Audio Recording of Meeting, 2011 December 9

Welcome everybody. Happy holidays. Great to see everybody. Really is. Nice to see everybody.
Just I think first order of business reviewing the meeting minutes and hopefully everybody's
had an opportunity to read the minutes. I don't know if anybody has some changes. They
want to offer up for the minutes. If not, I'd ask for a motion to approve the minutes from
the last meeting. I so moved. I'll second. Okay. All in favor?
Okay. The meeting minutes are approved. Next up, Mr. President, George Philip.
I will try and go very quickly because since our last meeting, a lot of things have happened
on campus. Most recently we had a our winner commencement. 4,100 people attended were
one of the few schools that still has a winner commencement. 1100 students graduated.
577 undergraduates, 463 graduates. Senator Schumer appeared as one of our guests along
with Betsy Colbert who won the honorary degree. All of the speakers were terrific. It was
a very I thought it was a very well done event at every level, including having things
that we managed to take to send to parents who were in Afghanistan and a number of other
things that that we were able to achieve. It was one of the longer events, but it was
not long because of the speakers. We had one unexpected speaker, but there was not long
because of the speakers. We had a lot of students that came and walked, which is actually
a good thing. I'm not going to talk about the C&B basketball game. I'll skip that.
Lee? I'm not either. I get too painful to talk about.
It's a wonderful coverage in the newspaper. We had that two sunny papers because that
was the whole online branch that our graduation was. Oh really? I don't read the local newspapers.
It's on tape. Let me give you a couple of quick updates on NYSUNI 2020, which is continues
to be a high topic on campus. We are in conversations with SUNI in the Governor's office regarding
our initiative. We have yet to present to the Governor's office. We have had several
tentative dates, but all have been rescheduled for one reason or another. None of the U-Centers
have had their plans approved. However, we anticipate that this next week or next week?
Next week. We anticipate that next week that Buffalo and Stony Brook will have their plans
approved at some local ceremony. That leaves Biggerton and the University yet to be approved
at the moment. We hope that to have a meeting with the Governor's staff to go over any of
the remaining issues that attach to our program and hopefully we'll have a news soon that
we're scheduled for our presentation and our approval. I'll answer questions at the end if
you've got any on that. Trustee's approved a five-year tuition plan, which is pursuant
to the NY SUNY 2020 legislation. The plan itself and anybody who wants details of the
plan is available, but the plan calls for up to a $300 a year tuition increase on undergraduate
for a five-year period, which means an accumulative between now the end of the period, a $1500
tuition increase, an average increase of somewhere around 6% a year. The same increase of
the plan applies to resident graduate students and the master's level, a much more modest
and actually realistic increase for doctoral students because at the end of the day we pay
for that anyway, so it's a wash. But it is up to, so the trustees can at any point in
time choose to set the rate at a lower level. We hope that's not the case, but they certainly
can. SUNY has submitted their budget request to the state because of the NY SUNY 2020 and
one of the significant elements of that, which is the maintenance of effort. It is the
11-12 state support level for SUNY, which is $822.3 million for the entire SUNY system.
They cost to continue, which is steps in longevity increases as well as general inflation, adding
about $7.74 million, an allocation of the final 10% tuition adjustment, which is $16.48 million,
and then a sort of a catch-all SUNY works allocation of $40 million, which brings the total
last $2996.5 million, approximately a $64 million increase from what base support was last year.
Again, we're hopeful that this is the plan that's adopted. The good news is that we don't anticipate a cut.
And of course, as you know, in the past years we've had significant cuts.
Other SUNY news, the governor and SUNY have worked out a plan that will impact our MC employees,
that's management confidential employees, on campus. They will now be subject to the nine days of deficit
reduction leave, which is the furlough, which for the current fiscal year amounts to about a 4% salary,
a little over 4% salary reduction for the next year. It's approximately a 2%, salary reduction under phase two.
It's very difficult because our employees do not get, our MC employees do not get step in longevity increases,
like other states, other state employees do. So this is a real cut in terms of their benefits.
This is the same group, incidentally, that has not arraising four years at all. We haven't given them a dime.
Unlike the represented unionized group on campus, we have received increases.
So this is a difficult pill to swallow. There is an element to the furlough,
as well as the furlough that will be a recovery of the furt amounts.
It's sort of adding to what is a difficult circumstance relative to the income for a,
and that's not just senior management. It's senior management. There are 68 people or 70 people that are affected
and summer at the lower levels, and that's even more difficult.
I won't get into a lot of details. Another Carl Hayden, who had been the chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees,
announced his retirement two days ago. He had been replaced as chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees by Carl McCall,
probably a week or so ago. I think Carl Hayden did a great job. His resignation is effective December 31st,
and now he did a good job with the Board of Trustees. He also led the New York State Board of Regents for a number of years,
and did a great job there. So he's a talented guy that will be missed in that arena.
Yesterday, we had a rather elaborate ceremony downtown, where the governor announced the REDC winners,
Region Economic Development Council winners. As all of you know, there were 10 areas designated in the state zones.
We were the capital region economic development council here, but they took the 64 counties and divided it up into 10,
and had some interesting map. Appearances, it looked like a jury-mandered environment, but four of the areas of one special attention.
They were Western New York, Central New York, the northern tier, whatever it's called, the North Country, and Long Island.
That won the special designation. The university, I participated in our Regional Council.
The university submitted a number of requests, CFA's, and we were very successful in that we did not submit anything on a big level.
We didn't throw in big money requests because frankly, we have been on the receiving end of those.
A lot of big money for a long period of time, especially in terms of capital.
But the region won $62 million in the competition. We won $2 million for our R&D Institute, which was well-deserved.
Another, which was incidentally the number two ranked proposal. The number three ranked proposal was our proposal for expanding our cancer research facilities in order to accommodate a partnership with Drudeau from Sarah Knight Lake.
We got $1 million there. In addition, there's a research alliance between the university, Albany Med, and RPI that was funded at $950,000.
And in the central, is it central?
Mohawk, the Mohawk Valley region. There was a $15 million grant, frankly, that was very largely due to our NANO participation at SUNY IT.
So it was really our efforts that had a good deal to do with that award in the Mohawk Valley area.
Other good news, one of our professors, I knew that if I branched this up, I have to remember it. Strakowicz? Strakowski, alright. There's all kinds of letters in this thing.
And his team were awarded an $8.7 million four-year federal grant funded by the office of the director of National Intelligence.
And the purpose of the grant funding will go to develop a video game aimed at training adults to overcome bias in critical decision making.
These biases can lead to bad decisions and critical matters, including national security. It's a very interesting project. It's very exciting. It's cutting edge.
Obviously, it's very important because $8.7 million is not a small amount of money for a federal grant.
We were one of five organizations in the state to be named as to receive the eighth annual state environmental excellence awards, which is a very good thing.
We have reduced our energy use over the past three years.
The cutbacks are enough to basically power 500 average homes for a year. So we've done a good job in terms of reducing our carbon footprint, also our production of greenhouse gases.
We've slashed our electrical bill by about $700,000 a year, which is a helpful environment of austerity.
And we have had a very good program in place, not only educating students and staff and faculty on conserving energy, but making sure that all of us understood that it's going to be quite a bit colder in the winter and quite a bit warmer in the summer.
Dan was smart enough to wear his fleece participated in the meeting.
Our temperature reduction times are starting Saturday of this week, next week, Saturday of next week.
We are going down to about a 63 degree setting in all the buildings. And then we are going during the business hours.
That's phase one. That only goes to December 22nd. Phase two goes to 55 degrees from December 22nd through January 12th through December 22nd to January 3rd.
Then we go back to phase one. We actually have the plants can survive. We've done that.
The staff at where it's a little bit warmer when it's colder, it's about to be colder when it's warm.
Well, this is the way we save money. But we have alternative work sites that are available.
Because we have a lot of operations that require, for example, processing admission applications.
We have an alternative work site for that. The library is also variable as an alternative work site for those people who want to use them.
For those where there are experiments going on and research that's going on that requires additional accommodations.
We're certainly making it. But clearly what we've gotten is a society here on campus that understands the need to conserve.
And then we have a terrific young lady that has managed all of our efforts.
And she has done a great job over the year. So she's really the person. And what is Melia's first?
Mary Ellen Melia. And she's done a terrific job.
We had the president of the Federal Reserve Bank on campus for our third annual business leaders breakfast.
He did a great job. It was very interesting trying to accommodate the security.
Apparently the president of the New York Fed Bank is at risk because he had extensive security as part of his process.
But he did a good job and our students excelled. I was in all of the questions that the students asked.
I came back the next day or that happened to be the day that I announced that I was going to retire.
I really convinced that we had done a good job setting up the students and we had not.
The questions they asked were their questions. They were not planted. They were fabulous.
Citizen Laureate event went very well. Well attended 340 people. A good field of candidates.
Our efforts on the development side continue to increase and do well.
Fardina is on a great job, including getting a $1 million anonymous gift to athletic improvements.
A number of other endowed scholarship grants that add up to a considerable amount of money.
Since 2008, our endowment has increased by 26%.
That's pretty good in this economic environment and it's a tribute to the advancement office for doing a lot of good work.
I think I'm going to stop there because I still have pages of activities but I'll be happy too.
I have one I have to do. I have to congratulate a member here.
Lee McElroy has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, the Maclendon Administrators Hall of Fame,
which is a very prestigious national award for athletic directors and people who are involved with athletics of color.
I'll take any questions.
No questions? Yes. The management study is they have finished the survey.
They have gotten a lot of the raw data that they need to finish their report and Steve is coordinating it.
I'll let him answer.
We did a camp spline survey. We got a lot of responses over six or seven.
Just shy 700, everybody responded.
The remarkable, actually, for example, size of the splines.
Some of the raw data.
It's not very, I mentioned this morning. It's not very instructive.
We would ask questions like you believe that counts as office as a properly situated in the president's office.
450 people said yes. 350 people said I don't know.
There are alpha fields that were folks who asked the comment up and down the line.
That we haven't seen yet. It's promised to us next week.
It's still very raw up, but I think we're coming into the home stretch.
We have something to report in the spring.
Everybody's been interviewed.
Everybody's been interviewed.
They may be back to drill down depending on what the data shows and what we'd like them to do.
It's not been orchestrated by me. I actually had very little involvement with the process because that leads to attach us some credibility to it if I'm not involved.
George fills out all the alpha boxes.
George, I haven't been open to you for grounds for a bit.
I see the business school. It's like it's going crazy.
What about a closer?
Any just update?
It is on schedule. If not a little ahead of schedule.
They have done a terrific job in terms of trying to get the at least the roof buttoned up.
They're sealing the sides if you notice right now because they intend to do a good deal of work and obviously working in the winter.
But I think it's a well designed, well constructed facility that is.
It's one of the better, and I've participated. I've been at work sites in the past.
It's one of the better work sites I've ever witnessed and that's unusual for a public project.
Done a really good job.
And it's definitely the dormitories that are on the southeast side of the campus are proceeding apace.
And they will be open in August for next year's incoming class, which is important.
We are in the stages right now of programming for the campus center improvements.
With the most recent legislation, we'll probably start moving up pace in that arena.
And as importantly, I want to make sure I say this.
We're very hopeful to be able to get started with our athletic facility improvements.
And the very near future. So all that will be on the way.
Those dorms are initially going to be shutting down dorms for reconditioning.
The 500 beds there will enable us to take a few more beds offline for rehab.
And ultimately, Mohawk Tower, which is an Indian Quad.
Yeah, that's an excellent small.
Next fall, that's coming offline and interestingly enough, that's the newest tower.
Yeah.
Just the poor, the worst built tower.
Any other questions for George?
Thank you, George.
Tremaine.
Hello. It's good to see everyone again.
Just a couple of quick things.
Our student government association had a very strong first semester this year.
We had a lot of good things going on.
And we had a lot of good luck party back in the beginning of the semester,
despite being pushed off due to hurricane.
It was probably one of the best we had in at least the past four years or so.
Speaker series, Magic Johnson.
If any of you guys attended went very well.
And I heard a lot of positive things from students, parents, faculty, member staff,
everyone who attended.
And it was definitely one of the best ones we've had, obviously,
including Clinton being here, but President Clinton is President Clinton.
But Mr. Johnson definitely had probably one of the best messages to our students
next to General Powell.
So it was definitely very well received.
October, the community service month went very well.
We had a lot of community service activities from our students.
So, you know, we had a lot of students out there into the community,
which went over very well.
Our students took a trip to Binghamton in the end of October to help with the cleanup there.
Several trips to Skyharrick County.
Yes. So a lot of trips to that area to help clean up that region.
Unfortunately, during one of our last trips, our students did have the pleasure to work with
the student government advisor from Courtland who fortunately passed away
and then an accident on his way back from that trip.
Our student government did send condolences to Courtland students,
what my understanding is, all the students that met him.
He said he was a great person and was a great help during the cleanup efforts.
Our fault concert, which we just had, just passed November with LMFAO and Vari's movements.
There was probably one of the best and present-filled at last.
Sure, he said no to your head.
I was talking about it.
Have you ever heard of that?
Is that too big? Was that too big?
Chris Knows about LMFAO.
But it was definitely, we had about 3,200 students in attendance,
which was probably one of the best.
We normally don't break.
We normally get somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 students.
So there's probably one of the best concerts in terms of attendance that we had.
And also in terms of incidents at concerts, because we are students.
There was probably one of the lowest number of incidents we've had.
So definitely, definitely good there.
In addition to that, my opinion is that the Senate has also been fairly active this year.
They've also been doing a lot in the community that began involved with the Pine Hill's neighborhood associations.
They've been going to those meetings, a lot of our students getting involved down there.
They did a fundraiser not too long last couple of days ago with TGI Fridays.
So basically anyone that went to Fridays that day and spent $20 for every $20 you spent $5 went to.
Some charity that was getting toys for children.
And they raised over $100 during that fundraiser. So they did that.
The other thing, the last positive note, our students this past year.
The previous year when NYSUNI 2020 came up, had been in support of it.
Discard student senate passed a resolution at the beginning of the semester, changing that position to opposition for NYSUNI 2020.
However, student supports in general, does seem to be fairly mixed on the issue.
We obviously do have like, say, more SUNY in the New York students rising groups.
But student support in general seems to be pretty mixed.
And lastly, just to note on our student association itself, we did have in the past couple of weeks an issue come up with the student government's finances.
We did discover that there was not an issue after all.
However, ourselves, along with staff from student success and finance and business,
are going to be taking a closer look at our student government's operations.
Because what we're realizing is there are a lot of perpetual problems that continually come up and just have not been addressed.
And fortunately, or maybe unfortunately for me, I just happen to be the comptroller for the student government this year.
So I think everyone is just kind of taking the advantage of the fact that I am someone who knows what I'm doing with the organization.
So we're trying to do a weekend to find ways to work on some of these issues and correcting them for the future sustainability of our student government association to make sure our student activities and what can continue at the level that they do on campus.
You raised them. Can you, like, what happened?
I'm sorry.
Essentially what happened is essentially what has happened by SUNY guidelines.
We have certain guidelines that we have to follow up for student activity fee funds.
And one of them is that we're required to have a certain amount of reserve funds, which I believe SUNY sets in at about 5% reserve of our total annual budget collectible student activity fees.
Despite this policy, I don't think it's really ever been enforced heavily over the years because we basically have just always anticipated that we're going to have a certain level reserve because...
It's like every corporate that America that's below the bond company.
Yeah, they're either. We either always have funds from either shooting funds that make you choose to revenue that comes in.
So I think no one's ever thought about it, but because of some new programming that we put on the task of your speaker series now, President Clinton last year.
So with all these different things that have come up that have not necessarily been expected expenditures, we've expanded a little more than we've anticipated.
So you've got to process your working through it.
Yes. Is there an audit?
Yes, we do. We're required by SUNY to have audit every year. Audit was actually just...
We just have audit presentation this past Wednesday and that is due to be completed in the next couple of weeks or so, I think.
Just a question on the opposition to this 2020, was that based on the tuition increase?
Primarily.
And that was our student senate here or SUNY wide?
Yes, it was SUNY wide still in support.
Still, that was our student senate here of switched their position on...
We actually presented Wednesday?
Yes, and Wednesday night.
Wednesday night.
And Wednesday night on Wednesday.
You got a pretty warm welcome from some of our, say, far SUNY students.
Warm is operative work.
Is that mean heated?
Heated by one.
But yes, we did have their presentation.
So like I said, student support in general seems to be mixed on supporting,
I think a lot of students do understand that with the economic times as they are,
the way that the state has systematically been cutting from the SUNY system,
I think a lot of students pretty much understand that it's just a reality that the name much rather have,
to know that there's going to be a certain set level of an increase potentially versus just randomly getting a massive height one year.
Is that sort of that concern go deeper and go to things like maintenance of effort,
or is it really just a visceral reaction to the tuition?
I think primarily it's just a reaction to the fact that you're making them pay more money.
Some students, some of the more well informed students,
may have a more in-depth opinion on things.
And I think a lot of students just, despite our efforts to inform them,
just remain, you know, two degrees uninformed.
I think one of the operative things is that we are actually pushing increases are no higher than they've been over the past 20 years.
The difference being that they've been large increases at any point in time,
and all of those increases have gone to fund some hole in the state budget.
So at the end of the day, not a penny has actually been used on behalf of the students.
This, with the maintenance of effort concept, allows us to take whatever tuition increase occurs between now through this five year period,
and use it on campus for the benefit of the students, huge difference,
and really about the same average increase that's occurred over the past 20 years.
It's just if you happen to be in a position where you didn't get one in your four year period,
or if you happen to be in a position where you got slammed, it's different.
But I think that's the misconception that goes on, that this is extraordinary and different.
It is different because we actually get to use the money to benefit the students.
Different constructions, and that's why I asked the maintenance to effort.
The thing is, there's just a fear that, despite the efforts that's so many,
and our campus have been making team to make sure that the funds always go back to,
you know, the students are paying for their education,
it's just the fear that what's going to stop the government from just pulling it back at the end.
I have to elaborate, the tap of Lawrence gone up?
Of course not.
Now we've actually, the tap of words that CAP is a still at 5,000, I believe,
and what we've done is we've set aside almost 30% of the tuition increase to be allocated.
Disgusting.
It's really allocated to those people who are in that big,
per rated on the basis of their tap eligibility.
So if you're eligible for 100% tap, you'll basically be held harmless by the money that we put aside.
We've been publicized as?
We have, but it's something that sometimes falls on deaf ears.
But I'm not sure, was that part of the presentation, the allocation of about 30% of the pot?
I think so.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, and that's something that should resonate because we are very mindful of the need to sustain access to the university,
access especially among the neediest of our students.
So that was our way of making those students preserving that access to our students.
While we're trying to at least convince people to increase the tap,
the problem is that the vast majority of tap aid goes to private schools.
We get a very small portion of the total tap pool.
And most people think that tap is for the state university.
It's not.
It's for all colleges and the private, I think the private schools get 70%.
It's a big number.
I think that message about how we're making sure that the people who need access or getting access
is the most important reaction or a way to combat this opposition,
because people are always going to oppose any increase in fees because it's a major reaction.
These points are all online on our website.
I believe so.
Any other questions for Tramay?
Can you talk about the future?
This one can see.
Future?
I mean, it will definitely continue.
I think one of the things that we are looking into currently is finding ways to make it sustainable into the future.
Like I said, the cost is high and nothing's getting cheaper these days.
So I think the future is finding ways to continue to make it sustainable.
And I think what is probably going to end up happening in the long term is that we probably stick to doing one main speaker in the fall, you know, at homecoming time.
Logistically speaking, it's just easy for us to do because you're homecoming.
You're always going to have people here on campus and you always have a time for it.
So logistically speaking, you know, probably become a homecoming thing.
And we're looking into ways to find other sources, alternative sources of funding outside of our students.
Quite many, very many.
We have been working by office with the Student Association in possible key sponsors.
Not actually choosing key sponsors, key sponsors for the program.
So we have received one or two for naming.
I think after this year, our students who have been through the community and the whole world community,
this is definitely worth letting their name to.
And so we have the credibility now.
Good track.
Major.
A major sponsor for this.
Makes sense.
Thank you for the name.
Nice to meet you.
Annie.
Good afternoon.
As the faculty representative, we probably know surprise that top on our head,
creative concerns is the fact that our beloved president has announced his retirement and obviously do.
She said that was a straight face.
That was a very, very straight face.
I just want to point out.
But that's a few.
But I'm the other end.
I know.
But obviously the faculty are concerned about having voice and working with all of various constituencies to make sure that we get someone who has some kind of big shoes to build.
And that's obviously our biggest concern.
A few other things I'll mention that might be of interest to you.
Back during the middle states review, there was a note in there that it pointed to a need for more systematic administrative review.
As a result of that, last year the university senate charged the SEC, which then turned into the governance council,
to come up with a process for that systematic assessment for administrators and administrative units.
At this point, we're working very much in a market to have this be something that is helpful, that it is not punitive, it is not intended to cause trouble or difficult, these would make people nervous.
But design over the long haul that will actually improve things on campus for everyone.
Right now we're looking at a five year timeline of rotation.
And at this point, the senate council that's charged with this has decided that the best way to make sure that this actually happens and that there will be institutional memory is to put for the charter amendment to make a separate council of the university senate that will be charged with this.
And the proposed acronym is CARE.
So that is moving forward in a moment.
That's trademark, particularly as we're talking about.
Probably is, but that's moving forward.
The general education committee is still working very hard and they are very close, we understand, to coming up with a manageable proposal that is also maintained academic integrity.
And we hope that we will be seeing that in the spring, obviously that affects our future in terms of bringing students to the campus at the undergraduate level.
And the one other thing I'll mention is that one of the council's has also begun forums on going to back with free.
And I suspect someone else will talk more about that.
But they've begun to talk about those, the pros and if there are any cons of going making us a smoke free campus.
Any questions for any?
Okay, thank you very much, Annie. Nick, are you still on the line?
I am not sure to hear you any better.
You know what? Hey, Nick, no, we can't.
Can you just go back to mute?
I can hear you in the morning, so let me have your questions.
All right, thanks, Nick.
I think Nick provided an update from the graduate student representative.
So obviously, if you haven't read it, read it.
There are other questions for Nick. He's always reachable by email, but I think given his location.
And by the way, he is not here because he's doing something, you know, in pursuit of his degree here.
So I think that's important to note.
Okay.
Thank you.
Well, I'm first off, my second morning.
So I'm so anxious to share with you the good work of the group.
By the way, Benesco, how many we have important?
We have 32 members, actually we have 32 board members, and then six officers.
So we have a total of 30 people.
Wonderful, wonderful people.
Now, what you have before you work of Saturday, primarily, all day.
We, as you know, were marked on our Vision 2014 Strategic Plan.
And you know, in my seminar training, we're trying to teach teaching care people, young people.
I embrace preaching a little too much, I have to say.
So therefore, the Georgia's lacking, you need to take the ball of pep to this ball after my last graduation speech in the rain.
This one was great.
This one was recently.
No, no.
But it ain't right here.
You know what's equitin' with a script.
So I will stick to the script.
You know, let me just one other observation.
I know it's like the main president.
Whenever they use to send another president out, they always hand on the script.
And they would simply say, which is his user suggested notes.
They stick to the script, case, stick to the script.
So here I am, stick to the script.
On your first point under Strategic Plan, we really have infused the entire process with four aspects of measurement.
Priorities, communications, and marketing to engage students at alumni.
We have four subcommittees that are working on each of those.
All towards our 2014 vision.
Under the page two, the University Career Advisory Network.
Now we are well aware that there's one of the work being done by many mentors on this campus.
Certainly Chris has shot us down a lot of that.
And Leah, I know on the flight department.
But this is strictly geared to the alumni.
So our goal is to recruit 1200 alumni mentors by February 15th.
Then we're going to prove that mid-Federalry to early March.
We're going to promote these mentors to the students.
And how we're going to do this is through email, social media, academic advisors, key faculty, student groups, career services, and president.
What?
Okay, regional plan.
We have divided our state up into 10 regional areas, as well as throughout the United States.
And so what we're going to do is we are collecting and hurly analyzing.
In fact, it's almost done.
We worked on this Saturday of analyzing our alumni by region.
With the goal that we are going to create a tier system.
And based on participation, non-pistachial donors, not donors, and so on.
By January 30th, we will determine the number of annual events that the staff and the board are going to board.
And these are full-fledged events.
The tier one, across the VR own region.
And we have most alumni, but we'll also be in other cities such as Boston and Merges, of course, New York City, Washington, DC, and so on.
What happened in these regions initially?
Trying to be three to four major events a year.
A tier two will be one to two events a year.
And then in a tier three and an event every other year.
Under social media, this is where I glaze over.
Our next phase will be to have alumni who are already plugged in.
We'll do a series of email blasts when they drive to Facebook to call to action.
Like that participate in a conversational poll, who is their contest.
Software, hardware, and applications.
I have to, they skate me.
And then finally, under-engagement.
Women ask a while this measurement.
In fact, our own board said, why all this measurement is so much?
Well, the primary purpose is to determine once we offer these programs.
Who attended?
Are these programs really successful in software?
In an effort to use our resources wise, where you would also, to increase the level of alumni participation.
And I must say that I can't thank enough forgings, operation, and folks in the development division,
because they have helped us with a lot of the data, a lot of analyzing, and so on.
So that is my report.
I stuck to the space.
Any questions?
Yes.
I just received a message, I think from Bill McCann talking about candidates to go on the board of the alumni board.
Are there a number of positions that are open or...
Question, yeah.
Have any of you asked me that?
Yeah, we have nine, we have nine positions available.
Seven of the nine are the uncommon, so as soon as they've been asked to go out of question here,
to determine what they've done in the past and what they've posed to do.
And then we have two vacancies.
So actually, we may have as many as nine, but we probably will only have seven.
It's not going to be my best guess.
But thank you for raising that.
I encourage you to please give us some nominees.
It's an exciting board.
I mean, they represent the wall over the United States.
We have California, Texas, Florida, Illinois.
In fact, we even had a report from China, our treasure.
And of course, you can call in, so it's not a matter of that you have to travel here.
We meet four times a year as a full board.
And then most of the work is done by committee work.
It's exciting. It's a fun, fun thing to do.
Thank you for raising that.
Okay.
What else?
Okay.
Great. What do I have?
I don't have any old business.
I don't know if anybody has old business and want to bring up the council.
Okay.
New business.
We have the University Council's office here today, Janet there.
Thank you, Janet.
Thank you.
Our Chancellor from University Council office.
The University has found himself in a position where it needed to address the needs of third party coming on the University campus to exercise his or her free speech rights.
The rules for the maintenance of public order, Board of Trustees policy, does have a card out for each campus to develop a child policy.
Recently in the University has looked at that policy and realized that we really should be using more than our use of facilities policy for these third party speakers.
To the University as I put in my memo, I understand that's all that's shared with all of you.
We only have about two to three requests every act of a year for historic parties.
This is these are not folks who are invited by the Student Association by the Alumni Association by any other campus organization, either to teach a class to be a presenter to speak at graduations.
This is the third party you want to come on campus.
We are a public entity and therefore we have to guarantee their speech rights.
Unfortunately, free speech can be a challenge and we often don't think about messages that we personally and professionally find positive as free speech.
It's usually the offensive message that is the one where we say, oh yes, you do have a right to say that and I have a right to walk away.
Unfortunately for our campus, the free speech that we often hear and I don't mean to offend anyone but I'm going to cut right to the chase.
This is from three different groups, Reverend Greg Fario, Jim DeFario, excuse me, Bible Greg and the Westboro Baptist Church, which as you may recall, that's the church that protests at military units.
And the very prevalent message is that this Nantai Gay message starting with God hates bags and goes from there.
Our students have had a very hard time with that message, so belong faculty and staff, but it is the first amendment right.
And again, we could all be standing out there saying, isn't winter great and that's still our first amendment right, so no matter what the message is, content neutral.
So when we develop this policy, we're really trying to balance as a governmental entity, the rights that we have to guarantee for any speaker who comes on campus, third party, as well as the student, parents, alumni, faculty, staff concerns about the use of our facilities.
Also using it as an educational opportunity about the first amendment and when it really does cut right to the heart of the matter.
Also, having a safe community, perfectly honest with you, Reverend Jim DeFario, who has sued us.
He is infamous on the internet with videos about protests that he has done at purchase and in new halls.
He loves to have bottles thrown at him.
He loves to be punched in the face, et cetera, because it's all about your raps.
And so what we want to save campus and also a managing campus resources, because as our US Supreme Court has said, we cannot charge people to come here to use our facilities, indoors or outdoors for free speech, but get third parties only.
We cannot charge them for insurance requirements, we cannot charge them application fees, and fact the only thing we can have charge associated with is parking, because we charge everybody parking.
So that's the only thing we can charge for. So it's a tax on campus resources for, you know, even the use of this room today, the lights are on, the heat is on, et cetera.
And also for these third parties, it could be a tax on the police, as well as other administrators, et cetera.
So it's trying to balance all of that.
What this policy reflects is exactly what the Supreme Court of the United States says we have to give third parties.
On the flip side, when our students come concerned, we're actually in support.
It's an opportunity for us to say, this is what we have to allow them to do. This is what you can do, you can participate, you can walk away, you can invite other speakers on campus, or you can be a speaker yourself.
And by either through the student association or other faculty, staff, university resources.
I know you've all had an opportunity to read it. I don't know if anyone has any questions.
Just a generic one, and then I look at it quickly, so I forgive my butt. You'll time-place it in a manner as you know, the biggest hole in people make millions of lawyers do anyway trying to interpret what that means.
So just in layman's speak, are we allowed to say to them, you want to come to campus, it's fine.
You understand what content is, what we want to talk about, and can we say you can have your speech in the middle of the circle at any time, can we do something like that?
Right, what the university has done, and because this is a traditional form that we've allowed people to be in, is we've designated the outdoor space directly in front of the campus center, from approximately.
That internal fountain, the smaller fountain, all the way out to the larger fountain, the larger fountain, obviously, is in the drop off the pit there.
We allow that area. First of all, it's the most highly trapped area, probably on campus. We're pretty much anyone who goes to school here and works here.
So we can't say, again, whether you're a mother to Risa, you're Eric Clapton, or you're Reverend Farrell, you can't say you don't have an audience.
It's also outdoors, so we're not using indoor resources. There's no requirement, we're using indoor resource, and those are very valuable resources that you will know.
Third, it is a way from, potentially interrupting, actually interrupting the education emissions. So for the most part, it's the way from classrooms.
It's also not an interrupting necessarily the general administration of the university, so it's not seeing outside the president's office, or Steve Bennett's office as a finance officer or something like that.
They're able to use amplified sound, or we restrict that.
In ours, what we do is, because we require any speaker who comes on campus to use the university sound system, if you want it, you need to put that in your application and we'll provide the sound system.
It's not even so much in terms of volume, but we do not allow bull horns because that becomes very distorted and can echo, given the fountains.
You can have an amplified system, but it's an amplified system suited for the buildings, et cetera.
And again, for the best hearing of the message, but also for the least amount of disruption to anyone who either wants to walk away or in classes or the library, et cetera.
I'm curious how the insurance works. I mean, I thought it was kind of practical to require the person's average insurance, and now we have to cover them in correct.
Particularly if someone's provoking a situation that might require medical attention or correct.
Typically, if someone wants to come, we're here to use our facility.
And the student association has their own insurance also for this purpose.
We require a commercial insurance policy to cover the event, and I'm sure we've all been involved in precarying those.
Right now, the insurance is really the New York State's self retention.
So if anything happens here on campus, and we are sued, we would look to the court of claims, if we're sued in the court of claims as the state of New York to cover whatever those damages are, or if you're a state of loyalty in sued in your official capacity, it would be the public officer section 17 fund that would cover the New York State Attorney General, it would be defense counsel.
So if this fellow is, for example, punched in the face and loses a few teeth.
And he soothes us.
So he just uses only a knitting brush to get reverse for someone dead and living there exactly.
And honestly, in my opinion, legal opinion, he uses the Alliance Defense Fund.
It has a website. It's an interesting website to look at.
He uses lawsuits to really generate the legal fees to continue the legal representation.
And the lawsuits are one way of getting out the message.
We were sued. We actually, we adhere to the rules that were in place at the time.
This most recent Supreme Court decision has changed the game.
And we were actually just very clear. We were already working on the policy.
And in fact, it was really done. And we were just into vetted with a few other folks.
Because some of the parts of the policy are hard to swallow again, whether your mother Teresa or Reverend Faria,
that you can come and use the campus without the first aid or planning.
So we were really pretty much ready.
And I will tell you in August, we appeared before.
And we were nicknames your friend again.
We were very happy when we presented to the judge on draft policy.
Well, it's on the ground. Sorry, Jim.
I think it's next. It's only the two. Jim, are you still on the phone? Jim?
Jim, you want a Nick? Hey, Nick. Nick, can you hear us? Nick?
Actually, don't speak.
Yeah, you have interference again, Nick. Can you make sure your phone's muted?
Thank you.
We were very happy because the, well, we appeared before the judge.
We presented the policy with all the appropriate caveats, of course, that the council has to approve this.
But this is what the university is working towards administratively.
The judge was very pleased with it. And actually, the Alliance Defense Fund was willing to accept it in settlement of the lawsuit.
And I believe I mentioned in my memo to Sorrel that the real issue outstanding right now in the lawsuit are legal fees for the Volisher Forum Womenary in Junction.
And the attorney general, you know, it's public offer. It doesn't want to pay anything more than what a judge would order.
So when it comes to reasonable attorney's views as negotiating that, you're always on the defense side negotiating against yourself.
So, and actually, depending on the action the council takes today, we will be known.
Well, we'll be notified in the budget no matter what the outcome of today.
And we are hoping to accelerate the resolution of the case.
What if somebody's not a one of the uptown, they want to be up the downtime?
We do have a right to time, place, and man.
As long as it's content neutral, it's applied to everyone.
And again, we're not charging fees. We are not being unreasonable, saying, well, you can speak between, you know, 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.
We're giving reasonable audience. So we are able to do that.
And so far, the downtown campus, and there were, and a lot of thought really did go into this in analysis of the student body.
The downtown campus doesn't have the student faculty staffs love that the campus here does.
Again, we picked the outside of the campus center because that is where you're going to get the largest amount of traffic.
That's where students typically go for table reservations, etc. for any time.
They're advertising their student events and their groups and membership and all that.
So, you know, we were trying to be, it's not like we said you have to go back by the old oak tree that no one doesn't even know, you know, we have no idea where that is.
You know, good luck drawing it on.
My only concern there is if they, especially by the campus center, it's a highly trafficked, fairly confined area that probably is, if there's going to be a problem with great congestion.
And injury, that's where it would be.
And I have had, you know, I have a real concern about that portion.
I don't mind the portion on the other side of the fountain, which is the open area that goes in because that's, it's not as confined, even though it's trafficked.
It's not as heavily trafficked as the other area.
Well, the council has a bit, we can designate another spot on the podium.
Well, actually, the question I was going to say, does this document, can we counsel and president of the office to have flexibility to change if certain circumstances arise, like George said, now would have to probably be for everyone to be consistent.
But do you have flexibility in this document?
We have to come back to us every time to do it.
We could make the flexibility for the president to be able to change the designated forum spot in light of emergency.
To help safety.
How many people can you accommodate?
I mean, that's my question.
And that's space that you've identified outside the campus center between the fountains.
Do you have a sense of what you're...
According to UPD, we can accommodate up to almost 200 people.
What is really happening in the past is with both when the three groups have come.
UPD is notified.
And UPD officer to come for crowd control, not to intimidate, but crowd control.
And typically, for Scrooge Arts Office, several people to come and show up.
And John Murkin, in particular, has been helpful in educating the students about you have many rights here yourself.
You can ask questions. You can speak yourself with your own mind to walk away.
But violence is not a great response, etc.
So we on our campus actually have not had the problems that you've all to purchase from have.
So if there's a provision put in with a health safety welfare laws or standard till now, the president to change the venue, that will be acceptable to judge.
Yes, because you could conceivably have a group.
It's going to draw a lot more than 200.
I mean, in some circumstances, maybe not this circumstance.
But conceivably, yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, this the council wants to have that as a provider.
I think that's a good idea.
Janet, we can do that.
Yes.
Janet, just one question.
Is that not going to mess up your discussions with council and judge itself?
Oh, no.
So what are you going to think?
No, that was not a primary concern.
Okay.
Really is a function of a size.
We've had, you know, we've had, I've been protested in that venue in the past for programmatic cuts.
And that's worked very well in terms of the, I actually attended my own protest.
We protested here.
Did you burn yourself in F&F?
No, I actually, I think people were surprised that was there.
But so I mean, but it's really a matter of numbers.
I don't think anything that these guys would have created.
They would not have generated a whole lot of numbers.
My concern is if there's a counter-demonstration that happens to come up.
And then you've got two groups in the same confined area that are not particularly friendly with each other.
I just, the possibility of a problem with this and I, that's the part that concerns me.
We can easily draft them.
Okay.
So with that change made to the policy, can I get a motion to approve the resolution?
John Sleep.
So he used to get I used to say, right, Paul and, Paul and Faber.
Hi.
I'm John Sleep.
I just asked that thank you, that you just update the council on the progress.
I don't think we have the next formal meeting perhaps until we'll see, but just given the gravity of it and the motion, that would be helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, John.
Thank you.
Jim, you voted yes also.
Yes.
And for the record, John was not asleep.
I was just kidding.
Good.
So, I don't know.
I don't sleep.
Thank you.
So?
Thank you all.
I have to be going and have a exam.
Good luck, Trey.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good to meet you.
I'm a waiver.
Thank you.
Happy holidays to everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Trey.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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I had been guided after we showed our authority up to the
But its task is to make sure that this keeps on going.
So the task of the steering committee is to develop an evaluation plan.
We've got that underway to conduct the evaluation, to monitor progress, to make sure that the
working groups continue on their process and to advise the President with any kind of
adjustments that we need.
The names of the steering committee members are at the bottom.
The tasks of the working groups, again, on the next section, their task is to essentially
put the plan in motion.
And the final page is a timeline of where we are from the roughly beginning of the
summer through the first year in which you'll see that the President has called for
their contribution plans across campus to be submitted.
Those will also get coalesced.
So by roughly June of next year we'll have a sense of how we've done for year one.
We'll have a sense of the contributions of each of the units and we'll make whatever
make the first corrections we need to make for the going into year two.
Daniel, would you let me ask you a question?
No, no, no.
I just find it's always fascinating to think about how you go from the aspirational to the
actual execution.
And that's what I'm just listening to your process.
And I know that I was just curious how that works and how it's informed and how you go
back and gauge yourself.
Because we've seen a lot of great strategic plans.
Well, no, obviously.
And then, so these are all great goals.
And I was listening to you intently, probably maybe too intently.
That's what I was just curious about, just that piece of it.
It's one of the things that we've done in designing the working groups is that we included
both some people who had been on the strategic planning committee.
So they were involved in the formation of the ideas.
And also some new new blood, new brains, new people who hadn't been involved before.
So that has entailed.
It has brought to the working groups some of the wisdom and vision.
And also some new perspectives that might have thought of something a little different.
I wouldn't say that the strategic planning committee had all the good ideas.
Maybe just most of them.
And so we have both the opportunity for some new thinking of, well, maybe we could implement
it in this way rather than that.
This might make sense.
Have you thought about that?
So the first part of this period of time, the groups probably got underway.
They were finally formed, probably in August, beginning of September.
So they spent probably a month and a half, maybe two months, making sure everybody knows
the same amount.
And now they're into, let's find best practices.
We're going to implement it, take the action steps that we need to take.
And here's how we will know when we're getting there.
We just had a conversation yesterday about the process of tracking it, of making sure that
we know we keep goal focused, but don't squelch any creativity that may evolve in the process.
So I'm hoping to try to manage it so that it continues to progress.
And I can always already see progress.
So you heard about the Gen Ed proposal that will be on the table.
We hope that we hope in the spring.
That's been pushed along.
The writing proposal will be actually part of that, where we've got some other initiatives
that we're looking to build up peer mentoring program that will provide some of the mentoring.
So there are already some pieces that are bubbling up the months of enthusiasm on it with
the working groups.
And I'm sure, I'm quite sure that we won't have done all of these things by the end of
year one, but we will have done a good chunk of them.
And we'll do a mid course correction and see what we pick up and sprint another 12 months
before we take a deep breath, see where we are for the next couple of years.
Great.
Thank you, sir.
Any other questions?
So to what extent of these more driving ways or allocation?
They're constantly asking you this.
As we went through the budget process last year, as this process, as the steering, as a
strategic plan was being developed, I'm mentally stashing away money that I know is going
to be needed to implement a strategic plan.
We also have the benefit by starting the strategic plan now of the new e-obini impact income
that will also be able to be directed towards the strategic goals.
As it happens, which is very fortunate, our strategic plan informed e-obini impact,
which informed the budget, which now informs the reality of allocation process.
So we've got this lined up.
There's also another fortuitous service dance.
We also have facilities in this mix as well.
The facilities master plan process, once every decade process that usually focuses on maintenance,
critical maintenance and repair, this time focuses on planning for the e-obini of the future.
So what does it think will look like over the next 10, 25 years?
It began that process began roughly a year ago, and our work on the strategic plan, our
work on the e-obini impact near Sydney 2020 plan coalesced with that so that the facilities
master plan process is also now in line with the strategic plan and the e-obini impact plan.
So so far we've got all the ducks in a row.
The master plan is going to be submitted in January so we've got it right through the seat.
Be part of it.
He's complaining, always complaining.
You know as a member of one of the working units.
That's where the money's coming from.
As a member of one of the working groups on emerging technologies, the test of the fact
that I mean facilities is there online.
Universities are being discussed, new technologies are being discussed and there really is an
enthusiasm.
And it really is tying together the strategic plan and going forward in the comments from
middle states and all the other stuff are really coming together in these working groups.
One thing that felt it strikes me is listening to K-Script and you know the engagement mentoring
part that's going on here and you're sort of pushing this effort to engage alumni in
mentoring and I know there's certain things we have going on over at the school business
doing this and I notice it's here but it's there.
Are those groups all talking to each other?
I mean I guess that's my.
Maybe we should be.
Yeah we should team up.
Yes, absolutely.
In fact as I listen to across the university to the plans that are being made for greater
engagement and.
Drawing in the panel calls our two new work forces.
We have two new work forces available.
We used to just have faculty and staff.
Now we have alumni and students.
And remarkably wonderful enthusiastic, energized new participants in the workforce that if we
are organized and welcoming and.
She's going to come to 100 people for you.
She's going to come to 100 people for you.
Of course.
So I think those those initiatives when we have when we have thought about the kinds
of things that we're able to do on campus we often think of ourselves as limited to the
those who are currently on our payroll and don't realize that we have resources in the
community in our student body in our alumni in our council.
That's great.
So it's really a much of a broadening of what we have to look with and very exciting people
who are very interested.
Even listening to Tremaine talk about the challenges that the Student Association is
thinking about the broad experience you guys have that you could lend to them to help
putting controls procedures.
It seems to me that's sort of begging for some real life experience to step in and say
we've been there we can help.
We actually a number of years ago, a dental remember this.
We actually put the Student Association under a form of receivership by the council because
we are responsible at the end of the day for the Student Association and they had had
some accounting issues.
Regularity.
We're turning out at campus.
By the onset of the year.
This group of kids is so incredibly engaged.
We've had we we named October Community Engagement Month.
Much of the programming, much of the planning, much of the activities including meetings
with the mayor and a number of other constituent groups was orchestrated by the students.
We attended.
We had people there but the students generated the activity and I mean these kids are great.
That's what always drives me crazy when we have an isolated incident that involves one
or two students that you know taints the rest of them because these are great young people
that will be tremendous contributors to our society when they graduate.
And are today.
I mean I really do think somebody should circle back and offer up that help.
I will speak and speak to somebody at this school business because we've got their training.
I mean literally training they have both accounting training obviously and regulatory programs
and they have this role and all of those things.
Yeah.
I mean it would be good for the students over there to get.
On the thesis presentations for some of our business students.
If you want to have especially those of you who understand the investment community
and Wall Street just if you really want to get a treat sit in on some of these presentations
that these young people make and I will tell you that I once considered myself very good
at what I did.
There's no way in heck when I was 21 years old that I had any level anywhere near level
level of sophistication and knowledge that these young people have.
It's incredible.
But they know and how they can relate to the general community.
It's tremendous.
They're really bright young people.
That's great.
Thanks Sue.
That's wonderful.
Great work.
Happy?
Yeah.
Great.
I just want to talk to you a little bit about universities, mobile strategy, particularly
as it relates to the university's website.
As you know the website is one of the most important communications and marketing tools
like universities and mobile technology is really impacting the way we do our business
now both internally and how people interact with us.
Recent Pew Internet study tells us that smartphone users comprise 58% of Americans ages 25
to 34 and as a college age student 49% use smartphones.
68% of those people go online on a typical day.
So about one quarter of the smartphone population uses as main source for internet access.
That being said, at the university of Albany, when we talk about our overall website visits
and the type of traffic that is coming to us in the past year, January to November, we
had over 11.2 million visits to the website.
That's not unique visitors.
That would be more million unique visitors which contributed to 11.2 million visits.
Page views that added up to 43.4 million page views.
So 40.3 million people or times people came to a site on our page on our website.
There was a 6.7% increase of visitors on our website from 2010 to 2011.
So the point being that web traffic continues to grow fairly rapidly.
We have about half a million of the visits to our website come from mobile users.
And this graph really is just to show how much mobile platform use is increasing over
one year over the next.
The platforms which people come to us from, you can see from the first quarter in 2010
to the third quarter in 2011 is growing exponentially.
Primarily people are coming to us through the iPhone.
After that they come through droid a little bit from Blackberry and iPad is growing.
You can see iPad is taking us by storm and may they introduce the new iPad and sales
went up and so did the traffic to our website via that platform.
Wow.
I'm running up the numbers right now.
This reinforces that last graph where you can see that the iPad, nothing, now it's about
15% that to our website and the iPhone has a great, contributes to the greatest traffic.
When they use the mobile technology, where are they coming?
They're coming to myewalvinine which for those of you who are unfamiliar with that, that's
our university portal page which requires a login.
So that implies that those are internal users.
People who come there to use to get things like Blackboard which is of course schedules
registration, that type of thing.
Then after that they're coming to the homepage and these are all internal things but if you
get data 9 and 10, they're coming to academics and the admissions homepage.
So within the top 10 pages, mobile people are coming to academics and admissions and
that implies their external users because they're looking at our school as a potential place
to attend.
Where does athletics fall on that?
Athletics falls within the next, within the next level.
Is that because, I mean for example when I log on I don't usually go on to athletics,
I usually go on to the homepage and then just hit athletics.
So does that mean you're only going on the homepage?
No, this is what really first come to when I log on.
That's what I mean.
Yeah so athletics then would probably never necessarily be in the top because you get
a separate hit right?
You would register to go to athletics.
Correct.
Well no you wouldn't.
You'd be hitting athletics once you're on the homepage.
I think that's a question.
Yeah that would be.
How were you navigating to is what you're saying?
Yeah we have all that literature too but for the sake of this presentation I'm trying
to give numbers as to what they talk.
But if you also visit the homepage and then he goes to the athletic page.
Do you count both right?
Yes.
We have, we have numbers about how people visit the athletics page and where they come from
to get there.
Okay.
So 75% of you all of these students have smartphones and...
I'm not forgetting.
What this is driving, what's happening here is not only the students who have the smartphones
but prospective students what they all want are these, there's this huge rush to get
apps.
Does everyone know what an app is on your smartphone?
Okay.
So universities, cross-nation, we're just scrambling to try and figure out what kind of apps should
we have.
For example, a lot of people are coming to us saying do you have an athletics app?
You have one to get from maps to get to a map to university and what we were discovering
is that maps have a host of problems that as far as an institution knows and organizationally
human resources and financial.
They're expensive.
You have to develop them for the various platforms.
So if you develop an app that is eye-crum friendly it may not be droid friendly.
So just because you develop one doesn't mean you solve all your problems.
It's other expensive to maintain.
You have to have your phone, you know when you have your phone, it updates your apps.
When you have to keep updating them, you become a slave to technology to keep updating
these.
And then the within 20 days most apps, 90% are no longer using a short shelf life because
most people want apps that can do transactions.
They want to be able to transfer money out of your account from your checking to your savings.
You want to be able to register for a class.
So we need apps that have value if you're going to invest in doing that.
Recent article in the Prongle Par education which I believe is in your packets tells us
that we were relieved to discover that as these mobile devices are multiplying that
there's the schools that rushed out and developed apps for their colleges finally just gave
up.
They realized that they couldn't keep up with the pace of technology.
They couldn't keep doing the updates on them.
So the direction that I think this is our turn to we're doing mobile specific websites
which means that you're developing, you're analyzing what are the pages that people most
want to go to what type of transactions they want to make and we're making those pages
on our website mobile friendly.
And so I'm happy to say that that's what we are doing.
It's actually quite just semantic.
So mobile friendly versus an app, I don't understand what is it, semantics or what you would
say.
Yeah well if you say you navigate to a site on a website.
If it's not mobile friendly, you're going to see one big thing of text, you can't read
the whole page, you have to scroll around.
An application is designed for a smartphone.
When you get there you can see everything on one screen and it'll come back.
And that's the coding that it spends.
It's more morning than the process.
It's a whole new experience.
It's a whole new experience.
It's different writing, you have to write for that for the technology because you can't
write big long sentences.
A mobile friendly website is different than an app.
That means you're accessing it through the internet rather than accessing it from the
app.
Correct.
And I'll show you an example.
I have one of these things.
I still don't understand how it works.
I have a picture for you.
I have a picture for you.
Okay.
Good.
We can handle pictures.
So what are we doing?
We've done it around.
We've done an analysis of the, for example we surveyed current students.
What types of things are they looking for?
It's not blackboard, web mail, class schedule, that type of thing.
And from that information we are proceeding with our plan to do our mobile site.
And we have already done all the low hanging fruit.
So again, we're building a mobile, optimized website.
And this resides on a different domain.
So it's not, if you come to our site by your smart phone, it's going to ask you if you
want, which Andy just did.
And what's the language that says?
So it's at, stay on the full website or use the mobile.
Use the mobile.
So you have the option.
And the mobile is impermble and they stay on the main website and call it something.
Okay.
So, the, so if you go to our website now, if you get on your smart phone, this is what
you're going to see.
And we devise this, this is sort of our first phase.
This is our first leap into mobile technology.
These were all the, from the surveys, this is what people told us they wanted.
So we went to their first.
We don't have a lot of transactional stuff yet because that costs time, money, and technology.
And we're, everything is different.
I mean, if you want to do, put, you know, escape with us, the registered classes, that's
a different company.
And so it's very complex.
And that's what we're sorting through right now.
Yeah, take donations on this.
I mean, mobile.
And they are the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you have, you are calling to, you put
it in the, the, the, and we'll take you directly to work.
And the good news about that is because they use an outside vendor to create that.
So that already exists.
Oh, I see.
So those are the types of things that were sorted, sorting through.
Starting to get your hands in your pocket.
In any way, in cash, right?
So for example, on this, people say they want, you know, maps and directions.
So if you go to our maps now, we're now on Google Maps, which is a nice thing.
It used to be this one day.
And the update.
So this is, we're still working out the kinks on this.
There's, it's not perfect.
But it is, like for example, we don't know why.
But I think if you click on this little graduation cap there, it takes you to the Turkish Student
Association.
And we don't know why.
So there's, you know, the other thing is we have, this building is really our university
administration building.
But if you click on the university administration building, it takes you to the old administration
building over there.
Which we need to change the name, Steve, on the old administration building.
Because it's screwing up our Google Maps.
But anyway, so you know, if you go back to the main navigation and you clicked on news,
you would take us to a new center, et cetera, et cetera.
So anyway, we just launched this last month.
So we've got remittance to the progress in this area.
So now that we have this mobile site, we're starting to get some data in about where people
are going when they use it.
And the top, again, the top place they go is to the homepage.
And we were surprised to see that within the top 10, they go to our graduate programs.
Mobile, mobile users are going to our graduate programs.
And that's very interesting to us.
So these are the times.
This is the type of thing that we're going to be able to monitor and pay attention to as
we go along.
We'll inform us as we develop the content on the site.
So in summary, mobile technologies have a significant impact on our communications office,
on what we need to do.
We are trying to figure out quickly how to write for mobile because we have to write two
versions instead of one.
And just when we thought we had a handle on the web along pay mobile, and we're everyone's
scrambled and try to get there as well.
So any questions?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm just beginning to get a physical build on.
Go where?
There is no function.
Oh, okay.
You're in the supermarket.
Don't be embarrassed to pick up a copy of Women's World because on page 26 is a story
about the University's point of office freedom of information law, who actually is in
my office.
And she does a lot of volunteers and she was a vet.
And she does a lot for the community.
And so the story about one of our employees and women as well.
It could have been a long line.
It could have been a long line.
Pardon?
You need to go next or can we stick with Pierre?
I am.
No, I just wanted to say something.
Okay.
Sorry.
Great.
Sure.
Thank you.
Last council meeting was the day before our annual conference which was held in Cooperstown.
It was the largest conference and represented the most campuses in quite a while.
Like joined as the member of the Board of Directors for ACT.
The conference subject was shared services and college council roles and responsibilities.
At the particular time there was a lot of debate and likely discussion on shared presidents
which seems to have passed with some of the new resolutions adopted by the SUNY Board
of Trustees in the agreement at Canton and Potsdam.
But shared services continues to be a hot topic.
As president of ACT I will join the Chancellor's Ask that I join the steering committee.
For shared services which has been formulated now and our provost is also on that steering
committee.
So we look forward to seeing how that progresses.
We also have a governance committee for ACT and we will be discussing some of the presidential
search guidelines, some of the roles and responsibilities of councils.
We will be meeting shortly with the new chair Carl McCall to discuss that initiative.
And January 9th the Chancellor will present her second annual state of the university message.
ACT has posted the lunch and following that address.
I know that a number of council members here attended last year.
An invitation will go out and we would hope that those that would be interested in attending
would attend.
It will be at the egg following her address.
So we will keep everybody posted on that.
And Michael will be featured as he presented the award-winning student from Albany.
Maybe you would like to say something about Sam and the scholarship lunch.
What do I have?
I can't remember what I know about Sam.
Well actually it was great opportunity.
Now he was all about service and this kid was incredibly impressive.
I don't remember the specifics.
Necessarily from Ithaca.
New York I do remember that I met the whole family.
That was the police selection.
That's right.
Thank you.
He was actively involved as a student representative on the selection for the City of Albany Police
Chief.
And I thought that was particularly important in light of some of the issues that we've
had that George had to lose to earlier.
And just a very impressive kid.
I got to say I really enjoyed.
I mean I had not met him before.
Obviously sat with him for lunch.
I just an impressive kid.
I'm an impressive family.
Tell you the truth.
His brother was there older brother and his mom.
And I was great.
I was one of the best things that I've ever done as a member of this council.
I got to say.
I really was.
I really was.
We were well represented in that search.
I was also wondering if you could come up with something.
The chief has been involved in that search.
Oh really?
No problem.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Michael.
For you?
Thank you.
About four weeks ago we received a call from a parent who is serving in Afghanistan wanted
to know if we webcast our commencement ceremony.
Unfortunately we don't have the capacity to do so.
But could those two wonderful team in the events office who managed the commencement?
They just could not let this go because they were very disappointed.
They started thinking and they come up with an idea of contacting the father so we will write a letter.
So as they were going all of these things they decided well they have to do also something to show him what happened.
So there's a video clip that are of how everything came about.
The first person that is talking is James Hyde who was the genius behind the whole thing.
That's all.
I do not have to turn the volume up here.
I don't have to turn the volume up here.
Turn the volume up this part too.
Here it is.
This is the one.
Where are the acoustics coming from?
It's coming from the computer.
Is there anything on the box?
There's a box there.
I don't see a...
This is the only...
I'm sorry.
I really like it.
I really like it.
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Okay.
Here at Golden Conferenz we have about two minutes of work.
We have about one minute left.
We have two minutes left.
One more time.
One more time.
One more time.
One more time.
One more time.
One more time.
I'm sorry.
I need to make it a new stuff.
I'm not in it.
I don't think you're done.
I love you dad so much.
I can't compare everything.
You're not going to be here.
It's just hard to not having here with you today.
You're here swearing at me.
You're shuffling with me today.
I'm feeling...
I love you a lot.
I love you so much.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And it's my great honor and privilege
of the National Guard of the Sky.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
At least we didn't get to the first minute of the show.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I just...
I just...
I just...
I just...
I just...
I just...
I just...
I just...
I just...
I think they do a great job.
And George commented on wonderful the commencement.
But there's so much behind the scene that I don't see.
We don't see.
So I thought it was important for you to see this.
And...
I mentioned earlier that we're one of the few schools
that has a winner commencement.
Well, frankly, that was on the Choppin block.
When we had all the budget cuts.
And partying in the foundation actually saved it
from the Choppin block.
And partying.
So...
Thank you.
So it's a very, very great.
As far as fundraising initiatives,
we're 37% ahead of last year.
But as I always say,
this is about timing of the gifts.
So we received some very large gifts
in the second half of last year.
And if you go Apple to Apple's,
we are about 7 or 6% ahead of last year.
And last year was a high water mark for us.
We were about 12 and a half million dollars.
And I hope they could reach the same number.
We received the $200,000 gift
from Second Chance Scholarship Fund.
And that's what the organization
that the foundation decided to get out of
being a foundation anymore.
So the gifts went to four different SUNY campuses.
And our foundation was instrumental
to the Raphling Dam or U4,
and our foundation is going to be matching
and then our 10 to 15,000 dollars a year
to subsidize that endowment fund.
That was part of our agreement.
But other foundations like the Hudson Valley Community College
because of their capacity
to only do 2 to 3,000 dollars a year.
Last year, I showed you a video of you all morning
in the night, if you recall.
And I'm glad to say that we're receiving
a national award for it at the Case Conference
in New York City on January 19th.
And that's again, you know, it was my team.
I think they do a great job.
And one initiative that is in line with
what's okay and the alumni,
Kate Boathe-Lang was saying about the alumni association.
And with what a incredible job.
I don't know why she gives me
and the team credits for helping with them
because, you know, you guys doing incredible work
and helping us in all matters.
We noticed about, so one of our greatest challenges is
getting the doors open to some of our most wonderful
prospects out there who are yet to be donors
and the reason is they have no engagement with university.
Even though we have been trying for years and years
to through some of our best development officers,
presidents, vice presidents,
the deans, the doors are just not open to us.
And if some of you have worked with my development officers,
you know, how good they are.
They are very good, they are very good.
But we just couldn't get anywhere.
About 10 years ago Georgetown University started a program
and it's called, they used the students to go and meet
with these prospects that have limited limited
engagement with the university.
In our case, there is no engagement with the university.
These are very, very high-level prospects.
So we identified 65 very high-level prospects
that we have never, ever been able to connect in any shape
or form or any way possible.
And this is, and our approach wasn't going to be about
fundraising and it is not going to be about fundraising.
George wrote a letter to these prospects
and saying, explaining the project,
and we trained 12 students to go and meet with these prospects
and interview them for an hour.
No written notes or nothing.
And just talk about them about how they got to be
where they are, where they are in their life,
and their experience at university.
And the letter George did mention that there will be no fundraising.
That's not what it is.
Our hope was from the 66 people,
if you get two interviews, that would be great.
And the interviews will be done through the intercession
when the students will identify New York City
and Greenwich areas or target market.
And if we thought if we get two interviews,
it would be great.
And the students would call from their own cell phones.
The students have already been trained
and also they have done some mock interviews.
Students didn't know this was a mock interview.
We sent them to someone, the alumni,
that we already told them about the projects.
So we knew how the students were going to be performing.
We have over 11 interviews so far.
And these are going to be done.
11 interviews during the intercession.
That's when it's going to be done.
And each student is going to get paid $100 plus expenses
for interview.
So it has been very, very successful now.
Side of Georgetown, there is about 200 other institutions
that do it.
So we work with them so these are best practice going forward.
And that is my report.
So those 66 none of them are existing donors.
No.
We have no donors.
They are not donors.
They have never answered a call.
Pain-to-one event.
I actually thought many of them are homeless, not the bottom.
Yes, many of them are homeless.
They are not homeless.
They are not homeless.
Yes, so.
Any questions?
That's great.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great work, it's all really inspiring.
Okay, we have a last item on the agenda.
It's the Presidential Search.
So a couple things.
We are formally announcing the Presidential Search today.
There's a Presidential Search announcement that will go out this evening after the meeting.
There's a copy of that.
The each of you have received in your package today.
I think it's fairly pro forma in the sense that it just sort of commences the process,
goes through some of the statutory highlights and requirements and the protocols as we go forward here.
What I ask, Amy Bernstein, who's here with us today, Amy is a work for the City Administration.
She is going to be and has worked with us in the past.
And Presidential Search is very familiar.
Not only with the search process, obviously, but with the University of Albany itself.
There's a lot of familiarity with a lot of the people in the room and a lot of the folks on campus.
She's just a wonderful person here.
And we're very fortunate to have her assigned to work with us again in this search.
And while it's really it's hard for NIVY us to think about life without George,
although having him here, it's...
I know, he's already retreating to the corner.
But I mean, this is an exciting next step in the University's development.
It's a very important next step.
There are a lot of critical elements that will transpire in the near, intermediate, long term.
And I thought what would be helpful today is to have Amy, who's had the benefit of two very recent searches as well, both at Buffalo and Binghamton.
Go over big picture of the process, protocol, some of the expectations around how this works, and Amy, anything else that you want to fill in for us.
Thanks, Dan. And thank you for having me.
I'm sure it's not great when people see me come around because it just means another search is underway.
But George tells us it's something we have to do, so we're moving forward with this.
So I am just sort of what he knows, an associate vice chancellor, work at the Chancellor's Office, Provost's Office now.
And I will be the liaison to the search from the Chancellor's Office.
So as you all know, the search is the province of the council.
So this is just a preliminary start, where the first step is really to start talking about it, and that's what we're doing here.
So what we've handed out, what I've handed out is our current guidelines.
You may have heard that there are changes of foot.
However, they have not taken a fact as of yet.
So we are working from these, and if they come into place during, I've got those kind of questions.
It won't really affect how we move along with the search.
It will go very similarly to the searches that have happened in the past year at Albany, and also at Stony Brook, Buffalo University of Buffalo, and Binghamton.
The good news is that we just did complete a search at Binghamton, and it was actually very good search, really great interest, very high level candidates, which is to say that there's good feeling out there about Stony.
And I think we really do have a lot of recognition now, and I suspect that the search will go very well.
The campus is in a good place, much more stability than last time around, both at the state level, the SUNY system level, the campus level.
So I really suspect that this will be very successful.
Difficult search because we really have a wonderful leader to replace here, but I do suspect it will all go very well.
The other good news is that there are a lot of people who have gone through this process, not too distant, huge to a past.
So people are familiar with the process, the process really is the same.
So having said that, the first step is to put together a search committee.
I've had conversations with Suzanne Fessler to start their faculty piece, and they are going to get on board with that.
The rest is, you know, the council will take the motions to get all the other constituent groups on board to pick their representatives.
So we're moving forward with that.
Parallel to that process will be signing on and the process to get a search consultant on board two, which is we'll go through the regular RFP process to get a search.
So again, it's a council job to do, and those will be the next steps.
Given that what I've heard from the faculty and the process that they have to go through, it gives us some time.
So what I suspect is that all, once all are ducks are in row with all the elections that have to take place around campus.
You know, we are probably looking at February for a first meeting of the search committee.
So that sort of puts us at a start date, and then we go from there.
And at that point, we hope to have the search consultant on board as well, and then it takes off from there.
So I don't know, you know, the process is the same.
I could go into more detail if you like.
It's a little premature at this point.
I mean, you know, we're really at the very, very beginning stage of it.
I'm happy to answer any questions, but we are doing what we should be doing at this point,
sort of getting all our ducks in row in row.
And as the chances liaison, I'm having the conversations with all the people that really need to be contacted and moving forward.
Any time, that's the question I asked you already, but what I did addressed to the whole council.
In our last, from what I understand in our last presidential search,
it wasn't just the teaching faculty that the senate was responsible for finding for the search committee.
It was also that one position that was reserved for professional faculty.
And our campus is a little bit different than most of us in campus.
It's a fact, so the guidelines don't really help us there.
So I'd like the council to let me know if the senate is responsible for finding that professional faculty member in addition to the six teaching faculty members for the search committee.
And if I can, I mean, Susan and I had that conversation.
And what I said is, those are decisions that the council will get back to her.
You know, as we move down that path on picking the representatives to sit on the search committee,
it is not usual throughout the system for the faculty senate to choose that.
So that will be a council decision.
I just wanted clarification on right.
I need to provide in terms of bodies for that right committee.
And let me also put specific dates that we already talked about earlier on that.
The first senate meeting of the spring semester is February 6th.
We still haven't met for our last meeting this semester, but our last meeting for the semester is next Monday.
So there's no way we could call that together by next Monday for an election.
And so this is why we were aiming at early February as having all the committee members together.
There's more than just that election that has to happen before then.
The ballot has to be put together.
There will be a couple different senate executive committee meetings to get all that in place.
And so my hope is that we'll have the election in the senate meeting, which we'll have a forum.
My co-propagco comes through February 6th.
We'll bring cookies.
And then I'm planning on calling a special meeting of the senate executive committee two days after that,
so that the final group of six list of six teaching faculty for the search committee can be called.
So if I could just clarify the search committee consists of.
And I put this out with really the caveat that these are guidelines.
Each campus is different.
And you'll see if you look at searches at the different campuses.
There is some flexibility.
But the guidelines set out that they are the search committee just consists of four members of the council, including the chair.
So there were five total four total, excuse me.
Six members are the full time teaching faculty of the campus, one student, one alumni representative, one campus related foundation representative, one academic dean.
One professional or support staff member.
So the council will admire standing at Dan and talk about this, but.
Notify those members on campus of representatives that will be needed to.
Right. I mean, we will be after this meeting calling for nominations from each of those constituent groups to present nominees.
And so I think you're in shape to do that, right?
Not tomorrow.
No, I mean, yes.
Have a bourbon and do it tonight.
No, I'm blessed you.
But I think we've talked about that and certainly absolutely.
And our goal and objective obviously is to have a very representative and diverse committee.
I think we strove for that in the past.
We've achieved that in the past, making sure that all the appropriate voices are part of the process is very critical.
Obviously, you know, there are some statutory requirements and there's some flexibility how we build that out.
And we will be working to do that in the very near future.
So, Suzanne, I know we need to get back to you on that piece and we will.
The one other thing that there is a change from the last time is that the chancellor has been attending the first search committee meetings.
So we will arrange to have her whether, I mean, this is easy.
I generally say in person or on phone or in video, but given that it's an Albany, I'm sure she'll be here to do it.
And she will present a charge to the committee, written charge.
And everything will be put up on the website.
And I know that the council wants to truly transparency and we will all strive to do it that way.
Great. Thanks, Amy.
If we started February, when can we expect to have some room in place?
Well, you know, I think it's really, you know, a search consultant will dictate that a little bit.
You know, if we're able to start, you know, I think realistically it won't happen to mid-February if the faculty is not going to get the representatives till the first week.
So if we're looking at let's say February 15th, I think it's, I think we could really look to having, you know, first interviews by April, you know, second interviews by, you know, that's, you know, under best circumstances.
Right. I mean, I'm sure the goal would be to have a new president in place for the next academic year.
That's clearly something that you want to have a process of putting it into place.
And I think we're within that window where we can get it done.
Right. I mean, you know, it will be with the understanding of everybody's small members of the research committee that, you know, they may need to, you know, be here when other people are not.
And really, you know, with the understanding that their participation is mandatory for all meetings.
So it can't be done if you're not here for all meetings. I mean, it's a significantly commitment as a lot of people in this room can, it's tough to, and it's a very worthwhile commitment and rewarding commitment.
But it is very time consuming and you have to have a significant amount of flexibility to because things change whether you can just see, even listening to this as any, you have to be able to adapt to a flexible schedule.
I do think we will do our best to take advantage of technology and we will have to get Kathy Herman back to just figure out what's the best way to do that.
As far as perhaps looking at some meetings in New York, if that's necessary, just trying to work with the ultimate committee composition, you know, where perhaps we, some of the candidates are.
It's just, we're going to have to have some flexibility, but I can't stress enough that it's not going to work unless you're 100% committed to the process.
Any other questions for Amy?
Okay, I mean, I guess I would say from my standpoint, we will obviously be looking to constitute a subcommittee of the Council to work on the search process.
Really, we're going to have an RFP go out to the pre-approved or the existing panel of qualified search firms that the University of the University of the University of the Presidential searches.
Which is, you know, from that pool, we can shortlist and interview firms. Is there a protocol on how many firms we have to interview or what's the, as far as the search process itself?
No.
So, we do need to actually interview every, we have to get everybody an opportunity to be interviewed.
Right. Okay.
So everybody who, right, who submits a proposal and give the office to do the thing.
So they have to submit a proposal first.
All 10 and then we'll see who submits proposals, right?
Okay. You won't get a 10 proposal.
No, we won't get 10 proposals. Some of them are only designated community colleges.
Right.
Some just won't have the time to do it.
So we send out the request, RFP for all 10 and, you know, we'll probably get that set in.
And we give them each seven an opportunity to interview.
I don't know. They all won't take it.
And the interview could be phone, video in person.
Right.
When will the, uh, that RFP process commence?
Well, I would like to do it Monday.
Uh, come with, you know, start.
You need a resolution to move that out. Can we just as a group? Just go forward or else?
Just a vote.
Okay.
Okay.
Then, um, they would be helpful to send it. I think if, when I put out a call for nominations for the search committee,
I can in some way quantify what the commitment is.
That's a good idea.
You have to vote what you were just saying.
There are people who will go their hat and the big event.
Yeah.
They say, oh, I didn't know that.
And I would want people who are committed.
Yeah. We, that's, that's a great point, Susanna.
And, and we have some, uh, descriptions and timelines.
And one of the things, you know, we will get out.
I think Amy after this is, um, not just a timeline, but sort of a description of the commitment to the process and, you know, how time, I'm sure you have a format for this already.
Uh, we have one from the last process I looked at.
I actually thought it was pretty good, but we'll look to turn that around and get that back not just to you, but the other members of the council.
Yeah.
It's a good verbiage in this too.
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I don't know.
If you do it, you won't be able to have that go out with it.
I would think describing the process, the requirements, so it's not the same issues.
I would think that would be worth doing.
We're doing.
We're doing.
Any other advice for us, Amy?
I can't enjoy that.
My advice is to teach you a little bit.
We expect somebody great.
And that's you know, we'll all work today's …
Okay, I mean, I think look, we've sort of socialized this amongst ourselves, you know,
for the last couple of weeks, there's been a lot of discussions about it.
I think everybody recognizes the gravity and importance of the search process and, you
know, I can't speak to how fortunate we are to have George serve as the president and
put us in a position to get a next president who's going to be a tremendous asset for this
university without the work that George has done, you know, with all of his peers and
colleagues, we wouldn't be in that position.
I think we all recognize how challenging the last search process it is and it's really
a privilege, you know, the position George has put us in to launch from here and, you know,
we get to create places by standing on the shoulders of great people before us and George
you put us in a really wealthy position here.
Thank you for that and, you know, this is not the time to sort of law you, but, yeah,
there you go.
There you go.
So, a lot of work to do, you know, if there are any other questions or if people have
them, you know, certainly we can ask them now, but I think there's just a lot of hard work
and commitment to follow here and look forward to working with everybody.
Thank you.
I think the point here, maybe, shouldn't be overlocked and we had some of the outside and
George's time, it would be, I think, incredibly more difficult, but when you have to go through
a very tough budget time, you have to cut people you have to walk in the program so
what if you have a new person in, it is very, very difficult for them to recover.
But now having put the universe in this position, this is a good time to go forward.
So, I think what you said is right on the line.
Well, it's an exciting time and look, I mean George will be the first to tell you, well,
he's already committed to not leaving until we find a president, which is a dangerous commitment.
Based on our history.
But I mean George is going to be here, he's a great resource and I know all of you look
to him, but we're going to get the benefit of George's wisdom and experience going forward
here and I think it's important as we think about the next president, you know, having
George here on the ground and continuing to serve as the president provides a tremendous
amount of stability and confidence.
And frankly, you know, makes this job a lot easier.
So we owe a huge debt of gratitude for George, not just for the service he's provided
since he was a student, you know, I mean this guy has been committed to this place decade
after decade.
But for his willingness to continue to serve until we get the next president and you know,
it really makes our job that much easier.
We can focus on finding the next president and not have to be concerned about the university
itself and then again, just George can't thank you for that.
Absolutely.
Okay.
And on that basis, all the staff is going to get a motion to adjourn.
Welcome to the stage.
Thank you.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
This is time to eat.
And I got a little better at that.
So I'm going to say one more.
All right.