University Budget Allows for More Faculty for Third Straight Year
By Vinny Reda
An increase of overall faculty size by ten and a new merit scholarship program for undergraduates highlight the University’s 2000-01 budget plan, which was unveiled last week by President Karen R. Hitchcock.

State appropriations will increase by more than $5 million to the campus, to a total of $115.7 million, due to monies targeted for negotiated salary increases and anticipated increases in UAlbany enrollment (to just over 17,000). The 4.9 percent increase in state support to Albany compares with a general funding increase to SUNY campuses of 3.9 percent.

In addition (as reported in the September 7 Update), $1.5 million will come to the campus as a result of a SUNY system-wide “Mission Review.” The second largest award given to any SUNY campus from a $12 million total, the grant to UAlbany will be used to target highly sought after high school students through greater recruitment efforts and a new scholarship program.

President Hitchcock noted that the approved campus budget request of an additional $1.05 million for the purpose of recruiting 45 new faculty, when combined with resources from turnover, will allow UAlbany to continue to meet one of its strategic goals.

“This will mark the third consecutive year that we will more than make up for retiring and other departing faculty, and achieve a net faculty increase,” said Hitchcock. “This reality, plus the opportunity to attract more of the brightest students from the state and the nation through the Mission Review scholarships, will go hand in hand toward moving us further into the ranks of the nation’s most prestigious universities.”

The overall University budget will stand at approximately $236 million, a $9 million increase over 1999-00. It includes the fourth straight year of enhancement - approximately $100,000 this year - in stipend support for graduate students. Additional monies have also been applied to open up the new University Police Department building, increase health services, and make an investment in new Advancement Division personnel in anticipation of the University’s next major campaign.

One-time increases from existing cash reserves were or are being applied for set-up funds for new faculty, to pave Hawley and Indian Quad parking lots, and for enhancing administrative computing and software.

The cloud on the financial horizon concerns the price of oil and electricity, which has caused utility costs at the University to increase by more than 25 percent over the last 12 months, according to Kathryn Lowery, associate vice president for Finance and Business. The increase has been covered in the 2000-01 budget through existing cash reserves, but energy conservation will become increasingly important if the price levels continue.

Middle States Reaffirms UAlbany Accreditation
By Greta Petry
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education has reaccredited the University at Albany and commended the institution for its progress. The next full-scale Middle States review of the University will take place in 2010.

“In the team’s judgment, the progress made in advancing the University’s reputation regionally and nationally reflects a number of substantive developments and achievements on the campus. The University at Albany has made extraordinary progress in becoming a nationally recognized research university and is well positioned to achieve its ambitious goals,” the commission’s report stated.

President Karen R. Hitchcock said, “The University at Albany is most pleased with this very positive report of a distinguished team of external evaluators. We are gratified that this assessment concluded that the University achieved remarkable progress in the past decade and is strongly poised to realize even greater advancement in the 21st century.”

The Middle States evaluation team led by Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, conducted its site visit at the UAlbany campus March 26-29.

According to the report, UAlbany has “developed considerable momentum;” the University also received high marks for its effective system of governance, and “for developing strong relations with external constituencies and for creating on campus an environment of collaboration and cooperation.”

The report noted that UAlbany’s offerings in the sciences are enhanced by the existence of the new East Campus and by the research programs in its Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management (CESTM). “The East Campus is an extraordinary example of a University establishing an environment hospitable to both the incubator needs of companies and the research needs of its faculty. The University’s President is widely regarded as the person who had the necessary vision and courage to pursue the development of this entity . . .,” the report said. It also noted that CESTM is symbolic of the University’s progress in attracting external resources based on its research expertise and growing entrepreneurial spirit.

UAlbany Awards Honorary Degree to Israel Supreme Court President Barak
By Lisa James Goldsberry
The University will present an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Israeli jurist and scholar Aharon Barak, president of the Supreme Court of Is-rael, at an honorary degree convocation on Tuesday, Oct. 3, at 2:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Ballroom on the University’s main campus. All are invited to the convocation. There will be a seminar from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Lecture Center Room 1, where Barak will address students and faculty of the Judaic Studies program. The events are free and open to the public, and are part of the 30th anniversary celebration of UAlbany’s Department of Judaic Studies.

Barak has achieved international standing as a leading jurist. His influential legal publications have earned him respect and admiration from legal scholars. His well-known book, Judicial Discretion (Yale University Press, 1989) has been translated into several languages. He is seen as the driving force behind the independence of the Israeli Supreme Court and the establishment of American-style judicial review into Israeli common law.

Since his appointment as a Supreme Court justice in 1978, Barak has helped shape Israel’s constitutional and commercial laws. In 1983, he was appointed Deputy President and two years later, was appointed to the presidency of the Supreme Court of Israel.

Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, he served as Israel’s Attorney General and as a key foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He played a major role as the Israeli legal adviser during the final discussions at Camp David, which led to the 1979 signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. In addition to his public service duties, Barak teaches seminars on constitutional law at the law schools of Yale and Harvard universities.

“The University at Albany is delighted and honored to recognize President Aharon Barak for his extraordinary achievements in, and contributions to, the areas of jurisprudence, international affairs, government, and teaching and scholarship,” said University President Karen R. Hitchcock. “As president, he has not only strengthened the authority and prestige of the Supreme Court, but he has exercised uncommon leadership and breadth of vision at the forefront of the broad social movement to create a more open Jewish society and a more modern political Israeli state.”

Barak was born in Lithuania in 1936, and moved with his parents to Israel in 1947. He studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he earned an undergraduate degree in law, economics and international relations as well as a Masters of Arts in law in 1958 and a doctorate in 1963. He became a full professor of law at Hebrew University in 1972 and two years later was appointed Dean of the Law Faculty. In addition to winning the Kaplan prize for excellence in science and research, and winning the Israeli Prize in legal sciences, he is a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences.

“President Barak is widely recognized as one of the most important and significant justices in the world today for the way he is leading the Israeli Supreme Court and for the intellectual qualities of his thought and juris prudence,” said Martin Edelman, a professor of political science at UAlbany. “He has been instrumental in promoting the constitutional revolution wherein the Supreme Court now asserts that Israel’s Basic Laws should function as its constitution and that the Supreme Court can utilize them as the basis for exercising judicial review. Barak has also led the Supreme Court to take a more active role in protecting human rights even when that portends a change in the place that Jewish religion plays in Israeli society.”

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