November Updates Q&A - President Gonzalez

There is no question that faculty must lead the development and revision of academic programs, as well as have a strong voice in decisions about the right sizing or sustainable growth of those programs. It's been my experience that the best way to drive deep collaboration in program planning is for faculty to engage in robust conversations within your department or school about your academic offerings, their appropriate size, and which learners they will serve. Insights from campus partners, such as Enrollment Management, University Communications & Marketing, and Institutional Effectiveness & Analytics, can help inform those conversations. Those conversations should surface ideas and recommendations for your Dean to help inform resource decisions made by the Dean and the Provost in consultation with the President and CFO. Ultimately, the decisions must consider multiple factors and don't always perfectly mirror the recommendations from faculty, but it is important that we are leveraging our department and college structures to do that bottom-up planning. 

As someone who began my academic career as a faculty member and worked diligently to earn tenure, I deeply value the tenure process and its role in ensuring academic freedom. As such, I am fully committed to supporting our faculty. SB83 is still in draft form, and we will continue to monitor the legislation. If and when it becomes law we will look at the Faculty Handbook carefully. 

That really is the central question that we must be prepared to answer in higher education today. Here is how I might respond: Shifting the narrative about higher education today will take more than great storytelling. We need to prove the value of higher education by clearly understanding, delivering and measuring value. What outcomes can we prove that cannot be matched by offerings outside of higher education? What real and tangible contributions are we making to the communities we serve? How are we strengthening our state’s economy, enabling the recruitment of business and industry to Ohio, ensuring students go on to careers and make contributions to communities? Further, given the shift in the education marketplace, how might we do all of these things better? Are we evolving to meet the realities and demands of the day? These questions should guide how we teach, research and serve. And then we must be able to quantify and report on those important contributions.  

Mike Courtney is serving as the interim chief human resources officer until Thursday, Nov. 16. On Nov. 16, Mary Elizabeth Miles will begin serving as the interim vice president for human resources and chief human resources officer. Over the next couple of months Mike will continue to support Mary Elizabeth Miles, who most recently served as the vice president of human resources at the University of Louisville, and we are grateful that she will be joining Ohio University. You can read more about Mary Elizabeth Miles and the restructuring of University human resources at this link. 

This is a critical function for OHIO as we continue to evolve and grow to meet student needs. With Shawna Wolfe’s planned departure from Ohio University on Nov. 16, we are reassessing the University Planning role at Ohio University. This assessment will likely take several weeks to complete. As soon as the assessment is finished and we have developed plans for this role, we will share them with the University community.

We appreciate this feedback and have shared it with the University’s Benefits Advisory Council, which is comprised of a broad range of University stakeholders who have been tasked with analyzing the University’s benefits plan design and making recommendations to OHIO’s Total Compensation Committee (TCC) for further consideration. The ultimate decision-making authority regarding University benefit programs rests with the President and the Board of Trustees (or its delegate). 

From a costs and coverage perspective, employees can also revisit and make changes to their benefit plans during the University’s Open Enrollment Period, which occurs each spring. Additional details regarding how, and when, employees might be eligible to make changes to their existing employee benefit plans are available online. 

One of Ohio University’s greatest strengths is our deep commitment to meeting needs across the regions we serve, especially in rural and Appalachian Ohio, and our regional campuses play a vital role in these efforts.  

While it’s important to note that our Regional Higher Education campuses have been actively engaged in online education for the last two decades, we also recognize that a sense of place can be meaningful, and we’re always working to ensure that our campus locations offer access to Ohio University resources that will best meet the unique needs of our students. We also have a commitment to increasing college-going behavior in the region through programs such as College Credit Plus. 

OHIO’s regional campuses have recently experienced a dramatic increase in student retention – an accomplishment that would not be a reality without the knowledge, expertise and support of our valued faculty. We are analyzing the drivers of the increased retention, including course-level outcomes. In the years ahead, we will continue to carefully manage our resources across the University system to ensure that our students, at every campus and location, have the instructional and support resources they need to be successful. 

Thank you for question and the thoughtful comments you included. I also love the President’s Opportunity Promise Award and how it can increase access to higher education for many students. Ohio University has expanded programs in recent years to provide students with the support they need, and we are continuing to look for how to best help all our students succeed.  The Office of First Year and Student Transitions, for example, is dedicated to helping first-year students adjust to college and succeed academically and socially. Our Learning Communities, which are part of this office, also play a key role for first-year students by helping them get started in college, learn about the resources available to support them, get to know other students and learn study skills. The Center for Advising, Career and Experiential Learning is also doing excellent work providing advising and support services to students. For first-generation students, we also have a First-Generation Student Success Program that is coordinated by the Academic Achievement Center. This program provides academic coaching, peer tutoring, drop-in advising and a wide range of services to help first-generation students overcome challenges they may face as they acclimate to the university. We have additional support services in place to help students from all academic backgrounds, and with the increase in our enrollment, we are continuing to look at how to best serve all our students and give them the support they need to succeed. 

With so many talented faculty and staff at OHIO, narrowing down membership on the pillars was a challenging task. University leadership worked together to identify participants on the committees. We have asked Faculty Senate Chair Sarah Wyatt to review some identified gaps on some of the committees, so we may be adding a few more members. The groups need to be small to accomplish our goals within the next six months. It is important to note, however, that the committees have been tasked with identifying ways to fully engage all our University stakeholders as we move through the process. There will be open sessions, surveys, targeted group meetings and other ways for everyone to contribute and make their voices heard.  Please visit Dynamic Strategy | Office of the President | Ohio University for updates and engagement opportunities.

Thank you for the thoughtful question. I hope that you will join me as a brand ambassador for Ohio University and share the great work that we do to engage our students, impact communities, and discover solutions. I encourage you to participate in the Dynamic Strategy process – I want to hear your big, audacious ideas! Finally, say hello when our paths cross, and if we haven’t met before, please introduce yourselves! 

The Employer Engagement Network does charge a fee for organizations to attend career fairs but does not charge fees for other recruitment activities.  

• this is a long-standing practice at Ohio University and common across the state and country 

• for profit entities pay $450 and non-profit or government entities pay $250 (typically) for our fairs 

• we also support other departments or offices on campus in planning and implementing recruitment fairs in which case any cost is determined and collected by that department or office 

You may have heard me talk a lot about our R1 status, and I will continue to do that, because it is important. It is important because it will help us recruit talented faculty, attract the best and brightest graduate student, and earn the confidence of agencies, partners and funders who will look to us to take on the next big project. 

It is important that we all recognize, understand and protect our R1 status. As we work to bolster our reputation regionally and nationally, we have to say more than “we’re R1.” We need to be able to tell stories about the research we are doing, the ways in which we are adding to knowledge and changing communities through our work. The storytelling should be less focused on our status and much more focused on our impact. 

The recording of the University Updates event is available on the University Updates website. The link for it was previously named “View the Livestream,” which we understand caused some confusion for people looking for the recording after the event. We are updating the name of the link to make it easier to find. Thanks for bringing this up. I hope your class went well! 

While the PowerPoint slides will not be posted, the slides can be viewed on the recording of the University Updates event is available on the University Updates website.