Case Study

Formulating a campus response to a mandate issued by a state board of higher education is difficult and challenging. The power of the board varies from state to state, ranging from a coordinating function only to a more powerful controlling function with direct influence on budget decisions. Regardless of the degree of power held by a given board, institutions have a broad range of significant reactions when an edict is received from a state board. To demonstrate the complexities of the relationship between a state board and a public institution, this case depicts a board which has significant power over both budget and program inventory.

Specifically, the case features the dilemma faced by a provost in responding to the newest mandate issued by that state's Board of Higher Education. This particular mandate involved the design and implementation of a campus-wide initiative which will require a significant investment of time and resources, and which could have important repercussions in terms of future funding support as well as the institution's long-term credibility with the board.

Franklin Smith, sitting in his office on a warm September afternoon, was reflecting on how the university might manage its response to the newest mandate received from the state's Board of Higher Education, or BHE. Smith was provost on the flagship campus of a multicampus state university system. The institution was one of sixteen public universities within an industrialized northern state. All of the institutions receiving state funds are required by state statute to adhere to the policies and procedures issued by the state's Board. The Board is the agency which reviews and recommends all budget requests for the state's public institutions of higher education. For this reason, the Board wields significant clout over the public institutions within the state. In addition, the state's Board leadership is appointed by the governor and, therefore, remains sensitive to the wishes of the state legislature and the governor's office. So when the provost received such a mandate, it garnered his full attention.

Already, the Board was a constant presence for Provost Smith. Each July 1st, his office forwards a detailed report to the state capital. The report, called the Annual Program Report, or APR, is the largest of several documents mandated by the Board and the only vehicle by which the institution may request new state funds. This report is the official vehicle by which state institutions transmit to the Board the results of required academic program reviews, changes in the institution's instructional priorities, and descriptions of new academic initiatives.

The associate provost for planning is responsible for the compilation of this report, which is then carefully reviewed by the provost. Every item included in the APR received full constituency review by the relevant academic departments and colleges, the graduate council, and the faculty senate. The data presented in the APR are coordinated with data submitted to the Board via other reports compiled by different campus offices. For example, much of the data requested on cost effectiveness and faculty productivity were compiled in the university's office of institutional research. Other reports, requesting data regarding personnel issues, were compiled by the associate provost for personnel.

Provost Smith had in his hand yet another request from the Board of Higher Education, also with a July due date. As Smith viewed it, this newest state mandate called for each university to design and implement a campus-wide assessment program to monitor student learning in three areas: general education, baccalaureate-level skills, and the major academic disciplines. The mandate came as no surprise to Provost Smith. The Board's staff had been working on this draft for over a year.

In fact, past practice had been for the Board staff members to distribute drafts of forthcoming mandates to system-level officers for preliminary reaction. Dr. Smith and his staff forwarded their reactions to the Board's draft version to the university system's academic officer who, in turn, communicated with the BHE staff. Campus reaction was directed toward trying to influence the Board personnel toward a longer time frame for the design and implementation phases of the assessment program and to request that the mandate more clearly specify how the information would ultimately be used by the Board.

The final mandate was issued last week. Provost Smith was disheartened to discover that it did not incorporate the more important suggestions made by his campus. On a more positive note, he found that the mandate was sufficiently brief and nonspecific as to allow significant discretion for each state institution regarding the actual design of the assessment program. In talking to his counterparts at several of the other public institutions in the state, Provost Smith discovered that they, too, were uncertain how to proceed.

The most depressing aspect of the new mandate, from Dr. Smith's immediate point of view, was that it had been issued "dry." In campus jargon, the Board was asking state universities to design and implement a comprehensive campus-wide assessment program without any additional state dollars to support the effort.

This action was consistent with a recent pattern of similar requests. Overall, with the exception of one year, the last election year, higher education in the state had experienced five years of continual decline in state budgetary support. The annual budgets of state universities showed very modest increments ranging from two to four percent increases which never came close to keeping pace with the rate of inflation.

During the same period, salary increases averaged from three to four-and-one-half percent per year. Provost Smith recognized the need to retain good faculty and spare the university the cost associated with recruiting new personnel to fill vacancies created by faculty who left to assume better paying positions s elsewhere. Therefore, he instituted an internal reallocation scheme which took funds allocated to vacant or unfilled positions and from non-personnel budget lines to augment salary increases. In this way, the institution was able to award salary increases which were roughly two to three percent greater than they would have been without the internal allocation plan. While that plan had the positive impact on morale anticipated by Dr. Smith, it now meant that fewer reserve dollars were available to fuel and manage a campus-wide assessment program.

Beyond the issue of how to assess and how to fund assessment, Dr. Smith was troubled about the problem of how to manage such an assessment program. He visualized his place on the university's organizational chart as he considered his options.

One option for managing the assessment program was to delegate much of the work to the departments and colleges of the campus. However, the provost was painfully aware that his morale boosting salary increase plan had spawned negative management repercussions at the departmental level. To bolster salaries, some faculty positions that were "open" through natural attrition, had been "cannibalized" by the institution to fund the internal reallocation program. Therefore, various departments across campus were operating with fewer faculty than they had previously. If the assessment initiative was to be orchestrated in such a way that the work was delegated to the academic colleges and departments, the work load of many faculty would significantly increase.

And, before talking with the department chairs, there was another major hurdle for the provost to overcome: the deans. They would be livid about responding to yet another "dry" request. No, Provost Smith was not looking forward to another encounter with that group.

It was evident to Smith that managing a campus-wide assessment program centrally would require the addition of new staff. Even if an assessment program could be managed without the creation of a new position, such as a director of assessment, additional staff would likely be needed in any office that might be given this assignment.

This task, for example, might be given to George Beatty, the director of institutional research, but not without the addition of a new staff member in that office. Director Beatty, Smith recalled, was still angry over the need to produce productivity tables each semester in addition to the annual cost effectiveness reports required by the Board of Higher Education.

The possibility remained; Dr. Smith grudgingly admitted to himself, that the complete responsibility for assessment could be assigned to a member of his own staff. He could ask one of the three associate provosts to handle the assignment, but this too was likely to require additional staff or require the redistribution of duties currently handle by the associate provosts. Clearly, there was no easy or perfect solution for Dr. Smith or his institution.

Right or wrong, Dr. Smith opted to assign responsibility for the design and implementation of the campus assessment program to his Associate Provost for Planning, Dr. Lawrence Garrison. The job description of this associate provost already included the duties of conducting the academic program reviews, accreditation reviews, finalizing requests for new programs, and overseeing academic planning for the campus.

Dr. Smith had earlier concluded that since assessment activities monitored student learning, these activities should be associated with the curriculum. Therefore, he decided to assign assessment to the associate provost who worked most closely with curricular matters. Smith sincerely hoped that the vantage point held by Associate Provost Garrison would allow for some streamlining in all of the curricular-related initiatives so as to avoid any unnecessary duplication. He continued to harbor the hope that the assessment initiative might be designed and implemented at little or no cost to the institution. Unlike the deans or the director of institutional research, Garrison was a long-time member of Smith's staff and considered to be a good team player. Dr. Smith made the assignment on September 15th, giving Garrison responsibility for the mandate without any additional resources.

The two administrators talked over their implementation options and decided that the associate provost would take the assessment mandate to the faculty through the faculty senate, a representative body elected by the faculty in each college. They knew that the senate would probably immediately refer the matter to one of its standing committees, most likely the Educational Policy Committee, or EPC. As an ex-officio member of the Committee, Garrison was permitted to forward certain materials directly to the membership. Usually, following Committee discussion and action, the committee would forward its recommendations to the full faculty senate for review and vote. Rather than go initially to the entire senate, Garrison made the decision to approach the committee. He would seek the Committee's counsel in drafting both the procedures and the timetable for the university's response to the Board's mandate. As the date of the Committee's meeting approached, Garrison felt like cannon fodder, suspecting that this new assessment initiative would not be well received.

As the associate provost predicted, the faculty on the Committee were totally outraged by the mandate. They perceived that the state's Board of Higher Education was implying that university faculty did not do a good job in teaching students. The mandate was seen as punitive and spiteful. The sentiment was almost unanimous that the associate provost instruct the provost that the campus refused to comply with the BHE mandate for assessment. That scenario could have the effect of jeopardizing the institution's relationship with the Board, the agency responsible for recommending the institution's budget each year. The one point of comfort for Dr. Garrison was that he was now sure he made the right move in presenting this to the Committee and not to the entire faculty senate.

Before the next Committee meeting, Garrison talked with each of the committee's members individually. He tried to help them understand the costly and dangerous long-term implications for any university that may decide to ignore or refuse to respond to a state Board of Higher Education mandate. He also pointed out the potential benefits of an assessment program to faculty and students and suggested that these activities could be carried out in a way that would be consistent with the faculty's expressed commitment to quality undergraduate education.

At the next meeting of the Educational Policy Committee, the harsh initial reaction had dissipated somewhat. The associate provost was able to switch the issue from whether we should do this to how might this be done in a way that complements what the institution was already doing.

Over the winter months that followed, Garrison was able to secure the Committee's approval of a document he created which detailed how the assessment program would be designed and managed at the university. This document was then forwarded to the faculty senate for final approval. Senate approval was obtained in February, about five months after the initial mandate was received. Smith was delighted at what he considered to be a relatively quick response.

The assessment procedure document called for faculty to assume a leadership role in both the design and implementation of assessment measures. As the provost had hoped, once the faculty viewed the assessment task as one which was related to curriculum, they preferred to be intrinsically involved rather than have the activity conducted by faceless bureaucrats in central administration.

Subject Matter Expert:

Phyllis Misite, PhD

Interactive Design:

Christopher Schons

Instructional Design:

Sheryl Hess

Project Manager:

Laura Rosene