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About
the Bulletin |
Vol. XLVI, No. 24 |
State of the College 2001
Muriel A. Howard, Ph.D.
Buffalo State College has been a very active place over the past 12 months. We have seen many plans come to fruition and goals accomplished. Other initiatives are still unfolding. In today's remarks, I will touch on topics of importance to the college and will share some information about current activities and developments. I will also talk about some of the challenges that we face. When I cite specific initiatives and accomplishments, please understand that I do so only to offer examples, not to highlight certain programs or individuals at the exclusion of others.
Trends in Higher Education
Across the higher education landscape, we are seeing boards of trustees that have become more aggressive in directing the missions of institutions. Hence, mandates have become more prevalent. This is not surprising. As the world becomes more driven by technology, education becomes an increasingly precious commodity. We have arrived at a moment when access to education is access to American life itself. Gone are the days when a largely unskilled population could sustain their families and provide their children with upward mobility.
Given this, the public is naturally more aware of and more interested in educational "outcomes." We do need to be responsive to the public we serve. External constituents want more control over "the product they are receiving," or what we would call "the qualifications of our graduates." Still, teaching and learning need to be guided by educators, for if we do not exert that leadership, it will come from elsewhere—especially in the current national climate. And I would respectfully disagree that best practices in education are obvious.
There are many who would gladly try to fill a vacuum of leadership. We have seen it happening. The public scrutinizes funding streams and performance and assessment outcomes with great interest. There is enthusiasm to see performance outcomes regularized in ways that are comfortable to those outside the academy. We have begun to hear corporate language used to describe the higher education setting: Students become clients, products, or end users; classrooms become service settings.
In the State University of New York System
We recently received another valuable indication of where we are going in SUNY when Chancellor King delivered his State of the University Address, and described his vision for the State University largely in fiscal terms. Beyond the ledger sheet, however, he signaled a systematic upgrading of SUNY, to be fueled by a substantial infusion of funding. Specifically, he has proposed a plan to bring $5 billion in new resources into the system over the next five years, outside of the annual state operating aid. The challenge lies in the source of this funding, which is primarily through private and research dollars.
This could be a watershed moment. Not only will more New Yorkers be attending our ever more prestigious campuses, the chancellor expects to attract increasing numbers of out-of-state and international students as well. Given the fiscal course that our chancellor is charting, it is clear that individual campuses themselves will need to reaffirm their own distinctive missions and unique roles within the larger university.
At the SUNY level, the mission review process resulted in a Memorandum of Understanding for each campus. These were signed this week. The document outlines and determines our mission, our standards for students, our curriculum, and our overall performance. And this is good. It keeps us focused on our mission; it keeps us moving forward.
The work we did in 1997, when we developed our mission statement, core values, and priorities has prepared us well for this new environment. Buffalo State has stayed ahead of the curve. We have been able to remain focused on the education of our students to the point where we are constantly pursuing better ways to teach, to learn, and to serve. Through our upcoming Middle States and NCATE evaluations, we seek to validate our accomplishments and to assess our strengths and weaknesses in order to increase our trajectory towards excellence.
Everything we do, including the way we work with each other, has to point us toward excellence in teaching and learning.
Accomplishments and Challenges at Buffalo State College
Professor Chris Tahk of art conservation won the largest foundation grant ever obtained for the college, a Mellon Foundation grant of $2.4 million.
We have increased scholarships awarded from $287,000 five years ago to $485,000 in this past year—a 69 percent increase. We currently have the largest Honors Program in college history. One hundred twenty-nine students are enrolled in the program, and, through fund-raising, we have been able to increase their stipends to $2,000 per year. There were only 63 students in the program just four years ago. Additionally, Ross B. Kenzie has increased the number of Kenzie Scholarships to six, providing incentives for high-achieving minority students to select Buffalo State.
The assets of the Buffalo State College Foundation have gone from $5.2 million at the end of 1995 to $12.7 million at the end of last year—an increase of more than 240 percent!
Prospects for our future are also looking good. The Buffalo State College Foundation, through its relationship with the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, received its first $1 million private gift this year, and is joining the Burchfield-Penney in a $20 million capital campaign to build a new campus art center. With the support we have received from our legislators, community supporters, and the State University of New York, we obtained $28 million in new state funds for other campus construction and structural rehabilitation projects, the most in our college's history.
We have seen a substantial increase in faculty and staff giving to the college, signaling to the community that we believe in our own mission. At the same time, we have excelled in community collaborations, partnerships, and outreach, from individual faculty and staff projects to signal institutional projects. In so doing, we have enriched the intellectual life of our students and the community as well.
I am delighted to say that we have, at last, arrived at a period of stability in Academic Affairs. To our agenda of community building, we are now able to add the building of our academic reputation.
The provost has streamlined the staffing of the academic affairs area, and has brought the library, technology, and assessment more firmly under its rubric. With our focus on teaching and learning, we have already begun to establish a reputation for the excellent opportunities we provide in undergraduate research, and in selected areas of graduate education. In addition, we are moving forward as a center for the development of new pedagogies on teaching.
The establishment of the Assessment Office, under the leadership of Dr. Rosalyn Lindner, allows for good data collection, employing a centralized process. We now integrate meaningful data results into our planning and assessment of how well we are doing, and we can better respond to the changing needs of our students. Still, we all need to strengthen assessment at the department level, where it truly counts.
Our institution is, of course, nationally accredited. Many of our individual programs are additionally accredited within their fields. In fact, 68 percent can make that claim. Academic Affairs has proposed a goal of 100 percent national accreditation for each academic program. Meeting this challenge would certainly distinguish us within SUNY. No other institution can make that claim. We want to become an undergraduate college of choice, known for the excellence of our academic programs.
To be entirely successful, we must fully embrace technology. While we are making progress, integrating technology into the fabric of campus life is one of our greatest challenges.
Students arrive expecting to be able to pick up a wireless connection to the World Wide Web from within any academic building, and to find the use of technology integrated into their coursework. We must develop greater technological capability, and this will require greater investment in technology, greater understanding of technology, and significant skill development in technology for all of us. In the words of former President Paul Bulger, we must move "onward and upward" into the twenty-first century.
While we want to upgrade the profile of the institution, we must also be mindful that access is a central component of our mission. As an undergraduate institution of choice, we are looking for excellent students, and we are looking for students with promise. Our goal is to strive for an intellectually stimulating environment where gifted students and promising students can become excited about learning, and where excellence in teaching can inspire them to achieve.
The State University has proposed a trajectory of student excellence and growth over the next five years. How should we respond as an institution? Our enrollment this fall was 11,400 students. A five-year plan of growth would place us at 13,000 students in 2006. We need to think about this challenge and its implications carefully. The prospect of such growth suggests many questions that are critical to the success of our mission, and we need to come to terms with them ourselves.
We are making good strides in the area of diversity. In undergraduate education, our numbers are ascending in terms of students of color, where we stand at about 16 percent. Reflecting a national trend, our enrollment now stands at 58 percent women. (By the way, in the historical scheme, that's a downward trend, when you consider that we were at 87 percent women when we first opened our doors in 1871).
Nearly 25 programs developed by faculty, students, and staff have received more than $25,000 in minigrant support for programs related to equity and diversity goals and curriculum development. We have secured nearly $400,000 in external funds to meet the needs of faculty, staff, and students with disabilities.
We have been forging ahead to improve the quality of life for commuter and residential students, through the rehabilitation of residence hall facilities, the upgrading of public gathering and study spaces, and the development of learning communities.
Through the College's Leadership, Education, and Development (LEAD) Center, we provide hundreds of students with opportunities to become leaders through our corporate connections.
By centralizing our Career Development Center, we have been able to arrange meaningful internship experiences for more than 1,000 students. That is nearly 10 percent of our student population, and does not include those involved in student teaching.
We continue to have a successful Division III athletics program, with winning teams and scholar-athletes, under the guidance of full-time coaches who are dedicated to their success both in athletic competition and in the classroom.
We are making good quality investments in our faculty to heighten intellectual opportunities for our students and to heighten their intellectual curiosity. While 16 faculty members retired this past year, we made 36 new tenure-track faculty appointments. Still, our faculty continues to be about 80 percent full time. This remains a challenge. There are 40 full-time faculty positions posted for the fall, with some additional positions pending.
United University Professions and the college worked together on a successful benchmarking study that culminated this year in base-salary increases for 111 faculty members. Similar studies are under way for librarians and professional staff.
We have seen growth in the area of training and professional development, from CyberQuad, to our annual Face-to-Face Faculty and Staff Open House, to the excellent teamwork demonstrated between Human Resource Management and UUP in redesigning the professional performance and evaluation system.
The last five years has been an extremely busy and successful period for capital projects and other physical improvements on campus. The Moot Hall Enrollment Management Center will be completed in June and will be ready for student use in the fall.
Our new bookstore will open in May. The child care center, Moore Complex, and Caudell Hall Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic are completed. The Campus House Faculty Club, Upton Hall Theater, new Student Union dining facility, and new technology building are all under way. The campus footprint will expand with the acquisition of the power plant, laundry, and bakery from the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and the purchase of additional property along Grant Street. We will also acquire nearly five additional acres for the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at the southwest corner of Elmwood Avenue and Rockwell Road.
Our Research Foundation reported more than $30 million in committed funds for fiscal year 1999–2000. This year's funding is even greater. Our Center for Development of Human Services, alone, stands at a remarkable $33 million for this year. The number of people involved in sponsored programs is at an all-time high and has seen an increase of 10 percent each year for the past four years. We continue to lead all SUNY four-year comprehensive institutions in this area.
All of these efforts are a tribute to our faculty, our staff, and the community that supports us. Graduate enrollments, too, continue to grow as our graduate programs build distinctive reputations for applied research. This strategic synergy between our undergraduate and graduate programs is powerful, and we are winning a reputation for being a teaching-research balanced college, with an excellent record of public service. We are building momentum, and if we continue to achieve, and if we are able to meet the new challenges we face, I believe that we will be a model among comprehensive colleges and universities for the future.
Commencement Web Site
Buffalo State's 129th commencement will be held Saturday, May 12 in the Sports Arena. The ceremonies and receptions honor December 2000 graduates and May and August 2001 degree candidates.
Ticket distribution begins Tuesday, April 3. Student information brochures (bachelor's and master's/certificate of advanced study) will be mailed the week of March 19 to the local addresses of those who submitted degree applications by February 16. Please encourage eligible students to apply for their degrees as soon as possible to ensure that they receive the necessary information and are listed in the commemorative program. Degree application and a student information brochure are necessary for students to register for commencement and obtain guest tickets. The Web site includes all instructions, including information for students who apply for their degrees after the deadline.
Faculty and staff are encouraged to visit the site to learn more about volunteer opportunities, academic regalia rental information, and participating in this important Buffalo State community celebration that honors the achievements of our graduates.
It is my pleasure to announce the following sabbatical leaves for 2001–2002: Fall 2001: Irene Brueckle (art conservation), Wanda Davis (educational foundations), Rosemary Lonberger (elementary education and reading), Raul Neira (modern and classical languages), Ronald Smith (communication), Howard Stanger (business), Aimable Twagilimana (English), and Stephen Vermette (earth sciences and science education). Spring 2002: Joseph Barback (mathematics), Mohan Devgun (technology), Gregory Ebert (chemistry), Dan Kushel (art conservation), Shirley Lord (social work), Eliane McKee (modern and classical languages), Gerard Puccio (creative studies), and Gregory Wadsworth (biology).
Computing Services/FAST Development Center Training
Register for classes in one of the following ways:
You must include the following information: full name, username, title, department, campus phone, campus address, and name(s) of course(s) for which you wish to register.
You will receive an e-mail message confirming your registration.
Note: The following class will be held in February:
Enhancing the Classroom Experience with Blackboard
Introduction to Outlook
Introduction to Blackboard
Introduction to Access
Mail Merge Using Word and Access
Introduction to Word
Blackboard Communication Tools
Introduction to Excel
Introduction to PowerPoint
Blackboard Assessment Tools
Intermediate Fireworks
Introduction to Web Page Design
Intermediate Access
Intermediate Dreamweaver
Intermediate Web Page Design
Special SABRE Training
SABRE Certification Training
Spring 2001 Minigrants
Art on Campus
Submitted by Donald Metz, head of administration, Burchfield-Penney Art Center.
Bamboozled: Arabic Scholarship in Pre-Colonial West Africa and the Diaspora and Images from the Holocaust of Enslavement at Elmina and Cape Coast Castles and African World History
Submitted by Musa Abdul Hakim, senior assistant librarian.
African American Student Visual Art Exhibit
Submitted by students Brenda Lee and DiaOmari Bailey, with support from Lucy Andrus, Art Education Department.
New York International African Institute Lecture Series
Submitted by Scott Johnson, assistant professor, criminal justice, and director, African and African American Studies Interdisciplinary Unit.
The Woman Quilter: Honoring Self
Submitted by Amy Reynolds, Counseling Center.
The New Development of the Chinese Economy
Submitted by Jie Zhang, Sociology Department.
Mock Trial Project II
Submitted by Nancy Johnson, Resurgent City Center, and Cheryl John, Native American Student Services.
College Senate Meeting
Program Revision:
New Program:
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