Candidates for Officer

THE TWO HUNDRED EIGHTY-SIXTH PLENARY SESSION

April 23, 2002

I. The agenda was adopted as proposed.

II. The minutes of the meeting of March 19th were adopted as proposed.

III. Chancellor’s Report

Chancellor Goldstein: Let me talk about a few things: the PSC contract, the budget, Governors Island, productivity initiatives, and a few other things. Let me start and then I’ll stop for some questions.

We do have a tentative agreement with the PSC, as all of you know. I understand that the PSC has been taking their Power Point show around the campuses, so you have a sense of what’s in that agreement. We have been somewhat quiet about it because we have to insure that the parameters under which this agreement was constructed are satisfied by the sharp pencils and sharp eyes of the Division of the Budget and the Office of Management and Budget. They certainly won’t take issue with anything that we want to do, but they want to make sure that the financial obligation is within the parameters of what we told them it would be, and as soon as they finish their due diligence, the PSC will seek to ratify this contract and I will discuss it with the Board. Let’s assume that that’s going to be done soon, because I think everybody in this room would like to have a few extra dollars in their checks, well-deserved, and I’d like to see it done as well. I suspect that this will be done quickly.

We have worked awfully hard with the new city administration, and I think that the relationships that we’ve developed, not only with Mayor Bloomberg, but with three of the deputy mayors, First Deputy Mayor Marc Shaw, Dan Doctoroff, and Dennis Walcott, have developed a sense of trust and support, and I think that the budget that the executive has brought forth is an indication of that kind of trust and respect for what is going on in the university. I was very concerned about the PSC contract specifically for this year. This fiscal year ends on June 30th. The contract reverts back to 2000 and 2001, and we had to come up with cash in hand by June 30th in order to come up with the retroactive raises--those dollars were not there. And there would be no way--I mean it was mathematically impossible for us to do any kind of action at the university and come up with those dollars short of mortgaging something in the university, and I’m not even sure that the collateral would be well-received by some of the banks. But I am pleased to say that the Mayor’s budget has provided sufficient dollars to cover that obligation. The budget provides an additional $15.5 million for fiscal year ’02, the current fiscal year; additionally, about $9.4 million was set aside in a labor reserve fund to cover not only the obligation this year and backwards for the PSC contract, but for the District Council 37 contract, as well. The collective bargaining needs for the Hunter Campus schools were included, as well. All of that is very good news. They also added in about $1.4 million for costs associated with increased needs for health insurance, and our energy budget was reduced by $1.2 million, but that’s something that we are not terribly concerned about. Going forward, prospectively, for 2003, which is the actual budget that he is advancing and now will be placed in the hands of the City Council, that $15.5 million that I just mentioned is carried forward, and we have the other money to provide for the rest of the contract, with the exception of the 1% for both the DC-37 and PSC contracts. That accounts for about $3.8 million, but we expect to get a state aid increase for community colleges; we’ve been working very hard on the state level there. The Assembly bill and the Senate bill are apart, just by a few dollars, so it looks very promising that that will be there as well, so we believe that we will be able to fund that. Beyond that, the Mayor has not placed any money in for the Vallone Scholarships, which account for $7 million, and a few other sundry things, like community colleges’ administrative services support of about $3-4 million that was taken out originally. But we are working very hard with Speaker Gifford Miller, and I have a sense of expectation that if there is restoration that the City Council will provide, I suspect it will be on the Vallone Scholarship money. I don’t want to use the word "remarkable," but given what is going on in this city, with the enormous cuts, this university has been spared to some extent, and I think much of it has to do with trying to undo some of the past practices. Aside from the money actually being put into the budget, it is a change in polarity from what the Giuliani administration did--they just never funded collective bargaining--so we have it now institutionalized in terms of how the budget is constructed, that collective bargaining is now being placed into the budget, and I think that’s really quite promising and quite good.

Let me move on to Governors Island, and let me spend a little time with this. I could spend hours, but I don’t have hours, and you have other things to do. Let me just say that this came as a surprise, I think, to the Governor and the Mayor. It certainly came as a surprise to me in the way that this was rolled out. I heard about it on a Friday--flurry of phone calls all weekend from members of the Governor’s Office--spoke to the Governor on Monday--we had a press conference on Tuesday with the Governor and the Mayor, and certain things were said. If any of you are interested in the history of Governors Island, I am quickly becoming a historian on an island that I probably visited when I was a young boy of five or six, but have not been to since I was an adult. I did tour the island. The historic part of the island is absolutely magnificent. If you didn’t know where you were, you would believe that you were on a very elegant university campus with magnificent views, 360^° views of water, and it’s quite spectacular and quite engaging and quite a bucolic place. That’s the good news. So let me continue with the good news, because good news is better than bad news. There is no bad news yet, but life is not monotone. Let me go through some of the things with you.

When we believed that the island was going to revert back to the hands of either the state or the city or probably some Governors Island Development Corporation (which probably would be the best receptacle for something like this, in that they would have management authority over this), the gift, if you will, was provided under the constraint that the island would be used for educational purposes. Originally, the Mayor wanted to place on the island a network of schools, primary schools, middle schools, and secondary schools. Mayor Bloomberg believed that that would be the appropriate use for the island, and said it to the President. He was disabused of that view by Marc Shaw, his First Deputy Mayor. The Mayor has spoken publicly on this, so maybe you have heard it, as well. Marc Shaw thought that it would be better if this island, or at least part of this island, could be used for a CUNY facility, and that there would be an opportunity to reprogram some things that happened on the various campuses of CUNY so that space could be made available, and some schools could be placed on some of our campuses. Right now we have twelve high schools on our campuses. The one I’m most familiar with, of course, is the one at Baruch. I thought it was an important thing to do, and it’s a splendid school. I think it’s good for the university to do this. I’ve always thought that having a school integrated into the life of the university is a wonderful way to engage young people about higher learning and to potentially find ways of engaging them not only about higher learning, but specifically the campus they are situated on. I’ve always thought that that’s a good thing to do if it’s done well, thoughtfully, and truly integrated. If you’re just squatting on a piece of real estate, I don’t really see its benefit, but if the school lives in the life of the college at which it’s situated, I think that’s a good thing.

So we are now in a situation where this may indeed happen. So now all lights come to me and say, "Well this is probably going to happen, so what are you gonna do?" Well, the devil is in the details. This is going to cost a lot of money, obviously. There are a myriad of questions that have to be answered. There are lots of facilities on this island for housing. We’re not talking little studio apartments. They go to three-bedroom apartments, duplex apartments. This could be wonderful for faculty; it could be wonderful for graduate students that have families, and it’s a dream that I think all of us have had, to try to have housing for graduate students and younger faculty who are new to the institution, because we all know that housing costs are so high; if we could find a way to subsidize the cost of housing, this would be a good thing, so I think that’s a marvelous thing. So now you have housing. Well, if you have housing and you’re in a three-bedroom apartment, you’re not going to be a single woman or a single guy; you’re going to have children running around, and the children have to go to school, which means you have to have schools. You have to feed the children, so there have to be places to buy food, and all sorts of things. You have to build a little village. Well, universities are not in the business of developing all of these things, but these are the things that we would need to think about. Also, the island is surrounded by water--that’s why it’s an island, right? There are no bridges that connect, so the only way that you can get there is either by some type of water vehicle, like a water taxi, helicopters, and so forth, and that’s expensive, and the transportation systems are really not in place, although I have now gotten calls from business people who are in the water taxi business. We will have to worry about transporting people, and not just every half-hour. There needs to be constant transportation. That’s important.

Money--this has to be supported. If you’re going to support a thing like this, you have to have revenue, unless you are operating under the view that you’re going to be blessed with the largesse of this city or state that’s just going to throw money at you, and we’ve lived in this city long enough to know that that doesn’t happen, so we’re going to have to think about not only a campus atmosphere, but ways to generate revenue. Well, housing would generate revenue. Perhaps if we had a conference center, a conference center would generate revenue. Perhaps if we had businesses that were sited on the island to support the people who were working and living on the island, obviously they would contribute to a revenue stream. There are a whole lot of questions like that.

Then there are a lot of buildings on Governors Island. This was used for many years as a Coast Guard facility. When the military are on a base, for those people who have served in the military, I think we would all agree that it’s spit-polish clean. Roofs are repaired; buildings are painted; the infrastructure works--but when the military leaves a base, there’s a different thing that happens. What happens is that the military knows they’re not coming back to the base, so they stop painting, and they stop repairing the roofs, and they most assuredly do not shore up the infrastructure--the bowels of the buildings, the piping, the electrical systems, and so on.

Let me tell you where we are at this point. When we had the press conference, the Governor and the Mayor were both talking about teacher education. Well, it’s fine to do teacher education, but the university does a lot more, and we should do a lot more on Governors Island. What I said were a couple of things, and I just said them off the cuff, but off the cuff had a little thoughtfulness behind it. One of the things that have to do is to develop an academic plan for Governors Island. We have to devise a financial plan for Governors Island, and we have to do a lot of things that we don’t know how to do. We’re just not in the land-use business. We’re not management consultants. We really are not in that business of how do you take a large and complex facility--and this is complex, because it’s an island, not just a few acres of land connected by all sorts of roads and things; this stands alone--how do you put all of this together? So we are in the process now of putting together a steering committee that will sort of steer the discussion, if you will, dominated by CUNY people because I think it needs to be dominated by CUNY people. But the real work here is not going to be the steering committee. We’re going to need to have a management consulting effort here, of a working group bringing together regulatory people, land-use people, transportation people, financial people, all of these individuals collectively, that can look at some vision of what we hope to do and put some logic and put some structure to this enterprise. Those two processes would have to work in parallel for some time, and it’s going to take some time. This is complex. It’s certainly not a simple problem to solve, and it’s not clear where the financial base is going to be to do all of this. We’re going to have to do this very carefully, very methodically, and not be rushed into judgments. That’s being rolled out now in a lot of discussions with the Mayor and with the Governor, with the City Council, the Assembly, and the Senate, on putting together such a process.

But we have an immediate issue that has to be addressed quickly. We can’t just deal with process, because the island now has been transferred from the Coast Guard to the General Services Administration. The GSA, by act of Congress, or by act of President, and we’re still not exactly clear how that trigger is pulled, which entity really has the authority to do it--the President says he does if the island is going to be reverted to use by an educational organization--I just don’t know the answer to it. But at some time that’s going to happen soon, but in order for that to happen, the GSA and Congress need a document that says, "This is what this is going to be used for." So we’re going to have to very quickly work with all of these regulatory bodies, and say, "Well, we could do this. We can have a science park; we can put a school there; we could do all sorts of things there," but think of it as viable kinds of things, and it’s going to have to be done quickly, because in order for us to do what I’ve said we need to do, we first must have the island. We don’t have the island now. So the first step is working with the Mayor’s people, the EDC, all of these organizations now that are responding to the President of the United States, through the General Services Administration, to say, "We need a plan," and "Having looked at the plan, we’re convinced that it’s going to be used by a university because these things are university activities." And then the island will be given over, as I’ve said, to some development corporation or some other thing that I really can’t think about because I really don’t know enough about the legal requirements here. And then we will start our process. That’s really where we are.

I think there’s one thing that I can say with some confidence, and that is that I can’t imagine that if this opportunity were a few years ago, that the administrations would have even thought about CUNY. I think that in a sense, this is a statement of confidence in where CUNY is, and that CUNY deserves something like this. I think all of us should be very pleased because this is really a collective sense of goodwill, a collective sense of confidence, and I think that’s important for all of us to know. You know, my grandmother would say to me sometime, "You need this like a loch’n kop--well, I think that yes, this is a loch’n kop--for those of you who don’t know what a loch’n kop is, it’s a whack in the head. But I think it is a wonderful opportunity. This is to my mind, if all of the pieces fall into place, a transforming event in the life of this university. It truly is a transforming experience, and I think we all are quite excited about it, a little nervous because there’s a lot involved here. So we have to do this very, very thoughtfully, and we will.

Let me get into a few other things, and then I’ll take your questions. We are moving towards a resolution of appointing a president at Queens College, and we expect that that will be done soon. I am going through my due diligence and speaking to a lot of people and moving this process forward, and I expect that that will happen soon. We are working on these productivity initiatives that I have talked with you about, regionalization of procurement practices--we’re trying this out on our three campuses in the Bronx, to find a way of procuring things that all of those campuses need and use in a way that will save money, and then again redeploy those savings back to the core life of the institution, which really is the motivating factor behind everything that we’re doing here. We’re trying to reshape how we spend our money so that we can redeploy the savings to the things that have starved this university for a long time, like not enough teachers in front of a classroom, not enough equipment, not enough instrumentation, not enough travel money, not enough just about anything that you can possibly think of. We’re going to push this envelope as far as we can, and we’re going to be able to make some jumps initially and redeploy those savings reasonably quickly, but we’re going to have to wait for other things to happen, especially in the sharing of data. Our support systems, our management information systems on purchasing, on personnel, on payroll--all of these things are clunking along, and they really need to be integrated and shared across the university in ways that we’ve never done, and once we have common data sets that all campuses will have access to, we’ll be able to do things that we can’t do right now. Simple things, like these three colleges have selected the time and attendance processes as the first of the Human Resources functions to consider for regionalization, and I think that that’s a good thing to do. They’re also looking at Campus Security, and finding a way to integrate some of the security personnel and practices on those campuses, so that instead of overtime, you’ll be able to switch people around, and you know, a dollar here and a dollar there, and before you know it, you generate some real savings. So we’re moving ahead. We have put into our budget message about $10 million for next academic year, starting July 1st, that all of these initial moves that we’re making will save, and that savings is going to be reprogrammed into the core life of the institution. Those are a few of the things that I’ve been thinking about lately.

Someone just whispered to me, asking if I’ll say something about the high schools. Part of the equation here--this ledger has two sides--part of going to Governors Island is a presumption that we’re going to reprogram certain things on our campuses and free up space so that we can utilize space on our campuses for high schools. Now the thing that all of you need to appreciate here is that if you listen to my words carefully about integrating these schools into the life of the university, we don’t have to build a school from scratch. It doesn’t need a library. It doesn’t need an auditorium. It may not even need a cafeteria. It doesn’t need a lot of the things that you would need to have if you had a stand-alone campus. Now the Baruch school has about 500 students, and that’s the size of these high schools--we’re not talking about bigger high schools--what you need really is several classrooms that are programmed around or through what you do on your campus and a couple of administrative offices and not much more. So we’re not talking about a whole building being dedicated. That really would not work. That’s how it’s worked at a number of our campuses. I’ve made the commitment to do three. We are going to do a high school at Lehman in the Fall, and that’s going to have as its theme American Studies. We’re going to do a high school on the York College campus, again consistent with this model, on the Life Sciences. And we’re going to do one at City College in Math and Science. I think it’s a good thing to do, and we’re going to do a few more as we fold out or roll out some of the changes on our campuses incrementally. We’re not going to do major changes because we don’t have to build buildings or dedicate a building; we have to generate classrooms and a couple of administrative offices. I’ll take your questions and start with Stefan Baumrin.

Professor Baumrin, Graduate Center: Your grandmother was right. There are two problems. One is that faculty representation on the steering committee isn’t evident, at least to me, nor is the notion that some of the people on the steering committee are constitutional skeptics. I’d like to have either one or the other, preferably both. My second question is, in all of the talk that I have heard, no up- front consideration was given to the thinness of the present faculty and the fact that any staffing would have to be in terms of additional personnel. Otherwise, you would be making the various schools thinner yet. In a place that has more than 50% of its classes taught by part-timers, the diminished faculty is one of your least readily movable resources. Chancellor Goldstein: I think these are two good questions. The real analysis that we will have to do is not on the steering committee; it’s going to be the working group. Let me just throw out ideas, and I don’t know if these ideas have any greater merit than anything else. One of the things that I’ve always wanted to do consistent with the integrated university is to find a way to create critical masses for our faculty to do the kind of research and have access to the kind of laboratories, certainly in the sciences, that right now I don’t think we really have because of the way the university is structured. Governors Island might be a wonderful place to have a science research park. Thinking about the way the university is now structured in a totally different way with respect to certain things that we do in science--now that’s an idea. How do you shape that idea? How do you give it structure? How do you look at it under the hood? That’s where a management team comes in, people who are looking at problems and trying to solve the problem and how to put it together in a way that deals with the very basic questions that we would ask as educators about how to do this best. The working group is the entity that I see that will be working very closely with faculty in particular, because it’s the faculty that really have to advise and counsel and shape what it is that we’re doing here. You’re bringing up a good point. That’s a point that would certainly have to be addressed. With respect to whether somebody is a skeptic or not, we’re going to get this. We’re going to get this island, and the question is, do we just say, "This is ridiculous, and I don’t want to be bothered with it," or do you accept the challenge and say, "Let’s really look at this closely and see if we could do something quite spectacular and quite different"? It’s going to require, and let me really make this very clear, a sea-change in the way we think about the university, which I don’t think is bad, especially if we do it in a way that creates a stronger, more vibrant university. Now I don’t know if that’s going to work or not, but it’s certainly something that we ought to look at. The working group, for me, is where the engagement of faculty really will take place, and will have to take place over a long period of time, really open to ideas and to shaping those ideas. It’s a process that we’re going to have to start and go down, and things like the thinness on a campus are among the things that we’re going to have to look at.

Professor Frisz, Queens: I was wondering if one of the things that you might keep an open mind to in terms of Governors Island--as I was sitting and listening to you, I was thinking that perhaps one way that all of CUNY could benefit from a place like that is maybe making it an opportunity to become some kind of educational conference training center, which would mean for CUNY students and faculty. I think one of the things that’s missing in CUNY, for our students especially, is the opportunity to have a feeling of a residential experience. Even though you might want to have some of the graduate living accommodations there, that would be for a small group of people. If we had the opportunity to provide a place where we could take groups of students for training sessions on special areas--it could be almost any area because it would be open for almost anything from social sciences to education--where we take them away for a few days, where they get the opportunity to live together and learn in communities and groups, and they get that experience as well as learning, and it’s so close to the city, and everybody could make use of it at all the campuses. This might be another area that you might want to look into or think about. Chancellor Goldstein: I think those are the kinds of ideas that I would like to see. There’s nobody here that’s omniscient; we don’t have all the answers or all of the ideas, but this is the process of unfolding these ideas. I don’t know how big a footprint we’re going to have on Governors Island, but I will encourage, as soon as we get this island given to the appropriate entity, we’re going to want to have tours. I think one of the things that you’ve got to see as a faculty member of this university is that you have to experience the physical place. You can see photographs, and you can read about it, but you have to walk the island, and you’ll get a sense of what’s there. I like that idea. I think that’s a terrific idea, and it’s something that certainly should be considered. Professor Frisz: A comment about Queens College’s presidential search. You said that the announcement is imminent, and I think everyone at Queens College is looking forward to that, and I’ll just remind you of something you said here about a year and half or two years ago when you came to talk about the Queens College presidential search, that you said that you were going to make us happy, so I hope that that promise will be kept. Chancellor Goldstein: I hope to make all of you happy--that’s my hope. Will I make all of you happy? I don’t think so, but look, what we all want is a great president on all of our campuses, and that’s what I am trying to do. It’s not easy. Sometimes we make the wrong choices, and we have to undo those choices. That’s an unhappy kind of thing to do because you want stability and continuity, but for me, I take the process of presidential selection very seriously because I understand the power of leadership, and if you have poor leadership, you don’t have happy people on a campus.

Professor Levine, College of Staten Island: We all applaud your efforts at the $10 million productivity savings and the redeployment to our core areas of instruction and research. Would you consider including in next year’s report card for the presidents at the campuses an explicit item, "How much have you saved, and how much have you redeployed to instruction and research?" so that we can have accountability at the campuses? Chancellor Goldstein: I’ll do you one better than that. Basically what we’re doing is allocating these redeployments right now into our budget, so these presidents will be getting their operating budgets as soon as we have a budget, and built into that is going to be the expectation of certain kinds of changes administratively to redeploy for the faculty positions and other things that we’re going to do. Professor Levine: I applaud the allocation, but there is so much freedom at the campuses to then take your allocation and rearrange it. I would still like to see accountability in the presidents’ report card. Chancellor Goldstein: I don’t like the term "report card." I find it almost pejorative. I wouldn’t want to see a report card on any of you. Professor Levine: What is the preferred term? Chancellor Goldstein: I think when you allocate a budget, what a budget is, is basically a set of options and choices that are being made, and we know what the baseline is for the academic life, and we know what it will be after the budget is allocated, so you have it done.

Professor O’Malley, Kingsborough: When we were up in Albany, Ed Sullivan said he wanted Governors Island to be a peace academy, and he said that he was available. I thought I should share that. Two quick questions. One is repeating Stefan’s, but maybe a little bit more directly, which is will there be faculty on the steering committee? Chancellor Goldstein: The answer is yes, there will be faculty. Professor O’Malley: And will the UFS be consulted about the appointment of those faculty? Chancellor Goldstein: I’m not really sure, but I’ll speak to Bernie. But again, that’s not where the action is going to be. The action with faculty is sitting down with faculty and really probing with them and exploring with them, "Does this make sense?" and "What are your ideas?" and that sort of thing. Professor O’Malley: Then in terms of the contract and the community colleges--does the city have to put in money, or will increased state aid cover the costs of the contract? Chancellor Goldstein: Right now the only thing that is short is in the Mayor’s budget--now that’s not the adopted city budget yet; this is the Mayor’s budget--for all of the money for the PSC contract, there is a shortfall of $3.8 million, which is a result of that 1% area, but we believe with the state aid for community colleges, which we expect to get from the state, that we will be able to handle it. And if we don’t get it there, we’ll find a different way to do it. $3.8 million university-wide is not an insurmountable problem. It’s not a problem you want to have, but it’s not insurmountable.

Professor Crain, City College: I was very happy to hear on Sunday that Governor Pataki is supporting legislation that will help many undocumented immigrants, and I want to thank you for your role in supporting the Rivera bill and other bills. I want to say that we still have to lobby hard to get some good legislation, and it’s very important that we get the most inclusive bill possible. If the Governor pushes a bill modeled after California or Texas, which requires three years of high school residency, we will not make college affordable to many of our students. Also, even if we get the most inclusive bill, there will still be probably a high percentage, maybe 1/3, getting near ½ of students, who will not find college affordable, who did not attend the high schools, who are undocumented immigrants, who would have been able to afford it before. There are two ideas that I would like to suggest to you. It seems to me that one could allow students to qualify for in-state tuition on the basis of making certain progress toward a degree at the university. That would comply with the 1996 federal law, since that law says that students are not allowed to get any benefit other citizens get on the basis of residency; it wouldn’t be on the basis of residency, but on the basis of making progress toward a degree in the college once they’re here. I think that would help a lot of students in addition to the legislation in Albany. Also, restoring the last-semester-free--that will hurt a lot of students, not only the undocumented immigrants, but a lot of our students--many of our students who are poor are counting on that last semester free. These are two suggestions that I hope you will consider in helping our more disadvantaged students. Chancellor Goldstein: Bill, with respect to the first, what I would suggest is, if you mind, just jot that down. It’s an interesting idea about progress and how you measure that. Get it off to Rick Schaffer, because he really is the one that needs to be applauded here. He pointed out the problem that we had. I came out, as you know, very quickly, and said I didn’t think the federal law was a good law, and that we would need state legislation. We really pressed, not only Espaillade, but Rivera, indeed, all three individuals who are really pushing this, and I think a lot of our pushing, and Rick’s really very good work, convinced people very close to the Governor to take the best of what he can of those three independent roads and fashion a bill. So I think Rick has done good work. If you can get something to Rick about this, maybe he can incorporate that in some of the documents he’s putting together. I think that’s a good idea.

Professor Cooper, York: I have a question buried in a couple of statements--maybe it’s a puzzle or a conundrum. I’m not sure. You mentioned as far as the high school at York is concerned, or high schools generally, on the one hand that you don’t want to just throw in something without faculty consultation and faculty involvement in helping to create it. On the other hand, you want to begin a program at York this coming September. We are within a month of final exams and most faculty will be unavailable within five weeks or so, after graduation. Though we have seen the presidential correspondence that indicates that York has long been in favor of this high school, I must tell you that the faculty had no input, no consultation even, concerning that, so we are largely surprised by this. The faculty have met, and we have taken some resolutions, but as far as opening next September, what we really would like to know is whether that can be postponed so that we can have it, because according to the faculty resolution this afternoon, it says that the York faculty believes that this high school for September is needed like a loch’n kop. Chancellor Goldstein: Let me respond very directly. The high school will open in September because we’ve made the commitment to do it. Remember what it is that we’re trying to do here. Organizationally, this is really a no-brainer. The first year, we’re talking about 125 students. We’re talking about a curriculum that is essentially invariant from high school to high school, so there’s really very little that we as a university faculty are going to have to consider with respect to the curriculum in that first year, because essentially all students are taking a similar kind of curriculum. Where I think the faculty really need to get in gear very quickly (and I think our best presidents who are embracing this and moving this forward really ought to bring in faculty as quickly as they can) is really not to devise a curriculum, because you’re not going to devise a curriculum; that’s a curriculum that’s set by the Board of Education, not by CUNY, not by CUNY faculty. But there will be ample time--it doesn’t have to be now; it could be sometime in September--where the faculties could start to meet with the teachers, with the principal, to say, "We would like to think about over the long term, how we can get your students access into our laboratories, introduce them by the time they’re juniors and seniors into our courses." There’s a lot of time that really you have in these very small schools, that really would have very little, if any, effect in the first year or two. It’s more when the school matures. So I don’t think the business of faculty consultation at this particular point is really that critical. The President really needs to sit down with his or her facilities people and say, "How do I fit this into the schedule? What are the appropriate classes? What building should it be in?" and so forth. I don’t see a lot more than that. Professor Cooper: One further point. A loch’n kop is a hole in the head, and the building that we’re considering has a roof problem. Chancellor Goldstein: Well, we’ve got to worry about that building.

Professor Beaky, LaGuardia: I want to follow up on Susan’s question about funding the contractual agreements for the community colleges. I thought I heard you say, so I want to confirm it, that the city had committed to funding this collective bargaining agreement this time, number one, and then number two, that there was a structural arrangement by which the city would, from now on until we get another mayor who thinks differently perhaps, continue to fund the collective bargaining agreement for the community colleges. Did I hear you correctly? This contract is going to expire in about two months once it begins. Chancellor Goldstein: Yes, you heard me correctly. Basically, when I mean structural, it’s not a one-shot. They’re not only funding retroactively, but they’re funding it prospectively, et al. So that to me is a very different structural change from what it had been before. There is a small hole, $3.8 million, which I alluded to, which I believe if we get the additional base aid for community colleges, if we can get a $100 base aid increase, the problem goes away. So we’re going to get some base aid increase, and that will reduce that $3.8 million either totally or substantially, and we’ll just have to find a way. I will make the commitment to fund it. Professor Beaky: And the implication, then, will be that for future contracts the city will still be committed to funding. Chancellor Goldstein: Well, look, I can’t speak for future financial plans, but this mayor has said to all city contracts, not just the PSC contract, that they’re funding them. So they’re not asking any of the agencies to eat out of their own operating budgets. Whether that will continue--I don’t have a crystal ball that’s any clearer than any of yours, but it certainly looks good. I regret that I’m not going to be able to take all of your questions, because I really have another engagement that I must get to, and I must be out of here by 7:30, so I have five minutes.

Professor Vozick, BMCC/York: I appreciate your analysis that Governors Island is a landmark event for the history of CUNY, and I understand that including the high schools in the package is an offer that can’t be refused and has to go forward, but I’m also in my mind’s eye hearing the groans of the adjuncts who are struggling without adequate space to do their jobs, under a situation where they’re going to come under new space pressure, so I ask you to consider that briefly. In the planning process, since it’s going to be a lengthy process, I’d also ask you to think about whether you can consider some way to include some of the more experienced adjuncts around CUNY in the planning process. I draw particularly to your attention that we have quite a lot of adjunct faculty at CUNY who are also teaching in the high schools, and so whose careers do intersect high school and college work, and who might have some interesting ideas to contribute to this process, and who are currently under the CUNY structure totally ignored. My second part is a follow-up on a question from a previous meeting, the possibility of adjuncts being principal investigators. I’m not going to ask you for a report. I know you’re under tremendous pressure in all directions, but this is something that you took on in this meeting as something you would investigate further and come back to us on, and I hope you will be able to do that. My last brief point is that you may find it possibly useful to think of as part of the plan for incorporating the Governors Island thing, in the strategy, to somehow include the concept of memorialization of those who were killed in the World Trade Center as part of the overall concept. I don’t want to give you an exact way of doing it, but I think that would help to make the idea more attractive and more useful. Chancellor Goldstein: Let me just say one thing about the last point: Louise Mirrer is taking the initiative to deal with the 9-11 memorial that we said that we wanted to have on our campuses. We’re really doing this seriously, and it was a resolution that we passed at the Board. I meant to put this in my report. We are going to have a contest that we’re very excited about. There’s a prize of $10,000 for the winner, and it’s going to be web-based. Louise, do you want to say a couple of things about that, or would the group like to ask her to come back sometime and talk about that? OK, we’ll do that. I have time for one question, and then I really must get out of here.

Professor Philipp: Just briefly, the idea that some of the research activities would actually be moved to Governors Island has caused considerable panic among this faculty. It would uproot their lives and create other possible problems. It would have to be done in consultation. That is not a question, but just a statement, because I have consulted with some of them. At Lehman College, the proposed high school is being put in a separate building, and that has reduced a considerable amount of panic because if it were put into the middle of our classes, we would have a huge problem. We are renovating-- Chancellor Goldstein: Manfred, I find that remarkable given that Lehman College is a much smaller college than it was eight or nine years ago, and if you could tell me that with a college that has lost several thousand students, in the same physical space you cannot find a few classrooms, I find that mathematically unacceptable. I just don’t believe it. Professor Philipp: The reality is the research labs at the college have taken-- Chancellor Goldstein: Well, alright-- Professor Philipp: I’m not here to defend the college’s space use, but-- Chancellor Goldstein: Well with respect to your first point, I can’t imagine that anybody will be forced to do anything that they don’t want to do. But in my discussions with some leading scientists, not only around this university, but at other universities, the idea of having access to other faculty, perhaps from other institutions, with fabulous new facilities, is something that people would salivate for, but if one doesn’t want to do it, this is not the Gulag. With that, I’m going to have to leave. Thank you very much.

IV. UCRA report

Professor L’Amoreaux, CSI: On behalf of the Research Committee, I’d like to point out to you that we’re still in need of members to serve on the UCRA. As it stands right now, we have one person for anthropology, one for biology, one for biochemistry and molecular biology, nobody to serve in the classics, two in English, nobody on the economics panel, two for interdisciplinary studies, one for law and criminal justice, one for philosophy, none for physics, none for urban studies, and two for women’s studies. Now this is a very small pool, and we’d like to forward a lot more than just one name to the Chancellor. We’ve also extended the closing deadline to May 17th, so if you could pick up some of these forms from the back and circulate them, we need more bodies, warm preferably. There is a stipend. The total is $6000. The individual will receive $1500 in years one and two, and in the final year, a $3000 bonus.

V. UFS Campus Elections Update

Chair Sohmer: As you may have noticed, there will be an election in this Senate for the next set of officers and the Executive Committee. Let me both personally and in the name of the Senate thank the following, who will not be returning in the Fall, for having served. At BMCC, Ruth Herz; at Brooklyn, Merih Uctum and Steven Keltner; at Hunter, Paolo Fasoli, Susan Neville, and Ellen Steinberg; at John Jay, Jane Davenport, Edward Davenport, Sandra Lanzone, and Maria Rodriguez; at Kingsborough, Eva Richter, who also has retired; and at Medgar Evers, Mary Umolu, Lorraine Kuziw, and Iola Thompson. The following are people who are contingent, and let me explain that, because we have a kinky rule: If your term is up and there has not been an election on your campus, then you may attend the election meeting and vote; you lose the right to vote as soon as there has been an election on your campus. There have not been elections at the following campuses, to the best of our knowledge, and these are the people who will be eligible to vote, but who will disappear were there to be an election: Baruch--Clayton Majete, Cecelia McCall, Prakesh Sethi, Ashak Vora, and Heather Harris; Bronx--Don Read, Thomas Brennan, and Doreen LeBlanc; City--David Pearson and Diane Sank; CUNY Law School--Victor Goode; Graduate School--Raymond Erickson and Tom Hayes; LaGuardia--Don Davidson and Marcia Glick; Lehman--James Jervis, Robert Feinerman, and Alicia Georges; Queens--Ruth Frisz; Queensborough--Judith Barbanel, John Specht, Jay Mullin, and Nora Tully--John Specht has retired; and York--Edvige Coleman, Glenn Lewis, Dennis Moorman, Beth Rosenthal, and Theresa Rooney. The body should applaud these people for having served and thank them. The last list, if the election does not take place, have to come and vote next session. If the election takes place, and they are not elected, then they don’t have to come, and they shouldn’t vote.

VI. Chair’s Report

There have been complicated things going on at the Board, including a new trustee who I presume will take office or at least appear next week. He has some notoriety as a functionary of sort of the right end of the Catholic Church, and we will have to see how he works out. The Research Foundation has some problems and I will try to put some of those questions into the minutes. The difficulty is that promises have been made for several things, including graduate student fellowships, and the money seems not to have been transmitted, even though the promises were made and everybody believed the money would be there. It’s about $400,000, which is floating in cyberspace. We’ll put that material into the minutes.

Professor Speidel, Queens: A point of information: I’m the chair of governance and elections on our campus, and because of the necessity of run-offs and so forth, it’s taking us forever to get our elections done, and I’m concerned that elections might be invalidated because of the rules of the Senate. Chair Sohmer: No, they won’t be invalidated. They just may be untimely. We don’t govern how you elect; we only govern that you can’t serve unless elected. Professor Speidel: I think I understand your answer. I’m just concerned that people who are elected after the cutoff date in the rules will be accepted as Senators. Chair Sohmer: Yes, but if they appear sometime after the election in the Senate, that may be immaterial. We have an election coming up, and you must be an elected member of the Senate in order to vote at the election.

Professor Cooper, College of Staten Island: Bernie, may I ask a question before we begin? The question I’m asking is in regard to the appointment of a new trustee. As you know, or some of you know, we made an effort, a group of us, to register our dismay with the officials in Albany about the nomination and the speed and the usual secrecy with which this was pushed through. Now you know that for some years now we have attempted to regularize the process of trustee nominations, and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere with our attempts to transform this process into something resembling fairness. In the course of this nomination, it was publicly stated by the Archbishop of New York City that there has been a clergy seat on the Board of Trustees. This has not been the case since 1978 when I sat on the Senate. There have been three or four clergy appointed here and there. There has never been a seat reserved for a clergy person. There are requirements in the law that the trustees represent boroughs and that some of them graduate from some of our colleges--that’s clear. There has never, however, been a clergy seat. There now seems to be de facto a clergy seat, and I really do believe that it is our obligation to take this issue up in some systematic way and deal with it. It would be fine with me if the PSC did as well. I don’t care how many groups do it. I find that an offensive idea, but if there is such a thing, I don’t understand why it’s reserved for only one religion. I have no resolution in my head, and I wasn’t going to ask this of the Chancellor. This is not his fault. My statement I’ve just made, but my question to you is this--did we officially request that this nomination be set aside when we heard about it, or did we just do nothing? Chair Sohmer: This body did nothing. The Executive Committee did not act on that, either. The PSC, I gather, did, in some official way. That’s a question of information. It seems to me the burden of what you’ve said requires that the Executive Committee come with a resolution to the body. Professor Cooper: That’s another issue, but in terms of this very specific one, several of us were in Albany when we heard this was happening, and we came back and publicized it, and we did request a specific protest from the leadership of this organization. I know that we had no time for a meeting, but I found that an egregious kind of move, and I find it frightening. Never mind the credentials of the individual, which is another issue, a questionable issue. I mean it’s not a questionable issue; the credentials in my view are questionable. But the question of whether or not we now have a new unwritten qualification--a clerical seat on the Board of Trustees of a public university bothers me at least as much as the privatization moves.

VII. Nominations for Elections

Professor Mettler, LaGuardia: All offices will be vacant and are up for election in May, as well as Members At-Large of the Executive Committee. Officers serve for two years, and Members At-Large serve for one year. All elected members, including newly elected members, are eligible to be nominated to fill vacant positions. Officers are eligible to serve for not more than two consecutive terms. The Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer have served two terms and are not eligible for re-election to these positions. According to past practice, nomination at the election meeting can take place sequentially for the various seats, meaning that a person not elected in one election may be nominated and run for seats elected subsequently. The following nominations were made:

For Chair:

Susan O’Malley, Kingsborough Community College

Manfred Philipp, Lehman College

For Vice-Chair:

Karen Kaplowitz, John Jay College

For Secretary:

Lenore Beaky, LaGuardia Community College

For Treasurer:

Martha Bell, Brooklyn College

Stefan Baumrin, Graduate Center

For Members At-Large to the Executive Committee:

Jamal Manassah, City College

Anne Friedman, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Sandi Cooper, College of Staten Island