A summary of some new news related to CUNY's and CSI's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. See https://csi-covid19.github.io for the archive.
To add/suggest news, please email John Verzani
The bulk of those hit with layoffs at CUNY teach our students. There is no word of slimming down the overstuffed, overpaid and frequently incompetent administration. Colleges created “schools” in the past decade, requiring deans, their assistant deans, their staffs, office space and equipment … to what end? The student body had not grown exponentially. The full-time faculty certainly had not grown but the ability of the presidents to run their institutions was so faulty (and their turnover so frequent) that they needed a phalanx of administrators to protect them from faculty and students.
I taught for 55 years, 47 of which were in CUNY and despair at the expensive incompetence, the ballooning of the central administration after Gov. Pataki and Mayor Giuliani meddled in management in the '90s, and the multiplication of managerial posts in a vain effort to repair the mess.
–Sandi E. Cooper Professor emerita of history Former chair, University Faculty Senate
7/14 email to Chapter Chair from Jay Arena:
Please send another faculty broadcast out with specific details about where to gather for our Staten Island action–425 Bay St, SI, Saturday, July 18, 11 AM in the body of the email (bold letters preferably) and attach our flyer.
If people are planning to attend, which we hope you will, please post to the list. I know some folks live in Brooklyn, and might want to go the BC organized caravan , but of course you are always welcome to make the trek over the Verrazzano-Narrows to join us.
NEW Guidance on Instructional Modalities and Course Scheduling for Fall 2020
There is much there, including:
The Flexible Grading Policy was approved by the Board of Trustees exclusively for the Spring 2020 semester in response to the sudden change in instructional modality and the disruption the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the lives of our students, faculty and staff. The policy has not been extended to future terms nor is there an expectation that it will be.
Per CUNY and PSC’s Memorandum of Agreement, regardless of the mode of instruction, at least once during each academic semester, non-tenured and non-certificated members of the teaching staff shall be observed for a full classroom period. One observation shall take place during any scheduled class, except as specified in Article 18.2 (b) 3 for classes conducted wholly or in part through online technology, during the first ten weeks of the semester. For additional details please refer to the Memorandum of Agreement (linked here).
Includes modifications to the original resolution on opening up.
Two of the country’s top universities won a major victory over the Trump administration on Tuesday after the government halted its plan to deport international college students who only use online courses to study this fall.
The UFS Chair says about this: The suit that NYS AG James is filing in the Federal courts is one that CUNY and SUNY will be providing information/documentation for. Neither SUNY, as a state agency, nor CUNY, as a state supported entity [sic], are able to sue directly in this matter. Rather it is up to the NYS AG to do so, as she has.
7/14 Rutgers Union Response to claims of fiscal emergency Thanks to Saadia Toor
We urge you not to accept management’s scare tactics and anti-worker ploys. Read the new report from the AAUP-AFT University Budget and Priorities Committee for a critical analysis of management’s “emergency” claims and their budgets for the next year. Management is not coming clean about its finances. Rutgers has the money to pay the salaries its contracts oblige it to pay. The university needs to honor its promises instead of pretending it has to take back our wages to balance the budget.