Selective Investment winners share trade secrets

Careful hiring of faculty is one key ingredient to success

Michael Hogan, chair of Ohio State's Department of History since 1993 before becoming interim dean of the College of Humanities in July, set out years ago to make a national name for his department. He redesigned a departmental newsletter to include stories featuring scholarly activity and began mailing it to his counterparts across the country- targeting leaders of the top 80 history departments. They, after all, are the ones whose opinions contribute to some of the most popular university rankings in the country, including those in U.S. News & World Report magazine.

That strategy, combined with others, has worked. The department has been a top-20 graduate program for more than a decade. And this academic year, the Department of History joined Chemistry, Neuroscience and Political Science in accepting up to $500,000 in reallocated University funding in the second round of Ohio State's Selective Investment program (see Oct. 7 onCampus).

All four units seek to rank in the top 10 of their fields as part of the institutional goal to move into the top tier of U.S. public research universities. Department chairs intend to use much of the new funding to hire strong senior and junior faculty who will help them build on existing strengths.

Michael Hogan

Before they were in line for Selective Investment funding - even before the program was initiated in 1997- these and other departments were striving to be the best. Hogan and other lead writers of the proposals for this year's Selective Investment-winning units recently discussed some of the ways they've earned their stripes in academe.

Achieving a national reputation

Departmental reputation is determined in large part by National Research Council rankings of graduate programs, as well as ratings in U.S. News. And leaders of the award-winning departments this year agree that careful hiring of junior and senior faculty has been among the primary ways they have been able to develop departments that earn national recognition.

Scholarship and external support lead as methods of gaining national attention, and teaching excellence solidifies a local reputation, they say.

"One overarching thing is that departments are positioned well to receive funding like this because of their already-existing quality. And that takes hard work over time. It can take several decades," said Paul Beck, chair of political science. "You have to hire first-class faculty and retain them, and not make bad decisions on tenuring. There's not much room for mistakes."

Once that reputation is built, departments will attract bright, young faculty who can generate new areas of excellence in scholarship and teaching. That worked for Chemistry, a department that lost many senior faculty during budget difficulties in the 1980s and early 1990s, especially to early retirement. Matthew Platz, who ended his five-year term as chair on Sept. 30, counts faculty hires among his greatest achievement in elevating the department's status.

"I hired a lot of young, bright, enthusiastic people and created an environment in which they could flourish and fulfill their potential," Platz said.

Matthew Platz

For upcoming senior hires made possible by the Selective Investment funding, Platz said having institutional support will help with recruiting in a highly competitive environment. "You can convince people that the future in your institution will be demonstrably better than the future in their institution," Platz said.

Hiring renowned faculty away from other schools is a tricky part of the quest to raise rankings, noted Bruce Bursten, who took over as chemistry chair on Oct. 1. "In order for us to move to within the top 10, other departments are going to have to move down."

Hogan, too, said the Department of History has a strong record of recruiting junior faculty and holding them to demanding standards and, in the past four years especially, of bringing in distinguished senior hires.

As the department, this year led by Leila Rupp as interim chair, sets out to begin more hiring with Selective Investment money, Hogan continues to consider how to market program strengths. He wants to expand on the newsletter- which now is a glossy magazine-style publication - and use the Internet to tell department stories through targeted e-mail lists and a revamped Web presence.

Another of Hogan's strategies- all of which, he says, give a lot of return for minimal investment- has been hosting scholarly workshops on campus.

The Selective Investment evaluation committee this year, led by Distinguished University Professor of Physics Bunny Clark, noted another of history's strengths- what the panel called "altruism" among the faculty. Professors collaborated in writing and compiling a custom-published electronic database U.S. history reader titled Retrieving the American Past, which is assigned at more than 80 other institutions. Contributors agreed to return all royalties back to the department- to the tune of up to $70,000 this year.

Reaching the winners' circle

That kind of harmony among colleagues impressed the evaluation committee, which looked for several criteria in selecting winning departments. The awards specifically are intended to reward departments that: are central to the University's academic mission; plan to build on strengths and exhibit expectations for substantial benefit; demonstrate interdisciplinary potential; plan to monitor progress and evaluate achievement; and emphasize outreach.

"Nearly all of the units that received Selective Investment awards this year had done careful planning for many years and were well aware of benchmark departments," said L. Alayne Parson, senior vice provost, who coordinates the Selective Investment program. "You have to hire first-class faculty and retain them, and not make bad decisions on tenuring. There's not much room for mistakes."

"They also demonstrate a clear sense of collegiality and common purpose, and an impressive commitment to mentor junior faculty."

Beck echoed Parson's praise for planning.

"A department really has to know where it's headed and how it's going to get there. You can't try to do everything," he said. "You want to be good at the things people think are important, and also see where you can connect to those areas to strengthen other areas."

Three of the recipients this year- Chemistry, History and Political Science- are part of the core curriculum, meaning they reach thousands of undergraduates each year. The same was true for Psychology and Physics, recipients of Selective Investment funding last year along with Materials Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering.

That core status, as well as pursuit of interdisciplinary scholarly activity, ensure a department's potential to favorably affect other areas of the University as its own quality improves. In fact, Parson says that the interdisciplinary activity itself strengthens departments, and notes that some units that have worked together for years- Chemistry and Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering, for example, are among the current and previous recipients of Selective Investment support.

Funding recipients also are selected for the benefits they offer to the people and businesses of Ohio, meaning research with translational results can make a big difference in program visibility.

In both of those areas, Neuroscience made a strong case when it sought Selective Investment funding. The inherent multidisciplinary approach to neuroscience and the field's growing importance to society have contributed to Ohio State's advances in several areas relating to neuroscience.

"Neuroscience was born as an interdisciplinary venture, and continues to inform and be informed by all aspects of the biological sciences, physical sciences and engineering," said Bradford Stokes, associate dean for research and graduate education in the College of Medicine and Public Health and an author of the program's Selective Investment proposal.

The birth of neuroscience at Ohio State was aided in the early 1970s by a National Institutes of Health grant supporting the study of spinal cord injury- OSU now has a top 10 spinal cord program.

The University has attracted almost 60 faculty who represent multiple disciplines, ranging from imaging to molecular biology, and who have earned recognition for their studies of central nervous system disorders; established the nationally respected campuswide Neuroscience Graduate Studies Program; and received millions of dollars in grant funding from the NIH and the National Science Foundation- with another $25 million in research applications pending.

The discipline was represented as a division within another department for years. In July, the Board of Trustees established the Department of Neuroscience; Michael Beattie has been appointed interim chair.

Ohio State scientists also conceived, designed and operate the most powerful magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device in the world. That equipment has functioned as a "human magnet," luring celebrated researchers seeking to conduct the most advanced brain and spinal cord research possible to Ohio State, Stokes said.

The high-resolution MRI and high-profile scientists it attracts will allow Ohio State to be a leader in increasing understanding - from the genetic base to the behavioral outcome- of such illnesses as Alzheimer's disease and HIV/AIDS, Stokes said.

"Ohio State is poised to elevate the visibility and strength of its neuroscience program even more by combining its unique instrumentation with increasing expertise in molecular models of trauma and diseases of the central nervous system," he added.

Gaining institutional support, recognition

Keeping in mind that not all of Ohio State's 100 departments are going to be Selective Investment candidates, the chairs nonetheless say there is plenty a program can do to earn institutional support and peer recognition.

"Half of the students on campus take chemistry, so a great university is going to need to have a great chemistry department," Platz said. "If you're not one of the departments that's central to the mission of the University, find a way to make yourself unique- hire a Nobel prize winner or capitalize on your infrastructure." Infrastructure- the MRI - helped enhance the neuroscience program, for example.

Added Beck, "Even departments at Ohio State that won't receive Selective Investment want to get better. It's a shared value at this campus."

Several chairs noted that the University's Academic Enrichment program, also a central funding initiative, supports innovative programs and collaborations. The program is designed to stimulate and encourage excellence within and across academic units. More than $8 million in funding has been awarded since 1995, and at least 61 faculty positions have been authorized as a result of the program and the matching funds provided by sponsoring units.

In the public announcement of the Selective Investment awards on Oct. 1, Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray said the funding will make faculty partnerships stronger and create a "general buoyancy effect" across campus.

"An expectation of excellence has a pervasive effect across a program," he said. "These are some of the best, and they will get even better."

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