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Classroom conditions improving, FSEC learns
By DONNA BUDNIEWSKI
Reporter
Assistant Editor
The condition and availability of classroom space at UB—a contentious issue for some time—is improving, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee learned yesterday.
From painting classrooms more frequently to increasing the number of "tech smart" rooms by 10 each year to making podiums more user-friendly for everyone—especially instructors with disabilities—an aggressive campaign is under way to enhance the quality of instructional space, reported Joseph Zambon, professor of periodontics and endodontics and chair of the senate's Classroom Committee.
An initiative focused on addressing maintenance and technology needs in the classrooms is being headed by Lou Schmitt, director of facilities operations, and Mark Duell, director of operational support services, said Sean Sullivan, vice provost of enrollment and planning. The effort has received about $325,000 in total funding from the university's budget and from technology fees paid by students.
Zambon, Sullivan, Rick Lesniak, director of Academic Services CIT, and Kevin Seitz, vice president of university services, updated the FSEC on joint efforts among their offices to renovate and clean up classrooms on both campuses, and while concerns still exist, several senators for the first time noted that significant progress is being made. Of 130 centrally scheduled classrooms, 52 of those rooms are technology classrooms maintained on a regular basis, said Lesniak.
Classrooms conditions also are being monitored by students, with 75 rooms inspected to date. Plans are in the works to replace the sound panels in Knox lecture hall, as well as replace chairs and missing podiums on both campuses.
A plan is being developed to improve 14 classrooms in Alumni Arena, Kimball Tower and Capen, Clemens, Cooke, Diefendorf and Talbert halls over the next 18 months. This past summer, Diefendorf 103 and Clemens 103 were updated.
Zambon told senators that Lesniak, Sullivan and Seitz have been very responsive to the concerns of the FSEC's classroom and facilities committees.
One impediment to timely renovation of space that Sullivan noted was that the centrally scheduled classrooms—the primary topic of discussion—were being used 85-95 percent of the time. "It's hard to find time to renovate because classrooms are always booked," he said. "Our marching orders are to use the rooms 100 percent of the time—that's our bedrock principle."
And as far as scheduling even required courses for some majors such as engineering, it's been a "dog eat dog" world, said Sullivan. Trying to get departments to commit to fixed times for classes that are consistent from semester to semester would help improve the situation, he added, and a new scheduling software program also will help ease the competition for classrooms.
In other business at yesterday's meeting, John Grela, director of public safety, told the FSEC that UB is a very safe campus compared to other similar-sized campuses in the Association of American Universities (AAU), of which UB is a member.
Grela reviewed the university's 2003 Annual Security Report with the FSEC.
Better reporting and coordination of policing efforts between Buffalo Police and University Police may be behind the recent increase in alcohol arrests around the South Campus/University Heights area, Grela said. Undercover work by University Police resulted in numerous arrests the weekend before Halloween and the following weekend, he noted.
"You're creating a hazardous situation when you put 100-150 people in an attic or basement of an apartment house. It's a tragedy waiting to happen," he said.
More than a dozen people who were arrested were pledges being used as servers at Greek parties that, more often than not, are being run by graduates of UB, rather than current students, he said, adding that only one of the organizations affected by the arrests was a sanctioned UB fraternity.
He encouraged students and other to "walk with a friend at night and study with a friend," and asked members of the campus community to stop propping open doors that should be locked at night. "If you see a door wedge or a (rolled) newspaper (holding open a door), throw it out," he asked.
The FSEC opened yesterday's meeting with a moment of silence in memory of Bernice Noble, a member of the Faculty Senate and past member of the FSEC. Noble, professor in the Department of Microbiology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, died unexpectedly on Saturday. An obituary for Noble appears in this issue of the online Reporter.