Forum Post
Dear Colleagues,
A subgroup of five members from a larger group of senior faculty met with President Schulz, Provost and Executive Vice President Chilton, Executive Vice President and Spokane Chancellor DeWald, and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Brunelli (08-30-2023 — Review PDF for context). Six overarching issues negatively impacting the WSU System were discussed at that meeting. At the end of the meeting, President Schulz promised that plans for follow up would be forthcoming. Following the meeting (09-08-2023), we provided these individuals and the WSU Board of Regents a summary document titled ‘Some WSU Problems and Preliminary Thoughts on What Can Be Done Differently to Address the Challenges’ (PDF). Subsequently, we received an acknowledgement from Board Chair Lisa Schauer, thanking us for meeting with President Schulz and members of his senior leadership team and for the potential solutions that we offered (10-09-23). Much to our surprise, she also notified us that, in consultation with President Schulz, all further communication would be with Provost and EVP Chilton and not the President.
We replied to the senior leadership team and Board members (10-13-2023) indicating that we objected to indirect communication with the President, who appears to often delegate challenging issues to others, rather than personally providing direct, firm, and effective leadership to address major problems. Moreover, major organizational, prioritization, and resource allocation decisions ultimately can only be addressed and remedied by the President himself. To date, no clear, compelling, data-informed, and comprehensive plans have been put in place to mitigate the continuing damage caused by these and other structural issues plaguing the WSU System.
Two recent changes have been announced, including the search for a new Vice President of Research and a “systemwide” Provost. However, based on information provided to-date, these efforts seem to be little more than cosmetic changes that will be insufficient to address the overarching problems that have diminished the academic and research enterprise over the past several years. As noted in our summary document, it is unclear how simply appointing a new VP of Research will bolster the research enterprise across the WSU system in the absence of sufficient resources and administrative empowerment to do so. Similarly, the systemwide Provost, as currently structured, will not be empowered with the necessary overarching systemwide administrative authority and resources to be the overall ultimate leader of the academic enterprise, despite the title of Chief Academic Officer. In addition, relating to the deep challenges these new administrators will face, WSU has been setback by significant declines in tenure-track faculty over time due to several top performers departing for greener pastures and lack of sufficient resources to recruit high caliber replacements, especially in STEM disciplines. Yet another budget cut, already signaled for FY25, will further exacerbate these issues. Overall, the changes made by the President in response to voiced concerns about the state of WSU appear to be poorly conceived and expensive “fixes” that will not get to the heart of the serious challenges facing the health of our beloved institution.
It is not too late to address the many challenges WSU faces. But it is time for a change at WSU.
~Anonymous Faculty
Response
The Faculty Senate Executive Officers have been notified of this forum post and will respond back once more information becomes available.
Comments
I would add that the the lack of hiring Tenure-Track faculty on the non-Pullman campuses and allowing for faculty holding non-terminal degrees to take Scholarly Career-Track positions are adding to the deterioration of research for the university. How can we maintain our R1 standing if we do not have an adequate number of research faculty across the state?
Dene, it is important not to be overly concerned about WSU’s R1 status. New guidelines will place the cutoff between R1/R2 at 50 million dollars/year and 70 PhD’s graduated per year (see link). WSU spent 335 million on research last year and graduates ~ 260 PhD students/year. The trajectory of WSU and its research/teaching efforts are important concerns, but our R1 status is not in any real danger.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/carnegie-is-changing-how-it-classifies-r1-institutions-will-your-university-make-the-cut
I am not able to find data by campus, but the information in the Research Related Metrics table supports the concept that decreases in research-intensive faculty across WSU have negatively impacted the research enterprise. The main positive from this data is that the average award amount has increased (licensing revenue is also a bright spot). My guess is that the average award amount increase is driven at least to some extent by increased NIH funding. For example, the standard NIH R01 grant provides up to $500,000 in direct costs per year over 5 years; with a 53% on-campus IDC rate through DHHS, a standard R01 will bring in $765,000 in total costs per year ($500K direct and $265K indirect), or about $3.8M over 5 years.
The loss of T/TT faculty over time – 992 FY16 to 896 FY23 -is depressing and needs to be addressed immediately.
Just imagine what we could do if our leadership made real investments in the research enterprise!
The complaint these faculty members make is the slip in WSU’s rankings, which they attribute to the branch campuses lack of a research mission. My point is that the non-Pullman campuses are hiring more CT, Lecturers, and Adjunct Faculty than TT. And while CT Faculty may have some time devoted to research, this strategy of not hiring TT faculty is impacting our research output. If research output declines due to this strategy, then the WSU System could continue to slip in the rankings. I am asking for non-Pullman campuses to hire more faculty with time to devote to research.