In the aftermath of the YC faculty publicizing their “No Confidence” vote in President Richard Joel, questions began to circulate as to whether the faculty of Stern College had participated in the YC faculty vote, or conducted a similar vote of their own.
Dr. Nora Nachumi, associate professor of the SCW English department and representative for SCW to the Yeshiva University faculty council, clarified that the SCW faculty had indeed received the ballot in their email. However, there had been no prior official decision among the SCW faculty to participate in such a vote.
A straw poll had been previously taken to assess the general consensus of how the SCW faculty felt about the academic budget cuts and the poll presented various possible courses of action (with conducting a “No Confidence” vote being one of the options). However, at that the time the YC faculty sent the ballot out, the SCW faculty had yet to determine which course of action they wanted to take, nor had they participated in an official vote as to whether or not they wanted to in fact conduct a “No Confidence” vote in President Joel.
Therefore, when the ballot was sent out by members of the YC faculty, many members of the SCW faculty were taken by surprise: Conducting a “No Confidence” vote was still only a hypothetical option that had yet to be officially discussed and voted upon.
In the initial “No Confidence” ballot sent out by YC, 57% of full-time SCW faculty answered the YC ballot, and of those responses, just over half of the votes indicated “No Confidence.”
Several members of the SCW faculty reacted strongly not only to the lack of prior notice, but because they had no idea if and how the results would be publicized. Additionally, unlike the YC faculty that have the mornings free to conduct monthly meetings and receive updates regarding actions and conversations between the Faculty Council and the administration, the Stern College faculty do not have the same opportunity to hear frequent updates. Therefore, according to Nachumi, the Stern College faculty voted “without being fully informed about the recent activity of the Faculty Council.”
This included being updated about a recent meeting between the Faculty Council and Provost Botman and President Joel. In this meeting the Faculty Council requested that there be more transparency regarding the decisions of the administration, faculty input, and the visibility of long term plans. Though Nachumi was unsure whether this knowledge would affect the vote of the SCW faculty, she thought that voting without hearing these updates was problematic.
Therefore, after the YC faculty “No Confidence” ballot was sent out, several members of SCW faculty requested that the SCW Faculty Welfare Committee call a meeting to discuss the validity of that ballot. At that meeting, the SCW faculty decided to clarify the issue by sending out a second ballot asking whether the SCW faculty believed that the first vote was conducted with due process or whether it ought to be held as “invalid.”
The results of this second electronic ballot indicated that of the 67% of the full-time faculty that voted, 75% voted that the SCW faculty votes in the initial YC ballot should be invalidated.
The resounding result of the second ballot to discount the votes in the “No Confidence” ballot was therefore not a reflection as to whether the SCW faculty supports the actions of the YC faculty, but a logistical issue of certain procedures not being followed before participating in such measures.
After The Observer spoke Dr. Ann Peters, a representative from the Faculty Welfare Committee and English professor at Stern College, about the processes taken among SCW faculty regarding such actions, The Observer then reached out the Executive Committee of the Yeshiva College faculty to confirm the process that was taken uptown prior to sending the ballot to Yeshiva College and Stern College faculty alike:
Was there a vote and consensus taken among YC faculty as to whether they wanted to conduct a “No Confidence” vote in the first place?
Was there communication between the faculties of YC and Stern College before the Stern College faculty received the ballot?
The Executive Committee responded, “There is nothing like a ‘procedural due-process’ for a vote of no confidence. Anyone can put up a survey like this, anyone can decide to participate or not. 64% of faculty teaching at YC and 57% of faculty teaching at Stern decided to participate.”
The YC Executive Committee explained that faculty on both campuses got the same email which stated:
We’re conducting a survey and your input would be appreciated. Click the button below to start the survey. Thank you for your participation!
And in the survey they answered the following question:
Select one of the responses or choose to abstain.
I have no confidence in Richard Joel as the President of Yeshiva University
I have confidence in Richard Joel as the President of Yeshiva University
Abstain
The response of the YC Executive Committee strongly testifies to the fact that the YC and SCW faculty have differing outlooks regarding how such a vote should be conducted.
The Stern College for Women faculty will be conducting a closed faculty meeting after break to discuss the course of action that they intend to take to address the budget cuts at Stern College, the results of the original straw poll, as well as actions to show solidarity with the YC faculty regarding the more drastic cuts affecting Yeshiva College.
Among other possible actions, a “No Confidence” vote remains on the table for the SCW faculty, and will be discussed officially in that meeting after the break.