Sammy Roth
2017-02-06T11:00:02Z
Faculty members at the School of Engineering and Applied Science want to replace Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora, but the University will not remove him from office, Interim Provost John Coatsworth told Spectator on Wednesday.
Coatsworth said that seven of the nine engineering department chairs sent him a letter in August expressing "dismay" with Peña-Mora, and that in October he received a letter from a "large number" of tenured SEAS professors demanding Peña-Mora's removal.
"The morale of the faculty and their trust in Dean Peña-Mora are reaching an all-time low," the letter, obtained by the New York Times, said. Faculty members said Peña-Mora had worsened SEAS' long-standing space crunch, sacrificed graduate students' education for short-term profits, and compromised the quality of the faculty, among other complaints.
Coatsworth said that while "the complaints from the faculty were real," Peña-Mora will remain dean and work with SEAS professors to address their concerns.
"Any time faculty are unhappy, and problems are not being solved in a way that keeps our school moving forward, of course it poses a challenge, so the only question really is, what's the best way to respond to the challenge," Coatsworth said. "And in the case of Dean Peña-Mora, who has done a great job in some respects, our decision was to help out by making some suggestions about administration and governance" at SEAS.
Asked if there's a possibility that Peña-Mora could be removed down the line, Coatsworth said that "we'll take stock at the end of the year."
"I think Dean Peña-Mora is committed ... to the school," Coatsworth said. "And we need to get through this academic year and see if the problems can be addressed."
Peña-Mora, traveling in China, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. SEAS spokesperson Holly Evarts said Wednesday night that she was not privy to the faculty discussions about the concerns and could not comment.
An 'overwhelming' loss of confidence
In the October letter, faculty members detailed a litany of grievances against Peña-Mora, saying that if he remained dean, it would cause "irreparable damage—including loss of key faculty and complete alienation of those who remain."
The letter concludes, "The loss of confidence in Dean Peña-Mora is overwhelming. With each additional day faculty unhappiness is growing."
Among professors' charges was that Peña-Mora had hired outside consultants "to reclaim 25% of the school's space for other purposes," and that these consultants did not discuss space usage with faculty. A space crunch at SEAS has long been a source of concern for faculty and administrators.
Peña-Mora acknowledged in an interview with the Times that the culture of Columbia "takes some getting used to," and said that he had not understood the extent of Columbia's space constraints when he first came to the University. According to Coatsworth, Peña-Mora had on several occasions promised space to new hires, before having to renege on those promises "either because of a miscalculation, or, more likely, because the space intended for the person hired is in an area that needs to be reconfigured" to make more space available.
"I think what we're dealing with is a communication problem, rather than any attempt on the part of Peña-Mora to mislead people," Coatsworth said.
The letter also attacked Peña-Mora for mandating an increase in the size of the engineering school's master's program. Administrators have acknowledged that master's students receive very little financial aid at SEAS.
"Doubling class sizes when there are not classrooms to hold them and people are sitting on the floor or in the halls just to increase the school's revenues may provide quick cash—but it ultimately hurts our reputation among future Master's students and undergraduates alike—our future alumni," the letter said.
Coatsworth, though, defended the decision to increase enrollment of master's students, saying that for SEAS to improve in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, it needs to attract more top-flight professors, and "it's the tuition revenue that pays for the professors."
"If you're going to have a top-10 engineering school, you have to have a top-10 engineering faculty we just don't have enough people in enough fields to make the top 10," he said.
But faculty members charged Peña-Mora with unfair hiring practices as well, citing "a critical mismatch between the Dean's academic values and our own."
"Candidates with impressive academic records and outstanding recommendations are discounted if their fields do not promise major funding for the school. Metrics for evaluation are focused upon financial measures rather than academic quality," the letter said.
Coatsworth said that a potential hire's ability to bring in grant money is one of several important factors when hiring, in part because so much of SEAS' money comes from grants, and in part because of what it says about the research itself.
"A faculty member's ability to secure external grants is a criteria that suggests the quality and interest of the research itself, so this is not an uncommon factor," Coatsworth said.
Reputation threatened?
These allegations come to light at a time when SEAS is looking to bolster its standing among engineering schools, both within New York City and nationally. Columbia's proposal for a data sciences institute on its Manhattanville campus is one of five to make the shortlist in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Applied Sciences NYC competition.
The University faces strong competition from Cornell and Stanford to win Bloomberg's bid to bring a new engineering campus to the city.
SEAS faculty referenced the ongoing competition in the letter, acknowledging that "an immediate public change in leadership" might hurt Columbia's chances.
"However, the fact that a number of us who have invested time and effort in creating Columbia's proposal are signing this letter should tell you how serious the current situation is," the letter said.
Coatsworth told Spectator that while "it's impossible to tell how the city will react to this, I can't imagine it will be positive."
"I hope the city recognizes that the Columbia engineering school is not alone in facing growing pains from time to time," he said.
U.S. News ranked SEAS the 16th best graduate engineering school in the country in 2011. The University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign, at which Peña-Mora was an associate provost before coming to Columbia in 2009, was ranked fifth. The undergraduate component of SEAS was jointly ranked fourth with Columbia College.
"The dean here has for the last two years told us that we need to be improving our rankings if we want to be seen as being on par with the other engineering schools," chemical engineering department chair Sanat Kumar told Spectator in March. "Over the last two years he's been here, the rankings have turned around. We are on an upward trail."
Looking for solutions
Coatsworth said that Peña-Mora is working on several initiatives to address professors' concerns. Among the changes is the creation of a SEAS Executive Vice Dean, who will focus on "faculty affairs, space, and instructional support," according to an email sent two weeks ago announcing that engineering professor Donald Goldfarb had been appointed to the position.
Additionally, a committee chaired by engineering professor Michael Mauel has been formed to examine SEAS's administrative structure and potentially suggest changes, and a development specialist has been brought in to look at these questions as well. SEAS currently has "very little faculty governance at the level of the school as whole," Coatsworth said, with no standing committees outside of the department chairs.
Coatsworth noted that he, Goldfarb, Mauel, and Peña-Mora met with about 75 senior faculty members three weeks ago to discuss the initiatives. He said the meeting was "constructive."
"I'm optimistic that over the course of this academic year, that some of the problems can be addressed successfully," he said.
Coatsworth confirmed that the August letter was signed by all SEAS department chairs who had been appointed before this semester. Those department chairs are Kumar, Irving Herman of applied physics and applied math, Raimondo Betti of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, Shree Nayar of computer science, Klaus Lackner of earth and environmental engineering, Keren Bergman of electrical engineering, and Cliff Stein of industrial engineering and operations research.
Coatsworth said he had "no idea" whether faculty members would leave if the attempts at solutions don't work out.
"I certainly hope that faculty who are now unhappy will give this new arrangement time to play out," he said.
The faculty letter stated that concerns about Peña-Mora have been "festering" for two years, but those concerns came as a surprise to some student leaders. University Senator Tim Qin, SEAS '13, said that while he could not speak for the rest of the Engineering Student Council, he had not been aware of any of the faculty concerns. Engineering Graduate Student Council President Andrew Kang also said that he and other EGSC members were surprised to hear about the accusations against Peña-Mora.
ESC President Nate Levick, SEAS '12, said in an email to Spectator that both he and his predecessor, Chris Elizondo, SEAS '11, have "good standing relationships with the Dean."
"General undergrad student sentiment toward the Dean is largely positive. He has been receptive to working with the ESC as well as undergraduate students and groups," Levick said.
Kang said that Peña-Mora has been hugely supportive of EGSC, helping them facilitate events with employers to make it easier for students to find jobs and answering students' questions at EGSC-sponsored town halls.
"He's only been very transparent and very open in being receptive to all of our concerns," Kang said.
TA concerns
The faculty letter also said "the Dean's decision to change the entire structure of the SEAS teaching assistant system because one department had abused it" had caused "chaos for faculty, Ph.D. students, and all those enrolled in our classes."
According to current TAs, Peña-Mora limited TAs to teaching for only one year and created a SEAS-wide committee to appoint them. Previously, TAs were appointed by departments.
Luc Berger, a first-year Ph.D. student in the department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics and a current TA, said that he was especially disheartened by Peña-Mora's decision to limit the TA positions to one year because he "likes to teach and interact with students." As a first-year TA, Berger said he was concerned he may be out of a job next year.
"The timing is so bad," he said. "People are leaving."
Suparno Mukhopadhyay, a Ph.D. student in SEAS, also expressed concern over the new structure.
"It's very difficult to concentrate on our work because we are worried if we will be here or not next year," he said. "It definitely is a problem. One student left because this policy was coming into effect."
Mahesh Bailakanavar, a graduate student in the department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, said that while the changes to the TA system were untimely, a lot of schools, such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have these systems in place.
But he said he was still sympathetic to graduate students who have difficulties funding their educations. "There is something wrong about this situation," he said. "It's very, very difficult."
Sarah Darville and Mikey Zhong contributed reporting.
news@columbiaspectator.com
... Coatsworth said that seven of the nine engineering department chairs sent him a letter in August expressing "dismay" with Peña-Mora, and that in October he received a letter from a "large number" of tenured SEAS professors demanding Peña-Mora's removal.
"The morale of the faculty and their trust in Dean Peña-Mora are reaching an all-time low," the letter, obtained by the New York Times, said. Faculty members said Peña-Mora had worsened SEAS' long-standing space crunch, sacrificed graduate students' education for short-term profits, and compromised the quality of the faculty, among other complaints.
Coatsworth said that while "the complaints from the faculty were real," Peña-Mora will remain dean and work with SEAS professors to address their concerns.
"Any time faculty are unhappy, and problems are not being solved in a way that keeps our school moving forward, of course it poses a challenge, so the only question really is, what's the best way to respond to the challenge," Coatsworth said. "And in the case of Dean Peña-Mora, who has done a great job in some respects, our decision was to help out by making some suggestions about administration and governance" at SEAS.
Asked if there's a possibility that Peña-Mora could be removed down the line, Coatsworth said that "we'll take stock at the end of the year."
"I think Dean Peña-Mora is committed ... to the school," Coatsworth said. "And we need to get through this academic year and see if the problems can be addressed."
Peña-Mora, traveling in China, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. SEAS spokesperson Holly Evarts said Wednesday night that she was not privy to the faculty discussions about the concerns and could not comment.
An 'overwhelming' loss of confidence
In the October letter, faculty members detailed a litany of grievances against Peña-Mora, saying that if he remained dean, it would cause "irreparable damage—including loss of key faculty and complete alienation of those who remain."
The letter concludes, "The loss of confidence in Dean Peña-Mora is overwhelming. With each additional day faculty unhappiness is growing."
Among professors' charges was that Peña-Mora had hired outside consultants "to reclaim 25% of the school's space for other purposes," and that these consultants did not discuss space usage with faculty. A space crunch at SEAS has long been a source of concern for faculty and administrators.
Peña-Mora acknowledged in an interview with the Times that the culture of Columbia "takes some getting used to," and said that he had not understood the extent of Columbia's space constraints when he first came to the University. According to Coatsworth, Peña-Mora had on several occasions promised space to new hires, before having to renege on those promises "either because of a miscalculation, or, more likely, because the space intended for the person hired is in an area that needs to be reconfigured" to make more space available.
"I think what we're dealing with is a communication problem, rather than any attempt on the part of Peña-Mora to mislead people," Coatsworth said.
The letter also attacked Peña-Mora for mandating an increase in the size of the engineering school's master's program. Administrators have acknowledged that master's students receive very little financial aid at SEAS.
"Doubling class sizes when there are not classrooms to hold them and people are sitting on the floor or in the halls just to increase the school's revenues may provide quick cash—but it ultimately hurts our reputation among future Master's students and undergraduates alike—our future alumni," the letter said.
Coatsworth, though, defended the decision to increase enrollment of master's students, saying that for SEAS to improve in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, it needs to attract more top-flight professors, and "it's the tuition revenue that pays for the professors."
"If you're going to have a top-10 engineering school, you have to have a top-10 engineering faculty we just don't have enough people in enough fields to make the top 10," he said.
But faculty members charged Peña-Mora with unfair hiring practices as well, citing "a critical mismatch between the Dean's academic values and our own."
"Candidates with impressive academic records and outstanding recommendations are discounted if their fields do not promise major funding for the school. Metrics for evaluation are focused upon financial measures rather than academic quality," the letter said.
Coatsworth said that a potential hire's ability to bring in grant money is one of several important factors when hiring, in part because so much of SEAS' money comes from grants, and in part because of what it says about the research itself.
"A faculty member's ability to secure external grants is a criteria that suggests the quality and interest of the research itself, so this is not an uncommon factor," Coatsworth said.
Reputation threatened?
These allegations come to light at a time when SEAS is looking to bolster its standing among engineering schools, both within New York City and nationally. Columbia's proposal for a data sciences institute on its Manhattanville campus is one of five to make the shortlist in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Applied Sciences NYC competition.
The University faces strong competition from Cornell and Stanford to win Bloomberg's bid to bring a new engineering campus to the city.
SEAS faculty referenced the ongoing competition in the letter, acknowledging that "an immediate public change in leadership" might hurt Columbia's chances.
"However, the fact that a number of us who have invested time and effort in creating Columbia's proposal are signing this letter should tell you how serious the current situation is," the letter said.
Coatsworth told Spectator that while "it's impossible to tell how the city will react to this, I can't imagine it will be positive."
"I hope the city recognizes that the Columbia engineering school is not alone in facing growing pains from time to time," he said.
U.S. News ranked SEAS the 16th best graduate engineering school in the country in 2011. The University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign, at which Peña-Mora was an associate provost before coming to Columbia in 2009, was ranked fifth. The undergraduate component of SEAS was jointly ranked fourth with Columbia College.
"The dean here has for the last two years told us that we need to be improving our rankings if we want to be seen as being on par with the other engineering schools," chemical engineering department chair Sanat Kumar told Spectator in March. "Over the last two years he's been here, the rankings have turned around. We are on an upward trail."
Looking for solutions
Coatsworth said that Peña-Mora is working on several initiatives to address professors' concerns. Among the changes is the creation of a SEAS Executive Vice Dean, who will focus on "faculty affairs, space, and instructional support," according to an email sent two weeks ago announcing that engineering professor Donald Goldfarb had been appointed to the position.
Additionally, a committee chaired by engineering professor Michael Mauel has been formed to examine SEAS's administrative structure and potentially suggest changes, and a development specialist has been brought in to look at these questions as well. SEAS currently has "very little faculty governance at the level of the school as whole," Coatsworth said, with no standing committees outside of the department chairs.
Coatsworth noted that he, Goldfarb, Mauel, and Peña-Mora met with about 75 senior faculty members three weeks ago to discuss the initiatives. He said the meeting was "constructive."
"I'm optimistic that over the course of this academic year, that some of the problems can be addressed successfully," he said.
Coatsworth confirmed that the August letter was signed by all SEAS department chairs who had been appointed before this semester. Those department chairs are Kumar, Irving Herman of applied physics and applied math, Raimondo Betti of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, Shree Nayar of computer science, Klaus Lackner of earth and environmental engineering, Keren Bergman of electrical engineering, and Cliff Stein of industrial engineering and operations research.
Coatsworth said he had "no idea" whether faculty members would leave if the attempts at solutions don't work out.
"I certainly hope that faculty who are now unhappy will give this new arrangement time to play out," he said.
The faculty letter stated that concerns about Peña-Mora have been "festering" for two years, but those concerns came as a surprise to some student leaders. University Senator Tim Qin, SEAS '13, said that while he could not speak for the rest of the Engineering Student Council, he had not been aware of any of the faculty concerns. Engineering Graduate Student Council President Andrew Kang also said that he and other EGSC members were surprised to hear about the accusations against Peña-Mora.
ESC President Nate Levick, SEAS '12, said in an email to Spectator that both he and his predecessor, Chris Elizondo, SEAS '11, have "good standing relationships with the Dean."
"General undergrad student sentiment toward the Dean is largely positive. He has been receptive to working with the ESC as well as undergraduate students and groups," Levick said.
Kang said that Peña-Mora has been hugely supportive of EGSC, helping them facilitate events with employers to make it easier for students to find jobs and answering students' questions at EGSC-sponsored town halls.
"He's only been very transparent and very open in being receptive to all of our concerns," Kang said.
TA concerns
The faculty letter also said "the Dean's decision to change the entire structure of the SEAS teaching assistant system because one department had abused it" had caused "chaos for faculty, Ph.D. students, and all those enrolled in our classes."
According to current TAs, Peña-Mora limited TAs to teaching for only one year and created a SEAS-wide committee to appoint them. Previously, TAs were appointed by departments.
Luc Berger, a first-year Ph.D. student in the department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics and a current TA, said that he was especially disheartened by Peña-Mora's decision to limit the TA positions to one year because he "likes to teach and interact with students." As a first-year TA, Berger said he was concerned he may be out of a job next year.
"The timing is so bad," he said. "People are leaving."
Suparno Mukhopadhyay, a Ph.D. student in SEAS, also expressed concern over the new structure.
"It's very difficult to concentrate on our work because we are worried if we will be here or not next year," he said. "It definitely is a problem. One student left because this policy was coming into effect."
Mahesh Bailakanavar, a graduate student in the department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, said that while the changes to the TA system were untimely, a lot of schools, such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have these systems in place.
But he said he was still sympathetic to graduate students who have difficulties funding their educations. "There is something wrong about this situation," he said. "It's very, very difficult."
Sarah Darville and Mikey Zhong contributed reporting.
news@columbiaspectator.com
2016-09-19T18:00:03Z
In a 2004 letter to faculty members, newly appointed Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks wrote that he was working with professors to restructure the A&S administration. Eight years later, Dirks thinks that A&S has finally gotten it right.
In the last two years, A&S has added a new faculty governance committee, a divisional dean structure, and several new staff members in Dirks' office. And in a letter to faculty dated April 16, Dirks outlined the two latest structural reforms: the creation of a three-member executive committee and the re-establishment of the long-dormant Planning and Budget Committee.
"When I started in my role in 2004-2005, everywhere I turned there was a problem," Dirks told Spectator. "There was no real effective faculty governance. There was a very, very lean office here without any major administrative capacity."
The executive committee, which will make all final budgeting decisions for A&S, is composed of the executive vice president for Arts and Sciences, the dean of Columbia College, and the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The Planning and Budget Committee will be made up of the deans of all A&S schools plus two members of the Planning and Policy Committee, a faculty advisory body to Dirks.
Last summer, the consulting firm McKinsey and Company completed a report on A&S, suggesting several forms of administrative restructuring. Ultimately, though, administrators did not implement any of McKinsey's suggested structures.
McKinsey's report "hasn't been an active document for months," Columbia College Interim Dean James Valentini said. "In my view, it wasn't an active document when it was actually prepared."
Columbia College's role
The Arts and Sciences division is made up of six schools—CC, GSAS, the School of General Studies, the School of the Arts, the School of International and Public Affairs, and the School of Continuing Education.
But only the deans of CC and GSAS are members of the new executive committee, elevating them within the A&S hierarchy. The CC dean also holds the title of vice president for undergraduate education, and Dirks said there are plans to make the GSAS dean the vice president for graduate education.
Dirks said that the creation of the executive committee, which meets every two weeks, expands the roles of the CC and GSAS deans. The CC dean, for example, is now involved in "a whole variety of matters that are beyond the province of the college itself," he said.
"It was always the case that the college made certain decisions, that the graduate school made certain decisions. Now we're making them together," Dirks said. "What it really does is it shares the executive authority that each of us had in a way that is more holistic."
"Everything that involved the college before was always made as a joint discussion before, so what it does is it actually extends, in a way, the roles of the deans of the college and the graduate school," he added.
Valentini said that the committee is working on budgeting, faculty development, and curricular issues. He noted that A&S is in the final stages of preparing its budget for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins July 1.
"Just as the plan for this restructuring describes, the executive committee is responsible for all major decisions about deployment of resources—human resources and capital resources—within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its constituent schools," Valentini said.
Planning and budget
The re-established Planning and Budget Committee will work largely as an advisory body to the A&S executive committee on budgetary matters.
"The P and B will be where the assumptions and parameters over which we have control get built up," Dirks said. "And then the final decisions about what we do will be made by the executive committee."
According to Dirks, the committee was disbanded in 1994 because it had become a "micromanaging type of body" that often took months to debate minutiae about individual schools' budgets.
A summary of the McKinsey report noted that the committee had led to a "dysfunctional outcome due to limited ability / willingness of participants to compromise on key issues."
But Dirks said that this time, the committee would stay focused on broader questions of financial allocations, respecting the autonomy of individual schools and not getting bogged down in minutiae.
A long process
Restructuring within A&S is now drawing to a close, but the process began several years ago.
After a two-year review, A&S established the Policy and Planning Committee in the fall of 2010. The PPC, a committee of nine professors, advises Dirks on all issues of concern to A&S faculty members.
Last year, A&S also implemented a divisional dean structure, with Dirks appointing psychology professor Geraldine Downey dean of social sciences, French professor Pierre Force dean of humanities, and physics professor Amber Miller dean of sciences. The divisional deans serve as liaisons between Dirks and A&S's 29 departments and 32 institutes, centers, and programs.
McKinsey did recommend instituting divisional deans, but Columbia had already begun developing the divisional dean structure before McKinsey suggested it, Dirks said.
One piece of structural reform is not yet complete: the formation of the Educational Policy and Planning Committee. Dirks said that this committee would deal with academic issues that affect multiple schools within A&S, making it distinct from specific schools' committees on instruction.
Valentini said he expects the EPPC will be created by the end of the semester. The committee was originally intended to be faculty-only, but PPC member Cathy Popkin told Columbia College Student Council president-elect Karishma Habbu, CC '13, that the committee would have student members, Habbu said at CCSC's Sunday night meeting.
Will it work?
A&S has also bulked up its administrative capacity, with Dirks' office adding several staff members over the last year. Dirks said that this additional staffing gives him confidence that the new structures will work, as he now has the time to focus more on relationships with the six A&S schools.
University President Lee Bollinger said that although the process of restructuring in A&S hasn't been simple, he is "very pleased with where we are." He called the new A&S executive committee a place "where those central figures can get together and try to work through a budget."
"The idea is that it is a spirit of partnership and collaboration," he said.
In his letter to faculty, Dirks referred to the latest changes as being "the last remaining structural reform in our administration and governance."
"All of the kinds of issues that I'd identified and that I've been concerned about have been addressed now, and we'll see how well it works during the next year," he said. "But I'm confident that it will work."
Ben Gittelson contributed reporting.
news@columbiaspectator.com
... In the last two years, A&S has added a new faculty governance committee, a divisional dean structure, and several new staff members in Dirks' office. And in a letter to faculty dated April 16, Dirks outlined the two latest structural reforms: the creation of a three-member executive committee and the re-establishment of the long-dormant Planning and Budget Committee.
"When I started in my role in 2004-2005, everywhere I turned there was a problem," Dirks told Spectator. "There was no real effective faculty governance. There was a very, very lean office here without any major administrative capacity."
The executive committee, which will make all final budgeting decisions for A&S, is composed of the executive vice president for Arts and Sciences, the dean of Columbia College, and the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The Planning and Budget Committee will be made up of the deans of all A&S schools plus two members of the Planning and Policy Committee, a faculty advisory body to Dirks.
Last summer, the consulting firm McKinsey and Company completed a report on A&S, suggesting several forms of administrative restructuring. Ultimately, though, administrators did not implement any of McKinsey's suggested structures.
McKinsey's report "hasn't been an active document for months," Columbia College Interim Dean James Valentini said. "In my view, it wasn't an active document when it was actually prepared."
Columbia College's role
The Arts and Sciences division is made up of six schools—CC, GSAS, the School of General Studies, the School of the Arts, the School of International and Public Affairs, and the School of Continuing Education.
But only the deans of CC and GSAS are members of the new executive committee, elevating them within the A&S hierarchy. The CC dean also holds the title of vice president for undergraduate education, and Dirks said there are plans to make the GSAS dean the vice president for graduate education.
Dirks said that the creation of the executive committee, which meets every two weeks, expands the roles of the CC and GSAS deans. The CC dean, for example, is now involved in "a whole variety of matters that are beyond the province of the college itself," he said.
"It was always the case that the college made certain decisions, that the graduate school made certain decisions. Now we're making them together," Dirks said. "What it really does is it shares the executive authority that each of us had in a way that is more holistic."
"Everything that involved the college before was always made as a joint discussion before, so what it does is it actually extends, in a way, the roles of the deans of the college and the graduate school," he added.
Valentini said that the committee is working on budgeting, faculty development, and curricular issues. He noted that A&S is in the final stages of preparing its budget for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins July 1.
"Just as the plan for this restructuring describes, the executive committee is responsible for all major decisions about deployment of resources—human resources and capital resources—within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its constituent schools," Valentini said.
Planning and budget
The re-established Planning and Budget Committee will work largely as an advisory body to the A&S executive committee on budgetary matters.
"The P and B will be where the assumptions and parameters over which we have control get built up," Dirks said. "And then the final decisions about what we do will be made by the executive committee."
According to Dirks, the committee was disbanded in 1994 because it had become a "micromanaging type of body" that often took months to debate minutiae about individual schools' budgets.
A summary of the McKinsey report noted that the committee had led to a "dysfunctional outcome due to limited ability / willingness of participants to compromise on key issues."
But Dirks said that this time, the committee would stay focused on broader questions of financial allocations, respecting the autonomy of individual schools and not getting bogged down in minutiae.
A long process
Restructuring within A&S is now drawing to a close, but the process began several years ago.
After a two-year review, A&S established the Policy and Planning Committee in the fall of 2010. The PPC, a committee of nine professors, advises Dirks on all issues of concern to A&S faculty members.
Last year, A&S also implemented a divisional dean structure, with Dirks appointing psychology professor Geraldine Downey dean of social sciences, French professor Pierre Force dean of humanities, and physics professor Amber Miller dean of sciences. The divisional deans serve as liaisons between Dirks and A&S's 29 departments and 32 institutes, centers, and programs.
McKinsey did recommend instituting divisional deans, but Columbia had already begun developing the divisional dean structure before McKinsey suggested it, Dirks said.
One piece of structural reform is not yet complete: the formation of the Educational Policy and Planning Committee. Dirks said that this committee would deal with academic issues that affect multiple schools within A&S, making it distinct from specific schools' committees on instruction.
Valentini said he expects the EPPC will be created by the end of the semester. The committee was originally intended to be faculty-only, but PPC member Cathy Popkin told Columbia College Student Council president-elect Karishma Habbu, CC '13, that the committee would have student members, Habbu said at CCSC's Sunday night meeting.
Will it work?
A&S has also bulked up its administrative capacity, with Dirks' office adding several staff members over the last year. Dirks said that this additional staffing gives him confidence that the new structures will work, as he now has the time to focus more on relationships with the six A&S schools.
University President Lee Bollinger said that although the process of restructuring in A&S hasn't been simple, he is "very pleased with where we are." He called the new A&S executive committee a place "where those central figures can get together and try to work through a budget."
"The idea is that it is a spirit of partnership and collaboration," he said.
In his letter to faculty, Dirks referred to the latest changes as being "the last remaining structural reform in our administration and governance."
"All of the kinds of issues that I'd identified and that I've been concerned about have been addressed now, and we'll see how well it works during the next year," he said. "But I'm confident that it will work."
Ben Gittelson contributed reporting.
news@columbiaspectator.com
2016-06-26T23:00:04Z
Barnard has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, following allegations that a professor discriminated against a Jewish student.
Barnard professor Rachel McDermott had been accused of discriminating against an Orthodox Jewish student last year by discouraging her from taking a class with Columbia professor Joseph Massad, a critic of Israel who has been accused of anti-Semitism.
The complaint against Barnard was filed by Kenneth Marcus, the director of the Initiative on Anti-Semitism at the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, who alleged that McDermott illegally "steered" the student away from the class because of her religion. But the OCR found that there was "insufficient evidence" to prove discrimination, according to a letter the office sent to Barnard President Debora Spar on Wednesday.
The student—now a Barnard sophomore—had discussed class selection with McDermott, then the chair of Barnard's Asian and Middle Eastern culture department, in January 2011.
"I am grateful for the overwhelming support I have received from my colleagues, especially those in the Religion and MESAAS [Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies] Departments, as well as current and former students and many others within the Barnard and Columbia community and beyond," McDermott said in a statement.
According to the complaint described in the OCR letter, the student said McDermott told her that she "would not be comfortable'" in Massad's class. McDermott denied having said this.
"Because of the conflicting version of events and no other evidence to support the complainant's allegation, OCR determined that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the complainant's allegation that the Chair discriminated against the Student, on the basis of her national origin, by discouraging her from enrolling in the Course," the letter read.
The letter stated that the investigation has been closed, and no action will be taken against Barnard. In a statement, Spar said that McDermott is "beloved by her students and a highly regarded member of the Barnard community."
"We were happy to cooperate fully with the Office of Civil Rights and were pleased—though not surprised—to receive this favorable determination," Spar said.
Marcus, who headed the OCR himself between 2003 and 2004, said he is "considering his appellate rights," noting that he thinks the OCR got the case "wrong, factually."
"This is just the initial determination, so it is subject to appeal," he said. "We knew from the beginning that there was a chance that the professor would deny the facts that the students alleged, but in this case there is evidence supporting the student's statement, but no evidence supporting the professor."
Marcus added that these allegations have forced the OCR to consider the right against "steering" as applied to students. "Steering" is a term commonly used in housing discrimination cases to describe realtors directing black families away from white neighborhoods, and vice versa.
"It is an important step forward not just for Jewish students but for colleges students of every group," he said. "But I think it is unfortunate that OCR was unable to sort things out more carefully."
Check back for updates.
sammy.roth@columbiaspectator.com
... Barnard professor Rachel McDermott had been accused of discriminating against an Orthodox Jewish student last year by discouraging her from taking a class with Columbia professor Joseph Massad, a critic of Israel who has been accused of anti-Semitism.
The complaint against Barnard was filed by Kenneth Marcus, the director of the Initiative on Anti-Semitism at the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, who alleged that McDermott illegally "steered" the student away from the class because of her religion. But the OCR found that there was "insufficient evidence" to prove discrimination, according to a letter the office sent to Barnard President Debora Spar on Wednesday.
The student—now a Barnard sophomore—had discussed class selection with McDermott, then the chair of Barnard's Asian and Middle Eastern culture department, in January 2011.
"I am grateful for the overwhelming support I have received from my colleagues, especially those in the Religion and MESAAS [Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies] Departments, as well as current and former students and many others within the Barnard and Columbia community and beyond," McDermott said in a statement.
According to the complaint described in the OCR letter, the student said McDermott told her that she "would not be comfortable'" in Massad's class. McDermott denied having said this.
"Because of the conflicting version of events and no other evidence to support the complainant's allegation, OCR determined that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the complainant's allegation that the Chair discriminated against the Student, on the basis of her national origin, by discouraging her from enrolling in the Course," the letter read.
The letter stated that the investigation has been closed, and no action will be taken against Barnard. In a statement, Spar said that McDermott is "beloved by her students and a highly regarded member of the Barnard community."
"We were happy to cooperate fully with the Office of Civil Rights and were pleased—though not surprised—to receive this favorable determination," Spar said.
Marcus, who headed the OCR himself between 2003 and 2004, said he is "considering his appellate rights," noting that he thinks the OCR got the case "wrong, factually."
"This is just the initial determination, so it is subject to appeal," he said. "We knew from the beginning that there was a chance that the professor would deny the facts that the students alleged, but in this case there is evidence supporting the student's statement, but no evidence supporting the professor."
Marcus added that these allegations have forced the OCR to consider the right against "steering" as applied to students. "Steering" is a term commonly used in housing discrimination cases to describe realtors directing black families away from white neighborhoods, and vice versa.
"It is an important step forward not just for Jewish students but for colleges students of every group," he said. "But I think it is unfortunate that OCR was unable to sort things out more carefully."
Check back for updates.
sammy.roth@columbiaspectator.com
2016-02-09T15:00:03Z
Thank you Mikey Zhong for writing one of the best senior columns of all time, and for telling me I could steal the format. Here goes.
... 2015-05-04T13:00:02Z
For pre-hurricane photos from around Morningside Heights and the city, see our slideshow here.
... 
