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General Faculty Meeting
Minutes
May 8, 2006
Chair: Susan
Camp
Recorder: Jessica
Godkin
The meeting was called to order at 4:20 PM.
I. Approval
of Agenda
The agenda was approved unanimously.
II. Approval
of Minutes of General Faculty Meeting of February 6, 2006
The minutes were approved unanimously.
III. President's
Report - Deborah Stanley
President Stanley gave updates on Final budget, FTE student enrollment,
student/faculty ratio, Inspiring Horizons, Strategic Planning Advisory Board
(SPAB), engineering update, summer sessions and institutes, Summer Intensive
English, capital projects, and commencement.
IV.
UUP Report - Chuck Spector
Professor Spector thanked Dr. Masterson for his work in editing the union
newsletter, which was distributed to the union membership and especially asked
faculty to look at Lori Nash's article on Adjunct Pay. He reported that
the union helped SUNY pass a budget, which increased by $180 million dollars
and included over $25 million dollars for enrollment growth and new full-time
lines. There was an increase in support money for EOP, Instructional
Technology, Libraries and Mandatory Costs. UUP worked with the Chancellor
to achieve this.
The report then focused on "contingent faculty"; a term for part
time and adjunct workers. Letters from full time senior faculty,
assistant professors, non-union members, emeritus faculty and adjunct faculty
were read to hi light the plight of "contingent
faculty." Dr. Stanley commented during the report that
the Provost was working on raising the salaries for these workers. (As a
follow-up comment, the summer and adjunct salaries have been raised as of
summer 06 and Fall 06).
V.
FA Senate- Luther
Peterson
- (See attached)
VI.
Chair Report- S.
Camp
Dr. Camp reported that the College Hour pilot was approved and a
College Hour Implementation committee has been approved and
is accepting members. Pilot begins Spring 2007& 2008 semesters on
Wednesdays at 12:40-1:35 followed by Fall 2007 implementation of Tuesdays at
12:45-2:05.Then she went on to discuss WAC task force was formed to assess the
status of WAC and to make recommendations for its future. Also Academic
Administrative Officer Review task force has made its recommendation and
was on today’s FA agenda. Undergraduate Curriculum Committee disposed
of over 125 new and revised courses this year. A by-law amendment to elect UCC
members in the spring was on the FA agenda today as well. Conflict of Interest
and Professional Ethics task force is still deliberating. She then reported
that the General Education Council has made several proposals this year.
Strengthened Campus Based Assessment for 3 elements of the BOT Gen Ed was
approved, Computer literacy and Information Management has seen changes, WAC
task force has been formed, course add policy is being proposed by APC after
recommendation by GEC, and a proposal to infuse Critical Thinking was on
today’s FA agenda. In an effort to increase communication, all Chairs of
/Committee on Committees/ Committees were asked to report to FA this spring.
Service on Councils of the Assembly was asked to please respond to APC’s call.
With a full slate of nominees and “clickers” we can fill seat begin council
work early in the fall and avoid a late spring backlog. Lastly she reported
that we have approved two departmental name changes, several new majors,
several revised majors, new and revised minors concentrations, graduate and
undergraduate programs.
VII.
Unfinished
Business
There was no unfinished business.
VIII.
New Business
By-laws amendments
Article XII. Section 4 - approved unanimously
Article I, Section 3 - approved unanimously
Election of Faculty Assembly Chair
Susan Camp was elected as Faculty Assembly Chair for the 2006-2007 academic
year.
Election of Faculty Senator and Alternate
Margaret Ryniker was elected as the Faculty Senator for the 2006-2008
term.
Gwen Kay was also elected as the Alternate Faculty Senator for the 2006-2008
term.
Approval of Candidates for degrees
College of Arts and Sciences - S. Varhus - approved unanimously
- 919 candidates
School of Business - L. Karns - approved unanimously
- 277 candidates
School of Education - L. Markert - approved unanimously
- 427 candidates
Division of Continuing Education -Y. Petrella - approved unanimously
- 34 candidates
Division of Graduate Studies - D. King - approved unanimously
- 416 candidates
The meeting was adjourned at 5:32 PM.
FACULTY SENATE SPRING PLENARY
SUNY Plattsburgh
April 6-8, 2006
University Faculty Senate held its 143rd Plenary in the Angell College
Center of Plattsburgh State the first weekend of April. Friday morning,
after welcoming remarks by Plattsburgh Senator Ray Guydosh and Plattsburgh
Provost Robert Golden, the business of the plenary began with Senate
President Carl Wiezalis’ report on university and
senate matters since our last plenary in late January. Highlights from
the report:
-Provost’s Advisory Committee on Faculty Development. Will be completing
its work this semester, and recommendations will be coming to local campuses
regarding faculty development from initial appointment to continuing education
for all faculty, with assisting resources needed. (The president
expressed concerns that mentoring requirements could become an unfunded
mandate.) In his written report Wiesalis states that as a member of this
committee he will soon be surveying local campus leadership for information on
current local practices.
-The Academic Integrity symposium held in Albany, March 23-24, and organized by
the FS Undergraduate Committee, was very successful, with participation from
every campus. (We may recall that when Chancellor Ryan spoke in the Lake
Effects Café last month, that he spoke very highly of the conference.)
The sessions were videotaped so that the programs can be shared around the
system.
-The problems at both Alfred State and Alfred University seem to be resolving
themselves. In particular, Alfred U.’s statutory ceramics division now
has a unit head, and they will be hiring a full-time head soon.
-On
March 16 the Board of Trustees Academic Standards Committee met to consider
ABoR. President Wiesalis as well as UUP leadership and college presidents
testified against it, arguing principally that it is unnecessary, and the
committee decided to recommend to BOT that nothing more is needed.
-Wiesalis attended the Faculty Council for Community Colleges (FCCC)
spring plenary, and reported that they are very concerned about the
accreditation process being mandated but not funded, and that there was no
faculty representation on the Provost search committee.
(More on this search committee issue below.)
-Senator LeValle and others in the state legislature, responding to constituent
questions, are expressing concern about the high cost of college
textbooks. They wonder about collusion of faculty with publishers, and
are asking whether shrink wrapped bundling contributes to the problem. A
bill has been generated in the legislation, and former president Joe Hildreth
(Potsdam) is working on the issue.
Next up, a fascinating report by FS Runi Mukherji of Old Westbury as a member
of the FS Operations Committee on what she labeled “the Big Dig.” Paul
Brodsky (Optometry) and she have dug deeply into the question whether faculty
lines around the state were being reallocated to administrative lines.
After presenting the methodological problems involved, mainly different
labeling of lines on various campuses impeding their ability to trace movements
of lines, she got to their–still tentative–results:
-we have
over the past few years indeed lost a small number of faculty lines
-administrative lines have only grown slightly
-but there
has been an explosion in the number of professional lines on every
campus. Some of this has come about for very logical reasons, especially
growth of technological services and the perceived greater need for more
student counseling services. Nevertheless, Mukherji urges faculty to note
this trend regarding professional staff and ask whether some of this growth
might better be directed towards instruction, towards more faculty
lines.
Mukherji expects to have a final written report by September.
Steven Worona of EDUCAUSE in Washington then addressed the senate on “Faculty
Governance and Computer Policy and Law.” Observing that the internet
obeys only the law of unintended consequences, Worona reported that every
campus seeks to filter internet content for viruses, porn, peer to peer file
sharing, gambling, Facebook, and IT commerce. To what extent does your
campus want to filter a student’s computer in his/her residence hall
room? What are the legal issues involved in filtering? Worona also
asked whether campuses have procedures in place in cases of flagrant misuse by
campus members, such as launching a virus on the internet world. He would
like a polling of campuses for their best practices, to be collected by
EDUCAUSE.
Friday afternoon began with a panel presentation, “Bridging the Gap: From the
Needs of K-12 and College Readiness to Teacher Education.” The participants
were Provost Salins, Janis Somerville (National Assoc. of System Heads and of
NASH/Education Trust State P-16), Joseph Frey of the NY State Education
Dept., our own Suzanne Weber as director of the SUNY consortium of the 16
campuses with teacher education programs, measuring teacher preparation, and
Assist. Provost Pamela Sandoval. Highlights:
-Provost Salins in introductory remarks:
(1)
We are in a new education paradigm. The old policy was to give students
access to education, and whether the student grasped what was taught
was his/her burden. Now we are attending to
achievement–our goal is that everyone master the
materials.
(2)
Public K-12 and higher education have been parallel universes, and this must
change. We need to enter a compact: we will give schools the teachers
they need, and they must give us students better prepared for university
work.
-Janis Sumerville in a detailed presentation drew a rather
bleak picture of the state of public school education, focusing on the
differences in performance between students from wealthy families compared to
the income poor (which of course reflects color issues in our society).
Particularly disturbing to her is that while there is encouraging evidence of
learning among students in early grades, this declines markedly among high
school students. We tend to excuse this by reference to “raging
hormones,” but as she noted, this isn’t the case in other countries.
While a poll of students a year out from high school turned up the result that
they were only “moderately challenged,” the US in student testing finds itself
from the middle of pack to close to the bottom among the industrial nations of
the world.
Somerville
then laid out results of studies of the situation in the US, examining
rich/poor and ethnic statistics. While at the 4th and 8th grade levels
there is already a wide disparity in reading between rich and poor and ethnics,
the situation is much worse by the end of high school. Hardly a surprise,
but there is a big difference in college attendance between youth from well-off
and needy families. A third of college students need remedial
courses. Only four in ten students graduate in four years, and currently
only 8% of African-Americans and 10% of Latinos are graduating from
college.
-Joseph Frey presented NY State data on success in higher
education. Students with higher high school average and high SAT
scores are much more likely to graduate, as are white students.
Frey also showed statistics for performance of students with disabilities, who
he showed graduate at just about the same rate as all students, and that NY
ranked 4th highest in the nation for college students from low income families,
which he correlated with financial support programs. (I have a printout
of his powerpoint presentation, should anyone want to see it.)
-Suzanne Weber addressed issues of effective teaching, and how
to assess whether we in the SUNY system are indeed preparing better
teachers. We are identifying practical, predictive and meaningful
measures of preservice teacher performance, and improving collaboration between
campuses in imparting better teaching methods to education students and in
assessment of the results.
FS
committee reports and resolutions took up the remainder of the afternoon
session.
Highlights:
Governance Committee: In the light of the recent problems at
both colleges in Alfred, NY. Governance Com. urges SUNY to develop an
orientation program for new campus presidents, and possibly also for CFOs and
CAOs, and even college council members. The committee will be working on
a resolution on orientation, mentoring, and early feedback for senior
administrators.
Graduate and Research Committee: This year the committee has
been reviewing plans for graduate education related to needs of the state,
notably in nursing (advanced degrees training nursing educators), engineering
and K-12 science education. It has examined opportunities for
interdisciplinary research among the comprehensive colleges, graduate and
medical centers (in this context the committee calls attention to a NSF funded
conference in Rochester, Aug. 7-11, “Engaging People in Computational Math,
Science and Technology Multidisciplinary Research and Education”).
The
committee urges the chancellor to reinstate the Faculty Scholars Exchange
program, according to motion 141-04-l passed by FS at the fall
plenary.
The
committee recommends to Central Administration for graduate student recruitment
purposes that on their web site they complete a description of graduate and
research programs throughout the SUNY system. This was put into a
resolution and passed by FS.
Operations Committee: This in my estimation is currently the
most active of the committees, under excellent leadership of Maureen Dolan of
Old Westbury. Runi Mukherji’s report (above) of the “Big Dig” emanated from
OC. Marilyn Kramer (U. Buffalo) and Ziya Arnavut (Fredonia) are
working with Carey Hatch (Central Administration) on a resolution for the Fall
‘06 plenary on library acquisition policies for SUNY, including recommendations
regarding cooperative/collaborative acquisitions. (As a note here, I have
urged them that in the area of collaborative acquisitions, they distinguish
between more basic books supporting specific courses, needed on each campus,
and expensive monographs, which in my mind are more appropriate for
centrally-directed acquisition.)
Other subcommittees of OC are examining national trends in use of adjunct
faculty and diversity among SUNY faculty; reports are expected before the FS
fall plenary. Maureen Dolan herself is working on a report for the winter
2007 plenary regarding energy policy and use in the system, looking also at
environmental issues connected with energy use, with recommendations for
“greener” campuses.
Student Life Committee: Subcommittees here are looking
at local “positive traditions” that enhance students experience on various
campuses, retention issues, and mental health issues as they are affecting
student achievement.
Undergraduate Academic Programs and Policies Committee:
This committee organized the Academic Integrity Symposium mentioned above, and
report on this generated from senators a lively discussion not only on
integrity generally, but on whether it might be feasible to implement honor
codes within the SUNY system, as Chancellor Ryan has on occasion urged.
Everyone in the room supported the idea in principle, but the committee
cautioned that it is necessary to get student ownership for honor codes to
work.
The
committee is also preparing an Internship Best Practices document, working on
retention issues, and the session of this plenary with Steven Worona on
computer policy issues (reported above) came from the committee.
Saturday morning began with a report from Kimberly Reiser,
President of FCCC. In addition to the items from their recent meeting
mentioned by Carl Wiesalis in his report (above), she expressed concerns from
their faculties about the quality of college credit courses taught in high
schools (such as AP and IB courses). FCCC passed a resolution urging the
chancellor to create a Task Force on the issues, and that all affected
constituencies, faculty from community colleges and state operated campuses,
and high schools be included.
Brian Fessler, Student Assoc. president, reported that they
had ten press conferences around the state in support of the state budget on
SUNY, and regarding FS desire to have a faculty representative on the BOT he
noted that 32 or the 50 states do.
The
final part of the plenary were a presentation on the budget and BAP II by
Kimberly Cline, Vice Chancellor and CFO, and remarks and a conversation of
senators with Chancellor John Ryan.
Kim Cline took use through an outline of the SUNY budget, at
the time of the plenary working its way from governor to the two legislative
bodies. She pointed to the many positive aspects of the budget, such as
provisions for significant growth of faculty lines and for a research faculty
(the latter aimed at graduate campuses, of course). Noting some local
concerns at Oswego about how a proposed engineering program might affect our
local budget, I asked whether the 25 million designated for new initiatives
might be the source in this case, she responded positively.
Turning to BAP II, Cline spelled out the deficiencies of BAP I, particularly
that it rewarded unapproved growth in enrollment, which in a steady-state
budget situation shifts funding away from campuses that have “optimal
enrollment levels.” Advantages of BAP II, in addition to not obligating
Central Administration to fund that growth, are its incentives to campuses to
enhance academic quality, its ability to recognize variability among campuses
in goals and capabilities, that it is predictable and transparent, and allows
the BOT and chancellor to align funding allocations better with available state
funds and policy initiatives.
Chancellor Ryan, fresh from politicking in Washington on
behalf of SUNY, urged senators to petition our governor and legislators on
behalf of the SUNY budget. At the time of the FS plenary, the budget was
in the governor’s hands; if the governor exercised vetoes on our budget, Ryan
felt we had a good chance of overturning that in the legislature (all of which
has since occurred). However, he was most concerned about the
governor impounded funds thereafter.
On
other issues Ryan said we must increase the number of students in medical
fields (a national agency wants a 30% increase), for which we will need
funding. He seemed to take an interest in the “Big Dig” findings,
when that was presented to him. He praised SUNY incentives in
international education, pointing to new initiatives in China and Mexico.
Finally, he showed concern about the rising cost of college education, and drew
our attention to a Delaware study on costs, and to a forthcoming Efficiency and
Effectiveness Report from Central Administration, observing in that context
that Maryland has found 40 million that they can use for instructional
purposes.
A
final note related to my report: in our discussion with Chancellor Ryan
senators mentioned the lack of faculty representation on the Provost Search
Committee, mentioned above. Since the plenary, Old Westbury faculty
member and Faculty Senator Runi Mukherji (she of the “Big Dig”) has been
appointed to the committee.
Luther D. Peterson
Oswego Faculty Senator, 2003-2006
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