Columbia University Senate
External Relations and Research
Policy Committee Annual Report, May 2005
Following is a summary of the issues considered by the committee over the course of the year.
MANHATTANVILLE
The Manhattanville project will produce community benefits including creation
of jobs, but the university has not been as proactive as it should be in
establishing what those benefits will be. One area where proactivity would be
more welcomed is in public education. Planning for Manhattanville should
include consideration of how Columbia can work with the local community, the
Board of Education, and local school administrations to improve the public
schools in the Columbia University area. One model to consider is that set up
by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Columbia resources
currently involved in Harlem and other local neighborhoods include the Mailman
School of Public Health, the Social Work School, Teachers College, and the administration’s
Office of Community Affairs, in the person of Larry Dais.
K-8 COLUMBIA SCHOOL
This needed proactivity also bears on the K-8 school set up by Columbia. Currently and for the foreseeable future it is running on a 9 to 12 million dollar annual deficit. Some members of the External Relations Committee felt something drastic must be done. Most of the solutions offered to deal with this deficit have aimed at cutting back on the University’s commitment to fund education of faculty children. That was the original justification for the school.
One major source of the deficit has been the commitment to fund local community children. Some members of the committee feel that the university should meet with the local community and tell them that the school must be shut down or significantly altered in the long run. The community should further be told of the University’s desire to work with them to put in place a mutually agreeable plan. What should be raised is the greater benefit to the community of Columbia directly providing financial aid to the public schools in a coordinated effort of university resources, the community, and the Board of Education.
The educational needs of the children of Columbia faculty should be met and alternatives considered to the present K-8 school that would be more in keeping with the promises originally made to the faculty. For instance, the space currently used for the K-8 school could be leased out to one of the currently active private schools with the proviso that they give priority to faculty children.
The recommendation was not universally agreed to by members of the committee. One group felt the present school should be kept as is and the annual deficit should be reduced by changing the subsidization policy to faculty and the community. A major concern expressed by them was that certain groups of people whose fringes go into the pool for supporting the school are not eligible to have their children educated at the school.
Manhattanville has raised the issue of academic planning to new heights. The committee felt that the needs of social science research had not been adequately addressed, and it undertook to examine these needs. Over the last two years it has conducted a series of interviews with social scientists in many of the academic departments, professional schools, centers, and institutes at the University. The following are its findings:
SPACE--AMOUNT AND LOCATION
Social Sciences departments have significant space problems. One major consideration is not simply the amount of space but the location. In the 1950s all the major social science departments, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, and History, were located in one building, Fayerweather Hall. Anthropology was next door in Schermerhorn. The major social science research center was located at 117th Street between Amsterdam and Morningside Heights. Over time, Economics, Political Science, and the social science research center moved to SIPA while Sociology and History remained in Fayerweather.
Currently, space constraints are causing Sociology to think about moving to 122nd Street and Broadway to space in the Union Theological Center. It is not clear if the ISERP, the major social science research center, will move with them. These moves have had no overall rationale aside from the fact that space opened up and the departments were willing to move. What this report suggests is that now is the time for the social science departments to meet and decide if it serves their long-term interest to remain in close physical proximity or not. Does it serve their interest to act as a collectivity to assure their space needs will get priority? While most of the new building for the next seven years has been decided, there are two possibilities for new buildings that might arise. If the school of business decides to move to Manhattanville, its current building will be available, and an area adjacent to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine could become available for Columbia buildings.
COORDINATION
OF RESEARCH
In addition to the space problems, there has been a substantial migration of
social science research from traditional academic departments to professional
schools and institutes. Currently, the major academic arm of social science
research, ISERP, has approximately 6 million dollars in grants which it brought
in last year. The department of Sociomedical Sciences at the School of Public
Health brought in approximately 36 million dollars of social science grants
last year and the estimate is that there is closer to fifty-four million
dollars of social science grants in all the departments of the School of Public
Health. It is estimated that Teachers College brought in twenty-five million
dollars of grants, and the School of Social Work had somewhere between six and
ten million dollars of grants. No estimate is available from the school of
business, the law school, or engineering. There may be six to ten times the
amount of funded social science research being done outside of the traditional
academic departments as in them. The question that should be considered by
academic planners is what if any coordination should take place between the
social science research efforts at the professional schools and the traditional
academic departments. ISERP, for instance, has some collaborative efforts with
social science researchers at the School of Public Health. Is this something
that should be expanded?
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH TEACHING
PROG RAMS
Currently, Arts and Sciences is the only unit in the university that can give
the Ph.D. What has emerged is a series of subcommittees that de facto are run
through the professional schools to train social science researchers earning a
Ph.D. For instance, in Public Health, the Department of Sociomedical Sciences
runs a Ph.D. program that gives joint degrees with Sociology, Political Science,
History, Economics, and Anthropology. The student takes half his or her courses
in traditional academic departments and half in the School of Public Health. Teachers
College runs a Ph.D. program as does Social Work. The question arises what if
any further collaboration should take place between traditional academic
departments and these subcommittees that function as departments. Should there
be closer coordination around classes taught, faculty appointed, and supervision
of student research training? The growth of these subcommittees and their
training programs merits a timely assessment.
SOCIAL SCIENCE TENURE
CRITERIA
Social scientists working in professional schools often publish in different
journals, address different audiences, have different styles of data analysis,
and often make use of different statistics. Often when they come up for tenure
they are assessed by the academic department’s criteria. A discussion is needed
on what changes, if any, should take place in evaluating tenure for social
scientists working in professional schools as compared to those working in traditional
academic departments.
This two-year review of social science research at Columbia has led the committee to suggest the following:
*A symposium with guests from other universities to discuss the role of social science in current university structures.
*Formation of a university-wide standing committee consisting of representatives from traditional academic departments, various professional schools, institutes, and centers. This committee would set the pace for academic planning in social sciences at Columbia.
*Creation of a Deputy Vice President for social science research in David Hirsh's office.
COMMUNITY AND
THREATS TO ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Government and
community actions have increasingly undermined academic freedom. Funding support has been cut off for research in reproduction, AIDS prevention, and stem
cell research. The Horowitz movement for "balance" is a threat
to scholarly independence. The case must be made to the larger community and
the federal government for academic freedom. The university's slow
response to the MEALAC controversy brought about attempts from outside the
university to influence teaching here. The administration’s appointment of an
ad hoc committee whose members were perceived to be predisposed to disregard
the student complaints resulted in the alienation of alumni, philanthropists,
and members of the media. The faculty and administration should consider
whether these trends constitute an ever growing danger to university and if so
what if anything they can do about it.
WORKER CODE
OF CONDUCT
The existing worker code of conduct for university licensees ought to include
mandated wage disclosure, as long as Columbia's oversight partner, the Worker
Rights Consortium, can adequately make use of the data. The committee has been
working with Students for Environmental and Economic Justice on these issues.
Worker protections are critical now following expiration of the Multifibre
Arrangement and increased domination by China of the textile trade. Columbia's
administration should work with other universities in exerting critical
pressure to ensure worker rights where the university is buying their products.
Guests of the committee this year were
Loretta Ucelli, EVP for Communications and External Affairs
Elizabeth Golden, Director of Operations, Planning, and Special Projects
Jeremiah Stoldt, Director of The Campus Plan
Susan Brown, AVP, Office of Public Affairs
Larry Dais, AVP, Office of Community Affairs
Ellen Smith, AVP, Office of Government Relations
Erwin Flaxman, Teachers College Institute for Urban and Minority Education
Nate Treadwell, Students for Environmental and Economic Justice
Eugene Litwak, Chair, External Relations and Research Policy Committee