Faculty Assembly Executive Council | Minutes | 9/26/18

FAEC Meeting Minutes

Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 | Location: A218 | Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Attendees: Kathryn Zeno, Tae Kwak, Donna Flynn, Sam Mustafa, Kathy Zeno, Renata Gangemi, Christina Connor, Hugh Sheehy, Eva Ogens, Cristina Perez

Secretary: Nakia Matthias
Guests: Provost Becker and Sarah Carberry, GECCo Chair
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1. FAEC Minutes approved

2. Diversity at Ramapo

The FAEC is alarmed that RCNJ received an “F” grade for Representational Equity in a New Jersey Statewide Equity Index cited in the Chronical of Higher Education and published by The USC Race and Equity Center’s Black Students at Public Colleges and Universities: A 50 State Report Card assessment

https://race.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Black-Students-at-Public-Colleges-and-Universities-A-50-State-Report-Card-Harper-and-Simmons-1-9-26.pdf

Provost Becker was informed of the continued need to address the lack of diversity at all levels of organization within RCNJ. Diversity reflected through first generation minority students, as well as other minority contingents is imperative to the sustainability of RCNJ as the demographic pool of college-bound students is shrinking statewide. Disaggregated by ethnicity, white and African American young demographics are shrinking while Asian American and Hispanic American demographics are in fact growing. Since we are under-enrolled, relative to proportion of population on all minority demographics, particularly African American, sustaining our number of traditional, full-time college students into the future. In order to be more attractive to minority students and foster a more inclusive community, faculty, staff, and administration must also reflect more diversity. Promoting diversity is not only an abstract good in terms of our College’s stated Values, it is an existential issue.

Concerns for the future role of the Diversity Action Committee as it will be reconstituted as an advisory board to Nicole Morgan-Agard’s office.

3.  Resignation of the Director of Affirmative Action & Workplace Compliance

Helen Higginbotham resigned. She delivered a written statement about the reasons that motivated her resignation from her position as the Director of Affirmative Action & Workplace Compliance. She cited a toxic work culture, morale problem, and lack of diversity at Ramapo. Provost Becker acknowledged Higginbotham’s statements but intimated that he, “does not see” her cause for concern. [See appendices A and B for transcripts of Helen’s remarks from the last two Board of Trustees’ meetings.]

4.  Salary and Staff Contract

FAEC discussed the fact that some administrators received a twenty percent or more salary increase as this contrasted with President Mercer’s 2017 college wide announcement that staff would be converted from twelve to ten month contracts to save money, as well as how new staff start off as ten month employees. Concerns were raised that it seems as some of the most vulnerable employees were targeted by this measure. The announcement and the way it was announced has contributed to staff demoralization.

5.  Handling of Racially Motivated Offenses on Campus

FAEC discussed the incident that occurred whereby Emily Williams, the former Vice Provost received interoffice mail containing a note inscribed with a racial slur. The administration claims to have been unaware of this matter until after Williams resigned and departed RCNJ. Nicole Morgan-Agard’s office as hired an investigator to review this incident. There is currently a state investigation ongoing. It is the FAEC’s position that independent of job performance, absolutely no one should be harassed because of who they are.

6.  Institutional Priorities Survey (IPS)

FAEC expressed concern regarding the Institutional Priorities Survey that was disseminated by the Office of the Provost on September, 21, 2018. The purpose of faculty input for this survey is ambiguous, as faculty are positioned to provide responses to survey items that seek to understand students’ perceptions and experiences. Access to the results of this and other campus climate surveys are desired by faculty.

7.  RCNJ’s Academic Attractiveness

FAEC discussed RCNJ’s need to attract new students via programmatic and curricular innovation in keeping with President Mercer and Provost Becker’s interest in creating new revenue generating programs. It was suggested that innovations in the disciplines need to be assessed through faculty-led processes. Offering fully online courses and the initiation of compensation for in-demand professors that plan to develop existing and new programs was discussed.

8.  General Education Courses

Sarah Carberry and FAEC discussed the need to close the loop on the General Education course categories now that there is a new general education curriculum. The General Education Implementation Committee (GEIT) has dissolved since the new GenEd curriculum is live as of this semester. Certain guidelines (such as all GenEd courses required to be offered at least once per AY) were drafted in a 2016 Dean’s Council meeting have been used as de facto policy for admitting courses in the new GenEd. However, these are not official policies, have never been discussed or ratified at Provost’s Council, and a January 2017 meeting to refine these guideline never took place. At this point, FAEC is less interested in “weeding out” courses from categories than we are in the more immediate issue of having rational guidelines for populating the new GenEd categories, some of which may not have enough courses.

Processes for doing away with orphaned courses, refinement of course categories and outcomes; minimum course enrollment in and gen ed. Courses; and reducing the overall number of Gen. Ed. courses was discussed. FAEC and the Provost determined that coordinators and conveners should determine which courses remain and which should be removed from the Gen. Ed. offerings. Additionally, Provost Becket insisted that the criterion for Gen. Ed courses should be determined by faculty.

Provost Becker will ask the former Provost, the Deans, and President Mercer about the rationale behind the existing criterion for Gen. Ed. courses. Provost Becker insisted that he prefers a hands-off approach to allow the Deans to determine whether to close underenolled courses.

Provost Becker insisted that Middle States is concerned with course learning outcomes and students ability to meet them rather than the specifics of how the courses are structured or whether they have certain enrollment numbers.

This is in part a response to the fact that some course categories bear a vast number of courses but there is no mechanism for removing them, especially in cases where courses are not/have not been taught for extended periods of time.

Suggestions brought forth by FAEC include: Maintaining once per year course offerings and allowing varying levels of course enrollment based on program needs. At present institutional documentation indicate differing enrollment thresholds ranging from twelve to fourteen students. Exceptions should continue to be made for new courses and courses taught by visiting faculty.Attention to this matter should alleviate forcing courses to be taught if the classes do not fill.

FAEC asserted that the arbitrary nature of determining criterion for course enrollment and Gen Ed. criterion has to be rationalized. Courses that do not fill should either be removed from the Gen. Ed. curriculum or taught once per year. Furthermore, FAEC insisted that despite recommendations and guidelines for the Gen. Ed.there are no ways to review and assess it to ensure that it is fulfilling certain learning goals for the students.

9.  Possible conversion to 120 credit hours

The Provost will not propose a full 4/4 faculty load, but is considering a 4/3 with expanded opportunities for course release, as it may impact junior faculty that may not have an active research portfolio; mean benefits for some faculty and heavier load for others; produce tensions among faculty related to resource allocation and the fair determination course-release time, as well as create problems within tenure and promotion processes. Furthermore, as RCNJ is a teaching institution and not an R1 university, the possibility of service leading to course release time was discussed. It was also mentioned that some conveners do not get course release despite the fact that they need it. (This is currently being negotiated by AFT.)

FAEC concluded that Provost Becker is seriously considering having a mixed model featuring some 4 credit and some 3 credit courses

FAEC discussed the fact that RCNJ would need twenty five percent more classes (32 four-credit classes equals the 128 credit hours currently needed to graduate; 40 three-credit classes would equal 120 credit hours potentially needed to graduate) taught should the institution move to all 3 credit hour classes. The impact of this shift on t requirements for teaching in discipline like nursing were deliberated as the course content for some programs cannot be reduced due to credentialing requirements. The FAEC also weighed the impact on costs for online courses to online students as some teaching would have to shift to online formats. Additionally, logistical issues would ensue as an increased number of classes and the limited classroom availability could potentially be problematic.

10.  FAEC Meeting with The Cabinet is on Monday October 1, 2018 at 9:30 in ASB 520

FAEC agenda items for the meeting with the Cabinet include:

1. Racism at Ramapo
2. 4 credit courses
3. Revenue generating program proposals
4. Results of the climate survey

11.  October 10, 2018 is Faculty Development day 2 pm

12.  Naseem Choudhury will be attending the 10/ 3/ 18 FAEC meeting from 10 to 10:30 am

Meeting adjourned at 12 pm.

APPENDIX A

Diversity is inviting me to the party… Inclusion is asking me to dance…

Good Evening distinguished Trustees and members of the Ramapo Community.

My name is Helen Higginbotham.

Just one year ago, I stood here before you and was introduced as the newly hired Director of Affirmative Action & Workplace Compliance. It has been my pleasure to serve…

During my interview, I was quite pleased that the hiring committee did not shy away from the issue of race and ethnicity and that they specifically addressed our under representation in terms of diversity, particularly in terms of targeted efforts to increase African American representation in all categories; students, staff and faculty. In terms of African American students they were specific and cited numbers of less
than 6%. In terms of faculty, they described our diversity as more “international” than of color.

I appreciated their candidacy and that they did not shy away from the issue of race, which is often avoided as one of those “difficult” conversations we’d just rather not have… I felt very confident that I was going to be working for an institution

committed to the idea of advancing D&I and that we would move aggressively in that direction…

While some strides are being made we have work to do in both diversity and inclusion. Our numbers speak to our lack of diversity.

I shared with President Mercer that I found an old report in my office from 1993 that indicated that we had 11 Full Professors who were African American. Today we have 15, a mere 4 more in 24 years. We have 13 or 6.2% Hispanic professors. Still 72% of our professors are White. That is not much progress for a state college who claims a commitment to diversity as one of our top 3 institutional priorities and one that enjoys such close proximity to a geographically attractive and diverse area such as New York. Never should we have a candidate search that results in a racially homogeneous pool.

In terms of inclusion, as a college community we must do better to be inclusive, to make sure that all employees feel valued, respected and offered equal access to equal opportunities, be they promotions, equitable salaries, serving on committees or given opportunities to otherwise shine. We are a small a community of only 671 employees. We must strive to be more inclusive.

So why do I bring this matter to your attention? Because I care… Because I take my role as that of Director of Affirmative Action very seriously. As an attorney committed to civil rights, equality, justice and fairness and who wants only what’s best for Ramapo, I want that we go the extra to be fair, equitable and transparent in our efforts of recruitment, promotions, hiring, firings, discipline, salary treatment and the like.

As the policy setting body of Ramapo, I want to hear from you what is our commitment to diversity. Is it one of our top 3 initiatives? Are we governed by a state mandate that demonstrates for us what diversity should look like and what we must or should do to achieve it? As members of the Board of Trustees here at Ramapo, I pose these questions to you…

Thank you
Ramapo College Board of Trustee Meeting
Public Comment by Helen Higginbotham, Esq., MBA September 24, 2018

APPENDIX B

Remarks delivered to the Board of Trustees by Helen Higginbotham during the 9/24/18 meeting

Good Evening distinguished Trustees and members of the Ramapo Community. Thank you Board for allotting time in your agenda for the public to share with you our comments and concerns. It is my hope that more employees and members of the public take advantage of your offer to come before you and speak.

I am sure that by now you have been informed of my resignation from the College effective October 8, 2018. It is with both regret and relief that I resign my position of Director of Affirmative Action & Workplace Compliance.

REGRET because I have met some really wonderful people and I do believe that during my tenure many employees have felt protected in the workplace from acts of discrimination and harassment. They
knew there was a safe place for them to come.

RELIEF because like many of the employees here, I was beginning to feel bitter and broken. I could not let myself stay long enough for that to happen to me.

Given my role and my outgoing and welcoming personality, almost immediately employees took to and began confiding in me. I am about to say to you publicly, some things that many say only privately for fear of retaliation, so bear with me. I want that my comments, their comments, are a matter of record…

There is a perception in higher education that one will find a liberal and progressive environment, one that embraces diversity and equality. As I expressed when I addressed you earlier this year in April, this is what I expected to find here at Ramapo. Instead I found a very hostile work environment wrapped in a pretty bow that does not live up to its public declarations of diversity, inclusion, fairness and equality.

A definitive moment for me, as you know, was when a national search netting almost 400 resumes resulted in interviews of only White candidates. Not one Black, Brown or Yellow candidate was interviewed. Not even the Vice Provost, a Black woman leading the College at that time in its pursuit of accreditation. Not even she was offered an interview. Instead she was reportedly told that the committee deemed that she was “not a fit for the college”. What does that mean? What would have made her a fit?

When the College is boasting diversity as one of its top four initiatives what is the message being sent to the rank and file by the leadership when we host town halls for all to attend and we parade for all to see only White candidates? For the record, I would have the same criticism if all the candidates were Black.

Such indifference speaks to leadership’s lack of commitment to diversity. It should be noted that two cabinet members were members of that search committee and had a responsibility to not let that message be sent forth. I was forced to recuse myself from the search and my questioning of the absence of diversity went ignored. The Vice Provost, with less than one year of service, resigned and has since assumed a Provost position at another College.

Ramapo is a very small college. There is good and bad to being a small college. The good is that it is small enough to manage and alleviate problems associated with larger institutions. Ramapo should be a family atmosphere, a model for all the other state colleges. We are not…

The negative is that when we are small, all that happens in the dark is revealed in the light of day. Recently it became common knowledge that members of the cabinet were awarded raises between $18 and 45K. If in fact anybody on this campus is worthy of that kind of increase, it is the employees who made their success possible. I don’t know of anybody who got raises anywhere near that number. It is rumored that some persons on campus have their educational pursuits paid for by the College while others do not. Executive decisions are made

to hire some employees at salaries beyond that advertised. Such disparities in treatment do nothing for the morale of employees which is at an all time low.

This is no secret but there seems no interest in addressing it. I had one member of the cabinet say to me that if EEs are that unhappy why are they still here. They should quit. Another told me that horrible things happen to people who try to make change or are critical of Ramapo. I met with Dr. Mercer in February to share with him my observations and shared my concerns about what was being told to me by employees. I had hoped to work with him toward solutions…

HR knows of the problems with employee morale and lack of appreciation. They hear it from employees. They hear in exit interviews when they bother to do them. What do they do with that information? Instead of dealing with what is the problem, there seems to be more an interest in punishing employees… Again, although it was not my job, almost immediately I represented a safe place for employees to come. They felt reassured that I was at least listening to them and would attempt to get results when I could.

I recognize that as the BOT it is not your job to be involved in the daily operation of the College but you do have a fiduciary responsibility to have some understanding of what is going on at Ramapo and to protect the College from potential liabilities. That is why I bring this to your attention.

After speaking to you in April, I was told that as an employee I am not to communicate with you directly but to bring what I might want to say to you through first General Counsel, who would review it and then take it to the Chief of Staff, who would deem worthiness or to whom on the Board would receive my comments. I criticized that such a practice is akin to censorship.

If the cabinet does not want the board to know something, surely you will not know it as it will have been filtered through the cabinet or just not delivered. All of your email addresses are included in the directory. If employees are not to
contact you, then remove them. I encourage that you don’t allow there to be such a buffer between you and the employees. Engage them directly or form a
committee to do so. I encourage that you find some way to be more engaged or accessible to employees. Some means of communicating with you and/or the President needs to be in place where employees do not fear reprisal. Even tenured professors seem fearful of backlash…

Recently in speaking with employees, I was struck by how often they kept referring to Ramapo as having a “culture of fear”. Fear of retaliation is very real at Ramapo. Micromanaging is very real at Ramapo. Far too many employees dreadfully come to work day in and day out waiting to retire or to find a new job. The perception is not that Dr. Mercer leads the College but that at least two others on the cabinet, neither who have pedagogical or managerial training and seemingly no training nor appreciation for customer service. Our employees, like our students, are our customers.
I challenge you to query both students and employees alike and ask them to give one word to describe Ramapo. More often than you will like, you will hear the word “toxic”.

Employees found refuge and hope in the “Diversi-Teas” [with Affirmative Action] that I was hosting on campus. It was a positive opportunity for employees from all walks to come together, to get to know one another, to feel valued, to discuss diversity, different biases, connect and feel appreciated. An unprecedented 10%
of the employee base attended these events. I made sure to include employees from the cabinet to the janitorial staff. It was positive, empowering and diverse. Too positive, too empowering and too diverse. They were stopped…

I was hired under the impression that diversity was important and that specifically there was a genuine interest in increasing the number of Black American students and employees alike. I have seen no progress in that direction. In terms of optics, the Board of Trustees is reflective of what appears to be the College’s
commitment to diversity. Like the provost candidates, it too, is all White…

Again, I bring this matter to you in the interest of speaking for what I believe are broken employees who, unlike me, have cause to stay here and bide their time. I bring this matter to your attention because as Director of Affirmative Action I have seen things that the average employee does not. I would have liked to bring these matters to your attention privately but communication was forbade.

Especially in light of what is going on in the press with the sheriff in Bergen County, I could have called the Bergen Record or even had the local NAACP here to hear my concerns and really made this a matter of public record. I don’t doubt even that the Governor’s office would not be interested in what I have to say about the goings on at Ramapo. Instead, I am giving you benefit and expecting that you will see fit to address or investigate at least some of what I have expressed here. While horrible things may happen to me for trying to implement change at Ramapo, you are at the helm. You are the driving force. You are the leadership. Nothing horrible can happen to you.

I am a firm believer that when we know better, we do better. This is a public institution, we have an obligation to do better…

Thank you for your time and attention.

Categories: FAEC MEETING MINUTES 2018