Letters: NCC faculty, 'no confidence' vote

It is unfortunate that Newsday's coverage of the no-confidence vote of the Nassau Community College faculty against President Donald Astrab gives the impression that the vote was based on his difficult fiscal decisions and that the faculty is not concerned with fiscal responsibility .

Quite the contrary! The fact is that the faculty is very serious about fiscal responsibility and will support wise decisions to save taxpayer money, reinforce wise spending practices and avoid wasteful spending. Faculty members also respect that students and their families should not carry the burden of the current budgetary problems. Faculty members are very serious about meaningful participation in making decisions that have direct impact on academic standards and excellence in student learning.

The president has used the current budget crisis as an excuse to impose an autocratic management style, disregard faculty advice in areas of their expertise and pursue initiatives that will dangerously erode academic quality. Among the faculty grievances were the president's disallowance of faculty members to determine the standards for their programs and the disregard of faculty expertise in the best way to deal with advisement and orientation of at-risk students. For more than 40 years, NCC had a nationally recognized, true working partnership between the faculty and administration, one based on open and consistent communication, consultation and mutual respect. Sadly, this is no longer the case.

Michael Steuer, Garden City

Editor's note: The writer is vice chair of Nassau Community College's Academic Senate.
 

I appreciate the difficulty in reporting a fair and accurate perspective of the Nassau Community College faculty's no-confidence vote against President Donald Astrab. It is important that Newsday report the correct reasons for the existence of such a vote.

I know that I speak for faculty members when I stress that Nassau's and New York State's fiscal problems have hit home and that we fully appreciate the need for serious budgetary decisions. I know that faculty members support making intelligent decisions to ensure wise and fair spending practices. I know that faculty members are very serious about these matters because we, too, are taxpayers who are not oblivious to the monetary pressures we all are facing in these economic times.

So what is the real reason for the vote? It is this president's erosion of the decades-long working partnership between the faculty and administration (NCC's culture of shared governance) when making important decisions to maintain academic standards and excellence in education. Our faculty knows what's best for our students.

In fact, faculty members not being true partners with the administration is the same as physicians not being partners with insurance companies in making decisions as to what is best for patients' good health. Whom do we want as the decision-makers -- the experts, or the gatekeepers and bean counters?

Esther Bogin, Garden City

Editor's note: The writer is a professor in the Communications Department at Nassau Community College.