In an Aug. 24 letter to Faculty Senate Chair Claude Welch, Greiner returned the resolution rather than promulgating it as university policy, specifically asking instead that the Senate further consider "which students are qualified to serve as instructors" and "by what process do we ensure (that UTAs) have relevant credentials to ensure their disciplinary and pedagogical competence?" Welch reminded members that while the Senate's role is advisory by charter, their advice is "almost always taken by the president. We just might have to advise twice on this."

Without a policy in place, courses that make use of UTAs could be endangered. Nicolas Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, told FSEC members that he suggested to the Women's Studies Department, in response to their inquiry, that courses that employ UTAs only be offered as currently constituted for one more year. However, Women's Studies Professor Liz Kennedy said she was confident that an agreement could be reached. "As I understand it, the only issue is the qualifications of the students as instructors," Kennedy said. "Since our standards of selection are quite high, I am confident something can be worked out."

FSEC members also heard from Provost Thomas Headrick, who outlined his strategy for dealing with the coming year's state budget. Although Gov. Pataki's budget director has put an overall budget cut of roughly $150 to SUNY in 1996-97 on the table, Headrick believes that changes in the overall management of SUNY as a system and changes in tuition policy could enable UB to escape without further cuts. "Cutting UB's budget further would be counterproductive to the interests of the state," said Headrick.

Headrick advocates "estimating the elasticity" of tuition for popular and professional programs. He believes that differential tuition, either charging different rates of tuition at different campuses or between different programs, will be given serious consideration by the Trustees this year. In the past, they have ruled out such a policy.

However, a committee of SUNY Trustees is currently undertaking an examination of all SUNY campuses and programs in developing a proposal for realigning SUNY, due to the state legislature by Dec. 1. Headrick says that high on the list of ideas being considered by these trustees is a proposal put forward by President Greiner, among others, that the University Centers be separated from the rest of SUNY and housed in a new legal structure known as a public benefit corporation. Such an arrangement would give the centers more flexibility to operate and allow more administrative decisions to be made locally.

In other business, the FSEC considered but took no action on a new policy on "Data Security, Access and Acceptable Use of University Information." The draft policy, presented by Senior Associate Vice President for University Services Voldemar Innus, seeks to balance the "right to know" of faculty and administrators, and the need for data on the part of researchers or investigators with the university's legal obligations to maintain confidentiality, particularly with respect to student records. The policy will govern written and electronic data and becomes even more important, Innus explained, as access to electronic data becomes easier. It designates certain "data custodians" and "data trustees" who will have responsibility for securing compliance with the policy and managing access to the university's vast compilations of data.