Subject to Senate Approval

THE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHTH PLENARY SESSION

OF THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE

OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

March 28, 2000

Chair Sohmer called the session to order at 6:30 p.m. at the Graduate Center. Present were Senators from the following campuses:

Present were Senators from the following campuses: Baruch:  Hill, Majete, McCall, Pollard; and Alternate Freedman; BMCC: Friedman, Herz, Price, Reid, Vozick, and Young; Bronx CC: Cummins, Fuld, Read and Alternate Skinner; Brooklyn: Bell, Jacobson, Shapiro, and Tobey; CCNY: Connorton, Crain, and Sohmer; CSI: S. Cooper Foleno, and Yousef; CUNY Law School: none; Graduate School: Dauben and King; Hostos CC: Canate, Vasillov, and Alternate Jones; Hunter: Kurzman, Sherrill, Steinberg, and Wonsek; John Jay: Clarke, J. Davenport, Kaplowitz, and Lanzone; Kingsborough CC: Farrell, Goodkin, O’Malley, Richter, and Alternate Barnhart; LaGuardia CC: Beaky, Mettler, and Reitano; Lehman: Bullaro, Feinerman, and Jervis; Medgar Evers: Donohue, and Harris-Hastick; NYC Technical: Cermele, Hounion, and Alternate Richardson; Queens: Brady, Diamond, Frisz, Kulkarni, and Savage; Queensborough CC: Barbanel, Dahbany-Miraglia and Greenbaum; York: Cooper. Governance Leaders present: Cooper (York), Feinerman (Lehman), Kaplowitz (John Jay), Mettler (LaGuardia), O’Malley (Kingsborough),Taharally (hunter) and Tobey (Brooklyn).  Excused was Harrison (Brooklyn).  Faculty guests included Thane Doss.  The Parliamentarian was excused.  Executive Director Phipps and Administrative Assistant Pasela were present.

I.   Approval of the Agenda: The agenda was adopted as proposed.

II.  Approval of the Minutes of February 15^th and February 29^th, 2000: The Minutes were approved as distributed.

III.  Reports: [recorded in Reports & Deliberations].

1. Chair (oral and written).

2. Ms. Nina Peyser, Executive Director of the Research Foundation (oral).

3. Chancellor Goldstein (oral).

4. Representatives to Board Committees (written)

IV. Old Business – There was none.

V. New Business

1. Resolution on the Future of the Community Colleges: Passed unanimously by voice vote.

Whereas, a new Board of Trustees’ Committee on Community Colleges has been formed for the purpose of reassessing the institutional missions, curricular priorities, and role of the community colleges in CUNY, and

Whereas, the faculty are by tradition and by statute responsible for curriculum, degree requirements, and institutional mission, and

Whereas, the omission of faculty (and student) representation on this Committee sends a clear signal that the views of faculty (and students) are not respected by the Board on these issues, therefore be it

Resolved, that all matters concerning review of curriculum and institutional mission should first be referred to the elected faculty bodies of the respective colleges for consideration, analysis, and appropriate action, and be if further

Resolved, that, following past practice of the Board, the Chair of the UFS should be asked to appoint a faculty member from the community colleges to the Committee.

2. Statement on the Diallo Case: Passed unanimously by voice vote.

As the faculty of the nation's largest urban university, the City University of New York, whose historic mission is to serve all the people of our City, we cannot remain silent in the face of a situation that has left so many of our students, particularly our students of color, feeling so vulnerable and full of despair. Our students' histories are marked by a long struggle to gain basic human rights and dignity. But despite major gains, the decisions and actions related to the police killings of Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Gidone Busch, and Malcolm Ferguson, have made many feel that even today they, too, could be killed by the police simply because of the color of their skin or perceived social status. We join those who are calling for a fair and objective Federal civil rights investigation into the policies, training, and practices of the New York City Police Department that have allowed these disturbing patterns to emerge, and we call upon President Clinton to establish a bi-partisan blue-ribbon commission to recommend the kinds of police training, conduct, and supervision that will militate against such an event ever happening again.

3. Endorsement of John Jay Senate Resolution on CUNY Police Cadet Program: Passed Unanimously by voice vote.

Resolved, that the University Faculty Senate endorse the resolution below, which was unanimously passed by the John Jay College Faculty Senate on March 22, 2000.

RESOLUTION OF THE FACULTY SENATE

OF JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

ON ESTABLISHING A CUNY/NYPD PEACE CADET PROGRAM

WHEREAS, The CUNY Cadet Corps was an innovative and visionary program designed and implemented jointly by the City University of New York and the New York Police Department to produce college-educated police officers, reflective and representative of the people of the City of New York whom they serve, and

WHEREAS, The CUNY Cadet Corps class of 1992-93, as an example, was representative of the program in that the class comprised 127 students of whom 67% were people of color (47 percent Latino/Latina and 15 percent African American) and 37 percent women, all of whom were new York City residents, as mandated by the program, and

WHEREAS, The CUNY Cadets, having been recruited by CUNY and screened for police service by the NYPD, were all full-time students enrolled in degree programs at 10 CUNY Colleges in all five boroughs, and

WHEREAS, CUNY Cadets studied not only at their home college but also received intensive and extensive training, specialized study, and supervised practical work experience at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, for the specific purpose of preparing and evaluating them for police service, and

WHEREAS, The CUNY Cadet Corps was defunded and no longer exists, and

WHEREAS, Recent events involving the New York City Police Department are of deep and abiding concern to the Faculty Senate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and

WHEREAS, The Faculty Senate is the voice of the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a College whose mission is the education of current and future criminal justice practitioners, therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the Faculty Senate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice calls upon the CUNY Chancellor, the CUNY Board of Trustees, and elected and appointed officials to establish a CUNY/NYPD Peace Cadet Program, as a way to help serve the citizens of the City of New York, as well as the students of The City University of New York.

4. Resolution to Honor Dr. Robert Picken: Passed unanimously by voice vote.

WHEREAS, Dr. Robert Picken exemplifies the finest tradition of academic excellence, having been graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth and having attained his graduate degrees at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, and

WHEREAS, he served as a member of the UFS for 15 years and for four years as CUNY’s premiere advocate for the faculty and for academic integrity as chair of the University Faculty Senate, and

WHEREAS, he subsequently served CUNY as a faculty fellow at 80^th Street for several years, and

WHEREAS, his abrupt termination as acting provost of Baruch College has led to his retirement, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the UFS salutes Dr. Picken for his courage in speaking out against unworkable and obtuse Board policies, and extends its warmest wishes to him for the future, and be it further

RESOLVED, that the UFS warns the academic community at CUNY that such events as this portend grave danger to faculty rights and the historic independence of CUNY colleges from a meddling Board and its agents at 80^th Street.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:25 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

William Phipps

a. Chair: We are, as a Senate, recruiting for three committees. We need a committee for overseeing the actions of the University in complying with disability regulations. It is high time, and we need a committee of committed people to pay attention. We are asking for volunteers. It is not the kind of committee that we can drag people into, but I believe a fair number of folks in the University are interested in the question. If either you or a friend is interested, would you please contact us. We will keep soliciting until we have a full committee.

We have also decided to have an active Legislative Outreach Committee. Our legislative actions from the Senate have been very spotty -- usually only two weeks surrounding the budget. Everybody who is seriously interested in affecting legislation agrees says you need ongoing contact with the folks in the Legislature. The contacts have to be overt and continuous. We are asking for folks who will volunteer to join our Legislative Action Committee. The only thing we can assure you about this is that if there are any expenses involved, we will reimburse you.

We also need a Media Outreach Committee to work within the City. Again, our contacts with the media are spotty. We have serious and continuing issues, which should mean an ongoing and continuing relationship between the UFS, other CUNY faculty, and the editorial boards and various reporters from all the prominent newspapers.

We need volunteers for these three committees.

At Bronx Community College, this Thursday at 2:00 p.m. there will be a dedication ceremony of a computer laboratory in the name of Gerald Lieblich. It will be held in the library. He was Chair of the Mathematics Department there for some years. He was also the Chair of the Math Discipline Council and a member of the Faculty Senate at Bronx Community College. He died about a year and a half ago.

You may have read in the newspaper, or on the e-mail, or in some other way, that a new Board committee on the community colleges has been created. Until yesterday, it consisted of only Trustees. The Chair will be Nilda Ruiz. Ken Cook, John Morning, and Kate Pesile will be members. The student member of the committee is Biswas, and the faculty member, Sohmer. There will be a President -- Tony Perez of BMCC. As of yesterday, a member of the English Department of Bronx Community College was named to the committee by the Board chair. The name escapes me, and unfortunately it was not a name I recognized. At the first meeting of that committee, I intend to distribute a document, a statement of purpose for community colleges, that came from the Community College Caucus about a year and a half ago and was endorsed by the full UFS. We will see what happens with the committee from there on.

There was a confrontation about two months ago when a committee of the Board went into executive session. I was asked to leave. I took exception to that, since by law I am a member of the Board of Trustees. Rather than putting my body on the floor, I left. I then wrote to the Attorney General, explaining that the Board had performed this act. The Attorney General has orally communicated with me that I was right, and they were wrong. We will get a written opinion which states that they may not exclude a member, no matter who he or she is, from an executive session.

There is a State-wide Higher Education Committee being formed between the several unions and the several Senates of SUNY and CUNY which will be an organization to defend public higher education, and forward its purposes throughout the State. Each organization will have one vote. We’ve had two meetings, and there will be a final constitutional meeting on the second Monday of April. This will primarily be a lobbying group.

Two other issues. As you may know, last night the Board of Trustees went into executive session. They laid over one item until next Monday when there will be a special session of the Board. But last night two presidents were named. The new president for Queensborough Community College, the current President at Corning Community College, is Oswaldo Marti, and the Baruch president is Ned Regan, a former Comptroller of the State of New York.

Another issue, which I have to bring to you. When the Board altered the admissions policies for the senior colleges, it was written in on the floor, by the faculty, that at each campus a faculty committee would be created to look at the marginal students who were being excluded. The committee would have the power to admit students to the institution, if there were clear markers that those students would be successful. This is even if they didn’t meet the numerical indices that had been set up. We have had singular difficulty in determining whether those committees have in actuality been set up at each of the campuses. We know on some campuses they have, and on some they haven’t. What I’m asking all of you in one form or another, is to go back to your campuses to see whether the committee has been set up. This is not the first such plea. We met with the Faculty Governance Leaders about three weeks ago and asked them to go back and find out. We have a response from eight campuses. So would you please go back and call whoever on your campus who might know this so we can find out whether the committee is functioning, how it came into existence, and so on. Thank you.

b. Invited Guest: Ms. Nina Peyser, Executive Director of the Research Foundation

We have a guest. The new Executive Director of the Research Foundation is Nina Peyser. She has kindly agreed to appear here, make a short statement, and then take questions. She comes to us from The Continuum Health Partners – Beth Israel Medical Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, and Long Island College Hospital, as Vice President for Research Affairs there, and a very long history before that.

Ms. Nina Peyser (Executive Director of the Research Foundation) – It makes me feel old if I have a long history before that, but I do. I was in health care administration for the past 25 years. I am a product of the CUNY system: my MBA is from Baruch. In some ways this is coming home for me. I appreciate the invitation to come here and meet with this group. I have just completed eight weeks on the job. So I don’t know what questions I can actually answer yet. I am learning my way around the Research Foundation and around the CUNY system.

Most of what I’ve done in the last few weeks, and what I will be doing for the next several weeks, is coming to each campus. I am meeting at each campus with the President, the Provost, the Research Dean, the Grants Officer, and with a number of faculty members who have either been referred by the Grants Officers or the President, or who I’m aware of as particularly involved in research, or who have concerns about the Foundation. I’ve also been working as close as I can with the Faculty Advisory Council that represents this group in terms of oversight of the Foundation. They have been enormously helpful to me so far.

We are floating some ideas and developing some working task forces to address mostly operational kinds of issues. I think there has been a cause for concern, in some cases, between faculty members and the Foundation, and in some cases with the administration of CUNY. We are looking, for example, at the time it takes to get new hires on payroll. We are looking at the entire issue of payroll for employees who are hired on grants, when the grants haven’t started yet. We were able to identify, just in the last payroll period that CUNY-wide over 600 individuals who were in fact working on grant funded projects didn’t get paid. They didn’t get paid for an assortment of reasons. Some were paperwork. Some were because the grants themselves had not been executed yet. Some were communication problems. We have some 5,000 employees. So on a percentage basis, that may not be big. But those are real people, who needed to pay rent. That is one of my top priorities. Again, we are doing that in a Task Force-like model, to solve it.

We are also addressing some other issues that were raised over the year before I came on board. There had been a management review and a great deal of consultation with faculty, college officials, and people within the Foundation. There were other concerns that were repeated in that report, and I’ve heard since then, looking at some of the accounting reports that the Foundation distributes. They are available on the web site, and they are available in hard copy. But they are only coming out once a month, which means by definition they are out of date when you first see them. In some cases they are cumbersome to use, in other cases they are quite elegant. But depending on the purpose to which they would be put, they may not be the best answer. So we have another Task Force, with the Faculty Advisory Counsel helping out, the grants officers at the campus, and staff of the Foundation. I don’t think that it will take us more than a month to have daily summary reports of grants available on the Website, and some other tailoring available, as people need it. I think those were the two most often repeated concerns I heard when I was going through the interview process. And I’ve heard them again during the first two months of the job. I think we are going to find operational solutions to those kinds of issues.

Other things I still have to learn more about. Where can we work to help the research enterprise across all the campuses grow? What kinds of facilitation are necessary? What kinds of communication could we help enhance? What kinds of educational programs could we put on? Just this past week, we tapped into a teleconference on scientific misconduct. We will have a video tape of that conference available for any campus which wishes to use it. We’ve just hired a Compliance Officer who works with human subjects research at every college, with a central IRB. How is human subjects research progressing? To what extent are we compliant with the regulations? What are we doing to look at the ethical considerations? Where do we need educational programs for graduate students, as well as faculty, as well as for staff on research projects so that we know what we are doing is the right thing. That will be a very interactive kind of role. He is starting to go campus by campus, to introduce himself, and see what issues are needed there. I think that’s a quick run-down of what eight weeks has been for me. I’ll be glad to answer questions about myself and my background.

Professor Vozick (Science, Borough of Manhattan Community College) – "One of your points was where we might help the research enterprise to grow. I’d like to point out that we have several thousand part-time faculty members at City University, many of whom are technically expert, properly credentialed, and so on. They could develop grants, but there seem to be structures against part-time faculty being directors of grant programs. Perhaps this is an area you might explore, and see whether there are possibly artificial constraints that are limiting the research capacity of CUNY." / Ms. Peyser – It is an issue I hadn’t heard of before, in terms of running research projects. I’d be glad to look into that.

Professor Kulkarni (Mathematics, Queens College) – " The social security that the Research Foundation collects on the grants faculty members get is separate from the social security that is collected by CUNY on the regular payroll. So often the two amounts exceed the amount that is suppose to be taken out. The faculty member gets the excess back, but the amount that the Research Foundation puts in, I am told, is lost to the IRS." / Chair Sohmer – It is the way the social security law reads. I believe that is not a local problem. / Professor Kulkarni – "Regardless, we may be losing a couple of million of dollars." / Ms. Peyser – Again, that is not something I’m aware of, so I will look into it. It may just be a phenomenon of social security law.

c. Chancellor Goldstein: Let me review briefly where we are in the budget process. We continue to work very aggressively with the Governor’s Office, in particular with the leadership in the Assembly and the Senate on the State side, and very aggressively with the Mayor’s Office and with the City Council on the City side. We had a successful trip to Albany on March 6^th and March 7^th. We had a very warm reception by the Governor’s Office -- the Governor, Brad Race, and other members of his inner circle. We met with Senator Bruno and some of his chief assistants. We met with Shelly Silver, Senator LaValle, and Ed Sullivan.

One of the things I tried to get across is the idea that full-time faculty positions are the most prominent component of our request. We did not get a response that was dismissive when we talked about where this University was 20 years ago. It is unprecedented in the annals of higher education for a University of this size and stature to have diminished in its full-time faculty ranks.

There has been such a creation of wealth in the last decade, and such liquidity chasing so many ideas -- but none of the liquidity or wealth has really chased higher education in this State. This is really a disgrace. We said it over and over again. The leadership agreed that it’s an interesting principle.

The faculty have been terrific, and the presidents, the students, and the Board have much involved. Let me just summarize the process for you. The Governor comes out with a budget, the Senate comes out with a budget, and the Assembly comes out with a budget. For the senior colleges, the Assembly resolution added $14.1 million to the Governor’s Executive Budget -- I am only talking about the senior colleges. That breaks out as follows: $3.6 million for faculty positions, and another $4 million in programmatic increases to be used for faculty positions or for anything the University deems appropriate.

We no longer are in the arena where you are given a number of positions, and those position targets have to be reached. It’s really much more about revenue and dollars. In addition, the Assembly proposed a little over $4 million as an add-on to the SEEK Program, and an additional $2.4 million to child care. The Senate added a little under $1.9 million in faculty positions, which is really nothing more than what was taken out of the budget last year. They took a little under $350,000 from the central administration. Overall, the budget that the Assembly proposed was a little over $14 million, and the Senate, a little over $1.5 million.

On the community college side, the Assembly recommended an increase of about $11.6 million. This is added on to the Governor’s proposal. That $11.6 million is disaggregated in the following way: a $150 FTE base increase for community colleges, that totals about $7.5 million, a full-time faculty add-on of $2.4 million, College Discovery, about $190,000, and funding for child care for about $1.6 million. On the Senate side the add-on for community colleges is proposed at $5.5 million. Instead of proposing a $150 base increase per FTE for students in the community colleges, they propose half that. They propose $75 this year, and $75 for the following year. Funding for full-time faculty is at about $1.3 million. The Assembly includes language to allow a capital program at Medgar Evers to go forward, without the local sponsor match. There is an oddity with respect to Medgar Evers. As it became a senior college, there was still a component of their capital program which was different from any other senior college. If the State appropriates money, that appropriation cannot be drawn down, unless the City puts in an equivalent amount of money. That was eliminated in the Assembly language.

Lastly, financial aid. We want to lift the cap from 90% to 100%. We want to eliminate the upper-cut. If a student makes satisfactory progress after four semesters, all of a sudden the TAP is reduced by $200. This is unenlightened public policy. On the Assembly and the Senate sides, they proposed increasing the maximum tuition to $5,000, and increasing the minimum award in the Senate from $275 to $500 and $750 on the Assembly side. Income eligibility was raised as well. For $60,000 on the Assembly side and $80,000 on the Senate side.

Now we have three budgets. We have the Governor’s budget, the Assembly budget, and the Senate budget. Shelly Silver and the Governor agreed yesterday on revenue. Bruno and the Governor are yet to reach an estimate on revenue. When all three reach an estimate, they go into conferencing. The conferencing is a series of committees that take higher education, lower education, jails, hospitals, all areas that have support from the State into negotiations. After negotiations, the leadership comes together on the recommendations of the conference committees and the budget is put to rest.

We are making sure that we are very active with the leadership. Active at all levels, both State and City, so that we can get consideration on the budget. On the City side, we are not only actively pushing the full-time faculty lines, but also College Now as an important component. As you know, we are looking to get $5 million additional from the State, and $5 million additional from the City. We want to increase the number of schools. We are in about 97 now, and we want to get up to about 150 next year. That price tag is about $10 million. The third year of the three-year plan would take us up to $20 million, equally split by the City and the State. It would get us into 213 high schools. Will we get it, I don’t know. For the first time, the Chancellor of the Schools, Harold Levy, is putting money on the table. Chancellor Levy and I are committed to this program.

We have appointed Larry Edwards as Deputy to the Chancellors. He will report to Chancellor Levy, and he will report to me. His job is to make many of these collaborative programs happen especially on the recruitment side. That’s where we are having problems.

We appointed two presidents last night as you know. Ned Regan, was appointed President of Baruch and Eduardo Marti was appointed President of Queensborough. I expect to make recommendations to the Board for action, probably in April, for both LaGuardia and Kingsborough. We have put the Trustee Committee together for the Hunter College search. The Hunter College faculty are forwarding the faculty names. It is my intention to launch the Hunter College search before the end of the Spring semester. It is my intent to launch the search for a president of City College at the end of this semester as well. We have put together the committee for the Trustees -- the committee that I asked for was agreed to. We will now be in contact with the City College faculty. We will get moving on that as well.

We are in the process of interviewing people for the Chief Operating Officer/Senior Vice Chancellor position, which is a new position. It is pursuant to a reorganization of the Central Administration. I hope we will be able to announce a candidate and an appointment in that important position. We have advertised and are starting the process for a search for a Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs and General Counsel to the Board and a search for a Vice Chancellor for Budget, Finance, and Computing. We are completing the search for the University Dean for Teacher Education. This is an area requiring more energy and more accountability.

In many ways we are also very actively involved in starting the Master Plan process. Many of you know that our Master Plan needs to be submitted in June to the Regents and the SED. Vice Chancellor Mirror, myself, and the presidents, have had a series of conversations on parameters. The Senate I trust is going to be very actively involved. We are not going to file a Master Plan without the faculty certainly having a considerable voice. And you will be listened to.

I want to ensure that we have a faculty member and an alternate on the new community college committee that has been appointed by Chairman Herman Badillo.

Professor Greenbaum (History, Queensborough Community College) – "Chairman Badillo appointed someone, without consultation with the Chair of the University Faculty Senate to the Board Community on Community Colleges, which shows little respect for elected faculty representatives. How do you think we can begin to reverse this attitude?" / Chancellor Goldstein – As far as I know, we are waiting for a person to be recommended by the Senate. / Unidentified Speaker – Unfortunately Herman announced the name last night. / Chancellor Goldstein – I’m not really sure that is the case. Why don’t you submit a name, and let’s see where we go?

Professor Beaky (English, LaGuardia Community College) – "We really welcome that announcement from you. I have a question also about the community college committee and what might happen. As you will see from the Resolution and perhaps from other questions here, we are very concerned about the charge of the committee. I think it is stunning in its breadth, and perhaps preemptive in its impulse. Let me ask you, what sorts of policy proposals or outcomes do you think might emerge from this committee?" /

Chancellor Goldstein – Let me tell you how this started. Chairman Egan of the Board of Trustees of SUNY started an initiative on looking at the community colleges at SUNY. He had a dialog with Chairman Badillo, who has also expressed concern over the years, and has had strong opinions about the community colleges. Vice Chancellor Mirrer is staffing this, and certainly will have a lot of influence, as she is the Chief Academic Officer in the University. The community colleges at the City University are valued institutions and they need to be brought more into the sunlight. They have not been as prominent in discussions, as the senior colleges.

I think we need to ensure that the community colleges are providing the kind of services needed by students coming out of high school. It is just not enough anymore to go to high school. You do need to have more advanced education. I want to ensure that part of the community college mission addresses students who to gain skills in two years and go into the workforce. Those skills must be responsive to market needs. Community colleges need to be adaptable to changing needs in society. I think that is something that we can all agree on.

Some of our programs may not be current in terms of the needs of the market, and we really have to look at that. I strongly support the articulation policy. I want to ensure that the students know, when they finish at a two year institution, in a transfer program, that that program is well articulated. That is going to require real coordination between community colleges and the senior colleges.

At the end of the day, what I want is for the community colleges to be stronger, to grow, to be much more integrated in the life of the university, and to be very well thought of in the community. That to me is what this is about. It is not about bashing community colleges. It is trying to look deeply into what happens at community colleges, to make them as responsive as we can. That’s how I view it. / Professor Beaky – "You singled out the market place, for skills for the workplace. Will this committee, also we hope, consider the community colleges not only in that aspect of their mission, but in their liberal arts and sciences preparation?" / Chancellor Goldstein – That is certainly critical. Clearly, whether you are an artisan or a computer specialist that requires a two-year education, it is critical that the base of art and science courses is a strong base. I think all of us would agree that there are a lot of programs that have been started over the years in community colleges that need to be pulled from the inventory and replaced with other kinds of programs that are responsive to market needs. However that process works, I think it is an important process. I would say that is less the case with a four-year institution, because the mission in that component is very different.

Professor Crain (Psychology, City College) – "The Senate developed and sent to you our idea of a model admissions policy. We recommended what we thought would be a workable and good admissions policy. It would include not only quantitative variables, but qualitative variables that could be assessed, such as motivation, special talents, and so forth. They would be assessed by letters of recommendation, personal statements, samples of work, etc. We received a response from Vice Chancellor Mirrer, copied to you, saying that the faculty will have admissions committees going over students who fall just below the initial index. Presumably we would be able to include qualitative variables in that assessment. But the admissions process currently has no letters of recommendation, no personal statements, nothing of that sort. I’m taking this to mean that we will be moving in that direction to broaden the process." / Chancellor Goldstein – I attended the ACE (American Council of Education) meeting in Chicago. At a luncheon address, Nicholas Lennon spoke. He is the fellow who wrote a book on the SAT. I said exactly what you are saying, Bill. It seems to me that we should be using some other qualitative variables, like motivation, leadership style, etc. He said that people have been talking about that for a long time but haven’t been successful implementing it, because it is a little soft, if you will. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be doing it. I hope that we will in some of these committees. / Professor Crain – "I’m very encouraged to hear that. Once they get through this index, they still have to pass a placement test to get through the senior college, or they can substitute an SAT or another standardized test." / Chancellor Goldstein – I don’t want to go through it all again. I’ve gone through it four times already. / Professor Crain – "Currently, according to the RAND Corporation, the verbal SAT correlates with freshman grades 0.19, square that for the variance it accounts for, less than 4% of the variance. The new book is Peter Sack’s Standardized Minds, which brings together the best data. These tests all correlate very highly with one another, and so weakly with college grades, we need qualitative variables to have a decent…" / Chancellor Goldstein – The purpose of the composite is to bring a set of collateral variables that together will show a much greater predictive force in the first year of college. / Professor Crain – "The real admissions criteria here is the Placement Test. That composite is meaningless because it comes down to whether you can pass that Placement Test." / Chancellor Goldstein – We have a Board Policy. We are trying to maximize the chance that students get into baccalaureate programs. If they satisfy the admissions criteria, if they don’t pass the diagnostic test, we put them into the Skills Immersion Program. Remember what I indicated to you in the results last summer -- 80% of the students who failed, the diagnostic test went through the Skills Immersion Program successfully and entered baccalaureate work. We are putting a lot more money into it this summer and a lot more energy. I would like to believe that that percentage is going to go up. I don’t know how much. But suppose it goes up to 85% pass. Then you have a yield now of 15%, many of those students will be ready for Prelude to Success. We are going to make that Prelude to Success Program work and we are going to make the permit policy work. What we are trying to do, Bill, is take a policy that is difficult for certain students, and try, within the integrity of that policy, to maximize the chance that students are going to be successful. There will be students who won’t be. But we want to make that pool as small as we possibly can.

Professor Diamond (Mathematics, Queens College) – "Will the four senior colleges without remediation be able to offer remedial and developmental courses in the summer as usual courses, that is, the students are registered and it appears on their transcript? For example, the intermediate algebra course at Queens College is not being offered this Spring. Will we be permitted to offer it this summer?" / Chancellor Goldstein – I will have to check on this. The policy would prevent that from happening. But I will check and get back to you.

Professor Vozick (Biology, Borough of Manhattan Community College) – "My question is about enrollment figures. Two visits ago you were asked about the figures. Last visit you came back and gave us an overall percentage number. But I’m accustomed to seeing hard enrollment figures. College by college, new student enrollments, transfer student enrollments, etc. I understand that they haven’t appeared. Are they going to be released?" / Chancellor Goldstein – Absolutely, I can get them to you tomorrow. If you want, I can send them to Bernie. We can even put them on the Website.

Professor McCall (English, Baruch College) – "You said that you visited Albany on March 6^th and 7^th, and asked for an agreement in principle on the five year funding for faculty. The Executive Committee visited Albany on March 14^th, and we were told that they would not agree to multi-year funding of faculty." / Chancellor Goldstein – I didn’t ask for multi-year funding. I asked for a commitment in principle over a span of 5-7 years for full-time faculty. And if the revenue is in place in each of those years, then right at the top of the request would be full-time faculty. What I said was, I’d like you to think about it, because it’s a new idea that hasn’t been used. And they said, it is an interesting concept and they will consider it. We will have to push it. / Chair Sohmer – There is a model in the sense that the Governor has agreed to budget the capital budget for a five year period. / Chancellor Goldstein – But that’s different, because there you are selling bonds, and you have a bond cap, so you know the money is appropriated.

Professor Richter (English, Kingsborough Community College) – "We are very concerned about the position of remediation at the two-year colleges. This is partly because in the Schmidt Report there have been various comments about the possibility of "offering students other alternatives outside of the City University." In other words, private sources, and so on and so forth, and alternative tests. We know that the ACT Test has been adopted, and presumably is going to be implemented in the Fall of this year. We have certain questions about why that particular exam was adopted especially for the same multiple purposes, that is, for placement and exit -- the same purpose that the English Discipline Council, and almost every single department of English in the City University, objected to in the first place. My question is really a double one. What is happening with remediation? Why are we being given another exam that is both for placement and exit?" / Chancellor Goldstein – With respect to your first question. We did send out an RFP for a very limited number of students -- up to 500 students. They are adult learners, have been out of school for several years, and failed the three Skills Assessment Tests. We are going to see what happens with this RFP. I don’t think anybody has a silver bullet out there, but at least we can try to look at best practices. Vice Chancellor Mirrer and a committee of faculty and others looked at various surrogates for the Freshman Skills Assessment Test. I can’t tell you what the process was, but there was a process, and at the end of that process, it was agreed that the ACT, would be the best. Beyond that, if you really want a better and more complete answer, I would call Vice Chancellor Mirrer. She is much closer to this than I am.

Professor Mettler (Humanities, LaGuardia Community College) – "I just wanted to be sure that I understood clearly what you said in response to Fred Greenbaum's remark, which was very helpful. Are you saying that regardless of any arbitrary appointments that Chairman Badillo may have made to this committee on community colleges, you are asking us to appoint a …." / Chancellor Goldstein – Let me make my point again. Do whatever you do here, give us a name and an alternate. It will be seriously considered. / Professor Mettler – I guess this is especially important because I thought your goals for the committee seemed very laudable, but they also implied a triage. The faculty’s input is especially crucial in this." / Chancellor Goldstein – I’m sure that we would agree that programs exist at our community colleges which were designed for legitimate purposes, but those jobs are no longer there. I would like to ensure that we have programs for the jobs that are out there that require an associate degree. This is student friendly. If a student comes to LaGuardia or Kingsborough Community College, and wants to get an A.A.S. degree to get a job, that’s why they are coming. They are not interested in transferring to a baccalaureate institution. They want skills to get a job, and that’s their purpose. What is the purpose of them learning something, where there is no demand for the job anymore. It is a waste of their time, and it’s unjust. / Professor Mettler – My point is simply that the faculty wants to be included in the decision making." / Chancellor Goldstein – Obviously the faculty will be involved.

Professor Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College) – "This is a question about a program that was in existence, but Baruch may not have been involved so you may not know about it. It is the CUNY-NYPD Police Cadet Program. This body tonight endorsed a Resolution supporting the Program and calling upon you, as the Chancellor, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and elected officials to support it. The City Council is calling for $5 million for fiscal year 2001, and $22 million for each year afterwards to fund it. The issue is that the Mayor may veto this. And so we need strong voices, such as yours and the Chair’s." Chancellor Goldstein – I am very much in favor of it.

Professor Price (Developmental Skills, Borough of Manhattan Community College) – "Who is teaching the College Now courses? I and others read in the paper that they were to be taught by CUNY faculty. I am wondering whether it is CUNY faculty who are currently teaching in CUNY schools, or whether it will be high school faculty who will be hired as adjuncts in CUNY, and then the public will be lead to believe that the courses are being taught by college faculty. Do you have a clear answer to that?" / Chancellor Goldstein – It depends on the level of instruction. Right now we are in the 11^th and 12^th grade. As we go down into the 9^th grade, those courses certainly will be dominated, if not exclusively taught, by high school teachers. Remember, they are given before school begins, and after school ends. They are not given during the regular periods, when the high school faculty are teaching. There are parts of the College Now Program, which are not AP courses, but certainly college level courses for students who want to do that. Those are definitely taught by CUNY faculty. It is a blend. I don’t know what the balance is, we can find out.

Professor Hastick (Social and Behavioral Sciences, Medgar Evers College) – "I would like to thank you for your encouraging remarks at convocation, and your commitment to assisting us with improving our dilapidated facilities, overcrowding, etc. I would like to ask you if you would repeat your earlier comments, with respect to the State budget and Medgar Evers." / Chancellor Goldstein – When Medgar Evers’ status was changed from a community college to a four-year college, the capital part of the budget was not cleanly differentiated, as it exists today in community colleges and senior colleges. In order to get bonded money through State appropriation, there needs to be a match by the local entity, in this case, the City of New York. So if the State of New York says, we want to appropriate $10 million towards the cost of construction, or the renovation of a building, that money can’t be released unless the City matches it. What the Assembly Conference Committee did was to say we want to appropriate money to the Medgar Evers Project, and we want that to be without strings. Whether the City approves it, comes up with the money or not, is not the operative principle. The operative principle is, that we as lawmakers in the State, want to approve the budget.

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) – "It occurs to me listening to your description of the Community College Committee, and reading the charge, that the purpose of this is essentially something that might have been fulfilled by a Task Force, rather than a standing committee. Is there any reason why a standing committee was chosen for something that looks like it has a discrete beginning, middle, and end, and no real reason to go on." / Chancellor Goldstein – I honestly don’t know. But I can assure all of you that the process is friendly to community colleges. This is not an assault on community colleges. In the economy today, if you go into parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, there are students who are not even finishing the 10^th grade. I don’t know what is happening to these young people. I don’t know how they are going to survive in this economy. What we have to do in society is value education, and certainly the two year degree has to be the replacement for four years of high school. Students have to have more education in order for them to work in this kind of economy. SUNY is doing it, and CUNY is going to do it. Maybe there will be some coordination at the end of it. Hopefully it will be a positive effort.

C. Endorsement of John Jay Senate Resolution on Police Cadet Program

Professor Kaplowitz (Chair of the Faculty Senate at John Jay College) – This Resolution was passed unanimously by the John Jay Senate last week. The UFS Executive Committee is presenting it to the body for endorsement. The CUNY-NYPD Peace Cadet Program existed at CUNY for about five years. It was very successful. This body supported a resolution that John Jay put forward a few years ago when the funding was cut, and the funding was restored. Then the UFS voted last year to reestablish the program, the City Council funded it, but the Mayor vetoed it. Now there is a different climate, and we are supporting it again.

The City Council, just this week, funded the program again, but the Mayor still has to act. It is $5 million for the first year, fiscal year 2000-2001, and then $22 million every year after that. The program is for students at CUNY who wish to become police officers. They have to be residents of New York City. They have to pass the NYPD test, physical, psychological, and background check. Then they continue their studies, they receive special training on the weekends concerning the various complexities of modern police work. Once they get their degree, as long as none of their qualifications for admission to the NYPD has changed, they go to the top of the list for hiring, above everyone else.

As a result, we had tremendous success in having students prepared. Some students were counseled out because they didn’t belong on a police force, and they discovered this themselves. It has resulted in a very diverse pool of police officers, including a large number of women and people of color. And they are people with CUNY degrees.

If this is passed by this body we can ask the Chancellor tonight, and later the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, to speak to the Mayor. We can be a national leader in this way. As a member of this body, I move to endorse the John Jay Resolution that is before you.

Chair Sohmer – The motion is before you to endorse the John Jay Resolution, and the Executive Committee has supported this. Are there any comments? Hearing none, the Resolution is called. All those in favor of endorsing this Resolution? Opposed? It passes unanimously.

Chair Sohmer – A resolution was at the door about Professor Picken, a former UFS Chair who was summarily dismissed last week from his post as Acting Provost at Baruch. It was impractical at his institution, where there were hardly any students eligible for Prelude to Success a fair number of students then decant and finally did not register since Baruch was not prepared to accommodate them. Somehow, a policy he had no hand in, he was held responsible for.

Professor Sandi Cooper – "There was a series of letters between Provost Picken and Vice Chancellor Mirrer about the deleterious effects of Prelude to Success projects and the accreditation of programs at Baruch. The faculty held a series of debates about this, and it is my understanding that Picken was correct in pointing out some of the pitfalls that would be the result of application of this policy. Today what happens at CUNY when you are upended is punish the bearer of bad news. I particularly am outraged personally by this, having worked with him for years on the Executive Committee. I just want to say there are very few more honorable people in this University in terms of honesty and devotion to educational values. The treatment is simply unbelievable, and a very bad portent for everyone else. He’s being punished for telling the truth."

Chair Sohmer - All in favor say aye, opposed no. It passes unanimously.