FACULTY SENATE

Minutes of May 7, 2002
(unapproved)

 

The Faculty Senate met at 2:00 PM on May 7, 2002 in the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of April 9, 2002
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President/Provost
4. Plans for the development of the North Campus between the Student Union and the Ellicott Complex, the Lee Road Project - Vice President for Student Affairs Dennis Black
5. Faculty Senate Committee Reports - Admissions and Retention, Professor Troy Wood, Chair; Computer Services Committee, Professor John Ringland, Chair
6. Report of the SUNY Senate meeting in Alfred - Professor Judith Adams-Volpe
7. 2002/2003 charges to the Faculty Senate Committees
8. Old/new business

Item 1: Report of the Chair

The Chair reported that:

• UB has submitted its General Education Assessment Review plan to SUNY; the plan is a work in progress and will be reviewed again by the Executive Committee as it evolves

Later in the meeting the Chair recognized Rebecca Town and Brendan Keane of the University at Buffalo Students Against Sweatshops. They briefly outlined their concerns about the New Era Cap Company with which the University has a licensing agreement. They urged the non-renewal of the licensing agreement and the establishment of a monitoring board to look into the human rights record of companies the University has contracts with and investments in.

Item 2: Plans for the Lee Road Project

Vice President for Student Affairs Black described a many step process for developing the Lee Road area, contrasting it with the simpler planning approach used for the development of the new student residence buildings like Flickinger Court and Flint Village. A philosophy of what the area should look like will be developed, stakeholders consulted and preliminary designs created. The visualizations presented at this meeting were developed after meetings with various groups and are primarily intended to stimulate interest and discussion by the campus community.

• the academic spine defines the East/West campus axis; the Lee Road development will create the North/South axis connecting the Ellicott Complex with the academic spine
• market studies suggest a 12 month market for additional housing for 2/3 K residents on the Amherst campus; additional unmet campus needs such as a student health center, child care facilities, student life retail establishments, a comprehensive recreation facility, an alumni house and supplemental parking also exist
• the underlying philosophy is to create an urban main street with 4 story buildings for mixed residential and retail use
• full build-out would probably take ten years to achieve with preliminary work beginning perhaps as early as 2003
• first step would be to develop one side of the strip from the book store to the Ellicott Complex, providing housing for 800/900 students
• project would be funded by other than University or state monies, as were other recently constructed student housing complexes
• considering ways to deal with the Audubon Parkway, e.g, an overpass, an underpass or perhaps narrowing the Parkway into an urban traffic configuration
• appropriate development would significantly enhance the student experience and might also attract the Amherst/Buffalo community to the campus

There were comments from the Senators:

• shouldn't build an urban-like space, trying to correct for the campus not being located in downtown Buffalo, while ignoring the beautiful rural assets of this campus (Professor Meacham)
• drawings depict a generic, low cost pastiche of architecture; have faculty in the School of Architecture who are dedicated to Buffalo's architectural tradition but who are never consulted in these projects (Professor Steiner)
• badly need the facilities suggested for the Lee Road project, specifically the faculty club; these renderings are not necessarily the final design (Professor Nickerson)
• what place is envisioned for older students/faculty in this plan, e.g., housing for continuing education students, an emeritus center folded into the alumni house? (Professor B. Bono)
• envision this development to be more than just the kind of student housing that has already been built; all of Professor Bono's suggestions and more have been discussed; the full document is available at http://www.ub-housing.buffalo.edu/leeroadpres.shtml (Vice President Black)
• the original Amherst campus plan envisioned an enclosed campus in a mile long building; successfully bridging Ellicott and the Student Union will require providing enclosed walkways (Professor Baumer)
• involve School of Architecture to keep from repeating the architectural mediocrity of recent construction (Professor R. Noble)
• concept of building an urban core on the Amherst Campus came from Dean Freschi of the School of Architecture (Vice President Black)
• how would funding for the project be handled; would local retailers be used as opposed to national chains? (Professor Dickson)
• title to a building, but not to the land, is held by the developer until the bond is repaid from rent revenue, at which time the title reverts to SUNY; UB manages the building, not the developer; use of retail space will be campus interest and market force driven (Vice President Black)
• lake front space should open to all with gazebos, picnic tables, a small amphitheater, and skating rinks (Professor Meacham)
• buildings should be on human scale with interesting visual details for walkers; lake views should be developed rather than parking lot views with garbage cans on the lake side (Professor Bennett)
• can envision the Commons being gone with an open expanse from the Student Union to the lake with the bookstore being located in the main street retail area (Vice President Black)
• consider putting this money into building a light rail connection between Buffalo and the campus to provide easy access to urban space (Mr. Keane)
• there is no pool of money for this project that could be diverted to light rail development; the project will be paid for out of rent revenues; the Town of Amherst has discussed the extension of rapid transit from Buffalo and UB has participated in those discussions (Vice President Black)
• would have been preferable to have used the School of Architecture to develop plans rather than paying a private architect to do so; could use the lake as a natural skating facility (Professor Schucard)

Item 3: Report of the President

The President reserved his report to the Fall. The President presented the Secretary with a commendation for her four years of service.

Item 4: Faculty Senate Committee reports

Professor Wood, Chair of the Admissions and Retention Committee, reported that the Committee reviewed data from the Office of Institutional Analysis on student retention rates and on factors other than high school GPA as predictors of student success at UB.

• retention rates for freshmen classes from 1995 to 1999 to the beginning of their second Spring semester have risen (77.92% for the 1995 freshmen class to 79.69% for the 1999 freshmen class; for the class of 2000, 84.7% were still enrolled for Fall 2001); only 5% of freshmen drop out at the end of the first semester; almost twice that many drop out after the second semester
• grades for the freshmen class of 2000 in selected math courses at UB were compared with the following factors: high school GPA, math SAT scores, math Regents scores and high school math completed beyond Regents 3; for UB ULC147 and MTH115 there was no correlation with the variables; for ULC 148, MTH 121, MTH 131 and MTH 141 there was a correlation between course placement in UB with high school GPA and a correlation between success in the UB courses with the number of advanced math courses taken in high school
• will continue to track this group, and will look at other variables, e.g., class instructor, whether the instructor is from the Math Department

Professor Wood noted that the Committee was also asked to look at distinct experiences that would enhance the educational experience of freshmen:

• looked at Indiana University's student learning communities in which freshmen with similar interests are housed together and take many classes together; UB's supplemental application form could facilitate creation of such communities here as could our existing block scheduling program; will study the possible creation of a similar pilot project
• what percentage of students who do not return after their freshman year are in good standing? (Professor Malone)
• most are in good standing; reasons for leaving include failure to be admitted to a major or finding another institution more tuned to their interests (Professor Wood)
• were the data on advanced math being as predictors of success at UB broken down by gender; females get better high school math grades while males have higher math SAT scores (Professor Meacham)
  
• will look into that (Professor Troy)

Professor Ringland, incoming Chair of the Computer Services Committee, reported that the Committee has developed two draft resolutions http://emerald.math.buffalo.edu/~ringland/resolutions.html. The first resolution states that the UB Faculty urge repeal of the anti-circumvention provision (Section 1201) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, oppose the adoption of the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) and call for the President and the Provost to so lobby within SUNY and the AAU. The second resolution calls upon the University to support open-source operating systems, open-source application software and non-proprietary formats and protocols. The Committee will present these resolutions for Senate consideration next academic year. However, since legislative action on both section 1201 of the DMCA and the CBDTPA may be imminent, Professor Ringland urged President Greiner to take whatever action he deems appropriate to protect academic freedom rights.

• have you spoken with CIT or Vice President Wagner? (President Greiner)
• Vice Provost Pitman and Rick Lesniak are on the Computer Services Committee (Professor Ringland)
• will speak to UB government relations staff (President Greiner)

Item 5: Report of the SUNY Senate meeting in Alfred

Professor Adams-Volpe reported on the April 11-13 meeting of the University Faculty Senate hosted jointly by the SUNY College of Ceramics at Alfred University and the SUNY College at Alfred.

• Global Education Network, a for-profit company, has talked with SUNY about developing a multi-media American history course which might be used to fulfill SUNY's American history General Education requirement; the Provost invited SUNY faculty to work with Global Education Network to develop the course; Senators expressed strong concerns about using SUNY faculty to help create a commercial course, noting that there are already commercial products available ; they felt that using a canned course for the General Education requirement was not desirable, but if such a course were to be developed, SUNY faculty should develop it without commercial involvement; the Provost and the Chancellor said they would not push this idea or affiliation with Global Education Network any further
• SUNY has undertaken a strategic planning process which is documented at www.suny.edu; strategic directions that are emphasized are making SUNY the premier public research university in the country, increasing funded research, developing joint degree programs between SUNY and international universities, training teachers for urban areas, collaborating in systems development and emphasizing fund raising for capital projects within SUNY
• Professor Ryan of UB's School of Engineering was cited as having made the best University Center presentation at the Student Retention symposium held at Cortland, March 21-22
• Professor Nickerson was elected to represent the Health Sciences Centers on the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee
• SUNY Chief Operating Officer Richard Miller suggested replacing the concept of "student retention" with the larger concept of "student success"
• the Executive Committee is preparing a letter to the Board of Trustees requesting that individual Trustees make clear whether their public statements or writings are made as individuals or as Trustees; this in response to Trustee DeRussey's public remarks on African-American Studies within SUNY

Item 6: 2002/2003 charges to the Faculty Senate Committees

Noting that while the FSEC is responsible for making appointments to the 19 standing committees of the Senate and charging those committees, the Chair asked for Senate comments on proposed charges and solicited suggestions for new members for the committees.

• the Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee may be asked to look at issues of access to and use of internet materials
• the Academic Planning Committee will be asked to look at the implementation of General Education assessment and to continue looking at problems in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
• the Committee on Admissions and Retention will continue to look at admissions and retention data and ways to improve the student experience
• the Affirmative Action Committee will continue to look at issues involving minority and women faculty
• the Athletics and Recreation Committee will look at the issues arising from the NCAA's certification process
• the Budget Priorities Committee may be asked to look at indirect costs recovery and will continue to look at part-timers issues and funding for graduate education
• the Computer Services Committee will be looking at online course evaluation
• the Committee on Educational Programs and Policy will be looking at General Education issues
• the Facilities Planning Committee will be looking at classroom issues, including e-enhanced classrooms issues
• the Faculty Tenure and Privileges Committee will look at tenure and privileges for minority and women faculty and how to document service learning
• the Grading Committee will continue its active agenda
• the Committee on Information and Libraries Resources will look at off-site library storage and non-library use of library space in Capen Hall
• the Public Service and Urban Affairs Committee will look at what obligation the University has to the outside community
• the Student Life Committee will look at the Lee Road project, Greek life and the general student environment
• the Teaching and Learning Committee will continue to be involved with the Center for Teaching and Learning Resources and online course evaluation; Professor McCartney will be its incoming chair
• the University Governance Committee will be looking at the decanal review process
• the Research and Creative Activities Committee will continue to look at the results of its survey of principal investigators concerns
  • which committee will be looking at the New Era Cap Company issue? (Professor Nickerson)
  • the FSEC feels that this is a legal matter rather than a Senate issue; today's presentation on the matter was purely informational for the faculty (Professor Cohen)
  • emphasize the need for Senators to suggest new committee members in order to enlarge faculty participation and enrich the committees' effectiveness (Professor Baumer)
  • UB's Faculty Senate has the infrastructure and resources to do extraordinary things in faculty governance, but the participation of faculty is critical to its doing so (Professor Cohen)

There being no old/new business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:50 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Marilyn McMann Kramer
Secretary of the Faculty Senate

Present:

Chair: M. Cohen
Secretary: M. Kramer
Parliamentarian: D. Malone
Architecture: H. Steiner
Arts & Sciences: W. Baumer, H. Bennett, B. Bono, W. Chang, M. Churchill, D. Eddins, C. Fourtner, T. Gregg, E. Kazmierczak, J. Meacham, J. Reineck, E. Scarlett, R. Vesley
Dental Medicine: G. Ferry
Education: J. Almasi, R. Gentile, H. Bromley
Educational Opportunity Center: O. Mixon
Engineering and Applied Sciences: D. Malone, R. Wetherhold
Health Related Professions: G. Farkas, P. Horvath, S. Nochajski
Informatics: J. Ellison
Law: L. Swartz
Management: W. Lin
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: W. Flynn, M. Kulaylat, K. Mahran, B. Noble, R. Noble, S. Rudin, D. Schucard,
Nursing: D. Karczewski
SUNY Senators: J. Adams-Volpe, P. Nickerson
University Libraries: A. Booth, J. Dickson, W. Hepfer, J. Hopkins
University Officers: W. Greiner, President

Guests:

T. Wood, Chair, Committee on Admissions and Retention
J. Ringland, Chair, Computer Services Committee
J. Holstun, English Dept.
D. Black, Vice President for Student Affairs
M. Dupre, Associate Vice President for University Facilities
R. Town, University at Buffalo Students Against Sweatshops
B. Keane, University at Buffalo Students Against Sweatshops
S. Watson, Buffalo News
D. Longenecker, Reporter

Excused:

Architecture and Planning: R. Shibley
Dental Medicine: L. Ortman, J. Zambon
Engineering and Applied Sciences: R. Sridhar
Management: S. Gunn
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: R. Lifeso

Absent:

Arts & Sciences: J. Bono, A. Cadenhead, J. Campbell, H. Luo, J. Pappas, A. Petrou, E. Segal
Dental Medicine: B. Boyd, E. DeNardin
Education: J. Ernest, L. Malave
Engineering and Applied Sciences: J. Mook, T. Mountziaris
Health Related Professions: S. Bennett
Management: J. Ogden, M. Trivedi
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: P. Bradford, E. Egan, A. El Solh, P. Glick, C. Granger, B. Grant, S. Greenberg, J. Hassett, J. Izzo, T. Langan, B. Miller, F. Schimpfhauser, S. Spurgeon, A. Vlauditu, L. Wild
Nursing: E. Perese
Social Work: S. Green
SUNY Senators: J. Boot, H. Durand

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