"The Liberal arts [are] those skills and concepts that liberate the individual from an unquestioning dependence on the local and immediate cultural environment.and from drifting with the swift cultural tides of our time.."
-George Gerbner

Introduction:

In early November, Provost Lou Anna K. Simon initiated a process of parallel discussions to provide for her the fullest data and information possible in an abbreviated period of time to inform the critical decisions shaping the intellectual infrastructure of the institution's desired liberal arts and sciences experience for its students.

The various memos and messages serving as preparation for these discussions are posted on the website for the Office of the Provost, so I will not recount them here.

There were a total of 20 focus conversations involving undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff in addition to thematic clusters of faculty and administrators.

Each conversation was unique, as the sum of all the exponential discussions occurring previously became the starting point with the participants of each new conversation.  Urging a focus on new, innovative ideas was often a challenge since participants also felt the need to stress those things that they felt needed to be changed or were not working.  They also gave attention to those strengths they believed needed to be sustained.

The shape of this summary of those conversations will be a presentation around the specific questions posed by Provost Simon in the Vision for the Liberal Arts and Sciences at MSU.

First, however, it will be important to emphasize the more global context in which discussions of transformation are occurring throughout higher education (tertiary education) nationally and well as internationally.  The prevailing opinion, articulated well in the Guskin and Marcy chapter, "Decisions for Economic Reality: Muddling Through versus Transformation" in Groccia and Miller, editors (in press) Enhancing Productivity in Higher Education, Anker Publishing, is that rather than muddling through in the belief that we can eventually continue to do everything we have always done, only for fewer students or with fewer faculty carrying a heavier load, what will be required is radical transformation in the academy based in a newly defined vision.  They write about a vision that focuses on student learning, quality of faculty work life and reduced cost per student, and with transformed educational delivery and organizational systems.

In addition to the broader discussions and transformations concerning higher education generally, there are also the more specific discussions about what constitutes a liberal education or what is intended by the liberal arts and sciences and how they are understood and practiced at a given institution.

Indeed, Provost Simon's statement urged our attention to maintaining and perhaps increasing our capacity to provide a sound liberal education to all our students while acknowledging the need for change that reflects our history but is relevant to our future.

Definitions

From the beginning of the focus conversations, it was apparent that there was a general, tacit understanding of what we meant by an educated person, though it was also clear that making explicit that definition was critical for students, their parents, faculty, staff, administrators, the legislature, and the global context in which we are ever more present as leaders.

For most of the past century, Michigan State University has engaged that discussion in one forum or another--sometimes more informally than formally, yet documented among the archives--as the institution has grown and changed over time.  Thus, the discussion more recently engaged by some of the deans at the behest of the provost is consistent with the attention the institution has given over time to what constitutes an educated person.  We believe that affirming the statement throughout all levels of institutional leadership--from the highest levels of the administration to the leadership of departments and committees of academic and institutional governance--and making the statement more accessible are critical to achieving a clearer and commonly understood definition from which goals and expectations could ensue.

In the 1988 Opportunities for Renewal: The Report of The Council to Review Undergraduate Education (CRUE), we find this mission-based statement about an educated person:

Underlying all educational programs is the belief that an educated person is one who becomes an effective and productive citizen. Such a person contributes to society intellectually, through analytical abilities and in the insightful use of knowledge; economically, through productive application of skills; socially, through an understanding and appreciation of the world and for individual and group beliefs and traditions; ethically, through sensitivity and faithfulness to examined values; and politically, through the use of reason in affairs of state. Mindful of such purposes, Michigan State University is committed to graduating educated men and women with diverse backgrounds who are active learners, ready to assume the responsibilities of leadership wherever opportunities arise.

In concert with this mission statement, all MSU graduates should be able to:

• reason critically and effectively;
• develop qualitative and quantitative modes of inquiry and employ tools of investigation including mathematical analysis, systematic observation, and the use of modern information technology;
• express themselves clearly, correctly, and effectively in written and
  oral communication;
• develop an awareness of the uniqueness of the American experience through exposure to the rich traditions deriving from the racial/ethnic diversity in the United States, through exposure to other cultures, and through the study of foreign languages;
• achieve a sense of the history and socioeconomic and political character of the United States and the world;
• develop an appreciation for the unity of knowledge through an integrated study of liberal arts and sciences;
• develop ethical, moral, and aesthetic sensitivities through exposure in such areas as art, music, literature, philosophy, and science; and,
• develop breadth and depth in a disciplinary or professional area

And in the dedication of the CRUE report, we find this statement that seems to anticipate our focus conversations on attributes constituting an educated person:

An educated person should be that highly individualized person, complete in his or her cultural traditions, intellectual emphases, and human interactive possibilities. The truly educated person cannot be described by a score on a standardized national test, but rather by the contribution he or she has made to the lives of other human beings, in both intellectual and social fields.

An Educated Person:

The focus conversations yielded the following definition of an educated person:

An educated person is someone who has learned how to acquire, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, understand, and communicate knowledge and information.  An educated person has to develop skills that respond to changing professional requirements and new challenges in society and the world at large.  He or she must be able to take skills previously gained from serious study of one set of problems and apply them to another.  He or she must be able to locate, understand, interpret, evaluate, and use information in an appropriate way and ultimately communicate his or her synthesis and understanding of that information in a clear and accurate manner.  Our students will by their course of study master at least one discipline where they will gain proficiency, but an educated person should be able to apply this learning and the skills that go with it to a broad spectrum of areas, including where the person is not expert and where he or she may be
confronting a set of problems for the first time.  These basic skills give our human curiosity additional depth and breadth, as well as the momentum to propel it across the boundaries of disciplines, communities, nations and time.  

Therefore, the aim of an MSU undergraduate education is to provide students with the
following:

1. The basic skills necessary for analysis, synthesis, understanding and communication.  
2. A foundation in the major areas of intellectual inquiry (humanities, social and natural sciences) to ensure a basic literacy in these crucial approaches to understanding the world.
3. A melding of these foundations of liberal learning with a broad array of professional, technical and specialized knowledge.
4. A sense of the interrelatedness of knowledge, including the importance of interdisciplinary approaches.
5. A clear and compelling connection between their education and the society around them, encompassing their roles and obligations both as citizens and human beings.
6. A practical experience, understanding and tolerance of the diversity of peoples, cultures and viewpoints, both domestic and global, through special courses of study, study abroad, foreign language training and area study, residence life and other means.
7. Opportunities to participate with faculty in research or scholarly activity.
8. Development of the aesthetic sensibilities through exposure to art, music, drama and literature.
9. A continuing commitment to learning throughout life, to continue to thrive both in the work environment and as a human being in an increasingly complex global society.

(Note: The final document of the fuller context of the statement defining an educated person, the aims and goals, the relationship between graduate, graduate-professional and undergraduate education is the document by Provost Simon called Developing Leadership and Administrative Excellence: The Changing MSU Environment and the Critical Role of Cross-Unit Collaboration and Connected Strengths in "Advancing Knowledge, Transforming Lives."  The document was developed for a workshop for new chairs and directors and is appended to this report).

 The Liberal Arts and Sciences:

Another phrase that calls for clarification is the liberal arts or the liberal arts and sciences.

It is useful in this regard to consider the classical concept of the seven branches of knowledge but medieval division of the arts into the trivium (logic, grammar, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy), the former pertaining to the mind and the latter pertaining to matter.  Excerpted from an essay by Dr. Eugene R. Swanger, Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Wittenburg University, The Liberal Arts Defined, the identification of the eight basic skills that constitute the liberal serves further to clarify the term.

An art is a skill; a skill raised to a high level of competence becomes an art.  The liberal arts are composed of eight basic skills: reading, listening, writing, speaking, observing, measuring, calculating, and reasoning..  Traditionally the word "liberal" in this context means, "free of professional intent.". When such skills are acquired, a person's humanity is enhanced.  This notion is the secondary meaning of the word "liberal" in the phrase "liberal arts.".  Once these skills are polished and refined, once they have become habits, the student has the necessary foundation for all future learning.

This essay distinguishes between the liberal and fine arts and between the liberal arts and humanities, and between the liberal arts and the disciplines, the disciplines being the arenas in which liberal skills are acquired.

Our task in the University, then, becomes to ensure ample and purposeful opportunities for our students to acquire the skills necessary for them to become educated persons, persons contributing to society intellectually, economically, socially, ethically, and politically. More than one of the focus conversations identified as one of the University's goals graduating students who understand better what it is to be a human being.

There was general agreement, asserted in one way or another, that the hallmark of a great university is its demonstrated commitment to scholarship in the liberal arts and sciences.

The Humanities

One of the more useful definitions of the humanities to come to our attention recently appears in the material of the NY Council of the Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  It reads as follows:

The humanities are a group of disciplines that both mirror and interpret what human beings have believed, experienced, and celebrated in our time and throughout the centuries. As branches of learning, the humanities include history, literature, philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence, linguistics, comparative religion, and the history, theory, and criticism of the arts. Social sciences that employ qualitative approaches such as cultural anthropology, archaeology, political science, and interdisciplinary areas such as folklore, women's studies, and American studies also are considered humanities disciplines.

 

Reaffirming the value of the humanities in the education of all a university's students, the usefulness of this knowledge in the professional lives of those students, and society's need for a common base of understanding and an educated citizenry, the Association of American Universities undertook a study on The Role and Status of the Humanities, a study intended to prompt further the reexamination of the humanities on university campuses, identify some action that institutions have taken, and propose suggestions for future actions.  The final report has recently been released.  The report does make clear, however, that a liberal education is an education in the humanities.  More tacit is the understanding and expectation that the liberal arts (skills) are practiced and honed in the humanities disciplines.

 

Interdisciplinary

 

Some clarification of the term interdisciplinary may also be useful with regard to what we strive for in scholarship and what we hope for as liberal educational experiences for students.  It is a term we have used frequently over many years to encourage thinking beyond the boundaries in which the generation now or soon to be retiring had been trained.  At least the past three decades have transformed the ways in which the disciplines view themselves.  In addition to listening to and being informed by the faculty focus participants' descriptions of what they do as scholars, a cursory glance at the scholarship and accomplishments of the Nobel and Pulitzer award recipients provides a rich perspective on the disciplines transformed.

 

The relationship between the disciplines (transformed by interdisciplinary infusions and approaches) and the curriculum, however, highlights the fact that the curriculum, in large measure, still reflects undue attention to very narrowly prescribed areas of scholarship, regardless of how that scholarship may have been transformed interdisciplinarily.

 

What we want as core curricular experiences for our students in this regard are not courses on these narrowly prescribed areas of scholarship; what we want as core curricular experiences for our students are broad-gauged courses that address general questions on ways that help students understand their world-its history, cultures, its international dimensions, and so forth.  Such a transformed curriculum that meets the needs of undergraduates in an era of globalization and intensifying diversity may also make more sense to the general public and make more apparent the value of the liberal arts in the education of all students.

 

Eschewing, to the extent we can, the predominantly additive practice we have engaged to create the curriculum and set of programs we now have (including all the new and exciting interdisciplinary courses), we believe we have heard in some of the focus discussions a call for a re-thinking of the relationship between a research-shaped course structure and an issues-driven course structure in order to address more directly the fundamental change that needs to occur.  This will require within units a review of some aspects of the curriculum in which faculty step back from their fields and think about how the knowledge and the issues in those fields can be formulated into a broad-based, student-centered, and perhaps a publicly-appealing curriculum; then, substitute these new courses for those for which the department can no longer sustain a sole justification of research dominance/faculty interest.   (Some departments are already pursuing this direction with innovative pedagogies and course structures that promote integration and interdisciplinary perspectives, such as academic service learning, multidisciplinary group work, internships, fieldwork, and study abroad.) 

 

The faculty has been persuasive on this matter of interdisciplinary scholarship having transformed the disciplines.  In some ways their eagerness to have departments again be the locus of general education courses is premised on their having transformed the disciplines.  The caveat, however, should such a shift of responsibility occur again, would be to require of the faculty the demonstrated mechanisms to ensure that the courses designated as general education courses are of the nature of those described above-issues-driven, broad-based, student-centered-rather than additional courses of narrowly-circumscribed areas of new, interdisciplinary scholarship designated and masquerading as integrative or general education.

 

Graduate Education

 

At the beginning of the focus conversation of the Graduate Education group, the questions as to the purpose of graduate education and its relationship to undergraduate education were raised.  These, of course, are key questions in any discussion of undergraduate education at a Carnegie classified Land-grant research extensive university.  As there had been support expressed during the conversations for the generally good ideas of the CRUE (1988) report and recommendations, there had also been a reference to the report of the Council on the Review of Research and Graduate Education (CORRAGE, 1991) and its focus on the value, purposes, and challenges of graduate education.  To quote from that report:

 

Programs of advanced study within a university represent the variety, complexity, and high levels of expertise that characterize intellectual life today.  Graduate education is the means by which virtually all scholars and other professionals acquire initial mastery of their fields. Through their academic work and with the close guidance and supervision of faculty members, students are prepared for leadership roles in their chosen professions.  At the same time, a vital graduate school infuses a university with an intellectual energy and enthusiasm that comes from no other source.

 

Graduate education is the primary way the nation educates and trains scientists, engineers, doctors, government and business leaders, and college and university faculty.  Graduate education programs at research universities such as Michigan State University generate new knowledge and act as incubators of innovative ideas that drive new technologies and advance new ways to address societal, health, security, and economic needs and problems.  Graduate education in this dynamic environment also further prepares teachers for primary and secondary education-teachers better able to understand the values of a liberal education and, therefore, better able to make more explicit for the students and their parents the links among primary, secondary, and tertiary education.

 

This vital environment of intellectual energy and enthusiasm is what the Committee on Institutional Cooperation refers to as the values added to undergraduate education at the universities of the CIC.  Thus, in an institution that stresses and supports a strong, liberal arts education or a strong liberal education, the benefits that accrue affect all its students and faculty.

 

 

Determining a Course for the Future:

 

We can now turn attention to the specific questions the Provost asked to be considered in the discussions about the liberal arts at MSU.  We believe them to be as useful a category for cataloguing the various responses as any.

 

1.      How do we maintain-perhaps even increase-our capacity to provide a sound liberal education to all of our students?

 

• Each focus conversation acknowledged the value to students and to the University that is James Madison College, suggesting that any changes in the structure of the University should seek to maintain at least the level of value as currently exists in JMC.  Suggestions emerged that incentives might encourage a modeling in other aspects of the curriculum of some of the stronger characteristics of JMC.  A small group (5-7) of interested faculty might be enjoined (and rewarded) to make a set of such recommendations, delineate specific action steps, indicating where they believe the locus of responsibility for carrying out the steps should lie.

 

• Departmental curriculum committees should undertake an audit of each of their courses to determine whether and to what extent elements of a particular course provide opportunities for the practice of one of the skills identified as a liberal arts skill.  Build into the description of the course for students the explicit expectation of an outcome for the practice of the skill.

 

• Identify values and priorities; have the courage to list weaknesses we no longer can or choose to invest in; then cut decisively.

 

• Add an essay requirement as part of the application/admissions process.  Among other things, it signals that the University values writing and has as an expectation that students will be writing throughout their undergraduate experience.

 

• Encourage more conversations across disciplines, rewarding team-teaching and transcollegiate courses.

 

• Engage the entire University (not just the three core colleges) in a student's core education.

 

• Improve communication generally-between the core and other colleges; between the administration and the faculty; between the administration and students; between the campus and the legislature; and between the campus and students' families.

 

• The value of teaching writing (along with critical thinking, historical understanding, and creative thought) was universally invoked in each focus conversation.  There was also consensus in various groups and, in particular, the Writing and Communication group, that a full year of writing was desirable for all students as well as opportunities for faculty in general to have access to workshops about integrating content with writing.

 

• A group of faculty representing a number of units with responsibilities for writing-the WIDE Center; the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures; Critical Studies in the Teaching of English; the College of Education; and the Writing Center-has forwarded for discussion a "general vision for building a writing program that is distinctive, integrated, and relevant to the educational needs of the 21^st century-one that will serve the needs of Michigan State students and establish Michigan State University as the premier university in the country for innovation and achievement in writing.  To enact this vision will require, in the next stage, active discussion, exploration, and detailed planning among interested parties across the University."  The writers stress that the document submitted is not intended to be a comprehensive or detailed plan, but say they will provide one, if asked.  I suggest that we ask them to do so.  There is much to recommend the further discussion and exploration of elements contained in the general vision, including strengthening ties to innovative technology development (e.g., MATRIX, Digital Media Art and Technology, the usability initiative in University Outreach), a practical approach to the resources needed to support this vision of writing at MSU, and what might be considered a preamble for Writing and Rhetoric in the Land Grant University.

 

• American Studies continues to be identified as a strength and a niche for Michigan State University.  The document above has apparently prompted further discussions about an appropriate locus for American Studies at MSU, recognizing that pertinent courses are spread among colleges and might better be captured more efficiently under a single umbrella.

 

 

2. What should be done to foster the intellectual vitality of the liberal arts and sciences?

 

• From the leadership of the institution there must be an affirmation of the centrality of the liberal arts to the education of all its students.  The deans (as key members of the institution's leadership) of the core colleges, for example, might ensure through the college planning processes that strong mission statements, articulated and repeated at every opportunity, will be heard and better understood by on-campus constituents as well as off-campus constituents.  The leadership should acknowledge more clearly that the hallmark of a great university is its commitment to scholarship in the liberal arts and sciences rather than a view of the liberal arts and sciences as solely a service provider to the rest of the University.  Demonstrate the affirmation by supporting (subsidizing) the courses while requiring the appropriate review and accountability.

 

• Better communication and more general promotion of the liberal arts and sciences.

 

• With more clearly communicated definitions and missions, it should be easier to set more rigorous standards and have higher expectations for what our students accomplish. As a faculty member focus participant said, "Let them know why what we are doing is important and what they should expect to get out of it."  The students have expressed a desire to be challenged further.

 

• Reallocation of resources to support the liberal arts and sciences.

 

• Incentives and rewards for collaboration (between/among faculty and/or across units).

 

• Rewards to faculty for quality teaching in undergraduate (general) education.

 

• A pilot project in Integrative Studies with department involvement.

 

• The administration should encourage and foster a general intellectual community among faculty.

 

• Differential individual outcomes should be allowed in the context of a balanced outcome at a larger division level.

 

• Identify and assert "cross-cultural competency" as one of the principles of a liberal education.

 

• Identify and encourage a cadre of faculty from across the University who understand what it means to have an approach to issues/problems in any of the broad areas of the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences; then rotate/engage these faculty in teaching courses that are opportunities for students to hone the skills of the liberal arts.

 

• Engage Student-Learning Outcomes and learn from the results.

 

• Identify, assert, and focus on the principles of a good general education program.

 

• There should be faculty mentoring of TAs involved in courses in the liberal arts.

 

• Emphasize the value of cultural literacy through the liberal arts.

 

 

3. What assets and collaborations do you now have across collegiate lines and how can/should these be strengthened and invigorated?

 

• See comments under #1-Writing Vision, where linkages among technology and digital media with writing discussions are occurring

 

• If this process of asking for input from across the campus is to be taken seriously, then any outcome must reflect that the input was heard, heeded, and decisions informed by the input.

 

• The Cognitive Science/Behavioral Neuroscience Program is considered as one of the strengths of MSU, providing also excellent research opportunities for undergraduate students.

 

• The campus needs to be mindful of the role of communication in human community and development.

 

• CAS and Business AIS classes currently collaborate in a way that has preserved their structure and expanded the curriculum without adding faculty.  More of this type of class is needed to create curricular opportunities that are available to students in more than one college.

 

• In considering any kind of collaborations or reorganizations, the NRC and any other national rankings or indices should be critical to the discussion.

 

• Cross-collegiate interaction is a very positive attribute of MSU and must continue.

 

• Informal affiliations and discussions are leading to a recommendation for a new college of Visual and Performing Arts, encompassing such areas as visual arts, media, design, and with linkages to the museums.

 

• We must acknowledge our strengths, respect our traditions, but embrace the future.

 

• We must re-think the role of ISP in the context of the expansion of the nation's international education capacity.  More than one focus participant referenced recent reports from education organizations reminding colleges and universities that the knowledge requirements of an informed citizenry require that our students not just understand the languages, customs, and cultures of nations with whom we cooperate and compete, but also that matters of national security and economic competitiveness must be considered.

 

• Given the point made above, there is merit in drawing together more closely the disciplines and ISP.  From some of the conversations, it is clear that some discussions in this regard have been occurring with a measure of success, but with any reorganization, it will be critical to strive for a closer integration of ISP and the disciplines.  Through the conversations has emerged a concern that the needs of the area studies centers and the departments have become orthogonal. At this stage it seems generally fair to say that there is a lack of diversification in the institution's international portfolio, but an enormous potential with newer and fuller linkages for significant dividends to accrue.

 

4. What new linkages will be required to meet future needs?

 

• The administration should affirm that the University consists of connected colleges rather than a collection of  "tubs," each on its own bottom.  This will help allay the thinking that there needs to be a "powerful" college in which the current "impoverished" units reside, thus giving them more of a voice.

 

• There should be linkages of integrity between the administration and the faculty (with governance).  This linkage will be critical in taking the next steps.  Many parts of the campus have already been engaged in taking high risks with the expectation of making important gains.  They are eager to see the Provost's willingness to engage the risk with an expectation of benefit as an outcome.

 

• There must be greater legislative linkages (especially in view of term limits) so legislators know the benefit of MSU in their particular districts.

 

• There must be better linkages with ISP and liberal arts and sciences as well as the rest of the University, so MSU does not have just a more international curriculum, but a more globally understood University.

 

• If the catalogue and course descriptions are contracts with students, we need to have better, more clearly defined course descriptions, rationale, and expected outcomes.

 

• A re-articulation agreement with Community Colleges may be overdue, especially since the change to semesters and to Integrative Studies courses.

 

• A linkage of language pedagogy and technology has resulted in savings and in increasing enrollment (Spanish).  Perhaps this may be a model for the teaching of other languages.

 

• Closer linkages with the Cooperative Learning Seminar for all faculty might improve pedagogies and, therefore, student experiences.

 

 

5. What innovations must occur to change the cultural climate so that we can strengthen the liberal arts, effectively integrate liberal arts across disciplines, and allocate resources that will nurture and sustain nationally visible programs?

 

• The role of interdisciplinarity in scholarship and its relationship to the curriculum should be clarified so faculty understand what kinds of changes must occur in the conception and delivery of student-centered, issues-or problem-based courses.  (See the entry above under "Definitions.")

 

• Faculty should be rotated through, not assigned to the Lyman Briggs School and to the Centers for Integrative Studies.

 

• Review the status of Integrative Studies, clarifying what it was intended to do and what it is doing.  Then make whatever adjustments as may be necessary.

 

• The faculty should commitment to ongoing assessments and curricular review as an expectation of a new culture shift with administrative support and reward for changed behavior.

 

• There will have to be an institutional understanding of and support for the liberal arts-as a general good, not just as a college issue.

 

• The decision-making process in the University must be characterized by clear direction, transparent motives, and quick resolution.  Make it happen: execution, follow-through, and move on.

 

• Decide; implement; ensure it is backed-up (supported internally and externally-especially that the Board of Trustees is aware of the changes and their implications well in advance of the matter coming to the Board.)

 

• Emphasize accountability as an integral aspect of all decision-making-whether curricular, programmatic, or administrative, or in governance.

 

• Emphasize desired-program outcomes rather than cost-savings outcomes.

 

• Communicate as clearly as possible the "why" of any (proposed) change.

 

• Continually emphasize that when we say access to higher education, we intend/mean access to quality and an expected outcome with quality.

 

• We must shift to teaching conflicts/issues as a way of encouraging thinking rather than simply teaching facts and encouraging the memorization of those facts.

 

• It is desirable to have a flexibility in faculty schedules so that it might be possible to teach more heavily in a given term in order to have a block of time for research in another term.

 

• The perception needs to change that it doesn't matter how good of a teacher you are because the important thing is how much revenue you can raise.

 

• We are advised to avoid "lock-stepping;" rather, strive for a well-advised student-centered core.  Flexibility in students' programs is still important.  If the University has had policy changes for the sake of greater uniformity, it needs to review what flexibilities may have been lost, flexibilities it may wish to restore. Policies should enable rather than obstruct a student's success.

 

• We should be looking for more opportunities to use and depend on technology (e.g. the on-line Physics course that is saving money and increasing efficiency; LON-CAPA: seminars are being held now to teach faculty to use this program.)

 

 

6. What concrete steps must be taken in order to achieve short-term goals that will result in long-term change?

 

• Reorganize the biological sciences so that they are more responsive to education through research and classroom teaching (charge a small group of 5-7 faculty from different disciplines; all accomplished researchers/teachers, giving attention to NRC considerations; to avoid turf issues, exclude current department administrators from the group).

 

• At all levels, the University must seek ways to ensure better communication, internally and externally.

 

• Distinguish more clearly between interdisciplinary issues as a way of making scholarship better (faculty have been doing this for years) and the proliferation of inappropriate, narrowly focused faculty research-interest courses under the rubric of general education or integrative studies.

 

• The administration should assert as an expectation that all MSU faculty should be fully engaged in undergraduate and graduate teaching.

 

• Consider modifications to the calendar: trimesters; terms within terms; shorter terms; modified summer terms; and so forth.

 

• Consider many money-saving ideas: closing floors in buildings; more efficient use of lighting (more motion sensors).

 

• Technology infrastructure and building utilities should be considered a common good and not charged to a particular department for repair/correction.  Maybe each unit could have so many "fix-it" vouchers.

 

• Undertake a review of ISS, IAH, and CIGS to ensure that they are accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish for students.

 

• Review the increase in health care costs for graduate students and the implications/deterrent to having graduate students on grants.  It is now less expensive for PIs to use post-docs than to use grad students.  Many grad students would rather that this were not the case and asked that this point be stressed specifically.

 

• Use global as well as pertinent local criteria for decisions to cut/eliminate programs (e.g., Canadian Studies-proximity to the border; Native Studies-the large, participatory Native population in Michigan).

 

• Increase the price of parking tickets ($10-$15) to generate revenue.

 

• Spend money in the short-term to save money in the long-term (e.g., the upgrade of systems which become more costly to operate when outdated).

 

• Produce less paper mail and rely more on electronic mail (see the University of Delaware's initiatives in this regard).

 

• Eliminate the Genetics Department.  Most, if not all, faculty are appointed elsewhere and there are few students.

 

• There should be a modification of enrollment-based incentive money to encourage greater flexibility in addressing the productivity issue.

 

• Institute block tuition rather than fee-for-course, retaining on-line courses as fee-for-course.  This may ameliorate the tensions about SCH dollars generated vs. dollars returned to unit as well as encourage students to graduate more quickly.

 

• Reaffirm that the locus of tenure is in the University rather than in departments or colleges to encourage flexibility and prevent the further erosion of morale.

 

• Create incentives for early retirement (lump sum payments, for example, based on years tenured or vested) with options for administrative invitation to post-retirement part- or short-time employment based on institutional need.

 

• Cut weak programs where there is weak scholarship, weak teaching, and weak demand.

 

• Exam position descriptions to determine whether there continues to be a need for the function the person was hired to perform.

 

• Include students more actively in the decision-making process.

 

• Improve the delivery of math courses.  It is still difficult to understand the language of some of the instruction.

 

• There should be more regular assessments of all courses-not just by the departments but also by the students at the end of each semester. The departments should be responsive to the information gained through the assessments.

 

• A reinforcement of quantitative literacy should be understood as the responsibility of all the colleges, if only in terms of numeration, notation, counting, and computation.

 

• Poorly-managed and poorly-monitored course structures need attention to help distinguish between original, less clearly defined courses and more developed and better articulated current iterations (the reference here was to the IAH courses, acknowledging the positive evolution of the courses over time).

 

• There must be continuous leadership with vision at all levels if the University, from governance, directors and chairs to deans, vice presidents, and president.

 

• The administration needs to remember that the curriculum is the purview of the faculty, and the faculty needs to exercise more convincingly their responsibility for the curriculum with appropriate pruning to support new growth.

 

• Avoid assigning TAs to courses they are unprepared to teach.  Ensure that appropriate mechanisms are in place for support for instruction and that departments are aware of them.

 

• Clarify what is intended by a foreign language requirement.  Determine if other delivery mechanisms might suffice to satisfy the requirement (e.g., separate, intense, short-term courses; on-line courses; technology assisted language learning [Spanish]; etc.).

 

• Consideration of differential fees (laboratory or clearly understood high cost delivery courses/programs) in addition to block tuition.

 

• So long as diversity remains a value for the University, monitor more closely those departments whose hiring profiles suggest their misunderstanding of the value.

 

• Ensure that advisors have the necessary tools to provide accurate and timely information to students.  Use technology more intentionally in providing information to students and in allowing them to do routine degree audits for their own profiles.

 

• Change from a culture of "turf-management/protectionism" with incentives offered for the change.

 

• Listen to all constituencies; qualitative research is also critical, although not usually as lucrative.

 

 

7.      How can we reduce or eliminate organizational or operational redundancy while sustaining and enhancing academic quality?

 

·        Review the number of centers and divisions on campus to uncover the redundancies.

 

·        Can we review what the firewall between the University and DCL might allow to determine whether the University might be served by some of the legal expertise there to save on costs for other legal services to University?

 

·        Each unit should determine how there might be a more efficient use of staff.

 

·        There are some benefits to de-centralization in a place the size of MSU, but when de-centralization becomes fragmentation, the chances of duplications and redundancies multiply exponentially.  A mechanism for oversight that preserves the benefits while avoiding the redundancies must be considered.

 

·        Use as a principle of reorganization that every element of reorganization must increase the average quality of the whole.

 

·        When a decision is made to cut a function, be sure "to kill it, not wound it."

 

·        Scheduling:  more evening classes should be scheduled for undergraduate courses.

 

·        Monitor more closely the end of semester student evaluation forms (for example, a closer monitoring might have revealed the duplication of courses between IAH 201 and History 301 [?]).

 

·        Are Psychology and Educational Psychology essentially the same course?

 

·        There are multiple statistics courses; some may be justified, but we should review to determine what might be eliminated.

 

·        Review where American Studies is being done; it seems to be occurring in many departments and colleges.

 

·        Merge Philosophy and Religious Studies.

 

·        Merge all the languages into one department.

 

·        Employ better assessments on a more regular basis (including alumni surveys and exit interviews)

 

·        There need to be incentives to get rid of duplication because the SCH matter seems to be the "coin of the realm."

 

·        SCHs appear to serve as an obstacle to change.  "Accounting is strange..nobody knows what matters.SCHs seem to be important, but nobody really knows.there is a great void at the top."

 

·        A policy review might be in order to change the perception as policies as a way of "obstructing" or "preventing" rather than as guides to ensure smooth, unencumbered, correctly carried out processes.

 

·        Administrators need to have the courage to make right decisions even though they may lose their administrative jobs in the process as well as their chances for getting another administrative job elsewhere.

 

·        Without an adequate institutionalization of interdisciplinary programs there may be increased opportunity for redundancy.

 

·        Would attention to Allied Health Programs be more efficient and discourage redundancy in those areas?

  

In addition to the responses catalogued under the various questions posed on the November 5, 2003 charge, there were other comments, often made, more than once, that I have grouped below under

 Other:

 ·        Semester transition hurt SCH production because of the way courses were re-structured.

 

·        Could flexible work options free some dollars for deployment elsewhere (some faculty and/or staff may opt for ½ or ¾ time appointments-with appropriate attention to benefits).

 

·        There should be reviews underway in other parts of the University as well.  Why, for example, is it so costly to do business with the Physical Plant?  Those are real costs to the departments or colleges.

 

·        There is some discontent with the current discussions about the sabbatical policy.  There seems to be a lack of information or consistent information about the matter with the faculty.

 

·        Undergraduate students stressed repeatedly that the University has a responsibility to communicate with its students just as a government has such a responsibility with its citizens.

 

·        Value is not always or easily quantifiable in dollars and cents, but the administration has to understand that it is still important.

 

·        On-line education might be more heavily used in the summer as a way of generating more revenue.

 

·        Make available comparisons of MSU's administrative costs with those of other Big 10 Universities (the CIC) to dispel the perception that MSU is spending considerably more on administrative costs than its peers.

 

·        Diversity must be considered in any reorganization at all levels (demographic but also in key positions).

 

·        A one-dollar surcharge on athletic tickets earmarked for academics would signal that at MSU education is important.

 

·        Faculty should be trusted more.  In UCRIHS the ceilings are too low.  "NIH has a $50K justification chunk and MSU wants it to the penny."

 

·        There is general skepticism about this "process."  Will the time have been well spent, or is there already a "plan" for which this process is intended to provide the appearance of input, if not sanction?

 

·        A recommendation was made that more comprehensive efficiency analyses be performed at the department level as well as at the college level to determine relative savings or reductions among faculty/temps/TAs vs. administrator reduction (I am including most of it here as it includes many of the comments and ideas made by the administrators participating in the discussions):

 

o       "Unit Level:  For each department, assess the extent to which current course offerings achieve institutional efficiency (as indexed by overall SCH/FTE ratio), and provide rationale to justify subsidized courses.

o       Low-efficiency units should propose alternative models that would generate higher CSH/FTE via eliminating or reducing frequency of subsidized courses and by increasing enrollment in popular courses.

o       Units should also report data on current teaching loads by faculty and justifying each deviation from the 2/7 minimum.  Moreover, criteria should be proposed for increasing assignments beyond two courses per semester in cases of sub-par research productivity or service performance (i.e., enforcement of 40-40-20 standards for teaching-research-service).

o       Department chairs and deans should identify key modes for reducing inefficiency:

§         Limit the standard load reduction for new hires to one course in one year

§         Enact exacting provisions for earning sabbatical leave (particularly half-year leaves)

§         Place stricter limitations on scope and length of course reduction agreements for senior faculty, counter-offer recipients, and minor administrators (assistant chairs, program coordinators)

§         Increase course loads for faculty who teach small classes

§         Review accreditation criteria that impose artificially low classroom sizes

§         Scrutinize program proposals to ensure efficiencies are satisfactory 

The potential for increased efficiency is greater within departments (and within colleges) than across academic units, because front-line administrators (particularly chairs and grad/undergrad coordinators) invest greater energy at the local level, and because faculty more willingly perform a variety of localized service tasks without inducements

 

·        College level:  Re-organizing colleges would have varying degrees of budgetary savings, depending on the configuration that is implemented.  There may be considerable cost savings with minimal disruption of functions in certain colleges that are overstaffed with aides to the dean.  On the other hand, many college-level personnel perform important functions that would either be impaired by substantial administrative reductions or would require substitute administrators at nearly the same cost. Moreover, centralization of complex and specialized tasks in overseeing a large and dispersed array of departments would result in inefficiency.

 

·        Conclusion:  The overall net budget gains at the department level (identified above) will be greater than gains achieved by large-scale college reorganization.  To address the limitations in the general fund, efforts should focus on increased instructional efficiencies as well as selective administrator efficiencies through re-organization."

(A comment from the facilitator:  In my experience, with clearly defined and exercised leadership throughout the organization the suggestion made above could be easily undertaken and accomplished.  I suspect that in an environment of uncertainty and potentially wide-ranging change, it is easier to look upward for the directives to undertake those things we know we should be doing.)

As you have also received copies of the various recommendations for college reorganizations and for strategic technology plans that also involve college organizations, I will not include those in this report except as attachments and to catalogue what they are.  I am pleased you have encouraged me to seek permission from the authors to make their submissions available for all to see:

 

·        Art History Major, Museum Studies and Kresge Art Museum

·        Art History with 3-scenarios for placement

·        A single interdisciplinary Department of American Studies

·        A School/College of Visual Arts, Media, and Design

·        Strategic Visioning for Information Technology at MSU

·        Rethinking the Shape and Knowledge and the Place of Arts, Letters, and the Humanities in the 21^st Century

·        Vision 2004 for the Liberal Arts and Sciences

·        The Future of the Liberal Arts

·        Some Thoughts on the Liberal Arts and Sciences

·        History of Art at MSU

·        Vision for the Liberal Arts and Sciences at MSU

·        Digital Media Design at MSU

·        Internationalization (in preparation for NCA 2005 accreditation review)

·        Thoughts About MSU in the 21^st Century (Peace and Justice Studies)

·        Reaction to Provost's Vision for Liberal Arts (sent to "newidea")

·        What becomes of our future? (sent to newidea)

·        Vision 2004

·        Input on Liberal Arts and Sciences

·        Follow-up to Focus Group Discussion

·        Conversation on Liberal Arts and Sciences at MSU

·        The Center for Great Lakes Culture and the Future of the Liberal Arts at MSU

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