VOICES ON THE QUAD
By Jocelyn Visnov, Editor-in-Chief & Grace Cardinal, Asst. News Editor
Manhattan College recently announced the merger of the School of Health Professions, the Kakos School of Science and the School of Liberal Arts, which will be combined into one school known as the Kakos School of Arts and Sciences. This announcement raised a number of questions and concerns about the transition from students, especially regarding the future of liberal arts disciplines and issues of transparency.
The Quadrangle spoke with liberal arts students regarding their concerns and frustrations about the transition.
Jocelyne Alfred, junior
English literature and childhood education major
The Quadrangle: How do you feel about the merger with SOLA and Kakos School of Sciences?
Jocelyne Alfred: I feel really blindsided because we [education majors] were originally separated from the Health Sciences and then my advisors got switched, and now we’re switching back which is also a little bit confusing. And there’s like, no transparency with any of the faculty members, they don’t even know what’s going on.
TQ: What is your biggest concern regarding the arts?
JA: Mostly the diversity, especially when it comes to classes that are meant to be diverse and talk about diverse populations. Because what I’ve witnessed in the last couple of semesters, where we have professors that will teach like ethnic literature, but then think that’s a free pass. We have professors of color that are being silenced and want to lead these classes, but instead they’re given to their white counterparts. So as a black student, this really does concern me because where is my future if not in the hands of those who are meant to protect us?
TQ: How do you feel about how changes have been communicated to students?
JA: We’re mostly told we’ll wait and see, or “we understand your frustrations” or we’re just told to talk to our advisors or talk to these people, but it’s like, what can they [advisors] do if you got the higher ups aren’t really like talking and communicating?
TQ: Is there anything else you would like to add?
JA: I hope this school gets better in terms of transparency with their students and really values us as people as opposed to just wallets.
Keira Rheinheimer, freshman
sound studies major
The Quadrangle: How do you feel about the merger with SOLA and Kakos School of Sciences?
Keira Rheinheimer: I’m frustrated and mostly confused. I feel like we have not heard a lot of the reasoning behind this. And I feel the decision itself is one thing but not knowing anything about it has made it really frustrating. Ever since we have voiced our concerns or had questions about it, they weren’t answered and now it feels like bad things are happening. I’ve been hearing all the rumors and discussions about it and none of it’s making me feel good. So I’m definitely a little worried and concerned about the well-being of the program that I’m in.
TQ: What is your biggest concern regarding the arts?
KR: I’m concerned about the class limitations a lot [referring to the new policy of a 15 student enrollment minimum for a class to run] because I have already experienced it. We have this thing called the Album Class, and that doesn’t function very well when there’s 18 people in it, it functions really well when there’s 10 or less, and that’s gonna be really tough. Part of the reason I picked the school was for the small class sizes was for one-on-one time with professors.
TQ: How do you feel these changes are being communicated with students?
KR: I don’t feel well about it, I think the communication is poor and that’s upsetting to me … If it’s this hard for the student government to talk to administration, there’s a problem. The administration should not be this separated from the school. Especially as a small school and a community, it’s really going against what I believed the school was about, and that’s really frustrating.
Maggie Knapp, sophomore
digital media arts major/philosophy minor
The Quadrangle: How do you feel about the merger with SOLA and Kakos School of Sciences?
Maggie Knapp: So I think it is so detrimental to the confidence of the students who are in the School of Liberal Arts especially, because what it seems like based on the opinions of faculty, my peers, you know, even the opinions of of employees is that this is an attack on the School of Liberal Arts. So, as a student, it makes me feel personally attacked and also with my confidence, it makes me feel like my major and my minor are getting really hit hard right now. It makes me feel like I’m not important to the president, to the administration, to whoever is making these decisions. We don’t even know who made these decisions, like concretely, and it makes me feel like what I’m learning and what I’m studying is not valued here. And it, quite frankly, makes me feel even more ready to leave.
TQ: What is your biggest concern regarding the arts?
MK: Manhattan College is a liberal arts institution. We are also a religious institution and our theological school is within our School of Liberal Arts, so the arts are foundational in the learning here on campus. You see liberal arts integrated into every single school, there’s an arts requirement for every single school to complete…With the recent merger, it kind of feels like these four schools that got bumped together were the scraps, like we are bottom of the barrel… Personally as an art student, it completely feels like I am not important to the school, the school does not care about me, this school does not want me here anymore.
TQ: How do you feel about how changes have been communicated to students?
MK: There’s no line of communication. Absolutely zero…Everything else has been organized by clubs and interdisciplinary groups and there’s no direct streamline of information that hasn’t been filtered through peers or faculty, there’s nothing direct and there’s nothing official. It also feels like there was no effort for collaboration in making these decisions either. So not only is there the lack of transparency, but that revealed that there was no involvement with anyone in the school who would actually be impacted by this. So we don’t know who made this decision, we don’t know the reasons why and we don’t know who was involved with the decision making practice or process because clearly, it was not faculty. It was not students.
TQ: Ideally, how would you like to see things being handled differently?
MK: I think with making decisions like this, there needs to be a clear outline of the plan before it’s revealed to the student body. …There needs to be some responsibility in the administration and there needs to be some direct accountability. I think going forward, I would like to see our schools kind of dissected. I would like to see a separate school of science, a separate school of arts and a separate School of Public Health like we were promised this year. And I think that the general consensus of the student body would agree. I would like to see the president more involved with our school…We need to see more involvement from our administration to begin with, because I can’t even name anyone besides Milo Riverso right now, and that’s only because I’m mad at him… There needs to be forums held like this that are held by administration. The fact that the student government has to organize these town halls and it isn’t the administration doing this is absurd. It’s ridiculous. It’s unfair to students. When making these decisions in the future, faculty and students and staff need to be involved. There needs to be a student government in that room when they’re deciding, hey, let’s merge the schools together. The major departments that are affected need to be involved.
Cristina Pilon, sophomore
political science and international studies major
The Quadrangle: How do you feel about the merger with SOLA and Kakos School of Sciences?
Cristina Pilon: I’m scared right now because I don’t have information, my point right now is should I transfer, like what’s going on? I need to make a decision on whether I stay or whether I transfer and my possibilities on transferring are either transferring to another US institution or going back to my country, which if I go back to my country, all the money I paid basically, it’s gone because none of my credits will transfer. If I transferred to another US institution, some of my credits might not transfer so then I’d need to stay more. It’s gonna take me longer so then my visa might expire. Even if I’m able to graduate on time by transferring, my visa says, I go to Manhattan College. So every time I come to [the country] they ask me, Are you still part of here? I need a signature from the school every time I leave the country to be able to reenter. So if I transfer then there’s this possibility every time I come in, I might not be able to or might but with a lot of difficulties. I just need information. I need to know what’s going on to make a decision. It’s not a clear decision right now.
TQ: What is your biggest concern regarding the arts?
CP: I feel like all these programs are like, oh, we don’t care about you. We are important and I don’t think people understand what [role] arts play in society. We’re the part that cannot be replaced by a robot…I think what they are doing is [saying] no, don’t go into liberal arts. Stay away from it. And even if you chose to, because you want to and you see the future of it, we’re just gonna make it harder for you, which I think is the opposite of what we should be doing.
TQ: How do you feel about how things are being communicated to students?
CP: I think right now there’s zero communication, it’s one sided, and it’s like, who has the information? It’s letting go of bits and pieces of what they want us to know. I know they have more information than oh, we’re just merging you together. Like what are the reasons why, why, what is going to happen? We don’t even know who made the decision. I think communication right now is non-existent. I feel if students had the information, we wouldn’t be freaking out.
TQ: Ideally, how would you like to see things being handled differently?CP: Communication, I just want to have the information. I understand there might be causes that we don’t know right now that make this decision need to happen, for whatever reasons, but I want to understand why. Because at the end of the day, these decisions affect us, affect our education. I need to know what’s going on.