On Tuesday, December 6, over 100 Graduate Center faculty, staff, and students mobilized to attend a “Community Meeting” with President Robin Garrell and Provost Steve Everett. 8 days beforehand, a Statement of No Confidence in the Senior Administration was released. Addressed to Garrell, Everett and Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration Brian Peterson, the Statement has garnered over 700 signatures and an endorsement. 

After Garrell and Everett spoke, over a dozen people lambasted them on a range of issues: a dysfunctional system of reimbursements, lack of affordable food access with the cafeteria still being closed, international students being exploited and paid late (and some, not at all), no commitment from the GC administration for abortion rights, Childcare Center being unaffordable with limited hours, intensified workloads amidst reduced faculty and staff, and a general sense of deep building-wide frustration at GC management. Rough transcript below.

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Following the meeting, the GC Professional Staff Congress chapter hosted a debrief where over 30 people strategized next steps to maintain pressure on the administration to address these grievances. All agreed that a “Strategic Plan” needs to be created by GC faculty, staff, and students in the absence of a coherent vision by the administration. Brief notes below transcript.

All are welcomed to attend the GC PSC chapter’s end-of-semester happy hour this Friday, Dec 9, 6:30pm onwards at Slattery’s Pub (8 E 36th St) to continue building our Community from below.

Rough transcription:

 

President Robin Garrell (RG):

 

Have seen the statement, have heard complaints, will continue to communicate with us.

 

Aware that Business Office is not meeting needs, challenges with staff. Have been restructuring the past few weeks, committed to working on it.

 

Working remotely has curtailed communications, we miss them and they impact our ability to share info and get things done.

 

Hybrid work will continue, we need to think creatively about how we can improve the ways we’re engaging.

 

W/Steve faculty lunch groups starting in the new year. Thinking about ways to convene in the dining commons, stakeholder groups perhaps.

 

RG’s vision, she’s said in various venues, wants to communicate more holistically. Strengthen the grad center as hub for doctoral ed and research in CUNY and communicate the importance of grad ed at CUNY.

 

1. Increasing investment: insufficient base budget, we are cut to the bone — increase state investment in doctoral students, highest priority, working with chancellor. Grow research funding, at an all-time high this year. Advanced Science Research Center $100m since inception. Strengthen contracts and grants infrastructure to support that work, improve effectiveness of Research Foundation as a partner in research enterprise, she is ex officio RF board. Continuing to grow philanthropy, recruited 5 new members on Foundation board.

 

2. Strengthen consortium model for grad ed in CUNY, chancellor and EVC have reaffirmed their commitment to GC. Grad ed task force, building relationship with campus leaders, foster an understanding of how the consortium actually works. Increasing transparency. Central will engage consulting group to analyze consortium including enrollments, compensation for grad center/students. Approach masters ed as a win-win, don’t want campuses to think they’re competing with us in masters ed, can we have shared cost and shared revenues?

 

3. Grow student funding substantially, increase funding packages, support for wellness, mental health, childcare. Fellowships top priority, more and bigger fellowships. Continuing to improve student payment process, know there’s more work to do, committed to it.

 

4. Rebuild community and reenergize the GC, can start by reaffirming common purpose, educate students, prepare for diverse careers, support diversity, support cutting edge research for the public good. Increase efficiency and effectiveness of support across all units. Provost’s office has completed analysis of fellowship funds and updated departments on their funds. Created broad budget reporting system (never existed). Providing budget reports to centers and institutes to support routine administration and strategic planning. Continue to advance DEI, fostering inclusive success, being intentional about recruitment and retention. Fall 2020 report, will highlight now, broader report soon:

– Inventory of DEI related programming and resources, provided to CUNY central, will share with us.

– Incorporated DEI narrative into Affirmative Action plan.

– Formalized DEI issues in personnel processes including compensation.

 

5. Commitment to elevating our visibility and impact, make it more prominent and known about the work of our students and research, public programming, etc. Peerless in the quality of our research, commitment to social justice, and ability to prepare thought leaders.

 

RG reaffirms her and leadership team’s personal commitment to addressing issues in the statement, communicating about the work, and working with us too. Reaffirms her believe in the GC and CUNY and what we can be. We will need to work together, “move forward as a congregation” (citing Martin Ruck who used that phrase in the Senior Staff meeting last week)

 

Provost Steve Everett (SE):

 

Has wanted to know what the grad center can be, and what it has been. The core of what makes this a great place is the quality and research of our faculty. The lifeblood of this place. Sense of community also needs to be created, especially in our consortial structure, it is a challenge. But there is an incredibly strong foundation.

 

Everett misread the sense of community, did not see that his work wasn’t getting communicated out. He heard our voice telling us that he wasn’t working with us enough, has prided himself on being a participatory leader, and is really looking forward to that participatory work. Committed to building community despite these challenges. Newsletters, smaller group meetings, need to be more intentional about trying to build community and connection for us with the goals of the institution.

 

Strategic planning is a good way to build community. Started with retreat in August, David Olan shared thoughts about the last plan. Have started some focus groups, once the information from those is pulled and they will set up task force to address each component of the strategic plan, will work all of calendar year 2023.

 

Strategic plan can also be a main document to use for fundraising. This will help us reach out and find ways to talk about what the priorities are. Help us get back to a community.

 

Does Everett have a vision? He wants to hear from the community what the vision is. Initial thoughts: deep view of human justice, what are we doing about racism, anti-semitism, discrimination. GC is positioned to research and help with cultural solutions, could we form a commission on racism or discrimination. Also urban studies, urban education. International studies, can we strengthen and bring together? Technology and society/culture. Inequity broadly. Especially interdisciplinary work, that is our strength and distinguishes us from any of the other NYC universities.

 

Also concerned about the inequity of student support, has been trying to get more funding from the state. Was also concerned about getting paid on time, set up the student payment email.

Haven’t had any payment issues in the past month.

 

Thank you for bringing a lot of things to light that Everett wasn’t aware of, thought that information was getting out to everyone but realizes that it hasn’t, will remedy that moving forward.

 

Doing 8 central line faculty searches, that’s more than ever before, trying to fill some of the critical holes, let Everett know what the critical needs are.

 

Q&A:

– Conor Tomas Reed: we’ve heard empty platitudes, vague promises about future plans. 681 people signed the no confidence statement.

 

– Giacomo Bianchino (PhD, Comp Lit and PSC): international students at the GC are not being paid, still after a year; his fellowship was late every semester until this one.

 

– CUNY for Abortion Rights: their ask was for a public meeting to discuss their 11 demands that no administrator at CUNY had responded to (they emailed the GC admins and the Chancellor). Everett committed to a public meeting with CUNY for Abortion Rights.

 

– Gerry Martini: concerned with labor, workload issues when folx are not replaced.

 

– Jonathan Hanon (DGSC Co-Chair): why is the strategic planning not moving forward, why is this the first time we’re meeting since the Grad Council?

 

– DH MALS student: food service, need a food pantry, testified that they are hungry.

 

– Chris Lowrey: disconnect between people who’ve been here a long time, feels hard to listen to newcomers say that they will create community, acknowledges that the us and them is a hard dynamic, facilities used lots of their supplies (James Gallery) for covid signs + plexiglass, then got runaround from business office, and now they have no supplies and Center for Humanities is now expected to pay to replace; very painful for him to make this statement, has been here 23 yrs, every other administration has been in some way connected to CUNY or the GC, feels like we’re getting a lot of data and shoring things up, “we’re not sure your message is the same as your actions.”

 

– Alycia Sellie (faculty, library): library opened with 5 days notice, clear that the space of the building was more important than its staff, disheartened to learn via the Statement of No Confidence about similarly mishandled situations outside the library throughout the GC.

 

– Stacy Hartman (Publics Lab): lack of transparency on the Graduate Education Task Force from CUNY Central that Garrell co-chaired, what happened with that? Anxieties about Central’s commitment to the Graduate Center are exacerbated by this feeling of institution being chipped away at. 

– RG responds: the task force was supposed to be 2 years, was shortened to 1 because they need to focus on logistics (like consortial funding model) instead of big-picture. Says there is a website and that Chancellor is fully committed to the GC.

 

– Emily Drabinski (faculty, library, former/interim chief librarian): was not supported by the administration after ALA election: after right wing attacks on her as a lesbian and Marxist, the provost told her to stop tweeting. 

– SE responds: he was protecting her (boos from the crowd).

 

– Charmain Sanjamino (APO, Audiology): Audiology concerns, is the program moving to Brooklyn College?

– SE responds (misnaming her): there is discussion but no decision made, he thinks it is in line with other programs like DPT and Nursing moving away from the GC to a campus that might have better fit/facilities. 

– Follow-up comment from Chris Lowrey in the audience: those programs were short-lived at the GC. Audiology has a longer history and close connection with GC Linguistics and the comparison is not apt.

 

– Kevin Gartner (ASRC): request to increase student funding from state, why isn’t it being funded? Is there any hope?

– RG responds: Chancellor understands the gravity of this.

 

Wrap-up:

RG: budget is very concerning, deficit before she got here, did cut ECP level positions, have been protecting student fellowships, budget has been flat since 2019, it’s a huge problem that there’s extra work for those who remain, they are working to restore the budget and also working to streamline processes, can the workload be more equitable and easier to manage, even with the same staff.

 

SE: We have to balance our budget on less money each year. Can we figure out a shared services model and try to treat people in the best possible way. Food service, drives him crazy, they are working on it.

 

RG: Food service, they are working on it. They are talking to the DGSC about food pantry, working on survey from student affairs, also stopgap is other food pantries available to all CUNY students.

 

SE: Strategic plan got started a bit late but working on it.

 

RG:  Chancellor is committed to the future of the GC, she received confirmation just yesterday, she wouldn’t have come here if he was not. Our purchasing power is shrinking, GC has not been singled out disproportionately in the CUNY system, there are systemwide budget issues.

Reaffirm the commitment to move forward together.

 

~~~~~~~

 

GC Professional Staff Congress debrief afterwards:

 

– Host a GC (Real) Community Mtg at the start of the Spring 2023 semester. 

– Garrell possibly leaving?? How does this impact our campaign to address these needs? Need to power-map who to effectively pressure if RG and SE kept pointing to CUNY higher ups, also city/state legislators, mayor, governor.

– Labor actions to address our demands — take inspiration from strikes at New School, NYU, Fordham, UC system, rail workers…

– Food access: Dining Commons kitchen is in disrepair. Can we reclaim it? Set up a pantry somewhere in the building ourselves?

– Diversity hires have not been accomplished — we need to keep highlighting this.

– Offensive remarks from RG and SE — misnaming our colleagues, implying that we haven’t been working during COVID, saying that we should go to other CUNY pantries to get food.

 

Upcoming events: 

– Dec 9: DGSC Plenary @4:30pm, GC PSC happy hour @6:30pm at Slattery’s Pub

– Dec 14: Grad Council @3pm

– Dec 16: DGSC end-of-semester party