Fall 2019 Post-Plenary Report
| Fall 2019 Post-Plenary Report (PDF) |
President’s Report
Gwen Kay, President
Q&A with the Chancellor
University Centers
Q: Some SUNY schools have dropped in the most recent US News & World Report rankings, because the ranking methodology now includes consideration of the faculty compensation. This drop in rankings harms the reputation of the individual colleges and universities, and negatively affects the SUNY brand. In practice, our low faculty salaries relative to our peers affects our ability to attract and retain top-quality faculty and attract high quality students. As Chancellor, you are the chief advocate for SUNY. How do you plan to work with the Governor to correct these imbalances?
A: Salaries are determined by negotiations with the Governor’s office, however it would be useful for SUNY to assemble data on how our faculty compensation compares with other systems, to be able to support requests for improvements in faculty compensation.
Q: You have stated that SUNY onlines design is being developed to not be in the model of Southern New Hampshire or the University of Phoenix. How is SUNY online going to compete in the marketplace and meet its goals while retaining the unique identity of SUNY? Since SUNY already has remote learning capabilities I.e. Empire State College & online offerings at several campuses, why is there a major effort to create a new model, instead of improving and reinforcing what already exists?
A: Open SUNY provides a robust set of courses and will continue. However individual campus systems are siloed and do not allow a review of pedagogies, student enrollments, or student support across the system. With SUNY Online the goal is to offer programs to the 40,000 New Yorkers who go to out of state systems for online education, and also capture that revenue to reinvest in SUNY. SUNY Online will also make it possible for faculty to team teach with partner faculty from across SUNY.
Q: The liberal arts are fundamental to society, to job prospects, to any modern university. The reality, of course, is that the liberal arts are under attack, seeing large drops in student numbers, faculty/department losses. We’ve discussed this with you before. But what we’d like to know is how this is reflected in your current priorities, within the context of the budget model that SUNY follows?
A: Liberal Arts are fundamental to society. The Chancellor is working on a major investment in History that she hopes to be able to announce shortly. They are also working on a Chancellor’s Award for graduate fellowships.
Specialized and Statutory
We would like to start by thanking Chancellor Johnson for all of her work with New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and particularly with the appointment of a new unit head, Dr. Gabrielle Gaustad. Faculty are very excited about this appointment and look forward to working with Dr. Gaustad in this position.
Q: Many campuses across the system, including in our sector, have relatively new administrators or are in the process of searching for them. New administrations often come with new structures, such as reorganization of colleges and appointments in new reporting lines. Ideally these reorganizations are carried out as a joint effort between the administrative and academic sides of the campus, but sometimes this does not happen. We would like to ask you: when these reorganizations and appointments do not proceed in a collaborative manner, what actions would you suggest that we as faculty governance take to initiate discussions with our administrators so that we can work together going forward in these areas?
A: If there is a breakdown in communication and dialog, it’s critical to meet with the President to discuss the issues. Each campus is unique and each is expected to manage its own governance.
Q: Campuses in our sector tend to predominate in programs that are expensive to run and specialized, without a robust general curriculum to help with both student course choices and to financially balance out the more high-priced offerings. Many of our sector campuses therefore have agreements in place with other nearby universities, both public and private, to fill out and expand class offerings for students. However, this results in lower revenue as we then share tuition with our partners. As a result of the high cost programs and tuition sharing factors, our campus budget problems are not necessarily in total number of students, but in the amount of revenue we effectively have per student. This means that increasing enrollment on its own won't improve our budgets. What can we do to keep these agreements that help our students and continue to offer specialized programs while remaining economically sustainable, and what can SUNY do to support these efforts?
A: Procurement and maintenance of equipment vital for mission of our colleges, but no dedicated budget exists for critical maintenance of equipment. There is funding for critical maintenance of capital facilities. SUNY has been able to increase its capital facilities budget from $200M to $500M, and is hoping to get to $550M in the new budget. In addition, SUNY is trying to build in sustainability and energy efficiency in every new building effort, which should have positive impacts on operating budgets.
Q: Our last question is also related to budgeting. Our campuses have specific needs with regard to space for specialized equipment and facilities. Some accredited programs have requirements on the state of their facilities, some program needs result in leasing of necessary space and/or cutting-edge equipment from private partners. Funding for maintenance and renovation are therefore crucial to the success of our programs, as are reserve funds to compensate in situations wherein partnerships end. How can our campuses advocate for this type of support to keep our infrastructure current, particularly while we also want to innovate and expand into the new SUNY priority areas?
A: In addition to the comments on capital facilities budgets in the last answer, there is a workforce development initiative by the State which could be a source for grants to support this type of infrastructure development and maintenance.
Health Sciences
Q: The Health Sciences sector wishes to thank Dr. RIcardo Azziz for his service to Health Sciences programs across SUNY and for his participation with our sector. Now that Dr. Azziz has left SUNY to accept a new position elsewhere, what are plans to replace this position, and what will you be looking for?
A: A new job description is being worked on. There is a Chancellor’s task force on hospital governance that is due to deliver its report shortly, and the findings of that report should play a role in determining the parameters for the search to replace this position.
Comprehensive Colleges
Q: There are a significant number of presidential searches and interim senior leadership appointments across SUNY. Would you share your thoughts on why there has been such turnover in SUNY of late, how you will ensure that Board of Trustees guidelines on presidential searches are followed, how you plan to support newly hired and appointed campus leaders, and how you will solicit performance feedback from campuses to ensure that the next generation of campus-level administrators are successfully engaging in mission-centered inclusive institutional leadership and shared governance best practices?
A: The eleven searches are a combination of Presidents that had to be replaced or forced to step down, along with several routine retirements following long periods of service. New Presidents are on-boarded as cohorts, and have dedicated time with the executive leadership team to learn about shared governance, budget cycles, communications, government relations, and other aspects of Presidential leadership. Once on board, Presidents have annual reviews with the Chancellor, covering 42 key performance indicators.
Q: Would you help us understand how SUNY System Administration plans to inventory, assess, and determine the return on investment of current initiatives (such as SUNY Online, micro-credentialing, applied learning, PIF, and student success efforts)? Can SUNY offer support to campuses to conduct similar return on investment effectiveness assessments, such as system-wide software procurement or data analytics, that would help each refine priorities, better coordinate activities, and collaborate more effectively?
A: There are weekly meetings with members of the executive leadership team to discuss the Provost’s Investment Fund and where to invest, along with other initiatives. SUNYAchieve is the framework that is used to provide an integrated view of all of the initiatives, including PRODiG, SUNY Online, Re-enroll to Complete, and the various student success initiatives. State officials ask why SUNY has not reduced employee headcount as other state agencies have, but complying with federal and state regulations and initiatives takes resources and people.
Q: Building on last year’s “New Deal for SUNY and CUNY” campaign, our sector would like to help you and Chairperson Tisch advocate for New York’s governor and legislature to make our state a national leader in supporting and advancing public higher education’s core academic mission. What in your view are the best ways over the next several months that UFS and campus governance bodies can contribute to the work of SUNY System Administration and the Board of Trustees in developing an aggressive budget request for robust direct state tax support of operating budgets for every SUNY campus?
A: SUNY is a national leader in higher education but does not do enough to elevate its profile. The recent Nobel prize is one example, but less well known is that SUNY is a leader in social mobility and serves more underserved students than the entire Ivy League. SUNY needs to increase its endowments across the system in order to be better able to cover financial aid needs, and reduce the pressure on operating budgets.
Technology and Agriculture
Q: First, your response to our resolution on the system becoming test-optional seems to suggest that campuses have the autonomy to establish their own policies. We have been informed that at least two campuses in the tech sector have since asked to be test optional, and were turned down. Since there appear to be campuses in our system that are test-optional already, this denial potentially creates an inequity in terms of access to students. Can you please explain SUNY’s policy on standardized testing for admissions, how decisions—and their rationale—are shared if the policy includes an approval process to go test-optional, and specifically what we can do as colleges of access to advocate for the need to be test optional?
A: Campuses may not have sent the requests to the right person; this is an issue that will need to be followed up on.
Q: Second, as momentum has built for SUNY Online, the campuses involved have done whatever they can to support the initiative. For example, Canton has actually moved its own students into SUNY Online – in our case, a whole cohort of students from Health Care Management (one of our most successful programs from an enrollments and cost perspective). Although we have gladly taken this leap of faith on an important initiative, there remain major concerns about the SUNY Online financial model – including how much revenue is retained by each campus; who pays the faculty teaching in the program; and whether these classes are overloads. We were wondering if you could outline some of those details, and let us know how we can best contribute to advocacy and decision making in this process.
A: Currently all revenues from SUNY Online go to the participating campuses offering the courses. As SUNY Online develops, it will be necessary to develop a revenue sharing model between SUNY Online and the campuses, in order to have funding to support centralized marketing, infrastructure, and student support services. Many campuses that contract with OPMs to manage their online programs see ½ to ⅔ of the revenue go to the OPM, with 30% of the budget spent on marketing. SUNY plans are for a percentage of the profits from SUNY Online to go back to the campuses, but the details are still being worked out.
Q: Third, and not surprisingly based on the questions of the other sectors - increasingly across the system, campuses are concerned about the SUNY funding strategy by campus and sector as we position ourselves for a rapidly changing future. While there is often little variation in what students are paying in tuition across campuses , there is significant (and seemingly inequitable) variation in allocations per student back to those individual campuses – which can negatively impact colleges of access when students often need additional supports to be successful. Can you outline the strategy for allocating funds to each campus and tell us whether that allocation strategy has been revisited recently? If the strategy includes variable allocations for campuses or sectors, can you explain the rationale behind the variance? How can campuses help to create a more equitable system of distribution of funds, per student per campus, to best position all SUNY campuses to fulfil their distinct missions? ?
A: Currently allocations per student range from less than $1000 on some campuses to over $15,000 on others, so clearly there is some inequity. New money will be needed to increase allocations to campuses on the low end without taking money away from other campuses, and that is being worked on.
Campus Governance Leaders
Q: At Stony Brook, the CGL has been told that the Presidential search will be a ‘hybrid’ search. At Fredonia, the CGL has been told they will have a “confidential” search. There are concerns at Purchase that their Presidential search will not include public engagement with the campus by the finalists. Confused by these variations, we would like to know, what are the terms under which presidential searches are being conducted? How are the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees deciding whether a presidential search should be closed or open, and what are the criteria that are used in the decision? Can you give us the data that informs the decision making process?
A: Board of Trustees policies provide for representative searches when needed to ensure quality candidate pools. Five interim Presidents were appointed last year, so there is pressure to have successful searches this year. The Chancellor’s office is gathering national data on the success of open and closed presidential searches to inform Board decisions on this year’s searches, but a hybrid model might be an option, where the process is mainly confidential but with some opportunities to introduce finalists to campuses. It is still early in the process for all of the searches, so there is still time to determine how open the searches will be. In any case, it is important for search committees to be diverse representatives of the campus, as they are the first point of contact with potential candidates.
Q: We concur with the sentiment of the consensual relationship policy. While UUP and other unions were involved in the negotiations, the policy was written without shared governance input. The result is a policy that is incoherent, and there is no mechanism to correct the obvious deficiencies of the policy. What is the strategy to address the clear flaws in the policy?
A: It’s unclear what parts of the policy are incoherent and flawed. Campuses should send their concerns to the acting General Counsel, Sandra Casey.
Q: Given the budget realities that have been exacerbated by the TAP and Excelsior tuition gap, what are your thoughts on dealing with the problem that the base allocation has not been raised in 10 years, and that the critical maintenance fund is not sufficient for our crumbling campuses?
A: Base allocation has been unchanged since 2009. SUNY System is advocating for base allocation increase as the budget is being developed this year, and also advocating for increased critical maintenance funds. The strategy is to be aggressive, respectful, and successful in terms of budget asks, and we need to remember that the state covers benefit costs and debt service.
Chancellor’s Report
Kristina Johnson, SUNY Chancellor
(Slide deck - PDF)
Provost’s Report
Tod Laursen, SUNY Provost
(Slide deck - PDF)
Resolutions, Fall 2019 UFS Plenary
Motions from the Floor, Fall 2019 UFS Plenary
Fall 2019 Plenary, the View from the Executive Committee
Here is a list of the top issues and items for action back on our campuses, from a poll of the Executive Committee members:
Gwen Kay, President
- SUNY Online. The rush to roll out the program this fall has been a problem. There has been little shared governance input during the implementation, numbers are low for students who are specifically enrolled in SUNY Online (and enrollments from campus online programs have been used to make up the difference), and the business model is still unclear. There are several concerns and questions that need to be addressed, including: what impacts will the use of artificial intelligence to scale up online classes have on graduate assistantships and faculty intellectual property; will there be a consolidation on a few online courses in each discipline, to the detriment of campus online programs; would failure of SUNY Online tarnish existing campus online programs; and has the focus on SUNY Online impacted the roll out of other initiatives from the Provost’s office?
- General Education. The first phase of review for SUNY general education has been completed, with the delivery to the Provost’s office of the white paper (a review of the higher education landscape around general education) and the green paper (a list of recommended areas for change in SUNY general education). President Kay and FCCC President Fogal have been working with the Provost to begin the work of the next task force, to determine how SUNY General Education should be structured for the coming years, but the new task force is still awaiting its final charge and composition.
- Seamless Transfer. Based on feedback from campuses last year, the Student Mobility Steering Committee has identified eleven transfer pathways as priorities for a first round of review this year: Adolescent Education; Early Childhood/Childhood Education; Biology; Business; Communication: Non-media; Geology; Mathematics; Nursing; Physics; Psychology; and Theatre. Co-chairs for each of the transfer path areas have been selected from the 2-year and 4-year campuses, and processes are being established for working groups to review the pathways and make recommendations for changes.
- Presidential Searches. The Board of Trustees has authorized eleven Presidential searches for the coming year, including eight at state-operated campuses (ESF, Fredonia, Old Westbury, Plattsburgh, Purchase, Stony Brook, SUNY Polytechnic, Upstate). A major question is whether searches will be open, with finalist candidates announced to and meeting with campus constituencies, or whether there will be representational searches instead, where the members of the search committee represent the various campus constituencies and there are no public meetings.
- Student Mental Health and Wellness Task Force. The Provost’s office has established a task force to make recommendations on student mental health and wellness. Although large in number, the task force has little faculty representation. The goal is to deliver a report with initial recommendations by the end of December, in time to be considered at a meeting sponsored by the SUNY General Counsel scheduled for 7-8 January 2020.
On a related note, the Food Insecurity task force has completed its formal work, with the hosting of a conference this past summer and delivery of their final report to the Provost’s office. - National Council of Faculty Senates. Over the past year there has been initial work to establish a National Council of Faculty Senates. President Kay has been involved on both the Executive Committee and the Bylaws Committee, which has been drafting articles for the new body. The NCFS is planning to be involved in national advocacy efforts, such as those around the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, and will serve as a venue for campus governance leaders to meet to discuss issues of common concern, such as the proportion of full time vs part time faculty on our campuses, funding for higher education, administrative searches, and other topics. Senator Moran (Cobleskill) introduced a motion from the floor to endorse the actions of President Kay with respect to NCFS, which was adopted overwhelmingly.
- Advocacy. President Kay thanked the Legislature for the near-unanimous support for Maintenance of Effort legislation last year, and encouraged continued advocacy by the UFS and by local campus governance bodies.
Q&A with the Chancellor
University Centers
Q: Some SUNY schools have dropped in the most recent US News & World Report rankings, because the ranking methodology now includes consideration of the faculty compensation. This drop in rankings harms the reputation of the individual colleges and universities, and negatively affects the SUNY brand. In practice, our low faculty salaries relative to our peers affects our ability to attract and retain top-quality faculty and attract high quality students. As Chancellor, you are the chief advocate for SUNY. How do you plan to work with the Governor to correct these imbalances?
A: Salaries are determined by negotiations with the Governor’s office, however it would be useful for SUNY to assemble data on how our faculty compensation compares with other systems, to be able to support requests for improvements in faculty compensation.
Q: You have stated that SUNY onlines design is being developed to not be in the model of Southern New Hampshire or the University of Phoenix. How is SUNY online going to compete in the marketplace and meet its goals while retaining the unique identity of SUNY? Since SUNY already has remote learning capabilities I.e. Empire State College & online offerings at several campuses, why is there a major effort to create a new model, instead of improving and reinforcing what already exists?
A: Open SUNY provides a robust set of courses and will continue. However individual campus systems are siloed and do not allow a review of pedagogies, student enrollments, or student support across the system. With SUNY Online the goal is to offer programs to the 40,000 New Yorkers who go to out of state systems for online education, and also capture that revenue to reinvest in SUNY. SUNY Online will also make it possible for faculty to team teach with partner faculty from across SUNY.
Q: The liberal arts are fundamental to society, to job prospects, to any modern university. The reality, of course, is that the liberal arts are under attack, seeing large drops in student numbers, faculty/department losses. We’ve discussed this with you before. But what we’d like to know is how this is reflected in your current priorities, within the context of the budget model that SUNY follows?
A: Liberal Arts are fundamental to society. The Chancellor is working on a major investment in History that she hopes to be able to announce shortly. They are also working on a Chancellor’s Award for graduate fellowships.
Specialized and Statutory
We would like to start by thanking Chancellor Johnson for all of her work with New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and particularly with the appointment of a new unit head, Dr. Gabrielle Gaustad. Faculty are very excited about this appointment and look forward to working with Dr. Gaustad in this position.
Q: Many campuses across the system, including in our sector, have relatively new administrators or are in the process of searching for them. New administrations often come with new structures, such as reorganization of colleges and appointments in new reporting lines. Ideally these reorganizations are carried out as a joint effort between the administrative and academic sides of the campus, but sometimes this does not happen. We would like to ask you: when these reorganizations and appointments do not proceed in a collaborative manner, what actions would you suggest that we as faculty governance take to initiate discussions with our administrators so that we can work together going forward in these areas?
A: If there is a breakdown in communication and dialog, it’s critical to meet with the President to discuss the issues. Each campus is unique and each is expected to manage its own governance.
Q: Campuses in our sector tend to predominate in programs that are expensive to run and specialized, without a robust general curriculum to help with both student course choices and to financially balance out the more high-priced offerings. Many of our sector campuses therefore have agreements in place with other nearby universities, both public and private, to fill out and expand class offerings for students. However, this results in lower revenue as we then share tuition with our partners. As a result of the high cost programs and tuition sharing factors, our campus budget problems are not necessarily in total number of students, but in the amount of revenue we effectively have per student. This means that increasing enrollment on its own won't improve our budgets. What can we do to keep these agreements that help our students and continue to offer specialized programs while remaining economically sustainable, and what can SUNY do to support these efforts?
A: Procurement and maintenance of equipment vital for mission of our colleges, but no dedicated budget exists for critical maintenance of equipment. There is funding for critical maintenance of capital facilities. SUNY has been able to increase its capital facilities budget from $200M to $500M, and is hoping to get to $550M in the new budget. In addition, SUNY is trying to build in sustainability and energy efficiency in every new building effort, which should have positive impacts on operating budgets.
Q: Our last question is also related to budgeting. Our campuses have specific needs with regard to space for specialized equipment and facilities. Some accredited programs have requirements on the state of their facilities, some program needs result in leasing of necessary space and/or cutting-edge equipment from private partners. Funding for maintenance and renovation are therefore crucial to the success of our programs, as are reserve funds to compensate in situations wherein partnerships end. How can our campuses advocate for this type of support to keep our infrastructure current, particularly while we also want to innovate and expand into the new SUNY priority areas?
A: In addition to the comments on capital facilities budgets in the last answer, there is a workforce development initiative by the State which could be a source for grants to support this type of infrastructure development and maintenance.
Health Sciences
Q: The Health Sciences sector wishes to thank Dr. RIcardo Azziz for his service to Health Sciences programs across SUNY and for his participation with our sector. Now that Dr. Azziz has left SUNY to accept a new position elsewhere, what are plans to replace this position, and what will you be looking for?
A: A new job description is being worked on. There is a Chancellor’s task force on hospital governance that is due to deliver its report shortly, and the findings of that report should play a role in determining the parameters for the search to replace this position.
Comprehensive Colleges
Q: There are a significant number of presidential searches and interim senior leadership appointments across SUNY. Would you share your thoughts on why there has been such turnover in SUNY of late, how you will ensure that Board of Trustees guidelines on presidential searches are followed, how you plan to support newly hired and appointed campus leaders, and how you will solicit performance feedback from campuses to ensure that the next generation of campus-level administrators are successfully engaging in mission-centered inclusive institutional leadership and shared governance best practices?
A: The eleven searches are a combination of Presidents that had to be replaced or forced to step down, along with several routine retirements following long periods of service. New Presidents are on-boarded as cohorts, and have dedicated time with the executive leadership team to learn about shared governance, budget cycles, communications, government relations, and other aspects of Presidential leadership. Once on board, Presidents have annual reviews with the Chancellor, covering 42 key performance indicators.
Q: Would you help us understand how SUNY System Administration plans to inventory, assess, and determine the return on investment of current initiatives (such as SUNY Online, micro-credentialing, applied learning, PIF, and student success efforts)? Can SUNY offer support to campuses to conduct similar return on investment effectiveness assessments, such as system-wide software procurement or data analytics, that would help each refine priorities, better coordinate activities, and collaborate more effectively?
A: There are weekly meetings with members of the executive leadership team to discuss the Provost’s Investment Fund and where to invest, along with other initiatives. SUNYAchieve is the framework that is used to provide an integrated view of all of the initiatives, including PRODiG, SUNY Online, Re-enroll to Complete, and the various student success initiatives. State officials ask why SUNY has not reduced employee headcount as other state agencies have, but complying with federal and state regulations and initiatives takes resources and people.
Q: Building on last year’s “New Deal for SUNY and CUNY” campaign, our sector would like to help you and Chairperson Tisch advocate for New York’s governor and legislature to make our state a national leader in supporting and advancing public higher education’s core academic mission. What in your view are the best ways over the next several months that UFS and campus governance bodies can contribute to the work of SUNY System Administration and the Board of Trustees in developing an aggressive budget request for robust direct state tax support of operating budgets for every SUNY campus?
A: SUNY is a national leader in higher education but does not do enough to elevate its profile. The recent Nobel prize is one example, but less well known is that SUNY is a leader in social mobility and serves more underserved students than the entire Ivy League. SUNY needs to increase its endowments across the system in order to be better able to cover financial aid needs, and reduce the pressure on operating budgets.
Technology and Agriculture
Q: First, your response to our resolution on the system becoming test-optional seems to suggest that campuses have the autonomy to establish their own policies. We have been informed that at least two campuses in the tech sector have since asked to be test optional, and were turned down. Since there appear to be campuses in our system that are test-optional already, this denial potentially creates an inequity in terms of access to students. Can you please explain SUNY’s policy on standardized testing for admissions, how decisions—and their rationale—are shared if the policy includes an approval process to go test-optional, and specifically what we can do as colleges of access to advocate for the need to be test optional?
A: Campuses may not have sent the requests to the right person; this is an issue that will need to be followed up on.
Q: Second, as momentum has built for SUNY Online, the campuses involved have done whatever they can to support the initiative. For example, Canton has actually moved its own students into SUNY Online – in our case, a whole cohort of students from Health Care Management (one of our most successful programs from an enrollments and cost perspective). Although we have gladly taken this leap of faith on an important initiative, there remain major concerns about the SUNY Online financial model – including how much revenue is retained by each campus; who pays the faculty teaching in the program; and whether these classes are overloads. We were wondering if you could outline some of those details, and let us know how we can best contribute to advocacy and decision making in this process.
A: Currently all revenues from SUNY Online go to the participating campuses offering the courses. As SUNY Online develops, it will be necessary to develop a revenue sharing model between SUNY Online and the campuses, in order to have funding to support centralized marketing, infrastructure, and student support services. Many campuses that contract with OPMs to manage their online programs see ½ to ⅔ of the revenue go to the OPM, with 30% of the budget spent on marketing. SUNY plans are for a percentage of the profits from SUNY Online to go back to the campuses, but the details are still being worked out.
Q: Third, and not surprisingly based on the questions of the other sectors - increasingly across the system, campuses are concerned about the SUNY funding strategy by campus and sector as we position ourselves for a rapidly changing future. While there is often little variation in what students are paying in tuition across campuses , there is significant (and seemingly inequitable) variation in allocations per student back to those individual campuses – which can negatively impact colleges of access when students often need additional supports to be successful. Can you outline the strategy for allocating funds to each campus and tell us whether that allocation strategy has been revisited recently? If the strategy includes variable allocations for campuses or sectors, can you explain the rationale behind the variance? How can campuses help to create a more equitable system of distribution of funds, per student per campus, to best position all SUNY campuses to fulfil their distinct missions? ?
A: Currently allocations per student range from less than $1000 on some campuses to over $15,000 on others, so clearly there is some inequity. New money will be needed to increase allocations to campuses on the low end without taking money away from other campuses, and that is being worked on.
Campus Governance Leaders
Q: At Stony Brook, the CGL has been told that the Presidential search will be a ‘hybrid’ search. At Fredonia, the CGL has been told they will have a “confidential” search. There are concerns at Purchase that their Presidential search will not include public engagement with the campus by the finalists. Confused by these variations, we would like to know, what are the terms under which presidential searches are being conducted? How are the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees deciding whether a presidential search should be closed or open, and what are the criteria that are used in the decision? Can you give us the data that informs the decision making process?
A: Board of Trustees policies provide for representative searches when needed to ensure quality candidate pools. Five interim Presidents were appointed last year, so there is pressure to have successful searches this year. The Chancellor’s office is gathering national data on the success of open and closed presidential searches to inform Board decisions on this year’s searches, but a hybrid model might be an option, where the process is mainly confidential but with some opportunities to introduce finalists to campuses. It is still early in the process for all of the searches, so there is still time to determine how open the searches will be. In any case, it is important for search committees to be diverse representatives of the campus, as they are the first point of contact with potential candidates.
Q: We concur with the sentiment of the consensual relationship policy. While UUP and other unions were involved in the negotiations, the policy was written without shared governance input. The result is a policy that is incoherent, and there is no mechanism to correct the obvious deficiencies of the policy. What is the strategy to address the clear flaws in the policy?
A: It’s unclear what parts of the policy are incoherent and flawed. Campuses should send their concerns to the acting General Counsel, Sandra Casey.
Q: Given the budget realities that have been exacerbated by the TAP and Excelsior tuition gap, what are your thoughts on dealing with the problem that the base allocation has not been raised in 10 years, and that the critical maintenance fund is not sufficient for our crumbling campuses?
A: Base allocation has been unchanged since 2009. SUNY System is advocating for base allocation increase as the budget is being developed this year, and also advocating for increased critical maintenance funds. The strategy is to be aggressive, respectful, and successful in terms of budget asks, and we need to remember that the state covers benefit costs and debt service.
Chancellor’s Report
Kristina Johnson, SUNY Chancellor
(Slide deck - PDF)
- Priorities and Initiatives for Academic Year 2020: These include carrying out 11 Presidential searches; the PRODiG initiative; SUNY Online; SUNYAchieve; sustainable hospital operations; energy sustainability initiatives; a new Design Arts competition; growing research capacity; and developing partnerships with industry, government, and NGOs.
- PRODiG Initiative. A total of 42 PRODiG proposals were submitted, including two consortium proposals. The proposals requested support for 74 new faculty hires for the coming year, evenly split between underrepresented minority and women in STEM positions.
- Enrollments. There continues to be a decline in enrollments across SUNY, with steeper declines seen at a number of the community colleges. The enrollment declines are tracking the decrease in the population of traditional-aged students in New York, which is expected to bottom out in 2029, followed by gradual increases thereafter. Transfer among SUNY campuses continues to be important, with more than a quarter of SUNY Baccalaureate degree earners having transferred from a community college campus. In the last year transfers out from SUNY community colleges to SUNY four-year colleges increased, while transfers to non-SUNY schools decreased.
- Excelsior Scholarships. There was a 50% increase in SUNY students receiving Excelsior scholarships in the second year of the program compared to the first. This has been associated with a slight increase in the percentage of SUNY first-time freshmen taking 15 credits or more, and a tripling of the 2-year graduation rates for Excelsior students at SUNY community colleges compared to students without Excelsior scholarships.
- SUNYAchieve. SUNY System is putting together a portfolio of programs to boost enrollment and retention, under the umbrella SUNYAchieve. These programs include Guided Pathways; co-requisite courses in Math and English; Re-enroll to Complete; availability of student emergency funds; use of DegreeWorks; applied experiential learning through internships; along with the Excelsior Scholarships and promoting SUNY Online to provide flexible enrollment options.
- SUNY Online. The focus of the program is to increase the number of fully-online students enrolled in SUNY, focusing on non-traditional students, with fully-online programs that can scale up to 1000+ students within 5 years. Just as the numbers of traditional-aged students in New York have been declining, the numbers of lifelong learners in New York are expected to rise through the middle of the coming decade, and SUNY Online’s goal is to capture a significant proportion of the 40,000 New Yorkers who are currently going to online program providers in other states. The investments in marketing for the current pilot of SUNY Online have resulted in an increase in the number of enrollment inquiries to SUNY Online. To date, there are 234 unique students enrolled in the new SUNY Online platform, for the 27 courses involved in the 9 pilot programs.
- Research Recognitions and Outreach Events: The Chancellor recognized the recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Professor M. Stanley Whittingham, at Binghamton University, for his work on the development of lithium-ion batteries. Also highlighted was the visit of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the University at Buffalo, where she received an Honorary Doctorate of Law Degree and participated in classes.
Provost’s Report
Tod Laursen, SUNY Provost
(Slide deck - PDF)
- Fall Enrollment Update. Community college enrollments continue to decline, although there might be some slowing of the decreases. Enrollments have been mostly flat at state-operated campuses in recent years, but that reflects enrollment increases at the Doctoral Institutions and decreases at the Comprehensive Colleges. Individual campus changes in enrollment over the past decade range from a 43% increase to a 45% decrease, with greater losses occurring among the community colleges. There is a new Vice Provost for Strategy and Planning to focus on enrollment planning and management. Initiatives to promote retention include re-enrolling students who had stopped out to support their degree completion; promotion of applied learning and internships; and the early warning, degree planning, and audit components of SUNYAchieve.
- General Education. The next task force to recommend revisions and develop implementation guidelines will be appointed this fall, with a target completion date at the end of the 2020/2021 academic year. Priorities include reviewing and revising the Information Management and the Other World Civilizations categories; considering a reduction in the number of general education credits that must be completed in the first two years; and determining what the framework for general education should be for the 21st century global citizen.
- International Education Strategic Review. There will be a review of internationalization and global programs this year, and volunteers are needed for the review task force. This group will inventory opportunities across programs and degrees, including COIL (virtual exchange), project-based learning, and service learning, to ensure opportunities for our domestic students and a welcoming environment for our international students.
- Student Wellness Task Force. This group has begun their work, with the goal to develop some interim actionable proposals that can be presented at a January conference on student health and wellness. A proportion of the allocated PIF funds this year will be held in reserve to support pilot wellness programs that can potentially be scaled up across campuses, in the style of past PIF initiatives.
- Seamless Transfer. There have been significant decreases in the average terms-to-degree and credits-at-completion and increases in completion rates for the cohort of students following the implementation of seamless transfer, compared to students before seamless transfer. These gains have been even more pronounced for underrepresented minority students.
- SUNY Online. The initial focus for SUNY Online has been on establishing the technology infrastructure (e.g., learning management system and related tools), developing a common navigation and course design for the pilot courses, scaling up instructional design support to faculty, and establishing new marketing campaigns. Nine programs were initially launched in Fall 2019, with 16 more planned to launch by Fall 2020. There will be an RFP for additional programs and courses in Computer Science, AI / Machine Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Sustainability, General Education, graduate programs in general, and undergraduate electives. A SUNY Online Advisory Committee, including governance representation, will be established Fall 2019 to provide feedback to the Provost, CFO, and COO on the future development and assessment of SUNY Online. Of special interest is how to define and measure student success for students enrolled in the online programs. FACT2 has established a related task group “Examining Pedagogy and Learning in Online Domains” to identify pedagogies and tools to support student success in large-enrollment online courses. This may include the use of artificial intelligence tools to support instructional activities, and an initial pilot with Packback to facilitate online discussions at scale.
Resolutions, Fall 2019 UFS Plenary
- Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee: “Establishment of Standing Campus Senate EID Committees”
- This resolution asks that campus Senates establish their own EID committees, if they don’t already have one; that the mission of campus EID committees align with the UFS EID committee charge; that campus governance bodies be intentional in their efforts to be inclusive; and that campus EID committees have representation on campus Senates.
- For: 40; Against: 5; Abstain: 3
- Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee: “Maintaining Welcoming, Inclusive and Safe Campus Environments through Annually Affirming SUNY Diversity and Inclusion Values”
- This resolution asks the Chancellor to require campus Presidents to annually affirm and communicate SUNY values for equity, diversity, and inclusion to campus stakeholders.
- For: 41; Against: 6; Abstain: 1
- Operations Committee and Graduate Programs and Research Committee: “Support for SUNY Negotiations for a fair and reasonable contract with Elsevier”
- This resolution expresses support for the SUNY team negotiating a new contract with Elsevier for access to electronic resources, asking for good faith efforts to reach a fair and reasonable agreement; recommends that SUNY negotiators take a strong stance and be willing to not enter into a new contract if a fair deal cannot be reached; and asks that campus governance bodies raise the issue of the Elsevier negotiations in terms of supporting SUNY efforts and developing campus contingency planning in case of non-renewal of the Elsevier contract.
- For: 47; Against: 2; Abstain: 2
- Executive Committee: “Research Misconduct Investigation Policies”
- This resolution puts forth a more general statement of research misconduct investigation policies, extending the resolution of support for Downstate that was adopted in executive session this past summer.
- For: 41; Against: 8; Abstain: 1
- Floor Action: “Recognition of 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry Awarded to Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science M. Stanley Whittingham”
- This resolution celebrates the recent Nobel Prize award to Professor Whittingham at Binghamton University.
- For: 47; Against: 0; Abstain: 0
Motions from the Floor, Fall 2019 UFS Plenary
- The University Faculty Senate endorses the 6 June 2019 action of the Executive Committee to pass the resolution “In Support of Downstate Resolutions on Research Misconduct Policies”
- For: 42; Against: 3; Abstain: 5
- The University Faculty Senate endorses the 11 October 2019 FCCC resolution “Resolution on Open Presidential Search Processes”
- For: 38; Against: 2; Abstain: 1
- The University Faculty Senate endorses the 5 October 2019 FCCC resolution “Resolution in Response to SUNY Online Response”
- For: 42; Against: 0; Abstain: 3
Fall 2019 Plenary, the View from the Executive Committee
Here is a list of the top issues and items for action back on our campuses, from a poll of the Executive Committee members:
- Elsevier negotiations. While of critical interest to faculty in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, non-renewal of SUNY’s contract with Elsevier is likely to impact scholarship and instruction workflows across campus. The University of California example has shown the importance of informing and involving faculty and shared governance as their negotiations proceeded, and in preparing for alternate access options when the UC system walked away from the negotiations. Local campus governance bodies across SUNY campuses are asked to discuss these issues on their campuses, and raise awareness among their faculty.
- Presidential searches. With SUNY as a model for a public, higher education university system, the uncertainty about whether or not Presidential searches at the eleven campuses slated to have searches this year is disquieting.
- SUNY Online. SUNY Online represents opportunities to serve new populations of students and to generate new revenues for SUNY System and for participating campuses, but also represents risks and unknowns with respect to the reputation and health of online programs at individual campuses, the balance between full-time and part-time faculty, and student success. Governance needs to be more involved than it has been to date.
- Budget issues. Enrollment trends across SUNY and between sectors, the TAP and Excelsior gaps, uncertainty about State support to meet ongoing contractual increases in salaries, and campus disparities in base allocations are all leading to budget pressures on campuses.
- Diversity issues. The diversity of our faculty and administrative staff continue to lag behind the diversity of our students and the population of New York State. PRODiG is an ambitious attempt to move the needle on this, and it will need to be closely followed by our governance bodies to see how it is implemented in the coming years.