FACULTY SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes of September 7, 2005
(unapproved)

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) met at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 7, 2005, in 567 Capen Hall to consider the following agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of April 20th and 27th, 2005
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President/Provost
4. Date for dropping/adding courses – M . Ryan
5. Revision of grievance procedure and academic integrity policies – W. Baumer
6. Review of School of Management reorganization document
7. Old/New business
8. Executive Session (if needed)
9. Adjournment

Item 1: Approval of the minutes of April 20th and 27th, 2005

Both minutes were approved as distributed

Item 2: Report of the Chair

Chair Nickerson welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the new Academic Year and reported:

• There’s good news about The Reporter – all issues will henceforth be available in print and online, instead of the weekly online version and the bi-weekly paper edition that’s been the model for the past several years.
• The ad hoc Faculty Senate (FS) committee on the faculty code of conduct has been meeting regularly during the summer. A draft document will be distributed with the agenda for next week’s meeting.
• The SUNY Senate executive committee met in July with Interim Chancellor Admiral John Ryan (former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, president of SUNY Maritime, and Interim President of SUNY Albany). He has accepted an invitation to visit UB this semester if a date can be settled on.
• Several FSEC members were able to participate in interviewing Athletics Director finalists in July. Warde Manuel has since been hired and will meet with FSEC and the FS Athletics & Recreation Committee early this semester.
• Recent appointments to UB’s senior leadership include: Dr. David Dunn, Vice President for Health Sciences; Dr. Jorgé José, Vice President for Research; Ms. Marsha Henderson, Vice President for External Affairs.
• The UB Council met in June. There was a public suggestion that the School of Architecture move to downtown Buffalo. Any decision will be made as part of the overall UB2020 planning process.
• There’s a potential plan to have UB increase from 25,000 FTE students to 30,000 FTE students. We’re currently 250 faculty short for the current enrollment.
• Professor Howard Doueck is the new chair of the Budget Priorities Committee, which has already met this semester. The committee will be discussing the new budget process that is already in place.

Item 3: Report of the President/Provost

President Simpson welcomed everyone and said he is looking forward to the new semester.

Item 4: Date for dropping/adding courses – Michael Ryan

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Ryan outlined the current drop/add policy, which allows students to drop or add courses through the first two weeks of the semester. He also explained that students currently may resign courses without permission through the 8th week of a 14-week semester. Resignations that occur between the 3rd and 8th weeks are indicated as R grades on transcripts. First-semester students may resign a course through the 11th week with permission from an academic advisor.

There is often confusion with the current policy because dates for dropping courses don’t align with financial liability. Late adds frequently lead to problems due to reduced chances for academic success.

Although UB has a system of mid-semester evaluations for first-semester students, there is not a policy mandating it beyond the first semester (except for EOP and Athletics), so some students don’t find out they’re doing poorly until after the resignation deadline.

The following proposal was presented to eliminate or reduce the current problems:

Drop/Add:

• Reduce the drop period to the equivalent of one week.
• Insure that there is a full week of opportunity for students to attend all of their classes, i.e. Monday through Saturday (Fall semester) or Tuesday through Monday (Spring semester).
• The period of adding classes would extend for one extra day beyond the period to drop, i.e. add could extend to Sunday (Fall semester) or Tuesday (Spring semester) – equivalent to one week plus one day.
• Align the period of financial responsibility with the dates for dropping classes. Financial obligations can be coordinated so that students have no financial liability for the tuition for courses if they are dropped during the one-week period. Of course, expenses relating to housing, food service, and similar services might still have to be assessed.
• There may be isolated extenuating circumstances in which students would be force-registered into courses even though the add deadline has passed. One such situation involves international students who encounter delays in entering the country.

Resignation:

• Extend the resignation deadline to 11 weeks for all undergraduate students.
• Extend the same mid-semester evaluation process beyond first-semester students to upperclassmen who are at academic risk: probationary students, EOP students, student athletes.

The proposal was clarified to pertain only to undergraduates following a discussion with Graduate School administrators about potential problems for graduate students.

Professor Baumer made a motion (then seconded) that the proposal be referred to the FS Grading Committee for further consideration before it is presented to the full Senate. The motion passed.

Item 5: Revision of grievance procedure and academic integrity policies – William H. Baumer

Professor Baumer, chair of the FS Grading Committee, presented four revised policies and requested that the FSEC recommend them to the Faculty Senate for adoption. The four coordinated policies are:

• Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures – Undergraduate Education
• Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures – Graduate School
• Academic Grievance Policy and Procedures – Undergraduate Education
• Academic Grievance Policy and Procedures – Graduate School

They are being presented as four separate policies, not because they’re very different, but because they’ll be more effective by being clearly labeled as pertaining to undergraduates and graduate students. They’re actually quite similar – their main differences deal with identifying peer student members who can participate in grievance and academic integrity hearing committees, and also by defining whether the senior officer who is the final level of consideration is the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education or the Dean of the Graduate School.

The present penalties for violations will continue, but with revised procedures for dealing with alleged violations by undergraduates and graduates. There is now a provision disallowing a student who has been accused of academic integrity from resigning a course. Also, action can now proceed against a student accused of cheating even if the student does not respond to the allegation.

The proposed policies place more responsibility on departmental or decanal units for handling cases.

A motion to transmit the revised policies to the Faculty Senate for consideration was seconded and passed. They will be presented for a first reading at the October 11th FS meeting.

Item 6: Review of the School of Management reorganization document

FSEC considered a memo from Provost Tripathi proposing a department reorganization in the School of Management. The plan would establish a new department called Operations Management and Strategy using faculty from the current Management Sciences and Systems department. That department would henceforth focus on the management of information technology in organizations. The new department would focus on operations management, strategy, and entrepreneurship.

A motion to approve the reorganization was seconded and passed.

Item 7: Old/New business

Professor Baumer distributed two documents – “University at Buffalo Academic Calendars – 2005-06 through Summer 2010” and “Standard University at Buffalo Academic Calendars” – both dated August 30, 2005, pertaining to an FSEC charge to review proposed UB Academic Calendars covering 2007/08, 2008/09, and 2009/10. The proposed calendars were all found to have errors requiring correction. Modifications were drafted and reviewed with Vice Provost Ryan, who has accepted them.

“Standard… Calendars” explains that UB has a “long-established pattern for academic calendars that can be specified in a set of seven calendars with alternate Spring semester schedules for leap years. Adoption of these as standard calendars will set definitive schedules and forestall future lengthy discussions reaching these same schedules.”

The seven calendars all meet the “Carnegie Unit” credit hour standard, except for Fall semesters when observance of Jewish holidays creates deficiencies that are presumed to be acceptable. This is elaborated on in “Appendix: Fall Semester Deficiencies,” which contends that “prior practices establish beyond doubt that scheduling compensating class days does not work.”

Professor Schack complimented the reports and said he supports the adoption of the revised calendars covering now through the 2009/10 Academic Year. He doesn’t agree that manipulating the fall calendar to compensate for class time missed due to religious holidays is as problematic as the “Appendix… Deficiencies” suggests, however. Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence, he made two separate motions.

The first motion (which was seconded) called for approval of the academic calendars proposed through the 2009/10 Academic Year. The motion passed.

The second motion (also seconded) called for holding off on approving the later calendars until the question of compensating class days can be studied. This should be referred to an appropriate committee for further consideration. This motion passed, too.

Item 8: Executive Session

There was an executive session

Item 9: Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Will Hepfer
Secretary of the Faculty Senate

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

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


Guests: B. Burke (EDAAA), M. Cochrane (Reporter), L. Labinski (Prof. Staff Senate), B. McCombe (Grad. Sch.), M. Ryan (Undergrad. Ed.), K. Saunders (Undergrad. Ed.), M. Thompson (Grad. Sch.)

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