Prevaricating exists in many forms in the Department of Film and Media Studies, Hunter College, City University of New York. Colleague Larry Shore’s request epitomizes the inner workings of #D:F/M.
Revised D:F/M Logo in the Works. Present and former Colleagues.
I recall the moment when I met with former Department Chair Stuart Ewen who told me, as I was coming up for tenure a while back (and word was beginning to circulate in the grapevine that I didn’t have his support) that then Dean Carlos R. Hortas (Dean of Humanities and the Arts) had suggested that because my tenure package was weak that I consider taking a leave of absence, which would restart my tenure clock, thus, improving my chances of tenure a second time around.
Needless to say, I was worried, and needless to say, I was on High Alert. Because with Stuart Ewen I always had to be on high alert. But I scheduled a meeting with Dean Hortas at Ewen’s suggestion. And I listened patiently as Dean Carlos laid out options for the leave. When he finished, he asked if I had any questions. QMFA: “I never requested a leave,” I told the Dean. “Stuart said that you suggested that I take the leave because my tenure package was weak.” Dean Hortas, replied, QMFA, “Stuart told me that was your idea.”
After a moment of silence, Hortas said that he didn’t want to get involved in department politics but he suggested that I “call his (Ewen’s) bluff.” Several days later, I bumped into Ewen who asked about the meeting with Dean Hortas, and I said, QMFA, “I’m thinking about the options he suggested.” I did talk to a Professional Staff Congress grievance officer about the deceit and was told that I had strong grounds to file a grievance but he also said filing the complaint could threaten my getting tenure. I passed on the grievance.
I subsequently started the WORD with funding from the College and a few days after it started publishing, then President David Caputo said at a meeting of the College Senate that, QMFA, “Everyone should ready the WORD.” That sealed my tenure.
Context: Besides me, several Colleagues were coming up almost back to back for tenure: Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, Peter Parisi and Ivone Margulies. We all had tenure packages that were problematic but mine, I learned from another Colleague, was the strongest – and then I started the WORD and that pretty much put me over the top. Everyone one else subsequently got tenure as well.
Ewen dropped several points in my estimation of him. Did he really believe that I wasn’t going to raise the issue of his gambit with Dean Hortas. Was he really that dumb? This is the short version of this recollection. A longer one is in the works.
One of the biggest public prevarications involved the Chair, Jay Roman, canceling a screening of a documentary about Clemente Soto Vélez that was the collaboration of an adjunct professor, Joelle Gonzalez, and several students. This too is a short version: Roman said at a department meeting that he cancelled the screening because the adjunct instructor and I had sent nasty emails to him and Colleague Tami Gold, now AKA Former Professional Staff Congress Hunter College Chapter Chair. Gold, who looked surprised at the Chair’s comment, said nothing at the meeting.
I had several journalists review the emails a while back and will be publishing their opinions about the alleged nastiness of the emails. This is a complicated episode because it involves the complicity of the Hunter College administration, it’s most identifiable face (for now) being Dean John Rose. It also involves a phony violence in the workplace complaint and other shenanigans.
And I have one more anecdote about D:F/M prevarications. This one, which I have written about before, concerns the comment that now retired former Colleague Peter Paris made at an Aronson Awards Ceremony a while back: The WORD, he told an audience in the Lang Auditorium, was a department project.
Peter Parisi: Former Self Anointed Chaperone for the Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism says he believes in news censorship.
More about this – and a lot more – later.
Gregg Morris, editor of the WORD and this site.
Tags: Academic Bullying, Andrew Lund, Arnold Gibbons, Bernard Stein, Billy d Herman, campus bullying, Carolyn Kane, CUNY Chancellor William P. Kelly, Greggory w Morris, Gustavo Mercado, HUnter College Faculty Delegate Assembly, Hunter College President Jennifer Raab, Hunter College Provost, Hunter College Senate, Hunter College Vice President for Student Affairs Eija Ayravainen, Isabel c Pinedo, Ivone Margulies, James Roman, Joe McElhaney, Joel Zuker, Karen Hunter, Kelly Anderson, Larry Shore, Martin Lucas, Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, New York Healthy Workplace Advocates, Peter Parisi, Ricardo Miranda, Robert Stanley, S3863/A4965 – The NYS Healthy Workplace Bill, Shanti k Thakur, Steve Gorelick, Stuart Ewen, Tami Gold, Timothy Portlock Christa Davis Acampora, Tony Doyle, Vita C. Rabinowitz, workplace bullying