Dear Lehman Faculty and Staff—

I am delighted to join President Fernando Delgado and Administration in welcoming you back to the campus for the fall 2022 semester and the beginning of a new academic year! We have taken steps to ensure a rich and meaningful experience for our students, faculty, and staff as we continue our return to a new normal mindful of the Covid-19 pandemic. This semester, we are utilizing multiple modalities that include in-person, online, hybrid, and HyFlex technologies to deliver instruction and support services.

For your review is the August 11, 2022, email from Vice President for Administration and Finance, Ms. Rene Rotolo, on COVID-19 Plan and expectations regarding access to campus and wearing of masks. Last week, CUNY provided additional information on new protocols for random testing for all employees; see the memo from Vice President for Diversity and Human Resources, Ms. Dawn Ewing Morgan.

Earlier this month, CUNY reached an agreement with the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) regarding extending the use of the current remote work agreement and associated terms through 12/31/22. Consequently, divisional heads and school deans submitted preliminary work schedules for fall 2022. The work schedules require staff to be on campus seven (7) out of each ten (10) working days during each month through December 31, 2022. As part of the schedules, each office is expected to be always open and staffed during our normal business hours to support students, faculty, and staff, and to respond to external inquiries. I have also requested units in the division of Academic Affairs and Student Success to place signs on office doors as appropriate, especially those units that have front-facing functions, to let people know that the office is open for business. I have also advised units to adjust the schedules for their divisional/school meetings to facilitate more in-person meetings this fall. President Delgado has also approved that all meetings of the College Senate, Faculty Personnel and Budget Committee, and General Faculty be convened as in-person meetings.

The first day of the fall 2022 semester is tomorrow, Thursday, August 25, and I know that our campus community is excited to welcome our new and continuing undergraduate and graduate students to the College. Yesterday, I was so pleased to join our first in-person orientation for new students since 2020, welcoming more than 230 freshmen and transfer students to the college. President Delgado did the same on Monday, with more than 300 new students in attendance at The Lovinger Theatre. We continue our push to reach our enrollment goal of 14,138 students for fall 2022, 3% less than the target for fall 2021. As of today, we are nearly at 88% of that goal; 84% Undergraduate and 94% Graduate. Over 12,000 students have enrolled for fall classes as of this morning 78.3% of the students (9,158) enrolled in at least one in-person class. Of the 2,749 course sections scheduled for fall 2022, 56% are in-person, 14% are hybrid, and 30% are online. Preliminary analysis of course registrations shows that the majority of in-person registrations (from 883-1231 students) are on M-Th from 6 pm. Tuesday at 6 pm is our busiest in-person time, where we are expecting over 1,283 students.  We also see significant student traffic on Friday at 9 am with more than 846 students expected on campus during this period. We suspect this traffic pattern is informed by the new Bell Schedule, whose implementation begins this fall, a schedule that was designed to respond to the needs of our students and programs. We are using this information to also support our planning, especially with the work of our public safety personnel regarding deploying personnel and resources as necessary.

Last Friday, I welcomed 35 new full-time faculty colleagues to the college at our all-day New Faculty Orientation. The new faculty come from five schools (Arts and Humanities; Business; Education; Health Sciences, Human Services, and Nursing; and Natural and Social Sciences) across multiple departments and disciplines. Adding this year’s number to the 62 full-time hires of the previous three years will bring the total number of new full-time faculty appointments to the College to 97. Of this number, 31 are new lines, and sixty-six are replacement lines. Ten of these are new tenure-track lines we added because of growth in enrollment, 7 are lecturer lines we added because of efficiencies we derived from how we have managed our resources, and 14 are new lecturer lines from the CUNY Lecturer Hiring Initiative launched last spring to improve student outcomes in foundational gateway courses. These are very impressive numbers and a testament to how we have managed our financial health and sustainability amid a global pandemic.

The 14 new lecturer lines from the CUNY Hiring Initiative come from the $53m investment by the state in new faculty lines at CUNY, thanks to Governor Kathy Hochul, the state legislature, and Chancellor Felix Rodriguez. This funding will add more than 580 new faculty across CUNY’s 25 colleges, representing, in my view, the largest investment in new full-time faculty hires of any kind across the nation by any state and by any system to help advance educational attainment. Lehman is receiving 35 of these new lines (14 lines received in spring, an additional 14 lines received during the summer, and 7 tenure-track assistant professor lines, allocated during the summer). We will begin the search process for the summer allocations this fall.

Of the 35 new faculty hired for Fall 2022, 57% are faculty of color, and 43% are white as follows: 24 female and 11 male; 15 white; 9 Asian; 5 Black/African American; 5 Hispanic; and 1 American Indian. I must say that our efforts to implement new strategies to build greater diversity in our faculty continue to yield positive results. Indeed, the percentage of full-time faculty who are minorities increased from 38.1% in Fall 2020 to 39.6% in Fall 2021, a 1.5% increase. President Delgado and I remain deeply appreciative of the work of our deans, department chairs, and search committees for their diligence in attracting such an excellent diverse, and talented pool to the College.

As we begin the fall semester, we have an obligation to each other to continue to place the safety and well-being of the community at the core of what we do during this academic year. Again, I welcome you to the fall 2022 semester and thank each of you for what you do to provide the best quality educational experience to our students.

Please remain well and be safe.

-P

Peter O. Nwosu, Ph.D.

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Student Success