President: University to Reverse 12-Year Decline in Faculty Size
By Vinny Reda
For the first time in more than a decade, Albany this year will recruit new faculty members that will increase full-time teaching ranks, President Hitchcock announced in her Report to the Faculty on Tuesday.
"Assuming a normal turnover of faculty over the coming year, this high level of recruitment will, at long last, create a net increase in our faculty ranks," she told an assemblage of faculty, administrators, staff and students in the Campus Center Ballroom. "Indeed, we will recover some 20 positions of the 116 lost since 1987.
The authorization to have Provost Judy Genshaft initiate 54 new faculty searches this year, said Hitchcock, "is the largest recruitment effort mounted here at Albany since the Graduate Research Initiative in the mid 1980s - and it is long overdue."
What has made the difference, she said, have been the financially stabilizing effect of a 3.2% 1998-89 State Budget increase in the University's base-operating budget, following a 1.7% increase in 1997-98 budget, plus the implementation by the SUNY Trustees of the Resource Allocation Methodology (RAM), which added an $1.7 million in Albany's 1998-99 base operating budget.
"Indeed," she said, "assuming success in our recruitment and retention strategies . . . we anticipate that this same level of increase will be repeated next year for a total of 3.4 million new dollars. Coupled with the other increases to our base over the last two years, we will see a 6.8% increase over our 1997-98 budget."
This additional funding, said the President, reflects the fact that under prior SUNY funding formulas, Albany was under-funded in terms of its enrollment and the cost of its instructional programs. Last May, when the possibility of increased funding arose, Hitchcock made a public commitment to devote a large portion of the new funds to expanding current and planned faculty recruitment.
Since 1987-88, the University has lost 18% of full-time faculty, dipping from a full-time 629 to 513 positions. Even this Fall's 31 new faculty hires - the largest number since the 1989-90 academic year - did not compensate for last year's faculty turnover.
The President also announced that a Strategic Plan for the University, "a set of strategic goals and initiatives, which will help guide us over the next decade as we seek to fulfill our shared Mission," was completed on Sept. 25 after 18 months of work by a 34-member committee, chaired by Provost Genshaft. "I am delighted today, on behalf of the University community, to indicate my acceptance of their Report, and my commitment to the institutional goals and strategies it enunciates," said Hitchcock.
"In the context of the University's Mission Statement, the committee has developed a framework of shared institutional values - engaged learning, discovery, societal responsibility, innovation through technology and institutional distinctiveness."
"Taken together, they challenge us to be rigorous and objective in our evaluation of our programs of teaching and research, to be creative and aggressive in our recruitment of a diverse student body of the highest caliber, to be sensitive and responsive to societal needs through our teaching and scholarship, to be unapologetic about our commitment to excellence in all that we do, and, above all, to make the hard decisions necessary to achieve the vision we share for our institution."
She added that the Goals enunciated in the University Strategic Plan "will only be realized when the schools, colleges and divisions of the University develop or refine their own strategic plans consonant with them." She charged school and college deans and vice presidents to lead faculty and staffs "to develop unit-specific strategic initiatives which complement and expand upon those developed by the Strategic Planning Committee."
She said the Strategic Planning process, coupled with the results of the Master Plan and the insights derived from the Pew Roundtable, will all inform the Mission Review process currently ongoing among all SUNY campuses that will articulate the particular and distinctive missions of each campus within SUNY.
"Further," she said, "these various planning processes will be invaluable as we prepare an institutional self-study for accreditation review by the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges in 1999-2000.
The President noted that the University exceeded 1998-99's goal of 2,200 new freshmen by 176, and over the last two years increased the freshman class 17.5%. At the same time, SAT averages have risen from 1149 to 1161.
The President applauded efforts by the divisions of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Finance and the School of Business "to make our various services more student-centered, to expand - at the request of our students - the hours of operation of the Library, the Campus Center and the RACC, to enhance our service delivery systems for academic computing, and, thanks to a major investment by the Governor and the Legislature, to transform our classrooms into technology-rich teaching spaces."
"Another critical element of our fiscal planning environment is the continued enrichment of our programs of research and scholarship. Just as this is a major goal of our Strategic Plan, it is also an element of the RAM." She pointed out that 21.3% of RAM allocation will be based on research productivity and funding and said the research effort would be directly addressed by three ongoing initiatives: expansion of faculty base; implementation of the Master Plan; and completion of the new library.
The President pointed to "a final reality of our fiscal planning environment: the need, in the words of the Strategic Plan, to 'expand and diversify our University's sources of revenue to ensure its continued growth in the context of its mission and strategic goals.'" She lauded enhanced revenues from private giving, cited the recently announced partnership with Coca-Cola Enterprises that will bring some $6 million to the campus over ten years - with a substantial amount going to scholarships for students and support for faculty - and the achieving of 1997-98's Annual Fund goal of $1.8 million, with $2.0 million set for this year.
The President noted that she decided to schedule the Fall Faculty meeting a month later this year so that she could more fully address a number of budget and program-related issues.
She'll Lead Vote Effort That's Not Merely "the Mock"
By Suzanne M. Grudzinski
The New York State portion of what Time magazine calls "the largest voter education project ever" will be directed by Anne Hildreth of the Department of Political Science.
On Thursday, Oct. 29, only a few days before the nation�s actual off-year election, students and parents all over the country will be casting their votes in the National Student/Parent Mock Election. In the 1996 presidential election, a record-breaking 6 million students and many of their parents participated.
As New York volunteer coordinator, Hildreth is sending out about 1,300 mailings to upstate high schools and providing teachers with access to information to support their curriculum and to help students create a mock election. Those schools choosing to participate work together with state coordinators to design their own unique mock elections. Participating high schools are supplied with a teacher�s guide which outlines various issues of national concern, such as health care, education, the economy, voter participation, crime, and the environment.
Hildreth said, "The purpose of the simulation is to teach students and parents about their personal power to participate in public affairs." She added that "one of the important powers of the ballot is to turn feelings of powerlessness into habits of participation." Frank Thompson, dean of the Graduate School of Public Affairs, said Hildreth�s selection as state coordinator "is another reminder that Rockefeller College is the place to study government and politics."
Hildreth will focus her efforts this year on high school students and in the year 2000 will include students at the elementary and middle school students. "Because this is not a presidential race, it allows for a learning and trial period in which to prepare for the election of 2000. The election of 2000 will be a big opportunity, and the more we, as educators, can do to reach out, the more we can dispel the negative notions associated with politics," said Hildreth.
Hildreth is also paying close attention to the influence of Internet resources among today�s youth and is in the process of creating a homepage devoted to New York�s participation in the mock election. The Website is accessible to teachers and students interested in information on candidates and their positions on the issues.
In the 1996 presidential election, about one quarter of New York�s entire student population, participated in the Mock Election. The League of Women Voters, acting as mock election coordinator, focused their efforts on elementary as well as high schools and worked in conjunction with parent teacher organizations, and social studies coordinators to reach students.
Hildreth said that community involvement is the key to the mock election�s success. "It is the people in your life, especially educators, who are the role models and set a picture of positive possibilities in your mind." The mock election, she added, "stimulates a grass roots element that is an important model. We are stimulated to talk about and practice politics by those around us. People turn increasingly to television and media, but there is no interaction. I can see Peter Jennings and hear him, but I can talk to you. It is this interaction that is specifically influential."
Hildreth has been a member of the University faculty for eight years. She is also the political instructor for Empire Girls State, a program sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, which brings over 360 high school junior to the Albany area each year to engage in local and state politics. She has also received an award for her involvement in Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society.
"The University at Albany�s leadership in the Mock Election is a vivid example of combining practical participation in the political environment with a learning environment," said Hildreth.
Author Displays His "Other" Art at Albany
Nobel Prize-winning author Derek Walcott showed another side of his artistic touch on October 7 at the University Art Museum, where he unveiled an exhibit of his work which runs through November 15.
