President’s Report to Academic and Professional Faculty

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Read President Donald P. Christian’s September Report to Academic and Professional Faculty.

Contents

  • Budget Forum – Learn about budget status and forecast for next year, hear ideas and provide input on revising the budget process (October 7, 2:30 PM, LC 102)
  • SUNY Performance Funding Request, SUNY Performance Improvement Plan – Performance Funding full proposal due October 7, seeking $1.42 million focused on expanding EOP and related programming; required SUNY Performance Improvement Plan due October 21 (Budget, Goals and Plans providing faculty input)
  • College Scorecard – New Paltz “scores” well on newly operational Federal system of data reporting on institutional cost, effectiveness, program arrays; results continue to point to improvement opportunities.
  • Alumnus Heinz Ahlmeyer ’66 Honoring Event, October 10 – honoring veterans including student veterans, recognizing the 50th anniversary of the championship men’s soccer team, bringing community and alumni together.
  • Distinguished Speaker, Dr. Nell Painter – A reminder of Dr. Painter’s Distinguished Speaker Series presentation “Sojourner Truth as Historical Person, Photographic Portrait, and American Icon,” October 15, 7:30 p.m., LC 100.
  • SUNY Diversity Initiatives – Resolution approved by Trustees, planning for Chief Diversity Officer, development of diversity plan to begin this fall

Budget Forum.  Vice President Michele Halstead and I will hold a budget forum on Wednesday, October 7, 2:30 p.m., LC 102. We will share information and respond to questions about the end-of-year budget status for 2014-15, the current year budget, and some of the readings we hear from SUNY leaders about next year’s budget prospects. VP Halstead will share further details on information I outlined last month about our recent allocations of funds to support and advance strategic plan priorities. We have responded to the strong recommendation of our 2011 Middle States reaccreditation review that our budget allocation decisions be more explicitly tied to strategic priorities.

We concur with feedback we have received that our budget allocation process can be improved, including better integrating 1) the regular annual process of developing and submitting unit budgets and 2) the process for determining new allocations of one-time and recurring funds. We will share some of these ideas, and solicit your input on this and other ways that our budget process might be improved.

SUNY Performance Funding Request, SUNY Performance Improvement Plan. As reported in my August State of the College address and as you may have read elsewhere, for the first time in several years SUNY received slight increases in state taxpayer funding. The allocation of this funding (much of it one-time, not recurring, greatly limiting its impact) to campuses is competitive and performance-based. Reflecting this heightened emphasis on performance, every SUNY campus is required to submit a “Performance Improvement Plan” to SUNY, outlining how we will improve our contributions to SUNY performance goals, many of which align very well with our campus strategic plan priorities. The guidelines and criteria for both processes were issued during the summer with fast deadlines, and there was little choice but to begin this work before the academic year began.

These are separate projects (the first optional, the second mandatory), and I will outline them separately here.

SUNY Excels Performance Funding. In response to a call issued during the summer, we submitted a pre-proposal (“white paper”) to meet an August 28 deadline for increased funding to be awarded on a competitive basis. SUNY received 211 pre-proposals; 166 were selected for full proposal submission. We learned on September 16 that our pre-proposal (requesting $1.42 million) was among those selected. We are working hard to complete and refine the full proposal to meet an October 7 submission deadline. Given this timeline, the prescriptive nature of the proposal format, and the fact that the full proposal obviously cannot deviate from the pre-proposal, the opportunity for input and consultation on this project is limited.

Here is the summary of our proposal, from the pre-proposal:

Expanding Educational Quality and Opportunity at SUNY New Paltz for
Economically Disadvantaged Students

Summary:  SUNY New Paltz requests Expanded Investment and Performance (EIP) Funds to grow and enrich its high-quality and demonstrably successful programs serving economically disadvantaged students, and to integrate these programs with other campus efforts to advance student success. Specifically, we propose to:

  1. expand the Educational Opportunity (EOP) program by 100 students over four years;
  2. expand participation of economically disadvantaged students in Study Abroad and other “high-impact” practices, and deepen our understanding of ways that such programs affect student success;
  3. develop new programming in cultural competency for all students, including expanding current leadership programs to enhance capacity to work in diverse groups;
  4. create new facilities for an expanded EOP program, supported in part by SUNY 2020 capital funds;
  5. create a strong case for philanthropic support to expand educational opportunity for economically disadvantaged students

We selected these emphases because they build on known and demonstrated strengths at New Paltz, support campus strategic priorities and some of the highest SUNY priorities, and they link to growing campus initiatives (cultural competency training, philanthropy). EOP funding was increased modestly in the latest state enacted budget ($4.2 M across the system). Many of the pre-proposals moving to the next stage of the process are to expand campus EOP programs or to establish programs anew, so we expect stiff competition but also believe that we are making a compelling case for this effort.

SUNY Excels Performance Improvement Plan. Every campus must submit such a plan, due October 21. This plan lays out specific criteria for improving performance relative to SUNY-wide goals, and requires each campus to identify the particular measures and metrics against which its performance will be measured in each of the next several years. During the summer, we began working with the SUNY templates for this plan. There is excellent alignment between many of the goals of the SUNY New Paltz strategic plan and priorities of the SUNY Excels Plan.

Our evolving plan focuses on things that we already have been doing, and things that we are working on to advance initiatives of OUR strategic plan. We believe that this is by far the most productive direction for us. We have been in contact with faculty governance leaders about this process and the tight timelines, and have encouraged the Budget, Goals, and Plans Committee both to provide input and to organize faculty input to the process. We will share a draft plan when it is available, which unfortunately will likely be only a few days before the due date.

College Scorecard. For some time, I have been sharing with you information about the growing demands for accountability and increased performance by colleges and universities, and about federal initiatives to provide more specific information – especially for prospective students and their parents –  about institutional cost and effectiveness. The federal “College Scorecard,” a searchable database, is now operational. It provides institutional information such as average annual cost, graduation and retention rate, salary of graduates, and percent students paying down debt – each compared with national averages. The Scorecard also describes (without comparison to averages) typical loan debt of graduates, information about the student body, academic programs available, and SAT or ACT ranges. The salary and loan debt data are based only on graduates who qualified for federal aid while they were students.

Data for New Paltz contain no surprises. We compare very well with national averages and with many of our SUNY and other regional peers. However – as we have shared many times – we have clear opportunities for continued improvement relative to our strongest peers, especially in graduation and retention rates. Several strategic plan priorities focus specifically on improving these important measures of institutional effectiveness. The Scorecard data help elucidate specific priority areas: for example, our first-year retention rates are only a few percentage points below those of Binghamton University and SUNY Geneseo, not enough to explain a larger gap in six-year graduation rate (72%, vs. 79-80% for these peers). This kind of comparison is leading us to focus more attention than ever on 2nd and 3rd year retention rates, and on articulating or building clearer pathways for students to progress toward timely degree completion.

One purpose of the Scorecard is to help prospective students and their parents make informed college choices. It is not clear how extensively this information will be used for that purpose. We are reviewing data in the Scorecard to better understand it so that we can discuss comparisons as prospective students and parents ask. Notably, the Scorecard contains no information about some of our real strengths – close interaction between students and professors, program offerings such as honors, student research, growing internship programs, thriving campus life and a supportive, engaged, friendly living-learning environment.  We need to continue highlighting these along with our academic strengths as we approach the significant challenge of student recruitment.

Alumnus Heinz Ahlmeyer ’66-Veterans Honoring Event. The men’s soccer game on October 10 will be the venue for a major community and alumni event (11 a.m. – 3 p.m.; Alumni Soccer Field) honoring the nation’s veterans including our student veterans, and celebrating the College’s 1965 championship team.  The Heinz Ahlmeyer men’s soccer game is an annual event named in honor of a 1966 New Paltz alumnus who was killed in action in the Vietnam War. This event will include a helicopter flyover and landing, and a static display of military, law enforcement, and rescue vehicles from throughout Ulster County. SUNY New Paltz students who were awarded the Purple Heart will be recognized on the field, and a music student will perform the National Anthem.

Through a special collaboration between the College’s Department of Athletics, Wellness and Recreation and the Office of Veteran & Military Services, and with the support of University Police, all ticket sale proceeds will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). This national endeavor provides support services for injured service members and their families. The fundraiser coincides with the 50th anniversary celebration of the 1965 SUNY New Paltz Men’s Soccer Team, which won the NCAA Atlantic Coast Regional Championship and of which Heinz Ahlmeyer was a beloved member. That team will be recognized during a halftime ceremony of the 1 p.m. game against SUNY Potsdam.

I commend the campus units and their employees for raising awareness about our veteran and military alumni and students while also engaging alumni and the community in the life of the College. I hope to see you there.

Distinguished Speaker, Dr. Nell Painter. I remind you that Dr. Nell Irvin Painter, Professor Emerita, Princeton University, will speak about “Sojourner Truth as Historical Person, Photographic Portrait, and American Icon” in this fall’s Distinguished Speaker Series presentation. Dr. Painter is a historian and prolific scholar and author whose works include a biography of Sojourner Truth and “The History of White People” (2011). This event will be October 15, 7:30 p.m., LC 100.

SUNY Diversity Initiatives. I reported last month that the SUNY Diversity Task Force submitted a resolution on a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy” to the Board of Trustees. The Trustees passed the resolution at its September meeting. Key elements require that each campus:

  • Begin to plan for the appointment of a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO). A report of the plan is due to system by March 2016 with the expectation that a CDO be appointed no later than August 15, 2017.
  • The Chief Diversity Officer  should be a “senior member of the campus administration, reporting directly to the president or provost”;
  • By September 1, 2016, each campus will develop and begin implementation of a diversity and inclusion plan that includes strategies for student recruitment, retention, and completion, for administrative, faculty, and staff recruitment and retention, as well as an evaluation component.

As I wrote in last month’s report, many of the goals and recommendations of the Diversity Task Force report and resulting policy align closely with SUNY New Paltz priorities and work already underway, including our increased focus on training and education in cultural competency, developing hiring practices and strategies that will enhance faculty recruitment efforts. The SUNY performance funding proposal summarized above certainly aligns with these goals as well.

I take seriously the work that as a campus we must do to advance on these important issues and opportunities. I recognize that for many there is a sense of urgency for movement in this work. I also recognize that “simply” hiring a Chief Diversity Officer without further background work, honest assessment, and thoughtful investment will not move us far, could harm some of the progress made, and will not create an environment for sustained success, for the CDO or for our community.

Like many of you, I have been learning a tremendous amount from our work with Dr. Stephen Jones on cultural competence. In one session, he spoke about the several stages in the transition to becoming an “inclusive organization,” and the hazards of developing an action plan that does not match an institution’s preparedness on the path to inclusion. As part of our ongoing discussion with Dr. Jones about further work, we are exploring whether he might work with us in the “structure building” phase we are in, to help us assess carefully our assets, challenges, and opportunities to best plan reporting, staffing, financial support, and other elements needed to thoughtfully progress on these issues beyond simply “checking a box.”

The Trustees’ resolution authorizes campus presidents to establish the process for our diversity plan, and I would welcome the benefit of Dr. Jones’ wisdom and experience in thinking not just about the plan but also the planning process. As we prepare our plan for the March 2016 deadline, we will connect with campus members, many of whom have already expressed a desire to participate and assist in this work.

I look forward to seeing you at this week’s meeting, where I will be happy to respond to your questions.

Donald P. Christian
President