Chancellor Nancy Cantor and University Senate members addressed the concerns of the Syracuse University community at an open forum Wednesday afternoon, particularly the recent concerns with one-credit classes at the College of Visual and Performing Arts and potential changes in the employee benefits packages.

USen is the governing body of the university and is represented by students, faculty and administration members. USen meets once a month to hear reports from committees and to take outside proposals into consideration. Its main purpose is to act as an advisory body to Cantor.

Concerned students brought up the proposal to make zero-credit courses one credit and expressed confusion as to whether or not this has actually been passed.

‘We all understand that this is going beyond VPA,’ Cantor said, ‘No decisions have been made. It has only been placed under consideration for the time being.’

Since VPA Dean Ann Clarke announced her potential plans, students have been concerned that this change could affect the campus as a whole. If this proposal were to be passed, students fear that they would be unable to take part in musical ensembles if their schedules reached the 19-credit limit.

A VPA student at the forum said many students are involved in multiple ensembles and need 17 to 19 credits per semester. The additional one credit could make it impossible to join multiple ensembles for both students outside of VPA and those in the school.

VPA departments are currently gathering data in order to figure out the distribution of credits students are taking and who is taking zero-credit courses, Cantor said. USen is taking all concerns into consideration and is confronting these issues in order to prevent inconvenience for students who could be affected, she said.

‘Our analysis says that as many as 60 percent who signed up for zero-credit courses would not be impacted by one credit,’ said Arthur Jensen, a professor of communication and rhetorical studies.

USen is also discussing waver policies to make sure students are not affected if this proposal goes through, Cantor said. March 1 is the deadline for the final decision.

‘This was a good opportunity for (the students) to see how the chancellor interacts with deans to address student concerns like this,’ said Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs.

Another major concern brought forth to Cantor was whether or not the university is making changes to the employee benefits package.

The general purpose of the benefits proposal will not change, but one change has been made so far and others are expected, Cantor said.

The proposal no longer includes the plan to create ‘vested’ benefits. Vested benefits are the amount of retirement benefits an employee is eligible to receive depending on the number of years of employment.

Meetings with various committees within USen are taking place to discuss the proposal. Once changes have been fully made, a new letter will be sent to employees with the updated benefits plan.

There will be a USen meeting March 3 specifically devoted to next year’s budget. Three selected committees, including the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee, will provide USen with their thoughts on the proposal. USen will make recommendations and vote, though it is not mandatory for members to vote, said Robert Van Gulick, a member of the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee.

Other topics addressed include:

– Charlotte Hess, the associate dean for research, collections and scholarly communication of the libraries, expressed her concern that the library is limited on resources. She also expressed the discontent that surrounds the overall issues regarding the library. Last semester there was controversy when the library planned on moving books to an off-campus location, but the plan was eventually stalled. She said she hopes the problems of the library are being considered. Cantor said that the library is a big concern and the Board of Trustees has made it its goal to work on a plan for resources.

– Sima Taslakian, a sophomore in the School of Information Studies and Student Association’s parliamentarian, said many students in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications have approached her about the difficulty of taking electives in VPA and vice versa. Newhouse Dean Lorraine Branham said VPA and Newhouse are finding ways to make it easier for students to take electives. Cantor also said that cross-communication between schools on campus as a whole has improved.

– Crista Gray, a graduate student in the School of Education, said she was concerned about a proposal to charge students $500 while they are working on their dissertations and how that would affect students in the program. Douglas Biklen, dean of the School of Education, said students would have two years of freedom from paying that amount and said that is a reasonable time to finish a dissertation.

– A question was posed about the breakdown percentage of the endowment in terms of investment and distribution.

– A question was also asked about whether the university would recognize a faculty union. Cantor said she did not feel comfortable providing a yes or no answer to the question.

lgleveil@syr.edu

Published on February 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: lgleveil@syr.edu | @lgleveille