CHAPTER ELECTS OFFICERS FOR 1967-8

Forty-six per cent (thirty out of six-
ty~five) of those eligible to partici-
pate cast their ballots in the election
last week for officers of the chapter.
The results:

President
William Friedheim. .ccccccccsessvcecd
WritenIn. vececadecsctese teu eeeneeue?
Total 30

Viee President
Roger DOOLEYs ciccccicvs os cbbeeeneceece

ELECTIONS AND THE BY=LAWS Abstentions..ceccccccsecsseuceevesso.
Invalid Dallotecccccccccccvcecosoce!
By holding departmental elections Total 30
two years ahead of the timetable Secretary
established by the by-laws of the Verdelle Garnettececccscccccccceeecd
Board of Higher Education, Presi- Abstentionses.cccesseccvevcceccceooe
dent Block has indicated tmt he Total 30
is willing to translate his rhe~ Treasurer
toric about. democracy at BMCC Mark McCloskeyescccccccccsccsveceel®
into fact. We find this hearten- Leigh Marlowes cescoscseccecececccol
ing. The Gadfly congratulates Total 30

those elected te the Departmental
Personnel “end Budget Camilttees 2. ee
ang the Chairmen-elect who are: ob ee Se gee a

Christopher Collins-English; Mary Jacobs-Health and Physical
Education; Marvin Kushner=Data Processing; Howard Serlin-Ac-
counting; Michael Shmidman-Social Science; and Paul Zahn-
Mathematics.

1 36 3 Kk ke 29s 2c 2 9 2 2 2k ae ks 2 fc 2c i ak ak a ik ae ake 2c

Of course there is not a one to one equation between elections and democracy |
If the procedures, for example, allow for only a limited electorate, they
are open to question. The President fell back upon the by-laws to strucure
the procedures which governed our departmental elections. Frankly we have
some serious misgivings about the by-lawse

We find the by~laws' definition of the electorate rather arbi « Should
non-tenured instructors, as specified by the by-laws, be denied the vote?

Their vote would certainly be no less informed then that of a non-temred As-
sistant Professor. We would think that all of those on tenure generating

ling§ have an equal stake in their departments and hence an equal claim to

the franchisee

We cannot quite fathom why the by-laws grant the vote to administrators who
soldy as a matter of bureaucratic necessity hold paper appointments in de-
partments in which they do not teach. President Block argued at-the faulty
meeting of April 5 and in a letter the same day to the chapter that. "an ad»
ministrative person is in his or her position at the pleasure of the Presi-
dent and may be returned to the instructional department at any time." Al=
though the President concludes from this that "they must, therefore, not be
denied a voice in departmental affairs," we find this statement a most elo~
quent argument for the fact that they should indeed be denied that voive, If
their status is "at the pleasure of the President"--and we agree wholehert}
edly that it is-ethen such “administrative persons" can be expected to rep-
resent the “pleasure of the President" and not the interest of the depart-
ment frem the department's point of view.

a Cee eee Bed Sees

quhere are departments in this college topheavy with administrators with fac-
ulty rank. of them cannot be returned to the departments because they
never belongéd to them in the first place. They were hired as Directors md
Deans and what-have-you and given a professorial position. If this is mere
ly a necéssary expedient because there are no administrative lines, then they
should at least be denied a vote in departmental affairs.

(continued)



me # % nm Ss ty > oe Re a ee a ok oe
2

President Block pointed out that at New York Community College, despite the fact

that he was eligible to vote in a departmental election, he waived the right

because of his administrative status. Unfortunately, the precedent was lost on

Many administrators in the recent elections. Their votes were not crucial in

deciding any of the elections but in the future they could be.

The by-laws delegate the power of veto over departmental elections to the Presi-
dent. The most recent number of Action documents how Harry Gideonse ruthlessly
abused this power by overthrowing elections and manipulating departmental poli-
tics during his tenure as President of Brooklyn College. The faculty of Queens
Gollege for many years suffered similar indignities. Too many Presidents and
Deans have used the by-laws to shield practices that are as undemocratic as they
are capricious. Of course we do not see our own President as such a tyrant.

We assume that he subscribes to both the spirit and substance of democracy.

What upsetd us is the fact that the by-laws should in any way sanction the arbi-
trary overturning of any election bY any administrator. The very fact that there
are Presidents who will exercise their powers with discretion is an empty conso-
lation. It does not detract from our contentiion that the by-laws are not demo-
cratic in tte full meaning of the word.

The by-laws are not sacrosanct. Nor are they by definition democratic. Yet
administrators, including those at BMCC, defer to them with a reverence normally
accorded only to the Bible and the Constitutiona The by-laws do not alldw for
full democratic control by the faculty over its own affairs. Sefore we have
academic democracy in the full sense of the word at 8MCC, we must go well beyond
_ the limits established in the by-Jaus.

FORO OR ORO RIOR IOI ICA CHG AC

4 ee : (gee PERSONNEL AND BUDGET COMMITTEES

Several departments recenély elected Personnel and Budget Committees. This was
an important step in extending the control of the faculty over two matters that
vitally concern it: employment and tenure. These committees were democratically
selected. Democracy, however, implies responsibility; the P & 8 Committees must
be responsible to the constituefcies they serve. In particular, we feel that
they are obligated to spell out the reasons for granting or denying tenure to
the faculty members who fall under their charge. An elected P & 8 Committee is
only of value if its deliberations are (within reason) open and its decisions
informed and responsible. The UFCT fully realizes that these committees will
have to separate some of their colleagues from the faculty. Decisions such as
these cause a great deal of anguish. However, to protect themselves and those
faculty members whose services they maynterminate, those serving on these com-
mittees must clearly detail all the factors and considerations that prompt their
decision. Inasmuch as the deliberations of the P & B Committees vitally affect
the careers of all members of the faculty, those elected owe their colleagues at
least this much protection against possibly arbitrary and personal actions.

We trust that in most cases those elected to serve on the P, & 8 Committees will
Prove worthy of the faith their peers have placed in them. Once again we extend
to them our congratulations.

Oe ee kee ak ie ie oa a oO oo oo oo oo oo a oo oe ok ok kok ak

NOMINATING COMMITTEES

Recently the President appointed a nominating committee to select candidates for
a@ faculty-wide election. Nominations were never open to the faculty at large.

We find this disturbing and think that the President has established a very
dangerous precedent. Hand-picked nominating committees and procedures that limit
the selection of candidates do not bode well for the future of democracy at SBMCC,
We hope that this will not be a continuing practice at the college.

Re oe RO io oe oa 2 eo oo oe ooo ok ok ok ok ok Kk ook ok ok

HURROR STORY

What follows are two unsolicited tales of woe.

In February, two gentlemen, independent of one another, telephoned me, both
glaiming that the Chairman of the English Department, then Or Gerald Cohen, had
hired them for the Spring semester, only to terminate their services after the
first day of classes. Their stories tended to reinforce one another. Except
for minor details, theyvare essentially the same.

Since both gentlemen are presently seeking positions in the New York City area,
they have for their own protection quite understagjdably requested that I do not
reveal their names. They have, however, granted permission to tell their stories.

SER RRR ORO GR RKO TORK GR OR AOR RR ICR AIG RG IR kak ak a a a i a a i a a kK a


. .
Pi Ba Rare ABR Ree erage Pees ores gps pe PAPE nee Oe a ae ek ae eo oo oR oe oR ok ok ok ok ak Oo ok

I will refer to the two gentlemen as Dr X and Mr Y not because I wish to embellish
the tale with the trappings of a cloak and dagger mystery but rather to protect
their anonymity.

Or X was to teach a full load: He oe been given a schedule and rosters for all
of his classes. He actually taught One day when Dr Cohen informed him by letter
that he had been relieved of his courses. When Or X telephoned ‘me a few days
later, he was un‘erstandably distraught. He had given up a part-time job and
leads to several fulltime positions in order to teach at BMCC{ He now found
himself without a position and little hope, with the semester dlready underway,
of finding a universityn position for the remainder of the academic year/

Or X claimed that he had a firm verbal cOmmitment from Or Cohen which was clearly
the case in view of his teaching one day. Or X was led to believé that a letter
from the President would follow, as a formality, in the maili He felt that

the chairman had betrayed his trust.

The particulars of Mr Y's case are substantially the same. Or Cohen hired him

to teach three classes and eld out the possibility of a fourth course. On
several occasions, Mr Y telephoned Dr Cohen to elicit information about his
schedule. On every occasion Dr Cohen refused to talk to Mr Y. Finally,,Dr

Cohen did answer the phone and told Mr Y that a letter containing the information
he requested would be in the mail that day. As it turned out, Dr Cohen used

the letter to inform Mr Y that he would not be teaching any courses at BMCC.

Like Dr X, Mr Y found himself unemployed at a date too late to find a position
elsewhere.

Both Dr X and Mr Y asked that the union intervene on their behalf. Subsequently,
on two occasions I met with Dean Draper. He said that the college had made it
Clear that the employment of both instructors was conditional upon registration.
Since the classes did not materialize, he continued, the college did not need
their services. I pointed out that this could not be true at least in Dr X's
case for he had received the rosters of his classes and ta actually met wit)

one of them. In addition, two instructors in the English Department had absorbed
Dr X's and Mr Y's students and their courses had swelled to almost twice their
normal size, indicating that the classes in question had indeed materialized.
Dean Draper exnlained away the matter of Dr X's rosters as a bureaucratic mixup.
He insisted that both men should have realized that the college had not made

a firm committment to employ either of them. (Dean Draper made no comment when
it was pointed out to him that he had- interviewed Or X and indeed made such a
committment.) Hence, neither should have ceased trying to find a position else-
where. At this point I again pressed the matter of the class rosters. One
would naturally assume that his position was secure, I su gested, if the college
issued rosters and he had actually taught a class. At this juncture, I felt,

it was natural for one to assume that he could cease looking elsewhere and
Tesign his part-time position. Dean Draper laughed and responded by saying,
"You can't be serious." Did Or X really think that after teaching a day of
classes and receiving rosters that the college thereby "committed" itself to
retaining him? Dean Draper said that it was foolish of Or X to give up hés
other job. Must one teach six months before he can assume that he is in the
employ of the college?

Accompanied by Dr X, I paid a second visit to Dean Draper's office. Or X soon
lost hisypatience with Dean Draper's pathetic sophistry and cut the meeting
short,

The cases of Dr X and Mr Y call into question the integrity of the administra-
tion. The jobs of the two men were sacrificed to the perverted ethic of +h
bureaucratic efficiency. The excuse that "the classes did not materialize"

is a myth. The classes did materialize. What hanpened is that the administra-
tion miscalculated its budget; it did not have the money to pay Br X's and

Mr Y's salaries. Dr X and Mr Y (and their students) were expendable and the
Chairman of the English Department did not even have the good grace to inform
the two gentlemen personally of their fate. In the case of Mr Y he misled

the instructor on the telephone on the same day that he dispatched a letter
terminating his nosition.

When I told Dean Draper that, to protect all parties concerned, it might be
wise to put cohditions of employment in writing, He dismissed the suggestion,
laughed, and claimed that it would-make for too much paperwork. The cynttism
of the statement would-be hilarious if it were not so tragic to the injured
Parties.

This case is closed; neither Dr X nor Mr Y intend any legal action, warranted
though it might be, Sut the incident has a significance for all members of
the faculty. Several instructors have recalled that they never received their
formal letters of appointment until well into September of their first year,
after they had bequn to teach. Would they have been dismissed if the
administration had miscalculated its budget? Has the bureaucracy ground us up
so finely that we no longer behave responsibly tovard our fellows?

we


4
SHKRKERERKKK KEKE REKRRKEEKREK ERE KKK REE KEK IR ERE ERE ERR ERE EER REE ER RE ER EER ER ERR ERR ERE RERE RR

STORY
Autumn Harvest by Jesse Pavis

The boy and his father waited at the curb for the traffic to thin or for the red
light to stopnthe cars. The boy loosely held his father's hand, watching the pepple
walking on the other side of the street, bobbing as they walked, colored like the animals
in his books.

"Where is the hospital?" the boy asked his father.

“Over there," the father said, pointing to a black iron door.

"The light's oo now, Daddy."

“Ha, has. s «

"What are you laughing for, Daddy?"

"Nothing."

The boy tightly pressed his father's fingers as he walked across the street, feeling
proud because his father followed hiw. Hospital -- that was something new to him, al-
though now it just looked like any other gray building. Yet there wust be something dif-
ferent about this one. His father didn't want to go there and Mama almost cried. He
looked at his father. His lips were drawn and he was squinting. The little boy won-
dered why he had laughed. His father's hat was almost falling off the back of his head.

It was a glaring sunny day. The cars and windows of the shops sparkled, the sky
was barely streaked and there were no shadows in the streets. The father and son reached
the wrought iron door to the gray building. The father pulled the door open and his son
stepped through. Then as the door closed the boy squeezed his father's hand.

"It's dark in here, Daddy."

“What do we do kow?"

I remember, the father said to himself . . . Sometimes you come in through an alley
and your mother holds the door for you and it is tin and you kick it because you like
to hear it rattle. And your mother shakes you because she is afraid the hospital people
will come running over to her. There was always a guard near the door... .

They walked to a little table set in the center of the hall. It was covered with
stacks of paper and red, blue, and yellow cards. tA woman with a pencil in her hand talked
with the people who were lined up in front of her. The boy wondered whether she would
mind giving him some of the cards, even if she would give him the red ones, he could put
them in his cigar boxes.

The woman talked with his father and the boy put his hand on the red cards but
then she finished speaking and glared at him. Anyway his father pulled him away from
the table.

"Where are we going?" he asked his father, frightened of the bare white corridors
and watching other children following their mothers.

"To see the doctor, I told you."

“But why ain't you a doctor?"

"Everybodynain't a doctor," he answered. Now if his wife had taken the boy she
wouldn't have asked him that. He had never asked his own mother.

They reached the wooden gate to a small partition on the floor. A woman sat by
the gate speaking to everyone before she'd let them in to take their place on the long
wooden benches.

“Have you taken him here before?" she asked the father.

"No," he answered her.

"Do you have a letter from your doctor?"

"No."

"What is the matter with him?"

"I don't know," the father said, "I ain't a doctor." She was just }ike all the
other women who sat behind desks and asked questions. They watched you, then listened,
scribbling on paper.

The woman looked at him as he walked through the gate. A few people tried to be
smart like him. He was squeezing his boy's hand, probably hurting him, bending his
small head down and whispering to him. If he wanted any help he'd have to swallow it.

"Now we have to wait to see another woman," the father was explaining to his son,

“ButmI don't want to stay here!"

"I don't want to either but you make out like you're big like me. See, I am
sittting back against the bench, my legs are erosace end my hands are in my lap. Just
for a little while . . . come on, come on. .

How had his own mother kept him quiet, the father thought. She had a warm soft
way of talking that most people thought was singing. And even if she didn't talk she'd
hum and he'd listen to her and even put his hand lightly to her throat and feel it
shivering. But maybe he didn't sit quiet at all, just like his own son who was now
standing on the bench and trying to straddle it.

"Who are we going to see?" the boy asked, bringing his face close and whispering.

"I told you, another woman."

She woujld be worse than the others. There she was coming through the gate.

FREAK KK KIRK KIKI IIA IK IKI IK AER IAAI IIASA A AACS IA IA AER IERIE ERIE SESS ERRER SASS IEA


5
KREINER EKER KERR ERK KEK ERRERER EERE REE RERER ER ER RERER EER ER EERIE REREREKRERKEER EERE ERE

“I knew this one would be old," she said aloud.

"Why Daddy?" his son asked hin.

"They always are,"

She walked intoma glass room. He couldn't hear what she was saying to a young
girl there but he could see her gray hair and the deep rouge on her cheeks. Now she
sent the girl from the office who passed out forms to the people who were sitting on
the beenhes. He took his quickly. He could fill it out by himself. Not like his
mother who had to shake her head when they passed her one. He could write quickly too.
"You don't write? You don't write?" They used to ask his mother, leading her toca
speacial room. Then when she returned to the bench he'd tell her not to cry.

Perhaps she wasn't even going to cry but she'd turn away from him. He could already
write his name and things like that and in a little while he coujld write everything
for her,

Later the girl came back and inspected the forms carefully and making the people
egrrect those that had been filled out wrong.

"I want to walk," the boy said to his father.

"Go ahead but don't go where I can't see you."

"No, I want you to walk with me."

"I gotta wait here, son."

“Why?!

"Cause you gotta see the doctor."

“Why ain't you a doctor?"

"Don't talk so much. I'm not going to take you with me anymore if you don't leave
me alone. You're getting to be a big boy now."

“But there's too much noise here, Daddy."

If the boy would only leave him alone., Yet when his mother sat with him he
couldn't bear sitting still either. Once there was a long waiting room in a basement.
It was narrow and the benches on either side of the corridor were only a few feet apart.
They were white metal benches and he could scratch the paint off no matter how carefully
his mother watched him. Most of the time he wouldn't sit there though. He would run
down the corridor, looking at the faces on both sides. Sometimes he'd even go upstairs
and look through the windows. When he came back to his mother she would still be sit
ting there. He used to ask her how she could stay there so long. ''You won't tlways
have to wait there, Mama," he'd tell her. "I'm gonna be a doctor, then nobody will
have to wait here." "You're going to a doctor?" she'd repeat to him. She'd shake her
head and then he would run down the corridor and come back with a drink of cold water
for his mother.

"Daddy," the boy said, "You didn't say it was going to be such a long time."

"Everyone else is waiting."

"But why does everyone have to wait?"

"Because that old woman with the gray hair has a lot to say. Anyway the dottor
isn't even here."

"Well, I'm going to find him." The boy pulled the gatem opened it, and walked out.

He sat back like his mother. Everything was gone. Surely he could see it Wust
like the knew the boy would neverfind the doctor. He had been in this very same place
before, although maybe then the room was narrower than thismone, like a corridor, Or
Maybe it was a little room with a barred window and gray iron benches. The kid was
going to come back in a minute. Years, many years had passed. Yet he was not just
fooling when he talked with his mother. But things happened that couldn't be stopped.
Just like leaves falling off trees in the autumn, pilling up one by one. You just know
that one handful falls and you can t sleep and you figure and you figure. Another
handful falls and you watch it fluttering almost as if it will stop. Then one day you
wall through leaves packed solidly against your legs . . . everything is gone and done.
Yes, he had been here before, with his mother who would let him lead her to whatever
bench he wanted her to sit on/

He sat quietly, resting his head on his hand, not noticed by the other people who
were waiting too. Although his eyes were still squinting and his mouthh was setn he
was laughing at the little boy who had promised his mother he would be a doctor. You
stop growing after a while, he thought. You're not just old . .. hell, no... he
was as strong as he ever was. His father was a clerk, he was a clerk, what was the
point of waiting or believing what you used to say to your mother? His mother knew
all about the leaves, that was why she used to hug him and kiss him when he told her all
ebout the wonderful things he was going to do.

"Daddy," the boy said, walking back to the bench and putting his head down on his
father's lap. ‘Nobody will talk with me here."

"No?" his father answered him/

"No," the boy repeated. "I asked them why the doctor wasn't here. They told me
that they didn't know and then I told them that I would tell you."

"He'll be here soon."

"But I don't want to wait anymore."

"We have to..."

"Why ain't you a doctor, Daddy?"

STE III III III TORI AI RII TOR TI II IIH AIR IA IK IKI IK IKI IK IKARIA.


.

6
HK KAKKEKER ERE ERE REE ERE RERERE KER ER REE EER ERE RR KERR RR ER ERE ERE EREREERERE ERE RERERERERER

"I don't know."

"Well, what is a doctor?"

"I'll show him to you when he comes in."

They waited a dong time, until mothers and their children were sitting on all the
benches, until some had to stand in back of the benches. Then someone whispered that
the doctor was coming in and the word spread through the crowd. A young man in a
frwshly pressed white suit walked in. He took a small glass office to the left of the
old woman's.

"There's the doctor," the father told his son.

“Why does he dress in white, Baddy?"

"Because he is a doctor."

"Daddy, why don't you want to talk with me. You haven't played with me at all."

"I am just tired, son."

"Why, Daddy?"

"I ain't a doctor, son."

FILM REVIEW

Blow Up by Leomard Quart

An enigmatic smile crosses the face of the mod photographer as he listens to the

sound of a non-existent tennis ball. For a moment he joins with a group ef young
mummers in a pantomine tennis game and then the film ends with a parting shot ef the
photographer walking away, a minescule object in an infinite sea of green grass.

The scene is the culmination of Michelangelo Antonioni's glorious and ambiguous .
evocation of mod London. In moving from his characteristically bleak Italian land
scape to "swimging London," Antonioni adds a hint of a conventional plot but continues

to create a world which unfolds cdatlyp symetrically, and antiseptically as an extended
metaphor for a complex state of being. Though more realistic and concrete in its social
detail than his other films --pot parties, rock sessions, fashion photography, and

peace marches pass before the camera-~ it is also the most elliptic of Antonioni's works.
There is less dialogue and past history provided for the major characters than is

usual and we are left to construct and comprehend motivation and feeling from the
beautifully composed frames that are Antonioni's trademark.

In this richly designed and elusive world we discover clues to the photographer's
consciousness and we comprehend that he is a man who feels kittle for and connects even
less with others. He lives fashiogably and comfortably, wedded to his camera which is
the guide and mediator of his reabity. He carries it everywhere and in a telling
photographic session he simulates the sexual ast with his model with the camera as his
organ. His friendships and his women are fragmentary sensations and contacts with
little involvement or continuity. He gains pleasure from his craft and desires more
money so he can have greater freedom but both his conception of photography and his
dream of freedom are vague and undefined. In his meanderings through an Edenic
English park he seems to take pleasure in its luxuriant stillness and in the feel of
his camera as he leaps and gambols ameng the greenery taking pictures. Antonioni sets
the scene beautifully by using the sound of the wind rustling the leaves as an augur
of impending doom. The photographer accidentally witnesses and photographs a man and
a woman making love in the park. The woman comes after the photographer, frantically
pleading for the roll of film and offering a sexual reward for it. He does not give
her the film and blows up the pictures in his darkroom to discover that a murder has
taken place in the park. At first the discovery only arouses his excitement, another
titillating sensation to absorb but hedonism is followed by intimations of a growing
consciousness of himself and others. It is a consciousness which commits itself to
no patticular end or vision of existence but remains suspended in uncertain ambiguity.

Antonioni's photographer is an inhabitant of a world which is affluent and empty, a reality
reality which unfolds not as a bizarre nightmare but as a cold camfortable death.

This is not the film of a moralist who inveighs against the decadence and hollowness

of contemporary life but one of a director who allows the camera to describe the way

life is lived today. There are no answers posited here to the enigmas of modern
existence; there is just the world and man's consciousness trying to bind something
together in the void.

FROROIOO ORO GIOR OORT IOR IORI IO EIR ICTR II IIIOIGI IORI IOI IOI A ICI GR RIGOR fa iGO ik ea


9 OOO IO RII III CICK III II IIIGIO GIOTTO IO IORI RICK Hk

PERSONAL VIEWPOINT

On A Revolutionary Purpose For the Unben by Joseph Conlin

E

A great deal of talk about the purpose of a union in an academic community has passed
through the pages of THE GADFLY this year, through the pages of the New York Local's
Action, and in the offices and corridors of this college. Most of the talk has centered
on the union's obvious functions of raising wages, reducing teaching loads, presenting
faculty grievances, legally aiding unjustly-treated faculty, and guaranteeing just and
rational proceedings for reappointment, granting of tenure, and welfare benefits.

These are all worthy goals and I personally support all union efforts in achieving
them. However, at the risk of heresy, if these are to be the raison d'etre of the
Wnited Federation of College Teachers, I find it impossible to muster any considerable
enthusiasm for the union. Such "bread-and-butter" issues have, of course, traditionally
been the purpose of American Labor unions and those unions have, by their own criteria,
been a resounding success. But they have also been tragi-comic failures. If the

goal of the UFCT is to strive and strive so that ~-someday-- we can be just like the
Plumbers Brotherhood or the Federation of Retail Clerks, I begin to see the poigt of
those colleagues who argue that college instructors should never join a union because
college instructors are "professional people." Not because it is demeaning for
"professional people" to seek higher wages and the lot through unions but because it
would be extremely demeaning to mark victory by the erectim of a union like those
which characterize American labor today. Indeed, who needs a union bureaucracy to
match in size and lack of imagination the bureaucracy that governs our colleges even
if the new one does maintain our salaries? Who needs a coterie of easily-corruptible,
high-salaried union officials to bargain for us at "contract time" each year and then
announce to our glee that we will now receive some 67.8¢ more per credit hour and may
go to Europe for the lowest group rates among Eastern Colleges? The trouble with the
administrations of our colleges is such a bureaucracy -~ who needs another one? In
graduate school a frequent sermon referred to the Ph.D. as "the union card" and, in
truth, if the purpose of our UFCT is merely to gain "bread-and-butter," the Ph.D. can
do the job better and more worthily.

My grievance against "bread-and-butter" unions --of steamfitters or college instructors-—
is that by their own definition they accept the system in which they work as legitimately
established. In their acceptance they help to preserve it for they seek only to become

a part of it themselves. The instructors' union which seeks only its"right to bar-

gain collectively" is de facto accepting the fact that the other party --the administra-
tion-- also has the right to bangain. It is my contention that the union must
categorically reject the legitimacy of the adversary administration and honestly con-
front the fact that the simple existence of these administrations, as presently
constituted, afflict colleges such as BMCC with a pervasive sickness. The union must
assume the revolutionary purpose of upending the basic structure of the contemporary
public college and reorganizing these colleges from the bureaucratic business concerns
they are into humanistic academic communities of teachers and learners. *

13 8

The structure of a college like BMCC is fundamentally characterized by an administration
responsible only to agencies outside the college, dictating policy to faculty, and
directing the actions of its students. The administration is management, responsible

to no-one within its factory, which orders about its employees, the faculty, and turns
out its product, the students. The college's phrase, "servicing the disadvantaged,"

is here instructive and the factory metaphor could not have heen better illustrated
than by the President's recent reasoning that, whatever the possible groundlessness of
an Instructor's dismissal, the power to hire and fire belonged to the administration
and, in this case, the administration elected to fire.

*

*

This essay is addressed to the faculty; it says nothing about the legitimate
role of students in the academic community nor does it suggest any means by which they
should secure it. This role is for the students themselves to define and secure. For
a member of the faculty to presume to direct them would be analagous to the present
administration-faculty relationship which this essay abhors.

FRI RRC ROOK IORI ROO IOI GIR IGOR OIRO GIGI GIG RR IR a i IOI aCe ak ake ak ak



be}

hth hhh hhh hhh te eee CE CECE LECT OCOSCCLOC TCC LOST Leet eer tee Tee rT Tee TT

"Hiring and firing" is indeed the preragative ef the employer af a textile mill, It
might be suggested, hewever, that a sch@lar's and teacher's qualificatibtis should be
ruled upen anly by his fellows. In this case, three~quarters of the dismissed instruc-
tor's colleagues confirmed his qualifications but the President saw fit to ignore them.

It is neither just, legitimate, nor traditional that the faculty of a college should
be employees of an internally-impotent administratien. The idea ef the aéademy under-
stands a community of teachers and learners. The college is supposed te be, in its
essence, a place where teaching and learning takesplace. But colleges such as BMCC
are nething of the sort. They are places where "education" becames an incidental
excuse for administrators to provide pesitions, salaries, status, and pewer fer
themselves,

It is undeniabke that the complexity and size of contemporary pubbic educatien require
a highly-specialized administrative apparatus. The vision of a vernal academe er a
medieval Oxonian circle of philosophers is pleasant hut quite without the reabm of
reality. However, if administrators --like secretaries-- are necessary, it is they
who should be the employees, not those who are the teachers, essential parts ef
learning.

BMCC pays lip service to thise idea of the cellege but in a way which is even more
offensive to it. Thus, virtually every administrator holds faculty rank, akmest mono-
pdlizing, in fact, the highest prsitions of Professor and Asseciate Prefessor. "Deans"
whose duties appaar to be the assignment of reoms and the supervision of maintenance

are entitled to be called "Professor." Nor is the title morely an Italianate honorific.
Professor-bureaucrats have tenure and a vote in faculty elections, a fact which takes

on more meaning when viewed in light of the fact that there are a great many administra-
tors who debiver a handsome bloc of vetes at "faculty" elections. "Prefessers" who

pass their day putting cards in alphabetical order (the euphemism is "creative administra-
tion") can sit in Departmental meetings and nullify the vote ef a teacher en a matter

of teaching. Dn one department, at least, fully ene-third of these eligible te vete

in the recent chairman election were primarily administrators.* Even, reductie ad
absurdum, the college's Business Manager'claimk profosséfial ‘statis ahd“an autematic
seat on the "faculty" council. (The proper euphemism is "Chief Fiscal Officer.")

With all due respect, the Business Manager's task is to add and subtract figures and not
to judge the merits of adding a course in Jacobean Drama, drafting examinatien policy,
or uttering one public syjlable on any matter concerning teaching.

In a word, the faculty at BMCC is confronted by a topsy-turvy state ef affairs which

is recent in the history of educayion and by no means novel to midtewn Manhattan. Our
college is governed by administrators who have successfully relegated us to the status
of employees and students ta nothing better than commodities. They aperate independent-
ly, usually arrogantly, and often to the detriment of what is left ef the academic
commuaity.

ee

How did it get that way?

It is a complicated stery and neither completely within the ken sf this writer nor, in
detail, relevant to the point at hand. One obvious origin is the fact that the relatively
recent public college was the creation ef a governmental bureaucracy and that admini- |
stration chronologically preceded institution. Presidents and Chancellers and Deans

and Directors and Chairmen and Business Managers all had their posts and their salaries
before the first Lecturer was hired or the first note dcribbled. The public college

did not grow organically and thus, "administration" had a substantial headstart in ;
devising policies and establishing its power.

This was unavoidable. If it were the whole stery, faculties could claim that the pre-
sent woeful state of affairs was nene of their making. In fact, academics must bear a
large share of the blame. For administrators were traditienally drawn frem the ranks
of academics. Lured by higher salaries, smitten ky the prospect of power over others,
they were rapidly transformed from academics with a loyalty to their profession and
colleagues into bureaucrats loyal to the bureaucracy. Administraters of this cloth were
and are capable of obnoxious decisions; they are »ften no hetter than prefessional
bureaucrats. But, so long as the opportunity for advanaement into administration was
clear, ambitious and even contented teachers cnubd comfort themselves with the delusion
that administration was an adjunct of the faculty rather than, as was increasingly the
fact, vice versa.

*
Which administrator-professars, it sheuld be neted, also eccupy "lines"
provided estensibly for teachers.

FORO IOI III ICICI IORI IOIGI IIR GIGI IOI IIOR CIO GRR GI Gi Oi tei i kok dk tei ke



SOR IGRI ROR RRR TOROIRUCR IORI IOIO RO IGIIOI ORI III IOI IOI OR IG IOIOI AOR IR i

Recently, even this illusion of faculty control has been destroyed by the advent of
the professional administrator. Previously the servicers of government and commercial
bureaucracies, public administration schools now grind out M.S.‘s and Ph.D.'s in the
field of college administration who have garnered an increasingly larger share of
administrative plums and who choose their lieutenants from their alma maters and at
administrative "workshops.'' Thus, BMCC boasts a Dean of Faculty who never served on
any faculty but that of a school of public administration. Yet he has the power to
veto a cahdidate for a teaching position in music, physics, medieval literature, and
Italian. Not that the History Professor become Dean of Faculty is any more qualified
to rule on the appointment of an Instructor of Biology than the professional bureau-
crat. But, the Historian-Dean could be expected to acknowledge his incompetence in
plant life, accept the recommendation of the Biology faculty and chairman, and thus

by default judge the applicant on his qualifications. The professionally-trained
administrator can be expected to have no such respect for the verious disciplines.

His understanding of academic affairs is based on the instruction of other professional
bureaucrats. His first loyalty is not to the building of a strong faculty nor to the
mutual respect of the disciplines but to the smooth functioning of the bureaucratic
machine. He may make the correct decision more often than not. But the fact remains
that he has a decision-making power which he is unequipped to make and which, in any
event, is utterly illegitimate.

IV

That the interests of the administrative bureaucracy and the faculty often clash needs
little demonstration, its manifestations are everywhere. Virtually every member of
the BMCC faculty has experienced the incredible arrogance with which they are often
received by administrators. (If the faculty is somethimes deluded, there is no doubt
that the administrators know where the power is.) A mild example was the case of the
college President who unabashedly informed the first meeting of "his" faculty that,
unfortunately, they would not see him about very much because of the pressing nature
of his duties. What, on deigns to ask, is the first duty of the college President?
Advising the administrators of Harrisburg Community College on how they can get
accredited?

There was the incident of the Dean who has busy at work fixing his door jam» when
approached by a departmental chairman on a matter of academic affairs whereupon the
Dean snapped that could not the Chairman see that the Dean was "busy" and either wait
ef return later when the weighty matter was settled? The relegation of a chairman

to a satus a niche below a doorjamb is an engaging symbol and the incident illuasrates
what Deans do with their well-compensated time.

There is the fact that Presidents of colleges carry out their affairs (largely the
reception of Presidents of other colleges, it appears) in plush, oversized offices
while students and faculty lack adequate lounge facilities and classrooms are
overcrowded. The office on an Acting Dean was recently doubled in size while new
Instructors were piked into already crowded offices and informal faculty-student
diseassions of such secondary matters as’"literature" are shunted to "the hotel
across the street" because of "lack of room.'' There is the spectacle of the College
which claims penury when requested to compensate its faculty members for the loss of
a vacation while it simultaneously announces with a yawn that a five figure annual
grant has been provided so that the President might have a second residence.

Instructors are dismissed from their positions after the first day of class due to
"lack of funds" (the displaced students can always go into already crowded classes,
of course) while administrators pocket generous honoraria for "advising" the College
Center. There is a Dean who was requested to dispatch a routine letter to an
Instructor's draft board explaining that he was employed at the College whe explained
in the letter to his bureaucratic counterpart that the Instructor was expendable.

But the purpose of this essay is not to catalogue horror stories. The faculty at
BMCC tells and hears them Pn their offices and in the corridors daily and could tell
the writer a few he has not heard. Nor is it the purpose of this essay to attribute
such tales solely to BMCC nor to place the blame for them on personalities. If the
reader concludes from these incidents that so-and-so is a bastard, the essay is a
failure. The point is that these incidents are the product not of personalities but
ef a system which accepts an administration utterly without responsibility to the
faculty and devoted primarily to maintaining its existence, its power, its position,
its status, its salaries and -~not even secondarily-- the interests of faculty and
students,

If the administration of this or any similar college could ever devise a "prospectus"
whereby they could eliminate faculty and students and still justify their salaries,

they would not hesitate for a moment. For, when their very existence is devoted to
SR Re RR ee ok eR oo ae A SIR SOR OI RRR IRR UIE IOI IRC AO Kk a HC ake ae



10

FRO ORIG GR OIC III III III OI IIIS IGRI IOI IO GIG I a kok I ioaC a

Atid dependent on running an efficient machine, faculty and students are only annoying
encumbrances which, ideally, should be replaced like tubes by transistors. The
bureaucracy's end is itself, nothing more, and that any number of bureaucrats may be
nice fellows in a cocktail lounge is beside the point. Slavery corrupted the
slaveholder, cut-throat competition corrupts the most generous of businessmens The
most humane man on the second floor is necessarily corrupted by his corrupt positions
Consider the administrator at BMCC who was confronted with the facts that he had

lied and acted totally without scruples in a certain matter. He could not deny the
incontrevertible but responded only that he was personally sorry that the complainant
had been unjustly trated. He was sincerely sorry . . - but he could not change the
situation in keeping with his better instincts. The bureaucracy required that he
continue to lie and "administer" the situation unscrupulously.

Vv

More comical than tragic is the fact that a substantial number --very likely even

a majority-- of college administrators are completely superfluous, even to the bureau-
cracy. The Dean wrestling with the noisy door was probably doing so more out of
boredom than annoyance. The "busy work" memos that flood our desks and say nothing
(thougk often so amusingly) speak eloquently of the waste of salaries and floor space
on professional administrators' former colleagues. Consider the apparitions that
constantly pace the halls in search of a piece of paperg a smoking student, or small
talk. (A group of students was recently treated to the sight of a high administrator
racing at heart-attack speed lest two students illictly exit by elevator.) These fifth
wheels are --make no mistake-- ha»py and secure in their sinecures. They realize
their functional uselessness; they panic at the vaguest innuendo in their direction;
they attempt to secure their positions by timidity and sycophantism; they truly fret
about the fact (to their personal credit) that they just have nothing to do. Thus

the defensive arrogance, the "busy work," the ludicrous memos, the superfluous new
"programs," the irrelevant policies, the prospectuses and revised prospectuses, the
enlarged offices, the organizational charts and revised organizational charts, the
unending conferences, workshops, and bilge, the mutual back-scratching.

VI

This situation warrants pity but not to the extent of condonation. It is the purpose
of this essay to suggest that the destruction of this system must be the union's
revolutionary purpose. For the sake of faculty morale, the very existence of learning
at BMCC, and for the sake of the humanity of the legitimate members of the college
community, the union must work actively and incessantly --not simply for "bread and
butter" nor, least of all, to become a part of this system, but-- to wrest the
direction of the college from administrators and relegate them to the clerkships

for which they have been so eminently well-trained.

It is not an easy task for it is revolutionary. It will he necessary that we sustain
a closer loyalty among ourselves --loyalty to the college-- than we now claim. It
will be necessary that the UFC¥ include more members than the slight majority in which
it presently takes pride. For I am suggesting a kind of syndicalism wherein, through
the union, we will build a legitimate, humanistic, and communitarian college structure
within the banal and corrupt structure of the old.

Though difficult, it is not an impossible task. BMCC, in fact, has a genuine oppor-
tunity to estabbish a new college structure for the example of others. The very
newness of the college --from which the administration derives its exaggerated im-
portance-- can actually be of assistance to us: the individual members of the admin-
istration do not have the deeply rooted security of their counterparts elsewhere and
are concerned with backstabbing bureaucratic rivals as well as managing the faculty.
Still, carefully laid plans are necessary and an incomplete and tentative program can
be suggested.

VII

First, the faculty must itself recognize its right to govern the college, accept the
responsibilities that accompany that right, and begin to act immediately as the

college's governors. The union, for example, must cease to ask the administration to
rule on this, state a policy on that, grant such a privelege, modify such a practice.

FEO OI IOI IOI IOI III III ICR IOIOIGIOIGIO II III ICICI GIGI ICI AC AC


Moire
/

SRIF ROR ROI ORIG III III III IORI IOI IOI I ICICI a IC ACE

It is this very requesting that aids the administration in establishing their power
and accustoming the faculty to accepting it. The faculty, for the time through the
medium of the union, must state unequivocally what the policies of the college should
be. The issue of tenure can serve as an example. Such an important aspect of our
professional life cannot be left to administrators. Yet, to request that the admini-
stration estabbish guidelines is to do just that. The union shoubd state on what
basis tenure is to be granged and defy any administrative alternative by recourse to
demonstration, appeal above the college, recourse to the mass media, and so oni Of
course, so long as the administration exists, union statements have no actual effect.
But the statement of policies will, on the one hand, help to shake the administrative
apparatus and, on the other, will provide experience in formulating policy for such
time as the faculty is prepared to sieze that right.

Second, in the period before the union has achieved legally-recognized bargaining
status, the faculty should take a leaf from the books of British opposition parties

and the 'new left,'' namely, parallel institutions. That is, the faculty should name

its own "shadows" paralleling administrative officials and groups. The faculty should
democratically name its own shadow Deans, shadow Teacher Evaluation Teams, shadow
appointment committees, its own publicity director, etc., wherever the administratively-
appointed equivalents are illegitimate and unrepresentative of the faculty. The posts
of "Dean of Faculty" and "Dean of Students," for example, are patently purely academic
positions. But they are presently filled by administratively-appointed bureaucrats
responsible only to bureaucratic superiors. Decisions in curricula, appointments,
reappointments, evalua&kton of teaching, student activities, etc should obviously be
made by the faculty. The final word on each is presently the province of administrative
personnel answerable to no faculty member.

"Parallel" Deans, Committees, and other groups --democratically chosen by and from the
faculty-- could organize the expression of a democratic policy paralleling bureaucratic
claptrap. When grievances are to be publicized, for instance, against an administrative
Dean, the shadow Dean would speak for the faculty. Does the City of New York require
certain reports on college activities? Let administrative committees find themselves
challenged in the Hearing Room by a faculty committee. Let the faculty ignore the
absurd "faculty" council and convene its own, spered the presence of Business Managers
and Deans of Administration.

Third, the union should immediately direct its attention to preparing an exhaustive
study of this college to be published and presented to the City University, the State
University, the Board of Higher Education, holders of public office, influential educators
and the mass media. This is our answer to the farcical Middle States Evaluation

Team, comprised of administrators interviewing administrators and reporting to
administrators. The study must be democratically-organized: committees of union members
and (according to their wish) non-members representing a broad segment of the faculty
community should investigate every cranny of the college's operation: its courses, its
methods of introducing courses and curricula, its methods of hiring, firing and
promoting, its values, its teaching, its administration, its disposition of funds,
student affairs --everything.

The colleetions of "howror Stories" (and paeans) should be organized by a select com-
mbttee and presented with recommendations to all interested groups. There should be

no illusions that such groups as the City University and the Board of Higher Education
will act on them of their own volition. These are, after all, simply one step
heavenward on the great organizational chart in the sky. However, if the documented
report substantiates my own analysis of the malaise of our college or any equivalent
situation, pressure will be brought to bear toward doing something, preferably our own
recommendations but, then, almost any change would represent an improvement. James
Wechsler of the New York Post recently inspired an imvestigation of the city's juvenile
detention halls by publicizing the deplorable situation in that other bureaucratically-
afflicted institution. It is reasonable to count upon journalists such as Wechsler if
the union of faculty members of colleges such as BMCC can make their point.

Fourth, and on this the union has this year shown it hardly needs patronizing advice,

the Chapter must maintain an unrelenting pressure on the administration. THE GADFLY
must contrinue to act as it has in the past, as a gradfly. It has and should

publicize administration depredations that without THE GADFLY would goo unnoticed except
by the few. The union must also press the administration relentlessly on every issue.
This, of course, is merely what any good union must do but it also serves a revolutionary
purpose. The administration's goal is to run like a well-lubricated machine. Thus,
while the President had to support a chairman recently inhis groundless dismissal

of an instructor in order to maintain the morale of the bureaucracy, he was obligated

in the process to endorse an absurd, discredited evaluation of the teacher and the
personal animosity of the chairman. Publically, we heard only of the formal endorsement.
eee eee eee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee eee See e CPOE LOSES SS SSeS Ee


s , ©.

see Gee suk CePA MEUM E UE DNGTAUEE EG Es ARCs pce dnes wba TEs Gh cats Luk Se oes

But somewhere along the line, in one of the suites on the second floor, someone said
to somebody: "Godd GOd, man, what kind of fool are you?" Or, if they did not, somebody
higlyer up the line is going to warn he President not to allow such a blunder again.

The bureaucracy simply does not like the unsettling effects of the agitation which
such episodes inevitably produce.

Or, as in the case of the instructor who was diismissed after his first day in class.
The administrator who dealt with the union on the issue was called and caught in

several bald-faced lies. It did not change the outcome of the casei As long as the
bureaucracy is in charge, no amount of justice on an aggrieved instructor's part or
called lies on the administration's part is going to make any difference. But, once
again, somewhere along the line, the called liar is going to be told that if he cannot
get away with his lies to the faculty he is not g oing to make much of an administrator.

This sort of aggravation is the type of thing which can totter the administration.
Simply by injecting disunity into administrative councils, the union can further its
aims. One means by which the administration has successfully maintained its position
is by dividing the faculty against ifself. Let our oxe do some goring.

Fifth, the union must itself remain an open and democratic organization. I set before
the Chapter the task of seizing what is rightfully its own but which is, nevertheless,
not its province at the present time. The union must merit the role it defines for
itself by maintaining a "purity" in just those things which the administration lacks.
There must be no arbitrary decisions; policy must be made openly and democratically;
all members must share in the decisions of the union as they should share in the
decisions of the college; officers must be representatives, not themselves administra-
tors.