FACULTY SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Minutes of April 23, 2008
(unapproved)
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee met at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, April 23, 2008, in the Jeannette Martin Room of Capen Hall (567) to discuss the following agenda:
- Report of the Chair
- Report of the President/Provost
- Research Computing Survey and Update (http://www.cio.buffalo.edu/res-comp-survey.pdf) - Matt Stock, Manager Enterprise Research Computing Services
- Interaction with the TLT – Task Group – Barbara Rittner, Lisa Stephens
- Faculty Senate Grading Committee – amendments to the Academic Integrity and Grievance Policy and Program Honors and Distinction Policies – William H. Baumer, Chair
- Old/New Business
- Executive Session (if needed)
- Adjournment
- The Chair thanked all who participated in the 4th Annual Celebration of Academic Excellence last Thursday, and especially the faculty who serve as Research Mentors for the students.
- The Annual Meeting of the Graduate Faculty took place on Friday, April 18.
- Provost Tripathi talked about UB’s Graduate Mission and future prospects, and reported on the satisfactory progress of the program reviews.
- Reviewed were:
- Graduate Faculty appointments for 2007-2008 (64 in all);
- Faculty membership on the Graduate School Fellowship Committee and the Schomburg Fellowship Nomination Review Committee;
- Presidential Fellowship Program funding commitments for 2008-2009 --- the estimated cost for both new and continuing fellowships exceeds $1 million.
- Prof. Marilyn Morris reported on the activities of the Office of Post-Doctoral Scholars.
- Dean John Ho introduced a list of issues for consideration during the coming year, among them
- Course work
- Exams
- Time to degree
- Professional preparation
- Communication and IT skills
- Ethics training
- Climate to promote diversity
- Career guidance
- The Chair thanked all who participated in the second forum on the Physical Master Plan yesterday at the Center for the Arts, and reminded faculty of the importance of continued input into the process.
- Prof. Harvey Stenger, Dean of Engineering and Chair of the School of Management Dean Search Committee, announced this past week three candidates and their upcoming on-campus interviews.
- The Chair met with SA President Peter Grollitsch this morning to discuss the proposed changes to the Drop/Add policy, and suggested that in the coming year, faculty and students have a series of dialogues on the issue to ensure that the changes cause as little difficulty as possible.
Item 2. Report of the President/Provost
Provost Tripathi discussed the implications of the 2.9 percent state budget cuts for UB's operating funds. He also addressed the $2 million in losses ensuing from SUNY's plans to reallocate funds from UB, Stony Brook University and Downstate Medical Center to the University at Albany, Binghamton University and the system's comprehensive colleges. He further reported that there were indications from the state capital that additional funds may be withheld: SUNY may be asked to set aside an additional $110 million, a sum that has been referred to as “an expenditure limit” rather than a budget cut, he said.
The Provost stated that any more cuts and restrictions to the budget would seriously and negatively impact UB’s long-term planning projects. They would also negatively affect the university’s ability to provide incoming research faculty with adequate start-up funds. Although things remain uncertain, Tripathi added, the best outcome would be for the campuses and SUNY to be allowed to manage their own resources to the best of their abilities.
President Simpson remarked that financial support for UB’s capital projects remained strong. He hoped that long-term funding would still be available to maintain UB’s physical growth.
Item 3. Research Computing Survey and Update (http://www.cio.buffalo.edu/res-comp-survey.pdf) - Matt Stock, Manager Enterprise Research Computing Services
Matthew Stock, manager of Enterprise Research Computing services in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, gave a report on Research Computing at UB and the academic support projects developed partly based on the 2007 Faculty Research computing IT survey. Enterprise Research Computing Services is a new CIO unit on campus that was formalized in mid-July 2007 and whose main goal is threefold:
- identifying research needs at UB
- implementing, supporting research services
- advocating, coordinating within campus IT
Stock discussed the 2007 Research IT Survey that was originally initiated by the Center for Computation Research (CCR), CIO, and the VPR office. It included interviews, focus groups, presentations, and literature search for best practices. 158 faculty from a variety of different centers around the campus responded to the survey (see: http://www.cio.buffalo.edu/res-comp-survey.pdf)
Stock then emphasized the 6 key areas that came out of the survey as areas in need of focus and improvement. These areas include 1/ additional computing needs, 2/ networking, 3/ collaboration tools, 4/ research Grant administration, 5/ programming and staff stupport, and 5/ storage services for research (which relates to file space, backup, and archiving). He clarified that while storage and backup services are currently available, archiving was still a work in progress. He also emphasized the collaborative nature of the work done by his office in an effort to avoid duplication. For instance, CIO and the Center for Computation Research (CCR) have been working together on a project called CONDOR that takes some of the unused capacity in the public computing sites and makes it available to researchers for research computing. This not only complements the work CCR already has but also provides an impressive amount of computational power at minimal cost.
Other projects in the planning phase, Stock said, would provide researchers information about integrating content from multiple sources; allow them to share/edit documents; develop a multi-platform document collaboration tool through which researchers could edit the same document from different online locations; create a searchable index of faculty research activities; develop better ways of doing desktop video-conferencing, give external and broader audiences better access to our resources; put together better solutions in regards research software licensing; and keep better track of what we have at our disposal through database collections.
Stock concluded by emphasizing the next steps the CIO would be focusing on, namely improving faculty awareness of existing services and the completion of the remaining identified projects. He provided his email address for those in need of information on how to access services or for those willing to participate in future planning stock@buffalo.edu
Rohini Srihari (Engineering and Applied Sciences) inquired whether CIO was now the clearing house for acquiring a new special new software. Stock encouraged faculty to consult CIO about this.
Stock then addressed the issue of confidentiality raised by Dr. David Ellis (Medicine) concerning the storing of data. Access to the date, he clarified, would continue to be driven by the owner of the data not by the service itself.
Item 4. Interaction with the TLT – Task Group – Barbara Rittner, Lisa Stephens
Lisa Stephens, associate for instructional resources for Academic Services-UB Information Technology, gave a presentation on the activities of the Teaching Learning Technology Task Force Group, an advisory, mission driven group. The purpose of the group, she explained, was to provide faculty/stakeholder perspective to the Instructional Facilities Sub Committee, drive identified needs with data, and quantify needs for planning and budgeting purposes while ensuring alignment with UB2020 initiatives. Stephens discussed the projects the group is working on in order to encourage faculty to use more technology. The group was convened, she said, as a result of a faculty survey that went out about a year ago; 300 responses were received and participants got together to discuss the learning outcomes that are tied to instructional technologies, the tools that are available and the strategies necessary to integrate technology.
Stephens further reported that with the help of Barbara Rittner, co-chair of the Task Group, another survey was developed aimed at “recently hired faculty” followed by the Fall 07 Student IT Survey. As a result, the administrative and technical barriers to teaching technology were identified: e.g. the time required to learn technology tools, promotion/tenure concerns; the lack of hands on technology spaces; the lack of classrooms. Three sub-groups were formed to discuss these issues, each with different constituents (100% faculty and instructors; 50% instructors and 50% support specialists, etc.) and with different goals (finding strategies for teaching/student engagement; reviewing pedagogy and teaching tool integration; process and stakeholder integration). These projects also included a comprehensive index of each classroom's technological features (flexible lighting, acoustics and white boards to smart boards, media playback, network access, data storage and live video-conferencing capabilities).
Stephens and Rittner both emphasized the extent to which this faculty-driven Task Group was dependent on the Faculty Senate’s affirmation and endorsement of future efforts. They called for an ongoing communication between the two bodies.
Item 5. Faculty Senate Grading Committee – amendments to the Academic Integrity and Grievance Policy and Program Honors and Distinction Policies – William H. Baumer, Chair
William H. Baumer, chair of the senate's Grading Committee, proposed an amendment to four UB policies. The first two amendments aimed at barring attorneys from serving as advisors during university grievance and academic integrity hearings. This was a rule that had been lifted several years ago and that needed to be reinstated, Baumer said. John T. Ho, interim vice provost of graduate education and dean of the Graduate School, mentioned a situation where a simple grievance hearing escalated into a five-hour debate with three attorneys, including legal counsel serving members of the grievance committee, as well as the faculty member who had originally pressed charges against the student.
Gary Scott Danford, associate professor in the School of Architecture and Planning, objected to the proposal. He argued that these kinds of situations may have dire consequences on a student’s future (such as the recommendation for expulsion), and that as such, should be approached as a legal proceeding. Rights, he added, could not just be thrown away as a matter of convenience. Baumer replied that a grievance or academic integrity hearing should not be confused with an action in a civil court or at a criminal hearing. “There is a clear line,” he stressed. He also pointed out that the rights to a lawyer remained in effect outside the hearings and that legal proceedings could still come into play if the university failed to follow its own rules.
Professor Baumer then recommended that the proposal go for final action at the 6 May FS meeting and not be subjected to the usual two reading process so it could be approved and in place at the beginning of the 2008-2009 academic year. A majority of senators voted to pass the amendment on to the full Faculty Senate for approval in May and resolved that only one reading would be required.
Baumer then moved on to the proposals on Program Honors and Program Distinction which are corollary, he said, to the proposal on Latin Honors that he anticipated would pass with second reading at the May meeting of the FS. He proposed that the two proposals be set for first reading either at the May FS meeting or at the first Fall meeting of the FS. Program Honors, he explained, requires an additional project that Program distinction does not. These proposals, he added, had been met with approval across campus. The chair suggested that since this proposal was uncontroversial, it could be put on the agenda for adoption at the May 6 meeting.
Item 7. Executive Session (not needed)
The meeting was adjourned at 4:08 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Carine Mardorossian, Secretary of the Faculty Senate
Attendance
(P = present; E = excused; A = absent)
Chair:
Robert Hoeing (P)
Secretary:
Carine Mardorossian (P)
Arts & Sciences:
Joseph Woelfel (P)
Melvyn Churchill (P)
Sharmistah Bagchi-Sen (A)
Stanley Bruckenstein (P)
Debra Street (P)
Architecture & Planning:
Scott Danford (P)
Dental Medicine:
TBA
Educational Opportunity Center:
TBA
Engineering & Applied Sciences:
Stella Batalama (A)
Rohini Srihari (P)
Graduate School of Education:
Thomas Schroeder (A)
School of Law:
TBA
Management:
Hodan Isse (P)
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences:
Peter Bradford (P)
David Ellis (P)
James Hassett
(A)
Charles Hershey (P)
Peter Ostrow (A)
Nursing:
Cynthia Curran (A)
Pharmacy:
Gayle Brazeau (P)
School of Public Health and Health Professions:
Peter Horvath (P)
Social Work:
Barbara Rittner (P)
SUNY Senators:
William H. Baumer (P)
Peter Bradford (P)
Henry Durand (A)
Marilyn McMann Kramer
(P)
Parliamentarian:
William H. Baumer (P)
Ex-officio:
Peter Nickerson (P)
University Libraries:
Dorothy Tao (P)
Guests:
Satish Tripathi (Provost)
John Simpson (President)
Barbara Burke (EDAAA)
David Bray (EDAAA)
Janiece Kiedrowski (Professional Staff Senate)
Kevin Fryling (The Reporter)
Elias Eldayrie (Assoc. VP for IT + CID)
Lisa Stephens (Assoc. for Instructional Resources)
Steve Sturman (Teaching Learning Task Group)
Faculty Senate
543 Capen Hall
University at Buffalo (North Campus)
Buffalo, New York 14260-1680
Tel: 716-645-2003
Fax: 716-645-2717
Email: faculty-senate@buffalo.edu
Contact Us
© Copyright University at Buffalo Faculty Senate | UB Home | Accessibility | Legal Notices | Website Acknowledgements