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President’s Report to Academic and Professional Faculty

Andrew Bruso

Read President Donald P. Christian’s May 2016 Report to Academic and Professional Faculty.

The pace of events and activities as everyone races to the wire at the end of the semester is reflected in the array of items I have to share in my final report of 2015-16. This includes news about our students, faculty, and staff; updates; and key information about the College as the current academic year winds down and we look ahead to 2016-17.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  • Men’s Volleyball Wins National Championship – Congratulations to players and coaches for winning College’s first-ever national championship (in any sport), and to coaches for all-conference Coach of the Year and Assistant Coach of the Year recognition.
  • Commencement – Graduate ceremony Friday, May 13, 6 p.m.; undergraduate ceremony Sunday, May 15, 10 a.m. with alumna Regina Calcaterra ’88 as speaker.
  • Chancellor’s Awards – Congratulations to recipients of awards for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, Professional Service, and Classified Service (names and details below).
  • Black Studies – Two tenure-track faculty hired, offer in progress for new visiting faculty member, other progress noted, outcome of excellent collaborative efforts of many.
  • Salary Equity – Further salary studies completed, goal to achieve competitive salaries for new hires, address compression and inversion for assistant and associate professor salaries; adjustments to be made over multiple years because of budgetary constraints.
  • Interim Academic Leadership – Thank you to Interim Provost Stella Deen and Interim Associate Provost Lee Bernstein for extensive contributions during 2015-16.
  • Free Speech – Task force formed to plan and implement fall semester panel discussion and free speech debate or similar event.
  • Campus Construction/Renovation – Brief summary of current and ongoing projects, most extensive capital investments since Rockefeller era.
  • Transfer Initiative – Multi-unit task force formed to coordinate and develop programming to enhance experience and success of transfer students, recommend strategic initiatives by December 2016.
  • Faculty and Staff Appreciation Picnic – Tuesday, May 17, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Old Main Quad (rain location – AWC).

Men’s Volleyball Wins National Championship. Congratulations to the Men’s Volleyball Team – players, head coach Radu Petrus, assistant coach Tony Bonilla, and Athletics Program staff and leadership – for winning the NCAA Division III championship by defeating previous champion Springfield College 3-1 in the finals on April 24. This is the first national championship for the volleyball program – indeed, the first national championship in any New Paltz sport. Senior Christian Smith was named tournament MVP, and junior Joe Norman and senior Andy Fishman were named to the All-Tournament Team. Coach Petrus won All-United Volleyball Conference Coach of the Year honors, and Tony Bonilla was named Conference Assistant Coach of the Year. The finals win capped a remarkable 33-2 season, 30-0 against Division III teams, and a 31-game winning streak.

As I have spoken with parents of these and other student-athletes, it is so rewarding to hear the nearly universal, glowing praise for the experiences their sons and daughters are having at New Paltz – as students, and as athletes. Such assessments reflect the great work of an entire community. Thank you!

Commencement. A reminder of commencement ceremonies: graduate ceremony on Friday evening, May 13, 6 p.m. in the Athletic and Wellness Center, undergraduate ceremony on Sunday, May 15, 10a.m. in the Old Main Quad. I cannot emphasize enough how much our graduates and their families value the presence of faculty and staff who have played a critical role in our graduates’ successful college experience. This is a special time for them to meet and thank you for your many contributions to that success, and I know that faculty and staff who witness and participate in these ceremonies find them rewarding. Our undergraduate commencement speaker is Regina Calcaterra, 1988 Political Science alumna, attorney, advocate, best-selling author of the memoir “Etched in Sand,” and SUNY New Paltz Foundation Board Director. Her Distinguished Speaker Series presentation in spring 2015 received the only standing ovation I have seen in that series, a reflection both of her compelling story and her speaking prowess.  I hope to see many of you there.

Chancellor’s Awards. I am pleased to announce the following Chancellor’s Award recipients, and ask that you join me in congratulating these colleagues for this System-wide recognition of their outstanding contributions. We will formally present these awards at the first faculty meeting and the first classified staff gathering in the fall:

  • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, Associate Professor of Geography, Excellence in Scholarship & Creative Activities
  • Barry Lawless, Plant Utilities Engineer 2, Facilities Management, Excellence in Classified Service
  • Jim Lyons, Print & Mail Services Manager, Office of Communication and Marketing, Excellence in Professional Service
  • Joel Mumper, Senior Programmer/Analyst, Department of Information Technology, Excellence in Professional Service
  • Lisa Sandick, Program Director of Special Events & Sponsorships, Development & Alumni Relations, Excellence in Professional Service

No nominations were received for other Chancellor’s Awards not listed here (Faculty Service, Librarianship, Teaching, Adjunct Faculty Teaching).

Black Studies. You know by now from Interim Provost Stella Deen’s campus announcement that the College has hired two new tenure-track faculty for the Department of Black Studies and she expects to hire another visiting faculty member, to begin this fall. I congratulate and thank the faculty, staff, administrators, students, and alumni who worked collaboratively to achieve this outcome. Of course, our work in rebuilding a valued campus program is not complete. But it is appropriate to pause and celebrate what has been accomplished to date. Most noteworthy for me is the spirit of cooperation and common purpose demonstrated during this past academic year by individuals from various roles on campus to act on a conviction to see this program rebuilt.

While it might seem unusual for the Provost and the President to communicate about individual faculty hires, this attention is certainly warranted by the substantial concerns of students, faculty, staff, and alumni about the future of the Black Studies department following an unprecedented number of faculty retirements, resignations, and departures last year. Many of us have also gained a keener awareness of this academic unit as a cultural home for many students of color at New Paltz.

We met recently with student leaders of the Black Studies Student Organization to update them about progress on this and other areas of concern – student recruitment, alumni engagement, scholarship support, presence of Black Studies on the College website and social media, and gaining more fulsome compliance and cooperation by faculty on Black Solidarity Day. A group of faculty and administrators met weekly since late fall to address these issues; many are complete or well in progress, and many have included students.

Interim Provost Deen, Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Laura Barrett and I wrote to the campus community and to alumni in September 2015 stating our commitment to the program’s future and promising the resources, time, and effort to rebuild the program’s faculty ranks. I recognize such words may be viewed as empty and received with caution and doubt until action substantiates them. I believe the campus, from the highest levels of administration, to the faculty colleagues who gave their time to assist Department Chair Major Coleman, to the students and alumni who were part of the solution, has demonstrated the College community’s clear commitment to the value and traditions of this program and to the power of what we can achieve when we work together toward a common purpose.

It will be important for all of us to continue demonstrating that commitment as we welcome these new faculty, Cruz Bueno, currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Black Studies at the College, and Nicole Carr, an instructor at the University of Miami, to our community. Our work is not yet done, but our accomplishments this year signal to me, and I hope to others, what we can yet achieve.

Salary Equity. I have outlined for Chancellor Zimpher this spring our most significant institutional challenges, including the reality that salaries for faculty, staff, and administrators have not kept pace with the high cost of living in the Hudson Valley. This is due in part (but not fully) to exorbitant housing costs. I wrote: “This hurts recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and administrators; contributes to low morale driven by financial concerns; hinders building a vibrant campus community because many employees can only afford to live outside of New Paltz, where housing costs are lower.”

Last year, we began salary studies to establish a basis for addressing internal inequities, and we began (and continue) allocating modest funds to address the most serious cases. The process required careful analysis and comparison of salaries at time of hire, analysis of contractual increases over time (including discretionary increases, across the board and promotional increases, Power of SUNY add-to-base awards) to understand their effect on current salaries. While specific attention was given to certain faculty who brought forward detailed requests, care was taken to ensure that correcting one inequity did not produce others. This extensive review led to identifying some instances of inequity that were not the original focus, adding momentum to this long-term project. We have continued review of professional staff salaries brought forward under the contractual process.

These painstaking, systematic salary studies continue. The pace has been modest because we lack a dedicated compensation analyst/planner; the studies have been done by staff on top of their regular work. The focus has been to understand the funds needed to establish competitive salaries for new faculty hires while increasing salaries of current assistant and early-stage associate professors to minimize compression and inversion. Ultimately, our aim is to extend this review to other divisions to uncover any serious salary inequities across campus, as time and workload allow.

We will evaluate our budget for the coming year, and begin implementing these adjustments over a several-year period as our financial resources permit. Unfortunately, flat state support and no tuition increase means that our budget for next year remains seriously constrained. Employee collective bargaining agreements are in negotiation. Salary increases require base budget adjustments, and cannot be funded out of one-time funds (such as tuition revenue resulting from strong enrollments in a particular year). Continuing to recruit the best faculty and staff to meet changing needs and demands may require responding to discipline-related or other market forces, increasing the complexity of understanding salary equity but essential to sustain program quality and integrity. Therefore, our process of salary evaluation and adjustment must be a continuous activity to do right by our employees and our students.

I want to be sure the community recognizes that we take these issues seriously, and are working to improve salary compensation and equity as our resources allow.

Interim Academic Leadership – Thank you. I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Stella Deen for her skilled, thoughtful contributions this past year as Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. She has kept the considerable and complex regular work of the Academic Affairs Division advancing smoothly. Beyond that, Interim Provost Deen was a strong leader in the many efforts noted above to rebuild the Black Studies Department. She made important contributions to developing our very strong SUNY Performance Improvement Program, the Middle States Periodic Review Report, transforming our tutoring center, supporting many new and ongoing initiatives in each of the schools, and other endeavors. In the coming months, Dr. Deen will dedicate time and effort to organizing and sharing information that will be valuable for incoming Provost/VPAA Lorin Arnold. Dr. Deen will be on leave in the fall semester before returning to her faculty position in the English Department in spring semester 2017.

Thank you also to Dr. Lee Bernstein for his work in a new position –Interim Associate Provost for Undergraduate Studies – that I created to provide additional direction and oversight for our academic programs that focus particularly on high-quality undergraduate education. Dr. Bernstein made fundamental contributions to hiring and curricular progress in Black Studies, guided the many efforts of the Academic Advising Council, has overseen several significant personnel transitions including the ongoing search for a Director of the Teaching and Learning Center, guided applied learning initiatives, and other efforts.

Free Speech. As I wrote on April 12, we have been unable to reschedule the canceled Jeff Cohen-Cliff Kincaid debate this spring, and want to plan this or a similar debate or discussion in the fall. The broad purpose of a rescheduled event remains: to prepare our students as engaged citizens who can listen to, hear, and respond civilly to diverse views. I am grateful to the faculty who responded to my request to join a task force to plan an activity in the fall semester. Glenn Geher (Psychology), Lew Brownstein (emeritus, Political Science and International Relations), Dan Lipson and Ilgu Ozler (Political Science and International Relations), Eugene Heath (Philosophy), Pat Sullivan (Honors Program, Digital Media and Journalism), and Lisa Phillips (Digital Media and Journalism) have agreed to serve in this role. We are still arranging student participation in this process. We will meet later this week to discuss expectations for the event, a timeline, and support or resources that my office can provide. The aim will be to host a faculty panel discussion about free speech to set the stage for a broader debate (Cohen-Kincaid or similar event) before the November elections, as the fall campaigns show every promise of highlighting issues of free and civil speech in American society.

Campus Construction/Renovation. We celebrated the renovated Sojourner Truth Library with a ribbon-cutting on April 21, even as final elements are being completed –  a faculty study/research space and the DASH (Digital Arts, Sciences, and Humanities) Lab.

The formal name for our next-to-be completed renovation is Wooster Hall – reflecting the transformation of this outdated science building into a multipurpose structure that will house Psychology and Anthropology, two engineering labs, a student services hub and a café.  The Wooster Hall renovation is to be completed in June, and some departments will begin to move into that space this summer. The configuration of space on the first floor is designed to facilitate greater collaboration and improved service to students among key student-support departments (Records and Registration, Student Accounts, Financial Aid, Academic Advising). Efforts have begun to develop new models of collaborating to capitalize on this new space.

Renovation of the Service Building, housing Facilities Management, Environmental Health and Safety, and University Police, is nearly complete. Construction of the new science building is proceeding on schedule, plans for the Engineering Innovation Hub and for locker-room renovation in the AWC are well underway, and the stage is being set for the renovation of Bevier Hall to begin immediately at the end of fall semester, with a completion target of move-in day in August 2017. I congratulate and commend John Shupe, Assistant Vice President for Facilities Management, and his staff for their great stewardship of more concurrent construction and renovation projects on this campus at any time since the Rockefeller era.

Transfer Initiative. I recently established a 7-person Transfer Initiative Task Force to lead and coordinate our continuing efforts to attract and better serve transfer students. We are interested in maximizing student success, and in building a reputation as the most transfer-friendly four-year institution in the Northeast. We have been “stepping up our game” to enhance transfer orientation, ensure courses are available to these students, promote social programming, and help transfer students take full advantage of on-campus housing. Our goal in establishing this task force is to build on this strong foundation, formalize these efforts to enhance collaboration, and increase the visibility and prominence of these initiatives. With numbers of high school graduates continuing to decline in the region, and with heightened and intense competition for both first-year and transfer students, this initiative is key to our recruitment (and tuition-revenue generation) strategies. Even as we are pleased to be able to provide more on-campus housing for transfer students, many transfer students commute – representing a student population we can serve well even with limited on-campus student housing.

The task force includes members from Undergraduate Admissions, Student Activities and Union Services, Residence Life, LA&S/Associate Deans, Transfer Student Engagement Coordinator, Academic Advising, and Records and Registration. The task force will review data about the student experience at New Paltz and understand best practices in transfer programming across the nation, and develop (by December 2016) a set of strategic initiatives to provide unparalleled programs and support services for all transfer students. The task force will serve as a coordinating and advisory group during the implementation of the plan in spring 2017, and may continue as an ongoing coordinating council. This group will report to Cabinet through Vice President for Enrollment Management, L. David Eaton, and will work in close cooperation with the Course Availability Task Force, the Academic Advising Council, and other groups advancing student success initiatives.

Faculty and Staff Appreciation Picnic. A brief reminder of our all-campus end-of-year barbeque and picnic, Tuesday, May 17, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on the Old Main Quad (rain location is the Athletic and Wellness Center), organized and hosted by Development and Alumni Relations. I hope that you will consider joining us to spend time with colleagues to celebrate the successful completion of another academic year and to help honor this year’s Classified Staff Presidential Recognition Award recipients.

I look forward to seeing you at the Faculty meeting on Wednesday, May 4. I will be available to respond to questions or comments you may have about this report, while I recognize that the major focus of this meeting will be discussion of General Education reform.

I wish everyone a strong finish of this semester and academic year, and a productive, successful, and rejuvenating summer.

Sincerely,

Donald P. Christian
President