SUNY FACULTY SENATE - FALL PLENARY MEETING NOTES
PLENARY AND CAMPUS GOVERNANCE LEADER MEETINGS
1. Shared Services - Discussed at length. There seemed to be a general belief by faculty that this was not very well communicated and will not work very well. Many were unclear which campuses and what services should be shared. Sharing was not necessarily viewed by the faculty as a cost savings. Some suggested it is actually costing more to do and metrics should be developed to show results. Some feared this was really a first step towards future mergers of campuses. Some colleges are already considering, or have taken steps to save money through internal, inter-departmental savings. It was suggested that elected governance should be involved in all such shared services decisions. This was considered by faculty as "wise leadership." A Resolution on Shared Services was amended (grammatical changes only) and passed. Dr. Keefe proposed a change, to which the Faculty Senate President (Ken Obrien) said he would "never question a grammar change proposed by Dr. Keefe." All unanimously agreed!
The Faculty Council for Community Colleges indicated that shared services is not really an issue for the community colleges at this time. The community colleges, however, indicated that one of the major challenges they currently face involves students who require remediation at a time when there is increased pressure to graduate students quickly, while employers claim recently employed students are not adequately prepared to do the work.
2. Shared Presidents - Concerns were expressed over loyalty and fundraising by one individual for two separate institutions. At some campuses administrative positions are being eliminated or shared, particularly where retirements are occurring. Concerns were expressed that this is increasing the workload on some faculty. How should colleges count faculty members that are shared, and will this hurt them in some way statistically? The Faculty Senators remarked that they never thought they would see the day when they would find themselves arguing for more administrators.
3. Organizational Changes - Some college administrations have charged task forces/work groups and are dictating specific changes without involving their college council or faculty. This was viewed as unacceptable. Faculty believes change should always be strategic and never opportunistic. Student government representatives are using student interns assigned to NY Senators' office in DC to help advance their legislative agendas (e.g. SUNY matching funds proposal).
4. Medical Schools - These schools have experienced recent financial strains. They received $60M from SUNY which included funding that was legislatively restored. Much of the money came from cuts at other SUNY institutions. Hospitals claim they still need another $14M to make them whole. This is a SUNY "most critical need" priority and may affect future budget reductions for other campuses. It was predicted that we will experience limited/shrinking budgets for the next two decades. It was also mentioned that the medical schools were recently put on probation by their accrediting body for a disconnect between their curriculum and faculty. The accrediting body is currently in discussions with SUNY.
5. Leadership - There were many examples discussed of poor leadership at various campuses - (1) using funds to hold a retreat to plan major organizational changes and excluding faculty, (2) creating work groups to make major changes to curriculum just before a Middle States visit, and without involving faculty, and (3) too many instances of claims of harassment and votes of no confidence for college administrators and (4) many more examples of that can be categorized as either poor decisions or poor management/employee relations. It was clear that some campuses are experiencing significant turnover and interim administrators are not exercising effective leadership which greatly concerns faculty.
6. Faculty Assessment - Few campuses have a Director of Institutional Effectiveness and feel that they are missing a critical position. This has resulted in unqualified faculty and/or administrators having to make reports to justify data assumptions or changes. Everyone is using a different method to assess faculty. More are moving to an online format. There are many different ways the information is currently captured and shared, and a general feeling among the faculty that these assessments are providing very little useful feedback, as there is no real follow-up. Someone pointed our that UUP tenured faculty are required to be assessed every 3 years.
7. David Lavallee - Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
(a) Plan to link SUNY Academic and Operational functions to help jump-start Research Foundation. Some controversy is associated with this.
(b) Believes grade change policy resolution is good. A draft SUNY policy suggesting a layered approach involving students and faculty will be written and distributed. SUNY will merely insist that each campus have a policy that is consistent with the SUNY policy.
(c) College Readiness & Developmental Education - Applied Math (Statistics vice Calculus). Carnegie Project - self-paced learning online to get students up-to-speed.
(d) Degree Works - Tracks requirements for students & advisors from one school to another. Contains electronically populated transcript information. We should make things easier for students by eliminating multiple paper forms.
(e) Shared Services - SUNY has seen $1.4B in NYS reduction. Administrative overhead is steady or rising as campuses grow (economies of scale). Past/current practice is that whenever someone leaves, we automatically hire someone else. SUNY would like us to consider whether or not these positions really need to be filled and whether some of the money saved could be redirected to the classroom. List of partnership campuses was developed by college presidents based on size, geographic proximity. If campuses could share key administrative positions, it would save a few million dollars. Goal is to invest in faculty and students. It was apparent from listening to Mr. Lavalle's remarks that the faculty comments/concerns heard earlier were much different and seem to reveal a communications problem - the need for SUNY to better educate the faculty on what shared services really means and how it may affect faculty.
(f) Banner - Why do SUNY campuses all have different versions, interfaces, data policies, etc.? We should all be entering data in the same way, so the data can be shared and consistently interpreted and used (apples & apples vs. apples and oranges). Need to get this right.
8. Brian Hutzley, Vice Chancellor for Financial Services & CFO (Interim)
(a) Mr. Hutzley gave a power point presentation which painted a bleak financial picture for the near future - $2.4B gap at state level means SUNY will not increase its budget for some time to come. Almost 600 faculty member positions are currently unfilled and over 1,400 course sections have been eliminated. If nothing else happens, SUNY is probably looking at another $25M cut next year. Need to re-invent and re-invest ourselves.
(b) Shared Services is multi-dimensional (SUNY-wide, regional, sector, functional, specialized). Use buying power to save money to drive savings NYS wide (e.g. computers, copiers, maintenance supplies, etc.) - we should expect to see 10% savings just from this.
(c) IT Transformation - more efficient and effective to have one vice 64 systems.
(d) Shared governance vision - President, Provost and CFO from each sector.
(e) Resource Allocation Model - several groups are working on this. Goal is to have a clear and tranparent predictable model that is fair and consistent with strategic goals. Need to know actual instructional costs (include overhead, not just instructor salary and textbook costs). Admiral Craine in his study noted large differences in telephone costs among campuses. Currently we are wasting too much money due to "choice" (e.g., different computer systems that someone arbitrarily determines is necessary).
(f) Rational Tuition increases - next year is last year of 10% NYS payback - after 2012, it will be 50%/50%. It was noted that student governments had support the increases.
9. Q&As With Chancellor Nancy Zimpher (various work groups who met earlier gave a briefing of their meetings and had some questions for the Chancellor)
(a) Shared services is still in the early stages. It was an out-of-the-box idea. Understand it is a sensitive issue, but we must realize we are operating in difficult times. Not sure shared presidency will work in the end, but we have an opportunity to test the concept with Morrisville. We should consider opening up new avenues of promotion and recognition. "Systemness" is a big word in the health care field and how the Chancellor thinks of shared services. Need to use Admiral Craine's base closure experience when thinking about what we can do - e.g., disaster preparedness - how can we help each other? Committee considering ranges of services based on size of campus and resources available; need to establish some parameters. Not SUNY's intent to move shared services into mergers.
(b) Senior level closed searches is viewed as a sector issue. Need to keep private enough to keep the candidate while making public enough to engage certain people on campus. Recommend selecting six key individuals for search committee who can maintain privacy.
(c) Middle States - the people who populate accrediting bodies are us! We therefore we have the opportunity to influence Middle States, but we need to be more articulate.
(d) NYS needs to see SUNY as an asset. The Governor needs to see that which will enhance our stature.
During a break, Chancellor Nancy Zimpher came over to say hello to Dr. Keefe. I introduced myself and she told us how much she enjoyed her recent visits to Maritime College, especially her recent visit for the diesel engine dedication ceremony. I also heard from several people that they very much enjoyed working with Dr. Markoe and Prof. Johansson. It was obvious they did a good job and we have a good reputation in the Faculty Senate. One person remarked during one of our meetings how some colleges hardly ever attend the meeting of the Campus Governance Leaders, but Maritime College is always represented.
This was a very interesting meeting that allowed me to better understand SUNY and what is happening at other campuses and the many challenges they are facing. I had the opportunity to meet the representatives from many of the SUNY campuses. I reached out to the medical schools to let them know that we are always looking for doctors for SST. I also met with the University Faculty Senate member from the College of Optometry to which we have sent many cadets recenty for color vision testing. She will send me some information regarding specific tests they have that can adequately test engineers for color vision (red, green, blue & yellow). I will then submit this information to the USCG for approval since they claim are currently no approved tests that the USCG NMC is aware of other than the Farnsworth Lantern (D-15).
After listening to both SUNY faculty from various campuses and SUNY administration over the past few days, I believe that we are very well poised at SUNY Maritime College to meet the many challenges we will surely face in the next few years. It will, however, require strong leadership, a complete understanding of what SUNY expects from us, or what we can do for SUNY, good communication by all, and a willingness to make some difficult changes from what we are accustomed to.
The next meeting is at Cornell University in January 2012.
Ernie
P.S. My favorite quote from the meeting was "The consequences of not following policy is more policy." Some colleges even have a policy to address policy.
CAPT ERNEST J. FINK, USCG (RET)
Chairman, Professional Education & Training Dept.
