Faculty Council
Minutes of the meeting of September 8th 1997
Chairperson Jane Romal called the meeting to order at 4:05 PM.
1. A quorum was present. The Agenda was approved as distributed.
2. The minutes of the April 14th and May 12th meeting were approved unanimously.
3. President's Report (Dr. Dennis Hefner):
Welcome back to the first Faculty Council meeting. I've just got a couple of quick items I thought I would go through. I'm not going to repeat any of the items that I had at the Fall campus wide meeting. I did want to express my appreciation at so many of you being at that particular meeting. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to have a chance to interact with a large percentage of the campus. I did think that if anyone had any questions about those remarks or comments or the things that were sent out afterwards I'd be more than happy to entertain some questions after I give a couple of quick updates.
The first item I wanted to get to was the budget. It's still good news. We have received more detail since the fall meeting and our operating budget looks fine. In fact it actually came in with a slight adjustment a little bit higher than we thought, and at the moment it looks like it's about eighty-two thousand or so above what we were anticipating. That's not a huge amount of money but that certainly is in the right direction. It's always good to be on the plus side.
We also have received a little more information on what is called the IFR buyout. For all of the IFR accounts, the state used to have us turn money into them, and then they would turn around and give money back. They were taking a little more from some campuses and giving a little more back to other campuses. We now have received the final numbers on what will appear on this campus. We will come out slightly ahead on the IFR buyout. So we are going to be a very, and we are talking very minor beneficiary, but at least it's not going to be a negative number, so all of the IFR accounts that you were expecting to have the dollars for this year will be available and you wont be in a heap of trouble.
We are still waiting for final word on the construction fund. We know that in the original budget as approved by the governor there was not funding for several projects, especially the design money for Mason. There is, however, still 425 million dollars rattling around in Albany. There is a chance that some of that money will make its way to the construction fund. That is still to be decided and we'll probably know within the next three or four weeks. If it does make its way to the construction fund then I think it's a fairly good chance that we'll at least be able to get some of the design money for Mason Hall. I don't have final word on that yet but it's not dead yet, so that's at least a reasonable piece of good news.
You may have noticed the paper this weekend, The Observer ran a picture of our local legislative delegation. A little over a week ago we had a breakfast here on campus to thank the delegation. We did have the Executive Committee of Faculty Council and a number of other individuals from the table were at that breakfast. This was our chance to thank them for intervening on our behalf. It really was the Legislature that lead the charge against the Governor's Budget that resulted in the reinstatement. We had a full about an hour and fifty minutes with the legislature where not at one single time did we ask them for anything. That will be the only time this year that that will happen, but we thought they should have at least one breakfast where they feel good about what they've done, and get congratulations for their accomplishments.
At the end of this week we will know with great certainty where our enrollment is going to wind up. To date all of the projections that we are receiving from Rich Notte have us coming right around 4500. In fact each of his projections so far to the annualized figure has us coming in just slightly above, normally five or ten FTE above an annualized 4500 FTE. That looks very good, and unless there is some strange thing that happens this week it appears that we are going to come in right around where we had hoped to be. That is very good news too.
I do have a copy to pass around of the advertisement for the Vice President for Academic Affairs. This is the add that will be in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's running once in September and it will be running again in the first week of October. I'm not sure which edition it's in in September; it's either the second or third week in September it will be running. It has been sent in and it's all set to go.
You may have heard that there has been some reorganizing going on within the Vice President for Administration area. Tracy Bennett has been appointed and he's been looking at his area; there have been some vacancies that were over there. He has, within the people that he had available, moved things around and has now come up with a final plan which I have approved that did result in a net reduction of two point five professional positions. There will be some savings resulting from those. We're going to put them into a university-wide fund that we can have as a contingency, and if the budget looks really good by the end of the year, we should have some year-end money to be spent on some one-time areas. I did want to let you know that that plan has come in. You may be hearing a little bit more about that. It did result in a net reduction.
The Inauguration is coming up in a little over a week and a half; that will be next Friday, September 19th. I hope that as many as possible will be able to come to the Inauguration. It should be a wonderful time, the concert that the School of Music is going to be putting on is going to be tremendous. It's going to be about twenty-seven minutes worth of music. That means there isn't going to be much in the way of speeches, and any speeches that are given are going to be very brief. Mercifully brief as a matter of fact so that we can be showcasing the students. We will have Chancellor Ryan in attendance at the program. We just got a call this afternoon that Tom Eagan will not be in attendance, so giving the greeting from the Board of Trustees will be Miles Lasser. The Chancellor will be here, and he will be on campus and will be staying for the reception, so there will be a good chance to go up and talk to him. I know I'm going to have him for a awhile captive in an automobile so that I can talk to him for a bit. It will be a great opportunity.
The only other thing I had on my list was Len Faulk had said he had a few announcements that he'd like to mention to you. I'll turn it over to Len and when he finishes if you do have any questions or comments on the fall remarks that I made I'd be more than happy to take them then.
Len Faulk: Just a couple of things for the Academic Affairs Committee of Faculty Council that will be brought to you very shortly. One on the four-year guarantee and the other on the Ethnic Studies minors.
One is the four-year guarantee. We have recommendations from the task force on student access to classes, part of which was access to classes and part of which was a four-year guarantee. We are reviewing that and will be putting down some administrative recommendations for implementing the four-year guarantee and then submitting that to the Academic Affairs Committee for their review and comments.
Secondly the Ethnic Studies Committee did present a report in the spring on the proposed Ethnic Studies minor, particularly a minor in the African American Studies. That committee has reconstituted. They will be working on finalizing a minor in African American Studies and presenting that soon to the Academic Affairs committee. Just to let you know, those two things will be coming.
Bob Deming: Is the report of the task force on student access ever going to be distributed?
Len Faulk: Sure. We can get that out shortly.
Bob Deming: Because apparently portions of it are being implemented, and as far as I know it's never been discussed in any campus forum.
Second, can we assume that since in your proposal for a new tenure- track positions criteria, you have said that new majors that have not yet been approved at the campus level... Ethnic Studies will be in the mix or will not be in the mix.
Len Faulk: As a minor it will be in the mix. In other words it will be a part of an ongoing program. It's not a new major.
Jon Kraus: Was that criteria that Jefferson sent me a copy of, was that ever distributed or did it just go to department chairs.
Jefferson Westwood: It was sent to department chairs and Directors.
4. Chair Romal: We're sorry that Jefferson Westwood is moving onto the management side, but he's agreed to continue as Parliamentarian here. In the mean time we need someone to serve as vice-chair of Faculty Council. The Executive Committee would like to nominate Dan Jelski for this position. He's agreed to serve until the end of the year. If there are any other nominations I would welcome them at this time.
4a. Dan Jelski was elected to the position of Vice-Chair, Faculty Council be a unanimous vote.
Chair Romal: He already is helping, he noticed that the ads for this meeting were in the wrong room, so he fixed that up. We appreciate having him on our board. He did a very nice job with governance.
The search committees are the next thing. They're on the back. We've already received some comments so I thought we'd just go down through the committees. The first three are supposed to be elected and the last one, the Administrative Review Committee, as I understand it is supposed to be appointed.
4b. Are there any comments first on the Vice Presidential Committee for the Search for Vice President of Academic Affairs?
Jon Kraus: I had communications with three people unsolicited in Social Sciences. There was concern expressed by some who appreciate that there are alternative values involved in the selection of the committees.
What I'm saying is that people who impress themselves on the matter felt that there was a tension between the need to represent certain constituencies on these search committees in particular the Vice President of Academic Affairs. In this case there is relatively low level representation of, if fact, academics on the committee of the Vice-President of Academic Affairs, six out of thirteen. I talked also to the Chair. The Chair does not want to talk to the president of Faculty Council and the chair does not particularly wish any changes so I will not recommend any changes or propose any changes. Several people did in fact want me to represent to Faculty Council that they were concerned with the tension.
What we are seeking is somebody who will provide very strong leader- ship for academic life at Fredonia. One aspect of this involves in fact telling us we should be as good a faculty, as scholarly a faculty as possible. There is not in the advertisement or elsewhere the idea that the candidate we are looking for should himself or herself have experience in this domain. It is difficult to believe that somebody who does not partake in a scholarly or performance background experience can tell us, "Hey, you folks should be doing this more," encouraging us and leading us in that way. I just encourage us to think that, when we look for a Vice President of Academic Affairs, we ourselves will be participating in the process. We'll be asking whether the candidates have these kinds of qualifications.
Dr. Hefner: I would make a comment on the ad in that it was my assumption that in the line that reads, "and professional qualifications for a tenured faculty appointment are required" it is implicit that someone would have the scholarly qualifications necessary for attaining a faculty appointment. That was implicit in that wording. That also means that they have some experience in teaching. I know how good teaching is, and can understand the service role on the campus too.
Michael Grady: I'd like to make a suggestion that when these lists are circulated, that the office or department that the person is from be noted. I couldn't even find some of these people in the phone book.
Chair Romal: You couldn't find Mike Mulligan because it's Milligan.
Michael Grady: Jeff Bucky?
Chair Romal: He's a student, we had to have a student on each one of these committees, so he is a student.
The first committee was elected unanimously. Motion from Ken Mantai, Second from Nancy Boynton.
Chair Romal: The next committee is the Dean of Arts and Humanities. Any comments on that?
Bob Deming: I don't know some of these people. Could you identify them?
Chair Romal: Carol Prevet is in dance, Bob Klassen is in Theater, Kay Stonefelt you've seen playing her drums in the music department, Andrea Herrara is in English, Ruth Antosh is in Foreign Languages, Blaine Gaustad is in History, Ringo Ma is in Communications, Elizabeth Curtin-O'Brien is in Admissions, Wendy Klepfer is the Library Clerk from CSEA, and Jessie Dean is the student.
The committee was elected unanimously. Motion from Bob Deming. Second from Sylvia Clarke.
Chair Romal: Next is the dean for Social and Natural Sciences and Professional Studies. Any comments on that committee? Would you like me to tell you where these people are from?
Bob Deming: Yes please.
Chair Romal: Moj Seyedian is from Business. Dan Dobey is in Education. Sally Smith is CSEA, Judy Elwinger is from Career Develop- ment, Nancy Boynton is from Mathematics, Joe Bilharz is from Anthropology and Sociology, Kathleen Bonds is from EDP, Mike Reynolds is the student, Roger Byrne is from Biology, and Jack Berkley is Geosciences.
The committee was elected unanimously. Motion from David Ludlam. Second from Nancy Boynton.
We took that list, by the way, from the preference polls and from people who had volunteered and then we asked some people. We really felt that many very good people had volunteered, but different things that happened in their lives so some couldn't do it, so we did appreciate everybody's willingness to serve.
4d. The Administrative review committee for Student Affairs: Ken Mantai is from Biology, Jack Croxston is from Psyche, Arnold Hibschweiler is from Business Administration, Karen Klose is from financial aid, Nan Bowser is a Registrar, James Jackson is from EDP, Leanna Dunst is from the Counseling Center, Joanne Kaufman is from the library, Terry Wygant is in Academic Advising CSA member, Fabrizo D'Aloisio is from admissions, Harry Watters is from housing, and Kate Barrett is the student. Jeff Stauser is also on that committee from Public Safety. Are there any comments on that committee?
The committee was appointed unanimously. Motion from Dick Weist. Second from David Ludlam.
4c. Chair Romal: The panel on General Education Task Force report. Moj is going to talk about that then we come to the Senator's Report and we've already done the Administrative Review Committee for Student Affairs, so I will now hand it over to Jefferson although you are no longer Vice Chair.
5. Jefferson Westwood: I will just report that I have been working actively with the Planning and Budget Committee, but I think you will hear enough about that when Dr. Kraus gives that committee's report. It's been a real pleasure to serve and I remain fully committed to shared governance so if anybody has any ideas of things I can do to facilitate or keep the machinery of Faculty Council oiled, I stand at your beck and call.
Chair Romal: Thank you, does our new Vice Chair have any comments?
Vice Chair Jelski: No
6. Mojtaba Seyedian (Faculty Senator):
You all know that we got some indication from the Board of Trustees and from the Governor and also from the SUNY administration that they wanted to kind of dictate a General College Education. They want to dictate a set of courses, that was one thing, and they also wanted to have all of the public universities across New York State from Community Colleges all the way to University Centers to have more or less the same type of general education that they want us to have. The SUNY Faculty Senate became alarmed about this and they got together with the Faculty Council of the Community Colleges and last year in October they organized a conference on General Education in SUNY. As a result of that conference a task force on general education was established comprised of faculty from the SUNY side and Faculty from the Community Colleges side. This task force has been working. It finally came up with a report, I think on Friday we got the report. It's in a box, and we are going to make sure that either today or tomorrow we send copies to all of the chairs and directors. Everybody is welcome to take a look at that report. The Senate asked all the SUNY colleges to take a look at this report and send their reactions and comments about the report to that task force. After we do that, then the task force will write a new draft about that general education and hopefully by October that draft will be discussed and will be approved by both the SUNY Faculty Senate and the Faculty Council of Community Colleges. Then it will be sent forward to the Chancellor for his action. Going back to the reaction to that draft. As far as we are concerned, Jane and I have been working for the past week to put together a panel of faculty in this college and this panel will have an open meeting on September 26th at 3pm. So on that date and time those who are interested who will come to Williams Center. I don't know the room number yet, and the panel will be here and all the faculty members who would like to register their reaction to that draft will come in here and we'll take minutes and we'll have a discussion about that report. Then we will send a summary of the reaction on this campus about that draft to the President of the SUNY Faculty Senate.
Chair Romal: I am sending a slip of paper around. You can sign up if you want your own copy we'll send you one directly rather than have you get it through your chairs. I know there was a pretty heavy discussion of this when it came up recently. It would be nice if many of you had some input into this.
7a. Vincent Courtney (Governance Chair):
I'm the new chair of Governance. Last year Governance had quite a difficult road. We didn't meet at all last year and that's one of the reasons why things got so off track. Also I have several handouts at the back of the room one of which is a two-page list of the committees and memberships. That is very rough, I had hard information from 1996, hard information from the elections last summer, anything in between I had to delve through all kinds of files and try to figure out who was actually on the committee. So if you happen to know if there are any errors on that list please let me know. I've already had two comments from a couple people here. The preference poll is at the end of the process and it should be out real soon. The faculty census is being gathered again this year by the Vice President for Academic Affairs office and the Human Resources office. The FSA Board of Directors called for nominations. They will be out hopefully by the end of this week.
We will be cleaning up some problems in the elections. The GCP committee has only two members elected from Arts Education and Humanities and Natural and Social Sciences, when there should have been three so we looked back to the election results and asked the next highest vote getters for each of those areas if they would serve and we did have three people who said they would serve. The additional members of the committee are George Browder, Robert Rogers, and Janet McVicker. George Browder is in History, Robert Rogers is in Math and Janet McVicker is in English.
Also you may see in the future, you may have already seen, a survey sheet called the campus committee inventory. We are trying to find out exactly what campus committees are in fact working and who is on them. The only committees we've had a relatively standing list of membership for are the Standing Committees of Faculty Council. All other committees, only the people who are on those committees know that they are on those committees as far as I know. We are trying to get a more standardized list and roster, and maybe we'll even streamline some of the committees so we don't have quite so many if they are unnecessary.
Bob Deming: Under Planning and Budget, these are three- year terms of office?
Vince Courtney: Yes.
Ken Mantai: I have a question concerning the other non Faculty Council committees. One such committee which existed for a fair number of years on this campus was the Convocation Committee, and with the imminent arrival of the new president that was put in abeyance until our new president decided whether he wanted to continue to have academic convocations. I'm just curious if he has decided that.
President Hefner: That's the first time I've been asked. I don't know exactly what was involved in the convocations so I guess I'll need to get a little more clarity on it, but it's something I'm not opposed to. I don't know exactly what it involves. I know there was some presentations. I have heard that.
Ken Mantai: We have had a eighteen-year tradition of fall convocation with people of international reputations. I'd sort of feel bad to see that tradition die, and I hope it can be revived.
Jefferson Westwood: Vince, could you clarify since the departments reporting to each dean have changed, has anything changed in terms of how departments are elected for representational purposes in there divisions?
Vince Courtney: We are operating still under the old divisions right now. I've been told by the VPAA's office that the relative numbers of faculty in the Natural and Social Sciences and Provintial Studies and Arts and Humanities are still roughly comparable. We might want to look at that, but right now we are operating under the old divisions, both for committees and for elections.
Chair Romal: Academic Affairs, Joe Straight did not have a report and he was excused for today.
7c. Jon Kraus (Planning and Budget):
I meant to distribute something. What I was going to distribute to you was an agenda for the activities with the Long-Range Planning Subcommittee which is a subcommittee of Planning and Budget which incorporates the Vice-Presidents and the Deans.
We needed to put together a vision statement very quickly last spring. We started meeting toward the end of the summer and created an agenda which involves a number of things. (1) Develop a clear strategic planning process with input from others on campus. (2) Identify key issues in the strategic long-range planning of 1997-98. Also a list of ideas and concerns of faculty and staff. (3) Develop and consider approving a SUNY Fredonia academic master plan, which we will rename the item on our agenda as we are getting sample master plans from other schools. Included in that is idea of standardizing and an agreement to match our two year catalog cycle. (4) Monitor our strategic action plan for building student recruitment at Fredonia and retention.. (5) Monitor current procedures to develop and maintain our technology plan. (6) Stimulate others in the administration and faculty to generate a higher level of distribution of information about the activities on campus. (7) Monitor and develop the required assessment programs under the eges of Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the assessment sub-committee of academic affairs. (8) Review 1998-1999 budget development plans. (10) Assist the Vice- President of Administration. (11) Review underutilized degrees, options, concentrations and course offerings. (12) Review and seek Faculty Council approval of the vision statement, to which I come next.
By today you should have had in the mail a copy of the draft vision statement plus a cover letter from myself. We are asking hopefully next month the Faculty Council to put approval of the vision statement on the agenda for the Faculty Council meeting. We were asked to send copies of it to all members of faculty and staff., asking them to offer comments. We will make any changes, and it is our hope to have this approved as a statement of our vision for where we want Fredonia to be and remain.
Michael Grady: Are you going to bring this before this body? Are you going to modify it first and then bring it to this body?
John: We are asking for people to submit things to us by September 25th. We are leaving some days after that and we will consider those suggestions and might, yes there is the possibility some modification would occur.
If that is so, if there are any changes, and I think our meeting is now scheduled for the 29th of September. We would seek to get out any modification, any changes in the statement.
7d. Joan Burke (Chair of Professional Services):
Professional Services has just received a new charge and we will meet soon address it. I'd like to read the charge so that if any of you have any information pertinent to this you might send it to us. Please review how other schools treat tenure, promotion, and merit. Do they have campus-wide committees? Do departments handle these matters? Please look at some large small and medium sized schools both public and private.
7e. Vivian Conover (Student Affairs):
We will be meeting on September 30th.
I'd like to just take this opportunity though to remind everybody that the Center for Multicultural Affairs open house is on Wednesday at three thirty over in Thompson Hall. We also obviously need student members as you can see from looking on the list of Student Affairs Committee. I would encourage you to encourage students.
Since I'm a part of Academic Affairs I consider myself a kind of ambassador to Student Affairs. Since I'm the chair of this committee I'm going to try and get the group to formally agree on doing things in a way that minimizes categorization such as faculty or professional staff, such as Student Affairs vs. Academic Affairs. We are going to be trying to come up with a definition in the best interest of the students that links all sorts of ideas that the committee might have. Toward that end I'm going to ask the Student Affairs committee to read a recent article from Harpers, which I recommend for everybody on campus. It's an essay by Martin Ibbotson at the University of Virginia entitled On the uses of a Liberal Education as Light Entertainment for Bored College Students There is something in here for us I truly believe it.
7f. Chair Romal: We don't have a new chair for GCP. Tom was the chair do you have anything to say about that. Is it going to meet or anything?
Tom: I really don't know when the first meeting is. We have responses at least a couple of dozen from the statement that was put in the alumni newspapers. People giving us some feedback about their experiences. Plus we have input from two open meetings that we had on campus.
8. A motion was made and approved by a majority vote to move Faculty Council meetings back to Fenton 105.
Julie Henry: I would just like to remind the chairpeople of the standing committees that I need to get seven copies of your minutes each time you meet.
Ken Mantai: The people whose terms expire in '98 is that in the spring of '98?
Chair Romal: For Faculty Council, that's from January to December.
Ken: December '98 for Faculty Council, May of '98 for all committees except Planning and Budget and March of '98 for Planning and Budget.
9. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 5:00 PM
Attendance:
Professional Staff/Management Confidential:
[x] Sylvia Clarke
[x] Fabrizio Daloisio
[x] James Jackson
[x] Susan Maloney
[x] Lisa Marrano
[ ] Kevin Michki
[ ] William Ortega
[ ] Patrick Rocheleau
[E] Martha Smith
[x] Terry Tzitzis
[ ] Charlene Wiles
Arts, Education, and Humanities:
[ ] Candice Brown
[x] Robert Deming
[x] Janet Fairbairn
[ ] Carl Farraro
[ ] Harry Jacobson
[ ] Robert Klassen
[ ] Rose Klassen
[x] Kenneth Lucy
[x] David Ludlam
[x] Lawrence Maheady
[x] George Sebouhian
Natural and Social Sciences:
[x] Seyed-Mahmound Agazadeh
[x] Nancy Boynton
[x] George Browder
[x] Nancy Gee
[x] Michael Grady
[x] Jon Kraus
[ ] Gary Lash
[x] Kenneth Mantai
[x] Greg Prechtl
[ ] Amin Sakar
[ ] Brenda Joyce Stephens
[x] Richard Weist
[ ] Deborah Welch
Ex Officio Members:
[x] Tracy Bennet (VP Administration)
[x] Vincent Courtney (Governance Chair)
[x] Michael Dimitri (VP Student Affairs)
[x] Len Faulk (Interim VP Academic Affairs)
[E] Pablo Gion-Fanjul (SA President)
[x] Dennis Hefner (President)
[x] Julie Henry (Coucil Secretary)
[x] Jean Malinoski (Interim VP, Development)
[x] Jane Romal (Council Chair)
[x] Thomas Rywick (Interim Dean, NaSSaPS)
[x] Jacqueline Swansinger (Interim Dean, AaS)
[x] Mojtaba Seyedian (Faculty Senator)
Guests:
Minda Rae Amiran
Joan A. Burke
Vivian Conover
Dan Jelski
Joanne L. Martonis
Jefferson Westwood
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