December 13, 2002
Arts and Sciences Strategic Planning Committee
Paul A Beck, Don B Gibson, Jr, Richard W Hall, Peter D March,
Randall B Ripley (chair), Jacqueline J Royster, Michael J Hogan (ex
officio)
INTRODUCTION.
Great universities are characterized by strong arts and sciences disciplines. As Ohio State moves to position itself among the best public universities, it must strengthen its arts and sciences. Within the Ohio State Colleges of the Arts and Sciences, this will require a continuing emphasis on quality within units and an increased commitment to collaboration among units. At the same time, the University must enhance its investment to facilitate these increases in quality and aid cross- College efforts designed to improve the Arts and Sciences as a whole.
The Strategic Planning Committee was established at the request of the Provost. (See Appendix A for a very brief summary of the origins of the committee.) To the committee's knowledge, this is the first attempt to develop a comprehensive plan for enhancing the Arts and Sciences at Ohio State.
In our plan, the committee outlines a series of ideas for fruitful collaborations among the five Colleges. Developing such collaborations is not dependent on any particular administrative structure, existing or amended. Implementation of our ideas will, of course, require buy-in from faculty, departments, programs, and colleges and from the leadership at each level. In preparing this report, the committee recognized that the Arts and Sciences can benefit from the experiences of our peer institutions. However, it is not reasonable to assume that simply mimicking our aspirational peers will produce the desired results.
The current status of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences is a result of a collection of decisions made over many decades and responsive to the specific conditions at Ohio State. Similarly, attempts to enhance the status of the Arts and Sciences must also occur within the context of the specific conditions at Ohio State.
PRESENT CONTRIBUTIONS
The five Colleges of the Arts and Sciences provide Ohio State with high quality teaching, research, and service. The Colleges strive to increase further the quality of their contributions and, through achievement of enhanced excellence, serve the University and its students even better. Simultaneously, they seek recognition as contributors critical to the achievement of the University's goals and aspirations as articulated in the Academic Plan. Appendix B [in an Excel spreadsheet at the end of this document in its electronic form] contains summary data that address Arts and Sciences contributions to the University.
The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences dominate in serving undergraduate students. In the most recent year for which complete data are available [2001], almost 40% of the declared undergraduate majors at the University are in the Arts and Sciences. More importantly, nearly 50% of all undergraduate degrees awarded during this period came from the Arts and Sciences. About 44% of all declared undergraduate honors majors are in the Arts and Sciences. The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences play a vital role in graduate education at Ohio State, especially in the production of Ph.D.s. About a third of all graduate students are in the Arts and Sciences. Nearly half of the doctoral degrees awarded by Ohio State come from the Arts and Sciences.
The Arts and Sciences' dominance in fulfilling the University's teaching mission is even more apparent in their share of credit hours in the University. In FY 2002, about 60% of all credit hours, including 5/6ths of all credit hours in lower level courses, came from the Arts and Sciences. These credit hours represent about 55% of all students by headcount. In addition, about 75% of all credit hours in honors are offered by the Arts and Sciences. This figure reflects over 70% of all honors students by headcount.
The quality of the Arts and Sciences faculty is widely recognized in University competitions based on excellence. Even though Arts and Sciences faculty account for only about 40% of all University faculty, they account for over 70% of the Distinguished University Professors selected in the last ten years. About two-thirds of faculty recognized as Distinguished Scholars, three-fifths of faculty who won the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award, and almost three-fifths of those who won the Distinguished University Service Award are from the Arts and Sciences.
Arts and Sciences departments and programs are well-represented in national rankings. In the National Research Council (NRC) report in 1993 the only two top ten units at Ohio State [Geography; Linguistics] are both in the Arts and Sciences. Ten out of 15 units at Ohio State ranked in the top 25 are in the Arts and Sciences. More recent surveys appearing in U.S. News and World Report demonstrate that the Arts and Sciences are important contributors to the current national standing of Ohio State. Twenty-one of the 47 Ohio State programs and departments that are ranked in the top 25 of their disciplines, and five of 14 departments in the top ten, are from the Arts and Sciences. Ohio State's Department of Dance has been recognized as the nation's best in another recent survey.
The University has recognized the quality of the Arts and Sciences units in recent competitions. Arts and Sciences received 8 of the 13 Selective Investment awards, 13 of 35 Academic Enrichment awards, and half of departmental teaching awards.
Although the Arts and Sciences have made substantial contributions in teaching, research, and overall excellence, resource decisions have often not reflected the importance of the Arts and Sciences. In the February 2001 memo on budget restructuring, base budgets and the academic plan, the Provost summarized the net resources less expenses for each college in the University and presented a plan for rebasing college general funds budgets. That document reported that the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences subsidized other colleges in the University by approximately $10,200,000. Over a five year period, the proposed rebasing plan reduces the subsidy provided to other colleges to an amount between $4,100,000 and $6,000,000. As marginal changes accumulate under the new budgeting system, the subsidy will be further reduced if the Arts and Sciences continue to serve a high proportion of OSU's students. However, if the University wants to accelerate its rise in national standing in the near future, it must move to reduce the subsidy provided by the Arts and Sciences to zero as soon as possible. Until then, Arts and Sciences can benefit from substantial investments of the central resources that are being generated by the new budget system and are controlled by the President, the Provost, and the Vice President for Research. That the Arts and Sciences have been able to achieve so much despite long-term underfunding speaks well for what it could achieve with new central investments.
THE COMMON MISSION
Within the framework of the Ohio State University Academic Plan, Diversity Plan, and budget restructuring process, the five Colleges of the Arts and Sciences recognize an imperative to create a closer relationship based on mutual goals, needs, and core collective responsibilities. Each of the Colleges, as independent units, provides high quality teaching, research, and service. Moreover, a review of the last ten years affirms that each College has become stronger and more productive over time in pursuit of individually articulated visions of excellence. Clearly, each has developed distinctive styles of operation, and just as clearly, as independent units, each expects these patterns of engagement to continue to yield high quality contributions and achievements, as the University as a whole pursues its twenty-first century agenda for leadership and excellence. The five Colleges of the Arts and Sciences are central to the equation that will assure that Ohio State will be among the top ten best public land grant institutions in the nation. This centrality is amplified even more by an understanding that while there is strength in the diversity of our separate units, there is simultaneously untapped potential to be realized from a much closer coordination of our common interests and actions. Together, we offer a commanding presence in sustaining academic quality, such that the imperative for all of us becomes a clearer articulation and clarification of who we are, not just independently but together, what our roles are, and how we can use our strengths more effectively and efficiently to enhance the larger goals and agenda of the University. In forming a closer alliance, and thereby, re-forming our relationships and interrelationships with each other, we seek not only to clarify and articulate our common goals, needs, and core responsibilities, we also seek to clarify the scope of our collective achievements as these achievements paint in bolder relief the landscape of the arts and sciences core of Ohio State University.
Goals
To support and encourage scholarship and creative endeavors that result in measurable national and international recognition. To hire, develop, and retain world-class faculty members. To enable and nurture the development of innovative interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary programs. To enhance the diversity of the students, faculty, staff, and curriculum by creating an environment in which there are incentives for positive change and strategies that reduce barriers to success. To position the Arts and Sciences strategically as a collective enterprise so that they are more visible and central among all Ohio State colleges. To increase external fundraising through both development and grants. To pool existing college resources to match new central investments in achieving collective goals.
Core Collective Responsibilities
The most salient responsibility shared by all of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences is the General Education Curriculum. Arts and Sciences also play critical roles in the Honors and Scholars Programs and the recruiting of undergraduate students. In research, the Arts and Sciences provide the foundations for many of the applied and professional fields.
Great students should expect great things from the Arts and Sciences. As the University enhances the undergraduate student profile, the Arts and Sciences Colleges, departments, and programs should position themselves to respond to the changing demands placed upon them by increasing numbers of higher-ability students. Among necessary actions are more honors offerings, more scholars programs, more upper-level course offerings, and more opportunities for undergraduate research. As the foundational disciplines of the Arts and Sciences flourish, they have a powerful multiplier effect on the quality and scope of research throughout the University. No university can achieve first-class status without a foundation of excellence in the Arts and Sciences.
CURRENT COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS
Colleagues, disciplines, and centers in the Arts and Sciences Colleges are already heavily engaged with other colleagues, disciplines, and centers across college and disciplinary lines. A summary of cross-college collaborations is given in Appendix C. The facts are clear: simply by virtue of what they do and how they go about doing it, the Arts and Sciences units interact across college lines at the same time they promote sound Arts and Sciences disciplines. The five Arts and Sciences colleges are also engaged with virtually every professional college in the University. Some of the collaborations come through the interdisciplinary centers at Ohio State. All of those centers have faculty from Arts and Sciences. The Arts and Sciences units provide the faculty leaders for a significant number of them. Some of the collaborations are generated by interdisciplinary degree programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Arts and Sciences faculty participate in almost all such programs. Beyond those collaborations, Arts and Sciences faculty engage in a substantial amount of joint teaching across college lines, collaborative research that crosses college lines, and cross-college faculty appointments. Ten dyadic collaborations are possible within the five Colleges. In fact, there are seven such collaborations in terms of jointly offered courses; there are five such collaborations in terms of major joint research projects; and four such collaborations resulted in salaried joint appointments of faculty. Many of these pairings involve multiple instances. At the same time, the Arts and Sciences Colleges are heavily engaged with the professional and health sciences colleges. Joint courses are offered with seven different colleges outside the Arts and Sciences. Major research projects involve Arts and Sciences faculty with faculty in eight of the other colleges. Faculty with salaried appointments from more than one college join the Arts and Sciences units with units in four other colleges. The committee recommends that the Arts and Sciences build on this substantial base by expanding the existing cross-College collaborations and developing new collaborations. The following section contains a number of ideas for possible new collaborations among the five Arts and Sciences Colleges.
NEW SUBSTANTIVE COLLABORATIVE OPPORTUNITIES
New collaborative opportunities among the Arts and Sciences Colleges are organized in three categories, each of which encompasses two of the six strategies described in Ohio State's Academic Plan. The first category involves collaborations aimed primarily at increasing faculty quality, productivity, and diversity. [This category incorporates the Academic Plan's strategies of building a world-class faculty and creating a diverse university community.] The second category involves increasing student quality and service to students. [This category incorporates the Academic Plan's strategies of enhancing the quality of the teaching and learning environment and enhancing and better serving the student body.] The third category involves programmatic innovation. [This category incorporates the Academic Plan's strategies of developing academic programs that define Ohio State as one of the nation's leading public land-grant university and helping build Ohio's future.] Naturally, some of the possible collaborations would simultaneously make contributions in more than one of the three categories.
It is important to note that programmatic collaborations only work if there are sufficient faculty members with the interest, ideas, and commitment to participate with enthusiasm. Some of our suggestions may not find that kind of faculty constituency. But we are confident that some will. Although the Deans can create incentives for collaboration, it is important to recognize that the academic bureaucracy cannot simply mandate successful and productive collaborations and expect desired results.
Increasing Faculty Quality, Productivity, and Diversity
Interdisciplinary Cluster Hiring of Faculty.
Opportunities for hiring faculty across disciplinary lines in intellectual "clusters" will serve to strengthen the faculty, help promote interdisciplinary research and teaching, and, in some cases, increase diversity. Information-sharing across the Arts and Sciences regarding recruiting priorities should help to facilitate the identification and, where mutually beneficial, coordination of faculty recruiting. Arts and Sciences Faculty Hiring Assistance Program. The Arts and Sciences Deans should work with the Office of Academic Affairs to manage the Arts and Sciences share of the central FHAP funds. Furthermore, central funds should be supplemented with Arts and Sciences funds to create a larger pool of resources to increase efforts to recruit and retain a diverse faculty population.
Arts and Sciences Spousal Hiring Program.
The University has no spousal hiring program to facilitate hiring and retention of faculty. The Deans should begin discussions regarding establishment of a spousal hiring assistance program for the Arts and Sciences. Arts and Sciences Birth and Adoption Policy. The Deans should begin discussions regarding the establishment of a birth and adoption policy that is that is more generous than the standard University policy. Experience in two of the Colleges demonstrates that this policy helps with faculty recruitment and retention.
Increasing Student Quality and Service to Students
Honors and Scholars Programs.
There is considerable potential for expanding and coordinating honors and scholars programs offered by the Colleges. By far the greatest portion of students served by honors and scholars programs is in the Arts and Sciences. The Arts and Sciences Colleges should evaluate their relationship with the University Honors and Scholars program with the goal of expanding and enhancing existing programs. In addition, the Arts and Sciences should search for resources to expand scholars programs, with a three-year goal of having at least one scholars program in each college and establishing several cross-college scholars programs.
Undergraduate Advising.
With better students, more direct enrollment in the Arts and Sciences Colleges, and earlier declaration of majors, more advising is occurring in colleges, departments and schools. The Arts and Sciences Colleges must evaluate their relationships with Undergraduate Student Academic Services [USAS] with the goal of enhancing undergraduate advising. Of particular interest is a comprehensive evaluation of undergraduate advising to ascertain whether the Office of Academic Affairs/USAS operation is producing the needed results, or whether certain resources might be better directed toward advising services offered at the college, department and/or school levels.
Enhancing Recruiting and Retention of Graduate Students.
The graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences Colleges have considerable experience with practices that enhance recruiting and retention. The Deans should establish a mechanism to coordinate dissemination of best practices to graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences. Such practices vary among colleges and programs but include: funding recruiting visits, early-start programs, increased stipends, increased employment benefits and incentive programs to encourage students to return to campus to complete their dissertations. The Deans should begin discussions about the best mechanisms for funding such practices in programs across the Arts and Sciences.
Programmatic Innovation.<.b>
In addition to strengthening programs in individual departments, schools, and centers, the Arts and Sciences should be aggressive and imaginative in exploring and facilitating faculty interests in interdisciplinary research and teaching. New substantive initiatives that emerge would also open additional interdisciplinary opportunities for students, both graduate and undergraduate.
Interdisciplinary Cluster Hiring.
This initiative has already been discussed in relation to increasing faculty quality, productivity, and diversity. It will also foster important interdisciplinary teaching and research.
Agreement on Budgetary Rules of Collaboration for Interdisciplinary Efforts.
Many faculty and administrators perceive that the new budgeting system does not offer incentives for interdisciplinary teaching and research. Others note that the old budget system was not particularly supportive of interdisciplinary activities either. Issues with interdisciplinary research centers and formal interdisciplinary degree programs are particularly worrisome. The Arts and Sciences Deans must send a very clear message that interdisciplinary activities are important and are worthy of subsidies. The Deans should develop a process within the new budget system to identify and/or create financial incentives for cross-college activities. Now that revenues from interdisciplinary activities are credited to colleges under the new budgeting system that began July 1, 2002, it is for the first time possible to share revenues, as well as costs, among participating units. Colleges must craft the formal and informal sharing agreements in order to facilitate interdisciplinary work among the disciplines and centers in the Arts and Sciences. The "best practices" developed in the Arts and Sciences for cross-college and cross-departmental sharing should be diffused to other parts of the University.
Locating Research Centers in the Arts and Sciences.
Because they must rely almost entirely upon grant revenues for their budgets, valuable interdisciplinary research centers may be discouraged under the University's new budgeting system. For example, it may be difficult to find start up funds for new interdisciplinary centers, to support well- functioning existing centers during lean years in a budgetary cycle, to subsidize centers whose intellectual and scientific value exceeds their revenue-earning potential, and to work out mutually-acceptable arrangements for grant revenue sharing between centers and departments. Some of these difficulties are attributable to the structural location of centers outside of the colleges that contain their faculty. In some cases, relocation of a center to the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences would remedy the problems. Where a center involves faculty primarily from the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences, but is not located in one or more of those Colleges, relocation should be considered. Where a center reporting to a specific Arts and Sciences College also includes faculty from other Arts and Sciences colleges, relocation should be considered as well. Examples of candidates for relocation from the center to the collective Colleges of the Arts and Sciences include the Title VI area studies centers, the Byrd Polar Research Center, the Cognitive Science Center, the Mershon Center, the Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas, and perhaps the Glenn Institute. Movement of a center to the collective Arts and Sciences level should be determined, on a case-by-case basis, by the scope of the center's research activity and affiliated faculty. If central funding currently is provided to such a center, that funding should be transferred to the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences when the center relocates.
Arts and Sciences Academic Enrichment Program.
The Deans should work with the Office of Academic Affairs to earmark a portion of the taxes levied against the Arts and Sciences to be used for the establishment of an Arts and Sciences Academic Enrichment program. Successful applicants for Arts and Sciences Academic Enrichment funding would have to propose programs that would involve units from two or more Arts and Sciences Colleges.
INSTRUMENTAL ACTIONS TO FURTHER EXPANDED COLLABORATION
In order to promote discussion of new opportunities, Deans should initiate consideration of a number of instrumental actions. In each case, they must make sure that careful discussions take place that lead to thoughtful decisions on collaborations that will advance both the Arts and Sciences and Ohio State in general.
A first step in identifying appropriate instrumental actions is for the Arts and Sciences Deans to agree on specific issues that need to be addressed. A number of such issues are suggested in foregoing sections. In addition, we suggest that the deans explore how to handle the following topics:
For a number of these efforts, the Deans might establish faculty committees, or subsets of associate deans. Obviously, the deans would continue to be involved personally. But standing committees of associate deans could be relied on continuously to identify and consider relevant issues. In addition, closer collaboration among core administrative personnel could enhance operational effectiveness and efficiency and also enhance the psychological climate to foster yet more programmatic collaboration. Administrative areas that could involve much closer coordination in the immediate future already include development and could include space planning, facilitation of interdisciplinary majors and graduate programs, liaison as a group with Undergraduate Student Academic Services in the Office of Academic Affairs, recruiting of new undergraduates for Ohio State, closer liaison on the General Education Curriculum, developing imaginative outreach and engagement activities for all five Colleges, and external communications for the collectivity. Greater coordination among the Colleges and between the Colleges and the central administration on space issues will enhance the core teaching and research missions of the Colleges. For example, fair and efficient allocation of classroom pool space among Arts and Sciences departments, especially in the near term when good quality space is in short supply, will help improve the classroom experience of all Ohio State students. Timely renovation of existing research space, as well as construction of appropriate new space, is a critically important issue for the future of the university's research enterprise.
CONCLUSION
The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences already are making vital contributions to the teaching, research, and service missions of Ohio State University and to the achievement of the goals in its Academic Plan. These contributions have been made in the context of informal coordination and, until now, in the absence of a budgeting system that fully recognizes the burdens the colleges and their departments and schools bear in handling very demanding teaching responsibilities while simultaneously engaging in cutting-edge research and providing well-rounded and insightful service to a variety of constituents. With the new budgeting system in place and more conscious attention to coordination, collaboration, and joint ventures-as advocated by this document-the potential for enhanced contributions of the Colleges is high. This report identifies opportunities for new central investment. But it is very important to note that the collective actions proposed here will and should proceed regardless of new central investment. The pace of progress will be affected by the level of new central investment, but the resolve to move forward in priority areas is constant. The details of the implementation of the recommendations in this report will vary depending on the commitments, interests, and skill of faculty, chairs, and deans and on the availability of resources. But, above all, we recommend that the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences make a commitment to pursue closer collaboration, including at least some of the ideas outlined in this report. Present collaborative efforts have already been productive. We are confident that enhanced collaboration among the five Colleges will continue to grow and pay rich dividends for Ohio State.
APPENDIX A: ORIGINS OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE
In winter 2002 Provost Ed Ray asked the Executive Dean of the Arts and Sciences to create a committee to prepare a strategic plan for the Arts and Sciences with a mandate to report by the end of Autumn Quarter, 2002. Executive Dean Michael Hogan appointed the committee, the membership of which appears on the cover page. The deadline for the report was the end of Autumn Quarter 2002 Note that we do not repeat the content of current, detailed plans and reports from the five Colleges. Particularly relevant for those interested in those details are the Resources and Academic Plan report submitted to the Office of Academic Affairs by each of the five on January 30, 2002, and the most recent annual report for each of the five, submitted on March 18, 2002.
APPENDIX B: ARTS AND SCIENCES CONTRIBUTIONS TO OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
See Spreadsheet.
APPENDIX C: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON CURRENT COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS INVOLVING THE COLLEGES OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES
Within the five Colleges the following patterns of serious collaboration exist. In all cases, the collaborations are current-that is, active in the last year or two.
Colleagues in Arts:
Colleagues in Biological Sciences:
Physical Sciences and Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Colleagues in Humanities:
Colleagues in Mathematics and Physical Sciences:
Colleagues in Social and Behavioral Sciences:
In addition, colleagues in the five Colleges collectively jointly conduct major research efforts with colleagues in eight professional colleges [Education; Engineering; Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; Law; Medicine and Public Health; Nursing; Optometry; and Veterinary Medicine]. Colleges in the five Colleges collectively teach joint courses with colleagues in seven professional colleges [Education; Engineering; Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; Law; Medicine and Public Health; Nursing; and Social Work]. Colleagues in the five Colleges collectively hold joint appointments with shared salary responsibility with departments in four professional colleges [Engineering; Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; Medicine and Public Health; and Nursing].
Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.