By Gloria Dulan-Wilson ~
The Original Title from the Medgar Evers Coalition was "Medgar Evers Poised for CUNY Takeover". But, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I just received a communique from the Medgar Evers Coalition, who have been struggling for more than three years now to get Pollard removed. So now that there is a CUNY take over in the works,should we rejoice, or should we be alarmed. After all, they could have remedied this situation three years ago, once the faculty, staff, students and administration sounded the alarm that there was something seriously amiss with the newly appointed "college president" William Pollard.
While I haven't written much about it over the past few months, the fact that the struggle - the effort - to relieve the college of a President who turned out to be a pariah is much to the credit of stalwarts who will not allow an interloper to come in and drag the school back to the days before Edison Jackson turned it around and made it a class-A educational institution - not to CUNY, who seems to actually be more than pleased with the predicament. .
Hopefully, it will be in time, because Pollard has pretty much eviscerated the school of all that Jackson, the faculty, staff, administration, and community worked so hard to establish.
However, rather than rehashing the entire scenario, you can can visit my Blog archives www.gloriadulanwilson.blogspot.com. Additionally, I'm including below the latest update from the Medgar Evers Coalition. I'm sure they would appreciate your support and words of encouragement. Additionally, I know they are going to need massive assistance in re-instating, and re-establishing the quality that has been systematically destroyed by an individual who should never have been allowed to set foot on the campus, let alone occupy the position of President of the only African American college in New York.
It's a travesty that it had to take this long for things to devolve to this level before CUNY would take action (or was it their plan to begin with? hmmmmm!) At any rate, if you are interested in showing support with these valiant standard bearers for quality education, and the rights of our Black youth to have a campus that represents them, make sure you do so immediately, if not sooner.
Their article follows (naturally the comments in red or in brackets are mine):
Overview: The College is now facing a $Three million budget deficit. The faculty, students, staff, community and elected leaders must continue to work collaboratively to change the leadership at Medgar Evers College. The Chancellor and the CUNY Board of Trustees must ACT NOW. We cannot allow the destabilization and downward spiral of the Medgar Evers College to continue. The mission and legacy of our institution, founded to serve the residents of central Brooklyn, must be preserved.
President Pollard must be replaced by an interim {BLACK} president, a transitional leader who is independent with no previous history at the College. The interim president must be able to lead the College as it undergoes the process of a comprehensive search for a president who has a history of scholarship, community involvement, and the ability to garner resources.
CUNY, it appears, has begun the process of replacing President Pollard. At its September 24 Board of Trustees Meeting, an agenda item indicated that President Pollard would be appointed to the Graduate School of Social Work at Hunter College, effective September 1, 2012. Faculty, staff, students and members of the community, upon learning of this agenda item, were poised to move to the next step in the search for an interim and subsequent permanent president; however, it quickly became apparent that President Pollard was not to be removed immediately.
In appointing {the ersatz} President Pollard to the Graduate School of Social Work at Hunter College, the Chancellor has only given Pollard a place to go when he is removed {their own form of a golden parachute for a job well done in demoralizing and nearly destroying Medgar Evers so that CUNY can effect a hostile take over and continue to dismantle it so that it is no longer viably a predominantly Black college} He is stalling and is allowing Pollard and his administration to continue the destruction and dismantling of the academic, social and cultural mission and infrastructure of the College.
Rather than immediately remove Pollard, he has indicated that he will appoint an external team to evaluate the President and that he will conduct a random survey with the college community.
These actions reveal that the Chancellor and CUNY Board of Trustees are positioning the College for a CUNY takeover, the apparent intention from the very start{told you}! The facts reveal a clear case of institutional racism and the complicity of those who are self-absorbed and have benefited from their relationship with Pollard and his administration.
See the facts, questions and ongoing problems.
What the Faculty Has Done: Upon learning of the President’s appointment to the Graduate School of Social Work at Hunter College, the Medgar Evers College Faculty Senate immediately wrote and asked for clarification of Pollard's appointment and timetable for his removal. They have received no response. This comes after two votes of "No Confidence" from both faculty and staff.
What Students Have Done: Student groups have demonstrated and sent petitions celebrating the anticipated removal of someone who has continued to cut services, disregarded student complaints and caused the reduction of enrollment and the fleeing of students who are transferring from Medgar Evers because of its disorganization and overall disintegration of services.
The Facts: The Chancellor states there will be an independent review of the President. Why? The faculty, staff, students and community have {already} spoken. The Chancellor states that a random survey of the college community will be taken re: its perception of the President. Why? Nothing is objective and who determines random?
A random survey is VERY questionable!
{Pollard} announced that there was a projected deficit in the budget of approximately three million dollars for the current fiscal year. He stated that the problem was due, primarily to low enrollment this fall and that the College was approximately 300 students under its projected enrollees.
How is a reduction of 300 students a rationale for a budget deficit of 3 million? Even if we had 300 fewer students, this would only account for $300,000 at most. Where is the other $2,700,000 shortfall for this $ Three million dollar deficit?
There must be other factors: such as, excessive hiring of consultants & administrators, mismanagement of finances, excessive receptions, etc. We suspect enrollment is down much more than 300. The TAP audit last year produced a shortfall of at least $Two million.
{Pollard} suggested the following as remedies for addressing the deficit.
Canceling Spring 2013 classes by 20% to 50%;
- Firing more adjuncts;
- Restructuring and consolidating departments;
- Instituting a hiring freeze;
- Reducing basic skills classes and the Freshman Year Program
- Eliminating majors such as Biology, English and Math
WHAT DOES THIS SOUND LIKE TO YOU? ALL OF THESE ACTIVITIES WILL FURTHER REDUCE THE RETENTION OF STUDENTS! {POLLARD'S} RECOMMENDATIONS will harm students, further position the College for a CUNY takeover AND WILL FURTHER DESTROY THE IMAGE AND MISSION OF THE COLLEGE.
Critical Questions
- Where is POLLARD's accountability?
- Why has the past budget and projected budget not been shared with the College?
- What is the past budget?
- How were non tax levy dollars spent? All College budgets at CUNY are largely tax levy dollars, plus non tax levy dollars.
- How were monies spent in relationship to debts accrued?
- What impact does a $Two to Three million TAP budget deficit have on the current budget?
- Why were 14 faculty hired this semester when there is an ALLEGED $Three million budget deficit?
- Is the administration poised to fire adjuncts and non-tenured full-time faculty at our next round of appointments and reappointments if academic Chairs do not cut courses and sections?
- How much money has the fundraiser-in-chief, Pollard,raised since taking office?
- How do you fire the VP for Enrollment Management and Student Development, replace him with a VP for Student Development who works half a day and keep the former VP for Enrollment Management as Executive Director of Enrollment Management without resources and then blame him for the deficit because student enrollment has declined by nearly 400 students?
- Why was the former VP of External Relations (who had to be removed for incompetence) appointed Associate Dean for School of Liberal Arts and Education?
- Why was a new administrative position created for the former VP of External Relations?
- Why does the College owe money to so many vendors?
tHE facts above represent examples of egregious mismanagement.
Ongoing Problems
Major retention problems
- Still No Writing Center
- Learning Center tutors working without getting paid.
- Learning Center in jeopardy of closing due to lack of support.
- A decrease in tutoring for all disciplines.
- A lack of planning, thus causing the closing of Student Computer Labs for three weeks at the start of the semester! Student petitions and protests forced the administration to get computer labs in place.
- No resources given for basic skills courses although basic skills courses were integrated into academic departments (math and English).
- Lack of computers for Basic Skills labs.
- Arbitrary removal of online courses for students
- Placing of responsibility for PMP targets on faculty rather than the President and administrative leadership
- Having served on the Medgar Evers Coalition Committee, I can attest to the fact that they are made up of community, educators, faculty, staff, all of whom have sacrificed their time to save the college. I can also attest to the fact that Pollard was a shill, a trojan horse to begin with, and the intention was to take over the college so that it could become something other than a predominantly Black college - you can read between those lines. If you continue to sit idly by in the surrounding communities of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx and Queens and allow yourselves to be systematically pushed out, you have no one to blame but yourselves. Medgar Evers is symptomatic of a larger issue that won't go away by just wishing and praying. It takes real action and involvement. The Medgar Evers Coalition has been doing the heavy lifting on behalf of you, your children and the community. Now it's time for you to get up off of it, and help them save the school, the community and the jobs are being removed from the community as the result of the pawn, who tried to pass for college president, being put in place with impunity at Medgar Evers to be a traitor to his own people. It's time to clean house.
- Stay Blessed &
- ECLECTICALLY BLACK
- Gloria Dulan-Wilson
PS: VOTE FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA NOVEMBER 6, 2012
https://theblacklist.net/
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