Theme: Libraries

SUNYConnect: First step in implementing program is under way

“Super-size it,” was the order given at SUNY for its library system, and now the University is ready to launch SUNYConnect — a technology plan that will link all of its libraries to create the largest collection of any public university in the world.

The first step in implementing SUNYConnect is already under way: A handful of campuses are now beginning to set up ALEPH 500, a library management software program that provides a shared circulation system. It enables students and faculty to access and borrow materials from any University library as if it were a single facility. Fredonia will lead the pack at implementing ALEPH 500 this month. It should be operational at some other campuses by June. All campuses should have the system installed by 2004, according to SUNY System Administration.

Once SUNYConnect is up and running, a courier service will enable borrowers to have the materials, books and journals within two days.

Among the databases that are already centrally purchased as part of SUNYConnect are a core collection of basic reference tools, including academic journal indexes; Associated Press digital photo news archives; literary criticism lists; an 800-title electronic book collection; and indexes and catalogues of published articles, books and reports held by libraries around the world.

UUPer John Schumacher, a staff associate in the Office of Library and Informa-tion Services (OLIS) for SUNY System Administration, has been working on SUNYConnect for years. He sees it as “an example of SUNY working at its best.”

The new system — part of UUP’s legislative program last year — will save campuses money by eliminating the need for multiple databases to core collections; those savings will enable colleges to purchase information in their specialty areas, he said.

Schumacher and his OLIS colleagues collaborate to train librarians in the field on how to use new technology, and to get feedback on what does and does not work in new systems. Due to SUNY hiring freezes, OLIS has operated with a skeleton crew — ranging from two to six people for 64 campuses — for long periods. Four new staff are now coming on board, for a total of 10.

Currently working with six libraries, the OLIS staff is providing training in how to use the new software, and research and reference databases. Academic librarians and professional library employees will be learning the new system.

“The new system brings a significant amount of change to people and their work lives,” Schumacher said.

“Librarians have had tremendous changes in the past 10 years.”

Learning new technology is not the only challenge for librarians. Setting up SUNYConnect has involved the participation of SUNY librarians and other UUPers “in significant ways,” said Patricia Bentley, a member of UUP’s statewide Executive Board and a SUNY Plattsburgh librarian. “They’ve been writing specifications and working with vendors and campus constituents.”

In switching to the new system, tasks for library workers include moving both patron records and catalogue records, and rethinking work procedures in the context of the new system.

A “test parachute” to the vast SUNYConnect was previously launched in the University with the Library Auto-mation Implementation Program, which involves 40 libraries sharing resources. But with the main contract up for renewal, and three university centers needing to move from outdated library systems, library directors agreed it was time to implement a new, Universitywide system, according to Carey Hatch, an assistant provost at SUNY System Administration.

A financial plan was developed and a state appropriation from SUNY’s five-year capital plan was received for a system-wide library initiative with one-time costs for hardware and major software, Hatch said. Each campus will also pay for the service based on the size of its library collection or its full-time enrollment. Some campuses will also have to upgrade their infrastructures. Campus fees will range from $93,000 per year for SUNY Buffalo to $16,500 per year for Cobleskill, according to Hatch.

To Schumacher, the University’s smaller institutions have not been given resources to keep up with technology — that is, until SUNYConnect. “In my opinion, the SUNY system has been behind, compared to other states,” he said. “Libraries are critical to our mission,” said UUPer Pamela Peters, library director at SUNY Delhi and a member of the SUNYConnect advisory council. The council serves as an advisor to the provost to help create governance and policy.

Bentley said the new program “will bring very disparate systems into compatibility.” She explained that borrowers will have special name files identifying them as legitimate SUNY patrons. After searching the system and locating materials, borrowers place their orders, which are processed by library workers and delivered by courier to the patron’s SUNY library within two days.

“The students still want books,” Peters said. “We’re adding more paths to get at that information.” Bentley also stressed that every member of the SUNY community will be affected by SUNYConnect. Professionals will have access to more databases, and academics will have more immediate access to vast collections for teaching and research.

Peters said that faculty members can call up a catalogue and generate a report of books that are available throughout the entire system. They can also get customized lists of materials that have been ordered or reserved. Selective bibliographies by subject areas can be compiled.

There will be improvements in work flow, reporting and statistics for library staff, Peters said.

Librarians will also be ready to enhance their roles as instructors to students faced with new technology and vast information.

“SUNY librarians have been leading the way in how to be selective and think critically about gathering information,” Bentley said.

Librarians are key to SUNYConnect’s success, Hatch said. “We work closely with people on campuses. We look for their voice and their direction.”

— Liza Frenette

What librarians think ...

Nowhere among UUPers is the phrase “behind the scenes” more evident than it is with SUNY librarians. Before that book is slid across the check-out counter, librarians make many things happen to make that happen.

In the last several decades, in particular, librarians have been called on to adapt many technological changes in the day-to-day operations of the library. Out from behind the stacks, librarians are more and more familiar with using computer systems to find materials requested by patrons.

University librarians have been considered academics since 1968, with a SUNY Board of Trustees designation. It was not until UUP’s 1977 contract with the state that librarians were able to receive academic promotions. They are, however, academics on a calendar-year, as opposed to an academic-year, schedule, which remains an issue for many librarians.

Understaffing has long been the primary lament of librarians within the SUNY system. In 1969, when the SUNY Library Association was founded by the librarians themselves, there were 437 members. Now there are fewer than 400.

“I think there have been massive shifts in resources for librarians and information centers, which has resulted in serious stress on staffing,” said Patricia Bentley, a longtime SUNY Plattsburgh librarian. “The trend to merge libraries and computer centers has usually resulted in ... the money going toward information technology and instructional staff, instead of to librarians,” said Bentley, a former member of the SUNY Library Automation Migration, the group which led the way to the SUNYConnect next generation system.

“There’s always a presumption by management that technology lessens the need for people,” said John Schumacher, president of the UUP chapter at SUNY System Administration and a staff associate at the Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS). “I believe that’s a fallacy. Technology is about increasing services and accessibility, not getting rid of people.”

Indeed, as Bentley points out, to the college librarians who serve as teachers and researchers for students, their role is even more important in the face of technology. Students need to be guided — more than ever — in how to be selective and think critically when gathering information, because such a plethora of it is available.

Schumacher, who is liaison between OLIS and the SUNY Librarian Association, said he wishes SUNY managers would recognize the time and effort librarians are putting in these days to learn new technology.

Times sure have changed. Bentley, who has been a librarian for 30 years, recalled how, in 1970, while working in a medical library, a doctor called her with a request to find an article on how to rebuild an evulsed (traumatically removed) trachea for a patient. Because information was not yet computerized, Bentley had to manually search 10 years worth of index medicus. It took her six hours to find the article, which helped the doctor perform the unusual surgery.

Bentley acknowledged the National Library of Medicine for pumping millions of dollars into indexing medical journals to make databases for all health care professionals. It was the beginning of the system now used by the general public and that provided a foundation for most database research.

UUP’s library employees are reminded that professional development grants are available through the New York State/UUP Joint Labor/Management Committees.

For more information, go to www.albany.net/~nysuup.

— Liza Frenette

Bookmarks

-- SUNY libraries now serve more than 370,000 students at the state-operated campuses and community colleges. SUNY libraries house more than 18 million volumes, with an estimated value of $500 million. By comparison, Harvard University houses 13 million volumes in 90 libraries.

General ed requirements create turmoil

The implementation of a new core curriculum requirement for SUNY students last fall has left many campuses in turmoil.

Under the SUNY Board of Trustees’ new requirement, University students — beginning with freshmen who entered in the fall 2000 semester — must earn a minimum of three credits in each of 10 areas: mathematics, natural science, social science, American history, Western civilization, other world civilizations, humanities and the arts, foreign languages, basic communication and reasoning, and information management.

At numerous campuses, large numbers of courses and, in some cases, even entire categories of courses have been rejected for inclusion in the core curriculum, or “general education” program, by SUNY Provost Peter Salins. SUNY faculty also fear that the general ed requirement — which played a large role in prompting an unprecedented vote of no confidence in the trustees by both UUP and the statewide Faculty Senate in April 1999 — is pushing the entire University into a more traditional curriculum at the expense of such diversity programs as women’s studies, African-American studies and Jewish studies.

“The faculty spoke loudly and clearly that the trustees were infringing on the traditional role of the faculty and, now, campus-by-campus confusion is the result,” said UUP President William Scheuerman.

Many campuses, including Geneseo, Albany, Purchase and Binghamton, are still trying to negotiate with the provost’s office to get their course submissions approved, or are scrambling to propose new classes and to find enough space for students who need to meet the requirements.

Other campuses — including Stony Brook, whose faculty are currently outright refusing to bend their own general education program to comply with the trustees’ plan — are vigorously resisting the requirements. As a result, many students started the school year not knowing if some courses they are taking will count toward the 30-credit general education requirement.

“There are course concerns all over the state,” said Dick Collier, a UUP member at SUNY Albany and vice president/secretary of the University Faculty Senate. Collier, who is also a member of the Provost’s Advisory Council on General Education (PACGE), said there have been cases in which a campus’ course submissions were approved by PACGE only to be rejected later by the provost’s office.

“It’s top-down micromanagement,” said Robert Pompi, UUP chapter president at SUNY Binghamton, arguing that it is the faculty’s responsibility — not the trustees’ or the provost’s — to set course content.

“The job of PACGE was never envisioned as reviewing individual courses,” said Vincent Aceto, a UUPer and immediate past president of the SUNY Faculty Senate. “The intent was to develop a set of broad policies and procedures to implement this program.”

Instead, said SUNY Faculty Senate President Joseph Flynn, PACGE and the provost’s office have turned into a Universitywide curriculum committee, usurping the traditional role of faculty in setting academic direction. The Faculty Senate is calling upon the chancellor to reconstitute the role of PACGE “to ensure that the traditional rights of the faculty and the campuses to determine academic courses and programs are reaffirmed.”

Now, the level of micromanagement is such, Collier said, that a Shakespeare course on one campus was deemed acceptable for the arts requirement if taught by a drama professor, but not if the same course was taught by an English professor. The provost’s office has also refused to define American sign language as a foreign language under the requirements, even though the state Board of Regents does consider it a foreign language.

Despite all this, SUNY System Administration’s official position is that the implementation has gone smoothly and, according to SUNY spokesman David Henahan, “all the campuses have approved general education programs.” But faculty advocates on several campuses cite unresolved conflicts with administration over curricula.

“There’s a view at the top to restrict the curriculum to fairly conventional courses,” said Joseph Fashing, UUP vice president for academics at the Purchase chapter.

Fashing said his campus had an updated general ed program in the works that was similar to the trustees’ plan, but it still had many specific courses rejected by the provost’s office.

Some campuses, including Binghamton, have put up a vigorous opposition to the provost’s requirements; at Stony Brook, faculty have refused to revise their general education proposal to meet the provost’s demands.

“We are not in compliance,” said UUPer Judith Wishnia, a Stony Brook associate professor of social sciences. PACGE accepted most of Stony Brook’s proposed courses, but the provost’s office did not, Wishnia said, adding that many of the courses were rejected based on ideology. For example, a course on the history of slavery in America was rejected by the provost’s office as “not important to American history,” said Wishnia, a former UUP Executive Board member.

A campus study of courses that were either outright rejected by the provost or were still under discussion concluded that 5,000 student seats would be lost, Wishnia said. “We would need to shift those students to other courses,” she said. “It will be very hard to find room for them.”

Margaret Stolee, UUP vice president for academics at the Geneseo chapter, said faculty are expecting large enrollment shifts away from more diverse course offerings and into the traditional courses favored by the provost’s office to meet the general education requirements.

For example, she said, students will take American history to meet both the SUNYwide requirement in American history and the Geneseo requirement for social science, and they will pass up such courses as anthropology and political science.

“We’re facing a balloon in enrollment in certain courses,” Stolee said. “My sisters in other social science departments are experiencing a drop.”

Without additional funding from the state to cover the requirements, faculty fear that these enrollment shifts will eventually lead to course eliminations and faculty cuts in other programs. “The campuses are going to have to cut someplace else to fund this,” said Thomas Kriger, UUP director of research/legislation.

Scheuerman agreed: “The trustees have made it a habit of implementing new initiatives without providing the resources to do it right. It’s bad management and bad scholarship.”

— Karen Nelis

General education: Colleges of Technology face further difficulties

Campuses offering two-year degrees, such as the University Colleges of Technology (UCTs) and community colleges, face additional difficulties in coping with the general education requirements.

Students earning associate’s degrees must take courses in seven of the 10 areas of study required by the trustees. This means they must still meet the majority of the requirements in half the time as students earning a four-year degree. In addition, many UCTs just don’t have the liberal arts faculty needed to offer all the required general education courses. Partial waivers are available from SUNY for some technical programs.

“It could be tough to get it done in four semesters,” said Frederick Kowal, president of the UUP chapter at Cobleskill and the union’s statewide membership development officer. In the past, students seeking associate’s degrees in a technical field needed just a few liberal arts credits. With the additional general education requirements, he said, “they are going to have difficulty fitting in their technical courses.”

UUPer Dick Collier, a member of the Provost’s Advisory Council on General Education (PACGE), said students who want to transfer from a community college to a four-year SUNY campus will have a harder time as a result of the general education requirements. Courses accepted for the requirements at a particular community college may not fit into the approved general education program at a particular four-year campus, he said. Previously, the transfer of credits from a two-year to a four-year SUNY school was uniformly accepted.

Stony Brook’s Judith Wishnia said four-year campuses have previously assumed that graduates coming out of a liberal arts program at a community college had fulfilled all the basic course requirements and could take upper-level courses as full-fledged juniors.

“Now, each course will have to be evaluated to see if they took an American history course or a particular math course,” she said. “Transfer students would have to take a basic course rather than an advanced course and it would take them longer to graduate.”

Collier said numerous private colleges in the state are taking advantage of the situation by actively recruiting public community college students and pledging to accept all of their general education credits.

SUNY could end up losing students as a result, he warned.

Overall, Collier said, the trustees’ general education requirement “wasn’t done well or right.”

— Karen Nelis

Capitol corner
Raising awareness: UUP to shine spotlight on SUNY Colleges of Technology

UUP is taking the lead in supporting the SUNY Colleges of Technology (UCTs) in their continuous efforts to boost enrollments and to secure the financial resources needed to implement their distinctive curricula.

The union will hold several events next month in Albany to raise legislative and public awareness about the UCTs’ specialized missions and the level of funding necessary to accomplish them. A presentation showcasing the five colleges’ array of innovative programs — from engineering and animal husbandry to equine management and information technology — is planned for Feb. 27 at the Legislative Office Building. A lobbying session is also scheduled for earlier in the month.

“UUP is deeply committed to the UCTs and their vital programs,” said union President William Scheuerman. “We will keep stressing the University’s obligation to advocate for the resources these institutions need to fulfill their unique missions.”

Offering specialized degrees in agricultural and technological fields is an expensive endeavor for the colleges, due to their costly equipment, explained Frederick Kowal, UUP’s membership development officer and a faculty member at SUNY Cobleskill. For example, equine studies require herds of horses, barns and farm staff.

And, because they serve a small number of students, the UCTs are hurt by the ramifications of RAM. The SUNY Board of Trustees’ mechanistic funding scheme rewards University colleges that achieve high enrollments yet fails to support campuses that provide unique programs but are accompanied by low student rosters.

As a result, all of the UCTs except Cobleskill lost funding under SUNY’s 2000-2001 financial plan. While UUP calculated that each state-operated campus needed at least 3.7 percent more this academic year in order to meet operating expenses, the increase in allocations to Alfred, Canton, Delhi and Morrisville — 0.16 percent, 2.8 percent, 0.38 percent and 3.28 percent, respectively — fell woefully short of the minimum requirement.

“Privately, SUNY System Administration talks of its support for the UCTs and lauds us for our efforts on their behalf,” Scheuerman said. “Yet, the public actions of administrators and the trustees don’t bear that out — witness the devastation caused by RAM.”

At the same time, the UCTs now bear the additional fiscal burden of offering several four-year degree programs without the funding to meet the attending rise in costs.

The financial difficulties facing the UCTs were highlighted during testimony the union presented to the trustees in November.

Discussing SUNY financing, UUP emphasized the trustees’ obligation to advocate for the state’s increased investment in the University during this fiscal cycle, “so that SUNY may share the benefits of recent state budget surpluses.”

Citing the cutting-edge, yet costly, technological programs offered by the UCTs and the fiscal instability at the three teaching hospitals as obvious evidence of the University’s need for additional funding, UUP asserted: “It is your responsibility as trustees to ensure that SUNY becomes a top priority in the state’s budget process.”

Delivering the testimony on Scheuerman’s behalf, statewide Vice President for Academics Phillip Smith said that UUP is “eager to join with representatives from SUNY and work toward our common goal of safeguarding our exceptional state university.”

— Lisa Feldman Reich

SUNY Maritime moves full speed ahead

There are changes on the horizon at SUNY Maritime, but those changes in mission and management are not likely to rock the boat.

The Bronx college has been under constant pressure to keep costs down and enrollments up, in direct response to the SUNY Board of Trustees’ budget allocation method. The unsound funding mechanism employed by SUNY System Administration — as UUP is wont to point out — unfairly rewards campuses for research and enrollment successes and discounts the unique academic programs available on University campuses. SUNY Maritime — with its costly, but necessary, 565-foot training ship Empire State VI — doesn’t fit the mechanistic mold: The 125-year-old college was hardest hit by the trustees’ fiscal plan for 2000-2001, receiving only $6,600 more, or a mere 0.6 percent, than the previous year.

“The budget is always a concern because it is enrollment driven,” said Antonio DelToro, UUP chapter president at Maritime and an instructional support associate in the science department. “We constantly hear from administrators: If we want to expand and have more money to work with, we have to fill the dorms.”

The administration, he said, has identified the “break-even point” as 1,000 students; currently, enrollment tops out at 650. Consequently, Maritime administrators have spent the last 15 months or so searching for ways to boost student enrollments and to lessen the burden of having the largest single-cost item per student of any SUNY school.

The result: The college will make its cadet program optional, hoping a less stringent regimen will make the college more attractive to more students; and it has rejected recommendations to dispose of the 17,000-ton training vessel, fearing its loss would deter the more traditional maritime student from enrolling. Instead, the college will share use of its ship with a fellow maritime school.

Both changes are intended to strike a balance between tradition and higher enrollments; economics and academic excellence.

Optional cadet program

For more than a century, it has been mandatory for SUNY Maritime students to experience the discipline and training of a cadet lifestyle en route to a possible career in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Cadets were required to take the Merchant Marine officer’s licensing program — complete with its extensive cadet training and terms aboard ship — even if they chose a non-military career in the maritime industry, in government service or at sea as civilian officers.

Come fall, Maritime students looking to earn bachelor’s degrees in engineering, science, business and humanities can do it with or without the U.S. Merchant Marine training. But there’s one hitch: All first-year students will be required to follow the cadet regimen and to participate in a Summer Sea Term aboard the Empire State VI. After that, students can choose which career path to follow.

“The idea behind the first-year requirement is to give students the option,” said Barbara Warkentine, UUP vice president for academics at Maritime. “Students who do not take the licensed-based, regimental courses — and then decide they want to — could be delayed a whole year. We want to avoid that.”

Meanwhile, faculty have mixed emotions about the non-cadet option and when students should choose career paths.

Some longtime faculty and many alumni are fearful the non-regimental program will “water down the tradition of the school,” DelToro said. Warkentine is working to convince those faculty that the changes are needed to keep the college afloat.

“It is believed that the notion of marching and being in uniform deters the recruitment of some students,” Warkentine said. “We’re not trying to break with tradition by eliminating the regimental program or to wean out (the regimental faculty). We’re just trying to bring in more students.”

On the flip side, some newer faculty “fought to have the cadet program optional right from the start,” DelToro said. “They are concerned that the college will be unable to attract a different group of students if the first year is common to all. (They also worry) that the dropout rate will be greater in the mandatory program after the first year.

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

Ship of schools

For a time, the fate of the Empire State VI hung in the balance. But the college soon dismissed ideas to jettison the ship and instead will “shipshare” with Massachusetts Maritime, one of the two other East Coast maritime schools.

The New England college will operate the federally owned Empire State VI during its winter/summer term, which runs this month and next. SUNY Maritime ordinarily doesn’t have cadets aboard the ship in January or February; its summer term runs from mid-May to mid-July.

Shipsharing is a win-win-win scenario. Both maritime colleges see a savings, and students continue to receive the training they need to succeed. As it stands, 100 percent of SUNY Maritime students are employed in careers of their choice within three months of graduation.

“There is a noticeable savings in the two schools’ budgets,” explained DelToro. “The federal Maritime Administration is also supportive because the ship is put to good use and the government is assured that, in a national emergency, the ship is in ‘ready status.’”

“The Empire State VI is an integral part of the Maritime curriculum and it’s here to stay,” he added.

— Karen L. Mattison

Admiral to step down

At the same time SUNY Maritime was trying to make itself more versatile, its students, alumni, and faculty passed a vote of no confidence in college President Adm. David Brown. They claim the admiral failed to increase enrollments, create an endowment and improve morale during his five years at the helm.

Brown has agreed to step down as college president in two years.

Appointees to a presidential search committee were being chosen at Voice press time and, according to Barbara Warkentine, named along with five other UUPers, the search is expected to get into full swing later this month. It is hoped that a new college president will be on the job this fall.

“The committee’s goal is to get someone in place by fall 2001 and have Adm. Brown work with that individual during the transition period,” Warkentine said.

That “someone,” Warkentine noted, “needs to have strong leadership qualities, and must be able to work well with both academics and that still-regimental component. ... (The president must) be an advocate for the college.”

Also on the search committee are UUPers James Fetzer, Roy Larson, James Migli, Charles Munsch and Conrad Youngren.

— Karen L. Mattison

UUPeople
A paws for pause: Cortland UUPer’s hobby is nothing to bark at

Of course, it simply begs the question: Why?

Arnold B. Levine, a full-time lecturer in the Spanish department at SUNY Cortland, collects “Beware of the Dog” signs from countries all over the world. They are displayed in his office in a multitude of languages — other than “woof woof.”

Well, you just have to consider how much this UUP member loves dogs. Levine, once the owner of a pooch named Alice, entered the pug in a dog/owner look-alike contest — and won. He and the dog, now deceased, were featured on Maury Povich’s TV show.

“We all have special gifts; the love of animals is what I’ve been given,” said Levine, who has several dogs. “Some people appreciate opera. I don’t.”

He also writes dog poetry under the name Brian Dovenell (an anagram from his name), and once won a national contest by the Dog Writers Association of America. His latest poem is called “Act III,” and the first part follows:

Nose aquiver, you part the curtain,
On Autumn’s drama where I’m uncertain
	Of my lines or motivation;
	Unnatural steps and trepidation,
As we play the scene together
No boughs bow welcome in this woods.
	Would tree trunk stripes my entry bar?
Underbrush swallows the bread crumbs I will need
	To hike the trail back to my car.

Directing I cross over,
	You cock a russet ear.
I strain to follow in your track,
	Rhythms I cannot hear.

Your fluttering tail in improvised cue,
	To a heritage hidden, locked in my chest
As bark and branches coldly snap
	Not wishing to brook my request.

— Liza Frenette

UUPers in the news

Student service — Patricia Clarke of SUNY New Paltz, a professional in the Women’s Studies Program, has been recognized for exemplary service to students.

The Outstanding Student Service Award is given annually to one professional employee and one classified employee. In 1999, the first year the awards were handed out, UUPer Matthew Seaman of the art department received the honor, which comes with a one-time monetary award of $1,000.

“I am extremely proud of this recognition,” Clarke said. “Nothing is more important to me and the rest of the Women’s Studies staff than serving our students well. In my 20 years at the college, I have always been very attentive to students’ needs and concerns, maybe because I was a student here myself many years ago.”

Professor of the year — Stephen Padalino, a former physics professor at SUNY Geneseo, was recently named New York state professor of the year.

Padalino was chosen for the award by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. His credits include holding leadership roles in the College Senate, Research Council and Curriculum Steering Committee, as well as securing more than $1 million in grants for physics research.

He recently took over as associate provost for research and technology, which took him out of the UUP bargaining unit.

Laser-vision surgery now covered

One of the recent UUP Benefit Trust Fund benefit changes that went into effect Nov. 1 is the Laser Vision Correction Program.

Here are some details on how you can use the program:

You and your eligible dependents can experience savings on the cost of laser-vision correction surgery when you receive services through a surgery center that participates with Davis Vision. Once your candidacy for laser-vision correction has been confirmed, you can receive up to 25 percent off the usual and customary fees or a 5 percent discount on any advertised special, whichever is lower.

In addition, eligible members may claim reimbursement from the UUP Benefit Trust Fund (up to $200 per eye) even if you do not use one of the participating Davis Vision surgery centers.

Members who are interested in laser-vision correction should call Davis Vision at (800) 584-2866 or visit its Web site at www.davisvision.com. Click on Laser Vision Correction to read frequently asked questions and answers, to review your entitlement, to find the participating surgery centers nearest you or to obtain a confirmation number (the number that guarantees you savings when you visit a participating location). Be sure to use Client Code 7512.

To claim the UUP Benefit Trust Fund reimbursement up to the allowable maximum, you must obtain a Laser Vision Correction Reimburse-ment Claim form prior to receiving services. It’s important that the surgery center complete the necessary information so you can forward your claim form (and a copy of your receipt) to Davis Vision, Laser Correction Processing Unit, P.O. Box 2270, Schenectady, N.Y. 12301. Forms are available from our office or on the UUP Web site at www.uupinfo.org. (Click on Benefits, then Benefits Forms).

Scholarship program

I also want to remind everyone about the deadline for submitting UUP Benefit Trust Fund scholarship program applications for the fall 2000 semester.

The application and official transcript must be postmarked within 60 days from the last day of the semester for which a dependent child is applying for the benefit. The $500 scholarship is only available to eligible dependents attending a state-operated SUNY campus, who meet additional eligibility criteria.

For an application and other information, call our office at (800) 887-3863 or visit the UUP Web site, where you can download what you need.

— Gail Maloy, Director of Member Benefits and Services

NYSUT term life plan is economical

Bargaining unit members looking to supplement the $6,000 term life insurance provided by UUP should consider the program endorsed by NYSUT Benefit Trust.

Since 1996, premium rates for NYSUT’s Term Life Insurance Plan have been decreasing. Recently, these rates were permanently reduced, due to good claims experience within the plan.

Term life insurance is the type most often recommended by financial experts because it offers the highest value at the lowest cost. It is pure insurance; it has no savings component. It can help pay for final medical and burial expenses, and it can help survivors pay for their daily living expenses.

Certain events, such as the birth of a child or the purchase of a new home, may trigger the need to purchase life insurance or to increase an existing policy. Members should periodically make sure that their coverage is adequate. When a new home is purchased, the lender may require the lendee to purchase a life insurance policy to insure the mortgage. The NYSUT plan provides this insurance at a more economical price than most lending institutions.

UUP bargaining unit members under the age of 65 are eligible to apply for up to $500,000 of coverage. Spouses or domestic partners are also eligible to apply. Dependent child coverage can be added to member or spouse policies. When the plan is purchased through payroll deduction, Travel Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance (AD&D) — equal to the life insurance amount up to $100,000 — is provided at no additional cost.

An extra $25,000 of AD&D protection is provided if the insured member is physically assaulted on the job.

For a brochure and application, contact NYSUT Member Benefits at (800) 626-8101 or e-mail to benefits@nysutmail.org.

The Last Word

Apollo: A different kind of mission/For-profit educational corporation would undermine Potsdam’s integrity

By George Gonos, Michael Nuwer and Marc Leithold

As faculty members at SUNY Potsdam, we are quite concerned as the college ventures to join in a for-profit education enterprise. Our thoughts have been echoed by many of our campus colleagues.

The administration at Potsdam continues to move forward with a plan to enter a business relationship with the Institute for Professional Development (IPD), an affiliate of the Apollo Group. Apollo, which also operates the national University of Phoenix chain, is one of the fastest-growing, for-profit educational businesses in the country. Total enrollment in Apollo’s degree-equivalent programs was reportedly 94,255 on May 31, 1999, a 19.2 percent increase over the previous year.

Under the “Ottawa Initiative,” SUNY Potsdam credits and baccalaureate degrees would be offered to working adult students in Ottawa, Canada. Not surprisingly, IPD hires outside the purview of collective bargaining agreements. By employing part-time paraprofessionals and “facilitators” rather than qualified faculty members to deliver courses, IPD contributes to and rapidly accelerates the deprofessionalization of the ranks of college teachers.

In IPD’s model, course facilitators teach from pre-packaged, approved “modules” that are endorsed by credentialed faculty members for minimal remuneration and without rights to their intellectual property. In this “accelerated learning” program, courses are just five weeks long, and meet only once a week for four hours with the instructor. Many Potsdam faculty members fear that the plan is the first step toward transforming the unique process of instruction and exchange of ideas now offered on college campuses into the assembly-line dissemination of simplified information.

If the plan reaches fruition, it will be the first time that an Apollo subsidiary extends its reach into the realm of a publicly supported, unionized higher education institution.

It is important not to characterize faculty objections to IPD as anti-technology or anti-distance learning. IPD does less distance learning than Potsdam does now. Faculty generally agree that technology affords us an exciting way to continue expanding the educational possibilities we offer our students, but tendering standardized courses via an outside for-profit educational corporation would undermine the integrity and distinct character of the academy as society’s provider of quality higher education.

A Potsdam agreement with IPD would fuel the growing trend at SUNY of replacing full-time, qualified faculty and professional staff with part-time instructors who have little or no voice. These capable but overburdened colleagues already comprise more than 40 percent of the University’s teaching staff, systemwide.

A sounder proposal for the college might be to rebuild the infrastructure and develop a high-quality business program on site, instead of entering into what the administration acknowledges is a “risky” venture which, in fact, amounts to a precarious business arrangement for SUNY and its constituents, with a meager payoff at best. Unfortunately, campus administrators have repeatedly pitched the IPD plan as an alternate way to generate wanted resources, rather than confronting the real issue — that SUNY is led by a Board of Trustees that fails to request sufficient funding for the customary operations of the University.

All SUNY faculty will be adversely affected if Potsdam’s administration circumvents the terms and conditions of our employment contract by initiating a privatized business relationship with IPD, a plan devised and advanced without the participation and overwhelming endorsement of faculty — who clearly have a significant stake in the outcome. (George Gonos and Michael Nuwer are assistant and associate professors of economics, respectively, and Marc Leuthold is an assistant professor of art. All are UUPers at SUNY Potsdam.)

Letter to the Editor

Part-timer is ‘as good as’ full-time colleagues

To the Editor:

I’m saddened, as a part-timer, that UUP leadership in recent months has often called for the creation of more full-time positions. While such calls are typically accompanied by passing praise for part-timers, they do not offer any solution to the problems caused by the exploitation of part-timers.

The implication of the call for more full-time positions is that full-timers are better for students than part-timers. Yet, many studies show that the quality of instruction offered by part-timers is every bit as good as that offered by full-timers. And I know from nearly two decades of college teaching experience that I and other part-timers make ourselves available to students outside of the classroom proportionately more often than do many full-timers. Students call me at my home, e-mail me at home, stop me on the street, in restaurants, once even at a bar. That’s all in addition to seeing me in my office, in the student union, before and after class, and walking across campus.

Even if you temper what you say by telling me you think I’m doing a good job, I just can’t feel the UUP leadership represents me as much as it represents full-timers when it calls for eliminating my position, when it suggests that outside the classroom I do less than full-timers to help students, when it does not call for tenure and sabbaticals for me, when it negotiates a contract that keeps me permanently at an entry-level salary or a few cents above.

I know that Bill Scheuerman cares about part-timers, but I think he doesn’t fully appreciate the way a call for creating more full-time positions is also a call for eliminating my job. I have rent to pay, food to buy, children to raise. Just like a full-timer. I care about my students. Just like a full-timer. I’m an adjunct and I’m as good as a full-timer. Call for a contract that eliminates the discrimination against me — not one that seeks to eliminate me.

— Martin Naparsteck
Adjunct at Brockport and Geneseo

UUP President Scheuerman responds:

UUP has always valued the important contributions our part-time members make to the SUNY system and to the union. As we strive to rebuild a strong base of full-time faculty through our legislative lobbying campaign, we continue to recognize that part-time faculty are needed to enhance and supplement a quality SUNY curriculum.

And UUP has demonstrated its commitment to part-time faculty, especially in its current contract with the state. The 1999-2003 agreement gives eligible part-time employees year-round health insurance coverage. This is unprecedented among public higher education contracts in the United States.

But that’s not all. The current contract provides — on a pro-rated basis — part-time faculty with many of the same financial and other benefits that their full-time colleagues have received. They include:

• salary increases over four years;
• a lump-sum payment upon ratification;
• a sick-leave exchange program;
• improvements to health insurance;
• improvements to the dependent care accounts;
• creation of medical flexible spending accounts; and
• availability of a UUP Benefit Trust Fund Tuition Scholarship Program.

Are there still improvements that need to be made in the working lives of SUNY’s part-time employees? Of course there are. And UUP is not resting on its laurels. Our statewide Part-time Concerns Committee is looking at issues that still need to be resolved and at finding ways to address them. The leadership at UUP intends to see to it that management doesn’t run the University on the backs of this important UUP constituency.

To the Point: Lizzy’s lament

By William E. Scheuerman
UUP President

Hi! It’s me again, Lizzy. You remember me, don’t you? Last year, Bill was busy so he asked me to write his “To the Point” column for the new millennium. Now, here it is a year later and he wants me to do another column. I said I would, but only if they spell my name right this time. L-I-Z-Z-Y. My dad said they didn’t spell his friend Erik’s name right either. E-R-I-K. Got that?

Bill says the column should be about the new millennium. I’m almost three and I don’t understand this at all. Do we get a new millennium every year? Bill says this year is the real new millennium. Well, what was last year? A make-believe millennium? Grownups confuse me.

That reminds me of SUNY’s trustees. Bill tells me about them all the time. He says they talk, talk, talk about raising standards so when I go to SUNY it will be an even better University than it is now. That’s good. But then he says they think one foreign language course is enough. I’m learning French now. I can say bon jour. I was hoping I’d learn a little more than bon jour when I got to college. I guess the trustees think bon jour is pretty hard. Then Bill tells me the trustees want SUNY campuses to offer all sorts of new courses. I like that. I want to learn everything. But then Bill says the trustees won’t ask the state for money to hire teachers to teach all these new courses. Bill says “trustees” means people who are supposed to look out for you. If the trustees are looking out for SUNY, why don’t they ask for more money? I don’t understand.

I’m also confused about the trustees and the hospitals. I was born in a hospital, you know. SUNY’s hospitals earn money and the trustees give some of that money to the other campuses so their students can have teachers and teachers can have chalkboards. I think SUNY should have teachers and chalkboards. And lots of colored chalk. Only now, the hospitals have no money. What’s going to happen to them? Why don’t the trustees just ask for enough money? My mom told me that I have to ask for things, otherwise no one knows what I really want. Didn’t the trustees’ moms ever teach them that? If the trustees asked for enough money, they might even get it, and if they got the money, they wouldn’t have to take money from the hospitals and everything would be nice. That’s real simple. Bill says the trustees asked consultants to tell them what’s wrong with the hospitals. I don’t know what a consultant is, but maybe I should be one when I grow up. SUNY paid its consultants a gazillion dollars to tell the trustees the hospitals need more money. Well, everybody knows the hospitals need more money. Were the trustees just telling stories when they said they didn’t know?

Here’s another thing about money that confuses me: The way the trustees handle money looks like a game I saw my mom and dad play with Erik. They each got a pile of make-believe money. Then they spent hours moving little irons and things around a board and giving each other their money. Bill tells me the Legislature and the governor gave SUNY a big stack of money. The trustees are supposed to give a little stack to each campus so it can pay its bills. But the trustees play a game called RAM. In this game, campuses that have a lot of students and inexpensive programs get extra money. Campuses with fewer students and real expensive programs get less. The campuses that can’t pay the bills get RAMed. That sounds like a pretty mean game to me.

I don’t know. Grownups confuse me. Is this a new millennium or not? Do the SUNY trustees know what they’re doing or not? Bill likes to watch Chevy Chase movies. Maybe he’s just getting his stories about Chevy Chase and the trustees mixed up. Naw, Chevy Chase isn’t mean.

Au revoir,

Lizzy