Annual Campus Report 2004-2005

College and Academic Support Unit 2004-2005 Academic Reports are located at http://leadership.oregonstate.edu/provost/0405/unit-plans.

Strategic Plan Implementation information is located at http://leadership.oregonstate.edu/strategic-plan/ including:

  • Strategic Plan Implementation Report, 2004-2005
  • University Metrics
  • College Metrics

Programmatic Accomplishments

 

Faculty and administrators throughout the university have been involved in initiatives to enhance OSU's teaching and learning environment, and to increase research and outreach activities. These include stimulating and improving regular advising and teaching interactions with students, developing new courses and programs, initiating major research and scholarship initiatives, and upgrading and renovating teaching and research facilities. A sample of activities from across the university follows:

  • For 2004-2005, OSU awarded 4,219 degrees. In addition, 177 degrees were awarded via OSU-Cascades Campus. Of these, 71 were to OSU students.
  • OSU had a freshmen-to-sophomore retention rate of 80.7%, a six-year graduation rate of 60.5%, and the Fall 2004 entering class had average GPA and SAT scores of 3.49 and 1,085, respectively.
  • Oregon State faculty attracted a record $208.9 million in externally funded research, an 18% increase over the previous year. The largest component of the total, about 64%, was from federal agencies.
  • OSU sent a record number of 438 students on study abroad and international internships.
  • The OSU Extension Service reached more than 740,000 Oregonians with problem-solving information, including 70,000 people from diverse Hispanic, American Indian, Black and Asian populations. Extension newsletters and web hits reached an additional 8 million individuals and families worldwide.
  • A total of 156 new students joined the University Honors College in fall 2004, with an average GPA of 3.90 and an average SAT of 1,320.
  • Academic units started a number of new educational programs, including:
    • The interdisciplinary Natural Resource degree is now available at the Eastern Oregon University site through a combination of distance education and OSU College of Agricultural Sciences faculty located in Eastern Oregon.
    • The Education Double degree and Counseling Masters degrees were initiated at the OSU-Cascades Campus.
    • There is a new instructional program leading to a Graduate Certificate in Health Management and Policy.
    • New graduate-level interdisciplinary programs were initiated in Public Policy, Water Resources Engineering, Water Resources Management and Policy, and Water Resources Science.
  • Many academic departments across the university worked on developing curricular outcomes assessment and integrating it in their academic processes.
  • A privately funded Women in Science and Engineering grant will support eight women over a two-year period in broadly defined science and engineering fields.
  • OSU Extended Campus hosts OSU K-12 Online, which provides 24 high school and middle school courses offered online and some as a combination of online with videoconferencing to students across the nation.
  • Renovations were made to teaching facilities in Zoology, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology, as well as starting on-line versions of general chemistry and organic chemistry sequences.
  • The College of Agricultural Sciences is the designated leader of the nation's Western Sun Grant Center. As one of five land-grant universities designated as "Sun Grant Universities," OSU will receive approximately $2 million per year of federal funding over the next four years to operate the Sun Grant programs.
  • Researchers from the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences continue to develop new tools for studying Earth systems, including advanced X-ray equipment to study the recent history of earth sediments, gas samplers to study forest respiration, and a new generation of modular sampling systems to study hydrothermal systems at the bottom of the ocean.
  • Scholarly and creative productivity continue to be at an all-time high in the College of Liberal Arts, with faculty across the college publishing over 12 new books, and Music faculty leading and participating in over 200 performances.
  • Scientists at the Malheur Experiment Station, in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, are using sophisticated technology to help Oregon potato producers deliver a high quality product.
  • Several faculty members in the Department of Pharmacy Practice are developing a research project in cooperation with the human resource directors for the cities of Eugene and Springfield and Lane County to demonstrate the health-related and economic impacts of a pharmacist-delivered patient empowerment program for diabetics.
  • The Austin Family Business Program in the College of Business hosted the 2005 Family Research Conference, the first-ever family business research conference in the U.S.
  • The College of Engineering-led ONAMI, a state-wide collaboration in nanoscience and micro-technologies, received more than $25 million in federal and private research grants and contracts.
  • OSU Extension Family and Community Development Program increased food security of low-income Oregonians through educational programming at emergency food pantries, schools, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, and other local agencies with the help of $1.7 million Food and Nutrition Service/USDA grant.
  • The College of Forestry has been building programs in Wildland Fire Science and related aspects of forest health and Oregon Plantation Productivity and Value Enhancement to increase productivity and value of planted forests in the Pacific Northwest.
  • The Colleges Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) served a total of 22 students (the goal was 20), with an average GPA of students in the program being 2.9 at end of spring 2005.
  • The Division of Student Affairs hired an Alcohol Education Coordinator and a Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Coordinator as part of OSU's primary prevention effort.
  • The entire March 2005 issue of the Journal of Forestry was devoted to articles reporting the results of a symposium convened by the College of Forestry on intensive plantation forestry.
  • The Open Source Lab at OSU is one of three leading Open Source research and development centers in the world, with its web site receiving over 20 million hits per day.
  • The Partnerships for Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans was renewed for approximately $21 million over 5 years.
  • The U.S. News and World Report ranked the Oregon Masters of Public Health Program second among national graduate programs in community health, and the BS in Health Care Administration continues to be recognized as among the three most important programs in the nation by peers within the Association of University Programs in Health Administration.
  • The University Honors College started a new program with the College of Engineering (Opportunity PLUS) that provides scholarship support for a final year of undergraduate study with an automatic entry into a graduate program in engineering at OSU, and with the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences to pair students with COAS faculty on oceanic and atmospheric science research projects.
  • The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in the College of Veterinary Medicine is now part of the National Health Laboratory Network, and the College signed an MOU with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide assistance in the case of animal/food-borne/zoonotic disease emergency.
  • To enhance and expand our educational programs, OSU completed the Small Animal Teaching Hospital in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Weatherford Residential Hall which houses the Austin Entrepreneurship Program, and the Kelley Engineering Building.
  • We now have dual enrollment agreements with 10 of 17 community colleges in Oregon, with the latest additions being Blue Mountain, Oregon Coast, Mt. Hood, Columbia Gorge, and Tillamook Bay.



Faculty Achievements

 

As President Ray said in his October 13, 2005 University Day address, "…if there are no universities without students, it is equally true that there are no great universities without outstanding faculty." Oregon State University's achievements are a result of the efforts, dedication, and drive of our faculty. Our faculty continue to introduce innovations in the classroom to strengthen academic quality, they continue to increase collaboration in research and learning that has resulted in significant increases in research grants and outreach activities, their scholarship and creative work contributes to social and human development of our region and society, they are called upon by television and print media to comment upon issues of national importance, they serve as book authors and editors, and they are recognized by their peers, professional organizations, and national and international entities. A sampling of such recognition follows:

  • Awarded Fulbright Fellowships were: Barb Gartner (Wood Science and Engineering), P. Shing Ho (Biochemistry), and Philip Brownell (Zoology).
  • Bill Gerwick (Pharmacy) served as President of the American Society of Pharmacognosy.
  • Cherri Pancake (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) received the Founder Award from the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Consortium.
  • Dan Rockey (Veterinary Medicine) received the Pfizer Award for Research Excellence.
  • Elected as Fellows were: Terri Fiez and Karti Mayaram from School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to Institute of Electric and Electronics Engineers; Fred Kamke and Jim Wilson from Wood Science and Engineering to Society of Wood Science and Technology; John Allen from College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences to American Meteorological Society; Corinne Manogue from Physics to the American Physical Society; and Jim Carrington from Botany and Plant Pathology to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  • Alvin Mosley, Hyewon Lee, Bruce Hoefer, and C. James Peterson, faculty from the College of Agricultural Sciences, served as PIs for four of the nine OSU patents in 2004. C. James Peterson, Mary Verhoevern, Mark Larson, and Bruce Hoefer were awarded plant variety protection for two varieties of wheat.
  • G. Brent Dalrymple (Dean Emeritus, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences) received the National Medal of Science.
  • Governor Ted Kulongoski appointed Steve Hobbs (Forest Science) as Chair of the Oregon Board of Forestry and Dan Edge (Fisheries and Wildlife) to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission.
  • James White (Chemistry) received the Oregon Medal Foundation Discovery Award.
  • Jane Lubchenco (Zoology) was elected to the Royal Society of London.
  • Joe Hendricks (University Honors College) received the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education Clark Tibbitts Award for Outstanding Contributions to Gerontology.
  • Larry Roper (Student Affairs) received Community Leader Award from the Benton County Martin Luther King Commission.
  • Len Friedman (Public Health) received Regents Award from American College of Healthcare Executives.
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipients were Un-Ku Moon (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) and Yun Shik Lee (Physics).
  • OSU 2005 Women of Achievement Award winners included Michelle Bothwell (Chemical Engineering) and Marie Harvey (Public Health).
  • OSU Distinguished Professor Award recipients were K. Norman Johnson (Forest Resources) and Bruce Menge (Zoology).
  • Sally Francis (Graduate School) was elected President of the Western Association of Graduate Schools.
  • The Native Americans in Marine and Space Sciences program, administered by the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences with Judith Vergun as Director, received the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.
  • Tracy Daugherty (English) won the Oregon Book Award for Axeman's Jazz and an unprecedented third award, and Marjorie Sandor (English) was awarded the 2004 National Jewish Book Award for Portrait of My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime.
  • Seventy-seven faculty were promoted, and forty-one individuals were granted tenure.

OSU's Strategic Plan calls for creating a dynamic and vibrant learning environment inside and outside the classroom that enhances students' educational experience and their success upon graduation. The accompanying annual reports from colleges detail many accomplishments of our students. Those accomplishments are an outcome of a focus, driven by our faculty, on quality education.

 

Strategic Plan Implementation, 2004-2005

 

Perhaps the most important activity completed, laying the foundation for subsequent work, was the completion of strategic plans for every college and academic support unit. The university leadership spent considerable time working on alignment of unit-level strategic plans with the university strategic plan.

A critical activity that we completed during the academic year was establishing priorities for the university-wide capital campaign. Priorities were advanced by academic and support units based on unit-level strategic plans. An extensive, iterative process, including input from an advisory group created by President Ray, and an internal assessment of priorities by the OSU Foundation, culminated in a preliminary set of priorities forwarded to the OSU Foundation for a feasibility analysis. Following recommendations from the OSU academic leadership, the OSU Foundation developed a case prospectus and is currently in the process of seeking input from external constituents on some of the key projects that have been recommended.

Consistent with the university's strategic plan, we selected three priority focus areas for 2004-2005. They were: Enhancing Student Success, Increasing Research and Outreach, and Enhancing Community and Diversity. The University redirected resources to invest in these areas. A number of initiatives and activities were undertaken for each focus area. College and academic support unit annual reports list in detail those initiatives and resulting outcomes. Summarized below are the major initiatives at the university level and some of the common themes that emerge from unit-level activities.

Student Success.

During the 2003-2004 academic year, the University committed to establishing an Academic Success Center and a Center for Teaching and Learning. The 2004-2005 academic year saw the creation of these two centers in Waldo Hall, and the hiring of directors for the centers. The Academic Success Center initiated peer mentoring and academic enrichment programs. Additional activities undertaken at the university and unit level included: additional dual enrollment agreements with community colleges; increased opportunities for students to participate in internships, research projects, service learning and international exchange programs; K-12 outreach efforts; advising audits; new, integrated learning platforms; increased focus on marketing and recruiting a diverse student body; introduction of entrepreneurship minor in the Austin Entrepreneurship Program; increased course access in targeted areas through Extended Campus courses; assessing learning outcomes; exit surveys of graduating seniors; and programs to address social dimensions such as suicide prevention and alcohol education.

Research and Outreach.

At the university level, the most important decision was investment in six interdisciplinary initiatives in areas that leverage existing strengths, have potential for growth and external funding, and, while advancing science, will help further OSU in its land-grant mission of addressing the needs of Oregon and the region. The six initiatives selected for investment are:

  • Center for Healthy Aging Research
  • Computational and Genome Biology Initiative
  • Ecosystem Informatics: Mathematics, Computer Science, and Ecology
  • Subsurface Biosphere Education and Research
  • Sustainable Rural Communities Initiative
  • Water and Watersheds Initiative

In addition to central investment, many colleges and centers have committed resources to the six initiatives.

Other activities in increasing OSU's success in research and outreach included: a revised process for establishing priorities for the Federal Agenda; seed funding for new ideas at the college level; college-sponsored grantsmanship workshops; developing new partnerships; and promoting and facilitating structures and faculty networks. Many academic units have started to rebuild faculty capacity lost due to retirements over the past two years.

 

Community and Diversity.

The university expanded the Office of Community and Diversity and hired a director. Two assessment efforts, a Campus Climate Survey and the Parity Report from the President's Commission on the Status of Women, helped identify areas that require improvement. The most significant activity following these assessment efforts has been the development of unit-level Diversity Action Plans, initial drafts of which were completed during summer 2005. The university started a Tenured Faculty Diversity Initiative, designed to hire senior faculty members who can help with promoting a diverse culture at OSU. The university and units continued efforts to diversify its faculty and student body through targeted recruitment, retention, and educational activities. Several enrichment programs, such as the CAMP grant, PROMISE interns, and Gear-Up grants have helped with student recruitment and retention. Terryl Ross, Director of the Office of Community and Diversity, is also pursuing an initiative called C2D (Commitment to Diversity) that is designed to engage individuals in building a stronger sense of community on campus.

Of the three focus areas for 2004-05, progress in the community and diversity area has been slow. Addressing community and diversity issues requires examination of our own mental constructs, both at the individual level and at the collective level. The unit-level diversity action plans need additional work to articulate explicit goals and strategies needed to achieve them. Additionally, at least in some units, broader community participation is needed to articulate and implement activities to enhance the community climate.

Faculty and staff were fully engaged in the regular commitments around the basic mission of the university, as well as in participating in various initiatives that are outlined above and detailed in unit reports. Faculty and staff time, particularly in the context of significant recent retirements, is the biggest barrier to rate of implementing new initiatives. Other barriers include budget constraints with regard to increasing faculty capacity and for redirection to new initiatives; institutional structures that at time limits communication and rate of progress; space constraints; broader involvement of faculty and staff to achieve some of the goals; and changing of established cultural norms.

 

Plans and Challenges for 2005-2006

 

The University, academic colleges, and academic support units will continue to work on the goals that were identified during the 2004-2005 academic year in the areas of Student Success, Research and Outreach, and Community and Diversity. Impacting change in student retention and graduation rates or the institution's cultural climate requires time and persistent effort. In addition, we are committed to ensure that our investments in new initiatives produce the intended results. We will be assessing and monitoring those activities.

There are specific activities I would like to highlight:

Student Success.

  • President Ray in his University Day address outlined an effort to assess the collective student experience at OSU. Partnering with our students, this effort will help us integrate many of the assessment activities on campus and develop an action plan to further improve student success at OSU.
  • During the 2004-2005 academic year, President Ray initiated conversations with local community college and school board leadership for enhanced collaboration across the P-20 system. We will work with community colleges and school districts in the Corvallis-Albany-Philomath and Bend areas to assess how well student preparation in targeted areas in high schools and community colleges align with curriculum requirements at OSU.
  • We have started numerous initiatives to better prepare our students for success at the university and beyond. These include the Insight Resume required in admission applications; a more comprehensive first-year experience, including transitional learning communities and peer mentoring groups; programs for at-risk students; increased student participation in research, international exchange programs, and service learning; and curriculum learning outcomes. To obtain maximum leverage from these efforts, we will work towards better integrating these activities in a student success framework that connects and builds on individual elements, while minimizing redundancy of effort in the system.

Research and Outreach.

  • During the 2005-2006 academic year, we will be re-negotiating the F&A rate. We hope to convince the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that our current rate of 41.5% is inadequate to recover our costs while being low compared to our peers. A 4% increase (our peers are in the 43-49% range) will make a significant difference in the returned overhead to the university, subsequently impacting the resources we will have available to invest in our research enterprise.
  • Vice President John Cassady has put in place a task force to evaluate the functioning and funding model for OSU's centers and institutes. Recommendations from this task force will help strengthen this important element of the university that helps in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
  • Led by Vice President Cassady, we have started conversations on establishing an Innovation Campus. We will continue to work on this initiative.

Community and Diversity.

  • The preliminary diversity action plans need to be revised and strengthened, including broader involvement from unit faculty and staff. Accompanying the plans, we will develop a campus diversity audit instrument that can be used consistently and regularly across the university to periodically assess campus climate with regard to community and diversity issues, with the first audit planned for spring 2006.
  • Led by Terryl Ross, Director for Community and Diversity, we are in the process of developing diversity training curriculum for administrators, faculty and staff. Offering of this service will be initiated in winter 2006.
  • We will establish an OSU Diversity Roundtable, a university-wide council to provide broad oversight on the university's community and diversity initiatives.

Several units have put in place a hiring plan to backfill for the many faculty members who availed the retirement option due to changes in PERS over the past couple of years and to address growing student and research demands. While these plans will undoubtedly have to be modified because of our current budget situation, hiring in some of the priority areas will help build critical mass of faculty in those areas. The university-wide capital campaign starting this year will help bring additional resources, particularly for faculty and students, though the results will take time to materialize.

And this brings me to the issue of budgets, specifically OSU's Education and General (E&G) budget. A synopsis of the budget from the legislative process and what it means for OSU has been prepared by OSU's Budget Office and is posted at http://fa.oregonstate.edu/budget/management-reports/annual-operating-budget-orange-book. The bottom line is that OSU was fortunate to receive a modest increase in state revenue for 2005-2007, given the severe revenue constraints faced by the Governor and the Legislature in building the budget. The improvements in affordability and the investments in capital construction projects are also positive for OSU. However, the State funding increase in the E&G budget will not be sufficient to cover significantly higher contributions to the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and Public Employees Employment Board (PEBB), and largely unfunded faculty and staff salary raises scheduled during the biennium. The university will have to redirect resources, estimated at 4% of the E&G budget for 2005-2006, to cover increased expenses. Also, it should be recognized that this impact is not uniform across campus; it will be more severe in some units than in others.

I have already asked members of the Provost's Council (deans and vice provosts) to work with unit heads and faculty to prepare a plan for a balanced budget for 2005-2006. The end-of-year fund balances will help in mitigating impact on access and services during this academic year. While we will work to increase non-E&G revenues through private fundraising, research growth, and programs like Summer Session, those activities take time to mature. We will have to reduce expenses and redirect resources, particularly in the second year of this biennium, to offset projected cost increases.

Redirecting of E&G resources to offset projected cost increases for the 2005-07 biennium will not be easy. The additional challenge is to do so strategically. As President Ray said in his University address, "We must make choices that meet our current financial circumstances and position us for future success."

E&G budget rebasing is a critical strategy regarding budget allocation that we started last year, and that we plan to complete by winter 2006 to help units plan for the future. The rebasing process will help establish base budgets for units, informed by sources and uses of financial resources related to academic goals. Base budgets, along with units' aspirations and projections for non-E&G revenues, will help units to develop business plans needed to operationalize the implementation of their strategic plans. I have asked members of the Provost's Council to work with department chairs/heads and faculty and staff to develop their unit business plans during the current academic year.

As we continue to work on budget transparency, we have developed a relatively simple template to share college budgets with you. The Budget Office is working with academic deans to complete this process and share the information with the campus by the end of fall 2005. This year we will also revisit our processes associated with student fees, in particular resource fees and course fees. We are working to provide better predictability of tuition and fees to our students and to those who support their education.