Report on the Doctoral Science Task Force meeting, September 22, 200= 6, 10 AM, President's Conference Room (8201) at the Graduate Center

Report on the Doctoral Science Task Force meeting, September 22, 2006, 10 AM, President's Conference Room (8201) at the Graduate Center.

The agenda included a summary of the previous July 12 meeting, and the outline = of the new structure by EVC Botman, an outline of governance issues by GC President Kelly, an outline of the financial model = by VC Zavelle, the composition and tasks of the subcommittees by University Dean of Research Small, and a discussion of the time frame and next steps.

EVC Botman covered some of the previous history of = the subject, the Zavelle white paper, the outside academic administrators' report, and the Silbey report.

She used the Silbey report as a tool to outline a framework for what she wants to do, without using the details of the Silbey report.

She outlined a 4-point reorganization plan:

1. Students are to be recruited with 5-year packages.

2. She proposes health insurance for doctoral students in all years, and stipe= nd support in the first year from the central office and campus-based support = in the following years. [i.e., no central support for stipends in year 2-5, ju= st in year 1] Tuition will be pa= id by CUNY. [NB It was not stated if that only in-state or also out-of-state tuit= ion was meant to be covered. Past efforts have generally covered only the forme= r.]

3. Students will be accepted to CUNY rather than to individual campuses and it= was proposed that they not teach in the first year. They could start lab work or rotations and take a full load of courses.= Students are to identify a mentor by the end of the first year. The support would be $24k plus health costs.

4. Doctoral students would graduate e= ither with joint degrees, from the campuses (mentioned were Hunter or CCNY) and the Graduate Center or with degrees just from t= he Graduate center, as they do now. Lehman was mentioned as an example of a case where a campus could get joint degree privileges in a selected area of strength and investment, such= as in plant biology. There is an administrative desire to have better campus t= ies and identity for students.

Faculty not on a selected campus can still mentor students, but someone would have = to come up with the support package as on every campus. Not every campus will have joint d= egree status; faculty can still participate, and the student will then have a GC degree.

IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) reporting would still be th= rough the GC.

How programs will be administered and governed is something to be covered by the governance committee of the task force.

President Kelly then spoke and said that this task force is responsive to recommendat= ions of the Silbey committee. The new programs would follow GC B= ylaws and amount to the development of new tracks in each existing program. He no= ted that the programs would respond to the "stake holders" and the programs would be responsive to the Colleges.

Eventually these would be genuinely new programs. The doctoral faculty would be appoin= ted by college committees. Faculty appointed by the College presidents would develop new joint-degree tracks, and these will go to all relevant GC committees.

Guidelines from the task force will be forwarded to the structure committee of the Graduate Council.

Other issues are the timeline of immediately or later merger with the campuses, a= nd the guidelines for faculty membership admissions

VC Michael Zavelle spoke of the dollar amounts. He= said that he preferred to round things to many zeros, hence the health package w= as considered to be $2k per student per year, even though it might be slightly more than that.

For 80 students a full funding of 24k/students per year would require and an ad= ded $1.5 million per year in support from the central office.=

$2000 is = estimated for health care per student per year, but it was asked if this would be supplied only for science students. CUNY, especially VC Ernesto Malave, is concerned that if it provides health insurance for science students, it will have to do so for all doctoral students, significantly adding to the cost of the plan.

Under these models, without health care, about 45% of the total cost would be bor= ne by the central office, making about $6.4 million per year. With paid health care, about 50% of the total cost would be carried by the central office. S= ome of these costs are already provided by the central office.

CUNY wants a 40/60 support model for CUNY/Colleges. The CUNY central office would provide each of t= he 90 students with $24,000 stipends in the first year, an average of $6,000 tuit= ion per year for all five years (i.e. $30,000), and $2,000 per year for health insurance for all five years (i.e. $10,000). This adds up to $160,000 for t= he total CUNY contribution for the 80 student cohort over five years. The coll= eges would provide each of the 80 students with $24,000 stipends per year for fo= ur years. The college contribution over the four years that they contribute stipend support totals $96,000 for the 80 students. The total cost ratio, $96,000 (from the colleges) $160,000 (from CUNY Central) represents the 40/60 ratio cited in the meetin= g. Of course, these costs only cover the first year cohort. Each new year would bring 80 more students, under the plan = at least, rising to 400 students at the beginning of the 5^th year.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>

One faculty member said that the current consortium does not work to make physi= cs visible on a national and international level.

Kelly defended the level of 80, saying that the higher number cited earlier by the executive officers of the four programs included nonma= triculated students.

Louise Hainline asked what benchmarks will be used to = judge success?

EVC Botman spoke of getting the best students; her benchmark here was better time to degree; GC President Bill Kelly mentioned GRE's, publications – there was a discussion of current doctoral stud= ent quality and future enrollment trends from Asia.=

One faculty member spoke of exit benchmarks to be used in any evaluation of doctoral student quality. Kel= ly said we have the 5-year-out data.

One faculty member said that in physics, nationwide, 55% of students are foreig= n. But, the number of Asians leaving Asia is shrinking, and we need to address this pipeline now. Steve Greenba= um said that personal recruitment works - he goes to Pu= erto Rico every year, and gets about 1 student/yr. There should be money for recruiti= ng.

Manfred Philipp raised issue of 80/90 students; Kelly sticks to 80. Manfred suggest= ed that the poor visibility of programs may be tied to the need to better highlight faculty research in the media.

Hainline and a faculty member discuss interdisciplinary science, with the faculty member arguing that it fails unless people are in= the same building.

Gillian Small described the subcommittees to be formed. They will work in the Fall semester; the next meeting of the full Task Force= will take place in late December or early January.

The goal will be to set up recruitment of new students for the Fall of 2007 so as to bring in new students into the new programs for the Fall of 2008.

The presidents of the colleges will decide how many students will come to their campus (presumably in the Fall of 2009.)

Botman asked the group if all the correct questions have= been raised, and suggested people could contact her to add in questions.

One faculty member claimed that the national average for chemistry teaching is = 10 hours/semester. CUNY. I believe it was Provost Tr= amontano of Lehman who stated that CUNY expects a teaching load cap of 12 hours/year= (6 hours/semester, or 2 labs per semester), which would be a drop from the quo= ted current 18 hours/year for graduate students, and speed up the time to degre= e.

I opined that if the college names are on the diplomas, then the college sena= tes will be involved in curricular decisions for the programs. GC President Bill Kelly said that college senates or local governance were not to be involved because the IPEDS listing is still at Graduate Center. (After the meeting he came up to me and said that he understood the issue a= nd would look into it.)

Manfred Philipp

The meeting en= ded at ca. 11:45