Remarks of Chair, Professor Rishi S. Raj
Plenary Session, CCNY Faculty Senate Meeting
February 21, 2012, 2PM, SH-250
Today we open the first session of the Faculty Senate for the year 2013 and I am very pleased to welcome you all to this session. Our special welcome toLTC J. Howie, J. Pishock and SGM Alvarez representing the ROTC. I also welcome our new senators for this semester.
The New Year brings in new hope, aspirations, dreams and of course new responsibilities. Let us start this year with a resolution to bring cohesion and strength to our College through diversity, Inclusiveness and Excellence. I trustthat this resolution will be aturning point in the history of City College for years to come. A big credit for this goes to Charles Watkins and his committee and of course to our President.
The Months of January and February also have a relationship to the prior said resolution and arevery historic. These months we remember for the great sacrifices, suffering of holocaust victims, memories of Gandhi and Martin Luther King’s struggle for Justice and freedom for millions through non-violence, President Lincoln’sproclamation of January 1, 1863 declaring freedom for confederate slaves and equality of black soldiers, Fredrick Douglass, (a noted author, orator, abolitionist, champion of feminist movement and other oppressed groups) civil right movement of 1847. I am always reminded of the words of Fredrick Douglass which I am pleased to recite to you today to keep the spirit of freedom, equality and civil rights going;
“Rights is of no sex, Truth is of no color
God is father of all andwe are brethren
We stand tall on thebacks of those who
Came before us.
Those who do not knowTheir past will not know their future.
Those who depreciate the value
of struggle are those who want crops
Without ploughing the ground, they want
Rain without Thunder and lightning
And want ocean without roar ofits many waters.
I urge the teaching of these basic virtues to all our young and evolving brains, so that this nation stands tall among all others. Particularity at City College, the Flag ship of CUNY where Martin Luther King Jr. came and made his address to the graduating class and so did President Barack Obama who worked as a young student. President Lincoln’s idea of equality started with simple arithmetic learning at early school days that if all things are equal to one thingthey must be equal by themselves. This tells us how important it is to teachfundamentals and irrespective of the subject,because those fundamentals could appear in another field in a different form.
In this spiriton behalf ofyou, our President and myself I dedicate this session of Senate to Black History Month and I congratulate and salute all of our African-American colleagues in the faculty, members of staff and administration for their significant contributions to the advancements of our institutions through their hard work and dedication.
Our College is moving forward to create a balancedand healthy environment which is a necessary condition to eradicate ignoranceandachieve excellence and success. We had the former secretary general Koffi Anan address our audience, ArdieWalser our diversity officer gave an excellent presentation to the Review Committee on Affirmative Action Plans, implementing and for achieving the goals of Inclusiveness and Excellence at our College. The Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate has also been playing its role through its resolutions to have a greater voice in the shared governance and for promotion and tenure of the faculty. The planning for college strategic plan has been activated. Nominations for Presidential Awards for Service and Excellence to Faculty have been announced. Nominations for Presidential Professorships have also been announced.
The College is also moving forward with the plan you approved some time back to establish the ROTC Center to benefit students, country and share in national resources. I am pleased that LTC J. Howie, who will be the lead official along with LTC J. Pishock and SGM Alvarez has brought us greetings from their superiors. He will also say a few words to you shortly. I had recently had a meeting with him and SGM Alavrez. I must say we could not have better officers and leaders assigned for ROTC effort at CCNY. I on your behalf also extend our whole hearted support for the successful implementation of the ROTC program at our Campus. The Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate in principle has approved the MS curricula presented to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee which will be presented to you in the March 21, 2013 Plenary Session along with the By-Laws of the program which are currently under preparation. The President will appoint the initial Executive Committee of the program in consultation with the ROTC leaders and the Faculty SenateExecutive Committee. You can send your nominations to me for this purpose if you would like to serve.
About four years ago I on behalf of the Valedictorian Committee prepared a series of recommendations to thethen President for recognizing and preparing our bright students for participation in the National and International Awards and to create arich and challenging environment for their stay on campus. It is only now that the present administration has taken action on those recommendations to enrich the campus environment for our students.
The College with the support of the Faculty Senate is also moving forward on online learning and making some adjustments to the award of Latin Honors designations due to transfer students. These resolutions will be presented to you for your approval. The Executive Committee would like to see implementation of latest version of Faculty workload guidelines. The Senate would also like toappoint acommittee to give its recommendations to look into matters of Auction of the College’s Art Work.
The Senate will continue to remind the administration on a number of challenges and issues which I mentioned in my remarks on December 20, 2012 Plenary sessionin particular of having evening session for access of education to working citizen, more student scholarships, diversity, curricula for challenging students for global leadership, more faculty participation inshared governance, and setting up of definite long range goals, asking DP to participate, in the college and Senate affairs, increased class sizes, and facilitating our Adjunct Faculty properly.
As you know several Executive Searches are also in progress at this time. I hope by the next plenarysession we will have some productive results.
There are some important announcements: we need to fill in ‘8’ vacancies at the (University Faculty Senate) UFS, a very important body where we must be represented in full. I have also sent out two notices in the past months for filling in vacancies in our own Senate. The most deficiency is in Engineering, Science, and Social Science areas. I request the Deans in these Divisions/Colleges to extend help infillingof these vacancies so that we have a meaningful body with full faculty participationfor making future decisions.
Finally I assure you that the Faculty Senate Executive Committee is very vigilant on all College matters and its leadership believes in promptly consulting you and informing you on all matters of critical importance to the College.
I thank you for your devoted service to the College and sharing your wisdom with us all.
My best wishes for a productive and successful Semester and let us not forget the resolution of Diversity, Inclusiveness and Excellence as our goal this year.
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