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.