Columbia is ready to start building its new campus in Manhattanville, University President Lee Bollinger said at the first plenary meeting of the University Senate on Friday.
The status of the construction in West Harlem was just one of many campus topics raised at the meeting—which included discussions of a possible new graduate student center and the controversial results of a salary equity study for research officers.
Bollinger addressed the senate—composed of administrators, faculty, students and other affiliates that together make policies on issues affecting the entire University or more than one school—by first presenting the status of some of Columbia’s biggest projects.
The new Northwest Corner Building at the corner of Broadway and 120th is in the process of opening, and the plans for Manhattanville are essentially complete, Bollinger, who sits on the University Senate’s executive committee, said.
After recalling the New York State Court of Appeals ruling over the summer that declared the use of eminent domain constitutional for the Manhattanville expansion, Bollinger said, “We are ready to begin creating the new campus in Manhattanville.”
The first building of the new campus will be the Jerome L. Greene Science Center for mind, brain, and behavior studies.
In total, Bollinger said the Manhattanville expansion—which he foresees will take 30 to 50 years to complete—should cost $7 billion to $10 billion.
“If we can get this campus ready to go … then we’ll leave it to future generations to decide how to do it,” he said, adding that the campus is now “99 percent completed and ready to go.”
Bollinger also gave updated figures for the capital campaign, the University’s initiative to raise $4 billion by December 2011.
Currently at $3.8 billion, Bollinger said, “We will meet the goal of $4 billion probably by the end of this calendar year—a year early.”
After Bollinger’s remarks, Tao Tan, Business ’11, CC ’07, and chair of the Student Affairs Committee, presented a recommendation for an interim graduate student center on campus.
Tan argued that interdisciplinary research and scholarship is of increasing importance and that a graduate student center would allow for more interaction between students in different fields.
The departmental lounges around campus vary widely in quality and are often out of proportion to the population they serve, he said. He also noted that the graduate faculty lounges are often unavailable to the students, as they close at 5 p.m. on weekdays and are not open on the weekends.
“All of the faculty we approached, all of them, agreed to give a statement of support for the graduate student center,” Tan said.
Carlos Alonso, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, also spoke in favor of this proposal.
“I am a firm believer in the need of a graduate center of some sort,” Alonso said, adding that such a center would allow the various fields to “engage in that type of rethinking of the practices that sustain the fields that we represent.”
Although Alonso emphasized that the proposal is just for an interim center, he said, “I’m sure in the long run there will be purpose to construct a building for this purpose.”
The University Senate unanimously passed a recommendation, not a resolution, in support of the center, indicating that it is in favor of the proposal but is not making it official policy.
Another key issue that emerged in the meeting was that of a salary equity study for research officers— initiated four years ago by the administration at the request of the Research Officers Committee and the Committee on the Status of Women—was finally completed this year, said Daniel Savin, chair of the ROC.
The study showed discrepancies in the salaries of males and females at the University.
“They [the administration] found a number of statistically significant salary differences,” he said, especially among starting salaries.
An ROC report on the issue reads, “At the Provost’s request, the Executive Vice President for Health Science, the Executive Vice President of Arts and Sciences, the deans of the Morningside professional schools, and the director of the Earth Institute are now reviewing their process for setting salaries.”
Another ROC concern raised by Savin was the administrative task force created last spring to explore fringe benefits (employee benefits) at the University.
“We were disappointed at the lack of senate representation on the task force on fringe benefits,” Savin said. The 27-member task force includes four faculty senators.
“The ROC wishes to express its disappointment with this approach, which effectively bypasses the elected body that is charged to make policy on issues, such as fringe benefits, that affect the entire university or more than one school,” the report read.
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