CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

The five-member Negotiation Team of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition on Educational Needs and Services met on December 3, 1968, to discuss a proposed resolution put forward by City University of New York (CUNY) officials to establish Community College 7 as a four-year college with special capacity to grant two-year degrees, rather than as a two-year “junior” as had originally been announced. The resolution, which CUNY officials proposed to submit to the Administrative Council of the Board of Higher Education for its consideration, represented an incremental victory for Bedford-Stuyvesant’s educational and community leaders, who had vigorously advocated that the new college be a four-year-degree granting institution. However, the fact that CUNY officials’ requested that “no public word of this proposal be distributed or circulated until the Board of Higher Education has had a chance to consider it” presented a conundrum for the Negotiation Team, which had been appointed to represent the Bedford-Stuyvesant community’s priorities and demands through an open and transparent process in the planning for the new college .