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HomeSenate Senate MinutesMay 4, 2015

Tentative Agenda
University Senate Meeting
May 4, 2015

I. Approval of Agenda
II. Approval of April 6, 2015 minutes
III. Report of the President of the Senate (E. Feldman)
IV. Report from President Stanley (M. Whalen)
V. Report from the Provost (D. Assanis)
VI. Report from the Sr. Vice President for HSC and Dean, SOM (K. Kaushansky)
VII. Combining of the Departments of Family & Preventive Medicine (K. Kaushansky)
VIII. Approval of Two New Departments in CEAS (Y. Shamash)
IX. Resolution from the Library Service Committee
X. Talent Management System (L. Johnson, S. Riccobono, J. Rossler)
XI. Report from the 170th Plenary of the State-wide Faculty Senate (G. Fouron)
XII. UUP Report (C. Gizzi, A. Shertzer)
XIII. New Business
XIV. Old Business

University Senate
Minutes
April 6, 2015

I. Approval of agenda: approved

II. Approval of Minutes from March 2, 2015.

III. Senate President Report (E. Feldman)

  • The Undergraduate Student Government presented to the EC on March 2 a resolution supporting a Rational Tuition Policy SUNY 2020. The EC approved the resolution. It was sent to the Senators only an hour before the Senate meeting which is certainly not the best manner to bring votes to the floor. This particular resolution was timely in that we wanted to approve it in such a way that the President could use our approval in his negotiations in Albany. There are times when things are timely and the EC operates on behalf of the body.
  • President Feldman reminded the Senate of the approved policy on the Creation, Modification, Combination or Closures of Departments, Programs, Institutes, Centers, Schools or Colleges which is available on the University Senate website under “Key Documents”. Proposals should be approved by individual school senates then forwarded to the President of the University Senate. S/He will present proposals to the Executive Committee who will send it to the appropriate senate committee for review and comments. Once approved by appropriate standing committees, the proposal with any edits returns to the Executive Committee before coming to the floor of the Senate for approval. This policy has been in effect since 2010-2011.
  • Dexter Bailey is having a “town hall” meeting on SB branding on April 15th at 1:00 p.m. in the Library, E2340. He would like the input from the Senate. Please make every effort to attend.

IV. Report from the President (L. Gomes and M. Maciulaitis)

  • Going into this budget cycle we were very optimistic seeing that the state was sitting with a $5.4 B accumulated one-time balance. Unfortunately, the 2015-16 budget fell somewhat short of our expectations.
  • SUNY Hospital support received $100,000 more than last year.
  • Last year SUNY received $7.6 M one-time support to cover contractual salary increases. These unfunded mandated raised resulted in a big deficit in our funding to cover salary increases for state employees. We had to distribute an $8 Mil cut across campus to get the funding. This year SUNY funding was reduced to $4.7. Our share of the $4.7 Mil. would be about $650,000 if we get our pro rata share. Salary shortfall this year will be between $7-8 Mil. Last year we spread the budget reduction campus-wide. Tried to help keep holding harmless the academic areas which were cut 2.3% with the non-academic areas cut 4.6%.
  • The LI State Veterans Home budget is up $1.3 Mil. CEWIT and AERTC received $1M each. TAP and Marine Animal Disease Lab remained the same.
  • Capital Budget: This year SUNY requested $600M and received only $200M, well short of what the system needs. Stony Brook received $22.2M for critical maintenance plus $19M for the Student Union. The Long Island Economic Development received $150 Mil. M. Arens stated that $400M the Economic Development funding did not include Upstate Revitalization Initiative. The enacted budget was very top-heavy upstate region. The Waste Water Treatment Study of nitrogen pollution received $3M. NYSUNY 2020 received $55M in its last year which was the same allocation as in 2014-15. J. Sanders: has any of the leading SUNY Campuses invited the Governor to have a town meeting or meet with the faculty to discuss his intentions for higher education and if not, may I suggest he be invited? M. Arens will make this suggestion. The Governor has an open invitation to visit SBU. E. Feldman: Is renovating the University Pool part of critical maintenance? L. Gomes: A solution is being investigated.
  • Re-Appropriations (continuing funds that were approved in the past): Some are quite old and it basically says we are going to keep that spending authority there but there may not be actual cash allocated for these projects. $22M set aside for the Computational Biomedicine Facility will re-allocated to Stadium improvement and locker room facilities. N. Goodman: Why is there $250,000 allocated for a law school when no one has ever requested this? M. Arens: The Law School was an idea that came through in the legislature and thought this was something SB might want to consider later. No money is attached to this item.
  • The Dream Act and the Campus Sexual Assault Policy are post budget. N. Goodman: How likely are they to get passed? M. Arens: Remains priority for the Governor and the Senate.
  • Get on Your Feet Loan Program which allows NYS to pay the first two years of monthly student loan applications for NY college graduates. Experiential Learning requirement requires SUNY and CUNY Board of Trustees to pass resolutions in favor of developing a plan to offer approved and applied learning activities for students rather than a mandate. N. Goodman: The Governor included curricular item in the budget message. This an opening wedge for political intrusion. M. Arens: Cannot comment. Do not know enough about it. The NYS Masters in Education Teacher initiative incentive Program that creates NYS Master in Education Teachers Incentive Scholarship Program which will provide two years’ worth of SUNY tuition or the cost of tuition, whichever is less that meets certain criteria. Funding for SUNY hospitals is $80M over two years. J. Sanders: How much extra did we have to pay for snow removal during this difficult winter? Handicapped students could not get to class because students in electric wheel chairs repeatedly found insufficient clearing of the snow around where they lived. M. Macuilaitis: Between the West and East campus it came out to approximately $2-2.2M for snow removal. Budgeted amount was $800,000 for West Campus and $25,000 for East Campus.

J. Sanders: The lawsuit against SB for an incident of reported rape: is this complicating or adding to our burden in the investigation of Title IX violations here at Stony Brook? M. Macuialitis: Can’t comment on this. J. Sanders: Title IX is a significant matter because we are on that “bad list” of universities and it may be getting worse.

V. Provost’s Report (R. Reeder)

  • SUNY has a High Needs Program which provides grant support for those professional programs that connect directly occupations crucial to the economic vitality of NY. Distributed $28M prior to 2013 to support nursing and engineering programs. It has now become competitive. In the last two rounds, SB has landed support for 11 proposals with one-time funding between $50,000 and $250,000 for each proposal. Preference to on-line learning for 2015-16.
  • Fulbright has a competitive program for students. We have had 14 applications so far.
  • President Stanley sponsors the Seed Grant Program for joint initiatives between scientists from SBU, BNL and Cold Spring Harbor. BNL administers the program. This program has been around for approximately 16-17 years. Deadline is April 18th.

M. Schedel: In the past SBU provided all the funding for it and now they are going to ask BNL to provide half of the funding and BNL is not so enthused about these programs. R. Reeder: Not true. Base funding comes from President Stanley through the Office of Brookhaven Affairs.

  • The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Sciences will host NASA FameLab competition. It has been billed as a cross between TedTalk and American Idol. The idea is that a student will be coached on his/ her work to develop a 3-minute Power Point presentation to try and explain what their work clearly and why it is significant. Will be held in the Wang Center on April 16-17. Winner will go on to a national competition.
  • Earthstock will be held from April 20-24. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Carl Safina.
  • The Admitted Students day is Saturday, April 11th to meet with faculty, students and staff when we will be hosting approximate 1,600 new students.
  • The annual Emeritus Faculty Association lunch will be held on May 1st. The event speaker will be Visiting Presidential Professor, Carl Bernstein.

VI. Discussion with Sr. Vice President for HSC and Dean, SOM (K. Kaushansky)

  • Search for the Dean of the School of Social Welfare is underway. Very active search committee. Airport interviews in a week or two
  • SUNY Central met and approved our and Binghamton’s application for granting a Pharm D Degree which is another step on the way to creating a School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. We scheduled a meeting for the ACPE (Accrediting Council for Pharmacy Education) which is the national accrediting body which visited SB and made a few suggestions on how to improve our application. Launched a search for the founding Dean for the new school.
  • Peconic Bay Medical Center has chosen to affiliate with North Shore LIJ rejecting SB’s proposal to affiliate. It does have a lot of implications for the School of Medicine. Currently have 25 faculty members who spend the bulk of their time at PBMC with a number of practices in Riverhead that are all going to be adversely affected. 1,400 patients are directly transferred from PBMC to SBUH which we will lose.
  • North Shore LIJ will also affiliate with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. Over the next ten years Cold Spring would gain $120 Mil. NSLIJ will set up a clinical trials unit in Huntington Hospital that would be used to test first in human drugs that are being developed at Cold Spring Harbor Labs.

D. Conover: Newsday highlighted in an article that the NIH has awarded Stony Brook’s Center for Biotechnology a three year, $3M grant to establish the LI Bioscience Hub which is part of the NIH’s Research and Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH). This is one of only three awarded nation-wide. Dr. Clint Rubin will be the Principle Investigator. NSF competition for graduate research scholarship awards goes directly to the students. We typically receive 3-4 which is less than an institution of our stature. The Graduate School and the VP for Research office have worked together in support Susan Brennan who has been a mentor and who also has encouraged more applications and improve the quality. We have doubled the number of applications from last year. We will be receiving ten graduate research fellows.

VII. Club Red (M. Schedel and B. Godfrey)

  • UUP will be hosting Club Red this Friday, April 10th and other sponsors are lined up for the semester.
  • There is an established website: http://clubred.stonybrook.edu/.
  • Barbara Chernow helped facilitate revitalization by encouraging continued participation by the Hilton Garden Hotel and the Simons Café to host.
  • A permanent location near the Administration parking garage would be ideal so that it would be easily accessible by both the East Campus and the West Campus.

VIII. Report from the Student Life Committee (C. Pitocco)

  • The Committee meets every other week.
  • The first two meetings addressed tobacco/alcohol abuse. The committee discussed mandatory education on tobacco/alcohol abuse for incoming freshmen students. Stony Brook had a grant so than sent a survey to SB students and found that 13% have serious drug problems, 11-13% reported opiate abuse and 30% reported marijuana abuse.
  • Smoke free campus: Currently smokers have to smoke 35’ from buildings but there is little enforcement. There was a suggestion to have smoke “shelters” on campus. Forty campuses are smoke free. SB has a new initiative for the campus to be completely tobacco free and C. Pitocco is on this implementation committee.
  • Sexual violence on campus: Presentations are being given on campus. Mandatory training for students. New employees are being trained.
  • Food/Dining: Students do not have enough money on food cards and many run out of points on their meal cards before the end of the semester. Reports are that the cost of food is high. West Side Dining has an advisory group which includes student input for campus dining.
  • Met with Kathy Paterno about disability services. There were issues for the visually impaired. Concern was expressed that the Wang Center steps are all black and may be difficult to negotiate for people who are visually impaired. Administration is aware of this problem and white or gold strips will be placed on the steps to improve safety. There is also a lot of glass which may be difficult for the visually impaired. Etching of the glass improves the safety but more needs to be done. Disability Services has a limited budget and are short staffed. Wheel chair accessibility during a snow storm was mentioned. This was discussed and Kathy said that no one contacted the office. J. Sanders: that is absolutely not true. We put it on Stony Brook television and even President Stanley noted it. Lack of wheel chair accessibility during a snow storm is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and a violation of pure human decency.
  • Meeting in the Rec Center this month.
  • Met with Transportation: When the RR track signals go down, train starts moving before the gate goes back up. Found out that the conductor can actually open the gates. The MTA has addressed the situation, but it is still going on. Also, students are crossing the tracks with ear buds or texting which is very dangerous. The MTA has responded again and they put out an education program to educate peers from the campus about train safety. Signal is supposed to make a noise. That issue has been resolved.
  • There are not enough students on the Student Life Committee. S. Adelson: At the Chairs Retreat we discussed finding ways to get students more involved. One proposal that the students are considering is a constitutional revision that would require every member of the student government to sit on a standing committee

X. UUP Report (A. Shertzer and C. Gizzi)

  • Post budget: UUP fought private equity in the hospitals b/c it was felt that it was dangerous and were able to win the argument.
  • 400 EOP students went to Albany in February to lobby to continuation of EOP funding.
  • UUP is fighting a mandate for experiential learning in the Governor’s budget.
  • Bullying is the same as sexual harassment. Working to craft legislation that will put bullying at the same level as sexual harassment.
  • Concerned about parking at the HSC. K. Kaushansky said that the parking lot was not built that well and is deteriorating. An engineer is evaluating the parking garage. It is not clear if the funds are available to repairs.

XI. New Business: no new business.

XII. Old Business: no old business.

Meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

Submitted by:

Laurie Cullen
Secretary

Senate
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