October 2007

Colleagues,

Once each semester I try to provide an update and share information and insights into a number of issues confronting Academic Affairs.  Fall 2007 provides me with the opportunity to comment on the compensation plan and tenure and promotion processes, student success and the reorganization of Continuing Education. In addition, you are invited to take a look at the new Provost’s Office web site and attend a workshop/discussion on fiscal challenges and opportunities confronting our programs.

The Compensation Plan
I know that all of the departments are hard at work on revisions to the standards and criteria in their compensation plans.  The Colleges will soon be reviewing revised standards to ensure fairness across departments.  Chris Craig and the Compensation Committee will undertake that same review on an institutional basis.  The new Compensation Committee, which now includes representatives from every college as well as a department head and dean, is gradually working through many of the difficult and complex questions associated with evaluation of performance and equity considerations.

Tenure and Promotion
Next year will bring the introduction of external reviews to our tenure and promotion process.  In preparation for this change, the Provost’s Committee on Tenure and Promotion has worked with Chris Craig to adjust the T&P Calendar for 08-09, ensuring sufficient time for the solicitation and receipt of external reviews.  They have also made some suggestions for simplifying the processes used to annually evaluate and reappoint untenured faculty.  The Faculty Handbook Revision committee is currently considering those suggested changes, which will later be presented to the Faculty Senate.

The New Web Site
The Provost’s Office has updated its web pages, both in terms of look and content. The revised version is intended to be more user friendly, contain more relevant information and better reflect our academic mission and goals.

All of the information previously available on the web site was reviewed for accuracy and updated, and significant additional information has been added.  

The new page highlights priorities and initiatives of the provost’s office (upper left), stories of general interest to the academic community (center) and those that particularly reflect our public affairs mission (lower right).  Due dates for administrators will be posted on the site, and an all inclusive (we hope) calendar of professional development opportunities will be updated regularly.

I encourage you to visit the new web site, and give us your feedback.  Every web site is a work in progress, and it is important that this site meet the needs of our faculty, staff and academic administrators. I also encourage you to submit photos and stories to Mike Fisher, who has joined the Provost’s Office as web master.  

If you have not already done so, please complete the Campus Climate Survey, which can be found by clicking on the Diversity and Inclusiveness button on the home page.  So far, more than four hundred faculty and staff and close to two thousand students have completed the survey.

Mike Fisher will also be managing a weekly email update to faculty and staff from the Provost’s Office.  This email will include all the email notices we have been asked to send out during the previous week, as well as a two week listing of future professional development opportunities.  We will also include a faculty and staff recognition column, both to provide kudos to “unsung heroes” and to update you on the awards and recognition of your peers.  Nominations for recognition of both types should be sent to Mike.  Notices must be received by 4:30 on Tuesday; the email will be distributed on Thursday.

Student Success

Missouri State University is just beginning its efforts to address Student Success from an institutional perspective.  We are motivated by a desire to better understand how our students learn and how we can best facilitate and enrich the learning environment.  At this time, what is known is a bit confusing. For example, given the quality of our students, fewer freshman return for their sophomore year, and fewer students overall graduate in six years than their peers at other comprehensive institutions, considered regionally or nationally.  Also, as judged by ACT scores, the quality of our students is continuing to increase, yet Missouri State students are somewhat less likely to report that college is academically challenging than their peers at other comprehensives.  And although our students report high levels of interaction with the faculty and strong advising, they also indicate they have had fewer collaborative learning experiences in the classroom than similarly situated peers.  

Our first step in addressing these issues is to conduct some solid research on the freshman experience – on the characteristics of students who continue their studies and those who leave after the freshman year; the quality of their academic and non academic experiences in college, the reasons they give for leaving school or persisting and their plans for the future.  We need to provide this information to the campus community for analysis and interpretation and support efforts to address what can and should be changed. 

We need to build on the experiences of other campuses and the observations of our own faculty and staff, at the same time that we conduct our own research. We know, for example, that we can do a better job in assisting faculty in course design, instructional strategy and the use of technology. We have established the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, a virtual center, to coordinate support to faculty; at this time it is administered by John Catau and representatives from each of the colleges.

There is considerable belief that improvements can also be made in SOAR, IDS 110 and other elements of what is now being called “the first year experience.” Some of the new initiatives being proposed reflect changes that are long overdue, others should not be implemented until the evidence is established to support and direct change efforts.
 
In a recently distributed RFP from the Provost’s Office, it was announced that we are making resources available to support a variety of faculty efforts:   to study and redesign general education courses, develop innovative formats, and create leadership courses in the disciplines. We are also making funds available for research on learning outcomes and comparative instructional strategies.

I hope that many of you will evaluate your own objectives for the learning environment and consider submitting a proposal for research and/or course innovation.  I particularly encourage you to consider this effort for classes that enroll high numbers of freshman.  Our general education program is this institution’s strongest statement about its commitment to student learning.  Your contributions can assist us all in better realizing that mission.

Reorganization of Continuing Education

In April of 2007, the decision was made to bring the programs, resources and revenue from Continuing Education (CE) into Academic Affairs and the six colleges. There was a simple reason for this – students were increasingly choosing internet based instruction over face to face methods.  Continuing Education was steadily increasing their revenues, money which was not invested in academic programs or faculty salaries, but in more growth within Continuing Education.   It was anticipated that enrollment in Continuing Education was actually eating away at the university’s larger enrollment, and would ultimately make it difficult to sustain existing programs and increase salaries.

This is not to say that CE did not do many very good things – that unit often did a better job of serving our students and community than could otherwise have been achieved.  CE has been extremely entrepreneurial and innovative and provided additional income to many faculty and departments.   One might even say that without the efforts of CE, our enrollment this year would be less positive - while the number of new freshman decreased this year by five percent, the enrollment in internet courses increased by 26%.

There was an understandable desire to capture that revenue into the general fund of the university, and operate all credit courses in the same manner.  This would allow the university to share the benefit of enrollment growth with all faculty and programs.

There were many changes precipitated by this decision:

1)  Additional Funds for the Raise Pool
While all of the support services and programs offered by CE continue in some fashion, all additional revenue generated by Continuing Education was placed in the general fund of the university last year and utilized to enhance programs and faculty raises beyond what the state was able to provide. This was a permanent transfer of funds – these resources will continue to benefit our programs and faculty.

2) Courses supported by CE no longer generate their own revenue
In the past, the tuition from face-to-face courses went into the general fund of the university and was used to support salaries and programs across the university.  The tuition from CE courses went to CE, and those funds were used to support only the individual salaries of faculty and departments who offered courses through CE.

Under the reorganization, all the tuition that exceeds expenses for the 2006-2007 year from every type of credit course previously taught through CE, will go into the university’s general fund and be used to support all salaries and programs.  This means that we have a fixed budget to support all types of courses previously funded by CE, just as we do with traditional courses.  Funds are available to support the same level of courses and payments to individuals and departments as in the past, but there are no funds to support increases in course offerings or payments.  

New funding for instruction for every type of credit course and academic program will only be available when total enrollment grows at the university or a special allocation is made in the budget process.  Those funds generated by total enrollment growth will be used to support all university programs and salaries and the colleges will receive a share of that growth at the rate of $20 for each additional credit hour.  

3) Changes in the Administration of Courses
Evening classes, intersession, online and summer classes are now scheduled by the six academic colleges; the funds to pay expenses and faculty salaries in these areas are being distributed to the colleges. Compensation for intersession courses will continue to be paid as in the past.

The Extended Campus (the organization Steve Robinette now heads) will continue to work with the colleges to promote classes in these and other areas, as well as produce two catalogs a year to advertise these programs.  The marketing support of the Extended Campus is available for all programs and departments and can be accessed by departments and colleges by contacting Steve Robinette.  It is expected that recruiting and marketing services of the Extended Campus will continue to work to meet the needs of student recruiting, program development and outreach.

The Extended Campus will continue to administer telecourses, interactive television classes, off campus classes, and dual credit classes with the departments, which will retain their current allocations from CE to support these programs.  The Extended Campus will work directly with departments to support these programs by providing travel expenses and faculty salaries.  As previously indicated, any expansion of these programs (as well as the programs administered by the colleges) requires either enrollment growth funds or a special allocation in the budget process.  The Extended Campus will also continue to offer community and on campus non credit programs.  

Missouri State Online and Faculty Compensation
Online instruction will be managed by the colleges under the new organization.  Funds previously distributed to departments (the $2400 allotments referred to as buyouts) will be distributed to the colleges.  Questions have been raised, however, about how to handle faculty compensation in a sustainable manner.  Currently, all faculty who teach on line courses receive supplemental pay at the rate of $55 per student in a three credit course; that amount is prorated for one and two credit courses.

Continuing this practice poses some challenges:

1) Online courses currently charge a higher tuition than face to face courses.  It has been recommended that we reduce the tuition for online courses, or hold it steady as the tuition for face to face courses increases, because we are gradually losing our competitiveness in this area   

2) In the past, CE was able to generate resources based on the enrollment in the courses it supported.  This is no longer true for any credit course.  Tuition for these courses has been rolled into the university’s general fund.  Colleges will receive additional funds only when there is net new enrollment within the university - at the rate of approximately $20 per credit hour.  If online enrollment grows and enrollment in other courses declines at equal levels, there will be no additional funds to support any program.  If one department increases enrollment and others do not, there will be no additional funds; institutionally, if losses exceed gains, there will be no new funding.  Thus there is no longer a reliable source of funds to support increases in the $55 stipend due to increased enrollment.
   
3) The university is increasing the number of online courses at a fairly rapid pace.  This summer an additional 23 online courses were developed, and another 31 were approved in the President’s Strategic Initiative on Distance Learning
To address these matters, it was originally proposed that faculty who teach online courses receive a permanent salary adjustment of $1000 per section. This amount was based on the average enrollment in online courses of 17 students, which would yield a stipend of $935.  

This approach had a number of advantages:   

a) Faculty could be assured of receiving added compensation for online instruction and would receive raises on that compensation as well.

b) Department heads would know that their faculty members would be available for online instruction.

c) Deans would not have to worry about online enrollment growing to a level which they could not afford because faculty compensation had already been addressed. This had been a real concern because it was felt that colleges would not schedule online courses if they had the option of scheduling an evening course or other type of offering which could be scheduled for less cost.

d) The University would further its objective of increasing faculty salaries.

The above proposal looked very good to me, and I have been surprised that it never really caught on with large numbers of faculty or administrators.  I think I understand why now, and it is important that the university community as a whole understand and address these underlying issues before we move forward.

1) Under our current compensation plan, faculty who have lower salaries receive more of a raise than faculty who have higher salaries within performance categories.  Faculty are better off receiving as much compensation as they can through supplemental payments, keeping their “official” salary at a lower level.

2) Department heads are not at all sure faculty will want to or even be willing to teach online courses if they don’t have to.  Losing the direct incentive for faculty instruction was worrisome to many of them.

3) Faculty who don’t teach online courses have not been very supportive of the practice of providing higher levels of compensation to those who do.  It could be argued that teaching 150 students in a lecture class is as demanding as teaching 18 on line.  Now that all the funds come from the same source, they have asked, what is fair?

At this point, it is clear that all previously written contracts with the faculty need to be honored – this includes all courses developed this summer. Online instruction has to become the responsibility of the colleges in terms of scheduling and funding as originally planned, but more discussion is needed before any other changes are made.  The funds allocated from last year’s CE budget will be transferred to the colleges for distribution to the faculty per the existing contracts.

I have discussed this matter with Dr. Nietzel and will continue to do so.  We both believe that broad based input from the academic community is required before any other changes are to be made.

Workshop/Q&A on Academic Affairs Fiscal Matters: Online Instruction, Enrollment Funding and Allocations to the Colleges and Departments

Because of the complexity and range of fiscal matters impacting college and program support, there will be a Workshop/Q&A session on these matters on November 2, from 3:00-5:00 at the Union Club.  All are welcome; deans and department heads are particularly encouraged to attend to ensure that communication across our colleges and departments is consistent.  

In Closing,

I want to reiterate what I observed last year when I joined this campus.  The quality, resourcefulness and good will of our faculty and your ability to work collaboratively on the challenges we confront are the most profound and enduring assets of this university.  I continue to feel honored to serve as your provost.