Fall 2016
Call to Order
President Michelle J. Anderson called the meeting to order at 12:45 p.m.
Standing Committee on Review
Associate Professor Michael Meagher of the Standing Committee on Review reported that the committee has examined the minutes of the Faculty Council and have found the minutes in good order.
Remarks From Professor James Davis, PSC Chapter Chair
Thank you, President Michelle Anderson. Thank you, faculty and staff. It should be acknowledged at the outset that we have a contract. That was not sayable at the last 13 Stated Meetings, and this faculty deserves credit for helping to pull a decent contract out of the jaws of austerity. Contract demands are not won at the bargaining table; they're won in the streets and in the media, and you all went to great lengths so that legislators, editorial boards, students, and community members understood the scandal of underfunding CUNY and the stakes of undervaluing our faculty and staff. In the union we like to say that our working conditions are our students' learning conditions, and you helped to bring this aphorism vividly to life during the contract campaign. This contract does not get us everything we need, but what we got was only possible because you stepped forward. So whatever the deficiencies in this contract, and it has its flaws, I want to congratulate everyone on a well-deserved, long-awaited raise. Thank you for everything you did to make it possible. I also want to thank the administrators who are now tasked with implementing a collective bargaining agreement that is exceedingly complex. There will be bumps in the road, but they are worth our shared effort because they do represent real advances not only in compensation but also in non-monetary areas such as job security, promotion, and benefits.
The chapter Executive Committee is working to reach out to faculty and staff to find out how you feel about the contract settlement and the campaign, and what you want from the next contract. Believe it or not, this one expires in just over one year, and we don't anticipate the same delays next time around, so we'll be bargaining again before we know it. We've recruited dozens of colleagues from every job title—full-timers and adjuncts, HEOs, and CLTs—to visit offices and survey as many of you as possible this year. Please welcome us when we come calling, or if you must turn us away, schedule a time to talk. We need to know your priorities for the next contract and your perspective on how those priorities can be achieved.
To keep the wind at our backs, the PSC formed an alliance with community groups across the city called CUNY Rising. You might be aware of it. This alliance is helping to take our message and amplify it in Albany, City Hall, and our students' communities. It includes groups such as NY Communities for Change, NYPIRG, Working Families, and the Alliance for Quality Education, among others. I want to ask that you mark your calendars for November 22, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, when a Town Hall meeting will convene at the Brooklyn Borough Hall. That evening, the CUNY Rising alliance will invite CUNY students, faculty, staff, and community members to speak publicly about the necessity of enhanced public funding for our under-resourced university. The CUNY administration has its strategies for enhancing our funding, and they are necessary but they're not sufficient. Heading into the next contract, we need to maintain the momentum and goodwill we have cultivated among progressive allies around the city and state. Do come to Brooklyn Borough Hall the evening of November 22, and invite your students and alumni.
Finally, you may have noticed something tucked into the back of our Memorandum of Agreement with CUNY about a teaching load reduction. You may have blinked and done a double take. Indeed, page eight of the appendices to the MoA establishes CUNY's commitment to reduce by three credits the teaching load of all full-time faculty university-wide, and to do so no later than the ratification of the next contract. This provision was not winnable in the last contract itself, and it's going to take considerable struggle to get CUNY to come up with the money to pay for it now, which, as you can imagine, is an incredibly expensive provision. But the commitment is in writing, and I'm pleased to report that the Labor-Management committee charged with developing the implementation plan for the three-credit teaching load reduction will hold its first meeting later this afternoon. I hope to have progress to report on this front at the next Stated Meeting.
President Anderson's Address
I decided to launch a Listening Tour as a way to come to understand Brooklyn College, to give people in this community a chance to tell me what they wanted me to hear, and to have direct access to the new president. I consulted with faculty, students, staff, alums, donors, elected officials, and community members—and I found that they were all as eager to share their thoughts as I was to listen. Now, listening is not an objective act. It is an interpretive act. For example, I didn't record my meetings with people; I took notes. Although this is but a summary of the Listening Tour, I have tried to render accurately what I heard and how I interpreted it in this presentation for you today.
So now this presentation is an opportunity for you to listen and try to understand campus perspectives that you might not share. Cautionary note: There was plenty of both praise and criticism levied by members of each group I consulted. More importantly, perhaps, there was plenty of praise and criticism of each group, and I am not shading that truth in this presentation. During the Listening Tour, I tried to be open to understand what people shared with me, even when there was serious criticism of the school or of the administration—and I would ask you to try to listen openly today. Because, it is important to acknowledge, in reaching out to share one's perspective, there is hope. Even when the sharing is a complaint, there is hope. Hope that one will be heard, understood, and valued. I greatly value what people shared with me, and I feel honored by so many people's willingness to do so.
So let's turn to the methodology of the Listening Tour (pdf).
Taking this Listening Tour has had a profound effect on me. Hearing sustained, intense, and candid feedback has been moving. I am grateful to have been able to come to know Brooklyn College in a deep way in my first three months as president. I feel deeply invested in this place, deeply invested in Brooklyn College. I love its mission, but I always have. It's what drew me to the school. But through the Listening Tour, I have also come to know and love the complexities, contradictions, even the difficulties—as well as the exceptional prospects for this great, great institution.
The Listening Tour has developed a clear agenda for me and for the early parts of my presidency. I have a strong sense of what the Brooklyn College community needs, having heard it from the community itself. I hope the Listening Tour also provides us, collectively, with a foundation upon which we can come together to build a comprehensive, five-year Strategic Plan. We will begin the planning stages for developing it in November.
Every day I am able to look out on the Quad and see our students gathering and studying is a day I am grateful to be here. As you know, they are who we serve, and I am excited to work with you to develop a Strategic Plan that enhances the college and better serves our remarkable, worthy students.
Adjournment
President Michelle J. Anderson adjourned the meeting at 1:30 p.m. Faculty and staff were invited to the Penthouse for a lunch reception.
