Vote of No Confidence in CUNY Provost

The Executive Committee of the University Faculty Senate of the City University of New York passed a resolution of no confidence Thursday in the system’s provost, Alexandra Logue, and its Office of Academic Affairs for not seeking its advice in a comprehensive reform of student transfer between the system’s two- and four-year institutions. The effort would create a general education framework for all of the system’s institutions, causing some senior institutions to significantly trim their requirements. The overarching transfer agreement would guarantee that liberal arts and sciences courses taken for credit at any CUNY institutions be accepted for credit by any other CUNY institutions, even if an equivalent course exists at the transfer institution. The University Faculty Senate, a group representing all institutions but dominated by four-year faculty, argues that the reforms, as initially written, “would have undermined educational quality and threatened the accreditation of many CUNY programs.” It also argues that a recent revision of the transfer proposal, done with what it feels was insufficient faculty input, “still does not adequately provide for student transfer in a way that safeguards the quality of general education at CUNY.” In response, Jay Hershenson, system spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to Inside Higher Ed: "Allowing transfer students greater access to quality course choices is a big change from a highly prescriptive out-of-the-mainstream system installed in the last century. But the students deserve our support and commitment to academic quality."