DOCUMENT RESUME JC 990 382 ED 431 460 The First Twenty-Five Years: LaGuardia Community College TITLE CUNY. LaGuardia Works. La Guardia Community Coll., Long Island City, NY. INSTITUTION 1997-00-00 PUB DATE NOTE 92p. Reports - Descriptive (141) PUB TYPE EDRS PRICE MF01/PC04 Plus Postage. Budgeting; College Students; Community Colleges; *Diversity DESCRIPTORS (Faculty); *Diversity (Student); *Educational History; Facility Expansion; Faculty; *Long Range Planning; Outcomes of Education; *Social Change; Two Year Colleges *City University of New York IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This document chronicles the 25 year history of La Guardia "A Sign of Its Times," describes the beginnings Community College. Chapter 1, of La Guardia Community College, including the first buildings, departments, faculty, and staff members. At a time before the concepts of multiculturalism and diversity entered the mainstream, about one-third of the college's faculty were women and one-forth were people of color. Chapter Two, "Orientation," describes the first students and highlights their accomplishments. La Guardia's first freshman class consisted of 537 students, of whom 312 were women and 225 were men. An internal report noted that the ethnic distribution was not highly diversified, which spurred the creation of multicultural programs and efforts in the coming years. The second chapter also discusses the development of La Guardia's student services, and student clubs and organizations. Chapter 3, "Growing Pains," describes the budget cuts, political dissatisfaction, increased societal demands, and other critical issues that affected the daily lives of all members of the college's community. Chapters 4 and 5, "Maturity" and "New Beginnings," highlight the many accomplishments of the college. They describe La Guardia's increased services to a broader and more diversified community, and individuals within the college's community who have distinguished themselves by making major contributions to the quality of life. This document concludes with "The Road Ahead," projections for the future of the college. (TGO) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * * ******************************************************************************** FIRST TWENTY- FIVE YEARS "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY J. Weintraub TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." ..:::!go.:4" LAGUARDIA COMMUNITY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Qf his document has been reproduced as COLLEGE ceived from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to CUNY improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. BEST COPY AVAILABLE Contents CHAPTER ONE A SIGN OF ITS TIMES CHAPTER TWO ORIENTATION 17 CHAPTER THREE GROWING PAINS 51 CHAPTER FOUR MATURITY 45 CHAPTER FIVE NEW BEGINNINGS 65 CHAPTER SIX THE ROAD AHEAD 85 J © 1997 LaGuardia Cmunifv Colleae/CLJNY LaGuardia Community College: The First 25 Years By Terry Golway 1 M0 1 1 0 I I W 4 " 1 k - - - 4 1 = = 4 4 1 1 : S i , i I V I I . - CHAPTER ONE 0 EZ n the beginning there was only a number, and the number was nine. On January 22, 1968, a dreary mid-winter's afternoon, members of the Board of Higher Education gathered for a routine session in the board's meeting room on President Joseph Shenker East 80th Street. There were several items on the agenda, most of them of the and Vice President Martin housekeeping variety. One bit of business, however, promised to be far from routine, Moed devising course for it eventually would affect the lives of thousands of young people, give birth to schedules in LaGuardia's dozens of educational innovations and become a focal point in the revival of a early years. neighborhood. After running through the usual agenda, Board e members passed a resolution establishing something called Community College Number Nine. In this anonymous fashion the lb institution that became LaGuardia Community College was born. 1 The 1960s had witnessed the greatest expansion of publicly funded higher education in New York's history. The decade saw the birth of several new senior colleges (John Jay, Richmond, York andin 1970Medgar Evers) as well as three new community colleges (Kingsborough, Borough of Manhattan and Hostos). In addition, Lehman College had been split off from Hunter College and Baruch from City College. Community College Number Nine was to be the newest, but by no means the last, part of City University's plan to respond to and grow with a changing New York City. After Community College Number Nine would come, naturally, Community College Number Ten. Such were the expectations of a heady era. of LaGuardia While January 22, 1968, may be regarded as the moment that would become the Community College's conception, the ideas and philosophy for well over a century. City school's hallmarks had been a part of New York of an extraordinary and far-sighted University itself has its roots in the establishment founded in the city in 1849 to experiment in education known as the Free Academy, York's public schools (or common provide free higher education to graduates of New Academy was founded to allow "the schools, as they were called at the time). The Free together and know of no children of the rich and the poor [to] take their seats intellect." The day the Free distinction save that of industry, good conduct and president, Horace Webster, said: Academy opened its doors for the first time, its The experiment is to be tried whether the highest education can be given to the masses; whether the children of the people, the children of the whole people, can be educated; and whether an institution of learning of the highest grade can be successfully controlled by the popular will, not by the privileged few, but by the privileged many. the establishment of Community When the Board of Higher Education approved "learning of the highest grade" was College Number Nine, its members knew that Horace Webster might not have about to be opened to the "privileged many" in a way preparing to implement yet envisioned in antebellum New York. City University was admissions, the guarantee that any another experiment in higher educationopen place in higher graduate of the city's public schools would have a "of the whole education. Those graduates indeed would be children families of the New people," for they would come from households and York that was York that was emerging in the late 1960s, a New its history. The nation becoming more diverse than at any other time in in higher education for the kept a close eye on New York's experiment noted that City University's "switch from masses. Time magazine world's most radical elitism to egalitarianism represents the academic in the nation's cities.... C.U.N.Y. and response... to explosive changes from poor youths, often other urban universities confront rising pressure college degrees that members of minority groups, who yearn for the status." they look upon as a ticket to U.S. affluence and unheard of at the Concepts such as ethnic and racial pluralism were Education time, but City University and the Board of Higher Board's master plan in 1972 noted Martin Moed was among understood the idea, even if it lacked a name. The population grew from 9 percent to 14 the founders of the college that while the non-white percentage of the city's and later served as its of non-white students percent from 1950 to 1960, City University's percentage acting president. York would lose nearly a remained stagnant at 5 percent. During the 1960s, New than three-quarters of a million million whites, and they would be replaced by more 7 African Americans, Latinos and other groups. If City University were to be true to the mandate of Horace Webster, it would have 1P,17117fl'ErmT to reflect this emerging, new New York. Not only was the city's demographic and cultural landscape changing, but likewise its economy. City Universitymany a poor family's port of entry into the middle classunderstood that it would have a key role in determining whether, and how, New York's work force adapted to new economic realities. As lAW Community College Number Nine reached the drawing board, the city already had witnessed a sharp decline in manufacturing jobs, It all started here: a longtime staple of its economy. The trend would continue in the next quarter-century. LaGuardia's original And the composition of the work force itself was changing, too. Well before the rest of building, as seen in the nation noticed, City University realized that a gender revolution was about to take the early 1970s. place. "There are signs that the traditional division of labor along sexual lines will undergo change," a University report noted in the early 1970s. Somebody was going to have to provide the new New York with an educated, well-trained work force drawn from families and groups that higher education traditionally overlooked. In another age, under other leaders, such a prospect might have seemed daunting, and perhaps even hopeless. The 1960s, however, recognized neither limits nor obstacles. City University chose to take the Free Academy's founding principle to its ultimate expression. Open admissions was intended to be the vehicle by which City University would respond to the changes in the city and in society. There would be a place in the University for any New York City public school graduate with a dream, regardless of socioeconomic class or racial background or cultural tradition. Cost was not a matter for discussion. Tuition, in the century-old tradition, was free, and the taxpayers considered such generosity to be part of what made New York a great city. Open admissions meant there would be greater demand for seats in the University, and the need for more community colleges was discussed as early as 1964, in the midst of the University's bold expansion. Community College Number Nine would be the fourth of five new community colleges built with the demands of open admissions in mind. The University anticipated that open admissions would require the number of community college seats to increase from 22,000 in 1970 to 51,970 five years later. The new college, according to a proposal drafted for the Board of Higher Education, was to be "comprehensive in terms of its variety of program offerings ... and its community service mission. Students will be able to choose among courses wolluelmwpmc of study leading to the sualsamettrwv,L,- P. SIWOROAMOte MOOOMMORMItION A.A.S. degree and WWWWW wamtaawf WWWWW MCIOWAW MOMMIWWWWW}W immediate s 011 11!!!!WIJI.!AP, employment, or those leading to the A.A. or A.S. degree which will guarantee automatic transfer to a four- year baccalaureate program within City University. The college will be oriented to the needs and interests of the community in which it is located, providing cultural activities, special services, continuing education and skills training opportunities for community residents of all ages." With this broad mission statement in mind, the Office of the Dean for Community College Affairs began the work of converting a bureaucratic resolution into the brick and mortar of reality. Taking charge of the task was the Dean for Community College Affairs himself, Dr. Joseph Shenker, already a top-level City University administrator while in his mid-20s. Shenker was precociously well- connected and enjoyed a close relationship with City University Chancellor Albert Bowker. His quick rise to the highest levels of City University's leadership would serve him well in later years, for he 0- understood how the systemwhether from the academic or the political sideworked. In its earliest days of gestation, Community College Number Nine consisted of a file cabinet in a room at the Board of Higher Education's headquarters, where planning was underway. "That's how I got my first Ann Marcus receives an award in 1976 for look at the college," recalled Dr. Martin Moed, who was City University's associate her work as dean of dean for occupational programs at the time. "The college was a file cabinet with one continuing education. file in it, and it was labeled 'Community College Number Nine." Early on, when the college consisted of little more than dreams written on paper, the University's planners (primarily Bowker and Shenker) decided that Community College Number Nine's signature program would be cooperative education. Each of the new community colleges would specialize in a given theme, and co-op was to be Community College Number Nine's. "The idea came from Joe Shenker," said Dr. Mary Ryan was the Harry Heinemann, LaGuardia's Dean of Cooperative Education. Co-op, Heinemann college's first personnel said, would serve as a way to encourage the sons and daughters of working-class and labor relations director. parents to consider extending their education while also receiving real, on-the-job training for careers. The program would establish a link between school and work, allaying the fears of struggling parents who were skeptical of the need for higher education. Thomas Triviano, a member of LaGuardia's first graduating class, knew that college was in his future while he was attending Monsignor McClancy High School, near his family's home in Maspeth. Unlike some of his future classmates, his father had gone to college, so he was not a family trailblazer. Even so, he "had no direction," he said. "I wasn't certain about what I wanted to do." He won admission to several private colleges, and his family could have afforded the tuition, but he decided to attend LaGuardia because of co-op. "It offered the experience to go out into the work force and give you exposure to that part of life," he said. "That's what fascinated me about LaGuardia. I thought it would give me an opportunity to find out something about myself." Generally speaking, the concept of co-op was not new, but no other two-year college in the country had such a program, and no other institution of higher education offered co-op for credit. The new college would require three for-credit internships, and would fold the co-op concept into every facet of academic life. From the beginning, then, this as-yet nameless college was staking out a new path, regardless of the briars and brambles underfoot. The rewards of exploration were well worth the risk (and possible pain) of a missed step. In the midst of the preliminary planning, Shenker was named 41,!, Acting President of Kingsborough Community College. The appointment took effect on Sept. 8, 1969. The Board noted at the time, however, that Shenker would not be a candidate for permanent president of Kingsborough. Indeed, he served in Brooklyn just seven months, and on April 29, 1970, Acting President Shenker of Kingsborough became President Shenker of Community College r-, Number Nine. When he was serving as Dean for Community College a' 7- ----- 1 Affairs, Shenker had been the chief architect of the school's still- unfolding plans. Now, he would make those plans reality. At the same time, the new president was presented with a new building, that is to say, an old building that would serve as his new place of business. The Board of Higher Education passed a resolution approving the purchase of a 50-year-old, five- story Ford Instrument Company factory building on Thomson Avenue in Long Island City to house the new college. The facility had been remodeled in 1940 and soon afterwards was turned over to the production of material for the U.S. armed services in World War II. The Board's resolution noted, apparently without irony, that the building was suited to its new purposes because it "could be readily adapted to college use and in fact it would appear that the college could make immediate use of certain areas within the building, thereby obviating the need to rent 'start-up' space elsewhere." Presumably the facilities judged to be ready-made for college use did not include the acid vat that was rumored to lurk below the building's first floor. In any case, the fledgling college now had a president, a location and a building. All it lacked was a name. That issue was resolved in October 1970, when the Board of Higher Education approved a resolution to the effect that: "... in proud recognition of Fiore llo H. LaGuardia's lifelong public service to the people of the City of New York and of the United States, and his ambitious and successful leadership of good government campaigns to provide decent living conditions and guarantee democratic processes for all, the Board of Higher Education names Community College Number Nine Fiorello H. LaGuardia Community College.''. 0