SUNY New Paltz: Student's State of the College
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Transcript of SUNY New Paltz: Student's State of the College
The State of Our College 2013
Dear President Christian,
An international student movement is growing; from Mexico, to Montreal, to Chile and
Turkey. These students are drawing attention to the increasing commercialization and
privatization of public education, and fighting for free and emancipatory education.
We will not tolerate policies that diminish the potential of the many in exchange for
maintaining the prosperity of the privileged few. We will not be relegated to the margins
or labeled a small, vocal minority. We will rise up and seek out solutions to the daunting
challenges left unresolved by the previous generation.
Last semester, New York Students Rising recognized the ‘Global Day of Action to Reclaim
Education,’ in solidarity with campuses statewide and universities around the world.
We spent several hours outside the Humanities building talking to students and asking
them to write down anything that they wanted the administration to know. We received a
diverse set of responses from the student body; particularly from those who feel that
their concerns have not been incorporated into the campus’ existing systems of
representation.
We understand that the concerns of our campus community exist in the broader context
of state, federal and international politics. At a time when public higher education is under
attack, governments all over the world are shifting towards a model that favors corporate
interests over those of students.
In New York, this means that the responsibility of paying for rising tuition costs at public
universities falls disproportionately on the students and families least able to afford it. As
a result of this trend, the SUNY system functions more like a business and less like an
educational institution, leaving many of us with unmanageable debt after graduating.
While we realize that many of our struggles ultimately reside in Albany and Washington,
there are immediate steps that can be taken on this campus and by your administration to
address a number of pressing concerns.
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Women’s Studies:
One of the most popular courses on this campus is the introductory course, “Women:
Images and Realities,” which is taken mostly by non-Women Studies majors. Students from
all academic areas recognize the importance of this interdisciplinary study, and how it
affects them in understanding the social world around them. The popularity of this course
indicates that students are interested in the material and, therefore, the subject area
deserves to be given the utmost amount of support from our administration.
Unfortunately, Women’s Studies lacks the benefits of department status, rendering it
unstable. The program’s stability is put further at risk because the administration has
failed to replace the single full-time faculty position since the retirement of Amy
Kesselman.
Now, Women’s Studies majors and minors must cope with the fragility of the program by
having it overseen by someone in two different disciplines. Employing one individual from
two different disciplines to complete one position is not only more work for that
individual, but it also doesn’t give that person the opportunity or time to give their full
attention to a popular and vital program.
Employing at least one full time faculty member would improve the position of the
Women’s Studies Program. In order for Women’s Studies to reach its fullest potential of
educating, empowering and inspiring students to take action against social injustices, it is
imperative that Women’s Studies be granted department status.
In order to grow and develop rather than stagnate and decline, our non-traditional areas
of study need the autonomy to appoint and dismiss their own faculty, determine what
courses are to be taught and by whom, under the direction and guidance of a full-time
department chair. These are prerequisites for fostering a sustainable program that will
enrich students’ lives for decades to come, as well as facilitate the realization of the
discipline’s infinite possibilities.
Under the right conditions, Women’s Studies has the power to transform many of our
society’s ills. The granting of department status to the program will ensure the stability
and continuity of this critical area of study.
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Gender-Neutral Housing:
Gender neutral housing is necessary on campus if SUNY New Paltz wishes to be a
welcoming environment for transgender and gender nonconforming students. Currently,
we have a system of very few “co-ed” suites, in which each individual bedroom is still
divided up based on legal binary sex. This system is largely ineffective in accommodating
transgender students.
SUNY Albany has properly defined gender neutral housing on their website as follows:
“Students signing up for these areas will be permitted to have roommates and suitemates
from across the gender spectrum. Gender Inclusive Housing will allow for an environment
where student housing is not restricted by traditional limitations presented by our
current system, which is based on the gender binary.” Therefore there would be no living
restrictions based on gender(s) of students involved.
SUNY New Paltz students are autonomous adults capable of making their own decisions
about whether or not they want to live in dorms with members of the same gender or of
different genders. Many schools, including SUNY Albany and Vassar College, have effective
gender-neutral housing programs that have not led to conflict.
The transition to gender neutral housing will have little or no fiscal impact and will serve
only to affirm SUNY New Paltz as a progressive and inclusive environment that prioritizes
the safety and comfort of SUNY New Paltz’s most marginalized and disenfranchised
populations.
Transgender students who are forced into living situations that do not align with their
gender identities are at risk for harassment, discomfort, physical danger, and
psychological and emotional harm due to the constant invalidation of their identities.
There is currently no information about gender-neutral housing and bathrooms on our
website. With the college’s constant need to present our campus as attractive in recruiting
students, this lack of resources and subsequent lack of information can only paint SUNY
New Paltz in a negative light and reflect apathy towards an oppressed group. We call for a
specific section of the college website to be dedicated to making public the college’s
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involvement in fighting transphobic violence through providing safe housing options.
We are calling for the SUNY New Paltz administration to understand the urgency and
necessity of gender neutral housing and designate one full suite-style building to be
entirely gender neutral (as defined above) with priority given to transgender and gender
nonconforming students, including incoming freshmen, as a permanent fixture beginning
with the start of the Fall 2013 semester.
Admissions
According to the 2011 Middle States Self-study report, the number of entering freshmen
who identified as African-American in 2010 was down to 6 percent as compared to 12
percent in 2000.
This is an unacceptable and deplorable trend in first-year admissions and is reflective of a
culture that conflates college rankings and selectivity with educational success.
At the same time, 20 percent of students who are accepted to New Paltz but choose not to
attend cite lack of scholarships as the reason. 40 percent find it hard to afford tuition.
The SUNY New Paltz Foundation, tasked with administering scholarships, gave out fewer
than ten last year. This is the same Foundation that has taken the lead in developing the
Park Point housing complex, where rent will likely range from $600 to $1,400 per student
a month. Rather than seek to address the demographic and economic imbalances that
plague our student body, the Foundation and the college administration have forsaken the
students whom New Paltz is intended to serve.
These practices are shameful and do a disservice to the college and its students. We are a
public institution and must not further degrade the social responsibilities that define the
core of our mission.
Campus Marijuana Policy:
We are an outlier among similar SUNY colleges in the sense that SUNY New Paltz’s ‘No
Second Chance Policy’ marijuana policy is one of the harshest in the SUNY system. SUNY
New Paltz’s policy does not align with that of other SUNY colleges because expulsion is
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possible on the first strike, even for a student never before charged with marijuana
possession. Why are we subject to a more restrictive policy when other SUNY students
are not? Is this policy serving the interest of our students? Why are we being targeted for
the perceived reputation of previous generations of students, even though this reputation
is no longer representative of our current student body?
Administrators may use the excuse that our reputation is at stake, therefore we must keep
the current drug policy, specifically marijuana policy, intact. We cannot accept this
argument because it is subjective and not driven by facts, or data, and is not reflective of
present-day realities.
SUNY New Paltz also has a reputation as an open-minded, and progressive institution. Let
us not stifle our positive reputation in fear of progressive reform of outdated drug
policies.
In its 1977 Marijuana Reform Act, our state legislature wrote:
“The legislature finds that arrests, criminal prosecutions, and criminal penalties are
inappropriate for people who possess small quantities of marihuana (sic) for
personal use. Every year, this process needlessly scars thousands of lives and
wastes millions of dollars in law enforcement resources, while detracting from the
prosecution of serious crime.”
And yet today, on our campus, about 25 percent of the University Police Department’s
activities are marijuana enforcement-related, according to UPD logs available online.
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he wishes to legalize marijuana in New York
State. We may soon follow Washington and Colorado’s lead in. You must ask yourself as
an administrator, why would you wish to keep SUNY New Paltz stuck in the failed
marijuana policies of the past?
We call upon the SUNY New Paltz administration to understand the urgency and
importance of this situation and the failed logic of the current SUNY New Paltz policy.
SUNY New Paltz should emulate the marijuana and drug policies of the other SUNY
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colleges, in which a three strike system is in place as soon as possible.
Sustainability:
As a public university that has been an integral part of the Village of New Paltz community,
we have a responsibility to protect and sustain the surrounding environment.
This University is rapidly expanding to meet the demands of our modern society, but with
this expansion comes the need for conscious and sustainable planning. This means a
commitment to achieving carbon neutrality and improving the environmental curriculum.
In 2008 SUNY New Paltz signed on to the American College and University Presidents
Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). This agreement strives for the ultimate goal of carbon
neutrality through waste reduction, energy conservation, and the implementation of the
most sustainable building practices available. In accordance with this commitment every
new structure built or renovated on campus must be LEED Silver certified, however, as
demonstrated with the renovation of Crispell Hall we have the capacity to build to LEED
Gold standards.
It is important that our commitment to sustainability not be guided by convenience, but
instead demonstrate our capacity to be environmental innovators, surpassing even the
benchmarks set out by the ACUPCC.
As a large scale institution the amount of energy we consume is incredible. Although this
cannot be remedied immediately there are long term conservation efforts that can be
enforced. Simple steps such as installing lighting, heating, and cooling controls along with
reduced building use can mitigate energy waste. Steps towards these goals have been
made, but need to be further improved upon.
Our campus has also made significant progress in the areas of recycling and composting.
However, there is an inadequate commitment to making these processes as efficient as
possible. There is a lack of education about proper recycling and composting practices as
well as an unwillingness to commit to on-site composting by your administration.
Environmental Studies is one of the most potentially valuable programs at SUNY New
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Paltz. Many students are engaged in environmental clubs and internships to substitute for
the lack of an Environmental Studies major. Although the Environmental Geochemical
Science major offers environmentally focused curriculum, it is not a substitution for the
interdisciplinary depth of the Environmental Studies major.
Green jobs are in high demand and, as a university committed to preparing students for
the workforce, it is imperative that an inter-disciplinary environmental curriculum be
available to students. An Environmental Studies minor is clearly not sufficient to supply
students with the competitive expertise to enter this new sector of the economy.
Not only is environmental sustainability incredibly important to the student body, it is
clearly an image that the administration is looking to promote. However, superficially
branding ourselves as “green,” as demonstrated on the campus website, is not sufficient.
We hope that these suggestions, further addressed in the Sustainability Plan, become an
integral part of the SUNY New Paltz community’s future planning.
Local Foods:
Steps towards incorporating more local food options on campus have not gone unnoticed.
The campus Farmer’s Market and the completely sustainable and organic campus garden
have been incredibly successful student initiatives. However, the lack of administrative
support for these initiatives has deterred continued progress.
The greater Hudson Valley has displayed a commitment to promoting small agricultural
projects and, as a member of this community, SUNY New Paltz has the potential to become
a leader in the local food movement.
Local food is grown, processed and distributed within a 75-mile radius and supports local
economies. It also takes into consideration farming practices. Sustainably grown and
distributed foods factor into the idea of local food. Sustainable food mitigates the harmful
effects of agriculture on the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals,
provides a fair wage for the farmer, and supports and enhances struggling rural
communities.
SUNY New Paltz is situated in one of the most fertile farming regions in the Northeast,
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making it very feasible to incorporate a local food system. The Campus Auxiliary Service
Board has worked to incorporate local foods into the food system on campus, however
the standards, definitions and measurements of local food in the context of food services
is currently too broad and unrefined to be effective.
Misrepresentation of what actually constitutes local foods has allowed for Sodexo to claim
Pepsi products as local food product due to their distribution center being in Newburgh,
N.Y. Now that the contract with our current food provider is being renegotiated, we have
the opportunity and responsibility to take a firmer stance on this subject.
Much of the food supplied to students on campus is made up of mass produced,
genetically engineered, and pesticide laden produce, as well as processed foods. Such food
holds less nutritional content than organic and unaltered fruits and vegetables and greatly
contributes to the degradation of our dwindling stock of natural resources.
As meal plans are mandated for all students living on campus and a single corporation
holds a contractual monopoly on food service, SUNY New Paltz has an obligation to
provide a healthy and sustainable diet to its students.
Your administration must take it upon itself to create a more sustainable and regionally
engaged campus with regard to food policy. Let us take a leadership role among SUNY
institutions in purchasing and providing an abundant selection of local and sustainably
sourced foods.
Worker protection must also be a priority while transitioning providers and entering into
contract negotiations with vendors. You must make it clear to companies doing business
with New Paltz that we want living wages and adequate healthcare for all our workers,
who are themselves members of the New Paltz community.
Class Size and Adjuncts:
Last year, the Petition for Educational Quality, Fairness & Equity was widely distributed at
SUNY New Paltz, gathering over 2,000 signatures from faculty, students, and other staff.
To refresh your memory, it called on the administration to do the following:
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1. Recognize publicly the enormous contributions of contingent employees at
SUNY New Paltz.
2. Support the UUP’s efforts to ensure that part-time adjuncts have appropriate
working conditions and are compensated equitably, so that they receive
compensation comparable to lecturers per course.
3. Strengthen academic freedom, educational quality and stability of the faculty by
increasing job security.
4. Eliminate the arbitrary minimum and maximum number of courses that may be
taught by part-time adjunct and full-time contingent faculty.
5. Institute hiring practices that reward the competency and years of service of
contingent employees.
6. Establish class sizes that support quality teaching and learning for all teaching
faculty.
7. Preserve and protect existing personnel, programs and services at SUNY New
Paltz.
To date, the issues presented here have not been adequately addressed. We cite a letter
that you posted on December 16, 2011 to support this assertion. In this letter you
acknowledge the United University Professions’ petition, but you do not address all of its
points.
In the second paragraph, you express your appreciation of the contributions that adjunct
faculty bring to this school. However, after acknowledging these invaluable contributions,
you go on to downplay their importance by stating that adjunct presence here is
“substantially less than national averages,” and that this will be decreased further after.
After this, you spend the rest of your letter refuting claims made by a regional newspaper
and presenting facts and figures to support your denial of a pay raise for adjunct
professors. If this were going to fit under any of the demands made above, it would
probably be the second one. However, the language of the petition calls for fair and
equitable pay, which upon examining some statistics that you failed to mention in your
letter, is an important demand that needs to be met.
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Between 1970 and 2008, adjunct professors’ rate of pay rose from $1,000 for a
three-credit course to about $3,000. Adjusted for inflation, this is a 49 percent decrease,
according to the UUP. This means that a professor who may teach four 3-credit courses
would earn $12,000, or just ten percent above the federal poverty line.
The rest of UUP’s demands go virtually unacknowledged. Adjuncts do not have the job
security they deserve after giving years of their time, expertise and unique knowledge to
the campus community. Many have already lost their jobs and more positions may be cut.
We are already seeing the consequences of these actions.
When discussing adjunct pay, you emphasize that the administration makes their
decisions based on baseline and comparative data. Indeed, you draw statistics regarding
adjunct pay rates from multiple unnamed colleges in the area. Why then are decisions
regarding overall adjunct presence at this school not subject to the same scrutinous
consideration? You’ve already stated that adjunct presence is well below the national
average, and that it will decrease even further. In your letter, you state:
“As the College continues to move ahead in enhancing academic quality and
opportunity for students, it is essential that we invest resources in those initiatives
and programs that most clearly advance our goals and our vision points.”
In fact, the campus’ own self-study, conducted as part of the Middle States accreditation
process, states: “...continuing to hire new permanent faculty in lieu of adjuncts may not be
fiscally sustainable.” Cutting adjunct professors may not enhance academic quality and
opportunity for students if the number of full time professors can not be maintained at
adequate levels.
Over the last six years, the availability of smaller classes has decreased, while the number
of larger sections have increased, based on the Office of Institutional Research’s Common
Data Set. For example, there was a 12 percent increase in the number of sections
consisting of 20 to 29 students between 2009 and 2010, while sections of 2 to 19 students
declined over the same period. Using ‘average class size’ as a measure does not
adequately reflect this shift toward larger class sizes.
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You state that any arguments regarding adjunct compensation should be targeted
regionally, statewide, and nationally, and not specifically toward New Paltz. While we
agree with you on this point, we feel that it is necessary to simultaneously address these
issues at the campus level as many of the choices regarding faculty retention and
compensation are made at the discretion of your administration.
We call on you to acknowledge these issues and make a statement in support of the
contingent employees of SUNY New Paltz, specifically recognizing each of the seven
demands made in the UUP Petition for Educational Quality, Fairness & Equity.
Transparency:
SUNY New Paltz, a public institution of higher education, has an obligation to maintain a
spirit of transparency, especially when decisions are made with significant repercussions
on student’s lives.
Last semester, the Student Association introduced and approved legislation calling for
more transparency with Campus Auxiliary Services in its process of seeking vendors for
campus services. This semester, students were shut out of a set of presentations delivered
by the companies bidding on our food service contract by CAS’ Executive Director.
We acknowledge that transparency can sometimes be an uncomfortable thing, but would
like to emphasize how essential it is for there to be fluid communication between the
administration and the larger SUNY New Paltz community. Easily accessible, unbiased
information must be available to those who seek it.
For example, few students were aware of the fact that $300,000 was spent on the vending
machine that has been placed on the Student Union Building Concourse or that 70% of the
revenue from that machine will go to PepsiCo. It will take over ten years to pay back the
initial cost of the unit. Fifty students could have had their tuition paid for an entire year
with the $300,000 spent. To date, the machine has been out of order and inoperable for a
substantial period of time. Clearly this isn’t something that we can reverse now, however
we must point out the irresponsibility of this decision.
The Park Point housing development is another example of the lack of transparency on
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campus. The project itself causes a disturbance of 36 acres of land, including near
old-growth woodlands. It will be built directly adjacent to wetlands, threatening the local
ecosystem, including vernal pools that are part of our unique local character.
We are concerned about the potential health effects of herbicides and pesticides currently
in the ground at the proposed site and those that will be used on landscaping in the new
development.
No renewable energy systems will be included in the development. In fact, the heat and
hot water will rely on natural gas, directly contributing to demand for hydrofracking; a
process for extracting natural gas with documented detrimental effects to the well-being
of humans and the eco-system.
We call for increased communication between the administration and the larger student
body as well as more broad-based input from students at large in decision-making
processes. Such communication will benefit the decisions the administration carries out,
as well as meet the needs of the larger New Paltz community creating a stronger
administrative-student relationship.
We are calling on you to release a statement by March 13 outlining how your
administration plans to address each of the aforementioned issues.
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