By Tina Good, Ph.D. President, FCCC Welcome to the first issue of the Faculty Council Matters. You will, of course, notice the double, even triple, meaning of our newsletter’s title. We hope this newsletter captures the “matters” to which the Faculty Council of Community Colleges is devoted, but also how the Faculty Council, our delegates, our faculty, and our campuses “matter.” We want to highlight the achievements of our delegates, our campus governance leaders, our faculty, our students and our campuses and feature articles and columns that address academic and shared governance issues. To continue discussions beyond our newsletter, “like us” on our Facebook page or visit our website at http://www.fccc.suny.edu. In this issue, Chancellor Nancy Zimpher discusses student mobility, general education, and an online learning strategies and infrastructure known as Open SUNY. Assistant Provost Deborah Moeckel launches her column “Moeckel’s Matters” by beginning to demystify the ever-looming Middle States accreditation processes. We meet the new Assistant Vice Chancellor for Co mmunit y Co l leges , J ay Quaintance, and President Dusty Swanger informs us about the 2012-2013 legislative agenda for funding community colleges. Deb, Jay, and Dusty also serve as liaisons to the Faculty Council.

Finally, you will discover SUNY’s commitment to shared governance by reading about the new SUNY Voices initiative. I want to thank all of our contributors for making this inaugural issue so important and informative. Special thanks go out to our editors, Leanne Warshauer, FCCC Press Officer, and Eileen Abrahams, Vice President and Governance Committee Chair, for all their work and patience in bringing this project together. We hope to publish this newsletter on our website in the spring and fall every year. If you have ideas about what you would like to see in our next newsletter, please contact Leanne. I think you will see throughout these pages that faculty matter, community colleges matter, and the Faculty Council Matters. Happy Reading, Tina Good, Ph.D. President

Letter from the president

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Tina Good addresses delegates at the Spring 2012 Plenary.

1 Letter from the president 2 Jay Quaintance interview 3 SUNY Voices 4-5 Getting down to business

6 Moeckel’s Matters 7 Rational state support plan 7 New board committee 8 News from the delegates

In this issue

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Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 2

Eileen Abrahams interviews Jay Quaintance, the new Assistant Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges. Eileen Abrahams: Tell us about yourself. Jay Quaintance: Originally from Maryland, my family moved to rural New Mexico when I was in high school. I suppose I consider myself a New Mexican, even after being in New York for the last 15 years. My wife, our two daughters and I moved to the capital district for what we thought was going to be a brief adventure while I began work on a Ph.D. in Professional Communication at RPI. When our kids were small, we would jokingly talk about our “10 year plan” to leave the cold winters and go back out west. Ironically our kids went west, one in N.M. and one in Washington, and we are still here shoveling snow! Prior to moving to N.Y., I was an ins t r uc t o r at Do na A na Community College, teaching composition, developmental w r i t i n g a n d t e c h n i c a l communication. I was also a summer instructor for the Upward Bound program at New Mexico State University. During the year I was at RPI, I taught at Schenectady County Community College and was hired as the Director of TRIO Student Support Services. In the 12 years I was at SCCC, I also served as professor and department chair of developmental studies, assistant dean of academic affairs and was very active on faculty and institutional committees. My own educational path has been long and introduced me to many activities that I continue to

enjoy. I worked my way through college over a 10-year period in jobs as varied as cooking in Japanese and Indian restaurants, framing pictures, college radio DJ a n d m a n a g i n g a b i k e shop. Cooking, music and cycling are still important ways for me to relax and unwind. EA: Describe your role new as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges. JQ: Interestingly, I think the position is evolving. In the past the job seemed really focused on the workforce development/non-credit side of things. Since the office of Community Colleges has been joined with the office of the Education Pipeline, the focus is more on the community colleges as the nexus of “community” and “college.” What I mean is that by being explicitly linked to the pipeline initiatives, SUNY seems to be recognizing the very dynamic role community colleges play within SUNY, in their communities, in New York state and in the nation. EA: On what initiative are

you most focused right now? JQ: The issue of developmental education, or ‘remediation,’ has risen to the top of the list. Chancellor Zimpher has made a priority of reducing the cost of developmental education and improving the outcomes for students who need it. We are creating a task force to assess current data, examine best practices from both within SUNY and elsewhere and then develop ways to bring the most promising practices to the most students. Some of this will be working with our K-12 partners to ensure that students graduate ready for college level work, some will entail development opportunities for developmental faculty so that they can share best practices with each other and some will entail looking at policies and procedures to ensure that we don’t place structural barriers in the paths of our students. EA: What are the biggest challenges facing community college faculty and students?

Meet our new Assistant Vice Chancellor

Jay Quaintance and Eileen Abrahams mingle at the Spring 2012 plenary in Syracuse.

Continued on page 5

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Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 3

By Tina Good, Ph.D. President, FCCC In spring 2010, the Faculty Council of Community Colleges passed a resolution calling for a SUNY work group to examine the current patterns and procedures for shared governance at SUNY System Administration, conduct research for recommending foundational documents and policies and processes to strengthen effective shared g o v e r n a n c e , a n d m a k e recommendations regarding the most appropriate policies and procedures for effective shared governance at SUNY System Administration. Additionally, the work group was to recommend tactical strategies for encouraging shared governance at the campus level. In response to this resolution and with the support of the University Faculty Senate, Chancellor Nancy Zimpher incorporated an examination of shared governance into the implementation phase of the SUNY Strategic Plan by creating a Shared Governance Transformation Team. We are now beginning to benefit from the efforts of the team’s work. SUNY has agreed to fund SUNY Voices. The SUNY Voices initiative is a

branding mechanism for giving visibility to SUNY’s unique focus on shared governance throughout the system, but it also provides support for strengthening shared governance at the system level, at the campus level, and between and among the campuses and SUNY System Administration. Why SUNY Voices? If shared governance values a multiplicity of voices in decision-making processes, the leadership of the shared governance team wanted to capture the collegiality and power of those voices in a succinct noun that would give shared governance subjectivity. But “voices” can also be a verb, an action verb, signifying the ongoing need for engagement with each other and with the diverse issues facing our students, our communities, and our world. Not surprisingly, the funding we have received for this initiative will be directed towards improving communication, collaboration, and information sharing processes and venues. This year’s funding will support the development of a SUNY Voices website that will provide shared governance resources and communication opportunities. The Faculty Council’s recent

Campus Governance Leaders conference was also sponsored by SUNY Voices, and we are working with the UFS to convene an orientation for new campus governance leaders at two- and four-year institutions. A t t h e up c o mi n g S U N Y Systemness Conference, I will be participating on a shared governance panel, along with Gary Rhoades and Karen Marcoe (UFS). Our Governance Committee will also be presenting a poster session illustrating the work of the Faculty Council. Soon, we will begin work on a shared governance publication and organizing a system-wide conference on shared governance. At a time when collegiality and shared decision making is so important to the sustainability of public higher education, SUNY has demonstrated its commitment to shared governance in words, action, and money! We have made a difference. The Faculty Council Matters.

SUNY values voices

A college or university in which all the components are aware of their interdependence, of the usefulness of communication among themselves, and of the force of joint action will enjoy increased capacity to solve educational problems. --AAUP Statement on Government

Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 4

We asked the chancellor to respond in depth to a couple of important issues mentioned in her 2012 State of the University Address. What steps can we take to assure our students can transfer their A.A./A.S. degrees and satisfy the general education requirements at a SUNY four-year institution? Working together across the entire SUNY system to fine-tune what we call “systemness” is really the name of the game when it comes to ensuring that A.A. and A.S. degrees transfer seamlessly from two- to four-year schools at SUNY. At its heart, the purpose of a university system is to provide a wide range of education options that fit the needs of all New Yorkers, and that means not only having a range of types of institutions in the system but ensuring that students can easily transfer between and among them. We are taking several steps to enhance student mobility throughout the system. First, ease of transfer and time to degree may be ensured by instituting policies whereby students transferring within a system are treated by their receiving institution, for all academic purposes, in the same way as students who began their studies at that institution. Credits for general education courses successfully earned at one institution in the system should be accepted at another—that is, students should not be required to repeat courses at their receiving institution after transferring. In the plainest of terms, this means that transfer students will be able

to enter a four-year institution within the system with completed coursework that will allow them to finish in the same time as students who have completed equal coursework and earned credits at the receiving campus. At SUNY, these efforts are part of an ongoing process. Proper advisement of students at the campus level is one way to ensure that students are taking courses they need and which will be accepted in transfer. The Office of the Provost at System Administration is working with the Student Mobility Steering Committee and faculty governance to create new web tools to help students choose courses appropriately. Establishment and maintenance of systemwide electronic databases of approved general education courses and courses within majors will help all our SUNY schools counsel students on degree and transfer options and help campuses

efficiently process transfer evaluations. SUNY’s database is a work in progress—the Office of the Provost is actively working to correct any errors and update the database so that it can be a reliable and easy-to-use tool for students looking to transfer within the SUNY system. Given the Faculty Council's resolution calling for a review of the SUNY General Education program, what is your anticipated timeline for meeting your Student Mobility goals? The Provost’s Office is in the process of creating policies and tools that will greatly improve student mobility with regard to general education. Provost David Lavallee and his staff have d e t e r m i n e d t h e c u r r e n t requirements of our four-year

SUNY getting down to business

Chancellor Nancy Zimpher receives the FCCC gift bag at our Spring 2010 plenary.

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Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 5

JQ: In many ways I would say that the greatest challenge to both faculty and students are the joint challenges of time management, prioritizing and the effective use of resources. We know we are often asked to do more with less. Fewer f a c u l t y t o s e r v e o n c o m m i t t e e s , i n c r e a s e d reporting requirements, changes to Gen Ed, all of these increase pressure on faculty. Similarly, students face the need to work while attempting to complete a degree, to take more courses than they are able to complete successfully, and to cope with complex lives that are not related to their college work at all. I would encourage both groups to recognize the common ground of their experiences and share and learn from each other. EA: What are the biggest o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r community college faculty and students? JQ: I believe that the greatest opportunities lie in two primary areas: capitalizing on our history of innovation to re-imagine what the entry point of post-secondary education can and should be for 21st century learners and serving our communities as effective partners in forging a civil, strong, and prosperous New York. The opportunity to keep publicly funded community colleges at the vanguard of education is ours, if we chose to seize it.

Quaintance Continued from page 2

campuses so we can provide accurate advice to students and continue to work toward adopting the best “transfer friendly” process in place at some of our campuses already. I would like to see considerable progress in the next year, but I also understand that this will be a continual process as curricula evolve. Perfecting student mobility is one of our top priorities, but because of the size of the SUNY system—with 64 campuses and more than 467,000 students—there is a lot to consider, and we want to be sure we get it right. It appears you are proposing three facets to Open SUNY: open learning, distance-learning courses, and certifying prior work and learning experience to create SUNY’s online university. Will you describe your vision for each of these components and their relationship to community colleges, their students, and faculty? Our vision for Open SUNY is to better align, integrate, and represent online teaching and learning among our campuses to improve student access, success, retention, and time to degree. Open SUNY will allow us to leverage initiatives and course offerings from all campuses to the benefit of our students, New York

state residents, and learners throughout the world. It will also provide us with a competitive advantage for attracting New York-based online learners, who are increasingly turning to the for-profit sector for their online education. Empire State College is already involved in several open learning initiatives such as the Open Education Resources University, a collaborative of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways for learners to gain formal academic credit. Those efforts will be highlighted in the Open SUNY environment as will other campus activities that may result in the development of Open Educational Resources or Open Learning opportunities. Prior learning assessment will become increasingly important as learners engage in new forms of educational opportunities that result in certificates but not formal college credits. Currently, we know that Empire State College and many community colleges are providing credits based on prior learning assessments. Our vision for Open SUNY is to establish standards and best practices for assessing prior learning so that valid experience can be counted toward a student’s degree. Community colleges are integral to the success of Open SUNY. They offer the most degree and certificate programs of any of the SUNY sectors and, in the Spring 2012 semester alone, are providing approximately 2,200 online courses. Many of the credits earned in those courses are easily transferred to SUNY state-operated campuses or private institutions.

Chancellor Continued from page 4

http://www.facebook.com/FacultyCouncil

Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 6

By Deborah L. Moeckel, Ph.D. SUNY Assistant Provost for Community College Education Middle States is a name which arouses a variety of reactions on a campus: Yikes! Here we go again. What a lot of work, for what? If we just keep our heads down it will go away. Why should I care? Just leave me to my classroom and my students. We did this years ago and it was fine. No big deal. It doesn’t really matter. In my many years as a faculty member, dean, academic VP, and now SUNY assistant provost, I have seen the full gamut of responses. I have found that, very often, there is a lack of real understanding of the role and importance, not to mention the focus, of accreditation practices. It can be even more confusing these days, because with increased federal scrutiny on higher education accountability, the bar seems to be continually moving. Hopefully the following will help to clarify the issues. Accreditation is currently the means by which institutions are gr ant ed aut h o r izat io n t o administer billions of dollars in Title IV funding, and Middle States is one of seven regional institutional accrediting agencies which have to be recognized by the federal government in order to

grant this accreditation. Although the main mission of accreditation is institutional improvement through peer review, the link to Title IV means that accreditors have had to adopt more of a tough compliance approach than would be organically appropriate otherwise. The conditions for achieving compliance have presented something of a moving target in r e c e n t y e a r s , b e c o m i n g increasingly rigorous over time. For those who have been through the accreditation process before, it may come as something of a shock to discover that evaluators are tougher and are looking for more evidence of compliance than they used to do previously.

In the past few years, we have seen our institutions fail to meet standards during both their self-study and decennial reviews, and also during their periodic review reports (PRRs). Additionally, even if the standards are considered to be met, there is usually some type of rigorous follow-up reporting activity. The most frequent standards not to be met are (in order of frequency) Standard 7--Institutional Assessment (more commonly known as Institutional Effectiveness), Standard 14--Assessment of Student Learning, Standard 2--Planning, Resource Allocation and Institutional Renewal, and Standard 4--Leadership and Governance. As you know, faculty are vital to meeting all of these standards, as well as most of the others. In future issues, I will discuss typical di f f icu lt ies which campuses encounter in meeting the various standards, and the

support which is available from System Administration. I also hope to address any additional topics of an academic nature which may be of interest.

Moeckel’s Matters Provost’s office offers help for Middle States Review

Those of you who are approaching a team visit or PRR, look at the following:

SUNY provost’s website r e g i o n a l a c c r e d i t a t i o n resources: h t t p : / / w w w . s u n y . e d u /provost/academic_affairs/RegAccred.cfm

Summary of Actions pdf: www.msche.org/documents/S u m m a r y - o f - A c t i o n s -2010.pdf

Middle States Website: www.msche.org

Accreditation Resources

“. . . Evaluators are tougher and are looking for more evidence of compliance,” says Deborah Moeckel.

Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 7

By Leanne Warshauer, Ph.D. FCCC Press Officer Affordable pathway to higher education. Centers for job training. With increasing frequency, community colleges are touted in national speeches made by top lawmakers. This year the nation’s largest state university system showed a continued commitment to its two-year colleges. Chairman H. Carl M c C a l l r e i n s t i t u t e d t h e Community Colleges Committee as a standing committee of the SUNY board of trustees, and he has appointed Tina Good as chair. The committee was disbanded several years ago when the board reorganized. However, given the different organization and funding of the community colleges, and the fact that they comprise over half of the students within SUNY and half of the faculty, Good, along with NYCCAP, NYCCT, and Senior Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges Johanna Duncan-Poitier, argued that a separate committee was needed in order to appropriately focus on this sector. At the first meeting of the new committee in September, Duncan-Poitier said she appreciated the opportunity for dialog: “The SUNY board of trustees has spent a good amount of time on the issues related to community colleges. But as we are really changing in the 21st century, we have a lot of issues that do demand more time.”

Community College Committee added to board of trustees

By Dustin Swanger, Ed.D. President of Fulton-Montgomery Community College T h e C o m m u n i t y C o l l e g e Presidents have been discussing a Legislative Agenda for the 2013-14 budget cycle for the past few months. These discussions have led to a concurrence of direction among the presidents and with SUNY officials. The foundation of the agenda is based on the principle that New York state should provide community colleges at least at one-third of their operating budgets, which was the original plan for community colleges in the state. While the legislation indicates that the state may fund up to 40 percent of the operating budgets, the presidents believe that the one-third concept (state/county/students) has been so ingrained in most of the minds of the legislators that it is an easier concept to present. With the budget cuts made by the state over the past few years, many c o m m u n i t y c o l l e g e s a r e experiencing state support for operating budgets at the 24 percent to 27 percent level. Getting to the one-third level is a leap for the state. For this reason, last year the presidents, along with SUNY, presented a “rational state support” approach modeled after SUNY’s “rat ional tui t ion” approach that was successful the previous year. The rational state support approach advocated for a five-year plan to elevate the state support of community colleges to the one-third level.

To achieve the one-third level over five years, New York state would have needed to increase its support for community colleges by $210 per FTE each year for five years. When presented with this plan, many legislators were very encouraging of the approach, expressing their support for getting state support back to one-third. While the state fell short of the $210 per FTE last year, increasing funding per FTE by $150, community colleges were pleased to see an increase. This year, we will continue to advocate for the five-year “rational state support” plan. Therefore, community colleges are requesting that the State provide an increase in the FTE rate by $260. Such an increase would put the State back on track with the five-year plan. The presidents, and SUNY, believe that this approach - clear, simple, and consistent - will be effective. The support of the Faculty Council will assist with this message.

Community Colleges need rational state support plan

Faculty Council of Community Colleges State University Plaza

Albany, NY 12246 518.320.1651

http://www.fccc.suny.edu

Volume 1 ● Issue 1

Eileen Abrahams…………………………..Editor Leanne Warshauer………………………..Editor

Faculty Council Matters Fall 2012 page 8

Ray Petersen Jefferson Community College

Nina Tamrowski Onondaga Community College F a c u l t y , t r u s t e e s a n d administrators at Onondaga have been working on improving shared governance for over two years. During the 2010-11 academic year, an ad hoc committee on shared governance was formed by President Debbie Sydow. Two board members, the faculty chair and vice chair, and an adjunct faculty member

worked on a report on shared governance at OCC. This report was accepted by the faculty in May of 2011 to more clearly establish the respective roles and responsibilities of faculty, trustees and administrators at Onondaga. During the Spring 2012 semester, a different ad hoc faculty-trustee committee on shared governance was created with three faculty representatives, administrative r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s a n d t w o trustees. This group studied governance models and developed a new governance body for Onondaga to further build on its work on shared governance. Both the faculty and trustees have accepted this new model, and this fall 2012, the College Leadership Council will operate as a shared decision-making body, which serves as an advisory board to the president in matters of significant cross-institutional impact. It is co-chaired by the faculty chair and the provost. There is much work ahead to further institutionalize shared governance at Onondaga, in terms of streamlining committee accountability, and

implementing our strategic plan. Faculty are optimistic about this new organization, which will hopefully link institutional decision-making to its constituent parts. Eileen Abrahams,

Schenectedy County

Community College

Awarded an NEH fellowship to

p a r t i c ip a t e i n " Co n c o r d ,

Mass ach us etts : Feminists ,

Utopians, and Social Reformers in

the Age of Emerson and Thoreau,"

a week-long workshop in

Landmarks of American History

and Culture. Eileen says it was an

intellectually provocative and

socially engaging experience.

Promoted to associate professor

and granted a continuing

appointment.

Re-elected chair of SCCC's

Academic Senate.

Good news from the delegates

Ray’s second book titled “The Middle of Everywhere” has an October release date.

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Forty-five faculty representing 22 of the state’s community colleges met at Hudson Valley Community College for the second annual Campus Governance Leaders Conference. The two day conference, held on Sept. 28-29, featured panels and discussions on curriculum, managing meetings, and the importance of shared governance, and included a presentation on student mobility by SUNY Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost David Lavallee .

Governance conference draws faculty from across NYS