Faculty Council revisits low-producing programs

The state aims to raise the percentage of working adults with college degrees.

By Stephanie Ebbs

Published Oct. 22, 2010

The Faculty Council meeting Thursday further addressed low-producing programs and degree completion rates.

Clyde Bentley, professor and MU representative on the Missouri Association of Faculty Senates, gave a report about the recent meeting.

Michael Nietzel, the governor’s adviser for higher education, spoke to the council about the desire to raise the percentage of working adults in Missouri with college degrees. Currently, 38 percent of working adults in Missouri have a college degree. The state would like to raise that to 60 percent.

The likelihood that students will complete their degree program can be predicted using the number of freshmen entering college that have to take a remedial course, Bentley said. Thirty-eight percent of students are required to take a remedial course as a college freshman. The number jumps to 60 percent at community colleges around the state.

Raising this percentage is part of the Governor’s Initiative. The MAFS will be meeting with legislators in February to address other elements of this plan.

“One of the best suggestions was to have legislators be guest speakers and guest lecturers in classes,” Bentley said. “Let them experience what it’s like to be part of the higher education system.”

Deputy Provost Ken Dean was invited to the meeting to speak to the faculty about the low-producing programs. At the previous meeting, the council was presented with a list of 75 programs that have to be defended because they met the state’s definition of “low-producing.” After these defenses are presented, the state will evaluate them and present the university with a list of recommendations.

“Part of the process we have to go through here with the low-producing programs is how do we move forward when more could be coming down the line,” Dean said.

The deadline for presenting the information collected about each department has been extended from Thursday to Oct. 29. Each department has to defend its number of graduates based on the size of the department and programs. After these defenses are presented to the state, changes might have to be made to some programs.

The university plans to converse with deans, chairmen of departments and faculty members to collect the information it needs to send to the state to evaluate what actions need to be taken.

“This could mean program consolidations, realignments or even mergers,” Dean said.

Plant sciences professor Bill Wiebold brought up changes that have already occurred.

“Where we had 12 degree programs, we now have three,” Wiebold said. “My personal opinion is that it helped our educational effort, our research effort and our extension programs.”

Not everyone in his department agrees with this, and faculty from other programs are concerned about the potential for degree consolidation.

“My concern is that we’ll be making some sacrificial lambs, taking small departments and making adjustments, because 5 to 10 percent of our budget is at stake,” political science professor Jonathan Krieckhaus said.

Many of these changes show no sign of short- or long-term savings, but were mandated by the Coordinating Board for Higher Education in the 1990s, Dean said. If a program does not produce 10 bachelor's degree graduates, five master's and three doctoral graduates, it is defined as “low-producing."

“We haven’t made any decisions about anything at this point,” Dean said. “It’s just the beginning of the process.”