CUNY

• William C. Thompson Jr., board chair (and member, board of directors, AGB)
• Felix Rodriguez, chancellor
• Gayle Horwitz, former senior adviser to the chancellor and secretary to the board
• Anne Fenton, associate vice chancellor and former deputy secretary to the board, now secretary to the board
• Alicia Alvero, interim executive vice chancellor and university provost
• Wendy Hensel, former provost (and as of January 2025, president, University of Hawaii System)

Hostos Community College

• Daisy Cocco De Filippis, president
• Esther Rodriguez-Chardavoyne, senior vice president of administration and finance
• Shiang-Kwei Wang, provost and vice president of academic affairs
• Althea Sterling, vice president of student development and enrollment management
• Evelyn Fernandez-Ketcham, vice president of continuing education and workforce development
• Colette Atkins, vice president of institutional advancement
• Babette Audant, assistant vice president of institutional effectiveness, research, and assessment; project liaison

Key Data, Metrics, and Dashboards

CUNY follows a performance-management process (PMP)92 that links planning and goal setting by the system and its colleges and professional schools, measures annual progress toward key goals, and recognizes excellent performance.93

Measurable college-wide key performance indicators (KPIs) represent indicators of progress toward the collective activities of this plan. They are largely pulled from the PMP indicators, which are tracked across CUNY colleges.

CUNY offers an interactive Student Data Book (trend data available from 1990 to present, sortable by year, institution, degree/certificate, and student demographic characteristics).

Structure the Institution for Student Success

The CUNY board was restructured, and a new educational policy committee was created in fall 2022, along with a subcommittee on enrollment, chaired by the board chair. Form follows function and reflects the importance of these areas. Then-Board Secretary Gayle Horwitz commented that the new board structure also reflected other changes in board culture—a more engaged board, more robust agendas, data-driven reports, and data-informed board decisions.

CUNY leaders—the board chair, system chancellor, and Hostos president—all prioritize student success. This is evident in the strategic plan, priorities of the board, and the KPIs for every institution in the system, including Hostos. The board, system, president, and cabinet were driven by the need to understand student issues and learn from data as well as from students’ firsthand accounts. For example, the student trustee on the board is credited with raising issues in a board meeting about internet and computer access when the pandemic hit, and the board responded by ordering 100,000 laptops for CUNY students and arranging delivery to campuses in the Bronx. The system made the transition to online instruction a week after the pandemic was declared.

The Hostos president and cabinet members also recognized the importance of communication with students. President Daisy De Filippis meets with the student government association monthly, along with Senior Vice President Esther Rodriguez-Chardavoyne, who commented, “The cabinet gets along well and Daisy fosters working together.” Other administrators also echoed the expectation that all cabinet members will work together to support student success—noting the president expects collaboration. Evelyn Fernandez-Ketcham added that making the vice president for continuing education and workforce development a cabinet position gave her a seat at the table and has increased matriculation of continuing-education students.

CUNY has also invested in data systems to identify barriers to student success and inform board decisions. These include platforms to map degree pathways and monitor applicants during the matriculation process and to continue to monitor students’ progress in communicating with students, faculty members, and advisers. This included contracts for data systems for each institution as well as training for advisers. The Hostos cabinet employed these data systems to develop many of the strategies used to remove barriers at the college. This focus on data was a common practice across case-study institutions.

These leaders focused on identifying and removing barriers to student success using a variety of methods:

• CUNY Transfer Initiative—A board resolution in 2023 set a timetable and directed the system administration to institute seamless transfer within CUNY and eliminate credit loss during transfer. Working with Wendy Hensel, the system’s chief academic officer at the time, disciplinary faculty groups aligned two-year and four-year college-degree pathways, and administrators implemented timely decision-making on transfer applications. This led to an increase in credits accepted in degree pathways for the most popular degrees. This will benefit approximately 15,000 “upward transfer” CUNY students annually (transferring from community colleges to senior institutions), starting in fall 2025. A key to success was taking a competency-based approach to evaluating required learning, rather than looking for identical texts and courses. Provost Hensel cited the sense of urgency created by “catastrophic” drops in enrollment during the pandemic and persuasive data supporting such change, along with personal stories of student government leaders. A clear board resolution contributed to the sense of urgency in achieving changes within 18 months; the board chair was quoted as saying, “this won’t take two years” in setting a timeline. As the provost described it, this change was not tinkering around the edges; policies that got in the way were changed. This included changes in courses offered and timely transfers out of community colleges by advising students not to accumulate additional credits that would not count toward degrees.
• Investment in Technology—CUNY implemented an online platform to show students which courses are part of bachelor’s degree pathways, as well as predictive analytics to identify students’ needs and proactively reach out to them with timely and targeted advising. Triggers included not registering on time, registering for too many highly demanding courses at once, not opening course materials online, failing a test in the first few weeks of a gateway course, and failing to pay fees. Training was also included for advisers.
• Auto-admit for Qualified NYC High-school Graduates and Waiver of Application Fees—This change and an agreement reached between CUNY and the City of New York led to an immediate increase in applications and enrollment. The board approved a waiver of application fees and instituted a process for timely acceptance letters to be sent to graduating students at public high schools in NYC. This practice will be expanded to private high schools in NYC in the 2025–2026 academic year. More than a dozen other states have instituted an auto-admit process for qualified high school students to public colleges, and New Jersey is proposing to do so.104
• College Now—CUNY’s dual-enrollment program for high-school students from NYC public schools was extended to include independent and parochial schools, developing new enrollment pipelines. CUNY’s board authorized a tuition structure and initiative for this in May 2024.
• CUNY Online—Using $8 million in federal stimulus funds during the pandemic, in 2022 CUNY expanded online course offerings, degrees, and programs throughout the system. This included support for development and instructional delivery of online courses, as well as student-support services and enhanced technology. This included completing the formulation of more than a dozen new degree programs by 2023. Online courses and complete online programs are designed to increase access, especially for adult learners in high-demand fields.
• CUNY CARES—Robust advising and holistic approaches to student needs; advising was integrated to encompass academic, career, mental health, financial, transportation, housing, food, and other needs, all considered essential parts of academic needs. The system invested in targeted aid, including public transportation passes, food pantries, childcare, on-campus employment, need-based scholarships, and paid internships.
• CUNY Comeback Program—This initiative erased more than $100 million in unpaid tuition and fees for more than 57,000 students and distributed $455 million in emergency grants to students from federal stimulus funds.
• Eliminated Hold on Transcripts for Debt—In August 2021, CUNY ended the policy that banned CUNY colleges from releasing transcripts for students and graduates with unpaid tuition and fees. By January 2022, CUNY had released transcripts for 42,852 students.105 See highlights of this policy change on the chancellor’s webpage.
• CUNY Fast—In 2024–2025, this CUNY program worked with high schools and colleges to increase completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), Tuition Assistance Program, and New York State Dream Act applications for incoming CUNY students.106 When there were delays in the FAFSA application process in 2023 and 2024, CUNY nonetheless proudly saw an increase in completed financial aid applications.
• CUNY Reconnect—There are four million working-age adults in New York without a postsecondary credential. In FY23 and FY24, CUNY Reconnect included increased outreach, in-person and virtual enrollment counseling, and spent $2.8 million for Forgiveness and Completion Grants to attract older students to college. On July 1, 2025, New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul approved free community college for CUNY and SUNY starting in fall 2025 for adults between the ages of 25 and 55 who seek to pursue credentials in high-demand career fields. Said NYC Council Member Eric Dinowitz, “Governor Hochul’s program will significantly expand the reach and impact of CUNY Reconnect, which launched in 2022. As of fall 2024, CUNY Reconnect has supported over 40,000 New Yorkers in their efforts to return to college. Drawing from the proven strategies of outreach, re-enrollment, and support services that made Reconnect successful, the governor’s program expands this work by providing tuition-free pathways specifically aligned with labor market needs.”107
• Fundraising and Philanthropy—In addition to efforts to reduce student costs and forgive debts, fundraising and philanthropy directly support student needs through scholarships, mentoring, and other support programs. According to Collette Atkins, vice president for institutional advancement and executive director of the philanthropic foundation for Hostos, its board is focused on student needs such as emergency grants for utilities and housing, a food pantry, support for parents and expectant parents, paid internships, a scholarship endowment for students who have run out of other aid, mentoring for STEM students, and peer mentoring for transfer students. The foundation board is focused on emerging needs and supporting the institutional strategic plan. The percentage of alumni giving to the foundation and the amounts raised are important metrics. In addition, in 2021, a $15 million gift from MacKenzie Scott was the largest gift Hostos had ever received. It led to the creation of a multifaceted plan, the “President’s Initiative for Student Success, College Growth, and Stakeholders’ Engagement,” that included establishing a research center for improving student success, mentorship through on-campus jobs, financial aid, internships, and research grants. The research center provides grants to faculty for research that includes student research assistants and has resulted in many high-impact student experiences.108

More information about these initiatives is available on the CUNY Board of Trustees website.