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Tentative Agenda
University Senate
Wang Center, LH 2
December 5, 2016


I. Approval of tentative agenda
II. Approval of minutes from November 7, 2016
III. President’s Report (E. Feldman)
IV. Discussion with the President (S. Stanley)
V. Discussion with the Provost (M. Bernstein)
VI. Senate Survey (R. Kelly)
VII. Safety, Security and Well-Being of the Campus Community (K. Monahan, N. Goodman, J. Verardo and A. Zubair)
VIII. UUP Report (C. Gizzi, K. Moriarty)
IX.. Old Business
XI. New Business


University Senate
Minutes
November 7, 2016

I. Approval of tentative agenda: approved.

II. Approval of minutes from October 3, 2016: approved with the addition of the name of the graduate student (Delicia Kamins) who spoke about the Bookstore.

III. Senate President’s Report (E. Feldman)

  • Provost Michael Bernstein: Dr. Feldman introduced and welcomed the new Provost, Michael Bernstein. He announced that the Senate was involved in the recruitment of the Provost. Rob Kelly was the official representative of the Senate on the search committee from the Administrative Review Committee and President Stanley asked Feldman to interview the final candidates.
  • Open Access: Dr. Feldman updated the Senate on the status of anOpen Access policy. The Dean of the Libraries developed an Open Access Policy which she forwarded to the Research Committee who approved it. Since this policy will be administered through the Library, the Executive Committee wanted the opinion of the Library Services Committee who expressed concern about a number of issues and did not approve it. With the Executive Committee’s approval, Dr. Feldman asked Patricia Aceves to broker a policy between these two committees. She has done a great job in editing a new version of the policy to address the concerns of the Library Services Committee and it is awaiting approval of the Research Committee. P. Aceves: All of the stakeholders, the Library, the Dean of the Library and the two senate committees were all involved and engaged in the process of making sure that this policy had appropriate input from faculty.
  • Club Red: Attendance has been low. We are trying to get faculty/staff memberships of $100 or more to offset the costs if there isn’t a sponsor. K. McDowell: I have prepared membership forms with a pre-addressed inter-office envelope for your convenience. K. Moriarty: West Campus UPP is sponsoring Club Red for Veteran’s Day this Friday.
  • Survey: R. Kelly: The Senate survey closed on Tuesday. The number of responses have doubled from the previous survey and there were far more responses from the East Campus then we’ve had in the past. Sections of the survey have been divided among ARC members who are now analyzing the responses. We should have a report for the December Senate meeting.
  • Communication: Dr. Feldman stated that the Senate has to a better job of communicating the activities of the Senate to its Senators and to the campus at large. The SUNY-Wide Faculty Senate sends out summaries from their state-wide meetings. I asked Pamela Wolfskill to help in doing a similar communication sheet about the activities of the University Senate meetings and she has agreed to do so.

IV. Discussion with the President (S. Stanley)

  • Provost Michael Bernstein: Also welcomed the new Provost, Michael Bernstein. The President thanked the members search committee. He stated that Dr. Bernstein was an outstanding candidate that rose to the top of an extraordinary pool.
  • Election: The President encouraged senators to exercise their right and vote in the upcoming presidential election which is going to matter to higher education. There hasn’t been a lot of discussion about the role of research universities and innovation and how important universities are to stimulate the economy. The return on investment from NIH and NSF have been extraordinary to the country and it was disappointing that it has not been part of the discussion. Research universities are vital to the economy.
  • Cyber Security Awareness: We just completed cyber security awareness month which included the adoption of a new Information Security Policy. This will be a major issue, since all, since we are getting increasing threats from malicious cyber attacks. Education and training are available.
  • R.E.D.I. Project: The REDI Initiative which arose out of Stony Brook’s Plan for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will be led by Robbye Kincade who is an expert in bias training. It will provide an opportunity for administrators, faculty and staff to attend a six-hour diversity training seminar.
  • Growth: We are starting to have discussions with deans about how we might grow in order to increase access and to increase revenue. We had 35,000 freshman applicants for Stony Brook last year for 2,900 spots, so we are turning away qualified students who would benefit from a Stony Brook education. We would like to offer that opportunity to more students if we can do this responsibly. We received no new revenue for the university last year. SUNY 2020 was not approved and there were no increases in state allocation.
    • R. Aller: You mentioned input from administration including Deans and VP’s at the last two meetings in planning for growth. I would note that Deans and VP’s come and go and the people that are here for the long term are faculty and staff members. I think any planning you do you should incorporate input from faculty/staff. S. Stanley: This is implicit but pardon me for not making it explicit. There has to be discussions on the departmental level about how we are going to respond to this. Where is the demand going to be if we are changing and growing enrollment and where is the demand going to increase? Are those departments going to be ready? What resources might be needed?
  • Corporate Sponsorships: N. Goodman: What criteria do we use to decide whether to allow an individual or corporation to sponsor a campus facility or activity? Chick-Fil-A sponsors our athletic events and they are an organization that violates campus policies against bias and for inclusion. They donate over $1 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) that prohibit any homosexual acts even for married couples and see it as an "impure lifestyle." This group (FCA) imparts a strongly anti-LGBT message on its athletes and leaders. They, along with Hobby Lobby, refused to accept the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act that required insurance policies to cover birth control without a copay. S. Stanley: I don’t know if we have set criteria that we look at that looks at the politics of the people that own these particular companies. I think if there is evidence of active discrimination by companies that would be different to me. SUNY as a state agency would probably be involved in that policy.
    • J. Sanders: There is a difference between the right to speak publicly and the rights to name things. There was discussion in the naming of the Sports Arena and whether the bank in question had a history of “red lining” blacks and Jews on Long Island. You checked and you came back and assured us that they did not. S. Stanley: I think that’s a valid point. Naming something is different than sponsorship.
  • Princeton Review: J. Sanders: I like the part of your report where you talked about the great reviews the university was getting even though it received a bad review by the Princeton Review which stated that SB was the fifth worst teaching school out of 381. While pointing out problems with their methodology on a single question is appropriate, we need to take some cognizance of the issues. In addition to addressing the larger problem of four year graduate rates, there may be something indicative here about student alienation. Our student journalists found poor perceptions of science teachers in large courses. S. Stanley: I was disappointed to see that our teaching is ranked poorly in the Princeton Review. The Senate is going to talk today about SBOLD which is a different way to teach larger classes. We do have very large classes in the sciences and it tends to alienate students. Finding ways to improve on class size and innovative teaching in large classes is important.

V. Discussion with the Provost (M. Bernstein)

  • Shared governance: Ed mentioned my experience with shared governance which is something I take very seriously. I’ve served as a Deputy Department Chair, a Department Chair, a Dean, and an elected President of the University Senate at UC San Diego. I have served as a Provost at another AAU institution. I bring a complete commitment to this senate apparatus but also to the mechanisms of academic leadership that define great universities and sustained great universities.
  • Key priorities: (1). Finding the best ways to enhance and sustain faculty accomplishment and impact. (2). Student success: Obviously the ability of our undergraduate, graduate and professional students to succeed, win their degrees, move on to an impactful and fulling careers is a big issue for us. (3). Review processes: Review of academic personnel, how we evaluate, and advance and reward faculty accomplishments but also review of programs. (4). Assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of the Office of the Provost. I am trying to get a sense of the organization chart, how we are doing, what we are doing and assessing ways in which the office can be of optimal service.
    • D. Kamins: From a student perspective, before we can take on growth we need to make sure we are doing a good job serving our current students. In order to serve students, we need the cooperation with departments to hire new faculty to have the funding to support these hires. While we support growth, without new faculty to apprentice student in addition to teach courses, we are not ready for growth. M. Bernstein: We can’t grow everywhere at once. It is going to take some strategic decisions.
    • H. Nekvasil: Accreditation/assessment needs to be thought of constantly. M. Bernstein: This is very much on our radar. Faculty are engaged in assessment all the time. We just have to make sure that we are documenting it, measuring it, and reporting it consistently.
    • J. Sanders: What lessons did you learn in San Diego that might be applicable here? San Diego is a school that is three years younger than we are and both are very young universities. UCSD’s 4 year and 6 year graduate rates are better than SB. Is there some lesson that San Diego has learned that you might bring here? M. Bernstein: There are a lot of similarities between these two institutions. The California system on higher education is under great stresses and strains now. It has an articulated master plan that strategically and cogently addressed student success in different layers of the system. When I joined UC San Diego in 1987, it was very clear that it was an integration of the various segments of the system of higher education that allowed for students who were arriving at UCSD to be fully prepared, fully engaged and receiving the services that they needed to excel, but it didn’t remain that way. There was enormous growth heading into the early 90’s then California went into a recession causing loses in student accomplishment. Now the system struggles with all of the financial stresses that we experienced in Higher Ed because of the collapse of 2008. My hunch is not that student success is undermined at Stony Brook because we are a different kind of campus in terms of the percentage of commuter students, etc.

VI. Discussion with the Vice President of the Health Sciences Center (K. Kaushansky)

  • School of Pharmacy: Dr. Kaushansky introduced the founding Dean of the new School of Pharmacy, Dr. Doug Ried. D. Ried: I appreciate the hard work and sense of responsibility that people at Stony Brook have to build a comprehensive medical center. In NY State, Stony Brook is the only institution that has its own hospital. My vision is for Pharmacy to be built on team based learning, interdisciplinary education and integration of the curriculum and to have the appropriate use of educational and practice technology. In terms of logistics, we hope that in the first application review to our accrediting body will be a two year process with the first students here in August of 2018. P. Bingham: Where will this physically be housed? D. Ried: In the Basic Science Tower.
  • Growth: With the MART building opening with 240,000 sq. ft. of new space in the HSC, we will have the opportunity to grow with some scientists moving from the Basic Science and Health Science Towers into the MART building.
  • Social Welfare: With the closing of SB Manhattan, the School of Social Welfare has arranged space at the College of Optometry.
  • Research: I have been working with Dean Sotiropolous in the College Engineering to create engineering fusion programs with medicine such as Biomedical Informatics. We are developing curriculum, programs for students, additional experiential learning as well as creating new great research opportunities.
  • Affiliation: We have developed an affiliation with Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. The first round of pilot grants have approved focusing on neurobiology, brain injury, chemical biology and graduate student training between the two institutes.
  • Education: We are expanding our Global health Programs and will be placing students in Kenya and Madagascar.
  • Clinical: In February 2017, we will open a new 100,000 sq. ft. ambulatory care practice in Commack.
  • Heart Institute: The Heart Institute is growing considerably with the successful recruitment of two new cardiac heart surgeons and plans to build a sixth Cardiac Catheterization Lab in University Hospital.
  • Strategic and Academic Mission and Planning: I amthe Chair of this subcommittee which oversees the new budget model in partnership with the former Provost and Mark Maciulaitis. We are now meeting with Bob Megna and the new Provost to put together a new budget model which is on hold because there have been a lot of changes. This is one of the main items on our agenda. We need transparency and goals. The committee deals with getting access to those strategic plans and meeting with leaders. We haven’t spent a lot of time on East Campus and so we are trying to focus on that. We were involved in approving the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
  • MART: The MART building is over budget and behind schedule. There are retention and location issues with the Department of Anatomical Sciences.

VII. Committee Reports (CAPRA) (D. Dwyer and N. Goodman)

CAPRA is the Committee on Academic Planning and Resource Allocation. CAPRA is the committee that reviews all of the new programs and new initiatives in the use of resources. Our recommendations are advisory. It operates through sub-committees:

Academic Space: This subcommittee examines academic space issues and allocation of space. The chair of this subcommittee is on the Provost’s Advisory Committee for Space Allocation on the West Campus. The one thing we haven’t done is East Campus.

Administrative Staffing: Examines existing administrative staffing levels of efficiency to assess efficiency. It compares data from other SUNY Centers.

Student Body Success: We look at the issue of student success: what they are doing, how they are working and how performance is being assessed.

Satellite Campuses: This subcommitteeexamines resources on satellite campuses including Stony Brook Manhattan which will go defunct in February of 2017. SB is trying to make other arrangements for the School of Social Welfare. No comparable space was found at a reasonable cost. Another satellite is SUNY Korea with programs in engineering and business. They seem to be doing well with a slight increase in undergraduates to 70. Southampton is another satellite campus that has a major program in creative writing and literature. An MFA in Films was recently approved.

SOMAS: New Center on the east end with a state-of-the-art computerized indoor seawater lab.

VIII. S-Bold (W.Tang)

  • We now have a request for proposals. Please spread the word.
  • S. Bold was established by the President and the Provost to use online courses to enhance student learning experience.
  • It is $250,000 per year for four years. This is the third year for the call for proposals. Besides students we also use this initiative as an opportunity to engage faculty to be more creative in terms of how they teach courses.
  • Awards for large impact classes (200 or more).
  • In year one, there were six awards to writing, math, biology, chemistry (2 courses) and Engineering. In year two five awards in computer science, physics labs, economics mechanical engineering and applied calculus III.
  • In large classes, ten percent of the students tend not to pay attention.
  • This is hands-on/collaborative/interactive/experiential learning. Scalable to serve a large number of students and multiple courses.
  • We are the pioneers of online labs.
  • Category 1 is high demand/control access courses. Category 2 is large enrollment (200+) courses.
  • The full proposal is due on February 20th, 2017. The awards will be announced in April 2017.
  • There will be a TLT workshop in November 14th from 12:00-1:00. The full proposal is due on February 20th.
  • We will be inviting faculty and staff members to be reviewers.
  • E. Feldman: Are there any requirements for reviewers? W. Tang: We will pair reviewers in the same disciplines.
  • Question from the body: What does the cost of the grant cover? W. Tang: It can be used for faculty salary in spending time to develop online resources and courses, to support graduate students and purchase necessary hotware and software for that purpose.

IX. UUP Report (C. Gizzi and M. Moriarty)

  • C.Gizzi: Individual Development Awards are available in which you can receive up to $1,000. Application deadline is January 5th. There is bus trip to NYC on December 3rd.

The HSC UUP membership meeting will be on December 20th in the Galleria.

  • K. Moriarty: We had Chapter Action Program for UUP State-wide training last weekend. We had one member go for the training and last year we had four. I am doing a lot of CAP activities here on campus. I am having meet and greets with all of the departments to improve the relationship between UUP and its constituents for which I received a grant from UUP state. If you have any suggestions of departments you want me to visit, please send an email. Three more scheduled over the next two weeks.

Meeting adjourned.

Submitted by:

Laurie Cullen, Secretary