Senate Ends Year With Marathon Discussion

The University Senate debated a wide range of issues in its final meeting of the year, but two notable absences drew the most discussion of the day: the absence from the agenda of a resolution approving a new doctorate in nursing practice, and, for the second consecutive month, the absence from the meeting of the Senate's chair, University President Lee Bollinger.

While Bollinger drew little criticism for his absence from last month's meeting, which he missed in order to prepare for oral arguments for the University of Michigan's affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court, several senators admonished him for missing Friday's meeting due to a fundraising trip.

Senator Michael Castleman, SEAS '03, was especially critical of Bollinger. Calling Bollinger's second consecutive absence "unacceptable," Castleman noted that former President George Rupp, who made no secret of his dislike for the Senate, missed only one or two meetings during his nine years as president.

Several times during the meeting, senators complained that Bollinger's absence made discussion of substantive issues difficult at what is traditionally one of the busiest Senate meetings of the year. Bollinger was unable to answer questions about his campus planning effort, discuss his response to Professor Nicholas De Genova's controversial remarks at a teach-in last month, or take questions from senators, as is traditional at the monthly meetings. In 1998, when Rupp last missed a meeting, Provost Jonathan Cole offered to answer questions in his stead, but Cole was also absent on Friday, and no other senior administrator offered to take his place.

Drawing even greater discussion was the Executive Committee's failure to allow a vote on a resolution to establish a new degree in the School of Nursing, a doctorate of nursing practice, which does not currently exist at any other universities. The Senate spent much of the year debating the degree, which drew mixed reviews during extensive discussions on the Senate floor last fall. In response to those discussions, the Nursing School made significant changes to the program in the hopes of winning Senate approval by the end of the academic year.

On Friday, Executive Committee Chair Paul Duby, who also acted as chair for the meeting in Bollinger's absence, explained that the new proposal reached the committee too late for it to review the proposal properly, and said the Education Committee would discuss the issue further over the summer, with plans for a final vote in early fall.

But members of the nursing faculty, making little effort to hide their displeasure, accused the Executive Committee of dragging its feet on an issue that should have been resolved long before Friday's meeting.

"Obviously, we are quite frustrated," said Senator Suzanne Bakken, a professor in the Nursing School. "It may seem like a couple of months does not make a difference, but it does make a difference."

Senator Mary Byrne, another Nursing School professor, said the Executive Committee should not have needed to conduct a full review as the proposal had already been approved by the Nursing faculty, the Health Sciences administration, and the Senate Education Committee.

"It was not a request to review their review," Byrne said of the proposal brought to the Executive Committee. "It was documentation that that review had been completed."

Both Byrne and Bakken noted that the program, which was designed by the faculty at the Nursing School and would have been the first such degree in the country, would now be approved at other institutions before Columbia. Byrne accused the Executive Committee of allowing "the potential theft of our intellectual property," and called for the Senate to approve the program before Commencement, an unlikely possibility since it would require the Senate to convene for a special session.

The Senate did manage to discuss a range of issues that were actually on the agenda at Friday's meeting, which at two hours was uncharacteristically long. The Senate heard a detailed report on the administration's space planning effort from Executive Vice President for Government and Community Affairs Emily Lloyd and Vice President for Facilities Management Mark Burstein.

Burstein told senators that Columbia has been growing at a rate of about one million square feet every five years for the past two decades, and that at that rate the University will run out of space in its current neighborhoods within 10 years, even if it is able to purchase what small amount of developable property remains in those areas.

"We're very, very space constrained," Burstein said.

Lloyd said the administration was hoping to find 20 to 30 years of new space by developing a new campus in Manhattan, and explained that the administration was looking at two main areas for such a campus: Riverside South, on the western edge of Manhattan between 59th and 61st Streets, and Manhattanville West, an area between 12th Avenue and Broadway between 125th and 135th Streets. Each area has potential advantages and disadvantages, Lloyd said.

Lloyd stressed that any decisions would be made as part of a consultative process with both the Columbia community and surrounding residents, though she added that "this is never a perfect process."

The Senate also heard a report from outgoing Student Caucus Chair Roosevelt Montas, GSAS, who recently lost a bid for reelection to the Senate, on the student senators' discussions on the issues raised by De Genova's controversial comments. He said that some senators, particularly those who were veterans or members of the armed forces, felt threatened by De Genova's call for "a million Mogadishus," while others were concerned that the backlash against the comments had turned De Genova into a "scapegoat" and stifled free speech on campus.

Montas said that after a "very vigorous and fractious debate," the caucus had decided not to take a formal position on the issue, but rather to report its discussions to the Senate. Montas also said the caucus had distributed a poll to student organizations asking whether they felt freedom of speech had been threatened on campus, or whether they felt some members of the campus community had abused that freedom.

The Senate also passed several minor resolutions approving new degree programs, but it failed to pass a resolution to establish a new standing Committee on Housing Policy. The measure is not controversial, but because it entails a change to the Senate statutes, it requires three-fifths of Senators to be present for a vote.

Fifty-three senators attended Friday's meeting, five short of the required total.

The Senate also bid farewell to two departing administrators, Vice President for Arts and Sciences David Cohen and Provost Jonathan Cole. Each, particularly Cole, has had mixed relations with the Senate, working closely with some committees while clashing with others. But the Senate passed resolutions thanking both for their service and encouraging Cole and Cohen, both of whom will return to the faculty, to run for Senate seats in the future.

The lone voice of dissent was Professor Luciano Rebay, a longtime critic of Cole for his alleged failure to disclose the University's sale of the Casa Italiana during his first year as provost, abstained on the resolution honoring Cole, and said he wished to "disassociate" himself from the Senate's "endorsement of Provost Cole's activities here."