Faculty Senate Minutes #591

Date: Thursday, February 5, 2026                           Time: 1:40 PM                                                       Location: Zoom 

Present (28): Chevy (Schevaletta) Alford, Elton Beckett, Ned Benton, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro, Kathleen Collins, Artem Domashevskiy, Joy Dunkley, Jonathan Epstein, Heath Grant, Sergio Grossi, Veronica Hendrick, Michelle Holder, Karen Kaplowitz, Allison Kavey, Kyoo Lee, Jamie Longazel, Cristina Lozano Arguelles, Joseph Maldonado, Ray Patton, Kumar Ramansenthil, Meriem Rabbani, Macushla Robinson, Amada Santiago, Francis Sheehan, Marie Springer, Todd Stambaugh, Charles Stone, Shilpa Viswanath, Violet (Sung- Suk) Yu

Absent (9): Jacob Adler, Jennifer Dysart, Diana Falkenbach, Sergio Gallegos, Anru Lee, Alejandro Garcia Lozano, Josh Mason, Brian Maule, David Munns

Invited Guests: Faculty Senate Committee on Technology Members: Professors Maggie (Margaret) Smith (Chair), Meryem Abouali, Raymond David, Monica Mattesi, Jennifer Page, Ray Rosas, Ricardo Puga, Valerie West

                                                            Agenda

1. Adoption of the agenda
2. Approval of Minutes #590 of the December 5, 2025, meeting
3. Report from the Chair
4. Election of Faculty Senate representatives to the College Council
5. Review of the agenda of the February 9 meeting of the College Council
• a. Faculty Senate proposed policy prohibiting the recording of classes without the written permission of the instructor(s)
6. Discussion of Generative Algorithms [GA] – aka AI – at John Jay:
• a. Report Recommendations of the Faculty Senate Technology Committee
• b. Faculty Senate Technology Committee summary of the January 16 "Ail Together" brainstorming event of the survey data
7. New business

1.   Adoption of the Agenda. Approved. 

2.   Approval of Minutes #590 of the December 5, 2025, meeting  Approved.

3.  Report from the Chair        

Vice President Christopher Shults, vp for institutional effectiveness will be meeting with us at our next meeting to hear our comments about the draft Strategic Plan and the draft Mission and Vision Statements and the JJ Values.

The Federal government has announced an April 24 deadline for all colleges and universities to make digital materials accessible to everyone. This is an aspect of Title II. No longer will someone with a disability need to ask for class materials to be made accessible for them; rather, the default will be that all materials will be accessible so no requests will be necessary

Last semester, there had been a proposal from the administration to create a Student Success Council as a part of the College Council; instead, the administration has created a free-standing Student Success Council, which reports to President Mason. It comprises 9 senior academic and student affairs administrators and 4 faculty. Two of the faculty are members of the Faculty Senate and two are members of the Council of Chairs. Karen Kaplowitz (English) and Todd Stambaugh (Math CS) are representing the Senate; Michael Brownstein (Philosophy) and Regina Bernard (Africana Studies) are representing the Chairs. The SSC is co-chaired by the Provost, Allison Pease, and the VP of EMSA, Brad Kovaleski (when he begins in May). The other administrators are Katalin Szur, Andrew Sidman, Sumaya Villanueva, Sulema Ebrahim, Dominic Stellini, Christopher Shults, and Rohit Murarka. The charge of the SSC is to make the student success programs accountable; that is, to ensure the student success initiatives are working and, if not, to make recommendations as to how they are to be improved.

Faculty who wish to see the past academic records of their students may do so by going to Navigate 360, through the JJ homepage.

The Title VI charges against Professor Geert Dhondt (Economics), who received multiple complaints for having booked a classroom for a student club to show a film critical of Israel during community hour, were unsubstantiated and, so, the complaints have been dismissed.

4.Election of Faculty Senate representatives to the College Council

• a. Kumar Ramansenthil was elected to a vacant College Council seat
• b.Marie Springer was elected to a vacant alternate College Council seat

5. Review of the agenda of the February 9 meeting of the College Council

• a. Faculty Senate proposed policy prohibiting the recording of classes without the written permission of the instructor(s)

The Faculty Senate's proposed policy is on the agenda of the February 9 meeting of the College Council. The FS executive committee is recommending that there be only a discussion but no vote at this College Council meeting and that the vote be held off until the March CC meeting; this is because people need time to think and consult about the proposal.

And because President Mason suggested at the executive committee of the College Council that it is preferable for the proposed policy to be presented in the more formal format of Whereas and Resolved clauses, the FS executive committee refashioned the proposal accordingly:

• Whereas, Open and free discourse in our classrooms, where students feel they can express disparate viewpoints, voice disagreement, and ask questions is a goal that we value, embrace, and wish to protect at John Jay, and
• Whereas,Students have a legitimate right to not be intimidated in the classroom and a right to receive an education in which different sides of contested issues can be critically examined without fear of public exposure, and
• Whereas, An open and free exchange of ideas requires an atmosphere of trust, and a space free from unwelcome or surreptitious recordings, both visual and audio, and
• Whereas, If students fear that their comments or presentations may be disseminated outside the context of the learning environment, they may be less likely to participate or may self-censor, which can negatively impact the learning experience of all the students in a course, and
• Whereas, Laws such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protect student education records, including personally identifiable information that can be revealed in recordings and photographs/videotaping, and
• Whereas, Recordings, especially because they can be shared online, can violate personal and legal privacy expectations, which is especially important for students and instructors who might have safety concerns, such as personal abusive situations, and
• Whereas, Class lectures and course materials often constitute the intellectual property of the instructor, recordings of which could result in the unauthorized use of these materials, leading to copyright infringement and intellectual property theft, and
• Whereas, Unauthorized recordings can be selectively edited, taken out of context, or distorted in order to engage in malicious actions, mislead others, or engage in cyberbullying, and
• Whereas, Queens College/CUNY and the CUNY School of Law and many other institutions of higher education throughout the country have adopted policies prohibiting the audio and visual recordings of classes without the written permission of the course instructor(s),
• Therefore, It Be Resolved That,
  

  The following be the policy of John Jay College of Criminal Justice:

  The recording, photographing, or videotaping of all or parts of classes is prohibited unless written permission is given by the course instructor(s). This includes undisclosed or surreptitious recordings of any kind, including photos, audio, and video recordings by students or class visitors;

  In cases where permission to record class sessions is a Reasonable Accommodation, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and as determined through an interactive process with the Office of Accessibility Services, the instructor(s) will be consulted to ensure that the recording takes place in a manner that minimizes disruption and adheres to this policy;

  A student or visitor who is granted permission to record or photograph/videotape a class session is not permitted to share, copy, download, disseminate, or sell such authorized recordings and photographs/videotapes to others;

  Students in violation of this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, and visitors in violation of this policy may be subject to removal from the classroom and/or campus; and

  Be It Further Resolved That,This policy be widely disseminated to all students, faculty, and staff of the College each semester; and

  Be It Further Resolved That, Faculty include this policy on their undergraduate and graduate course syllabi and state in their syllabi whether students may make recordings and, if so, under what conditions.

President Kaplowitz also reported that two days earlier President Mason showed her and Heath Grant a video that had just been taken by a student during a class which showed an adjunct faculty member behaving in an egregiously unprofessional manner; the adjunct was fired for cause. President Mason expressed concern that had our policy been in effect, no student might have videotaped the incident for fear of violating our policy. President Kaplowitz noted that Columbia University's policy waives punishment in such instances but the FS executive committee had been unhappy with Columbia U's language. Ned Benton has drafted the following addition to the proposed policy which the Executive Committee is proposing:

• Notwithstanding any language to the contrary, it is not a violation of this policy for an attendee to make a recording in class of conduct that violates another University policy or regulation if the recording is made for the sole purpose of reporting that conduct to an appropriate College or University Office. The dissemination or use of such a recording beyond what is necessary to address alleged violations of College or University policies and regulations is a violation of this policy.

The Senate unanimously adopted a motion to approved the Whereas/Resolved version of the proposed policy, including the additional new language.

6. Discussion of Generative Algorithms [GA] – aka AI – at John Jay:

• a. Report & Recommendations of the Faculty Senate Technology Committee
• b. Faculty Senate Technology Committee summary of the January 16 "Ail Together" brainstorming event & of the survey data

The 8 members of the Faculty Senate Technology Committee who were able to attend the meeting were welcomed. The Chair of the Committee, Maggie Smith (Law, PS) summarized the committee's report. She noted that among the 19 committee members there is a wide diversity of opinions and views about the efficacy, utility, threats, and risks of generative algorithms.

Professor Smith said that the points of consensus among the committee members are the following: questions of efficacy, the issue of threats and risks, and the wide diversity of strategies. The first and most important consensus is that faculty should be making the decisions; this is a teaching decision, not to be made by administrators. Also, this has to be incorporated into discussions at dept meeting meetings. Departments must identify specific understandings for their disciplines. The difference in understanding between first-year students and graduate students is remarkable; the difference between in-person and online teaching is dramatic and must be addressed. There is a notable dearth of concern and resources for those faculty who choose not to use GA. Professor Smith says she uses a specific AI tool for her graduate students to do their research; the tool helps them; she can use those tools affirmatively. She spoke about the necessity of differentiating between Offloading and Deskilling.

Professor Smith criticized the statement that John Jay placed on the Academic Commons which says that our College is committed to AI. The following is the text of that statement:

• Welcome and Introduction
  

  At John Jay we've come a long way in our thinking about Artificial Intelligence in the classroom during the past couple of years. When students began using Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, many in our community were rightly concerned about academic integrity and the undermining of the efficacy of teaching and learning. More recently, many here have taken a more nuanced view, understanding that students (and faculty) are routinely turning to AI, and that its use is being integrated into workplaces of all types. Many, if not most, believe the challenge is to teach students to engage with these tools responsibly and productively.
  We invite you to explore and learn with us about AI literacy, ethics, research, and teaching. Click on the pages in the menu above to begin!

Professor Smith noted that the adoption and posting of this statement was done without the consultation of any faculty governance body, such as the Faculty Senate, and that the text lacks the essential fact that faculty have a right to elect not to use GA.

She pointed out that we are being told by the administration that students have to be taught these tools for the workplace but AI tools are specific to specific jobs. Conflating ChatGPT with making students workplace-ready is a false conflation. And the task of doing assessment of learning is going to be tremendously difficult for many faculty.

Professor Monica Mattesi (Sciences Department) said she is not against AI but AI has not caught up with Science. She was a forensic scientist before teaching at JJ and if she ever said on the witness stand that she uses AI, she would lose her job; everything a forensic scientist is exposed to is revealed on the witness stand and, so, we can't have our students do things with AI when they have to be able to explain what they’ve done in the lab. The Science workforce does not allow for any use of AI, especially scientific evidence. And, so, decisions must be department-related.

Senator Allison Kavey said she really wants to recognize what we have heard at out meeting. This has been such a thoughtful conversation. She keeps hearing at the Major/Minors meetings that we have to prepare our students for careers, but critical thinking is the best preparation we can give our students for the workforce. If we permit students to use AI, we're actively hindering their ability to function; they may never be able to do their jobs. The President and Provost attended a History Department meeting at which they said faculty have the choice but President Mason also said she was dubious about negatives related to AI. Senator Kavey urged that we get on the record that this is a department matter and that it is up to the faculty member’s individual preference. Senator Kumar Ramansenthil agreed.

Senator Jamie Longazel said he is looking for clarity about the statement John Jay posted on the Academic Commons because it reads like a policy statement. He wants to report this statement to his department and asked who wrote this statement. The answer is that the statement came from a Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) workshop on AI.

Senator Todd Stambaugh spoke about an Atlanticarticle about the boom in AI tools; the writer spoke to people in privileged places in the corporate hierarchy, who said they are giving their employees their own training and what they are looking for in employees is critical thinking skills. He said that the only thing we can offer our students that companies can't is writing and critical thinking skills and if we don't do that, we actually have nothing to offer them. The risk he sees is that the administration will make decisions if we don't. So we have to get ready to do work on this at our departments and at the Faculty Senate.

Senator Bibi Calderon agreed with everything said but wants to add the negative impact of AI on labor and on the environments worldwide, leading to a lack of water and huge energy-consuming data centers. Justice is environmental, not just social.

Senator Stambaugh noted that we are really talking about new technology, not AI: AI is used as a broad term — Spellcheck is AI, for example. What we're really talking about is generative algorithms. Language matters.

Professor Jennifer Page said lots needs to be done with regard to online education. We can't give quizzes in online courses anymore because it's too easy to copy and paste from GA tools; Professor Smith agreed: in olden days, professor gave oral exams; at least one faculty member she knows uses voice AI which sends a prompt which students answer orally and then the professor receives a transcript.

7. New business

Senator Jamie Longazel, the representative of the Department of Political Science, reported that the faculty of his department unanimously voted to boycott the mandatory Title 6 Brightspace Training and to ask the Faculty Senate to either adopt a resolution urging departments to boycott the Brightspace training . He explained that his department is not against Title 6 training but they are opposed to the content of the Brightspace training video created by CUNY.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:55 PM.