Vol. 38, No. 18

3-15-2005
By: Joni Bentz Seal

Support unit reviews assess quality, align budgets with university goals

In its final report issued in December 2002, the Support Units Committee, also known as the Hoffsis Committee, called for periodic reviews of the university’s support units to assess their quality and recommend base budget changes.

Modeled after a long-standing program at Northwestern University, Ohio State’s Support Unit Review schedule spans eight years and incorporates more than 61 offices and units into three review processes: organizational, functional and student affairs. According to Julie Carpenter-Hubin, director of the Office of Institutional Research and Planning, the reviews will help clarify the contribution of support units to the goals of the Academic Plan.

“High-performing support units enable the academic units to do their jobs to the best of their ability,” she said, “and because the review process is faculty-driven for the most part, with oversight by the Senate Fiscal Central Services Subcommittee and the inclusion of faculty on the internal panels, it also gives the academic side an opportunity to tell the support units what it is they need to do their jobs and provides the support units the opportunity to educate faculty on what they do and what they can offer.”

So far, one unit — building services and maintenance — has completed the entire process, and six units are currently undergoing reviews in accordance to the schedule extending through the 2010-11 academic year. The reviews are sequenced to allow units that have functional ties to be studied in the same year, said Marv Batte, chair of the Central Services Subcommittee, which is delegated responsibility to work with IRP to implement the reviews. For instance, this year the offices of the Registrar, Fees and Deposits, Student Financial Aid and the CIO are among those being reviewed. “These units interact in the enrollment, scheduling and provision of financial services to students. Each unit is studied individually through an organizational review, then through a functional review, which analyzes how well these units work together to complete those functions,” he said.

The Support Unit Review process takes a full year and begins with several preparation and orientation meetings, followed by a self-study and reviews by an internal panel consisting of six Ohio State faculty, staff and when appropriate, students from outside the unit; and an external panel composed of three non-OSU affiliated experts in the field — often counterparts at other institutions. Functional review panels consist of seven to eight internal members.

“The internal panel approaches the review from a customer perspective: Is the university getting the services it needs?” said Toycee Hague-Palmer, program review coordinator in IRP. “That panel reviews the self study and interviews unit members and university customers to identify issues that need to be explored further.”

Hague-Palmer said the reviews often support what units have recognized as areas to improve, lending validation if the unit doesn’t have the resources it needs. For instance, Hague-Palmer said, logistics and funding — particularly physical location, convenience to students and appearance — were main concerns expressed by both the registrar and its internal panel. The external panel then looks at those issues and offers ways to improve or resolve them.

But, the program reviews are not intended to be big budget boosters.

“In addition to providing guidance in scheduling the units for study and selecting the internal and external review panels and orientation, our subcommittee receives the final reports, evaluates the fiscal impacts of panel recommendations and forwards the reports with our recommendations to the full Senate Fiscal Committee and, ultimately, to Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Bill Shkurti, Executive Vice President and Provost Barbara Snyder and President (Karen) Holbrook,” Batte said.

Shkurti said the Department of Physical Facilities has developed an implementation plan for building services and maintenance based on those recommendations, and efforts are underway to improve preventative maintenance services and communication with the unit’s customers on the status of pending requests.

“At a time when interest in the effective use of resources is increasing both inside and outside the university, these reviews provide an excellent opportunity to improve our core academic support processes,” he said. “And, although we will never have enough money to do everything we want or need, it is extremely important that we focus what resources we do have in a way that has the most beneficial impact,” he said.

To provide for more timely reviews of its 26 departments without overloading IRP, the Office of Student Affairs modified the university’s review procedures and developed its own review process, which also is tailored to more fully support its 2003-07 Strategic Plan Continuous Improvement Initiative.

“This initiative is grounded in the principle that every unit, regardless of its purpose, function or funding structure, contributes to the mission and work of student affairs and therefore should be a part of the program review process,” said Mary Daniels, special assistant to the vice president for student affairs and the program review administrator.

Two departments are being piloted through the student affairs review process this year: the Student Wellness Center and the Jerome Schottenstein Center. Daniels said those units are currently completing the self-study phase of the process and will begin the internal review phase in April.

“The self-study has required us to look at every aspect of what we do, from staffing to assessment to our practices and policies,” said Connie Boehm, director of the Student Wellness Center. “It is exciting to see every single thing we do documented. It is also a little scary because our strengths, weaknesses and the sufficiency of our strategic planning will be under close examination for the next several months, but we know it will be a good learning experience and help us become a better unit.”

Carpenter-Hubin stressed that in both review programs, the process is still evolving and participants are helping to shape the future format. “We want to be open to their suggestions about how it can be a better process for them and for the university,” she said. “One of the improvements we made following the building services and maintenance review was the additional step of sending the final report to the head of the unit for any clarifications or corrections of factual errors before sending it to the vice president and the senate subcommittee.”

Hague-Palmer, who recruits panel members, issues correspondence and maintains the process timeline, gained some advice during a feedback session that has made her job easier. “The units suggested that they be directly involved in soliciting members of the external panel,” she said. “While we still generate the list, the units, in many cases, may already have a relationship with those panel prospects, so we now allow them to issue the invitation. We thought we were sparing the units additional work, but it turns out potential panelists are more responsive to the personal invitation of the area’s director.”

The review process for the 2005-06 academic year has already begun, and faculty and staff are needed to serve on the internal organizational review panels of the Office of Research’s administration, risks protection and technology partnerships units; the Office of Development; and the University, Health Sciences and Law libraries. Functional reviews, which are conducted after the organizational reviews conclude, will occur in departments excluded from the 2003-04 building services and maintenance review. Student affairs will be reviewing its administration, the Multicultural Center, judicial affairs, career services and its National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) campus affiliate.
Carpenter-Hubin said serving on an internal panel is an opportunity for faculty and staff to learn how the university operates and provide input into that operation. “It’s also a great opportunity to learn what these offices do — knowledge that is always appreciated by the unit under study,” she said.

Faculty and staff interested in serving on a panel should contact Hague-Palmer at hague-palmer.1@osu.edu.

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