TROY – Hudson Valley Community College says it is beginning to see results from several international trips officials have taken, efforts they say have brought in hundreds of additional students after some criticism of the expensive trips.
Top executives have traveled to China, Germany, Aruba, Costa Rica, Israel and other countries in recent years, including 10 trips in the past four years. Spouses joined the trip to Israel last year, sparking criticism that it looked like a vacation trip.
The spouses paid their own way, and it was the only trip they attended, said HVCC president Roger Ramsammy. But he acknowledged that it had left a bad impression.
For years he said the trips would lead to more students and therefore more income for the university. After the trip to Israel, Democrats in the Rensselear County Legislature called him out and demanded the return on the investment.
Now Ramsammy says to give them grades.
The college has just signed an agreement with the Costa Rican Department of Public Education to teach 1,000 high school students, he said. The teachers learn in live lessons how to effectively teach English. The program will start this fall with 90 teachers.
He estimated that this would bring in $200,000 to $500,000 a year.
In Aruba, the college is also affiliated with the American University School of Medicine, a medical school.
“Our students will be able to go straight to medical school,” Ramsammy said. “And their students can sign up to take our classes.”
The college now has about 200 full-time equivalent international students taking classes virtually, and he hopes this will grow with the Aruba initiative.
About 50 percent of Caribbean medical school graduates “agree” for a medical residency in the United States, a critical step to becoming a doctor here. Many others remain in the Caribbean and become doctors there. About 90 percent of US medical school graduates are “matched” after graduation. Those attending Caribbean schools are encouraged to apply for a match in a less competitive specialty, such as family medicine, for which matches are much more likely.
In Germany and Denmark, HVCC officials visited commercial sites so they could build classrooms with the exact equipment large companies need for their employees. They have just finished building a lab that looks like the modern wind turbines that Welcon of Denmark is using for its offshore wind farms, including one that Welcon will build in Albany harbour. Now students are using that lab in Troy to learn how to weld those turbines.
Ramsammy is also working with Israeli officials to negotiate agreements in which HVCC would train high school students to teach laborers.
“We’re not there yet, we’re just getting started on this one,” Ramsammy said, but the proposal is that teachers come to HVCC, receive training in a specific workforce development program, and then return to Israel to create that program.
“Soon, that will also pay off for us,” he said.
The details will be worked out via Zoom, but he said he sometimes has to travel to places in person to make connections.
“If I can sit in my office and never get on a plane again, I’d be happy because that’s the worst thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I hate traveling. It annoys me because I wish I never had to travel and that I could zoom everything. It just doesn’t work in business.”
Last year, the college spent $69,000 on international travel. This year it is budgeted at $137,000 and next year the budget calls for spending $186,000 which is 0.2 percent of the operating budget.
The Democratic minority members of the education committee of the Rensselaer County Legislature asked for those numbers before voting on the college’s 2023 budget. HVCC told them to file a freedom of information request and they would not receive the data before the scheduled vote.
Lawmaker Cynthia Doran, who asked for the numbers, said he was happy to hear from a reporter that the college is repaying his investment. But she said the college should have given her that information.
“If it can bring revenue to Hudson Valley while revenues are falling, hallelujah,” she said. “But I would still like to know (before a vote). We ask for a budget line on a budget that we are going to vote on and we can’t get the information? How much did it cost you to go and what did you get as a result, I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”
She still has the question of whether it is really necessary to travel.
“Do we always have to go on these trips? We have Zoom capabilities,” she said.
She added that she is not trying to harm the college.
“I am a Hudson Valley supporter. It’s a great community college. The programs are creative, they are relevant. This is not a situation where I try to make it difficult for people,” she said. “I asked for information and it was refused.”