CUNY Master Plan 2012-2016

MISSION PART ONE
The task force also developed implementation guidelines relative to sampling, recruitment and participation
incentives, testing protocol, communications, and report analysis. In fall 2012, each undergraduate
campus will administer the CLA (or its community college equivalent) to a representative sample of at
least 100 first-time freshmen. The following spring, the instrument will be given to a sample of 100 seniors.
The samples will reflect the full diversity of matriculated students, including remedial and ESL students.
The CLA results will be primarily used as a signaling tool to highlight differences in programs that can
lead to improvements in teaching and learning. The task force has recommended that it be utilized as one
component of a comprehensive set of assessments that include an appropriate mix of locally designed
curriculum-embedded measures and nationally normed or externally derived measures. The CLA is not a
comprehensive measure of general education outcomes nor is it intended to evaluate all aspects of institutional
effectiveness. What it will do is help CUNY understand patterns and deal with aspects of a CUNY
education that may be in need of change. After adopting the CLA, CUNY will also be able to join the Voluntary
System of Accountability, an initiative of public four-year universities to supply comparable information
on the undergraduate student experience to important constituencies through a common web
report—the College Portrait.
The University as a National Model for Generation and Use of Data
Over the past four years, CUNY has forged ties with several prominent research organizations and
has become a national laboratory for research on an array of academic initiatives. For example, MDRC,
a nationally respected research organization, has conducted assessments of learning communities at
Kingsborough Community College and Queensborough Community College, as well as performancebased
incentives at several colleges. More recently, MDRC has been applying a rigorous experimental
design in its evaluation of the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). CUNY has also made its
data resources available to the Community College Research Center, at Columbia Teachers College, to
conduct a series of studies (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) concerning placement into
and progress through remedial sequences at the community colleges. CUNY’s Paul Attewell, Distinguished
Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center, has received Gates funding for a study of remedial
instruction in the University’s summer immersion programs. The central office has itself funded 10
research projects on remedial and credit-bearing mathematics instruction, all using quasi-experimental
designs. Three campuses (Baruch, BMCC, and CCNY), the central office, and the nonprofit organization
Ithaka are collaborating in a randomized assignment, experimental design comparing an online with a
face-to-face version of introductory statistics.
Over the next four years, CUNY will continue to build the data infrastructure that underpins its capacity
for research and data-driven decision making. In a consolidated data warehouse, CUNY integrates the
information necessary to track from beginning to end the academic career of every degree-seeking student
who has matriculated at a CUNY college. The University is currently remaking its administrative
data systems as part of the CUNYfirst project, described in section V of the Master Plan. As part of this
project, the University will install business intelligence software that will enhance its access to real-time
student data for purposes of assessment and decision support.
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