm very, very proud that the faculty embrace this.
When we began last year, and we are hope to be able to be done by the end of the next school year, to put this fully at scale.
00:29:15 David Rehm
It seems to me you're working very hard to live out a mantra that that students really are at the center of our work and that that their well-being and welfare in all sorts of ways should be first and foremost. So I I commend you for those.
00:29:32 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
Efforts again, thank you. But as I said. If I falter, I have an entire group of dedicated, you know, faculty on the front lines. And then administrators here at the Central Office and in the campus. Is that that share this and and want to move that forward and and continue that tradition of having CUNY be, you know, a formidable ending of social and civic mobility here in, in, in, in New York and and again there's work to be done lots of areas.
We're far from perfect that we need to continue. To to to improve. But I also believe that things like being able to get that correctly done system wide when we finish the transfer work done system wide, those are the large items that also give people hope about being able to enact change at scale.
And I think all of us know that hope is a hope is a scarce commodity these days and we need all of that that we can get and and higher rate needs to be one of the places that is being done.
00:30:42 David Rehm
Yep, you're absolutely right. I I want to ask. One final sort of broader. Question and and that has to do with. The role of diversity, equity and inclusion in our national conversation right now.
You're trying to live out in really impressive ways as a leader and through your system, sort of maximizing. Sensitivity to issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, but it's at a moment when when there are parts of the country where that's really coming under assault.
And I'm wondering what, what's your guidance, what's your what your thoughts are for for, for me and for our listeners about sort of the the tensions? We see in the country at this point.
00:31:33 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
I mean, you're absolutely right to point that out and. I think it's important. That we continue to remind people why we do the work that we do in this arena.
So I think at times we create. The phrase diversity, you know, equity and inclusion and we sort of like put it out there and we assume that everybody either understand.
Hence there is a commonality of values of trajectory of history and that is not always the case.
I think that when you remind people about what is it you're trying to do right, my objective here is to be fair in the way that we do X.
Let me point to you why this is.
You tend to get. A better response that if you just say this is just part of a DEI initiative and you know we all need to right, I mean you know and again it sounds small and and you wish that you didn't have to, but I think we're educators and as you know in our classes a level of repetition is important to be able to make sure that there's some things that that. That I embrace and get understood.
So I think the.
00:32:52 David Rehm
And you can't assume that people have the knowledge that is required in order to really contextualize what we're talking about.
00:33:01 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
A. We also need to. Be where? Where we're. In in, in, in education and you know, research and objectivity. There's some things in that. Space that have not worked.
And I think candidly that needs to be also you know sort of put out there and go back to the drawing board, your premise for what you wanted to change was not wrong. The reason why you went in that role. Was not wrong. And I think sometimes we get so. Right, with the solution that we propose that we forget what is that we were trying to solve.
00:33:35 David Rehm
Sure. That's right. Yes, yeah.
00:33:36 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
And and again. There's a lot of also bad actors out there, and that's real and that's unfortunate. I don't. I don't want to sort of negate that, right, because I I I think that that'll be disrespectful to to the audience, but I think also you go back and you remind people why, why is this important?
You know, and that's why I use. I'm very intentional. I talk about leadership that reflects the communities that we serve. We are a public institution, we have that higher calling, right? We might waver as to how do we get there, right? But let's agree that that is the value that that that we want and that we're not where we need to be.
And that's why we're making the interventions that we want and you and I wouldn't be doing this work, David, if we were not in the optimist camp.
00:34:26 David Rehm
Right, you have to be.
00:34:27 Felíx Matos Rodríguez
And we also need to think that through our efforts and hard work and objectivity and that that this will be a trend that will that will that will. Be counter.
And that in those places where things are being dismantled really for just ideological reasons, not because of any data, not because of any discussion about results, not because about any issues about intentionality or fairness being achieved that you're going to be able. To correct that. Right, because at some point you'll be able to show those things for what they. Are just an ideological agenda, right?
Similarly, why we have the responsibility not to form the that trap on the work that we do ourselves too.
00:35:22 David Rehm
That's correct. And and I share. Your enthusiasm for. And living out of this optimism because I think it's incredibly important. And, well, we've come to the end of our time.
So I'd very much like to thank you, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez for sharing your your work and your your passion, your experiences with all. Of our listeners. To our listeners, thank you for joining us today.
If you. Wish the Middle States Commission to highlight the efforts of your institution in a future podcast. Then please visit MSCHE.org/Pillars of Change to submit your suggestion.
On behalf of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and our superior guest, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez, my name is David Rehm, and I thank you for joining us.