hair: This meeting is an open forum. The point of the meeting is to allow faculty to air and debate their views preliminary to testimony before the Board at its hearing on June 16. The meeting will be tape-recorded. There is information on signing up for the Board hearing, the number you call and how you do it and also for the hearing in the City Council and the Higher Education Committee, so I hope a good number of people will testify. The meeting was originally called to talk about the proposed tuition increase, increases I should say, and then it was requested that we add to the agenda the proposed School of Professional Studies. Both of these proposals have gone through three Board committees, have gone through Fiscal; Faculty, Staff, and Administration (FSA); and at Academic Policy where there was no quorum for the School of Professional Studies; at Fiscal and at FSA we abstained.

I think we should spend one hour on each item unless we get through the item more quickly, but no more than an hour. I need your help as to which issue we should start with. I’m going to ask you to raise your hand in a minute as to which one you want to discuss first, because some people are only interested in one and some are interested in the other; although some are interested in both. [A vote was taken.] We will start with the proposed CUNY tuition increases.

Karen Kaplowitz is going to start with about 5 minutes or less of information and then people should come to the microphone and make their statements. Try to keep your statements so that we can hear a whole range of arguments, and remember that these are proposed tuition increases for the senior colleges, the community colleges, the professional schools, and non-resident students, so that you may want to speak to one aspect of the issue. OK, I’m going to give Karen the microphone.

Professor Karen Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – I’ll be very brief because I think the most important aspect of this meeting is for people to discuss the issue, and actually I’d like to hold most of my remarks for the discussion later. I’d just like to reiterate that at the direction of the Executive Committee and at the direction of the UFS Budget Advisory Committee (BAC), abstained at the Fiscal Committee and read a statement that you have copies of; you should have received it with today’s packet.

I should mention also that at the Budget Advisory Committee meeting, which was on the Friday before the Fiscal Affairs Committee, there was a proposal which I did not make a statement about and it was mainly because the UFS Executive Committee had not had an opportunity to consider this, and the Budget Advisory Committee is advisory to the Executive Committee, and that was a proposal by several BAC members to fold in the $150 a year / $75 a semester Technology Fee into the increase so that it would be covered by TAP. Some of us were opposed to this because, first of all, the community college increase would be reported as a $450 increase and would not be accurate. It would have been folded in but it would have been misunderstood as a $450 increase, and some of us thought that would be very damaging to the community colleges, more damaging than the current situation is. Also, the folding in for the senior colleges would make the increase $950, and since we have good reason to believe that the fiscal situation is going to be very dire perhaps even within the next month or two, in the form of a further cut to the senior colleges, that folding in of the Technology Fee would prevent an increase of the senior college tuition, which the Board resolution provides an opportunity for the Chancellor, in consultation with the Board Chair, to raise to $950 and many people expect that will happen. So that wouldn’t have been able to happen without redoing everything. I just wanted to explain for those who were at the Budget Advisory Committee meeting why that wasn’t part of my statement. I spoke to some people on the Executive Committee and there was the feeling that that proposal hadn’t been voted on by the Executive Committee and it was too late in the process.

I do want to give just a few numbers to put the tuition increase into a context. If we don’t have this tuition increase at the senior colleges and if we don’t have the $120 million restoration from the Legislature in Albany there would be, and there are different ways of figuring the numbers, but there would be, depending on how you calculate it, between 1,600 full-time faculty fired or 3,000 full-time HEOs, DC 37 people, and non-tenured faculty fired, and all the adjuncts. Because of retrenchment guidelines you cannot immediately fire full-time tenured faculty, so the HEOs would be fired, the DC37 people, and all the adjuncts. But if you go through the retrenchment process there would be between 1,600 and 2,100 full time faculty fired. There would be a blood bath at the senior colleges. I think the villains are clearly the Governor and the Legislature, and this has been going on since 1990, and even before that. That’s the context in which the tuition increase has been proposed. That’s all I’d like to say for now. Thank you.

Professor Cooper (History, College of Staten Island / The Graduate School and University Center) – I’m going to have to leave for a personal reason in about 35-40 minutes, so I’m very sorry about the order of the agenda because I really came to talk about the other thing, the professional studies business. I want to ask a couple of questions and correct something; I think correct something. If there were no tuition increase in the community colleges and if the $800 goes forth in the senior colleges, what is going to be the range of tuition difference in the freshmen and sophomore years? / Professor Kaplowitz - $1,500. / Professor Cooper - $1,500 tuition difference between students in community colleges and senior colleges. Now regarding retrenchment, if the budget situation eventuates without the tuition increase and the $120 million shortfall obtains, the colleges will have to create retrenchment committees. This could easily lead to the ending of full time tenure because if the retrenchment committee and the president decide to close an entire unit down, such as let’s say the School of Liberal Arts at any college or the entire department of sociology at such and such a place, that’s the way it goes and that’s how you save money. You cannot possibly retrench all HEOs and staff and open the doors in September. There is no way a place can function. We have gone through this at least three times since 1975. The AAUP censure was lifted after these guidelines were put in place - that’s for better or worse. I’m not defending any of this – but the way in which the $120 million would be met would be either closing one or two colleges or closing departments across colleges and not just by getting rid of all untenured and all HEOs and all Gittelsons and everyone except full time faculty. / Professor Kaplowitz - That’s the 2,100 faculty if it were done that way.

Chair: Does anyone else want to speak on this? I hope everybody will testify, will come to the two hearings. Karen, you want to respond to some of the issues that people raised.

Professor Karen Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – These are factual points in response to some of the questions that have been raised this evening. A question was asked as to why there is a differential tuition between the community colleges and senior colleges. The cost to educate students at the senior colleges per FTE student is between $10-11,000 a year. The cost to educate each FTE student at the community colleges is between $6-7,000 a year. So that accounts for the differential, partly because, of course, the faculty at the community colleges have a much heavier teaching load than the faculty at the senior colleges. That’s one major reason for the difference in cost.

There is, as Bill Crain and others said, an expected enrollment drop as a result of tuition increases, and built into this Resolution of the Board is a projected decline of 1% of our senior college student enrollment, and 5% of our non-resident students, which is being assumed partly because of students having problems with immigration, with INS and, getting visas. So that’s built in. It’s hoped that it’s not going to happen but that’s built into the proposed tuition increase.

As for non-resident tuition increase the Legislature is requiring us to get $32.5 million of that $120 million from non-resident students. This wasn’t an initiative of the Chancellor or the Board; this has been required by the Assembly and the Senate, which thought it would be helping CUNY and, therefore, put that in their two-house bill. In other words, the $120 million in revenue dollars that CUNY must raise, must find, the Assembly and the House, when they developed their two-house budget bill and then the Governor vetoed it and the Assembly and the Senate overrode that veto, the two-house budget bill called for a $32.5 million of that $120 million to come from non-resident students. This was something that the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellors and the Board members have begged the leadership of the Assembly and the Senate to undo. They thought they would be successful three weeks ago, but two weeks ago they realized they weren’t going to be. They’re still trying to change that, but this is something that’s been imposed on us.

As I said earlier, the villains here are the Governor, the Assembly and the Senate. This is a terrible, tragic situation. As Sandi Cooper pointed out, you can retrench full-time faculty by merging and closing departments, and that was done in 1995 under Chancellor Ann Reynolds. If you estimate $75,000 per faculty, which includes fringe benefits, which is low, you get 1,600 full time faculty, who would have to be retrenched if no other things were done to get the $120 million because, as Phil Pecorino said, the tuition increase at the community colleges is not fungible; that is, it cannot be used for this $120 million hole that we have to fill. /Professor Manassah – With all this superstructure why does it have to go out of faculty? / Professor Kaplowitz – It’s just to give you a way of calculating this. If you calculate the more realistic figure you come up with 2,100 employees if you did not just do faculty. This is just one possible scenario to give a face on an abstract figure. $120 million is an abstraction to most of us, but when you think of 2,100 people whether they’re HEOs, DC37, adjuncts, administrators, or faculty, it is no longer an abstract number.

Chair: I think I should give Sandi Cooper permission to say something about the School of Professional Studies because she’s going to the opera to see a relative sing and she’s desperate to say something about the School of Professional Studies. So she’s got three minutes to talk and then enjoy the opera, and then you continue, Karen.

Professor Sandi Cooper (History, College of Staten Island / The Graduate School and University Center) – The Metropolitan is opening in Central Park and my oldest friend’s daughter has the lead. I’ve got to get there.

About the School of Professional Studies: I don’t know whether Jamal plans on introducing a resolution. I have read it and I would just like to indicate I think it’s in the right direction. I hope that it can be supported. If you read the concept paper that was presented to us for that school, which initially came without a heading, a letterhead, a date, a signature, I think you’d be looking at a document that would have been thrown back at any faculty curriculum committee had it been a proposal for a major of the most elementary sort. I doubt it would have passed the CPE or whatever that rising junior exam is called. It seems to me that those of us who find some merit in supporting this document have sort of lost our compass. It has absolutely no integrity in it and I don’t care if I’m cited and quoted to the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor or whatever her title is, Executive Vice Chancellor, directly. It is a shameless piece of money mongering and it’s probably going to cost us more than it will bring in. I really hope that we can find some time in this to try and indicate that we are humiliated and embarrassed. The notion that a group of two, three, five or twelve faculty can suddenly approve Master’s degrees with credits drawn by some sort of isolated selection process is going to make us look more ridiculous than the University of Phoenix, which probably does make money; maybe that’s a wrong analogy. In any case, I simply wanted to say that if Jamal does get to present this thing, I really hope it can get the support of the group.

Chair: I think it has to go to the Executive Committee first but anyway, we’ll figure it out. Let’s go back to tuition increases.

Professor Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – As for the increase in the community college tuition, you’re right, it’s not required under the budget situation, but since 1990, adjusted for inflation, community college support from the City has gone down 33%. The community colleges are at 60% course sections taught by adjunct faculty. We all recognize the invaluable work of the adjunct faculty but we need to provide our students with full-time faculty, and I would urge us not to have this become a conflict between the community college faculty and the senior college faculty. This is one University, and the tremendous tuition increase that the senior college students are being faced with is, in a way, a political environment that permits an increase in tuition of $300 to the community colleges so that the community colleges can be better funded. They have been underfunded, and I know the cynicism of "So, why now?" Well, now when senior college tuition is increased by $800 there is a political environment that makes it less impossible to increase the community college tuition.

We should not be increasing any tuition, we should be getting the State and City support. How do we do that? I don’t know, but in the meantime we’re having community college faculty against senior college faculty, and we’re also having the better funded senior colleges which have the ability to have most of their course sections taught by full time faculty, and other senior colleges which have 60% of their course sections taught by adjunct faculty because there is this tremendous inequity in the funding of the senior colleges. So I’d like to urge us to not turn on each other but to join and turn against the Governor and the Legislators who have done this to us. We need to have, as Lenore Beaky said, a different tax system in this State. The enemies aren’t the faculty and it isn’t the University, and this is the last possible moment because students are paying their tuition bills for September and if it’s not done now it can’t be done again until February and there will be dire consequences that are not just for the individuals involved but for the students who need the full-time faculty and the support staff, and need the tutoring and need the library books and so forth. This is a horrible situation. As someone who would never have been able to go to college without free tuition and who grew up literally hungry … I can’t describe to you how horrible life was until we finally got into the housing project because the waiting list was so long…my heart is breaking at this. But this is something that’s being imposed on us and these are real numbers and a real, real crisis. And this is nothing compared to what’s going to happen next year in the State – nothing – I’m sorry to have to report.

Chair: Before we go on there has been a request. Tomo is here from The Clarion and he wants to take our picture. He has a camera and he wants to take our picture. Do I have permission of the body to allow him to take our picture? It’s OK. There will be a story and I think it’s all right.

Chair: Thank you. The CUNY community colleges are the fifth highest tuition in the country. That information is from Anne Friedman.

Professor Bill Friedheim (Borough of Manhattan Community College) – I just want to remind people that community college students are not the enemy. Tuition increases are not mandated by this budget, as we know, for the community colleges, yet community college students are being asked to pay $300 more and substantial more for out of state and foreign students. The dilemma here is that the only tuition increase that we really have the power to stop is the community college increase, right? I mean nobody’s kidding anybody. The tuition increases for the senior colleges will go through as written in the resolution that goes before the Board on Monday, June 23. My understanding is that the City has to authorize any increases in community college tuition. No? / Professor Kaplowitz – Can I just explain. You’re right, but it’s a little different. Unlike the senior colleges where the legislature has to authorize the Board to raise tuition, and the State Legislature has done this, for the community colleges there’s no such requirement on the part of City Council, much less on the part of the State Legislature. But each year, the City Council has to approve CUNY’s budget for the community colleges, so whatever the Board does, when the City Council passes its budget it either has to accept the spending level that the Board has established, through a tuition increase, let’s say, or it can reject it. If it rejects it that increased tuition money has to be sent back to the students if it’s already been collected, but the City Council could accept the new spending level the Board sets for the Community Colleges through a tuition increase. The City Council votes on the spending level that has been set by the Board. / Professor Friedheim – I appreciate that information. Still, if I understand you correctl,y Karen, the one point of leverage we have is really that hearing on Thursday before the City Council, and if we show up in force together with students, together with the Union, so forth and so on, I think that we could have an effect. And I know it’s painful to think that tuition is going to go up $800 for students at the senior colleges and here I am - I’m somewhat self-interested, I teach at a community college - saying that I think that we should draw the line with community college tuition. The reason for it is this: the figures that you just gave us, measured for inflation, is that the City contribution to the community colleges has gone down I think you said 33% since 1990. I think this is part of a larger picture. Since roughly 1980, when Regan was elected President, there has been a tremendous shift in wealth from the public sector to the private sector, that we all know about. Public services have been cut and CUNY is part of that. And obviously, as we know, with tax cuts under the Regan administration and certainly under the Bush administration and at state and local level, whether it’s democrats or republicans, there have been tax cuts for those at the highest levels and corporations. And so there has been a shift in wealth; from services that people like our students get the money has moved elsewhere. I think that if we support a $300 tuition increase basically we’re giving license to the City and those who would continue that trend saying, "Well, all right, we can take it out of the students, and we, hence, can cut back on what we contribute year after year." I really think that we do have to take a stand on Thursday at the City Council against the tuition increases at the community colleges.

Professor Kaplowitz (English, The John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – Can I just say, because I feel an obligation to clarify a question posted on Senator Forum by Lenore Beakey. She noted that the language of the fourth Resolved clause, about the increase in community college tuition, had been changed, as would a very good reader of text like Lenore would notice, and the change specifies how that money, that $300, would be used. That change in text was made at the express request of the UFS Budget Advisory Committee, specifically me, because the use of the $300 was one of the four stated principles in the tuition document, but the Board only votes on the actual Resolution and I thought that the principle should be imbedded in the Resolution to say that the increase in community college tuition would be used to hire full-time faculty and to provide academic support services and not to hire, let’s say administrators. So please don’t think that the Chancellery pulled a fast one. Right, Bob [Cermele]? You were there at the BAC meeting. I just felt I had to correct the record. I’ll do so on the Senate Forum also.

Professor Lenore Beaky (English, LaGuardia Community College) – Can I just ask a question? Does that statement in the Resolution actually commit CUNY to spend the money that way, as opposed to some other way? / Professor Kaplowitz – Yes, that’s why we put it in. It commits CUNY because it’s in the Resolution that the Board is voting on. / Professor Beaky – That’s good to know because I didn’t understand that.

Chair: So I urge you to testify. Please come out to the Board hearing because we must make our voices heard, and no matter which way you go, get out there and make noise. The students have already been called; they’re planning a demonstration. Slab from SLAM called me and he’s going to have quite a demonstration or press conference. The students will be there; the faculty need to be there speaking their minds. Even if we think it’s hopeless we’ve got to be out there. And it’s not hopeless at the City Council. They will listen.

OK, on to the School of Professional Studies. I want to first say a few words. I don’t know how much you know about the School of Professional Studies. Therefore what I did was to prepare these pages of information on the School. The that is with February 20, 2003. It says what the school is to be. This is the first mention of the School of Professional Studies that we received. The description says that the school will provide customized non-degree curricula. The second is the concept paper that Sandi referred to, which was written for the UFS Conference. I asked it to be written for the workshop on the School of Professional Studies. So that’s what that is. Louise Mirrer wrote it and it was written for our conference. It doesn’t have a date.

Then what I did was to show you a bit of the original governance plan. In number two it says what I underline, "The School of Professional Studies Committee shall be responsible for recommending the awarding of certificates in the School of Professional Studies to the CUNY Board of Trustees." Notice the word "certificate."

I went along with this because credit certificates must be articulated with programs on the campuses in order for credits to exist. I called the State Ed Department; I did a lot of talking with various faculty who already participate in credit certificates. The proposal is for a governance body of nine faculty members of which we appoint three. Then 5 minutes before a meeting with the Chancellor, I discovered that they had put in a revised draft that the School of Professional Studies was going to award degrees. That I found very upsetting because degrees are not articulated with anything in the University. However, Martha offered and got it changed to say that no degree would be offered that was already offered on a campus, there would be no identical program so this new School of Professional Studies could not suddenly say, "All right, we’re going to take this degree at so and so college and offer it." And that did make it slightly better. However, I was still absolutely furious at what was going on.

The last page is what I wrote to the Chancellor giving you the events. The last two days it has been kind of a showdown at my office with the Chancellery. They have finally agreed, but I have to see what you think about this. I should say first of all I put out this letter, which is the final page, to the Executive Committee. A few of them agreed with me, but more of them said, "Turn it down a notch, will you."

Jamal is going to offer a Resolution that we’re going to take a look at, but I also have to say that the Chancellery has agreed to write more of a governance plan around the awarding of degrees, and I have the language that they are saying: "In developing any degree program the School of Professional Studies Committee will name a Curriculum Committee for each such program that draws on faculty," and so on. I would like to get "degree" out of there, quite frankly. However, I don’t think I can get "degree" out of there, but maybe I’m wrong.

So I think what we should do is that Jamal…do we have copies of Jamal’s resolution? We don’t. Now this is not a Plenary, so we can’t pass a Resolution, but we can discuss it and then refer it to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee is of two minds about this. At first I thought they were supportive, but I don’t know. Let’s hear it and let’s have the conversation and move from there. Jamal, do you want to read it?

Professor Jamal Manassah (Electrical Engineering, City College) – Before reading it I want to first agree with everything that Sandi has said about it and I want to tell you a little bit of a personal experience with respect to this. When I first came to City College what some people wanted to do at the School of Engineering was at that time to do something similar. I was an untenured faculty member at that time, I fought it very strongly, and that was the reason that the P&B Committee of my department the first time that they voted on my tenure voted against it, because three of the people who were involved in it were involved so that financially they could be beneficiaries of that. They happened to vote against me, that didn’t matter to me. At this moment I think I’m a little bit more secure, so I’m not going to leave the fight. I see this as an affront to our integrity, in particular to the professional schools. How dare they come and call something like this nonsense a "professional school" and call my school a professional school. The same thing I think with respect to everybody who is in a professional school. I have seen what happened with respect to that. I saw in some places where people are offering in their serious program a Master of Civil Engineering and in their Micky Mouse program something that they call a Master of Project Management, and these are among the things that are being put there and then people on the outside don’t know the distinction. This is effectively something that’s putting us in jeopardy. They want to make money that is wasted but we move to 34^th Street; we don’t need to move the activity of 42^nd Street also down to 34^th Street. As pointed out, we are not here in Plenary session, so of course I cannot make a motion. However, I’m going to read to you the motion I would have made if it was in a Plenary session in a way so that it can still be dealt with and that the Executive Committee would consider it since they can act for the body in between its meetings. I would like everybody here who believes the same way I do to make their opinion known to the Executive Committee and I would also ask the Executive Committee members who go against this to stand up publicly and say why they’re against it and go on record saying why they’re against it. This is something that is very important to us, this is something that makes the distinction between us being faculty members and being part of a governance structure and between basically working for a City agency, and there are a lot of them. What makes us different is that we have a faculty that has a certain role and governance. We are the prime movers with respect to curriculum, we’re the prime movers with respect to programs, and this is the way I would like to keep it.

I will also be posting the Resolution on the Senate Forum and have it circulate around everybody. / Chair – But also the UFS FGL list please. / Professor Manassah – Right. I’m sorry I don’t have copies to give to everybody so I’m going to read it very slowly, and it is something that I’m sending to the Executive Committee. I mean when I change basically the Faculty Senate to the Executive Committee of course it’s the Executive Committee that decides what it would like to do but I urge them strongly to support it:

Chair: OK, I’d like responses and also if you have questions, because I know the School of Professional Studies is kind of a blur to a lot of people. So feel free to ask questions at the mike, too, if you want clarification.

Professor Bill Crain (Psychology, City College) – I support that Resolution. You could add that, since only faculty can award degrees, it’s in violation of Board of Trustees Bylaws section 8.6. That will call their attention to the fact that there is maybe legal action here. / Chair – There are nine faculty appointed who would serve on the committee of the School of Professional Studies and now in their new language there will be an additional faculty curriculum committee. So I don’t think that argument will work. Other arguments might, but I don’t think that one will work that we’re in violation of the Bylaws. / Professor Crain – It has to be a faculty body; it can’t be only a committee. / Chair – OK. / Professor Crain – And then in terms of renaming it, since Jamal’s point is that it’s wrong to name it" professional studies" and compare it to other professional studies, they could rename it "The School of Unprofessional Studies."

Unidentified [Professor Benenson (Mechanical Engineering, City College)]–– I was thinking of calling it the Micky Mouse Club, but that’s another story. I recall that the State Department of Education must approve any new degree that’s granted by any institution. / Chair – It will be sent to them. / Unidentified – It will be sent to them but it would seem to me that the State Department of Education is a public body that is not completely within the control of …/ Chair – No, but if you’ve seen some of the things that the State Ed Department has approved, I’m not sure that gives us the security we would like. If you take a look at NYU and see the kinds of Master’s degrees that their School of Professional Studies does grant and that the SED has approved. / Unidentified – What’s their goal; they’re going to try to raise money? / Chair – Money. / Unidentified – With other things that they have done they have a poor track record in that area. Supposedly distance learning was going to save money and of course everybody knows that it costs a lot more money and so on, so maybe, again, there are economic arguments that we can make to point that out.

Professor Kaplowitz – May I just report some information. At the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees Susan and Manfred Philipp asked excellent questions. We have the transcript of the meeting and got a lot of very important information. There was a commitment made that the money would be used for doctoral students because the Chancellery is committed, to its credit, to getting us to a point where we have tuition remission for doctoral students, at least those doctoral students involved in teaching and research, and this is to be a revenue stream that’s going to be devoted to reducing and eliminating the tuition for doctoral students, which is something we need desperately at this University. We can’t compete for doctoral students; we can’t support them properly. And this is a program where, Susan just got the figures, the UFT is going to charge more this than the current proposed increased tuition, but it will still be less than NYU would charge. So the argument being made to the Trustees is that we would be competitive with the other universities available. We would charge more if we could, we would charge the market price that could be negotiated, and that would be in an IFR account that the Chancellor committed would be transparent, the expenditures and revenues would be presented yearly for everyone to see. All the questions that we normally ask-- there were commitments for transparency, a separate off ledger, and IFR account, off budget, and that this would be a way of providing money for the doctoral students.

Chair – And let me say there is already one client; that client is the UFT. They have developed a 12 credit certificate that is part of the Master’s in Literacy offered by City College. They have worked with City College, articulated the courses with City College, and a CCNY faculty member has designed the courses spoke to Dean Posamentier and to a Professor Malone who designed the courses with the UFT. That seems to me all right. I mean I would rather it be straight City College, and it would have cost the teachers less if they had gone straight to City College rather than contracting with the School of Professional Studies. I don’t know if the UFT realizes that.

Professor Manassah – Karen, if I hadn’t known you for so many years and I have the highest respect for you, I would have basically said that you were brainwashed. Because let me tell you something, they’re talking about the money and that the money that’s going to graduate students to the Ph.D. program and it’s going to be transparent etc. Most people in this room know that I have been out from another battle concerning the Research Foundation where the same claims were made and where the transparency has become opacity and where the money that was supposed to go with respect to support graduate students is going to basically support other things. And the same claims were made before. You see, I’m not against having something like this if it’s properly done. It shouldn’t be construed that we either have it or we don’t have it, it’s whether we have it right or we have it wrong and improper. That’s really the issue. So the issue of sitting down and basically saying, "Yes, it can do all these great things," fine, but let it be done within a certain governance structure that is academically proper, that is educationally productive, and that financially is also proper. To tell you the truth I don’t have confidence that any of those three criteria will be satisfied by this administration.

Chair: Late this afternoon Louise Mirrer and the Chancellor sent me the beginning language for a governance structure around degrees. I had said, "You cannot have the same governance structure for credit certificates and then put in degrees--you cannot do that." So they finally agreed, they said, "Yes, we were wrong," believe it or not, and then they gave me this language. It needs to be worked on; it is not sufficient. I would rather "degree" disappeared. I’m not going to get my way, we’re not going to get our way. We’re going to have to change the governance plan and make it better unless we want to pull our faculty out and say, "We won’t play." We could do that, but I’m not sure that’s what we should do. I thought that’s what we should do yesterday but now I’m not so sure today. That’s why I appreciate your comments.

Chair – The current word is "nimble." They keep saying the faculty aren’t nimble enough. I think we’re very nimble. I think there needs to be some clarification here.

Chair – As it is now, I get to appoint three faculty, Francis Horowitz, the President of the Graduate Center gets to appoint three; the Chancellor three, and that’s the nine-faculty committee. But then, of course, Horowitz is on the Committee as is the Chancellor or his designee.

Chair – Yes, thank you. I hope to keep on negotiating around this and then sending it to the Executive Committee to see whether or not we can accept it. and I want people to testify at the Board of Trustees on the School of Professional Studies. Testify at the hearing if you feel moved to do so. It’s very important to make our voices heard.

Unidentified (Pecorino?) – Would it help to have a resolution here….(unclear). Chair – We were reading Robert’s rules and we couldn’t figure out how to do it. / Unidentified (Pecorino?)How to do what? Have any kind of resolution passed? / Chair – Gary, you’re an expert in all of this. / Gary Benenson– This isn’t going to help us tonight but, for the future, it’s appropriate to schedule a Plenary and if there isn’t a quorum the only way that that gets noticed is if somebody makes a quorum call. Otherwise, whether or not there’s a quorum it’s an official meeting. The only way that the issue of a quorum even comes up is if somebody says "I call for a quorum," and then that count takes place and if a quorum doesn’t exist then the meeting doesn’t take place. But if nobody says that, the meeting proceeds, and if somebody does say that you haven’t lost anything because you weren’t going to do it anyway. So personally I don’t see the point of scheduling a meeting that isn’t a plenary meeting. I like to go to meetings as much or as little as the next person but I don’t really see the point of it unless… / Chair – I thought this was a very useful discussion, actually, and there were a lot of people here and I learned a lot. There are some people here that are not Senators I think. / Gary Benenson– But there is one thing that we can’t do. It’s too late now to call this a plenary without but for the future (…)

Professor Jamal Manassah (Electrical Engineering, City College) – However, I would like to go on record that I’m presenting this to the Executive Committee as a request from one Senator to the Executive Committee, of course with the understanding that it would have the flexibility. I mean I’ll be quite happy to talk to the Executive Committee whenever it wants to talk to me and I would be less insistent on what I’m asking for when I see there is good will on the other side, that we want to find a solution. But if they’re going to ram it down our throat then I would want to take a very strong position.

Professor Kaplowitz (English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice) – I’d like to present a question that was posted on the Senate Forum, and that is, "Would we entertain the idea that the University Faculty Senate be the governance body of the School of Professional Studies?" At the Board Academic Affairs Committee meeting, Louise Mirrer and the Chancellor said that if there were ever a degree being considered this committee of nine would gather the faculty who are experts in whatever area, whatever discipline was involved, throughout the University, and it is they who would develop a curriculum, there would be a letter of intent, which would be circulated throughout the University as it’s done now. We at the UFS never get letters of intent but we asked to be now included on the mailing list for all letters of intent and the answer was, "That’s not a problem." Then it would go through all of the same procedures as it goes through eventually going to CAPPR and to the Board and presumably passing and going to State Ed to get a HEGIS code. But what is missing is a governance body to approve the curriculum that is proposed by this group of faculty. Nine people are not a governance body. / Professor Manassah – What’s wrong with having the [business?] people just about the fact that about 50 people are people who have joint appointments. I mean what I’m suggesting is the last resort / Professor Kaplowitz – Well, those 50 people who have joint appointments between … / Professor Manassah – Whatever they are at this moment and with this profession. There should be a faculty. / Professor Kaplowitz – But are you saying a different group of 50 for every proposed degree program? / Chair – No, just one group. / Professor Kaplowitz – One group, but it not be the University Faculty Senate? / Unidentified (Benenson?) – Can I ask an obvious question, maybe because I just don’t understand this. The School of Professional Studies so called would be part of the Graduate Center, would be housed in the Graduate Center. / Professor Kaplowitz – Not physically. / Chair – University Center. / Unidentified (Benenson?) There is a difference between the University Center and the Graduate Center. / Chair – Yes. / Professor Kaplowitz – But what the Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs explained is that he researched it. The University Center, of the Graduate School and University Center, is now being defined as a separate entity but not in the sense of the word "center" as we use when we talk about centers and institutes. / Unidentified (Benenson?) – Can I stop you, because lawyers make me sleepy. What I would suggest is that they abandon what our position ought to be. In response to making the University Faculty Senate the governance body I don’t think that makes sense. I think it would make sense for the Graduate Center governance organization be the appropriate organization and it’s their problem if they think the GC and UC are two different things. We don’t think they’re two different things. We think it’s GCUC. If you look in the phone book it says GSUC. If you look at their literature, their letterhead, it says GSUC. Lawyers can say what they want but as far as we’re concerned it’s GSUC, not GS over here and UC over there. And GSUC already has a governance organization. / Chair - But this is a new governance plan that they’re creating for the University Center, splitting GS&UC. They’re splitting that. / Benenson? – And I think that we should simply oppose that. / Chair – We can oppose it and we can refuse to appoint faculty. We can get out of it and say it’s a dirty deal. / Benenson - And I think what we should say is that GSUC is one organization. Is there going to be a different President? / Chair – No. / Benenson? – So UC is not going to have a President, it’s only going to have a Dean? / Professor Kaplowitz – It’s going to have a Dean. / Benenson? – OK. This is a pop quiz here but name another unit of the City University, a stand alone unit, that has a Dean and not a President. / Professor Kaplowitz – The Law School. / Benenson – So they’re saying it’s going to be like the Law School. / Professor Kaplowitz – What they’re saying is - please don’t misunderstand, I’m just reporting what was said, I’m not trying to defend it. I’m glad you know me well to know that I’m not brainwashed. They said at CAPPR they don’t expect there to be degree programs. This UFT program is not a degree program. They’re saying that City College, Brooklyn College, and Martha Bell acknowledged, this declined to participate in this program. The problem right now is that in September a new literacy curriculum is to be taught in our public schools to the children who we know are unable to read. There is this new curriculum that this person, who is the curriculum person that Chancellor Klein hired, wrote and only a few people are trained in this particular literacy program. So 300 teachers have to be trained during the summer to teach the children this new literacy program. So City College is hiring the UFT teachers who have been trained and they’re hiring them as City College adjuncts. These adjuncts will be teaching the UFT people in schools around the city to make it convenient for people during the summer to take these courses and people who want to take the 12 credits and want to transfer them to a Master’s in Literacy at City would these credits and courses then articulated completely. Only at City College. Now if there were to some day be a degree program that no other college offered and no other college wanted to offer, this is the argument, this would be the place it would be offered. And when it says "degree," as Susan pointed out, it doesn’t say Master’s Degree; it could be Associate Degree, it could be a PhD. It just says degree. So the idea is that it would be a way of responding to a work force need, to an economic development need, to working people’s need, to get the credentials that no other unit of CUNY would be willing to do for whatever reason and that would be competitive with the private colleges that are more than willing to do it. Louise Mirrer gave an example that we have just hired a distinguished professor at City College in translation studies and she said she could envision perhaps one day having a Master’s in translation studies. If no college in CUNY wanted to do that, it could be done at the School of Professional Studies and that would be meeting a real need that the UN has identified. So it’s being presented as a way to be responsive to the people of New York when the colleges themselves are not being responsive, for whatever reason. That’s the presentation. And when Susan asked questions, one of the Trustees said, "I have complete trust in the integrity of the Chancellor." The Trustee responded as if we were questioning the integrity of the Chancellor, rather than understanding the governance issues, because faculty governance issues are so alien to so many Trustees, who have no connection with the academic world. So the Trustees are on board and the Chair of CAPPR who comes from the Board of Ed says she loves this proposal because this is meeting the UFT’s needs immediately. All of us have read in the New York Times no one has yet been trained in this new curriculum for September with questions as to how could this be done? CUNY is doing it.

Professor Jamal Manassah (Electrical Engineering, City College) – Let me just say something. The UFT can be done at this moment within the City College structure. In case somebody told you differently they’re wrong. It can be done within the City College, so that cannot be used. If they’re using the argument of ability that is simply a wrong take. / Professor Kaplowitz – But CUNY wants to charge more and make it a real revenue stream that’s greater than it would be if it was part of City College. To make money is the goal. / Professor Manassah – But let’s not mix apples and oranges. The argument you’re basically saying that they have presented you is one of ability. The ability exists. It’s also true that at City College or in any other of the colleges you don’t need to charge people with respect to how much you give them in terms of credits, you can charge them in terms of the contact hours. There are ways and if they don’t know the ways, and I’m sure they know the ways, I can teach them how to do it so they can charge more money for it. So the ability issue that they can do it or they can’t do it is absolutely a false argument. / Chair – But in fact City College has designed the courses and approved the courses and articulated the courses and they are hiring the people. Professor Malone is doing this. / Professor Manassah – So I don’t understand how can they use this argument to say that we need to create this school. / Chair – Because they want to centralize. It’s part of the Integrated University, a way to make money and to offer a service. / Professor Kaplowitz – And also it’s not tax levy money. It’s being negotiated as a contract. It’s been contracted that the UFT is paying for it, not the individual students. / Professor Manassah – Let me just tell you some out of school story about the Board of Education. I mean you’re telling me that here is a place where the Board of Education is willing to pay us more money than they would through the regular thing. If you want to know one of the biggest problems this University has in terms of its research money and why a lot of it is hot is basically because the Board of Education is not paying the colleges and the University on time what it owes them with respect to the grants it has. So don’t show me that the Board of Education is being the savior; they’re not. The second thing that you pointed out is that in case there are programs that the colleges shouldn’t have, well then we shouldn’t offer the programs because if we don’t have faculty to offer something or if something doesn’t pass the muster of faculty then we shouldn’t operate, because you know what’s going to happen? They’re going to come up with some of those crazy programs with some very funny names, and I can tell you a lot of them, and of course nobody respectable, none of the respectable schools, none of the respectable colleges… What do you want to do, give them a license so that they can create those programs? This is why we need to have a faculty and proper governance for this thing. I’m not against it but let it be done right.