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Course Controversy at Hunter

Ohanian Comment: Surely, this account qualifies for The Eggplant--except that it is true. It is the perfect example of Alfie Kohn's dictum that satire is no longer possible.


by Dania Rajendra

The luxury accessories company
Coach paid $10,000 to Hunter College
to offer a Spring 2007 course
on how the counterfeiting of luxury
brands harms society. Hunter
faculty members have charged
that academic freedom was violated,
and the case is currently under
investigation by the Hunter College
Senate.

Senate Chair Richard Stapleford
declined to comment while the investigation
is underway.

Students enrolled in the
class, "Special Public Relations,"
created and executed
a public relations
campaign against counterfeit
goods. Curriculum and
course materials were provided
by Paul Werth Associates,
a public relations
company hired by the International
AntiCounterfeiting
Coalition (IACC), an
industry-funded group. Coach, a
member of the IACC, paid Hunter to
run the course – which featured the
story of a student’s devotion to her
authentic Coach bag.

In the class, an industry representative
chose from among three student
proposals for PR campaigns.
The selected strategy was to create a
fake student personality, "Heidi Cee,"
with a blog of her own (encounter
heidi.blogspot.com/). "Heidi" posted
flyers around the Hunter campus detailing
the loss of her beloved Coach
handbag and offering a $500 reward.
When it's returned, she discovers
someone has swapped her authentic
bag for a fake. Outraged, she learns
about counterfeiting and works to
dissuade Hunter students from purchasing
counterfeit goods.

$1 MILLION
Coach CEO Lew Frankfort, a
Hunter alumnus, has taken a big
role in Hunter College fundraising.
He chairs Hunter President Jennifer
Raab’s "Visioning Cabinet," which
Raab has said "has helped recruit
some of our most prominent alumni"
to aid the college. Frankfort received
an honorary Doctorate of
Humane Letters from Hunter in
May 2007. A few months later, he
and his wife donated $1 million to
the college.

Distinguished Professor Stuart
Ewen said that Raab should not
have been involved in the genesis of
the class. "Her request that the
course be offered by the department
was not guided by scholarly wisdom
but, rather, by the desire to promote
a donation from the CEO of the
Coach corporation," said Ewen, according
to The Envoy, Hunter's student
paper.

Clarion asked Meredith Halpern,
Hunter's executive director of marketing
and communications, whether
Raab had suggested the course.
Halpern declined to answer, saying
only that the IACC course "had been
well received at many other colleges
around the country" and that "because
the course was new, it was developed
in conjunction with the
IACC, whose staff are experts on this
subject."

INDUSTRY EXPERTS
Halpern also declined to say when
discussions began with the Frankforts
about their large donation.

The untenured faculty member
assigned to the class, Assistant Professor
Tim Portlock, told
Clarion that he was pressured
into it over his
objections. The pressure,
Portlock said, came both
from his chair and the
Hunter administration.
Film and media studies
department Chair James
Roman gave a different
account, insisting that
there was no attempt to
pressure Portlock. "I've never
forced anyone to teach any class,"
he told Clarion.

What is undisputed is that the
course became part of the curriculum
in the department of film and
media studies without any formal
faculty discussion – not required for
experimental courses, Roman told
Clarion. But Ewen, a department
member and former chair, said,
"This course wasn't developed by a
faculty member. It should have been
passed before the faculty." The department
has since instituted a policy
that the faculty must approve all
sponsored courses, Roman said.

Work on the class began in Fall
2006. Portlock said that when Roman
asked him to teach the class and presented
him with a packet of course
materials, he replied that he didn't
want to teach it and wasn't qualified.
Portlock holds two Masters of Fine
Arts, one in art and one in studio visualization."I might as well have
been asked to teach biology or history,"
he said.

Next, Portlock received an e-mail
from a staff member in Hunter's Office
of External Affairs, which said
that according to Roman, he had
volunteered to teach the course.
This wasn't true, Portlock said this
April, and he again told Roman he
didn't want to do so: "But he told
me, 'You're going to teach this
class.'"

The junior faculty member said
he was worried about the ethics of
the course and was concerned it
would be controversial. But with his
chair insisting he teach the class, he
said, he felt he had no alternative.

CONCERN
"My main concern was that if the
president's office was really invested
in the class, how am I going to get
through this so that it's not a failure?"
he told Clarion.

Portlock said that when he met
with the Office of External Affairs
staffer, "I explained to her that there
were academic freedom issues with
teaching the class," and that he
planned to include "some critical
perspectives."

"A few days later," Portlock said,
"I get a message from [the chair] on
my machine: 'You are going to teach
this class according to the protocols
in the packet.'"

"The packet" is the "Professor/
Faculty Advisor Project Kit," a 34-
page document from Werth detailing
how to conduct the class. It
states that IACC "is partnering with
the students in your program in a
client/agency relationship. We are
the client; your students are the
agency."

Given his lack of experience with
PR, Portlock had asked for a coteacher
and was assigned an adjunct.
In planning for the class, he
said, "there was communication between
me, the co-teacher and the PR
company, culminating in a phone
meeting."

Werth/IACC representatives had
said, "Oh, you should teach all perspectives,"
Portlock recalled. But
when he suggested adding a section
on arguments that counterfeiting
might not be wrong, "I got a really
strong message: this is not why
we’re giving you $10,000."

"One of the things I said on the
phone was, 'I want to get alternate
perspectives. What about people
who have to do this out of economic
necessity?'" Portlock said. Their
response was, "'So, you think
you're going to get some Senegalese
guy to come unroll his mat
for your students?'"

"I actually was going to get a
'Senegalese guy,'" Portlock told
Clarion, because he has connections
in the Senegalese community.
After that comment, he abandoned
the idea. He said the PR firm shot
down all his ideas that differed from
the industry perspective.
The course kit requires "routine
updates to keep us informed about
your progress....While we don't need
to approve every aspect, we'd like
the opportunity to review plans and
creative work." An industry representative
attended class several times.

Roman, the department chair, disputed
Portlock's account on several
points. He did not order Portlock to
teach the class, he told Clarion, and
had never said "you're going to
teach this class."

"That's not part of my mandate as
the chair of this department," he
said. "That's not the way I lead."

FROM ADMINISTRATION
The original idea for the course
came "through someone from the
administration," Roman explained;
he said he did not remember exactly
whom. He maintained that he had
not pressured Portlock in any way,
and had not directed him to teach
the class strictly according to the
materials in the industry packet.
"Frankly, I wasn't familiar with
those protocols," Roman added.

He said that Portlock's internet experience
made him a good choice to
teach the class. The adjunct assigned
to the class, Roman said, was selected
because he "was very knowledgeable
about PR," and proved to be "very
dedicated to that class." In terms of its
outcomes, Roman emphasized, the
class was a success: "The professor
who observed the class thought it
went very well. It fulfilled the objectives
of the class, as articulated in the
syllabus."

TIMING
Roman noted that the controversy
around the course comes as his
department holds its next election
for chair.

More broadly, Roman told Clarion,
he doesn't see an inherent problem
with the course's corporate
support. "From my perspective,
there were no violations of academic
freedom," he said. "If you look at
corporate America and take notice
of their involvement with higher education,
you'll see there is quite a
pronounced role. I'm not advocating
it – I'm just saying it exists."

The class began to draw attention
when, at an end-of-semester department
meeting, Roman thanked Portlock
for doing "the Coach course,"
sparking questions and concerns
from other department members,
Portlock said. Ewen, who studies
public relations, began to speak out
about the issue, and several bloggers
began to cover it. InsideHigher Ed and the Hunter student
newspaper The Envoy ran stories in
March, and Forbes covered it in
April.

CREDIBILITY
The controversy follows a 2006
survey in which many Hunter faculty
said that dissent on college policy
issues would invite administration
retaliation. (See Clarion, Summer
2006, page 7.) Ewen told Clarion that
the course fits with a pattern of
presidential interference with faculty
autonomy under President Raab.
The president "didn't know, or
didn't care, that this is inappropriate,"
Ewen told Clarion. The way
the course was run, he said, "was in
total violation of the fundamental
principle of universities, that curriculum
is the prerogative of the faculty."
Ewen warned, "She's selling
off the credibility of the college."

PSC Academic Freedom Committee
Chair Steve Leberstein said the
case involves potential violations of
academic freedom in two areas:
"One is the curriculum and the second
is the selection of the faculty."
"It says nothing ill about Portlock
that he told the chair that he
wasn't qualified and didn't want to
do it," Leberstein said. "If this happens
to you – call the union!" The
case also shows the importance of
defending the independence of
department chairs, Leberstein
added. "No chair should be pressured
to accept an industry-sponsored
course, even if there is
money attached," he said.

All members need to be vigilant
about violations of academic freedom,
said Leberstein. "The independent
functions of the faculty are
under attack with the corporatization
of CUNY," he said.

— Dania Rajendra
Clarion
2008-04-01


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