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Climate Change :
Chilling in the Tower
by
Erin Quinn
An In-depth look at SUNY New Paltz under the Leadership of President Steve
Poskanzer. A shortened, edited version of this article
appeared in the New Paltz Times.
It’s been quite a year for SUNY New Paltz. They’ve made national headlines for
the work that Students for a Sensible Drug Policy has done on campus, suspended
student leaders have filed a lawsuit against the administration, and there was a
stabbing outside Parker Theatre. Their campus has been the site of several
protests—some aimed at the administration—others aimed against the war in Iraq,
or the proposed tightening of immigration policies. They’ve had the publisher of
the New York Times address their graduating class in a commencement speech,
they’ve constructed new residence halls, completed a state-of-the-art wellness
and fitness center, hired new faculty, fired faculty, decided not to tenure
some, and tenure others. Waves of discontent are lapping at the shore of the
administration building, where SUNY New Paltz President Steve Poskanzer perches
on the 9th floor, with a fabulous view of the Wallkill valley and the ridge
beyond.
So what is life like under President Poskanzer, a lifelong member of college
campuses, a former administrator of SUNY Central? He was the interim president
of SUNY New Paltz in 2001, after former President Roger Bowen resigned, and
finally ascendant to the top of the college’s masthead as the President of SUNY
New Paltz beginning on April 16th, 2004.
The verdict is still out. But many are quick to note that during the same period
that Poskanzer was a finalist for the Presidential position at SUNY New Paltz he
was also a finalist for the position of president at the University of Vermont,
a post he did not receive.
“He was an excellent interim president,” said veteran Black Studies Professor
Dr. A.J. Williams-Meyers. “But someone who comes down from SUNY Central to act
as an interim president is technically not allowed to part of the pool of
candidates for the Presidency. I still don’t know what happened there. He lost
out on his bid to become President of UVM so he went back to Daddy and they gave
him the job here. He was a much different person after he became president than
when he was the interim president.”
Almost anyone the New Paltz Times spoke to, would say that Poskanzer is a
“likeable,” or “affable” guy. He always has a smile on his face, seemingly
boundless energy and goodwill. “In that regard he was much like Alice Chandler [SUNY
New Paltz President prior to Bowen,]” mused one tenured professor who wanted to
remain anonymous for fear of possible retaliation by the administration for
speaking candidly with the press. “Even if someone was sawing off Alice
Chandler’s leg, she’d smile and say ‘that is a fantastic saw!’”
The President himself told the New Paltz Times in a recent interview that his
goal is to make SUNY New Paltz “the best undergraduate school in the SUNY
system. To make it one of the best undergraduate colleges in the North East,
whether compared to public or private institutions… my one goal is to make this
the very best college I can and that means fostering the best academic quality
we can. That’s what I worry about from the moment I wake up to the moment I go
to sleep.”
He claims that he is not interested in having the number of students at SUNY New
Paltz grow, “but the academic quality grow. That means attracting the best
students, hiring the most gifted faculty that are engaged in their fields,
providing the best facilities we can, while continuing to remain diverse which
is part of our greatest strength. The people that our students will have to work
with, live next to or fall-in-love with may be very different than they are. We
want them prepared and open towards this global world.”
The President also said that he wants SUNY’s graduate programs aimed at
providing well-trained professionals to reflect the market needs of the Hudson
Valley. “We want to provide the best teachers, principals, business leaders, and
engineers that we can to help support the regional economy and keep it growing
stronger,” he said. “We want to be a major driver of the economy by providing a
talented educated work force. We want to be the cultural, intellectual hub for
the entire region by offering lectures, concerts, plays, sporting matches,
exhibitions.”
The same tenured faculty member went on to say that “Poskanzer is ambitious. He
wants to make this a great college. Right now it is a mediocre public
institution. All of this nonsense about ‘getting the best students’ is BS. We’re
very mediocre and he wants to move us out of that. Personally, I think that’s a
very admirable goal. But he needs to communicate with the faculty and pull
people along with him. He’s in such a hurry to reach his goals, that he doesn’t
take the time to stop and talk with faculty and get them on board. He has some
excellent ideas; his weakness is in his ability to listen and to communicate and
because of that faculty morale is down.”
Williams-Meyers believes that this President and his administration are creating
an atmosphere of repression. “The administration’s job is to create an
atmosphere of vigorous debate,” states Williams-Meyers. “Instead they have
created an atmosphere of repression. This is my 27th year and I think
the ability of students to freely express themselves has become very limited. I
perceive a clamping down on what we do or say as faculty, on what the students
can do or say.”
New Paltz Village Mayor Jason West concurs that while he personally likes
President Poskanzer and has a good working relationship with him, that there is
a “perception that the climate on campus has changed to that of one which is
more repressive, more invested in image rather than substance,” he said. “Bowen
cultivated a sense on campus that he and others should be willing to take risks
to protect academic freedom, freedom of speech, particularly unpopular
speech,” the Mayor continued. “From what I remember of the Chandler years, the
Poskanzer’ administration is fostering the same kind of climate that Alice
did—doing what they can to create a quite, stable campus, guarding its
image—with the love of stability as the highest virtue rather than a love of
democracy, academic debate, freedom of speech and student activism and student’s
role in policy decisions and governance.”
The President rejects such characterizations. “It won’t surprise you that I do
not believe those statements [that his administration is ‘repressive’ in any
way] to be accurate. This administration is in no way retaliatory or repressive.
No one gets disciplined or punished for personal expression or their right to
freedom of speech. In fact we strongly encourage debate on campus like all good
colleges do.”
Image versus Substance
SUNY New Paltz has invested a great deal in its overall image under Poskanzer.
They have created a new welcoming center on the first floor of the Haggerty
Administration Building, they have created a new address and a new entrance to
the college called “Hawks Drive” off of Route 208. They have continually
deflected criticism by the expelled student leaders, and certain members of the
faculty that they attempted to “railroad” the newly elected leaders off campus
by trumping up harassment charges and suspending them. Regardless of the
lobbying efforts of the local NORML chapter or Students for a Sensible Drug
Policy, they have continued to defend their “two strikes and you’re expelled”
policy on marijuana use or being in the possession of marijuana-related
paraphernalia. And their response has consistently been that “they want to be
known as a drug-free campus not a free-drug campus.”
“The administration has done some good things,” said another tenured faculty
member, (among several the New Paltz Times solicited for comment who would only
talk if they were granted anonymity for fear of retribution by the
administration). “The Welcome Center is one of those things. It was needed. But
the Hawk’s Drive address is absurd. I would surmise that they’re trying to sound
butch or sports orientated. But it cost a lot of money. Everyone has to change
their stationery, their business cards. Personally I think that “Manheim
Boulevard” sounded more dignified. That raises the question as to how much money
is being spend on image versus substance. This notion that they keep portraying
as to the academic excellence of our incoming students is not reality based. I
have some great students, but overall, as reflected by their exams and their
papers, I haven’t seen any improvements in the years I’ve been on campus. Many
faculty members commented this year as to how poor the papers and exams were. It
would be great if the image reflected reality, but it doesn’t.”
The statistics favor the President’s arguments. Every year, SUNY New Paltz
receives more applications. The GPA’s and SAT scores of those students chosen
continues to rise. The college is quickly becoming one of the most popular SUNY
colleges and one of the most competitive to enter.
“The numbers are irrelevant,” said the same faculty member. “But this problem is
state-wide, even nation-wide. It has more to do with flawed education at the
lower levels. Students are coming to college unprepared.”
Another faculty member concurred. “With the state of education in this country
colleges can not be colleges. This mediocrity is not unique to New Paltz.”
There is a real fear among faculty members of being punished, denied tenure,
sabbatical requests, raises, etc…if you voice opinions that are contrary to that
of the current administration,” the faculty member said. “Or at the least you’re
treated in a certain way, less than other faculty members that go along with the
status quo.”
A good example of this, according to this faculty member as well as others, was
the President’s decision to hold a series of summer “breakfast meetings” where
one of the main subjects discussed was the way the suspension of the three
student leaders was handled.
“That’s a very familiar trick,” said another anonymous faculty member. “The way
they handled the student leaders, the way the President had ‘breakfast meetings’
with only seven or eight invited faculty members to get their message across.
That is hardly inclusive or transparent. And they did it over the summer!
Whenever an institution of higher education wants to make decisions that they
know are unpopular they do it over the summer when no one is around.”
Poskanzer is quick to point out that the ‘breakfast meetings’ were only one of a
variety of meetings he hold with faculty members. “We have large, more formal
faculty meetings once a month where people can ask me any question that is one
their mind,” said Poskanzer. “I also have a series of ‘brown bag’ lunches with
members of the various departments. Then there are more informal lunches; I
might run into someone on campus, get involved in a conversation and then end up
having lunch in a more happenstance fashion. Summer is a good time to sit back,
and take the pulse of what went on during the year. That is why I initiated
several breakfast meetings with seven, eight or sometimes nine different faculty
members, from different departments. I wanted to hear what they were thinking
about. At some of those meetings the topic of student discipline came up, at
other meetings it didn’t come up at all and we discussed green design on campus
or other topics of the day.”
The president said that he was aware of one faculty member who complained that
he was not invited to these meetings and so “I invited him out to lunch to hear
what was one his mind.”
Poskazner claims that there was “certainly nothing nefarious about it. These
weren’t ‘secret’ meetings. This is a small campus community. You can’t have a
meeting or lunch with someone without the entire campus knowing, which is fine.”
Another faculty member claims that freedom of speech is not necessarily limited
by the administration but by the faculty as a whole. “If you take a certain
stance on say affirmative action, on abortion, immigration or gay-marriage you
can become persona-non-grata within the faculty,” he says.
There is a perception that the new administration is moving away from what has
traditionally brought students into its enclave—a strong reputation for scenic
beauty, theatre and the arts, student activism and a sort of quirky funk-factor
on campus as well as the village of New Paltz that is not unique and not easily
replicated in any other SUNY Campus’ or surrounding municipalities.
“They’ve wasted tax-payer’s dollars to defend a law suit brought on by the three
suspended student leaders,” said West. “In an attempt to protect their
reputation they’ve actually damaged it. SUNY New Paltz is one of the most
popular SUNY colleges in the state—in large part because of its reputation as an
institution that is known for its tolerance, its acceptance of free speech and
quirkiness that has existed in New Paltz for 350 years since the Huguenots
arrived. Why try and change that image? It has fostered and spawned some
incredible graduates. Now, students we might want to attract, future political
leaders, might think twice about coming here when they learn what can happen if
you speak out or challenge the administration’s policies.”
When comparing the atmosphere at the college under former president Roger Bowen
to that of current President Poskanzer, one longtime faculty member said that
“Bowen was far from perfect. But he was always around, walking on campus,
talking to students and faculty. He had been an academic and there was a real
feeling that he had the concerns of the faculty in mind. It was a more academic
community then. There was a sense that he was in the trenches. This President’s
main problem is that he has an inability to listen. There are serious problems
in our department and they’re not improving, no matter how many times we bring
them up.”
Poskanzer believes that SUNY New Paltz does not have one fixed identity. “It is
constantly changing and evolving,” he says. “In 1953 this was a small, almost
entirely female teacher’s college. It was a lily white institution. In the late
60’s and early 70’s it was a more liberal and racially diverse hub than its
surroundings. It reflected the social upheaval, as did many other college’s,
that was being felt across this country. The mid-1980’s was a very different era
on campus. Students were much more focused on their careers. It was a ‘me’
decade.”
As for his characterization of SUNY New Paltz in 2006/2007?
“We have stronger academic students,” he says. “We have terrific faculty. Both
of which are key ingredients to a great college. We also have a sense of place.
We identify with the Shawangunk Mountains, the Hudson Valley region. This is a
wonderful, small town that nurtures our students. And we are only a train-ride
away to one of the greatest cities on earth. This is a campus where students are
free to be themselves—to be open, questioning, curious.”
Several faculty members interviewed by the New Paltz Times feel that the way the
administration handled the situation with the three suspended student leaders
was disastrous.
“They dealt with it horribly,” said one faculty member. “But it was easy to see
this coming. There were two sides coming into the election [the student
government elections.] When the side that had ideas contrary to the
administration won, they got railroaded out. This particular student [former
President Justin Holmes] and President Poskanzer are ironically very similar.
But the President is an adult. His job was to use diplomacy in this case.
Instead he helped to escalate things further. The atmposphere on campus reflects
that atmosphere of the country right now. Bullying seems to be the method of
choice rather than the so-called “democratic spirit” and diplomacy. That is
unfortunate.”
The President claims that in his twenty year’s experience being involved with
college administration “any time a student gets disciplined for misbehavior they
don’t like it,” he says. “Now we live in an age that is more litigious. But we
want this to be a campus community where people are respectful, thoughtful and
civil towards one another. [The three student leaders were suspended for
allegedly ‘harassing’ a member of the Residence Life staff after they won the
election. The students have filed an article 78 with the federal courts claiming
that they were unfairly targeted for their activism and that their right to due
process was violated. The verdict is still out.] “If anyone violates those norms
there will be consequences. I think that when anyone looks at the all of the
papers filed with the federal courts they will see a long pattern of what’s been
going on with these students.”
The same faculty member who claimed that while Poskanzer had great ideas, that
he was not bringing the faculty along with him, said that in the case of the
three student leaders, the administration might have been trying to cover
something up, particularly the misappropriation of funds and a directive to
influence the student elections.
“I’ve reviewed all of the documents and I can not understand how any of these
students could have been found guilty of harassment,” the faculty member said.
“I think that the administration was very concerned about what these students
were doing to their image. Many faculty members were upset when the read the
newspaper reports that the students were entertaining the idea of a ‘student run
militia.’ I thought it was a late April Fool’s joke. Also, Justin [Holmes] is
like a dog with a bone. You keep thinking he’ll give up and just come back next
year when his suspension runs out, but he doesn’t. He keeps digging and digging
and the administration could have been concerned with what information he turned
up.”
In fact, Holmes has an
entire biography on President Poskanzer that he put
together on wikipaltz, a
student-run site that he helped to create. The site has videos, articles,
documents, photos—a compilation of material Holmes and others have put together
about student life, student governance, the current administration and their own
suspension case. It is a widely popular site.
“It was Justin that first discovered, or at least made known that
Poskanzer was one of the five authors of the report on Roger Bowen and the
[1997] women’s studies conference [where Bowen was chastised by State SUNY
leaders for allowing a conference that explored sexuality in less than
traditional ways. This fight went all the way to 60 Minutes with Bowen
defending academic freedom],” continued the faculty member. “No one knew that
when he was campaigning for the Presidency here. I think that makes him look
less than candid. Some people would have agreed with him others would not have,
but regardless, it was Holmes that put this information out there.
“So the question in their mind might be, what else will he uncover?”
Poskanzer believes the notion floating around that some members of the
administration or Residence Life somehow “influenced” the student elections, is
dubious.
“What does ‘influence’ mean? If it means stuffing ballot boxes than yes, that’s
a problem,” the President says. “If it means sharing views and opinions on the
issues of the day than that seems more in line with freedom of speech and
academic freedom now doesn’t it? The students claiming that there was
‘influence’ on the elections, won those elections! And let’s remember, not a
whole lot of students turn out for these elections; they’re not very robust. I
wish we had students voting in mass, whether here or at home, wherever they feel
most politically invested. That would be a good thing.
With the exception of the 2004 Presidential elections, the student turn-out at
the voting booths has been very low, reaching an all-time low of approximately
90 voters in the 2005 general elections.
Facilities
There are residents who believe that SUNY New Paltz, our largest employeer, is a
great economic engine for both New Paltz and the surrounding area. They don’t
begrudge them their tax-exempt status, or there ability as a State Institution
to avoid going through any local planning board review process when they
construct new facilities or renovate old ones.
There are others who continuously complain that SUNY doesn’t play by the same
rules, costs the tax-payers money in terms of the increased need for police,
emergency services [the village had to purchase a special ladder truck to be
able to reach the faculty tower and administration building’s top floors] and
yet pay no local taxes.
Regardless of which side residents fall on, or if they fall somewhere in the
middle, they are keenly aware of the facilities that campus has and whether or
not the community is given access to those facilities.
There is a perception that the college has been slowly eroding community access
to these facilities, from use of its theatres for rehearsals and productions by
local theatre groups, to the loss of ball fields for community athletic leagues,
to the loss of the “tripping fields” for the annual Fourth of July fireworks
display. All of these amenities were once provided to the community for free,
but for various reasons, are no longer offered.
Poskanzer said he could speak to all of the issues mentioned above. “I will
start from the premise that the constituency we are here to serve first and
foremost are our students,” said the President. “In the past the administration,
going back to Alice and Bowen did not pay great attention to the size and needs
of our students and it has escalated since then. We are seeing an increase in
student demand.”
The fireworks he said, “were wonderful. I loved being able to watch them on our
own campus. But we also had the community imploring us to create more residence
halls, more housing, to ease the burden of student housing in the village. So we
built more residence halls and in the process lost the field where the fireworks
used to be,” he said.
Because of the construction of new residence halls, Poskanzer said that SUNY’s
fields have shrunk in size. “We’re also seeing more demand for their use from
our students. Our students are increasingly more interested in fitness and
living healthy lifestyles whether that means they’re playing dodge ball,
paintball, rock-climbing, using the gym…”
The president also noted that when the contractor finished the new wellness and
fitness center they were supposed to complete and grade some of the fields on
the southern end of campus. “They did not do a good job and we are involved in a
dispute with them on that issue right now,” he reported. “So those fields on the
southern most end of campus have not been opened for student use or non-student
use.”
As for denying access to the new wellness/fitness center which opened a year
ago, President Poskanzer said that they “first wanted to get a handle on how
heavy the student use would be. Right now it is available for students, staff
and faculty. It is paid for by student recreation fees…now that we’ve been given
a year to analyze the usage we believe that we can open it up to faculty
spouses.”
When asked about the tennis courts and their availability to the community, Eric
Gullickson, the spokesperson for the college said,
As you may remember, after the 21
courts were refurbished for the Empire Games in '05, they were reopened to the
community free-of-charge- under the condition that they were not damaged,” he
explained. “Since then there have
been a number of occasions where scuff marks have damaged the surface of the
courts; there was a lock stolen and there has been misuse by skateboard and
roller blade users.”
He added that “the North Courts are our competition courts where our
championship
women's tennis program practices and hosts all of their home matches. In
addition, these courts are nearby our student locker room, a facility that
exists to support our whole student body.”
According to Gullickson, it was decided that “because we are trying to protect a
serious
investment, we would close the front nine courts (North Courts) to the public
while still offering access to the back 12 courts (South Courts)free-of-charge.”
As
for the use of the pool, Poskanzer claims that “we are not out to make a profit
off of community members or swim clubs for the use of our pool. We charge what
we need to pay for maintenance, lifeguards and staff. We have provided more
hours for the New Paltz High school swim team this year and charge them a very
low rate.”
Chris
Joyce, a member of the Hawks Swimming board, a children’s year-round swim club
that is one of many community organizations like the high-school team or the
Master’s Swim club and YMCA that rent the pool, believes that they are making a
profit.
“The
pool is a fixed cost to the college,” says Joyce. “It costs the same (except for
janitors and lifeguards) whether it’s used or not. I think that the college is
looking on the club as a revenue source. To have almost tripled the fees in a
five year period, with no improvements having been made to the pool, is rather
harsh.”
Joyce
reported that in 2003/2004 the hawks paid $4,500 for the use of the pool. In
2006/2007 they will pay $12,304.75. “And it’s scheduled to increase 10 percent
in the next two years,” he said. Joyce went on to note that all of the other
area swim clubs pay no fees to use indoor pools except for the Hawks. “It costs
one swimmer $177 just to be able to use the pool.”
Candidness and Transparency
How
candid is the President? How transparent and forthcoming? Depends who you talk
to. From the New Paltz Times perspective, Poskanzer is forthcoming once you’ve
scheduled an interview. Recently it took two weeks to find a slot in his
schedule to conduct an interview and the NP Times provided a summary of
questions to Gullickson before hand so that the President could prepare.
When
asked if he feels he leans to heavily on Gullickson as a spokesperson, Poskanzer
said he did not. “I’ve worked on a lot of college campuses and it is common,
appropriate practice to have a public relations department and a spokesperson,”
he said. “The main reason is because I don’t always have the variety of
information people want at any given moment. That’s Eric’s job. Now I’d be
worried if reporters were not getting the information they needed, but they are
getting it and when I can, I sit down with the press and talk to them like we’re
doing right now.”
Poskanzer did add that unlike other community leaders the New Paltz Times
mentioned as those who responded directly to phone calls by the press, like
supervisor Toni Hokanson or Village Mayor Jason West, Glenn Hoagland of the
Preserve, Maria Rice from the Central School District, or even Congressman
Maurice Hinchey, he is “running a 100 million institution.”
Recently there was a protest outside his office and he refused to come out and
meet with students. But Gullickson has said that it was not the appropriate
occasion for Poskanzer to meet with students, nor did he feel it would have been
productive since he had just finished an hour-long meeting with members of the
student government where they could ask him any question they wanted to.
“Is
he candid? No,” said an anonymous faculty member. “Is he transparent? No,” he
continued. “Forthcoming? Absolutely not. He provides canned answers. There’s a
sense that he’s not very sincere or truly listening. He will ask questions to
faculty like ‘what is the worst?’ about this or ‘what is the best thing?’ about
that. He is charming, and bright, but he is not candid.”
When
sitting down with the New Paltz Times, Poskanzer answered every question without hesitation.,
albeit with his spokesperson Eric Gullickson sitting close by taking notes. He
continually went back to what he sees as his major task. “Making this the very
best college I can.”
And
that’s the state of the union at the crossroads of 2006/2007.
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