Hunter College's President Responds - Letters - The Chronicle of ...

To the Editor:

Your article ?Hunter College?s Chief Remains a Lightning Rod? (The Chronicle, July 11) quoted extensively from select former employees and anonymous critics but failed to present a fair and complete assessment of 12 years of accomplishments in academic revitalization, improved student services, physical renewal, and programmatic expansion of the college.

When I came to Hunter in 2001, our infrastructure was antiquated and inadequate to serve a growing student body. We had minimal support for faculty recruitment and development and lost too many scholars to other institutions. There was a master plan for growth, but no strategy or money to implement it. But I believed deeply in the importance of public higher education and was determined to help restore the City University of New York to its former glory as a premier institution of higher learning.

Yet nowhere in the article was there any mention of achievements like the restoration of historic Roosevelt House, which had been shuttered as unsafe for use for a decade when I arrived. Now, after a $24-million restoration of the New York home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, it is a thriving public-policy institute that attracts world leaders like the Dalai Lama; Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General; and Bill Clinton, the former president. Hundreds? of faculty members and students are involved in research and academic programs at Roosevelt House, where they engage with these world leaders. Jonathan Fanton, former head of the MacArthur?Foundation and current director of Roosevelt House, described the success of these programs, and the vibrant faculty and student engagement at the house to your reporter but the information was not included in the article.

Also unmentioned was the magnificent new Silberman School of Social Work Building in East Harlem, which resulted from a creative real estate ?swap? we engineered. We also moved our School of Public Health to the new complex so that both faculties and our students would be directly involved in one of the most socially challenged neighborhoods in the nation. They are already having a positive impact on the community and were recently cited by The New York Times as a major cause of East Harlem?s revitalization.

We have invested heavily in Hunter?s spectacular science faculty and facilitated a partnership with Weill Cornell Medical School in both a $50-million Clinical and Translational Science Center grant (which has been renewed ) and the purchase of a floor in their new Belfer Science Research Center, which opens next year. When I arrived, the major Hunter challenge was to identify space on the Upper East Side where we? could replace the outdated and insufficient science research labs located in the 1939 building. We desperately needed facilities commensurate with the quality of the faculty work. Through another creative land-use swap with the city and Memorial Sloan Kettering, we are finally realizing this dream. The mayor announced last fall our state-of-the-art complex to be built with Memorial Sloan Kettering on East 74th Street. We will also build on the site a modern facility for our Nursing and Physical Therapy Schools. This new complex will facilitate the many Hunter research, training and service projects underway with Memorial? Sloan Kettering.

The arts are also flourishing at Hunter. Faculty are engaged in an Arts Across the Curriculum project funded by the Mellon Foundation, and a new arts scholarship program for freshmen. We have new graduate programs in playwriting and dance, funded through philanthropy, and have enhanced the nationally ranked MFA in creative writing led by Booker Prize winning writer Peter Carey (?Hunter President Has Brought Big Names to Creative-Writing Program,? The Chronicle, July 12). Best-selling author Colum McCann just renewed his appointment at Hunter, despite many competing offers. Our nationally ranked MFA in art, which typically has 700 applicants for 50 spots, is moving to an extraordinary new home in Tribeca this summer.

Your article also failed to mention the many exciting new academic initiatives Hunter has launched and funded during the past 12 years. To name just a few, we have new interdisciplinary programs in public policy, human rights, and bio-informatics, and new centers for autism research and training and environmental sustainability. Our Chinese Flagship Center funded by the State Department enables students to immerse themselves in the language and culture of China. We have new flourishing doctoral programs in public health and nursing.

The article also lacked any reference to the student centered culture we have created at Hunter in 12 years. We are proud that we are increasingly selective in admissions, but the true measure of a college is where it sends its graduates. In increasing numbers, Hunter students are going on to the nation?s top graduate and professional schools, and they are consistently winning top academic awards, like Fulbrights and Goldwaters. In fact, The Chronicle has repeatedly named Hunter College as one of the nation?s top producers of Fulbrights, with six this year alone.

It was gratifying that you did cite the $10-million gift Hunter received this month, the largest cash donation in our history. But you would have provided a fuller picture if you had reported the extraordinary support alumni, friends, foundations, and corporations have demonstrated during these past 12 years with contributions totaling more than $216-million. That?s quite a turnaround for a public college that had no record of effective fundraising before I arrived?just one $1-million gift in its history, and that was back in the 1980s.

The academic and physical revitalization of Hunter has been consistently recognized by the publications that rate colleges. We rose 18 places in just three years in the U.S. News & World Report?rankings, and Princeton Review and USA Today have repeatedly named us as one of the nation?s ?Best Value? public colleges.

I am deeply grateful for the strong, even enthusiastic support and collaboration I?ve received from many members of the faculty, from students, from generous Hunter alumni, and from the wider New York community. All of us take pride in the fact that Hunter?s new acquisitions, renovations, and academic advances have transformed the entire experience of the college for students, faculty, and staff alike. It is both a mystery and a pity that your reporter chose to ignore or minimize those gains.

Jennifer J. Raab
President
Hunter College of the City University of New York
New York

Source: http://chronicle.com/blogs/letters/hunter-colleges-president-responds/

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