Faculty Senate BulletinThe State University of New YorkUniversity Faculty SenateState University Plaza, Room S120Albany, New York 12246518.320.1376 >> 800.547.1548www.suny.edu/facultysenate

EditorsNorman Goodman, EditorStony Brook University

Joe Hildreth, Arts EditorSUNY Potsdam

Faculty Senate AssistantCarol Donato, Assistant Arts Editor

Editorial Board

(Executive Committee)

Peter L. KnuepferBinghamton UniversityPresident

Gwen KaySUNY OswegoVice President/Secretary

Edward FeldmanStony Brook UniversityImmediate PastVice President/Secretary

Kenneth P. O’BrienThe College at BrockportImmediate Past President

Walter LittleUniversity at Albany

Keith LandaPurchase College

Rebecca MarinoffSUNY College of OptometryHealth Science Centers

Charles MoranSUNY Cobleskill

Peer BodeNYS College of Ceramics,Alfred UniversitySpecial and Statutory Colleges

Peter KnuepferPresident

University Faculty Senate

As we close in (already) on theend of the fall semester, I take thisopportunity to update you onhappenings across SUNY and theactivities of the University FacultySenate.

We have entered the academicyear with a host of opportunitiesand challenges, among them thesearch for a new Chancellor,leadership upheaval on campuses(SUNY Poly and ESF), and now theuncertainty around the election of anew President whose rhetoric hasbeen divisive and whose policyinitiatives regarding highereducation are unclear.

So it is a time of change—for thecountry, for higher education, forSUNY. Let’s look more at some ofthose changes. Our studentdemographics are changing: morediversity, more “non-traditional”students who are older, part-time.As the number of high schoolgraduates in upstate New York andmany surrounding states declines,

more of our campuses are expandingtheir recruitment efforts beyondtheir regional base, usually with theresult of increasing the diversity ofthe student body. Importantly, ourfaculty diversity isn’t changing at thesame pace, and many of our smallercommunities are uncertain how toembrace these diverse students (andvice versa). Our teachingmethodologies and approachescontinue to change, sometimes inresponse to changing expectationsof our students, sometimes inrecognition of improvements thatwe can achieve in the classroomand/or virtual environments. Andnow our institutions are consideringmicro-credential, badges, stacking ofcredentials, and even initial foraysinto competency-based education.

Other challenges await. Onepossible fallout from the scandalthat has brought down theleadership of SUNY Poly is increasedState oversight of how SUNY doesbusiness. Perhaps this isn’t all bad,especially if it results in increasedtransparency of the operations ofour campus foundations, and if itresults in a refocus of SUNY onto itscore academic mission.

A group of initiatives, both withinSUNY and from without, have thepotential to change (threaten, even)how we do business—the campusdecisions on applied learning, theSUNY push for more online degreesand micro- and stackablecredentials. It is not too apocryphalto assert that faculty control ofcurriculum could too easily be at

risk. We need to assert and maintaincontrol, just as we did when facedwith an effort by the State tomandate experiential education ofall students—a decision we, asfaculty, need to control. Thus the UFSpassed a pair of resolutions at ourFall Plenary meeting assertingfaculty control over applied learningand future decisions on micro-credentials, competency-basededucation, other possible changes toour curricula. Yet we can’t simplyhide within our traditions; instead,we need to strike a balance bywillingness to adapt appropriately tointernal and external demands andopportunities, while maintaining ouressential role.

This was not a good year forsupport of SUNY in the State budget.Prospects for the upcoming year

Continued on page 2

P R E S I D E N T ’ S C O R N E R

I N T H I S I S S U E

FA L L 2 0 1 6 /W I N T E R 2 0 1 7

> From the Chancellor: State BudgetSummary & Next Steps 3

> Provost and ExecutiveVice Chancellor 4

> From the Vice Chancellor for Financial Services and CFO 5

> Senior Vice Chancellor for CommunityColleges and Education Pipeline 6

> From the President of the Student Assembly 8

> From the Editor’s Desk: President-elect Trump and Public Higher Education 9

> Spotlight 11

> Speak Out! 14

> The Diversity Column 17

> Celebrating NYS and New Yorkers 19

> The Poet’s Corner 22

aren’t particularly bright either,especially given that State taxreceipts in the current fiscal year arelagging well behind expectations(though that could change with theChristmas bonuses from Wall Street).With that in mind, and given aconflict between the Governor andLegislature over tuition versus Statedollars, as well as a set of new unioncontracts in the not-too-distantfuture, we need to focus on advocacywith our supporters (and detractors)in the Legislature to seek furthersupport for SUNY. Some of ourcampuses teeter on the brink offinancial solvency, and none of thecampuses can absorb increased costsmuch longer unless there isincreased revenue. Students andfamilies have absorbed 5 years oftuition increases with no significantinvestment of State funding tosupport basic operations of thecampuses. This has shifted the costof higher education support in SUNYfrom the State to the individual; inessence, it is a statement by theState that public higher education isno longer considered a public good,but is principally a private goodwhich should be paid for by theindividual. This is a fundamentalshift away from the responsibilitythat taxpayers assumed wheninvesting in the development ofSUNY. It is time to redress this shift.

I urge you, therefore, to getinvolved as advocates for SUNY.Remember that ALL POLITICS ISLOCAL, so if you know a legislator(even if you don’t), talk to them inthe district. Emphasize the positionthat the UFS adopted a couple ofyears ago: that the State needs tomeet its obligation to fundmandatory increases in operatingcosts for SUNY, that tuition increasesshould occur only to provideadditional services to students (suchas more faculty, student support)

rather than replacing State dollars,and that the State should assumefunding the “TAP gap”—thedifference between maximum TAPawards and current SUNY tuition(note that, in effect, 25% of thetuition increases paid by otherstudents have gone to paying theTAP gap).

Freedom of expression/academicfreedom continues to come underattack in higher education, includingpressures against a faculty member atSUNY Plattsburgh. CUNY is workingon a policy in response to issues thatoccurred there last year, and the CUNYFaculty Senate endorsed theUniversity of Chicago statement onfreedom of expression. A UFS group isworking on a stand for us to considerat the Winter Plenary.

We have a host of other UFSinitiatives for the year, which aresummarized in the reports of ourcommittees that are part of the FallPlenary report currently posted onthe UFS website. I bring yourattention in particular to an effort toseek non-voting positions forgovernance leaders on local collegecouncils, analogous to our positionon the SUNY Board of Trustees.

I also want to bring to yourattention a number of upcomingevents sponsored in part by the UFS.On March 7, SUNY Empire State willbe hosting a graduate researchsymposium in Saratoga that willbring graduate students from acrossthe System together to share resultsof their scholarship. A select groupwill travel to the Legislative OfficeBuilding in Albany to share theresults of their research withlegislators and staff, illustrating thebenefits of the support that theState supplies to SUNY. This is anoutgrowth of events that we havehosted for several years at the LOB,with poster presentations designedto showcase student research. Thevery limited attendance bylegislators or staff, coupled with thelogistical challenges of arranging an

event at the LOB, convinced us to trysomething different, an approachthat we believe will benefit ourstudents more while at the sametime allowing for advocacy withState legislators.

For the last 2 years, there hasbeen a SUNY-wide undergraduateresearch conference (SURC), hostedin 2015 by SUNY Brockport and in2016 by SUNY Cobleskill. Next springthere will be two SURCgatherings—SURC East at SuffolkCounty Community College on April21, 2017, and SURC West at SUNYFredonia on April 22, 2017. Theintention of this pairing is to make itgeographically easier for students toattend; the conferences are notintended to be restricted tocommunity college or four-yearcolleges at the respective sites.

The third SUNY Voices SharedGovernance conference will be heldApril 27-28 in Suffern, NY, on thetopic of shared governance duringtimes of leadership change. Moredetails and a call for papers areposted on the SUNY Voices website.

SUNY has signed a contract toundertake the COACHE survey inJanuary/February of 2017. This is asurvey, overseen by the COACHEgroup at Harvard, that assesses theroles, responsibilities, and success offaculty. This is an importantopportunity for campuses to learnwhat concerns the faculty, andultimately to do something about it.Thus it is very important that facultyrespond to the survey (even thoughit’s lengthy). SUNY will be workingwith the COACHE group to provideanalysis and recommendations tocampuses to improve faculty successand satisfaction.

As you will see from theChancellor’s report, the TeachNYinitiative is her principal focus for this,her final year at SUNY. Accordingly,we discussed opportunities toimprove teacher education as aprimary the focus of the Fall Plenarymeeting in Cortland. I am part of a

steering committee that is reviewingthe recommendations of the TeachNYCouncil (on which I also served) forpolicy recommendations to submit tothe Board of Trustees. It is importantto recognize that this initiative moveswell beyond the schools of education,but calls upon the entire academiccommunity (especially the “content”departments) to engage in theeducation of future teachers. TeachNYis also about elevating respect for theteaching profession, and enablingcloser interactions between the K-12sector and higher education.

The search for the next Chancellorof the State University of New York iswell underway. I serve on the searchcommittee in my dual role asPresident of the UFS and a member ofthe SUNY Board of Trustees; NinaTamrowski, the President of theFaculty Council of CommunityColleges, is the only other facultymember on the search committee.We are especially eager to ensure thatthe next Chancellor has extensivehigher education experience,preferably as a college president or ina senior position in another system ofpublic higher education. The searchcommittee hopes to have arecommendation ready forconsideration by the Board of Trusteessometime in the spring semester.

Some of what we do at theUniversity Faculty Senate wouldseem to have little direct impact onyour campus. But in fact our effortson behalf of the faculty across SUNYare important—whether it be toengage in the political conversationson your behalf, to bring to yourattention issues in higher educationthat impact us at SUNY, or to offerguidance to campus governanceleaders. But most especially, weserve the interests of the faculty, toensure that the faculty voice is heardin decision-making at the Systemlevel. I encourage you to getinvolved in governance on yourcampus and to consider joining oneof our committees in the future ifyou are not already involved.

Presidents Message…Continued from page 1

P R E S I D E N T ’ S C O R N E R

2

Nancy L. ZimpherChancellor

The State University of New York

At SUNY, we’ve become fond ofsaying that teaching teachers is in ourinstitutional DNA.

When SUNY was founded in 1948,eleven of the original colleges in thesystem were teachers colleges, many ofwhich had histories that stretched backmore than a century. Today SUNYprepares a quarter of the state’s teacherworkforce and, remarkably, about 10percent of the nation’s. Sixteen SUNYcampuses have undergraduate and/orgraduate programs leading to NewYork State certification for teachers andschool leaders, and all 64 SUNYcampuses contribute to thedevelopment of teaching andeducation in New York State.

New York is home to some of thebest K-12 schools in the country, andwhile this is a point of pride and abenefit to select students, it is notenough. Mountains of literature tell usthat excellent teaching is categoricallythe number one in-school factor thatcontributes to student success.Knowing this, it is incumbent uponus—we who teach the teachers whocome to the campuses and programsin our system, ready to learn or not—to ensure that every student, fromcradle to career, has access to excellentteaching. This is an economic as well asmoral imperative. An educatedcitizenry is a more engagedcitizenry—a healthier, wealthierpopulace full of people who are lesslikely to need to rely on publicassistance, who have choices andoptions, who can support families,

start businesses, take entrepreneurialrisks, and work toward solving theworld’s most serious challenges.

Through the TeachNY initiative, overthe last two years SUNY has taken upthe monumental challenge oftransforming teacher preparation inNew York State because it is necessarythat we do so. TeachNY is acollaborative, multi-phased effortsupported by a multi-million-dollarRace to the Top grant awarded toSUNY in 2012 by the New York StateEducation Department to advance thepartnership between the twoinstitutions. The expectation is thatSUNY’s TeachNY policy framework willserve as a model for the state and thecountry.

TeachNY is being carried out inthree phases. The first was acomprehensive report of findings andrecommendations researched anddrafted by the TeachNY AdvisoryCouncil, released in May 2016. Thesecond phase is marked by fullengagement of the vast SUNYsystem—campus and systemleadership, governance, faculty,students—and its partners intranslating the recommendations intoproposed policy for action by the SUNYBoard of Trustees. The third phase willbe policy implementation (withtargeted, strategic investment) andevaluation.

At the time of this writing we areapproaching the end of Phase II ofTeachNY. Since May, SED CommissionerMaryEllen Elia and I have traveled thestate to attend more than twentyevents—workshops, speak outs,listening sessions with SUNYpresidents and faculty governance andleadership—through which we’vegathered the most incisive input andinformation with which we can draftand implement practical policy thatwill put great teachers within reach ofevery student in New York State, nomatter what zip code he or she lives in.

We invite you to learn more andcontinually track this all-importantwork at http://www.suny.edu/teachny/.

Alexander N. CartwrightProvost and

Executive Vice Chancellor

When I last had the opportunityto address the University FacultySenate in October, I shared with thegroup our interest in holding a seriesof meetings between SystemAdministration and each campus toreview individual PerformanceImprovement Plans in the broadercontext of the needs and goals ofnearby SUNY campuses and SUNY asa whole. These plans, which detailcampus goals in the SUNY Excelsareas of access, completion, success,inquiry and engagement, provide animportant foundation for our workmoving forward.

The process for meeting withcampuses has been finalized—thanks to thoughtful input from ourpresidents, chief academic officersand university-wide governanceleaders—and the engagementprocess has now begun. We haveintentionally designed thesemeetings to foster targeted andcandid conversations. As of thiswriting, we have had 16 meetings todate, each under the theme ofEducational Effectiveness andStrategic Enrollment (EESE). WhyEESE, you ask? The ultimate goal ofthis process is to create a System-wide Performance ImprovementPlan that will support not onlyindividual campus goals but alsoleverage our Systemness to betteraddress broad challenges and meetstate needs.

We have developed a broaddefinition of EESE for this purpose:“Ensuring that we deliver theeducational programs that respondto the educational needs of the stateand nation and the educationalgoals of every student.” We want toensure, that as a System, we:

• Make determinations aboutwhere and how to grow enrollmentin a purposeful way;

• Identify how best to meet theacademic needs of the studentsarriving on our doorstep;

• Ensure that our increasinglydiverse student body feels welcome,respected and supported;

• Strengthen completionprograms and the infrastructuresthat support them; and

• Eliminate gaps in completionacross student groups.

These are all areas that eachcampus addressed in their initialplans; however, in many cases, therewas also a clear indication that dueto a rapidly changing landscapethere were challenges to overcomein meeting goals. After readingthrough all of the plans, our sense isthat we would be better able toaddress the many changes highereducation faces–in New York andnationally—by working together.

System Chief Financial OfficerEileen McLoughlin and I have beenleading these meetings on behalf ofChancellor Zimpher, with a smallgroup of our staff listening in toanswer questions as needed. Fromthe campuses, we have intentionallyasked that they keep the number ofattendees small but do ask that theirlocal governance leader is included.Our motivation in limiting attendeeswas really the time constraints oftrying to meet with all campusesover a twelve-week time period (ourinitial goal was six-weeks, and thenwe started the schedulingprocess…). The meetings are two-hours long and take place either on a

F R OM T H E C H A N C E L LO R F R OM T H E P R O V O S T A N D E X E C U T I V E V I C E C H A N C E L LO R

3

SUNY campus or at SUNY SystemAdministration in Albany.

As we envisioned, there arecommon themes have emerged thatreally underscore the importance ofthis process. Not only issues wherecampuses can help one another, butalso where System Administrationcan enhance its support:

• Re-establishing theenrollment/resource connection;

• Creating and/or modifyingplans/policies/resource strategiesthat eliminate barriers to strongerperformance;

• Eliminating the perceptionsand reality of unwarranted internalenrollment competition;

• Leveraging our connectednessto better meet the needs ofapplicants on a regional and System-wide basis; and

• Facilitating conversationsabout mission creep/distinctiveness.

Also part of these conversations isdiscussion about the SUNYPerformance Improvement Fund.We are encouraging campuses tosubmit competitive proposals forfinancial support that will help themachieve their goals.

This is a complex process and weare intentionally moving prettyquickly. When we have had theopportunity to meet with all

campuses and review all of theinformation, we anticipate that wewill be reaching back out tocampuses to discuss regionalopportunities and challenges.

In the end, as a result of theseconversations, I believe we will havea System-wide PerformanceImprovement Plan for SUNY thatallows us to serve more New Yorkerbetter. Other key outcomes we areworking to achieve include:

• Addressing the diverse needsof today’s students;

• Achieving higher levels ofquality, improving the reputation ofindividual campuses and theSystem;

• Reducing competition betweenour own campuses but positionthem to compete more effectivelywith non-SUNY Institutions;

• Addressing revenuechallenges; and

• Positioning SUNY in thestrongest possible light for State andFederal support.

As the System plan begins to takeshape, we will definitely keep youup-to-date. I encourage you to sendany thoughts or suggestions youmay have related to the issuesoutlined here to your local campusgovernance leader.

Eileen McLoughlinVice Chancellor

Financial Services and Financial Officer

Greetings, As many of you know budget

season is in full swing. For the FallFaculty Senate Plenary Meeting, Isummarized SUNY’s operating andcapital budget request that was sentto the Governor’s office. After a seriesof State of the State addresses, inwhich the Governor visited and spokeat several SUNY campuses throughoutthe State, the Executive budget wasreleased on January 17th.

The Executive Budget is one of thefirst steps in the budget process and

provides a starting point forimprovements and adjustments.SUNY will continue to advocate forour requested budget.

The most notable item in theExecutive Budget is the ExcelsiorScholarship. The Governor isproposing that full-time, resident,undergraduate students (taking 15credits a semester), having ahousehold income of less than$125,000, be eligible to receive freecollege tuition from any SUNY orCUNY institution. As a highereducation institution, collegeaffordability has always been theforefront topic, but now it is animportant topic for governmentofficials. Placing a spotlight oncollege affordability is a reflection ofour advocacy for SUNY’s Completionagenda and recognition of the 21stcentury job market.

Below is a summary of SUNY’sbudget request, the ExecutiveBudget and its impact on SUNY.

Executive Budget Summary -Presented at Faculty SenateWinter Plenary

F R OM T H E P R O V O S T A N D E X E C U T I V E V I C E C H A N C E L LO R

4

F R OM T H E V I C E C H A N C E L LO R F O R F I N A N C I A L S E R V I C E SA N D C H I E F F I N A N C I A L O F F I C E R

F R OM T H E V I C E C H A N C E L LO R F O R F I N A N C I A L S E R V I C E S A N D C H I E F F I N A N C I A L O F F I C E R

Continued on page 6

5

F R OM T H E V I C E C H A N C E L LO R F O R F I N A N C I A L S E R V I C E S A N D C H I E F F I N A N C I A L O F F I C E R

6

Continued from page 5

V I C E C H A N C E L LO R F O R C OMMUN I T Y C O L L E G E S A N D T H E E D U C AT I O N P I P E L I N E

News and updates

Johanna Duncan-PoitierSenior Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges and the Education Pipeline

Greetings and thank you for thisopportunity to share an update onthe work underway in SUNY’s Officeof Community Colleges and theEducation Pipeline to supportstudent success. We are verygrateful for our partnership with theSUNY University Faculty Senate andfor its leadership, scholarship,research and service across SUNY’s64 campuses and in the State andthe nation. Provided here arehighlights of key initiatives we havebeen leading, in collaboration withfaculty, students, K-12 educators,and industry partners to strengthenthe education pipeline and helpmore students graduate from highschool and college.

Scale-up of MajorCompletion Strategies

Like many of you, we are workingto advance Chancellor NancyZimpher’s completion agenda toincrease the number of studentswho enroll in SUNY and persist toearn college degrees andcertificates. To do this, we areleading efforts to scale-up majorcompletion strategies withdemonstrated records of success forreducing barriers to collegecompletion and helping students tostay on-track and graduate.

• Math Pathways: Major work isunderway to scale-up the highlysuccessful Quantway/Statway MathPathways at SUNY, in partnershipwith the Carnegie Foundation Centerfor the Advancement of Teaching atStanford University.Quantway/Statway courses presenta new, evidence-based approach todevelopmental mathematics thathas been shown to acceleratestudents’ progress throughdevelopmental mathematics withengaging, relevant concepts thatstudents can use in their everydaylives. This year, we have doubledenrollment in the QuantwayPathway, growing to 12 campuses

offering Quantway, and in thecoming year, more than 29campuses will be exploring oroffering Quantway. More than 95SUNY faculty and staff haveparticipated and a projected 2,000students will enroll in Quantway thisyear. This work has been madepossible by a $3.3 millioninvestment from The Bill & MelindaGates Foundation and SUNY.

• Jobs for the Future (JFF)Student Success Center: In 2016,SUNY was named as one of fiverecipients to receive nationaldesignation as a “Jobs for the FutureStudent Success Center” with a$500,000 investment from TheKresge Foundation and The Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation. SUNYjoins a thriving national network ofJFF Student Success Centers, whichprovide vision, support, and a sharedvenue for a state’s communitycolleges to collectively advanceaccess and completion. With thisnew designation, we have a uniqueopportunity to study strategies andinitiatives with demonstratedevidence to impact student successand to share the knowledge we havegained with education leaders andpolicymakers across the State andthe nation. SUNY’s leadership for theNew York Student Success Center

will enable us to continue to buildcapacity and scale-up highlyeffective evidence-based practices.

• Pathways in Technology EarlyCollege High Schools (P-TECH): SUNYcolleges are partners in a statewidenetwork of 33 P-TECHs. Resultingfrom a $21 million investment byNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo,high schools, colleges, andbusinesses are working together tolaunch 9-14 P-TECH schools wherestudents graduate from high schooland earn an Associate’s degree, freeof charge, at the end of six years.Graduating students are first in linefor job opportunities inmanufacturing, technology, andhealthcare.

• Community College CommunitySchools: In 2016, JeffersonCommunity College, Mohawk ValleyCommunity College, RocklandCommunity College, AdirondackCommunity College, and OnondagaCommunity College received awardsto launch new community schools toprovide critical wrap-around servicesto support student success. With thesupport of $1.5 million in Statefunding, community schools help tokeep students on their paths todegrees by providing healthcare,child care, and other key studentsupports.

7

Strengtheningthe STEM

Education Pipeline

• SUNY STEM Mentors: Since2010, SUNY and the New YorkAcademy of Sciences (The Academy)have collaborated to prepare SUNYgraduate students and post-doctoralfellows to deliver mentoring and realworld STEM content to underservedmiddle-school children inafterschool programs across NewYork State.

Through the Afterschool STEMMentoring Program, over 140graduate students in the STEMdisciplines at Stony Brook University,SUNY College of EnvironmentalScience & Forestry, SUNY DownstateMedical Center, SUNY Oswego, andSUNY Polytechnic Institute mentorednearly 1,300 middle school studentsin curricula in areas such ascomputer programming,environmental science, forensics,human body systems, mathematics,nanotechnology, neuroscience,nutrition, and robotics.

SUNY graduate students andpost-doctoral fellows learnedpedagogy skills and content for theclassroom via an online coursedeveloped by SUNY Empire StateCollege and training provided by theAcademy. The Afterschool STEMMentoring Program was madepossible by a $2.95 million grantaward from the National ScienceFoundation.

The Afterschool STEM MentoringProgram has achieved significantoutcomes for both participatingmiddle school students andgraduate student mentors. We arepleased to be share with you a fewhighlights:

Middle School Students• The Afterschool STEM

Mentoring Program partnereddiverse urban and rural middleschool students with SUNY scientists• 39 percent of students were

African American, 23 percentCaucasian, 15 percent Latino andHispanic, and 8 percent Asian• Students were engaged in

hands on investigations usingscientific tools• An inquiry-based curriculum

encouraged students to develop &test hypotheses and interpret &report results • Results: increased/improved

STEM content knowledge, attitudestoward STEM, interest in science, andself-efficacy as student scientists

SUNY Graduate Student STEM Mentors• Increased confidence and skills

in teaching practices, mentoringyoung people, transferring STEMknowledge and communication• Following the mentoring

experience, students reportedinterest in outreach, teaching, andworking with young people in thefuture• Added outreach and teacher

experience to their CVs• Strengthened commitment to

scientific careers• Repeat mentors contributed to

the creation of new afterschoolSTEM curriculum

This year, the Army EducationOutreach Program (AEOP) selectedSUNY, in collaboration with theAcademy, as partners to expandstudent participation in enrichingSTEM exploration and learning,particularly for under-servedstudents. In the year ahead, SUNYand the Academy will work togetherto scale-up AEOP’s highly successfuleCYBERMISSION initiative.eCYBERMISSION is a web-basedSTEM competition for 6th, 7th, 8thand 9th grade students. Teams of 3-4students work with Team Advisors topropose a solution to a real-worldSTEM-related problem in regionalcommunities and compete for state,regional and national awards. We areencouraging students, faculty,coaches, and mentors are invited tojoin us in expanding student

participation in STEM byvolunteering to serve as aneCYBERMISSION Team Advisor,Virtual Judge, Cyberguide orAmbassador. More information isavailable at http://www.ecybermission.com. • Empire State STEM Learning

Network: SUNY serves as thesteward for the Empire State STEMLearning Network, a statewidecollaborative of educators, business& industry partners, andgovernment leaders in New Yorkworking to expand access to high-quality STEM teaching, increase thenumber of students in STEMdisciplines who graduate preparedfor 21st century careers, andcommunicate and advocate for STEMpolicies and programs. The Networkis made up of 10 regional hubs thatare aligned with the RegionalEconomic Development Councils. TheEmpire State STEM Network is amember of the Battelle Institute’snational STEMx Network. EmpireState STEM Network leaders areworking to provide teachers andstudents with high-quality, industry-based STEM programming. Forexample, this year:• Corning, Inc. hosted 250

teachers and educators in New York’sSouthern Tier at their Sullivan Parkcampus. Educators learned aboutcareers in display technologies,optical communications,environmental technologies,research and development, andmaterials sciences, and the skillsstudents need to be successful inthese fields.• More than 60 students

participated in the FarmingdaleState College’s Science andTechnology Entry Program (STEP)five week long summer academiesin physics, marine biology, forensics,and chemistry. Three participatingstudents traveled to Cape Canaveralto witness the launch of SpaceXFalcon, transporting their researchexperiment to the International

Space Station. Three studentssuccessfully competed in the STEM-prep program at BrookhavenNational Laboratory where theypresented their research to theirpeers and Brookhaven NationalLaboratory scientist mentors. • Siemens, King & King

Architects, Clarkson University, andFerrara Fiorenza Law Firm hostednearly 300 teachers and educatorsfrom Central New York at EastSyracuse Minoa High School for thethird Annual Central New YorkCollaborative Educators Summit. TheSummit provides opportunities foreducators to develop strategies andaction plans to strengthen STEMeducation in their schools.• Over 350 K-12 students and

teachers participated inManufacturing Day activities atGLOBALFOUNDRIES’ Fab 8 location inMalta, NY. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is theworld's first full-servicesemiconductor foundry. Studentsparticipated in “bunny suit” demos,hands on workshops, and activitiesshowcasing careers inmanufacturing. • The Western New York STEM

hub (WNY STEM) hosted the annual“Celebrating STEM” recognitionevent at Roswell Park in Buffalo. TheBuffalo Board of Education,Cattaraugus-Allegany Dream It! DoIt! and Citi were recognized for theirleadership to expand high qualitySTEM learning opportunities forstudents and teacher professionaldevelopment. Also, WNY STEM, incollaboration with Siemens,awarded “Emerging School Systems”for demonstrated commitment toallocating resources, developing staffand establishing programs orpriorities in STEM, as well as “Schoolson the Move” for exemplary STEMinitiatives and for progressingbeyond the Emerging Level on theNew York State STEM QualityLearning Rubric.

S E N I O R V I C E C H A N C E L LO R F O R C OMMUN I T Y C O L L E G E S A N D T H E E D U C AT I O N P I P E L I N E

Marc CohenPresident, SUNY Student Assembly

SUNY StudentAssembly

continues toprogress

There is no time to waste in themission to improve SUNY. Every yearwhere no progress is made oncritical issues like affordability andcreating more inclusiveenvironments for our dynamicallydiverse student population, tens ofthousands of people aren’texperiencing the best of what highereducation can offer. Improving inthese areas takes a major effort bystudents, the system's largest groupof stakeholders. The SUNY StudentAssembly (SUNY SA) is workingharder than ever before to make thispositive impact potential a reality. Atthe same time, we know it is crucialto work with other stakeholders,most of all faculty, to move SUNY inthe right direction.

The SUNY Student Assembly (SA)and the University Faculty Senate(UFS) have countless commoninterests to work on together.Perhaps more than any other is theneed for greater state investment inSUNY. We recognized last year’stuition freeze as a victory forstudents drowning in increasingdebt, a financial challenge for ourcampuses seeking to continueeducational improvement, and anopportunity for all of us to move

forward with a new long-term planthat puts SUNY funding and studentdebt toward the top of the state’spriority list. SUNY SA’s Tuition TaskForce has developed a policyframework that we look forward toadvocating for throughout the year.We want the state to increasefunding enough to cover a costfreeze for students in the short termwhile maintaining educationalquality, and implement a multi-yearplan that makes SUNY debt-free forall students within five years.

Never before has radical fundingincreases for public higher educationbeen so politically feasible, and weneed to capitalize on the policyclimate this year. We also recognizethat we need sufficient revenue tocover cost increases on ourcampuses, including adequatestaffing our academic programs withworld-class faculty. Students benefitfrom stronger academicdepartments and faculty benefitfrom state investment through jobsecurity and opportunity. This is anissue that students and faculty mustjoin together on in order tomaximize our impact.

Student debt is approaching acrisis point, if it isn’t there already.SUNY SA’s single biggest priority onthe issue of tuition and debt is tomake college as affordable aspossible and to minimize the debtthat students suffer from post-graduation. It is an issue that goesbeyond the needs of our highereducation system and into broadersociety. Income inequality isbecoming an increasing concern,and some higher education isusually necessary to earn a middle-class income. Education is an enginefor improving our economy, ourcivics, and countless other tangentialareas. Those with post-secondaryeducation have better healthoutcomes, pay more in taxes, and areless likely to need support fromgovernment programs. The benefit

of investing in higher education as ameans toward improving society isas clear-cut as any policy debate.While our top priority is the debtburden for students, and that is ourmotivation to advocate for greaterstate investment, a differing set ofpriorities for faculty shouldn’tprevent us from finding commonground and making our call forinvestment in higher educationlouder.

Among many reasons we need amore affordable and accessiblehigher education system, one of themost important is to create a vehicleto uplift traditionally underservedcommunities. One of the issues thatstudents are most passionate aboutare those of diversity, equity, andinclusion. We have strong leadershipin the SUNY SA committee devotedto these issues that is intent ontackling a wide range of issues fromracial bias to disabilityaccommodations. Incidentsthroughout the country in recentyears have brought light to thechallenges that minoritypopulations face in our society, andSUNY SA is excited to contribute toprogress in this arena.

We were recently recognized forspearheading the efforts that led toSUNY adopting a “Ban the Box”policy. Our public systems of highereducation should always standfirmly on the side of accessibility andnondiscrimination, a principle thatstudent leaders throughout the stateacted on when a resolution in favorof banning the box was passed atthe SUNY SA Spring 2016conference. We were thrilled to seethe SUNY Board of Trustees adoptthis policy and will continue to bringforward initiatives on the forefrontof creating an inclusiveenvironment. New York is lucky tohave an incredibly diversepopulation, and SUNY’s student bodyreflects that. Students understandthat the ability to respect and work

8

F R OM T H E P R E S I D E N T O F T H E S T U D E N T A S S EMB LY

WorkforceDevelopment, Research and Job Training

SUNY is leading severalimportant initiatives to help morestudents graduate prepared for21st century workforceopportunities and to driveeconomic growth across New YorkState. Here are a few highlights.

• Trade Adjustment AssistanceCommunity College and CareerTraining (TAACCCT): SUNY hastrained nearly 5,000 students forcompetitive careers inmanufacturing since the fall of2012 with the $14.6 millionTAACCCT grant we were awardedfrom the U.S. Department of Labor.Through over 47 SUNY creditprograms and numerousmanufacturing targeted non-creditprograms, all 30 SUNY communitycolleges have worked with over 300businesses to revise, expand andenhance existing programs andbuild new programs includingmechatronics, CNC machining,photovoltaics, plastics, optics andwelding to address workforceneeds in New York State.

• State Workforce Development:With $1.8 million in state support,SUNY community colleges havetrained more than 16,000employees from 275 in more than100 types of training programs.These important training programshelp more New York Stateemployers create and retain jobs,increase productivity, and improvecompetitiveness.

For more information on theseexciting initiatives, please contactthe Office of Community Collegesand the Education Pipeline at (518)320-1276.

Senior Vice Chancellor…Continued from page 7

with others from variousbackgrounds is critical in the 21stcentury, and SUNY has anopportunity to position itself as astandard-bearer in the highereducation landscape by embracingpolicy initiatives that providestudents of every identity with aneducational environment thatsupports them.

When it comes to issues likeaffordability and diversity, students areincredibly passionate and active. SUNYSA is proud of student effortsthroughout the state to make positivechange, and joins them in theirurgency. Student leaders typicallydon’t have very long to push forreforms, especially in a highereducation environment of complexpolicies and a norm of multi-yearincremental change. I know my time islimited as the President of SUNY SAand a member of the SUNY Board ofTrustees, as it is for my SUNY SAleadership team, all of the studentgovernment presidents, and everyother student trying to make adifference in their community beforegraduating. It is truly an incredible andhumbling opportunity to have a seatat the table for students. I am sopersonally grateful to work with somany administrative and facultyleaders in our system and am oftenencouraged by their commitment tostudent input and their shared values.

One faculty leader in particularthat is a staunch ally to studentparticipation in shared governance isUFS President, Pete Knuepfer. Like Iknow I am always trying to reflectthe values of students, I know that

Pete’s openness to students is areflection of the values of UFS andfaculty throughout our system morebroadly. For this reason, I amconfident that SUNY SA and UFS willcontinue to be close partners inbuilding a culture of collaborativeshared governance for years tocome, far after the tenure of theleaders of either organization.

At the same time, this unique yearof leadership transitions in oursystem and beyond provides anopportunity to act more urgentlythan ever - to take leaps forwardinstead of steps. Changes inleadership are happening from myhome campus (University at Albany,to replacing Nancy Zimpher as SUNYChancellor, to the President of UFS,and all the way to the President ofthe United States. We have anopportunity to leverage thisdynamic environment of change topropose bolder solutions than everbefore to the problems that wegrapple with year after year.

The fact that UFS gives the SUNYSA President this opportunity toprovide our perspective on theupcoming year to your membershipis evidence of its eager support ofthe student voice. Similarly, SUNY SAalways advises student activiststhroughout the system to engagefaculty, administration, and otherstakeholders when pursuing a policyinitiative. Students and faculty alikeare bonded by their commitment toimproving our higher educationinstitutions. This year I amcommitted to strengthening ourpartnerships, working together onthe issues that benefit all of us, andmaking progress on things thatmatter.

Norman GoodmanStony Brook University

[Editor’s note: Information about possible poli-cies of a Trump administration—his speeches,statements by him and his staff, his twitters, hisproposed appointments to his administra-tion—keeps emerging at a dizzying pace. Con-sequently, it is important to note that thematerial in this column takes into account thatinformation available up to December 7, 2016.]

President-electTrump and publichigher education

Much of the country, if not theworld, is still reeling from the shockwaves of the 2016 election forpresident of the United States. Thereis considerable concern that theelection of Donald Trump aspresident of the United States willresult in a retreat to “FortressAmerica,” an undoing ofinternational treaties and alliances,an international trade war, a foreignpolicy that is entangled withPresident Trump’s business interests,a more militaristic approach tointernational problems, an unwiseand unnecessary polarizationbetween Western and Muslimculture, an exacerbation of incomeinequality in the U.S. despitecampaign statements, and acoarsening of the rhetoric andactions toward minority groups,among other issues. While thepotential impact of Trump’s electionon public higher education is stillunclear, it’s possible to foresee arange of credibly negativeconsequences.

An examination of Trump’swebsite shows that of all the topicson which he had taken a positionduring the campaign (i.e.,infrastructure, cybersecurity,veterans affairs reform, trade, taxplan, regulations, national defense,immigration, health care, foreignpolicy and defeating ISIS, energy, K-12 education, Constitution andSecond Amendment, child care, andeconomy), there is nothing specificto higher education. Consequently,what public higher education canexpect from a Trump administrationcan only be gleaned by elements ofthe Republican Party Platform,comments in speeches he has givenduring and since the campaign, hisproposed appointments to keyadministrative positions, andstatements by the national co-chairand policy director of his campaign,Sam Clovis. For the most part, thesebits and pieces of information haveroiled the waters of highereducation. What then may wesurmise about a Trumpadministration’s policies for publichigher education?

Though not directly involvingpublic higher education, some of thelikely economic policies of the Trumpadministration will clearly affect it.From what we know so far, he hasproposed the standard Republicanpreference for “trickle-downeconomics.” Though he claims hewill cut taxes across the board, thegreatest benefits will go to thewealthy, which Trump says willprovide resources to “job creators” tocreate more jobs. History, however,suggests that this is a false equation.Tax reductions for the wealthy havenot generally resulted in creatingjobs, but have been used morefrequently to invest or save thosefunds rather than spending them tocreate more demand and, therefore,more jobs. Thus, it would do little toprovide more income for families,which could be used in part to

President of Student Assembly…Continued from page 8

9

F R OM T H E E D I T O R ’ S D E S K

10

provide for a college education fortheir children—especiallyimportant in an era of diminishingfinancing for public highereducation from the states. Inaddition, Trump’s announcedintention to slap higher tariffs onimports from China (a major tradingpartner) and other countries couldnot only start a trade war withdisastrous world-wide economicconsequences, but also increase thecost of imported goods forAmericans that would, consequently,reduce family buying power,including funds available for theirchildren’s college education.

The Trump Administration’sspending plans have focused onincreasing funding for defense andreducing “discretionary” funding—essentially, those funds available tomeet domestic needs. Coupled withTrump’s generally anti-sciencestance, these spending plans arelikely to result in reduced federalfunding for basic and appliedresearch to assist in establishing andassessing public policy, much ofwhich is carried out in colleges anduniversities.

Trump’s strong anti-immigrantposition and his intention to reversePresident’s Obama’s executive actionin creating DACA (Deferred Actionfor Childhood Arrivals) will reducethe attractiveness andcompetiveness of U.S. colleges anduniversities for internationalstudents and faculty. This will havethe effect of reducing the kind ofdiversity in both students and staffthat enhances the quality ofeducation and that expands ourstudents’ intellectual horizons. Itwill also affect our global influencein an increasingly connected world,by reducing our ability to educatethe future leaders of countriesaround the world who willunderstand—and, hopefullyappreciate—our policies,perspectives, and values. There have

been reports that this oft-statedposition of President-elect Trump—and his designated National SecurityAdvisor, Michael Flynn, designatedAttorney General Jeff Sessions, andSenior Political Advisor, StephenBannon—has already createdconsiderable anxiety on collegecampuses, which has seriouslyaffected the academic performanceof some of our students. Similarly,the bigotry and hate rhetoric thatmarked the election campaign hasbeen picked up and amplified inrecent weeks and led to widespreadconcern among Muslims, Hispanics,and other minorities in the countryand on our campuses about theirsafety, security, and well-being.

A more direct effect on publichigher education of a Trumpadministration can also be gleanedfrom some of the sources indicatedearlier, which indicate support forthe following policies andpreferences:

• A relaxation of regulationsgoverning for-profit colleges anduniversities, which have, in general,been found to provide an inferioreducation and false promises of jobsafter graduation. There also appearsto be an intent to reverse the currentadministration’s plan to dischargethe loans of those students whohave been defrauded by theseinstitutions, which would seem toadd insult to injury for thesestudents.

• Reinforcement of the growingemphasis among Republicangovernors and legislators to viewpublic higher education solelythrough the lens of providing jobskills rather than also providing foran educated and thoughtfulcitizenry necessary to a civic society.

• An anti-science mentalityevident during the campaign (e.g.,denial of the scientific consensus onhumans’ contribution to globalwarming and its likely effects),which undermines the intellectual

enterprise of higher education andjustifies seeing it as a jobs trainingprogram.

• Determination to defeat anyproposals to provide for a debt-freeand tuition-free public highereducation at a time when the debtburden of our students is clearly adrag on their future. However, Trumpdid vow to force colleges to cuttuition by controlling costs and usingtheir endowments for this purpose,though he is apparently unaware ofthe fact that a substantial part ofendowments is restricted in how itcan be used.

• An effort to move thegovernments out of the business ofproviding student loans and restorethat role to private banks, whichwould inevitably increase the cost ofthe loans.

• Making it more difficult forstudents majoring in the liberal arts(primarily in the Humanities, Fine/Performing Arts, and most of theSocial and Behavioral Sciences) atnon-elite universities to get studentloans because of doubts about theirfuture earning potential. This wouldlead to an unwarranted governmentinterference in what should be a freechoice on the part of students inlight of their future goals.

• Providing a taxpayer subsidyfor low-income students, thoughthere has been no specific plan putforward for such a program or how itwould be paid for—especially whenthe proposed tax cuts and spendingincreases for the military will reducethe available federal funds fordomestic programs, including thisone.

• Allowing a wider range ofaccrediting bodies that could offerthe opportunity to weakerinstitutions to “cherry pick” lessrigorous ones. There is also somestated intention to removeaccreditation as a requirement forfederal funding—something thatwould eliminate an effective lever to

assess the quality of an institution asa justification of federal funding.

• Limiting enforcement of Title IXregarding sex discrimination,especially with respect to sexualassault and bias toward sexualorientation, essentially rolling backthe clock to a time of unprotectedpredatory relationships.

• The proposed appointment ofRepresentative Tom Price asSecretary of Health and HumanServices. Representative Price haslong been an ardent foe of theAffordable Care Act and, in his role inthe House of Representatives, hasproposed legislation in the past tooverturn the ACA, including aprovision to allow youth to stay ontheir parents’ health insurance untilthe age of 26—an obvious benefitto our students.

• The appointment of BetsyDeVos, an ardent foe of publiceducation and sponsor of charterschools and school choice, whoseviews may well carry over to herpolicies with regard to public highereducation.

To sum up, these presumedpolicies of a Trump administrationwould, in my view, have a distinctlynegative effect on the quality of andaccess to public higher education.Whether they will actually be putinto effect is still an open question.President-elect Trump’s post-election softening of some his earlierpositions (note the reports of hismeeting with the reporters andcolumnists of The New York Timesafter his election) suggest somepossible reprieve from the worst ofthese. However, his recent proposedappointments to his administrationsuggest just the opposite. There is awell-known ancient Chinese cursethat may be apocryphal that says“May you live in interesting times.”We certainly do!

F R OM T H E E D I T O R ’ S D E S K

11

[Editor’s note: Though most facultyand professional staff are gen-

erally familiar with the historyand activities of their owncampus, they are often less

knowledgeable of the historyand activities of the other campuses inthe SUNY system. Consequently, in each

issue of the Bulletin, this section is used to shinethe spotlight on the history and activities of oneof the SUNY campuses. In addition, this sectionprovides a description of the recent activities ofone of the University Faculty Senate’s StandingCommittees that highlights its role in affectingSUNY policies and programs that eventually im-pact the individual campuses and its variousconstituencies.]

Potsdam CollegeThe Potsdam Bicentennial: Celebrating two centuries of creativity and innovation

in higher education

Walter J. ConleySUNY Potsdam

Few argue Harvard University’sclaim, dating to a charter with theMassachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, asthe oldest institution of higherlearning in the United States. The firstinstitution of higher learning withinthe State of New York was charteredas King's College by King George II ofEngland in 1754. The College ceasedoperations during the AmericanRevolutionary War, reforming afterthe war as Columbia College. A fewdecades later, closer to Canada thanany neighboring state, was theformation of the institution thatwould become the oldest within theState University of New York, St.Lawrence Academy.

The genesis of state universitysystems can be traced to our southernstates with the first chartered systemcreated in 1785 by an act of theGeneral Assembly of Georgia. Stateuniversity systems expanded rapidlyduring the middle 19th century underthe Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Actsof 1862 and 1890. The StateUniversity of New York (SUNY), thelargest university system in thecountry, was established in 1948 byGovernor Thomas E. Dewey on thefoundation of the public normalschools established in the 19th

century. Initially including 29institutions of higher education, thesystem has expanded to include 64universities and colleges. Within theoriginal cluster is one of the oldestinstitutions of higher education in thenation, the State University of NewYork College at Potsdam (SUNYPotsdam), currently celebrating itsbicentennial year. SUNY Potsdamtraces its origin to St. LawrenceAcademy.

Residents of Potsdam petitionedthe New York State Board of Regentsto establish the Academy inDecember of 1812, but battles alongthe St. Lawrence River during the Warof 1812 diverted attention to otherimmediate needs. In 1816, just adecade after the founding of thetown, local residents convinced thelegislature to revisit their proposaland the Academy was created withthe signing of a charter on 25 March1816, opening its doors to students inSeptember of the same year.

Founded by Benjamin Raymond,surveyor for the Clarkson family, theAcademy grew rapidly. The first classof 42 students increased to 144 by1820, attracting students from as faras Oneida and Clinton counties andmany towns throughout southernCanada. A second building was addedin 1825 to accommodate growth.Most early institutions of higherlearning in the United States werecreated to train ministers. In contrast,St. Lawrence Academy had an earlyfocus on the preparation of publicschool teachers. In 1828 ReverendAsa Brainerd became the preceptor ofthe developing college and wasrecognized for the introduction of acreative and innovative teachereducation program. The curriculum

was the first systematic attempt tofocus on the preparation of publicschool teachers in the United States.

In 1835 the New York StateLegislature acted to establish strongerprograms for public school teacherpreparation and designated oneacademy in each senatorial district toreceive money for a special teacher-training department. St. LawrenceAcademy received this distinction,building upon innovative programs inthe preparation of teachers. On 7 May1844, the State Legislature voted toestablish a New York State NormalSchool in Albany, now the Universityof Albany, as the first college forteacher education. As need increaseda second normal school wasestablished during 1861 in Oswego,now SUNY Oswego. The Village ofPotsdam was selected as a site of anormal school in 1867.

In 1884 Julia Etta Crane, a graduateof the Potsdam Normal School, becameleader of the music department. Underher direction, and continuing ourhistory of creativity and innovation, theSchool developed the first normaltraining curriculum for public musicteachers in the United States.Approximately half of the musicteachers in New York State aregraduates of the Crane School of Music.Other innovations included thefounding of the Crane Chorus in 1931by Helen M. Hosmer, and The CraneSymphony Orchestra in 1939 as thesecond college orchestra in the country,following Harvard University. The CraneSchool of Music has an internationalreputation for excellence.

Whereas SUNY Potsdam isrecognized for innovation andcreativity in our teacher preparationand arts programs, we also excel inthe STEM disciplines and have thesecond highest proportion of studentselecting STEM education within oursector. For example, ClarenceStephens started his career as aresearch mathematician but becamemore interested in mathematicseducation. Dr. Stephens joined thePotsdam Faculty as Chair ofMathematics in 1969, introducing hiscreative and innovative techniques inmathematics instruction. During histenure, SUNY Potsdam had the thirdlargest number of mathematicsmajors of any college in the country,graduating mathematics majors atmore than 20 times the nationalaverage. Many graduates continuedtheir education earning doctoraldegrees in mathematics. This feat isoften referred to as the “PotsdamMiracle.”

Our bicentennial celebrationincluded a year of special lectures,concerts, student projects, and thecompletions of a highly successfulcomprehensive campaign. The Takethe Lead Campaign exceeded its goalby several million dollars and willsupport scholarships and programs atSUNY Potsdam. In honor of the SUNYPotsdam bicentennial, the New YorkState Senate and Assembly passedspecial resolutions in March 2016, andCongresswoman Elise Stefanik read acommemoration on the College’shistory into the official record on thefloor of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives.

On the 200th anniversary of theCollege’s founding, 25 March 2016,SUNY Potsdam held a bicentennialbash for the campus community andinvited dignitaries from othercampuses in the SUNY system and theregion. In attendance were guests

S P O T L I G H T

12

from SUNY System Administration,SUNY Canton, SUNY Cortland, SUNYBrockport, Clarkson University, and St.Lawrence University; alongsidehundreds of students, faculty, staff,and alumni.

As we move into our third centurywe strive to build upon our richhistory. Challenged by diminishingstate support, we look to efficienciesand the generosity of our alumni tocontinue to enhance rich learningexperiences for our students. Withthe bicentennial serving as a catalystfor reflection and change, four centerswere created or enhanced this year tobetter serve students and faculty.

A combination of campusresources and a generous donationfrom President Esterberg resulted inthe renovation and expansion of ourCenter for Diversity. The centerprovides a number of resources to ourincreasingly diverse campuscommunity. Resources includeacademic support, social programsand services, diversity training, skilldevelopment workshops, andleadership opportunities.

Also as part of our bicentennialcelebrations, and continued creativityand innovation in STEM disciplines,the Wagner Institute forSustainability and Ecological Research(WISER) was opened in a newlyconstructed space within our sciencecomplex. Made possible by agenerous gift from Wendy and RobertWagner, the institute will facilitateopportunities for student-facultycollaborative research focusing onissues of environmental sustainabilityand conservation.

The Center for Creative Instructionwas created from a blend of existingoffices and committees to strengthen,enhance, and support teaching andlearning. This faculty resource wascreated in a renovated space withinour Crumb Library, in the middle ofour academic quad, and developedfrom a recommendation of ourFaculty Senate. Also housed inrenovated space in our Crumb Libraryis the new Center for AppliedLearning. Created with PerformanceImprovement Funds and a generous

donation from Joy and Richard Dorf,the center is a first within SUNY andseeks to create greater opportunitiesfor student-faculty collaborations intransformative learning experiences.

Thus, with a renewed spirit, and acontinued focus on providing a highquality liberal arts education for ourstudents, we are ready for our thirdcentury.

Program andAwards CommitteeBeyond Lake Wobegon – Rewarding

the More than Above Average

Bruce LeslieCollege at Brockport

Programs and Awards is the leastimportant – and the most important– University Faculty SenateCommittee. While other committeesdiscuss weighty issues of ethics,governance, research, and studentlife, we spend our time debating theintricacies of the criteria for SUNY’sPrograms and Awards. But on theother hand, our work yields directresults with most of ourrecommendations operationalized bythe Provost.

Much of the work is mundanetinkering, but we have the delightfultask of helping reward our colleagues’expertise and hard work with at leastpsychic, and sometimesremunerative, rewards. Toward thatend, the Programs and AwardsCommittee has three tasks. “Our”Program is Conversations in theDisciplines. “Our” Awards are theChancellor’s Awards and theDistinguished Professorships.

Distinguished ProfessorshipsTo start with the last, the

Distinguished Professorships began in1963, just as SUNY was taking offwith a shove from Governor NelsonRockefeller. Over 1000 have beencreated in the succeeding 60+ yearsin four fields: Distinguished [i.e.,Scholarship & Creative Activity]Professors (371); DistinguishedService Professors (310);Distinguished Teaching Professors(376); and Distinguished Librarians

(5). Five Distinguished Librarians?!?Clearly there is a problem.

And this is the year to deal withproblems with DistinguishedProfessors. The Policies andProcedures for DistinguishedProfessorships and for Chancellor’sAwards operate on alternating twoyear cycles. This year we arereviewing DistinguishedProfessorships to write the rules forthe 2017/2018 and 2018/2019academic years. When I say ‘write therules’, we are officially only advisory tothe Provost – but virtually all of oureditorial suggestions and all of ourresolutions have been accepted inrecent years.

The Policies and Procedures have,in our opinion, become toocomplicated and we are attemptingto prune and clarify them. We havestrengthened the language requiringthat the grading practices ofcandidates for the DistinguishedTeaching Professor be included in thenomination package and thatinconsistent patterns be explained.Overall, the policies for the threeDistinguished Professor categorieshave served well and there is noground swell for reform.

However, we face the challenge ofmaking the DistinguishedLibrarianship more accessible whilemaintaining high standards. Someproblems are above our pay grade –some of the most likely candidatesare ineligible due to holdingadministrative positions. And thereare fewer ‘full’ librarians than wewould expect. But we can normalizewhat seems to be excessiveexpectations in language that mustdeter candidates. And we plan towiden the range of activities that cancontribute to a successful nomination.Two librarians on the committee areworking on the revisions and will takeour proposals to the SUNY librarians’organization. Watch for a preliminaryreport at the Winter Plenary and aresolution at the Spring Plenary.

The revised Policies and Proceduresfor all four DistinguishedProfessorship categories should besent to the campuses next July.

Although officiallyDistinguishedProfessorships aredesignated by theBoard of Trustees, ourrecommendations have beenroutinely approved. And they shouldbe, as not only do candidates have togain approval from their campus’selection committee and President,but they are then scrutinized by aSUNY Advisory Council composed ofDistinguished Professors in eachcategory. From sitting on theDistinguished Service ProfessorAdvisory Council, I can vouch for theirrigor. Before my first meeting I hadassumed a candidate was a slamdunk – wrong! My colleagues pickedthe nomination apart beforegrudgingly accepting it. And anumber of nominations are rejected,especially by the Advisory Council forthe full Distinguished Professor.

Successful nominees receive theirawards at a delightful awards dinnersponsored by SUNY. After dining eachnew Distinguished Professor isindividually introduced and theChancellor hangs the medal (and theyare heavy) around each newDistinguished Professor’s neck and a‘photo op’ records your elevation forposterity. No event more fully exudesa sense of systemness recognizingSUNY’s most important work. Itwasn’t always a classy event; oneformer Chancellor told the awardeesto come up and collect their ‘bling’!

Chancellor Zimpher has raised theDistinguished Professorships to a newlevel by establishing theDistinguished Academy five yearsago. Her hope has been to generatesynergy among some of the system’s‘best and brightest’. The Academymeets in the afternoon before theannual awards dinner for discussionsof timely issues and to plan projects.But to date the Academy has not fullyreached its potential. In the hopes ofsolidifying the Academy beforeChancellor Zimpher retires, theProvost’s Office has seconded JanetNepke for the year to galvanize usplan our future. By the May 2017awards dinner we hope to have

S P O T L I G H T

13

formulated proposals that will givethe Academy clearer direction andpurpose.

The UFS Programs & AwardsCommittee hard at work

Chancellor’s AwardsThe other half of ‘Awards’, and one

that affects many more faculty, is theChancellor’s Awards. Faculty and Staffare eligible for eight different Awards.Four echo the Distinguished Professorscategories; they are the Chancellor’sAwards for Librarianship, for Scholarlyand Creative Activity, for Service; andfor Teaching. In addition, there areChancellor’s Awards for AdjunctTeaching, for Classified Service, and forProfessional Service. We play a majorin the first of those, but little role in thelatter two. Finally, there is theChancellor’s Award for SharedGovernance.

Last year our work centered onrevising the Policies and Proceduresfor Chancellor’s Awards for theacademic years 2016/2017 and2017/2018. The Committee felt thatthe rules were too complicated andsometimes ambiguous. Thus, workingwith Vice-Chancellor Lane, westreamlined and clarified the Policiesand Procedures that went tocampuses last July. We hope thesechanges facilitate more nominations.

More fundamentally, theCommittee felt that changes in highereducation had enlarged twocategories of faculty who wereineligible for Chancellors Awards; theywere full-time non-tenure trackfaculty and clinical faculty at thehealth related campuses. As a result,we presented two resolutions to theUniversity Faculty Senate last April.One made clinical faculty eligible forthe Chancellor’s Awards in Scholarship& Creative Activities and in Service;they were already eligible for theTeaching Award. The secondresolution addressed the growingnumber of full-time faculty who arenot on a tenure track. Many serve

SUNY for long periods of time and addneeded expertise to campus’ teachingbullpen. Both resolutions passedunanimously and the expansion ofcategories was written into thePolicies and Procedures that were sentto campuses last July.

The Chancellor’s Award for SharedGovernance is a special case. It wascreated by the University FacultySenate, but is administered by sameprocedures of the Provost’s Office asfor the other Chancellor’s Awards. Thisshould be reviewed by next year’scommittee when the Policies andProcedures are up for review. We haveattracted too few nominations andperhaps the number would beaugmented if the UFS felt more senseof ownership – though that wouldalso mean more work. But there isanomaly that the committee whichjudges the applications is appointedby the Provost without input from thePrograms and Awards Committee.

I regret not becoming cognizant ofthis sooner. It is important that werecognize and reward good practiceand encourage campusadministrations that practice sharedgovernance. My hope is that we willbe able to increase nominationssufficiently to award more than oneper year out of 64 campuses. Withmore nominations then it wouldbecome possible to have separateawards for ‘state ops’ and forcommunity colleges. An HonorableMention category is anotherpossibility for increasing the Award’simpact. Our Committee has so farignored the only partially facetiouscalls for an award to shame unsharedgovernance. But who knows!

Conversations in the DisciplinesThe first task presented to me as

Chair was to consider major changesin this long-standing program. I wassupposed to measure the program’sefficacy over its c.50-year history as abase for examination. That has provedto be a tougher job than expected. Tothis day I cannot lay my hands on therecords (and for an historian that isespecially frustrating). The SUNYadministrator who was supposed tohave the records and work with mewas AWOL in the six months before

her retirement. Frequent staff changesand personnel shortages in theProvost’s Office have meant somecontinued frustrations. On the otherhand, we’ve had excellent clericalsupport from Yvette Roberts.

We have considered the wholerange of options. We discussedrecommending the termination of theprogram – so much work goes intodelivering a mere $40,000 in $5000grants. On the other hand, this smallamount of seed money yields asurprisingly bountiful intellectual yield.So we decided against the nuclearoption. A related question was the sizeof the awards. We decided that whilethere were attractions in creatingdifferent levels of grants, withoutconsiderably increased funding it wasneither feasible nor wise.

Another issue was the nearly half-century ban on funding pedagogicallyoriented proposals. Apparently fromthe earliest Conversations in theDisciplines in the late 1960s, the policywas that the Conversations focus “onscholarly and creative developmentrather than administrative, curricular,or instructional matters designed tofoster both professional and personalgrowth of participants and theirrespective campuses.” That wasclearly crafted when SUNY wasevolving from a core of former StateTeachers Colleges into multi-purposeinstitutions. But given that thatevolution had occurred decades ago,this prohibition seemed excessive andbarred fruitful Conversations thatinclude consideration of theinstructional implications of scholarlydevelopments. Thus, the Programsand Awards Committee proposed thefollowing resolution which wasunanimously adopted at the Fall, 2016Plenary and this revision will be in theguidelines for proposals forConversations in the 2017/2018academic year.

Resolved that the University FacultySenate recommends the currentlanguage describing criteria forConversations in the Disciplines awardsbe amended to read: “SUNY CID focuseson scholarship, creative activities, andnew developments in academicdisciplines and fields. Conversations

may also include examination ofrelated curricular innovations.Proposals that include discussion ofinstructional matters must haveparticipation by the appropriatedisciplinary departments.”

In addition, we have receivedcomplaints that the proposalguidelines for Conversations in theDisciplines are needlessly complicatedfor such a small grant. We are trying toshorten and clarify the instructionsthat will be distributed in December orearly January. We expect that theProvost will approve ourrecommendations.

ConclusionThus we have two main tasks for

the remainder of the year. The first isfine-tuning the DistinguishedProfessor Policies and Procedures,especially for Librarianship. Thesecond is to oversee the final form ofthe guidelines for Conversations in theDisciplines and then to judge theresulting proposals that will beforwarded to Provost Cartwright.

While Programs and Awards is acommittee of the ‘State Ops’, we workclosely with the Awards Committee ofthe Faculty Council of the CommunityColleges. Its Chair, Iris Cook, participatesin our meetings and works as anextraordinary liaison between our twobodies. As a result, our UFS committeeeffectively, though unofficially, speaks forall SUNY campuses.

I am completing my third (term-limited) year as Chair of the Programsand Awards Committee. I have beenblessed with supportive committeemembers, especially this year. Andhaving a SUNY Provost whounderstands shared governance hasmeant that our work feels meaningful.

Finally, for many of us academe is acalling in which psychic rewards andintelligent colleagueship make ourworlds go round. I hope myCommittee’s work has helped facultyand staff feel that their extra efforts areappreciated. I further hope that theseSUNYwide awards augment our senseof systemness – our sense that ourwork has meaning across and beyondour campuses to the entire system.

S P O T L I G H T

14

[Editor’s note: This section provides a mecha-nism for communication among administrators,faculty, and professional staff about issues thatare relevant to SUNY or to the field of higher ed-ucation in general. The views and comments ex-pressed here are solely those of the author(s),not necessarily those of the editor or of the Ex-ecutive Committee of the University Faculty Sen-ate. Submissions of articles for this section ofthe Bulletin, or comments on previous articles,should be sent to the editor, and should not gen-erally exceed 2,500 words.]

The efferent andthe aesthetic:

Acquiring meaningby decoding messages

Joe MarrenSUNY Buffalo State

The writing that we do asacademics is meant to be scholarlyand informative. No surprise there,eh? So we write very serious reportsabout what goes on at plenaries forthe constituents at our homecampuses, or we fashion oh-so-serious-and-dire pleas to deans andprovosts citing stats sans anecdotesfor more faculty lines. But in all casesthere is plenty of time and room tolet our unique voices sing through.We are efferent but we want to beaesthetic. This essay says we can beboth.

What’s an essay without ananecdote? Here’s mine: When I was asportswriter covering the state trackand field championships in the mid-1980s there was a runner fromWestern New York who ran in two(maybe three?) races but won oneevent. When I wrote the story aboutthe championship day I wrotesomething like “Joe Soandso onlywon the 100 hurdles.” What I meantwas that his sole win was in acertain race; his father, though,wrote me a very nasty letter sayingthat my use of “only” implied his sonfailed because I wrote that saidprogeny didn’t win any of the other

races. It was not my intent to castblame or to ridicule the young man,rather it was my job to say what hewon and what he didn’t win. So wecan obviously get into trouble withthe words we use even when wedon’t mean to cause trouble. AsRobert Frost wrote:

“We make ourselves a place apartBehind light words that teaseand flout,

But oh, the agitated heartTill someone find us really out.

“Tis pity if the case require(Or so we say) that in the end

We speak the literal to inspireThe understanding of a friend.

“But so with all, from babes thatplayAt hide-and-seek to God afar,

So all who hide too well awayMust speak and tell us wherethey are.”

RevelationHow do we acquire meaning

when words can be confusing? Sincewe use words to tease and flout itseems natural that we should beginwith understanding a littlesomething about words and wordusage. For example, silly in OldEnglish meant blessed, or touchedby the spirit of the Lord. Whenpeople are touched by the spirit ofan omniscient being they areprobably enraptured and they mayact differently than the rest of us.Over time that inner spiritualrevelation came to be redefined andunderstood as the way peopleoutwardly behaved and so itmorphed into our understanding ofthe word silly as used today.

English language beginningsvaries between ye Olde EnglishNorthumbrian dialect and the Saxondialect with various subdialectsthrown in. The story of “Caedmon’sHymn” illustrates that. There’s ashepherd who can’t tell stories atnight round the fire with the othershepherds. So he always leaveswhen it’s story time. But one day an

angel (not an Angle) finds him in thestable and commands him to tell astory. Caedmon says he can’t, and hedoesn’t know any stories anyway. Sothe angel tells him to speak ofbeginnings – of creation.(“Caedmon, sing me frumsceaft.”) Inother words, the efferent language isthe simple building block ofaesthetic language.

We acquire meaning(understanding) through the wordswe choose to use. But words arefickle. Ludwig Wittgenstein said ourminds are not boxes that only wehave access to, and that to acquiremeaning there must be socialconventions and practices subject toempirical methodology. Thedefinitions we acquire for ourselvesare not inherent (e.g. Joe Marren,professor, Buffalo State, journalist,newspapers, etc.). As Wittgensteinwrote, “The limits of my languageare the limits of my world.” What wedo when we communicate is bringwords back from the metaphysical totheir everyday use.

That can be seen with some ofNoam Chomsky’s writings.Chomsky’s theory on transformativegenerative grammar posits that allhumans have the ability and desireto communicate (deep structure)and that grammar is transformed(generated) into surface structuresof a language by a set of rules,although the surface rules arenuanced from language tolanguage. In other words, Chomskywould say everyone has the abilityto articulate thoughts and thatcodified language orders thosethoughts to help us communicate.Therefore, we do not learn alanguage but rather acquire itthrough careful, repetitive attentionto competencies since we alreadyinnately possess the ability forlanguage. In other words, we areborn efferent and acquire aestheticsas we continue to write. Thus,writing is recursive because in order

to “perform” its mission (to providemeaning) it uses the signs (words)arranged in a syntactic pattern toform an acknowledged(“competent”) meaning.

To do the job we can produce aninfinite number of words. If wecouldn’t then we would eventuallyreach the end of language. But sincewe are constantly thinking of newthings to say (deep structure) weneed to make and then understandan infinite number of sentences.Therefore, language plays a role indeep patterns of human thoughtthat transcend the boundaries ofculture and time.

This is where aesthetics comes inbecause communication is creative.To illustrate my point, I’m turning toThomas Merton, a Trappist monkand essayist, and his poem And theChildren of Birmingham because itspeaks to me on several personallevels. The level I want to focus on forthis essay is that reading it remindsme of my former job as a reporter. Inthe poem Merton sets the stage andlets us interpret the action (acquiremeaning).

Merton’s life and his writingswere about love and the redemptivepower of forgiveness. We mustunderstand Merton’s theory ofpoetry and what he is trying toaccomplish. To do that we mustexamine his voice, which is wherejournalism comes in. Biographers saythat Merton, from his peacefulmonastery in rural Kentucky,stormed against societal ills thatwere evil. He lists such things as areporter would in And the Childrenof Birmingham. This detached,matter-of-fact tone uses imagery,sometimes playfully, to becomereportage.

And the children of BirminghamWalked into the storyOf Grandma's pointed teeth(“Better to love you with”) As someone who has written and

edited thousands of news stories I

S P E A K O U T

15

can say that what Merton offers isalmost a classic journalistic ledebecause it says who (the children ofBirmingham) and what they did(walked into the fury). The fact thatit also alludes to a classic children’sstory reiterates that it is aboutchildren and what they did.

Several years ago I met a womanin Selma who was a teen-agerduring the civil rightsdemonstrations there. She protested,was arrested, bailed out and thenwent to protest again. She wasarrested again and bailed out again.Repeat that same scene severalmore times and it becomes theaesthetic chronicle born from theefferent facts. It wasn’t until theyoung people of Selma werearrested time after time that theBlack middle class of teachers,professionals and others joined theprotests.

But what the children did thattime

Gave their townA name to be remembered!(And tales were toldOf man’s best friends, the Law.)How do we tell our own stories?

The story that Merton tells is thestory of how people protested andchanges (too slowly) came. Hiscomment was that despite theviolence inflicted by police, changewas inevitable.

The Trappists are a contemplativeorder and yet Merton’s idea ofcontemplation was to be “of theworld, but not in the world.” So hecouldn’t help but comment on issueshe felt were important, whetherabout a nuclear arms race thatwould doom the world, or of astruggle for basic human dignity onthe city streets. In And the Childrenof Birmingham this comes out:

And the children of BirminghamWalked in the shadowOf Grandma’s devilSmack up againstThe singing wall.

Fire and waterPoured over everyone:“Hymns were extreme,So there could be no pardon!”The idea of contemplation

touches on Merton’s evolvingcreativity. When he wrote the poemin 1968 he was no longer theyounger monk who wrote The SevenStorey Mountain. He had grown andchanged, so it was probably naturalfor him to seek new ways to expresshimself. Merton was discovering andre-evaluating things and somecritics suggest that he was comingto believe that just as there isflexibility in life, there must beflexibility in art and in letting anaudience interpret/acquire meaning.So we can interpret this poem inmany ways, but the title and thereportorial word images he wrotelead us along a path I believeMerton wanted us to take. I thinkthe poem is a way of interpretingand commenting on spiritual life, ormaybe it’s what the poet (and Jesuitpriest) Gerald Manley Hopkinswould call an inscape. In otherwords, there is spiritual and artisticgrowth, though they are notnecessarily developing atcomplementary rates.

Based on Merton’s life as acontemplative I imagine he wants usto think deeper about messages andmeanings, about the efferent andthe aesthetic in our own writing.There be dragons sailing into suchuncharted waters, but the joy is inthe voyage as we meet othertravelers.

TeachNY: A primerand call to action

Dennis ShowersSUNY Geneseo

TeachNY is a new initiative on thepart of SUNY to respond to thelooming teacher shortage in a waythat addresses new challenges toschools and teachers in the second

decade of the 21st century. It takes anew and deeper look into thepreparation, diversity, impact, anddevelopment of the next generationof teachers. As the University FacultySenate is the shared governancemechanism for the state-operatedinstitutions of SUNY, this initiativeshould serve as a tool to engagepeople on every campus in aconversation of how to bring theentire university into thepreparation of teachers. This is a vitalelement in unifying a pipeline ofpre-school through collegeeducation that serves both SUNYand New York.

This article is intended toinvigorate the conversation thatmust take place for TeachNY tosucceed. If we are to realize its goals,non-education faculty must broadlyengage in wide-ranging, two-waycommunication with campuseducation leadership and faculty aswell as supporters within SystemAdministration around these issues.The charge to the TeachNY AdvisoryCouncil begins “TeachNY is aninitiative of the State University ofNew York to transform teacher andschool-leader preparation anddevelopment through the creationof bold new policy that will shapethe discipline for decades to come.”The Advisory Council report wasprovided to key teacher educationstakeholders at all SUNY institutionsin May 2016.

TeachNY seeks a unified effortaround five broad themes:

1. Recruit, select, and assure thecultural competence of teachercandidates

2. Renew and sustain educatorpreparation programs and partnerthem with P-12 partners

3. Initiate new teachers into theprofession and support theirongoing professional development

4. Demonstrate success bysound, research-based assessmentand evaluation systems

5. Organize around a sustainableinfrastructure of human and physicalresources to sustain excellence intothe future

In this essay I could not hope toelaborate fully on each of theelements of TeachNY. A SteeringCommittee is following up on thework of and the report from theAdvisory Council released in May. Todate, seven Regional Engagementshave involved hundreds ofstakeholders across New York todiscuss relevant policies and to buildan action plan for moving forward.On November 4, the SteeringCommittee will have had its secondmeeting to propose policy changesand continue this phase of proposedactions. Two more meetings of theSteering Committee will providerecommendations for Board ofTrustees’ actions by mid-2017.

This policy-level, Phase-2 effortwill lay the groundwork for Phase-3initiatives (some of which havealready begun). Phase 3 includesengaging the NYS Master Teacherprogram, the Regent’s edTPA TaskForce, the American Association ofColleges of Teacher Education(AACTE) Clinical PracticeCommission, the National BoardCertification organization, andothers. This phase will pilotinitiatives like models of residency-based educator programs and workwith CAEP - the national teachereducation accreditation program.This is all with an eye to supportingeffective change across the system.

Rather than reiterate theinformation in the report, I wouldlike to explore an issue as anexample of how campus-specificconversations might proceed onlocally relevant topics that cut acrossand synthesize multiple themes. Oneoverarching topic that should attractmany constituencies of a campus isthe role of information technology inTeachNY. Information technologiesas problem-solving tools can

S P E A K O U T

16

contribute to: getting the SUNYmessage out to diverse individuals inthe pool of potential teachercandidates (Theme 1); increasingcontact and communication with P-12 school partners (Theme 2);develop networks of teachers at alllevels of experience and in allsettings (Theme 3); and generating,accessing, processing, and sharingdata relevant to all parts of theinitiative (Theme 4). Informationtechnology systems are a vital partof the sustainable infrastructurerequired to institutionalize themechanisms of all of the otherthemes of TeachNY (Theme 5). Theseexamples are only meant toillustrate possibilities for rethinkinginformation technology’s role inteacher education. Many specificsolutions to the varied problems weface will be an important part of theTeachNY implementation effort.

From the perspective of 40 yearsin teacher education, as well as timespent working with business,industry, and other organizations, Ibelieve that we need to change thegeneral intent of the use ofcommunication technologies in theeducational setting. Too much efforthas been given to trying to find theright hardware and software toreplace the teacher at the center ofthe educational enterprise. Instead,we need to look at models outside ofclassrooms as to how technology isapplied in other professions, e.g.,engineering, medicine, and law.Technology in these fields is notdesigned to replace engineers,doctors, and lawyers. It is to makethose human professionals better atwhat they do.

In 1866, Halcyon Skinner wasissued a patent on a machine hedesigned to teach spelling tochildren. Since that time a great dealof effort has been spent indeveloping educational technologythat could replace all or part of thefunctions of the teacher. In 1923,

Thomas Edison predicted thatmovies would replace blackboardsand books in schools. By the 1960’sthe phrase “computer-assistedinstruction” had entered thevocabulary of teachers and schoolreformers.

For too long some have promotedthe view of the future of schoolingwith the teacher as, at most, acurator of software and hardwarewith children freed from the timeschedule and physical space oftoday’s schooling. Some reformersactually believe that day is not toofar off.

More tools of the asynchronous,on-demand education seem to cropup every day. There are video andpodcast lectures, on-line coursesthat allow students to jump inwhenever they are ready, apps toteach every subject on your phone,and “intelligent assistants” to helpyou find what you need to do next.Refining the instructionaltechnologies and matching theartificial intelligence of themachines to the instructionaldecision-making ability of theteacher are the last small steps inthis vision of teacher-less schooling.Given the history of predictionsabout educational technology andartificial intelligence, the path tobetter education in the 21st centurywill more likely be carved out bybetter human teachers with themost effective tools we can givethem.

We must also consider technologyin the context of schools beingpulled in multiple directions and ourprofession not having a clear senseof what we are trying to do. It’s hardto get somewhere effectively if youdon’t know where you are going. The2016 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Pollshowed that 50% of Americansbelieve the purpose of schooling is“academics” (although it is not clearthere is any sort of consensusdefinition of what that is). The other

half are more or less evenly splitbetween seeing the purpose ofschooling as developing citizens andpreparing future employees forfuture jobs. Many of those futurejobs we are preparing students fordo not even exist today. Whileschools will never have one single,clearly-defined purpose, they mustfind a way to have a discussion tonarrow the focus and move towardcommon goals. Only then cantechnology be focused on theimprovement of teaching andeducator preparation as conceivedby TeachNY.

In an environment of schoolsbeing uncertain of their purpose,technology became a solutionlooking for a problem. I was aclassroom teacher in 1979 when ourschool got its first “personalcomputer.” They gave it to mebecause I was the “science guy” and Imust have some way I could put it touse. I made my district pay for me togo to the local college to take aprogramming course so I could makethe Radio Shack TRS Model 80 dosomething. In a short 15 weeks, Iwrote a program that my chemistrystudents could use to input the massand volume of samples and thecomputer would tell them thedensity! The paper and pencils wehad burned up before was spared aswell as the time of studentspunching the numbers into theirand recording their answers. Thiswas a $5,000 solution to a $2problem that ate up 45 hours of mytime that semester. Yes, I did writemany more programs for otherpurposes but I never really found itthe best use of my time. Teaching is ajob where you never finish all of theimportant to-do list items anyway.Therefore, teachers have to be timemanagers, every day deciding whatuseful thing will not get done.

Technology in schools keptlooking for problems to solve untiltechnology qua technology became

the problem. Parents and potentialemployers demand that schoolsteach students to use computers,calculators, smart phones, andspecific software and apps so theywill be ready for those jobs that havenot been created yet. At the sametime, they also want their children tolearn their times tables andgrammar rules the same way theydid. So we have flooded classroomswith electronic whiteboards, tablets,Chromebooks, and other gadgetsinto a curriculum designed forliberally educating well-roundedcitizens in Post-WW II America.

In 1939, Harold Benjamin, underthe pen name J. Abner Peddiwell,wrote an allegory for the staideducational establishment titled TheSaber-Tooth Curriculum. The punchline was that schools created toteach protection against tigers willfail when the tigers are all gone butbears take their place. The story wasmeant to be an object lesson foreducators that the skills andknowledge of the past will not servethe students or society of today tosolve the problems confrontingthem. It’s a quick read or, if youprefer, watch it in less than fiveminutes on Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/19515754 (ironyintentional--DS).

If Benjamin was worried that theworld of 1939 was moving too fastfor an overly cautious school system,he would be gasping for breathtoday. I do the “let’s think aboutfuture jobs that don’t exist today”task in some of my classes. Thisexercise fuels a discussion of “Howwill you need to change as a teacherto meet the ever-evolving needs ofschools and students?” We also talkabout how to use technology as aproblem-solving tool in the serviceof professional development.

Spending 150 years trying tobuild the electro-mechanical systemthat would make the teacherunnecessary has simply shown that

S P E A K O U T

17

teaching and learning are not justabout filling children withinformation and skills but are,instead, about human-to-humanrelationship building. Cognitivescience has shown us that learning,and therefore teaching, is morecomplex than we imagined. Whiletrying to find the app or softwarethat can replace the teacher, we havespent much less time looking at howto use technology to develop andsupport great human teachers andstudents. We could apply technologyto liberate teachers to spend more oftheir time connecting to students asindividuals—but we don’t.

I believe the key to usingtechnology to make teachers betterteachers can be found by looking athow technology is used outside ofour profession. As mentioned before,engineers, doctors, and lawyers usetechnology to get better at doingwhat they do rather than trying toreplace human professionals. (Iknow about WebMD, Legal Zoom, etal. Would you really choose either ofthem over a human equivalent if

your life actually depended on it?Would you be the first to drive acrossa bridge designed and built byVitrualcivilengineer.com? )

These professionals usetechnology as humans with theneed to access more and betterinformation faster than they evercould. They process what they find toseparate the sense from thenonsense (perhaps the most usefulmodern skill). They communicatewith each other to build the body ofknowledge of the profession andconnect with others working on thesame kinds of problems. Teachersempowered with technology andtaught how to use it to makethemselves better teachers must, inmy mind, be the technologyimperative of TeachNY.

In 1951, Isaac Asimov wrote “TheFun They Had,” a short story aboutchildren in the year 2157 whodiscover a “book.” Through theirintelligent-machine teacher, theylearn about “schools” children usedto attend. They are shocked to findthat there ever was a time when

children went to one place to betaught by a human being. The jokeforeshadowed by the title is how thechildren wax dreamily about the funkids must have had when they gotto go to “school”—a place of realhuman interaction. Seriousprojections of when we would seeArtificial Intelligence that couldreplace human functions have beenfailing since at least the 1957Dartmouth Conference. I have nofaith in the prophets who saymachines that can replace theteacher are right around the corner.

Everything that is true of the needfor teachers to be retooled to meetthe future needs of students is trueof the retooling that is needed ineducator preparation programs. Icould get into my thoughts andexperiences on how my chosenprofession should adapt to thedemands of providing the nextgeneration of teachers and schoolleaders, but that would requireanother entire essay. Keeping thefocus on innovations withtechnology I would say the number

one opportunity/challenge we haveis in increasing the connectionsamong people withoutoverwhelming them with redundantand needless communications. Ifanything, communicatinginformation is now too easy and wesend everything to everyone towhere the signal is lost in the noise.

Finally, I hope you, the reader, arepeeved or frustrated at somethingI’ve said herein. If you are a non-education faculty member, I hopeyou will take this to one of youreducation colleagues and askher/him if s/he believes the samenonsense as that dope fromGeneseo. If you are on an educationfaculty, go to your Provost or LiberalArts Dean and explain why I don’tspeak for the entire educationcommunity. Whatever you do, I hopeit generates a conversation on yourcampus about TeachNY and bringingthe entire university into thepreparation of educators for thefuture of New York

T H E D I V E R S I T Y C O LUMN

Timothy W. GerkenMorrisville State CollegeChair UFS Committee on

Equity, Inclusion, & Diversity

[Editor’s note: The Diversity Corner is a placefor conversation about equity and inclusion. Wehope to present a variety of voices, so if youhave ideas for an article please let Tim Gerken,who is responsible for this new continuing col-umn, know by sending it to him (gerkentw@morrisville.edu).

November, 2016--Our societycontinues its struggle with racism,ableism, xenophobia, misogyny,transphobia, and homophobia.Though many citizens have beenfighting for generations to create asociety that does not discriminateor encourage violence against ourminority populations, we knowthere is still a lot of work to do. Itseems as if the election of DonaldTrump has empowered somecitizens—some of them ourstudents—to act in ways that goagainst the stated values of SUNYand New York state. These actionsare not new or unfamiliar.

Many of us gravitate towardshigher education with the beliefthat we can find a more inclusiveand safe space to live and work, andNew York state and SUNY can

certainly be a haven compared toother states and other statesystems, but we can do better. Firstwe must address any suggestion ofor act of intimidation on ourcampuses. Campus leaders must actquickly and conscientiously toremove students from ourcampuses who engage in thesebehaviors. They must also maketheir actions known to the campusand reiterate the values of thecampus. Many of our campusesseem to understand this and actaccordingly.

However, to really improve ourcampus climates, we must alsoaddress the discrimination anddiscriminatory violence that takesplace off our campuses. Theseteachable moments presentimportant opportunities for faculty

from all disciplines to bringdiscussions of equity and inclusioninto the classroom and to developour students’ cultural competencies.

How we do this and what we dowill depend on who we are, ourlived experiences, and howcomfortable we feel discussingthese issues. Improving our comfortlevels can come throughprofessional development training,but it will also come if and when wemake a concerted effort to developrelationships with colleagues andcommunity members who comefrom under-represented groups,and who we may not havesignificant interpersonalinteractions with. It is theseprolonged conversations that willtruly make a difference in the futureof SUNY.

S P E A K O U T

18

By working together, we canexpand the structural andinteractional diversity on ourcampuses.

One obvious way to do this is toincrease the diversity of our faculty,staff, and administration. Statisticsshow that our faculty and staffpopulation is not as diverse as ourstudent body: “the trend inemployees at SUNY identifying asURM [Under Represented Minorities]has shown an incremental increaseover the period from Fall 2007 to Fall2015 (11.9% to 12.6%)” ; however,SUNY’s URM student population isalmost 25%. The SUNY Board ofTrustees (BOT) passed a diversitypolicy in September 2015 whichmandates that “each campus andSUNY Administration will developcomprehensive strategic diversityand inclusion plans” that increasethe number of URM’s in our faculty,staff, and administration. Theseendeavors are not easy. And, they donot end once the individual is on ourcampus. There is a significantamount of work we must do to keepthese individuals on our campuses.Researcher Kerry Ann O’Meara haswritten about how “universities arelosing talent because of bias inacademic reward systems and workenvironments. Having engaged inexit interviews and retention studiesof faculty leaving the academy, it isclear universities pay a major priceby not acknowledging bias andexpanding their definitions ofscholarship in terms of the diversityof people and contributions theyattract, retain, and advance.” It istime for us to reexamine continuingappointment and promotionprocedures that work to benefitSUNY’s Strategic Agenda.

In 2013 the University FacultySenate Diversity and CulturalCompetence Committee presented aPosition Paper entitled MakingDiversity Count: “This paper calls forpolicy changes in the faculty reward

system: we are specifically askingthat diversity be included as one ofthe criteria for faculty evaluationthroughout SUNY….” Itssuggestions provide ways to supportSUNY’s Strategic Agenda. ProvostCartwright wrote in theSpring/Summer 2016 Faculty SenateBulletin: “Diversity, equity, andinclusion: This is about people, whowe are and who we serve. It’s aboutensuring that everyone who comesto study or work at SUNY feelswelcome and knows that theiropinions will be respected. Our workhere cuts across all five areas ofSUNY Excels: access, completion,success, inquiry, and engagement.”

In January 2015 the Board ofTrustees endorsed “SUNY Excels asthe University’s performance systemand the key driver of the Power ofSUNY strategic plan for the next fiveyears.” Through the five priorityareas, system will “be seeking outand tracking inclusive Excellenceacross metrics in all five priorityareas.” If Excels is going to measurediversity in all five areas, it isimportant to look at thecontribution to “inclusive Excellence”our current tenured faculty andprofessional staff make. I think if wedo this honestly, we will see that thelack of URM faculty and staff on ourcampuses significantly limits“institutional diversity as part of themission and vision of theeducational institution.”

To develop diversity and inclusiveexcellence in all of the Excel areas,we must reconsider the wide rangeof activities that are used to evaluateand award continuing appointmentand promotion. The five areas—mastery of subject matter,effectiveness in teaching,effectiveness in university service,scholarly ability, and continuinggrowth if evaluated equally and withthe objective of supporting SUNY’sstrategic plan—provide theopportunities we need to fulfill our

mission. However, we know on mostcampuses and in most departmentsthroughout the system, scholarlyability is weighted more heavilythan the other four criteriacombined. “Publish or perish” is acommon way of phrasing thisinequity. Not only do faculty have topublish, they have to publish in the“right” places and manydepartments require a publishedbook in order for a faculty memberto be awarded continuingappointment or promotion.

Every time any faculty memberchooses to not be involved inprograms that support Excels’ fiveareas because they feel they will bepulled away from their research—which is a very likelyscenario—students, programs, andthe campus community sufferbecause fewer individuals then haveto do this work. This leads toburnout, it leads to a limited numberof perspectives being promoted, andit reinforces privilege.

Faculty and staff from URM’s areoften tasked with extra-servicebecause they become the unofficial“advisor” to students who see fewfaculty or staff that look like them,the “diversity” representative oncommittees, task forces, and panelsthat are looking to make sure theymeet a “diversity” requirement, andthe “diversity” voice on issues facingtheir campus. Cis-gendered, straight,white males generally do not faceany of these additional pressures.

However, it is important toacknowledge that many of ourfaculty and staff who are not URM’swork hard to support diversityefforts on their campuses and acrossSUNY. They too struggle to improveour campus climate and support theExcel’s framework, while trying to dotheir research and get thepublications they need to bepromoted. I have served with thesededicated faculty and staff duringmy time on the University Faculty

Senate Executive Committee, and Ihave watched as some of them goback to their campuses, so they cando the research they need to getpromoted.

Inquiry is the only Excels’ metricthat specifically addresses researchand publications. Examining thecriteria for evaluating a campus andthe one for tenure and promotion,we see that research is only one ofthe five criteria in each of the twoevaluative frameworks. Yet, we allowone criteria—scholarly ability—tobe more influential on the success ofthe entire campus than the othercriteria combined. I believe thisundermines SUNY’s StrategicAgenda.

Just at the role of SUNY and ourindividual campuses have changedover the years, the role of faculty andprofessional staff has also changed.If SUNY Excels is truly a“performance system that drivescontinuous improvement towardExcellence at all levels—system,sector, campus, faculty, student, andstaff,” then we must change theway we understand the criteria forcontinuing appointment andpromotion. This is a time for SharedGovernance to come together andmake changes. Campus GovernanceLeaders (CGL’s), Department Chairs,Deans, Chief Diversity Officers, ChiefAcademic Officers, CollegePresidents, SUNY’s senioradministration, and the SUNY Boardof Trustees must determine how toaccount for the work done by thefaculty and staff that drive our“continuous improvement towardExcellence.” Without this change, wewill never be able to live up to thegoals of the BOT’s Resolution onSUNY Excels.

It is important that this be asystem-wide change. We cannothave some campuses or certaindepartments on certain campuseswhere scholarly ability remains theoverriding factor determining theoutcome of a faculty member. Itmust be measured equally with the

T H E D I V E R S I T Y C O LUMN

19

T H E D I V E R S I T Y C O LUMN

other criteria. Because it is a system-wide change, it must affect allfaculty members equally.

These ideas are not new. KerryAnn O’Meara has been doingresearch in Academic RewardSystems for over 15 years. She hasargued that “reform of promotionand tenure policies should improve

the ability of the academic rewardsystem to acknowledge and supportthe diversity of individuals andcontributions. Such reform does notlower a bar, or compromise thequality of scholarship deemedexcellent. Instead, it opens up moreways, for more scholars, to make acase for the excellence of their work,

work that should be held to thehighest standards appropriate totheir form and content.”

The Power of SUNY is the powerof our efforts. Our guiding principalssuggest we should be “ambitiousand visionary.” We have theopportunity with Excels to expandand enhance our continuing

appointment and promotion criteria.We can value engaged scholarship,community engagement, teaching,and service that improves access,completion, success, and retention. Itis time we move to evaluate facultyand staff in a way that supportssystemness: a system that is moreequitable and more inclusive.

Dr. Daniel Scott Marrone, Farmingdale State College

(Retired)

NYS’s Elizabeth Kortright Monroe:La Belle Américainesaves Adrienne, Mar-quise de La Fayette,during the French

Revolution

During their event-filled lives,James and Elizabeth Monroeexperienced the turbulent politics ofa new nation; faced peril in Parisduring the French Revolution;participated in history’s largestpeaceful land acquisition—theLouisiana Purchase; promoted the“Era of Good Feelings”; and helpedpostpone for decades the Americancivil war via the MissouriCompromise of 1820. James Monroedeclared in his 1823 “Address toCongress” that the WesternHemisphere was “off-limits” toEuropean colonization. This

American foreign policy, coined “TheMonroe Doctrine,” has endured.

Though James Monroe is givenpraise for his achievements thatoccurred before and during hispresidency, Elizabeth’saccomplishments are oftenoverlooked. Further, she is unjustlyrated poorly as First Lady. Thefollowing essay sheds someadditional light on the nation’s fifthpresident and, especially, on the firstFirst Lady from New York State.

German artist Emmanuel GottliebLeutze painted “WashingtonCrossing the Delaware,” in 1851.Lieutenant James Monroe isstanding behind Washingtonholding the 13-star U.S.A. flag.(Collection of the MetropolitanMuseum of Art, NY.)

James and Elizabeth Monroe:Early Lives

During the Revolutionary War,James Monroe (1758-1831) foughtwith valor in the battles of HarlemHeights, Brandywine, Germantown,and Monmouth. At the pivotalBattle of Trenton, on December 26,1776, Lieutenant Monroe was shotin the chest and nearly died from hiswound. Remarkably, the strappingsix-foot tall, 18-year old Virginianfully recovered and by 1777 waspromoted to Captain. During the

harsh winter encampment at ValleyForge in 1778, Monroe, now at therank of Major, shared a tent withfellow Virginian, Lieutenant JohnMarshall--later the Chief Justice ofthe U.S. Supreme Court. In 1780,Virginia Governor Thomas Jeffersonpromoted Monroe to a full colonelcyin the state’s militia. He was alsosimultaneously appointed VirginiaMilitary Commissioner to theSouthern Continental Army. Threeyears later, Monroe was elected tothe Virginia House of Delegates andalso represented his state in theCongress of the Confederation. FromNovember 7, 1785 until November 3,1786, Congress met in the nation’stemporary capital in New-York City(spelled with a hyphen until the fiveboroughs united into the “City ofGreater New York” on January 1,1898).

While in New-York City, 27-yearold Monroe was introduced to 17-year old Elizabeth Kortright. Born onJune 30, 1768, Elizabeth wasprovided with a well-rounded liberaleducation. She was an excellentstudent who was proficient inFrench and other Europeanlanguages. Petite at five feet inheight, Elizabeth possessedexpressive blue eyes and a beautifulface enhanced by sumptuousbrunette hair. She came from aNederlander family that wasoriginally named van Kortryk. Uponfirst laying eyes on Elizabeth, Jameswas instantly smitten with herbeauty and intelligence. After a briefcourtship, they married on February

16, 1786 at Trinity Church, anEpiscopal place of worship situatedat the northern end of Wall Street inlower Manhattan. This centuries-oldchurch is still operational at itsoriginal site--one block from theoriginal World Trade Center that wasdestroyed on September 11, 2001.

Sketch of Trinity Church madeabout the time of the Monroemarriage in the late 1700’s.

Photograph of Trinity Church withthe original World Trade Center inthe background.

The newlyweds lived withElizabeth’s widowed father,Lawrence Kortright, in a largethough somewhat unkemptManhattan manse. Elizabeth’smother, née Hannah Aspinwall, lived

C E L E B R AT I N G N EW Y O R K S TAT E A N D N EW Y O R K E R S

20

from 1735 to 1777. The Aspinwallsare directly related to another iconicDutch New York family, theRoosevelts of Hyde Park. (PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt’syoungest son was named JohnAspinwall Roosevelt). James Monroeplanned to bring his new bride backto Virginia when his term in theCongress of the Confederationended. By then, Elizabeth waspregnant and loath to leave herelderly father as well as her brothersand sisters--all residing in New-YorkCity. Nevertheless, she dutifullyrelocated to Virginia. In a letter tofriend Thomas Jefferson, Jamesproudly wrote of his vivacious NewYork wife. Monroe remarked: “Sheleft her state and her family andbecame a good Virginian.”

With a stellar reputation as a warhero and for his diligent service inthe Congress of the Confederation,Monroe readily established a lawpractice with many clients in hishome state. In April 1787, voters inFredericksburg elected him to theVirginia Assembly in Richmond. Ayear later, the two “James,” Madisonand Monroe, vied to be the firstperson elected to the newly formedU.S. House of Representatives for atwo-year term beginning in 1789.Madison won the election. However,in a situation where “one door closesand another opens,” an unfortunatedeath in Monroe’s family created asad though lucky situation for theVirginia lawyer. William Grayson,Monroe’s cousin, was elected to theU.S. Senate in 1788 and served from1789 until his sudden death due toheart failure on March 12, 1790.Grayson was the first person to diewhile serving in elected office of theU.S. government. Grayson’s deathcreated a potential opportunity forMonroe, who submitted his name tothe Virginia legislature for filling thenow vacant U.S. Senate seat. In fall1790, the legislature voted itsapproval for Monroe to completeGrayson’s senate term. The 32-yearold lawyer was sworn-in as U.S.

Senator representing Virginia inDecember 1790.

The Monroes in ParisIn July 1789, a rebellion in France

commenced that would forever alterworld history. The French Revolutionquickly devolved into mass murderof an estimated 41,000 victims.During this upheaval, ThomasJefferson was U.S. Minister to France.In September 1789, he left Paris forhome to serve as PresidentWashington’s—and the nation’s—first Secretary of State. In fillingJefferson’s post, Washington chose aFederalist colleague, GouverneurMorris, as Minister to France. Whilein Paris, Morris publicly denouncedthe 1793 executions of French KingLouis XVI and Queen MarieAntoinette. In response, theinsurrectionists now controllingFrance demanded the immediaterecall of Morris, who then hastily leftfor America. Washington thenoffered this diplomatic post to JamesMonroe. James and Elizabeth alongwith seven-year old daughter, Eliza,sailed to France and landed at theport of Le Havre on July 31, 1794.Here they heard the shocking newsof the three-days earlier beheadingsof Maximilien de Robespierre andother “Reign of Terror” conspirators.Upon their deaths, France nextentered into a somewhat morestable but still deadly era known asthe “Thermidorian Reaction.”

A French insurrectionist holding asevered head of someone who hadjust been guillotined during the“Reign of Terror.”

La Belle Américaine: American HeroMonroe and his articulate, French-

speaking wife were captivated withFrance. The French were, in turn,besotted with Elizabeth whom theycalled La Belle Américaine.Gorgeous, Elizabeth was alsocourageous. Amid the “Reign ofTerror” and continuing in the“Thermidorian Reaction” years, thoseof noble birth were being summarilyguillotined. In 1794, Adrienne, anoblewoman and wife ofContinental Army general, theMarquis de La Fayette (proper Frenchspelling of surname), wasimprisoned awaiting execution. Thiswas the fate that befell Adrienne’ssister, mother, and grandmother. Heruncle, diplomat Emmanuel MarieLouis de Noailles, begged MinisterJames Monroe to save his niece. Asan American official, Monroeconsidered it his duty to obtain therelease of the wife of the Marquis deLa Fayette. However, Monroe fearedthat the French insurgents wouldmisconstrue his actions to free thenoblewoman as unwelcomeAmerican meddling in theirrevolution. So Monroe devised anindirect plan for Adrienne’s rescue.The Americans would demonstrateto the French that Adrienne, wife ofa former American general, wasunder the protection of the U.S.government. James intended forone of his aides to represent the U.S.government in undertaking therelease of Adrienne, Marquise de LaFayette. Anyone carrying out thisplan risked imprisonment andpossible execution. To the shock ofher husband, Elizabeth volunteeredto carry out the rescue plan. Jameswas deeply opposed to Elizabethrisking her life. Most reluctantly,James finally acquiesced to hispersistent wife.

Portrait of Elizabeth KortrightMonroe, aged 26, painted by Swissartist Louis Sene in Paris (1794).

In his brief autobiography, JamesMonroe stated:

“I procured a carriage as soon as Icould and had it put in the bestorder with the markings of ‘Ministerof the United States of America.’ Inthis carriage Mrs. Monroe drovedirectly to the prison in whichMadame Lafayette was confined.Inquiry was made by the prisonguards as to whose carriage was it?The answer given was the AmericanMinister. Who is in it? His wife.What brought her here? To seeMadame Lafayette.”

Accompanied only by twocoachmen, La Belle Américainebravely entered the death rowprison and demanded to seeAdrienne. Elizabeth met with andassured the French noblewomanthat she would soon be freed.Elizabeth exited the prison loudlyproclaiming to the guards and thebloodthirsty mobs outside the jail inflawless French that Adrienne shouldbe released because the youngwoman was under the protection ofthe U.S. government. By visiting theprison and brazenly proclaiming U.S.government protection for Adrienne,Elizabeth’s spunkiness becamewidely admired throughout Paris.Her visit to the prison initiated agroundswell of popular support forsparing Adrienne. The FrenchCommittee of Public Safety yieldedto the demands of les citoyens byfreeing Adrienne on January 22,1795. In risking her life to saveAdrienne, Elizabeth Monroe was anAmerican hero!

C E L E B R AT I N G N EW Y O R K S TAT E A N D N EW Y O R K E R S

21

Madame Marie AdrienneFrançoise de Noailles, Marquise de LaFayette, was spared execution inParis through the efforts of NewYorker, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe.

James Monroe sent to Franceto negotiate the LouisianaPurchase

Following his diplomatic servicein France, James and family returnedto America and built a home called“Highland” in Charlottesville,Virginia, near close friend, ThomasJefferson in 1799. Later that year,Monroe was elected governor ofVirginia. He was re-elected in 1801and 1802. All told, he served asgovernor from December 28, 1799until December 1, 1802. On January10, 1803, Monroe received an urgentnote from President Jefferson “tojoin Minister Robert R. Livingston inParis in an effort to purchase a site atthe mouth of the Mississippi to beused as a port of deposit” (Ammon,p. 203). The third U.S. presidentneeded Monroe’s expertise as thenation’s “Envoy Extraordinary toFrance and Spain.” Rumors werecirculating, later proven to beaccurate, that Spain had ceded toFrance the Louisiana Territory, a vastextent of land the preciseboundaries of which were unknownat the time. With France continuallyat war with Great Britain and itsEuropean allies, Général Napoléonrequired additional cash to continuehis conquests across the continent.As timing was critical, Jeffersonpleaded with Monroe toimmediately leave for France.Monroe was instructed, with arelatively free hand in terms of price,to purchase the port of New Orleansand secure navigation rights to theMississippi River.

Before sailing to France, theMonroes visited Kortright family

members in New-York City. TheMonroes sailed from the city in early1803. Transatlantic travel during theera of sailing ships was alwaysperilous. The winter of 1803 wasespecially harsh with ice storms andmountainous squalls rocking theirvessel incessantly rendering them allseasick. In addition, Elizabeth wasnow being afflicted withrheumatism, an ailment that wouldplague her for the rest of her life.After their 29-day arduous journey,the Monroes arrived at the port of LeHavre on April 8, 1803. They werewelcomed with celebrationsfeaturing numerous displays ofFrench and American flags. AwaitingMonroe’s arrival was U.S.Ambassador to France, RobertRobert Livingston (whose first andmiddle names were Robert; 1746-1834). Livingston had alreadybegun negotiations with the French.Général Napoléon desperatelyneeded cash. Thus, France was eagerto sell its newly acquired LouisianaTerritory. As perhaps the best landacquisition deal in history, Monroeand Livingston were offered theentire Louisiana Territory for 80million francs (the equivalent of$15,000,000 computing to just $.04per acre). At 828,000 square miles,the Louisiana Purchase was greaterin land area than France, GreatBritain, Ireland, Portugal, and Spaincombined! Not only did the nationexpand in size, so did the Monroefamily. While in Paris, Elizabeth gavebirth to a second daughter, MariaHester Monroe. Reflecting hisScottish/Welsh ancestry, Monroepronounced the baby’s first name as“Ma-ri-ah.”

The War of 1812In 1810, President Madison

appointed Monroe as Secretary ofState. As the Federalist Partydwindled in political support, theDemocratic-Republicans weregaining political strongholds in theU.S. south and west as well as incities with burgeoning immigrantpopulations such as New-York City,Philadelphia, and Baltimore. TheDemocratic-Republicans favoredexpanding into new territories,embodied in the notion later

dubbed “Manifest Destiny.” Speakerof the House Representative HenryClay, Sr. of Kentucky and the so-called “War Hawks” advocated forthe conquest of Canada.Understandably, this alarmed theBritish. However, it was theinvoluntary impressment ofAmerican sailors into the BritishRoyal Navy that was the mostegregious dispute between theU.S.A. and her former mothercountry. At President Madison’surgent request, the U.S. Congressdeclared war on Great Britain onJune 18, 1812. What was Madisonthinking? Compared to the RoyalArmy and Navy, the American forceswere pitifully inadequate. This, nodoubt, explains why at thebeginning of the war, Americanswere soundly defeated in several keyland battles. The Americans alsoraided Canada several times. Duringone of these attacks, the “Yanks”burned York—present day Toronto.This misguided assault into Canadaspurred the British to vengeance.Thus, in 1814, the predominantBritish military mandate was totorch Washington City as “payback”for the burning of York. In August ofthat year, the British invadedMaryland with a massive land force.With overwhelming numbers, theBritish overran American defenses atthe Battle of Bladensburg. Facing nofurther resistance, the Britishmarched unmolested intoWashington City and proceeded totorch many U.S. governmentbuildings including the ExecutiveMansion.

However, the British weredefeated in September 1814 at thecombined land Battle of Plattsburghand sea Battle of Lake Champlain innorthern New York State. The RoyalNavy was also thwarted at a star-shaped fortress guarding Baltimoreharbor called Fort McHenry. After a25-hour naval bombardment, theBritish (and attorney/poet FrancisScott Key) saw a gigantic U.S.A.garrison flag unfurled at the fort onSeptember 13, 1814. This, of course,was the iconic “Star-SpangledBanner.” Since the British could notdefeat the Americans defending

Baltimore harbor, the Royal Navybegan departing Chesapeake Bay.On the next day, September 14,President Madison fired woefullyinept Secretary of War JohnArmstrong and appointed JamesMonroe as his replacement. The 56-year old Monroe was now bothSecretary of State and Secretary ofWar. With these enormousresponsibilities, Monroe drew upplans to build a standing army of100,000 soldiers in the nation’sdefense. Thankfully, the war wascoming to an end. The War of 1812formally ended on Christmas Eve,December 24, 1814, with the signingof a peace treaty at the Belgium cityof Ghent. However, news reachedAmerica of the peace treaty afterMajor General Andrew Jacksonvictoriously led an array ofAmericans, from a polyglot of ethnicand racial backgrounds, at the Battleof New Orleans in January 1815. OnFebruary 18, 1815, the U.S. Senateratified the Treaty of Ghent. TheU.S.A. gained no new territories inthe war. However, the nationattained something far moreimportant—it demonstrated that itcould ably defend itself against theworld’s most formidable army andnavy!

Monroe becomes President;Elizabeth becomes incapacitated

On March 4, 1817, Monroe wasinaugurated fifth U.S. president.During the Monroe Administration,the nation remained at peace with aminimum of partisan turmoil.Monroe visited Boston later thatyear. Federalist-leaning journalistand publisher Benjamin Russellwrote in the Columbian Sentinel onJuly 12 that “the nation was at peaceand united.” Russell proclaimed thatthe U.S.A. was entering an “Era ofGood Feelings.” During the Monroepresidency, the nation continued toexpand. Spanish Minister Luis deOnís y Gonzales-Vara and Secretaryof State John Quincy Adams reachedan agreement whereby Spain cededits Florida territories to the U.S.A. In1820, Monroe fervently advocatedfor and was glad to sign into law the“Missouri Compromise.” With thiscritically important agreement, the

C E L E B R AT I N G N EW Y O R K S TAT E A N D N EW Y O R K E R S

22

nation defused for decades thethreat of war between the “North”and the “South” over the accursed“peculiar institution of slavery.”Americans were also flexing poweron a global basis. Based on aprinciple that the European powersmust not interfere in the WesternHemisphere, Monroe adopted adocument prepared by Secretary ofState Adams. On December 2, 1823,President Monroe included thisdocument within his address toCongress. Monroe declared that theU.S.A. would hereby protect thenewly independent, former coloniesof Spain against any aggression byEuropean powers. This principle of awestern hemispheric shield ofprotection became known as the“Monroe Doctrine.”

While James was attaining majorsuccesses in his presidency, Elizabethwas suffering from progressivelyworsening illnesses. Elizabeth, nowin her fifties, attempted to fulfill herFirst Lady responsibilities. However,she was often ill and, in any event,could not match the social élan andverve of her celebrated predecessorDolley Madison. Cokie Roberts, inLadies of Liberty: The Women WhoShaped Our Nation, writes:“Elizabeth Monroe was no DolleyMadison, who would be animpossible act to follow” (p. 319).Whereas Dolley would doffelaborately feathered, turbaned hatsand joyously intermingle withcongressional wives and foreigndiplomats, Elizabeth was morerestrained in her dealings withguests and frequently absent fromofficial events in the newly repairedExecutive Mansion. Tragically,Elizabeth was now also sufferingfrom epilepsy. For political andprivacy reasons, Monroe wasunwilling to publicly reveal his wife’sillnesses. The partisan press thusinaccurately portrayed Elizabeth’sabsence from public appearances asaloofness and arrogance. Herreputation as First Lady wasdiminished. On New Year’s Day in1825, James and Elizabeth Monroeheld their last major “levee” in theExecutive Mansion. Elizabeth’sappearance at this event has been

described as follows: “Though nolonger young, she is still a veryhandsome woman.”

Portraits of James and ElizabethMonroe late in life.

James and Elizabeth Monroe:The Final Years

Nine months after leaving thepresidency, Monroe wrote to his son-in-law, Samuel LaurenceGouverneur, and daughter MariaMonroe Gouverneur, who lived inNew-York City that Elizabeth “had aconvulsion, which was attendedwith the most painfulconsequences.” Elizabeth sufferedan epileptic seizure near a litfireplace. When she awoke, she wasburned over much of her body.Elizabeth never fully recovered. Shedied on September 23, 1830 at age62. James was devastated by theloss of his wife of 44 years.Following Elizabeth’s death, theformer president moved in with hisson-in-law and daughter in New-York City. Upon Elizabeth’s death,James told family and friends thathe would not live long. His ominousprediction proved true, for he diedless than 10 months later at age 73.In an ironic twist of fate, New York-born Elizabeth died in Virginia;Virginia-born James Monroe died inNew-York City. His death on July 4,1831 was exactly 55 years to the dayafter the signing of the Declarationof Independence. For service to hisnation as a soldier, minister, andpresident, James Monroe was a greatAmerican. For her courage in savingAdrienne, Marquise de La Fayette,and for providing unceasing lovingsupport to her beleaguered husbandthroughout his very long publicservice career, Elizabeth KortrightMonroe deserves much recognitionas well.

References:Ammon, H. (1990). James Monroe: The Quest

for National Identity. University of Virginia Press.Roberts, C. (2008). Ladies of Liberty: The

Women Who Shaped Our Nation. William Morrow.

Poems by Dick CollierSUNY Polytechnic Institute

Regarding TeachNY

“Recruit more teachers, more diverse,especially in STEM!”

“More Master Teachers!” -- Certainly, who’dnot approve that goal?

That means more pay, prestige,professional dev. for all of them--

Of course with SUNY poised to train themfor their crucial role.

But although many campuses began withjust that mission,

Some felt that lacked prestige andinterfered with “mission creep,”

And some because of placement issues andcost of supervision

Considered Teacher Education’s price wasmuch too steep.

The vicious cycle started, teaching kept onlosing luster,The “best and brightest’ choosing morelucrative pursuits,

This left behind some candidates who justdidn’t pass muster,So to survive we wandered further fromour hallowed roots.

Let’s hope that TeachNY succeeds and giveit our support--

It calls for lots of PSA’s and for the career apath

And new found pride and salaries,intending thus to courtThe best and diverse teachers intosciences and math.

[The poet parenthetically hopes there isnot neglect

Of other subjects’ budgets, please don’t cutthem to the bone!

We need more scientists and engineers, butshould reflectWe humans and our cultures do not liveby STEM alone.]

The PSA’s will also show it’s crucial for ourstateAs well as for our country that thetaxpayers agree

The vicious cycle must be stopped, or elsewe face the fate

Of no replacement as each teacherbecomes retiree.

And should some SUNY rank and file bedoubtful, please just thinkHow wonderful to have a year when youdon’t have to gripe

“We have to reteach high school—civilization’s at the brink”Once students taught by Master Teachersall come through the pipe.

The program also promises more freedomto innovate,Less “Stepford” strangling syllabi, morementoring of course,

Less “bean-counting” mentality, a thing wealso hate,Perhaps reducing districts’ numbers of“bean counter” forceExpect no suddenturnaround, the frosh vote with their feetAnd for a while a teacher won’t be topcareer of choice,

And campuses will each still haveenrollment goals to meet--So all depends on how persuasive is theSUNY voice.

But meantime boomer retirees who havegotten bored,And graduates who now regret the fieldand job they chose,

Part-timers, CC, out of staters—while weawait the hordeOf freshman teacher wannabes, cannotwe work with those?

They’re likely more mature who did their“applied learning” first,Have context, content depth, and moredeveloped people skills,

And in the subject matter some already arewell versed,

And better grasp society, its challenges andills.

There’s also all those teachers whoabandoned the professionThat TeachNY’s objectives may draw backinto the fold

Whom we could teach and certify that theyare in possessionOf pedagogy and/or facts not rusty or tooold.

And, finally, consider how this helps somequestions burningFor SUNY folk who feel as though theirlimits they are reaching:

All TE programs are, perforce, “experientiallearning,”And “outreach”? What is worth more thanimproving local teaching?

C E L E B R AT I N G N EW Y O R K S TAT E A N D N EW Y O R K E R S T H E P O E T ’ S C O R N E R

23

System AdministrationJim CampbellFred Hildebrand

University at AlbanyWalter LittleLatonia SpencerDiane Hamilton

Binghamton UniversitySara WozniakBarry JonesPamela Smart

University at BuffaloCemalettin BasaranPhilip GlickFred StossEzra Zubrow

Stony Brook UniversityEdward FeldmanDolores BilgesFred WalterPamela Wolfskill

SUNY BrockportKen O’BrienTrish Ralph

Buffalo State CollegeScott GoodmanAmitra Wall

SUNY CortlandAndrew Fitz-Gibbon

Empire State CollegeAnastasia Pratt

SUNY FredoniaBruce Simon

SUNY GeneseoRen Vasiliev

SUNY New PaltzKevin CaskeyMichael Vargas

SUNY Old WestburyMinna Barrett

SUNY OneontaAchim Koeddermann

SUNY OswegoEvelyn Benavides ClarkFrank Byrne

SUNY PlattsburghSandra Rezac

SUNY PotsdamJan Trybula

Purchase CollegeKeith Landa

Downstate Medical CenterMiriam VincentVirginia AndersonRauno JoksHelen Durkin

SUNY College of OptometryRebecca Marinoff

Upstate Medical UniversityJC TrusselMaria WheelockKerry Greene DonnellySusan Wojcik

Alfred State CollegeJoe Petrick

SUNY CantonBarat Wolfe

SUNY CobleskillChuck Moran

SUNY DelhiTerry Hamblin

Farmingdale State CollegeLouis Scala

Morrisville State CollegeTimothy Gerken

College of EnvironmentalScience and ForestryKelley Donaghy

SUNY Maritime CollegeDavid Allen

SUNY Polytechnic InstituteCarlie Phipps

NYS College of Ceramics atAlfred UniversityPeer Bode

NYS College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at CornellUniversityAnthony Hay

NYS College of Human Ecology at Cornell UniversityKimberly Kopko

NYS College of Industrial &Labor Relations at CornellUniversityRick Hurd

NYS College of VeterinaryMedicine at Cornell UniversityLinda Mizer

Campus Governance Leader ConvenerKelley Donaghy, ESF

University at AlbanyJames Collins

Binghamton UniversityCourtney IgnarriFernando GuzmanJohn Starks

University at BuffaloPhilip GlickDomenic Licata

Stony Brook UniversityEdward Feldman

SUNY BrockportSharon Allen

Buffalo State CollegeAmy McMillan

SUNY CortlandKathleen Lawrence

Empire State CollegeMary Mawn

SUNY FredoniaBrian Masciadrelli

SUNY GeneseoJames McLean

SUNY New PaltzAnne Balant

SUNY Old WestburyKathleen Greenberg

SUNY OneontaMichael Koch

SUNY OswegoLisa Glidden

SUNY PlattsburghDelbert HartWendy Gordon

SUNY PotsdamLisa Wilson

Purchase CollegeDan Hanessian

Alfred State CollegeJames Grillo

SUNY CantonKaren Spellacy

SUNY CobleskillBarbara Brabetz

SUNY DelhiJennifer Redinger

Farmingdale State CollegeLloyd MakarowitzKaren Gelles

SUNY MorrisvilleMargaret Hoose

College of EnvironmentalScience and ForestryThomas Amidon

SUNY Maritime CollegeWalk Nadolny

SUNY OptometryJoan Portello

SUNY Polytechnic InstituteRon SarnerMichael Carpenter

New York State College Ceramics at AlfredTrevor Riley

Downstate Medical CenterRauno Joks

Upstate Medical UniversityJay Brenner

Norman Goodman, Stony Brook UniversityJoseph Hildreth, SUNY Potsdam

Ronald Sarner, SUNY Polytechnic InstituteKenneth O’Brien, The College at Brockport

A summary of the highlights of the Winter Plenary, including committee reports, sector reports, presentations, andresolutions, can be found on the SUNY Faculty Senate website. www.system.suny.edu/facultysenate

2 0 1 6 - 2 0 1 7 S E N AT O R S

2 0 1 6 - 2 0 1 7 C AM P U S G O V E R N A N C E L E A D E R S

C A R L P. W I E Z A L I S U N I V E R S I T Y FA C U LT Y S E N AT E F E L LOW S

The State University of New YorkUniversity Faculty Senate

State University Plaza, Room S120Albany, New York 12246

518.320.1376 >> 800.547.1548www.system.suny.edu/facultysenate