ESF Campus Faculty Meeting
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
12:30PM, in the Alumni (Nifkin) lounge
Attending:
Chemistry:Abrams, Neal;Caluwe, Paul;Dibble, Theodore;Donaghy, Kelley;Hassett, John;Winter, William
Communications:Dunn, Claire
Cons Mgmt & Wood Pro Eng:Crovella, Paul;Kyanka, George;Meyer, Robert;Smith, Jennifer;Tiss, Kenneth
Env Res and For Eng:Hassett, James
Environ Studies:Manno, Jack;Smardon, Richard;Sonnenfeld, David
Environ & Forest Bio:Abrahamson, Larry (FNRM);Hall, Charles;Horton, Thomas;Leopold, Donald;Norton, Roy;Schulz, Kimberly
Financial Aid and Scholarships:View, John
Forest & Natural Res. Mgmt:Kuehn, Diane;Luzadis, Valerie;Morrison, Douglas;Yanai, Ruth
President/VPs/Gov Rel:Murphy, Cornelius;Bongarten, Bruce;Rufo, Joseph;French, Robert
Human Resources:Blehar, Timothy
Info Technology:Baycura, Christopher
Instruction/Grad Studies:Shannon, Scott
Landscape Architecture:Bryant, Margaret;Doble, Cheryl;Hawks, Richard;Stribley, Kathleen
Moon Library:Elkins, Elizabeth;Williamson, James
Outreach:Spuches, Charles
Paper/Bioprocess Engineering:Chatterjee, Siddharth;Doelle, Klaus;Liu, Shijie;Scott, Gary
Physical Plant:Colella, Gary;Langlois, Christine;Marcham, Bruce;Peden, Gary
Research Programs:Driscoll, Mark;Nicholson, William
Student Life/Services:Flynn, Leah;Mix, Liz
Students:Quick, Cariann (USA)
12:31PM - The meeting was called to order at 12:31 p.m.
I. Announcements
Scott Spuches and Terhi Majanen made a plea for Science Fair judges for the Environmental Challenge.
There will be 500 high school students here from 9-12 on Thursday, March 12, which is an unprecedented number.
If you can help, contact Terhi at or 470-4871.
II. Proposed Changes to By-Laws
The proposed changes to the by-laws would establish a new committee responsible for making nominations to SUNY and ESF for faculty awards. This process will not preclude individuals making nominations. But it should ensure that some nominations are made, whereas this year, for example, our campus made no nominations for Chancellors Awards or Distinguished Professorships.
IV. E. 5. Committee on SUNY and ESF Awards ,
a. To solicit nominations and testimony for recognition of exemplary service to ESF in accordance with SUNY and ESF guidelines, as appropriate;
b. To review nominations and the testimony in support of these nominations;
c. To make recommendations to the Provost for awards;
d. To maintain college-wide records of awardees.
We also want to change the language describing our elections, which currently states that the ballots must be paper.
III. A. 4. …The preparation, distribution, collection and counting of the ballots and the reporting of results shall be the responsibility of the Sergeant-at-Arms, who may, upon approval of the Faculty, establish an electronic balloting process that guarantees secrecy.
There are other minor changes to formatting, grammar, the names of departments, and the inclusion of missing departments. The complete text of the proposed by-laws is available on the Faculty Governance web site.
This vote, at least, must be conducted with paper balloting, in accordance with our current by-laws. Expect to see your ballot soon.
III. Call forFaculty Governance Nominations
We want to have the elections sooner this year, so as to have results by the time of our last faculty meeting. Here is the list of nominations to date.
Secretary: Ruth Yanai
Chair, Committee on Instruction: NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Chair, Committee on Research: Jacqui Frair
Chair, Committee on Public Service & Outreach:NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Chair, Committee on Faculty Awards (if bylaw revisions are passed): Jack Manno
SUNY Senator: Klaus Doelle
SUNY Senator alternateNOMINATIONS NEEDED
At-large representative: Giorgos Mountrakis
At-large representative: Martin Dovciak
At-large representative: Stacy McNulty
At-largerepresentative: NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Additional At-large representative (if bylaw revisions are passed): NOMINATIONS NEEDED
Additional At-large representative (if bylaw revisions are passed): NOMINATIONS NEEDED
We took nominations from the floor, and Ruth Yanai nominated Jack Manno forChair of the Committee on Faculty Awards.
Please e-mail additional nominations to Bill Powell <>.
III. Main Speaker: President Murphy
We do have good news at ESF: Bob French put together our rankings, all in one place for the first time. We were an excellent institution all along, but now we'redoing a better job of getting the word out.
The news on the budget isn't bad either. It's better today than it was three months ago.
B. We will have a new SUNY Chancellor, Nancy Zimpher, in June. She is currently President of the University of CIncinatti. I met her at the reception last month and was impressed; she also knows about us. Her initial focust is on the budget and advocating for our institution. She will be meeting with Malcolm Smith, president of the Sentate, and the Democratic Caucus in Albany. She will visit every SUNY campus this summer. Other initiatives include radio spots, a campaign for SUNY, and re-engineering SUNY administration.
Charlie Hall: Hasn't our problem been with the Board of Trustees? Has that changed?
Neil: It's going in the right dirction. Half of the members were appointed by Pataki and half by Spitzer or Pattersen, so it's a bit schizophrenic now. But a strong Chancellor will help them.
C. ESF Operating Budget Update: We're on about the eighth version of the budget, which is unprecedented, each with different cuts. The good news is that we're exceeding our budget in revenue and underspending on expenses.
Revenue: We have higher than projected tuition income because of the number of out-of-state students. We also brought in a larger class. We're also up on student services fees. The spring tuition has increased by $310, of which 90% goes back to the NYS general fund.
Revenue / Budget / Projected / VarianceNYS Allocation / 28,262,500 / 28,262,500
Tuition Revenue / 8,169,200 / 9,961,300 / +
Tuition Revenue Flowing to SUTRA / --- / (946,300) / -
DOB Tuition Siphoned Off (90% of Spring Increase) / --- / (689,400) / -
Student Services Fee / 573,400 / 590,000
Graduate Tuition Waiver Funding / 930,300 / 930,300
Funding from Stabilization, IFR and SUTRA Reserves / 884,600 / (35) / -
TOTAL PROJECTED REVENUE / $39,079,100 / $38,252,500
Expenses: We're on track for salaries. Temporary Academic Appointments are up because we are controlling Accessory Instruction. Graduate stipends and tuition waivers are up a bit. The high financial aid to undergraduates is offsetting some of the high tuition income. Accessory Instruction is down; thank you for your efforts ($400,000) (5149-4717). Utilities are $2.1 million. The lawsuit with Project Orange Associates (who generate the steam for SU) helped us enormously. We were scheduled for a $1.1 million increase in the cost of steam, but the contract will be delivered at the price previously agreed upon, at least for now. There are also conservations savings.
Expenses / Budget / Projected / VariancePersonal Service Regular / 23,150,600 / 23,150,600
Temp. Appt. Academic Affairs / 700,000 / 727,600
Temp. Appt. Other / 232,000 / 200,000
Temp. Service / 139,600 / 139,600
Other Than Personal Service / 1,925,400 / 1,925,400
Graduate Stipends / 1,221,000 / 1,339,000 / +
Graduate Tuition Waivers / 1,126,600 / 1,440,000 / +
Financial Aid Undergrad. / 571,200 / 901,200 / +
Presidential Scholar Awards / 200,000 / 200,000
Diversity Scholarships / 40,000 / 40,000
Accessory Instruction / 5,149,100 / 4,717,100 / -
Utilities / 4,006,800 / 2,865,000 / -
Mail / 300,000 / 300,000
Telephone / 95,000 / 85,000
Computer Network/Infrastructure / 120,000 / 120,000
Advertising/Visibility / 102,000 / 102,000
Contingency / --- / ---
TOTAL PROJECTED EXPENSES / 39,079,100 / 38,252,500
So we are not going to have to dip into the reserves, this year. It's going to take more than this year to get through this economic situation, so we will still have our reserve in the future.
Charlie Hall: We hear in the media about all the budget cuts to education. Are we being reduced?
Neil: This last version of the budget included all of those cuts. Back in August, we had $1.5 million more dollars in revenue. What we lost has been offset by reductions in expenses. All of SUNY was cut by $214 million this year, and $235 million for next year.
D. NYS Deficit Reduction Program
This is the first bill to address retention and loss of tuition. It provided for an increase in tuition of $310 for the Spring semester ($76 million in revenue) but 90% of this is "swept" to the state. The doctoral-granting institutions don't benefit from this increase, because of graduate tuition waivers.. We get about $90K.
Community colleges were relieved of the $11 million reduction, and CUNY wasn't cut. So all the cuts were sustained by higher education in upstate New York.
The USA passed an agressive reslution protesting the sweeping of tuition funds. This is bad public policy and a violation of our contract with our students.
E. Federal Stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act)
The total $787 billion nationally includes about $40 billion to states for elementary, secondary and higher education for use in three fiscal years, to compensate for loss of revenues to the states. The final bill does not have new construction for higher education. It does have$200 million in work-study support and$17 billion in Pell Grant funding ($4,850 to $5,350 in 2009 (+$500) and $5,350 to $5,550 in 2010 (+$200)).
The American Opportunity Tax Credit ($14 billion over 10 years) amounts to $2500 for the parents who are investing in our student's education.
There is $250 million for state and private forestry, whcih could represent an opportunity for us.
The National Science Foundation has$3 billion. This could help us with research facility upgrades.
The DOE has$2 billion for for science.
There is $10 billion for NIH for biomedical research.
How does this relate to NYS? This is a guess:
New York State Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Cabinet:
NYS gets $24.5 billion, of which $2.5 goes to education, mostly by formula, but 18.5% is discretionary. SUNY might get $40 million. It should be more, but there are constraints on the federal accounting. If our fringe benefits are compared to the economic base year, we get less.
The cuts to SUNY were $214 million in 08/09 and $236 million in 09/10 (proposed).
There are opportunities for Infrastructure funding.
FMAP funding supports medicaid, which will help us indirectly because this is where our tuition income has been going.
How does this relate to ESF?
We could be in a position to be better off next year than projected by about half a million dollars. We proposed infrastructure improvements amounting to $12.5 million for campus renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, many related to the LEED Platinum Plus Gateway Building. The proposal includes 50KW of photovoltaics (here and at our other properties), 50KW of wind turbines for the wind tunnel between Illick and the Carrier Dome, andanother 400KW fuel cell. We can use biomass grown in Tully to produce pellets for a combined heat and power facility on campus. We are requesting more porous pavement, specifically on the SE corner of campus. We're also interested in vegetative carbon sequestration, on our campuses (Dave Johnson) and with algae (Greg Boyer).
We have presented this to 9 state legislaters, Maffei, Shumer, the Empire State Development Corporation, SUNY, and the Governor's representative.
IV. Committee & Senators' reports
A. Committee on Research (Tom Horton)
We had 27 proposals, fromEFB (9), Chemistry (6), FNRM (4), PBE (4), ERFE (2), CMWPE (1), and the Library (1). The following 8 proposals will be funded.
• Jesse Brunner (EFB) - Fluorescent frogs and viruses: Developing novel methods for studying pathogen transmission
• Stuart Diemont (ERFE) - Linking ecological engineering and traditional ecological knowledge in Mesoamerica: The Mopan Maya
• Klaus Dölle (PBE) - Gasification of biomass
• Rene Germain (FNRM) - Measuring the progress and efficacy of community forestry programs in India
• Dave Johnson (Chemistry) - Cow2Joules: Distributed conversion of organic waste to energy resources
• Kim Schulz (EFB) - Extending ecological stoichiometry to the salt marsh: Restoring natural Si:N:P ratios may help remediate estuarine food webs.
• Chris Whipps (EFB) - Systematics and biodiversity of the Myxozoa
• Ruth Yanai (FNRM) - Non-destructive measurement of belowground carbon and nutrients
If you have issues with the peer reivew process, please join our committee. It's a great way to learn to prepare better proposals.
The Spotlight on Research will be held onMonday April 13th, with abstracts are due Monday, March 30. Directions will be distributed shortly, or you can follow last year's.
Valerie: Will there be improvements to the organization of the space?
Tom: The problem is how many posters can fit in this room. We want to allow class projects, and if necessary we will overflow into other locations.
Valerie: Will they be organized by topic areas?
Tom: Maybe. But we think random ordering of topics helps to promote interaction.
B. Committee on Instruction (Gary Scott)
We are coming up on our final deadline for course proposals (March 16) for the 2009-2010 calendar.
We have course proposals under reviewfromLandscape Architecture, Paper and Bioprocess Engineering, Forest and Natural Resource Management, and Environmental Studies.
We have curriculumproposals under reviewfromEnvironmental Studies and Environmental and Forest Biology.
We have two policy proposals: One is to make our minors available at SU (for those not offered at SU). The other is not to suspend a student until they have been on probation for one semester.
Please visit our web site ( for more information.
Our main topic for today is a proposed change to the R Grade. This was discussed at the last ESF faculty meeting and the last COI meeting. The proposal is now up for your vote. In summary, any ESF grade can be repeated (currently only F grades can be repeated). Only the initial grade reverts to "R".
Peter Black: If a student takes and passes a course more than once, do the credits count more than once?
John View: This has implications for financial aid, because of the requirements for full-time status. The credits used for repeating a course don't count towards full-time status.
Gary Scott: We had a sentence to address that issue, but we thought the financial aid implications didn't belong in the statement of the policy that goes in the college catalog.
Chuck Maynard proposed an amendment to the proposal that we restore that statement, whatever it was. Valerie seconded, we all approved.
David Sonnenfeld: The GPA is addressed here, but the number of credits is not.
Ken Tiss: It says that you can't use a course for multiple electives. And you have to meet all your program requirements. This should mean that you can't use credits more than once from the same course.
Ruth Yanai: How about "Multiple takings of the same course do not add more credits than attributed to the course."
Bruce Bongarten: How about "Only the final time can count towards meeting degree requirements."
Paul Caluwe: What if the final time is an F?
Kim Shultz: How about "The course's credits can count only once towards degree requirements." Ruthseconded, we all approved.
The proposal as amended passed, none opposed.
BIll Porter. When will we see what we just voted on? We don't have the language for the amended proposal.
Gary Scott: It will be on the COI web site.
C. Report form the SUNY Senator (Kelley Donaghy)
The SUNY Senate met atSUNY-Morrisville, February 6-7, and passed three resolutions.
1. SUNY should not sustain the same percentage of budget cuts as other state agencies, Faculty, academic and professional staff must be preserved, and Governor Paterson and the Legislature should provide sufficient funds to maintain SUNY. Passed without dissent.
2. University Faculty Senate (UFS) recommends to the Provost that assessment be streamlined. The provost should work with the UFS to streamline assessment. Passed without dissent.
3. The UFS calls for transparency and appropriate consultation between local administration and faculty governance prior to any major decisions concerning allocation of resources that affects educational quality and curriculum. Passed without dissent.
Betsy Elkins moved that we endorse these resolutions. Valerie Luzadis seconded. The resolutions passedwithout dissent.
V. Final comments from the Chair
Liz Mix's presentation on Service Learning will be movedto the next meeting.
Remember to send me nominations to Faculty Governance.
VI. Meeting adjourned at 1:44 p.m.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Ruth Yanai.