Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

By Desiree Mathurin and Eric Jankiewicz

“May I remind you to remain respectful when asking Chancellor Goldstein questions,” the President of John Jay College Jeremy Travis said to an audience of students, faculty, and members of CUNY. But what was supposed to be a Q & A quickly turned into students demanding cheaper tuition.

On Dec. 1^st the audience members gathered at the Box Black Theater at 1:30 pm to listen to Chancellor Matthew Goldstein talk about CUNY affairs, mainly the recent tuition hikes that have created much controversy among CUNY staff and students.

Goldstein started off the discussion by mentioning that his pledge, when he became Chancellor, was to “create an integrated community” within the CUNY system. He said he understood that in this new world a college education is vital and without it a person’s standing is void.

Outside, students were gathering to protest recent tuition increases. “We demand that CUNY be free,” they chanted in front of John Jay on 10^th avenue between 59^th and 58^th street. A crowd of CUNY law enforcement officers, students and professors gathered minutes after the demonstration started. A broadcaster from the CUNY funded ‘Democracy Now’ news outlet was there, too. The professors who were there joined the protestors in chanting and gave them words of encouragement.

“The tuition increase is a regressive tax,” Economics Professor Joan Hoffman told The John Jay Sentinel. “It’s refreshing to see these students finally get it and are doing something about it.”

Hoffman expressed regret about not seeing more students join the protest.

Niokka Jackson was a student that was just watching the protest. When asked why she wasn’t joining she said, “These protestors need to become more organized.” She also did not like that some of the chants included profanities like “We own this fucking city.”

Sociology Professor Rick Richardson was enthusiastic to see the students fighting the tuition hikes. “I fully support this.” At times he jumped into the chants.

“There are ample funds to make CUNY affordable, if not free,” he said while catching his breath.

Inside the college, Goldstein was saying the exact opposite. “To have a discussion about free tuition is fine but it will lead to nothing. It’s not going to happen.”

The new tuition increases was what most of the students were there for. He said that this new hike is a “rational tuition policy.” He believed that the new hikes would enable John Jay and other CUNY colleges to add more faculty members, and to overall strengthen student services.

At the beginning of his tenure as Chancellor he was “deeply concerned” with the way public education was being treated. He stated that, “public higher education in the U.S. is under serious assault” and that “we face a real national security issue” because the state was not providing enough money to adequately support higher education.

Goldstein claimed that this new tuition hike would go directly back to John Jay and CUNY to, “keep this important institution safe.”

Goldstein and the Board of Trustees helped Governor Andrew Cuomo enact the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant Program. This plan increases tuition up to $300 per year for five years. It also says that the State must, “maintain financial support to SUNY from year to year.” This means the budget for SUNY and CUNY cannot decrease from the previous year’s budget.  This is called “maintenance of effort.”

Goldstein believes that to make John Jay and CUNY better institutions, students must, “share the responsibility with generating revenue.” He also mentioned that although students will feel the tuition hikes, “58% of students pay nothing” for tuition.

The next topic Goldstein addressed was his enthusiasm to fix the community college’s reputation. He mentioned that before his reform the graduation rate for the community colleges was 20% and now it has been raised to “between 55% and 57%.”

As Goldstein was saying these things, certain students became impatient. Domingo Estevez purposely put his phone on the loudest setting so that Goldstein’s voice was constantly accompanied by his ringer and every so often he would yell, “Your 10 minutes are up” to Goldstein.

Undeterred, Goldstein continued without pause.  Then Goldstein finished and the floor was open to anyone. Students that were previously protesting outside had come into the theater and they all had their hands up, ready to ask Goldstein about the tuition hikes.

Kenneth Cruz, one of the organizers of the protest, said to Goldstein, “Most of us will no longer be able to afford going here because of the tuition hikes.” And, “Within five years most people attending CUNY won’t be able to go here anymore.”

Goldstein responded, “That was spoken eloquently and straight to the point.” He suggested that he and students should “be working together to lobby Albany” as a way of reducing tuition hikes.

Another student activist present at the discussion, Sally Abdelghafar, also thought students should be working with the chancellor. “I would ask the chancellor to join our movement,” she explained.  Abdelghafar was one of the organizers for one of their first protests on Oct. 5^th,. During the Oct. protest she had one of the loudest voices in the crowd. But not this time. Something had changed since last time and it wasn’t her. Abdelghafar didn’t agree with how the student protestors conducted themselves with Goldstein.

During the discussion, students often interrupted Goldstein and once they broke out into a brief chant, “Students united will never be divided.”

Towards the end one student had burst into tears and yelled at Goldstein for the tuition hikes. Goldstein soon gave up the discussion and walked off stage without a word, leaving Travis baffled as to what to do next.

In these next coming months the student protestors are likely to continue their movement. The question now becomes how will they go about arguing their agendas? Will it be filled with profanity and shouts? Or will they do something else, like what Abdelghafar believes about working with Goldstein?