Dear colleagues,
Below is the text of an open letter I sent earlier today to Frank Wu (and others) regarding the inept, callous, and wholly unacceptable response to the credible threat to our campus community this past Wednesday.
I know that many of you are as infuriated as I am over this utter disregard for our safety and welfare. If you have your own accounts you would like to share, or if you just need to vent, please reach out to us at [email protected] and come to our next chapter meeting, on April 15th, where we will be discussing these events and our actions in response to them.
In the meantime, stay safe and look out for each other.
In solidarity,
Erica Doran, Chair, PSC Queens College Chapter
President Wu,
I write this letter on behalf of myself, the PSC Queens College chapter’s members (and entire bargaining unit) I represent, and the Queens College community as a whole to express my extreme distress and outrage over what unfolded Wednesday, March 25th, on our campus.
At 9:01 this morning, several administrative email accounts – including Admissions, Academic Advising, the Vice President of Student Affairs, and the Aaron Copland School of Music – received an email containing what appeared to be a threat of violent action to begin at 10:30 am (I have heard rumors that there were additional threats received, but have been unable to verify this). Yet you did not disseminate any warning or alert to the larger community. Instead, our faculty, staff, and students continued to arrive on campus as usual, with no hint of possible danger.
Clearly you believed this threat to be credible. The Middle States Read Out, which was initially set to occur in the LeFrak Concert Hall (located in the Music Building where the Aaron Copland School of Music is situated) at 10:00 am, was abruptly removed to the Goldstein Theater. The disingenuous explanation for the removal was “overflow,” a dubious assertion at best given that the two venues have very similar capacities (in fact, it appears LeFrak Concert Hall has a slightly larger seating capacity), you had been advised that LeFrak has the capacity to livestream events to overflow rooms, and according to attendees, the venue was less than 25% filled at the time. I understand that once at Goldstein, attendees were required to exit the building and re-enter through a metal detector, again attesting to your belief in the credibility of the threat. Ultimately, you opted to move the Middle States Read Out to an online format due to concerns surrounding this threat. Finally, it is my understanding that Kiely Hall, the building housing the administrative offices, was evacuated and inspected by the NYPD.
Despite your obvious concerns, however, you continued to keep the rest of the community in the dark. You did not send out a campus-wide alert. You did not evacuate other buildings (not even the rest of the Music Building, although you seemed to feel the concert hall located there was unsafe for occupants, and that program was directly sent the threatening email). The only information you sent out came from Interim Vice President Hahn, who sent out an email entitled “Zoom Link for Middle States Exit Report Readout.” Due to the subject line of the email, it is safe to presume that the majority of our campus community did not even open that email. If they had, however, they likely would not have read past the link, and therefore would not have seen the sole notification provided regarding this event. Specifically, the email stated that “[t]ransition [to Zoom] was made out of an abundance of caution after anonymous threats were received by the college this morning” and that “[w]e have determined that the campus is safe for occupancy.” The email closed with an exhortation to the community to “continue all activities as scheduled.” Again, that is the full extent of your communication regarding these threats.
This chosen course of conduct is alarming, callous, and unacceptable. If there was a credible threat, it was a threat to not just those in LeFrak, Goldstein, or Kiely, but to all of us. As you know, in meeting after meeting with you and your cabinet, we have raised concerns about many campus safety issues, including specifically the procedure for threats such as this. These concerns arise from many experiences and incidents, but most notably from the very problematic attempted evacuation of the campus in February, 2024, in which (among other things) gates remained locked, cars and pedestrians were allowed to enter campus even while those on campus were attempting to leave, no traffic control procedures were evident, and public safety failed to check at least some areas of refuge to determine if there were people with mobility issues in need of assistance. Clearly, based on your response to the incident on Wednesday, our concerns have not been taken seriously.
Sadly, this is hardly the first time we have felt disregarded. We have raised numerous concerns – safety issues related to the Delany Hall construction and the water pipe break in the Student Union, the inequity of denying step raises with promotion to our colleagues whose promotions fell between contracts, problematic attempts to restrict protests on campus, the flawed and worrisome ARI process currently taking place, the doxxing of an instructor by a member of Congress, and so many more – only to feel our concerns were not heard or were dismissed. It is frustrating and infuriating to see just how little progress we have made, even regarding the most basic issues such as our right to a safe campus environment.
In our meetings, you regularly refer to the instructional staff at Queens College as “your (meaning the PSC’s) members.” And they are my members. I care deeply about their well-being and the well-being of every individual who is part of my campus community. I care about my colleagues. I care about my students. I even care about the administration. I want the best for all of us, and Queens College as a whole. This is why we at the PSC continue to fight.
But these are also members of your workforce, members of the college community that you have been entrusted to lead and protect. Every individual who sets foot on our campus deserves to feel safe. Speaking for myself, learning of what transpired yesterday, the actions not taken, and the lack of forthright communication, I have no confidence that my workplace (and my students’ learning environment) is a safe one, where my well-being is prioritized. This is a terrifying reality to face. One of these days, unfortunately, the threat may be real, and I fear that the outcome will be an avoidable tragedy. I fervently hope that this can be prevented and will continue to work tirelessly toward that end. Our community deserves nothing less from any of us.
This cannot happen again. I am prepared to meet with you if you wish to explain your actions to the campus community and/or to provide information as to what tangible steps you are taking to assure our safety.
Sincerely,
Erica Doran
Chair, PSC Queens College Chapter
Cc:
- Felix V. Matos-Rodriguez, Chancellor of the City University of New York
- Hector Batista, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, City University of New York
- Dennis Cohen, General Counsel and Labor Designee, Queens College
- Troy Hahn, Interim Vice President for Finance and Administration, Queens College
- Vincent Sinclair, Director of Public Safety, Queens College
- James Davis, President, Professional Staff Congress/CUNY
- Ari Paul, Editor, The Clarion
- Shadman Hoque, Editor-in-Chief, The Knight News
- Haidee Chu, The City
- Claudia Irizaary Aponte, The City
- Cayla Bamberger, The Daily News
See also: Our Chapter’s response to to an anonymous petition.
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