NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
WASHINGTON SQUARE NEWS Vol. 41, No. 22
MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013
nyunews.com
No confidence vote delibrations begin among CAS faculty By NICOLE BROWN
Today is the first of a five-day no confidence vote among the Faculty of Arts and Science against university president John Sexton. All fulltime tenured and tenure-track CAS faculty members, approximately 650 professors, will be eligible to cast an up-down vote for or against the statement “The Faculty of Arts and Science has no confidence in John Sexton’s leadership.” The NYU chapter of the American Association of University Professors drafted a Bill of Rights, which laid out suggestions of what
the faculty should expect of the university’s leadership. Social and cultural analysis professor and NYU-AAUP President Andrew Ross explained that the document was meant to start a conversation about NYU’s leadership. But according to Ross, the university has failed to react. The document has been circulated widely, to faculty, to student senators, members of the administration, and to trustees,” Ross said. “There has been no response from the administration.” Additionally, associate professor of history Rebecca Karl cited
increases in student debt, a neglect of human rights issues in Abu Dhabi and the growing gap between the salaries of the administration and faculty. “[Sexton] has failed to take substantive measures that indicate that he might actually understand the concerns many faculty have with his policies and direction,” Karl said. But the clash of the university administration and faculty is not new. Chair of the FAS faculty senators Jim Uleman pointed to longstanding conflicts that stemmed from the university’s decision to
expand the campus and increase student admission. “The reasons for voting no-confidence that I hear most are about the NYU 2031 plan, the way the Global Network University is being managed and the general topdown management style of this administration,” he said. At the same time the formation of the 120 large NYU Faculty Alliance to negotiate faculty concerns with the administration, and a new NYU Global Network University faculty committee
COURTESY OF NYU
Around 650 faculty can vote CONFIDENCE continued on PG. 3 on Sexton’s performance.
Spending cuts to affect NYU financial aid By SOFIA FERRANDIZ
NYU is among the higher education institutions in America that will experience cuts in government funding as a result of the sequester that took effect March. 1. President Obama and the parties in Congress have worked to reduce the country’s deficit by more than $2.5 trillion through increased tax rates and spending cuts. Congress passed a law in 2011 agreeing to $1 trillion in automatic cuts if Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion in 2013. “The whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually work together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth,” Obama said in a public statement. The federal budget cuts, which occurred without action by Congress, will reduce federal
financial aid for students and research funding at public and private universities. According to the White House, California will be hit the hardest with 9,600 students losing federal aid. About 4,520 students in New York will also lose federal assistance, although tuition rates and Pell Grants are said to remain the same. NYU will lose an estimated total of $22.86 million of federal funding for the Washington Square campus, NYU Langone Medical Center and Polytechnic Institute of NYU, according to Philip Lentz, director of public affairs. Cuts will impact student aid at the university, research at both the university and Medical center and Medicare for the Medical Center. Lentz also said financial aid coming in the forms of federal work-study, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and Teach
SEQUESTER continued on PG. 3
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
COURTESY OF SLATE PR | DEEKSHA MEHTA FOR WSN
Legos serve as building blocks for In Pieces exhibit NYU School of Law alumnus Nathan Sawaya and photographer Dean West combine their skills to create interesting photographs. Their exhbit In Pieces takes a close look at the themes of society, nature and identity.
STORY ON PAGE 4
SEARCHING FOR MANKIND’S NEXT GIANT LEAP: After the giant strides scientists have made in understanding natural laws, current advances can seem rather uninspiring compared to other periods of history. CICCONET on PG. 7