BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
MINUTES OF THE September 15, 2008 MEETING OF THE GRADUATE COUNCIL
PLACE:
Couper Administration Building, Room 148
PRESIDING:
Graduate School
Nancy E. Stamp, Vice Provost and Dean of the
MEMBERS:
David Campbell, Michael Conlon, Susan Currie,
James Fang, Mark Fowler, Christof Grewer, Robert
Guay, William Haver, William Heller, Sarah Lam,
Wendy Martinek, Weiyi Meng, Andrew Merriwether,
Susan Pollock, Maria-Teresa Romero, Olga
Shvetsova, Pamela Stewart Fahs, Marilyn Tallerico,
Lindsay Tremain, Diane Wiener, Denise Yull, Jessie
Kapasula
EX OFFICIO
MEMBERS:
Lindsay Tremain
Susan Currie, Dara Silberstein, Stephen Gilje,
GUESTS:
Douglas Summerville
EXCUSED:
Max Pensky
Gerald Sonnenfeld, Jacques Beaumont, Edward Li,
ABSENT:
Tom McDonough, Nan Zhou
I. CALL TO ORDER:
Vice Provost and Dean Nancy Stamp called the meeting to order at 3:00 pm.
II. ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Introductions of the members were made.
Dean Stamp explained what the Graduate Council is, what it does and what each
committee does.
III. MINUTES:
The minutes of the May 5, 2007 were approved as written.
IV. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Academic Standards Committee
This committee oversees general academic policy and makes recommendations for
policy, for example, they develop a template for the graduate handbook and periodically
review the bi-laws. An issue that will be addressed this year will be training of the
graduate students. This issue is increasingly becoming an issue nationally.
Advisory Committee for Scholarship and Research
This is a joint committee with the Division of Research. This committee reviews
Organized Research Centers; reviews and recommends Faculty Research Excellence
Awards; and reviews and recommends interdisciplinary Symposium awards.
Budget Advisory Committee
This committee advises on the policy or general issues of allocation of support for
students. This committee also reviews the application for the graduate student travel
awards and selects recipients of the award. The Binghamton Foundation provides
$10,000 to this fund.
Curriculum Committee
This committee reviews and recommends for approval to the Graduate Council all new
graduate courses, new graduate programs and any major revisions of existing courses
and programs. The committee typically sees 25-30 new courses and 5-10 new graduate
programs per year.
Grievance Committee
This is the committee that hears graduate student grievances. We hope this committee
never meets; last time they met it was to review the grievance procedures. If there is a
grievance appeal in the department, then it would come to this committee.
Strategic Planning Committee
The strategic planning committee develops the strategic plan and brings it to graduate
council for approval. They periodically look at what we are doing in terms of programs
and curriculum and make recommendations in alliance with our long-term strategic
plans. This year they will be reviewing the strategic plan and will make
recommendations to the Graduate School and the Graduate Council.
Clark Fellowship Advisory Committee
This is an ad-hoc committee. We have a special fund from the NYS legislature for
supporting diversity in graduate programs. It is separate from other money that we
receive in support of graduate students. We have guidelines as to how we can use that
money and this committee helps follow those guidelines. They also develop policies for
the budget allocation and design of the program. One of the things they have done in
the last few years was advocate for raising the stipends for the Clark Diversity
Fellowship at several thousand dollars above the regular student stipends. As a result of
this, we were able to put the Clark Fellowship at $4,000 above, making it a very nice
competitive package for the Clark Diversity Fellowship.
Overview of Graduate Education.
In the last ten or fifteen years, there have been a lot of studies as to what is going on in
graduate education in this country. There has been a lot of concern that we might be
losing ground internationally. This is because there have been many other areas in the
world who have been looking at the US as the model for graduate education and have
been adopting that and even coming up with new models. The concern is are we doing
everything we should be doing in graduate education; are we doing it as well as we
could be and are we doing it well enough to meet future needs. One of the things we do
in Graduate Council is talk about these issues. We will also discuss what is happening
internationally, specifically with the European Union and the Bologna process.
Public/Higher Education funding for the University has seen a decline in New York as
well as other states, in the amount of funds that go to higher education. The actual cost
of educating a graduate student is an excess of $35,000 per year. The tuition and fees
for in-state graduate students is $7,800 and international it is $11,800. The money we
take in doesn’t begin to cover the actual cost. And the money that the state gives us
doesn’t begin to cover the cost; therefore, the campus has to pitch in the rest for
graduate education. All our public competitors in the northeast’s’ tuition and fees for
graduate students are twice ours. Binghamton is offering an exceptional high-value
graduate education for a very affordable cost.
Dean Stamp talked about the strategic plan. One of the key objectives in the plan is to
have competitive graduate stipends. The President and Vice president, several years
ago, felt that we had to turn our stipends around, as they were pathetically low. The
targets for the doctoral stipends were set up at the 75th percentile of the national stipend
levels. Our doctoral stipends are at the 75th percentile of the national stipend survey in
the year 2005. That is the good news. We know from the stipend survey that the annual
rate of increase in stipends across the country is 3-5%, which is right at the inflation rate.
That means that roughly, we need to add $500.00 per year, per stipend in order to keep
at the 75th percentile. This is a lot of money to add each year, and we struggle with that.
We understand this is what we need to do and we will find a way to do it.
Dean Stamp explained how funding of the Graduate School works. The graduate school
has 3 pieces of money; one runs the office and is a very lean budget, one is the stipend
fund, which is on of the largest pieces of money that we have. We have a little over 5
million that comes from SUNY to fund our stipends (which isn’t enough to meet the 75
percentile). The campus over the last few years has put in another 2.5 million. If we
want to keep competitive and stay in the 75th percentile, we have to figure out a way to
keep adding to the stipend fund.
The allocation process for the 2.5 million was to raise stipends rather than creating more
TA lines, because we can’t do both. The Graduate School lines were capped so that we
could raise the stipends. We haven’t had any real increase in number of lines in 4 years.
We have not been able to do this with the master stipends because there is not enough
money, although we have been trying to gradually raise these stipends. The priority for
allocation of lines is for our doctoral programs because we are a doctoral campus and
that is what SUNY wants us to use the money for. There is a process and a rationale to
allocating which departments receive TA lines. Advisory Budget Committee of Graduate
Council, Academics Standards Committee and the Strategic Planning Committee have
talked about what kinds of things to consider in terms of the allocation of lines and came
up with a list. It has to do with instructional needs, the quality of the program; it has to
do with the recognition of the program and several other things. The baseline would be
the instructional needs first and then the number of lines on top of that would be based
on the quality of the program. We try to be fair as possible to units relative to the criteria
that Graduate Council has approved.
Tuition scholarship funds are the other big piece of money that the Graduate School has.
We do not have tuition waivers here; the tuition scholarship is a dollar amount that goes
into the budget that we report to the SUNY system and then they give us some of that
money. We cannot go over that budget. About half of the budget we get from SUNY
and the campus has to come up with the rest. We came up with criteria for eligibility and
again, working with Graduate Council we came up with an eligibility list for these funds;
Doctoral students first, then students in academic units before students in non-academic
units. We tell units to figure out how to get the best students regardless of instate or out
of state and we will figure out the money part. We have around 525 students on TA/GA
lines; they give us money to support graduate education whether they are teaching
assistants or graduate assistants. We have about 70 Clark Fellowships which is a
separate fund of money for diversity students. There are other supports for students,
such as travel funds. We give out about 10,000 a year in travel grants for graduate
students. They also have other places they can go for money, such as the Graduate
Student Organization. We also give out various awards, such as dissertation and
excellence.
Dean Stamp explained our association with NSF AGEP program. They are the National
Science Foundation that gives money to support to minority students in the science,
math and engineering programs. NSF is worried that there aren’t enough
underrepresented minorities becoming professors at Universities colleges and
community colleges.
Major items for graduate council this year will be the national research council Doctorial
study, training of teaching assistants and what is going on with the European Union. It
is clear that the European Union is going to have a huge impact on higher education in
this country and particularly graduate education. We will be talking about various kinds
of proposals this year, one of which is a Physics Ph.D. Today we are going to talk about
the Letter of Intent for the Writing Program.
Discussion ensued regarding where the rest of the funding comes from to educate
graduate students. Dean Stamp explained the process of funding students; such as the
amount of money received is relative to their level and what discipline they are in.
V. NEW BUSINESS:

Letter of Intent - MS in Psychiatric Nursing

Letter of Intent - Ph.D. and M.A. in Writing Studies
Dean Stamp talked about the process for the letter of intent. The letter of intent is a
proposal for submitting a new graduate program. It is an alert to the other SUNY
campuses that we want to put together a new graduate program or course. The letter
has to follow the SUNY format. The letter of intent is basically notifying us that a
proposal is in the works and does not mean we are obligated to go forward. We will be
receiving a formal proposal and, at that time, we can make decisions about it. The
Letter of Intent is sent to SUNY and in 45 days they give us a response. They put it on a
web-site where all the other SUNY campuses can look at and comment on it. After they
give approval, we can begin to work on the formal proposal, following the format. This
proposal comes to Graduate Council curriculum committee and then they bring it to
Graduate Council. Graduate Council would talk about it and invite in whatever unit is
proposing this and then vote on it. If it is approved, it then goes to Faculty Senate for
review, EPPC committee for review and to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for
review and then to the floor faculty senate. After all of that is done, we submit it to
SUNY for review and they send it to NYS Education for approval. It can take up to two
years to go through this process.
Discussion ensued as to whether or not other departments, other than the one
submitting the letter of intent, are aware of the Letter of Intent. The effect the new
program would have on other programs is something to consider.
Discussion ensued as to where we stood in the process of the psychiatric nursing
proposal. The question was raised as to why we were submitting another psychiatric
nursing proposal, because it had already gone through Grad council last year. Dean
Stamp explained that SUNY would not accept it the way it was written; they did not
consider it a revision but considered it a new program. Therefore, we had to submit
another LOI and start the process all over again.
LOI for writing studies was discussed. Dean Stamp suggested bringing some of the
concerns regarding this new program to the curriculum committee. Many issues were
discussed regarding this program and the involvement of other departments. It was
suggested that someone from the department representing this LOI should be at
meeting. Mike Conlon put in a Motion to table Letter Of Intent. Susan Pollack seconded
it, 12 were in favor, 5 abstained and 0 were opposed.
NRC Doctoral studies discussion ensued. In the fall of 2006, the National Research
Council conducted a doctoral study, prior to that, the data they had was collected
in1993. NRC, this time around, has collected an extensive data on the study of doctoral
education in this country. The National Council of Graduate Schools is very interested in
this data. They feel it will help them in their continual effort to lobby congress about how
important graduate education is in this country and that congress needs to support it
appropriately. The data is quantitative and will be available on the website so that
anyone can mine this data. There are good points to seeing this data and bad points.
One of the bad points is that the data is not completely accurate because it is not up-todate. NRC looks at rankings in terms of reputation. The reputation rankings did not
work, and therefore, they realized that a more quantitative way of doing this would make
better sense. Dean Stamp feels that Binghamton University will do well with this
quantitative approach to rankings as opposed to reputation. This new data is supposed
to be released in October and departments will be notified so they can access this data
via the website. The matter was discussed on how to use the data. NRC has talked
about doing this data every 5 years.
Dean Stamp announced if there were any issues that the members would like to discuss
to please let her or Dara Silberstein know and she will put it on the agenda.
The question was raised about banner and an issue with some graduate students
experiencing some difficulty with the billing. Dean Stamp explained the process and
said they are working out the problems in banner.
Associate Dean, Dara Silberstein, explained the way the intelliresponse works. She said
it is a way that departments and outside people can ask questions on the graduate
website. There are about 1,000 questions that can be answered right now, but we are
adding more questions/answers everyday.
The representative from the GSO wanted everyone to know that they have created a
new website and she invited everyone to check it out and give them feedback.
VI. ADJOURNMENT:
The meeting was adjourned at 4:32 on a motion by Stephen Gilje and seconded by
Professor Heller.
_____________________________
Minutes recorded by Cheryl McGowan,
Secretary to the Vice Provost and Dean
of the Graduate School