DIGITALHISTORYARCHIVE

CUNY Digital History Archive
Transcription of Interview with Basil Wilson
Interviewer: Jerry Markowitz

December 17, 1999
New York, NY

Basil Wilson: My name is Basil Wilson, and I’m the Provost and Senior Vice
President for Academic Affairs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Jerry Markowitz: Provost Wilson, you have been the Provost since what year
approximately?

Basil: For too long. Since Gerald Markowitz and Serena Nanda drafted me to
become the Provost. I started as a Provost in June, July of 1990.

Jerry: And, I guess you came into office at a very turbulent time in the life of the
college.

Basil: Extremely turbulent time, in fact I have memories of sleeping on these
couches that you see in the office. Based upon the unrest that took place 91. So it
was a very difficult period for the college. I think we were at that moment extremely
polarized. I mean the faculty felt as if they had been estranged from their students.
The students felt that they lost confidence in the institution and I think the
administration was really stunned by the fury of the students. So I think that it was a
very, very difficult time for the institution and we had find ways to bring about
healing, to address the issues raised by the students, and to make certain that we
could continue to function as an effective institution. I mean, my other remarkable
things about the college is that their different components and each component is
essential to the mechanism working effectively. | mean, you can’t run a college
without a faculty who are excited and enthusiastic and committed to their students.
An institution can’t function effectively unless students trust the institution and
believe in the faculty and have a high regard for the whole learning process and
have confidence in the administration. And of course the administration cannot be
successful in what they’re doing unless they have the support of the faculty, the
confidence of their students. So it’s a team approach. And I think what had happened
in ‘89, ‘90, and ‘91 is that we were really in a state of disarray and we had to take
stock of ourselves, learn from our shortcomings, from our mistakes, and to bring
about a rebirth, a renewal of the college. And I think, you know, we have done that.


Jerry: As both a scholar as well as participant, how do you see, what do you see is
the reasons why the college reached that point? I mean, what was happening prior
to ‘89 that lead us to this state of crisis?

[00:03:30]

Basil: I think the college had changed dramatically in terms of its demographics, and
that change had not been understood by the faculty or the administration. I think
that change reflected what was also taking place in New York City. We had become a
predominantly minority institution. I mean, when John Jay College started, we were
a predominantly white student population, largely comprised of people from the
uniform service. Over the years we became a pre-in-service college and in fact in-
service personnel became a minority at the college, and that has a lot to do with the
professionalization that has taken place in law enforcement and the criminal justice
system. Where John Jay had established this reputation and attracted a critical mass
of people who came here specifically, not because they were already working in
criminal justice institutions, but because they aspired to work in criminal justice
institution. It became a gateway to the middle class kingdom, and so John Jay was
really serving in that perspective, and so when you looked at the student population,
it had changed dramatically. But I don’t think we had really been aware of that
dramatic shift and I don’t think we had responded to it in a very energetic and
creative way. And so I think based upon that a certain alienation set in with this new
student body. I think there’s also something very unusual that took place during
these years. There was a coming together of student leaders, which I don’t think we
will see ever in the history of the college again. I mean, that to me was just a stroke
of happenstance in historical terms. I mean, many of these folks, whether you
wanted to see them as being Machiavellian or not, they had sharp leadership skills.
Many of them were very good oratorically. Many of them knew the system. They
knew how to manipulate the system. They knew how to mobilize the student body,
and they just used every device, every trick in the book, to really achieve the
objectives that they set out to do. One of the things they were concerned with, they
wanted to make certain that the administration and the faculty would be responsive
to their needs. Whether it had to do with extended library hours, whether it had to
do with making certain the voice of students were heard. So I think that, in making
the institution more democratic and more sensitive, and more diverse, I think that,
just based upon that experience, we learned a great deal from it. And I think, in some
respects, John Jay College has become a model institution in a very diverse and
changing setting.

Jerry: Do you think that the student protests were fundamentally different or
fundamentally similar to the student protests of the 1960s?

Basil: I think the protest of the 1960s dealt largely with national issues, national
causes, whether it’s just the civil rights movements, whether it was the anti-Vietnam
movement. Those were really issues dealing with much larger questions. I think


much of the burning issues on the John Jay College campus had a lot to do with the
particularities of higher education and the particularities of John Jay College. For
example, they were insisting in having a far more diverse faculty than what existed
at the time. I think they were insisting in having an institution that was cognizant of
the needs of the student population and wanted the administration to be much more
responsive to those needs. So I think that some of those issues that I’ve outlined
such as affirmative action, such as diversifying of faculty, are in essence national
issues. But I think much of it, as it was raised during ‘89, ‘90, and even ‘91, had to do
with the specificity of John Jay College.

[0:08:40]

Jerry: Did your understanding of the protest change when you, in the first two
years, when you were a faculty member, versus the last year of the student protest,
when you became provost?

Basil: Well, as a faculty member, I had worked very closely with the clubs. The clubs
really constituted the essence of student life at the college. I worked with the
Caribbean Club for many, many years, with the Organization of Black Students for
many, many years. And so I always had a pulse on the life of the college. And I’d seen
that there was an alienation developing and I had mentioned it to a number of
people. I mentioned it to Carolyn Tricomi, who was the Dean of Students at the time.
I mentioned it to Bob Dempsey, who was the Director of Student Activities. I realized
that there was developing this gulf that divided John Jay College as an institution
from its students. And it had a lot to do with race. And it had a lot to do with how
students perceived that they were being treated. I think Carolyn tried her best to
bridge that gap, but it was a very difficult time for her and it was a very difficult time
for the institution, and we were dealing with some very difficult student leaders. But
I recognized that something was amiss, and I realized that in order for the
institution not to be affected disastrously or damaged in any way, we had to finda
way to bridge that gap. And I think you and I and a number of other faculty
members tried to do that once the disintegration had already set in. It is very
difficult to do, and I think before this the disintegration actually set in and we were
all involved in trying to get back the buildings that were seized and trying to bring
about some healing afterwards because we recognized that it wasn’t just the seizure
of the buildings, it was what kind of institution we would become afterwards. I
didn’t become the provost until the second year, that we had these troubles. But I
think in ’91, ‘91 differed from ‘89 and ‘90 in the sense that by 1990, the college had
begun to change, I think in a very fundamental way. We had established the Town
Hall Meeting. We were meeting with students on our regular manner. Roger
Witherspoon had become the Dean of Students later became the Vice President of
Student Development. We met with students on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, to
the extent that some of the faculty were concerned that I wasn’t functioning as a
provost but as Vice President of Students. But that is what was needed at the time.
We had to find ways to win the confidence of the students and to convince them that
we had their best interest at heart and what it is that we needed to do in order to


work effectively together. And so when the rupture occurred in ‘91, it didn’t have
the mass appeal and it didn’t have the mass support, and we had in fact the vast
majority of the leadership of the student body, and so the ‘91 uprising simply fizzled
out, because it just didn’t have that support. The issues that they were raising were
really not critical issues because most of those critical issues had already been
attended.

[00:13:10]

Jerry: Is it your sense that the John Jay students were also cooperating with
students outside of John Jay in these protests?

Basil: Oh yes. This was a student movement. I mean, it certainly involved students
from Lehman College, from Hunter College. But I think John Jay was in the
leadership of that movement, and so this is the reason why the difficulties here were
much more painstaking and lasted much longer on this campus than any other of
the campuses. I mean, our disputes were far more bitter. If you recall the ‘89 dispute
was really triggered by the tuition increase, but our problems were more than just
the tuition increase. I mean, the students felt that there were problems of a
particular John Jay College nature and until we were able to solve the John Jay
College problems, that’s when we thought we were able to re-rail the institution and
start functioning effectively as a college.

Jerry: How did you feel the faculty responded to these protests? Was there healing
that had to take place with the faculty as well as with the students?

Basil: Well, there certainly was healing that had to take place, and the healing didn’t
take place automatically. I mean, there were a lot of people who were bruised by
these incidents. I mean, there were a number of fisticuffs that took place between
students and faculty. There were a number of confrontations that took place
between students and faculty. And so, even when the buildings were returned, and
we resumed a state of functionality, there were many faculty who were, who wanted
to see students punished. In fact, there were many students who wanted to see
administrators and faculty punished. And I think we had to go beyond this ideology
of punishment or vindictiveness. I mean, we had to begin to see each other as
human beings and to talk about what is it that had brought about this estrangement.
And we had some very difficult meetings. Very, very difficult meetings. I remember
having a meeting in the T Building, largely with faculty, we had many faculty really
wanted to make certain that the students would have been punished. They would
have either been expelled or what, because they felt if there was no punishment
then it would just be a reward for such behavior to reoccur. And so therefore, if you
recall, I think somebody like a Maria Volpe with her mediation skills, was very, very
important role that certainly in ‘91 and in the years before. I knew of faculty
members who felt that the college would never recover from these incidents, that
the college had been destroyed, that the college had been hurt permanently, and we
would never be the same again. But, one of the things that I think is peculiar about


the John Jay College faculty is that there is a core faculty who see this place not just
as one where they work, but they really and truly love John Jay College and are
dedicated and committed to the institution. And I think it is that core faculty who
came together and really worked arduously in conjunction with students, with
administrators, to really reconstruct the college. And we did it, and I think we did it
effectively.

[0:17:14]
Jerry: How long do you think that process took?

Basil: I think it took a few springs after ‘91. Because after ‘91 there was always a
fear whenever the spring season would come around, was there gonna be another
take over? So that specter of fear ripped us for a quite a few years afterwards. I
would say we really became, I’d say the oneness took hold maybe around ‘93, ‘94,
and I think most of us learned a great deal from that experience and I hope we don’t
have to relive it anymore. But, I think there’s a certain bonding and trust that took
place among faculty leaders and administration personnel who where involved in
those difficult years, and I think based upon the dialogue that that opened up, I think
we've become a far more democratic and open institution since then. The faculty
having access to administrators, administrators understanding the pivotal rule the
faculty play in an institution of this kind and just knowing and building the kind of
good will that is necessary to achieve consensus. I think one of the things we have
done at this college, and we do it very well in recent years, is how to bring about
consensus for the improvement of education and administration at the college.

Jerry: Three issues that arose, that sort of legacies of these student takeovers, were,
and you've touched on them a little bit, but I wonder if we could explore them a little
bit more, were the conscious dealing with issues of cultural pluralism. Secondly,
issues of affirmative action, and the third, the dialogues being institutionalized in
terms of the town meetings. So, I wondered if you could talk about each of those,
your perspective on how they have been played out at the college.

Basil: I think one of the things I mentioned that had brought about the kind of
confrontation that you had in ‘89, 90, ‘91, was a change in nature of the student
body, and I think the student body did not feel identified with the faculty over the
administration. And I think what has happened, during the decade of the 1990s is
that you have an administration that has become far more diverse, and you have a
faculty that has become far more diverse, both in gender as well as in terms of its
racial composition. | think that the affirmative action part of it was also very, very
difficult for us, and I think it still is difficult because it’s not an issue that we have
resolved. It’s not an issue where, as you might say, a consensus to the point where
it’s an effective working consensus. I think we recognized in the early ‘90s that we
had to bring about some changes, and I think there was a consensus about that. And
I think we recognize that we can get outstanding faculty and still commit ourselves
to diversity. I think that in the classroom, it is essential to have white students


taught by professors of color, just as it is important for students of a Hispanic
background or an African American background to be taught by white faculty. And
so | think that we in a point where we have this enriching cross-fertilization. Not
just of a racial nature but of a gender nature. I think women play and incredible role
in this institution. I think that if you look at the diversification of the faculty in terms
of gender and the role that female faculty play at this institution, both in the Faculty
Senate and the Better Teaching Seminars, in thematic studies, in women’s studies, in
some of the critical eras of the college. The college has been immensely enriched by
the kind of personality predisposition that a female brings to an institution of higher
learning. I think a similar occurrence takes place when you have a critical mass of
Latinas teaching not just in Puerto Rican studies, but also at a Puerto Rican Center,
the same thing with African American studies. And | think that’s the same way you
need faculty that cut across the ideological spectrum. | think that is what makes a
college a very special place and a special experience for people of very
impressionable minds. And so | think that we have achieved much in that regards,
but I think that’s always an ongoing dialogue that has to take place. There’s no
question in my mind, that the attacks in affirmative action that goes on outside of
the college has in fact affected our commitment to affirmative action, and J don’t
think our commitment has waned in a lot of part of the decade as it now, in
comparison to where it was in the early parts of the decade. In terms of the cultural
diversity, I think that the student body, we like to speak of the college being a third,
a third, a third. A third Hispanic, a third African American, a third white. Of course, if
you look at the incoming freshman class, it might be more 30-40% who are
Hispanic, African Americans are about 30%, and the white population is about 22%-
24%. But it’s much more complex than that. I think all categories cannot encompass
the complex reality of what goes on in terms of the actual diversity of the college. I
think that you have, you speak of a Caribbean population, but there are Hindu
Caribbean, as well as Afro Caribbean. You speak of a Dominican, you speak of
Hispanic population, but then you large numbers of Dominicans, increasing
numbers of Central Americans, and steady numbers of Puerto Ricans. You have a
white population, but with increasing numbers of Eastern Europeans, including
Russians, Ukrainians, Polish, etc. And, there’s a lot of melting, I think, that takes
place at the college. I mean, yes, you might see groupings of students based upon
their ethnicity, but I think one of the things that has occurred now in the student
government is that you see less voting according to predictable patterns, but, and I
think that is a reflection of the kind of admixture that is taking place at the
institution.

Jerry: How do you think that’s been achieved?

Basil: I think that has been achieved by the way the college has reached out to
students. I think that Roger Witherspoon’s office has done a fantastic job with
working with students. I think if you look at Roger’s personality, you look at Hector
Ortiz’s personality, Hank Smith, I think they’ve been outstanding in terms of how
they connect with students. We all go to the student retreats in September, and in
January, and it means that we get a chance to interact with student leaders, for them


to see the administration close up. They get an opportunity to raise question and we
have an opportunity to get a sense as to what they’re concerned so that we can be
responsive to their needs, so you don’t get this kind of alienation, you don’t get this
kind of mistrust setting in.

[0:26:41]

Jerry: Do you remember when that started?

Basil: That might have started maybe in the early ‘90s. I think it started in the early
‘90s.

Jerry: But it did not occur before?

Basil: No, I’m not aware of its existence before that. I think Roger Witherspoon is
the person who really introduced that.

Jerry: And, do faculty also go?

Basil: Faculty have been, but it is sometimes difficult to get faculty up there because
they tend to meet in the Poconos, it’s on the weekend, and so most of the people
who go from the senior citizens realm are administrators and not that many faculty.
But faculty advisors sometimes go up and I’ve seen Kwando Kinshasa and others.
But it’s a very enriching experience. I think the Town Hall Meeting has held
immensely, but let me leave that for the section dealing with communication on the
dialogue. But, in terms of the student body, I just think that they have already
indicated in service, that they’re very confortable at this institution. And I think
feeling comfortable at this institution, and seeing the diversity that exists in the
administration and in the faculty, I think that’s a factor in terms of how they see
themselves and how they begin to interact with each other. So I think that has been
a factor, in them seeing themselves and discovering their humanity at the same way
they might be identifying with their nationality. I don’t get a sense that people are
isolated based upon their nationality, but they see themselves as being part of a
large institution.

Jerry: Are there other issues with the students that you'd like to take up now, or
should we move on to another topic?

Basil: The thing that I want to mention was the dialogue that takes place within the
institution, because I think that also helps the students in many respects. We have
become a truly democratic institution, at least I like to think that. You can always
improve, you can always get better at that. I think the Town Hall Meetings have been
institutionalized. They might not be attended by great numbers of students each
time there’s a Town Hall Meeting, but I think there’s culture at the college that is
aware that if you have a burning issue, you can go to the Town Hall Meeting and
raise it with faculty members, with administrators, in a very civil manner, and that
there’s a discourse that takes place that is beneficial to all. I think that the College


Council has played a role in all this. I think the Faculty Senate in its interaction with
university officials, as well as with administrators, keep a dialogue going. I think the
Comprehensive Planning Committee, which brings all the different entities and
components of the college together. The President’s Cabinet, which is also very
diverse, encompassing of the entire college. The ongoing meetings that take place
between faculty and administrators, the ongoing meetings that take place between
students and administrators. I just think it helps to create a very healthy
environment, it breaks down the distrust that can easily set in, and we’re able to
reason, on an ongoing basis. I think we’ve found a way to institutionalize reasoning,
and so, we do that and we do it effectively. I’ve been, for example, meeting with
departments of both Writing Across the Curriculum, and I’ve had very productive
meetings with the department of psychology, with music and philosophy, and with
the history department. I mean, there might be differences that will come up, but at
least we have an opportunity to exchange ideas and to reason together, and I think
that is what an institution of higher learning is really all about.

Jerry: You sort of made the transition into issues of faculty administration concerns,
and I guess one of the classic conflicts in any college is between faculty and
administration. I don’t think there’s a college in the world that does not have these
kinds of issues arise. How have you seen them played out at the college, both before
you became Provost and after you become Provost?

Basil: Well, I think that conflict is healthy and a certain amount of tension can be
productive. I think that at John Jay, even long before I became Provost of the college,
that there was always, to return to what I said earlier, a core faculty who are very
much interested in matters of higher education, very much interested in standards,
in the capabilities of our students, as well as in budgetary matters, the business of
fairness at the college, when it comes to personnel and budget issues. So that always
there, I mean long before I became Provost, I had served on the personnel and
budget committee and that was also a body that was very democratic. We have the
tradition here that even though the president makes all personnel decisions, the
president has always taken very seriously the recommendation that he has received
from the person in budget committee, and so | think that was an example of the
democratic spirit of the college, where faculty was able to exercise its influence over
personnel matters. I think that in the ‘90s, this decade of the ‘90s, I think we’ve seen
a Faculty Senate that has certainly come of age. And a Faculty Senate that has
become an essential actor in the life of the college. Certain members of the Faculty
Senate are members of the College Council, and so therefore anytime issues of
substance come to the College Council, you see that faculty members play an
important role in that discussion. What I think is that we’ve seen a falling off of in
recent years is the participation of students in the College Council. In the early ‘90s
they played a very important role in the College Council. They’ve become not as
visible and not as, attendance rate of the student government at the College Council
has in fact, tapered off in recent years. But I think that there are other ways in which
this relationship between faculty and administrators has in fact been enriched. I
think it’s not just through the committee structure. I think what has been, I think


helpful to the college is a continuity of many of the players. I think most of the
influentials know each other and trust each other. I think that trust is indispensable
to the effective running of a college, and I think once that trust breaks down then
things become terribly difficult to build that consensus which we said is essential to
the running of the college. So I think that the mere fact that there’s this accessibility,
I think we know our college, in which members of the Faculty Senate have
accessibility to the President, to the Provost office, to the Vice President of Student
Development. The fact that there are constant meetings of this kind, whenever there
is a serious issue we call a meeting of the P and B [Personnel and Budget] and
discuss these kinds of matters. I think that has helped to make certain that there
aren’t issues that boil over, and whenever there are issues we can really iron them
all. I think a classical example of that is how we went about changing out admissions
requirements to the college, which took effect in the spring of 1999. That was a
discussion that started out with people wanting to abolish the associates degree
program, which would have made us a very inaccessible college. But we also
recognized that we were admitting students who were not performing very well and
that we used empirical data to determine what really should be our cut-off scores.
And we reasoned it out, we had the Town Hall Meetings, we discussed it in the
Curriculum Committee, in the Faculty Senate, in the Council of Chairs, in the College
Council, and we finally arrived at a consensus, which almost every person who took
part in the debate at the college could support. It wasn’t a discussion that left us
polarized, or in a state of descensus. We came together as an institution and agreed
as to what was beneficial to the college.

[0:37:41]

Jerry: That was one of the issues that I was going to ask you about so I’m glad you
talked about that. Could we talk about Gurabo? Because my sense is that Gurabo
there wasn’t as much of a consensus that developed initially. I think over time a
consensus developed, but initially I think that there was more divisiveness over
that.

Basil: I think the faculty, at least certain members of the faculty, were apprehensive
as to whether we could run a college in Gurabo using the medium of Spanish as a
teaching language and still devote sufficient energies to achieving excellence at John
Jay of Criminal Justice. I think there were genuine feelings. People were really
concerned about that. And I also thought that the differences that surface as an
outgrowth of Gurabo were in the long-term interest of the college. Because what
Gurabo did, once we decided to move ahead with Gurabo is that the travelling to
Gurabo, where people were interacting with each other outside of the college,
brought about a high degree of bonding among faculty and administrators. And I
thought that seeing ourselves from a distance enabled us to develop a greater
appreciation of our capabilities. I think one of the things that afflicted us in the early
‘90s and maybe in the ‘80s, is that we didn’t really have much confidence in
ourselves. And one of the things that I think Gurabo contributed to is a sense of
confidence and how we can go about achieving excellence. Because we went into


Gurabo, we setup a first class program and we graduated students. About 95% of
the student body graduated from Gurabo, and that was not an easy task. To go down
there, recruit faculty, adhere to a curriculum similar to what existed on this campus,
having chair persons from here overseeing that program. I mean, it meant much
more work than were doing heretofore, but we did it and I think that the Gurabo
experience in conjunction with some other experiences ‘90s, had given us the
confidence, and I think led to a certain maturation where we don’t really suffer as
much as we did prior to this from an inferiority complex as an institution.

Jerry: What else do you think gave us that confidence?

Basil: Well, I think the growth of the graduate programs, the PhD program in
Criminal Justice, and becoming number one in criminal justice policy in the US.
News & World Report. And the kind of acknowledgement that some of our faculty
members has received in recent years, I think has given us a new confidence. I think
we realize we have a faculty that can compete with any faculty in the world. I think
also realization that the reputation of the college, nationally, that many of us were
not even aware that we had that reputation. We were so busy doing out day-to-day
work that we didn’t have the opportunity to step back and to reflect as to what the
college had achieved and the contributions that the college had made to the
professionalization of criminal justice practitioners. I think it is that kind of
realization that made us realize that we were not mediocre. That even though we
were an open enrollment institution, we had produced some outstanding students,
at least many outstanding students, and that we had a rigorous curriculum, and had
a reputation outside that we could all feel very proud of.

I think one other factor, which we shouldn't forget, I think acquiring this building
also added to our confidence. It meant an investment in the college, by the city, by
the state. And these facilities were really facilities of a college, you know,
appropriate for a college. And I think once we get phase two going that is going to
build further confidence since we will not only become a contiguous institution in
terms of our physical facilities, but then we will have many things which are of the
top of the line, whether it’s going to be computer facilities, forensic science labs, and
other kinds of activities that, you know, make people really feel good about
themselves. And I think there’s a question that physical facilities can do that.

Jerry: Of course, one of the things that John Jay has complained about over the years
has been that we have been treated as a kind of step child by the administration of
the City University, and that specifically out funding has not been up to what the
other colleges have received.

Basil: The President, President Lynch and myself went to 80' street on Wednesday,
to meet with Vice Chancellor Louise Mirrer about our enrollment plans and that
issue came up. And what | think is that whenever that issue comes up now, at 80
street, that they immediately mention that they’ve never been able to hold up a
meeting with John Jay college officials, faculty or administrators, without that topic

10


coming up. So it’s clear that we sent a message to 80" street, and I think this is also
another example of the working relationship between faculty and administrators.
That we really were able to send a very clear message to 80* street, doing research,
documenting the inequity, I think people like Tom Litwack, Karen Kaplowitz, Ned
Benton and others just did some marvelous work in that area. You also have to
include Bob Sermier. Sermier was just outstanding in that. We really made that
known to the powers that be up at 80" street, and I don’t think there’s anybody at
80" street that is not familiar with that sort of disadvantaged position that we
presently continue to be and even though we got $2.8 million from 80* street, which
was put into our base budget for this academic year.

[0:46:46]

Jerry: How have you seen that fight develop over the years? It’s certainly been going
on for many years at the college. Do you see the Faculty Senate having played a role?

Basil: Oh the Faculty Senate played an outstanding role. The Council of Chairs
played an outstanding role. The budget committee played a great role, I mean the
business office, you know, Bob Sermier also was the one who was very much aware
of it, and was able to give us a lot of documentary evidence showing this inequity.
Gerry Lynch certainly played his role in making that known to 80" street. I mean, I
think we all...There’s an old movie called, All The Brothers Were Valiant. I think,
what’s his name, Richard Perdum, I think starred in it. Anyhow, I mean, you know, I
think all the brothers were valiant and all the sisters were virtuous in dealing with.
This shows again the maturation of the college. It shows the engaged nature of the
faculty, it shows the concern of an administration, it shows accessibility, it shows
the fact that we have become politically sophisticated, we know how to mobilize
elements within out own ranks, we know to send the message to 80" street, and I
think that has a lot to do with the leadership capabilities about the faculty and
administration.

Jerry: When you came into office as the Provost, you determined to create a culture
of research, and teaching, and scholarship at the college. Of course there was always
research, and scholarship and teaching going on, but what were you trying to
achieve when you became Provost?

Basil: Let me tell you what I’ve always been concerned with long before I became a
Provost. I think there’s a danger in institutions of higher learning to become so
preoccupied with minutia and become so taken up with the bureaucratic labyrinth
of higher education, that scholarship gets stifled. And you know, sometimes when
you listen to the discourse that takes place up at 80" street, and even here, it’s
almost as if scholarship is irrelevant. The fundamental reason for the existence of a
college for 80" street, for the City University, is scholarship, that goes on in the
classroom, and scholarship that goes on outside the classroom. And what happens is
that bureaucrats are very skillful at complicating very, very simple matters, and they
write language that becomes so incomprehensible that people spend years talking

11


about it and trying to explain it and tying to resolve it. And it’s really a waste of
energy and it takes us away from what an institution of higher learning is really all
about.

Now there are certain mundane tasks that you must perform in an institution of
higher learning, but an institution of higher learning cannot be overwhelmed by
bureaucracy, and by fringe benefits, and by all the ancillary things, and forget about
what the university is about. It’s about teaching, it’s about learning, it’s about
research, it’s about scholarship. And so one of the things that I was trying to do is to
ensure that that essence was recaptured and remained salient. And so what we’ve
tried to do with the conferences, with the lecture series, with all the kinds of
activities that take place around here, is to keep that, and to keep it up front. And I
think one of the more interesting thing that has occurred at the college, is that since
we started holding these international criminal justice conferences. They started, if I
recall, in 1992, in St. Petersburg, Russia, that that now has also given us an
opportunity to take the show on the road, but pivoting around the business of
research, of scholarship, of learning. And so I just think that what I was doing is
what the faculty would have wanted me to do because that’s what the faculty do. At
least many of the faculty, that’s what they do, and it’s trying to share this culture of
learning and to make certain that the institution is able to support it and to give it
the presence and exposure to keep the environment stimulating.

Jerry: Am I misremembering that before you became Provost, that there were very
few outside speakers, who came to the college and were available to the whole
college community?

Basil: There were a few I'd imagine. You know, you and I, I remember years ago
brought Manning Marable to the college. I think we were able to fork over a few
bucks from somewhere and brought Manning Marable I think that, I think this has a
lot to do with our new confidence, our new maturation that has taken place in the
world of scholarship, that major figures will come here now, to speak. Major figures
who participate in international criminal justice conference. I mean, | think the last
year, spring, we had about four conferences at the college. | mean, many of those
conferences were under the auspices of faculty, and they were just splendidly done.
You know, John Kleinig publishes Criminal Justice Ethics, which is a highly respected
journal in its field. Mangai Natargajan put out a conference on internal drug
smuggling. Bob Sullivan put out a conference on post modernism of the criminal
justice system. I mean, you know, Blanche Cook and Jerry Markowitz put out a
conference-

Jerry: And Basil Wilson.
Basil: And Basil Wilson, on the whole business of the prison system and education.
So, I think that once you create an environment, it has a multiplier effect on others.

You know, more people become engaged, more people recognize things that they
are capable of doing, and so, we all benefit from the activity. It makes the place much

12


more exciting, and it also reduces our preoccupation with much of the bureaucratic
nonsense that is a part of higher education.

Jerry: You touched on the international conferences and of course in the past ten
years or so, there has been a tremendous explosion in the growth of the college’s
international mission. Could you talk about that?

Basil: Yes, because I thought that when the internationalizing of criminal justice was
in an embryonic stage, I think there was some resistance at the college to it. Again,
people saw it like Gurabo that was taking us away from the college. But I think, Ann
Reynolds came to the faculty senate some years ago, and gave that international
dimension legitimacy. And I think Freda Adler also came here, I think it might have
been a criminal justice education conference, and also put a sort of imprimatur on
international criminal justice. And J think that it dovetailed with a whole
globalization that is so much a part of the latter part of the twentieth century and it
certainly will be an essential part of the twenty-first century. And so we have
become a college now, not just with a national reputation, but with an international
reputation, a college that just recently put together a new major in international
criminal justice, a college who has been hiring faculty who are experts in
international criminal justice. And I think that one of the weaknesses, certainly of
American Criminal Justice in its early years, is that it just simply confined to the
national boundary, and what I think is that we know about scholarship, is that when
we use the comparative method or the international method, we get a much better
understanding, not just of American civilization, but of in terms of the issues that we
are wrestling with. And I think we have in fact moved quite boldly into this new light
of international criminal justice education. It’s still in an early stage, it’s going to be
interesting to see how much the college pays attention to matters of human rights of
an international nature, matters of genocide, of ethnic wars of an international
nature. I think those are very important issues of international criminal justice. But I
think it is very exciting. I mean, the worst thing that can happen to scholarship is for
it to remain stagnant. You always need to find new angles, new dimensions, new
perspectives, whether it is cultural studies, gender studies, ethnic studies,
international studies. And I think it just added a new level of excitement to what we
do at this institution.

[0:58:08]

Jerry: How has the Board of Trustees responded to this international mission of the
college?

Basil: Oh, they have embraced it. I mean, they embraced it when they supported us
in the mission to Gurabo. They embraced it in terms of many of them attending to
the international criminal justice conference. They understand the importance of
the internationalization of criminal justice. They had no difficulty with the new
major. They were very pleased with it. Many spoke on it, I mean, they really pleased
with the fact that we had become trailblazers in this respect.

13


Jerry: Could you talk a little bit about the increasing role of technology at the
college, and especially the new praise for distance learning?

Basil: I think technology has to be seen in a multiplicity of dimensions. There’s no
question that a student graduating from an undergrad institution needs to have
some kind of literacy in computers and to have some sense as to where computers
are advancing a knowledge of software because many of the criminal justice
agencies now are using computer software, so that’s important. We recently
established a lab on crime-mapping, so that our students, whether they were doing
policing, or criminal justice, or deviant behavior, would have the kind of familiarity
with software and with technology. We now have this course info software that
faculty can use to enrich their course offerings. See, I think technology has to be seen
certainly in the dimension of how technology can be used to make learning much
more comprehensible to students. So we even use graphs, we even use lecture notes
or a chat...

Jerry: Chat Rooms?

Basil: Chat rooms. On the internet, for example. That can do, and many faculty
members at the college have in fact begun to do just that. There is an asynchronistic
learning and there’s a synchronistic learning. We have made some advances with
asynchronistic learning in terms of people doing courses on the internet, and that
again enables the students to develop a sophistication of working and doing a
course on the computer. Most of those students are in fact already registered at John
Jay College. We are doing some distance learning. The problem with distance
learning is to identify a constituency that is away from the college. I think the future
is going to be more, the future in terms of courses, is going to be more in the
internet, the web page, rather than the distance learning. The distance learning, I
think, is going to be helpful in terms of conferencing, and maybe giving special
lectures, and what have you. So, I think that is certainly the future and we have to
make certain that we’re not left in the past. But it certainly isn’t going to replace the
classroom, and there’s a certain richness that you get from the classroom, from the
interaction between faculty and teaching that you're not really going to get from
asynchronistic learning, at all. But we have really proliferated the labs in recent
years, thanks to the tier grant and the support that we have gotten from 80" street.
And now we have the Department of Information Technology that has instrumental
in putting together a new email, setting up servers to expand our capacity to doa
certain kind of technological activities. It certainly has enriched the learning process
and it certainly has facilitated communication. Many people only get information on
email. They don’t write anything, they don’t telephone, they send your things email.
So there’s a certain fetishness to it but you know, it is something that we have to
integrate into the whole teaching and learning process, and if we’re going to do that,
I don’t think, I don’t know whether there’s going to be a huge army of people waiting
to do this outside of the college. I mean, we just have to see how that market
develops. If there is a market then J think we have to make certain that we have the

14


wherewithal to seize those advantages and to have enrolled and expand our student
population through it.

Jerry: Have you embraced email?

Basil: I’ve sent email. I mean, the first email I sent, I sent it to my grandson, and one
of the problem was is that he never got it. I find that it certainly is an inexpensive
way to communicate. I mean, the only concern that I have is that there’s so much
rubbish that is printed on the email, and sometimes to go through all of it is so time
consuming. What really fascinates me about the new technology, and I think it
enriches the learning process, is the PC has now become a library. That you can
download information, that you can find information, that you can really, a student
can learn a great deal from the internet and that, in a sense, that becomes a
liberating force. Everybody hasn’t got to cram into a library. Not that the library has
become obsolete, but it’s now another tool that can be used to give people access to
information, but I think they have to be very careful. Information is not knowledge.
You got to find ways to convert information into knowledge, and that’s what the
university does, you know, in terms of courses, in terms of tests, in terms of
activities. Am I back on camera sir?

[1:05:49]

Jerry: You are back on camera. As handsome as ever. Is there a way of turning on
these lights? It’s saying that we’re...Provost Wilson, we've talked around the
curriculum of the college a lot today. Maybe you can talk more directly about the
development of the curriculum and especially about writing.

Basil: I think one of the things that is remarkable about the curriculum is that
during the 90s, maybe in the 70s, late 60s, when there were many colleges that were
abandoning the general education requirements, John Jay was wise enough not to
abandon general education requirements. There was a very strong feeling, which I
guess is part of the legacy of Don Riddle that the best way to educate cops is to
educating them like how you were educating everybody else, and so therefore we
have this general education requirements that encompasses the humanities, foreign
languages, ethnic studies, English, etc., which gives people a rounded education. I
mean, it gives them certainly breadth. One of the things that we have not founda
way to do is to have breadth and concomitantly have depth. We just have not found
a way to do that. But I think one of the things that we have seen in the majors, is how
the majors have adapted to the changing nature of the criminal justice field. A lot of
the majors now have included computer applications courses. A number of them
include research methods, and so therefore students then are developing logical as
well as quantitative skills to go with the modern world.

We have always, as a college, been committed to writing across the curriculum. We

adopted writing adopted across the curriculum to the 1980s, and the college has a
gem that it not often shows to the world and that it the Thematic Studies

15


department, which has always been our writing intensive studies department that is
interdisciplinary and uses the theme approach, and that department which I might
teach at any one time, 7 to 8% of the college student body has always had that
commitment to writing intensive courses. But we were never able to afford, ona
college-wide basis, writing intensive courses. I remember discussions taking place
at the college whenever we had economic crunch. Why don’t we close Thematic
Studies? Thematic Studies is too expensive a program, we don’t need it. But it’s
really one of the jewels of the institution. It attracts many of the best and brightest
students and it is also a place where many of our faculty are resuscitated and
reenergized and really get a new lease on life by teaching with other faculty
members and really developing a sort great esprit de corps. And we have been
concerned for the last couple of years as to what extent have we have been adhering
to the principal of writing across the curriculum. In recent years because of the
budgetary problems, they’ve had to increase class size and once we increase class
size, I certainly think it serves as a disincentive for writing across the curriculum
and both Larry Kobilinsky and myself have been looking at course outlines to see,
are our faculty adhering to the commitment of the 1980s which was adopted then,
by the curriculum committee and the college council committee to writing across
curriculum.

Just recently, this January, January 1999, the board has committed the City
University to writing across the curriculum and a discussion I had recently with one
of the deans of academic affairs, he has argued that, one of the criticisms that he has
heard of students graduating from the City University is that they have poor writing
skills. And that is not just an issue in the City University, I mean, we have some
evidence of out Graduate Programs with people coming in from pretty distinguished
institutions, with high grade point averages, have very mediocre, if not less than
mediocre writing skills. So, with the university making money available for writing
across the curriculum, we sent a proposal on December the 10th, and this is
something that we have established, it will be announced in another couple weeks, a
writing across the curriculum committee, which will be monitoring our commitment
to writing across the curriculum. But what we really want to do, is to increase the
numbers of writing intensive courses that every John Jay College student must take
before they graduate, which will enhance their writing skills and ensure that when
the graduate from the institution, that they have some proficiency in writing. And
we want to set it up in such a way that we give our students the experience and
backgrounds to prepare them for the proficiency exam which takes affect in 2000,
prior to accumulating 60 credits. So we presently have 2 courses, English 101, and
102, where there’s writing intensive courses, and both the literature course, the two
literature courses which all students must take, there’s a certain amount of writing
that is done, and is also in other courses, where there is some adherence to writing
across the curriculum. But we want to take, at least 2 to 3, off the core courses,
reduce the class sizes in that core, which would facilitate a greater degree of
interaction between the faculty and the student, and to make those courses into
writing intensive courses. We’ve made some suggestions. We have suggested one of
the literature courses, maybe one of the history courses, the history is somewhat

16


skeptical of that, and then philosophy, which has embraced it quite enthusiastically
since they do a lot of writing in philosophy. Maybe if it’s not history, it could be
ethics studies 123, 124, and 125.

And then what we want to do, is to link the writing across the curriculum initiative
in the early stages of a student’s development to the majors, where we have 400
level courses and that we will select another course in the major which will become
a writing intensive course. So there’s approximately then, 7 writing intensive
courses that everyone attending the college will have an opportunity to take in
order to improve their writing skills. And the other thing that we want to do so that
the writing across the curriculum is not born exclusively by people teaching writing
intensive courses, is that we would issue on a regular basis opportunities through
an RFP [Request for Proposals] for other faculty, to teach their courses as writing
intensive courses and so if you get them a certain amount of enthusiasm and a ethos
at the college, a commitment to writing, which would help in terms of the retention
of students as well as deepening the learning experience of our students and
improving their skills. So I think this is a gallant opportunity, which we hope to
begin on a grand scale in 2000. This year, we began with writing fellows, and we had
10 sections of courses, in which we would assign writing fellows to those courses
that’d be responsible for 2 sections working with faculty members, and I think it has
worked very well, and at a minimum indicated that at least in 30 percent of
students, they could see some improvement in their writing. So this is anew
initiative on the part of the university, which the college is adopting and something
that I think that we can all support, largely because the students graduating from
the college, I think, with this kind of exposure, with this kind of writing intensive
courses, will be better trained and better educated.

[1:15:47]
Jerry: How do you see your role as the Provost of the college?

Basil: I think the Provost has to try to establish an ethos that convinces the rest of
the institution that the college is about academic affairs. That what is preeminent in
the college is what takes place in the classroom, and what takes place in the world of
scholarship, as we create it, and the other parts of the college, really serve...are here
to enrich what the students do and what the faculty do. And I think we’ve always
been able to do that budgetary wise, that the academic salary of the college is
sacrosanct budgetary wise, and that everything else has to recognize that’s what
constitutes the essence of the college. I think it is a responsibility of the Provost to
ensure that the faculty feel that I can represent them and I can represent them
effectively at 80" street and in the different forums that I have to represent them
throughout the university. And the faculty must have access to me in such a way that
I can learn from them. This is not a job in which I have a monopoly of wisdom. I have
to learn from faculty on an ongoing basis, both the senior faculty and the junior
faculty, so that it can help me to frame things in such a way that can strengthen the
institution. And so therefore there’s that interactive relationship that has to exist
between the Provost and the entire faculty. I try to make myself accessible, not just

17


the chairs, not just the senior faculty, but to the entire faculty body. I think the
Provost along with the deans and with the senior professors must be able to create
an ethos so that scholarship can thrive, so that we can support each other, we can
have these exchanges on an ongoing basis, and feel as if we are in a college in sucha
way that we can communicate with each other, and create a sense of community. I
think that is indispensible for achieving our objectives. And I think it is my
responsibility to find new ways of doing things and finding new initiatives every
academic year on an ongoing basis. I think it is my responsibility not to have the
institution go stale. I have to find ways to rejuvenate, to refresh, to excite the
institution about things. I think, for example, writing across the curriculum can do
that. I think the conferences we have been having can do that. I think by encouraging
people to get grants, and to try to provide people with the necessary tools to do the
job. We are almost at the point of the college, where every faculty member has a
computer with Internet capabilities. We’re just so far from being there. By the end of
the Spring, we will be there. And so, I think it is my responsibility to try to get as
much resources for the faculty, so that they can perform their tasks at hand.

Jerry: Could you talk about faculty development, which you have been instrumental
in initiating and carrying through?

Basil: Yes, I don’t think I am the one who... I’m always reluctant to take credit for
these things singlehandedly, because I think that John Jay has a team spirit, and
many of the things come up through meetings and one person might suggest
something and we brainstorm and something comes in to be. I think one of the
things that we have been doing for the last, I think 4 or 5 years, is with faculty
development, and it is not only... is it a coming together of the faculty. It is a social
event as well as a learning event, as a faculty development event. But I think faculty
look forward to coming together and just interacting with each other. But I think
what we have done with the faculty development is to take specific issues, such as
critical thinking, such as writing assignments, such as research, challenges that we
face.

Jerry: Technology.

Basil: Technology as we did in the last year, and to bring the faculty together, divide
ourselves into workshops, come together in a very consensual way of seeing how we
can use these ways to improve our teaching, be much more effective in the
classroom so that we can teach our students more effectively, and in conjunction to
that, strengthen the institution, and I think the faculty development has really really
come through with it. The challenge is to make certain that we are constantly
excited about faculty development. In fact, one of the things that we did recently,
rather than doing it twice a year, we’re now doing it once a year, cause we want to
maintain the excitement, and rather people that it’s a chore, or it’s a job, orit’sa
routine thing, we felt that doing it once a year was really the better way to do it, so
that there would be that excitement by the time it came around again.

18


Jerry: Where do you see John Jay going in the next 10 years?
[1:23:07]

Basil: I think that there’s an interesting development taking place in our graduate
program, and it’s one that I think we have to have a college wide discussion on that
issue. I’ve always thought of the City University as being an urban university, a
university that is here to serve the interest of the poor, of the inner city student.
That is the mission of the City University. Our graduate programs do that and they
also serve the interest of criminal justice agencies and public sector agencies. But if
you look at some of the programs, we now draw nationally and that’s a very
pleasing, and for some troubling, kind of achievement. I think that it’s tremendous
and gratifying to know that we have this national reputation and we can attract 400
applications from some of the best institutions in the country, but we also have to be
careful that we’re not closing up the people who we were established to serve, so we
have to develop some balance on that, and if you look at our graduate programs,
they have become very very stringent in terms of who they admit, and we do an
exceptional job in our graduate, in our 5 graduate programs, and there’s been a
tremendous growth in our graduate programs in recent years and I think we will
continue to see that growth.

For the future, I see where the writing across the curriculum can really infuse a
certain... at least [in] the early years ahead, I mean at least another 5 years, to ensure
that our outcomes assessment is achieving what we really want to achieve In the
sense that, we want to make certain that the students who graduate from the college
have certain competences: that they are literate, they can compute, they can do
research, they can write clearly, they can think clearly, they’re sophisticated enough
that they can go on to graduate school and compete wherever they choose to go.
And I think that, they gotta find a way, not just to think we’re doing that, but to be
able to prove that empirically, and so, we have this outcomes assessment on teams
that we have set up, and we have integrated it with the writing across the
curriculum, and we’re about now to develop a portfolio and to make certain that in
our capstone courses that faculty are accurately measuring those competences, and
so we have a data taking place among faculty. And so, what are the competences that
we wish to measure and how do we go about measuring them? And I think that is
going to take much of our time in the coming years.

I think the other issues that we have recognized in the future is that we really want
to create and establish ourselves as a serious research institution. That’s one of the
reason why we started to bring on board distinguished professors and not just,
especially in the field of Criminal Justice, that we can begin putting out seminal
works and so therefore we become not just the largest Criminal Justice College but
one where the finest research is actually taking place. The thing that I see also
developing for the future is ongoing working relationships with other international
institutions, with other international colleges, that share our Criminal Justice
interest. We need to have more visiting professors coming to the college. We need to

19


get more John Jay College professors interested in the coming visiting professors
elsewhere. So, in the same way that we were able to overcome out parochialism in
looking at Criminal Justice and embrace the international Criminal Justice mission,
we need our faculty to embrace that and willing to spend time in institutions abroad
where they can bring back that experience, that body of knowledge, that they would
have picked up while studying in another country and teaching in another country. I
see that as being very very important for the future.

And I think for the future also, it becomes important for us to recognize what is it
that works at the college and to ensure that we continue doing it and that is the
open dialogue, the cooperation taking place between all the essential entities of the
college, and ensuring that there continues to be a commitment to our students. I
mean, those are things that even if you have them now, you can lose them in a year
or two, or you can get sidetracked, you can get derailed from those essential parts at
any time. So essentially that’s what I see for the future. The only other thing that I
mentioned, which I think is critical, I think that if higher education in the city is
going to achieve excellence it’s gotta be ina much more equitable manner and a far
more generous way. I think that an open enrollment college should not have to have
the class sizes that we presently possess. That we should be able to be funded at
such a level, that we can reduce class size, ensure the connection linking faculty to
student, and to reduce the dependency on adjuncts. The university said that they’re
committed to having 70% of courses taught by full time faculty. I think that is
essential for retention, that is essential for the learning process, and I think that
could also open jobs for a new generation of faculty coming; but I think that is
something that can only be achieved if the board of trustees and the governor and
the mayor recognize the importance of higher education to the economy in this city,
and I haven’t seen that. I just haven’t seen that recognition. They really think you
can build greatness on a pittance. You can’t.

[01:31:21]

20