FACULTY SENATE
Minutes of October 1, 2002 - (approved)
E-MAIL: ZBFACSEN@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

The Faculty Senate met at 2:00 p.m. on October 1, 2002, in the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

1. Report of the Chair
   
2. Report of the Provost - Elizabeth D. Capaldi
   
3. Report of the Vice Provost for Enrollment Planning, Sean P. Sullivan, on "UB Enrollment: MOU Progress and Future Directions"
   
4. 2nd reading of the Academic Calendar (fully expanded), Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Kerry S. Grant
   
5. Old/New business
   

Item 1: Report of the Chair

The Chair reported that some additional charges had been given to Senate committees since our last meeting:

• The Grading Committee was asked to review a proposal involving Web-based submission of grades
  
• The Academic Planning Committee was charged to consider the impact of requiring freshmen to choose a major when enrolling at UB so they can be mentored by a department earlier in their academic career
  
• The Research & Creative Activity Committee has been asked for ways to stimulate undergraduate interest and involvement in research being done at UB
  
• The Academic Planning Committee and the Facilities Committee were asked to recommend ways to utilize UB's facilities more effectively during summers
  
• Academic Planning will be charged to consider a proposal that would create a School of Public and Allied Health from departments that are currently part of the schools of Medicine and Health Related Professions
  

Item 2: Report of the Provost - Elizabeth Capaldi

Provost Capaldi called UB's past academic year "terrific, stupendous, marvelous." Her report on the state of the university was based on performance measures that were developed at the University of Florida.

Research expenditures and federal funding have seen big increases over last year. There's national competition for research dollars, so we did very good. Research expenditures increased by $20 million and federal funding was up $11 million.

UB's endowment, like many other universities', went down due to the volatile stock market, but annual giving increased. We are attracting more alumni dollars, because donors want to contribute to the University's quality and continued success.

Doctorates and post-doctorates went down slightly, but SAT scores of incoming freshmen went up. The higher SAT scores reflect our increased efforts to attract top students, which is an improvement that the state likes to see.

Faculty awards went down slightly during the past year, but we could probably do better if we nominated more for the awards that influence this category. Regardless, we do have a good national reputation even though we're much smaller than the University of Florida and the University of Michigan. Several of UB's faculty have won very prestigious awards that aren't factored into the national comparisons. Carl Dennis won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Bruce Jackson was awarded France's Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and Paschalis Alexandridis received the Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award, to name a few. Numerous Architecture and Planning faculty have also won national recognition, and UB has received many important grants. Our academic supercomputer has been ranked in the top five nationally, and UB is well positioned to become a national center for excellence in bioinformatics.

The Provost thanked everyone for their accomplishments and said she's looking forward to another great year.

Item 3: Report of the Vice Provost for Enrollment Planning, Sean Sullivan, on "UB Enrollment: MOU Progress and Future Directions"

Vice Provost Sullivan explained that MOU stands for "Memorandum of Understanding" http://www.provost.buffalo.edu/StrategicPlanningDocuments/
2000_Memo_of_Understanding_UB_SUNY.pdf, a document of agreement between SUNY and the University at Buffalo. A large portion of the MOU deals with enrollment goals in four sections covering growth; student diversity; recruitment; and retention, graduation dates, and time to degree.

Our peak undergraduate enrollment topped 28,000 in 1988, followed by a decline (mostly planned) to near 23,000 in 1998. This was to take advantage of budget incentives, and we have steadily increased per enrollment targets to 26,000 in Fall semester, 2002. UB gets to keep tuition money in the budgeting system.

The current freshman class is UB's 3rd largest all-time, and it's one of the best preprared, based on SAT scores. The number of transfer students declined substantially here and at most other schools following September 11th, 2001, but we were able to renegotiate our goals due to those extraordinary circumstances. The current number of continuing full-time students is at an all-time high. Graduate enrollment is also at an all-time high.

Professor Salvi asked whether the decline and rise of UB's enrollment is significant in terms of the quality of graduate students or budgetary implications. Dr. Sullivan said that our plan, in accordance with the MOU, has been to increase enrollment without sacrificing quality. A good education product will attach more good students, and this benefits our budget because UB now gets to keep its tuition revenues.

With respect to diversity goals, our MOU expectations were to achieve a 65%/35% mix of undergraduates & graduate students by 2005. We're very close to that mix now. We're also close to or over our MOU goals for freshman applications outside Western New York, out-of-state enrollees, minority enrollees, and total international enrollees.

A chart called "The Selectivity Matrix" showed UB's steady increase in recruiting quality students (based on high school averages and SAT scores) over the past five years.

Professor Salvi asked how UB compares with other SUNY institutions in terms of students' SAT scores. Dr. Sullivan said we're 3rd or 4th among SUNY schools and named Geneseo and Binghamton as the leaders.

UB's enrollment agenda for the next four years includes continuing graduate enrollment growth (while remaining capped at 26,000 total students), increasing retention rates, increasing freshman class selectivity, and increasing geographic diversity.

One way to improve the freshman experience, according to Dr. Sullivan, is to bring students into departments sooner, so they can benefit from working with departmental advisors. We also need to make it easier for students to change departments if they change their minds. Retention statistics are much lower for undeclared students.

Another way to help students is for departments to track their progress better and to intervene with personalized attention when problems develop.

Other service initiatives call for expanding the Honors and Scholars programs, and offering a Summer Institute to facilitate transition to college and degree-program acceleration.

Vice Provost Grant explained that graduate student admission requirements and acceptance levels are set by the individual departments. It's difficult to generalize because we don't have centralized data about graduate enrollments at this time.

Chair Cohen observed that the School of Medicine doesn't have many full-time professional admissions and advisory staff. He asked if other departments also employed many part-time staff and suggested that adding professional advisors might improve student retention.

Dr. Sullivan said that the Graduate School of Education and some other departments had successfully hired and trained full-time advisors to work more closely with their students.

Professor Chen commented that students are constricted by the North Campus, which is isolated from many events and opportunities that take place off-campus.

Professor Campbell asked whether UB followed up to find out why some students withdraw or transfer to other schools. Dr. Sullivan said we've done surveys in the past and found that the main reason students leave is that they can't get into the program of their choice. UB is presently considering using exit interviews to better understand why students leave. He would like departments to look for ways to offer a sense of community so students will want to stay.

Professor Segal proposed that, in addition to exit interviews to determine why students decide to leave, there should be a control group of current students who get interviewed to learn why they choose to stay at UB.

Chair Cohen noted that the Student Life Committee is looking for ways to address many of the issues raised at today's meeting. He also said that a good admissions staff can help to identify students who are likely to need special attention to succeed at university.

Professor Cowen suggested that departments such as EOPS and Athletics, which monitor their students' mid-term grades, should also solicit data on student attendance. This is a significant factor in academic performance that is not currently tracked. Dr. Sullivan advised telling him or Cheryl Taplin (Advising Services) about attendance problems, so they can be addressed.

Professor Dickson asked whether the MOU addressed library matters, because increasing graduate enrollments will create a greater demand on library budgets to purchase research materials. Dr. Sullivan said the MOU acknowledged the importance of support services such as libraries and computing technology, but he didn't recall specifics about funding.

Professor Brazeau recommended a book called Making the Most of College by a Harvard prof (Richard J. Light). It associates student satisfaction with student learning and discusses many of the issues we've talked about today. Study groups were credited with creating a sense of community and support.

Item 4: 2nd reading of the Academic Calendar (fully expanded), Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Kerry S. Grant

Vice Provost Grant said that today's Calendar handout included an alternate version with an additional Monday for Fall 2005. A review of past calendars showed precedent for ending final exams as late as December 22nd, which is the case with the alternate 2005 Calendar.

In response to comments about UB being insensitive and anachronistic for canceling classes from 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. (instead of from sundown to sundown) to observe Jewish holidays, Dr. Grant responded that our current practice is a compromise that will remain in effect, but instructors are told to accommodate students who practice strict observance of religious tradition.

Professor Baumer made a motion, which was seconded, to accept the proposed Academic Calendar.

Professor Bromley opposed the Calendar because semesters varied from 13 to 15 weeks, which he called "crazy." Classes that meet once a week can't be taught properly in 13 weeks.

Professor Segal moved (with a second) to amend the 2004 Calendar by switching the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to a Thursday schedule in order to even out the number of weeks in the semester.

Professor Baumer explained that the number of weeks per semester indicated on the proposed Calendar didn't include the week of final exams. Many faculty teaching graduate seminars that meet once a week can schedule an additional session or two during the final exam period. He also spoke against the amendment because substituting one day's schedule for another is confusing and was unsuccessful when tried in the past. It is also problematic for science labs, which must be scheduled in sequence. Switching days to different schedules causes more problems than it solves.

Professor Segal contended that changing a Thursday for a Tuesday schedule would be "transparent." It would have no negative effects.

Professor Brazeau said that settling on an Academic Calendar this far in advance should provide adequate time for instructors to plan for how they will deal with the number of scheduled class periods.

Professor Gregg supported the amendment because her department's (Geology) teaching space is so tightly scheduled that there's no opportunity for the flexibility mentioned by others.

Professor Schack opposed the amendment on the grounds that Senate meetings are inappropriate forums for making changes to the Calendar. Faculty who regard the proposed Calendar as problematic should simply vote against it, so it will go for further revision. He noted, however, the importance of settling on a Calendar soon so instructors will have time to plan their courses far enough in advance to factor in time variations.

Professor Adams-Volpe spoke against the amendment because switching schedules is unfair to students with time commitments on the other day. She also pointed out that the Senate gave up its right to have a say in the Calendar several years ago. It's nice that our input has been solicited, but we are no longer entitled to make changes.

Dr. Grant reiterated that he welcomed our input, and that the proposed Academic Calendar will also be shared with the Professional Staff Senate and the Student Senate for their comments.

When the question was called, the amendment to change the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2004 to a Thursday schedule failed.

The motion to accept the proposed Academic Calendar was clarified by stipulating that we were voting to endorse the original version - the one with Fall 2005 exams ending on December 19th. It passed.

Item 5: Old/New Business

The Chair summarized the concerns of the Facilities Planning Committee about dirty classrooms, broken chairs, unusable instructional equipment, ineffective climate control, and poor ventilation. Although faculty seem to be very aware of the problem, there is much confusion about whom to contact to get attention to these matters since no single administrative unit is responsible for dealing with the wide range of problems.
The Faculty Senate is trying to help by publicizing these conditions so they'll be treated as priorities when the budget is allocated.

Professor Hopkins related that she often finds air conditioning set so low that people need to wear jackets in the summertime. This is contrary to UB's energy conservation guidelines.

Professor Tutzauer has experienced the opposite extreme in unbearably hot classrooms.

Professor Schack described how inadequate climate control was causing mildew damage to books in the Mathematics Department.

Professor Ludwig recalled that there used to be survey forms distributed to instructors at the end of semesters soliciting comments about classroom conditions. That hasn't been the case for a long time.

The Chair will try to line up Mike Dupre (Assistant Vice President for University Facilities) to attend an upcoming Senate meeting to discuss classroom conditions.

Professor Gregg reminded everyone that there is a phone number to call (University Facilities Customer Service: dial 71 from campus phones) about defective equipment. This has usually been an effective "band-aid" solution to classroom problems.

The meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Will Hepfer
Secretary of the Faculty Senate

Present: Chair, M. Cohen
Secretary: W. Hepfer
Parliamentarian: D. Malone
Arts & Sciences: W. Baumer, M. Cowen, M. Chen, M. Churchill, D. Eddins, T. Gregg, E. Hull, J. Ludwig, J. Mendoza, R. Salvi, E. Scarlett, S. Schack, E. Seeman, E. Segal, V. Watrous, M. Woldenberg
Dental Medicine: M. Donley, L. Ortman
Education: H. Bromley, R. Stein
Engineering: S. Braynov, J. Jensen, D. Malone, R. Mayne, S. Thevanayagam
Health Related Professions: G. Farkas, C. Golyski, S. Nochajski
Informatics: F. Tutzauer
Law: L. Swartz
Management: S. Gunn, W. Lin
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: J. Canty, J. Hassett, K. Mahran, F. Schimpfhauser, J. Yeh
Nursing: P. McCartney
Pharmacy: G. Brazeau
Social Work: B. Rittner
SUNY Senators: J. Adams-Volpe, M. Kramer, P. Nickerson
University Libraries: S. Bartl, J. Dickson, J. Hopkins
University Officers: Provost E. Capaldi

Guests: S. Alaimo, Spectrum
B. Del Genio
D. Longenecker, Reporter
K. Grant
S. Sullivan
B. Vinay, Graduate Student Assn.

Excused: Arts & Sciences: J. Bennett
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: W. Fiden, B. Flynn, B. Murray
University Libraries: CA Fabian

Absent: Architecture: H. Steiner
Arts & Sciences: A. Cadenhead, G. Finnegan, H. Luo, A. Monteiro, J. Pappas, A. Petrou, C. Smith, R. Woodard
Dental Medicine: G. Davis, J. Zambon
Education: J. Almasi
Engineering: TJ Mountziaris, R. Nagi
Law: I. Marcus, R. Reis
Management: J. Boot, M. Trivedi
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: A. Aquilina, A. Baer, R. Fenstermaker, J. Fudyma, C. Granger, C. Hershey, J. Izzo, T. Langan, J. Leddy, G. Logue, R. Morin, N. Nielsen, J. Novak, M. Paroski, D. Shucard, G. Snyder
Nursing: E. Perese
Pharmacy: K. Boje
Social Work: S. Green
SUNY Senators: H. Durand

© Copyright University at Buffalo Faculty Senate | UB Home | Accessibility | Legal Notices | Website Acknowledgements