Faculty in Attendance: Annie Del Principe (chair), Tony Alessandrini, Steven Amarnick, Rick Armstrong, Adanze Asante, Sylviane Baumflek, Bob Blaisdell, Doreen Bowens, Jackie Brady, Lesley Broder, Greg Bruno, Rob Cowan, Elizabeth Dill, Elroy Esdaille, Maureen Fadem, Monica Filimon, Lea Fridman, Michelle Gabay, Matthew Gartner, Patricia George, Karlene Gooding, Janine Graziano, Patrick Hickey, Linda Holman, Tony Iantosca, Rachel Ihara, Gabrielle Kahn, Amy Tziporah Karp, Brian Katz, Neil Kernis, Kevin Kolkmeyer, Maxine Krenzel, Tom Lavazzi, Hermina Marcellin, Kristine Mariano, Gene McQuillan, Jennifer Oliveri, MaryLynn Navarro, Karen Niles, Hope Parisi, Frank Percaccio, Dan Perrone, Christine Rudisel, Sara Rutkowski, Emily Schnee, Maria Scordaras, Ashiza Shah, Cheryl Hogue Smith, Bailin Song, Joanna McNaney Stein, Enid Stubin, Tisha Ulmer, Sheri Weinstein, Jane Weiss, Sheryl Williams, Eben Wood, Carl Schlachte (secretary)
Campus Elections Committee Members in Attendance: Michael Sokolow, Maria Patestas
Review of Meeting Protocols and Election Guidelines
Annie Del Principe: We will start with a brief review of election policy we’ve gone through to get to this moment, starting from the nominating and elections policies approved by the department in March and slightly amended in April.
Christine Rudisel: Thanks to those who nominated candidates, and thanks to candidates for submitting written statements. Candidates will be able to make statements, of a maximum two-minutes each. Statements will be in voting order by office, then in alphabetical order within the P&B election. After statements, we will move directly to voting without discussion. In order to vote, you must be at your own computer with your camera on. Candidates can withdraw up until the last day. Does anyone wish to? [No response.] We welcome Mike Sokolow from the College Council Elections committee to help us administer the vote.
Voting Instructions and Verification of Eligible Voters
VoteNet attendance was recorded as voters arrived. We verified the attendance of all eligible voters, except Deborah Anderson, John Keller, Julie Torrant, and Red Washburn.
Questions: Why can’t adjuncts vote?
Mike Sokolow: This is per CUNY bylaws; only tenure-track and tenured faculty are available to vote. Kingsborough amended this to add lecturers with CCE, but there is no provision for lecturers without CCE or part-time faculty voting.
Candidates’ Statements
Statement of candidate for Department Chair
Annie Del Principe: I don’t have much to add beyond the written statement I already submitted. I’d like to play the long game and see where we’re headed, and then work slowly and consistently toward those goals. Even in the couple of months that I’ve been interim chair, I’ve already started to see some things that we can do, and should work on as a department, to improve our internal structures and offerings for students, etc.
I intend to be a very active participant in the liberal arts restructuring. One reason it’s important for us to be very involved is that we can really expand our concentration offerings. I want us to finally get our creative writing concentrations through, as well as revise our English concentration for further offerings and marketability.
Statement of candidates for P&B Committee Members
Steve Amarnick: During the last couple weeks I went full-steam ahead with ChatGPT; we’ve had some fun and fascinating lessons. I mention this because I’m more convinced than ever that the next few years will be very wild here. I have a lot of experience, but I have a lot of enthusiasm. I hope my work ethic makes me a good candidate for P&B and I hope you will vote for me.
Rick Armstrong: I’ve been a member of the P&B committee for 3 years and I hope I’ve learned from it. Hopefully my colleagues on the P&B will vote for me. I was briefly chair for personnel matters, and I worked with members of other departments to get faculty members reclassified. I have a calm, steady temperament and hold no ill-will toward anybody. I think running for re-election makes sense; I’ve learned in this job and would like to continue. I’d appreciate your votes.
Rob Cowan: I was a professor at KBCC from 2008-2015, I was on leave for 7 years while I was a Dean of Arts & Sciences at Hunter in charge of assessment, graduate programs, and more. I decided to return to the classroom last fall, and it has been great to be teaching again and get re-embedded in campus life. Since I’ve been back, I’ve heard a lot about desires for greater community, people feeling unheard and undervalued, etc. I’m interested in being on P&B to help rebuild that sense of community. I’ve hired full time and adjunct faculty, and worked on hiring faculty of color and LGBT faculty. I’ve published 6 books and done a lot of work on budgets. I’d like to help protect the number of lines we get and to work to reforge the close-knit community at the heart of the department.
Patricia George: I’m honored to be nominated to serve on P&B. Since being nominated, I have learned more about the work of the committee. I’m interested in all the service in the areas it covers, but I’m particularly interested in hiring and mentoring new faculty. I have experience hiring, as I served on the search committee that hired two new ESL lines last year. I have also recently experienced the practice of advancement, and my recent experience doing that can help me guide other faculty through it. As ESL director, I’m a member of the CUNY ESL discipline council. As an untenured faculty member I think I would add a valuable perspective to P&B. I would like to support programs and faculty in any way I can.
Cheryl Smith: Thanks for nominating me. Having served on the committee for 3 years and seen what the work was, I know that having a voice that has already been on the committee to offer knowledge about its previous work and procedures can be useful to help us move forward. What I love most about P&B is that, having navigated early tenure and promotion, I had to learn how to think strategically to advance. I am interested in mentoring. If you want to accomplish something in this department, you have every right to have the support to pursue that. I’d love to serve again to continue in this role.
Statement of candidate for College Council Representative
Matthew Gartner: Thank you for nominating me. A line of poetry came into my head, from “The Idea of Order at Key West”: “Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon.” I was thinking about this because I wondered: why do I want to be elected to this position? The blessed rage for order, in the chaos, is what’s driving me. I’ve done a lot of governance in the college, including digital governance on the website committee. Please join me in raging for order.
Because VoteNet did not have an election for department secretary already set up, we proceeded to voting with the intention to return to this election afterward.
Voting
Christine Rudisel: We will now proceed to voting. Please remember to have your camera on for your votes to count. All terms will last for three years, from 2023-26.
Election of Department Chair
Mike Sokolow: There are 52 eligible voters, so even though there is only 1 candidate, she must receive at least 27 votes (half, plus one) in order to be elected. You may vote for Ann Del Principe or abstain.
Annie Del Principle: 42 yes, 6 abstain.
Annie Del Principe was elected chair.
Election of P&B Committee Member
Michael Sokolow: Each candidate needs 27 to win. If there is a tie, it moves to a runoff vote. Vote for up to 4 candidates. If you vote for 1, 2, or 3 candidates, your vote will still count.
Steve Amarnick: 42 votes.
Rick Armstrong: 39 votes.
Rob Cowan: 20 votes.
Patricia George: 29 votes.
Cheryl Smith: 41 votes.
Abstain: 0 votes.
Steve Amarnick, Cheryl Smith, Rick Armstrong, and Patricia George were elected to the P&B Committee.
Election of College Council Representative
Michael Sokolow: Because there is one candidate, you can vote in favor of him or abstain. 27 votes are needed to win.
Matthew Gartner: 41 yes, 7 abstain.
Matthew Gartner was elected College Council representative.
Statement of candidate for Department Secretary
Carl Schlachte: I will be brief because it’s hard to give a statement and take notes at the same time. You have seen the notes I have taken as interim secretary for the last few meetings. If you like these, and want me to keep taking notes, please vote for me. I aim to distribute all minutes in a timely manner following meetings, and if you want corrections made, please tell me and I will do so.
Election of Department Secretary
Carl Schlachte: 44 yes, 4 abstain.
Carl Schlachte was elected department secretary.
- Agenda and Minutes
The agenda for this meeting was approved without any amendments.
The minutes from the April meeting were accepted without corrections.
- Announcements and Discussion
Annie Del Principe: We will close with a few announcements and ask for a little input.
Firstly, I wanted to follow up on details for an end-of-term, in-person gathering on June 14. There is a Google Form poll to ask whether or not you think you will attend, to estimate how many people will attend, for catering purposes. The estimated time is from 11am-1pm, but email Annie directly if you are giving an exam that time and we could start at 10:30am instead.
At our last meeting, we met for goal setting; I still have the priorities we generated. I plan to take these and use them to start our first meeting in the fall.
Next I would like Rob Cowan to provide an update on the movement of the journalism program to the communications department, which first came up at our April meeting.
Rob Cowan: I have an update on the move of the journalism program to the communications department. I raised concerns about this from curriculum and governance grounds; I followed up with Ekaterina Sukhanova, who is the head of curriculum at CUNY central. Because this movement is not part of a curriculum restructuring, it does not need to go through curriculum committees. If it’s a matter of where a program is housed, then it’s considered a local matter.
I then reached out to the Provost; she confirmed that such changes are addressed by the Provost, the department chairs and faculty involved. She figured that our departmental P&B was at least discussing this change, but the way this move was discussed at the April meeting made this seem like it’s not the case. The Provost is at least playing by the rules, in terms of policies for moving the program. But the way this change was carried out speaks of the need for greater intra-departmental transparency. There has been a culture of people withholding information as a source of power, and we need to push back on that by establishing procedures to deal with this, in my opinion.
Discussion
Maureen Fadem: This is an example of one of those things that Matthew was referring to in his candidate statement. You would think, if they were moving an entire program, that there would be ongoing conversations between us and the communications department. I’m a little shocked to know that this was being done without broader discussion.
Questions:
Rob, from what you said, it seems like the Provost is following the rules. However, the Provost is supposed to make this decision in collaboration with the department and the professors involved. Doesn’t it seem like those conversations weren’t taking place? Answer: The idea wasn’t the Provost’s; she was approached with this. This was a decision by the Provost, the two department chairs, and the affected faculty members (i.e. the journalism faculty), which is a very small number.
Patrick Hickey spoke on behalf of the journalism program to clarify his role and the context for the change.
Patrick Hickey: I wanted to clarify, because I wasn’t at the last meeting. I was approached and asked if the journalism program moved into media and communications, would I go? It was a difficult decision, but I said yes. I was approached by the head of the communications department. The journalism program’s numbers have been shrinking for a long time. Eileen would not let me hire an adjunct to help out. I was told that the journalism program would be moving, and that if I wanted to keep teaching in it, I would also have to move. I have been in the English Dept. for 17 years, and this was a very tough decision. But I decided to move because it would be an opportunity to grow this program in a way that it wasn’t being allowed to grow in the English Dept.
Maureen Fadem: This is not Patrick’s fault, this is a failure of leadership. Patrick was put in a tough position, and made the best decision for himself. This is a failure of leadership.
Rob Cowan: I was purposely not naming any names of the faculty members; those are personnel matters and not the topic of discussion here.
Eben Wood: Rob already addressed these issues, but the decision to move a program is not the decision of the chair of a program, so we should not put Patrick under indictment for that.
MaryLynn Navarro: I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what went on in the journalism program. The course I wanted to teach was cancelled, twice. There is a Perkins grant that is attached to the program, so we are losing half the grant. This is not to say it’s anyone’s fault, but this is a loss.
Question:
I am sympathetic to Patrick and disturbed by the situation he was put in. I am curious about one thing he said, that the program couldn’t grow within the English Dept. as it could in Comm. What would make the difference? Answer: Cross-listing between communications and journalism classes, being able to add new classes, being able to hire an adjunct in the program. I have done everything I possibly could to grow this program (I am head of the CUNY journalism council, I have talked to College Now, etc.) but have run out of other options. I’m still going to be a part of the English department for the foreseeable future, because we are still growing the program, but it does mean that the journalism classes are moving into another department.
We moved on to other announcements.
Joanna Stein: Next week on Wednesday, May 17, between 11:30-3pm in the hall of flags, please come to the Creative Writing Fair. We will be pitching our classes, and will have some swag and some refreshments.
Annie Del Principe: We are (finally) transitioning from Blackboard to a new LMS, Brightspace. Kingsborough is in the second wave of the rollout, which means we will have it in Spring 2024. I don’t know much about it yet or have any experience using Brightspace. There will be a semester of overlap between Brightspace and Blackboard, where both are generated for all courses. This means there will be a choice for faculty members, and there will be a lot of support for migrating courses over, etc. This announcement is to say that this is happening, and that’s the timeline. The Provost asked all chairs to gather top concerns from their departments, so they can tailor resources for us. On each campus there will be a core group guiding the transition, and then there will be a separate advisory board with representatives from each department (as well as some other offices) designed to communicate to and from faculty as we navigate this new space. I will follow up after this meeting with a space to get your feedback, to know what you would most like to know and what you are most worried about.
Questions:
Do we already have campus accounts for Brightspace if we are interested in playing around in it? Answer: Not that we are aware of.
What are the advantages of Brightspace? Answer: We are not sure because we don’t know it yet. But here is a link to the transition website for more information: https://www.cuny.edu/academics/brightspace-transition/
Joanna Stein: One warning to issue related to the new LMS has arisen from College Council. I wanted to bring it up now so we can address it later. They’re trying to have the instructional committee come up with a universal syllabus. Prepare yourself in case that comes down the line, further on.
Annie Del Principe: If we work as a department and make some decisions together, and document them, we can push back on that. If we stay as “independent contractors,” we have less power in situations like that.
Meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m.
English Department Elections Position Statements
DEPARTMENT CHAIR
Annie Del Principe:
Dear colleagues,
I appreciate your nomination to run for department chairperson, and it would be my privilege to serve our community in this role.
I believe strong leadership begins with deep listening & collaboration. I dedicate myself to creating new structures for collegial interaction & planning, together, for the next chapter of our collective story. From the strategic planning work we did together during our April “hyflex” department meeting, we’ve initiated one of these processes. I’ll be bringing those ideas & priorities – your priorities – back for us to consider together as we design concrete steps forward.
After only seven weeks as Interim Chair, I have already begun to see several possibilities for healthy growth & renewal for our department. If I were elected to continue to serve as your chairperson, some of the following goals would be among my top priorities:
*Engaging actively in the process of revising the Liberal Arts structures & requirements at the college. As many of you know, the chairpersons of the liberal arts departments have been working hard for several years on this project, and I believe it’s in our best interest as a department to participate fully in this process.
*Growing our concentration offerings. Our broad “English” concentration has been faring quite well in comparison with other L.A. concentrations, but I believe strongly that we have much more to offer our students. Concentrations in Creative Writing and perhaps in Literary Studies could enhance our offerings & enrollment in electives. In addition, I want to explore possible future multidisciplinary concentrations in collaboration with other departments, as these have been shown to be growth areas in Liberal Arts in other TYCs nationally.
*Continuing to work together to design sensible & transparent processes for various departmental functions & decisions that allow faculty voices to come together to govern our collective work.
*Developing & mentoring future leadership for our department. Like many of you, I’ve made our department my teacherly & scholarly home for a long time, and you know me well through my work coordinating the first-year composition courses from 2004-2022. I’m proud of the work I did and of the community I built during my many years in that role – from bringing on multiple co- and assistant coordinators, to initiating & developing the CRC as a shared learning, deliberation, & governance body. In addition to service & leadership within the department, I’ve served on a number of broader initiatives as well, all of which have afforded me opportunities to know key leaders & administrators, understand how & why decisions are made, & build alliances within & beyond the college.
*Department Assessment Liaison & General Education Assessment Coordinator
*Academic Planning Team, 2018-19
*Reappointment & Tenure Committee Chair
*Middle States Review Standard Co-chair
*College Council delegate at large, member of the Instruction Committee
*Member of the Constitution GRAC
*CUNY-wide Writing Discipline Council (former TYC co-chair)
*Council of Writing Program Administrators, Executive Board member
Be well,
Annie Del Principe
P&B
Steve Amarnick
I have been at Kingsborough for 23 years and still feel—well, not new, exactly, but closer than one might imagine! On most days I still marvel at how lucky I am to teach here. These are tricky times as we figure out what kind of school and department we are going to be in this post-pandemic, AI-blossoming era. I believe I can play a useful role in these discussions, and in the practical work of helping to run things smoothly. When I first came to Kingsborough I started an LGBT faculty-staff club that morphed into Safe Zone, something I co-ran for a decade. I was also heavily involved with course curriculum at College Now, especially in syllabi that I piloted at Lincoln and Dewey high schools. I was a longtime seminar leader with Looking Both Ways, which brought high school and college teachers together. I’ve been on a number of advisory boards and planning committees, including one for the Kingsborough Early College Secondary School, and on various hiring committees. In recent years I have been an arbitrator for grievances filed both at Kingsborough and other CUNY campuses—sometimes ruling on complicated cases—and have worked diligently to make fair decisions. I would be honored to serve the department now on the P&B.
Rick Armstrong
Since I was elected to the P&B three years ago, the college and our department have experienced much change. As we continue to bring our campus back from the Covid lockdowns, I would value continuing to work with my colleagues on making this committee an independent and transparent voice for our department. In addition to serving on the P&B for the last three years, I participated in the Liberal Arts course committee in the spring 2022, served on two successful job search committees (2019, 2022), and temporarily served as department chair for personnel matters, working to promote, and reclassify, some of our colleagues. I would appreciate your vote to re-elect me to the P&B.
Rob Cowan
Dear Colleagues, I am interested in recruiting and retaining an exceptional faculty and establishing an atmosphere in which everyone feels respected and supported. Here are some relevant highlights of my CV from KCC and Hunter:
- Managed a budget of $1M and participated in weekly meetings about allocating a budget of $75M across 26 departments.
- Co-facilitated faculty writing seminars for many years, brought Written/Unwritten editor Tricia Matthew of to campus, and co-facilitated annual reading groups on race.
- Worked on project to promote faculty who had been at the associate rank for more than ten years, which resulted in record numbers of promotions to full. Currently serving on KCC’s college-wide committee on promotion to full professor.
- As Academic Program Review director, worked on 15 departments’ self-studies and put together diverse visiting teams from around the country to discuss issues such as personnel and budget.
- Hired and observed adjuncts for the First-Year Seminar, the Asian-American Studies, and Latin American & Caribbean Studies programs, each of which I directed.
- Chaired searches for Education Abroad Director and Translation & Interpretation MA Director, and served on committees to hire Assessment Director and hiring/reappointment of instructors for Creative Writing MA.
- Chaired search that originally hired Helen Nasser. Note that, though I have applied for fellowship leave for Spring 2024, but I would still discharge the duties of this position, were it to be granted to me.
Thanks for your attention
Patricia George
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to take a moment to introduce myself to our voting members. My name is Patricia George. Since joining Kingsborough in 2019 as an assistant professor in the English Department, I have enjoyed teaching ESL courses, Composition, and Introduction to Literature. From 2020-2022, I served as assistant director of the ACE/ESL program and picked up the baton from Monica Filimon last year to serve in my current capacity as director of the program. In my role as program director, I have served on CUNY’s ESL Discipline Council and the Learning Communities Leadership Team.
I am honored to have been nominated to serve on the P&B as an untenured faculty member. If elected, I will devote my time to the issues at hand and with a dedication to new faculty mentorship and the unique concerns of our students. Thank you all for your time and consideration.
Cheryl Smith
In the three years since I was elected to the P&B, the college and our department have experienced many changes. As we continue to bring our campus back from the Covid lockdowns, I would appreciate continuing to work with my colleagues on the P&B to make this committee a transparent and independent voice for our department. In addition to serving on the P&B over the past three years, I participated in the Liberal Arts course committee in spring 2022, served on two successful search committees (2019, 2022), and served as temporary chair for personnel matters, helping to promote and reclassify our colleagues. I would appreciate your vote to re-elect me to the P&B.
The main functions of the P&B are to review promotion, tenure, and sabbatical applications; to approve reappointments; to promote diversity and equity; and to mentor junior faculty. I am running for the P&B for a second term for two main reasons. First, as one of two possible returning elected P&B members, I can bring continuity to the committee, something we found enormously useful when the sole returning P&B member from last cycle was able to explain department history and protocol. Second, I want nothing more than to help my fellow colleagues achieve their goals, and I strongly believe the P&B is there to help them do so. Thus, I most enjoyed the mentoring aspect of the role and feel I have much to bring to those who are moving toward tenure and/or promotion. Because the tenure and promotion processes were so opaque when I went through them, I had to learn to think strategically, and I can bring that strategic thinking to the mentoring table–especially for those assistant professors and lecturers wanting to be promoted or reclassified, respectively. Recently, I hope I demonstrated as an inaugural member of the Nom Com that I have a strong commitment to integrity, fairness, and transparency, and I will continue to bring these qualities to the P&B.
Thanks for your consideration!
DEPARTMENT SECRETARY
Carl Schlachte
I’m honored to be nominated for the position of department secretary for an upcoming term. I have been serving in this role in an interim capacity for two months now, and humbly ask for your vote to allow me to continue. As secretary, my aim would be to fully and accurately record all the department’s official meetings, both as a reference for any department members who are unable to attend, and as a record of department attitudes and decisions that we could review as necessary to provide context for future policies or discussions. I am familiar with the procedures of Robert’s Rules of Order, and while the secretary is not a parliamentarian, I am able to inform on those matters to ensure that department meeting structures follow the format specified in the CUNY bylaws. I also aim to distribute the minutes as quickly as possible following each meeting. Because I am a very new member of the department, I have enjoyed the opportunity that serving as interim secretary has given me to learn about all of you, my new colleagues, and about the department. (And not just as an opportunity to learn everybody’s name, and how they’re alphabetized!) For these reasons, I ask for your support to elect me to a full term as department secretary.
Thank you.
COLLEGE COUNCIL
Matthew Gartner
Dear colleagues,
If you are unsure what College Council is and how it works and how governance decisions are made at Kingsborough, and why — or whether — any of this matters, you are not alone.
I am asking for your vote for our department’s College Council rep as someone who has dedicated myself to understand and work within shared governance at KCC. My service on the recent college-wide Strategic Planning Committee and the Governance Task Force has been illuminating, as has my term, now ending, as a Delegate-at-Large of Council Council, where I’ve served on the Legislative Committee and the Committee on Committees (!!!).
These experiences give me a perspective and a passion that I bring to the ongoing, important struggle to improve college governance.
One takeaway for me of last week’s College Council meeting is that the communication channels both within the Council and between the Council and the rest of the college community are not working. More voices need to be heard from all sides, so everyone can understand what the issues are and what the stakes are with governance reform.
As our department’s representative to the Council, I would look forward to being in regular communication with you all about what’s happening, and what isn’t happening, on Council. I would look forward to hearing your voices and having your input inform my service and to bringing the values of the department – including prioritizing our students and cherishing Kingsborough as an educational institution – to my work.
Thank you!
