FACULTY SENATE

Minutes of December 7, 2004
(unapproved)

 

The Faculty Senate (FS) met at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 7, 2004, at the Center for Tomorrow to consider the following agenda:

1. Approval of the minutes of November 2, 2004
2. Report of the Chair
3. Report of the President
4. Review of Mission Review II – S. Tripathi & S. Sullivan
5. Old/New business
6. Adjournment

Item 1: Approval of the minutes of November 2, 2004

The minutes were approved following clarification by Professor Meacham that his concern wasn’t about departmental mission statements. Rather, he had asked about how the UB2020 planning process relates to the University’s mission statement, “Mission 1996-2006,” which is on UB’s Web site at http://www.business.buffalo.edu/UbbContent/Hrs/facultyhandbook/I.htm#.

Item 2: Report of the Chair

Chair Nickerson’s report included:

• The FS Student Life Committee passed a resolution recognizing Pat Kujawa’s many years of distinguished service to the Student Association. Pat is retiring this month.

• As of 6/1/05 degree conferral, Ph.D. dissertations have to be submitted in electronic form; for master’s theses, the date is 9/1/05.

• It is now University policy that an outside reader for a dissertation or thesis will be optional at the discretion of the department. There will be a minimum of three members required for each committee.

• The Affirmative Action Committee will meet with the chairs of the two main UB2020 committees regarding how diversity issues are being addressed in the planning process.

• The Educational Policies and Programs Committee met with Tim Tryjankowski, head of UB’s new Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships.

Item 3: Report of the President

None

Item 4: Review of Mission Review II – S. Tripathi & S. Sullivan

Provost Tripathi and Associate Vice President Sullivan presented an outline version of UB’s response to the SUNY-mandated Mission Review II (MR2). Although our proposal is due to SUNY by December 15th, input from today’s meeting will be considered before the final version is submitted. Additional concerns may be e-mailed to the Provost (tripathi@buffalo.edu).

Representatives from SUNY will visit UB in the spring, and a memorandum of understanding document will be prepared by October 1st, 2005.

The MR2 response is a collective document. Information was gathered through a collaborative process that is consistent with UB’s goals and visions.

Goals set forth in MR2 include:

• Increasing the size of UB’s faculty and budget to be comparable to peer institutions.

• Recruiting freshmen with even higher SAT scores; we aim to exceed our current record-high 1183 mean scores and reach a mean SAT of 1220.

• Increasing UB’s out-of-state student population from 4.7% to 10%.

• Increasing our doctoral student enrollment and downsizing some of our master’s degree programs.

• Enrolling more underrepresented and international students.

We’ve made a lot of progress since the first Mission Review: sponsored research, faculty hiring, student retention, and graduation rates have all increased. The economic impact has been significant, and we will have to continue increasing our sponsored research in order to become a premier national public university.

Questions & comments:

• Only 36.6% of UB’s freshmen now graduate in four years. Is there a benchmark to put that number in context? (Zambon)

• We’re lower than we want to be, but not too far below the national average. There’s room for improvement, and we intend to do that. We were at 28% during the 1990s. This is our highest point since 1980. (Sullivan)

• Why can’t we get comparative data more recent than 2001? (Welch)

• We have newer data for some universities, but 2001 is the most current that’s available from other peer institutions. That’s why we’re using it for comparisons. (Sullivan)

• What can faculty do to help students who need counseling services? What can faculty do to reduce the factors that contribute to students’ problems? (Graves)

• That’s a complicated question that depends on a lot of factors. Contact the staff at UB’s Counseling Services for answers and advice regarding specific concerns. (Sullivan)

• There’s been a 50% reduction in the number of classrooms during the past 20 years. The insufficient number and poor condition of some classrooms surely affects our retention rates adversely because they influence the number of courses and special programs we can offer. They also curb scheduling options, which affect students’ involvement and learning. There’s also a geographical disparity, because 75% of all classrooms are located on the east side of the North Campus. (Schack)

• The working group that gathered information for MR2 didn’t include any librarians. Having a librarian member would have expanded the breadth of expertise of the group. (Tysick)

• Sandy Peters was the representative from the Office of the Chief Information Officer. She provided much information about the Libraries, that came from Associate Director Steve Roberts. The Libraries were, in fact, very well represented. (Sullivan)

• Low graduate student stipends put UB at a serious disadvantage for recruiting high quality graduate assistants. Some other schools offer nearly twice as much, so this disparity needs to be addressed. (Meacham)

• Some departments have combined their own resources to increase graduate student stipends. The new dean of the graduate school will be working to deal with this issue. (Tripathi)

• One way to attract more out-of-state students would be to increase the visibility of our athletic programs. Many students are attracted to schools whose teams they see on television, so UB should consider making athletics a higher priority. (Brazeau)

Item 5: Old/New business

Professor Vanouse solicited institutional support for his Department of Art colleague, Professor Steven J. Kurtz, whose mail fraud trial date is scheduled to be set in January. Carnegie Mellon has a statement of support on its Web site, and Professor Vanouse would like UB to do likewise.

Chair Nickerson said the Faculty Senate Executive Committee had discussed this matter and decided not to make a public response. Anyone who is interested in Professor Vanouse’s proposal can discuss the matter with him after the meeting.

Item 6: Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Will Hepfer
Secretary of the Faculty Senate

ATTENDANCE (P = present; A = absent; E = excused)

Chair – P. Nickerson
Secretary – W. Hepfer
Parliamentarian – W. Baumer
Architecture & Planning – GS Danford (P), K. Mackay (A)
Arts & Sciences – R. Allen-King (P), S. Bennett (P), S. Bruckenstein (A), J. Buscaglia (P), M. Chen (P), M. Churchill (P), M. Detty (A), L. Dryden (P), D. Eddins (P), J. Faran (P), A. Graves (P), T. Gregg (A), R. Hoeing (A), A. Markelz (P), N. Matthews (P), P. McDevitt (P), J. Meacham (P), J. Mendoza (P), A. Monteiro (A), J. Pappas (A), S. Rothenberg (A), S. Schack (P), D. Street (P), K. Takeuchi (A), J-C Thill (A), T. Thurston (A), G. Timler (P), P. Vanouse (P), D. Wackeroth (P), C. Welch (P), R. Woodard (P), J. Yu (A)
Dental Medicine – P. Bradford (A), M. Donley (E), E. Pantera (E), J. Zambon (P)
Education – J. Hoot (P), X. Liu (P), L. Malave (P), T. Schroeder (P)
Engineering & Applied Sciences – C. Basaran (P), A. Bisantz (P), S. Chen (A), J. Jensen (A), K. Lewis (P), D. Pados (P), A. Reinhorn (A), R. Wetherhold (A)
Informatics – J. Ellison (A)
Institutional General – O. Mixon (A)
Law – D. Filvaroff (A), R. Reis (A), L. Swartz (E)
Management – J. Boot (P), S. Gunn (P), C. Pegels (A), N. Suresh (A)
Medicine & Biomedical Sciences – D. Amsterdam (A), F. Baddoura (A), C. Cohan (P), M. Dryjski (A), J. Evans (A), J. Figueroa (A), E. Fine (P), W. Flynn (A), J. Gibbs (A), H. Hameer (E), L. Harris (P), J. Hassett (A), D. Holmes (A), T. Langan (A), V. Li (A), F. Loghmanee (A), A. Manyon (A), N. Miele (A), A. Posner (P), J. Sauret (A), J. Sellick (A), R. Stephan (A), G. Sufrin (A), F. Velazquez (A), B. Weinstock-Guttman (P)
Nursing – P. McCartney (P), P. Wooldridge (A)
Pharmacy – K. Boje (A), G. Brazeau (P)
Public Health & Health Professions – C. Crespo (A), G. Farkas (A)
Social Work – B. Rittner (A)
SUNY Senators – W. Baumer (P), W. Coles (P), M. Kramer (A), P. Nickerson (P)
University Libraries – J. Adams-Volpe (A), HA Booth (E), S. Davis (P), C. Tysick (P)
University Officers – S. Tripathi, S. Sullivan

Guests – M. Cochrane (Reporter), L. Labinski (Professional Staff Senate)

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