TO: University Senate

FROM: Dennis N. Assanis, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

DATE: February 1, 2016

The Development of Stony Brook University’s Applied Learning Campus Plan

The State University of New York Board of Trustees, in accordance with the 2015-16 New York State Budget, last year adopted a resolution calling for SUNY to collaboratively develop a plan to ensure that all students enrolled in an academic program have access to an applied or experiential learning opportunity, such as co-operative education, internships, service learning, research, community service, study abroad, and clinical placements. Applied learning is one of several tools SUNY is expanding as it implements a completion agenda first outlined by SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher in her 2015 State of the University Address. SUNY aims to increase the number of SUNY graduates from 93,000 to 150,000 annually by bringing evidence-based programs to scale across its 64 campuses.

Part One of Stony Brook University’s Applied Learning Campus Plan is due to SUNY by February 15, 2016. The Plan will include three parts: (1) a two-page narrative description of campus structures and supports that help students identify and complete applied learning activities; (2) a list of undergraduate and graduate courses that meet the applied learning standards; and (3) a list of undergraduate and graduate degree programs that require that their students complete one or more of these applied learning courses. For undergraduates, courses that satisfy applied learning are those that satisfy EXP+. Therefore, we are making sure that all courses that should have EXP+ designation are properly listed in the system. At SBU, Nancy Goroff, Marianna Savoca and Braden Hosch are developing the University’s Applied Learning Campus Plan. This Plan will be vetted by The Experiential Learning Working Group, which includes representatives from every school and college, as well as the Undergraduate Council and Graduate Council.2016 SBU-BNL Seed Grant ProgramThe SBU-BNL Seed Grant program serves to foster collaborative efforts between scientists at the University and BNL. It is a key opportunity for developing synergistic activities that can grow joint research programs aligned with the strategic plans of both institutions. For this eighteenth year, a pool of up to $300K will be distributed to proposals submitted jointly by SBU and BNL scientists. The subject of a proposal can be any scientific topic that is of joint interest to BNL and SBU. Successful proposals in areas of high interest to BNL may be eligible for matching funds from BNL. Winning proposals are typically funded at the level of $30,000-$45,000. At SBU, these funds are free from all overhead, and no tuition is charged for graduate students that are supported by a seed grant. The money will be available on or about July 1, 2016, and should be expended within 18 months of award receipt.

The Office of Brookhaven Affairs at SBU will handle proposals and oversee decisions on awards. Please email your completed proposal package to Ann Ozelis, Office of Brookhaven Affairs, at ann.ozelis@stonybrook.edu. The Conflict of Interest Form, with appropriate signatures, should be emailed as a signed pdf form or mailed to: Ann Ozelis, Office of Brookhaven Affairs, Administration Building, Suite 407, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-1401. All inquiries should be addressed to Ann Ozelis at (631) 632-4889. The deadline for the submission of proposals is 5:00 p.m. EST on April 6, 2016. Recommendations for awards will be made by a committee of SBU and BNL scientific leaders. Results from the proposal review will be announced in late-May 2016. The SBU funds are administered by the SBU Research Foundation. If a proposal obtains joint funding from BNL, these funds will be administered by the respective ALD office. For additional information on the nomination process and to access forms, visit: http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/bnl/opportunities/seed.html.

Arts, Humanities and Lettered Social Sciences Initiatives

The Arts, Humanities and Lettered Social Sciences Initiative website, found at http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/huminitiative/index.html, provides information on programs undertaken by President Samuel Stanley and Provost Dennis Assanis to support research and programming in academic departments associated with the humanities, arts, and lettered social sciences. The following are examples of such initiatives.

AHLSS Visiting Artists Series
President Stanley has committed funding for five years to launch a Visiting Artists Series at Stony Brook. The funds are targeted toward bringing practicing artists to campus to work with students and faculty. These visiting residencies will be for a minimum of 3-5 days and involve a single artist or a group of artists. The residencies will include such activities as: a) workshops, master classes, or other such group activities designed for students, and b) one or more events focused on the artist's work designed for University audiences. The Visiting Artists Series is intended to benefit students and faculty working in the arts directly (visual arts, music, theatre, creative writing, and dance), but should be of interest to other members of the University and the broader community, who may participate. Two types of visiting artist grants will be considered: one for early career artists ($15,000) and a second for established artists ($20,000).

Proposals may be submitted by the following departments or programs: Art, Dance, English, Music, Theatre, Writing and Rhetoric, and Southampton Arts. Once a department/program receives a grant, it will not be eligible for another grant for two years, unless there are no proposals from the other departments. The selection committee will be charged with assuring that the grants are equally distributed amongst the departments/programs, provided a viable proposal is submitted. The deadline for 2017-2018 proposal submission for the visiting artist grant to edward.quinn@stonybrook.edu is February 16, 2016. For additional information, please contact Alan Inkles, Director of the Staller Center for the Arts, at alan.inkles@stonybrook.edu.

Graduate Fellowship and Faculty Research Program
The Graduate School is pleased to announce its second call for nominations for the Graduate Fellowship and Faculty Research Program. This program, which started in 2014/2015, provides one year of funding, at $20,000 each, to six graduate students in AHLSS that will take them beyond their guaranteed funding. The Fellows will teach two courses during the academic year. The two courses taught will create faculty release time to support research and development in the Fellow's department or in a related discipline. Each program may nominate up to two student candidates and two faculty member candidates. Doctoral students from all departments in the Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, who have advanced to candidacy and will have completed their department’s allocated funding, irrespective of the campus (i.e. Southampton, Manhattan, East Campus, etc.), are eligible to apply. The nomination deadline for this program is April 27, 2016. Please contact Lori Carron at 631-632-7039 if you should have questions concerning the application process.

February 2016 Provost’s Lecture

As part of Darwin Day, on February 12, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. in the Earth and Space Sciences Building, Room 001, David Jablonski will give a lecture entitled “Mass Extinctions and Evolution: What We’ve Learned Since Darwin.”David Jablonski is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. He combines data on living and fossil marine organisms to ask large-scale evolutionary questions about origins, extinctions, and geographic distributions. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2010. He has published more than 140 scientific papers and book chapters on topics ranging from mass extinctions to the origin and maintenance of the diversity gradient from poles to tropics and the role of multilevel processes in evolution. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Ecology and Evolution, the Department of Anatomical Sciences, and the Department of Geosciences.

2016 Assessment Symposium – Data Visualization: Presenting Data Effectively

On February 19, 2016, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Student Activities Center Auditorium, SBU will hold its 2016 Assessment Symposium entitled “Data Visualization: Presenting Data Effectively.” The keynote speaker, Dr. Stephanie Evergreen, is best known for bringing a research- based approach to helping researchers better communicate their work through more effective graphs, slides, and reports. She holds a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University in interdisciplinary evaluation. Dr. Evergreen has trained researchers worldwide through keynote presentations and workshops, for clients including Verizon, Head Start, the American Institutes for Research, the Rockefeller Foundation, Brookings Institute, and the United Nations. She is also co-editor and co-author of two issues of New Directions for Evaluation on Data Visualization. Other presenters include
Dr. Braden J. Hosch, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness;
Amy Milligan, Assistant Dean for Administration in the College of Business;
Faith Matranga, Undergraduate Coordinator in the Office of Student Services; and
Ahmed W. Belazi, MPH, Director of Planning and Staff Development in the Office of Student Affairs.

Poetry Out Loud Contest Comes to SBU

Since 2006, The National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation have sponsored Poetry Out Loud, a contest that encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. Poetry Out Loud helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence and learn about their literary heritage. The Long Island Regional Competition for this national recitation contest will be held at Stony Brook University for the third year on Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. in the Wang Chapel. This event is free and open to the public. The prize for regional winners is a book of poems. Poetry Out Loud is partnered with SUNY in New York, with all regional competitions being hosted at SUNY institutions, including FIT, SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Farmingdale. The winner of this competition will participate in the New York State semi-finals. The New York State competition will be held on March 14, 2016 at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, N.Y. The national finals will take place from May 2-4, 2016 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. For more information, contact Kara Desanna at (631) 632-4360, kara.desanna@stonybrook.edu, or visit poetryoutloud.org.