Marred by politics, factions in expansion inquiry see different Columbias

Upper West Side NY

10 March, 2022

4:28 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator By Zachary SchermeleMarch 10, 2022 A controversial effort spearheaded by some administrators to look into enrolling more students in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the undergraduate expansion inquiry has the potential goals of increasing tuition revenue and making a Columbia education accessible to more students. A steering committee and three working groups have been assessing the potential impacts of expansion since April 2021, with each body researching separate topics and chaired by different administrators.The work amounts to the most wide-ranging study of undergraduate education and student experience at Columbia in recent memory. Its end goal is to map a path toward improvement, setting priorities about where to allocate existing resources—or, in the case of expansion, new ones.[Read more: In the wake of pandemic losses, administration explores undergraduate expansion]The findings presented in February came from the working group investigating the current state of the Core and student life, which is chaired by outgoing Columbia College Dean James Valentini. Valentini sparred with Amy Hungerford, the executive vice president of Arts and Sciences, in spring 2020 over whether to require instructional faculty to teach in person during the pandemic. In September 2021, University President Lee Bollinger announced Valentini would be leaving his position as dean after a decade on the job. No reason for his departure was given.The full spectrum of research from the inquiry will involve more data, and the variety of findings has led leaders of the inquiry to different preliminary conclusions about the feasibility of expansion and the current state of undergraduate education. This split is indicative of a broader state of political gridlock among administrators and faculty amid an ongoing effort to restructure and centralize power in the Arts and Sciences."Increasing access to a SEAS and CC education is important to consider in a time when elite universities are asked to justify the good they do in the world," Hungerford,who chairs the steering committee and a working group on the Arts and Sciences, wrote in a statement to Spectator.However, the presentation from Valentini's working group paints a picture of a University not only lacking the capacity to expand, but also falling short of the promises it makes to current students.In the wake of a pandemic-related enrollment bubble, that presentation, which has not yet been made publicly available, lays bare some of the realities facing undergraduates at Columbia—particularly when it comes to the Core, access to courses, and student life. The presentation states that students in CC and SEAS currently experience "significant challenges securing places in key foundational courses in a number of disciplines" and have "very few open spaces conducive for building community." Expanding the number of students in these schools, according to the findings, could "exacerbate the difficulty of bringing Core class sizes into greater alignment with our peers and our own pedagogical values."There was considerable backlash from a number of faculty within Arts and Sciences from the moment the expansion inquiry began in earnest, according to half a dozen people who have been closely following its developments. According to five people familiar with the contents of the presentation, one faculty member likened the prospect of expansion to "adding lanes to a bridge that's already crumbling." It's a phrase many faculty members have latched onto in conversations about the ongoing inquiry. At the February meetings during which the findings were presented, Joseph Howley, a classics professor, showed information on the Core while Jeremy Dodd, a physics professor, spoke about course access. Kristen Cromm, the dean of undergraduate student life, gave what three people familiar with the meeting called a "candid" presentation on the quality of student life on campus.The February report uncovered major shortcomings in the realm of student life, which are backed up by the findings of Hungerford's working group. Valentini's group goes a step further, though, describing reservable outdoor event spaces such as Low Plaza, Butler Lawn, and South Lawn as "cost-prohibitive" for student groups, whose limited budgets often cannot afford extra charges for technology and Public Safety, among other costs.John George, CC '23, the president of the Columbia Political Union, said finding an appropriate space on campus for his group to hold events is "really, really hard." Renting the Roone Arledge Cinema for only a few hours translates into hundreds of dollars in charges, he said, which is expensive for student groups, many of which are only allocated a couple thousand dollars per year. As a result, undergraduate student groups have come to rely heavily on hosting meetings and events in classroom spaces."Student groups are as vital to the Columbia experience as classes and coursework, and the fact is they're competing for space," George said. "Just adding more students, and consequently more groups, more need for space … I don't even know how that's sustainable."Valentini's working group also found that student performance groups are facing "tremendous pressures" from a lack of performance and rehearsal spaces. At a University Senate meeting last week, similar concerns were raised when the campus planning and physical development committee previewed some of its findings from a six-month-long investigation into space needs for performing arts programs, including the department of music in Arts and Sciences. The committee found an acute lack of spaces for performances, rehearsals, and storage.For example, as many as 150 students in the Barnard and Columbia Undergraduate Theater program must rehearse between their class sessions. However, only one classroom or studio rehearsal space is guaranteed to be available.Valentini's working group described Lerner Hall, the student center that replaced a building about half its size in 1999, as "a revenue-generating conference center" instead of a "traditional student center." The building's renovation was a significant accomplishment for those who spent years pushing former University President Mike Sovern to invest in undergraduate education by creating more space for students, according to former dean of students for Columbia College Roger Lehecka. That group ultimately won over his successor, George Rupp. But Lehecka said that in the decades since Lerner was built, administrative offices have chipped away at the space available to students."There is no more student activity space than there was in the older, inadequate building," Lehecka said. "Think about how different student life would be if that whole building were for students. It would change the undergraduate experience dramatically." The findings also show that students from across Columbia's undergraduate schools often must sit on multiple waitlists for required courses every semester. In Columbia College, introductory courses in economics, political science, linguistics, chemistry, and physics are "perennially oversubscribed," and there are "significant pressures" on computing and programming courses in SEAS.One of the main ways the University differentiates itself from its competitors is through the Core Curriculum, which promises "small, discussion-style seminars" where students are "challenged to engage meaningfully with friends and classmates who hold different opinions." However, many of those classes have significantly higher enrollment caps than similar courses taught at peer institutions.According to the presentation, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton cap their comparable courses at 15 students. At Columbia, Music Humanities is capped at 25. Art Humanities, Lit Hum, Contemporary Civilization, and Frontiers of Science are all capped at 22. University Writing is capped at 14.Core classes are sometimes fully staffed just days before the semester begins, and some sections do not even have rooms after the semester has started. This semester, more than a quarter of Lit Hum and Contemporary Civilization sections are being taught in residence halls or off campus. Some faculty believe the challenges are partially due to a difference in opinion with administrators about the value of the Core, which has become controversial in recent years and which some faculty claim is not enough of a priority for central administrators."I'm pretty sure the upper administration has little idea why the Core is capped as low as it is," Elaine Sisman, a music professor and the chair of Music Hum, said.Hungerford's working group has come to its own conclusions about some of the same concerns, including space limitations, which it identified as an academic and social pain point for faculty and students during an open faculty update meeting in November. The group put on eight faculty forums between April and November of 2021.Using the 2018-19 school year for baseline numbers, the data being used by the Arts and Sciences working group models a 10 percent increase, or 480 students, in Columbia College students phased over four years from the starting year. It also models a 20 percent increase, or 325 students, in SEAS and 250 international dual-degree students in the School of General Studies.The modeling assumptions were agreed upon so that the committees would have the same baseline for comparison across schools, and the recommendations may or may not reflect them. The increases in General Studies were part of a previously agreed upon phasing in of new dual-degree programs between Columbia, Trinity College Dublin, and Tel Aviv University; students in these programs have already started at the institutions abroad and some have begun transitioning to Columbia.The November faculty forum acknowledged open questions about housing needs, but also found opportunities in certain majors and classes to accommodate more students. It also projected that the Arts and Sciences' move into Uris Hall—which the Business School recently vacated, creating 600 newly available seats for undergraduate common study space—will make a significant difference in classroom supply and quality.The data corresponds with the qualitative research being conducted by faculty along with the directors of undergraduate studies and program directors of a variety of departments."Studying the possibility of opening the door a little wider involves four committees in a complex review of what we do now, of our aspirations to excellence, and of the areas where we are now or would be challenged if we did admit more students," Hungerford wrote in a statement to Spectator.Amid delays in delivering the steering committee's recommendations to the provost driven in part by the pandemic, last semester's graduate student-worker strike, and internal politics, some faculty believe a less formal and smaller increase of the undergraduate student population could happen more discreetly. Those claims come as next fall's enrollment decisions are being made, possibly before the expansion inquiry comes to a conclusion.The seeds of the expansion inquiry were planted in February 2021, with an email to faculty from Hungerford saying that pandemic-related deferrals and leaves of absence would result in larger class sizes in future years. She expressed an interest in exploring "ideal numbers" of enrollment for both graduate and undergraduate students. The inquiry into "modest" expansion was formally commissioned in April 2021 by Mary Boyce, the newly minted provost who was dean of SEAS at the time, and Ira Katznelson, a political science professor who was then interim provost.Admissions statistics for fall 2021 show 277 more enrolled students in Columbia College and SEAS combined than fall 2020, a roughly 19 percent increase. Columbia's school-specific headcount data, which differs from admissions statistics, has not yet been made publicly available for fall 2021 by the Office of Planning and Institutional Research, although those numbers are typically determined on Oct. 15 each year. Spectator requested access to this data but did not receive it by the time of publication.Backlash from faculty and the fall 2021 graduate student-worker strike slowed the inquiry's timeline, which was supposed to conclude its efforts "no later" than the middle of the fall 2021 semester, but is still ongoing. It has since become clear that leveraging more tuition revenue from a greater number of students could be complicated by the expenses necessary to accommodate them, depending on the increase.The theme of enlargement without enhancement has plagued debates over undergraduate expansion at Columbia for decades. In 1996, an expansion of 10 to 15 percent was proposed by then-Provost Jonathan Cole and characterized as part of Rupp's effort to place the priorities of Columbia College at the center of the University. A 2009 report from the Task Force on Undergraduate Education also proposed a "carefully planned and long-term expansion of Columbia College of approximately 15 to 20 percent, with the aim of strengthening the College, Arts and Sciences, and the University."Proponents of expansion have argued that educating as many students as possible is part of the University's social mission. Opponents of expansion, such as Michael Rosenthal, a professor emeritus and former associate dean of Columbia College, say it amounts to "giving more students less."The dynamic around expansion at Columbia College stands in contrast to the discourse around undergraduate expansion in SEAS. SEAS is a considerably smaller school than Columbia College, and Arts and Sciences suffers from a series of perennial budgetary constraints. However, SEAS students take Core classes, use the same student facilities, and live in the same dormitories as Columbia College students.At an Arts and Sciences meeting on June 3, political science professor Robert Jervis, who has since died, proposed a resolution ensuring that faculty would have the power to take an advisory vote on expansion before any recommendations were delivered to the provost, who would then navigate how to address the recommendations with University President Lee Bollinger and the board of trustees. The resolution passed nearly unanimously, according to two people familiar with the contents of the meeting.The current state of the expansion inquiry, which is almost entirely confidential, has now become a point of confusion and contention among faculty and administrators. Although a perception among some faculty exists that the committees' work has stalled, at a Feb. 10 meeting of the steering committee, there was a discussion about collecting and compiling the reports from the various working groups. The Arts and Sciences working group also had two meetings in February, and the steering committee will meet twice in March."The four committees have operated somewhat independently so far, using different approaches, which means that findings and questions from one do not yet have the full benefit of collaborative discussion with the other groups deeply engaged in the work. These threads will be coming together this semester as the 3 committees report in to the Steering Committee and a synthesis and recommendations are prepared," Hungerford wrote in a statement to Spectator.The Core and student life working group will also continue its work to identify the values important to students and faculty about what kind of experience they expect from the University. In a moment of tension and disagreement between faculty leaders and administrators, how eager the factions will be to work together to deliver expansion recommendations—and to come to a consensus about how to solve existing problems—is unclear."What we have right now is already not enough, and it's causing problems, and it's damaging the experience," George said.Deputy News Editor Zachary Schermele can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ZachSchermele.Graphics Reporter Adina Cazacu-De Luca can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @adidanic.Graphics Deputy Editor Devon Campbell can be contacted at [email protected]. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.