Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a five-part series detailing the evaluations of Ohio University deans. Only five deans were evaluated because first-year deans are not evaluated.
The dean of Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine received a positive annual evaluation, but some responding faculty scorned curriculum development administrators, alleging bias and inflexibility.
While nearly 94 percent of faculty recommended the reappointment of Dean Jack Brose, some faculty said rigid administrators are hampering curriculum development in the college.
The faculty have a lot of good ideas for improving the curriculum
but the dean only listens to his very rigid and biased administrators one respondent wrote. Everyone else is muzzled.
The committee conducting the review urged Brose, who said he would investigate the criticisms, to address the high level of dissatisfactions with curriculum and curricular administrators.
Some administrators and faculty, including those criticized, said they were surprised by the allegations.
This is the first time that I've heard that faculty are not listened to in terms of running curriculum, said Bonita Biegalke curriculum director and a professor in the college.
Biegalke added that faculty have a great deal of input in the development of the curriculum.
In the college
which trains students to take a holistic approach to patient treatment
there are two types of curriculum: patient-centered continuum and clinical presentation continuum. Faculty committees for each track outline recommendations to two curriculum administrators: Biegalke and professor Nancy Stevens
who was unavailable for comment.
Administrators decide the details of the curriculum
while the faculty committees make recommendations to a curriculum advisory committee
chaired by Richard Klabunde
a professor in the college.
Klabunde said the committees are only advisory. The dean and the curriculum administrators make the final decisions.
Norman Gevitz
a professor in the college
said inflexibility is true of any curriculum.
I think there's always difficulty with curriculum that, once it's instituted, it tends to become a bit inflexible, Gevitz said.
Aside from the curriculum
