FACULTY SENATE
Minutes of November 7, 2000 - (approved)
E-MAIL: ZBFACSEN@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

The Senate met at 2:00 PM on November 7, 2000 in the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of October 3, 2000
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President/Provost
4. Report of the Faculty Senate Teaching and Learning Committee: Second Reading of Resolutions on “Assessments of Instructional Effectiveness” - J. Ronald Gentile, Chair
5. Report of the Faculty Senate Computer Services Committee: Baseline IT Faculty Support: Faculty Computer Access - Lorna Peterson, Chair
6. Report on the SUNY University Faculty Senate meeting at Morrisville - Judith Adams-Volpe, SUNY University Faculty Senator

Item 1: Report of the Chair

The Chair’s written report was distributed with the agenda.  He added that:

1. the December 12, 2000 meeting of the Faculty Senate has been canceled

Item 2: Approval of the minutes of October 3, 2000

The minutes of October 3, 2000 were approved.

Item 3: Report of the Faculty Senate Teaching and Learning Committee: Second Reading of Resolutions on “Assessments of Instructional Effectiveness”

    Professor Gentile noted that the Committee’s original report and accompanying recommendations presented at the May 2000 Faculty Senate meeting had been reformatted into six resolutions.  He then presented the resolutions.
 
• Resolution 1: Concerning Syllabi and Course Policies
Resolution 1 requires that an instructor publish a course syllabus during the first week of a course.  It defines a syllabus as the “established policies and major requirements of a course”.  Resolution 1 requires eight topics to be included at minimum: general goals of the course; specific objectives which must be achieved to receive a passing grade; how the course might change during the semester; how attainment of goals and objectives will be evaluated; what additional support is available; attendance policies; other requirements and how they will be evaluated; and the grading scheme.
Resolution 1 was moved (seconded).
• are syllabi required for graduate courses as well as undergraduate (Professor Faran)
• applies to both (Professor Gentile)
Resolution 1 carried.
• Resolution 2: Concerning Documentation of Instructional Effectiveness
Resolution 2 requires that promotion and tenure dossiers include a teaching portfolio which contains at minimum five items: course syllabi; student evaluations, instructor self-evaluations; evidence of the effectiveness of instruction; and information on how the difficulties students are having are identified and how students can access help.
Resolution 2 was moved (seconded).  Resolution 2 carried.
• Resolution 3: Concerning Faculty Development and the Culture of Teaching
Resolution 3 asks the Provost and Deans to fund an initiative that will help faculty continue to expand and improve their teaching skills.  The initiative should at minimum offer: graduate courses on teaching and learning, etc., workshops, speakers, etc., advertising and encouragement for faculty participation in intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs, encouragement for faculty to visit one another’s classes, and some mechanism to ensure that the functions of the old Office of Teaching Effectiveness be carried out.
Resolution 3 was moved (seconded).
• this resolution lacks the Senate required statement on its financial impact; was the Budget Priorities Committee consulted? (Professor Faran)
• did not consult with the Budget Priorities Committee; did talk with the Provost who encouraged the Committee to submit a proposal on re-instituting the Office of Teaching Effectiveness (Professor Gentile)
The motion carried.
• Resolution 4: Concerning Students’ Academic Responsibilities and the Culture of Learning
Resolution 4 asks that a statement of Student Academic Responsibilities be promulgated which would include at minimum: knowing and following University policy on drop-add dates, etc.; understanding and following course syllabi; preparing for and participating in class; informing the instructor if a deadline or class will be missed; asking for help in a timely manner; understanding that not all topics in a course will be of immediate interest or use; and meeting with other students to discuss material.
Resolution 4 was moved (seconded).  The motion carried.
• Resolution 5: Concerning the Development of Academic Skills
Resolution 5 asks that the Methods of Inquiry Program be strengthened and promoted and that academic units develop similar metacognitive programs.
Resolution 5 was moved (seconded).  The motion carried.
• Resolution 6: Concerning Faculty-Student Dialogue
Resolution 6 asks that the Provost and Deans initiate discussions with various student organizations.  These discussions should cover at minimum: policy issues raised by the resolutions; establishing lectures, panels, etc. on practical topics which would help students in their academic careers; and whether GSEU members should be included in/have separate programs on professional development.
Resolution 6 was moved (seconded).  The motion carried.

Item 4: Report of the Faculty Senate Computer Services Committee

    Professor Peterson, Chair of the Computer Services Committee, stated that while UB has integrated IT into student life and recommends minimum specifications for students’ computer access, there is no University policy about minimum faculty access.  Professor Peterson believes that faculty computer access is uneven across the campus.
    The Committee has developed a statement on what should be the minimum computer support for faculty.  The Committee recommends that “faculty hardware and software should meet the published recommended and minimum specifications for computer access for students as written by the iConnect@UB Hardware and Software Standards Subcommittee”.  The Committee also recommends that “faculty equipment and instructional support should meet the published service standards of CIT, the University Libraries, the ETC, and the nodes”.
    There were comments from the floor:

• can the nodes tell us how diverse faculty access is? (Professor Nickerson)
• no one seems to know and there aren’t good inventory lists; assume that 95% of faculty have sufficient access for e-mail, word processing and internet use (Professor Peterson)
• would like the Committee to address issues of platform incompatibility (Professor Steiner)
• seems to be movement from the CIO’s Office toward standardization, but will have the Committee look at these issues (Professor Peterson)
• what else is the Committee working on? (Professor Nickerson)
• discussing an assessment of campus IT support for teaching, research and service, specifically how to do an assessment and who will pay for it (Professor Peterson)
• what platforms are supported is an academic issue; Committee should investigate faculty views on the topic; personally favor supporting a wide variety of platforms, operating systems and software (Professor Schack)
• Committee has discussed these issues and is concerned about the administrative/service side’s great influence; the newly appointed Vice Provost for Educational Technology may be helpful in representing  faculty views; the Committee has actively tried to increase faculty participation in IT decision making (Professor Peterson)
• would like to see strongly worded resolutions coming from the Committee asserting that these are academic issues and making substantive recommendations about choices of platform, operating systems and software (Professor Schack)

Item 5: Report of the SUNY University Faculty Senate meeting

    Professor Adams-Volpe reported on the 126th Plenary Meeting of the SUNY University Faculty Senate.  The SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Morrisville hosted the meeting.  A few years ago the College seemed at risk, but under President Cross’s leadership, the campus is thriving.  The Senators were very impressed by its technology infrastructure and programs.
    The Senate passed four resolutions.  The first resolution reaffirmed the Senate’s opposition to system-wide assessment.  In the second resolution, the Senate voted to join the New York State Higher Education Conference Board, a new organizations whose major objective is to advocate for public higher education in New York..  The third resolution called on the Chancellor to reconstitute the Provost’s Advisory Council on General Education (PACGE) and to review its work to ensure that the “traditional rights of the faculty and the campuses to determine academic courses and programs are reaffirmed and that the SUNY commitment to producing campus-based general education programs worthy of nation emulation is sustained”.  The fourth resolution called for the participation of academic governance bodies on each campus in reviewing the campus Memorandum of Understanding with SUNY.
    Chancellor King was present and seemed very fit after his summer’ ill health.  He spoke about SUNY’s enrollment increases in each of the past three years, the improving profile of its freshmen classes, IBM’s commitment to build a $2.5B computer chip plant in New York because of training and educational opportunities provided by SUNY, the streamlining of SUNY Administration’s infrastructure systems, the emphasis on increasing SUNY’s research funding, the development of plans to aggressively market SUNY, and issues of funding and managing the SUNY hospitals.  He recognized as critical the transferability of general education courses between the community colleges and the baccalaureate colleges.  He addressed the issue of system-wide assessment, saying “...if we all can’t come to agreement, it won’t happen...broad consensus about objectives is essential”.  He also praised the Campaign for UB.

Item 6: Report of the President/Provost

    President Greiner praised Chancellor King’s performance to date, saying that the Chancellor has brought a new level of energy and quality to SUNY.  The Chancellor is actively leading SUNY, and his leadership may be a moderating influence with the Board of Trustees.
    Chancellor King has called on the campuses not to be so defined by the annual SUNY budget, but to develop strategies for being more independent.  UB is moving in that direction.
    This year’s SUNY budget looks good to benign.  It now seems settled that it is the Governor’s responsibility, not the Legislature’s, to fund contractual salary increases.  The Governor seems likely to recognize increases in enrollments and in sponsored research.  Enrollment growth could, therefore, enable UB to recruit new faculty and develop new programs.
    SUNY’s budgetary dependence on income from the SUNY hospitals is a major problem facing the Chancellor.  Chancellor King will ask the Governor for between $100/$200M to clear the hospitals’ arrears and another $100M to separate the finances of the hospitals and SUNY.  The hospitals will then require additional help in dealing with their declining income.
    The Chancellor is very interested in increasing research at the University Centers.  He has come to believe that SUNY’s advancement rests on the Centers.  He will not give the Centers a blank check, but he will be supportive.
    President Greiner thanked the faculty, administrators and staff who worked hard to increase enrollments.  He also thanked the UB community for its support of the SEFA campaign.  UB has exceeded its goal of $700K.

• what is your take on the discussion of charter colleges? (Professor Gentile)
• a charter school is one that is subvented by the state but run as a private enterprise; a number of major state universities fit this pattern, e.g. Penn State; the current discussion arose from a conference sponsored by a group favoring less centralized education; don’t think the Legislature or the Chancellor is interested (President Greiner)

    Provost Capaldi made several announcements.  Ann Newman is the new Director of Space Planning.  At a recent retreat held for department chairs, the chairs expressed dissatisfaction with the current mechanisms for monitoring classroom usability.  Faculty will be asked to participate in a survey on the state of classrooms.  Additionally, the Provost will explore equipping classrooms with a low technology package , e.g. a VCR, a slide projector, etc.
    The Provost stressed that the primary purpose of IT is to support the academic side of the University.  She intends to be actively involved with IT issues, and as a consequence, the Chief Information Officer reports jointly to the Senior Vice President and to herself.  She urged faculty to discuss their concerns with their department chairs, deans and her Office.

• facilities staff should be able to assess classroom usability without having to survey faculty (Professor Steiner)
• facilities staff may not be able to tell what a classroom is like when there are people in it; surveying faculty will shorten the process (Provost Capaldi)
• Wende 114 lacks ventilation (Professor Steiner)
• encourage more cooperation among the libraries at the University Centers (Professor Cadenhead)
• SUNY Connect is an ongoing initiative to increase library cooperation within SUNY; SUNY libraries already share the costs of many full text databases, a SUNY-wide on-line catalog is being developed; Empire Express is an expedited article delivery system within SUNY that has enabled libraries to cut duplicated titles, but with budgets that are not keeping up with journal prices, SUNY libraries are cutting unique titles (Professor Adams-Volpe)

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

Respectfully submitted,

Marilyn McMann Kramer
Secretary of Faculty Senate

Present:

Chair: P. Nickerson
Secretary: M. Kramer
Parliamentarian: D. Malone
Architecture: H. Steiner
Arts & Sciences: L. Bian, J. Bono, A. Cadenhead, P. Zarembka, J. Dugan, D. Eddins, J. Faran, C. Fourtner, T. Gregg, J. Holstun, E. Kazmierczak, L. Kurdiel-Formato, A. Petrou, D. Radner, S. Schack, E. Segal,
Dental Medicine: E. DeNardin, G. Ferry, E. Davis
Education: J. Ernest, R. Gentile, L. Malave
Engineering & Applied Sciences: D. Malone, J. Mollendorf, R. Sridhar, R. Mayne
Health Related Professions: G. Farkas, S. Nochajski
Management: S. Gunn, C. Pegels
Medical & Biomedical Sciences: M. Alashari, D. Amsterdam, M. Dryjski, T. Guttuso, F. Mendel, B. Noble, R. Noble, S. Ohki, P. Spurgeon, A. Vladutiu
Nursing: J. Brown, T. Obst
Pharmacy: T. Kalman
SUNY Senators: J. Adams-Volpe, J. Boot, P. Nickerson
University Libraries: A. Booth, W. Hepfer, J. Hopkins, S. Tejada, M. Zubrow
University Officers: W. Greiner, President
                              E. Capaldi, Provost

Guests:

K. Levy, Senior Associate Provost
J. Lewandowski, Reporter
K. Purdy, The Spectrum
L. Peterson, Chair, Faculty Senate Computer Services Committee

Excused:

Medical & Biomedical Sciences: S. Rudin

Absent:

Arts & Sciences: B. Bono, J. Campbell, M. Churchill, J. Conte, S. Elder, J. Ellison, J. Guitart, M. Jardine, C. Mele, J. Pappas, C. Smith
Dental Medicine: B. Boyd, M. Easley
Education: J. Hoot, T. Schroeder
Law: L. Swartz
Management: G. Hariharan, J. Ogden
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: P. Bradford, M. Caty, W. Flynn, B. Grant, S. Greenberg, J. Hassett, M. Kulaylat, V. Li, F. Loghmanee, C. Pruet, R. Sands, A. Solh, J. Sulewski, L. Wild
Nursing: E. Perese
SUNY Senators: H. Durand

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