ABSTRACT
Revising the Model—By 2018, it was clear that the educational and administrative models were in need of structured revision. By this point, enough students had transferred to a four-year college to identify patterns in postgraduation outcomes. The results were quite grim. Although Guttman maintained a remarkably high three-year graduation rate in the first seven years of operation, the mean GPA of its transfer students was lower than its peer institutions in the CUNY system. With fewer remedial students, the rationale for requiring all students to sit through mandatory developmental hours in the FYE faltered. If the same students enrolled at a community college elsewhere in the system, they would not be mandated to complete remedial education. Yet Guttman’s identity for so many years had relied on the embedded developmental education approach to the FYE. By 2018, however, key faculty and senior administrators agreed that this approach was no longer ethically or financially feasible. This chapter will outline these and other areas where the Guttman model requires comprehensive revision to serve the student body effectively. Furthermore, it will discuss various sources of resistance to revision and the reasons why some faculty and staff were reluctant to alter the key components of the model.
