Governance Council
Monday, December 14, 2015
2:45 PM
UNH 306
Jim Collins, Chair
Minutes
PRESENT: Alford, Julia; Collins, Jim; Dutta, Saurav; Early, Bryan; Gulatee,
Yenisel; Janiszewski, Caitlin; Kressner, Ilka; Malavasic, Jolene; Moore,
Chris; Reinhold, Karin
The meeting convened at 2:45 p.m.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of November 9, 2015 were unanimously approved.
CHAIR’S REPORT
Chair Collins had submitted to Bill Hedberg's office on November 20" the amended
list of nominations for the University Excellence Committees which GOV members
had approved via e-mail. As part of the Senate leadership I met this past Tuesday,
Chair Collins reported, with Assistant to the Provost Deborah Salinas. We have a
working group on Applied Learning as part of a statewide effort in the
undergraduate curriculum. The Provost put together this working group with a
large number of administrators and some administrators who are also faculty. In
support of that we want to make recommendations for faculty representatives who
are not administrators. Chair Collins contacted Karen Kiorpes from UAC, and she
has made some recommendations.
At the Senate Executive meeting on November 30", GOV was alerted that we need
to populate 2 committees from UPPC that have not been existence for 2 years and
were allowed to lapse: Resource Analysis and Planning, and University Facilities.
Chair Collins had been working with Yenisel Gulatee to craft a Senate resolution to
allow for automatic, minor, non-substantive changes to the Charter, for instance
for the renaming of offices. Chair Collins would format that over the break and e-
mail it to members for review, to then send to the SEC for its next meeting.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS
Assessment - Karen Reinhold, Chair
We are making progress on the new survey. We are almost done and have a great
committee which is working very well and expediently. We should have a version
very soon. Chair Collins had looked at the survey and thought it was good. We plan
to invite Joel Bloom to the next GOV meeting on February 1* for his input.
Liaisons - Yenisel Gulatee, Chair
Chris Moore has taken the lead in developing a mailing list to communicate with
emeritus and part-time faculty. He had a meeting with ITS. We can create a
dynamic distribution group for the part-time population which always
automatically picks up changes. For the emeriti group who may not use their
University at Albany accounts, we will be using a listserv and asking the Emeritus
Center to send us a list of those who interested in subscribing to this list. We need
to a protocol to verify that they are members and also need to come to an
agreement about who will manage the list. It was proposed that the Senate
Secretary and the Staff Support jointly manually update the emeritus listserv a
couple of times a year. Chris Moore will send in directions to the committee on
how to make a formal request for a listserv. There was discussion on regarding
sending Outlook reminders of upcoming Senate meetings to the general public as
has been done in the past.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
CAA: Academic Program Review Committee
Chair Collins would distribute the original amendment and related e-mails for a
decision to be voted upon at the February 1‘ GOV meeting.
CARE: Council on Administrative Review & Evaluation
Meeting materials from the shared One Drive on the background and related to
John Schmidt's report at the past GOV meeting were reviewed. Periodic review
would be conducted on a five-year cycle. Discussion on the matter included
questions on who gets see the report, terms of people serving on committees,
criteria for Chair, how to tailor survey’s to the relative audience, and the desire to
cooperate with the administration. Chair Collins would consult with Bruce Szelest
in Institutional Research. Chair Collins would prepare a draft updated Charter
amendment of the one from 2013 based on the meeting discussion and would e-
mail members by the end of the week asking them to review and comment on the
new draft as soon as possible. He would then send around a poll on approximately
January 10", for members to vote on a final draft by January 14. In that way the
revised amendment could be forwarded to the SEC by January 16" before its 1st
meeting of the spring semester.
UUP: Proposal for University Ombudsperson
Members Bryan Early, Saurav Dutta and Caitlyn Janiszewski had met and reviewed
the proposal. There was skepticism about if the person would have the expertise to
provide detailed insights, for instance on other departments than their own. The
proposal was for a more narrow scope of authority, restricted to the tenure issue,
compared to Ombdudsperson offices at Binghamton and Stony Brook. There was
also concern around the ‘shuttle diplomacy’ language: If faculty members cannot
communicate directly with an administrator, it would then require a more serious
body than this external person. An ombudsperson office for graduate students on
our campus does exist but with a low profile. We found evidence that we are also
supposed to have an office for undergraduates, but we were unable to locate one
operating. If we do decide we need this role we recommend that it might be more
efficient, because of the much more narrow scope, to potentially add to the pre-
existing office that already has an ombudsperson. We would want to get a sense of
how much services are actually used by the graduate students. We noted that
there was Senate legislation approved in what looks like December of 2006 signed
by George Hearst regarding the undergraduate ombudsperson. The structure of it
suggests that GAC, the Senate Chair, the Provost's Office and GSA need to get
together to decide who this person will be. The same mechanism was proposed for
the undergraduate person. Member Janiszewski had been in touch with the GSA
ombudsperson's office and would discuss with Betty Shadrick how it has been
utilized in the past. There is supposed to be a report to the Provost's office, and it
is recommended that Chair Collins asks the Provost if he receives this report. GOV
would consider either revising existing ombudsperson bills or drafting a resolution
in support of an ombudsperson whose role should include faculty concerns
regarding the tenure and renewal process and who would be part of a broader
portfolio of responsibilities like at other universities.
NEW BUSINESS
At the last Senate meeting there was a report from the Panel on Contingents
presented by Provost Stellar, a report on the Contingents from UUP presented by
Chapter President Brett Benjamin, and a Graduate Student Stipends report
presented by Dean Kevin Williams. Chair Collins propose that governance put
forward a forum together with you UUP in early March to discuss the results of
those reports, noting that there would be a sustainability forum in February and a
CAFFECoR forum in late March.
Chair Collins asked if GOV members or their constituents had questions for the
Provost or President to be asked at the Senate meetings. This would be a regular
request per Senate Chair Fox.
GOV was asked to recommend a Senate representative to serve on or co-chair the
Engaged Scholarship Working Group.
Lastly, Chair Collins stated he had met with Deb Galinas and asked that GOV
recommend, preferably out of the Undergraduate Affairs Council, representatives
to serve on the SUNY-wide Steering Committee for Applied Learning. UAC Co-
Chair Karen Kiorpes sent a list with 2 recommendations which GOV supplemented
with additional recommendations.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 4:23 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by
Elisa Lopez, Recorder
