President Wheeler’s December 2023 Report to Faculty
Dear Colleagues:
As we wrap up another hectic fall semester, I write to share enrollment updates and other important news from across the campus.
First, I wish to thank all the faculty and staff who attended the President’s Holiday Reception at the President’s Residence. My heartfelt thanks go out to Sodexo and Facilities staff who make this annual and important social gathering possible.
I am looking forward to celebrating employment milestones and thanking the Classified staff at the Annual Classified Staff Holiday Luncheon and Recognition Awards on Friday, Dec. 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Elting Gym. We hope to see many of you there!
SUNY New Paltz Receives SUNY Incremental Funds to Enhance Student Support and Experience. SUNY System Administration has awarded SUNY New Paltz with $939,000 in ongoing funds to enhance specific student experience and student support activities. The funds will be directed to support food insecurity, mental health and student wellbeing initiatives, supports for students with disabilities, and expanding support for unpaid or low-paid credit-bearing internship opportunities, as well as reducing the burden of fee charges to Compensated Graduate Students. The overarching goal is to reduce barriers for student success and to expand access to support services. The new funding is a result of the increase in state support of SUNY campuses announced in Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2024 State Budget.
Spring 2024 New Students. Incoming spring 2024 transfer deposits are slightly higher compared to this time last year but below our target of 250 new students. We are preparing to advise, register and orient students on January 9, 11 (snow date Jan. 12) and virtually on Jan. 17, 2024. For more information about new student onboarding, go to my.newpaltz.edu > faculty services > advising menu > onboarding information. Many thanks to the 46 faculty members who have signed up as orientation advisors for these sessions and those that attended the training sessions coordinated by Academic Advising, Records & Registration and Student Affairs. Regular communications will be sent to departments beginning on Dec. 18 with new student lists for each orientation session. In this manner, advisors can prepare for their sessions. For questions about the Orientation Program, contact Emily Rodriguez in the Center for Student Engagement. For questions about transfer Advising & Registration, contact Tara Salvatore in the Office of Academic Advising.
Continuing Student Registration. During registration, we had almost 6,000 students register for spring 2024 classes. Although these numbers are strong, there are still almost 460 continuing undergraduate students who have yet to register. We will be surveying these students in the coming weeks to determine if there are barriers to registering such as financial holds, advising clearance, or lack of available classes.
Retention and Student Success. First-year retention numbers for 2022-2023 have returned to 87 percent, consistent with pre-Covid levels. These are strong numbers, and we will continue our efforts to improve retention numbers and increase overall enrollment. As part of these efforts, the Center for Student Success has expanded services and programs. We anticipate up to a 50% increase in attendance this semester particularly in academic coaching, writing consultations, supplemental instruction, and peer subject tutoring. Our satellite services at the Athletic and Wellness Center have been well-attended and will continue into spring 2024. For the first time, the Center will be hosting a “Review Day” prior to finals week, which will offer a full day of the most requested services in response to survey requests from our students.
Launch of ACE Program. The Division of Enrollment Management will launch the Advancing Completion through Engagement (ACE) program pilot for spring 2024. ACE is a baccalaureate completion program based on the principles of the successful CUNY Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). ACE is designed to increase timely graduation rates by removing the financial, academic, and personal obstacles that many students confront. New Paltz has received funding from SUNY System Administration to implement an ACE replication program, which requires the hire of a dedicated advisor for ACE students. This program is open to new students with less than 15 credits who are Pell-eligible but not eligible for the EOP program. Vanessa Netzley has joined this new initiative to become the program advisor. Please join me in supporting her in this new role.
Enhancing Services. The Wooster Welcome Center is now staffed. Felicia Williams has joined the Enrollment Management team as the center coordinator. Improving communication and efficiencies while maintaining a high level of service are priorities for Enrollment Management. Felicia will coordinate her efforts with the student-run one-stop Information Center and the Admissions Welcome Center and provide basic guidance and administrative support to students, families, faculty, and staff about the services provided by the student services offices: Academic Advising, Student Accounts, Records & Registration and Student Financial Services.
Budget Management Support. Vice President Michele Halstead and Assistant Vice President Julie Walsh will be hosting sessions during the January Professional Development Day, including one session on the more technical aspects of monitoring departmental budgets (using SUNY BI) and the second will include information about the new budget process, intended for all account managers.
We will be working with departments involved in managing the newly approved incremental funding to enact the initiatives for which the funds were intended (see student affairs updates for more details).
Strategic Planning. I hope you’ll plan to attend next week’s close-out ceremony for the University’s 2013-2018 Strategic Plan on Wednesday, Dec. 13, at 2 p.m., outside Lecture Center 100, ahead of the final Full Faculty Meeting at 3 p.m. Everyone is invited for refreshments and a small program to be led by me and Associate Provost Laurel M. Garrick Duhaney to acknowledge the collective work and accomplishments of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, who developed the plan, and the two groups that worked on implementation – the earlier Strategic Planning Council and the current Strategic Planning and Assessment Council (SPAC), who graciously worked on the closeout report.
Awards for Student Excellence. Nominations are now open for the 2024 Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence and President’s Award for Student Excellence acknowledging students who have received recognition for outstanding achievements. A student may only be nominated by a currently employed SUNY New Paltz faculty, staff, or administrator. Long-term accomplishments and achievements that benefit the community will be measured at a higher level than other achievements. Nominations for the SUNY New Paltz process are due by Monday, Jan. 22, 2024 at 12 Noon. Nominees must have a cumulative GPA of 3.70 or higher (including Fall 2023 grades, if applicable) and have demonstrated broad levels of leadership and engagement across the campus. Only students graduating between June 2023 and May 2024 will be considered. The nomination form is online here.
Important Benefits Information. Employees should have received notifications about the following programs. Please note the deadlines for each.
- Option transfer – Dec. 29, 2023
- This is an opportunity to adjust or update health care coverage status and plan options.
- Flex Health Care and Dependent Care enrollment – Dec. 11, 2023
- Spending limits have increased for health care spending and adoption advantage accounts.
Ethics and other required training. As a state employer, we are required to provide training across a range of topics and issues. Beyond an employment requirement, the training helps ensure that employees are aware of important policies and laws as well as resources and measures available when concerns or questions arise. The University must report on participation and completion rates to both NYS state and SUNY. If you have completed your trainings, thank you for supporting this important initiative. To see if you have any outstanding training, please go to https://newpaltz.pl.powerschool.com/ia/empari/tab/Courses?_ct=Course
If any of the following courses are listed on the right side of the screen, you still need to complete them for 2023:
- Workplace Violence Prevention – 2023 (Final)
- Title IX & Sexual Harassment – 2023
- Clery Act Training for UUP-represented Employees – 2023
Contact employeetraining@newpaltz.edu for questions.
UUP across-the-board and discretionary increases. Negotiated across-the-board increases for UUP-represented employees include the 2 percent increases for 2022 and the 3 percent increases for 2023. This would have appeared in the paycheck dated Nov. 22, 2023. Negotiated Discretionary Salary Increases (DSI) for UUP-represented employees are set to be paid in paychecks dated Dec. 20, 2023.
The Office of Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion has created two resource guides to help employees understand how these increases are calculated and distributed. One guide is for Adjunct Faculty, and the other guide is for all other UUP-represented employees. Please use the links below to access these guides.
Guide for All UUP Represented Employees, except Adjunct Faculty
Development & Alumni Relations. This month SUNY New Paltz Foundation Board Director Barbara Scherr will be stepping down from the Foundation Board after more than 13 years of volunteer service, philanthropy, and relationship-building for SUNY New Paltz. Prior to her Board service, her husband Harry Scherr chaired the College Council; thus, her bond with campus has lasted decades. We thank Barbara for her extraordinary service.
The Development team continues to meet with alumni and donors on campus and beyond, including recent visits to Austin, Chapel Hill, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Bay Area, and Washington, DC. Next semester, in February, I will join the team at events on the West Coast—including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Seattle.
Fall appeals—asking for gifts to support SUNY New Paltz—have been sent out to more than 21,000 alumni and donors, including a direct appeal from me asking for unrestricted gifts to the Fund for New Paltz. A version of this appeal is now going out to current and past parents. For any Department or program wishing to engage your alumni in supporting your work, it’s not too late to start thinking about fundraising appeals for the Spring semester: to get started simply fill out a ticket in Team Dynamix here.
The team hosted the bi-annual Retired Faculty-Staff Luncheon on Nov. 4, which was an upbeat gathering attended by 23 retired Faculty-Staff, who had a chance to hear remarks from Provost McClure. Attendees took home a newly-updated Retired Faculty-Staff Directory. Any department or program with questions about the bi-annual luncheons, the directory, or other activities for our retirees should reach out to Jonathan Vaughn or Katherine Doss. Likewise, retirees can get more information or update their contact information online.
The Alumni Relations team will host Finals Fuel on Wednesday, Dec. 20, from Noon to 2 p.m., in the lobby of the Sojourner Truth Library, providing students with snacks, beverages, and words of encouragement as they prepare for and complete their final exams. The team hosts this event at the end of every semester and is included in the Student Affairs’ Holistic Hawks Stressbusters Calendar, which is organized to “help New Paltz students beat Finals Week stress.” We ask all Faculty-Staff to encourage students to stop by.
IT Services System Updates. Beginning this December, and running through October 2025, we will be migrating to the Windows 11 operating system for all university-owned Windows computers. Beginning this December and throughout 2024 we will be migrating to macOS Sonoma in faculty/staff offices first and then computer labs. Additional communication regarding the upgrade dates will be sent directly to individuals that will be impacted. More fulsome information about these updates and what we need from you will be distributed in the coming weeks.
Print Management Initiative. We received delivery of three printers from Toshiba and are currently performing pilot testing to validate various printing use cases. Upon successful completion of our testing, we will commence deployment of the new printers using a phased approach one building at a time. There are no plans to remove personal printers during the spring semester and future updates will follow.
Residence Hall Renovations Update. The renovation of Awosting Hall has been completed. This “gut rehab” includes the addition of a 4th floor, which adds 78 new beds to the hall. Students currently residing in Mohonk Hall are preparing to move to Awosting at the end of the semester to facilitate a similar project in Mohonk, slated to begin over the break and to reopen for fall 2025. All residence hall renovations are funded through student housing fees, a separate fund from the campus’s core instructional budget.
Facilities Maintenance and Residence Life are beta testing a planning process to get ahead of concerns for the spring semester. By creating a shared calendar of work to be done, this process experiment is designed to manage expectations and communication between departments.
Campus as Classroom – Test Wells. Early design has started for a new College Hall and Peregrine Dining Hall. Energy requirements under Executive Order 22 dictate a need for cleaner energy, and we will be looking at geothermal systems in both buildings. Over winter break, there will be test well drilling events in the Old Main Quad and in Peregrine Quad, scheduled when there is less activity on campus. However, this is an excellent opportunity to hear more about the rock composition of our campus and how geothermal systems could be part of our “new normal.” When we return from break, we look forward to active engagement between our Office of Sustainability, Design and Construction, faculty members, and students on how this process worked and what was learned.
Sustainability Website as Classroom and Train the Trainers. Using the website of the Office of Sustainability as an example, Facilities Operations is working with a class in the School of Business to re-craft the Sustainability website. The class will provide their results next week, but we’ll be looking for feedback on: who are the intended stakeholders for this site, what are the goals, and are we achieving them?
Following the successful receipt of the Second Nature grant, the Office of Sustainability, in collaboration with Professor Ed Lawson, are exploring what environmental justice means – both as an Executive Order 22 dictum, as well as what it means to our campus. The initial meetings have begun, and we’ll look forward to hearing feedback from students, faculty, and staff on the process as well as lessons learned.
Building Supervisor program reboot – Help us help our campus. The Office of Emergency Management is finalizing the training materials for the rebooted building supervisor program and is looking at dates in January to begin the training. The building supervisor program is composed of faculty and staff that are charged with greater accountability for the buildings that they manage. New tools will help supervisors to understand their buildings and work toward a safer campus for our students, faculty and staff.
I will be available to answer your questions about this report and any other topic at the Faculty Senate Meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 6, in LC 100.
As this is my last report of this calendar year, I wish you all a successful completion of your semester responsibilities and a restful winter break with family and friends. Onward!
Sincerely,
Darrell P. Wheeler
President