What I Hope to See from State-Wide University Faculty Senate Leadership Today

Sometime this morning, I'm going to receive a draft letter from SUNY University Faculty Senate Chair Ken O'Brien addressed to SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher and Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer Monica Rimai and cc:ed to United University Professions President Phil Smith that summarizes the consensus among the Executive Board and SUNY Senators and Campus Governance Leaders who participated in our conference call yesterday afternoon on the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (PHEE&IA). I'm immediately going to distribute it to SUNY Fredonia University Senate officers and committee chairs, along with other active participants in our asynchronous conversation here on campus, for rapid response: comments and revision suggestions from all and an up-or-down vote from the Executive Committee on the letter itself, both of which I'll return to Ken by mid-afternoon. Once he has revised the draft, sent the final version of his letter to its addressees, and distributed it more broadly, I'll make it available on our Senate web site and ANGEL group (most of which is open to all--just drill down from "Content" to "Campus Initiatives" to "2009-2010" to "SUNY Flexibility" and download away).

Forgive me for refraining to blog on the draft letter itself--transparency does have its limits, even for me--but I'll try to make up for that by continuing to analyze the larger issues and questions raised by the PHEE&IA debates, report on responses to the UFS leadership's official letter at my campus, and explore ways of putting serious pressure on all the Albany players to do right by SUNY, individually, through the Fredonia Senate, and through the state-wide UFS.

This morning, I'll offer my own personal perspective on the PHEE&IA and on the roles SUNY UFS and campus governance bodies can play in the coming weeks. Let me start with the latter topic. Unlike campus presidents and local UUP chapter officers, who are constrained by their roles to publicly adhere to the talking points generated by their superiors (ultimately Zimpher in SUNY and Smith in UUP)--which is intended on each side to create the appearance that the dictates from Albany share wide support across the system but which in fact reinforce perceptions that SUNY is riven by labor-management/faculty-administration divides and power struggles--those involved in governance at both campus and state-wide levels are relatively free to subject both SUNY and UUP talking points and leaders to critical scrutiny, to ask difficult questions, and to withhold judgment until facts, positions, arguments, and evidence are clarified. They also have bright lines of responsibility to the constituents they were elected to represent, open lines of communication with them, and a forum that allows for some measure of deliberative democracy (should the timing of Albany politics permit campus and state-wide governance bodies to meet and vote). Finally, they have more leverage right now and in the coming days and weeks than they perhaps have ever had. This is one of those rare moments where the roles and functions of governance bodies require and enable them to enter the political realm through that good ol' "public use of reason" enlightened intellectuals are supposed to regularly provide to their societies. It's a rare case where theory and practice may coincide so neatly. If the UFS could get SUNY administrators and UUP leadership focused now at the 11th hour on what they should have been doing before the PHEE&IA was a gleam in some administrator's eye--working together, negotiating, and hammering out their differences so as to present a united front on the future of SUNY--instead of this very high-stakes game of chicken playing out in the op ed pages and letters pages of newspapers across the state, on tv and the web, and in the halls of the legislature, well, then, that would be some accomplishment.

It may not be possible. It may turn out that the differences between SUNY and UUP leadership are incommensurable. For clarification of what I mean by this term, let me turn for a moment to Michael Berube's What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? (2006) for a lucid run-down of the Habermas-Lyotard debates and his proposed solution to the conundrum they pose. Berube patiently and vividly explains how he teaches the conflict, which to him is "looking more and more important with each passing year, and which, I think, poses such intractable problems for critical theory and political practice that our era may well be defined by them" (219).

I want to frame the Lyotard-Habermas debate as a metadebate about the purpose of debate itself, and I want to start off by impressing upon you the uncomfortable fact that, at this meta-level, we can say neither that the debate is resolvable nor that it is unresolvable. It is impossible not to take a position on this one, and worse, it is impossible not to take a position that betrays the nature of the debate.

In 1999 and 2001, this "framing" device met with a roomful of puzzled and/or exasperated looks, as well it should have. For, as I told both classes of students, it is a conundrum. It's infinitely recursive. I even wrote the form of the conundrum on the blackboard, and it went something like this: if you say the dispute between Lyotard and Habermas can in fact be resolved by principles on which both parties can ultimately agree, you are, in effect, awarding the palm to Habermas and the pro-consensus, pro-communicative action party. If, on the contrary, you give up and say that this is is simply a fundamental impasse and can't be resolved, you have in effect resolved it by awarding the palm to Lyotard and the pro-incommensurability, pro-heterogeneity party. And you can't say "neither of the above," because that too defaults to Lyotard. (229-230)

Here's Berube's rather elegant solution:

[S]ometimes the Lyotardians and the proponents of discurvive heterogeneity tend to walk away from a conflict and declare it unresolvable before they've really worked with it.... [W]hen I suggest that some postmodernists are too quick to declare a conflict unresolvable, I don't mean to reinstate the [Habermasian] demand that the ideal speech situation should be oriented toward consensus; I'm not even thinking about getting disparate parties to agree.... Instead, when I'm faced with the conflict between two parties with well-developed belief systems, I want to know one crucial thing above all: what internal protocols do they have that would enable them to change their minds about something? Do they have, for instance, an evidentiary standard, and if so, what do they admit as evidence? And what forms of authority are endowed with the capacity to decide such matters? Is there a Supreme Court, a council of elders, a parliament, a workers' collective, a Leviathan? Are there competing moral imperatives within one or the other belief system that would be likely to induce a person to reconsider his or her position on grounds that are intelligible within the belief system itself? (231-232)

Never mind that that's much more than one thing. Here's the key point:

It should...be possible to ask any belief system something like the following: even though I cannot change your mind about X, can you tell me what conditions would have to be met in order for you to consider changing your mind about X?

This meta-question does not produce (or expect) consensus, but it does attempt to make the grounds of dissensus intelligible. In this way it manages to uphold the values of reciprocal communication without seeking to guarantee that the goal of reciprocal communication will be a form of reciprocal understanding that leads to agreement....

When two people disagree about proposition X, they may not immediately agree to disagree, but they may find the discursive grounds on which to make themselves intelligible to the other, and they may, in the process, discover the grounds on which to make intelligible any further appeal to what the other person considers a plausible reason for reconsidering his (or her) position. (232-233, 235)

So, yeah, even if the differences between Nancy Zimpher's and Phil Smith's belief systems are incommensurable, there's still a role for the UFS to play in this Lyotard-esque situation. But this may yet end up being one of those Habermasian encounters where communication leads to understanding which leads to agreement. I believe it's important to find out where we stand. If it's the latter, great. If it's the former, and Berube's dialogue-continuing questions don't resolve the impasse, then we're back to knives out: infowars for the hearts and minds of New York state citizens, taxpayers, and their elected officials.

So let's identify some of the core issues, principles, and values at stake and in play in the PHEE&IA debates. And let's advocate for what we think is right for SUNY and New Yorkers. Let's try to bring both competing parties over to our side, find principled compromises when possible, and separate controversial from non-controversial parts of the PHEE&IA out when not. Let's take advantage of the fact that both the SUNY and UUP leadership need us to legitimize their positions and try to get them both to rethink key aspects of theirs.

How about the tuition question? Here's my position in a nutshell:

• SUNY is trying to resolve the dispute over whether the state's ceding of control over tuition to the SUNY Board of Trustees provides cover for the state to renege on its commitment to support the SUNY mission by addressing UUP's concerns in its draft Comprehensive Tuition Policy. This simply will not do. What's to stop the BOT from changing its policy once the bill is passed? No, SUNY has to sit down with UUP and negotiate amendments to Subpart A of the PHEE&IA itself, then jointly propose them to legislators on the relevant state Assembly and Senate committees. And in so doing it has to clarify the relationship between language in the bill and in the policy.
• If SUNY is unwilling to do this, then they have another alternative that might win UUP's support. (And if they are willing to do the above, they should be willing to do what follows, too.) Within their tuition policy, they need to revise the membership of their state-wide "Working Group" to include representatives from UUP's state-wide leadership and ensure that members of the "Executive Committee/Chancellor's Cabinet" in this group come from state-wide leadership in the Student Assembly, UFS, and Faculty Council of Community Colleges. Similarly, they need to make much more robust the notion of "consultation with campus constituencies" for any campus-initiated STR proposals--rather than the administration consulting with student government and whoever else they please, rewrite the policy to require that any STR proposal first go through a campus governance process, then go through a labor-management process, then go before the student government, and finally reach the college council. Only this will ensure a proper balance between the sometimes competing values of quality and access, an effective synthesis of the highest quality with the greatest access.
• Alternatively, SUNY might give up on a "special tuition rate" entirely--in both the bill and their policy--because of objections and concerns raised by UUP, students, and certain sectors within SUNY. Focus on what they can get this time, which is control, ending the tuition tax, and a rational tuition policy. But I still think they'll need a combination of all three of my alternatives to win a truce from UUP. And that truce is crucial to winning legislative support.
• If that's not enough, propose some version of the new system envisioned by the PHEE&IA as a pilot, to be embarked upon for a set time (say, 5 years), the results of which are to be compared jointly by SUNY, UUP, UFS, and SA with (say) the 1990-2010 period, and presented to the BOT, DOB, GOER, and relevant committees in both houses of the legislature, all as part of a process by which the state crafts revisions to the laws governing SUNY.

My points about Subpart B (joint ventures that involve public-private partnerships, land leases, or the like) are roughly parallel to those on Subpart A. Through a combination of revisions to the PHEE&IA itself and to the draft Comprehensive Asset Management Policy, SUNY ought to clarify that all new employees hired in such ventures are public employees and pledge to hiring only union workers, commit itself to the highest sustainability standards, and ensure that at both the campus level and the state-wide "Working Group" level, all proposals are shaped and approved, or evaluated, by leaders of all relevant constituencies--student government, faculty governance, and faculty-professional and other unions, along with administrative leaders and college councils/BOT. Only this will ensure proper levels of transparency and accountability, even before approval is sought from an asset maximization board (either the existing state one or the new state university one that would be created by pages 62-64 of the PHEE&IA), much less reporting is done to the BOT or post-audits are done by the state of NY.

And without going into any details at all on the other provisions of the PHEE&IA, let me just state baldly that the key to solving any remaining disputes can be found in the preceding paragraphs, as well as in the next few.

What I want to see from SUNY leadership, in short, is a commitment to doing everything in their power to convince all concerned parties that the system and the campuses are prepared to handle the responsibility and take advantage of the opportunities the PHEE&IA would grant it. The key part of that commitment is being open to amendments to the PHEE&IA and revisions to their draft policies that enshrine such principles as collaboration across constituencies and organizations within SUNY, power-sharing from day one and ground zero across SUNY, and robust checks and balances on all involved. If this happens, I'm ok with the fact that many things would still have to be worked out in practice. Because ultimately that experience of working together in a common cause, treating disagreements as a normal condition to be addressed openly and frankly at all levels of decision-making (not as treason or disloyalty), and trying to develop revenue streams that enhance the educational, research, and service missions of SUNY without providing rationales for further cuts in state support is all preparation, to my mind, of the larger state-wide, national, and even international consideration of the following questions that SUNY can take the lead on: namely, why public universities ought to continue to exist in the 21st century and beyond, how their roles, functions, and uses ought to be defined, what their value is (in non-economic as well as economic terms), and where their financing should come from. If all of us concerned about the future of SUNY and of public higher education were to systematically revisit these fundamental questions, consider why traditional answers to them have been losing support from citizens, taxpayers, and politicians (among others), and develop new, more compelling, answers (when needed), then we might find ways of moving out of crisis mode and into growth mode. If we can't even commit to this much, what hope is there of anyone else doing it for us?

Let's be real here: the PHEE&IA is neither panacea nor Pandora's box. Neither the best-case not worst-case scenarios for its potential impact seem very convincing. It only works as a piece of a much-larger puzzle, the other pieces of which are still being assembled as I write. So, yeah, let's all hit the reset button, roll up our sleeves, join in the assembly process, and get to work. Let's treat the people of New York as adults and level with them. Let's demand more of our elected representatives, intellectually and politically. Let's put an end to Albany-politics-as-usual. Let's call UUP's many bluffs, focus on the substantive issues, and see if we can't build bridges across what may seem at first glance to be gaping chasms.

Obviously, Ken O'Brien has to be a lot more diplomatic than I'm being here. But if he's able to state, calmly and clearly, what UFS leadership needs to see happen before it will offer its support to the PHEE&IA, and patiently explain the rationale for that provisional, qualified support to anyone and everyone who will listen, he and his colleagues may be able to help achieve what may seem unimaginable to many New Yorkers right now.

[Update 1 (3/18/10, 2:24 pm): Good job interviewing Nancy Zimpher by a U of Albany journalism class.]

What Do the Faculty and Staff at SUNY Fredonia Think of the Empowerment Act?

With the University Faculty Senate conference call only a few hours away, I've been thinking about how best to pass along the gist of what my colleagues at SUNY Fredonia have been telling me in response to the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (PHEE&IA). I haven't gotten a huge volume of feedback just yet, but what I can do is pass along the key ideas/themes in what I've been hearing, along with the number of people who have voiced them and representative paraphrases/quotations from my respondents. At the risk of misrepresenting the vehemence of support for the PHEE&IA as it is or with certain amendments, I'll turn the ideas/themes I'm hearing into questions, so as to further preserve their anonymity, and rank them by how often they were aired.

1. Should we support the PHEE&IA as it is, oppose it, or propose amendments to it? (9)

5 favor supporting it as is.
1 favors amending and supporting it.
2 favor opposing it.
1 is on the fence until after Phil Smith's visit to campus on March 24th.

2. Can we live with the consequences if the PHEE&IA doesn't become law? (6)

This breaks down into several related questions:

(a) how will the New York state government treat SUNY?

One of my colleagues talked to Jack Quinn (co-sponsor of UB 2020), who pointed out that Medicaid and P-12 will also need massive amounts of state support just to avoid draconian cuts when federal stimulus funds run out, and came away worried that SUNY is low on the totem pole compared to other worthy state programs.

"I suspect we will be in deep trouble when the federal stimulus money runs out. Ironically, if the Legislature had agreed to small incremental tuition increases ten years ago, we would not be in this situation. The Governor's tax on tuition was unprecedented and has deeply troubled students and faculty alike."

(b) what will be the effect on campuses, programs, employees?

"[I]f the act doesn't go through, academic programs will be cut to make up for the budget shortfall. That means loss of faculty jobs and secretarial jobs. It will mean (likely) fewer students which will be less money coming from [on-campus revenue generators like the book store, food service, and dormitories]. The domino effect is frightening...."

(c) what will be the effect on students?

If the expected cuts to campuses, programs, and employees go into effect, it'll become more difficult for students to graduate on time, which will mean they'll pay more tuition, anyway.

(d) what will be the effect on planning?

"I have worked in five states at great universities, and SUNY could be among the greatest. However, the system has been politicized and weakened by the inability to plan and implement innovative programs. Something must change soon."

3. When the state-wide leadership of UUP opposes the PHEE&IA, how well are they representing their members? (5)

This breaks down into several related questions:

(a) procedural: how did UUP's leadership arrive at their position? did they consult with local chapter leaders? did they seek input or feedback from delegates before the winter Delegate Assembly? did they give delegates time to consult the members they represent?

(b) content-based (representation as reflection, speaking as): do UUP's ad and advocacy campaigns represent their members' views on the PHEE&IA? do they present a persuasive case to oppose the PHEE&IA?

"The commercials that give the doom and gloom outlook of tuition getting beyond the reach of families fail to mention the LACK of tuition increase for how many years? That the miniscule plan developed two years ago went almost entirely to the state and NOT back to the campuses."

"The misleading television advertisements had NOTHING to do with representation of the membership, but are making political statements I find offensive, purposefully misleading and loaded with misinformation."

"I think this is one of the most important issues facing us and the rest of the SUNY system. I don't feel the UUP is right in this and it seems like the UFS is trying to be the voice of reason. I've had extensive experience with unions in my past career and I think the UUP as a whole feels threatened. They make good points but something has to be done, and the only solution I have seen from the UUP is to restore funding to past levels. It just ain't gonna happen, plain and simple. Especially once the stimulus money dries up."

(c) interest-based (representation as delegation, speaking for): is UUP leadership really acting with its members' best interests in mind?

"Union supporter or not, how someone can say a union is looking out for our interests as union members when programs will be cut which will mean loss of jobs, and union dues, is beyond me."

"I've heard a suspicion that UUP opposes the Empowerment Act because it may have a negative effect on the hospitals. If that's true, then UUP is doing the colleges a major disservice and is not representing us at all properly."

"And how, on God's green earth, when retrenchments start to happen and layoffs and all the rest, does the union justify their anti-employment stance? If members lose jobs because of their truculence and unwillingness to get out of the 'them/us' mentality, we are all going to lose, future generations most of all."

***

So that's it, so far. I'll add to this (and note updates below) as more comments come in.

[Update 1 (12:27 pm): In the interests of fairness, here's what I just received from UUP in Albany this morning:

Keep up the pressure: PHEEIA not a panacea

UUPers are succeeding in convincing lawmakers, colleagues, students and community members that further budget cuts and flexibility without oversight will cause SUNY more harm than good.

But we can't stop yet.

Despite signs that lawmakers are beginning to see the problems inherent in the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (PHEEIA), SUNY administrators are relentless in billing the flex legislation as a solution to New York's economic woes and as a way to strengthen public higher education. SUNY has expended a great deal of time and money in an all-out effort to sell PHEEIA as a panacea.

The union is fighting back.

In addition to statewide efforts to convince the powers-that-be to reject PHEEIA, UUP is asking chapters to step up their efforts to educate everyone on the facts of this ill-conceived legislation. And everyone means everyone. Don't assume that your colleagues or your students understand UUP's position.

Ask your students: Do you realize tuition could skyrocket? Chances are, they've seen SUNY's eye-catching propaganda and have been reeled in hook, line and sinker.

Ask your colleagues: Do you really believe SUNY will act in your best interests if your campus is able to enter into public/private partnerships without legislative oversight?

If you're looking for ideas on how to proceed, follow the lead of the UUP chapters at Albany, Farmingdale, Plattsburgh and New Paltz. Here’s what they’re doing:

• On March 18 at UAlbany, UUPers are hosting a forum on "A Progressive Vision of SUNY’s Future: Alternatives to PHEEIA." Presenters are UUP President Phil Smith and Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute. The program is from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Campus Center, Room 375.

• New Paltz UUPers, along with NYPIRG, students and community members, are rallying at noon March 24 in the Humanities Concourse to protest SUNY budget cuts and tuition increases.

• Plattsburgh Chapter President Dave Curry was a panelist during a PHEEIA forum sponsored by the campus Student Association. Curry faced off against John Homburger, VP for administration and business affairs.

• Farmingdale has distributed fliers that direct people to SaveSUNY.org, left.

What else can I do?

• Reprint UUP ads in chapter newsletters or post them to chapter Web sites. The ads are available on UUP LeaderNet or from the union’s Communications Department.

• Keep the faxes coming. Tell family, friends, colleagues and students to get the facts on PHEEIA and budget cuts and encourage them to send letters to lawmakers by going to SaveSUNY.org. The letters can also be found at uupinfo.org.

• Share the union's recommendations for revenue enhancements to help overcome New York’s fiscal crisis. Working in coalition with A Better Choice for New York, UUP and other labor and community groups crafted viable alternatives to spending cuts. For more details and an easy-to-read handout to share with lawmakers, go to www.abetterchoiceforny.org.

• Urge your members to take part in advocacy days in Albany. Coming up are NYSUT's Committee of 100 on March 16, and UUP Constituency Group Advocacy Day on March 23.

• Schedule visits with lawmakers in their district offices. Contact the union's Legislation and Communications departments if you need assistance or materials.

***

No time for a comment.]

[Update 2 (3:05 pm): Updated the numbers above. Got a very thoughtful comment from a colleague that's better to quote at length:

1. Of the 4 choices given I would have to favor opposing it. I would support something that was crafted jointly between SUNY, GOER, and UUP. However, I do not think that qualifies as favoring amending and supporting the act. I think, like we did locally with the personnel policies, the initial proposal could be considered but that this process needs to start over and happen with all parties represented from the beginning. SUNY and the Governor should not be striking back room deals. Proper protocol should be followed and basic things like involving all stakeholders from the beginning should be observed.

2. Yes.

2.a. The state already treats SUNY like the red-headed stepchild. SUNY gets cut the most and more frequently than even CUNY and the SUNY Community Colleges and certainly before Corrections or other areas of the budget. The PHEEIA will not change that, even if it becomes law. The only way to fix this problem is to remove the anti-SUNY Governor we currently have, along with any anti-SUNY legislators and anti-SUNY SUNY Board members, and get people in power positions who understand the value of a strong public higher education system outside of NYC.

2.b. Even if the PHEEIA becomes law it will not magically make money fall from the sky. It is naïve to think that the state will continue to provide funding to SUNY, even at its current low levels, if SUNY retains all of its tuition dollars. The tuition that SUNY pulls in will not be able to pay the bills either. Cuts will continue to happen.

2.c. See the answer to 2.b. These cuts will affect students' ability to graduate in four years. More troubling is that if the PHEEIA passes, economically disadvantaged people may be priced out of the higher education market completely.

2.d. Those doing the planning should understand the rules and procedures in place and play by the rules. The PHEEIA is simply those people saying I don’t understand the rules, I can’t be bothered trying to learn them, so here are rules I want to follow. It is irresponsible to do this. Any entry- to mid-level employee who refused to follow procedure and instead created their own rules would quickly be replaced. Why is it OK for the SUNY elite to collect their giant salaries while gutting the NYS public higher education system?

The 31 SUNY Presidents plus Chancellor Zimpher collectively earned $7,701,228.15 according to 2009 payroll data from SeeThroughNY.org. If SUNY is hurting so bad for money why don’t these elite earn a regular salary (capped at $150,000 perhaps?), and maybe even pay rent to live in the State owned properties and other perks they have access to, instead of threatening to cut the jobs of the common people? Capping the salaries of just that small number of elites at $150,000 would save almost 3 million dollars annually. Why hasn’t that proposal come forward? Capping dean’s salaries at $100,000 would save more than 6 million dollars annually considering the 146 deans listed on SeeThroughNY. Similarly, capping the VP salaries at $125,000 would save almost 7 million dollars annually of the 116 VPs listed. Where are the proposals to cut from the SUNY administration? Let’s retrench the deans and VPs alongside the faculty.

3. Of those who are informed of all of the issues, I would say pretty well. Of those who want to trust the SUNY administration blindly, or who are pushing a privatization agenda, probably poorly.

3.a. I would counter with a question: How did the SUNY elite and the Governor arrive at the PHEEIA? Did they consult the citizens of NY? Did they consult the employees of SUNY? Did they consult the unions representing the employees of SUNY? Did they consult the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations?

3.b. Do the SUNY pro-PHEEIA ads and anti-union propaganda represent the views of NYS citizens? Do they present a persuasive case to support the PHEEIA? The SUNY elite are acting like the spoiled child who when things aren’t going their way takes their ball and goes home. If they don’t get their way (passing the PHEEIA) they will take their ball (jobs) and go home. The SUNY elite need to understand that a public higher education institution is a PUBLIC institution, not a private one. If they want to work for a private institution they should apply at one, not try to gut SUNY and turn it into a private institution.

3.c. Are the SUNY elite really acting with NYS citizens' best interests in mind? Remember, the poor and disadvantaged are citizens just like the wealthy and privileged. This argument is falling along class lines, with the SUNY elite wanting to become more elite and the union trying to keep SUNY a public institution. We are allowing a few highly-paid people to lay the groundwork for removing the one chance at social-economic advancement that many NYS citizens have. Pretty soon the only place the poor and disadvantaged of NY will be able to go is to prison. Maybe some people don’t have a problem with that, but I do.

I agree that something needs to be done and that we can’t just expect money to come falling from the sky. However, whatever proposal that comes forth must be a product of at least three groups working collaboratively from the beginning: SUNY, the unions representing SUNY employees, and the GOER.

Keep those comments coming!]

How to Avoid the Tuition Trap: A Response to Christopher Newfield

In Unmaking the Public University, Christopher Newfield asks the fundamental question at the heart of UUP's opposition to the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (PHEE&IA):

If the university is just another cog in an economic system that is about getting ahead, charging as much as you can, maximizing your returns, and buying your way to the top, why should the general public pay for it? Why should the general public, whose income has stagnated for thirty years, give more taxes to a system that lets the top 1 percent purchase a VIP seat, or that favors applicants from six-figure families? (182)

His question builds on what he calls "the tuition trap":

The public is worried about college affordability, but its public university raises its fees. The university thus implies it does not actually depend on public funding, since it has the private resource of higher tuition at its fingertips. The university may also deepen this impression--that it can do without more public funding--by saying how good it is in spite of public funding cuts. Even worse, it may declare strong public funding a thing of the past in order to justify tuition increases or expanded fund-raising. Taxpayers then reasonably ask, if the university does not need more money, why does it keep raising fees? And since it keeps raising fees, why should we give it more public money? (182)

In a recent post at remaking the university, Newfield turned his answers to these questions from last November into talking points for the March 4 protests. He correctly points out that at the University of California tuition increases don't actually succeed in raising much revenue (relative to the overall budget) and that the high-tuition/high-aid model puts universities on an accelerating treadmill that is not only impossible to keep up with for most, but also has real effects on access and affordability. The higher the tuition, the more student financial aid has to be increased, the more real student costs increase (even for those receiving financial aid), and the more in debt more students get (cf. Unmaking the Public University 187-189, 226-227).

Newfield is not the only analyst to have wrestled with the "tuition trap." Business officers and economists have been tracking it for years, as well. In a June 2005 study of tuition discounting from 1989-2004, Loren Loomis Hubbell and Lucie Lapovsky concluded:

Over the past 15 years, we have seen a dramatic rise in discounting. The stasis we see today could mean many things. There are several potential interpretations of willingness to pay and the effective use of enrollment management strategies to better maximize net tuition revenues. However, we continue to worry whether net tuition maximization and the commercialization of competitive pricing will become the next barrier to access. [my emphasis] Financially, greater stability in net tuition revenues will lead to greater stability for many institutions in budgeting and planning for the future.

While we believe that this is likely to be the case for the independent institutions, the outlook for public institutions could be quite different. The level of predictability of state support at these institutions has declined greatly in the past few years, leading to often-significant increases in tuition. The public sector is looking to understand how to effectively use tuition discounting to shape their classes and achieve their revenue goals. The action in tuition discounting will move to this sector of higher education. One area to watch: how the reduction in the price difference between public and independent higher education affects access. [my emphasis]

The higher public tuition levels go, the more attractive private colleges and universities look--especially to students from disadvantaged groups who can get into them--due to their large endowments and small student bodies that enable them to offer larger tuition discounts than public universities (or even go completely need-blind in admissions). But not everyone can get into highly selective colleges and universities--and most are not prepared to expand to solve the access problem generated by rising tuition at public universities.

That the interrelated crises of quality, affordability, and access are coming to a head was addressed directly by Paul Fain in The New York Times last November and indirectly by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) in their February summary of how federal stimulus funds have been mitigating state funding declines across the country. But nobody has put the problem (and the solution) better than Newfield himself:

high-quality, large-scale public education requires strong public funding.... [H]igh-quality education for elites is cheap, since there are not that many students involved. High-quality education for the great majority is expensive, and private sources are unable to support it....

Administrators looked to private funding to solve the problems that the ascent of private over public funding helped create. The fact remains that private funding can build great universities for elites, but private funding cannot and will not do the same for society's majority....

[A]ccess can coexist with quality only by restoring and increasing public funding for the public university. Private sponsorship can support novel and important programs on a limited scale; in public education, it is not enough to fund high-quality core operations. High-quality mass higher education requires mass public funding: there is no way around how the numbers work.... It is only through public funding that the whole society can contribute to forming the next generation, rather than relying on the generally stagnant incomes of their students' parents.... (Unmaking 193-194, 271, 273)

So if I agree with Newfield's analysis of the "problem with privatization" at UC and his proposed solutions, how can I have been offering my qualified support for the PHEE&IA all month? Why do I believe that it actually represents SUNY's best hope for avoiding the tuition trap?

First, we need to understand that total state support for public higher education is indispensable. Check out the raw totals and percentage increases/decreases in recent years. While state support for SUNY operations will fall below $1B if the Governor's cuts go through, total support for higher education crossed the $5B mark. If all of that indeed went to SUNY (obviously, some goes to CUNY), you'd need an endowment on the order of $100B to comfortably replace that chunk of change. That's why it's so difficult to scale the elite privates' funding model up. (More on endowments soon.)

Second, we need to understand that total state support for public higher education remains a bargain for taxpayers in the vast majority of states. Check out the charts for how much each state spends per $1000 in personal income and per capita in FY09 and FY10. You'd be surprised how cheap NY's investment in public higher education really is. But you shouldn't be. The more you spread around the costs of higher education, the less it costs each person. That's just simple math. What we really need, then, is a base of federal support for public higher education that states and systems can build on. (But that's a subject for another post.)

Third, in the absence of that federal commitment or of widespread citizen/taxpayer/student pressure for it, and in the face of declining state revenues (5 straight quarters in NY, according to the Rockefeller Institute) and an end to federal stimulus funding to the states, there is very little chance that New York won't cut public higher education as much as it can in 2011-2012. To keep the shock to the system from being fatal, there is very little chance that New York won't raise tuition, as governors and legislatures always have in financial crises--haphazardly, as part of an austerity program, and the result of horse-trading and political negotiations, rather than any kind of strategic planning process or education-centered budgeting program. Whether or not the PHEE&IA becomes law, then, we're very likely to see reduced state support and higher tuition in SUNY's immediate future. (While I'm hopeful that reiterating the argument that public higher education can drive regional and state-wide economic development will free up some new state funding sources for SUNY, I'm not holding my breath. More on this topic later, too.) Without the PHEE&IA, there's nothing stopping the state from sweeping tuition dollars into the general fund to close the ever-growing projected deficits in New York.

Fourth, the PHEE&IA lays the groundwork for a better way of determining SUNY's tuition and enrollment policies and for understanding what they can and can't accomplish. With the power to determine these policies comes greater responsibility--for transparency, accountability, and results. Last week, I argued that critics of the PHEE&IA are completely missing the boat when it comes to SUNY's draft tuition policy. Today, however, I want to suggest that the SUNY comprehensive tuition policy draft doesn't go nearly far enough in recognizing and avoiding the tuition trap that Newfield has identified. The more the procedural checks and balances remain within the SUNY administration's and trustees' purview, the greater the probability they'll walk right into the tuition trap.

What SUNY needs is to really hit the reset button when it comes to setting tuition and enrollment policy. That means bringing in constituencies with a variety of interests to act as watchdogs on each other from the very start of the process. Students' primary concern is access and affordability, although they, too, care about quality. Faculty's interests are primarily about quality, although they, too, care about access and affordability. Alumni's primary concern is quality, although as parents they may well end up caring more about access and affordability. Administrators can gain a lot more than they lose by bringing them in from the start, via student government, faculty governance/union leadership, and alumni associations, at both campus and state-wide levels. For one thing, doing this would minimize the possibility of the kind of student and faculty protests that we saw on March 4th in California. If representatives from these various groups were working together from the start in developing a strategy for enhancing SUNY's quality, accessibility, and affordability, which would end with the presentation of a united front when it comes to the balance of taxpayer and student/family support sought in a given year, not only would the decision-making process be improved, but its legitimacy and efficacy would also be enhanced.

Who better to make sure that SUNY stays true to its mission than the very people and groups most invested in its success? The PHEE&IA can provide an opportunity for SUNY to avoid the tuition trap, learn from successes and mistakes in other states and systems, and set a national standard for inclusiveness in financial decision-making. It's up to SUNY student, faculty, and alumni leaders to make sure the administration and trustees understand this--and act on it.

[Update 1 (7:34 am): It's worth noting that my proposal would also go far to closing the trust gap that the SUNY/UUP debates reveal. The relative silence of faculty governance across SUNY has enabled many to assume the dispute is purely and simply between management and labor, administration and faculty. In the conference call today among governance leaders, I'm going to be advocating for the UFS to take a public stand in its own, independent, analysis of the PHEE&IA.]

[Update 2 (9:24 am): Looks like Newfield and I aren't alone in our desire to see the public matter in public higher education. Check out SUNY Plattsburgh professor Colin Read's case for SUNY as an engine of economic development and the various perspectives in the March 14th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, particularly Twain scholar and Pitzer president Laura Skandera Trombley's.]

[Update 3 (3/16/10, 3:27 pm): It's worth noting that the draft tuition policy defines the "Executive Committee/Chancellor's Cabinet" as "Advisory groups made up of representatives from senior management at SUNY System Administration, Faculty Senate, Faculty Council of Community Colleges and Student Assembly" (2). I'd like to see these organizations, a SUNY alumni organization, and UUP made equal partners with the SUNY System Administration.]

[Update 4 (3/26/10, 2:54 am): Smart analysis of the tuition trap and strategies to avoid it by Westminster College president Michael Bassis.]

Game On! The SUNY University Faculty Senate Prepares to Enter the Empowerment Act Debate

The leadership of the state-wide University Faculty Senate for the State University of New York has been busy researching the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act (PHEE&IA) and the debates it has engendered. Their position since late January has been that without knowing what SUNY's tuition-enrollment and asset-management policies actually are, they can't objectively analyze or evaluate the PHEE&IA, much less take a clear-cut position on it that can be easily communicated to legislators. Further, they would prefer that UFS committees and representatives get a chance to deliberate over any recommendation or proposal as to what position the body should take on the PHEE&IA. However, the next UFS plenary isn't until the 3rd week of April. Since it's possible that key votes in the state legislature will have already taken place by then, the UFS leadership is beginning a decision-making process that will put them in a position to take action as needed (perhaps in the form of a resolution that's voted on by mail or electronically?).

If you visit the SUNY Fredonia University Senate page devoted to the PHEE&IA, you can download letters from UFS chair Ken O'Brien, along with a very useful chart summarizing SUNY's and UUP's positions on the various components of the bill, which includes comments from UFS leaders on the components and positions. O'Brien has been in regular communication with leadership on both sides of the debate, and will no doubt be in much more in the coming weeks. He's seeking input from university faculty senators and campus governance leaders across the system in a conference call tomorrow afternoon.

So what role should UFS play in the coming weeks? Personally, I think they ought to indicate clearly

• what components of the PHEE&IA and SUNY policies they support;
• what components of the PHEE&IA and SUNY policies they oppose;
• what components of the PHEE&IA and SUNY policies they would need to see revised in order to support them, with specific revision proposals.

In other words, as we get closer to crunch time, it's high time to see if UFS can't broker some kind of principled compromise between SUNY and UUP that would allow legislators to divide the PHEE&IA into non-controversial and controversial parts for separate votes.

I'll have more on what I think UFS ought to propose over the course of this week.

Go Blue! Hamilton Goes Need-Blind

Thought I'd pass along the news from Inside Higher Ed: my alma mater, Hamilton College, has invested the $2M it will cost per year to go completely need-blind in its admissions policies. I wonder if there are any long-range plans to grow the college, should this policy attract more of the best students in the state and country to Clinton?

[Update 1 (10:07 am): Check out the average financial aid package that Hamilton is able to offer. The endowments of private colleges like Hamilton are so high (but not even stratospheric by the standards of the Billion Dollar Endowment Club) that they can afford to discount tuition and fees so that larger numbers of students pay less than 40% of the $50K cost per year of attendance. Just imagine what kind of aid SUNY could offer if they changed their structures to make it easier for privates to go public and pool their endowments in a single SUNY endowment.]

On "Dismantling" SUNY: A Response to Lawrence Wittner

On March 8th, SUNY Albany Professor of History Lawrence Wittner posted "Dismantling SUNY, America's Largest Public University System" on the History News Network site. In it, he argues that the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act "set[s] the stage for dismantling America's largest public university system" by "enabl[ing] New York State to walk away from its obligation to fund public higher education and usher in a struggle for survival among individual campuses." If he's right that the PHEE&IA is a stalking horse for privatizing SUNY, then I would join him (and Phil Smith) in opposing the bill. Let's examine his argument, shall we?

After briefly tracing the long-standing and accelerating disinvestment by New York in its own state university, Wittner claims:

the Empowerment and Innovation Act takes things a giant step further, for it grants authority to the SUNY administration to raise tuition on SUNY campuses to any level it pleases. This will enable campuses to recoup losses in state revenue by charging much higher tuition than in the past. In short, the cost of public higher education will be shifted from the state to students and their parents.

What a tangled web of assumptions to unweave here!

ASSUMPTION 1: The PHEE&IA grants unlimited authority to the SUNY administration... Well, not quite. Let's look at the key portion of Subpart A of the bill:

(i) Commencing with the two thousand ten--two thousand eleven academic year, the president of any state-operated institution, in consultation with the respective student government and upon the recommendation of the respective college council, may recommend to the trustees, and the trustees shall be authorized to implement, differing rates of annual tuition upon the basis of campus or program:

(1) for students who are New York state residents in courses of study leading to undergraduate, graduate and first professional degrees; provided, however, that on or before June fifteenth, two thousand ten, the trustees shall promulgate guidelines outlining the criteria such campus or program must meet in order to qualify for differential rates. Such criteria shall include, but not be limited to, program cost, program mix, need, comparison with peer programs or campuses, economic elasticity, impact on access, fairness and measures to ensure that students are not steered toward certain courses of study based on ability to pay; and

(2) for all students who are not New York state residents, provided that the trustees shall establish maximum percentage enrollment limitations for such students.

(ii) Notwithstanding the foregoing, any tuition increases implemented pursuant to this subparagraph, other than pursuant to clause (i) of this subparagraph[,] shall not exceed two and a half times the five-year rolling average of the higher education price index. (page 56, lines 9-31)

Yes, there are serious problems with some of this language, which I'll get to in a moment. But what's worth emphasizing here is that the authority of "the SUNY administration" is limited in several ways:

(a) A campus president needs to consult with the local student government and follow a recommendation from the local college council before proposing a campus-specific tuition increase to the Board of Trustees. While this provision ought to be strengthened by adding in a requirement to consult with the local campus governance body--the University Senate, in SUNY Fredonia's case--note the several limitations on campus-level administration. Even the bounciest of rubber-stamps would find it difficult not to act as a responsible check-and-balance in the event of a proposed special tuition increase from that campus's administration. Student government representatives would run election campaigns based on their being a watchdog for student interests; peer pressure and self-interest, even more than the threat of losing their seats, would motivate them. Similarly, college councils would not want a reputation in their local community for bleeding students and their families dry.

(b) The Board of Trustees must establish guidelines based on state-mandated criteria for any differential increase in tuition. The BOT is a governor-appointed body equivalent to the Board of Directors of a corporation. They are distinct from--or to put the point more strongly, have authority over--the administration of the system and of every campus within it. Everyone in administration, from the Chancellor on down to the lowliest of management-confidential personnel, answers to them. While it's true that the SUNY BOT is only as good as the people on it, it's encouraging that Ron Ehrenberg was just named to it. Sure, we could get a new governor who wants to populate the board with political hacks, Wall Street hacks, and others with little experience in or commitment to public higher education, but passing the bill would put pressure on future governors to put people in place who are willing and able to live up to their responsibilities. In fact, I'd love to see the bill revised to depoliticize BOT appointments as much as possible, say by appointing a panel of recognized national experts to advise the governor and the state senate on BOT appointments. But whether or not we get this, it's worth emphasizing the BOT has to follow the state-mandated criteria laid out in lines 20-24 of the bill when judging all special tuition requests.

(c) The SUNY administration has already drafted a comprehensive tuition policy that further limits its authority. I quoted from the section laying out the policy's purpose a few days ago, but there's much more on structures and criteria in it, as well. Let's focus on structural constraints here. The policy creates a working group on comprehensive tuition policy, co-chaired by the heads of the academic and budget arms of SUNY System Administration, whose "membership shall include appropriate representation from all SUNY sectors, including system administration, the Executive Committee/Chancellor's Cabinet, as well as faculty and student representation" (3). Furthermore, the SUNY budget office is charged with developing implementation procedures "in cooperation with the Community College Business Officers' Association (CCBOA), the State University Business Officers' Association (SUBOA), the State University of New York College Admissions Professionals (SUNYCAP), and the State University of New York Financial Aid Professionals (SUNYFAP, Inc.)" (3). Thus, there are plenty of channels for campuses, organizations, and constituencies within SUNY to influence the formation and implementation of tuition policy from year to year, should the bill become law.

(d) The bill requires semi-annual reporting from SUNY to the senate finance committee, assembly ways and means committee, and the director of the budget of all state allocations, non-state revenues, expenditures, programs and activities funded via differential tuition, and enrollments--in total and by campus. Not quite a "When the cat's away, the mice will play" situation. If any on the state side smell something fishy, they can pounce.

In short, "the SUNY administration" has built in plenty of checks and balances, with a wide range of organizations brought in to take over the roles currently played by the state legislature. State roles are redefined, not eliminated; after tracking how well SUNY is handling its new responsibilities, the state can always propose new changes to the education and other laws governing SUNY.

ASSUMPTION 2: The PHEE&IA grants unlimited authority to the SUNY administration to raise tuition... Nothing in the bill or in the comprehensive tuition policy draft prevents SUNY from deciding to keep tuition levels the same from one year to the next--or even lower them in a given year. While the focus is on the means of deciding whether and how much tuition ought to increase, tuition increases are not required. Thus, if the state decides to maintain or even increase its investments in SUNY, we ought to see very low to no tuition increases, or even tuition decreases.

ASSUMPTION 3: The PHEE&IA grants unlimited authority to the SUNY administration to raise tuition to any level it pleases. This is a reference to the gap in the cap created by the insertion of "other than pursuant to clause (i) of this subparagraph," which exempts differential tuition from the HEPI-multiplier cap the bill otherwise establishes. More on that in a second, but let's first address the implication that "the SUNY administration" can raise tuition on what amounts to a whim. Here are those criteria from the comprehensive tuition policy that I alluded to earlier:

• Information on whether or not the state intends to provide increased funding to cover increased cost associated with as growth in mandatory expenses and the recent history of state funding of mandatory expenses.
• HEPI for the current year in which a GTR [General Tuition Rate] or STR [Special Tuition Rate] is being considered to help determine the minimum tuition increase that would cover inflation experienced by the system.
• Any additional system-wide mandates[,] such as federal compliance requirements, not covered by HEPI.
• State and national economic indicators such as the growth or decline in unemployment rates, growth or decline in the housing market, and other standard indicators of economic health.
• The availability of all sources of need[-]based student financial aid.
• Trends/data concerning campus philanthropic efforts in support of student financial aid.
• Maintaining affordable access to SUNY by current and future students, including but not limited to low and middle income students.
• In no case, shall the average GTR plus STR rate increase exceed a total tuition ceiling of __% in any given academic year in the event the state provides increased funding to cover increased cost[s] associated with a growth in mandatory expenses, and __% in the event the [s]tate does not provide such increased funding.
• With regard to an STR proposal, the extent to which GTR does or does not cover the costs associated with the specific opportunity for growth or improvement.
• Market conditions and the extent to which such conditions would or would not support an increase in either the GTR or a specific STR proposal.
• Other factors that would support fair, equitable and responsible comprehensive tuition policy. (3-4)

These criteria would have to be followed at every level, from the campuses to system administration, to the Chancellor, to the BOT. Moreover, even though the bill provides a great amount of flexibility to SUNY to adjust tuition by program as well as by campus, the definitions of GTR and STR limit that flexibility in serious ways:

a. General Tuition Rate (GTR): The base rate of tuition payable by all undergraduate, graduate, resident, and non-resident students attending a SUNY institution.

b. Special Tuition Rate (STR): An additional tuition charge payable by all students at a particular SUNY institution, the purpose of which is to invest in a unique opportunity for growth or improvement, the cost of which is not covered by the GTR.

Rather than raising tuition more on a relatively small number of students (relative to the total enrollment at a given campus), which the bill permits, the SUNY policy proposes spreading the costs of particular investments in growth or improvement across the entire student body.

However, there are some tricky details that need working out. Although the gap in the 2.5-times-HEPI cap appears to be eliminated by the policy, take a closer look at the language: "the average GTR plus STR rate increase" shall not increase beyond a fixed percentage rate cap (still to be determined). Right now, it's left implicit that the policy has to conform to the provisions of the bill. It should be made explicit that GTR increases are limited by the "2.5-times-HEPI" rule. Two examples will show why.

Let's say the HEPI is low in a given year, like 1% (for the sake of easy math). In that case, the bill caps any GTR increase at 2.5%. But since undergraduate resident, undergraduate non-resident, graduate resident, and graduate non-resident rates are already different, and the policy permits different increases for these different categories of students, in practice we're likely to see increases in undergraduate resident tuition lag behind other increases. So the "average GTR increase" is likely to end up being lower than the 2.5-times-HEPI cap. (For example, if SUNY wants to be competitive on pricing relative to the state-wide competition for undergraduate resident tuition, they could limit an increase in that category to .5% while going the full 2.5% on the other three categories, thus resulting in an average GTR increase of 2%.)

By the same token, the fixed total percentage rate increase would quickly become a more restrictive cap than 2.5-times-HEPI one once the HEPI goes above 3% or so. The closer HEPI approaches that cap, the less likely any STR proposals will be made, much less approved. And once HEPI exceeds it, the average GTR would have to decrease for any STR to be possible.

SUNY should explicitly guarantee that they won't exceed the "2.5-times-HEPI" cap when setting the GTR. Otherwise they open themselves to the critique that they're sneaking in a gap in the cap via the general tuition rate, even as they're limiting the degree to which a campus can seek to exploit the gap in the cap via special tuition rate proposals. Even more urgent is the need for SUNY to advocate for amendments to the bill itself to bring it more in line with what they actually want with regard to tuition policy. In short, they need to eliminate any possibility of whims influencing the setting of tuition. To make a good-faith effort to address concerns raised by Wittner (and UUP, PSC-CUNY, and NYSUT), they need to attempt to modify the bill, not just develop, revise, and gain approval for their recommendation on BOT policy.

ASSUMPTION #4: The PHEE&IA would allow SUNY to rapidly raise tuition to rates equivalent to the most expensive private colleges and universities in the world. Note how Wittner skillfully allows his readers to make this assumption for themselves:

what would the effect of this legislation be upon students? For hundreds of thousands, it would put a college education beyond reach. Currently, yearly undergraduate tuition at private colleges in New York State and elsewhere is running in the $38,000 to $41,000 range. At SUNY, undergraduates are paying $4,970 a year in tuition. Most of them cannot afford an increase to the private school rate, especially when one considers that another $14,000 or so must be added to the annual bill at a private or public college to cover room, board, and fees. How many families can afford paying over $200,000 to send each of their children to a four-year college? And how many, after that, can afford to send their children on to graduate or professional school?

What Wittner leaves unsaid in this paragraph is that no public system in the 45 states that have similar tuition policies as proposed by the PHEE&IA have raised tuition this fast or this high. The legitimate question of how much students and families should be asked to contribute toward supporting an education, that, on average, helps college graduates earn over the course of their working lives something on the order of $1M more than high school graduates is passed over completely. As is the equally legitimate question of what returns the state and its citizens and taxpayers get from their investments in public higher education. Instead, we get the bald assertion that "hundreds of thousands" would be denied access to higher education if the PHEE&IA becomes law. Over what time frame are we talking here? Is there nothing that can be done to preserve access to SUNY?

Of course there is. Yet not only does Wittner fail to acknowledge that SUNY proposes setting up a financial aid system specifically to preserve access for at-risk students, but also that New York state remains free to focus its efforts on supporting campus and system infrastructures (including personnel costs) and expanding its own student financial aid efforts, thereby making tuition increases unnecessary (or at least helping to minimize them). This leads to his next huge assumption.

ASSUMPTION #5: The state's goal is to reduce operating budget support for SUNY as low as politically feasible, with the ultimate aim of zeroing it out. If so, wouldn't the state be putting its weight behind creating and funding a SUNY-wide endowment, of such size as to allow interest and investment returns to replace lost state support? At SUNY's current size and configuration, we're talking a $20B endowment that would devote 5% to SUNY operations each year. It would have to be about $100B to allow SUNY to be completely self-supporting. We're not talking chump change here. It's going to take a long time for SUNY to raise that kind of money on its own.

Of course, it's possible that the state's agenda is to force SUNY into layoffs, retrenchments, and the selling, closing, and merging of campuses, so that the cost of and timeframe for privatization are minimized. That's why it's so important for all who care about SUNY's future to publicly confront their state legislators with tough questions about their intentions and plans for SUNY. Just how much educational capacity are they out to destroy in New York state? Just how much slack do they expect students and families to pick up?

If this assumption turns out to be even partially true, it's obvious that we have a much bigger problem than the PHEE&IA on our hands. It's not that the bill "allows" or "enables" the state to walk away from public higher education; if that's the state's intention, it will act on it until the citizens it's supposed to represent stand up and stop them--or replace the current representatives who support this agenda. More on this point in my conclusion.

ASSUMPTION #6: The other provisions of the PHEE&IA that streamline and depoliticize the process for evaluating public/private partnerships, land leases, and other potential revenue streams are so ripe for mismanagement, misuse, and mission erosion that they'll end up decreasing rather than increasing SUNY revenues. It's almost as if Wittner is so convinced that SUNY can't learn from other systems' mistakes or help campuses adjust best practices to our own local conditions--that failure, abuse, and corruption are inevitable results of the bill's shifting and redefining oversight responsibilities rather than the responsibilities of campuses and the system to avoid--that he'd rather keep the same oversight system that he claims has authorized ventures that "have resulted in multi-million dollar losses" than even consider a change.

To his credit, Wittner does begin to approach the key questions raised by the debate over the PHEE&IA toward the end of his essay: what should public higher education be and do, whom should it serve, and how should it be structured and financed in the twenty-first century? But he focuses so narrowly on alternate mechanisms for funding SUNY that he short-circuits careful consideration of them:

Of course, there is an alternative--and better--means of funding public higher education. And that is to pay for it through a revised tax structure. Over the past three decades, in an attempt to create a "business-friendly" environment, taxes on New Yorkers with the highest incomes were cut from over 15 percent to less than half that rate. Why not restore some progressivity to the tax structure? According to the highly-respected Fiscal Policy Institute, raising taxes by only 1 percent on New York's millionaires would yield $1 billion or more in state revenues.

Another way to fund public higher education lies in collecting the sales tax that already exists on stock transfers. Currently, New York State rebates the entire sales tax to Wall Street firms. Reducing that rebate from 100 percent to 80 percent would yield about $3.2 billion a year in state revenue. Given the fact that, in 2009, Wall Street profits were $58 billion--three times the previous posted record--paying a small portion of the sales tax on stock transfers should not be an onerous burden.

Left unsaid is the fact that these two reforms wouldn't even come close to closing the current state budget deficit facing New York, much less the much higher projected ones for later academic years. Just how much of these revenues could SUNY legitimately expect to see in the near- and medium-term?

In the end, then, I remain unconvinced by Wittner's claim that "the Empowerment and Innovation Act would concentrate income at some more powerful, appealing SUNY colleges, while leaving other campuses to wither and die." SUNY's tuition policy seems carefully crafted to ensure that all campuses have their basic needs covered by a combination of state allocations and the GTR, while campuses that make powerful appeals with broad support from on-campus and local constituencies--on STR to the BOT and on other non-state revenues to the state asset maximization review board--and follow through on them with smart execution of their strategies will be able to invest in their mission to provide high academic and educational quality at affordable prices. Even if some universities and colleges do better than others in the system at handling the responsibilities and taking advantage of the opportunities that the PHEE&IA offers them, I don't see the harms Wittner envisions as plausible risks. More to the point, the budget typhoon heading New York's way in 2011-2012 is no conjurer's trick.  I still haven't heard a convincing argument why we shouldn't be doing everything in our power to improve the PHEE&IA, to address legitimate objections, and to get an insurance policy in place in case reality turns out to be worse than projected. To head off that eventuality, we'd be much better off developing arguments convincing to everyday New Yorkers for growing SUNY than in pretending that killing the PHEE&IA would stop or even slow the momentum toward dismantling SUNY generated by New York governors and legislatures over the course of decades. How to reverse this inertia is the primary political problem facing everyone who wants to see New York's state university reach its 100th anniversary as a public higher education system.

On Raising Enrollments: A Response to Arthur Hauptman

Over at Inside Higher Ed, Arthur Hauptman wonders why more public higher education systems haven't more systematically tried to raise enrollments during the downturn, rather than capping them and raising tuition. If other SUNY schools are anything like mine, they have been raising enrollments, at least relative to the targets SUNY has established. The point is that we're just about reaching the point where the costs of this strategy start to outweigh the benefits. And if New York state keeps cutting us at the rate and scale they have been of late, we're running out of good or even decent options--fast. We'll muddle through this year and students won't feel the cuts all that much, but something has to give in 2011-2012. That's why I've been so adamant about sounding the alarm lately. Everyone in Albany and across the state needs to face reality and think big about the future of SUNY. We need to debate the fundamental issues, not just ticky-tacky talking points. Let's get to it, people!

[Update 1 (3/10/10, 6:44 am): Our campus is involved in a master planning effort right now, taking a comprehensive look at how we are using our facilities and physical plant and imagining what kinds of learning environments and infrastructures we want to provide for our students. One thing I've already recognized as a result of my limited participation in and knowledge of this process is how little space we have at SUNY Fredonia--whether in classrooms, office space, and student housing--and how we've had to shoehorn ourselves into existing, and in many cases outdated, structures. Without investment in these areas, we simply can't expand enrollments much further.]

[Update 2 (3/15/10, 12:31 pm): Dean Dad offers some more reasons there are built-in limits to raising enrollments.]

Truth in Advertising; Or, Don't Send Out a Paper Airplane that Can Be Shot Down by a Spitball or Four

"DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE ACT. KEEP SUNY PUBLIC!"

Looks like the Full Metal Archivist and I can't even take onechan, imoto, and their friend out to brunch at the local diner after a sleepover party without having our stomachs assaulted by a "Paid Political/Advocacy Advertisement" with UUP and NYSUT logos on it, "Paid for by United University Professions," in today's Buffalo News. The stick to Jonathan Epstein's well-researched carrot on the economic impact of state investments in SUNY's medical schools like Buffalo HSC, this UUP ad directs readers to go to SaveSUNY.org and "Tell NY lawmakers to keep SUNY public." Unfortunately, rather than presenting a hard-hitting case outlining the danger to SUNY's future posed by the Governor's cuts and persuading taxpayers to pressure their representatives to keep investing in SUNY, the rest of the ad repeats the same tired talking points, leavened this time with even more misleading rhetoric and strangely out-of-date content. It's even more in need of a rewrite than the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act itself.

So let's go "FACT" by fact on UUP's critique of the PHEE&IA, starting with:

FACT: The Act would not produce additional revenue for SUNY. The state would pay less; students and parents would pay a lot more.

Here's how this one should read:

EDUCATED GUESS: We're pretty sure that with state revenues declining, we can't count on state legislators to restore the Governor's cuts. Since in this economy we're afraid to appeal directly to the citizens and taxpayers of NY to stand up for SUNY, nor do we trust them to be moved by arguments in favor of finding efficiencies elsewhere in the state budget and making NY's tax system more progressive, let's pass over our effectively conceding the point that the state is likely to cut SUNY this budget year no matter what. It's been doing that for a generation and more and none of our lobbying has done much of anything to stop or even slow it, so why should this year be any different? OK, then, how do we get the attention of students and parents? How about scaring them into believing the PHEE&IA will lead to immediate and massive tuition increases? Great, let's run with that!

How is this a winning strategy? All this talking point does is put UUP in a position to say, "We told you so" if the PHEE&IA passes and tuition increases are offset by state cuts. That's useful--not! What students, parents, and SUNY need are good reasons from UUP that the state should invest in public higher education, irrespective of whether the PHEE&IA passes. They need to understand that continued state support--in the form of salaries and benefits for SUNY employees to help keep SUNY affordable, as well as improved financial aid for students (including both grants and fairer access to cheaper credit) to help keep SUNY accessible--are necessary if the system is to avoid massive layoffs and/or the selling, closing, and merging of campuses. And that these investments in the mission of SUNY bring large and varied returns to the people and places of New York.

OK, next:

FACT: The legislation would eliminate state appropriations for tuition and other revenues, so there is no guarantee that student tuition and fees would be used to benefit students or the academic mission of the campus. Quality would suffer.

What is UUP really claiming here?

RED HERRING: Never mind that New York state already has used tuition dollars for non-educational purposes (i.e., to help close its massive budget deficits via the "tuition tax"), so that the current system, where student tuition is counted as state money, provides no guarantee of anything. Never mind that in the current system, where students and families pay the state rather than an individual campus, the state could find itself "forced" at any time by fiscal "necessities" to deny SUNY any or all of those dollars. And certainly never mind that specific language in both the bill and the comprehensive tuition policy draft circulated by SUNY System Administration four months before the PHEE&IA'S June 15th deadline to campuses, legislators, and the Board of Trustees for comment and improvement tie the use of tuition, fees, and other revenues directly to SUNY's mission. No, no, no--whatever you do, never assume that there's competent and responsible leadership at any level of the SUNY system. Actually, the only thing stopping SUNY from misusing your money are UUP and its friends in the legislature. So take our word that not only would the PHEE&IA end SUNY's affordability, it would also undermine SUNY's quality.

As I've already shown, this claim is based upon a tendentious misreading of language that's already in place and in effect in New York state education law and unchanged in the current bill. Don't take my word for it: go to S. 6607/A. 9707, Subpart A, Section 8, page 57, lines 12-24. Whatever the funding source, SUNY is obligated to create a budget in line with "its objects and purposes" and "under regulations prescribed by the state university trustees." The horror! The horror!!

OK, next:

FACT: SUNY could place a surcharge on tuition (differential tuition) that would vary by campus and program without limitation. Student access would be denied.

Sorry, Charlie! Try to keep up with the facts on the ground:

EX-FACT, FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES: Let's pretend that SUNY has not responded to UUP's and others' critiques in its comprehensive tuition policy draft by giving up on program-specific differential tuition, closing the gap in the cap, changing the cap to a (still-to-be-determined) fixed annual percentage rate rather than a multiplier of the HEPI, clarifying the procedures and criteria for a campus to request a "special tuition rate," and incorporating specific language and policies to ensure student access. Conceding that would confuse students and families. Until the language of the PHEE&IA itself has been changed to prevent SUNY from arbitrarily changing its policy once the spotlight moves away, better to hit our one good talking point over and over and over, even if it's only technically possible for the worst to happen.

Actually, I can't blame UUP too much on this one. I want the language of the PHEE&IA changed to (a) take away the possibility of any of this coming back down the road and (b) require legislative approval of SUNY BOT tuition policy, including any future changes to it. While I believe it's better to acknowledge SUNY's improvements and directly call for language that would further improve the bill, I can understand that UUP wouldn't want to let its one effective talking point go to waste, simply because the facts on the ground have changed. I guess.

OK, next:

FACT: There's no evidence that public/private partnerships--especially those created without government oversight--raise revenue. In fact, SUNY's previous joint ventures have cost taxpayers millions.

Really? More like:

BACKPEDAL VIA WILD GUESS: Our original talking points expressing "serious reservations" due to "insufficient oversight" were too wishy-washy and wonky. So let's pretend that Phil Smith never wrote that "SUNY's previous experiences with joint ventures" were the result of "special bills enacted by the Legislature" (22 February 2010 letter to UUP members). Wouldn't be good to remind New Yorkers that even legislative oversight sometimes isn't enough, now, would it? No, no, better to imply that the "lost revenue" Smith wrote about in his letter to the membership is really wasted taxpayer dollars (rather than, say, private investments that didn't pan out). And pretend that past results guarantee future outcomes--"failure once, failure forever" is our motto. Let's call the whole thing off.

Yes, there have been problems with public/private partnerships in the past. The key question, then, is how to avoid them in the future. Minimizing the amount of and risk to taxpayer dollars is one obvious strategy. But instead of contributing further ideas, UUP hints that there is no solution, and can be none.

In short, the only thing UUP's ad convinces me of is that they either haven't seen SUNY's comprehensive tuition policy draft or wish they hadn't seen it. How could they have approved their ad in light of the following language from it?

Purpose of a Comprehensive Tuition Policy

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that tuition pricing for the State University of New York is fair, equitable and responsible by: 1. maintaining affordable access to the institution through a supplemental grant program, funded in part by a portion of tuition revenues; 2. tying tuition increases, if any, to predictable and incremental economic indicators, thus allowing students and their families to better manage the cost of pursuing a SUNY education; and 3. ensuring that SUNY fulfills its potential and responsibility as a driver of the State's economic growth through the reinvestment of all tuition revenues in the execution of SUNY's mission based strategic plan.

PHEE&IA is specifically designed to complement but not relieve the State of New York of its responsibility to support accessible and affordable public higher education. Appropriate levels of state funding, and SUNY's ability to control its own tuition policy, is the only method of ensuring that SUNY can reinvest all of its traditional tuition resources in the growth and development of its campuses, the development of SUNY Aid...and in terms of growing private philanthropic support.

Yeah, the language is rough, but it doesn't hurt my appetite or my digestion the way UUP's bad ad did. If there are any truth in advertising requirements for political ads, UUP is in a lot of trouble. In any case, floating a paper airplane that can be taken down by a few spitballs does little to bolster UUP's standing with the public or with legislators.

[Update 1 (3/8/10, 12:00 am): Where in Nancy Zimpher's latest op ed is the call to privatize SUNY? And why can't UUP's leadership sound more like the University of California at Berkeley's Wendy Brown?]

"Multiple Ways to Salvation": Ohio State President a CitizenSE Fan?

Very interesting to see that Ohio State University is considering versions of ideas I floated here at CitizenSE years ago in a cross-blog dialogue with AFT's Craig Smith and other bloggy interlocutors on rethinking tenure (which became a vehicle for rethinking governance and administration, too). Ohio State's focus has shifted to criteria and policies for promotion from associate to full professor, which sheds interesting light on the massive multi-year revision of personnel policies that has just left the Fredonia University Senate as a formal recommendation to the presidents of the campus and local United University Professions chapter and is now a labor-management matter.

All well and good, but I'm also interested in AAUP's ideas about expanding the tenure system to include faculty currently considered "nontenureable" because of their contingent, adjunct, part-time, etc. status. So lots to keep talking about in addition to budgetary matters....

What's Going On? An Open Letter to Bill Parment, Cathy Young, David Townsend, Joseph Griffo, Deborah Glick, Toby Stavisky, Sheldon Silver, and Malcolm Smith

Dear New York State Legislators,

I was born in New Hartford, grew up and went to college in Clinton, and now work in Fredonia and live in Dunkirk. In fact, I've resided in Oneida and Chautauqua Counties for about three-quarters of my lifetime. Plus, I've spent about two-thirds of my academic life in New York higher education. I'm a graduate of Hamilton College and an English professor at SUNY Fredonia, where I'm also chair of the University Senate.

I'm not writing to you today as Senate chair, although if I have my way you'll be hearing from me on Senate letterhead later this month. For now, this is simply a letter from a concerned citizen and taxpayer of the state of New York. I've chosen this day to address you because March 4 is a day of action across California and the nation in defense of public education, which has been endorsed by national organizations like the American Association of University Professors. I'm writing you today because I'm concerned that California's 2010 will be New York's 2011. And I'm writing you today to ask you a simple question: "what's going on?"

With that question and its invocation of Marvin Gaye's classic, I'm inviting you to my blog, Citizen of Somewhere Else (http://citizense.blogspot.com/), where a live performance on youtube can serve as background music while you think about how to respond to my follow-up questions.



I hope the song and video remind you of the 1960s and 1970s.  I urge you to consider that we may well be facing choices in the 2010s that are just as momentous and urgent as the state and country faced back then.  So I ask again, "what's going on?"

• What's going on in the legislature with regard to the SUNY budget? Is there any way of restoring the Governor's cuts, which would set SUNY's operating budget back to funding levels not seen in the past 20 years and would bring about a 25% decline in such funding over the past two years? Looking beyond this year's budget, what level of state funding, in your view, is necessary for SUNY to continue achieving its mission? At what point are critical operations threatened? At what point does the legislature draw the line and take a stand?
• What's going on in the legislature with respect to long-range planning for public higher education in New York? Do you believe downsizing SUNY (via layoffs, retrenchments, and restructurings on individual campuses) is the best way to serve New Yorkers? Are you trying to force a system reconfiguration (closing, selling, merging of campuses in SUNY)? Is your eventual goal to dismantle and privatize the SUNY system? Or do you see a future for public higher education in New York in the 21st century? What is your vision? And what do you think of my call to grow SUNY (http://citizense.blogspot.com/2010/03/future-of-suny-downsize-reconfigure-or.html)?
• What's going on in the legislature with regard to the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act? What is your own position on the bill? Do you support it without reservation? Oppose it wholeheartedly? See it as flawed but fixable? What are the prospects for the emergence of a principled compromise (http://citizense.blogspot.com/2010/03/dear-phil.html) that would allow it to become law?

Please understand that I'm not asking for a form letter in response to these questions; instead of wasting that piece of paper, why don't you visit the comments section at Citizen of Somewhere Else, where this open letter is posted, and engage me in an online conversation?  Or better yet, why don't we talk face-to-face?  Would you care to speak at SUNY Fredonia later this month?  Many of us on campus can make time for a public meeting and some of us can be free for private conversations.  We have a lot of questions.  And we'd like to start hearing some answers from our representatives in the legislature.

Sincerely,


Bruce N. Simon

[Update 1 (3/5/10, 9:54 am): Here's more on the March 4 protests from Marc Bousquet.]

The Future of SUNY: Downsize, Reconfigure, or Grow?

A couple of days ago I expressed and explained my qualified support of the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act and summarized counterarguments offered by my colleagues and friends in the Fredonia University Senate. Even though I was actually incorporating into my argument critiques of key aspects of the bill by my faculty-professionals union, United University Professions, and essentially laying out a case for amending the bill so that it might gain their support, my colleagues worried about my focusing my rhetorical attacks on UUP President Phil Smith's position in my rationale for the resolution. Fair enough. Today, then, I'll take a look at SUNY's options going forward.

After all, there's no point in blaming SUNY's new administration for missing the "reset" button when it comes to labor-management relations. Chancellor Nancy Zimpher and her team have managed to hit it with every other major constituency within SUNY and across NY, but they must have listened to some truly awful advice when it comes to UUP. Instead of reaching out to UUP as partners in SUNY-wide strategic planning and potential co-authors of the Empowerment and Innovation Act (along with CUNY's Professional Staff Caucus)--which obviously would entail giving up control to gain legitimacy and a greater likelihood of achieving their goals--their strategy seems to have been to attempt to lobby UUP, and, when that failed, to attempt to neutralize them via a carrot-and-stick approach with their membership. If it doesn't work, they're in big trouble, having ended up pushing SUNY's faculty and professionals to embrace even the weak and short-sighted leadership of UUP and setting the stage for further and expanded opposition to any options they propose for dealing with the coming catastrophic cuts to SUNY in 2011-2012. But even if they end up winning this battle, they may end up losing the larger war.

This is because the Empowerment and Innovation Act is at best a delaying tactic and at worst a hedge against disaster. As Christopher Newfield has shown in Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class, market substitutes for general development don't offer a long-term solution to the long-term and accelerating erosion of state support for public higher education--particularly in New York, with its long history of favoring private colleges and universities, as documented by the collection co-edited by SUNY University Faculty Senate Chair Ken O'Brien, SUNY at 60: The Promise of the State University of New York. Now, Newfield's analysis is largely based on what's been going on in California, so although it does have national implications, there's always the chance that SUNY can learn from the University of California's mistakes. But even in that best-case scenario, it's going to take some time for new revenue streams for campuses to really start flowing. But the massive cuts to SUNY that seem unavoidable in the absence of new federal aid or renewed state support are a ticking time bomb set to explode so soon that any revenue flows from the Empowerment Act will be vaporized.

So what to do? Whether or not SUNY gets the Empowerment Act, it's going to have to act if it wants any kind of sustainable future. The SUNY Strategic Plan shows some promise of convincing New York's citizens and taxpayers that they will get immediate and long-lasting returns from even modest investments in the SUNY system, but it takes time to persuade the people, much less get a thoroughly dysfunctional state political system to act for the general good, even with a clear mandate from the people. Most likely, then, SUNY is going to have to do something dramatic--and soon--to get the attention and win the trust of New York's citizens, taxpayers, and politicians. Let's consider the options:

Downsize

Zimpher, Rimai, and company could follow the lead of corporations in a downturn: force each campus in the SUNY system to lay lots of people off. If they're enlightened managers, they'll do everything they can to streamline administration, eliminate waste, and cut non-instructional staff. But the cuts are likely to be of such a large magnitude that each campus will have to put everything on the table, including retrenchments: the closing and merging of departments and the firing of tenured faculty that this makes possible.

Obviously this strategy has huge costs and long-term repercussions, most notably in the uprising this will start among faculty and staff, the battles with their unions, and the ill-will all this will engender. But it's conceivable that the campuses could emerge from this in a better, stronger position than when they started it. It's more likely, though, that downsizing would be but a prelude to the selling, closing, or merging of a good number of campuses within SUNY.

Reconfigure

So why not cut to the chase and seriously rethink SUNY's size and configuration from the start? Is New York well-served by a 64-campus state university? Why not shift to 4 doctorals, 4 specialized colleges, 8 university colleges, and 16 community colleges? Why not confront the state with the consequences of its long-term disinvestment in SUNY and propose a more rational, sustainable configuration for SUNY in the 21st century?

Well, the political firestorm this strategy would set off, within SUNY and across the state, would make the previous strategy's controversies look like a molehill. Morever, each campus in the SUNY system represents decades of investment. It's doubtful that buyers could be found to take over all the campuses that would be kicked off the SUNY island. New York state would lose a lot of educational capacity, not to mention infrastructure. But what's the alternative?

Grow

New York needs more higher education capacity, not less. Even with a declining population, the state could actually see a greater demand for higher education this century--all it takes is for the school system to do a better job of preparing more kids for college, the financial system to find better ways to help them pay for it, and the jobs system to find better ways to use their talents and skills. Sure, those are big ifs, but pretty soon the state and the nation are going to have to decide if we want to return to the first half of the twentieth century, when college was a luxury for the wealthy and privileged few, or whether we want to move forward and prepare the next generations to tackle the problems of this century.

Let's say we make the right call. What does SUNY need to do to lay the groundwork for expansion? I suggest that every decision from here on out be made in light of that question.

Start with taking advantage of economies of scale and system-wide efficiencies.

• Let's get serious about a SUNY-wide library and technological infrastructure. Every SUNY student and faculty member should have the same access to the same set of books, journals, and databases.
• Same goes for textbook purchases. SUNY could use the power of bulk purchasing to drive down the costs of textbooks for its students.
• We need a SUNY-wide endowment. Let campuses continue to ramp up their fundraising efforts, but have them deposit their accounts into a SUNY-wide fund, run by a single set of top-notch money managers. Develop a formula for sending back to the campuses more than they would have earned by managing their own funds.

That's just a preliminary list, of course. The other side of the coin is campus-level flexibility. The billion-dollar question here is: how do we run the system so that private colleges and universities would want to join it? The point is to first bring in struggling private universities, then good ones, and finally great ones. With each new campus added to the system, the overall SUNY-wide endowment grows--and grows faster. The state can focus on supporting infrastructure, enhancing student financial aid, and making modest contributions to campus operating budgets. Even $1000/student would offer big returns to the state--not least in revenues from a progressive taxation system that would require those who have benefitted the most from their higher education to give back to their fellow citizens who didn't choose to enter it but who helped make their own education possible. If this is handled right, why wouldn't every college or university in the state eventually clamor to become part of the SUNY system?

[Update 1 (6:04 pm): A friend and colleague sent me the following via email:

Am I reading your blog correctly?

"If they're enlightened managers, they'll do everything they can to streamline administration, eliminate waste, and cut non-instructional staff."

I am truly saddened to read the end of this sentence--the Fredonia non-instructional staff keeps the buildings in good order, offers services to students, helps to promote the university and raise funds for programs that the state doesn’t provide for, keeps the residence halls in good order and provides student programming, handles purchasing and creates paychecks, etc. In fact, the university could not operate without its non-instructional staff. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood--if that’s the case, then please clarify.

The perils of writing quickly. Obviously, any university needs non-instructional staff. No enlightened manager should take the position that "no member of the teaching faculty should be let go while a single non-instructional staff member remains on the payroll." So I should have written "cut non-essential non-instructional staff." But to put that line in context, keep in mind I was arguing that once a campus deficit gets large enough, everyone's position is potentially on the chopping block, even those of tenured faculty. And I was making that point to suggest that "downsizing" was a bad option, step one of my larger argument that growing SUNY via bringing privates (and their endowments) into the fold is the best short- and long-term solution to making public higher education sustainable in the 21st century.]

And the Senate Has Spoken....

After a good deal of discussion, the SUNY Fredonia University Senate voted to table the Executive Committee's special budget resolution by a 2-1 margin. I don't know why the Senators voted as they did, and I didn't help matters with the way I handled the discussion, but the way I would summarize the comments against the resolution is as follows:

The Local Custom Argument

We have a tradition in the Senate of discussing an item in one meeting and then voting on it in a subsequent meeting. My argument for suspending this tradition, which is not in Robert's Rules, was as follows. Once a bill leaves certain lower-level committees and goes to the final committee before it is killed or goes up in a vote before the entire State Senate or Assembly, it is very difficult to amend it. We don't know when that will happen, but the rumors coming from Albany are that it could well happen during our spring break or before the legislative recess in late March. Because our next meeting falls on the second Monday of April (due to our having a travel day the first Monday), postponing the vote until then could well make our resolution irrelevant. In response, several Senators argued that giving them time to study the matter and consult their constituencies outweighed the risk of irrelevance. I could always call another special Senate meeting or stated faculty meeting (or the President could call a special faculty meeting) to hold the vote, or we could do it electronically.

The "Stabbing in the Back" Argument

In response, other Senators argued that it was improper for the Fredonia University Senate to intrude on UUP territory. While I should have argued in response that I have been meeting regularly with our local chapter UUP President all year, that the Senate has the right to make recommendations to both the campus President and the chapter President, and that I was willing to participate in any open forum or union-sponsored event, still, the perception remained that I was inserting the Executive Committee's views where they don't belong and betraying the state-wide union in the process. In my view, unions should thrive on internal debate and discussion; unfortunately, that view has never been shared by state-wide leadership since I have been a UUP member (back back back to fall 1998). I am not personally aware of any consultation between the state-wide union and local chapter leadership, although since I have tried to keep my role as Senate Chair distinct from my role as UUP delegate, I have not participated actively in chapter Executive Board meetings or its listserv. All I know is what I saw at the Delegate Assembly in Albany at the start of the month, which was not encouraging: what appeared to be hastily-developed talking points and marching orders; a demonstration in support of our "friends" in the legislature barely attended by any of them; and an address by the recipient of the Friend of UUP award, Assembly Higher Education Committee Chair Deborah Glick, in which she mostly focused on state revenue shortfalls and the difficulty of even mitigating the Governor's proposed cuts. Long story short: I didn't see any way to keep this discussion private and internal, or, to tell you the truth, much point to it. Rather than a stab in the back, my airing the resolution publicly, here at CitizenSE and on the floor of the Senate, was a full-frontal assault, not only on certain aspects of UUP's position, but, and more important, on all the players in Albany who are supposed to be representing public higher education, as well. (On which more later, here at CitizenSE.)

I'm willing to continue it on my campus or off with anyone who wants to discuss the fundamental issues involved and not simply reel off talking points. I'll just be doing it as a member of Fredonia's English Department, a Fredonia chapter UUP delegate, and UUP member, among the many other hats I wear. Phil Smith will be coming to Fredonia on March 24th, during the visit of the Middle States accreditation team. If he wants to be on a panel with me then, I'd be happy to have a public conversation with him. And if the Fredonia UUP chapter or Student Assembly wants to invite me to participate on a panel, I'd say "yes" in a heartbeat. If not, fine. I would just like to hear what the local UUP Executive Board or individuals on it think and what efforts they've made to take the temperature of their constituency. I consider many people on it my friends, and even when I disagree with some of them on some issues, I don't let it carry over to other issues. I'm genuinely curious how convincing they find the talking points of both UUP and SUNY.

The "Only a Fool Stands in the Middle of an Intersection" Argument

Perhaps a better title for this argument would be "Don't Get Caught in the Middle of a Pissing Contest." Several Senators argued that we ought to simply stay out of Albany politics altogether, particularly on matters that are, if I may paraphrase the sentiment from the room, "above our pay grade." Well, better to be a fool than a knave or a coward. We're not in the military and our state-wide leadership in Albany, in both the University Faculty Senate and UUP, are ultimately supposed to represent our values and our interests.

In any case, what's going on in NY isn't really an argument between Nancy Zimpher and Phil Smith, or the Governor and the Assembly, or any individuals or organizations. We don't have to choose one side over another and worry about the consequences of pissing off the other. This is about whether we ought to have a public higher education system in the State of New York and, if so, how best to support its mission, structurally and financially. It's about a whole mess of related issues, some of which which I've taken a stab at sorting out once or twice before (oh, all right, more often than that), and some of which I've been mulling over more recently. Better for us all to have it out now, when the NYS Legislature has a huge decision facing it, than to wait until we're on the verge of a budget meltdown, singularity, or apocalypse. We're not quite there yet, but the signs aren't good. Everyone leading SUNY right now had better get a handle on the scale of the problems facing us and start thinking much more creatively and collaboratively about how to solve them.

In the coming days and weeks, I'll be addressing the issues and problems from my own personal perspective. So please be active in comments, do posts of your own, and generally inform yourself and join in the discussion. Now is not the time to stick our heads in the sand and hope that this all goes away, nor is it the time to hunker down with tried and true stalling tactics. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Depending on the course of those conversations and events in Albany, I may or may not call another special Senate meeting or a stated faculty meeting so that we can have it out together at Fredonia. But probably a more constructive next step would be to work with my counterparts in UUP and the Student Assembly to see if they are interested in any public forums or private discussions on these matters.