Appendix 9
Point Loma Nazarene University Strategic Goal 1
To Fully Develop a Model for Graduate Programs and to Develop a Multi-Year Growth Plan
A.I.4. Ensure that a system is in place so that all personnel in the university understand and feel fully informed on all issues related to their role (direct or indirect) in graduate programs
Faculty
Point Loma Nazarene University has been much more hesitant to move to graduate and any sort of degree-completion program than any of the other Nazarene colleges/universities. There are several reasons for this. The first is that the faculty at PLNU have long held considerable sway in the directions that the university takes. The committee structure was set up initially by individuals a number of whom went on to become university administrators. Those same administrators then, greatly respected the committee process and turned much of the decision-making process over to faculty committees. All matters that infringe upon academic quality have come before the faculty for a vote. Thus, for example, the decision to open a site in Bakersfield came before the faculty for a vote. PLNU’s very conservative policy regarding online coursework can be dated back to extended faculty discussion in the late 90’s that the university would not offer courses with a substantial online component without approval of the entire faculty.
A second reason is that PLNU, unlike some of its sister schools did not sense financial pressure to grow and expand into new programs. Throughout the 80’s and 90’s it showed steady increases in enrollment and had a reputation as the largest and most financially robust of the Nazarene schools. A number of the new faculty during this era transferred to PLNU from other Nazarene schools and the mood upon arrival was generally one of relief. Here was a Christian university where academic concerns were taken seriously, and raising money through new programs and programs of suspicious quality was not a front burner issue.
Reaching the enrollment cap in the late 90’s brought new pressures to bear on an old structure that had served the university well for many years. Growth could no longer come through increased enrollment of the traditional 18 – 22 year old residential student. If there was to be continued growth in income, with a concomitant increase in enrollment, it would have to come through other venues at other locations. The San Diego credential and grad programs moved off of the main campus allowing for PLNU to expand its traditional program on the main campus to the maximum level permitted by the cap. At about the same time, with the move to new facilities in Bakersfield and Arcadia in 2001, PLNU was able to continue its enrollment increases, thereby continuing to produce financial gains.
Now, in 2005, PLNU has a governance structure put in place when it was primarily an undergraduate college. The faculty who teach in off-the-main-campus locations are a minority who feel that they have little voice in the governance of the university. The university’s programs, it seems to them, are governed by a faculty who know little about what they face on a day to day basis. The faculty as a whole, however, feel that it is their reputation that is on the line at the various sites and they are very reticent about giving up (or delegating) their hard fought governance of the university’s programs to faculty who they do not know well and who, they fear, may not have the same standards for excellence as they do. By the same token, however, these same faculty may not appreciate the extent to which the continued health of their very own programs (and in some cases their very jobs) depends upon continuing to generate new income. But these are the faculty who constitute the overwhelming majority that vote on each new site and each new program. In a recent meeting of the department chairs and school deans, there was an air of significant frustration on the part of many in attendance. They felt ill-informed about grad and off-campus programs, and they wished for clearer direction about where the university was going and what was happening quality-wise in the off-the-main-campus programs.
Some believe that PLNU needs an altered governance structure---one that allows for post-baccalaureate programs to be governed by the faculty who teach in those programs. Others believe that the reputation and quality of the university is at stake and to let go of that which matters most and turn it over to another group will be a mistake from which the university will never recover. If PLNU chose the former route, it is highly likely that the university would quickly evolve into two separate entities that are linked only through the exchange of revenue and a single mission statement that would mean two different things to two different populations. Despite the communication challenges of maintaining unity between two different cultures separated by space and student clientele, it can and must be done. The graduate/credential faculty have much to learn from the tremendous expertise and sense of pride in quality and tradition that exists among faculty who teach primarily at the undergraduate level. By the same token, the faculty who specialize in working with traditional age young people, need to increasingly realize that there are other demographic groups that are in need of a Christian approach to education. Despite the communication challenges ahead, for PLNU to really impact the society it serves within the context of its mission statement, it needs both groups of faculty working in concert, as opposed to two groups of faculty playing two different symphonies to two different audiences.
So how is this to be done in a program with as many as 10 locations. Since it is unlikely that any of out-of-San Diego sites will be much larger than 500 students over the next 10 years, it seems likely that few, if any of them will have much more than ten full-time faculty (1 full-time faculty for each 50 students has been the PLNU rule-of-thumb for its off-the-main campus programs). At most, ten years from now, we might have 50 full-time graduate/credential faculty at out-of-San Diego locations. PLNU should make every effort to ensure that each committee has a composition that reflects the proportion of faculty that teach in the grad/credential program. This would have been impractical ten years ago because of the extensive travel that would have been necessary for faculty from other locations to attend main campus meetings. This is no longer so. With the level of growth expected over the next ten years, video-conferencing can easily allow full participation of faculty members from other locations. True, members from out of San Diego will want to attend some meetings in person so that they come to feel a part of the community in a manner that is only possible with occasional face to face meetings. Nonetheless, physical presence need not be a pre-requisite for committee participation. Committees need to be realigned in a manner that will ensure this will happen. Faculty meetings, especially, need to move into the video-conferencing era, and there needs to be a way of ensuring that individuals from out of San Diego are given an opportunity to speak.
The Graduate Studies Committee needs to have a more visible role in Faculty meetings. It is important that the regular reports from the various grad programs be given not just to this committee but to the faculty as a whole. It would be good to err on the side of too much reporting from the grad programs until the day comes that the undergraduate faculty feel that they know as much about what takes place in Bakersfield (for example) as they do about what is happening in a department on the other side of the main campus. These reports must be much more than boring summaries that focus on numbers of students and growth (or lack thereof) of programs. They much focus on quantitative and qualitative data which enables the faculty to see how each program does (or does not) fit with the university mission. Full and meaningful communication means no snow jobs. At least fifteen minutes of each monthly faculty meeting should be devoted to a discussion of some aspect of graduate programs.
It will also be very important that faculty come a much better financial picture of the university and how the graduate programs fit into this picture. At the present time faculty feel in the dark about how grad programs affect the university. Some are skeptical about whether grad programs bring in any income at all to the university. The numbers have simply not been presented in a meaningful way. (Admittedly this is, in part, because there hasn’t been extensive analysis of this sort. There needs to be.) The greater appreciation that faculty have for the financial picture of the university, the more informed they can be as they make decisions about governance. Some would say that finances have nothing to do with the faculty role, their role is simply to oversee academic quality. The latter, of course, is true, but the fact is that one cannot separate academic quality from financial viability. The more money there is, the greater the opportunity for improved quality. Faculty need to be fully informed on the financial impact of graduate programs.
Support Staff
Prior to 2001, there were less than five staff persons located off of the main campus. Today, at the end of July, 2005, four years later that number has increased to 24. In addition there are at least four or five staff persons in Records, ITS, Education, and the dean’s office who spend all of their time on grad or credential related matters. Plus, there are a host of others in Student Accounts, Records, ITS, and other offices who spend a substantial portion of their time overseeing some aspect of the post-baccalaureate programs. All of this has been necessary to serve the over 1,000 students and to ensure that we are in compliance with government regulations and quality-standards for university operations.
One cannot experience the level of growth in a single area without their being significant challenges to the staff who keep the operation running. This has been compounded by the fact that most of the staff are located off the main campus and are separated from each other by as much as 250 miles. Email is a wonderful mode of communication that has changed the way organizations operate, however, one can’t see a meaningful smile or a mischievous grin while staring at letters on a computer screen. Phone conversations are fine, but when the two individuals at opposite ends of the line think differently it is difficult to just move on, especially if you have almost never seen the person’s face or sensed their heart.
PLNU had its first system-wide staff meeting in Arcadia in September, 2003. It was long overdue. Its ostensive purpose was to get everyone in one room to talk about some issues that affected all, but about which all did not see eye-to-eye. Some progress was made on the specific issues, but by far the most important thing was that people got to see each other’s faces. Such meetings have continued into the present year. Indeed, the meetings are deemed important enough that we are trying to have one system-wide meeting every four months. These meetings include some time together as a large group which is largely vision-casting as well as small “job-alike” meetings where key issues are hammered out and, in some cases, brought to conclusion. The day may come when the operation is so routine that these face-to-face meetings are no longer necessary. However, during this time of rapid growth where new offices are being formed, new procedures being introduced and the university changes from an undergrad culture to one which includes grad programs, this face-to-face communication has been essential. It will be surprising if these meetings should not continue well into the future.
Beginning in January, 2004, leading system-wide support staff, those who focus on grad/credential programs began to meet once every two weeks. There are many issues that have interoffice components. IT is often central to the discussions. This group, called the Graduate Support Services Committee (GSSC), is chaired by the Vice-Provost of Graduate Program Support and serves to keep the support staff fully informed about any relevant changes in academic programs, in addition to its inter-office role of ensuring that multi-dimensional inter-office communication is really taking place. Once every two weeks is not too often for this group to meet and the ongoing operation of this committee with a central academician is very important for open communication.
Conclusions
Good communication is always the key to a successful organization. It would be difficult to fault the attempts at improved communication among the staff. The regular meetings of system-wide staff and the less frequent, but still regular meetings of all staff have proven to be most important. With regard to the faculty, however, there needs to be much more diligent work. Since faculty “own” grad programs it is absolutely essential that they be fully informed in a manner that far exceeds that currently being done. This can be done largely through increased focus on grad programs in faculty meetings, much more conscious effort to include faculty from other sites on committees and ensuring that all do attend both committee meetings and faculty meetings through electronic services.