UB Council revises code, honors MAC champions

The UB Council on Monday unanimously approved revisions to UB’s Student Code of Conduct to make it compliant with new SUNY policy addressing sexual assault awareness and prevention at all SUNY colleges and universities.

Many of the revisions to the code of conduct that council members were being asked to approve address differences in language to meet the system-wide request for uniformity, said Dennis Black, vice president for university life and services, and “don’t materially change” UB’s current sexual assault prevention and response policies, which served as the model for much of the new SUNY policy. For example, while UB already has in place a strong definition of “affirmative consent,” the university is required to adopt the definition that was approved by the SUNY trustees and is being uniformly adopted across the system.

Black pointed out that most of the changes in language are required by federal law, including the Clery Act, the Violence against Women Act and Title IX.

In addition to the change in the definition of affirmative consent, other revisions to the policy cited by Black include:

• A requirement that campuses have the ability to issue “no contact orders” when the accused is a student “to make sure both students have a full opportunity to have the university experience during the course of an investigation and proceedings.”
• An opportunity for the campus to issue interim suspensions where appropriate for the health and safety of the community.
• A variety of other “stylistic changes to language” in the student conduct process. These, Black said, are being made “to ensure that the rights of all individuals to both get an education and to be safe, and to have their individual rights respected, are kept in the appropriate regard by the institution they are attending.”

He pointed out that a working group at UB has been addressing the issue for some time, and the effort is ongoing. “Our residence halls, athletics, university police, equity and diversity, wellness center, counseling and student governments are all involved in the effort to address this issue,” he said.

In the coming year, UB will participate in the SUNY Climate Survey, and all new and transfer students, as well as student leaders, club officers and those participating in intercollegiate athletics, will take part in a sexual violence prevention training and education program, he said.

Council Chair Jeremy Jacobs said the changes the council was being asked to approve “acknowledge the serious concerns regarding campus sexual assault and signal that it is the responsibility of the entire UB community to be involved in awareness and prevention efforts.”

Council member Pamela Heilman noted that UB has been a leader on this issue “and we have taken this issue, over time, extremely seriously.”

“We may be a large institution, but we are still a family,” Heilman said. “And in any family, it’s very important that every member feels safe.”

The uniform SUNY policy was developed late last fall by a SUNY-wide working group that included Black and Jim Jarvis, SUNY associate counsel. It is designed to create a safer learning and living environment for students by outlining specific and consistent expectations of safety and responsibility. Key points of the policy include:

• Uniform definition of consent.
• Uniform amnesty policy to encourage reporting.
• Comprehensive statewide training for campus police and college administrators.
• Statewide public awareness campaign.
• Uniform confidentiality and reporting protocol for all SUNY campuses.
• Uniform campus climate assessments.

In other business at Monday’s meeting, the council unanimously passed resolutions congratulating the men’s basketball and tennis teams, both of which won Mid-American Conference Championships this academic year. The council approved a similar resolution at its March meeting honoring the women’s soccer team, which won the MAC Championship last fall.

Athletics Director Danny White noted that in UB’s first 15 years as a member of the MAC, it had only one NCAA tournament appearance: women’s tennis in 2008. “This year we’ve now had three — one in each season; we’re the only school in the MAC to do that,” he said.

White also reported that UB student-athletes are excelling in the classroom as well as on the court and in the field, achieving a cumulative grade-point average above 3.0 for the spring semester. It marks the seventh consecutive semester that UB’s nearly 500 student-athletes surpassed a combined GPA of 3.0, he said.

Also at the meeting:

• Provost Charles F. Zukoski reported UB has launched the first Communities of Excellence. The goal of the communities, he said, is “to address the difficult problems and questions of our time through impactful interdisciplinary research, education and engagement.” The communities were built on work that was started with the strategic strengths, he said. “We have now expanded them to larger areas to address major problems in the world.” The communities are Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotic Technologies (SMART), The Genome, the Environment and the Microbiome (GEM), and Global Health Equity.
• President Satish K. Tripathi updated the council on UB’s budget allocation. He said UB is in a “good position” to compete for a share of the $18 million in performance-based funding that is available to all state-operating campuses. The university’s two Centers of Excellence — in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, and Materials Informatics — each received $1 million in funding, he said.

The news is not good, however, regarding funding to cover costs associated with campus collective bargaining agreements. While it will cost UB $21.5 million over three years to fund those costs, Tripathi said the current SUNY budget includes $4.7 million to support those agreements SUNY-wide; last year’s budget included 6.7 million to cover those costs.

• The council approved changes to UB’s Campus Parking Rules and Regulations. The changes, introduced by Black to council members, make the regulations more “user- and reader-friendly,” and include text to cover new additions to parking and traffic operations, such as carpooling, commuter lots and freshman residential spaces. They also adjust fines to mirror those imposed at other SUNY university centers, with an emphasis on safety and accessibility, he said.

Money collected from parking fines supports UB’s police, signage, and bike-sharing and car-sharing programs, he said.

The new fine schedule:

• Safety violations, such as parking in fire lanes, on sidewalks and with 20 feet of a fire hydrant: Fines increase to $50 from $20.
• Parking in a handicap space: Fine increases to $100 from $50.
• Permit violations, including parking without the proper permit in carpool spots, at meters and in “A” spaces: Fine increases to $30 from $20.
• Late fees: All fines are now $20.