Lunch and Learning

By Jo McCulty Maria Bebko, a third-year dietetics student, is a server at the ViewPoint restaurant in the Drake Performing and Event Center, a new 60-seat restaurant/laboratory collaborative project of Ohio State's Hospitality Management Program and the Office of Student Affairs. Seated at the table from left are H.G. Parsa, associate professor of human nutrition; Lesley Ferris, chair of the Department of Theatre; and Mark Shanda, technical director in theatre. Parsa said students working at the ViewPoint will learn all facets of restaurant management, including marketing, financial management and human resources strategies. The restaurant serves breakfast and lunch.

Making the grade

Emphasis on academic climate leads to higher athlete graduation rates

Student athlete graduation rates at Ohio State have increased substantially since last year, and several new initiatives designed to assist athletes in their academic pursuits suggest Ohio State's graduation rates will show an upward trend in coming years, as well.

At the same time, officials tending to athletes' academic needs are noting that graduation statistics are just numbers. What's more important in driving new programs and processes related to academics, they say, is ensuring that athletes enjoy the best experience possible while attending Ohio State.

"Our concern is with education,"said David O. Frantz, professor of English and faculty liaison between Student Athlete Support Services and the Office of Academic Affairs, speaking to the Board of Trustees on Oct. 5. "Our job is to take these students, many of whom define themselves as athletes, and help them find what engages them academically. We need to pay attention to each individual student."

Frantz's appointment as a liaison a year ago was just one of several steps related to an overall emphasis on ensuring that athletes remain in good academic standing during their college career. The academic support has been enhanced so that even if athletes leave school for professional sports or transfer to another institution to obtain more playing time -- the most common reasons that athletes leave Ohio State -- they will be best situated to continue their studies and earn a degree.

Other initiatives include producing weekly academic status reports on all student athletes; enhancing study-table, tutoring and mentoring services in Younkin Success Center; establishing a closer relationship between athletes and academic advisers within their colleges; having Student Athlete Support Services -- a unit led by Director Kate Riffee that includes a staff focused on both academics and life skills -- report jointly to Athletic Director Andy Geiger and Frantz; and appointing an academic resource coordinator in Student Athlete Support Services who oversees and develops closer collaboration with writing and math centers and other academic services across campus.

In addition, Frantz participated with athletics officials in prescreening all prospective student athletes' high school transcripts before any athletic scholarships were offered to those entering Ohio State this autumn. Such attention to academic performance will result in taking "many fewer long shots"in recruiting student athletes whose admission and/or eligibility might be threatened by academic problems, Frantz said.

The changes speak to an increasing emphasis on academic performance among students in all sectors of athletics, Geiger told trustees. Coaches -- including those from the highest-visibility sports -- are part of an invigorated support system designed to create an environment that fosters student athletes' academic progress, he said.

"We think the variety of things happening will sustain this movement in the right direction for our student athletes,"said Martha Garland, vice provost and dean for undergraduate studies, to whom Frantz reports. "These initiatives, combined with Ohio State's eligibility standards -- which are tougher than the NCAA's -- ensure that if student athletes leave school early, they leave under conditions in which they've made genuine academic progress and are in good standing should they later decide to complete their degrees. And if they do leave, we encourage them to remain focused on earning those degrees whenever the time is right for them."

Ohio State's Colleges of the Arts and Sciences and Undergraduate Student Academic Services require that student athletes within those units take at least 35 credit hours each year that cover the General Education Curriculum, major or major prerequisite requirements. The National Collegiate Athletic Association guidelines for eligibility require only that scholarship athletes enroll full-time (12 hours) in courses that count toward graduation -- including electives -- but impose no restrictions on whether those hours demonstrate real progress toward a degree.

Garland also acknowledged that with an athletic program as strong nationally as Ohio State's, the graduation rates are likely to consistently reflect that for some athletes, life decisions about their careers are bound to interfere with progress toward a degree. "Athletic decisions these students make are very significant because our athletes are so good,"she said. "It's nice when they graduate within six years, but it's nicer if they get their degree when they're ready and they live satisfying, productive lives."

Ohio State's six-year graduation rate for athletes entering school in 1994 reached 62 percent, compared to 50 percent for those who entered one year earlier. The six-year graduation rate for all Ohio State students entering in 1994 decreased slightly, shifting from 56 percent to 55 percent. The numbers of minority student athletes who graduated in six years showed marked improvement, increasing from 13 percent for male athletes entering in 1993 to 45 percent for those entering in 1994, and from 50 percent of female athletes entering in 1993 to 78 percent for those who joined Ohio State in 1994. The national average Division I student-athlete graduation rate is 58 percent, according to the NCAA.

The most recent rates indicate Ohio State's overall student body and athlete graduation rates are comparable to a number of Big Ten and benchmark institutions, those aspirational peers against which the University compares itself in a number of performance measures.

Garland and Frantz suggest that based on Ohio State's admission standards, it would make sense for the University's graduation rates to be listed among the top half of the Big Ten. And the retention figures Ohio State has posted leave officials hopeful for future graduation rates, Garland said. The retention of freshmen who returned for their sophomore year in 1994 stood at 77 percent. Since then, retention has showed steady increases, reaching at least 85 percent for last year's freshmen.

"Students can't graduate if they're not retained,"Garland said. "We've been on an upward trajectory in retention since 1994, and we weren't before that. We expect that for the classes that entered after 1994, we'll see a climb in the overall student graduation rate, and athletes' rates should move up right along with them."

Teaching its own

Board supports continuing education of faculty and staff

Ohio State does a good job of educating its faculty and staff through literacy programs, tuition waivers and training workshops -- but officials say there is room for improvement.

"We have excellent programs in place providing educational benefits to our employees, but we could be doing more to promote these opportunities. We'd like to see even more participation than we are currently experiencing,"Larry M. Lewellen, associate vice president for human resources, told the University Board of Trustees on Oct. 5.

Nancy Campbell, director of Organizational and Human Resources Development in the Office of Human Resources, outlined current programs, which range from literacy education to fee waivers for employees working on graduate degrees, and presented guidelines for proposed enhancements. Employee education is one of three priorities established by Trustees Chair David L. Brennan, who commissioned an ad hoc committee to study the issue.

Ohio State's Reach 1 program provides University employees and their family members with instruction to improve basic literacy skills or to prepare for the GED. The committee proposes a targeted enrollment of 100, which would increase the number of participants by roughly 50 percent.

Potential changes to the program might include: adding a fast-track program that would provide an immersion approach for two quarters; hiring a part-time counselor for the program; allowing employees one to four hours a week of participation during work time; and using an open entry and exit approach to enrollment.

Employees who have participated in the Reach 1 program spoke to trustees, telling the board the program improved their self-esteem and enabled them to advance in the workplace, and noting that the program enhances the overall University environment and Ohio State's institutional efficiency by creating a better-educated work force.

Alyce Smith, a physical facilities assistant superintendent in the east region, brought tears to the eyes of some at the meeting as she described her Reach 1 experience. She characterized the program as "almost as dear to me as my family."A mother of six who over the years also has cared for numerous foster children, Smith said Reach 1 gave her new confidence in herself, and helped her both financially and spiritually. She has steadily moved up in the job ranks during her more than 20 years at Ohio State.

A second proposal Campbell outlined involves starting a new program for staff offering short courses on subjects such as reading, mathematics and critical thinking. Participants would take voluntary assessment tests to determine their skill levels. The classes would combine a variety of teaching strategies, including classroom and computer-based instruction, and would be offered at times convenient to all shifts of workers.

Ohio State's flagship program for employee development is the Employee Tuition Authorization Program, which allows employees to take up to 10 credit hours of coursework per quarter at no charge. The program averages 1,000 faculty and staff participants in any given quarter. In the past, students enrolled in graduate classes have been taxed, but a new federal law for Fiscal Year 2002 will make employer sponsorship of graduate courses nontaxable.

The University would like to work toward eliminating any barriers that are keeping faculty and staff from registering, Lewellen said. "We'd like to place an emphasis on flexibility in the workplace, so people can feel comfortable pursuing coursework, even when classes are offered during their normal workday,"he said.

Ohio State has a number of well-developed education and training programs offered throughout the University, Campbell said, with job-related training offered by the offices of Finance, Information Technology, Organizational and Human Resource Development, and the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy, and quite a few opportunities for on-the-job training provided by employing units.

The committee's proposals to enhance offerings differ from program to program, and any costs that would be invoked by expanding programs would depend on the method of change and the size of expansion determined.

"There is a large employer investment being made in developing and educating our work force,"Lewellen said. "We are currently investing, through internal funding, approximately $4 million each year educating our faculty and staff through the tuition waiver program. That's a significant investment, but it's one the University should be making. If Ohio State is to continue moving forward, it is vitally important to keep building and growing the talent and abilities of the work force."