CUNY Beyond Comes to Kingsborough

RISE President Suri Duitch sits down with CUNY Vice Chancellor Lauren Andersen at Fall Faculty and Staff Convocation to talk targets, students' thirst for career-connected learning and the future of higher ed as campus gears up for new initiative 

CUNY Vice Chancellor for Career Engagement and Industry Partnerships Lauren Andersen sat down with President Suri Duitch at Fall Faculty and Staff Convocation on Tuesday, Sept. 30, to discuss CUNY Beyond, the University’s multi-million-dollar initiative that embeds tailored career preparation directly into a student’s academic experience. The initiative aims to ensure Kingsborough students graduate not only with a degree, but also with meaningful career exposure, internship experience and direct pipelines to top New York industries.

President Duitch started the discussion: “What is different right now in workplace that makes our focus on career-connected learning more urgent and timely than ever before?”

“When talking to employers, professionals currently in the workplace and with alumni, the number one word that comes up is ‘unpredictable,’” Andersen replied.

With artificial intelligence disrupting traditional workflows, new federal policies forcing employers--from nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies—to rethink their funding sources, and pathways into the workforce not being as linear as they once were, employers are expecting students to have had some related work experience before they even enter the door, Andersen said, all of which leads to changing considerations in the workforce and how higher education prepares students for it.

CUNY Beyond aims to prepare students for this unpredictable future. The goal? To ensure every New York public college student graduates with hands-on career preparation by 2030. Each campus will implement the CUNY Beyond framework in three phases over three years: The first year is typically foundational putting people, tools and systems in place. Campuses then scale the practices over the next two years with clear milestones.

Kingsborough is included in the second cohort of CUNY campuses to launch the five-year initiative with a $5.5 million infusion of funds through a combination of state, city and several private foundation grants.

“But you shouldn't think of yourselves as Wave 2," Andersen said on Tuesday. "You're in the vanguard of this work. You are at the forefront of this, not just for CUNY, not just for Brooklyn, but really for the nation because colleges across the country are struggling with this issue.”

CUNY Beyond relies on five pillars:

“But the idea is not that a campus picks a particular pillar and focuses on that,” Andersen said. “What we found is that these interventions really have to happen together in order for students to be successful.”

Students say they want more career-connected learning and most faculty believe it is their job to supply it, Andersen said. But there’s a disconnect that prevents both groups from reaching these goals.

In a recent CUNY survey of approximately 1,600 faculty members, 94 percent said preparing students for careers is part of their job, but 87 percent said they lack the tools or training to do it, Andersen said. And students who had entered into a program that promised career-connected work ignored employment opportunities shared with them because they thought they were “sent to them in error.”

CUNY Beyond aims to close those expectation gaps by providing faculty the tools to make career connections explicit, without adding to their workload. The initiative does not mandate any faculty activity and any curriculum changes will move through faculty governance, just as it does now, Andersen said.

Faculty won’t be expected to become labor market experts either, she added. Instead, they will be connected to people who are.

Starting next month, Kingsborough’s CUNY Beyond “faculty fellows,” Joanna Agnello, a lecturer in the Department of Behavioral Sciences, and James Pacello, a lecturer in the English Department, will lead workshops and seminars on how they can make the career value of assignments clear to students.

On Oct. 14 and 15, the Business of Fashion program is producing a CUNY Beyond-sponsored event, Concept to Creation to Consumer, featuring 17 Kingsborough student and alumni makers and small business owners and a panel of New York City industry experts and entrepreneurs. The event is connected to Business of Fashion program Lecturer Michael Palladino's course on product development and will give students direct access to the brand founders and industry professionals working in the field. 

“Our students aren't here just to pass a class.," CUNY Beyond faculty fellow Agnello said in her opening remarks. "They're here to build a career and a future. And sometimes one assignment, one degree map, one moment of connection, is what changes how the students see themselves and what they believe is possible." 

Information sessions for faculty and staff were held on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 that provided additional information about CUNY Beyond’s goals and how it will be implemented.

More faculty resources can be found on CUNY’s website. Student resources are also available on the Center for Career and Transfer Services page.

Kingsborough is also building out its own CUNY Beyond site for faculty, which will include tools, resources and upcoming CUNY Beyond-focused events.