Greetings,

As the end of the semester draws near and we begin to think about the next academic year, it is important to consider our future as an institution and challenges we face, both in the state and nationally. First, however, I want to draw your attention to Issue 1 and the vitally important May 4 ballot. Issue 1 is a proposed renewal of Ohio’s Third Frontier program, a public-private partnership created in 2002 to establish Ohio as a leader in innovation, create jobs and fuel long-term, technology based economic growth in the state. To date, the initiative has provided Kent State with more than $20 million in research funding. Its renewal would authorize $700 million in additional bonds for the program. I highly encourage you to support Issue 1 so that the Third Frontier program may continue to engender innovation and economic development across our region and state.

The Third Frontier program provides many opportunities for Kent State to continue its pioneering research. But the full definition of our academic success lies in addressing issues across Academic Affairs’ numerous challenges. Achieving the goals set forth in the Academic Strategic Plan are important to the vitality of Kent State. A few months ago, I laid out the essential academic improvements we must make to catapult us into the community of nationally prominent large public research universities. These improvements are even more necessary in light of our uncertain economic future. The instability of state budgets, many of which were supported by federal stimulus funding that disappears in FY 12, suggests that deeper cuts for higher education lay ahead. Indeed, Ohio faces potential shortfalls of as much as 17% in the forthcoming years. Ohio is not the only state facing an uncertain future. Thirty nine states have cut assistant to higher education, with a reprieve nowhere in sight.

As the effect of these fiscal pressures are brought to bear, it is likely that the number and type of universities and colleges nationwide will change. Public research universities will see a shake-out in which some will not be able to compete and will have to create new niches, while others will cease to exist altogether. And there will be enormous pressure to recognize the ‘consumer’ side of education by offering convenient classes and formats of educational delivery.

I believe many are vastly underestimating the currents of change swirling about higher education. During the next decade, we will likely see the same level of profound changes in higher education that banks have experienced over the past two decades, and that are currently affecting the news industry. These changes emphasize the need for faculty to be highly informed about trends affecting universities and the implications for our operations. The need for efficiency in operations and careful consideration of expenditures is great.

Responsibility Center Management (RCM) has forced us to rethink how we look at the daily costs of running our academic programs and units.  The cost of operating the university is very high. For example, it costs $583,175 per work day to operate the RCM units. Numbers like these force us to ask such questions as: what resources are needed to operate a college for a single day? How many days can specific units operate on reserves? And how do we address budget shortfalls in critical programs? In our highly competitive market, now, more than ever, our fiscal decisions affect our very ability to fulfill our vision for the future.

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article reported that career colleges have grown nine percent per year over the last 30 years (Chronicle, February 12, 2010). This year, the Chronicle reported, the University of Phoenix passed the California State System as the second largest higher education system in the United States with more than 455,000 students. The for-profit higher educational business is now a permanent and likely increasing part of the higher education landscape.

At the same time, public universities have been forced to make difficult financial decisions. While taxpayers provide an ever-decreasing portion of the university’s budget, general economic concerns have increased the state government’s sense of control in university operations, leading to increased demands for information from public universities and a relentless emphasis upon the value and quality of a college education. Economic concerns are driving us to demonstrate the value of a bachelor’s degree. We are increasingly being asked to define what skills and knowledge a graduate must possess and how those are measured. The development of for-profit educational programs that mimic traditional universities requires us to define what makes a public research university different. Do we provide better quality than a non-traditional program and how can we show that we do?

Of course, Kent State has determined its strategic future in this changing landscape – we will remain a public research university, and we have developed a vision to prepare us to meet that strategic future. Our strategic goals will enable us to overcome our short and long term challenges if we can adhere to an overall standard of excellence in scholarship and teaching – and make the tough decisions that will hold us accountable to those standards. We must improve our scholarship and research funding to be among the best universities. We must monitor the quality of student learning. And we must continually ask ourselves if we are doing the best in scholarship and teaching.

These ideas are not new. Kent State has always pushed to perform well. Now, however, the consequences of poor or just weak decision-making will have greater impact as the economic pressures upon universities build. As we make the many individual decisions, for example, who will we promote? Who will we not reappoint? How do we evaluate teaching? How do we become more competitive in grant funding? How do we assure faculty continue to contribute throughout their career? How do we recognize superior or inferior performance? We must also realize these decisions will have a significant impact upon the future of Kent State University.

To assure our continued success as an educational institution, we must monitor the quality and delivery of our classes. We must have sensitive tools able to measure changes created by education. Unfortunately, our current course evaluation system does not provide, in my opinion, the information we need from students. I believe it is time for the Faculty Senate to thoroughly review our current practices. We should look at the best practices in this field and also try our own innovations.

Historically, we have emphasized the promotion and tenure system as a means of evaluation. We know the system has many evaluation points, but too much of our emphasis is upon the final promotion or tenure decision. The best system is more continuous, beginning with the date of hire. We must focus even more critically upon the annual evaluations and reappointments. Rigorous annual evaluation with special consideration at the midway third year review is crucial. Too often, we avoid tough decisions during the review period. We must also move from our far too legalistic approach of counting successes. Our handbooks, in my opinion, are losing the academic evaluative nature of scholarship and teaching expectations. Focusing on a semi-legal approach to rules during the evaluation of scholarship and teaching devalues the substantive nature of our work. Clearly, we need broad criteria for promotion and tenure. At Kent State, however, we have moved to a model that almost suggests tenure and promotion are a right rather than a reward for excellence.

We have made great progress over the last year in the creation of an array of tracks to serve the expertise of faculty. The very strategic NTT tracks enable the alignment of the ambitions and strengths of the faculty member for the mutual benefit of the faculty and the university. Recognizing the value of the separate faculty roles, be it instructional, clinical, practitioner or research, fosters greater success with more clearly defined expectations.

In addition, this year was the first time faculty could use Folioweb to provide an electronic record for promotion and tenure consideration. During this year’s review, each faculty member determined if he or she wanted to use Folioweb or submit the traditional paper dossier. The vast majority of faculty chose to use Folioweb. The FPDC and Dr. David Dalton oversaw several training sessions for Folioweb. The system is fairly intuitive for both applicants and reviewers. The feedback on Folioweb has been very positive, which bodes well for next year’s mandatory implementation of the program.

Another critical factor in achieving academic program success is predicting the impact of enrollment changes upon our programs. We have asked the Tiger team, an internal consulting group, to analyze the impact of enrollment changes upon our programming. To perform this analysis, the Tiger Team reviewed classes in the Kent Core (where enrollment increases have the fastest impact) and within our majors, making several important findings:

• Of the 100 courses in the Kent Core, there are 81,519 available seats
• The average class size is 42; and
• We use only 80% of the available seats.

In addition, upon examining the effects of 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25% growth in all of our academic programs, they discovered the following:

• Architecture, Nursing and Accounting currently operate at capacity
• 28 additional programs reach capacity with a 10% enrollment increase; and
• 42 programs do not reach capacity with a full 25% enrollment growth.

Clearly, programs that don’t fill with a 25% enrollment growth are now underutilized. Many universities are looking at these programs to determine if such programs are critical to the university. Better management of course offerings minimizes the impact of these programs and assures higher enrollment when courses are offered.

Currently, we are implementing the Infosilem System, a course/classroom management system that enables us to easily match teaching needs to rooms and student needs. With Infosilem, we will be much more effective in managing the utilization of personnel and buildings. Currently, we are in a pilot test period that matches our current approach to a “dummy” Infosilem enrollment program. I look forward to the strides we will make when Infosilem is fully implemented, most importantly creating conflict free schedules for students that will aid in timely graduation rates.

The topics I have outlined are but a few of the means by which Kent State can assure its success as a public research institution. As we respond to the fiscal pressures experienced throughout higher education, and strive to proactively shape our future, our progress will be defined by our ability to self-examine and implement the academic improvements outlined in our strategic vision. And as I noted at the outset, another significant step in solidifying our future as a public research institution is the renewal of the Third Frontier Program. I encourage you to support Issue 1 on May 4. I wish you success in the final weeks of the semester, and look forward to our continued journey of making essential academic improvements in support of our strategic goals.

With warmest regards,

Robert G. Frank
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs