Academic Priorities Committee
Meeting Notes
March 6, 2003
The committee received a copy of the mission statements from the comparison institutions. Joyce compiled them into one document for us.
A member requested that a statement be made that no programs would be cut before the work of the APC is completed. Joe will convey that request to Susan Alexander.
Joe mentioned data that he has regarding a sensitivity analysis from US News and World Report focusing on four areas. According to a study by John Chizmar and Bill Cummins, Illinois State University, only
“are statistically significant determinants of the tier ranking.” He will give copies to the interested committee members. (Please let Joe know if you do want a copy.)
Don offered comments on a white paper he has written for the committee based on data from the graduate programs of fourteen similar schools. In its professional schools, St. Thomas looks like its comparison schools, e.g. similar types of graduate degree programs. One area the paper focuses on is credential inflation: the increased need over time for higher degrees for certain professions. This inflation has required some schools to add doctoral programs or face losing a particular market of students.
For a variety of reasons, our comparison group and UST have tended to add professional education programs, e.g. MBA and Education, rather than graduate education, e.g. Ph.D. programs. He commented that this fits with Boyer’s way of thinking about scholarship, namely the scholarship of application.
Professional graduate education programs should be a natural progression from a school’s undergraduate focus. Having this understanding can help make a whole variety of decisions (for example, evaluating grant proposals). Based on this paradigm, St. Thomas’ law school is a logical evolution. Joe’s conclusion is that St. Thomas is doing the right stuff but just giving it the wrong name. St. Thomas’s graduate/undergraduate distinctions cause problems.
The distinction Don points out between “graduate” and “professional” is that graduate education tends to be more intensively focused on a discipline, whereas professional education tends to be more applied and have some institutional “stamp” attached, e.g. the “Harvard way” of practicing law. Graduate education may also be more closely aligned with being a “research” institution, instead of a “teaching” institution. A more appropriate way of thinking of our programs is that we offer professional education at the graduate as well as undergraduate levels. Marty added this might help clarify expectations of faculty regarding research as well as help in assessing faculty job candidates.
Don will make some revisions to his paper and then circulate it to the committee, afterwhich it will be made available to the EVP cabinet for discussion. The paper should help clarify who we are and what we are (or should be) doing.
Joe reviewed the most recent institutional cost analysis released by the controller’s office, commenting that the only real numbers are the revenues and direct expenses. Because the report is based on financial accounting methods, other figures in the report are meaningless; for example allocating financial aid to departments based on credit hours. Joe suggested using the same raw data to do the calculations based on a managerial accounting model. The report points to the need for trustworthy data in order to make accurate decisions.
Using data from the Peer Institution Comparison report, Joe pointed out that St. Thomas employs dramatically fewer full-time faculty/student FTE compared to its peer group. A request was made to find out the financial health of the other institutions. We are hoping Janice may be able to help with this.
In preparation for the next meeting, Joe asked the committee to look at Boyer’s list of criteria and to email their own suggestions/additions to him. He will forward them to the committee and prioritization can begin at the next meeting.
Mick Sheppeck passed out copies of a draft, “Academic Priority Criteria and Resolution Process” that he and Janice Raffield produced. Copies will be sent to those members not in attendance.
The next meeting is March 20, 2:30 – 4:30 in 152 MHCC.