Still no move for FSU politico's to actually use their political capital to help FSU fix infrastructure issue with Engineering and College of Medicine.....or add any program that will advance FSU.
FSU loves to hire politicians who promise to use their influence and then never actually cash in on it. Weak FSU effort here, lacking in ambitious additions to FSU academic offering and/or fixing current ones.
http://www.flbog.edu/pressroom/news.php?id=629
“We recently saw Florida State University make a significant jump from No. 43 in U.S. News & World Report to No. 38,” said Marshall Criser III, State University System chancellor. “We want FSU and all of our universities to continue that upward trajectory and to meet the goals that will earn them recognition nationally and around the world.”
http://www.flbog.edu/pressroom/meeting_items.php?id=201&agenda=1017&type=Upcoming
http://flbog.edu/pressroom/meeting_items.php?id=201&agenda=1018&type=Upcoming
FSU – Center for Advanced Power Systems $1,181,000 FSU – Faculty Retention $11,500,000 FSU – Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion $5,000,000 FSU – Graduate Students and Postdocs $18,500,000 FSU – Ultra-High Field Magnets $300,000 FSU – Student/Faculty Ratio $20,000,000 FSU – Themed Experience Institute $1,163,000 FSU – Preeminence $20,000,000 FSU-MS – Primary Care Initiative $3,644,500
http://flbog.edu/pressroom/meeting_items.php?id=201&agenda=1010&type=Upcoming
Strategy: Requires 250 new faculty hires – 88 preeminence-based interdisciplinary cluster hires and the remainder through regular faculty hires. The regular faculty hires will be allocated to emergent disciplines to improve their viability. Retaining current faculty will reduce vacancies, thereby further improving our ratio.
Increasing the size of our graduate programs will also positively affect this measure. 21:1 is an intermediate goal. 17:1 will get us to the top 50 publics so this will be a long-term strategy.
Time Frame: 21:1 by 2020, 17:1 by 2025 (funding dependent)
Cost: For 21:1 Cluster Hires ($17.5M), Other Faculty ($20M) = $37.5M
Strategy: Class size improvements will leverage new faculty hires and retained faculty and will require 300 new graduate assistants and additional stipends for existing graduate students. The addition of Postdoctoral Associates will also add up to 100 sections. These new resources will allow us to split 300 courses to produce 600 courses at the next lower level – mostly under 20. These smaller classes will allow us to employ more high-impact practices to affect student outcomes.
Time Frame: 2020 – to allow for hiring and building graduate programs
Cost: Shared with Student-to-Faculty Ratio. Grad Students ($6.5M)
Strategy: FSU has a significantly lower percentage of graduate students compared to undergraduates. Attaining the goal requires 2,150 additional graduate students – an increase of over 25%. To get there, we will need to leverage the 250 new faculty hires, the improved retention of current faculty, and incentives for graduate students. Currently, our stipends and waivers are considerably lower than Top 25 institutions. We plan to generate 300 new graduate assistantships and enhance the funding on our current stipends and waivers to allow us to recruit high-quality graduate students.
This will help us improve class size and increase our research capacity.
Time Frame: 2022
Cost: 300 new graduate assistantships ($6.5M) stipend increases ($6M)
Strategy: The four LBRs submitted in support of our Top 25 initiative will increase our U.S. News Financial Resources Rank by 10%. Although the projected gains are modest, these investments will nonetheless move us into the middle third of the rankings on this measure. Further, these investments will go to the core instruction, research and student success efforts of the university.
Time Frame: 2018 and ongoing
Cost: Preeminence LBR ($20M), Student-to-Faculty Ratio ($20M), Faculty Retention LBR ($11.5M), Graduate Students and Postdocs ($18.5M) = $70M Total
Strategy: The four LBRs submitted in support of our Top 25 initiative will increase our U.S. News Financial Resources Rank by 10%. The methodology for calculating Expenditures per Student by U.S. News is not publicly available, so this projection is based on the 10% increase in Financial Resources.
Time Frame: 2018 and ongoing
Cost: Preeminence LBR ($20M), Student-to-Faculty Ratio ($20M), Faculty Retention LBR ($11.5M), Graduate Students and Postdocs ($18.5M) = $70M Total
Strategy: The Proposed Preeminence Interdisciplinary Cluster hire of 88 faculty is designed to create a research core in emerging disciplines where the grant proposal process is much more favorable. The retention of faculty who are reaching their research peak will also greatly benefit us in this area as many of our top faculty have been poached by leading universities in the past. We will identify strategic opportunities for other faculty hires. We are creating greater accountability for the amount of proposals submitted within each discipline relative to our Top 25 peers. These activities will require up to 300 new graduate assistants and 100 Postdoctoral scholars.
Time Frame: 2022
Cost: This involves part of all the aforementioned LBRs
Strategy: Student Selectivity is a composite measure of student test scores, the percent of students in the top 10% of their class and the percent of applicants accepted. In each of these cases, the goal on each sub-measure is to enter the top 25 publics. This will require a 5% point improvement on the latter two measures. FSU will take advantage of the Benequisto Scholarship Program to recruit National Merit Scholars from Florida and work on improving the show rate of students who are accepted. Improving the quality of enrolled students will improve all of the sub-measures.
Time Frame: 2018
Cost: To be accomplished with existing Preeminence funded resources.
Strategy: FSU used existing resources to launch its Take 15 initiative. The results were dramatic, and it is expected it will affect graduation rates particularly for the incoming freshman classes. FSU is also increasing its high-impact practices and will be reducing class sizes as new faculty are hired. Preeminence investments in advising and post-graduation success should also add to our long-term gains in these areas, where FSU has been a national leader.
Time Frame: 2021
Cost: A portion of recurring Preeminence funding ($2M)
Strategy: Graduation Rate Performance is a measure of actual six-year graduation rate versus the graduation rate that was predicted based on the characteristics of the class when it enrolled six years prior (79% – 70% = +9 percentage points). FSU continues to be a national leader in this area. All of our student success efforts contribute to this measure. This is an important measure as it not only reflects institutional efficiency, but is also 7.5% of the U.S. News Overall Ranking.
Time Frame: 2018
Cost: To be accomplished with existing and requested Preeminence funded student success resources. ($2M)
Strategy: Peer assessments are driven by recognition of research and publications expertise and student success among other factors. FSU plans to use its faculty hiring initiative to capture the attention of our university peers who have historically underrated both FSU and UF. High School Counselor ratings should be affected by recruitment of top students and our continued student success. These increases will be the culmination of all the activities listed.
Time Frame: 2022
Cost: No direct cost other than usual marketing materials.
LBR Funding Summary • Preeminence ($20M) – 88 Cluster hires – Student success investments • Student-to-Faculty ratio – 162 Faculty ($20M) • Faculty retention ($11.5M) • Graduate students and Postdocs ($18.5M) – 100 Postdoctoral scholars – 300 Fully funded new graduate assistants – Stipend and waiver increases
http://flbog.edu/pressroom/meeting_items.php?id=201&agenda=1017&type=Upcoming
Not sure what all the whining is about. That's the most detailed goal + timeline + cost I've ever seen from FSU.
ReplyDeleteAnd people are kidding themselves if they don't think a big push into hiring more professors, paying professors more competitively, attracting more grad students and postdocs, and hiring more grad assistants isn't going to impact research. They're the ones that conduct the research afterall. It doesn't "just happen" because you "expand" the Colleges of Engineering and Medicine. That's incredibly naive.
Right now, there's literally nothing preventing FSU from hiring more STEM professors to increase STEM research. There is nothing prohibiting FSU from performing more Medicine and Engineering research or from hiring more professors in those fields. The State of Florida is absolutely not restricting FSU to "only" X number of researchers and "only" conducting X amount of research.
I actually like the info detailed on the BoG site. It will be great if FSU is able to achieve those goals, or even come close. I'm still not a big Thrasher or BoT fan, but I like this. They just better follow through, and the funding better not get left on the Capitol floor.
Multiple issues FSU either ignores or avoids and the average joe doesn't understand.
ReplyDeleteFirst, 80% of research is in COM or COE. While those are limited, FSU is screwed. If you can't fix one...try and fix the other. The 2006 Hasselmo study wrote as much and FSU refuses to even try.
Second, none of these are NEW strategies....just old game plans FSU has been pushing for decades while research has been falling behind and most are just metrics that EVERY state school has to track/monitor. They aren't actual STRATEGIES.
There is no real strategy here at FSU. Just keep doing the same thing....pose tracking metrics all SUS schools must track, as strategies and do nothing now.
Lastly, FSU hires these politicos and never asks them to actually push FSU when it's time.
FSU isn't distinguishing itself here at all. Every school can hire STEM profs and improve research.
FSU struggles to recruit STEM students because it is WEAK in these offerings. COE...weak..behind 4-5 others in the state..COM....limited mission...behind 4-5 others in state......research royalties...behind 4-5 others in the state.....venture capital in Tally....behind 4-5 others in state......
The long term game plan of FSU is not a solid one.
Again, FSU doesn't have to get the legislature to "change" Medicine or Engineering in order to actually improve them. The State is NOT prohibiting FSU from hiring more research-focused professors or from landing more research grants in those fields.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but this IS a plan. And as I said, it's more than I've ever seen from FSU before. I'd still like to see what disciplines they want to target and specific clusters therewithin.
You say FSU is weak in STEM. How is FSU going to improve that without hiring more professors, paying them better, or paying postdocs and grad assistants better? It won't happen.
Upset that FSU isn't getting any new programs? What "ambitious additions to FSU's academic offerings" is FSU doing itself a disservice by not asking for? Honestly. (This is different from "fixing" Medicine and Engineering, per the red "quoted" text above.)
You don't have to think FSU is infallible or that everything is fine with the leadership and direction of the university - I don't - in order to acknowledge that increasing faculty by 18%, grad assistants by 16% and postdocs by 63% will have a large, beneficial impact on the university.
If you're upset at Thrasher for not "expanding" Engineering and Medicine or even splitting Engineering, that's cool. I'm not sure why anyone actually expected that. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that the goals outlined above would be a huge boon to FSU.