Op-Ed
Cornellia Obscura: An Institutional Aversion to Daylight Leaves Old Uncle Ezra in Desperate Need of a Sunshine Rule
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Academia is a culture of openness, a culture of scrutiny. It’s a culture of tough questions and uncomfortable answers.
Yet on issue after issue, Cornell’s policy amounts to a betrayal of the values that make it great, a betrayal of its folk status as the “People’s Ivy,” and a betrayal of the admissions office’s pet claim that Cornell is “Elite,” but “Not Elitist.”
The issue lies with the kudzu vine of institutional exclusiveness that is choking open discussion and debate throughout the Cornellian system.
In her most recent column, Ariela Rutkin-Becker ’09 identified the ill effects of a process by which the Trustees divulge their actions only at the whims of the Cornell communications shop. When Trustee minutes are not publicly available, she wrote, tuition hikes and other decisions are not open to public scrutiny. Rutkin-Becker’s column illuminates one facet of a persistent pattern of policies at Cornell that limit democracy and shed any notion of accountability. For years, for example, student calls to publicize course evaluations have gone unanswered.
The method by which Cornell is dealing with the faculty retirement crisis is not nearly public enough. 600 professors will retire over the next 10 years, and their replacements will determine the character of the University for a generation.
But it goes deeper than that. Direct democracy goes hand-in-hand with accountability for public institutions. Each lessens the distance between community members and the decisions that govern their money and their lives. Each fosters openness, discussion and debate. There’s a culture of obstruction that connects Cornell’s refusal to publicize vital information with the fact that the Student Assembly remains a representative body, a body that is therefore unaccountable to a small community of 13,000 undergrads. Representative government is painfully unviable in a community of only 13,000 undergrads. In smaller communities, direct democracy is the best form of self-government. Every Cornellian undergraduate needs to be made a full voting member of a Student Assembly remade in the mold of an open New England town meeting if Cornell is to uphold democracy, accountability and the closeness of community members to the institutions that govern them.
In any community in which each member has a stake, a method of public account is essential to ensure that goals are met and the public trust is not abused. You are not going to start playing Minesweeper while your professor is looking over your shoulder. When they know their actions are public, the Trustees are going to think twice about raising tuition. Academic departments are going to stay on their toes about solving the faculty retirement crisis. In the same way, when the Student Assembly is a direct democracy, community members are going to have their interests translated into power without the help (or hurt) of a middleman.
Cornell lacks institutions that promote public accountability. Institutional apparati through which students have the accessible ability to speak out are terrifyingly limited. Decision-making power in the studentry is virtually nonexistent.
In the face of its dogged culture of obstruction, Cornell needs a Sunshine Rule: a comprehensive agenda by which decisions and processes are made public and decision-makers are held accountable. Let’s move control of information out of the hands of the spin-doctors and into the public market of ideas. Cornellians deserve to know exactly what is going on between Old Uncle Ezra’s mid-19th-Century bed sheets. We deserve a system through which community interests are truly expressed.
A comprehensive Sunshine Rule would:
• Make course evaluations public and searchable online
• Make Trustee minutes public and searchable online
• Reform the Student Assembly in the mold of an open New England town meeting
• Make faculty departures, hirings, firings and grants of tenure public to a greater extent and announce them to the press
• Publicize a freely available audit of the state of the faculty retirement crisis — how many retirements are expected and how many positions have been filled — in each academic department.
If President Skorton’s hippy-dippy image is more than just a clever means to cater to his liberal constituency, he ought to implement a comprehensive program of reforms to promote democracy and free information at Cornell. If he wants a legacy, it lies in a revolutionary overhaul of Cornell’s institutional structures. It lies in the accessibility of the administration’s machinations to the public. It lies in the expression of community interests in a direct, democratic assembly. The “People’s Ivy” must move in the direction of democracy if it is to maintain its integrity — and its vigor.
David Wittenberg ’09 is a Senior Editor at The Sun. He can be contacted at dwittenberg@cornellsun.com. The Scoop appears alternate Thursdays.