Fall 2020 Post-Plenary Report
Fall 2020 Plenary, the View from the Executive Committee
The COVID pandemic, campus responses, and planning for the Spring Semester remain high priorities on campuses across the System. As expressed in the resolution from the Governance committee, maintaining strong shared governance during times of crisis such as the pandemic will be crucial for effective decision making. Related to this, Executive Committee members raised issues with the process of appointing the new Chancellor, and the need to establish an effective working relationship with the Chancellor. Additional concerns include the budget, the need to involve shared governance in any potential program deactivation, and social justice issues.
Resolutions, Fall 2020 UFS Plenary
EXEC: "186-04-3 Failure of shared governance at the University at Albany regarding program change" was referred back to the Executive Committee
Requests from committees
President’s Report
Gwen Kay, President
(Slide deck - PDF)
Chancellor’s Report
Jim Malatras, SUNY Chancellor
Chancellor Malatras used his time with the Senate to discuss the concerns presented by Sector Reps (sector statements are listed below). Several themes arose from the conversation:
Provost’s Report
Tod Laursen, SUNY Provost
(Slide deck - PDF)
The Provost updated the Senate on the following topics:
Sector Statements
Campus Governance Leaders
Lisa Glidden (SUNY Oswego)
Three related themes emerged from our discussion yesterday evening. As you can imagine, COVID is currently taking up a lot of our time. We are also concerned about the long-term budget outlook and planning, and about challenges our faculty, staff, and students are facing during this time. Undergirding all of these is the relationship between SUNY and our campuses.
First, as a political scientist, you know the negative impact uncertainty has on systems. SUNY as a whole and each of our campuses are complex institutions. Many (though not all) of us in our roles as CGL took part in planning committees over the summer to ensure a smoother Fall semester. There was still a lot of uncertainty, but it helped to have many perspectives at the table, and for us to be an additional channel of communication to help reduce uncertainty to our constituencies as much as we could. To underscore the importance of shared governance across SUNY, you, for example, could set a positive example by ensuring that the President of UFS is included in meetings when they should be such as the Presidents and Provost meetings.
Planning was well under way when we learned our campus plans needed to be approved by SUNY based on a list of criteria we may not have been using, and it’s safe to say that many unrealistic campus plans were approved. Our plans also didn’t include the idea of a “pause”, an idea I don’t think we heard about until after the semester started.
What do we want from SUNY? – clarity and leadership
Regarding COVID, clarity about testing regimes—who, how often; there’s not consistency among campuses
Clarity about pause:
Our third item about challenges to our faculty and students follows from our first two. In terms of COVID, our campuses are conducting surveillance testing (although at very different scales), and many campuses are relying on their employees volunteering to manage the testing because they don’t have the resources to hire this out. This means on some campuses that employees, including those in health and counseling centers (also in such high need), are away from their offices to conduct testing. We know that some students are having bandwidth issues for synchronous class sessions. Faculty and staff are already stretched thin because of modality changes, losing instruction breaks, and concern for our students. UUP raises are being singled out as a funding drain and faculty feel vilified for a negotiated pay raise. Many of our students face bandwidth challenges with synchronous online classes.
We are not expecting SUNY to solve every problem; some of this is passing along concerns. But there are areas where SUNY can help by finding the resources to alleviate the testing hurdles. SUNY needs to lead. Campuses were left to fend for ourselves this semester, and that should have never happened--testing equipment, guidelines, other PPE, shifting calendar requirements, and sanctions. There is so much about this situation that is hard, and having to play catch-up and re-plan makes it harder.
Technology and Agriculture
Tim Gerken (SUNY Morrisville)
Because the funding for higher education in the country and state has been declining for years, we are now in a position where further cuts will be devastating to SUNY’s most vulnerable students; the students that we in the Tech sector serve in greater numbers than our colleagues in the other sectors.
The Tech sector feels especially vulnerable right now as some of our campuses have been working with significant deficits before the pandemic due to the expense of our extensive and intensive programs and because our students are the poorest in SUNY, leaving our campuses to cover the gap in tuition that TAP does not provide. The larger problem is that the gap and deficits have become a black hole not only for our campuses but for the state. Campuses have cut adjunct faculty, increased class sizes, and faculty workloads. This harms students. Many of these decisions occurred without shared governance consultation.
We are also concerned by the lack of faculty and staff consultation in decisions regarding campus reopening plans for fall 2020 and for spring 2021. Partially driven by financial needs, at least one campus required faculty to teach in person. These practices forced faculty and staff to accept unnecessary risks that could result in vulnerable family members being exposed to COVID-19.
Since you spoke to the importance of honesty on Tuesday, we thought we would share with you some earnest concerns we have from our colleagues.
The Governor’s prior executive decisions worry us that he will use the financial crisis to close campuses. We are concerned that your long relationship with the Governor while helpful in many significant ways, may suggest that you support his funding agenda or, at least, make pushing back against it difficult.
As you consider the SUNY universe do you see a reduction in the number of campuses as an event horizon and part of your legacy, or are you confident we can overcome these current gravitational forces and maintain all of our campuses even if some of those are now a bit smaller?
We would be interested in knowing some of your beliefs about the governor’s prior record on SUNY funding, and ideas for how we can continue to provide the citizens of our state an affordable, reliable, and excellent education in these most troubling times.
Health Sciences
Brigette Desport (Downstate Health Sciences University)
The Health Science Centers have been significantly impacted and the hardest hit by the financial downturn of the coronavirus pandemic in ways that are different from the other SUNY campuses. Our centers selflessly served our communities and, in the process, experienced immeasurable trauma. Aside from being designated COVID sites, we’ve had to suspend surgeries and other medical services, depleting our financial stream. We had to divert all of our efforts, with minimal resources and equipment, to treat and fight for the survival of the people in our communities as they battled this deadly virus. We have been expected to focus our research on the coronavirus. We have done the heavy lifting during the pandemic and we are concerned about our ability to recover.
We want to share with you our four main areas of concern:
1. Budget and Finance
We are concerned about the financial viability of our health science centers and the SUNY system. Our fear is that our centers will not recover from their COVID spending and the funding we lost. We conduct research, provide medical care to our communities, and educate future health professionals who will represent SUNY and continue to do the good work. In order to continue these charges, we need for NYS & federal government funding to remain unchanged for solvency. Disproportionate Share Hospital payments have to remain the same to continue providing care for all populations. We are aware that we are waiting for the outcome of the presidential election which will likely determine the level of federal support New York State receives. We also know that with federal funding, a deficit will still exist. We just want to highlight other areas that have been impacted by our current financial state:
2. Safety and wellbeing
We are invested in preventing another COVID outbreak and to do that, our campuses must be safe. Our centers require a solid plan to ensure there is sufficient PPE and equipment for our medical centers and for our faculty who have physical contact with our students when teaching clinical skills. Our research sectors also require support in order to perform research safely. We propose that teleworking be extended to June 30, 2021. These are measures that will help create a sense of security and contribute to our mental health and emotional wellbeing. We look forward to hearing about your plan for creating and sustaining a safe and well environment for all.
3. Racial and social climate
We have witnessed an uptick in the dissemination of resolutions and position statements, calling for racial equity and social justice. People have good intentions and desire to see change. While that is true, the change has to come from the top because campuses need guidance when changing paradigms. Our students want to work with faculty that looks like them and the future communities they will serve. PRODiG has been a good first step towards increasing faculty opportunities for underrepresented groups. Greater effort is needed to add more color to leadership positions in order to build an inclusive workforce. We look forward to your leadership on this front.
4. Education and research
Reliable digital resources and support for our faculty and students are paramount for providing a quality education. We do not know how long we will be in this virtual space, which is why accessible and consistent support is necessary to achieve academic excellence. Black and brown students, who already experience disempowerment and inequities in the educational space, are experiencing more of a disconnect because they don’t have access to the same resources. We want to ensure that all of our students progress towards completing their degrees. We also need support for ensuring interprofessional research agendas, which provides students with enriched opportunities. We know you have had experience and success with online education and look forward to you sharing your thoughts and plans.
Specialized and Statutory
Carlie Phipps (SUNY Poly)
We would like to share with you some of our successes, and some of our concerns. We are proud of the responses of our campuses to the Covid pandemic. Our senators are pleased with how cases have been handled on our campuses so far. Our campuses have been involved in developing Covid research and testing protocols, and our students’ behavior shows they are enthusiastic about maintaining access to their labs, clinics, studios, and ships.
There are some concerns that we share as well. One is the continuation of interim leadership positions on campuses. Many of us have had interim administrators for years, and this has impacted long-term planning as well as relationships on campus and overall morale, stability, and operations. Especially during times of crisis like we have been experiencing, clear lines of accountability and leadership are crucial.
This contributes to another issue of consultation with faculty governance. Time-dependent situations such as pandemic responses and long-term situations such as frequent turnover in leadership have led to gaps in consultation with faculty governance that we worry will become worse as campuses struggle with the challenges facing us in the next few years.
In a more minor area, the spring schedule is a tricky one for each of our campuses. Due to the deep partnerships we have, our calendars are not entirely our own. If SUNY issues guidelines for spring calendars, we would like to ensure that we are able to adhere to outside timing regulations as well.
University Centers
Cemal Basaran (University at Buffalo)
We appreciate the steps that you have taken since becoming Chancellor to visit many of our campuses. However, as the country starts to experience more outbreaks of Covid-19, it appears that, state and local governments will be left without the resources needed to support their communities. Furthermore, higher education institutions will be without the funding needed to deal with the revolutionary changes which will have to be implemented after the COVID crisis subsides. However, all of these factors call for an agile management and innovative, perhaps even revolutionary adaptations. It will be necessary to have expedient processes and flexibility in implementing innovative solutions, such as new programs which need a fast approval process. It will be critical for the near and long-term success of SUNY that you reform SUNY in a way that can meet the pressing higher education demands for post-Covid New York.
The SUNY response to Covid-19 has been a one-size-fits-all plan, yet our campuses across the system are very different. In Covid testing expectations, student conduct responses, triggers to go remote, and approaches to ensure access to the internet, cannot be one-size fits all. Furthermore, some low-income students have had to drop out of school and there are growing concerns about student hunger and homelessness. There needs to be flexibility for the campuses to respond to the pandemic in ways appropriate to the local community conditions and campus cultures.
The university centers would deeply appreciate the System Administration's assistance in facilitating and supporting faculty and graduate student research in the current difficult climate. For example, SUNY can provide leadership in responding to New York State's climate initiative, and in pressing for improvements in U.S. visa processing for international graduate students. Further, SUNY can reinforce its commitment to increasing the diversity, equity and inclusion among graduate students, faculty and administration through programs such as PRODi-G. An example of the assistance needed from SUNY to its campuses, across all disciplines, is help to leverage their facilities, resources, and expertise in order to facilitate the successful implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Comprehensive Colleges
Anastasia Pratt (Empire State College)
As a sector, we want to offer quality academic programs that bring our students success in their chosen fields. The pandemic forced us to adapt to virtual learning environments and student supports, often less effective for our students and delivery of course materials. We are concerned that remote/online teaching will become the solution to the fiscal and educational crisis we find ourselves in when they should only be a stopgap measure. We need to return to the modes of instruction that best serve our students, recognizing that online and distance learning are effective for some, not all students.
These concerns become even larger when we consider the fiscal ramifications of the pandemic and the fact that our students will likely have experienced two years of some kind of hybrid education before they return full-time to our residential campuses. We expect that SUNY will be transformed in significant ways and we want to help plan and enact those changes. In addition, we want to help plan and enact any budget measures we will be taking as individual campuses and as a system.
We also hope that you will join with us establishing measures to increase equity, inclusion, and diversity on our campuses and in our system. We have read the president’s executive order against critical race theory and diversity with dismay, noting that as a system and as a sector, we have worked long and hard to bring greater inclusion to our system, bringing life to the call to be “fully representative of all segments of the population” found in SUNY’s mission. That mission is essential to us and we would like to work with you to strengthen and not dismantle it.
Finally, we look to you to help shine a light on this system and on our sector. The work that we do changes the lives of students, but, more importantly, offers them a world class education. In a time when many private colleges are faltering and students are increasingly seeking less expensive options for their online or hybrid courses, we must shine.
The COVID pandemic, campus responses, and planning for the Spring Semester remain high priorities on campuses across the System. As expressed in the resolution from the Governance committee, maintaining strong shared governance during times of crisis such as the pandemic will be crucial for effective decision making. Related to this, Executive Committee members raised issues with the process of appointing the new Chancellor, and the need to establish an effective working relationship with the Chancellor. Additional concerns include the budget, the need to involve shared governance in any potential program deactivation, and social justice issues.
Resolutions, Fall 2020 UFS Plenary
- EID: "186-01-1 Racial Equity and Social Justice Curriculum"
- This resolution asks Senators to work with campus shared governance to develop and implement (or expand upon existing) curriculum and all-campus programming dealing with the issues of Racial Equity and Social Justice.
- For: 45 / Against: 0 / Abstain: 1
- EXEC: "186-02-1 Joint Statement on the Search for the SUNY Chancellor"
- A joint UFS - FCCC statement to the Board of Trustees, urging that a national search that follows principles of shared governance when replacing outgoing Chancellor Johnson
- For: 41 / Against: 0 / Abstain: 6
- EXEC: "186-03-1 Vote of No Confidence in Politically Appointed Members of SUNY Board of Trustees"
- Joint UFS - FCCC resolution of no confidence in response to the Board of Trustee's appointment of Chancellor Malatras without having a formal search.
- For: 38 / Against: 4 / Abstain: 4
- GOV: "186-05-1 Importance of maintaining effective shared governance practices during times of crisis"
- This resolution asks the Chancellor to reinforce to campus Presidents the importance of supporting shared governance even in times of crisis, and calls on Campus Governance Leaders to ensure that campus governance bodies have structures and processes that allow them to respond expeditiously when campuses are dealing with emergency situations.
- For: 46 / Against: 0 / Abstain 0
EXEC: "186-04-3 Failure of shared governance at the University at Albany regarding program change" was referred back to the Executive Committee
Requests from committees
- Communications (report)
- Submit short and/or long articles/blogs for the online Bulletin on topics of general interest to SUNY faculty and professional staff, whether on issues related to shared governance, SUNY, or higher education more broadly. Send to Joe Marren ([email protected]), Pete Knuepfer ([email protected]), and Gwen Kay ([email protected])
- Equity, Inclusion and Diversity (report)
- The committee asks that the Senators support the resolution for Racial Equity and Social Justice Curriculum and engage campus governance bodies to enact on the resolution action items. We recognize that many academic programs have little room for additional courses. Therefore, we ask Senators to encourage academic programs to consider how curriculum mapping and advising practices can help them maximize student participation in courses focusing on Racial Equity and Social Justice. Such courses should be available among General Education courses as well as upper level LAS courses.
- We also ask that the Senators encourage all members of the campus community to take advantage of already existing Professional Development opportunities in EID, such as the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Teaching and Learning Certificate Program (https://sunycpd.eventsair.com/QuickEventWebsitePortal/deicertweb/info )
- If you hear of any developments on EID practices, training, etc. on your campus as a result of the White House “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping”, please share the information with chair of the EID committee.
- Ethics and Institutional Integrity (report)
- Committee would welcome comments on the issues before the committee (campus ethics officers; civility and collegiality in the personnel review process; ethical budget decision making in the pandemic).
- Governance (report)
- No specific requests at this time.
- Graduate Academic Programs and Research (report)
- No specific requests at this time.
- Operations (report)
- No specific requests at this time.
- Programs and Awards (report)
- No specific requests at this time.
- Student Life (report)
- No specific requests at this time.
- Undergraduate Academic Programs and Policies (report)
- Please communicate examples of excellent outcomes from emergency responses, particularly new or
energized classroom practices that will be maintained in the future. - Distribute the “Intelligent Advising” report (R. Sarner) to Academic Advising or other appropriate offices.
- Advise committee regarding concerns about online course delivery, particularly if faculty are
asked or hired to supervise courses they did not design/write
- Please communicate examples of excellent outcomes from emergency responses, particularly new or
President’s Report
Gwen Kay, President
(Slide deck - PDF)
- Board of Trustees Updates: President Kay described the difference in appointments for Officer in Charge, Interim President, and Acting President. Last year's searches include ESF (ongoing, new Officer in Charge appointed); Fredonia (new President this fall); Old Westbury (Teri Miller as Interim President); Plattsburgh (new President last January); SUNY Poly (failed search; Grace Wang continuing as Interim President); Purchase (new President October 1st); Stony Brook (new President in July); Upstate (search ongoing). New searches this year include Empire State and Oneonta.
President Kay reviewed the sequence of events leading to the appointment of Chancellor Malatras this past August. Following Chancellor Johnson's announcement that she would be stepping down to assume the Presidency of the Ohio State University, news stories and other discussions began to circulate that the Board should forego the time and effort of a national search and appoint Jim Malatras, current President of Empire State and member of the Governor's Corona virus task force, as Chancellor, based on his experience with SUNY System and campuses and his past work in the Governor's office. The Executive Committees of the FCCC and UFS submitted a joint statement to the Board, strongly advocating for a national search that included appropriate shared governance input, and when the new Chancellor was appointed without a search, passed a joint resolution of no confidence in the political members of the Board who voted to go ahead with the appointment in lieu of a search. Both the statement and resolution of no confidence were focused on the lack of appropriate process, and in no way argued against the qualifications of Chancellor Malatras.
In other actions, the Board provided an option extension of the tenure clock for pre-tenure faculty whose scholarship and teaching have been impacted by the pandemic, and bestowed a commendation to Upstate Medical University for their work assisting campuses with the COVID testing regimes. - SUNY Task Forces Updates: The Provost's General Education Advisory Committee is set to resume its work at the end of the month, beginning with some initial easy changes that the committee was working on last spring before work stopped due to the pandemic, including replacing the information management competency with information literacy and technology competencies, and renaming the Other World Civilizations and Foreign Language subject areas. With SUNY Online entering the third semester of its initial roll-out, the SUNY Online Advisory Committee has been active, establishing subcommittees in the following areas: Cross Registration; IT Solutions; Instructional Design; Program Selection; and Student Services. President Kay reviewed concerns that program selection for SUNY Online might lead to the development of master courses in key curriculum areas, and that campuses might then decide to cut back course offerings and faculty appointments in those areas. Also, as program selection continues for SUNY Online, campuses that have been late to participate in SUNY Online may find few opportunities remaining. President Kay also noted and commended the extensive amount of work that SUNY Online did this past spring and summer to support faculty across the system in their transition to remote instruction. Although the report from the Mental Health Advisory task force has not been formally submitted, a number of recommendations from the committee are being implemented, given the mental health stresses among our students that have resulted from the pandemic. And finally, the Hospital Governance task force was close to submitting their final report before work shut down with the focus on pandemic response; efforts will be made to finish up the task force work and submit the report.
- SUNY Concerns: The response to COVID-19 continues to dominate the SUNY landscape, but that should not prevent shared governance participation in decision-making on issues such as changing grading policies or altering the tenure clock. On the budget front, it is still unclear what state allocations to campuses will be for this year and student assistance such as Excelsior scholarships are currently not guaranteed for new students. System guidance to campuses includes severely reducing travel, hiring freezes, delaying contractual raises and eliminating for now base pay increases for promotion. Many campuses have eliminated Extra Service hires and frozen IFR accounts. There is some support to campuses through the federal CARES Act. On the non-budget front, System has provided campuses a number of planning recommendations for the remainder of the academic year, including the need to test on-campus students for COVID-19 before they return home this fall, that Winter semester should be strictly online, no on-campus classes for spring before Feb 1st, and all returning students should be tested and quarantined if coming from a hot-spot state.
- UFS Business: President Kay reviewed the ad-hoc committees that will coordinate work by the Standing Committees this year in three areas: the response of System and campuses to the pandemic; Black Lives Matter and how social justice issues are being addressed on our campuses; and the proper role of University Police on our campuses.
Chancellor’s Report
Jim Malatras, SUNY Chancellor
Chancellor Malatras used his time with the Senate to discuss the concerns presented by Sector Reps (sector statements are listed below). Several themes arose from the conversation:
- Planning and shared governance. The planning environment in the face of the pandemic is quite fluid, and guidance from federal and state governments has changed as more is known about the virus. It's important to be transparent and involve shared governance as System and campuses make plans, but some amount of changes to campus pandemic plans in response to government mandates are inevitable, and we need to adapt to the changing guidance.
- Making our case. It is critical to make the argument for public higher eduction, given national forces that are devaluing public institutions. Given the recent change in control of the New York State Senate, more higher education focus may be directed to CUNY, and less to upstate SUNY campuses. And higher education in general takes a back seat to K-12 education when it comes to funding and policy as well. Arguments around TAP Gap and other jargon-laden issues do not resonate with the general public and many legislators. We need to make clear arguments around student access to higher education, and that public funds should support public campuses.
- Social justice and diversity. The Chancellor highlighted the need to make real progress in developing a faculty and staff composition that mirrors the diversity of the students we serve. EOP and EOC are priority programs, and he has committed to full funding of PRODiG. The recent Executive Order from Washington that threatens funding for organizations that provide programming around systemic racism and implicit bias is immoral and SUNY needs to push back as a system. The Chancellor's office is working on a statement, and would like sign-off from governance organizations and campus governance issues, along with campus administration.
Provost’s Report
Tod Laursen, SUNY Provost
(Slide deck - PDF)
The Provost updated the Senate on the following topics:
- Enrollments. Enrollments are in better shape than expected when the pandemic first hit last spring. The state-operated campuses are seeing only a slight dip in numbers compared to last fall (with doctoral institutions seeing an actual increase). The community college sector has been the most impacted, with a 10% decline from Fall 2019 enrollments. These reflect and exacerbate to some extent long-standing trends over the past decade.
- Academic Continuity: A majority of class sections across SUNY are being taught online this fall (either synchronous or asynchronous instruction), with only about a third of classes being fully in-person or hybrid. The Technology colleges have the highest proportion of in-person classes, given their programming. The New York State Education Department has provided flexibility to campuses with regard to allowing distance education format for courses in programs that have not been approved for distance education, the ability to shorten the academic calendar, and approval of alternative clinical experiences for education and licensure programs. Provost Laursen reviewed a number of strategies to reduce on-campus density this fall and for the upcoming spring semester, including ending on-campus instruction at Thanksgiving this fall and not resuming until Feb 1st in the spring, eliminating breaks and holidays, alternating attendance in hybrid on-campus courses, extending class scheduling into the evening and the weekend, and allowing staggered work times and days and/or continued telecommuting for employees.
- SUNY Online. All online programming across SUNY is being brought under the SUNY Online umbrella, including ~30 Degrees at Scale (the original core SUNY Online), 120 Signature Programs (the former Open SUNY+), and the ~650 programs and 24K courses from the Open SUNY catalog. The goals for SUNY Online are to meet the online program needs of New York residents who are currently going to out of state online providers, and to extend SUNY's reach globally. In addition to reviewing the current Degrees at Scale, the IT infrastructure, and business model, Provost Laursen reviewed an innovative collaboration among FLCC, MCC, Empire State, University of Albany, and SUNY Maritime to submit proposals to the Navy for the development of USN Community College.
- Open Educational Resources. Provost Laursen reviewed the growth across sectors in the use of materials from the SUNY OER Services catalog (Lumen Learning Waymaker texts and Online Homework Manager courses, and Open Learning Initiative courses from Carnegie Mellon), with examples of how OER materials are supporting math and foreign language instruction, and student success initiatives.
- COVID Impacts on Employees Survey. Large majorities of faculty and staff are working remotely, are confident that they are able to work effectively, and credit campus leadership for doing a good job in supporting employee pivot to remote work. This is mirrored in faculty responses, who overall reported that they received effective training and technical support to transition to remote instruction, and that they are confident in the ability to teach online this fall. Less than half of faculty are currently comfortable returning to in-person instruction this fall.
Sector Statements
Campus Governance Leaders
Lisa Glidden (SUNY Oswego)
Three related themes emerged from our discussion yesterday evening. As you can imagine, COVID is currently taking up a lot of our time. We are also concerned about the long-term budget outlook and planning, and about challenges our faculty, staff, and students are facing during this time. Undergirding all of these is the relationship between SUNY and our campuses.
First, as a political scientist, you know the negative impact uncertainty has on systems. SUNY as a whole and each of our campuses are complex institutions. Many (though not all) of us in our roles as CGL took part in planning committees over the summer to ensure a smoother Fall semester. There was still a lot of uncertainty, but it helped to have many perspectives at the table, and for us to be an additional channel of communication to help reduce uncertainty to our constituencies as much as we could. To underscore the importance of shared governance across SUNY, you, for example, could set a positive example by ensuring that the President of UFS is included in meetings when they should be such as the Presidents and Provost meetings.
Planning was well under way when we learned our campus plans needed to be approved by SUNY based on a list of criteria we may not have been using, and it’s safe to say that many unrealistic campus plans were approved. Our plans also didn’t include the idea of a “pause”, an idea I don’t think we heard about until after the semester started.
What do we want from SUNY? – clarity and leadership
Regarding COVID, clarity about testing regimes—who, how often; there’s not consistency among campuses
Clarity about pause:
- Criteria for leaving pause?
- What do campuses need to show (to the county DOH? To the Chancellor?) in order to be able to reopen?
- We have heard that students would need to test negative before they can go home at the end of the Fall semester. Is this accurate?
- If students have to stay for 14 extra days our campuses will need to house and feed them. How will this be paid for?
Our third item about challenges to our faculty and students follows from our first two. In terms of COVID, our campuses are conducting surveillance testing (although at very different scales), and many campuses are relying on their employees volunteering to manage the testing because they don’t have the resources to hire this out. This means on some campuses that employees, including those in health and counseling centers (also in such high need), are away from their offices to conduct testing. We know that some students are having bandwidth issues for synchronous class sessions. Faculty and staff are already stretched thin because of modality changes, losing instruction breaks, and concern for our students. UUP raises are being singled out as a funding drain and faculty feel vilified for a negotiated pay raise. Many of our students face bandwidth challenges with synchronous online classes.
We are not expecting SUNY to solve every problem; some of this is passing along concerns. But there are areas where SUNY can help by finding the resources to alleviate the testing hurdles. SUNY needs to lead. Campuses were left to fend for ourselves this semester, and that should have never happened--testing equipment, guidelines, other PPE, shifting calendar requirements, and sanctions. There is so much about this situation that is hard, and having to play catch-up and re-plan makes it harder.
Technology and Agriculture
Tim Gerken (SUNY Morrisville)
Because the funding for higher education in the country and state has been declining for years, we are now in a position where further cuts will be devastating to SUNY’s most vulnerable students; the students that we in the Tech sector serve in greater numbers than our colleagues in the other sectors.
The Tech sector feels especially vulnerable right now as some of our campuses have been working with significant deficits before the pandemic due to the expense of our extensive and intensive programs and because our students are the poorest in SUNY, leaving our campuses to cover the gap in tuition that TAP does not provide. The larger problem is that the gap and deficits have become a black hole not only for our campuses but for the state. Campuses have cut adjunct faculty, increased class sizes, and faculty workloads. This harms students. Many of these decisions occurred without shared governance consultation.
We are also concerned by the lack of faculty and staff consultation in decisions regarding campus reopening plans for fall 2020 and for spring 2021. Partially driven by financial needs, at least one campus required faculty to teach in person. These practices forced faculty and staff to accept unnecessary risks that could result in vulnerable family members being exposed to COVID-19.
Since you spoke to the importance of honesty on Tuesday, we thought we would share with you some earnest concerns we have from our colleagues.
The Governor’s prior executive decisions worry us that he will use the financial crisis to close campuses. We are concerned that your long relationship with the Governor while helpful in many significant ways, may suggest that you support his funding agenda or, at least, make pushing back against it difficult.
As you consider the SUNY universe do you see a reduction in the number of campuses as an event horizon and part of your legacy, or are you confident we can overcome these current gravitational forces and maintain all of our campuses even if some of those are now a bit smaller?
We would be interested in knowing some of your beliefs about the governor’s prior record on SUNY funding, and ideas for how we can continue to provide the citizens of our state an affordable, reliable, and excellent education in these most troubling times.
Health Sciences
Brigette Desport (Downstate Health Sciences University)
The Health Science Centers have been significantly impacted and the hardest hit by the financial downturn of the coronavirus pandemic in ways that are different from the other SUNY campuses. Our centers selflessly served our communities and, in the process, experienced immeasurable trauma. Aside from being designated COVID sites, we’ve had to suspend surgeries and other medical services, depleting our financial stream. We had to divert all of our efforts, with minimal resources and equipment, to treat and fight for the survival of the people in our communities as they battled this deadly virus. We have been expected to focus our research on the coronavirus. We have done the heavy lifting during the pandemic and we are concerned about our ability to recover.
We want to share with you our four main areas of concern:
1. Budget and Finance
We are concerned about the financial viability of our health science centers and the SUNY system. Our fear is that our centers will not recover from their COVID spending and the funding we lost. We conduct research, provide medical care to our communities, and educate future health professionals who will represent SUNY and continue to do the good work. In order to continue these charges, we need for NYS & federal government funding to remain unchanged for solvency. Disproportionate Share Hospital payments have to remain the same to continue providing care for all populations. We are aware that we are waiting for the outcome of the presidential election which will likely determine the level of federal support New York State receives. We also know that with federal funding, a deficit will still exist. We just want to highlight other areas that have been impacted by our current financial state:
- UUP raises were postponed
- The plan for discretionary salary increase (DSI) is on hold
- Hazard pay was withheld for our first responders. SUNY Downstate is the only hospital in Brooklyn that did not receive hazard pay.
- Freezing of faculty discretionary IFR accounts
- Hiring freezes and non-renewals of contingent faculty and professional staff
2. Safety and wellbeing
We are invested in preventing another COVID outbreak and to do that, our campuses must be safe. Our centers require a solid plan to ensure there is sufficient PPE and equipment for our medical centers and for our faculty who have physical contact with our students when teaching clinical skills. Our research sectors also require support in order to perform research safely. We propose that teleworking be extended to June 30, 2021. These are measures that will help create a sense of security and contribute to our mental health and emotional wellbeing. We look forward to hearing about your plan for creating and sustaining a safe and well environment for all.
3. Racial and social climate
We have witnessed an uptick in the dissemination of resolutions and position statements, calling for racial equity and social justice. People have good intentions and desire to see change. While that is true, the change has to come from the top because campuses need guidance when changing paradigms. Our students want to work with faculty that looks like them and the future communities they will serve. PRODiG has been a good first step towards increasing faculty opportunities for underrepresented groups. Greater effort is needed to add more color to leadership positions in order to build an inclusive workforce. We look forward to your leadership on this front.
4. Education and research
Reliable digital resources and support for our faculty and students are paramount for providing a quality education. We do not know how long we will be in this virtual space, which is why accessible and consistent support is necessary to achieve academic excellence. Black and brown students, who already experience disempowerment and inequities in the educational space, are experiencing more of a disconnect because they don’t have access to the same resources. We want to ensure that all of our students progress towards completing their degrees. We also need support for ensuring interprofessional research agendas, which provides students with enriched opportunities. We know you have had experience and success with online education and look forward to you sharing your thoughts and plans.
Specialized and Statutory
Carlie Phipps (SUNY Poly)
We would like to share with you some of our successes, and some of our concerns. We are proud of the responses of our campuses to the Covid pandemic. Our senators are pleased with how cases have been handled on our campuses so far. Our campuses have been involved in developing Covid research and testing protocols, and our students’ behavior shows they are enthusiastic about maintaining access to their labs, clinics, studios, and ships.
There are some concerns that we share as well. One is the continuation of interim leadership positions on campuses. Many of us have had interim administrators for years, and this has impacted long-term planning as well as relationships on campus and overall morale, stability, and operations. Especially during times of crisis like we have been experiencing, clear lines of accountability and leadership are crucial.
This contributes to another issue of consultation with faculty governance. Time-dependent situations such as pandemic responses and long-term situations such as frequent turnover in leadership have led to gaps in consultation with faculty governance that we worry will become worse as campuses struggle with the challenges facing us in the next few years.
In a more minor area, the spring schedule is a tricky one for each of our campuses. Due to the deep partnerships we have, our calendars are not entirely our own. If SUNY issues guidelines for spring calendars, we would like to ensure that we are able to adhere to outside timing regulations as well.
University Centers
Cemal Basaran (University at Buffalo)
We appreciate the steps that you have taken since becoming Chancellor to visit many of our campuses. However, as the country starts to experience more outbreaks of Covid-19, it appears that, state and local governments will be left without the resources needed to support their communities. Furthermore, higher education institutions will be without the funding needed to deal with the revolutionary changes which will have to be implemented after the COVID crisis subsides. However, all of these factors call for an agile management and innovative, perhaps even revolutionary adaptations. It will be necessary to have expedient processes and flexibility in implementing innovative solutions, such as new programs which need a fast approval process. It will be critical for the near and long-term success of SUNY that you reform SUNY in a way that can meet the pressing higher education demands for post-Covid New York.
The SUNY response to Covid-19 has been a one-size-fits-all plan, yet our campuses across the system are very different. In Covid testing expectations, student conduct responses, triggers to go remote, and approaches to ensure access to the internet, cannot be one-size fits all. Furthermore, some low-income students have had to drop out of school and there are growing concerns about student hunger and homelessness. There needs to be flexibility for the campuses to respond to the pandemic in ways appropriate to the local community conditions and campus cultures.
The university centers would deeply appreciate the System Administration's assistance in facilitating and supporting faculty and graduate student research in the current difficult climate. For example, SUNY can provide leadership in responding to New York State's climate initiative, and in pressing for improvements in U.S. visa processing for international graduate students. Further, SUNY can reinforce its commitment to increasing the diversity, equity and inclusion among graduate students, faculty and administration through programs such as PRODi-G. An example of the assistance needed from SUNY to its campuses, across all disciplines, is help to leverage their facilities, resources, and expertise in order to facilitate the successful implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Comprehensive Colleges
Anastasia Pratt (Empire State College)
As a sector, we want to offer quality academic programs that bring our students success in their chosen fields. The pandemic forced us to adapt to virtual learning environments and student supports, often less effective for our students and delivery of course materials. We are concerned that remote/online teaching will become the solution to the fiscal and educational crisis we find ourselves in when they should only be a stopgap measure. We need to return to the modes of instruction that best serve our students, recognizing that online and distance learning are effective for some, not all students.
These concerns become even larger when we consider the fiscal ramifications of the pandemic and the fact that our students will likely have experienced two years of some kind of hybrid education before they return full-time to our residential campuses. We expect that SUNY will be transformed in significant ways and we want to help plan and enact those changes. In addition, we want to help plan and enact any budget measures we will be taking as individual campuses and as a system.
We also hope that you will join with us establishing measures to increase equity, inclusion, and diversity on our campuses and in our system. We have read the president’s executive order against critical race theory and diversity with dismay, noting that as a system and as a sector, we have worked long and hard to bring greater inclusion to our system, bringing life to the call to be “fully representative of all segments of the population” found in SUNY’s mission. That mission is essential to us and we would like to work with you to strengthen and not dismantle it.
Finally, we look to you to help shine a light on this system and on our sector. The work that we do changes the lives of students, but, more importantly, offers them a world class education. In a time when many private colleges are faltering and students are increasingly seeking less expensive options for their online or hybrid courses, we must shine.