Prepared Remarks
Speech to the University Senate
November 20, 1999
Ed Ray
Executive Vice President and Provost
Ohio State University
University Goals and University Challenges
As a matter of recent custom, the Provost has been called upon to make formal remarks to the Senate each December. As a result of the administrative restructuring and transition last year I first spoke to the Senate in March and I am back in November. You may take some comfort in knowing that this presentation could have been much longer with four more months for reflection. After one year as executive vice president and provost, I am even more enthusiastic about my job than I was at the outset. In part that is due to the fact that I have the good fortune to work for and with Brit Kirwan. Our President is as genuine, compassionate and enthusiastic as his public persona suggests. But, he does have a mathematician’s eye for details, which can keep an executive vice president quite busy.
My enthusiasm stems in part too from the opportunity to work with an extraordinarily talented team of vice presidents, most of whom have already worked together for a number of years. And, I have a group of vice provosts who I suspect could run OAA at least as well without me.
Apart from that solid support, almost every day I meet people who are willing to go out of their way to tell me how I could do my job a lot better. Some of them are even willing to speak loudly, slowly and repeat themselves to make sure that I get their point. I probably have more mentors than anyone else on campus.
Finally, I am enthusiastic about my job because I have never worked with a better group of faculty colleagues, staff and student leaders in my life. I am convinced that one of the greatest challenges I have as provost will be to help you appreciate just how good you are and how much there is to celebrate about this institution. While we strive to establish an expectation of excellence in all that we do, we need to recognize the talent and promise that already exists among us. We need to take greater pride in each other’s successes and trumpet our accomplishments to the communities we serve and the world at large.
During my first year, several changes in major administrative positions have occurred. It is a credit to this institution that we have colleagues of the caliber of Mike Hogan, Dan Sedmak and Keith Alley to serve in interim roles in Humanities, Medicine and Public Health and the Office of Research, while we seek permanent leadership in those areas. And, Daryl Siedentop deserves special thanks for serving for a second year as Interim Dean in the College of Education, while that search continues.
During this past year we have also recruited a number of talented administrators from among our own ranks and from other universities. Lee Tashjian has joined the President’s Cabinet as the Vice President for University Relations. My office has had the good fortune to hire Nancy Rogers as Vice Provost for Academic Administration and Tim Knowles as Vice Provost for Minority Affairs. Joe Branin will join the University in January as the new Director of University Libraries. Dan Farrell has accepted the challenge of defining and focusing the Honors and Scholars Program by serving as the Acting Associate Provost for the program. Judy Fountain has returned to the University to serve as the First Director of The Women’s Place. And, Scott Lissner will join us to serve as our ADA Coordinator. Searches for an open Affirmative Action position and CIO continue.
Not surprisingly, the issues and initiatives that commanded center stage eight months ago are ones that I want to discuss with you today. But, there are two points I want to emphasize as I review specific matters. The first point is that the three most important things we can do to make The Ohio State University a leader among public teaching and research universities are to focus, focus and focus. My second point is that we will succeed to the extent that shared governance is reflected in shared commitment and shared accountability among administrators and faculty. I have not come here today to propose a number of new initiatives for us to launch. Instead, I will focus on fundamental changes that we are beginning to implement. The two major topics that I want to discuss in some detail today are the Academic Plan, and budget restructuring. And, I want to review where matters stand regarding academic restructuring.
The Academic Plan
The draft Academic Plan has been distributed and will be discussed widely over the next month or two before it is finalized. Within this plan, our goals are first and foremost to increase the quality of our academic programs. To do so we must also enhance the student learning experience for all of our students, create a diverse community in the university that will serve as a model for others and pursue outreach and engagement initiatives that define an agenda for a land-grant University in the twenty-first century and demonstrate this University’s importance to the lives of the people of Ohio. The sections of the plan are organized around these four goals along with a discussion of resource strategies to fund them.
The Academic Plan is a statement of purpose for this academic institution. Our primary focus must be on the content, quality, and effectiveness of our academic programs. Stated simply, we must strive for academic excellence. We are a community of faculty, staff and student learners and we share our talents, ideas, inventions and creative works with the communities we serve. Our strategic investments must stimulate the most productive research, and effective learning environment possible. Each element of the Academic Plan must contribute to our academic excellence. When we speak about enhancing the student experience, we are referring to the experiences of our students as learners. When we speak about our goal of a diverse community, we do so because we know that the ability to learn and create for all of us is enriched by being part of a genuinely diverse community. When we speak of outreach and engagement we are referring to an effort to bring the fruits of our study and creative endeavors, as a leading teaching and research university, to address the concerns of the communities we serve.
Within each section of the academic plan there is a set of proposed actions. We will be challenged to make choices regarding the relevance of one action compared to another. We will be challenged to stay focused.
Academic Excellence
With respect to the section of the plan on academic excellence, it is worth noting that we have already begun to make strategic investments that are focused and substantial. In two years we have identified the departments of Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, History, Material Sciences and Engineering, the Neuroscience program, Physics, Political Science, and Psychology for new and redirected funding of up to $1 million in continuing funds in each program. This year we will select up to four more programs for such enhancement. That effort implies investing up to the equivalent of an endowment of $240 million in only 12 of our 107 tenure initiating units. By all standards, this represents a major commitment to focus and to academic excellence. We expect the benefits of these targeted investments to be extended into related areas of knowledge providing positive benefits that are not limited to these programs alone.
Similarly, over the last six years, the Academic Enrichment Program has provided $6.3 million in matching continuing central funds and over $3 million in cash to specific initiatives representing the cash equivalent of almost $130 million in central investment that is matched by college and department funds. If that does not represent focus and commitment to academic excellence, I do not know what does. Selective Investment and Academic Enrichment are two successful and highly competitive programs and they will continue.
The selective investment program brings into focus the relationship between excellence in teaching and research. Over the past several years we have recognized 8 programs for excellence in teaching. These awards are given to an entire department, college or division. So, we have had eight winners of selective investment awards and eight winners of the teaching award. Two of the winners of selective investment awards, Physics and History, also received the department teaching award. Another recipient of the selective investment award, Chemistry, has come close to receiving the teaching award. English has won the teaching award and come close to winning the selective investment award. The College of Law has been close to securing both awards. An expectation of excellence in our academic programs touches all facets of their activity. Our best departments and colleges are good across the board. When we speak of academic excellence we are referring to the integration of quality teaching, research and service within a single program.
We have invested in university-wide, interdisciplinary initiatives too, including the molecular life sciences, public policy and environmental sciences and engineering. And, we need to get on with a comprehensive reorganization of our efforts with respect to international programs.
The international program area has a number of quality elements, but it remains an area for which the whole is less than the sum of the parts at Ohio State. We must begin this year to establish an integrated international program worthy of a leading public University.
Finally, the importance of computer technology to every aspect of our academic activity increases even as we struggle to provide adequate support for technology in the classroom, in the laboratory and on the desktop — central funding and, perhaps, a computing fee will be necessary to meet the learning and information service needs of all of us.
As promised last Spring, I have appointed a committee, the Central Investments Review Committee, chaired by Professor Ruth Charney of the Department of Mathematics to review all of our strategic investment initiatives. The Committee will provide advice on additions, deletions and changes that should be made in our strategic investment programs. The quality of our central investments will be a function of the quality of the proposals submitted. This is not a spectator sport. It is critical that faculty take an active role in developing proposals, helping us in the evaluation process and assuring that promises are kept.
Student Learning Experience
Our efforts to enhance the student learning experience include a number of initiatives such as improved technology to manage registration, advising and financial aid, leadership training through the Mount Program, internships through the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and service learning courses for students. Those efforts also include setting high standards of performance for recruitment, retention and graduation of students at the University. Our performance in recruitment has improved markedly in the last three years. Martha Garland, David Williams, Eric Busch, Jim Mager, Mabel Freeman and others deserve our praise and thanks for their intelligent and caring efforts to recruit and retain students at Ohio State. But our performance with respect to retention and graduation is far from what it should be. I challenge my colleagues, particularly in the Arts and Sciences, to help us move quickly to the direct enrollment of students in majors.
Direct enrollment in majors and faculty advising within fields of expertise will help us improve our retention and graduation rates. Faculty need to take the in-class experience seriously by making sure that GTAs are effective, that discussion sections and lectures are coordinated. Faculty need to continually improve their own teaching including learning new strategies such as team learning, inquiry based service learning, and the effective use of new technology.
I have found the collaboration between the Offices of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs in recent years extremely rewarding and effective. Staff and student leaders have made Orientation, Welcome Week and Homecoming wonderful opportunities for all involved to feel a genuine sense of community. The success that we have had in bringing enriching opportunities for students outside the classroom to center stage has been remarkable. Yet, when I talk to students the one thing they ask repeatedly about is how to get to know faculty outside the classroom. A significant missing ingredient from an effective retention and graduation plan for undergraduates here at Ohio State is faculty involvement outside the classroom. I wish I knew how to make faculty understand and act upon the extraordinary positive impact they can have on the lives of their students.
We began our effort to understand and improve the student learning experience almost five years ago when we commissioned the CUE report, which focused on the undergraduate experience. While there are many similarities among the needs of all student groups, there are particular issues of concern among professional and graduate students that are unique to those groups. The G-QUE and I-QUE reports should be circulated soon for discussion. We are committed to improving the learning experience for all of our students.
Diversity and Community
When I spoke to the Senate last March I indicated that I had asked Dean Carole Anderson and Vice President David Williams to chair a committee with the formidable task of developing a Diversity Plan for Ohio State.
The record on diversity and community on this campus is mixed at best. We have had success in recruiting more women and minority faculty in recent years but much of the gain has been lost to attrition. Individual faculty members live in their departments and colleges and the way they are treated and supported there will help determine if they choose to stay here. Deans, Chairs and faculty need to play an active role in ending the revolving door phenomenon we have experienced. What do faculty do to recruit and mentor new colleagues from diverse backgrounds? There are so few minority and women Chairpersons because representation of women and minorities among senior faculty remain low. Without substantial gains in the representation of women and minorities among our senior faculty and department administrators, we will not find women and minority candidates for leadership positions within colleges and vice presidential areas. The most important signs of progress we could and will look for with respect to diversity among faculty are the representation of women and minorities among senior faculty and department Chairs.
Our experience with respect to minority student recruitment and retention is mixed as well. The numbers of minority students have increased in recent years, particularly relative to the overall student population. But the gaps in retention and graduation rates between minority students and the overall student population remain substantial. We need to be particularly attentive to the retention and graduation rate gaps and the effectiveness of efforts to close them. Deans, Chairs, and faculty should accept much more responsibility to improve the retention and graduation rates of minority students in their programs. Student leaders have shown a genuine commitment to promote a sense of community among students and to help students from diverse backgrounds feel a sense of place here at Ohio State. There is more to be done.
We need to have a broad discussion of the elements of the Diversity Plan. But, there are actions that we should take now. I have asked each of the Deans to provide me with a summary of the faculty positions for which they are recruiting this year. And, I have indicated that we will revisit the subject in the Spring to discuss the outcomes of those searches with a particular interest in our success with respect to diversity. I have also asked Martha Garland to work with Tim Knowles, Jim Mager, David Williams, key Senate Committees and others to provide me with a recruitment and retention to graduation plan for minority undergraduate students this year. The Diversity Plan calls for the university to distribute a report card on our diversity efforts each year. I intend to get the first set of grades out this year, even if the subject matter covered is not as comprehensive as it could be if we waited until next year.
I am also concerned about the way we treat our international students. They represent an incredible source of talent, culture, and enrichment for the University community. Ohio State has the fifth largest international student population in the United States and ranks first among four-year public universities. International students make up 8% of the total student population at the University. We need to identify and address their needs and concerns as full partners in the University community.
Outreach and Engagement
As indicated last March, I asked Vice President and Dean Bobby Moser to lead a team to coordinate our various outreach and engagement efforts.
The outreach and engagement section of the Academic Plan, which reflects that effort, calls for the university to remain active in a number of areas and to undertake new initiatives. Outreach and engagement is not a new activity for the University - a fourth mission. Our traditional involvement in the lives of the people of Ohio through agricultural extension, the performing arts, social, educational, and health services, all remain vital. Our involvement in improving the physical and social environment east of High Street will be critical for the foreseeable future. But, there are other areas of outreach and engagement that need further development. The Science and Technology Campus is just one way in which the fruits of our research and study can find practical applications that can benefit the people of Ohio and beyond. Efforts to license technology and to partner with industries in research are certain to become more important. Our role in providing distance learning opportunities for all of those life long learners out there is certain to expand.
Outreach and engagement has been and remains a fundamental part of the mission of many colleges on this campus. But we need to communicate that more fully and clearly to our external constituencies. We have invested in a small number of University-wide outreach and engagement activities that demonstrate that we can respond to contemporary societal issues. We will continue to support them and monitor their progress.
However, there are few problems facing this nation and Ohio today that concern the public as much as the failures of our educational system at the K-12 level. This is an issue in which we must become more involved. Eighty five percent of our incoming freshman come from the K-12 system in Ohio. What we can expect by way of preparation of incoming students and their ability to persist and graduate is directly related to their K-12 experience.
Colleges and departments need to take a more active role in fostering faculty contributions to address our K-12 problem. The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences can play a particularly important role here. Deans, Chairs, faculty and Senate committee members should address the changes in faculty roles and reward structures that are necessary to support outreach and engagement activities. The relationship between faculty rewards and outreach and engagement efforts should be the immediate focus of our attention if we are serious about enhancing those activities.
Resources
The resource section of the Academic Plan makes it clear that we will have to use our own ingenuity to raise the resources needed to take this University to the next level. We must, of course, continue to press the case that Ohio would be wise to invest more substantially in this great University and we must continue to strongly support real growth in the performance challenge programs. But, we need to develop alternative sources of revenue much more fully than in the past. I have congratulated Jerry May on achieving the $1 billion goal ahead of schedule while working hard to raise funds to meet our collective academic needs and not simply taking the money from wherever it might come. The current campaign stands as a model for future fund raising efforts in that sense.
The Research Commission identified our performance with respect to benchmark institutions in raising external funds for research as a key area for improvement. The Implementation Committee has made many recommendations that are contained in its recent report to the President and me and we look forward to comments on that report. A key element of any plan for greater success in obtaining external research funding is to invest heavily in our faculty, by recruiting new faculty and by developing our current faculty of national academy caliber. A committee will soon be constituted and charged to develop a process by which recruitment efforts could be managed and to provide me with guidelines for recognizing and appropriately supporting outstanding faculty already counted among us. It would be foolish to recruit national academy caliber faculty from outside while driving such faculty who are already here away or, worse still, failing to provide the support that would make it possible for faculty with such talent who are here from developing their full potential. Deans, Chairs and faculty need to consider changes in the reward structure that should be made to assure that we do retain and support the career development of faculty with the potential to attain membership in the national academy or equivalent honors. More generally, as President Kirwan urged in his Senate speech, Deans, Chairs and faculty need to change the reward structure at the college and department level to assure that all of our faculty are most effectively engaged in teaching, research and service over the course of their careers and appropriately recognized for their contributions.
Budget Restructuring
Implementation of the Academic Plan will occur while we will be implementing a new budget process. Let me address this parallel process.
Bill Shkurti and I distributed a document earlier this week that is
simply titled University Goals and Resource Allocation. That document represents our attempt to respond to the advice that we received in response to Budget Restructuring VIII. We provide a summary statement of the budget process that we believe should be implemented by the University. The name attached to the document is intended to reflect our focus on developing a budget process that supports the attainment of the goals outlined by the President. Based on the feed back we obtain from the Deans, Chairs, the Senate and other quarters, we will revise the document and recommend implementation to President Kirwan in the Spring.
In truth the real benefit of changes in the budget process will come from the positive incentives that colleges and departments will have to provide new programs, create new courses, reduce closed course problems, collaborate with industry partners, expand federally funded research activity and undertake other initiatives. With a new budget process in place, revenue generated by such activities as offering more classes to students closed out of courses and creating new majors that meet student career aspirations will be used to provide direct financial support for the programs that create them.
Concerns about market driven or formula driven budget decisions will not be dismissed. The new budget process will not be mechanical. It will allow ample opportunity for the Provost to consult with the Deans to make certain that college budget allocations are determined in part by the extent to which college and department policies and practices reflect institutional values and support institutional goals.
We will always have fewer resources to invest than we could invest productively at the University. If we are to be successful in advancing the quality of our academic programs, we must make choices about where to invest our collective resources. And, that includes choosing which programs will be supported financially by the university and which ones will provide net funds to the rest of the University. We have said that the core of this University is the Arts and Sciences, Business, Medicine, Law and Engineering. Other colleges, including Education and Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, are unique within the state and/or serve historically important roles in the state of Ohio. Over time, new areas of study, such as food science and technology, functional genomics and informatics, the use of technology in contemporary arts, and nutraceuticals will become increasingly important and may need support from the University beyond their revenue raising capacity. I know that there are people here who believe that we should not be explicit about priorities. But, if we fail to establish priorities we will lose our focus and squander our resources. At the same time, I recognize that if we are rigid in our definition of priorities over time we will be competing against the past rather than positioning ourselves for the future.
As I have indicated on more than one occasion, I know of no university that has successfully implemented an explicit re-basing of existing budgets as part of a shift to a new budget process. The Senate Ad Hoc Oversight Committee on Budget Restructuring supported the use of judgement on the part of the Provost in setting budgets rather than a reliance on formulas and urged the Provost not to back away from an effort to re-base budgets. The question for me is not whether or not I should make those decisions but how Deans, Chairs, faculty and alumni who may disagree may respond. My political instincts tell me that some of those who feel disadvantaged by the new budget process may try to stop it by raising procedural issues after the fact. If we are serious about a desire to see budgets rationalized, we will have to support some changes in existing budgets. The ability of our system of shared governance to accept shared responsibility will be tested by the need to constructively address these potential conflicts as they arise.
To continue the dialogue, I have asked Senior Vice Provost Alayne Parson to meet with individual Deans to discuss the indicators of centrality and quality that the Deans believe should be considered in setting base budgets for each of the colleges. I will begin a discussion with each Dean by the beginning of Winter Quarter. Decisions on whether it would be appropriate to increase, or decrease current subsidies/taxes to individual colleges will be based on the sources and uses of funds for the University and the performance and role of each college in the University. Decisions about base budgets will be made during Spring Quarter.
All colleges will be provided with shadow budgets for FY01 and there may be pilot projects in specific colleges during FY01. Plans for the implementation of base budget adjustments will be finalized on a case by case basis during Winter Quarter 2001 so that we can begin implementation during FY02, when the new budget process goes into effect throughout the University. College plans should detail their strategies for adjusting to budget changes over time and should indicate the impact of those changes at the individual department, school, center and division level. Furthermore, college plans will be expected to detail how new revenues will be distributed within the college, with the expectation that distributions within colleges will reflect budget processes that are compatible with the overall budget approach of the University. The adjustment of college budgets will be phased in over two or three years.
Academic Structures
Academic Structures
Last March, I argued that we needed to assess whether the array of colleges and composition of individual colleges will serve us as well in the next 30 years as they have for the last 30 years. It is difficult to cross college boundaries to do the interdisciplinary work that creates new disciplines. It is important to configure colleges, however many there are, to maximize the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration. I called on the leadership of the Senate to develop rules of engagement for changing the composition and number of colleges in the University. It is my understanding that a genuine effort is being made to bring such legislation forward. Without the enabling legislation, the responsibility of the Council on Academic Affairs to review the structure of the academic enterprise every five years is moot.
A second barrier to reorganizing the academic units that has become clearer to me in recent months is the determination of accrediting associations to dictate academic reporting lines to the universities they serve. This is a real barrier to structural change.
The experience with the elimination of the Department of Photography and Cinema in the College of the Arts in the early 1990s and department merges in the mid-1990s reflected how difficult it is to change academic boundaries. So, the lack of enabling legislation, accreditation issues, and evidence from recent history do not suggest that change will come easily. But, substantive changes in the configuration of our academic units can occur if we accept a shared responsibility for such a task.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by noting again that I have not proposed numerous new initiatives for us to launch. We are beginning to implement fundamental changes that have been discussed for a number of years. Talking about changes is easy: implementing them is not. It is time for our actions to begin to match our rhetoric.
I have limited my discussion to the elements of the Academic Plan, budget restructuring and academic structure since these are the most critical issues at hand. In each area I have suggested issues that should command more immediate attention compared to others. And, I have noted our shared responsibility for progress in these areas. We have some formidable challenges ahead of us if we are serious about making this wonderful institution an even greater asset to the people and the state of Ohio and one of national and international stature. I genuinely look forward to working with you to see just how much we can accomplish together.
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