The degree-granting liberal-arts colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY) have a long tradition of offering affordable, high-quality education to students who could not afford to attend private institutions of higher learning. Some of these CUNY colleges -- Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens colleges -- predate the establishment of the CUNY system. Originally tuition-free, admission to these liberal-arts colleges is still eagerly sought because their degrees are recognized as being on a par with the best private colleges. That reputation of excellence, and the value of their degrees, are about to be destroyed by an initiative of the CUNY Board of Trustees, who are appointed by the Governor of our state and the Mayor of our city.

In a frenzy of cost cutting, the Trustees are proposing a new curriculum, “Pathways to Degree Completion”, which eliminates most of the rigorous course requirements for degrees in the humanities. All foreign-language requirements have been eliminated. Students would be required to take only two English courses and one math course. Electives would have to be sparsely distributed among so many fields that a language student, for example, would be permitted to take only one semester of a foreign-language instruction. The result would be the virtual destruction of all serious study of foreign languages and literature except by students who arrive at college fully prepared to major in those subjects. Foreign-language departments -- and many other liberal-arts faculties -- will become unsustainable and will disappear through attrition. Students in all fields, including math and science, will be unprepared to pursue graduate degrees and any respectable graduate school.

This proposed program is little more than an attack on the humanities in our great liberal-arts colleges. As students, we may be granted degrees that are worth little more that those granted by commercial diploma mills that offer a quick and easy path to a college degree.

Mr. Governor and Mr. Mayor, we want to know where you stand on this question that is vital to our future.