CSU 2.0 Academic Task Force CSU 2.0 ACADEMIC TASK FORCE INTERIM REPORT September 14, 2020 Mailing Address: 2121 Euclid Avenue, AC 333 • Cleveland, Ohio 44115-2214 Campus Location: Parker Hannifin Administration Center, Rm 333 • 2300 Euclid Avenue • Cleveland, Ohio Telephone (216) 687-3588 INTRODUCTION The CSU 2.0 Academic Task Force is one of five task forces established by President Sands during July 2020 to reimagine the future of Cleveland State University. The President’s charge to the Task Force is to “develop a series of recommendations to better align academic programs, increase interdisciplinary collaborations, improve student outcomes and reduce costs with a targeted range of $ 4-5 million.” The Task Force was asked to examine 13 specific issues as a means to achieve our goals: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) Recommendations to realign/consolidate colleges, schools and departments (including Honors College) Recommendations to restructure/realign support units within schools Redefine Office of the Provost support to academic units Opportunities to assess/reduce administrative costs Opportunities to maximize multi-disciplinary connectivity by better aligning academic programs Co-op experience-co-op classroom integration Evaluate/realign course offerings Maximize seat utilization Assess workloads/incentives Review/assess subsidized entities (centers and institutes) Reimagine libraries Review/assess the Office of Research Major program and curriculum recommendations President Sands asked Faculty Senate President Bob Krebs and Provost Zhu to co-chair the Task Force and engaged former Northeastern President Richard Freeland as Task Force advisor. The President also appointed a broadly representative group of 11 faculty, administrators, and students to be Task Force Members: Cheryl Bracken, Jeff Karem, Jose Mendez, Anne Nelson, Joan Niederriter, Meghan Rubado, Hana Shaheen, Jonathan Wehner, Crystal Weyman, Chansu Yu and Sajit Zachariah. There are also two ex-officio members on the Task Force: Allyson Robichaud and Marius Boboc. The Task Force began its work in late July receiving feedback from three Working Groups, each charged to address a subset of the 13 issues assigned to the Task Force: Working Group # 1: College/Department Realignment, Allyson Robichaud (Chair), Bill Bowen, Marius Boboc, Don Allensworth-Davies, Beth Ekelman, David Forte, Bob Krebs, Anne Nelson, Hana Shaheen, and Chansu Yu 2 • Issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Working Group # 2: Instructional Efficiency, Jeff Karem and Sajit Zachariah (co-chairs), Cheryl Bracken, Carole Heyward, Karla Hamlen Mansour, Ray Henry, John Holcomb, Sanda Kaufman, Tracy Porter, Aaron Severson, Jenn Visocky-O'Grady, and Johnathan Wehner • Issues 6, 7, 8, 9, 13 Working Group #3: Research and Library support: Crystal Weyman (Chair), Lauren Collins, David Lodwick, Jose Mendez, Joan Niederriter, Meghan Rubado, Dan Simon, and J Mark Souther • Issues: 10, 11, 12 The President is urging the Task Force to consult widely within the CSU community in forming its recommendations, which is the next step, and to deliver its report by November 16, 2020. THE INTERIM REPORT AND COMMUNITY FEEDBACK The Academic Task Force is currently at the midpoint of its work and wishes to thank the many members of the faculty, staff, and students who have contributed to the deliberations of the three Working Groups over the past month. On August 28, 2020 the Task Force reviewed the ideas of the three Working Groups with the goal of producing a document that can be shared with the campus community for the purposes of soliciting feedback. This Interim Report is the result of those deliberations. Between now and October 9, 2020 members of the Task Force will be available to meet with each of the CSU colleges to solicit responses to our preliminary thinking. We have urged individual academic departments to meet in advance of these college meetings and to come to the meetings ready to discuss the implications of various options for themselves as well as for their college/school and the University. There will also be a meeting of the Faculty Senate on October 7, 2020 for a similar dialogue. Beyond these group meetings, we invite individual faculty and staff to submit comments through a Task Force website at https://www.csuohio.edu/provost/academic-task-force. The Task Force will reconvene the week of October 12, 2020 to consider the feedback we receive between now and then and to begin formulating final recommendations for inclusion in a report to the President on November 16, 2020. NB: Please note that the Task Force has assigned a unique reference number to each of its recommendations in the following format: Ref.#: WG X, Issue Y, Rec. Z, where: 3 WG X refers to the number of the Working Group; Issue Y refers to the number of the issue from the list of 13 assigned to the Task Force (see p.1 above); Rec. Z refers to the specific recommendation made by the Task Force with respect to a particular issue. These reference numbers are connected to each recommendations in the feedback surveys included on the Task Force’s web site so we can easily group and organize the comments received; the reference numbers can also be used to navigate the website if a reader of the report wishes to examine a Working Group’s full explanation of a particular recommendation. PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS OF WORKING GROUP #1: COLLEGE/DEPARTMENT REALIGNMENT Issue #1: Realign/Consolidate Colleges, Schools and Departments, (including Honors College) Preliminary Recommendation #1: Consider the following options for possible reconfiguration of the current colleges. (Ref.#: WG 1, Issue 1, Rec. 1) NB: In the summary descriptions of the five alternatives provided below, the numbers of faculty and students that would be in each college are provided in parenthesis after the name of the college in the following format: name of college (number faculty/number students). Alternative A: A six-college configuration with the following colleges (Ref.#: WG1, Issue 1, Rec. 1A): 1. Business (76/3102) 2. Liberal Arts and Education (131/2970) 3. Law (28/390) 4. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) (136/4400) 5. Health Professions (including Nursing, Psychology and Social Work) (107/3637) 6. Urban Affairs and Social Sciences (64/2502) Benefits of Alternative A: This proposal groups programs into colleges that have common foci and/or synergies or units that may form colleges due to enrollment and research activity. The new configuration will allow the programs and departments to be more visible, which may 4 attract more students and enhance enrollment in those programs that have seen declines. This proposal also achieves savings by reducing the number of Deans’ offices from 8 to 6. Drawbacks of Alternative A: Some colleges remain much larger than others and pairing Education and Human Services with the remaining programs from CLASS may disadvantage both units. Also, like all the alternatives, this proposal would impose costs and may result in unintended consequences that would need to be assessed and weighed carefully against potential benefits. In addition, it would require significant work in terms of rewriting college bylaws and workload guidelines, reviewing tenure and promotion procedures, and changing Faculty Senate representation. Alternative B: A five-college configuration with the following colleges (Ref.#: WG 1, Issue 1, Rec. 1B): 1. Business (76/3102) 2. Education, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (173/4358) 3. Law (28/390) 4. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (136/4400) 5. Health (including Nursing, Psychology and Social Work) and Urban Affairs (130/4301) Benefits of Alternative B: Alternative B is similar to Alternative A except that it combines Health and Urban Studies while the Social Sciences are joined with Liberal Arts and Education. In a different way than Alternative A, this proposal groups programs into colleges that have common foci and /or synergies or units that may form colleges due to enrollment and research activity; it also helps to achieve heightened visibility for some programs and departments. In addition, Alternative B achieves added savings by going from 8 colleges to 5. Drawbacks of Alternative B: Some of the colleges created by Alternative B are large and potentially unwieldly. The College of Education, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, for example, would have 173 faculty, 40 more than the next two largest colleges. Also, like all the alternatives, this proposal would impose costs and may result in unintended consequences that would need to be assessed and weighed carefully against potential benefits. In addition, it would require significant work in terms of rewriting college bylaws and workload guidelines, reviewing tenure and promotion procedures, and changing Faculty Senate representation. Alternative C: A five-college configuration with the following colleges (Ref.#: WG1, Issue 1, Rec. 1C): 1. Health Sciences (including Psychology and Social Work), Nursing and Human Systems (107/3637) 5 2. Engineering and Natural Sciences (including Math) (136/4400) 3. Law (28/390) 4. Education, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (173/4293) 5. Business and Urban Affairs (98/3831) Benefits of Alternative C: This proposal combines Business with Urban Affairs since both offer business-related curricula. In this way Alternative C achieves different inter-program synergies than either Alternative A or Alternative B. Like Alternative B, this proposal has the financial benefits of going from 8 colleges to 5. Drawbacks of Alternative C: Alternative C, like Alternative B, would create significant asymmetries among the colleges with respect to size, with a very large College of Education, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Also, like all the alternatives, this proposal would impose costs and may result in unintended consequences that would need to be assessed and weighed carefully against potential benefits. In addition, it would require significant work in terms of rewriting college bylaws and workload guidelines, reviewing tenure and promotion procedures, and changing Faculty Senate representation. Alternative D: A six-college configuration with the following colleges (Ref #: WG 1, Issue 1, Rec. 1D): 1. Business (76/3102) 2. Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (126/2580) 3. Law (28/390) 4. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) (136/4400) 5. Health Professions (including Nursing, Psychology and Social Work) (107/3637) 6. Urban Affairs and Education (69/2442) Benefits of Alternative D: This proposal combines Education with Urban Affairs since CSU’s education programs have a strong urban focus. In this way Alternative D achieves different inter-program synergies than A, B or C. Like Alternative A, Alternative D has the financial benefits of going from 8 colleges to 6. Drawbacks of Alternative D: Like Alternatives C and B, Alternative D would create significant asymmetries with respect to college size. Also, like all the alternatives, this proposal would impose costs and may result in unintended consequences that would need to be assessed and weighed carefully against potential benefits. In addition, it would require significant work in terms of rewriting college bylaws and workload guidelines, reviewing tenure and promotion procedures, and changing Faculty Senate representation 6 Alternative E: A six-college configuration with the following colleges (Ref #: WG 1, Issue 1, Rec. 1E): 1. Business (76/3102) 2. Urban Affairs, Education and Social Work (82/2839) 3. Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (126/2580) 4. Law (28/390) 5. Engineering (72/2478) 6. Science (including Psychology), Nursing and Health Professions (147/4316) Benefits of Alternative E: This proposal rearranges components of colleges the least, yet is similar to Proposal D, except that Engineering is left alone, Nursing is added to Sciences and Health Professions, and Social Work is added to Urban Affairs and Education. Since Social Work shares an urban focus with Urban Affairs and Education, this proposal reinforces the strong urban focus achieved by the combination of the latter two units in Alternative D. Drawbacks of Alternative E: By combining health-oriented programs with the sciences, this proposal blurs the strong focus on health care programs achieved by Alternatives A, B, C and D. Proposal E also loses some of the benefits that linking the basic disciplines with their applied cognates may achieve, for example, by Alternative A (Urban Affairs and Social Sciences; Engineering and Math/Science; Education and Liberal Arts). Also, like all the alternatives, this proposal would impose costs and may result in unintended consequences that would need to be assessed and weighed carefully against potential benefits. In addition, it would require significant work in terms of rewriting college bylaws and workload guidelines, reviewing tenure and promotion procedures, and changing Faculty Senate representation NB: Working Group #1 has not formed a preference among these five alternatives and welcomes feedback from the campus community on this matter. The Working Group also notes that it has undertaken a preliminary assessment of the implications of each of the alternatives for individual departments but believes a more thorough review, informed by feedback from the campus community, should be undertaken before a final recommendation is made. The Working Group’s current thinking about the departments and programs to be associated with each college in each Alternative can be found in Appendix 1; these ideas, too, are offered as possibilities and examples subject to further review and discussion. 7 Preliminary Recommendation #2: Do not restructure the Honors College. (Ref.#: WG1, Issue 1, Rec.2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: The current staffing of the Honors College is appropriate and in line with patterns at peer institutions. This program serves CSU well by enhancing the University’s attractiveness to students and strengthening our brand. The Working Group also believes that the value and impact of this unit could be increased by expanding its enrollments of honors students and reducing full tuition scholarships to partial tuition scholarships. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: None noted. Issue #2: Restructure/Realign Support Units within Academic Units Preliminary Recommendation #1: Carefully review the implications and possibilities of each of the proposed reconfigurations of colleges on the support units within those colleges. (Ref.#: WG1, Issue 2, Rec.1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: There would be some salary savings and efficiencies as a result of realigning support services within colleges. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: Any realignment should be approached with care, since inadequate support will reduce efficiency and harm morale. NB: Working Group #1 undertook a very preliminary look at the implications of its alternative reconfiguring proposals for the support units within colleges but concluded that a detailed analysis of this matter should await the fundamental decision as to which alternative makes the most sense for CSU. Issue #3: Redefine Office of the Provost Support to Academic Units Preliminary Recommendation #1: Consider reducing the number of Vice Provosts from 3 to 2, if the recommendation from Working Group 3 to merge Office of Research and College of Graduate Studies is approved to move forward. Timing of this change should be after the implementation of most of the CSU Academic Task Force recommendations as it will require significant oversight of the Provost’s Office. (Ref.#: WG 1, Issue 3, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: This proposal would reduce the number of Vice Provosts from 3 to 2, reflecting the shift of some functions (Institutional Research and Student Success programming) to other vice presidencies. There would be modest salary savings. 8 Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: With only two Vice Provost positions, the Office of the Provost would be very constrained in taking on additional work, including a possible return of the two recently removed functions as well as the work that will be required to carry out a realignment of the colleges. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Consider focusing the current Office of Academic Planning on institutional effectiveness and performance management. This could be accomplished by bringing back the Office of Institutional Research into Academic Planning— or whichever title the office will have. (Ref.#: WG 1, Issue 3, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: The Office of Performance Management was formed as part of the Path to 2020 project and involved close coordination between the Budget Office and the Office of the Provost. With that work now completed, the Vice Provost responsible for academic planning should take ongoing responsibility, working closely with the Office of Budget and Finance to review campus-wide performance indicators needed to inform strategic decisions related to enhancing productivity and efficiency. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: None noted. Issue #4: Opportunities to Assess/Reduce Administrative Costs NB: Working Group #1 notes that its proposal to reduce the number of Vice Provosts from 3 to 2 (see WG 1, Issue 3, Rec. 1) would result in cost savings. Preliminary Recommendation #1: Carefully assess the potential cost savings of each of the five alternative restructuring proposals identified in Recommendation WG 1, Issue 1, Rec. 1. (Ref. # WG1, Issue 4, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: Any of the proposed reconfigurations should reduce administrative costs associated with deans’ offices, but further analysis is needed to estimate the magnitude of potential savings Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: As noted previously, significant organizational work will be required to successfully implement any of the alternative reconfigurations, including rewriting college bylaws and workload guidelines, reviewing tenure and promotion procedures, and changing Faculty Senate representation. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Remove the “Golden Parachute” (Ref.#: WG1, Issue 4, Rec. 2) 9 Benefits of Recommendation 2: Current practice with regard to negotiating contracts with senior academic leaders typically includes offers of tenure and a salary equal to 80% of their administrative salaries if they join the faculty after completing their administrative assignments. With respect to salaries, this same practice is often applied to current faculty members who assume senior administrative roles. The costs of this policy, multiplied across the University and compounded over time, can be large, so eliminating it would result in substantial savings over time. We recommend that future base salaries for tenured administrators be negotiated at the time of hire with the added recommendation that they be no higher than the highest faculty salary in a college, excluding the higher salaries of current former administrators. Under this recommendation, a standardized stipend would be added to the base salary as compensation for administrative duties and would discontinue when the person returns to the faculty, although, consistent with current practice, a percentage of the stipend could be retained at the discretion of the Provost. We also support a reduced teaching load for former administrators during the first year after returning to the faculty. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: This change might reduce the talent willing to join CSU but declining opportunities for senior academic positions due to the current difficult conditions within higher education might render this concern unfounded. Issue #5: Maximize Multidisciplinary Connectivity by Better Aligning Academic Programs NB: Heightened interdisciplinary interactions was one of the major potential benefits that Working Group #1 considered in evaluating alternative potential reconfigurations of the colleges; each of the five alternatives has implications in this context, as summarized below: Benefits of Alternative A: This reconfiguration would promote heightened interactions between Education and Liberal arts, a relationship widely advocated by those seeking to strengthen teacher education programs. It would also bring together currently siloed health programs whose graduates participate in the same industry and frequently in the same institutional settings and who often must collaborate in providing health care services. Finally, it would link the policy-oriented work in Urban Affairs with the Social Science disciplines on which much of the policy work depends. Drawbacks of Alternative A: There is a concern that pairing of Education and Human Services with the remaining programs for CLASS may disadvantage both units. Benefits of Alternative B: The major difference between Alternatives B and A is that B links 10 Urban Affairs with Health Care, reflecting a focus on urban health within our Health Care Programs, while the Social Sciences are joined with the other Liberal arts and Education. This proposal would have the same benefit of enhancing interactions among Health Care programs as Alternatives A, C and D. Drawbacks of Alternative B: This proposal loses the potential synergies that arise from linking the Urban Studies with the Social Sciences (Alternative A), Business (Alternative C) or Education (Alternative D). Benefits of Alternative C: The major difference between Alternative C and A and B is that C links Urban Affairs with Business, reflecting the fact that Urban Studies offers Business related curricula. It would also have similar benefits with respect to interactions among healthoriented programs as Alternatives A, B and D. Drawbacks of Alternative C: This proposal loses the potential synergies that arise from linking Urban Affairs with either the Social Sciences (Alternative A), Health Care (Alternative B) or Education (Alternative D). Benefits of Alternative D: Alternative D would enhance interactions between programs in Education and Urban Affairs, an enhancement that would reflect the urban focus of our College of Education. It would also have similar benefits with respect to interactions among healthoriented programs as Alternatives A, B and C. Drawbacks of Alternative D: This proposal loses the potential synergies that arise from linking Urban Affairs with either the Social Sciences (Alternative A) or Health Care (Alternative B) or Business (Alternative C) Benefits of Alternative E: By adding Social Work to Urban Affairs and Education, this proposal reinforces the strong urban focus achieved by linking the latter two programs in Alternative D. Drawbacks of Alternative E: Proposal E loses some of the benefits of linking the basic disciplines with their applied cognates achieved, for example, by Alternative A (Urban Affairs and Social Sciences; Engineering and Math/Science; Education and Liberal Arts). PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS OF WORKING GROUP #2: INSTRUCTIONAL EFFICIENCY Issue #6: Co-op Experience and Co-op Classroom Integration Preliminary Recommendation #1: Consider the recommendation of Careers Across the Curriculum to introduce a Career Development Capstone requirement to be taken near the end 11 of the student’s major study, which would have an extensive orientation to workforce entry. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 6, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: While endorsing the desirability of significantly expanding coop and internship opportunities for CSU students, Working Group 2 was impressed with the challenges – in terms of cost and employer relationships – of doing so quickly. For this reason, the Working Group sought alternative ways to make educational vehicles offering exposure to real world and career-related experiences widely available. The Career Development Capstone may offer one such possibility. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: This recommendation does not promise an authentic co-op or internship experience to a significantly expanded number of students in the short run, but it would make a serious alternative widely available while the University works to gradually expand its portfolio of experiential learning opportunities. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Review the Community Engagement General Education proposal as a possible vehicle to implement the potential Capstone from Careers Across the Curriculum or to institute an internship or co-op experience. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 6, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: This proposal provides a means to insert the Careers Across the Curriculum Capstone or a co-op or internship experience into the existing General Education Requirements Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: This may have an impact on a student’s class or work schedule. Issue #7: Evaluate/Realign Course Offerings and Issue #13 Major Program and Curriculum Recommendations NB: Working Group #2 considered these two issues to be very similar and decided to make a unified set of recommendations concerning them. Preliminary Recommendation: #1: Review the number of General Education courses offered on the schedule that meet the same General Education requirement to see if the courses are enrolling efficiently. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 7, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: Recommendation 1 would reduce the number of under enrolled sections and thereby heighten efficiency with respect to seat utilization. In the semesters for which the Working Group had data, 78% of courses with the GE08 designations (Institutional Research code for Gen ED) did not fill to capacity. On average, courses with the GE08 designation fill 75% of the seats available. Given the large number of Gen Ed courses 12 offered by CSU (2100 in Fall 19, Spring 20 and Summer 20), reducing this number and expanding average enrollment would have a significant financial impact. Clearly, however, a more thorough review of these courses and sections needs to be undertaken before scheduling decisions are made. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: This recommendation would reduce the scheduling options available for students, but it should not have an impact on retention or time to completion. Issue #8: Maximize Seat Utilization Preliminary Recommendation #1: Have strict scrutiny on courses that do not meet course minima. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: Comparing data across multiple semesters, about 220 sections (9% of course offerings each term) do not meet existing course minima. In theory, if under enrolled courses were all cancelled, the financial savings on an annual basis would be significant. In reality, of course, offering some under enrolled sections may be unavoidable for sound programmatic reasons. But the bar for keeping them should be high. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: The downside of this recommendation is that it could have an impact on student retention, at least in the short term. This risk can be reduced by more intrusive and proactive advising, as noted below (see WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 7). Preliminary Recommendation #2: Optimize the number of sections for multi-section courses. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue, 8, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: There is opportunity for increasing efficiency regarding multisection courses. In Fall 19 we offered 90 courses that had more than 3 sections, totaling 630 sections, many of them under-enrolled. In theory, eliminating 10% of these classes and moving the students into other under enrolled sections of the same course would save several hundred thousand dollars across the fall and spring semesters. There may be sound reasons to maintain some under-enrolled sections, for example serving evening students, but a close analysis of the reasons for these sections is needed. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: Here too, as noted with Recommendation 1, the recommendation could have an impact on a student’s class or schedule, so we need to complement more restrictive scheduling with more aggressive advising. 13 Preliminary Recommendation #3: Review course caps with a view to both increasing and reducing them. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 3) Benefits of Recommendation 3: Course caps are instituted for pedagogical reasons, accreditation purposes, or the constraints of space, but there are many cases of differences in course caps, some among different sections of the same course, that are difficult to understand. The Working Group was not able to assess potential savings in this arena, but it believes a scrutiny of current course caps may reveal opportunities for increasing enrollments in some instances or a need for reductions in others. A clearer rationale for these caps and some standardization with respect to them is needed. Drawbacks of Recommendation 3: As with all our recommendations about tightening current practice with respect to course enrollments, there is a potential impact on retention, but here, again, intrusive and proactive advising is an essential complement to heightened efficiency in scheduling. Preliminary Recommendation #4: Have course minima for lab courses. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 4) Benefits of Recommendation 4: Currently lab courses do not fall under the review process with respect to course minima. In fall 2019 and spring 20 there were 92 lab sections that did not meet course minima. These courses need to be looked at with the same scrutiny as regular courses; wherever possible, labs should have the same enrollment minima as the course to which they are linked. Drawbacks of Recommendation 4: Here, as with our other recommendations, there is a potential impact on retention which we believe can be offset by more intrusive and proactive advising. Additional Preliminary Recommendations: NB: In addition to its four major recommendations, Working Group #2 identified several additional potential steps to maximize seat utilization. These are listed below in no particular order: Examine low enrolled programs for the number of core classes and how often they are offered, and the possibility of using courses in other departments as part of core or elective courses (i.e. statistics) offered, where pedagogically sound. (Ref. #: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 5) Require all graduate and undergraduate programs to develop a cyclical schedule based on the size of their programs and their enrollment patterns. (Ref. #: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 6) Support intrusive and proactive advising to promote student success, cyclical scheduling, fewer low-enrolled classes. Advising can play an important role in guiding students into under14 enrolled classes. For this reason, class enrollment information should be made easily available to faculty and academic advisors. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 7) As we reduce the frequency of course offerings we need to further support intrusive and proactive advising. (Ref. #: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 8) Augmenting the cyclical scheduling recommendation, programs should have flexible advising plans for students who transfer or have interruptions to the Degree Map. (This underscores the need for intrusive and proactive faculty advising, and some flexibility and autonomy for these advisors). (Ref. #: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 9) Require all departments to review their prerequisite structure and core courses every 5 years. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 10) Suggest program heads, chairs and deans flag chronically under-enrolled courses and programs, look for efficiencies. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 11) Departments are encouraged to limit the number of electives or special topics to be offered in a single semester to funnel the students into fewer options that will increase the efficiency without compromising academic quality. (Ref.#: (WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 12) Conduct regular reviews of low-enrolled programs (majors) and the following should be considered for each of them: (Ref.#: (WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 13) o Implementation of a cyclical schedule o Review of frequency of course offerings o Number of electives being offered o Sharing of courses with other programs Program reviews need to include instructional efficiencies. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 14) Consider combining evening and day sections in an asynchronous or blended online environment. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 15) Provide some training to all chairs and new associate deans on developing good scheduling practices in a data-informed manner. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 8, Rec. 16) Issue # 9: Assess Workloads/Incentives Preliminary Recommendation #1: Normally, implement a 7-credit ceiling on unfunded research credit in workload assignments. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 9, Rec. 1) 15 Benefits of Recommendation 1: For AY 2020-21, the University assigned 179 credit hours for research above 7 credits. It is not clear how many of these extra hours are accounted for by grants, but it does appear that at least a portion of this body of credits is for unfunded research above college benchmarks. Recognizing unfunded research accomplishment up to 7 credits would preserve the existing contractual benchmark for research productivity (6 credits) while also permitting an extra hour of research credit assignment to help assistant professors starting their careers and to reward highly research productive faculty. This ceiling would ensure that all faculty, exclusive of credit for grants and other funded opportunities, would maintain a core commitment of substantial teaching in line with the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Applying this ceiling to unfunded research, rather than funded research, would permit discipline appropriate exceptions for winners of substantial research grants that necessitate more workload allocation toward research. It is not possible without additional information to assess the savings from this proposal, but if these 179 additional hours were assigned to teaching by full-time faculty it would result in a substantial reduction of the adjunct budget. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: This limit could discourage additional research productivity beyond the ceiling, though merit and promotion increments could still provide crucial incentives, as could grant opportunities. Faculty who view themselves as primarily researchers may dislike this realignment. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Assess the amount of credit assigned to faculty for departmental administrative service and align it more carefully to reflect department size and need. (Ref.#: WG 2, Issue 9, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: Separate from chair and school director positions, for AY202021, the University assigned 291 credit hours for faculty administrative service within departments and schools, typically under the headings of “associate chair,” “director,” and “coordinator.” In an environment of contracting staff positions and fewer faculty, these incentives can provide an economical means to support a unit’s educational mission. At the same time, the administrative service release time does not always correlate to program size or responsibility. A careful assessment of the responsibilities associated with each release could yield savings if it is determined that the responsibility can be part of a faculty member’s normal 2-credit service workload ”commensurate with their rank” or can be taken up by the unit’s chair or school director. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: With staff shortages and contraction of faculty, reducing these incentives could harm efficiency if critical work—especially student-facing work like advising—is neglected. As CSU’s operations become more complex, chairs and school directors 16 rely upon faculty release for critical parts of their units’ operations, while they handle an increasing workload themselves. Preliminary Recommendation #3: Assess course releases for administrative service outside of departments and schools, including for Faculty Senate offices, committee chairs, and broader University initiatives. (Ref. #: WG 2, Issue 9, Rec. 3) Benefits of Recommendation 3: For AY 2020-21 the University assigned approximately 75 credit hours for administrative service to the University outside of departments and schools, including release for Faculty Senate offices, committee chairs, and broader University initiatives like assessment, general education and other “champions.” A careful assessment of these releases could help determine which are essential for faulty governance and smooth operation of the University, and which may be optional. One might use the test of “needs” vs “wants” in terms of University initiatives here. Drawbacks of Recommendation 3: A number of these releases are associated with highly mission-critical, labor intensive tasks. Removing those would provide a substantial disincentive for high-level university service, devalue that work, and slow down efficient governance. PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS OF WORKING GROUP 3: RESEARCH AND LIBRARY SUPPORT Issue #10: Review/Assess Subsidized Entities (Centers and Institutes) Preliminary Recommendation #1: Continue to invest strategically in centers that show the most promise of success in obtaining external funding. This need not mean large investments, but rather should be commensurate with the degree of success or promise, and with regard for the levels of external funding typically available for various disciplines. The support may include startup or bridge funding, teaching release for core personnel, or other investments. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 10, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: Overall, research centers bring in considerable sums of external funding as well as visibility. Those that the Working Group was able to survey range from cost-neutral to major returns on CSU investment. Most produced moderate to impressive returns based on those metrics the group could assess on a tight timeline. Centers concentrate and highlight innovation across the University and are inseparable from a vibrant research profile. 17 Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: This recommendation will not save the University money but emphasizing “strategic” investment of institutional dollars in centers that offer a high return on investment would assure that the money CSU is spending is deployed in the most effective way. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Assess cost-neutral or moderate-return centers to determine if smaller institutional investments or pitches to external donors (e.g., foundations, private donors) might leverage growth. Those that are cost-neutral should be retained but deprioritized relative to moderate return centers for such interventions. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 10, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: This recommendation offers the possibility that smaller investments of institutional dollars for cost-neutral or moderate-return centers could occur without losing the value of these centers. Clearly a center-by-center assessment of possibilities and close coordination with the Office of Advancement would be needed to realize the benefits of this recommendation. Adopting this recommendation would also provide an incentive for center directors to intensify their search for outside support. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: If these centers can be maintained with smaller investments of institutional dollars there would be no downside, but the extent of potential savings from this recommendation remains to be determined. Preliminary Recommendation #3: Centers that are defunct or have been inactive for five or more years should be removed from CSU webpages such as the list on the Office of Research page, and care should be taken to ensure that those that are active demonstrate their activity on their respective websites or pages. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 10, Rec. 3) Benefits of Recommendation 3: This recommendation would simultaneously showcase the good work that is occurring while making sure that the University does not present a false picture of its overall research activity. Drawbacks of Recommendation 3: None noted. 18 Issue # 11: Reimagine Libraries Preliminary Recommendation #1: Leverage and enhance collaborative relationships between the main and law libraries to improve student and faculty success and create opportunities for efficiencies. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 11, Rec. 1) Benefits of Recommendation 1: A largely autonomous law library (with a separate director and budget control held by the law school/college) is required by the American Bar Association for accreditation of the law program. However, some law libraries have shared staff positions between main and law libraries and other forms of collaboration. This includes CSU, where the main and law libraries already collaborate to keep a shared online catalog that is maintained by a single systems librarian who is on the main library staff. The law library’s OhioLINK subscription also is the result of inter-library collaboration at CSU. Librarians in the two libraries collaborate regularly when research topics overlap. These existing relationships and networks provide a basis to expand and enhance collaborations, perhaps in ways that create meaningful cost savings, and certainly in ways that would optimize student and faculty outcomes. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: None noted. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Continue to review main library staffing and budget with regard to meeting the needs of students and faculty. Consider maintaining the staffing level and materials budget at the main library and investing in strategic resources. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 11, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: The fiscal year 2020 total budget of $4,297,677 for the main library was the smallest in recent years, and it is substantially smaller than any of the comparator universities examined (See Appendix 2). CSU’s main library staffing is also dramatically lower than any comparator university. The working group cast a wider net, searching for any main library among all comparators to CSU in recent CSU documents, and we were unable to locate any library among them with a smaller budget. While CSU also has the smallest enrollment of the universities in the comparison exercise, the gaps in library funding are far greater in magnitude than the gaps in enrollment. In order to maintain capabilities appropriate for a main library at a student-centered research university, the staffing should be held at the 32.5 FTE budgeted for this year and materials budget should be maintained or preferably increased for inflation to account for annual membership/subscription increases. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: One outcome would be not to fill any of the five current vacancies, which would leave the library under-resourced, as the peer comparisons make clear. 19 Preliminary Recommendation #3: Create and formalize a collaborative system between the main library and the Office of Research (or its successor) to make decisions about researchoriented memberships and subscriptions (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 11, Rec. 3) Benefits of Recommendation 3: The library annually assesses memberships and subscriptions for their usage and value to the CSU community and struggles to meet the needs of faculty and students on its very constrained materials budget (A current tally includes 45 independent faculty requests, the costs of which, if all were fulfilled, tops $540,000). The main library has cancelled 59 resources since fiscal year 2015, including subscriptions to digital collections of journal articles, periodicals, and newspapers, as well as data bases and data repositories. Some dropped subscriptions can create significant barriers to learning and research, as happened when the ICPSR membership, essential to the ability of quantitatively oriented social scientists to do their work and to train students, was cut. While this membership was ultimately restored, the decision to terminate it could have been avoided by the proposed collaboration, since the Office of Research is often in a better position than the library to know exactly how some resources are used and to effectively solicit that information from faculty. Drawbacks of Recommendation 3: This recommendation would create additional work for the Office of Research. Preliminary Recommendation #4: Continue to review the law library staffing and budget with regard to meeting the needs of students and faculty. Consider maintaining the staffing level and materials budget at the law library and investing in strategic resources. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 11, Rec. 4) Benefits of Recommendation 4: The law library is open to and used by the full CSU community, though of course, resources are focused on the law community. As with the main library, the Working Group reviewed the budgets of law libraries at peer institutions, which revealed a range of support levels, some but not all of which were lower than the CSU law school. However, Louisville, which is the most comparable law school in terms of national ranking, has a significantly larger law library budget. The CSU law library budget has declined since 2017, largely through personnel cuts which have averaged about one FTE reduction per year. Maintaining the current staffing and materials budget is important to the many vital services that the law library provides. Drawbacks of Recommendation 4: None noted. 20 Preliminary Recommendation #5: Obtain OCLC Worldshare collection evaluation to provide systematic comparison of CSU library collection to peers. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue, 11, Rec 5) Benefits of Recommendation 5: This will allow library staff to make well informed decisions with respect to additional cuts of resources and/or subscriptions. Hopefully, in the future, as the budget improves it will allow for smart, targeted increases to material, subscriptions and memberships that provide the best return on investment for the CSU community. Drawbacks of Recommendation 5: There is some cost for this service. Issue #12: Review/Assess Office of Research Preliminary Recommendation #1: Consider merging the Office of Research with the Graduate College under the leadership of a Dean for Research and Graduate Studies. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 12, Rec.1: Benefits of Recommendation 1: The Office of Research and the Graduate College are often led by one person. Indeed, such was the case for many years at CSU. These units have many naturally overlapping interests as graduate students’ research stipends are often supported by external funds. Moreover, research performed by graduate students is a necessary component of their thesis and dissertation work and often serves as preliminary data for grant proposals. Enough specialized work is available to require one Associate Dean for Graduate College specific duties and a similar Associate level position for Research Office duties. This restructuring would yield modest salary savings while still allowing the work of the two offices to proceed efficiently. Drawbacks of Recommendation 1: None noted. Preliminary Recommendation #2: Consider hiring an Associate Dean for Research (renaming the now vacant Associate VP for Research Position. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 12, Rec. 2) Benefits of Recommendation 2: This restructuring of the two offices will yield modest salary savings while still allowing the work of the two offices to proceed efficiently. Drawbacks of Recommendation 2: None noted. Preliminary Recommendation #3: In conjunction with the merger, consider streamlining and consolidating the combined staffing of the two offices, including combining some support staff duties with those of an analogous position in another unit. Maintain enough regularly funded 21 positions to support the work of these two offices because funds-available positions could disappear. (Ref.#: WG 3, Issue 12, Rec. 3) Benefits of Recommendation 3: This recommendation will yield modest salary savings while still allowing the work of the two offices to proceed efficiently. Drawbacks of Recommendation 3: None noted. Preliminary Recommendation #4: Explore the return on investment of the current nonpersonnel budget of these two offices. (Ref #: WG 3, Issue 12, Rec. 4) Benefits of Recommendation 4: Reductions in these accounts would yield modest savings. Drawbacks of Recommendation 4: None noted, provided this recommendation is implemented thoughtfully. TOWARDS A PLAN FOR CSU 2.0 WE CAN ALL SUPPORT The Task Force urges every member of the CSU community to participate in the consultative process outlined in this document and share your thoughts about our preliminary recommendations with us. In the end, a strategic plan to which the work of the Academic Task Force will contribute will only be effective if the entire campus community gets behind it and works hard to achieve the goals it sets forth. The University’s capacity to flourish during the difficult years that lie ahead for higher education will depend upon on the quality of the work we are doing now. 22