Senate eyes mission-review statement
Lack of faculty consultation in preparation of document cited

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

The latest iteration of UB's mission-review statement underwent the scrutiny of the Faculty Senate on Tuesday, with many of those speaking criticizing Provost David Triggle for what they called a lack of faculty consultation in the preparation of the document.

One senator went so far as to suggest that faculty members attach their "dissenting voices" to the document as an appendix.

Faculty members' criticisms came despite the fact that the senate's Academic Planning Committee (APC) had reviewed three versions of the document.

The document, which will be submitted to SUNY central administration within the next few weeks, outlines the direction the university will take as it heads into the 21st century. It proposes UB make major investments in four major scientific areas: Molecular, biological and biomedical sciences; computer science and information technology; materials science, and the environment and infrastructure.

Although Triggle was out of town and did not attend the senate meeting, President William R. Greiner called the provost's document a "conceptual and forward-thinking overview" of the future of the institution. Although based on former Provost Thomas E. Headrick's academic planning document-in fact, Headrick prepared two earlier versions of the document-Greiner said the Triggle version tried to "focus on the main institutional issues" and not "fall into the trap of selecting out every area of the university for comment."

Much of the quantitative data that were in the main body of Headrick's text will be included in the document's appendices, he added.

While the document focuses on the so-called "big sciences" and does not address research in the social sciences and the humanities, it "assumes we will go on and continue to do research in those areas," he said.

Claude Welch, Jr., SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of the Academic Planning Committee, told senators that his committee has reviewed three versions of the mission statement-including the one before the senate-and forwarded extensive comments to Triggle.

In reviewing Triggle's document, members of the APC had noted that large parts of the College of Arts and Sciences were "conspicuously absent" from the mission-review statement, Welch told senators, particularly programs in the second quartile of the National Research Council rankings "in which modest personnel investments might both enhance academic quality and boost enrollments."

Welch pointed out some gaps between Triggle's document and the 37 questions posed by system administration that were to be addressed in campuses' mission-review statements, including a lack of clear performance indicators, limited attention to UB's general education program for undergraduates and detailed discussion of links between UB and other SUNY units.

But despite the APC's review of several versions of the document as outlined by Welch, some senators said they did not feel that faculty had been adequately consulted during the preparation of the mission statement.

Samuel Schack, professor of mathematics, stressed that central administration's instructions to the campuses on the mission-review process "required (the campuses conduct) extensive discussions with the facultyŠThere has been, I would say, not even adequate discussion, much less extensive discussion (at UB)."

Schack said he would not find the lack of consultation as "troublesome" if Triggle's statement had been just a "reiteration" of earlier versions of the statement prepared by Headrick when he was provost.

"But, in fact, in my reading of it, it commits us to major directions and major ideas that have not been subject to any faculty scrutiny," he said.

For example, he wondered, how did Triggle determine that UB should invest in those four areas of science. "Where do these come from?" Schack asked. "How can an entire institution be asked to make a commitment to those areasŠif they haven't been subjected to serious faculty analysis?"

He also questioned assertions that Triggle made in the document regarding the impact of distance-learning technologies on teaching methods-which the provost had written would displace the "traditional Mr. Chipsian mode of instruction"-and what Schack called "grandiose" statements regarding the uniqueness of the Access '99 student-access-to-computing initiative.

"In sum, the genuine problem here is that we should not be sending even a draft in this form to Albany," Schack said, proposing that the senate itself inform central administration, if the UB administration chooses not to do so, "that more faculty consultation is essential before we can commit to the directions outlined in this mission review."

John Boot, professor and chair of the Department of Management Science and Systems, agreed with Schack's complaint about a lack of faculty consultation. "It shouldn't have been a one-man show," Boot said.

Jeannette Ludwig, associate professor of modern languages and literatures, questioned the true "importance" of the document. "I wonder the extent to which our feet are going to be held to the fire if the faculty has not discussed the document," she said, recalling that the faculty got to "kick around" Headrick's planning document quite a bit "before we got sort of wrestled to the floor."

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, proposed the senate devote an entire meeting to discussion of the document "if we feel we haven't discussed this adequately; we all feel this is a critical issue." The meeting would be held with the understanding that discussion generated would be the faculty's contribution to the document.

Max Wickert, associate professor of English, said he found particularly troublesome the second paragraph of Triggle's cover letter accompanying the document that states that the document must be written "by one person and not by a committee of the whole."

"The implication of that paragraph is that the document is essentially written by one person, and that will be the voice of the university," Wickert said, adding that that one voice will suppress other, dissenting voices.

He suggested that faculty attach its response to the document as an appendix, thus making the statement "what it in fact is, an administrative report, not a faculty report." Attaching faculty comments to the document as a formal appendix will make the comments "a matter of record," he said.

Greiner called Wickert's suggestion a good idea, and urged senators to also submit their comments on the report to Triggle in writing.