College of Engineering
Strategic Plan
Introduction
Bliss Hall, a symbol of our past, present and future engineering traditions at the University of Rhode Island.
During the past decade, several important changes have taken place that are having, and will continue to have dramatic effects on the fundamental demand for engineers and on their roles in society. A major change is the emphasis in homeland security research that resulted from the terrorist act of September 11, 2001. Another is the computer revolution, a phenomenon similar in many ways to the industrial revolution. A third change is the rapid development and commercialization of global information transport comprised of the internet, world wide web and related activities. The end of the cold war resulted in an immediate decrease in the demand for many types of engineers and triggered the fairly significant recession of the late 1980's and early 1990's. This together with aggressive corporate downsizing accounted for much of the overall downturn in engineering enrollment experienced throughout most of the 1990's. Although the recession is now ended, we cannot expect things to be as they were in the 1980's because the entire fabric of our society with respect to engineering and technology has been irreversibly changed due to the subtle, but significant impact of the computer revolution. Just as a steam or internal combustion engine allowed one person to do the work of twenty at the turn of the century, the computer is on the verge of allowing one person to do the work of twenty at the turn of this century. While the amount of engineering work will steadily increase over the next decade, there may not be a corresponding increase in jobs in some areas, for example, manufacturing. This is due to the impact of automation and the competitive marketplace. Automation continues to improve the productivity of existing engineers, offsets attrition, and satisfies in some ways the demand for new engineers. Other areas however, will experience unprecedented growth. In this rapidly changing environment, a successful engineering program must produce graduates that are adaptable and highly competitive to succeed in meeting the expectations of modern industry. The programs must be particularly responsive to those areas in which the demand for engineers exceeds the supply. The areas of advanced manufacturing processes, de-regulated energy systems, advanced transportation systems, manufacturing processes involving genetically altered organisms, telecommunications, software engineering and several others have produced a large, steadily increasing demand for engineers. The sudden blossoming of information transport has no historical precedent, so it is difficult to predict its impact on engineering and engineering education. It is possible that dramatic and far reaching changes may take place in the entire educational system and engineering profession because of rapid advances in both computer automation and information transport.
Our Tradition
For nearly a century, engineering at University of Rhode Island has excelled in many areas, however, this is not widely known nor adequately reflected in the national ratings. URI is ranked in the third tier, approximately 130 out of 200, by the U.S. News & World Report's rankings of national colleges and universities. The challenge for the College of Engineering over the next five years is to establish and maintain aggressive advertising, recruiting and retention programs. At the same time, the school must increase the overall quality of the education provided to the students and insure that the focus of the programs are on those areas most likely to provide meaningful, productive careers. Accomplishing this will require increased effort on the part of the faculty and staff together with an increase in our financial and physical resources. Members of the faculty and staff are up to this challenge and many have already started to implement the needed changes. As for additional resources, state funding is not likely to increase in terms of inflation adjusted dollars. Research funds will be increasingly difficult to obtain. Better use must be made of our existing resources. New resources must be developed particularly through relationships with alumni and industry and in new research areas. The College is experiencing the pressure of a new dynamic era resulting from major changes in the global marketplace. An ancient Chinese philosopher once said "Times of great change are also times of great opportunity." We find ourselves as engineers, and as educators of future engineers, at a very exciting period in history as well as an exciting era for the College. Both change and opportunity await us. The remainder of this report is a detailed strategic plan discussing opportunities for capitalizing on our strengths. Ultimately our goal is to continue and expand the URI College of Engineering tradition of excellence!
History of the College of Engineering
The foundation of the College of Engineering traces its roots to the Morrill Act of 1862. This act provided for a land grant institution in each state and territory.
Need input from COE faculty and alumni to complete this section.
Our College of Engineering Strategic Planning Tenets
Our College of Engineering Culture With pride in its heritage and cognizant of the contributions to this heritage by diversity of its people is dedicated to provide the best engineering education possible to all who seek it. Despite extensive growth from its inception, the College, reflective of its beginnings, continues to convey a "small college" atmosphere through an open door way of thinking that promotes one on one interaction between faculty and students. Friendliness, professionalism, and a supportive environment are the foundation of our College of Engineering culture, a culture committed to students, their organizations and activities.
Mission: The mission of the College of Engineering is to provide our various constituencies with high-quality engineering programs and services. Recognizing our charge as Rhode Island's land-grant institution, we strive to build these programs and services on a strong foundation of academic rigor, nationally recognized applied and basic research, and effective outreach efforts.
Vision: Engineering at University of Rhode Island symbolizes quality.
Purpose: The College of Engineering is composed of People coordinating Financial and Physical Resources for the purpose of transferring knowledge, expanding knowledge and preserving knowledge, particularly engineering knowledge. The College of Engineering at University of Rhode Island is guided by the principles of openness, integrity, and responsibility.
Values: Excellence in teaching, research, and service to meet the needs of our students and the people of Rhode Island.
Creativity in humanistic endeavor, scientific and engineering activity, and artistic expression.
Respect for all people and an appreciation of diversity in our academic enterprise Intellectual stimulation in all aspects of campus life.
Friendly, attractive, student-centered departments.
Civic responsibility, expressed as public involvement, individual responsibility, personal integrity, and commitment to service.
Forward-looking leadership, respecting tradition, mobilizing action, facilitating collaboration and solving problems.
Equal access to our classes, programs and services for all people
Accountability and assessment at all levels in the college.
The College of Engineering Strategic Planning Process
In September 2003, strategic planning was undertaken in order for the College to survive and prosper in a dynamic and uncertain world. We seek answers to: Where are we? Where do we want to be? How do we get there from here? To get "there" from "here" in a rapidly changing environment, the College of Engineering must have a purpose and clear sense of direction - "a mission." The College must have a specific set of mission oriented and mission supported goals, a set of long-range and short-range quantitatively measurable objectives, a set of actions or "tactics" for reaching each objective, a set of metrics for measuring our progress toward meeting each objective, and a process for continuously reviewing, revising and refining our objectives so that we move steadily towards our goals. These together comprise the Strategic Plan.
In order for the strategic planning process to be successful, it must have the support of our constituents. Ordered by level of involvement in the process, these are: 1) faculty, staff, administrators and board of governors; 2) students and employers of our students; 3) alumni and friends; 4) legislators and officials of government agencies; 5) citizens of Rhode Island. The development of the strategic plan allows the participation of all constituent groups and as many members of each group as possible. The College of Engineering is a sufficiently large organization that the widely used "retreat" method of strategic planning is impractical. Therefore, the procedure used in developing this plan is top-down, bottom up with iterative refinement. Planning is initiated by the leader of the organization, the Dean. A small core composed of representatives from the most affected set of stakeholders, the faculty, was charged with assembling a draft plan. This core group is the College of Engineering Strategic Planning Committee. Throughout September and October 2003 the core group sought information for a draft set of undergraduate education goals from a small number of advisors from the other highly affected constituencies. These constituencies are: staff, students, employers, alumni and friends. Each faculty member in the core group was encouraged to seek advice from members of the other affected groups. Advisement external to the faculty was not formalized at this point. The board members and members of the upper administration provided information and direction for the draft plan through the URI Joint Strategic Planning Committee (JSPC) and President's Strategic Plan document. The motivation for the College of Engineering to pursue this type of strategic planning is accreditation criteria of the Engineering Accreditation and Technology Accreditation and accreditation criteria of the URI. Each department or program must individually define a set of goals, objectives and strategies to accomplish department level outcome benchmarks. Each department may work toward a different set of focused priorities by creating and undertaking the strategies to achieve those priorities. This being the case, sufficient strategic planning latitude must be in place to allow each department in the College of Engineering to define its own destiny within the overriding strategic directions and philosophy of the university and the college.
The Strategic Planning Timeline
Early November 2003, the first draft plan will be disseminated to the entire constituency. The COE SPC will continuously receive, review and incorporate, as deemed appropriate, comments and suggestions via the College Strategic Planning web site. Every six months reports of "progress towards objectives" will be submitted to the Dean by each academic department and directorate. Information from these reports will be used to update the college, department and program web sites. While this processing is taking place, the departments and directorates within the College are refining their own strategic plans. The University level strategic planning process also continues. This university wide process is depicted in the Joint Strategic Planning Committee. The flow is initially a top down process as described above. The bottom-up, iterative refinement process occurs implicitly at all levels. The College Plan is synergistic with the University Plan. The COE draft plan was disseminated to the entire faculty through academic department chairs and program directors for comments, suggestions and discussion. At that point, distribution to constituents outside the faculty was still limited to a small number of advisors. The core group revised the plan using the information received from the general faculty. By mid- November 2003, the second revised draft was distributed to faculty, staff, students and the upper administration for comments and suggestions. The plan was again refined. In the spring of 2004, the revised draft will be posted as a web page and portions will be published in the College of Engineering Newsletter. An aggressive effort will be made to contact all constituent groups for comments and suggestions. Initial values of the metrics recommended in the draft plan will be refined. Many of the suggested tactics in the plan will be initiated over the next year. The plan is still considered tentative, but operational by March 2004. A permanent Strategic Planning and Implementation Committee with constituent membership, terms of service, duties, and responsibilities will be established to continue the planning work into the future.
Overview discussion on driving forces: the conditions that drive the College of Engineering Strengths, Concerns, Opportunities and Threats- "SCOT" Analysis
Strengths:
Concerns:
Opportunities:
Threats:
MISSION
It is the mission of the College of Engineering to provide quality engineering education and research programs that produce well-educated professionals for today's global workplace; advance the creation, development, and use of applied sciences and technology; stimulate sustainable economic development; and to enhance the honor, integrity, and dignity of the engineering profession.
Education
The primary mission of the College is to provide quality education from baccalaureate through doctoral degree levels. The College shall provide broad-based educational programs that address the needs of the student body preparing for rewarding lifetime of learning and professional service.
Research
The mission of research in the College is "bringing knowledge to bear" for the benefit of mankind. The linkage of creativity, design, research and development, and academic excellence is recognized and fostered by the College research programs.
Outreach
The College of Engineering has an obligation to serve the State of Rhode Island through technology transfer by making available the results of its research and extending opportunities for learning to all parts of the state and the region. Enhance the honor, integrity, and dignity of the engineering profession.
Public Service
The College of Engineering is dedicated to the support of the profession of engineering and the educational and economic development needs of the State of Rhode Island. Faculty and students are encouraged to seek opportunities to be of public service using their special talents.
FIVE YEAR PLAN GENERAL STATEMENT
The plan for the College of Engineering is based on three main goals.
1. Maintain and advance its position as the undergraduate engineering program of choice in Rhode Island and the region.
OBJECTIVES
The achievement of these goals requires the College to focus on ?? aspects of our program.
Student Body
Outcome
Maintain a level of student enrollment consistent with available resources. Move forward on student-to-faculty ratio that is in keeping with a stronger research program. Increase the quality of the student body. Attract and provide increased opportunities for under-represented groups in all engineering programs.
Objectives
The College should increase over the next five years an enrollment exceeding 1100 undergraduates majors by headcount. The number of on campus graduate students should grow to 400 by the end of the five year period with approximately 100 students in a distance education mode. The number of doctoral students should increase to 100 by the end of five years. The College should continue to attract mostly U.S. citizens to its graduate programs and should strive to maintain its mix at 25% international students.
The College should reduce its student/faculty ratio to 10/1 by the end of the five years. This ratio will be required to meet the needs of a balanced undergraduate teaching program and a strong research program.
The College will continue to strengthen its efforts to improve the quality of the student body. This will be reflected by higher entrance requirements by the departments. The expected outcome will be higher SAT/ACT scores with the college average in five years exceeding 1250/26.
The College will improve its advising program by use of computer aided advising and record check system, by a general engineering program, and other activities. The College will design and implement programs to increase, over five years, the freshmen retention and graduation rates of students to 85% and 65%, respectively. College support for area, regional, and national contests will offer a wide array of student experiences and opportunities for professional growth, and result in a breadth of college experience.
The College will continue to support regional articulation agreements and increase the number of transfer students from regional community colleges and universities.
The College will explore the creation of an Engineering Technology program to support student and employer interests in manufacturing and technical professional tracks.
The College will continue, as well as expand, special efforts to attract minorities and women to the opportunities in engineering. An aggressive program to attract minorities and women to engineering, to encourage minorities and women to go to graduate school, and to participate in research will be sustained and enhanced. These special efforts in minority and women recruiting will include a continuing program to obtain special funding for minority and women graduate and undergraduate students. The objective will be to have the same or greater minority percentage as the state population and the same or greater women percentage as peer engineering colleges.
FACULTY
Outcome
Maintain and grow a faculty size in the college that is in keeping with the mission of excellence in undergraduate teaching and leadership in research. Continue to upgrade the quality of the teaching and research faculty by attracting and retaining faculty with superior talents and commitment to quality education. Improve teaching effectiveness by expanded use of innovative methods of instruction. Have an appropriate mix of minorities and women in the faculty. Provide increased opportunities and financial support for faculty development.
Objectives
In order to accommodate a quality doctoral and research program, the student-to-faculty ratios in the College should be 10/1 by the end of five years.
Improve teaching effectiveness by appropriate use of innovative methods. Develop training programs, mentorship, and incentives for participation by faculty.
Secure and allocate funds to faculty professional development. Encourage more publications, conference attendance, and participation in professional societies.
CURRICULUM AND PROGRAM
Outcome
Over the next five years, provide expanded curriculum and programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels both on and off campus.
Objectives
Increase the number of campus interviews and companies visiting University of Rhode Island (from 7 to 100).
FACILITIES
Outcomes
Improve the quality of the facilities. Increase the amount of space to national norms. Improve the ambience of the interior and exterior areas in engineering to provide an exciting atmosphere for study and research. Provide adequate funding for the replacement and maintenance of teaching and research equipment.
Objectives
3. Secure funding for an additional engineering building on the quadrangle. Move Dean's office and Engineering Research Center to the new building.
Develop quadrangle mall to be a student gathering place which is useful, attractive, and enhance the quality of student and faculty life. Develop ways to honor and recognize appropriate people, events, and organizations in these space.
Provide adequate, sustained funding for the purchase and maintenance of equipment. This should approach $1 million a year by the end of five years.
EXTERNAL RELATIONS - ALUMNI/INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES
Outcome
Establish an external relations program that provides for good communications between the College and its many constituencies. Establish an annual giving program that provides a flow of funds to enhance the college programs. Establish a program that provides a professional, public service component of the College.
Objectives
Co-op program: Work with all of our industrial contacts to develop co-op and internship opportunities for our students. Our goal is to increase the number of co-op position to a level where 40% of the students in the college participate in co-ops or internships. Continue efforts towards ABET accreditation of co-op program.
Assure permanent job opportunities for students. This is imperative if we want to attract the best students. In this quest, we must continue to attract new companies while retaining those who already interview on campus. We will attract new opportunities for our students by contacting companies who currently do not come to our campus. Our five year goal is to increase to 100 the number of companies which interview our students.
Utilize the College of Engineering Advisory Council, consisting of executives and leaders from a variety of industries, to provide guidance for the future. Expand the board to include corporate representation in addition to alumni.
This office will continue to write proposals and contact alumni to solicit financial aid for the College and its departments. Equipment gifts and scholarships support will remain as the key points of discussion. We have several chairs in the College of Engineering, our goal will be to establish a chair in each department. The Alumni/Advisory boards for each department will be encouraged to work with this office toward this goal.
Involve the alumni network in meaningful ways to help the college recruiting program, such as calling on prospective students, high school visits, and identifying top prospects.
Establish a development plan that will double endowment through an annual giving program by the way of alumni annual giving, industrial annual giving, and special foundation grants.
Assist departments in identifying key alumni who may be in a position to help in the department's development. Ensure that each department has an advisory group. With our assistance, each department will install an advisory board during the coming year if they have not already done so. We are also in the process of redefining the College of Engineering Advisory Council. The Council will help advance the College in its progress towards excellence.
Continue to build our alumni network in Rhode Island and in the region to help us identify prospective students and job opportunities for our graduates. Engage the alumni in representing the College at local school functions. Identify at least one key alumni in each city in the region who will represent our college at local events.
Redesign and upgrade the engineering newsletter as the sounding board for activities on and off campus that impact our College, expand its publication and coverage. Expand the publication to three mailings a year. Develop strategies to increase quality of the publication while reducing production costs.
Increase the number of alumni meetings in the region, where a significant percentage of our alumni reside. The more contacts we have the greater the possibilities of key interactions that will benefit the College. Our goal is three Rhode Island meetings per year. We will hold meetings in cities where there is an alumni population and where university business takes us.
Phonathon "Roll Call 2003," will help us increase alumni contributions to the college and potentially increase the number of alumni who give to the college. Our goal this year is to increase the alumni giving to $1.5 million. We want to increase the percentage of alumni who make a pledge to 25% this year.
Develop mechanisms where the College can provide professional and economic development assistance to the State of Rhode Island.
Establish the Engineering Academy of URI to promote the profession of engineering by recognizing our graduates and friends as well as those who have significantly advanced the profession. Include our International Engineering Program heritage in developing the bylaws of the Engineering Academy.
Research
Outcome
A focused long range research program which sustains quality research that enhances the educational program of the College.
Objectives
The College of Engineering will strive to establish additional nationally known programs in at least three of the following areas:
ADMINISRTATION
Outcome
Provide dynamic effective leadership that develops an atmosphere for excellence, growth of faculty, and excitement for students.
Objectives
Provide excellent supportive services to the departments, faculty and students, such as business, research, teaching, registration, development, co-op, job placement, scholarship, alumni relations, and recruiting services that meet the needs of all and are available in a timely and friendly manner.
Provide aggressive leadership that seeks excellence in every aspect of the College program. In pursuit of excellence, the College will survey student satisfaction with instruction, registration, advising, placement, quality of facilities, etc. The graduates and alumni of the program as well as their employers will also be surveyed to determine if our educational programs are meeting the needs of our graduates and their employers. As problems or needs are identified, changes will be made.
Create an academic environment that fosters diversity, mutual respect, creativity, ethics, and fairness.
CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
The College of Engineering Strategic Plan within the context of URI Strategic Plan
This plan is synergistic with the URI Strategic Plan as follows:
Increase total enrollment, freshman retention rates and graduation rates.
Outcome
Grow total enrollment by 150 undergraduate and 150 graduate students over the course of this plan
Objectives
Improve and integrate our data tracking system on student recruitment, enrollment, matriculation, transfer, attrition, and graduation.
Further develop opportunities for learning communities so that at least 90% of engineering freshman students are a part of at least one learning community.
Renovate five engineering classrooms on the Kingston Campus, including at least one with high technological capacity.
Develop distance education certificate programs and corporate contract-based courses and degree offerings.
Increase total institutional revenue and reduce operating costs on a per student basis.
Outcome
Objectives
Consolidate graduate degree programs to achieve greater enrollment and increased efficiency per program.
Achieve the integration of faculty salaries into major awards applied for and received from federal agencies, where federal regulations allow. Require a 25% per semester release time for teaching release from one course.
Increase by at least 6% each year of this plan the numbers of alumni who directly participate in some form of support to the College (i.e. as donors, boosters, members of volunteer committees and boards, or attendees at the College and alumni sponsored events).
Secure no less than $1M in endowment gifts for the College per year over the course of this plan. (Should the national economy make a sharp recovery, this goal would be revised upwards.)
Prepare for the next comprehensive capital campaign (including the conducting of a feasibility study), with a Leadership Gift phase occurring during 2005. Based upon the results of the feasibility study and the Leadership Gift phase, the campaign would go public in the spring of 2006. The campaign will be both for endowments (for the purposes of student scholarships and fellowships and faculty support) but will include capital projects as previously identified in the is plan.
Increase support for research and outreach which most directly support Rhode Island's goals for economic development
Outcome
Objectives
Encourage and facilitate the generation of new patents and licenses by faculty. Encourage establishment of new companies in Rhode Island with faculty involvement.
Increase partnerships with major Rhode Island industries to meet research and outreach needs and thereby foster economic growth. Develop capstone design project solicitation and funding by Rhode Island companies.
Secure at least $500K per year in dedicated Rhode Island state funding for engineering research and outreach activities at URI and establish a state matching grant fund aimed at increasing engineering competitive position relative to other engineering schools in the region.
Attract and retain highly productive research faculty in these areas of focus through competitive salaries funded in part by external sources and through investment in laboratories and related equipment and staff.
Reallocate graduate faculty lines and 10% of current institutionally supported graduate student assistantships to the areas of focus identified above.
Over the course of this plan, secure funding to design, construct and equip appropriate research facilities on the Kingston and Narragansett Bay facilities of the College of Engineering.
Major Competition and Barriers
The College of Engineering will continue to face national competition for research dollars and faculty and regional competition for students. Whenever possible, the College will collaborate with other colleges at URI and other universities in Rhode Island to perform cooperative or targeted research. The College will seek opportunities especially suited to its coastal location, transportation research, materials science, and bioengineering. The College will also build upon its five nationally or internationally known programs.
The College will also strive to establish additional nationally known programs in at least two of the following areas
The College of Engineering will continue to compete successfully for students by:
Writing congratulatory letters and recognizing people who influenced outstanding high schools to seek higher education and send copies of these letters to that person (teacher) and the high school principal.
Providing free multimedia CDs and DVDs, bookmarks, and book covers with the goal of increasing the number of high school students interested in URI engineering. The College will strive to update these marketing materials every two years.
Involving our students in professional activities and contests. The College of Engineering will then ask these students to help in recruiting at their former high schools.
Publicizing the College of Engineering unique programs such as the International Engineering Program, Ocean Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering.
PROGRAMS
Service Area Needs
Selected Programs that are Centers of Excellence
The College of Engineering criteria for excellence include: ability to attract students, demand for graduates, success of graduates, sustained broad-based support, and national or international reputation. All of these distinct programs and centers of excellence are the result of prolonged outstanding efforts by outstanding faculty members.
New Programs
The College of Engineering proposes to establish a Department of Biomedical Engineering awarding the degree of BS in Biomedical Engineering. This program began in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. ABET accreditation for this new program will be sought in 2009. This department will require two additional faculty lines in addition to the four faculty who are currently involved in the program on a part time basis. An additional three faculty lines will be required to replace the faculty who have started the Biomedical Engineering program.
The College of Engineering will work with the College of Business Administration to establish an Engineering Management program to start in fall 2005. This degree will be offered both on campus as well as off campus.
The College of Engineering through the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will work with the College of Business Administration to establish a Construction Management program to start in fall 2006. This degree will be offered both on campus as well as off campus.
The College of Engineering will establish an Engineering Technology program. The program will be placed in existing department as an incubator and will be moved out when the student enrollment reaches 100 students.
The College of Engineering will work to improve teaching effectiveness through a program of Continuous Improvement and Student Learning Outcomes Assessment. This program will strive to make continuous improvements in teaching by a multi-faceted effort to improve communications between students and faculty. This program will include the following:
The College of Engineering will not seek new Ph.D. graduate engineering programs within the next three years. However, the College may seek a new Master of Engineering degree.
E-Team: The College of Engineering will seek support for the Engineering Team (E-Team) initiative. The E-Team is a group of experts from URI Engineering (possibly other universities with engineering programs in Rhode Island) focusing on economic development initiatives impacting Rhode Island. The multidisciplinary E-Teams will provide objective, useful, timely analysis of the manufacturing, design, engineering, environmental, waste management, optimization, and economic issues associated with establishing any new manufacturing facility. E-Team personnel will work with individuals, communities, regulatory groups, and industry to find safe and feasible solutions for new and continuing businesses in Rhode Island. The E-Team can be a marketing tool for the state to attract new businesses to Rhode Island by providing comprehensive one-stop shopping engineering services to companies.
Proposed Global Strategy for Achieving Goals
Many of the goals outlined on the previous pages require additional financial resources. As funding from the State of Rhode Island is likely to decrease significantly in the immediate future, the proposed responsibility centered management, flexible faculty appointments, and an aggressive capital campaign should allow us to grow and prosper in the face of shrinking state revenues.
Responsibility Centered Management
College of Engineering operations at URI are supported by six revenue streams
4. release of State funds when researchers pay portions of their salaries from grants, contracts or other sources, "salary savings,"
The state portion of the budget is approximately 94% faculty and staff salaries and 6% operational expenses. The budgeting process is historical, based on the number of full time equivalent positions (FTE's). Each current year's budget is based on the past year's budget with adjustments for inflation and salary increases as appropriated by the State. In recent years, there have been adjustments for revenue shortfalls caused by falling enrollment, however, the budgets have not been adjusted to reflect the enrollment increase in the College of Engineering over the past five years. Personnel in the college academic units are funded by revenue through state funds and tuition revenue. The tuition is a flat amount regardless of major.
Historically, the portion of this revenue returned to the college has not been based on the college's production of student credit hours, but rather on the number of FTE's allocated to the college. During years of steadily increasing enrollment, the college received sufficient funds to support the teaching faculty, departmental administration and clerical staff and most of the departmental technical staff. The college also received some funds for operations, although typically not sufficient. Most departments supplemented operations from research overhead or alumni gifts. The budgeting process worked reasonably well during these times. The excess funds were controlled by the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and were used to promote "excellence" in areas of interest and to "adjust" salaries as needed. When persistent downturns in enrollment occurred, the subsequent revenue shortfall was handled, initially by arbitrarily removing positions as they became vacant based on retirements or resignations. This has disastrous effects on morale. In the near future, the colleges may be asked to cut their historical budgets in proportion to the state budget shortfall. If the overall state revenue is down 10%, then the units may be asked to reduce their state budgets by 10%. This is certainly a better mechanism, however, the budgets are still tied to the number of full time equivalent positions (FTE's) in the colleges and not to the actual revenues produced by the colleges. Historical, FTE, based budgeting requires the reallocation or elimination of positions during periods of declining student credit hour production. Unfortunately, this process causes acrimony as the various colleges and departments perceive themselves as being involved in a "less than zero sum game" where there are several losers for every winner. Collaborative ventures that would increase efficiency and/or enrollment are difficult under this situation. In order to foster collaboration and cooperation, it is necessary to have a budgeting method that is not perceived as penalizing one college or department at the expense of another. The method should be sufficiently flexible so that it does not penalize units that are successful in developing alternative revenue streams such as research generated overhead or funds from distance education offerings. We are proposing a "performance" or responsibility centered management budgeting method in which each unit is allocated funds rather than FTE's. The amount of "I&G" funds returned to the unit is determined by the funds actually generated by the unit through the funding formula minus an appropriate, fair and uniformly applied tax for funding nonrevenue generating units and for funding "excellence." In other words, each unit receives what it earns. Other revenue streams could be similarly taxed and the net returned to the generating units. It is extremely important that the tax applied to each source of revenue be a small percentage of the revenue (preferably not to exceed 10%).
Each unit is given the flexibility to use all revenue streams to budget personnel and operations. This flexibility will allow the units to weather temporary downturns in enrollment and to pursue research and other initiatives such as technology assisted learning or advancement/development activities without penalty. Whenever a unit's share of state budget and tuition revenue is tied directly to that unit's student credit hour production, there is more incentive for all involved to pursue recruitment and retention activities. This method is not without pitfalls, so several mechanisms must be included to minimize risk and cannibalization. Relatively stable revenue such as state and tuition & fees revenue can be fully budgeted or allocated with some restrictions such as fixed percentages going to graduate assistants, secretarial and technical support, etc. Long-term contractual obligations (tenured and tenure-track faculty) must be funded up to some minimum level, 70% or so. This level depends on the magnitude and stability of the other revenue streams. Revenue from less certain streams, such as distance education, is allocated significantly less than 100%, 65% or 70% to minimize risk. Knowledge of the activities behind these streams can be used to set the allocation level. For example, if it is known that a large grant has been renewed for several more years, then the percentage of overhead revenue that can be budgeted can be increased. Hard decisions will still have to be made. Units with no revenue other than tuition will have to be funded fully from their share of "I&G" or supplemented by some of the tax revenue. In some units, positions will still have to be eliminated. The student credit hours from the six semesters that drive the formula are known nearly a full year in advance, so it is possible to give declining units a fair amount of warning. All nonrevenue generating units must be scrutinized closely. Are their activities in line with our mission? Are they even necessary? If they perform necessary functions, are they efficient? To the extent that it is possible, revenue based budgeting will be implemented in the College of Engineering for the fiscal year beginning July 2004.
The College of Engineering administrative staff places top priority on working with the university administration and the office of business and finance to achieve these or similar significant changes in the budgetary process for the entire University.