From: ROBERT.FARRELL Sent: Monday, March 16, 2020 9:16 PM To: Lehman College Governance Leaders Subject: Calling on Campus Governance Leaders

Dear all,

I'm writing to you in your capacity as campus governance leaders. I want to urge you to contact the Lehman Administration to tell them that CUNY must listen to the Governor and keep all truly non-essential employees at home and out of the workplace, both for the sake of the workers and the health of our communities.

The boilers must stay running and there must be a security presence on the campus as in any emergency. Traditionally this has been the category of essential employee. Currently the CUNY administration is planning to have campuses reopen on Thursday in a reduced capacity. The Chancellor is having the Colleges redesignate some employees as "essential" to make them come to campus and provide services that may put themselves and students at greater risk.

At Lehman, the Library faculty and many professional staff and other office workers across the college have gotten approval to work remotely. Yet at some colleges the Chief Librarian is being told by their administration as we speak to pick several faculty members to stay. The Chancellor has shifted responsibility of this selection to the Presidents, and the Presidents are now shifting it to lower level administrators.

I don't think our administration is going in the direction of some of these other colleges. But some Lehman IT staff, library staff, and many others will not be sent off campus. Again, this is at a time when the Governor has directed all nonessential state employees to stay home and other campuses across the country are moving online and shutting down physical services entirely.

Librarians are giving people. We would never shortchange students. But library faculty and staff voted unanimously today to close the library and move all services and employees online. Anything a student needs for research and the completion of class projects is for the most part available online. The libraries are working on plans to provide online textbooks that may not be currently available. Students in need of a computer and wifi can be given a laptop or desktop from an empty office and provided a hotspot for the next two months. We don't need computer labs if the maximum number for a crowd is 10. Surely those of you who are faculty would be willing to work with students to accommodate their technology limitations.

We truly need support from other faculty and staff. I'm asking you to please email the President and Provost tonight if you can and get them to tell the Chancellor that no employee is so essential that it's worth risking their life or the lives of our students: peter.nwosu@lehman.cuny.edu; provost.office@lehman.cuny.edu; daniel.lemons@lehman.cuny.edu; president.lemons@lehman.cuny.edu

Please write to the Provost and President and forward this request to your departmental colleagues and anyone else you think might speak out.

Thanks so much for your time and commitment to the college,

Robert Farrell Associate Professor, Library Secretary, General Faculty Committee Chair, PSC Lehman Chapter