Posts Tagged ‘dean pena-mora’
Let the experts decide Peña-Mora’s fate
The race card has been played over and over during SEAS Dean Peña-Mora’s battle to keep his position, but New York City Council member Ydanis Rodriguiez just initiated a game of 52 Pickup.
Rodriguez, a Dominican-American who represents Inwood, Washington Heights, and Marble Hill (all predominantly Dominican neighborhoods), has led the charge in rallying his residents to steadfastly defend Peña-Mora, who happens to be…you guessed it, a Dominican-American.
However, this sudden rally by Rodriguez is similar to the kind of opportunistic Sharpton-esque behavior that others have used to blackmail communities in defending individuals who merely happen to share a genetic trait. The three-year City Council member recently went as far as as saying, “the community is on alert” for any attempt to remove Peña-Mora. What is this, a hockey team ready to scrap if their star player gets checked into the boards too hard? Have the two even met? More »
Supporters outside gates for Peña-Mora
Some people have gathered outside the 116th gates in support of Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Today’s demonstration comes after a turbulent two years for the dean, in which the chairs of nine SEAS departments gave him a private letter outlining his supposed failures, and then the next semester made things public by expressing their discontent in a letter to Provost Coatsworth which was obtained by the New York Times. While some faculty are still pushing strongly for his resignation, it’s clear that not all in the Columbia community want to show him the door.
Mrinal Mohanka / Spec
UPDATED: Dean Peña-Mora thanks ESC for its support
Highlights from last night’s Engineering Student Council meeting:
- SEAS Dean Peña-Mora attended last night’s ESC meeting. The Dean began by thanking ESC for its letter in support of his administration, which the council sent to Spectator last December. “I want to thank you personally for the moral support and know that I will not disappoint you for my support,” he said. Peña-Mora said that he’d continue to ensure that “you [all] have the best education experience that anyone could have.”
- Dean Schaffler is setting up focus group discussions to continue evaluating Financial Aid. These focus groups will be Monday, Feb. 6th Thursday, Feb. 9th from 12 to 1 p.m. in 403 Lerner.
- Vice President of Policy Logan Donovan said that the deadline for transfer students has been moved up by two weeks to March 1, so the results will be known before finals. She’s also working on an initiative to have more communication between transfer students and those who were accepted for transfer.
More after the jump More »
Best of 2011: campus conversations
Last year saw its share of controversy from CIRCA’s proposed dinner with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barnard’s new tuition policy, the General Studies Student Council‘s ever changing leadership, and CUCR‘s safe space forum.
The “Spirit of ’68″ returned to campus as this semester saw a rise in activism, including the Occupy Columbia movement.
ROTC also returned to campus for the first time in 43 years amid contentious debates and hearings.
The unexpected resignation of Dean Moody-Adams along with the appointment of Deantini left many demanding transparency, while the faculty of SEAS has no confidence in Dean Pena-Mora.
In sports, the Editorial Board called for the firing of football’s Coach Wilson—and that’s just what happened.
And important conversations about sexual violence and mental health were finally openly discussed and addressed, thanks in no small part to blogger Caroline Blosser’s big ass blue whale series.
New SEAS vice dean defends Peña-Mora
On Friday, the news desk’s Yasmin Gagne spoke to the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s newly appointed executive vice dean, Donald Goldfarb. The position was established several weeks ago in response to many SEAS faculty members calling for the firing of Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora. Highlights from the interview with Goldfarb:
Goldfarb acknowledged that Peña-Mora “has not really communicated well and gotten the trust of the faculty,” saying he will work to “try to provide better communication between the Dean and the faculty and try to address miscommunication.” On the source of the faculty’s frustrations, Goldfarb said that Peña-Mora, who came to Columbia in 2009, was “just learning and came in without much experience”: More »
A confusion of priorites at SEAS
As you may have heard, Columbia, the faculty of SEAS is not happy with Dean Peña-Mora. The New York Times published a letter yesterday that was signed by seven of the nine SEAS department chairs and a large number of tenured professors who requested that the dean be removed from office. The letter included complaints about Peña-Mora’s decision to double graduate class sizes in the hopes of increasing revenue to pay the salaries of more top professors. Hiring top professors is a way to improve the graduate school’s U.S. News & World Report Ranking, but the increase in class sizes came when the dean had already hired an outside consulting firm “to reclaim 25% of the school’s space for other purposes.” As a result, according to the letter, some grad students are now forced to sit on the floor or in the hall during class.
The general gist of the complaints seem to be that the dean has been sacrificing everything in the name of short-term profits, which in turn are meant to improve the school’s ranking. More »
Peña-Mora and you
I was asked to write a response to the current debate surrounding Dean Peña-Mora and the faculty letter of no confidence. Being a Barnard Student, the direct issue at hand is somewhat outside of my knowledge—I don’t know Peña-Mora, nor do I know any of the faculty involved, and, at face value, it might seem not to affect me, at least not directly. But largely missing from the discourse is something that does concern me: the interest of the undergraduate population. More »
Grading the administrators: Dean Peña-Mora
Monday the Editorial Board reflected on Dean Moody-Adams‘ first year here. Today the Editorial Board delivers the second installment of Grading the Administrators with a look at the Dean of SEAS, Feniosky Peña-Mora.
According to the Editorial Board, Peña-Mora breathes a new life into SEAS, a school that is “pre-professional in nature [and] is sometimes overlooked or bypassed” because of its relationship with the liberal-arts based College: “When was the last time we saw a dean bounding down the stairs of Havemayer 309, arms in the air, for a photo shoot?” More »
No confidence? Spectator readers would like to disagree
Margaret Mattes reports in today’s paper that
“…tensions between Peña-Mora and the faculty remain high. Central administrators and School of Engineering and Applied Science faculty members are working to ease that tension by developing structural changes to the school, but for many professors, there’s still only one viable solution: Peña-Mora’s resignation.”
The four anonymous professors that Mattes spoke to all seems to think that the only way forward is for Peña-Mora to step down, citing their lack of trust in him due to his lack of experience and inability to understand and meet the needs of the entire school, as well as his tendency to make decisions without consulting others in the department. More »
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