Resolution calls for three-step review, delay in decision on reorganization

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Director

The resolution by the senate's Committee on University Governance outlines a three-step review process that would be followed before UB's president makes a final decision on any "plans for the future of this university and on proposals regarding the formation, reorganization or dissolution of academic units."

The process would require that the faculties involved directly in any such type of change submit to the senate reports representing the various views of faculty and the positive and negative effects of the proposed plans on the academic units involved and on the university as a whole.

The senate's executive committee would forward these documents to the appropriate standing or ad hoc committee for review. That committee would, in turn, report back to the executive committee, and subsequently, the full senate, where debate and action or recommendations to the administration would take place.

To allow such a review of the reorganization of the arts and sciences, the governance committee has asked that the decision on the reorganization be delayed until at least October.

Provost Thomas Headrick's timetable for the reorganization includes a target date of June 20 for a report from the hearing panel that now is collecting evidence on the reorganization, with a final decision to be made in July by President William R. Greiner.

Both Headrick and Greiner say a decision must be made this summer to allow for sufficient time for transition to the new organization, which is expected to be in operation at the start of the Fall 1998 semester.

Some faculty have challenged the timetable, saying a decision should not be made during the summer, when many faculty members are away from campus.

Boris Albini, professor of microbiology and chair of the governance committee, noted that the Faculty Senate has the responsibility, under its charter, to review all formal plans relating to the future of the university.

He called the review process recommended by his committee a "minimalist process" that allows the faculty of the academic units involved in any change to "evaluate the pluses and minuses of whatever is being proposed" and then the Faculty Senate "in a structured way" can debate and resolve itself with the issues.

"We hope to be able to discuss this for another three months; three months after 30 years (when the College of Arts and Sciences was dissolved by then-President Martin Meyerson) is a short time. I think that due process is important for the end effect," Albini said.

Powhatan Wooldridge, associate professor of nursing, agreed that the decision should be delayed until the fall. He took exception to a comment he attributed to Greiner that the faculty wants to delay indefinitely a decision on the arts and sciences.

"I don't feel that delay, per se, is the point of this motion," he said. "It seems to me that the point of this motion is to avoid making major decisions concerning faculty governance and organization in the middle of the summerŠwhen faculty are not in residence."

Don Schack, professor of mathematics, disagreed with any attempt to delay the process, noting that the Triggle Commission three years ago spent an entire year studying the very same issue. Nothing much has changed since that time, and there is no need to mount the "full-scale review that we did in the past," he said.

"I think we just need to face the decision," he added.

While Schack said he also did not like the idea of such decisions being made during the summer, he added: "but let us as a Faculty Senate be brutally honest with ourselves: if that happens, it's our own fault."

He pointed out that Headrick released his planning document in mid-February. "If we regarded this as a matter of such urgency, why did we not assemble our own hearing panel then?" he asked. "Why did we not make that the single, primary topic of consideration of the executive committee or the academic planning committee? Why haven't we done our work?

"The answer is that we didn't treat it with urgency, and now we're acting a little bit petulant that (the administration is) going forward with the decision they said they would make and gave us, at this stage, three full months warning of," he said. "I think that we should accept that; a lot of information is out there and this decision can be made reasonably and we do have lots of opportunity for input between now and the time that it will be made."

David Benenson, professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the governance committee, said he did not think the "faculty should feel that they are being laid upon and should have a guilt trip for wanting to carry out its responsibility as colleagues of the Faculty Senate."

He pointed out that the planning document was received by faculty in mid-February, "rather late in the academic year."

The document deals with a wide range of issues of importance, he added.

"To think that one can respond to this document in a week, a month or so I think is pushing the envelope a wee bit."

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the issues seem to be clearly divided into two parts: "whether we will or won't have a College of Arts and Sciences in some form," and the details of the centers, cross-disciplinary work, and the merger of some departments, what he called "second-phase details."

The College of Arts and Sciences issue can be decided much earlier than the second-phase details, he said. "If the faculty feel that they desperately need a chance for input and debate and discussion, then I would hope that some other than the present three, plus the next scheduled four faculty, would bother to show up at the hearing panel and say something," Malone said.

Malone's comment referred to the fact that only three faculty members spoke at the first two sessions held by the hearing panel appointed by Headrick to gather evidence on options for reorganizing the arts and sciences, and only a handful of speakers are scheduled for the final session on June 4.

William Baumer, professor of philosophy, stated that the Oct. 1 deadline in the resolution makes "any further faculty involvement in this issue essentially meaningless."

The date is four weeks after the start of the fall semester, he noted. "And we all know how much work we get done, other than getting our classes going, in the first four weeks of the fall semester. Which is to say, that if we have not yet done anything with regard to the issue of a College of Arts and Sciences, we are not going to do it by 30 September."

The lack of any action by the three faculties since their meetings with Headrick "is, I think, indicative of the great urgency with which this issue is viewed by all three faculties involved," he said.

Baumer added that he was speaking as a member of the Policy Committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences which, he said, canceled its last meeting "because it had nothing on its agenda."

The senate will vote on the resolution at an upcoming meeting.

In other business, the senate:

- Sent back to the Educational Programs and Policies Committee a resolution regarding the acceptance of coursework from undergraduate transfer students. Senators cited concerns about ambiguities and inconsistencies in the language of the resolution.

- Received and filed a report from the Committee on Research and Creative Activity on conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment and recommended the university administration implement its specific recommendations.

- Heard a report from its Affirmative Action Committee that includes a variety of recommendations concerning salary discrepancies and hiring members of protected groups. The report also recommends the creation of a President's Task Force on Racial Minorities on Campus.