[CBW_Exec] Fwd: response to "UC Admissions Changes Align with StateStrategic Higher Education Plan."

Fri Aug 14 09:36:03 CDT 2009

Susan,

The letter is terrific. Thanks for forwarding it to us. I hope it reaches a wider audience, particularly at UC.

All the best,
Deborah

Deborah Mutnick, Director of Writing
English Department
1 University Plaza
Long Island University
Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-488-1110

________________________________

From: cbw_exec-bounces at tamu-commerce.edu on behalf of Susan Bernstein
Sent: Thu 8/13/2009 2:53 PM
To: Aaron M. Kerley; Amy Winans; Ann Green; Sonya Armstrong; Pip Brougham II; buzzmonkee; Shannon Carter; Pete Johnson; Barbara Gleason; deborah sanchez; Debbie Sternecky; Deborah Mutnick; Jennifer Kwon Dobbs; Conference of Basic Writing Executive Board; Mast, Eric (mastea); Paulson, Eric (paulsoe); Jonathan Alexander; Lalicker, William; Rebecca Mlynarczyk; MPRaupach at aol.com; Holley, Michelle (holleyma); claudine.debray at uc.edu
Subject: [CBW_Exec] Fwd: response to "UC Admissions Changes Align with StateStrategic Higher Education Plan."

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the Center for Access and Transition, the University of Cincinnati Program where I taught from 2004-2007, will be eliminated as of summer 2010.  Following is the letter I sent to the University.

Best regards,

Susan Naomi Bernstein

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Susan Bernstein <susan.naomi at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Subject: response to "UC Admissions Changes Align with State Strategic Higher Education Plan."
To: greg.hand at uc.edu
Cc: susan.stringer at uc.edu, jean.griffin at uc.edu, lillian.santa-maria at uc.edu, marianne.kunnen-jones at uc.edu, letters at citybeat.com, tcallinan at enquirer.com, chief.newsrecord at gmail.com, newsrecordnews at gmail.com, opinion.newsrecord at gmail.com, letters at dispatch.com

Greg Hand
University of Cincinnati
2600 Clifton Ave
Cincinnati OH 45221
(0141) EDWARDS 2 3356
Government Relations & University Communications
Assoc Vice President
University Spokesperson
greg.hand at uc.edu 

Dear Mr. Hand,

I write in response to your article of 8/7/09 "UC Admissions Changes Align with State Strategic Higher Education Plan."(1) The demise of the Center for Access and Transition (CAT), one of the most significant changes, is buried in paragraph five. This change is attributed to the state law that eliminates funding for developmental education programs at Ohio's major public universities.  Most of these taxpayer-funded universities are located in economically distressed urban and rural communities with struggling public K-12 school systems.   The article fails to mention this fact; the article also fails to mention that 37% of the students who began their education at the Center for Access and Transition in 2007-08 were African-American.(2) 

According to a Diversity Task Force report on Fall 2006 enrollments, the CAT was described as having a potentially positive impact on providing access to and increasing the enrollment of students of color.(3) However with the elimination of the CAT, that agenda seems to have effectively ended.  Instead, under-financed and educationally stigmatized institutions like Cincinnati State will carry a heavier load.  UC, which benefits from revenues from all tax-paying citizens of Cincinnati, will now bar access to students who would most benefit from its plentiful resources.

In your article Caroline Miller, senior associate vice president for enrollment management, states that after five years, UC has made the following "discovery": "It appears strength of high school, living on campus, motivation/enthusiasm for college and UC and support from athletics are positive contributing factors."(4) I find it worrisome that it took UC five years to make a "discovery" that educational researchers have been studying for several decades.  

The findings of Attewell and Lavin's award-winning study(5), for instance, suggest that with sufficient time and support students who do not fit into Miller's description can in fact succeed in a four-year university environment and can improve their economic situation in ways that have lasting positive impacts on their children and grandchildren.  It is distressing that UC (and indeed Governor Strickland and the Ohio State Legislature) did not take this evidence into consideration when it made the decision to deny access to students who did not have the privilege of attending strong high schools. 

UC's decision to eliminate the Center for Access and Transition seems even more tragic in these times of great economic difficulty for the state of Ohio and the city of Cincinnati and the surrounding region.  In its early years, the CAT boasted higher enrollments and a robust sense of optimism. I know because I was a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor at the CAT from 2004 to 2007. I have studied the benefits of developmental education for more than twenty years; in 2008 I published an article about the CAT that documented the improvements made by students in a beginning developmental writing course over a short ten-week quarter time period.(6) In the early years of CAT, faculty had access to more support for research, with the caveat that our research would directly benefit CAT students.  However, by the spring of 2007, it was clear that CAT was on the chopping block.  Funding for vital student support services, including research support, has greatly diminished in the years since.  Research faculty, myself included, left the CAT when we understood that our students and our program were not a funding priority for UC.
The "admissions changes" that you outline in your article have real life consequences for Cincinnati students and their families who cannot afford housing in districts with "strong" public schools and who do not have the funds for private education. I understand that UC must be accountable to legislators and other stakeholders in the state of Ohio and beyond. It seems, however, that we almost never are accountable to the students, and to the young people who we leave drowning in the wreck of access denied.

Thank you for your kind consideration of my letter.

Sincerely, 

Susan Naomi Bernstein, PhD

75-23 113th St. #1J
Forest Hills, NY 11375
susan.naomi at gmail.com

Notes
1.     Hand, Greg. "UC Admissions Changes Align with State Strategic Higher Education Plan." University of Cincinnati News. 7 August 2009. http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=10500
2.    University of Cincinnati Fact Book, Autumn 2008. http://www.uc.edu/institutionalresearch/report.htm 
3.     Recruitment and Retention Subcommittee Task Force Diversity Task Force. http://www.uc.edu/diversitytaskforce/documents/appendix_I.pdf  
4.     Hand, Greg. "UC Admissions Changes Align with State Strategic Higher Education Plan." University of Cincinnati News. 7 August 2009. http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=10500 
5.     Paul Attewell, David E. Lavin, Thurston Domina, and Tania Levey. Passing the Torch:Does Higher Education for the Disadvantaged Pay off Across the Generations?    New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. Print.
6.     Bernstein, Susan Naomi. "Material Realities in the Basic Writing Classroom: Intersections of Discovery for Young Women Reading Persepolis 2." Journal of Basic Writing 27.1 (2008). 80-104. Print.