COUNCIL AND COMMITTEE SUMMARIES
Meeting of the University Senate, April 6, 2015
As submitted to Yenisel Gulatee, Senate Secretary, University Senate
UNIVERSITY SENATE CHAIR’S REPORT –Joette Stefl-Mabry, Chair
I.
Informational
•
Senate Chair received a memo on March 13, 2015 from Dan Knox, Director of Student
Mobility and Debbie Moeckel, Assistant Provost re: Seamless Transfer Implementation
Update which she shared with the Provost.
•
Senate Chair Stefl-Mabry and Vice Chair Fox met with Dean David Rousseau on March
23rd, 2015 to discuss the development of the new College of Emergency Preparedness,
Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity. Dr. Rousseau will share list of steering committee
members and faculty members with the Governance Council.
•
Senate Chair Stefl-Mabry and Vice Chair Fox, as Campus Governance Leaders (CGLs)
will attend the Spring Plenary Meeting at SUNY Plattsburg April 23rd -24th 2015.
II.
Reports of Actions
The SEC approved the proposal (Proposal for Graduate Certificate in Homeland
Security, Cybersecurity and Emergency Management) be placed on the Senate agenda
with the pending name ‘Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cyber
Security,’ per the UPPC report. UPPC Chair McCaffrey would forward the documents to
Chair Stefl-Mabry prior to the Senate meeting.
•
It was discussed in the SEC that the Senate has councils set up to handle routine things
that fit into various categories. It was debated if UPPC is the appropriate body for the
name change of the College of Computing and Information to the College of Engineering
and Applied Sciences to have gone through and if that satisfied formal consultation.
•
A motion was made and unanimously approved for GOV to consider the issue of the
interpretation of the Bylaws, in dialogue with the Charter, as to what constitutes formal
consultation.
•
It was noted that GOV would then report back to the SEC. Chair Stefl-Mabry stressed
that it needs to be clear how information is to be shared back to the Senate to give
stakeholders enough time to digest what has been happening.
•
From UAC: A request from the Department of Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S.
Latino Studies (LACS) to deactivate their program in Puerto Rican Studies. The SEC
unanimously approved that the request was ready to move forward to the Senate. It was
suggested the Department send a Senate representative to that meeting.
III.
Recommended Actions
N/A
UFS (University Faculty Senator’s Report) –Danielle Leonard, J. Philippe Abraham &
John Schmidt, SUNY Senators
Report from the UFS Winter Plenary at SUNY Farmingdale, Jan 22-24, 2014.
The plenary occurred the same week as the Chancellor’s State of the University Address and the
release of the Governor’s budget for SUNY. In fact, Chancellor Zimpher gave her address in the
morning and drove down to Long Island to talk to the UFS the same afternoon. This meant that a
lot of new developments occurred and were considered, the major ones of which are listed
below.
1. The Elsevier Contract. SUNY’s contract for their bundle of journals, including electronic
access (“Science Direct”) was renegotiated for $44M over the next 5 years. This covers almost
all SUNY Campuses and is the major budget breaker for SUNY Libraries. Doctoral Institutions
pay 74% of this total cost and the cost of this and other blocs is escalating due to the
monopolistic publisher practices, and will continue to be a budget problem. SUNY System in
past years contributed $1.2M, and will continue to supply $0.6M per year plus another $2.5M
over 5 years.
The wider view concerns what SUNY and other large systems nationwide can do to alter
the dynamics of journal subscriptions. The current system is held in place largely because
publication credits for promotion and tenure revolve around high impact journals, which these
giant companies monopolize. Open access journals are being pushed by NIH and other agencies
so that results can be made available to all users without charge. However, this means that
publishing costs are pushed over to authors in this model, and these can be set very high (and
possibly predatory) by publishing corporations as well. The only real solution would be if large
systems such as SUNY could get together and establish reputable, high impact, open access
journals.
2. SUNY Budget in the Governor’s budget proposal. The outlook is quite a bit brighter than
in the previous year when the cost of UUP raises were not funded (even though the state had
previously agreed to a maintenance of effort), but the new money this year would come with
strings attached. The highlights of the Governor’s budget includes $50M for recruiting Master
Innovators/Researchers (Full Professors) to spark SUNY’s research efforts, especially in clusters
of excellence. In addition there is an additional $50M for a SUNY Innovation Fund, and both of
these are slated to continue at the same rate for 5 years. There is a $30M loan to support Open
SUNY’s expansion of online courses and degree programs. The rationale for the loan is that it is
expected to bring in more students (and tuition), which should eventually he able to repay the
loan. It would pay for infrastructure for Open SUNY such as a common 24 hour hot line and
servers, etc. There is only $2M extra in the main budget, but an additional $18M for SUNY
Excels Plan (more below). On the capital fund side, there is $200M (this year and continue for 5
years), almost all of which is to cover a backlog of critical maintenance for SUNY’s old
buildings.
3. SUNY Excels. As you will recall, this is a set of metrics to measure SUNY’s commitment to
excellence and to year-to-year improvements that the Chancellor envisions as a way to convince
the Governor and the Legislature that funds spent on SUNY are a good investment for New
York, and worthy of further investments. Already tuition at SUNY is substantially lower than
comparable State University campuses, and our degree our BS/BA completion rates are
substantially higher than the national average. There are a total of 17 metrics in 5 categories,
labeled “Access, Completion, Success, Inquiry and Engagement.” Since SUNY has 32 campuses
ranging from University Centers, Medical Schools, special schools (optometry, maritime,
agriculture), tech schools, 4 year colleges, etc., some of the metrics will apply more so to some
campuses than others. For the coming year, each campus will formulate a plan including which
of the 17 metrics they will concentrate on, and what measures they will take to improve their
scores. Campus governance should be included in the formulation of this plan. There will be a
pot of money, which will include not only the $18M above but a 10% withholding of state tax
revenues (since our support is about 35% state tax money and 65% tuition, this would be about
3.5% of our state funds budget). A variable amount of this money will then be reawarded back to
the campus according to SUNY central’s rating of our plan this year (meeting in December to
disburse funds), and in future years according to our progress in meeting the goals we set this
year.
The Chancellor also committed, in her State of the University presentation, to increase
the total number of SUNY degrees granted per year from the current 92,000 to 150,000 by 2020!
This would mean more than 60% increase in only 5 years, presumably through ramping up
online degrees in Open SUNY.
We look forward to the Spring Plenary at SUNY Plattsburgh on April 23-25.
GSA (Graduate Student Association) – Caitlin Janiszewski, GSA President
The GSA is very excited to announce that we won the bid to hold the NAGPS Leadership
Summit this summer from August 3-5th. Planning has already begun and we are seeking co-
sponsors.
We are also gearing up for our elections which are going to be help from April 7-9th. We are
hoping for good turnout!
We have also officially set the date of the President's Forum, when President Jones will meet
with graduate students and the general public to discuss our issues. This will take place on Friday
April 17th at 6 pm in the Patroon Room. The overarching theme proposed by the GSA Assembly
is shared governance and graduate students role in shared governance. The topics to be covered
within that framework are:
1. Wages and benefits for graduate students – how are we progressing on the GTA and
contingent faculty issues?
2. Core values – how will we make meaningful progress as a University community on the
values most important to us: equity, inclusion, and sustainability?
3. Public Engagement – how will our public engagement initiatives benefit graduate
students? Where do we fit in the vision?
In terms of our external advocacy work, we had our three Senators go down to Washington DC
to meet with Congressional staffer on graduate student issues. They did a great job! Our Lead
Senator stayed home and participated in SUNY Speaks Up advocating for student issues with our
State Legislature. We are looking to translate all of this experience into institutional memory and
trainings for other students interested in advocacy work.
We will also be sending three people to the NAGPS Northeast Regional Conference to discuss
contingent faculty, equity and inclusion, and grant allocation models.
Two members will also be attending the SUNY SA Spring Conference in Binghamton to discuss
issues such as rational tuition.
We continue our work on Ban the Box by having critical discussions with the community
standards office. We are trying to grasp the broad picture of how admissions across the SUNY
system works so that we can offer informed feedback and possibly solutions on how to reform
our treatment of formerly incarcerated applicants.
SA (Student Association) – Marc Cohen, Student Association Representative
Bill Nye event was a success. Working on the student activity fee revote. We have a team for
relay for life. Department of Dippikill Outreach being expanded to include Environmental
Sustainability. UPD Appreciation Night coming up.
CAA (Council on Academic Assessment) – Deborah Bernnard, Chair
Nothing to report
CAFFECoR (Committee on Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, and Community
Responsibility) – Carol Jewell, Chair
Nothing to report
CERS (Committee on Ethics in Research and Scholarship) – Susanna Fessler, Chair
Nothing to report
COR (Council on Research) – Kajal Lahiri, Chair
The Council on Research has had a busy couple of months since the last report in January. The
Faculty Research Program review subcommittee selected 13 recipients for FRAP-A awards out
of 44 applications received, and this recommendation was unanimously approved by the Council.
FRAP recipients this year came from a wide cross-section of the university, including
Biomedical Sciences, Computer Science, Geography and Planning, Educational and Counseling
Psychology, Public Administration and Policy, History, Physics, Anthropology and Chemistry.
The review committee for the President’s Awards for Excellence in Research and Creative
Activities also had a very productive meeting with a lively discussion and selected three
deserving recipients for the President’s Award for Excellence in Research: Biological Sciences
Associate Professor Melinda Larsen, Chemistry Professor Li Niu, and Professor Donna Scanlon
of the Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning.
The Conference/Journal awards and Benevolent Association awards review subcommittees are
currently reviewing applications for the spring rounds of funding, and will be making their
recommendations to the Council shortly. We have received 3 applications for support for
conferences, and one application for support for editorship of a journal. Nine applications have
been received from graduate students for research support from the Benevolent Association
awards program.
CPCA (Council on Promotions and Continuing Appointments) – Sanjay Putrevu, Chair
The next CPCA meeting is on April 1.
GAC (Graduate Academic Council) –Abebe Rorissa, Chair
I.
Informational
The Graduate Academic Council held its first meeting of the Spring semester on March 3rd, 2015.
The only major agenda item was the review and approval of a revised proposal to establish a
Graduate Certificate Program in Homeland Security, Cyber Security and Emergency
Management (HCE) by the Department of Public Administration and Policy, Rockefeller College
of Public Affairs and Policy. The Graduate Certificate in HCE was originally approved by the
GAC on December 15, 2014. The need for the review of the revised proposal arose because
UPPC raised some concerns that led to changes.
Subsequent to the GAC’s review and approval of the revised proposal, the Graduate Certificate’s
title/name was changed to Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cyber Security by
the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.
Our next scheduled meeting is on April 7th.
II.
Reports of Actions
The Council’s only action item during its meeting on March 3rd was the review and approval of
the revised proposal to establish a Graduate Certificate Program in Homeland Security, Cyber
Security and Emergency Management (HCE). Professor David Rousseau, Dean of the
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy and Professor R. Karl Rethemeyer, Chair,
Department of Public Administration and Policy and Associate Dean of the College, attended the
meeting and introduced the Certificate and revisions made. Following an extensive question and
answer session, GAC members voted unanimously to approve the revised proposal.
An E-mail vote was also conducted during the week of March 16th among GAC members who
approved the name/title change unanimously.
III.
Recommendations for Actions
The GAC endorses introduction of a bill to the University Senate to establish a Graduate
Certificate Program in Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cyber Security by
the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.
GOV (Governance Council) – Cynthia Fox, Chair
I. Informational
1. GOV met on March 2; next meeting is March 30.
2. Chair Fox served as faculty representative to the University Council on February 26. Associate
Provost for Program Development Anne Marie Murray provided an update on the institutional
plans to establish a Computer Engineering Program; Associate VP for Government Relations
Sheila Seery and Chief of Staff Leanne Wirkkula presented an overview of the 2015 legislative
agenda ; Chief Information Officer Christine Haile gave an overview of University’s digital
platform and strategy. The Council approved revisions to the Community Rights and
Responsibilities document relative to sexual violence and response; and two resolutions about
naming rights for the School of Business building were passed.
3. Chair Fox met with Senate Chair Stefl-Mabry and David Rousseau on March 23 to discuss the
role of governance in the formation of the proposed College of Emergency Preparedness. As part
of the formal consultation process, GOV will be looking at the composition of the Steering
Committee and “Working Group” that have been put together as advisory groups as the process
gets underway.
4. At the meeting of the SEC on March 23, GOV was asked to take up the role of governance in
the proposed name change for the College of Computing and Information and in the creation and
administration of the Presidential Initiatives Fund for Research and Scholarship (PIFRS).
5. The names of Senators representing the Libraries, SPH, SCJ, and CCI for the 2015-2016
academic year have been forwarded to GOV.
II. Actions taken
1. GOV submitted suggestions for the membership of the search committee for a new Chief
Information Officer to replace Christine Haile, who plans to transition out of this role by June 30.
2. The invitation to participate in University Governance was sent to the Voting Faculty on
March 3 and again on March 27.
2. Senate Bylaws amendment 1415-01was distributed to the Voting Faculty on March 10. A
reminder was sent March 23.
3. The final slate of candidates for University Senate at-Large Senators, SUNY-wide Senators,
and University Auxiliary Services Board members was approved and distributed to the Voting
Faculty on March 25.
4. The call for nominations for the position of University Senate Vice Chair went out to the
Voting Faculty on March 27.
III. Recommendations for Actions
1. That members of GOV continue to do everything they can to encourage colleagues to
volunteer for Senate service and to participate in the upcoming elections.
LISC (Council on Libraries, Information Systems, and Computing) –Boris Goldfarb, Chair
The next LISC meeting will be on March 30. The Library Committee and the IT Usage Policy
Committee will report on their work. Another major item on the agenda will be a discussion of
the situation with the Elsevier contract and other issues related to the cost of research
publications.
UAC (Undergraduate Academic Council) – Robert Yagelski, Chair
UAC has forwarded to the SEC and Senate materials related to a request from the Department of
Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies (LACS) to deactivate their program in
Puerto Rican Studies. UAC has reviewed and approved this request.
ULC (University Life Council) –Michael Jaromin, Chair
The next UACCESS presentation is Michael Brownstein, Ph.D. Assistant Professor in the
Department of Philosophy at John Jay College. His presentation entitled, “Simple Strategies for
Complex Problems: Implicit Bias and Higher Education,” is on Monday, March 30, 2015, 2:00
p.m. in the Campus Center, Room 375. Refreshments will be served. The small group sessions
for this presentation will be held April 14th, 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. at the Alumni House (Lunch
will be served) and April 15th, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. in the Campus Center, Room 375
(Refreshments will be served).
These dialogues are critically important as part of our commitment to Inclusive Excellence.
Please encourage faculty attendance at the small group sessions (4/14 and 4/15).
UPPC (University Planning and Policy Council) –David McCaffrey, Chair
On March 12, UPPC reviewed and approved the proposal to establish a Graduate Certificate
Program in Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Emergency Management (HCE) by the
Department of Public Administration and Policy, Rockefeller College. Subsequently Rockefeller
College requested that the certificate be titled the Graduate Certificate Program in Emergency
Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity, and the bill is being forwarded with the
revised title.
Provost Stellar, Associate Provost for Program Development Ann Marie Murray, and CCI Dean
Sue Faerman met with UPPC on March 12 to discuss a possible name change of the College of
Computing and Information to the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and other
elements of the University's activities to develop programs in engineering and applied sciences.
At the Senate meeting on March 9, a faculty member asked about what appeared to be a
relatively high number of classes for certain class days this semester. To provide background on
this issue, UPPC posted links to documents regarding the procedures and regulations for
establishing academic calendars, including an extensive report on the subject prepared in 2012
by former Senate Chair Susanna Fesler and University Registrar Karen Chico Hurst.
