FACULTY SENATE
Minutes of October 5, 1999 - (approved)
E-MAIL: ZBFACSEN@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU   

The Senate met at 2:00 PM on October 5, 1999 in the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

                1.    Approval of the minutes of September 7, 1999
                2.    Report of the Chair
                3.    Presentation by Dean Shulman, School of Social Work
                4.    Resolution on Assessment of Educational Programs
                5.    Old/New Business
 

Item 1: Approval of the minutes of September 7, 1999

    The minutes of September 7, 1999 were approved.
 

Item 2: Report of the Chair

    Highlighting items in the written report distributed with the agenda, the Chair reported that:

• the interlocutors for mission review will be on campus October 13 and October 14; this visit will be the beginning of a continuing dialogue; the Chair, Professor Welch and Dr. Coles will participate in discussions with the interlocutors and the Academic Planning Committee will have lunch with them. FSEC and the Academic Planning Committee will bring feed from the process to the Senate
• FSEC passed a resolution directed to the Board of Trustees urging that a flawed presidential search at the College at Old Westbury be put aside and a new search conducted in compliance with search procedures established by the Trustees; the Trustees have, however, confirmed the appointment; the propriety of a transfer of some College land to private developers is also being questioned
• the Academic Planning Committee, in addition to working on mission review, has looked at proposals coming out of the School of Dental Medicine; two departments will change their names, to which changes the faculty have agreed; the abolition of the Department of Oral Health Services and Informatics was more controversial; the Committee reported to FSEC that the process followed in making the decision to abolish the Department included appropriate faculty consultation and was fair; FSEC received and filed the Committee’s report

Item 3: Presentation by Dean Shulman, School of Social Work

    The Chair introduced Dean Shulman. He noted that Dean Shulman comes to us from Boston University where he served as Chair of the Faculty Council, the equivalent of our Senate, under Chancellor Silber. The Chair asked Dean Shulman to describe some of his experiences at Boston University in addition to reporting on the School of Social Work.

    Dean Shulman recounted with verve to a rapt audience the course of a confrontation between Chancellor Silber and the faculty. Chancellor Silber made a speech in which he spoke of taking steps to protect Boston University from false doctrines and improper approaches and theories, including Marxist/Leninist views, gay and lesbian rights, radical feminism, etc. Interestingly he included dance therapy in the list. The Faculty Council wrote to the Chancellor asking for an explanation of what protecting the University meant. Chancellor Silber responded in writing that he meant just what he had said and refused to meet with the Council. The Council then charged the Academic Freedom Committee with surveying faculty perceptions. Although many faculty responded, only 26 faculty gave the Committee permission to use their response in its report. Six faculty, working in areas such as women’s studies and urban social justice, had been denied tenure in spite of having unanimous support throughout the entire tenure review process. Other faculty serving as chairs of dissertation committees reported receiving letters from the Provost objecting to dissertation topics dealing with feminist theory. When the English Department faculty tried to broaden the canon of literature taught, the Provost pressured the Chair to bring faculty into line. The Academic Freedom Committee’s completed report made it clear that the University had a problem with academic freedom.

    For three months Dean Shulman met weekly with the Provost and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to negotiate changes in governance, but those negotiations broke down. Even before the University administration had seen the report, Dean Shulman was told that if the Committee’s report were published his tenure would be in jeopardy under the responsibility section of the University’s academic freedom policy. After the report had been shared with the administration, the University also threatened to sue all thirty members of the Faculty Council, half of whom were untenured. None the less, the Faculty Council voted unanimously to publish the report. About a year later Dean Shulman left Boston University to come to UB where he finds the academic climate much more friendly.

    There were questions:

• what process would have been used to remove your tenure? (Professor Benenson)
• the reasoning was that the report was false and if I caused it to be published I would be violating my responsibility as an academic; the University was deterred from suing because of the support offered the faculty by AAUP and ACLU; the was no political support in Massachusetts for following up on the report (Dean Shulman)
• what happened to the untenured faculty on the Council? (Professor Schack)
• to my knowledge there was no retribution (Dean Shulman)
• what was it like to face up to the intimidation? (Professor Nickerson)
• lost several night’s sleep thinking about the possibility of losing a job and a pension; after the vote of the Faculty Council there was a emotional moment when all the members rose and applauded, knowing that they might lose the war, but they had won the battle of proving their commitment to shared governance and academic freedom (Dean Shulman)
• how did other faculty feel about the confrontation? (unidentified Senator)
• there had been three earlier faculty votes of no confidence in Chancellor Silber so a large number of the faculty supported the Council; the Board of Trustees was, however, strongly supportive of the Chancellor as were some senior faculty (Dean Shulman)
• did the untenured members of the Faculty Council get tenure? (unidentified Senator)
• know that at least two of them did; after the confrontation, the faculty governance leadership became more accommodating and the tension between the faculty and the administration lessened (Dean Shulman)

    Dean Shulman then reported on the School of Social Work. He believes that the School of Social Work has three missions: the creation of knowledge, the transmission of knowledge; and community service; and that it can integrate the three. He and the faculty see compelling reasons for the School to be involved in the inner city.

    The School offers the M.S.W. and Ph.D. degrees. The School has four concentrations: substance abuse, children and youth, community work, and health, mental health and disability. It is likely that the School will develop a fifth area of concentration in gerontology. These programs have focused on teaching but the School is also developing students’ research competency.

    The School has recruited eleven faculty, some as replacements but also several in new lines. The student head count this year increased by 25% to 417 and the School could accommodate 550 students. People working in the field who are interested in getting an M.S.W. are the most likely applicant pool, so the School has been working to make its programs more accessible for part time students who complete the M.S.W. in three years rather than two. Courses taught by full-time faculty are being offered in Jamestown, Corning, and Rochester. A joint Law/M.S.W. program is being strengthened; he hopes to offer more joint degree programs such as an M.Ed./M.S.W. program or perhaps an M.P.H./M.S.W. program. Another area which is available for significant expansion is a program targeting UB undergraduate students in health and human services and leading to a joint B.A./M.S.W. One factor which could limit the School’s growth is the difficulty in developing quality field work placements.

    There was a question from the floor:

• what is the non-white component of the School’s faculty? (Professor Benenson)
• 5 of a total of 20 come from identifiable minority groups; recruitment is very difficult since schools in total are not turning out enough Ph.D.’s to satisfy demand; the School’s search committee has a plan for long term cultivation of minority Ph.D. students before they are on the job market; the School is trying to make its culture more comfortable for minority faculty and students, and the School has seen a large increase in minority students (Dean Shulman)

    Dean Shulman outlined the School’s research agenda. The School is very interested in interdisciplinary research and welcomes communication that could identify shared areas of work. The School opened a Center for Research on Urban Social Work Practice last August and has already obtained $2.5 M in federal grants under the leadership of Professor Miller and is positioned to receive another $2.6 M. The grants support research in family violence and substance abuse. The School should quickly build a national reputation for work in substance abuse, family violence and parenting. A Center for Research on Children and Youth has been developed in collaboration with the Law School , the Graduate School of Education, and faculty from sociology and psychology. The Center has 22 faculty and is recruiting a director. Under the sponsorship of Deputy Speaker Arthur Eve the Center has received its first grant ($250 K) to deal with children who are suspended from the Buffalo public schools for threats of violence against teachers or other children. Another proposed project is setting up a computer program that would allow UB students to monitor and analyze how they are handling alcohol. The School is proud of how it is growing, the quality of its instruction, and its involvement in the University and the community.

    There were questions for the Dean:

• how are you handling allocating credit for team taught courses? (Professor Desforges)
• don’t have any team taught courses; School is looking at giving credit for field work liaisons and for chairing Ph.D. committees; the work load is two courses and research (Dean Shulman)
• one approach is to give 1 point of credit for team teaching, with 4 points being worth a semester off; another approach is to give each faculty member a half credit which gives one more time during the week (Professor Rittner)
• must balance faculty need to get credit for work done with the need of the School to have its courses taught by full-time faculty (Dean Shulman)
• as Dean are you surviving under the RAM and new allocation formulas? (Professor Nickerson)
• schools will be affected differentially; School of Social Work has expanded research funding and growing student enrollment, so it will do well in this environment; look forward to four year planning cycles (Dean Shulman)

    The Chair thanked Dean Shulman and reminded him that as an ex-officio member of the Senate he is welcome to attend regularly.
 

Item 4: Resolution on Assessment of Educational Programs

    The Chair introduced Professor Meacham, Chair of the Educational Programs and Policies Committee, who presented the Committee’s Resolution on the Assessment of Educational Programs.

    To put all the Senators on the same page, Professor Meacham described two sets of terms that would be useful in discussing the Resolution. First he talked about assessment versus evaluation. Assessment is a critical appraisal carried out from an authoritative position, whereas evaluation sets a value on something or ranks things. Evaluation typically measures student satisfaction, while assessment focuses on student learning. Evaluation tends to give useless information, while assessment can be used to make improvements. Accrediting bodies increasingly expect assessment to have taken place and to have resulted in improved programs. Assessment tells you whether your teaching is making a difference in your students’ learning.

    Professor Meacham also distinguished between the adjectives summative and formative. A formative statement is one which gives specifics that can be used to modify behavior; for example the statement "the professor is always late for class" is formative. An example of a summative statement is "I liked the professor".

    He pointed out that the Resolution recommends assessment of educational programs, such as curriculum, sequence of courses, learning outcomes, etc. The focus is on the collective efforts of a faculty, not on assessing individual faculty.

    Assessment involves the following steps: identification by the involved faculty of the goals and objectives of a program, choice by the involved faculty of appropriate assessment measures and procedures, assessment, and use of the assessment data to lead to improved outcomes. Many units on campus, especially the professional schools and the sciences, have substantial experience with doing periodic assessment. The Resolution suggests expanding the practice to all academic units.

    To stretch the Senators’ imagination about assessment, Professor Meacham quickly outlined a wide variety of assessment measures and techniques that could be used, the many time frames in which assessment can occur, the kinds of comparisons that can be made, and the many possible outcomes of assessment. The Resolution does not contemplate uniform assessment measures across the campus.

    The Resolution reads as follows:

Therefore, Be It Resolved:

That the President of the University at Buffalo is called upon to ensure, through appropriate leadership, cooperation with UB’s faculty, provision of resources, and recognition of faculty assessment efforts as significant service to the University, that assessment of all educational programs at UB, including UB’s general education program for undergraduate students, be conducted both regularly and frequently; and

Furthermore, Be It Resolved:

That the faculty of the University are called upon to recognize our responsibility to participate fully in conducting such assessments of educational programs.

    The Chair asked for comments and questions:

• what is meant by the phrase "embedded approaches to assessment"?; is it appropriate for a faculty member to assess the learning in his own course? (Professor Malone)
• an example of "embedded approaches to assessment" would be to have the assessment as a graded exercise in a course; the Resolution does not focus on individual courses but programs, and the faculty that designed and administer a program know best what its objectives and goals are (Professor Meacham)
• is a campus oversight committee envisaged for assessment?; would the assessment data be made available to administrators? (Professor Radner)
• Resolution calls upon the President to move the campus forward on assessment; assume there would be a Presidential mandate to establish assessment programs that would run down to heads of academic units; the results of assessment would become a matter of public record if incorporated into an accreditation review (Professor Meacham)
• how would programs which cross unit boundaries, for example, Access ‘99, be assessed? (Professor Adams-Volpe)
• the heart of the Resolution is a call to the administration to ensure that assessment takes place; the mechanics of how that happens should be worked out administratively (Professor Meacham)
• how do we ensure that negative assessment data is not used against a unit by the administration? (Professor Kalman)
• the administration has to make resource allocation decisions in any event; better to do so based on facts (Professor Meacham)
• append chart setting out differences between assessment and evaluation to the Resolution to ensure that the administration understands the distinction (Professor Wooldridge)
• should elaborate on what is meant by "provision of resources" and "recognition of faculty"; Resolution does not have any statement about its budgetary impact as is required by an earlier Faculty Senate resolution (Professor Faran)
• given the budgetary climate, am concerned that assessment efforts will not be adequately supported (Professor Bono)
• some assessment can be done at low cost; for example, could look at the grades of groups of students who take basic courses in different sequences to see if one sequence produces better results than another and then recommend that sequence to students (Professor Meacham)
• the Resolution is suggesting a more ambitious program of assessment than your example; fear the Resolution will result in feelings of disappointment when adequate funding is not forthcoming as in the case of the Undergraduate College (Professor Bono)
• all things being equal, a department with assessment figures will fare better in the allocation of resources than a department that lacks such data (Professor Meacham)
• the discussion suggests that the order of the Resolved clauses should be reversed so that the call to the faculty comes first (Professor Baumer)
• part of the funding could come from the SUNY general education initiative which calls for assessment (Professor Sridhar)
• would be useful to have short descriptions of assessment programs that are in place on campus (Professor Desforges)
• is the administration being asked to cause assessment to happen or to enable it to happen? (Professor Dryden)
• faculty are already enabled to do assessment; the Resolution calls on the administration to cause assessment to happen regularly and frequently; faculty need to explore as teachers diverse ways of discovering whether we are doing the best possible things for our students (Professor Meacham)
• important to change the emphasis of the Resolution from the administration to the faculty; if the impetus for assessment cascades from the President downwards, assessment may get done by Deans to serve the Dean’s purposes rather than by the faculty for the benefit of programs (Professor Schack)
• some Schools already undergo extensive assessment for accreditation purposes; this Resolution could cause duplicative activities (Professor Zubrow)
• if a School has a self assessment process which takes place regularly and frequently, then nothing more is required by the Resolution (Professor Meacham)

    The Chair thanked Professor Meacham for his presentation and said that the EPPC has good feed from the Faculty Senate to consider.
 

Item 5: Old/New Business

    Professor Bono noted with approval that the FSEC has charged the Committee on Research and Creative Activity to examine the Provost’s plan to double sponsored research activity at UB in the next five years. She is anxious to hear the Committee’s report since the structural deficit which has resulted in the hiring freeze and other fiscal constraints in the College of Arts and Sciences is said to be in part due to unrealistic projections of sponsored research activity.

    The Chair responded that there had been no discussion with faculty about the goal of doubling sponsored research funding. At an FSEC meeting the Provost explained that the doubling goal had been decided upon as "challenging". Professor Schack added that Vice President Landi considers it an extremely difficult goal to reach.

    Professor Schack commented on the Chair’s report on mission review which referred to a dialogue. Among whom is there a dialogue? There was no faculty consensus on the Provost’s mission review document, but no one who objected to the document is scheduled to meet with the interlocutors. Professor Schack urged the Chair to inform the interlocutors that there is significant faculty dissent to the document by providing them with copies of FSEC’s discussions of the Provost’s document as reported in the minutes.

    The Chair replied that the dialogue referred to is the continuing discussion with SUNY on what is UB’s mission and how to accomplish it. The interlocutors will give UB feed on its mission review document. The APC will report to the faculty on that feed. The dialogue is not over yet, and it will be so only when the Trustees put their imprimatur on UB’s mission document. There is much that needs further discussion and faculty input.

    Professor Schack listed areas of concern: the virtual elimination of anything but four particular areas of science, the tremendous emphasis on technology and distance learning, and the certitude about the directions of the future of higher education. The faculty expressed reservations but also strong support of Provost Headrick’s plan, while there were only reservations expressed about Provost Triggle’s plan.

    The meeting adjourned at 3:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Marilyn M. Kramer
Secretary of Faculty Senate

Present:

Chair: P. Nickerson
Secretary: M. Kramer
Parliamentarian: D. Malone
Architecture: R. Shibley
Arts & Sciences: B. Bono, J. Holstun, L. Kurdziek-Formato, E. Scarlett, C. Smith, M. Churchill, J. Faran, T. Gregg, J. Reineck, S. Schack, W. Baumer, J. Campbell, W. Chang, R. Desforges, L. Dryden, J. Meacham, D. Radner, E. Segal, C. Fourtner
Dental Medicine: W. Wright
Education: C. Hosenfeld, T. Schroeder, J. Hoot
Engineering: D. Benenson, R. Mayne, R. Sridhar
Health Related Professions: L. Gosselin
Information & Library Studies: C. Jorgensen
Management: G. Hariharan, C. Pegels
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: M. Alashari, S. Awner, P. Bradford, M. Dryjski, W. Flynn, R. Heffner, F. Mendel,
S. Okhi, C. Pruet, S. Rudin, R. Sands, J. Yates
Nursing: E. Perese, P.Wooldridge
Pharmacy: T. Kalman, R. Madejski
Social Work: B. Rittner, A. Safyer
SUNY Senators: J. Adams-Volpe, J. Fisher
University Libraries: A. Booth, W. Hepfer, M. Zubrow
 

Guests:

L. Shulman, Dean, School of Social Work
M. McGinnis, Reporter
 

Excused:

Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: D. Amsterdam, C. Smith
 

Absent:

Arts & Sciences: J. Conte, S. Elder, J. Guitart, F. Pellicone, H. Sussman, S. Bruckenstein, M. Ram, K. Regan, L. Bian, H. Calkins, J. DeWald, T. Thornton, L. Vardi
Dental Medicine: B. Boyd, G. Ferry, M. Neiders, L. Ortman
Education: B. Johnstone, C. Toepfer
Engineering: S. Ahmad, W. George, S. Mohan
Health Related Professions: S. Nochajski, J. Tamburlin
Law: L. Swartz
Management: J. Boot, R. Ramesh
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: B. Albini, J. DeBerry, V. Li, F. Loghmanee, A. Michalek, S. Spurgeon, J. Sulewski,
L. Wild
Nursing: J. Thompson
SUNY Senators: J. Boot, H. Durand
University Libraries: D. Woodson

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