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HomeSenate Senate MinutesOctober 3, 2016

Tentative Agenda
University Senate
HSC, Level 3, LH 5
October 3, 2016


I. Approval of tentative agenda
II. Approval of minutes from August 29, 2016
III. President’s Report (E. Feldman)
IV. Discussion with the President (S. Stanley)
V. Discussion with the Interim Provost (C. Taber)
VI. Discussion with the Vice-President for the Health Sciences (K. Kaushansky)
VII. Update from the Faculty Student Association (P. Baigent)

  • Bookstore
  • Food Service

VIII. University Food Pantry (D. Crapanzano)
IX. UUP Report (C. Gizzi, K. Moriarty)
X. Old Business
XI. New Business

University Senate
Minutes
August 29, 2016

I. Approval of agenda: Approved.

II. Approval of minutes from May 2, 2016: Approved with corrections by N. Goodman on his comments on Far Beyond.

III. President’s Report (E. Feldman)

  • President Stanley could not be here because of an illness in the family. Judy Greiman will presenting his report.
  • As you know, I was not at the May meeting because my 20 y/o niece was killed in a car accident in the days before that meeting. I wanted to thank this body because for the number of supportive emails I received that were very touching and made me feel part of a community that I am very proud to be a part of. Some of you even made donations in my niece Brittany’s name.
  • There was an incident on Friday concerning a deck collapse injuring some SB students. T. Ecklund: This incident occurred at a house off campus where some of our students were attending a party. A second floor deck about 10’ high collapsed. All the students involved were evaluated and released from the hospital. We are reviewing the incident and will take appropriate actions as the facts are revealed. The Town of Brookhaven and the Suffolk County Police Department are investigating the circumstances as well. The rentals that we list on our off-campus housing website have a legal town permit.
  • For those of you who are new to the senate, I want to give a brief overview on how we function. We are a representative Senate where each Senator represents a specific constituency. Unlike other campuses we are a University Senate representing about 2,800 Faculty, about 3,300 Professional staff, as well as Graduate and Undergraduate students. That differentiates us from other campuses where they might only have a Faculty Senate. Some campuses have both a Faculty Senate and a Professional staff Senate. In some instances across the country the Professional staff is not represented at all. We have a more comprehensive model. Each of our schools also have a Senate. The University Senate examines campus issues as opposed to issues that are focused primarily at individual schools. The principle that guides us is shared governance. We believe that at large institution like Stony Brook that there ought to be multiple constituents at the table in making policy. We do not believe in a hierarchical model of governance. I make this argument with the Administration that whatever policy the University proposes will be better with broader “buy-in” if there is broad based input in the development of that policy. The University Senate meets monthly. The University Senate Executive Committee meets weekly to represent the Senate in the intervening times when the Senate is not in session. On the Executive Committee, there are representatives from academic units as well as two representatives from the PEG Board, one GSO student and one USG student.
  • Much of work of the Senate is done by the twelve standing committees. Each committee has about 10 members who are elected to these committee seats. I will continue to highlight the work of these committees at senate meetings.
  • Communication: Another goal I have this year is the internal and external communication for the Senate. As a Senate, we do a poor job of communicating with our 6,000 constituents about the actions and activities of the Senate and receive feedback from those people. I really need each senator to get back to their departments and communicate about the activities of this meeting.
  • Executive Committee Initiatives: Over the summer the EC worked on Open Access: There is a proposal on the table that was introduced by the Library about Open Access. It is being reviewed by the Research Committee and the Library Resources and Services Committee. The Executive Committee has asked Patricia Aceves to broker a unified policy. Senate Survey: We are working with the Administrative Review Committee on the upcoming University Senate survey. R. Kelly: We finalized the survey questions as of last May and have had input from the EC. It should be ready by next week and should be online for 3-4 weeks. The ARC will report on the findings at the November or December Senate meeting.

IV. Update on Club Red (J. Adams and F. Friedberg)

  • J. Adams: Club Red is our University Club for Faculty and Professional Staff that is located at the Simons Center Café. At large universities, people operate in silos without much contact with people in other departments. This is an opportunity to break down those silos to improve communication, collaboration and espirit-de-corps on campus. Club Red offers gourmet food with reasonably priced drinks. Most of the dates this semester are sponsored by groups and departments at a rate of $1,000 which basically covers the catering and the food for the event. There isn’t a cap on the number of people who can attend.
  • F. Friedberg: It’s a great place to meet people from other departments that you would never really otherwise meet. We have established an FSA Club Red account and this is to cover open dates at the Simons Café when we do not have a sponsor. The Club Red Committee and the Executive Committee agreed that it would be nice to voluntary $100+ memberships and donations from faculty and staff to Club Red and not depend exclusively on sponsors.
  • It was asked why Club Red is only on Friday. J. Adams: That is the only day that Simons Café offered.
  • N. Goodman: Emphasized the importance of predictability and consistency. We tried Thursday at the Hotel, but it was not successful.

V. Discussion with the President (J. Greiman)

  • Provost: A new Provost, Dr. Michael Bernstein, was hired and will be arriving in October. He has a strong record as an outstanding leader and scholar. We had a very strong pool of candidates. She thanked Chuck Taber for being a fantastic Interim Provost.
  • Diversity Plan was released on May 19th with a robust implementation structure including 8 working groups. Robbye Kinkade was hired to implement bias awareness training for all faculty and staff and to help build an inclusive community. She is not otherwise charged with plan implementation.
  • We plan to hire a Diversity Officer as required by SUNY.
  • HeForShe Program on gender equality. Charlie Robbins and I worked over the summer on engaging with our fellow impact champions. Worked with nine other institutions this summer on what our priorities for next three years. Each institution has agreed to do an Idea-athon every year.
  • Presidential lecture series: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuke, Executive Director of UN Women and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, will speak on gender equality on September 12th at 4:00 in Staller.
  • President Stanley will be hosting Club Red on September 16th.
  • A question was asked about the closing of SB Manhattan? J. Greiman: The School of Social Welfare programs at the Manhattan location are looking for new space. This facility was not cost effective.

VI. Discussion with Interim Provost (C. Taber)

  • The call for 2017-2018 SUNY Faculty Diversity Program has been announced for new Assistant Professor level appointments. The deadline is October 14th.
  • There is a call for the SUNY Shared Governance Award. This is an award that can be focused on a general relationship of shared governance that works well on a particular campus or it can be focused on some particular instance or example of shared governance on a campus within the SUNY system. Nominations can be submitted through the Provost’s Office. The deadline is September 28th.
  • There is a call for the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching. Nominations for this award should be submitted to the Provost’s Office. Deadline is September 15th.
  • Dr. Taber read off the 2015-2016 SUNY Distinguished Faculty Rank Recipients which can be found in his report.
  • The Summer Online Teaching Initiative is an initiative that provides a $1,500 supplement to instructors who are willing to take an existing course, especially courses that are high in demand, and adopt the as an on line. They are supported by staff in TLT. The number of courses and the number of students taking summer online courses has increased significantly over the last several years.
  • Provost’s Lecture Series: Dr. Leonard Cassuto will give a lecture on “Changing Graduate Education for the 21st Century on September 27th at 4:00 p.m.
  • N. Goodman: Weren’t there any Distinguished Teaching Professor Awards? Is that because we didn’t submit any nominations? C. Taber: I believe Nancy Hollingsworth is one. I will send you the list.
  • E. Feldman: Can you talk about the transition between you and the new Provost? C. Taber: I will be meeting with him next week and plan to write a briefing report for him.
  • E. Feldman: Before Ken’s report let me give you one example of the collaboration with Dr. Taber. I wanted to know how Deans were evaluated consistent with the philosophy of 360 degree evaluations. He stated that SB doesn’t have a procedure for evaluations of Deans. He put it on his agenda to talk with President Stanley about who was also supportive of developing a policy. Chuck took my suggestion seriously and is in the process of developing a procedure for evaluating Deans which has never been done at SB.
  • M. Bowman: It should be noted that Dr. Feldman was a recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

VII. Discussion with the Vice President for the Health Sciences (K. Kaushansky)

  • Introduced Megan Toohey who will be his Chief Deputy. She comes to Stony Brook from the University of Buffalo.
  • Affiliation with Mt. Sinai Healthcare. An “academic affiliation agreement” was signed three weeks ago between Stony Brook and Mt. Sinai improving our research, education and clinical components. The research element brings together 74 different faculty, roughly 50% from Stony Brook and 50% from Mt. Sinai to form 11 different groups to discuss collaborative research opportunities. To stimulate joint research projects, each institution will be putting in $250,000 to fund pilot programs.
  • SB Medicine received a $10M non-profit gift to support cancer and metabolic imaging.
  • We have created a mechanism by which the clinical departments will be contributing $1.5M a year to fund clinical research hoping to receive a clinical translational science award.
  • The Dean of Engineering and I have been working to put together a program by which the School of Medicine and the College of Engineering are going to work together to create an institute of engineering driven medicine.
  • SB Medicine distributed “free” IPads to first year medical students which contain syllabi. The traditional “white coat ceremony” was help when medical students receive their first official white coat.
  • One of the main programs at SB Manhattan campus was an MSW Program. These students did some work at SB but were mostly in Manhattan. With the closing of SB Manhattan, we were able to secure space at SUNY Optometry.
  • School of Pharmacy is about to launch with the first class entering in September 2018. Doug Reed, the founding Dean, has been hired and will be on campus on Thursday.
  • We launched the LEARN Curriculum in the SOM a couple of years ago which has received excellent reviews from students.
  • Mary Truhlar, Dean of the School of Dental Medicine, traveled to Sub Sarhara Africa and Madagascar as part of an outreach program to support efforts to improve the oral health of underserved communities by providing nutritional counseling and dental services. The Dental School sent students to the Turkana Basin.
  • SB Hospital over 110,000 visits this year and 36,000 admissions.
  • We hired two outstanding Cardiac Surgeons: Joanna Chikwe, Chief, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Director of the Heart Institute and Henry Tannous, Associate Professor of Surgery.
  • The new Commack Ambulatory Care facility which will be opening in association with Mt. Sinai will be opening in a few months.
  • About 70 clinical leaders are taking part in updating our Clinical Strategic Plan. Our aspirational goal is “to become an integrated health system at the intersection of academic and community based medicine distinguished by unparalleled excellence and innovation in clinical care as well as a commitment to advance population health. In short, the best ideas in medicine here and in your neighborhood. And so we’re working on developing three major goals that come from our strategic planning effort multi-professional strategic planning to create a better clinical operation at Stony Brook Medicine”.
  • R. Aller: We have a ban on tobacco. I noticed that when I entered the HSC that there are vending machines selling candy, soda, chips, cookies, etc. instead of more nutritious food. Seems contradictory. Dean Kaushanshy. This is a good suggestion which I will look into.

VIII. Update on Enrollment (R. Morrison)

  • Fall 2016 enrollment for the undergraduate class was the largest applicant pool in the history of the University with an increase in quality of applications.
  • Fall Day 1 snapshot: West campus had an additional 166 students, HSC had 125 and Southampton had 58.
  • SB has increased the quality of applicants with mean SAT score now at 1255.
  • SB led the SUNY University Centers with the largest applicant pool.
  • The incoming class is very diverse with Hispanic students at an all-time high and African Americans students about the same as we did last year.
  • In terms of gender, we are closing the gap between male (54%) and female (46%).
  • Freshmen geographic residency: We grew the domestic out of state number of students as opposed to out of state international.
  • Special programs: Grown significantly in EOP, Honors College, and WISE. University Scholars stayed flat.

M. Bowman: Why has the number of people in WISE stayed so low?
R. Morrison: There are more women in engineering. The Wise Program (Women in Science and Engineering) is geared toward women who, based on an application process, which the program director feels they could need additional support and benefit from the program. They would be able to take more is the funding was there.

  • Matriculated freshmen by classification profile: Declined a bit in CAS STEM and College of Business. SoMAS has gone up a bit and Journalism has stayed flat.
  • Full-time transfer enrollments: Has grown even though our numbers by design have gone down a little on the transfer side this year from 1393 to 1375. WE have increased the number of students from Long Island.
  • Mean student GPA of transfers was 3.37.

A. Tucker: You just presented information on admissions basically. Can you give us some sense of how we are doing in light of the goal of improving the four-year graduation rate and improving the six-year graduate rate?

R. Morrison: Over the past five-years we have actually increased graduation rates close to 10 points so far.

A. Tucker: can you name one or two that faculty have been involved in raising graduation rates? I know you have a lot of advising and things like that but just in the academic sector.

R. Morrison: I am not best equipped to do that.

S. Kopp: About 50 faculty and students in the Arts & Sciences participated in a phone-a-thon a couple weeks prior to the admitting students day to get more students to this event because our yield is much higher of admitting students once they see the campus. We’ve had over three years running we had 3,500 participants. There was well over 6,000 this spring.

K. Gillespie: Data suggests that the first semester of study is the most important semester and will correlates strongly with whether a student stays and graduates on time at SB. There are three indicators: first semester GPA (the higher the better indicator of persistence and timely progress toward graduation), whether a student receives at least one A or A- in their first semester (students who do not receive at least one A or A- are more likely to not graduate in 4 years) and whether a student receives one or more D, F, W or U grade in their first semester (receiving at least one increases the odds that the student will not graduate in 4 years). What faculty can do is to look out for these indicators and to attend to the students who need help. Meet with the student and if needed refer them to the appropriate office on campus that can help them

J. Greinman: Student advisors did a study on how the calendar and course availability impact finishing in four years. They gave a presentation to the University Council last week that was excellence in terms of its research and recommendations.

IX. Update on the Budget and Facilities (R. Megna)

  • I am the Vice President for Finance and Administration which includes the budget area of the central funds, tuition and state subsidy that we take in and how it gets allocated. My responsibilities also include facilities including the care and maintenance of our buildings, public protection and safety.
  • We need to develop a real budget process that is more transparent. Many people including some people in this room, have worked on the budget process together. Where is the money that we are taking in especially in central funds going? The other side of that equation, equally important, is how is that money being spent?
  • What are the actual problems because budgets ultimately are about priorities and solving problems? We will try to do a few things in this year’s budget to address in a fiscally constrained environment some problems that we have had. One of the things we tried to do was increase graduate student stipends.
  • I have been getting complaints about the state of our laboratory upgrades so we tried to set aside a pool of money for that purpose. We will also use some of that money for overall facility upgrades. Also tried to move a little bit in the direction of allocating money to the Provostial side which has been earning more tuition.
  • We had a significant fiscal problem with our IT operations. One of the things we tried to do this year, at least temporary basis, was to solve that problem so that Melissa Woo could move forward.
  • Also set aside money for Diversity initiative.
  • We are living in a very challenging fiscal environment.
  • SUNY 2020 was not extended this year and we don’t know whether it will be next year. We have to be conservative in our assumptions.

D. Ecker: What about the money the state took back for the keeping up with the upkeep of the buildings and all the other facilities? Have we figure this out?

R. Megna: There is a good and bad to everything the state does in terms of financing. Unlike most public university systems the state pays for our capital and they pay the debt service on that capital. That is a fantastic benefit so tuition or central funds don’t have to cover that expense. The bad side of that is that they decide how much every year they are going to spend on it. In the 90’s and early 00’s the state had a very large capital commitment to SUNY. Two programs consecutively five-year programs with $10B including a critical maintenance budget of $60-70M to fix buildings, create labs, etc. This is now down to about $20-23M a year.

X. Old Business: no old business.

XI. New Business: no new business.

Meeting adjourned at 5:10pm

Submitted by:
Laurie Cullen, Secretary

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