REPORTS & DELIBERATIONS
OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIRST
PLENARY SESSION
OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE
OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
May 18, 1999
There have been several meetings of
the Friends of CUNY, including one yesterday with Al Bowker. They have scheduled a town hall meeting on
Thursday, May 27th, at 7:00 pm at Goddard Riverside, located at Columbus Avenue and 88th
Street. The notice is out front.
We met with the
Council leadership at a breakfast event last week. Yesterday,
I testified formally before the Joint Hearing of the City Council Committee on Higher
Education as well as the City Council Committee on Finance.
Their questions focused largely on the terms and conditions the Mayor has
put into his budget proposal -- especially the question of vouchers. That question, as you all know, is not just a CUNY
matter. It is larger than that and therefore
carries more momentum than it would if it were just a CUNY matter. The City Council is upset about the notion of
vouchers. They clearly would like to help. They indicated that this is high on their list of
things that need to be negotiated out of the budget proposal before it becomes the actual
budget. But notice, I used the word “negotiated.” There are always two sides to negotiation. If something is given up, something else will be
taken away. Therefore, this is not an easy
thing to consider or to look forward to. But
we do have our friends in the City Council, and they are intent on not seeing that the
voucher proposal gets into our final budget.
There is nothing
new to report on Fall admissions. I don’t
yet have the data on the latest allocation phase, which has just been completed. I will have the data the next time around, and in
the meantime will distribute it in writing to the Executive Committee.
I don’t think there is anything
new -- except for the wavering date -- on the CUNY Task Force. The deadline is now said to be this month, early
next month.
I do have a bit
more information on the Master Plan that we are putting together for submission to the
Regents. The Board has scheduled two meetings
of its Long Range Planning Committee. The
meetings will be held on June 2nd and June 9th. On
the 2nd they will look at a first draft. In
light of their initial discussions, there will be a second draft for their second meeting
on the 9th. After the Long Range Planning
Committee meeting, the document will be distributed on the web. The public hearing is scheduled for around
the 20th of June, and then there will be the Board meeting as the final step before the
submission.
What I can tell
you at this point, that is, as the Master Plan begins to emerge in draft, is that we
project three large sections. One section
focuses on enrollment patterns over the past five or six years and projections for the
future. The projections will depend on a
number of assumptions we make about the impact of the Remediation Resolution, the impact
of higher admissions standards at the senior colleges, and the Regents requirements at the
high schools. There are obviously a number of
unknowns here. What we are trying to do is
to create some reasonable enrollment projections for ourselves and for the Regents to
consider.
The second large
section will be devoted to the budget -- budget history both on the operating side as well
as on the capital side. As you know, we have
been quite fortunate on the latter, not so much on the former. Other budget issues include the way early
retirements have taken a toll on faculty, and what that might mean for budget concerns;
the growth in and the pressures in technology, staffing for technology, and impact of
technology; the question of financial aid --
specifically, how we are proceeding, both for full-time as well as for part-time students. Attention will be devoted also to how we
project ourselves in terms of our needs -- especially on the faculty side, the technology
side, and also on student services and facilities.
Then there is going to be a large
section dealing with the academic side of things. This
section will cover essentially four topics. The
first deals with the University’s responsibility for ensuring post-secondary
educational opportunities for New Yorkers straight out of high school or after some time
in the work force.
The second topic
deals with the standards issue. This issue
has been on the table now for quite some time. It
includes maintaining high standards in our programs, modernizing programs; maintaining
strong faculty positions, as a central anchor for our educational enterprise; and setting
new standards for students. Setting new
standards clearly has to deal with admissions and with the preparation of students for
college.
The third topic
deals with special and additional opportunities for students who for one reason or another
need additional help, whether these are students with disabilities or in need of child
care. This clearly is a large area, often
little heralded but important. The final
topic deals with the University as a resource to the urban community and the world of
business and industry. This has to do with
teacher education, with technology transfer, and the state of the art research being
conducted on our campuses, and with workforce development, which focuses on what many of
the community colleges are doing so effectively.
I have scheduled a special session of the Council
of Presidents. I will go over with them what
I said to you tonight. I want to get their
reactions and input. I informed them earlier
this month that I intended to do this and that I wanted them to talk about these matters,
to think about these matters, and consult as appropriate on their campuses as we move
forward on the Master Plan. Clearly, the
college focus has to be central. We are an
institution that consists of colleges, and that is, as I keep saying, where the action is.
The last topic
in my report is an update on the implementation plans that are required under the January
Resolution. They were to be submitted by the
campuses on the 15th, which happened to be a Saturday.
Because of this, we extended it by two days until Monday, May 17th. They have all been received. They’re reasonably consistent in what they
propose for implementation if and when this Resolution comes into effect. I had to send back some of them to ask for more
detail on the question of impact. Specifically,
the enrollment impact and impact on the profile of students. I am interested in this, for I think it is an
important issue that we understand badly. No
one can tell us better than the campuses, because they have a better grasp of the impact
that the Resolution is likely to have on them.
The
implementation plans will be attached to the Master Plan.
We will also summarize the general thrust of the implementation plans
within the text. I suspect that they
will be discussed at the meeting early in June at the Board’s Committee on Academic
Affairs where, as required by the Board, they will get a public airing.
I have a little
time to talk briefly about a larger subject, which we’ve not had a chance to talk
about but that interests me a great deal. I
thought I would want to at least say something about it, and perhaps to get your reactions
later. The subject has to do with the
discussion initiated by the State Education Department on higher education in New York
State -- more specifically, on the critical issues facing higher education in New York
State.
The discussions
that the State Education Department and Commissioner Mills initiated come in a context. All of you are aware that the idea of change
dominates the national discussion on higher education today -- changes that will affect
everything from access to standards; from the impact of K-12 learning on college
admissions; from pedagogy to the role of technology in the classroom and elsewhere. By and large, there is a general expectation that
enrollments will increase over the next decade. There
is an expectation that the need for college credentials will grow and that colleges will
play a significant role in this development. We
are confronted with novelties like the University of Phoenix, and you have heard about
this university without walls that is being proposed by the Western Governor’s
Conference.
Higher education
is experimenting with privatization, and both intrigued and frightened by it. Higher education is fielding questions about
access everyday. Higher education is
responding to student interests with an ever growing range of professional programs and
pre-professional programs for undergraduates. This
is a clear change that we are not accustomed to with such pressure today as we are seeing. These examples could go on, but the focus on
national discussion has been on public school performance.
There have been some commissions, the Kellogg Commission and the Boyer
Report, but by and large higher education is not something you hear about as elections are
waged or as congressional debates are held. What
the SED proposes is to look at the issue, as it relates to, and as it concerns New York
State. The fact that higher education isn’t
talked about in this State, I think is all the more notable especially when you consider
that New York State houses the first and third largest university systems in the country,
SUNY and CUNY, ranking number one and number three. Together
the two systems educate the vast majority of New Yorkers who want a college education. The estimates are around 800,000 students at any
one time -- an extraordinary number when you consider it is between two systems.
There are a total of some 300 universities and
colleges in this state alone. That’s 10%
of the total in the country. Yet, New York
State is the only state that funds higher education at a rate lower than it did ten years
ago. When you think of SUNY and CUNY’s impact on New York State’s
economic fortunes -- ranging from high end technology, to state of the art research
centers that are dotted across the State, to alumni who populate major offices, in law,
business, industry, the academy, medical and health facilities, to the workforce that
drives much of New York’s economic development.
Forget about academics for a minute.
The economic impact of CUNY alone on New York City is tremendous.
The question arises: how should these 300 colleges and universities in
New York State fit into the planning of the future of this State? What priorities should
they have in the State budget? How can
senior and community colleges play their respective roles more productively? This is an obvious question for us, and an obvious
question for SUNY. How do we strengthen our
relationships with the business world and industry? They
can be very good partners. And indeed, we
have, as you know, partnerships with private corporations affecting research, community
development and employment. How can we
strengthen such partnerships, how can we put them to use?
How can we improve and ease the transition from K-12 to 13-16? We are collaborating in many ways. There is not an institution belonging to CUNY that
is not involved in some form with the schools. I
meet on a regular basis with Chancellor Crew. We
talk about expanding our involvement in the high schools.
Indeed, there is something going on every semester that is either in an
expanded form or new.
We all know that more is needed. The first thing that comes to mind is revenues. We know that is one of our constant
preoccupations. It is a number one priority. Further, more is needed in meeting our mandate as
a public institution. We have public
responsibilities. More has to be done as a
matter of our legitimate claim on the public purse. We
have such a claim, but it needs to be defined and pressed even harder. Teacher education, basic skills proficiency, and
language instruction -- all very urgent needs. We
are beginning to make a dent in the public consciousness, but we have to do more. Demographic representativeness remains a moral
responsibility for all of us, a responsibility we all take very seriously.
There are areas
in which we are already hard at work, areas that can serve as a model. I am very pleased to say this to you, because that
comes very close to what I mean when I say, there is a context, a context to what the
State Education Department, the Regents, and Commissioner Mills try to do with higher
education. The Commissioner established an
Advisory Council on Higher Education. It is a
large group. It includes representatives from
all sectors, private, public, and proprietary. There
are a number of CUNY presidents on the Advisory Committee; I am on it as well. It’s not large enough for me, because it does
not have any faculty. That is a point that we
drove home early on to the Commissioner.
The group
convened last December. It ranged broadly
over the critical issues that we thought collectively faced us as New York State
institutions of higher education. By
identifying some two dozen, we came up with some top priorities. I would like you to know what they are. One was a strong feeling that we needed to
be aware and very much concerned about institutional effectiveness. How well do we do what we are supposed to do? The
public keeps asking us if we are doing your job? We should have an answer. We should be accountable. If we are accountable,
to whom are we accountable, and for what? I think these are genuine and legitimate
questions. Do the kinds of outcomes we
produce as institutions, from the smallest to the largest, match the needs of society
today? These are not questions we ask ourselves everyday, but they are clearly important
questions.
A second
priority was clearly the high schools and collaboration with the high schools -- the
articulation of K-16. This reflects a sense
that there is a continuum in education that applies, and is of concern, to all of us. There is a certain reciprocal relationship. After all, we are educating the teachers who will
teach the students who will ultimately apply to us. We
are setting certain admissions standards, and we expect applicants to meet those
admissions standards. It is our task to train
teachers. That is a large complex of issues
that clearly deserves the kind of priority ranking.
A third priority
had to do with technology. A term I learned
in the advisory committee was “distributed learning.” It seems to be the offspring of distance learning. The questions here are manifold. How do we assure equality in this area? What is
the impact on learning? Is it a different kind of learning?
It is going to be something that will affect us all as we consider
technology in the classroom. It changes
qualitatively what we do. We are not just
lecturing or running a discussion group. We
are using the computer in different ways. How
do we deal with funding for all of that? That’s a question that the Chancellory and
the campuses talk about almost daily. What do
we do with outsiders coming into the State? We have no control over courses that are being
constructed in Texas, say, and then accessed here in New York State. Should we have a role in this? This is a tricky question. Policies, approaches, implications, and impacts of
technology and distributive learning were discussed.
Finally, the
question that troubled especially the private institutions, but also CUNY and SUNY, was
the question of college costs, access, and affordability.
It’s an issue that cuts right to the heart of the kinds of students we
have here at CUNY. With financial aid, to
digress for a moment, we will do a CUNY-wide pilot for part-timers. It will differ from the part-time aid program we
have now. It stands to make a difference for
our students who now feel tied into a relatively restricted kind of financial aid program. The issues of college costs do affect everybody --
depending upon economic context, economic background, ambitions, length of study, and the
balance between work, family, and other obligations.
Clearly as a priority it makes good sense.
These four
topics became the subject of discussion with some three hundred faculty and administrators
at a Summit on Higher Education held two months ago at the Brooklyn Marriot. The purpose was to raise these issues into broader
consciousness, to refine them, to flesh them out, and to formulate some possibilities. The hope was to create an agenda that the Regents
can make part of their larger direction and orientation for higher education. They then can take it to the legislature and argue
for additional funding.
The immediate
next step is a meeting of the Advisory Committee in early June. At that point I think there will be a follow up to
that large Summit to develop a clear document for the Regents to consider. All of this, I would say, is a step in the right
direction. One might disagree with the
selection of one or the other of the priorities I’ve mentioned or the ranking they’ve
been given. I don’t think anybody here
or anybody I’ve talked to has said that these issues should not be included in the
discussion. For me, it is a first step
perhaps, but it’s promising. I do think
we can, as an institution with the intellectual resources represented by our faculty make
a significant contribution. If we can
actually develop a higher education strategy, or a higher education agenda for the State,
I think we might actually get somewhere. Let
me stop here.
Professor Frisz (Student Personnel, Queens College) -
“I just wanted to know when you get some kind of written reports from all of the
campuses about their implementation of the new resolutions, can we get some copies here,
so that we can take a look and see how the various campuses are planning on implementing
this?” / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Professor Frisz, I don’t see any
reason why not. Clearly the first port of
call has to be the Trustees, because they asked for them.
Once they have them for discussion, they become public documents.
Professor Sherrill (Political Science, Hunter College)
- “I want to ask a question about the talk surrounding the budget in Albany. A reasonable estimate is that it will take at
least a month between the time they decide to adopt the budget, and the date when the new
adopted budget comes out. That is, it takes
ten days, to two weeks, to arrive at an agreement on revenues. And then another two weeks or so, to figure out
how they are going to be distributed. That
puts us in mid-June at the earliest, and probably mid-July. It’s even conceivable that a budget will not
be enacted when we begin classes in the Fall. I’d
like to know, what is the University doing in order to assure faculty, students, families,
and so on, that we will be able to offer courses in the Fall? Are negotiations going on with the State to
continue the current budget on a day by day basis? What kind of planning is happening? Or
what kind of planning might be possible?” / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - There
are two things we are working on in a very preliminary stage, because we aren’t yet
prepared to believe that it will be September when we get a budget. One is, how do we deal when our fiscal year runs
out on June 30th? We are now six weeks into
the State fiscal year without having a budget. The
way this is dealt with is by emergency bills, essentially extending the previous budget. We’ve gone through that exercise at least
once. It was solved by temporary measures,
which I think are valid for two weeks or so at a time.
These are measures passed by the legislature in order to keep us going,
afloat, and paid. That is one issue, and
clearly is something that we will take up more seriously when we get closer to the
deadline. The other question is implicit in
what you say is: how do we assure the world
at large that we are not going to close down? That
we are going to be open for business, and that we have every intention to open classes. That is a question that we have also given some
preliminary thought to. It is too early at
this point to go public on anything suggesting that we are not prepared. Or that we are even considering that we
might not open. If we get close to that, we
will clearly have to do some significant public outreach to make clear to one and all,
those who have been admitted and those who are returning, that we will be there for them.
Professor Sank (Anthropology, City College) - “I
endorse most of what you said today. I think
it was a very positive type of statement. When
you got to the area of privatization, I see it as a two-edged sword. I think we have to be concerned at a public
institution about commercialization. That
leads me into what I really want to say, our fear of politicizing the University. In connection to that, I ask whether a public
educational institution should allow itself to be used by politicians to advertise,
publicize, or obtain support and endorsement of their political campaigns? Specifically by
giving these politicians a pulpit at a large conference or commencement. I did raise this question in a different way with
you last month. President Moses of City
College had invited Hillary Clinton to be the commencement speaker. Although there may be denial, she is essentially a
declared, or almost declared candidate for the Senate.
I now learn that President Moses has also invited Vice President Gore to be
a speaker at a conference on Hispanic education. Both
of these individuals are candidates, or almost declared candidates for political office. I just worry that by doing that, we are really
starting a process by which we are sending a very confused message to our students. We are in a sense indicating endorsement of a
particular candidate. I just wondered if you
agree with this in any sense. Whether there
is some way of presenting it to the Board of Trustees.
There should be some rule for persons who are declared or almost declared
candidates, not to be public speakers at such events.
I would very much strongly endorse having forums where all the candidates
for public offices, the Senate, the Presidency, are invited to the campus to speak. That would be an appropriate use of an educational
institution. I don’t think it is an
appropriate use to have one partisan candidate. We
are living in a political world. I wondered
what your reaction to that is?” / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - This is obviously
a complex question. What do we do about
politicians in general? We have a number of sitting politicians speaking at commencements
this year. Is it an endorsement of Senator
Schumer, if he speaks at Hunter? I
think it is a legitimate question to ask ourselves, are we endorsing anybody who has a
political position -- whether they are declared candidates or likely to be declared
candidates, or sitting politicians. I think
it is a question that we haven’t tackled very seriously, but I think in the case you
raise, it raises for me the question, what does it mean to be almost declared? What sort
of litmus test do we apply to people who have greater ambitions? My short reaction to your question would be to say
I would be reluctant to abridge the possibility that colleges have, at this point, to
reach out to declared, undeclared, possibly-declared candidates, just because of what
might ultimately happen. I think once we open
that door, we open a door I’m not sure we want to open.
Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island) -
“I’ll try to be fast. You know what
the NCAA case in Pennsylvania led to in terms of a ruling about using SAT’s to
predict graduation. The judge has so far
declared this as not a possibility. It has
opened up the whole issue of testing, finally into the courts on the federal level. Thinking with that as a background, I’m
wondering whether or not anybody in central administration has done an analysis of that
NCAA decision, with potential regard to us. Because
frankly, one of the most persistent rumors that’s being dropped by the Schmidt
contingent was the probability of a very strong recommendation that CUNY goes over to use
SAT’s like everyone else in the country does, for the admission of students. I’m just wondering whether or not we have
done any kind of thinking about studying that NCAA decision and implications for using a
test that is at best considered reliable for first year performance, and certainly not for
graduation and success in college. Is there
anyway that you can get a group of folks together to do something on this before the
Report is released?” / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - We wouldn’t be doing our
job if we hadn’t studied that particular case very carefully. I don’t think there is anybody in the
Chancellory who thinks that using a single test to determine a major outcome is the proper
way to go. We are in good company here. The College Board warns everybody against using
the SAT’s as a single measure, discounting GPA and several other things you might
want to use for admissions. That point is
certainly not lost on us.
Professor Greenbaum (History, Queensborough Community
College) - “Do you know if there has been any movement at all on the different
proposals for the increase in the per capita for the community colleges, between the
Senate and the Assembly?” / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - There has been no change
since we last talked about it, $150 in one, and $75 in the other.
Professor Vozick (Science, Borough of Manhattan
Community College) - “It’s great to hear your interest in the future of CUNY,
and projecting work to try to get more public recognition.
Although I must say that I am a little concerned about the top heaviness of
the context you describe. I have two
questions. The first is about the
problem of who speaks out for the students at CUNY. Obviously
everything we do is directed at helping the students.
Nonetheless, we don’t hear voices in the current public dialog, in any
way, seriously speaking out for the students in any way I can recognize. I personally find this troubling. When I talk to my students I think they subtly
find it troubling. I’d like to hear
your thoughts on your own role, or whose role you think it is to do that? The other had to
do with discussing the conference. You
mentioned that one of the points was that public trust is a crucial trust of what CUNY has
to have, build, and foster.” / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Higher education,
really. / Professor Vozick - “Absolutely,
public higher education, but us especially too. As
I see it, and also historically, CUNY has been the hope for ordinary working people. It’s the place your kid can go if they can’t
get into other places. I just don’t see
that. I didn’t hear that at all in the
planning of the conference. I find that it is
almost a passe way of thinking, as if it was dated. I
think it is very much a 1999-2000, 2010 reality for CUNY.
That would be the second question I would like you to try to address or
share your thinking about. / Interim Chancellor Kimmich - Let me start with the second
one first. Remember, this is not a conference
so much about CUNY, as it is about higher education.
It covers public, private, proprietary, and every other kind of education. My contribution to this one is to bring to bear
the mission we have as an institution. You
have defined it very nicely. We have a strong
and special role to play in higher education in New York State, particularly in New York
City, but not only in New York City. I think
the urban side, the urban role, is shared across the country. As to your first question. I’m a bit troubled to hear you say that, for
two reasons. One is that, our structure
certainly provides opportunities for individuals whose job it is to speak out on behalf of
students. Although they may not say the right
things, and they may not be heard by everybody. Everybody
from student government, the presidents, to student senate, to the dean at the central
office, to the student affairs people on the campuses, are concerned about students. I’m also troubled by what you say, for a
second reason. When I do speak, it is one of
the things I talk about all of the time.
c. Faculty Members of Board of Trustees
Committees (written)
IV. Nominations/Election for
Members-at-Large of the Executive Committee
Chair Sohmer
- At this point, I will turn the floor over to Maria Rodriguez, who will instruct us on
what is going to happen.
Professor
Rodriguez - This is our rite of Spring. Ruth
Grossman is my assistant from City College. Senator
Norton is from New York City Technical College. Bill
Phipps and Stasia Pasela are our liaisons and the people who make the committee run. You should have got these wonderful University
Senate ballots. Tonight we are going to vote
for the five positions for the Members-at-Large. The
officers are voted in for two-year periods. Last
year was the election for officers, at which time Professor Sohmer was selected as Chair,
Professor McCall as Vice Chair, Professor Kaplowitz as Treasurer, and Professor O’Malley
as Secretary.
This year we are
going to be voting for the five at-large positions. In
your packet you should have received statements giving you background information on the
Senators. Not everyone sent in a statement. The way the procedure goes is that each nominee
will get to speak for two minutes. We will
collect the ballots and the five highest in the tally will then comprise the rest of the
Board. If there is a tie, we will have to
have a run-off. If your full delegation is
not here and you are an alternate, you can vote. You
can get an official ballot from Stasia.
We have
nominations. However, if there is anyone else
whose name was not put into nomination last month, and would like to have their name
included in the election, please tell us. Are
there any other nominations for member-at-large?
Professor Crain
- I would like to nominate an ardent spokesman for the part-timers, and other distant
franchised members, Mike Vozick.
Professor
Rodriguez - Are there any other nominations? The candidates will go in alphabetical order.
The candidates have two minutes to make presentations.
As you are approaching your two minutes, I will let you know that you have
about 10 seconds. At this point you should be
approaching your closing.
[Nomination
Speeches made by Senators]
Professor
Rodriguez - You have your official yellow ballot. You
can vote for any number of candidates from 1- 5 people.
Ruth, Elizabeth, and myself will be collecting the ballots. As soon as we have the first tally we will tell
you.
I’d like to
congratulate the following five Senators. I
will put the top five results up who are elected as at-large Members. Congratulations Senators: Friedman, Sherrill,
Bell, Beaky, and Greenbaum. We wish you a
wonderful tenure.
V.
New Business
a. Professor Crain moved the Resolution on
CUNYTALK, which was seconded.
Chair Sohmer -
Cecelia McCall has agreed to take the Chair. Let
me just respond as the local pachyderm. There
are all kinds of legal problems which will cause CUNYTALK to be shut down, were it to
continue ad libitum as it is now. We
collectively do not want to shut it down. But
we cannot keep it on the CUNY server without knowing that it will, in relatively short shrift, be shut down. This is because the users are not obeying the
University rules. One way of obeying the
University’s rules is to have a moderated list.
Clearly for some reason or another, that seems to be offensive. I would sooner not moderate the list; I don’t
want to spend my time doing that. I think the
list is useful. We are perfectly willing to
facilitate migration to a server that is not a CUNY server, for a list which anybody can
have. It is a decision which has to be made,
and it will be made in the Executive Committee.
Professor Cooper
(History, College of Staten Island) - The CUNYTALK was established initially as a project
by an adjunct, Anthea Tillyer, and Dean Savage, who couldn’t be here tonight. It was created in order to help faculty and
CUNY learn about the new technology. It came
out of a Faculty Senate Conference about four years ago.
In fact, it wasn’t called CUNYTALK originally. The original purpose was to educate ourselves
about the new electronic technology and e-mail. Many
of us knew nothing about it at that point. The
availability of the technology was very spotty around the University. In the last four or five years it’s
obviously grown. Even though it has vast
numbers of people, I would wager half the membership of the Senate are not on it. There are campuses which are still using rotary
phones. About a year ago when I was still
Chair of the Senate, I asked Anthea Tillyer if she would see the list ownership to the
Senate office, because frankly I was worried about her own status as an adjunct professor. I was getting nervous over the fact that this
individual, who had donated an enormous amount of her time, was being nastily and
viscously attacked by so-called colleagues. These
colleagues were complaining about the way the thing was run. Furthermore, I was also getting nervous about some
of the issues which have been raised here, the legal liability, the copyright. I started to plead publicly with people to control
themselves. The more I did that, it had
exactly the opposite effect. We moved the
list into the Senate Office. Bill Phipps is
the Executive Director of the Senate. He is
not a faculty member or tenured member of CUNY, but an employee of the Research
Foundation. He found himself being attacked
personally, by some of our dear, not very thoughtful colleagues. Then we moved it out, so that Bill wouldn’t
be the object of these attacks. I got plenty
of them personally. I’m not getting up
here to give a sour grapes talk. You frankly
have no idea how rotten some of your colleagues can be.
The legal issues continue to get more and more difficult. Because of the fact that the Senate has reasonably
good relations with the people at 57th Street, they weren’t putting the screws on us
too much. That situation is changing and
changing radically. The problem we face is
that this list, for many of us, no longer serves a purpose.
It serves a different purpose. It
serves a purpose for people who have other issues than what CUNYTALK’s initial
purpose was two or three years ago. I know
the history. It is wrong to assert that this
is a project of the Faculty Senate. It was a
project of a few colleagues of ours. They
created it for us to use, with the thought that it would help create a community. The Senate ended up de facto managing it in
the last year, frankly because we didn’t know what else to do. It was largely my fault, because I really did not
want this adjunct to be in such an exposed position.
We did not think through the legal responsibilities. I repeat, it was not our intention to create what
some of you think has been created. For those
of you who haven’t had access to this, or don’t use this technology, you
probably think this is a conversation from Mars.
Professor Frisz
(Student Personnel, Queens College) - I call the question.
Chair Sohmer -
All those in favor of calling the question, please raise one green card. All those against calling the question?
Twenty-seven to thirteen, the question is called. This
is on the question of the CUNYTALK resolution. The
Resolution is before you. All those in favor
of the Resolution, please raise a green card. All
those against? The motion fails.
Professor
Marshall (English, Queens College) - At Queens College recently, we were notified by a
member of the Academic Senate on campus that the admissions standards at the college had
changed. That the President wanted them
changed, and they did change, and new admission standards were in effect. They were being utilized this year. It’s my understanding that such a change,
apart from being passed by the Academic Senate, and it is not clear that that happened,
would have to be passed by the University Faculty Senate.
Is that not right?
Chair Sohmer -
Unfortunately, historically, the admissions standards at each campus, were a discussion
between the college president and the Chancellor. At
some campuses, they insisted that the by-laws be obeyed, which say that admission criteria
have to do with the faculty. But that’s
local on the campus. There were ones that
came up at the Faculty Senate last year. A
number of campuses’ admissions standards were announced as part of the Minutes. Those were only some campuses where that applied;
at other campuses, that is not the case.
[Unidentified
Speaker] - Bernie, a clarification on this. Each
local campus does have jurisdiction. / Chair Sohmer - They do, but if you think about
practice, the practice on most campuses for thirty years has been a presidential
conversation with the Chancellor. We have
pushed for the individual faculty senates to reassert their authority. / [Unidentified
Speaker] - As I recall, you signed, under the New York Court of Appeals, an agreement
which re-asserted faculty authority over this. / Chair Sohmer - Yes. / [Unidentified
Speaker] - So that would seem to preempt all those thirty years, since the Court of
Appeals is the ultimate court. / Chair Sohmer - It is Article 8.6, if I remember
correctly.
Professor Cooper
(History, College of Staten Island) - I just wanted to make a different announcement
altogether. The Interim Chancellor talked
about the Long Range Plan that is going to be debated in June. Into that Long Range Plan will be inserted the
Remediation Proposal. Some of us, after a
year of campaigning, notably the Friends of CUNY, have
gotten the Regents to agree to a public hearing on the CUNY Master Plan, in New York City,
on September 8th and 9th. You might want to
make note of this now. We will certainly get
the information out, when, where, and what kind of testimony they will allow. People who had all that wonderful testimony
organized for the Schmidt Commission might want to dust it off and use it. This would be particularly important for faculty
who have been around for a long time, and who have some long range experience with
successful students; also, students who have gone through remediation and graduated. Perhaps we can contact some of the alumni, who
spoke at the Schmidt Hearings and the Board of Trustees Hearings over the last few months. This is really the best chance we have. I hope I’m wrong, but I’ve lost faith in
the lawsuit I’m involved in over this. The
Regents also have notified the court that they will not oppose the review of CUNY’s
Trustee Resolution. Therefore, Attorney
General Spitzer has pulled the State Attorney General’s Office out of representing
CUNY in court against the Regents because the State Attorney General cannot represent one
body of the State against another body of the State.
This will mean that CUNY will go hire a private lawyer and continue to
fight. But it also means that the Regents
have gone into court and announced that they plan to review this Resolution. Those of you who follow the fine lines of this
issue will recognize that this is something of a victory for a battle we’ve been
waging since last June with the Regents. It
is our last hope to get it reversed in September, before it would go into effect for the
January 2000 class that would enter the four senior colleges.
Professor Frisz
(Student Personnel, Queens College) - On information in terms of my colleague at Queens
College and the Academic Senate problem with the admissions committee -- our Academic
Senate is empowered through our Governance Body to make decisions about admissions policy. We made changes in admissions policy in 1995 or
1996 when the new President came in. At that
time the changes went through the right channels. This
time, the Admissions Committee goofed. They
did not bring it to the Senate; they sent it forth to 80th Street. The Senate presented its resolution a couple of
weeks ago, to reverse any decision that was made about a student, based on this policy. We were informed that, once a policy had been
made, gone through Academic Affairs, and students admitted, the policy could not be
changed in the middle of the year. As I
raised at the Senate meeting last week, it doesn’t mean that we can’t revisit
the issue with the Admissions Committee, and change the policy again to make sure it goes
through proper channels. It has never gone
through the UFS in terms of Queens College. It
goes through the Queens Governance Body, directly to 80th Street.
Chair Sohmer -
May I hear a motion to adjourn?