Overview of Fall 2007 Plenary Meeting of FCCC
Prepared by Johanna Halsey – DCC Delegate
The Faculty Council of Committee Colleges (FCCC) met at the Silver Bay Association in
Silver Bay, NY on October 18th – October 20th.
The following gives an overview of the plenary session. Please feel free to contact me if
you want additional information on any area.
Speakers
The Council heard remarks from the following speakers. Items of interest in each
speaker’s report are listed below the speaker.
Dr. Pedro Caban, SUNY Vice Provost for Diversity and Educational Equity
 His office has oversight of education opportunity centers and equity and diversity.
They are working on developing diversity initiatives. Diversity has replaced
affirmative action. The office is working to diversify the employees/leadership. The
office wants to create a range of academic initiatives that link diversity to academic
excellence. This office sees it as their responsibility to bring together academic/
faculty/ student/ system resources and make them available to the campuses. They
will encourage System to support the community colleges in their efforts to
attract/diversify their campuses.

Caban’s office has requested funding for initiatives to
o Attract world class senior scholars to help SUNY to diversify the racial/ethnic
composition of campuses situated in different areas within the state. This will
hopefully help create a critical mass so that continuing diversification occurs.
This will be done in context of the Provost’s call for an increase in 1000
faculty over the next 5 years.
o Fund diversity initiatives which will be holistic in nature for faculty, graduate
students and undergraduate students.
o Recruit a diverse pool of graduate and undergraduate students with the focus
at the undergraduate level on STEM (science, technology, engineering and
math)
o Support academic research in diversity matters in very broad terms. Some of
this research will study the changing demographics of society.
o Fund technology.
o Identify best practices workshops for Deans.
o Increase and enhanced access to students in poverty stricken areas.
Dr. Dennis Golladay, SUNY Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges
Dr. Golladay discussed the following:
 Budget Requests from Association of Presidents of Public Community Colleges
(APPCC) included:
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o Increase in Community College Base Aid of $200/FTE or 1/3 net allowable
operating costs. (There are approximately 9 CCs which would receive more
than the $200/FTE in order to bring them to the 1/3 level.)
o Additional $200/FTE of special funding for high demand/high tech programs.
o Additional $150/FTE for resource demanding remedial courses.
o Continued funding for small community colleges supplemental aid, contract
courses, child care and rental aid.
o Capital funding for new projects and critical maintenance
 Prioritized with respect to which projects already have the support of
the local sponsor.
 Support for green projects
Access for students – There must be appropriate funding for developmental and
remedial education.
Affordability – Suggested a restructuring of TAP awards based on a credit hour basis
not semester basis so there is more aid for part time students or students who take
longer to get through school.
Workforce Development.
Transfer and Articulation: Discussions have included the following topics
o Developing a common curriculum and curriculum number system for general
education and common major courses throughout all of SUNY as well as an
upper limit on number of credits campuses could require for degree
completion.
o State-wide student-friendly degree audit system at both levels so students can
track their progress and also see how courses will transfer and what they will
need when they transfer.
o Voucher system – graduates from the community colleges will receive a
voucher to any SUNY school to which they want to transfer.
o Establishment and enforcement of transfer/articulation agreements.
o Seating capacity at state operated campuses should be increased to allow seats
for transfer.
Problems with the above are:
o Not as much money is available as expected due to bickering within the
legislature.
o Some negative perspectives from some state operated campuses that the
community college faculty and courses are not as rigorous or valuable as those
at state operated campuses.
Other comments
o Graduates from community colleges have a higher dropout rate when they
transfer to the baccalaureate level than native students, but those students that
do succeed are at the same level as the native student.
o The community colleges should not be involved exclusively in remediation
education as in the CUNY system. The state operated campuses should
continue to offer remedial education as appropriate.
Dr. Risa I. Palm - SUNY Provost
 Academic Initiatives:
o Commission on Higher Education
 Now in closed meetings.
 Report due 12/1 followed by 4 public hearings.
 Issues to be addressed by commission:
 New faculty
 Tuition differential
 Regularized tuition
 Transfer issues
 Common courses outlines/course numbering/ student learning
outcomes
 SUNY Compact
o Accountability – voluntary national initiative – Voluntary System of
Accountability (VSA) http://www.aascu.org/accountability/default.htm
 8 state operated campuses are participating
 Involve two standardized tests - NCCSE and CLA (valued added from
freshman to seniors)
o Course Re-design Initiative (CRI)
 The grants will probably be awarded to those courses with the largest
enrollments.
 The money that is saved must go back to the department.
o NASH (National Association of System Heads) Initiative on access and
success
 There is a major gap in preparedness by ethnic groups and income
levels.
 Income tends to be more influential than a student’s ability as to
whether a high school student goes to college.
 University Systems will set their own 5-year goals, which must
include lessening the gaps in college entry and lessening the
graduation rate gaps.
o Faculty hiring – highest priority in Academic Affairs
 Student FTE/Full time faculty for Community Colleges in SUNY is
33.7:1 and nationally 31.5:1.
 33% of faculty at community colleges in SUNY are full time (i.e. 2/3
of faculty are part time).
 There is a need for 1000 new faculty total within the SUNY system.
 Enrollment management has now moved to the Provost’s office
Strengthening the University
SUNY Student Association (SA) - Don Boyce, III, President
 The SA is looking at tuition policy, rational tuition versus differential tuition,
articulation, diversity, and encouraging SUNY to be green.
 Two key focuses are advocacy and communication. The SA uses blogs and message
boards to keep the students updated.
 He serves on the Commission on Higher Education and reports the following:
o 15 policy proposals that they have been hammering out. There are another 15
just for the community colleges.
o Economic development – connecting the communities. How do we encourage
research and small business incubation?
o Discussion on the P-20 education system. How do we partner our high
schools with our community colleges? There should be seamless movement
out of high school into college.
o Articulation: The Commission is looking at this issue and is encouraging
faculty to all get together and look at where the gaps are.
o Differential tuition most likely for the graduate level.
o Several different capital initiatives were discussed.
o Looking at how we strengthen the research centers without separating the
university as a whole.
University Faculty Senate (UFS): Professor Carl Wiezalis, President
 Energy Symposium Convention- Teams of 5 from each campus. This will mark in
dramatic way SUNY’s movement into the sustainability campaign.
 Conversation with Lloyd Constantine, Senior Advisor to the Governor
o He wants all of the campuses involved in service learning.
o Academic Freedom is still an issue. The UFS will put together a ethics and
professional behavior committee.
o We should be helping students develop “soft skills”.
o Constantine did mention that community colleges were underrepresented on
The Governor’s Commission on Higher Education. He feels that faculty will
be very pleased with this report. It should involve more money for faculty
and more faculty lines, a very serious movement to full time faculty. He
thought that 75 – 80% of faculty should be full time.
o If there is one thing that SUNY is responsible for it is making sure students
have the ability to be successful. What can we do to improve communication
with the high schools so that students are prepared for college and will be able
to successfully complete a program and graduate? Until we make the whole
system seamless, we will always experience trouble. Teacher education is an
important part of this.
New York Community College Trustees (NYCCT): Cynthia Demarest, Executive
Director
 Their mission is to strengthen the community college BoT groups through
information, advocacy, and education. Community College Boards seem to be
either to over-involved or under-involved in the management of the college. They try
to help BoT members work out the delicate balance between faculty, president, board.
Institute for Community College Development (ICCD): Barbara Viniar, Executive
Director
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The Provost has asked ICCD do an external program review for their program. They
should consider what the mission is for ICCD, how are they fulfilling it, are they
meeting objectives, etc.
University Wide Reports – presented by members of the FCCC Executive
Committee
 Governor’s commission of higher education
o In closed sessions
o Public hearings in December
 GEAR
o Collecting closing the loop activities to lead to a best practices workshop.
 SUNY’s Course Redesign Initiative (CRI)
FCCC discussion on this initiative covered the following points:
o Concern that in the future there could be only one SUNY Eng 101 offered
through SLN to all students within the System. What would this do to us and
our courses?
o Requires a lot of standardizing of teaching within the course
o Course Redesign is to be used to save money in large enrollment, multisections courses by replacing faculty with more temporary staff – including
adjuncts and teaching assistants.
 Nursing Task Force
o Shortage of nurses and nursing faculty in NYS
o Recommendations to Chancellor by January
 Working to learn: Policy forum
o TAP discriminates against returning adults
Business Meeting:
Committee Reports
Academic Affairs - Initiatives
 BSN
 Dual Credit
 Seamless transfer
 Spellings Report
 Course Re-design
 Resolutions/ Statements of Support
o A statement for support for nursing resolution was passed unanimously. A
white paper went to governor and the commission.
o A resolution on transfer was passed unanimously.
o A motion in support of the Digital Library Initiative was passed unanimously.
Governance – Initiatives
o By-laws
o Code revisions in limbo, not supported by BoT
o Workshop for governance leaders - Best practices and concerns from campuses.
o Developing a definition for shared governance.
o Continue the survey analysis to governance campus leaders. Based on surveys, will
determine the appropriate time, date place to have a governance conference.
o Continuing to refine and formulate a response to SUNY’s legal response to our
request for a seat on the board of trustees. Request is currently stalled, but we will
take the time to formulate this response.
CC Relations
o Faculty Development Conference in March 2008
o New awards for Community College delegates
o Electronic version of FCCC newsletter
Student Life
 Millennial students
 Practices on campuses to improve student leaders
 Service learning
 International students
 Persistence and degree completion of part time non-traditional students
 Critical incidents task force – the following 4 areas will be discussed
 Mental Health issues on campuses.
 Service learning
 Declining adult learners at community colleges over past years.
 What can be done to support student leaders?
Information Officer
 CIT is the premier conference on technology