Governance Council
Monday, February 4, 2013
2:00PM
UNH 306
Christine Wagner, Chair
Minutes
Present:
Liang Chu, Anthony DeBlasi, Erzsébet Fazekas, Cynthia Fox, Yenisel Gulatee, Ann
Kearney, John Schmidt, Joette Stefl-Mabry, Karen Torrejon, Christine Wagner, Daniel
White
The meeting convened at 2:52 pm.
CHAIR’S REPORT
Chair Wagner had GOV members introduce themselves as there were new and returning members. The
Chair attended UAlbany Day events at the Empire State Plaza. She joined one of several teams who made
visits to legislators and spoke to them about putting a capital plan in place for SUNY. Her group spoke
with Senators Farley and Zeldin about obtaining capital to improve our buildings on campus.
Chair Wagner discussed some of the issues GOV will address in the coming months. GOV will need to
discuss the logistics of conducting the vote on the Bylaws amendment at the spring faculty meeting. Chair
Wagner reminded GOV that the Bylaws needed a full review for any additional amendments that may be
needed. She asked GOV members to do a review for the next meeting, looking for language that needs
clarifications or items that need updating. Daniel White suggested there may be items that could be
presented as “housekeeping” and would be distinguished from real changes requiring a vote. Chair
Wagner agreed some things might be handled in that manner.
Elections will be conducted for at-large senators for the coming year. Chair Wagner will be asking GOV
members to submit names of potential nominees to be added to the slate of candidates. There are four
seats up for election this year and two candidates are needed for each slot. Candidates must be willing to
run for election and serve on the Senate. In addition to the at-large seats, nominees need to be added to
the ballot for two SUNY senators. Chair Wagner asked GOV to think about names of people for
nomination.
Chair Wagner will be talking with the deans of the schools and colleges about their senators and will
encourage them to put forth their best people. She will advocate that the Senate’s work is important
during her discussions with them over the next two weeks.
The meeting schedule for the spring semester has been set for every other week. Chair Wagner wanted to
get the dates on the calendar as it would be easier to cancel meetings as opposed to adding dates. GOV
will not meet on February 18 since it is a holiday. The next meeting will be on March 4.
Karen Torrejon asked if there will be any revisions to the Charter. Chair Wagner responded that the
Charter does need review and revisions are likely. For now though the focus is on the Bylaws because it
needs to go to the full faculty for a vote and needs to be approved by the voting faculty. Changes in the
Charter only require Senate approval.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of December 10 were approved with minor changes and three abstentions.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Update on CAIR
Joette Stefl-Mabry provided an update from the Committee on Administrative Review (CAR). Senator
Stefl-Mabry thanked Cynthia Fox, John Schmidt and Patrick Nold for their work. She said they have been
instrumental in developing the Amendment for creating the Council on Assessment and Institutional
Review (CAIR) and the accompanying guidelines. The idea of conducting administrative “evaluations”
has been contentious. With assistance from Bruce Szelest in Institutional Research, the CAIR acronym
was proposed and the documents were developed.
Professor Schmidt said the strategic plan implementation has review and assessment built into it and
CAIR piggybacks on that. There are questions about who would design the survey questions to evaluate
administrative units and who would tabulate the responses. The comments need to be substantive to make
the process useful which raises issues concerning anonymity. Once the report is completed, the written
comments would be destroyed.
Senator Stefl-Mabry said some amendments were made to the original document based on feedback from
Mr. Szelest. The changes are mostly minor changes in language. From Mr. Szelest’s point of view, CAIR
should resemble CAA. Senator Stefl-Mabry believes that has been accomplished. Mr. Szelest will
respond with reaction from the administration. The hope is for the new administration to be on board.
Chair Wagner asked when it might come to the Senate. Senator Stefl-Mabry said it was her hope it would
be this semester. The administration is more engaged this time around. Secretary Gulatee asked if there
has been any feedback from other campuses about the pros and cons of doing evaluations. Senator SteflMabry said the response is usually one of surprise when another campus realizes UAlbany is not doing
this. Chair Wagner thanked everyone on CAR for their hard work.
IRCUAP & the Senate Charter – Update from Subcommittee
At the end of the fall semester, a subcommittee was formed to address the issue that IRCUAP remains in
the Charter despite not being signed by the President. The members of the committee were John Schmidt,
Reed Hoyt and Ben Weaver. Professor Schmidt agreed to chair the committee. Chair Wagner asked him
to provide an update on the status of the amendment. He provided an overview of the matter of the
IRCUAP being passed by the Senate but not signed by President Philip. The amendment was added to the
Charter without the president’s approval. Amendments that deal with internal functions of the Senate do
not have to be signed by the presidents. But IRCUAP names specific staff with a specific charge. Since
IRCUAP provides a level of review for courses or programs that do not originate within a school or
college, there is a lack of cooperation on how to accomplish this without the president’s signature. The
new writing program will require such review since the courses will not be coming from a school or
college, but it’s expected they will go through UAC. GOV would like to resolve the matter before it gets
to that point. The amendment could be removed from the Charter or a statement could be inserted that it
is inoperative as has been previously discussed by GOV, although it remains an expression of the Senate’s
preference on how to handle such courses. Of the three members of the subcommittee, Professor Schmidt
wrote two paragraphs that could be inserted to explain the matter and sent them to the others. Professor
Weaver felt that that the amendment should just be removed from the Charter, while Professor Hoyt felt
that the insertions captured GOVs view and that it should remain. Chair Wagner declined to offer any
vote at this point but did offer to meet with the three subcommittee members to come to a consensus about
what GOV should vote on.
NEW BUSINESS
Review of Bylaws
Chair Wagner will send the Bylaws via email to GOV members. If anyone sees outdated information or
things that seem problematic, share them via email. The logistics of conducting the vote will be discussed
at the next meeting.
Professor Schmidt recommended doing a review of the Senate Handbook. Chair Wagner agreed that it
should be done although it is a lower priority.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 3:33 pm.
Respectfully submitted by
Gail Cameron, Recorder