BC Faculty vote to retake control of curriculum; vote no confidence in CUNY Board

BROOKLYN COLLEGE FACULTY VOTE TO RETAKE CONTROL OF CURRICULUM DECISION MAKING;
VOTE NO CONFIDENCE IN CUNY BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Contact: Alex S. Vitale, avitale@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Brooklyn, NY--For the first time in decades, the entire full-time faculty at Brooklyn College passed a resolution at a special college-wide meeting on April 8 to demand that the Brooklyn College and CUNY administrations respect the faculty’s historic role in designing courses, general education programs, and degree requirements.

Two years ago the CUNY Board of Trustees instructed local college administrations to override faculty decision making in implementing the inadequate Pathways general education program, which was opposed by 92% of full-time faculty at CUNY who voted in a referendum held last year. This is despite the fact that college governance documents vest curricular decision making solely in the hands of the faculty.

By a vote of 298 in favor, 9 against and 18 abstentions, today’s resolution calls for the Brooklyn College and CUNY administrations to abide by the decisions of local faculty in designing a new general education program at Brooklyn College. The resolution was brought by Prof. Alex S. Vitale, the chair of the Brooklyn College chapter of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty and professional staff union of CUNY. Prof. Vitale said that this vote was crucial for sending a message to the incoming Chancellor that the faculty will not tolerate political interference in curricular matters.

The process of general education development is being undertaken by the College’s Faculty Council, made up of elected representatives from all the departments at the College. Faculty Council Chair Yedidyah Langsam urged all members of the faculty to attend today’s meeting.

The resolution also states that the faculty have “no confidence” in the CUNY Board of Trustees to make curricular decisions. The current Board of Trustees is almost completely devoid of educators and is comprised of political appointees, whose main qualification was political support for current and former mayors and governors, rather than their expertise in educational policy.

Across the country faculty are experiencing attacks on their control over the intellectual direction of their programs and colleges. Too often administrators are using cost savings as an excuse to undermine educational standards. The faculty at Brooklyn College feel strongly that their daily interaction with students and in depth knowledge of the fields they work in best qualify them to make decisions about educational content.

The faculty expect the Brooklyn College and CUNY administrations to abide by this resolution. Failure to do so will undoubtedly undermine the basic legitimacy of their roles in the eyes of faculty.

Text of the resolution can be found at this link.

Comments

  1. IRISApril 8, 2014 at 3:44 PM

    Bravo! Brooklyn College Faculty. Your strong opposition to Pathways is inspirational. I speak as counselor and know how bad this is for our students. I reject any policy that weakens the CUNY degree, where the majority of students are men and women of color. Our students deserve better.

    Iris DeLutro
    Senior Counselor

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated just to make sure they are not spam! We aim to review and publish within 24 hours.

Popular posts from this blog

CUNY First Computer System to Aid Administrative Control over Colleges at the Expense of Efficiency and Effectiveness

Guest Post   Every once in a while I get a question, either privately or in a department meeting, regarding CUNYFirst. Here is what I know of CUNYFirst, based on a few years of working with the project as a "training liaison" (which is a fancy term for room-scheduler). (1) The idea of CUNYFirst is a good one: to have a unified, integrated "enterprise"-scale system that encompasses all university/campus business processes. Such a system could, in principle at least, have saved a lot of expenditure on maintaining dozens of disparate, redundant, barely cooperating third-party systems. Such a system could have offered information access that would have benefited the administration, the staff, the faculty, and students. (2) CUNY Central's motives in pursuing CUNYFirst were dominated by an agenda that has nothing to do with such benefits however. Rather, CUNY Central sought absolute control over all college activity, including curriculum. Think of it: whoev
Read more

CHAPTER LETTER CAMPAIGN: to President Michelle Anderson

Image
In the Fall of 2023, we asked all departments or units to write and sign letters to the college President, Michelle Anderson. We wanted her to know what our colleagues do well. We wanted her to hear our vision for work and mission at Brooklyn College. We wanted her to understand what we all need to thrive. We wanted to model a mission-driven discourse, not a workplace lead by austerity.  We wanted our President to hear us. Professor Naomi Braine reads the Sociology Dept Letter Professor Jillian Cavanaugh reads the Anthropology Letter     Twelve letters, signed by 100s of our colleagues were submitted—although many more were penned (many felt uneasy about being visible in this way). 1) Synthesis letter signed by over 80 faculty and staff 2) Sociology Department , 26 signatures 3) Anthropology Department, 16 signatures 4) Accounting Department , 14 signatures 5) Library , 28 signatures 6) PRLS , 6 signatures 7) Psychology Department , 30 signatures 8) English Department , over 100 signat
Read more

93% Vote No Confidence in Pathways

The referendum votes have been tallied: a total of 4,322 votes were cast, out of a total number of 7,202 possible votes: a 60% turnout. Of those, 3,996 full-time faculty agreed that they have No Confidence in Pathways, with only 323 voting Disagree (and 3 void ballots). An absolute majority of the full-time faculty are on record as having no confidence in Pathways. That is a stunning rebuke to the new curriculum and the coercive process used to implement it. I will send a longer message to the entire membership shortly, but for now I want to congratulate you all on your extraordinary collective effort in defense of our students' right to a rigorous education. Equipped with this result, we can take the campaign to a new level in the fall. In solidarity, Barbara Bowen
Read more