East-West Campus Collaborations | Office of the President

East-West Campus Collaborations Report

Task Force on Increasing Collaboration Between the Health Sciences and the Other Academic Units at Stony Brook University

May 2025

Dear Interim President McCormick,

We are writing to submit our recommendations for actions that can increase collaborations in education and research across the East and West Campuses at Stony Brook University. In the course of the discussions by the Task Force, it became clear that the barriers are fundamental. As a result, the recommendations focus on foundational changes that could increase the probability of collaborations that emerge organically (e.g., through increased interactions). Further, the proposed actions will facilitate collaborations once they are initiated (e.g., by building out supportive materials). Our recommendations are relatively low cost investments that will serve as a solid foundation for a larger set of collaborations between the Health Sciences Schools and the other schools of Stony Brook University.

Although we were asked to consider distinct categories for niche programs, the rapidly changing funding landscape at the federal level made that difficult. By focusing on foundational support, which is needed, the Task Force members believe that collaborations will develop naturally once new federal funding priorities are clearer.

Whereas our recommendations largely center on improving basic support, we believe they will serve as the solid basis for transformation of Stony Brook to a more unified campus. By providing additional support to the broader campus, these actions have the potential to advance the institution to the next level of Excellence. Given the current sea change at the federal level, the proposed items allow us to move forward with low risk, but high impact while we wait to fully understand the new federal funding and regulatory landscape.

Sincerely,

William Wertheim, MD, MBA
Task Force Co-Chair
Executive Vice President for Stony Brook Medicine
Endowed Chair in Graduate Medical Education

Brenda J. Anderson, PhD
Task Force Co-Chair
Professor of Integrative Neuroscience in Psychology
President, University Senate

Co-Chairs

1. William Wertheim, MD - Co-Chair - Executive Vice President, Stony Brook Medicine
2. Brenda Anderson, PhD - Co-Chair - President University Senate; Professor of Integrative Neuroscience

Members

3. Aruna Balasubramanian, PhD - Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science
4. Michelle Ballan, PhD - Professor & Associate Dean for Research, School of Social Welfare; Professor, Family Population and Preventive Medicine
5. Richard Chan, PhD – Associate Professor, College of Business
6. Ann Cuccia, MPH - Director, Clinical Education, Respiratory Care and Polysomnographic Specialty Option Programs
7. Peter Diplock, PhD - Vice Provost, Continuing, Professional, and Online Education
8. Andrew Flescher, PhD - Professor, Family, Population and Preventive Medicine; Professor, Department of English
9. Kevin Gardner, PhD – Vice President, Research and Innovation
10. Braden, Hosch, PhD – Interim Chief Deputy to the President
11. Wali Karzai, PhD - Professor and Chair, Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
12. Michael Kinch, PhD - Chief Innovation Officer, Office of Economic Development
13. Carl Lejuez, PhD - Executive Vice President and Provost
14. Heather J. Lynch, PhD - Professor in Ecology and Evolution and Endowed Chair for the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences; Director for the Collaborative for the Earth
15. Sandeep Mallipattu, MD - Chief of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
16. Susmita Pati, MD - Professor of Pediatrics; Division Chief Primary Care Pediatrics; Chief Medical Program Advisor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating in Science
17. Pat Puente, MD - Renaissance School of Medicine Alum, Class of ‘84
18. Yi-Xian Qin, PhD - Professor and Chair, Biomedical Engineering; Director, Orthopedic Bioengineering Research Laboratory; Co-Director, Institute for Engineering-Driven Medicine
19. Joel Saltz, PhD - Cherith Professor and Founding Chair, Department of Biomedical Informatics
20. Margaret Schedel, DMA - Professor, Composition and Computer Music; Professor, Affiliated Faculty for Art
21. Eric Wagner - SBU Class of ’70, MedStar Health Executive

Task Force Administrator

Tasheka Sutton-Young – Assistant Vice President for Presidential Initiatives

Internal Incentives

University

Encourage interdisciplinary programs that cut across multiple Schools and Colleges
- Offer a reduction in institutional taxes/strategic investment funds for cross-campus initiatives under the New Economic Framework
- Provide seed grants for collaborative, interdisciplinary projects/sponsor competitions for initiatives with multiple school/college divisions
  - Given limited funding, have a low commitment first round
  - New Initiatives should have a plan for sustainable commitment
- Leadership should be clear about the commitment to collaborations in broad communication to the University
  - Disincentivize silos

Physical Barriers:
- Provide public transportation for collaborative/interdisciplinary events and/or advertise bus routes to faculty
- Work to provide West Campus faculty with access to the Health Sciences Center. A substantial set of faculty who had key card access were removed during the pandemic and never added back in. This will require an assessment of transition spaces between HSC areas and Hospital areas in the East Campus complex.
- Improve navigation from West to East and East to West campus. This should be addressed in the campus master plan

School/College

Hold chairs accountable/incentivize chairs to foster cross-campus collaborations
- This should be incentivized in the new budget model
- Make the incentive explicit
- Acknowledge the demands for both collaboration and for independent education of various disciplinary accreditors
Provide lighter teaching loads for faculty developing new interdisciplinary courses; develop multi-disciplinary courses with dual collaborating East/West campus faculty

Internal Environmental Improvements

University

Convene cross-campus gatherings to engage faculty
- Create a faculty club on campus for networking and collaboration events
  - A place for gathering should be part of the campus master planning process
  - Create a working committee to plan and implement this.
Sponsor and publicize monthly informal East-West get-togethers preceded by lightning (TED-like) talks. Talks should include examples of successful collaborations, and highlight work of individuals with expertise/technical skills that are valuable for collaboration and of interest outside that person’s discipline. The latter should have substantial representation of junior faculty, who often bring new techniques and ideas to campus.
- Identify the team that put the short talks together before Homecoming.
Convene a cross-campus student advisory group to provide input and feedback
Create other interaction and collaboration opportunities
- Model or expand Institute for Engineering Driven Medicine’s five workshops
  - Short talks
  - Seed ideas
  - Expand topics
  - Build off of momentum and success
  - Requires an annual budget
- Expand semi-annual east-west workshops
Make cross-campus efforts an explicit part of promotion and tenure criteria
To facilitate physicians’ ability to participate in research, offer a course for faculty on the scientific process and experimental design.

Internal Support

University

Develop resources to support the development of cross-campus proposals.
- Education:
  - Ask the Provost’s office to develop a complete list of cross-campus programs, and publish the list on the Academic Program Proposal website, if not already available.
  - Add a set of exemplary cross-campus program proposals to the Academic Program Proposal website, if not already available. The proposals can serve as guides to individuals developing new cross campus programs.
  - To facilitate bottom-up development of cross-campus programs, ensure that program directors have access to Lightcast or other market analytical software for the assessment of program ideas, market demand for the skills, and the expertise expected by employers.
  - To ensure identification of potentially valuable and viable cross-campus education programs, identify an individual to use analytical software (e.g., Lightcast) to identify potential cross-campus programs that meet current and future market demands while capitalizing on existing courses with capacity for additional students.
  - Continue efforts to combine all Bulletins into one Campus Bulletin so that cross-campus collaborative programs have a single home.
  - The senate will be creating a Curriculum Coordinating Committee that will serve to facilitate interactions across curriculum committees. This committee should outline and facilitate the approval process for the development of collaborative educational programs and courses that cross the boundaries of curriculum committees.
- Research:
  - Offer training materials (e.g., text or video) on the development and approval of cross-campus proposals.
    - Include the order of approval when two Deans will be responsible for approval. Include contact information and processing flow charts.
    - Develop a bank of exemplary and funded cross-campus collaborations to illustrate basic issues that arise in cross campus research collaborations (e.g., differences in handling salary in budgets).
    - Develop a full list of campus research facilities and core services, and the units and contacts. Post on the OVPR website.
Continue to address the challenges from using different software systems on the East and West campus.
- Three significant changes have occurred that should reduce resistance to the movement of the West Campus to the Microsoft system used on the East Campus.
  - Fewer online courses
  - Adoption of Brightspace
  - The infinite storage on Google drive costs money
- Barriers
  - Ease of collaboration in Google Docs
  - Concerns about the user interface in Microsoft products
- Do faculty on West Campus have access to Microsoft? Is it possible to encourage/train faculty on the West campus to increase their use of Microsoft products, particularly when collaborations require security.
Designate a specific group to curate regular cross-campus convenings and budget allocations
Curate and advertise existing cross-campus training opportunities
Clearly communicate funding options for joint faculty salary lines; promote joint funding of collaborative salary lines
Featuring cross-disciplinary initiatives around common themes

School/College

Create cross-disciplinary, collaborative courses with faculty from both campuses; craft courses to fulfill existing requirements for majors and minors
- Make cross-campus efforts an explicit part of promotion and tenure criteria, including how collaborations are judged for promotion and tenure

Marketing and Communication

Promote cross-campus initiatives through various media outlets
Create websites to convey examples of past, ongoing, and aspirational projects
Bill events as intellectually rigorous social gatherings
Encourage faculty participation from both campuses

External Incentives

Prioritize cross-campus initiatives in fundraising efforts
Designate a team in Advancement focused on fundraising for cross-campus initiatives
Enhance funding from existing foundation resources for cross-disciplinary activities

Other potential barriers for consideration

Potential creation of exclusive enclaves
Financial imbalance between East and West campus contributions (related to salary, project contributions)

Download the PDF report here