As it joins the University System of Ohio, Ohio University could eliminate some graduate and professional programs.
Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, who heads the Ohio Board of Regents, has called for each school to focus on its strengths and consider eliminating weak programs. Developing Centers of Excellence is part of the University System of Ohio, a network of 13 public, four-year universities that aims to lower costs and increase enrollment.
OU has formed a committee, The Task Force On Centers of Excellence in Graduate and Professional Education, to review more than 90 programs and identify which are outstanding and which could be scaled down.
The committee released a draft outlining criteria for rating the programs last week and expects to release a final draft within the next few weeks.
The committee will use the draft to rate programs in several areas, including the quality and accomplishments of faculty, student selectivity and accomplishments, and the program's contributions to OU and the region.
The committee will use the data collected through self-studies of more than 90 programs, which it hopes to have by October, said Ben Ogles, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Programs will be rated excellent, good, satisfactory or limited.
Although OU was not specifically directed by the Ohio Board of Regents to review the graduate catalogue and identify Centers of Excellence
Fingerhut has instructed Ohio's public universities to establish nationally recognized programs to boost statewide enrollment to 230,000 by 2017.
Overseeing the reviews internally gives OU greater control over its future when the time comes to identify Centers of Excellence said Dominic Barbato, president of Graduate Student Senate and a voting member of the committee. We wanted to have the ability to show that we did some self-assessment so that someone is not going to come in and define us for us Barbato said.
The final evaluations will be used to distinguish OU's strengths and will shape future funding, Ogles said.
Inevitably there will be budgetary decisions that are guided by identifying those excellent programs.
Whether the reviews will result in terminating weaker programs is not certain but also not impossible, Ogles said.
There is the potential
he said. With over 90 programs
I can't tell you right now if there are one or two or three of them that are lagging behind that we should consider eliminating.
Dissolving programs is a touchy subject but a necessary one, Barbato said. I'm always uncomfortable with the fact that we could potentially remove programs but I see it as a necessary evil just given the budgetary constraints of the university.
Fingerhut's plan for higher education calls for prioritizing, but that does not necessarily mean eliminating good programs that lack national acclaim, Ogles said.
They'll still function as usual
but the idea is to identify those programs that are outstanding and maybe to emphasize them a bit more
but that won't mean we'll chop into those solid programs to do that.
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