EVC Hensel Town Hall

Thank you Executive Vice Chancellor Hensel, for your visit to York College on 10/13/22; and for your inspiring presentation/discussion. We look forward to continuing the conversation and moving forward our priorities with your support.

Wendy F. Hensel, executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost of The City University of New York, will visit all 25 CUNY campuses throughout F all 2022 and Spring 2023 in a first-of-its-kind “listening tour.” These campus visits will be a prime opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to engage with the executive vice chancellor (EVC) and for the EVC to connect with the community of each distinct campus.

Each campus visit will feature a one-hour town hall during which students, faculty, and staff can ask questions, in real time, about CUNY matters. This will be opportunity for campuses to highlight their accomplishments and diversity — as well as a chance for the campus community to voice their thoughts about the priorities for CUNY as a whole.

Along with the town hall, EVC Hensel’s campus visits will include meetings with the college president and/or provost, a tour of campus highlights, and meetings with student and faculty leaders as organized by representatives of the college administration.

The listening tour is being organized by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor & University Provost (OEVC) in collaboration with administrative representatives from each CUNY campus; planning sessions have already begun. This is the first comprehensive listening tour of the CUNY system that an executive vice chancellor has undertaken.

Confirmed dates for the Fall 2022 campus visits are as follows.

• September 22: Kingsborough Community College
• October 6: Macaulay Honors College
• October 13: York College
• October 20: College of Staten Island
• October 26: Guttman Community College
• October 31: LaGuardia Community College

More dates are forthcoming and will be posted on the OEVC website in the coming weeks. Details of the campus visits and the time and location of the town halls are forthcoming and will be shared with the campus community by the communications office of each respective campus.

As CUNY’s chief academic officer and chief executive of the Office of Academic Affairs, EVC Hensel oversees ongoing initiatives to improve student transfer, and foster innovation in pedagogy and instruction. She also oversees CUNY’s faculty and student affairs; research programs; student inclusion initiatives; efforts to promote student mental health and wellness; K-16 initiatives and efforts to promote enrollment growth; student success and research evaluation; and academic programs and policies.

EVC Hensel began her tenure at CUNY in June 2022. She has a decade of academic leadership experience at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta, including roles as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs and as dean of their College of Law. A legal scholar who served on GSU’s faculty for twenty-two years, EVC Hensel is also a leading expert in disability law, policy and ethics.

Prior to her academic career, EVC Hensel worked as a private attorney and judicial clerk. Her experience includes working for the law firm Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta, where she litigated discrimination cases and counseled Fortune 500 companies on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. She also served as a clerk for Judge Orinda Evans of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

“CUNY is a social- and economic-mobility powerhouse with potential unlike that of any other university,” said EVC Hensel. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to set foot on each CUNY campus, converse with esteemed campus leaders, engage with the community through town halls, and experience first-hand all the diversity, talent, and uniqueness that makes up this singular institution of higher education.”

College communications offices are requested to share the information in this press release broadly throughout their campus networks.

For questions regarding the listening tour or for media inquiries, contact Jason Brooks, communications director for the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor & University Provost, at Jason.Brooks@cuny.edu.