Case Study: How to Handle a Student Demonstration

A small group of radical students organized a rally to protest tuition increases and other grievances and rallied in front of the administration building. They demanded entry into the building and to see the President. The building was secured by campus police in advance of the rally and the president was, in any case, out of town that day. The Vice President of Student Affairs and I met with campus police and agreed we would leave the building to meet the rally leaders and receive their written demands. We listened politely to each speaker and despite various insults, false statements and personal attacks on me and the president, we remained silent. At the end of the diatribes we accepted the letter of demands and stated that there would be a reply within a week (we actually replied in a few days and was widely distributed). After we left the rally quickly dispersed.

Although the rally leaders were not satisfied with the administration's reply when it came a few days later, which was firm but respectfully addressed each demand no matter how absurd, and tried to hold further rallies, they were unable to arouse any interest for follow up demonstrations. With no arrests, without being to claim that they were not heard by senior leaders, and without being able to claim that the demands were ignored, they had little more to say and the group was barely heard from for the rest of the academic year.

Lessons learned:

1. Respect the right to protest, even when they ask for or say things that are offensive or silly
2. Treat the leaders and the group with respect, even if you believe that they do not represent a significant number of students
3. Never lose your cool, no matter what they say (though you can, as I did, quietly inform the leadership how counterproductive tossing insults is when you are asking for something)
4. Make sure that the campus police give them lots of breathing room; only intervene when necessary for safety and only arrest when its a serious offense. No matter how you justify it, it rarely helps a college to arrest its own students during an otherwise peaceful protest. Of course, violence must be dealt with, but it is important for security officers not to over-react. 
5. Don't provide responses right away -- delay the response for a few days so you can give a well thought out written response, make sure that it is widely distributed and is respectful even if they aren't - always have the upper hand on respectfulness. Remember, even Dumbledore was polite to Draco Malfoy even as the latter sought to kill his teacher. You can't be too polite; it is very disarming.

Case Study: Law School Admissions

The law school admissions is ridden with tension for applicants, and for admissions offices too. Until recently at CUNY, the process, like at all law schools, started when students filled out an electronic form when they registered for the Law School Admission Test. CUNY, however, also had students fill out addmisional paper forms , and send or bring a paper check for fees (the school does not accept credit cards). Essays, letters of recommendations and other required documents had to be mailed for the most part, but even those competed online were sent to the school in hard copy by the Law School Admissions Council. All paper files for each applicant were collated and placed into a file, grouped into packets of 10 applicants, and then distributed by hand to members of the admissions committee in sequence. The risks were high: papers or whole packets could get misplaced, tracking systems were imperfect and consumed enormous amounts of staff time. Thousands of pages were copied annually, creating huge amounts of paper waste, storage problems and high costs for managing the amount of files. Each year, the files filled multiple cabinets and tens of boxes were sent to off-site storage. Boxes piled up in the space-starved admissions office during and after the review process.

Many schools had turned to paperless admissions, and CUNY was planning to implement a PeopleSoft admissions package sometime on the future, but with no assurances that it would meet the law school's needs for a start-to-finish application.

After reviewing the options it became clear that the optimal solution was to utilize functionality built into the LSAC system that all law students were already using for the LSAT to move to a fully web-based admissions process and eliminate all paper. All submissions and reviews would take place in the LSAC online system, payment by credit card would be processed online by LSAC and remitted to the school (the school raised its fee to cover the processing cost). built in work-flow eliminated all internal paper processing, leaving only the last step (the letter of admission) to be on paper, and even that is expected to go the way of the buggy whip shortly.

Over the course of the next few years, tens of thousands of sheets of paper and thousands of person-hours will be saved, leading to productivity savings, a reduction in storage needs (and costs), and reduced risk. The only costs were for minor computer upgrades (dual-screen monitors). The system will be able to be integrated into the PeopleSoft admissions product so that once admitted, student data will be seamlessly transmitted from LSAC into PeopleSoft, avoiding the re-entry of data that has already been captured by the school. This will further reduce the need for paper records by the registrar. While there was some resistance to the new system at first, most admissions staff and committee reviewers are pleased with the new efficiency. And the office is a lot neater too.

Case Study: Recycling Calendar shifts to Google

When the Town of Teaneck increased its recycling collection to bi-weekly from monthly and began to collect all paper and plastics, metal and glass, there was confusion. Special collections were not listed in the calendar published online and the different zones made it hard for people to keep track of when to put out materials, especially for people who rely on phone or PC-based calendars. The Advisory Commission on Sustainability used its own website, Google Calendar and Facebook to publish electronic calendars so that a resident could download and print, or use their online calendar program (Google, Yahoo, iPhone, Blackberry, Outlook etc) to subscribe to calendars for just their zone plus special pickups for hazardous materials, electronics, etc. Electronic calendars are easy for the town to update, and updates automatically appear on everyone's calendar when a date changes. The calendars made for a good angle for press coverage of the launch of the Website, with information on "greening" homes and businesses.

Case Study: City College High School of Math Science and Engineering

CUNY agreed with the NYC Board of Education to place a high school for high achieving students on the campus at City College. Initially housed in temporary buildings, the high school sought a permanent location, but faculty and students at the college objected to giving up space for the school. Disagreements among different factions of the administration stymied the ability of the college to find a permanent home for the school. The school also kept increasing the amount of space it sought, while resentment grew among college students about reduced access to the cafeteria and gym. Finally, the temporary buildings used by the high school had to be demolished to allow the college to build a new building so space had to be found quickly. 

After a review of the high schools needs and classroom standards, I shifted the decision making away from the various fighting units and led a team at the college to come up with several alternatives to present to the President. The best one allowed the college to shift several units out of an older building that was not meeting their needs into better spaces in underutilized but more accessible buildings. This allowed for the high school to renovate space over the summer that, for the first time, housed most of their program in a single location with separate entrances and security. A long term plan was put in place to provide the college an option to relocate the high school to another building on campus should the need for space require reclaiming the space initially given to the high school. 

In the end, the consolidation of space was better for the high school, better for the college services that were relocated, and, after further negotiation over times for the use of the gym and cafeteria were concluded, tensions between college and high school students subsided significantly.