Student Council Meeting

Agenda

Things we got to:

• Faculty Meeting
• Steering Meeting
• Lecture Poster
• Student/Faculty Meeting Sunday

Things we did not get to:

• Leanne Miller Review
• ASC Website
• TC Info Session
• Scheduling Meeting with Saskia

Github Notifications

Text “Follow CooperASC” to 40404 or follow the Github log on Twitter.

Faculty Meeting

• Kristi reviewed her meeting notes.
• Won pointed out that there are lots of internal politics. Associate professors and full-time professors renew the contracts of visiting artists and adjuncts. So if an adjunct offends a full-time or associate it could indirectly affect decisions made about their contract.
• Won pointed out faculty/student miscommunication. Students may think we’re being really clear when we say why we think the Hybrid programs would corrode the ethos of the BFA, but some faculty believe we’re just saying “no money because money is bad”. We need to be articulate on Sunday.
• Kristi observed the sentiment amongst faculty involved in Hybrid plans. In addition to not voting, faculty may also try to present their Hybrid plans as something they were forced to do and do not support.
• Won noted that faculty did a good job keeping student representatives very involved in this meeting.

Steering Meeting

• Won recapped Saskia asking what faculty think about Hybrid model. Faculty member voiced that regardless of their opinion, the decision feels already made for them. Mostly followed by agreement from other faculty.
• The implication is that faculty can/want to help students but there are limits and boundaries to their position. Faculty see momentum but students are in a safer position to generate it.
• Despite a faculty member voicing to Saskia that they don’t believe in the program they are working on, Saskia says faculty needs to continue and that they are doing a good job.
• In the meeting Sharon Hayes raised concerns about “firewalling” these programs so their philosophy doesn’t leak into the BFA.
• Won points out to Student Council how the post-bacc program is weirdly similar to BFA and students even share classes but costs money.
• Shira asks how post-bacc started?
• Won says that Day said post-bacc came up when they realized exchange students want to stay at Cooper
• Rachel asks where will we get the space and resources?
• Joe says that the building could be used more efficiently in off-hours, etc.
• Won says that almost all the projects need more space. They are talking about renting and also making the studios here smaller. Renting could lead to buying. It’s all about expansion.
• Rachel says the size of studios here already came up as an accreditation issue

Questions about Tenure

• Questions about tenure arise. Joe mentions that there have been recent examples of tenured professors being fired at other schools.
• A tenured faculty member told Kristi that the things they can be fired for are limited, such as: violence, being unable to teach, the school can’t pay them and has nothing left to sell, cutting their curriculum entirely.
• Won explains what tenure is because not everyone has heard of it: protecting professors from getting fired based on what they do and political tension.
• Joe has read that there maybe won’t be tenure anywhere in 15 years
• Rachel notes that Jamshed has said in the Board Chair Meeting that he agrees we need more tenured architecture faculty. So he believes in tenure? Also he has tenure.
• Kristi asks if Saskia is the only dean without tenure? Unclear.

Humanities Faculty Meeting

• Jenny reviews her notes (thorough and soon to be published)
• Regarding Queer Theory course and other topics like Foucault, a recurring statement from some members of the Humanities administration is that this type of content is too complicated for students of our age. These remarks seem condescending. They seem out of touch with what we talk and think about.
• Casey complains that it’s funny to learn that they talk like that because all his HSS classes have felt like middle school.
• Rachel proposes writing a statement to them
• Shira says it’s great to hire academics but they need to meet us halfway
• Won points out that humanities doesn’t do a good job retaining talent
• Joe says that for young talent Cooper is probably more of a stepping stone than a place they’re hoping for tenure.

Cross-school Event Poster

• Andy met with them. They decided on places to put posters and workflows for putting them up. Will go into action in a week or two.

Art Students / Art Faculty / Great Hall

• Rachel says we have equal parts full-time/associate and half prop/adjunct professors RSVP’d.
• Many faculty that Student Council members have talked to independently throughout the week say to be careful about how we phrase things and who we pose questions to. Faculty will have different levels of knowledge.
• Joe says being sensitive is important. But you could tactically or strategically ask questions to specific people or constituencies. Not just about us getting information but to get everyone on the same page.
• Jenny says it’s important to clarify that this is not a meeting about getting information. It’s a conversation about our collective confusion.
• Rachel says we should make it clear in our email where we’re coming from and what our persepctive is. “We recognize the politics but the things we want people to be able to talk about are…” Try to ignore certain things and address others. This is not necessarily to inform but to talk about communication.

Transparency and Documentation

• Rachel asks how the meeting will be recorded. Is documentation necessary for this? Given the pushback we’ve heard from adjuncts. Or even full-time faculty.
• Joe says that if enough students show up will we won’t need to. Kristi says it makes sense not to with a conversation
• Rachel bring up the concept of a teach-in, or minute-less meetings. Having purposefully not invited administrators why should we post notes?
• Jenny says we should be rigorous and mention only tenured faculty by name.
• Rachel poses letting people redact things.
• Casey asks if there is a conflict between us advocating for transparency with our website and new workflows and then holding our own off the record meeting?
• Kristi points out a difference between a meeting and conversation.
• Rachel says we should do it how we would want it to be done. On record.
• Jenny proposes No names for people without contracts.
• Kristi proposes all names or no names
• Rachel says we can tell faculty and students in advance that we’re taking notes to post online but they will not include names.
• Jenny says that this produces a document that shares the results of the meeting but can’t be fully decoded by/without people who weren’t there
• Sebastian: To what extent do we have to edit these notes? Can editing be confused with sugar-coating?
• Rachel: Not really. And it’s not just about editing. It has to do with adjunct job security.
• Jenny: Motion for notes with no names at all. It passes.

Plan

• Joe says this could be catalytic. A kicking of each other’s asses.
• Casey says we should strive for understanding the multiplicity not trying to find concensus.
• Won says maybe we don’t have a formal structure but we should have a plan. Come with questions to pose to students and faculty. We’re not calling faculty to a meeting, we’re meeting each other equally.
• Who is invited? Who is not invited? How do we enforce this? It is decided that this meeting will be open solely to art faculty and art students. This will be made clear ahead of time. Administrators and students from other schools will be asked to leave.

Content

We discussed a bunch of topics:

• Electives
• Communication
• Tenure
• Hybrid Model
• Faculty and students on the board
• Faculty / Administrative Relations
• Fear / Coercion
• What are faculty worried about?
• What are students worried about?
• Being sensitive to different levels of awareness amongst faculty and student. Anticipating/accomodating those who don’t know that much, especially compared to Student Council.
• Curriculum and importance of generality
• Ending of electives
• Decisions made without student representation
• Unions: staff, adjunct, and full-time.
• Bullshit
• Structure
• Politics
• Professionalism. Is being reserved a bigger danger than catfights? Seems important for faculty to hear student frustration.

And then narrowed down the list and decided to each taske responsibility for a topic or two and advocate for its importance in the meeting. This isn’t a hard rule, but can be used to help move the conversation along, make sure it covers everything, and prevent one topic or person from dominating. We will forumlate a loose question about our topic to email around to each other on Saturday and then forward along to faculty and students.

• Responsibility-centered management — Casey
• Communication — DeVonn
• Electives and the loss of our “generalist” approach to education — Kristi
• Tenure — Casey
  • what is partial tenure?
  • tenured administrators
  • will it create animosity?
• Fear — Joe - Threat of closing schools. Do you think it’s real? Is it affecting your decisions? What to make of it being instrumentalized/administrative fear-mongering? Faculty have said things like, “I’m only doing this because I might lose my job.”
• Hybrid Model — Won
  • faculty confidence
• Having a student and faculty member on the board — Rachel
• Faculty concerns — Jenny
• Relations between schools (animosity) — Asher