NYU Professors Liking Village Less and Less

Could the no-confidence vote have anything to do with gov't officials who seem to get freebies from NYU & Citigroup?

Mr. Lew received loans to buy a nice home, which apparently were largely forgiven. He also received a severance of some $700,000 when he left for a well-paid position at Citigroup. Severance? For someone who leaves voluntarily?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/opinion/the-war-at-nyu.html?_r=0

No. It has to do with NYU being too large in Greenwich Village.

The Purple Plague

Grimace

Worst of all, during Mr.Lew's presidency NYU students were being directed to Citibank for student loans and guess what...their rates were not that great. Needless to say, it was all legal. I think that most NYU faculty who have lost confidence in the president are distraught because the administration seems to treat the place like a corporation. The Daily News reporter found a bozo.

> during Mr.Lew's presidency

Presidency of what?

Treat the place like a corporation? Are you referring to the school that charges $40000 or whatever for tuition and is embarking on a massive construction project in downtown Manhattan?

Silver lining: NYU professors are paid enough that they can live close to campus.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/131276051/Grassley-NYU-Letter

Actually, Triple Zero most of the NYU faculty who live nearby reside in NYU owned or subsidized housing which are amazing deals. My understanding is that NYU pays consistent with other upper-tier universities: disciplines where professors have lucrative private sector alternatives (law, medicine, business, probably some of the sciences) are paid handsomely with the added bonus of all the academic perks but those in more "traditional" academic specialties are still paid poorly and would NEVER be living in the Village(unless they had been there forever) if not for NYU housing. Let's face it, there is not exactly hot competition from the private sector for PHDs in philosophy.

The faculty/staff housing projects were built decades ago as part of a big urban renewal plan .... hundreds of working-class families were evicted from their tenements for that to happen.

Tuition, room and board are in the high 50k 's.

Thank you Greensdsle! Love Charles Grassley ! BTW another severence pakage worth about 1.2 million went to the former chair of child psychiatry. As someone who is writing cheks to another august university, I think that it's time to start rebelling.

"Tuition, room and board are in the high 50k's."

That's ludicrous. I wonder which university was the first to charge more in tuition and fees than an incoming professor makes in a year. NYU might well pay better than 50k, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of those small high-tuition liberal-arts schools have already gone over this line.

Alan, you weren't a fan of the BURP? What about at C0lumbia University?

Alanhart is absolutely right (as usual). The "NYU taking over the Village" issue is hardly new, and the destruction of indigineous South Village housing for NYU purposes was one of vanguards of gentrification of the area. (At least the Houston Street Expressway was never built. What is now some of the wealthiest areas of Manhattan would have been effectively cut off from the rest of the borough. Someone could write a novel about what would have happened if it was went through.)

Triple Zero-Tuition, room and board have been in the 50k's for quite some time. Ridiculous!!! With few notable exceptions, money is not going to faculty salaries. Mostly it is going to bloated administration, building new buildings and facilities in order to attract those students who can pay full fare. Dorms are much fancier, whether we want them or not. Expansion is seen as desirable in and of itself. NYU is certainly not alone in doing this. My kid's school preaches social consciousness, prides itself on its inclusivnesss, and seems not to blink at the thought of young people burdened by ungodly amounts of debt. Only person who can compete with Sexton is the president of Emory who distinguished himself by saying that the 3/8 ths rule was a good political compromise.

3/5ths rule.

Boston Urban Renewal Program?

>Boston Urban Renewal Program?

hic

I have been an adjunct faculty member at NYU for 25 years (just got the pin to prove it). When I started working at NYU, it was a real university. We adjuncts were poorly paid, but we had bosses who were academics, who taught us how to teach better and who believed that everything centered on the students.

Now I work for a brand-centric real estate corporation that pays and treats the majority of its teaching employees like crap. Yes, it is good to be a tenured full-time faculty member. They get a good salary and benefits and subsidized housing. However, I believe (not 100% sure of the current number) that 80% of faculty at NYU is now non-tenured and the majority are part-time. Imagine that.

I earn $5200 a semester for 15 3-hour classes in a BA program. I wouldn't even be making that much money if we hadn't formed a union a few years ago. Now we have a contract and grievance rights, although we still don't have benefits or seniority. If the university decides to cancel my class (happens all the time) I don't get paid for the semester, even if I gave up opportunities to work elsewhere.

John Sexton is the darling of the Board of Directors because he made NYU Law School into a money-making brand. They tapped him to do the same for the rest of the school and he hasn't disappointed them. When I stand in front of my class, every body in a seat represents $4500 income for the school. If you think about my salary and do the math, you'll understand why the Board chose Sexton and will support him forever. It's all about getting the money to buy real estate. Why aren't my students going to Baruch? It's an equally fine business school, much cheaper, but they think the NYU brand will help them get a job.

We have a plan to destroy the Village by 2030 for the greater glory of NYU, but NYU cares so little about its students and faculty that they don't even clean the bathrooms. I've never seen a place where every bathroom is so universally and uniformly disgusting -- except where upper management resides. Recently, a clerical employee was told she could not use the bathroom on the floor where the division dean's office is. Woo-hoo! Anyway, NYU has done so much damage to the Village by this time that it may not even matter anymore. They bought block after block, raising the rents so that small neighborhood service shops gave up and turned into trendy clothing stores for The Children (the CAS students).

Throughout NYU, dedicated professional academic managers have been hounded out in favor of corporate assholes whose only mission is the bottom line. It is demoralizing how little these new managers know about teaching, and how little they care about it. In the old days, we had monthly faculty meetings for the adjuncts. At each meeting, one of the faculty members would teach something to the rest of us that was helpful in teaching our students. The people we work for now don't care about teaching and wouldn't know how to teach us to teach. The division I work in has drifted over the past decade and we barely have half the enrollment we used to have. But that's okay, because now we have distance learning.

The latest administration fad is asynchronous distance learning. This means students sign up, pay the fee and e-mail back and forth with the professor. There's no class meetings, no discourse, no exchange of ideas, nothing that would remind anyone of academic rigor. The students are supposed to do reading assignments each week, but who would really know if they do? The upshot is that the professor ends up e-mailing his students and responding to e-mails constantly, 24/7, all semester. The students love it because they don't have to do any real work and they still end up with the branded degree. The bottom line is very healthy. There's no overhead for the school except maintaining the technology and paying the adjunct, who is now working for NYU 7 days a week for a pittance and no benefits.

I trashed the e-mail we recently received from the Board of Directors in response to the faculty's vote, or I would have shared it here. It was the usual corporate BS-speak. The one about Jack Lew was even more amusing, but again I trashed it or I would have posted it. We also recently got an update on the workings of the faculty "working space group" committee. As is usual with every faculty committee, no adjuncts or part-timers are included. That's one of my favorite things about NYU -- three-quarters of their faculty aren't represented on their faculty committees or working groups.

If you've gotten this far, you may be wondering why I am still there. Well, I'm just there barely at this point. I like classroom teaching, I think I do some good for the students, and I will continue to do it as long as I don't feel degraded by NYU. But I am fast approaching that overwhelming feeling of degradation and don't know how long I'll stick around.

If you want any more truth about NYU, just ask.

ironic and prescient why NYU was so lustful and greedy to acquire the Bottom Line.

generalogoun- you actually made me feel good about paying my kid's tuition to a rigorous, small liberal atrs college. No adjunct faculty, small classes, etc. HOWEVER- much new construction which is costly even in that rural setting. Understand that they may need new science labs and software, but why oh why do they need a new building for English? A kid was "offered" loans at 7% interest. Asked him whether anyone had told him how much monthly payments would be when he got out. Of course not. I had to explain to his mother that they ould be better off refinancing their home, etc. The universities are beginning to exist for the administrators.
Anyone know how to contact Sen. Grassley? We do need some web based movement. Most parents, faculty and students would probably hesitate to use their real names until they are done with the school, but if somene could start some facebook thing...believe that the Arab spring got its initial wind that way.

Very interesting and obviously heartfelt perspective General, thank you for sharing. I believe 100% of what you say but I don't think its totally NYU's fault (although obviously they bear the heaviest responsibility). Competition for entry level jobs is tough, probably tougher than its ever been, and employers are increasingly seeking that "Brand" diploma. The education at Baruch may be equal to NYU but it doesn't look as good on a resume. Further, there is even less opportunity for liberal arts graduates than ever. Industries that used to hire graduates in history, english or art appreciation now want relevant business majors. At $50,000 per year, graduates need to know that there is a means to pay off their odious level of debt and even parents who were able to "pay the freight" want some type of return on their investment.

NYUs ability to attract students and maintain tuition revenue is to a certain extent driven by the promise of a Brand degree and the better chance of career track employment it implies. For that a portion of the blame must be assigned to the corporate community for their entry level preferences/requirements.

> driven by the promise of a Brand degree

We are still talking about NYU, right?

I respectfully disagree, NativeRestless. It's the university industrial complex that pushed the whole vernalization thing on the corporate sector and their lazy HR chiefs. From that came the whole "trade-school for everyone" mindset, and it's escalation into more and more advanced degrees, like MBAs.

That started in earnest in the 1960s, maybe with help from draft deferments. But not sure those were available for graduate programs.

And then ramped up horribly in the 70s and 80s. Subsequent to that all the ridiculous certificate and AA "degrees" (hic) that have specific linkage to every particular type of bolt-turning job one can think of.

NYU has a robust school catering to that last niche, BTW. Appropriately called Skips.

Springtime is lovely, or if it ever arrives in earnest. However, I meant "credentialization", not "vernalization".

Anyway, school is dumb.

Amen Alan school IS dumb.

Well, if the kid goes to Baruch or Hunter, does well and invests the tuition difference or uses it to pay a top-flight grad degree, I think they'd even the odds. When interest rates were low, I had a friend at a state school who invested her student loans and engaged in some profitable arbitrage.

For your reading pleasure, I was able to reconstitute the e-mail about Jack Lew. I still can't find the one about the faculty vote re the 2030 Plan.

From: Martin Dorph- NYU Exec Vice President for Finance and Information Technology
Date: Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 2:52 PM
Subject: Follow-up on Recent Reports about Loans and Severance Packages

Dear Colleagues,

At the University Senate yesterday, President Sexton was asked about recent press reports regarding loans and separation payments provided by NYU. I send this note today to summarize to the wider community the information that John presented.

The University cannot go into the details on specific individuals or financial arrangements; nevertheless, the information below should provide some useful general context on the specific questions that have been asked and the recent information that has been disseminated in the press.

NYU provides a number of benefits for the purpose of recruitment and retention of excellent faculty and staff. Among the notable benefits are tuition remission, a highly competitive medical benefit and pension plan, and retiree medical benefits.

One of the most important recruitment and retention benefits is faculty housing – both providing University rental housing to faculty in the very desirable Greenwich Village neighborhood, and providing opportunities for home ownership through loan assistance programs

Over 1,200 active or retired faculty reside in NYU rental housing. In addition, the University and the Law School have currently outstanding loans to 168 individuals (of whom 164 are faculty members) totaling approximately $72 million.

These loans are offered under a variety of terms, and may vary by school. The vast majority of loans provide an investment return to the University, either bearing a market rate of interest or sharing in the increased value of the property upon maturity or sale. It is important to understand that these loans do not have any negative impact on tuition or expenses; indeed, the loans – like our other investments – generate funding for the core enterprises of the University.

Few loans are forgiven, and forgivable loans are made for retention purposes only, typically at the request of a dean. In addition, under the “Home Ownership Program”, the University has in the past provided loans to encourage faculty to become homeowners, thereby making available more of our stock of on-campus rental housing, and particularly the two- or three-bedroom apartments that are necessary to recruit faculty with young families.

With regard to the question about the payment to Jack Lew (who served as the Executive Vice President of NYU), it is important to begin with the fact that high level administrators are typically brought here to focus on the financial health and operational efficiency and effectiveness of NYU, which directly benefits the academic enterprise in terms of enhanced support and increased available funding. When they have been successful – as was the case with Jack Lew – the benefit to the University can range in the tens of millions of dollars. In some cases, when such people are hired, there are employment agreements that dictate obligations – such as severance — when they depart. To be clear: We do not give gifts – we honor employment agreements.

Also, in some schools – for example, in the School of Medicine – at times we have used buy-outs of tenured positions to free up long-term positions for recruiting new faculty.

The University administration is keenly aware that the salaries people earn here are often not as much as they want or feel they need; we value the sacrifices that have been made in light of the financial pressures on the University. We are mindful, as well, of the limits of financial aid, and the sacrifices many families make to enable their sons and daughters are able to attend NYU. So, we know these factors make it particularly hard to read of someone receiving a significant benefit from the University. While that feeling is understandable, it is important to note the economic truth that the markets for different positions often dictate different levels of compensation, whether that is embodied in salary payments, loans, or an overarching agreement about terms of employment. And, when we commit to provide such compensation, we do so only when we are sure that the benefit to the University far exceeds the cost.

Please remember that – underlying all the issues described above – is NYU’s deep commitment to its research and teaching missions, and to attracting and retaining the faculty, students, and administrators who together contribute to NYU’s advancement.

Martin S. Dorph

Chief Financial Officer

Executive Vice President, Finance and Information Technology

Does anyone know the best way to write to Senators Grassely, Schumer and Gillebrand? Address? E-mail? Can at least have the fantasy that it would be more effective than posting on Streeteasy.

Grassley is not your representative and can't respond to you. The best way to get in touch with the senators is to write to their district offices, then call to reiterate your point. Neither is ordinarily very responsive to our community. We always do best with our Congresswoman. Written letters are better than e-mail. You can go into the district offices and meet the staff so they get to know you, too.

This e-mail arrived today, from the Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Dear Fellow Members of the NYU Community,

Over the past several months, the NYU community has been engaged in an active conversation about the governance of the university and, specifically, the role of the faculty. As noted in my email a few weeks ago, President Sexton now has encouraged the Board to help identify ways in which we might create better ways for the constituent voices at NYU to be heard.

As Chairman, I will be convening a special Board Committee that will meet with various stakeholders to listen and to seek the best ways forward in the evolution of our processes towards this end. These discussions are envisioned to be forward-looking; we intend to build upon, not supplant, the University Framework approved by the Board in 2008 after extensive consultation with the NYU community, the Faculty Senators Council and the University Senate.

NYU is in a fast-changing educational environment and it is vital that we find ways to act decisively; nonetheless, as we make major strategic decisions, we can benefit from as wide a conversation as possible, so that we can elicit the wisdom of the University’s stakeholders. To that end, the Board Committee ultimately will issue a report that suggests improvements regarding NYU’s governance.

The Committee will meet with various NYU groups (both school-based and university-wide) that exist to represent the elements of the NYU community. We will begin to set up meetings soon. Of course it is impossible to meet with everyone; therefore, if you have a view or perspective that you wish to share, please email me at mlipton@nyu.edu.

A fair amount of the debate over the past months has centered on differing views of NYU’s progress to this point. From my perspective, one of the problems has been the degree of misinformation and lack of specificity in the claims that are made. To help lay the groundwork for this next phase, I am attaching a document that lays out various statistical facts about where the University stands now and how that position has changed over time. You can view this at: www.nyu.edu/nyubythenumbers.

I look forward to this process.

Sincerely,

Martin Lipton

So many paragraphs just to say "We will let people talk and then we will completely ignore their input."

Generallogun- I clicked onto his nyubythenumbers. We all know that the #'s can be massaged in various ways, BUT...you and your colleagues have to be prepared with pointed specific questions. You can't afford to let him just make you sound like a group of malcontents.

" **So many paragraphs just to say "We will let people talk and then we will completely ignore their input."

Yes that is exactly what all this says. It's the way the Board of Trustees always treats their NYU "stakeholders." The numbers are irrelevant. It's not about misinformation and it's not about statistics. It's about the direction the corporation is taking.

I posted Mr. Lipton's e-mail, with his e-mail address, so that anyone who wants to tell him what they think about NYU's Year 2031 plan can do so.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

> "a special Board Committee that will meet with various stakeholders to listen and to seek the best ways forward in the evolution of our processes towards this end. "

Wow, this even beats some of the crap coming out of C0lumbia C0unty.

oh well
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/booted_blind_chinese_dissident_nyu_NzQBIcqFggB66VrxR7StUO

I don t see the relation at all between the title of the post and the link itself. It looks like they are just unhappy with Sexton, but on the contrary very happy to live in the village. They probably see those billions as money they won t get for themselves or spent paying interns, research, hiring new professors... And they don t wanna leave in the middle of a construction site I understand. So they oppose him.
That said the construction project look quite nice (Sidney Opera architect right ?) and it should bring some more life to the area between Houston and W 3rd, I think it s rather good for the neighborhood on the long run. Does anybody know if the professors can buy their unit or if they just rent ?
But I understand why students and professors are unhappy.

Tourist indeed.

What do you mean alanhart ?

Comedy writers working overtime:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/nyregion/nyu-gives-stars-loans-for-summer-homes.html

To Alanhart:
Okay so obviously there is a long story of questionable behaviors within the NYU administration and it doesn't always look like it s run as a not for profit organization indeed... But that't not what the professors and residents are unhappy about in the first article: they just don't want the NYU expansion. And again, I don't really see the problem... the current towers are so awful, why not have something nice looking instead ? People are just resistant to change as always.
And I still don't understand the title for this post...

> "Tuition, room and board are in the high 50k's."
> That's ludicrous. I wonder which university was the first to charge more in tuition and fees than an incoming professor makes in a year. NYU might well pay better than 50k, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of those small high-tuition liberal-arts schools have already gone over this line.

what's even funnier is that those over-indebted undergrads are taught by adjuncts and PhD candidates. seem that the profs are busy using their Fire Island subsidized 2nd homes :-) undergrads paying $50k for that services are total SUCKERS.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/nyregion/nyu-gives-stars-loans-for-summer-homes.html

> And again, I don't really see the problem...

it's already an indebted institution with tons of boomers about to hit retirement. it's not clear that NYU will be able to pay the pensions if it gets more debt for the new development.

Most schools provide housing for their presidents, but a vacation house is stretching it a bit, especially if they're not using it for official entertaining. Nobody'd want to schlep out to Fire Island for some function.

Even little New York Law School bought this is in 2000 for its new dean: http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/816205-condo-252-seventh-avenue-chelsea-new-york

He had several kids, so it cost less than paying him enough to rent a big-enough place. (The previous and succeeding deans had/have their own places.)

Columbia used to have a mini-palace for its president, but Rockefeller University now has the best-housed president: http://www.mcbride-architects.com/project-2-1.html

Oops, Columbia's president still makes do with this 16,000+ ft² house: http://www.wikicu.com/President's_House

Well, yes. Columbia's President gets to live in President House...but unlike all the [forgiven] home loans to NYU faculty, when Columbia's President retires, he leaves Presidents House (and the growth in value of PH belongs to Columbia). I would also note that a big portion of President's House's square footage is entertainment and reception rooms, used for ceremonial occasions.

Love that Wiki page, BTW. "its sole purpose is to make students living in nearby Wien Hall (a.k.a. "PrezBo's Projects") feel even more miserable."

JustAnotherNewYorker, don't sell yourself short. Not so many actual NYers around here, sometimes it feels like everyone's from places like Tacoma or San Francisco.

Where did you grow up? Your high school?

When you list your full rap sheet, I'll provide you with additional detail on my upbringing.

So you are just f'ing over the people who make the mistake of reading the threads here? That's your justice, your deterrent from future problems with everyone and your other gripes of the way you have been horribly treated in the past? Meanwhile people are trying to get real information and help which was the original intention of this site.

shame on you.

Are you practicing your Anthony Weiner?

SE, why?

why let this go on?

what is your agenda here?

C0C0 ... Anthony Weiner ...

doesn't matter what you say, does it?

just endless blather.

SE, why?

this is on the front page, why?