Messenger October 2000 Table of Contents | Messenger Home

CCNY'S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER   OCTOBER 2000 VOLUME 3, NUMBER 1

CUNY NEWS BRIEFS

Let the sun shine in

After a five-year legal struggle, a small group of professors and students has reached a settlement agreement with CUNY concerning the Board of Trustees’ meetings and the state Open Meetings Law. The agreement specifies that the public is guaranteed a minimum of 60 seats or standing places in the meeting room. If 68 people testify at the public hearing the week prior to the board meeting, the meeting will be moved to a larger room.

The lawsuit was initiated in 1995, when the public found it difficult to get into the meetings dealing with faculty retrenchment and other vital matters. The Board’s 1998 decision to end remediation at senior colleges was nullified after the court decided that CUNY held the meeting in a room it knew was too small to accommodate the expected audience and gave preferential seating to its own staff. The board re-voted eight months later in a much larger auditorium.

The plaintiffs were CCNY students David Suker, Vernon Ballard, and Joanna Sharf, and faculty members Jim Perlstein and The Messenger’s own Bill Crain.

Democracy? We don’t need no stinking democracy

CUNY faculty governance suffered a defeat in court when State Supreme Court Judge Bruce Allen ruled that the CUNY Board of Trustees could remove a course at the Borough of Manhattan Community College despite the decision of the college’s faculty to temporarily retain the course.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC: faculty union) had a hearing before Judge Allen to request a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against BMCC president Antonio Perez to prevent him from substituting a non-credit workshop designed by the administration for a one-credit course in the Department of Student Life. A discussion of the course had been tabled by the BMCC Curriculum Committee until the fall, but the Administration’s proposal was submitted to the Board of Trustees, who approved it last June.

The PSC entered the case to protect the right of the faculty to develop and determine curriculum. This incident is just the latest skirmish in what has been a battle between faculty and administration for control over curriculum. Faculty have traditionally made decisions regarding curriculum, but college administrators and CUNY Central have been attempting to consolidate power and assert more control over these decisions.

Chairman Herman Badillo reappointed to CUNY BoT

The New York State Senate has unanimously approved Governor Pataki’s reappointment of CUNY Board of Trustees Chairman (and CCNY alum) Herman Badillo to a new seven-year term.

Badillo has served as a Trustee for over a decade, including two years as Vice Chairman of the Board. On June 1, 1999 Gov. Pataki appointed him to the post of Chairman, and said: “Chairman Badillo shares my commitment to ensuring that CUNY students meet the highest standards.”

Badillo drew criticism from all sectors last September for making disparaging remarks about Dominican and Mexican students and dodged calls for his removal from the Board from several student groups and the PSC. He also supported Giuliani’s push to end remediation in CUNY’s senior colleges, a policy he has called “social promotion.”

The State Senate has also approved the appointment of Wellington Z. Chen, a Senior Vice President of the TDC Development Corporation, to serve on the Board of Trustees and fill the remaining three years of the term held by Anne Paolucci, who resigned last year. Chen, described as a “long-time community leader” by the CUNY press office, is also a CCNY Architecture alum.

Last, but not least, Dr. Russell K. Hotzler has been named Interim President of Queens College. Dr. Hotzler has been a senior CUNY administrator and educator for three decades.

But then we’d have to pay people to clean the parks

Governor Pataki, apparently busy raising academic standards in CUNY, still has not signed Assembly Bill A8475, which would allow college students receiving public assistance to satisfy a workfare requirement by performing work-study jobs and curriculum-based internships for the requisite number of hours. This measure would reduce the stress on students who are trying to improve themselves and their lives by going to college and allow them to take jobs that might actually teach them something.

Though it would be far better to end all workfare assignments for students, tell the gov. to do the right thing by emailing: [email protected] or send letters to: Governor George E. Pataki, Executive Chamber, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224. You can fax a letter to 518-474-1513.

Teachers union backs open admissions

The New York State American Federation of Teachers (the parent union of the PSC) has adopted a resolution in support of open admissions. CCNY adjunct professor Susan DiRaimo initiated the resolution with help from PSC officials Cecelia McCall, Tony O’Brien, and Chris Cage.

The resolution points out that CUNY’s mandate is “the education of the children of the whole people,” according to CCNY’s mission statement at its 1847 founding. The resolution asserts that implementing high standards does not need to mean excluding from the senior colleges students in need of some remedial help.

The resolution concludes: “The AFT strongly supports the right of all high school graduates to have an equal opportunity to obtain a college education at affordable tuition (with the progressive introduction of free college education), and therefore strongly supports the restoration of open access, developmental courses, and reduced tuition at the City University of New York.”

Messenger October 2000 Table of Contents | Messenger Home