Opinion: Email to Baruch College about a disciplinary meeting. September 14, 2021.

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Greetings, 

Thank you for the information. 

First and foremost, I’m never going to use the student grievance form again under any circumstances. 

You are making it very clear you don’t want me using the student grievance form and I want to be in great standing with the staff at Baruch College.   

The whole staff at Baruch College and CUNY are doing a fantastic job running the school. CUNY is the best opportunity ever.

I wanted to point out that I understand your doing your job. I have the utmost respect for you. 

I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes at Baruch College. 

I don’t blame you for the disciplinary action because there is no way for me to know who is behind this.

I hold you in the highest regard. 

As I stated, I will not use the student grievance form again even though every student grievance I made was about situations at Baruch College that I believe was appropriate. 

In the past week, I submitted two student grievances. 

I submitted a student grievance that I believe there should be more security cameras inside Baruch College buildings. 

In the same student grievance, I requested real-time access for CUNY students to their attendance records. 

If the professors are taking attendance electronically, I thought it might be easy to make the information sharable for each student. That way everyone knows where they stand during the semester from an attendance standpoint. 

The other student grievance I submitted was about a student that I felt purposely tried to crash into me. 

All CUNY websites say enough is enough in regards to harassment. I felt like I was being harassed. 

There was a security camera in clear view of the incident. Were you able to view the video? I provided the time, date, and location. All classes were canceled that day so the school was 99% empty. 

Both student grievances were a few sentences in length in total. 

The opportunity that The City University of New York is beyond the best opportunity ever. 

During the mandatory meeting, I’m not going to be doing too much talking. 

I’m going to be respectfully answering your questions and listening to your instructions. 

I’m going on the record right now that I have had people go into my CUNY email accounts that are on double verification and erase a bunch of emails. 

I have also had issues with people sabotaging my social media accounts and other web-based accounts that are all on double verification. 

The reason I mention that is if a student grievance is submitted with my name on it in the future it was not me. 

This is a very serious warning. We are on the same page.

I’m street homeless and on welfare. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t party. I don’t do anything illegal. I don’t have a criminal record. 

I want to stay out of trouble and get a roof over my head. I don’t want to be homeless forever. 

I do not want to jeopardize the opportunity I have received from Baruch College. 

I’m 45 years young. I know that there are always factors regarding the inner workings of organizations that no one on the outside can have the slightest knowledge about unless they work there. 

I have a feeling that this proceeding was not initiated by you.

If it was that’s OK too, although I don’t think it was. 

I hope to make you proud of me one day. There have been remarkable success stories from individuals who have graduated from CUNY. I would like to be one of those stories.

I’m working on ideas about how to create a nonprofit to help people living in poverty like myself. 

Being a student at Baruch College gives me the credibility and resources I need to take my situation to the next level. Specifically, I didn’t even have a laptop before I joined CUNY. 

There are a lot of productive homeless people just like me. Homeless people have a bad reputation. There are a lot of us that work and go to school.

I have an eviction on my record and bad credit. No one is renting me an apartment and I don’t have the money anyway. Thanks to Baruch College I’m working on changing that. 

This semester, I have the best professors and schedule. The staff at the CUNY Edge office is amazing. 

I don’t care if someone crashes into me, pours a can of paint over my head, and snaps my laptop in half. I’m never submitting another student grievance. 

I would like to put this behind me and prove to you and everyone at Baruch College/CUNY what a gift CUNY is for New York City. I would like to use the platform to gain an education and go from homeless to home. 

Will you be recording the meeting? 

Am I allowed to record the meeting?

If you say no, I won’t. 

One last thing I would like to include is about student groups and student privacy. 

Every time I respectfully ask to be excused from having to get into small groups and pairs with students and work on my own, I’m told no. 

I can only imagine what would happen if a student made an unsubstantiated claim against me because of a class group.

I have been repeatedly harassed by students since my first semester at LaGuardia Community College and at Baruch College. 

I have no idea who any of the people that harassed me are. I never said a word or reacted to any of them. I just reported it. 

I read there are thousands of complaints in New York Colleges from students against students every year. 

I read that CUNY is spending a lot of money on lawyers to defend staff and professors from allegations and lawsuits brought on by student accusations. 

I would like to be my own group or pair the few times it happens in my classes. Student interaction is a small percentage of the work for most classes. 

There are several mainstream news articles that the complaints from students against students at colleges is out of control. One of the articles has a professor from CUNY confirming it. 

I submitted a student grievance about wanting to maintain my privacy from students and not having to get into groups and pairs with students. No one ever responded to me about the student grievance. 

I’m a people person. I like people, although I prefer to network outside of Baruch College because there are too many complaints from students against students every year. 

If a student made any type of unsubstantiated claim against me, I couldn’t even imagine how big of a distraction that would be. 

Why are student groups mandatory when there are so many issues arising from student interaction? If a student wants to maintain their privacy, it’s such a small part of the class, I don’t see why that can’t be an option. 

That goes double for me. If I’m in a small group or pair with a student and the student makes an accusation about me, who is anyone going to side with? I’m homeless. 

Another issue I can see arising is if a student in a small class group or pair ran into me outside of school and made a claim about me. 

I’m available anytime tomorrow or Thursday. 

Please advise. 

Thank you and have a great day.

Ever upward,

Mark Pine

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Mark Pine

New York City startups, web marketing, and Baruch College journalism major. 917-815-5415 social@markpine.com