FACULTY SENATE
Minutes of May 2, 2000 - (approved)
E-MAIL: ZBFACSEN@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

The Senate met at 2:00 PM on May 2, 2000 in the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of April 11, 2000
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President/Provost
4. Report from the Student Life Committee - Professor Ludwig
5. Report of the Faculty Senate Teaching and Learning Committee - Assessments of Instructional Effectiveness - Professor Gentile
6. Report from the Faculty Senate Committee on Athletics and Recreation - Professor Cerny
7. Old/new business

Item 1: Report of the Chair

    The Chair’s written report was distributed with the agenda.  The Chair noted that this was the last meeting of the 1999/2000 Faculty Senate, and he thanked the Senators for their participation.

Item 2: Report from the Student Life Committee

    Professor Ludwig, Chair of the Student Life Committee, presented for a first reading a three part report dealing with disruptions in the classroom.  Faculty  are responsible for maintaining a classroom environment that is conducive to learning.  The first section of the report lays out a series of steps faculty are authorized to take in dealing with a disruptive student.  New faculty members and teaching assistants in particular may find this a helpful statement of their rights in maintaining order in the classroom.  The second section sets out UB’s expectations for student behavior in the classroom.  The Committee hopes that this section of the report will be included in Students’ Rules and Regulations.  Students are not always aware of what faculty’s expectations are, so it would be helpful to clarify those expectations both for students and for faculty.  The third section suggests strategies for minimizing distractions in the classroom.

    Since there were no comments or questions on the report, the Chair suspended the rule requiring a second reading.  The report’s recommendations and resolutions were unanimously accepted.

Item 3: Report of the Faculty Senate Teaching and Learning Committee

    Professor Gentile, Chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee, presented the Committee’s report entitled Assessments of Instructional Effectiveness.  Earlier in the year the Committee presented resolutions on teaching evaluations; this report makes recommendations about assessing instructional outcomes.

    The first recommendation notes University policy requiring a syllabus for each course and suggests the minimum contents for a syllabus: general goals for the course; specific objectives which must be achieved, an explanation of how attainment of the goals and objectives will be evaluated; what additional support is available; what else is required and how it will be evaluated; the overall grading scheme.

• students may complain about deviations from the syllabus, so it may be wise to omit too much detail (Professor Boot)
• if attendance policies are included in each syllabus, students could be subject to contradictory rules (Professor Amsterdam)
• if the University or decanal units had general attendance policies, it would not be necessary to include them in each syllabus; the Committee, however, was not aware of any such general policies; in the absence of general policies each instructor is free to set his own attendance policies so long as they are made clear and are fair (Professor Gentile)
• a syllabus should not be seen as an immutable contract since an instructor may want to make changes to adapt to the interests, needs and abilities of the class; add a statement to syllabi stipulating the right of an instructor to make changes and to the Student Handbook(Professor Schack)
• reviewed syllabi as a member of the College of Arts & Sciences Curriculum Committee and saw wide variations among them; would be useful to specify a range of norms for syllabi; faculty see syllabi as a teaching tool but students want to know what is expected of them and when it is expected so they can manage their time (Professor Mitchell)
• if an instructor feels it necessary to vary from the initial syllabus, he should make the new expectations very clear to the students (Professor Ludwig)

    The Committee’s second recommendation, taking cognizance of recent revisions in the requirements for promotion and tenure dossiers, suggests that a teaching portfolio be required for any promotion and tenure decision and that it include the following for each course taught:  course syllabus; student evaluations of instruction; instructor self-evaluation of his teaching philosophy, methods and effectiveness; evidence on the effectiveness of instruction; and procedures for identifying and aiding students who are having difficulty with the course.  In view of the twenty-page limit of the teaching portfolio, the Committee’s recommendation that every course taught be included will have to be modified.

    The Committee’s third recommendation is that the Provost and Deans initiate and fund development efforts to expand and improve faculty instructional repertoires.  The Educational Technology Center offers help with technological techniques, but there is currently no focus on low technology pedagogical techniques.

• did the Committee consider recommending that the Office of Teaching Effectiveness be revived?  the Office of Teaching Effectiveness was especially helpful in working with faculty who were having difficulty with a particular course (Professor Wooldridge)
• although the Committee thought that the Office of Teaching Effectiveness had been very useful, the Committee also thought that such a recommendation was dead in the water (Professor Gentile)
• it has been suggested that the ETC could expand its focus to include non technological pedagogical techniques (Professor Tamburlin)
• the Provost and Deans could also be asked to fund some of the functions of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness that the ETC has not absorbed (Professor Sridhar)
• most faculty have never had courses in Education; this lack needs to be addressed (Professor Mollendorf)
• teaching requires both general and discipline specific skills; the Committee’s plan for a training initiative split between the Provost and the Deans could be structured so that the Provost would provide training in general pedagogical skills, and departments would train in discipline specific skills; that is better than recreating the Office of Teaching Effectiveness (Professor Schack)

    The Committee’s last three recommendations deal with students and the culture of learning.  Recommendation four asks that a list of student academic responsibilities be promulgated that would include the following:  knowing and following policies about drop/add dates, making up incomplete grades, etc.; understanding and following the syllabus; preparing for and participating in class; informing the instructor if a class or a deadline will be missed; requesting help from the instructor when needed; understanding that not all topics in a course will be of apparent interest or immediate use; and meeting with other students to discuss material.  To help students develop cognitive and metacognitive skills, recommendation five urges that the Methods of Inquiry Program be maintained, strengthened, better publicized, and that students be advised of the Program’s value.  UE101 (UB Experience) is a similar course.  Recommendation six asks that the Provost, in collaboration with the Deans, initiate discussions with campus student organizations on the issues raised by the other resolutions.

    The Chair thanked Professor Gentile for his presentation of the resolutions for their first reading.

Item 4: Approval of the minutes of April 11, 2000

    The minutes of April 11, 2000 were approved.

Item 5: Report from the Faculty Senate Committee on Athletics and Recreation

    The Chair prefaced the presentation of the Committee’s report with two comments.  First, the report is a work in progress; second, it is important to share the Committee’s work on intercollegiate athletics while there is a green light to do so.  Professor Cerny, Chair of the Committee on Athletics and Recreation, added that all information for which the Committee asked was freely provided.

    It has been asserted within the campus community that UB annually spends $10M  on athletics which could be better spent on academics.  However, the Committee found that while the Division of Athletics does have a budget of $10 M, two thirds of it comes from student fees designated for athletics and revenue generated by the Division which money would not, therefore, be available to the University if UB had no athletic program.  State funding provides $4M of the Division’s budget which money might be available for academics.

    Revenues generated by the Division of Athletics come from ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, away game guarantees, NCAA revenue sharing and philanthropy.  The Committee has asked for comparative data on revenues at other Mid America Conference universities.

    The Director of Athletics allocates Division resources based on proposed budgets submitted by the coaches.

• the Division of Athletics is required by SUNY regulations to submit its proposed budget to the Intercollegiate Athletics Board for its review; the Board then makes recommendations to the President who must approve the budget (Senior Vice President Wagner)

    The Division of Athletics budget has increased steadily during the transition from Division III to Division I.  Professor Cerny invited Senior Vice President Wagner to comment on funding for the Division during this period.

    The Senior Vice President explained that four sources of revenue were used to fund the build up of athletics:  state allocations, intercollegiate athletics fees paid by undergraduates, program money developed by the Division of Athletics, and Income Fund Reimbursable money which must be repaid.  The Division currently has a $3.4 M IFR deficit which it will begin to repay as its revenues permit beginning in fiscal year 2000/2001.  This use of IFR funds avoided a reallocation of base level resources, and since UB usually has more IFR allocation than it spends, the money was taken from the IFR surplus.

    There were questions from the floor:

• how much revenue is lost from empty seats in football and basketball? (Professor Gosselin)
• would be lost revenue only if the Division of Athletics counted on the revenue from selling all the seats which I don’t think they do (Professor Cerny)
• the Division bases its revenue projections on ticket sales and past performance, not on the expectation of selling all seats (Senior Vice President Wagner)
• the College of Arts & Sciences is being strangled to repay a smaller deficit over a two year period while Athletics has an open-ended period in which to repay its larger deficit; what is the justification for less favorable treatment for an unit that is critical to the primary mission of the University than for a unit which serves a secondary mission? (Professor Schack)
• the deficit in intercollegiate athletics was planned, has been tracked in audits, and a repayment strategy developed; I can’t speak to the College of Arts & Sciences’ deficit (Senior Vice President Wagner)
• Athletics’ deficit occurred because of one time, planned expenditures; the College’s deficit occurred because of ongoing commitments in excess of its budget; while a one time debt can be floated, a continuing and accumulating over-expenditure could bankrupt the University (President Greiner)
• is it true that the College’s over-commitment is a consequence of hiring new faculty in anticipation of retirements which did not occur? (Professor Baumer)
• every division of the University works on a cash flow scheme by which it technically over-commits its budget but over the course of a year manages not to actually overspend it; I think this float management process got lost in the merger; besides new faculty, additional staff were hired for student support services; by the end of July the new financial management system should give us more information on exactly how the deficit arose (President Greiner)
• an explanation of "float"; in any year some faculty who are on the payroll will not actually be paid for a variety of reasons, e.g. sabbatical leave, etc.; the money saved is the float; money that will be released by retirements have also been included in the float (Professor Baumer)
• for what can IFR money legally be spent? (Professor Mollendorf)
• there are no significant restrictions on the expenditure of IFR funds other than the getting the approval of the State Controller (Senior Vice President Wagner)
• the Budget Priorities Committee recently reported to the Faculty Senate that to the best of its knowledge at the time of transition, the books of the component decanal units merging into the College were balanced; economic theory says that the smaller the unit, the more volatile its float; aggregating several small units into a large unit should reduce, not increase, the volatility of the float which suggests that float was not the cause of the College’s over-expenditure; I understand that the College could not continue to operate indefinitely in excess of its budget, but I do not understand and want an explanation of why the repayment period could not have been extended over a longer period as is being done with the Division of Athletics’ deficit, allowing the College to carry out its mission which is primary to the University without the imposition of such damaging measures as a hiring freeze, a reduction in courses being offered, and an increase in minimum class size (Professor Schack)

    Professor Cerny continued his overview of the Committee’s report.  The report looks at the context for the Division of Athletics’ budget from several perspectives.  From 1992/1993 to 1999/2000 the budget categories of Personnel and Grants-in-Aid increased linearly while OTPS rose more sharply because of one-time expenses in the start-up of new sports.  The Division does not expect such continuing budget increases, except by raising its own revenue.  UB’s expenditures for intercollegiate athletics per capita are slightly more than other MAC schools but less than other AAU I-A public universities.  In comparison with other institutions, UB spends on the low end both in absolute dollars and as a percent of total budget.  The Division is planning on increasing funding for scholarships, most of which increase will address gender equity.  The Division is taking a leadership role in MAC in gender equity.  Out-of-state students comprise only slightly more than 2% of UB’s athletes; increasing that ratio would be desirable.  Some 45% of UB’s athletes achieve a 3.0 GPA, and 83% graduate.

    The third section of the report contains the Mission Statement of the Division of Athletics.

    The Committee is concerned about several issues.  The Committee and the Division will be working together to integrate athletics into the academic community, so that athletics is seen as contributing to the life of the University, not just diverting resources away from academics.  The Division itself understands the primacy of academics and works hard to help its athletes do well academically.  The Committee and the Division are also working on plans to increase the role of academics in Homecoming.  The Committee has asked the Division to do a better job in communicating about its budget and its successes.

    Finally Professor Cerny offered an example of how academics and athletics can cooperate.  The Division of Athletics will partially fund a faculty line in the Department of Physical Therapy, Exercise and Nutrition Sciences for a program in athletic training, and the Division will host the program’s graduate research activities.

    The Chair asked Professor Cerny what his own views on intercollegiate athletics were before undertaking the review of the Division of Athletics.  Professor Cerny replied that having coached at a Big Ten university where he saw much corruption, he was afraid that UB would succumb to the same mentality.  He was also unsure that it was realistic for UB to compete at the Division I-A level with its budget.  Having talked about their plans with the Athletics Director, Bob Arkeilpane, and the Division’s financial officer, Ed Johnson, Professor Cerny now believes that they should be given the chance to go ahead.

• am fearful that UB is committed to the long haul, and that the athletics budget will continue to grow; it is easy to hide costs in a budget as complex as UB’s, so when you say you got all the information you wanted, I wonder if you knew the questions to ask (Professor Boot)

Item 6: Report of the President

    The President offered several end of the year observations.  It has been an interesting and productive year for UB and its faculty, even for the College of Arts & Sciences with all its budget trauma.  He is optimistic about SUNY’s new Chancellor and about SUNY’s budget.  He is heartened that UB’s undergraduate applications are up by 6% this year, and graduate applications are substantially higher; international applications and transfer applications are also up.  These increases are in part attributable to the hard work of both professional staff and faculty.  He wished all a good summer.

Item 7: Old/new business

    The Chair thanked Professor Fisher for his service as a SUNY Senator; he also thanked Mara McGinnis for her excellent reporting of the Faculty Senate and congratulated her on her new job at Columbia University.

    Professor Adams-Volpe reported briefly on the Plenary Meeting of the SUNY University Faculty Senate which was held April 27-29.  Implementation issues arising from the General Education Curriculum dominated the meeting.  There were updates on the American History, Foreign Language and Mathematics components.  Senators were disturbed by Provost Salin’s statement that RFPs for courses to fulfill the requirements of the General Education Curriculum will be sent out.  Among resolutions approved by the Senate was a resolution that the membership of the Provost’s Advisory Council on General Education be increased so that faculty are the predominant constituency and that there be a faculty co-chair.  The draft report from the Provost’s Advisory Task Force on the Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes was presented.  The report covered the principles of assessment, the need for assessment to be campus-based, the roles of campus-based assessment for General Education and the Major.

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

Respectfully submitted,

Marilyn McMann Kramer

Present:

Chair: P. Nickerson
Secretary: M. Kramer
Architecture: R. Shibley
Arts & Sciences: J. Conte, J. Holstun, L. Kurdziek-Formato, J. Dugan, M. Churchill, J. Faran, C. Mitchell, M. Ram, K. Regan, J. Reineck, S. Schack, W. Baumer, L. Bian, J. Campbell, W. Chang, J. DeWald, J. Meacham, J. Garcia, L. Vardi
Dental Medicine: B. Boyd
Education: B. Johnstone, T. Schroeder
Engineering & Applied Sciences: S. Ahmad, S. Malone, R. Mayne, J. Mollendorf, R. Sridhar
Health Related Professions: L. Gosselin, S. Nochajski, J. Tamburlin
Law: L. Swartz
Management: J. Boot
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: D. Amsterdam, M. Dryjski, S. Gallant, F. Mendel, R. Sands
Nursing: P. Wooldridge
Pharmacy: T. Kalman
SUNY Senators: J. Adams-Volpe, J. Boot, H. Durand, J. Fisher
University Libraries: A. Booth, W. Hepfer, M. Zubrow, M. Miller, S. Tejada
University Officers: W. Greiner, President
                                       R. Wagner, Senior Vice President

Guests:

M. McGinnis, Reporter
W. Coles, Chair, Professional Staff Senate
M. Boyce, Director, Student Judiciary & Ombudsman
F. Cerny, Chair, Committee on Athletics and Recreation
J. Ludwig, Chair, Student Life Committee
R. Gentile, Chair, Teaching and Learning Committee

Excused:

Arts & Sciences: C. Fourtner
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: A. Michalek, S. Rudin, C. Smith

Absent:

Arts & Sciences: B. Bono, S. Elder, J. Guitart, F. Pellicone, C. Smith, H. Sussman, M. Wickert, S. Bruckenstein, R. DesForges, L. Dryden, E. Segal, G. Radford, D. Mark
Dental Medicine: M. Easley, G. Ferry, M. Neiders, L. Ortman
Education: C. Hosenfeld, C. Toepfer, J. Hoot
Engineering & Applied Sciences: D. Benenson
Information Studies: C. Jorgensen
Management: G. Hariharan, C. Pegels, R. Ramesh
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: M. Alashari, B. Albini, S. Awner, P. Bradford, J. DeBerry, W. Flynn, V. Li, F. Loghmanee, S. Ohki, C. Pruet, S. Spurgeon, J. Sulewski, J. Yates, L. Wild
Nursing: E. Perese
Pharmacy: R. Madejski
Social Work: B. Rittner, A. Safyer

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