Office of the Provost

for the Faculty and Staff of Washington State University
from Provost Robert C. Bates

Number 5, part 1

October 2004

I was pleased to see a large turnout at the Provost's Dialogue last week, and to have numerous questions asked about our academic planning and programs. Here I want to share key points on several of the topics I presented at the dialogue. In Parts 2 and 3 of my fall Progress Report, I will discuss other important aspects of our academic endeavors.

Across the University, guided by our four core strategic plan goals, we continue to make tremendous progress in our collective effort to become more focused, use our resources wisely, and help our students, faculty and the citizens we serve meet 21st century challenges. At the same time, we are helping make Washington State University a preeminent university. Clear evidence of that was provided in last April's detailed Strategic Plan Implementation Update.

In this update, to be sent in three installments, I will focus on seven areas of importance to students, faculty, and staff alike:

Academic Plan development
Organizational Structure Review
Implementation of Tenure and Promotion Task Force Recommendations
President's Teaching Academy and Office of Undergraduate Education
Learning Outcomes and Assessment
Graduate Education
Research

Washington State University's Academic Plan

A draft Academic Plan that further details the University's Strategic Plan has been developed for review. The Strategic Plan provides key directions for WSU, serving as a compass, not a roadmap, as President Rawlins often describes it. The Academic Plan is the Academic Affairs roadmap to guide our accomplishment of the goals of the Strategic Plan.

This plan identifies four major areas of emphasis for the university's academic units. These areas are:

The undergraduate experience
The graduate experience
Scholarship and research foci
Societal impact

These four major areas of our academic enterprise represent the mission of the university and lie at the heart of the strategic plan. The other two goals of the strategic plan -- creating an environment of trust and respect and maintaining a commitment to quality - are necessary conditions for the achievement of the goals of both the Strategic Plan and the Academic Plan.

This summary of the Academic Plan provides a brief overview of each of the four major areas. The plan itself is very much a work in progress and will become clearer as we work with colleges, departments, and faculty throughout the academic year.

The Undergraduate Experience

The Academic Plan provides the roadmap to achieving our goal of offering the best undergraduate experience in a research university. Within the plan, the role of the Office of Undergraduate Education, the President's Teaching Academy, our assessment programs, our value-added student academic experiences, our commitment to learning outcomes grounded in solid pedagogy and institutional accountability, and other components are outlined to provide a framework for campuses, colleges, schools, and departments to establish benchmarks to guide our progress.

The Graduate Experience

Our aspirations of becoming a truly world class research university are directly tied to our ability to attract and retain the highest quality graduate students, especially those seeking doctoral and terminal degrees in sufficient numbers. Our task is challenging, but not impossible. The Academic Plan highlights areas of excellence and capacity as well as areas where additional investment will generate excellence.

Scholarship and Research Foci

Washington State University faculty members have consistently increased research and scholarly productivity from year to year. The Academic Plan draws upon our well established and emerging scholarly and research strengths.

The six scholarly and research focus areas we have identified include:

Health and Life Sciences
Environmental and Natural Resources
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Arts, Humanities, Culture and Design
Security and Safety
Society, Communication and Enterprise

More details on these focus areas will be posted on the Provost's Office Web site in the near future for review and comment.

Societal Impact

As Washington's land-grant institution, WSU has an obligation and a commitment to contribute to the economic vitality and social well being of our state. The academic plan outlines our continuing and planned support of the society from which we draw our students, faculty, staff and myriad valued stakeholders.

Academic Organizational Structure Review

A key prerequisite to achieving our long-range goals is to ensure that we have an academic organizational structure that allows us to effectively and efficiently fulfill the full range of teaching, research, and service activities expected by the students and citizens we serve. All organizations routinely examine their structure, and it is time that we do such a review for Washington State University.

The idea of examining our academic structure arose originally from work done by faculty and staff in developing our strategic plan. For example, Design Team 5 (The Role of the Arts) recommended that we establish a College of Arts and Design … "to unify and empower our arts community." Questions about our structure also emerged from recent faculty activities such as

the formation of the School of Economic Sciences out of the Departments of Economics and Agricultural and Resource Economics,
a review of recent trends toward collaboration and formation of interdisciplinary schools, and
a growing need to provide for organizational flexibility for program delivery across the entire university system.

Prompted by these factors, and not driven by budget considerations, I am initiating a complete review our current academic structure to assess if it is impeding our ability to achieve our goals. A different structure might encourage synergies in teaching and creative activities, eliminate duplication, create more coherent units that would be more effective, and create larger units that would be more visible at the national and international level.

To accomplish this review, the Academic Organizational Structure Committee, jointly sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Senate, has been established. Co-chairs are Fran McSweeney, professor of psychology and vice provost for faculty affairs, and Chuck Pezeshki, associate professor of mechanical engineering and chair of the Faculty Senate. The full committee roster will be announced shortly.

I will charge the committee with determining whether structural changes would improve the functioning of the University, gathering information and input upon which to base recommendations, and drafting a proposal about restructuring for review and potential approval by me, the Faculty Senate, and the President. We are in the discussion phase only. No decision has been made about whether or how to reorganize. The committee will provide opportunities for comments, feedback, and dialogue across the University community. I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities.

Implementation of Tenure and Promotion
Task Force Recommendations

I want to thank Warwick Bayly, who served as chair of the Tenure and Promotion Task Force, as well as members Greg Hooks, Ursula Mazur, Tracy Skaer, Ken Butterfield, Greg Kessler, Leonard Orr, Ginny Steel, Judy Mitchell, Margaret Bruya, Barry Swanson, and Fran McSweeney for their service. Their thorough review of the tenure and promotion process, and their thoughtful and well reasoned recommendations for improvements in the process, resulted in a report that will be considered by the Faculty Senate. It is available for review at the Provost's Office Web site found at http://provost.wsu.edu .

Noteworthy among the recommendations are initiating mandatory mentoring to the full professor level, merging the annual and pre-tenure reviews into one review to eliminate duplication of effort, reaching general agreement on how to define "service" (and giving more equal weight in tenure review to research, instruction and service), and appointing a committee to clarify issues related to tenure and promotion at the urban campuses.

As the process moves into the next phase, I ask that faculty review the task force recommendations and consider how they will impact the tenure and promotion process for themselves, their departments, and colleges. Please send your input to this email address: wsuprovost@wsu.edu. Ultimately, I believe the recommendations will contribute to making the process more consistent, fair, and uniform both across the Pullman campus and across the entire university system.

In parts 2 and 3 of this fall's Provost's Progress Report, to be sent in the near future, I will provide updates on key developments in graduate education, research, and aspects of undergraduate education including the Office of Undergraduate Education, the President's Teaching Academy, and learning outcomes and assessment. Your feedback is welcome.

Bob Bates

Online resources:

Robert C. Bates is Provost and Academic Vice President at WSU.

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