UB Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Executive Committee

Minutes of October 22nd, 2008

(unapproved)

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee met at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008, in the Jeannette Martin Room of Capen Hall (567) to discuss the following:

Approval of the minutes of September 24, October 1, and October 15 2008
Report of the Chair
Report of the President/Provost
Report of the SUNY Senate Plenary Meeting – Postdam –SUNY Faculty Senator Marilyn McMann Kramer
Report of Joseph Brennan, Associate Vice President for University Communications—Branding Concept
Charging the Faculty Senate Research and Creative Activity Committee
Old/New business
Executive Session (if needed)
Adjournment

Item 1: Approval of the minutes of September 24, October 1, and October 15 2008

The minutes were unanimously approved with a correction to the list of attendees on October 15, 2008 (Janina Brutt-Griffler was present).

Item 2: Report of the Chair

The Financial Management Advisory Group met for his final regularly scheduled meeting last week but has to remain available in stand by mode.

Graduate School Executive Committee met last Thurs. Marilyn Morris, Dean for Postdoctoral education, gave an update on the office of Postdoctoral Scholars: planning various workshops on applying for a first job, how to deliver a great presentation, on survival skill, etc. GSEC also discussed drafting a new responsible conduct of research certificate of completion requirement for graduate students.

Associate Provost Mick Thompson will discuss the personal performance inventory designed to evaluate non-cognitive skills in a future meeting of the FSEC

SUNY Senate met last week—Marilyn McMann Kramer will report

Item 3: Report of the President/Provost

The President reported about a conversation that took place during a recent Association of American Universities (AAU) meeting and which revealed that “college and universities across the U.S. are experiencing serious issues with their state budgets due to the financial crisis…. Nobody is immune,” he said. In fact, “the impact of the economic crisis is not only affecting colleges and universities in New York State, but also public and private institutions across the country.” Several private institutions have “endowments in the range of several billion dollars,” he added, “but are nonetheless concerned because the values of these endowments [which contribute as much as 25 percent of the fundamental operation budgets] are dramatically reduced.” The President then explained that the result of the economic crisis is more than likely going to be an increase in tuition, especially in state colleges and universities for which state funds account for a “substantial portion” of their budgets that include salaries and major operating costs.

Professor Philip Glick asked about the effect of declining stock values on students whose parents are “seeing sharp drops in their retirement savings.” Simpson said that he expected that receivables would go up while enrollments may go down. However, he also said that he suspected the effect would not be felt as much here as at other institutions “because our tuition is so reasonable.” The President told senators that UB has to make sure that every student can stay in school and can overcome potential financial challenges through access to support such as fellowships, financial aid, internships, and career services. He predicted that a rearrangement of how education is organized would have to happen in the next several years.

Senators commented that the open house for parents drew much larger numbers this year than any previous year and were wondering whether this was because of the economy. The President responded that the quality of the school had a lot to do with it.

Item 4: Report of the SUNY Senate Plenary Meeting – Postdam –SUNY Faculty Senator Marilyn McMann Kramer

Marilyn Kramer reported on her participation in the SUNY Senate Plenary Meeting that took place on Oct. 16-18 at Potsdam State College. The senate got an update on the Chancellor search, Kramer said, and received assurances that there are still viable candidates and that this remained an active search. Professor Baumer said that SUNY officials were trying to dismiss rumors that several candidates had withdrawn their names from consideration because of the budget situation. Kramer added that a lot of time at the meeting was spent talking about the budget and its impact. A significant bit of business the Senate undertook, Kramer said, was discussion and vote on a resolution in support of policy on transfer and articulation. The Board of trustees, she said, had been given anecdotal evidence that the articulation/transfer system was not working and proceeded with the assumption that that was, in fact, the case. A committee was formed to give recommendations. The committee consulted with the officers doing the work who thought the system was actually working well with the exception of community colleges where the high advisement loads made it difficult at times for students to figure out what transfers or not.

Item 5: Report of Joseph Brennan, Associate Vice President for University Communications—Branding Concept

Joseph Brennan discussed UB’s communications initiative, “Reaching Others,” which showcases UB’s excellence and its positive impact at the local, regional, national, and global level. Brennan said that UB is not as well known or appreciated as it should be beyond the boundaries of WNY and this is something his office was working to change by using video, TV, and radio “to tell the story of UB’s academic excellence.” The Associate Vice President for University Communications then showed two 30-second and six 15-second commercials that are shown in locations as far as Boston and Costa Rica and that highlight UB’s distinctive essence as a model public research university that is positively changing the world. The commercials and the new Web site were developed by staff in the Office of University Communications in conjunction with Partners + Napier, a Rochester-based communications agency. “A stronger public image can help us recruit students and faculty, enhance alumni pride and generate support from the community, government officials and donors. We also hope it will build pride and morale of those who work and study here,” Brennan explained. The initiative grew out of a process that began two years ago when the Division of External Affairs commissioned a comprehensive study of how the university is perceived by internal and external audiences. The study gathered the opinions of more than 4,000 faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, community members and external people. The TV commercials appeared, at no cost to the university, on UB athletic contests that are broadcast nationally and locally, including on the ESPNU network when the football team took on Ohio at 7 p.m., on ESPN2 at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 when the Bulls host Miami (Ohio), and on ESPNU on Nov. 13 when UB plays at Akron.

Senators noted that beside the issue of publicizing the university world- and nationwide, there was also the problem of getting the word out within UB itself. There should be a mechanism to understand what is going on within the institution and to improve internal communications here at UB, they added. Brennan said that he had been working on this and requested that information about faculty accomplishments be funneled to his office. His office was also trying to make better use out of the web, he added.

Item 6: Charging the Faculty Senate Plenary Meeting and Creative Activity Committee

Chair Hoeing explained that this committee has been defunct for a number of years (last chair: John Ho who has been serving as interim dean of the Graduate School). The chair added that he will soon convene an executive session to solicit names of people who would be on the committee. One charge has already been suggested to him by the Graduate School Executive Committee, namely that of developing possible guidelines or policy at UB regarding the choice of graduate students between open access and traditional publishing. The Graduate School’s Office of Student Services repeatedly receives inquiries from graduate students seeking advisement on this issue, Hoeing explained; the OSS refers students to advisors, and the latter refer them to the Graduate School Electronic submission has been into place for 3 years at UB. There is no policy in place, and the Graduate School will ask the FSEC to craft some guidelines concerning the potential conflict between the rights of the author and the university’s obligation and responsibility to make scholarship available to other scholars.

Chair Hoeing asked for suggestions of other charges for the committee. He also mentioned the complaints concerning the Internal Review Board’s constricting demands on graduate student time when their research involves human subjects, an issue that will be the focus of next week’s FSEC meeting, he said.

Item 7: New/Old Business

Item 8: Executive Session (if necessary)

Item 9: Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 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:
Robert Adelman (P)
Sampson Blair (P)
Stanley Bruckenstein (P)
Melvyn Churchill (P)
Stephen Dyson (A)

Dental Medicine:
Thomas Mang (P)

Educational Opportunity Center:
TBA

Engineering & Applied Sciences:
Paschalis Alexandridis (E)
Sargur Srihari (E)

Graduate School of Education:
TBA

Law:
Mark Bartholomew (P)

Management:
Hodan Isse (P)

Medicine & Biomedical Sciences:
David Ellis (A)
James Hassett (A)
Charles Hershey (A)
Peter Ostrow (A)

Nursing:
Linda Steeg (E)

Pharmacy:
Gayle Brazeau (P)

School of Public Health and Health Professions:
Robert Burkard (P)

Social Work:
Robert Keefe (P)

SUNY Senators:
William H. Baumer (P)
Peter Bradford (P)
Henry Durand (P)
Marilyn McMann Kramer (P)

Parliamentarian:
William H. Baumer (P)

University Libraries:
Dorothy Tao (A)

Guests:
John Simpson (President)
Peter Nickerson (School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences)
Janiece Kiedrowski (Professional Staff Senate)
Kevin Fryling (The Reporter)
G. Kannar (Law)
J. Adams-Volpe (Libraries)
Charles Lyons (Libraries)
David Bray (EDAAA)
Karen Spencer (Law Library)
R. Wetherhold (Faculty Senate FP)

Tel: 716-645-2003
Fax: 716-645-2717
Email: faculty-senate@buffalo.edu
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