Each time I converse to CUNY college students and alumni, I’m impressed by their ambition, perseverance and achievement. They’re hungry to graduate and start their careers. And as educators, our job is to guarantee that their levels result in a greater future.
That’s why we’re launching CUNY Past, a five-year initiative to make sure that each pupil graduates not simply with a diploma however with the route, preparation, connections and profession abilities they want for real-world success in in the present day’s quickly altering economic system.
We’re reimagining the core purpose of a faculty campus — from an establishment targeted on commencement charges alone, to at least one that appears past and with it, we’re tossing apart the outdated notion that “career development” is separate from a pupil’s tutorial journey, or one thing to consider solely in junior or senior yr. We are going to make profession exploration, gaining sensible expertise and constructing connections central to each undergraduate school expertise.
CUNY Past begins the place college students already are — within the classroom. Fairly than ready for them to go to our unbelievable profession facilities or go to a job honest, we’re bringing profession touchpoints to them — embedding profession connections of their coursework, advising, orientations and on a regular basis school expertise.
Our devoted college are on the coronary heart of this work. By means of our rising CUNY Profession Success Fellows program, 125 college throughout disciplines have been integrating career-connected studying into their programs and serving to colleagues on their campuses comply with their lead.
The outcomes are clear. College students in departments with devoted trade specialists land jobs associated to their main at thrice the speed of different graduates. And college students who full paid internships or apprenticeships are thrice extra prone to obtain job provides at commencement — and at increased beginning salaries.
CUNY Past will scale these and different confirmed methods throughout the college, supported by our philanthropic and employer companions. We’re grateful to Robin Hood, certainly one of our key supporters, for a $2 million grant that’s serving to launch the initiative. We will even be kicking off a brand new marketing campaign developed with trade, “Power Your Business with CUNY,” to ask corporations throughout New York to hitch us in connecting their expertise wants with our college students’ potential.
The primary wave of CUNY Past is underway at Lehman School, LaGuardia Neighborhood School, Hunter School and Borough of Manhattan Neighborhood School. Finally, every CUNY undergraduate campus will probably be a part of it.
We estimate that this plan will generate $3.3 billion in future wage progress for our college students and $700 million in public return via increased earnings and financial mobility.
Matos Rodríguez is the chancellor of The Metropolis College of New York (CUNY), the biggest city public college system in america.
