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Controversy Simmers Over New
Political Science Executive Officer

James Trimarco

The DSC steering committee recently posted a memorandum to Provost William Kelly and President Frances Horowitz in which it drew attention to a brewing controversy over the new Executive Officer (EO) of the Political Science department, Professor Ruth O’Brien. Dr. O’Brien was appointed to the post at the beginning of Fall 2003 after the former EO, Dr. W. Ofuatey-Kodjoe, left the position. Some students felt that the department was experiencing a lack of advocacy under Dr. Kodjoe’s leadership and hoped that Dr. O’Brien would improve the profile of Political Science at the Graduate Center.

Unfortunately, not all students are happy with the change. According to DSC co-chair for student affairs Carolyn Fisher, many students from the Political Science department have approached the DSC Steering Committee with complaints about Dr. O’Brien. After receiving a number of such complaints, the Steering Committee decided to issue the memo.

Two major incidents concerning Dr. O’Brien have upset Political Science students. The first concerns the department list-serve, which has been active for eight years as a student-only forum. Students are able post to and read messages on the list-serve without fear that their posts will be read by faculty or administration. The Assistant Program Officer (APO), Robert Biondi, has for years held post-only access to the list. According to the DSC memo, “Dr. O’Brien went over the head of the student manager of the list-serve and had Information Resources add her name to the list. Many students felt that their privacy on this list—where O’Brien herself was already a major topic of debate—had been wrongly or even “egregiously” violated.

A more significant problem noted in the DSC memo concerns student funding. Many students claim that they had been promised funding—on a verbal basis—by former EO Kodjoe. But now a different EO is in place and there is no evidence to substantiate these important agreements. Nor is there any indication as to the explicit criteria on which these awards were promised. Students who were under the impression that their financial situation was secure are now finding themselves in a difficult position and, according to some students, Dr. O’Brien has been none too understanding with this group.

On March 22, a meeting between students and Dr. O’Brien was held to negotiate the situation. Dr. O’Brien said at the meeting that Information Resources had accepted responsibility for the list-serve problem. Apparently, an IR employee had mistakenly given Dr. O’Brien access to post the list without understanding the problems this would create. Dr. O’Brien claims to have wanted access in order to send a message to students regarding programmatic changes in the department.

Dr. O’Brien also answered studend questions about funding. She said that the requirements for funding had been changed by an Awards Committee of faculty members with a student representative, and on which she herself sits only ex officio. In particular, a new minimum GPA cutoff point was set last semester. Dr. O’Brien insists that some students who claim they were promised funding do not meet the new formal requirements, which were instituted with an eye for fairly allocating limited resources throughout the department.

Students, however, question the fairness of the new policy. One student in the department described the recent shifts in funding policy as a change from a need-based system to a merit-based system, which the student objected to because it ignores the financial realities of student life.

It is difficult to say just how many students are unhappy with the new EO, and how many are not. However, it’s certain that the department contains a diversity of opinions. For instance, some students have said that they appreciate institutional changes that Dr. O’Brien has introduced, such as decentralizing control over course offerings to the sub-program level and introducing a new Politics in Writing program. Students spoke glowingly of new procedures in the taking of orals, which now focus more on student interests. It’s also important to note that because of the informal style used by the former EO, O’Brien has undoubtedly stepped into a difficult situation.

That said, it is ironic that communication has largely broken down in a department dedicated to understanding structures of power and patterns of institutional negotiation. Students who attack Dr. O’Brien personally—she was reportedly called an “authoritarian” by at least one unhappy student at the meeting—are probably doing little to resolve the substantive problems in the program. However, this does not mean that Dr. O’Brien was right to ask to place herself on the student list-serve or that she has dealt well with students who are desperate for funding. One point on which most students involved seem to agree is that Dr. O’Brien does not listen well to students, and that the shift in funding strategies between the two EOs should have been handled in a way more favorable to student interests.

The DSC is committed to seeing this resolved in a way that is satisfactory to Political Science students. It has called for increased openness in this debate so that it will not be necessary to take student complaints to higher authorities.