February 2, 1995: Vol26n15: Bartlett speaks to faculty, staff via Satellite network

By CHRISTINE VIDAL
Reporter Editor
State University of New York faculty and staff had their first
opportunity last week to "meet" Chancellor Thomas Bartlett via
telecast and to hear his views on, among other things, Gov. George
Pataki's order to cut SUNY's budget.
	The chancellor addressed the winter meeting of the SUNYwide
Faculty Senate, held Jan. 27 at the College at Oneonta and carried
live to state university campuses throughout the state on the SUNY
Satellite network.
	"What I would like to have done was to visit campuses, get
acquainted with you, develop personal contacts....That was my plan,
except something came along in November...and turned that on its
side," said Bartlett.
	While most of the chancellor's comments focused on distance
learning and the role of technology in education, it also provided him
with an opportunity to discuss orders by Gov. Pataki that SUNY is to
cut $25 million from its budget by June 30.
	He alluded to a "sense of impending doom about what is going
to happen Feb. 1," while at the same time pledging to answer with "the
best response we can for the people of New York."
	"One constantly gets a sense of foreboding and ominous portent
about what is going to happen in the budget," said Bartlett. And so
far, the news has not been favorable to SUNY.
	"During this fiscal year in some way about $25 million is
going to be pulled back to the state from our present budget,"
Bartlett said.
	SUNY already has sustained a pattern of regular fiscal cuts,
he noted. Since 1975-76, SUNY's work force has decreased by 5,120
positions, or 18 percent, said Bartlett, who called the long-term
trend "significant." Likewise, there has been a pattern of
institutions shifting costs toward entrepreneurship and new ways of
supporting themselves and of shifting costs to students.
	So, "what we are about to encounter is best seen as a change
in rate rather than a change in direction," Bartlett said.
	Despite what appears to be coming in the budget, it is
critical that SUNY keep a sense of growth and momentum, the chancellor
said. "For 40 years, we've been conditioned to think of growth as
success and not growing as stagnation or failure. That change has to
be part of our response," Bartlett said.
	Bartlett also discussed educational technology, the intended
topic of the teleconference, "until other events started rolling over
us."
	Acknowledging that he originally was a "skeptic" about the
necessity of adding "higher tech" to higher education, Bartlett said,
"I now am a convert."
	"If we do not use the tools and incorporate them, someone else
will. We'll go right on making buggy whips while others pass us....We
have no choice but to make the race."
	The core issue in adapting to educational technology will not
be hardware, the chancellor said, but "human software," the ability of
faculty and staff to use the new technology.
	"The real constraint will be whether we use the hardware that
will be available to us," he said.
	The technology challenge is not going to go away, Bartlett
said. Higher education cannot deal with the problem of adopting the
new technology by pretending that everything is in place. The
environment must be sustainable.
ikewise, he indicated that technology
	is something that needs to be available to all campuses within
the SUNY system. "I do not see technology and the use of technology as
something that some campuses will have and some campuses will not,"
although he added that how technological resources will be divided up
has yet to be determined.
	Bartlett also fielded questions from his Oneonta and
teleconference audiences on topics that included student apathy, the
role of managed care on a Health Science campus, how to reward faculty
for innovative use of technology in the classroom, especially as part
of the tenure process, and his views on a tuition increase and
differential tuition.