Chancellor Zimpher Seeks to Mobilize State & Education Leaders To Work With SUNY To Fix Education Pipeline

Chancellor Testifies to NYS Assembly Higher Ed Committee on SUNY’s Responsibility and Commitment to Student Success “from Cradle to Career”

Full Spectrum of Evidence-Based Support Programs Contribute to High Graduation Rates and Thriving Students from Diverse Backgrounds at SUNY Campuses

Albany -- State University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher today called on education leaders in New York to work together and repair the leaking education pipeline, which will help restart the State’s economic engine. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, only 19 of every 100 9th graders in New York earn an associate’s degree in three years or a bachelor’s degree in six, following high school graduation. SUNY has proclaimed its commitment to strengthening New York’s education pipeline in its strategic plan, The Power of SUNY.

To address this challenge, SUNY is expanding initiatives and implementing a broad array of new programs designed to create a seamless education pipeline that will maximize SUNY’s impact on New York’s students. Chancellor Zimpher stressed that critical to the success of these initiatives is creating broad community partnerships with evidence-based interventions from cradle to career. Engaging multiple community organizations is necessary to support student success both in school and through after-school support. These partnerships require strong collaboration with SUNY’s partners in P-12 schools, the State Education Department, state agencies, business, industry and community-based organizations.

“We cannot separate higher education from the experience students have before and after college. This is what we’re up against and we must work together to immediately address this challenge,” said Chancellor Zimpher. “Ensuring access and success is not only a matter of SUNY’s responsibility to help create opportunities for individual students. It is also absolutely essential to the economic future of New York State.

“At SUNY, we have a very holistic and inclusive view of our responsibility and capacity in this mission,” the Chancellor continued. “We are focused on creating new interventions for the early stages of education and also on reforming our teacher preparation programs to make sure that we are providing New York with excellent teachers, particularly in our highest-need schools.”

SUNY’s highest priorities for these organized interventions are New York’s high need urban and rural settings.

The Chancellor testified at a hearing of the New York State Assembly Committee on Higher Education – entitled “From Access to Success: Closing the College Achievement Gap” – and was joined by Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost David K. Lavallee, and Chancellor’s Deputy for the Education Pipeline and Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges Johanna Duncan-Poitier. The SUNY testimony is available online.

SUNY trains more teachers than any other institution in the state – 5,000 every year – providing the system with the ability to dramatically influence education policy in New York. Additionally, each year, SUNY spends approximately $53 million on remedial education for students who arrive at campus unprepared for college work.

As part of his testimony, Provost Lavallee highlighted the success of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), and SUNY’s innovative student transfer policies. SUNY’s EOP, a program that provides college access to students who are inadmissible through the traditional admissions process, has seen tremendous success, with EOP students graduating at rates similar to other SUNY students. Lavallee called for EOP enrollment to return to previous levels. Additionally, since 1974, SUNY’s transfer program has guaranteed admission of all SUNY and CUNY associate’s degree recipients to a four-year SUNY campus, and new transfer policies adopted this semester guarantee more flexible transfer of general education and of specific courses in the major to facilitate timely graduation. 

Provost Lavallee said: “Our SUNY-wide graduation rates are much higher than national averages. In addition, transfer students are very successful, graduating not only well above national rates, but even above the students who enroll directly in our four-year campuses. They have received excellent preparation for further study at their community college, and strong transfer policies, such as those at SUNY, are critical.”

Vice Chancellor Duncan-Poitier said: “At SUNY, we are totally rethinking remedial education. Some of the new strategies we are pursuing to support student degree completion that are funded by the Gates Foundation include ‘Completion by Design’ and ‘Complete College America.’ We need a new approach to developmental education and addressing this problem has never mattered more.”

New initiatives Duncan-Poitier reported on to create new interventions for the early stages of education and to reform teacher preparation programs, include:

·         leadership for 11 Early College High Schools – with over 2,700 students, in partnership with 16 SUNY colleges, providing students with an opportunity to have early exposure to college, help them graduate from high school and pursue college as well as graduate; 

·         providing co-leadership for the Empire State STEM Network so that New York’s future workforce reflects the science, math and technical competencies needed for careers in a global economy; and

·         partnering with the New York City Department of Education to provide leadership to turn around some of the City’s lowest performing schools and many other similarly evidence-based interventions. 

Last month in Washington D.C., Chancellor Zimpher announced the recommendations of a Blue Ribbon Panel that she co-chaired on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning. Convened by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the recommendations will be piloted through a national alliance, which includes New York State. This new vision of preparation will require the development of partnerships with school districts in which teacher education becomes a shared responsibility between P-12 schools and higher education. The changes will also require state higher education officials, governors, and state education commissioners to remove policy barriers and create policy supports for the new vision of teacher education.

Chancellor Zimpher, who began her career as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in the Ozarks and has established herself as a noteworthy teacher-educator ever since, has established SUNY as a critical part of the national conversation on access and completion, and represents the University in leadership roles, including the National Governors Association's Complete to Compete initiative, the College Board's Advocacy and Policy Center Advisory Council, and the National Cradle to Career Network.

About the State University of New York

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating nearly 465,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses with over 2.4 million alumni around the globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu