How I Built A Top-Rated Online College
An excerpt from the memoir of CUNY SPS’ founding dean
John Mogulescu, the founding dean of CUNY SPS, retired in 2021 but has been busy! In Fall 2023, Mogulescu published his memoir The Dean of New Things: Bringing Change to CUNY and New York City. In this remarkable book, Mogulescu recounted his long and illustrious 50-year career at the City University of New York, which was capped by his work launching CUNY SPS in 2003. His memoir explores his many programs, initiatives, and achievements, and chronicles how CUNY SPS grew from a little-known school into a national leader in online education.
Mogulescu recently spoke with CUNY SPS as well as WNYC’s Brian Lehrer about his book. In addition to these interviews, we’re also featuring an exclusive excerpt from his memoir. In the section below, Mogulescu describes what led CUNY SPS to become the online college for the City University of New York.
SPS Becomes CUNY’S Online Institution
In the early fall of 2005, Selma Botman, who had succeeded Louise Mirrer as CUNY’s executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, approached me to ask if SPS would develop the first online degree program at CUNY. Selma had already floated the idea to several other CUNY colleges, but none expressed interest. Although some CUNY colleges offered online courses, none had full degrees online.
CUNY was already late to online education. Selma was well aware that online programs were springing up all over the country, including large programs at other public institutions like Penn State, the University of Maryland, the University of Illinois, and Selma’s former home, the University of Massachusetts. CUNY was sitting on the sidelines of a race to build new online programs and to compete for students, largely adults, who were unable to attend in-person classes because of life circumstances.
Selma pointed out that “over 40,000 students had left the University in good academic standing but without a degree since 1999.” In addition, hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers had some college, but no degree. There was a demand, and Selma was eager to meet it.
To succeed in her goal of bringing online degrees to CUNY, SPS was the logical choice, given its short history and its mission to be innovative and responsive to new and worthwhile opportunities.
When I interviewed Selma for this book, she pointed out that in her short time at CUNY she had noticed that our unit at the Central Office almost always responded quickly and effectively to requests to develop new programs. She could see that SPS was beginning to serve a similar role at the campus level. Selma’s long career had demonstrated to her, as had mine had to me, that change did not come easily to higher ed. To succeed in her goal of bringing online degrees to CUNY, SPS was the logical choice, given its short history and its mission to be innovative and responsive to new and worthwhile opportunities. Sitting at a table with a dozen or so CUNY faculty and SPS staff discussing building an online degree, she recalled, was her “most pleasant moment at CUNY.”
Selma’s invitation was an exciting opportunity for SPS. That I knew nothing about the online world and was almost phobic about technology myself was not an insurmountable obstacle. Our team had moved into other new areas knowing little about them. We were confident that we could find the talent to create the degree, believing that there were CUNY faculty. who would want to become part of that process. We were committed to planning the degree in time for it to open for the fall 2006 semester, one year away.
One of my first decisions was to select George Otte to oversee the development of the program. George was an associate professor of English at Baruch College and the Graduate School. He was also the university director of instructional technology. George had been an active member of the CUNY Steering Committee on Academic Resources and Education (SCORE), which the year before had prepared a feasibility report on developing online degrees at CUNY. Through SCORE, George had worked with many CUNY colleagues who believed in the value of online education. As we’d hoped and expected many of them readily accepted George’s invitation to join his faculty development team.
At the same time, SPS staff, under the supervision of Brian Peterson, began to build the infrastructure necessary to support the program: finances, marketing, admissions procedures, library access, student services, and a range of technology support. By the end of 2005, a letter of intent, at that time the first major step in getting a CUNY degree approved, was circulated to all CUNY campuses for review. For the next eight months, a coordinating committee made up of George, faculty, staff, and me met every week to provide updates, review problem areas, and plan next steps.
Want to read more? The Dean of New Things: Bringing Change to CUNY and New York City is available to order here.
