Faculty Senate Budget Review Committee

           Annual Report, 2002-2003

 

            Once again, this is an interim report.  The fiscal year ends on June 30 and accounts cannot be fully “closed out” for accounting purposes until several months thereafter.  As a result, a reasonably accurate statement of expenditures for Fiscal Year 2002-2003 will not be available until late November 2003.  Once this is available, the Budget Review Committee will provide its final report to the Senate for the fiscal year in question.  In the meantime, this interim report will simply cover the Committee’s activities during the past year.

            In the autumn of 2002, the BRC first discussed the report generated by the SUNY Faculty Senate detailing budget processes on different SUNY campuses and outlining “best practices.”   Judging by this report, there is no standard model or normative approach, the process at BU is about average, and there is room for improvement.  As it is, however, the process at BU has already seen notable improvements in recent years, including significantly more detailed expenditure reports from the administration and the presence of other faculty governance leaders at BRC meetings.  (These were: Burrell Montz, Chair of the Faculty Senate; Dick Eckert, Chair of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee; Susan Strehle, Chair of the Educational Priorities and Planning Committee; Pete Knuepfer, BU’s senator on the SUNY Faculty Senate).

            The BRC also met in the autumn of 2002 to put finishing touches on the new framework for presenting an “all funds” format for reporting expenditures to the Faculty Senate.  Developing this new format has been a major undertaking made possible by extensive assistance from those members of the BRC who are part of the campus administration. (These were: Tony Ferrara, Vice-President for Administration; Mary Ann Swain, Provost; Jim Van Voorst, Assistant Vice-President for Administration; Michael McGoff, Vice-Provost for Planning and Budget.)  As a result of this joint effort, the BRC was able to provide the Faculty Senate with an “all funds” report which broke down revenues by funding source and campus expenditures for each of the vice-presidents, also by funding source.  Data presentation of this sort had not previously been available to the Faculty Senate.

            In the spring of 2003, the BRC worked on two issues.  First, the difficulties of preparing a campus budget in the climate of a large gap between revenues and expenditures in the budget of New York State.   The high drama of a legislative override of Governor Pataki’s proposed budget prolonged uncertainty about the size of the tuition hike and the amount of state tax dollars that would be available to SUNY and therefore to Binghamton University.  The senior administrators of BU decided to plan for a 5 % reduction in spending based on balancing the predictable rise in certain costs (utilities, contracted salary increases, continuation of the Bio-Engineering Program, etc.) and the likely level of state appropriations (which combines tuition dollars and tax dollars).  This soon manifested itself in some unpleasant cost-cutting measures, noticeably the anticipated cancellation of adjunct positions in Harpur College.  Once the dust had settled in Albany, however, BU received 0.5 % more in state appropriated dollars for Fiscal Year 2003-2004 than it had received the previous year.  The method of allocating these funds did not directly cover the added costs of providing tuition wavers once tuition was sharply increased.  This devolution of costs to our campus required an internal reallocation of resources in order to cover the tuition increase for graduate students receiving assistantships and undergraduates from out of state receiving scholarships.  Together, therefore, predictable “incremental” cost increases, internal reallocations to cover the increased costs of tuition wavers, and administrative decisions to continue to develop certain aspects of the university, rather than simply to preserve BU’s existing configuration, required reducing expenditures in numerous areas.

            Second, in the spring of 2003, the BRC began the process of creating a framework that will enable us to add expenditures by college to the annual “all funds” report.  This involved meeting with the four of the five college deans in order to understand their particular expenditure structures.  The vast differences between colleges’ expenditure reporting has required the BRC to continue this process into 2003-2004.

 

Howard G. Brown

Chair of the Faculty Senate Budget Review Committee

 

Committee Members not named above: Faculty: Serdar Atav, Louis Braiotta, George Catalano, George McKee, Liz Rosenberg, Timothy Schum, and Robert White; Students: David Dickman, A. Sunaryo

ANNUAL REPORT

FACULTY SENATE BYLAWS REVIEW COMMITTEE

2002-2003

 

 

The Bylaws Review Committee did not meet.  No issue was referred to it by either the Faculty Senate or the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

 

 

David Lee Hanson, Chairperson

 

 

Other committee members:

          Ed Burns

          Randy McGuire

          Rosmarie Morewedge

          Kathryn Sklar

          Wayne Jones

          David Payne

Convocations Committee

Binghamton University

 

 

MEMORANDUM

 

DATE:                                August 27, 2003                                  

 

TO:                                Kathy Bowman, Faculty Senate Secretary              

 

FROM:                                Bruce Borton, committee chair

 

RE:                                Annual Report of Convocations Committee            

 

In response to the committee’s charge to allocate funds for the purpose of bringing programs to campus that enhance and support the intellectual, cultural and artistic aspects of the academic curriculum, and to focus our efforts as to as diverse a community as possible, the Convocations Committee awarded funds to 14 separate events during the 2002-03 school year.  Allocations ranged from a minimum of $250 to a maximum of $2000.   Our annual allocation of $8000 was added to the previous year’s reserve of $8000 for a total of $16,000 in available funds.  It has been the practice of the committee over the past years to try to maintain and grow a surplus for occasional more costly events such as this year’s Cornel West speech sponsored by the Black Student Union.  Grants this year totaled $12,300 leaving a balance of $3700.

 

The organizations and events funded by the committee are listed below:

 

1000        Phi Iota Alpha     Felipe Luciano speech (11/14/02)

1000        Music Department                Diva Concert (3/21/03)

1000        Africana Studies   David Mc Bride Lecture (11/15/02)

1000        English Department                New Caribbean-American Voices (11/02)

1000                Coloniality Group                Elaine Browne speech (11/20/02)

1000                 Multicultural Resource Center    The Nanas Morrow (1/20/03)

2000        Black Student Union                Cornel West Speech (2/28/03)

800          Delta Sigma Theta                African Dance Event (2/23/03)

250          Native Amer Awareness                Daystar performance (4/8/03)

450          Career Development Center    Socially responsible careers (4/7/03)

500          Haitian Student Assoc                HaSa Night (3/1/03)

500          MASS-SEHD     Politics of Research and Activism (5/1/03)

900          Grad Student Org                Peace Forum (4/3/03)

900          Grad VP of Multicultural                Evening w/ Prof. Mazrui (5/9/03)

 

Committee members:

                Karen Barzman

                Bruce Borton (Chair)

                Sharon Bryant

                Lou Gioia

                David Hagerbaumer

                Kim Liebhauser

                Lindah Mhando

                Becky Patt

                Kate Sabato

                Tammy Taraszkiewicz

                Maureen White

 

 

DATE:                        May 13, 2003

 

TO:                             The Faculty Senate

 

FROM:                       Educational Policy and Priorities Committee,

                                    Susan Strehle, Chair

 

SUBJECT:                 Report, 2002-2003

 

The committee met frequently throughout the year.  Much of the business before us involved the consideration of new programs and degrees.  In each case, we discussed the proposal with faculty from the proposed program and often with those from related fields. 

 

We forwarded to the Senate Executive Committee the following degree proposals:

 

  1. The Masters in Social Work

 

  1. The B. S. in Bioengineering, with a department of Bioengineering

 

  1. The B. A. in Asian and Asian-American Studies

 

  1. The joint program with three Turkish universities to offer a B. S. in Global and International Affairs

 

  1. The Ph.D. in Translation Studies

 

  1. The joint program with three Turkish universities to offer a B. S. in Information Systems, though this proposal was received too late for full discussion

 

  1. We also received a proposal for an undergraduate integrated curriculum in evolutionary studies, which will be on the committee’s agenda in fall, 2003.

 

In addition, the EPPC discussed academic policy issues.  We forwarded to the Senate Executive Committee written proposals on the following:

 

  1. Guidelines for the approval of new degree programs and departments, concluding the work of the previous year;

 

  1. A report and recommendation regarding changes to the drop deadline, continuing the work of the previous year;

 

The EPPC continued its role in oversight of the assessment efforts in General Education and the major, receiving progress reports from the chair at regular intervals.  The committee also discussed faculty contributions to mission based on a request from the Provost.

 

Committee membership, 2002-2003:

Susan Strehle, English, Chair

Frank Cardullo, Mechanical Engineering

Jeanne Eichelberger, Library

Scott Jaffe, graduate student

Christopher Kelly, senior (spring)

Lindsey Krecko, junior English major (fall)

Harold Lewis, Systems Science and Industrial Engineering

Joshua Shapiro, senior (spring)

Justin Sheldon, senior (fall)

Julian Shepherd, Biological Sciences

Alvin Vos, English

Provost Mary Ann Swain, ex officio

Vice Provost H. Stephen Straight, ex officio

 

 

2002-2003 Annual Report of Faculty Senate EOP Advisory Committee

June 15, 2003

 

 

The Faculty Senate EOP Advisory Committee met monthly during the 2002-3 academic year.  During the first part of the year we spent a number of meetings discussing the summer program for entering students and ways that it could be strengthened. 

 

The committee also assisted with the soliciting and collecting of desk copies of textbooks used by students at the tutorial center.

 

During the latter part of the year members of the committee discussed how we could best assist with the preservation of EOP, which was threatened by the proposed budget cuts.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Jane Connor, Chairperson

Associate Professor of Psychology

 

Members:

 

Don Blake

Cheryl Brown

Sharon Bryant

Erik Colon

Jane Connor (Chair)

Janet Hogan

Demenia Kilpatrick

Lindah Mhando

Francine Montemurro

Becky Patt

Tiffany Patterson

James Pogue

Kelvin Santiago

H. Stephen Straight

Sandra Willoughby

 

 

 

Annual Report of the Faculty Senate

Intercollegiate Athletics Committee

2002-2003

(Please note - this report was subsequently withdrawn)

 

The Faculty Senate Intercollegiate Athletic Committee met five times during the 2002-2003 academic year. The major agenda item was to attempt to understand the fiscal issues associated with the move to Division I status. While Professor / Director Joel Thirer generously made his staff available to our committee, in the end we were not able to determine conclusively the financial impact of the initiative. It is the committee’s instinctive reaction that there is higher cost associated with Division I operations, however, we were never able to obtain sufficient financial data from the last year prior to the move to compliance with Division I/ II requirements. In fact much of the current data seems obscure. These issues will be illuminated in the following paragraphs of this report.

 

The committee had a very informative meeting with six of the associate/assistant athletic directors (of which there are 9.85). At this meeting we learned the responsibilities of each. The consensus was that these people do a very good job of ensuring that the University does not run afoul of NCAA regulations and that athletes remain eligible. Regarding eligibility, it is interesting to note that according to NCAA regulations a student participating in a sport that crosses semester boundaries and is eligible in the first semester is automatically eligible in the second semester irrespective of his/her academic performance in the first semester. The Department does not consider it appropriate to impose more restrictive guidelines on our campus.

 

According to data supplied by the Department, for the year ending June 30, 2002, there were a total of 21.1 FTE administrative positions chargeable to the athletics component of the department, including 85% of the director’s position, amounting to $975,036 in salaries. There are 39.95 FTE coaching positions with a cumulative salary of $1,458,485. These data are from the middle of the spring semester, it is not known at which point the data were collected. It is interesting to note that coaching lines have been moved from faculty slots to a new category, which was not defined. As of 2001 and 2002 full-time faculty headcount is tabulated below.

 

Academic Unit

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

University total

471

466

479

510

509

Management

33

33

33

37

36

Nursing

23

25

28

30

30

SEHD

22

24

25

25

24

Watson

49

49

47

54

50

Physical Ed.

19

22

30

33

42

Harpur

325

313

316

331

327

 

The next table illustrates the University and Physical Education full-time faculty headcount, reflecting the change of status of the coaches from 1997, as of 2002. It should be noted that these tables were changed in 2002 and made retroactive to 1998.

           

Academic Unit

1996

1997

1998

1999

200

2001

University total

471

466

461

487

483

498

Physical Ed

19

22

12

10

16

12

 

The reduction in the Physical Education row is due to the removal of coaches positions from the designation of faculty. There is a consequent change in the University total line. For some unknown reason there exists a slight discrepancy between the two. 

 

The committee was interested in attempting to determine the additional cost of the Division I program above Division III, in terms of State contribution. As stated above, conclusive data did not seem to be forthcoming. However, a summary of the data collected is presented here albeit the comparison is not precise. According to data provided by the budget review committee the expenditures by “Physical Education and OA” (the chair was never able to determine from any source the definition of OA) in 1996-97 were $1.015M and in 2001-02 the intercollegiate athletics expenditures alone were $5.65M. This is as close as we could come to an accurate comparison. It should be noted that there has been a significant increase in revenue from other sources since 1996, mainly the mandatory student athletic fee. According to documents provided to the Faculty Senate in April 1999, in 1996-97 the revenue from the Intercollegiate Athletic Fee was $774,000 when the fee was $45 per semester. In 2001-2002 the revenue from this fee   was $1.95M. The 2002-2003 athletic fee was $150 per semester and is continuing to increase at a rate of $10 per semester. The committee notes that the fee continues to increase although in testimony before the Faculty Senate on March 30, 1999 Professor Thirer stated that the fee would increase the following “semester to $100 per semester, but there were no plans to increase it further”.   

 

Among the data presented to the Faculty Senate in April of 1999 were projections of revenue and expenses for the 2001-02 academic year. These data are tabulated below where it can be seen that the actual expenses far exceeded those projected.

 

Revenue

State

allocation

Athletic

fee

Athletic

club

Event revenue

Revenue sharing

Misc.

Total

Projected

$755K

$1.84M

$120K

$130K

$150K

$335K

$3.33M

Actual

$2.65M

$1.95M

$40K

$72K

$110K

$538K

$5.36M

Expenses

Salaries*

Scholarship

Operation

S&E

Travel & Recruit.

Other

Total

Projected

$1.25M

$975K

$770K

 

 

$335K

$3.33M

Actual

$2.43M

$1.12M

$810K

$278K

$725K

 

$5.63M

*Does not include benefits paid by Albany 31%

Comparative data on revenue and expenses for a number of institutions was presented to the committee from the EADA (Educational and Athletics Disclosure Act) report. These data show that among the America East Conference schools only two (UNH & Hartford) show revenues exceeding expenses.

Summary

 

The composition of the committee is four faculty with vote drawn from various schools plus the Faculty Representative to the NCAA without vote; 2 undergraduate students (1 female, 1 male) with vote designated by the Student Association; 1 graduate student teaching assistant with vote designated by the Graduate Student Organization; Director of Physical Education, Recreation and Athletics ex officio without vote; 1 individual designated by the Vice President for Student Affairs without vote.

 

 

Members of the committee include;

Frank Cardullo (Chair), Mechanical Engineering

Dennis Lasser,  IAB representative, Management

Dan McCormack, Student Affairs

Frank Newman, English

Jim Stark, Art

Joel Thirer, Director - Health, Physical Education and Athletics

Jian Wang, Physics

Two undergraduate students – Dan Szalkiewicz & vacant

Graduate student/TA – vacant

 

Submitted by Frank Cardullo, Chair

Annual Report of the

Faculty Senate Library Committee [5/18/03]

 

The Committee met in the Fall and Spring terms to review library matters:

 

Three members of the Faculty Senate Library Committee were on the Search Committee for the New Director (Burch, Mols, Nelson).  Early in the Spring term, John M. Meador, Jr., Professor and Dean of Library Services at the University of Mississippi, accepted the position of Director of Libraries.

           

A number of improvements and new services in the Libraries have occurred in the past 12-18 months:  The new on-line catalog “Bearcat” (the Ex Libris Aleph 500 System) has been operational since January 2 of 2002 and is continually being improved.  The new electronic web-based interlibrary loan system “ILLiad” is also operational.  When the article arrives, the requestor is notified electronically and can then retrieve it via ftp from a library server.  For the Spring term, the Libraries implemented a pilot project for electronic reserves for about 44 courses and hope to offer such services for all courses in the Fall of 2003.    An East Asian Librarian/Bibliographer/Cataloger was hired last summer via Professor John Chaffee’s Asian Grant.   In association with other N.Y. State Libraries, a web-based assessment of the Libraries services is taking place via the “LibQUAL+ Program”.  The Bartle renovation is essentially completed.  This includes the fourth floor and second floor north; in addition to the total renovation, there are group study rooms, graduate study carrels, and other new furnishings. More information about the Binghamton University Libraries is available on-line at http://library.lib.binghamton.edu/.

 

At both the Fall and Spring meetings, impacts of current and potential N.Y. State Budget decisions were considered.  In the fall, budget cuts led to some reduction in services, purchases, etc. of the Libraries.  In the Spring meetings, to help accommodate an anticipated sizable decrease in funding for the 2003/2004 fiscal years, the Committee decided to implement a serials review.  The last such review took place in 1996/1997.  This review is currently in-process; orders for 2004 titles will begin in the summer of 2003.  The Libraries website is being used to enable faculty, students, and other users to be better informed and involved in this review.  Also in-process is negotiation for a new contract for Elsevier titles with Science Direct; the present SUNY-wide contract expires in December of 2003.  The present contract allows SUNY-wide electronic-access to current and recent titles of periodicals subscribed to by any of the SUNY campuses.  In some cases, electronic access could replace cancelled hard copy periodical.   Currently, in part due to different-arrangements-in-various-disciplines and with different-publishers in the world, university libraries have only begun a very complex and complicated transition to fully electronic access to “current and past” issues of certain periodicals.   

 

On behalf of all the constituents of the Binghamton University Community, we wish to thank Frank Mols for his many productive efforts, excellent judgments, and good leadership as Interim Director.  Simultaneously, we wish to welcome John M. Meador, Jr., to Binghamton University and the Southern Tier of New York State.   Lastly, we wish to thank the bibliographers and others in the Libraries for their time, efforts, and patience during the current serials review process. 

 

Members of Faculty Senate Library Committee, Fall 2002-Spring 2003:

 

Miguel Arcones, Mathematics

Beth Burch, School of Education and Human Development

Charles Burroughs, Director, CEMERS

Salvador Fajardo, Romance Languages and Literature

Rachelle Moore, Libraries

Colleen Reardon, Music

Amy Miu, Undergrad Student

Bill Pezzollo, Undergrad Student

Atilla Aytekin, History, Grad Student

Michael McGoff, Vice Provost, Academic Affairs

Frank Mols, Interim Director of Libraries

Charles Nelson, Physics, Library Committee Chair

 

M E M O R A N D U M

 

Date:               August 26, 2003         

 

To:                  Faculty Senate

 

From:              Sandra D. Michael

                        Chair, Professional Standards Committee

 

Subject:            02/03 Annual Report

 

 

 

The Committee completed its deliberations on a case it received just before the close of the previous academic year (late spring 2002).  The Committee brought closure to the issue and so notified all principals in the matter. 

 

Cc Committee Members: Professors Arieh Ullmann (Management), John Vestal       (Theatre), Miguel Arcones (Mathematics), and David Cingranelli (Political Science) 


COMMITTEE ON THE UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT

ANNUAL REPORT 2002-2003

 

            The Committee held 7 meetings this year.  Active members included Colleen Hailey, Ralph Miller, Peter Knuepfer, Tom McDonough, Rosmarie Morewedge, Julian Shepherd (faculty members), Donna Denoncourt (professional staff), Kate Sabato and Laurie Wheelock  (undergraduate students), Wayne Jones and Pearse Murray (ex officio staff members).  Kelly Donovan (Environmental Health and Safety) was invited and attended.

 

            Our major business this year included (1) review of plans for new construction on campus, (2) review of energy use on campus, (3) pesticide and salt use on campus, (4) reconstitution of CUE as a joint faculty/administration committee, and (5) use of the Nature Preserve.

 

1.       New Construction.  (a) CUE continued to review plans for the new residential complex, Mountainview College.  Specifically, plans for plantings were reviewed with an eye to minimizing the impact of the buildings and their future occupants on the Nature Preserve.  A proposal to build additional parking space in an area of forest (included in the plans but not within the construction fence) was not supported, but the lot was built anyway.  (b) CUE also reviewed and made suggestions for the Site Improvement Plan, a plan for extensive plantings and landscaping mostly within the “Brain” of the University.  (c) Plans for the reconstruction of Lake Lieberman as a larger storm-runoff basin were reviewed and approved.  (d) A plan to construct new parking places near the East and West Gyms were approved, with the exception of a plan to replace a forest west of the West Gym with a parking lot.  After considerable discussion, the forest was removed in preparation for the new lot.

 

2.       Energy Use on Campus.  Bill Day, energy manager for Physical Facilities, gave a presentation on overall energy use on Campus.  As a result of this and another presentation by an interested student, CUE recommended to the Administration that we participate in a wind-energy purchase plan being offered by NYSEG.

 

3.       Pesticide and Salt Use on Campus.  CUE received and reviewed the annual proposal for pesticide use from the Physical Plant.  In response to complaints that the salt policy was not being followed, CUE asked that the policy be observed – Physical Facilities responded by saying the policy was being followed and cited reduced salt consumption in the last few years.

 

4.       Reorganization of CUE.  Following up on a long-sought goal of CUE, the Faculty Senate and the Administration approved a reorganization of CUE as a joint faculty-administration committee, whose charge was changed slightly and whose membership was expanded to include voting members from the Administration.

 

5. Use of the Natural Areas and the Nature Preserve, CUE approved two proposals involving amphibian and hydrological research/teaching in the Preserve.

Report of the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, 2002-03

 


    In 2002-03, the UUCC continued its normal work certifying courses as meeting General Education requirements. We also continued our efforts to increase the seats available in courses meeting two requirements: 1) oral communication and 2) pluralism courses for those who did not fulfill the US history component of the pluralism requirement prior to enrolling in Binghamton. Partly in the context, we held two workshops for the campus where faculty and graduate students exchanged views on how best to teach O and J courses. We also worked with the EPPC (Faculty Senate Educational Policy and Priorities Committee) to help define learning outcomes for each General Education requirement, a necessary step in the assessment of our General Education program. Liz Abate continued to provide invaluable administrative assistance for our committee.

                                          Don Blake
                                          Andrew Cohen
                                          Richard Eckert
                                          Wayne Jones
                                          Donna Lahti
                                          Rosamaria LaValva
                                          Stanley Masters, chair
                                          Alice Mitchell
                                          Rebecca Patt
                                          Joshua Price
                                          Sara Reiter
                                          Eunice Roe
                                          Blenda Smith
                                          Stephen Straight
                                          Anna Tan-Wilson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

M E M O R A N D U M

 

 

DATE:             June 11, 2003

 

TO:                  Kathy Bowman

 

FROM:            Mary Ann Swain

 

SUBJECT:            ACET Annual Report 2002-2003

 

 

 

This year subcommittees carried out the bulk of the work of ACET.  Regular subcommittee reports are given to the full committee.  The full committee thus takes up any subcommittee recommendations.  This annual report is therefore organized by subcommittee.

 

Educational Technology (Sandra Card, Sungdai Cho, Steve Dickman, James Serritella)   The subcommittee earlier had developed a survey of faculty and mailed (and emailed) it to faculty.  The response rate was good, with 134 respondents.  People seem relatively satisfied with the educational technology provided, but there are areas of concern.  The subcommittee believes more information is necessary to understand those concerns more fully, thus a follow up survey will be prepared over the summer for release next fall.

 

Policies (Sandra Card, Richard Pastore, Mark Reed) Copyright law is changing; it appears that the new law will be an improvement for "fair use".  The subcommittee is reviewing extant campus copyright policies and trying to develop a comprehensive approach as previous attempts have addressed only parts of copyright issues.   Although "fair use" will have an easier test under the new law, a major change is that the University can no longer say "This is the right (or wrong) way" to deal with use of copyrighted materials in the classroom; each case must be decided on its own and stand on its own.  The committee has put together a web page to point to the various existing policies at http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~jhogan/copyright.html.

ACET Annual Report

June 11, 2003

2

 

 

 

On other policy matters, in reference to developing a policy on the use of logs of people's activities while on line, Anita Doll has agreed to reconvene the committee that developed the Binghamton University Privacy Policy to review that issue.  (http://computing.binghamton.edu/privacypolicy.html)

 

Research II (Steve Dickman, Stephen Gilje, Dick Pastore, Jim Wolf) The new “Research Computing Support Facility” was opened in April 2003.  Located on the first floor of the Computing Center, this facility is available for faculty 24/7 and provides research production hardware and software on several platforms with documentation available.

 

Long-Range Plan (Kanad Ghose, Surinder Kahai, Mark Reed, Mark Zhang) The planning subcommittee has produced a draft of a new long-range IT plan for the committee's review, which will be circulated to the members.  Discussion of this drafted plan will continue over the summer.

 

Committee Members

      Mary Ann Swain, Chair

      Jeffrey Barker

      Sandra Card

      Sungdai Cho

      Steven Dickman

      Kanad Ghose

      Stephen Gilje

      Tony Ferrara

      Surinder Kahai

      Leila Otieno (Graduate student)

      Richard Pastore

      Mark Reed

      James Serritella (Undergraduate student)

      Mark Zhang

 

      Jeff Donahue (Ex Officio member)

      James Wolf (Ex Officio member)

 

 

 

 

Annual Report, 2002-2003                                                       19 June 2003

Committee on Committees

 

The members of the committee were:

            Donald Brister (Libraries)

C. Beth Burch (SEHD)

            Manas Chatterji (SOM)

            Albert Dekin (Harpur; Chair)

Pamela Stewart Fahs (DSON)

Leslie Lander (Harpur)

            Alice Mitchell (Harpur)

 

Each member of the committee assumed responsibility for seeking nominees for one or more of the ten Faculty Senate committees and one or more of the dozen or so administrative committees. We met twice this year to organize and coordinate our efforts — once to fill vacancies for this academic year and once to fill vacancies for 2003-2004. 

 

During the Fall semester, Ms. Bowman completed the task of gathering current committee rosters and future committee vacancies for both Faculty Senate and Administrative Committees.  Her compilation was extremely useful in coordinating our efforts, understanding the scope of vacancies, and summarizing information about the committees and their members.  

 

During the Fall semester, I encouraged the administration to advise us of their needs for the entire academic year, so that our committee could function in a timely and effective manner.  Many of the committees we nominate faculty to (especially administrative advisory committees) are seasonal in their operations and are chartered by the administration (rather than by the faculty senate by-laws).  Since neither the faculty senate nor our committee initiates this process, each year we find ourselves responding to requests that do not always reflect timely notice and cannot easily be coordinated for the committee. An effort to regularize these administrative requests would help the committee’s operations and scheduling.

 

At this time, we have completed all committee nominations requested, save for a member of the Parking Appeals Committee (volunteers welcome).

 

We appreciate the good office of those members of the faculty who accepted our nominations to serve.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Albert A. Dekin, Jr.

Chair

 

 

 

August 25, 2003

 

 

 

 

REPORT OF FACULTY SENATE EVALUATION COORDINATING COMMITTEE

 

The Faculty Senate Evaluation Coordinating Committee (ECC) is charged with the evaluation of University administrators.  Members of the Committee for 2002-2003 were Janet Ambrogne, Susan Bane, Elizabeth Brown, John Chaffee, Richard Eckert, Donna Lahti, Debi Mishra, Susan Strehle, and Beth Burch, Chair.  In spring 2003, the ECC evaluated Dr. Frances Carr, Vice President for Research.

 

In April 2003, the ECC surveyed the Binghamton University faculty as well as the professional staff working under Vice President Carr in Research and Sponsored Programs, sending out 579 questionnaires.  Ninety-seven surveys were returned, a response rate of 16.7%.  Among the 97 respondents were 52 principal investigators.

 

The Committee’s twenty-three page report was distributed on May 16 according to guidelines articulated in the By-Laws – one copy to Vice President Carr, another to her supervisor President Lois DeFleur, and a third for the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.  The committee’s findings are confidential.

 

 

 

C. BETH BURCH, CHAIR

Faculty Senate Evaluation Coordinating Committee

To:         Faculty Senate

 

From:      Donald Quataert, Chairperson, Ad Hoc Committee on 9/11 and its Aftermath

 

Date:         May 9, 2003

 

Subject:         Annual Report of the Ad Hoc Committee, 2002-2003

 

 

Formed at the request of the Faculty Senate, the Ad Hoc Committee during 2002-2003 advertised several events connected to 9/11.  We did not meet as a group.

 

During the past academic year, we found ourselves overtaken by events,

namely, the pending crisis over Iraq and the subsequent U.S. invasion of

that country.

 

Given this radical shift in events, I believe it appropriate that the Ad

Committee be disbanded.

 

Members of the Ad Hoc Committee, when it was more active, included

Professors Arthur, Blumler, Laremont, Arkush, Regenspan, and Weiss, as well as Ms Sue Lewis, and Dean David Payne, with myself as chair.

 

Respectfully submitted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ad Hoc Committee on the Quality of Teaching at Binghamton University

October 9, 2003

Chair:  Randall H. McGuire, Professor of Anthropology

 

            The Ad Hoc Committee on the Quality of Teaching at Binghamton University was charged by the Faculty Senate Executive Committee to consider and propose ways to improve the quality of teaching at the university.  To this end the committee identified two goals for the 2002-2003 academic year.  The first of these was to prepare a Statement of Educational Goals, Principles and Responsibilities At Binghamton University that would serve as a guide for the Faculty Senate in making decisions concerning education at Binghamton University.  The second goal was to prepare a Statement of Effective Teaching and Principles that could be used to help faculty recognize, develop, and affirm good teaching on campus. 

 

The committee met several times a month for both the fall semester of 2002 and the spring semester of 2003.  The committee prepared a Statement of Educational Goals, Principles and Responsibilities At Binghamton University and submitted it to the Faculty Senate on May 6, 2003.  The Senate endorsed the statement as a working document and instructed the committee to seek widespread comment on it and return to the Senate with a finalized document in the Fall of 2003.  A copy of the document as modified by the Senate on May 6 follows this report.

 

The committee prepared a draft Statement of Effective Teaching Principles.  The committee is currently circulating this statement to various constituencies on campus for comment.  The committee intends to bring this document to the Senate in the Fall of 2003.

 

The members of the Committee were:

 

Anderson, Laura              Mathematics
Barker, Jeff                    Geology

Blake, Donald              Harpur Dean's Office

Britten, Masha              Nursing

Carpenter, Bob            SHED

Conlon, Mike               Presidential Scholar's Program

Hogan, Janet                Library

Iwobi, Margaret            Watson School

Van Hoff, J.J.               Physical Education

McGuire, Randall       Anthropology

Reiter, Sara                  Management

Rosenberg, Liz            English

Stovel, Emily                Adjunct, LACAS

Tricomi, Al                   Center for Learning and Teaching

Kalashnik, Aleks   Student Association Representative

Statement of Educational Goals, Principles and Responsibilities

At Binghamton University

 

Rationale:

Binghamton University students represent some of the best and brightest in the state.  The mission of Binghamton must be to provide the best possible education for all students.  This mission of Binghamton University entails both significant scholarship and engaged undergraduate teaching.  This mission requires research that advances knowledge through discovery, scholarship, and creative work and using both that knowledge and that process to educate our students. The Faculty has a deep and abiding responsibility for the education of our students.  The Faculty Senate is responsible for upholding the goals, principles, and standards of the University's academic mission.  In times of fiscal constraint and in times of abundance, the University must keep these goals, principles, and standards firmly in mind.  To guide the Institution in the making of future decisions, the Faculty Senate endorses the following Statement.

 

I.  Goals of a University Education:

 

Liberal Arts Core – preparation for a life of learning, higher order critical and analytical abilities, to enhance the self-development of students so that they will become informed and effective participants in public affairs and in all of their subsequent educational and professional pursuits, the interpretive ability to apply learned skills to subject matter.

 

Acquisition of Skills – academic skills necessary for rational discourse, written and oral communication for all. Skills are normally supplemented by particular kinds of competence - mathematic, linguistic and the like - as required by individual fields of study.

 

Substantive Knowledge – Major study and professional programs to prepare students for future study, professional development, and careers.

 

II.  Responsibilities for Quality Education at Binghamton University:

 

A.  Responsibilities of the Faculty for these goals: The faculty as a group bears the primary responsibility and authority for the education of students.  The faculty includes, the President, the Provost, and all faculty members having academic rank1.

 

The Faculty will:

  1. Determine the curriculum for all academic units.  
  2. Design curricula that both reflect the standards of their discipline and are responsive to the academic needs of their students.
  3. Set and maintain the academic standards required of the students.
  4. Have the ultimate responsibility for the academic evaluation of students.
  5. Establish guidelines within Departments or Schools concerning the quantity and quality of adjunct teaching, while establishing the realms within which adjunct teaching is preferred.
  6. Formally train, and regularly supervise, and evaluate undergraduate peer instructors.  Faculty will appoint only undergraduate peer instructors who have strong academic records and who demonstrate an outstanding command of the subject that they will help other students learn.
  7. Develop educational programs to align the curriculum with societal needs and evolving knowledge.
  8. Engage in scholarship, research and other creative activities to contribute to their fields of study, to deepen their understanding of their field, and to bring the creation of new knowledge to the classroom.
  9. Be responsible for communicating the curriculum to the students.  Good teaching requires Faculty to critically reflect on their pedagogy and utilize peer review, student opinion, and other sources to illuminate and challenge their classroom skills.
  10. Oversee the progress of their students and certify the awarding of academic degrees.
  11. Participate in academic advising.

 

B.  Responsibilities of Institution for these goals: Institutional responsibilities are realized through the cooperative efforts of the faculty and the administration to accomplish the mission of the university. The University, in carrying out its Mission as a Research University committed to excellence in teaching and in research and creative endeavors, recognizes and values excellence in teaching

.

   The Institution will:

  1. Recruit and hire academic rank faculty gifted in teaching and committed to student learning.
  2. Supervise and review Departmental or School guidelines concerning adjunct teaching.
  3. Develop criteria for the role, selection, supervision, and evaluation of undergraduate peer instructors.
  4. Provide resources to promote and facilitate undergraduate participation in faculty research.
  5. Ensure that students have access to sufficient classes in order to complete their undergraduate degree requirements in a timely manner (usually four years for entering freshmen).
  6. Evaluate teaching excellence in the promotion and tenure process and promote teaching excellence through incentives and meaningful rewards.
  7. Provide students with the advising that they need to gain their degrees and allocate resources so that faculty have sufficient time to advise and mentor students
  8. Provide resources for faculty development to support teaching in the form of curriculum development grants, workshops on teaching, travel, sabbatical leave, etc.
  9. Support research on, and the assessment of, teaching effectiveness.
  10. Provide competitive graduate teaching assistant stipends to improve recruitment of excellent graduate students.
  11. Support the professional development, supervision and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants to train the next generation of university teachers.
  12. Provide the state of the art facilities that the faculty need to support excellence in teaching and learning (classrooms, laboratories, library and computer resources that contain the appropriate technologies to support classroom teaching).
  13. Provide appropriate compensation and support to adjunct faculty for the performance of their responsibilities in support of the Departmental or School mission.

 

C.  Responsibilities of the Graduate Teaching Assistants for these goals:  The primary responsibility of all graduate students is to complete their degree in a timely fashion.  As part of their career development they should be called upon to take teaching duties.  As scholars in training they need the support of the faculty and the institution to meet their responsibilities. 

 

Graduate Teaching Assistants will:

1.        Teach small groups of undergraduates under supervision of faculty. Faculty should provide regular mentoring on teaching skills, general communication skills, and subject matter.

2.        Develop teaching skills and qualifications to take on increased responsibilities. The University should provide opportunities for teaching development, including ESL classes, where appropriate, and should reward excellent teaching by TAs.

3.        Carry out aspects of teaching specific to small groups with high interaction: stimulate discussion, promote learning by inquiry, and teach oral and written communication skills via individual interaction with students.

4.        Become familiar with and use technology appropriate to their teaching role.

5.        Give thoughtful feedback and evaluation of students' work, maintaining standards set by supervising faculty.

 

Faculty will ensure that:

1.                Teaching loads should allow time for TA's to do a quality job of teaching while also developing further teaching skills and pursuing their own studies.

2.                Teaching assignments should always be within the scope of the TA's current academic and teaching qualifications. TA's should receive more challenging teaching assignments as their own studies progress. It is not always appropriate for graduate students to be teaching in their first year of graduate studies.

 

III.  Principles for Quality Education at Binghamton University: These principles provide a road map for the faculty to fulfill their responsibilities and for the University to provide the learning environment in which students can meet the goals of a university education.

 

A.  The academic rank1 faculty has the responsible for and the authority over the design and delivery of the curriculum.

  1. Faculty should teach the majority of general education classes taken by each student
  2. Faculty should teach all courses in the major unless specific circumstances make an adjunct with specialized knowledge preferable.
  3. Faculty should supervise the content and delivery of courses taught by qualified academic rank faculty2 (lecturers, adjunct faculty, and graduate students) and should take an active role in helping these individuals deliver a quality curriculum.
  4. Faculty should afford regular opportunity for students to discuss course material and other curricular issues, and include this in the design and delivery of the curriculum.
  5. Faculty should incorporate current research and creative activity in their discipline in curriculum development and delivery.  Similarly, classroom discussion and student research should contribute to faculty members’ research.
  6. Faculty should be innovative in the delivery of curriculum and retain responsibility and control of the curriculum through out the process of delivery.

 

B.  Class size and organization will be determined by the needs of the students and be appropriate to the knowledge, level, intellectual abilities, and skills being taught.

1.        Large lecture sections (100+) are appropriate only for lower division, introductory courses.

2.        The student-teacher relationship is fundamental to education and students should be given the opportunity to take small classes (<25) with faculty at all levels of their education to develop this relationship.

3.        Small classes taught by faculty should make up a majority of a student’s upper division required major classes.

4.        Larger classes should include sub-sections that meet in smaller groups to emphasize more individualized instruction.

5.        Students should be exposed to a variety of pedagogies (lecture based, collaborative learning, etc.) both to serve the interests of different learning styles and to teach them how to adapt to different learning situations.

6.         Skills courses that require a high degree of interaction between the instructor and the student, such as composition, oral communication, and foreign language courses, should be no larger than 25 students in size.

 

C.  The University will actively maintain, support, and develop high quality teaching.

1.        The Faculty will develop means for effectively and objectively evaluating teaching.

2.        Faculty are urged to seek regular student evaluations of their courses and teaching.

3.        The university will institute a clearly articulated reward system for faculty teaching at all levels.

4.        Graduate students will be trained as teachers before entering the classroom and be evaluated and mentored by faculty once they are in the classroom.

5.        All instructors, including Faculty, TAs, and adjuncts (outside of foreign language courses) must be able to effectively communicate in English.  The university must establish standards and provide resources to meet this goal.

6.        Evaluation of students should be rigorous, fair and clearly explained to the student.

 

D.  The University experience should be structured to meet the needs of the student and to guide the intellectual development of the student building step by step towards the goals of a university education.

1.        Students need to have authoritative and accessible advising at all stages of their education

2.        Students should have the opportunity to enter into a mentor relationship with a faculty member during their education.

3.        Students should develop their substantive interests in depth and thus upper-division course work should make up half of the degree.

4.        Academic skills must be both explicitly taught and integrated in substantive course work.

5.        Major programs should culminate in a capstone course, broadening, deepening and integrating the total experience of the major.

6.        Students should be prepared to live in a cosmopolitan world.  The University, therefore, should encourage international exchange, study abroad, and languages across the curriculum programs.

 

E.  A research university provides students with a unique opportunity for learning based in research, scholarship, and creative activities.

1.        Faculty are encouraged to include students in their scholarly and creative endeavors and to seek appropriate grant funding for this purpose.

2.        Whenever appropriate, courses at all levels should include research or creative activities.

3.        Internship opportunities should be widely available

4.        Students should be encouraged and guided on how to present the results of their activities to the academy, their profession, or the public as appropriate

5.        Students should be encouraged to take on honors theses and BFA exhibits.

 

F.  A Liberal Education thrives when a sense of community is cultivated.

1.        The University should encourage and facilitate faculty-student interaction outside the classroom.

2.        Since knowledge is rarely developed in isolation, all Departments and Schools are encouraged to invite speakers from other universities and to encourage interdisciplinary cooperation.  The University should provide facilities for visiting scholars and conferences hosted on campus.

3.        The integration of learning and living environments is valuable to student learning.  The Faculty Masters program, student interest housing, and the Discovery program are examples of initiatives that should be encouraged and expanded.

4.        The University plays an important role in the community, and should encourage volunteerism, community activism, business development, knowledge transfer, and participation in the arts by students, faculty and staff.

5.        We are part of a global community.  Therefore the University should encourage, support, and provide resources for international faculty and student exchanges.

 

 

1                Academic rank faculty are defined in the State University of New York Policies of the Board of Trustees (2001) as those with “titles of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor and assistant instructor”, and “members of the professional staff having titles of librarian, associate librarian, senior assistant librarian and assistant librarian”.

2               Qualified academic rank faculty, defined in the State University of New York Policies of the Board of Trustees (2001) include those with “titles of lecturer, or titles of academic rank preceded by the designations 'clinical' or 'visiting' or other similar designations”.

 

 

 

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC BOARD

2002 –2003 Annual Report

 

                The Intercollegiate Athletic Board met three times during the 2002-2003 academic year.  As is customary the athletic director and his staff kept the board abreast on the progress of the athletic teams, recruiting of athletes and coaches, on facilities management and improvements particularly with regard to the field house, the pending crisis in the operating budget and team performances. Finally, there was some preliminary discussion with regard to the NCAA certification process, which will begin in the spring of 2004.

 

 IAB meeting 10/29/02:  New members were given a brief history of the IAB. Joel Thirer gave an update on fall sports activities stating that we are now firmly entrenched in Division I athletics. There was also a report on academic performance. It was announced at the annual America East meeting in July that Binghamton University had won the 2001-2002 Academic Cup as the school with the highest GPA for its student athletes.  It was announced that the formal NCAA Certification process will begin in the Fall of 2004. The board should begin getting ready for the review next year.

 

IAB meeting 3/05/03:  The fall Academic performance update of the athletes was reported to be consistent with the prior year. The overall GPA was 3.02 for the 354 student-athletes. This was the eighth straight semester over 3.0. 200 of the student athletes earning a GPA over 3.0 while 93 were over 3.5.  It was also reported the excellent progress is being made on the field house with the hope of it being operational by the 2003-04 basketball season. Joel Thirer discussed how the pending budget crisis will impact the Athletic Department. Not only will the department’s current budget be reduced but any tuition increase will also cause further increases to the deficit since the department must pay the tuition on all scholarships.    

 

IAB meeting 4/30/03:  This meeting was entirely devoted to the pending budget crisis. Joel Thirer stated that given the projected budget cuts and a proposed tuition increase of $950 in-state and a larger out-of-state increase, the total cost to the department appears to be between $400,000 and $500,000. If this scenario comes to fruition the athletic department may be forced to consider the possibility of discontinuation of one of its programs in order to meet the shortfall and that this decision will need to be made before the beginning of the fall semester. Committee members said that they would meet in the summer if they were available.     

 

 

Matt Bassett, Associate Director of Athletics (ex officio without vote)

Mary Beth Lennox, Asst. Director of Athletics (ex officio without vote)

Jordan Allen, student male athlete (2002-2003)

Neil Rose, Alumnus (2002-2003)

Becky Pratt, President Student Association (ex officio) (2002-03)

Nicole Mendolera, student female athletic rep (2002-2003)

Dennis Lasser, SOM, Faculty rep to the NCAA (Chair) (ex officio)

Steve Dickman, Geology (2001-03)

Leslie Haywood, English (2001-03)

Kyn Lee, Financial Vice President, Student Association (ex officio)

Steve De Luca, student at-large rep (2000-2001)

Norman Spear, Psychology (2001-03)

Anthony Ferrara, Vice President of Administration (ex officio)

Joel Thirer, Director, PERA (ex officio without vote)

Sandra Michael, Biology (2001-2003)

Jill Seymour, SEHD (2001-2003)