THE TWO HUNDRED NINTY-FIRST PLENARY SESSION

OF THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE

OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

December 17, 2002

The meeting was called to order by UFS Vice Chair Kaplowitz at 6:35 p.m. in Room 9204/5 at the Graduate School and University Center. 58 voting members were present:

Baruch: Present – Hill. Absent – Freedman, Giannikos, Majete, Melnik, Onochie, Pollard, and Wiley. BMCC: Present – Friedman, Price, and Vozick. Absent – Aymer, Neis, and White. Bronx CC: Present – Gonsher, Lopez-Marron, and McManus. Absent – Skinner, and Tanaka-Kuwashima. Vacancies – 1. Brooklyn: Present – Antoniello, Bell, Jacobson, London, Shapiro, and Sheridan. Alternate Bloomfield and, Tobey. Absent – Moriber, and Romer. Vacancies – 1. CCNY: Present – Connorton, Crain, Manassah, and, Sank. Absent – Benenson, Broderick, Buffenstein, and Sohmer. Vacancies – 2. CSI: Present – Cooper, Foleno, Levine, and Petratos. Absent – Klibaner, and Yousef. CUNY Law School: Present – McArdle. Absent – Andrews (on leave). Graduate School: Present – Baumrin, and Alternate Weinstein. Absent – Katz-Rothman (on leave), Khuri, Kulkarni (on leave), Nair and Ofuatey-Kodjoe. Hostos CC: Present – Italia, and Alternate Vasillov. Absent – Canate (on leave) and Rivera. Vacancies – 1. Hunter: Present – Krishnamachari and Matthews. Absent – Friedman, Hampton, Kurzman, Sherrill, and Wallach, and Wimberly; Vacancies – 2. John Jay: Present – Bohigian, Kaplowitz, Richardson, and Wylie-Marques. Absent – Holder, and Mandery. Kingsborough CC: Present – Farrell, Galvin, Goodkin, and Alternate Fridman. Absent - Barnhart, and O’Malley. LaGuardia CC: Present – Beaky, Gallagher, Lerman, Mettler, and, Reitano. Lehman: Present Philipp. Absent – Heching, Hosay, and Tananbaum. Vacancies – 1. Medgar Evers: Present – Harris-Hastick, and Alternate Patwary. Absent – Barker, Bennett, and Donohue. NYCCT: Present – Cermele, Horelick, Hounion, Walter, and Alternate Cuordileone. Absent – Dreyer, and Richardson. Queens: Present – Erickson, Moore, Savage, and Speidel. Absent –Sukhu; Vacancies – 5. Queensborough CC: Present – Barbanel, and Dahbany-Miraglia; Absent – Pecorino, and Weiss. Vacancies – 1. York: Present – Frank, Lewis, Moss, and Alternate Rosenthal. Absent – Cooper.

Governance Leaders present: Baumrin (GSUC), Cooper (CSI), Fridman (KCC), Friedheim (BMCC), Kaplowitz (John Jay), Levine (CSI), Mettler (LaG), Rodriguez (Hunter), and Savage (Queens). Guests Deputy Counsel Sovern and Deputy Chief Operating Officer Spalter. Other guests Peter Hogness (PSC), Joan Greenbaum (PSC), Meghan Miller (JJ), and Francis Sheehan (JJ). Executive Director Phipps, Administrative Assistant Pasela, and Secretary Blanchard were present. 

I. Approval of the Agenda: Vice Chair Kaplowitz noted that City Council Member Charles Barron would not be attending and under new business there would be a resolution on Perkins funding presented by Professors Reitano and Friedman. The agenda was then adopted as amended.

II. Approval of the Minutes: The Minutes were approved as distributed.

III. Reports: (recorded in Reports & Deliberations)

A. Vice Chair.

B. The Chancellor.

C. Deputy Counsel Jane Sovern and Deputy Chief Operating Officer Ron Spalter

on CUNY’s Self-Audit Agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency.

D. Representatives to Board Committees (written)

IV. New Business:

The following resolution was proposed by the Executive Committee and the Status of the Faculty Committee. It was adopted unanimously.

Whereas, issues involving academic freedom in the City University of New York following the events of September 11, 2001 have been discussed and debated, and

Whereas, there are a number of existing guidelines and documents both within and outside the City University of New York that address issues involving academic freedom, and

Whereas, these documents include the following attached texts, in reverse chronological order:

· "Academic Freedom of Individual Professors and Higher Education Institutions: The Current Legal Landscape", by Donna R. Euben, Staff

Counsel, AAUP (May 2002) http://www.aaup.org/Com-a/aeuben.HTM

· Resolution by the University Faculty Senate affirming academic freedom (passed at the Dec. 11, 2001 Plenary)

            · Statement by Committee A of the AAUP (November 11, 2001)

· Statement by PSC President Barbara Bowen (October 15, 2001)

            · Joint statement by Vice Chancellor Benno C. Schmidt and Chancellor

        Matthew Goldstein (September 24, 2001)

                    · PSC Resolution that called for CUNY to be a safe harbor for people and

    ideas (September 20, 2001)

                    · Agreement of CUNY and the PSC defending academic freedom (July 6, 1998)

http://www.cuny.edu/cuny-psc/preamble.html

                    · "Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications" - AAUP’s

                Committee A statement (June 1997) http://www.aaup.org/statements/SpchState/Statelec.htm

· The Council of President’s 1973 reaffirmation of academic freedom

· 1964 Committee A statement on extramural utterances

· 1940 AAUP statement and the 1970 interpretative comments

http://www.aaup.org/statements/Redbook/1940stat.htm

Therefore, Be It Resolved that, in addition to the above documents, the University Faculty Senate recommends that each college’s instructional staff policy be revised to include an updated section on academic freedom, and

Be It Further Resolved, that this list of written policy guidelines be sent to all faculty governance leaders and shared with local faculty senates and/or college councils, as well as with all full and part time faculty at the CUNY campuses, and also be forwarded to all interested parties at CUNY Central, and

Be It Finally Resolved, that all faculty, full and part time, should be officially informed that the University Faculty Senate has an Academic Freedom Committee, which is charged "to examine cases from the campuses of alleged violations of academic freedom in the University", and that the existence of this committee should be widely advertised on all campuses.

B: Resolution on Perkins Funding: Professors Reitano (LaG) and Friedman (BMCC) proposed the following resolution on behalf of the Community College Caucus. It was adopted unanimously.

Whereas, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act currently funds essential educational services in CUNY’s six community colleges and in four of its senior colleges, and

Whereas, those funds support tutors, career counselors, computer lab technicians, staff for disabled students as well as numerous professional development programs that enhance student success, and

Whereas, those funds amount to over $5 million for the six community colleges and over $2.8 million for the four senior colleges, therefore

Be It Resolved, that CUNY’s University Faculty Senate supports continued full funding of the Perkins Act.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:45 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Phipps

Executive Director

Vice Chair Karen Kaplowitz: As many of you know, and I’m sorry to have to report to those who do not know, Susan O’Malley slipped on the ice and broke her ankle last week while in Albany to attend the Regents hearing and vote on the Master Plan Amendment. She’s in the hospital today having surgery on her ankle. She sends her regards and plans to be back to work very quickly, and I know you all join me in wishing her a rapid and uneventful recovery.

The Mayor and the City Council restored $9.6 million of the $9.8 million that was to be cut from the City contribution to CUNY. The difference is a cut of $124,000 to the Hunter Campus Schools, which represents the equivalent of what is being cut from the high schools, that is, the schools that are part of the Department of Education, but this cut is only from the administrative part, not from instruction at all. We have a lot of people to thank, including Councilman Barron, who we had hoped to thank tonight in person, the UFS, the PSC, the Chancellor, the Trustees, especially one of our Trustees, Mark Shaw, who made such a difference; certainly the City Council Higher Education Committee, especially those members who are CUNY graduates: Charles Barron who is a graduate of New York City College of Technology and of Hunter, and Miguel Martinez who is a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. So we have a lot of people to thank.

There are several Search Committees going on. One is for the President of the Research Foundation. The Search has been chaired by President Frances Degen Horowitz and our faculty member on the Committee is Professor Jamal Manassah. We have a Search Committee going on for the Chief Information Officer and that search has Professor Klibaner from Computer Science from the College of Staten Island and, in fact, the schedule of the Committee is being rearranged to accommodate her trip to Asia during intersession. There is a Search Committee for the Vice Chancellor of Budget and Finance, and it’s being chaired by President Eduardo Marti of Queensborough Community College. I’m the faculty member on that search. There will be a Search Committee for the CUNY Director of Testing, and we’ve been asked to recommend a faculty member. We have a committee that’s been appointed by the Chancellor about Governors Island, and our representative is Professor Ned Benton from John Jay and this body, but that committee is waiting for the Federal Government to actually transfer title to the City or State of New York, which has not yet taken place.

The Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) of the UFS had, as usual, an excellent meeting with Interim Vice Chancellor for Budget and Finance Ernesto Malave the other day and also with the CUNY Director of Space Planning, Lia Gartner, and BAC has decided to create a sub-committee on facilities and maintenance and operations because that affects the budget. So anyone who’s interested in that area, who knows about planning, who knows about architecture, who knows about space, besides wanting more of it, if you’re interested let Alfred Levine know, who’s the Chair of BAC, or let me know.

I’m happy for both the University and on a very personal level to report that the contract for Phase II of John Jay College has finally been signed by the architects and by the Dormitory Authority two years and a month after the Board of Trustees approved the selection of the architectural firm. It took a lot of work. One of the main people to thank is Trustee Randy Mastro who, as Chair of the Facilities Committee, at every meeting insisted on hearing a report on what’s happening with the Phase II project. This building will replace John Jay’s old building that had been a former shoe factory, where we had our Plenary two months ago, and will extend our newer building that you see at the other corner of 10^th Avenue all the way down to 11^th Avenue. That’s very good news.

Susan and I and other members of the Executive Committee represented this body at a wonderful reception for faculty who received major grants and awards in a beautiful room in the 42^nd Street Public Library. Susan and I also represented this body at a lovely reception in a beautiful room at the Harvard Club for newly hired CUNY faculty, and it was just thrilling to know that we have new faculty and to meet them. We need to treat them well from day one to keep them, of course, and not let them be lured away.

The Executive Committee had a very good meeting with University Dean John Mogulescu and Lehman Dean of Continuing Education Michael Paull about CUNY on the Concourse and concerns by some faculty that Continuing Ed was giving credit-bearing courses. We were assured that’s not the case. There was a misunderstanding. A brochure published by 1199 saying these are credit-bearing courses was something that neither of the people had seen, and they were going to follow-up on it. The brochure was done independent of CUNY. And so we had a very productive meeting.

Before I turn to Martha Bell and perhaps too Bill Crain to report on the Regents meeting in Albany, I want to announce with regret that two of our longest standing members are retiring from the University in January. There may be others, so if you want, please self-identify so we can applaud you also and wish you well. Haig Bohegian, who’s been on this body during the presidency of every UFS president for 29 years, is retiring from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and David Speidel from Queens, who has been on this body since 1979 and who has served 10 years on the Executive Committee, 5 years of which he chaired the Budget Advisory Committee, is also retiring. We wish you well. Anyone else leaving us? Alan Cooper from York College! The rest of you: don’t go anyplace. We need every one of you. Martha, would you be willing to give a report about what happened at the Regents in Albany?

Martha Bell: As you know, the Master Plan Amendment on the End of Remediation was up for vote at the Regents. A number of us traveled up on Wednesday afternoon, myself, Susan, Robert Kelly also from Brooklyn College, Bill Crain and Susan DiRaimo also from City College, and Roscoe Brown from Friends of CUNY, importantly. The Regents had not bothered to schedule enough time to deal with this amendment. They hadn’t expected any controversy, I suspect. They met on Wednesday night. It was a contentious meeting arguing over the wording of the amendment. There was a presentation by Johanna Duncan Poitier, who is the Deputy Commissioner of SED. There were a number of Regents that questioned the amendment. Saul Cohen was chairing, former president of Queens College. He seemed to have little patience for the controversy and was in total support of the amendment. Ed Sullivan and Arthur Eve traveled to Albany to testify to this committee. Mr. Cohen had them vote before either Mr. Eve or Mr. Sullivan could speak, neither of whom were very pleased with that arrangement, and then they spoke afterwards. There was one major revision. The amendment said that the Master Plan Amendment to the End of Remediation was to be done without time limitation. That phrase was removed at the insistence of some of the Regents who thought that that meant that they weren’t going to come back and revisit it, so that it would be revisited in 2004 with the new Master Plan that the University has, and there was also a caveat, as recommended by the five presidents, that there would be review of the data. The University has agreed to put the data that would be part of the monitoring on their web site. The next day when the amendment was passed at 4:30, it included not only monitoring by the University monitoring itself, but there was a phrase that SED would also take part in the monitoring. On Thursday morning there was a meeting with some members of the Regents. Nine members of the Regents showed up to hear the concerns of the faculty that were up there, including Bennett who is the head of the Regents, and they seemed to be listening to our concerns and were willing to carry them if not in the formal amendment, certainly into the monitoring process. They seemed to express some interest in visiting us and I hope that the Executive Committee will take up having them visit us at a later date. Nine people showing up at 7:30 in the morning off the schedule of an intense three-day meeting certainly indicated they were interested in hearing the voices of the faculty, and I thought that was a very positive part of the trip.

Vice-Chair: Thank you, Martha. We have the Chancellor here and Vice Chancellor Mirrer, and then we have other guests. Then we have a very important new resolution that’s been written on the blackboard, so we want to get to that resolution and to the resolution that’s in your packet. Welcome, Chancellor Goldstein.

Chancellor Goldstein: Good to see you all. I hope you have a good holiday and get some rest and spend time with your family and friends and we’ll see you when you return. I could give a different interpretation of what you just heard but I’m not going to go into it. As far as I’m concerned we’re finished with this. We will continue to monitor as we have always done in any policy issue of the University, and I think it’s really time for us to get on with what I consider to be some of the very fundamental questions that we have at the University. Much of it revolves around the resources that we all have to operate this University and continue our momentum to bring the University into the forefront of higher education in a much broader context than what we have been mired in, I think, the last three and a half years of concentrating on important but very limited segments of what it is that we do at this University.

Let me talk a little about the budget situation and then a couple of other less significant things and I’ll open this up for any discussion. Let me first start with the State Budget. Very early on when the budget was enacted by the State Legislature I asked all of our presidents to encumber 2% of their operating budget, and they did. An encumbrance basically places those dollars in a suspension account that nobody has access to, and the reason I asked the presidents to do this is that we anticipated that there would be a mid-year modification to the budget that was enacted by the legislature. Clearly we knew that this was something that we were going to face. Well, it turned out that the encumbrance that we set aside, precisely because of the annualization of when this directive from Albany came down, which came down just a few weeks ago, enabled us to keep the four-year colleges out of harm’s way. We got a directive from Carol Stone that all agencies in the State of New York would have to provide a 5% cut in the general obligations that support the budgets of the agencies, including the City University of New York. That turned out to be about $12 million of the 5% cut when it was annualized. We had already tucked away $13.1 million, so we had this covered fairly well. In addition we had a 5.9% enrolment increase across the University this fall. That generated a little over $20 million more in revenue that the University had. So, between the encumbrance and the extra revenue that we realized because of this very spike in our enrolment, we’ve been able to keep the colleges out of harm’s way. Now, certain things can change, obviously. There are yet a few months left to the fiscal year. The State can reassess where they are and can find out that they’re in deeper trouble than we believe we are right now and that could be revisited. There could be revenue that the State expects through federal pass-through money, and so much of the revenue that is received by the State of New York and then deployed for general obligations comes thorough the Federal Government, and if some of that is compromised…So there are still some points of fragility but my sense is that we’ll be OK for the rest of the fiscal year and the efforts that we did early on I think were prudent efforts and turned out to be the right thing. We also, I must say, have developed some very good relationships with the Division of the Budget, and I think they truly understand what has happened in this University over the last decade or maybe 12 years, that this University really has not seen investment. Some could argue they have seen disinvestment in the affairs of the University. We’re really trying and we saw this last year when I reported to you that for the first time in the history of this University we were allowed to blend part of our operating budget with our capital budget to serve as a buffer where we had some holes in the operating budget. That was something we had not seen before and I think the Division of the Budget was helpful to us. We’re seeing it again this year. In addition to the $20 million that we got in additional revenue, in addition to the encumbrances that we put aside, the Division of the Budget has helped us in other ways against a shortfall that we had in our fringe benefits accounts, which was close to $24 million, and we’ve been able to deal with that. So, on the senior college side, absent any additional assault that I don’t anticipate at this particular point, I think that we will be able to complete this fiscal year out of harm’s way. What I mean by harm’s way is any further assault on our operations.

On the City side, all of you know from reading the press and seeing memos that I have sent out to the presidents and Board, we have a real problem because when Mayor Bloomberg modified the budget that was approved by the City Council there was a $5.9 million cut in operations to our community colleges. The Vallone scholarship program was obliterated and a number of other smaller but important items were taken from the University. For example, we would have had layoffs for faculty at the Hunter High School, without question. If we had not been successful working with the City Council we would have had to relieve some faculty, which I think would be just totally unacceptable. With the very good work that so many of us, many in this room, did with the City Council untold numbers of hours, they really came through in a very big way. We essentially got everything restored with the exception of about $124,000 to the Hunter High School. Vallone scholarship money has been totally restored -- the $5.9 million has been restored. There is no other agency in the City of New York that got as much back. And we’ve been very quiet about this. You haven’t seen a lot of paper from my office because I don’t want to really call attention to this, but we were very fortunate. We have wonderful friends in the City Council and we also had a lot of help from the Mayor’s people as well; Mark Shaw is on our board, Carol Robles Roman is on our board, and our relationship with the City is really solid. These people are working hard with us to navigate through many of the budget challenges that we have. So for this year, again, barring any further problem that the City of New York has, we should be fine with our community colleges as well.

So that’s fiscal 2003. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we are facing very severe problems. You’ve heard me talk about this ad nauseam but I just have to continue to do this. We are facing clearly something on the order of magnitude of $8-10 million on the State side for the budget that would begin on July 1, 2003. Some of this is going to be dealt with by floating bonds with collaterals the backing of these bonds. These are not general obligation bonds but bonds that would be backed by the tobacco settlement that New York State got, and that was something on the order of about $25 billion. When people say float bonds, float bonds means you borrow money and some time you’ve got to pay that money off. If the Governor can get approval from the State Legislature to issue bonds up to about $4 million, which is what he’s talking about, that gap will be reduced substantially. But there are a lot of promises out there. I think the problem continues to be a very severe and real problem for us. The Governor is going to give his state of the State speech, I think it’s on January 8. The budget is going to be a little later this year than typical and they always give another week or so when there’s an election, so I believe he’s going to provide his budget to the Legislature, his executive budget, on February 1. I will expect to see in that budget two things: big cuts for CUNY and big revenue expectations for CUNY. There will be a big revenue side to the budget and there will be a cut on the expense side. And we’re going to have to deal with it. My position to the Board and to you now is very simple, that we’re going to fight the State aid to cover this as far as we can, but to not talk about tuition increases at this time would be irresponsible for me and would just be putting my head in the sand. Tuition is going to be very much in play after the Governor gives his budget to the Legislature, and I don’t think that anybody in this room wants to see gaps in our budget covered by tuition increases but at some point decisions are going to have to be made as to how we can fight for aid and if we don’t get aid what we are going to do with respect to raising revenue or cutting expenses, and that’s obviously the push and pull that we’re going to have to face as a University. We will continue and I proposed the budget to the Board, which was approved last month. I proposed the following thing, that there was no tuition being anticipated in that budget, that there will continue to be revenue enhancements and efficiencies that we’re building into the budget, revenue increases largely on the tuition side, revenue increases through fundraising that we will deploy towards the operating budget, which I think is a good policy and we need to do a lot more of that and more efficiencies. Last year we built into the budget $10 million in efficiencies. We will exceed that. This year we’re going to build in another $10 million and we’re going to do some boot strapping. I think that the whole way the University is managed continues to need to be reviewed and to be refined and brought more into the mainstream of how large and complex organizations are run, not by replicating everything that we do over and over again across operating units but to see the degree to which we can operate the University in a more efficient way. That’s what we are proposing. This was not criticized by the Governor’s people at all. We had some discussion about our budget. SUNY still has not presented its budget, but we were out there very early and we said "these are our values, these are the things that we think we are going to be able to do." At the end of the day it’s going to be what those gaping holes are going to be and how we’re going to plan to achieve it.

Certain things are inviolate. One is that we are going to continue to hire faculty. I have told the presidents over and over again, and if you look the newspapers you see our presidents’ advertising for faculty positions. When we did the ERI we told the Governor’s people, the Division of the Budget, that we must maintain our level of faculty, if not grow our faculty. And I don’t know how many, I saw a list the other day, I just don’t remember the order of magnitude, but we’ve had a fair amount of faculty who have elected to take the early retirement. There is still an open period and that probably will grow a bit. But all of the presidents are on notice that they are to aggressively recruit and hire faculty and my expectation is that we will continue to do that. That is not going to be the case on the non-faculty side. I continue to believe that if we’re going to find savings we’re going to need to find savings in terms of staffing by operating the University in a different way. We’re going to push this as far as we can and ultimately see where we go.

On the capital side we have proposed to the Board and the Board approved a capital budget request of about $2.6 billion. It was important to say these are our minimal set of needs. The truth is the needs greatly exceed $2.6 billion. I only ask you to go back five years ago when the University approved a $2.4 billion capital program and $1 billion was appropriated. We haven’t even spent all of that billion dollars because on the City side there was a $100 million allocated out of that billion for community college needs with the condition that those dollars can only be spent if matched by the City of New York. In the entire time of the Giuliani administration only $18 million was spent by the State because the City would only put up $18 million. So out of the $200 million that was allocated to be expended for community college needs $36 million was spent over the last eight and a half years! When you tour, as I do, our community colleges, you see the dire need on some of the campuses. The one that jumps off the page, but there are others, is Bronx Community College. You get on the campus, it looks beautiful, you get in the buildings and you lament for the students, the faculty, the people that work in those buildings. So we have to find a way to get our capital program back on the road. It’s going to be tough but it’s a little easier to get capital money than it is operating money because with capital money you have fewer detractors, you have more supporters. Labor is a very important supporter when you’re doing capital construction because you’re hiring lots of people. Someone mentioned for every $100 million that you spend you hire something like 1,000 people to be working on projects. Those are men and women who are being put to work, getting salaries, and contributing to the tax payments. We’re going to do something different and we’re going to have a battle with this but this is one of those battles that I think are worth fighting. In our proposal for our capital program, and we’ve had now a lot of discussions with people in the Governor’s Office about this, we’re going to do, hopefully, some public-private deals in our capital program. I’ve been a strong supporter of this for a long time and, when we look at some of the assets that we have in the University in this area, they really fall into two areas: there are development rights and air rights. Those assets have real value to developers that may want to partner with us and we’re going to push this envelope as far as we can. It’s going to require a change in legislation that is important. And the reason that this is so important at this time is that when the State floats a bond they’re really pushing off the obligation to a future generation because at some point these bonds either have to be retired and other bonds have to be floated, but in any case there is debt service that has to be paid along the way and that is not insignificant. If we could find a way to work with some private developers in helping us with our capital program they may be able to monetize the project so that we can relieve the State in the early stages of debt development of some of their obligation so that it would be an incentive for the State to put people to work, and this is why the labor piece is so important, and at the same time not be obligated with very high debt service requirements. So that’s really what the strategy is here. The second thing of course is that I think we can put some of these projects on a fast track rather than…the John Jay project is a good example; we fought hard for that; the Medgar Evers project is a great project; we fought hard for that, but it’s going to take a long time to build those buildings. We all celebrated this, and we should because it was a major victory for the University, but it takes so long to get things done and we need this stuff now. So that’s some of the strategy that we’re following. A lot of this is new, it’s different. People have not seen this in this state. We’ve seen this in other states. I think we need different kinds of tuition policies, that we are forced to have tuition. I think we’ve got to do it in a different way and learn from the experiences of others, and hopefully we’ll be in a better position.

For those of you who are at Borough of Manhattan Community College, I know you’re deeply concerned about elevators and escalators, and you should be. It’s really disgraceful. You are where you are but we are very much involved in helping the campus. We’ve put in a fair amount of money. I’m told that it’s going to take a little time but this is going to get done, those escalators. We now have vendors and maintenance people that apparently know what they are doing and the same applies for the elevators. The University secured so far about $8.5 million against a need of about $9.2 million for elevator repairs. It’s in the bank. We’ve allocated several months ago about $300 million for escalator repair. I think someone just had to manage this and put the money in. So have a little patience. I hope this at some point is going to be corrected.

I have a number of other things but my time is going to be a little limited so I’d much rather just take some questions from any of you and then I’ll leave you to your other tasks.

Professor Philipp (Chemistry, Lehman College) – I just came out of a Chemistry/Biology discipline council meeting and one of the major concerns was the impact of the OTPS cuts on library budgets. As you know, the 2% that you discussed earlier essentially had to be done on discretionary items, and unfortunately some colleges seem to view subscription to journals and other things as discretionary. This was a major topic of concern. It occurred to me as you were discussing capital budget, since some of these things are bought and kept for 50-60 years, why our library collections can’t be purchased out of the capital budget instead of the OTPS budget? / Chancellor Goldstein – That’s a good question. Let me respond to that. I didn’t get into all of the components of this but I agree with you. There are people that work in the facilities areas at our campuses that we ought to capitalize their salaries. There are other components that we’re going to look to do and that is an area that we’re looking at. With the 2% we basically said to the presidents "I’m not going to manage how you’re going to do it. I’m certainly not going to get to ground level and tell you how to allocate those cuts." Hopefully those cuts were done intelligently and fairly and equitably, and the pain has to be shifted about. I think there is a more fundamental question beyond the capitalization of costs and that is I think in terms of efficiencies. We ought to think a lot about how we procure books and services in our libraries. I’m a big supporter of doing a lot of stuff electronically. JStorr is a revolution in the way in which periodicals are provided for our faculty and students. Discipline councils can get together. We are a tightly compact group of institutions. I wouldn’t say this if we had a lot of money, but we don’t. There ought to be some coordination in how books are purchased, and the same book may not have to be on every particular campus, especially if it’s used by just a very few people, if it’s an advanced text. So I’d like to see a much greater coordinated effort with respect to our library holdings and find a way to be able to turn over these things rather quickly on demand, and that’s something that’s going to require management. / Professor Philipp – Thank you. That was in fact the sense that is in the council. / Chancellor Goldstein – Good. I’m glad that you support that because I think it’s important.

Professor Crain (Psychology, City College) – This question will be something of a headache to you but admissions and access I do not believe in our city and our country can just be put aside. I think you will consider anything but a tuition increase in the name of access and allowing our students to go to college. I’ll call attention to just a couple of facts and ask you a quick question. In the fall 2001 over 1,400 who would have been admitted to bachelor’s degree programs were not because of the new tests and they did not enroll anywhere. They just got lost. In fall 2002 that number increased over 1,700. When we talked to the Regents we got the impression and I’d like to ask you: Would you consider a policy to ease the situation and make college more accessible, would you consider looking at a policy that the UFS has proposed, which is that if a student passes two our of three skills tests to let them come into a senior college or bachelor’s degree program and have a year to make it up? Would you just look at that possibility? It would ease the situation enormously and I think it’s a modest proposal. / Chancellor Goldstein – Bill, I know that you’ve floated that. That’s something that I’m not supportive of, I haven’t been, and I will continue not to be supportive of. Let me turn your question in a different way and talk about something that I’m talking about a lot more now and it was the basis of my testimony at the City Council just the other day. There is a perception out there that I think is wrong, and that is that a student is disadvantaged if he starts at a community college. And I think that is just dead wrong and I think it is something that we really have to change people’s views. There are students that may want to go to a four-year institution but I think it is better that they start at a two-year institution. We’ve heard too much talk in this University, which I think is hurtful to our community colleges, it’s hurtful to our students, that somehow they are diminished because they have to start at a two-year institution. I can tell you, in no uncertainty here, that at Baruch, which is the only place that I had experience in this University really at the ground floor, that when we looked at the data of students who transferred in good academic standing from a two-year institution after they had acquired something on the order of 30-45 credits, those students did as well as the students who started at Baruch as first time freshmen. So, to me, the two-year institutions, our community colleges, really need to be elevated in terms of perception…Faculties across this University ought to work very hard to encourage those students who want to transfer to a four-year institution, want to start at a four-year institution, but their academic record is just not up to where the faculties at our four-year institutions feel they need to be, but to do it in a way so that they are not impeded, they are not disadvantaged, they are not diminished by starting in a two-year institution. That’s the soap box that I’m on, and I’m believing it to my core because I know so many faculty that work at our community colleges, I know the work that they do, and they are certainly very capable of taking a student, working with a student, preparing them for transfer. And I think we ought to think this way rather than to say we ought to encourage students whose academic record is not what it should be at a four-year institution. So that’s how I would respond to you. / Professor Crain – If you look at David Lavin’s data you’ll change your mind. / Chancellor Goldstein – I know David Lavin’s data. / Professor Crain – You’ll change your mind because what you say is wrong. / Chancellor Goldstein – I think that’s a terrible assault on community colleges and it’s wrong. / Professor Crain – I have the greatest appreciation of community colleges and the tremendous effort our community colleges do. However, if you look at the data they have a 20% less chance of ever getting a BA if they begin at community colleges. And nationwide there is a difference, and that has to do with our students being fragile and having difficulties in transferring and there is no reason not to let certain students that have the academic records into the senior colleges that they qualify for except for the tests, just like they would at SUNY or anywhere else in the nation. It’s a crime what we’re doing to our students, who are predominantly students of color, by barring them when other colleges around the nation would accept these students. / Chancellor Goldstein – Next question.

Professor Levine (Engineering Science and Physics, College of Staten Island) – I know that you agree with us on the importance of fundraising for CUNY. You have spoken on many occasions. I think the time has come to get an actual report on the successes, and in particular I would like to see a list of the net revenue raised at each campus defined as the difference between the money that is coming in minus the cost of bringing that money in, including the fringe benefits and the salaries of people on the tax levy budget. I think that this would give us a baseline from which we could measure our improvement in the future. / Chancellor Goldstein – I could just give you one small piece of data, and that is from 2000-2001, as a base, when we really started looking at this because that’s when we put in the performance management system. That fiscal year versus 2001-2002 - so it’s only two year’s worth of data, so it’s very limited and it could be and aberration - there was a 60% increase in fundraising. The numbers were something like $35-37 million, I forget exactly, up to about $54 million. So that’s a 60% increase. It’s appalling; it’s appallingly low. This University has never had a culture of fundraising because it was, as I used to describe it, like the Field of Dreams. People would come down, open up the door and everything would flow in; money would flow in, students would flow in, and everybody was very happy. This is a very different time and this is why fundraising has been elevated to such a degree in terms of my relationships with presidents. I think a number of presidents have not been forced to do this, and I think they should have been forced to do it. I think some presidents have never had the opportunity to learn the ways of raising money and they’re going to have to. It’s very much a part of the whole performance management system. And we have a system now where all of you ought to know that nobody, at least in the managerial tracks, get raises when money is allocated for raises unless there is a certain level of very stringent performance target being met, and very high on the list is fundraising. You’re providing me with a rhetorical question, and that’s fine, but I share your concern about this and it’s going to take some time to get the machinery of fundraising going on our campuses. Some of our presidents are doing very well, and it wasn’t really until the ‘90s where real money was being raised. There were spots in the University of stellar gifts, but in a sustainable way we really haven’t seen it. The last decade is really the first time. So there are presidents that are making an effort and some of the campuses are raising serious money now. / Professor Levine – I certainly share your belief that this has to become part of the CUNY culture. The number that you gave refers to the amount raised, not the net revenue, because in that same period of time on many campuses there has been a huge increase in the staff associated with fundraising. / Chancellor Goldstein – I wish that were more the case. Baruch has a very big staff, which I put together, but Baruch raises a lot of money. Baruch now has $100 million endowment. In 1990 it was $3.5 million. It just shows that some of this is possible. I think City College is seeing great strides: Brooklyn College is seeing great strides. We’re going to see this start to take off because the alumni of CUNY are extraordinary women and men and I think they have to believe in the institution. And that has been my strategy, to get people to believe in the University again, and sometimes you’ve got to do things to get them to believe, but that’s where we are. / Professor Levine – Thank you.

Professor Greenbaum (CIS, LaGuardia Community College) – Two questions about capital. The first is about the public-private and monetizing earlier. Without going into a long discussion of it, which I think we need, about the different models of public-private and the Bryant Park and Central Park versus other models, I don’t think we’re going to do that now. I just wanted to bring up the different kinds of capital projects. There are the sexy kind of total rehabs, the new library at Brooklyn, Baruch, where public-private may be possible and may in fact be a way to go. And then there is the drab but God-awful necessary, replacing heating and ventilating systems at John Jay and New York City Tech, which I don’t think there will be any public-private on. That’s correct, OK. / Chancellor Goldstein – I’m not talking about those. / Professor Greenbaum – But we do have to put those high on the priority list, right? / Chancellor Goldstein – I agree. / Professor Greenbaum – The second question is about BMCC in particular. Much of the money of that $20 billion that was promised by, what’s his name, the Georges. / Chancellor Goldstein – The President of the United States. / Professor Greenbaum – That George, George one and George two, that was promised for lower Manhattan, has been given in dribs and drabs through HUD to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, to Deutsche Bank to stay there, to Pace University not to move. We clearly should get in line with hats in hand, CUNY I’m speaking of, to get that money for BMCC. / Chancellor Goldstein – We’ve gotten some and we are working tirelessly, and I mean tirelessly, between the insurance company, between FEMA, and the Dormitory Authority. I mean we are working very hard to either build a new building for BMCC…/ Professor Greenbaum – Absolutely. / Chancellor Goldstein – refurbish the existing building…/ Professor Greenbaum – Absolutely both. / Chancellor Goldstein – …tear down, put another new building. I don’t know where it’s going to go. The politics are high and we’re working as hard as we can. We’ve had a lot of help from Senators Clinton and Schumer. It’s been a very arduous, difficult process, but at the end of it I think we’re going to come to some resolution where either that building is going to be refurbished, if it is possible to be refurbished, or a new building will be constructed. It’s going to happen, it’s just taking a long time. / Professor Greenbaum – My suggestion on that is the same one as with the City Council. These wonderful people in this room made a gazillion phone calls, as did the PSC in talking with City Council and getting the restoration for the community colleges. Where the faculty and the students are, they are voices, and very eloquent voices, in speaking to that, and I think if the CUNY administration would work closer on that then we might be closer to achieving it. / Chancellor Goldstein – The faculty had been particularly terrific at BMCC. It’s not there yet but we’re getting close.

Professor Hastick (Medgar Evers College) – The answer to my question can wait because it will probably take a couple of months to sort it out, but my heart skipped a beat when you said capital dollars are easier to get. I thought I heard that. And then ten minutes later I hear "but Medgar Evers will take forever". Did I hear you say that?" / Chancellor Goldstein – Obviously it’s not going to take forever, but it’s going to take time. / Professor Hastick – Longer. But the quick question is, and I realize this is going to take much more time than we have now, there are perhaps some things that Medgar Evers College can do to help move that process along. I think, I’m not sure. And at some point we need to engage in some dialogue around what can we be doing, because we’re really not talking about refurbishing. I think you’re very well aware. It’s affecting retention, morale, the whole nine yards. Now that we’ve gotten commitments, and we thank you for your support and bringing the Governor in, we need to put in place the strategies where everybody gets on board to help move the process. And I can wait for the answer. / Chancellor Goldstein – It’s going to happen. It’s going to just take longer. Even if all the money was here and plopped on the table it still takes a lot of time to get things built at City University. Hopefully both of us will be there when that new building is inaugurated.

Professor Manassah (Electrical Engineering, City College) – Good evening, Chancellor. The first question is concerning the transparency in terms of the trust and gift accounts. I wish that they would be reported in the same way that the tax levy money is reported. I think we have made great improvement in the last two-three years about how the different college budgets and expenditures have been reported. I think we need the same transparency in trust and gifts. So, as a request to you, please, if that becomes possible, I think that will also help the fundraising effort. / Chancellor Goldstein – When you talk about trust and gifts do you mean what is housed in the CUNY accounts? / Professor Manassah – Yes, for the colleges. I understand that they are all centralized, that they are not anymore run out of the different colleges but they’re run out of 57th Street. / Chancellor Goldstein – Jamal, I’ll be very straight with you because I know this fairly well. There isn’t an awful lot of money. Totally I think we’re looking at about $125 million in those accounts. They are dominated by a few very big accounts. The rest of them are relatively small but spread across a very large array of gifts that have been provided over many years. But we’re talking totally about 125 million. Now that’s just part of it. The other part is where I hope the bigger money eventually will be developed, and that is through the individual foundations at our campuses. If I had to estimate now, I would say the book value of all of this money among all our campuses’ foundations and the central gifts and trusts is probably $300-400 million, if it’s even that, probably even less. And when you think about this University, this size, this age, it’s very small. / Professor Manassah – The second question concerns the public-private. While you’re looking with respect to the public-private in terms of the building I would suggest very strongly that you try to reassess the role of the Dormitory Authority with respect to that. I know there are certain constraints, which are State constraints. However, since you’re opening up a new avenue of getting the private sector inside, please do not overlook that small detail. / Chancellor Goldstein – I’ve said this many times, I may have said it to this body, and it always refers to you, Jamal, that when I.I. Rabi would come home after school his mother would say to him "Did you ask good questions today?" So let me just answer by saying "That’s a good question, Jamal."

Vice Chair: We have three guests: We have Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs and Chief Counsel to the Board of Trustees Frederick Schaffer and we have Deputy General Counsel Jane Sovern and we have Ron Spalter, who is the Deputy Operating Officer of the University who reports to and works closely with Vice Chancellor Dobrin, the Chief Operating Officer who’s been our guest several times. They asked to meet with us to talk about a very important resolution that was approved by the Board of Trustees in October that affects all of us. I’d like to invite them to the podium to make a presentation. This is about the agreement between CUNY and the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. Jane Sovern and Ron Spalter met with the Chemistry, Biology, and Biochemistry Discipline Council this afternoon.

Vice Chancellor Rick Schaffer: Several years ago, the United States Environmental Protection Agency began targeting colleges and universities for enforcement action. EPA had for many years focused on industrial corporations and other kinds of entities that one ordinarily thinks of as polluters and had not really paid very much attention to colleges and universities. As they became more sophisticated and as they had a longer track record in enforcement they decided that colleges and universities should not be exempt from these kinds of enforcement activities and that in fact many colleges and universities had the potential to be dangerous places. About four years ago, it began on the West Coast in region nine. They targeted the University of Hawaii, went in there and discovered some truly horrendous conditions. I think there was about a $9 million fine. One by one the other regions of the United States began to follow suit. We are in region two and a couple of years ago the EPA office in region two began to focus on colleges and universities. We all got letters from them indicating that they were interested in entering into what are called self-audit agreements. EPA, like a lot of governmental agencies, has limited funds for investigation and enforcement, and they were seeking to maximize their impact as an enforcement agency by saying that if they could get universities, as they had to a limited degree with private corporations, essentially to audit themselves, and if they were prepared to do that, essentially turn themselves in when they discovered violations, EPA was prepared to give more time, stay out for a period of time except in cases of real threat to life, let the colleges and universities audit themselves, give them somewhat more time to cure the violations that they find and also give them a break on penalties when they were operating in good faith and doing a good job in auditing themselves. All of the universities in the New York region got a letter inviting us to negotiate with the EPA and we began to do so about two years ago. It was slow going. Universities, not only we but others, had a lot of questions about this, whether this would work, whether this was in the best interest of the university. 9/11 intervened, which slowed down things quite a bit, but over time we became increasingly comfortable that this was something that was worthwhile doing and that was in the best interest of the University. We became more comfortable when SUNY and Rutgers entered into agreements and we were able to look at their agreements and sort of negotiate off of what they had previously negotiated. My Deputy General Counsel, Jane Sovern, led the negotiations and they are now at a point where we’re just about ready to sign. She’s done terrific work in negotiating an agreement that we can live with. Since the agreement has come fairly close to final form, Ron Spalter has taken charge in making sure we would be ready once we signed it to get ourselves into compliance. I’m very pleased to introduce Jane and Ron to you tonight.

Jane Sovern: Thank you. I just want to tell you all a little bit about the agreement, rather briefly, and Ron is going to talk about how things are going to work at the University. Essentially, the agreement, which as Rick said is soon to be signed, will provide for a five year period during which we will proceed campus by campus, one at a time on a set schedule. We were able to negotiate not only the five year period to look at the entire University but also to significantly extend the time periods that we have when we find a violation to disclose, to correct and to prevent recurrence. Under the law without an agreement we have 21 days, which I can imagine how realistic we all think that timetable is. We were able to negotiate substantial extensions of time for that, essentially 60 days, 180 days if there is procurement, additional if there are capital expenditures. We will be disclosing these violations in twice yearly reports to EPA explaining the corrective action. EPA is going to continue monitoring these. Every campus is going to be, on notice if you will, of what is found at the campuses that came before. So when we find violations we’re going to work to correct and prevent at all of the campuses. The hope is of course that the ones that come last will be pure and perfectly clean. Obviously, much of this has to do with administrative issues at the campuses, which you may be involved with or may not be so involved with, but we wanted to address you, the Faculty Senate. And Ron and I have just spoken to the Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biology Discipline Council, because, in addition to the kind of nuts and bolts of the college, there is a significant component about this that is going to affect the work of many faculty. In that laboratory practices are going to be a critical component of what is audited. And that not only goes for a variety of science laboratories but also photo labs, theatre, scene shops, art studios and the like, where there is hazardous waste. There are many other issues regarding disposal, training, safe laboratory practices and many other issues. So we wanted to inform you of this, let you know that this is out there. When the agreement is signed we are asking the Chancellor to send an e-mail letter to every faculty member at CUNY making them aware of this and that this is something that we are all going to need to work on together in being able to, as Ron will tell you about, change the culture in terms of getting better, safer practices. It won’t be easy. There will be a lot to do. There are a lot of problems. As the Chancellor spoke about, resources are scarce. I think there was a $4 million request in the budget request dedicated solely to environmental issues, including this. It’s tough times and we’re not sure we’re going to get even a small part of that, but we think that trying to work as an integrated university, use a lot of resources to do things together, we’re hoping that we will be able to make a lot of progress and come into compliance. I’d like to have Ron speak and then maybe you can do questions that are addressed to either of both of us. I think that would probably be the best way. Thank you.

Ron Spalter: Thank you, Jane. We can approach the solution to this problem in several ways. We can treat this as a management problem and attempt to force better operating practices into the University with carrots and sticks, the EPA fines being the largest stick that we can possibly think of. Based on research that the University has done by having our consultants look at our campuses in the last year, we believe that there is a potential for some $20 million in fines that could be levied against the City University of New York. We believe that this would be a horrific waste of money that is absolutely needed elsewhere. So what we want to do, rather than treat it solely as an administrative activity, is treat it as a change in our culture, to somehow think about the issue of environmental health and safety not as an onerous mandate handed down to us by some faceless bureaucrats in DC and elsewhere but as something that we really should be doing on our campuses to create a healthy and safe environment for our faculty, for our employees, for our students, and for the communities in which our campuses sit. It just makes much more sense to think of approaching the EPA-related issue this way rather than think of it as some sort of punishment from someone else. So here is how we’re going to approach it: We’re going to do some things in an integrated fashion, in a coordinated fashion, from the central office in cooperation with the campuses, and then the campuses are going to have to do some things. The kinds of things we’re going to do centrally are: We’re going to work together to develop an environmental management system for the University. This is a whole series of rules, regulations, practices, policies, training materials and procedures that we can apply individually campus by campus, but we’ll have a central repository and an auditing procedure to make certain that we’re doing the right things in the right way, in the way that’s the most productive for us to act as a University. We can do things like buy computerized chemical management systems, have it sit at the University Computer Center and have everyone have access to it via the web. We then have a pretty good opportunity to track all the chemicals that we acquire, that we utilize and, probably what the EPA doesn’t like, that we put on shelves and leave there for years. That’s an inappropriate thing for an institution like ours to be doing and the chemical inventory will help us track those sorts of things and put up red flags so we know that that’s a hazard that we need to get rid of. We’re going to be doing things like developing an environmental calendaring system. The boilers on your campuses often require particular types of permits to operate, but because the nature of the University, frequently if the boiler is built by the Dormitory Authority a contractor is responsible for getting the initial permit and then somehow it’s left to somebody on the campus to file that permit again and again as years go by. And as people change, as people retire, as people go on to other activities, somehow we forget to file the permit. Those are $15,000 fines for not filing a permit, even if your boiler is operating appropriately. So there is series of things that we can try and do centrally by capturing this information and monitoring it and auditing it centrally that will help eliminate many of these potential consequences. The place we would like help the most from the faculty is where you live. You live in the classrooms, you live in the laboratories, you are responsible for the behavior in many ways of the graduate students, of the CLTs and of others who are engaged in science, in photography, in art, in all the areas where chemicals are in use. We would like you to join with us in understanding the appropriate ways to handle these materials, the appropriate ways to dispose of these materials, the quantities that make sense to store and the quantities that make sense to dump when they are inappropriate for us to have on hand, to help us see to it that the people who are working with these materials and working in laboratories in general are trained. EPA is as much interested in the fact that you’ve documented the training as they are that the training has taken place in the first place. Very few of us keep the kinds of records that we need to keep in order to satisfy the EPA, or the New York State Department of Environmental Protection, or the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. So there are many agencies that have rules, regulations and procedures that will impact on the way we do our business. In sum, what we’re looking for is for you to raise your own level of understanding, and we’ll provide tools to help you with this, and join with us in this little mini-crusade because this is something we can do. We can improve the way we handle our environment and the way we impact on our environment. And the ultimate tragedy would be if we have an audit at one of our campuses that discovers ten or fifteen things wrong and then we go to a second and a third and a fourth campus where those same things are still wrong. What a terrible statement that would be about our ability to learn from our mistakes! So we’re going to engage in this five-year process in a going forward manner to try to really improve life on the campus for everyone who’s there in an appropriate way so that we don’t have to pay fines and we don’t have to use the money for special environmental activities, that we can invest the money in the campuses where we desperately need it. So we’re coming to alert you today that this is coming, but more importantly we’re doing a little missionary work. We don’t want you to think of it as just a mandate that’s onerous. We want you to really think of it as an opportunity to improve the way we do business. Thank you.

Professor Friedman (Developmental Skills, Borough of Manhattan Community College) – I have a lot of questions because this is the first time I’m hearing this. Overall it sounds good and noble and the right thing to do. Am I right or wrong in thinking that this is going to potentially involve the need for extra personnel, both centrally and locally? / Ron Spalter – You’re one hundred percent correct. / Professor Friedman – So, do you have any thoughts about what that might look like, the magnitude of that, along those lines. / Ron Spalter – Although we have not yet entered into the agreement and although we have not put programs in place, we’re not exactly new to the game. We have had consultants looking at our campuses for the last year. They visited eight of our campuses and have actually done remediation at one of the campuses, completed it. / Professor Friedman – Remediation? / Ron Spalter – That’s the word they use in this world. / Professor Friedman – But it’s only for the senior colleges. Just kidding. / Ron Spalter – No, she’s not kidding. In fact the kinds of money that we had this year only allowed us to do remediation at the senior colleges. They have given us their sense - this is one group but they are very knowledgeable and they’re respected in the industry – of what it would cost us once we had a good program up and running to maintain it. And university-wide that’s about $4 million per year devoted to this activity. In a $1.5 billion budget that’s not so much. This includes everything, from waste management to get people to come and take the waste disposal off the campus, it includes all the computer systems, it includes staffing on the campuses to keep the chemical inventories up to date. We don’t expect individual faculty to do that unless they are running their own research labs. But it is an expensive activity. But it is not something that we have a choice about. Our choice is merely to do it in a proactive fashion or pay the fines and then be forced to do it. / So we are anticipating the hiring of new personnel both centrally and locally as needed? That’s my basic question. / Ron Spalter – That’s correct.

Professor Greenbaum (CIS, LaGuardia Community College) – I’m going to modify a little bit of what Stefan said. Yes, these things needed to be done all along, yes we need lines for people to do them and yes, we learned a lesson from the fact that OSHA or OSHA reps are no longer part of the faculty, faculty being instructional staff, HEOs and CLTs included. People don’t want the job. They don’t want to be outside of the faculty. We get much better cooperation, and we have people in the room who could testify to this, when people who are doing environmental health and safety work on campus are part of the instructional staff. Much better cooperation. So I suppose, like Stefan’s, it’s not a question, it’s a comment. And the other part is also a comment, and that’s just to clarify, and please tell me if I’m incorrect. The EPA audit is about CUNY polluting the environment outside of ourselves and it’s not strictly looking at the internal environment within CUNY, right? It’s not looking at our air quality inside of our buildings, it’s looking at if we’re putting something out that affects other buildings. / Ron Spalter – The rules and regulations that we’re loosely lumping together under the EPA audit clearly deal with the issues of how the University handles its materials, whether they be air resources, water resources, waste products, chemicals, to determine that we’re handling them in accordance with the law. There are no EPA rules and regulations that say the air in this room should have more or less CO2 in it. That’s not this issue. / Professor Greenbaum – Yeah, that’s what I was pointing out and we actually need that, badly.

Professor Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – Since the consultants from CUNY did a study for a year of eight colleges, would you share that report with the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee? / Jane Sovern – The answer is no and I will tell you the reason. The reason is that this was information that was developed through the General Counsel’s Office and it was kept legally privileged in order to do a kind of informal, sort of temperature check of where we were. If there were information in that report that revealed a whole variety of violations we could be seeing $20 million or so or more in fines, and if that is released publicly and if CUNY waives the privilege and releases that we think that there could be a big problem, and that’s the reason. / Ron Spalter – But what we intend to do is we intend to take the substance of the report, the kinds of issues that were discovered campus by campus, and share that with the entire University community so we can correct these types of mistakes. So we don’t have to point out that in a particular laboratory at City College there was an unlabeled bottle, a chemical that had no label on it. What we can say is that in our laboratories we must be careful to make certain that every bottle has an appropriate label on it. So that information will be shared. / Professor Kaplowitz – So, as a follow-up, campuses have been audited by our CUNY consultants, paid for, I assume, with University monies. Even if it is soft money, all money is really tax-levy because soft money is generated by tax-levy money. So if a faculty group, let’s say at a campus that’s been audited, requests to only read, not to have a copy but just to look at it, not for public dissemination or reporting but just for information, such as a campus Health and Safety Committee, with the agreement that this is for its own work in improving the college, that can be refused and a Freedom of Information Act request would not be applicable? / Jane Sovern – Karen, I think we would have to evaluate whether we could retain the attorney-client privilege, how widely we could disseminate it and still retain the attorney-client privilege. But I think the significant issue here is that the substance of what was learned is going to be disseminated so that every campus can learn from that. But the pure report itself, the University wants to retain the privilege. If there is a request, Rick and I would have to think very carefully about whether we could continue to protect the University retaining the privilege in order to spare us significant fines that could require significant sacrifices. / Ron Spalter – Ask your question about the going forward reports that we are going to begin to do. / Professor Kaplowitz – But let’s say a college knows that in the science labs there are carcinogenic elements and there are no fume hoods to keep those carcinogenic elements from going into the HVAC system and that they are going through the HVAC system and had been for years, and we know that let’s say, hypothetically. Imagine a hypothetical campus, in a hypothetical place, on Governors Island, and we know that and we would just like to see if the consultants found that. / Ron Spalter – Anything of that nature that the consultants found they are duty bound to report directly to the EPA. Had any hazardous situation that is discovered that is an immediate hazard that’s not covered in this report they are duty bound to report that, as we would be. Otherwise we would be liable for criminal penalties. I’m aware of nothing like that in any of these documents.

Professor London (Political Science, Brooklyn College) – Same questions as Karen …$3 million worth of fines that could be levied today against CUNY for situations that would be in violation of EPA. / Ron Spalter – Based on the sample that we’ve received. / Professor London – Based on the sample, OK. You know, I want to say that in 1993 when I was First Chapter Chair at Brooklyn College we found in the labs lots of bottles that were unlabeled and, at that point, it was costing Brooklyn College more to dispose of them because each bottle had to be tested than it was to hire a chemical hygiene officer. At that time the president hired a chemical hygiene officer and clearly we’ve had one since. That’s obviously something that faculty had been concerned about, took care of, management recognized it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the culture from the faculty point of view. There is a problem with resources maybe. This is serious and I’m concerned about our members working in an unsafe environment today. I certainly think that you should share with us the agreement in its draft form. I think that would be before it’s finalized. I also want to make clear to everybody here that we do have in our contract a grievance process. If there are any safety issues, people know about things, you don’t have to wait five years to take care of a problem, and we shouldn’t think that it’s something that has to just wait for your turn. I’m supportive of planning, I think it’s long overdue and I’m glad to see that this is happening, but I think at this point in time transparency would be a very wise and prudent policy. Otherwise what you’ve said here in a public form will only fuel fears throughout the University. So it’s nice that you’ve come to share half a loaf with us but without the whole loaf I think that you’ve unleashed something that will not be productive. I certainly hope that again we can see the agreement… / Jane Sovern – If I may respond to that. I was asked for the first time by Karen Kaplowitz and I immediately sent her a copy of the draft agreement. So there is no issue of transparency. Karen can share, you’re welcome to e-mail me and I will e-mail you the draft, which is again not signed and not completely finalized, but we anticipate that that is what the agreement will look like and we’re more than happy to share that. Again, if we get a request for any other documents, we’ll carefully consider that. What our goal in this has been and continues to be, I think, is to work as best we can, to work with all of the University, that includes the faculty of course, particularly for issues on which faculty have special expertise, to work with administrators on issues that are their responsibility and when they are not meeting their responsibilities to find ways to hold them accountable, to support them but also to hold them accountable. Our goal of course is to make the University as safe environmentally as we can, fully safe and fully compliant with environmental laws and rules and regulations, and to do that in a way that minimizes to the greatest extent possible fines and penalties, because in our judgment, and we think you agree with this, that’s money thrown away and that’s money that could be used for you, for the students, for everyone. What we were looking to do and are looking to do in this agreement, and as Ron says going forward, is to negotiate any time that there are violations found, and my understanding is that the majority of the kinds of violations EPA looks for are record keeping violations. This is what I’m advised, that every time a chemical bottle is on the shelf unlabeled, $15,000 or $25,000. Every time there is not a permit for the boiler, $25,000. What we’re talking about are things in the nature of record keeping for environmental training, making sure that every time graduate students get trained there is a record kept at the college that can be shown to EPA. Perhaps we might, in another place, talk about whether this is really beneficial to society, but that’s a different conversation. So our goal is to try to get our environmental compliance up to speed. I think when we talk about changing the culture our sense is that the critical first component is the administrative culture and the culture of insufficient attention and resources that have been dedicated to this issue university-wide, and the fact is that this can be the tail that wags the dog, in other words this agreement can be the spur that can cause essential resources and attention to go to a problem that you all well know has been a problem for many years and has not received sufficient attention and resources. Our sense is that, in terms of changing the culture with respect to faculty, our hope is we will be able to provide resources such as, for example, if you have web-based training for environmental safety in laboratories, then that’s something that graduate students, faculty, undergraduates can complete, there are records there, and that if the Central Office can supply those kinds of things to the campuses doing these things will become routine instead of laborious, instead of looking back to find records that don’t exist and then getting nailed for that. So that is really I think the sense that we’re talking about this. One other issue that I didn’t mention before and Ron alluded to, in which we will be very much looking for faculty involvement and we think faculty will be critical, is the issue of what are called supplemental environmental projects. As Rick mentioned, the notion here is that, should there be violations, we have reduced fines and penalties, obviously to the good for us, we will work, and I gather there is some play in that, and we will work to negotiate those down as far as we can. EPA has a provision and we have a provision in the agreement that, if we and EPA agree, if there are fines or penalties some of that money or maybe even all of that money could be channeled into what are called supplemental environmental projects, and those are things we would anticipate being faculty developed and faculty driven. For example, MIT offset its fines by developing software for I believe chemical management and other issues, and that was the particular expertise of some of their faculty. I could imagine a host of projects on a host of issues. I know that environmental justice is a concern, an issue that’s coming to the forefront for the faculty. I can imagine a number of very creative projects that could perhaps be developed and we would anticipate that that would be faculty developed and faculty driven. So that’s an area in which we anticipate that there will be a lot of common ground. / Professor London – Just one quick point. I would hope that the resources that are devoted on the campus, especially the hiring of personnel that are necessary, will be chalked up to productivity savings.

Professor Sank (Anthropology, City College) – I have mixed feeling here because I do share a lot of my colleagues’ concern about what this will involve and portend in terms of perhaps adding another layer of administrative control over the colleges and a distant type of control, but I do also welcome this in the sense that in the past we’ve had serious problems at City College of the nature of what they call sick building syndrome. We’ve had poor quality forcing people to have various symptoms, we’ve had blue water come from faucets, we’ve had reports that the drinking water should be run for a minute or two before you drink it and signs were supposed to be put on the fountains and the signs were never put there, we’ve had reports of mold that you can literally smell. The reason why these weren’t addressed, they were actually swept under the floor, I think, to give them the benefit of the doubt in our administration, is it would be very costly, would have to change the blower system. I was told by some of the physical plant people that they didn’t have money to change the filters, that the filters were supposed to be changed regularly. They didn’t have the money, so they didn’t do it. The blue water factor, you have to change some of the pipes. That’s very costly and they didn’t want to do it. So the question is who is going to carry the cost if they do need a new blower system and new pipes, and also another aspect of this is the confidentiality. If faculty or staff do know of such incidents, and I know they report to me about mold presently, is there some way that they could send this in a confidential way and be assured that it will be followed up. / Ron Spalter – In terms of the funding of large-scale system repairs, we all know that those are capital projects, and that’s the only source of funds to replace boilers, to rip out large sections of plumbing systems or to redo the HVAC systems. With respect to finding something on the campus that needs to be corrected, I don’t know that that needs to be confidential. I would probably say it as loud as I could to the highest placed administrator I could get in front of and bring their attention to it. One of the things that we’re all going to do if we work on this thing together in a collaborative fashion is to raise consciousness about dealing with environmental issues in a higher priority than we have in the past. This will lend itself to people thinking more about allocating resources for those purposes rather than for other purposes. Unfortunately, it’s the old phrase zero sum game. If the pie doesn’t get bigger it means redistributing the resources away from something we’re currently doing towards this activity. / Professor Sank – Capital expense is one thing, but replacing a filter is not a capital expense. They didn’t have the money for that. That requires funding from the college, I think, rather than capital. / Ron Spalter – And what I’m telling you is that colleges have in many cases sufficient money to do many discretionary things. The issue is what’s a priority now, and that’s where the money will go. And my suggestion is that if we work together these environmental issues will become a higher priority than they currently have for the allocation of whatever money is available. The presidents are in charge of their colleges. The Central Office is not going to direct anyone to replace filters.

Professor Philipp (Chemistry, Lehman College) – The report that was done for your office, my understanding is, had specific staffing recommendations. Is it possible that those recommendations be made public, that part of the report on staffing for this purpose of environmental record keeping analysis. / Ron Spalter – The answer is that information will become part of our environmental management system. We will talk about the levels of staffing and the types of people and the types of credentials and the number of people that campuses should have, depending on the size and shape and variety of the campuses, in order to appropriately carry out environmental health and safety. This was just one set of consultants’ recommendations. We will have others. We’re also in the process of hiring a University Director for Environmental Health and Safety who will be very experienced and also very credentialed in this area. We expect to develop our own expertise in this. So, whether it comes from this document or not, that information will certainly be made public because it’s in our interest to let everybody know what is going to take in order to cure the situations that currently exists and put us on a footing where these problems no longer persist. Thank you.

Professor Speidel (Earth & Environmental Science, Queens College) – I have two concerns here. I haven’t had a chance to read the draft yet, but the Board action on the self-audit agreement is very general and leaves open a wide range of things that the EPA turns out to be the policing agent for any regulation from the New York City Fire Department with our signs right on up through. And I think from actions that have taken place over the years with EPA that the fines, once you’ve entered into an agreement, are much tougher to deal with than the fines before. That’s just sort of an observation. The second observation is, I don’t know how to phrase this delicately. / Jane Sovern – It’s all right, be indelicate. / Professor Speidel – To what degree does this particular action approved by the Board and entered into by the Chancellery transfer fiscal responsibility for any subsequent violations from the University as a whole to the individual faculty or staff member? / Jane Sovern – First of all, I’m not aware of any notion of individual faculty or staff members being responsible for any fines. The notion here is that the Central Office is going to be working with the University, is going to hire the consultant who will do the audit, will provide support along the lines of things we’ve been talking about in terms of computer software, sharing information, proceeding through the audit. The campus will be responsible for any fines. We will work very hard to negotiate those as low as we can and will work with all of you and others who have expertise in these areas to develop supplemental environmental projects to try to channel any fines that are there into useful ways. There is no notion of any individual faculty or staff being fined or absorbing fines. / Professor Speidel – Does the agreement and the language permit such an extension? / Ron Spalter – The employer is the accountable entity, not the employee, for environmental damage. / Professor Speidel – So it’s treated as self-insured staff. / Jane Sovern – Exactly. / Professor Speidel – OK, thank you.

Professor Lewis (English, York College) – I run the journalism program at York. It seems to me that what you’re probably going to need here is a broader education university-wide about what the issues are here and how to handle them, and also just a broader sense of awareness. And the students should be brought in. Not only should faculty or limited faculty but also a broader cross-section of the faculty be brought in and so should students. Maybe a good idea here is to have somebody like Michael Arena, University Director for Media Relations, to give out regular information packets or send regular kinds of articles or postings to the campus newspaper. We can set up a health page or building health page, campus health page, in each one of the newspapers to be able to bring the students into the mix and a broader faculty, and maybe even through letters to the editor and stuff like that get a dialogue going where individuals on the campus will be able to communicate with you more directly about things that they’re aware of. / Jane Sovern – That’s a very helpful idea. The discipline council and this meeting are simply two of the first stops on the education trail. So any suggestions for other bodies, constituencies, methods in terms of getting out the message and inviting people to give ideas to develop this, make it work collaboratively, we welcome that. This is just really the very beginning of the conversation. / Professor Lewis – There is another aspect of that because a lot of the student newspapers, I know the one at York is, are also distributed into the surrounding community. There might be people within the community that can offer expertise or offer some way of helping to ameliorate some of the problems. So you might want to consider that. / Jane Sovern – Thank you.

Professor Francis Sheehan (The John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – I may be referring to that hypothetical campus that Karen has spoken about as well. I spent days going around my campus with the Bryan and Greer consultants and showed them quite a few things and things that they found themselves, and then shortly after they left the campus, a few weeks, probably a month later, we got a summary from our administration as to what was in the report. So if there is a privilege I would suggest to you that it may have been violated. What disturbs me about the summary is that, even though there were chemical drains that were missing so that everything poured into that drain would fall down to the third, second and first floor and other absolutely horrendous physical plant issues, there was none of that in the summary. It was all pointing fingers at the lab techs and how they perform their labeling of bottles and all the rest. I would suggest to you that it is extremely unfair to the faculty to have a filtered analysis of what’s in the report by the administration that we cannot respond to. So, whereas in the past I think the issue of wanting to see the report was "we’d like to know what the hazards are on our campus," I would like to see whether or not the issues that we showed to the consultants were included or whether or not our administration filtered it. Because right now quite frankly I don’t have faith in that report, because if what I read was accurate, and I have no way of determining whether or not their summary is accurate, we go forward with a very skewed look at what’s happening based on their, what I assume to be, comprehensive review of our physical plant. Nothing about the plant was in there, and I’m just wondering how do we as faculty look at a summary by our administration about what’s in the report and adequately respond to it if you do not disclose it to us. / Jane Sovern – I think that’s a fair point. I think that, again, the notion of our hiring Bryan and Greer to take a look at some of our campuses was to do a kind of reality check of what’s out there, to get a sense for ourselves on what was out there, should we be entering into this agreement, are we so clean that we could say EPA come on down, we’re willing to take whatever you can give us, where are we? The notion also has been that this is not about blame, that the idea is about finding out, taking the accurate look at what is there and then addressing it, and addressing it so that we can go forward in this process and not pointing fingers but just saying "OK, if there are problems here they are, now everybody knows them and let’s deal with them" rather than using them for blame. You’re raising a serious point. We’ll have to consider that. Obviously we want to make sure that when we, that is the folks who are working with the audit team, share information, people have confidence that it’s good information. So you raise a fair point. / Professor Sheehan – In the draft audit agreement, which Karen was kind enough to share with me before the meeting, the appendices are missing. Could you tell us which campuses will be audited first, second, third and fourth. / Jane Sovern – Sure. College of Staten Island is first, Queens College and CUNY Law follow, and then York. That is the first year. I was actually faxing it to Karen so I didn’t want to put in a lot of big appendices but I’m also happy to share those. The appendices also give a list of off site facilities that we want to include in the agreement by college and the schedule. We’re happy to share those, too.

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) – While I’m listening to this I’m reminded of the fact that a considerable number, not the College of Staten Island, but a considerable number of the buildings that are going to have problems were put up in the 60’s and 70’s when a great expansion occurred, prior to the development of a number of the majors and programs and laboratories which now exist. Therefore, you have facilities constructed for degree issuing programs that were from the ‘40’s, 50’s and 60’s. I think it seems to me that we might pay some attention to history and realize that this is likely to happen in the future. There are going to be new kinds of research programs, unanticipated consequences in the future. And I would imagine that, I don’t know how to handle this, I’m not a manager, but it seems to me that we’re dealing with a great deal of capital budget stuff, and one of the things that might be included in this business of getting ourselves in the capital budget for the near future is a permanent codicil about repairs of this kind. I don’t know how else we can handle it. As former Chair of this body I held public environmental hearing meetings several times. Emma Macari and others came. We had very serious problems prior to the EPA getting into this, for example the air quality on some campuses that happened to be near the Brooklyn Queens Expressway or the West Side Highway. It has never not been something faculty weren’t aware of. We had all kinds of efforts. I think she was going to do an inventory of these problems at one point. We have had problems along these lines a long time but they have never been integrated in the capital budget as a permanent request. I don’t know if that’s the right place for it. / Ron Spalter – That’s exactly the right place for it. When Vice Chancellor Macari comes she could speak in greater depth and with greater accuracy, but many of these issues have historically been dealt with by the B&E funds. The State has recently decided that the B&E funds will be replaced in large part by a new type of bond issue, some of which will be dedicated towards upkeep and maintenance and this kind of repair. Whether we’ll reach the level of magnitude that we need in this University in the short run, I’d be very surprised.

Professor Manassah (Electrical Engineering, City College) – You’re aware that the Research Foundation every year buys for the different research projects on the campuses insurance policy for about $700,000. With your statement that there may be liability for $20 million in fines, I think you have to be very careful when you make that statement so that the insurance doesn’t jump up very high. / Ron Spalter – Insurance doesn’t cover fines. / Professor Manassah – That’s not what I’m saying.

What I want to make sure about is that when you make the $20 million statement that these are not because there are some health situations that exist. It’s very important to bring that out, that the fines are basically because of some record keeping. Please be very careful about that because that may simply just triple or quadruple the insurance. / Jane Sovern – Point well taken. Thank you.