University President Lee Bollinger and Provost Claude Steele are expected at the University Senate’s last plenary session for the semester on Friday afternoon, after both missed two of the three meetings this fall.
After the president’s initial report on Columbia’s endowment, budget, and fundraising, the Executive Committee will give an update on the smoking policy and will discuss a brief report from the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)—a labor rights-monitoring organization that Columbia joined about nine years ago.
WRC focuses on protecting the rights of workers who sew apparel and other products, especially university logo apparel sold in the United States. WRC has recently reached an agreement with
Russell Athletic and the union representing the former workers of the Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) factory. The agreement will bring “Russell into full compliance with university labor standards,” according to a press release WRC sent to the University.
Russell has agreed to “rehire and compensate JDH’s 1,200 dismissed workers, open a new unionized factory in Honduras, and take concrete steps to respect and recognize its workers’ rights to freedom of association at the company’s seven existing Honduran plants,” the release added.
After the report from WRC, the Structure and Operations Committee will give a report on the new contentious confidentiality guidelines, which state that the University Senate’s committee meeting minutes will be held confidential for 50 years. Many student senators are upset by this policy, though it will not yet be up for a vote.
“I am wholly against the Structure and Operations Committee’s proposal to hold committee meetings in secrecy,” said Andrew Springer, a student senator from the Columbia Journalism School. “I haven’t spoken to a single constituent of mine that is even somewhat in favor of it. Monica Quaintance’s and Daniel Savin’s proposal is not only ridiculous, it’s wrong,” he said.
Springer believes that the new policy “will prevent journalists … from doing the kind of reporting that will hold this Senate accountable,” adding that, “If senators are afraid of retribution, let’s all remember that being held accountable is not meant to make you feel comfortable.”
Two resolutions are anticipated to come up for a vote from the Committee on Education, one of which would establish a program for a master of science degree in bioethics from the School of Continuing Education. It would include five core courses—History of Bioethics, Philosophy of Bioethics, Clinical Ethics, Research Ethics, and Global Bioethics—and six electives, including two in law or policy, one in social science methods, one in ethics, and two others. It would also include “a firm foundation in science,” according the resolution, and would ideally start out with 12 students, and increase to 60 within the first five years.
The program would be led by Robert Klitzman, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Mailman School of Public Health and the co-founder of the University’s Center for Bioethics. If approved, a review of the program will take place after three years “to evaluate overall outcomes and to measure students’ success,” the resolution explained.
Another resolution to be discussed will be to change the name of the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) to the Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
CSHR was developed about thirty years ago and now advises the major university programs on human rights, including concentrations for undergraduates and SIPA students, the Liberal Studies M.A. program, the certificate in human rights for master’s and doctoral students, and the summer school program in human rights.
Currently, CSHR involves just administrators and no faculty. As an institute, CSHR would be able to make joint appointments of faculty to “expand the scope of research and scholarship,” the human rights resolution stated, adding that the institute could “make consistent interdisciplinary instruction,” which would require coordination which cannot be done within any one existing department.
They will also “be able to normalize relations with faculty through formal affiliations, foster faculty initiatives, and support graduate students engaged in interdisciplinary research,” the resolution added.
The meeting will take place in 107 Jerome Greene Hall at 1:15 p.m on Friday.
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