FACULTY SENATE

Minutes of March 12, 2002
(unapproved)

The Faculty Senate met at 2:00 PM on March 12, 2002 in the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of December 11, 2001 and February 12, 2002
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President/Provost
4. Second reading: Academic Integrity, Informal Proceedings - Faculty Senate Grading Committee, Professor William H. Baumer, Chair
5. Enhanced Web Services for Faculty and Students - Assistant Vice Provost Joanne Plunkett
6. NYSTAR and How It Relates to the Bioinformatics Center Developing at the University - Dr. Russell Bessette, Executive Director of New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research
7. Old/new business

Item 1: Approval of the minutes of December 11, 2001 and February 12, 2002

The minutes of December 11, 2001 and February 12, 2002 were approved.

Item 2: Report of the Chair

The Chair reported that:

• the Provost has informed Decanal units that elections for new members of the Faculty Senate should be held in a timely fashion; he urged Senators to encourage the full participation of their colleagues
• the President has promulgated the Class Absence Policy recommended by the Faculty Senate Grading Committee and adopted by the Senate at its December 11, 2001 meeting
• in the last month the Executive Committee has discussed several items of interest
  • the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs reported on base stipends of UB's graduate students as compared with those of other institutions; the Vice Provost concluded that the wide variation in stipends among the disciplines made institutional level comparisons unhelpful; the Vice Provost loaned the Faculty Senate Office several surveys on graduate stipends and benefits which are available for all Senators to consult
  • Vice Provost Grant is working to develop a single set of policies and procedures on academic integrity that would apply to both undergraduates and graduates; the Senate will be consulted in this process
  • because of the increasing number of Master's students, the Graduate School is considering adding a level of faculty to work only with Master's students
  • responsibility for awarding the Schomburg Fellowships and the EOP fellowships has been shifted to the Graduate School to facilitate their use as recruitment tools
  • Dr. Durand described UB's Educational Opportunity Program; its mission is to attract talented New York students who are educationally or financially disadvantaged
  • Provost Capaldi spoke about decanal searches for the Schools of Architecture and Planning and Management and the College of Arts & Sciences; she also talked about the developing plans for the Center for Bioinformatics; she noted that UB now ranks 60th nationally in grant getting
  • Dean Lopos explained that Millard Fillmore College is no longer responsible for night classes; these will now be managed by the departments; MFC will, instead, offer continuing education courses
  • Affirmative Action Committee co-chairs, Professors Banks and Rosenfeld, reported on their Committee's work in benchmarking UB against Stony Brook, Indiana, Illinois, Florida and Virginia in regard to the number of minority faculty on those campuses and policies and procedures relevant to their recruitment and retention
  • Vice President Black and several of his staff reported on UB's efforts to deal with student abuse of alcohol and drugs
  • the President and Vice President of the Campus Club described its history, mission and benefits

Item 3: Report of the President/Provost

There was no report of the President/Provost.

Item 4: Second Reading: Academic Integrity, Informal Proceedings

• The Grading Committee proposed reformulating sections I.C.1.e. and I.C.1.f.of "Informal Proceedings" for resolution of cases of academic dishonesty. The rewrite would remove mandatory resignation as a faculty driven penalty and would allow an instructor to change student driven "R" grade to an "F" grade. Professor Baumer, Chair of the Grading Committee, stated that the Committee's recommendation remained unchanged from its first reading. He then moved (seconded) its adoption.
• faculty in the Graduate School of Education prefer retaining the option of being able to impose a mandatory resignation; they see it as an intermediate penalty (Professor Bromley)
• Professor Campbell moved (seconded) to retain the original wording of C.1.e.
• maintaining a standing committee to hear cases involving violations of academic integrity would also make formal proceedings less onerous (Professor Campbell)
• each dean has been asked to nominate a faculty member, a graduate student and an undergraduate student to be a member of a pool from which adjudication committees can be constituted (Vice Provost Grant)
• "R" grade is intended to be student initiated within a strict time limit; allowing an "R" grade to be initiated by an instructor defeats the grade's purpose; a faculty member who uses the "R" grade option is evading her responsibility (Professor Fourtner)
• grade reduction is already an option for faculty looking for an intermediate penalty (Professor Hopkins)
• current procedures permit a student accused of plagiarism to resign from the course thus avoiding any penalty; under the Grading Committee's proposal a faculty member could replace that "R" with an "F" (Vice Provost Grant)
• prefer formal proceedings with due process built in to informal proceedings (Professor El Solh)
• student may always grieve the outcome of informal proceedings; if a student feels the worst outcome of getting caught cheating is an "R", she has little incentive not to cheat (Professor Baumer)
• each case is unique; giving faculty the most flexibility is critical (Professor Izzo)
• section I.C.d. provides for a reduction in grade; that is a sufficiently broad provision to allow for grades other "F" while still permitting the imposition of an "F"; suggest the elimination of section I.C.e. as redundant (Professor Obst)
• consider creating a combined grade of "R/F" (Professor Chang)

The Chair asked for a vote on the amendment. The amendment failed. Professor Baumer asked for a vote on the main motion. The motion passed.

Item 5: Enhanced Web Services for Faculty and Students

Assistant Vice Provost Joanne Plunkett thanked faculty for making web grading successful; about 62% of grades are now submitted through the web. The web grading site is being enhanced to incorporate suggestions from faculty, and for the Spring 2002 grading cycle will be available 7 days a week from 8:30 AM to 11 PM. Student access to SOAR and BIRD is also being increased.

• are the sites protected? (Professor Cohen)
• web grading is protected by CIT security; touch tone phone access requires pin and Social Security or person number (Assistant Vice Provost Plunkett)
• is 24 hour availability possible? (unidentified speaker)
• financial and administrative processing requires some dedicated time (Assistant Vice Provost Plunkett)
• my department sometimes is unaware that grades have been submitted directly through the web site (Professor Cadenhead)
• grading site provides for departmental e-mail notification that grades have been submitted, but some e-mail is undeliverable because of incorrect addresses; currently only the instructor has access to the class grade list, but for Fall 2002 a departmental alternate will also have access (Assistant Vice Provost Plunkett)

Item 6: How NYSTAR relates to the Bioinformatics Center

The Chair introduced Dr. Russell Bessette. Dr. Bessette has a long and distinguished academic and service career in the area of science and technology. He is currently Director of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR). NYSTAR's mission is to grow New York's leadership position in high technology research and economic development. NYSTAR recognizes the important role that universities can play in accomplishing its mission.

Dr. Bessette reviewed the history of NYSTAR and described its programs.

• NYSTAR was created in 2000, growing out of the Jobs 2000 Act; it was initially funded at $200 M, $105 M of which was targeted for Strategically Targeted (STAR) Centers; Buffalo's Center for Bioinformatics is a STAR Center; Rochester (telecommunication photonics), Syracuse (environmental quality systems), CUNY (structural biology and protein chemistry), and Stony Brook (bio-technology) all have STAR Centers; there is a high likelihood of NYSTAR's 2002/2003 funding being increased to $500 M
• NYSTAR distributes funds through a rigorous peer review process, followed by review of an advisory panel of people with a minimum of 5 years applied science experience who are appointed by the Legislature and the Governor
• NYSTAR oversees 15 Centers for Advanced Technology (CAT); in addition to ongoing funding of the CATS, the Governor's budget contains $10 M to be competitively awarding among the CATS to allow successful applicants to enhance infrastructure and staffing
• NYSTAR annually awards $7.5 M for faculty development to public and private institutions for recruitment and retention of experienced researchers; the usual application ($100 K-$1 M) is for equipment, space renovation or technicians
• NYSTAR is developing a New Investigator Award program to be funded at about $5 M annually; awards of $100/250 K would be available to new Ph.D.'s
• the Technology Transfer Incentive Award Program is funded at $10 M annually for end-stage applied research; typically the awards average $300 K/$500 K and are typically triggered by a business asking faculty for short term help in modifying an existing prototype or in design modification
• based on federal money to be distributed through state agencies, NYSTAR is developing a new program, Security Through Advanced Research Technology (START);for example, Ultrascan, a company that started at UB's Incubator, has created a smart card containing fingerprint, voice and digitized face data which can be inserted into a scanner that compares the smart card data against a real-time scan of a person to verify identity
• NYSTAR's web site is at http://www.nystar.state.ny.us
  • does NYSTAR only fund translational work? (Professor Cohen)
  • currently all NYSTAR funded projects are translational or applied in contrast to NSF's theoretical research (Dr. Bessette)
  • how will Young Investigator Awards be granted? (Professor Cohen)
  • procedures not yet established; one suggestion has been that a dean or department chair be able to use these awards to recruit new Ph.D.'s by offering research support; another suggestion is that a two year award be made in the last year of Ph.D. study (Dr. Bessette)
  • in life sciences don't hire new Ph.D.'s but require several years of post-doctoral work (Professor Fourtner)
  • does NYSTAR match research talent with company needs? (Professor Mountziaris)
  • NYSTAR's web site offers a database that can be used for matchmaking; it contains descriptions of both companies and faculty (Dr. Bessette)
  • does NYSTAR pay institutional overhead? (Professor Fourtner)
  • NYSTAR has reduced its own overhead and negotiates aggressively to keep institutional overhead low (Professor Bessette)
  • consider supporting an optional third year in the New Investigator Award program; translational work may be more appropriately done by experienced researchers (Professor Izzo)
  • Faculty Development Award program is intended for those experienced researchers (Dr. Bessette)
  • inform departments of the availability of New Investigator Awards since the departments will need to choose whom to support (Professor Cadenhead)
  • does NYSTAR support soft sciences? (Professor Bennett)
  • there is discussion of providing discretionary funds that could be used to support soft science (Dr. Bessette)

There being no old/new business, the meeting adjourned at 3:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Marilyn McMann Kramer

Present:

Chair: M. Cohen
Secretary: M. Kramer
Parliamentarian: D. Malone
Architecture: H. Steiner
Arts & Sciences: W. Baumer, H. Bennett, J. Bono, A. Cadenhead, J. Campbell, W. Chang, M. Churchill, C. Fourtner, G. Baker, J. Reineck, E. Scarlett, E. Segal, R. Vesley
Dental Medicine: R. Hall, E. Davis, L. Ortman, J. Zambon
Educational Opportunity Center: O. Mixon
Engineering & Applied Science: D. Malone, J. Mook, T. Mountziaris
Graduate School of Education: J. Almasi, J. Ernest, R. Gentile, H. Bromley
Health Related Professions: G. Farkas, S. Bennett
Informatics: J. Ellison
Law: E. Meidinger, L. Swartz
Management: S. Gunn, W. Lin, J. Ogden, M Trivedi
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: A. El Solh, J. Hassett, J. Izzo, M. Kulaylat, K. Mahran, B. Noble, R. Noble, S. Rudin, D. Shucard
Nursing: T. Obst
Social Work: S. Green
SUNY Senators: J. Adams-Volpe
University Libraries: W. Hepfer, J. Hopkins
University Officers: W. Greiner, President

Guests:

D. Longenecker, Reporter
J. Plunk

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