Accomplishments, leadership vision support Academic Plan, Holbrook tells senate

By JONI BENTZ SEAL, onCAMPUS staff

President Karen Holbrook recounted the progress made toward the goals of the Academic Plan and outlined her leadership agenda for the future in her State of the University address to the University Senate and campus community Oct. 9 in Weigel Hall Auditorium.

"The Academic Plan is the university's agenda to enhance our academic quality, diversity and stature as a world-class research university," she said. "It is imperative, therefore, that each year we pause to assess our progress and then move forward with informed action toward our goals, recognizing that in our fiscally constrained, publicly scrutinized environment, intentional change will be necessary if we are to control our own destiny."

President Karen Holbrook delivers her State of the University address to the University Senate and campus community Oct. 9 in Weigel Hall Auditorium.

Drawing from The Academic Plan 2003 Update and the Academic Scorecard, now available at www.osu.edu/academicplan/index.html, Holbrook provided an array of examples and supporting statistics in each of the six strategies of the plan.

The building of a world-class faculty through recruitment, compensation and retention continues to be vital, despite the university's economic challenges.

"No initiative has received more attention than our efforts to move compensation to competitive levels," she said. "We must remain committed to our compensation goals over the next several years. Reaching the benchmark average in four years, however, will require significantly more than 1 percent progress per year and may necessitate hard decisions among competing priorities."

Holbrook noted that selective admissions and the nationally recognized First Year Experience program are succeeding in raising the academic preparedness and retention of entering freshmen.

"This fall we welcomed the most academically accomplished and diverse freshman class in Ohio State history, a class that includes about 130 National Merit, National Achievement and National Hispanic Scholars, and 250 high school valedictorians," she said. But while the statistics of the entering undergraduate students are impressive and continue to improve, Holbrook said it is the accomplishments of the students while they are here that tell the story.

And in striving to create a diverse university community, Holbrook praised a number of initiatives -- including the Faculty Cohort Project, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, and the Diversity Lecture Series, for their contribution in creating a campus environment reflective of a diverse society and enriching to the educational experience of students.

A leader's vision

Sharing her vision and leadership strategy for the future, Holbrook began by telling how she posed a single question to a leadership team of cabinet, selected directors, faculty leaders and Council of Deans this past summer: How can Ohio State become distinctive as a research university?

Emphasizing the words "distinctive" and "research," Holbrook said three overarching goals were identified to capture and focus more specifically on the strategies of the Academic Plan: pursue cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research for short- and long-term societal benefits; provide distinctive educational experiences and opportunities for undergraduates; and develop a 21st century model of outreach and engagement.

"To be successful, we need an enabling culture that emphasizes high performance; we need sufficient resources to incentivize and reward change, whether by re-allocating faculty time or by removing financial barriers that inhibit success; and we need to exploit technology across campus to leverage the power of our most important resource -- human capital," she said.

Interdisciplinary research

In regard to pursuing cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research, Holbrook remarked that the breadth and depth of expertise of the Ohio State faculty allows for the formation of interdisciplinary teams and programs that will successfully compete for major resources, research dollars and international recognition that will benefit not only the university, but the state.

Mentioning the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Third Frontier initiative and the Mathematical Biosciences Institute as examples, Holbrook said such interdisciplinary programs are common across campus, range from small- to large-scale and attract millions of dollars in external funding each year.

To support programs for which external funding is not available, Holbrook said she has established three funds through the Office of Research to make competitive awards in arts, humanities and social sciences; to support research of graduate students; and to assist faculty at the regional campuses in designing and implementing projects that meet the three leadership goals in research, student initiatives and outreach.

Opportunities for active learning

Holbrook said the second area of distinction will be Ohio State's ability to offer more and inventive opportunities for active learning for undergraduate students, both in and out of the classroom. Student-focused initiatives for the coming year will include: a $3.7 million annual investment in technology that supports faculty teaching and student learning; student housing as an institutional priority to enhance academic achievement, retention and timely graduation; and curricular reform to improve the path and time to graduation. These initiatives will improve Ohio State's offering of service-learning courses, scholar programs, living-learning opportunities and internships, as well as foster faculty-student interaction and early exposure to research through a new Freshman Seminars pilot program expected to begin winter quarter.

"No other college or university in Ohio offers undergraduate students the vast opportunities to conduct research with renowned faculty and in top facilities that Ohio State offers," Holbrook said.

Model for outreach and engagement

The third area of distinction, Holbrook said, will result from the creation of a 21st century model of outreach and engagement -- or public scholarship.

"This is part of our land-grant mission and is already an area of great strength at Ohio State," said Holbrook, adding that better coordination of outreach efforts is needed to promote the expertise of Ohio State and to meet the needs of the community and the state.

To facilitate these expanded partnerships and generate new revenue streams, Holbrook said the establishment of a vice presidential office devoted to outreach and engagement will be necessary.

While the university still has a number of challenges to face along its path to success, including improvement in academic programming, student services and campus safety, Holbrook is confident the university will meet them head on: "We will continue to face economic hardships and will need to be more vigilant in conserving resources, controlling expenses and investing strategically in the programs that best promote our success and excellence," she said.

The complete State of the University address is available at http://president.osu.edu/index.html.

Buckeye Bullet breaks record
	Courtesy of the Center for Automotive Research-Intelligent Transportation
Ohio State's Buckeye Bullet, a student-designed electric car, traveled 257 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah Oct. 18, breaking the record for the fastest speed by an electric vehicle. The former national record was 251.3 mph. The Bullet was designed, built and managed by a team of 12 graduate and undergraduate engineering students (in background) at the university's Center for Automotive Research-Intelligent Transportation (CAR-IT). The streamlined vehicle is 30 feet long, two feet wide and stands less than three feet tall. Its 500 horsepower electric motor is powered by more than 12,000 nickel-metal hydride batteries. CAR-IT is a university research center supported by the Transportation Research Endowment Program (TREP), and by industry and government grants and contracts. It is located in a 35,000 square foot facility and offers advanced experimental facilities that include engine and vehicle dynamometers, vibrations, noise and acoustics laboratories and an intelligent vehicle laboratory.

Sunday commencement logistics underway

Autumn quarter begins new tradition on Dec. 14

By JONI BENTZ SEAL, onCAMPUS staff

Since 1943, autumn, winter and spring quarter commencements at Ohio State have occurred on Friday morning at the end of finals week. Last year, the student governments proposed a change to this 60-year tradition to make it more convenient for families to attend commencement and lessen the competition of campus traffic and parking with regular university business.

In response to the proposal, President Karen Holbrook and former Executive Vice President and Provost Ed Ray announced in July the change of Ohio State's commencement from Friday to Sunday, which has been endorsed by a chain of university governing bodies, including the University Senate, Faculty Council, the Council on Student Affairs and the Committee on Enrollment and Student Progress. The new tradition of Sunday commencement will begin this quarter, taking place at 2 p.m. Dec. 14 at St. John Arena.

"While a long-standing tradition for Ohio State, from the student perspective, Friday commencement required attending family members to take vacation time -- and often more

than one day if they needed to travel," said Martha Garland, vice provost and dean for undergraduate studies. "We often heard that it was difficult for family members who wanted to attend because of work and other commitments during the work week."

Garland added that weekend commencements are not unusual in higher education. Out of the public institutions in Ohio, only Miami University, the University of Cincinnati and Shawnee State continue to hold commencement on Friday. Ceremonies for individual colleges among Big Ten universities vary, but most occur over the course of a weekend as well. And within those two groups, only Ohio State and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hold a single, campuswide ceremony, both taking place on Sunday.

"We were sensitive about choosing the right day and the best time," Garland said. "We consulted with Campus Ministries, and the Sunday afternoon ceremony seemed to have the least amount of conflict with religious services."

While the change is favorable to students and their families, it will require significant revision to the administrative aspects of the event, on the part of both faculty and staff.

Elimination of early finals

One of the biggest changes resulting from the shift to Sunday is that it makes possible the elimination of early senior finals, a modification expected to pass in a rules change proposed by the senate's Council on Academic Affairs this fall.

While there was broad support for the proposal of Sunday commencement, Garland said many faculty saw the change as an opportunity to also address the nagging academic issue of early senior finals, which have long been viewed as compromising the instruction for students in their last term and unreasonably adding to the workload for instructional staff. Eliminating early senior finals, however, will require faculty to identify graduating seniors and expedite those grades to the registrar.

"The movement to electronic grade posting and the extensive development of degree audit applications were important changes in the Office of the University Registrar to support this process change," said Brad Myers, university registrar. "The e-grade application is being fine-tuned so that faculty will be able to easily sort for graduating students and look for students with missing grades."

With graduating students taking their exams along with their classmates during the regular finals period, meeting the deadlines for grade submission will be critical, Myers said. "And, of course, we'll continue to be accommodating in regard to grades and assist faculty wherever necessary," he added.

Tradition preserved

The main reason behind this electronic streamlining is to preserve another university tradition: the awarding of live diplomas. Unlike most institutions, Ohio State graduates receive their actual diplomas as they cross the stage, a tradition Myers said is as important to the university as it is to students.

"Students revel in the fact that they leave campus on graduation day with diploma in hand," he said. "It is a significant feat for a university of our size, with several thousand graduates participating in the ceremony."

Candidates whose academic standing is in question -- whether due to missing grades or incomplete work -- will be handled as they are now: "They will be allowed to march, but will receive blank diplomas with letters of explanation," Myers said.

Logistically speaking

Facility availability and parking and traffic logistics to accommodate the new calendar are being coordinated, but the greatest impact will be to staff in many departments and colleges across campus, who now will be working on commencement weekends. The Office of Commencement and Special Events, the Office of the University Registrar and a number of other offices will implement significant process changes to make this transition work effectively. For example, the Child Care Center will provide its services free of charge to staff who work commencement.

Garland said the change to Sunday commencement was a powerful gesture to the student community and reaffirmed Ohio State's commitment to be the best university in their eyes. "But any change in the course of business often has significant impact on the staff, who bear the brunt of the work," she said. "Their efforts are greatly appreciated, and truly demonstrate the caliber of the people we have at Ohio State."

Making the move

The move to Sunday commencement should be a smooth transition for all quarters except one, Garland said. Summer quarter has been problematic even for Friday commencements in the past because of the fluctuating length of that quarter -- two out of every seven years can only accommodate a nine-week term.

"Commencement for the 10-week summer quarter always falls on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, which we accommodate -- or more accurately -- avoid now by holding it the Thursday before," Garland said. "Although a Labor Day weekend ceremony is one of the options being considered, we are also looking at condensing the 10-week quarter into eight weeks. The registrar is looking at some alternative scheduling patterns that would keep the number of instructional minutes constant."

Garland said this would allow for consistent scheduling and not require any exceptions, either in shortening those odd-year quarters or by keeping early senior finals for one quarter of each year. "And, we have the potential to attract more summer students from other colleges on a semester system who can't finish our summer term as it's scheduled now," she added.

This option and others have been presented to Faculty Council as potential solutions to standardize the calendar for summer quarter.

In most cases, Sunday commencement for autumn and winter quarters will be held in St. John Arena; spring commencement will continue to be held in Ohio Stadium; and summer commencement will be held in the Schottenstein Center. Although there will be exceptions, the only conflict so far is winter 2004, which will be held in the Schottenstein Center because of conflicts with NCAA basketball.