Provost Thomas Headrick engaged senators in a dialogue on the administration white paper, "Managing our Future." Senior Vice President Robert Wagner then briefed the body on UB's short-term fiscal future, in light of the latest events in Albany. Finally, senators considered a committee report on their own faculty and university governance future and postponed action on that report until sometime in the future.

UB will remain, first and foremost, a top-notch academic institution, pledged Headrick. "Clearly we must respond to the economic imperatives being thrust upon us," he said, "but the way we respond will shape our institution and our future. We have an immense amount of talent on this campus, and if we put our heads together, we can figure out how to do our jobs better."

However, that talent pool is dwindling. Headrick pointed out that tenure-track faculty positions at UB have been cut by nearly 10 percent over the past decade. "We have probably lost more faculty than course offerings," said Headrick, adding that tuition and alternative revenue sources, such as endowment and fee income, will play increasingly important roles in funding the university.

Headrick maintained, "there is still much more hope than despair ahead." He warned against a "Chicken Little" mindset, explaining that "maybe the sky will descend on small portions of what we do, but it will also open up for many things we do." Headrick noted that, in graduate education, "we are not doing all we do now well," and explained that graduate programs will be coming under scrutiny during the rest of this year with an eye toward quality and increased collaboration.

Headrick discounted recent rankings of UB graduate programs by the National Research Council, and said that the administration's goals are to "1) maintain those programs that are strong, 2) pick other programs where we can build slowly, 3) encourage areas with small departments to pursue greater collaboration and 4) perhaps drop some programs."

He also responded to concerns of Arts & Sciences faculty members about the university's commitment to them. "We are not going to ignore the arts and sciences and just become a professional school collection," Headrick. said. "We don't look upon the arts and sciences as mere service courses to get into professional schools and if we have drifted in that direction, we should reverse it."

The proposed executive budget called for a $250 tuition increase and a cut of $80 million in state support to SUNY. Wagner told the Senate that SUNY's central administration had backed away from an earlier posture that it would not seek restoration of funds from the state legislature. "The advocacy has now evolved toward asking for some restoration," he said.

Current fees for students and faculty are likely to rise or new fees appear next year, Wagner said, prompting Management Professor Charles Trzcinka to ask "Am I going to be renting my office space next year?" Wagner said that some fees could be implemented merely by a change in SUNY Trustee policy "as to stuff we now can't charge fees for, such as science lab fees." He said that the administration is developing a "fee plan that we will want your input on soon." Last year, the university implemented a $120 per year technology fee that raises about $2 million annually.

Wagner expressed frustration over difficulty the university is experiencing, in light of the unsettled budget, notifying prospective freshmen of tuition and financial aid levels for the coming year. "Our aid letters are clearly hedged. We are talking in terms of a $250 tuition increase when that could easily be more like $750," said Wagner, "and we have to account for a dramatic cut in TAP." This, explained Wagner, was placing UB at a disadvantage to other institutions which have "more certainty."

The Faculty Senate did not act on the university governance committee report recommending establishment of "articles of governance" for each academic unit, a process by which the Senate can intervene when an academic unit's governance structure "breaks down," and a pay raise for the chair and secretary of the Senate.

Senate Parliamentarian Dennis Malone advocated that the body "receive and file" the report, which would neither implement nor bury its recommendations.

The next meeting of the Faculty Senate is slated for April 9.