Welcome to the spring semester. As we continue working toward a more in person presence for students, faculty and staff, and to follow up on Vice President for Administration and Finance/Chief Financial Officer Rene Rotolo’s valuable email to the community, I wanted to share a few additional updates about highlights from the past month and those on the horizon. (If you are looking for resources and information about COVID protocols, testing and procedures on-campus, you can also find that information here.)
First, I wanted to provide an update on how Lehman College has been investing the transformative $30 million MacKenzie Scott gift since last spring, when you last received information from former Interim President and current Interim Executive Vice Chancellor Daniel Lemons about how we were using the money to seed important endeavors. It is important to remember that the overwhelming portion of the Scott gift will go to the Lehman College endowment to create a stable and regular source of revenue to fund initiatives and priorities.
As Dr. Lemons described in previous communications, we have invested the majority of the gift -- $26 million -- into our endowment. Ten million dollars of that money is being directed to need and merit-based scholarships for students, the MacKenzie Scott Opportunity Scholarship Fund. Based on the current tuition of $7,500 and an anticipated annual balance from investment income of $400,000, this will provide as many as 53 full-tuition scholarships in the first year alone, reducing financial burdens on our students for the long-term. While we will continue to seek even more investment for student support and scholarships, Opportunity Scholarship Funds represent (in themselves) a significant increase in what Lehman can provide through its endowment.
One of the first distributions of the Scott gift was distributed to fund direct student impact in the amount of $2.3 million, to the Lehman College Food Bank and to workforce and career development programs Braven and iMentor. The resources provided to the food bank provided students with groceries throughout the 2020 holiday season and to contribute to the standing up of the Food Security and Sustainability Initiative, co-chaired by Chefs Kwame Onwuachi and Alice Waters to continue to combat the pressing issue of food insecurity among our students and in the Bronx.
We have also hired Rankin & Associates, an institutional evaluation firm, to assess Lehman College strengths and weaknesses around diversity – which will inform our ongoing work to improve Campus Climate and will be a part of a forthcoming Campus Climate Study. In 2019, as our community began the important work of creating our five-year strategic plan and identifying initiatives that would make our campus stronger, the College took its first steps toward implementing a campus climate study.
Climate studies measure an institution’s real and perceived environment—how we interact personally, academically, and professionally—and its strengths and weaknesses around diversity and inclusion. At the heart of this work is a campus-wide survey whose data can provide a snapshot of how we’re living our values and what more we can do to create a welcoming campus that respects the many ethnicities, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities that make Lehman such an extraordinary place.
I’m excited to say that you’ll see the fruits of those efforts this year. Our Campus Climate, Diversity, and Inclusion Task Force, which includes a mix of students, faculty, and staff, has completed its initial work with consultants experienced in campus climate assessments to create a comprehensive survey for Lehman. The Task Force will be submitting an application to Lehman’s Institutional Review Board for the project this semester. Once approved, the survey will be sent to our entire community this Spring.
The survey will be your opportunity to describe your personal experiences and observations and to offer suggestions for change that might enhance Lehman’s climate. The results will be reported in group form only, and multiple precautionary measures will be taken to protect confidentiality. I encourage you to use this opportunity to make us stronger, better, and more accountable to each other. As the Task Force’s motto says, “Your Voice Is Our Strength.”
As part of the MacKenzie Scott Academic Initiatives Endowed Fund, Lehman has allocated $7 million to support a nimble response to academic innovation and to invest further in the Office of Prestigious Awards, which has been a key part of Lehman’s status as a top Fulbright producer and, in the past three years, and has helped 162 students receive funding totaling more than $4 million.
To expand opportunity at Lehman means we have to invest our internal resources, which is why Lehman’s Institutional Advancement team has contracted with CCS Fundraising in order to test an endowment campaign goal of $100 million. Over a two-year period, we will pay them $600,000 plus expenses. More will be forthcoming on the campaign, which has begun with efforts to train our faculty and staff in becoming avid fundraisers. But it is important to note that without the Scott gift Lehman would not have the momentum or the foundation to build an aggressive campaign plan to further expand the endowment and support to its students, programs, and initiatives.
Finally, we are investing $2.3 million of the Scott gift funds in enhancing Lehman’s brand as a Bronx anchor institution by partnering with Michael Kaiser, a well-known arts administrator with the DeVos Institute, to create a Global Center for the Arts with a specialization in Latinx culture, and to build to academic programming that is reflective of our position as a cultural, economic, and social pillar of the Bronx.
I continue to view the MacKenzie Scott gift as a support to important short-term initiatives to build Lehman’s capacity, provide impetus to a broader fundraising campaign, and as an accelerator to our endowment and its ongoing support to the institution. With careful attention to fundraising and stewardship, the Scott gift will also benefit the Lehman campus community a generation from now and continue to spur us to find and collaborate with philanthropic partners to support our mission and purpose. Those efforts are well underway.
Meetings and Celebrating Excellence
I met with several state and local officials throughout December and in January, was proud to join Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and my fellow CUNY Bronx Presidents Thomas Isekenegbe at Bronx Community College and Daisy De Cocco Filippis at Hostos Community College as part of the Virtual CUNY Bronx Legislative Meeting on January 13. It was a wonderful opportunity to discuss our respective budget priorities and thank the elected officials for their ongoing support for our students and the community.
In December, the CUNY Comeback Program forgave the student debt of more than 500 students in the amount of $519,990 from Spring 2020 to Spring 2021 at Lehman.
The Adult Learning Center was awarded $1,851,850 by NYSED for its integrated English Literacy and Civics Education programs for June 2022 through June 2027. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of ALC Director Patricia Mullen and Associate Director Brian Rausse, the ALC also was awarded full funding for the same funding period to create three literacy zones in partnership with three Bronx public schools -- The Poe Center School/PS 246; The New School for Art and Leadership/MS 244; The Kings College School/PS 94 -- to provide adult learning classes on site creating educational opportunities for families and the larger, local community.
Congratulations are also in order for the Lehman College Writing Across the Curriculum program, which won the Writing Program Certificate of Excellence from the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Many thanks to the leadership of Jane Kehoe-Higgins and Vani Kannan for applying for the certificate and their stewardship of the WAC program.
I also want to congratulate the Lehman College men and women’s swimming diving teams at Lehman who have been selected by the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) as a Scholar All-America Team, since the men and women posted GPAs of 3.32 and 3.42 respectively to earn the honors; this designation makes the teams eligible for the Intercollegiate Coach Association Coalition All-Sport Academic Standings.
Shared Governance
February 2 Lehman College Senate
February 3 Cabinet
February 10 President’s Advisory Board/Cabinet Retreat
February 15 Faculty, Personnel and Budget
February 17 Cabinet
February 23 President’s Advisory Board
Fernando Delgado
@LehmanPresident
