Brooklyn College PSC-CUNY

Address to the Stated Meeting of the Faculty October 23, 2014 Alex S. Vitale Chair Brooklyn College Chapter PSC-CUNY We remain concerned about developments in the School of Business. In their drive to accreditation, the administration seems to have adopted an approach that consistently attempts to go around faculty. Unelected Department Chairs are being brought in, departments are being reconfigured with little or no faculty input, faculty are being told what and how to teach and what journals and conferences are acceptable, and the school appears to be increasingly walling itself off from the rest of the college. The administration seems to be pursuing a very narrow vision of how accreditation can be achieved that distances the school from the rest of the college, rather than embracing a broader liberal arts approach that would build on the college’s many strengths in this area in a way that would enhance the overall education our business students receive. We wil...

As you may recall , last Spring Governor Cuomo continued the tradition of appointing political hacks to the CUNY Board of Trustees. In this case it was James Molinaro to represent Staten Island. The former Borough President is a member of the Conservative and Republican Parties and was chosen because he crossed party lines to endorse Cuomo for governor. The PSC raised objections with this appointment, which also irritated many Democratic members of the State Senate, who must confirm such nominations.  Women’s rights groups also criticized the nomination after Molinaro called singer Lady Gaga a “slut.” He has also spoken out against programs to reduce teenage pregnancy and a wide variety of social welfare programs that CUNY students directly benefit from.  He also opposes gay rights and access to abortions. Ironically, CUNY Board Chair Beno Schmidt, chief purveyor of lower standards and champion of greater power for boards of trustees, argues in a new book that trustee...

Dear Colleague:   We have waited long enough for the CUNY Board of Trustees to put an economic offer on the table. It is time for us to demonstrate to the Board and the University administration that we need a good contract now.  The quality of education at CUNY—as well as our own economic stability—is at stake.    On  Monday, September 29 , the union will organize a mass demonstration to deliver a simple message to the Board of Trustees and Chancellor Milliken: CUNY Needs a Raise!  If a good contract is important to you, then you should be there. Click here to confirm that you will  join us . This time, we need everyone.   We will assemble at 3:30 on Monday, September 29, at Baruch College, where the CUNY Board meets. After a spirited demonstration and picket outside the meeting, we will take our demand inside, to the college presidents, CUNY administration and trustees. We will call on the trustees and Chairperson Ben...

Brooklyn College spokesperson Jason Carey told the Eagle on Wednesday, “While the President of Brooklyn College must transmit recommendations of the Faculty Council to the Chancellor, these proposals must be lawful and in line with recent court proceedings that ruled in favor of the CUNY Board of Trustees in initiating academic policy.” He added that reviews of general education happen periodically at the college, and have been encouraged by the Provost. “Our faculty plays a key role in shaping the academic curriculum at Brooklyn College. When reviewing and revising our general education requirements, however, the College is obligated to be guided by the broad framework of the Pathways initiative approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees."

Brooklyn College faculty breaks with CUNY:  votes to retake control of curriculum Brooklyn College. Photo courtesy CUNY Has 'no confidence' in CUNY Board of Trustees By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle The full-time faculty at Brooklyn College passed a resolution on Wednesday to “retake control of curriculum decision making” and demand that the Brooklyn College and CUNY administrations “respect the faculty’s historic role in designing courses,” programs and degree requirements. Professors are rejecting CUNY's move to “override faculty decision making” to implement the “inadequate” Pathways general education program, according to the Brooklyn College Faculty Council. Pathways implements a set of course requirements that every student must complete to earn an undergraduate degree from CUNY, making it easier to transfer one CUNY college to another. But professors complain th...

Address to the Stated Meeting of the Faculty By Alex S. Vitale Chair Brooklyn College Chapter PSC-CUNY April 8, 2014 The de Blasio administration has expressed interest in getting bargaining started with the over 150 municipal unions without contracts. Right now there is haggling over whether cost savings in health care should be tied to contractual raises. The Municipal Labor Council, which represents all municipal unions and the City have said they want to avoid increasing premiums. In addition, the MLC leadership has said that city nurses, teachers, and professors should be the first to bargain with the City, since they have gone the longest without a contract. The City hasn’t agreed to this idea, but hopefully this will move us up on the list. The PSC continues to talk with management about a number of non-financial issues, and is ready to begin bargaining in earnest at any time over a full contract. I’m sure you will hear more on the budget from President G...

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 ...

Dear Colleagues, On Tuesday, for the first time in decades, the Brooklyn College faculty will be voting on a measure at the Stated Meeting of the Faculty. The resolution to be voted on supports the Faculty Council in their effort, as elected representatives of the faculty, to undertake a process of redesigning general education at Brooklyn College . Given recent attacks on faculty governance and faculty control over curriculum it is imperative that this vote succeed. So far the response has been overwhelming. Over 300 full time faculty have committed to attending the meeting. If those numbers hold true, then we will meet our quorum of approximately 275. But that does not leave much room for error. If you have committed to showing up, we need you there. If you haven’t yet and can do so, please let us know you are coming. This vote is about much more than just Pathways or general education. It’s ultimately about faculty power. Over the last generation, at CUNY and throughout aca...

1) Our students need us to stand up for educational excellence. Despite the claims of serving students by easing transfer (the benefits of which have been grossly overstated), Pathways undermines educational standards. Eliminating science labs, speech, and  foreign language requirements disadvantages our students. Restricting the ability of individual colleges to experiment and specialize outside the narrow Pathways framework undermines innovation and the development of new best practices. 2) Brooklyn College’s Faculty Council is currently undertaking a broad review of general education and we are in a position to challenge the Pathways framework by demonstrating strong faculty support for a general education program that is rigorous and effectively meets our students’ needs. 3) Whatever the ultimate outcome of the general education process it is essential that the faculty make clear that the process used to implement Pathways was a violation of faculty governance and a...

Dear Colleagues, We will be holding a special meeting of the PSC Chapter at Brooklyn College on Thursday Feb. 27th 12:30-2 in 222 Whitehead.  As most of you know, CUNY Central has capitulated to important faculty demands regarding Pathways, which is a major victory for the Faculty and ultimately the students at CUNY. We still face several struggles, however, here at Brooklyn College. The administration continues to try to force us into the Pathways framework, even as we begin a faculty-lead review of general education. It is imperative that the faculty speak in a clear voice to the Brooklyn College and CUNY administrations that we will not tolerate administrative interference in the curriculum. Therefore, we intend to bring one or more resolutions to the Stated Meeting of the Faculty in April regarding these issues. The Stated Meeting of the faculty is the ultimate voice of the faculty in the governance of the faculty, eclipsing even Faculty Council.  At our next meetin...

Last month CUNY Vice-Chancellor Alexandra Logue wrote an essay for Inside Higher Education in which she called for expanding the use of MOOCs. Logue seems to have missed the latest research. This week’s New York Times outlines the latest research affirming the very limited effectiveness of MOOCs (see below and also see this ).  Given that students in MOOCs have an almost infinitesimal completion rate, and given that few students are willing to pay for what MOOCs offer, why are the Chancellery and Board of Trustees so keen on them?  Are they simply the latest victims of the agenda of the K-12 plutocratic reformers and technocrats? The answer may be that MOOCs represent yet another way to degrade public education in the name of lowering costs. Today we learned that as part of CUNY’s ongoing effort to streamline and centralize the curriculum that the Board of Trustees passed a measure that eliminates local controls over the issuing of e-permits. Students now no longer...

On Tuesday Brooklyn College’s Faculty Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing CUNY’s draft policy on “ expressive conduct ” (see below). The draft policy has been heavily criticized by faculty and students and the PSC Delegates Assembly also called for the withdrawal of the policy at its last meeting.  Today the New York Times reported on the issue, quoting PSC President Barbara Bowen saying, “if CUNY is to be an intellectually vibrant university, it must recognize that ‘expressive activity’ is a vital part of campus life, not a danger to be confined to narrow limits.” CUNY senior vice chancellor Frederick P. Schaffer, claims that it was faculty who requested the creation of a unified policy. While it may be true that one or two of the 15,000 faculty may have mentioned something to him along these lines, that does not mean that this point of view is representative of faculty opinion broadly. Now that CUNY has heard from the PSC’s Delegate Assembly, elected by the e...

Gov. Cuomo appointed two new trustees to the CUNY Board yesterday . The news is mixed. First the good:   Jeffery Wiesenfeld   has been replaced. Wiesenfeld is best known for trying to deny an honorary degree to Tony Kushner. Unfortunately he wasn't replaced by Kushner as some suggested. However, his replacement has some positive aspects. Barry F. Schwartz is a business executive, who manages MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings Inc., which is the financial vehicle for the wealth of   Ronald O. Perelman , one of the richest men in America. Unlike, most other CUNY Trustees, however, Schwartz has a background in higher education. He serves as chairmen of the Board of Kenyon College, where he received his BA and is on the Board of Visitors at Georgetown Law School, where he received his JD. Interestingly, he’s also on the Board of Human Rights First , a major player in the human rights world. Schwartz’s connection to Culomo is probably that Cuomo’s former chief of staff is al...

Stated Meeting Address October 24, 2013 Alex S. Vitale Chair Brooklyn College Chapter PSC-CUNY As most of you know we have gone 3 years without a contract. This is a condition we share with every unionized employee in the city. Because of Mayor Bloomberg’s insistence on withholding raises and increasing health care contributions, there are no unions currently bargaining with the City. None. Gov. Cuomo has made and in some cases won similar demands from the state unions. As a result, we have very little reason to engage in economic bargaining until the election of a new mayor. We have, however, approached CUNY management about opening up non-economic bargaining and there are many things to discuss. We will prepare to bargain in earnest over economic matters when a new mayoral administration shows an interest in non-concessionary bargaining. But given that the old contract remains in force, we have very little incentive to bargain. On a brighter note, the PSC was the ...

BY Alex S. Vitale CUNY’s new draft policy on Expressive Activity in paying rhetorical allegiance to the “important of a free exchange of ideas and expression of all points of view,” makes the fundamental mistake of equating protest with speech. Throughout the document, the right to protest is restricted by concerns about “order,” “disruption,” and the “rights of others.” These restrictions indicate a basic misunderstanding of the nature of the right to assembly as distinct from the right to freedom of speech. There are many possible outlets for ideas including interpersonal speech, published writing, and social media. The right to assemble, however, involves the physical manifestation of people in space as both an exercise in communication and an expression of power. As such it is inherently disruptive, disorderly, and interferes with the rights of others. Any policy that attempts to eliminate these qualities reduces protest to speech. The constitution specifically protects t...

Benno Schmidt, what university are you a trustee of? by Corey Robin 31 JUL Benno Schmidt has an oped in the   Wall Street Journal   that’s filled with a lot of nonsense. The sun also rises. But this passage caught my eye: The greatest threat to academic freedom today is not from outside the academy, but from within. Political correctness and “speech codes” that stifle debate are common on America’s campuses. Schmidt is the   chair of the Board of Trustees at CUNY . CUNY is the home of Brooklyn College. Brooklyn College is the home of my department. My department was the target last semester of powerful New York City politicians who were angry about our co-sponsoring a panel on the BDS movement. Some of them even threatened to withhold funding from CUNY in response. I know Benno’s a busy man, what with being the chairman of “ a worldwide system of for profit, private K-12 schools .” But that whole BDS thing was   kind of a big deal . Even the ...

PSC Pres. Barbara Bowen sent   this letter   to CUNY Board of Trustees Chair Benno Schmidt on Fri., June 21. The letter calls on Chairman Schmidt to respect the full-time faculty’s 92% vote of No Confidence in Pathways and rescind the resolution that established the program. “A curriculum that has so dramatically failed to win the confidence of those responsible for executing it cannot be in the best interest of the University,” she says in the letter. The overwhelming result of the No Confidence vote demands that “Pathways be removed from its position as CUNY’s general education curriculum and replaced by a curriculum or curricula formulated by elected faculty bodies,” according to Pres. Bowen. Members of the CUNY Board of Trustees received a similar letter, which was copied to Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and Interim Chancellor William Kelly. June 21, 2013 Dr. Benno Schmidt Chairperson, Board of Trustees The City University of New York 205 East 42nd Street New York, ...