Minutes
Meeting of the
Faculty of the Arts & Sciences
May 5, 2008
President Bollinger opened the meeting at 12:14 p.m. The faculty approved the minutes of the
preceding meeting and authorized the President to bestow the pertinent degrees
at Commencement on May 21.
***
Bob Friedman, chair of the Executive Committee of the
Faculty of Arts & Sciences, reminded the faculty that, because the May A&S meeting traditionally doubles as the annual meeting
of the Columbia College faculty, the present meeting would be concerned
principally with undergraduate education. Bob also mentioned the faculty
forums (one on the expansion of the College, a second on grading policy) ECFAS had
sponsored in the course of the year.
Patricia Dailey, one of the three untenured members of
ECFAS, reported on a third forum that was dedicated to the concerns of
untenured faculty, some of which issues are less comfortably raised in the
presence of senior colleagues. The
October forum was attended by over 80 junior professorial-rank faculty members,
lecturers in discipline, and officers of research. A follow-up forum in April specifically for
lecturers was similarly well attended.
Tenure-track faculty voiced concerns about review procedures (clarity,
fairness, structures); teaching loads (heavier than elsewhere because of the
Core); retirement benefits (low institutional contributions); compensation
(especially in light of the cost of living in New York and the incommensurate
rent increases); professional development (the policy against topping off
grants, the withdrawal of benefit subsidies during the second semester of
unpaid leave, and insufficient mentoring, publication subventions, funds for
outside speakers). Lecturers spoke of financial
strains and the need for greater transparency in the review process, more
appropriate criteria for pedagogical leaves, and a better articulated policy on
the role of lecturers in the University.
Above all, clear guidelines about teaching loads (contact time, teaching
hours, class size) need to be developed—and observed
consistently—if there is to be equity across departments.
In this connection, the suggestion was made that the
role of the faculty affairs committee of the University Senate be studied and compared
to that of its counterparts at peer institutions. Bob concluded with the reassurance that that
the ARC review of faculty governance structures (spearheaded by ECFAS as part
of its ongoing effort to bolster faculty governance at Columbia) is proceeding
apace and is expected to be in full swing in the coming academic year.
***
President Lee Bollinger had
positive developments to report on several fronts. First, the Capital Campaign is significantly
ahead of schedule; as of today we have raised $2.7 billion. In spite of the economic downturn, fundraising
across the whole University is ahead of where it was last year at this time. Moreover, in 2007 Columbia moved into 3rd
place in the Ivies (5th in the US) in actual dollars raised in a single
year.
We are similarly on track in
terms of space. Since the December
approvals for the rezoning of Manhattanville, attention has turned toward
practical matters, such as the massive basement that will allow for subterranean
deliveries, etc. Similar attention will
be brought to bear on the possible academic directions opened up by the new
space. Fundraising for the various
components has also moved ahead.
Even the housing situation is
less dire than it has been of late. In
addition to the mortgage program developed by Provost Alan Brinkley (with the
support of Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin) as an alternative to
the rentals that are in such short supply, concerted efforts have been made
over the past few months to reconcile departmental recruiting and available
apartments. Thanks to the combined
efforts of Provost Brinkley, Vice President Nicholas Dirks, Robert Kasdin, and
the department chairs, the latest news is good: the University has purchased a
building with upward of 120 apartments that is just being completed in
Riverdale (near the #1 train). It is an
outstanding building, and the University has acquired it for a good price. The new units, which will be occupied by
faculty and graduate students, will be available either in 2008-2009 or the
following year; relief is thus on the way in the relatively near term.
In conclusion, though, Lee
sounded a note of realism on the position of Arts and Sciences in the fiscal
environment of the University at large. Columbia
has invested a great deal in A&S, increasing the faculty size by a
substantial 10% over the past several years.
While this makes a great deal of
sense and is a point of pride, it represents a rate of growth that cannot be
sustained. We should expect to remain at
steady state for a year or two. But
while we cannot continue to grow at present, there is no discussion of
decreasing the size of the A&S faculty, and a resumption of growth at some
point in the foreseeable future is desirable.
***
Vice President Dirks’s
presentation amplified the University’s investments in A&S over the last
4-5 years and previewed what a temporary “consolidation” of our resources might
entail. If our overall numbers are to
remain constant, some faculty lines will have to be redistributed in order to maintain
the momentum in departments whose needs have not yet been addressed. Nick thanked the Faculty Development
Committee, the Standing Committee on Language Lecturers, and the Academic
Review Committee, faculty bodies that are critical for thinking about the
nature and shape of our departments’ teaching and hiring. In any consideration of the way knowledge is
reproduced in the Arts &Sciences, the intellectual power of the faculty is
essential. Though ARC itself doesn’t
allocate resources, it helps administrators think intelligently about allocation
and redistribution. (If only we were in
a position to do everything ARC recommends!)
ECFAS plays an important roll as well; the elections for that
committee’s new members will be held soon.
Faculty growth:
2004-8
Ladder-rank faculty
increased 11.3% (the 10% figure cited above excludes diversity hires)
2004-9
Full-time
lecturers increased 25%
Combined
increase is 14.4% (to 878 full-time faculty members)
Initiatives to improve to faculty life:
Computer replacement program
FRAP increase
Space refresh
Increased personnel to handle
academic affairs (VPs office adds 4-5 officers)
Increased departmental administrative support (6.5 positions
added, 38 upgraded: DAs become ADAs)
Financial initiatives:
Financial aid enhancements
Closer collaboration between
College and GS; the 2 schools moving toward an integrated budget
Career education, especially for MA students;
initiative to establish relationship between tuition and career prospects
Mechanisms for better integrating
curricular planning and hiring
Enhanced recruiting in GS
Space:
Interdisciplinary
Science Building ($274 million)
Knox Hall ($40 million)
80 Clarement ($13 million)
Statistics ($10 million)
Major space renovations ($30
million)
Science renovations ($25)
Uris Hall—committee not yet
formed
Columbia campaign:
$608 million raised to date toward the A&S goal of $1 billion
$548 million earmarked for
undergraduate education
Nick concluded by
reemphasizing the extent of the support Arts and Sciences has received and
recognizing the commitment of Alan Brinkley, Robert Kasdin, and Lee Bollinger
to the A&S mission. He acknowledged
as well the responsiveness of UDAR and introduced Kathy Okun, the new UDAR
officer tasked with fundraising specifically for the Arts and Sciences.
***
Provost Alan Brinkley
announced the creation of the Science Planning Review Committee, convened to
build on the 2002 ARC science report in light of the new space detailed above. The committee, which has representatives from
A&S, SEAS, and P&S, has met once thus far. Its mandate is to address the following
questions: 1. Where do we stand in the US as a
university committed to science? 2. What
choices do we need to be making in next 5-10 years? Since we can’t do everything, what should our
priorities be? 3. How can we facilitate
interdisciplinary work (bringing together science and engineering, for example)? The committee’s report is expected by the end
of the next academic year.
Returning to the housing
question, Alan reassured the faculty that a number of efforts are being made to
find solutions to our very significant shortage, efforts that address both the
supply and the demand sides. First,
since the Morningside Heights neighborhood is saturated, the University has
begun to look elsewhere for some short term, and perhaps long term,
leasing. The new building in Riverdale
is comparable to the new housing at 110th and 103rd
streets; the units are very attractive, the transportation very easy, and the
area elementary schools very good. It is
hoped that this will be an attractive option for some faculty. The mortgage pilot will continue, and the
University is exploring the feasibility of establishing a pool of funds for
those who need help with a down payment.
We need to think about our retiree policy as well. We want to ensure fairness; at the same time
we cannot allow our housing pool to become a retirement community over
time. In the meantime, we will be
conducting a census to make sure that the occupants of University apartments
are the tenants of record. Demand will
always exceed supply, but we want to do the best we possibly can.
* * *
Turning to the meeting’s
principle concern, Dean Austin Quigley enumerated the challenges that motivated
the creation of the Presidential Taskforce on Undergraduate Education: 1. How can we link the
goals of our several undergraduate schools?
2. How should we think about the ongoing efforts to pull the College and
A&S together when the College Dean is responsible for the curriculum and
the Vice President is responsible for the faculty? 3. How
can faculty governance be enhanced as we address both of the preceding topics? Whatever structures might be suggested, it is
essential that the faculty be closely involved with their implementation.
This has been a banner year
for the College: we have had nine Rhodes finalists and two winners; seven Marshall
finalists and two winners (including one student who
won both prestigious fellowships); nineteen Fulbright finalists, fifteen of
whom have received placements thus far; we even have two (likely) presidential
candidates (Obama as an alumnus, McCain as a College parent). Our fundraising (through the Annual Fund) is
right on schedule, and both the number of gifts and the dollar value are up. Over 20 endowed chairs have come in for Arts
and Sciences during this campaign, more than half of which are from alumni and
parents. The latest exit survey
administered to the graduating class shows the highest approval rating in the
category of classroom experience. Our
students are very grateful for what they gain in their classes.
The world our students are graduating
into is changing; most students will make several career changes over their lifetimes. Given this trend, Austin wondered, what
should we be providing—a broad education? opportunities
to specialize? transferable skills? Clearly what happens outside the classroom has
become more important. Students are
looking for study abroad experiences that provide genuine immersion in another
culture. There is increasing interest in
internships; here we should play our New York hand. Through the Arts Initiative we have recently
added MOMA, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Ballet Hispanico, and the New York
City Ballet to the list of cultural institutions and performances our students
can access free of charge or at a discounted rate. Austin urged the faculty to think, as they
are teaching and developing courses, about possible links between course
material and resources outside the classroom.
It is not difficult to raise money for initiatives that give students
access to course-related activities in the city around us.
As to who will be in our
classes, it is still too early to report on the yield from this year’s
admissions process, though Austin did indicate that there were 19,000
applications from 60 countries. It is
also too early to say how the new financial aid situation has affected
admissions. Early trends suggest that
our yield may be down, but this is still only a projection. There will certainly be detailed analyses of which
(if any) constituencies go down in number.
Austin reiterated Nick’s reassurance that the enhancements in financial
aid were drawn solely from funds restricted to the financial aid
endowment. No other priorities have been
impinged upon to underwrite the new financial aid policy.
Austin reported as well on
the most recent meeting of the Ivy Deans, where the discussion of financial aid
focused on accessibility in terms of social obligation. He emphasized that the excellence of our
institution derives from the range of voices we bring to the debate; this is
the same logic that informs our faculty diversity initiative. According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Columbia has the highest percentage
among our peers of African-American students in the incoming class.
Noting that 2008 marks the 40th
anniversary of the 1968 campus protests, Austin remarked upon the strength of
the moral convictions and the emotions that continue to this day. This year also marks the 100th
birthday of Jacques Barzun. In this
connection, Austin remarked on the importance of continuing to review the Core
Curriculum. A survey of opinions on its
workings from both students and faculty (including those who do not teach Core
courses) indicates that a significant change in the Major Cultures requirement is
in order. That will be the first
specific fix. Beyond this, we need to
consider carefully the more general question of the goals of the Core
Curriculum in today’s world.
Austin thanked the faculty
for establishing a new record for the number of instructors signed up to participate
in the to Class Day exercises. Faculty
attendance is extremely important to the graduating students, ALL of whom now
attend the senior dinner and most of whom have tears in their eyes by the end
of the evening. The announcement of the
percentage of giving toward this year’s senior class gift is forthcoming. In the past three years that percentage has
been in the 80s, which has made it consistently the highest level of giving in
the Ivies.
***
Martha Howell presented the
proposal that has emerged from her working group (on curriculum), one of four
that makes up the Presidential Task Force on Undergraduate Education. The proposal has now been endorsed by the
remaining three working groups, and, since it involves recommendations in the
area of faculty governance—especially on the question of how we allocate
resources for teaching.—it is important that the faculty be informed and
invited to weigh in.
Martha identified each of the
four working groups: 1) Science Education (under the leadership of Ann McDermott);
2) International Education (chaired by Peter Awn; its work is ongoing); 3)
Classrooms and related matters (concerned with the size of classrooms, the number
of students that occupy them, enrollment patterns, and grading, and chaired by
David Weinstein); 4) Martha’s curriculum group, charged with examining the shape
of the curriculum in general: how all the
parts of the curriculum fit together and how the different student
constituencies (Columbia College, Barnard, SEAS, GS, Post-Bac, GSAS) access
those different parts. Of the total undergraduate
enrollments, only half are accounted for by Columbia College and GS students.
The membership of the
curriculum group, which was self selected from among the Task Force members,
includes: Martha Howell, Andrew Delbanco, Michele Diamond (CC student), Jean Howard,
Andrew Laine, Jacob M— (GS student), Ann McDermott, Christia Mercer, Susan
Pedersen, Austin Quigley, Robert Shapiro (who replaced Ira Katznelson), and
Elaine Sisman). Indispensable
administrative assistance was provided by Roxie Smith, Mia Mendicino, and Lucy
Drotning.
What made the task
particularly daunting was the unavailability of most of the information needed
by the group. What did exist was partial
at best and organized in ways that made the data incommensurate with comparable
information from other constituencies.
CC had the best data and was generous in providing it. There was no data at all that tracked
enrollments, grade distribution, grading patterns, or electives
across the Arts & Sciences as
a whole, which made it impossible to make valid comparisons with peer
institutions. Most of the year was spent
acquiring this information from scratch and constructing a system to make it possible
to collect.
The recommendation that comes
out of all this is for the establishment of a faculty chaired and faculty dominated
committee that would operate with the advice of the Deans of Columbia College
and the School of General Studies and the Vice President of Arts and Sciences;
there has never been a formal structure of this sort at Columbia. Working with dedicated administrative and
research support provided by the VP and Provost, the Committee’s mandate would
be: to look at curriculum both in terms of individual constituencies and in
terms of the whole; to keep the various bodies (the Core office, the respective
Committees on Instruction, the Committee on Science Instruction) in touch with
each other; to make recommendations about matters that go across schools
(grading, academic honesty, scheduling, course numbering, etc); to provide the
VP with the information he needs to think about undergraduate needs as considers
the needs of departments. Until now the
VP has had neither the data nor a clear pipeline through which to acquire
it. Pressing issues have thus either not
been taken up or addressed piecemeal.
Nor has there been any venue for following up on the recommendations of
the COSI; COSI had urged, for instance, that both the Northwest Corner building
and Manhattanville include dedicated space for undergraduate research, but there
has been no venue that for that recommendation to be translated into
action. The faculty has been
disenfranchised by absence of a committee like this. Shared control of the curriculum should be at
the center. At present we have control
over isolated pieces of the curriculum, but without full understanding of or
knowledge about what’s going on in other departments. For similar reasons, problems in cross-disciplinary
teaching go largely unaddressed, as each department and each body deliberates
more or less independently. As a result,
decisions made in one venue often disrupt what’s going on in other parts of the
curriculum. Reform of the Major Cultures
requirement needs to be thought about in terms of the departments and not just
as an aspect of the Core. Moreover,
these courses serve not only College students, but also students from SIPA,
Barnard, GS, and so on.
The only thing close to what
is envisioned here is the Academic Review Committee. ARC, it is generally agreed, is a model
faculty body. But ARC’s mandate is to
study departments one by one, program by program. It doesn’t see an undergraduate English major
in relation to the Core, for example; nor does it take up matters like grading,
scheduling, and undergraduate advising.
Above all, ARC does not report to the faculty as a whole but rather to
the Vice President, who uses its recommendations to make decisions about hiring,
etc.
The proposed committee—the
Educational Policy and Planning Committee (EPPC)—will report directly to the faculty
(or via ECFAS) about issues are under discussion or decisions taken in an
effort to keep us up to date and well informed in a way that goes beyond the
individual purview of each faculty member.
Only in this way can the faculty
be central in the planning of undergraduate education.
A lively discussion ensued:
Janet Currie: Has your committee thought about rectifying
the problem of insufficient information by adding staff dedicated to
record-keeping rather than forming another committee? And you’re specific about makeup of the
committee, but some of the departments teaching the most undergraduates (Economics,
Political Science) are not well represented.
Why disenfranchise the departments with the highest undergraduate
enrollments?
Martha Howell: On the question of information—one of our specific
recommendations is that institutional research staff be developed and
maintained. The make-up of the
committee—the task force report recommends that it be chaired by a senior faculty
member and include 5 other faculty, plus administrators (including GSAS), and
the Chairs of the Committee on the Core, the Major Cultures Committee, and the
Committee on Science Instruction. ECFAS
and the Steering Committee of Chairs would nominate the six members of the
faculty (two from each discipline). The
biggest majors (in declining order) are: Economics, Political Science, History,
and English, which account for 50% of undergraduates majors. But in terms of total enrollments, Poli Sci and
Econ represent only 10% of the whole. For
electives, students go to the humanities.
Currie: We haven’t been able to staff most of our
electives and most of our courses capped.
Your data is therefore flawed.
MH: The same is true of other
departments. All are limited by the size
of rooms and availability of staff.
Paul Anderer: What relationship do you envision between the
EPPC and ECFAS.
Shouldn’t these discussions be held right here at A&S meetings?
MH: The two committees would collaborate closely,
but how this would work is still to be worked out. The EPPC chair would be appointed by the VP
with the advice of the College Dean, ECFAS, and the Chairs’ Steering Committee
and would report regularly to ECFAS. ECFAS
could request special meetings. The hope
is that when EPPC really has this information to share, it could raise these issues
in a forum in which they could be fully discussed.
Bob Friedman: While ECFAS is a little unsure of its mission,
it is certainly not to set educational policy; it rather works to create venues
for discussion.
Richard Korb: Lecturers
should be represented.
President Bollinger offered
his thanks Martha. The trustees are genuinely impressed by all the information
the working group has acquired and communicated.
Cathy Popkin: As someone who
has served on a large number of committees at any given time, I have often felt
as if I were engaging in insider trading, rushing from meeting to meeting and
cluing each successive body in on what the others are undertaking in order to
prevent all concerned from duplicating and/or counteracting each other’s
efforts. The lack of an
institutionalized structure that would make communication and cooperation
normal operating procedure rather than a fluke is one of our most pernicious
problems. If the EPPC would address this
need, I’m for it.
***
Dean Henry Pinkham reported
on a number of matters connected with the GSAS. The rational allocation of space in the new science
building has been hampered by the fact that our programs are department
based. We would like to have interdepartmental
groups working together.
Henry also reported that GSAS
is trying to put in place combined BA/MA programs in which Columbia undergraduates
complete the requirements for an MA during a fifth year of study. The first such program is going into effect
in Poli Sci. This works especially well
for students who go abroad for a semester and thereby get to stay an extra
year.
Because he is well aware
that, while the faculty size has increased, the number of graduate students has
not, Henry is doing all he can to address the mismatch that has resulted.
Responding to the undergraduate
task force report, Henry reminded us that our students take many more courses
than those in other schools. If we need 15-20% more TAs it is because Columbia
students take six or seven courses per semester (as opposed to the four taken
by Harvard students). This creates an
intractable financial problem for the graduate school. Departments are unhappy that not there are
not enough TAs to handle the enrollments.
The CUE report had recommended that we count in terms of courses rather
than points. Admittedly, if we try to
move our curriculum toward a four course per semester limit we run into
difficulties because of the Core
Nick Dirks expressed his thanks.
The meeting was adjourned at
2:03 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Cathy Popkin
ECFAS