In reply to my observations regarding how much former Principal Stanley Teitel had tried to influence alumni affairs during his final years as Stuyvesants principal, I received this e-mail from his successor, Principal Jie Zhang; From: [email protected] To: jkwok60@hotmail Subject: RE: PS FW: Time for good governance at SHSAA is long overdue Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 21:28:02 +0000 Stanley Teitel no longer serves on the of directors of Friends but it’s my understanding that he is aware of what’s going on. As I mentioned before, please address all your concerns to the Alumni Association directly. Thank you. Jie Zhang Principal Stuyvesant High School 345 Chambers Street, New York, NY 10282 Phone: (212)312-4800 Fax: (212)587-3874 Email: [email protected] I replied with this: Dear Ms. Zhang - I respectfully disagree. Moreover, so do many others including former Stuyvesant High School faculty. If Stanley Teitel could - and did - insert himself into alumni affairs by supporting a Stuyvesant Alumni Foundation to be run out of the Principals Office - in a manner akin to the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation - and urging the SHSAA Board of Directors to vote in favor of the MOU - he actually attended a board meeting and demanded their vote in favor of it - then you should respond to the concerns raised in the group e-mail of May 2nd that was signed by twenty-four fellow Stuyvesant alumni from five decades worth of classes - including two from the Class of 1978 - and included former SHSAA directors among the signatories - as well as those I have expressed recently. Having lived in a totalitarian dictatorship, I would expect that you would respond favorably to demands to have SHSAA (and the Campaign) demonstrate good governance, clarity, transparency and integrity. We truly need a Goddess of Democracy for Stuyvesant alumni and not go down a path that will leave myself and fellow alumni with an alumni association that doesnt respect its own By-Laws by illegally holding the Annual General Meeting tomorrow, refuse to offer guidance and other assistance to class reunion committees in helping them plan their class reunions, assess administrative fees to process donations, set a minimum of $1,000 for restrictive donations and refuse to acknowledge that there are serious concerns in its handling of confidential information with regards to all Stuyvesant alumni, not just its dues-paying Alumni Members. Much to your credit, you have replied twice to my e-mails. I have yet to receive a reply from the executive directors and senior leadership of SHSAA and the Campaign. If they refuse to acknowledge my concerns, then why should I address them directly to the Alumni Association? If nothing else, this demonstrates that both organizations are not in compliance with their nonprofit status by refusing to acknowledge the legitimate concerns and complaints raised by myself and other alumni. Any alumni organization that engages in these practices cannot be relied upon in addressing the concerns of those it claims to represent unless there are drastic reforms to change it: Procedural improprieties are not uncommon at SHSAA; its By-Laws, as published, suggest an organization that is not in compliance, and that may put our non-profit status in jeopardy. Staffing decisions at SHSAA have been made and unmade without consultation or explanation with the alumni base; frequently, these decisions are not announced, but simply revealed. The recent newsletter unveiled, without explanation, an entire category of oversight—Trustees; these were not elected by Stuyvesant alumni, nor was even cursory mention made in the newsletter, in blast e-mails, or on the website. Countless new opportunities exist as a result of social media innovation; few, if any, innovative steps have been introduced by SHSAA. Conversely, SHSAA may recently have abandoned its commitment to support individual class reunions. The protection of the private information of alumni must be paramount; SHSAAs refusal to acknowledge recent failures in that regard does not inspire future confidence. Transparency in a multi-thousand membership organization is fundamentally about the culture of the organization; it cannot be achieved by merely implementing an all class reunion, statements that board meetings are open, or uncertain nominations procedures. Again, these arent my observations - which I endorse completely - but those of the twenty-four alumni who signed that May 2nd e-mail to you, in which they concluded: We understand that your daily priority is and must be to run the premier high school in New York, and regret that you may need also to track alumni issues such as this. While none would expect you to engage in operational detail, your views on the larger subject are relevant, and we look forward to learning them. Are we conclude then that you will tolerate the existence of two alumni organizations - SHSAA and the Campaign - in which their staffs and boards of directors ignore legitimate concerns and complaints made by their fellow alumni? I sincerely hope not. Again, I think you need to endorse some version of the Bronx Science alumni relations network in which SHSAA has its directors chosen in fair, free, democratic (truly competitive) elections in which all alumni are allowed to vote, not just its dues-paying membership. (A similar form of voting should also be applied too to the Campaign, since its own conduct has resembled that of the current SHSAA board of directors dominated by Lisa Cangro Tepperberg 89, the interim Executive Director of SHSAA.) Maybe then, both SHSAA and the Campaign would demonstrate good governance, clarity, transparency and integrity on behalf of Stuyvesant alumni. Until then, I can not recommend anyone to attend tomorrows SHSAA Annual General Meeting, and I will recommend to fellow Stuyvesant alumni that they should donate to noteworthy organizations like the World Science Festival (worldsciencefestival) and the National Center for Science Education (ncse), not to two alumni organizations whose non-profit status may be in grave jeopardy given their past and present conduct. Respectfully yours, John Kwok 78
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 11:18:34 +0000
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