Concerned Graduate Students of Stony Brook

To: President Shirley Strum Kenny
A Resolution of Graduate Students of the College of Arts and Sciences of Stony Brook University expressing loss of confidence in the academic leadership of President Kenny.

We the undersigned would like to echo the dismay and outrage expressed by the faculty over the chronic and damaging under-funding of the academic sector of the College of Arts and Sciences of Stony Brook University. The recent forced closure of a quarter of the Colleges fall 2008 courses, though partially rescinded, marks an ominous turn in what has been a long-term pattern of negligence. Over the past ten years (1997-2007), the size of the undergraduate student body has grown by 26\%, and the College of Arts and Sciences has been pressed into service for expanding or newly-created undergraduate programs including Journalism, Business, and Marine Sciences. Two satellite campuses have been purchased and developed, and other major initiatives undertaken, all at enormous expense. Meanwhile, the Colleges core missions of teaching and scholarship have been seriously eroded. Graduate students would like to call attention to the following concerns stemming from our unique position as both students and educators:

increased fear and anxiety among graduate students who, because of the chronic lack of funding, are vulnerable to the vagaries of the budgetary process and administrative whim
as a consequence of this chronic lack of financial support, many graduate students have had to either delay completion of their degrees or drop out prior to finishing
graduate students concur with the facultys concern about the decline in the number of tenured faculty; however, the problem lies not in non-tenured facultys lack of qualifications but rather in the universitys failure to provide adequate support for all instructors
a loss of faculty morale and a disturbing flight of top faculty to well-run universities, discouraging potential graduate students from making Stony Brook their first choice and leaving many graduate students without advisors
repeated cut-backs of the Melville Library budget, leading to shrinking personnel and printed book holdings as well as a greater reliance on interlibrary loan and outside libraries
a failure to add any undergraduate classroom space to the main campus, while we have seen a sharp increase in the student-faculty ratio from 23:1 to an estimated 34:1, a nearly 50\% increase
the administrations misplaced priorities in budgetary matters, evidenced in the millions misspent on unnecessary initiatives and projects while students and instructors alike work under conditions unbecoming a flagship academic institution

Among the consequences of these conditions:

graduate students are forced to sacrifice long-range academic and professional goals in order to overcome day-to-day time pressures and financial burdens
undergraduates find it harder to register for the courses they need, and difficult to graduate in a timely fashion (let us keep in mind that there are still 11 classes yet to be reinstated)
students find themselves in upper-level classes far larger than is appropriate for advanced levels of instruction
instructors are unable to accord students the kind of attention and directed feedback that characterizes best teaching practices
instructors and students meet in inadequate and inappropriate classrooms (including an un-refurbished cafeteria), which do not allow for the kind of group work and participatory learning that have been shown to constitute best teaching practices
undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty are all losing access to books and journals fundamental to teaching, learning, and research

In the interest of quality public higher education, which we consider to be integral to a functioning democratic society, we demand an accounting of the priorities and decisions that have starved the College of Arts and Sciences of essential resources. We also wish to register our loss of confidence in the academic leadership of President Shirley Strum Kenny, whom we hold responsible for this egregious mismanagement.