BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
MINUTES OF THE March 3, 2008 MEETING OF THE GRADUATE COUNCIL
PLACE:
Couper Administration Building, Room 148
PRESIDING:
Nancy E. Stamp, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
MEMBERS:
Jim Constable, James Fang, Sarah Lam, Edward Li, Weiyi Meng,
Ajay Mishra, Maria-Teresa Romero, Karen Salvage, Daryl Santos,
Pamela Stewart Fahs, Diane Wiener, Thomas Wilson
EX OFFICIO
MEMBERS:
Dara Silberstein, Gerald Sonnenfeld, Lindsay Tremain
EXCUSED:
David Campbell, Susan Currie, Stephen Gilje, Monazir Khan,
Ed Kokkelenberg, Maneesha Lal, Olga Shvetsova, Marilyn Tallerico,
Nan Zhou
ABSENT:
Michael Conlon, Amit Garg
GUESTS:
Georgia Vieira
I. CALL TO ORDER:
Vice Provost and Dean Nancy Stamp called the meeting to order at 3:03 p.m.
II. MINUTES:
The minutes of the December 10, 2007 meeting were approved as written.
III. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Academic Standards Committee
This committee has not met.
Advisory Committee for Scholarship and Research
This committee has not met.
Budget Advisory Committee
This committee has not met.
Clark Fellowship Advisory Committee
Associate Dean Silberstein reported that the committee reviewed the first round of
applicants for a Clark Fellowship and four were awarded. This year the committee is
asking for more from the department in terms of their statement of support, including
statements of how they are going to mentor their students once they are here.
Curriculum Committee
MSE 572: Physics of Materials
Approved
Grievance Committee
This committee has not met.
Strategic Planning Committee
Dean Stamp reviewed a handout on “Development” plans in the Graduate School.
Georgia Vieira is the Development Officer for the Graduate School. Some of the steps
the Graduate School has taken are to develop a graduate alumni website and send out
an electronic newsletter twice a year. The committee discussed the major focus on
graduate development, which is that there should be more graduate fellowships. The
vision is that every department/school on campus have its own graduate fellowships that
are substantial enough to provide a competitive stipend, tuition scholarship, health
insurance coverage and travel funds.
The committee met to discuss the Carnegie Initiative. Another handout was distributed
on graduate education at Binghamton. Dean Stamp gave some of the background on
this. In the last 10-15 years there have been a number of federal agencies and national
foundations that have been looking at graduate education and writing reports about it.
Some have been focused on doctoral education and some on master’s education. The
Carnegie study has been just doctoral but the major conclusions have been about the
same in the studies. The first report from the National Research Council Doctoral Study
is scheduled to come out this May. It was quantitative in contrast to the previous NRC
Study whereas the Carnegie Initiative was qualitative. The Carnegie Initiative was to
look at what the graduate program’s mission was and what it wanted to accomplish
with its particular graduate program and how well was it doing that. The study was
a five year study of 84 “quality” doctoral programs. There was discussion about what
this means for Binghamton and what programs can do. The Strategic Planning
Committee will be discussing this issue more and will come back to the Council with
more information.
IV. NEW BUSINESS:
Letter of Intent to propose a new graduate degree: for law JD program.
Dean Stamp distributed a handout explaining the proposal and explained what the Letter
of Intent is and does. Why a law school? The University has been talking about this for
several years and it is in the agreement with SUNY System which is called the MOU
(Memorandum of Understanding). In terms of maturing as a research university, a law
school makes sense as the next step. There are a number of programs on campus that
are involved in the study of legal issues. Economically a law school would add to the
Southern Tier area. The costs and revenue have been extensively researched. It would
cost about $40 million or more for a building and about $3 million in start-up costs. New
York State would have to provide that plus tax support per student. Tuition and fees
would be the same rate that the University at Buffalo uses. Annual operation costs
might be about $15 million and it would be covered by the revenue coming in. Dean
Stamp explained the process from the Letter of Intent to hiring the dean, faculty and
staff. The tentative time line would have approvals completed by fall 2009, hire the dean
the same year and open the law school about 18 months later. There was some
discussion and a few questions.
V. ADJOURNMENT:
The meeting was adjourned at 4:30 p.m. on a motion by Professor Constable and
seconded by Diane Wiener.
_____________________________
Minutes recorded by Alta Hooker,
Secretary to the Vice Provost and Dean
of the Graduate School