A recently published survey by the National Research Council (NRC) of more than 3,000 doctoral programs in 41 categories across the nation found many UB programs to be sorely lacking. Only 10 of UB's programs were rated in the top half of their respective categories. Geography neared the top 10 in its class, finishing 11th out of 36 programs. Other top-half finishers included Industrial Engineering (No. 18 of 37); English (No. 26.5 of 127); Chemical Engineering (No. 29 of 93); Civil Engineering (No. 31 of 86); and Chemistry (No. 57 of 168).

Among the UB programs that fared poorly were German Language and Literature (No. 31 of 32), Ecology, Evolution and Behavior (No. 103 of 129), Statistics and Biostatistics (No. 56 of 65) and Political Science (No. 72 of 98).

Faculty Senate Chair Claude Welch set the stage for the exchange, calling the results of the NRC survey of doctoral programs a "terrible indictment of the academic leadership of the university of the last couple years." Welch distributed copies of a Sept. 22 Chronicle of Higher Education article on the report, which reprinted its rankings, to FSEC members.

"UB ranked below Stony Brook in almost every category," Welch continued, "and finished below Albany and Binghamton in some." This, after more than a decade of considerable emphasis being given to graduate education at UB, he continued.

Stony Brook has been better funded than UB for some time, according to Provost Thomas Headrick. "They have fewer students but more faculty and resources. When it came time to cut, they had more slack than we did," Headrick concluded. FSEC members noted that the Center at Stony Brook, on Long Island, is located in the legislative district of State Sen. Kenneth LaValle, chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee.

Though also disappointed in the survey results, Headrick told the FSEC "It really doesn't get us very far to rehash the past." He felt "the survey sorted out our programs the way we would sort them out."

Headrick urged the group to consider the survey a "wake up call" and step up serious consideration of whether UB should continue to offer its broad range and number of doctoral programs. "Our resources have been spread very thin," Headrick said. "While this is not a signal to get rid of graduate education, certainly we should look carefully at the bottom quartile of programs we offer."

Headrick said he advocates concentrating resources among fewer, more successful doctoral programs, as is done at other institutions, including Stony Brook. He also indicated to FSEC members that the four university centers had already undertaken efforts to better coordinate graduate programs and share resources before the NRC report was released.

FSEC members also discussed a working document from SUNY's University Faculty Senate titled "Rethinking SUNY." University Faculty Senator Peter Nickerson explained that the document was circulated at a recent Albany meeting of the Senate to encourage faculty feedback to a committee of SUNY Trustees chaired by Roderick Chu, drafting a report for the state legislature on SUNY's future.

The trustees, according to Nickerson, will produce this report Dec. 1, and SUNY administrators are holding up their budget request to the governor until the report is produced. University Faculty Senator Dennis Malone added that the meeting made clear to him that "there are no sacred cows. The trustees clearly believe that we don't need departments of a particular discipline on every campus."

Management Professor John Boot said the trustees are "on the same wavelength. There will be a heavy emphasis on undergraduate education and they feel SUNY should not 'fetter away' much of what it does on remedial coursework.