ESF Campus Faculty Meeting
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
12:30PM, in the Alumni (Nifkin) lounge
Attending:
Chemistry: Abrams, Neal; Caluwe, Paul; Dibble, Theodore; Donaghy, Kelley; Hassett, John; Winter,
William
Communications: Dunn, Claire
Cons Mgmt & Wood Pro Eng: Crovella, Paul; Kyanka, George; Meyer, Robert; Smith, Jennifer; Tiss,
Kenneth
Env Res and For Eng: Hassett, James
Environ Studies: Manno, Jack; Smardon, Richard; Sonnenfeld, David
Environ & Forest Bio: Abrahamson, Larry (FNRM); Hall, Charles; Horton, Thomas; Leopold,
Donald; Norton, Roy; Schulz, Kimberly
Financial Aid and Scholarships: View, John
Forest & Natural Res. Mgmt: Kuehn, Diane; Luzadis, Valerie; Morrison, Douglas; Yanai, Ruth
President/VPs/Gov Rel: Murphy, Cornelius; Bongarten, Bruce; Rufo, Joseph; French, Robert
Human Resources: Blehar, Timothy
Info Technology: Baycura, Christopher
Instruction/Grad Studies: Shannon, Scott
Landscape Architecture: Bryant, Margaret; Doble, Cheryl; Hawks, Richard; Stribley, Kathleen
Moon Library: Elkins, Elizabeth; Williamson, James
Outreach: Spuches, Charles
Paper/Bioprocess Engineering: Chatterjee, Siddharth; Doelle, Klaus; Liu, Shijie; Scott, Gary
Physical Plant: Colella, Gary; Langlois, Christine; Marcham, Bruce; Peden, Gary
Research Programs: Driscoll, Mark; Nicholson, William
Student Life/Services: Flynn, Leah; Mix, Liz
Students: Quick, Cariann (USA)
12:31PM - The meeting was called to order at 12:31 p.m.
I. Announcements
Scott Spuches and Terhi Majanen made a plea for Science Fair judges for the Environmental Challenge.
There will be 500 high school students here from 9-12 on Thursday, March 12, which is an unprecedented
number.
If you can help, contact Terhi at thmajanen@esf.edu or 470-4871.
II. Proposed Changes to By-Laws
The proposed changes to the by-laws would establish a new committee responsible for making
nominations to SUNY and ESF for faculty awards. This process will not preclude individuals making
nominations. But it should ensure that some nominations are made, whereas this year, for example, our
campus made no nominations for Chancellors Awards or Distinguished Professorships.
IV. E. 5. Committee on SUNY and ESF Awards ,
a. To solicit nominations and testimony for recognition of exemplary service to ESF in accordance with
SUNY and ESF guidelines, as appropriate;
b. To review nominations and the testimony in support of these nominations;
c. To make recommendations to the Provost for awards;
d. To maintain college-wide records of awardees.
We also want to change the language describing our elections, which currently states that the ballots
must be paper.
III. A. 4. …The preparation, distribution, collection and counting of the ballots and the reporting of
results shall be the responsibility of the Sergeant-at-Arms, who may, upon approval of the Faculty,
establish an electronic balloting process that guarantees secrecy.
There are other minor changes to formatting, grammar, the names of departments, and the inclusion of
missing departments. The complete text of the proposed by-laws is available on the Faculty Governance
web site.
This vote, at least, must be conducted with paper balloting, in accordance with our current by-laws.
Expect to see your ballot soon.
III. Call for Faculty Governance Nominations
We want to have the elections sooner this year, so as to have results by the time of our last faculty
meeting. Here is the list of nominations to date.
Secretary: Ruth Yanai
Chair, Committee on Instruction: NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Chair, Committee on Research: Jacqui Frair
Chair, Committee on Public Service & Outreach: NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Chair, Committee on Faculty Awards (if bylaw revisions are passed): Jack Manno
SUNY Senator: Klaus Doelle
SUNY Senator alternate NOMINATIONS NEEDED
At-large representative: Giorgos Mountrakis
At-large representative: Martin Dovciak
At-large representative: Stacy McNulty
At-large representative: NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Additional At-large representative (if bylaw revisions are passed): NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Additional At-large representative (if bylaw revisions are passed): NOMINATIONS NEEDED
We took nominations from the floor, and Ruth Yanai nominated Jack Manno for Chair of the Committee
on Faculty Awards.
Please e-mail additional nominations to Bill Powell <wapowell@esf.edu>.
III. Main Speaker: President Murphy
We do have good news at ESF: Bob French put together our rankings, all in one place for the first time.
We were an excellent institution all along, but now we're doing a better job of getting the word out.
The news on the budget isn't bad either. It's better today than it was three months ago.
B. We will have a new SUNY Chancellor, Nancy Zimpher, in June. She is currently President of the
University of CIncinatti. I met her at the reception last month and was impressed; she also knows about
us. Her initial focust is on the budget and advocating for our institution. She will be meeting with
Malcolm Smith, president of the Sentate, and the Democratic Caucus in Albany. She will visit every
SUNY campus this summer. Other initiatives include radio spots, a campaign for SUNY, and reengineering SUNY administration.
Charlie Hall: Hasn't our problem been with the Board of Trustees? Has that changed?
Neil: It's going in the right dirction. Half of the members were appointed by Pataki and half by Spitzer
or Pattersen, so it's a bit schizophrenic now. But a strong Chancellor will help them.
C. ESF Operating Budget Update: We're on about the eighth version of the budget, which is
unprecedented, each with different cuts. The good news is that we're exceeding our budget in revenue
and underspending on expenses.
Revenue: We have higher than projected tuition income because of the number of out-of-state students.
We also brought in a larger class. We're also up on student services fees. The spring tuition has
increased by $310, of which 90% goes back to the NYS general fund.
Revenue
Budget
Projected
Variance
NYS Allocation
28,262,500
28,262,500
Tuition Revenue
8,169,200
9,961,300
+
Tuition Revenue Flowing to SUTRA
---
(946,300)
-
DOB Tuition Siphoned Off (90% of Spring
Increase)
---
(689,400)
-
Student Services Fee
573,400
590,000
Graduate Tuition Waiver Funding
930,300
930,300
Funding from Stabilization, IFR and
SUTRA Reserves
884,600
(35)
$39,079,100
$38,252,500
TOTAL PROJECTED REVENUE
-
Expenses: We're on track for salaries. Temporary Academic Appointments are up because we are
controlling Accessory Instruction. Graduate stipends and tuition waivers are up a bit. The high financial
aid to undergraduates is offsetting some of the high tuition income. Accessory Instruction is down; thank
you for your efforts ($400,000) (5149-4717). Utilities are $2.1 million. The lawsuit with Project Orange
Associates (who generate the steam for SU) helped us enormously. We were scheduled for a $1.1 million
increase in the cost of steam, but the contract will be delivered at the price previously agreed upon, at
least for now. There are also conservations savings.
Expenses
Personal Service Regular
Budget
Projected
23,150,600
23,150,600
Temp. Appt. Academic Affairs
700,000
727,600
Temp. Appt. Other
232,000
200,000
Temp. Service
139,600
139,600
Variance
Other Than Personal Service
1,925,400
1,925,400
Graduate Stipends
1,221,000
1,339,000
+
Graduate Tuition Waivers
1,126,600
1,440,000
+
Financial Aid Undergrad.
571,200
901,200
+
Presidential Scholar Awards
200,000
200,000
40,000
40,000
Accessory Instruction
5,149,100
4,717,100
-
Utilities
4,006,800
2,865,000
-
300,000
300,000
95,000
85,000
Computer Network/Infrastructure
120,000
120,000
Advertising/Visibility
102,000
102,000
---
---
39,079,100
38,252,500
Diversity Scholarships
Mail
Telephone
Contingency
TOTAL PROJECTED EXPENSES
So we are not going to have to dip into the reserves, this year. It's going to take more than this year to get
through this economic situation, so we will still have our reserve in the future.
Charlie Hall: We hear in the media about all the budget cuts to education. Are we being reduced?
Neil: This last version of the budget included all of those cuts. Back in August, we had $1.5 million more
dollars in revenue. What we lost has been offset by reductions in expenses. All of SUNY was cut by
$214 million this year, and $235 million for next year.
D. NYS Deficit Reduction Program
This is the first bill to address retention and loss of tuition. It provided for an increase in tuition of $310
for the Spring semester ($76 million in revenue) but 90% of this is "swept" to the state. The doctoralgranting institutions don't benefit from this increase, because of graduate tuition waivers.. We get about
$90K.
Community colleges were relieved of the $11 million reduction, and CUNY wasn't cut. So all the cuts
were sustained by higher education in upstate New York.
The USA passed an agressive reslution protesting the sweeping of tuition funds. This is bad public policy
and a violation of our contract with our students.
E. Federal Stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act)
The total $787 billion nationally includes about $40 billion to states for elementary, secondary and higher
education for use in three fiscal years, to compensate for loss of revenues to the states. The final bill does
not have new construction for higher education. It does have $200 million in work-study support and $17
billion in Pell Grant funding ($4,850 to $5,350 in 2009 (+$500) and $5,350 to $5,550 in 2010 (+$200)).
The American Opportunity Tax Credit ($14 billion over 10 years) amounts to $2500 for the parents who
are investing in our student's education.
There is $250 million for state and private forestry, whcih could represent an opportunity for us.
The National Science Foundation has $3 billion. This could help us with research facility upgrades.
The DOE has $2 billion for for science.
There is $10 billion for NIH for biomedical research.
How does this relate to NYS? This is a guess:
New York State Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Cabinet:
NYS gets $24.5 billion, of which $2.5 goes to education, mostly by formula, but 18.5% is discretionary.
SUNY might get $40 million. It should be more, but there are constraints on the federal accounting. If
our fringe benefits are compared to the economic base year, we get less.
The cuts to SUNY were $214 million in 08/09 and $236 million in 09/10 (proposed).
There are opportunities for Infrastructure funding.
FMAP funding supports medicaid, which will help us indirectly because this is where our tuition income
has been going.
How does this relate to ESF?
We could be in a position to be better off next year than projected by about half a million dollars. We
proposed infrastructure improvements amounting to $12.5 million for campus renewable energy and
energy efficiency projects, many related to the LEED Platinum Plus Gateway Building. The proposal
includes 50KW of photovoltaics (here and at our other properties), 50KW of wind turbines for the wind
tunnel between Illick and the Carrier Dome, and another 400KW fuel cell. We can use biomass grown in
Tully to produce pellets for a combined heat and power facility on campus. We are requesting more
porous pavement, specifically on the SE corner of campus. We're also interested in vegetative carbon
sequestration, on our campuses (Dave Johnson) and with algae (Greg Boyer).
We have presented this to 9 state legislaters, Maffei, Shumer, the Empire State Development Corporation,
SUNY, and the Governor's representative.
IV. Committee & Senators' reports
A. Committee on Research (Tom Horton)
We had 27 proposals, from EFB (9), Chemistry (6), FNRM (4), PBE (4), ERFE (2), CMWPE (1), and the
Library (1). The following 8 proposals will be funded.
• Jesse Brunner (EFB) - Fluorescent frogs and viruses: Developing novel methods for studying pathogen
transmission
• Stuart Diemont (ERFE) - Linking ecological engineering and traditional ecological knowledge in
Mesoamerica: The Mopan Maya
• Klaus Dölle (PBE) - Gasification of biomass
• Rene Germain (FNRM) - Measuring the progress and efficacy of community forestry programs in India
• Dave Johnson (Chemistry) - Cow2Joules: Distributed conversion of organic waste to energy resources
• Kim Schulz (EFB) - Extending ecological stoichiometry to the salt marsh: Restoring natural Si:N:P ratios
may help remediate estuarine food webs.
• Chris Whipps (EFB) - Systematics and biodiversity of the Myxozoa
• Ruth Yanai (FNRM) - Non-destructive measurement of belowground carbon and nutrients
If you have issues with the peer reivew process, please join our committee. It's a great way to learn to
prepare better proposals.
The Spotlight on Research will be held on Monday April 13th, with abstracts are due Monday, March 30.
Directions will be distributed shortly, or you can follow last year's.
Valerie: Will there be improvements to the organization of the space?
Tom: The problem is how many posters can fit in this room. We want to allow class projects, and if
necessary we will overflow into other locations.
Valerie: Will they be organized by topic areas?
Tom: Maybe. But we think random ordering of topics helps to promote interaction.
B. Committee on Instruction (Gary Scott)
We are coming up on our final deadline for course proposals (March 16) for the 2009-2010 calendar.
We have course proposals under review from Landscape Architecture, Paper and Bioprocess
Engineering, Forest and Natural Resource Management, and Environmental Studies.
We have curriculum proposals under review from Environmental Studies and Environmental and Forest
Biology.
We have two policy proposals: One is to make our minors available at SU (for those not offered at SU).
The other is not to suspend a student until they have been on probation for one semester.
Please visit our web site (http://cww.esf.edu/coi/) for more information.
Our main topic for today is a proposed change to the R Grade. This was discussed at the last ESF faculty
meeting and the last COI meeting. The proposal is now up for your vote. In summary, any ESF grade
can be repeated (currently only F grades can be repeated). Only the initial grade reverts to "R".
Peter Black: If a student takes and passes a course more than once, do the credits count more than once?
John View: This has implications for financial aid, because of the requirements for full-time status. The
credits used for repeating a course don't count towards full-time status.
Gary Scott: We had a sentence to address that issue, but we thought the financial aid implications didn't
belong in the statement of the policy that goes in the college catalog.
Chuck Maynard proposed an amendment to the proposal that we restore that statement, whatever it was.
Valerie seconded, we all approved.
David Sonnenfeld: The GPA is addressed here, but the number of credits is not.
Ken Tiss: It says that you can't use a course for multiple electives. And you have to meet all your
program requirements. This should mean that you can't use credits more than once from the same
course.
Ruth Yanai: How about "Multiple takings of the same course do not add more credits than attributed to
the course."
Bruce Bongarten: How about "Only the final time can count towards meeting degree requirements."
Paul Caluwe: What if the final time is an F?
Kim Shultz: How about "The course's credits can count only once towards degree requirements."
Ruth seconded, we all approved.
The proposal as amended passed, none opposed.
BIll Porter. When will we see what we just voted on? We don't have the language for the amended
proposal.
Gary Scott: It will be on the COI web site.
C. Report form the SUNY Senator (Kelley Donaghy)
The SUNY Senate met at SUNY-Morrisville, February 6-7, and passed three resolutions.
1. SUNY should not sustain the same percentage of budget cuts as other state agencies, Faculty,
academic and professional staff must be preserved, and Governor Paterson and the Legislature should
provide sufficient funds to maintain SUNY. Passed without dissent.
2. University Faculty Senate (UFS) recommends to the Provost that assessment be streamlined. The
provost should work with the UFS to streamline assessment. Passed without dissent.
3. The UFS calls for transparency and appropriate consultation between local administration and faculty
governance prior to any major decisions concerning allocation of resources that affects educational
quality and curriculum. Passed without dissent.
Betsy Elkins moved that we endorse these resolutions. Valerie Luzadis seconded. The resolutions
passed without dissent.
V. Final comments from the Chair
Liz Mix's presentation on Service Learning will be moved to the next meeting.
Remember to send me nominations to Faculty Governance.
VI. Meeting adjourned at 1:44 p.m.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Ruth Yanai.