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By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Director

"Tell us what's wrong with the current system and where it's failing, and how the various models (on reorganizing the arts and sciences) might address these problems," asked Kip Herreid, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

Headrick said the reorganization is designed to deal with two issues: handling problems that should be resolved between groups of faculty or between departments but that are bumped up to the decanal level and ultimately the provostial level when the various deans fail to reach a resolution, and correcting what he called a "fragmented approach to undergraduate education."

He said he did not have a strong feeling about which of the proposed reorganizational approaches the university should undertake. "That's why I want to take information and evidence on it and get some reaction from the university community," he said.

Ronald Berezney, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, suggested Headrick consider a third option: creating a large science college representing departments in Natural Science and Mathematics, science-oriented departments in other faculties, such as anthropology and psychology, and basic science departments in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Admitting there may be some problems associated with the creation of such a college, he urged Headrick to consider what is best for science at UB.

"We strongly think this is what is best for science and many of our colleagues in the sciences here agree that something like this could really integrate the sciences and do the kinds of things we've talked about with biology, for example, in getting people in closely aligned areas together."

Faculty members in the natural sciences and the humanities have "different mindsets," Berezney noted. Those in the humanities "have a lot of problems with institutes and centers; they're very concerned about the flow of resources."

Moreover, faculty in engineering are very professionally and commercially oriented.

He called a merger with either group "risky," noting that "I see as the real winner a big science faculty."

Headrick said he was not opposed to considering the "big science faculty," but added that there would be enormous difficulties dealing with accreditation agencies, particularly in dentistry and medicine, in the event of such a merger.

He encouraged Berezney and others to present the idea to the hearing panel he will set up to tackle the issue of which merger option will be pursued.

Alan Selman, professor of computer science, asked Headrick to "go deeper in explaining what's wrong with undergraduate education (at UB) and why it takes structural changes to fix it.

"I have difficulty with this because from my perception, probably more needs to be done to improve graduate education and research than undergraduate."

UB's undergraduate program, the quality of its students and the "care and nurturing of the faculty" is comparable to that of other state universities, he said.

"I don't understand what's so terribly wrong with undergraduate education."

Headrick said he disagrees that UB is doing as good a job with undergraduate education as it could be doing, noting that the university has a higher drop-out rate, lower retention rate and slower progress to degree than other SUNY institutions.

Michael Cowen, professor of mathematics, told Headrick that a reorganization will not correct what he perceives as the problem, which is "communication at the bottom." Departments do not communicate within the decanal units, much less across decanal lines, he said. "You can't get the right kind of contact with people who have similar jobs and similar problems across the university, whether they are staff, or faculty or administrators," he said. "Those are all problems that have to do with how we communicate and it's not the way we're organized."

Bruce Nicholson, associate professor of biological sciences, noted that within the sciences, more so than with other disciplines, "there is a real complete marriage between what happens on the front lines of research and what happens with undergraduate education.

"Any consideration of what one does to realign groups has to take into account how to best promulgate the most effective research environment at the university," he said. Nicholson added that with the best researchers, students likely will have the best undergraduate educational experience.

With respect to the biological sciences and many of the sciences, as a research environment, Nicholson said that either of the options proposed by Headrick would "tend to more fragment or put even bigger walls, between those collaborations that currently exist."

Placing many of the science departments into a College of Arts and Sciences will affect faculty recruitment and turn UB into "an undergraduate teaching institutionŠthat's going to have a hard time attracting the best researchers," he said.

John Ho, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Physics, said UB already has a dean of arts and sciences at the undergraduate level - Nicolas Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education.

"We have to balance between cause and benefit," in considering a reorganization, Ho said. "Benefits are minimal; cause is pretty high. Unless we can prove otherwise, I don't think we should proceed (with a reorganization). The structure that is currently in place actually can work. We can either improve it or change the personnel," he said.

Headrick and Goodman disagreed that Goodman functions as director of undergraduate education.

"I have no authority at all to do anything that has budgetary implications," said Goodman. When he is approached by faculty and departments in arts and sciences for resources for undergraduate education, he added, "I have to go to the provost and ask for them. There is no inclination to reallocate for those purposes in the departments. Undergraduate education is still seen primarily as the provost's problem not our problem. That has not changed."

In response to a question from Cowen, Goodman said that "if the leadership of that new organization (a College of Arts and Sciences) had the right attitude, it (prioritizing undergraduate education) would change."

Don Schack, professor of mathematics, told Headrick that despite previous questions from four colleagues, he had not heard a satisfactory answer about "what needs to be done" to improve undergraduate education.

"We are talking about expending a lot for gains which we can't even yet identify. And they should be very clearly identified first," he said.

"We need a serious answer about what needs to be done to make undergraduate education better if we're to upend the structure."