9/10 Email
Dear friends,
On behalf of the RC, and in anticipation of next week's FS/CC meeting, I'm writing to highlight for everyone where we left off last academic year. To remind, the attached are the resolutions that FS passed at the May meeting. Let me also remind that these resolutions, having been passed, represent official requests on the part of faculty. That being the case, it is of particular consequence for Shared Governance that administration respond to them appropriately, and ideally honored. We understand that to now be a matter for the body, not the RC.
As you'll recall, all three resolutions have to do with (research-related) budgetary transparency, and faculty consultation/oversight. Here is where we stand on each of them:
Resolutions 1 and 2 call for administration to submit documentation to the FS by the body's first meeting of the this year, and the wording makes clear that this should be an actual document. We hope to find that when the body meets next week, said documents will in fact be presented to it. If not, the Research Committee kindly asks our faculty leadership to ask why. Note that, although the wording approved by the body does not require further action by our committee, our committee did nonetheless reach out to the Provost in July. That correspondence is appended to the end of this email (in that email, we did in fact make a new and additional request, however).
Resolution 3 calls for a representative of the RC to be actively aware of budgetary information related to research at the College, which necessarily requires visiting-rights to P&B (in a clearly non-member capacity, and only during budgetary discussion–not during discussion of promotions/reappointments). The administration's position (as we understand it) is that the the By-Laws prevent our attendance at P&B. We understand this to be false; while the President and Provost have the right to ask non-voting individuals to leave P&B, they also have the right to allow visitors to stay. In any case, the resolution having become an official act of FS, our committee did what we understood to be its duty, and sent a representative to the subsequent meeting of P&B in May. That representative, the Chair of RC, showed up at the time of the Zoom meeting and asked to be admitted. Administration denied our representative's entry to the Zoom meeting.
The Research Committee appreciates everyone's support, and we look forward to working to improve as much as we can with you all this year. We understand that everyone's attention (both faculty's and admin's) is greatly divided right now, and so we appreciate the time you spend reading these kinds of emails, voting on our measures, and in general taking the time to support our committee's work for the College.
Warmly,
Jason, on behalf of the RC
RE: Research Committee
Jason Bishop
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2020 4:14 PM
To: Michael Parrish
Cc: Cesar Arenas-Mena; Barbara DiciccoBloom; Mark Lewis; Allen Tesdall; ranngrant2@gmail.com; Lana Karasik; Soon Chun
Dear Provost Parrish
I'm writing on behalf of the Research Committee in an attempt to follow up on our July invitation; we trust that there was time to complete the closing out that was mentioned. We of course realize that these are exceptional times, and there are plenty of distractions, and so we are especially grateful for your time on this.
In the months since we last corresponded, the committee determined that it's actually essential for us to be able to review said documentation for the last ten years rather than just the last two. We hope your office will be able to help us in recovering this information.
We hope you are well, and we look forward to working together this year.
Warmly,
Jason Bishop, on behalf of the RC (cced)
Jason Bishop
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Director of the CUNY Prosody Lab
College of Staten Island / CUNY
Linguistics Program, The CUNY Graduate Center
718.982.3665 / jason.bishop@csi.cuny.edu
Personal webpage: www.jbishop.ws.gc.cuny.eduFrom: Michael Parrish
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2020 10:35 AM
To: Jason Bishop
Cc: Cesar Arenas-Mena; Barbara DiciccoBloom; Mark Lewis; Allen Tesdall; ranngrant2@gmail.com; Lana Karasik; Soon Chun; Mel Pipe; Michael Cavagnero; Sarolta Takacs; Marcus Tye; Susan Holak
Subject: Re: Research Committee
Dear Jason:
Thanks very much for your message, and I hope you and the rest of the committee members are well. I will be happy to schedule a virtual meeting with the research committee. We are in the process of closing out the 2019-2020 budget, so we will probably schedule for later in July in order to update the information on research expenditures in the previous year. In the meantime, I know the research re-entry committee is working hard on their report which, once approved by CUNY, will provide a roadmap for when and how we can resume research activities on campus.
Regards
Michael
On 7/1/20, 10:36 PM, "Jason Bishop" <Jason.Bishop@csi.cuny.edu> wrote:
Dear Provost Parrish, I'm writing on behalf of the Research Committee to make a request and to extend an invitation. As you know, there is deep concern among the faculty regarding research support and research infrastructure at the College, particularly during these challenging economic and political times. To help us do our work, we would greatly appreciate it if you would provide our committee with detailed information about the research budget. We ask that this include, minimally, the numerical details about research allocations from the last two years, and the expected allocations for the year ahead of us. Of course, we'd appreciate any other information you think would help us form an accurate picture of the College's standing in terms of research funds. Our committee would also like to ask to meet with you over the summer (virtually), once we've had the opportunity to review any information you send us; we think this would be very productive. If you would be able to provide us with the requested information sometime during July, we'd like to try to schedule a meeting with you for sometime in August. Of course, we appreciate your time and attention to this matter. Sincerely, Jason
On behalf of the Research Committee of Faculty Senate:
Cesar Arenas-Mena
Jason Bishop
Soon Ae Chun
Barbara DiciccoBloom
Rachel Grant
Lana Karasik
Mark Lewis
Allen Tesdall
Jason Bishop
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Director of the CUNY Prosody Lab
College of Staten Island / CUNY
Linguistics Program, The CUNY Graduate Center
718.982.3665 / jason.bishop@csi.cuny.edu
Personal webpage: www.jbishop.ws.gc.cuny.edu