What: State of Academic Affairs presentation for University Senate
When: January 12, 2006, 3:30 p.m.
Location: 130 Drinko Hall
Making a Choice, Making a Mark:
Impact and Excellence at Ohio State
Good afternoon. I am honored that the University Senate has invited me to address its membership on the State of Academic Affairs.
Seeing all of you here today reminds me of a lesson I learned at a faculty meeting I attended many years ago as a young professor. A genie suddenly appeared at that meeting and told the dean that, in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, he would be rewarded with his choice of infinite wealth, infinite wisdom, or infinite good looks.
Without hesitating, the dean selected infinite wisdom. "Done!" said the genie, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
All heads turned towards the dean, and at length, one of his colleagues whispered, "Say something." There was an audible sigh from the dean, now possessed of infinite wisdom. Then he said, "I should have taken the money."
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It’s all about choices, isn’t it! In my time with you today, I want to report on how Ohio State is making choices to make its mark as a great teaching and research institution.
In point of fact, we’re making that mark. As President Holbrook reported in the fall, the National Science Foundation now ranks Ohio State among the nation’s top 10 public research universities, based on our record level of funded research, and U.S. News and World Report has once again identified OSU as one of the nation’s best public institutions.
This is immensely gratifying for me, since one of my paramount charges as provost is to protect and promote the academic reputation of our institution.
To be sure, I have many wonderful partners in that effort. I am energized everyday by my work with Ohio State’s faculty, staff, and student leaders; my colleagues in the Office of Academic Affairs and on the President’s Cabinet; our deans—of course!; our staunch advocates on the Board of Trustees; and, certainly, the members of this University Senate.
Together, and under the superb leadership of President Karen Holbrook, we are further defining Ohio State as a place of high achievement and high integrity, of good will and good sense. Examples of how we’re doing that abound. Let me cite just one from our undergraduate landscape.
We have talked often over the last 2 years about our Honors Program, but you might not know as much about its companion endeavor, our Scholars Program. Scholars is another of Ohio State’s communities for academically motivated students—and one of our most successful tools for recruiting them.
Our 12 Scholars programs provide students with international study opportunities and programming geared to the shared interest of the group. The Scholars Program also engages students in activities that take learning into the community.
The students in our Politics, Society, and Law Scholars Program assist at political party headquarters and environmental agencies. Our Arts Scholars volunteer in the Children of the Future after-school arts program. The community experiences of one Humanities Scholar enabled him to see that the “humanities are about giving back—and about bridging the gaps of culture, languages, and shared histories.”
This, I think, is Ohio State at its best. Through the Scholars Program, we are teaching students in rich and innovative ways; we are opening their eyes to the fascination of focused study; and when we serve the community, we instill in them the imperative to do likewise.
The Scholars initiative is making a mark—exemplifying Ohio State’s commitment to teaching, scholarship, and service, while expanding each of those horizons for its participants. The same could be said of programs throughout the university, in areas from dance to landscape architecture to medicine. And because we are making a mark in areas like these and more, Ohio State’s academic reputation has never been stronger.
Our reputation will be enhanced, moreover, by choices that we’re making this year—and by the marks we expect to make in return. I want to use my time with you today to talk about those choices. I’ll do that by reporting on three fronts. First, I’ll brief you on our senior academic appointments since last year. Then, I’ll give you an update on last year’s key academic initiatives. Finally, I want to discuss this year’s three priorities of the Office of Academic Affairs.
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Since last January, we have appointed four deans. Jackie Royster, who served us so well last year in an interim capacity, was named Executive Dean of Arts and Sciences. David Andrews, Dean of the College of Human Ecology, agreed to wear two hats and serve also as Interim Dean of the College of Education. Bill Meezan joined us from the University of Michigan to lead our College of Social Work. Tom Rosol, professor of veterinary biosciences and formerly senior associate vice president for research, became Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine.
In addition, Carole Anderson, our Vice Provost for Academic Policy and Faculty Resources, is now also Interim Dean of the Graduate School. Matt Platz, Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry and former chair of the department, has accepted an appointment as Provost’s Faculty Fellow. In that capacity he assists with day-to-day operations of the office of the Vice Provost for Academic Policy and Faculty Resources.
It’s an honor to welcome these academic leaders to their new positions.
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Let me now turn to last year’s key academic initiatives. I’ll begin with our Honors Program.
When I appeared before you last year, I noted that both internal and external reviews had recommended academic center status for the program. I’m pleased to report that the University Senate approved that recommendation in November, as did the Board of Trustees just last month. Academic center status will bring two important refinements to the Honors and Scholars Program.
First, it will provide for university-wide coordination of Honors course requirements and expectations. All Honors students will now be required to take at least six Honors or 500-level courses in their first two years.
Honors students will also have to maintain a minimum GPA of 3.4 and will be monitored for their progress towards completion of an approved college Honors program. These new requirements will be implemented with the entering class of 2006.
The other key refinement brought about by academic center status is that the Honors and Scholars Program will now be subject to regular reviews. Such reviews will provide the program with fresh insights and direction in delivering a vibrant and challenging experience to our Honors and Scholars students.
In another of last year’s efforts to respond to the needs of our undergraduates, we drew Athletics more closely into the academic ambit of the university by making Student Athlete Support Services (or SASSO) a part of the Office of Academic Affairs. This has enabled us to weave the academic advising of our student athletes into their athletic eligibility advising.
This transition has taken place with on-going input from the coaches, the University Senate Athletic Council, and student athletes themselves. It has given us the opportunity to name David Graham as new SASSO director. David comes to us from Miami University, where for the last 7 years he was assistant director and then director of student athlete academic support services and learning programs. David brings us considerable leadership experience as SASSO director, and I’m delighted he’s agreed to serve in that capacity.
One of the most important undergraduate initiatives we undertook last year was the establishment of the Undergraduate Research Office. This office is a one-stop shop where students can find information on department and college research opportunities, on venues for presenting their work and resources for supporting it, on how to connect with faculty engaged in their area of research interest, and on how to get involved in research in the first place.
By ensuring that every student at Ohio State has the opportunity for a significant research experience, the Undergraduate Research Office will allow us to infuse undergraduate education with the atmosphere of a Research I university.
The office is located in Page Hall, where it hosted a terrific opening celebration just two days ago. As I said at the open house, its future is especially bright because Professor Allison Snow of the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology has agreed to serve as its director. I’m simply delighted that a faculty member of Allison’s caliber is at the helm of this vital and promising initiative.
And this brings me to the most sweeping of our undergraduate efforts of last year, the university-wide review of undergraduate education. We launched the review in late 2004 to ensure that our General Education Curriculum meets the needs of the students we’re serving today.
Ohio State’s undergraduate population, as you know, is an increasingly impressive group. Our incoming freshmen have been better prepared for each of the last 11 years. And they come to Ohio State with higher aspirations for themselves and keener expectations of us. These higher ability, wider destination students, however, have been complying with a GEC that has not been comprehensively altered since 1988.
On behalf of a growing chorus of student voices, the leaders of our undergraduate student government called for a review of the GEC. Another imperative for such a review is that Ohio State will undergo reaccreditation in 2007, and undergraduate education is an important element of the reaccreditation process.
For these reasons, in December 2004, I appointed a Committee on the University-Wide Review of Undergraduate Education. The group was broadly representative of the academic areas most involved in undergraduate education. The committee was asked to take a look at all aspects of undergraduate education at Ohio State, especially in light of the enhanced preparation level of our undergraduates—and of the increasingly better prepared students we will recruit in years to come. It was asked to pay special attention to the General Education Curriculum, the number of credit hours required for graduation, and how well our undergraduate programs reflect our commitments to diversity, interdisciplinarity, research, and outreach.
Under the able leadership of Distinguished Humanities Professor Brian McHale from the Department of English, and with input from across the campus, the committee worked rigorously on that charge. It has proposed a number of bold recommendations to make the GEC more appropriate for today’s better prepared student body.
These recommendations include encouraging minors and double majors; offering freshman clusters, which are interdisciplinary three-course sequences organized around a broad theme; allowing minors, double majors, study abroad, and research experiences to satisfy some GEC requirements; creating an oversight committee that reports to the Council on Academic Affairs; and reorganizing the current course category structure.
The committee also proposed reducing from 191 to 180 the number of credit hours required for graduation. This will bring Ohio State more in line with institutions across the country. If the recommendations of the report are implemented, we would also see a 25% decrease in the number of credit hours in the GEC.
These suggestions are intended to eliminate the random choices that today’s GEC can encourage and, instead, build coherence across a spectrum of courses, while allowing students more opportunities to choose electives in areas of interest to them.
I have asked the university community to review the McHale report and provide me with reactions by March 15th. At the beginning of spring quarter, I will make a full report to the Council on Academic Affairs. I will ask that the Council’s formal response to the McHale Committee’s recommendations be sent to the University Senate for action during fall quarter 2006 so that implementation may begin with the class entering in fall, 2007. Though the seeds of this initiative were sown in 2004, curricular reform has grown into one of this year’s three academic priorities.
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Another initiative begun in 2004—a review of graduate education—has likewise become a key academic priority for this year.
The aims of our Academic Plan all point to one overarching goal: we want Ohio State to be the premier public land-grant research university in the nation.
If we are to achieve that status, the quality of our graduate education cannot be merely excellent; it must be exemplary. For that reason, in June 2004, I convened a committee of deans and asked it to recommend metrics for assessing the quality of doctoral programs. I also asked the committee to propose a funding model that would align state subsidy with quality.
Chaired by Rick Freeman, Dean of the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, the committee found that our 100 doctoral programs differ greatly in quality, admission requirements, and enrollment controls. It also found that the current fiscal model for distributing the doctoral subsidy is not the best way to support quality. Because our current model is based completely on credit hours generated, there is a financial disincentive for a unit to reduce or hold constant its number of students—even though that may be one way to improve its graduate program. And because the doctoral subsidy is fixed, any increase in headcount results in a reduction of the subsidy in every program across the university.
The Freeman Committee issued the first part of its final report last summer. Its findings were supported by the Senate Fiscal Committee. Both groups have urged that we substantially overhaul our fiscal model for supporting doctoral education. They recommend a new internal funding formula based to a greater extent on quality rather than just on credit hours. Both committees also recommend that doctoral programs be assessed on a regular cycle.
These findings, together with the university community’s reactions to the Freeman report, will help inform our decisions about how we enhance our doctoral programs. The past decade’s focus on our undergraduate population and programs has yielded significant results. We can make a mark in graduate education, too, and are taking still other steps to ensure that that happens. For example, several departments are participating in a study of Ph.D. completion rates sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and funded by the Ford Foundation. The data that emerge will help us examine the quality of our doctoral programs.
Then, starting this autumn, the National Research Council will launch a study of graduate programs throughout the country. The results of this study will enable us to compare our graduate programs with those of comparable institutions nation-wide.
In addition, as part of our normal review cycle, we’re undertaking graduate program reviews throughout the university. Information gleaned from these reviews will enable colleges and departments to make more informed decisions about program and student quality—and about how to move forward in a more strategic way.
We are also taking a candid look at the Graduate School itself. Last March I charged a committee chaired by Paul Beck, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, with an in-depth review of its structure and functions.
The committee has submitted the first part of its report, which pertains to the optimal structure of the school. The committee finds no compelling reason to alter the present arrangement, whereby a dean of the Graduate School oversees graduate studies and reports to the provost. Accordingly, we are launching a nationwide search for a new dean of the Graduate School.
Meanwhile, the Beck committee is continuing to review the functions of the Graduate School.
By the end of this month, it expects to make recommendations on how the school can best support a top-notch graduate experience.
I want to be clear. None of this is to suggest that all our doctoral programs are in disarray, or that the general quality of what Ohio State offers its graduate students is wanting. As you know, many of our graduate programs are top-ranked. Geography, linguistics, industrial and systems engineering, political science, psychology, chemistry, physics—these are only a few of our outstanding nationally-ranked doctoral programs.
But we can do better … we must do better if we are to become the premier public land-grant research university in the country. That is why graduate education is one of our key academic priorities for this year.
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Becoming the Number One public land-grant research university is also the stimulus behind the targeted investments in excellence initiative, which is the third of this year’s key academic priorities.
This initiative was born at the 2005 Leadership Retreat, where we reviewed progress to date on the Academic Plan. As part of that review, we compared ourselves to every public institution ranked above us and examined the differences between us and them.
Why were they where they were, and why was Ohio State not at their level? We learned that, of the public research universities with U.S. News peer assessment scores higher than ours, all had top-flight programs in such core areas as English, economics, chemistry, and psychology.
What became clear was that Ohio State’s ability to go to the next level is tied directly to the reputations of individual colleges, departments, and programs.
With that in mind, last fall I asked every college to identify which of its programs or departments were most likely to move to the top of their respective fields and have a significant impact on the university’s academic stature. I also asked the colleges to develop plans that would enable these programs and departments to move to the top of their fields.
Thanks to Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Bill Shkurti, we’ve managed to identify $50 million in central funding over the next five years to invest in these high visibility programs that will advance the university’s academic standing. That total includes mostly one-time and some continuing funds. We have also set aside additional monies for lines of credit to provide short-term funds for investment. We know that these resources are not sufficient to allow us to invest in every college. In fact, we anticipate that only a handful of programs will receive central funding.
Moreover, we’re expecting colleges to implement their plans irrespective of whether they receive central funding. The purpose of the central funds is to allow colleges to implement their plans faster, at a higher level, or on a broader scale.
The colleges’ plans will be presented at the Leadership Retreat next week. In selecting the programs that will receive these special investments, I’ll seek the advice of the President’s Cabinet, Council of Deans, the President’s and Provost’s Advisory Committee, Senate Steering, and other Senate committees, as appropriate. I want to have the evaluation phase completed and investment decisions announced by the end of spring quarter. In this way, funds for the first year should become available by July 1, 2006.
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Well, that’s a mile-high overview of our three key academic priorities for this academic year: the undergraduate curriculum, a review of graduate education, and the targeted investments in excellence program.
As you can see, Ohio State is making choices in order to make a mark. That’s why we’re talking about programs of such excellence that they can achieve world-wide recognition, and of such impact that they will have a durable effect on the university’s academic stature.
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Before I close, there are two other front-burner issues that I’d like to mention.
As I noted a bit earlier, a major academic moment will arrive in 2007, when we participate in the reaccreditation review by the North Central Association.
We must show that we meet core criteria in such areas as student learning and effective teaching; the acquisition, discovery, and application of knowledge; and preparing for the future. We’re already preparing for this once-per-decade process.
Over the next 12 months relevant information from faculty, staff, students, and administrators will be collected and analyzed and then shared with an external evaluation team that will visit the campus in spring 2007.
While here, this group will conduct interviews with all members of the university community. In addition, as part of the reaccreditation process, we have asked to do a focused study of graduate and professional education. The site visit team can then assist us by acting as consultants in this special focus area.
I’m happy to report that our reaccreditation effort is in the capable hands of Vice Provost Randy Smith, who as a Faculty Fellow led our last reaccreditation in 1997. We are fortunate to be able to call on his leadership as well as that of Faculty Fellow Stephanie Davidson, Associate Professor of Speech and Hearing, who is coordinating the collection of information.
The other major news item that I want to share with you in closing is some good news on the compensation front. We have made significant progress in bringing faculty salaries in line with those at our benchmark institutions. That has happened because over the last five years, Ohio State’s faculty salary increases were more than 50 per cent greater than the average raise at our benchmarks. As a result, we now rank 13th for faculty salaries among U.S. News and World Report’s Top 25 Public Institutions.
Our staff members are being better served, too, thanks to our investments in salary competitiveness, benefits, and work/life programs.
In addition, Ohio State is continuing to improve compensation and benefits for funded graduate and professional students.
Last year, the Graduate Associate Compensation and Benefits Committee was created as a permanent committee of the University Senate. And effective this year, we’re sponsoring 75% of our graduate associates’ cost of health insurance and 50% for their eligible dependents. This is a significant statement, given that we provided no sponsorship at all just a few years ago. A program was also implemented to provide for paid parental leave and other absences for personal and medical reasons.
Over the past few years we’ve clearly made some major strides on the compensation and benefits front. That said, more work remains to be done. Eleven of our 19 colleges are still below the average of their benchmark institutions, and staff salaries are below the averages of the large public and private employers with which we compete for many staff positions.
To address such issues, I’ve asked Larry Lewellen to facilitate recommendations from the Deans and our faculty, staff, and GA governance groups on new compensation targets.
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For the past 20 minutes or so, you’ve joined me, first, in looking at the state of academic affairs over the last 12 months, and then, in looking at what lies ahead. Remember my story about the genie and the dean, who made a tough choice, then realized in retrospect that he should have made the other one?
With your help and that of colleagues throughout the university, even if they’re sometimes tough choices, we’re doing our best to make the right choices.
How to shape Ohio State’s undergraduate education into the most effective in the country. How to strengthen graduate education. How to target our limited central investments in the most strategic way possible.
As we make choices like these, we will make a mark—for our students, our faculty and staff, and those in the community who depend on our expertise. And that is what will propel Ohio State to the top of the charts as the nation’s premier public land-grant research university.
Thank you.
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I’d now be happy to entertain any questions you might have…and, by the way, the vice provosts and I are visiting every college this year to give you additional opportunities to talk to us about the issues I’ve discussed this afternoon—and whatever else may be on your mind. Questions?