President’s Report to Academic and Professional Faculty

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

As we enter the final days of the fall semester, I have several updates to share in this brief report. I must be in New York City Thursday afternoon for a long-scheduled meeting of the Foundation Board and regret that I will miss this week’s faculty meeting.

Our community was saddened by the death earlier this week of our student Usman Shakil, a senior from Flushing, Queens. I again extend my deepest sympathy to his family and to the many students, faculty, and staff who knew and were friends with him. He had many connections through his majors in psychology and philosophy, minor in disaster studies, work as an Admissions Ambassador and New Paltz blogger, student governance participant, and Honors Program student. It is profound testimony to the strength of this community how different departments and groups – Admissions, Disaster Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, Honors, Student Affairs, and Student Activities – have come together to honor Usman’s memory and to support each other at this time of loss. Honors and the Undergraduate Psychology Association held memorials yesterday, and a general memorial is being planned by students and faculty for Sunday (details to follow). Please be sensitive to students in need of assistance in processing this loss, and refer them to the Counseling Center (257-2920). Employees are encouraged to contact the Employee Assistance Program at 257-2886.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• Black Studies – we received and responded to a letter from alumni about the future of the Department, based on concerns and expectations similar to those shared by students.
• Performance Improvement Plan, Power of SUNY Performance funding – in response to a request from SUNY, we adjusted two metrics, format of Performance Improvement Plan; decisions about performance funding proposals are pending.
• Assembly Speaker and Assemblymember Visit to Campus – Speaker Carl Heastie and Assemblymember Kevin Cahill visited SUNY New Paltz during the Speaker’s November 20tour of the Hudson Valley 103rd Assembly District, an opportunity for us to highlight several points of pride and make our needs known.
• Budget Process – A call went out recently for proposals for new or increased one-time or recurring funds.
• Graduation and Retention Rates – First-year retention rates are about 89%; first-to-third year retention rate overall (83.5%) is highest ever, exceeded by 89.3% rate for EOP students. Four-year graduation rate is 55.2%, second-highest ever, six-year rate 72.8%, a slight drop from last year.
• Student Enrollment and Recruitment – Spring semester undergraduate registration is ahead, transfer enrollment will be down because we are closing acceptance into heavily enrolled majors. Early indications of fall semester enrollment are strong.
• Holiday Wishes – Best wishes to everyone for a happy, healthy, restful holiday season!

Black Studies. Interim Provost Stella Deen and I received a letter last week from a group of alumni expressing their concern about the status and future of the Black Studies Department. We welcome and encourage the support and engagement of alumni in our shared goal to re-build the department. Because these alumni seemed to be basing their views and concerns primarily on theSeptember 10 message to the campus community and alumni from me, the Provost and the Dean, we shared my November 19 correspondence to the campus community about more specific steps being taken to hire new faculty and in other ways support the department.

Many of the concerns and expectations expressed by alumni are similar to those conveyed to us in a student petition last month, and to which I responded in my November 19 message. As we have for students, we clarified for alumni that primary responsibility for the curriculum rests with the faculty, not the administration. Faculty must as well drive key elements of the process of hiring new faculty, including identifying and articulating needed disciplinary expertise. For these reasons, it is not appropriate or acceptable for me or the Provost to advance several of the expectations of alumni, at the same time we support those faculty efforts.

We also responded to a statement in the letter from alumni that “students of color become a smaller and smaller portion of the student body every year.” In reality, the percentage of this year’s incoming class who are students of color is the highest in our institution’s history, continuing a positive and consistent multi-year trend. We continue our many efforts (and will explore new ideas) to recruit a diverse group of students, and to create a community where inclusion promotes and supports success of all students. Similarly, we have been increasingly successful in recruiting faculty of color to New Paltz in recent years, and will look to apply best practices for recruitment and retention in these efforts.

Performance Improvement Plan, Power of SUNY Performance funding. We received feedback last week from SUNY requesting a few revisions to our Performance Improvement Plan, including a suggestion that we elevate the standards of two performance metrics (alumni giving rate and Student Assessment Measure Graduation Rate – a measure of students who begin at New Paltz and graduate either from here or another institution), and changes to better conform to the required format. Those changes have been made and the revised plan submitted. We were informed that decisions on the performance funding requests are “very near.”

Assembly Speaker and Assemblymember Visit to Campus. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Assemblymember Kevin Cahill visited SUNY New Paltz on November 20. We are pleased that they included the College as part of the Speaker’s tour of the Hudson Valley. This is part of the Speaker’s effort to learn about issues and opportunities in every Assembly District, especially Upstate districts. During a walking tour of campus, we shared “points of pride”; our budget requests and priorities; the success of our Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and our pending request for funds to expand this program (see next item); capital needs; and other opportunities.

Budget Process. I call your attention to the call for requests for new or increased funding allocations that went out via e-mail on November 30. This call follows the process and timeline outlined at the October 7 Budget Forum and described more fully on the my.newpaltz.edu Budget Information Center. The process applies both to requests for recurring and one-time-only funding. The timeline calls for requests from departments/supervisors/chairs to be forwarded to deans or directors by January 15, and from them to vice presidents byFebruary 1. We expect deans to give full and serious consideration to funding proposals that are within the scope of one-time or recurring funds in school budgets, and that these not be forwarded for central consideration.

As outlined on the request form, proposed renovation projects are to be submitted as 1-2 paragraphs, without preliminary budget figures. Only after such proposals have been reviewed and prioritized at all levels will Facilities personnel be asked to develop cost estimates for subsequent review and consideration by Cabinet.

We underscore the many sources of uncertainty about next year’s budget. These include the revenue side – enrollment, continuation of rational tuition, any increase in state taxpayer support, and the expense side – such as possible investment to expand parking, needs for a Chief Diversity Officer and related programming, replacing lost grant-funding for the tutoring center, TAP-gap support. We want to manage expectations that opportunities for new investment are likely to be constrained, making it all the more important that we be attentive to strategic reallocation of existing resources, for example, when retirements or resignations occur. As emphasized on the form, we will give strong priority to initiatives that enhance instruction, access, and student success in support of the Strategic Plan.

Graduation and Retention Rates. Our first-year retention rates are holding very strong at 88.9%, even though this is down marginally from last year’s 89.5% rate. We are paying increasing attention to retention into the third year as we identify stages where we may need to focus more “intrusive” advising or mentoring. Our first-to-third year retention rate of 83.5% is the highest ever. The parallel rate for EOP students is 89.3%, a marvelous achievement that bodes well for future graduation rates.

Our latest four-year graduation rate is 55.2%, up from last year and our second-highest rate ever. The most recent six-year graduation rate of 72.8% is down slightly from last year’s 73.9%. While the six-year graduation rate is the federal standard for comparison and few pay attention to five-year rates, last year we had the smallest difference ever between five- and six-year rates.

As I have shared before, with an incoming class of 1,100 first-year students, a 1% shift in retention or graduation rate reflects the persistence or success (or lack thereof) of 11 students. We should expect some “bounce” in these figures, but I believe more importantly that realization should drive home the point that the work that faculty and staff undertake with individual students that influences their success matters in these key measures of institutional performance.

Student Enrollment and Recruitment. Total registrations to date for spring semester by continuing students are ahead of last year, due entirely to a slight increase in undergraduate enrollment. The number of transfer student applications for spring semester exceeded last year, but we have accepted fewer transfer students because we have closed acceptance into several heavily enrolled majors, all in Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The number of applications for fall semester is strong, albeit slightly below last year. Nonetheless, the number of acceptances is on par with same-date last year, reflecting the high academic caliber of the applicant pool. Although it is early, all of these are positive indicators of enrollment-driven tuition revenue for this spring and the coming year. As always, we will keep you posted as the recruitment season progresses.

Holiday Wishes. I enjoyed the opportunity at the December 5 holiday reception to welcome and visit with so many members of our community. As always, this event captures the sense of community that we all value and that we seek to make stronger. Thank you for being there.

I wish everyone a happy, safe, and rejuvenating holiday season. I encourage everyone to take time to celebrate the many blessings of the season and all that we have accomplished this year on behalf of our students, and to enjoy the company of family, friends, and colleagues.

Donald P. Christian
President