The Best and Worst of 2006
by Advocate Staff
Worst Examples of CUNY Dissing Its Own Students: Carol Lang and Miguel Malo
The City University of New York does not take the most open view possible toward freedom of speech on campus, as demonstrated by the university’s unflagging hounding of two activists whose cases wound through the courts and the newspapers through 2005 and into 2006. Lang, the Theatre department secretary at City College, was involved in a March 2005 demonstration against military recruiters at CCNY. Two days after the incident she was arrested; but while the public case was resolved without conviction, the university nonetheless suspended her without pay for allegedly assaulting a peace officer. The arbitrator eventually ruled against Lang in August after months of hearings. But on one point where the arbitrator decided in her favor, involving a salary payment the arbitrator says was due her, the college administration still ignored the ruling and reportedly refused to shell out the eight hundred bucks. Meanwhile former Hostos Community College student Miguel Malo, convicted in October 2005 of the ridiculous charges of third-degree reckless assault and disorderly conduct for a one-man protest all the way back in 2001, was sentenced to probation and community service, but no jail time. Malo, Vice President of the Hostos Student Senate at the time of his arrest, was convicted of charges that stemmed from a protest against cuts in English as a Second Language funding at Hostos. The result of this lone voice calling attention to a vital question was one of the most overblown persecutions of speech in recent memory.
Worst Example of CUNY Dissing Other Schools’ Students: The Richman School Land Grab
Hunter College’s rabid hunger for science facilities has led President Jennifer Raab into a disgraceful deal that gains a few square feet of lab space at the cost of shortchanging thousands of children and giving CUNY another self-inflicted black eye. It was revealed last summer that Hunter College had been quietly developing a land swap for two years with the Julia Richman Educational Complex on East 67th Street. The JREC is a New York City schools success story, praised for its innovation and standards in New York City’s Best Public High Schools: A Parents’ Guide; it’s currently home to four flourishing high schools, a grade school, and an extraordinary special needs school for autistic students. Under the deal, the JREC would trade its prime Upper East Side location to Hunter in exchange for buildings owned by the college all the way down at 25th Street and First Avenue. Parents and friends of the school were outraged to hear about the secret deal that would force 1,900 students from six schools to abandon the recently renovated facilities and instead trek to the unsubwayed netherworld of Outer Gramercy, far from the museums, parks, and libraries of the UES. As Juan Gonzales sneered in the Daily News, “In other words, the need for Hunter’s adult college students to be within walking distance of all their facilities is a greater public good than any inconvenience that could result to autistic children and second-graders.” But who cares what happens to the children, as long as Hunter College can keep its test tubes all in one place? Way to go, Ebenezer Raab!
Worst Example of CUNY Dissing Its Own Faculty: The “Climate of Fear” at Hunter
More bad news for Hunter. The college’s select Committee on Academic Freedom, even limited as it was in its investigative powers, reported evidence last winter of “disturbing” and pervasive problems at Hunter contravening the “self-evident truth,” in the words of CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, that higher education cannot function without academic freedom. “Even the perception of limitations on academic freedom has a profound effect on an institution,” the committee reported, “and it was clear that many individuals perceived such problems.” Reported problems included administrative pressure to offer or not offer certain courses based not on student need or academic criteria but administrative preference; senior administrators modifying the academic direction of a department without full consultation with the faculty; pressure from above to make or reverse decisions on hiring, promotion, and tenure; bypassing of official procedures for routine matters like search committees and student grading; and worst of all, a widespread perception that “dissent could lead to retaliation.” This is serious stuff, striking at the core of Hunter’s integrity as an academic institution. On top of all of this, so far the university has shown no enthusiasm for rooting out these malignancies reported in the Hunter College infrastructure. Perhaps outside groups like the AAUP investigating CUNY will be able to light a fire under the higher-ups and wake them up to the danger to the collegiate reputations they seem to value so highly. Hey President Raab, what’s your damage, anyway? It’s your job to prevent this. And it’s certainly your job to fix it.
Worst Example of the CUNY Bureaucracy Feeding Itself: Baruch’s President Gets a Free House!
Kathleen Waldron, President of Baruch College, has reportedly raked in the dough for CUNY, and it seems the Board of Trustees knows how to give a little love back to its rainmakers. Waldron is the recipient of an especially nice perquisite: a new house to be purchased by the university. And not just any house. According to the April 2006 minutes from the CUNY Board of Trustees, the new residence will be a “condominium apartment on 27th St., between 5th and Madison Avenues, in Manhattan, at a cost of no more than $2,500,000.” Good thing they’re keeping it reasonable. It’s not like $2.5 million could buy anything useful to the students anyways. The purchase, say the minutes, is to be covered by “the proceeds of the sale of cooperative apartment 4A at 145 Central Park West,” a former residence for the president of the GC. If the GC president’s ex-address doesn’t ring a bell, you might know it as the San Remo — “the city’s most beautiful apartment building and one of its most prestigious addresses,” according to The Upper West Side Book. Nice to know that CUNY’s college presidents are ensconced in the most unaffordable apartments in Manhattan, with our tuition footing the bill.
Best Example of CUNY Respecting Its Students: The GC IT Turnaround
Remember last March when the Graduate Center’s IT people were actually telling students, “Don’t trust your U drive”? Some signs seemed to indicate a slow reversal of fortune for IT in 2006. Most intriguing is the promise of near-term wi-fi capacity in limited areas of the building — an amenity that’s already par for the course at other CUNY campuses like Brooklyn College. Demonstrating a commitment to the Apple platform, the GC also purchased ten new iMacs out of student tech fee funds and brought in an actual Mac specialist, Michael Oman-Reagan. The IT folks have also targeted software updates, which have long been lagging, and improved access to Mina Rees databases. Longer-range plans include gearing up to transition to the new Windows OS and the latest version of Office and over a hundred new PCs for faculty and staff. Robert D. Campbell, the new GC IT VP, admitted last fall that “a lot of needs were uncovered” and that they had “a significant amount of work to do to get the resources in line” with GC community needs. Given how heavily students depend on GC’s technology resources, more proactivity from IT can only be a good thing.
Most Promising Initiative by the DSC: What to Do About Student Health Insurance
Last fall the DSC started soliciting information from GC students about their health insurance needs. Considering how expensive the available GHI plan is, it’s a good bet a large swath of GC students is underinsured or uninsured. Let’s hope enough students back up the DSC’s Health Issues Committee that new alternatives materialize soon. To offer your suggestions, go to the forums at the DSC web site, cunydsc.org.
The 2006 “Win Some, Lose Some” Award: The New PSC Contract
Afterseveral years without a contract, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC)/CUNY reached a tentative agreement with CUNY in April. The PSC characterized the final contract as a pragmatic victory. Included were modest salary increases, increased pay for sabbaticals, and increased benefits (including dental) for full-time faculty and staff. There were also several provisions affecting part-time/adjunct faculty, including mild pay increases; a fund for professional development grants for adjuncts; 100 new full-time lecturer positions earmarked for experienced CUNY adjuncts; and paid sick days for non-teaching adjuncts and adjunct CLTs. That a contract with some basics but few goodies was such a Herculean achievement indicates both a willingness to work together on the part of the PSC and CUNY, and a vast need for CUNY labor relations to improve before the expiration of the new contract opens up the possibility of a new period without one.
The “Blink and You Missed It” Award: The Bar
For 22 days last spring, the GC had its own bar (recalling the more freewheeling days when the GC was back over by Bryant Park). Our beer-loving reviewer labeled the libations delicious and reasonably priced — evidently too reasonably for the profit-gouging bean counters at Restaurant Associates, which ran the saloon as an extension of the disturbingly overpriced 365 Café and which has an exclusive lock on GC catering. On March 17, Vice President of Student Affairs Matthew Schoengood sounded the death knell via an email: “Although we had hoped to provide this service on a trial basis through the end of Spring 2006 semester, it became apparent that this was not an economically feasible venture.” No further details were provided. So we’re all back to sneaking flasks into the classrooms like before.
Most Envelope-Pushing Advocate Article: The Plea to Stop Hovering
A March Advocate article about the GC’s commendable response to various toilet facility shortcomings was followed up with an excoriation in the May issue of women who hover over the seats in GC bathrooms. “The GC staff does an impeccable job of keeping this place far cleaner than many of our own homes,” explained writer Ellen Zitani; “there is certainly no need for you to go and pee all over it.” That’s the Advocate for you, always standing up for the needs of GC students — or rather, sitting down. All the way down.
