Address any questions or comments on the content of this update to the Faculty Senate Chair at a Senate meeting or via email at faculty-senate@buffalo.edu. Suggestions of items to include in future Updates are welcome.
Save the date: “AI at UB Community Conversation” on Tuesday, October 28, from 11 – 12:30, at the Center for Tomorrow. The Faculty Senate is collaborating with several student associations and academic offices to organize this event, which aims to help students and instructors achieve greater mutual understanding of how AI is used and possibly abused in classroom settings and to discuss what might be done to prevent confusion over issues of AI use. Professor Jay Barber of the English Department, a member of the Senate’s Teaching & Learning Committee, represents the Senate on the planning committee.
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee is working to select the seven faculty representatives to the UB Presidential Search Committee. All full-time faculty may nominate themselves (or be nominated) via this nomination link. Please help us fill these important positions by participating in the nomination process. The deadline for nominations is Monday, October 13, at 5 pm. We will have a discussion of the qualities that the faculty would like to see in a new UB president at our next Senate meeting at 3 pm on October 21. All are welcome to attend the Senate meeting, either in person in Capen 10 or via Zoom. Request the Zoom link by sending an email to faculty-senate@buffalo.edu.
In early November we will launch an election for Secretary of the Faculty Senate. The highly capable incumbent, Professor Turquessa Francis of Occupational Therapy, has indicated that she does not plan to seek reelection to another two-year term. If you are interested in serving as Secretary beginning in July 2026 you are welcome to reach out to her and/or to me to learn about the position. It comes with a modest stipend and gratitude from colleagues. The position of Senate Chair will be up for election next fall, and I encourage colleagues to start thinking about running to replace me (even if I decide to seek a second term).
The Provost reported at our October 7 FSEC meeting that he has been appointed to co-chair a SUNY committee that will investigate issues surrounding a possible shift in research funding opportunities and greater reliance on funding from industry and other non-governmental sources. He said that he would be interested in consulting with the Senate’s Tenure, Promotions, and Privileges Committee on the relationship between shifting patterns of research funding and standards for tenure and promotion, since federal grants have long had a prominent place in T&P cases in some disciplines. The Pharmacy School’s Professor Rob Bies, Chair of the TPP Committee, indicated that he would bring the matter up with the committee.
The SUNY UFS Fall Plenary takes place October 9-11 in Syracuse at the SUNY College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry. UB will be represented by its four senators and two campus governance leaders (myself and the chair of the Professional Staff Senate, Jackie Bodack). The October 21 Senate meeting will likely include a report from our SUNY senators.
Reflections by a historian on the recent past: As we head into fall break, I thought I would recall to mind how the Senate came to recommend the calendar change that gave us our first fall break last year. The proposed change was initiated by student leaders and subsequently supported by the Senate’s Academic Policies and Grading Committee. The chair of that committee at the time, Professor Joanne McLaughlin of Economics, worked tirelessly with Kara Saunders, the Registrar, to craft the calendar change proposal that was eventually passed and promulgated by the President. It did face some opposition—departments that run weekly labs, in particular, feared that the loss of another Monday class date would have a detrimental effect on their work. I hope the change has not been too disruptive in that respect. Ultimately, a majority of senators chose to respect the students’ request for a restorative break. We also chose to honor Indigenous People’s Day, which I encourage everyone to do on Monday.