Strategic Planning Visioning Session
Rights Qs – Organization
1 October 2014
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5 areas of excellence – why this number? How to ID natural areas to organize around
What is it that we do and some of what we do currently are prof degree programs and applied
research, sustainability, sustainable use of resources – thinking about organization relative to
that kind of structure then fitting in around that
We have departments that do well, we know what they are, we have a bunch of centers that are
mostly nothing, there’s a real value to departments but at the grad and research level
transdepartmental - what structures could work?
Need to be more trans and inter disciplinary. Hard to keep it in place beyond organizing around
proposals. How do we do this? P&T – downgrading collaborative papers is a barrier; it takes
time to do collaborative, Transdisciplinary proposals – need structural supports
Need decision-making authority within units re: tenure, budget, position descriptions
(workload), some of the centers are not operating with any real authority right now, economies
of scale can be had by potentially aggregating
Admin issue – tenure, budget, but also right people at right time with research – spatial
proximity can make a real difference – need groups to be administratively together and then
with research level – where you sit. Maybe we move this around every 5 years. Retain power,
dec-making structure as it is for admin and consider alternatives for trans- interdisciplinary
What is the operational reason for structure? UGs come for degrees – this remains – the use of
a new structure – brand extender, getting the word out, hosting events, hook funders,
philanthropic potential, maybe new programs, new degrees, new areas of study.
The org structure might transcend the institution
Some of the pieces may be in place, some know ESF outside of region, efforts ongoing to
resurrect the Roosevelt Wildlife Station, some of these centers may naturally form and the
foundation may develop them and some might sunset
Do you need to have some budgetary openness so everyone understands the true cost of any
one program – how to prioritize if you don’t know the costs for any one. Participatory budgeting
could be a part of a new organizational structure.
Benefits are sometimes difficult to quantify.
What are we doing well? What’s working? If we’re the only environmental college in the top
100 then let’s use that – don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
GPES model struggles to meet its potential – needs to be more flexible and nimble – peel off the
regulatory – it takes a year to do a course adjustment through CoC –too long; maybe a program
like this should have more authority and shorter timelines; get GPES students together to work
on projects in a room outside of the classroom – build in inter-trans-disciplinary means to do
this.
We want integration – curricular and extra-curricular; want to get the word out but it comes
with too much admin work; too much burden on faculty when the program exists primarily to
get the word out to attract students; primary desire is recruitment
Appropriate locus of control and authority might/could/should change in a different
organizational structure
The real heart of attention needs to be at the admin level – professional and classified support
in service of faculty and students – what organization would be best? Example – technologysomeone needs to lead faculty – wouldn’t it be nice if someone central was looking at these
things and make the new ideas coalesce into something new. We should be able to do this and
what changes at the prof/admin level would support this?
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For each of the big Qs there should be a section of GPES around that and get rid of some of the
old stuff.
These big questions will need ‘stuff’ – operations money. Need some sort of organization
structure to keep these things funded and kept up – self-funded, with a fee structure possibly to
do that.
Lots of disparate labs on campus – set up one in a centrally located lab for lots of the soil, water,
plant tissue samples – put them all in the same place – get good equip and all can use – this
would be a central place for ideas as well – need experts to take care of it as well, operations,
maintenance, skilled personnel – don’t duplicate little labs all over.
Centralization v. decentralizing – vulnerability in centralizing but power in multiples. Common
groups could get together in labs
Concern for the phd program disappearing – seems like a fundamentally organization question
that needs to be answered
Resource distribution – UG – Grad
Grad programs can benefit undergrads, too – undergrad research, management, service
learning
Need sufficient transportation and invest in the ways we can get students out of the classroom –
need to invest and support this – manage our properties for these reasons, too
Our strong emphasis on field training is known and respected and we have the equipment to do
this – maybe we need to facilitate this more
Organization as transcending just this institution – it extends to field sites, other institutions –
consider this as part of our organization
Organization in time – maybe not semester organization – short courses (3 weeks) - create
temporally concentrated experiences, could be interdisciplinary
Plan for instructors to teach intensively will have implications for scholarship and could be
challenging organizational
We could just be more efficient in teaching – combine online, intensives, semester long – don’t
require all to be the same
SUNY international experiences – we should market our summer classes to the SUNY system to
spend a month in the Adirondacks – opportunity for marketing – prioritize for investment and
possibly more integration with other SUNY campuses – feature ESF as the SUNY environment
school – leverage that
ESF does not have a sustainable footprint – too many facilities for our budget – don’t build
square footage that you don’t need
How to build a notion of sustainability into everything we do including the financial base –
When someone leaves we are always scrambling to provide services and programs – are we
organized to do this the best way to do these things? Advising – could this be done better?
Communication – we don’t have a centralized way to communicate with students – how to do
this better? One person in charge? A bunch of other admin things that are not currently working
but have implications for different organization – instead of just doing it the same way we have
always done things. My job could be easier if organized differently.
Administratively - a unit needs to handle P&T, program support, etc. – number? Research
number could be different – do we have enough people in any one program at the grad level?
Minimum is 8 for SAF accreditation – this is not big enough for admin. Is 30 the right number?
What if we hired a bunch of post-docs and post-MS to support all different aspects of the RQs as
a means of supporting Transdisciplinary efforts – research associates, instructional support
specialists did this
Need to be nimble, adaptive, flexible in order to deal and be much more efficient in order to
survive – take advantage of what we have and be able to adapt
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Science article on number needed for a department or program – environmental science –
Two trends – fiscally unstable programs, “boutique” undergrad program with a PhD level
program, too – this combo is what we have
Field stations – invite others to use those facilities to make them known and more accessible
with a fee structure to generate revenue and have ESF students work with others to also bring
visibility to ESF
Ideally the revenue coming in would supplement the cost of having those facilities
Facilities support is not enough to ensure that everything keeps running – do not have a
structure that provides for unexpected labor absences
Using our space to increase revenues to pay for support staff – no parking fee – could institute
that – the book store is alumni owned, not college, the café – opportunity to have more revenue
streams
What does it take to make research self-sufficient
What we have going for us is our relevance on a world stage – how can we leverage this to a
new status
We’re not going after opportunities from companies – who is pursuing this organizationally?
Who is tracking this? Looking for this – the big money – where are these relationships? Who is
tending to these? E.g., big DOE meetings where BP and Shell have $25 million to give - where
are we in this?
How to leverage the money we’re getting - where in the organization is this happening? It
appears to be disaggregated at ESF.
If it’s incentivized faculty will form the centers – we’ll get self-sustaining research.
Organizational structure to support research collaboratively with major money to do all the
associated activities, seminars, workshops, etc
Need the structure in place in order to build it BEFORE we start one of these Transdisciplinary
efforts
Communication pattern through faculty to admin?
Does the admin understand the groups that have tried to coalesce? Do they understand the
groups and potential that is already here? How is this happening? Who is asking these
institution level questions? We need someone at the admin level who understands what people
are doing and pull them together to get more than would happen in the one-up way we have
been doing it. Research office? Development office? Connections between academics and
admin to make the most of it institutional. Academic and support services BOTH needed.