Tips for Navigating the Library

August 28, 2012

Dear Campus Community:

Attached is  information about changes to the library due to renovation.  You may find the list explaining where parts of the collection are now housed especially useful.  Materials were shifted in response to the expected renovation demands, and will stay in their current locations until the renovation is complete. There is also information about the new location of the late night study room and service points for librarians this semester.

>>>Library Renovation Information

FYI:  The currently closed hallway from the concourse library entrance door toward the lecture center will be reopened in the near future.  STL18 is now accessible from the lecture center.  Access through the outside concourse level connecting the ramp by the library parking lot and the Excelsior Concourse has also been restored.

There is additional information about the renovation project on the libguide at:

http://newpaltz.libguides.com/stlrenovation

We look forward to seeing you in the library.

Morgan Gwenwald
Outreach Librarian

Political Activity on Campus: What You Need to Know

August 27, 2012

Dear Campus Community,

As we approach election season and candidates begin campaigning in the area, it is appropriate to remind the campus community about State University policy on the use of campus facilities and other resources for campaign-related purposes.

As an academic institution, we recognize and welcome the educational benefits of exposing students to political debate and information, including partisan political speech. We have made some of our facilities available to a wide range of outside speakers and expressive activities and, therefore, have legal obligations to open such facilities to political speech, as well. In handling requests for permission to use campus facilities, we must be guided by the principle of viewpoint neutrality and evenhanded treatment as to terms and conditions of use (i.e. rental charges, security costs, insurance, etc.).

With regards to political speech and speakers, the State University has placed certain limits on access to its facilities. It has been longstanding State University policy – going back to at least the 1970s – to prohibit use of State University property for partisan political candidate fundraisers. This policy is consistent with our legal obligations, the educational mission of the State University, and other strong interests, such as avoidance of the inevitable impression of endorsing particular candidates.

» 2012 Memo from SUNY System Administration Regarding Political Campaign Activity by NYS Employees

The policies that address the most commonly asked questions are the New York State Public Officer’s Law and SUNY policies on facilities usage for non-commercial purposes. The applicable provisions are:

Public Officer’s Law:
No state employee may use his/her official title, position or authority in any campaign activities, including untargeted mass mailings. No state resources of any type may be used in furtherance of these activities, including, but not limited to, telephone, office supplies, postage, photocopying machines, computers (including e-mail) and support staff (see Advisory Opinion No. 93-9) nor may campaign activities be conducted from a state office or during state business hours unless leave is taken. Finally, no state employee may solicit from subordinates, as this practice is strictly forbidden by Civil Service law §107. (See also Election Law §17-158.)

Use of Facilities by Non-Commercial Organizations and Use of Facilities by Third Parties for Free Speech:
Political organizations are included in SUNY’s definition of non-commercial organizations that are permitted use of campus facilities and in the College’s policy on Use of Facilities by Third Parties for Free Speech. All non-commercial organizations are required to obtain a revocable permit for each use of campus facilities. These permits, obtained through Student Activities and Union Services for use of the Student Union Building (SUB), Conference Services and University Police for other campus locations, establish the terms and conditions for use of facilities, including reimbursement for any associated costs. If a political candidate wishes to speak in one of the free speech zones identified in the Use of Facilities by Third Parties for Free Speech policy during non-blackout dates outlined in the policy, they should contact the Office of the Vice President for Administration and Finance. The Use of Facilities by Third Parties for Free Speech policy may be found at this link: http://www.newpaltz.edu/sub/thirdpartypolicy.pdf

The SUNY policy on Use of Facilities by Non-Commercial Organizations imposes the following additional conditions for use of facilities by partisan political organizations:

1. That the proposed meeting gives promise of contributing to the educational purposes of the institution.
2. That the institution sees a reasonable possibility of making the facilities available for other viewpoints to be presented.

Distribution of Campaign Materials:
Individuals campaigning for office shall have access to students and employees in parking lots, entrances to buildings and other areas to which members of the public are admitted, provided that such activities do not inhibit the movement of people or vehicles, impair the safe and efficient conduct of the operation or interfere with work duties or work performance. Individuals are not allowed to campaign in residence halls.

Individual campaign posters are not permitted in public spaces on campus. Meeting notices and other organizational materials shall not be hung upon, posted or otherwise affixed to the walls, doors, windows, trees or other appurtenances of facilities and buildings owned or leased by the state. All materials posted in the Student Union Building (SUB) and the residence halls must be approved and posted by the Office of Student Activities and Union Services. Flyers should be sorted in 14 piles (no more than two flyers per pile) for the 13 residence halls and the SUB. Posters and flyers can be distributed to other academic buildings if placed on bulletin boards.

More information on State University policies regarding use of facilities by non-commercial organizations can be found at this website (scroll down under Policy I to Section K: Use of university facilities for political purposes).

Sincerely,
Office of Communication and Marketing

Campus Parking Update

August 20, 2012

Dear Members of the Campus Community:

I hope this memo finds you well and, I trust you had a restful and enjoyable summer break. I write to inform the campus community of the construction progress and to remind everyone of the effects on campus parking.   As discussed during our construction presentations this spring, we continue moving forward with major improvement projects that were determined during our campus-wide master planning efforts of 2007 and 2010.  These projects include: renovation of Wooster Hall, construction of the Mohonk Walk, renovation of Sojourner Truth Library, construction of a new parking lot behind Lenape Hall and storm drainage work (thank you Hurricane Irene) in front of Haggerty Administration Building. We are also finalizing design work on the route 32 parking lot extension with construction to begin this fall, along with the new science building that is slated to begin construction in early 2013.

These projects, along with our commitment to making our campus more pedestrian friendly and reducing pedestrian and vehicular conflicts by moving parking to the exterior of the campus, have necessitated the closing of some parking lots, some permanently and some temporarily.. I understand that the following detail is a great deal of information to digest, so I have attached a link at the top of this email to a campus map (map #1) detailing the parking lot closures. This map, along with a second map discussed later in this message, can be an informative guide to help you locate parking on campus quickly and easily. As you plan for your return to campus, we urge that you review these changes (and the attached maps) and plan accordingly for your first day back on campus. The details are as follows:

Temporary Parking Lot Closures:
A small portion of the North side of the Library Lot 3 will remain closed through 2013.

The northern part of Mohonk Lot 24 and the southern portion of Bouton Hall Lot 25 are scheduled to open by the beginning of classes (end of day Aug 25.)

The western portion of Coykendall Lot 22 and Resnick Lot 20 are presently closed as they are being used as staging areas for the Wooster renovation project and will remain closed throughout 2014.

The Haggerty Administration Lot 15 and the Haggerty Circle is currently closed but is scheduled to reopen by Aug 23.

A portion of College Hall Parking Lot 19 (southern ends) will be closed from Aug. 27 – Nov. 1, 2012 for construction of underground heating lines for the future Science Building.

Permanent Parking Lot Closures:
New construction at the Mohonk Walk has permanently replaced Wooster Parking Lot 21.

The new science building will permanently replace Plattekill Lot 18. This lot will remain open until  January 2013.

Additional Disabled Parking:
As a result of the abovementioned parking lot closings, we have added additional disabled parking spaces as follows: 3 in Coykendall Lot 22, specifically between Faculty Office Building and Bouton Hall, 4 in Mohonk Lot 24 and 5 in Plattekill Lot 18.

New Parking Lot Construction:
The design for the new Route 32 parking lot is complete and the project will be out to bid later this month. Construction of an additional 140 parking spaces will begin this fall and be ready for use by spring 2013.

The new resident parking lot located behind Lenape Hall is also planned for construction this fall. The additional 213-space lot is expected to be open for use in spring 2013.

Ample Parking Exists on Campus:
We have conducted extensive parking space counts on campus over the last few years and continue to find approximately 600 available spaces at our peak demand periods. We have also recently contracted with the consulting firm of Perkins Eastman; they have been retained to implement a parking study, which will assist the campus in recommending future parking policies & procedures and assessment of our current parking lot capacity. The consultant has transformed our parking space counts into a campus map (map #2) that indicates the parking lots with the most available open spaces during the peak demand periods. Please keep in mind that the parking lots with the most available spaces (colored green and yellow on the map) are on the campus periphery and you should allow a little extra time to traverse campus.

As you arrive on campus and have any suggestions or comments relating to the parking arrangements, please submit them to our parking office at parking@newpaltz.edu.

As always, thank you for your continued cooperation and patience as we make unprecedented capital improvements to our campus.

http://www.newpaltz.edu/map/map_numberone.pdf

http://www.newpaltz.edu/map/map_numbertwo.pdf

Best,

John M. Shupe
Asst. Vice President for Facilities Management

New Web Design for www.newpaltz.edu!

July 31, 2012

Dear Campus Community,

The Office of Communication and Marketing is excited to announce that a revised design of the New Paltz website will be launched on Wednesday, August 1. Changes you’ll see were guided by analysis of user data that the web staff has collected continuously over the last several years.

Project History & Goals
Communication & Marketing staff began working on this “refresh” during the 2011-2012 winter intercession. Under the direction and guidance of the Marketing Council, Office of Enrollment Management and the Office of the President, the project was completed by in-house staff with several goals in mind:

• Create a home page that will serve as a marketing and recruitment tool for the institution, while improving usability for faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other regular users.
• Update the design to conform to modern browser standards and effectively add more space for web content
• Using visitor data (Google Analytics), industry standards, and consultation with key staff and students, update the navigation structure so that most commonly searched and institutionally important Web content will be more readily available from the college’s home page and all inside pages
• Fully integrate the college’s newest branding and style attributes into the website design

Our secondary goals were:

• To create a design that will allow for easy mobile viewing and interaction
• Improve the functionality of the online events calendar

New Features
We are pleased to report that all of these goals were achieved through the implementation of several new features, including:

• New Home Page:New Paltz’s home page has seen the greatest change throughout this refresh process. New items include:
  • New Rotating Image Gallery – The images featured on the home page will double in size, which creates a powerful first impression for visitors to the site, and allows us to showcase our great location, our outstanding faculty, staff, and students and our strong academic and co-curricular programs.
  • New Events Section – A live feed of the events calendar will be displayed more prominently on more pages throughout the site. We would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the online events calendar is available to all faculty, staff and students to post events and happenings. This is a powerful tool that has been underutilized in recent years. By submitting your event to the online calendar, it will automatically appear on the college’s home page several days before the event, with optional thumbnail image and link to a full event description. If the event is open to the public, a description of the event will be sent to local media outlets. We urge everyone to take advantage of this feature as frequently as possible.
  • Multi-Use Content Area – An area near the bottom of the home page that will be used for presidential reports and updates, construction updates, and other institutional messages.
• Mobile Site: The office is particularly excited to announce that our new design will be “responsive.” This means that the design and layout of the site will respond and conform to the screen size being used. Regardless of whether you view the site on a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop, the website will adjust to fit, ensuring no content is hidden or difficult to find.
• Dropdown Menus: The website has been reconfigured with a series of new dropdown menus on the top of each page, ensuring that the most essential and useful information is displayed at all times. This not only makes it easier for our faculty, staff and students to find the items they need more quickly and easily, but also makes our homepage more attractive and navigable for prospective students whose first impression of our school is often our website.
• Revamped Admissions Page: The Office of Communication and Marketing has worked closely with the Office of Undergraduate Admission to determine how our website, particularly our homepage and Admissions pages, can be used as a recruitment tool for potential applicants. Together these two offices collaborated to produce the most significant change to the Admissions site since its inception, with wholesale changes to both layout and written content.
• Audience-Based Navigation: Using information obtained through analytics research of the Current Students, Faculty/Staff, Parents, and Alumni/Donors/Friends pages, we’ve reorganized these pages into different categories which best reflect the individual needs of each of these populations. For example, the pages now contain “Most Popular” categories, which contain links to the most-visited pages.
• Feedback Form: A formal and user-friendly way of submitting questions, comments, concerns and suggestions about our website. Please let us know if you notice any bugs or issues on your pages, this is a common occurrence during these transitions.

Moving forward, our office plans to update the content on other institutional pages, and to further develop our relationships with other departments on campus in our ongoing effort to enhance our website to meet our institutional needs. This includes scheduling regular meetings with all administrative and academic departments on campus to assess how you can best utilize the website to reach your goals.

We look forward to your feedback, comments and suggestions about the new site, and please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have. Happy browsing!

Sincerely,

Office of Communication and Marketing

Budget Forum Presentation from Monday

May 16, 2012

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students:

As a follow up to the budget forum on Monday, May 14, about additional resource investments, we have posted the presentation in the Budget Information Center under the Faculty/Staff Services and Student Services tabs in my.newpaltz.edu

The decisions announced Monday confirm our criteria that we must become even more student-focused than we are, and that we further sharpen the attention we give to the student experience and to enhancing student success. Such thinking must assume top priority not only in our decisions about allocating new tuition revenue but in our longer-term planning and prioritization.

Priorities were made from the vast array of good ideas submitted during this spring’s budget process, including both recurring expenses and some one-time expenditures. The decisions should allow Deans and departments to plan, including hiring temporary personnel to meet critical instructional needs next year while searches for the highest-priority tenure-line positions are under way for new colleagues to join us in fall 2013.

The last two slides in the presentation discuss next steps in the process, including the continued evaluation of requests that were not approved. It is possible that some of these requests could be funded from existing or external resources. Additionally, we need to further evaluate requests for faculty development and equipment to develop a more systematic approach to these requests. We realize this process was compressed into the spring semester, and we will continue to review and refine the process, including the timeline.

We must also continue to monitor the impact on college resources of the “new” SUNY Resource Allocation Model, details of which we will not know until later this year.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this process

Jacqueline DiStefano
Vice President for Administration and Finance

UUP Petition

December 16, 2011

Members of the Campus Community:

Many students, faculty, and staff signed the “Petition for Educational Quality, Fairness & Equity at SUNY New Paltz” advocating for increased compensation for adjunct faculty and related matters.   Others are aware of this petition through media reports and communications from the New Paltz UUP Chapter.  I appreciate and value when members of the College make their thoughts about this and other matters known to me.  However, I believe petitions oversimplify institutional decisions, choices, and possible courses of action, and they typically provide little or no background and context.  The issues as presented in the petition do not fully explain the facts and figures around which such important institutional decisions are made.  I will attempt to provide that information here.

I respect the views and motivations of those who signed this petition.  I also value and respect the excellent contributions that adjunct faculty make to New Paltz and to our students, including those who bring special knowledge and experience of their employment or practice into the classroom.  Adjunct faculty teach about 30% of our courses. While this is a sizeable part of our course offerings, it is substantially less than national averages and will decrease even further when our budget-reduction plan is fully realized.  Nonetheless, courses taught by adjunct instructors will always be an important part of our offerings.

I will share some of my current thinking about this topic in the context of institutional needs and priorities, and will clarify several points of context missing from the petition as well as serious inaccuracies in the media coverage of this matter.  Although some may hold the view that the presentation of a petition necessitates immediate response and action, as I have stated and written elsewhere, I am taking this time early in my presidency to learn more about the College and to assess our most significant needs and directions, including those that will warrant investment of financial resources.  I have made and will continue making decisions and pursuing actions that have immediate impact on the College, while learning as much as I can to inform other decisions and actions that have long-term institutional consequences.   The subject of adjunct compensation fits into the latter category.
A December 5, 2011 regional newspaper article about adjunct faculty at New Paltz stated “The last time adjuncts got a raise was six years ago.”  That statement is patently false.  It has had the unfortunate consequence of misleading members of the broader community about New Paltz policies and practices for adjunct compensation.  I have been spending time this past week correcting those misimpressions.   We have also submitted a letter to the editor to correct these inaccuracies.

The administration has increased adjunct salaries at the same level as negotiated salary increases in the UUP collective bargaining agreement.  Such increases are voluntary local agreements, and are not mandated as part of the statewide-negotiated UUP contract.  These included increases of 3% in 2006-07, 3% in 2008-09, 3% in 2009-10, and 4% in 2010-11.  In other years (including the current year), adjunct salaries did not increase because UUP contract negotiations were ongoing.  Once the contract was ratified in 2008, adjuncts received the 3% increase for 2007-08 (delayed), along with the 3% increase for 2008-09 and a prorated per course increase that resulted in an effective increase of more than 10%..  As a result, the per credit base rate for adjuncts has increased from $822 in 2005-06 to $1,000.44 in 2010-11, an increase of more than 21% during this time period.  The College intends to continue past practice of granting adjuncts the same increases afforded to full-time faculty in their negotiated contract, even though the College is not required to do so. In addition, adjunct faculty are eligible for discretionary salary increases, based on documented quality of teaching and related contributions.  At least in the past three years, virtually every adjunct faculty member whose request for a discretionary salary increase was supported by their department chair and dean has been awarded such an increase by the provost and president.  These salary increases are carried over into the per-credit compensation rate applied in the following year(s) for adjuncts who are rehired.  As a result, some New Paltz adjuncts earn per credit rates as high as $1,068, the equivalent of over $3,200 per 3-credit course.   To the degree that funding for discretionary salary increases is available, we are committed to recognizing and rewarding high-quality contributions by adjunct faculty.

Some will argue that even with these increases the compensation for adjuncts is too low.  The same newspaper article cited above stated that SUNY New Paltz adjuncts “work for peanuts.”  That statement implies that adjunct compensation at New Paltz is unsystematically low, but a few comparisons provide little basis in reality for that view.   A December 1 Chronicle of Higher Education article quoted AAUP statistics that adjuncts nationwide earn $2,700 per course, compared to $3,000 (or higher) at New Paltz.   One nearby private college, with tuition rates an order of magnitude higher than at New Paltz, has a base compensation rate for adjuncts of $2,500 per course.  Adjuncts teaching at all nearby community colleges are compensated at lower rates than at New Paltz, although adjuncts with 7 or more semesters of teaching experience at one community college are compensated at a rate only slightly less than the current starting rate at New Paltz. New Paltz compensates adjuncts teaching science laboratory courses at rates 40-50% higher than at the community colleges.

The above-cited Chronicle of Higher Education article noted also that typical adjunct faculty nationwide work “without benefits.”  In addition to being compensated at higher rates than most national and regional standards, adjunct faculty at New Paltz who teach two or more courses qualify for health insurance benefits, during their first and subsequent semesters teaching at that level.  The state pays 90% of the costs of the premium for employee coverage and 75% of the premium for dependent coverage.  During the current year, state contributions are about $245 for the individual plan and just over $500 for the family plan per biweekly payroll – a large investment of state funding in the compensation package of New Paltz adjunct faculty.

By comparison, adjunct faculty at one nearby private college qualify for health insurance benefits only if employed half time or more; at another, no benefits are available.  Adjuncts at two regional community colleges become eligible for health insurance benefits after one year (at one) or four consecutive semesters (at the other), but the employee pays the full cost of the benefits with no institutional or state subsidy.   At another community college, benefits are not available to adjuncts working less than full time.

Given the costs of health care and of health insurance coverage if purchased independently, the more ready availability of health insurance coverage for adjuncts at New Paltz and the employer subsidy of that coverage must be regarded as a significant part of adjunct compensation.

Thus, considering both salary rates and the availability and employer subsidy of health insurance coverage, employment as an adjunct faculty member at New Paltz offers distinctive compensation advantage over similar opportunities at most other higher educational institutions in the region (exceptions are nearby private colleges where tuition rates are easily 8-10 times higher than at New Paltz).  There is no basis in fact for media and other suggestions that compensation for adjuncts at New Paltz is comparatively low – indeed, there is considerable evidence pointing to precisely the opposite conclusion.

My administrative colleagues and I inform our decision making and planning by routinely using baseline and comparative data of all sorts.  The compensation adjuncts receive at other institutions is highly relevant to our decision making.  We would be irresponsible in our use of tuition and taxpayer support if we were to ignore national and regional comparisons and contexts, especially in this difficult and uncertain budgetary climate.

If there is an argument that adjunct compensation is inadequate, its target should be regional, statewide, and national and not specific to New Paltz.  The faculty union’s advocacy for adjunct faculty salaries should be channeled through its statewide contract negotiations, which are conducted through the Governor’s office and not by individual campuses.

As the College continues to move ahead in enhancing academic quality and opportunity for students, it is essential that we invest resources in those initiatives and programs that most clearly advance our goals and our vision points.  Such decisions must be based on careful planning and evaluation of evidence, and consideration of the multiple consequences of each decision.  A decision to increase compensation for adjuncts would necessarily result in direct or indirect consequences of decreased funding for some other program or function, as well as affecting opportunity to increase support for other programs or functions (including our ability to hire more full-time tenure-track faculty and lecturers). Thus, such a decision cannot be made in isolation of other considerations.  Trade-offs are the coin of the realm in the decisions that institutional leaders make, especially in a constrained and uncertain budgetary climate.  Such complexities are virtually never captured in petition language.  The evidence I have presented here does not provide an immediate and compelling basis for increasing adjunct compensation at New Paltz, relative to other ways that we might direct our financial resources.

The administration is committed to continuing our participation in regular part-time labor management meetings, where we discuss with union leaders various concerns of adjunct and other contingent faculty, and consider and adopt approaches to address those concerns where that is feasible and consistent with sustaining and enhancing our core educational mission.

Sincerely,
Donald P. Christian
President

New Paltz notified of its reaccreditation!

July 1, 2011

Dear Members of the New Paltz Campus Community:

I want to share the GREAT news that SUNY New Paltz has been reaccredited!  This action was taken formally by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education at its meeting on June 23.   Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the self-study and site-visit process, and – more fundamentally – to every member of the College for your work and accomplishments that resulted in such a positive assessment of our institution and its quality.

The formal language of the Commission’s resolution approved on June 23 is “To reaffirm accreditation and to commend the institution for the quality of its self-study process.”  Several weeks ago, the Commission’s “Committee on Evaluation Reports” met to review our self-study, the evaluation team report, and the evaluation team chair’s confidential brief to the Commission.  Shippensburg University President William Ruud, chair of our site-visit team, informed me after that meeting that the Committee’s recommendation to the full Commission would be that we have met each of the 14 standards and should be reaccredited.  Dr. Ruud also told me that, of the several institutions whose reports were reviewed at the committee meeting, New Paltz “stood out” in all respects.

Now that the Commission has acted, we are able to make public the final action of the Commission as well as the report of the evaluation team; both are posted here.  The evaluation team report is worth reading in detail, both because it highlights many of our strengths and contributions and also because the suggestions of the reviewers provide a “road map” for many key directions on which to focus our  energy and attention in the coming years.  Indeed, the Commission strongly encourages that the evaluation team report be used “to stimulate further thought within the institution.”

As we shared earlier this spring, the evaluation team report included what should be regarded as an unprecedented five “commendations” – significant accomplishments worth highlighting for special attention.  We can now share the language of these more fully. These read: “The Evaluation Team commends…”

“the institution and its senior leadership for an honest and transparent communication about the current budget challenges.”

“the institution for the culture of assessment that it has cultivated to date among faculty and staff who, in large part, value the role of assessment to support evidence-based decision-making and improve programs and services.”

“the institution for progressively higher retention and graduation rates that places the institution at higher-than-national-average levels, both overall and for students from underrepresented groups.  The Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) has a significant positive impact on retention and graduation rates of economically disadvantaged students, and we commend the program for its evidence of structural changes and expansion based on assessment results.”

“the institution for its outstanding commitment to student success by faculty and staff and evidence of structural changes and expansion of student support services based on assessment results.”

“the leadership and staff of the Dorsky Museum for its sound planning and evaluative practices, resourcefulness, and outreach to the campus and regional community to make art relevant in many forms and for many purposes.”

The Commission affirmed the one recommendation of the evaluation team.  A “recommendation” is a finding that “institutional action is needed for the institution to continue to meet the Commission’s standards in Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education.”  Dr.  Ruud informed me that the new practice of the Commission is to require a progress report on every recommendation.  Consequently, we must provide a progress report by April 1, 2013 documenting:

(1)    Further implementation of a comprehensive, organized and sustained process for the assessment of institutional effectiveness, including evidence that assessment has been implemented in all administrative units (Standard 7), and

(2)    Further implementation of a comprehensive, organized and sustained process for the assessment of student learning outcomes, including evidence that all course syllabi include identified student learning outcomes, that assessment has been implemented in all academic units, and that assessment results are used to improve teaching and learning (Standards 11 and 14).

Thus, although we were commended for having built a “culture of assessment,” we have more work to do, and will need to document progress in these areas.  The evaluation team report and our self-study provide more insight and detail on some of the changes that we need to undertake.  This will be a significant part of our work during the next year and a half and will inform the progress report.  We subsequently will need to produce the regular “Periodic Review Report” due on June 1, 2016 (half-way to our next full accreditation review in 2021!).

We will take up action on this and the many suggestions raised both in our self-study and in the evaluation team report at the start of the coming year.  But for the present we have much cause for celebration about our reaccreditation and the overwhelmingly positive assessment that the accreditation review process has given us.

Sincerely,

Donald P. Christian
President

A message from President Donald P. Christian

June 15, 2011

Dear Colleagues:

By now you have likely read or heard the news that yesterday I was appointed the eighth President of SUNY New Paltz, starting today.  It was 50 weeks ago that I was confirmed as interim president, a role that I took on with every intention of supporting the presidential search this past year and of returning to the Provost position when a new president joined us.  I never would have imagined at the time that the new president would be me, or that I could be so excited about this opportunity to lead such a special institution.  I recognize and respect the legacies of previous Presidents who have set us on such a positive course, and am honored to follow them.  I appreciate and am humbled by the confidence placed in me by so many people on and off the New Paltz campus, and am grateful for the many messages of support I have received since yesterday’s announcement.  I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to advance our institution and the many exceptional contributions that we make to our students and to New York.

There is much to be done in the coming weeks. In addition to the regular work of the President’s office (no sign yet of a summer slack!), we are working hard to identify an interim provost to serve during the current year after Laurel Garrick Duhaney returns at the end of June to her previous position.  My goal is for the interim provost to join us as early as possible in July.   Many of you are aware that Sandy Hess, long-time secretary to several presidents, is retiring and we are in the process of identifying and hiring a successor.  I will ask your patience in advance with these transitions in Academic Affairs and in the President’s office, especially since these offices work together so closely on many matters.

At a personal level, this summer my wife Sandy and I will move into the President’s house, a requirement of the position.  Also during July, I will attend the AASCU “Summer Council of Presidents” in Seattle, an important networking and professional development conference, and we may schedule an event while there to meet with some of our many alumni in the Northwest.  We will try to couple a short vacation with that trip.  After a few days back in the office, I will travel to the Midwest to take part in the AASCU “New President’s Academy,” a 5-day intensive professional development program that many sitting presidents and others have strongly urged me to attend as an important foundation for beginning a presidency.  Key topics include essential skills for new presidents, organization/team building, facilities and financial management, communication, development and fund-raising, and external relations.  These efforts will occupy much of July.

I have received the sage advice to regard the coming year as the first year of my presidency, and not the second year because of my service as interim president.  My year as interim gives me a good head start on knowing the campus and the duties of President, and, as summarized in my letter of application for the presidency, I have many thoughts about an institutional vision and future direction.  But it is important that I take time, as any new president would, to continue getting to know the campus and your collective concerns and aspirations that need to be considered in charting our course. While I am eager to see us continue advancing as an institution, such “stock-taking” is an essential precursor of action.

The recent Middle States self-study report included many suggestions and areas of possible improvement and innovation identified by the community during the self-study process.  These and suggestions made by the reviewers in their report provide a rich “road map” that needs to be core to our thinking about the future.  Our budget decisions this past spring necessitate early discussion and action on issues such as faculty workload, performance evaluation standards, and curricular organization. The above ideas provide a starting point for some parts of our agenda for the coming year.

Several other agenda items warrant specific comment.  I believe it goes without saying that a top priority for the coming year will be a successful national search for a new Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs.  Another unquestionable agenda item is to continue our work on a first-ever comprehensive fund-raising campaign focused on our greatest strategic needs.  This effort has been in the planning stages, and will take perhaps two more years of “quiet” work before a visible campaign is launched.  Today’s meeting of the Foundation Board in NYC will include an update on the progress we have been making on the campaign case statement.  As I have written before, it is perhaps unavoidable that I focus more effort internally during the coming year in support of an Interim Provost than any of us might wish, but I am committed to simultaneously advancing our external goals, of which fund-raising and development are central.

The Middle States self-study process, the reviewers’ report, and my letter of application discuss the need and desirability for us to undertake a careful planning process that will guide and prioritize future directions and our day-to-day work.  As I have written, rather than beginning with a blank slate, such a process needs to build on our vision points, refining our understanding of them and “operationalizing” them in every unit; we must also consider articulation of campus goals with those of The Power of SUNY system plan.  While such planning will be consultative and collaborative, a good strategic plan cannot be a consensus plan.  I will be giving thought to the right time to undertake such planning, the right structure and process, and the merits of working with an outside consultant on this process.

We will take up conversations about these and other topics at the start of the fall semester.

Again, I am honored and excited to lead such a great institution, and look forward to your support, engagement, and contributions as we work together to continue building SUNY New Paltz as the best public, liberal-arts-based comprehensive college in the Northeast.  We have much exciting and fun work to do, and many great opportunities that will require our collective focus, attention, creativity, and energy.

Sincerely,

Donald P. Christian
President