Office of the President

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Speech to the Faculty

“The Pace of Change”

Thank you for being here today!

May is surely the busiest of months for all of us at the University, and so I am doubly grateful to you for taking the time to join me.

It is my intention to address the faculty twice each year. In the fall, I will discuss ongoing issues related to the University’s programs, its structure, its strengths, its needs, and its progress. In the spring, my comments will focus on larger issues for higher education and for Ohio State’s place in the world.

This occasion’s talk does not follow that plan, however. Because I have only recently returned -- and because of all of the changes that are taking place – today’s remarks will be more in the spirit of a state of the university report.

When I spoke with faculty last October, I conceived of my remarks to be the beginning of a conversation. I made a promise that day to hold myself to account on our progress toward the six priorities I outlined. And so this afternoon is both my first official reckoning and an extension of the conversations I have had with many of you during the past eight months.

Your candor, your creativity, and your wise counsel have helped me, Provost Alutto, and others to make better-informed decisions. I very much appreciate your help, but I have to say that I will continue leaning on you for assistance. And that includes today!  I intend to leave ample time at the end of my remarks for a discussion.

I want to take this moment to recognize members of our faculty leadership. Robert Perry, Dick Gunther, Chris Zacher, and Rick Herrmann have been exceptional partners. The provost and I have enjoyed an uncommonly productive relationship with them, for which I am grateful. I look forward to working with Heather Allen, next year’s Senate Steering chair, and Tim Gerber, the incoming vice chair of the Faculty Council.

As I reflected upon this year’s milestones, what struck me most profoundly was the remarkable pace of change.

When I returned to Ohio State last fall, I found our University to be a much stronger institution than the one I left in 1997. The facts are plain. Students are better-prepared than ever and winning national academic awards at a fast clip. More than ever, our faculty are recognized leaders in their fields, discovering planets, devising novel approaches to curing disease, and creating new knowledge in the humanities that will shape understanding for generations to come.

But what I did not fully appreciate last fall was just how mature and accomplished this University had become during my “decade in the wilderness.”  Through my work with faculty members, with staff, and with students at all levels, I am, frankly, overwhelmed by what this institution has achieved.

Maturity has come at such a rapid pace, though, that I sometimes wonder if our abilities eclipse our sense of ourselves. This University is among the nation’s finest, by any measure. Far stronger, in fact, than we often understand ourselves to be.

Ohio State is the nation’s most comprehensive research university, and faculty and students use our breadth to great advantage.

Think of the trans-institutional, multi-disciplinary work in biofuels and biomaterials. Or visual artists, choreographers, musicians, and computer scientists collaborating through the University’s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design. Think of chemists, physicists, materials scientists, physicians, and other faculty developing novel fibers for potential use in everything from self-cleaning windows to gene-therapy devices. Or geologists, geographers, computer scientists, and environmental scientists – all working together to further our understanding of the perils of global climate change.

Truly extraordinary work happens here every day -- in classrooms, laboratories, and studios. Indeed, the work of Ohio State’s faculty and students is taking place at every moment, around the world!

Now is the time to gain broader recognition for that remarkable work. For what has been -- and what can be – realized at Ohio State. Now is precisely the moment to capitalize on that position of strength.

Doing so requires us to be bold, to take our leadership and future into our own hands, to refuse to let fate or inertia cast us where they may. Provost Alutto and I are wholly committed to acting with a cadence that might, at first, seem surprising.

During the past few weeks, we have announced several substantive changes. Chief among them is the reorganization of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences.

Since 2003 Ohio State’s five arts and sciences colleges have been organized into a federation. This structure was established in the expectation that it would build strength both within and across the five colleges while achieving administrative savings. We are working now to create a far more tightly integrated arts and sciences entity, one that will maximize its quality, its impact, and its visibility nationally and internationally.

Last month, the faculty and staff review committee presented us with its findings, which comport fully with our understanding of this institution and the critical importance of a vigorous, robust arts and sciences core. I firmly believe that the arts and sciences are the heart and soul of the University -- of any and all superb universities.

The committee’s report reaffirmed the goals of elevating the stature and visibility of the arts and sciences and promoting collaborations among the colleges to encourage joint and cluster hiring, foster new curricula, broaden opportunities for students, enhance diversity, and reduce administrative costs. The report concluded that the limited authority of the federation was impeding the achievement of these very goals. It further found that the structure itself did not effectively integrate the arts and sciences but, instead, had the unintended consequence of fostering unhealthy competition and discord.

We simply cannot tolerate large knots of antagonism that distract from our important work and devalue the institution as a whole. To be clear: Internecine conflicts have no place at this institution.

And so, the review committee recommended an administrative restructuring for the arts and sciences. We could not put the report on a shelf to gather dust. The issues are far too important. We acted.

To our great good fortune, Joan Leitzel has agreed to return to Ohio State as interim executive dean and vice provost of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. A former member of our mathematics faculty and president emeritus of the University of New Hampshire, she is among the nation’s most respected academic leaders. Dr. Leitzel will provide invaluable guidance as we continue to configure the arts and sciences for the greatest programmatic gains. She will work closely with John Roberts, Giff Weary, and Matt Platz, who will serve as interim divisional deans. I am grateful for their leadership and service.

I want to acknowledge the extraordinary service rendered to the University by Jackie Royster, Paul Beck, Joan Herbers, and Karen Bell. Because of their work, Ohio State is a stronger institution, and I am in their debt, as are we all.

Ladies and gentlemen, these recent changes and those that will follow are not – in their purpose – about restructuring. These changes are about regaining and recapturing the central role of the arts and sciences in the life of Ohio State.

Strengthening the nucleus of the University will enable us to move forward in ways not otherwise possible. Our university has now reached a level of opportunity where we simply must seek those fundamental improvements. The changes to the arts and sciences administrative structure are necessary first steps. But let me emphasize here:  They are only first steps.

I understand that quick, aggressive change is not always first-nature at universities. And that is for a very good reason. There is enormous value in a grounded respect for tradition, for appreciation of history, for being cautious in the face of new, untested lines of inquiry, for adherence to tried and true governance models. Institutional leaders and teaching faculty alike share that ethos.

Yet, the 21st century challenge -- and what I firmly believe will come to define educational excellence around the globe – is the ability to maintain a firm grasp of our essential best while also reaching well beyond what is known, safe, and comfortable.

We at Ohio State are very fortunate at this moment to inhabit a time when we can do just that. We must do it. We must not let the University’s powerful momentum abate, or allow this opportunity to slip from our grasp.

Just as we are strengthening the arts and sciences through a series of significant decisions, likewise we are determined to assure that all of our graduate programs are worthy of this great institution.

In early April, the Graduate School released the most comprehensive and thoughtful review of doctoral programs ever undertaken by a university the size and stature of Ohio State. The review found that many of our more than 90 doctoral programs are models of academic quality, planning, and focus and, with additional resources, are poised to further enhance the reputation of the University. Areas for improvement, reassessment, or restructuring have been identified in other programs. A very few programs were cited as candidates for disinvestment or elimination.

In the coming weeks, Provost Alutto and Graduate School Dean Pat Osmer will meet with college deans to discuss doctoral program action plans. Those plans will fold into and become a part of each college’s strategic plan.

These programmatic changes are, frankly, the most dramatic steps we have ever taken to strengthen graduate education at this institution. And now is the right moment to make those changes. To build on our strengths. To set a course for our future that is even brighter than our present.

As with our recent changes within the arts and sciences, these too are only first steps. Likewise, they are critical ones. We must get this right. We must shape and refine the very best graduate programs, along with their concomitant research functions. It is absolutely critical to our students and to our future.

The changes in doctoral programs and the arts and sciences are integral to advancing many of the six strategic goals I first outlined last October. One University, faculty excellence, a student-centric focus to our work.

With regard to our renewed commitment to the student experience, additional changes are in various stages of planning and implementation. Several weeks ago, we announced that we are changing the name of the Student Affairs division to “Student Life.”  That might seem a superficial tweaking, but it signals a more complete focus on the well-being of our students. One which acknowledges that Ohio State is very much our students’ home during their time here, and also acknowledges our obligation to provide an environment in which all students can grow and thrive, in the classroom and outside of it.

We have an opportunity to create at Ohio State a true collegiate experience. This is an unprecedented notion among large public universities. We can, and will, accomplish it here.

Part of that re-conception of Student Life involves my desire to require sophomores to live on campus. Doing so will integrate campus life more fully with the academic experience. This is standard practice at most of our state peer institutions, and studies and personal experience tell us that students are more successful when they are fully a part of our community in this way.

In re-conceptualizing the student experience, we build upon the strong legacy left by Vice President Rich Hollingsworth, who is retiring. Deb Ballam is leading the search for his successor. And I know we can count on Jeff Kaplan, our new senior vice president to whom the new vice president will report, to oversee continuing enhancements to student housing and to student life in general.

We have made other changes to our senior leadership team during the past several months, and searches are underway in a number of key areas. I sometimes joke that I am one of academic life’s chief predators, and that is something of which I am entirely unashamed!  Gifted faculty and academic leaders are nothing less than the lifeblood of a university, and I am fully committed to furthering Ohio State’s health and vigor!

One of our recent coups is Dr. Steve Gabbe, who will return to Ohio State this summer as senior vice president for health sciences. We have hired him away from Vanderbilt, as it happens!  My friends there may never forgive me because Steve is that truly rare combination of gifted teacher and clinician, accomplished scholar, and visionary administrator.

I am delighted that Dr. Chip Souba has agreed to undertake a new role as vice president of health services. Many of you have had the pleasure of working with him, and the University has profited greatly from his talents and expertise. Dr. Souba will assume the senior vice president position in four years, when Dr. Gabbe becomes counselor to the president for health affairs.

Those moves are notable for their own sake, but also because they demonstrate our very clear intent to better plan for leadership succession. With the strong leadership of Dr. Gabbe and Dr. Souba, we are making a rigorous commitment to the health sciences, to further accelerate its academic and physical growth.

I am happy also to have attracted Peter Weiler, our new senior vice president for development, who assumed his duties in March. Here again, my Penn State friends may send me nasty notes for months to come, but we are fortunate to have him. We have been working quickly in forming strategies for the upcoming capital campaign.

In the coming months, Peter and I will work with our trustees, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends to form specific campaign goals. But some things we already know. We must strategically grow our endowment to assure that Ohio State has the long-term resources to provide scholarship and fellowship support, to attract and retain superb faculty, and to improve campus facilities so that they befit our great University.

Other important leadership changes come with the announcement today that Senior Vice President for Research Bob McGrath is leaving the University for Battelle Memorial Institute. Bob has provided superb guidance, and Ohio State’s research position has never been stronger.

I am very pleased that Dr. Caroline Whitacre, vice dean for research for the College of Medicine, has agreed to serve as our interim senior vice president for research. She is an international authority on autoimmune diseases, and she brings an impressive record of innovative research, superb teaching, and service to this institution. I am confident that she will reach across disciplines -- as she has done in her own research – to continue this University’s tremendous momentum in fulfilling its research mission.

Also today, we have reluctantly accepted the decision of Nancy Rogers to step down as dean of the Moritz College of Law. Nancy will begin work as the state’s interim attorney general. Her service to the State of Ohio is precisely the type of assistance that this institution was created to develop and provide. And while we will miss her mightily, the good news is that Nancy will return to the faculty full-time after leaving the attorney general’s office.

Another recent senior hire I am delighted to announce is that of Kathy Starkoff, who joins Ohio State next month as our chief information officer. She brings considerable skill, experience, and a true entrepreneurial spirit to this post, which in this technology-driven world has never been more important.

Karen Bell has agreed to become our new associate vice president for arts outreach. With the opening of the OSU Urban Arts Space downtown and several other ventures, Karen has already proved capable and farsighted in her approach to furthering the arts in our larger community.

In difficult economic times, it can be all-too-tempting to stop supporting artistic endeavors that bring vitality to our cities and human expression to the fore. Expanding the University’s artistic engagement beyond campus and into the world is an important part of our re-commitment to our communities. I believe this University has a unique opportunity to assume a leadership role in arts and culture. Once again, we are taking a first step in forging that future.

During the past eight months, I have followed the faculty recruitment process very closely. And I have been pleased to help with several specific efforts.

This year’s success in recruiting from the finest graduate programs and from the most distinguished universities proves that Ohio State competes effectively for the very best. And we should. Roughly one-quarter of the faculty joining us next year will do so at senior rank. One-third of our new faculty members will teach in our STEM disciplines. Nearly 90 others will join us in the College of Medicine.

These new faculty members will bolster our strengths in areas that are critical to Ohio’s ability to globally compete. Once they are on board in the fall, it will be up to all of us to re-recruit these new colleagues every day, just as we must do so with each and every one of you, our current faculty.

Academic priorities -- reflected in our work in the arts and sciences, in the doctoral review, in our re-conception of student life, and in new administrative and faculty hires -- must be at the very foundation of our budget model. Be assured that I have listened carefully to faculty on this point, and I am committed to having a budget model that is responsive to your needs.

We are determined to eliminate the negative, unintended consequences of the present model. We must modify it so that it is more nimble, so that we nurture excellence rather than foster unhealthy competition.

One way we are addressing this issue is through the new Academic Venture Fund, which I announced in October. This centralized faculty support is critical to our ability to promote the kinds of innovative, trans-institutional programs that will intellectually reconfigure and revitalize our University. If we are to continue to thrive, we must be diligent in investing in new work. And we must do so from the University’s center.

You might recall that the sixth strategic goal I discussed in October is reducing the University’s bureaucracy. Ohio State is -- unabashedly – large. I suspect that any organization our size will have some difficulty in this area, but we must be both agile and fully accountable in what we do. Without vigilance, a bureaucracy can too easily become a hindrance rather than a servant.

We are tackling the bureaucracy very directly. Two weeks after assuming office, I formally strengthened the role of Bill Shkurti, senior vice president for business and finance and chief financial officer, to oversee the allocation and use of resources in the colleges and support units.

His new Streamlining and Simplification Task Force is charged with identifying the top five processes that can be improved for maximum benefit to the University. This faculty and staff group began by targeting reforms in five areas related to travel and procurement, and they are already making substantial progress on those practices.

This is a rolling process. After the first five areas are identified and work has begun to simplify them, we will undertake the next five. And then the next five. And the next five. And we will not stop until we have firmly buried a stake squarely in the middle of all unnecessary impediments to this University’s excellence.

We are also working at the state level to seek relief from archaic regulations related to capital projects. The immediate and tangible rewards for these efforts are saving money and saving time. The real value, though -- the true reward – goes to the heart of our ability as a University to discover the level of excellence possible at Ohio State.

Moreover, we are soliciting ideas at every turn. You and your colleagues are the hands-on people who know better than I ever could what the problems are and how to fix them. Out of nearly 40,000 faculty and staff, we are sure to generate many great ideas. We must do so.

My aim for Ohio State is not simply to be lean and agile. I want the University to be among the nation’s top places to work in any category, to fully support the lives of faculty and our staff. We are now a wonderful place to work. Being even stronger will assure our capacity to recruit the world’s brightest and to retain Columbus’ and Ohio’s best.

We must acknowledge -- you and I – that the University has an excellent staff, wholly committed to advancing our mission. We need to value their essential contributions and to recognize that without such a talented staff, our University would suffer greatly.

And I am personally committed to learning, directly from them, how Ohio State can improve. So, tomorrow we launch an extensive staff survey that will examine everything from the physical work environment to various benefits issues. Our climate -- as a place to work, as a place to strive for distinction, for joy in what we accomplish together -- is inextricably tied to our academic purposes. A bold and innovative academic plan has little chance of success if the institution’s culture does not support and reflect excellence.

The changes I am describing today are many, and they have come very quickly. But I believe that what characterizes us as an institution is the pace at which we both shape and respond to our world.

To thrive, we must be courageous. To excel, we must be visionary. To move from excellence to eminence, we must act now. We must act right now.

One day not long ago, when Joe Alutto and I were discussing the University’s remarkable progress and its limitless possibilities, he used the phrase “land-grant university to the world.”  By that, he and I mean a dynamic, research-centered, and academically distinguished institution working on a global scale. I like that notion very much. And while I am giving him credit for it this afternoon, I am hereby co-opting the phrase!

So allow me to put that into context. I am telling you today that I intend for Ohio State to become nothing less than the new land-grant university to the world.

It is a natural extension of President Lincoln’s vision in 1862 for our public purpose. It also is our undeniable moral responsibility.

The University has never been bounded by High and Lane. We have always been, and always will be, Ohio’s university -- fully dedicated to enriching our state and our citizens. I have had the honor of visiting with faculty, staff, and students at each of our extended – and as I now call them, “engaged” – campuses since my return, and I can assure you that they are fully a part of our One University.

As much as we will always be Ohio’s university, the future of Ohio is now irrevocably bound to a global strategy. And we, ladies and gentlemen, are that vehicle. We best serve the needs of Ohioans and our students with a global strategy which assures that our students, our businesses, and our state compete successfully in the world economy.

Each of us -- mathematicians, philosophers, poets, engineers, physicians, scholars of all kinds -- must fully appreciate that our place in the community and in the world has changed profoundly. Ohio State is the state’s university, to be sure, but it is now also much, much more. The community we now serve is thoroughly shared as a global one.

Never have humanity’s needs been more pressing or more acute.   And never has Ohio State been better-positioned to address those needs.

The University’s extraordinary faculty, staff, and students possess both the intellectual capacity and the compassion needed to help solve the growing food crisis. To develop physical structures able to withstand the ravages of cyclones and earthquakes. To preserve wetlands and prevent further destruction of our natural resources. To make tangible advances in human health care around the world. And – finally – to more fully understand the complex intersection of political boundaries, cultures, and citizenship.

I am personally committed to this University’s extension of its global reach, and the provost and I are establishing new structures and programs to enable the faculty to fulfill that purpose. The cornerstone of our new international framework is the President’s and Provost’s Council on Strategic Internationalization. The council will advise us as we establish our institution-wide international mission and vision.

In addition to the council, we have created the position of vice provost for global strategies and international affairs to oversee the ongoing robustness of University-wide internationalization. A national search has begun, and Provost Alutto expects to have the new vice provost on board in January 2009.

Ohio State is not alone in this work. For higher education as a whole, internationalization and international programs are nothing less than fundamental to our future relevance.

Wherever we are on this earth -- in Toledo or Taipei – our fates are thoroughly intertwined. Different people. Different cultures. Different ideas. Different hopes and ambitions.

But clearly one world. One world that is constantly shrinking in size and growing in connectedness. A world that is both beset with conflict and flush with opportunity.

Making education relevant and powerful for our students in this particular age means preparing them for the service of global tasks. And so in our work as teachers and scholars, we must inspire in our students an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about the world around them. We must cultivate their finest instincts for compassion, for service to others. We must hone not just tolerance, but also appreciation for others and others’ ideas. We simply must find new ways to deploy our own expertise and that of our students -- for the benefit of others and for our own benefit as well.  

That is our duty.

These are wonderful, lofty rhetorical statements, ideas that most any university president could articulate. But here is the difference: Actually fulfilling those lofty objectives is well within our power. It is Ohio State’s unique calling, our special place in the world of higher education. And few, if any, share that singular distinction of great possibility.

That is what I want everyone in this room to understand and everyone on this campus to understand.

Today, I have talked about many changes and many aspirations. The massive sum of it is a bit startling, even to me!

Yet, I have absolute confidence in Ohio State’s ability to seize this auspicious moment in its history. I know the spirit of this exceptional University, and I know your own incomparable abilities.

The change we seek -- in full partnership, together – is a thoughtful, willful acceleration of the normal course of institutional change. All universities change incrementally. With new knowledge. New people.  And how can a university help but to change, with every infusion of new faculty, with every new incoming class?  How can change not happen? 

But my vision for Ohio State goes well beyond the incremental.

How can we ever know how good we could be if we do not very purposefully change ourselves and keep growing?  How are we to find all of the possibilities of the universe that are available to us?  How can we ever make them available to us, if we do not configure ourselves in new ways?

Now, I want to make a very personal observation to each and every one of you about this institution, one that has not been vetted by committees or advisors. It is this:  Our primary focus at this moment in Ohio State’s evolution must be on refining our collective talent and in reinvigorating our campus culture.

Today, I want us to commit as a faculty, as one body, to agree to change. To create a new environment in which the levels of trust and support are simply unimaginable at other institutions.

In order to make the leap, to make this change in ourselves, we must believe entirely in the possibility of a new way. We cannot view our future through the rear-view mirror. We must keep our eyes trained on the journey ahead, on the brilliant possibilities that are ours for the taking.

As most of you know, I am not one to dwell on the negative, but I will acknowledge it -- if primarily to dismiss it as unworthy of this great University. I will tell you this very honestly:  The greatest impediment I can imagine is a culture that I find -- quite frankly – to be distressed. One that is rooted in balkanization, lacking in trust, and mired in complacency.

That cannot be any part of Ohio State’s future.

The University cannot thrive when the people who comprise it view themselves in territorial ways. We will never be able to reach the nobility of our opportunity -- the nobility of our opportunity – if we do not, today, lay down our arms. Insist on something much, much better than balkanization, distrust, and complacency. Expect it from others. Demand it from ourselves.

Unless and until we remedy those crippling problems, we cannot realize our institution’s very rich, very full potential.

As part of this process and to assure that our University’s course is true and to solidify our resolve, we must return to first principles.

Ohio State was founded as an agent of opportunity and an institution committed to the public good. Recall our unique, historic charge to enrich communities, improve lives, and educate the so-called “industrial classes.”  To ensure that higher education was no longer only for the elite, the wealthy, those living in large cities. In a country quite literally torn apart with civil war, those were radical ideas!

What I am calling for, and what we have already in progress, is a natural extension of that wonderfully “radical” land-grant heritage.

We are fortunate now to have strong support from both the University’s trustees and from our state’s elected leaders. Just as the Board of Trustees undertook a reorganization that strengthened their ability to govern, they also expect us to reconfigure ourselves to maximize our capabilities.

As I have said several times in the past few months, the University enjoys the strong support -- fiscal and otherwise – of Governor Strickland, Chancellor Fingerhut, and our legislative leaders. They clearly understand the critical role that higher education plays in the state’s future. The sentiment bears repeating because we all know that higher education funding in other states is not faring as well.

And so we begin our work each day from a position of strength and enormous possibility. To fulfill today’s great promise, we must pursue our work together with both heightened concentration and absolute impatience.

With a pace that is no longer akin to geologic time:  Think geometric!  With ambition for what is slightly beyond our grasp, individually and collectively. With an urgency of purpose that is fueled by a passion to empower our students and to enrich our state, our nation, and our world.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must create our future -- with unparalleled ambition and deliberate speed. This University deserves nothing less from each of us.

So, I will end where I started this conversation, and where I started this conversation back in July when I accepted this job.

I simply believe that this is Ohio State’s time, and our time is now.

Copyright 2009, The Ohio State University

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