UB Faculty Senate

FACULTY SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes of February 1, 2006
(unapproved)

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) met at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1, 2006, in 567 Capen Hall to consider the following agenda:

Report of the Chair
Report of the President/Provost
Strengthened Campus-Based Assessment, pt. 2 - C. Tutzauer, P. Gold
Report on the University Faculty Senate meeting at Farmingdale, NY
Old/New business
Adjournment

Item 1: Report of the Chair

At the end of March, the SUNY Faculty Senate Graduate and Research Committee will hold their meeting at UB.
An upcoming conference, "Teaching Creativity at SUNY," will be held in New York City as part of the Conversations in the Disciplines series.

Item 2: Report of the President/Provost

None

Item 3: Strengthened Campus-Based Assessment, pt. 2 - Carol Tutzauer, Peter Gold

Director of Assessment Carol Tutzauer and CAS Associate dean for General Education Peter Gold discussed and solicited comments on "Plan for the Strengthened Campus Based Assessment at the University at Buffalo," which now addresses several points that were raised at last week's FSEC meeting. The plan now says, "Students will be sampled each year in sufficient numbers that the full required sample will be achieved over the entire three-year assessment cycle. Sampled students will take the GRE General Text in order to assess learning outcomes in Writing, Mathematics, and Critical Thinking. Sets of items from the exam will be mapped to specific learning outcomes within each skill area for purposes of providing separate scores for each learning outcome, consistent with GEAR guidelines. UB will annually administer the National Survey of Student Engagement, currently SUNY-approved for assessment of campus environment. UB will undertake its assessment beginning with the 2006-2007 school year."

Most of today's questions and comments continued to express concern about whether and/or how the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) should be utilized in the assessment plan:

Students who don't plan to attend a graduate school won't be motivated to do their best.
Unmotivated students will be disadvantaged if they get a low score and later decide they're interested in applying to a graduate school, because scores remain in effect for five years. Multiple attempts are allowed, but all scores from the past five years get reported, per ETS policy.
Some students are likely to resist any motivational inducements we offer them, because that's reality.
Other exams, such as the MCAT and LSAT, might be included later, but we're just going to offer the GRE for now. Between that and the SAT scores that students have when they come here, we can provide a learning assessment that should be acceptable to SUNY.
SUNY has agreed to cover the fees so UB can offer the GRE for free to a 20% sampling of students. There is no reason to doubt that they will continue to cover those costs because it's relatively inexpensive compared to many other assessment options.
Valued-added assessment was originally intended to be an evaluation of the university, not the student. A better situation might be to get ETS to not count the tests that we're using for our campus-based assessment plan. Then the students would get their practice, and UB would get its data - it's a win-win.

Item 4: Report on the University Faculty Senate meeting at Farmingdale, NY

Chair Nickerson reported on the SUNY Senate meeting that was held January 26-28 on Long Island. SUNY-Farmingdale has grown from a two-year school into a four-year institution offering baccalaureate degrees, including a professional pilot course of study.

Highlights from the meetings included:

Kimberly Cline is the new chief financial officer for the SUNY system.
The SUNY provost has established a committee to develop a campus application strategy for the Faculty Development initiative.
Applications for "Conversations in the Disciplines" are due by April 1, 2006. The SUNY Senate passed a unanimous resolution to restore annual funding for CITD to $50.000.
The SUNY Senate Undergraduate Committee is sponsoring an academic integrity symposium on March 23-24 in Albany.
SUNY counsel has previously opined that the Open Meetings law is not applicable to campus faculty senates.
Provost Peter Salins has confirmed that he will leave that post and return to a teaching and research position at SUNY-Stony Brook.

Item 5: Old/New business

None

Item 6: Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Will Hepfer
Secretary of the Faculty Senate

ATTENDANCE (P = present; A = absent; E = excused)

Chair: Nickerson (P)
Secretary: W. Hepfer (P)
Architecture & Planning: GS Danford (P)
Arts & Sciences: J. Faran (P), R. Hoeing (E), SD Schack (P), D. Street (P), K. Takeuchi (P)
Dental Medicine: M. Donley (P)
Education: L. Malavé (P)
Engineering & Applied Sciences: C. Basaran (P), P. Alexandridis (A)
Informatics: J. Ellison (P)
Law: T. Miller (P)
Management: W. Lin (P)
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: D. Amsterdam (E), M. Dayton (A), L. Harris (A), J. Hassett (A)
Nursing: P. Wooldridge (P)
Pharmacy: G. Brazeau (E)
Public Health & Health Professions: vacant
Social Work: Barbara Rittner (A)
SUNY Senators: W. Baumer (P), W. Coles (P), H. Durand (P), P. Nickerson (P)
University Libraries: HA Booth (P)
University officers: Provost Tripathi

Guests: K. Bissonette (Student Affairs), B. Burke (EDAAA), M. Cochrane (Reporter), P. Gold (CAS), L. Meister (Undergrad. SA), C. Tutzauer (VPUE), C. Welch (CAS), J. Xu (Grad. SA), D. Yador (Undergrad. SA)

Tel: 716-645-2003
Fax: 716-645-2717
Email: facultysenate@buffalo.edu
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FACULTY SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes of February 1, 2006 (unapproved)

Minutes of February 1, 2006
(unapproved)