Enough: My Message to LIU Pres. Cline
By Deborah Mutnick
When the LIU administration locked out faculty on its Brooklyn campus last September — in the midst of contract negotiations — the LIU Faculty Federation gained the national spotlight as the poster child of the corporatization of the university. Colleagues across the country watched closely to see what would happen, fearful that if we could be locked out — a precedent-setting labor action in higher education — other university presidents and boards of trustees might do the same.
When the lockout ended, we called it a victory — management was bruised by bad press and faculty emerged as heroes of the growing academic precariat. But even then we knew we’d only won a battle; the war would rage on.
Not surprisingly, morale plummeted as non-binding mediation failed and bargaining proceeded as a one-way conversation: The union spoke and management took orders from LIU President Kimberly Cline. Her power over negotiations and the rumor that she’d reviewed promotion and tenure files with an attorney were deeply troubling.
Already afraid of losing their jobs, faculty understandably felt vulnerable as management sought to intimidate and bully us.
Already afraid of losing their jobs, faculty understandably felt vulnerable as management sought to intimidate and bully us into submission while keeping up a rhetorical pretense of supporting “academic excellence” and shared governance.
The situation only got worse. In early 2017, the Board of Trustees issued two unilateral mandates — one to close academic programs, despite a review process that is supposedly part of the strategic plan, the other to reduce the core curriculum from over 50 to 30–33 credits. Between LIU’s two campuses (Brooklyn and C.W. Post, on Long Island) close to 50 programs, mostly in the liberal arts and sciences, have been “stayed,” consolidated, or “sunsetted.” Pressed for clarification of the timeline, administrators told us to trust them: “Reason would prevail,” they said. Really?
Meanwhile our extended contract expires May 31. We face the possibility of another lockout. We may have to work without a contract and continue to negotiate. Our experience with bargaining and even mediation has been dismal, but it must change. And that is why we rallied April 6: to tell administrators, enough; it is time to bargain in good faith.
Here is my message to President Cline:
For most of my tenure at LIU, I have worked closely with the administration on student retention efforts, program development, Middle States reaccreditation, outcomes assessment, and, most recently, strategic planning. Our previous administration understood that contract negotiations, while adversarial, were part of a democratic process, and that ultimately we would return to a system of shared governance. What we feared after your appointment in 2013 — that contract negotiations would mean war and that you would try to break all the campus unions — has now come true.
What we feared after your appointment in 2013 — that contract negotiations would mean war and that you would try to break all the campus unions — has now come true.
I have been outspoken about my opposition to the corporatization of the university and the unjust treatment of campus workers as well as students. Together with many of my colleagues, I have stood up for what I believe to be right, for academic integrity and quality, for student rights, for shared governance, for access to education, and for a democratic process in the workplace.
You view all this through a different lens. You see the university as a fiduciary responsibility. You are concerned with a federal college rating system, driven by retention and graduation rates, and return on investment of degrees. You see the faculty as troublemakers. Your appeals to “democracy” and “fairness” are empty rhetoric, meant to distract.
You have assaulted workers, staff, faculty, and worst of all, students. You have destroyed faculty governance. The other day in my composition class, a student in her late twenties, determined to get her degree despite a disability that caused her to leave LIU five years ago, told me that Student Support Services is staffed by only one person. In the past, she recalled, half a dozen people staffed that office. Picture this student. Dream about her. She knows that you are hollowing out the university, strangling the unions, and extinguishing hope for the future of the Brooklyn campus.
Give the LIU unions fair contracts and we will work to rebuild this cored-out university.
Deborah Mutnick is a professor of English at LIU and a member of the Executive Committee of the LIU Faculty Federation. To read more about the situation at LIU, see our news story.
