Notebook

Cold Spring Harbor

NEW PROGRAM AT COLD SPRING HARBOR Next fall, five students will begin a new Ph.D. program at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island that promises to be both faster and more flexible than the typical graduate school experience. The private, nonprofit research and educational institution has been home to such bioluminaries as Barbara McClintock and James Watson. Although it has welcomed grad students from the nearby University at Stony Brook for many years, until now it hasn't nurtured its own Ph.D.s-to-be. "The idea has been in genesis since the mid-1980s. Most of our efforts in education have not been degree granting," says director Bruce Stillman. In addition to offering rigorous coursework, teaching in the lab's high school programs, and rotation through several labs, the new program hopes to avoid the familiar problem of principal investigators' need to accomplish research conflicting with students' need to learn....