April 14, 2021, 3:30-5:00
Audio and chat are posted on this webpage shortly after the meeting.
Final Agenda
Announcements [slides, 5 min]
Antiracism Initiative: Final Working Group Reports [slides, 40 min]
WG-C (Center): Report, 1-pager, Comment
WG-S (Student Req’t): Report, 1-pager, Comment
WG-F (Faculty Req’t): Report, 1-pager, Comment
Q&A with DoF Candidates Eve DeRosa and Risa Lieberwitz [45 min]
Moderator: Neema Kudva
Slidedeck
Chat (first half)
Chat (second half)
Audio (first half)
Audio (second half)
meeting minutes (Part 1)
meeting minutes (Part 2 – Dean of Faculty candidate Q&A)
I believe that the work to confront and halt systemic racism and bias are crucial. I do not support this proposal for faculty education, though. Faculty are accorded academic freedom by the university. It does not make sense for the university to demand that faculty comply with particular activities in order to insure academic freedom.
This issue is different from health and safety practices relating to lab operation and covid. Structures of authority and power are dynamic and dependent on context in ways that safety and disease transmission are not.
The second point in Timothy Snyder’s _On Tyrrany_ is “defend institutions.” This proposal seeks to counter institutional racism by undermining the role of faculty and weakening the institution of academic freedom.
If this proposal were for an elective endeavor– such as the Knight Institute’s Faculty Seminar in Writing Instruction– and if it highlighted the ongoing anti-racist work faculty are doing here; and if it sought to develop and extend this work, that would be great. But as this proposal essentially takes anti-racism as a stick with which to measure and prod the faculty, it’s unacceptable.
I understand the flaws in the bio-safety comparison, but some might argue that racism in the workplace, like carelessness in a lab, is a behavior that hurts others.
The Center, if it comes to pass, will have a role in supporting and highlighting the individual faculty efforts that you so rightly reference.
Charlie
I agree that “racism in the workplace, like carelessness in a lab, is a behavior that hurts others,” but I think that racism– along with other power dynamics– is more complicated than carelessness in a lab. Let’s encourage all faculty to recognize the insidious nature of racism; let’s create incentives for faculty to participate in anti-racist seminars and develop anti-racist pedagogy, this way creating an anti-racist culture among the faculty. The current proposal seems to mandate a mental hygiene, minimizing the nature of the problem as well as the faculty.
The Faculty Educational Requirement for Antiracist, Just, and Equitable Futures envisions the creation of mandatory training modules for faculty and significant consequences for members of the faculty who do not participate in the programs developed by the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity (OFDD). While voluntary workshops are entirely appropriate, sanctions against those who do not participate violate the intellectual freedom of the faculty. To be clear, barring faculty from serving on search committees, advising students, or involvement in student activities represents coercive sanctions inimical to academic freedom and the independence of thought on which academic freedom depends. Only a grave, crisis level of dysfunctional behaviors might justify such measures, and the Cornell campus, to its credit, does not exhibit racial prejudice approaching this level.
Michael Poliakoff, President, The American Council of Trustees and Alumni
For further discussion, please see https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2021-04-ACTA-Letter-to-Cornell-Faculty-Senate.pdf
This passage, from the fourth paragraph of the faculty requirement one-pager: what does the second sentence mean?
“….[B]ased on the example of many individual departments and the College of Engineering, a DEI-related question be added to course evaluations across the
campus. While bias towards women and BIPOC faculty should be taken into account, this will provide many opportunities for improvement.”
It has been documented that bias is a very serious factor in student course evaluations. I will find some references for you and post them here..
The point of bringing this up is that each of the accountability measures suggested in the F-report has to be very carefully implemented.
Charlie
In their report, the committee proposes to require all faculty to attend a “educational program” in which they will be instructed in the committee’s understanding of “structural racism and how systemic bias and privilege work,” along with learning “how to discuss and act on a range of difficult issues.” Although at least some committee members would probably resist the parallel, this educational program is remarkably similar to a “reeducation camp” in which the central administration would instill what it believes to be correct political values. In order to enforce compliance with this program, the committee proposes that the central administration maintain a black list of those faculty who refuse to attend this camp because, they maintain, anyone who refused to attend must harbor opinions the committee does not accept. This black list would then be used to prevent all those who refused to attend from serving in “any positions of authority in a department, college, and at the university.” For example, if a faculty member refused to attend this camp because he or she believed that it infringed on their academic and intellectual freedom which, in turn, they believed should be at the very heart of any ethical and moral university community, the committee would authorize the central administration to put that colleague on this black list, thus enabling the central administration to discriminate against them in one of the major forms of “shared governance” (President Pollack’s term for faculty consultation although she is quoted in support of this report). I considered offering amendments to the committee’s proposal but ultimately decided that it was far too flawed. This proposal should just be firmly and overwhelmingly rejected. If it were to be, unfortunately, approved, I would like to serve notice that I wish to be placed at the very head of the committee’s black list because I will certainly refuse to cooperate in this attempt, once more, to discipline the faculty into corporate conformity.
Richard Bensel
rfb2
Although I absolutely support an anti-racist Cornell, I feel that Professor Bensel is correct. The proposal exceeds the original mandate from President Pollack, and seeks to impose a particular set of views, expressed in a specific way, on the entire community. Even though we should recognize that the idea was intended as a constructive step and that it has positive elements, we should reject it in this form and return it to committee for additional reflection and improvement..
I know words are important, but is there really a serious difference between the what is written in the F-report (“An Educational Requirement for Faculty “) and the what the President wrote last July (“All faculty would be expected to participate in this programming and follow-on discussions in their departments.”) ?
If you think the goal is to “impose a particular set of views”, then I can understand why you are calling attention to “required” vs “expected”–it gives the faculty a little more space to invoke the academic freedom argument.
Charlie
Thank you Richard for sharing this assessment and for having the moral courage to position yourself at the head of the blacklist should it come down to that.
I respectfully submit an alternative example of ethical responsibility. It is the younger faculty member who is not threatened by alternative viewpoints, who recognizes we are in a changing environment with new things to learn about how we interact with students, staff, and each other, and who wants the faculty to take on the issues in ways that our privileged and insulated generation never did.
Charlie
I heartily agree that everyone is entitled to their opinions and to express them in any form they believe proper. However, the one person who should not seriously intervene in a debate is the officer who presides over meetings of the Faculty Senate. As Article XI of the “Organization and Procedures of the University Faculty” states and requires, “The Speaker…will serve as an impartial moderator of Senate meetings.”
Richard Bensel
rfb2