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Academic Senate Meeting Minutes

March 11, 2025

Steering Committee Chairperson Dr. Litroff called the fifth regularly scheduled meeting of the Academic Senate to order at 3:14 PM. The meeting was held in a hybrid format, with attendees in M136 and ZOOM. Dr. Litroff chaired the meeting from M-136.

I. Attendance

52 were recorded when attendance was taken, and 54 members of the Academic Senate were present during the meeting.

Absent: Arthur Adair, Nazmul Arefin, Raul Armendariz, Jeff Ballerini, Carolina Chaves, Charles Chiu Fu Chen, Steven Dahlke, Sasan Karimi, Zivah Perel Katz, David Lieberman, Andrew Nguyen, James Nicols, Joselyn Ojeda, Emil Parrinello, Laura Rachiele, MD Mahbubur Rahman, Sabreen Qaisar, Jaskaran Singh, Celia Sporer, James Timbilla, Isabel Torres, Patrick Wallach, Gilmar Visoni, and Haishen Yao


II. Approval of the Agenda 

Dr. Litroff used unanimous consent to approve the agenda, and there were no objections.

 

III.  Consideration of the minutes from February 11th, 2025 (Attachment A). 

Dr. Litroff used unanimous consent to approve the agenda.

IV. Communications from:

President Mangino stated that some welcome flags are being replaced due to wear and tear and that the Arabic flag is being replaced with the Punjabi flag as there are twice as many Punjabi students. 
Eight staff members from the QCC Campus participated in the Achieving the Dream conference in Philadelphia. Twelve faculty and staff attended the First Year Experience Conference in New Orleans and ten staff members participated in the Unseen Threads Project. On April 2nd all the groups will meet to focus on the different forms of hate with a reflection on how faculty and staff can use this information either in the classrooms or in the offices.
President Mangino thanked the Biology Department for the AI faculty retreat with faculty from across CUNY. CETAL will continue to provide additional AI professional development. 
CUNY schools are lobbying with elected officials for city and state funding for CUNY and contracts. 
On March 28th there will be a transparency series of the JED work, which is focused on working with the mental health of our students. On March 26th at 10 AM, there will be a ribbon cutting of the Pride Center. The Association of Indians in America, New York Chapter and donated $10,000.00 to the Pride Center.
We are in the process of putting together de-stress events for faculty and staff. President 
President Mangino will be sending out an email about the state of the college what has been happening with the Federal government and that there is nothing on this campus that needs to stop. QCC has open admissions, and all the clubs are open to all students.
The State University of New York (SUNY). Dr. Ned Benton, Chair of the UFS Budget Advisory Committee (a CUNY-wide Committee that confers with the Vice-Chancellor of Budget and Finance), has done a study showing that the average number of faculty per student is higher at SUNY, which is to say that SUNY students are more likely to be in smaller classes, taught by full-time faculty, than CUNY students. This was one of the subjects broached at the "Budget Workshop" that he co-hosted, with Catherine Abata, CUNY's University Executive Budget Director, on March 14, 2025.
Jonathan Cornick chairs the UFS Committee on Student Affairs (in addition to his role on campus as chair of the FEC); it was he who invited CUNY Clear from the CUNY Law School to speak at a UFS Student Affairs Committee meeting. The Chair of the University Faculty Senate Committee on Community Colleges, who has drafted a letter on inequities between two- and four-year faculty, with Dr. Anuradha Srivastava of the Department of Biological and Geological Sciences; and the Chair of the UFS Committee on Library and Information Technology is Dr. Roxanne Shirazi—she's a research librarian at the Mina Rees Graduate Center Library. The Committee has no role in the decision that the vendor CLARIVATE has made to stop providing eBooks and printed books, but all librarians across CUNY are concerned about this development and are hoping to contribute to the consultation process involved in finding a new vendor. Also, Finally, Dr. Ialongo created a Google Drive (https://cuny.academia.edu/ErnestIalongo) which archives letters that responded to the controversy over the Hunter College Advertisement for a professor of Palestinian Studies that was paused by Governor Hochul, raising serious concerns about government interference in Academic Freedom. Indeed, one of the letters included in the drive is a joint letter from Queensborough's PSC Chapter, Faculty Executive Committee, and Queensborough's Academic Freedom Committee. Others are from the University Faculty Senate; the Academic Senates of Hunter, Hostos, and Guttman Community College, as well as the American Association of University Professors (AAUP); the Professional Staff Congress (PSC); and an "amicus" letter from the Faculty Senate of SUNY-Fredonia.

 

There will be elections during the Spring Semester and thanked the Committee on Committees for their hard work. An email was sent out on March 1st with a deadline date which was extended by two days. Dr. Litroff encouraged everyone to participate in college service, especially in the Academic Senate, to have full representation of our faculty.
The Steering Committee will schedule two meetings with chairs of the standing committees for the purpose of providing support and guidance in completing the annual reports. In the past, some reports were not completed until the Fall semester and new chairpersons had to complete the report on their own. All annual reports are due by commencement which is May 29th.

 

V.  New Business

• Committee on Committees - Dr. Ben Murolo 
Dr. Murolo will reach out to the chairs of the various departments if there are vacancies in 
their department. Dr. Murolo thanked all the members of the Committee on 
Committees, for all their hard work, encouraged more participation from everyone. 
Dr. Litroff asked the Senators present to look at the Senate roster to see when their term may be ending and if they wish to continue to obtain the number of signatures needed for nomination.

  

VI.  Unfinished Business

 

 There was no unfinished business.

 

Meeting Adjourned at 3:40 PM
Philip Nelan, Secretary

 

 

 

 

Committee Links

Campus Cultural Centers

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