Grading Committee Chair Thomas Schroeder presented a new version of the policy, which bifurcates academic good standing into separate requirements for good grades and "satisfactory and timely progress toward a degree." The latest draft loosens restrictions which had placed students on academic probation for failing to maintain a 2.0 grade point average in any one semester, regardless of overall academic performance, and eliminates a requirement that students be placed on probation if they fail to complete 75 percent of the credits for which they registered in any one semester. The current policy, enacted last summer, came under scrutiny when the fall grades were released, placing one-quarter of the undergraduate student body on probation.

Several FSEC members agreed that this latest version satisfies concerns they had with the policy and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Nicolas Goodman, a supporter of the current policy, declared, "I can live with this." The revised policy draft was sent on to the full Senate for consideration later this spring.

President William Greiner appeared briefly to refute a report published in the student newspaper that major donors had affected the decision requiring a security bond for a pro-life display. Charges that benefactors had threatened to stop contributing to UB if the "Cemetery of the Innocents" was allowed to return, appeared in the April 3 edition of the student newspaper, The Spectrum. The statement was attributed to UB Students for Life leader Robert Lauta.

"The bottom line is, we treated this request just as we do any request from a student organization," Greiner said. "It appeared to us that security for this proposed display would cost the university, so we required a bond of this organization for that amount of money." For example, the Student Association posted a bond for security when Nation of Islam leader Kahlil Mohammed spoke on campus two years ago and recently posted an $8,000 bond for the upcoming "Springfest" celebration, Greiner pointed out.

Greiner characterized the charge that donors had threatened him as a "blatant untruth" and criticized the student newspaper for "continuing to repeat this as truth." "I even received a phone call from one prominent donor," Greiner continued. "He had heard of this and called to say he didn't think anyone would give to a university that was applying that sort of unreasonable pressure on student groups."

Vice President for Student Services Robert Palmer discounted the organization as being disingenuous when describing itself as a "student" group. "It is my understanding that this organization only involves three to five students max, with considerable outside influences," he said.

In other business, the FSEC sent on to the full Senate 15 resolutions arising from a Governance Committee report, which the Senate received and filed last month. The resolutions were requested by the Senate.

Among the resolutions was a scaled-back proposal to increase the stipend for Faculty Senate president. The new measure calls for the president to earn a stipend equal to "10 percent of the average full professor's salary at UB," as calculated by American Association of University Professors (AAUP). At present salary levels, that would mean a stipend of $7,900 for the president, who currently earns $3,000. Earlier proposals had linked the president's stipend to his or her own salary, which could have resulted in a stipend of nearly $25,000. The Senate was due to consider these proposals at their April 9 meeting.

Associate Vice President for University Services Carole Petro brought FSEC members up to date on UB's recently launched Sesquicentennial Celebration. "We have already started with informational items, like Time Capsules in the Reporter and UB Today," she explained.

Substantial planning has also gone into events planned for the fall Academic Convocation, scheduled for Oct. 2-5, 1996, Petro said. "We will host a panel symposium on The Frontiers of Knowledge in Nature, Society and Culture." The featured speaker will be Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman, director of the Neurosciences Institute at Scripps Research Institute. "It also coincides with Parents' Weekend," Petro said, "so we hope it will be an exciting and well-attended event."