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.
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) will meet on November 11 to discuss various matters our Senate committees are working on, including AI and pedagogy, the subject of a very interesting October 28 panel discussion we co-sponsored with student associations on campus. It will also set the agenda for our November 18 Senate meeting, when we expect to continue our conversation on qualities we would like to see emphasized during the search for President Tripathi’s successor. We will also consider endorsing resolutions passed at the Fall Plenary of the SUNY University Faculty Senate.
The membership of the UB Presidential Search Committee, including our seven faculty representatives, should be announced soon via the Search website. We will invite members of the Search Committee to our November 18 Senate meeting, if their identities have been revealed by then.
The election for the new Secretary of the Faculty Senate, with a two-year term beginning July 1, 2026, has been launched. You should have received an email on November 4 asking you to vote by November 18. Thanks very much to our two candidates for agreeing to serve.
SUNY University Faculty Senate President Bruce Simon, who sits as a non-voting member on the SUNY Board of Trustees, has been very vocal about challenges facing our SUNY system. One of his recent statements addresses the arrests of two members of the staff at Upstate Medical University. He adds links to other recent statements to any new ones, so you can find all of them at this link to his statement on the Upstate arrests: This is a war on the American Dream
The SUNY Board of Trustees holds public meetings twice a year. Anyone can get on the schedule to speak about something SUNY-related of concern to them. I’ve attended one of these Zoom meetings—the Chair of the Board was there listening to speaker after speaker, including some UB colleagues. From the SUNY notice: “Persons wishing to present prepared testimony to the Board of Trustees are requested to send a brief description of the subject of their proposed testimony by no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 28, 2025, to the Board of Trustees at trustees@suny.edu or via mail at H. Carl McCall SUNY Building, ST-6, Albany, New York 12246. Please address your letter to Jennifer Mero, Secretary to the Board of Trustees, and provide her with a telephone number and address at which you can be reached so she can confirm that you have a reserved place on the agenda. Testimony will be limited to three minutes, and speakers are requested to provide an electronic copy of their written testimony prior to the day of the hearing to trustees@suny.edu.”
The Libraries have invited two speakers from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to campus. They will address “Evolving Federal Policy on AI, Open Access, and Accessibility,” and highlight how research libraries—through organizations like ARL—are advocating for policies that empower the academic community to create and access knowledge freely and equitably. The talk is from 9 -10 am on Monday, November 17, in Capen 107 and via Zoom. Register at this link.
The week of October 27 was designated Campus Equity Week by the UUP. As part of the event, the feature film Adjunct was screened, and its director and star, Ron Najor took part in a Zoom discussion. The Libraries have licensed the film and made it available for the next year via Kanopy. If you’ve never used Kanopy, find a link to it on the library website and create a free account. You can then search for the film by title and stream it via the link. I think you will find it thought provoking. Surely no UB’s department chair is as cringe-worthy as the one in film? I hope not.
The October 30 Arts in the Open celebration at the Center for the Arts was as lively and inspiring as it always is. The managers of the costume shop that outfits our thespians and dancers mentioned to me they would welcome donations of used bicycle helmets, which they use to construct the base for elaborate headgear (example: a gruesome Caliban head). I imagine many of you have some old helmets hanging about. If you dropped them off at the CFA office, I am sure they would make their way quickly to the costume shop.