Comments to the OUS board by IFS President Bob Turner                                          February 4, 2005

 

OUS Board Chairman Lorenzen, Members of the OUS Board of Directors:

At the start of my third two year term on the Interinstitutional Faculty Senate, I want to express my appreciation to each of you, and to the OUS administration for your contributions in moving the Interinstitutional Faculty Senate from an observer to a participant in OUS activities.

My comments to focus on three items of concern to faculty that have been discussed in IFS:

1. Faculty compensation            about which I’ll say no more, because this concern is being addressed by other groups, including the OUS board

2. Educational quality               I believe it is safe to affirm that OUS faculty are, by some combination of educational background, emotional constitution and psychological deviancy, in general acollection of individuals who share a concern for and dedication to the nature of their students’ experience. It matters deeply to the faculty that through this experience, their students develop, to the fullest extent possible, the ability to critically evaluate the exploding volume of information they can now access through diverse media, the ability to be at ease with the use of mathematically based quantitative analyses to make judgments about that information, and to communicate accurately and effectively the results of their judgments. Faculty are deeply concerned about educational quality at this specific time because we share the assumption that effective solutions to many societal problems demand realistic assessment and recognition of the complexity of the problems; further, faculty are apprehensive over the potential for unintended consequences that is inherent in attempting to use oversimplified solutions to resolve complicated problems, or worse, to be either incapable or unwilling to assess the complexity of the particular situation. The faculty expectation is that the quality of students’ educational experience affects their capacity to recognize, accept and act effectively in today’s complex economic and societal environment. The faculty are sensitive and reactive to the impact of consistent decreases in higher education’s resources on the quality of the students’ education.

3. The third concern of IFS, of equivalent importance to faculty compensation and educational quality, is the process of minimizing the barriers to student progress toward the degree.

The OTM, now endorsed by JBAC, CIA, the Provosts’ Council, all OUS Faculty Senates and the Joint Board of Education, significantly reduces the general education obstacles to students’ movement among Oregon’s 24 community colleges and 7 OUS institutions. As you know well, OTM was drafted by JBAC, endorsed by a collaborative process initiated and driven by MBF under Gretchen Schuette’s leadership and enhanced by IFS pastPresident Peter Gilkey’s series of town hall meetings on all 7 OUS campuses. Peripheral but extremely significant outcomes of the OTM endorsement process are that it helped open faculty eyes to the very real impact of an increasing financial burden of higher education on students, which has led to faculty recognition of the need for continued measures to assist students in smoothly moving between institutions. OTM is one of two instructive illustrations of the effectiveness of proceeding in a discipline specific manner to minimize the barriers to student progress toward the degree.

The OTM that has been endorsed drew heavily on the AS/OT Business because we were fortunate to have Maureen Sevigny representing OIT on IFS at the time that JBAC presented the OTM. Dr. Sevigny was a leader in the faculty driven process that developed the AS/OT-Business with the express purpose of easing student movement among Oregon’s public post-secondary institutions. To quote from the AS/OT in Business adopted by the Oregon State Board of Education, April 18, 2003: “Any student who holds Associate of Science/Oregon Transfer in Business degree that conforms to the guidelines set forth herein, and who transfers to any institution in the Oregon University System, will have met the lower-division general education requirements of that institution’s baccalaureate degree programs. Students transferring with this degree will have junior standing …..”

            Maureen’s participation as one of the Community College and OUS faculty who produced AS/OT-Business was seminal in the final form of OTM. Because it was developed by the faculty in a specific discipline who know first hand the complications facing students in their discipline, the AS/OT-Business eases student movement and maintains the individuality of each OUS institution’s Business degree.

            The second illustration of effective discipline specific process that eases student movement is the articulation matrix available to students seeking a BS in Nursing from OHSU. Students earn this degree by completing two years of prenursing courses at any community college or university and successfully competing for a position in OHSU’s School of Nursing, where they complete the third and fourth years of the BS in Nursing. OHSU’s School of Nursing has produced and continually updates a matrix, which is now being distributed to you, from the OHSU web site, that shows prenursing students from 15 Oregon CCs and all 7 OUS institutions the courses they must complete during their first two years in order to move to the OHSU School of Nursing. You might note that the Microbiology prenursing requirement is satisfied by 6 different course numbers at the 7 OUS institutions, which demonstrates that a discipline specific process of course evaluations will permit easy movement of students among institutions and simultaneously maintain the individuality of each institution’s course offerings.

I would like to add parenthetically that, in over 10 years of experience as the prenursing advisor at Western Oregon University, obstacles to student progress that are larger than lack of course transferability are bottleneck courses and students choosing not to follow a class schedule that moves them rapidly through the course matrix.

Faculty are interested in participating in continuing the process of minimizing barriers to student progress toward the degree, and concerned that there may be insufficient awareness that the work of faculty and staff within individual disciplines at each public post-secondary institution can significantly decrease barriers to student progress without diminishing institutional individuality, – without removing the ability of each discipline at each institution to best serve their population of students that they attract, – without restricting institutional academic entrepreneurship.

As a closing comment. I emphasize that in all three cases – OTM, AS/OT-Business, & OHSU’s BS in Nursing, accurate academic advising is essential. An online degree audit system, such as DARS/CAS that is being tested at Portland State with the integral participation of IFS Senator Robert Mercer from PSU, has much to offer in enhancing the delivery of accurate advising. Further, an on-line degree audit system such as DARS/CAS will insure that faculty in each discipline remain active drivers in a student centered process that continuously monitors and minimizes the obstacles to students’ progress to their desired degree while at the same time maintaining institutional individuality.