200 Bricker Hall Printer-Friendly Version
October 19, 2005
3:00-5:00pm
MINUTES
Present: Professors: Lora Dobos, Richard Gunther, Margaret McMahon, Raymond Noe (Chair), Electra Paskett, Nancy Reynolds, W. Randy Smith (Vice Chair), Harald Vaessin, and George Valco
Student Members: Jane Evans and Scot Pearson (Council of Graduate Students); Kevin Freeman (Inter-Professional Council); and Amanda Ransburgh and Elaine Yeh (Undergraduate Student Government).
Guests: Professor Richard Freeman, Dean, College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; Professors Martha Garland, Vice Provost and Dean, and Katherine Meyer, Faculty Fellow, Office of Undergraduate Studies; Brad Myers, University Registrar; Jefferson R. Blackburn-Smith, Office of Undergraduate Admissions and the First Year Experience; Professor Edward H. Adelson, Associate Executive Dean, and Jennifer Lando, Director, Curriculum Office, Colleges of the Arts and Sciences; Professor Alexis Collier, Department of Psychology; John Ryan, Assistant Vice Provost, and Julie Carpenter-Hubin, Director, Strategic Analysis, Office of Academic Affairs
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE MEETINGS OF AUGUST 31, AND SEPTEMBER 14, 2005
Smith sought approval of the Minutes of the Meetings of August 31 and September 14, 2005, by e-mail, from the 2004-05 Council members. Minor corrections were made and both sets of Minutes were approved.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF OCTOBER 5, 2005
Paskett moved approval of the minutes of the Meeting of October 5, 2005. McMahon seconded the motion, and the Minutes were approved unanimously.
COMMENTS FROM THE VICE CHAIR – PROFESSOR W. RANDY SMITH
• he met with Professor R. Jeff Caswell, School of Public Health, to discuss revisions to the proposal to establish an undergraduate minor in the School of Public Health, and they will now meet with Professor Edward H. Adelson, Associate Executive Dean, and Jennifer Lando, Director, Curriculum Office, Colleges of the Arts and Sciences for additional input.
• he and Professor Linda Harlow, Associate Provost and Director, University Honors and Scholars Center, met with the Faculty Council on October 6, 2005, to discuss the proposal for official academic center status for the Center – as approved by Council on May 4, 2005. Faculty Council members were supportive of the proposal although there was some discussion of why it should not seek college status. Smith and Harlow will now meet with the Senate Steering Committee on October 21, 2005. The proposal is then scheduled to go to the University Senate for action on November 10, 2005.
• At the May 18, 2005 Council meeting, Halasek as Chair of Subcommittee B, had provided Council members with an overview of proposed action on the proposal to Merge the School of Public Policy and Management with the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy. The proposal will be on the agenda of a forthcoming meeting of Faculty Council, where an advisory vote will be taken, and then, with that information, this Council can take action.
• a proposal to Establish a Department of Urology from the College of Medicine and Public Health has been received.
• he has established three ad hoc committees to address issues relating to: a possible interdisciplinary major in social studies; the need for an oversight committee for literacy studies; and issues/problems relating to double majors, dual degrees, and minors. Meetings have been set for each of these groups.
• the proposal to rename the Center for Excellence in Manufacturing Management to the Center for Operational Excellence was reviewed at the October 5, 2005, meeting. Approval was delayed pending letters of concurrence. Letters have been solicited. The proposal will now be on the agenda for the November 2, 2005, Council meeting.
ANNUAL UPDATE ON THE STUDENT EVALUATION OF INSTRUCTION (SEI) – PROFESSOR KATHERINE MEYER, FACULTY FELLOW, OFFICE OF UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
Meyer said the SEI Oversight Committee recently has addressed two main issues:
1. student requests for access to SEI information. Responses are a matter of public record, but the Committee has to determine how best to make that information available. Students should find the information useful, but sorting it appropriately is a laborious process.
2. an electronic version of the SEI. A pilot study was done in Autumn 2004 with several large academic units.
The Committee has worked on the “textbox” response shown in the e-version as well as the paper version to address issues with it. There is also concern about how an e-version might lead to the need for a revision to the Patterns of Administration in the academic units. The results of the e-version can be sent directly to the departments to handle as they wish. The paper responses go directly to the instructors. There is always concern over use of these evaluations at promotion and tenure reviews. Most departments liked the e-version, but wanted to make some adaptations.
Many believe that the paper SEI is costly and requires hiring an administrator to handle it. Students occasionally express discomfort with the written forms and leaving them in an envelope at specific locations. However, there was a decrease in the response rate when the e-version was used. This year the Committee will decide which approach to take.
Council Discussion:
• Students have every reason to have access to this information, but there are problems. The SEI was clearly designed to be a Promotion and Tenure instrument. It seems we could make this information available to the Undergraduate Student Government in a somewhat separate format, without reliance on the use of the mean score. It would be far better to do this than have them create their own. Students deserve to have a means to seek out good instructors. Meyers said the Committee has been trying to determine exactly what students want from these data.
• There was then considerable discussion of: just how the data, in whatever format, would be made available to students; the role of the SEI in the evaluation of Graduate Teaching Associates (GTAs), some of whom have full-responsibility teaching and would have their own SEI results, while others are assisting faculty; and the extent to which SRI response rates will vary if there is a shift to an e-version.
• Council members noted that we have to be concerned with the integrity of this instrument, and the fact that other forms of evaluation can be and are being used. With regard to use for promotion and tenure, SEI results show that the vast majority of faculty are clustered in the same range of scores. It is the extreme cases (say the top 10% or lowest 10%) who need attention.
Garland said that various factors affect a positive outcome. Class size can affect responses - larger classes receive lower scores. Required classes, such as those in the General Education Curriculum, often get lower scores.
Garland also mentioned that students can access another website, the Office of Faculty and TA Development website, that lists instructors who have won teaching awards, etc. Students can turn to it for information. Paskett said that students often learn from other students who are the best teachers.
Asked if something was done to entice students to turn in the SEI, Garland said that they tried a lottery incentive without much success. What does help, is when an instructor asks for students’ help in evaluating his/her teaching skills. Indeed scores are higher when this is done. Another approach is to withhold grades until the evaluation forms are submitted. Yale University does this. Brad Myers, University Registrar, noted that this is more difficult to achieve due to time constraints in the Registrar’s Office. There are practical problems in withholding grades at the final examination period. Nonetheless, Council members thought that this issue should be revisited.
It was agreed that given that Gunther and Smith are members of the SEI Oversight Committee, issues raised at this Council meeting could be taken to it. Ransburgh will interact with Gunther and Smith with ideas that she had expressed.
DISCUSSION OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE EDUCATION: PART I-FINANCIAL AND INTERNAL PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS - PROFESSOR RICHARD FREEMAN, DEAN, COLLEGE OF MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES
The charge to the Committee had been to assess the quality and funding of doctoral programs and make recommendations to the Provost. The Committee made short-term and long-term recommendations for meeting the goals of the Academic Plan; ensuring quality programs; providing oversight; and funding programs. They recommended implementing a set of metrics to measure the graduate programs, and to implement a sustainable funding model that aligned with state subsidies, one that is based on quality and graduation success, rather than credit hours, and one that assesses the processes for funding of fee authorizations, and waivers. The current budget model is suited for funding of undergraduate programs, but it is clear that it has had a negative effect on the funding of graduate programs.
The undergraduate programs have one distinct difference. Student admissions are centrally controlled. This is not the case with the graduate programs. There is no central authority assessing the quality of the programs, the funding of programs, and the subsidy to students. Each department does its own admission of students, and sets its own standards, with no university-wide oversight. The result is that there are good programs and weak programs sharing the same pool of funds. The poor programs admit more students and use more of the funds, leaving less for quality programs. There are many more Masters’ programs, than Ph.D. programs, and many students who are taking more than the required 50 credit hours for a Masters degree, and then draw on the subsidies of the doctoral students.
Freeman said that the Committee ran a pilot study and found that it was much more difficult to evaluate the graduate programs than imagined. It collected data from 2004-05 from selected departments. Results of the pilot study will be available in mid-February, 2006. They believe that the best indicator would be where the programs place their students. Monitoring will be a continuous process. The Committee is working to make information available in a sharable database, and asking the units to list the metrics that apply in their field(s). Freeman noted that this approach is very much aligned with what the Ohio Board of Regents is expecting of institutions.
The idea is to have a careful survey of the Masters programs, simplify the admissions standards, and assure quality standards within the current budget model. In the last ten years little attention was given to where the funding was coming from and where it was going. The recommendations will require that departments carefully choose their students with the expectation that they will graduate.
Council Discussion
• Is there a way to increase the number of admissions of PhD students? We need to build in oversight. We need to identify terminal Masters’ programs and tagged programs and those who go on to a PhD program. Some ask why we do not go to the Regents and ask them to change current funding practice. There is much that we could/should be doing ourselves. For an institution of our faculty size, we are not producing enough Ph.D.s.
• We need to have quality programs, so that we can look at those that are incapable of supporting themselves through student fees. Once we get continuity and quality in our programs, then we can see which programs need our support. We cannot continue to fund on a credit-hour formula based on enrollment. Another distortion is the graduate fee waiver. This is not a fee waiver. This is real money. Often we have to add our own resources. The plan is to revisit our graduate programs, but the time frame has not been determined.
• The numbers show that the PharmD program is in the Board of Regents’ formula for the next couple of years. Does that include the College of Pharmacy’s Master’s and Ph.D. programs as well? It does not include the PhD program. Is there any assumption as far as what might happen with the subsidies when the PharmD program does drop out? There will be a very small impact probably, but the Committee did not analyze that.
• How are other benchmark institutions doing? Are they currently following another admissions model? Freeman commented on his experiences at the University of California, where he reported directly to the Graduate Dean and to the dean of his college. Many institutions put a great deal more emphasis on control of graduate education - more than we do.
• Giving the Graduate School authority over the admission of doctoral students is a good idea, but implementation will be a major issue, mainly because the Graduate School currently is not prepared to do it. Freeman commented that his Committee did not address implementation issues because another committee had been appointed to do so.
• Would/should we be looking at a graduate GPA or an undergraduate GPA? Should there be variations in admission standards? Freeman said that we should not be trying to replace one set of rules with another set. There is no substitute for people in authority having the best interests of the institution in mind, and having the best procedures in place. You cannot make up a set of rules to do that. However, the Graduate School currently processes a large number of “referrals” for applicants who not meet current GPA expectations.
• How will this affect the funding of graduate research associates (GRAs)? We want to have students supported by the faculty. The policy had been to take the salary out as a line item. Getting solid information on this is important. There are some who believe that the University “owes” our graduate students support, but that is not always the case.
The Committee’s long-term recommendations require tuition to be directly charged on external grants and contracts for all GRA appointments – does that assume that all GRAs are paid on external grants? Graduate students are an important part of a research institution, but most professors have access to external support. So where it is appropriate, we want students to be supported by faculty who have external funds - especially with large grants.
Paskett asked whether this would require a professor to include a line item on a grant to cover tuition? Freeman indicated that some colleges do so. Paskett noted that for some funding agencies, and thus some parts of the University, this would not be appropriate. Such new rules cannot be applied across the board. Freeman noted that this is explained in more detail in the Report. There could be exceptions if a good case is made for it, but for those who make substantial funding they should be responsible for the graduate students. Getting good solid information on which to base these decisions about exemptions is an important step.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00pm.
Respectfully submitted,
W. Randy Smith
Joyce Rankin
