Academic Governance
Sept 23, 2015
In attendance: Approximately 150 Participants – names redacted.
Overview:
First Academic Governance meeting – ever (change from Faculty Governance) - staff and
students are now voting members.
The meeting is being live streamed.
Committees overview. Many are chaired by LA (thanks!).
General Education Task Force overview.
Split out Standing Rules from AG bylaws – changed to reflect disbursement of Sust Eng dept –
now there are different couplings for populating committees. Please take a look if you have
any questions… Executive Committee makes the changes – so if you want to recommend a
change, it goes through there. Asked if anyone wanted a campus wide vote for this change –
no takers.
Kelley (AG chair) and President Wheeler wrote a joint statement about having a national search
for a provost (QW did not have to do this, but has agreed to do so).
SUNY Excels program: three proposals were sent forward from ESF.
Classroom renovation committee “and more classrooms” (joint IQAS and Tech committees)
chaired by Heidi. J. Wagner asked for a title modification – reflected above in quotes.
Patent information being looked into by Phillipe Vidon.
Family medical leave that we adopted has been adopted at the SUNY level as well.
A draft schedule reset will go out late next week according to Bruce.
Announcements:
COC deadline is Mar 4, 2016
Finished election for strategic planning committee
President’s cabinet as well as those elected recently – those are the folks to contact who
will represent us.
Reminder that this meeting is being live streamed and being recorded… anyone want to turn it
off? No takers.
Open forum to provide feedback on college strategic plan:
Pieces missing? Concerns? Problems? Upper level Admin were asked not to attend so we can
voice our concerns in a safe space with others… and to circumvent them being defensive.
Participant – has not seen the plan and so doesn’t feel that she can comment.
Kelley – it hasn’t really changed since May, more preamble perhaps and a few money items…
were there things missing? How do we move our campus beyond what we heard this past
Thursday? What was good? What should we keep?
Participant – I think all this discussion is grossly premature. There’s an 800 lb gorilla in the
room with rumors of a vote of no confidence in our President. Just what exactly is true and
what is not true?
Kelley – the last 21 days have been tough. Many have come to her about this. She doesn’t think
we understand what will happen if we do a vote of no confidence. Let’s talk about it. What has
to change? Can we stop it? Can we find a way to work together and get back on track?
Participant – why should we even talk about the strategic plan if we will get a new president?
Kelley – we need to talk, we need to care, we aren’t in a good place, we need to figure out what
we as a community want and move forward with creating a strategic plan that is acceptable
to all of us.
Participant – respectfully disagree – we need a President.
Participant – we have a President.
Participant – one we have confidence in.
Participant – the rumors do not exist, they are not real. They are not a part of a real discourse.
They should vanish until something is known, is proven.
Participant – not one who normally speaks up… he’s been a part of the process, engaged from
the beginning. He voiced the opinion that the process was flawed as there wasn’t any
explanation about the original 4 questions. We spent all this time coming up with questions
and ideas and there was no process where we saw vetting – some of us saw a document that
was written by 3 people and it was from the perspective of a biologist. It was full of rhetoric –
not written as a vision statement with a plan to accomplish it. The questions were so broad,
that no one is going to support this. In terms of the document, we need to start over. We need
centers with critical mass – center for water, center for biotechnology, etc. The graduate
program needs to be the center of the document, not as an afterthought. Then we’ve got to
hire the best and the brightest – hire the best and uplift the graduate program. It made him
question if QW is the person capable of bringing this off – he doesn’t see it.
Participant – There’s a $ problem. It may not be the best thing to increase enrollment to solve it.
He’s marketed the place as unique. It is unique because it’s small and the UGs get involved
with research. That can not happen if we continue to increase #s. We can not get to now our
students. There has to be a way to save $. We may need to cut down on admin middle levels –
he doesn’t understand why we keep on hiring admins and not hiring faculty. We are headed
in the wrong direction because we are trying to maximize profit.
Participant – We need to choose as group what we want to be. A 4 yr college with a focus on UG
(and maybe MS degrees). A PhD research college? We need to decide and from there we can
develop a plan.
Participant – we are obviously having a tough time deciding this – we have a massive document,
but what does it really say about who we are?
Participant – don’t like the first two questions (presented on the PPT) – faculty are a bunch of
independent thinkers, we’d all come up with different plans. He’d rather we focus on the
process. Let’s focus on what’s important considering the input that we’ve had. What needs to
happen is that we need to incorporate the info (and if not, then tell us why), and then focus on
the process and see if anything can be recovered.
Participant – process has been very involved. We were told not worry about the budget, but the
document feels like its very focused on how to increase revenue. We need to go back and
consider the student experience again, not how to make ourselves look better so we can get
more $.
Participant – what is missing is a clear statement about what graduate education will be like.
There was nothing in the document until a week or so ago and now there are only 6 bullets –
this is egregious. If research is going to be a focus, then we need to talk about the graduate
program. A recent GSA survey outcome was ½ grads would not recommend coming here.
Participant – there was a written report by a marketing firm… will we be seeing that?
Kelley – she doesn’t know the answer, but will ask.
Participant – when were they here and who did they talk to?
Participant – how much did that cost?
Kelley – they came to campus in July and she got a last minute notice, but couldn’t make it to the
meeting… she heard it cost $30K & was paid for by the foundation
Participant – who did they talk to? Who was on campus in July?
Participant. – there were 23 people there, mostly dept chairs and admin. – no students.
Participant – there was a second meeting, and there were 4 UG and 2 Grads that made it.
Kelley – they were trying to get a feel for the campus on the initial visit.
Participant – who are we talking about? Who came to campus?
Participant – it was a marketing firm.
Kelley – a marketing firm from Ontario that works with Academics (Bruce Mau Design)
Participant. – what’s missing: 1) strategic plan that builds upon our strengths (looking for new
customers), 2) there’s a much deeper issue – a change in the mood, going from optimism and
hope to negativity and older faculty being very concerned. This is a horrible indication of
where we are and where we are going. If we are going to move forward, then we need to do
so by bringing back a positive aspect.
Participant - It’s been hard to move forward – he’s been demoralized. He can’t find himself in
there. It was good work and if it’s not there, then it feels like he is not wanted anymore. There
are so many important pieces missing. There is an overarching statement missing about
managing natural resources.
Participant – he’d like to see a more explicit accounting of the units within ESF, their expenses
and revenue. This would help everyone to see who’s succeeding and who isn’t so we can
strategically identify how to move forward. He was told that they had a good handle on the
structural deficit – but they are not sharing this with the campus. He’d like to see a more
detailed budget, and get an external firm to provide this.
Participant – there are more options, Participant. wrote a restructuring plan that was not
included - the President has taken a stand that we are a viable entity and so is not advocating
change. He has seen a longer form with a logical movement toward achieving it. More
questions could be added, the questions there could go away. The tech committee is going to
revise and deliver a block of text. We should get other committees to do the same. What
matters is what we do.
Participant - I take the opposing viewpoint. The problem is that it’s too long, it’s an
implementation plan without a strategic plan. It should be short, readable, not in ecospeak,
setting out the direction for the college. Deciding the direction needs to come before the
implementation. 30-pages, incorporating all we’ve done—100 years of history are missing
here.
Participant – I don’t think we have done a SWOT. Some of the committees may have done it, but
it’s obvious from what’s missing that our President hasn’t been here long enough to know
what our strengths are. The college will be here in 10 years, for political reasons, but the loss
of good faculty and staff will have long-term impact.
Participant – What’s being done now to take care of us? There’s too much focus on the future.
Participant – Can we give a voice to the younger professors? I kept my mouth shut when I was
an assistant professor.
Participant – Is the plan about undergraduate education because they pay tuition? There was
not a focus on the research enterprise. Maybe it would help to have a different plan for how
to save money than for what we want to be.
Participant - The strategic plan should have something about strategy and planning. Like Tom,
I didn’t see myself in that plan. The input we provided disappeared again, and I didn’t know
where we were heading.
Participant - I’ve been concerned, I was involved in the plan, and I spent most of my career out
working as an ESF alum. I’m hearing that we need to start over, and that the current plan was
a train wreck.
Participant – Who got a copy of this document and who didn’t? It’s hard to have a conversation
when we haven’t all seen it.
Kelley – I argued that the committees should see it, so they could help inform the writers and see
their work reflected. And some Chairs forwarded it. So a lot of people have seen it.
Participant – President’s biggest mistake was to take this on himself; it could have been done by
an outside firm that would use a transparent process to look at who we are. The
administration (the iron triangle) doesn’t seem to see us for who we are, and they don’t want
to listen to us. It’s hard to see how we can move forward. But to address that question, let’s
get a company to help us develop a plan, and step back to a more inclusive process.
Participant – All of the committees met to review the plan, and found very little of our reports in
the plan. I assume we’ll have another version to review; what is the timeline? It should be
done immediately, or we’ll just get more frustrated.
Participant – We need to model the desired behavior and be more positive.
Participant – Who is “we”? I like Participant ‘s suggestion that this go to a company we can
watch and
Participant – We need to question the leadership. It’s a decision to omit the work of all the
committees. There was no input from graduate students. Someone has to be our
spokesperson, and I want it to be someone who can represent us. We need to talk about the
elephant in the room.
Participant – You hit the nail right on the head. Wheeler needs to go.
Kelley – If we come together and create a great strategic plan, do we lack confidence in the
leadership who can take it forward?
Participant – Yes, that’s the question, do we have a leader we have faith in?
Participant – The President had the gall to say, “I need input from you.” He’s not going to
promote anything that he didn’t write himself.
Participant – We are broadcasting the fact that we don't have confidence in our leadership.
There is no backing out. How are we going forward? How are we going to present ourselves
to our funders, our legislators, the parents of our students. Do the people in this room
understand the impact on our institution? It’s going to be in Albany tonight and in the paper
tomorrow? I don’t think we are remotely prepared.
Participant – The problem is in who writes it. Environmental studies and Biology are
represented.
Participant – When we were recruiting Quentin Wheeler, his message was consistent with what
he is saying now. The problem he saw was a need to differentiate ESF from our competition,
and he presented ideas for moving forward. The strategic plan is consistent with his
campaign platform when he was hired. How can we be surprised about that?
Participant – I share Participant’s concern. Be mindful of what you say to whom.
Participant – To start the process with external facilitation
Participant – My tendency is to put my shoulder down and start pushing. If the people on the
right can get to work and the people on the left can clear roadblocks, this is something we can
all get behind.
Participant – There have been significant mistakes made in the process that got us where we
are, and the leadership has not been as good at admitting that as they might have been.
Having this discussion is something that needed to happen today. I think they are willing to
listen but things are moving fast and they are doing too much in too little time and we’re all
feeling left out. Significant revisions were made in a two-day period, which is a good sign. I
feel we need to give the process the time to move forward in a constructive manner.
Kelley – In spite of the public relations issues, I’m glad people are here and talking because it
means you care, that we give a damn about where the institution goes.
Participant – The problem, it not what was done but how it was done. Second, we don’t want
bad press, but we don’t want to be complacent, when we see a threat to our institution. It’s
too important to just wait and hope things work out. We’re in the midst of an existential
crisis and we’ve spent a year moving deck chairs.
Participant – I’ve spoken to other students, we came here because of our passion for the
environment. I hope we can apply this passion to get us through the current crisis. We
shouldn’t be stopped by a financial crisis.
Participant – Dialog is how we improve things. We would be irresponsible not to have a dialog.
The questions were skewed to answer specific questions. If we’re doing to do this, we have to
start all over with questions that weren’t rigged.
Participant – There is a problem of communication, why in such a small campus can we not all
see the report? It’s incumbent on us to communicate, including about the discontent. I also
want to note that an external advisor may not realize what’s unusual about this institution.
We have to articulate what’s important to us, before we take rash action.
Participant – An outside firm would help us implement the vision, we need the vision first.
Participant – I never said not to have a vote. What I meant is that the institution is us, and we all
need to bear some of the responsibility for how we got to this point. We wouldn’t put our
future in the hands of one person. To make this work, we are all going to have to work on it;
we can’t put that off on to other people. We have to disagree, and we have to pull together.
Participant – I agree with several of my colleagues. It’s not enough to bring up the previous
work of the committees. We need to re-evaluate the four questions that came from the top
down, so that they include all of us.
Participant – It’s clear that there is concern about the process. It was good to hear the
comments of our newly elected representative about moving this process forward. Maybe
once a month, separate from the governance meetings, we need to continue the forum to
improve connection to the new initiative.
Participant – I want to make sure that those of you who haven’t worked with you know that
Quentin Wheeler is open to working with us, has made his comments on documents all open
to us, and that we can
Participant – I’m glad that this school talks and it’s not an atmosphere of students against
faculty. We absolutely need emphasize diversity more and we need improve how we talk
about diversity, the language in the document was appalling.
Participant – In 1893, a great.. came to Chicago (ask for this quote from him if you want it). It is
better to construct than to destroy. There are revolutionary upheavals in history, but this is
not one of them.
Participant –I brought to the GSA the problems with the omission of the graduate programs in
the strategic planning, and we voted to stop the process to allow those to be included. I
suggested to all the committees that they focus on research needs.
Kelley – This is an Open Forum, which precludes a vote being taken. I’ve asked SUNY for help
and advisement about what to do. Give me your positive input if you have it, I’ve heard quite
a lot of the negative. President Wheeler is concerned and wants to know what it would take
to regain your trust. SUNY may be able to help us with planning managers. Please continue
to talk to me and to each other.