Recent news


Recent news

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

College

The phased reopening of our expansive horizontal campus will be challenging. The phasing plan will allow for a limited and controlled reentry with a significantly reduced capacity. In an effort to manage the operational issues that arise, the college may revise the phased reopening at any time.

Simply go to https://cuny.zoom.us and choose Sign in. You should be taken to the familiar CUNY login prompt where you enter your Firstname.LastnameNN@login.cuny.edu login credentials.

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.

Our students, particularly incoming students, have been contacting our advisement offices with questions about beginning the year remotely. They are particularly concerned about how to attend the first day of a class that is not in a classroom. I would like to ask that each of you send a welcome message to your students this week

In response to:

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.

Despite earlier predictions by the editor here, it now looks likely that 10/1 is a reasonable expectation.

From Jean Halley:

  1. On the University Faculty Senate, we are told that some CUNY campus administrations are essentially overfilling their colleges’ online courses (well past the normal course limits on those campuses), to save money it seems. We wanted to share this with the rest of the College of Staten Island faculty. We at CSI should all keep an eye on our own course size limits, and remember that the CUNY colleges are left to make their own decisions on current course caps.

  1. Am I correct in thinking that so far I think our course caps have not been changed at the College of Staten Island? At any rate, we should all keep in mind that, if our administration acts like those on some other CUNY campuses, they might inflate class sizes without even letting us know. And we should remember that pushing back has had some success on other campuses. For example at MEC, a faculty person wrote, “They increased the class size to 50 and after some pushback, the deans of each school decreased it to 42 and some to 40. I am in the process of sending them the governance document that capped class sizes at 30.”

And at John Jay, it seems that this issue has been resolved for now, “as a result of a concerted effort at shared governance on the part of Department Chairs and the administration. A previous agreement (2013) regarding a maximum enrollment of 28 for online instruction will be honored; adjustments will be made to address sections that have already been allowed to exceed that limit. Those sections will be capped at current enrollment for fall 2020 to avoid penalizing already enrolled students.”

Further, I believe, faculty at QCC are working on a statement requiring the college limit online class sizes to 28. And at Kingsborough, the limit is 29 for all courses.

  1. Also, this is helpful: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2020/06/28/online-college-classes-should-have-no-more-than-12-students/#1310d0e23179

Importantly, I am pleased to report that our plans for re-starting research activity, re-opening the dorms and the dining area have been approved by CUNY and New York State. Please keep in mind, however, that while these plans have been approved, and others await approval, any required actions that need to be taken before implementation may take time and could delay our return. Our initial phase of opening academic buildings is focused on buildings 5N, 5S, and 6S. Once those buildings are ready for opening, it will allow researchers to return to campus and for faculty to hold limited classes involving laboratory, studio and clinical experiences that require in person instruction. Apart from these very few exceptions, we anticipate that the rest of our classes will be delivered remotely for the Fall semester. Academic Affairs will keep students apprised when any of the limited aforementioned courses or experiences will be able to make the transition from remote to in person instruction.

PSC

next Wednesday the PSC will hold its third major action with a day of action we are calling "PSC Demands Justice." This will consist of a 24-hour online event where we will be on Zoom for 24 hours beginning Wednesday, August 26 at 8 am and continuing non-stop until 8 am Thursday, August 27.

Agreement on Sabbaticals and CCE status

CUNY Libraries in crisis...

CUNY/NYC/NYS

NEW Recording of Remote Classes: As is the case with many colleges and universities that have chosen online and distance learning modalities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty utilizing Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate and other digital technology to deliver course curriculum/material must be sensitive to issues of privacy. To that end, faculty offering classes through web conferencing digital technology like Zoom must not record a student in a class session without the student’s consent. Similarly, CUNY discourages students from recording the sessions unless such recording is part of a reasonable accommodation under the law or is not prohibited by campus policy. To obtain consent, faculty who wish to record their class sessions must provide the following announcement, in emails, and/or class syllabus, to enrolled students and verbally at the opening of the first class session:

Students who participate in this class with their camera on or use a profile image are agreeing to have their video or image recorded solely for the purpose of creating a record for students enrolled in the class to refer to, including those enrolled students who are unable to attend live. If you are unwilling to consent to have your profile or video image recorded, be sure to keep your camera off and do not use a profile image. Likewise, students who un-mute during class and participate orally are agreeing to have their voices recorded. If you are not willing to consent to have your voice recorded during class, you will need to keep your mute button activated and communicate exclusively using the "chat" feature, which allows students to type questions and comments live.

As mentioned in the announcement, recording of classes is for the benefit of students. Faculty shall not use class recordings as a means of determining class attendance and are reminded that CUNY is classified by the U.S. Department of Education as a non-attendance taking institution. Doubts faculty may have regarding the identity of participants should be alleviated if faculty offer their classes through applications and resources that have been licensed by CUNY Central or their college and require a CUNY/College ID for login, thereby giving reasonable assurance that participants are CUNY students.

For the avoidance of doubt, the prohibition on recording without consent does not apply to audio or video lectures of the faculty member only and that do not include a student participation component.

UPDATE Final Exams for Developmental Courses: Given plans to reduce density on CUNY campuses in the fall 2020 term, University-wide final exams for developmental courses and interventions will not be administered for those terms. This is a continuation of guidance issued for the spring and summer 2020 terms. Under normal circumstances, the CUNY Assessment Test in Writing (CATW) and CUNY Elementary Algebra Final Exam (CEAFE) are administered in person at campus testing centers. Per University policy, these tests normally constitute 35% of a student’s final course grade in top-level developmental/English as a Second Language (ESL) courses and interventions in writing and math. The instructor determines the other 65% of the course grade based on the student’s course performance. For fall 2020, faculty and instructors of such courses/interventions (including CUNY Start/Math Start/USIP and any other intervention) will determine 100% of the final course grade based on student performance in the course/intervention. Top-level reading courses and interventions typically use a departmental (rather than University) final exam as 35% of the course grade. For fall 2020, faculty and instructors of reading courses/interventions may also locally determine 100% of the final course grade based on student performance. Proficiency in reading, writing, and math will continue to be awarded based upon successful completion of the course/intervention.

Colleges are not required to, but may, substitute a local final exam in place of the University final exam. Because CUNY Start/Math Start uses structured common curricula and has a professional development team that works across partner colleges, the program has created standardized grading plans for its math and reading/writing interventions which will be used to determine students' grades and proficiency status.

Some short USIP interventions have used CEAFE or CATW as 100% of a student’s grade (no instructor grade component), as authorized in the September 28, 2016 memo “Exit Standards for Non-Course-Based Developmental Interventions.” A poll of USIP Directors found that no campuses planned to do that for summer 2020. If a Provost decides to exercise that option for Winter 2020, the University will share test forms for local use and grading. The same 2016 memo indicated that the CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP) would use the CATW as a high-stakes exit. For CLIP, alternative measures were coordinated with the program leadership. These decisions were made in consultation with the ESL, Reading, Writing, and Math Discipline Councils; CUNY Start leadership; USIP Directors; and the University Director of Disability Programs. For additional information, please contact Director of Testing Melissa Uber at Melissa.Uber@cuny.edu

UPDATE Chancellor’s Emergency Relief Grants: On April 8, The City University of New York announced the launch of a Chancellor’s Emergency Relief Fund to help students facing financial hardship during the COVID-19 crisis. To date, more than $5.2 million has been donated and/or pledged from among others, the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, the James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation, The New York Community Trust, The Carnegie foundation/corporation, Deutsche Bank, JPMC, the Jeffrey and Shari Aronson Foundation, Goldman Sachs, the AT&T foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, the Altman foundation, the Teagle Foundation, The ECMC foundation, the Summerfield Foundation, Citi and more. Of this amount, a total of 4,000 grants in the amount of $500 per student ($2 million) have already been disbursed and an additional $1 million will be disbursed to 2,000 students during the week of July 6th. This emergency fund is the latest financial-assistance resource CUNY is providing to its most vulnerable students in response to the COVID-19 crisis. On August 14, the University announced that the Andrew Mellon Foundation earmarked 2.5 to enable CUNY to award retention and completion grants of varying amounts to undergraduates who otherwise would not be able to continue their studies. Students who are ineligible for other forms of federal emergency assistance, including undocumented and international students, will especially benefit from this gift. The Office of Academic Affairs will manage this award and will provide additional information to campuses shortly.

NEW Zoom University Licenses: The University has secured an enterprise license for the use of ZOOM. The license covers all CUNY faculty and staff (up to 49,000) and all students (capped at 320,000). Some of the key features are: 1) Unlimited meeting duration; 2) Up to 300 participants per meeting; 3) Free VOIP and International Toll Number; 4) Polling; 5) Screen Sharing; and 24/7 Technical Support. In addition, after consultation with many of you also included a pre-negotiated schedule of additional add-on features that are of varied interest among the campuses such as webinar, large meetings and ZoomRooms at an additional cost only to those campuses that are interested in these add-on features. The CIS team has already begun the implementation efforts to include sub-accounts for campus delegated administration and their Training and Communications teams are working on materials to support the program. All faculty and staff should have access to ZOOM under this license before the end of August.

NEW Mi-Fi Hotspot Devices: On August 12, CUNY’s Board of Trustees approved a resolution to “Authorize the Purchase of WiFi Hotspot or MiFi Devices for Emergency Distribution to Students Needing Broadband Internet Access in Response to the Continuing COVID-19 Pandemic Health Emergency.” To this end, the Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of Computing and Information Systems (CIS) in collaboration with the office of the Chief Operating Officer will purchase and distribute approximately 4,000 “WiFi hotspot” devices to campuses, which will provide them to the students deemed to have the greatest need for broadband internet access.

NEW Covid-19 Student Conduct Protocol: The City University of New York takes the well-being and safety of our students, faculty and staff very seriously. During the pandemic, we all have an obligation to behave in a responsible manner per the guidance approved in your campus’ re-opening plan to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Responsible behavior extends to your off-campus and personal lives, which can affect your ability to transmit the virus on campus, including at a minimum:

individuals maintaining physical distance of at least six feet on campus and when gathering with individuals outside the classrooms and other areas limiting the size of on campus gatherings; minimizing and limiting the size of events gatherings with other students

policies, regulations, and orders of the University/College. Students are reminded that the Rules and Regulations for the Maintenance of Public order pursuant to article 129a of the education law (“Henderson Rules”) prohibits:

others behavior that interferes with the institution’s educational processes. failure to comply with the direction of a University official

directives about social encounters from the federal, state and local public health officials. Any student found in violation of these directives may be subject to discipline under article XV of the CUNY bylaws.

NEW Student Face Mask Accommodations, Modifications, or Exemptions: The office of disability services works with students who may require academic accommodations. If a student is unable to wear a mask for health reasons, the student should contact the campus office of disability services. This office will work with the student to help identify arrangements to complete in-person courses in an alternate format. If, however, there is an in-person class that cannot be accommodated in an alternative format, a student may be approved by the CUNY Office of Disability Programs, in consultation with the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, to wear a modified face mask or, in very rare circumstances, no face covering. In this situation, the office of disability services will communicate this information directly to the faculty member. Approved students will also be provided with a written exemption from the CUNY Office of Disability Programs that indicates any modifications or exceptions, which they must carry with them to show faculty if requested. Please note that medical exemptions are extremely rare and are based solely on medical necessity. If a student is exempt from the face mask policy, please consider how to seat students to ensure proper social distancing within a given instructional setting. For more information, please email Chris Rosa, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Inclusion Initiatives Christopher.Rosa@cuny.edu.

NEW Accommodations for Students with Hearing and Communication Disabilities: Some students with hearing and communication disabilities may need their instructor to wear a clear mask for lip and facial expression purposes. If the student has registered with the college office of disability services and has requested an accommodation for clear masks, the office will reach out to the student’s instructors and provide a clear mask for them to wear while teaching and/or interacting with the student. If you have questions, please contact the office of disability services at your campus.

Will CUNY's contractual increase be withheld?

(p52) Due to the adverse financial impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the State is withholding the general salary increases that were scheduled to go into effect on April 1, 2020. The current Financial Plan reflects only the liquidity benefit of the withholding. If a decision is made to withhold the full amount for the fiscal year, it would provide savings of $215 million in FY 2021 and offset the need for reductions elsewhere in the budget.

No budget uncertainty until late in the second quarter:

(p17) The Enacted Budget Financial Plan noted that the ultimate size of any permanent reductions would depend in part on the availability of unrestricted Federal aid. While the U.S. Congress has begun discussions on additional recovery legislation, no agreement has been reached as of the date of this Quarterly Update. Therefore, the earliest that DOB now expects to transmit a detailed aid-to- localities reduction plan to the Legislature is late in the second quarter of the State’s FY 2021.

In the interim, without assurance of Federal aid, DOB has begun withholding a minimum of 20 percent of most local aid payments to achieve the cash flow savings anticipated in the Updated Financial Plan pursuant to the Reduction Authority. As of July 31, 2020, DOB has withheld roughly $361 million pursuant to the Reduction Authority. In addition, DOB is withholding a range of other payments, including local aid payments that do not have specific statutory payment dates and liabilities, transfers to other funds, and general salary increases that were scheduled to take effect on April 1. DOB estimates that such withholdings have totaled a minimum of $1.9 billion through the end of the first quarter.

The Updated Financial Plan assumes that the Federal government will fully fund the State’s direct cost for pandemic response. Aid is expected through FEMA disaster assistance grants and aid, and the CRF. Accordingly, the Updated Financial Plan reflects no net State costs from COVID-19 related expenses. However, the Updated Financial Plan has been revised to reflect reclassifications of eligible expenses incurred in the prior year and payroll expenses for public health and safety employees to the Federal CRF pursuant to U.S. Treasury eligibility guidelines.

p24 shows a 18.6% reduction in receipts for taxes (from 73.133M to 59.528M).

News

The executive committees of UFS, the Faculty Council of Community Colleges, and the Student Assembly, have passed, on behalf of their bodies, a resolution expressing no confidence in most of the politically appointed members of the Board of Trustees.

The State University of New York Board of Trustees will likely forgo a national search for a new chancellor despite faculty opposition.

Malatras – president of SUNY Empire State College and a key player on Cuomo’s coronavirus task force – would succeed Kristina Johnson, who announced in June she was leaving the 64-campus university system to serve as president of Ohio State University. She begins her new role Sept. 1.

The main concern outlined in the letter is the ongoing practice by the U of O of increasing the size of classes instead of creating different sections for popular classes due to them being held online and not confined by the physical limitations of a classroom.

What remains less visible are racialized and racist choices to deepen state disinvestment in institutions critical to the health and welfare of Black and brown communities, what we term racialized austerity.

Austerity policy-making over the past 50 years has been racialized, withering services in public agencies ranging from K-12 schooling to hospitals to higher education. Matters of race must be made more visible and placed at the very center of both past and present austerity decisions and policy-making.

8/21 Lehman mostly on line

Health screenings, mandatory masks, staggered schedules and social distancing will apply to those in-person activities.

Researchers pursuing PhDs in biology, chemistry and anthropology have been following these regulations since Phase 2 allowed them to return to their hands-on work in July.

College officials across the country have been debuting plans over the past week to abide by new federal rules for responding to complaints of sexual misconduct on campus. The rules go into effect today as many colleges are preparing for the start of the fall semester or have already begun the new academic year.

Some of the plans have been condemned by advocates for survivors of sexual assault, who say they were excluded from the process of drafting new policies under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law prohibiting sex discrimination at federally funded institutions. Students also fear colleges will implement policies that closely align with the regulations, which have been widely criticized by survivors for not requiring colleges to respond to sexual harassment and assault that occurs off-campus, among other limitations.

(CUNY's board voted on new policies on 8/12.)

In surveys, polling data and lawsuits, the message from students is clear: we expect to pay less for online instruction.

CUNY has yet to decide if it will increase tuition by 100 dollars per term in the face of pending budget cuts.

Wash your hands and maintain a "social distance."
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