Faculty approve restructure

Despite a failed motion to postpone the vote to Nov. 10 so College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) faculty could further discuss the changes, the Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly to restructure the CAS and the College of Criminal Justice (CCJ) into three colleges yesterday,
In a 30-3-3 vote Faculty Senate approved the reconstruction of CAS and CCJ in to three colleges:  College of Science, College of Social Sciences and Humanities and College of Arts, Media and Design. CCJ will become the School of Criminal Justice within the College of Social Sciences and Humanities.
"There was a very, very strong consensus that came out of the retreat that there were probably real benefits to restructuring Arts and Sciences," Provost Stephen Director said. "This is a vote not on the process, but on the substance of the recommendation."
Student Government Association (SGA) Vice President for Academic Affairs Amanda Sabia, one of the three students present at the meeting, said that now that the vote has been finalized she will try to work with members of the administration to ensure the transition is smooth for students. She said she set up a meeting with Director to discuss concerns she has heard from other students about the restructuring, she said.
"My personal opinion is that I was not as happy with the vote," she said. "But moving forward, I would rather make sure we are part of this as students."
Sabia said she believes the meeting was not publicized as well as it should have been.
"I think students were not aware of [the meeting]," Sabia said. "As vice president of academic affairs, I got limited notice about this."
A number of senate members, including Director, agreed the process of restructuring the colleges has flaws, including the unknown futures of the communication studies and education programs.
"In developing our report, I felt that it was not necessary to try and resolve all issues, that there were going to be some issues, like the location of communication studies, that needed further deliberation and needed further engagement of the faculty and community," Director said before the vote. "Let's move forward with the general recommendation ... But leave open some issues that would require further discussion for the coming year."
As reported in the Oct. 1 issue of The News, the two departments have yet to be placed within the new College of Science, College of Social Sciences and Humanities or the College of Arts, Media and Design. Director said task forces would be formed to help decide "the best home" for the departments.
An amendment to the resolution proposed by political science professor and chair John Portz includes a clause which gives faculty members in the Department of Communication Studies and Department of Education "a major voice in the decision to locate their units."
The amendment was supported by the majority of the Faculty Senate, and easily passed with a near-unanimous vote.
"I don't see anything but good that can come from an amendment like this," said Louis Kruger, associate professor in the Bouve College of Health Sciences. "We want this [restructuring] to get off on the right foot, and for the faculty to be enthusiastic about it."
Senate member Alain Karma, a professor of physics, motioned to postpone the vote to Nov. 10 so further discussions and a secret ballot vote of the entire College of Arts and Sciences faculty could take place.
"There was kind of a disconnect that this consensus to move with this reconstruction came out of a select group of faculty [and] administrators at the retreat and was not representative of the college at large," Karma said.
Karma said faculty and chairs should be given more time to review the process before voting on it. He also said he felt some faculty members were excluded from the June 1 retreat because they could not find anyone to substitute for the classes they were teaching.
"From three of the key physical sciences – math, physics and chemistry – there were only two chairs. No other faculty [from the three departments] were present at the retreat," he said.
A number of senate members opposed this idea, including mathematics professor Terrence Gaffney.
"We are the faculty senate of the whole university," Gaffney said. "It is up to us to make the decision of what is to be done on a question which is so important to the whole university. We should not postpone the vote. We have enough information and we have the responsibility."
Karma's motion failed in a 11-20 vote, with one Faculty Senate member abstaining.
Along with Sabia, a junior political science major, Michael Raphael, a middler sociology major and CCJ research assistant, and Stephen Lavenberg, a senior health sciences major and former SGA vice president for academic affairs, were in attendance.
"From my own personal view, it seemed like all these discussions ... were a statistic sample with the illusion of a process," Raphael said. "The College of Criminal Justice, by changing its name, by the very nature of language is changing what it is."
Darren Costa, a middler criminal justice major and president of the Criminal Justice Student Advisory Council, who has been a vocal opponent of the reconstruction in the past, said he was unable to attend Faculty Senate. He gave two reasons as to why he thinks there was a low student turnout.
"The first reason is because of what we've seen before from the provost, the provost's office and the administration on how they value student input," he said. "Students realized there is no point in going. It was going to happen regardless."
The second reason was that CIA representatives were on campus for a post-graduation information session, held at the same time as the Faculty Senate meeting, Costa said.
"This goes to show that [criminal justice] students still care for their major and are interested in what's next," he said.
Costa said that while there are positive things about the reconstruction, it also seems like a "demotion."
"It's hard to see a college becoming a school. Doesn't make sense as 'a step forward,'" he said.
 

7 comments

George Patsourakos

Sun Oct 11 2009 15:46

The Faculty Senate has no authority whatsoever to restructure the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Criminal Justice into three colleges.

This authority is clearly in the hands of the Northeastern Board of Trustees.

This restructuring is a bad move which would move Northeastern backward instead of forward, if adopted. The Board of Trustees needs to reject this restructuring.

If the Board of Trustees allows the Faculty Senate decision to be binding on this critical action -- or if it just serves as a "rubber stamp" and approves it -- the Board of Trustees might as well be eliminated in the decisionmaking process at Northeastern, and let the Faculty Senate replace it.

lmao...in disbelief

Sat Oct 10 2009 15:13

Okay, here I go.

"This is a vote not on the process, but on the substance of the recommendation." A quote from our illustrious Provost....which makes me want to do even more face-palms than I did before. The "process" was a tremendous cluster%&^! of epic proportions, and I have no fathomable idea how anyone else can say differently, unless they're in it with Director and Aoun. Probably a good thing for Director that this wasn't a vote on the process, because it wouldn't have passed, but still...why in God's name would the faculty vote for this? If the process had actually made sense and everyone got their questions answered, then by all means, vote to your hearts content, but Christ, you all folded like dominoes (except for the 3 that abstained and the 3 that were against). Where have all your balls gone, faculty? The only one of you that had the balls to speak out publicly was Professor Greene (as another commenter has already stated in a previous article). I would LOVE to know the reasoning behind this vote, I really would, because this is frigging unbelievable.

lmao is PISSED

Thu Oct 8 2009 17:34

...Trust me, I'll be commenting more later after I calm down from reading this, but to the Faculty Senate members who voted in approval of this FARCE I say this - You should all be ASHAMED of yourselves. Each and every single one of you. I certainly hope to God none of the teachers I befriended while I was here voted for this.

To my fellows in CJ, Alumni or current student - stay strong, brothers and sisters.

Darren Costa

Thu Oct 8 2009 12:24

and cpatel, i feel your pain. RIP CCJ

Darren Costa

Thu Oct 8 2009 12:23

Hello again Enzo Yaksic. I thought we discussed this last time about attacking other students under a fake name. Your maturity level rings true once again. My attempts were pathetic? Interesting. My door is always open for anyone that wants to discuss my pathetic attempts, etc.

cpatel

Thu Oct 8 2009 11:58

RIP CCJ and the value of my degree.

Nicole Jackson for President

Thu Oct 8 2009 11:25

As a "scientist", Director should know that making decisions of this magnitude based on benefits that "probably" exist is foolhardy and irresponsible. Coming to a conclusion without having a definite place for everyone demonstrates that Director's overarching goal was to solidify the restructuring first and work out the details afterwards in a place where all of these decisions were made, behind closed doors. (“probably in Aoun and Director's joint jacuzzi) Further engagement is a misnomer; Director has never engaged the community in this process or took their considerations to heart.

"This is a vote not on the process, but on the substance of the recommendation" said Provost Stephen Director.

From this statement alone we can infer that Director is well aware that His "process" was a deliberate snow job meant to distract all involved from His true goal; cease admittance of those students deemed, by Him, to be too stupid to be members of the now suddenly illustrious Northeastern University and thereby raise the rankings, which, in turn, raises His paycheck. Upon Director's arrival at NU, Aoun deemed him to be an “innovative thinker”. I tend to agree since Director not only created a scenario to fit His fact pattern but also manipulated this “process” to generate the results He wanted. Stating that the retreat precipitated His viewpoint is incredibly deceptive; Director entered the retreat with the end result in mind and would do anything to accomplish His mission. Director's highly negative experiences at His previous institutions (do the research, it's out there) prepared Him well to overtake His current one. He has refined His modus operandi and is finally realizing His dream of a university presidency. Director invited Nicole Jackson, His one handpicked student, to His retreat and, once the Furfur dies down, this “process” will be a wonderful addition to both of their resumes. Director reveled in the silence of Northeastern faculty who all knew that an uprising would cost them their employment (as was the case with former Professor Sean Varano. Remember him?). Director garnered support with His patented method of surreptitious threats but was also aided by certain other sly and convincing, lackey underlings. Surely He also snarked at the pathetic attempts of Darren Costa to stop Him. The combination of these factors led to a purposefully drawn out “process” (see, it took us an entire year, it must have been thorough and honest!) that ended precisely where and when He wanted it to. Unfortunately the faculty senate failed to see through His thinly veiled plot. But, is it any wonder why Director wishes to disband the CCJ? As the moral core of the university, with the CCJ out of the way, Director is free to enact any diabolical plan with little to no resistance. Under Director's reign, I truly fear for what is to come for this university. Only time will tell if our Parasitic Provost will revert to His nomadic ways and venture to another university once He has sapped all of our resources or if he believes that the “successful” restructuring of Northeastern will springboard Him to a university presidency. In the meantime, brace yourselves for other self serving initiatives to emerge from the Provost's office and be wary of those wolves in sheep's clothing that support Him.

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