COUNCIL AND COMMITTEE SUMMARIES
Meeting of the University Senate, February 8, 2016
As submitted to Yenisel Gulatee, Senate Secretary, University Senate
UNIVERSITY SENATE CHAIR’S REPORT –Cynthia Fox
I. Informational
A. Chair Fox, Vice Chair Collins, and UAC Co-Chair Kiorpes met with Debra Gelinas,
Special Assistant to the Provost, about the UAlbany Applied Learning Plan on December
9.
B. The SEC held a special meeting on December 9 in order to hear an updated report on the
CEAS from Dean Boyer.
C. Senate Bill 1516-02 PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH A B.A. ENGLISH / M.A. LIBERAL STUDIES
PROGRAM was approved by President Jones on December 11.
D. Chair Fox received an update from Dean David Rousseau on December 15 on the
planning for the major in Emergency Preparedness ; we have been working with UAC
and UPPC to be sure that the proposal moves through governance in a timely fashion.
E.
On December 23, Chair Fox received word from Bruce Szelest that Middle States
reaffirmed UA’s accreditation at their November Commission meeting. They took this
action based on the Periodic Review Report submitted this past summer and the reviewer
summaries. UA was commended for the quality of our process. Documents related to the
PRR can be found on our campus Middle States wiki:
https://wiki.albany.edu/display/middlestates/Home.
F. On December 24, Chair Fox received word from Bruce Szelest that the SUNY Excels
Performance Improvement Plan that was submitted to SUNY has been approved.
G. Chair Fox and Vice Chair Collins met with President Jones, Provost Stellar and Chief of
Staff Wirkkula on January 25 to discuss the Governance proposal to create a Council on
Administrative Review and Evaluation (CARE). At the President’s request, the proposal
was removed from the SEC agenda with the understanding that further conversation
would take place over the course of the spring semester to allow consensus on the nature
of faculty involvement in administrative assessment to occur.
H. Vice Provost Ann Marie Murray provided an update on the Albany Law affiliation at the
January 25 meeting of the SEC.
I.
On January 27, Chair Fox received the amended UAlbany Start UP NY campus plan.
J.
The Spring Faculty Meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, April 26 at 3pm.
II. Actions Taken
A. Darrell Wheeler, Linda Krzykowski and Debra Gelinas have been invited to the March 7
Senate meeting. Dean Wheeler will give a brief overview and answer questions about
various Public Engagement initiatives that are going on under his leadership; Vice
Provost Krzykowski will talk about the work of the Applied Learning Steering
Committee.
B. Chair Fox has asked CAFFECoR to propose new language for the Undergraduate
Bulletin that describes the process that should be followed by members of the University
community who feel their freedom of expression has been unfairly suppressed.
III. Recommendations for actions
N/A
UFS (University Faculty Senator’s Report) – J. Philippe Abraham, Walter Little & John
Schmidt, SUNY Senators
Report from the 172 UFS (SUNY-wide Senate) Plenary at Stony Brook, Jan 21-23, 2016
Governors’s Budget to Legislature. The overall state budget was limited to an overall increase
of 2%, as the Governor has consistently advocated. However, SUNY’s base budget was
decreased by $-67M (-3.5%; $1.870B, down from $1.935B last year. For the State Operated
campuses (our category) the decrease was $-4.7M, down from $712M last year. The Governor
generally strips out the increases that the Legislature put in the previous year, but in this case he
left in the $18M investment fund for the PIP program and the extra funding for the EOP, and
added $10M for the green “Green Campus Program”. Still the overall amount is less than last
year, and also does not cover incremental cost such as the increased utility costs or the negotiated
salary increases for UUP and other unions on campus. Therefore it constitutes a significant cut,
contrary to the wishes of the legislature that “maintenance of effort” (MOE) by the state include
these costs (separate bill passed last year but vetoed by the governor in December). The budget
proposes to extend the SUNY 2020 Plan which allows increases in tuition of $300 per year, but it
has inserted the language that SUNY must find administrative savings (shared services,
administrative cuts) to cover cost increases without faculty/staff cuts, so that the increased tuition
funds go exclusively to hire more faculty and cover the TAP gap (difference between tuition and
maximum TAP $ per student). However, the tuition increase is not guaranteed. In an election
year, the legislature may be resistant to raising tuition costs. In addition, the governor’s decision
to raise the minimum wage at SUNY (which affects 30,000 work-study students) may cost
SUNY up to $26M per year. This may not occur, however, if the decision is made to cut the
number of student hours to keep the costs constant. There was a minimal capital budget that
barely covers urgent repairs in the many old buildings across all SUNY campuses.
The Chancellor was pessimistic about getting more money added to SUNY’s base
allocation, saying instead it was more likely we would get more money for specific attractive
initiatives. She noted that there were already big payoffs for their “systemness” initiatives on
Seamless Transfer, Degree Works, Open SUNY, early college in high school, decreased student
debt and default rates on student debt, collaboration between campuses and shared resources, etc.
(Note: in spite of all these improvements, she has not succeeded in getting more funding for
SUNY). She met with Assembly Speaker Heastie, Senate Leader Flanagan, and Senate Higher
Ed Chair LaValle (who was given a “Friend of SUNY Senate Award” at the plenary), and she has
organized many regional meetings with NY legislators during her campaign “Stand with SUNY.”
She said that she was trying as hard as she could, and added “I’m frustrated too.”
Thus, it is up to us to advocate with our legislators for greater (or lesser if you are so
inclined) SUNY funding to cover incremental cost increases, more money for the Performance
Improvement Programs and capital expenses, and to cover the costs of SUNY initiatives such as
Applied Learning. We are somewhat apprehensive that legislative attention to addressing
SUNY’s needs will be lost in the backwash of the effort to restore CUNY funding. The Governor
has proposed cutting more than $450M from CUNY, to force NY City to shoulder more of the
burden. In contacting your Assemblyman or Senator, remember to state that you are not an
official SUNY representative and to use your personal email account (not your albany.edu
account).
Applied Learning (coops, internships, service learning, etc). As you recall, the previous
budget required SUNY to examine whether it should require an applied learning (AL) course for
all degrees, but left the final decision up to each campus. The timeline requires reporting first by
Feb 15 on all existing AL courses. The next installment (due April 15) covers further data
collection, and campus initiatives for faculty engagement, and student engagement, and requires
campus governance sign off on the document. These campus reports will then be put together by
the Applied Learning Steering Committee (ALSC) for the overall SUNY plan that goes to the
SUNY Board of Trustees at their meeting in June. The ALSC consists of the SUNY Provost,
Presidents of the UFS (SUNY Senate) and FCCC (Comm. College Council), selected
Distinguished Professors and several others from SUNY Central. They will also formulate the
guidelines for the final campus decisions and reports (which are due May 1, 2017). There will
also be a SUNY-wide conference on applied learning in October of this year.
We had reports from Stony Brook detailing their efforts to group AL into 4 categories:
EXP+ Experiential learning—service learning, now being implemented, and three others
in planning HFA+ Humanities and Fine Arts, SBS+ Social and Behavioral Science, and STEM+.
Oneonta reported on its efforts to shape the AL courses with the preparation of students,
contracts outlining expectations and rubrics beforehand and reflections-type of essays required
after completion. They feel that AL will enhance learning, encourage academic excellence and
diversity, and could be used to attract better students. In addition, SUNY Central is developing
software called “Internshop” that would seek to match employers with interns.
The UFS has been very strongly involved in shaping AL because it involves a change in
curriculum which is the primary responsibility of the faculty as stated in the official policies of
the SUNY Board of Trustees, and thus an AL mandate should not just be imposed from above.
As a result of UFS and FCCC Presidents’ lobbying last year, the AL initiative was changed from
a legislative mandate to a local choice of each campus. AL courses furnish great opportunities
for students, but require considerable work and faculty support. Because of this, last April the
UFS passed a resolution setting five guiding principles for AL courses.
1. AL courses should be the responsibility of qualified faculty members of the departments
within the relevant disciplines.
2. Specific learning outcomes should be defined by faculty, who would also determine the
role that such courses play in the curriculum for each major.
3. AL courses should be delivered with academic rigor and educational effectiveness.
4. Faculty compensation and scheduling should be commensurate with that of other credit-
bearing courses.
5. Implementation requires teamwork between faculty and student services personnel
(Career Services Office on our campus).
The final campus plans require approval of Campus Governance Leaders, and we hope that
faculty will be fully engaged in this process and decision.
Materials relating to AL can be found at the following places:
The SUNY Policy statement may be viewed at
<http://www.suny.edu/sunypp/documents.cfm?doc_id=168>. “When life or work experience is
to be credited as a concurrent portion of an academic program design, as in an internship, one
semester credit hour will be awarded for each 40-45 clock-hour week of supervised academic
activity that provides the learning considered necessary to program study.”
MSCHE provides specific guidance regarding internships in its advisory on “Degrees and
Credits [Effective June 26, 2009] (http://www.msche.org/documents/Degree-and-Credit-
Guidelines-062209-FINAL[1].pdf).” The Middle States Commission on Higher Education
(MSCHE) expects its institutions to demonstrate the same consistencies. Recognizing the wide
variety of instructional methods, activities, and modes of delivery, it is important for courses to
have “sufficient academic rigor, content, and depth” for transferability. (Credit Hour Policy,
Effective August 23, 2012, Rev. October 30, 2012,
http://www.msche.org/documents/CreditHourPolicyRev112012.pdf).
The UFS report on Service Learning and the UFS report on the SUNY Applied Learning
Initiative can be found at: www.system.suny.edu/facultysenate/plenary-meetings/#d.en.26351.
PIP Awards. In recent SUNY announcements, UAlbany was awarded $1.5M for a data
collection, intervention and retention program and $0.25M ($1M shared with other University
Centers) for a joint data collection initiative. In the next month or so, announcements will be
made for the EOP proposals and the capital funds proposals.
The Provost (Alex Cartwright) also addressed the UFS. He mentioned that the PIP programs
of last fall would likely be continued next year, since most of the sources of funding would likely
be in the new budget. The metrics of SUNY Excels will continue to gather data on our campuses’
effectiveness. He elaborated on the new PATH program (Predictive Analytics to Transform
Higher Ed). This initiative will analyze the data gathered by the four University Centers with the
recent $1M shared resource award for this purpose. The goal of 150,000 degrees and certificates
is still being proposed, but with a new timeline of 2025/26. It is impossible to do it by 2020,
since those students in four year programs would already have to be admitted to SUNY to finish
in 2020.
Participation of Faculty Governance in Searches and Presidential Reviews. We asked that
the chancellor require that the Campus Governance be allowed to choose the Faculty
representatives on search committees for Presidential, provost and dean searches, instead of
having administration select the faculty members. She said she would have the Provost look into
this. In addition, SUNY Central conducts 360o Reviews of campus presidents (about 6-7 per
year) with inputs from all stakeholders. UFS would like Campus Governance and Student
Associations to be allowed to write up their independent assessments, rather than having hand-
picked faculty and students produce these documents.
Coming Events. There will be two opportunities for Undergraduates to present posters of their
research this year. These occur at the Legislative Office Building in downtown Albany on Feb
24th (for legislators), and on April 15 in Cobleskill at the Undergraduate Research Conference.
There was some talk of combining these two in the future.
There were two resolution passed at the UFS Plenary on the topic of Diversity and Gender
Inclusiveness.
The first asks that Campus Administrators ensure that at least one rest room per building be
gender neutral: that is-- not labeled Men’s Restroom or Women’s Restroom, but just Restroom.
Likewise for locker room facilities.
The second asks that students be allowed to use a “preferred name” separate from their legal
name for non-legally binding purposes, such as campus ID or class lists, and to be allowed to list
a different “preferred” gender.
GSA (Graduate Student Association) – Katherine Slye, GSA President
New Senator, Council Representatives for Spring 2016
We needed to replace a senator and make some changes with council reps. We did interviews in
January and below is the complete council list for the GSA. For personal reasons, Senator
Pageau had to resign; I am searching for a new senator. The new appointments are in purple.
Senator: Caitlin Janiszewski, Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies
Senator: Kimberly Berg, Anthropology
CAA: Henry Curtis, Senator, Philosophy
COR:
o
Hanna Pageau, Senator, Anthropology
o
Thomas Robertson, Educational Psychology and Methodology
GAC:
o
Christina Herrara, Bio/Med Sciences
o
Rebecca Prince, Criminal Justice
o
Kimberly Berg, Senator, Anthropology
GOV: Caitlin Janiszewski, Senator, Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies
LISC: Cathleen Green, Biology
UAC: Megan Scott, Educational Psychology and Methodology
ULC: Anyeline (Angie) Mejia, Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies
UPPC: Nakissa Jahanbani, Senator, Political Science
Advocacy
In December, the GSA had students write postcards to send to Chancellor Zimpher urging her to
support removing the box from the SUNY common application. Upcoming advocacy issues for
this semester include: a ban the box resolution, sustainability resolution, and a library services
resolution and proposal.
We are continuing to work on our State Legislative Action Day, which is scheduled March 8. We
have put out calls for volunteers to meet with legislators and are preparing a training for said
volunteers. We will have training on not only the issues we are advocating for but also how to
have the meetings—a how to lobby training. So far we are collaborating with the University’s
Office of Government Relations, SUNY Central, and possibly GSEU and their partners.
Our PR Director, Ben Mielenz, attended a SUNY wide Ban the Box meeting in December. The
discussions right now are confidential, but he did say that the meeting went well and the
conversation was productive.
NAGPS Report
OUR PRESENTATIONS: (1) Presented on non-academic job market and institutional
transformation to promote alternative professional development opportunities. (2) Gave a
presentation with CMU to on how to put on an NAGPS event. (3) Presented on how to hold an
NAGPS event. (4) The importance of seeking international student experiences. (5) Re-
structuring the advocacy board.
Additionally, we interviewed for national member of the year. We won regional member of the
year. Our team recruited the new Employment Concerns Chair, Alex Howe, who came to the
Leadership Summit UAlbany hosted over the Summer 2015.
Our attendees also attended many concurrent sessions on topics such as International Student
Concerns, Engaging Graduate Students, Graduate and Professional Student Health, Strategic
Planning, and Equity and Inclusion
SA (Student Association) – Jarius Jemmott, Student Association President
Nothing to report
CAA (Council on Academic Assessment) – James Mower, Chair
Nothing to report except that CAA will be meeting on Tuesday, Feb 2 to hear and vote on
committee reports from the General Education Assessment Committee and the Academic
Program Review Committee.
CAFFECoR (Committee on Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, and Community
Responsibility) –Carol Jewell, Chair
I. Informational
CAFFECoR met last on December 10, 2015. We had a discussion about the joint
CAFFECoR/UUP presentation on academic freedom, to wit:
Forum on Academic Freedom is scheduled for March 25, 2016, 1:30-3:30 PM, Campus
Center Assembly Hall; joint forum between CAFFECoR and UUP; what results from this
forum CAFFECoR will bring back to our consideration to present to SEC.
Board of Trustees of SUNY has statement in Part 335, Appointment of Employees, Title
I, regarding academic freedom.
Question: what is the purpose of this requested review of the SUNY Board of Trustees’
statement? Answer: in general, the statement is invisible to most members of the campus
community and it also leaves much unexplained.
Contrast, for example, the much more extensive SUNY Buffalo statement on academic
freedom. Also note that there is no indication of a procedure to be followed if a person
feels their academic freedom has been infringed. (John Schmidt indicated that a person is
supposed to take their complaint to UUP.)
Where should the UAlbany Statement on Academic Freedom appear? General agreement
that it should have university wide, administrative visibility, perhaps under
Academics/Faculty-Staff information link.
Another question: does this apply to students as well? Perhaps this would be a job for
next year’s CAFFECoR to take on.
Definition of “Faculty”: 1.) academic (teaching and librarians) and 2.) professional (non-
teaching)
What about CSEA staff? The wording implies that academic freedom focuses upon
research and teaching and thus does not apply to the CSEA staff.
What about activism incorporated into departmental or course missions? For example,
the Dept. of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies interweaves community activism
with academic study. And such courses as Racism, Classism, Sexism are intended to call
attention to issues regarding social injustice. The Dept. of Sociology also encounters
potential challenges to socially controversial subject matter, as when a student submitted
a paper that that criticized gay marriage on religious grounds. Some faculty now
incorporate into their syllabi classroom policies prohibiting student expressions of bias
toward others based upon race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, physical ability, etc.
The National Coalition Building Institute, of which Carol is a member/trainer, sponsors a
useful training program which includes discussion of how to address
controversial/offensive expression in the classroom when students might not even be
aware of the impact of their statements.
There have been cases in which students have complained that professors discriminated
against them in classroom discussions.
Should a newly expanded statement on academic freedom be incorporated into new
faculty orientation documents? General agreement that it should be, since it appears
nowhere in the documents or websites that each new faculty member receives from
Human Resources. CAFFECoR members indicated that they did not receive anything at
the department level, when they were new employees, regarding academic freedom.
We reviewed the Statement on Freedom of Expression that appears in the Undergraduate
Bulletin—a statement whose language suggests that it applies to whole UAlbany
community. Similarly, we read the Statement as it appears in the Graduate Bulletin.
II. Reports of Actions
After the meeting, Chair Jewell sent email to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and to
the Dean of Graduate Studies to inform them that CAFFECoR no longer serves as “a
hearing body available to those members of the University community who feel their
freedom of expression has been unfairly suppressed.” (This was removed from our charge
in April 2014.) While CAFFECoR is still interested in these issues, since the
responsibility of being the “hearing body” was removed, this should, therefore, be
removed from the undergraduate bulletin and graduate bulletin, respectively. Dean
Williams replied and thanked her for pointing out the misinformation. Sometime later,
Chair Jewell also got a similar response from Dean Altarriba.
Also after the meeting, Chair Jewell asked Human Resources if there is anything in their
orientation packets regarding academic freedom and concluded that the answer is “no.”
III. Recommendations for Actions
Consider whom we would like to invite to sit on the academic freedom forum panel.
CERS (Committee on Ethics in Research and Scholarship) – Michael Jerison, Chair
CERS has had no ethics violations to consider and has nothing to report.
COR (Council on Research) – Daniele Fabris, Chair
The COR subcommittees in charge of various funding programs have completed their work.
Their recommendations were unanimously approved by COR at the Jan 22 meeting. The
following is a brief summary.
The subcommittee on Excellence in Research & Creative Activities Review has met, but has not
produced a report, yet.
Benevolent Award
Subcommittee consisting of 4 members, all COR members.
Total Number of Applicants: 18
Total Number of Applicants Awarded: 12
Total Number of Applicants Not Awarded: 6
Total Amount Available: $3,500
Total Amount Requested: $8,922
Total Amount Awarded: $3,500
Total Amount Remaining in available funding: $0
Conference/Journal Support Award
Subcommittee consisting of 5 members, all COR members.
Total Number of Applicants: 3
2 Conference Award
1 Journal Award
Total Number of Applicants Awarded: 3
Total Number of Applicants Not Awarded: 0
Total Amount Available: $25,000 ($12,500 for Fall / $12,500 for Spring)
Total Amount Requested: $5,500
Total Amount Awarded: $5,200
Total Amount Remaining in available funding: $7,300
FRAP-A Award
Subcommittee consisting of 10 members, 3 were COR members.
Total Number of Applicants: 34
Total Number of Applicants Awarded: 13
Total Number of Applicants Not Awarded: 21
Total Amount Available: $120,000
Total Amount Requested: $333,739.98
Total Amount Awarded: $120,000
Total Amount Remaining in available funding: $0
CPCA (Council on Promotions and Continuing Appointments) – Lynn Warner, Chair
On Dec 8, 1 promotion case was reviewed.
On February 1, two tenure and continuing appointment cases will be reviewed.
GAC (Graduate Academic Council) – Ronald Toseland, Chair
Nothing to report
GOV (Governance Council) – James Collins, Chair
Old business
Since the last Senate meeting, the Governance Council has met twice. Its two primary
committees are working on several projects:
Committee on Assessment of Governance and Consultation
: It has prepared a working
draft of the biennial survey of Shared Governance and is now revising the draft while
consulting with the Office of the President (the survey goes out with joint support).
Committee on Liaison & Election
: It is developing specialized listserves for particular
Senate constituents, e.g. contingents and emeritus faculty. It is also assisting with several
Senate forums being planned for the spring semester, on sustainability across the
university, academic freedom, and contingent concerns.
The Council has also solicited, considered and submitted nominees for the following University
committees and working groups:
Provost’s Applied Learning Steering Committee sub-committees
Public Engagement Council
It is currently preparing nomination lists for the following Senate and University committees
under its purview:
Committee on Resources and Planning (UPPC)
Facilities Committee (UPPC)
In consultation with CPCA, the Council continues to study of the Ombudsperson proposal from
UUP. We are currently investigating options for pairing this proposal with already existing
Ombudsperson roles previously established by the Senate.
In preparation for decision to act on an amendment to establish a Council on Administrative
Review and Evaluation, the Council Chair conducted an informal poll of Senators and Senate
constituents on the question of whether to work to enhance a faculty governance role in review
and evaluation of administrators. Dissemination of information about the poll was assisted by
the help of other Council Chairs in notifying their members and requesting that they, in turn,
disseminate the information. This help is gratefully acknowledged. Over 300 Senate members
and constituents took part in the poll and were strongly supportive of efforts to establish a
governance role in administrative evaluation. The Council has approved an amendment to
establish a Council on Administrative Review and Evaluation.
New business:
At its meeting on February 1, the Council will take up a nominations request from President’s
Advisory Committee on Campus Security.
LISC (Council on Libraries, Information Systems, and Computing) – David Mamorella,
Chair
Nothing to report. We will have our first LISC Meeting on Feb. 15.
UAC (Undergraduate Academic Council) –Karen Kiorpes and Christy Smith, Co-Chairs
UAC met on 01/22/2016. Co-chair Kiorpes reported on a meeting with Senate Chair Fox, Senate
Vice Chair Collins, and Special Assistant to the Provost Gelinas with regards to faculty
governance needs and the Applied Learning initiative. It was recommended that a faculty
member from UAC sit on the Steering Committee.
UAC reviewed a proposal to create a zero credit course submitted by Linda Krzykowski from the
Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Student Engagement. The course will
serve as a schedule “placeholder” and is meant to connect students with UA
resources/communities. The course will be scheduled during a regular class time slot and on the
student’s schedule but will not appear on their transcript. Generally it will have no impact on
classroom space. Consistent with non-credit courses it will have a number less than 100. The
course rubric will be UUNI which means it will be used and scheduled in conjunction with
Student Engagement endeavors. UAC voted to approve the proposal.
UAC had a preliminary discussion about UAlbany’s standards for Liberal Arts and Sciences
course designations in comparison to those of the NY State Education Department. Some of our
courses do not align. Discrepancies are surfacing as proposals for new programs move through
governance on their way to State Ed for final approval. UAC will revisit the issue in the future
after administrative input.
ULC (University Life Council) – Michael Jaromin, Chair
ULC will meet on February 5th. Deputy Chief of Police Aran Mull will be presenting on Active
Shooter preparations.
UPPC (University Planning and Policy Council) – Joette Stefl-Mabry, Chair
I. Informational
UPPC met on January 21st , 2016
UPPC completed revisions to the Campus Impact Form and has shared them with the
SEC for review
II. Reports of Actions
UPPC voted to conditionally approve a proposal, pending minor revisions a proposal to
establish a new Master of Science program in Data Science, presented by the Department
of Mathematics and Statistics
III. Recommended Actions
N/A
