Dear Commons Community,

A City University of New York investigation has exonerated Lisa Coico, president of City College, of accusations that she improperly spent some $600,000 from an arts endowment on adjunct professors’ salaries.  As reported by The New York Times:

“The president of the City College of New York did not overstep her authority when she used more than $600,000 from a fund traditionally earmarked for arts programming to pay adjunct salaries, an internal review has found.

The review had been requested by senior faculty members at the college who learned in July that an account that should have contained more than $600,000 had only $76.

After seeking an explanation from college officials but encountering resistance, the faculty members appealed to James B. Milliken, chancellor of the college’s parent body, the City University of New York. Mr. Milliken then asked Frederick P. Schaffer, the university’s general counsel and senior vice chancellor for legal affairs, to investigate.

The account in question — the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Fund for the Arts — is part of the holdings of the City College 21st Century Foundation, the school’s chief fund-raising arm. The finances of that foundation, as well as those of the City College’s president, Lisa S. Coico, and her family, and CUNY’s Research Foundation, are also being investigated by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.

In a five-page report released on Wednesday and that focused on the Sosnoff Fund, Mr. Schaffer said that Ms. Coico’s decision to use money “for adjunct salaries in connection with arts programs was clearly consistent with the purpose of the gifts and was within her authority under its terms.”

Mr. Schaffer noted, “It is understandable that some faculty and even administrators were disappointed in this shift and raised questions as to its wisdom and appropriateness.”

The Sosnoffs, longtime arts philanthropists who built their fortune in money management, pledged $1 million in September 2011 “to be used for the arts at City College as determined by the president.” In June 2015, they pledged another $2 million over the next four years, with the first installment to be deposited in June 2016.

Before this year, the college had spent the money on educational programs, artistic performances and exhibitions. But in 2015-2016 the college faced a deep budget cut of 10 percent.

During the academic year, the division’s top officials were told that if the budget gap was not closed, the college would need to tap into the Sosnoff Fund “to pay for some teaching costs,” Mr. Schaffer wrote. In mid-July, the acting dean, Doris Cintron, discovered that the fund had been depleted.

The money, it turns out, had been used to cover adjuncts’ salaries for the fall and spring semesters. Adjuncts must be on the New York State payroll and had already been paid. The college then used the Sosnoffs’ latest donation to reimburse the state by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

In a letter to City College, Ms. Coico welcomed the findings. “It reaffirms what I have been communicating all along,” she wrote. “There has been no inappropriate use of the Sosnoff Fund.”

The report came one day before the first meeting of the school year of the Faculty Senate, which has been critical, at times, of Ms. Coico’s leadership. Before the meeting, speculation abounded that there would be a no-confidence vote, but that did not materialize.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Census Bureau  reported on Tuesday that the median household’s income in 2015 was $56,500, up 5.2 percent from the previous year — the largest single-year increase since record-keeping began in 1967.  As reported in the New York Times:

Americans last year reaped the largest economic gains in nearly a generation as poverty fell, health insurance coverage spread and incomes rose sharply for households on every rung of the economic ladder, ending years of stagnation.… The share of Americans living in poverty also posted the sharpest decline in decades.

The gains were an important milestone for the economic expansion that began in 2009. For the first time in recent years, the benefits of renewed prosperity are spreading broadly.

The data was released into a heated presidential race, where Democrats seized on the statistics to promote Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and undercut Donald J. Trump’s dark assessment of the nation’s well-being.

“It has been a long slog from the depths of the Great Recession, but things are finally starting to improve for many American households,” said Chris G. Christopher Jr., director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight. He said the gains had continued this year.

The economic recovery, however, remains incomplete. The median household income was still 1.6 percent lower than in 2007, adjusting for inflation. It also remained 2.4 percent lower than the peak reached during the boom of the late 1990s. The number of people living in poverty also remained elevated, although it shrank last year by about 3.5 million, or roughly 8 percent.

Mark R. Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis, said the new data “is obviously good news.” But he noted that poverty and income inequality in the United States remained more extreme than in most developed countries. “It would take a lot to move that needle,” he said.

The Census Bureau also reported that the share of Americans with health insurance continued to increase. It said that only 9.1 percent of the population had no health insurance last year.”

However, before we all jump for joy, another sort Times piece this morning paints a more modest enthusiasm for the Census Bureau’s report. 

“While the economy finally is moving in the right direction, the real incomes of most American households still are smaller than in the late 1990s. And large swaths of the country — rural America, industrial centers in the Rust Belt and Appalachia — are lagging behind.

“We ain’t feeling too much of all that economic growth that I heard was going on, patting themselves on the back,” said Ralph Kingan, the mayor of Wright, Wyo. “It ain’t out in the West.”

That bleak reality helps to explain why the good news the Census Bureau issued Tuesday about a rise in household income was greeted gleefully by economists but is unlikely to change the complexion of the presidential race.

The recent upswing is real. While economic growth has been modest, the expansion is now in its eighth year. The economy has added millions of jobs and incomes increased last year for households on every rung of the economic ladder. The economic gains have been particularly strong for people who live in the nation’s large metropolitan areas and for those who have college degrees.”

Overall I take the above to indicate that the economy is moving in the right direction but that more needs to be done especially among non-college graduates and those living outside major metropolitan areas.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In a number of emails obtained by BuzzFeed News, Colin Powell tore into Donald Trump referring to him as an “international pariah” and a “national disgrace.”

In one email, Powell denounced Trump for perpetuating the “racist” birther movement that questioned President Barack Obama’s US citizenship.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote, according to the BuzzFeed News report. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

In another exchange, Powell went off on media — echoing the position of other lawmakers who believe the press helped fuel Trump’s rise. 

“You guys are playing his game, you are his oxygen,” he said. 

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

At Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus,  yesterday was Day 11 of the faculty lockout  of 236 full-time professors and 450 adjuncts.  On Monday, about 200 students walked out of their classes to join faculty members in protesting the extreme measure. “They say lock out, we say walk out,” some students chanted. “Let us learn,” they yelled. “Let us teach,” professors responded, standing outside the campus’s green gates.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“Students aren’t just protesting the lockout, but also the army of temporary instructors and administrators who are fielding their classes, which started last week, in place of their professors. Many students said instructors were merely taking attendance and then dismissing students, leaving them to wonder what they are paying for.

But these grievances have been well-catalogued, as labor activists and professors nationwide publicize the cause of the Brooklyn campus’s faculty. What’s less apparent amid all the noise: What is the administration thinking?

On Tuesday morning, administrators said they were prepared to take a few hits and make sacrifices if it means keeping costs down for students.

“Every student here has a compelling story,” said Gale Haynes, the campus’s chief operating officer and general counsel. “You realize what sacrifices they’ve made in their journey to be here, and you have to be prepared to make similar sacrifices to get them through.”

Members of the Long Island University Faculty Federation, the faculty’s union, have, among other things, demanded that their new contract mend the pay disparity between the Brooklyn campus and LIU’s Post campus, in Brookville, N.Y.

The university’s last published contract offer proposes that Brooklyn faculty members whose salaries are less than 2 percent below the minimum salary of a Post faculty member of the same rank get a salary adjustment this year to bring their pay up to the Post minimum, then a 1.75-percent raise each year from 2016 to 2018, and a 2.25-percent raise in 2019 and 2020. Brooklyn faculty members whose pay is more than 2 percent below the minimum for a Post professor of the same rank would get 2-percent raises each year until they reached the Post minimum.

Christopher Fevola, the university’s chief financial officer, said it’s difficult to offer much more than the figures in the proposed contract because of the university’s 2014 pledge to not raise tuition by more than 2 percent a year until 2020. Ninety-one percent of the campus’s funding comes from tuition revenue, the administration says, while labor makes up two-thirds of the university’s total operating cost.

“From a fiscal perspective it’s very important that we’re able to manage the institution and do so in a way that we are not passing those costs on to our students,” Mr. Fevola said. “I think there’s a national awareness around tuition affordability and institutions being able to live within their means.”

But when asked to provide details on how, specifically, salary increases requested by the union would translate into tuition increases, Mr. Fevola and Ms. Haynes said they could not disclose that number because negotiations were still going on.

Union leaders and university administrators last met in a seven-hour negotiating session on Monday night, and are scheduled to meet again on Wednesday. Mr. Fevola said he’s confident that the gap between the two sides will continue to close.”

We wish our faculty colleagues at LIU well and hope that they are back in their classrooms soon.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A cloud of amnesia gas must have blew over Wyoming recently that caused Dick and Liz Cheney to slam President Obama for making the world unsafe as a result of his policies in the Middle East.  Writing an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, the Cheneys said “”Defeating our enemies has been made significantly more difficult by the policies of Barack Obama,” they wrote. “No American president has done more to weaken the U.S., hobble our defenses, and aid our adversaries.”  Are you kidding, it was Dick Cheney’s lying to the American people that got us into the mess of the Iraq War and gave rise to militant terrorism.   Here is a review of the Cheneys’ comments:

“Cheney voiced his criticisms in an op-ed that was published in The Wall Street Journal on Friday and co-authored by his daughter and candidate for U.S. Congress, Liz Cheney. ..

The Cheneys’ wide-ranging criticism of Obama focused on several of the president’s most controversial decisions as commander-in-chief, such as banning the systemic torture of detainees, pulling ground troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, scaling back the number of active-duty soldiers, and approving the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

“Our next president must recognize that Islamic terrorists pose an existential threat to the U.S., and must instruct the military to provide plans necessary to defeat them,” the Cheneys wrote. They stopped short of endorsing a presidential candidate, although Cheney previously said he supported Donald Trump. The Cheneys mentioned Hillary Clinton four times in the op-ed, repeatedly criticizing her for her role in the Iranian nuclear deal.

On Sunday, “Ex-VP Cheney” trended on Twitter as hundreds of users quoted or referenced the op-ed. Vocativ discovered around 2,000 tweets between Friday and Sunday with the words “EX-VP Cheney,” mostly posted by users firing their own scathing criticisms at Cheney.

Some users pointed out that Cheney was vice president during 9/11, the most catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil in American history. Others noted Cheney was a fierce proponent of the Iraq war, which helped fuel the rise of ISIS, and noted that Bush’s administration failed to capture Osama bin Laden. Some users also criticized the Cheneys for choosing the 15th anniversary of 9/11 to air their grievances against Obama’s policies.”

Dick Cheney has done as much harm to world peace as any other individual.  His legacy is one of deceit, war-mongering, and incompetence.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Hillary Clinton roused a media backlash last week by stating that “half of Donald Trump’s supporters could be put in a “basket of deplorables”.   This was not a smart political move and Clinton has half apologized for her comment mainly saying that “half” was overstating her point that many Trump supporters are racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc.  Charles Blow, in his New York Times column, analyzes her statement and comes to a conclusion that she might not be too far from the truth.  Here is an excerpt:

“What Clinton said was impolitic, but it was not incorrect. There are things a politician cannot say. Luckily, I’m not a politician.

Donald Trump is a deplorable candidate — to put it charitably — and anyone who helps him advance his racial, religious and ethnic bigotry is part of that bigotry. Period. Anyone who elevates a sexist is part of that sexism. The same goes for xenophobia. You can’t conveniently separate yourself from the detestable part of him because you sense in him the promise of cultural or economic advantage. That hair cannot be split.

Furthermore, one doesn’t have to actively hate to contribute to a culture that allows hate to flourish.

It doesn’t matter how lovely your family, how honorable your work or service, how devout your faith — if you place ideological adherence or economic self interest above the moral imperative to condemn and denounce a demagogue, then you are deplorable.

And there is some evidence that Trump’s supporters don’t simply have a passive, tacit acceptance of an undesirable platform, but instead have an active set of beliefs that support what is deplorable in Trump.

In state after state that Trump won during the primaries, he won a majority or near majority of voters who supported a temporary ban on Muslims entering this country and who supported deporting immigrants who are in this country illegally.

In June a Reuters/Ipsos poll found: “Nearly half of Trump’s supporters described African-Americans as more ‘violent’ than whites. The same proportion described African-Americans as more ‘criminal’ than whites, while 40 percent described them as more ‘lazy’ than whites.”

A Pew poll released in February found that 65 percent of Republicans believe the next president should “speak bluntly even if critical of Islam as a whole” when talking about Islamic extremists.

Another Reuters/Ipsos online poll in July found that 58 percent of Trump supporters have a “somewhat unfavorable” view of Islam and 78 percent believe Islam was more likely to encourage acts of terrorism.

A February Public Policy Polling survey found “Trump’s support in South Carolina is built on a base of voters among whom religious and racial intolerance pervades.” What the poll found about those South Carolina supporters’ beliefs was truly shocking:

• Eighty percent of likely Trump primary voters supported Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims.
• Sixty-two percent supported creating a national database of Muslims and 40 percent supported shutting down mosques in the United States.
• Thirty-eight percent wished the South had won the Civil War.
• Thirty-three percent thought the practice of Islam should be illegal in this country.
• Thirty-two percent supported the policy of Japanese internment during World War II.
• Thirty-one percent would support a ban on homosexuals entering the country.

On Saturday, Clinton issued a statement pointing out that “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.” Place the percentage where you will — or don’t — but the fact is indisputable.

I understand that people recoil at the notion that they are part of a pejorative basket. I understand the reflexive resistance to having your negative beliefs disrobed and your sense of self dressed down.

I understand your outrage, but I’m unmoved by it. If the basket fits …”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Hillary Clinton became overheated at a September 11 memorial ceremony yesterday and had to be helped from her seat.  She was seen walking unsteadily to her car.  According to Reuters:

“She was diagnosed with pneumonia…

Clinton had a medical examination when she got back to her home in Chappaqua, New York, according to a campaign aide. Her doctor, Lisa Bardack, said in a statement that she has been experiencing a cough related to allergies and that an examination on Friday showed that she was suffering from pneumonia.

“She was put on antibiotics and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely,” Bardack said.

The 68-year-old Clinton abruptly departed the high-profile, televised event in New York City earlier Sunday and a video on social media appears to show her swaying and her knees buckling before she is helped into a motorcade event.”

Later reports indicated that she has been advised to cut back on her campaign schedule and to rest.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Post-coup purges in Turkey continue.  The Turkish government said yesterday that it was preparing to take over at least 28 municipal administrations nationwide, ousting elected mayors as part of an intensified crackdown against Kurdish insurgents.  As reported in the New York Times:

The government is accusing the mayors of supporting and funding militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., an outlawed group that has been engaged in a violent autonomy struggle for more than 40 years.

“The administration of 28 municipalities will no longer be in the hands of terrorists,” Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister, said in a televised speech.

The announcement came a day after the government dismissed more than 11,000 teachers suspected of activities in support of the P.K.K. and affiliated organizations, the semiofficial Anadolu Agency reported.

The government’s actions were carried out under powers granted by a state of emergency after the failed military coup on July 15 aimed at toppling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Since then, the government has conducted a widespread purge of those suspected of having links to Mr. Erdogan’s former ally, Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania who is accused of masterminding the coup attempt. Mr. Gulen has repeatedly denied involvement.

More than 40,000 people have been arrested or detained since the night of the failed coup, and tens of thousands of people have been purged from the judiciary, military and security forces, as well as a range of professions.”

This is a sad situation for a country that has such a rich history and has been the connection between Western and Middle Eastern cultures.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Hudson River is one America’s remarkable waterways that was contaminated for decades by factories along its shores.  G.E. especially was a major polluter and legally fought any attempts by state and local governments to assume any responsibility for the damage done.  In 2005, G.E. agreed to dredge millions of yards of silt containing PCBs and other carcinogens.  The question in 2016 is whether the dredging was enough.  According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the answers is no.  As reported in the New York Times:

“The federal Environmental Protection Agency has said that the company fulfilled its promises under a 2005 order, resulting in the removal of nearly three million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. But Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, in a recent letter to the E.P.A.’s top official in New York, challenged the federal remedy, saying “unacceptably high levels of PCB-contaminated sediment remain in large portions of the Upper Hudson.”

“The work is not done,” Mr. Seggos said in the letter to Judith Enck, the agency’s regional administrator who oversees New York.

The state believes that at least 136 acres of underwater sediment in the Upper Hudson — stretching north from Albany — harbor “unacceptably high” levels of PCBs, or the synthetic chemical polychlorinated biphenyl, which was used to make transformers, capacitors and other electrical products. The state bolstered its claim by pointing to an analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing that the recovery of fish in the Lower Hudson was not as robust as hoped.

The Environmental Protection Agency, responding to the state’s concerns, noted that it disagreed with the findings on fish recovery and questioned NOAA’s methods, which the agency said took place at a single sampling station near Albany shortly after the completion of dredging.

“It is not possible for the fish to recover immediately,” the agency said.

The cleanup of the Upper Hudson paid for by G.E. was prescribed to remove over 2.5 million cubic yards of sediment and encompass a roughly 40-mile stretch of the river, from the Troy Dam to Fort Edward. Its progress is assessed every five years.

But Mr. Seggos, in an interview, said federal officials had allowed G.E. to declare mission accomplished too soon. “Both the amount of sediment and the fish are suggesting that the initial goals of the remedy have not been, and may not be met, for decades,” he said.”

G.E. is admired in corporate circles as one of America’s most profitable companies but along the Hudson it is despised by many for what it did to our waterways.

Tony