Special Panel Discussion Features Political Science Professor and Author Benjamin Ginsberg of Johns Hopkins University

NEW YORK, NY- November 10, 2011– On Friday, November 18, 2011, Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY) will host a special panel discussion on “Academic Freedom and the Decline of Faculty Governance.” Taking place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., this panel will address the question: Is academic freedom an old-fashioned idea and is it still relevant in an age of assessment, technology and globalization? Some educators fear increasing pressures to turn the art of teaching into a science. Many instructors often fear that holding teachers accountable for learning outcomes or introducing new technologies may actually pose serious new challenges to academic freedom. Others sincerely believe that professionalizing teaching is an ethical responsibility, and that scientific methods are an essential part of this process.

Metropolitan College of New York is honored to welcome special guest speaker Benjamin Ginsberg as a featured participant in this discussion.  Professor Ginsberg is currently the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University.  Professor Ginsberg received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1973.  Before joining the Hopkins faculty in 1992, he was Professor of Government at Cornell. He is the author /co-author of a number of books including The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters; The American Lie: Government By the People and Other Political Fables; Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced; Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public; Politics By Other Means; The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State; The Consequences of Consent and American Government: Freedom and Power; We The People.

Additionally, MCNY faculty members will participate in this lively panel which is open to students and educators and administrators from the tri-state area. Panelists will include MCNY Professors Steven Cresap, Theodore Damian, Richard Grallo, Lynn Sally, Louis Tietje and Dean Vasil.

Panel topics will include:

  • The validity of distance learning and other electronic technologies, and why these approaches are being institutionalized?
  • Neutrality of technologies and compromising academic integrity
  • The role of individual scholar and prepare prepackaged courses – Who owns the rights? Who makes the decisions?
  • Internships with non-government organizations and other forms of community-service learning and restrictions on the academic’s traditional nonpartisanship on social and political causes?
  • Credibility of assessment mechanisms for internal academic research
  • Preserving faculty’s active role in governance in the face of countervailing pressures from many interest groups.

About the Panelists:

–Dr. Steven Cresap – has served as faculty and administrator at MCNY for the past two years. As an assistant professor, his concentrations include values clarification, critical thinking, rhetoric, ethics, and introductory world civilization. Dr. Cresap also leads master’s seminars in philosophy. Prior to coming to MCNY, Dr. Cresap served as a researcher and role player at the South Street Seaport Museum He has written for numerous publications, specializing in the interaction between aesthetic experience and moral behavior.

– Dr. Theodor Damian is a theologian, writer and editor. He is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at The Audrey Cohen School for Human Services and Education, MCNY. He is the founder and President of the Romanian Institute of Orthodox Theology and Spirituality and of Sts. Peter and Paul Romanian Orthodox Church in New York (since 1993). With a PhD in Patristics in 1993 from Fordham University, New York, and another PhD in Systematic Theology/ Ethics in 1999 from the State University of Bucharest, Romania, with a Masters’ degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in Christian Spirituality and PhD studies at Lausanne University and at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Geneva, Switzerland, Theodor Damian has published over 20 books in the fields of theology, philosophy, literary criticism and poetry.

– Dr. Richard Grallo is currently an associate professor of applied psychology in the Audrey Cohen School for Human Services and Education at MCNY. He currently teaches a number of courses in applied psychology in the undergraduate program, and a course on research methods in the Master’s Program in administration. Dr. Grallo is a former Chair of the Faculty Council at MCNY and he currently serves on a number of college committees. He is a Fellow at the Albert Ellis Institute, and a member of the American Psychological Society. His current research interests include problem solving and decision making and the application of mathematical models and multivariate methods to social science problems.

–Dr. Louis Tietje is a professor in the Master of Public Administration program of the School of Management at MCNY, where he has been teaching since 1989. He teaches courses in organizational behavior, ethics, social problems and policy, and program planning and contributes to the administration of the MPA program. Dr. Tietje received his PhD from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He also holds an MTS from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and a BA in education from Concordia University Chicago.

–Dr. Dean Vasil is Adjunct Professor of Latin and Philosophy at Metropolitan College of New York. He received his Ph.D. in French from the Graduate Center, CUNY and published his dissertation on “The Ethical Pragmatism of Albert Camus: Two Studies in the History of Ideas” with Peter Lang of New York/Bern in its series, Romance Languages and Literature. He is currently preparing a monograph on “Unity in Distinction: The ‘Three Orders’ of Pascal.”

– Dr. Lynn Sally received her PhD from New York University (Performance Studies) in 2004, and joined MCNY as an Assistant Professor in 2005.  Her dissertation, Fighting the Flames:  The Spectacular Performance of Fire at Coney Island, was published by Routledge Press, and her articles have been published in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Journal of Popular Culture, Senses and Society, as well as numerous anthologies.  She is the Chair of the Theatre and Performance Studies area of the SWTX PCA/ACA, a conference dedicated to popular culture.