Committee on Higher Education

Good afternoon and welcome to today's New York City Council hearing on Committee on Higher Education. If you want to testify, please fill out a testimony slip, even if you fill it out online. At this time, during today's hearing, no one may approach the dais. Please silence any electronic devices you may have, and Chair, you may begin. Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon. I am Council Member Rita Joseph, Chair of the Committee on Higher Education. Welcome to today's oversight hearing on study abroad opportunities at CUNY. CUNY legally mandates mission is to maintain and expand its commitment to academic excellence and to the provision of equal access opportunity for students, faculty, and staff from all ethnic and racial groups and from both sexes.

CUNY fulfills its mission in part by ensuring that CUNY students have access to the same breadth of experience that all college students should have access to. That would include study abroad opportunities, which can change a student's life. There's really no substitute for immersing yourself in the culture of another country and gaining all of the academic and life experiences that studying outside of the U.S. offers.

This topic is close to my heart because of my own study abroad experiences. As a student, I had the privilege of studying abroad in Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria. That experience allowed me to work at the United Nations to see politics and decision-making through a different lens. Afterwards, I brought that experience into my own classroom as an educator, and I reminded my students they are global citizens.

Every CUNY student deserves the chance to discover that for themselves. The research shows that students who study abroad develop leadership skills and 21st century skills often sought by employers. The research also shows that students who study abroad are more likely to graduate on time, and further, that students from underrepresented minority groups on a need basis aid the most from studying abroad.

Donald Rubin, co-author of one research, research study, commented, if we are concerned with equity in higher education and completing college, Helping these students study abroad seems officious. I believe that we are concerned with that at CUNY. Looking specifically at community college data shows that under 2% of U.S. study abroad students were studying an associate degree. From Susan L'Aventure, former Director of International Education at Community College in North Carolina, remark, if we want to be equitable, our students should have the same access to study abroad as students at Harvard.

Thank you. This is what I want for our community college students at CUNY. Today, the committee is interested in how CUNY study abroad programs are advertised so that as many CUNY students as possible are made aware of them, and whether a substantial number of CUNY students can afford to participate in them, and how many CUNY students from what background enroll in the programs.

The committee is looking forward to CUNY's discussion for their summer study abroad program, which had just finished, and their fall program, which has just started. Finally, the committee is interested in CUNY's plan for sustaining and expanding these programs. Now, I want to acknowledge Council Member Areola on Zoom. I also would like to thank Juvanni Pequot, my Chief of Staff, Ben Atkinson, my Director of Policy and Budget, Amita Kalawan, the committee's Senior Legislative Counsel, Regina Paul, the committee's Senior Legislative Policy Analyst, and Ali Stoffer, the committee's Financial Analyst.

Thank you. I would like to remind everyone who wishes to testify in person today, you must fill out a witness slip, which is located on the desk of Sergeant-at-Arms near the entrance of this room. Please fill out the slip even if you're ready— you have already registered in advance that you'll be testifying in person today. To allow as many people as possible to testify, testimonies will be limited to 2 minutes per person, whether you're testifying in person or on Zoom.

I'm also going to ask my colleagues to limit their questions and comments to 5 minutes. Please note that witnesses who are here in person will testify before those who are signed in on the Zoom. Now, in accordance with the rules of council, I have the committee counsel administer the affirmation to the witnesses. Would you all please raise your right hand?

Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in your testimony before this committee and to respond honestly to councilmember questions? Kim Holland, Director of Global Education and Initiatives in the Office of Academic Affairs. Stephen First, Executive Director of the Center for Global Engagement at the College at Staten Island, and Jessica Rothman, Professor of Anthropology Conservation.

Thank you. You may begin when ready.

All right. Thank you very much. Can you hear me clearly? Is that better? Good. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, Chairperson Joseph and members of the City Council Higher Education Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about study abroad at CUNY colleges. I'm Kim Holland, University Director of Global Education and Initiatives in CUNY's Office of Academic Affairs.

I am joined today by my colleague Stephen Furst, Executive Director of the Center for Global Engagement at the College of Staten Island, and Jessica Rothman, Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College. The trends I will describe reflect the work of staff, faculty, and administrators who are committed to study abroad as part of CUNY's mission of providing a first-rate, affordable public education to all students regardless of means or background.

Their commitment is based on the disproportionate impact that study abroad has on CUNY students, for whom these programs often represent their first experience away from home or even outside of New York City. Stephen first will provide the perspective of a campus that offers 32 programs in 17 countries, and which last year sent 151 undergraduate students from 12 CUNY colleges abroad.

Jessica Rothman will describe how she has used her networks and access as an honorary wildlife officer at the Uganda Wildlife Authority to create research, fieldwork, and credit-bearing opportunities for CUNY students. The following data are based on activity at CUNY's 11 4-year campuses and 7 community colleges from fall 2025 through summer 2026. During this period, 1,512 CUNY undergraduates from 15 campuses studied abroad in 49 countries.

89.1% of these students participated in a program sponsored by a CUNY campus, while 10.9% participated in an independent program. 24.4% of CUNY students who studied abroad participated in a program for 1 or 2 semesters, And 75.9% participated in winter and summer intersession programs. 72% of these were students at our 4-year campuses, and 28% studied abroad while enrolled at a community college.

During this period, 10 CUNY campuses offered 136 programs in 40 countries, all of which were operated. Each CUNY campus may develop programs that align with its respective curricula, institutional relationships, and faculty available for in-house program development. Where appropriate, campuses are encouraged to open their programs to students from other CUNY campuses, and last year, 16.9% of CUNY students who studied abroad did so using ePermit, CUNY's mechanism for cross-campus registration.

This collaboration among CUNY campuses substantially broadens the scope of programs available to students, not only in terms of geographic location, but also in terms of curricular focus and available terms. CUNY-sponsored programs are structured in 3 different ways: as student exchange programs, as faculty-led programs, and as affiliated programs. These 3 program types are based on their cost structure, and on whether academic content is delivered by external institutions or by CUNY faculty who travel abroad with students.

Faculty-led programs are designed and taught by CUNY faculty in the summer and winter intersessions. CUNY faculty led 25 programs in 16 countries last year on topics ranging from architecture in Spain to Zen meditation in Taiwan. Affiliated programs are established when a CUNY college enters into an agreement with a third-party provider or foreign university. These programs contribute to the breadth of CUNY's offerings.

Faculty-led and affiliated programs are financed with CUNY tuition, typically supplemented by a program fee that covers expenses that exceed the cost of tuition. Exchange programs are based on partnerships between a CUNY college and a foreign university and allow participants on both sides to pay tuition only at their home institution while studying at the partner university. In addition to processing eligible financial aid, several campuses issue scholarship awards to their students for study abroad, and some campuses subsidize the cost of specific programs.

Campuses also actively promote external funding opportunities. In particular, the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship Program, which focuses its resources on Pell-eligible students for study abroad. In closing, I would like to thank the committee for its interest in this important topic. At a moment when AI and related technologies are reshaping labor markets, graduates applying for their first professional jobs are having to demonstrate judgment, adaptability, and emotional intelligence at the very beginning of their careers.

Study abroad equips CUNY students with the professional maturity that employers are now demanding of their most junior hires, and in so doing, prepares them to compete in and contribute to the economy of New York City. My co-presenters will provide further context on how study abroad, as a high-impact practice like internships and other forms of experiential learning make a profound difference in the academic and professional trajectories of CUNY students and graduates.

That concludes my testimony. Thank you for your time. I turn now to Stephen Furst to share his perspective from the College of Staten Island.

Thank you, and good afternoon. As Kim Holland mentioned, my name is Stephen Furst, and I am the Executive Director of the Center for Global Engagement at the College of Staten Island. In this role, I coordinate the overall internationalization and our strategy at the college to oversee our efforts of studying abroad, bringing in international students, our on-campus international programming, our faculty development, our scholars, and our International Intensive English Language Program.

I mention these specifically as I want to highlight that study abroad sits squarely in the academic enterprise, does not exist in a vacuum. but it is part and parcel of the academic fabric at CUNY. As you might have gained from the previous testimony, the experiences we offer are varied in nature and appeal to a broad range of students.

This is by design. With CUNY's 136 programs, we endeavor to offer every student in every major an opportunity to study overseas during their academic career. This is central to our mission, and we hold these values not just because we understand the value of enhancing a student's worldview, but also because we understand the benefits of studying abroad for all students.

For example, students who study abroad have a 95.1% 6-year graduation rate, a full 30 points higher than their peers who stay at home. They're also 6.2% more likely to graduate in just 4 years. For first-generation students, that number goes up to 11.6%. They graduate with higher GPAs, 52% go on to graduate degrees, And they earn 6.3% more— that's over $4,000— in their first job and find that first job sooner than graduates who do not study abroad.

These hold true across the nation. Succinctly put, study abroad is good for the student, it's good for CUNY, and it's good for New York City.

Of course, study abroad is not without barriers to participation. Many of our students find that time constraints grounded in family and work obligations, curricular strengths that leave little room for electives, and of course, financial barriers that burden their opportunity to study abroad. At CUNY, we work every day to help students overcome these barriers, and our programming often demonstrates that work.

As an example, one of our programs at Asia Pacific University in Beppu, China— Japan is a program that combines flexibility of academic programming, lower costs, and strong international student support. APU is a special type of university in that it was founded based on the principle that it would serve all students, mainly from across the Pacific Rim, but also from across the world.

To do so, they pledged to offer 100% of their courses in both Japanese and in English. The students come together on one campus to learn from their professors and from each other. It's a true blending of cultures that forms its own unique environment, and when visiting the campus, our students see and hear the diversity of the world.

In the cafeteria, they're likely to hear at least 50 languages being spoken around them as students mingle from over 90 countries. And they do so as exchange students, paying CUNY tuition and often receiving significant financial aid, making this program one of the most affordable around. This is but one example of CUNY's global programs that cater directly to our students.

And while CUNY has developed a wide range of opportunities to serve the broadest range of students, Those barriers I mentioned earlier can keep our students from studying abroad. My colleagues and I work to lower these barriers every day through counseling and advisement, by developing a wide range of program formats, especially shorter summer and winter programs, and by working in concert with our faculty and deans on academic alignment.

Through the coordination of financial aid and other scholarships for study abroad, we also help our students obtain every dollar of financial aid that they are entitled to. ever mindful of our mostly non-residential students, many of whom live at home with their families and face now a steeper constraint in living expenses when studying abroad. And while Ms. Holland mentioned the overall numbers of students studying abroad each year, I wanted to also bring to your attention the ways in which that number obscures perhaps the true work done by our offices across CUNY for our students.

Yes, 1,500 CUNY students study abroad each year, which also means that 1,500 students have just returned whose grades, records, transcripts, and accounts must be updated. 1,500 students are preparing to go abroad. They need guidance on academics and finance, travel and cultural adjustment. And yet there's likely to be another 3,000 students who go abroad who will unfortunately never have the means to do so.

So in short, CUNY study abroad professionals are working with over 7,500 students each year, preparing, advising, processing, and assisting in their dreams to study abroad.

And if I may indulge the Committee, for just one additional moment, I want to tell the story of one amazing woman, Katherine Yena, who studied abroad in Greece. I had the pleasure of teaching Katie in my class as well as sending her abroad, which she describes in her own words as, Of all my time in college, studying abroad has definitely been the most memorable and educational experience.

Going out into the world and learning about another culture firsthand will teach you far more than what you learn in a classroom. Katie's experience abroad helped her become a Watson Fellow. She won a Fulbright to Tunisia. She was— she's now been accepted into the Peace Corps. Truly a remarkable woman. So those lucky CUNY students, the few like Katie, they have this life-changing experience that we often describe as the single most impactful experience of their undergraduate career.

We believe the work in expanding access to these opportunities is key to CUNY's mission of providing a first-rate, affordable public education to all students, regardless of means or background. And we believe that our students, our students who have these opportunities, are redefining what New Yorkers can and should expect from an education at the largest public urban university in the most cosmopolitan city in the world.

As we see it, we're shaping lives for decades to come. We're creating global citizens. We are bringing CUNY to the world. I sincerely thank you for your time and for your attention today.

Thank you. Okay, good afternoon. I'm Jessica Rothman, professor of anthropology at Hunter College, where I've been a faculty member since 2008. And my research is based in Uganda and focuses on the nutrition and ecology of wildlife, including apes, monkeys, giraffe, and rhinos. And I'm a lifelong New York City resident. So I grew up in the Bronx near the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens, and I frequently visited the wild animals and plants within them.

And as an undergraduate, I had an amazing opportunity to assist a graduate student in Uganda through a study abroad research experience where I studied wild gorillas. This is as an undergraduate. That experience changed the entire course of my life. When I joined Hunter College's faculty, I wanted to bring similar opportunities to CUNY students. I'm here to highlight my study abroad programs where CUNY students study wildlife and conservation in Uganda.

There are 2 kinds of programs. The first is a winter program where students take a class in January and receive course credit towards their degree. The second consists of summer research where students work alongside me and my Ugandan colleagues. These programs vary between 2 and 8 weeks depending on the particular trip. To date, 89 CUNY students, including 57 undergraduates, have participated.

And I'm not alone. My CUNY faculty colleagues lead study abroad programs and include students in their international research. Students learn to conduct animal behavior research by observing wild monkeys and apes like chimpanzees, gorillas. They record, analyze data, identify individual animals, and document whether they're feeding, resting, traveling. They learn to identify trees and measure their growth and use GPS units to navigate through the dense rainforest.

They work in teams with me, other students, and Ugandan colleagues engaging directly with the scientific method. They learn about the challenges of wildlife management from field lectures by Ugandan practitioners. For example, students visit a savanna national park filled with elephants, buffalo, and lions and learn about poaching threats as well as human-wildlife conflict. Our long-term collaborations with Ugandan experts and communities are an essential part of these programs.

The students eat many of their meals with me and the Ugandan experts they learn from, and this is often the first time they've interacted on this level with faculty and scientists. They don't usually have these opportunities at commuter colleges. Just before their departure, the students participate in a cultural ceremony where a village elder gives them a local Ugandan name.

Students develop profound connections with one another and the Ugandans they've met. The impact of international experiences on CUNY undergraduate students is immense.

Students learn about opportunities in several ways beyond campus advertisements. So I talk to students who ask me questions in classes or do well on exams. Alumni visit classrooms to speak about their experiences. Students could not imagine that they could be following wild monkeys and apes as part of their degree program, and when they hear other students speak about their experiences and see their photos, they're very excited.

No prior experience is necessary, but we conduct interviews to make sure that the student is comfortable being away from their family, is prepared to walk in a forest all day, and is willing to have limited phone and internet time. To prepare, the students are required to attend a 3-hour orientation with me in which I cover cultural norms, training on how to behave around wildlife, and the expectations and responsibilities while abroad.

They also receive a general pre-departure orientation from Hunter's Office of Education Abroad. For the study abroad winter session program, many of the students self-pay. Some can offset these costs with applicable financial aid or scholarship funding. The majority of the students who accompany me for summer research are funded by National Science Foundation grant monies from the federal government, We have funded 22 students in this way and still have funds for 16 more.

In closing, I will highlight a few student impacts. Kendra Cruz-Caberos was an undergraduate human biology major who was a SEEK student and the first in her family to attend college. After traveling to Uganda in 2019, she applied for and received a very competitive graduate fellowship. She's now a PhD candidate in anthropology at NYU and soon to complete her studies.

Natalia Grube was an undergraduate anthropology major who came to Uganda not once, but twice. She then completed a master's degree at Hunter in anthropology and moved on to complete a PhD in anthropology at Penn State University. Now she's a genomic biologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Washington, D.C. Camille Stewart was an undergraduate geography and anthropology major who also studied in Uganda twice during her undergrad degree.

She then completed a master's degree at Columbia University and is now a scientist at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. And Alyssa Smith was a first-generation woman and gender studies major who traveled to Uganda a year ago. She wanted to learn more and received a prestigious language area fellowship to study Swahili in Tanzania, and she just arrived back to New York City.

Now she's applying for a Fulbright Fellowship to return to Uganda. She aims to study international environmental law. These students demonstrate that the impact of study abroad doesn't end when the plane lands back at JFK. For many, these experiences open doors to graduate education, scientific research, public service, future international work, and careers they just met— may have never imagined before having the opportunity to go abroad.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. I remember when I was studying abroad, I couldn't get the time right. It was an 8-hour difference. I used to call my mom when it was nighttime and it was day for me. And she's like, we're sleeping. Is everything okay? And I was like, no, I'm fine. And it was the time difference.

I had to adapt really quick. So thank you for that. We know it works based on your testimony. How can we make it better? How can we expand? How can I support that work? Because I know it works. So that's why you guys are here today. This is like a— let's look at what's working. How can we work in partnership to expand more of our young people getting to do— I know high school students are now going abroad because my son was offered an opportunity to study in Spain, which is amazing.

So we can connect the bridge when they get to CUNY. So that's why we're here today.

So according to the report, 87% of higher education institutions in the US say that they anticipate study abroad participation will increase or hold steady in 2026-2027 academic year. Is that true for CUNY as well? I'm sorry, can you please repeat the numbers? Absolutely. Thank you. According to a recent report, 87% of higher education institutions in the US say that they anticipate study abroad participation will increase or hold steady in the 2026-2027 academic year.

Is that true for CUNY as well? I think that there are always various factors going in different directions. And although we cannot predict all of the factors that are coming, I'd say that based on what we know now, in spite of geopolitical factors, of course, which are very real, we do see the trend going at least steady and I'd say upwards, particularly at our senior colleges.

I think Stephen can speak to this. Sure, I can. We're just entering application season. Applications around CUNY generally close between the 1st and the 15th of next month. But I can tell you from my colleagues I've spoken to at several of the other campuses, as well as my own director of study abroad, that our applications are up, that we are seeing more interest.

We are seeing more students interested in studying abroad. I know that I've also spoken to some of my colleagues at our community colleges, and they are seeing increased interest. Kim Holland mentioned in spite of. I would say because of geopolitical reasons, students tend to see international activity in the news. They tend to see things happening around the world, and they become more curious.

So the base question of, are the numbers up? The answer is yes. The number— how do we continue to keep those numbers up? We teach our students more about the world. Mm-hmm. We get them interested in the world. We show them more about the world. We do, as Professor Rothman is doing here, showing that students can do this and using these examples of students.

This was a student just like you. This was a first-generation student who went abroad. She did it. He did it. You can do this too. And I think that's our strongest way that CUNY can increase our numbers.

And you create credible messengers to your students to come back and share their experiences. When a student gets accepted to a CUNY college, any one of them, is there a study abroad in packet Is there something in their packet to say, welcome to CUNY, you've been accepted, and these are the opportunities that we offer as study abroad?

So that is done on a campus-by-campus basis. The orientation involves written materials, but also encounters with people like Stephen Furst. So I think that the answer is that it is more prevalent at a campus like the College of Staten Island or Queens College, Hunter College, and several others that are very active in this space. But it really is something that we should take as a best practice and make more common.

Yeah, I would like that. If I was accepted to CUNY, I want them to tell me, hey, you have the opportunity to study here on campus, or we also offer opportunities abroad for you to study amazing, great programs. I'm hearing nothing beats a hands-on experience. for students. I know that for sure. And I'm sure the students you took to Uganda, this will stay with them forever, having the opportunity to work and see it in real time.

They're not reading it from a book or on a computer. They're living it and experiencing it and see the cultures and the norms. I know that makes a difference. My campus and my campus admissions folks and I work very closely together, not just on international admissions, but on domestic. We are invited and attend Every open house when recruiting students, we attend every admitted students day, every fair, everything that is open, they ask us to come and bring our literature.

We have developed messaging direct to parents so that they are not overly concerned, but also so that they are excited about sending their student to CUNY and that they do have these opportunities. So yes, we have built that into. All of our admissions material, and we do say, welcome to CUNY. We try not to say, welcome to CUNY, now go away.

But we do say, welcome to CUNY, now go away. And we give them that opportunity as quickly as possible.

Is there a partnership with New York City Public Schools to also relay that message, as I know sometimes they get automatic letters of acceptance? I know that's something that's happening with New York City Public Schools. Is there a way to— I believe on the island, Staten Island, as we call it. My admissions team does do that. I know that I get called to go out to some of the schools to give college day lectures.

And the real purpose behind that, of course, is to recruit the students. But I always slide in, if you do come to my campus, I can send you overseas. By the way, we can send you. That's right. Okay, wonderful. I like that.

Because the research showed that students who study abroad develop leadership skills and 21st century skills often sought by employers, how many U.S. colleges purposely help their returning students connect students with study abroad experiences to career readiness activities and job search. Does CUNY do anything like that through advisors or other means? So, I think you hit on something we would like to do a lot more of, and it is happening at some of our campuses, but I'd like to revisit an important set of statistics that Stephen Furst brought up about the sheer number of students that are supported by study abroad staff at our campuses.

And the focus on advisement and preparation and support while students are abroad sometimes stretches them a bit thin. So it's really the better resourced, but also just the very ambitious campuses, which is one of the reasons I asked Stephen Furst to join us today to highlight some of those practices. that make a really serious reentry agenda possible.

And I think another thing that speaks in favor of broadening those types of practices is the fact that our career services offices are becoming much more elevated. There's much more attention to their work, and it's, it's a very exciting part of what CUNY is doing. And so connecting with those offices and saying, we can connect our students with you at a very pivotal point in their undergraduate careers when they have a lot to process but need your support in finding a way to articulate this in their resumes, in their cover letters, in interviews, is one of the most beneficial things that we can do.

Stephen can give some examples of how this can work. I have 3 specific. I hope I can remember all 3. The first is the College of Staten Island, and I know other campuses have been creating advising sheets that talk through a student how they would step through their academic career. We have just revised those. Instead of 8 boxes, there are now 16 boxes.

One whole set of those boxes is on what you can do to prepare to be ready for the workforce when you graduate. We are building into that side of that advising sheet when you can study abroad, when you should be thinking about how to use that study abroad experience, how to bring it forward. I'm also personally connecting with our newest Associate Provost for Student Success, where Career Services sits in our campus, and we'll be working together to work with Career Services, connect with our Study Abroad Office for that very reason.

Third— that's actually 4 here. Third is we are developing international internships that will be available across CUNY. for our community college students and for our 4-year students that are overseas, these international internships. And they will allow students to have more career exposure. And lastly, as we said, these are special students. As you know from your own experience, when you get back, you have developed something that other students haven't.

And you actually need— I don't want to say less support, but you know how to go out and get what you want. You know how to make it happen. And as these anthropology students have shown us. They go out and get PhDs. They go out and get those jobs because they know how to. Not to say that we don't support them through the system, but they are our go-getters.

Can I add? In addition to being a professor in anthropology, I'm also the director of the Human Biology program at Hunter, and this has over 2,000 students currently, undergraduate students, and we've been very lucky to have the CUNY Inclusive Economy to a dedicated career advisor within our program. And what the advisor does is she reviews the student, you know, reviews whatever kinds of interests the student has and tries to connect students with internships and jobs within the city.

But also when the students come back from study abroad, she meets with them, our other advisor meets with them, we all, you know, I meet with them sometimes depending on the student. And we sit down and we say, how, you know, how was your experience? What, you know, what did you do out there? And the student has loads and loads to say.

And then we try to use the information that the student gave us to, you know, to make suggestions for them and to help craft their resume, to put it on their resume, to identify the skills they learned while they were abroad. We also take— we also put study abroad opportunities specific that our human biology students might be interested in on our website.

And they also do get something when they enroll in the major. They get a little, you know, they get just information about what study abroad programs can actually contribute to their degree program, as well as, you know, just being being a study abroad program, but also they can gain credit for actually doing that program within their degree program.

So I think it's been really helpful for their, you know, in connecting them to future careers, whether it be in the city or just, you know, or outside in the future.

Yeah, I was going to ask about the possibility for international internships, mentorships right here in the city too. We have a lot of companies that have footprints in international countries that maybe we should be thinking about future partnerships right here. And the fact that that student studied in that particular country has the norms, and it also develops empathy skills, right?

When you learn about other cultures, you're supposed to have that different set of skills of empathy towards. So that's great. So thank you. A research study showed that study abroad students were 6 percentage points more likely to graduate in 4 Very good. And 4 percentage points more likely to graduate in 6 years than their peers who did not study abroad.

And further, that study abroad students graduated with a higher GPA. If these findings are generally true for U.S. college students, how important is it to CUNY to make an active effort to recruit more students to study abroad? Are these findings true for CUNY, or you don't have an issue? Everybody's running to your door. to go study abroad?

They are not running to our door. How do we get them there? We recruit very, very broadly to get the largest number of students to study abroad. We know this is a high-impact practice. We know that studying abroad is good for these students. Ms. Allen has a bit more of the statistics on how many of our students do study abroad and some of those other impacts and whether we follow national trends.

I can tell you anecdotally, we do follow those national trends. Nationally, when you ask a high school student if they'd like to study abroad in college, you will get about 80% of the students raising their hand. When you ask if they expect to, you'll get about 50% of the students raising their hand. When you ask them when they graduate college if they did, you will get 6 to 7% of the students.

The drop-off is tremendous, and it is on us. It is on all of our— all of us educators to build this into the curriculum, to build room for this, to put this into major advising, and to show students that it's possible. At CUNY, we try really hard to do that by showing the examples of students who have gone before, by fundraising outside, by working on exchange programs.

We have a lot of exchange programs. One of our campuses deals with almost exclusively exchange programs and sends hundreds of students abroad. that way, allowing students to pay that same CUNY rate at home as they would abroad, and that, as they would if they stayed at home. And that has been a tremendous boon. Another campus has partnered with an external organization to give scholarships directly to their students, and that also has raised the numbers.

So CUNY needs to, each of our colleges need to create these partnerships to find ways to make it most affordable. That is probably the number one barrier for our students. And behind that is probably our academic barriers. We can work to lower those somewhat easier, actually, by talking to our departments around. But one other thing that works is simply by changing the culture, simply by showing students that it is possible, by showing students that, oh, your peers have gone, everybody's going, you should go too.

And although that does require the students then to sometimes find those funds, it's amazing. They do. When they realize this is something important, when they realize this is something that helps their life move forward, helps their academic career and their professional career, they find the way.

Thank you. We have to find a way to keep the 80% hands up. Chairperson, just to add I think we— there's a measure that we took probably about 12 years ago, which we previously had— each college had its study abroad page. And even though some campuses are very generous in opening their programs to students throughout CUNY, it wasn't effectively available because it required those students to hunt through all of those websites.

So we now do have a consolidated directory, which among other things allows students to search to focus on programs that are available by e-permit. Now, I will say I was really proud of this step forward, and now I realize how insufficient— it's necessary, but it's not sufficient, and here's why. It goes to a mindset issue, which is the student-level factor that is alongside culture. at the campus.

Faculty can talk about it, but if students don't see their peers on their campus studying abroad, if you can't jumpstart that, it's going to be extremely difficult. Even if you have programs available through a different CUNY campus, even if you can pay CUNY tuition and get your CUNY financial aid, you're going to be effectively a pioneer in your space.

So students, we do know, are very much tied to the culture of their campuses. And we do have some campuses where we need to do more to support just the beginnings of that culture, and so that students understand themselves as really having the right to participate in these experiences, and that they, they're equally relevant for them as well.

So maybe you need to recruit some of the students who went abroad and become that credible messenger for you, become that ambassador, and tell their stories. Students like to listen to each other. No matter how great we are as educators, they're like, yeah, all right, whatever. But if a peer says, hey, I had such an amazing time in this experience, you should go, these are the things that I did, this is the path that I took, they'll listen to their peers over us.

Might I add that when I arrived at CSI, which was about 13 years ago, there was a campaign that had just concluded or was just concluding where the The college, I believe, had partnered with— definitely with the city to create a grant program to create posters of students, and it was a clean up the campus. It was a non— it was don't trash the campus campaign.

There were little quotes from all these student leaders across campus saying, this is what I say about trash, and this is what our mascot says about trash, and why you shouldn't litter on campus. And I remember that this campaign, as I, as I think about it, was both a kind of a partnership between the college and between the city to develop these.

So it was pretty effective. Students were able to see themselves. Students were able to see other student leaders. And we would like to copy that type of campaign. And I think that's a collaborative thing that we could do across the city. Show New York City students taking on the world. We should, and that's one of the things I've always encouraged New York City Public Schools to do, get the students involved.

Let them be the voice, empower them as they— as I said, just like peer tutoring, I can teach something very well and students don't take it, but another peer comes in and it's easier.

Research studies show that underrepresented minority students, the difference in graduation rate in 6 years was almost 8%. percentage points for study abroad students compared to those who did not study. If the findings are generally true, how important is the CUNY to make an active effort to recruit students to study abroad? Are these findings true for underrepresented minority students to study abroad?

How do we recruit? I have a few statistics on that. So, last year, 34.2% of our students who studied abroad identified as Hispanic, 11.7% identified as Black, and 4.5% identified as multiracial. White and Asian students made up 27.4% and 22% of our study abroad students, respectively. Now, we know that that is not well aligned with our overall populations.

So 48.7% of our students who study abroad are Pell eligible. And unfortunately, at the very low end of the income spectrum, we see that only 1.2% of our study abroad students are or have at some point in their college career qualified for public assistance. That's based on CUNY EDGE data. So we can follow up. We're still getting support from our institutional research team.

I'd love to provide a little more on first-generation students. which is another angle to look at it through. But I think all of this says we are making some progress here, but it is woefully insufficient, and we're very conscious of that fact. I also really appreciated that you highlighted in your opening remarks that community college students should be studying abroad more, and our statistics bear that out.

We do, in fact, have one community college that has been extremely successful with support from an outside organization. Which one? But that's not a solution for each of our community colleges, and we need to create space for all of them to find their own solutions. I do want to say I had hoped, and I'm still trying to parse through the data, I had hoped to find more evidence of students who transfer from community colleges studying abroad after they transfer as vertical transfer students.

So far, the patterns I've found have not been encouraging. But I think that that specific population, targeting those students, identifying the barriers that face our vertical transfer students, would go a long way towards the access and equity priorities. How do we get our underrepresented students to wanna take that leap of faith to say, I wanna study abroad?

How do we create that opportunity? What are some of the barriers we see? Is it financial? Is it just a fear? Is it because they just don't know, or— I think it is. In some cases, it requires a little bit of extra mentoring and reaching out to those specific students when they express an interest to identify barriers to participation, whether it be their family, whether it be financial, whether it be they're worried about their academics, to see where we can help.

And I think that faculty and advisors can do a good job of that. I also wanted to mention that the 4 cases that I mentioned, the 4 students I mentioned in my testimony are all underrepresented minorities. And my program actually seems to represent the student body at Hunter, which is 70%, is about 70% is minority. Thank you. are underrepresented students of color.

And that seems to be what my programs have been in the past. So, I, you know, I feel happy that we've been able to attract students that wouldn't traditionally go on study abroad.

Are you guys copying the model? Are you talking to each other to see what are some of the best practices that maybe we can transfer to other campuses? for it to work? We do. We have a monthly liaison meeting of folks who work in education abroad, study abroad, and we do try to bring those best practices across campus to campus.

I will say this is my 37th year in this field. I have been working on— the field has been working on underrepresented students for that entirety of the time. When study abroad started in 1966, 1967, those first students went abroad on those— they were young women, they were studying languages, they took a boat to France, they spent a year, they came home.

Until the 1980s, when we really massified or diversified studying abroad, that's who went abroad. And it remains still mostly women studying abroad, mostly white women, who are upper middle income and above. These barriers exist. They've been extremely hard to move the needle on students of color, on students of limited means. There are a number of programs out there.

100,000 Strong in the Americas is a grant program, the Gilman Program, and several others that I know all of us at CUNY have worked very hard to achieve those grants. to overcome these things. I think CUNY does better than national, honestly, in overcoming these barriers for underrepresented students, but this is a needle that is extremely hard to move nationally.

Thank you. I'd like to recognize Councilmember— we've been joined by Councilmember Dinowitz, Brewer, and Epstein.

What are some of the top countries that you visit? Do you have any statistics? I— yes. That's an excellent question, and we've seen some interesting changes over time. Overall, if you look at trends since 2013, you see in first place, no surprise, Italy, followed by Spain, Japan, China, France, England, South Korea, Germany, Greece, and Australia. I don't think that this will come as any surprise to anybody, but what is interesting is that we are also seeing trends where Spain is almost tripled during this period.

Italy is down by 23%. That may reflect a decrease in the number of families that are first and second generation Italians, but we do still have a very robust CUNY Italy program that supports exchanges throughout our system. Followed by Japan. Japan has gone up 2.4 times in participation. Participation in England is 2.4 times. South Korea is up 5.3 times, which really astonished me.

But I think if you look at the cultural surge of South Korea, I may be a little less surprised. And we also have a couple of professors who lead very interesting programs on media studies in particular in South Korea. And so it's very compelling for students. And China is down 2.5 times. 78%. Now, I don't think that that is necessarily a permanent trend.

We did see, obviously, through the pandemic and policies that impacted both Chinese citizens and visitors, some trepidation. But Stephen Furst can speak to, you know, a campus that is rebuilding in that area. But at some campuses, they have chosen to focus on Taiwan, for example, for their student who want opportunities to learn Chinese language. So those trends tell you a little bit about what students are trending towards.

But what I really like about our programs is that there's a huge breadth available, and that the students are always encouraged not just to think about the locations they're going to, but about the academic focus. And because— and to really look at this as not just tourism. It's a very different experience than they will have even 5 years after they graduate.

They will be able to participate in their host countries in an extremely different way. I'll add here again that CUNY bests the nation, right? So nationwide, the top destination is England, the UK. Then you've got Italy, then you've got Spain, then you've got France. Those are the top 4. They've been the top 4 for decades, to, to hear the statistics where those are not CUNYs, right?

These are, these are things that we've purposefully done. How do we provide something different for our CUNY students? How do we create programs that reflect the diversity of our CUNY students as opposed to doing what's been done for decades? Right. Going to England, going to Italy, going to Spain, going to France. We actually do far better than the the rest of the nation in that.

That's something that CUNY can be proud of. And what are some of the emerging countries that you see students are interested in now? I know Uganda's one. We see Morocco, actually. The CSI program— there's a very popular CSI program in Morocco that students are interested in. I'm going to chaperone the one to Morocco. It's actually developed for CUNY-wide.

It is a medical internship program. So students spend 4 weeks in Morocco They get up every morning very early. You might want to rethink the chaperoning. Okay. And they go on rounds. They go on rounds in a hospital with doctors. It's an observational program. They make their rounds through obstetrics, through oncology, through pediatrics, through pharmacy, and each day they go to maybe 3 or 4 sessions of different rounds.

They spend time in the OR and they really learn quite a lot. I have 2 quick stories about 2 students. Yeah, go. One who I visited when she was there, and she had just come out of the OR room, and she showed me her hand. She goes, look at how steady I am. I was born to be a surgeon, and this program just cemented what I want to do.

And another student who came back and said, thank you for sending me on this program. I never want to step foot in a hospital again. So we were able to, with 2 students, really set the trajectory of their career with this program. It is very popular across campus. And it gives students an experience that they just can't get anywhere else.

Absolutely. That's why I'm championing this.

Councilmember Dinowitz, question? Councilmember Brewer? Thank you very much. It's so important. Even the private high schools have abroad programs now, because I was with some students and they're off to wherever, South Africa in this case. So my question is, how do you go about the funding? I teach at Hunter. I see all the signs up. You can go here.

You can go there. on the bulletin boards, but I worry who's going to be able to go here and there. So my question is, is there a central CUNY grant for these kinds of opportunities? I remember years ago, I have to say, the Eisenhowers and the Bushes and so on, some of the more conservative heritage type have funding that I know some of the public school students have taken advantage of in the past.

It probably doesn't exist now and it won't exist for another 3 years probably. So my question is, how do you go about the funding and what can we do in that sphere? Because this doesn't happen— either it's foreign governments paying, it's U.S. paying, it's New York, it's somebody, philanthropy, foundations. How do you go about getting that funding?

So we would welcome any advice in that realm. And we do think that there is a compelling case to be made for specifically for CUNY students to have these opportunities. This is something that we think that we could also really specify which CUNY students are not getting these opportunities. And, you know, as we're all underscoring again and again, study abroad changes lives, and that's critical.

But we also have to ask ourselves whose lives are being changed and who isn't expressing interest but having to back away because they realize the reality of financing these opportunities. Stephen first described the vast numbers of students that come into his office and only a fraction of them actually wind up crossing that finish line and leaving from JFK.

But how can we increase the success rate by Telling these students that we have resources for them. When I worked for David Dinkins, I was head of the federal office and I made every single city agency apply for federal money. We got $90 million in the first 6 months. If you don't apply, you don't get. So, and they had never applied.

So I guess my question is, what's CUNY doing? Because this is the kind of thing that even the more conservative foundations are interested in. So it's not like a political thing. we need to improve America in their head by giving people international experience, blah, blah, blah. So I guess my question is, who at CUNY is taking that, we need to apply for every single possible dollar on this front?

They're not going to do other things, these foundations, that CUNY might want to do. But go ahead. That's my question. I mean, I was just going to speak from— I'm a faculty member at Hunter, and I could speak from the faculty experience. We get research grants and we can include students in our research grant, international research for students in our research grants.

There are specific grants from the federal government that are international experiences for students. That's been something that I've had a lot of success with. In my testimony, I listed, I don't remember how much here. 22 students so far, and then we still have funds for 16 more, but those grants are going away. The grants in the federal government are just rapidly depleting, unfortunately.

I said 3 years. I was very clear. But there are still private foundations. You have to apply. I'm just saying you have to be like, focus, focus, focus. The feds are not going to help right now. I'm clear. Correct. Yeah. But the private foundations, this is something they would be interested, but you have to apply. We are, those of us who run study abroad, the study abroad offices, we do talk about what grants are out there.

We do use the various tools that CUNY has supplied to find grants. I can, you know, there's 100,000 Strong is one campaign that's North and South America. The IDEAS, which came out of the US State Department, is still going. And obviously through NSF grants, through private grants— sorry, through programs like the Gilman for students, we do work every day to do so.

I think I've applied for 5 of those grants this past year. And yes, those, those are specifically designed to lower the cost. and to allow our CUNY students to go. I will say, as of last night, the federal government rescinded some of that money. That makes it easier for me to do my job. That was $69.4 million gone overnight.

We're working on getting that back. But we do, we lobby for that money. I go to Washington and work for that money, and we certainly apply for as many grants as possible to do so. All right. No, it's not, but that is the only way to do it at this point. So, thank you.

Councilmember Dinowitz. Thank you. Hello, CUNY. I'm wearing my Hunter purple today as a Hunter alum. What is CUNY's goal for study abroad enrollment? For example, an intended percentage of total student body or enrollment figure? So, that is— that's an excellent question. I think that we have overall goals of growth, but overall growth alone would not be sufficient.

We really look at how the participation is going to break down in terms of our students who are traditionally underfunded. We do see— some positive trends in the past when programs such as SEEK and CD and ASAP and ACE have funded their students to study abroad. We know that there is potential there. But we also know that just as we see with advisement patterns where those students in those programs have lower advisement ratios, we have a vast population of students who are not under the umbrella of any special program, and we need to find ways to reach them as well.

But your— so your general goal is growth, but you don't have a specific target even within those specific programs, like within the SEEK program or the ASAP program, we will increase by a certain percentage or a certain number of students? Those goals don't exist? At this point, no. I think that would have to be a conversation with each of those programs.

I would like to see a higher participation of the underrepresented groups. And I think through that, we're going to— What are those? Can you give an example what those groups are? I think by our vertical transfer students are a major group. And that's something that we can target directly by looking at the obstacles those students face. In addition to the mindset obstacles that these students often face, we also see them having a greater barrier when it comes to academic integration of these opportunities, because they tend to have fewer electives available, and that does make it harder to study abroad when you have less room in your schedule.

So we need to offer programs that have more courses that fit into their degree plans. So, I mean, so it sounds like you have the concept of a plan for a goal, but I— but it also sounds like you do actually have, like, a target population where setting a goal would actually be helpful, even in the raising, you know, the money element, as Councilmember Brewer was referencing.

And so you asked for ideas besides asking the council for money, which we always love to give CUNY. I think setting goals for particular populations lends itself to a better sales pitch for other outside funding or even government funding. I can add that I think many of our campuses have So I represent the College of Staten Island.

I'm the director there. And we do have a 10% of the— we have a goal that 10% of the students who walk across our graduation stage at our ceremony will have had a substantial international experience. That would place us squarely in the top quartile of public education, right, of students who study abroad. That's great. Now we got to get the other colleges to compete with that.

Well, so we've got Hunter that's doing great. but a number of other colleges. What we will say is that the senior colleges that benefit from programs like the Macaulay Honors Program and other schools tend to have higher percentages because of some of those programs and because of those student populations. But yes, those are goals. And I think that that would be shared by my colleagues across campuses.

Somewhere around 10%, again, placing us near the top. I would share that I think having specific goals like 10% or increasing those goals year after year would be a step forward, I think, in engaging more students in the study abroad program, which is widely recognized as being a positive experience, whether it gets you to be a surgeon or it tells you— gets you not to be a surgeon.

You know, my other question is about, you know, there have been numerous calls to— I don't know, numerous, but there have been calls to boycott all relationship with the nation of Israel. The chancellor has spoken out against this, I think very forcefully in the past. And I just want to confirm that it is not the intention of CUNY to cease relationships, that the relationships, the number of programs students have opportunity with to Israel has not decreased.

Have the number of programs remained the same or increased over the past 4 years? Okay, that's an important question. I'm glad that you asked it. So first, before we address that, I just want to say that CUNY does not approve travel anywhere where we can't prepare our students to travel safely. So we review every program and we monitor conditions continuously.

CUNY did used to have a program in Israel that was with a number of Israeli institutions. And that was sunset. There was a sunsetting process that happened well prior to current events that led to this type of pressure. It was really much more about the difficulties in balancing the exchanges with those institutions because Israeli students had less demand to come to CUNY.

We were— the way it was explained to me is that many Israeli students are older when they start their university careers, and they are much less likely to fit study abroad into what they do. Now, we know that many Israeli students do wind up at many very high-profile institutions, but But we've had a hard time making sustainable exchanges work.

Now, we have had some efforts to rebuild that that were interrupted since October 7th, but those are merely on pause. They are not ended. And in the meantime, as you know, we have many students who have, from the beginning, you know, since they were in elementary school, they were told someday you will spend at least part of your time as a college student in Israel.

And those students have used our option to study abroad on an independent basis. They do have to go through an additional step of the travel warning waiver petition, which goes through Central. We issue a recommendation, and the campus provost makes a final decision. So CUNY students have continued to go to Israel for study abroad even through this interlude, which we hope is temporary.

Okay, yeah, please. And if I'll just continue, so circa 2018 or so, CSI was aggressive in picking up the pieces of opportunities for students to study in Israel, beginning conversations and agreements with 4 Israeli universities to ensure that students had broad access. Some of those institutions were actually going to give significant scholarships to CUNY students upwards of $6,000 a semester to go.

That was interrupted first by the pandemic, then we went back on track to start our agreements again, and yet then interrupted again by the war that is currently happening. And so because of the State Department warning levels, because of the safety regulations, we have had those on pause. I will say I continue to maintain those relationships. I myself studied studied at Haifa University in Israel.

I go back to all of my colleagues. We talk about when we're going to be ready. We have everything ready to go. We have all of our marketing materials ready to go. We have all of our agreements ready to go. When it's safe for us to send students, we'll absolutely be resuming sending students to Israel through CUNY.

Okay, I would like to be kept abreast of those, of the numbers. And the progress in that outreach, I mean, independent of everything else, traveling abroad has value, especially to Israel, a fellow democracy, but particularly at a time of such polarity in our country. The exchange of ideas and knowledge is of particular importance. So this is an issue I want to continue to see, ensure CUNY does not go on the downward slope, that it does increase.

I will certainly be following up and would appreciate the response and the outreach back from CUNY as well. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Dinowitz. Earlier, just to piggyback off of Councilmember Brewer, how do— we know that cost is a big obstacle for students. Are we thinking, how do CUNY help students students come abroad, and how do we find money elsewhere, probably private-public partnerships, to make this happen? So any thoughts on that? I mean, I can speak to the— from the perspective of being a faculty member and just from my own department, is that we have engaged outside funders and private small grants for students.

But these are on a campus and sometimes departmental basis, and it also depends on on the efforts of individual faculty, individual department chairs, individual campuses. So, but we have taken advantage of those funding opportunities when they come across.

The CUNY study abroad search engine looks like a great tool for students to use and find study abroad opportunities. How many students use it and how do you gather data on it? And how do you judge whether it's successful? I think we could do a better job at looking at usage rates. It's a little difficult because we are all in such a concentrated space, so using data about where the users are is not going to show us necessarily which campuses they're from.

We did not— we made a conscious decision not to create sort of a login requirement so we could see exactly who was there, although that would have given us really granular data we could have followed up on. But I think the 16.9% of students who are studying abroad on E permit is an important indicator. And another indicator I would really like to see grow is the number of campuses that are taking— where students are taking advantage of E permit, because we know we have campuses that don't currently have the staffing to support their own programs.

But that does not mean that those students shouldn't have the opportunities to study abroad. And there are opportunities. But as I mentioned, if there is not a culture on the campus where students see peers taking advantage of those opportunities, you have a really tough time reaching just a sense where students feel like this is something that they should should be investigating for themselves.

To add to that, we do use a software that runs our application system at the College of Staten Island. Hunter has also purchased that software. After we went through the purchasing process, we were able to help other campuses go through it. So we do share among campuses those experiences and are trying to expand that. That does track students, that does track usage, That's how we know that, you know, 43% melt between, you know, one phase and another phase might happen.

So that is one other way that then we can go back and target why. Why are we seeing that melt? What are these particular students dropping off for? And how do we address that in particular? Another of our campuses have developed a very sophisticated transfer credit system so that a student can look at a course overseas and see exactly what it's going to count for back at CUNY.

And it builds itself every time a new student does a new program. That is being rolled out across, I think in about 6 weeks, going to be presented to all the other campuses to be rolled out perhaps to all the campuses. So any student throughout the entire system will be able to, similar to the T-Rex system if you're familiar with that.

That's a transfer internally mostly in CUNY. This would allow our students to know what they can take abroad and exactly what it's going to count for at home. So we do start to share systems that try to lower those barriers. Thank you for that.

We've been joined by Councilmember Wilson. Councilmember Epstein, your questions? Do you have data on the students who use the travel award? Do you look at their household or family income? And do you break that down about lower-income students going versus higher-income students? I have a little bit of data for you on that. So 48.7% of our students who study abroad are Pell eligible, and only 1.2% of our students who study abroad are or have at some point during their college careers qualified for public assistance.

So you see a big difference there in terms of financial need. Those are all students who are very low income, but at the very low end, we see very significant barriers. How about students who are in an ASAP or an EOP program? What percentage of the students are in a kind of program where they're getting some support from the institution?

Yes. So ASAP and also— SEEK and CD. SEEK and CD. They have provided significant funding to their students, primarily for participation in specific programs. There is a program that is primarily spearheaded by Bronx Community College. They've been working with an institute in Salzburg in Austria for over 2 decades, and it brings students there to a castle for a seminar on global issues annually for a week.

They offer that now as sort of a field trip within a spring semester course, so it is embedded in a broader context. They've made that possible for much larger numbers of students. Each of those— I mean more like a semester study abroad. For a student who's in a SEAC or an ASAP program, what percentage of those students?

I would need to get back to you on that. That's a really good question. I'd like to know, and I'd like to know what barriers might be for the population of students. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm not arguing with you, but I just— not my— I don't want to put words in their mouths, but, you know, And then the other question is, you know, we have paid internships at CUNY now, and it's really been a benefit for a lot of the students.

If they're doing study abroad, are there potential stipends available for students who may need financial support because of, you know, may not have ability for food and other support? I'm wondering what's available for study abroad. So I think 2 answers for that. Just a basic answer first. You're absolutely right that the semester abroad, it might be very affordable for a student at a private residential institution because a lot of their expenses simply transfer to overseas, right?

And often their host city is much cheaper than New York City. For CUNY students, they no longer can live with their parents or other family members. They're no longer eating with the family, and they also have to sacrifice that job that they are using to pitch into household expenses. So, yes, stipends would be a very important resource for those students.

And Stephen can provide more texture. Yeah, I can point to a few programs that we have. Some of them are exchanges that allow students to pay their CUNY tuition and go abroad. But we also have a program in China, for example, that has now reopened that is very inexpensive. It's under $10,000 for the semester, room, board, tuition, included.

And so we work to find affordable programs specifically to allow students with less disposable income to do these types of things. It's not easy. It's really hard for these students to see themselves abroad and to give up that job, to find things. Occasionally, we are operating in countries where students are allowed to receive some work authorization. And that's also sometimes very helpful for students.

In China, they cannot work. They can get— if they do an internship, they can get lunch money and transportation back and forth, which isn't bad. But in other places, you know, in Australia, for example, a student can work at a pretty decent rate. But it's hard. It's recognized it's hard. I would just love to be able to see what the data says about the percentage of these students who are making these opportunities available to them, because we know how important study abroad can be.

And then, as the Chair pointed out, money obviously is a factor, but we'd like to be able to figure out in the context of money what could assist these students in making those choices. Because then I would turn back to the Chair saying we maybe create some conversations around those possibilities, especially for our targeted population. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And we started having those discussions from the very beginning. How can we support— how can this council support that, expand the travel, and support you? We— I know folks don't like to talk about money, but money makes things work, right? So we got to talk about money. Councilmember— oh, at first I'd like to recognize Councilmember Maloney, and Councilmember Brewer has a follow-up question.

I know several CUNY students who've gotten Fulbrights and Marshalls. Do you keep track of those? and how do you prepare? That obviously gives you the opportunity to travel, no kidding. So do you keep track? Or maybe there are other similars. Those are the two I know. So my office, which is the Center for Global Engagement, oversees study abroad and other opportunities as well.

So we are highly engaged in working with our scholarship office, which does the primary advising for those scholarships. We also work closely with our honors programs, both our Verrazzano and Macaulay honors programs, which also is an ICSE. The Poly's in my district. Which are great feeders for those programs, the Fulbrights, etc. We do keep track. I don't have the numbers of students that have won, but I will say the College of Staten Island has been aggressive.

We are now in our 4th year of being a top producer Hispanic-serving institution top producer of Fulbrights. And in 2017, we were the top producer of Fulbrights for our category of schools. So yes, we do keep track and we put the plaques on our wall. But what about the other universities, other campuses? They have you, but not everybody has you.

My campus does have me. Each of our campuses, I believe, does have a scholarship advisor that works closely. I don't know if they keep track with their study abroad abroad offices. Okay, I think you're doing a great job. I do think that every campus needs to be a little bit more hard-hitting and applying for these opportunities. I think I know a lot of the students who get Fulbrights and Marshalls, so— but go ahead.

It needs to be more hard-hitting, I think. Go ahead. I absolutely agree, and I'm glad that you brought up Fulbright and these other opportunities. The way we think of Fulbright and Marshall and all the Rhodes and all of these is that the students who have studied abroad as undergraduates are the best positioned to compete for these opportunities.

And so we like to connect our— and we actually, we met last spring with the scholarships and fellowships advisors to say, how can we better connect our returning students with you so that right when they come back and they're excited and they're motivated, that they know who to go to? Now, I will say some of our campuses have incredible resources in this respect and very strong track records, there is not an equivalent point of contact at each of our institutions.

And so one thing that we're doing right now, because we can't magically create that equivalent resource at each campus, is for the Gilman Scholarship, which does apply for undergraduate opportunities, We are going to share out information that our colleagues bring back from seminars with the Gilman Scholarship administrator, the Institute for International Education. We're going to share it out with all the relevant points of contact that we can find, and sometimes that might be a writing center.

If there isn't a scholarships office, then there are people who can support students who ask the question, but we don't want students. to be told we don't do this here, because we absolutely can and we should. We all sometimes quietly needle each other to embarrass each other to do better. Well, I think maybe we can work with the chair to do that, do better.

I just put all of your, like, Muse, 'cause I'm a Muse addict now. So all of your scholarships showed up and a few more. So put it in Muse and you'll get more.

Thank you, Councilmember Brewer. Is there eventually going to be a plan where all community colleges, just the community colleges, plan to sit together to see how can we exchange ideas, better practices in having a better study abroad and recruiting, you know, the underrepresented students that we talked about and the ones that normally would not go on that trip?

Is that something that we're thinking about? I think we should bring everyone to the room and let them explain also the challenges they face in doing that work and see how we can work— all work together to make sure our students are traveling and gaining new experiences and all of that. And we heard leadership skills. I'm a New York City council member today.

I studied abroad. I was an educator. So it paid off. I think that's an excellent idea. We have tried versions of that in the past. I think that the competitive dynamic that Steven mentioned is— it can be a help or a hindrance, and we've got to harness that correctly. Because, as you know, one of our community colleges has been extraordinarily successful in recent years at increasing those numbers.

I think that that almost makes it look like, oh, well, you have this resource, you have $1 million, of course you're doing well. That's not necessarily constructive, right? And I do want for the leadership to come from within the community colleges and simply support it. So it's going to be tricky to find a way to accomplish this.

I would like to go back and look at, you know, the college that did this. They were also a leader before they got that money, and they were providing fundraising for scholarships, and they didn't actually provide it as scholarships to individual students. They simply subsidized the cost of the programs that they were developing in-house, and that made it very sustainable.

So, you know, whether that money is there tomorrow or 2 years from now really will not be decisive. They're going to be able to sustain strong programming. The question is, how can we build that up at other campuses, recognizing that they're standing in a different river. Okay. Okay. That does make sense.

I know earlier you talked about how you're not satisfied with the demographic breakdown of CUNY students who study abroad. So, we know we have some work to do that— to do there. What advertising and promotion is done across CUNY campuses? I know we talked about briefly, but how else do you get word Is it through email, advertisement, brochures?

How do they find out? And do you think it's enough? And how come some students still are reluctant to join your program? So, I think one of the most powerful outreach mechanisms that we have right now is the weekly CUNY This Week, or that— the opening rate for that is tremendous. So, we've used that and we've noticed spikes with that.

We need to do better with that. I've actually had conversations with one of our campuses that is in that situation that I mentioned with virtually no students participating. They are actually— they're not ready to hold their own study abroad fair, but they did ask about fairs being held at neighboring campuses, which I thought was an incredible place to start.

And so we're creating those connections and figuring out Good first steps to build that culture. And so it's— there are CUNY-wide efforts, but then there's also ways to support individual campuses to have messaging reach their particular populations. And especially if there aren't peers speaking to other peers, how do you build that up? I can answer for my campus.

If there's an outlet, we're using it. Instagram, Facebook, MySpace. We're using Muse. We're using, you know, we're using mailers. We're using posters. We're using fairs on campus. We're using email. We're using EAB Navigate. We're using Rave if they let us use the text system. You name it, we will use it. We are of the opinion, you know, the old adage was what you had to tell something, tell somebody something 5 times in 3 different ways.

We go for 15 in 10 different ways, right? We feel that our students need to constantly hear this message and hear it from the beginning and hear it from day 1 or even before that, that they hear that they can do this. And that's our message. You can do this. One of the things that's always interesting about advertising and study abroad is you're competing against Coca-Cola and Sprite and the latest movie, and you're competing against Flash, and you're competing against things.

But you're trying to sell an academic program. You have to sell it both as exciting and fun, but you have to make sure that you hold dear to the academics on it. And that makes it tricky. It's maybe a little bait and switch. Get a student super interested in going to an exciting place, and then when they get there, make them study.

And they can find Coca-Cola and Sprite abroad too. That's what we say. I hope you say that.

Is there— does CUNY have set a goal to see how many students it can enroll for study abroad? Is there a number? Is there a goal that you're setting that, hey, I want to get this particular— this amount of students to study abroad? Is that something you guys are working on? So it's a fair question. You and Councilmember Dinowitz, I think we need to come back at that.

But I would like to say that although numeric targets are important, In some ways, they're always looking around the corner at the next term or 2 or year or 2. I really like an approach which is also informed by looking at down the road who is coming to CUNY and do they think about CUNY as a place where they're going to have these opportunities.

And to that end, I think although it's small scale, there is something that Professor Rothman has done which I think has planted some amazing seeds. And I hope she can speak to that now. So we've actually gone into some middle schools to talk about the experiences that the students have that go on, that have gone abroad, have spoken in some middle schools to tell students about chimpanzees and gorillas and all the different experiences that they've had.

And the students are really thrilled about it. We also host high school students in our lab, so they learn about the research that we do and all the opportunities that they can have. So I think that, you know, that's been really nice and also fun for me to go back to the school that I went to, to show them what I've done and what they could possibly do, but also hearing from the students who've been abroad and seeing, you know, learning from them.

And I just want to, just to the earlier point, I just want to say, Students that study abroad come into the classes that the students take for their life science requirement and they say, this summer I went and I saw a wild chimpanzee and I collected data, or just this winter I went and I saw a lion.

All the students are like, what? You? And they show a picture. I think it's a really effective way of just recruiting students. I'd like it if 100% of our students once studied abroad, but I know that that can't be a CUNY goal. Thanks. Well, thank you.

Does CUNY offer study opportunities outside of New York City in other parts of the US, which would be considered, I guess, domestic study abroad? Is there any opportunities for students to study in other states? There is a program administered by Queens College which offers this kind of domestic study away. I don't have numbers on current participation because although all of the campuses send their data on study abroad to my office, they do not— they're not required to include data on domestic study away, but I can get that for you.

Okay, do you have any examples of where they go? It's been a while, so I don't, but it is a fixed So it's very much based on the same model as our exchange programs. So students are going to consistent institutions that are used to having our students and that we know have a good track record of taking good care of them, and that we also receive their students.

So it's also based on tuition reciprocity. It's a very streamlined way for students to broaden their experience while they're undergraduates.

Once you perfect the system, because I hear that across the board that you're looking to perfect this, do you plan to expand the overseas program, the study abroad program? I think expansion, I would say, I would like to think that the range of programs that we have is always going to evolve and respond to current opportunities. That will also involve some programs that there's either— there's not enough demand or safety in that area over a period of time.

I will say in a previous position, I used to send students regularly to Mali. Right. There were incredible opportunities. It was a visual and performing arts program. You could never do that now. Right. So you have to find other opportunities and grow those opportunities. I think that the interest now in programs in Morocco Morocco is in part a reaction to problems sending students to other locations in the Middle East.

We know that Hunter College, which has a very strong Arabic language program, has really struggled to find opportunities for its students. And they have been investigating opportunities in Morocco because their programs in Jordan have not been feasible for a while. Okay. Okay. All right. So we have work to do. This council has to support in expanding. We want to see that opportunity.

I know Councilmember Brewer, Epstein, and Dinowicz and my colleagues, I know we talked about, one, how can we perfect this system? How can we expand? How can we allow every New York City student that comes through your doors to experience what it's like to study abroad? We would love to work in partnership with you. You have a partner in this I know it was important for me when I did my study abroad, and also that experience really changed the trajectory of what I wanted to do.

So I think CUNY has a great opportunity to do that with our students. So we have to find money, right, Councilmember? We need money. Money makes everything work. Muse.

And Muse. Muse will tell us everything. So I thank you all. And I look forward to— I'm going to reach out to you. I'm going to give you my email because I do— any of you travel abroad, do any anthropology work? Other than Uganda, do you do anthropology work anywhere else? I actually travel to other places, but not with students, to, you know, to study monkeys and apes, yes.

But other people in my department do. additional anthropology work specifically in Iceland and Madagascar. So other, you know— We need you here in New York. I told you I wanna create a pipeline for young students to do anthropology, bioanthropology study as we continue to discover more and more African burial grounds in the city. I told you I have one in my district that I'm looking to create a pipeline through CUNY to study to study more.

So mine is big. It was, it was there since 1600. The city built on it twice. It was desecrated. So now we're looking to memorialize it, but we also want to make sure we're testing the soil, making sure we find out what was there before, similar to the one they just found in Harlem and the one in Van Cortlandt.

So we want to make sure that the anthropology and the work, the pipeline, come from CUNY. So I'm looking forward to talking to you and creating a partnership and a pipeline for young people to know that this career, this field also exists. And that was one of the things when you talk to young people, they're like, well, I didn't know that was a career.

Yeah, I think that'd be wonderful. And I think the students would really enjoy it and they'd be just thrilled to participate. And I know that other CUNY anthropologists would be interested for sure. Yes, so let's have a conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. And this concludes our amazing hearing. See, I didn't keep y'all too long today. That's great.