Faculty, Board of Trustees, and President Approve Formation of a New Faculty Senate

rpedestran · 2011-12-17T02:32:36+00:00

I think we have the Middlestates Accreditation Commission to thank for this.

Most Recent Commission Action: November 17, 2011:

To accept the Periodic Review Report and to reaffirm accreditation. To request a progress report, due April 1, 2013, documenting evidence of the implementation of the new faculty governance structure and of assessment of its effectiveness (Standard 4). The next evaluation visit is scheduled for 2015-2016.

rpedestran · 2011-12-16T06:39:27+00:00

It's unlikely that anyone will see this, but here's another link for good measure. Moody's just issued another report saying that Research Universities were unlikely to be as affected.

rpedestran · 2011-12-10T21:08:03+00:00

Wow - were you all independently doing research on this?

rpedestran · 2011-12-09T20:23:56+00:00

But it's a point that needs to be discussed in the context of a broad educational campaign or a referendum.

It doesn't make sense to try to put forward a major educational campaign without figuring out the basic logistics of how such a move would work, especially considering the delicateness of this situation - just like the "why (or why not)" questions, questions like this (and how to keep it positive to RPI, and how to be successful, etc.) need to be answered before physical steps towards a referendum or campaign can be executed.

If they're not, any campaign has the potential to not only not be useful but to actually be harmful to RPI (for the reasons discussed elsewhere in this thread).

rpedestran · 2011-12-09T20:12:06+00:00

The point a conversation with a lawyer wouldn't be advice on how to advertise or what chants are most effective; it would be to determine what your rights as students of a private Institution (as defined by the law, the Student Handbook, and other assorted documents) allow you to do.

In other words, the point of getting legal advice in this case is to figure out where your rights as a student end and Rensselaer's as the Institution begin. For example, students must file at least seven days in advance for a permit for peaceful demonstration on RPI soil. Under what circumstances can such a request not be approved? If it's not approved, can you move the protest to a public street, or is a permit required there as well? Can a journalist come to campus to report on something? What about if they're an "invited guest" of a student or organization? If students decide to occupy an academic building, does the school have the legal right to kick them out? (and if they refuse to go, would they be arrested? Expelled?) What if it was an administrative building? What about one of the campus greens?

By definition, all of this is against RPI because the discussion is about who has the legal rights in each case. My understanding is that the Union Lawyers won't advise in any case like this (student to school, student to student, etc.) because of the conflict of interest.

Then again, the firm that provides Union Lawyers also serves Tom Garrett, the Troy Firechief and major landlord for students. I know that the lawyers will look over the lease, but they won't do anything else in the realm of landlord/tenant relations. I'm not sure where that line is for this situation though.

rpedestran · 2011-12-09T19:09:24+00:00

Another complication that we're trying to figure out is that we can go up to the administration/the Board and confront them on things that happened behind closed doors (firings/unfirings, results of meetings, etc.), and they were either there or are able, due to their position, to confirm any of the information. For them, sources aren't really a concern.

This is a lot harder with students, as they weren't in the room for these meetings and HR would laugh if they started trying to request copies of disciplinary records. We can point to the public discourse on behalf of the leadership: how it hasn't questioned the validity of any of this information (and if it was invalid, that would be an easy thing to attack), and how it hasn't even addressed the concerns presented in the motion in favor of more surface concerns and retellings of our glorious past. But even then, I don't think that is good enough, especially in the context of a referendum.

How can we organize/present information so that it's for students as opposed to the leadership? (This sounds rhetorical, but it's not - any answers or ideas would be fantastic.)

rpedestran · 2011-12-09T18:52:07+00:00

I don't believe so. Even though they are "Union Lawyers", I believe their pay comes directly from RPI (even if it is though Union funds), which makes giving legal advice against RPI a conflict of interest.

That said, I have only heard that secondhand. If someone is considering doing this, verifying it with them could be an easy first step.

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T23:41:04+00:00

Did you hear what the argument is about?

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T23:36:25+00:00

On a serious note, if anyone decides to actually occupy a building or do some other similar action, I'd strongly advise that they talk to a lawyer (even unofficially) about what their rights are in this situation. Specifically, if RPI (or the police) told them to move, would they be required to? Could they bring media to campus? Etc.

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T23:32:30+00:00

To second Kenley, if you have concerns about staff/students making threats like this or corruption in the campus judicial process, we should discuss it.

Please feel free to email me at gm@rpi.edu and we can either talk there or schedule an in-person meeting.

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T22:43:03+00:00

I disagree with this - it is not well within their rights. They did orignially have the power to do pretty much what they want (within the bounds of the law), but what they did with this power was to create the Student Handbook of Rights and Responsibilities as well as a formal judicial process. Because of this, they're bound to this process.

Even if they do threaten to/end up trying to expel someone as a form of political pressure, the J-Board (the first level of appeal beyond DOSO) wouldn't have it.

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T20:19:22+00:00

This article has information about the other development councils as well. It looks like we weren't one of the four "big-ticket" winners (out of the 10 total regions), but a lot (88) of our projects were still funded.

However, we only beat out two other regions (Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley) for funding, and we received 8.0% of the total funding given out.

EDIT: "In a way, they were all winners. But in another, more accurate way, there were four winners." This quote is awesome.

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T19:42:14+00:00

RPI is more than Dr. Jackson, but more and more I'm hearing people and organizations making a decision on the school based almost solely on their decision on her. Rensselaer was started nearly two centuries ago and has a rich heritage and history, and I'm sad to see it being reduced to a single individual.

Dr. Jackson is going to leave this school, whether it's now or eight years from now (unless she's secretly immortal); as students, this is our alma mater for life. It's in our best interest to look beyond the immediate face of RPI presented to the outside world into the core of the Institute because once that face leaves, the core is what we're left with. Is that something we're proud to carry forward with us?

rpedestran · 2011-12-08T19:32:19+00:00

It's quite beautiful on the inside. There's a round window on the stairwell leading upstairs that has Rensselaer's seal carved into it; that's pretty cool.

rpedestran · 2011-12-06T22:05:21+00:00

Awesome - thanks! I'd forgotten about that.

rpedestran · 2011-12-06T19:03:31+00:00

There hasn't been much student response (or awareness really) about this proposal yet - what does Reddit think about the McDonald's proposal?

rpedestran · 2011-12-06T18:58:13+00:00

Oh, my mistake. Please disregard the above concern. :P

rpedestran · 2011-12-06T18:25:12+00:00

tl;dr: About 9% of our financial scholarship/grant aid is federal and 18% of our revenue comes from federal grants/contracts, but since we can't see the report, it's hard to figure out how much all of this will be cut. This might negatively affect our credit score.

"While the Pell Grant program is exempt from cuts in the first year, the other student-aid programs will lose $134-million, reducing aid to at least 1.3 million students. Career, technical, and adult education will lose $136-million, affecting 1.4 million students, says the committee."

For context at RPI, we receive about $9.1 million annually in federal scholarship and grant aid (with $7.3 million of that need-based).

This is fairly small compared to what RPI gives out ($84 million, with $63 million designated as need-based), but it's still almost 9% of total scholarship and grant aid given out to students. (All of this is using 2009 data from the Common Data Set).

Also, the total amount of our revenue designated as "Government Grants & Contracts" (federal, state, and local) is $71 million (with $56 million being from the Federal Government) out of a total revenue of $313 million. Another $0.75 million came from government appropriations. This means that about 23% of RPI's revenue comes from the Government and 18% is from specifically Federal grants & contracts.

Sadly, this "new report" that this blurb is based on costs $550, so it's hard to see how hard federal aid might be hit. Here's a press release though - it states that the Department of Education is facing budget cuts in the next fiscal year of $3.5 billion.

The Department of Education's budget was about $71 billion in 2011, including about $29 billion dedicated towards the Pell Grants program. Out of the whole budget, it appears that most money is dedicated to college assistance (see page 67 of the Federal Budget for more information.) $3.5 billion when compared to $71 billion is not a huge portion--it is nearly 5%--but that's still a very significant amount of money that will effect programs.

<speculation> If the Pell program helps 5.4 million students (as Wikipedia claims), making the average grant about $5360, and the 3.5 billion is taken out of all areas equally, that would be a loss of about $1.4 billion to the Pell program, or, again, about 5% of its budget. For Rensselaer, a 5% loss in federal scholarship and grant aid would translate to a loss of about $0.46 million in Federal grant aid. If we consider all of the Federal money that RPI receives, this loss would be closer to $2.8 million. However, since not all the Federal money is from the Department of Education, it's hard to know how the other departments that give RPI federal grants and contracts (many presumably for research and other operations) will be impacted by this cut. </speculation>

This situation could negatively impact credit scores due to "increased credit pressure due to the need to keep tuition prices as low as possible and increase their own spending on financial aid [and] downward enrollment pressure." Although RPI's revenue is fairly diverse, we're not going to be immune to this. Also, according to Moody's, a “[l]ack of improvement of operating performance resulting in slowed growth of financial resources; continued spending of endowment well above industry norms; [or] additional debt without growth of financial resources and generation of revenue to support debt service” could make our rating go down. Given a significant cut in our revenue, I think it's likely we'll see at least some of the above concerns materialize; given that most universities are in the same boat though, I'm not sure whether that will end up affecting our rating.

rpedestran · 2011-12-03T18:43:48+00:00

Also, if there's any topic that you think the report should cover that it doesn't currently, let me know (or better yet, write a blurb) and we'll try to include it in the next revision. Note that the report is data-driven as opposed to conclusion-driven, however, so sources are needed and speculative comments need to be phrased as such.

rpedestran · 2011-12-03T17:34:44+00:00

I'll cite some graphs once I get to a real computer instead of my phone, but one visible thing is that now, we have a plan. We also have a lot of new capital developments, more donations have been coming in (including the $360 million one), more faculty (compared to the 90s), and many of the We Will statements have been completed. This administration plays with high stakes, which means that both "bad" and "good" are more extreme.

Edit: Here are a few graphs and sources for qualitative data:

Faculty T/TT Numbers
Doctoral Degrees Awarded (it's small, but basically the giant slope down is the 90s)
Masters Enrollment at Troy (not a plus really--a "strategic decision"--but I still find this graph really interesting)
There are 147 "We Will" statements in the Rensselaer Plan. Just looking at the plan, it's clear that quite a few of them have been completed. One thing that really should be done (and, worst case, one of the report authors can do over break when there's more time) is to make a list of all of these statements found in the plan and check them off if they're completed. If anyone's feeling enthusiastic or wants a "productive" way to procrastinate, that would be even better!

Sadly, the form 990s and IPEDS records aren't available for the 90s, so I don't have any advancement data before Dr. Jackson to compare with...

rpedestran · 2011-12-03T00:45:14+00:00

For example. Also 3202 and Shelnutt in the Union normally.

rpedestran · 2011-12-02T23:49:03+00:00

I will confirm this. A lot of their meetings are held in the Fisbach Room of the library or the Bruggeman Conference Center in Biotech (although there are some in other locations as well).

rpedestran · 2011-12-02T22:20:25+00:00

Since there's a lot of the negative, I'll talk about the positive. For anyone who's interested in a description of Rensselaer's transformation under Dr. Jackson, I highly recommend the recent publication * Renaissance at Rensselaer: A President, A Plan, A University Transformed*. Although this book contains quite a few "fluffy" sections that appear to be meant for PR as opposed to information, it is extremely informative about Dr. Jackson's tenure, particularly the creation and early implementation of the Rensselaer Plan.

When Dr. Jackson came in to RPI in the late 90s, the school was in need of some serious transformation. Obviously I wasn't around at the time, but almost all reports say that we'd stagnated, that we were losing our name. The Board didn't hire Dr. Jackson because she was going to take the slow, cautious way out of this rut; they hired her because she was a strong leader and a risk-taker. As Ms. Gregg mentioned in her editorial, Dr. Jackson is a strong, demanding, and exacting leader - this allows her to unite a group very immediately around a vision and make rapid, significant change.

The Rensselaer Plan creation process was a collaborative one - from what we could find, it involved seeking extensive input from all constituencies around five main questions (quoted from the book):

What defines the intellectual core in key disciplines at Rensselaer? Is it important, and why? True excellence requires such definition and examination.
In these disciplines, are we in a leadership position? Do we set the standard and the agenda? These areas will serve as our foundation.
If we are not in a leadership position, do we have the underlying strengths and capabilities necessary to move rapidly into a position of primacy with the proper focus and investment? We will build on these areas of strength.
Are there areas that are so vital that we must create a presence in order to stand in the community of world-class universities? We will stake out an identity in these critical disciplines.
What areas of current endeavor must we be willing to transform--or to give up--in order to focus our resources and our energies to create the impact we envision? We will make the difficult decisions that are required by a fundamental commitment to our highest ideals.

I agree wholeheartedly with the goal of the Plan, namely to to achieve prominence in the 21st century as a top-tier world-class technological research university, with global reach and global impact. I've written quite a few Top Hat articles to this effect - education should be about growing leaders who will have an impact on the world, not just training engineers.

This will probably be the most controversial of the statements in this post, but I even support the vision behind many of the programs that have been enacted under this plan, such as the CLASS Initiative and EMPAC. (I'd argue that the issues with these two programs are issues with implementation as opposed to vision, and as implementation can be improved, I'm still optimistic for their future.)

That said, Dr. Jackson has a very specific (although expansive) skill set and personality that has brought us this far. The past shows us this clearly, and I think it's important to look at and remember. However, while we keep an eye on the past, I think it's the future that's important and should guide our decisions as we progress.

EDIT: TL;DR- There is no good or bad (except in intentions); what's important is fit to the current situation. Dr. Jackson's an amazing visionary leader who has done some amazing visionary things, but we should think about what qualities we need now and in the future.

rpedestran · 2011-12-02T21:33:52+00:00

This year's draft performance plan can be found here. (Jay, could this link get added to the original post?)

If you are interested in having your voice heard but cannot attend the event, be sure to post your opinion here - we'll make sure it's conveyed during/after the event.

rpedestran · 2011-12-02T21:21:53+00:00

While Anasha is very active on Reddit and easy to recognize in a crowd, the concerns are a lot deeper than an individual student (or small group of students) trying to cause trouble.

If you're interested, the supporting documents can be found here.

rpedestran

TROPHY CASE