Following his address to the University Senate Wednesday evening, Chancellor Kent Syverud was challenged by senators to produce specific numbers about the employee buyout program.

The nearly 90-minute meeting included updates on the Fast Forward program, the search for a new vice chancellor, the plan for a veterans complex and a report on Syracuse University’s budget. The topic of buyouts was not intended to be included in Syverud’s address, but after philosophy professor Sam Gorovitz posed several questions, Syverud offered some key details.

“Faculty care deeply about staff — what happens to the staff affects faculty both directly and in other ways,” Gorovitz said. “There is a yearning among the faculty and staff to have disclosure about the numbers.”

Many employees retired in December, resulting in retirement rates that were three times higher than average, Syverud said. The retirements, or buyouts, were a part of the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program, enacted in July 2015. Employees whose combined age and years of service were higher than 65 became eligible to leave the university in exchange for half their yearly salary and other benefits.

As Syverud mentioned in the October senate meeting, the savings from the buyout were enough to negate any layoffs that would have been planned for 2016. He promised senators that he would provide concrete numbers at the next senate meeting.

Syverud also covered several updates on the Fast Forward initiative, saying that the Academic Strategic Plan is now in its implementation phase. Six teams of 20 faculty and students are focusing on the areas identified in the plan: student experience, discovery, internationalization, commitment to veterans, innovation and the “One University” theme.

The teams will begin by zeroing in on things the university should be “doing right away and not waiting on,” Syverud said.

Syverud said the Campus Master Plan portion of Fast Forward has changed in some areas, such as adding a vehicle-free promenade to University Avenue — in front of the Schine Student Center, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Bird Library — and bettering the connection between the area of campus linking the Life Sciences Building and Campus West. Overall, the plan will open up the campus in various ways, he said.

The framework is slated to be released by the end of the spring semester. Syverud said much of the delay can be attributed to figuring out “what to do with the Dome.”

“There’s been lots of great work by the advisory group and (Sasaki Associates),” Syverud said, referring to the Massachusetts-based architecture and design firm hired by SU to guide its Campus Master Plan. “We’re now talking to the Board of Trustees about what to roll out and when, including a planned meeting next week.”

The university is still evaluating whether to pursue the creation of a veterans-focused medical school, Syverud said. The school would place health care professionals into the Veterans Health Administration, which has had “widely publicized problems,” he said.

“It would be designed to help VA hospitals and clinics around the country fill their need for an estimated workforce gap of 22,000 medical professionals they could hire today if they could find them and pay for them,” Syverud said.

SU is now working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to figure out its degree of leadership in the project and other areas. This data-gathering phase should be finished in the coming months, at which point Syverud said he would consult with various university groups to decide whether or not SU will move forward with the idea.

“I do expect to consult widely with the senate along the way,” Syverud added.

Syverud also noted that several administrative and dean searches are underway, including the search for a dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the senior vice president for student affairs and a dean of Hendricks Chapel.

He added that three or four finalists have been chosen in the run for vice chancellor and provost. The candidates will visit SU early next month and a final selection will be made at the end of February.

Other business discussed:

In her address to the senate, Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost Liz Liddy said the provost advisory committee will begin operating Jan. 26. The committee works with the provost to review applications for promotion and tenure. This is the first year that the university will have a body of this kind, Liddy said.

The proposal for the committee was widely objected to by senators last year when they suggested it posed a threat to faculty’s shared governance in university matters.

Published on January 20, 2016 at 10:59 pm

Contact Annie: apalme05@syr.edu