The members of the transition team are:
Professor Norman Dorsen (Law), Chair
Professor Jess Benhabib (FAS-Economics)
Robert Berne (Vice President for Academic and Health Affairs)
Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell (Tisch School of the Arts)
Professor Gloria M. Coruzzi (FAS-Biology)
Dean Richard Foley (FAS)
Dean Robert Glickman (Medical School)
Professor Martin Gruber (Stern School of Business)
Richard Katcher, Esq. (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Board of Trustees)
Jack Lew (Executive Director of the Transition Team)
S. Andrew Schaffer (Senior Vice President and General Counsel)
Professor Robert Shapley (FAS-Neural Science)
Dr. Harvey Stedman (Vice Chancellor and Provost)
Diane C. Yu (Deputy Director of the Transition Team)

The transition team's first steps consisted of scheduling meetings of the Chair, Executive Director, and Deputy Director with the deans of the 14 schools and colleges to obtain an initial sense of the primary issues facing the University. This process is almost completed. Additional meetings were scheduled with senior administrators to elicit their perspectives. The meetings included discussions of barriers to achieving stated goals and possible short-term and long-term approaches to attaining academic excellence.

The transition team then met with John Sexton to discuss issues and assess on a preliminary level the comments of the NYU academic and administrative leadership. Following those discussions, the Chair and a smaller working group considered additional opportunities for the team to explore during the course of the year, such as ensuring adequate communications with the wider NYU community throughout the transition.

Additionally, in the prior joint communication on transition activities, President Oliva and President-designate Sexton indicated that a team was at work to address a set of longer-term issues related to our Medical School and its affiliated hospitals. The issues, which the University has been grappling with for several years, have complex academic, organizational, and fiscal dimensions, and important implications for the entire University. The team composed of Bob Glickman, Terry Bischoff, President of NYU Hospitals Center, Bob Berne and Jack Lew, working with many colleagues on the Square and at the Medical Center, refined and elaborated the Medical School's plan that builds on the critical relationships with the hospitals.

The Medical School's plan includes, among other initiatives, faculty hiring, a capital program centered on the construction of a new research building, and balanced operating and capital budgets that places the Medical School on "its own bottom" and insures that the general agenda of the University will not be compromised. President-designate Sexton undertook a rigorous review of the plan in August and, based on that review, presented the plan first in a series of seminars to individual Trustees and ultimately to the Trustees Financial Affairs Committee in September. The Finance Committee endorsed President-designate Sexton's recommendations, and a resolution formally approving the plan will be considered by the full Board of Trustees at its October meeting. The approval of this plan is an exciting and important step forward.

The transition team has developed a timetable and charge to help guide the committees. The Office of the Provost will help staff the committees. Each committee is asked to recommend significant initiatives to advance academic excellence that can be implemented quickly, as well as proposals requiring a longer time frame. In many instances, there are special challenges and opportunities presented by the events of September 11 that may also be covered. The committees will begin work immediately and forward their findings and recommendations to the transition team by early December 2001. The transition team will consider the committee submissions, follow up as necessary to clarify or refine the reports, and prepare its final report to President-elect Sexton during the early months of 2002.

Following are descriptions of the committees and membership rosters:

Academic Priorities Committee
The Committee on Academic Priorities is charged with making initial suggestions on directions and initiatives that schools and academic units should pursue in order to flourish as leaders of research, ideas, creative arts, teaching and professional training. To that end the committee should assess existing academic units, their goals, strategies, strengths and weaknesses. It should identify academic programs and initiatives that should be instituted, supported and emphasized, and those that have to be redirected, reorganized, realigned and de-emphasized. It should explore possible cross-school initiatives that can result in academic synergies and increase research productivity.

The key to achieving academic excellence in research is the ability to attract the best researchers. The committee should identify the investments and strategies that will enable us to recruit and retain the best and most productive faculty from around the world.

Academic excellence is also the key asset that will bring the best, brightest and most creative graduate and undergraduate students to NYU. In turn, the quality of students is an important factor in our ability to recruit and retain faculty. Excellent graduate students are critical to the research enterprise of the University. The committee should consider policies and initiatives that will help NYU attract the best students to the University.

Members:
Prof. Jess Benhabib, Chair (Transition Team; Economics)
Bob Berne (Transition Team; Vice President)
Prof. Paul Boghossian (Philosophy)
Prof. Gloria Coruzzi (Transition Team; Biology)
Prof. Norman Dorsen (Transition Team Chair; Law)
Prof. Raquel Fernandez (Economics)
Prof. Martin Gruber (Transition Team; Stern)
Prof. Richard Arum (Education-FAS)

Academic Space Committee
One of the scarcest resources at NYU is space - both for instruction and research. Deans at many schools cite pressing needs for additional, more conveniently situated, or more tailored facilities to achieve the level of excellence to which they aspire. Our downtown New York location provides obvious limitations and challenges, as well as benefits and opportunities. This Committee will be charged with making recommendations on how best to determine needs and allocate space for classrooms, laboratories, offices, creative and performing arts, research purposes, and training activities.

The Committee will explore various approaches to and possibilities for geographic area expansion, school consolidation into contiguous space, and location synergies between schools. It will also consider options and potential resolution of issues concerning academic vs. non-academic space choices (e.g., periphery vs. central location), pending and anticipated new facilities, creative scheduling or incentives to maximize use of space throughout the week, "proprietary space" expectations, and year-round use of facilities. Members:

Dean Mary Campbell, Chair (Transition Team; TSOA)
Prof. Tom Bender (History)
Prof. Bruce Buchanan (Stern)
Prof. Phil Furmanski (Biology)
Dean Robert Glickman (Transition Team; Medical School)
Jack Lew (Transition Team Executive Director)
Associate Dean Ellen Lovitz (Wagner)
Prof. Tony Movshon (Neural Science)
Prof. Fred Myers (Anthropology)
Rich Stanley (Vice Provost)

Faculty Housing Committee
The hallmark of a first tier university is an outstanding faculty. The charge of this Committee is to develop alternatives for addressing issues related to the overall supply of, demand for, allocation, and location of University faculty housing as part of our objectives in faculty recruitment and retention and in light of the realities of the New York housing market.

The Committee will review historical patterns (e.g., prior 50% demand for University housing vs. current reality of 80% demand, turnover, and movement within housing), as well as current policies on apartment size/number of children, primary residence, and other "rules of the game" for future planning insights. It will propose appropriate standards and processes for making housing allocation decisions. In addition, the Committee may consider non-University-owned options, such as loans, equity sharing, or the Law School model; changing the fundamental relationship between faculty members and the University in some instances, such as creating a reverse auction system; retirement issues; and the most appropriate ways for housing policy to accommodate death and divorce circumstances.

Members:
Dean Richard Foley, Chair (Transition Team; FAS)
Associate Dean John Deeley (Medicine)
Senior Associate Dean Joseph Juliano (FAS)
Dean David McLaughlin (Courant)
Prof. Mary Poovey (English)
Prof. Debraj Ray (Economics)
Andy Schaffer (Transition Team; Sr. VP and General Counsel)
Associate Dean Jeanne Smith (Law)
Rich Stanley (Vice Provost)

Student Enrollment, Financial Aid & Housing Committee
Achieving optimal size and attracting the best quality undergraduate and graduate student body are critical to NYU's drive toward institutional excellence. Within this context, the Committee will focus on the characteristics of, linkage between, and options regarding student enrollment decisions, financial aid availability, and housing access and conditions. It will take into account various circumstances, such as what we offer to students, revenue/expense concerns, and our present housing policy goal of housing everyone. The Committee will analyze existing financial aid policies (need vs. merit, total amount of aid available, and the effect on quality, diversity, and progress to degree) and related post graduation issues, such as loans, debt burden, and default rates.

The Committee will also evaluate, among other issues, high enrollment and its effect on achieving and maintaining high standards; the freshman housing guarantee; the housing needs of graduate students; the situation of individual schools; and the interaction of students and faculty in dormitories (e.g., Yale College model or similar efforts to integrate student life with academic aspects). Additionally, it may explore retention and graduation rates, including the possible impact of low housing priority on sophomore attrition numbers, as well as an examination of overall graduation rates (15-20% lower at NYU vs. peers).

Members:
Prof. Robert Shapley, Co-chair (Transition Team; Neural Science)
Diane Yu, Co-chair (Transition Team Deputy Director)
Dean Frederick Choi (Stern)
Dean Suzanne England (SSW)
Dean David Finney (SCPS)
Novella Jones (Admissions - Dentistry)
Richard Katcher (Transition Team; Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Board of Trustees)
Dean Peter Lennie (FAS - Science)
Dean Ann Marcus (Education)
Dean Matthew Santirocco (CAS)
Harvey Stedman (Transition Team; Vice Chancellor)
Jonathan Vafai (School of Medicine - graduate student)
Alfonso Waller (CAS - undergraduate student)

Beyond overseeing the committee work, the transition team will be consulted on other transition-related activities underway, such as the University Provost search (to be announced shortly), and overall reviews of the budget process and administrative structure. In addition, during the coming year, the transition team will meet with faculty, students, and administrators.

Attached to this communication is a copy of an essay entitled, "Sustaining the Moral Surge," that President-designate Sexton wrote that we expect will be published which expresses these themes. He is calling for a citywide effort that will complement the physical rebuilding of downtown and he believes that NYU is exactly the right institution to use its academic excellence and creativity to lead that effort. He has begun to work with the deans to identify and develop serious academic initiatives, not only with regard to the multi-media, multi-disciplinary "Chronicle of the Human Spirit" project that is mentioned in the essay, but also by engaging other school and inter-school based efforts. We are now in the process of considering specific initiatives arising from the academic interests of faculty that will move these ideas forward. We will provide more details in coming days.