Brooklyn College PSC-CUNY

Letter CUNY Chancellor’s Tenure Published: April 26, 2013    To the Editor:   From inside the City University of New York, we have a more damning assessment of Chancellor Matthew Goldstein’s tenure than Eleanor Randolph’s recent encomium (“ The Man Who Saved CUNY ,” Editorial Notebook, April 21).        In fact, Mr. Goldstein’s initiatives lowered academic standards and restricted faculty autonomy, while black and Latino enrollment dropped . During his tenure, Mr. Goldstein’s total compensation doubled to well over half a million dollars, and top administrators’ salaries increased. Meanwhile, tuition has almost doubled, and more than half of CUNY classes are taught by adjuncts who make under $20,000 annually. Scandals proliferated, ranging from grade-fixing to presidential incompetence to gutting faculty governance, even as suppressing dissent has become policy, enacted in police assaults on peaceful protests at Baruch...

California, CUNY and MOOCs Michael Busch and StudentNation on April 25, 2013   In March, a bill was introduced in the California State Senate that, if passed, could radically redefine the role of online learning in American higher education. The proposed legislation, SB 520, would require state colleges and universities to grant credit to students who, unable to register for core classes at their home universities due to “bottleneck” conditions at the entry level, opt to register for massive open online courses (MOOCs) instead.   The bill is packaged by its champions as a necessary measure designed to defend the best interests of a student body under siege. “We want to be the first state in the nation to make this promise,” said Darrell Steinberg, the State Senate president. “No college student in California will be denied the right to move through their education because they couldn’t get a seat in the course they needed.” Detractors, however, attack it as a t...

April 25, 2013 Dear Colleague, In a few days you will receive in the mail a secret ballot for a referendum on a motion of No Confidence in Pathways. Voting by secret ballot takes place from May 9 to May 31. I urge you to participate in the referendum and to vote in support of the No Confidence motion. Why a No Confidence vote, and why now? Because this is the strategic moment to send a message to the incoming CUNY administration in a form they cannot ignore—and because the opposition to Pathways is so profound that it merits a No Confidence vote. University faculties traditionally take No Confidence votes only when the future of the institution is at stake and when all other methods of registering opposition have been unheard. We are in that position now. More than 100 resolutions have been passed against Pathways, more than 5,000 people at CUNY have signed a petition calling for its repeal, both the University Faculty Senate and the PSC have registered the...

CUNY boss’ $weet goodbye By SUSAN EDELMAN NY Post April 21, 2013     CUNY is planning a golden parachute for Chancellor Matthew Goldstein .   Goldstein, 71, who announced last week he will retire in June, will be offered an undetermined salary for activities such as teaching a graduate math class, fund-raising or helping with special projects, said Benno Schmidt, chairman of the CUNY Board of Trustees.   “We’ll craft a special package for Matt,” Schmidt told The Post. “We definitely want him to stick around and be active. He’s in very good health and in a position to make a good contribution.”   Schmidt said the salary — the first for a retired CUNY chancellor — has not yet been decided.     “I expect to discuss it with Matt probably in the next few weeks and take some set of recommendations to the board, probably in our May or June meeting,” he said.     In a move seemingly tailored to Goldstein, the...

Dear Colleague,    I am pleased to invite you to a mayoral forum focused on higher education—probably the only forum on higher education during this stage of the mayoral race. The event is organized by the PSC, and will take place this Tuesday, April 23, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College: 2180 Third Avenue, at 119 th Street. Reserve your space by replying here . Candidates for mayor Bill de Blasio, Adolfo Carrión, John Liu, Christine Quinn and Bill Thompson will be joined by journalist Tom Robbins as moderator. As an audience member, you will have an opportunity to propose questions for the candidates. Chances are that one of the people who participates in this forum will be the next mayor of New York City. For the first time in many years, CUNY will have a new chancellor; the newly elected mayor will have a significant role in filling the post. What positions do the candidates take on the future direct...

by Anne Friedman   The CUNY Pathways website lists eighty BMCC courses “approved” for inclusion in the Pathways Common Core, including courses in or cross-listed with Computer Science, Developmental Skills, English, Ethnic Studies, Mathematics, Media Arts and Technology, Modern Languages, Music and Art, Science, and Social Sciences. But only about ten percent of these courses have been approved for Pathways curriculum categories by the BMCC Academic Senate. Some of the courses have never been put to a vote by the relevant departments. What’s more, several of the listed courses are phantoms: the Academic Senate has never approved their creation, let alone their inclusion in Pathways.   If the BMCC faculty’s elected senators have not approved most of these new Pathways-ready courses, then who has? The answer seems to be that the BMCC administration has made curriculum decisions unilaterally, sending new courses or course revisions directly to CUNY Centr...

By Costas Panayotakis On April 13, Ariel Kaminer’s “Longtime CUNY Chancellor to Step Down After Pushing Higher Standards” reported on Matthew Goldstein’s decision to step down as chancellor of the City University of New York, one of the largest public higher education systems in the country and one of the most important educational institutions in New York City. (i) I do not claim in what follows to present a comprehensive or ‘objective’ assessment of Goldstein’s long tenure at CUNY. Instead, drawing on my more than 10 years of experience as a CUNY faculty member, I am offering what I feel is a needed corrective to Kaminer’s largely hagiographic account. As the title of Kaminer’s article suggests, the reporter has bought into Goldstein’s and CUNY administration’s claim to have raised standards. In backing up this claim, the article quotes the statistics, provided by CUNY, about the SAT scores of students entering “CUNY’s top five four-year colleges – Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hu...

Many of us may be happy to see the departure of Chancellor Goldstein, who has done more to abrogate faculty power than any Chancellor in recent history.   While his departure may be welcome to some, do we really have confidence in the current membership of the Board of Trustees who will pick his replacement? Goldstein’s departure seems timed in part to insure that Board Chairman, and fellow architect of the Chancellor’s agenda, Benno Schmidt, will play a central role in choosing his successor. Schmidt’s term on the Board is up this summer, but the Board will be choosing an interim Chancellor later this spring. In addition, the timing of the Chancellor’s departure seems designed to preserve a major role for our billionaire mayor in choosing a new chancellor. This is disturbing news, given the mayor’s record in K-12. Does this mean we can expect more “education reforms” designed to facilitate additional budget cuts? Will this usher in an even greater role for the Gates Foundati...

The following resolution was passed Tuesday night at the University Faculty Senate plenary by a hand vote with all in favor except one nay, and no abstentions: Resolution Objecting to the Extension of Pathways Common Core Course Review Committees Whereas, the CUNY Bylaws give the University Faculty Senate and college senates jurisdiction over curriculum, and Whereas, the central Pathways committees have wrongly usurped the role of these legitimate senates, and Whereas, although these committees had expired, the Office of Academic Affairs is now extending the life of these committees until the end of June 2013, and Whereas, if the pattern holds OAA is likely to make these committees permanent, Therefore, Be It Resolved, that the University Faculty Senate objects to OAA’s further extension of these extra-governance curriculum committees and calls for a permanent end to them.

  Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld is an investment banker at Bernstein Global Wealth Management, appointed to the Board of Trustees by Gov. Pataki in 1999. Wiesenfeld’s primary qualification for being a trustee is his loyal service to a string of local politicians, including Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Congressman Thomas Manton, Mayor Ed Koch, Borough President Clair Shulman, and Governor George Pataki. Wiesenfeld’s primary accomplishment during 13 years on the Board has been to instigate a series of scandals in which he has denigrated local politicians and undermined academic freedom. His most notable achievement is his launching of the Affair Kushner in May 2011. In his role as Trustee, he sought to block the awarding of an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner by John Jay College . In his speech at the Board and in subsequent comments he attacked the Jewish playwright as an anti-Semite and went on to accuse Palestinians who support attacks against Israel of being “non-hum...

On Thursday, April 4 th , the Baruch College Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on 80 th St. to put a stop to the extra-governmental Pathways Common Core Course Review Committees that have been used to approve Pathways courses. This is in response to a letter from Vice-Chancellor Alexandra W. Logue of March 8 th announcing that this unelected body would continue to operate, despite earlier claims that these committees were only temporary. Thursday evening the Executive Council of the PSC passed a similar resolution and on Tuesday, April 9 th , the University Faculty Senate will also vote. The text of the resolution and the Vice-Chancellor’s letter are below. We encourage the Brooklyn College Faculty Council and other governance bodies across CUNY to consider similar resolutions. Resolution Objecting to the Extension of Pathways Common Core Course Review Committees Whereas, at Baruch College none of the appropriate curriculum and governance bodies have approve...

Promising increased revenues and attention to the needs of individual departments, the administration forced through a new structure of schools and deans. What we've gotten instead, are larger class sizes, more bureaucracy, and less support for research. The natural sciences are facing a double attack. While Pathways has reduced the depth of general education requirements in the bench sciences, the Dean's push for increased class sizes means hands-on lab work, writing, and individual attention will become untenable in many courses. For example, the Dean has demanded that Computer and Information Science squeeze still more students into its already overcrowded teaching labs. (The extra students sit where they can, using college laptops which must be deployed and stored using class time.) This is in stark contrast to the department's own plan, which has sought to undo years of diminishing retention by decreasing class sizes and increasing individualized attention. Other...