FACULTY SENATE MINUTES NO. 2

September 16, 2003

 

1.CALL TO ORDER: The 2nd meeting of the Faculty Senate for 2003-2004 was called to order at 1:10 PM on September 16, 2003 in the Jacobus Lounge, Brockway Hall, by Chair Jeffrey Walkuski.

 

SENATORS AND MEMBERS PRESENT: J. Walkuski, B. Jackson, P. Buckenmeyer, K. Coombs, B. Mattingly, P. Walsh, G. Beadle, K. Alwes, A. Johnson, M. Friga (non-voting pending election), D. Berger (non-voting pending election), A. Young, T. Phillips, E. Bitterbaum, R. Franco, B. Shaut, L. Anderson, T. Fay, C. Poole, M. Ali, D. Walker, E. Bang

 

SENATORS AND MEMBERS ABSENT: J. Hartsock, S. VanEtten, E. Davis-Russell, B. Jackson, C. Plunkett

 

GUESTS PRESENT: C. Malone, E. Caffarella, J. Mosser

 

II. SENATE ACTIONS:

There was a motion to approve the appointment of Ted Fay to the Facilities and Master Plan Oversight Committee for 2000-2004. (Passed)

 

There was a motion to approve the appointment of Dave Ritchie, member of the Long Range Planning Committee, to the Facilities and Master Plan Oversight Committee. (Passed)

 

Committee on Committees representative, Bernard Jackson, asked for Senate approval of two appointments to the Faculty Affairs Committee: Ellen McCabe, Library, 2003-2005; College Research Committee, Chuck Heasley, Fine Arts and Humanities, to replace John Hartsock who is on sabbatical for one year, 2003-2004. (Passed)

 

There was a motion to amend the motion made by Vice Chair Jackson striking the last sentence from his motion beginning with �in addition.....� (Passed)

 

III.APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: There was a motion to approve the minutes as amended from September 2, 2003.

 

IV. CHAIR�S REPORT:

Chair Walkuski opened his report by giving an update regarding the special committee appointed by him on behalf of the Faculty Senate/Steering Committee to review the restructuring of the Faculty Senate due addition of a new School of Education.There was a need to fill vacancies for a student, part-time, graduate and professional staff member.He indicated he would follow up and send an e-mail or call constituencies in an attempt to fill these slots.

 

He then asked for a motion to approve the appointment of Ted Fay as a representative to the Facilities and Master Plan and Oversight Committee for 2000-2004.

 

The Chair expressed a need for a Long-Range Planning Committee faculty representative to the Facilities and Master Plan and Oversight Committee and asked the Senate for motion of approval of Dave Ritchie.

 

He then announced a request from the President�s Office regarding the need for 3 nominees from the Senate to the University Police Advisory Committee. He explained that there would be a total of 6 participants from the Senate, but that only 3 were being asked for at this time.In answer to a question from Senator Alwes, Walkuski clarified that this committee was just open to faculty.He said he would be sending out an e-mail asking for nominations.

 

V._VICE CHAIR�S REPORT:

 

Vice Chair Jackson brought forth a resolution regarding faculty representation to include School of Education representation until the Senate is reorganized.Before he spoke to the motion he indicated that he had talked with his constituents and, hopefully, the elections are in place to fill 3 Senate vacancies in his area, and should be confirmed by Monday the 29th

 

Jackson read his motion and explained that because of the new School of Education that faculty has no representation on the Senate and the motion would resolve this by amending the bylaws of Chapter 150, Article VI, Section A of the 2002-2004 SUNY Cortland College Handbook.

 

Philip Walsh asked why the terms ended in 2005. Walkuski replied that he and Secretary Buckenmeyer had worked this out at the beginning of this academic year because if you look at the handbook it really means the two year terms end after the last meeting, indicating an academic year instead of a calendar year.

 

Dean Malone asked if this attempt would, in fact, not reduce the number of voting faculty in Education/Professional Studies, by replacing two of the three seats. He further stated that he felt if the third seat turned to be Professional Studies then they would be losing representation. He felt there was a strong need to readdress this inequity..

 

Walkuski explained that this is an attempt to offer equity in the way of representation to Education and that eventually that although it might result in Professional Studies not having equal representation, he reinforced that this is a temporary emergency measure only until the Senate is formally reorganized and reviewed under the new proposed committee.

 

Malone reiterated that although this was an attempt at equal representation, it was, in fact not achieving it. Walkuski replied that a separate motion could be made to correct this problem as well.

 

Fay stated his understanding that the third seat was so designated to rectify the lack of representation for Education and other representation issues were not being addressed at this time.He felt that in order to enfranchise the School of Education, Professional Studies may be losing three seats, temporarily, depending on the results of the election, but in the future could be restored once the committee did its work.

 

Walkuski offered a solution that the Steering Committee could temporarily reassign the seat that is left for Speech Pathology.

 

Dean Malone felt that this does not represent the true spirit of the Faculty Senate which should, ideally, include everyone.

 

Walkuski did not discount Dean Malone�s concern but reinforced that this was a measure that, although not ideal, was due to current unfortunate critical circumstances.

 

Malone again voiced his concern that he felt strongly that there should be equal representation from all schools.

 

Walkuski replied that there may also turn out to be unequal representation in other schools, due to numbers, but once the committee gets underway all of these concerns would be addressed.

 

Senator Walsh spoke in favor of the motion. He suggested that the same type of motion could be undertaken for the School of Professional Studies, as well, and that he was under the assumption that the Senate was going under the old rules. He felt that this particular motion addressed the specific concern of Education alone and if there needed to be a separate motion to address Professional Studies than it could be done at another time.

 


Senator Mattingly asked for re-clarification of which seats were a replacement for the 3 present seats and Walkuski went over it again.

 

Senator Alwes was in agreement with the motion, but suggested that since the last sentence of the motion was ambiguous, she recommended striking it.

 

Vice President Franco asked for clarification that there were going to be 2 seats in Education plus two from Professional Studies.

 

Walkuski said if the amendments were moved this would mean 3 seats from HPER-ESSS, 3 seats from EDU-SHH, and two from Education.

 

Franco wondered if there presented the possibility that if the motion were passed, all 3 seats could be from Speech and Hearing. Walkuski replied that, although this could be a possibility, it was unlikely since there are presently only 2 faculty members in this department.

 

There was general discussion between Vice President Franco and Chair Walkuski requiring clarification so that everyone understand the issue but it was resolved that these problems would be resolved once the committee met.

 

Walkuski mentioned that this was Senate business that should have been conducted last year, and thus, not presently reflected accordingly in the handbook. He felt that eventually the Handbook would need to be revised.

 

Senator Young said that he could not support the motion, not knowing what the clear outcomes would be, since the elections have not yet been held, and what problems may result from it . He could not support it although he remained eager to see that the School of Education has representation.

 

Senator Walsh expressed his concern about consultative committee pools, that if you are on sabbatical you would be excluded from the pool, and he mentioned electronic voting which may change things in the future.

 

VI.TREASURER� S REPORT:

 

Treasurer Coombs announced that she is working on sending out a call for dues and she encouraged all Senators to collect dues from faculty members for the Faculty Senate Scholarship.

 

VII.SECRETARY�S REPORT:

 

Secretary Buckenmeyer had nothing to report.

 

VIII.PRESIDENT�S REPORT:

 

President Bitterbaum reported two news items which was in addition to his Administrative Report (see attachments.)He shared information about a reception held recently prior to the College Council meeting.The three deans on campus were asked to choose 3 or 4 undergraduates and graduate students from their school to share in the form of a poster session. This was conducted as if it were a national meeting. They presented the work they are doing with both undergraduate and graduate students, as mentors, to engage them in such things as undergraduate research, research projects and hypotheses, to challenge them in their thinking.He emphasized that he was going to try and find money to fund and encourage initiatives as these.

 

The next was that the SUNY system has been chosen by the Turkish government to participate in a contract involving an exchange of 20-30 Turkish students, within 18 months, on this campus to study to become more fluent in English and study English as a second language in an effort to teach English to young Turks.He gave some background, since Turkey has decided that since English is the language of commerce and technology, the Turkish government has decided to initiate student exchanges such as this one to enable their students to compete more competitively.He went on to explain that the students would get two degrees.

 

He also mentioned that the campus has received several grants that were applied for: $40,000 to offer minority scholarships, and two additional ones, one for $75,000 and another totaling $300,000.

 

President Bitterbaum expressed his regrets that Provost Davis-Russell could not attend because she was called out of town on personal business.

 

IX.QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT:

 

There were no questions for the President.

 

X. QUESTIONS FOR THE VICE PRESIDENTS:

 

Chair Walkuski asked Vice President Shaut what the Committee on Resource Enhancement�s function was and whether or not it was open to everyone.Vice President Shaut indicated the result of that initiative was the formation of a committee open to everyone, hopefully to be to provide recommendations to the President in the hopes of increasing revenues and decreasing expenditures at the college.

 

President Bitterbaum added that it was his idea, since the economy is so slow in New York State, and worsening in the anticipation of a 5 billion shortfall, to develop a committee Chaired by Vice President for Finance and Management, Bill Shaut, and perhaps including those with a financial and/or economic background, with ideas to help strengthen us for the future.

 

XI. STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS:

 

Long Range Planning Committee - Ted Fay, Chair, announced the committee would be meeting in a few weeks to begin their work.

 

Educational Policy Committee - L. Anderson, Chair, opened by passing around a meeting schedule encouraging faculty to attend 8 AM Wednesday morning meetings, in the Miller Lounge staff room. She also provided a committee list so that those with ideas or interest could talk to those individuals representing their constituency. She said the Deans would be electronically passing information on to the Chairs, who would, in turn, pass it on to the faculty that way for the first time, and her desire that the information got out in an effective and timely manner.

 

She also reminded the Senators that the Faculty Senate approved some new guidelines for educational policy last year and her committee is operating under those new guidelines this year. They will be discussing those at their meeting and disseminate them to the college campus for a two week review and comment period. She encouraged people to bring or submit in writing to their representative following the meeting any thoughts or concerns. It is her committee�s desire to open up how a dialogue on how policy is executed or changed on this campus at the undergraduate level.

 

Dean Caffarella asked what EPC�s function is and how their role differs from the Curriculum Committee. Anderson answered that the EPC governs different educational, undergraduate or traditional policies. She further went on to state that, according to the handbook, apparently, the committee also looks at how the curriculum process works and reflects on how to change it for the campus.The Curriculum Committee looks at course curriculum, specifically.

 

President Bitterbaum asked if her committee would handle a possible incentivehe has come up with in an attempt to recognize students with straight A�s. She replied that, most likely, her committee would be involved since they looked at pass/fail and Dean�s list policies previously.

Student Affairs Committee - No report.

 

Faculty Affairs Committee - No report.

 

XII. SUNY SENATOR�S REPORT:

Senator Phillips announced that he attended the SUNY Planning meeting the previous Friday and Saturday where the business of the Senate is formulated for the next year.

 

October 2-3 there is an International Student Symposium at SUNY Binghamton.

 

He went on to explain that from the Provost�s Office there has evolved a committee called the Advisory Council on GeneralEducation, ACGE, a descendent of the Provost�s Advisory Council on Gen Ed (PACGE), which involves courses that are going to be approved for the SUNY General Education program.This new groupmostly consists of faculty and the Provost�s Office is no longer involved in approving individual course for GE.He called this �a great victory for University Faculty Senate.�

 

The New Vision for Teacher Education has developed a template for transfer students to ease the transition from two year schools to four year schools� teacher education programs.���

 

He then discussed the Provost�s Office incentive to increase faculty representation on all of the campuses for mission review.

 

He announced the General Education conference being held in Albany on November 13-14. He encouraged anyone interested in General Education could funding from the Provost�s and/or President�s office to attend.

 

There is going to be a report from the SUNY Provost�s Office on the SUNY faculty development initiative and he stated this should be an interesting initiative because more money would be funded to enhance faculty development.

 

Brian Stenson, from the Budget Office, presented a budget breakdown indicating that there is going to be a 5 or 6 billion deficit for the next few years.This has forced other campuses to find new ways to increase funding.The BAP (Budget Allocation Process) is going to be revised because it didn�t work very well.50 million has been reallocated from some schools. The outcome of this may be that some schools who would have received less money may now receive more. This old process was unfair, however, now some new more performance measures, such as graduation rates, may be built into the funding measures to make things more equitable.

 

System wide assessment was the biggest item on the agenda being pushed from the Chancellor�s office which is now called value assessment. There is a discussion group formed between SUNY system and administration from the UFS who is working on the 5th draft document.He indicated their plan to e-mail it to him, who would , in turn, disseminate it on campus.They want the widest audience available for the draft document, which will plan the time line for initiating the pilot project on system wide assessment and moving the pilot to university wide assessment.

 

The UFS is also going to be reviewing the history of the faculty, between the UFS and the system office, in the position that the UFS has had against systemwide assessment.The UFS has endorsed assessment at the campus level and wants to maintain it. Documents will be circulating this history and the resolution that was passed, distributed by Chancellor King last June, that the BOT passed. Now the Provost�s Office has been directed by the Board of Trustees to support this program.He indicated that a lot of veteran UFS senators are against the whole process.This issue is going to be discussed at the October 23 plenary.�� Phillips explained that his job is to get as much feedback from this campus regarding sentiments concerning this unfunded mandate. He encouraged everyone to contribute their voice.

 

Senator Jackson asked Phillips about something he remembered from a UUP meeting involving UUP sending representatives from Albany to visit campuses to discuss this issue and whether or not this was true.

 

Phillips remarked that he thought that UUP should be involved in such a way but he did not know if this was true. He said this measure would mean program assessment would be at the same level on every campus. He gave an example that History 101 would be the same on every campus with the exact same content and some standardized tests.He encouraged campus governance leaders to get involved.

 

Dean Malone asked if there was any discussion about how SUNY had approved systemwide assessment a couple of years ago and inquired why it was coming up again.

 

Phillips replied that he thinks there was a line in the task force that was approved but a lot of old school people on the UFS do not endorse it.He said there is a report showing the total benefit from UFS that has endorsed it, but he personally is against that approach, and that is why he is encouraging campus involvement.

 

President Bitterbaum added that in the past two or three years the subject has not come up. He felt that their plan was not going to review faculty, when Peter Salins was here, and that Cortland has gotten hurt by this measure in the past.He felt that they were certainly using old data. He explained the background that there was a decision on how to base funding depending on discipline, but it was decided that teacher education gets woefully undercut compared to programs like engineering, and because Cortland has so many teacher education students, it gets hurt.He felt that it was not equitable and that as soon as the BAP gets revised the better.He announced that Patty Francis has been loaned to SUNY Albany starting in November for 8-9 months, three days a week, for Mission Review because of her areas of expertise and although this was a sacrifice for the campus, and himself as a new President, he felt her participation would be a benefit. He encouraged those interested to share their information with Jeff and himself, especially in Patty�s absence.

 

XIII. STUDENT SENATORS REPORTS:

 

Eunice Bang, Elementary Education major, and Dan Walker, Secondary Education major, were introduced as new student senators from SGA.Both stated their desire to bring useful information back and forth to their constituents in SGA involving the Faculty Senate where both groups could benefit mutually.

 

XIV. COMMITTEE REPORTS:

 

Committee on Committees - Committee on Committees representative Bernard Jackson, asked Senate approval for two appointments to the Faculty Affairs Committee, Ellen McCabe, Library, 2003-2005; College Research Committee, Chuck Heasley, Fine Arts and Humanities, to replace John Hartsock who is on sabbatical for one year, 2003-2004. (Passed)

 

XV. NEW BUSINESS:

 

The motion from Gordon Beadle was withdrawn involving the administration attending Senate meetings.

 

There was a motion by Amanda Johnson, Library Senator, which was presented, to add a library member to the Dean of Arts and Sciences search, and a Library member to the Vice President of Finance and Management Search.This will be discussed and voted on at the next meeting on October 30.

 

Dean Caffarella asked if Johnson�s motion meant 6 seats altogether, since 3 were defined additionally, or did this mean 6 total. Walkuski said that the language of this motion was taken directly out of the handbook and he would have to see the original motion to answer the question. It was decided that 6 total were required, although maybe the handbook should be revised because it might be ambiguous.

 

XVI.AREA SENATORS REPORTS:

 

Masoom Ali reported that October 2 was Make a Difference Day and invited the campus community to participate and help the students beautify the campus.He also announced the coming of Hurricane Isabel and resultant storms and asked people to shut their windows and recommended they not leave papers nearby just as a safety precaution.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 2:20 PM.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Barbara Kissel

Recording Secretary

 

The following reports are appended to the Minutes in the order reported and submitted by Senators and other members.

 

(1) Administration�s report to Senate submitted by President Bitterbaum.

 

(2) EPC meeting schedule submitted by L. Anderson.

 

(3) Motion concerning the Consultative Committee pool submitted by P. Walsh.

 

(4) Library Faculty Amendment to proposed search committee make-ups submitted by A. Johnson.

 

http://www.cortland.edu/senate/minutes/m2.html