Town Hall Shares BMCC’s Strategies to Increase Successful Student Transfer Through AcMo 2.0 Initiative

On Monday, April 11, Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) students, faculty and staff attended a Town Hall focused on BMCC’s role as part of Academic Momentum (AcMo) 2.0, a CUNY-wide initiative to improve undergraduate graduation rates with a focus on supporting transfer opportunities for students.

The event was held at BMCC’s 199 Chambers Street campus in the lecture hall at Room N-451, as well as streamed live for a remote audience.

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Erwin Wong welcomed the BMCC faculty and staff in attendance, giving some background on the AcMo initiative.

An earlier AcMo 1.0, he said, aligned with BMCC’s mission to provide students with the skills and knowledge to succeed academically, transfer to a senior college and enter the workforce.

“The graduation rate has been improving for the past five years,” said Provost Wong, “but even with degree maps and articulation agreements, some students are still losing credits when they transfer to a senior college.”

CUNY established AcMo 2.0, building on the success of AcMo 1.0, to address that situation, he explained. “Accelerating degree completion and transfer success is now our goal.”

Representatives from all seven of BMCC’s AcMo 2.0 subcommittees spoke to update the BMCC community on their area of focus.

In general, there are efforts underway to expand BMCC’s successful co-requisite courses, which blend remedial course content into credit-bearing classes; to encourage more students to take advantage of the College’s CUNY Start and Math Start programs; to build curricular alignment and communication with senior colleges; to expand supplemental instruction; to review and update BMCC’s articulation agreements with senior colleges; to create industry advisory boards to inform course development for A.A.S. degree programs; to create transfer mentors; to continue building the BMCC AcMo 2.0 website and communicate transfer options and news to the BMCC community, and more.

A detailed PowerPoint presentation provided key points as speakers took the podium.

These included:

Gateway Course Completion: Sangeeta Bishop, Chair, Social Sciences, Human Services and Criminal Justice Department, and Janice Zummo, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs for Support Services;

Degree Maps: Tom Harrison, Director, BMCC E-Learning, and Carei Thomas, Director of Academic Advisement and Transfer Center (not in attendance);

Credit Accumulation Campaigns and Strategies: Tiffany James, Director, Student Success, Office of Student Affairs;

Establishing a Foundation for Seamless and Timely Transfer, Lisa Kasper, Director, Admissions and Outreach, Office of Enrollment Management;

Curriculum: David Barnett, Acting Dean of Academic Affairs and Lesley Rennis, Chair, Health Education Department;

Preparing Students for Transfer: Pedro Pérez, Director, College Discovery at BMCC and Michael Hutmaker, Dean of Student Affairs, and

Communications, Manny Romero, Executive Director, Public Affairs.

 

 

 

Learn more about BMCC’s Academic Momentum 2.0 (AcMo 2.0) initiative.

View the PowerPoint presentation from the April 12 AcMo 2.0 Town Hall at BMCC.

Here is the full list of names of BMCC’s AcMo 2.0 subcommittees.

Learn more about CUNY’s multi-campus, Academic Momentum Campaign.