Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited Guttman Community College to attend its opening on the morning of Aug. 20, seven years ago. In the afternoon, the school held a convocation to welcome its first class. Later that day, an accreditation team came to assess the new community college.
“It was a big day,” says Dr. Scott Evenbeck, Guttman Community College’s president. “We dove in headfirst.” In the last 10 years, a small group of new community colleges, like Guttman, has emerged on the U.S. higher education landscape, reflecting a subtle shift in how community colleges view their mission.
Guttman Community College — the first new campus in the City University of New York (CUNY) system in 40 years — lives in a seven-story building embedded in the thick of midtown Manhattan off Bryant Park. The school was designed to give students extra support in order to boost three-year community college completion rates for students from all backgrounds.
“We’ve really made equity at the center of our work at the
college,” Evenbeck says. “I think that’s what our students deserve, and I hope we’ll be up to the challenge because it’s a big one, but it’s so important.”
Toward that end, Guttman does a number of things differently than most colleges. First, it operates on a guided pathways model, in which students are shepherded through a particularly focused curriculum. The school offers only five majors: liberal arts, business, information technology (IT), urban studies and human services.
All students take statistics, a city seminar course focused on New York City and ethnographies of work. In terms of the academic calendar, the fall and spring semesters are divided into 12-week and six-week segments, which means students can use the shorter terms to catch up on any missed work. Plus, they don’t have to pay extra for summer enrollment.
