Part 1: Campus Profile - SUNY Cobleskill

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F ACADEMIC GOALS & DIRECTIONS SUNY Cobleskill Facilities Master Plan – Phase 1 Report November 2011 SUNY Cobleskill Faculty and Students SUNY COBLESKILL MARKETING IMAGE: FACULTY & STAFF FACULTY AND STAFF The College’s transition to a baccalaureate institution points to a significant change in faculty culture, including expectations for terminal degree credentials, faculty workload, and provisions of opportunities for scholarship, including release time, sabbaticals, and support for grants. Through its planning process, the College has raised its standards for faculty hires. According to the new requirements, all incoming faculty must have a terminal degree (or commensurate experience) in their field or be capable of earning such before becoming eligible for a continuing appointment. The College has also modified the requirements for promotion and continuing appointment, and the faculty salary scale was made market-sensitive. Sabbaticals and faculty release time also increased to allow for greater scholarship and the pursuit of grants. One significant outcome has been that income from sponsored research and grants has increased 126%, from $1.91 million in 2004 to $4.32 million in 2009. These changes will enhance the College’s ability to attract larger pools of high quality faculty candidates. Staff are also considered critical to the College’s strategic emphasis on excellence. Of the 288 headcount staff in 2009, only 12 (4%) were part time—two other professional, four technical/paraprofessional, and two clerical/secretarial. The majority of staff (96%) were full-time. ACADEMIC SUPPORT The Library, the Center for Academic Support and Excellence, and the Writing Center provide environments which support the learning needs of students. The Library seats over 550 patrons, containing study and conference rooms, a multimedia room, computer stations, and space for students to relax and enjoy books and magazines. The collection of the Library includes print and non-print materials, with over 77,000 books and 5,400 educational materials. It subscribes to over 250 periodicals, and other journals are available through full-text databases. The Library’s collection is augmented by a network of sharing with other SUNY institutions. While the student headcount increased 7% from fall 2004 to 2009, the total number of faculty increased 47%. In 2009, approximately 47% were part-time, while about 30% were part-time in 2004. Table F1 Faculty Headcount 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Ag. & Natural Resources 37 35 39 51 52 55 Business & Comp. Tech. 27 30 37 34 36 41 Liberal Arts & Sciences 71 84 112 115 104 103 The Center for Academic Support and Excellence (CASE) provides peer and professional tutoring services to students who need structured support for the academic success. It is open to all students and free of charge. CASE also houses the Writing Center, where students receive one-onone tutoring for various writing needs. The Disability Support Office, also located at CASE, offers programs and workshops on the topic of note-taking, textbook reading, and time management for students with learning and/or physical disabilities. Total 135 149 188 200 192 199 The impact of the College’s transition can be seen in the changes related to faculty rank. The greatest changes have been in the number of instructors, matched with a concomitant decrease in assistant professors, most likely related to the need for terminal degrees to be in the tenure track rank. As new tenure track positions open, growth in these ranks is likely to occur, which would be consistent with the College’s vision. The College, as planned, has increased the ratio of female to male faculty from about 33% female / 67% male in 2004 to 40% female / 60% male in 2009. Its efforts to recruit a larger percentage of minority faculty, however, has been stymied; only about 7% of the faculty is of a minority ethnicity. 28
SUNY Cobleskill Facilities Master Plan – Phase 1 Report November 2011 PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT G G – PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT SUNY Cobleskill is located in the Village of Cobleskill in New York’s Schoharie County, a picturesque and historic area approximately 160 miles northwest of New York City and midway between Albany and Oneonta. NYS Route 7 runs through the middle of the campus at the western edge of the Village of Cobleskill, directly off of I-88. Schoharie County offers a rare combination of rural life and direct access to the services and activities of a metropolitan area, New York’s Capital Region. Albany is only a 40-minute drive east of the College. The county lies in close proximity to such natural splendors as the Adirondack Park, the Catskill Mountains, the historic Helderberg Mountains, and the Mohawk Valley. State and private parks, streams, lakes, mountain trails and ski areas provide an abundance of outdoor activities. PHYSICAL CONTEXT era, when a vast slurry of limestone coursed through the region. This has given rise to areas of irregular limestone known as “Karst,” in which caves, fissures, joints, sinkholes, depressions, springs (“resurgences”), and sinking streams (“insurgences”) are found, including the nearby tourist attraction known as the Howe Caverns. In these areas, water passes quickly through solutional passages, but does not purify itself in doing so as it would through more consolidated and organic strata. These areas are therefore vulnerable to pollution from agricultural and development uses of land (cattle pastures, trash dumps, septic tanks, etc). The Town of Cobleskill has concluded that the best environmental solution lies in preserving farmland, which in turn raises issues of entrepreneurship that are central to SUNY Cobleskill’s focus on agribusiness. The Protection Plan identifies several key strengths and weaknesses which appear to be areas in which SUNY Cobleskill could both assist and benefit the region. Cambrian Middle Proterozoic Ordovician Silurian Devonian Graphic G1 Bedrock Geology of New York State The Village of Cobleskill, with approximately 5,300 residents, is a typical small college town with convenient access to shopping, dining, houses of worship, recreational facilities, and medical services. With a history that dates to 1711 (when the first pioneer settlers arrived), the Cobleskill area is a treasure trove of historic sites and museums. Late Proterozoic Cambrian - Late Ordivician Middle Proterozoic Triassic Cretaceous The Village of Cobleskill was founded in 1752, while the Town was established in 1797. Key historic structures such as the Bulls Head Inn (1802), the oldest building in the Village, remain. Over the course of the 19th century, the Village evolved from a small village on a stream to a prosperous and bustling town with the arrival of the railroad. Historic images on postcards illustrate tree-lined streets with an urban, small-town presence and a major railroad station as early as 1900. The Village’s Main Street continues through the center of the campus (renamed as Albany Street). Given SUNY Cobleskill’s distinctive focus on land, agriculture, and natural resources, and its commitment to environmental issues and to partnerships with local and regional interests, it is interesting to note that Cobleskill lies in a unique geological area with significant implications for farming and the environmental health of its region. According to the Town of Cobleskill Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan, Cobleskill lies on the edge of a large region to the south that is geologically composed of Marcellus Shale, a marine sedimentary rock that is a potential source of natural gas obtained through the controversial process of “fracking.” To the north, extending in a broad arc from the Hudson west to Michigan, is an area of unusual geological formations created during the Devonian St. Lawrence-Champlain Lowlands Adirondack Mountains Tug Hill Plateau Ontario Lowlands Allegheny Plateau Catskill Mountains Hudson Highlands Newark Lowlands Atlantic Coastal Plain Mohawk Valley Taconic Mountains Hudson Valley Manhattan Prong Graphic G2 Physiographic Provinces of New York State 29
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Part 1: Campus Profile - SUNY Cobleskill

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