Febraury 1, 2022: University Senate Report

Office of the Provost

Updates

Elizabeth Newman Appointed Vice Provost for Curriculum and Undergraduate Education

Elizabeth Newman, Associate Professor of History, has been appointed Vice Provost for Curriculum and Undergraduate Education, effective January 1, 2021. In this reimagined role, Dr. Newman oversees the Division of Undergraduate Education, as well as the strategic development of campus wide curricular initiatives. Prior to her appointment, she was Associate Dean for Curriculum in the College of Arts and Sciences. In that role, Dr. Newman provided leadership in curriculum development and oversight. She has regularly led the CAS Academic Planning Team in scheduling and ensuring the delivery of more than 4,000 undergraduate and graduate courses staffed by more than 600 faculty and delivered to more than 12,500 students. She also collaborated with the Arts and Sciences Senate and its Curriculum Committee to restructure the curriculum submission process to increase efficiency while making the process trackable and searchable for the purposes of accreditation and assessment.

In addition to her leadership experience, Dr. Newman is a historical and environmental archaeologist. Her research explores the lives of laborers on haciendas near Atlixco, Puebla in central Mexico, integrating the disciplines of archaeology, ethnography, and ethnohistory. A zooarchaeologist, Dr. Newman has studied animal bones collected on archaeological sites from New England to Cuba. Her book, Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico (University of Arizona Press) draws on seven years of research in Puebla’s Valley of Atlixco and was the winner of the 2016 James Deetz Award. Dr. Newman was the founding director of the Environmental Humanities BA and currently serves on the faculty of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences.

Mónica Bugallo Appointed Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Mónica Bugallo, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been appointed Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, effective January 1, 2021. In this role, Dr. Bugallo will lead efforts to develop and implement University-wide policies related to faculty affairs, promotion and tenure policies and procedures, faculty relations, and faculty leadership development. She will also collaborate closely with the Vice President of Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer to launch strategic efforts to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion while advancing overall talent acquisition efforts across the University. Dr. Bugallo previously served as Associate Dean for Diversity and Outreach in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In this role, she played instrumental roles in developing the College’s diversity and inclusion strategic plan, which was recognized by the American Society of Engineering Education as one of the best 30 in the nation, and in revising the College’s guidelines on promotion and tenure to highlight and recognize faculty contributions to diversity.

Dr. Bugallo also directed and greatly expanded the Women of Science and Engineering (WISE) program, including creating an Honors undergraduate curriculum and other new offerings. Dr. Bugallo’s research focuses on statistical signal processing, with an emphasis on the theory of Monte Carlo methods and its application to different disciplines including biomedicine, ecology, sensor networks, and finance. She has also initiated several successful STEM education programs to raise interest in engineering and research among students across all education levels, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented groups. Her research and outreach efforts have been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, PSEG, National Grid, and Hewlett Packard.

Important Information for the Spring 2021 Semester

Below is important information about policies and support resources to help ensure a successful Spring 2021 semester.
Important Reminders

Face Masks: Face masks are required during all face-to-face classes. If a student refuses to wear
one, faculty may ask them to leave the classroom. If a student refuses to leave, please report the
student’s name, Stony Brook ID number, and a brief description of the situation to Community
Standards.

Accessibility: Each faculty member is responsible for ensuring that all course materials are accessible to all students, regardless of their permanent/temporary disability. The Student Accessibility Support Center provides services and requests accommodations that address each student’s needs, including managing remote exam proctoring needs. If faculty need help making your courses accessible, please contact the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.

Student Absences: During the semester, students may be required to miss class as a result of their participation in an event or activity sponsored by the University. In addition, some students may need to miss class or an exam due to a COVID-related matter, such as required quarantine. In such cases, faculty should be prepared to make necessary accommodations.

Tracking Attendance: To ensure students maintain their federal financial aid eligibility, SBU must verify that students are attending classes. In the beginning of the semester, faculty will be asked to indicate if an enrolled student has never attended class (beginning of term attendance roster in SOLAR). After final grades have been posted at the end of the semester, faculty will again be asked if each student has: Never attended, completed the course, or has not attended since a specific date (end of term attendance in SOLAR).

Calendars: Faculty should familiarize themselves with the various University calendars and deadlines, including the academic calendar, which includes add/drop deadlines, and the holiday statement and calendar.

Resources to Support Student Success

Student Success: To help students succeed, faculty should familiarize themselves with the different services Stony Brook offers to support our students as they pursue their degrees: the new Student Success website, the Division of Undergraduate Education, Academic Success and Tutoring Center, Graduate and Postdoctoral Professional Development, and the Red Book, which can help guide students in mental, emotional, medical, or other distress to the appropriate resources.

Mental Health: To help support our students, individual faculty members or departments may seek additional information or support from Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). If faculty would like to practice having difficult conversations with students about whom they are concerned, the University participates in Kognito, a 40-minute simulation program. To practice, create an account on the website and enter the enrollment key, sbucares.

SBU Policies

Academic Integrity: All faculty are required to report suspected violations of the Academic Integrity Policy.

FERPA: To protect student privacy, Stony Brook has developed a FERPA policy for handling and maintaining student records in accordance with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. Please note that without a signed release form, this policy precludes conversations about a student’s academic progress with that student’s parents/guardians.

Disruptions: In case of classroom disruptions, please review the relevant policies.

Student Responsibility: Faculty should familiarize themselves with the University’s statements of Minimal Instruction and Student Responsibilities, and Minimal Undergraduate Student Responsibilities.

SBC: All first-time full-time freshman and transfer students follow the Stony Brook Curriculum for general education requirements. Continuing students who matriculated before Spring 2014 may have matriculated under the DEC and will continue to do so until they graduate. Neither individual faculty members nor academic departments may grant waivers or substitutions for
 general education or other academic requirements.

Required Syllabus Content

The University Senate Undergraduate and Graduate Councils have authorized that these required statements appear in all teaching syllabi (graduate and undergraduate courses) on the Stony Brook Campus. Additionally, faculty should include the following statement about face masks in their syllabi: Everyone participating in this class must wear a mask/face covering that covers the mouth and nose at all times. Any student not in compliance with this will be asked to leave the class. In addition to these statements, all course syllabi must include measurable Learning Outcomes. If faculty need help in drafting such outcomes, please contact CELT.
All syllabi must be available to students on or before the first day of classes, preferably before. Faculty should upload tjeor syllabi to the appropriate section of the Blackboard site for each of their courses. Once syllabi have been uploaded to Blackboard, DoIT will also upload them to Classie, which assists students in planning their future semesters, and serves as a central repository in case of a wide-spread disaster. To learn more about Classie, please contact CELT.

School of Communication and Journalism

Stony Brook’s School of Journalism has been renamed the School of Communication and Journalism. The new name aligns more closely with the School’s expanding undergraduate and graduate degree programs, and with the increased demand for professionals with backgrounds and experience in different communication-related disciplines. In the past year, the School has begun to offer graduate programs in science communication, in collaboration with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, and in public health, in collaboration with the Stony Brook Program in Public Health. Additional programs are in development.

The School of Journalism was founded in 2006 and enrolls approximately 250 students. The School is home to the Alda Center, the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting and the Center for News Literacy. It also offers the Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists, a one-week intensive program designed to introduce students from across Long Island and New York City to the possibilities of journalism as a career.

Stony Brook Receives $4.25M Grant from State to Help NY Improve Recycling

The Department of Technology and Society has been awarded $4.25 million by New York State to “characterize” its solid waste and improve its recycling. The five-year contract is with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), Division of Materials Management. The project is led by Principal Investigators (PI) Professors David Tonjes and Elizabeth Hewitt, Co-PI Professor Gang He, and Research Professor Krista Thyberg. The primary task is to sample a set of municipal waste systems State-wide to determine the composition of managed wastes and recyclables.

Professor Tonjes has worked on New York solid waste issues for 30 years, in both technical and policy applications. Professor Hewitt is a planner with a strong background in researching human behavior and motivations in environmental settings. Professor He has conducted extensive research on recent energy and environmental management in China in terms of both infrastructure and policy changes. Professor Thyberg has been working on solid waste issues for about 10 years, including iconic work on managing food waste. They will be supported by teams of graduate students enrolled in doctoral and masters programs in the Department, and undergraduate students drawn mostly from the Technological Systems Management major.

SBU’s Qiang Li Collaborated on Discovery That Can Advance Quantum Computing

Qiang Li, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Stony Brook University, is co-author of a paper with Jigang Wang, a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and a professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, that is published in Nature Materials about the discovery of a new lightinduced switch that twists the crystal lattice of a Weyl semimetal, switching on a giant electron current that appears to be nearly dissipationless. The discovery and control of such properties brings these materials another step closer to use in applications such as quantum computing.

Dr. Li, who also holds a joint appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory as leader of the Advanced Energy Materials Group, collaborated on the project with scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, Brookhaven Laboratory and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Pedro Lozano, Dr. Li’s PhD student, is also involved in the research.

In this experiment, the team altered the symmetry of the electronic structure of the material using laser pulses to twist the lattice arrangement of the crystal. This light switch enables “Weyl points” in the material, causing electrons to behave as massless particles that can carry the protected, low dissipation current that is sought after.

Qiang Li’s research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Science.