‘CUNY Plans Online Push To Entice Students’

While I am concerned and was accurately quoted about the academic rigor of any on-line Bachelor of Arts degree, I do think it is possible for the City University of New York faculty to figure out how to develop such a degree [“CUNY Plans Online Push To Entice Students To Return,” Jacob Gershman, Page 1, October 6, 2005].

My concern is who at CUNY will develop such a degree and how. Although there are 12 CUNY colleges that grant B.A. degrees and offer approximately 200 courses on line, the proposed degree is being constructed centrally and will be offered centrally by the School of Professional Studies, a new school that was recently formed to offer professional graduate training and that employs no faculty except to teach on a course-by-course basis. Faculty are being hired through the SPS to develop curriculum rather than the curriculum being developed at the colleges through existing structures.

While the universities mentioned in the article do offer online degrees (Illinois, Maryland, and Penn State), none offers them in the same way that CUNY proposes, isolated from an existing faculty. Undergraduate degrees need to be rooted in a permanent faculty with a stake in the quality of the degree to ensure that our students get the best possible education.

SUSAN O’MALLEY
Chair
City University of New York Faculty Senate
Trustee ex officio
Manhatttan

‘Higher-Priced Groceries Act’

I couldn’t agree more with your analysis that “the linkage of health insurance and employment lingers on as a relic of the last century, an oddity increasingly out of place in an economy in which workers frequently change jobs or are self-employed as independent contractors.” Unfortunately, we are unlikely to gain national health care, which would solve this problem, any time soon [“The Higher-Priced Groceries Act,” Editorial, October 11, 2005].

By passing the Health Care Security Act, the City Council has admirably done what it can to begin to address the health care crisis. HCSA will protect responsible grocers who offer health insurance from competition from the small minority of their competitors who shirk their responsibility and instead let taxpayers pick up the cost of their healthcare. It will also make sure that thousands of workers get access to healthcare.

NY Jobs with Justice is a permanent coalition of over 75 unions and community organizations that advocates to promote social, racial, and economic justice for all New Yorkers. NY Jobs with Justice organized a coalition of business leaders, labor unions, health policy advocates, religious leaders, and community groups to support an increase in employer sponsored health coverage as a solution to the growing crisis of the uninsured.

One of the key lessons that we must learn from hurricane Katrina is that the “every-person-for-themselves, go-it-alone” philosophy for addressing the critical issues of our time is a failed approach. When catastrophic issues confront the people of this country or this city, whether hurricanes or healthcare, it is entirely appropriate for government to act.

ADRIANNE SHROPSHIRE
Executive Director
NY Jobs with Justice
Manhattan

‘Senate To Probe Saudi Hate’

I read with interest “Senate Will Probe Saudi Distribution of Hate Materials” [Meghan Clyne, Page 1, October 5, 2005]. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an inde pendent federal agency, welcomes this important undertaking by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The USCIRF has reported publicly for years its concern about the precise role of the government of Saudi Arabia in propagating globally an ideology that advocates violence and religious hatred and that helps recruit future terrorists.

In 2003, the commission recommended that Congress request the Government Accountability Office to undertake a comprehensive review of whether the U.S. is adequately tracking Saudi exportation of violence and intolerance. An unclassified version of that report has just been released to the public.

For the past five years, the USCIRF has recommended that the State Department designate Saudi Arabia as a “country of particular concern,” which is described under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 as a country that engages in or tolerates systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.

Last year, the State Department finally designated Saudi Arabia as a Country of Particular Concern. The commission urges the State Department to achieve concrete results in their negotiations with the Saudis as required by this designation.

The commission has also made specific recommendations to address the exportation of this ideology of intolerance, among them that the U.S. government should request the Saudi government to provide an accounting of what kinds of support go to which religious schools, mosques, centers of learning, and other religious organizations globally, including in the U.S.

MICHAEL CROMARTIE
Chair
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Washington, D.C.

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