Please share this with colleagues via your own unit's communication channels as you think best. In future, copies of these periodic updates will be posted on the Faculty Senate website as well as sent out the FSEC listserv. Address any questions or comments on the content of this update to Faculty Senate Chair Kristin Stapleton at a Senate meeting or via email at faculty-senate@buffalo.edu.
Senate Committee Chairs are reporting on ongoing business at meetings of the Executive Committee (FSEC). Their annual reports from 2024-2025 are available on the Faculty Senate website. Contact the committee chairs if you are interested in assisting with their work. The Elections Committee is looking for volunteers to help with the process of re-apportioning senators in preparation for next spring’s elections. It will also conduct an election for the position of Senate Secretary later this fall.
The Registrar’s Office is overseeing a change to how class information is listed in the public and student views of the Class Schedule. This change is being made in response to faculty concerns and is supported by the Senate’s Academic Policies and Grading Committee and the Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility. As of fall 2026, the class schedule available to the public (with no UB sign-in required) will only list the campus where the class will be held (North, South, or Downtown) with no instructor information listed. The UB-only (authenticated) student view of the schedule will indicate the building where the class will be held along with instructor information. Students who register for the class will be given the class's room number via HUB. The faculty/staff view of the schedule and the Faculty Center are not impacted by this change.
Chief Information Officer Heath Tuttle informed us that a plan is being formulated to enable faculty (and staff and students) to use their chosen names, including chosen surnames, for university purposes that do not require the use of legal names. UB’s Preferred Chosen Names and Pronouns Policy was revised last spring to accommodate chosen surnames after the Senate passed a resolution calling for its revision. A timeline for the change has not been set yet, but CIO Tuttle told us he would update us as soon as they have one.
The FSEC nominated Professor Charles X. Wang of the School of Management (SOM) to serve a term on the Board of the Faculty-Student Association, the organization that manages Campus Dining and Shops. Another position for a faculty representative to the Board will open soon. Please send nominations or self-nominations to the Senate Chair. For the second position, we would prefer to nominate a colleague in a unit other than the SOM.
The FSEC sent a list of faculty nominees to serve on a Review Committee that will undertake the regular periodic assessment of the performance of Dean Kemper Lewis of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
The Senate is working with several student associations, the Center for Assessment and Teaching Transformation (CATT), and the Office of Academic Integrity to organize a Town Hall or Town Halls on the use of AI in the classroom to occur sometime this fall. The initiative aims to promote dialogue about appropriate use of AI in classrooms and the use of AI detection programs to assess appropriate use. There have been serious disagreements about these issues over the past year or so. Faculty and student dialogues may help narrow any existing gaps in expectations about AI and classroom assignments. If you would like to be involved in this initiative, please contact the Senate Chair. The Department of Comparative Literature is offering a related lecture and workshop called “Teaching Critical AI Literacies” on September 18 and 19. For more info, contact Professor Ewa Ziarek.
UB has four representatives to the SUNY University Faculty Senate (UFS), as well as representatives on UFS committees. Their names are available on the UFS website here (see also the “Committees” tab on that page, although it appears not yet to be updated for the new academic year). The UFS also often issues calls for faculty across the system to join task forces and other SUNY-wide committees. We have created a folder for UFS business in our Senate UBLearns site where we will post information about SUNY-wide committees looking for representatives from UB and other campuses. And I will highlight some of the opportunities in future issues of the Update. SUNY-wide service can be very valuable, in my experience. The cross-SUNY comparison it affords certainly offers new perspectives on how we do things here at UB.
By Spring 2026 UB must achieve compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which means that all materials available in digital form for classes and other university business must be machine-readable. The Senate Library Committee has discussed this issue, and has been informed about the efforts of the Libraries and CATT to help faculty prepare. At our September 16 Senate meeting, Vice Provost Graham Hammill and CATT Director Carol Van Zile-Tamsen will give senators an overview of how they are approaching this challenge and assisting faculty in the compliance effort.
Stand Together for Higher Education (STHE) is a new organization of faculty across the U.S. dedicated to explaining the value of higher education to the American public. Its methods and goals are explained on its website. The Senate officers would be happy to work together with a UB STHE Team if one forms. Please encourage your colleagues to check it out and let us know if there is interest.