March 23, 1999

Chair Sohmer called the session to order at 6:30 p.m. in the Proshansky Auditorium of the Graduate School and University Center. Present were Senators from the following campuses: Baruch: Hill, McCall. BMCC: Friedman, Price, Reid, Young. Bronx: Read, Cummins, Fuld, Alternate Skinner. Brooklyn: Bell, London, Shapiro, Tobey, Alternate Rosenthal. CCNY: Connorton, Crain, Grossman, Pearson, Sank, Sohmer. CSI: Cooper, Petratos. CUNY Law: James. GSUC: Dauben, Katz-Rothman. Hostos: Canate, Cardona. Hunter: Kurzman, Sherrill, Steinberg, Wonsek. John Jay: Clark, Davenport, Rodriguez. Kingsborough: Galvin, Goodkin, O’Malley, Richter, Alternate Laurenty. LaGuardia: Beaky, Mettler, Reitano. Lehman: Bullaro, Feinerman, Knobloch, Mineka.

Medgar: Donohue, Umolu, Alternate Sigler (Harris-Hastick was excused). NYCTC: Cermele, Deraney, Walter, Alternate Hounion. Queens: Cairns, Diamond, Franco, Frisz, Kulkarni, Savage. Queensborough: Dahbany-Miraglia, Gellman, Greenbaum, Mullin, Alternate Specht. York: A. Cooper, Doss, Odenyo. Governance Leaders present: A. Cooper (York), Feinerman (Lehman), Kurzman (Hunter), Levine (CSI), Mettler (LaGuardia), O’Malley (Kingsborough), Perlstein (BMCC), Specht (Queensborough). Also attending were Executive Director Phipps and Administrative Assistant Pasela.

I. Approval of the Agenda: The agenda was approved.

II. Approval of the Minutes of February 23, 1999: There was a handout that included the last five minutes of the meeting which were not included in the original distribution of the minutes. Professors Frisz and Franco were added as attending the February 23rd meeting. Professor Cooper (York College) pointed out two unidentified comments as his. The minutes were then adopted as amended.

III. Reports: [recorded in Reports & Deliberations]

a. Chair (oral and written).

b. Interim Chancellor Christoph Kimmich (oral).

c. Faculty Members of Board of Trustees Committees (written).

IV. New Business - Professor William Crain (Psychology, CCNY) proposed the following resolution, "that until the Performance and Excellence Awards Plan sunsets, the University Faculty Senate asks all faculty to consider, in the interest of solidarity, non-participation in the awards," which was seconded. After debate, it was defeated by a vote of 19 in favor, 22 opposed, with 2 abstentions.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m.

a. Chair: Since we last met, I have observed and participated in many events and this is a brief summary of possible interest. On February 25th there was a forum at the Bar Association with Commissioner Mills, Benno Schmidt, and Chancellor Kimmich. The Commissioner was sanguine about the future of secondary education in New York, and that the new requirements will produce students who are not in need of remediation. This week’s newspapers analyzing the availability of laboratories is a paradigm for the irrationality of these assumptions. Dr. Schmidt locked into a mantra of "on-time" and little else useful was said. The Chancellor described, non-defensively, CUNY as it is. The audience unfortunately was not large.

Some of the Trustees, Presidents, and Chancellory spent March 9th and 10th in Albany visiting legislators from both sides of the aisle, all of whom were very receptive and assured us of the depth of the Governor’s plans to alter TAP adversely. As of today, I believe that’s even clearer. There was also strong support for the organization of the Budget to satisfy the contract and increase aid to the community colleges, where we have the ability to coat-tail with SUNY. There have been two one-house bills now for the Budget, the Senate and the Assembly. Today the Senate passed its bill. The Assembly always highballs; the Senate low balls. We will get something some place in between. There will be a conference committee coming into existence in the near future. I believe the Chancellor has some details of what happened today.

There was a borough hearing in Queens which turned into agape for all the Queens’ Schools and programs, including the Law School. There have been ongoing meetings of the committee chaired by Roy Moskowitz, Counsel, with Stefan Baumrin and I as representatives on intellectual property, title, and usage. A report will appear before the end of the semester.

We have reactivated an advisory committee under Dave Fields on security, which has met once. It is letting an RFP to analyze our situation and make recommendations. There will be a broader-based committee created for permanent oversight. The small committee, Baumrin and Sohmer included, will make some policy recommendations in the near future. We would like any input you might have which is about security.

Lastly, the Executive Committee invited Irwin Polishook to meet with us on the PEAP. After a fruitful discussion, we have produced the letter that was distributed with the material you received.

We also have a conference coming up; those of you on CUNYTALK have already received it. The Spring Conference of the Senate will be a half-day event on Friday, May 14th, beginning at 9:30 a.m. on the 10th floor of the Hunter School of Social Work. Registration is required and limited to 120 people. You’ll be getting applications in the mail. The topic is the Mayor’s Task Force, and the title of the discussion is, "The Promised Objectivity, Is It There?" Mr. Schmidt will be the main speaker. We have a panel of respondents, including the Chancellor, Dean Savage from Sociology at Queens, Fred Lane, School of Public Affairs at Baruch, and Rina Yarmish from the Mathematics/Computer Science Department at Kingsborough Community College.

Let me make two more quick announcements before I yield the floor to the Chancellor. The UCRA call letter has an update which you should have received in the front. There is an unexpected vacancy in English and Creative Writing. The material is up-front at the table. We also need volunteers to serve on the EdTech-Library Committee which is now being merged. They need some recruits. You may contact Jane Davenport at: janedavenport@yahoo.com. Are there any questions for the Chair? We will hold questions for the Chair until after the Chancellor.

b. Chancellor: Good evening, everybody. I don’t know whether Bernie has said something about the memorial service at Kingsborough Community College for Leon Goldstein. It was a very effective and eloquent afternoon with members of the Board of Trustees, fellow presidents, faculty, staff, and students speaking and sharing their memories of Leon. He is a major figure in our history. He was president of Kingsborough for 28 years, which is a remarkable record. And for me, it was confirmation that our strengths rest in the campuses -- how well-led campuses can accomplish miracles. So here is a challenge for you and for all of us.

I want to limit myself to three major topics today. Bernie has spoken about the Budget. I’d like to give you some numbers first, and then talk a bit about the outlook and what we’ve done so far. As you have just heard, there were two one-house bills. More accurately, resolutions to be voted on by the Assembly and in the Senate. Characteristically, the Assembly’s bill is much more generous for us than the Senate bill. It includes, first of all, a restoration of TAP, and that is a very welcome change. We made that our top priority because impact on CUNY would just be drastic. The Assembly was very strong in making that one of the top priorities.

Number two, both houses responded to our request to include the mandatory costs we had listed, which includes collective bargaining, maintenance for new buildings coming on line, and lease costs. Essentially they said we will accept your figures on that and put that particular mandatory cost increase into our budget bill. Also, they have given us additional funds in response to the broad programmatic request we made for faculty positions, SEEK, and child care. That generally covers the broad programmatic requests that we had made which was our third priority.

Fourth, they restored the $5 million that had been transferred from our budget to the Board of Education budget to cover collaborative programs. For the community colleges, there is also an increase to the base aid of $150. The grand total from the Assembly, aside from financial aid, is about $60 million, which covers senior colleges and community colleges. In addition there is the TAP program, there are various C-STEP, Higher Education Opportunity Programs, and such which were added for financial aid purposes. That’s the Assembly. The Senate also restored TAP, and that’s a plus. For the mandatory cost increases, they limited themselves to $27.7 million. No money in there for faculty positions, no money in there for SEEK, no money in there for child care. On the $5 million on the collaborative programs, the language in the resolution expresses a commitment to reversing the transfer of those funds. But unlike the Assembly bill, it doesn’t put $5 million into our budget; the number is missing. The language is there, but the number is missing. An omission that needs to be corrected.

As for the community colleges, the Senate is also going to give money to them. They would like to tie that not to the operating budget, but to technology. Their figures are a bit murky, but they probably want to give half the amount the Assembly gave. $75 rather than $150, and linked to technology issues. This probably means upgrading the technology infrastructure of the community colleges and providing whatever additional lab, hardware, software, and other facilities community colleges need. It is not exactly what we expected or asked for. We had asked for the base aid to give the community colleges as much flexibility as possible.

Those are the numbers. Three points that I need to make about that. First of all, these are resolutions that have not yet been adopted by the respective bodies as far as we know. While we don’t expect any problems, it is a step that is necessary. The second point, which was already alluded to by Bernie a while ago, is that this will now go to conference between the two houses. They will have to work out the differences. A major stumbling block in these differences is that there is a significant difference between the Assembly and the Senate on revenue projections. They are apart by $2 billion. The Assembly is prepared to spend $3 billion, and the Senate $1 billion. There is more than a speed bump, it’s a major obstacle. They have to resolve that first before they deal with any of those figures.

The third player in this of course is the Governor. It is all very well for the two houses to agree on the revenue, whether it is $3 billion or $1 billion. It is all very well to come to some agreement in conference on how they will actually spend whatever money they agree on. It is quite another matter to have the Governor agree. He has, as you may have seen in the press, been angry at the Assembly for having put together that kind of revenue projection. And in putting together that kind of budget proposal. It is already clear that he is signaling a very hard negotiating position.

So the next steps are the adoption of the bills, the agreement between the two houses on what revenue is available, and the conference to agree on a single bill. Then to the Governor. One final piece. You will remember my saying, the last time that the Governor has tried a different approach to budgeting this year, a different format. The two houses have responded in kind. They have their own format. What they have done is to put together something similar to what happens in Congress, when it puts together its budget bills. And I dare say we won’t see it before April 1st when the budget is due. We will see some interesting negotiations between the Governor and the two houses as they try to resolve that particular format issue. That’s where we are right now. I must say, we have put in a great deal of time and effort -- not only the Central Office, but the campuses.

There were a number of very successful visits to Albany. One of the visits in which I participated personally, was a visit from a group of Trustees and Presidents. I think it was a good showing. We also had a number of individual meetings done for members of the Chancellory and by presidents. There were also groups of students and faculty who went to Albany. Ten days after the Governor’s proposal came out at the end of January, I delivered our position to a joint legislative hearing, laying out chapter and verse on the impact of the budget on our students. The TAP cuts, the mandatory costs, the programmatic needs, the $5 million transferred to the Board of Education. I laid these out in detail. The comments and summaries of my comments went to all the Senators, all the Assembly, and to relevant staff.

We’ve also talked to people in the Governor’s Office, and to people in the Division of Budget. We have spent a great deal of our lives in the last four weeks up in Albany, trying to put some movement into this. And as you can see, from the Assembly’s side, and from the Senate side, there has been movement. The question is, how far will this go, what position will the Governor take, and what’s the timetable. I do not think that this is time to let up. Clearly it is very positive for us to have these two resolutions, but unless we keep reminding them of our existence, of our needs, of the importance of what we need, some things might be lost in conference, in discussions. I think we need to keep right up front, to both our friends in the Assembly and in the Senate, and to anybody who will listen, how important this is for us. And not to let up until we actually see the budget when it comes through.

That’s my comment on the Budget. I’d like to give you some information on enrollment issues. Again, here are numbers. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have tried to have slides, but bear with me so that I can give you these numbers. I want to focus on the Spring, but let me put this in context of the Fall and of the year. When we look at the Fall, we look at two different sets of numbers. First of all, we look at the number of students we admitted. Those students who we sent letters to saying, congratulations, you’ve been admitted to X or Y College. The admissions for last Fall were up about 0.5% for the University as a whole. All those letters that went out to prospective students, whatever age group, whatever school, whatever origin, were up about 0.5% for the University. They were up 1.8% for the senior colleges, down 3.1% for the community colleges, but the total was up 0.5%. These are admissions, that’s the first figure. The second figure is of those who having being admitted, not having changed their minds, actually appeared. Those are figures I think I’ve given you before.

Let me break that down, first of all the total -- the University was down 1.7% last Fall. A slight decrease from the number of people who were admitted. Senior colleges, down 1.1%, community colleges down 3%. This roughly tracks admissions. But there is a not unexpected, and not unnatural falloff, between admissions and enrollment. All of you I think know, between one and the other, there is bound to be some decline. Perhaps of interest would be for me to break down the three categories -- first-time freshmen, transfers, and graduate students for the Fall. First-time freshman for the senior colleges were down 5.5% for enrollment. Transfers, as I’ve mentioned before, were down approximately 4% for senior colleges. First-time graduate matriculated students are up. This last is what essentially lifted us to the level we had. Community colleges, first-time freshman were up about 1.8%. We were almost identical in transfers. That is for enrollment for the Fall. I will distribute those figures. Now Spring enrollment. What we’ve got here is that, compared with last Spring, Spring enrollment overall fell 1.5%. For senior colleges, the figure is 1.3% down compared to last spring. For community colleges that figure is down 1.9%. So not vastly different from the Fall, the same kind of pattern. We always, as you know, have a drop in the Spring so this doesn’t come as a surprise.

On the basis of the Spring figures that we now have, we can make a fairly accurate estimate for the year -- Fall and Spring. The total for the year, for the University, 1998-1999, compared to 1997-1998, annualized, is down 1.3%. For the senior colleges, academic year, down 1.2%. For the community colleges, academic year, down 1.6%. Of course this varies from college to college. Some are slightly up, some are slightly down. But the overall figures, which include the Graduate Center and the Law School, are slightly down. So that’s the comparison that we have at this point, the average figures for the academic year.

Finally, allocations for this coming Fall. We’ve had two allocations -- January and February. When you look at the first choices, at the senior colleges, for those two allocations, the biggest allocations of all were up 3%. At this point last year, looking to Fall of 1998, we had 3% fewer, we now have 3% more in allocations. Remember, again there is a major step between allocations and enrollment.

At this point last year at community colleges, we had allocated 2,125; this year we have allocated 1,958 students. Overall, if we add the figures together, at this time last year, we had allocated 22,280 students. This year it’s 22,678 -- that’s the 3% difference. We’ve got to make sure that the students who get allocated actually turn up. That’s going to be our job between now and September 1st, in addition to all the other things we’re doing. In any event, I think here we have a good start. I must say to you, I’m surprised how good a start it is. I would not have anticipated, after what we’ve been through this last 18 months, to see that kind of figure.

The third topic that I wanted to address is the Presidential Retreat. We spend the time discussing strategic planning, extending the multi-year orientation we had taken in our budget request, trying to think beyond next semester, beyond the next academic year, down the road four or five years. We gave particular emphasis to questions of the system, how does it function? What do we need to do to make it function better? We gave attention to the different missions of the University -- both the central overarching institution as well as the component parts. We talked about the working relationship between the central office and the campuses. In each case, we developed a number of points that we wanted to pursue, a kind of loose action plan that presidents could take back their campuses to discuss with faculty and with governance bodies to raise as potential topics for further deliberation.

We were joined by Benno Schmidt for a morning session, for a discussion of his sense of the University as a system and how it functioned. You can imagine that it was critical. His perception was that perhaps we had not given enough time to thinking through what we are as a system. This is what he wanted to talk about. He clearly couldn’t talk about the report, the report not being out. And so the issue became the system, past, present, and future. Speaking as an outsider, who over the last nine months has undertaken a crash course in CUNY, what did he see as issues that puzzled him, that struck him, that seemed at the forefront of his thinking. Have we ever, he asked, thought carefully about how the various component parts related. Did we ever give enough thought to how we would balance the different programs, emphases, directions, that we have produced over the last forty years of the existence. Of course the answer to most of those questions is that we haven’t given a great deal of thought to it. We have backed into it, we have done it by fits and starts. We have not had any coherent long-term discussion. If you go back to 1961, our date of birth: we didn’t spend a great deal of time thinking about what this system would look like, what it needed, what it should be composed of. He didn’t raise all those questions; they came up in the discussion we had with him. It turned out to be a very interesting discussion. In some ways that fit very nicely into our retreat theme of long range planning for the University. So that’s where we left it with the presidents and the retreat.

Let me end with some good news about the University. All of you are probably familiar with the U.S. News & World Report Annual Rankings. I’m delighted to say we’re in it. A number of colleges were given very high marks for their academic reputation, for the quality of their student body, and such characteristics. Baruch, Brooklyn, and Hunter ranked in the top half of what they call regional universities, i.e., institutions that have graduate programs in the Northeast. Followed by City, Lehman, and Queens. Medgar Evers and York were ranked among the regional liberal arts colleges, distinguished from the regional universities or not having graduate programs. The campuses also ranked high on a scale measuring campus diversity. That doesn’t come as a surprise. I think this is really a welcome recognition at this point, a recognition of the hard work done by the campuses, by the presidents, by the faculty, and by administrative colleagues.

One other piece of good news. Those of you who are involved heavily in computer lore will probably recognize the journal PC Week. It is a well-known and very highly respected trade journal in technology. They have been looking at various institutions, state governments, and federal agencies to see how well they are doing in the use of cutting-edge technologies and applications. In a list comparing federal agencies, state governments, and educational institutions, CUNY ranked number six. That is extraordinary. If we just rank educational institutional systems, CUNY ranks fourth, behind Utah, Maryland, and North Carolina. But ahead of Wisconsin, ahead of California, ahead of Georgia, and, yes, ahead of SUNY, among others.

In putting together their list, PC Week divides the institutions into two groups of fifty. In the first group of fifty, there were only two in New York mentioned. We are one of them, and the first one on that list. Given all the emphasis we have given to technology and all the work that has been done by technology-minded faculty members, this is really high praise. This is extraordinary. I am very pleased, because, as you know from my earlier discussion with you, unless we take the lead in technology, we are not going to serve our students and we are going to fall behind. I am very pleased for us and pleased for what we have accomplished both centrally and on the campuses. This carries weight. At this point I’ll stop and I’ll be pleased to answer questions.

Professor Perlstein (Governance Leader, Borough of Manhattan Community College) - "Chancellor Kimmich, last year when the budget in Albany was finally settled, there was this $150 per student allocation for the community colleges. It was subsequently appropriated by the Mayor and used partially to satisfy the collective bargaining agreement. I’m concerned that something similar is in the works for this year. I’m wondering what the University is doing to ensure that money that was allocated presumably for programmatic initiatives, is still available for programmatic initiatives, and the City is going to fund the contract." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I need to make a minor clarification. The $150 we received last year was State money, not City money. The City has no control over it. It came to us through the efforts of the legislature, and it was first vetoed by the Governor, and then reinstated. That money, which we had asked for to enhance our operating budget on the campuses, ultimately became a source of funding for the collective bargaining agreement. But that was State money. The question you are raising of course is, what do we do about trying to get the City to provide the additional funds that we need in order to operate at the community college level. We are working very hard with the City Council and the community colleges to put enough money into the final City Budget. It will come through the good graces probably of the City Council, rather than the Mayor. The Mayor has not yet released his budget; he is expected to do so on the 26th of April. But he has not signaled that he would do what you’re asking him to do. So between now and the time the City Budget is adopted, we will have to resort to the City Council to make sure that when the budget is adopted, that particular item stands. / Professor Perlstein - "Thank you. Now going back to the State. Am I to understand that if present plans go through, there will be both an allocation to fund the contract mandated costs, and this $150 per student for the community colleges. That is not going to be a shift thing of funds from one to the other." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Assuming that all goes well with the legislature and the Governor signs off. These are the assumptions. But let us assume that this happens. There is money in the proposed State Budget to cover the full cost of senior college collective bargaining. That is the mandatory cost that I mentioned earlier. That does not commingle with anything that would go to the community colleges. Assuming that we get another $150 base aid for the community colleges, that would cover the collective bargaining at the community colleges, or most of it.

Professor Greenbaum (History, Queens College) - "My question has to do with the $75 per capita. I assume that applies to the State University and the community colleges as well." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich – Yes, it does. / Professor Greenbaum - "I’m just wondering about the politics within the center of this. There are so many Senators who have community colleges within their senatorial district. Have we sounded out these Senators to see if we have any source of support for raising that to the Assembly numbers?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - We are working very closely with the SUNY community college on this. It is a joint effort. Remember, there are thirty SUNY community colleges, and only six CUNY community colleges. We have worked very hard at developing a joint strategy to reach the Assemblymen and Senators from those districts to make sure that in fact there is a base aid increase. There is strong interest among a good number of Senators in linking this to technology. This is not just the Higher Education Committee in the Senate, but there are others as well who will argue for technology money. What I see here in the Senate is an effort to respond to the perceived need of technology deficits, in this State, in the University system, and to link that to a base aid increase in a way that we have not anticipated and would not wish it would happen. We are asking our friends in the Assembly, not only to raise it to $150, but to make sure we do not have to make a choice.

Professor Savage (Sociology, Queens College) - "My question is primarily a request for information. I’m interested in whether the numbers on enrollment trends might also include the yield as defined by the number of people who are accepted and over that the number of people who actually attend. Then there is a further issue that I believe was explained to us by Bill Proto about five or six years ago. I wonder if things are the same or if they changed. I would anticipate when you see that breakdown by campus, you are going to see some rather striking differences from campus to campus. Over time, over two or three year periods, they might lead to some kind of real trend in terms of enrollment patterns that could show significant variation by campus. I could imagine a situation in which some of these trends could spiral out of control. Is there a policy at the Central Office to keep aware of that, to go ahead and react. And if so, what is that policy? I simply have not heard that answer since Bill Proto talked to us a long time ago." /

Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I don’t know whether it is a policy as much as it is a practice. Clearly we are concerned about dips and trends and surprising declines at certain colleges. One of the things we have done this past year was to try to look at the changing admission standards at the senior colleges to see whether students who would have been admitted under the admissions policies of a year ago, would have been admitted this year if the old admissions policies had been in place. We discovered that a good number of senior college applicants are no longer eligible. The decline reflects the change in admissions. We have concerns clearly that this doesn’t turn into a larger trend. We have concerns also that there may be other things at work. We are tracking each one to see whether it is just admissions criteria or whether it is a lack of recruitment finesse -- whether it is other policy or practical matters that have suddenly made for those shifts. But to answer your question, yes, it is something that we are tracking very carefully. / Professor Savage - "My follow-up is, this is one of the ways we could be backing into policy decisions without having had a full-fledged discussion. Is that possible?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I think that once we see those figures and once we identify things, we clearly have to have a discussion.

Professor Levine (Engineering Science & Physics) - "I have a statement of praise followed by a question. First the statement of praise. A little bit under two years ago the Chancellor’s Office sent each college president a memo detailing the number of full-time faculty on their campus as of a certain date. Together with the number of new faculty lines that they had and instructions that unless they had more full-time faculty as of I believe, October 1998, they would loose the money. I am happy to report that as a result of this policy, we now have 312 more full-time faculty than we had two years ago. To give the exact numbers, 4,760 to 5,072. Yes, the applause is appropriate, that is the statement of praise to you and your staff. Thank you. Now the question. Can we continue this policy? Can we now send each president a statement, here are the number you have as of October 1998, here are additional lines that you must fill, so that we can continue the process of increasing the number of full-time faculty?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - The previous policies came with some money attached. At the moment, I don’t think any of us know whether we can attach any money to it. I certainly think the notion of encouraging campuses to increase the number of full-time faculty ought to be and is a priority. / Professor Levine - "I would add, that in many cases, campuses use money from administrative sources and converted it to full-time faculty lines. Something that should be encouraged. Even if there is no money, we can still say to each campus, convert three lines. We can still act with the goal of increasing the number of full-time faculty at each campus if we have that desire." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Let me respond in two ways. One, my preference would be to do it as an incentive, rather than by fiat. Two, simply to tell a campus how to spend its money runs against the position I’ve been taking all along. I believe campuses should manage their own money. I think we have suffered over the years from the opposite. I would like the campuses to decide where their priorities lie, and to spend the money that they have. One of the things that I did last year was to say to the campuses early on, you will not lose any money in the coming budget year. You will have at least what you had this year. This was a liberating act for the campuses, and reflects my philosophy on this. I am a little reluctant to act dictatorially in this respect, though certainly indications that full-time faculty are and should continue to be a priority are not out of place.

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) - "I’d like to follow up on Dean Savage’s question. On the first-time freshmen admits for Fall 1998, the statistics I saw showed a steep decline in the six or seven colleges that will be affected by the remediation resolution. Up to 20% in Baruch and Brooklyn if I recall, somewhat less at Queens. I forgot the City College number, it was not as high as 20%. It was something like 15%. It strikes that we are really talking about something far more serious at this point. That is a perception of students about some of the senior colleges which are not comprehensive, and their possibility of being admitted compared to the year before, when in fact they came in considerable numbers. Baruch and Brooklyn numbers are down 300-500 students. I think Queens was a few hundred. It still seems to some of us quite significant. Five-percent of the admits at New York City Tech and some of the other colleges which are comprehensive come in on the two year programs and are counted for these purposes as senior colleges. I don’t know what my question is, but I beg to differ that this is a rosy picture. I think it is terrifying and resultive of publicity that accompanied what we all know happened in the last year and a half." /

Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I think there are probably a multiplicity of factors here. A place like Brooklyn, which changed its admissions standards was down 300 students. It would have admitted 200+, if it had its old status. I think there are also some campus specific issues at two or three campuses. It is not that we are not concerned about drops like that, but at this point we don’t see anything that suggests a trend. We certainly don’t see this in the allocations for this coming Fall, in those very early figures. We do have a sense of some problems that are other than reputational or remedial. I would suggest to you, Sandi, while I wouldn’t want to discount what you are suggesting, that I don’t think it is the only answer. / Professor Cooper - "The implications of these changed admission standards may not have been fully appreciated, except by a handful of people. Which leads faculty in a lot of places to think what we are dealing with is a fulfillment of a Trustee Policy without even their articulating it." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Without its being in place. Your point is well taken. I do think that there has to be a discussion of both proposed admissions criteria on a campus as well as their implications. Whether there can ever be a meeting of the minds on that on any campus is probably asking too much. But there ought to be an open debate of what is involved and where it might go.

Professor Kulkarni (Mathematics, Queens College) - "Chancellor Kimmich, since you talked so eloquently in the presidential retreat about strategic planning for CUNY’s future, and cooperation among different CUNY-units, let me come back to problems posed by the present interpretation of a GC-appointment as a faculty position on a lifetime basis with no formal connection with undergraduate education. I should add immediately that I am not talking about some super-exceptional Arthur Schlesingers for whom, as Voltaire said something to the effect, society may well bend some rules. But there can be only few Schlesingers, say 4 or 5, on a CUNY-wide basis. Presently there are 100 GC-appointments. About 80 of them in 10 out of 30 Ph.D. programs. A calm reflection immediately shows that with as few as 3 or 4 GC-appointments in a program, and the present interpretation of a GC-appointment, the program no longer remains consortial. For, fulfilling their workload becomes a primary, and totally misplaced, priority of the program. There arise so many unethical aspects from this structure, that the Graduate School is forced to rationalize about them in evasive ways. Chancellor Kimmich, an official structure which separates mentorees from the mentors they wish to work with, for fulfilling somebody else’s workload, is unethical. Such structure needs to be changed. It is sad that despite repeated warnings from individual faculty, from various task forces, from the middle states accreditation reviewers, the Graduate School has shown little sensitivity in this regard. From any of the viewpoints, as you have termed, promotion of excellence, access, accountability, and service, the present interpretation of a GC-appointment needs to be changed. Would you agree with this view? What can be done, and how can one go about it?" /Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I think there are probably two answers to that. One is, we can say to the Graduate Center, you should do this by yourself and hire more people. Then you would have no difficulty in separating the doctoral faculty from the doctoral students. We would not have the persistent difficulty of faculty from the campuses getting doctoral teaching opportunities every 3-5 semesters. That’s one route to go. The other answer is perhaps we can improve the consortial system. Perhaps we can bring together, in a productive discussion, the Graduate Center administration with the campuses to say, there are areas that do not work well, how do we improve them. Remember now that we are heir to a Graduate Center that is built on a consortium model with a number of full-time appointments, which now number 100, as its core faculty. Whether we want to go down one route or the other, my preference would be, as I have suggested to the President of the Graduate Center, that she meet with the major doctoral campuses in the University to see whether the consortial system couldn’t be improved. / Professor Kulkarni - "Just to give you numbers. The Graduate Center appointments increased from 80 to 100 in about the last 10-12 years. The allocated lines decreased from 270 to 230 at the same time. In a financial crunch it is the allocated lines which would decrease." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - That did not happen in the last entrenchment, actually. / Professor Kulkarni - "It did not happen, but it was proposed that 230 lines be decreased to 207 lines. This is a very unusual system at the City University of New York."

Professor Crain (Psychology, City College) - "In terms of the retreat, I have this image that Benno Schmidt came in and told everybody that they hadn’t been thinking about overall philosophy and goals and so on. People thought, yeah, I guess that’s true. Then the philosophy and goals they hadn’t been thinking about turned out to be something called mission differentiation. Some people came away talking about that. I have real problems with that. I don’t know if that is the case, but there are problems with that in terms of which kinds of students end up going to liberal arts and which go into more vocational. Whether a student can get a well-rounded education without spending half her life on the subway system. There are real problems with that. Is that true, that that was sort of an assumption at your retreat. That mission differentiation is a good thing?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I think there was an assumption that we need to think very carefully about the various missions that we were carrying out. We all note the fact that we are different. We’ve never had a really thoughtful discussion of what that might mean for us as an institution. I think that is overdue. The fact is that we do have liberal arts institutions, we have special mission institutions, we have community colleges. It clearly calls for some discussion at some point. / Professor Crain - "I understand. Given the projected shortfall, someplace down the road, some colleges will have to go in the direction of more mission differentiation. Was that an assumption?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I think the assumption was more trying to establish, first of all, where we are. Can we define for ourselves what individual institutions do, and what we would need in the system to make sure that there is room for everybody.

Professor Friedman (Developmental Skills, Borough of Manhattan Community College) - "My question follows up and it is also on mission differentiation. Since you did seem to have some discussion about this issue at the retreat, I was wondering if you talked at all with the presidents about faculty participation in these discussions of mission differentiation. Specifically, will there be provisions for meaningful faculty participation in these discussions?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - When we left the retreat, there was not only instructions to me but general agreement that this was something that needed to go back to the campuses. There had to be some broad-based discussion of what constituted the mission and how a campus might see itself compared with others within the system. So we left it very much as an issue that wasn’t going to be resolved in the presidents’ private quarters, but would be a campus discussion. I’d like to hear from you whether these things are actually happening. / Professor Friedman - "Well, what can I say." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - It may be too soon to tell. / Professor Friedman - No, not specifically, although there are maybe things going on that I don’t know about. Though there have been rumors that perhaps some arrangements are being made for one college to do the remedial on another campus. I don’t know if that might be related. We don’t even know if that is true. To my knowledge, and the other Senators are here, and the Governance Leader is here, I don’t think we’ve discussed this yet." /

Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I would think it’s too early to have any campus discussion yet on the broad outcome of the retreat. But the point that you raised about colleges’ collaborating on the remedial issue is not new. / Professor Friedman - "I think it is new at least in the way we are hearing about and it relates to the Board Resolution that was passed in January which will take effect next year and will bar students from the senior colleges who do not pass all of the FSAT’s. So it sounds like perhaps some students will be admitted to certain senior colleges as long as the remedial work is done on a satellite campus on the senior college campus, by community college faculty. This is just all rumors, so I’m sure this will all be discussed thoroughly with the faculty before anything is put in place. Especially since I’m in one of these departments on the P&B." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - I heard that idea last summer. / Professor Friedman - "I’ve heard the idea, too; it’s just that it seems that it may be moving ahead." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Clearly the discussion of the particular implementation of such an idea would have to be part of the discussion that leads to the implementation plans that the colleges are supposed to submit in May. That is a different discussion from the one we had at the retreat.

Professor Richter (English, Kingsborough Community College) - "When the Board of Trustees curtailed the remediation at the senior colleges, they specifically did not address the question of what would happen to the SEEK students who are of course mandated for the senior colleges, but were not taken care of in this proposal in any way. I think you mentioned that one of the budget items that had been severely cut had been the budget item for SEEK." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - No, the other way around. / Professor Richter - "Oh, it was increased. Do we read from that, that SEEK students are going to be admitted, and they are going to be remediated in the senior colleges?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - It’s very clear that the SEEK students will not be affected by the Resolution. The dilemma arises in the definition of remediation for the SEEK students. The Resolution says, no remedial instruction. Can remediation be offered in ways that does not constitute classroom instruction? I think where the issue is going to be joined is whether the Trustees are prepared to accept classroom remedial instruction or not. / Professor Richter - "Interesting, thank you."

Professor Sherrill (Political Science, Hunter College) - "I want to ask you if you’ve heard anything about two pieces of legislation that Assemblyman Sullivan is introducing. I don’t know if they found their way into the Budget Resolution. I also don’t know whether or not the University has taken a position on it. The first would end the State Fiscal Emergency that allows the Mayor to get around maintenance of effort provisions for community colleges and force the City to pay its full 33%. The other was legislation to restructure TAP as an entitlement so that a student would be given 130-140 credits worth of TAP to be used over an extended period of time." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - We were somewhat surprised by the first, because it was a change in normal budget language about the maintenance of effort. Every year, the budget message contains a section that says that the City must maintain maintenance of effort, which means it has to pay its share of the University’s costs. The Mayor’s Office has always interpreted this to mean that its share is essentially the same dollar amount as the previous year. Whether that was up to 1/3 which was its legal responsibility or not, it didn’t matter. This year, Assemblyman Sullivan has introduced the 1/3 clause. We certainly would be pleased to have the Mayor provide additional funds to the University. On the second issue, we are very much in favor of that. We would like to make part-time TAP a more flexible instrument than it is now and to reduce the pressure on students who end up using TAP for things that are not going to lead to their educational goals. We’ve suggested to the State that it conduct a pilot to make sure that this kind of thing can work. We are in discussion about this. I don’t know whether the exact language of Assemblyman Sullivan’s proposal will go through, but certainly the State is interested in rethinking part-time TAP. / Professor Sherrill - "If they allocated funds for TAP, and if they moved off of the 15 credits, then I presume a decision has been made about this language. I was wondering if the University knew anything about it?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Nothing further than what I just said. Remember that the dollar figure which we have in the TAP restoration is the $114 million that the Governor proposes to cut. The other issue about reducing it from 95% to 75%, that’s gone. The 12-15 is gone, and whatever financial adjustments have been made to accommodate that clearly has been taken care of. I’m not sure how much further we are at this point. / Professor Sherrill - "So what they’ve done is go back to last year rather than considering anything new." / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - The one thing that I’ve heard, and I don’t have it on very good authority, is that instead of going back to 90%, they were going to go back to 100%. / Professor Sherrill - "That would be nice. Thank you."

Professor Mineka (Math & Computer Science, Lehman College) - "We talked a bit about CUNY as a system, but a lot of us are concerned about the fate of our individual colleges in all this turmoil. I found it difficult to appreciate your statistics because they’re aggregate statistics, not by individual college. There is a third category now, not just senior colleges and community colleges, but comprehensive colleges, which I had never heard of before. I’m concerned that the aggregate statistics may conceal serious trends at individual colleges. Last Fall the Executive Committee collected some data, but I think it was rather incomplete for the individual colleges. A few colleges showed a fall of something like 20% in first-time freshmen and in transfer students. I think there were a number of colleges that experienced that. Here we are talking about an overall fall of 5% in freshmen and 4% in transfer students. When we aggregate the comprehensive and the senior colleges, I wonder what that conceals in terms of individual colleges, or whether that’s a uniform trend. I wonder if you could share with the Executive Committee the breakdown by individual colleges so that as a body we could have access to that. Do you have the data disaggregated by senior colleges and comprehensive colleges?" / Interim Chancellor Kimmich – Yes, I do. I thought it would be easier for you to see it in print.

IV. New Business

Chair Sohmer - Is there any new business to come before this body?

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) - "I just thought everybody who is not on CUNYTALK would like to know that tomorrow morning several of us are going to Judge Wilk’s State Supreme Court to get a date for a new case. It is not exactly new, it is an amended brief on a case which was filed a month ago against implementation of the Remediation Resolution. It was based on the argument that in the colleges which are going to be affected by the Remediation Resolution between 2000-2001, we have already seen, and this includes Lehman and Hunter, a significant decline in first-time freshmen as of Fall 1998. The second part of the suit, at least my affidavit, points to the statistics, again from Fall of 1998, of what ethnic groups passed all three FSAT’s (Freshman Skills Assessment Test). Because passage of all three FSAT’s is the requisite for admission to the seven affected senior colleges that are not comprehensive. By comprehensive I mean two and four year programs. In the passage of all the freshman skills tests, over 70% of whites who took them passed. Fewer than 50% of all minorities who took them passed. That’s another chart which was not widely disseminated, and I had some difficulty getting it. It was compiled by the Office of Information Research of CUNY. The third piece of the affidavit deals with the issue that despite the State Law, there will be no remediation courses in the senior colleges that are affected, for SEEK students. Now, if I understand the SEEK Law, and I need to be corrected here please if anybody knows it better, if that student cannot take those courses, and must take them on a community college campus, that student is switched to a CD (College Discovery Program), and cannot be switched back into a four-year senior college into SEEK until accumulating 60 credits or a degree. Is it a degree?

[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER] - A student, once enrolled in CD, must achieve an A.A. before they can switch over to the senior college.

Professor Cooper - I don’t know whether this will work, but we are asking Judge Wilk to issue an injunction based on the probable damage to students. CUNY has a history of winning in the State Supreme Court and losing immediately on appeal. On the other hand, if this case can at least throw in a monkey wrench enough to delay and get some sort of injunction, we may be able to hold off the January 2000 impact.

If any of you know high school counselors who are advising students, it would be helpful to those of us involved in this lawsuit to find out what the general impression they are giving to students. Finally, I would just say that all of this is kicking in before these new Regents requirements, which are then going to reduce the graduating pool of eligible students really significantly. In Brooklyn and Staten Island, some of the principals have been holding discussions of ways of getting around that disaster. They are basically thinking in terms of diverting students in their junior year from even thinking of becoming seniors in order to avoid a low graduation rate which will threaten a lot of things, perhaps their positions. This will reduce the graduating pool of high school students really dramatically, I think.

I am amazed that Richard Mills, the Commissioner, can say that he expected that these Regents requirements would lead to a better educated, unaffected graduating pool of students without throwing a nickel behind his prediction. In any case, don’t ask me to predict what the future of this case is. It could be that we’ll get kicked out tomorrow morning. I just thought you should know that this imitative is on the way and it is being carried forth by a consortium of lawyers from the NAACP, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Jewish Congress, two Asian American Defense Groups, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and two other groups. It may also be that NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund will join them."

Professor Crain (Psychology, City College of New York) - "We read the letter from the Executive Committee on the Performance and Excellence Awards. I would like to make a real simple motion, which I don’t think goes against the spirit of anything, but is in the spirit of what we are trying to do. Which is, until the Performance and Excellence Awards Plan does sunset, the University Faculty Senate asks all faculty to consider, in the interest of solidarity, non-participation in the awards."

[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER] - I would second that.

Chair Sohmer - You are presenting that as a Resolution? / Professor Crain - "Yes, it would just follow the letter that was sent out." / Chair Sohmer - It can’t be an amendment to the letter... / Professor Crain - "It’s not an amendment, but it follows in the spirit of the letter. I offer to add it as a separate amendment." / Chair Sohmer - Is there a second to this resolution? / [Unidentified Speaker] - "I second it, I was going to introduce a resolution to the same effect. That the Faculty Senate go on record as opposing the merit..." / Chair Sohmer - That’s not what his resolution says. / [Unidentified Speaker] - "No?" / Chair Sohmer - Do you want to read it again? / Professor Crain - "Until the Performance and Excellence Plan does sunset, the University Faculty Senate asks all faculty to consider, in the interest of solidarity, non-participation in the awards planned." / Chair Sohmer - Is there a second for that motion? There is a second, the motion is before you.

Professor Greenbaum (History, Queensborough Community College) - "For us to tell faculty, and to put social pressure on faculty, not to avail themselves of their contractual rights is no better than administrators telling faculty not to avail themselves to their rights to grieve. First of all, we have no business dealing with a contractual issue. We are a Senate, we are a governance body, and not a body that negotiates contracts. Secondly, who are we to tell fellow faculty what they should and should not do and put pressure on them?"

Professor Sank (Anthropology, City College) - "I would like to speak in favor of the motion. I think that the issue here is that it is not as clear as it was presented by the former speaker. Because I understand that the union in a sense put this award in under some type of pressure. I think it is perfectly reasonable for faculty to express their views about any aspect of the union contract, of the by-laws. We express our views against the by-laws, we shouldn’t really go against the by-laws because after all, this is a legal, legislative matter. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to recommend to faculty. Of course it is then up to the faculty to then do it. We are not forcing them. We are not saying that they are going to be fired if they don’t do it. But I certainly think that we should express that view. It is demeaning, divisive, destructive, demoralizing, and it’s reminiscent of the commercialization of the institution. These are incentive awards essentially. They are just like awards that employers give for good performance, good productivity. I support the resolution."

Professor Frisz (Student Personnel, Queens College) - "I rise to speak against this motion. I think the Executive Committee in their letter expressed to the union their concerns and encouraged them in future contracts to consider sunsetting this agreement. I have a sense at some point in the future that will come to the table. I don’t think this is an issue that the Faculty Senate should be voting on. Just as you wouldn’t want the union to be voting on issues that are not in their purview. This is a contractual issue and I think we should keep out of it. I don’t think we’re in a position to do that. I think the Executive Committee worked long and hard on coming up with this letter and I think we should support that the way it is. I really strongly encourage people to vote against the amendment."

Professor O’Malley (English, Kingsborough Community College) - "I’m not quite sure how to speak. At the last Executive Committee meeting, the official one we had, it was decided, I think, that we had a resolution that some of us agreed, and some of us disagreed. There was going to be a letter that was going to be brought, too, and that the body was going to decide." / [Unidentified Speaker] - "That’s misrepresenting what happened in the Executive Meeting." / Professor O’Malley - "Let me finish. And then you called an Executive Committee meeting, in which I wasn’t there, and I know Anne wasn’t there, and I don’t know who was there. Then a letter was approved that I never saw. Now you are saying that the Executive Committee approved it. I just want to say, I as one person on the Executive Committee, didn’t see the letter, and didn’t approve it. I think the body has to decide, or whatever. I’m not quite sure. I’m confused. An extra meeting was called in which I couldn’t be there, the last official one. I thought we had decided that the body would decide. I have not seen this letter and I have not approved it. I am a minority, at least of one, of not approving this letter."

Chair Sohmer - I was one of the people absent from the first meeting.

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) - "I was one of the people who asked for that special meeting. Susan, you were out of the country; you indicated that. Everybody was invited to come and the text was circulated on the e-mail. I understood you were connected to it even though you were out of the country, but perhaps I misunderstood. I was one of the people who asked for the special meeting. I’ll tell you why. I was horrified in that Executive Committee meeting and the split in the Committee. In the years I’ve been on the Senate and the Executive Committee I’ve never seen anything like it. It struck me, at this time in the history of the University, for us to go at each other the way we did over this stupid issue was absurd. I really thought it was an invitation to the kind of idiocy that has torn the Left apart in Europe since I started studying it for the last 200 years. It looked like a miserable farcical replication of history, but never mind. Don’t let me get started on that. I asked the Committee to send this kind of letter as a compromise. I am partly responsible for the language and I’d like to own up to that in public. I thought this kind of approach might be the best way out, so that we could avoid some kind of fractionation. I think the message is out there by now. I am not saying this as a supporter of this award. In fact I know for a fact that the people who negotiated were not supporting it. I am saying this because I think it is very clear that if we send such a letter I can’t believe the Trustees are going to fight for the preservation of this award. This is a result of a compromise that came from one of Anne Reynolds’s private pet projects, which was the abolition of the step system and the substitution of merit pay. That’s what this came from originally three years ago.

It’s no secret, all of us who were on the Executive Committee heard it from the mouths of some of her Vice Chancellors. Some of us heard it from her mouth. She presented this to a retreat in the Fall of 1995 and insisted that this be the way for CUNY to go. It also came with appointed chairs. It was in that context after 3 ½ years of mud wrestling that this moronic award system came out. If I understand correctly, it sunsets in one year. For us to tear ourselves apart over something that has a half life of 12 months, it just seems to me to be utterly absurd. I have to confess, I was not here, I thought the meeting ended last month when I left. It turns out it went on for another hour or something over this issue. I guess that demonstrates what a good prognosis person I am. I did not hear the debate then and I apologize for that. But I can’t believe that we are going to get ourselves into another hour over this issue. I would like to take responsibility publicly for my part in this letter and in the calling of that meeting. Neither Bernie nor I could stay for the Executive Committee that went on and on, and came up with whatever.

Professor Friedman (Developmental Skills, Borough of Manhattan Community College) - "I have a few things to say. One is the passion and emotion that’s been evolving both times we have discussed this here. This is indicative of how insidious this issue is. I just want to state for the record that the letter that was circulated on the Executive Committee e-mail that Sandi wrote I did read it and I did respond to it, indicating that if the majority of the Executive Committee felt they wanted to approve that letter, that was o.k. with me. I made one suggestion. The letter that came in our packets, came in the mail, I saw for the first time in the mail. It seemed to me vastly different in tone and specifics from the letter that I agreed to. Secondly, there was a special meeting called on an evening that I could not attend. I was never called and asked when would be a good time for me to come to a meeting. I did not approve this letter either. I think it is really unfortunate that we didn’t proceed from the last meeting when it was my understanding that the Executive Committee was asked by this body to come back to this body with a resolution to be discussed." / [Unidentified Speaker] - "That’s not what occurred. If you read the minutes, what occurred was that some people said that that’s what would happen." / Professor Friedman - "I would like to support this motion and hopefully we could bring this to a close. My last comment is that I do believe that the Chair reported initially at the beginning of the meeting, that the Executive Committee invited Polishook to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee did not invite him as far as I know. I was not part of that decision either. I found out that Polishook was going to be at the Executive Committee meeting when I received the agenda in the mail."

Professor Grossman (Elementary Education, City College) - "I support Bill Crain’s motion. I don’t know when I first began believing in unions. But the union does not run this body. If we do not stand for principle, what are we here for? What do we come here for after the end of a long day? The union is separate, the union screwed up on this, in my opinion. We as the University Faculty Senate have every right to say to our colleagues, in the matter that we represent them, ‘this is disgusting.’ We do not want to be in a position of being in a Roman arena, having aristocrats throw a few scraps to us and watch us kill each other over it. I’m just disgusted by the whole situation. I think that this body has every right to express views to the faculty and to recommend action to the faculty. I support this proposal. I think it is totally proper for us to have this on the floor to vote it up or down."

Professor Levine (Engineering Science & Physics, College of Staten Island) - "I’d like to speak against the free standing resolution. First of all, I’m against these ridiculous performance excellence awards. I, like many other faculty, have chosen not to allow my name to be put in nomination in any form whatsoever. But I also must say to the people who are sitting at this body, this body definitely has a right to express an opinion about contractual issues or any other issues. However, I do not see how this resolution is in the interest of solidarity. What are we saying to those individuals who have accepted nomination? You’re evil? They are not. These are our colleagues. These are people who are working very hard. Let us hope that this performance excellence nonsense vanishes. But I cannot see trying to embarrass our colleagues by telling them that they did something wrong. Yes, CUNY did something wrong. Perhaps even the union did something wrong, but the faculty who’ve accepted nomination did nothing wrong."

Professor Crain (Psychology, City College) - "I have no idea what happened at the Executive Committee and that has nothing to do with the resolution I proposed. I propose it feeling that we should appeal to solidarity. There is no implication in this that anybody has done anything wrong. This is the first time the major governing body asks the faculty to consider, in the interest of solidarity, non-participation. It just asks them to consider this. We do feel like this sort of merit pay is a very destructive policy in whatever form it takes. It’s divisive, it will hurt morale, it is very damaging at this particular time in our history. The legality is there, people can participate in it, or not. We’re asking for them not to participate in something that we feel, as a higher priority, should go on solidarity rather than getting individual awards. A lot of us would qualify for individual awards and wouldn’t think of participating. It doesn’t have to do too much with who deserves it and who doesn’t. That kind of thinking gets us into the same kind of insidious competition that takes away our morale. All it says is that we ask them to consider it. Admittedly it is slanted in the sense that it does pose the problem of solidarity. But I think I have worded it in a way that would be as neutral as possible."

Professor Petratos (Political Science, Economics, & Philosophy, College of Staten Island) - "I agree with the things that Professor Levine said before. On the other hand, I stand to support the resolution. Or perhaps it can be changed somewhat. I’ll give you an idea which is not mine. Professor Simpson, at my campus, suggested that the monies be given over to students. But before I get to that let me also offer my thoughts on the subject and put these matters into perspective. The perspective is the following. Five-thousand [after taxes] would go to about $3,000. We are not talking about pennies, we are talking about crumbs. Dr. Salk is a graduate of City College and so many other Nobel winners, but we advertise Jerry Seinfeld, don’t we? Do you know that the faculty who are hired today, in his or her lifetime with 35 years’ contribution to this institution, will earn a sum total of the constant rises in incomes, the sum total of two appearances of the buffoon that plays Kramer. This is the perspective, two appearances, 12 minutes’ total, this is what you are going to earn in 35 years. The Senate cannot discuss matters that the union deals with? What are we doing here? We’ve discussed enrollment, curricula, negotiations with the State, the City, the Mayor, the Governor. What else are we doing? Spinning our wheels and discussing the sexual habits of tsetse flies? We should give us some crumbs and we’ll be quiet. Or somebody mentioned before, productivity. What productivity? There is no measure of productivity here. None whatsoever. How many people does it affect? A handful. How much money does it affect? Even less. At one point a $1 billion budget, we are talking about a couple hundred thousand, but after taxes becomes even less than that. Therefore I don’t know what you can do without Bill. If you were to accept that. Leave it the way it is, and if you want to add another line to it --that would satisfy what answered before, and the people have agreed to participate in it, and the monies that are being received -- put in some kind of a student aid program. The letter also, Mr. Chairman, is also good, and therefore it should stay. I support it personally."

Professor Sherrill (Political Science, Hunter College) - "I want to associate myself with Al Levine’s comment, and perhaps also elaborate a bit. I know that at Hunter, and I believe and all the universities, the deadline for applying for these awards has passed. At Hunter I know that 23 faculty members applied for 11 awards. I don’t know how explosive and divisive that will prove to be. I think it is terribly unfair retroactively to label a colleague exercising his or her rights, to be a fink. If you want to discuss this well in advance of the deadline for applying, then discuss it then. Don’t do this retroactively. This is unfair to good colleagues. It is irresponsible on our behalf."

Professor Greenbaum (History, Queensborough Community College) - "I call the question."

Chair Sohmer - All those in favor of calling the question at this point? Against calling the question? The question is not called.

Professor Cooper (English, York College) - "If we are academics who learn what we then teach our students, the question is, what do we learn from our own subjects? I’ve had a very hard time with this in the last week and a half. This morning at our own faculty caucus, I proposed that we try a diversionary tactic, inasmuch as the contract exists. I said, ‘let’s vote our three awards to the lowest paid CLT’s who have been there a long time,’ and so forth. That was the spirit of things. As I saw the discussion develop among the faculty, I realized that what Fred Greenbaum said before is absolutely right. This is something contractual. We as faculty signed on to that contract; we approved it. To say that we can then stigmatize our colleagues or deny other people of the right to apply, is simply wrong. In my remarks to my own faculty, I likened this to the golden apple of discord that was thrown among the three goddesses. I said, it is very mischievous. But I suppose I forgot to go to the end of that. In the Greek myths, the choice is always, not between good and bad, but between bad and worse. We are in a bad situation. We have something I think nobody who spoke today enjoys having to deal with. We know that it is discordant, and we know that it is against the best interest of the faculty to have had this. But at this point, I think we have to look for where the wisdom lies. The wisdom lies in just letting it go. Letting the process play itself out and very strongly militating against its renewal."

Professor Sank (Anthropology, City College) - "I would just like to say that I think that there is this communication going on here and we really don’t recognize what the real basic issue is. It is not $5,000, it is not taking money away from colleagues who could maybe use $3,000. It is not a question, should it be given to students, should it be given to non-tenured faculty. The question is, whether the academic institution is to be turned into a business. Courses are being cut if they don’t have a certain number of students because it is not productive. You won’t get back your money. I think Sandi raised a very excellent point. Comparing something that Reynolds wanted to do in terms of the step process, that this is just part of a whole process of demeaning us and changing the institution from an academic institution into a business. Get rid of tenure. Get incentives for doing good work. Who makes the final decision? In this case it’s not the faculty who makes the final decision. We asked our own president at City College, who makes the final decision? She said, it was her, the president makes the final decision. We asked, what if we say that we don’t want you to do this? Will you do it? She says that she will still do it. On what basis does the president make the final decision? Will it be made on an academic basis? Will it be made on productivity and performance? Or will it be made on some other political basis? It is not that we are saying that faculty who have already applied are finks. I don’t know where you get this kind of mentality. This is almost like thinking back to the college as a business. I tried to raise this resolution last month. I was told, wait a minute, it’s not the time, let’s wait until next month. Now this month we are told, it’s too late to raise it. It’s never too late to raise it. I think we have the right to criticize the union if it says something. I voted against the contract. Because actually there were issues that the City College Caucus felt the contract was not good. I voted against the contract. So I think I have a right to speak against any part of it. But I think we all have a right to speak against the contract as we speak against the by-laws. We speak against the Mayor; isn’t that sacrilegious? Where do you stop; this is academia. I think that this merit pay is an insidious thing to demean us, to reduce us to employee and employer type of relationship. I think on that basis we should oppose it. Those faculty who have already applied, they are not finks. They have the opportunity to decide not to go along with it. If they go along with it, that’s their decision. We can still express the view of the majority. As we said to the president, the majority of City College faculty have expressed a view against this. Why then are going for it? She said, because a few faculty came to us and applied for it. So do we go on the basis of majority rule? Or minority rule? I do endorse this resolution and the spirit of it. I’m against the insidious nature of it."

Professor Richter (English, Kingsborough Community College) - "I want to second the comments of Professors Cooper and Levine. I believe that it is perfectly true that we did sign off as a body, as a rather hefty majority, I believe, on the new union contract. I do understand that the union had its arms twisted in ways that it may not have been very happy about. The net result is something that much of the faculty isn’t very happy with. On the other hand, we are obligated to go along with it. I think to the point where, if any decision is made to give the award to the person who is learning the least money. Or to renege on the award, or whatever it is. If any faculty member says, my rights have been abrogated as an individual faculty member to receive this reward, it will actually have to be advanced as a grievance by the union. My question though about this letter concerns the question of to whom this is going. I find the address somewhat vague. "To members of the City University community." Who is that, what is the agency by which this will be disseminated? Isn’t this in fact, a mild rebuke. I think it should be mild." / Chair Sohmer - "The letter is not what’s on the floor. The motion is on the floor. The letter did go to the union and our usual press release list."

Professor Clark (Public Management, John Jay College) - "I just want to share two things with you on this point. One, because it seems to have been omitted from the discussion all together. At John Jay the Committee of Chairs voted to not participate in this and recommended that to the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate at John Jay is considering it again tomorrow. At their last meeting they voted to recommend that the union not go along with this in the next contract, and we will consider not participating in it. One point of information that people should be aware of, monies that are not distributed this year fold into next year. So that is an out at least for this year. One could not participate and the monies would still supposedly be available next year. I just would like to share with you that there was a kind of interesting aspect to the discussion at John Jay’s Faculty Senate that seems to be absent here. I thought you might find it useful. Which is, when it came up, who might this money better serve, everyone full well knowing that we can’t redirect funds, there was a significant opinion that it should go to adjunct faculty in their base salary. There was again, a sentiment again against merit pay and that was voted strongly by the Faculty Senate. I’m in support of Bill’s resolution. I think we should pass it. We should take a stand on this."