The Binghamton University Council Meeting at the Couper Administration building last Friday morning consisted of speeches about academic innovations, accomplishments in communications and new programs devoted to maintaining undergraduate and graduate excellence. According to Donald Nieman, provost and the executive vice president for academic affairs, it has been a busy and productive semester for BU.

Diversity issues were discussed by both President Harvey Stenger and BU Council student representative Sarah Glose, a second-year graduate student studying public administration. Stenger said that the two student marches on campus showed that students are standing with those who were discriminated against, and Glose said that it was a good thing that these issues are discussed.

“Whether you like it or not, issues of race and religion happen on all college campuses and we are not immune to that,” Glose said. “I think it’s great that we go to a University where students feel like they can have these conversations and they can go to people and feel heard.”

Stenger announced that on December 10, as part of the Upstate Revitalization Initiative (URI), BU will find out whether it is one of the regions to win $500 million of economic revitalization funds. If received, there will be investments by BU aimed to help revitalize the economy of the surrounding area, such as moving the Decker School of Nursing from main campus to Johnson City, which will allow the nursing school to collocate with the pharmacy school.

“That whole area over there is ripe for redevelopment and I think it’s going to be a great initiative for us for the next five to 10 years to see how many things we can do in Johnson City related to health, and to use some of these funds to turn around the district,” Stenger said.

Nieman presented on academic innovations which included hiring faculty, expanding the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and restructuring calculus courses.

Thirty-five new tenure and tenure-tracked faculty have been hired since 2011 through a new hiring approach, in which faculty are hired into five trans-disciplinary areas of excellence instead of just one. In the past two years, approximately 60 percent of new faculty have been hired to areas that tackle world challenges like human rights, health sciences and sustainable communities.

According to Nieman, the administration wants to plateau undergraduate enrollment because they feel they have reached the number they can comfortably accommodate. Their focus is on new graduate enrollment programs, and there has been an 18 percent increase in graduate enrollment since 2011. All of the schools are working to increase applications and new programs, such as pharmacy, sustainable communities, public archaeology, health systems and data analytics, in order to increase enrollment.

“We know we’re not going to be able to sustain the levels of graduate growth that we want without expanding the portfolio of programs that we have,” Nieman said.

The calculus program has been rebuilt to lower rates of students withdrawing from courses or receiving Ds or Fs in them (DWF) and setting them behind. Recruiting Bill Kazmierczak from the math department as a new director of calculus has helped make this restructuring possible. Calculus I is now two, two-hour courses, so if students begin and have difficulties, they can back out, retake it in the second half of the semester or catch up during winter session.

As a result, DWF rates have fallen in Calculus II from 36 percent to 14 percent in the last year and from 19 percent to 10 percent in Calculus I. Nieman said that this is important in maintaining BU’s status as a top-tier university.

“The core of Binghamton’s reputation is as an outstanding undergraduate institution and we want to maintain the quality of our undergrad education,” Nieman said. “The thing I’m most proud of that we’ve done is to completely take our calculus program down to the studs and rebuild it.”

EOP, which provides access for students of economically disadvantaged backgrounds who have real ability, has expanded from 588 to 628 students, and greater STEM focus has been incorporated to their five-week summer program.

Greg Delviscio, the associate vice president for communications and marketing, said that his task forces have included three new features in the bMobi app to inform students of open Pods computers, open washers and dryers in residence halls and the Off Campus College Transit (OCCT) bus schedule.