Professor calls for essential dialogue between university officials, faculty

Two recent important and related events have occurred at Syracuse University.

1. The University Senate voted that the $7.5 million Big East exit fee should be paid fully by the SU Athletics Department and not taken from academic funds. It was an unprecedented step asking the Board of Trustees to reconsider its decision, a decision made on the advice of the administration, but without public discussion or input.

2. The chancellor and provost have given presentations on the changing future of the university to groups of faculty and to SA. They stressed their desire to have a dialogue on central academic issues.

The administration’s invitation is welcome. If we are to consider major changes in instruction, the insights and views of those who do the teaching and those who are taught should guide any changes.

A genuine dialogue is essential, but that requires that all parties have their voices heard, and everyone must be open to changing their mind when others present compelling arguments and reasons. It has to be a rational back-and-forth between equals.

The Big East exit fee provides a good issue to test how real dialogue might work. The administration presented its proposal and its reasons to the Trustees in January. The Trustees approved that recommendation.

The USen Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee learned of that decision well afterward. It explained why it believed the decision was wrong and raised specific objections against the administration’s arguments.

For example, the administration argued the exit fee should be paid by all because athletics will pay “taxes” on its increased revenue. The committee replied that this would be preferential treatment for athletics since the schools and colleges also pay “taxes” on their increased revenue when they expand enrollment, but they must cover the added costs of instruction from their own budgets. Those costs are not treated as an “all university expense,” and the same should apply to the exit fee.

Having heard both sides of the debate, the senate, by a large majority, supported the Budget Committee’s position.

Thus one would hope the Board of Trustees is open to reconsidering its decision and is eager to hear the full range of arguments, including specific objections to the arguments that guided its thinking in January. Inviting members of the Budget Committee to present its views and its reasons on this matter to the Trustees would seem the rational thing to do.

It would be an example of real dialogue.

Robert Van Gulick

Professor of philosophy and member of the Budget Committee