Under this plan, responsibility for offering engineering and management courses currently handled by MFC would move to the schools of Engineering and Management, Provost Thomas E. Headrick told members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at their Oct. 7 meeting.

Both Headrick and President William R. Greiner stressed that the move would not mean "doing away with Millard Fillmore College."

MFC traditionally has operated the evening and summer sessions of UB, offering courses, certificate programs and degree programs for working adults and other nontraditional students. Many "day" students who have part-time jobs also take MFC courses because the times the courses are offered are more convenient for their schedules.

But Headrick noted that enrollment in MFC has been falling at a "precipitous rate," with the college losing 8 percent of its headcount between the fall 1997 and '98 semesters. MFC "seems to have surrendered a good chunk of the adult-education market" to other local institutions, he said, adding that that might account for the decline in enrollment.

The college, he said, has had a difficult time positioning itself and determining what its role should be.

Earlier in the meeting Headrick had told FSEC members that as part of the academic planning process under way in the individual units, some deans have asked that the summer session be integrated into the units' overall academic offerings, turning UB into a "12-month campus."

Part of becoming a 12-month campus might include having the university operate as an "all-day, all-evening campus," with the units offering classes from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., "when students want them, and not segregating out one section of the day from the other," Headrick said.

Moving MFC into the College of Arts and Sciences, where the bulk of MFC's instruction lies, would leave to the engineering and management schools responsibility for mounting programs "on an all-day basis."

This, in turn, would free up MFC to "develop better outreach to people who want part-time education, leading to degrees particularly in the arts and sciences," as well as expanding distance-learning opportunities.

UB "still needs an entity that looks afterŠthe nontraditional student," Greiner stressed. "We have to deliver a program in a way that is very user-friendlyŠthat's where we're getting beaten at the switch."

Robert Baier, professor of oral diagnostic sciences, told Greiner and Headrick he thought it would be a mistake to pair MFC with the arts and sciences. It should, instead, be "allowed to pursue continuing educationŠmore vigorously," he said.

It has been his experience, he said, that the schools of Management and Engineering have been so busy attending to their existing needs and charges that MFC has become a "fall-back operation" for entrepreneurial efforts to aid local economic development. He cited as an example a proposal to create a program in food engineering.

"We're shooting ourselves in the foot by eliminating Millard Fillmore College from this (entrepreneurial effort)," he said.

Greiner replied that the university must offer certificate programs and entrepreneurial programs-that's one of the reasons for creating the UB Business Alliance-but "the problem with what we have now is that you expect Millard Fillmore to do all of this but you can't" because the college is "so tied in with producing traditional degrees and supporting traditional programs in the arts and sciences.

"We can't have it both ways."

It would be better, he said, to move the "extension" mission of MFC to a unit-such as the UB Business Alliance-that is better able to handle entrepreneurial programs and does not offer a traditional degree program

Millard Fillmore College "offers the traditional University at Buffalo degree for a whole lot of units." Given the enrollment in the arts and sciences, "we can't just give up that aspect of Millard Fillmore," Greiner said.

"We've got to separate the two missions (of MFC); we think this might facilitate that."

Don Schack, professor of mathematics, noted that "it seems sort of unnatural" to require individual schools to operate their own evening classes but to expect MFC to do so for the arts and sciences.

Schack also questioned why the unit with responsibility for distance learning would reside in the College of Arts and Sciences, when, he said, the arts-and-sciences disciplines have been at the back of the pack in terms of interest in distance learning on campus.

"It seems important for the university to have a segment that can look to the nontraditional student, that can look to the nontraditional programs and develop nontraditional modalities," he said. "It doesn't strike me as a natural thing to put that inside the arts and sciences."

Headrick agreed that the arts-and-sciences disciplines have not been as aggressive as other units-notably engineering and nursing-in pursuing distance-learning opportunities. But locating MFC within the College of Arts and Sciences could help "jump-start" such efforts, he said.

Herb Schuel, professor of anatomical sciences, suggested UB address the enrollment deficit in MFC by "advertising the program much more effectively" than it has in the past.

"We have the physical plant, the resources, the libraries and faculty that are light years away from any of our competitors (in the continuing-education market)," he said. "We should take advantage of it."

Greiner agreed, noting the university probably has erred in emphasizing "Millard Fillmore College" in its advertising, rather than "UB."