Draft: Subject to Senate Approval

MINUTES OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND FORTIETH PLENARY SESSION OF THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

January 28, 1997

Chair Cooper called the session to order at 6:30 P.M. in the Harold M. Proshansky Auditorium of the Graduate School and University Center. Present were Senators from the following campuses: Baruch: Jaffe Mo., McCall, Otte, and Pollard. BMCC: Jaffe Ma., Resnick, and Alternates Friedman and Kimbrough. Bronx CC: Cummins and Galub. Brooklyn: Bell, Hager, Jacobson, London, and Tobey. City: DeJongh, Pearson, Reitz, Sank and Sohmer. Graduate School: Baumrin, Berkowitz, Rothman, and Alternate Kieser. Hostos CC: Italia, and Vasillov. Hunter: Matthews, Neville, Steinberg, Wonsek, and Alternate Baxter. John Jay: Brugnola, and Kaplowitz. Kingsborough CC: Martinez, Richter, Yarmish and Alternate Staum. LaGuardia CC: Gallagher, Mettler, Reitano, and Alternate Beaky. Lehman: Avani and Feinerman. Medgar Evers: Harris-Hastick, Johnson, Umolu and Alternates Hunter and Thompson. Mt. Sinai: Levitan. NYCTC: Donoghue, Hounion, Norton, Walter and Alternate Cermele. Queens: Frisz, Landazuri, Savage, Seley, and Speidel. Queensborough CC: Barbanel, Dahbany-Miraglia, Gellman, Greenbaum, and Marti. CSI: Cooper and Levine. York: Cooper and Alternate Perry. Professors Connorton, Freedman, Grossman, Hernandez, O'Malley, Weill, and Yousef were excused. Faculty Governance Leaders present: Cooper (York), Davidson (LaGuardia), DeJongh (City), Friedman (BMCC), Hager (Brooklyn), Kaplowitz (John Jay), and Levine (CSI). Chancellor Reynolds gave a report and was accompanied by Deputy General Counsel Moskowitz and Dr. Pulliam. Vice Chancellor Rothbard also reported to the Senate and was accompanied by Mr. Glickman. The Parliamentarian was Senator Staum. Executive Director Phipps and Administrative Assistant Pasela were present.


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


II. Approval of the Minutes of the 239th Plenary, December 17, 1996: The minutes were adopted as proposed.


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

a. Chair (oral & written).
b. The Chancellor (oral).
c. Vice Chancellor Richard Rothbard on Budget Developments (oral).
d. Update on Polishook et. al. vs. CUNY: The Senate received a special presentation, which was not recorded, on the status of the law suit. Unanimous consent was given to go into executive session for this item.
e. Reports of Faculty Members of Board of Trustees Committees (written).

IV. New Business: Professor Jack Diamond (Queens) made comments concerning ICAM, which are recorded in Reports & Deliberations.

Respectfully submitted,

William Phipps
Executive Director
REPORTS & DELIBERATIONS OF
THE TWO HUNDRED AND FORTIETH PLENARY SESSION OF
THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY SENATE OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

January 28, 1997

III. Reports:

a. Chair: [Chancellor Reynolds and Vice Chancellor Rothbard had other obligations therefore, their remarks, were presented before other business.] Let me start on a very upbeat note. In case you missed my effusive CUNYTALK posting, I want to make sure that you know about a wonderful musical play currently on the stage at the Hunter playhouse written by our colleague James De Jongh of City College and the Graduate School. Jim's script is derived from the slave narratives recorded during the thirties and is interlaced with magnificent gospel music. The five principal actors are fantastic, the delivery is extraordinary, the tickets are inexpensive and available, and the show is on every night of the week until February 16. It is at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, 68th St. between Park and Lexington.

The motion introduced last month regarding alteration of the Senate charter favoring reassigned time as a possibility for CUNY faculty outside the Senate will be reintroduced next month. The Executive Committee is re-working the language to clarify it.

Follow-up on our December conference on course comparability, University numbering, etc.: Proceedings of that meeting, including faculty analyses of the Cronholm report that preceded the December conference, are on their way to the printer. I am assured that aspects of the Cronholm report recommending the ICAM policy are being re-written at the moment. When the re-write is available, the UFS will be apprised and certainly write its response.

Currently faculty should be engaged in looking at the Course Equivalency Guide and determining which courses are acceptable, which still exist and the like. This activity does NOT mean that you are agreeing to a University number for a course. It merely means you are cleaning up the transfer process for students. I believe that a certain amount of the complaints from students moving into senior colleges is a result of misinformation about what is expected that exists in those books, which were not always the result of faculty oversight.

Vice Chancellor Martin issued a list of procedures to be followed in the coming months by colleges and provosts. Not one of those procedures expects a course to be approved EXCEPT by the appropriate faculty committees that ordinarily work on each campus. That message is very clear in her list of procedures. No one is expected to accept a course -- in any direction -- that does not fit the programmatic model of your college.

The Office of Academic Affairs is planning a second stage of analysis of the Rising Junior Exam which was piloted last spring. This test was a result of a task force project involving about 85 people appointed, originally, by Vice Chancellors Freeland and Nuńez, to assess CUNY's assessment tests.

In the coming semester, I understand that a very long -- perhaps 5 hour -- test of the test is planned. Rumors are wildly floating about on this exam. The Senate's committee on Academic Affairs and this Executive Committee heard a presentation by the 80th Street psychometrician, Dr. Eduardo Cascallar, several months ago. After which, we requested the raw data on which his positive assessment of the test was based. This data has not been forthcoming but we continue to hear that the test is a good one, a successful one. We also continue to hear from other faculty that it is not an idea whose time should come and/or this test does not do what it is claimed to. At the last meeting of CAPPR, the Board committee on academic policy, a few trustees began to express doubts about the process, the test and the entire idea. I have no other information except that we are presumably waiting to see the data on which Dr. Cascallar's assertions were based.

At the next plenary, we are fortunate to have a speaker whose writings about faculty rights, the attack on public higher education and the role of faculty have gained him a national reputation. This is Michael Bérubé from Illinois (Urbana) who has also written a best selling book on raising a child with Down's Syndrome. Michael was delighted to be invited here: his father was among the retrenchees in 1975 in CUNY. I realize that there is grumbling out there about the agendas of these meetings but this invitation was planned months ago when several of us began to worry that CUNY faculty were not in the loop about the national anti-faculty discussion and mood.

The Senate will be represented in Albany during President's weekend at the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus legislative conference. I expect to speak on a panel on higher education as I did last year and attend sessions relevant to our concerns.

Our budget committee will meet in February to propose lines of argument for the basis of our lobbying position in Albany. They had a presentation yesterday from the Vice Chancellor. Faculty present at that meeting made very clear to Richard Rothbard that we were not looking kindly on a semester campaign for budget restoration only to be told that we would have to break tenure at the end of the semester.

At the coming meeting of the Council of Governance Leaders, February 14 we may well discuss a resolution which will address the Catch 22 situation which we are in. The Governor's proposed cut of $57 million means that the Chancellor will ask the presidents to write a letter, an impact statement, indicating how their portion will affect the next year. The combined impact becomes part of our campaign with the legislators BUT it also is used against us on the campuses by those presidents who take their own rhetoric too seriously. We are going to devise a statement indicating what kind of impact statement we want the University to inscribe in front of the troops and not conduct selective murder behind our backs while we are skidding across Albany hills.

Taking a leaf from Stefan Baumrin, I will remind you that 20 years ago, with about 250,000 students, the total instructional staff was about 15,000 in CUNY at one more campus than we have now. With one fewer campus, about 205,000 students, we have about 5,500 full timers and many of those are in the cohort which will probably retire in 3-5 years. As a joke I said to a previous chancellor once, that by the year 2000 we shall be a university of adjuncts and administrators. I am afraid it may be by the year 1998.

Thanks to Dennis Bakewicz of NYC Tech, I was alerted to a statement that appears in several college spring schedule of classes. It reads:

IMPORTANT NOTICE OF POSSIBLE CHANGES
The Board of Trustees of The City University of New York reserves the right to make changes of any nature in the academic programs and requirements of The City University of New York and its constituent colleges. All programs, requirements, and courses are subject to termination or change without advance notice. Tuition and fees set forth in this publication are similarly subject to change by the Board of Trustees of The City University of New York.

This appalling language, it turns out, has been around since April 1995 as a result of a memo to deans of students and administrative affairs officers but not specifically to provosts or academic officers. Not every college has used this language exactly but some version of it appears in most schedules. Prior to Diaz' latest contribution to unravelling collegiality in CUNY, most bulletins and schedules carried some kind of boilerplate warning to students that a course might be canceled or tuition might go up, but not a document basically promising them that they may well not be able to complete their degrees. I did not wait for a vote from the Executive Committee before storming up to the top floor at 80th St. where I was promised that I could propose more appropriate language that sounded less like a mugging in progress. I have asked Stefan Baumrin for suggestions which I will then ask the Executive Committee to review and then propose to the Chancellery that something more appropriate be included in fall 97. It hardly makes any sense to me that we should go campaigning in Albany for a University which is threatening to throw out our courses, programs and majors while we are slogging in the slush.

No one in this Senate will be able to complain that they do not know who their own and their college's assembly, senate and council representatives are: we are providing your liaisons with a fat packet.


b. Chancellor: I'm going to be brief tonight because Vice Chancellor Rothbard, as is his wont, has one of his good preparations for you in bright and attractive colors, ready to go, that depicts the current budget situation with a great deal of clarity. The budget does, as recommended by the Governor, have severe cuts for CUNY and recommends basically a tuition increase of up to $400. You have all read things about this budget in the media, and Vice Chancellor Rothbard will give you a much more accurate run-down. Tomorrow we are in Albany to testify on the budget. The first person to testify is Chancellor Ryan from SUNY and then I will follow him, the pattern that we have followed over the years in front of the various legislators interested in higher education and interested in the budget. We are going to be stressing the things that we feel are very important for us to stress, that these cuts in our base budget, the recommended increase in tuition, are simply inappropriate for our student body, for their socio-economic level and for their futures in this state.
Our efforts will continue apace. Many of you participate in CLAC, and Vice Chancellor Hershenson had the first CLAC meeting on Friday. We very much appreciate your involvement in that as we did last year. This is going to be, we believe, a long and arduous campaign. I expect to be questioned on a few issues. We worked very closely with Karen Arenson on the excellent piece that was in yesterday's New York Times. I assume all of you saw it, about student financial aid. It made a point that is terribly important, that increasingly poor students are finding that they cannot get through college. The opportunity that many of us experienced, coming from families with modest incomes or even from very poverty-stricken backgrounds, are now inhibiting the access of poor students to college. I thought that it was an excellent article; it sets the stage well for our testimony tomorrow and for most particularly our most special and very prized student body.

To that end, I attended a dinner in Washington, D.C. a week ago in concert with the inaugural activities and did some work on the Hill the next morning. I spent some time with Senator Barbara Mikulski [D] from Maryland, who has also been very active in the NSF appropriations and in the Urban Systemic Initiative. The following morning I met with Senator Ted Kennedy on the legal immigration issues and on higher education in general. I found him to be extraordinarily well informed and with an excellent staff. To get the stage going again for our efforts to make sure that we protect educational benefits for legal immigrants, and that we expand educational benefits for all students, I took him a lot of our information and data. His staff has asked that we participate with them in preparing testimony and other issues as the Higher Education Act is re-authorized during the upcoming spring months. I then met with Congressmen Goodling, who is a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania who chairs the Economic & Education Opportunities Committee of the House. I met with his chief of staff whose name is McPherson, a very fine chief staff person. I also met with one of her aides, again on the Higher Education Act reauthorization, to keep that effort going as well, and once again we'll be deeply involved with that to try to protect the Federal Work Study Program, Pell Grants, and other types of financial aid, and to get them increased.

That leads me to the next topic which concerns me a lot. The tax break that President Clinton has proposed for middle income parents, of students going to two years of college beyond K-12: This is something that of course anyone would be supportive of, but simply won't help our students very much, and it is an enormously costly proposal for the nation. It runs into billions of dollars. It's just that we don't have many parents in that tax bracket to take those kinds of benefits, so that is not a helpful program for us. It puts us in the difficult stance of having to quietly indicate that the poorest students aren't helped by that. Similarly, I'm sure to be questioned tomorrow on the proposal that is outlined in today's newspaper, the proposal by Senator LaValle and Senator Bruno, to have a savings account. Once again that is a program that helps middle income people send students to college. Again I'm supportive of those, but they just don't help the problem I was alluding to -- very poor, able students, who do not have parents with the kinds of resources to put away significant amounts of money in savings each year aimed towards a college degree.
In many respects these programs, although well-meaning, are allowing well-meaning people in my opinion, to try to get off the hook on the straight kind of higher education support that is needed in this nation. I just forecast that it is going to be a difficult spring because these issues keep being pushed as a panacea and a way to solve the college cost program. None of them will help the very able student who truly comes from a very poor background. I think the number for us is 40% of our students have family incomes of $20,000 a year or less. You know from your own experience, living in New York City as a family on $20,000 a year or less is a real challenge.

We will keep you informed and we will appreciate your help, Trustee Cooper, as the year wears on, as we once again lobby this issue. As I indicated to you at Christmas time, we believe it will be a very long session. Everyone predicts it could go as far as July, so we should rest up and prepare for the long haul as we go about re-achieving what we need to budgetarily support this University. In the meantime, the cuts are severe and Vice Chancellor Rothbard will outline them to you.

Let me spend just a minute on capital outlay. We did get some of the major projects. We are still working on the John Jay property acquisition. We think it is more economical to try to buy the entire piece of property behind John Jay, rather than buy it in stages. We are asking for that during the thirty day amendment period.

I had another item of concern, that is, the Center for Applied Technology. Their funding was slashed in the budget as well. If you remember, they were started under Governor Cuomo, and are caught a bit in a political crossfire. They are very worthwhile endeavors. A lot of our faculty on several campuses are involved in the Center for Applied Technology. We were elated when we got one. We have heavy support from outside industry. Professor Alfano's project at City College, using visible light for various diagnostic applications, is now moving into building the prototype equipment for actually biomedical usage. They are at a pivotal point, and we have a lot industrial partners. On the CATS, that happened also to several private institutions. President Rawlings of Cornell, President Shaw of Syracuse, Chancellor Ryan (SUNY), President O'Hare from Fordham, Provost Cole of Columbia representing President Rupp, and one other President joined me in my office about two weeks ago to talk about budget issues and a solid front. I just talked to President Rawlings again today. We are all campaigning on the CATS, because the SUNY CATS were also cut as well as the Syracuse CAT, the Cornell CAT, and so we've got a united front working on the issue with our scientists appealing to the private technology sector to help on those appeals, both to state senators and to the Governor's office.

I'll stop there, Madam Chair. This will be an ongoing set of issues and I'll try to bring them to you as straightforwardly as I can during the spring.

Professor Cecelia McCall (English, Baruch) - "You were speaking of a united front with some of the SUNY colleges on the Centers for Applied Technology. Do you anticipate a united front? We didn't have one last year, I don't think." / I believe we are going to carry out the campaign for the CATS more at a local level in which the scientists working with their counterpart technology companies, those have extensive match money from industry, whereby we or either the industry people or some of the technology development people appeal to local senators and to the Governor's office. SUNY will be doing that because its the CATS directors that are doing it and our own Dr. Halpern is very active with his fellow CAT directors, so we have that going on out there. I do not know what SUNY's position will be in the budget meetings tomorrow. I will be very interested to see what they will do. We have been informed that two of their presidents will be coming in to testify, President Hitchcock from Albany and the President from Plattsburgh. I think the reason for that is Chancellor Ryan has been there for such a short time they are bringing in a couple of presidents to respond to questions.

Professor Eva Richter (English, Kingsborough) - "You mentioned in capital acquisition a number of properties, but I would like to know whether the new two year college is still under consideration and whether there is any plan to acquire property to establish it?" / Very much so. I've spoken in front of this body many times on the enrollment needs and the enrollment pressure coming out of the public schools, and so forth. We now have two very active programs in rented space in the State Office Building - the Language Immersion Center and a very fine Business Entrepreneurial Program for people that need help on how to establish and start their own businesses. We are looking at other properties in collaboration with Debbie Wright who heads up the Urban Empowerment Zone. The Abyssinian Church has some commitments for property development in that area and we are talking with them about being a partnership. We are looking at other space possibilities as programs grow in the Harlem area.

Professor Diane Sank (Anthropology, City College) - "There seems to be a bleak picture in terms of the budget, so hopefully it will be reversed, but what is the status of the whole concept of retrenchment, for this year?" / I don't know yet. As Vice Chancellor Rothbard will indicate to you, the $400 tuition increase and the coincidental cut in TAP go like this to students who have strong financial needs, which our students do. There is no way in the world, if that were all to occur, that we would not suffer severe enrollment losses, just as I have said very honestly to Ms. Arenson of The New York Times. If that happens, student tuition is now 43% of the instructional cost for each student in the senior college tuition, it would go up to 47%, which is almost half. When students are paying that much, our enrollment would really be suppressed further. The potential impact of this budget proposal from the Governor now has to go to each campus, and then we have to hear back from each campus as to what the impact would be on them. / Professor Sank - "What's the time frame for that?" / During February. Vice Chancellor Rothbard will give you the time frame. We have urged the presidents to make sure they consult widely, we truly have, with faculty and their various committees as they work this through over the next couple of weeks.

Chair Cooper - Thank you very much, Chancellor, and good luck tomorrow in Albany, for all of us. Let me introduce Vice Chancellor Richard Rothbard whose portfolio includes money, technology, and everything else. He will give us a breakdown with a lantern show, as they said in the 19th century, on the impact of the current proposed budget.

c. Vice Chancellor Richard Rothbard: I'm going to give a very brief presentation. I've tried to cram a lot of information into a couple of slides to leave enough time to answer any questions that you might have about the situation as well as I'm able to at this point. We have prepared an analysis, which some of you may have, some of you may not. If you would like to see it and you have Web access, it is at the CUNY Web site www.cuny.edu. If you want to see the Governor's Executive Budget and related documents those are also available on the Web; if you don't have the hard copy and have Web access, you can get them through the New York State Web site. If for any reason you have trouble accessing or getting hold of any of these materials, I'm sure they can be provided through the Senate Office. We'll be happy to provide anything they don't currently have.

There is the whole budget [referring to the overhead projector]. This is the CUNY budget proper. Now this does not include financial aid because financial aid comes out of the Higher Education Services Corporation budget for the TAP program and other related programs. This is the budget for the senior colleges, the operating budget. If you have seen the Governor's budget and you read the language there, you might be under the impression that the Governor is recommending a $33 million cut in state aid to the senior colleges, and that he believes we can pretty much make up for that by implementing a $400 tuition increase at the senior colleges. That is not the case. What is being proposed is a $33 million cut in state aid, which is labeled "state aid cut 1" there on the left, the little blue slice, and second cut of $24 million in state aid labeled "state aid cut 2" on that chart, together adding up to $57 million. Of that $57 million cut in state aid that is being proposed in the Governor's budget, we are being offered the opportunity to eradicate the second part of that, the $23.9 million, with a $400 tuition increase. If we were to implement a $400 tuition increase and we still had as many students we do now, and every one of those students paid the $400, we would still have, if this budget is adopted, a $33 million cut to deal with. I want to be sure that everyone understands that, because that is a very misleading aspect of the verbiage associated with this budget document.

State aid overall is being reduced from $496.4 million to $439.5 million after you take those two slices out. One of those slices, "cut 2," which is a proposed tuition increase, would be added onto the current tuition base. Currently we receive $395.2 million in tuition at the senior colleges, as the Chancellor indicated, that constitutes now about 43% of our entire budget. By adding that $400 tuition increase the state computes that we would go up to $419.1 million and at that point tuition would constitute 47% of the budget. It was only a few years ago in 1989-1990, that tuition was 19% of the senior college budget, and we thought things were horrible then as a consequence of the tuition rate that was prevalent at that time, which I believe was $1,250 at the senior colleges. So you can see how much things have changed in a very short period of time in terms of the withdrawal of state support and the substitution of tuition of some but not all of that state support.

The final piece is the city support of associate degree programs and university-wide programs. That remains a fixed figure, $32.3 million, and that is unchanged in the Governor's recommendations. Is this clear to everybody? The bottom line of course is that the overall budget is going from $923.9 million to $890.9 million, but of course the story is not the bottom line, the story is what's going on internally, especially with the state aid share and the tuition share.

Outside our budget is another major assault on the students of the University. This assault is not only on senior college students, but on community college students as well. Even though there are no cuts proposed for the community college budget in the Governor's recommendations, there are monumental cuts in financial aid which will affect community college students in some ways more than they will affect senior college students. Just about everything you can think of to do to the TAP program to cut it or to move students from eligibility has been incorporated into these recommendations. Let me just go through them quickly for you.

First we see a revisitation of a proposal that first came on the scene last year in which they proposed that 50% of student Pell grants be deducted from the University's tuition rate before determination of a TAP grant is made. What that means is that a student with a zero NTI (net taxable income) will lose $1,030 in TAP money, which means $1,030 in Pell money which was previously available for books, transportation, for other costs, but will now have to go to directly support tuition costs. Secondly, there would be no increase in TAP with a tuition increase. So if we were to raise the senior college tuition $400, that $400 would have to come from somewhere other than TAP for every TAP student. It could come from Pell if they have any Pell left over. After everything else, it could have to come out-of-pocket, would have to come from loans, whatever.

They are replacing the state net taxable income tables with the federal AGI (adjusted gross income) determination to determine family income. That will have a modest effect on us. That mostly affects students on the other end of the income scale who still have some kind of TAP eligibility, but it will nevertheless affect some of our students. Graduate TAP, again this may be the third or fourth time this has been proposed, is proposed for elimination. This is a modest program at CUNY, but still to those students who receive it, a very important one. (Referring to the next overhead slide) Just a shorthand that really stands for all associate degree programs, and eligibility for students to receive TAP who are in associate degree programs, will be restricted under this budget to four semesters, two years. You get your degree in two years or you don't get any more TAP. Now remember that this year it was reduced from eight to six; now they are proposing going from six to four semesters of eligibility. If you happen to be a special program student in an associate program, you are limited to two-and-a-half years or five semesters of eligibility. Previously there was no such restriction on special program students in either associate degree programs or baccalaureate programs.

Next, they're suggesting that the required credit accumulation for the first semester of TAP eligibility go up from 3 credits to 6 credits. Right now you have to chalk up three genuine credits, if you will, by the end of the semester in order to maintain eligibility--now that's going to be cranked up to six. In the past, if a student had certain problems academic or otherwise, an institution had the discretion to recommend a waiver for that student in order to extend the student's eligibility. Now those waivers will be restricted to cases in which the student is seriously ill or in which the student suffers a death in the family, and those will be the only conditions under which a waiver or an extension, essentially, of eligibility will be granted.

Right now, after your second year of receiving TAP, or your fourth semester, there is an automatic $200 award reduction on top of everything else that happens despite the current 90% after this year's 10% cut and everything else that goes on. Now they want to do a $50 cut after year two, $200 after year three, and $300 after that, which means besides all of the other reductions in aid, for those who still through some magic retain TAP eligibility and who are still receiving awards by the fourth year, will sustain by the time of their fourth year a $300 automatic reduction off of whatever they're still getting. So they could end up technically with no award at that time even though they still have eligibility because the $300 will eat that all up.

There is no income offset for siblings in college by shifting from NTI to AGI. You now do not take account of the fact that there may be other family members in college that the family is hoping to pay for. So it doesn't matter whether the student is the only one in college or the tenth person in the family simultaneously going to college. That makes no difference now in terms of the computation of the aid available to the student.

On the positive side, as if to make all of this okay, there is a suggestion for both SUNY and CUNY that a $5 million block grant be awarded, $5 million to CUNY, $5 million to SUNY. You may recall last year's $10 million and $10 million--it's kind of a retro version of that for aiding needy part-time students. Now of course part-time students don't get TAP, so this doesn't help TAP students unless it's the expectation that TAP students will fall from full-time status to part-time status as a consequence of some of these recommendations.

Finally, several programs continuing in a trend started a couple of years ago, that are currently in the purview of the State Education Department are going to be transferred to the Higher Education Services Corporation, the entity that is responsible for administrating TAP and all of the other financial aid programs. A couple of broad brush numbers to show you what this is going to mean to our TAP recipients at the senior and the community colleges if every one of these recommendations goes through. Now what this talks about merely is the number of students and the dollars that will be impacted. It doesn't tell us how many students might leave the institution or how many students might shift status within the institution. All it tells us is those students who we know, by virtue of the various recommendations, will either lose eligibility entirely or lose dollars.

At the senior colleges we currently have just over 41,000 recipients receiving $93.6 million under the combined proposals. In the executive budget that number would drop to 33,110 students receiving $49.39 million, nearly a 50% cut in the number of dollars. And of those 33,110 who remain, still receiving TAP grants, those TAP grants will be significantly reduced to one extent or another depending upon where they fall in the income category and a lot of the other factors. At the community colleges the number goes from about 26,000 recipients to about 22,000 recipients and the dollars from $54 million to $25 million, that is, more than a 50% loss of aid. As you can see, proportionally the impact is more severe on community college students than it is on senior college students, although senior college impact is severe as well. In terms of the total University, we lose essentially half of the TAP dollars that we currently receive, $147 million to $73 million, and we lose about 12,500 students in terms of any eligibility in terms TAP, but the remaining 54,000 of course will all lose something under these recommendations.

There are other things happening here although I have just gone over the obvious major ones. There are 85 faculty positions provided for in the senior college budget at $4.25 million, there is $500,000 for a new summer Language Immersion Program that is supposed to operate in cooperation with the New York City Board of Education for the middle schools. Second year costs of collective bargaining, $6.7 million, are provided for. You recall there's a $5 million item in the current year's budget to cover that. There are federal welfare funds being set aside outside of our budget for two purposes: $1 million to expand Language Immersion Programs for public assistance recipients, presumably those who will be removed from public assistance, and $5 million to establish an employment preparation program also for welfare recipients.

In the community colleges outside of the TAP issue it's a much more upbeat story. The state is maintaining the current level of support on a per student basis; it was just $1,850. However, because our enrollment has declined slightly at the community colleges, we will lose several million dollars in that aid. That is offset with an increase in some rental income so we'll end up losing about $1 million in state support of the community colleges but, perhaps more important, they once again recommend what is known as maintenance-of-effort protection which requires a local sponsor, which in our case is the City of New York, to maintain effort with the prior year, which means the City can't give us less money for the community colleges than they gave us in the previous year. This is a very important protection which has stood us in good stead in the last couple of years in keeping the City at bay from making the kinds of cuts that we all know the City would make if this restraint did not exist.

In terms of the capital budget, the Chancellor alluded briefly to what's going on there. We did get a couple of big projects, Baruch Site B, Queens College B building--it seems to be the year for B's. CUNY-Wide Educational Technology, continuation of that program and various smaller projects for asbestos abatement, health and safety, building condition assessment, and so forth. We are, through the 30 day period, attempting to advance some other projects such as John Jay, who are in discussions with the City of New York on some important projects for LaGuardia and Hostos, but those discussions have yet to bear fruit.

The Chancellor mentioned the CATS. Under the proposal in this budget, the CAT funding would be eliminated by June 30, 1997. There is a new program being proposed, $4 million worth, that is "CATlike" but has a different name and is far short of the amount of money currently provided for the CATS. As the Chancellor mentioned, we have formed an alliance with the other CAT funding recipients to try to reverse that recommendation. In terms of SUNY, the recommendations there are very similar in terms of the cuts to state aid as a percentage, in terms of the $400 tuition increase, and so forth. There is language in the budget that would permit differential tuition be established, something that SUNY has been pushing for several years, as you know.
This is the last slide, just to let you know what happens in the immediate future. As the Chancellor mentioned, tomorrow we testify before the Legislature. That will be a hearing by the Joint Fiscal Committees, the Assembly Ways and Means in the House, and the Senate Finance Committee. Sometimes members of the Higher Education Committee sit in as well. The Chancellor will present testimony. It's kind of a marathon day, all of the higher education related agencies will testify that day - SUNY, CUNY, Higher Education Services Corporation, State Education Department, and then individuals as well will be testifying, then the Chancellor will take questions from the Assembly and the Senate.

By the end of this week, we hope to issue from the University Budget Office, to each of the colleges, a base estimate taking the Executive Budget, translating that into an allocation of a base budget to the senior colleges, taking into consideration the proposal on the tuition increase and regarding that as an additional cut in state aid because there is no tuition increase proposal on the table at the moment in terms of the University. And taking into consideration as best and reasonably we can, the anticipated loss of enrollment as a consequence of the TAP cuts, which of course leads in turn to a revenue cut which is a further reduction in spending ability for the University. We'll combine that all together with one other factor, which is the losses that we have sustained and will continue to sustain in students as a result of the new policies on Home Relief recipients, and provide these numbers to the colleges. The colleges will be asked to consider this over a two week period, discuss on campus what the consequences of a budget of that nature would be, and then get back to us on February 15th with their best notion of what the impact of those cuts would be.

That's where we are at the moment. The Chancellor is right in asserting that this is going to be a very long session, but we have to be active every day of the session beginning tomorrow and going right through to whenever this thing comes to closure, and it's not going to be easy. We have some things going for us; we have some things working against us. We do not have an election year. With that, thank you, and I will be happy to take whatever questions I can.

Professor Alan Cooper (English, York College) -- "Vice Chancellor Rothbard, would you refresh our memories, have there been years in which the colleges were asked to submit impact statements in which there has not been a retrenchment plan set out?" / Oh, sure, many, many years. / Professor Cooper -- "In the last half dozen?" / Yes.

Professor Martha Bell (Educational Services, Brooklyn College) - "In the information that you had in the tables, you said that the first semester students would be required to acquire six credits instead of three. One of the tables that someone sent me indicated that in future semesters the students would be, after either four semesters or five, required to have fifteen credits each semester to in fact have a TAP payment. I wondered whether you had teased out the impact of that, which seemed to me to have an enormous impact when students have great difficulty registering for 12 credits at this point?" / No, I haven't. Thank you for mentioning that, that's absolutely correct. We provided an indication for the first year because we are assessing the impact on next year. Dean Proto, who is responsible for generating all these impact analyses of financial aid, I don't think has yet run the impact of the out years, but in fact it does ratchet up at a far more significant rate than under the current regulations. / Professor Bell - "Is my understanding wrong that next year's sophomores and juniors would be required to have achieved credits as though the new tables had been in effect when they entered? That was my understanding." / Vice Chancellor - I'm not 100% sure. You are probably right, but I'm not 100% sure.

Professor Bobbie Pollard (Library, Baruch College) - "With the $5 million that you mentioned from federal funds for the employment preparation programs, can you spell out a little bit how it is going to be envisioned, is it going to be spread out through CUNY on the campuses? How is that going to be allocated?" / Vice Chancellor - I haven't the vaguest idea, nor on the $1 million in other federal dollars. This was as much a surprise to us when we saw it as it was to anyone else. There is very little detail behind those recommended allocations. I suspect that it will be something that will have to be hammered out if it survives the process. It will have to be hammered out between the University, the Legislature, and the Governor.

Professor Diane Sank (Anthropology, City College) - "In the worse case scenario, if the final budget is, as you pictured here which it hopefully won't be, have you in your mind or in discussions at the central office talked about what would be the reaction of CUNY central to that?" / Well, we talk about a lot of things, but what we are talking about now is beating back these recommendations. That's our first order of business. We'll worry about "what if", when "if" comes. Right now we have to worry about the recommendations that are on the table, forming the appropriate coalitions, getting the Legislature to understand what the impact of these recommendations will be on the University, with your help and the help of a lot of other people, and seeing if we can achieve what we achieved last year, which was a total restoration of the University's budget. / Professor Sank - "Is there a time frame whereby you will have to make some decisions about retrenchment?" / I suppose there is, but that hasn't been established as of this point. We haven't even gotten figures out to the presidents for them to begin to assess the impact on the campuses, let alone review those responses. That's why that has to happen first, then we will be in a little better position both to advise the Legislature and to make some decisions internally as well.

Professor Stefan Baumrin (Philosophy, Graduate Center) - "I was going to ask this of the Chancellor, but I figured, well, she's in such a rush, but you're not." / Vice Chancellor - So you saved it for me. / "Well, it's a joke to say, with a two week deadline, with the semester starting on Monday, that the campuses are going to be encouraged to consult widely with the faculty, and you just uttered the same canard. We can't even get together a meeting before the third or forth week in February, and the idea that we're going to be consulted with to draw up preliminary impact statements--it's just not true. The administration will discuss it with the administration, not with the faculty. To make it appear as if we are going to be involved is a cheat. So I didn't say it to the Chancellor, I say it to you because I know that you are a rational person, and you know that the 20 campuses are not going to get together and have faculty consultations within the two weeks. If you think otherwise, say that for the record." / I think otherwise. I think it will be mixed, clearly. The key word in all of this is "preliminary." These are going to be works in progress, they no doubt will be subject to change as the process goes forward and as we learn more from the Legislature about where they are going or not going in terms of consideration of restorations. The problem is, life doesn't march all the time to our calendar. We have a 30 day period that we are in now with the budget that expires on February 14th. The Legislature then goes into high gear in terms of budget consideration. If you are not there on Day 1 and every day from Day 1 until the day the budget is adopted, you are relegated to the back burner in terms of considerations for restorations. So you have to have something to talk to them about. / Professor Baumrin - "Look, you are mixing apples and oranges. Of course the presidents and their deans are going to get together and give you a preliminary impact statement. But why make it appear as if we are going to be involved? We are not going to be involved, we - the faculty. We are not going to be involved, and then to say later on, as I'm sure it is going to be said, 'Well, with wide faculty consultation, it was decided to chop this department or that department,' or whatever, I don't care what's going to be described. It's just improper to keep doing that. It has just gotten worse and worse over the last three years, that we are being painted as if we are consulting when we are not. We are being manipulated at best, and for the most part simply waved at, 'we had faculty consultation.' I want it on the record, if you are doing the answering, that it's not faculty consultation, if there is a February 15th deadline, and it isn't going to be mixed, it's going to be pretty much a clean sweep." / Vice Chancellor - I disagree. We have asked the colleges to conduct consultation, not only with faculty, but with other appropriate groups on campus. The issue is a legitimate one that you raised, but it seems to me that it should be adjudicated locally between the faculty, the administration, the students, and everyone else who has a stake in this.

Professor William Berkowitz (Chemistry, Graduate Center) - "I agree with the previous speaker. There is no time to set up full discussions on any campus. A small amelioration might be to set up a site, like CUNY Talk or under the City University Home Page to at least receive comments from faculty and students on the subject, and perhaps even to have some moderated discussion." / If the chairperson of the Faculty Senate would like to suggest that and ask for my assistance, I will be happy to work on that. / Chair Cooper - Professor Berkowitz, was that a suggestion for the Senate or for the administration? / Professor Berkowitz - "For the administration to set up an electronic site that can receive comments from faculty; whether organized or no depends on how you set it up." / Vice Chancellor Rothbard -- I'll forward that recommendation.

Professor Alfred Levine (Applied Sciences, College of Staten Island) - "Vice Chancellor Rothbard, as you have indicated to us, no one expects that the final budget will be available before July or August. Certainly any real changes and any real consultation on actions have to await final figures. In the past we have been told that faculty were not available for consultation over the summer and therefore the faculty consultation had to take place before some deadline, you mentioned 30 days. Everything had to be completed by June 1st. Could we simply go on record as saying, 'yes, we will be available to consult after the budget is finalized.'" / Vice Chancellor - Well, I hope that you will be available to consult before, during, and after the budget is finalized. As you and I both know because you are active in the Budget Advisory Committee, that group was active over this past summer and we met quite a few times to discuss budget issues and other matters. / Levine - "That is true." / Vice Chancellor - So, as you know, I'm available for that consultation throughout the year.

Chair Cooper thanked Vice Chancellor Rothbard.


d. Update on Polishook et. al. vs. CUNY: Chair Cooper - Rather than continue with the Chair's Report, I want to ask the body for leave for an unusual departure from our procedures. The Executive Committee accepted my suggestion that we schedule a report on the law suit, an issue which I believe is of interest to every faculty member in CUNY, and now nationally -- though many do not realize it.

The chief counsel representing the faculty has agreed to describe the case, particularly to explain where we are now. Because, however, this is a matter still under litigation, his report will have to be delivered to this body in a special session. I have consulted with our parliamentarian and with several members of this body familiar with procedure. Our parliamentarian, Richard Staum, has done a major piece of research on our behalf, and I want to especially thank him for his labors.

Accordingly, the Executive Committee has agreed to suspend the usual taping of these proceedings. I ask this body to agree to enter an Executive Session which will permit the counsel to speak freely and off the record. [Unanimous consent was given.]


IV. New Business: Jack Diamond (Chair of Math Department, Queens College, ICAM) - I think I want to pick up on something that Sandi said before in passing. If I heard it right, it's the wrong direction. It was on the ICAM report, she mentioned that the Course Equivalency Guide is going to be used by students, if I heard you right, Sandi, so we should be careful to take that into consideration for the students who are transferring up. I think that's exactly the opposite of what we want to do. The problem here is that we currently have a permit system, and we have a transfer system from two to four year colleges. They are conceptually quite different and you can't mix them. It doesn't make any sense at all. That's exactly what the Cronholm Committee asked that we do, that we take that Course Equivalency Guide and use it for the permit structure. You can't do it.

Anne Martin said this is how we are going to proceed. I think that the way to deal with this is to do it honestly. If this is going to be course comparability, which is the permit system, do it as the permit system. Will this hurt the students? You bet. There will be no transfer guide. What Anne Martin has to realize is, that independent of the merits of this ICAM business, there has to be a separate guide that tells the students at the community colleges what's going to happen when they get to the senior colleges. You can't mix it with the permit system. I think that if we just hold our ground, do it right, she will be backed into a corner because you are going to have thousands of community college students who want to know what their courses are equivalent to at the senior colleges, and the document won't exist. There have to be two separate documents. Let's have it not exist and that will force her, I think, because they are not throwing out the records, it's staying in the computer, to finally say, OK here is your transferability guide and then we have this common course numbering as something different.

Chair Cooper - I don't think I said anything different than that. / Diamond - I apologize. / Cooper - I said at the moment, the recommendation to review the Course Equivalency Guide is, I think, a valid one because students are using it for transfer purposes. I didn't go any further than that because as I also said, we are awaiting a revision of the Cronholm Report, which I was promised would come soon. I'm not going to comment on something that I haven't seen the text of. When we see the text, it will go out to the appropriate committees and we will see what we end up with. But in the usual run of affairs, since the Course Equivalency Guide has existed apart from Resolution 25 and the permit system and everything else, problems for students have existed because it has not been on every campus updated by faculty. It has been reviewed here and there by some faculty, some departments, some associate provosts, somebody in the registrars' office, and the result is not a nice bouillabaisse. It's a mess. Students are told very different things even from the same college. I'm not going to go through anecdotal evidence and put you all to sleep about this. I'm sure all of us have had experiences, especially if you deal with transfer students, which I have had a lot to do with on Staten Island. So what I was talking about was the traditional use of that Guide. Some of the proposals she has issued recently, as far as I understand them, deal with the traditional use of the Guide. I'm still waiting to see how they propose to alter the Cronholm Report, to see how far they go from the recommendations that came out of the conference. The proceedings of that conference, to repeat, will be available, I hope, within a month.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m.