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Flash Back September 2007: Who Are The Board of Trustees…And Why You Should Care

by Advocate Staff


Who are the CUNY Board of Trustees and what is their role in the gov­er­nance of the university?

The Board of Trustees of the City Uni­ver­sity of New York is made up of exactly sev­en­teen mem­bers. Of these sev­en­teen, ten of the mem­bers are appointed by the gov­er­nor, with only per­func­tory advise­ment form the state sen­ate and five are appointed directly by the Mayor with sim­i­lar advise­ment from the sen­ate. The remain­ing two non-appointed mem­bers of the board include the head of the Uni­ver­sity Stu­dent Sen­ate and the chair of the Uni­ver­sity Fac­ulty Sen­ate, the last of whom, because of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing con­flicts, sits with­out a vote. In all, fif­teen of the six­teen vot­ing mem­bers of the board, the peo­ple who nego­ti­ate with the union, decide on uni­ver­sity bud­gets, tuition costs, pay scales, appoint­ments, etc. have been appointed by either the mayor or the gov­er­nor with the “advice and con­sent of the state sen­ate,” and all of the mem­bers cur­rently on the board were appointed by Pataki, Bloomberg, or Guil­iani, (all Repub­li­cans). In other words, the CUNY Board of Trustees is any­thing but a demo­c­ra­tic or polit­i­cally diverse insti­tu­tion: it is a col­lec­tion of seven year appoint­ments (near sinecures) with close polit­i­cal ties to the repub­li­can mayor and gov­er­nor. In fact, The Rand Cor­po­ra­tion — hardly a lib­eral entity — has stated in its report on the uni­ver­sity board of trustees enti­tled “The Gov­er­nance of the City Uni­ver­sity of New York: A Sys­tem at Odds with Itself,” that “In par­tic­u­lar, the law does not attempt to ensure that trustees have a mea­sure of inde­pen­dence from their appoint­ing author­i­ties (an inde­pen­dence con­sid­ered desir­able for most uni­ver­sity boards.)” The report later goes on to con­clude that: “As noted above, sev­eral mem­bers of the CUNY Board of Trustees work for the city of New York. Some observers believe that elected offi­cials (espe­cially the mayor) have used their influ­ence to under­mine the tra­di­tional inde­pen­dence of the board. This per­cep­tion was rein­forced by the board’s deci­sion, con­sis­tent with a pro­posal of the mayor, to exclude stu­dents in need of reme­dial work from the senior col­leges; all of the mayor’s appointees sup­ported the pro­posal.” In addi­tion to this there are few sig­nif­i­cant require­ments for board mem­bers above and beyond the patron­age of the mayor or the gov­er­nor. Of the fif­teen appointed mem­bers of the board, not one has a Ph.D., many have only B.A.s or M.B.A.s. and very few have any real expe­ri­ence in acad­e­mia beyond admin­is­tra­tion. How these appointees, then, are sup­posed to rep­re­sent and pro­tect the inter­ests of the stu­dents, fac­ulty, and staff of the uni­ver­sity is a ques­tion worth ask­ing. As we begin a new aca­d­e­mic year, The GC Advo­cate thought it might be good to intro­duce old and new stu­dents of the Grad­u­ate Cen­ter to their Board of Trustees. Stu­dents inter­ested in express­ing their con­cerns are encour­aged to con­tact mem­bers directly. BENNO SCHMIDT Appointed by Gov­er­nor Pataki in 1999 Schmidt’s tenure was sup­posed to end this year. How­ever, Gov­er­nor Pataki re-appointed Schmidt on June 22nd for another seven year term. Schmidt is cur­rently the Chair­man of the Board of Direc­tors for the failed Edi­son Schools: a com­pany ded­i­cated to the model of for-profit pri­vate edu­ca­tion. He is also the for­mer Pres­i­dent of Yale Uni­ver­sity where accord­ing to the PSC Clar­ion “he resigned under fire” after threats to dis­solve depart­ments and cut fac­ulty posi­tions by 11% resulted in uproar from the fac­ulty and staff. In a PBS front­line inter­view Schmidt defended his free mar­ket phi­los­o­phy by say­ing that “I think the oppo­si­tion is also philo­soph­i­cal. … I think the peo­ple in edu­ca­tion — not all, by any means — tend to be peo­ple who have very lit­tle expe­ri­ence with pri­vate mar­kets. They believe that pol­i­tics and plan­ning pro­duces bet­ter out­comes than more of a mar­ket sit­u­a­tion where peo­ple are free to make choices.” Chair­man Schmidt can be reached at: bschmidt@​edisonschools.​com REVEREND BONNICI Appointed By Gov­er­nor Pataki in Feb­ru­ary of 2002. As Pas­tor of St. Philip Neri Church in The Bronx and Chair­man of the Board of Direc­tors for the Fam­ily Life/Respect Life Office of the arch­dio­cese of New York, Bon­nici has, among his many causes, advo­cated against abor­tion and opposed human rights leg­is­la­tion for gays and les­bians. Bonnici’s appoint­ment by Pataki was entirely polit­i­cal and was par­tic­u­larly con­tro­ver­sial for a board of trustees mem­ber. Since his appoint­ment Rev. Bon­nici has missed 17 of 29 Board of Trustees Meet­ings. PHILIP A. BERRY Berry was ap-pointed by Gov­er­nor George Pataki in June of 2006. His expe­ri­ence is largely in cor­po­rate human resources and he has served as Vice Pres­i­dent of Human Resources for the Euro­pean Divi­sion of Col­gate Pal­mo­live. WELLINGTON Z. CHEN Chen was appointed by Gov­er­nor Pataki in 2000. His back­ground is in archi­tec­ture, urban devel­op­ment and plan­ning. Chen is the senior vice pres­i­dent at the TDC Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion but has no aca­d­e­mic expe­ri­ence. Chen is Chair of the Board’s Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Aca­d­e­mic Pol­icy, Pro­gram, and Research. KENNETH COOK Cook was appointed by Gov­er­nor George Pataki in 1997. Cook was a high school teacher in Brook­lyn for 25 years but has no expe­ri­ence of the work­ing con­di­tions in higher edu­ca­tion. Despite the fact that appoint­ments are not to exceed seven years, Cook is still on the Board of Trustees. Accord­ing to the Rand report this is a com­mon prob­lem of the CUNY Board of Trustees. “In prac­tice, some CUNY trustees have con­tin­ued to serve long after their terms offi­cially ended, because the elected offi­cials in charge of appoint­ments failed to appoint replace­ments. A few years ago, the terms of more than half of the serv­ing trustees were beyond their expi­ra­tion dates.” PRITA DIMARTINO A for­mer Rea­gan and Bush gov­ern­ment appointee, Ms. DiMartino was appointed to the Board of Trustees by Mayor Bloomberg in 2003. In addi­tion to her work for the Rea­gan and Bush admin­is­tra­tions she is a for­mer con­gres­sional lob­by­ist for the AT&T Cor­po­ra­tion. DiMartino has no aca­d­e­mic expe­ri­ence and is Vice Chair of the Board’s Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Fac­ulty, Staff, and Admin­is­tra­tion, and holds mem­ber­ship on the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Aca­d­e­mic Pol­icy, Pro­gram, and Research. RANDY M. MASTRO Mr. Mas­tro was appointed by Mayor Guil­iani in 1999. Mas­tro is a crim­i­nal lawyer with close per­sonal ties with for­mer mayor Guil­iani. Accord­ing to the PSC Clar­ion, Mr. Mas­tro “headed Giuliani’s task force on bilin­gual edu­ca­tion, and crit­i­cized it for fail­ing to rec­om­mend end­ing bilin­gual ed alto­gether. Mas­tro also headed Giuliani’s 1999 char­ter revi­sion com­mis­sion, whose pro­pos­als included requir­ing a 2/3 ‘super­ma­jor­ity’ before the City Coun­cil could pass any tax increase. He backed Alan Hevesi for mayor in 2001, and after 9/11 was a higly vis­i­ble pro­po­nent of extend­ing Giuliani’s term.” He chairs the CUNY Trustees’ Facil­i­ties Com­mit­tee. Mas­tro intro­duced the motion that the BoT adopted in Octo­ber 2001, endors­ing Chan­cel­lor Goldstein’s crit­i­cism of an anti-war teach-in ear­lier that month at CCNY.” FREIDA D. FOSTER-TOLBERT Foster-Tolbert was appointed by Gov­er­nor Pataki in 2006. She was for­merly the Com-munity Ser­vice Coor­di­na­tor at Bor­ough of Man­hat­tan Com-munity Col­lege and is one of the few board mem­bers who actu­ally had pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence work­ing within CUNY. VALERIE LANCASTER BEAL Beal was appointed by Gov­er­nor Pataki in 2002. Her expe­ri­ence is largely as an invest­ment banker, how­ever, to her credit Beal has worked with BMCC’s COPE pro­gram, which helps wel­fare receip­i­ents attend col­lege. KATHLEEN M. PESILE Ms. Pesile was appointed by Gov­er­nor George Pataki in 1998. Pesile is an invest­ment advi­sor and for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent of JP Mor­gan from 1986 to 1993. To her credit, Ms. Pesile does have first hand knowl­edge of work­ing as an adjunct lec­trurer at CUNY. JOSEPH J. LHOTA Mr. Lhota was appointed by Mayor Giu­liani in 2001. He is Vice Pres­i­dent of Cable­vi­sion Sys­tems Cor­po­ra­tion and for­mer finance com­mis­sioner to Mayor Guil­iani. Mr. Lhota’s wife is a for­mer Guil­iani fundraiser and accord­ing to the PSC Clar­ion “she [was] head of NYC Public/Private Ini­tia­tives (PPI), which oper­ates out of the mayor’s Office of Oper­a­tions to raise pri­vate money for pub­lic projects such as the “Schmidt Com­mis­sion” on the future of CUNY or the restora­tion of City Hall. HUGO M. MORALES Mr. Morales was appointed by Gov­er­nor George Pataki in 2002. Mr. Morales is a psy­chi­a­trist and His­panic activist. Mr. Morales aca­d­e­mic expe­ri­ence is lim­ited to his mem­ber­ship on the Blue Rib­bon Panel of the New York City Board of Edu­ca­tion in 1987. He is the Vice Chair of the Board’s Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Aca­d­e­mic Pol­icy, Pro­gram, and Research. CAROL ROBLES-ROMAN Ms. Robles-Roman was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002. Her appoint­ment is a clas­sic exam­ple of the con­flict of inter­est cited by the Rand report (see above). She was sworn in as Deputy Mayor of Legal Affairs to the Bloomberg admin­is­tra­tion in the same year that she was appointed to the BoT. Deputy Mayor Robles-Roman holds mem­ber­ship on the Board’s Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Fis­cal Affairs. MARK V. SHAW Mr. Shaw was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002. Another clas­sic exam­ple of admin­is­tra­tive nepo­tism, Mr. Shaw was for­mer Deputy Mayor for Oper­a­tions to Mayor Bloomberg and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer for the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Trans­porta­tion Author­ity. JEFFREY WIESENFELD A mem­ber of the for­eign coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence divi­sion of the FBI for four years, Wiesen­feld is the board mem­ber that every­one loves to hate. He was appointed by Gov­er­nor Pataki in 1999. That same year Wiesen­feld was appointed the New York City Regional Direc­tor of the Empire State Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion. He left in 2000. He was then appointed to the United Nations Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, a posi­tion which he still holds today. The Clar­ion news­pa­per of the PSC, an orga­ni­za­tion that Wiesen­feld has denounced pub­licly at BoT meet­ings has reported that Wiesen­feld had “labeled an Octo­ber 2001 anti-war teach-in at CCNY as ‘sedi­tious,’ claim­ing it ‘enticed rad­i­cals to come and spew forth their venom toward the United States.’” Wiesen­feld has also used the race card and the ter­ror­ist card to lash out at the PSC say­ing pub­licly at the June 2005, BoT meet­ing: “That the PCS acts to defend the aca­d­e­mic free­dom of those who engage in ter­ror­ist and crim­i­nal acts yet remains silent in the face of a black list against those who are guilty only of being Israeli aca­d­e­mics, read that Jews, is reveal­ing. The cur­rent PCS lead­ers have hijacked the union to pro­mote their own nar­row polit­i­cal agenda, one that involves the unprin­ci­pled defense of ide­o­log­i­cal mates and no oth­ers. “When your union speaks loudly in the defense of aca­d­e­mic free­dom for those who engage in ter­ror­ist and crim­i­nal acts, yet says noth­ing when inno­cent Israeli aca­d­e­mics are black­listed, it is time for your voice to object. It is shame­ful and I agree that the PSC with its self-professed devo­tion to sol­i­dar­ity did not join the main­stream aca­d­e­mic com­mu­nity in coun­ter­ing an egre­gious attack on free dis­course and aca­d­e­mic free­dom.” Wiesenfeld’s seven year tenure is up this year. We can only hope that his leave will be time­lier than his col­leagues’ have been.

Posted by Advocate Staff on Jan 4th, 2010 and filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

1 Response for “Flash Back September 2007: Who Are The Board of Trustees…And Why You Should Care”

  1. msfreeh says:
    Jan 4, 2010 at 7:12 pm

    to view a par­tial list of crimes com­mit­ted by FBI agents over 1500 pages long see
    forums.signonsandiego. com/showthread.php?t=59139

    to view a par­tial list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia see
    dal­las­news. com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3574

    Reply

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