Review Committee Minutes - May 1, 2019

Plenary Session: 9:30 am-10:30 pm, Room A-310
Personnel and Budget: 10:30 am -11:30 pm, Room A-201

Present: G. Barabino, D. Cintrón, M. Driscoll, E. Friedman, G. Gebert, K. Ihrer, D. Jeruzalmi, E. Koch, F. Lam, T. Liss, J. Mercado, D. D. Mozeleski, V.P. Nair, A. Rich, S. Rings, T. Scala, R. Stark, C. Stewart, M. Strzeszewski, W. Thornton
Excused: K. Witherspoon

  1. Announcements

    The meeting commenced at 9:35 am. The Provost shared the following announcements.

    Middle States Update

    After their site visit, the monitoring team requested that the College upload additional documents, including a consolidated budget (including the CUNY Medical School budget), which Felix Lam and Eva Medina annotated for clarification, and a 3-year budget projection. The monitoring team’s report must still be reviewed by two more committees. Regardless of the Commission’s findings, the College will have another site visit from the monitoring team.

    Research Foundation

    The RF sent a letter last week announcing that pursuant to new social security guidelines, doctoral and postdoctoral students will no longer be eligible for a waiver from the FICA deduction, which will effectively lower their net pay by about 8%. SUNY is not following these guidelines. Prof. Ghose and Prof. Jeruzalmi explained the situation to CUNY. Daniel McCloskey, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor and University Vice Provost for Research, will hold off implementing this change until August and will convene a committee to investigate. The Provost will ask IAVC McCloskey to appoint Professor Ghose to the committee. Prof. Jeruzalmi suggested that the model for paying summer salary from grants, in which the State pays the salary and the College reimburses the State, might be used for the payment of PhD and postdoctoral students. In that case, perhaps the exemption could stand. Dean Driscoll noted that the letter announcing the new guidelines included an example of the impact on a postdoctoral with salary higher than that of many of CUNY’s classified staff, who are subject to federal income tax withholding.

    Approval of Minutes

    The Minutes of the meeting of April 3, 2019 were approved as submitted.
  2. Personnel Items

    Prof. Matthew Vaz, History, will be reclassified from Lecturer to Assistant Professor of History as part of a retention effort. Provost Liss noted that there have been many requests for such reclassifications and would like to restrict these conversions to retention cases.

    The search a permanent Director of Fiscal Affairs (HEO) is underway. Brian Genzmann has been in this role for a year.

    CSOM was required to present a staffing plan to the LCME to demonstrate that they are in compliance with staffing requirements.

    Through a partnership with the ACLS the History Department will hire a postdoctoral student whose position will be split between City College and the Flatiron Institute. The grant will cover the salary for the first two years, after which the expectation is that the position will be converted to a tenure-track line.

    The search committee for the Dean of Science position was charged. The position will remain open until filled.

  3. Adjournment of Plenary Committee

  4. The meeting of the Plenary Committee adjourned at 9:30 am and the meeting of the Personnel Committee commenced.

Last Updated: 09/06/2019 10:00