On CEU's First Academic Forum

On October 17, faculty and student leaders at Central European University gathered to hold CEU's first Academic Forum this year, a little over a month before the Senate – CEU's highest decision-making body – is to hold its first session. Key issues explored at the Forum – also expected as topics for Senate discussions on November 29 – included CEU's budget, sexual harassment provisions, and admissions and enrollment matters.

Budget Talks

A Forum presentation on CEU's budget demonstrated how the school administration intends on utilizing funds to improve areas of CEU's Information Technology and to establish a favorable CEU pension plan this year. The plan would acknowledge student years among pensioners' total years of service (towards the total of 15 to 20 vested years required) irrespective of where they were students. It would also give the option of purchasing a maximum of five years of service to satisfy the vested-years requirement. One Forum member assured that there is enough money in the CEU budget (53 million Euros last year) to fund this program. The success of such a pension program at CEU may entail  an increase of the budget deficit to 3.5 million Euros from the 3 million estimated in April.

Also a prominent subject in CEU's budget talks is the school's Information Technology operation, which currently has a budget of 1.9 million Euros. While the budget is expected to receive an additional 200,000 Euros, it is projected that another 100,000 Euros would be needed yet for the creation of a Chief Information Officer position. The new position, to be filled by a leader in IT with experience in education and strategy, would fall in line with several measures taken by CEU to improve the efficacy of its IT infrastructure. The IT department has seen the upgrading of computers and online learning systems campus-wide. Since this past summer, old computers and media tools have been replaced with new ones, offering improved Wifi service and software enhancements. A new mobile video conference system is among these many improvements. Yet to come is the appointment of a new Library Director who will, together with Chief Operating Officer Liviu Matei, help review and manage the capacities and needs of CEU's IT.

Admissions/Enrollment

Peter Johnson, Vice President for Student Services, took some time describing the state of admissions. Application fees may have resulted in a 40% decrease of applications to CEU; now there is a growing concern about how these fees could be contributing to the declining applications from developing regions of Africa and Asia.

Harassment Policy

The proposed Policy on Harassment, too, finally got the attention many at CEU were waiting for. The Policy is a reaction to the ineffectiveness of standing anti-harassment provisions embedded in CEU's Codes of Ethics. The Forum revealed several issues, pointed out by several Forum members, particularly with sections 7.1.2 and 7.1.6.2 of the Policy. One commentary had found the language of the latter to be problematic in that it seems to target the harassed rather than focusing on the harasser. Criticism of Section 7.1.6.2 was based on its implication that the harassed must suffer damage to health or career and then must be able to prove it in order to have a strong case against sexual harassment. Instead of this, several Forum members agreed that a more acceptable provision would treat a simple instance of unwelcome contact, nothing more, as sufficient for a strong case against a harasser. Before heading to the Senate, the Policy on Harassment as well as all other issues covered by the first Academic Forum have the opportunity of being revisited in a second Forum on November 17.

Philippe-Edner Marius, USA, Public Policy

Source: Alex Fleming, Academic Forum Student Representative