2013-2014 University Senate
Monday, November 18, 2013
2:45 pm, Assembly Hall
Christine Wagner, Chair
Minutes
Present:
J. Philippe Abraham, Bushra Alam, Deborah Bernnard, Leona Christie, Marc Cohen, Aiguo
Dai, Skyler DeAngelo, Evgeny Dikarev, Erzsebet Fazekas, Edward Fitzgerald, Richard
Fogarty, Michael Ford, Cynthia Fox, Lyn Gelzheiser, Jennifer Goodall, Yenisel Gulatee,
Caitlin Janiszewski, Michael Jaromin, Michael Jerison, Jane Kadish, Genevieve Kane, Igor
Kuznetsov, Andrei Lapenas, Danielle Leonard, Andi Lyons, Dave Mamorella, Daniel
Marksillo, David McCaffrey, David McDowall, Carla Meskill, Joe Messmer, Antun Milas,
John Monfasani, John Murphy, Saggi Nevo, Greta Petry, Susan Phillips, John Pipkin, Nathan
Powers, Christine Preble, Sanjay Putrevu, Eliot Rich, John Schmidt, Emma Schwab, Kevin
Williams, Oscar Williams, Elga Wulfert, Zheng Yan, Yuchi Young, Alan Zemel, James Zetka
Guests:
Jon Bartow, Susanna Fessler, Karin Reinhold, Robert Rosenswig, Kathie Winchester
The meeting convened at 2:47 pm.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of October 21. The minutes were approved as
written with the following voting results: Approved: 31; Opposed: 0; Abstained: 4.
PROVOST’S REPORT—SUSAN PHILLIPS
Provost Phillips reported on behalf of President Jones who was unable to attend. The SUNY Board of
Trustees adopted its 2014-2015 budget request. The request includes an operating budget of $208 million.
The increases in the request are associated with rational tuition, the SUNY 2020 plan and contractual
commitments. Approximately $4 billion has been requested for capital funds. The request will go to the
Division of Budget and the Governor’s Office.
Chancellor Zimpher held the third annual SUNY Conference last month. The focus of this year’s conference
was big data, improving student learning and enhancing research. Vice President for Research, James Dias
will be assembling a big data conference for our campus. Big data analysis is a component of our 2020 plan
and President Jones is interested in having UAlbany take leadership in this high needs area.
Provost Phillips reported on the progress we are making in shared services. UAlbany has entered into an
agreement with Hudson Valley Community College to share IT services and facilities. The agreement will
provide cost saving for both campuses.
Regulations for StartUp New York have become available. The initiative was launched by the governor
earlier in the year. Dr. Timothy Killeen, President of the Research Foundation, has visited the campus to
provide updates. UAlbany is attempting to develop ideas in our initiative that will expand on knowledge and
discovery as well as serving underserved and economically stressed communities. At the last UPPC meeting
a discussion took place on how to align the initiative with our academic mission.
Provost Phillips said there was not much new information to report on the CNSE separation but we are
waiting for Chancellor Zimpher to provide guidance on what the new entity will be. The implementation
team and campus advisory committee have been formed but both have not met yet. The provost expressed her
appreciation to those who are willing to serve with these groups.
Provost Phillips reported on the following items from Academic Affairs:
 The National Weather Service which has resided on our campus for 13 years will continue its
collaboration with the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences for another four years
with funding from the US Department of Commerce. The funding comes in the form of a three-year
grant which will continue the Collaborative Science, Technology and Applied Research (CSTAR) and
will focus on extreme weather conditions.
 The Citizen Laureate Awards celebration was a very successful and enjoyable event. This year’s
academic laureate is Stephen Berk, Professor of Holocaust and Jewish Studies at Union College. The
community laureate is James Barba, President of Albany Medical Center. Gifts in the amount
$100,000 each were presented by George Hearst and Morris Massery.
 Commencement will be held on December 8 in the SEFCU Arena. She encouraged everyone to
participate.
 Work has begun to develop online teaching and learning with faculty and individuals who may be
interested in adding this to their portfolios.
 Discussions of academic profiles for undergraduate programs in engineering and allied health are
underway.
Provost Phillips asked if there were any questions. An inquiry was made about expected costs of the
programs in engineering and allied health and where the money would come from. Provost Phillips
responded that any academic program will need to go through the school and college approval process. It
then needs approval from UPPC and the Senate. UPPC will consider the resources for any new program.
Both programs were proposed to SUNY as high needs programs. The campus has applied for and received
startup funding from SUNY for the engineering program. It’s possible the proposal will go to UPPC next fall.
UNIVERSITY SENATE CHAIR’S REPORT –CHRISTINE WAGNER, CHAIR
The Fall Faculty Meeting was held Thursday, November 7 th. President Jones presented a report to the faculty and bestowed the
Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence.
President Jones has officially formed the Campus Advisory Committee (CAC) following formal consultation with the Senate. The
CAC consists of 15 members, 8 of whom were recommended by the Senate, according to procedures of formal consultation. The
CAC will advise the President as he works with the SUNY Implementation Team to develop the new relationship between UAlbany
and CNSE. The members of the CAC are:
 Jim Acker, Criminal Justice
 Bob Andrea, Academic Affairs
 Steve Beditz, Finance & Business
 Brett Benjamin, English
 Christine Bouchard, Student Success
 Nick Butler, Student Association
 John Giarrusso, Finance & Business








Terry Harrison, Communication
Caitlin Janiszewski, Graduate Student Association
Carolyn MacDonald, Physics
David McCaffrey, Public Administration and Policy
Lee McElroy, Athletics
John Pipkin, Geography & Planning
Christine Wagner, Psychology and Senate Chair
Richard Zitomer, Biology
UFS President, Peter Knuepfer, distributed his report for the Fall Plenary meeting at SUNY Maritime. Item #4 in his report
discussed the CNSE-UAlbany separation and the point was made that the administrative workgroups set up by the Chancellor lack
faculty membership. Chair Wagner updated President Knuepfer by email making him aware of the Campus Advisory Committee
established by President Jones according to procedures of formal consultation and that this committee included faculty and senate
representation. Dr. Wagner received a reply from President Knuepfer stating that he was pleased to hear that President Jones is
committed to engaging faculty in this process.
Due to other commitments, Carolyn MacDonald is stepping down as Chair of CERS, but will remain as a member of CERS.
Nominations have been requested for a new chair and an electronic ballot will be conducted.
A Proposal for a Revision to Financial Market Regulation Major was received by Dr. David McCaffrey on 11/3/13. The proposal
was forwarded to UAC for review.
A Proposal for a name change for the Department of Reading was received by Dr. Robert Bangert-Drowns, Dean, School of
Education on 11/2/13. This proposal will be reviewed by the SEC on December 2nd.
Chair Wagner made specific reference to two items in her report. The Campus Advisory Committee was formed in
consultation with the Senate and the recommendations were forwarded to the president by the Senate Chair. Chair
Wagner also mentioned that a replacement for the CERS chair is underway.
OTHER REPORTS
UFS (University Faculty Senator’s Report) –Danielle Leonard, J. Philippe Abraham & John Schmidt,
SUNY Senators
165th Plenary Fall Meeting
October 24-26, 2013
SUNY Maritime
Attended by UAlbany’s Philippe Abraham, Danielle Leonard, and John Schmidt
Outlined below are a few of the issues that were discussed at the Plenary that most impact UAlbany. Many of these initiatives are
rapidly evolving and require careful consideration at the campus level.
Teacher Educator Preparation Programs:
The Board of Trustees passed a resolution aligning SUNY policies in our schools of education with recommendations as yet
unfinalized from the Governor’s New NY Education Reform Commission. This includes a minimum 3.0 or top 30% of high school
class entrance requirement; use of GRE and SAT scores required for admission; comparative report card of student results; and 35%
of professional course credits in clinical practice. Deans of Education schools were given a few days’ notice to provide feedback,
but no such opportunity was presented to the UFS or the Faculty Council of Community Colleges.
The UFS passed two resolutions on this issue. The first decries the passage of the BoT Resolution without consultation. The
second calls for a Task Force on Predictive Indicators of Teacher Candidate Quality to gather new data and to analyze the new and
existing data to determine effective indicators of teacher candidate success by June 30 th 2014. It also calls for a delay in the
implementation until this data can be examined further.
Start Up New York:
The legislation was passed by the Legislature in June 2013 with only a few days’ advanced notice. Campus Presidents have been
told to deliver some “wins” for the Governor by January, and several are prepared to do so. Suggested talking points for Campus
Governance with Presidents and/ or other senior leaders include:

How does the plan align with the academic mission of the campus?

o


What is in it for the campus? Will there be economic benefits from the arrangement that can enhance the academic mission?
Will there be internship or co-op opportunities for students that will enhance their experiential education? Will there be
opportunities for faculty to enhance their research through interactions with the companies?
It’s implied that any offering of jobs to students would meet the “academic mission” provision, but it was noted that this
hardly seems to actually support the academic mission of an institution.
Insist that the faculty need to be consulted on the nature of this alignment before the plan is finalized, not simply informed of
the result, if it is to be meaningful and gain faculty support.
Insist that consultation needs to be done with elected faculty leadership. i.e. The University Senate.
There is an aggressive timeline for implementation with a January 2014 start date. We were told that campuses have
submitted their core academic competencies and that this information could be found on the start-up NY website but no such
information was found. Campus Governance bodies were encouraged by the architect of this law, James Malatras, to be
assertive in understanding and questioning the plans of our respective campuses. Campus plans can be amended.
SUNY Shared Services:
The shared services initiative moves forward rapidly this year with focus on six “back-room” areas designed to save money across
the system (including purchasing, IT, and others). This initiative likely will continue to produce some tensions between campus
autonomy and “systemness”, although the emphasis has shifted to sharing of items for which savings can be made at scale.
Open SUNY:
Several pieces of the broad Open SUNY initiative will roll out in January. The UFS is establishing an Ad Hoc Committee on Open
SUNY. This group will report to the Senate on emerging issues related to Open SUNY, and thus will complement the Provost’s
Advisory Committee on Open SUNY. The significance of the Open SUNY initiative, its potential for both good and bad outcomes,
and the aggressive timetable all converged to demand a separate UFS committee.
SUNY signed a contract with Coursera over the summer to use their platform for MOOCs, should campuses and faculty wish, and
this has given Stony Brook the opportunity to offer a MOOC this fall, with credit restricted to matriculated SB students. SUNY has
yet to work out a mechanism for approval, oversight, credit, transfer, use of other institutions’ MOOC offerings, campus versus
System control, etc. But MOOCs are only one part of the initiative. Prior Learning Assessment, expansion of online courses and
online degrees, cross-registration of courses to allow students from one campus to seamlessly take an online course from another—
these are just a few of the other elements.
Seamless Transfer/ Student Mobility:
Seamless Transfer is now in the implementation stage and is essentially a campus governance issue.
The development of the initiative was essentially completed by the formal delivery of the Memorandum to Presidents early in the
summer. This year, campuses are expected to review their programs (majors, transfer information) to align with the seamless
transfer requirements, with preliminary reports due by the end of January. This clearly should involve considerable faculty input, all
the way down to the department level. Yet there remain differences in interpretation, with the Interim Provost insisting that areas in
the MTP that say campuses “should” adjust programs to include Transfer Path courses really means a requirement (i.e. a required or
core curriculum); that’s not how the UFS and Student Mobility Steering Committee read the wording of the MTP. This means that
the transfer pathway courses are the same as those demanded of native students in any program and the process of determining what
should be in the path is unfolding quickly. Under the current timeline, programs must be compliant by Fall 2014 and must be
pushed through campus governance this year, probably an unrealistic expectation.
UA-CNSE Separation:
The UA-CNSE Separation came up in two reports, although there was no substantive discussion of either report at the Plenary.
From the President’s Report: The Chancellor has set up a number of administrative workgroups to sort out various issues in the
separation. These groups lack faculty membership, and I have met with the CGL at UAlbany and the equivalent faculty member at
CNSE to ensure that they are aware of the process and can be certain to provide appropriate input.
From the Governance Council Report: A conference call has been scheduled between 2 members of the UFS Governance
Committee and 2 representatives from CNSE. They are asking for a review of their governance related documents, if more help is
needed, the Governance Committee will be happy to provide it.
Announcements:
BOT Forums: There are 4 upcoming BoT Forums on different topics:
1.
November 13th: Student Success
2.
3.
4.
November 25th: The Changing Student Experience in the 21st Century
December 3rd: The Future of Research and Innovation
December 4th: What it Means to be a Public University in NYS
Times and Locations to be announced.
SUNY’s First Conference on Shared Governance: April 23-24, 2014 at the Albany Holiday Inn on Wolf Road. Proposals will be
accepted through January 15, 2014.
GSO (Graduate Student Organization) – Caitlin Janiszewski, GSO President
We had our President's Forum in which we discussed several topics: 1- graduate student well-being, 2- Restoration of the
humanities, 3- Building a culture of sustainability, 4- Faculty Diversity, and 5- Fountain Day and constructing a new vision for
UAlbany.
We moved the dialogue forward on all of these topics, but were not thrilled with attendance. We are now in the process of following
up the conversation and determining ways to improve the format and attendance at the Spring forum.
The GSA also passed a resolution which calls for higher pay for contingent faculty. This resolution was already passed by the GSA
and SA at SUNY New Paltz. We passed it as part of a solidarity campaign to support UUP efforts across the SUNY system to
secure higher pay for contingent faculty.
We also invested in joining the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students so that we could utilize a network of student
governments to improve our structures and processes.
SA (Student Association) – Marc Cohen, Student Association Representative
Rachel Arnaud -- Director of Multicultural Affairs
For this past month my interns and I have been reaching out to several central avenue businesses about our farmers market program
idea, unfortunately due to weather and complications with insurance, we won't be able to have the programs this semester. We have
now shifted or efforts toward coming up with a new program, most likely we will be having a social program for our multicultural
groups and have it catered for all f their efforts this semester.
Derek Ellis -- Academic Affairs Director
1. We are continuing to work on the "UA U Should Know" program with Student Engagement and New Student Programs. The
program serves to introduce students to aspects of campus life, academics, and social events on campus that they might not
otherwise be exposed to. We are going to try to get involved with the Transfer orientation in January as well.
2. Working with Career Services to advertise and promote the Career Fair on Wednesday February 12th in the SEFCU arena.
Rose Avellino - Community Engagement and Outreach Director
On October 27th we had over 400 students in attendance at our Pine Hills Clean Up, the most since the biannual event started.
This month we are in the beginning stages of trying to bring an “in a pinch food pantry” to campus to help our students. Other
institutions such as SUNY Stony Brook have a similar food pantry program, which has already been successful and a good addition
to their campus.
Lastly, my department is working with Hackett Middle School’s after school program coordinators to bring an initiative called
“Discover UAlbany” next semester. We will be bringing in clubs, teams, and Greek life to show what our campus has to offer and
bridge the gap between our schools.
Alexis Klein -- Director of Dippikill Outreach
This past month we got a film crew to up to Dippikill to make a 30 second commercial and a 2 minute story about Dippikill. The 30
second commercial is posted on the Dippikill facebook page. The 2 minute story is taking a little longer, but once that is done it will
be put on the UAlbany social media page.
I have received money from UAS to do an event during finals week. The details are still in the works but, as far as I know I will be
tabling during finals week either around where the therapy dogs are on reading day or the day before that outside of the 518 market
giving away free coffee and treats to students going to study. We will have information on Dippikill and Dippikill merchandise.
There is a new Legislative Affairs Director -- Justyn Turner
MC: will attend suny SA conference will include for next sec rpt; attend along with gsa
COUNCIL/COMMITTEE CHAIRS’ REPORTS:
CAA (Council on Academic Assessment) – Deborah Bernnard, Chair
CAA did not meet in October but will meet on Nov. 22 to review a report from the Academic Program Review Committee.
CAFFECoR (Committee on Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, and Community
Responsibility) – Susanna Fessler, Chair
Nothing to report.
CERS (Committee on Ethics in Research and Scholarship) – Carolyn MacDonald, Chair
CERS is electing a new chair.
COR (Council on Research) – John Monfasani, Chair
Nothing to report.
CPCA (Council on Promotions and Continuing Appointments) – Sanjay Putrevu, Chair
The CPCA met on Nov. 1. The next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 22.
GAC (Graduate Academic Council) – Ronald Toseland, Chair
Nothing to report.
GOV (Governance Council) – Joette Stefl-Mabry, Chair
GOV met on 11/04/2013



On September 25, 2013, UAlbany Local Chapter UUP President, Bret Benjamin, requested that the Senate review the Senate
By-Laws and the contractual agreement between the State of New York and UUP (Agreement) regarding the existing
composition of CPCA. Upon review, the Governance Committee concluded that the inclusion of a Professional Faculty
member and students on CPCA is inconsistent with the current UUP Contract. GOV voted to propose an amendment to revise
the Senate Charter (X.7.1) and alter the composition of CPCA to include only Teaching Faculty (i.e., Academic Employees).
GOV discussed the charges of the Committee on Assessment of Governance and Consultation, which will be chaired by
Professor Dutta.
GOV began to explore issues surrounding CAFFECoR.
LISC (Council on Libraries, Information Systems, and Computing) – Elizabeth Gaffney, Chair
LISC held a meeting on October 28. Carole Sweeton from ITS came to discuss some concerns the council had raised about the
upgrade of classroom computers to Office 2013. In addition we have our committees fully staffed, and are holding organizational
meetings for both committees this month. Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 25.
UAC (Undergraduate Academic Council) – Richard Fogarty, Chair
UAC is working on several matters, including a few major curricular proposals, some of which the council may settle during its 13
November meeting. The chair will provide a verbal update about this during the senate meeting.
ULC (University Life Council) –Michael Jaromin, Chair
At the October 28th ULC meeting we hosted Laurie Garafola, Director of Residential Life and Aran Mull, Inspector of University
Police who presented on the current trends and issues in their respective areas. At our next meeting, Rick Coe from Athletics and
Stephen Pearse from UAS will be presenting. The November 4th Dialogue in Action event presented by Dr. Kristie Ford on
"Dynamics in a Diverse Classroom" was attended by 80 faculty and was described as a success. Her presentation covers "Teaching
Sensitive or Controversial Topics; Engaging Conflict, Emotion and Student Resistance in a Productive Manner; and Navigating
"Hot" moments in the classroom". Dr. Kristie Ford will be back in February for part II. In the meantime, small group discussions
facilitated by Karyn Loscocco and Walter Little will be taking place to talk about the information presented at the large group in
addition to other topics related to inclusive excellence.
UPPC (University Planning and Policy Council) –Andi Lyons, Chair
Chair Lyons reported that UPPC will meet again on Friday, November 22.
NEW BUSINESS
Approval of Changes to Council Membership:
Senate Secretary Gulatee reported that Professor Charles Scholes from the Chemistry Department has been
assigned to serve on CPCA. The change in council membership was approved by a vote with the following
results: Approved: 44; Opposed: 1; Abstained: 3
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 3:12 pm.
Respectfully submitted by
Gail Cameron, Recorder