Present: J. Acker, D. Armstrong, S. Chaiken, H. Charalambous, M. Claiborne,
R. Collier, F. Cornet, S. Faerman, D. Farr, S. Friedman, R. Gibson,
R. Hoyt, M. Jerison, S.B. Kim, W. Lanford, S. Lubensky, A. Lyons,
C. MacDonald, S. Maloney, G. Marschke, T. Maxwell, D. McCaffrey,
G. Moore, J. Mumpower, C. Pearce, J. Pipkin, M. Pryse, R. M. Range,
J. Rudolph, C. Santiago, J. Savitt, H. Scheck, L. Schell, D. Shub,
G. Spitze, S. Turner, T. Turner, J. Uppal, L. Videka, D. Wagner,
J. Wick-Pelletier

Guests: J. Bartow, R. Farrell, M. Hill, K. Lowery, S. Mahan

Minutes: The minutes of February 9, 2004 were approved.

President’s Report: Presented by Carlos E. Santiago, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

• Interim President Ryan sends his regrets that, due to a prior commitment he could not attend the meeting. He is eager to learn more about the institution, and he is planning a series of meetings with staff, faculty, students and the Senate.
• Budget: The University is working very hard with the Executive and Legislative branches of government to augment the budget; the University’s capital budget in particular needs to be increased.
• Admissions: Admissions are proceeding on track. Undergraduate admissions were reduced last year by 100 students; that number will be the same for the coming year. At the graduate level, the University has seen a decline in admissions, as have other institutions. International graduate applications are down quite significantly, while there is a slight increase in domestic doctoral applications and a greater decrease in domestic masters applications. There may be a variety of reasons for graduate admissions being down, and one of these may be due to the backlog in application processing. Once the backlog is eliminated, more accurate numbers will be available.
• Hiring Plan: The hiring plan continues at pace, the University is proceeding to make offers to a number of individuals and some have come to fruition. The University is still facing a budget shortfall and is doing the best to augment resources. The highest priority at this time continues to be faculty hiring.
• Personal News: Dr. Santiago announced that he has been offered, and has accepted, the position of Chancellor of the University at Wisconsin, Milwaukee. His nomination will be ratified by the full Board of Regents on Friday, March 5th. He was asked to begin July 15, 2004 and will continue to serve as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at UAlbany through Commencement, 2004.

University Faculty Senate Report: Presented by Senator Collier: no report.

Chair’s Report: Presented by Professor Marjorie Pryse.

• The Senate meets again in two weeks on March 15, 2004. The agenda will include additional bills and possibly the election of next year’s Senate officers.
• The Faculty Forum is scheduled for March 24, 2004, announcements will be mailed out this week. Chair Pryse encouraged attendance and asked fellow Senators to spread the word.

CPCA – Professor Glenna Spitze, Chair: no report.

EPC – Professor Edelgard Wulfert, Chair: presented by Chair Pryse. EPC will introduce two bills on March 15th, and it will be meeting with the Provost for the collection of answers regarding the proposed College of Nanosciences.

GAC – Professor Hara Charalambous, Chair: GAC is discussing the change in the policy of submission of electronic theses and dissertations.

UAC – Joan Savitt, Chair:

• UAC has four bills to bring forward today and expects to soon bring forward two majors that were developed from former teacher certification tracks in Social Studies and Earth Science that no longer exist at the undergraduate level.
• UAC endorsed the Learning Objectives/Outcomes developed by the Focus Groups for UAlbany in each general education area. Now that UAC has done so, these objectives will be used at UAlbany in place of the SUNY-generated ones. The Dean of Undergraduate Studies will make these available on the web and will communicate them to the faculty.
• UAC approved the Interdisciplinary Minor in Organizational Studies.
• UAC is currently reviewing information provided by ASC/US about possible modifications to freshmen advisement and advance registration during Summer Planning Conferences.
• In the fall of 2003, UAC recommended that the Dean of Undergraduate Studies rescind the restriction on seniors advance registration. Statistics had shown that another approximately 500 seniors added these courses during normal program adjustment. When the rule was suspended, seniors occupied approximately 2700 spaces in 100-level courses. UAC does not know how many of these spaces were to meet General Education requirements. In light of this huge number of senior advance registrations, the old policy has been restored for the fall, 2004 advance registration period. However, the system used for exceptions will be different: the Dean’s office will provide a form upon which, first, the student’s academic advisor will specify exactly what courses are required; the Dean’s office will review the recommendation and add its endorsement; and finally, the student will go to the relevant academic department to obtain an SKN. It is expected that these SKNs will have a brief period of validity. Unused spaces would then be available for the following students in the advance registration cycle.

RES - Professor Lynn Videka, Chair: RES is reviewing nominations for the Excellence in Research Award. RES has begun to discuss nanotechnology research and safety concerns that were raised at a previous Senate meeting.

LISC - Professor David Wagner, Chair: LISC is discussing two resolutions that have not been officially assigned to LISC. In fact, they are from two different institutions. The first is regarding subscriptions and refusing institutions the ability to subscribe to any numbers smaller than their contract requires. Many institutions have been passing resolutions and some have refused to negotiate with Elsevier at all. That issue has been delegated to the LISC Library Subcommittee. The second resolution is basically that there have been requests that the University implement a policy of the use of Open Source software, except where it is absolutely not able to do so. That issue has been forwarded to the Information Technology Uses and Policy subcommittee of LISC

CAFE – Professor Donna Armstrong, Chair: CAFE had its second meeting on the Patriot Act, which was specific to surveillance implications, there are two more meetings planned on issues with the Patriot Act. Also, an ad hoc committee of CAFE is working on a bill for freedom of expression on campus. Professor Armstrong was contacted by the Chair and Co-Chair of the Action Committee of the Student Senate regarding the return of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to the campus, which is scheduled for March 22, 2004. There is considerable concern with undergraduates about this exhibit. She did meet with two student senators and tried to pass on to them some of the awareness that CAFE gained about freedom of speech; CAFE will attempt to conduct a forum on freedom of speech prior to the return of GAP on March 22nd.

ULC – Professor Gwendolyn Moore, Chair: Three representatives from the Muslim Student Association presented a proposal asking the campus to suspend classes for two Muslim holy days. They made the case that Muslim students can only get permission to miss classes from the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and this procedure makes them feel uncomfortable and singled out. They put together a strong argument and do have support from on and off campus officials. ULC has set up a committee to further investigate this matter

CERS – Senate Chair Pryse announced that CERS has not yet met this year.

Governance Committee Report: Professor Andi Lyons, Chair: The Governance Committee received several nominations for professional staff for next year’s Senate, there have been 11 nominations received for two or three slots. There is a need for a few more nominations to fill the slate for the part-time faculty Senators. The slate for Secretary and Vice Chair will close on March 5, 2004, that election will take place at the March 15th Senate meeting.

Professor MacDonald announced that the University Council met and it has approved, with minor changes, a new community rights and responsibilities document. The Council accepted a recommendation that in the future it be sent to the University Senate for advice in its three-year cycle of revision. There was also a resolution supporting working with all constituencies regarding bringing forward the new proposed College of Nanotechnology.

Old Business:

• Presidential Search Committee: There was a question about the actual number of people on the Presidential Search Committee; there were more members appointed than called for in the Guidelines. Chair Pryse reported that it is the prerogative of the University Council Chair to invite anyone he wishes to join the Presidential Search Committee.
• Newly Appointed Student Senator: Chair Pryse welcomed Daniel Farr to the Senate, he has been elected to complete the GSO term previously held by Justin Kohler. Justin has left the University.

New Business:

Senate Bill No. 0304-11: Revisions of the Undergraduate English Major, introduced by UAC. Professor Savitt introduced and discussed the bill on behalf of UAC.

Bill No. 0304-11, Revisions of the Undergraduate English Major passed unanimously.

Senate Bill No. 0304-12: Revision of “Oral Discourse” General Education Criteria, introduced by UAC. Professor Savitt introduced and discussed the bill on behalf of UAC.

Bill No. 0304-12, Revision of “Oral Discourse” General Education Criteria passed unanimously.

Senate Bill No. 0304-13: ROTC and Applied Elective Credit, introduced by UAC. Professor Savitt introduced and discussed the bill on behalf of UAC. There was some discussion on clarifying what the category of applied credit is and Professor Savitt referred to the second page of the bill, which cannot be amended on the floor at this time.

Bill No. 0304-13, ROTC and Applied Elective Credit passed unanimously, and the issue of clarification of applied credit will be discussed further in UAC.

Senate Bill No. 0304-14: Revision of Undergraduate Admissions Policies, introduced by UAC. Professor Savitt introduced and discussed the bill on behalf of UAC. The classification of “admit with consideration” is for internal purposes only. There was a “friendly suggestion” that was accepted by UAC, it referred to page four, section A (iii), the second sentence should read “The criteria for evaluation of college transcripts will be determined…” Another suggestion was on page six, the last paragraph should somehow indicate the length of time a degree program will take to complete. There was extensive discussion on transferability and timing of completing programs. UAC will look at both issues separately.

Bill No. 0304-14, Revision of Undergraduate Admissions Policies passed unanimously with the amendment to page four.

Senate Bill No. 0304-15: Administrative Support for the University Senate, introduced by the Governance Subcommittee. Professor Andi Lyons introduced the bill. Discussion on the bill included a proposal to amend it to read “one course per academic year” rather than one course per semester, or to reduce teaching time by a certain percentage. After lengthy discussion, there was a call to vote on an amendment to the bill to change it from one course per semester to one course per year. There were six in favor, fourteen opposed, and seven abstained. The amendment was defeated, and discussion returned to the bill itself. Further discussion included the importance of the position, and allowing the chair more committed time to prepare for the Senate.

Bill No. 0304-15: Administrative Support for the University Senate passed eighteen to three with seven abstentions.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Jayne VanDenburgh, Recorder