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Vol. 38, No. 18

2-19-2008
By: Jeff McCallister

State of Academic Affairs address outlines priorities

Joe Alutto knew he was about to lay out an ambitious blueprint for Ohio State’s academic future.

So the first order of business during his State of Academic Affairs address to the University Senate Feb. 7 was for the executive vice president and provost to reassure the senate that even the most grandiose-sounding plans can come to fruition.

Alutto described a trip he had taken in the 1980s to Shanghai, China, which at the time was crumbling and in the throes of economic decline.

There, he met with the city’s mayor, who described a grand agenda for Shanghai’s future. And Alutto had heard it all before.

“But there was something about the passion, commitment and thoughtful implementation plans that suggested this was a vision that would be fulfilled,” Alutto said. Today Shanghai has emerged as a booming center of commerce, culture and development.

The moral of the story?

“A passionate vision backed with the commitment to act can clearly create an exciting future that benefits all members of a community,” Alutto said.

In this case, the vision comprises 14 priorities for the Office of Academic Affairs. “This constitutes an ambitious agenda, but one appropriate for our own aspirations,” Alutto said.

He focused on five of the priorities in his address, saying that each of the five requires a level of consistency in action that will not be easy, but that achieving each should provide the foundation for all the others.

1. Developing college and department strategic plans

Alutto wants to have a strategic plan for every college made public by the end of Summer Quarter, 2008.

Aligning the plans of the university and all the colleges, making them consistent and compatible with one another, will allow the university to move toward the overarching vision of the Academic Plan, Alutto said.

“The key principle here is remarkably simple,” he said. “Academic priorities must always drive everything we do.”

2. Doctoral program reviews

All of the university’s doctoral programs are currently being reviewed to identify those that deserve “enhanced support” and those that are candidates for “disinvestment.”

“Our doctoral program reviews will be crucial in shaping our reputation in the future and ensuring outstanding contributions to the creation of knowledge,” Alutto said.

“And that goal will be supported annually as we continue our cycles of program reviews at department, school, and college levels.”

3. Arts and Sciences Federation review

The Arts and Sciences Federation was created in 2003 to give the arts and sciences a greater voice within the university as well as to integrate programs and make them more efficient.

It is that structure that a task force led by vice provosts Martha Garland and Randy Smith is reviewing to determine if those objectives are being met.

“I can say that this is clearly one of the most important internal structural assessments we will undertake this year. We must have a strong arts and sciences faculty supporting truly world class programs,” Alutto said.

4. Academic Core North

The university is launching a totally new approach to capital planning in the section of campus between High Street and Tuttle Park Place, from Woodruff to 17th Avenue.

Rather than constructing one building at a time in response to the need of a particular college, the Academic Core North calls for a collaborative, integrated approach that will promote interdisciplinary interactions.

“It will allow units to retain their identities while integrating them for the good of the whole,” Alutto said.

5. University System of Ohio

Calling it “perhaps the most ambitious higher education initiative ever undertaken in our state,” Alutto said the system promises a new era of cooperation among the state’s 13 universities and 23 community and technical colleges.

But it also calls on those institutions to differentiate their missions and build distinctive, focused areas of excellence, Alutto said, and the effort needed from OSU, as the flagship campus for the state of Ohio, to coordinate and plan the system is what makes it a priority.

He said what ties the priorities together is their focus on the common good, the emphasis on the idea of “one Ohio State University.”

“We must prioritize our efforts, organize them strategically, and work collectively to realize that vision,” he said. “Together, and with the leadership of President Gee, we are poised for even greater institutional successes.”

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