Guydosh's Report on 
The SUNY University Faculty Senate
Fall 2003 Meeting

As Plattsburgh State's University Faculty Senator, I recently represented our Plattsburgh campus at the Fall 2003 plenary meeting of the University Faculty Senate in Oswego, NY. The University Senate's mission is to represent the voice of SUNY Faculty state-wide. It is composed of faculty representatives from each of the State University campuses and is organized much as our own local Faculty Senate. 

After the customary welcome by local dignitaries, University Faculty Senate President Joe Hildreth presented a report on recent issues and topics.  Among topics President Hildreth mentioned were the recent SUNY conference in Binghamton concerning international students, the upcoming SUNY conference in Albany concerning assessment, the upcoming report of a committee which would define best practices in Faculty Development and SUNY's Faculty Development Initiative.  

Vice-Chancellor for Finance and Business, Brian Stenson, offered a brief update on budgeting.  In summary, tuition has gone up and state support has gone down correspondingly.  An important element  of the update concerned the recent funds reallocation among campuses:  Application of the Budget Allocation Process (BAP) resulted in eight campuses being under-funded compared to their 2002-03 spending plans.  (Typically these were campuses with high cost per student programs such as medicine and engineering.)  Because of tuition increases, the remaining 23 campuses would receive more funds in 2003-04 than received under their own 2002-03 spending plans.  In order to equalize, a total of about $50 million was shifted from the 23 campuses to the 8 campuses so that those 8 campuses would receive at least the amount of their 2002-03 plans.  This resulted in very modest (2-3%) increases for the other 23 campuses.

Provost Peter Salins spoke about Initiatives and Programs in the Provost's Office.  There were many such programs and initiatives and the following summary of selected points does insufficient justice to Provost Salins commentary about them.

• Campus Mission Memorandum of Understanding II covering 2005-2010 and going broader and deeper -- more areas and more detail.
• Continuing the New Vision in Teacher Education
• Enhancement of Graduate Programs
• Transfer Initiatives including seamless transfer from community college to SUNY upperdivision campuses and templates for universally acceptable course transfers in teacher education, business, nursing, and engineering.
• Faculty Development
• Entering (High School) Student Preparedness
• Learning Environment Strategic Enhancement (ie, Technology)
• SUNY Connect -- integrated SUNY library system
• Access and Opportunity -- EOP, EOC, Aging, Disabled
• Campus Academic Outcomes Report
• Assessment -- general education, majors, value-added
• National Rankings Initiative -- to obtain higher rankings in national surveys

The Provost wisely chose not to go into detail concerning assessment of General Education.

In what was expected to be the "main event" and led off by a presentation on academic assessment by Dr. Candace Young of Truman State University, there ensued considerable discussion of System-Wide Assessment, of the SUNY Trustees's Resolution on System-Wide Assessment, and of the Draft Memorandum of Understanding on System-Wide Assessment.  A background on these documents and issues is available on the previous page.  It is difficult to describe the discussion, the process, and the eventual result.  With little exception, both Campus Governance Leaders and Senators spoke vehemently against even the hint of cooperation with the Resolution or with the Draft Memorandum of Understanding.  At the dinner break, all those interested in doing so were invited to meet through Friday evening to draft a resolution that encompassed all the discussion.  That group met from about 8:00 pm until after midnight.  What emerged was an almost conciliatory resolution very similar to the resolution that was eventually passed.  Although during debate and amendment some fire was added back into the draft resolution, many who reflected on the final version after the meeting expressed disappointment.  Essentially that final version of the resolution rejects cooperation with the Draft Memorandum of Understanding, but calls for further discussions.  The final resolution is available on the previous page.

      
As usual, these are all my own perceptions and other folks may have seen things differently.  As I have said in other reports to you, I appreciate your confidence in choosing me to represent the Plattsburgh campus as your representative to the University Senate.  I would be pleased to provide you with more detail about any of the items in this report, if I can do so.