Tuesday, April 21st and May 5th, SUNY Cortland’s Faculty Senate meeting covered important issues and changes that will affect students and faculty.
Red Dragon Athletes:
SUNY Cortland’s President, Erik Bitterbaum, opened the meeting thanking professors who attended the president list award ceremonies before bringing up an issue that affects 878 student athletes. According to Bitterbaum, there is a possibility of splitting NCAA Division III into NCAA Division III AND IV. The idea is to compensate for unbalanced competition between schools who don’t have the facilities to meet student-athlete needs. The split could help allocate resources and address specific needs but could also raise concerns with faculty burden. Bitterbaum said that as of the meeting, this proposal is only in the discussion phase
AI on Campus:
After SUNY Cortland joined NYS Advancing AI for Public Good Initiative, SUNY AI fellow Lauren deLaubell presented what her group had found as well as how the campus should move forward. AI literacy was added to the SUNY General Education framework where students will learn how to ethically find information as well as how to use it within multiple majors. There will be guardrails guiding when students can use AI. Plagiarism is a concern on top of accountability, education, and data policy. Members of all Faculty are encouraged to have open conversations with students about future use.
Campus-Wide Communication Survey:
Leatrice Oram, chief of staff, and Jody Maroney, co-chair of SPIN, presented a Strategic Plan Impact Network – Organizational Health Survey (SPIN-OH) presented at the final Faculty Senate meeting of the semester on May 5th. They asked the Faculty Senate questions about the expectations and perceptions of campus communication at an institutional level. While some members expressed that campus communication did well on sending out statements on how to support and encourage students during political and social crises, there were many issues brought up during the meeting that SPIN-OH will try to address. Consistency and timeliness of messages need improvement as well as spreading them out to avoid piling on too much urgent information. The report recommended that messages be sent to the correct people with clarification on who it is from (email/messaging etiquette), who it is for, and whether it can be shared.
Title II Compliance Tracking:
Title II part of the Americans with Disabilities Act was revised with requirements for content on websites and mobile apps. Title II was first adopted on April 24, 2024, but the Department of Justice has created a compliance date for all local and state government services to meet standards. The deadline was pushed from this year, April 24th, 2026, to April 27th, 2027. SUNY Cortland is currently 82% compliant with a desired percentage of at least 85%. Faculty are instructed to go back two semesters and edit to meet Title II standards.
AFAC Proposal:
The AFAC proposal was approved by Faculty Senate on May 5th. Kevin Sheets, the chair of Academic Faculty, proposed new additions and clarifications to the 220.06 Handbook for Policies and Procedures of the Academic Faculty for Renewal of Term Appointment, Granting of Continuing Appointment and Promotion. To compensate for alleged “infraction” of rules, clarification in this proposal includes:
- Reviewers are not allowed to do research on candidates outside of their portfolio including contacting co-authors, journals, professional associations, current or former students, etc. Review must be based on the portfolio.
- Candidates must provide evidence of alleged misconduct
- Candidates are the only ones allowed to add to their own portfolio and should include a completed Personnel Action Form. For candidates applying for renewal term of appointment & continuing appointment: include ALL recommendations from prior rounds of review.
Faculty Obligations & Expectations:
On top of the approved AFAC proposal, Kevin Sheets, also the chair for the Ad-hoc Committee on Faculty Obligations and Expectations (CFOE), drafted recommendations to the faculty senate on May 5. The recommendations come after a year-long study looking into the complaints from provost based on faculty failing to meet expectations. Concerns were raised about faculty understanding the obligations of their positions. Professors at Cortland have three responsibilities: Teach classes, Serve on committees, and research (scholarships, writing, and research projects). It was proposed that the faculty senate should:
- Outline transparent and consistent expectations for services and scholarships.
- Advocate for evaluation systems that appreciates all of faculty work instead of relying on “committee counts or credit hours”
- Urge administration to set workload limits and address support imbalances between academic and professional staff as well as to value different work paths as a career choice
- Form balanced and shared responsibility within departments
- Advocate for flexible work models
- Prioritize faculty well-being on an institutional level
“Tissues Are for Students Only”
Deb Sharp, department chair and associate professor of Communication Disorders and Sciences Department, shared results from the “Ethics of Faculty and Staff Burnout in the State University of New York” study published in January 2026. Some findings include:
- Out of 1024 responses, 73.7% of professors felt their workload increased after a decrease in faculty members
- Out of 1033 responses, 45.3% felt they always feel pressure to “do more with less”
- Out of 1017 responses, 84.3% felt that upper management made decisions without the best interest of faculty and staff well-being.
According to a faculty member, the chancellor wanted concrete steps within available resources by this month to address the problem. However, the study pointed out the lack of resources that are present in the first place.