Provost Barbara R. Snyder
State of Academic Affairs Address
University Senate
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Good afternoon. I am honored to address the members of the University Senate today on the State of Academic Affairs.
Since I spoke to you last January, I have been given the exceptional opportunity of serving in the permanent position of provost, and I can tell you that it is an incredible journey packed with challenges and surprises on a daily and sometimes even on an hourly basis!
I am proud to work with colleagues across the university who believe in the mission of this institution and work every day to make it a great place of learning and discovery. Not only my colleagues in the Office of Academic Affairs – without whom I couldn’t get through the day, much less the year – but also the faculty, staff, and student leaders who bring tremendous dedication, intelligence, and energy to their roles; the best group of deans in the country; the members of the President’s Cabinet who join me every Wednesday morning to give the President our best advice; the trustees who provide support and advocacy for our university; and our President, Karen Holbrook, whose leadership is making a difference on our campus, in the Columbus community, in the state, and in national organizations such as AAU, ACE, NASULGC, the Business-Higher Education Forum, and the National Merit Scholarship Board.
One of things I enjoy most about my job is that I have many opportunities to celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our students, faculty and staff. A little more than a year ago, at a reception in Bricker Hall, we had the honor of hosting the members of the Buckeye Bullet Racing Team. The Buckeye Bullet is a 31-foot long electric racing car built entirely by Ohio State engineering students. We were celebrating because the team had just set the 2003 national land speed record for an electric vehicle of 257 miles per hour. In October, as I hope you know from the osu.edu splash page, the Buckeye Bullet did it again, achieving the phenomenal speed of 315 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
The team took this project from a napkin drawing to a record-breaking reality in just four years. That might be accomplishment enough, but it’s not the end of the story. With about $2.7 million from corporate sponsors, including Honda and Toyota, the team is looking to add marketing, accounting, and journalism majors to its ranks to handle the business and publicity aspects of the project.
I mention the Buckeye Bullet Racing Team because it exemplifies the best about Ohio State: dedication, innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, focus on the goal, and the desire to be the best. This is an instructive metaphor for all of us working to achieve Ohio State’s goal of becoming one of the world’s top public research universities.
To focus our efforts and guide our resource allocation decisions, President Holbrook has brought together administrators and faculty, staff and student leaders to set priorities under the Academic Plan. The result of that process is the Leadership Agenda, which she brought to you at the November Senate meeting. Most of the initiatives I will be discussing spring directly from the Leadership Agenda.
In the time I have with you today, I want to do three things: mention some of the key academic appointments we have made since last year, give an update on the initiatives I discussed in my speech last year, and then discuss the four major initiatives of the Office of Academic Affairs for this year.
Key Academic Appointments
Since last January, we appointed four new deans on the Columbus campus. Bud Baeslack returned to Ohio State from R.P.I. to lead the College of Engineering; Paul Beck, formerly chair of our highly ranked Department of Political Science, became dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; we recruited Mel Shipp from the University of Alabama-Birmingham to lead the College of Optometry; and John Roberts, after serving in several administrative roles including department chair, associate dean, and interim dean, became dean of the College of Humanties. And Jackie Royster agreed to serve as interim executive dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. Last week we announced the appointment of Bill Meezan from the University of Michigan to replace retiring dean Tony Tripodi at the College of Social Work.
We made two appointments on our regional campuses: Bill MacDonald became dean and director of the Newark campus and Greg Rose assumed that role on the Marion campus.
We recently appointed Deb Ballam, professor in the Department of Finance at the Fisher College of Business, as associate provost for women’s policy initiatives and director of The Women’s Place, and Mike Sherman, professor and director of the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services, as vice provost for academic administration.
It is an honor to welcome each of these academic leaders to their new positions.
Update on 2003-04 Initiatives
Let me now give you an update on the issues and initiatives I discussed with you last year.
First, competitive compensation for faculty and staff will continue to be a high priority. Staff salaries increased by an average of 3.9 percent and our average faculty salary increased 3.7 percent through the annual raise process. Once we include other increases, such as those for promotions, we expect that the average faculty salary will have increased by more than 4 percent. We don’t yet have average salary information from our benchmark peers, but we believe that our average faculty salary will be within one percent of the average of the benchmark group. Although reaching the benchmark average will be an important sign of progress, we will need to go beyond the average if we are to recruit and retain the best faculty and staff. We will be sharing more information as it becomes available.
Last year at this time the research faculty track was just a proposal. This initiative, which was one of the top priorities in last year’s Leadership Agenda, was a joint effort by the University Senate, the Office of Research, and the Office of Academic Affairs. The rule allowing units to decide to have a research faculty track was approved last spring, and six tenure-initiating units now have Appointments, Promotion and Tenure documents that permit the hiring of research faculty.
Last summer marked the end of the first full year of the federation of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences, and you heard a report from Dean Royster in December. The new structure is allowing us to promote a world-class experience in the Arts and Sciences as never before. This stronger union is facilitating greater collaboration among the five arts and sciences colleges, the development of new curricular initiatives, and the focusing of combined resources. New interdisciplinary minors in areas such as neuroscience and the legal foundations of society are in the approval process, as is the film studies major. Other interdisciplinary minors are in earlier stages of development. These new programs are the product of a growing culture of collaboration in the arts and sciences, and our students are the ultimate beneficiaries.
The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences successfully implemented President Holbrook’s freshman seminar initiative, with 24 seminars taught during the 2003-2004 academic year and 29 seminars being offered this year. The Arts and Sciences Committee on Curriculum and Instruction, as part of its review of the pilot program, surveyed students who took freshman seminars last year as well as faculty members who taught them. I am pleased to tell you that 90 percent of the students who responded said they would recommend the seminars to other students and 86 percent of faculty indicated that they would like to teach their seminars again. The report recommends that the seminars continue, that faculty be given a choice of offering the seminars for one or two credits, and that seminars be scheduled in fall as well as winter and spring quarters.
Another example of a new curricular offering initiated through the federation is the “Professional Pathways Seminars.” These seminars, developed by Dean Royster and her colleagues in the arts and sciences in partnership with some of our professional colleges, will allow upper-level arts and sciences students to explore interactions of the liberal arts with various professional programs of study. The pilot program will be launched next year with 15 seminars of up to 18 students each, taught by faculty from the arts and sciences and the professional colleges.
Last year I mentioned our plans to enhance educational diversity through expanded student recruitment and additional funds for the Morrill Scholarship program. Vice Provost Mac Stewart and Assistant Vice President Mabel Freeman have continued to work together to accelerate our recruitment efforts by reaching out in a variety of venues. Through a publication called “Making Our Voices Heard,” nearly 50,000 African American and Latino high school students are hearing from our current students about their experiences at Ohio State. We are running ads to promote college readiness and Ohio State on urban radio stations, and Spanish-language radio ads are being developed. Our students are hosting web chat rooms, and OMA and Admissions staff members are attending meetings with prospective students and families at churches and community organizations.
I emphasized last year that our greatest challenge would be to create a truly welcoming climate that supports and celebrates diversity. A number of groups working on diversity issues across our campus contribute a great deal to the enhancement of the climate for diversity. I have, however, come to realize that occasionally those groups do not communicate and collaborate as well as they might, and this sometimes results in duplication of efforts. Therefore, Vice Provost Mac Stewart and I will be meeting next week with the chairs of the Senate Diversity Committee, the University Diversity Council, the director of the Multicultural Center, the director of the Women’s Place, the director of the Kirwan Institute, the ADA coordinator, and the co-chair of the Student Affairs Diversity Council to discuss ways to improve communication and collaboration among the groups they lead. I have asked Vice Provost Stewart, through the Office of Minority Affairs, to bring them together regularly to ensure that our multiple diversity efforts have the maximum impact.
I want to take this opportunity to thank publicly President Holbrook and our trustees for supporting our plan to provide sponsored dependent coverage so that all of our faculty, staff, and students have access to health care benefits for their family members. I also want to thank Vice President Bill Hall and Associate Vice President Larry Lewellen, long-time advocates for these benefits, and the members of their staffs who worked hard to implement these changes. The enrollment periods proceeded smoothly during fall quarter and the plan changes went into effect on October 1st and January 1st.
I pledged last year to continue to work with the Council of Graduate Students to improve compensation and increase the subsidy of health care benefits for graduate associates. With assistance from CGS, the Office of Human Resources and the Graduate School, we designed a plan that, with the support of the deans, we implemented this year. Specifically:
- We increased subsidy for GA health benefits – from 42% last year, to 64% this year, and to 75% next year.
- We introduced a new subsidy for health benefits for the dependents of our GAs – from no subsidy last year, to 25% this year, and 50% next year.
- Additionally, GAs’ health care premiums will be eligible for pre-tax deductions, as is the case for faculty and staff.
- We increased the minimum stipend – from $900 per month to $1000 per month – although most GAs already were paid above the minimum due to market factors.
These changes were necessary to allow Ohio State to continue to recruit top graduate students.
Last year, I said that paid parental leave would be the centerpiece of our work/life agenda. Thanks to the hard work of many in the Office of Human Resources and the support of the vice presidents and the deans, we instituted paid parental leave for faculty and staff after the trustees approved our plan in June – something long overdue and needed to keep us competitive. This benefit provides six weeks of paid leave for the birth mother, three weeks for fathers, domestic partners, and adoptive parents, and is in addition to accumulated sick and vacation leave and short-term disability coverage. We are working this year on a parental leave plan for our graduate associates.
In addition to instituting paid parental leave, the Office of Human Resources, under the leadership of Associate Vice President Larry Lewellen, moved Shari Mickey-Boggs into the new position of Director of Work/Life, developed the work/life action plan, and launched a work/life web site with information on child care and elder care. In October, in conjunction with National Work and Family Month, H.R. sponsored workshops on a variety of important topics including changing careers, transitioning to retirement, and managing telecommuting.
2004-05 Initiatives
Now I want to turn to our four major academic initiatives for this year.
First is a review of our system of funding doctoral education. We have nearly 100 doctoral programs and, under our present system, funding follows enrollment. In other words, the strongest and the weakest programs have an equal financial incentive to accept another student. After a discussion with the deans about whether our graduate programs were helping to advance Ohio State toward the goals of the Academic Plan, I charged a committee of deans, chaired by Dean Rick Freeman, to recommend appropriate metrics for assessing the quality of doctoral programs and a sustainable funding model that will align state subsidy with quality. This initiative is not designed to cut costs but rather to ensure that our resources are being used strategically to support excellence in graduate education, in line with the recommendations of the Governor’s Commission on Higher Education and the Economy.
The committee’s interim report, which proposes metrics to be used to assess doctoral program quality, has been widely circulated. Dean Freeman is meeting with faculty and student groups to obtain feedback. The committee continues to work on its final report, while at the same time testing the metrics by gathering data from a small sample of doctoral programs.
Although the report identifies a number of issues yet to be addressed, I am encouraged by the committee’s progress to date and I am confident that its final recommendations will serve to enhance the quality of graduate education at Ohio State. If we want to improve significantly the overall quality of doctoral education, more of our doctoral programs must advance into the top tier nationally. This will inevitably involve difficult choices because, as the committee noted, “there is no strategy for continuing all of OSU’s PhD programs at their current levels while simultaneously assuring that a substantial portion of the programs gain the level of national prominence envisioned in the Academic Plan.”
Second, I have called for a university-wide review of undergraduate education. Let me explain why I think this is the right time for such a review. First, the General Education Curriculum in place now was developed in 1988 and remains essentially unchanged, while our student body has changed dramatically as a result of increasingly selective admissions. For the tenth straight year, we admitted the best prepared freshman class in the history of the university. In addition, the leaders of our Undergraduate Student Government have called for such a review. And, one of the recommendations from last summer’s leadership retreat was that we examine how well undergraduate education at Ohio State reflects university priorities such as diversity, interdisciplinarity, research, and outreach.
I have appointed a committee of 10 to consider the critical over-arching questions: What body of knowledge in the arts and sciences should all of our undergraduate students be expected to master before graduation? And, how can Ohio State best prepare undergraduates in all of our colleges for a lifetime of learning and citizenship? The committee, chaired by Brian McHale, Humanities Distinguished Professor from the Department of English, has already begun its work, assisted by Vice Provosts Martha Garland and Randy Smith.
I have also asked the committee to consider several specific aspects of undergraduate education, including the General Education Curriculum, the number of hours required for graduation, the staffing of undergraduate courses, and the appropriate role of freshman seminars, as well as the alignment of undergraduate education with university priorities. I have asked the committee to try to complete its work on this ambitious agenda by the end of summer quarter.
To enhance undergraduate education and successfully implement the committee’s recommendations, I believe that we must increase the size of the faculty relative to the size of our undergraduate student body. Toward this end, I have set aside $3 million in continuing funds that will become available in fiscal year 2006.
Our final two priorities for the year are closely related to the undergraduate experience.
The first has to do with the Honors Program. After listening to concerns of some students and faculty, President Holbrook directed me to undertake an internal and external review of our Honors Program. The reports have been posted on the Academic Affairs web site. I want to share with you the main points of the implementation plan developed by Associate Provost Linda Harlow, working with Vice Provost Garland and the Honors faculty advisory committee.
- In accordance with the recommendation of the internal review committee, we are submitting a proposal for the Honors and Scholars Center to be designated an “academic center” under university rules. If center designation is approved, the Honors and Scholars Center will have an oversight committee, develop a pattern of administration, and be subject to regular periodic review.
- The external review committee recommended that we reduce the size of the honors program by half, from 20 to 10 percent of the entering class. Because the honors program helps us recruit high-ability students, we have decided to maintain the current size but require all honors students to satisfy minimum standards to remain in the program.
- All honors students will be required to take at least 6 honors courses or 500-level courses in the first two years and will be required to maintain a 3.4 G.P.A., with the option for colleges to accept a 3.3 at the end of the first year.
I believe that these and other planned changes will strengthen the Honors Program and ensure an intellectually rich and rigorous education for our high-ability students.
Finally, we are going to create an Office of Undergraduate Research. This will be a joint effort of the Office of Research and the Office of Undergraduate Studies. Initially, the office will have 3 main functions:
- To create and maintain a searchable database of faculty research interests so that interested students can connect with faculty members about possible research opportunities;
- To oversee, in collaboration with the Honors and Scholars Center, the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum; and
- To coordinate central support for undergraduate research.
This new office will allow us to better integrate research into undergraduate education and ensure that every student at Ohio State has the opportunity for a significant research experience.
So, what else is on the horizon for our near-term future? Our state is facing an estimated $ 5 billion revenue shortfall for the next biennium. President Holbrook, Senior Vice President Curt Steiner, and Vice President Ellyn Perrone will be leading our efforts with Governor Taft and the Ohio General Assembly, but we will again need the help and support of our faculty and staff, our students and their families, and our Alumni Advocates if we are to convince the legislature of the tremendous value of higher education to the state.
In the spring of 2007, Ohio State will undergo reaccreditation review by the North Central Association and we must begin to prepare now. We are fortunate to have the leadership and experience of Vice Provost Randy Smith, who as a faculty fellow led our last reaccreditation in 1997. We can choose to conduct a traditional self-study or to emphasize a particular aspect of our institution. Some of our peers have done self-studies focused on topics such as interdisciplinarity, research infrastructure, internationalization, and undergraduate education. Randy and I plan to meet with the Council of Deans, the Faculty Council and other groups to solicit ideas about possible areas of focus. We will also be looking for a faculty fellow to coordinate our reaccreditation effort.
Our three-part mission to educate students for successful careers and rewarding lives, to benefit society through research, and to have a positive impact on our community could be seen as a daunting task. But so could speeding across the Salt Flats at more than 300 miles per hour…yet that hasn’t stopped our students. With dedication, innovation, collaboration, and a relentless focus on our agenda, we will achieve our goal of becoming one of the world’s premier public research universities. I am privileged to be a part of the Ohio State team. Thank you.
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