The following summarizes outcomes on key institutional metrics:
1. OSU graduated 4,297 students with a total of 4,491 degrees. The graduating class included 3,454 baccalaureate degrees, 727 master’s degrees, 179 doctoral degrees, and 131 professional degrees in Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine. Degrees awarded were distributed as follows: Division of Arts and Sciences, 1,696; Division of Earth Systems Science, 560; Division of Health Sciences, 852; Division of Business and Engineering, 1,432; Graduate School, 51. Additionally, the OSU-Cascades Campus awarded 158 baccalaureate degrees and 48 master’s degrees. Comparable figures for 2008-2009 for OSU and OSU-Cascades were 4,253 (5.6% increase) and 162 degrees (27% increase), respectively.
2. OSU was awarded $275 million in total extramural research funding, a $23 million (9%) increase over 2008-2009. The competitive grants and contracts were distributed as follows: Division of Arts and Sciences, $26.2 million; Division of Earth Systems Science, $101.7 million; Division of Health Sciences, $21.0 million; Division of Business and Engineering, $36.7 million; and Centers and Institutes and other programs that overlap multiple divisions, $26.0 million.
3. The Office of Technology Transfer generated $2.5 million in licensing revenue for the University in 2009-2010, of which $1.5 million was distributed to units and inventors. There were 52 invention disclosures. Recent innovation efforts include 20 licensing agreements during the 2009-2010 academic year. Approximately $275,000 was awarded through the OSU Venture Fund for translational research, startups and student support. Among all the public universities in Oregon including OHSU, OSU-affiliated startups received over 50% of all venture capital funding in the State of Oregon from January to June 2010.
4. OSU’s division of Outreach and Engagement continued to provide educational and outreach programs to Oregonians through the OSU Extension Service and Extended Campus (ECampus). Over 2 million Oregonians were engaged at some level with the OSU Extension Service. In addition, close to 26,000 volunteers assisted with the Extension outreach programs. The Oregon 4-H Youth Development Program reached over 124,700 young people, or more than 1 in 5 youth in Oregon’s K-12 population, through a network of approximately 7,300 adult and youth volunteers. Students seeking degrees through ECampus online programs continued to grow, from 1,102 in 2008-2009 to 1,380 in 2009-2010, a 25% increase. More than 150 new online courses in 10 colleges and seven new online credit programs were developed during the year. Approximately 215 students graduated via our online programs, the largest student group since the inception of ECampus.
5. The Campaign for OSU continued to move forward with great momentum during the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Despite the continued economic downturn, 2009-2010 was the second most successful fundraising year in university history. Donors contributed $94 million during 2009-2010, bringing the campaign total to $607 million toward the original $625 million goal. Among the year’s highlights were 19 gifts of $1 million or more, the launch of a $30 million fundraising effort for a new building for the College of Business, and the creation of the Provost’s Faculty Match Program to help leverage donors’ support for endowed faculty positions. OSU’s composite endowment stood at $352 million on June 30, 2010.
6. Oregon State University enrolled 23,761 students in fall 2010, an increase of 8.2% over fall 2009. Increases in resident, non-resident, U.S. minorities and international enrollments from fall 2009 to fall 2010 were 3.0%, 24.2%, 18% and 38.2%, respectively. Year-to-year increase in undergraduate, graduate and first professional students was 8.3%, 8.7% and 1.7%, respectively. Consistent with enrollment increase, total student FTE increased by 8.2% and student credit hours by 8.2% from fall 2009 to fall 2010. Enrollment at OSU-Cascades in fall 2009 is 678, an increase of 11% over the previous year.
7. The 2009 first-year retention rate was 83.1%, as compared to 82.6% for 2008.
8. Performance of OSU students continued to be excellent in professional certification exams:
- Engineering—94% on Fundamentals of Engineering exam (national average 77%)
- Exercise Science—67% on national athletic training association exam (national average 52%)
- Nutrition—92% on American Dietetics Association exam (national average 80%)
- Pharmacy—first time pass rate above 98% over the past five years, ranking us among the top 15% of all professional programs
- Veterinary Medicine—100% on North American Veterinary Licensure exams (national average 98%)
- Accounting—40.5% on Unified Certified Public Accounting exam (national average 32.9%)
Pre-medical students from OSU had another exceptional year, with an over 77% acceptance rate, with a record number accepted to Oregon Health and Sciences University. Other schools included Yale, Penn State, University of Southern California, Dartmouth, University of Washington, UC - Davis, University of Wisconsin and Boston University.
The university and college metrics are posted at http://leadership.oregonstate.edu/strategic-plan/documents.
REVIEW OF THE 2009-2010 AGENDA
In my 2008-2009 Annual Campus Report, I outlined the year’s agenda which included:
- Continuing redirection of funds to complete budget rebasing commitments
- Completing the business re-engineering process
- Targeting activities for improving student engagement and success
- Increasing non-resident student enrollments and ensuring continued growth of the INTO OSU initiative
- Continuing renovation of classrooms and research facilities
- Increasing alignment of community and diversity agenda
- Ensuring continued success in the capital campaign
Due to the state’s fiscal environment at the time, I outlined the specific challenge of creating a more focused and a more strategic university that is fiscally sustainable and positioned for growth and for taking maximal advantage of future research and educational opportunities. Finally, my agenda highlighted the specific task of preparing for the accreditation review by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities in 2011.
I have provided below my overall assessment for the 2009-2010 academic year. This is followed by a summary of selected activities in 2009-2010, organized around the three over-arching goals of the University’s Strategic Plan. I conclude my report with an outline of the key activities targeted for the 2010-2011 academic year.
Overall Assessment of 2009-2010 Academic Year Agenda
On the basis of the 2009-2010 goals listed above and the summary of activities that follow, OSU continues to grow substantially and to improve in critical dimensions of our mission. The University has done a phenomenal job of leveraging the resources entrusted to us by the State of Oregon. We are serving more students, are the university of choice for Oregon residents and are attracting more extramural grants and private donations. The impact of faculty research and creative activity through outreach and engagement, technology transfer and commercialization activities has had a substantial impact in Oregon and beyond.
The 2009-2010 academic year was also noteworthy in that the University’s growth and increased footprint occurred in the backdrop of an extremely difficult state and national fiscal environment. The University’s short-term strategy to deal with reductions in budget allocation in Education and General Fund and Statewide Public Service Programs (Agricultural Experiment Station, OSU Extension Service, and Forest Research Laboratory) included furloughs by faculty and staff, a salary freeze, not filling open positions, and reducing travel, services and supplies. It also included reducing the number of courses offered, streamlining and reducing selected services, and eliminating a small number of low enrollment degrees. While these actions were difficult and affected our community, they helped mitigate the immediate budget issues that we were facing in fall and winter of the academic year. (These impacts were also noted by President Ed Ray in his October 14th University address.)
While we attempted to keep our University community informed of the changing budget landscape, it was a difficult communications challenge, particularly in terms of accurately assessing the impact on OSU and communicating it in a succinct manner. It is a process that we will continue to examine and improve in the future. Additionally, we tried to provide detailed plans for managing short-term budget reductions, particularly in the initial phase of the reduction process. The details created more complexity than intended. Budget reductions are best handled by providing reduction targets and rationale, but then leaving it to colleges and support units to implement reductions within established guidelines and parameters established via a broader campus-wide process.
The budget challenge also provided us with an opportunity to accelerate implementation of actions contained in the strategic plan completed in spring 2009. Using as our guide the updated Strategic Plan Phase II and the system guidelines approved by President Ray in spring 2009, academic colleges and academic support divisions undertook a participatory process of reviewing academic programs, department/unit alignments and support services. We created the four academic divisions to advance the signature areas of the strategic plan and to enable colleges to further enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and the alignment of units within colleges in order to create units with critical faculty strength and to enhance institutional and unit priorities. We adopted changes in academic and student support services to better serve faculty and students. While much needs to be done, the University community has provided substance to the roadmap defined in the strategic plan and has demonstrated that, as a collective community, we have the discipline to stay course even in difficult times. The changes that the University has adopted have been well received by alumni and other external supporters, the Oregon University System, the State Board, and the political system in Salem.
The savings resulting from the decisions we have made to address short-term budget challenges and the longer-term strategies on enrollment growth, grants and contracts, and private fundraising, have enabled the University to not only weather the projected budget shortfall in Education and general (E&G) budget in 2010-2011, but to make significant investments in new faculty and staff, and in the teaching and research infrastructure. These investments will enable us to recover ground lost over the last decade as the legislature reduced our funding. Some of these investments are detailed later in the report.
Funding for the Statewide Public Service (SWPS) programs remains more challenging because there are no immediate resources (e.g. tuition revenue) to offset cuts in state funding. During the 2010-2011 current academic year, we will be establishing strategies for creating a more sustainable budget environment for the SWPS programs. Over the next academic year and legislative session, the University will continue to advocate on behalf of these programs with the Governor and the legislature. These programs are key to OSU’s land grant mission as they promote innovation, create jobs, and help people and communities cope with economic and social challenges.
As I mentioned above, work continues in departments, colleges and divisions on program innovation and unit alignment. Many conversations have lead to innovative ideas that will help position the University as an innovative land-grant university for the 21st university. These efforts include proposals for creating an accredited College of Public Health and Human Sciences with a complete suite of programs in epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy and management, health promotion, and environmental health; creating a college with relevant academic programs that bring together oceanography, atmospheric sciences and geosciences; and creating new programs in Public Policy and Environmental Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts.
We still face a significant degree of uncertainty that will continue to affect programs, the curriculum, budgets, and the work environment within the University community. Although I acknowledge the uncertainty and disruption created by change, I also recognize that our remarkable growth over the past few years has been a result of change and risk that we chose to accept in various dimensions of our institutional activities. Nevertheless both President Ray and I are concerned that these changes have created stress for many members of our community. While we need to continuously strive for building programs that position us for future success, as we continue to move forward, we also need to reflect the values, the community, and the people that are all important to us.
Goal 1: Provide Outstanding Academic Programs
OSU had another exceptional year in total extramural research funding, with new grants and contracts totaling $275 million, exceeding last year’s record breaking award levels by about $23 million. Multiple federal agencies supported OSU research in 2009-2010, led by the National Science Foundation with $44.5 million, United States Department of Agriculture with $38.9 million, and Health and Human Services with 27.6 million.
Spin-out companies based on OSU technologies earned more than half of the venture capital invested in new companies in Oregon in the first half of 2010. Of those companies, HD+ received the largest single venture investment of $50 million in the State. The academic year saw 52 new invention disclosures and total license revenue of nearly $2.5 million.
Beyond new research funding and license revenues, OSU faculty continue to be recognized nationally and internationally for significant contributions. The college and division annual reports summarize faculty recognition and awards, including faculty recognized as fellows by professional organizations, faculty receiving prestigious CAREER awards, faculty receiving awards from various organizations for excellence in teaching, research, or service, and faculty winning book awards.
While the budget situation prevented the University from recovering its faculty base during the academic year, prudent fiscal management and revenue generation strategies enabled us to announce a faculty recruitment initiative for the 2011-2013 biennium, starting with 30 new faculty to be hired during 2010-2011. Additionally, the Provost’s Faculty Match Program will increase the number of endowed faculty positions through a matching program. With an institutional support of $5 million over a five year period ($1 million per year), the program has the potential to leverage $20 million in private support to retain and recruit exceptional faculty.
High Achieving Students. OSU continues to focus on attracting the best and brightest students from Oregon high schools. The proportion of high school graduates who achieved a GPA of 3.75 or higher and enrolled at OSU in fall 2009 was about 32%. Thirty-eight percent of Oregon’s high schools sent at least one student ranked first in his or her graduating class to OSU. The enrollment rates for students of color continued to steadily increase to 16.1% in fall 2009 and 18% in fall 2010.
The University Honors College (UHC) admitted 174 in fall 2009 resulting in a total enrollment of 603 students. The profile of the entering class was an average high school GPA of 3.95, average composite SAT of 2018, and average composite ACT of 30. The UHC conferred 103 Honors degrees to 89 students from seven academic colleges. For students who entered the UHC, the first-year retention rate and six-year graduation rates were 95% and 85%, respectively. The improved E&G budget has enabled the UHC to target an intake of 250 students for fall 2010.
International Programs. In 2009-2010, the University awarded the International Degree to 15 students from six colleges, studying in 10 countries. There are currently 64 students enrolled in the International Degree program from eight colleges. In total, 434 students studied abroad on every continent, and in 44 countries. New OSU study programs were approved in China (Psychology), Mexico (Graphic Design), and Chile (Agricultural and Resource Economics).
Innovative Curriculum. OSU faculty continue to assess and innovate academic programs in order provide a curriculum that prepares students to be successful in today’s global society and economy. During the last year the faculty completed a two-year effort to re-examine our Baccalaureate Core curriculum. The effort resulted in the adoption of Learning Goals for Graduates and beginning a multi-year program to assess faculty development and the Baccalaureate Core. This effort will focus in 2010-2011 on the skills component of the Core, development of faculty community groups in math and writing, and the development of a year-long faculty development program on global competence. The process includes reaffirmation that curriculum in the humanities, arts and sciences is core to the development of students.
New Programs. The year also provided an opportunity for colleges and units to review their curriculum in the context of OSU’s Strategic Plan—Phase II. Accomplishments include several new programs that will be formally reviewed and approved through university curriculum processes during the 2010-2011 academic year. Over the last year, a new BA/BS degree program in Women Studies was approved while seven new OSU Extended Campus online credit programs were developed, including BA/BS degrees in Anthropology, Economics, Fisheries and Wildlife, Horticulture, and Women Studies, and graduate certificates in GIS and Management for Science. The OSU-Cascades Campus developed a Hospitality Management option in its undergraduate Business program. In conjunction with Cornell University, the OSU-Cascades Campus started to offer in summer 2010 executive education courses for the hospitality industry.
Outreach. The OSU Extension Service faculty expanded their work in 2009-2010 through more than 400 grants and contracts, bringing in $35 million, an increase of over $12 million over the previous year. The OSU Lifelong Learning program continued to offer Oregonians and many beyond the state borders noncredit opportunities for skill development, certification, and personal enrichment. Specific initiatives included the Oregon Open Campus, a partnership between OSU Extension and Extended Campus, the Association of Oregon Counties, regional economic development programs, local businesses and many Oregon community colleges and K-12 education systems to extend OSU educational resources to Oregon communities, and the Portland Metro Initiative, an OSU partnership with community organizations and agencies in the metro area to streamline delivery of OSU Extension research-based education and information.
Goal 2: Provide an Excellent Teaching and Learning Environment
Under the leadership of Susie Brubaker-Cole, Associate Provost for Academic Engagement and Success, the University continues to invest and make progress in addressing student success, though it will take three to five years for actions now being implemented to translate into increased retention rates. The university directed over $1.2 million in 2009-10 to create additional capacity in foundational courses in writing, speech, math, chemistry, physics, and biology. This effort eliminated the backlog in all courses except Speech.
In September 2009, the first summer bridge program for students who are not a part of intercollegiate athletics -- the September Scholars Program -- was offered to a cohort of 20 academically at-risk entering first-year students. The University increased access funding in 2010-2011 to $2.5 million, primarily for the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Science; and the September Scholars Program was offered to three cohorts of 20 students each for summer 2010. The University purchased the MyDegrees (previously DegreeWorks) system in winter 2010 to enhance advising and degree auditing. Implementation of this system is being phased in during 2010-2011.
Although an early alert system was not implemented the past academic year, the University Council on Student Engagement and Experience has developed a framework for a course absenteeism-based early alert system. The program is being implemented in UEngage courses, WR 121, and selected Bac Core courses during the 2010-2011 academic year.
The University sustained funding for the Bridge to Success program, providing support to 3,200 Oregon undergraduate students through packaging of scholarships, tuition remissions, Pell grants, and Oregon Opportunity grant funds.
The University continued the budget rebasing process in order to support our core teaching mission, with an additional allocation of $1.25 million to the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Science, Business, and Health and Human Sciences.
The first intake of 120 language students in English language programs under the INTO OSU suite of programs occurred in June 2009. The first group of 88 undergraduate academic Pathway students enrolled in September 2009, joined by another 31 in January 2010. Marketing the MBA graduate pathway program started in late fall 2009 and a pilot group of 11 students was admitted into the program. At the start of fall 2010, a total of 228 students are registered in the pathway programs against an initial target of 215. Of the student cohort that started and completed its Pathway program during the 2009-10 academic year, 86 percent of the students had met OSU’s progression requirements as second-year students eligible to matriculate. Of those students eligible to enroll in their second year at OSU, 99 percent had done so.
We have made a significant investment in improving teaching and research infrastructure and IT systems; work that will be completed by summer 2011. These investments include: classroom renovation and ADA projects $8 million, IT systems $6.5 million, research equipment $4 million, upgrading teaching labs and equipment $3 million, and other facilities projects $2 million. Additionally, the University directed $1.8 million to the research enterprise (Research Office and Post-Award system) to enhance our research support operations.
Renovation of Education Hall is underway and construction of the Linus Pauling Science Center, Hallie Ford Center for Children and Families, and the International Living-Learning Center is on track for completion in fall 2011. Completion of these projects will add classroom and teaching and research laboratory capacity for faculty and students.
The State Board’s Higher Education Assessment Team for Central Oregon provided recommendations on higher education needs and resource commitments to increase educational attainment in Central Oregon. Recommendations included closer collaboration between the OSU-Cascades Campus and Central Oregon Community College to expand the 2+2 model and to create a student-focused efficient structure for delivering educational programs at OSU-Cascades. Under these recommendations, the University of Oregon will phase out the delivery of its undergraduate programs in Central Oregon over the next two years to enable a smooth transition of those programs to OSU.
Following a comprehensive campus self-study and review by the NCAA Division I Committee on Athletics Certification, the Oregon State University intercollegiate athletics program received certification by the NCAA in May 2010. Preparation of the Self-Study for NWCCU accreditation is in progress and a draft document will be available for campus review and input by the end of fall term 2010.
The Offices of Community and Diversity, Women Advancement and Gender Equity, and Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity have been working on developing a common agenda around equity and inclusion. This effort has identified preliminary areas for specific activities, including community building, a diversity inventory, implementation of an affirmative action search advocates program, diversity roundtable, and leadership and mentoring.
Goal 3: Substantially Increase Revenues and More Effectively Invest and Allocate Resources
Due to budget reductions from the state financial management presented a significant challenge during the year. An inclusive university-wide process led to a set of recommendations that identified $5.4 million in permanent reductions in administrative and academic units in 2009-2010. The process also led to a series of recommendations on divisional alignment of colleges, academic system guidelines, and administrative system guidelines. Over the next three to five years these efforts will result in academic units with key faculty numbers and capacities and greater cross-disciplinary interactions and programs. They will also eliminate or consolidate functions and processes, and minimize administrative costs. Revenue increases from enrollment growth, tuition increases, research grants, and one-time actions such as furloughs, and efforts to stop legislatively imposed fund sweeps have enabled us to avert further reductions during the second year of the biennium.
Budget reductions in the Statewide Public Service Programs continue to be more challenging because there are no immediate resources to offset cuts in state funding. Reductions for the biennium were successfully achieved primarily through use of fund balances, freezing open positions, and use of one-time options (furloughs and limited retirement incentives). The OSU Extension Service expanded local funding security through a new tax service district in Polk county; a similar measure failed in Lane county.
Work is underway to develop a more sustainable budget plan for the SWPSs that includes ensuring alignment of programs with the highest priority 21st century needs, expanding the revenue base, and considering options like fee for programs, a multi-county extension model, integration of experiment station and extension administration, and hiring of fixed-term faculty to deliver some of the services provided by the Extension Service.
The University ended the fiscal year with an Education and General (E&G) fund balance of $55 million, 18.6% of the initial E&G budget. Corresponding numbers for the Statewide Public Services (SWPS) were $11 million and 14.1%.
All seven regional business centers are now operational. During the phased implementation process, the University had to operate parallel systems that required retaining some elements of the older systems to support the units that had not yet transitioned to business centers. With all seven centers operational, the focus in 2010-2011 will shift to eliminating redundant processes, increasing the effectiveness and quality of services, providing post implementation training programs, enhancing technology tools, and developing more effective communication structures and relationships between the business centers and the units they serve.
The University added $94 million to the capital campaign, making 2009-2010 the second best year of fundraising in OSU’s history (2007-2008, when the campaign was publicly launched, was the best). This was a remarkable achievement given the fiscal environment in the U.S. during the year.
2010-2011 AGENDA
During the new legislative session which begins in February 2011, OSU will support and work with the State Board of Higher Education to seek changes in the status of the Oregon University System (OUS) from a state agency to a statewide public university system. Such a structural change will enable the OUS to better control its revenues and costs, develop a simplified block-grant approach to state funding similar to community colleges and K-12 system, and ensure that student-paid tuition revenues and the investment earnings on these cash balances are protected and directed towards education. These efforts will also enable the University to address the possible effects of other legislative initiatives that will be aimed at state employee salaries and benefits that may inordinately affect university faculty and staff.
Specific priorities for Oregon State University for the 2011-2013 biennium include working with OUS to ensure that any reductions to OUS are on par with other education sectors, maintain existing targeted funds for the Statewide Public Service Programs (SWPS) and Engineering Technology Investment Council (ETIC) investments, and seek state match to key capital budget projects, including the Business School, Classroom Building, and Gill Annex.
Internal to the University, we will focus on successfully completing implementation of initiatives and activities that we have started over the past 18 months, including:
- Articulate more clearly the management of the four academic divisions
- Complete alignment and program changes within colleges and support units
- Complete new faculty hires
- Expand and monitor effectiveness of programs introduced recently to enhance student engagement and success, including access to foundational courses, summer transition programs, U-engage program, pilot early alert system, and academic advising
- Ensure implementation of the outcome assessment framework
- Complete IT and teaching and research infrastructure enhancement projects
- Improve effectiveness of services provided by the seven regional business centers
- Successfully complete NWCCU re-accreditation review in spring 2011
As President Ray noted in his University speech, we will focus on reducing community stress, including a review of instructors’ salaries and the creation of an ombudsperson’s office. We will continue the faculty hiring initiative in 2011-2012, and will invest additional resources in advising and graduate student recruitment.
While ensuring that we meet our commitments to students from across Oregon, we will continue to focus on increasing high-achieving, diverse, and non-resident students. We will pursue fast track funding for a classroom building and additional on-campus housing.
Because of the significant enrollment changes over the past few years, we will reassess base budgets for units for the 2011-2012 academic year. A task force on Extended Campus will provide recommendations on strategic growth and directions and business model for Extended Campus and its role in providing a meaningful educational experience to OSU students. And we will develop a more sustainable budget plan for SWPS Programs.
Finally, we will continue to focus on enrollment and program growth at OSU-Cascades Campus. Specifically, we will initiate transition of the University of Oregon undergraduate programs to OSU, a process that will be completed by June 2012.
Office of the Provost
11 22 2010