The Faculty Senate met at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at the Center for Tomorrow to discuss the following agenda:
Item 1: Approval of the minutes of November 6, 2007 and February 5, 2008
The minutes of November 6, 2007and February 5, 2008were unanimously approved.
Item 2: Report of the Chair
• Student Life Committee re-convened on 2/26 and began discussing its various charges;
• Athletics & Recreation Committee --- Russ Crispell is in the process of scheduling two more meetings this semester;
• Grading Committee will meet after this Senate meeting and probably again later this month to consider a variety of issues, among them ---
• i. reducing the Drop-Add window;
• ii. disparities between academic progress requirements and financial aid eligibility requirements;
• iii. criteria for undergraduate Latin Honors and for program distinction;
• iv. rules for non-matriculated undergraduate enrollment.
• Computer Services Committee --- will meet this Friday; items on the agenda include a research computing survey, student e-mail outsourcing, and a number of items from Rick Lesniak.
• Information & Library Resources Committee met on 2/15, discussed principally the Libraries' needs and shortfalls that UB will need to address as it grows under the UB 2020 plan;
• Facilities Planning Committee --- Chair Robert Wetherhold met with the FSEC to discuss and sharpen the Committee's charges, and has begun seeking information from Bob Shibley ‘s office about how many committees are already working on facilities planning, AND how, or even IF, they are coordinated and reaching similar conclusions; the Committee will convene in the near future;
• Budget Priorities Committee --- met yesterday (3/3); very active, intense discussion on
• i. 5-year plan capital projects across SUNY campuses --- all together, above allocated budget, some cuts will be necessary
• ii. Definition of “Faculty” for State reporting purposes
• iii. distribution of programs across the 3 campuses
• Elections Committee : Secretary Carine Mardorossian made an announcement on the SUNY Senate election, namely that after 613 ballots were counted, Professor Henry Durand was reelected as SUNY Senator and Professor Kesavadas would serve as his alternate.
• Best practices for Annual Reviews of Graduate Students;
Main objective --- to ensure that all grad students are reviewed annually --- to catch problems early on for the newer students, and to make sure older students progress toward and finish their degrees
• a document on “Graduate Admissions Integrity Policies and Procedures”, to deal with students who have knowingly falsified information on their applications;
• Collaborative Graduate degree programs with other universities;
Item 3: Report of the President/Provost
n/a
Item 4: Report of the Vice President for Research – Dr. Jorge Jose
Dr. Jose offered a comprehensive update on the Research Enterprise at the University of Buffalo and in the US, showing how investment in Science and Engineering in particular is on the rise at UB despite large cuts in the federal research budget. He first addressed “how we got where we are today” by discussing the research funding and data (research growth between 2004-2007) from key funding sources such as NIH, NSF, DOE, NASA, DOD. Then he addressed “where we would like to be” in the future, especially through UB2020 in order to improve UB's ranking as compared to other public AAU institutions. “We would like to be recognized nationally and internationally for our research innovativeness in designated strategic strengths areas and to be in the top half of the public AAU universities in terms of research expenditures ,” Dr. Jose said. He added that in order to accomplish this, UB will need to hire distinguished faculty scholars, improve research support services, support faculty research and have a heavier focus on multidisciplinary research.The Vice President for Research then outlined how UB wasplanning to accomplish these goals through:
• Strategy: invest money in Strategic Strengths through seed funding to people carrying out research consistent with UB2020 vision
• UB2020 interdisciplinary Research Development Fund (IRDF)
• Coordinate recruitment program with UB2020 Strategic Strengths
• Empire innovation EIP) recruitment of stellar faculty program
• Strengthen Resources and Infrastructure.
Dr Jose explained that one of the main metrics used by different universities in the way they are ranked by peers is expenditures. He defined expenditure as “every single $ institution invests in research” although this includes only money spent, he explained, not money awarded. He went on to explain how this was relevant to the UB Science and Engineering expenditures. Indeed, UB continues to see increases in total R&D research expenditures on an annual basis. Since 2004, total expenditures in the Sciences and Engineering have increased by over 21%, Dr. Jose said (from 258,952 million dollars in 2004 to 314,837 million dollars in 2007). He added that the federal government is the greatest supporter of research at UB with 47.3%, the institution funds are 30% (not unusual), the state 4.5%; industry 6.8% of total amount which shows an increase.
64% of UB's total research investments in terms of federal funding comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Jose said. The Department of Defense (DOD) is the next greatest source of federal research grants at 15.3% followed by the National Science Foundation (NFS) at 8.8 percent. During the 2004 federal budget, the National Institutes of Health saw a peak in support to fund research, while other agencies such as the NSF and DOD have seen declines. Dr. Jose emphasized that this downward trend was part of a general decrease in federal spending for research (from a little more than $60 billion in 2004 to a projected figure of approximately $56 billion in 2008) which makes it harder to get funded today and will make it harder to increase research expenditures in the future.
As far as the UB Non-Science and Engineering Research Expenditures in 2004-2007 are concerned, Dr. Jose stated that these went from $10million dollars to 25% less, with education representing the main source ofcontribution, the Humanities, Law, and Visual Artshaving decreased.The Vice Provost then addressed what this declining trend in federal sending for research means for UB specifically. Indeed, UB is a major recipient of deferral funds to support various research projects. In FY 2007, federal expenditures represented more or less 47.3% of total S&E research expenditures at UB. The solution could have been a report by NAS entitled Augustine 2005 “Rising Abovethe Gathering Storm Energizing and Employing America for a brighter Economic Future.” This report received full national support, was included in President's American competitive Initiative (ACI) budget, received full bipartisan support (House 389-22 Senate 88-8) to double the budget; it was signed by the Presidenton 8-9-2007 but died in the Omnibus bill. This happened in 2006, in 2007, and it is again included in the budget for 2009 but because of the election year, Dr. Jose predicts that the probability of success is low.
The real answer, the Vice Provost stated, could come from the UB2020 Strategic Strengths, with its emphasis on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research, as well as new research collaborations that should increase funding and opportunities as well as the plans for growth with the hiring of new faculty who will add to existing academic strengths, and thus expand research. He added that UB research is strong and that sustainability to continue and improve upon its research performance would result from
• Investment in emerging areas of opportunity
• Support for faculty research through
• Proposal Cost Sharing and Matching
• Bridge Funding
• Centers and Facilities Funding
• Multi-Project/Multi-investigator Proposal (MIPS) assistance
• Seed Funding (Interdisciplinary Research Development Fund and )UB2020 Scholars Fund
Dr Jose explained that the emphasis on interdisciplinary research and emerging areas of investigation was necessary to survive in an increasingly competitive research environment: “ problems like aging, chronic diseases, climate change and the energy problem are not going to be resolved by being a chemist or a physicist or a medical doctor,” he said. “We have to have contributions from people from different areas of research and that is being recognized by the funding agencies.”
Other support offered by the Office of Vice President for research will include
• New part time position of Associate Vice Pres in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences: someone to communicate with people in the Humanities
• Catalyzing collaborations btw faculty in different disciplines (VPR breakfasts)
• New initiatives in Regenerative Medicine and Great Lakes sustainability research
In conclusion, Vice President Jose emphasized that UB research and creative enterprise is doing very well at the present time but that we need to continuously be changing to anticipate new opportunities for external resources in this difficult funding environment.
Using the notion of “tax cuts as fuel for the economy” as metaphor, Prof. Sargur Srihari from Computer Scienceexpressed concern about the particularly high indirect cost UBhas--57% compared to other institutions. The PIs at other institutions, Dr. Srihari said, get a significant proportion and use it toward promising projects for which they are not funded. Dr. Jose explained that 75 centsper dollar that investigators get is actually subsidized by the University.The rate of overhead is negotiated with the NIH.What is more, successful PIs do get some money for their successes, up to$10,000 to $15,000 sometimes, which amounts to about $1 million a year. The university is pretty much subsidizing research at the institution, he explained.
Peter Nickerson asked whether there were different ways to help recently hired faculty to get funded in a wider variety of disciplines where not everyone can collaborate? Dr. Jose responded that 35% of the IRDF grants go to Junior faculty. He also mentioned thenew UB2020 Scholars Fund which does not require collaboration among faculty. “The university is conscious of the need to help everyone,” he said.
Professor Jim Campbell from Political Science commented that the focus of Vice President Jose's remarks on the state of research at the university exclusively concerned expenditures and could be seen as an accountant's view of research. While there may be a strong parallelism of expenditures and research productivity in the Natural Sciences, this is not necessarily the case in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Was there, he asked, a way of tracking research other than by expenditures. Dr. Jose said that while universities areindeed ranked by the amount of expenditures, there was indeed the recognition that expenditures do not define the University as a whole. For instance, last year, his office instituted a new tradition of recognizing the publications of UB authors and set out to find out how many books had beenpublished in the previous 15 months. After coming up with 40-50 books through a standard search, anemail sent to faculty unveiled another 100 books. What matters, Dr. Jose argued, is how facultymembers at UB are ranked nationally and internationally in their particular disciplines, i.e. with the metrics given in that particular field of study.
Peter Horvath from Exercise and Nutrition commented thatmembers of the facultydid not havethe ability to know who is doing what in the University and missed out on potential research intersections. He added that clinical research is also lacking in support in terms of theability to reach out to the community to get participants and coordinate advertising. Dr. Jose concurred that communication between people in different fields and in different disciplines is sometimes limited. He mentioned UB Research Space, a program thatwas created precisely to allow faculty from different departments to communicate and write grant proposals together. With respect to clinical trials, he said that the university is making a big effort in that realm and is working to provide an infrastructure to facilitate them. Geralyn Timler from Communicative Disorders and Sciences asked whether Dr. Jose's office tracked what was going on in departments such as the Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences. Dr. Jose confirmed that it did.
Item 5: Report on Wellness and Work/Life Balance – Katherine Frier, Director of Wellness & Work/Life Balance
Katherine Frier, Director of Wellness and Work/Life Balance,reported that UB's new Employee Wellness seeks to provide a healthy and supportive work environment for UB faculty and staff by putting together programming and trying to promote a culture. She announced that UB had just been named by Business First as a Finalist for the “Best Place to Work in WNY,” a testimony to the effectiveness of the direction the University is taking in supporting wellness.Wellness Part I, she explained, was launched with a focus on fitness, because it is the easiest way to beginand get everyone's attention. This included:
• Recreations and Intramurals, Division of Athletics
• Area Gym and Fitness Discounts
• Weight Watchers on Campus
• Move It to Lose It Fitness Challenge to mimic the Biggest Loser: Weight loss competition until May (200 lbs lost all together)
Wellness Part II, Frier reported, is an extension of this emphasis on fitness insofar as it strives to get people to change by:
• Helping to create a campus culture that supports and embraces health and wellness e.g.free medication to people who may want to quit smoking
• Focusing on behavioral change:
• Instituting programs to make it in vogue
Katherine Frier then listed the “next steps” involved in the process, and listed activities such as The Wellness Fair on April 9 th ; Walking programs; Smoking Cessation Assistance, and Stress Busting Programming. Collaboration with what is now a more robust EAP, Employee Assistance Program (with its new director) is crucial to this process, she noted.Possible future strategies also include:Health risk assessments for people to take; coaching for health improvement by looking at the food offerings on campus for instance; motivational counseling; a focus on emotional well being and disease management.
Frier reported that a Wellness Working Groupwas in the process of being started, i.e. a collaborative body of people who have already been involved with wellness initiatives and whose knowledge and ideas will provide input into the direction the Employee Wellness Program needs to take. She emphasized that volunteers from faculty were needed to join this group because it is currently heavily skewed toward professionals.Frier also reported that UB had been invited to be on a National Healthy Advisory Board along with Universities like Iowa, Purdue, Duke, Minnesota, Michigan and Arizona that are all further ahead than UB in terms of wellness programs. These institutions have already provided a lot of advice to UB on how to go about introducing wellness effectively into campus life.
The Chairof the FS, Robert Hoeing,addressed the fact that the underlying assumption here was an emphasis on prevention rather than treatment.Katherine Frier concluded by highlighting an upcoming event: UB Campus Conversation which is going to take place on April 9, 2008, 11 am-12pm, Alumni Area Meeting with all Faculty and Staff.ThePresident, she said,willspecifically address how everyone fits into the culture of the University.Chair Hoeing reminded the faculty that UB has more national prominence thanks to this Wellness initiative and that faculty participation was critical to its success.
Item 6: Discussion of the proposed UB Recycled Paper Purchasing Policy
The FS considered the recycled paper purchasing policy drafted by Walter Simpson and which had previously been approved unanimously by the FSEC. The proposal calls for all white copier and printer paper to be 100% postconsumer content processed chlorine-free recycled paper. The FS tabled the motion to approve the policy after ProfessorJames Campbell from Political Science objected to the wording. He raised concerns about the potential breakdown of Xerox machines that are fed 100% recycled paperas well as about instituting an “unenforceable policy.” Professor Hoeing, chair of the FS, said that the proposal would return to the FSEC for revision.
Item 7: Old/New Business
Item 8: Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 3:43PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Carine Mardorossian, Secretary of the Faculty Senate
Attendance