Faculty Senate President's Message
To:
From:
Re:
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Faculty Senators
Bruce Sorte
Faculty Senate Summary
April 4th, 2003
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Tough to focus on issues in Corvallis, while war rages. In addition, a virus
spreads globally. I spend so much time rushing and taking myself very seriously
week-in and week-out, these events remind me that I should give higher priority
to enjoying conversations and projects with colleagues.
Thanks so much to those of your who put a check in the hat at yesterday's Senate
Meeting. Every dollar you added is worth three dollars with two coming from the
Austin match, OSU Alumni Association, and other trustees and friends of the
University. If you have not been able to contribute, please consider doing so
and sending a check to the Faculty Senate Office, 107 Gilkey payable to the OSU
Foundation - EFSA (Emergency Fund for Student Access).
As the Legislature works through the Session, OSU needs to plan now for more
budget reductions, which may mean more reorganization, reduction and termination
of programs than OSU has ever experienced. OSU is ahead of many institutions by
having a very well developed policy that involves faculty input in program
redirection. The Guidelines For Program Redirection were adopted by the Faculty
Senate and President Byrne in May of 1992. You can find them at
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/senate/redirect/guidelines.html. For the past two
years the Executive Committee has been trying to encourage a revision of those
Guidelines. We believe the changes we have suggested would assure that the
Faculty Senate participates in these types of decisions while they are still in
the formative stage and there is still an opportunity to assure that individual
faculty members directly involved in a restructuring are able to provide ideas
that are carefully considered. Finding the right balance between
Administration's need to flexibly manage and quickly respond to budget issues
and the Faculty Senate's desire to be deliberate and protect the professional
futures of individual faculty is difficult. Timing and confidentiality are the
critical issues and I am hopeful that we can develop a compromise that will be
approved by the EC, you, and then the Administration. We need to have the revised
Guidelines in place by summer.
During spring break, Joanne and I visited UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and
Stanford with our daughter, Sally. Our two older children completed their
undergraduate studies at Whitman College and OSU, respectively. So, from their
searches and attendance we are fairly familiar with some private and public
institutions. During this most recent series of visits I seemed to be even more
preoccupied with comparing these institutions, which get strong national
rankings, with OSU. I guess my only conclusion was that we need to spend much
more time studying other institutions and quickly trying smaller scale changes
or programs that seem effective at those institutions.
Working with Faculty Senate standing committee/council chairpersons and members,
we discuss one or two ideas at each meeting that may deserve pilot testing. Yet,
it is tough to take an idea in an institution this size and roughly form it, try
it, assess its success, and then stop or expand it. For many good reasons there
are a number of gates that each idea must pass through and the keepers of those
gates can dampen enthusiasm very quickly. An example, adapted from a recent
conversation with Jeff Hale, would be admitting 75 first-year undergraduates who
would each choose an issue/service focus to their undergraduate education (e.g.
hunger in Oregon, restructuring the Oregon tax system, mending Oregon's east/west
divide) and all their studies would in some way focus on solving their particular
problem of interest. Then, for at least three more years the same options would
be given to incoming students and 75 students added to the team. What could three
hundred undergraduates working through interdisciplinary studies, supported by
the enthusiasm and mentoring of faculty and fellow students, accomplish on a year-round
basis for four years? After that, phase it out or extend the project? Find
a small amount of funding to get started, avoid panic over the risky nature (both
physically and professionally) of sending students out across Oregon to represent
OSU and help solve big problems. We can say we are essentially doing this in a
number of ways, or the focused nature of the approach would compromise the
essential range of knowledge those students would need, or that the federal
government is already doing this. It would be difficult to convince me. We could
"sell" these types of programs at tuition rates sufficient to cover their costs and
I believe significantly boost the students' knowledge and critical thinking skills.
