FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING

 March 30, 2004

    Minutes

The meeting began 3:40.

Present:  Marietta Barretti; Anne Burns; Michele Dornish; Roger Goldstein; Costas Hadjicharalambous; Steven Heim; Lillian Hess; Charles Hildreth; Mary Infantino; Larry Kirschenbaum; Ralph Knopf; Eric Lichten; Jennifer Miceli;Edmund Miller; Maria Porter; Michael Preis; Dorothy Reed; Jonna Semeiks; Masaka Yukawa; and Richard Auletta (presiding in lieu of Sally Wahrmann, Chair).  Also invited guests Academic Vice-President Jeff Kane and Provost Joe Shenker.

Academic VP Jeff Kane was invited to this special meeting of the Faculty Council to speak about long-standing and contentious faculty/administration issues and the generally poor relationship between the two bodies.  VP Kane announced himself willing to address any areas the Council wished, but that he had come prepared to talk about three things:  1)  the Administration’s dissolution of the University Faculty Senate, and the ongoing negotiations with the Brooklyn and Southampton campuses to create a new governing body;  2)  recognition of Post’s Faculty Handbook as the official statement of faculty governance on this campus; and  3)  Faculty Council’s desire to have a letter guaranteeing that any participation of Council members in any Board of Trustee meetings will not be used to decertify the Collegial Federation.  Of these three issues, all of which J. Kane was asked to address, we managed to discuss only the first in the (nearly) two hours we met.  

Vis-à-vis the discussions taking place about the organization that will succeed the University Faculty Senate (UFS), which was dissolved unilaterally by the Board of Trustees,  J. Kane said S. Wahrmann has been asked to participate in these discussions.    He asserted that the administration and Brooklyn and Southampton representatives are making good progress.   R. Knopf  pointed out that at the last meeting of the “disbanded” UFS, nearly all constituencies were represented.  A. Burns added that the Administration continues to provide food for the faculty members--thus acknowledging that it is still functioning.  Why doesn’t the Administration, both R. Knopf and A. Burns asked, speak to the Senate itself about what the source of the “problem”--i.e., the reason the Board of Trustees felt it had to dissolve the UFS--was?  

Kane said he cannot talk to the UFS because it has been disbanded.  He conceded the dissolution of this faculty organization was not handled well.  But, he maintained, the UFS was “moribund, and its chair contentious.”  After going through 10 years of UFS minutes, he said he failed to find one academic issue that had been brought up.  In addition, each campus wanted its own independence.  Hence the UFS was perceived to be ineffective.   Since it has not functioned well in the past, he asked, why would anyone assume it could function effectively enough to deal with some of the issues  facing it now?  Among other issues, he said, the UFS was only one body among many within the university, and that the Union delimits its powers and functions.  The authority of the Faculty Senate, he said, ought to be better defined.  He asked, as an example, what should happen when the will of the UFS collides with the will of individual campuses’ faculty organizations?   Addressing the Council’s often iterated desire to have some contact with, some representation on the board--as faculty used to when the administration recognized the UFS as a governance organization--he said that the UFS should not decide who is going to participate in Board meetings, or how the Board committees ought to be empowered, or to whom they are responsible.

R. Knopf  disputed J. Kane’s claim that the UFS was “moribund.”  He asserted that it dealt with substantive issues:  sexism, for example, as it manifests itself in the treatment of faculty.  Another was the criteria for promotion and tenure.  He asserted that Board concerns about which ways, and in what numbers, faculty would meet with the Board should have been discussed with the UFS itself.  J. Kane again replied that discussing this or any other issue with the UFS is impossible since the Trustees dissolved it.  The organization being created to replace it , however, will allow faculty representatives from each campus to participate in Board committees.   R. Knopf repeated that the UFS continues to exist and to deal with issues important to the faculty and to the university.  Yes, the UFS continues to exist, J. Kane conceded, but it is not recognized by the Trustees.   How will the Post’s faculty represent itself on the Board, he asked, if it refuses to accept the replacement organization being created now?

Several Council members suggested the real reason the UFS was disbanded by the Trustees was the contentious issue of the millions of dollars flowing from the Post campus to the Southampton campus.   The UFS had voted that money earned on the Post campus should be spent at Post.  Southampton, which has been in dire financial condition for years, walked out of the UFS after the vote.  J. Semeiks pointed out the dismal condition of many faculty offices across the Post campus, as just one example of the way Post desperately needs investment, and said that while the three-campus organization of LIU might make sense to the administration and to the Board of Trustees, it does not to Post’s faculty, and probably not to LIU’s other faculties.  Those faculties have competing interests, and, quite naturally, competing demands on resources.

Kane said maybe we should have an open meeting about Southampton.  He conceded it’s an enormous drain on university coffers.  But he added that in questions of money, of the expenditure of university resources, the Trustees must authorize who can participate in those discussions.  C. Hildreth went on to say that “no one in this room” would maintain that any of the four units of LIU ought to determine precisely how money ought to be spent.  But the faculty would like to express its concerns about the budget and its impact on this campus.  Kane said he agreed.   But, he asked, whose voice should the Administration listen to on any issue in case of a divided faculty?  The UFS?  Post’s Faculty Council? 

A discussion of the principles underlying administrative actions and faculty/ administration relations followed.   C. Hildreth wanted to know what principle the Administration is operating under.  Who should decide what bodies should represent the faculty? and who should decide who should serve on those bodies?  L. Kirschenbaum pointed out that even if the UFS was not that productive, it was “my group and it was taken away.”   When a faculty organization is dissolved unilaterally, he said, there can be no trust in the Administration.  How, he asked, are we going to reestablish trust?  A good constitution won’t give us that.  J. Kane replied, start speaking to people.  Start going to board meetings.  Open up dialogues.  E. Lichten pointed out that J. Kane, the Administration and the Trustees cannot choose whom to speak to.  It cannot decide what faculty bodies--and what faculty members elected to those bodies--to speak to, to negotiate with.  Several Council members alluded to democratic principles, which ought to apply within a University. 

J. Kane responded that the UFS did not represent the faculty because it did not represent Southampton.  He added that Brooklyn, Brooklyn’s School of Pharmacy, and Southampton are participating in the discussions about the replacement organization.  The implication may have been that the new organization enjoys widespread faculty legitimacy. 

E. Lichten said it was undoubtedly true that the UFS sometimes caused the Trustees some trouble--that would be natural, he said, because the UFS represents the faculty.  He added that during those ten years J. Kane alluded to--the ten years in which the UFS was charged with being unproductive and its leadership difficult--the UFS may have simply reflected the state of LIU.  But what, he asked, is to keep the Board of Trustees from dissolving the next faculty governance structure if another contentious issue arises?

C. Hildreth asked what the new model of shared governance is?  Will there just be one administration for LIU but four different faculty governance organizations?   He added that if this is the planned new structure, it looks like a “divide and conquer” strategy.  J. Kane said there is no new model yet; it is being worked on.  If the faculty across LIU wants to have one governance body, its functions and responsibilities must be defined vis-à-vis the governance bodies for each of the four units (e.g., the Faculty Council here at Post). J. Shenker expressed his opinion that the faculty should not  have a single, university-wide governance organization. J. Kane added that some issues, like the peer-review process for promotion and tenure, necessarily impacts and is impacted by the Union contract and the Administration.  The UFS should never have determined those things itself.

R. Goldstein spoke about criteria for promotion and tenure.  While these things ultimately may be a matter of contract discussions, he said, there should be ongoing faculty dialogue between faculty and administration. He also said that we are the “institution of last resort” for students.  Why is that the case, when 20 years ago, Post was the standard to which Hofstra and Adelphi aspired?  J. Semeiks said she had arrived at Post only 17 years ago, and so did not remember the Golden Age.  She added that during those 17 years, there have been only relatively brief periods free of conflict and of trouble, sometimes rancorous faculty/administration relations.  E. Lichten spoke about the effect of this prolonged and characteristic conflict on our reputation.  He said potential students say they won’t come here as a result, and parents won’t send them.  

R. Knopf alluded to a question J. Kane had posed regarding whether the faculty wants a university-wide faculty organization when in fact it might make decisions that individual campus faculties will not like.  R. Knopf said we definitely do want one because some university-wide decisions DO affect individual campuses.

J. Kane began to read from the constitution of the UFS.   There are things wrong with it, he asserted; for example it gives the UFS authority over the academic curriculum,  which might affect individual campuses.   He also mentioned the limitations of our Handbook.  He said that most colleges and universities have their Presidents preside over faculty meetings, and indeed the Presidents call faculty meetings. 

E. Lichten made a suggestion which J. Kane said he thought was a good one.  He would try to create new governance structures through some creative maneuvers without demanding that the faculty give up its legitimate organ of representation: the UFS.

All participants in this long conversation agreed they would like to meet again, and that many more issues need to be discussed.  J. Kane said he would be willing to do that.

Respectfully submitted by Jonna Semeiks.