Stanford Partners With CCNY On NYC Engineering and Science Collaboration - Is Local Partner Tipping Point For Stanford's NYC Applied Science & Engineering School On Roosevelt Island?

Image of CCNY From Stanford News

Here's the latest on the proposed NYC Applied Sciences & Engineering School which both Stanford University and Cornell hope to build on Roosevelt Island. From City College Of New York Press Release:

In response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's call to strengthen New York City's economy by creating a world-class applied science and engineering school here, Stanford University President John L. Hennessy, The City University of New York Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and City College President Lisa S. Coico today announced the creation of the Stanford-CUNY Collaboration at City College, or Stanford@CCNY.

Joining East and West Coast resources in an innovative new arrangement, Stanford@CCNY has the potential to offer the students and faculties of both universities transformative opportunities to partner at the undergraduate, graduate and post-doctorate level and would provide start-up space for Stanford's proposed applied science campus.

Stanford@CCNY will immediately begin to create an East Coast demonstration site on the City College campus for Stanford's undergraduate curriculum in entrepreneurship, technology management and related areas. The program in innovation learning is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation to the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, the entrepreneurship center of the Stanford School of Engineering.

"City College and City University have been educating the students of New York for more than 160 years and share our commitment to innovation and technology commercialization," President Hennessy said. "CCNY also has an excellent track record for bringing underrepresented minorities into engineering, which is a clear national priority. We believe there is tremendous potential through our partnership with CUNY to bring Stanford's curriculum to some of the best and brightest students in New York and to help them go on to make significant economic contributions to New York City and New York State."

"CUNY welcomes the opportunity to partner with Stanford University, with City College as our lead institution. Our collective strengths will help pave the way towards the establishment of world-class science and engineering education opportunities," said Chancellor Goldstein. "The two beneficiaries will be our students and the people of New York City."

"This collaboration offers our students the opportunity to learn side by side with peers enrolled at one of the world's finest private universities," said President Coico. "Stanford@CCNY will create partnerships between our research-active faculty and their colleagues at Stanford, who helped create and sustain Silicon Valley, and these partnerships will incubate innovation and entrepreneurship in the technology sector right here in New York."

Should Stanford's proposal to create an applied science campus in New York City be accepted, the Stanford@CCNY collaboration would expand to include joint CCNY-Stanford BA/MA and BS/MS programs designed collaboratively by faculty members from both schools. Highly qualified City College students would be admitted to a co-term program enabling them to pursue a BS degree from City College in parallel with an MS degree from Stanford.

Also under the collaboration, Stanford would launch its New York academic programs in teaching and research space at the City College campus until late 2016, when Stanford's Applied Science campus on Roosevelt Island would be expected to be completed and ready for occupancy. Stanford would then turn over the upgraded space and equipment at City College to City University for its permanent use.

Stanford also will host CCNY students each summer as part of its Research Experience for Undergraduates Program, allowing them to work alongside Stanford students in faculty research labs on its California campus, or as part of its Summer Institute for General Management, a four-week program focused on business fundamentals.

As part of Stanford@CCNY, faculty and students from both universities will create mechanisms to collaborate on the inspiration, inception and incubation of new enterprises that will contribute to growing the New York economy. Stanford would renovate and temporarily occupy up to 20,000-square-feet of instructional space on the City College campus, as well as space for up to 20 Stanford faculty members. Stanford and CUNY students and faculty would live and work together, with the possibility that students from both universities could have access to courses offered by both institutions.

Stanford University is preparing its response to Mayor Bloomberg's call for proposals for an applied science campus in New York City with the potential to generate economic growth in the technology sector. Stanford is proposing to build a graduate campus on Roosevelt Island that would focus on engineering, information technology and entrepreneurship, growing in phases to eventually accommodate 100 faculty members and 2,000 master's and Ph.D. students. Proposals are due to the New York City Economic Development Corporation on Oct. 28. The city has announced that it expects to make a decision by the end of the year.

This is a very smart (not surprising) move by Stanford which effectively dismisses the argument by Cornell as described in this previous post:

... Cornell’s established presence in New York would give its proposal the edge over those of other contending universities.

“If a school doesn’t have good roots in New York, it may attract good students here and just be a pipeline to jobs elsewhere in the country,” Huttenlocher said. “We believe strongly that a Cornell in New York, with the strong ties to all of you and others that we have here, would really change that pattern. But for another school that doesn’t have a strong network in New York City, it might never happen.”...

A university can't have better New York City roots or be more local than CCNY and Stanford is partnering with them.

Some more information on Stanford's plan for a Roosevelt Island campus. During a recent conversation with Stanford University's Phil Taubman,

 Image Of Stanford's Phil Taubman on Roof Of Sothtown Riverwalk Building

who is leading Stanford's efforts to build the NYC Applied Sciences and Engineering School, I learned that Stanford is rethinking the original preliminary plan for its proposed Roosevelt Island campus.  Initially, Stanford planned for 2 twenty- story plus towers on either end of the Goldwater campus for faculty and graduate student housing with academic facilities and open campus in the middle. (Illustrated Below)

Image of Stanford's Proposed Roosevelt Island Site Plan From Previous Post

Although Mr. Taubman stressed that any plan was still preliminary and subject to many unknowns, he said that Stanford now plans not to have housing on the campus but for housing to be spread through the existing Roosevelt Island community which may include the future buildings 7-9 at Southtown. Hudson Related should be thrilled to hear that. Mr. Taubman also emphasized Stanford's desire to work very closely with our local public school - PS/IS 217.

The October Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) meeting had the following discussion on the differences between Stanford and Cornell's approach to a Roosevelt Island campus.

You Tube Video Discussion of NYC Engineering School on Roosevelt Island