PULLMAN The Provost’s Report on program prioritization at Washington State University recommends a number of changes, including a 20 percent reduction in course offerings, a faculty hiring strategy designed to build “critical mass” in areas of academic strength and a restructuring of general education across the university.
“This report takes a thoughtful and in-depth look at what we are doing and where we should be heading as a university. I appreciate the seven-month university-wide effort that went into this process. This report will be a most valuable tool as we determine our future direction,” said WSU President Elson S. Floyd.
The Provost’s Report was presented to a meeting on the Pullman campus Tuesday. The meeting was web-streamed to WSU campuses in Vancouver, Spokane and Tri-Cities and to the extension center in Puyallup. A link allowing you to view the meeting via Web streaming can be found by clicking on the May 20 calendar date at https://experience.wsu.edu/NewSite/Calendar/Calendar.aspx.
The Provost’s Report is available at https://www.academic-prioritization.wsu.edu/decisions/ .
The report is based on the recommendations of a 16-member task force that extensively studied the university’s organization.
WSU currently lists about 6,700 different course offerings. Many are seldom taught, however, and many others have very small enrollments. University officials hope, by eliminating many courses and low-demand majors, tenured faculty will be able to devote more attention to core courses that serve more students.
The report asks each college to audit its courses, options, minors, majors and degrees and submit a preliminary implementation plan and timeline to the provost by June 15. The final implementation plan is due to the provost by Sept. 26.
The report makes a number of organizational recommendations, which generally call for a realigning of various schools and departments to bring together faculty members in related areas.
For example, it calls for the creation of an area focused on environmental sustainability, using resources now invested in the School of Earth and Environmental Science, the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and the Department of Community and Rural Sociology. Similarly, it calls for the integration of the School/Community Collaboration Center within the College of Education with the Center for Distance and Professional Education and Extension.
“In some areas, structures have been created that no longer make sense in an era where both research and teaching are increasingly interdisciplinary,” said Provost and Executive Vice President Robert Bates. “This report provides an excellent opportunity for the university to realign academic programs in a way that best serves our research and teaching missions.”
The report calls for phasing out the undergraduate major in forestry, with forestry programs retained in support of areas of emphasis within natural resources, including wildlife management and water resources management. In the College of Sciences, the report recommends reducing geology and focusing it on general education courses, basic science teaching and environmental-related research.
The report recommends that health sciences be developed as a university-wide division; it would include first-year medical education, pharmacy, nursing and related health professions. The division would be based at WSU Spokane and would provide programs and services on the other WSU campuses. The report discusses the possibility of moving the departments of kinesiology and sports management from the College of Education to the Division of Health Sciences as well as consolidating the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences in Spokane as part of that division.
Within the College of Veterinary Medicine, the report recommends the development of the global animal health initiative and the establishment of an adequate and sustainable budget for operations of the veterinary teaching hospital.
Under the report’s recommendations, the College of Liberal Arts would be divided into three divisions social and behavioral sciences; arts, culture and humanities and interdisciplinary programs and area studies. American studies, comparative ethnic studies and women’s studies would be combined in a single unit.
Bates and Floyd said that faculty members who wish to appeal specific recommendations in the report should work through their college deans.
The goal of program prioritization is not to reduce the university’s budget overall, but to focus resources on the institution’s highest academic priorities, including the areas of research preeminence. Realizing that program prioritization is a long-term initiative for reallocating existing resources and investing new resources, university academic leadership agreed last fall to create a pool of money through a 1.5 percent budget cut that could be used to jumpstart strategic investment.
The process is part of an ongoing effort to strengthen WSU’s core mission as a land-grant research university. It was undertaken, at the direction of the president, to identify and enhance those premiere programs where WSU has attained, or is poised to attain, national and international stature. Kenneth Casavant, professor in the School of Economic Sciences and Larry James, associate executive vice president, co-chaired the task force.
The task force studied 135 self-reviews completed by academic units, read an analysis and recommendations from each dean and administrative leader and then held an all-day forum on April 3 with university leadership, including chancellors and Faculty Senate leaders, to gather more information and discuss particular issues more deeply.
