Governance Council
Friday, February 20, 2015
9:00 AM
UNH 306
Cynthia Fox, Chair
Minutes
PRESENT: Chesin, Sorrell; Cruz, José; Dutta, Suarav; Fox, Cynthia; Gulatee, Yenisel; Janiszewski,
Caitlin; Kearney, Ann; Kuznetsov, Igor; Malavasic, Jolene; Moore, Chris; Scheck, Helene; Zemel, Alan
The meeting convened at 9:05 p.m.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of February 6, 2015 were unanimously approved, with minor changes.
The question was raised as to whether Emeriti are an appropriate constituency for participation in the
Senate? It was agreed this question should be taken to the SEC for discussion.
CHAIR’S REPORT
Chair Fox and Senate Chair Stefl-Mabry met with Provost Stellar on February 6. He confirmed that he
would be assuming the responsibilities of moving the Blue Ribbon Panels forward, and of following up to
ensure that the Senate is provided the opportunity to offer formal consultation to the advisory committee
on StartUp NY. The four big initiatives currently are Computer Engineering, ALS and ownstate potential
affiliations, and the new College of Cyber Security.
With respect to Cyber Security, David Rousseau has been appointed to lead the initiative and has asked to
for a meeting with the Senate Chair and Vice Chair presumably to discuss how to move this through
governance. As these are huge initiatives that will take UAlbany in new directions, we all need to be
mindful that GOV and the Senate will have to strike a balance between being cooperative in helping
initiatives move forward in a timely way and having sufficient time to be thoughtful and deliberative
in our responsibility for oversight of the curriculum.
A schedule of monthly meetings between Senate Chair, Vice Chair and Chief of Staff Leanne Wirkkula
representing the administration has been established.
Chair Fox, as a member and official representative of the faculty, will attend the University Council
meeting in New York City on Friday, February 27. The December meeting was cancelled because of
scheduling conflicts caused by the Provost search, so this will be only the second meeting of the year.
Chair Fox has asked for advice from Andrew Howard, Senate Parliamentarian, about how to draft the
parallel Charter amendment. Specifically, she wondered if voting privileges are removed from individuals
via the Bylaws, do they then also have to be removed from those same individuals via the Charter, or
would the Charter amendment simply need to address the voting privileges of ex officio administrators
who are not mentioned in the Bylaws but are mentioned in the Charter?
Also, noting that ex officio administrative members do not have voting privileges on the CAS Faculty
Council, Chair Fox had requested that members of GOV help determine whether this was true of the
governance structures of the various schools and colleges in general. The question turned out to be more
complicated than it first appeared since these structures vary rather widely across campus.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bylaw amendment
The Bylaw Amendment is believed to be ready to put forward, and as discussed the vote will align with
the Senate elections vote.
Charter Amendment
The quorum chart on how council and committee compositions would be affected by the proposed
Charter Amendment had been updated after the discussion at the last meeting. After further review it was
agreed that removing voting from ex-officio administrators who sit on various councils, committees and
sub-committees would have little or no effect either on quorum or on the minimal number of votes needed
for any action to be passed. It was agreed that GOV would not propose any language that would affect the
composition of the Councils (e.g., to add members); instead councils could rethink their compositions and
submit recommendations to GOV if they feel they needed to. GOV also agreed that addition information
about the functions and operating procedure of the UAC Subcommittee on Appellate Academic Standing
and the COR Liaison Committee was needed before the amendment could be written in order to determine
whether they require special consideration.
NEW BUSINESS
Senate Elections
GOV reviewed what the amendment would look like and how the voting process would work using
Peoplesoft. In the past, the ‘more information’ link was not reliable. ITS would be consulted to see if the
issue could be helped, though it could not be guaranteed to work. It was recommend that reminders be
sent spelling out the amendment and vote details and also be posted on the Senate website. These
reminders would be sent ahead of time on an ongoing basis: 1 reminder with amendment and a separate
reminder about the vote.
A meeting of the Committee on Liaison and Elections has been scheduled. They will discuss positions for
which GOV needs to put forward a preliminary slate of candidates and people can add to it.
Past procedures for determining individual recommendations were discussed. Candidates should
optimally be active in leadership and would be informally asked if they would be willing to run.
Timelines for the pending elections were also discussed, as well as the separate procedures for electing
the Senate Vice Chair.
Additional proposals for Charter amendments
Last fall, Senate Chair Joette Stefl-Mabry requested that each Senate council examine its section of the
Senate Charter and propose any updates as warranted. Chair Fox received several requests which she will
bring to the next meeting for discussion.
Beginning March 2, GOV will return to regular Monday afternoon meeting times as posted on the Senate
website.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 10:55 a.m.
Respectfully submitted by
Elisa Lopez, Recorder