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Faculty Senate Executive Committee

Minutes of October 15, 2008

(unapproved)

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee met at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, October 15, 2008, in the Jeannette Martin Room of Capen Hall (567) to discuss the following:

1. Approval of the minutes of September 17, 2008
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President/Provost
4. Interaction with Gregory Neumann, University Bookstore Director and Bill Adamczak
5. Charging the Faculty Senate Community Outreach Committee

Charging the Research and Creative Activity Committee

6. Old/New business
7. Executive Session (if needed)
8. Adjournment

Item 1: Approval of the minutes of September 17, 2008

The minutes were unanimously approved.

Item 2: Report of the Chair

Reminder that the FSEC meeting that takes place on Wed after the full Senate meeting that takes place on the first Tues of every month are Executive sessions, meaning that they are closed to the public and to the press. The chair got an email from the SPECTRUM editor about excluding their reporter from last week’s meeting, making it necessary to remind everyone of these procedural matters.

There was a Joint APC and BPC meeting with the Provost last Monday to discuss his near final plans on the budget. The Provost will make his decisions known fairly shortly before leaving for India.

Reminder about super Thursday at WBFO (“super” because every donation will be matched and the money is doubled up), a station which provides valuable public service to the University. The chair encouraged senators to donate as well as to the take time to work the phones at the station.

Brief executive session would be needed to discuss the membership of the re-activated Faculty Senate Committee for Community Outreach. Proposed names for the committee will be shared during the session at the end of today’s FSEC meeting.

Item 3: Report of the President/Provost

N/A

Item 4: Interaction with Gregory Neumann, University Bookstore Director and Bill Adamczak, Textbook Manager

Gregory Neumann, UB Bookstore Director, provided an update on the University Bookstore. He first offered a bit of ground about the company that own the bookstore, Follet Higher Education Group which operates 836 bookstores around the US and Canada. This is part of a larger Follet Book corporation which has 7 separate divisions that include anything from digital resources, software, library services, bookstores, etc. and which, in addition to UB in the region, also serves other institutions such as Canisius, Damien, St Bonaventure, Medaille, ECC. Follet just celebrated its 30^th year partnership with UB last April, Neumann said. He himself has been at UB for 18 years and has been witnessing a lot of changes and developments from doing things on index cards to using complex systems involving the internet. The Bookstore considers itself very much part of the university community, Neumann stated, all the more so since the Senior vice president of Follet Higher Education group in charge of intellectual property is a local boy and a graduate of Amherst High School who visits UB quite a bit from the home office.

Neumann mentioned a project dear to his heart, namely the launching of a Bookstore Advisory Committee comprised of faculty, students, administration, a general group of 10 or 12 individuals, so that concerns about the bookstore or questions about what it does could be addressed on a regular basis. Bill Adamczak added that there had been different renditions of the Bookstore Committee over the years and that such an Advisory Committee would allow the Bookstore to address the problems and concerns of the here and now. He then went on to discuss the difficulties faculty sometimes experience in relation to the bookstore:

1/ the problem of not being able to get certain books

2/ textbook pricing since faculty are often unaware of the distinction between list pricing and net pricing. Publishers quote different types of pricing when talking to faculty and may not explain the difference, Adamczak explained. List pricing = retail price and from that list price the publisher usually gives a 20% discount to the bookstore which can range up to 40% for mass market novels. Net pricing is not the cost price to the student, it is the cost to the bookstore so the bookstore would need to take a mark up from there according to a formula offered by the industry.

Chair Hoeing asked about the best way for faculty to know the difference between net and list price. Adamczak encouraged them to call him and inquire directly about the cost to the student. Another senator asked about the status of electronic texts for the future. Course materials have been evolving at a rapid rate, Neumann said, and the company has been conducting a focus group with various organizations as well as students and faculty about digital content. Nevertheless, “while the concept is there and the technology is there, it hasn’t caught on and it hasn’t been embraced by students yet,” he said. This may be due, he added, to the fact that books are portable and easy, whereas digital content is sometimes more cumbersome. Neumann mentioned the company and e-book content provider CafeScribe as an example of what could be done with digital interfaces. CafeScribe is an online site at which students can browse, purchase, and download ebooks that they need for class, search the texts instantly, share notes with anyone, and grade other students’ notes. “It is the way of the future… and will undoubtedly reduce pricing,” Neumann commented.

Adamczak said that the UB Bookstore had been selling some electronic versions of texts that are tied in with Blackboard. This usually entails a one- or two-semester access to the online version, although usually a physical copy of the book is also made available to the students.

Stephen Dyson commented that a lot of discussion was going on about the heart of the campus and about the importance of making it more of a community. A really quality bookstore was crucial to attaining that goal, Dyson stressed. He cited Brown University’s two-storied bookstore or Barnes and Noble as examples of the kind of bookstore UB should emulate. “If we are going to develop this improved core, a more usable bookstore would be great where we can browse, have coffee,” he explained. Neumann mentioned that Brown’s bookstore has a huge general book section and that interestingly, faculty too tend to indicate a preference for a larger general book section. The general book department at UB includes 20,000 titles which is good compared to some college bookstores but not compared to places like Brown and Cornell, he added. The reason the size of the general department at UB has not been changed too much over the last years, Neumann explained, is because UB does not do enough business in general books. “We do realize that we are a mini visitor center and a lot of times, people who come to visit the campus come to the bookstores to ask about Buffalo and places to see,” he said. “We are not just the bookstore, we are more of a college store” and as such “are always looking to grow and remodel and change our appearance to keep things fresh.”

Peter Nickerson asked about data the UB Bookstore representatives could offer about how UB compares with U of Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota. Gayle Brazeau inquired whether the bookstore was in conversation with the rest of the university about scheduling: could it ensure that its schedule be aligned with the university schedule? In addition, she complained about the lack of competitive pricing of items that discouraged students from buying at the bookstore. Neumann said that the Bookstore did try to keep its prices competitive with its off campus competitors but also with its internet competitors (and this, despite the royalty fees they have to pay). He also indicated that he did consistently make a special effort to align the bookstore’s schedule with that of the university. Brazeau also stated that the bookstore needed to do a better job of carrying copies of the books written by the authors slated to appear on WBFO’s Meet the Author series. “Better coordination between the university and the bookstore is needed,” chair Hoeing interjected. Brazeau also asked whether UB Bookstore could not start selling more books on teaching and pedagogy.

Janiece Kiedrowski inquired about the ways the bookstore determines the profit made on books and how much of that goes into the store. Bill Adamczak explained that for every textbook dollar 76.3 cents went to the publisher to cover their expenses, and the rest came to the bookstore. “4.5 cents is our income,” he said, and the rest goes toward operating salaries and other costs. Neumann concluded by saying that the UB Bookstore welcomed any suggestion by faculty, staff, or students to help it to become more involved in campus life. For instance, the bookstore carries quite a selection of books authored by faculty and its staff would love to have faculty come in and sign their books. “A Bookstore Advisory committee would come in handy to develop such ideas and help implement them,” he added.

Item 5: Charging the Faculty Senate Community Outreach Committee

The chair reminded the senators that at its October 7th meeting, the FS voted to have the old “Public Service and Urban Affairs” committee reactivated and revamped as the FS Committee for Community Outreach. He further explained that the Faculty Senate Committee for Community Outreach was an extension of President Simpson’s call for UB to become a more integral part of the community and to increase ways of interacting with the community. Chair Hoeing then asked what the committee’s initial charges should be, since the old charges were no longer relevant. He passed around the suggestions of proposed charges he got from the faculty senate last week including:

1/ Educate the community in UB2020

2/ Assistance with development / construction in downtown Buffalo

3/ Historic preservation of South Campus

4/ How to recognize faculty endeavors?

5/ Build/improve relations btw UB and High school faculty to mutually support curriculum, teaching activities

6/ Links to aging population

7/ Stronger relations with High School and Community College faculty and students as well as community groups like the American cancer society and local industries

8/ Compile an inventory of public services/engagement we already perform so that the community has a better idea of how involved we already are

9/ Find out what else they would like us to do.

Stanley Bruckenstein argued that it would be a mistake to be too specific, and that a general statement would be preferable so as to allow the committee to evolve with time. Another senator concurred insofar as the mayor probably had an overall agenda that UB could link up to in order to produce a truly mutual effort. Robert Burkard also stressed the importance of “partnering with the community” so as not to appear like “we are telling them what to do.” The need to define what is meant by community and what constituents belong to it was also addressed by the senators. Dorothy Tao emphasized the need to build bridges to the community by informing them of resources available at UB they may not know about, such as the 4^th July fireworks. The chair agreed that it should not take a visit by the Dalai Lama to bring in people from WNY. Marilyn McMann Kramer asked whether the committee would go beyond the faculty to involve professional staff. The chair did not see a problem with it since a number of FS committees do have staff serving on them already. Peter Nickerson said that it was also important to recognize that there is an alumni association that is very active and very knowledgeable about the community.

Stephen Dyson asked whether the kind of work departments and schools were already doing to form ties to the community did not make such a committee superfluous. Chair Hoeing defended the need for a representative committee that would articulate what is going on across campus, something focused that will bring all this data and present it to the community as a unified faculty voice. This was “not duplicating but focusing and coordinating,” he said. Robert Burkard concurred that while there always was the danger of ending up with “a laundry list,” overtime, this would engender a useful database that would make it possible to get data for whatever purpose one chooses. Chair Hoeing further specified that the committee would not be dealing with issues relating to tenure and promotion (which would require the reactivation of the Promotion and Tenure Committee) and that he envisioned the committee as serving Erie County without excluding all of WNY. “Members of UB community are pretty far out there,” he stressed, “and they shouldn’t get excluded.”

It was agreed that the most important charge for the committee would be to find out “what we are already doing, which will give us an idea of where we want to go” (#8 on the list of proposed charges). It was further agreed that the committee ought to look and see what is going on with student involvement as part of its initial charge. The Chair concluded by saying that he would be drafting some sort of a charge for next week.

Item 6: New/old Business

Item 7: Executive Session (if necessary)

The FSEC went into executive session to discuss the proposed members who nominated themselves or were nominated to serve on the Faculty Senate Committee for Community Outreach.

Item 8: Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:49 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Carine Mardorossian, Secretary of the Faculty Senate

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