Vol. 38, No. 18

2-18-2005
By: Joni Bentz Seal

Freeman Committee seeks to tie graduate funding to quality

The intent of the Freeman Committee on Graduate Education — much the fodder of graduate student conversation in recent weeks — has been misunderstood, according to Chair Richard Freeman, dean of the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

“Our charge is not to target programs for elimination, but to develop a budget funding model that supports quality and effectively aligns with the state subsidy for graduate education, and to recommend a process by which review of graduate programs can take place in the future,” he said.

Convened by Provost Barbara Snyder last summer, the committee submitted its interim report in December. That report recommended a set of metrics to assess the quality of the nearly 100 Ph.D. programs at Ohio State to determine a funding structure that will follow quality, rather than enrollment, as the current model does. A second committee recently named by Snyder and chaired by Paul Beck, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (see sidebar below), will re-examine the function and the structure of the Graduate School — an opportunity hastened by the resignation of Dean Susan Huntington, who will return to the faculty effective April 1.

Snyder appointed the Freeman Committee because there are some real inconsistencies between the university’s financial model and its educational goals, Freeman said. The recommendations of the 1995 Graduate School Review Committee, better known as the Ripley Report, attempted to inaugurate the role of the Graduate School in setting standards and regularly assessing the quality of graduate programs; however, it did not deal with funding issues.

“Many things anticipated in the Ripley Report are not too far removed from what we think will be the ultimate result of our findings,” Freeman said. “But the new budget model is driving all kinds of decisions at the graduate level that are not in the best interest of the university.”

Freeman explained that the new responsibility-based budgeting works at the undergraduate level because there is a central control over the quality and total number of undergraduates admitted to the university, allowing the university to stay within the state subsidy allocations and ensuring that entering classes are consistently improving. But there is no central control over the number of graduate students, and while Ohio State’s share of the state subsidy for graduate education, currently 42.2 percent, is fixed, the total dollars allocated by the state is declining each year. “Regardless of the quality or graduation rates of the students, enrollment is what’s driving the budget allocation of these programs, often at the expense of smaller, high quality or strategically important programs,” Freeman said, adding that the committee is working with the Office of Business and Finance to better understand how graduate funding is allocated and where the increases are going.

Committee member Fred Sanfilippo, senior vice president and executive dean of health sciences and dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health, said focusing on quality rather than quantity and selectivity rather than entitlement are issues Ohio State is continually having to face to move forward. “Being more selective in our resource allocations and linking resources to quality would be a change from current practice, and is absolutely necessary to reach the over-riding goals of the Academic Plan in many areas,” he said. “This process will be a litmus test for walking the talk of pursuing excellence and innovation.”

In addition to a new budget model, the committee is charged with developing an internal mechanism that, as fairly and transparently as possible, will assess and identify which programs are more deserving than others of future investment. Freeman was careful to note that the provost’s charge does not request numbers or names of specific programs to be considered for elimination. Ideally, such reviews would be conducted by external committees. But external review committees are expensive and enormously time consuming and disruptive. Freeman — who has initiated external reviews of the six departments in his college — said the university cannot afford this option at this point.

“But that is one of the answers Provost Snyder wants us to arrive at: can we do an accurate review internally using the mechanism we develop,” he said. “It’s not easy to compare across such a variety of programs. What works in science, doesn’t work in humanities and what works in engineering doesn’t work in dance. We can apply certain models to many programs, but others will need to be judged in more qualitative ways.”

Data gathering is now in process with 14 departments — two volunteered by each dean on the committee and two from the Colleges of Arts and Sciences. Because of the degree of information and testing needed, the committee requested an extension of its final report into summer quarter. Freeman said the committee is making the rounds with many of the same campus groups who vetted the interim report, including the Council of Deans, the University Senate, the Research Council, and the President and Provost Advisory Committee, and will begin running tests with a number of budget and review models later spring quarter. The committee also has met with graduate students. Freeman, Snyder and Carole Anderson, recently announced to serve as interim vice provost for graduate studies and dean of the Graduate School, met with the Council of Graduate Students Feb. 11 to answer questions and obtain constructive feedback that will assist the committee with its direction.

“We’re looking to invest in quality to advance the goals of the Academic Plan,” Snyder said. “I have made it very clear that all funding for graduate education will stay in graduate education.”

Freeman said there is a lot of support on campus and a true dedication on the part of the committee members who are investing a lot of time to get a full sense of the campus community as possible.

Sanfilippo, who has a master’s in physics and a Ph.D. in immunology, felt so strongly, in fact, that he approached Snyder about joining the committee. “As a faculty member in 10 different graduate training programs at three institutions, having created a novel Ph.D. program while at Hopkins and serving as an external reviewer for graduate programs, I have a lot of personal interest in graduate education and thought I might add a useful perspective,” he said. Having served as lead dean on three interdisciplinary graduate programs that have just undergone a rigorous external review, Sanfilippo said he believes that the quality of graduate programs at Ohio State needs to improve. “Improving the graduate programs will be a plus for the students in the programs, the faculty involved in the programs and the institution as a whole,” he said. “Attracting better students means greater productivity for our research enterprise, and a better pipeline for recruiting great faculty from the ranks of great students, as is done at the very top-tier institutions.”

To view the interim report of the committee, visit http://facultycouncil.osu.edu/Freemancommitteereport.htm. Those wishing to offer constructive feedback to the committee may e-mail Freeman at freeman@mps.ohio-state.edu.

Graduate School Committee

Provost Barbara Snyder has appointed the following members of the Graduate School Committee, which will look at the structure and function of the Graduate School. They are:

Paul Beck, dean of social and behavioral sciences, chair;

David Andereck, senior associate dean of mathematical and physical sciences;

Melanie Bales, associate professor of dance;

Robert Brueggemeier, dean and professor of pharmacy;

L.S. Fan, Distinguished University Professor of chemical and biological engineering;

Charles Hancock, associate dean and professor of education;

Kerry Hodak, graduate teaching associate in political science;

John Wenzel, associate professor of entomology;

Susan Williams, associate professor of English;

Allan Yates, associate dean for graduate education, director of the Integrated Biomedical Science Graduate Program and Medical Scientist Program; and

Carole Anderson, vice provost for academic policy and faculty resources and interim dean of the Graduate School, effective April 1 (ex officio).

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