The Messenger Interviews Interim CCNY President Stanford Roman

Dr. Stanford Roman has been pretty busy lately: getting up to speed as the interim president of the college while keeping his old position as head of the Sophie Davis Biomedical Program. The Messenger’s Rob Wallace caught up to Dr. Roman to ask him what his plans are and see how he is settling in to his new position.

The Messenger: How did you become interim president?

Stanford Roman: Well, I certainly can’t say as far as what process they used, but I was not seeking it; it was a total surprise for me. I’ve been at the college for nine years as dean of the Sophie Davis (biomedical) program, and as you might know, that program related directly to (the CUNY Central office on) 80th Street because it’s a separate budget from City College. City College has been part of my whole life, as my father went here back in the ’30’s and I care about it, but this was not on my radar screen. So I can’t speculate as to what the reasons are except that, you know, I’ve had a lot of years of academic administrative experience and, certainly, health care administrative experience.

TM: So, when you say “they,” you mean the Board of Trustees?

SR: Well, Chancellor Goldstein gave me a call . . .

TM: Are you interested in becoming City College’s permanent president?

SR: I haven’t considered that. At this point my major goals are really to try to move the institution forward. I think it’s got a lot of strengths and I think there are areas that need attention and I want to make as much of a contribution as I can over the next two years, and I haven’t considered that one way or the other.

TM: If I recall correctly, there’s something in the City College governance charter, basically saying that City College students and faculty are to be involved selecting a new president. Do you know if that’s occurring?

SR: There is no search underway at this point.

TM: There is no search underway at this point? Ok, but am I correct in saying that students and faculty would be involved in that search?

SR: I would assume that a search would be just as it’s slated to be, but there isn’t a search process ongoing at this point because there are a number of issues that I want to look at, in the sense of getting City College in a [better] position … I think it’s important to be able to attract a good leader to the college for the future.

TM: The next question, I’m sure, is going to be quite difficult for you, but I was asked that I do ask you this: it’s regarding comments that the Board of Trustees chair Herman Badillo said concerning Mexicans and Dominicans. What do you think about those comments?

SR: I think they were unfortunate and he has subsequently tried to apologize: I know he’s reached out to students and others in an attempt. As you might know, City College is certainly one of the colleges of choice among the Dominican community and we have many Latino students on campus: it’s about 30% of the enrollment, so clearly it’s … as far as my interest and observation, they are among our student body and many are very outstanding young people.

TM: Do you think that he should resign, as some students and faculty have called for?

SR: I don’t get into that dialogue … I think that he made an unfortunate statement, but I think that he’s apologized about it, and I’d frankly leave it at that at this point.

TM: Speaking in terms of City College’s future, the Board of Trustees is voting in terms of ending remediation: what do you think about that?

SR: At this point I’m assuming that it is policy if approved by the state (Board of) Regents. That being the case, I think that we have to make all efforts to ensure that we can continue to provide access to students who have potential who can benefit from City College: and by that I mean a whole range of efforts that include high school outreach and enrichment to summer programs to even some creative use of courses, at least on campus but I think you have to, under the circumstances, look at the goal. I feel that in some ways the issues of preparedness for college have been lost and there is an issue that students may not all be prepared as well as they should. I don’t blame the victim, however: I think the issue is that even among some talented students there is some inequity of resources available among schools. As one who has been relating to students who have had a science education, there is marked variation in the facilities, the teaching in science among high schools in the city, and even though students may have performed very well to outstandingly, what they have been exposed to may be relatively limited when you compare it to the universe of what’s good high school level science as preparation for college. So I think the buzzword has come in but I think the issue is much deeper than that.

TM: So, that said, do you think that CUNY is putting the cart before the horse despite the problems at the high school level they’re cutting off students coming to college?

SR: I think that the university has been really progressively moving in this direction for several years, you know the college preparatory initiative was one step that attempted to improve at least making sure that students who finished high school had a certain amount of English, math, etc. I think that was a first step: I think that ultimately it would have gotten to a point where mechanisms other than the senior colleges would be used as far as strengthening students’ preparation. Whether now is the best time or two years or three years from now—I think that’s a debatable issue.

TM: You’ve spoken about disparities of high schools; do you think there are disparities in terms of the funding to the various campuses within CUNY?

SR: Well, there are certainly differences among the colleges, but I think that much of it is based on a formula and the colleges have differences in, let’s say, their “academic menus” so that the funding formula has different impacts in different colleges, so yeah, there are differences.

TM: I bring it up for two reasons: one, City College has certainly been hit the hardest in terms of budget cuts and drop in amount of students attending, where before we had 15,000, now we have 10,000 that’s a third of the student body, which is really quite extraordinary—in the awful sense of the word—and the other reason is because the faculty have been very worried that the college is going to be converted from a liberal arts college into a science school with a corresponding decrease in the student body and also in their eyes ruin the idea of a liberal arts education.

SR: First, personally and intellectually, I think the liberal arts are exceedingly important, even if someone should decide to pursue the sciences—at least to my last recollection the liberal arts include the sciences! I do think that they are important and we do have some strong programs, certainly in the humanities and certain social sciences. The issue of size of the school—there was a time when I think there may have been 22- or 28,000—one of the things that often gets forgotten today is that the demands and needs and expectations of students who are going into higher education are far different than they were back in the 1950’s, and 1960’s, and even 1970’s.

TM: In what way?

SR: A number of things: students are much more uncertain about their futures. They don’t look at they’re going to get a job and stay there for the rest of their career. The options and the types of things there are available out there are usually far greater than any one school could possibly educate them for. So, there is often a need to build in from the academic point of view—and this is where the liberal arts become exceedingly important—an ability to transfer knowledge from different fields. Secondly, students have much more complex lives and are juggling multiple demands and then the whole issue of counseling, academic counseling, and sometimes even personal counseling in the context of education is much more important now and it’s not just at City, but you’ll see in even some of the finest private institutions. Thirty, forty, fifty years ago, the level of need in that area didn’t surface or the expectations that it should be there weren’t there among students. Then you get to the issues of facilities and equipment: the computer, technology, both from an instructional point of view as well as a tool to facilitate learning. All of these things are expensive, and to talk about providing all of that appropriately for 28,000 students. I question the sanity of that.

TM: As I understand, you’ve done some research concerning the disparity of health care services—would you continue along the same line and make the same argument that given the amount of money that goes into the community hospital health care, we should, therefore, reduce the amount of health care or benefits provided to certain groups of people?

SR: No, the assumption there also, and I think one of the issues that’s also related to some of the decrease in volume, is that when City was at its largest, some of the other senior colleges and other options for education didn’t even exist and there’s much more of a competitive environment in general for any school. There have been some programs that have been closed at City in recent years that also contributed significantly to student volume, so, its not an issue of shrinking. I’m not proposing that, but I’m saying that one has to also be very thoughtful to make sure that you really give a good education whatever the size.

TM: Is there any way students can contact you: by e-mail, perhaps?

SR: They can contact me through the office if they have to. I don’t usually open e-mail.