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The Syracuse University Senate merged two internal committees and created a new one during its first meeting of the semester Wednesday afternoon. The merger sparked discussion about changes to faculty healthcare benefits.

USen’s newly-formed Committee on Curriculum and Instruction will focus on curriculum review and course changes across SU schools, Tom Barkley, the committee’s co-chair, said. Previously, the senate had separate Curriculum and Instruction committees. It also established an Employee Services, Fiscal Affairs, and Operations committee.

The Committee on Curriculum and Instruction will work with administrators and staff to coordinate any changes or suggestions and hear from representatives from each of SU’s schools and colleges. The new committee will also adjudicate student grade appeals alleging university procedural issues.

Barkley responded to concerns that members of the former Curriculum Committee would overtake operations from Instructions Committee members. He said the merger would be mutually beneficial.

“The Committee on Curriculum is not here to intervene. We’re not here to dictate in any way, shape, or form what schools and colleges might want to propose for new courses,” Barkley said. “On the other hand, we do want to make sure the consultation takes place so that we don’t have duplications of courses across campus.”

The other new committee — Employee Services, Fiscal Affairs, and Operations — will advocate for spending programs that benefit the welfare of faculty and staff. Committee Chair Doug Yung said it will focus on five main areas: parking services, financial implications, transparency in compensation and job classifications, retirement benefits and the review of catering services.

Yung fielded questions from faculty members about their healthcare access. Some faculty members said their local primary care physicians have stopped accepting their university health plans, and some said their healthcare providers notified them they would stop seeing them in December.

Discussion continued after Tom Dennison, chair of USen’s Employee Benefits Advisory Council, spoke. The council, established in 2003, was created to ensure that the senate could effectively facilitate feedback from the broader university community.

Many senators said their dental care providers have begun dropping Delta Dental, the faculty’s coverage. Delta Dental currently serves as the university’s default dental care provider for faculty members.

Dennison told the senate that the council is reviewing the university’s health insurance providers and insurers and will be working with human resources to ensure SU knows the latest information.

“If you want to stay with your doctor, you’d have to use your out-of-network benefit,” one faculty member said. “The translation is your out-of-pocket expense is going to greatly increase. So yes, it’s still an option to stay with your doctor, but it’s going to be a very costly option.”

Chancellor Kent Syverud spoke after Dennison and said the concerns raised over the policies are out of SU’s control. The school contracts the policies through a third-party administrator, and the concerns between the faculty and healthcare providers cannot be immediately resolved.

“(Providers are) being very aggressive with the employers in terms of what they want to charge employers, and that’s the next concern coming up as soon as we go toward open enrollment,” Syverud said. “So all I can say is that I’m aware that people need access to doctors and urgent care.”

USen’s next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 23 at 4 p.m. The senators will meet virtually.

Other business:

• Syverud announced that the university finished the 2024 fiscal year with a budget of over $1.7 billion and a surplus of $1.5 million. He said SU is currently on track to finish with a small surplus for the 2025 fiscal year.
• Syverud said the school’s endowment has been steadily growing and that SU added 94 new full-time faculty, in addition to 90 new part-time members for this academic year.

Published on September 26, 2024 at 1:28 am

Contact Henry at: hdaley@syr.edu