Trustees: Restructuring Academic Enrichment, Advising

TRUSTEES HEAR REPORTS ON RESTRUCTURING, ACADEMIC ENRICHMENT 
AND STUDENT ADVISING

     COLUMBUS --  Provost Richard Sisson told The Ohio State 
University Board of Trustees Friday (11/1) that three years of 
intensive restructuring, reallocation and reorganization have 
allowed the university to:

     --  Cope with an $80 million loss of state subsidies to its 
base budget.

     --  Shift $20 million to $25 million within academic units 
to strengthen extraordinary programs and meet university academic 
priorities.

     --  Come to terms with $40 million in budget deficits from 
the 1980s.

     --  Supplement funding for interdisciplinary research.

     "It is very important that such a process be principled and 
driven by values," he said.  "It is also essential that it 
involve a broad range of voices, and that it involve the senior 
administration, but not be exclusively determined by them."

     Sisson said he and President E. Gordon Gee agreed from the 
beginning that faculty, staff and students would have to 
implement change, and so should have a say in how to accomplish 
restructuring goals.

     Ohio State will continue to restructure.  However, it will 
be in a less intense way, Sisson said.  Colleges and academic 
support units will look at areas of growth selectively.

     Sisson also reported on the Academic Enrichment Program, a 
major way that Ohio State supports the quest for intellectual and 
academic excellence.

     More than $5.2 million has been reallocated over the last 
three years to support university priorities. The money has gone 
to hire faculty to lead cutting-edge research efforts and staff 
to administer projects. Grants also are used to buy and upgrade 
scientific and computer equipment.

     "These initiatives, and the faculty behind them, are a 
source of great pride for all of us," Sisson said. Seventeen 
projects have been funded this year.

     The board also heard a report on academic advising.

     Martha Garland, undergraduate dean for the Colleges of the 
Arts and Sciences, outlined several changes being made to better 
serve the 10,000 students in the five colleges.  Efforts include 
hiring more professional academic counselors, grouping counselors 
by disciplines to concentrate on specific majors, and using 
technology to connect directly with the University Registrar and 
Admissions and Financial Aid offices.

     Dean Bobby Moser and Associate Dean L.H. Newcomb of the 
College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, 
explained how the college's advising system differs from the rest 
of the university.

     The college's faculty have a long-standing commitment to 
personally advising their undergraduates, Moser said, and so 
students are assigned a faculty adviser when they are admitted.
Enrollment is small enough that the 80 faculty members can 
directly counsel 15 students each, meeting two times each 
quarter.

     In addition, a "Faculty Friend" is assigned to Norton and 
Scott residence halls, where agriculture majors room together.  
College counselors are available one evening a week in the halls.

                             #

Contacts:  Richard Sisson, (614) 292-5881
           Martha Garland, (614) 292-1882
           L.H. Newcomb, (614) 292-6891


[Submitted by: Von Reid-Vargas (ereid@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
               
Fri, 1 Nov 1996 14:31:25 -0500]
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