Dear Sebastien et al,
As I indicated earlier, I have been doing little else for the past two months. Research is the
smartest way to reopen our campus, in my opinion, and I have not been bashful in making that opinion known in the venues available to me. If I have a difference with some members of the faculty, it is that I am more sympathetic to the difficult decisions that lie before the Provost, Cabinet and President in this awful time for higher education. Still, I have some optimism that your message has gotten through, and that people in the Administration are pulling together to make it happen as soon as possible. For my part, I have emphasized to the Administration that the people who are being most vocal about this issue are amongst our most productive and impactful faculty members.
With Best Wishes, -Mike
From: Sebastien Poget <Sebastien.Poget@csi.cuny.edu> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2020 7:42 AM Subject: Championing a swift research re-opening
Dear Dean Cavagnero:
We are writing to thank you and to tell you that we are encouraged by the recent movement toward a return to research activities at CSI. We think that, as faculty involved experimental research, it is important that we be able to view you as our advocate at the administrative level. We are fully aware that these are historic times and that the College of Staten Island is experiencing unprecedented challenges. Nevertheless, even within this context, it is critical that scientific research and science education remain vibrant. It has been very painful for us to lose more than half a year of research time. It has been painful to watch our graduate students’ career paths be put on hold. It also has been painful to see our CUNY colleagues return to their scientific activities while we remain on the sidelines. You are our Dean and de facto the leader of science at CSI. We look to you to provide us with the confidence that you will champion the effort to begin research again at our College.
Sincerely,
Fred Naider Sebastien Poget Sharon Loverde Alejandra del Carmen Alonso richard r veit John Verzani Chwen-Yang Shew Carlo Lancellotti Andrew Poje Zaghloul Ahmed Cesar Arenas-Mena Sarah Berger Rupal Gupta Shuiqin Zhou Qiao-Sheng Hu Alfred Levine Angelo Bongiorno Alan Lyons Dan McCloskey Kristen Gillespie-Lynch Ming Tang Jean-Philippe Berteau Jianying Gu Alexandre Zaitsev Anshel Gorokhovsky Probal Banerjee