Hunter MFASO

Note: The following is a record of the meeting MFASO had with Faculty on November 24th and the faculty follow-up response. Meeting notes are fairly raw and unedited, so they do not make for the cleanest reading, but should give a sense of the minutes of the meeting. Some of the discussion regarding visiting artists and most of Emily’s points are missing since she was the one taking the notes.

MFASO/Faculty Meeting Bullet Points

1. Curfew

• The students would like 24 hour access
• The difficulty of maintaining a job and getting enough studio time
• Set up and take down times vary greatly and may be hindered by curfew
• The requirements of the mediums we use require flexible hours
• For most the studio is the only space in which they can work on their projects
• Academic Achievement and Meeting Course Requirements
• Classes and assignments run throughout the semester, therefore time is needed throughout the semester, not just the end
• What are the procedures and reprimands for students who stay past curfew?

2. Concern: Faculty and student communication, staffing

• A dearth of Faculty in the spring – 35 incoming students and 30 + thesis students in the spring
• Who will be the graduate coordinator?
• What is the role of the GC?
• Who is the point person for communication between faculty and students?
• Newsletter from the Faculty?
• Set up system for regular meetings between faculty and students: 2 open forums per semester? 1 MFASO/faculty meeting per semester + 1 Open Forum?

3. What is the vision of the program? What is the relationship of the program to the art world at large?

• Interest to bring curators and critics as guests
• How do we pull together resources between the department and MFASO to improve visibility of MFA program?
• Orchestrate guest studio visits equally throughout student body, for all media – some students never get studio visits
• Greater transparency for Zabar visits – set up Student Studio Visit committee

4. Set up student committee/s for:

• Vetting and hiring new faculty
• Selecting new students
• Controversial issues; set student referendum on artistic and behavioral issues
• How should this be set up? Post mid-program students, etc.

Minutes for Meeting with Faculty – November 24, 2009

10:30am, six floor conference room

Present: Lisa Corinne Davis, Reiner, Tim Laun, Joel Carreiro, Tom Weaver, Constance DeJong, Stephen Davis, Valerie Jaudon

MFASO: Sharone, Emily, Josh and Daniel

Emily – thank you to everyone for coming

Curfew – Daniel – committee had been formed (Separate from MFASO) out of student frustration – purpose to take action and organize a letter campaign – aware and facilitate it.

Josh – put together a web space for them. Publicized and put together by committee

Constance – open letter?

Josh – one that went to administration

Tim – made letters (70) individually sent to Mader and Zinnanti asking for 24 hour access to the building.

Daniel – student’s position asking for 24 hours. Want to ask for what options are possible. Very difficult to get work done on time. Aware of what is at stake – list – important for us to sit down and discuss what we can do here.

Josh – curious what your position is on this. Not a lot of feedback on this issue. A major issue among the students themselves. A lot of consternation

Constance – why are you using the word curfew? Building is closed and the word “curfew” has a very specific meaning.

Josh – it shuts everything down at 1am.

Constance – there is a rule – people being asked to leave.

Daniel – I think the use of curfew is the way the students perceive the issue

Constance – perception isn’t sometimes accurate. Has punitive ramification.

Joel – think we should switch to building hours of operation. Terminology is important

Constance – emotional distortion

Josh – it IS emotional. I understand arguing kinds of semantics. The meaning is emotional

Constance – punitive hand down from the top

Tom – can I rehearse the history of all of this, in a broader context of building hours. Faculty always said that it was always midnight seven days a week. No way for the department to enforce that. Not our job, administration didn’t pay attention and people came and went. When I started 4 years ago hunter college had no investment in time or money, everything we’ve done on our own admission. Kind of a laissez faire initiative. As we saw fit. We were asking for more support from the college because we can’t really manage a building like this – building is disintegrating . We asked them – can you do it or can we do it? Ultimately what we needed to do wasn’t getting done by us or by them. When Len came back to Hunter he started to organize meetings, reports with itemized reports – done/partially done/not done whatsoever. It felt constrictive at first, but then felt it was good to get some things done, paper trail, gets noted on their list.

Safety issues – no electric outlets, no emergency means of egress, things people don’t feel comfortable working here without. So they started to respond. Slowly we’ve reaching up level implementation. Hoping they will continue – hope over winter break open up some walls for means of egress. All developments. Started thinking of this building that they needed to get more control over. Implement a building closing time. Put in turnstiles. This is a test case for them – wanted to employ turnstiles and swipes all over campus. Part of a broader policy initiative. When we were faculty managing we have told them that this is what we think they should do. When administration is doing that they need to know how and what is being done. If we had the means to do 24 hours the faculty would back it, but I think it requires a lot more support for overnight access. If we were to get commitment for three people here overnight to walk the halls then I think we could support 24 hour access. If the administration would not be prepared to do that then I would not support it. Because they are taking responsibility we can’t take responsibility for it. If I go to 68th street I can’t get bent out of shape over how the administration is handling the security.

Lisa – issue is procedural. When I sat in on one of the building meetings last spring with Len we talked about the turnstiles, roll down gate and curfew and he was not unreasonable. Wanted to try this. And the ways things operate at Hunter is still a mystery to me. But Len wasn’t resistant to 24 hour curfew. Really felt that we needed this but the administration wanted to see what happened. I said in six months that if we come back to Len to say this wasn’t happening then we could fix it. The Last Open Forum, when we came to discuss this the students were outraged. Six months. Other thing – cannot contact Len directly. There is a chain of communication here. If you start rattling cages and not let the procedures operate the way they are in place then he starts to believe that you do not understand properly. Shuts him down a bit, and it shoots yourselves in the foot. I think that what probably has to happen is that you have to articulate the reasons for 24 hour access. None of us disagree with the bullet points. Now convincing the administration to put money in to operate the building in this way, the way it needs to be done. Hard to talk to artists about the way we work. Lou is not sympathetic and listens

Josh – what would not working look like then, because to me this looks a lot like not working.

Lisa- It’s obviously not working. But what you do say is that it does not work for those reasons. Say specifically why it doesn’t work, say now Lou can we open this up more. That’s the way it should happen. That’s the job on the committee of this faculty. Not jumping over our heads.

Constance – but you didn’t approach faculty.

Tom – if you represent the students, certain people have to represent groups. I don’t know what your internal conversation is with students. You’re the people who we cannot work with. All over the spring these people felt various things. All I could find out was to find out who is representing whom.

Joel – wrote a letter to the committee and asked them to work through you. We can negotiate better than you. The administration perceives it as mob rule. They have 20 students coming through independently. This is destructive to their goals. I can give specific examples. They’re not just these blind bureaucrats. None of us want to be around something that isn’t safe. Too many examples that not only could happen but will happen. Think about the economic situation. Asking for something at the worst possible time.

Daniel – wanted to speak with ways we could communicate with you directly. I think that there is a general fear from the students that the program is slipping away from them. I can see and agree with you that you care, but it’s representing a state of affairs they feel so distrustful to each other.

Valerie – need a permanent MFA committee. MFASO is an institution where people can complain to MFASO and MFASO can come to the permanent committee. Emails and rumors, nowhere to outlet.

Constance – must be a link that’s missing.

Tom – great idea, monthly access with committee.

Tim – monthly newsletter with formal report. Do it with the administration

Josh – one of the major breakdowns in the way that the whole security issue has been deal with. Daily new rules have been put in place, no real permanence to the rules. Have no idea why things are changed. Next day may be totally different. Very little communication about how things have been managed. Real frustration about who is accountable.

Reiner – might have nothing to do with the actual rules being put in place.

Lisa – asked for my id

Reiner – don’t think that there is a logic to it. Some guy will actually look up the rules and will do it, etc

Lisa – harder hammer. But they’ve always been extremely inconsistent.

Sharone – you’re going to a meeting now with ailya – tom and joel and tim. Can we ask what the points you are going to bring up

Joel – they all came to the building and we asked them how this is going to work. We asked all these questions and were assured that this system would work. Fact that we are guinea pigs for them. One thing that I’d like to bring to this meeting is a bullet list of things that aren’t working. That we can bring to them.

Tim – I’ve said that there isn’t security leadership on the campus. What I’ve suggested to them to consider is rather than have three independent security shifts, what they really need is one person in charge of the campus that gives direction, understands the art department better, make the behavior more efficient. I think it basically boils down to one person with leadership. The response is that we don’t have a leadership pool. Almost all of them are afraid to call 68 street.

Valerie – need a list of 30 things

Sharone – issue of the closing hours

Joel – plenty of arguments – academic arguments. The financial situation makes it a tough pitch. Could be a disaster without proper financing.

Tom – dynamic that will make it difficult. The whole student body needs to know this. Have three professors coming in for this spring. People coming in

Two in spring, one in art history and studio, two in fall – studio. If you have a line that’s available, might not be able to hire. MFA got one line to hire. Good percentage. Huge support for the department. Our otps is one of the largest in the school. One of the most expensive departments in the school. Have no idea why money being spent on the department, on art. 20 percent cut.

Tom – oscillate from fall and spring – tutorials and seminars in the fall, electives in the spring. So many people took tutorials in the fall, maybe not in the spring. The only class that we’re aware of that we won’t get is theory and criticism. Wrote and asked the provost for somebody to teach.

Lisa – not every body is teaching seminars

Joel – high 20s – wash. Not 35 maybe 27 is my guess. Not sure. That should be the number of students coming in next semester. As far as registration – because have flexibility to speed up or slow down. Impossible to track the flow exactly. Harder because of the way in which students fluctuate with their choices. That is a better fit to those guys. It’s a benefit to you that you can pick and choose and slow down for whatever reason, speed up.

Constance – is this forward looking? Or is there a perception that there weren’t a lot of classes for this semester

Josh- think it’s both. Not aware of what or who is coming back and who is coming back

Constance – not want that perception that these positions aren’t going to be filled.

Tom – privacy. Planning to search

Lisa – wondering where the hysteria is coming from. There seems to be something else that is filling up. What’s it germinating from

Josh – there’s a lot that’s changing here right now. With the way the building is being run, change over with the faculty. In the air

Tom – sense of restriction. Things are changing. It think it’s going to be great. All 3 new roles taking over will be great.

Valerie – Foucault – surveillance (Panopticism).

Reiner – not getting access to the people. Larger number of students who can’t get access to the teachers they want to work with. Also from faculty’s side can’t find out who they could or want to work with. No communication with that. So at least we should know and establish a structure. Maybe we need a waiting list for tutorials

Tom – problem with tutorials. Contractual deal – with tutorials and seminars.

Reiner – paradoxical. Want to give the room that creates a situation. Impossible to plan. Don’t want you to die and want space to work.

Josh – can’t get to everything on this list but wondering in the past been graduate coordinator. Fluid position changing. Who do we go to as point person

Tom – Jeff Mongrain been asked as MFA coordinator in the spring

Joel – have two committees. MFA committee and MFASO. Regular basis and send out a newsletter to students that would articulate issues being discussed.

Lisa- Tom set me to be graduate coordinator this spring. Role never determined, because it wasn’t determined I didn’t want to do it any more. I think it’s true that you guys need a direct access. But since this position hasn’t been fleshed out fully, maybe have a wish list of how you see the coordinator differing from the chair or director of the program, and then see how that can be facilitated. I think it could have been anything. I’m really big on chain of communication, procedure. But we’re in a big city bureaucratic mess and we have a lot of students and faculty and if we don’t create a big chain we’re all screaming into the wind. Why don’t you guys decide what kind of person and how you want that person to function.

Valerie – committee.

Tim – when you guys go back to len zinannti and discuss there has to be coherence between faculty and students

Reiner – much of this seems to boil down to who is the liaison between the department faculty and students. Perhaps we need somebody who has no power. Somebody like an Ombudsman. About the students and the program who isn’t really invested. Someone who is willing to communicate.

Tom – hiring new faculty – always student committee, faculty and b&b committee and everyone is invited to the lectures. Selecting new students – we do an image review and always invite the students to come and review and vote. That was lapsed because students weren’t doing it.

Lisa – had student committee and paul had one too. Students had pecking order

Josh – curfew – what is feasible because limited resources but what is feasible to take pressure off this situation.

Visiting Artists:

Bring in people who have a kind of voice, position or arena of art to expand your area of thinking. If there are students who work in x,y,z what artists curators historians can come in and talk to these points. Another level of discussion to happen. I don’t think we should bring in curators who don’t have anything to fill.

 

Faculty Response- Open Letter to Students

Responses to MFASO Bullet Point Agenda

MFASO – Faculty meeting of November 24, 2009

Building Hours

The issue of the closing time of the building is important. The faculty generally support maximized working hours for students, for all the reasons the MFASO lists. This is most fundamentally a question of access to academic support: studio access is essential to get the important creative work done that is the core of the MFA Program. The responsibility for establishing hours lies with the administration, however, because the responsibility to staff and manage the building also lies with them, and building hours are ultimately their decision to make. The faculty can only make recommendations and seek the most positive solutions for any given issue.

The department had a long-standing building closing hour – midnight. The department has sought more active management of the building by the administration. Building management (health and safety, facilities maintenance and improvement, cleaning, security etc) is, and always was, solely the business of the administration. The department’s responsibilities and capabilities lie entirely in the realm of academic affairs, i.e., program management and instruction. Departmental interaction with the administration to maximize the functionality of building resources is part of this, but does not change the basic structure. When the administration, at the behest of the department, became more active in managing the building and taking responsibility for its affairs, it set a new closing hour of 1 a.m. and set out to use a swipe card system and cameras to enforce this hour. This is a building management issue beyond the control of the department, but is linked to increased administration activity in the enhancement of facilities. The faculty sought and gained extended hours on the weekends – the original closing time was 11 pm. The administration offered 24 hour access for the last two and a half weeks of the semester so students can prepare for thesis and mid-program. The administration has offered to arrange for an additional week for a total of three and one half hours, to begin in the spring.

The department has urged greater access to the building, but without greater resources and work force available from Hunter College to support 24 hour access, we do not support undue pressure in regard to this issue. Without added support, 24 hour access is not safe or practical.

It is crucial to see building hours in relation to a broader picture. The department is in ongoing and active negotiation with the administration for access to resources on many fronts, and this is just one of them. Cooperative working relations are necessary for the success of this ongoing process. Faculty hires, adjunct and staff budgets, materials and equipment budgets, facilities maintenance and improvements (for studios, classrooms and shops) are all subjects of ongoing planning. This requires patience and mutual accommodation – we are in competition with 23 other departments and 4 other Schools for scant resources. The administration has invested increasingly greater levels of resources in the MFA Program over the last several years, and we are pushing for more. We need a positive working climate with the administration to maintain these developments.

On yet another level, given the global fiscal climate, CUNY is increasingly short of funds, and the news from Albany indicates that we will all face a more constricted fiscal environment than we even face now. As a public university, CUNY has always been on a tight budget, but the years leading up to the recession were relatively well-funded, and the art department accrued benefits from this, a comparison that is hard to make if you were not working here four years ago. Within the college, the department has been relatively successful in gaining attention and response to fulfill its needs.

The MFA building offers about 155 students the use of over 100,000 square feet (including support spaces such as boiler rooms, stairwells, bathrooms, etc.). This is an unparalleled per capita allocation of CUNY real estate, and a generous allocation when compared to any university or art school nationally. Please remember the fact that this space is made available in Manhattan, one of the most expensive real estate zones in the world. Prior to having 41st Street available, seminars convened exclusively in student studios, so all students maintained their own work spaces, an expense additional to their tuition, to say nothing of the time and effort involved in securing and renovating such space. The tuition you currently pay in no way measures up to the cost this would involve, and in no way covers the expenses of attending the program. We are currently in discussions with President Raab to maintain the square footage that has proven so essential to the work of our program.

None of these facts mean that we need be endlessly grateful or acquiescent, but they do indicate that we need to modulate our ongoing statements of needs to a realistic appraisal of what can be accomplished, and a recognition of what has been accomplished under difficult circumstances. We are discussing all of this at length since it will be helpful to the sense of MFA community if every request can be seen in the light of the broadest possible understanding of college conditions and departmental needs.

Faculty and Student Communication, Staffing

There is no dearth of faculty in the spring. Reiner Leist and Lisa Corinne Davis are going on leave, and Jeff Mongrain is returning. The department expects to have a new full-time faculty member on a Lecturer line beginning in the spring, so the same number of instructors as we have now will continue. The department has been given permission to hire new faculty on the Robert Morris and Roy DeCarava lines. These hires were by no means automatically permissible in the current environment. Hiring on lines takes time. We are also excited that the department acquired a new line to hire an Asian Art History specialist. We will search on that line and on the Morris line in the spring for fall starts. In the fall, we will search on the DeCarava line. Searching is a demanding process, and this is the fastest possible way to conduct three processes. We fully expect these hires to bring a great deal of new energy and ideas to the department. Students are invited to attend lectures by finalists and to interview finalists in all searches (MA students in art history searches, and MFA students in studio searches). We hope that students will actively participate, and the Personnel and Budget Committee, which makes hires, will consider student views as part of the process. This is not new, it is a department tradition.
The MFA Coordinator is a new position created by the Chair, that started this fall. The position will continue in the spring. We would like to hear ideas from students (via MFASO) about what this position can provide for the students in the program: it is in the process of ongoing definition.

The MFA Director is the point person for communication between faculty and students. Tim facilitates such communication. In the spring, both the director and the coordinator will serve as point people for communication, and can each be expected to be responsible to address different issues, depending on how the roles will be defined.
We will plan for meetings between MFASO and the MFA Policy Committee, the faculty committee that discusses and makes determinations regarding certain specific issues in the program. The Chair, Director and Coordinator are all members of this committee. We hope for monthly meetings, with a list of results sent to all students. It would also be ideal to have two Open Forum meetings each semester, one at the beginning and one at the end. This can be adjusted as needed.

Vision and Informal Teaching

The use of the Zabar Visiting Artist Program will be the subject of ongoing discussions. We understand the need for fairness in the allocation of studio visits etc. We hope everyone understands that a) lack of staffing to implement this program limits ways it can be used and b) relations with donors are part of the planning for such a program. The faculty committee that voluntarily plans the program, and has succeeded in bringing some great artists to MFA studios, will take student needs into account, but deserves the opportunity to plan the program. The Activities and Funding Committee that oversees studio visits, scholarships, awards etc. will evaluate the situation in the spring. Please note that prior to the ZVA, the department had extremely limited resources to bring in visiting artists: the amount of activity by invited guests is vastly greater than it used to be.

The vision for the program as a whole requires an ongoing philosophical discussion about the study of fine art in a university setting, with all its attendant opportunities and deficits. Here we study art as a field of knowledge, while the commercial art world engages with works of art in the market place and the museum world. The two fields intertwine extensively, and neither is purely defined or independent of the other, and neither represents art per se, if that is even possible, but rather a specific contemporary face of art. It is incumbent on the study of art in the academy that criteria for a process of study and development be incorporated into the fabric of every program. The Chair has recently asked the studio faculty to evaluate all of our teaching – undergraduate and graduate – and work towards a new vision of what we can offer. Within a realistic assessment of resources, the department plans to take action to improve its processes and working environment.

Student Participation

Student activity is very much a matter for students to form, but a number of points should be made. The department has a number of opportunities for student involvement. In regard to searches for full-time tenure track faculty, as noted above, students can attend lectures by finalist candidates and form a committee to interview them. Students also have the opportunity to review all applicants to the MFA program and rank them according to the Yes/No voting system the faculty uses. The graduate office will contact the MFASO about this process, which can be expected to last two 8 hour days, and requires a commitment on the part of any student wishing to participate to review every candidate.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss student governance and community with students. The faculty necessarily must work with the MFASO. The Chair has asked that every student activity that requires interaction with the department or administration (such as thesis) be conducted through a point person or committee. Participation in the process requires that students involved communicate their point of view to the person/committee, and then let their representation do its work. Going around the committee sows confusion and undermines the effective presentation of student ideas and needs. Issues cannot be handled by referendum vote, but must be processed through the power of the representational committee or point person to enact dialogue outside of the student body.

Further discussion is needed in regard to the character of the student body and ways to build community and participation to enhance students’ experience of the program. The size of the program is an asset, but can also lead to isolation, frustration, and “falling through the cracks.” Steps need to be taken to overcome this situation by both the faculty and the students. We pledge to work to develop lines of communication and enhance the program’s modes of participation and sense of community, and we look forward to working with all of you to achieve these goals.