Monday, September 9, was David Petraeus’s first class at CUNY. As he left Macaulay Honors College, where he’s teaching, he was hounded by protesters. It wasn’t pretty; the protesters were angry and they didn’t hold back. The protesters’ actions attracted national and international media attention—and condemnation. Not just from the usual suspects at Fox but from voices at CUNY as well. Macaulay Dean Ann Kirschner issued a formal statement on the Macaulay website and then took to her blog in order to further express her dismay: Before and during Dr. Petraeus’ class, however, a group of protesters demonstrated in front of the college. That demonstration ended before the conclusion of the class. Sometime later, while walking off campus, Dr. Petraeus […]
Today CUNY announced that it would pay General David Petraeus exactly $1 to teach two courses next year. As the New York Times suggests, the scandal just got to be too much for the university and for Petraeus: It was supposed to be a feather in the cap for the City University of New York’s ambitious honors college. Or perhaps a careful first step back into public life for a leader sidelined by scandal. One way or another, the news that David H. Petraeus, the former C.I.A. director and commander of the allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be a visiting professor at the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY this coming academic year was supposed to be great publicity […]
Next week, Gawker reporter J.K. Trotter will be getting a second cache of Petraeusgate documents from CUNY. This batch will come from Macaulay Honors College; the first, which Trotter published in his Gawker story, came from CUNY Central. What to look for in that second cache: the May 29 offer letter to Petraeus that Macaulay Dean Ann Kirschner allegedly drafted and shared with CUNY officials. (If you need a quick refresher on the significance of that letter, see below.) Here are the two scenarios. Scenario 1: The Macaulay cache does contain the May 29 letter This scenario raises many questions. Seven to be exact. First, if Kirschner did indeed draft and share that document with other “CUNY offices” on May 29, […]
Krugman: There are, I think, things I might want to hear David Petraeus talk about. But “recommendations for America’s leadership role in the emerging global economy” definitely don’t fit. Ouch.
So the man whose course description reads thus— In this interdisciplinary seminar, students will examine in depth and then synthesize the history and trends in diverse public policy topics with a view towards recommendations for America’s leadership role in the emerging global economy. —has the gall to include in his course prerequisite this: Excellent writing and presentation skills are a must, as is the ability to work well as part of a team. I don’t begrudge Petraeus that “ability to work well as part of a team.” With his platoon of TAs, he clearly can do that. But the excellent writing skills? Incidentally, the course is limited to 16 students. How many TAs has Petraeus been given to administer, run, […]
NYC Councilman Brad Lander has initiated a petition to CUNY. The request is straightforward: Rescind the $150,000 payday for David Petraeus and put those funds toward supporting low-income students or for more teachers. So is the explanation: At a time when the City University of New York (CUNY) pays an adjunct faculty member carrying a full course load as little as $25,000 per year, the university has offered former CIA Director David Petraeus $150,000 to teach a seminar next year. That is just 15-20 students. Even though these are private donations, they surely could be better spent – to help students who cannot afford to pay the 30% tuition increase that CUNY has been implementing over five years. And it […]
Bill de Blasio, who is running for mayor, has come out hard against the overpriced Petraeus appointment. In a strongly worded letter to interim CUNY chancellor Bill Kelly, de Blasio writes: General Petraeus’ salary of $150,000 could sponsor full tuition for 26 students. Similarly, $150,000 could fund needed books and supplies, estimated at $1,248 per year per student, for 120 students. … To spend $150,000 for an instructor who will teach just one class once per week that will reach just 15-20 students seems to be a misallocation of vital educational resources. I urge you renegotiate this salary with General Petraeus to a rate that matches other professors in similar teaching arrangements, and direct the remainder of the money into […]
Petraeusgate is a rapidly unfolding scandal of multiple parts. I mostly focus here on the third, which involves a potential cover-up. The first two—the crimes, as it were—are more important. But if you want to get to the newest and most scandalous revelations, jump to the third section of this post. (I won’t touch here on the ethics of hiring a man who has been publicly linked to the torture of Iraqi detainees, which may be the gravest evil of all. Nor will I touch on the larger issue this scandal has raised: our failing-up political culture, where fuck-ups in the power elite get rewarded for their fuck-ups. Alex Pareene’s got that beat covered.) Scandal #1 (with apologies to Harold […]
I’ve just received several emails from J.K. Trotter, the Gawker reporter who broke the story of CUNY paying David Petraeus $150/$200k to teach one course next year at the Macaulay Honors College. With Trotter’s permission, I am publishing excerpts from his emails here. For background on the ever growing scandal—specifically, whether CUNY fabricated a fake offer letter after the story broke—see here, here, and here. Here’s Trotter: Regarding the FOIL [Freedom of Information Law] discrepancy: When I first requested the records in question, I submitted two identical requests to both CUNY’s Central Office, on 42nd Street, and Macaulay Honors College, since each employ their own records access officer. (I asked for correspondence between Petraeus and CUNY officials, and for correspondence between CUNY […]
CUNY administrators are coming under increasing fire for their decision to hire General David Petraeus to teach one course next year for anywhere from $150,000 to $200,000. The American Association of University Professors has denounced the decision. And now Republican State Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor, a Marine vet who fought in the Iraq War, has issued a scorching letter to CUNY interim chancellor William Kelly. Lalor focuses on two issues. First, he charges CUNY with dishonesty. When Gawker first broke the story of Petraeus’s salary, it reported that he was going to be getting $200k. That report was based on Freedom of Information Law documents Gawker had obtained from CUNY. Within hours, however, CUNY announced that Petraeus was only going […]
If you’re an adjunct at CUNY, you make about $3,000 per course. If you’re an adjunct at CUNY and you’re David Petraeus, you make about $200,000 per course. With an army of teaching assistants and graders. With travel and research funds. While you’re getting boatloads of money for teaching at USC (“You won’t believe what USC will pay per week,” Petraeus kvells in an email to Ann Kirschner, the dean of the CUNY honors college where Petreaus will be teaching). Gawker has the whole email thread, plus some other documents they got through a Freedom of Information Law request.
General David Petraeus has been hired to teach at CUNY at the University of Southern California (h/t Anna Law): David H. Petraeus, the former four-star U.S. Army general who resigned as head of the Central Intelligence Agency last year after confessing to an extramarital affair, will teach part-time at USC and help mentor students who are veterans, officials are announcing Thursday. Petraeus, who commanded coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, will teach and participate in seminars on such issues as international relations, government, leadership, information technology and energy, according to USC… … Petraeus, 60, is supposed to start his faculty position at USC July 1 for an open-ended period, officials said. “I am very grateful to have an opportunity to […]
In case you were wondering about this… David H. Petraeus, who resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency last November after having an extramarital affair with his biographer, will serve as a visiting professor at the City University of New York next academic year, the university announced on Tuesday. Mr. Petraeus, who will be the next visiting professor of public policy at the university’s Macaulay Honors College, had been approached by many universities, but settled on CUNY because he admires its diversity of students, locations and offerings, his lawyer, Robert Barnett, said in an interview. …Buzzfeed reports this (h/t Michael Busch): There is a quiet and conventional path from shame to redemption for American political figures brought down by […]
Two days ago, Gawker reported that CUNY was paying General David Petraeus $200,000 to teach one course next year. Three hours after the story broke, CUNY informed Gawker that the salary was in fact lower: Petraeus would only be getting $150,000 and would also be giving some of it to charity. Yesterday, Republican State Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor challenged the timing of that announcement, pointing out that CUNY had yet to produce any documentary evidence to show that it had not revised the salary downward after—and only after—the Gawker story had broken. CUNY is now claiming that they have a letter, dated May 29, 2013, from Dean Anne Kirschner to Petraeus, setting out the $150,000 salary. They’ve posted it on this […]
David Petraeus’s course description is up. The course is called “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade.” That sounds like a question to me, but there’s no question mark. Here’s the description: In this interdisciplinary seminar, students will examine in depth and then synthesize the history and trends in diverse public policy topics with a view towards recommendations for America’s leadership role in the emerging global economy. This is what we’re paying $150,000 for? Update (11:35 pm) Yasmin Nair just suggested a different course title on FB: “Can you believe that CUNY is seriously paying me this much money for this shit” No question mark. (Thanks to J.K. Trotter for pointing this description out on Twitter.) Update […]
One of the issues in Petraeusgate is who is paying for this hire: the taxpayers or private donors? In her email of July 1—the last communique from the administration to Petraeus that we know of—CUNY Dean Ann Kirschner writes: Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has provided private funding for your position, which will be paid through the CUNY Research Foundation. Previously the administration had claimed that Petraeus’s base salary would be “supplemented” by private donations that had yet to be secured. Now, the administration suggests that the position in its entirety is to be covered by private funds; the funds have been secured; and they’ll be administered by the Research Foundation (RF). My friend Alex Vitale, who’s a sociology prof at Brooklyn […]
Some defenders of CUNY’s hiring of General David Petraeus are claiming that it is a worthwhile investment. The 10 to 20 students in his seminar will profit from his elite contacts. The networking. The access. The all in. Even if this were true, it’s an expensive proposition. CUNY educates some 200,000 students a year. Spending $150,000 to reach .005 to .01% of them seems like a bad use of resources. But more important, it signals how much our understanding of public education, and its role in the larger culture, has changed. Here is just a small list of CUNY alumni from over the years: Bella Azbug, Audre Lorde, Colin Powell, Irving Howe, Ruby Dee, Shirley Chisholm, Paddy Chayevsky, Nathan Glazer, […]