Welcome again! I look forward to meeting you in the atrium, on the plaza, in the Library, art gallery or in my office for one of my “Open Fridays” – and please do take advantage of that opportunity to share with me your challenges and your triumphs.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of connecting as I have said to other freshman classes in the past. So Class of 2015, our transfers, and all our freshmen, I ask you to connect with those on this campus: your classmates, professors, librarians, counselors, advisors, your SGA leaders, department chairs, deans, vice presidents, directors, registrar and your mentors.

Welcome To Administrators & New Faculty

In order to be fully ready for this academic year, the college has hired some new faculty and administrators just for you. On the administrative side, we secured Dr. Alfred Ntoko, an economist by training and a veteran administrator, as dean of the School of Business and Information Systems; Dr. Lynne Clark, a speech scientist brings years of experience in creating masters and doctoral programs as well as expertise in external accreditation. She is our dean of the School of Health and Behavioral Sciences; Dr. Geneva Walker-Johnson, our new vice president for Student Development, brings a diverse array of experiences in both public and private colleges and universities to her leadership at York College. All three persons represent a wonderful opportunity for us at York to renew leadership in key areas of the college.

It is equally important that we have added a small but important cohort of ten new faculty members in strategic academic departments: Professor Geri Chanel; Professor Carly Gieseler; Dr. Donna Johnson; Dr. Kevin Mark; Professor Lilly Matthew; Dr. Kathleen Pavletitch; Dr. Melvin Silberklang; Professor John Smith; Dr. Rene Wright; and our own alum, Dr. Virginia Thompson. Welcome everyone! We are excited that you have brought your significant professional experiences to our academic enterprise.

Top Ten Accomplishments & Goals

You join us as we celebrate York College’s 45th year of existence. Having survived difficult growing pains, we have grown from a small student body of 600 to a size today of over 7,000. And, again today, we face some harsh economic realities, as a nation, as a college, and as individuals. But we are determined to continue to make York College a competitive place and to fulfill our mission: Enrich lives, enabling students to grow as passionate, engaged learners with the confidence to realize their intellectual and human potential as individuals and global citizens. We are determined to be a great place to learn, to conduct research, to teach, and to develop the habits of good citizenship.

In my annual report to Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, I recently shared with him, our top ten accomplishments of the past year and our top ten goals for the coming year and beyond. In the interest of time today, I will only share the top five in each category with you and ask that you review the full report.

The Top Five Accomplishments

1. We have improved student performance in freshman composition with a C or better, meaning, the student performance in freshmen composition (Eng 125) improved from 71.9% in fall 2009 to 78.3% in fall 2010;
2. SEEK outcomes all around are significantly improved and sustained. We can attribute that in part to the collaboration between the SEEK Department and Academic Affairs.
3. Faculty Diversity – we hired and retained 22 outstanding faculty representing diversity across the spectrum.
4. Fundraising is on the rise with two major six-figure pledges coming in last year.
5. Freshman Retention (Listen up Class of 2015) now stands at 76%. That means that of every 100 freshman who came to us last year we still have 76 registered here at York. I want the Class of 2015 to promise me that we can do better; I want to get at least to 80 % next year. Can I get your commitment on this?

The Top Five Goals for this Academic Year Are:

1. To continue to engage in prudent fiscal management to achieve a balanced budget and a minimum reserve of half a million dollars;
2. Meet our enrollment targets for freshman and returning students while retaining our higher admissions standards;
3. Improve math performance;
4. Improve our four and six-year graduation rates;
5. Successfully complete external accreditation of Nursing and Teacher Education as well as program reviews.

Enrollment

As is customary, let me tell you where we are with enrollment. An overall enrollment number for 2011–2012 shows a 3% increase over last year, though the distribution is not quite what we projected.

Our fall 2011 first-time freshman enrollment stands at 956 which includes 759 first-time non-SEEK freshman and 197 first-time SEEK freshman. Our current headcount is an estimated 8099, and this includes some 560 or so College Now students. Additionally, we have enrolled 989 transfer students, up from 633 last year. In this regard, we made a special effort and it has yielded a large number of transfer students. Now, we must keep them. So, I ask us all to make a special effort to welcome not only our freshmen, but our new transfers as well. I have asked Mr. Raphael, Assistant Vice President Hodge and Dean Gibson to do something special to connect with our transfers, and I am asking the faculty in the audience to do so as well.

Retaining Students

In the matter of retaining students, I will be asking a small group of our college community to lead us in some discussions on two issues. I am issuing a call for volunteers: Task Group #1 will focus on our stagnant graduation rate. We have a lot of data and we need some fresh perspectives in understanding our performance. Task Group #2 will be focusing attention on online instruction. At York, we have made incremental progress over the years, but it is time for something more dramatic. This task force will engage that discussion. I ask that anyone interested in being part of either group, RSVP for my consideration to president@york.cuny.edu.

Practicing The “Touch Points”

Some of us at the College recently read, as part of our annual retreat, the book Touch Points, co-written by Douglas Conant, president and CEO of Campbell’s Food Company and Mette Norgaard. The sub-title, “Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments” is very telling.

According to the authors, successful leadership is rooted largely in mastery of the touch points. The touch points, they assert: are head: (the seat of) logic; heart: authenticity; and hands: (denoting) competence. They contend that the greater your responsibility, the larger the number of variables and the more skilled you need to be. The higher up you go, the more consistent you must be; and the greater your responsibility, the greater the number of people who are relying on you, the more consistent you must be. They add that you may be in charge of people with more experience and stronger ideas about how to lead. Therefore “to influence them your voice must be so clear that they can hear you; and so credible that they will pay attention to you.” There is also advice to have “the discipline to set priorities.”

All of us here are leaders in one capacity or another. Students, faculty, staff and administrators are all in a position to influence. I am counting on all of you to engage in the discipline of setting and pursuing priorities.

In closing, let me wish everyone across the campus a productive 2011-2012 academic year. Together we will create our best year yet.

Thank you!