Faculty Council
Minutes of the meeting of October 11, 1993
1. Chairperson Theodore Steinberg called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m.
2. Motion (M.Nelson/D.Kerzner): to approve the published agenda. Motion passed.
3. Motion (F.Krohn/M.L.Lunde): to approve the published minutes of the September 13, 1993 meeting. Motion passed.
4. Vice President for Academic Affairs David Hess reported, in the absence of President MacPhee that Chancellor Johnstone's was recovering satisfactorily from surgery and was expected to return to his office in about a month. With regard to the budget, Hess reported that Board of Trustees would continue meeting into October, after which the 1994-95 budget would be presented to the governor. He said the usual mid-year report on the state's economy would be published soon. He said he anticipated a hold-the-line budget for 94-95. He said SUNY had learned lessons concerning negative publicity last year, and that the new budget would be presented with a positive thrust. The Vice President announced that the new Faculty Handbook was being printed, and would be distributed near the end of the month. On enrollment, Hess reported that the 93-94 SUNY target of 4534 FTEs would be very nearly met by 4505-4510 FTEs projected for this year's enrollment. Hess urged all to attend the Convocation and panel discus- sion with speaker Leon Botstein. He announced that the Open House in progress had brought over 200 families to campus, the largest such group to date. He said families seem to be looking earlier.Hess reminded FC of the Teaching/Learning Conference scheduled for Oct. 30. He also announced the interactive video conference "New Conflict on Campus - Can we Live with the 1st Amendment" co-sponsored by Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Student Affairs to take place on Oct. 21.
5. Chairperson Theodore Steinberg reported that the Executive Committee recommended that the Faculty Council appoint a search committee for Associate Vice President for Curriculum and Academic Support comprised of Nancy Bowser, William Foeller, Richard Hart, Susan Luntz, Heidi Mahoney, and Howard Wescott. He said these people had consented to serve.
Motion (P.Sinden/M.L.Lunde): to appoint the search committee as recommended by the Executive Committee. Motion passed.
Steinberg reported that a Curriculum Review Committee had been appointed, comprised of 14 faculty and administrators: MindaRae Amiran (English), Fred Byham (Mathematics), Len Faulk (Political Science), Marc Guy (Music), Dorothy Harris (Advising), Arlene Hibschweiler (Business), Jim Hurtgen (Associate VP), Melinda Karnes (Education), Mary Lee Lunde (Dean), Myron Luntz (Physics), Amar Parai (Economics), Ted Steinberg (English), Alan Wheeler (Dean), and Sharon Zablotney (Dean). He said the commit- tee will select its own chair when it holds its first meeting, in about a week. P.Sinden inquired as to the governance standing of this committee, and what its charges were. Steinberg answered that it would be a subcommittee of the Academic Affairs Commit- tee. He said the committee would begin by examining transcripts and syllabi to determine what we are doing at Fredonia to provide a good education, and what we might do to improve it. He said the committee will further develop its own agenda. T.Loughlin com- mented that the committee seemed under-represented in fine arts. He noted that there is currently no requirement to take any course in the fine arts on this campus. Steinberg responded that there were two people from each of the divisions, including Marc Guy from Music and Mary Lee Lunde from Art. Steinberg reported that Governance Committee was considering recommendations of the Planning & Budget Committee concerning its structure. He said a report from Governance would be forthcoming at the next FC meeting. K.Mantai asked whether FC would consider the issue of hour exams being given on the last day of classes. M.R.Amiran answered that Academic Affairs Committee did look at this last year. She said there was serious reason to believe that if FC tried to make rules about what can and cannot be done, it might be infringing on perfectly legitimate academic activities. She said the commit- tee decided not to recommend legislating any further than exist- ing policies, which include not holding any final exams during the last week. She said there may be cases in which a 'unit' exam held in the last week would help prepare students for the final. Mantai asked whether back-to-back hourlies and finals are permit- ted. Amiran said such matters were brought up from different areas, and it seemed that it was best to leave this to the discretion of the departments. Mantai suggested that a solution might be to end classes on Wednesday. Amiran suggested that we might consider reintroducing reading days at end of semester.
6. Faculty Senator H. Joseph Straight reported that FS met at SUNY Central in Albany Oct. 1-2, 1993. He said this had been the first time FS tried having meetings of all its standing commit- tees, and meetings with local governance leaders, all in the same weekend with the FS meeting. Straight said he had attended a meeting of the Undergraduate Programs and Policies Committee, where assessment and transfer articulation are of present concern. He said the committee would sponsor an assessment conference at the end of October, and that it would include several representatives from Fredonia faculty. He said data on transfer articulation were presented by Richard Jarvis, along with SUNY Central's views. Straight reported that the committee feels that private institutions seem more transfer friendly, partly because they can get Bundy Aid for the full four years if they can attract transfers. He said SUNY got just over half of the recent class of 27,000 two-year-degree transfers. He said Geneseo has a course all Freshmen must take, and resentment is encountered from the transfers who must take it, too. He said Cortland has no specific policy for GCP course transfers. Straight said Jamestown Community College is Fredonia's main source of transfers (90 transfers from JCC in Fall '91; 27 from Monroe; 24 from Erie; a few each from Corning, Niagara, Genessee, and Finger Lakes.) Straight said FS had a 2-hour discussion with Gov. Cuomo. He said all were charmed by Cuomo's presentation, which included much humor, no promises. He said SUNY is seen by the administra- tion primarily as important for long range economic viability of the state. He said the governor is opposed to increased Bundy Aid, and to differential tuition. Straight said Vice Chancellor William Anslow reported on the 1994-95 Preliminary Budget, essentially "hold the line." Straight reported that the Chancellors Awards and Distin- guished Professorships, and some other programs, had been run by a one-person Scholarly Programs Office; recent SUNY Central staffing changes merged those responsibilities with another office, resulting in severe overload. He said SUNY recommended cutting some of the programs by 2/3, by allowing nominations only every third year. He said FS passed a resolution asking SUNY to restore staffing to support these programs.
Motion (M.Nelson/F.Krohn): to adopt the following resolution recommended by the Faculty Senator:
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Faculty Council of the College at Fredonia endorses the resolution recently passed by the Universi- ty Faculty Senate, urging the Chancellor to maintain the Chancel- lor's Awards for Excellence and Distinguished Professorship programs at current levels.
C.Willeford asked whether, under SUNY's recommendation, Fredonia's nominations would be staggered with other colleges. Straight responded that under that proposal, the each of the different types of awards would be offered only once every three years. J.McVicker asked whether the same office was also respon- sible for faculty exchange scholars. Straight said the same office may be responsible for that program and also the Conversa- tions in the Disciplines. K.Mantai asked whether these programs have to be administered by SUNY, as opposed to local campuses. Straight responded that prestige of the awards is enhanced by having them SUNY-wide. J.Kraus asked whether the programs had already been cut to the reduced level. Straight responded that they had not yet been cut.
Motion to adopt the resolution passed.
T.Rywick asked, regarding transfer policy, whether we assume GCP Parts I and II have been completed when we accept transfers with two-year degrees. M.R.Amiran responded that Fredonia has a generous system of establishing equivalency, but some students do have deficiencies to make up, especially in Part II. Straight added that whether we assume GCP requirements have been satisfied sometimes depends on articulation agreements with the individual 2-year colleges. J.Hurtgen added that is no uncertainty: each transcript is evaluated, and there are occasional deficiencies; there is no automatic assumption of GCP's being satisfied.
7. Governance Committee chair Daniel Jelski made no report.
8. Report of College Scholarship Committee, Daniel Tramuta, chair was postponed to November's meeting.
9. The Faculty Council received a two-page report [included in Archive minutes] of the Commencement Committee submitted by David Kasper, chair.
10. The Faculty Council received a one-page report [included in Archived minutes] from Internship Coordinator Barbara Mallette. She added that International internships may represent new creative options.
11. Vice President Hess reported for President MacPhee on the Enrollment Planning Advisory Committee (formerly Enrollment Management Committee). Hess said the committee now deals with enrollment projections, student recruitment issues such as academic program changes, marketing issues and publications, and ways to increase the applicant pool. He said the President has expanded the faculty representatives on this administrative advisory committee to gain perspective. He said current faculty on the committee include Julius Adams, Ruth Antosh, Jack Berkley, Alberto Rey, Tom Rywick and Ted Steinberg as FC Chair. He said the committee would meet monthly to deal with these issues.
12. Report of Computer Committee, Daniel O'Connell, was post- poned until November.
13. The Faculty Council received a two-page report [included in Archive minutes] from Computing Services, Susan Luntz, Associate Director. P.Sinden requested that Computing Services' maintenance shutdown of the mainframe be done other than during day or early evening times, citing very great negative impact of doing such maintenance during high use periods. Luntz responded that Comput- ing Services had received similar requests from other sources. She said that she expects to have in place next summer, or soon thereafter, a separate traffic-directing computer to handle communications between the various on-campus PC's, PALS, and SUNY Central when the mainframe is down. She explained that routine maintenance work is done during the week because the college's maintenance agreement with Unisys would cost more money for "after hours" service. She said she would report further to the Faculty Council on the actual costs that would be entailed to move the shutdown maintenance to a low-use period. T.Loughlin commented that better software is needed on mainframe, and asked what is being done in that area. Luntz said she could not comment on the statistical packages; Sandra Brown could better answer that. She said she knows of no better or upgraded word-processing software for the mainframe than Runoff; word-processing is being done mostly on PC's now. She said there are alternatives to Kermit, easier to use, for file transfers; she said most faculty offices use something else such as Info- view. She noted that Kermit is a national package, not a local software design. Loughlin noted that Z-Modem, X-Modem, and other communication protocols work much better, but may not be able to interface with the mainframe. Luntz said she would study this issue further and report again. MindaRae Amiran commented that advising at the Change Center is very frustrating. Noting that the opscan forms were initiated as only a temporary solution, she asked whether there is something better coming. Luntz replied that there is a Priori- ties & Planning Board, chaired by Dan O'Connell, which is review- ing such questions and setting priorities. K.Mantai asked whether many smaller computers or networks might be an effective alterna- tive to the mainframe. J.Hurtgen said there has been interest in ready-made programs such as Banner, which works but is not specifically tailored to our needs, and is not liked by anyone using it within SUNY. He said that alternative financial aid programs can be designed, but can absorb massive amounts of programmers' time. Luntz said earlier priorities were to develop software for transcripts next, then for registration procedures, but those priorities may no longer be in effect.
14. New Business
P.Sinden noted that students who use the Counselling Center have special burdens in addition to the usual academic burdens. He said the college should not add to their burdens by making their use of the Counselling Center a public affair. He said the way it is situated, students must walk past a very busy public office, subjecting them to possible embarrassment. He urged that we move Counselling as quickly as possible to a more private location. L.M.Dimitri responded that the Middle States surveys have recommended this, too, and that relocation is on the way pending approvals from Albany and David Burdette's office.
15. Motion (M.Nelson/F.Krohn): to adjourn. Motion passed at 5:05 p.m.
Attendance:
Professional Staff, Management:
[x] K. Bonds (95)[1]
[x] S. Clarke (93)
[x] V. Conover (93)
[1] D. Danielson (95)
[1] K. Harrington(94)
[x] T. Kflu (93)[1]
[1] T. Malinoski (93)
[x] G. McNeil (95)
[x] C. Niles (94)
[x] M. Pabst (94)[1]
[x] B. Servatius (93)
[2] A. Wiedenbeck (95)
Arts, Education, Humanities:
[2] J. Burke (94)
[x] M. Charbonnet (93)
[1] J. Gillette (93)
[x] H. Jacobson (93)
[x] D. Kerzner (95)
[x] R. Klassen (95)
[x] T. Loughlin (93)
[x] K. Lucey (93)
[x] L. Maheady (94)
[x] J. McVicker (95)
[x] M. Nelson (93)
[1] J. Parla (95)
[ ] (VACANT)
Natural and Social Sciences:
[2] G. Baird (94)
[x] J. Hansen (94)
[x] T. Janik (93)
[x] J. Kraus (95)[1]
[x] F. Krohn (93)
[x] K. Mantai (93)
[x] A. Parai (95)
[x] J. Romal (93)
[x] T. Rywick (94)
[x] A. Sarker (95)
[x] P. Sinden (93)
[E] B.J.Stephens (95)[1]
[x] M. Vassallo (95)
Student Representatives:
[x] N. Crino
[1] S. Downey
[x] G. Schneider [1]
[ ] (VACANT)
[ ] (VACANT)
[ ] (VACANT)
Ex Officio:
[x] D. Burdette [1]
[1] J. Crowley
[x] M. Dimitri
[x] D. Hess
[x] J. Hurtgen
[x] D. Jelski
[x] M. L. Lunde
[E] D. MacPhee
[x] T. McNeil
[x] T. Steinberg
[x] J. Straight
[2] S. Warner
[E] A. Wheeler
[x] S. Zablotney
Guests:
James Hurtgen
Barbara Mallette
Brian Bramick
Connie Willeford
Minda Rae Amiran
Susan Luntz
Thomas McNeil, College Senate Secretary