VE at CUNY History
 In
1996, The New York City Department of Education and CUNY explored bringing the
VE concept to New York during site visits and an exploration of the European model.
CUNY, along with two
other American and eight European institutions partnered in a FIPSE grant to develop
the requisite partnerships and infrastructure to bring the VE concept to America.
NYCBE established its first VE's in 1996 and representing CUNY, Kingsborough
Community College (KCC) established the first University-based firms in
1997. Today, NYCBE has VE's in fifty-two high schools serving about 2,000 students
each academic year. With twelve college based VE's at KCC, about 1,000 students
are served per academic year.
Currently, the
VE program at KCC
is housed and supported in eight academic departments, with plans
to expand into another three departments by fall, 2003. Assessment
criteria have been developed as the result of an intensive assessment
regimen developed by the CUNY
Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE). VE courses
are being infused with asynchronous components utilizing the blackboard.com
platform. VE is structured as a capstone course in each department
since it provides a synthesis of competencies developed across the
curriculum regardless of the declared major of the student. VE has
also been successfully utilized as an intervention strategy for
students on academic probation. In this instance, VE serves as a
catalyst in changing student attitudes toward learning. These anecdotal
observations have now been confirmed by a rigorous examination conducted
by CASE
particularly as related to developmental students; "…
the average level of enthusiasm, engagement and effort for KVE students
is indeed consistently higher than for peers in other classes."
In addition to the FIPSE grant, the college has been the recipient of grants from Workforce 2000 and Perkins III. (VATEA).
Virtual Enterprise has been introduced to all CUNY community colleges and to many of the senior colleges as well. CUNY has also supported VE through the provision of release time and technology support. Despite the operational constraints in raising private sector funding
at a public institution, VE has developed a network of private sector
contributors, who also provide other resources including internships,
training, job-shadowing opportunities, technology access etc. IVE has also been the recipient of grant support from the National Science Foundation, the American Express Foundation, the Bank of America Foundation, Deutsche Bank Foundation, and the Hogan Family Foundation. Additional Private Sector support from the various
VE partner firms and organizations has let to the foundation of "Friends
of Virtual Enterprise". KCC has provided for the institutional structure
to develop services and activities to support the learning simulation. By
institutionalizing the VE program KCC has fostered the dissemination of
the program and created a faculty-driven learning community that supports
excellence in a "Flagship" environment.
Through various Workforce Development grants, CUNY has supported both
the development and dissemination of the Virtual Enterprise program. Partnering with the Central Office of Student Development will foster these collaborations as will developing linkages with Johns Hopkins and Cornell Universities, the Siemens Technical Academy in Berlin, Germany, the Universities of Hamburg, Graz, Linz and Malta, Randers Business College in Denmark, and the L-SITES consortium of fourteen U.S. and international colleges and universities as well as the Ministry of Tourism and the Beijing College of Tourism and Hospitality, China, the State Department of Kyrgyzstan.
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