Comments for patell dot org

Comment on Letter to The New York Times by Kavita R

Kavita R — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:12:35 +0000

Thank you, Dr. Patell, for your vociferous support of President Sexton’s mission to establish NYU as a global university. Whereas many academics are comfortable observing from the top of the ivory tower, yours has been an active voice in supporting my alma matar. Best, K (B.A. in English, class of ’00)

Comment on Less Confused by Cyrus Patell

Cyrus Patell — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:17:41 +0000

Dear Former Student,

It’s nice to hear from you. Here is my response to the op-ed piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/opinion/nyus-president-visionary-or-autocrat.html

Comment on Less Confused by Former Writing New York Student and Former U-Hall Resident

Former Writing New York Student and Former U-Hall Resident — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:46:15 +0000

Hello Professor/Dean Patell,

Did you see the op-ed on the NYT website today by Prof. Goodwin?

It appears that you’re focusing on the Chronicle of Higher Ed. articles because you believe they are better researched and more thoughtful, but I’d be interested to hear what you have to say about it, or about the fact that this vote of no confidence has received so much press in general. Perhaps I’m being shortsighted because I’m not the best news consumer, but do issues like this normally receive this much attention?

You are the highest profile supporter of the president amongst the faculty (as opposed to alumni, trustees, etc) that I’ve found on the ‘net so far, and that is a valuable resource to alumni such as myself who are still trying to figure out how they stand on this issue. You are indeed putting cosmopolitanism into practice in your writing.

Cheers,

Former Student Who Doesn’t Like To Appear In Google Searches

Comment on It’s Time for Real Conversations by XYZ

XYZ — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 11:06:03 +0000

There is a puzzling thing about the trustee’s (and John Sexton’s) reaction to the no-confidence vote. If one of the faculty’s primary complaints was that their voice was not heard in the administration (for example that they were not asked whether they think it is a good idea to expand the university to Abu Dhabi), then there is something unsatisfactory about neglecting what has happened so far and saying that “okay, from now on, we’ll cooperate.”

[Compare it with the following: a CEO manages the company badly and the shareholders decide to fire him. He can't say, "sorry folks, from now on everything is all right;" he is fired, period. I realize that the faculty does not have the power in the university that the shareholders have in the company, but what John Sexton says sounds just as morally unsatisfactory than what the CEO says in this thought experiment]

I realize that a university is not a democracy, but that does not mean that we should reject the weaker claim that a university should not have a president that is opposed by a significant fraction of the faculty (personally I find nothing “special” about a majority rule in this case, I think J.S. should have resigned even if the outcome was 51% to his favor).

Thus, I think that the responsible action for John Sexton is to resign. Of course, one can always use the power-argument and say that “we are in power and do not care what other’s think,” but that does not provide a moral underpinning for someone’s presidency. One may argue that such a “moral underpinning,” whatever it means, is not required for a university’s leader. But in that case, NYU should be honest: it should admit that it does not care about the faculty’s opinions. That J.S. did not resign, but called for a “conversation,” just reiterates the message anyway: the university administration does not care about the opinions of the faculty, since if they cared, JS would not be a president anymore.

Long post just to say the simple message: I think it is dishonest for JS not to resign and to say, at the same time, that he will be concerned with the opinions of the faculty.

Comment on Who’s Confused? by Therese W.

Therese W. — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:38:25 +0000

You sir are drinking the the kool aid. 2031 isn’t about classroom space or faculty housing. NYU owns buildings that are currently empty and unused. NYU owns housing that currently is empty and unused. If classroom space and/ or housing is needed they can simply use what they’ve already got rather than under taking this financially risky endeavor of 20 years of construction at a wopping price tag of $6 billion dollars. The faculty and neighbors of NYU are sick of Sexton’s blatant disegard for the history and much treasured green spaces in the Village.

As for the Miller’s comment about NYU Abu Dhabi? I say hear, hear!!! Kudos to you and to the academics who aren’t in it to simply line their pockets with student debt in countries that have suspect track records dealing with human rights.

Comment on Who’s Confused? by Richard Burt

Richard Burt — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:20:19 +0000

What a post! The world owes Cyrus R. K. Patell a huge debt for providing his readers such insight into the administrative mind in “Who’s Confused?” Everyone concerned with higher education ought to read it and post it as widely as possible. I have already linked it to my blog here: http://burthurts.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-post-i-cant-wait-to-read-part-2.html And I have reactivated my Facebook account just to post a link to it as well. Patell’sblog post is a great follow up to the confusing NY Times article on NYU at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/nyregion/nyu-gives-lavish-parting-gifts-to-some-star-officials.html
You might think that the role of the university is to produce informed citizens who will participate in our liberal democracy. You might think that faculty, the people who do research and actually teach students the intellectual and technical latest developments in their chosen majors, would be at the center of the university. You might think that the role of university administrators would be to support faculty. Think again! An administrator himself, Associate Dean Cyrus R. K. Patell has certainly disabused us of any such naïve notions in his column. Patell is not at all confusing. Faculty, he says, are not citizens in a university. Why? Because the university is not a democracy. But not to worry! For democracy isn’t a good thing either, according to Patell. Why can’t Obama just dictate? Forget about that circuit court decision ruling that Obamas recess appointments were unconstitutional. Forget about the Republicans in the 111th and 112th U.S Congress being the most obstructionist in the history of the United States. No, “debate” in Congress is just a waste of time. Too bad we aren’t living in Abu dabi, I guess. Well, at least we can take solace in the fact that the university is an authoritarian, top down structure. And academic freedom? How dumb to think faculty should have it! Cyrus Patell knows it so stupid that it isn’t even worth mentioning. Why would any administrator write such a candid and revealing a blog post like Patell’s? Apparently, he just can’t stop himself. Citing with great approval a passage written by Stanley Fish, reveals with almost blinding clarity the absolute contempt in which university administrators hold faculty. Here it is:
At the end of my tenure as dean, I spoke to some administrators who had been on the job for a short enough time to be able to still remember what it was like to be a faculty member and what thoughts they had then about the work they did now. One said that she had come to realize how narcissistic academics are: an academic, she mused, is focused entirely on the intellectual stock market and watches its rises and falls with an anxious and self-regarding eye. As an academic, you’re trying to get ahead; as an administrator, you’re trying “to make things happen for other people”; you’re “not advancing your own profile but advancing the institution, and you’re more service oriented.”
Ah, yes, the days when I was just another narcissistic faculty member, the days before I could “make things happen for other people.” The “other people” who administrators obviously do not include faculty. No, “advancing the institution,” means working to help administrators leave NYU with huge retirement packages, packages so huge that the NY Times ran a story about it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/nyregion/nyu-gives-lavish-parting-gifts-to-some-star-officials.html The NY Times interview Patell spends his blog attacking . You might very well think that Patell is a time-server, a lackey, a sycophant, a failed academic who didn’t publish enough to be promoted to full professor, a courtier who, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, makes love to his employment. You might very well think that. Patell should be congratulated for showing us the contempt in which self-servicing university administrators so richly deserve to be held.
By the way, my grandfather went to Harvard, like Patell. I scanned and posted the letter admitting him and his twin brother the then Dean of Harvard, no doubt “revered,” wrote to my great-grandmother. Also, regarding the Puritans Patell mentions: My mother is a direct descendant of Governor Winslow.

Comment on Who’s Confused? by Cyrus Patell

Cyrus Patell — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:29:48 +0000

I dispute the idea that the post is dishonest. What it is, however, is my interpretation of things. I do credit Jay Oliva with getting things started for NYU’s upswing, but I still firmly believe that it is John Sexton who figured out how to make use of the resources that were suddenly becoming available to NYU. As you point out from the chronology, I have seen both “regimes,” and if I were to describe the process by which I was hired — I won’t here, though I’d be happy to describe it to you in private — you would, I think, that NYU frequently gave the impression in 1993 and throughout the 1990s of being amateur hour. I’m sorry if that candor angers any of my present or former colleagues. Many good ideas in the 1990s: very, very poor execution. We were taken advantage of in the 1990s by faculty members who were firmly associated with other schools but drew ridiculous salaries just by lending their names to our operation and showing up periodically. I won’t name names, but you can do the research. On the day that I was hired, C. Duncan Rice, the dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, asked me if I fully understood what I was getting myself into. I said I did.

So if openness means running the university the way it was run in the 1990s, then I’m not for it. I live in the 21st century; I don’t want to go back to the Wild West. Again, I’m just being candid, and what I’m saying is my interpretation of what I witnessed in Washington Square during that decade.

Comment on Who’s Confused? by TPA

TPA — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:11:34 +0000

This post is a little dishonest. For the historical record, you joined the NYU faculty under President Jay Oliva at a time when New York City — and NYU — were still mired in economic slumps. Oliva left in 2002 and deserves as much credit as John Sexton for whatever it’s become — as does the general economic upswing of NYC. The difference between the two regimes — and faculty, students, and administrative staff who have seen them both will say this — is that Oliva’s was open while Sexton’s is autocratic and hierarchal.

Comment on Who’s Confused? by Cyrus Patell

Cyrus Patell — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:24:47 +0000

To Anonymous (Part 1):

Yes, he was wrong about the cameras. That’s comparatively trivial. But it’s telling.

I am not expert an on the legal code here. I do know that it embodies some values that are far more conservative than my own. The article that you present, on its own, does not support Miller’s view that “the legal code discriminates against gay people.” The article reports, “The court sentenced them to six months in jail and ordered their deportation after serving their prison terms … the two were charged with committing an indecent act in a public place.” But you’ll remember that one of the more famous recent cases involving foreigners engaging in indecent acts in a public place in the Emirates involved two British tourists on a beach in Dubai — two heterosexual British tourists.

The standards of public decency here ARE different from those in Greenwich Village. But you’ll remember that the kind of acceptance we have there didn’t happen over night. It’s taken years of struggle to overturn anti-sodomy laws in the United States: 214 years, counting back from the 2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas to the day when the Constitution took effect in 1789. I suspect there’s a lot of homophobia in the Emirates. I know there’s still a lot of homophobia in the United States. Cultural change takes time. And it can’t be forced, and its outcomes can’t necessarily be predicted.

And you know there are illiberal folks in the US who would like the country to adopt more conservative standards of public (and private) decency. Consider this recent declaration from the Family Research Council arguing that the US should make premarital sex illegal: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/frc-no-right-have-sex-outside-marriage-society-should-punish-it

As for anti-Semitism, I haven’t seen a lot of it here and have heard no stories of legal discrimination against Jews. Colleagues filling out labor questionnaires before relocating here were free to write “Jewish” when questioned about religious affiliation. Two of our most senior administrators here are Jewish and that has not prevented them at all from interacting with the leaders of this country. It is true that the UAE does not recognize the state of Israel, but to me that’s different from anti-Semitism. That’s geopolitics. You may disagree.

You may also find this hard to believe, but I am probably more liberal than 90% of Americans. Part of the challenge of being cosmopolitan, though, is learning to deal with the discomfort of interacting with peoples whose values are very different from one’s own. Living in the Emirates is, for someone like me, a daily challenge in that respect. But to refuse the challenge and to avoid difficult but constructive cross-cultural conversations is to abandon the world to the bigots and counter-cosmopolitans.

Every day that I’m here doing my teaching, exposing my students to texts like Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism and helping to build NYU Abu Dhabi is a day well-spent in the service of the promotion of cosmopolitan understanding. We are NOT here to “change” this society. We ARE here to promote greater levels of mutual understanding and respect between our societies. We are here to teach — and to learn.

That’s my answer to Miller’s question “What’s NYU doing in a place like that?”

I’ll address the second part of your comment shortly.

Comment on Who’s Confused? by Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:12:09 +0000

How is this statement (“You’re not allowed to bring a camera out into the streets. The legal code discriminates against Jews and gay people. What is NYU doing in a place like that?”) “evidence of shocking, irresponsible ignorance of the situation in Abu Dhabi.” Because he was wrong about the cameras? I notice how you avoid addressing the issues of gay rights and anti-semitism: I don’t know the facts on the latter, but can you please explain this? http://www.emirates247.com/crime/local/two-men-jailed-for-kissing-in-public-2012-03-28-1.450768

With regard to your basic argument above, it rests entirely on a straw-man logic. To claim that universities should be democratic is not to claim that they should be non-hierarchical. Are NYU professors saying there should be no president of the university? Or no president of the united states?
Your argument is full of this straw-man logic. Here’s another example: “If, however, it weren’t the case that I knew more than my students — both in terms of having actual knowledge and knowing how to get actual knowledge — then I don’t think I should be paid to be a professor.”
Again, what NYU professor is claiming that hierarchy is fundamentally opposed to democracy?