SUNY Excels 2015 Performance Improvement Plan Attachment 1: Narrative Template

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1 SUNY Excels 2015 Performance Improvement Plan Attachment 1: Narrative Template CAMPUS INFORMATION Campus: President: Chief Academic Officer: Chief Financial Officer: SUNY Downstate Medical Center Dr. John Williams Dr. JoAnn Bradley Ms. Melanie Gehen INTRODUCTION SUNY Downstate is the sole academic medical center located in the heart of our nation s largest, most ethnically diverse, working class, urban communities. Our five schools and colleges train the next generation of physicians, nurses, health care professionals and researchers serving our local community, the City of New York, and New York State. Through our research facilities, our mission is to advance the medical sciences to the community at large. Through our hospital and our educational affiliates, our mission is to serve the health care needs of the 2.6 million residents of Brooklyn and Staten Island. We aspire to have a staff that is representative of the diverse ethnic populations we serve and to become more efficient and cost effective in achieving our mission. As one of the nation s leading urban medical centers, the campus is a vital part of the Brooklyn community; one of its largest employers; and a critical source for education, research, and health care. Downstate s College of Medicine (the 15th oldest in the country), College of Health Related Professions, College of Nursing, School of Graduate Studies, and School of Public Health enroll over 1800 students and offer a broad professional education that prepares students for practice or health related careers in any location or community. SUNY Downstate serves a distinct and diverse population of students. Many students are from Brooklyn itself or the New York City area, are the first in their families to attend college. Many are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and many are immigrants or children of immigrants just getting their start in American society. Over a third of Downstate s students are from underrepresented minority groups. As the teaching hospital for Brooklyn s academic medical center, SUNY Downstate s University Hospital of Brooklyn offers a complete range of medical services, including some unavailable elsewhere in the borough. Downstate is a regional center for cardiac care, neonatal and high risk infant services, pediatric dialysis, and transplantation services. Downstate maintains a commitment to community service. A remarkable variety of community projects involves nearly every department or program on campus and target health problems from HIV and AIDS to hypertension, diabetes, asthma, and pre- and postnatal care. The Arthur Ashe Health Science Academy provides science enrichment classes to talented local high school students. And through such programs as the Community Service Program which matches students with community Page 1 of 15

2 agencies on health education projects and the Center for Health Promotion and Wellness, which each year sponsor or participate in over hundreds of health fairs, educational seminars, and special events, Downstate has an unparalleled outreach record. Downstate s clinical and basic researchers have, in past years, attracted over $50 million annually in research funding. Many of the research projects study health concerns that directly affect Brooklyn s communities, while others focus on basic research. In 1998, the late Distinguished Professor Emeritus Robert F. Furchgott, PhD, won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his work on nitric oxide at the time the only active SUNY faculty member to have done Nobel prize-winning work while at SUNY. The first human MRI images were produced on the Downstate campus in the laboratory of Dr. Raymond Damadian, an achievement that revolutionized medical diagnosis. Dr. Eli Friedman is the inventor of a portable dialysis machine. And Dr. Henri Begleiter has received more than $80 million dollars from the National Institutes of Health for his groundbreaking work on the genetics of alcoholism. Through our Advanced Biotechnology Incubator and Park, Downstate spurs the creation of technology companies and medical innovations. The cornerstone of a Brooklyn-wide effort to attract biotechnology research and development, the Incubator is designed to meet the growing demand for affordable manufacturing space in New York. One of Downstate s primary focuses is the study of and mitigation of health disparities. In response to this, Downstate established the Brooklyn Center for Health Disparities in November 2004, in partnership with the Brooklyn Borough President s Office and the Arthur Ashe Institute of Urban Health. Made possible by an initial $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the Center s focus is on strategies to reduce disparities in cardiovascular health. Section 1: Campus Alignment with SUNY Excels (the framework for the Power of SUNY 2020) and SUNY s overall focus on completion SUNY Downstate is firmly committed to the objectives identified in SUNY Excels of Access, Completion, Success, Inquiry, and Engagement. Our Strategic Plans for each of our five Colleges are located on-line at: Access SUNY Downstate is firmly committed to the mission of access, serving New York State Residents, and diversity. As is demonstrated by our enrollment statistics, SUNY Downstate is one of the most diverse institutions in the SUNY system. The College of Medicine has consistently maintained an underrepresented minority enrollment of over 10 percent of the entering class (in 2014 it was 16 percent), and ranks among the top 10 schools of medicine in the United States in the number of African-American students admitted. SUNY Downstate also offers a number of programs which encourage students at multiple levels to pursue education in the health professions, including Operation Success (a pre-matriculation summer program designed to provide a sampling of material taught during the first semester of medical school with a skills development component helps to improve basic study and time management skills); The Early Medical Education (EME) Program (funded by the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA), EME is an initiative to increase the competitiveness of undergraduate premedical students by offering enrichment early in their college career from 8 participating schools 7 CUNY and 1 SUNY); The Undergraduate Summer Research Program (designed for undergraduate students who are historically underrepresented in the biomedical and health professions to conduct research under the direction of a faculty member in the basic sciences, public health, or clinical medicine); and The Science and Page 2 of 15

3 Technology Entry Program (STEP) (A 3-year, after-school academic enrichment program for students attending one of 5 affiliated Brooklyn high schools, and one of the cohorts of the Arthur Ashe Institute s Health Science Academy); the Gateway Institute for Pre-College Education (funded by the New York State Department of Education, Gateway is an enrichment program that assists in the preparation of underrepresented minority high school students for careers in medicine); and Exploring Health Careers (a program that provides high school students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds information on career options in the health professions, including in medicine, nursing and allied health.) Students enrolled in the Colleges of Nursing and the College of Health Related Professions are among the most diverse at SUNY Downstate, not only in terms of race and ethnicity, but also in terms of socioeconomic status, age, and family status. The student bodies of the colleges of Nursing and Health Related Professions reflect the broad range of ethnic and cultural groups in the Brooklyn metropolitan region. SUNY Downstate plans to continue to enroll our significantly diverse student body. Completion & Success The curricula offered in each college reflect learning experiences and sequencing that enables students to develop professional knowledge, skills, and competencies needed for practice. Learning objectives are developed by the faculty and administration in concert with published core competencies for the professions/disciplines and institutional mission. Learning goals, objectives, and competencies for each program are presented to students in their program manuals, courses of study, and syllabi. Course syllabi include measurable instructional objectives and expected student competencies, thus providing an objective mechanism for evaluation of the program goals. Course syllabi outline the knowledge which should be gained upon completion of the module/course, the method of evaluation, and competency level requirements, as well as remediation activities. College of Medicine: Educational program effectiveness is evaluated through the following indicators: results of USMLE; student scores on internally developed examinations; performance-based assessment of clinical skills; student responses on AAMC Medical School Graduation Questionnaire; student evaluation of courses and clerkships; student advancement and graduation rates; National Residency Match Program results; specialty choice of graduates; and assessment of residency performance of graduates. Student learning competencies are evaluated through the performance indicators (See Tables below). Table 1 College of Medicine USMLE Performance Statistics Step I Year Number Examined Percent Passing Mean Total Score National Percent Passing National Mean Total Score % % % % % % % % % % 222 Page 3 of 15

4 Table 1 (continued) College of Medicine USMLE Performance Statistics Step II Year Part I Clinical Knowledge Number Examined Percent Passing Mean Total Score National Percent Passing % % % % % % % % % % 230 Part II Clinical Skills % ~ 96% ~ % ~ 98% ~ % ~ 98% ~ % ~ 97% ~ % ~ 97% ~ Source: National Board of Medical Examiners College of Medicine Table 2 Percentage of first-year students and percentage of all students who withdrew or were dismissed from the medical school National Mean Total Score Years First-year 0.6% 1.6% 0.0% 0.0% 1.6% 0.0% 0.5% All l students 1.0% 1.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.5% College of Medicine Graduation Rates (including MD-PhD) Table 3 Cohort 4-year 5-year Not Graduated Enrolled 2014 Not Enrolled % 1.8% 7% 6.0% 0.6% % 1.7% 6% 5.6% 0.6% % 0% 5% 3.7% 1.6% % 0% 12% 11.7% 0.0% 2011 ~ ~ 100% 99.4% 0.6% 2012 ~ ~ 100% 100.0% 0.0% School of Graduate Studies: Student retention in the SGS is generally very high. No student has been dismissed in the past four years for reasons of insufficient academic progress. Those few students who leave voluntarily (four in the last four years) usually do so for personal reasons or an inability to find a laboratory compatible with their interests. Page 4 of 15

5 Graduation rates (time to degree) for PhD candidates have been stable over the last 8 years (see Table below). For the MD/PhD students graduating between 2009 and 2014 (N=22), the average time to degree (PhD portion of dual degree) was 5.8 years (median=5.5 years; range=2.5 to 11 years). For the PhD students graduating between 2009 and 2014 (N=54), the average time to degree was 6.1 years (median=6; range= 1.5 to 10 years; note: very short times to degree are by students enrolled as advanced students). We continue to work to improve these rates, by requiring annual works-in-progress presentations for all students and efforts to complete the qualifying examination at the end of year 1 or early in year 2. Table 4 School of Graduate Studies Average time to degree (in years) for MD/PhD and PhD Grad. Year MD/PhD NA PhD Postdoctoral Placements: The high quality of Downstate s graduate students is reflected in their outstanding postdoctoral appointments. In recent years, Downstate MD/PhD graduates have been placed, for example, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Yale-New Haven Hospital, St. Luke s- Roosevelt Hospital, Baylor University and University of California San Francisco and University of California San Diego. Recent PhD graduates are currently in postdoctoral positions at the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Harvard Medical School, Duke University, Columbia University, among others. In addition, several students have been placed in medically-related companies such as Avatar Biotechnologies, Halo Neuro Systems and Ogilvy Healthworld. Virtually all graduates are employed either as postdoctoral trainees, residents, or in industry upon graduation. College of Health Related Professions: Four of the six programs in the College of Health Related Professions offer graduate degrees. The Physical Therapy Program has implemented a Doctorate in Physical Therapy degree (DPT). The Physician Assistant Program is in the process of transition from a BS degree program to an MS degree program, which is expected to occur by no later than All of the programs in the College of Health Related Professions have professional licensure exams, except for the program in Medical Informatics. All of the programs that do maintain high passage rates as shown in the table below. Page 5 of 15

6 Table 5 College of Health Related Professions Pass Rate Professional Licensure Examinations* Report not yet available. Diagnostic Medical Imaging 96% (23) 81% (16) 79% (19) 100% (19) 60% (10); 90% on second Midwifery 50% (10) 91% (11) 85% (13) attempt (10) Occupational Therapy First Time Takers 79% (29) 91% (32) 97% (34) 91% (33) 100% (27) 100% Within One Year 96% (29) 100% (32) (34) 100% (33) 100% (27) Physical Therapy 85% (20) 88% (17) 88% (17) 86% (21) 82% (17) Physician Assistant 97% (29) 75% (40) Report not yet available. 100% (25) 91% (33) 96% (25) *Medical Informatics does not have an examination for the profession at this time. The American Board of Preventive Medicine sponsors a national exam called National Boards in Clinical Informatics. The qualification for the exam is a medical degree. Two of the physician graduates from the program have passed the exam. Graduation rates within the College of Health Related Professions are consistent with national and regional outcomes. Students enroll in the College of Health Related Professions as a cohort and generally complete the prescribed curriculum in a lock-step fashion in two to three years, depending on the discipline. The expected time to degree with full-time enrollment is outlined below. Table 6 College of Health Related Professions Time to degree for each CHRP Program based on full time enrollment Diagnostic Medical Imaging (DMI) Midwifery (MID) Medical Informatics (MI) Occupational Therapy (OT) Physical Therapy (PT) Physician Assistant (PA) 2 Years 2 Years 2 Years 2.5 Years 3 Years 2.5 Years In keeping the College mission, CHRP programs offer alternative scheduling options (i.e., deceleration and part-time study) in order to meet the academic and personal needs of adult learners. CHRP students are often balancing family, employment, and other personal demands while enrolled in the academically demanding curricula. Page 6 of 15

7 Employment Rates: Each program in the College obtains data from graduates regarding employment status at approximately six months after graduation in several ways: surveys, telephone surveys, and online surveys such as Survey Monkey. Online and surveys have limited response rates. Programs have improved response rates with repeat reminders via telephone and and also by conducting telephone surveys. In addition, each program attempts to collect qualitative data from employers of recent graduates. All programs report very positive comments about graduates. Table 7 College of Health Related Professions Employment Rates Year Diagnostic Medical Imaging (DMI) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Medical Informatics (MI) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Midwifery (MW) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Occupational Therapy (OT) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Physical Therapy (PT) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Physician Assistant (PA) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% College of Nursing: The College of Nursing has recently revised both its undergraduate and graduate curricula to reflect recent health professions education reform. The Institute of Medicine (2003, 2005) has proposed a set of core competencies that all health care professionals should possess, and has recommended that these be used as an overarching vision for all health care professional education in the 21st century. For graduate nursing education, these competencies have been incorporated into the newly revised American Association of Colleges of Nursing document, The Essentials of Master s Education in Nursing (AACN, 2011). For undergraduate nursing education, these have been incorporated into the newly revised American Association of Colleges of Nursing document, The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice (AACN, 2008). In July 2013, the College of Nursing at SUNY Downstate Medical Center revised its graduate curricula to reflect the integration of competency standards consistent with the language in the Master s Essentials. These competency standards are now incorporated into the newly revised accreditation standards for evaluating graduate nursing programs (Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, 2013). These accreditation standards went into effect January In addition, the College revised its graduate nursing curricula to reflect the recommendations of the advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) Consensus Model for APRN Regulation: Licensure, Accreditation, Certification and Education, otherwise known as the LACE Model (APRN Consensus Model, 2008). The College of Nursing revised its undergraduate curriculum in May 2012 to reflect the integration of competency standards consistent with the language found in the Baccalaureate Essentials into existing curriculum. This Essentials document provides a new set of core competencies expected of graduates of baccalaureate nursing programs. Although the majority of the students in the College of Nursing are already licensed nurses, students enrolled in the Accelerated Nursing Bachelor s Degree Program maintain a pass rate for the national licensure exam well above New York State and national averages. In addition, students in our Page 7 of 15

8 graduate programs take specialty certification exams, and all of our pass rates are above national averages. Table 8 Table 11: NCLEX-RN Pass Rates for Years College of Nursing NCLEX-RN Pass Rates for Years Year N of students taking NCLEX- RN for 1 st time % Aggregate Pass Rate SUNY DMC CN (%) New York State (%) United States Table 9 College of Nursing Certification Pass Rates by Specialty ( )* Specialty Certification Program Downstate CN (N) % Nationa l % Downstate CN (N) % Nationa l % Downstate CN (N) % Nationa l % Family NP ANCC Women s Health NP NCC Anesthesia COA ** ** Not yet available ** Midwifery*** AMCB Legend: ANCC = American Nurses Certification Corporation; NCC = National Certification Corporation COA = Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs; AMCB = American Midwifery Certification Board. *All NP program graduates are eligible to sit for national certification within their population foci. In New York state, students are not required to take national certification for practice, making it difficult to track and trend outcomes. However, graduate students are encouraged to obtain national certification within the first year of graduation. ** COA mandatory threshold *** This program is offered in collaboration with the Advanced Certificate in Midwifery program in the College of Health Related Professions (CHRP). All clinical courses are offered in CHRP. The exam results include graduates from both MS in Nurse Midwifery and Advanced Certificate in Midwifery Programs. Page 8 of 15

9 Time to Completion: In the College of Nursing, students in the Accelerated BS and Nurse Anesthesia programs enroll on a full-time basis as a cohort and generally complete the prescribed curriculum in 15 months and 27 months, respectively. In the other programs, a majority of students complete their programs of study on a part-time basis. College of Nursing Table 10 Time to degree for each CON Program based on full time enrollment Program Full -Time Part -Time Accelerated BS 15 Months ~ RN / BS 3 semesters (fall, spring & summer) 18 Months Nurse Anesthesia 27 Months ~ Nurse Practitioner 24 Months 36 Months Clinical Nurse Specialist 24 Months 36 Months Nurse Midwifery 24 Months 36 Months The majority of the students in the College of Nursing continue to work while enrolled in the RN-to-BS or the Master of Science programs. Faculty develop individualized programs of study to meet students needs and enhance their success. Students in the Accelerated BS and Nurse Anesthesia programs are enrolled full-time and their schedules will not allow them to be employed while pursuing their degrees. Employment Rates: All programs in the College of Nursing obtain data from graduates regarding employment status in several ways: graduate follow-up surveys, employer satisfaction surveys and telephone surveys. In addition, graduates continue to inform faculty about their employment status. All programs report very positive comments about graduates. College of Nursing Employment Rates by Program Table 11 Program Expected Outcome Actual Outcome Accelerated BS RN to BS MS Advanced Certificate (post-graduate) 80% within 12 months Approximately 96-98% of RN-BS students are already employed prior to admission to the program 80% within 12 months 80% within 12 months *Approximately 96-98% of RN-BS students are already employed prior to admission to the program. ** No graduates for the year. *** 12 graduates did not respond to the survey. Page 9 of 15 Year Graduated % *** N/A** 2012 N/A**

10 School of Public Health: The growth and direction of development of the School of Public Health has been strongly guided by the criteria outlined by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) for accreditation of schools of public health. The progress of the development of the School is continually measured against these criteria and the measurable objectives relevant to our mission and goals, including outcomes for students and student performance. Time to Degree Completion: The School of Public Health has established targets for time to degree completion. For the MPH degree, the target degree goal is 7 years and for the doctorate level, it is 8 years. Students are accepted into the program in cohorts, but not all students within the same cohort graduate at the same time because most are employed full-time and are enrolled in the degree program part-time. Over 80% of the students complete the MPH degree within the 7 year allotted timeframe. The number of students withdrawing and leaving the program is relatively low. For the doctorate (DrPH) degree, 50 students have enrolled since the program began in Since students in this track have 8 years to complete their degree, most students are still working on finishing their course of study and there have been two graduates to date. Table 12 School of Public Health MPH Degree Completion Students in MPH Degree (includes MD/MPH Students), by Cohorts Entering Between and * Cohort of Students # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc. 1 2 # Students graduated 6 0 Cumulative graduation rate 16.0% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 32.0% 10.0% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 48.6% 35.0% 16.7% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 70.3% 47.5% 36.7% 20.3% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 81.0% 57.5% 46.7% 42.6% 11.9% 1.8% *Track students vertically by column (i.e., not across each row). Page 10 of 15

11 School of Public Health DrPH Degree Completion Table 13 Students in DrPH Degree, by Cohorts Entering Between and * Cohort of Students # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc. 0 0 # Students graduated 1 0 Cumulative graduation rate 33.3% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 33.3% 0.0% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 33.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 33.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 33.3% 11.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% # Students continuing at beginning of this school year # Students withdrew, dropped, etc # Students graduated Cumulative graduation rate 33.3% 22.1% 20.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% *Time to completion for the DrPH degree is 8 years from the semester of entry. However, the DrPH degree was offered in the School of Public Health for the first time in the Summer semester of Therefore, only seven years of data are available for these cohorts. Employment Rates: The School of Public Health has a comprehensive database to track its alumni. The database includes the graduates demographic information, degree, concentration and graduation data, as well as current employment information. Participation by alumni is voluntary, however, data received from survey participants demonstrate that most graduates are employed and few are actively seeking employment. Page 11 of 15

12 Table 19: MPH Graduates Employment* School of Public Health Table 14 MPH Graduates Employment* Destination of MPH Graduates by Employment Type in (To Date) Employed Continuing education/training (not employed) Actively seeking employment Not seeking employment (not employed and not continuing education/training, by choice) Unknown *Graduates may take up to 12 months to secure employment or pursue further education/training after degree completion. Total School of Public Health Table 15 DrPH Graduates Employment* Destination of DrPH Graduates by Employment Type in * Employed Continuing education/training (not employed) Actively seeking employment Not seeking employment (not employed and not continuing education/training, by choice) (Retired) Unknown Total *Graduates may take up to 12 months to secure employment or pursue further education/training after degree completion. Financial Literacy Given the national trend of increased student-loan indebtedness, Downstate s Office of Financial Aid has increased its efforts to educate and advise students regarding financial matters, beginning with an online financial literacy program and entrance interviews. Downstate strongly encourages students to limit their reliance on student loans as much as possible. Page 12 of 15

13 Advice on budgeting and repayment options are provided to all students over the course of their attendance at Downstate, and informational programs regarding loan repayment and scholarship and grant opportunities are offered. Workshops address various financial aid topics, with the common thread of recognizing that student loan debt is best addressed at the time of borrowing. Financial Aid s website includes information about living on a budget, the importance of protecting identity, and the necessity to maintain and check credit status. Financial Aid also participates in the Division of Student Affairs social media efforts, to help ensure that information provided to students is as accessible as possible. As required by the U.S. Department of Education, SUNY Downstate provides all students and applicants with specific consumer information to ensure they are able to make educated choices before applying for or taking student loans. In addition to these financial counseling services, in the College of Medicine, accepted applicants complete the AAMC Financial Literacy 101 Program before arriving at Downstate. Once at Downstate, they have access to a range of training modules on debt management. Fourth-year medical students are required to attend a three-hour loan repayment session that addresses living on a budget as a resident. Students are also given the contact information via of many sites that will be needed during their residency, including the Direct Loan Center, NSLDS, and the contact information of the Director of Financial Aid. In FY2012 (the last year available), SUNY Downstate s Cohort Default Rate was 0.9% compared to a national average of 11.8% and a New York State average of 8.2%. SUNY Downstate plane to continue to push to decrease the average indebtedness of our students and keep our number below 1%. Section 2: Specific SUNY Excels Priority Areas and Metrics In addition to the information above, SUNY Downstate expects to implement the following: Joint Nursing Program with SUNY Nassau Community College: SUNY Downstate has proposed to implement a joint program with SUNY Nassau Community College in Nursing. This program will add 48 students per year in years 1 and 2, 72 students in year 3 and 4, and 96 students thereafter. These students will begin their program at SUNY Nassau Community College, beginning in the Fall of 2016 and will not arrive at Downstate until Fall These numbers are included in the and years in the appendix. This proposed program is contingent upon funding from the SUNY Performance Funding as well as approval from our accreditor. Time To Degree and Additional Programs: In addition to the joint Nursing Program proposed, which will increase the number of degrees offered at SUNY Downstate, Downstate has made significant progress toward decreasing the time to degree by increasing the number of full-time slots available in multiple programs. Though the number of credits required in these programs has increased in some areas, we have been able to keep the time to degree stable, and below the sector average (as seen in Table 11, attachment 2). Further, SUNY Downstate is in the process of investigating adding additional degree programs which require additional research and are not included in this proposal. This includes joint programs between Page 13 of 15

14 schools where students will receive multiple degrees (such as a degree in Physical Therapy and in Public Health or a degree in Nursing and in Medical Informatics). Research and Sponsored Activities: Like other institutions, SUNY Downstate has experienced reductions in federal research funding averaging 20% in each of the last two years. Downstate has already taken steps to stabilize our research enterprise. By FY20, we project increases in our federal and federal flow through funding. We project that our non-federal funding will remain relatively constant over the years (averaging $20 mil), noting that FY14 was markedly higher due specifically to a one-time $5.2 million construction grant to retrofit the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator. We plan to do so by the following: 1. Capitalizing on the diversity of our institution and our environment to expand research in population health disparities, 2. Developing the Institute for Genomic Health s Population Health and Translational Research Center to provide increased support for investigations, especially including genomics, health systems, population health, and translational research, (note that this is a proposed project through the SUNY Empire Innovation Grant) 3. Increasing total campus research expenditures by greater than 20% over FY15 expenditures. 4. Developing and investing in targeted research programs to gain significant prominence in focal areas, thereby attracting further investment and talent, including genomics, populationbased clinical efficacy studies, and primary care and medical home implementation (nonexclusively), 5. Significantly expanding research collaborations within and without the SUNY system to leverage, rather than duplicate, important resources, and 6. Maximizing the utilization of the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator through improving tech transfer and commercialization of Downstate faculty innovations and attracting and supporting biotechnology start-up and early-stage corporate tenants. SUNY Downstate, through the proposed Empire Innovation funding, projects to be able to stabilize our total sponsored activity to $54million by FY2018 and to $60million by FY2020. (Specifics on this proposal are contained in Attachment 2, Table 17.) Section 3: Conclusion and Expected Impact on your Campus As Brooklyn s only Academic Medical Center, SUNY Downstate is in a unique position to help the Borough of Brooklyn and the City of New York. We are committed to serving our community and to continuing to be a leading educator of medical and health-care professionals for the City and State of New York. Students at Downstate are presented with a strong curriculum, with daily opportunities to engage in health care work and scientific inquiry. We foster student success through our linkages and affiliations with health care providers in Brooklyn and throughout the City of New York, along with synergistic relationships with our larger community, Downstate will contribute to Chancellor Zimpher s goal of 150,000 completions by creating linkages with SUNY Nassau Community College to ensure we continue to provide an educated nursing workforce, which is part of a grant proposal for Performance Funding previously submitted. We also are in the early stages of planning new joint programs between our colleges which allow us to offer Page 14 of 15

15 students the ability to obtain degrees in multiple specialties in less time (such as Physical Therapy and Public Health or Nursing and Medical Informatics). We have shown an ability to retain our students at a significantly high level, and have worked to ensure our Student Affairs division ensures that students are supported across the disciplines. SUNY Downstate submitted a grant for SUNY Empire funding which will shore up and allow us to return to the level of research funding which we had previously been at. In addition to this funding, we have revamped our pre- and post-award processes to ensure that our faculty have an efficient and consistent support process toward applying for grants and funding. Although we have maintained a significantly low National Student Default Rate of less than 1%, we remain concerned about the effect tuition increases have had on our students and our ability to be competitive. Although we have not seen a fall-off in applications or selectivity in any of our programs, we continue to be concerned that any further significant increases in tuition will begin to effect our ability to attract high-quality applicants and will begin to show a strain in terms of the amount of student debt our students are taking on. SUNY Downstate remains committed to ensuring that our students continue to be successful, and that we continue to be one of the leading providers of medical professionals to New York State, and specifically to the City of New York. Page 15 of 15